Children caught in the immigration crossfire
By Kathy Kiely, USA TODAY
On the phone, Fiorella Maza comes across as a typical American teenager. Her English is unaccented. Her best friend's name is Brittney. Her three most prized possessions are her wallet, her cellphone and, of course, her iPod.
Those were the necessities Maza, 19, took when immigration agents arrived at 6 a.m. on March 1 to deport her and her family.
The 2006 South Miami Senior High graduate and her parents now live in her grandmother's house in Lima, Peru — more than 2,600 miles from the place she had called home since she was 2. She's searching for language classes "because my Spanish is really bad," and trying to adjust to life in a land where, she says, "I feel like an outcast."
Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants' children could suffer the same fate, according to the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute. They are the lost generation of an underground economy: Brought here illegally by parents, they grew up in American neighborhoods, attended American schools and made American friends. As they approach adulthood, most find that their illegal status is a barrier to jobs and education, and their lack of documentation puts them in line for deportation.
Now, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., is pushing a plan that would give them a way to stay here and become Americans. The measure is triggering another bitter debate over how the nation should deal with its growing shadow population.
"The letters and e-mails I get from these young people are just heartbreaking," says Durbin, the No. 2 Democratic leader in the Senate. "They have nowhere to turn. They are without a country."
In all but 10 states, students who are not legal residents cannot qualify for in-state college tuition or student loans. They have no right to work. And there's the dread of a knock on the door such as the one that sent Maza's family packing.
It's unclear how many of the 185,431 immigrants removed from the country last year were children who had grown up here. The Department of Homeland Security does not track such statistics, spokeswoman Kelly Nantel says.
The Migration Policy Institute, however, estimates that there are 360,000 high school graduates in the USA illegally who would be eligible for conditional legal status under Durbin's bill for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors — or the DREAM Act, as proponents call it. Another 715,000 younger students could qualify if they graduate high school.
"They talk like Americans; they think like Americans," says Bishop Thomas Wenski of Orlando, speaking for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "We ought to let them dream like Americans."
Durbin's bill would carve an exemption in the nation's immigration policy for undocumented immigrants who grew up in the USA.
It would protect students from deportation and qualify young adults up to age 30 for permanent legal status if they complete high school and at least two years of either post-secondary education or two years of military service.
It's one of several pieces of a sweeping proposed overhaul of the nation's immigration laws that proponents are trying to revive this fall, following the larger bill's collapse earlier this year.
The other measures, which would allow more foreign workers, have the backing of the agricultural industry and technology companies. The DREAM Act's backers have a different kind of political clout.
The Catholic bishops are among several religious groups lobbying for the bill. Democratic leaders in the House and Senate support it. So do senior Republican senators such as Arizona's John McCain and Indiana's Richard Lugar, as well as the nation's largest teachers union.
Even so, the act's passage is far from certain. Many of the groups that torpedoed the immigration bill by arguing it provided amnesty to lawbreakers are targeting the DREAM Act as a backdoor attempt to accomplish the same goal.
"It really is an amnesty plan disguised as an education initiative," says Bob Dane of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group lobbying to reduce legal and illegal immigration.
Dane says the bill will "encourage illegal behavior" and force Americans to compete with illegal residents for college slots and scholarships.
The bill's opponents aren't out to punish kids, Dane says: "We're merely not rewarding them for the illegal actions of their parents."
Such distinctions are lost on many of those caught in the middle of the debate. "I just want to return home where I belong," Maza writes in an e-mail.
Families split by deportation
"I'm living in limbo," says Marie Gonzalez, 21, a junior at Westminster College in Missouri.
Gonzalez, a political science major, has lived in Missouri — "Jeff City," she says, using the nickname for Jefferson City — since she was 5. She learned in 2002 she wasn't here legally when an anonymous tipster reported her father. At the time, he was working as a courier in the office of then-Missouri Gov. Bob Holden, a Democrat. Gonzalez was a sophomore in high school.
"I was scared people were going to turn their backs on us," she recalls. "We were the people they talk about on TV."
Instead, neighbors in Gonzalez's conservative community rallied around her family.
It wasn't enough to save her parents, who were deported to Costa Rica in 2005. Then 19, Gonzalez had to sell the family home and cars. She hasn't seen her parents since, because a visit would mean not being able to return.
At Durbin's request, the Department of Homeland Security twice deferred Gonzalez's deportation. However, she says that DHS officials have warned her that if the DREAM Act doesn't pass, she will be deported to Costa Rica in June.
A deportation deadline also looms for Juan Gomez, 18, and brother Alex, 20.
Earlier this summer, the two, both students at Miami Dade College in Florida, spent a week wearing orange jumpsuits at the Broward County detention center. Their crime: having arrived here at age 2 and 4, respectively, with their parents from Colombia. Their parents are to be deported this month.
In handcuffs on the ride to the detention center, Juan used his cellphone to send a text message to a friend. The result was the creation of a Facebook group that rallied more than 3,000 supporters to lobby Congress on the boys' behalf.
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida, and Sen. Chris Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate from Connecticut, introduced what is known as a "private bill," used to help individuals with immigration problems.
That move gave the brothers two more years in the USA — a courtesy extended by immigration officials to allow Congress time to consider the legislation.
"It just shows you what a democratic country we are," says Juan Gomez. "This is the country I've always considered home."
For the Gomez brothers to be able to stay, however, the DREAM Act will have to pass. Diaz-Balart says it's highly unlikely Congress will approve a private bill for the brothers because there are too many similar cases.
"We continually run into kids who are in this country because of their parents' choice," he says. Some have younger siblings who are legal. The Constitution says anyone born in the USA is automatically a citizen.
Barriers to legislation
The DREAM Act is one of several pieces of the failed immigration bill now in play in Congress.
Other measures that could be part of a year-end immigration deal: one to permit more foreign farm workers to live in the USA, and another to grant more visas for temporary workers in business ranging from high technology to restaurants.
By one measure, the DREAM Act would seem the least controversial of the three: When the Senate Judiciary Committee considered it in 2003, the vote in favor was 16-3.
The opposition this year is enough to raise doubts about whether it or any piece of the immigration act can become law in the current Congress.
"I just don't think the political wherewithal is there to do it," says Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., the party's national chairman.
He supported the immigration overhaul but isn't sure he'll back relief for illegal immigrant children as a separate issue.
And though Martinez says it hasn't affected his stance, he says he received "a flood of letters and phone calls" opposing the DREAM Act when Durbin tried to add it to the defense authorization bill last month.
FAIR representatives made 24 appearances on radio talk shows over two weeks in September to oppose the DREAM Act, Dane says.
NumbersUSA, another group that favors clamping down on legal and illegal immigration, urged people on its website to call senators thought to be in favor of the bill. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., threatened a filibuster.
That persuaded Durbin and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to drop their effort temporarily. They say they'll try again to pass the DREAM Act before Thanksgiving.
Responds Dane: "We intend to keep the heat up."
Without the DREAM Act, Tam Tran, 24, is a person without a country.
The daughter of Vietnamese boat people, Tran was born in Germany, where her parents ended up after the German Navy plucked them out of the sea. The family moved to the USA when Tran was 6.
When her parents lost their political asylum case, immigration authorities tried to deport the family to Germany, Tran says. However, the Germans refused to take them.
For now, Tran is permitted to stay — only because the United States has no repatriation treaty with Vietnam.
If the diplomatic situation changes, Tran could be deported to the country of her parents' birth, says Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Nantel.
Tran, who has never been to Vietnam, says that "I consider myself a Southern Californian." She graduated with honors from UCLA in December. Her major: American literature and culture.
For Martine Kalaw, a graduate of Syracuse University's prestigious Maxwell School public affairs program, it took eight years and three lawyers to overturn a judge's order that would have sent her to the Congo, a country she left at age 4.
Kalaw, 26, is an orphan. Her stepfather died when she was 12. Three years later, she lost her mother.
That misfortune may have been her salvation, Kalaw says.
Unlike students who fear putting their parents at risk for deportation, she was able to take her case to the public. She first spoke out at an immigration rally where she shared a stage with McCain, and later testified before Congress.
"I was scared because I thought there would be a backlash," Kalaw says, who adds that she was treated for clinical depression during her ordeal. "I was extremely ashamed of my situation. Deportation proceedings are the most terrifying, belittling process."
On July 4, Kalaw says, her legal odyssey ended.
The Board of Immigration Appeals overturned her deportation order and awarded her permanent legal resident status, which will enable her to apply for citizenship in five years.
"Now that everything is secure, I'm looking to develop my career," she says.
"The sky's the limit."
for link to article click title of post
Monday, October 8, 2007
Does ICE Have the Right to Terrorize Communities?
Immigration arrests spark controversy from coast to coast
By FRANK ELTMAN | Associated Press Writer
1:02 PM EDT, October 6, 2007
Newsday.com
GARDEN CITY. N.Y. - Long Island officials complained loudly this week about a series of immigration raids, accusing federal agents of a "cowboy mentality" that could have put local police in harm's way.
The attack on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was so sharp that a congressman stepped in to try and broker a peace.
But such complaints are becoming increasingly common, with local officials from Nevada to Nassau County saying they are fed up with the federal war on illegal immigration.
"Think of some of the people who were arrested and picked up _ they have children," said Reno, Nev., Mayor Bob Cashell after 54 suspected illegal workers were arrested after raids at McDonald's restaurants last month. "They don't know where their mama or their daddy is. That's not right."
David Leopold, a Cleveland lawyer and member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's task force on ICE raids, also criticized the immigration sweeps.
"How on earth is local law enforcement supposed to deal with a scared citizenry?" he said. "This new policy of immigration reform by law enforcement is going to wreak havoc on our communities, wreak havoc on our economy."
More than 1,300 criminal illegal immigrants were rounded up during sweeps in Southern California during the past two weeks.
U.S. immigration agents have also raided industrial facilities in recent months, including meatpacking plants, egg farms and a leather factory in New Bedford, Mass.
In New Haven, Conn., officials and immigrant advocates criticized ICE raids in June, saying constitutional rights and government policies were violated.
They contended the raids appeared to be in retaliation for the city's new identification card program for illegal immigrants.
Farmers in upstate New York blame a growing immigrant farm labor shortage on a dramatic rise in immigration enforcement.
On Long Island, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi and his police commissioner lashed out at the federal agency, declaring they would no longer cooperate in future enforcement actions because they felt misled by their colleagues.
ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, declared that of 186 arrested in a sweep across Long Island in late September, 157 were gang members or associates.
Nassau officials dispute that, saying only a fraction had legitimate gang ties. The other "associates" could have been bystanders picked up in the dragnet, they said.
Police agencies across the country are generally loath to join immigration sweeps because they rely on the goodwill of the community to cooperate in police investigations of traditional street crime. Nassau officials said they took part in the raids because they thought they were rounding up street gangs.
Michael Keegan, an ICE spokesman in Washington, said his agency stood by its numbers.
Suozzi also complained in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that federal agents ran roughshod over local police officers, refusing to share intelligence and at times pointing their weapons at cops.
"There were clear dangers of friendly fire," said Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey.
ICE special agent Peter J. Smith said allegations by the Nassau officials "are without merit," but said they would be investigated. He called the roundup a "flawless operation _ the community was served extremely well." Smith pointed to neighboring Suffolk County, where police assisted in the same ICE sweep.
"We haven't had one complaint," said Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer. "Our position is that we're taking dangerous individuals off the streets."
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who is trying to smooth things over between ICE and Nassau police, said the dispute "has to be resolved. You can't have local police not being involved with these operations."
He said Congress has encouraged stepped-up ICE enforcement since the demise of reform legislation. "I think it's the right thing to do," he said. "ICE does a terrific job around the country."
Peggy Delarosa-Delgado, a U.S. citizen from Huntington Station, told The New York Times her home was targeted by ICE agents during last month's sweep.
"Sure, look for criminals," said the Dominican Republic native, who became a citizen in 1990." But they've got to make 100 percent sure that the house they're going into, the person's there. They can't come in just because my address pops up in the computer."
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a lawsuit last month in federal court in Manhattan on behalf of 15 people, including seven U.S. citizens, who say their suburban homes were raided earlier this year.
In one case, authorities raided a home in East Hampton, on eastern Long Island, in search of a man who had moved out in 2003, according to the lawsuit. The family still living there were U.S. citizens, except for a child who is a legal resident awaiting naturalization.
"It's not even whether politically you're in favor of immigration or not," said Patrick Gennardo, an attorney for the plaintiffs. "The real issue here is whether ICE has a right to do what they're doing ... This is a constitutional and legal issue."
previously posted on Immigration Prof Blog
By FRANK ELTMAN | Associated Press Writer
1:02 PM EDT, October 6, 2007
Newsday.com
GARDEN CITY. N.Y. - Long Island officials complained loudly this week about a series of immigration raids, accusing federal agents of a "cowboy mentality" that could have put local police in harm's way.
The attack on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency was so sharp that a congressman stepped in to try and broker a peace.
But such complaints are becoming increasingly common, with local officials from Nevada to Nassau County saying they are fed up with the federal war on illegal immigration.
"Think of some of the people who were arrested and picked up _ they have children," said Reno, Nev., Mayor Bob Cashell after 54 suspected illegal workers were arrested after raids at McDonald's restaurants last month. "They don't know where their mama or their daddy is. That's not right."
David Leopold, a Cleveland lawyer and member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's task force on ICE raids, also criticized the immigration sweeps.
"How on earth is local law enforcement supposed to deal with a scared citizenry?" he said. "This new policy of immigration reform by law enforcement is going to wreak havoc on our communities, wreak havoc on our economy."
More than 1,300 criminal illegal immigrants were rounded up during sweeps in Southern California during the past two weeks.
U.S. immigration agents have also raided industrial facilities in recent months, including meatpacking plants, egg farms and a leather factory in New Bedford, Mass.
In New Haven, Conn., officials and immigrant advocates criticized ICE raids in June, saying constitutional rights and government policies were violated.
They contended the raids appeared to be in retaliation for the city's new identification card program for illegal immigrants.
Farmers in upstate New York blame a growing immigrant farm labor shortage on a dramatic rise in immigration enforcement.
On Long Island, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi and his police commissioner lashed out at the federal agency, declaring they would no longer cooperate in future enforcement actions because they felt misled by their colleagues.
ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, declared that of 186 arrested in a sweep across Long Island in late September, 157 were gang members or associates.
Nassau officials dispute that, saying only a fraction had legitimate gang ties. The other "associates" could have been bystanders picked up in the dragnet, they said.
Police agencies across the country are generally loath to join immigration sweeps because they rely on the goodwill of the community to cooperate in police investigations of traditional street crime. Nassau officials said they took part in the raids because they thought they were rounding up street gangs.
Michael Keegan, an ICE spokesman in Washington, said his agency stood by its numbers.
Suozzi also complained in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that federal agents ran roughshod over local police officers, refusing to share intelligence and at times pointing their weapons at cops.
"There were clear dangers of friendly fire," said Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey.
ICE special agent Peter J. Smith said allegations by the Nassau officials "are without merit," but said they would be investigated. He called the roundup a "flawless operation _ the community was served extremely well." Smith pointed to neighboring Suffolk County, where police assisted in the same ICE sweep.
"We haven't had one complaint," said Suffolk Police Commissioner Richard Dormer. "Our position is that we're taking dangerous individuals off the streets."
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., who is trying to smooth things over between ICE and Nassau police, said the dispute "has to be resolved. You can't have local police not being involved with these operations."
