Mary Giovagnoli
Author's details
Name: Mary Giovagnoli
Date registered: June 1, 2009
Biography
Mary Giovagnoli is the Director of the Immigration Policy Center. Prior to IPC, Mary served as Senior Director of Policy for the National Immigration Forum and practiced law as an attorney with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security—serving first as a trial attorney and associate general counsel with the INS, and, following the creation of DHS, as an associate chief counsel for United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Mary specialized in asylum and refugee law, focusing on the impact of general immigration laws on asylees. In 2005, Mary became the senior advisor to the Director of Congressional Relations at USCIS. She was also awarded a Congressional Fellowship from USCIS to serve for a year in Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s office where she worked on comprehensive immigration reform and refugee issues. Mary attended Drake University, graduating summa cum laude with a major in speech communication. She received a master’s degree in rhetoric and completed additional graduate coursework in rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin, before receiving a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School. She spent more than ten years teaching public speaking, argumentation and debate, and parliamentary procedure while pursuing her education.
Latest posts
- House Judiciary Committee Sends Wrong Mother’s Day Message with Amendments to VAWA — May 11, 2012
- Rubio Proposal Overlooks Obstacles Ahead For DREAMers — May 4, 2012
- Does the Punishment Fit the Crime? Experts Examine “Proportionality” and “Discretion” in Our Immigration System — April 11, 2012
- USCIS One Step Closer to Adopting Improvement to Immigration Waiver Process — April 4, 2012
- Congressional Budget Cuts Threaten Vital USCIS Integration Grant Program — March 26, 2012
Most commented posts
- “Anchor Baby” Added to New American Heritage Dictionary — 26 comments
- Building on a DREAM: What the Obama Administration Can Do Right Now to Fix Immigration — 10 comments
- Reuniting Families Act Helps Immigrants Who Play By the Rules — 8 comments
- Why is the Obama Administration So Afraid of Administrative Fixes to Our Immigration System? — 8 comments
- Leader, Visionary and Friend: Today We Remember Senator Edward M. Kennedy — 7 comments
Author's posts listings
The House Judiciary Committee sent the wrong kind of Mother’s Day message to women this week, proposing to roll back protections for victims of violence that have been in place even before the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was first passed in 1994. While the proposed amendments were discouraging in their own right, the fact …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2012/05/11/house-judiciary-committee-sends-wrong-mothers-day-message-with-amendments-to-vawa/
Though it has yet to be introduced in Congress, Senator Marco Rubio’s alternative to the DREAM Act received an appraisal from the Washington Post this week, which noted that it represents an effort to shake the hard-line anti-immigrant sentiment voiced by many leading conservative politicians. The editorial also noted, however, that the outlines of his …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2012/05/04/rubio-proposal-overlooks-obstacles-ahead-for-dreamers/
As immigration becomes an ever more controversial part of the American debate, conversations often turn to details about legislation and court battles rather than questioning whether fundamental principles of justice are being applied throughout our immigration system. Two new reports released today, however, address some of these key principles, such as the idea of proportionality (whether …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2012/04/11/does-the-punishment-fit-the-crime-experts-examine-proportionality-and-discretion-in-our-immigration-system/
A provision of the immigration law commonly known as the “3 and 10 year bars” has proven to be one of the most heart-breaking of the many draconian changes made to the immigration law at the time. Since its enactment in 1996, the provision—which imposes re-entry bars of 3 to 10 years on immigrants who …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2012/04/04/uscis-one-step-closer-to-adopting-improvement-to-waiver-process/
This month, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced $5 million in government grant opportunities available to service providers who help immigrants integrate and prepare for the naturalization exam. The money for these grants, awarded through the Citizenship and Integration Grant program, however, was not appropriated through Congress. Congress actually voted not to fund …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2012/03/26/congressional-budget-cuts-threaten-vital-uscis-integration-grant-program/
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently announced creation of its first Public Advocate’s office, designed to serve as a point of contact for people trying to cut through the bureaucracy to get questions answered and concerns heard. While immigration hardliner Rep. Lamar Smith was quick to call the new office a “lobbying firm for illegal …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2012/02/15/ices-new-public-advocate-office-a-step-in-the-right-direction/
The President’s State of the Union address this week re-iterated some of his key themes on immigration—support for comprehensive reform, dismay that DREAM Act students and foreign students educated in this country have no way to legalize their status, and a belief that he’s done enough to the secure the border. More importantly, he framed …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2012/01/27/following-state-of-the-union-address-president-obama-needs-to-follow-through-on-immigration-reforms/
The Obama administration’s recent announcement that it intends to change regulations allowing the children and spouses of American citizens to stay together while processing applications for legal permanent resident status has the immigration restrictionists crying wolf—or more accurately “amnesty”—once again. They are characterizing the administration’s rule change, as they do any and all actions that …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2012/01/09/anti-immigrant-crowd-cries-wolf-in-response-to-administrations-family-unity-policy/
The firestorm around the inclusion of the term “anchor baby” in the new edition of the American Heritage Dictionary has led to a dramatic reversal in the definition. Not only did the executive editor, Steven Kleinelder, emphatically apologize for the initial definition, he promised swift action to change it. By Monday morning, the term was …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/12/06/american-heritage-dictionary-redefines-%e2%80%9canchor-baby%e2%80%9d-term-as-%e2%80%9coffensive%e2%80%9d-and-%e2%80%9cdisparaging%e2%80%9d/
The degree to which the immigration debate has coarsened over the last few years is no more evident than in the pages of the recently released fifth edition of the New American Heritage Dictionary. Among the new entries is the term “anchor baby.” You might think that the definition would read something like: slang, a …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/12/02/%e2%80%9canchor-baby%e2%80%9d-added-to-new-american-heritage-dictionary/
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