Immigration Court Cases On Hold During Government Shutdown

How Steve King Will Kill Immigration Reform

The Board of Immigration Appeals, which falls under the Justice Department, will continue to handle claims for emergency relief from deportation, said the Post. Some 350,000 cases are pending before immigration judges, the paper said. Such cases normally take a long time, a year or more, for example, to conclude. This is a nightmare. It is already a nightmare, because of the huge backlog in the court system, said Judy London, a lawyer with the Public Counsel agency in Los Angeles, according to the Post. When we go into court, we are often told the first available trial date is a year later. This could mean more delays of months, or even another year. Officials at the American Immigration Lawyers Association said delays, even those that may not seem too significant, can have a great impact on a political asylum case, said the Post.
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Not surprisingly, the author comes off well in this telling. For example, when Gutierrez describes his refusal to pledge his vote to Rep. Dan Rostenkowski in exchange for a plum committee assignment, he writes: "My honesty had just liberated me." The book features plenty of stories about rough-and-tumble Chicago politics. Gutierrez recounts a 1986 City Council session in which he recited the property tax figures for the homes of opposition aldermen, inspiring Ald. Bernard Stone to famously denounce him as "you little pipsqueak." Less well known was the reaction of Ald. Fred Roti, 1st, who was long linked to the mob. Gutierrez writes that after he read off Roti's tax figures, the alderman pulled him aside and said, "Lou, ward boundaries change. They come and go. But one thing that never changes about the 1st Ward it always has the Chicago River." The congressman also admits ordering counterfeit tickets to a political forum in 1989 to make sure his candidate, Richard M. Daley, had plenty of supporters in the crowd. In recalling his youth, Gutierrez reveals a little-known connection to the Tribune, writing that he delivered the afternoon edition downtown and once received a $5 Christmas tip from Mayor Richard J. Daley at City Hall.
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Senate and House members still pushing immigration reform

If we dont pass this, he said, we lose the Hispanic voter. McCain was the sole Republican senator present at the Hispanic Institute event. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who is regarded as the leader of the Senates so-called Gang of Eight, said the reform bill will give to literally millions of dreamers the chance to become part of Americas future as citizens of the United States of America. Sen. Durbin, along with McCain and Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., spoke for the Senate side. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently analyzed the pending immigration legislation and found that the bill could carry positive economic outcomes. The CBO believes the bill will cut annual deficits by $900 billion dollars over the next 10 years. According to the findings, 121,000 jobs a year will be added for the next 10 years totaling around 1.2 million jobs.
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Gutierrez book criticizes Obama on immigration

Democrats have long argued that the Senate abogado de inmigracion bill could pass the House if GOP leaders allowed it on the floor for a vote. But Republican House leaders have refused to do so because the proposal does not have the support of the majority of the GOP conference. "We know that there are a number of Republicans in the House who are ready to vote for a comprehensive reform of our immigration system, Becerra said. We want to give them a chance to see that Democrats are serious about reaching out to them. The signs remain clear, however, that bipartisan immigration reform still faces a steep uphill climb in the House. Aside from Becerra, Democratic members of the Gang of Seven, which recently broke apart after working on a bipartisan immigration bill for months, were conspicuously absent from the press conference. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), a member of the Gang, indicated he would back the Democrats proposal during a floor speech on Wednesday morning.
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House Dems Offer Immigration Bill, Fate Uncertain

"I say to the sponsors, 'Paint for me a scenario by which any of these five pieces of legislation could become law without sacrificing the rule of law.' They're answer to me is, 'You're to help with that. You're to solve that,'" he said. He solves it by saying no on everything. King says he's supportive of the reform efforts in principle, but he says that they can only lead to a conference-committee compromise that he'd find unacceptable. "We'll lose in every scenario I can think of," he said. "There's nothing to be gained." The core of King's "whip team" is relatively small, with Barletta and Mo Brooks, R-Ala., among them.
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Democrats Take Aim at GOP With Long-Shot Immigration Bill

Their bill combines major elements of a bill the Senate passed in June with bipartisan border security legislation that won unanimous support in the Homeland Security Committee in May. Speaking in English and Spanish, Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Fla., said the legislation wasn't perfect but urged Republicans to back the measure. "Republicans like Ronald Reagan and George Bush to John McCain championed immigration reform," Garcia told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference. "There is no reason why our Republican colleagues cannot follow their lead and their footsteps to pass a comprehensive immigration bill." Most House Republicans reject a comprehensive approach and many question offering citizenship to people who broke U.S. immigration laws to be in this country. The House Judiciary Committee has moved forward with individual, single-issue immigration bills. Although House Republican leaders say they want to solve the issue, which has become a political drag for the GOP, many rank-and-file House Republicans have shown little inclination to deal with it. The contentious issue of immigration was on the backburner even before the budget standoff largely paralyzed Congress.
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