Nina Perales, shown right, Vice President of Litigation for MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, has joined the NAFUSA panel on immigration issues. The panel will be held on Saturday morning, October 13, 2012 in Atlanta, and will include Charlie Savage as moderator and Alexandro Mayorkas, the Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services at DHS.

In her role at MALDEF, Ms. Perales supervises the legal staff and litigation docket in MALDEF’s offices throughout the United States.  Ms. Perales is known for her work in voting rights, including redistricting and vote dilution cases. Her legal victories include LULAC v. Perry, the Latino challenge to Texas 2003 congressional redistricting, which Ms. Perales led through trial and argued successfully in the U.S. Supreme Court.  Ms. Perales also specializes in immigrants’ rights litigation, including leading cases striking down anti-immigrant laws and recovering civil damages from violent vigilantes. On March 21, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled the City of Farmers Branch, Texas, violated the Constitution by passing a housing ordinance aimed at driving out Latinos. Ms. Perales was lead counsel for the successful plaintiffs-appellees, and argued the case before the Fifth Circuit.

Ms. Perales received a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University and earned her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law.

On Friday, October 12, 2012, at NAFUSA’s national conference in Atlanta, Deputy Solicitor General Michael R. Dreeben, shown above with Attorney General Holder, will present the annual review of the United States Supreme Court term which will end in June. Dreeben has served more than 24 years in the Department of Justice. His principal responsibility is federal criminal appellate law. He has argued more than 80 cases before the United States Supreme Court, and numerous cases in the courts of appeals, including en banc arguments in nine circuits. He has twice received the Department of Justice’s second highest award- the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service. He is a graduate of Duke Law School.

NAFUSA President Rick Deane has announced early plans for the NAFUSA annual conference to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, October 11-13, 2012. The conference will be held at the W Atlanta Downtown, and will begin with a cocktail reception on Thursday evening, October 11, at the East Lake Golf Club, the home course of legendary golfer Bobby Jones and the oldest golf course in Atlanta.

Golf will be available at East Lake on the afternoon of October 11, beginning at noon. Price per player will be $273.45, which includes taxes. Gratuties are not permitted. Although the golf fees are high, East Lake is private, historic, caddie only and the NAFUSA golfers will be playing the course the week following the FEDEX Tour Championship, which consists of the top 30 players for the year, one of whom will be declared the player of the year. Proceeds from the course support the East Lake foundation efforts to enrich the lives of the children of the neighborhood. These children now have a charter school, a resident golf pro for kids, a golf academy and their own outstanding neighborhood golf course. Details will be published soon as to how to sign up for golf.

The conference will continue at the W Hotel with continuing education programs on Friday and Saturday mornings. Charlie Savage, shown above, of The New York Times has agreed to join us for the third year in a row, and will moderate a two hour panel on immigration issues on Saturday morning. He is a Washington correspondent for The Times. Savage covered national legal affairs for the Boston Globe from 2003 to 2008. He received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2007. His book about the growth of executive power, “Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy,” was named one of the best books of 2007 by both Slate and Esquire.

Joining Savage on the immigration panel will be Alejandro (“Ali”) Mayorkas, right, the Director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at the Department of Homeland Security. He was nominated by President Obama and confirmed unanimously by the Senate on August 7, 2009. Mayorkas leads the agency charged with operating the largest immigration system in the world, with a workforce of more than 18,000. He served as the United States Attorney for the Central District of California 1999-2001 and is a member of NAFUSA. Prior to becomming the Director of USCIS, Mayorkas was a partner in the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. He is a graduate of Loyola Law School.

On Friday afternoon, a luncheon will be held at The Carter Center . The conference will conclude with a Saturday evening cocktail reception and dinner at the W Hotel.

At the New York NAFUSA conference in 2010, New York Times reporter Charlie Savage moderated a panel discussion on the appropriate forum in which to prosecute terrorism cases.  A lively debate ensued as to whether such cases should be brought in Article III courts in the United States or before military tribunals. The panel included NAFUSA member Captain David Iglesias, shown below, currently a military commissions prosecutor in Guantanamo. His earlier experiences as a Navy JAG at Guantanamo was the inspiration for Aaron Sorkin’s play “A Few Good Men,” later a successful movie. Iglesias served as the United States Attorney in New Mexico 2001-2007. He is the author of “In Justice: Inside the Scandal That Rocked the Bush Administration.”

In a Times article on February 23, 2012, entitled Iraqi Prisoner Tied to Hezbollah Faces U.S. Military Charges, Savage reports on an interesting new development. The United States has approved military commission charges against a Lebanese man accused of helping kill U.S. military troops in Iraq. Never before has the government used the current military commission approach against a defendant who is not accused of being part of the war with Al Qaeda. Furthermore, the defendant remains in custody in Iraq and it is unclear whether he will be extradited to the U.S., and whether, if he is extradited, where the trial would take place. Savage previously reported on December 11, 2011, on the dilemma that faced the U.S. regarding this prisoner when the U.S. withdrew from Iraq. See Detainee Poses Dilemma For U.S. As U.S. Exit Nears.

As for foreigners suspected of being Al Qaeda operatives, the battle between the Obama administration and Congress over whether to hold such suspects in military custody or in the civilian criminal justice system continues. See the Savage article in the February 28, 2012, Times article entitled Obama Issues Waivers on Military Trials for Terror Suspects..

Bill Keller, shown left, Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times and writer for The New York Times Magazine, states in his Monday, February 20, 2012, Op-Ed column WikiLeaks, a Postscript that his “…consistent answer to the ponderous question of how WikiLeaks transformed our world has been: not all that much.”

Keller served as executive editor of The Times from 2003 until 2011, and was editor during the publication of many of the articles based upon disclosures made possible by WikiLeaks. Keller writes of having participated in at least six panel discussions regarding WikiLeaks. Keller’s column is also a good post script to the NAFUSA WikiLeaks panel held in Santa Fe in October, 2012, pictured below.

Jack Goldsmith, Ken Wainstein, Eric Snyder, Charlie Savage, Valerie Plame Wilson, Rich Rossman