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Daily news updates from CIS
September 14, 2009
Support the Center for Immigration Studies by donating on line here: http://cis.org/donate
ATTN Federal employees: The Center's Combined Federal Campaign number is 10298.
[For CISNEWS subscribers --
1. CIS report: raids open jobs for American workers
2. White House 'tightening' health care controls (3 stories, 10 links)
3. DHS Sec. labels issue a 'red herring' (2 stories)
4. U.S. denies Honduran leader visa
5. Seaborne smuggling on the rise
6. Study finds citizen applications down
7. CA budget covers $1b of illegals' health expense
8. OH policy allowed illegals to register vehicles
9. CO officials reach out to Latinos with 'soap opera'
10. Slate of AZ immigration hawks aiming for office grows
11. NJ 287(g) agreement requires police union approval
12. AZ drop house busts declining
13. Local-level CA leaders fret Census undercount
14. San Fran. school opens for immigrant kids
15. Businesses fret federal E-Verify requirement
16. CA city businesses bemoan police presence
17. Ethnic grocers fret increased competition
18. DE bank capitalizes on ethnic market
19. TX Latino activists press for DREAM Act
20. Haitian activists agitate for continued TPS
21. NJ activists to rally against enforcement
22. NV activists protest firing of illegals
23. Panel discusses issue's impact on faith
24. VA program helps resettle refugees
25. IA Latinos preserve farm heritage
26. VT ceremony naturalizes 91
27. Honduran man finds help legalizing
28. Illegal mental patient seeks reprieve
29. Illegal facing expulsion after testifying against fraudster (story, link)
30. Africans en route to U.S. detained off Costa Rica
31. MN jail mistakenly releases illegal (link)
32. Thrice previously deported gangster accused of prostitute's murder (link)
Subscribe to CIS e-mail services here: http://cis.org/immigrationnews.html
-- Mark Krikorian]
1.
Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers
By Alan Gomez
USA Today, September 14, 2009
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-09-13-plants_N.htm
When federal agents descended on six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. in December 2006, they rounded up nearly 1,300 suspected illegal immigrants that made up about 10% of the labor force at the plants.
But the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents did not cripple the company or the plants. In fact, they were back up and running at full staff within months by replacing those removed with a significant number of native-born Americans, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).
That was the most extreme example of what has become an increasingly common result of the raids: 'They were very beneficial to American workers,' according to Vanderbilt University professor Carol Swain.
'Whenever there's an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do those jobs that Americans will supposedly not do,' said Swain, who teaches law and political science.
Exactly who is filling the jobs has varied, depending on the populations surrounding the plants:
* Out West, one of the Swift plants raided by ICE, had a workforce that was about 90% Hispanic — both legal and illegal — before the raids. The lost workers were replaced mostly with white Americans and U.S.-born Hispanics, according to the CIS.
* In the South, a House of Raeford Farms plant in North Carolina that was more than 80% Hispanic before a federal investigation is now about 70% African-American, according to a report by TheCharlotte Observer.
* Throughout the Great Plains, a new wave of legal immigrants is filling the void, according to Jill Cashen, spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million people who work in the food-processing industry. Plants are refilling positions with newly arrived immigrants from places such as Sudan, Somalia and Southeast Asia.
Recession plays a factor in shift
Steven Camarota of CIS said native-born Americans are not only willing to take on those jobs, but currently fill a majority of them.
Native-born workers outnumber immigrants 3-to-1 in construction jobs and 2-to-1 in farming, fishing and forestry jobs, according to Camarota.
T. Willard Fair, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Miami, said it has taken the greatest recession in a generation for poor Americans to line up to work in fields and factories.
'We'll take anything now,' Fair said. 'We're willing to be exploited for a while.'
After ICE agents descend on poultry-processing plants, pork factories and meatpacking facilities across the USA, in some cases plant owners are forced to raise wages to get Americans to sign up, Swain said.
Catherine Singley, a policy analyst for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization, said the post-raid increases in salaries were also necessary for Americans to accept the harsh, dangerous working environments.
She said wages did not plummet in recent decades because of immigrants undercutting Americans, but because employers took advantage of the immigrant population fearful of seeking help from authorities.
'If you've got a segment of the workforce that's afraid to speak out against violations of their labor rights, then that drags down wages and working conditions for all workers,' Singley said.
A report released last week by the NCLR found that the occupational fatality rate for Latinos remained the highest among ethnic groups in the country for the 15th straight year in 2007, when 937 Latinos died on the job.
'That's something that native-born Americans and native-born Latino workers are dealing with for the first time,' she said.
New leverage for workers
As the face of factory workers changes, so do the issues that workers and employers must tackle.
Cashen said her union had to negotiate with plant managers in Nebraska and Colorado to allow employees to properly observe the Islamic holiday of Ramadan.
This month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that the Colorado plant was wrong to fire more than 100 Muslim workers who walked out during Ramadan last year in a dispute over prayer breaks.
'Ten years ago, we were negotiating to provide for Cinco de Mayo,' Cashen said, referring to the Mexican holiday. 'If you walk in the doors of a plant, you're going to see … the United Nations.'
EDITOR'S NOTE: The CIS study is available online at: http://www.cis.org/2006SwiftRaids
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2.
Health care for immigrants at issue
Proof of citizenship should be required for coverage, critics of reform plans say
By Erin Kelly
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), September 13, 2009
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/09/13/20090913health-immigrants0913.html
Washington, DC -- When a conservative congressman shouted 'You lie!' at President Barack Obama last week, it reignited an emotional debate over how the president's health-care-reform plan would affect the nation's 11 million-plus illegal immigrants.
