Thursday, March 28, 2013

FACEBOOK'S ZUCKERBERG ORGANIZING SUPER PAC FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM


According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is organizing a Super PAC - political advocacy group for immigration reform issues that are near and dear to the tech community in the area. According to the San Francisco Chronicle Zuckerberg is ready to personally invest up to $20 million, and other technology leaders in the area may follow his suit. If this new advocacy group is going to be registered as a nonprofit, it could also be treated as a Super PAC – which is exempt from some donor disclosure rules, thanks to the 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United v. FEC.

Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert made powerful examples against allowing Super PACs to continue during his coverage of the 2012 presidential elections last year. However, since Congress is unlikely to do anything about that any time soon, I am very happy that some of the tech leaders are putting serious money towards immigration reform specifically needed to combat our legal immigration crisis – no sufficient H-1B visas and immigrant visas for legal, skilled, professional and advanced degree workers.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

GANG OF 8 AGREES ON PATH TO CITIZENSHIP

From the LA Times:
Eight senators who have spent weeks trying to write a bipartisan bill to overhaul immigration laws have privately agreed on the most contentious part of the draft — how to offer legal status to the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants. According to aides familiar with the closed-door negotiations, the bill would require illegal immigrants to register with Homeland Security Department authorities, file federal income taxes for their time in America and pay a still-to-be-determined fine. They also must have a clean law enforcement record.
Once granted probationary legal status, immigrants would be allowed to work but would be barred from receiving federal public benefits, including food stamps, family cash assistance, Medicaid and unemployment insurance. The eight Senators still have not decided how long it will be before immigrants could file for permanent residency. The President has proposed eight years. The LA Times reports that the Senate will likely make the path at least ten years.
Other unresolved issues: - how many visas for highly skilled workers - how the guest worker program will work - exit tracking of immigrants - how much money can be allocated for border enforcement. Finally, the goal of introducing the bill by March 22nd appears to be slipping and early April may now be the time frame.

Monday, March 4, 2013

HB125 INSERTS UNJUST AND UNNECESSARY CHANGES TO HB87

In a last-minute attempt, some immigrant haters in Georgia added language to House Bill 125 that adds unjust and unnecessary changes to HB87. HB87 is bad enough, now HB 125 will exclude foreign passports from the list of "secure and verifiable" documents and add a driver's license to the list of "public benefits" although people have to pay to get them!

This is insane because many legal immigrants only have their foreign passports as proof of I.D. at least for the initial time in the country.

The ACLU of Georgia issued a very detailed letter explaining all these changes.
http://www.acluga.org/files/1913/6240/9299/HB125summarysheetFINAL.pdf

This is bad for people, including the legal immigrants in the state of Georgia. Call Governor Deal at (404)656-1776 and ask him to veto HB125.