Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Should Immigration Service Employees Be “Looking for a Way to Approve” Petitions and Applications?

Post author:Jessica E. Slavin
Post published:December 31, 2008
Post category:Federal Law & Legal System Immigration Law

The answer is a resounding yes, according to this refreshingly outdated 1980 memo from INS Regional Director Durward E. Powell, Jr., regarding “Dispensing of Information and Adjudications Decision Making.”

Powell admonishes employees that they should not consider themselves “guardians of the treasury of information on Immigration benefits, whose function is to dispense reluctantly that narrow portion of the treasury which relates to a specific inquiry. Rather, all of us are, or should be, dispensers of total information, tailored to the entirety of each applicant’s situation. Tell them freely and openly not only what they are not eligible for but what they may be eligible for.”

What an efficient and productive attitude for any agency employee toward her work. Some of the immigration agency employees I have encountered did seem to take this helpful stance, but others did not. In fact, the same could be said about my encounters with DMV employees.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks to Benders Immigration Bulletin Daily for the delightful link.

(Edit at 10:42 a.m.) As indicated in the comments below, Benders found this memo on the Nation of Immigrators blog. The post, “New Year Resolutions for Immigration Officials,” is thoughtful and probably would interest anyone who is interested enough to be reading what I’ve written here.

Iranian Human Rights Lawyer Shirin Ebadi’s Private Offices Raided

Post author:Jessica E. Slavin
Post published:December 31, 2008
Post category:Human Rights

You may be interested to know that the Iranian government’s harassment of Shirin Ebadi continues. As I posted about last week, the offices of a human rights organization she leads were recently raided and shut down. Now authorities have raided her private offices, asserting that they are conducting a tax-investigation. Dr. Ebadi “told CNN last week that she had the proper licenses to practice law and had stamps showing she was up to date on her taxes.”

From the CNN report:

Last week’s raids shut Ebadi’s Center for the Defense of Human Rights and another charity that aids land mine victims. A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry told the state news agency IRNA that the organizations did not have legal work permits.

“There is now grave danger to both Dr. Ebadi, who fears an imminent arrest, and to her many human rights clients, whose basic human rights and lawyer/client privileges have been compromised by this seizure of their confidential files,” Williams wrote. “Dr. Ebadi is deeply concerned that the lives of many dozens of people are now in jeopardy as a result of yesterday’s illegal raid.”

Hills on Local Democracy and ERISA Preemption

Post author:Paul M. Secunda
Post published:December 29, 2008
Post category:Federalism Health Care Labor & Employment Law

Rick Hills (NYU), one of the more thought-provoking and provocative thinkers over at PrawfsBlawg, has an interesting post on the interaction between the democratic process and the law of ERISA preemption.

His post takes off from the recent ERISA preemption case of Golden Gate Restaurant Association, in which the Ninth Circuit recently held that a San Francisco ordinance demanding employers provide health benefits is not preempted by ERISA. This holding is contrary to many of the cases in this area (and critiqued by ERISA luminaries like Ed Zelinsky) and the case is currently being considered for en banc review.

Here’s a taste of Rick’s insights:

San Francisco is now locked in a struggle with business over whether subnational governments can mandate that employers provide their employees with health care benefits. The employers are claiming that ERISA preempts the mandate, and their argument illustrates the insidiously anti-democratic nature of preemption arguments. As a matter of policy, I tend to agree that funding public benefits like health care through mandates on employers is foolish. Such a finance mechanism interferes with the mobility of labor and discourages job creation. Far better, it seems to me, to provide health benefits through general taxes not incident on employment.

But here is where I am a die-hard lover of federalism: As dumb as employer mandates are, centralizing debate over health care through a broad construction of ERISA preemption is even dumber.