Laws: April, 2003 - Number #4

Refugees/Asylees. The US target for resettling refugees- persons outside their country who face persecution at home -was 70,000 a year for most of the 1990s, and was reduced to 50,000 for FY03. After September 11, refugees abroad had to undergo security checks before they could be resettled, which slowed entries- only 27,000 refugees arrived in FY02. The US is also cracking down on fraud. One study found that 40 percent of refugees who said they were joining family members in the US misrepresented the relationship.

The US generates funds for operating refugee and asylum programs with a surcharge on applications for other immigration benefits, such as naturalization and green cards. In January 2003, the INS reduced temporarily the green card application fee from $255 to $186 because it no longer had the authority to collect the surcharge for refugee and asylum processing; work-permit application fees were reduced from $120 to $88, and naturalization from $260 to $188. The fee schedule including the surcharges is at: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/03-4747.htm

In 1996, when Attorney General Janet Reno overturned an appeals panel decision, a Guatemalan woman won asylum in the US by arguing that she faced domestic abuse at home, and was granted asylum on the basis of gender-related persecution. Attorney General John Ashcroft in February 2003 was reconsidering this Clinton administration policy, with an eye to reversing it.

Foreign Students. A $37 million computer-based tracking system, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), went into operation in January-February 2003 to track foreign students in the US. Reporters investigated non-traditional vocational schools, such as those offering English-language training, that issue thousands of student visas good for up to four years, but have little in the way of facilities. Universities are supposed to enter information on all foreign student online by August 1, 2003, but they complain that it can take hours to enter a single record, and that SEVIS sometimes deletes data they have entered.

Universities complain that, if they do not enter data in SEVIS, they will lose permission to admit foreign students. SEVIS is not fool-proof: in at least one case, errors in the system led to the false arrest of a foreign student.

SEVIS is expected to reduce the number of US schools authorized to admit foreign students, currently 70,000 plus. Once admitted to an authorized US school, foreigners can go to US consulates and apply for student visas, which they can obtain if they can demonstrate they have the resources to pursue a US course of study and are likely to return. Many of the US schools that admitted foreign students appear to have operated in a gray area between legitimate educational institutions and fronts for allowing young foreigners to legally enter the US.

Foreign students became controversial in 1979, when Iranian students demonstrated against the Shah, and President Carter asked the INS to find out how many Iranian students there were in the US. The answer- 59,000, including 7,700 who were subject to deportation- came more than a year later.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the number of schools admitting foreign students increased, and the number of foreign students tripled as education was seen as a new service industry that could earn foreign exchange for the US. Between 1986 and 1999, foreign students earned a total of 120,000 doctoral degrees in science and engineering at US institutions. However, there were few controls on the schools that were authorized to admit foreign students.

Education. There are an estimated eight to nine million unauthorized foreigners in the US, including over a million enrolled in K-12 schools. Many find that, when they graduate from high school, they cannot attend state colleges at in-state tuition rates. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (Dream Act) would allow states to permit unauthorized foreigners who went to high school in the US to pay in-state tuition to attend state colleges and universities. Under the Dream Act, unauthorized foreigners under the age of 21 could get work authorization while they complete a GED.

A bill in the California Legislature would allow unauthorized children who go to California high schools for three years or more, and graduate, to obtain Cal Grant tuition assistance throughout their four years of college, provided they meet income and achievement guidelines.

Black and Latino students in K-12 schools are more isolated from their white counterparts than they were in the 1970s, before busing and other efforts to desegregate schools. Most of the resegregation is due to housing patterns that isolate racial and ethnic groups, but another factor is the lifting of court orders requiring integration efforts. Many commentators noted the disconnect between an increasingly diverse population and increasingly segregated schools.

On average, Blacks and Latinos attend schools where 45 percent of the students are poor, compared with 19 percent among whites, a reflection of racial discrepancies in income.

California administers an English Language Development Test to English learners, and the percentage of those tested who scored at advanced or early advanced levels for proficiency in English rose from 11 percent in 2002 to 32 percent in 2003. The state's Superintendent of Public Instruction said "Significant progress toward English proficiency is being made at every grade level." (http://celdt.cde.ca.gov/main2002.html)

Arizona voters voted to enroll most non-English speaking children in English-immersion classes rather than in bilingual classes. The state's new Department of Education director is trying to reduce the number of remaining bilingual classes. California and Massachusetts voters approved similar English-only education laws.

In mid-January 2003, President Bush urged the US Supreme Court to bar the plan used to select applicants at the University of Michigan- add 20 points to the scores of minority applicants on a 150-point scale. Bush said that adding points was unfair, and urged the Court to embrace so-called percentage plans, under which the top four or 10 percent of high-school graduates would be admitted automatically to selective public universities, so that, because of racial segregation, there would be Blacks and Hispanics in the pool.

Poverty/Welfare. To sponsor an immigrant, the US sponsor must have an income that is at least 125 percent of the poverty line for the sponsor and the immigrants being sponsored. This year, the poverty line income (designated annually by the Department of Health and Human Services) is $18,400 for a family of four. Thus, a couple sponsoring two parents for immigrant visas, for example, must have an income of 125 percent of $18,400, or $23,000 a year.

A major US study in March 2003 reported that children were not harmed psychologically when their mothers made the transition from welfare to work. When mothers of preschool children went to work, family incomes increased, and the mothers' time with the children, two- to four-years old, decreased, but the study concluded that "These two effects may have offset each other," leaving the children no worse off.

The average net worth of the richest 10 percent of families in the US was $833,600 in 2001, compared to $7,900 for the poorest 20 percent of families.

US residents made a record 37 billion minutes of international calls in 2001, including 5.2 billion minutes to Mexico and 5.1 billion minutes to Canada; 2.1 billion to the UK; 1.6 billion to the Philippines; and 1.4 billion to India.