Although Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., apologized for being rude, he and other Republicans still dispute Obama's assertion in his speech to a joint session of Congress that, 'The reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.'
Health-care legislation crafted in the House does specify that federal subsidies are barred for 'individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.' And Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., released an outline of pending Senate legislation that says, 'No illegal immigrants will benefit from the health-care tax credits.'
Critics say that doesn't mean much because there's no requirement in the legislation for low-income people to verify their citizenship before receiving federal subsidies to help them buy health insurance.
Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona told reporters Thursday that Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee defeated amendments that would have required verification of eligibility.
'And so if there is no verification of eligibility required, it is quite likely - indeed, I would say probable - that a lot of people who are not eligible, including illegal immigrants, will end up receiving the benefits of the legislation,' Kyl said.
Democrats know that and don't seem to care, said Jon Feere, legal-policy analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to reduce immigration.
House Democrats said they opposed citizenship verification in their legislation because experience shows it hurts citizens. They said low-income Americans already have trouble providing, or paying for, documentation to comply with a 2005 law requiring Medicaid recipients to prove citizenship.
'The people who have been harmed by the existing law have been U.S. citizens, oftentimes from poor, rural areas where they don't have their birth certificate or they don't have their passport,' said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
But it appears the Senate Finance Committee will break with its House counterparts and require proof of citizenship when it releases its health-care bill this week.
Baucus told reporters a bipartisan Senate group is seriously considering a provision that would require people to provide Social Security numbers or other forms of identification before receiving health-care subsidies.
Immigrants' rights groups say the controversy is overblown because immigrants, both legal and illegal, go to the doctor and the hospital far less often than U.S. citizens.
The country spends about $1,800 per capita on health care for legal and illegal non-citizens, compared to about $3,700 per capita for citizens, said Jennifer Tolbert, principal policy analyst with the Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzes health-care issues.
Under law, illegal immigrants are barred from receiving most health-care benefits. However, they can get care in emergency rooms as part of a Medicaid program that prevents hospitals from turning away patients.
Treating uninsured illegal immigrants at emergency rooms and free clinics costs taxpayers about $4.3 billion a year, Feere said. That could rise to more than $30 billion a year if they receive benefits under the proposed health-care bill, he said.
'I think there's a general skepticism among the public when it comes to the federal government's willingness to enforce our federal immigration laws,' Feere said. 'I think the president would find increased support for the health-care bill if he required Congress to mandate use of (a citizenship-verification provision). His credibility would go up.'
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White House stiffens against illegal immigrants
By Erica Werner
The Associated Press, September 12, 2009
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9ALJ0QO0.htm
Washington, DC (AP) -- The White House strengthened its stand against health care coverage for illegal immigrants Friday, and a pivotal Senate committee looked ready to follow its lead.
The developments reflected a renewed focus on the issue in the days since a Republican congressman's outburst during President Barack Obama's health care speech to Congress on Wednesday night. Republican Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted 'You lie!' as Obama said illegal immigrants wouldn't be covered under his health plan.
Democrats had pointed to provisions in House and Senate legislation that prohibited illegal immigrants from getting federal subsidies that would be offered to lower-income Americans to help them buy insurance.
That didn't go far enough for Wilson or many other Republicans, who noted the absence of any enforcement mechanism or requirement for verification of legal status. There are some 7 million illegal immigrants in this country who lack health insurance, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
The issue has caused heat on talk radio and at congressional town halls, too. So on Friday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs sketched a new position that goes even further than some conservative critics had demanded: Obama will oppose letting illegal immigrants buy insurance through new purchasing exchanges the government will set up even from private companies operating within the exchanges.
'Illegal immigrants would not be allowed to access the exchange that is set up,' Gibbs said. Verification requirements are 'something we'd work out with Congress,' he said.
Currently illegal immigrants are barred from government-funded care except in certain emergency cases, but many buy private insurance and there's nothing to prevent them from doing that. That would change under the White House's proposal, which is certain to alarm some on the left.
White House officials contended that the policy didn't represent a change of position for Obama, but it's one he apparently hasn't articulated in the past. In his speech Wednesday, Obama said only that 'the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.'
The proposed new marketplace, or exchange, would allow consumers and small businesses to shop for insurance and compare prices in a regulated, competitive environment. The exchange has been built into all the health bills moving through the House and Senate.
Private companies could offer health coverage through the exchange if they meet certain criteria and if Congress created a new government-run plan that would be offered through the exchange, too.
Illegal immigrants were to be allowed in the exchange and even in the public plan if they used their own money under legislation that passed three committees in the House and one in the Senate. Before Friday, there was little indication that that would change, even in the crucial Senate Finance Committee, which is facing a deadline of early next week to complete a comprehensive health bill.
In explaining its new position, the White House said that illegal immigrants could continue to buy insurance in the private insurance market outside the exchange, which would shrink with the creation of the exchange but still exist.
The issue of illegal immigration also bedeviled the so-called Gang of Six of three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, who met Friday trying to reach elusive bipartisan agreement on that and other contentious issues.
One of the negotiators, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that after Obama's speech the group revisited its illegal immigrant provisions to make sure legislative language would enforce requirements for people to have valid Social Security numbers before getting government-subsidized coverage.
'What we are trying to prevent is anyone who is here illegally from getting any federal benefit,' Conrad told reporters. He didn't specify whether illegal immigrants would be allowed into the exchange, but Friday evening, a Democratic Finance Committee aide said that although nothing was finalized, the committee was expected to follow the White House's lead and bar illegal immigrants from the exchange.
Finance Committee aides will be working through the weekend to finalize language on illegal immigration and other issues, including abortion, medical malpractice and how much states must pay for a Medicaid expansion.
