siliconindia | |February 20149The Census figures show that, immigrants who are not citizens make up 20 percent or more of the population in more than 100 American cities and towns. In Massachusetts, a third of the residents of Chelsea are not citizens, almost five times the national average. In Everett and Malden, 1 in 4 residents isn't a citizen. When it comes to New York and Los Angeles, the numbers are staggering. While New York has more than 1.4 million people who are not citizens, the highest in the nation, Los Angeles has more than 877,000, almost a quarter of the city.Advocates for immigrants worry that federal officials and Congress are pushing citizenship increasingly out of reach, for legal and illegal immigrants alike. While immigration soared in recent decades, the share of foreigners who became naturalized citizens plummeted from 64 percent in 1970 to 44 percent in 2013."Roughly half of the 22 million immigrants (who are not citizens) are here legally, and most of them are eligible to apply for citizenship, but have not, for reasons that vary from the $680 application fee, more than 10 times the cost in 1990, to the fact that many do not speak enough English to pass the citizenship test. Some simply are not interested because they plan to return home eventually," says Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. research organization.The remaining 11 million are here illegally, and every year, a bitter national debate erupts over the fact whether they deserve citizenship and on what terms. Opponents say citizenship would present lawbreakers with benefits reserved for Americans, including full access to government aid, the ability to bring relatives to the U. S. more quickly, and protection from deportation.But advocates for immigrants say making citizenship harder to attain has a broader effect on American life. Many cities and towns are thick with residents who cannot vote, run for office, sit on juries, and otherwise hold governments accountable.IN FOCUSIn an effort to promote immigration reform, advocacy group FWD.us launched Push4Reform, an application aimed at helping supporters connect with Congress members and urge them to take action. Push4Reform gathers information about members of Congress and their stances on immigration. The app will simplify the lives of people who register their ZIP code to learn whether their representatives and senators support any particular immigration reforms. Also, they get a clear approach towards understanding what their spokespersons comment publicly about the topic and find ways to connect with them through phone, Facebook, Twitter or even a physical letter.. The app is a stepping-stone towards a large movement by FWD.us, led by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and entrepreneur Joe Green and supported by numerous Silicon Valley titans. The group invites Congress to take action on immigration reform. As Congress has stepped back into the session for 2014, immigration reform will be a substantial issue to talk about in the coming months. Green says, "This product is a great example of the best of technology and the best of Washington coming together." Green acknowledges that calling for reform in Washington may take more than code, yet he remains optimistic about this. When Congress and President Obama have stressed on bringing a positive reform to the current immigration system, they also insist on its urgency by repeating a series of skyrocketing numbers: 11.7 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., at least 50,000 more trying to enter every month, 21,000 agents patrolling the borders, $18 billion spent each year on enforcement and about 1,000 people deported each day.However the irony is, it is in one of these overwhelmingly crowded, 57 immigration courts across the U.S.A, the White House promises the future of undocumented immigrants. The judges belonging to these courts have an average of seven minutes per case as they have to handle a staggering list of 26 cases listed for their daily morning docket. "This job is supposed to be about doing justice. The conditions under which we work make it more and more challenging to ensure that justice is done," says Judge Lawrence Burman, who handles 1,500 cases per year. Each of these cases represents a complicated situation of an immigrant family and their future decision must be made before lunchtime. "The rocket docket" is what lawyers call this schedule, warning immigration clients that their future could be decided in the span of an average restroom break! An App for Immigration ReformImmigration Courts Have Only 7 Minutes to Decide a Family's FutureStaggering Facts on Immigration and Citizenship
< Page 8 | Page 10 >