Diversity in Brief - May 22 Edition
One dead in Mississippi prison riot; S&P says immigration doesn't hurt cities' credit ratings and more.
California Supreme Court to Decide Whether Illegal Immigrant Should Get Law License
The California Supreme Court will determine whether to grant the state bar association's request to admit an illegal immigrant to practice law, the Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday.
The bar certified Sergio C. Garcia after he passed the written test and a moral examination and sent the certification to the state Supreme Court for approval, according to the Times. The bar informed the court that Garcia was undocumented.
The Supreme Court ordered the bar to explain why an illegal immigrant should be given a license to practice law and invited briefs from other parties.
Read more here.
One Dead in Prison Riot
A prison for illegal immigrants was the scene of a riot that killed a guard and injured at least 19 others, the Associated Press reported on Monday.
The riot began on Sunday afternoon at the Adams County Correctional Center in southwest Mississippi. The prison is owned and operated by Corrections Corp. of America and holds illegal immigrants.
Most of the inmates have been charged with reentering the United States after being deported.
Read more here.
House Proposes Bill to End the American Community Survey
Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., is proposing a bill that would eliminate the American Community Survey, an in-depth supplement to the decennial Census, which Webster says is wasteful and an intrusion in America's homes. The bill will likely not pass in Congress, instead being reduced to cutting the budget and making the survey voluntary, the New York Times reports. However cuts to the budget will make the survey less effective and more costly in the end, opponents of the bill say.
Read more here.
Houston Tree-Trimming Company to Pay $2 Million for Hiring Illegal Immigrants
A Houston-based tree-trimming company will pay a $2 million fine after the Homeland Security Investigation in Birmingham, Ala., discovered it was employing undocumented workers, the Courthouse News Service reports.
Read more here.
Proving Love to the Feds
The New York Daily News interviewed officers who spend their days interrogating couples applying for green cards based on marriage. It’s the officers' job to determine which are marriages of convenience and which are cases of true love, the Daily News reported on Sunday.
Read more here.
Immigration Doesn’t Hurt Cities' Economies - or Their Ratings, S&P Says
U.S. cities with high numbers of foreign-born residents saw their tax bases grow and per capita-income increase, according to a report released last week by Standard & Poors.
The credit ratings of most U.S. cities with “significant immigration” improved over the past 10 years, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
Read more here.
SEC Joins Chipotle Hiring Probe
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday subpoenaed Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. as part of an expanding investigation into the alleged hiring of undocumented workers, Reuters reported.
The company, based in Denver, fired about 500 employees more than a year ago following audits by the Homeland Security Department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm.
Chipotle said that it received the subpoena and intends to fully cooperate with the investigation.
Read more here.
