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The President’s State of the Union address this week re-iterated some of his key themes on immigration—support for comprehensive reform, dismay that DREAM Act students and foreign students educated in this country have no way to legalize their status, and a belief that he’s done enough to the secure the border. More importantly, he framed these themes in context to America’s economic recovery, innovation and growth. However, while any mention of immigration in the State of the Union is welcome, it’s what the President didn’t say that may have more of an impact on how his administration is remembered this year on immigration—and how his vision is measured by voters in the coming election.

In the State of the Union address, President Obama repeatedly signaled to Congress that he would sign sensible bills to reform our immigration system, big or small. But he quickly noted that partisan politics would make it all but impossible to pass comprehensive reform:

The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

There are plenty of bills that fit this description, from the DREAM Act to proposals offering green cards to foreign graduates in science and engineering to support for immigrant entrepreneurs, but they are just as likely to flounder in the sea of partisan politics as something grander and more comprehensive.

And while the president suggested that the ball was in Congress’s court, he didn’t mention that his Administration has moved forward on reforms that don’t require Congressional action. The Administration has become more aggressive in the last in year in fixing parts of our backward immigration system, such as overhauling immigration detention, a review of the Secure Communities program, a re-invigoration of the use of prosecutorial discretion, and attempts to promote streamlined adjudications and family unity. The latter, announced just weeks ago, has generated real excitement among immigrant communities.

Similarly, changes to the way government officials decide what cases should be prosecuted in immigration court—and what cases should be dropped—have given hope to millions of immigrants that they may be able to stay with their families, at least for a while longer. But there remains considerable uncertainty about how DHS will routinely exercise discretion, especially amidst reports that DREAM Act students and others who clearly fit the government’s low priority status are still being deported.

In the areas of detention reform and Secure Communities, however, the early enthusiasm about change has been replaced by wariness on the part of advocates who want to believe promised reforms will be made. They have been repeatedly disappointed by delays in the detention realm and a continued commitment to keep Secure Communities alive, a program that many believe undermines community safety and policing.  A special task force voted out a series of necessary reforms and gave their report to Secretary Napolitano last September, but DHS has yet to announce how it will implement these recommendations.

Although these ongoing administrative reforms don’t fit tidily into the overarching vision of immigration policy the President laid out in the State of the Union, following through on them would have a lasting effect on both immigration enforcement and the consideration of benefits for those stuck in our broken immigration system. And the President shouldn’t abandon his larger vision. He has made significant strides in helping to reshape how people who don’t much care about immigration think about it and that will be critical when the time comes for comprehensive reform. But for those most directly affected by our immigration crisis, it is the most immediate details that matter most.

Photo by WhiteHouse.gov.

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Iranian Jewish men pray during Hanukkah celebrations at the Yousefabad Synagogue in Tehran, Iran.

BY MELANIE NEZER, HEBREW IMMIGRANT AID SOCIETY (HIAS)

Tucked into the fiscal year 2012 spending bill the President signed before the holidays was an extension of a provision known as the “Lautenberg Amendment.”  The inclusion of the extension is good news for refugees seeking religious freedom at a time when Congress has deadlocked on immigration issues and legislative victories are few and far between.

The Lautenberg Amendment, originally enacted as part of the 1990 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill, established a presumption of eligibility for refugee status for certain categories of people from Southeast Asia, as well as religious minorities from the Former Soviet Union (FSU) seeking to resettle as refugees in the United States. Today, the Lautenberg Amendment serves primarily to facilitate the resettlement of Jews, Christians, Baha’is, and other religious minorities fleeing Iran, which was added to the Lautenberg Amendment in 2004, while it continues to cover religious minorities from the FSU.

Under a program—established by the U.S. State Department and negotiated with the government of Austria—members of certain Iranian religious minority groups are eligible to receive visas to travel to Austria, where they can be safe while the U.S. government processes their applications for refugee resettlement. This arrangement is a lifeline for Iranian religious minorities, since the United States has no embassy in Iran and cannot interview applicants there. Without the Lautenberg Amendment, this small but critical program for Iranian religious minority refugees would end.

The Lautenberg Amendment has been extended on appropriations legislation each year since it was first enacted in 1990. However, in fiscal year 2011, the Lautenberg Amendment was only extended for part of the year and it expired on June 1, 2011. The main obstacle to renewal was the objection of Lamar Smith, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over refugee-related legislation and objected to the inclusion of the Lautenberg Amendment on appropriations legislation. In spite of the fact that each year, Chairman Smith presides over a consultation with the Departments of State, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services on the U.S. Refugee Program, he alleged that the refugee program has not received sufficient Congressional oversight. Urged by constituents and congressional colleagues to extend the Lautenberg Amendment, Chairman Smith ultimately compromised, agreeing to allow an extension through June 1, 2011 to be included in the fiscal year 2011 spending bill.

Strong bi-partisan support, demonstrated by letters signed by 21 senators and 108 House members to House and Senate leadership urging that the amendment be extended, led to the provision being included in the 2012 spending bill that Congress passed before leaving Washington for the winter holiday recess. Senators Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Kirk (R-IL), and Representatives Franks (R-AZ), Wolf (R-VA), Berman (D-CA) and Waxman (D-CA) led the efforts to renew the extension. HIAS, the Jewish Federations of North America, and other national and local Jewish groups, along with the National Association of Evangelicals and World Relief and partners in the International Religious Freedom Roundtable representing a broad array of faiths and political views, worked together during the year to ensure the continuation of the Lautenberg Amendment.

Each year since 1999, the Secretary of State has designated Iran as a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 for systematic and egregious violations of religious freedom against Jews, Christians, Baha’is, and other religious minorities. Proponents of the Lautenberg Amendment argued that closing the door to Iranian religious minorities puts people seeking religious freedom in danger and sends the wrong message from the U.S. about our concern about the pervasive violations of religious freedom in Iran.

While the Iranian religious minority refugee program is small—averaging around 2,000 refugee admissions per year in recent years—the insistence by a bi-partisan group in Congress on its continued existence is encouraging and a clear legislative victory for refugees and religious freedom in 2011.

Photo by Sajjadi.

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Congress has been unable to pass any meaningful immigration legislation this year, but the House couldn’t miss a chance to stick it to immigrants by going after their U.S. citizen children in a recent tax bill. While Americans are debating whether taxes on millionaires should be raised, the House, at least, is planning to raise taxes on the most vulnerable of American citizens.

The tax package that is likely to pass the House and make its way to the Senate this week denies immigrant taxpayers who file their taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) the ability to claim the Additional Child Tax Credit for their U.S. citizen children. This provision will impact 2 million families and up to 4 million U.S. citizen children and take away a tax credit designed to keep children out of poverty.

Child tax credits can only be claimed by those paying into the system and were designed to alleviate some of the burden that tax payment imposes on low-income, working families. Taking away this credit from tax-paying families could drive more than two million families closer to poverty.

Unauthorized immigrants are required to pay their taxes, just like all Americans. Many fulfill their tax payment obligations using an ITIN, but they are not eligible for the vast majority of benefits their tax dollars pay into.

According to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General, in 2010, ITIN filers reported $60 billion dollars in wages, which according to an estimate by the National Immigration Law Center means they generated an estimated $9.2 billion in payroll taxes. This revenue, which benefits us all, is ten times the amount that would be saved by stripping the child tax credit away from the children of ITIN filers.

ITIN filers are doing the right thing by paying into the tax system with little hope of collecting any future benefits for themselves. If the Senate follows suit, the only ones hurt in the process will be the children.

Photo by miuenski.