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On Dec. 18, immigration reform stalwart Richard J. Durbins announcement on the Senate floor about a rare bipartisan breakthrough flew largely under the radar, overshadowed in the chaotic flurry of impeachment.Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah had dueled two months earlier over unanimous consent requests on the Senate floor, and had since been deadlocked.

Each had pushed for his own solution to an important but often overlooked symptom of the broken U.S. immigration system: the employment-based green card backlog. Because of it, hundreds of thousands of people overwhelmingly from India wait in limbo, sometimes for decades.

A version of Lees legislation the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act had quietly passed the House earlier in the year with bipartisan support.

When Lee tried to bring the legislation to the Senate floor for an immediate vote, Sens. Charles E. Grassley and Rand Paul objected.

Then, in October, Durbin objected.

Durbin had introduced his own legislation that he felt tackled the problem more holistically. But when he later sought unanimous consent for his measure, it was Lees turn to block it.

Paul also had a legislative fix on the table.

Then came the December compromise between Lee and Durbin, who had become the two opposing poles of the backlog issue.

Weve come up with a proposal that moves us in the right direction, Durbin said of his agreement with Lee. These families affected by this backlog are really going through hardship and concerns that no family should face. The sooner we resolve them, the better.

Outside Congress, in online forums, debate over how to fix the problem grew tense and, at times, heated. Immigrant advocacy groups, lawyers and policy experts specifically zeroed in on the logjam of employment-based green cards and often found themselves in the unusual position of opposing each other.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the compromise from Lee and Durbin remains in a holding pattern while the two lawmakers determine whether they have succeeded at clearing the path of further objections.

Every year, the United States distributes about 1 million green cards based on various categories to immediate relatives of citizens, refugees and asylum-seekers, and to foreign workers on temporary visas. Since 1965, theres been a limit to how many spots can be given to applicants from any one country.

Family reunification has always been the main priority of the U.S. immigration system, so the bulk of green cards go to people sponsored by family members already in the country. A small share of total green cards around 140,000 are reserved for the employment category, per a 1990 immigration law. No one country can be allotted more than 7 percent of the total work visas, which feed into the employment-based green card pipeline (although visas left over in one category can roll over to another). Despite changes in the economy and labor market, this upper limit of 7 percent has remained the same since 1990.

The problem is that the number of green card petitions approved tends to far exceed that 7 percent limit. So petitioners from a country over that threshold are put on a wait list. Upwards of 500,000 people who applied for key employment-based categories of green cards in 2018 are in the current backlog, according to an estimate by the libertarian Cato Institute.

But that backlog isnt distributed equally.

Work visas like the H1-B are intended for temporary workers in science and technology fields. But these visas have become a key steppingstone to citizenship for immigrants with the resources to study at American colleges or whove been recruited by U.S. employers in science and technology-related fields.

Indians have increasingly come to the United States since the 1960s, but they arrived at an accelerated pace following the tech boom that started in the mid-1990s. They now make up the bulk of green card applicants in the employment-based category, followed by Chinese. Because they quickly come up against the 7 percent annual limit, most Indians will probably wait 10 or more years to obtain their green cards, according to Cato. The ones who applied in 2018-19, however, may face a line up to 50 years long.

Many of these individuals develop deep ties to America while waiting. They bring over spouses and buy homes and cars. They enroll children in school. And yet, true stability is precariously at arms length.

Their American lives run on three-year extensions of their work visas, because even if their green card petitions are approved, it may be decades before the actual green cards are granted. The wait has immense costs lawyers and application fees, but also lost wages, promotions and other opportunities, in addition to the vulnerability to wage exploitation. More intangibly, it comes with grave uncertainty about the future.

If a visa holder in the green card backlog dies during the wait, the persons spouse and family lose their place in line and can find themselves without legal status. Thats what happened to Sunayana Dumala, the wife of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a young engineer killed in a 2017 hate crime. In a recent Kansas City Star op-ed advocating for Lees legislation, Dumala explained what it felt like to be stuck.

