As the weather turns cold in Washington, and the political climate turns positively icy on Capitol Hill, President Obama will no doubt be relieved to be in sunnier climes, when he arrives in India later this week. The President's discussions with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh...
As reported to followers of the MurthyBlog in September, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will change filing fees for immigration paperwork - increasing most fees by an average of ten percent - effective November 23rd. (See USCIS: New Filing Fees Take Effect November...
Despite ongoing litigation and political controversy over Arizona's immigration law, politicians in several states are publically proposing copycat legislation for their own states, with Georgia legislators among the latest group to consider the possibility. (See Georgia Looks West, Seeking to Stop Illegal Immigration, by Jeremy...
A new study from the University of California at Berkeley challenges a widespread assumption that has become an article of faith in nativist circles: that immigration has fueled a crime wave of epic proportions, one that calls for militarization of the border and measures like...
Imagine how you feel after a long transcontinental flight: jet-lagged to the gills, and overwhelmed by sheer exhaustion. Now multiply that by three months or so, and you get a sense of what our politicians are contending with: sheer exhaustion from the long race to...
In the years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, government agencies have worked to make it harder for terrorists and other criminals to enter the United States. Airport security has been beefed up, and states have tightened their procedures for issuing drivers' licenses and...
Researchers at the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a government-accountability project based at Syracuse University, announced recently that, as of the end of September, when fiscal year 2010 (FY10) came to a close, the case backlog facing U.S. immigration courts reached a record high of...
Thousands of non-citizens serve in the United States military each year, and serve with honor, many going on to become U.S. citizens. Some, however, mistakenly assume that their military service automatically confers American citizenship, an assumption that can cost them dearly if they get in...
Illinois Congressman Luis Gutierrez, one of the leading Congressional advocates for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) announced last week that he does not plan to enter the Chicago mayoral race, as had been widely predicted; instead, he plans to continue his campaign to seek a fundamental...
Moderate Republicans have been warning for months about the perils - to the GOP, anyway - of the anti-immigrant rhetoric that has become coin of the realm on the far Right of the party. Harsh words about illegal immigration and ongoing efforts to torpedo anything...
