Washington D.C. (August 4, 2010) – The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is enshrined in U.S. history as the cornerstone of American civil rights, ensuring due process and equal protection under the law to all persons. Equally important is the Fourteenth Amendment’s affirmation that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are, in fact, U.S. citizens.

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Washington, D.C (July 30, 2010) ­ – Guam Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo introduced a bill that would make technical corrections to the Guam-CNMI visa waiver program. The bill, introduced on July 30, would also require the Director of the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce to compute the gross domestic product reports for Guam, American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Freely Associated States.

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WASHINGTON (July 15, 2010) – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced last week it has approved 10,000 petitions for U nonimmigrant status – also referred to as the “U visa” – in fiscal year 2010.

USCIS calls this an important milestone for a program that offers immigration protection to victims of crime while also strengthening law enforcement efforts to combat those crimes. This marks the first time that USCIS, through extensive outreach and collaboration, has reached the statutory maximum of 10,000 U visas per fiscal year since it began issuing U visas in 2008.

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WASHINGTON– Today the Justice Department filed suit against Arizona, asserting that the state’s new immigration law violates the Constitution’s supremacy clause and illegally intrudes on the federal government’s power to enforce our immigration laws.

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Minneapolis (July 1, 2010) – The Advocates for Human Rights welcomes attempts by President Obama to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform in his address to the nation today. In his speech, Obama laid out several important issues that give a human face to this hotly contested policy issue, including family unity, workers’ rights, community policing issues, and procedural failures in the current immigration system.

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WASHINGTON (July 6, 2010) – The Department of Justice challenged the state of Arizona’s recently passed immigration law, S.B. 1070, in federal court last week. In a brief filed in the District of Arizona, the Department said S.B. 1070 unconstitutionally interferes with the federal government’s authority to set and enforce immigration policy, explaining that “the Constitution and federal law do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local immigration policies throughout the country.”

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Minneapolis (July 1, 2010) – The Advocates for Human Rights welcomes attempts by President Obama to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform in his address to the nation today. In his speech, Obama laid out several important issues that give a human face to this hotly contested policy issue, including family unity, workers’ rights, community policing issues, and procedural failures in the current immigration system.

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Washington, D.C. (July 6, 2010) The United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit last week against the state of Arizona in federal court. The lawsuit, prompted by passage of SB 1070 in the Arizona legislature, will argue that federal law trumps the state statute and enforcing immigration law is a federal responsibility. The Department has requested a preliminary injunction to delay enactment of the law, arguing that the law’s operation will cause “irreparable harm.”

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Washington, D.C. (June 29, 2010) – A new report, “Removing Refugees: U.S. Deportation Policy and the Cambodian-American Community,” highlights the human rights impact of current immigration policies through the lens of the Cambodian-American community.

The report, based upon interviews conducted in Cambodia with individuals who have been deported, was produced by the Walter Leitner International Human Rights Clinic of the Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham Law School, the Returnee Integration Support Center and Deported Diaspora. The report can be accessed in its entirety at http://tinyurl.com/Removing-Refugees.

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The Immigration Policy Center (www.immigrationpolicy.org) has compiled U.S. Census data to portray the political and economic power of immigrants, Latinos, and Asians and their children in Oregon to show they are a increasingly growing share of the state’s population and electorate.

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