We cannot travel back to our home countries for funerals, let alone weddings or to support our parents medical needs, because we fear being stuck abroad and uprooting our lives, she wrote. Children born overseas who accompanied their parents to the U.S. are aging out of green card applications and may need to leave the country. Self-deportation is the only alternative to living this life of constant fear. But is that really a choice?

While many on both sides of the aisle agree about the severity of this groups predicament, they diverge on the solutions.

Lees original bill sought to phase out country quotas for employment-based greencards, creating a first-come, first-served system. It also proposed raising country quotas for family-based green card categories from 7 to 15 percent. But, because many Republicans generally oppose increased immigration, the bill would not increase the total green cards given annually.

At first glance, you say, Oh this is awesome it gets rid of per-country limits, immigration lawyer Charles Kuck recently recalled on his podcast. But because of the way it gets rid of per country limits, it has a serious effect on people already going through the immigration process, and it comes at a particularly inopportune time.

Any proposal to bring more immigrants to the country is a nonstarter for hard-line immigration restrictionists. But disagreement about the impact of Lees bill has split even immigration proponents into two camps. Advocates of the bill believe it rectifies a past wrong, giving Indians their rightful place in line, while critics emphasize that it does so by shifting the burden of the backlog onto other countries and visa categories, instead of eliminating it.

Ira Kurzban, a prominent immigration lawyer and professor at University of Miami, pointed out that the country caps were instituted in 1965 to have a more equitable immigration system. The immigration law passed that year also removed bars on immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. While the caps had an unintended effect in creating the backlog, they actually opened up immigration to Indians in the first place, Kurzban argued.

In an analysis he circulated, Kurzban demonstrated that while India disproportionately bears the burden of the backlog, its nationals actually get more than their 7 percent share every year because of an oft overlooked loophole: While each country is allotted 7 percent, unused shares from low-demand countries like Iceland can be given out to high-demand countries, including India.

Kurzban further estimated that Lees original bill would actually increase the total backlog for employment-based residency to 1.1 million by 2029 and increase wait times to 17 years, for everyone.

Do the math, he wrote in an August blog post.

He and other critics also worry that in a first-come, first-served system, since backlogged Indians would get all the green cards over the next few years, they would edge out applicants from other countries. When Paul objected last summer, he asked for a carve-out for health care workers nurses from, for example, the Philippines who would be one of the groups facing long waits due to Lees original bill. Other critics brought up the potential disadvantage his bill could further cause for Middle Eastern scientists affected by the travel ban and longtime immigrants from, say, Latin America at risk of losing temporary protections that let them stay and work in the United States.

The answer is not to fight over the few visas given each year; the answer is to have a larger number of visas to the benefit of the U.S. economy, Kurzban wrote in his blog post. Simply, we need more visas.

Other experts arent so sure about the forecasts of deleterious effects and believe that Lees bill is the best chance in the current political reality to address the problem. David Bier, Catos immigration policy analyst, estimates about 50 percent of the applicants in 2018 were Indian but received only 13 percent of the total green cards issued. He calculated that Lees legislation, if implemented, would resolve the backlog in eight years during which time only Indians would get green cards for around four years.

Opponents of the legislation claim that this is unfair, yet new Indian applicants who applied in 2018-19 will not receive any greencards under the bill for almost eight years, and if the law isnt passed, then they would face a half a century wait (ultimately, nearly half would give up before then), he wrote in a blog post.

Aman Kapoor is the co-founder of Immigration Voice, a group of Indians lobbying for a solution to the green card backlog. He has lived in the United States for 17 years. He and his family received approval for their residency application in 2007, but they still dont have green cards.

Even before Durbin formally put a hold on Lees legislation in mid-October, Kapoor and his group launched a media blitzkrieg accusing the Illinois senator of discriminating against Indians by not allowing Lees bill to be taken up. They argued any amendments he intended to tack on would amount to a poison pill that would alienate Republicans and ultimately kill the bill.

Senator Durbins argument against the bill is no different from the arguments presented by those against removing segregation and discrimination, the group wrote in an email statement at the time.

Durbins bill would lift country caps and, among other changes, add enough additional green cards to almost entirely cover the backlog in the employment-based and family-based categories. After analyzing the measure, Catos Bier concluded it probably contains the best legal immigration reforms overall since the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate in June 2013.