It could become clear as early as Monday, when the group next meets, whether Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., gets the bipartisan deal he's been seeking for months.
+++
Senate health talks focus on illegal immigrants
Negotiators discuss rules to bar coverage
By Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
The Associated Press, September 12, 2009
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2009/09/12/senate_health_talks_focus_on_illegal_immigrants/
Washington, DC (AP) -- Senate negotiators closing in on a comprehensive health care bill have whittled away all but the most contentious issues and one of those loomed large yesterday: coverage for illegal immigrants.
The negotiators thought they had settled the issue, but that was before Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted ``You lie!'' at President Obama when the president said in his speech to Congress that illegal immigrants wouldn't be covered under his health plan.
That led the senators to revisit the issue to make sure they have provisions in place to enforce prohibitions against illegal residents getting federally subsidized coverage.
``What we are trying to prevent is anyone who is here illegally from getting any federal benefit,'' said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, a member of the ``Gang of Six'' of three Democratic and three Republican members of the Senate Finance Committee.
The White House says that Obama does not want illegal immigrants to be able to buy insurance through the new purchasing exchange he proposes. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that the administration will work with lawmakers on language to enforce that.
The House health bill expressly prohibits federal subsidies for illegal immigrants, but critics note that there are no enforcement mechanisms or language on how to verify whether someone is in this country legally.
``Without a verification requirement it's essentially like posting a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit and not having any highway patrol on the road,'' said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Democrats in two House committees defeated amendments that would have required verification of legal status, saying such measures create barriers to legal residents getting the health coverage they need.
The Senate negotiators are facing a deadline early next week to produce a bipartisan deal. If they don't succeed, committee Chairman Max Baucus plans to go it alone with a Democratic bill.
Baucus's plan largely mirrors what Obama laid out in his speech Wednesday night: expansion of coverage to most of the nearly 50 million uninsured, new requirements for individuals to obtain insurance, new prohibitions against insurance company practices such as denying coverage based on personal health history, and creation of the new exchange where consumers could shop among different health plans.
A successful effort could form the basis for legislation that could appeal to a majority in the Senate since the Finance Committee has a moderate makeup that resembles the Senate as a whole.
This weekend will be critical as aides and lawmakers hammer out language not just on illegal immigration, but also a handful of other thorny issues including abortion, how much states must pay for an expansion of Medicaid, and medical malpractice.
Finance Committee members are looking at the possibility of special courts in which a judge with medical expertise would hear malpractice cases, Conrad said. The theory is that medical judges wouldn't be as easily swayed by emotion as are lay juries. Other possibilities include the option of arbitration, as well as some liability protection for doctors who follow ``best practice'' clinical standards in treating their patients.
Many economists are skeptical that malpractice insurance premiums paid by doctors - or even the practice of defensive medicine to avoid litigation - are major reasons for soaring health care costs. But the issue looms large politically because many conservatives in both parties are convinced that doctors routinely order up tests their patients don't need because they are afraid of getting sued.
Obama's overture in his speech could give him a way to peel off some Republican votes, as well as shore up support from moderates in his own party. The president said that while he doesn't see malpractice changes as a ``silver bullet,'' he has talked to enough doctors to suspect that fear of litigation contributes to unnecessary costs.
He directed the Department of Health and Human Services to provide funding for pilot programs to test some alternatives to litigation. Administration officials said Obama's order will encourage states to experiment with programs that reduce litigation and promote patient safety. Preventable medical errors are estimated to cause 44,000 to 98,000 deaths a year.
Doctors' groups, which lost the battle for national limits on jury awards for pain and suffering, now see a possibility for other ways to reduce malpractice lawsuits.
+++
Immigrant health coverage targeted
By James Oliphant, David G. Savage and Teresa Watanabe
The Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/healthcare/la-na-health-immigrants12-2009sep12,0,3465175.story
How Illegal Immigrants Fare
By David M. Herszenhorn
The New York Times, September 12, 2009
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/illegal-immigrants-could-not-buy-insurance-on-new-exchange-white-house-says/
Senate's 'gang of six' near closure on bill;
Malpractice, illegals in focus
By Jennifer Haberkorn
The Washington Times, September 12, 2009
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/11/gang-six-addresses-malpractice-illegals/
Noncitizens move to front of health debate;
GOP, Democrats square off over bills' language on immigrants
By Bill Barrow
The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), September 12, 2009
http://www.nola.com/news/?/base/news-2/1252733457156910.xml&coll=1
WH on health care, illegal immigrants
By Domenico Montanaro
MSNBC, September 11, 2009
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/09/11/2065287.aspx
Sorting out the issue of immigrants
By Karen E. Crummy
The Denver Post, September 11, 2009
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13312276
Analysis: Health-care bill won't cover illegals
By Ben Szobody
The Greenville News (SC), September 11, 2009
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20090911/NEWS/909110326/1069/YOURUPSTATE01/Analysis--Health-care-bill-won-t-cover-illegals
Would plan insure illegal immigrants?;
Obama and most analysts say no, Wilson says yes; they would get ER care, as they do now
By Noelle Phillips
The State (Columbia), September 11, 2009
http://www.thestate.com/154/story/937524.html
Angry shout thrusts illegal immigrants into debate
By Bobby Caina Calvan
The Sacramento Bee, September 11, 2009
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/2175055.html
Will Illegal Immigrants Get Insurance Coverage with Health Reform?
By Shirley S. Wang
The Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/09/11/will-illegal-immigrants-get-insurance-coverage-with-health-reform/
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3.
