“Sheriff Deputies, Poll Worker Harass Latinos in Swing State Colorado”

Taken from: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/watch_a_colorado_gop_poll_watcher_report_a_high_concentration_of_people_of_color.html

November 7, 2012

Before election results came in, Arapahoe was considered the swing county in the swing state of Colorado. Roughly a third of the county’s voters are registered Republicans, a third are registered Democrats, and the remaining third are independents. The county and the state ultimately swung to reelect President Obama—and voters of color had a crucial voice in that decision.

Law enforcement and poll workers in other Colorado counties had already harassed Latino canvassers and early voters (story down below). And on Election Day, Arapahoe County voters experienced very long lines, and rumors began to emerge about possible voter challengers.

When I arrived to Arapahoe’s Aurora CenterPoint voting center, people were braving chilling temperatures to wait their turn to cast a ballot. A handful of volunteers handed out water bottles, some cups of coffee, and even pizza to thirsty and hungry voters—and their sometimes exhausted kids—in line.

Shortly afterwards, I noticed a man wearing a suit with a distinguishable US flag tie, who seemed especially irritated as he walked around the voting center, sometimes looking at people in line and turning red with anger. Long after the doors were closed, and the final batch of voters were casting their ballots, this gentleman made two phone calls to report what he had observed—all within earshot of several voters and poll workers, who sometimes stared at him in confusion or disbelief.

The man, who later identified himself to me as Republican poll watcher Dayton Conway, complained not only about the water and pizza handed to voters in line, but also about what he said was the disproportionate amount of people of color who were casting ballots. According to the 2010 census, “White persons not Hispanic” made up less than 50 percent of Aurora’s population—and that’s a big change from just 20 years ago previously, when they made up nearly 80 percent of the city’s population. In some ways, Aurora is a present day microcosm of this country’s demographic future, which is shifting towards a numerical majority of people of color.

Conway, meanwhile, was in denial about his city’s population, and frustrated that so many people of color cast their ballots at the CenterPoint voting center. Many did so because Colorado’s Secretary of State, Republican Scott Gessler, encouraged voters in several counties, including Arapahoe, to use voting centers anywhere in the county, instead of assigned polling stations. That means people driving to and from work could stop by at a location most convenient to them—and they did.

Conway’s comments and physical irritability didn’t seem to deter any voters from casting their ballots during the three or so hours I was there. But his statements do illustrate some of what’s wrong with far-right poll watchers like the True the Vote group, which insists there’s rampant voter fraud despite any real evidence to support its claims. What Aurora’s voters proved last night was that they recognized their right to cast a ballot, and they weren’t swayed by people who think otherwise.

***

Taken from: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/11/sheriff_deputies_poll_worker_harass_latinos_in_swing_state_colorado.html

November 6, 2012

Although both presidential candidates stopped their visits to Colorado days ago, it remains a crucial swing state in this election. With just nine electoral votes, and its distance from the eastern part of the country, the Centennial State has lost its spot in the national media, but may prove important in this tight race.

That’s why canvassers have been busy encouraging people to vote here. But it hasn’t necessarily been easy to either canvas or show up to the polling station for some Latinos. One canvasser, who works with a coalition of groups leading a get out the vote initiative told me that, during her training, she was told, “And watch out for police. They don’t always think people who look like us should be out in the street.”

Not many job descriptions include a warning that the work may entail police harassment, but this is Colorado, where demographics are changing. In 2010, the Latino population hit one million—accounting for every one in five Coloradans. As more and more Latinos turn 18, it’s that younger generation that may hold the key to sway this election. The Latino vote here is expected to increase 15 percent over the last presidential election, accounting for nearly 9 percent of the state’s electorate.

The quiet, rural town of Pueblo West, just a two hour drive from Denver, is a mixed neighborhood that’s part of the greater city of Pueblo, which makes up more than 40 percent of the state’s entire Latino population. And canvassers there are eager to encourage all voters to get out to the polls. One canvasser, who declined to have his name for publication, was doing just that last week when he ran in to trouble. He and his canvassing partner, who are both Latino, noticed local Sheriffs were sometimes tailing them, but they continued their work.

