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
Washington, D.C. area schools participate in the Urban Debate program, which gives middle school children the opportunity to learn the art of debate. My sixth grader signed up right away. She was surprised to learn, however, at her first tournament that many people have no qualms debating either side of an issue, no matter how …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/11/23/how-to-talk-turkey-on-immigration-redux/
It’s been almost six months since ICE Director John Morton issued new guidelines on prosecutorial discretion to help ICE agents, attorneys and other officials distinguish between high priority cases (national security threats and serious criminals) and low priority cases (DREAM Act students). A recent survey released by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/11/14/prosecutorial-discretion-survey-demonstrates-need-for-more-training-consistency-across-ice-field-offices/
Over the weekend, Republican presidential hopefuls Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann made it clear that they were willing to increase their anti-immigration rhetoric in order to court voters. In the process, both confused the right to free speech with the responsibility of free speech, turning what should have been a debate on immigration policy into …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/10/18/on-immigration-some-gop-candidates-prefer-hostile-rhetoric-to-policy-solutions/
The luster may be wearing off Republican attacks on DHS’s prosecutorial discretion policies. Efforts to paint the prioritization of cases as “backdoor amnesty” didn’t seem to go anywhere in yesterday’s hearing on immigration enforcement in the Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement. ICE Director John Morton defended the prosecutorial discretion guidance he issued earlier this …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/10/13/restrictionist-gop-members-rely-on-scare-tactics-in-hearing-on-prosecutorial-discretion/
In a speech at American University yesterday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano complained that she was tired of criticism from the left and the right that accuse DHS of both blindly deporting undocumented immigrants and participating in attempts at amnesty through the use of prosecutorial discretion. Secretary Napolitano argued that both cannot be true, …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/10/06/secretary-napolitano-acknowledges-%e2%80%9cmessaging-problem%e2%80%9d-dismisses-criticism-of-key-enforcement-programs/
Over the weekend, more than 27,000 people became American citizens during 285 naturalization ceremonies held across the country in honor of Citizenship Day (September 17). Becoming a citizen, however, is hard work. A new country, new rules, high costs, and little targeted support for new immigrants make what should be a journey of exploration and …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/09/19/better-immigrant-integration-leads-to-economic-growth/
DHS’s recent announcement on enforcement priorities suggests that the agency, along with the Department of Justice, is serious about trying to target those persons who pose a threat to public safety. Unfortunately, there has been little official communication from either agency about the initiatives underway to review current immigration court cases or to issue broader …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/09/07/president-obama%e2%80%99s-very-legal-move-on-immigration/
The attacks on the Obama Administration from some immigration restrictionists are likely to escalate when Congress returns from its August recess, given the recent announcement that DHS intends to put muscle behind its prosecutorial discretion guidelines. The plan to review 300,000 immigration cases to assess whether they fall within the Administration’s enforcement priorities has already …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/09/01/like-previous-administrations-obama-is-using-existing-laws-to-improve-our-immigration-system/
Over the last six months, Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), along with other members of the House Judiciary Committee, have engaged in an all-out effort to turn back the clock on our immigration laws through a series of bills that may tackle one issue at a time, but equal a comprehensive overhaul. This week, the restrictionists’ …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/07/15/dear-mr-smith-our-broken-immigration-system-requires-solutions-that-embrace-discretion-not-eliminate-it/
In a new report issued this week, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services’s (USCIS) Ombudsman’s office called on USCIS to create a standardized procedure for accepting and tracking requests for deferred action made to the agency. The timing of this report, following ICE’s memos on prosecutorial discretion last month, further reinforces the importance of …
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Permanent link to this article: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/07/13/internal-agency-urges-uscis-to-streamline-%e2%80%9cdeferred-action%e2%80%9d-process/
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