Hazleton update
Immigration status complex, ACLU expert says
“Federal immigration law is so complex that it can take years for the government to determine whether a person is in the country legally or illegally, an expert witness testified yesterday in the trial over Hazleton’s crackdown on illegal immigrants.
Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration lawyer and co-author of a 20-volume treatise on immigration law, said there are many ways illegal immigrants can “regularize their status.” Among those are marrying a U.S. citizen and obtaining political asylum. Even someone facing deportation can take advantage of a lengthy federal appeals process, he said. “Your current legal status at any given time does not determine whether you may ultimately stay in the United States,” said Yale-Loehr, testifying for plaintiffs seeking to overturn Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act.
The ordinance penalizes landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and companies that employ them. A companion measure requires tenants to register with City Hall. Enforcement of the laws has been barred pending the legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union and Hispanic groups.
The ACLU called Yale-Loehr to the stand in an effort to show that the local measures fail to account for the nuances of federal immigration law and might wind up hurting people who are eligible for legal residency but are still in the process of getting it.
Earlier, an expert witness called by Hazleton’s lawyers testified that immigration depresses wages for lower-skilled U.S. workers. George Borjas, a Harvard University economist, conducted a 20-year study that concluded that the wages of U.S.-born citizens working in low-skilled jobs decreased by about 8 percent over the short term because of immigrant labor.
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Posted by JonJayRay on March 20, 2007 12:06 am
» Filed Under ACLU
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