Texas Immigration Lawyer & Attorney : Kraft & Associates Law Firm : Visas, Green Card, Citizenship, Deportation : Dallas, Texas

The Dallas Morning News reports today that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided more than two dozen mostly Latino night clubs, restaurants, pool halls and other businesses Saturday night, arresting 49 undocumented immigrants employed as security guards. Here are excerpts from the story:

All of those arrested work for two local security companies, which authorities declined to identify Sunday.

At 11 p.m. Saturday, teams made up of local, state and federal officers simultaneously hit 26 businesses in the Love Field area, northwest Dallas, Old East Dallas and Lakewood. No injuries were reported.

Authorities recovered four pistols. Federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from possessing firearms.

Those arrested also face charges of being in the country illegally.

Five of the suspects face charges of document tampering in order to get licensed as a security officer and to carry a firearm, Ms. Bradfield said. That is a third-degree felony, and the punishment range is two to 10 years.

"Hopefully, this operation will help us send a message that we will not tolerate the falsification of documents for undocumented aliens under the guise of providing security," said Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins in a statement Sunday.

Four of those arrested were from El Salvador, and the others were Mexican, authorities said.

In addition to ICE and the district attorney's office, the following agencies also participated Saturday night: the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Dallas Police Department; the Texas Department of Public Safety; the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission; and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas in Dallas.

Businesses raided

1. Az De Oro Night Club, 3320 Samuel Blvd., Dallas
2. Far West Night Club, 7331 Gaston Ave., Dallas
3. Ojeda's Restaurant, 4617 Maple Ave., Dallas
4. El Penasco, 4601 Maple Ave., Dallas
5. Izalco Bar, 4605 Maple Ave., Dallas
6. Palacio, 4430 Maple Ave., Dallas
7. Metropolis, 8416 Denton Dr., Dallas
8. El Pulpo Restaurant, 2829 W. Northwest Hwy., Suite 330, Dallas
9. Los Compass Deli and Club, 2829 W. Northwest Hwy., Suite 216, Dallas
10. Taqueria Lupita's, Webb Chapel Ext., Dallas
11. Terry's Supermarket, 3025 Webb Chapel Ext., Dallas
12. Extravaganza Restaurant and Bar, 2905 Webb Chapel Ext., Dallas
13. Billares Puebla, 2900 Walnut Hill Lane, Dallas
14. Guerrero Bar, 2900 Walnut Hill Lane, Suite 220, Dallas
15. Exclusiva, 2900 Walnut Hill Ln., Suite 200, Dallas
16. La Frontera, 9744 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas
17. La Pachanga, 9745 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas
18. Los Corrales Restaurant and Bar, 10229 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas
19. El Diamante, 4915 Singleton Blvd., Dallas
20. Club de Cache, 9100 N. Central Exp., Suite 300, Dallas
21. Oficina Billares, 10830 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas
22. Viva Cafe and Billiards, 2829 W. Northwest Hwy., Suite 330, Dallas
23. Dallas Gentleman's Club, 2117 W. Northwest Hwy., Dallas
24. 039 Club, 1820 W. Mockingbird Ln., Dallas
25. Orienta Night Club II, 8120 Harry Hines Blvd., Dallas
26. La Tormenta, 9834 Brockbank Dr., Dallas

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The Los Angeles Times recently ran an interesting story about the abuse of unauthorized immigrants working in car washes in Southern California. Essentially, the immigrants work for tips only, allowing the employers to avoid paying wages or taxes of any type. Fear of deportation keeps the car wash workers from complaining. It's just one more way that mistreatment of illegal aliens allows Americans to pay lower prices for goods and services. Here are excerpts from the story:

A team of state inspectors strode into the Blue Wave Car Wash in West Los Angeles, past latte-sipping customers in electric massage chairs and into the gritty carwash tunnel.

"¿Cuánto gana usted?" the inspectors asked worker after worker, about 20 of them, most Latino immigrants. How much do you make? Each carwashero responded that he earned minimum wage or more -- just as the owner of the Blue Wave, one of the region's busiest carwashes, had told the inspectors.