He said Congress has encouraged stepped-up ICE enforcement since the demise of reform legislation. "I think it's the right thing to do," he said. "ICE does a terrific job around the country."
Peggy Delarosa-Delgado, a U.S. citizen from Huntington Station, told The New York Times her home was targeted by ICE agents during last month's sweep.
"Sure, look for criminals," said the Dominican Republic native, who became a citizen in 1990." But they've got to make 100 percent sure that the house they're going into, the person's there. They can't come in just because my address pops up in the computer."
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a lawsuit last month in federal court in Manhattan on behalf of 15 people, including seven U.S. citizens, who say their suburban homes were raided earlier this year.
In one case, authorities raided a home in East Hampton, on eastern Long Island, in search of a man who had moved out in 2003, according to the lawsuit. The family still living there were U.S. citizens, except for a child who is a legal resident awaiting naturalization.
"It's not even whether politically you're in favor of immigration or not," said Patrick Gennardo, an attorney for the plaintiffs. "The real issue here is whether ICE has a right to do what they're doing ... This is a constitutional and legal issue."
previously posted on Immigration Prof Blog
Florida's Place Among the Anti-Immigration Crowd
Police role on migrant status is at issue
Florida law-enforcement agencies lack a standard policy on whether to ask foreign-born criminal suspects about immigration status.
Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Oct. 08, 2007
...With an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country -- about one million in Florida -- the question of how aggressive local law-enforcement agencies should be, in what has always been a federal role for immigration, continues to challenge officials. The killing of a police officer in Phoenix during a routine stop of a jaywalking pedestrian in September has also raised the public's ire.
In that case, the suspect, Erik Jovani Martínez, 22, had been deported to Mexico last year, after he was convicted on a theft charge, according to immigration officials, but he apparently sneaked back into the country. Martínez was killed by police last month when he pointed a gun at a hostage's head after shooting the officer.
`POSTER CHILD'
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called Martínez a ''poster child'' for failed federal efforts to secure the U.S. border. But some Phoenix residents are clamoring for local police to take a more active role. Under a long-standing policy, Phoenix officers are barred from alerting immigration authorities about undocumented immigrants detained at routine traffic stops or for petty crimes.
Some local law-enforcement officials say that having police conduct immigration-related duties only hurts their crime-fighting abilities and can result in discriminatory profiling of Hispanics and others who are legally in the country or born in the United States. Immigrant-rights activists say that immigrants will not trust police to solve crimes in their neighborhoods if police are also working with immigration officials on finding those who are in the country illegally -- a noncriminal offense.
Barbara Gonzalez, the Miami spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said her agency is generally satisfied about the level of cooperation it receives from local police.
''We cannot dictate local policy,'' she said. 'We say to our local law-enforcement partners at the local and state level, `Here are the resources that ICE can bring to the table. We can work together to identify what it is that your particular department needs.' And at the end of the day, our priority is national security and public safety.''
Gonzalez cited the recent graduation of 27 Collier County Sheriff's Office deputies who completed a four-week course that will allow them to enforce immigration law with the same authority as federal officers.
''These partnerships are crucial in our fight to keep our communities safe,'' Michael Rozos, Florida field office director for the ICE office of detention and removal, said in a statement.
Immigration officials said they hope to expand the program to other law-enforcement agencies in the state. The FDLE has a similar program, Gonzalez said.
Despite the absence of a uniform Florida policy, many officers do ask about immigration status. Lt. Pat Santangelo, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman, said the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks raised awareness about the potential link between immigration and national security. ''If we encounter a driver without a license, that may be an indication the person is in the country illegally,'' he said. ``At that point, we ask.''
Robert Diers, Miami-Dade police legal advisor, said officers will not ask about immigration status unless the question is ''related to the reason for the stop,'' such as an investigation into ``human trafficking.''
NO WRITTEN RULES
The Broward Sheriff's Office said it does not have written rules on immigration status, but spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said the BSO will ''do a thorough background check'' if a suspect is arrested.
Many immigrant-rights advocates believe that police departments have policies not to ask about status to avoid intimidating witnesses or crime victims.
''Most police chiefs across the country agree that . . . they shouldn't be acting as ICE agents,'' said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. ``They claim, and I think it's a valid claim, that it's going to erode the trust they've worked so hard to build with the immigrant community.''
Timoney said that ensuring cooperation is a driving force -- unless an arrest is made. ''In the area of criminal activity, our policy is pretty clear that we will not enforce the immigration laws in and of themselves, that we will not stop people, inquire of people of their immigration status,'' he said.
But if a person is charged, immigration status may come up during questioning or when officers check the suspect's background.
for complete article click title to this post
Florida law-enforcement agencies lack a standard policy on whether to ask foreign-born criminal suspects about immigration status.
Miami Herald
Posted on Mon, Oct. 08, 2007
...With an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country -- about one million in Florida -- the question of how aggressive local law-enforcement agencies should be, in what has always been a federal role for immigration, continues to challenge officials. The killing of a police officer in Phoenix during a routine stop of a jaywalking pedestrian in September has also raised the public's ire.
In that case, the suspect, Erik Jovani Martínez, 22, had been deported to Mexico last year, after he was convicted on a theft charge, according to immigration officials, but he apparently sneaked back into the country. Martínez was killed by police last month when he pointed a gun at a hostage's head after shooting the officer.
`POSTER CHILD'
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called Martínez a ''poster child'' for failed federal efforts to secure the U.S. border. But some Phoenix residents are clamoring for local police to take a more active role. Under a long-standing policy, Phoenix officers are barred from alerting immigration authorities about undocumented immigrants detained at routine traffic stops or for petty crimes.
Some local law-enforcement officials say that having police conduct immigration-related duties only hurts their crime-fighting abilities and can result in discriminatory profiling of Hispanics and others who are legally in the country or born in the United States. Immigrant-rights activists say that immigrants will not trust police to solve crimes in their neighborhoods if police are also working with immigration officials on finding those who are in the country illegally -- a noncriminal offense.
Barbara Gonzalez, the Miami spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said her agency is generally satisfied about the level of cooperation it receives from local police.
''We cannot dictate local policy,'' she said. 'We say to our local law-enforcement partners at the local and state level, `Here are the resources that ICE can bring to the table. We can work together to identify what it is that your particular department needs.' And at the end of the day, our priority is national security and public safety.''
Gonzalez cited the recent graduation of 27 Collier County Sheriff's Office deputies who completed a four-week course that will allow them to enforce immigration law with the same authority as federal officers.
''These partnerships are crucial in our fight to keep our communities safe,'' Michael Rozos, Florida field office director for the ICE office of detention and removal, said in a statement.
Immigration officials said they hope to expand the program to other law-enforcement agencies in the state. The FDLE has a similar program, Gonzalez said.
Despite the absence of a uniform Florida policy, many officers do ask about immigration status. Lt. Pat Santangelo, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesman, said the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks raised awareness about the potential link between immigration and national security. ''If we encounter a driver without a license, that may be an indication the person is in the country illegally,'' he said. ``At that point, we ask.''
Robert Diers, Miami-Dade police legal advisor, said officers will not ask about immigration status unless the question is ''related to the reason for the stop,'' such as an investigation into ``human trafficking.''
NO WRITTEN RULES
The Broward Sheriff's Office said it does not have written rules on immigration status, but spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said the BSO will ''do a thorough background check'' if a suspect is arrested.
Many immigrant-rights advocates believe that police departments have policies not to ask about status to avoid intimidating witnesses or crime victims.
''Most police chiefs across the country agree that . . . they shouldn't be acting as ICE agents,'' said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. ``They claim, and I think it's a valid claim, that it's going to erode the trust they've worked so hard to build with the immigrant community.''
Timoney said that ensuring cooperation is a driving force -- unless an arrest is made. ''In the area of criminal activity, our policy is pretty clear that we will not enforce the immigration laws in and of themselves, that we will not stop people, inquire of people of their immigration status,'' he said.
But if a person is charged, immigration status may come up during questioning or when officers check the suspect's background.
for complete article click title to this post
Campaign Marked by "Controversial Posters"
Media Source Swiss Radio International decries the recent violence during a recent People's Party demonstration, stating there had been controversy about a "poster campaign" - while not mentioning the context of the posters, which showed a group of sheep, several white and one black, with the black sheep in the process of being kicked out.
An article by the BBC (Oct 6) stated "a campaign video showing what it is claimed are young hooded foreigners committing violent crimes was withdrawn after the Swiss youngsters who actually took part complained they had been told they were taking part in a crime-prevention video."
'And across the country, hundreds of the black sheep posters have been defaced, many with a single word - "Shame". '
The Swiss news source blandly tells readers that the poster campaign has ..."made the headlines with a controversial poster campaign aimed at criminal foreigners."
The United Nations has demanded an explanation and the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities spokesman said it was a "disgusting way to conduct politics," that the campaign is reminiscent of the Nazi regime.
_____
October 6, 2007 - 6:25 PM
Pre-election rally marred by violence
Swiss Radio International
Several hundred militants prevented the estimated 10,000 People's Party supporters from marching through the streets of Bern to gather outside the parliament building.
Police fired teargas at the militants who went on a rampage and destroyed infrastructure for the planned rally on Parliament Square.
Police in the capital, Bern, have clashed with leftwing militants who tried to interrupt a planned election rally by the rightwing Swiss People's Party.
The violence is the latest sign of rising tensions ahead of an unusually divisive parliamentary election later this month.
Justice Minister Christoph Blocher - who is also the party's front man - accused the militants of seeking to suppress the freedom of speech.
"This day will go down in Swiss history," Blocher told a crowd of supporters at an improvised gathering.
He said the militants had prevented the largest political party in Switzerland from holding a peaceful demonstration.
Defence Minister Samuel Schmid, who also represents the People's Party in the seven-member cabinet, denounced the violence. He said Saturday's incidents were not in line with Switzerland's democratic traditions and values.
The protesters hurled rocks and bottles at security forces.
More than 20 policemen and demonstrators and policemen were injured in the skirmishes, a police spokesman said. Several dozen militants were detained for questioning...
Anti-Blocker Protest
A non-authorised demonstration by local left-wing groups was scheduled for the same time in Bern. Speakers criticised the People's Party for what they described as "xenophobic and fascist" policy.
An estimated 3,000 people attended the rally outside the city cathedral.
Opponents of Blocher also protested in Zurich and Geneva.
The demonstrations came as the election campaign draws to a close. It has been marked by use of controversial posters and efforts to ban minarets in Switzerland as well as allegations of a conspiracy against Justice Minister Blocher.
His party has gained popularity in recent years with its anti-European stance and its nationalist and isolationist message.
swissinfo with agencies
for complete article click title to this post
An article by the BBC (Oct 6) stated "a campaign video showing what it is claimed are young hooded foreigners committing violent crimes was withdrawn after the Swiss youngsters who actually took part complained they had been told they were taking part in a crime-prevention video."
'And across the country, hundreds of the black sheep posters have been defaced, many with a single word - "Shame". '
The Swiss news source blandly tells readers that the poster campaign has ..."made the headlines with a controversial poster campaign aimed at criminal foreigners."
The United Nations has demanded an explanation and the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities spokesman said it was a "disgusting way to conduct politics," that the campaign is reminiscent of the Nazi regime.
_____
October 6, 2007 - 6:25 PM
Pre-election rally marred by violence
Swiss Radio International
Several hundred militants prevented the estimated 10,000 People's Party supporters from marching through the streets of Bern to gather outside the parliament building.
Police fired teargas at the militants who went on a rampage and destroyed infrastructure for the planned rally on Parliament Square.
Police in the capital, Bern, have clashed with leftwing militants who tried to interrupt a planned election rally by the rightwing Swiss People's Party.
The violence is the latest sign of rising tensions ahead of an unusually divisive parliamentary election later this month.
Justice Minister Christoph Blocher - who is also the party's front man - accused the militants of seeking to suppress the freedom of speech.
"This day will go down in Swiss history," Blocher told a crowd of supporters at an improvised gathering.
He said the militants had prevented the largest political party in Switzerland from holding a peaceful demonstration.
Defence Minister Samuel Schmid, who also represents the People's Party in the seven-member cabinet, denounced the violence. He said Saturday's incidents were not in line with Switzerland's democratic traditions and values.
The protesters hurled rocks and bottles at security forces.
More than 20 policemen and demonstrators and policemen were injured in the skirmishes, a police spokesman said. Several dozen militants were detained for questioning...
Anti-Blocker Protest
A non-authorised demonstration by local left-wing groups was scheduled for the same time in Bern. Speakers criticised the People's Party for what they described as "xenophobic and fascist" policy.
An estimated 3,000 people attended the rally outside the city cathedral.
Opponents of Blocher also protested in Zurich and Geneva.
The demonstrations came as the election campaign draws to a close. It has been marked by use of controversial posters and efforts to ban minarets in Switzerland as well as allegations of a conspiracy against Justice Minister Blocher.
His party has gained popularity in recent years with its anti-European stance and its nationalist and isolationist message.
swissinfo with agencies
for complete article click title to this post
Switzerland's Pour Plus Sécurité
Immigration, Black Sheep and Swiss Rage
New York Times
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: October 8, 2007
SCHWERZENBACH, Switzerland, Oct. 4 — The posters taped on the walls at a political rally here capture the rawness of Switzerland’s national electoral campaign: three white sheep stand on the Swiss flag as one of them kicks a single black sheep away.
“To Create Security,” the poster reads.
The poster is not the creation of a fringe movement, but of the most powerful party in Switzerland’s federal Parliament and a member of the coalition government, an extreme right-wing party called the Swiss People’s Party, or SVP. It has been distributed in a mass mailing to Swiss households, reproduced in newspapers and magazines and hung as huge billboards across the country.
As voters prepare to go to the polls in a general election on Oct. 21, the poster — and the party’s underlying message — have polarized a country that prides itself on peaceful consensus in politics, neutrality in foreign policy and tolerance in human relations.
Suddenly the campaign has turned into a nationwide debate over the place of immigrants in one of the world’s oldest democracies, and over what it means to be Swiss.
“The poster is disgusting, unacceptable,” Micheline Calmy-Rey, the current president of Switzerland under a one-year rotation system, said in an interview. “It stigmatizes others and plays on the fear factor, and in that sense it’s dangerous. The campaign does not correspond to Switzerland’s multicultural openness to the world. And I am asking all Swiss who do not agree with its message to have the courage to speak out.”
Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin, of the Liberal Democratic Party, has even suggested that the SVP’s worship of Christoph Blocher, the billionaire who is the party’s driving force and the current justice minister, is reminiscent of that of Italian fascists for Mussolini.
[On Saturday, a march of several thousand SVP supporters in Bern ended in clashes between hundreds of rock-throwing counterdemonstrators and riot police officers, who used tear gas to disperse them. The opponents of the rally, organized by a new group called the Black Sheep Committee, had tried to prevent the demonstrators from marching to Parliament...
for complete article click title to this post
photo:BBC, http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44099000/jpg/_44099666_swissposter2_afp203b.jpg
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Some Clarification on the DREAM ACT
Friday, October 5th I spoke with an aide to Senator Durbin regarding the issue of in-state tuition and the DREAM Act. I sincerely appreciate his time and willingness to provide information.
It is true that in-state tuition was negotiated out of the bill before Senator Reid announced that the DREAM ACT would be approved before November 16th.
Senator Durbin's office stated that apparently there is a problem with "states rights" and the implementation of a bill that rules that states have to allow DREAM ACT students in-state tuition - if the bill would have proceeded with the in-state tuition clause it might have hit some constitutional snags. So when it was left out as a compromise, the loss was not as large as most people thought. Although considering the way congressional politics go, this might not end up being totally accurate, but that is the information we have at this time.