They drove to a local convenience store for snacks, but when they got back into their car, they realized they couldn’t back away from the parking spot because it was blocked by two Pueblo County Sheriff’s vehicles. They were both asked to show identification, and deputies ran these for outstanding warrants. The canvassers explained they were simply urging people to get out and vote, but the deputies replied that local residents called in to complain about two suspicious Latinos in the neighborhood. The deputies then told them they should quit immediately, and “call it a day.”

And it’s not just Pueblo County where Latinos feel they’re being harassed. I spoke with one woman who was a first time voter in Boulder. A mother who’s originally from Central America, she also declined to have her name in print for fear of retaliation. She became a citizen last year, and was so excited to cast her ballot that she voted early last week. But the process was confusing for her, and after she came home and spoke with family members, she realized she had accidently skipped a portion of her ballot. She returned with her daughter and son-in-law the next day, to inquire if she could fix her ballot, or have it annulled and cast a new one in its place.

That’s when she says things got out of hand. One poll worker, who was white, began to get angry. He told her she would be charged with a felony, have to pay fines, and serve time in prison. He then rose from his seat, and she says she was afraid he might strike at her son-in-law. Fellow poll workers, she says, all went absolutely silent, and essentially embarrassed him from any further harassment. This new voter told me that had her daughter and son-in-law not been there with her that day to protect her, she would never consider voting again.

The Department of Justice is monitoring elections in Denver County, and hundreds of volunteer poll workers, recruited through the Colorado Civic Engagement Roundtable, will be making sure that voters aren’t harassed at the polls. But they may meet their match if poll challengers begin questioning voters’ right to cast a ballot. True the Vote, which held a summit here earlier this year, claims that they, too are dispatching thousands of monitors.

If today’s outcome comes down to Colorado, that will mean it may likely come down to the state’s Latino voters. But they may have to overcome unnecessary obstacles to cast their ballots.

“GOP Senate candidate says he ‘misspoke’ with ‘legitimate rape’ comment”

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” What a horrible and ignorant thing to say. A painful story to read in the morning. 

Taken from: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/gop-senate-candidate-says-misspoke-legitimate-rape-005818070.html

 

August 19, 2012

Sen. Claire McCaskill is probably having a pretty good Sunday. Her opponent in the Missouri Senate race, Republican Rep. Todd Akin, has spent most of the day backtracking after saying that victims of “legitimate rape” cannot biologically become pregnant and thus do not need access to legal abortions.

“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy after rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in defense of his stand that rape victims should not be allowed to access abortions. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Akin said that even if a rape victim does somehow become pregnant, “I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

A parody account mocks Akin. (Twitter)

Akin’s comments sparked a big backlash on Twitter, where the hashtag “#legitimaterape” soon became one of the most popular terms on the site. A parody account bearing Akin’s headshot mocked the Congressman for his comments. McCaskill, meanwhile, also went on the attack. “As a woman and former prosecutor who handled hundreds of rape cases, I’m stunned by Rep. Akin’s comments,” she wrote.

Akin said in a statement that he “misspoke” in the interview. “In reviewing my off-the-cuff remarks, it’s clear that I misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year,” he said. He later wrote on Twitter that “all of us understand that rape can result in pregnancy & I have great empathy for all victims. I regret misspeaking.” (Indeed, a study in the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists found that rapes result in more than 32,000 pregnancies each year.)

McCaskill’s campaign spent $2 million to run ads that boosted Akin as the “true conservative” during the three-way primary race for the Republican nod, which he won by six percentage points. McCaskill considered him the weakest potential challenger and wanted him to win the primary, the New York Times reported. The Democratic senator is trailing Akin by about 8 points in the polls, according to TPM’s Polltracker.