Looking over payroll records, however, the regulators became suspicious. Employees who said they were full time were listed as working just 10 or 15 hours a week.

Inspector Martha Mendoza ushered Juan Cruz Santiago, a small man with salt-and-pepper hair, away from the others. During gentle questioning under a ficus tree, he admitted that most days, he and his 66-year-old father worked for tips only. So did nearly half the other employees, he said. It had been that way for at least six years.

"It's bad," the 41-year-old Oaxacan immigrant whispered to Mendoza, his eyes darting nervously toward his boss' office. "Other carwashes are the same, no?"

Many are. A Times investigation has found that hand carwashes, automotive beauty shops patronized by tens of thousands of Southern California motorists every day, often brazenly violate basic labor and immigration laws, with little risk of penalty.

Half or more of carwash owners flout the minimum-wage law, estimated David Dorame, the longtime lead investigator for low-wage industries at California's Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.

"Tips only" is a requirement for some new workers until owners are satisfied that they can properly dry a car, laborers said. Their take is typically $10 to $30 a day.

Desperate for a toehold in the region's underground economy, many in the largely undocumented workforce are loath to complain for fear of being fired, physically threatened or deported.

Pedro Guzman, an undocumented Honduran immigrant, said a manager at a Hollywood carwash was able to keep employees washing at a furious pace -- 350 to 700 cars a day -- with two words in ungrammatical Spanish: "Quiere casa?" "Want to go home?"

Immigration authorities have done little to discourage the steady flow of undocumented workers into carwash jobs, affording owners an endless supply of cheap, eager and easily exploited laborers.

Despite the national debate over illegal immigration and a recent crackdown on some employers, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they have not raided a single California carwash in at least four years.

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The Washington Post published a good editorial yesterday lamenting the nation's H-1B visa crisis, and proposed an interesting solution. Here are excerpts:

April's just around the corner, and that means it's H-1B preparation time once again. H-1Bs, which are visas for skilled foreign workers, are capped at 65,000, with another 20,000 given to foreign alumni of U.S. postgraduate programs. Last year, the cap was reached within hours on the first day that the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services began accepting applications. Because a bachelor's degree is required for these applications, most foreign graduates from the class of 2007 were among the tens of thousands who were shut out of the process. If nothing changes, America will miss out on another crop of talent this year.

H-1B visas are reserved for the world's best and brightest, and barring their entry is economic self-sabotage. The cap keeps out doctors, engineers and other specialists -- people who save lives and often create jobs for others in America. One need only look at the national origins of founders of companies such as Google and Sun Microsystems to realize that foreign talent has helped keep the U.S. economy on the cutting edge. These are talents the United States has been struggling to grow at home, given that more than a third of all science and engineering doctorates awarded in the United States go to foreign students (for whom the number of visas is not capped), according to the National Science Foundation.

The H-1B visa cap was set well before the tech boom and so does not reflect current needs. It was raised temporarily in 1999, but that increase was allowed to lapse a few years later. Since last year's debacle, there have been congressional attempts to increase the cap, but these have been held up by the political sensitivities surrounding immigration reform, and in particular reforms aimed at illegal and unskilled workers. Because lawmakers lack the political will to keep the world's talent in America, companies are following it overseas, setting up shop in Canada, India, Eastern Europe and other areas where the skills they need are plentiful. As a result, investment and jobs are being shipped abroad.

One solution that may be less politically inflammatory would be to recapture H-1B visas that Congress has already approved but that went unused during the post-Sept. 11 economic downturn. About 300,000 surplus visas could be doled out over the next several years to provide a short-term fix to the current shortage and could perhaps include an additional fee -- which employers would pay -- to create more revenue. A long-term solution is still necessary. Allowing the cap to stay so low effectively exiles not only the world's best and brightest but also the U.S. companies that employ them.

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The Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch, entangled in litigation about the city's attempts to regulate illegal immigration at the municipal level, may have made an inadvertent error by asking for the legal status of tenants while enjoined from doing so by a federal court order.

