Category Archives: Immigration

Browse Immigration Law latest news and updates, watch videos and view all photos and more. Join the discussion and find more about Immigration Law.

Controversial Immigration Law Passed in the USA

Posted By: Daryl Worthington

The first major attempt at restricting immigration to the United States was passed into law on 26th May, 1924. Signed by President Calvin Coolidge, the Comprehensive Immigration Act has been known under a variety of names: the National Origins Act, the Johnson- Reed Act and the Asian Exclusion Act, which all give an insight into its controversial goals.

Beyond simply limiting the number of immigrants the USA would accept, the Act was a clear attempt to reduce the number of arrivals from certain countries while encouraging those from others. Immigration quotas were set for individual nations, based on census data from 1890.

Ceilings for the number of new immigrants from each country were set at 2% of the total of any given nation’s residents in the USA as of 1890. It was a system that seemed particularly geared towards putting a barrier up for immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, two regions that had seen a massive influx to the USA since 1890. In the first decade of the twentieth century for example, an average of 200,000 Italians annually entered the USA. Following the 1924 Act, the annual quota was limited to 4,000 a year.

The Comprehensive Immigration Act was an attempt to control the demographics of the USA. Prior to the wave of immigration from southern and eastern Europe, the majority of US citizens had come from Northern and Central European backgrounds; Scandinavia, Britain, Germany. The quotas were designed to preserve this tradition. The annual limit for German immigrants was 51,227, for British 34,007, while that for Spain was just 131 and for Poland 5,982.

For other nationalities, the provisions were even more restrictive. The act barred entry to anyone ineligible for citizenship, essentially ending all immigration from Asia to the USA. This caused particular anger in Japan, which had made a ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ with Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 to allow more liberal immigration quotas from the country. 26th May was declared a day of national humiliation in Japan, while a Japanese citizen later committed suicide outside the US embassy in Tokyo in an act of protest.

The law did allow some to enter without going through the quota system, those with a university education for instance, or professional training as a doctor or engineer, but it was nevertheless a watershed moment in US immigration policy reflecting new attitudes among the population.

Following the First World War, a wave of isolationist sentiment had spread across the USA, fueled by a desire to avoid further involvement in European wars. At the same time, the spread of Communism across Europe had ignited fears that such ideas could migrate across the Atlantic. Most crucially perhaps, growing competition in the labour market had heightened racial discrimination in the country. Prior to the 1924 Act, state wide legislation had already been issued in California to exclude Japanese people from jobs in industry and agriculture.

Remarkably, the quota system of the Comprehensive Immigration Act remained in place until 1965, when the Hart-Cellar Act replaced the national origins system with one focusing instead on immigrants’ skills and family relationships with existing US citizens.

Sourced From – http://www.newhistorian.com/controversial-immigration-law-passed-usa/6545/

Depp’s Wife Amber Heard Pleads Guilty in Australian Dog Smuggling Spat

Actor Johnny Depp and wife Amber Heard arrive at the Southport Magistrates Court on Australia’s Gold Coast, April 18, 2016

SYDNEY — Actor Johnny Depp’s wife Amber Heard pleaded guilty Monday to providing a false immigration document amid allegations she smuggled the couple’s dogs into Australia.

Prosecutors dropped two more serious charges that Heard illegally imported the Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, into the country last year, when Depp was filming the fifth movie in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series.

A conviction on the illegal importation counts could have sent the actress to prison for up to 10 years. The false documents charge carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a fine of more than 10,000 Australian dollars ($7,650).

The hearing in Southport Magistrates Court on Queensland state’s Gold Coast was temporarily adjourned on Monday to allow the judge time to review documents.

The debacle over the dogs began last May, when Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce accused Depp of smuggling the tiny terriers aboard his private jet when he returned to Australia to resume filming the “Pirates” movie.

Australia has strict quarantine regulations to prevent diseases such as rabies from spreading to its shores. Bringing pets into the country involves applying for a permit and quarantine on arrival of at least 10 days.

“If we start letting movie stars — even though they’ve been the sexiest man alive twice — to come into our nation (with pets), then why don’t we just break the laws for everybody?” Joyce said at the time. “It’s time that Pistol and Boo buggered off back to the United States.”

Depp and Heard were given 72 hours to send Pistol and Boo back to the U.S., with officials warning that the dogs would otherwise be euthanized. The pooches boarded a flight home just hours before the deadline ran out.

The comments by Joyce, who is now the deputy prime minister of Australia, elevated what might otherwise have been a local spat into a global delight for comedians and broadcasters. One newspaper ran a doggie death countdown ticker on its website that marked the hours remaining before the dogs had to flee the country, and comedian John Oliver dedicated a more than 6-minute segment to lampooning the ordeal.

Depp himself poked fun at the drama during a press conference in Venice last year where he was asked if he planned to take the dogs for a gondola ride. “No,” he replied. “I killed my dogs and ate them, under direct orders from some kind of, I don’t know, sweaty, big-gutted man from Australia.”

The couple was swarmed by reporters when they arrived at court Monday. They said little apart from Depp responding “Fine, thank you,” to reporters shouting questions about how they — and Pistol and Boo — were doing.