“North Carolina lawmakers override race-bias death-row veto”

Taken from: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-usa-northcarolina-race-idUSBRE86201920120703

July 2, 2012

North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature voted on Monday to override Democratic Governor Beverly Perdue’s veto of a law that will limit the ability of death-row prisoners to use statistical evidence of racial bias to challenge their sentences.

The move effectively negates the hot-button Racial Justice Act, which was signed into law in 2009 by Perdue when Democrats controlled the state’s General Assembly. The law directed judges to reduce a death sentence to life in prison if defendants could prove that racial bias factored into their punishment.

Lawmakers who viewed the landmark law as an attempt to undermine the death penalty wrote new legislation to gut it, only to see Perdue veto the rollback last week on the grounds that it rendered the original law meaningless. But legislators on Monday gathered the three-fifths majority needed in the House of Representatives and Senate to override Perdue’s veto. They had fallen short in January of enough votes to override a gubernatorial veto of similar rewrite legislation passed in 2011.

Proponents of Monday’s move said statistical evidence alone was insufficient to prove racial discrimination in jury selection, or to overturn a death sentence. ”We have people who have been rightfully convicted of cold-blooded murder in the first degree,” said Republican state Senator Thom Goolsby. He said the Racial Justice Act was “nothing but a back-door attempt to get rid of the death penalty.”

The Senate voted 31-11 to override Perdue’s veto. The subsequent 72-48 vote in the House notched exactly the number of approval votes needed for a three-fifths majority of members present.

Democratic State Senator Floyd McKissick expressed disappointment. ”When we passed the Racial Justice Act, North Carolina was recognized for taking a giant leap forward,” he said. “Unfortunately, today we are abandoning those efforts … It turns the wheels of justice backwards.”

In April, a North Carolina judge in April rescinded the death sentence of convicted murderer Marcus Robinson after finding that bias affected his trial. The judge said evidence of racial bias in jury selection across North Carolina showed a clear need to overhaul the system of choosing jurors in death penalty cases. Robinson, whose appeal was the first decided using the Racial Justice Act, was resentenced to life in prison without parole. Approximately 150 other death-row inmates in North Carolina have challenged their death sentences under the law.

The changes to the law on Monday will likely prolong litigation in those cases as courts decide whether the new version applies to pending appeals.

“This is a sad day for justice and for North Carolina,” said Sarah Preston, policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina. ”Politicians have decided they would rather sweep disturbing information under the rug than work to ensure that racial bias plays no role in North Carolina’s death penalty.”

The state Senate also voted 29-13 on Monday to override Perdue’s veto of legislation that would move North Carolina closer to exploration for underground shale gas using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The vote came a day after Perdue vetoed the fracking legislation. The governor said she supported shale gas exploration, but she rejected the measure passed by lawmakers because it lacked adequate environmental protections. The House also put the fracking measure on its calendar on Monday. But lawmakers in that chamber had not called it up by Monday evening, indicating they might not have the votes needed for an override.

“Obama Backs Gay Marriage”

Taken from:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304070304577394332545729926.html

May 10, 2012

President Barack Obama said Wednesday he supported gay marriage, reversing his position on a controversial social issue just six months before the November election and adopting a stance fraught with uncertain political implications.

Mr. Obama had been under intense pressure this week to lay out a clear stance on same-sex marriage after Vice President Joe Biden and other top advisers endorsed it. Mr. Obama said that after years of lengthy discussions with friends and family, including his wife and two young daughters, he now “personally” believes gays and lesbians should have the right to marry.

“I’ve been going through an evolution on this issue. I’ve always been adamant that gay and lesbian Americans should be treated fairly and equally,” Mr. Obama said in a television interview with ABC. “At a certain point I’ve just concluded that, for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Mr. Obama is the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support gay marriage. His endorsement is largely a symbolic moment for a country that is actively wrestling with the issue.

While the president opposes the federal Defense of Marriage law that defines marriage as a union of a man and a woman, he doesn’t plan to pursue new U.S. policy on gay marriage, aides said, because he believes states should decide the issue.