Here are excerpts from a story today in the Dallas Morning News:

Farmers Branch acknowledged Monday that the city asked 11 apartment complexes to check whether prospective tenants were in the country legally, even though a federal judge has blocked enforcement of the city's ban on rentals to illegal immigrants.

City Manager Gary Greer called the situation, involving an annual application for a rental license, inadvertent and an "unfortunate error."

Management of seven of the 11 complexes signed the form, though two crossed out the improper language, Mr. Greer said.

It wasn't known whether anyone had been turned away from an apartment, though Mr. Greer said: "To my knowledge, there is not anyone that is carrying this out. We will be checking into that, to be sure they understand that they don't have to. ...

"I'm doing everything I can do right now to make sure it never happens again."

The city's voters overwhelmingly approved a measure last May to require apartments to obtain proof of legal status before renting to anyone.

But lawsuits challenged the constitutionality of the measure, and U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement until the legal issues can be resolved. The case hasn't yet reached trial.

Apartment complexes' licenses to rent units expire at the end of each calendar year, and they must submit a new application. The city sent a proper license application to every complex in November. It asked applicants to acknowledge that they had received a copy of the apartment ordinances and would abide by them.

But early this month, when resending applications to complexes that still hadn't renewed their licenses, the city inadvertently used the wrong form, Mr. Greer said. That version specifically mentioned a provision that requires landlords to verify that prospective renters are in the country legally.

Mr. Greer said the application form had been drafted in fall 2006, after the council first approved an ordinance banning apartment rentals to illegal immigrants. At the time, there were no lawsuits and no injunctions in place.

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According to a New York Times article, a lawsuit filed this month in a federal court in New York by Latino immigrants seeks to force immigration authorities to complete hundreds of thousands of stalled naturalization petitions in time for the new citizens to vote in November. Here are excerpts from the article:

The class-action suit was brought by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund on behalf of legal Hispanic immigrants in the New York City area who are eager to vote and have been waiting for years for the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services agency to finish their applications. The suit demands that the agency meet a nationwide deadline of Sept. 22 to complete any naturalization petitions filed by March 26.

Latino groups hope to summon the clout of the federal courts to compel the Bush administration to reduce a backlog of citizenship applications that swelled last year. According to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, more than one million citizenship petitions were backed up in the pipeline by the end of December, the majority from Latino immigrants.

Despite protests over the delays from lawmakers, Latino groups and immigrant advocates, the immigration agency is currently projecting wait times of 16 months to 18 months to process the petitions.

“The reality is that large numbers of Latinos will not be able to vote in the elections because of these delays,” said Cesar A. Perales, president of the defense fund. “Now the world will know that the Latino community expects the Bush administration to get this done on time.” 

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, asserts that the agency violated immigrants’ due process rights by routinely failing to finish their applications within a 180-day time period that Congress has set as a standard. It also asserts that the Bush administration did not follow regulatory procedures in November 2002 when it ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to deepen its background checks of citizenship applicants. 

A fee increase, raising naturalization costs 80 percent to $595, went into effect on July 30. Legal immigrants were also spurred to seek citizenship by worries about the divisive debate over immigration and by citizenship campaigns by Latino groups.

“It is astonishing the government should be so unresponsive to immigrants who have enthusiastically taken all the steps to become Americans,” said Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino group that supported the suit.

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The Wall Street Journal published an interesting editorial a few days ago about the need for increasing the number of H-1B visas allowable each year. Here are excerpts:

Bill Gates appeared before Congress again last week to make a simple point to simpler pols: The ridiculously low annual cap on H-1B visas for foreign professionals is undermining the ability of U.S. companies to compete in a global marketplace.

"Congress's failure to pass high-skill immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation," said the Microsoft chairman. "The current base cap of 65,000 H-1B visas is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the U.S. economy's demand for skilled workers."

The Labor Department projects that by 2014 there will be more than two million job openings in science, technology, engineering and math fields. But the number of Americans graduating with degrees in those disciplines is falling. Meanwhile, visa quotas make it increasingly difficult for U.S. companies to hire foreign-born graduates of our own universities. Last year, as in prior years, the supply of H-1B visas was exhausted on the first day petitions could be filed.

