President Obama's Weekly Address 11/22/14: Immigration Accountability Executive Action

WASHINGTON, DC — In this week’s address, the President laid out the steps he took this past week to fix our broken immigration system. Enacted within his legal authority, the President’s plan focuses on cracking down on illegal immigration at the border; deporting felons, not families; and accountability through criminal background checks and taxes. These are commonsense steps, but only Congress can finish the job. As the President acts, he’ll continue to work with Congress on a comprehensive, bipartisan bill -- like the one passed by the Senate more than a year ago -- that can replace these actions and fix the whole system.

Isn't It Time?

The following is from Congressman Rush Holt's newsletter:

For nearly a decade, the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) so-called “Demographics Unit” conducted wide-scale warrantless spying on Muslims, including at mosques, student associations, and businesses in New York City and even in other states, including New Jersey.  The NYPD targeted people based solely on their religious affiliation, without any reason to believe they were guilty of any crime.

By every metric, the Demographics Unit was a failure. The NYPD acknowledged that it never generated a lead in a criminal or terrorist investigation, and Muslim citizens have told me they felt the chilling effect of being singled out for suspicion by their own government. I have long fought to end this NYPD overreach, including by introducing a congressional resolution to condemn these illicit tactics.

This week brought good and long-overdue news: the NYPD is formally disbanding the Demographics Unit and ceasing its spying on our innocent neighbors.

The best conclusion to draw from the NYPD’s experience is that suspicionless surveillance doesn’t work; it squanders limited law enforcement resources on investigating the innocent; and it destroys the fundamental principle that the government must not treat any person as less than a full citizen above suspicion unless there is a probable cause.  The same conclusion can be applied to the on-going NSA surveillance of Americans.

Upcoming Office Hours in Your Community

Are you having any troubles with the Social Security Administration, the VA, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or any other federal agency?  Or would you like to learn about applying for federal grants or acquiring flags flown over the U.S. Capitol?

If so, I hope you will drop by my upcoming Community Office Hours, where I or a member of my staff will be glad to help.  In the next few weeks, we will be in Middlesex, Trenton, and Old Bridge, and many more events are scheduled soon.  A full schedule is available atholt.house.gov/officehours.

Honoring Significant Milestones

Recently, I heard from constituents in Trenton and in Plainsboro who hoped to surprise their mothers with notes from the President in honor of their 100th birthdays. On their behalf, I reached out to the White House, and the President sent very warm letters of congratulations to each of them.

If you are celebrating a special occasion, I will be glad to request a presidential greeting on your behalf. Generally, the President may send congratulations to U.S. citizens for weddings, births, adoptions, Eagle Scout or Girl Scout Gold Awards, Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, 50th and subsequent anniversaries, and 80th and subsequent birthdays. For further details or assistance, please contact my Staff Assistant, Ms. Wilsar Johnson at 202-225-5801 orwilsar.johnson@mail.house.gov.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress

President Obama's Weekly Address 6/22/13: Time for Congress to Pass Commonsense Immigration Reform

WASHINGTON, DC—In this week’s address, President Obama discussed the bipartisan legislation being debated in the United States Senate that would take important steps towards fixing our broken immigration system, while growing our economy and reducing the deficit. The President urges Congress to pass immigration reform so that we can live up to our traditions as a nation of laws, and also a nation of immigrants.

President Obama's Weekly Address 5/4/13: Fixing our Immigration System and Expanding Trade in Latin America

WASHINGTON, DC—In his weekly address, President Obama spoke to the American people from Mexico City, Mexico about the incredible opportunities to create middle-class jobs in America by deepening our economic ties and expanding trade in Latin America. He also discussed a recent Senate bill that takes commonsense steps to fix our broken immigration system, like strengthening security on our border with Mexico, providing a pathway to earned citizenship, and modernizing our legal immigration system to attract highly skilled workers to our shores, which helps create jobs and grow the economy. The President will continue to work with our neighbors on our common security and common prosperity, so that we fix our broken immigration system, open more markets for American businesses, and create middle-class jobs for American workers.

Out of the Shadows

From the E-Newsletter of Congressman Rush Holt:

What if, when you were 18 years old, a federal agent rounded you up from the streets and demanded that you defend your standing as a member of American society?  What would you say?

Maybe you would say that you were working hard to gain an education:  that you had graduated from high school and were working toward college.  Maybe you would say that you had enlisted in the Army and were ready to defend your nation.  Maybe you would say that you were peaceful and law-abiding – that you had never committed any serious crime.

What if, despite all of your arguments, the United States government threatened to expel you from the country?

That is the situation that, for many years, millions of people throughout the United States have faced.  They are the so-called “childhood arrivals”:  immigrants who were brought to this country as children, who have since grown into productive and valued members of our society.  Whatever your feelings on America’s immigration policies, surely you can agree that these immigrants represent our lowest deportation priorities.

