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Brain -> U-Visa: Illegal Immigrants Become Legal Residents Via Crime Victimization (3/18/2011 9:57:52 PM)
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I think some people here are not going to like this.
U-Visa: Illegal Immigrants Become Legal Residents Via Crime Victimization
One day in 2009, Silva was reading the Bible when Romans 13:1 struck him like a lightning bolt: "Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities." He strode into the Oakland office of immigration attorney Robert Lewis and declared he wanted to do something most immigrants would call utterly are-you-kidding-me crazy: He wanted to turn in himself — and his wife — to immigration authorities.
The attorney said he would see whether Silva was eligible for a U-1 visa, designed for victims of crime who'd cooperated with law enforcement. In 2009, this was a new program, and Lewis didn't know if it would work. But Silva was willing to try. The U.S. immigration system has long offered asylum to those who face persecution abroad. But in reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act of 2000, Congress created a new visa that responded to the violence immigrants face. Domestic violence or sexual assault? Apply here. Robbery or attempted murder? Step right up.
The U visa was intended to improve immigrants' unwillingness to call law enforcement. San Francisco police officers don't inquire about the immigration status of people who report crime, yet the fear persists. Mug a day laborer or beat your wife, the thinking goes —what are the victims going to do? Call 911, so they can be among the more than 300,000 people deported annually? The bad guys go unchecked, police are in the dark about entire swathes of a city, and public safety suffers. Distrust of the authorities only worsened with the recent national rollout of Secure Communities, a federal program that checks the fingerprints of local arrestees against a national database to identify illegal immigrants.
http://www.sfweekly.com/2011-03-16/news/u-1-visa-illegal-immigrant-crime-victim-lauren-smiley/
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