Mr. Obama was against same-sex marriage as a candidate in 2008 but supported civil unions. In the fall of 2010, he said his views on gay marriage were “evolving,” a stance widely interpreted as moving toward an endorsement. Asked numerous times afterward whether his position had changed, the president deflected the question and pointed to his record on other gay-rights issues.

On Wednesday, he explained, “I had hesitated on gay marriage, in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient… And I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people the word ‘marriage’ was something that invokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs and so forth.” He said his position was influenced by gay members of the military and his staff who are raising children together in monogamous relationships.

Mr. Obama informed a handful of top aides earlier this year he had decided to publicly support gay marriage before the Democratic National Convention in September, senior administration officials said. Mr. Biden’s public support, in a TV interview Sunday, and the 72 hours of fallout that came afterward sped up the president’s timetable, these officials said.

President Obama spoke Wednesday with Robin Roberts of ABC’s Good Morning America in the Cabinet Room of the White House.

Mr. Obama’s position puts him squarely at odds with that of Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee. Mr. Romney has said he believes marriage should be between a man and a woman. He also opposes civil unions and has said he would back a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Asked Wednesday about Mr. Obama’s gay-marriage endorsement while campaigning in Oklahoma, Mr. Romney acknowledged that it is a “very tender and sensitive topic.” He said states are able to make decisions about domestic-partnership benefits, including hospital-visitation rights. “But my view is that marriage, itself, is a relationship between a man and a woman and that’s my own preference,” he said.

Polls show Americans’ views on gay marriage are shifting faster than for many other hot-button social issues, with 49% in favor, according to a March Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, up from 41% in 2009. Some 40% of Americans oppose gay marriage, according to the poll.

Other surveys show similar levels of backing for same sex-marriage, but some show opposition to have nearly equal support. In a recent Gallup survey, 50% approved of gay marriage, while 48% said they opposed it. But polls consistently show rising support in recent years.

Voters have enacted constitutional bans on gay marriage in a number of battleground states that will decide the 2012 election, among them Ohio and Florida. Mr. Obama’s Wednesday announcement came a day after residents in North Carolina, a state the president hopes to win in November, voted overwhelmingly in favor of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. North Carolina is also hosting the Democratic National Convention, where Democrats were set to battle over whether to make gay marriage rights a plank of their party’s official platform.

The issue holds potential perils for conservative Democrats, and benefits for Mr. Romney.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney reacted to President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage Wednesday by doubling down on his own view that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a social conservative group, said Mr. Obama’s gay-marriage switch would fire up the GOP’s conservative base. “This is an unanticipated gift to the Romney campaign. It is certain to fuel a record turnout of voters of faith to the polls this November,” he said.

“Just before an election, you’re going to rile up the right-wing base, there’s no question about it,” said Peter Fenn, a Democratic consultant. “It will hurt in rural areas and the West, and you may take some fallout in the black community.”

Wading into the gay-marriage issue now poses potential risks and rewards for Mr. Obama among different types of voters who helped him win the White House in 2008. The move could energize young voters, who support gay marriage by a wide margin—57% of 18- to 34-year-olds in the Journal poll were in favor.

But a major question is how his changed stance will be received by African-American voters, who are central to Mr. Obama’s re-election strategy. Support for same-sex marriage had been relatively low among blacks, but views have evolved: The Journal poll showed African-American support for gay marriage rose to 50% in March from 32% in 2009.

Senior administration officials said Wednesday they are unsure whether Mr. Obama’s new position would produce a net gain or loss in support, or whether the support and opposition for it would balance each other out.

The marriage issue is likely to resonate in future months, as White House aides said the president will continue to discuss the issue. At the same time, some Democrats are pushing for Mr. Obama to include support for gay marriage as a plank of the party platform when he accepts the nomination at the convention in September. That move has the potential to divide the party.

States that have adopted constitutional bans on gay marriage also include the presidential-election battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan, Virginia and Colorado, as well as Florida and Ohio. But because public opinion is fluid, it is hard to determine how Mr. Obama’s view will affect his standing in those states.