Regardless of states rights, the DREAM ACT will bring sanity to the lives of thousands of undocumented young people. For those that have ALREADY completed their 2 years of college, this is be a life-saver. After meeting the other requirements (no criminal records, graduating from high school etc) they can apply for conditional residency.
For those who have not completed 2 years of college and live in a state that does not have in-state tuition, they either have to join the military to get the same benefit or pay international student rates.
There are millions of undocumented students in high school that will soon reach this crossroads. If an undocumented college graduate qualifies for the DREAM ACT, his/her younger sibling who is just finishing high school will be trapped As mentioned in a previous post, students like Juan Sebastain Gomez would be in a difficult situation if they live in one of the 40 states that do not have in-state tuition.
With high tuition bills facing them, they will have to join the military.
Some of my colleagues strongly believe that this caveat is fine as long as it helps the bill pass - that its unfortunate the undocumented students coming up later will not have such easy options. What is strategic for proponents of the bill in this form is that the military option will make the DREAM ACT viable at a time of brutal anti-immigrant sentiment.
Well now its here, with a good chance of being made into law. Of course everyone wants the bill to be implemented. Of course we want all the DREAM ACT students to regularize.
But what about those who will have to go to Iraq? What can we do for them? Options are limited. For those who can regularize, in a number of years they can become citizens and begin a nation-wide movement to change the terms of the DREAM ACT. But that is a very long time from now. We can also encourage young people who will enlist to study combat casualties in the different branches of service- which branch has less combat deaths? If you absolutely have to enlist - think of your safety.
Those of us who can vote and are relatives or friends of undocument students need to seriously consider banding together to help protect these young people from going to war. The Latino vote is very powerful. We could do a lot if we took interest. We could elect officials that would make the educational benefits of the DREAM available to all the undocumented students that qualify.
The DREAM ACT is great. It will change many lives. How many thousands of students will be able to work professionally, obtain drivers licenses, travel internationally, and most importantly not live in fear of an ICE raid?
Yes, I believe the DREAM ACT will pass. The military has too much to gain to let this opportunity go. Unfortunately any benefits enjoyed by DREAM ACT students will be tainted with blood.
It is true that in-state tuition was negotiated out of the bill before Senator Reid announced that the DREAM ACT would be approved before November 16th.
Senator Durbin's office stated that apparently there is a problem with "states rights" and the implementation of a bill that rules that states have to allow DREAM ACT students in-state tuition - if the bill would have proceeded with the in-state tuition clause it might have hit some constitutional snags. So when it was left out as a compromise, the loss was not as large as most people thought. Although considering the way congressional politics go, this might not end up being totally accurate, but that is the information we have at this time.
Regardless of states rights, the DREAM ACT will bring sanity to the lives of thousands of undocumented young people. For those that have ALREADY completed their 2 years of college, this is be a life-saver. After meeting the other requirements (no criminal records, graduating from high school etc) they can apply for conditional residency.
For those who have not completed 2 years of college and live in a state that does not have in-state tuition, they either have to join the military to get the same benefit or pay international student rates.
There are millions of undocumented students in high school that will soon reach this crossroads. If an undocumented college graduate qualifies for the DREAM ACT, his/her younger sibling who is just finishing high school will be trapped As mentioned in a previous post, students like Juan Sebastain Gomez would be in a difficult situation if they live in one of the 40 states that do not have in-state tuition.
With high tuition bills facing them, they will have to join the military.
Some of my colleagues strongly believe that this caveat is fine as long as it helps the bill pass - that its unfortunate the undocumented students coming up later will not have such easy options. What is strategic for proponents of the bill in this form is that the military option will make the DREAM ACT viable at a time of brutal anti-immigrant sentiment.
Well now its here, with a good chance of being made into law. Of course everyone wants the bill to be implemented. Of course we want all the DREAM ACT students to regularize.
But what about those who will have to go to Iraq? What can we do for them? Options are limited. For those who can regularize, in a number of years they can become citizens and begin a nation-wide movement to change the terms of the DREAM ACT. But that is a very long time from now. We can also encourage young people who will enlist to study combat casualties in the different branches of service- which branch has less combat deaths? If you absolutely have to enlist - think of your safety.
Those of us who can vote and are relatives or friends of undocument students need to seriously consider banding together to help protect these young people from going to war. The Latino vote is very powerful. We could do a lot if we took interest. We could elect officials that would make the educational benefits of the DREAM available to all the undocumented students that qualify.
The DREAM ACT is great. It will change many lives. How many thousands of students will be able to work professionally, obtain drivers licenses, travel internationally, and most importantly not live in fear of an ICE raid?
Yes, I believe the DREAM ACT will pass. The military has too much to gain to let this opportunity go. Unfortunately any benefits enjoyed by DREAM ACT students will be tainted with blood.
Chertoff Has No Room To Talk About Trash on Border
Many comments coming out of the Department of Homeland Security seem like nonsense these days. Oppenheimer is right, the presidential administration is making a concerted effort to bash no only immigrants but Latinos- whether they are citizens, legal residents, or undocumented.
There is a lot of symbolism in Chertoff's comment that undocumented immigrants are "degrading" the landscape on the border. The word degrading is very powerful... Chertoff's advisors know full well what his wording means for the public image of Latinos. -- think degrading, not just environment but the U.S., American culture, American lives.
_____
Chertoff border-fence statement is nonsense
Posted on Sun, Oct. 07, 2007
BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com
HERMOSILLO, Mexico -- The people in this northern Mexico city are still shaking their heads in disbelief at Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's assertion that undocumented immigrants are ''degrading'' the environment on the U.S. border.
Look who's talking, they say.
In an interview with The Associated Press last week in which he defended construction of a 670-mile-long fence along the 2,000 mile border, Chertoff claimed that the fence will actually be better for the environment.
''Illegal immigrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifacts in pristine areas,'' Chertoff said. ``And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment.''
Is he serious? I asked myself when I first read this statement, as I was about to come to Mexico. Does the secretary of homeland security really believe that the human waste and discarded bottles left behind by undocumented immigrants crossing the desert is such a major environmental threat?
...My opinion: Chertoff's remarks are the latest Bush administration capitulation to the anti-Hispanic immigrant hype that is sweeping U.S. cable television networks and radio talk shows.
The level of on-air insanity -- and its growing acceptance by U.S. government officials and most Republican presidential candidates -- is becoming dangerous.
For the record, I'm not for unregulated immigration, nor do I think we should condone littering along the border.
But the growing cable television and radio talk show hysteria claming undocumented workers are security threats (despite the fact that not one single of the 9/11 terrorists entered the United States through the Mexican border) or environmental threats (despite the fact that those of us who live legally in America are by most standards the biggest polluters on earth) is ridiculous.
The Bush administration should be ashamed of joining the chorus of fear-mongers...
for link to entire article click title to this post
There is a lot of symbolism in Chertoff's comment that undocumented immigrants are "degrading" the landscape on the border. The word degrading is very powerful... Chertoff's advisors know full well what his wording means for the public image of Latinos. -- think degrading, not just environment but the U.S., American culture, American lives.
_____
Chertoff border-fence statement is nonsense
Posted on Sun, Oct. 07, 2007
BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com
HERMOSILLO, Mexico -- The people in this northern Mexico city are still shaking their heads in disbelief at Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's assertion that undocumented immigrants are ''degrading'' the environment on the U.S. border.
Look who's talking, they say.
In an interview with The Associated Press last week in which he defended construction of a 670-mile-long fence along the 2,000 mile border, Chertoff claimed that the fence will actually be better for the environment.
''Illegal immigrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifacts in pristine areas,'' Chertoff said. ``And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment.''
Is he serious? I asked myself when I first read this statement, as I was about to come to Mexico. Does the secretary of homeland security really believe that the human waste and discarded bottles left behind by undocumented immigrants crossing the desert is such a major environmental threat?
...My opinion: Chertoff's remarks are the latest Bush administration capitulation to the anti-Hispanic immigrant hype that is sweeping U.S. cable television networks and radio talk shows.
The level of on-air insanity -- and its growing acceptance by U.S. government officials and most Republican presidential candidates -- is becoming dangerous.
For the record, I'm not for unregulated immigration, nor do I think we should condone littering along the border.
But the growing cable television and radio talk show hysteria claming undocumented workers are security threats (despite the fact that not one single of the 9/11 terrorists entered the United States through the Mexican border) or environmental threats (despite the fact that those of us who live legally in America are by most standards the biggest polluters on earth) is ridiculous.
The Bush administration should be ashamed of joining the chorus of fear-mongers...
for link to entire article click title to this post
The Need to Stay Out of Irving, Texas
Texas: Immigrants Pull Children From School
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 5, 2007
The superintendent of the Irving school district said that some immigrant parents had pulled their children from school over fears that they or their families would be deported. The superintendent, Jack Singley, said that about 90 children had been withdrawn from 33,000-student public school district in the last week. The Mexican Consulate has advised people to avoid driving through Irving, a Dallas suburb, in response to the Irving Police Department’s participation with federal immigration authorities in a program to identify illegal immigrants who have been arrested and to deport them. The Irving police have turned over more than 1,600 people to immigration officials since the program began last year.
New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 5, 2007
The superintendent of the Irving school district said that some immigrant parents had pulled their children from school over fears that they or their families would be deported. The superintendent, Jack Singley, said that about 90 children had been withdrawn from 33,000-student public school district in the last week. The Mexican Consulate has advised people to avoid driving through Irving, a Dallas suburb, in response to the Irving Police Department’s participation with federal immigration authorities in a program to identify illegal immigrants who have been arrested and to deport them. The Irving police have turned over more than 1,600 people to immigration officials since the program began last year.
What Does a DREAM ACT Student Look Like?
The LA Times has a front page article on the need for agricultural workers. It also tells of a series of raids in southern California - these raids are announced as attempts to capture gang members and criminals who are also undocumented.
So when DREAM ACT students traveled on a train from LA to Santa Ana, dressed up in suits and telling people "this is what a Dream Act student looks like" -- do people actually believe them? We have been saturated with images of an evil, predatory "Illegal aliens" --- the words sound so harsh, is this the descriptoin of a real human being?
When will the U.S. media begin to correct this mis-representation? Most undocumented people are not criminals or gang members. Many are the parents of these very same students.
_____
Illegal immigrant students lobby for a chance at legal residency
A bill making them eligible for green cards is expected to come up for a vote by the full Senate before Nov. 16.
By Jennifer Delson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 5, 2007
Illegal immigrant students boarded rush-hour Metrolink trains in Santa Ana last week to bring attention to pending legislation that could make them eligible for green cards and put them on the path toward U.S. citizenship.
These young adults, brought to the United States by their parents when they were children, tried to explain to commuters why the federal government should give them legal U.S. residency. Without green cards, the students said they could graduate from college but would probably have trouble pursuing professional careers.
Frank Nuñez, who has spent 23 of his 24 years in the United States, wore a business suit and boarded the Metrolink train headed to Irvine.
"We want to get the word out, and we want people to see us, to see that we aren't what people think illegal immigrants look like," Nuñez said. "A lot of people think of an illegal immigrant as Paco who just crossed the border yesterday and is in front of Home Depot looking for work."
Aboard the train, Nuñez approached passengers and said, "Hello, my name is Frank, and I'm an undocumented student," before lobbying for their support of the proposed federal law.
Nuñez and other students around California will spend the next several weeks trying to drum up support with more train rides, teach-ins and campus protests promoting the Dream Act, which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. The act is expected to come up for a vote by the full Senate before Nov. 16. Opponents blocked a previous vote on the legislation, denouncing it as a reward for the children of lawbreakers.
"For the next two weeks, we will see a lot of activity from immigrant students on college campuses and in high schools and in the community," said Horacio Arroyo, who has coordinated statewide Dream Act initiatives for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "They will range from educating undocumented students to what their rights are, to telling them to call their representatives."
In another Metrolink car, Long Beach State student Jessica De Nova made a confession to a fellow passenger.
"It's hard for someone to say it," she said to Greg Ebbensgaard, who was heading home from an Irvine manufacturing job. "But I'm an undocumented student. It's important for me to say it because I want you to get an image of what we look like."
Ebbensgaard looked at De Nova, who wore a black blazer and had her hair in a stylish bob, and said he wanted to learn more about the Dream Act.
"We need people like you," he said. "They always focus on illegal immigrants as criminals. That's what's hurting you guys. They should narrow the laws so they just block criminals from getting in the country."
Other students, such as Carlos, who asked that his last name not be published, were not warmly received. He told commuter Mike Bander, 58, of San Juan Capistrano: "I go to college, and it's important to me and other undocumented students who are fighting for their dreams that you support the Dream Act."
Bander, a high school teacher in Huntington Park, was not swayed.
"I'm not against these kids going to school, but our funds are limited, and there are only so many pieces of the pie," he said. "It's possible that when they go to college, they take a seat from someone who is a citizen."
The National Immigration Law Center in Washington estimates that at least 65,000 high school students in the U.S. graduate each year without legal immigration status.
Under the Dream Act, immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years, have a high school diploma and meet other requirements could receive conditional legal residency. Over the next six years, they would have to spend two years in college or the military to qualify for permanent legal residency, a step toward citizenship.
Rick Oltman, spokesman for Californians for Population Stabilization, opposes the legislation and believes it has little chance of passage.
"If we just give the students a break, who will be the next group we will have to give a break to? We're constantly moving the line," Oltman said. "It's unfortunate for these kids . . . but who should feel the discomfort, these kids or American citizens' kids who feel the discomfort when they take away resources and seats in college classrooms?"
Students across the state are also asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the California Dream Act, which would relax some financial aid requirements for undocumented students. The act was approved by the state Legislature on Sept. 11 and remains on the governor's desk.
At the Korean Resource Center, a campaign is underway to get Los Angeles-area residents to sign postcards that will be sent to members of Congress, said immigrant rights coordinator Yong Ho Kim. The postcards read: "One in five Koreans are undocumented. Please pass the Dream Act so that young people can go to college and achieve their dreams."
In Orange County, a coalition has prepared a resolution for local city councils. A vote on the Dream Act resolution could be taken in the Santa Ana City Council later this month, said James Johnson, community liaison of the Orange County Dream Team, a coalition of students and allies lobbying for the legislation.
On Oct. 13, the group will perform a 20-minute play at the Breath of Fire Theater in Santa Ana. The play's title, "Nine Digits Away From My Dream," refers to the need to have a Social Security number to secure a good job.
"We're fighting for young people who didn't have any say in their situation," Johnson said. "They did what they were told and came here with their parents. They went to school. They have goals, and they are reaching out for them. We need to help."
jennifer.delson@latimes.com
for link to article click title of this post
So when DREAM ACT students traveled on a train from LA to Santa Ana, dressed up in suits and telling people "this is what a Dream Act student looks like" -- do people actually believe them? We have been saturated with images of an evil, predatory "Illegal aliens" --- the words sound so harsh, is this the descriptoin of a real human being?
When will the U.S. media begin to correct this mis-representation? Most undocumented people are not criminals or gang members. Many are the parents of these very same students.
_____
Illegal immigrant students lobby for a chance at legal residency
A bill making them eligible for green cards is expected to come up for a vote by the full Senate before Nov. 16.