Sebelius: Illegal immigrant debate a 'red herring'
The Politico (Washington, DC), September 13, 2009
http://www.politico.com/blogs/politicolive/0909/Sebelius_Illegal_immigrant_debate_a_red_herring.html?showall
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) may have said that Barack Obama was lying when he said the health care bill won't cover illegal immigrants, but the secretary of Health and Human Services said Sunday that opponents are drumming up a false debate over the issue.
'The language will be clear when the final draft is written,' Kathleen Sebelius said on ABC's 'This Week.' 'There's a section in the House bill -- as Congressman Wilson well knows that says that [illegal immigrants won't be covered] very explicitly.
'I think this is a red herring.'
But Republican Tim Pawlenty, the Minnesota governor, said that 'unless you have an enforcement mechanism in place, it doesn't mean much.'
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Factbox: Illegal Immigrants and U.S. Healthcare Debate
The Post Chronicle, September 14, 2009
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/health/article_212255863.shtml
The number of illegal immigrants in the United States who lack health insurance is a source of controversy in the debate over President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul the $2.5 trillion healthcare sector.
Critics of Obama's effort accuse the government and media of undercounting illegal immigrants to inflate the percentage of uninsured Americans within those who report being uninsured -- and make the need for reform more urgent.
U.S. healthcare costs are higher because illegal immigrants who lack insurance and don't pay taxes drain resources through trips to emergency rooms and clinics, they say.
Supporters of the Obama plan play down the overall impact that illegal immigrants have on the healthcare sector.
Here are some facts about illegal immigrants and healthcare in the United States:
* There were 46.3 million people without health insurance in the United States in 2008 from 45.7 million a year earlier, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey released on Thursday.
* A total of 9.5 million among the uninsured said they were 'not a citizen' in 2008, down from 9.7 million one year earlier. Foreign students and legal immigrant workers as well as illegal immigrants are included in this group.
* Some 44.7 percent of non-citizen immigrants were uninsured in 2008. Among native-born citizens, the figure stood at 12.9 percent in 2008.
* Non-citizen immigrants are around three times as likely to be uninsured as native born citizens.
* Some 21.3 million people said they were not citizens in 2008 census data, down from 22.2 million in 2007 data.
The decline could be caused by accelerated naturalization, a drop in the number of immigrants because of the economic climate or fewer people answering truthfully, said Leighton Ku, professor of public policy at George Washington University.
* There are 6.1 million uninsured adults who are illegal immigrants and 700,000 uninsured illegal immigrant children, according to an estimate by the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center, which was based on 2007 Census data.
* U.S. citizens accounted for the bulk of the 8.6 million additional people who became uninsured between 2000 and 2006, according to survey data. Two million of these were non-citizens, while half a million were naturalized citizens.
* Some 20 percent of adult citizens went to an emergency room in the last year, compared to 13 percent of non-citizen adults.
* Illegal immigrants work disproportionately in jobs that do not provide health insurance.
* There is no widely accepted national estimate of the annual cost of healthcare for illegal immigrants, partly because hospitals do not collect immigration figures.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates a temporary moratorium on most immigration, puts the cost at $10.7 billion and calls the estimate conservative.
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4.
Honduran leader says U.S. voids visa because of coup
Reuters, September 12, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE58B1BD20090912?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&rpc=22&sp=true
Tegucigalpa (Reuters) --Honduran de facto ruler Roberto Micheletti said on Saturday the United States has revoked his visa to pressure him to step down and reinstate exiled President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a June military coup.
Micheletti, however, was defiant of the latest move by Washington, which said earlier this month it was cutting more than $30 million in aid to the poor Central American country.
'We will not back down. Dignity does not have a price in our country,' Micheletti told Honduran radio.
Asked if he his visa had been canceled, Micheletti said: 'Yes.'
'We received letters from the U.S. Consulate in Honduras which say that because of what happened on June 28, our visas have been suspended,' Micheletti said.
Micheletti has not visited the United States since the June 28 coup. A month after the coup, the U.S. State Department said it had revoked the diplomatic visas of four members of Honduras' de facto government, but did not name them.
Zelaya was ousted after he angered the judiciary, Congress and the army by seeking constitutional changes that would allow presidents to seek re-election beyond a four-year term.
The Honduran Congress named Micheletti to be interim president, and the country's Supreme Court said it had ordered the army to remove Zelaya.
The State Department said last week that it could not, for now, regard as legitimate Honduran elections scheduled for November because of Zelaya's overthrow.
Marcia Villa, a Honduran lawmaker and ally of Micheletti, said several top members of Micheletti's government, Honduran Supreme Court justices and a group of Honduran businessmen had also lost their U.S. visas.
Some Latin American leaders have suggested Washington apply more pressure, but some U.S. Republican lawmakers believe it has already done too much for Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela's socialist and anti-U.S. president, Hugo Chavez.
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5.
Overall illegal entry arrests down for the first time in four years
The North County Times (Escondido, CA), September 12, 2009
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/article_a9328381-f15c-5c59-878e-3e7088e805e1.html
For the third year in a row, authorities have seen an increase in the smuggling of people and drugs along the San Diego County coast, officials said.
But this also is the first year the region has seen a drop in arrests of illegal immigrants since 2005, they said.
Authorities continue to chalk the changes up to the 2005 Secure Border Initiative, a Department of Homeland Security plan to tighten the nation's borders and reduce illegal immigration, though some groups cite the weak economy.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Guy Pearce, whose agency is one of several involved in the regional anti-smuggling effort, said smuggling activity on the water appears to be up about 50 percent from the same time in the last federal fiscal year.
Last year, the Coast Guard handled 33 smuggling boats and processed 221 migrants, Pearce said.
Those numbers have risen this year to 42 vessels and 311 migrants, he said. He said the numbers represent a mix of human and drug smuggling incidents.
