News

Local Congressman Calls Obama "Soft"

 
San Diego Immigration Lawyer Matt Holt of Hurwitz Holt, APLC, interviewed in response to Rep. Duncan D. Hunter's stiffer stance on immigration. Mr. Holt calls Rep. Hunter's approach unfair and simplistic. Mark Mullen reports.
 

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Issa bill would increase visas for highly educated immigrants (attorney Matt Holt quoted)

Measure would eliminate the 'lottery visa,' shift visas to foreign college grads

A bill introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, earlier this month would increase the number of visas available to people with math and science degrees and eliminate a decades-old program that gives people from around the world what could be their only opportunity to come to the country legally.

A visa allows foreign people to enter the country legally. Under the proposed legislation, foreign students, who are here on a temporary basis, would be allowed to stay permanently if they find work with a U.S. employer.

The bill, House Resolution 43, would reallocate the 55,000 visas available under the so-called Diversity Visa program to employment-based immigration programs for immigrants with advanced degrees from U.S. universities.

The Diversity Visa program awards visas to random applicants from all over the globe.

Frederick Hill, a spokesman for Issa, said the congressman believes it makes more sense to give the visas to people with degrees who have more to contribute to the American economy than random people.

"This is a better approach," Hill said.

While the idea of increasing the number of visas for highly educated immigrants is a good one, it should not come at the expense of another good program, said Matt Holt, a San Diego immigration lawyer and a spokesman for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

"Our immigration system should not be a zero-sum game," Holt said.

Proposed bill would speed up illegal immigrant deportation cases (attorney Matt Holt quoted)

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, said Tuesday that he plans to introduce a bill that would expedite the removal of thousands of illegal immigrants whose deportation cases are log-jammed in immigration courts.

The announcement comes just days after White House officials announced a plan to review about 300,000 deportation cases and cancel all cases except those of criminal immigrants.

Hunter called the White House plan a "blatant disregard for the law."

Under the policy announced last week, President Barack Obama's administration said it wants the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department to use "prosecutorial discretion" to suspend the deportations of most immigrants who have committed immigration violations, but have not been convicted of other crimes.

Critics of the new policy have called it a backdoor amnesty.

"What the administration is doing is sending a loud message across our borders that we are not serious about enforcing our nation's immigration laws while backdoor channels remain wide open to millions of others," Hunter said. "The decision to grant deportation reprieves is just another attempt to provide amnesty by circumventing Congress and ignoring the calls of the American people for stronger border security and workplace enforcement."

The idea for the bill precedes the administration's new policy, Hunter said; it was conceived months ago after a report was released detailing the huge backlogs in immigration courts, he said.

The congressman,

Globalization: A reality show pilot

A reality show pilot about surviving two weeks as a maquiladora worker (attorney Matt Holt was involved in the show while a law student)

Do you imagine watching a big time corporate lawyer on television working an exhausting eight hour shift at a foreign-owned maquiladora plant for 60 dollars a week, and living in a wooden shack in one of the poorest shantytowns in Tijuana?

You might not have to wait for hell to freeze over, because the California Western School of Law’s Acceso Project has produced a pilot program called “Globalization: The Reality Show”, which consists in choosing a group of law school students to work in a manufacturing plant south of the border and living on a 60 dollar a week salary.

This project is about letting people know that globalization has its own rules, according to James Cooper, assistant dean at CWSL and director of Proyecto Acceso, an innovative training program designed to promote the rule of law, strengthen the administration of justice, and empower communities through legal education in Latin American countries.

“Why do networks produce a reality show with people trying to survive in Guatemala, when you have Guatemalans trying to survive on the border?” Said Cooper. 

The pilot show was produced last summer as a part of the NAFTA summer course at CWSL.