By Jennifer Delson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 5, 2007
Illegal immigrant students boarded rush-hour Metrolink trains in Santa Ana last week to bring attention to pending legislation that could make them eligible for green cards and put them on the path toward U.S. citizenship.
These young adults, brought to the United States by their parents when they were children, tried to explain to commuters why the federal government should give them legal U.S. residency. Without green cards, the students said they could graduate from college but would probably have trouble pursuing professional careers.
Frank Nuñez, who has spent 23 of his 24 years in the United States, wore a business suit and boarded the Metrolink train headed to Irvine.
"We want to get the word out, and we want people to see us, to see that we aren't what people think illegal immigrants look like," Nuñez said. "A lot of people think of an illegal immigrant as Paco who just crossed the border yesterday and is in front of Home Depot looking for work."
Aboard the train, Nuñez approached passengers and said, "Hello, my name is Frank, and I'm an undocumented student," before lobbying for their support of the proposed federal law.
Nuñez and other students around California will spend the next several weeks trying to drum up support with more train rides, teach-ins and campus protests promoting the Dream Act, which stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors. The act is expected to come up for a vote by the full Senate before Nov. 16. Opponents blocked a previous vote on the legislation, denouncing it as a reward for the children of lawbreakers.
"For the next two weeks, we will see a lot of activity from immigrant students on college campuses and in high schools and in the community," said Horacio Arroyo, who has coordinated statewide Dream Act initiatives for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "They will range from educating undocumented students to what their rights are, to telling them to call their representatives."
In another Metrolink car, Long Beach State student Jessica De Nova made a confession to a fellow passenger.
"It's hard for someone to say it," she said to Greg Ebbensgaard, who was heading home from an Irvine manufacturing job. "But I'm an undocumented student. It's important for me to say it because I want you to get an image of what we look like."
Ebbensgaard looked at De Nova, who wore a black blazer and had her hair in a stylish bob, and said he wanted to learn more about the Dream Act.
"We need people like you," he said. "They always focus on illegal immigrants as criminals. That's what's hurting you guys. They should narrow the laws so they just block criminals from getting in the country."
Other students, such as Carlos, who asked that his last name not be published, were not warmly received. He told commuter Mike Bander, 58, of San Juan Capistrano: "I go to college, and it's important to me and other undocumented students who are fighting for their dreams that you support the Dream Act."
Bander, a high school teacher in Huntington Park, was not swayed.
"I'm not against these kids going to school, but our funds are limited, and there are only so many pieces of the pie," he said. "It's possible that when they go to college, they take a seat from someone who is a citizen."
The National Immigration Law Center in Washington estimates that at least 65,000 high school students in the U.S. graduate each year without legal immigration status.
Under the Dream Act, immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years, have a high school diploma and meet other requirements could receive conditional legal residency. Over the next six years, they would have to spend two years in college or the military to qualify for permanent legal residency, a step toward citizenship.
Rick Oltman, spokesman for Californians for Population Stabilization, opposes the legislation and believes it has little chance of passage.
"If we just give the students a break, who will be the next group we will have to give a break to? We're constantly moving the line," Oltman said. "It's unfortunate for these kids . . . but who should feel the discomfort, these kids or American citizens' kids who feel the discomfort when they take away resources and seats in college classrooms?"
Students across the state are also asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign the California Dream Act, which would relax some financial aid requirements for undocumented students. The act was approved by the state Legislature on Sept. 11 and remains on the governor's desk.
At the Korean Resource Center, a campaign is underway to get Los Angeles-area residents to sign postcards that will be sent to members of Congress, said immigrant rights coordinator Yong Ho Kim. The postcards read: "One in five Koreans are undocumented. Please pass the Dream Act so that young people can go to college and achieve their dreams."
In Orange County, a coalition has prepared a resolution for local city councils. A vote on the Dream Act resolution could be taken in the Santa Ana City Council later this month, said James Johnson, community liaison of the Orange County Dream Team, a coalition of students and allies lobbying for the legislation.
On Oct. 13, the group will perform a 20-minute play at the Breath of Fire Theater in Santa Ana. The play's title, "Nine Digits Away From My Dream," refers to the need to have a Social Security number to secure a good job.
"We're fighting for young people who didn't have any say in their situation," Johnson said. "They did what they were told and came here with their parents. They went to school. They have goals, and they are reaching out for them. We need to help."
jennifer.delson@latimes.com
for link to article click title of this post
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Not Everyone in Orange County Hates Undocumented Immigrants
Orange County is a strange place. Its like outer space, with buildings popping up amid the cactus in a kind of unnatural way. I've been here a couple of days and often think about the nearby ICE raids as I see the immigrant workers at the hotel I stay at.
It is so illogical to terrorize the people that keep the county going. Maybe the Orange County Register sees this...
-----
Friday, October 5, 2007
Editorial: Immigration raids unite sides in uproar
Elsewhere, lawsuit halts feds' plan to order companies check workers Social Security numbers.
An Orange County Register editorial
It is almost impossible to avoid the suspicion that the recent flurry of arrests by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is more symbolic than substantive. Unfortunately, the raids are more likely to exacerbate polarization than to develop a consensus.
Some 1,300 immigrants have been apprehended the past two weeks in Southern California, and, judging by news reports, the campaign has been nationwide. Meanwhile, a program to mail notices to 140,000 employers, informing them that some of their employees' Social Security numbers do not match government records and they would do well to investigate the workers and fire them if they turn out to be illegal immigrants, is on hold, thanks to a lawsuit filed by the AFL-CIO and the ACLU, joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several business groups.
The suspicion is that the Bush administration, frustrated that its "comprehensive" immigration reform failed to get any traction in Congress, is engaging in conspicuous enforcement with the idea that if business relationships are sufficiently disrupted, support for its proposals or something similar will grow. However, the raids instead are providing something for all sides to complain about.
For those who see recent immigration as alarming, arresting 1,300 people – or even some 30,000 nationwide, as figures for the year to date suggest – is but a drop in the bucket compared with the 12 million or so illegal immigrants most authorities believe are in the country now. For those who see immigration as mostly beneficial, the fact that of 62 people arrested in Orange County, for example, only eight were fugitive criminals, and seven were fugitives, suggests that the enforcement net has been cast indiscriminately, creating havoc for people who, despite their immigration status, are working and contributing.
It will probably be a long time, if ever, before a consensus emerges around our editorial position, that the quotas for immigrants are too low, and the best approach would be to allow anybody who wants to come to immigrate (except terrorists and those with infectious diseases), but making it clear that they are not eligible for any government benefits until they have lived, worked and paid taxes here for a reasonable period of time.
But we keep hoping.
for link to article click title to this post
It is so illogical to terrorize the people that keep the county going. Maybe the Orange County Register sees this...
-----
Friday, October 5, 2007
Editorial: Immigration raids unite sides in uproar
Elsewhere, lawsuit halts feds' plan to order companies check workers Social Security numbers.
An Orange County Register editorial
It is almost impossible to avoid the suspicion that the recent flurry of arrests by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is more symbolic than substantive. Unfortunately, the raids are more likely to exacerbate polarization than to develop a consensus.
Some 1,300 immigrants have been apprehended the past two weeks in Southern California, and, judging by news reports, the campaign has been nationwide. Meanwhile, a program to mail notices to 140,000 employers, informing them that some of their employees' Social Security numbers do not match government records and they would do well to investigate the workers and fire them if they turn out to be illegal immigrants, is on hold, thanks to a lawsuit filed by the AFL-CIO and the ACLU, joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and several business groups.
The suspicion is that the Bush administration, frustrated that its "comprehensive" immigration reform failed to get any traction in Congress, is engaging in conspicuous enforcement with the idea that if business relationships are sufficiently disrupted, support for its proposals or something similar will grow. However, the raids instead are providing something for all sides to complain about.
For those who see recent immigration as alarming, arresting 1,300 people – or even some 30,000 nationwide, as figures for the year to date suggest – is but a drop in the bucket compared with the 12 million or so illegal immigrants most authorities believe are in the country now. For those who see immigration as mostly beneficial, the fact that of 62 people arrested in Orange County, for example, only eight were fugitive criminals, and seven were fugitives, suggests that the enforcement net has been cast indiscriminately, creating havoc for people who, despite their immigration status, are working and contributing.
It will probably be a long time, if ever, before a consensus emerges around our editorial position, that the quotas for immigrants are too low, and the best approach would be to allow anybody who wants to come to immigrate (except terrorists and those with infectious diseases), but making it clear that they are not eligible for any government benefits until they have lived, worked and paid taxes here for a reasonable period of time.
But we keep hoping.
for link to article click title to this post
Friday, October 5, 2007
DREAM ACT Students, the 1.5 Generation
This Washington Post article is not describing an anomaly. DREAM ACT students really are special.
_____
Betwixt and Between the Dream
Bill to Measure Limits of Anti-Illegal Immigrant Animosity
By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, October 5, 2007; 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON -- Julita is an undergraduate with a double major in psychology and Spanish at a university in Texas. She aspires to attend grad school to become a teacher. At 23, she is about to celebrate her first decade in this country -- she hopes the first of many.
Julita is a 1.5er, a member of a generation who came as children with immigrant parents to the United States. One-point-fivers are neither first-generation immigrants, adults who immigrated to the United States; nor are they second-generation, children born here of immigrant parents.
These young immigrants are different from their U.S.-born siblings.
They tend to be "the most bilingual," said Ruben Rumbaut, a sociology professor at the University of California at Irvine who has been studying immigrant children since the 1960s and who coined the term "1.5 generation." Often quickly learning English, they serve as interpreters for their non-English-speaking parents. Their second-generation siblings are more likely to lose their parents' language and by the third generation most speak only English.
They also are high achievers, working to make good in the eyes of parents who made considerable sacrifices on their behalf. Some too, if they were old enough when they came to the U.S., are motivated by the difficult conditions that they left behind. As Julita put it, "I wasn't going to go to college where I am from....I came here hungry to learn, to get ahead."
On the flip side, 1.5ers are less likely to run afoul of the law. Despite the myth that immigrants are more prone to criminality, study after study has found that the chance of incarceration is greater among second-generation Americans.
You might say 1.5ers are model citizens. You might, but you would be wrong. Julita is afraid to reveal her full name, where she is from, or even what she does to earn a living. As it turns out, a lot of 1.5ers like Julita don't have papers, and live in this country illegally. Julita attends college in Texas, which is one of 10 states that provide in-state tuition for undocumented students.
Congress has a new chance to do right by Julita and the tens of thousands whose circumstances are similar to hers by providing them a clear pathway to legal status. The bill to do that is the so-called Dream Act, first introduced in 2001 but repeatedly stalled. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to introduce it on the floor of the Senate in the next few weeks as stand-alone legislation for the first time.
The bill will be a litmus test of sorts. Its introduction as a standalone provides "a moment a lot of people have been waiting for....It's time to see where people stand on it," said Roberto G. Gonzales, author of a soon to be released report by the Immigration Policy Center about the 1.5ers who would benefit from the Dream Act. "If people give these kids a chance, they are really positioned well to compete in a global economy."
The bill would grant permanent legal residency after a six-year probation to those who have lived in the country for at least five years, attended college for at least two years or served in the military, all while maintaining an unblemished record. An estimated 360,000 undocumented immigrants could qualify immediately, and 65,000 others would join them each year.
Beyond the significance for those it would benefit, the Dream Act tacitly poses important questions to society as a whole. Is the United States ready to provide a modicum of opportunity for those who are well under way to making a positive impact on society? What are the limits of the country's animosity toward undocumented immigrants? Will this country make the children of immigrants pay for the "sins" of their fathers?
The United States could use a dose of the optimism espoused by 1.5ers such as Julita. When asked why go through the trouble of getting a college education when her eventual job search would be thwarted by the lack of papers or when she could even be deported, Julita answered simply: "What else am I going to do? I cannot not go to school. It would be a waste."
"No matter what happens," Julita said, "nobody can take my education away from me." Then she added the much-used cliche, with no trace of irony:
"One of the best things about this country is the opportunity."
for link to article click the title to this post
_____
Betwixt and Between the Dream
Bill to Measure Limits of Anti-Illegal Immigrant Animosity
By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, October 5, 2007; 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON -- Julita is an undergraduate with a double major in psychology and Spanish at a university in Texas. She aspires to attend grad school to become a teacher. At 23, she is about to celebrate her first decade in this country -- she hopes the first of many.
Julita is a 1.5er, a member of a generation who came as children with immigrant parents to the United States. One-point-fivers are neither first-generation immigrants, adults who immigrated to the United States; nor are they second-generation, children born here of immigrant parents.
These young immigrants are different from their U.S.-born siblings.
They tend to be "the most bilingual," said Ruben Rumbaut, a sociology professor at the University of California at Irvine who has been studying immigrant children since the 1960s and who coined the term "1.5 generation." Often quickly learning English, they serve as interpreters for their non-English-speaking parents. Their second-generation siblings are more likely to lose their parents' language and by the third generation most speak only English.
They also are high achievers, working to make good in the eyes of parents who made considerable sacrifices on their behalf. Some too, if they were old enough when they came to the U.S., are motivated by the difficult conditions that they left behind. As Julita put it, "I wasn't going to go to college where I am from....I came here hungry to learn, to get ahead."
On the flip side, 1.5ers are less likely to run afoul of the law. Despite the myth that immigrants are more prone to criminality, study after study has found that the chance of incarceration is greater among second-generation Americans.
You might say 1.5ers are model citizens. You might, but you would be wrong. Julita is afraid to reveal her full name, where she is from, or even what she does to earn a living. As it turns out, a lot of 1.5ers like Julita don't have papers, and live in this country illegally. Julita attends college in Texas, which is one of 10 states that provide in-state tuition for undocumented students.
Congress has a new chance to do right by Julita and the tens of thousands whose circumstances are similar to hers by providing them a clear pathway to legal status. The bill to do that is the so-called Dream Act, first introduced in 2001 but repeatedly stalled. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to introduce it on the floor of the Senate in the next few weeks as stand-alone legislation for the first time.
The bill will be a litmus test of sorts. Its introduction as a standalone provides "a moment a lot of people have been waiting for....It's time to see where people stand on it," said Roberto G. Gonzales, author of a soon to be released report by the Immigration Policy Center about the 1.5ers who would benefit from the Dream Act. "If people give these kids a chance, they are really positioned well to compete in a global economy."
The bill would grant permanent legal residency after a six-year probation to those who have lived in the country for at least five years, attended college for at least two years or served in the military, all while maintaining an unblemished record. An estimated 360,000 undocumented immigrants could qualify immediately, and 65,000 others would join them each year.
Beyond the significance for those it would benefit, the Dream Act tacitly poses important questions to society as a whole. Is the United States ready to provide a modicum of opportunity for those who are well under way to making a positive impact on society? What are the limits of the country's animosity toward undocumented immigrants? Will this country make the children of immigrants pay for the "sins" of their fathers?
The United States could use a dose of the optimism espoused by 1.5ers such as Julita. When asked why go through the trouble of getting a college education when her eventual job search would be thwarted by the lack of papers or when she could even be deported, Julita answered simply: "What else am I going to do? I cannot not go to school. It would be a waste."
"No matter what happens," Julita said, "nobody can take my education away from me." Then she added the much-used cliche, with no trace of irony:
"One of the best things about this country is the opportunity."
for link to article click the title to this post
Thursday, October 4, 2007
ICE Raids in Southern California, 1,300 Arrested - Does This Show Integrity?