Mr. Gates said his software company exemplifies this phenomenon. "Microsoft has found that for every H-1B hire we make, we add on average four additional employees to support them in various capacities," he told lawmakers. "If we increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to U.S. companies, employment of U.S. nationals would likely grow as well."

The preponderance of evidence continues to show that businesses are having difficulty filling skilled positions in the U.S. By blocking their access to foreign talent, Congress isn't protecting U.S. jobs but is providing incentives to outsource. If lawmakers can't bring themselves to eliminate the H-1B visa cap, they might at least raise it to a level that doesn't handicap U.S. companies.

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This is the first-ever movie review in this blog, and probably the last, but a new movie got such a good review today in the Dallas Morning News that I wanted to mention it.

Under The Same Moon is directed by Patricia Riggen. Here are excerpts from the Dallas Morning News article:

Anti-immigration talk bubbles to the surface in election years and burbles from the mouth of Lou Dobbs seemingly every minute. It's been a rallying cry from the days of the 19th-century Know Nothing movement to today's skirmishes in Farmers Branch. But for those on the outside, the talk often lacks a human dimension. And that's where movies enter the picture.

Patricia Riggen, Guadalajara-born and Columbia University-educated, hopes her Under the Same Moon, which opens today at the Magnolia and Plano Angelika theaters, can be one of those movies.

On one level, it's the most basic and universal of stories: A child, separated from his mother, embarks on an epic journey to find her. "I want to remind people that it's about the human condition and the separation of loved ones," Ms. Riggen said recently in a Dallas hotel conference room.

But the dividing line of this particular separation is the U.S.-Mexican border. Rosario (Kate del Castillo) has journeyed to Los Angeles to make a living as a domestic. Her young son, Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), remains back home in Mexico with his grandmother – until she dies and the kid decides he needs his mom.

Finding mom. It's an impulse so basic that it makes talk of "illegals" sound like a dry policy debate.

"All of the conversations and controversy are always focused on the economic or political side of immigration and not on the human family side of it," Ms. Riggen says. "That's what I wanted to look at. I didn't want to do a political film. I just wanted to show the human side of this story that we hear every day."

She leaves the obvious unstated: It's harder to hate people once you've walked in their shoes. Even when you walk sitting down in a dark theater.

Movies that put children in jeopardy have to be handled in a delicate manner. There needs to be enough danger for the audience to become invested in the story. Too much danger, and the movie becomes manipulative or even exploitative.

Ms. Riggen's film could have been a forum for a political debate about immigration laws. There are a few mentions, but never enough to distract from the movie's central message: what we will do for love.

For Rosario, it is the willingness to be away from her only son to be able to give him a better standard of living. She shows a real strength when a simple solution to her problem presents itself. But the script by Ligiah Villalobos takes that plotline in a refreshing direction.

It would be easy to dismiss Under the Same Moon as being of interest only for those who understand or care about immigration issues. But the heart of the film is a story of how love can make people move mountains. And that is a universal theme.
In Spanish with English subtitles.

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A spouse of a deceased US citizen may file a petition on his/her behalf and qualify as an immediate relative. Certain eligibility requirements must be met before filing the petition:

The widow was married to the US citizen for at least two years;
The deceased spouse must have been a US citizen at the time of death;
The US citizen and widower were not separated at the time of the citizen's death;
The widow has not remarried at the time of filing.

The widower must self-petition on Form I-360, and submit supporting documentation establishing the deceased spouse's citizenship, and evidence illustrating the relationship between the deceased spouse and widower. This may include a marriage certificate, divorce decrees of earlier spouses, the US citizen's birth certificate or naturalization certificate and death certificate.

The widower need not be residing in the United States to file the petition. If the widower is outside the U.S., the petition will be filed at the Immigration Service's overseas offices or at the U.S. consulate with jurisdiction over the alien's place of residence.

To learn more please call us at 214-999-9999.

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