USCIS Denies That Modifications to Oath of Allegiance Flout the Law

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has denied that the modifications to military service requirements in the Oath of Allegiance published on July 21 flout the law, despite harsh criticism from immigration experts and members of Congress.

“Candidates for citizenship normally declare that they will ‘bear arms on behalf of the United States’ and ‘perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States’ when required by law,” stated USCIS on July 21. “A candidate may be eligible to exclude these two clauses based on religious training and belief or a conscientious objection.”

The new guidelines, which appear under the heading “Modifications to Oath of Allegiance for Naturalization,” state that a candidate “is not required to belong to a specific church or religion, follow a particular theology or belief, or to have had religious training in order to qualify,” and “may submit, but is not required to provide, an attestation from a religious or other type of organization, as well as other evidence to establish eligibility.”

Immigration experts and some on Capitol Hill say that this represents a substantive change, and a bill has been introduced in Congress to roll back USCIS’s actions.

Christopher Bentley, the chief of media relations at USCIS, denies that the changes are at odds with the law, and says that the July 22 message was meant for internal use by USCIS employees.

“There are no changes, the law has been quite clear since 1952 that modifications are allowed should individuals have religious-based or conscientious objector-based objections to saying those parts of the Oath of Allegiance,” said Bentley. “So that’s always been the case and people have always been allowed to in essence opt out of saying that if they have those firmly held beliefs.”

Bentley said that this new guidance was not meant to be a public announcement, but rather an internal announcement to USCIS officers. Because the agency wants to be transparent as possible, Bentley says they let the public know what was in the policy manual.

“That policy manual was intended for our employees to help make sure that they’re making consistent decisions in immigration cases as opposed to informing the public of something writ large—we weren’t doing that, we were making sure that our employees understood so they could make good decisions.”

Bentley says that immigrants still have to be able to document that the objection is a firmly held belief.

Via: WFB

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OBAMA ADMIN. PARTNERS WITH BOSTON, ENCOURAGING MORE IMMIGRANTS TO BECOME CITIZENS

The Obama administration is continuing its efforts to encourage more immigrants to become citizens, announcing agreement with the city of Boston to promote naturalization.

The agreement with Boston’s Mayor Martin Walsh comes days after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced another citizenship promotion partnership with New York City.

“There could be no better time for this kind of effort,” Walsh said in a statement. “Like so many places in our country, Boston is becoming more diverse, and this agreement will further the work being done by USCIS and our Office of New Bostonians, which is vitally important to our future.”

Tuesday USCIS Director León Rodríguez and Walsh signed a letter of agreement to expand the effort in citizenship promotion to Boston for three years.

“We look forward to working with the Mayor’s Office of New Bostonians and other city services in providing tools to help immigrants contribute to a thriving, welcoming and innovative Boston,” Rodríguez said.

As in New York City, Boston’s Public Libraries will soon have “Citizenship Corners” carrying USCIS materials promoting and informing immigrants about citizenship. The city will also offer such information as schools, community centers and city buildings.

Additionally, Boston will also hold naturalization information sessions, offer tips on avoiding immigration scams and broadcast public service announcements about citizenship.

Via: Breitbart

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Did Obama Administration Really Accidentally Disobey Judge’s Order on Immigration?

The Justice Department’s latest filings in the immigration lawsuit brought by 26 states in the Southern District of Texas are a little hard to believe—and somewhat comical, in a way.

Back in February, Judge Andrew Hanen issued a preliminary injunction against the implementation of President Obama’s executive orders on immigration. Now, in an attempt to explain why the injunction was violated, Leon Rodriguez, director of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, has outlined in an affidavit a long list of instructions and orders he gave to implement Hanen’s order.

The main excuse given for USCIS’s issuing three-year deferrals and Employment Authorization Documents to 2,000 illegal immigrants after the injunction was in place is that its computer system failed. But fear not. Rodriguez is “taking steps, including the modification of USCIS computer systems, to further minimize the potential for human error that could lead to unintended” violations of the injunction “in future DACA cases, regardless of the circumstances.” (There is no indication whether the autonomous computer system that made these errors is named “HAL.”)

Rodriguez does admit that USCIS “should have exercised greater management oversight of the efforts to halt the production and issuance of three-year notices and EADs.” But that’s not really much of an admission—there is no question thaat USCIS violated Judge Hanen’s injunction despite Rodriguez’s self-proclaimed “clear intent to stop the approval or issuance” of these documents. Rodriguez assures the judge that USCIS will get to the bottom of this, his own failure, noting that DHS has asked its inspector general to “investigate the circumstances” of what happened.

Via: CNS News

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