This is the biggest sweep since the Swift raid. Reuters quoted DHS ICE spokesperson Julie Meyers as saying
"We have made our communities safer and protected the integrity of our nation's immigration system"
-----
California | Local News : Orange County
Massive sweep deports hundreds
Los Angeles Times
By Anna Gorman and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
Federal officers in Southern California over the last two weeks have arrested more than 1,300 immigrants, most of whom either have criminal records or have failed to abide by deportation orders -- part of an intensifying but controversial effort across the nation to remove such violators.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which plans to announce the operation at a news conference in Los Angeles today, called the sweep the largest of its kind in the U.S. Nearly 600 of those arrested at homes, workplaces and in jails have already been deported.
..."Where these laws may not have been enforced in the past, that has changed," said Jim Hayes, Los Angeles field office director for ICE.
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, pressure has been growing on the federal government to crack down on illegal immigrants, especially those who have committed crimes. And ICE has been waging a public relations battle to show that it is addressing the problem.
In the recent ICE operation, nearly 90% of the immigrants arrested had criminal records, deportation orders or had reentered the United States after being removed. The rest, 146, were "collateral" arrests -- people who encountered the agents and could not prove they were in the United States legally. Officers arrested 530 immigrants in their homes and workplaces and took custody of nearly 800 others from jails in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The 1,327 arrests surpassed the 1,297 undocumented immigrants arrested by ICE agents at meat processing plants in six states last December, part of an investigation into identity theft.
The enforcement is the latest example of the how some local law enforcement agencies are cooperating with federal authorities to ensure that criminals are identified and deported, rather than simply released from jail. ICE recently created a 24-hour command center, complete with a specific e-mail address and phone number, where local law enforcement officers can exchange information with immigration agents to identify possible deportees.
...Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca called the partnership between ICE and jail personnel "very successful." He said his department had identified and interviewed 8,000 illegal immigrant inmates in the county jail system between January and September.
"It shows the volume in Los Angeles County is significant when it comes to the managing of illegal immigrants that have committed local crimes," Baca said.
In Orange County, officials found that about 10% of the 46,000 inmates that have gone through the system since mid-January were illegal immigrants.
"It's exceeding our expectations," Sheriff Michael S. Carona said of the screening program. "The communities are slowly but surely" buying into it. "We are not going down the street asking people for their immigration status."
In many cities, there has been a rising backlash to special treatment of illegal immigrants, including in Los Angeles, where officers have long interpreted the department's Special Order 40 as prohibiting them from asking the immigration status of suspects in most routine cases. Anti-illegal immigrant groups are suing to overturn the order.
...About 1,100 of the recent arrestees were from Mexico. An additional 170 were from Central America, and others were from countries including Vietnam, Indonesia and Ireland. They had committed crimes such as burglary, domestic violence, assault and transportation of drugs, agents said. Some of them were legal, permanent residents who were deportable because of the crimes they committed.
The U.S. attorney's office plans to prosecute more than 45 of the arrestees for reentry after deportation, a felony that could land them in prison for up to 20 years.
for link to complete LA Times article click title to this post
"We have made our communities safer and protected the integrity of our nation's immigration system"
-----
California | Local News : Orange County
Massive sweep deports hundreds
Los Angeles Times
By Anna Gorman and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
Federal officers in Southern California over the last two weeks have arrested more than 1,300 immigrants, most of whom either have criminal records or have failed to abide by deportation orders -- part of an intensifying but controversial effort across the nation to remove such violators.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which plans to announce the operation at a news conference in Los Angeles today, called the sweep the largest of its kind in the U.S. Nearly 600 of those arrested at homes, workplaces and in jails have already been deported.
..."Where these laws may not have been enforced in the past, that has changed," said Jim Hayes, Los Angeles field office director for ICE.
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, pressure has been growing on the federal government to crack down on illegal immigrants, especially those who have committed crimes. And ICE has been waging a public relations battle to show that it is addressing the problem.
In the recent ICE operation, nearly 90% of the immigrants arrested had criminal records, deportation orders or had reentered the United States after being removed. The rest, 146, were "collateral" arrests -- people who encountered the agents and could not prove they were in the United States legally. Officers arrested 530 immigrants in their homes and workplaces and took custody of nearly 800 others from jails in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The 1,327 arrests surpassed the 1,297 undocumented immigrants arrested by ICE agents at meat processing plants in six states last December, part of an investigation into identity theft.
The enforcement is the latest example of the how some local law enforcement agencies are cooperating with federal authorities to ensure that criminals are identified and deported, rather than simply released from jail. ICE recently created a 24-hour command center, complete with a specific e-mail address and phone number, where local law enforcement officers can exchange information with immigration agents to identify possible deportees.
...Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca called the partnership between ICE and jail personnel "very successful." He said his department had identified and interviewed 8,000 illegal immigrant inmates in the county jail system between January and September.
"It shows the volume in Los Angeles County is significant when it comes to the managing of illegal immigrants that have committed local crimes," Baca said.
In Orange County, officials found that about 10% of the 46,000 inmates that have gone through the system since mid-January were illegal immigrants.
"It's exceeding our expectations," Sheriff Michael S. Carona said of the screening program. "The communities are slowly but surely" buying into it. "We are not going down the street asking people for their immigration status."
In many cities, there has been a rising backlash to special treatment of illegal immigrants, including in Los Angeles, where officers have long interpreted the department's Special Order 40 as prohibiting them from asking the immigration status of suspects in most routine cases. Anti-illegal immigrant groups are suing to overturn the order.
...About 1,100 of the recent arrestees were from Mexico. An additional 170 were from Central America, and others were from countries including Vietnam, Indonesia and Ireland. They had committed crimes such as burglary, domestic violence, assault and transportation of drugs, agents said. Some of them were legal, permanent residents who were deportable because of the crimes they committed.
The U.S. attorney's office plans to prosecute more than 45 of the arrestees for reentry after deportation, a felony that could land them in prison for up to 20 years.
for link to complete LA Times article click title to this post
No-Match SS - Chaos at the Door
Is the raid on Nassau County an example of the administration's "get tough" policy?
-----
Chaos Coming
In targeting the employers of illegal immigrants, the administration courts disaster.
Washington Post
Thursday, October 4, 2007; A24
HAVING FAILED at comprehensive immigration reform, the Bush administration is on its way to failing at piecemeal immigration reform. Its new get-tough approach, unveiled in the summer, aims to deter unlawful entry to the country by forcing employers to fire illegal immigrants on their payrolls. The policy is a prescription for social, economic and bureaucratic mayhem masquerading as muscular enforcement. No wonder it has succeeded in uniting labor, business and civil rights groups in opposition to it.
At the heart of the administration's new strategy is a plan to use government data to identify undocumented workers who have provided their employers with fraudulent Social Security numbers to qualify for a job. On identifying these "no-match" employees, the government would alert employers, who would then have 90 days either to fire the workers in question or face hefty fines.
Simple, right? Wrong. For starters, the Social Security Administration's database is riddled with errors -- mistakes, misspellings, hyphenated names wrongly entered and so forth. According to the agency's own inspector general, these errors could affect 17.8 million records. That raises the probability of bureaucratic confusion on an epic scale. In targeting illegal immigrants, the government's dragnet is likely to sweep up huge numbers of citizens, both native-born and legal immigrants. Would employers facing large fines really fight to keep workers -- even perfectly legal ones -- whose documents were marred by a discrepancy?
No doubt, many undocumented workers might be culled in such a cruel campaign. Some might even decide to leave the country. But many others would simply burrow more deeply into the underground economy, working as day laborers or for mom-and-pop employers under the government's radar. The effect on employers in the agriculture, meatpacking, construction and hospitality industries could be devastating. Farmers would be particularly hard hit: At least 70 percent of farmworkers in this country are thought to be undocumented. The government is not denying that its plan would cause confusion and dislocations; it's just saying that's too bad.
In response to a lawsuit by unions and the American Civil Liberties Union, a federal court in San Francisco has put the government's new rules on hold; a ruling is expected soon. The government has a right to enforce laws. But let there be no illusions about the costs. President Bush himself argued for comprehensive immigration reform because he knew -- and his own aides acknowledged -- that a crackdown without a path to citizenship for some 12 million illegal immigrants already here was a recipe for chaos. If the administration is determined to squeeze employers, it might make some sense to start with hiring. Launching an attack on millions of hardworking people already in the labor force is foolish in the extreme...
-----
Chaos Coming
In targeting the employers of illegal immigrants, the administration courts disaster.
Washington Post
Thursday, October 4, 2007; A24
HAVING FAILED at comprehensive immigration reform, the Bush administration is on its way to failing at piecemeal immigration reform. Its new get-tough approach, unveiled in the summer, aims to deter unlawful entry to the country by forcing employers to fire illegal immigrants on their payrolls. The policy is a prescription for social, economic and bureaucratic mayhem masquerading as muscular enforcement. No wonder it has succeeded in uniting labor, business and civil rights groups in opposition to it.
At the heart of the administration's new strategy is a plan to use government data to identify undocumented workers who have provided their employers with fraudulent Social Security numbers to qualify for a job. On identifying these "no-match" employees, the government would alert employers, who would then have 90 days either to fire the workers in question or face hefty fines.
Simple, right? Wrong. For starters, the Social Security Administration's database is riddled with errors -- mistakes, misspellings, hyphenated names wrongly entered and so forth. According to the agency's own inspector general, these errors could affect 17.8 million records. That raises the probability of bureaucratic confusion on an epic scale. In targeting illegal immigrants, the government's dragnet is likely to sweep up huge numbers of citizens, both native-born and legal immigrants. Would employers facing large fines really fight to keep workers -- even perfectly legal ones -- whose documents were marred by a discrepancy?
No doubt, many undocumented workers might be culled in such a cruel campaign. Some might even decide to leave the country. But many others would simply burrow more deeply into the underground economy, working as day laborers or for mom-and-pop employers under the government's radar. The effect on employers in the agriculture, meatpacking, construction and hospitality industries could be devastating. Farmers would be particularly hard hit: At least 70 percent of farmworkers in this country are thought to be undocumented. The government is not denying that its plan would cause confusion and dislocations; it's just saying that's too bad.
In response to a lawsuit by unions and the American Civil Liberties Union, a federal court in San Francisco has put the government's new rules on hold; a ruling is expected soon. The government has a right to enforce laws. But let there be no illusions about the costs. President Bush himself argued for comprehensive immigration reform because he knew -- and his own aides acknowledged -- that a crackdown without a path to citizenship for some 12 million illegal immigrants already here was a recipe for chaos. If the administration is determined to squeeze employers, it might make some sense to start with hiring. Launching an attack on millions of hardworking people already in the labor force is foolish in the extreme...
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
New Mexico & Colorado Work Together on In-State Tuition
NM: 9 Immigrants Are Paying In-State Tuition at UNM
Albuquerque Journal, September 27, 2007
By Martin Salazar
The University of New Mexico has determined that the number of undocumented immigrants from Colorado attending this fall and paying in-state tuition is nine.
The students are attending UNM through a reciprocal agreement with Colorado. The agreement allows 100 Colorado students a year to pay New Mexico in-state tuition, and vice versa.
UNM spokeswoman Karen Wentworth said she doesn't think any of the Colorado students is receiving a UNM scholarship. She said a couple of undocumented students received competitive academic scholarships last year.
The issue arose in July after The Associated Press reported that an unknown number of undocumented students from Poudre High School in Fort Collins would attend UNM and pay in-state tuition.
A new Colorado law prohibits state colleges there from providing in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, even if they graduated from a Colorado high school.
That isn't the case in New Mexico. A 2005 state law prohibits educational institutions from discriminating against undocumented students.
That law makes undocumented students in New Mexico eligible for instate tuition rates and state financial aid if they attended a secondary school in New Mexico for at least one year, graduated from a New Mexico high school or received a general education development certificate in the state.
Albuquerque Journal, September 27, 2007
By Martin Salazar
The University of New Mexico has determined that the number of undocumented immigrants from Colorado attending this fall and paying in-state tuition is nine.
The students are attending UNM through a reciprocal agreement with Colorado. The agreement allows 100 Colorado students a year to pay New Mexico in-state tuition, and vice versa.
UNM spokeswoman Karen Wentworth said she doesn't think any of the Colorado students is receiving a UNM scholarship. She said a couple of undocumented students received competitive academic scholarships last year.
The issue arose in July after The Associated Press reported that an unknown number of undocumented students from Poudre High School in Fort Collins would attend UNM and pay in-state tuition.
A new Colorado law prohibits state colleges there from providing in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, even if they graduated from a Colorado high school.
That isn't the case in New Mexico. A 2005 state law prohibits educational institutions from discriminating against undocumented students.
That law makes undocumented students in New Mexico eligible for instate tuition rates and state financial aid if they attended a secondary school in New Mexico for at least one year, graduated from a New Mexico high school or received a general education development certificate in the state.
The Military Option: Fight for Residency
Opinion: The Iraq Shortcut To Citizenship Legalization
Scripps Howard News Service, October 01, 2007
By Jorge Mariscal
In an obscure memoir of the American war in Southeast Asia, an undocumented Mexican who had enlisted in the Army with the aid of an unscrupulous recruiter, writes: "I realized that for me to live in the United States, the system was asking me to pay a high price. Now I probably would have to give my life. Was it worth it?"
During the Vietnam War period, citizens from foreign countries in the U.S. military were rare and unknown to the public. Today, although they make up only a small percentage of the overall force, they appear regularly in media stories, Pentagon publicity and nativist rants about a Mexican invasion.
Non-citizens make up between 2 percent and 3 percent of total military manpower. To date, they have received more than 200 medals and awards for service in the combat zone. Over 100 of them have received posthumous citizenship after making the ultimate sacrifice. The majority of them have roots in Latin America.
Is the U.S. military becoming a foreign legion? Not yet. But the strain on active-duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel is becoming unbearable. Fresh bodies are hard to find and so there is renewed interest in a piece of legislation that could produce a bumper crop of eligible non-citizens for recruiters.
The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors -- or DREAM -- Act has been floating around the halls of Congress for more than six years. If it passes this year, it would provide a pathway to permanent residency for undocumented young people who were raised and completed high school in the United States. Those who qualify would have to complete two years of college or enlist in the military in order to earn a permanent green card.
The Latino community was quick to support the legislation because of its educational component. For the first five years, there was a deafening silence in Latino circles about the military option. This changed only recently when the Pentagon and elected officials began to discuss openly the DREAM Act as a possible fix for the military's manpower needs.
Bill Carr, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, told reporters that the legislation would help "boost" military recruiting. Lt. Col. Margaret Stock of the U.S. Army Reserve, and a faculty member at West Point, confirmed that the DREAM Act could help recruiters meet their goals by providing a "highly qualified cohort of young people" without the unknown personal details that would accompany foreign recruits. ...
"They are already going to come vetted by Homeland Security. They will already have graduated from high school," she said. "They are prime candidates."
Last July, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on the floor of the Senate, "The DREAM Act would address a very serious recruitment crisis that faces our military. ... (It) creates a strong incentive for military service. And many DREAM Act kids come from a demographic group that is already predisposed towards military service "
The irony, of course, is that while the Pentagon chases young non-citizens to fill the ranks, other non-citizen workers whose economic contributions to the nation are undeniable are being pursued by other agencies of the U.S. government.
As one worker told me, Latino communities are experiencing a "double deportation." On the one hand, military recruiters are flooding those high schools that have Latino majorities. Many of those young men and women who are successfully recruited will end up in Iraq and Afghanistan. A metaphorical deportation, of course, but from the family's point of view a painful removal of a loved one, nonetheless.
