Court to Take Up Voting Rights Suit
Recent Cases
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court said on Monday it would decide a potentially important voting rights case and whether crime lab reports can be used as trial evidence without the testimony of analysts who prepared them.
In a case from North Carolina, the high court agreed to decide whether the federal voting-rights law applied to districts where a racial minority group constituted less than half the population.
The federal voting-rights law, first adopted in 1965 and considered a landmark in civil rights legislation, is designed to protect the rights of minorities.
In the case, the state of North Carolina appealed and said the issue had been left unresolved by the Supreme Court in five previous opinions over a 20-year period through 2006.
Attorneys for the state said the case likely would be the last opportunity for the Supreme Court to decide the issue before the redrawing of legislative boundaries that will occur after the 2010 Census.
The case involved a district for the North Carolina House of Representatives in which black voters make up less than 50 percent of the population but still have been numerous enough to elect a black candidate in the past, with limited support from white voters.
The district was redrawn and reduced the population of blacks over voting age to 39 percent. The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled the voting rights law does not apply to districts where a minority group accounted for less than half the population.
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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.