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| Program Chairs: Dwight Heikkila & Ed Jackson | December 6, 2012 | ||||||||||||||
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This Week... Holiday Luncheon Hotel Bel Air Upcoming...
December 20
December 27
January 8 |
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December 13 Holiday Luncheon Hotel Bel Air |
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President Dwight Heikkila welcomed everyone to the warm and
friendly WVRC and turned our Bruin attention towards basketball.
Yours truly led the pledge. Our Invocation was provided by Past President Ed Gauld. Guests: Rotarian Judy Irye was visiting from the Santa Monica Club. Shannon from the W Hotel was our Merchant Minute. Announcements:
Before John Heidt introduced our speaker he announced Former Assemblyman Mike Feuer was in an accident and we hope he is OK. John then provided our speaker's introduction: For 35 years Tim Barker has specialized in the field of immigration law. Tim is a managing partner with Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy. His clients include leading Fortune 100 companies, in various global industries including: financial, petroleum, biotech, entertainment and accounting. He provides strategic counseling on all matters relating to U.S. immigration and nationality law: regulation, policy and compliance. His work on behalf of clients includes advising on the immigration consequences of mergers & acquisitions and other corporate restructurings, employment and technical compliance issues and overall immigration program management. With 42 offices in 18 countries, Tim's firm is the largest in the world devoted exclusively to business immigration law. Tim's interest in the immigration law started during his first semester in law school at the University of San Diego when he volunteered at the local legal aid office, handling deportation hearings. While working and in school he helped found the Immigration Journal Law Review and the periodical Immigration Clinic. Following graduation, Tim worked for theLegal Aid Society in San Diego as the Director of its immigration unit as well as serving as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University Of San Diego. In 1979 Tim moved to Los Angeles to become the Director of Legal Services Corporation's Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles where he worked on major litigation cases throughout the country as well as setting up national training programs and meeting with congressional representatives about immigration law and policy. In 1984 Tim left the public sector and expanded his expertise to business related immigration matters. Tim is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and has been named continuously in Best Lawyers of Southern California since 2008 and he has recently learned he will be honored in Best Lawyers in America in 2013. John also wanted to point out that the first decade of Tim's career was the penultimate sacrifice of "service above self." John said he knows he was criticized for the work he did those ten years but thought it was amazing and showed great compassion and care. John then welcomed his friend, Tim Barker Tim started by sharing his interest in immigration law and comprehensive immigration reform then said it is similar to his favorite quote by Mark Twain, "Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it!" Looking historically, What was the Immigration debate about? Before 1970 it wasn't a big issue, more of a migrant laborer "cat and mouse" scenario. The average age of a migrant worker at the time was 19-29, in the past they stayed an average of 3 years. There were no annual country quota limits like 20,000 in Asia, Europe and the children born here could start residency application processes immediately and not wait until age 21. In 1972, pre-Nixon, the thought was the hiring of undocumented immigrants caused our increase in unemployment. In 1975 Carter tried to address a legalization program and it was met with great resistance. Reagan in 1977 found bipartisan support for immigration reform and the Control Act of 1986 was established: 1. Employer sanctions- no longer can hire or continue to employ and must check documents; 2. Border security enhanced; 3. Legalization program at that time for then 3-6 million here for:
In 2002, we had an estimated 9.3 million illegal immigrants-- today estimated at 12 million. Today's political climate seems to be turning increasingly punitive. Our esteemed speaker continued to discuss the Secure Defense Act, theReal ID Act, and the Secure Communities Program. He described the immigration reform efforts in 2007 and 2010 as ineffective "Thuds." He expressed hope for reform in 2012--there may actually be change to address the 11 million people who are here. There is current legislation proposed and our speaker concluded that whatever you may think about this issue, the fact is there are this many people currently driving without licenses, working and having children and asked how long do we go without addressing this population? Do we let this fester and keep burying our heads in the sand? Our expert encouraged us to keep pushing forward with programs! His final comments were about the push/pull factors of immigration starting with the pull factor of employment in US to the push factor from Mexico. He discussed the Temporary Agriculture Program as an example of problems faced with temporary Visas to work with our crops -- the bureaucracy is so slow processing Visa paperwork that the crops are often worthless by the time the workers are processed. Many questions and comments from members were entertained.
-YYE Aly Shoji
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