IMMIGRATION LAWYER - US CITIZENSHIP

Immigration Charges for Cuban Militant

Link: Immigration Charges for Cuban Militant - washingtonpost.com.

A Cuban exile suspected of plotting the bombing of a jetliner 30 years ago in Venezuela was indicted Thursday on charges of lying during naturalization proceedings, the Justice Department said.

The presence of Luis Posada Carriles on American soil has put federal officials in a difficult position _ critics accuse the U.S. of harboring a terrorist, yet federal policy has typically protected anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

Notice expected soon on new citizenship test

Link: DallasNews.com - Notice expected soon on new citizenship test.

Thousands of letters are expected to be sent out as early as next week informing immigrants in 10 cities they can volunteer to try out a new citizenship test.

The letters will be accompanied with study guides to help potential participants study for the trial exam. Federal officials hope to start trying out a new set of draft questions about a month after the letters are sent.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Homeland Security Department, has been working to redesign the test that immigrants take to become citizens. Officials say they want the test to be more meaningful.

Draft questions that could end up on the final test will be tried out on volunteers in Albany, N.Y.; Boston; Charleston, S.C.; Denver; El Paso, Texas; Kansas City, Mo.; Miami; San Antonio; Tucson, Ariz.; and Yakima, Wash.

Test takers only have to get six of 10 questions right to pass the civics portion of the test.

The agency already has dropped two questions from the 144 it had planned to try out. One asked what the federal minimum wage is and another asked test takers to name a battle in the American Revolution.

First-Baby Sweepstakes Fuels Immigration Debate - NYT

Link: First-Baby Sweepstakes Fuels Immigration Debate - New York Times.

It seemed like a perfect formula for good publicity: A national sweepstakes would award a $25,000 United States savings bond to the first American baby born in 2007, courtesy of the toy chain Toys “R” Us and its Babies “R” Us division.

Instead, after disqualifying a Chinese-American baby girl born in New York Downtown Hospital at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s, the toy company finds itself caught in the glare of the immigration debate, stumbling over the nation’s new demographic realities.

UPDATE (Jan. 7) - The company quickly reversed itself after the New York Times story ran, and awarded the grand prize to the couple and their baby despite the parents' legal status. See here.

The citizenship test: New, improved and wrong

Link: The citizenship test: New, improved and wrong | Salon.

With much fanfare, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service recently announced the introduction of a redesigned naturalization test. Trumpeted as a great improvement over the old examination, the new format will "focus on the concepts of democracy and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship." Some critics and immigrants' rights advocates have complained that the new citizenship test is too demanding, asking questions that nearly all Americans, whether native born or naturalized, would be hard-pressed to answer. But the degree of difficulty is not the only problem.

The pilot test and the approved answers (as posted on the USCIS Web site) are riddled with misinformation, inaccuracies and outright errors. As many as 19 of the 144 questions are flawed. They either are woefully ambiguous, or accept simplistic answers that are factually wrong, or exclude answers that are clearly correct.