But Durbins bill reinforced a backlash from Indians on the green card waiting list and their lobbyists. To them, the legislation was not politically viable because it would raise the level of immigration overall a prospect that many Republicans in the Senate will not even entertain.

The rhetoric got so bad that immigration attorney Leon Fresco, a former senior Senate staffer who considers himself the architect of the Lee legislation, stepped away from his role as adviser to Immigration Voice.

I cant be part of it because I need to maintain professionalism. I would never advise anyone to be as personal as theyre being right now, he says. However, I get why people are frustrated.

But Durbins bill did have its supporters, and they, too, spoke up.

Lakshmi Sridaran, interim executive director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT), a progressive advocacy group, wrote an op-ed in an Indian American publication asking South Asians to oppose Lees bill and support Durbins. In her view, Lees version was akin to giving immigrant groups scraps to fight over a bigger piece of the pie, instead of a bigger pie. She also said Lees bill, and the rhetoric around it, set up hierarchies among the immigrant community of who is more or less deserving of citizenship.

Its not just the backlog issue but that this is one part of a very broken immigration system, she says. I dont think the groups advocating for this bill are interested in an inclusive organizing strategy, but a political strategy to win.

She and other opponents of Lees bill fear if what they believe to be an imperfect bill passes, pressure to pursue longer-term, systemic changes in the immigration system would fizzle out. In Congress, where the track record for passing immigration legislation is quite poor, there may not be a chance to return and fix things.

A handful of immigrant groups, including the advocacy network, United We Dream, support SAALTs position.

In Decembers compromise with Lee, Durbin tacked on amendments to the bill that would do three main things: help applicants and their families in the United States switch jobs and travel without losing status; carve out a quota for applicants from abroad; and put a check on big Indian IT firms that have been found to abuse the H1-B applications process.

So, this bill offers some concessions to both sides of the issue to the groups advocating for the rights of people stuck in green card backlogs, and those advocating for the rights of new immigrants to come to the U.S. from abroad, Julia Gelatt, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, explained via email.

But many remain dissatisfied. SAALTs Sridaran lamented the compromise legislation fails to raise the total number of green cards. And Immigration Voice asked its supporters to call Durbins office, to warn that if the compromise bill does not pass, Durbin, and Durbin alone, will be solely responsible for ethnic cleansing of Indian-American immigrants from the US.

Lees office said the lawmaker was working to build consensus, but there will likely not be any movement on this bill at least until impeachment proceedings have concluded.

Whether or not this bill will go anywhere: Its usually safest to predict that Congress doesnt have the will to tackle something as contentious as immigration reform. That seems particularly true as the Senate grapples with impeachment and considers a response to the emerging conflict with Iran, Gelatt said.

Of course, surprises can happen.

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Green card gridlock: When will Congress agree on a solution? - Roll Call

With the Iowa caucuses just weeks away, eight of the remaining Democratic presidential candidates gathered in Des Moines on Monday (Jan. 20) to share their plans to tackle topics including healthcare and social equity at the Brown & Black Forum, hosted by VICE News and Cashmere Originals.

Polls show wage inequality, overall economic injustice, and the current administration's stance on immigration as bedrock issues driving the Black and LatinX vote.

In response, Demoratic hopefuls doubled down on popular talking points like increasing minimum wage and creating a path to citizenship.

Participating in the forum was former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Rep. John Delaney of Maryland, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

The Forum was moderated by VICE News correspondents Antonia Hylton, Alzo Slade, Paola Ramos, Dexter Thomas, David Noriega, Krishna Andavolu, and Roberto Ferdman.

Heres what the candidates had to say about immigration and the economy at the Brown and Black Forum.

Michael Bennet

Michael Bennet, the senator from Colorado, was the first to take the stage in Des Moines.

Bennet quickly acknowledged that his campaign has a name recognition problem after moderator Alzo Slade pointed out that New York Magazine described you as the bland white guy youve never heard of."

Im not as well-known as other candidates, but I do think the ideas Im advancing in this campaign are the ones that will make the biggest difference for kids living in poverty in this country.