'Across the board, we're seeing an uptick in all forms of transnational crime taking place in the water,' Pearce said.
Overall, though, Border Patrol arrests of illegal immigrants in the region are down about 25 percent, said Border Patrol spokesman Mark Endicott.
The Border Patrol recorded 112,228 apprehensions in the first 11 months of this federal fiscal year, down from 149,415 apprehensions for the same period last year, Endicott said.
A July report by the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., said the fact the legal immigration numbers have remained steady while illegal immigration has dropped shows that increased enforcement in border areas has been effective.
But illegal immigrants also are likely to be discouraged from crossing the border when the U.S. economy is weak, the report stated.
'It seems likely that when the economy recovers, the illegal population will resume its growth,' it stated.
Endicott said he believes the decrease is due to high-profile measures such as the increased number of Border Patrol agents, more rigorous checkpoint enforcement, and infrastructure improvements such as the fence project at the so-called Smuggler's Gulch between Tijuana and Imperial Beach.
'It's basically the decrease we can attribute to stepped up enforcement ... especially through the San Diego sector,' Endicott said.
Officials said they've noticed other smuggling trends this year.
Cocaine seizures in the region have increased dramatically, Endicott said. He said the Border Patrol took custody of slightly less than 700 pounds of the narcotic in the first 11 months of the last fiscal year.
In the last 11 months, they've seized more than 1,700 pounds, Endicott said. The Interstate 15 corridor has been a particular hot spot, he said. Whether the increase was the result of increased enforcement or increased drug smuggling, Endicott couldn't say.
Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said her agency has seen more teenagers walking though border crossings with marijuana hidden under their clothes.
The teens they've caught have typically been legal U.S. citizens, high school students who live near the border and were recruited by drug dealers, Mack said. The strategy is an example of creativity on the part of dealers, she said.
'They're not bound by laws or rules or policy. Their only obstacle is how creative they want to be, their ability to come up with new ideas,' Mack said. 'Our goal is to stay two steps ahead of them.'
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6.
Number of Immigrants Applying for U.S. Citizenship Is Down 62%, Study Finds
By Tara Bahrampour
The Washington Post, September 12, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091103727.html
The number of immigrants applying to become U.S. citizens plunged 62 percent last year as the cost of naturalization rose and the economy soured, according to an analysis released Friday by the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy organization.
In late 2007, the application cost increased from $330 to $595, plus an $80 fee for computerized fingerprinting. Partly in anticipation of the price increase, 1.38 million people filed applications in 2007, creating a backlog that nearly tripled the average processing time.
Last year, the number of applicants fell to 525,786, the smallest since 2003. The largest was 1.41 million, in 1997, just before a 76 percent fee increase.
Citing a decline in real median income among non-citizens in recent years, the analysis said that 'eligible applicants face mounting economic pressures that threaten to place naturalization out of reach.' It recommended seeking ways for the government to help defray the cost of processing applications, which depends on fees, and suggested freezing fees at their levels now.
Doris Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, and former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said a rise and fall in applications is typical when a fee increase is imposed. In this case, the increase was greater than usual because it paid for technological upgrades and improved security checks, she said.
But she added that the 2007 spike in applications was also a response to concentrated efforts by immigrant groups to increase the number of voters before last year's elections.
According to a March Homeland Security Department report, natives of Mexico account for the largest group of immigrants naturalized each year, and the largest number of applicants live in California, Florida and New York.
But last year, the Washington area, along with Miami-Fort Lauderdale, saw the biggest increase in naturalizations. In 2008, 40,729 residents of the Washington region became citizens, compared with 19,364 the year before. Most had applied before the rate increase. The largest groups to apply were natives of El Salvador and India.
Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, whose membership includes large numbers of immigrants, said the government should do more to ease the way for would-be citizens through fee defrayment, information workshops and English classes. 'The nonprofit sectors -- churches, community organizations and unions -- have stepped in, but it shouldn't be just put on their back,' he said.
Meissner said she agreed with the report's call for new revenue models but doubts the fee increase will deter many citizenship-seekers. 'Citizenship is a very, very valuable commodity,' she said. 'People do what they can to become citizens, and they will make every effort, including saving up the money that's needed.'
EDITOR'S NOTE: The NCLR report is available online at: http://www.nclr.org/content/publications/detail/59342/
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7.
Illegal immigrant health care costs state $1 billion annually
By Karen de Sa
The Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA), September 11, 2009
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_13318727?source=most_emailed&nclick_check=1
The latest dust-up over President Barack Obama's health care-for-all mission Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., angrily calling Obama a liar during a nationally televised speech underscored conservatives' fears that illegal immigrants would benefit from efforts to expand coverage.
Obama insisted that the legislation would not give government subsidies to the nation's millions of undocumented residents. But if immigrant-rich California is any indication, considerable numbers of undocumented immigrants participate in taxpayer-supported health plans.
Although most federal benefit programs bar those who cannot prove their citizenship, California has been more generous than other states. Its taxpayers contribute more than $1 billion annually to cover the health care costs of illegal residents.
The state Department of Health Care Services estimates 768,400 undocumented immigrants will receive coverage this fiscal year through Medi-Cal, the health program funded by state and federal tax money. The cost: $1.2 billion.
Although people without documentation are ineligible for the comprehensive health care other low-income residents receive, the state pays the costs of those who seek emergency room care for life-threatening circumstances and childbirth, based on the presumption that the child will be a citizen.
Another state and federally funded program, Access for Infants and Mothers, serves pregnant women whose income is slightly higher than Medi-Cal eligibility allows. That program enrolls 12,000 women statewide at a cost of $123 million, according to the Legislative Analyst's Office. Some participants are presumed to be undocumented, said Lisa Murawski, of the analyst's office, although no questions are asked.