Sourced From – http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/amber-heard-pleads-guilty-australian-dog-smuggling-spat-n557431

Mafia planned to kill Mario Cuomo during Italy trip as New York governor

  • Hitman says mob planned ambush with men who had rifles and explosives
  • Cosa Nostra called off attack when scale of his security detail became apparent

Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York, was targeted for assassination by the Sicilian mafia during a trip to Italy in 1992, according to an imprisoned Cosa Nostra hitman.

Maurizio Avola, 54 – who is currently serving a life sentence for his part in 43 murders and 40 armed robberies – told the Guardian that mobster bosses planned an ambush involving about a dozen gunmen armed with assault rifles and explosives.

The attack was only called off when the scale of Cuomo’s security detail became apparent, he said.

Avola said that after the assassinations of prominent anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992, Cosa Nostra bosses decided to escalate their war against the Italian state and its allies.

“The aim was to target politicians or members of institutions in order to send out a clear message,” he said, in an interview via messages carried by his lawyer.

When Cuomo’s visit to Italy was announced, Avola’s godfather, Aldo Ercolano, told him that the New York governor would be an “excellent target”.

Targeting a prominent American would also send a warning to the law enforcement agencies who had allowed several prominent mafia turncoats to start new lives in the US under assumed identities, Avola said.

“Cuomo was a symbol of America which during those years hosted collaborators who wanted out of Cosa Nostra and then got their bosses arrested. His death would have sent a strong signal to New York. It would have made them understand what happens to those who stand in the Mafia’s way,” he said.

Cuomo arrived in Rome on 19 November 1992 for a week of meetings. Soon after his arrival, a journalist from Corriere della Sera asked whether having an Italian surname was damaging for an American politician.

Cuomo replied: “Of course, any Italian American politician risks being associated with the mafia, not least because the media continuously plays on this image.”

Meanwhile, according to Avola a much more immediate risk was taking shape in the city of Messina, where a mafia hit squad was planning a daylight attack on Cuomo in the main square.

Around a dozen gunmen armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and explosives were to carry out the ambush, while accomplices were ready to block potential escape routes, said Avola.

But just a few days before Cuomo was due in Messina, Ercolano called off the attack.

“The American politician arrived with extremely tight surveillance, lots of bodyguards and a bulletproof car. It made the execution impossible,” Avola said. “Reluctantly, Aldo Ercolano ordered the ‘men of honour’ to withdraw.’’

Born in Catania in 1962, Avola is believed to have killed about 80 people, including journalists, lawyers, politicians and mobsters, before becoming apentito, or informer.

Known as “Occhi di Ghiaccio” or Ice Eyes because of his cold-blooded blue gaze, he was recruited as a hitman by the Santapaola family, one of the most feared and powerful in the Sicilian criminal underworld.

He was arrested on a tip-off in 1993, the day after killing a former friend and fellow mafioso. Avola concluded that he had been betrayed by his boss, and a year later, he decided to cooperate with police, revealing details that led to the opening of new investigations and the arrest of more than 100 ‘men of honour’.

Just a few days before Cuomo was due in Messina, the attack was called off.
Just a few days before Cuomo was due in Messina, the attack was called off.

He is currently serving a life sentence for his murders and 40 armed robberies in a special prison for mafia informers in northern Italy – but will be freed in 2019 because of his cooperation with authorities. For security reasons, the Guardian is not naming the prison where he is being held.

A senior source at Palermo magistrate’s court confirmed that an investigation into Avola’s allegations of a plot to kill Cuomo was still open, but said that details of the case were confidential.

Avola’s lawyer, Ugo Colonna, said that his client’s allegations may help shed some light on the history of that period of Cosa Nostra.

“Understanding why the mafia wanted to eliminate the governor of New York, in 1992, could also help us to understand the violence of the bosses who, in those years, were waging a real war against the state,” he said.

Ignazio De Francisci, a Palermo prosecutor who worked alongside Falcone and Borsellino, said that in the early 1990s, mafia bosses had already spread their actions beyond Sicily.

Read Full Article – http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/11/mario-cuomo-mafia-assassination-target-italy-cosa-nostra

MTA’s ban anti-Muslim ads on subway is legal, court rules

An appeals court judge has upheld a previous ruling that the MTA’s policy of refusing all political and religious ads in the transit system is legal, meaning the agency can continue to reject controversial posters by firebrand Pamela Geller and the anti-Muslim American Freedom law Center– for now.

Geller’s attorney had appealed Manhattan Federal judge John Koeltl’s ruling last June, in which he said “No law requires public transit agencies to accept political advertisements as a matter of course.”

But the appeals court says that, given that the MTA had changed it policy disallowing all political ads in the midst the legal battle, Geller and the AFLC’s initial arguments are now “moot.”

“AFDI is, of course, free to challenge the MTA’s new advertising standards, but it must do so through an amended complaint,” the ruling reads.

The case began in 2014, when Geller’s AFDI filed suit against the MTA for blocking it from purchasing Islam-bashing ads on city buses.

MTA officials said they are happy that the court took the agency’s side.

“The MTA is pleased by the Second Circuit’s decision, which reiterated that we have acted in good faith when balancing enforcement of our advertising regulations with respect for the First Amendment,” said MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg.

Sourced From – http://nypost.com/2016/03/03/mtas-ban-anti-muslim-ads-on-subway-is-legal-court-rules/