Bennets economic plan includes an increase to the child tax credit, paid family leave, earned income tax credit, and raising the minimum wage for business that can afford to do so.

When presented with the question on if businesses that cant afford a living wage should still be in business, Bennet maintained, A wage is better than NO wage, an opinion that is in stark contrast to candidates like Sanders and Warren, who are in support of a $15 federal minimum wage.

Joe Biden

Upon taking the stage in Des Moines, former Vice President Joe Biden faced criticism for his ties to the Obama administrations record-high levels of deportations.

Biden, however, stopped short of directly criticizing the previous administration.

The way we did when we reformed the system with the DACA I would not retain them behind bars, Biden said in reference to the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which would have provided a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.

Biden instead supports implementing a system where rather than incarcerating those who cross the border, they would instead be tracked with an ankle bracelet.

In contrast to some of his opponents, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Biden's plan stops short on the more progressive policies like decriminalizing the act of crossing the border and placing a temporary moratorium on deportations. In addition to backing a $15 federal minimum wage, Biden wants to heavily back unions and crack down on corporate entities that attempt to stymie collective bargaining.

Pete Buttigieg

Moderators pressed the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg on his struggle to resonate with minority voters.

Buttigieg used his screen time in front of a diverse audience to reaffirm his plan to address inequality and what he describes as the Trump administrations discriminatory policies toward Latinos.

Buttigiegs plan includes creating a path to citizenship for immigrants who are living, working and paying taxes, putting an end to family separation, and updating the immigration laws to reflect the economic and humanitarian needs of today.

Not only does Buttigieg support raising the federal minimum wage to $15, he also backed the Paycheck Fairness Act. The legislation, which was passed by the House last year, would, ban employers from using an employees salary history to determine wages, ensure that workers have the right to discuss wages without retaliation and require employers to justify any pay discrepancies."

Bernie Sanders

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders boldy responded when moderators referred to his agenda as radical.

Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour: Is that radical? Canceling all student loan debt. Radical? Immigration reform: Radical? Sanders asked the audience who responded with a resounding, NO!

On his website, Sanders immigration proposal includes using executive action to protect unauthorized immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than five years from deportation.

Sanders also plans to crack down on tax breaks for large corporations removing tax loopholes and breaks that only benefit the rich and raising the tax rates for the top 0.2% of wealthy Americans.

Im a very data driven guy, but Im 100% confident that putting $40 billion into the hands of Black and Brown communities every month is going to be a major positive, said entrepreneur Andrew Yang when questioned about how his universal basic income can close the wealth gap.

Yang plans to give every American adult $1,000 a month in universal basic income as a way to offset job loss from automation. The first-time presidential candidate proposes paying for the monthly distributions, in large part, by implementing a new 10 percent value-added tax on goods and services.

Amy Klobuchar

I dont pretend to know what it feels like to be followed around in the store or to face poverty like 30 percent of Black children do, but what I do know is that its not right," said Senator Amy Klobuchar in response to the current administration's harmful rhetoric directed at minority communities.

The senator from Minnesota outlines on her website plans to reform ICE and reexamine the policies in place as they pertain to detainments at the borders.

The Brown & Black Forum kept candidates on a strict time limit, so not every candidate had the chance to address every issue. Read on to learn where some of the other presidential hopefuls stand on immigration and economic policy.

Warren

Previously, Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed plans which include raising the federal minimum wage to $15 and streamlining the process for refugees seeking asylum.

Warrens plan of "economic patriotism" would result in the government prioritizing the interests of middle-class people over those of corporations. This is aimed directly at companies like Amazon, which receives major tax incentives from the government.

When it comes to immigration, Warren is calling to expand the program for DREAMers and their families, as well as those with Temporary Protected Status. If elected, Warren plans to admit more refugees, decriminalize crossing the border without papers.

While bold, Warrens plan would face great difficulty in Congress, particularly if Republicans maintain control of the Senate.

Tom Steyer

Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmental activist from California, has outlined an immigration proposal seeking to decriminalize illegal border crossings and work with Congress to approve a pathway to citizenship for millions of people in the U.S. illegally.