According to the most recent estimates by the Public Policy Institute of California, 2.8 million illegal immigrants lived here in 2006 one-fourth of the nation's total.
But in the context of the state's total population, many say the illegal immigrants constitute a negligible minority.
Actual numbers are difficult to tally. In California, some programs ask about citizenship, and some don't. Emergency rooms here and across the country guarantee care, because federal law bars hospitals from refusing service, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.
County hospitals in the East Bay say they do not know how many illegal immigrants they serve in their emergency rooms.
In Santa Clara County, the most recent estimate found that about 250 to 300 illegal immigrants a year are admitted to Valley Medical Center after arriving at the emergency department. That would be about 3 percent of the hospital's 10,000 annual emergency room admissions.
'The undocumented cost is not as high as people might imagine,' said spokeswoman Joy Alexiou. 'The largest number of our folks who come through the emergency department are uninsured either because they lost their jobs or they lost their health insurance.'
Several recent studies confirm this, revealing California's uninsured population to be overwhelmingly citizens and other legal residents.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reports that 'noncitizens are significantly less likely to use the emergency room than citizens' about 13 percent of those surveyed, compared with 20 percent of citizens. Some stay away for fear of coming into contact with officials who might report them as undocumented.
In a report released last week by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, surveyors found that two-thirds of the state's uninsured are U.S. citizens; of 51,000 households surveyed, another 15 percent were permanent legal residents, and 19 percent were noncitizens without green cards.
'This is a population that is obviously not draining down public services, or even private services,' said Shana Alex Lavarreda, director of the nonpartisan center's insurance studies. 'They're just uninsured.'
Contra Costa County this year eliminated basic health care coverage for an estimated 5,500 undocumented immigrants, but many of those clients have been referred to a dozen community clinics funded by a mix of sources, including the federal government.
'We are seeing really dramatic increases in the number of undocumented patients who are referred by the county and booking appointments in our clinics,' said Soren Tjernell, a spokesman for the Community Clinic Consortium of Contra Costa.
The clinics turn away no one, said Tjernell, but federal law could as some lawmakers propose begin requiring them to check immigrant status. Tjernell said it's a distraction to focus on undocumented immigrants because when they are a relatively small portion of patients who need care.
'When you look at the percentage of the health system that goes to caring for the undocumented, the majority is to emergency care or pregnant women,' he said. 'It's minimal. ... Immigrants in general tend to be younger, healthier and less likely to go seek services than their counterparts. They're not the drain on the health care system that they're portrayed as being.'
Immigrant-rights advocates and public health officials argue that providing basic medical care to all prevents more costly emergency services and stems the spread of infectious disease.
Before it cut the program this summer, Alameda County spent $75,000 over two years so that a nonprofit clinic, Axis Community Health, could treat mostly undocumented day laborers in the Tri-Valley cities of Pleasanton, Livermore and Dublin.
'They said, well, they'll never use that much in east county,' said Sue Compton, director of the clinic. 'Well, we did, and then some.'
About 50 uninsured patients came in each month, said Compton. That's more than expected.
Most day laborers who visited the clinic had never been seen by American nurses or doctors before, even if they had lived here for years, she said.
Critics assert that having health benefits for illegal immigrants entices them into the country and squanders precious public dollars.
The president made clear in his address to Congress this week that he has no intention of making access for the undocumented any easier.
'There are those who claim our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants this, too, is false,' Obama said, to which Rep. Wilson shouted: 'You lie!'
Republican critics do not believe the president when he says his reforms would not apply to those who are here illegally. They note the legislation does not include enforcement mechanisms.
Wilson said Thursday that Democrats defeated GOP efforts to toughen the bill by requiring verification of citizenship.
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8.
As state sat, illegals got OKs to drive
By Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch, September 13, 2009
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/09/13/plates.ART_ART_09-13-09_A1_45F1VJQ.html?sid=101
A loophole in an Ohio policy allowed thousands of undocumented immigrants to register cars and get license plates even though many did not have valid Social Security numbers or car insurance.
The practice was so widespread that law officers in other states asked the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles why they were seeing so many undocumented immigrants driving cars registered in Ohio.
State Public Safety Director Henry Guzman delayed a proposed crackdown for more than a year after he met with people who cater to such immigrants, including people who were profiting from obtaining plates.
Guzman initially requested tougher regulations, describing them as vital to 'the safety and security of all Ohioans from a Homeland Security perspective.' The regulations were to take effect on Aug. 1, 2008.
But he decided they needed more work after a July 31, 2008, meeting with dozens of mostly Latino business owners. The car dealers, financing and insurance-company officials, and others were worried about their bottom lines and undocumented workers' ability to drive and support their families.
Officials say that, unknown to Guzman, present at the meeting were some 'runners' -- Latinos with legal U.S. residency who collected fees of more than $100 each from undocumented workers to register vehicles with falsified power-of-attorney forms.
Guzman's planned two-week moratorium ultimately stretched to more than a year. The stricter regulations weren't put in place until Aug. 24 this year.
Guzman announced his resignation three days later amid a feud with State Highway Patrol superintendent Richard Collins, who also quit. Guzman's last day on the job is Friday. He did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story.
The new policy requires that those who use power-of-attorney forms provide the driver's license number or state ID number of the person for whom they are registering a vehicle, so BMV officials can verify the identity of the vehicle owner. Illegal immigrants typically don't have a state-issued driver's license.
Need for action
After Guzman delayed enacting the policy, records show that dozens of runners were obtaining ever-larger numbers of license plates for undocumented workers, particularly in Franklin County, and were shipping plates out of state.
