U.S. Citizenship Guide Offered by Lawyer Central

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:04:00 -0500

Lawyer Central announces the release of its Citizenship Resource Center, featuring a guide to the various legal aspects of U.S. citizenship. Citizenship and nationality are increasingly complex and dynamic areas of law, and this guide is designed to simplify these complicated legal topics and provide practical, relevant information for immigrants. There are three bases for United States Citizenship: birth citizenship, blood citizenship, and naturalization. The process of naturalization is the most complex, and involves acquiring citizenship through legal means. There are a number of requirements for citizenship by naturalization, including knowledge of English, familiarity with U.S. history and government, and several other criteria concerning residency and character. The naturalization test is administered by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and is sometimes called the INS Test or Immigration and Naturalization Services Test. Experienced immigration attorneys can explain how the test works help aliens achieve citizenship through legal means. Visitors to Lawyer Central's Citizenship Guide can find answers to frequently asked citizenship questions, such as the bases for citizenship, requirements for naturalization, and benefits of citizenship. An overview and explanation of the naturalization process and information about the U.S. citizenship examination, including sample questions, are also featured. The citizenship news centers provide breaking news to keep you abreast of the latest citizenship and immigration issues, while the official links provide opportunities for further research. Visit Lawyer Central's Citizenship Resource Center to learn more about citizenship law. If you are looking for an immigration lawyer to guide you through the process of becoming a U.S. citizen, you can fill out the free consultation form and receive a response from an experienced immigration lawyer within 24 hours. Discuss immigration, citizenship, and other legal issues on Lawyer Central's free law forum. About Lawyer Central The Lawyer Central Network is an exclusive nationwide network of personal injury attorneys highly dedicated to their unique areas of practice, including immigration law. Lawyer Central is emerging as the leading public relations and mixed media marketing organization for fast-growing personal injury law firms and forward-thinking personal injury attorneys. Lawyer Central membership includes a variety of media exposure ranging from personal injury practice area video filming, through interviews and complete public relations and internet relations management.

Immigration Experts Predict Fewer Workplace Raids

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 22:10:00 -0500

by Jennifer Ludden
All Things Considered, December 2, 2008
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97700373 As the Obama administration takes shape, many experts are betting it will significantly curtail one of the most visible and controversial facets of the Bush administration's immigration crackdown: the high-profile workplace raids in which federal agents arrest dozens, even hundreds, of undocumented workers. The number of people arrested in such raids has risen tenfold in the past five years, to 6,287 in 2008. Most have been administrative arrests. The biggest raids have made national news, but on any given week, there have been smaller ones across the country. They've targeted a San Francisco Bay Area chain of taquerias, Rhode Island courthouses and a Virginia painting company, to name a few. As a candidate, Sen. Barack Obama questioned the effectiveness of such tactics in a 2007 interview with The Des Moines Register. "I'm not particularly impressed with raids on plants that grab a handful of undocumented workers and send them home, leaving the company in a position where it can just hire the next batch," Obama said. Calls For A Halt On Raids Since the election, immigrant advocacy groups and Democratic members of Congress have intensified their calls for a moratorium on immigration raids, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has talked of finding a way to end them. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) says the undocumented workers being arrested and deported have millions of family members who are legal residents or U.S. citizens, and he says the effect has been devastating. "You have single mothers now," Gutierrez says. "You have young, 15-year-old kids with no father. Think about that a moment. And the government took your dad away." The Bush administration actually spent years pushing to legalize undocumented workers. But when a broad immigration overhaul failed in Congress two years in a row, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff dramatically ramped up worksite raids, along with other get-tough measures. In recent months, a number of studies have shown a big drop in illegal migration, and while Chertoff admits the tanking economy played a big role, he credits his agency's crackdown as well. "This is a direct result of strong, positive enforcement, which is yielding measurable results," he says. Doris Meissner, a former head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and now a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute, is not convinced. "I think a lot of what's been going on has been high-visibility disruption for its own sake," she says. "I'm not sure there's a real strategy that's guiding it." Shifting Focus To Employers? Meissner does not believe President-elect Obama will end worksite raids altogether, but she does foresee a shift in focus to employers, and a far broader approach to holding them accountable. Meissner says basic labor law enforcement has languished for years. She expects an Obama administration to devote more resources to protecting wage and safety standards. She also says leveling the playing field in that manner would go a long way toward weeding out undocumented workers. Obama also has spoken of the need for a reliable way to check workers' legal status. That has cheered even the staunchest supporters of the current government crackdown, such as Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "Even though I expect the Obama administration is going to dial back on worksite raids," Krikorian says, "I don't think it's a complete disaster, because you're going to see employer-oriented enforcement continuing." The Department of Homeland Security has aggressively encouraged businesses to consult a federal database to check workers' legal status. It's a program called E-Verify, which DHS promotes in a number of ways, including funding credits on NPR. Soon, DHS also will require large federal contractors to use the program. Mark Krikorian says that could mean up to 20 percent of all new hires in the country will be checked. "That's a big deal," he says. "I mean, that's starting, at that point, to become a standard labor practice." On the other hand, critics complain this program's error rate is too high, and some groups want to scrap it as well. That will be one more decision for the Obama administration as it shapes its own immigration policy.

Lawyer Central Legal Blog - Immigration and Citizenship

U.S. Citizenship Guide Offered by Lawyer Central

Immigration Experts Predict Fewer Workplace Raids