Like Sanders, Steyer is promising to use executive action to reinstate Obama administration protections for people brought to the country illegally as children. Hed do the same to nullify President Donald Trumps Muslim ban and end the separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Steyers economic agenda highlights people over profits and aims to address what Steyer calls the "undue influence" of corporate power on the U.S. economy. Like many of his White House rivals, his plan also calls for a $15 minimum wage.

John Delaney

The former three-term Maryland congressman supports comprehensive immigration reform. As a congressman, he cosponsored the DREAM Act in 2017, which would have provided a path to citizenship for so-called "dreamers," young undocumented immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.

In the past he has referred to the Trump Administrations decision to end DACA as "cruel, heartless and mean-spirited.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported an estimated 25 Cambodian immigrants this week, the agency confirmed Friday to NBC News.

The group, which largely consisted of individuals who arrived in the country legally as refugees after the Vietnam War but have been convicted of crimes, left for Cambodia on Monday. This was the first round of repatriations this year, even as deportations in the Southeast Asian community have significantly increased under the Trump administration.

Kevin Lo, a staff attorney at the civil rights organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice ALC, described the deportations as part of the ongoing attacks by the Trump administration on this vulnerable immigrant population.

We expect ICE to conduct nationwide raids on this community again in the near future, he said.

Lo, whose organization has been in contact with many of the families affected, explained that a sizable number of the deportees were born in refugee camps and many have never been to Cambodia.

In the past two fiscal years, the deportation of Cambodian nationals has increased by 279 percent, according to ICE data. However, the country continues to be listed as one of a handful that ICE considers recalcitrant, or uncooperative in issuing travel documents the U.S. requires for deportation.

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Katrina Dizon Mariategue, director of national policy at the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, noted that the New Way Forward Act, immigration enforcement reform legislation introduced in the House in December, would have potentially prevented many of those whove been repatriated this week from being deported.

The act would roll back two strict Clinton-era immigration laws, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. The laws had, in part, broadened the types of offenses that subjected legal immigrants to repatriation and further tied the criminal legal and immigration systems together.

The 1996 laws also prevented judicial discretion in immigration hearings, so that a judge would not be permitted to take into consideration the circumstances surrounding an individuals case. For example, factors including an individuals status as a caregiver, active member of society, or parent of U.S. citizens would not be examined.

Basically the judges' hands are tied and youre mandatorily attainable and deportable, Mariategue said.

However, under the New Way Forward, judges would be able to review these cases, looking at all the factors involved before making a decision to deport someone. The Act would also introduce a provision on statute of limitations of five years or more. Currently, people who committed crimes decades ago are still at risk of being deported. Lo noted that many in the Cambodian community who are facing deportation have long avoided any contact with the criminal justice system and have established families and careers.

For almost all the cases we've encountered, the crime was committed decades ago, Lo said. Since that time, most of these people have demonstrated that they have changed their lives, started families and are essential members of their communities.

Those who are deported to Cambodia face significant challenges, particularly since many have no family ties, do not speak the language and face cultural barriers. Lo explained that once in Cambodia, deportees often have difficulty finding work, housing, medical access, mental health support and government identification.

There is also a high rate of suicide and mental health issues, he said. They have no family or community support in Cambodia because their loved ones that didn't die in the genocide are now in the U.S.

The subject of repatriations remains a source of tension between the U.S. and Cambodia. They reached an agreement in 2002 in which Cambodia consented to taking in a limited number of deportees. The agreement set off protests in the Cambodian American community, which raised humanitarian concerns around the repatriation of refugees.

The backlash prompted Cambodia to drastically cut back on deportations, and in August 2017, the country halted issuing travel documents for deportation. However when the Trump administration slapped visa sanctions on the country, barring high-ranking Cambodian officials and their families from traveling to the U.S., Cambodia responded by issuing roughly 50 travel documents by the end of the year.

While Mariategue said she cant say for certain whether the administration will ramp up deportations, she noted that by looking at the rate in which people are being repatriated, its likely the number of deportees this fiscal year will surpass last year.

Kimmy Yam is a reporter for NBC Asian America.