Obama on Gay Marriage

• 1996, running for Illinois state Senate: “I favor legalizing same-sex marriage.”

• 2004, running for U.S. Senate: “Marriage is between a man and a woman.

• 2010, as president: “My feelings are constantly evolving” on gay marriage.

• 2012, as president: “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.

“Pennsylvania Photo Voter ID Bill is Now Law, HBCUs in the Crosshairs”

Taken from: http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/pa_photo_voter_id_bill_is_now_law_hbcus_in_the_crosshairs.html

March 15, 2012

Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Corbett wasted no time signing HB 934 into law after the legislature voted it through with not one Democrat in support and in fact a few Republicans that opposed. That vote happened yesterday afternoon and Corbett’s ink was on the bill by the evening. The law goes into effect today mandating that all voters have photo identification issued by state or federal government, a state university or a nursing home. The state becomes the 16th with a photo voter ID bill, and the ninth with a strict photo voter ID bill, meaning unlike other states there’s no alternative non-photo ID that can be used if you show up without proper photo identification.

The granting of nursing home IDs (is there such a thing?) as an eligible voting ID was fought in as an amendment by groups like AARP, a voting bloc that Corbett and fellow Republicans apparently care about. Other groups, like low-income, college students, didn’t fare as well. ACLU legislative director Andy Hoover told me that amendments that didn’t make the final bill included one made for people to sign an affidavit to vote if they didn’t bring photo ID and another to qualify a Medicare card as an eligible ID to vote.

Local civil rights group Black Political Empowerment Project told Gov. Corbett in a letter that allowing nursing home IDs is fine, but there are thousands of elderly voters who are cared for at home, not at care facilities. Those would be senior citizens from low-income families who can’t afford nursing homes.

As for college students, there are plenty in the state whose student ID cards don’t have expiration dates. PA’s voter ID bill allows only for college IDs with expiration dates. These are identical to the student IDs and there is no expiration date, only an issue date.

On the topic of college students, they seem to be a group that have had a hard time voting in Pennsylvania historically, especially black college students. After the 2008 presidential elections, when hundreds of students from the HBCU Lincoln University stood up to seven hours in the rain to vote, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on their behalf because the county had moved the polling place to a small facility far from Lincoln’s campus. At the university, voter registration drives had anticipated a record turnout for the election that brought about the first African-American president, but Chester County wouldn’t move the polling place to a larger facility on campus that could accommodate the huge swell of new registered voters.

“After voters complained about conditions in the 2008 election, in which some people waited as long as seven hours to vote, the county responded by moving the polling place even further away from campus,” ACLU’s Hoover told me.

They successfully sued the county, which at the time was headed by a commissioner named Carol Aichele. Aichele is now the Secretary of State under Gov. Corbett and was by his side when he signed the bill into law. After the signing she said, “No one entitled to vote will be denied that right by this bill, but by preventing those not legally allowed to vote from casting ballots, we will make sure every vote carries the weight it should in deciding elections.”

Who is she talking about when she says “those not legally allowed to vote”?

“I don’t know who she’s talking about,” said Pennsylvania voting rights activist Celeste Taylor. “If she’s talking about voter impersonation, then just say that. I think she has broadened the meaning of voter fraud to stopping people from voting who are eligible to vote, but just don’t have the right ID. The impacts of this law will be on people who meet all legal requirements to be able to vote. That’s unacceptable to me.”

Taylor has worked on voting rights, GOTV, voter registration and voter protection campaigns since 1999 at national, state and local levels. She works with a coalition that includes dozens of organizations around the state including not only civil rights groups like the NAACP and League of Young Voters, but also the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania. The County Commissioners are not an advocacy organization. They are an association of county government administrators who are on the frontlines of every election, staffing the polls and dealing with all the problems that occur on election days. And they oppose this new law.

But Gov. Corbett believes he has signed a “law of prevention” against voter fraud.