At the same time, the undocumented parents and siblings of those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines watch as armored vehicles carrying teams of armed personnel invade their neighborhoods to conduct Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Just last month in the working-class neighborhood of Barrio Logan of San Diego, for example, police surrounded a 10-block area while helicopters circled overhead and ICE agents swept through in full combat regalia. Similar actions are taking place across the country.
Some of these parents have been arrested and scheduled for deportation hearings. Remember, these are parents whose sons and daughters are fighting "for democracy" in Iraq. One such case is that of U.S. Army Pvt. Armando Soriano, 20, who died in Iraq in 2004. This summer, ICE raids swept through Houston. Soriano's father was detained and is currently threatened with deportation.
Like the undocumented Mexican soldier in Vietnam, young Latinas and Latinos presented with the military pathway to acceptance will have to ask themselves if the price is worth it.
(Jorge Mariscal is a professor of history and literature at the University of California-San Diego. Reach him at gmariscal@ucsd.edu.)
Scripps Howard News Service, October 01, 2007
By Jorge Mariscal
In an obscure memoir of the American war in Southeast Asia, an undocumented Mexican who had enlisted in the Army with the aid of an unscrupulous recruiter, writes: "I realized that for me to live in the United States, the system was asking me to pay a high price. Now I probably would have to give my life. Was it worth it?"
During the Vietnam War period, citizens from foreign countries in the U.S. military were rare and unknown to the public. Today, although they make up only a small percentage of the overall force, they appear regularly in media stories, Pentagon publicity and nativist rants about a Mexican invasion.
Non-citizens make up between 2 percent and 3 percent of total military manpower. To date, they have received more than 200 medals and awards for service in the combat zone. Over 100 of them have received posthumous citizenship after making the ultimate sacrifice. The majority of them have roots in Latin America.
Is the U.S. military becoming a foreign legion? Not yet. But the strain on active-duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel is becoming unbearable. Fresh bodies are hard to find and so there is renewed interest in a piece of legislation that could produce a bumper crop of eligible non-citizens for recruiters.
The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors -- or DREAM -- Act has been floating around the halls of Congress for more than six years. If it passes this year, it would provide a pathway to permanent residency for undocumented young people who were raised and completed high school in the United States. Those who qualify would have to complete two years of college or enlist in the military in order to earn a permanent green card.
The Latino community was quick to support the legislation because of its educational component. For the first five years, there was a deafening silence in Latino circles about the military option. This changed only recently when the Pentagon and elected officials began to discuss openly the DREAM Act as a possible fix for the military's manpower needs.
Bill Carr, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, told reporters that the legislation would help "boost" military recruiting. Lt. Col. Margaret Stock of the U.S. Army Reserve, and a faculty member at West Point, confirmed that the DREAM Act could help recruiters meet their goals by providing a "highly qualified cohort of young people" without the unknown personal details that would accompany foreign recruits. ...
"They are already going to come vetted by Homeland Security. They will already have graduated from high school," she said. "They are prime candidates."
Last July, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on the floor of the Senate, "The DREAM Act would address a very serious recruitment crisis that faces our military. ... (It) creates a strong incentive for military service. And many DREAM Act kids come from a demographic group that is already predisposed towards military service "
The irony, of course, is that while the Pentagon chases young non-citizens to fill the ranks, other non-citizen workers whose economic contributions to the nation are undeniable are being pursued by other agencies of the U.S. government.
As one worker told me, Latino communities are experiencing a "double deportation." On the one hand, military recruiters are flooding those high schools that have Latino majorities. Many of those young men and women who are successfully recruited will end up in Iraq and Afghanistan. A metaphorical deportation, of course, but from the family's point of view a painful removal of a loved one, nonetheless.
At the same time, the undocumented parents and siblings of those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines watch as armored vehicles carrying teams of armed personnel invade their neighborhoods to conduct Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Just last month in the working-class neighborhood of Barrio Logan of San Diego, for example, police surrounded a 10-block area while helicopters circled overhead and ICE agents swept through in full combat regalia. Similar actions are taking place across the country.
Some of these parents have been arrested and scheduled for deportation hearings. Remember, these are parents whose sons and daughters are fighting "for democracy" in Iraq. One such case is that of U.S. Army Pvt. Armando Soriano, 20, who died in Iraq in 2004. This summer, ICE raids swept through Houston. Soriano's father was detained and is currently threatened with deportation.
Like the undocumented Mexican soldier in Vietnam, young Latinas and Latinos presented with the military pathway to acceptance will have to ask themselves if the price is worth it.
(Jorge Mariscal is a professor of history and literature at the University of California-San Diego. Reach him at gmariscal@ucsd.edu.)
The DREAM ACT and Sofie's Choice
"conditional residency status" does not automatically mean in-state tuition. That option was negotiated out of the senate bill.
----
In the film "Sofie's Choice" a young mother is forced to decide which of her two children will live and which wil die. She and the children have arrived at Auschwitz. A sadistic German officer forces her to make a decision. Ultimately it is her daughter that dies and her son that lives. The guilt destroys her life. She survives the death camp and immigrates to the United States, but the guilt overtakes her.
The current state of the DREAM ACT has a strong semblance to Sophie's Choice. U.S. Senators have decided who will live and who will die. I mean this literally. The DREAM ACT students who have already completed their 2 years of college (and other requirements like no criminal record etc) will not only live, but will flourish with their new residency status, their education and their tremendous drive. The undocumented youth who have not completed the education requirement may have no other choice than to join the military. The only chance they have is if they live in a state that already has in-state tuition for undocumented students - then they can continue their schooling. If they reside in one of the other 40 states they will have to come up with thousands of dollars to pay international student rates. Remember that undocumented students rarely qualify for financial aide.
To regularize they join the Army, or the Marines, or another branch of the military. Since the U.S. Congress has not made any kind of committment regarding our withdraw of American troops, it is likely these young recruits will be sent to Iraq. We all know the consequences of that assignment. Military deaths in Iraq and Afganistan do not match the Vietnam War, but if you include injuries causing disabilities, the numbers are the same.
it is important for me to clarify that I'm not totally against the military. What I do not agree with is thousands of soldiers being sent to a conflict that should have been ended long ago. Otherwise, the military is great for most young people. By enlisting they mature, leave their home region, meet people from all over, and then take with them benefits that will help them continue their education.
So its one for the other. I'm sure the DREAM ACT is seriously being considered now because of the military option. Otherwise it would have passed a long time ago. When Durbin took out the in-state tuition clause he and his colleagues decided to greatly reduce the accessibility of the education option in order to get the bill passed.
The consequences are this:
in one family there are two DREAM ACT students. One that just completed college and one finishing high school. The college graduate will automatically qualify. The high school student faces dismal prospects if the state in which he lives does not have in-state tuition.
He may have "conditional residency status" - but this will not automatically allow him in-state tuition. He will not qualify for in-state tuition in the other 40 states until he obtains his "permanent residency."
What does he do now if he can't afford international student tuition rates?
----
In the film "Sofie's Choice" a young mother is forced to decide which of her two children will live and which wil die. She and the children have arrived at Auschwitz. A sadistic German officer forces her to make a decision. Ultimately it is her daughter that dies and her son that lives. The guilt destroys her life. She survives the death camp and immigrates to the United States, but the guilt overtakes her.
The current state of the DREAM ACT has a strong semblance to Sophie's Choice. U.S. Senators have decided who will live and who will die. I mean this literally. The DREAM ACT students who have already completed their 2 years of college (and other requirements like no criminal record etc) will not only live, but will flourish with their new residency status, their education and their tremendous drive. The undocumented youth who have not completed the education requirement may have no other choice than to join the military. The only chance they have is if they live in a state that already has in-state tuition for undocumented students - then they can continue their schooling. If they reside in one of the other 40 states they will have to come up with thousands of dollars to pay international student rates. Remember that undocumented students rarely qualify for financial aide.
To regularize they join the Army, or the Marines, or another branch of the military. Since the U.S. Congress has not made any kind of committment regarding our withdraw of American troops, it is likely these young recruits will be sent to Iraq. We all know the consequences of that assignment. Military deaths in Iraq and Afganistan do not match the Vietnam War, but if you include injuries causing disabilities, the numbers are the same.
it is important for me to clarify that I'm not totally against the military. What I do not agree with is thousands of soldiers being sent to a conflict that should have been ended long ago. Otherwise, the military is great for most young people. By enlisting they mature, leave their home region, meet people from all over, and then take with them benefits that will help them continue their education.
So its one for the other. I'm sure the DREAM ACT is seriously being considered now because of the military option. Otherwise it would have passed a long time ago. When Durbin took out the in-state tuition clause he and his colleagues decided to greatly reduce the accessibility of the education option in order to get the bill passed.
The consequences are this:
in one family there are two DREAM ACT students. One that just completed college and one finishing high school. The college graduate will automatically qualify. The high school student faces dismal prospects if the state in which he lives does not have in-state tuition.
He may have "conditional residency status" - but this will not automatically allow him in-state tuition. He will not qualify for in-state tuition in the other 40 states until he obtains his "permanent residency."
What does he do now if he can't afford international student tuition rates?
Prince William County Now Says Immgration Enforcement is Too Expensive
In the end it may be realistic things like budgets that will slow down or stop the rabid move of many communities to eliminate any residents that are undocumented.
They will find out first that its too expensive to track everybody down. Then once everyone is gone, their local economy will almost collapse.
-----
Citing Cost, Prince William Delays Immigrant Measures
Support of Crackdown Affirmed Amid New Caution
By Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 3, 2007; Page A01
Prince William County supervisors slowed their closely watched crackdown on illegal immigrants yesterday, as one of the nation's most aggressive efforts at local enforcement has run into the reality of budget constraints at a time of declining revenue.
County supervisors remained united in wanting to show that local governments can do more to rid their towns of illegal immigrants, voting unanimously to support a new police policy that increases residency checks and improves cooperation with federal immigration authorities. But when it came to allocating the $14.2 million it would cost to implement the policy, the supervisors balked, voting to revisit the issue later.
The board's vote, taken late yesterday afternoon after spirited public debate, delays the implementation of the key elements of the immigration policy.
Specifically, supervisors said it was too soon to commit money for any of the measures. With property values falling by 10 percent or more and a $575,000 cut in state funding for county police services projected, several supervisors urged more time and caution.
"Part of me feels like we've been pulled away from our central mission," said Supervisor W.S. "Wally" Covington III (R-Brentsville). "For me, what this has always been about is what the cost is."
Supervisors also postponed their vote on proposals that would have denied county services to illegal immigrants, arguing that more time is needed to study the costs and potential consequences. The suggested service cuts outlined at yesterday's meeting did not put a price on tighter residency checks by county staff members. Supervisors also postponed their vote on funding a seven-officer Criminal Alien Unit within the police department...
for complete article click title to this post
They will find out first that its too expensive to track everybody down. Then once everyone is gone, their local economy will almost collapse.
-----
Citing Cost, Prince William Delays Immigrant Measures
Support of Crackdown Affirmed Amid New Caution
By Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 3, 2007; Page A01
Prince William County supervisors slowed their closely watched crackdown on illegal immigrants yesterday, as one of the nation's most aggressive efforts at local enforcement has run into the reality of budget constraints at a time of declining revenue.
County supervisors remained united in wanting to show that local governments can do more to rid their towns of illegal immigrants, voting unanimously to support a new police policy that increases residency checks and improves cooperation with federal immigration authorities. But when it came to allocating the $14.2 million it would cost to implement the policy, the supervisors balked, voting to revisit the issue later.
The board's vote, taken late yesterday afternoon after spirited public debate, delays the implementation of the key elements of the immigration policy.
Specifically, supervisors said it was too soon to commit money for any of the measures. With property values falling by 10 percent or more and a $575,000 cut in state funding for county police services projected, several supervisors urged more time and caution.
"Part of me feels like we've been pulled away from our central mission," said Supervisor W.S. "Wally" Covington III (R-Brentsville). "For me, what this has always been about is what the cost is."
Supervisors also postponed their vote on proposals that would have denied county services to illegal immigrants, arguing that more time is needed to study the costs and potential consequences. The suggested service cuts outlined at yesterday's meeting did not put a price on tighter residency checks by county staff members. Supervisors also postponed their vote on funding a seven-officer Criminal Alien Unit within the police department...
for complete article click title to this post
The Posse Rides Again, The Wild West in Nassau County
In the surreal world of the Department of Homeland Security, there occurred an immigration raid in Nassau County that would make a best selling tv series. There must have been some reason to stage this carnival of a raid. Why in the world would immigration agents want to wear cowboy hats, carry shotguns, and God forbid, automatic weapons? Why would they find a need to gather from all parts of the country? What was so important about this chaotic mass arrest?
Even worse, DHS has denied the charges. Sounds like the American version of the German SS is beginning to lose control - and their administration appears to be supporting this behavior.
Between this and the news of a secession convention, it makes you wonder what is really going on in the U.S.
_____
October 3, 2007
Raids Were a Shambles, Nassau Complains to U.S.
New York Times
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Scores of federal immigration agents from around the country, some wearing cowboy hats and brandishing shotguns and automatic weapons, endangered residents and local police officers last week as they raided homes in Nassau County in a poorly planned antigang operation, county officials charged yesterday.
Lawrence W. Mulvey, the Nassau County police commissioner, said that in two instances the immigration agents mistakenly drew their guns on Nassau County police detectives during operations that resulted in the arrests of 186 immigrants on Long Island.
Thomas R. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, said yesterday that he was demanding an investigation into the agents’ conduct by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Mr. Mulvey said that many United States citizens and legal residents were rousted from bed and were required to produce papers during an operation so ill-conceived that all but 6 out of 96 administrative warrants issued by the immigration enforcement agency in the search for gang members had wrong or outdated addresses.
In one case, agents were seeking a 28-year-old man with a photo taken when he was 7. Of more than 90 people arrested in Nassau County, most were illegal immigrant workers with no criminal record, Mr. Mulvey said, some with young children who were frightened by the immigration agents’ “inappropriate” behavior. “There were clear dangers of friendly fire,” he said of the operation, in which Nassau police provided standby support.
In a sharply worded letter to Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, Mr. Suozzi asked for an investigation into what he called “serious allegations of misconduct and malfeasance committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel in executing arrest warrants in various Nassau County communities on Sept. 24 and 26, 2007...”
for complete article click title to this post
photo: http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-arizona/HashknifePosse.jpg
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
The ICE Man is the BLUE Man
Photo: Blue ManHouston Baker Jr. wrote this really great book titled "Turning South" - its about Southern segregation, Baker's childhood, Booker T. Washington and the history of the Tuskegee Institute.
Baker writes about the "Blue Man" - who was the bogeyman of young black children... the Blue man could come out of no where - terrible things could happen if he caught you...
The Blue man was the KKK member, or the violent Sheriff's deputy... he was for real and he lived in the the American South.
Really sounds to me a lot like the ICE man.
Definition: ICE Immigration and Customs Enforcement
-----
beware the ICE man
FAIR Immigration
Posted by nicolawells on October 1st, 2007
Most people are afraid of the boogeyman, Freddy or Jason. For some children in Idaho, the ICE man is the real terror. Groups throughout Idaho are questioning night raids on homes and communities in Central Idaho.
“It is clear that ICE agents terrorized the community, including U.S. citizen children who were sleeping when the raid occurred,” said Leo Morales, a community organizer for ICAN, at a meeting Tuesday in Hailey. “In several homes, children were left crying as ICE agents interrogated parents and hauled them away.”
