Immigration

The North Carolina ACLU is urging the state DMV to continue issuing driver's licenses to some immigrants. 

The state's Department of Motor Vehicles has suspended its practice of granting licenses to immigrants allowed in the country under a federal policy, Immigrants registered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative are allowed to stay in the country if they meet certain guidelines such as having arrived in the country before age 16, graduating high school or attending college or serving in the military.

A new study from the Washington DC-based Brookings Institution finds highly skilled immigrant workers are in high demand in Durham.

Asma Khalid: The Brookings study compares requests for H1-B visas in metro areas across the nation.  Jill Wilson co-authored the report.  She says Durham's population may be small but its demand for IT workers from abroad certainly is not.

 Jill Wilson: So it's really high, in terms of its request for 1,000 workers it ranks third in that measure.

An undocumented immigrant that interrupted a state House hearing in February wants his case heard in Wake County Superior Court.

State lawmakers are continuing a series of committee meetings on immigration. Representatives of the home building, construction and farming industries spoke to lawmakers today.

Duke researchers say the reasons for a decline in health among recent immigrants may be more complicated than health experts thought. Duke Sociologist Jen'nan Read says researchers may have been drawing the wrong conclusion from data showing that immigrants arrive in the U.S. healthy and then become less so.

Lawmakers in Raleigh listened to presentations today about the impact of illegal immigration on North Carolina.

A federal prosecutor has charged a former administrator at UNC-Charlotte with falsifying visa records so that international students could stay in the country illegally.

A new study made available today sheds light on the phenomenon of neighborhood segregation. Kyle Crowder, a sociology professor at UNC Chapel Hill, conducted the research along with two others:

"Despite all of the talk about progress towards equal opportunity for everyone in gaining access to neighborhoods, there’s still a lot of evidence that native-born blacks and native-born white householders tend to move away from neighborhoods that have high concentrations of immigrants."

Crowder says people of different races typically leave for different reasons.

The U.S. Senate may take up the DREAM Act tomorrow. The immigration reform bill aimed at students is likely to be opposed by both North Carolina senators.

The Dream Act is a bi-partisan bill first introduced in Congress in 2001. It passed the U.S. House last week  It allows the children of illegal immigrants to attend college or enter the military, with the opportunity to pursue a path to legal citizenship.