In June, President Obama took a stride toward making our immigration system more rational, fair, and economically beneficial.  He announced that his administration would refocus its enforcement efforts on preventing illegal border crossings and on deporting violent criminals while, at the same time, deferring action against certain childhood arrivals.

Earlier this week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the guidelines for the program.  In general, individuals are eligible for two years of deferred action, subject to renewal, if they are under the age of 31, came to the U.S. before they turned 16, have not committed any serious crime, and have either graduated from high school or been honorably discharged from the Coast Guard or Armed Forces.

More details, including application instructions, are now available on the USCIS Childhood Arrivals website.  If you have questions about or difficulty with the application process, please let me know.  You can reach me at 1-87-RUSH-HOLT (1-877-874-4658) or at holt.house.gov/contact.

Key Economic Data Now Available on Smartphones

How many manufacturers are doing business in Monmouth County?  How many women-owned companies are located in the Trenton area?   What is the average income in North Brunswick?

The answers to these questions can guide policymakers and can be vitally important to small businesses and entrepreneurs.  Fortunately, these answers and many more can be found online using the Census’s American FactFinder website.

Now, the Census Bureau has taken a step to make a few of the nation’s most important economic indicators even more accessible.  Through the new “America’s Economy” app, now available for Android phones and coming soon to iPhones, you can find the latest details on 16 key economic indicators anywhere, anytime.

Honoring Congressional Award Recipients

Earlier this week, I had the honor of presenting Congressional Award medals to area students who had devoted hundreds of hours to achieving challenging goals in volunteer service, personal development, physical fitness, and exploration.

In the photograph above, I am joined at the Monmouth County Library Headquarters by (from left to right) Award recipients Bowen Lu, Holmdel; Hari Ravichandran, Holmdel; Jade Saybolt, Shrewsbury; Edbert Lu, Plainsboro; Melissa Dominach, Fair Haven; Adam Ashenfarb, Morganville; Kunaal Patade, West Windsor; and Cameron Wilson, Manalapan.

Sincerely,

Rush Holt
Member of Congress

Who is Sonia Sotomayor?

by Eric Zimmermann

 May 1, 2009

Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor is name most talked about as Justice Souter's possible replacement.

What do we know about her?

Originally appointed to the federal court by President George H.W. Bush, Sotomayor was elevated to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by President Clinton. Born in 1954, she's a graduate of Yale Law School and served as assistant district attorney for New York County from 1979-1984.

In the next few days and weeks, we're likely to hear a lot more on Sotomayor's legal opinions, which will become fodder in a possible confirmation battle.

As a preliminary sketch, here are a few of the more colorful cases Sotomayor helped decide. NOTE: I am not a lawyer, so I can't speak to the constitutional significance of each of these decisions.

In 2004, a panel of judges including Sotomayor revoked the citizenship of Jack Reimer, then 96, when it came to light that Reimer had served in the German Army in WWII. Here's the twist: Reimer was originally drafted into the Russian Army, but was captured by the Germans in June 1941. He was forced to train as a guard and, prosecutors alleged, helped clear Jewish ghettos forcibly. Prosecutors alleged Reimer had misrepresented his wartime activities when he originally applied for a U.S. visa under the Displaced Persons Act.

Here's how Sotomayor ruled:

"As an initial matter, Reimer argues that it would be unjust to consider his wartime conduct 'assistance' in persecution, contending that he was obliged either to go along with the commands of his superiors or face death himself," Sotomayor wrote. "This argument, however, is plainly foreclosed by Fedorenko. There, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that those forced into the Nazis' service should not be held responsible for their conduct, reasoning that, if Congress had intended for visas to be withheld from only those who voluntarily assisted in persecution, it would have stated so in the [Displaced Persons Act]."

In September 2003, Sotomayor joined in a ruling that upheld the constitutionally of so-called "perp walks" for alleged criminals. As long as there is not an "an inherently fictional dramatization" involved in the scene, the court ruled, perp walks could continue.

"The image of the accused being led away to contend with the justice system powerfully communicates government efforts to thwart the criminal element, and it may deter others from attempting similar crimes," wrote Judge Fred Parker.

In 2004, Sotomayor joined a ruling that upheld a law targeted at the Ku Klux Klan that would ban mask-wearing in public.

"The masks that the American Knights seek to wear in public demonstrations does not convey a message independently of the robe and hood," the court decided. "That is, since the robe and hood alone clearly serve to identify the American Knights with the Klan, we conclude that the mask does not communicate any message that the robe and the hood do not. The expressive force of the mask is, therefore, redundant."

This is only a tiny glimpse of Sotomayor's legal philosophy. Stay tuned as operatives on both sides of the fight dredge up past opinions of all the possible nominees.