One of the most significant reasons for green card petitions is to find employment and get started on the American Dream. One of the many factors affecting the number of green card applicants is the prevailing economic crisis and its effect on the economy of their own home country. Often resulting in a green card petition to be too costly to be even considered. Some developing nations have a per capita income of around $55 a month, resulting in years worth of savins going into a single application.

The other possibility for the drop in green card petitions may be the reality that those who have a viable job with a green card, may find themselves a victim of “last in, first out”, when layoffs occur in companies that hired them. Hiring is down and with the unemployed growing, the chances of finding a job are becoming slimmer and slimmer. Without growth spurts in industries and small businesses, it is difficult to see many taking the risk at a time like this.

One other more prevalent, less obvious reason is that many of the countries from which green card petitions usually originate are involved in businesses that have now been outsourced to their own country. Industrialized countries have sent jobs in customer service, technical support and data entry to countries like India, China, Japan, Thailand and the Phillipines where labor is less costly.

The issue regarding illegal immigration has been a political thorn in the side of both major parties for decades. For conservatives, it really comes down to closing the national borders and prosecuting those who break America’s immigration laws by sending them back to their country of origin. Whether it is building a wall or mounting armed patrols, many conservatives say that border control is paramount to gaining control of the issue. Anything less, the conservatives assert, amounts to a blanket acceptance of the activity that results in illegal immigration.

However, the liberal faction of the political spectrum state that American’s themselves are responsible for illegal immigration due to our lack of desire to perform labor that the illegals perform willingly. For the liberal’s, they insist that legalizing the immigrants who came here illegally is the only moral thing to do. Yet, there is a problem with this suggestion. What do you do about those immigrants who have observed the law and acted appropriately? For those who want to legalize immigrants who have not followed the rules, they suggest that they should pay a fine and be sent to the back of the immigration line.

These are the two predominant solutions to the illegal immigration problem. Neither satisfies the immediate concerns that face the nation today in that both “solutions” are costly and time consuming. As America struggles with economic woes and rampant crime, some of which is contributed by illegal immigration, these two solutions may amount to placing a band-aid on a gaping wound.

Federal compromise bill failure leaves policy gulf
This year, at least 1,169 immigration-related bilk have been introduced in all 50 state legislatures, according to the Washington-based National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Officials say the number of state bills – more than twice as many as in 2006 – is an indication of a void left by a lack of federal action on immigration. But a federal court decision may overturn the states’ and many local governments’ actions.
Although immigration policy falls under federal jurisdiction, states often must pay for federally mandated programs, particularly education, health care and law enforcement. “State legislators busy in the immigration arena have become frustrated by inactivity at the federal level,” says NCSL Policy Associate Dirk Hegen. NCSL has been tracking the various bills, which fall into 14 categories of public policy, such as documentation, employment, education, benefits, legal services and human trafficking.
 
Tennessee legislators proposed 45 immigration-related bills, five of which became laws, says Stephen Fotopolus, policy director for the Nashville-based Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. “This session has been interesting for us because there More are so many people who are trying to be one-issue policy makers,” he says. “Everyone has been looking to do something to say they are addressing illegal immigration.”
While many bills have addressed only one issue, Oklahoma passed an omnibus immigration bill in April that covers four major areas: documentation, public assistance, employment and law enforcement. The law prevents illegal immigrants from obtaining official government identification documents, including driver’s licenses and voter registration cards. The legislation also terminates public assistance or entitlement benefits, with the exception of emergency medical assistance; criminalizes those who have an unlawful presence in the state and/or who harbor and transport undocumented aliens, or make them eligible for bail; and penalizes employers who hire undocumented workers. “Illegals will not come [to Oklahoma] if there are no jobs, no subsidies, and if they know they will be detained if they come in contact with law enforcement,” says State Representative Randy Terrell, R-OkIa., who sponsored the bill. Terrell says those crafting the bill wanted the Oklahoma legislation to be in sync with federal immigration policy.
In June, a comprehensive federal immigration reform bill, which would have provided federal funding to state and local governments to help cover the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants as well as education and health care costs, died in the Senate. The complex, 800-page bill also would have created a pathway to legal residency or citizenship for illegal immigrants now living in the United States. It is unlikely that another immigration bill will be introduced before the 2008 elections, NCSL officials say.
Also, on July 26, Judge James Munley with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania overturned a set of ordinances in Hazleton, Pa., that would have punished businesses and property owners that hire or harbor illegal immigrants. Hazleton’s ordinances served as a model for many similar ordinances in other cities, according to The New York Times. Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta plans to appeal the decision to the 3rd Circuit Court and may take the case as far at the Supreme Court.
In his ruling, Munley wrote that federal law pre-empts the Hazleton ordinances. The judge claimed that the laws also violated the constitutional rights enjoyed even by illegal immigrants. “Since the Constitution protects even the disfavored, the ordinances cannot be enforced,” Munley wrote.

Previously stalled efforts to renew the federal Voting Rights Act rushed to completion this month, as Congress reauthorized several key provisions that were due to expire next year. One requires federal approval of changes to voting procedures-including for school board contests-in nine states and additional counties and towns with a history of discrimination in their elections. 