Agents are allegedly entering homes- armed- without warrants.
“They pounded on my door so hard that my walls shook,” said Dana Ayala. “My 19-year-old son opened the door to see what was happening, and six agents armed with guns, Tasers and flashlights pushed their way into my home.”
Ayala said she and her children are U.S. citizens, and that her husband, a native of Mexico, has legal residency in the United States.
She said agents told her they were looking for a sexual predator with a Hispanic surname, a person she had never heard of before.
“I’ve not heard that anybody had a warrant,” said Jack Van Valkenburgh, executive director of ACLU of Idaho. “I’m trying to get the word out. You don’t need to let (the agents) in if they don’t have a warrant. I don’t think that a lot of people understand their rights.”
Who wants to live in a country where officers, armed to the nines, can enter your home in the middle of the night without a warrant? … This isn’t just disgusting, it’s unamerican, undemocratic, and wrong. We don’t want them tapping our phones, then we don’t want them busting down our doors.
for link to the original on fairimmigration.wordpress.com click title to this post
photo: http://tickettransaction.com/EventImages/01085-000/bluemangroup_resize.jpg
The Consequences of Xenophobia
What happens when immigrants go away
OUR OPINION: LOCAL LAWS ARE NO SUBSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL REMEDY
Miami Herald
Posted on Tue, Oct. 02, 2007
Riverside, a small New Jersey town, got more than it bargained for after passing a get-tough immigration law last year. Proponents of the law blamed newcomers from Latin America for crowding, scarce parking, increased crime and strained public services. Although it never was enforced, the law worked anyway.
Influx of strangers
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Brazilians and other immigrants fled. Now the town has other woes: a deserted downtown, economic malaise and lingering resentment. Two weeks ago, Riverside repealed the law in the face of mounting legal bills and lawsuits likely to be lost.
Riverside's dynamics were predictable. Wary of strangers who spoke a different language and brought different customs, many residents rebelled. They feared the sudden influx of strangers: Why can't they speak English? They are taking our jobs.
Ironically, Riverside had experienced many immigrant waves before. Portuguese settled there in the 1960s and built businesses. This made the town attractive to Brazilians, who began arriving in 2000. How many of the new arrivals had legal status is unknown. But they revived the local economy.
Then came the new law. It mandated fines, jail time and possible loss of business licenses for anyone who knowingly rented housing or employed an undocumented immigrant. Soon after the law passed, many newcomers left. Along with them went the prosperity that their work and earnings pumped into the town.
Sad to say, Riverside's experience is quintessentially American. It reflects the love-hate relationship with immigrants that has existed since before our nation's founding. In the 1750s, Benjamin Franklin railed against German immigrants and their presumed threat to the English language. But our language and system of government survived the Germans, along with succeeding waves of Irish, Chinese, Italian, Polish, Mexican and Cuban immigrants. And the United States thrived.
Sensible solutions
Those groups arriving during eras of highest immigration were key to building U.S. industrial and economic power. The current wave, marked by immigrants from the Southern hemisphere, is no different.
Amid this wave, Riverside blamed undocumented immigrants for its woes, as did many of the 30 towns nationwide that enacted similar laws. Congress shares much of the blame for this. For years, the immigration system hasn't worked in the nation's best interest. Lawmakers with sensible solutions have been outflanked by a resilient minority. Municipalities would be better off lobbying Congress. Self-defeating local laws are no substitute for comprehensive immigration reform.
OUR OPINION: LOCAL LAWS ARE NO SUBSTITUTE FOR NATIONAL REMEDY
Miami Herald
Posted on Tue, Oct. 02, 2007
Riverside, a small New Jersey town, got more than it bargained for after passing a get-tough immigration law last year. Proponents of the law blamed newcomers from Latin America for crowding, scarce parking, increased crime and strained public services. Although it never was enforced, the law worked anyway.
Influx of strangers
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Brazilians and other immigrants fled. Now the town has other woes: a deserted downtown, economic malaise and lingering resentment. Two weeks ago, Riverside repealed the law in the face of mounting legal bills and lawsuits likely to be lost.
Riverside's dynamics were predictable. Wary of strangers who spoke a different language and brought different customs, many residents rebelled. They feared the sudden influx of strangers: Why can't they speak English? They are taking our jobs.
Ironically, Riverside had experienced many immigrant waves before. Portuguese settled there in the 1960s and built businesses. This made the town attractive to Brazilians, who began arriving in 2000. How many of the new arrivals had legal status is unknown. But they revived the local economy.
Then came the new law. It mandated fines, jail time and possible loss of business licenses for anyone who knowingly rented housing or employed an undocumented immigrant. Soon after the law passed, many newcomers left. Along with them went the prosperity that their work and earnings pumped into the town.
Sad to say, Riverside's experience is quintessentially American. It reflects the love-hate relationship with immigrants that has existed since before our nation's founding. In the 1750s, Benjamin Franklin railed against German immigrants and their presumed threat to the English language. But our language and system of government survived the Germans, along with succeeding waves of Irish, Chinese, Italian, Polish, Mexican and Cuban immigrants. And the United States thrived.
Sensible solutions
Those groups arriving during eras of highest immigration were key to building U.S. industrial and economic power. The current wave, marked by immigrants from the Southern hemisphere, is no different.
Amid this wave, Riverside blamed undocumented immigrants for its woes, as did many of the 30 towns nationwide that enacted similar laws. Congress shares much of the blame for this. For years, the immigration system hasn't worked in the nation's best interest. Lawmakers with sensible solutions have been outflanked by a resilient minority. Municipalities would be better off lobbying Congress. Self-defeating local laws are no substitute for comprehensive immigration reform.
Immigrant Labor - The Dark Side of Globalization -
Some African Americans are offended when slavery is compared to the life of immigrant laborers. Its true, there is nothing that compares to the horrors of bondage.
Even so, immigrant workers lives are not often pretty. And we all contribute everytime we buy something at Wallmart and Target.
----
ON THE JOB
Nobodies: Modern-day slavery in the United States
San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, October 1, 2007
By Chris Colin, Special to SF Gate
The other day I spoke with John Bowe about his new book, "Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy." I'd been appalled by the stories of slavery happening here in the States: immigrants forced to pick fruit in Florida, armed guards keeping welders in a factory in Tulsa, Okla. ...
But really, I was just pretending to care.
To claim otherwise would contradict the facts: I buy a new shirt now and then. A stereo every decade or so. Charcoal. A rug. Food. In 2007, I can't say that I don't know — those prices are just too low when you start calculating the time and labor behind them. But if you're like me, you don't calculate all that often. Sure, you boycott a particularly egregious company or two, but a lurking suspicion tells you they've all got dirty hands, and gradually your indignation wears away.
...The CIA has estimated that 50,000 women and children are brought to the country each year as sex slaves; many more are trapped doing agricultural, garment and domestic work. Bowe spoke with a few of them.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the anti-slavery movement's first major victory, the abolition of the British slave trade. Two centuries later, Bowe offers a look at how little progress has been made. Taking us from Florida to Oklahoma to the island of Saipan, he provides astonishing, in-depth accounts of the forced labor behind the cheap goods consumed in this country and elsewhere. These are not obscure products — major corporations we're all familiar with profit from modern slavery, he writes.
... Not only do some of Bowe's subjects technically receive a wage, many are even employed — indirectly, through sub-contractors — by the country's most prominent companies....
As Bowe illustrates, the logistics have changed — legal ownership has been replaced by domination and power — but the fundamental element remains: "A person not free to leave their job, held in place by violence or the threat of violence, to be exploited by someone else," is how he defines it.
Since its abolition in the United States, slavery has lived on in a variety of disguises: tenant farming, chain gangs assembled through flimsy arrests, guest worker programs just a step away from forced servitude. Nowhere is slavery's modern-day reconfiguration clearer than with bonded labor, an extremely common arrangement where immigrants come to a country to work, only to find themselves owing vast sums to those who help ferry them over, for housing and even for the job itself and the tools of their employment — a sack for the fruit they collect.
In cases like these, the workers' employers are often in league with those who helped them immigrate, or perhaps they rent out the squalid quarters where the workers stay or charge exorbitant prices for minor services like check-cashing. Finding themselves in such debt, the workers are forced to stay on — at risk of violent retribution if they leave — and surrender their wages until their obligation is paid...
for complete article click the title to this post
Even so, immigrant workers lives are not often pretty. And we all contribute everytime we buy something at Wallmart and Target.
----
ON THE JOB
Nobodies: Modern-day slavery in the United States
San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, October 1, 2007
By Chris Colin, Special to SF Gate
The other day I spoke with John Bowe about his new book, "Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy." I'd been appalled by the stories of slavery happening here in the States: immigrants forced to pick fruit in Florida, armed guards keeping welders in a factory in Tulsa, Okla. ...
But really, I was just pretending to care.
To claim otherwise would contradict the facts: I buy a new shirt now and then. A stereo every decade or so. Charcoal. A rug. Food. In 2007, I can't say that I don't know — those prices are just too low when you start calculating the time and labor behind them. But if you're like me, you don't calculate all that often. Sure, you boycott a particularly egregious company or two, but a lurking suspicion tells you they've all got dirty hands, and gradually your indignation wears away.
...The CIA has estimated that 50,000 women and children are brought to the country each year as sex slaves; many more are trapped doing agricultural, garment and domestic work. Bowe spoke with a few of them.
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the anti-slavery movement's first major victory, the abolition of the British slave trade. Two centuries later, Bowe offers a look at how little progress has been made. Taking us from Florida to Oklahoma to the island of Saipan, he provides astonishing, in-depth accounts of the forced labor behind the cheap goods consumed in this country and elsewhere. These are not obscure products — major corporations we're all familiar with profit from modern slavery, he writes.
... Not only do some of Bowe's subjects technically receive a wage, many are even employed — indirectly, through sub-contractors — by the country's most prominent companies....
As Bowe illustrates, the logistics have changed — legal ownership has been replaced by domination and power — but the fundamental element remains: "A person not free to leave their job, held in place by violence or the threat of violence, to be exploited by someone else," is how he defines it.
Since its abolition in the United States, slavery has lived on in a variety of disguises: tenant farming, chain gangs assembled through flimsy arrests, guest worker programs just a step away from forced servitude. Nowhere is slavery's modern-day reconfiguration clearer than with bonded labor, an extremely common arrangement where immigrants come to a country to work, only to find themselves owing vast sums to those who help ferry them over, for housing and even for the job itself and the tools of their employment — a sack for the fruit they collect.
In cases like these, the workers' employers are often in league with those who helped them immigrate, or perhaps they rent out the squalid quarters where the workers stay or charge exorbitant prices for minor services like check-cashing. Finding themselves in such debt, the workers are forced to stay on — at risk of violent retribution if they leave — and surrender their wages until their obligation is paid...
for complete article click the title to this post
Bad Choice of Words by Michael Chertoff
Chertoff Defends Border Fence
Chertoff: Illegals 'Degrade' Environment
Huffington Post
EILEEN SULLIVAN | October 1, 2007 |
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying it's actually better for the environment than what happens when people illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico line.
"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas," Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment."
To curb illegal immigration, the U.S. government plans to complete 670 miles of fencing on the southwest border by the end of 2008.
But this has drawn complaints about damaging the cross-border economy and hurting the environment. Wildlife enthusiasts fear the natural wonders of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas could be spoiled by fences and barriers and could harm some animals by cutting them off from the only source of fresh water.
Chertoff said the department has been able to satisfy most environmental concerns and will continue to address them. But if someone goes to court to slow construction, he said the department will use the environmental waiver authority Congress authorized.
Chertoff said the department has been able to satisfy most environmental concerns and will continue to address them. But if someone goes to court to slow construction, he said the department will use the environmental waiver authority Congress authorized.
"I was really driving these guys hard to make sure that we were getting this done," Chertoff said of the fence. "This is one of those deals where we made a promise, and we've lived up to that promise."
Last month, Chertoff said there was glitch in a "virtual fence" _ a 28-mile stretch of surveillance technologies near the border southwest of Tucson _ and he would not pay the contractor, Boeing Co., until that was resolved. The glitch was that the technologies were not all working together so that images caught on radar could be sent to a Border Patrol agent monitoring the system, Chertoff said Monday.
But he also said the problem "appears to be getting fixed" and Chertoff said the program will undergo its final testing phase this month.
"I've seen this kind of system work in other settings, so it's not a novel or a technologically difficult task," he said. "But because it is complicated, and because it's a demanding environment, we just weren't comfortable that we were happy with the way it was working."
___
On the Net:
http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership/
for link to article click title to this post
Chertoff: Illegals 'Degrade' Environment
Huffington Post
EILEEN SULLIVAN | October 1, 2007 |
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying it's actually better for the environment than what happens when people illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico line.
"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas," Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment."
To curb illegal immigration, the U.S. government plans to complete 670 miles of fencing on the southwest border by the end of 2008.
But this has drawn complaints about damaging the cross-border economy and hurting the environment. Wildlife enthusiasts fear the natural wonders of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas could be spoiled by fences and barriers and could harm some animals by cutting them off from the only source of fresh water.
Chertoff said the department has been able to satisfy most environmental concerns and will continue to address them. But if someone goes to court to slow construction, he said the department will use the environmental waiver authority Congress authorized.
Chertoff said the department has been able to satisfy most environmental concerns and will continue to address them. But if someone goes to court to slow construction, he said the department will use the environmental waiver authority Congress authorized.
"I was really driving these guys hard to make sure that we were getting this done," Chertoff said of the fence. "This is one of those deals where we made a promise, and we've lived up to that promise."
Last month, Chertoff said there was glitch in a "virtual fence" _ a 28-mile stretch of surveillance technologies near the border southwest of Tucson _ and he would not pay the contractor, Boeing Co., until that was resolved. The glitch was that the technologies were not all working together so that images caught on radar could be sent to a Border Patrol agent monitoring the system, Chertoff said Monday.
But he also said the problem "appears to be getting fixed" and Chertoff said the program will undergo its final testing phase this month.
"I've seen this kind of system work in other settings, so it's not a novel or a technologically difficult task," he said. "But because it is complicated, and because it's a demanding environment, we just weren't comfortable that we were happy with the way it was working."
___
On the Net:
http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership/
for link to article click title to this post
Monday, October 1, 2007
10 Day Extension on SS No-Match Letters
October 2, 2007
Court Orders a New Delay on Illegal Worker Rules
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
A federal judge in San Francisco yesterday extended for 10 days a temporary ban on a central measure in the Bush administration’s campaign to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.
After a two-hour hearing, the judge, Charles R. Breyer of Federal District Court, strongly suggested that he was leaning against the government in the case.
The ban further delayed the start of a rule, which establishes steps an employer must follow after receiving a notice from the Social Security Administration, known as a no-match letter, reporting that an employee’s identity information does not match the agency’s records. According to the rule, originally scheduled to take effect Sept. 14, if the employee cannot clarify the mismatch within 90 days, the employer would be required to fire the worker or risk prosecution for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. Those immigrants often provide false Social Security numbers when applying for jobs.
In an Aug. 31 decision, Judge Maxine M. Chesney, also of the San Francisco court, delayed the rule from taking effect before yesterday’s hearing and barred the Social Security Administration from sending out about 141,000 no-match letters, covering 8.7 million employees, which include notices from the Department of Homeland Security about the rule.
“It is clear to me at this point there would be irreparable harm to the plaintiffs,” Judge Breyer commented at the end of the hearing, rejecting the government’s main argument. “It just seems to me looking at it that this is a potentially enormous burden on the employer,” the judge said, adding that he would issue a ruling within 10 days.
The suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and several San Francisco labor organizations. They were joined by the United States Chamber of Commerce and several national small business associations.
In court documents, the business groups argued that the impact of the rule in terms of hiring and training office workers to comply with the new procedures and deadlines, and firing employees whose discrepancies were not resolved in time, would be “substantial, immediate and irreparable.”
The labor organizations said that Social Security’s records contained many errors that could lead to legal workers, including American citizens, being unjustly fired under the new rule.
The government countered that the rule did not represent any departure from current immigration laws or impose any new burdens on employers, but was designed to help employers by clarifying past confusion about what they had to do to comply with the law.
Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting.
Court Orders a New Delay on Illegal Worker Rules
New York Times
By JULIA PRESTON
A federal judge in San Francisco yesterday extended for 10 days a temporary ban on a central measure in the Bush administration’s campaign to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.
After a two-hour hearing, the judge, Charles R. Breyer of Federal District Court, strongly suggested that he was leaning against the government in the case.
The ban further delayed the start of a rule, which establishes steps an employer must follow after receiving a notice from the Social Security Administration, known as a no-match letter, reporting that an employee’s identity information does not match the agency’s records. According to the rule, originally scheduled to take effect Sept. 14, if the employee cannot clarify the mismatch within 90 days, the employer would be required to fire the worker or risk prosecution for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. Those immigrants often provide false Social Security numbers when applying for jobs.
In an Aug. 31 decision, Judge Maxine M. Chesney, also of the San Francisco court, delayed the rule from taking effect before yesterday’s hearing and barred the Social Security Administration from sending out about 141,000 no-match letters, covering 8.7 million employees, which include notices from the Department of Homeland Security about the rule.
“It is clear to me at this point there would be irreparable harm to the plaintiffs,” Judge Breyer commented at the end of the hearing, rejecting the government’s main argument. “It just seems to me looking at it that this is a potentially enormous burden on the employer,” the judge said, adding that he would issue a ruling within 10 days.
The suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and several San Francisco labor organizations. They were joined by the United States Chamber of Commerce and several national small business associations.
In court documents, the business groups argued that the impact of the rule in terms of hiring and training office workers to comply with the new procedures and deadlines, and firing employees whose discrepancies were not resolved in time, would be “substantial, immediate and irreparable.”
The labor organizations said that Social Security’s records contained many errors that could lead to legal workers, including American citizens, being unjustly fired under the new rule.
The government countered that the rule did not represent any departure from current immigration laws or impose any new burdens on employers, but was designed to help employers by clarifying past confusion about what they had to do to comply with the law.
Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting.
Why In-State Tuition is Important
If the DREAM ACT were to pass by mid-November those benefiting immediately would be undocumented people under 30 who already completed the 2 or more years of college (plus the other requirements of no criminal record etc.) . There will be none (or very very few that slipped through the cracks) in the military because you can't enlist unless you are already a legal resident.
If the DREAM ACT does not include in-state tuition that will leave hundreds of thousands of students in the lurch.-
These would be:
1. Students still in high school that are hoping to go to college
2. Those who are college students but have not completed the required 2 years of college enrollment (this would include students like Juan Sebastian Gomez who are just starting college)
3. Those who have not met the requirements and live where in-state tuition is not available. There are 40 states that do not offer in-state tuition.
For those that do not have the 2 years of college - and they don't live in:
Texas, Illinois, California, Utah, Washington, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New York and New Mexico - they will have to pay international rates that are significantly higher than even out-of-state tuition for U.S. residents.
These kids will have only one option, to join the military, now that they will be able to enlist without documents.
So it comes down to this:
If the DREAM ACT passes, a certain number of students will be automatically eligible for residency. Those living in one of the ten states also have a chance at ultimately qualifying.
Yet, these students will be regularized at the expense of the thousands that have no choice but to join the military. As it is, many undocumented young people cannot afford in-state tuition. I have spoken to many young men who came to the U.S. at age 14 and 15 and went immediately to work full time... because they need to make money to survive - education is a luxury.
These young people will pay a huge price for the small number who will automatically qualify. Many will die or be seriously injured if they are sent to a war zone (i.e. Iraq).
So for each DREAM ACT Student who gets their residency, there will be at least several undocumented persons who will join the military. Those who are killed in combat or severely injured - will pay the price for the few that qualified.
If the DREAM ACT does not include in-state tuition that will leave hundreds of thousands of students in the lurch.-
These would be:
1. Students still in high school that are hoping to go to college
2. Those who are college students but have not completed the required 2 years of college enrollment (this would include students like Juan Sebastian Gomez who are just starting college)
3. Those who have not met the requirements and live where in-state tuition is not available. There are 40 states that do not offer in-state tuition.
For those that do not have the 2 years of college - and they don't live in:
Texas, Illinois, California, Utah, Washington, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New York and New Mexico - they will have to pay international rates that are significantly higher than even out-of-state tuition for U.S. residents.
These kids will have only one option, to join the military, now that they will be able to enlist without documents.
So it comes down to this:
If the DREAM ACT passes, a certain number of students will be automatically eligible for residency. Those living in one of the ten states also have a chance at ultimately qualifying.
Yet, these students will be regularized at the expense of the thousands that have no choice but to join the military. As it is, many undocumented young people cannot afford in-state tuition. I have spoken to many young men who came to the U.S. at age 14 and 15 and went immediately to work full time... because they need to make money to survive - education is a luxury.
These young people will pay a huge price for the small number who will automatically qualify. Many will die or be seriously injured if they are sent to a war zone (i.e. Iraq).
So for each DREAM ACT Student who gets their residency, there will be at least several undocumented persons who will join the military. Those who are killed in combat or severely injured - will pay the price for the few that qualified.
Bad Dreams: Taking Out In-State Tuition From the DREAM ACT
photo: The Bad Dream by M.T. HernandezThe past couple of days I have developed a case of blog ambivalence. The DREAM ACT as it stands with no in-state tuition clause is something I cannot endorse. I realize that the U.S. House still has the provision, but considering how things have been going for immigration bills, it seems like people like Senator Sessions will win out -- they will give the military their 65,000 instant recruits, but make it too expensive for the DREAM ACT kids to go to college. As stated before on this blog, only 10 states have in-state tuition for undocumented college students... That means students in 40 states would have to pay international rates. Immigrants may not be as poor as they used to be, but paying private tuition size rates without financial aide (if you are undocumented your chances of getting financial aide are next to impossible) - is unrealistic.
Having been in my 20s during the Vietnam era I am quite aware of the impact it could have on the immigrant community. As long as the U.S. Military is involved in conflict, the immigrant recruits are in danger - you can imagine who would get sent to the battle zone first.
The Immigration Industrial Complex: N. Virginia Benefits from its Harsh Laws
SI International of Reston, Virginia reports that 20% of its revenue comes from contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. Since they $462 million, that means $92 milliion of that comes DHS.
Its interesting that Stanley Inc. (who also received a large contract) "declined to name its partners."
A bit of information on SI International from its web page:
"SI International is a provider of information technology and network solutions (IT) primarily to the federal government. The Company defines, designs, builds, deploys, and operates mission-critical solutions for the Department of Defense and Federal Civilian agencies. SI International delivers solutions quickly - often in a matter of months with a focus on federal IT modernization, homeland security, and space systems modernization."
-----
2 N.Va. Firms Win Immigration Document Deals
By Nick Wakeman
Special to the Washington Post
Monday, October 1, 2007; D04
The Department of Homeland Security has awarded two contracts worth $225 million each to a pair of Northern Virginia companies for document management at four immigration services centers.
SI International of Reston and Stanley Inc. of Arlington received the three-year contracts from the department's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency. Each company will support two centers that process visa applications and other immigration petitions.
...The contractors will run mailrooms and provide data entry, fee collection and records management services. They also will be responsible for ensuring that application files contain all the information needed to make a decision on a petition, officials with both companies said.
For SI, the contract is a role reversal. During the past six years, the company has been a subcontractor at the centers with JHM Research and Development of Silver Spring as the prime contractor. JHM won the previous contract through a small business set-aside, but the new contract was awarded through an open competition that allowed any business to bid, said Brad Antle, SI's chief executive.
Under the new award, JHM is on SI's team as a subcontractor. Other team members include Lockheed Martin, Zimmerman Associates, HeiTech Services, iDox Solutions, Unisys and Base One Technologies.
...Being the prime contractor gives SI an opportunity to build a closer relationship with the immigration agency, Antle said. Homeland Security is an important customer for the company, representing up to 20 percent of its revenue, Antle said. In 2006, SI reported $462 million in revenue.
For Stanley, the contract is its first with the immigration agency, said Pat Flannery, vice president of corporate development. "This is a new customer for us so we are very excited," he said.
...Stanley officials declined to name their partners on the contract but estimated that as many as 1,000 people could be working on the project between their two centers.
Nick Wakeman is editor of Washington Technology magazine. For information
on this and other contracts,
go to www.washington
technology.com.
-----
for complete article click the title of this post
We Are Not Poor
Contrary to Robert J. Samuelson says about immigrants bringing in poverty...the census is telling us something else. Instread of bringing in the poor, the poverty rate has fallen among Hispanics, from 30.7 in 1994, to 20.6 in 2006. That is a huge difference. Where in the world did Samuelson get his statistics?
_____
October 1, 2007
New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
The Rio Grande Rises
By DOUGLAS J. BESHAROV
Washington
ACCORDING to a recent report from the Census Bureau, poverty fell from about 12.6 percent in 2005 to about 12.3 percent last year. That’s about 500,000 fewer people living in poverty, the first statistically significant decline since 2000. (In 2006, the poverty line was $20,614 for a family of four.)
...But a closer look at the experience of one group, Hispanics, tells a very different story. As a group, Hispanics are enjoying substantial economic progress. Their poverty rate has dropped by a third from its high 12 years ago, falling from 30.7 percent in 1994 to 20.6 percent in 2006.
These numbers come from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, widely used by pro- and anti-immigration groups alike as a reasonably reliable source of information about illegal as well as legal immigrants. They show that although Hispanics still have a long way to go to achieve the full promise of the American Dream, as a group they are clearly on the economic up escalator.
In the past 30 years, the United States has experienced a tremendous amount of immigration, predominantly Hispanic. In 1975, a little more than 11 million Hispanics made up just over 5 percent of the population. Today’s nearly 45 million Hispanics are now about 15 percent of the country.
This influx of Hispanics has resulted in a higher poverty rate in the United States, mainly because many immigrants are low-skilled workers and women with young children. If the proportion of Hispanics in the population in 2006 had been the same as it was in 1975, then the overall American poverty rate in 2006 would have been 7 percent lower (11.4 percent rather than 12.3 percent). That would be 2.4 million fewer people, all Hispanics, in poverty.
This rough calculation leaves out the indirect impact that Hispanics have had on the job prospects and earnings of other low-skilled workers, especially African-Americans, probably keeping more of them in poverty. Economists argue about the size of this effect, but we see evidence of it all around us.
Consider the Hispanic success in obtaining skilled, blue-collar jobs, as measured by the census category for precision production, craft and repair occupations. From 1994 to 2006, as the total number of these jobs grew, the percentage held by whites fell from 79 percent to 65 percent. The percentage held by blacks remained constant at about 8 percent, and the percentage held by Hispanics more than doubled, rising to 25 percent from 11 percent. As whites left these relatively well-paid jobs, Hispanics rather than blacks moved into them.
Between 1994, the high point for Hispanic poverty, and 2006, the last year with comprehensive data, median Hispanic household income rose 20 percent, from about $31,500 a year in 2006 dollars to about $37,800 a year. The median income of Hispanic individuals rose 32 percent, to about $20,500 from about $15,500.
...One explanation for this economic progress is increased education. From 1994 to 2005, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-old Hispanics who graduated from high school or obtained a general equivalency diploma rose to about 66 percent from about 56 percent. About 25 percent are now enrolled in college, up from about 19 percent in 1994. Hispanics are moving rapidly into many management, professional and other white-collar occupations.
Because of the large and continuing influx of usually low-skilled Hispanic immigrants, economists have expected the poverty rate among Hispanics to rise or at least to remain flat. Instead, it is falling. However one feels about immigration, the falling Hispanic poverty rate testifies to the ability of Hispanic immigrants to take advantage of the opportunities that they have found in this country.
Douglas J. Besharov is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
_____
October 1, 2007
New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor
The Rio Grande Rises
By DOUGLAS J. BESHAROV
Washington
ACCORDING to a recent report from the Census Bureau, poverty fell from about 12.6 percent in 2005 to about 12.3 percent last year. That’s about 500,000 fewer people living in poverty, the first statistically significant decline since 2000. (In 2006, the poverty line was $20,614 for a family of four.)
...But a closer look at the experience of one group, Hispanics, tells a very different story. As a group, Hispanics are enjoying substantial economic progress. Their poverty rate has dropped by a third from its high 12 years ago, falling from 30.7 percent in 1994 to 20.6 percent in 2006.
These numbers come from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, widely used by pro- and anti-immigration groups alike as a reasonably reliable source of information about illegal as well as legal immigrants. They show that although Hispanics still have a long way to go to achieve the full promise of the American Dream, as a group they are clearly on the economic up escalator.
In the past 30 years, the United States has experienced a tremendous amount of immigration, predominantly Hispanic. In 1975, a little more than 11 million Hispanics made up just over 5 percent of the population. Today’s nearly 45 million Hispanics are now about 15 percent of the country.
This influx of Hispanics has resulted in a higher poverty rate in the United States, mainly because many immigrants are low-skilled workers and women with young children. If the proportion of Hispanics in the population in 2006 had been the same as it was in 1975, then the overall American poverty rate in 2006 would have been 7 percent lower (11.4 percent rather than 12.3 percent). That would be 2.4 million fewer people, all Hispanics, in poverty.
This rough calculation leaves out the indirect impact that Hispanics have had on the job prospects and earnings of other low-skilled workers, especially African-Americans, probably keeping more of them in poverty. Economists argue about the size of this effect, but we see evidence of it all around us.
Consider the Hispanic success in obtaining skilled, blue-collar jobs, as measured by the census category for precision production, craft and repair occupations. From 1994 to 2006, as the total number of these jobs grew, the percentage held by whites fell from 79 percent to 65 percent. The percentage held by blacks remained constant at about 8 percent, and the percentage held by Hispanics more than doubled, rising to 25 percent from 11 percent. As whites left these relatively well-paid jobs, Hispanics rather than blacks moved into them.
Between 1994, the high point for Hispanic poverty, and 2006, the last year with comprehensive data, median Hispanic household income rose 20 percent, from about $31,500 a year in 2006 dollars to about $37,800 a year. The median income of Hispanic individuals rose 32 percent, to about $20,500 from about $15,500.
...One explanation for this economic progress is increased education. From 1994 to 2005, the percentage of 18- to 24-year-old Hispanics who graduated from high school or obtained a general equivalency diploma rose to about 66 percent from about 56 percent. About 25 percent are now enrolled in college, up from about 19 percent in 1994. Hispanics are moving rapidly into many management, professional and other white-collar occupations.
Because of the large and continuing influx of usually low-skilled Hispanic immigrants, economists have expected the poverty rate among Hispanics to rise or at least to remain flat. Instead, it is falling. However one feels about immigration, the falling Hispanic poverty rate testifies to the ability of Hispanic immigrants to take advantage of the opportunities that they have found in this country.
Douglas J. Besharov is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)