Monday, April 9, 2012

Immigration - proposed rule change

Subject: Immigration - proposed rule change
Date: Tue, Apr 3, 2012
From: Kelly Gauthier 

As we discussed at our St. Francis Peace & Justice Committee meeting April 2, here is some information on the proposed change to the Administrative Rules related to immigration.  As I mentioned, this is "hot off the presses" and open for public comment for 60 days.  This change does not provide amnesty to any undocumented immigrants.  It allows them to remain in the country (keeping their jobs and homes; remaining with the families) while they apply for legal status -- currently, they must leave the country for 3-10 years in order to apply.  Once they apply, they have to go through the regular process, and they may or may not be approved for permanent residency or citizenship.  

This Rule change would impact people like Lourdes, on whose behalf we advocated last fall.  The public can submit comments until June 1st.

Here is a short article from the LA Times that gives a quick summary:  

And this is the Federal Registrar where it's been published--the first couple pages summarize the change and describe the process for submitting comments:  

I would like to submit a brief comment in support of the Rule change on behalf of the Peace & Justice Committee, as long as nobody objects.  I can draft a short comment and share it with the group for input prior to submitting it (unless someone else wants to take the lead on drafting something?).

I'm also open to "spreading the message" to St. Francis parishioners, as we discussed.  Ideas that were mentioned last night were:  giving parishioners a sample letter and explaining how to submit it; putting a blurb and a link to the Federal Register comment site on our Committee's web page; seeing what (if anything) the Diocese is doing on this issue and piggy-backing on their efforts. 

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