Those jurisdictions are subject to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act whenever they make any change to procedures, such as in redrawing school board members’ electoral districts. They must submit changes to the federal Department of Justice for approval, a procedure known as preclearance. Districts subject to section 5 sometimes regard it with frustration because it adds to the cost and difficulty of making even minor changes related to voting. 

The newly adopted measure extends section 5-the preclearance provision-of the Voting Rights Act, first signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 and most recently renewed in 1982, for another 25 years. 

It also extends section 203, added in 1975, which is due to expire next year as well. That section requires states and localities to issue ballots and other election materials in languages other than English under certain circumstances. The requirement applies when more than 10,000 of their voters, or at least 5 percent of eligible voters, have a primary language other than English and have Limited proficiency in English. 

Some House members have argued that the section 5 preclearance provision is outdated and unfairly targets the South, where seven of the nine states subject to the preclearance rules are located. (See map, this page.) 

But civil rights groups say preclearance has been crucial to preserving the voting power of minority citizens. 

In debating the legislation on July 13, the House voted down four amendments proposed by Republicans from Georgia, Texas, and Iowa. 

The first would have eased the requirement for preclearance of electoral changes by the Justice Department. The second would have modified the formula by opening up the department’s oversight to all 50 states; the amendment’s supporters said that subjecting every state to the same scrutiny would logically help voters, but opponents called the proposal a “poison pill” that would sap congressional support for the law and make enforcement unworkable. 

The third would have ended the requirement for assistance to voters who are not proficient in English. The fourth would have extended the law by only 10 years, rather than 25 years as approved by the House. 

All the amendments were defeated with votes from a united Democratic House minority, along with those of many Republicans. The chamber approved the Voting Rights Act extension by a vote of 390-33. 

The Senate passed the bill on July 20 by a vote of 98-0. President Bush, who had urged prompt passage last week in a speech at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s convention in Washington, said he would sign what he called “this historic legislation.” 

‘A Mixed Bag’ 

In Georgia, school boards view’ the Voting Rights Act as “something of a mixed bag,” said Phillip L. Hartley, a Gainesville, Ga., lawyer who works for the Georgia School Boards Association and many individual districts. Making what he sees as even minor election changes, such as scheduling a tax-levy vote on a date other than a general election, requires submitting the plan to the Justice Department for review or applying to the U.S. District Court in Washington. 

“There’s enormous paperwork and time hassle involved, because [local officials] have got to make those decisions 60 days or longer in advance of when they need to hold the election,” Mr. Hartley said. Such changes “hardly have any arguable effect on racial-minority groups,” he said. In some instances, though, the Justice Department has rejected such voting changes sought by school districts. 

“Obviously, many school districts,” he said, “find the efforts they have to go through to not only to comply with One man, one vote,’ but then to comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act” are unnecessary because in today’s world it is not unusual for an African-American to be elected from a mostly white district or vice versa. 

But African-American and other minority candidates are being elected in Georgia because of the Voting Rights Act, said Helen Butler, the executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, an Atlanta-based civil rights group that focuses on the “quality of governance.” 

“We have the largest legislative black caucus in the countryover 50 people [holding office],” Ms. Butler said. “It wouldn’t have been this way without the (Voting Rights Act].” 

As for section 203, which has been swept into the national debate over illegal immigration, “there are a lot of legal citizens who don’t always speak English fluently” and are entitled to language assistance, Ms. Butler said. 

Boost for Minorities 

The preclearance requirements also affect school districts that sometimes have little connection to the states and counties covered by section 5. 

Tulare County, Calif., for example, is not covered by section 5, but five of the 56 school districts in the county are, because their boundaries extend into next-door Kings County, one of the few California counties that come under the preclearance provision. 

For those five districts, the Voting Rights Act imposes a serious obligation when school leaders wish to ask’voters for authority to float a bond or when they adjust electoral districts after a U.S. Census, said Gary deMalignon, a lawyer for Tulare County, which provides legal services to its school districts. 

“It’s'probably the largest part of our work as their attorney,” Mr. deMalignon said of the five districts. 

The Tulare County government, the county’s separate board of education, and other school districts can also be drawn in for Voting Rights Act scrutiny, he said; Currently, for example, the county board of education has asked for the Justice Department’s approval for authority to set up special tax districts to raise money for school construction. Since tax districts could include portions of the five school districts that spill into Kings County, the federal scrutiny is required. 

Still, Mr. deMalignon said, the Voting Rights Act seems to have helped boost Latino membership on local school boards. Three of the five districts were sued in the early 1990s by minority voters, who argued that the seats on the school board, which were all a.tlarge, were inaccessible to minority candidates, he said. The districts settled the suits by agreeing to change from atlarge systems to single-member electoral districts. 

Before the Senate voted, Mr. Hartley, the school lawyer in Georgia, said that despite school officials’ mixed feelings about the Voting Rights Act, many would be alarmed if the preclearance provision were not renewed. 

Catherine P. Clark, the associate executive director for governance at the Texas Association of School Boards, agreed that if the preclearance provision were eliminated, “people would be very alarmed.”