U.S. postal inspectors and police in Hammonton, N.J., reported this year that packages of Ohio license plates were mailed regularly to that city and showed up on cars there. Checks showed the cars were registered to people with Latino surnames and Columbus addresses.
Documents obtained by The Dispatch show that then-BMV Registrar Mike Rankin regularly pushed Guzman and his staff to put the stricter policy into effect.
(Public Safety lawyers refused to release some records, saying they were protected by attorney-client privilege or were confidential law-enforcement investigatory documents.)
'The director has not lifted his moratorium; however, it's time to move forward as our review does not indicate any significant or compelling business impacts that would justify any delay,' Rankin wrote on Jan. 6.
Rankin followed up on June 26: 'Henry (Guzman) needs to move on this issue ASAP -- no more delays. We have other out-of-state PDs (police departments) reporting in as well on this issue.'
Public Safety officials say that it was Rankin and his staff members who dragged their feet in addressing concerns raised by Guzman and his staff and not providing final forms and procedures until June.
After accusing Guzman of interfering with his work, Rankin resigned as BMV registrar in July to become assistant secretary of state. Rankin declined to comment for this story.
Ohio Inspector General Thomas P. Charles is inquiring into the delay in implementing the policy and its impact, asking for records associated with the policy, sources told The Dispatch. Charles declined to comment.
Delay defended
Guzman's decision to change the policy was driven by 'legitimate concerns,' said bureau spokeswoman Lindsay Komlanc.
'Director Guzman agreed to temporarily suspend the original verification policy to allow time for better understanding,' with the delay also identifying problems that needed to be corrected, she said.
Officials worried that the new process would be unwieldy and could harm the ability of auto dealers and others to easily obtain vehicle registrations, Komlanc said.
For example, a requirement that a photocopy of driver's licenses or ID cards accompany power-of- attorney forms was dropped, she said.
Ohio House Minority Leader William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, said the registration procedure should have been enacted when scheduled to deny license plates to undocumented workers, then any problems could have been resolved later.
'I'm absolutely baffled,' Batchelder said. 'They were intentionally permitting the law to be violated. It's unbelievable.'
For at least four years, BMV investigators have considered Ohio a haven for the registration of vehicles by illegal immigrants, both inside and outside the state, according to BMV records.
Ohio required only a Social Security number for a person to register a vehicle on behalf of another with a power-of-attorney form, and federal law prohibited the state from checking the numbers to verify identities, and thus U.S. residency.
In 2007, state lawmakers authorized using driver's license or ID numbers to register vehicles in what was largely an identity-theft-protection move because people dislike turning over their Social Security numbers.
Guzman decided to toughen the process after a pregnant illegal immigrant was killed in an illegally registered vehicle driven by her husband. The vehicle had been registered with a falsified power-of-attorney form. The driver ran a stoplight and crashed into a state salt truck at Hayden Run Road and Riverside Drive in Perry Township on Jan. 1, 2008.
'Clearly fraudulent'
According to memos not released by the state but obtained by The Dispatch, some within the Bureau of Motor Vehicles pushed for the crackdown.
'This loophole has actually spawned a cottage industry wherein persons with acceptable identification charge exorbitant fees to obtain annual vehicle registrations for those who lack acceptable identification,' BMV investigator Tim Hughes wrote on May 4.
'Central Ohio has become an area of sanctuary where undocumented foreign nationals' can get license plates and often drive without insurance, he added.
Following Guzman's moratorium on enforcing the tougher regulations, records show, he asked for a closer look at the problem.
In the following two weeks, 47 'runners' used power-of-attorney forms to register more than 600 vehicles in Franklin County, BMV investigators found.
Looking at a sample of 180 of the vehicles, the BMV could not confirm that even one registration was legitimate. Seventy-two registrations were 'clearly fraudulent,' and the rest were questionable, investigators said.
'However, we were able to determine that, during the two-week period, one of the concerned 'community representatives' who had met with Director Guzman had grossed an estimated $16,000 in fees,' an investigator wrote.
The runner had registered 129 vehicles after collecting a $130 fee on each -- in addition to registration fees, which typically total $54.50 in Franklin County.
Guzman was unaware that 'runners' were among the more than 35 business owners who met with him and some top aides on July 31, 2008, Komlanc said. The 'runners' advertised in local Spanish-language newspapers, offering to register vehicles for fees in excess of $100.
A list of those attending the meeting and records reflecting what was discussed do not exist, Komlanc said.
Old policy defended
Early this year, an investigator who described the problem as negligible said criminal charges could not be pursued against 'runners' or others with illegal plates. 'The Columbus city prosecutor's office has refused to accept criminal charges related to a statute that BMV has failed to implement,' he wrote.
Those who fraudulently register a vehicle can be charged with falsification, a first-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
More than 60,000 Ohio vehicle registrations do not have a Social Security number attached to them, raising the possibility that they are fraudulent. BMV officials cannot estimate how many are registered to illegal immigrants. Sources within the BMV suggest they account for most of that number.
Enrique Robledo, owner of Los Amigos Auto Sales at 2121 W. Mound St., helped lead last summer's effort to write letters and lobby Guzman.
'We all explained the losses we were going to have and the impact on the Latino community,' said Robledo, who sells most of his cars to undocumented workers. '(Guzman) did the right thing.'
Since registration procedures were toughened, Robledo says, his sales have dived. Runners are heading to states with looser regulations, such as Kentucky, to register cars, he said. Rather than use runners, Robledo said he would register vehicles for his customers for a fee of $10 to $15.