But voter fraud “just isn’t happening,” says Taylor. “I’m just so upset because I’ve seen how hard it is to get people to participate in this democracy and utilize the vote as their voice. Between the Citizens United ruling and corporations now having so much power — and now voter ID laws superceding what people’s rights are — so many people just don’t get it.”

“Court blocks Alabama from checking student status”

Taken from: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9QC8DBG0.htm

October 14, 2011

A federal appeals court on Friday blocked a key part of Alabama’s law that requires schools to check the immigration status of students, temporarily weakening what was considered the toughest immigration law in the nation.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also blocked a part of the law that allows authorities to charge immigrants who do not carry documents proving their legal status. The three-judge panel let stand a provision that allows police to detain immigrants that are suspected of being in the country illegally.

The decision doled out partial victories to both sides of the law. It also let stand other provisions that barred state courts from enforcing contracts involving illegal immigrants and make it a felony for an illegal immigrant to do business with the state for basic things like obtaining drivers licenses.

Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, who championed the law, said the “most effectual parts” of the law will remain in place. ”We’ve said from the beginning that Alabama will have a strict immigration law and we will enforce it. Alabama will not be a sanctuary state for illegal aliens, and this ruling reinforces that.”

The advocacy groups who challenged the law said they were hopeful the panel would block the remainder of the law within months after they review more arguments from both sides. ”I think that certainly it’s a better situation today for the people of Alabama today than it was yesterday,” said Omar Jadwat, an attorney for the ACLU, which challenged the law along with the Obama administration. “Obviously we remain concerned about the remainder of the provisions, and we remain confident that we will eventually get the whole scheme blocked.”

Alabama Republicans have long sought to clamp down on illegal immigration and passed the law earlier this year after gaining control of the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley signed the measure, saying it was crucial to protect the jobs of legal residents amid the tough economy and high unemployment.

The law has already had a deep impact in Alabama since a federal judge upheld much of it in late September. Many frightened Hispanics have been driven away from Alabama, fearing they could be arrested or targeted by police. Construction workers, landscapers and field hands have stopped showing up for work, and large numbers of Hispanic students have been absent from public schools. To cope with the labor shortage, Alabama agriculture commissioner John McMillan at one point suggested farmers should consider hiring inmates in the state’s work-release program. It’s not clear exactly how many Hispanics have fled the state. Earlier this week, many skipped work to protest the law, shuttering or scaling back operations at chicken plants, Mexican restaurants and other businesses.

Immigration has become a hot-button issue in Alabama over the past decade as the Hispanic population has grown by 145 percent to about 185,600 people, most of them of Mexican origin. The Hispanic population represents about 4 percent of the state’s 4.7 million people, but some counties in north Alabama have large Spanish-speaking communities and schools where most of the students are Hispanic.

Requiring school officials to check the immigration status of students in public schools helped make the Alabama law stricter than similar measures enacted in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. Federal judges in those states have blocked all or parts of those laws.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer earlier this year asked the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the legal fight over her state’s tough immigration law. The Justice Department called the Alabama law a “sweeping new state regime” in court filings last week and urged the appeals court to forbid states from creating a patchwork of immigration policies. The agency also said the law could strain diplomatic relations with Latin American countries, who have warned the law could impact millions of workers, tourists and students in the U.S. ”Other states and their citizens are poorly served by the Alabama policy, which seeks to drive aliens from Alabama rather than achieve cooperation with the federal government to resolve a national problem,” the attorneys have said in court documents.

Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said Friday before the ruling that a team of attorneys is in Alabama trying to determine whether the law was leading to civil rights violations. The school requirement was an area of particular worry, and the federal government is trying to determine how many absentees and withdrawals might be linked to the law, Perez said. ”We’re hearing a number of reports about increases in bullying that we’re studying,” he said after a meeting with leaders and advocates for the Hispanic community.

Legal experts are closely watching the Alabama case, which they say has the potential to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. I’m not convinced that the Supreme Court is going to take it up. But it depends on how 11th Circuit will rule in this case,” said Charles Kuck, a Georgia attorney who is the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “They are holding the key hand here. But you just never know.”