A 2000 federal law promised visas to illegal immigrants who were crime victims if they came out of the shadows to help police catch their attackers. More than 13,000 people took the government’s offer, but so far only 65 — just 0.5 percent — have gotten their reward.
The figures, provided by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, outraged immigrant advocates. They say the problem with the so-called “crime victim visa” has been twofold: The government took years to come up with rules and now that they are in place, many law enforcement agencies are reluctant to provide the required written support so victims can apply.
“There’s no rational reason why it should take the federal government eight years to implement a law other than there’s a callous disregard for the rights of crime victims Congress intended to benefit for cooperating with law enforcement,” said Peter Schey, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles.
Lawmakers created the visa to encourage illegal immigrants to report crimes such as rape, torture and domestic violence without fear of deportation, and to help law enforcement crack down on violent crime.
It took until 2007 for the agency to set the rules, although immigrants could apply before then and could stay in the US if their cases appeared to fit the criteria.
The number of visas is capped at 10,000 per year. The most recent statistics showed that only 85 had even been processed by the end of last year — 65 were approved and 20 denied.
While the visa application is free, the government requires many illegal immigrants to apply for a waiver that costs US$545, more than some victims could afford. Under criticism, the government changed the rules last December to waive the fee on a case-by-case basis.
Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Chris Rhatigan said the government is moving to address the problems, increasing staffing to more quickly review visa applications and meeting with local law enforcement officials to teach them about the program.
“We’re trying to do the right thing,” Rhatigan said.
The law allowed any police officer, prosecutor or judge to sign off on a victim’s application as long as the victim cooperated with law enforcement or was deemed likely to do so in the future.
But the rules stipulate that only senior law enforcement officials can endorse a visa application. That has prompted a number of police and prosecuting agencies to craft their own policies on who should qualify.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious