City of New York reaches settlement in unlawful arrest suit
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The City of New York agreed to pay approximately $2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by protesters who had claimed they had been illegally arrested, according to Tuesday statements made by the city's Law Department. In April 2003, city police arrested anti-war protesters while they were holding a demonstration outside the offices of military investment firm Carlyle Group, asserting that they were obstructing a sidewalk and engaging in disorderly conduct, but the protesters were later either released or acquitted of the charges. The group argued that the city violated their rights to free speech and assembly, maliciously prosecuted and falsely imprisoned them, and failed to reprimand officers who had assaulted and battered them. In agreeing to the settlement, the city admitted no wrongdoing, but in a statement from the Center for Constitutional Rights, which helped to file the claims, one protester was quoted as having said that she hoped the settlement would change city and national policy:
We hope our victory helps convince the City to stop violating people's rights as a matter of policy and stop wasting taxpayers' money doing so... It should also serve as a reminder that Washington's illegal war in Afghanistan and Iraq is also being fought at home – against its own citizens and in the name of war profiteers like Carlyle and Halliburton. We intend to continue our resistance until this stops.
The city has come under a great deal of criticism for its handling of protesters, and in April the New York Civil Liberties Union settled its lawsuit against the New York Police Department in which the NYCLU had challenged the department's protocol for dealing with large protests. In August 2007, The US District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the NYPD to redact and turn over hundreds of field intelligence reports containing information it had gathered through covert surveillance of organizations planning demonstrations at the 2004 Republican National Convention. The NYCLU has also forced the NYPD to destroy hundreds of fingerprint records obtained as a result of other mass arrests of peaceful protesters.
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USCIS Will Begin Accepting CW-1 Petitions for Fiscal Year 2019
On April 2, 2018, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will begin accepting petitions under the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)-Only Transitional Worker (CW-1) program subject to the fiscal year (FY) 2019 cap. Employers in the CNMI use the CW-1 program to employ foreign workers who are ineligible for other nonimmigrant worker categories. The cap for CW-1 visas for FY 2019 is 4,999.
For the FY 2019 cap, USCIS encourages employers to file a petition for a CW-1 nonimmigrant worker up to six months in advance of the proposed start date of employment and as early as possible within that timeframe. USCIS will reject a petition if it is filed more than six months in advance. An extension petition may request a start date of Oct. 1, 2018, even if that worker’s current status will not expire by that date.
Since USCIS expects to receive more petitions than the number of CW-1 visas available for FY 2019, USCIS may conduct a lottery to randomly select petitions and associated beneficiaries so that the cap is not exceeded. The lottery would give employers the fairest opportunity to request workers, particularly with the possibility of mail delays from the CNMI.
USCIS will count the total number of beneficiaries in the petitions received after 10 business days to determine if a lottery is needed. If the cap is met after those initial 10 days, a lottery may still need to be conducted with only the petitions received on the last day before the cap was met. USCIS will announce when the cap is met and whether a lottery has been conducted.