Originally posted here:
ICE deported 25 Cambodian immigrants, most of whom arrived in the U.S. as refugees - NBC News

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In late 2018, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan pushed through an immigration reform law that aimed to attract 345,000 foreign workers over the next five years. Driven by demographic and business concerns about Japans shrinking labor force, the legislation created two types of visas: one for less skilled foreign workers to stay for not more than five years, and one for semi-skilled workers who can stay for 10 years with the possibility to become permanent residents thereafter. Almost immediately, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his party were on the defensive, battling criticisms of the law from the left and the right.

The more liberal-leaning opposition parties protested the hastily drawn up legislation, pointing to the lack of preparations to protect foreign workers rights and provide for their social welfare. Japan already had a trainee program, but the program was plagued with worker abuses such as trainees working overtime, being underpaid, or having their passports withheld, and has recently been linked to concerns about political corruption. Opponents to immigration reform were concerned about increasing the number of immigrants before even adequately dealing with the problems of the existing trainee program. Preparing Japanese to live with foreigners and providing Japanese language education for accompanying children are particular concerns.

At the time of the laws passage, it was also criticized from a more traditionalist angle for creating a path for guest workers to become permanent residents, and for allowing some guest workers to bring their families. Though the conservative ruling party is responsible for passing the law, that does not mean that Japans mainstream attitude is currently receptive to embracing foreign nationals as truly Japanese. Deputy Prime Minister Aso Taros recent single-race nation gaffe (which he later apologized for) demonstrates how deeply many Japanese identify Japan as a nation for the Japanese race.

The immigration reform law took effect on April 1, 2019. The findings of last Novembers Cabinet Office survey were released earlier this week, offering a glimpse into how the Japanese public views the issue of granting permanent residency to foreigners.

The 1,572 survey respondents were told that at the end of 1998 Japan had 90,000 permanent residents, at the end of 2008 Japan had 490,000 permanent residents, and at the end of 2018 Japan had 770,000 permanent residents. They were then asked whether they thought Japan had many permanent residents or not. Of the respondents, 38.3 percent thought that Japan has many permanent residents, 29.2 percent thought that Japan has an appropriate number of permanent residents, and 18.6 percent thought that Japan has few permanent residents.

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Though a plain reading of these numbers would indicate that there is little appetite to increase the number of permanent residents, such an interpretation may be misleading given how little information was given to respondents. Providing more information about Japans labor force shortages or demographic crisis for example, the Cabinet Office estimates that Japan has a shortage of about 1.2 million workers in many labor-intensive sectors could change these results. The survey findings tell us that Japanese respondents may have an initial inclination to think that there are many permanent residents, but it does not rule out the possibility that they may be persuaded about the desirability of more permanent residents if given greater context.

Respondents were also asked what kinds of requirements are needed to grant a foreigner permanent residency, and were allowed to select multiple answers. 73.7 percent responded having no criminal record, 71.6 percent responded paying taxes and social security premiums, 61.3 percent responded having never broken immigration laws, and 53.9 percent responded having enough income or property to support themselves.

The survey also asked respondents whether permanent residency should be revocable. An overwhelming majority 74.8 percent said it should be revocable, and only 14.6 percent opposed such a measure. Of the respondents who wanted permanent resident status to be revocable, 81.0 percent said that permanent resident status should be revoked if the individual was sentenced to prison, and 73.2 percent said status should be revoked if the individual failed to pay taxes and social security premiums.

These survey results are interesting for two reasons. First, there seem to be at least two separate concerns driving those who are less favorable toward granting foreigners permanent resident states: one is couched in terms of law and order concerns, and the other in terms of the states fiscal sustainability. It is impossible to disentangle which concern is more salient given the way the questions were structured to allow individuals to give multiple responses.

Second, even though respondents were given the option to also select criteria for permanent residency that may be interpreted as more nativist, these options were not the most popular. Specifically, only 31.3 percent of respondents thought that living in Japan for at least 10 years should be a minimum condition for permanent residency on the first question. On the question about conditions for revoking permanent resident status, only 38.3 percent thought that it should be revoked if a foreigner married a Japanese person and thus sped up their approval process but divorced the Japanese person soon after gaining status, and only 33.1 percent thought that status should be revoked for foreigners who spent most of the year abroad.

Whether such responses were not chosen as often because respondents genuinely do not prefer those options or because they thought it was impolitic to select those options is difficult to say. The government-run survey was a fairly straightforward questionnaire, with no attempt at uncovering less savory motivations for opposing granting foreigners resident status, though incidents of anti-foreign discrimination and hate speech belie any benign image of Japan as an immigrant-friendly nation.

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January 22, 2020 Is Japan Ready to Welcome Immigrants? - The Diplomat

According to an advisory opinion issued in December by Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, localities in the commonwealth cannot declare themselves exempt from laws passed by the state legislature. In support of his position, Herring cites both statutes and established common law doctrines [that] specifically limit the authority of local governments. He further states, It also bears emphasis that neither local governments nor local constitutional officers have authority to declare state statutes unconstitutional or decline to follow them on that basis.

Translated into plain English, Herring is telling jurisdictions that have identified themselves as Second Amendment sanctuaries meaning they will refuse to enforce any new state laws that impose mandatory gun registration to stay in their own wheelhouse and execute the laws passed by the legislature. Should counties and localities believe that a gun law passed by the Virginia Assembly is unconstitutional, they should follow proper procedure and either speak to their legislative representatives or file a lawsuit requesting that a court declare the measure unconstitutional.

Thats wise advice. Our governmental system is constructed as a pyramid. We have multiple levels of government that exercise limited authority. Local governments are not entitled to pick and choose which state laws they wish to enforce. Similarly, states are prohibited from engaging in selective enforcement of federal laws. When any level of government attempts to usurp responsibilities exercised by the tier above or below it, the whole pyramid collapses. Herrings memorandum advises municipal and county governments to stick to the format that has made our republic successful for the past 244 years.

So one wonders why Herring wishes to apply his logic only to Second Amendment issues. Virginia is full of so-called illegal immigration sanctuaries. In those jurisdictions, local governments refuse to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Whats more, they actively shield immigration violators from federal authorities. Clearly, those cities and counties are attempting to nullify federal immigration law and declare themselves exempt from it. And they do so with the full support of the Virginia state government.

In fact, Herring himself has strongly supported Virginia officials who have thumbed their noses at both the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and ICEs authority to enforce it. He has unabashedly declared that state law enforcement officials who hold immigration violators on the basis of detainer requests issued by ICE risk violating the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable seizure. And he has consistently interfered with efforts by Virginia law enforcement agencies to cooperate more closely with federal immigration authorities in order to remove dangerous, criminal aliens from Virginias communities.

But, according to Herrings logic, neither Second Amendment sanctuaries, nor immigration sanctuaries are lawful. The U.S. Constitution grants the federal government exclusive authority to regulate immigration. As a matter of law, state and local government officials have no say in how, where or when the federal government chooses to enforce the INA. In fact, the Supreme Court explicitly stated this, in 2012, in its holding in United States v. Arizona.

So, why did Second Amendment sanctuaries provoke a sternly-worded memorandum telling local officials to play nice when the attorney generals office has not uttered a single word about immigration sanctuaries? Clearly this is an instance of profound hypocrisy a case of, Do as I say, not as I do. Because, while he professes to believe that Virginians should hew closely to the principles of constitutional federalism when addressing public concerns over gun control legislation, Herring is perfectly comfortable obliterating any distinctions between federal and state powers or executive, legislative and judicial functions, for that matter when it comes to immigration.

If we, indeed, live in a country that is ruled by distinct levels of government that are intended to exercise limited powers in defined spheres, then state and local governments should, as Herring suggests, either petition Congress to change laws they dont like or file lawsuits seeking to overturn them. But that approach, which is dictated by our system of Republican democracy, should be the standard procedure regardless of the issue that is subject to debate guns, immigration or anything else.

Meanwhile, Virginia residents who support the rule of law are still waiting for Herring to advise illegal immigration sanctuaries that their policies are both illegal and unacceptable.

Matt OBrien is director of research at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a nonprofit group advocating for legal immigration. He previously served as assistant chief counsel with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and as a division chief with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He lives in Virginia.

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Virginia AG's immigration hypocrisy | TheHill - The Hill