Undocumented workers should be allowed to register their vehicles, stay on the road and help support the American economy, Robledo said. 'Who's going to cook in the restaurants? Who's going to be cutting the yards?'
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9.
Soap Opera Gets Latinos In Tune With Health Care
Telenovela Captivates Colorado Latinos While Getting Them In Tune With Healthcare Options
The Associated Press, September 11, 2009
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/11/ap/national/main5304112.shtml
It has all the hallmarks of the beloved telenovela: Heart-wrenching dialogue. Doors slamming amid tears. Over-the-top theatrics.
But the titillating story lines are laced with medical advice. An expecting but bickering couple is encouraged to seek prenatal care. The uncle of a boy injured in a car wreck caused by a drunk teenager learns about state-funded health insurance. A character who doesn't like her figure gets some advice from a health care adviser: Stop eating so many tamales.
The telenovela was created by Colorado officials to spread important health messages to Latinos, taking themes that normally would be the realm of public service announcements and packaging them in a format that is hugely popular in Latin America.
'It's a soap opera. So it's got the teenager who has some substance abuse issues. We have a family who is undocumented, and we talk about what their options are. We're seeing these characters develop. It's not a boring public service announcement,' said Joanne Lindsay, a spokeswoman with the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which administers health care programs for low-income families.
'Encrucijada: Sin Salud No Hay Nada,' or 'Crossroads: Without Health, There Is Nothing,' follows the lives of four health information workers and focuses on issues that affect every demographic, such as alcohol abuse and depression, and others that affect Latinos at disproportionally high rates, like diabetes and lack of insurance. Viewers are encouraged to call a toll-free number if they face the same issues the characters do on the show.
'Encrucijada' has a small but devoted following in Colorado _ about 17,500 households tune in each month, according to the Colorado Health Foundation. The foundation has spent $966,000 to produce and air the show.
Filmed in Southern California, its stars include Roberto Medina, whose credits include '21 Grams' and 'Frida,' and Socorro Bonilla, a veteran of Spanish soaps. Viewership is comparable to local ratings for the Spanish-language version of 'Desperate Housewives,' said Jesus Fuentes, who wrote 'Encrucijada.' That's one reason producers are moving 'Encrucijada' from a monthly time-slot to weekly this Sunday.
In the first episode, a young woman known as 'La Chiquis,' a nickname given to daughters who share their mothers' name, gets drunk at a party and insists on driving home. A man at the party persuades her to let him drive her home. On the way, she tries to wrestle the steering wheel from him and they collide with another vehicle, injuring a boy.
A doctor tells them the boy suffered fractured ribs but, luckily for him, he qualifies for Child Health Plan Plus, a state program for uninsured children and pregnant women who can't afford private insurance but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid.
Lindsay said most people in Colorado who are eligible for public health insurance are Latino but are 'very hard to reach.' Some 62 percent of Colorado children who qualify for the program and Medicaid are Latino. Almost 20 percent of Colorado's estimated 4.8 million residents are Latino.
About 40 percent of the state's adult Latinos don't have health care coverage, more than any other ethnic group, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Latino children ages 2 to 14 have the state's highest obesity rate at 24.1 percent. Almost 37 percent of Latino women older than 40 did not have a mammogram from 2004 to 2007, also the highest rate among any other group in the state. And Colorado Latinos have the highest mortality rate for diabetes at 45 percent, compared to 29.2 percent for blacks, the state's second highest rate.
Language barriers are sometimes a factor. Other times, it's trying to navigate a complex and unfamiliar health system. 'Some of them come from very small communities where they would get sick and just go to the town doctor,' said Mauricio Paacio, director of the state department's Office of Health Disparities.
A fear of deportation also prevents illegal immigrants from seeking help, said Palacio, who was an adviser for 'Encrucijada.'
About 800 people have called the hot line for help since 'Encrucijada' first aired in May.
One of them was Regina Amador, an uninsured 'Encrucijada' devotee who cleans offices for a living in Denver. After watching the show, Amador, 40, applied to get her 7-year-old son enrolled in Plan Plus. Call center advisers also told her she could go to a neighborhood clinic to get a Pap smear and a physical for $20.
Amador, a native of Mexico's Guerrero state, hadn't had a checkup for about 10 years.
'When you hear people talking about health, you start to worry about not having insurance,' she said. 'Now that they've checked me for everything, I feel more calm.'
While the telenovela has Colorado-specific information, health officials in New Mexico, Texas and other states have expressed interest, Lindsay said.
Some who have tried the format before report success. In 2003, students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham produced a radio series called 'Bodylove,' featuring characters working at a beauty salon of the same name. 'Bodylove' targeted African Americans, and its health themes were those the state health department said affect blacks the most _ hypertension, heart disease, diabetes.
A survey of 'Bodylove' listeners found they had changed their eating habits because of the show, which featured a character going into a diabetic coma, said Connie Kohler, an associate professor at the university's health behavior department.
Each 30-minute episode airs on Denver's Univision affiliate, operated by Entravision Communications Corp., based in Santa Monica, Calif. Smith said it cost about $150,000 to promote 'Encrucijada' on TV and radio, a sum paid in part by Entravision, which also provides free air time.
'They're really behind this thing,' Smith said. 'Sure, they're happy to have the money, but they're also committed to community health.'
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10.
Anti-illegal immigrant slate lining up for 2010 governor's race
By Mike Sunnucks
The Phoenix Business Journal, September 13, 2009
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/09/07/daily87.html
The slate of conservative, anti-illegal-immigrant candidates eyeing runs for key Arizona elected posts next year continues to grow and could be a strong force in the 2010 elections.
Conservative attorney Bill Montgomery has filed campaign paperwork to run for Maricopa County attorney if current County Attorney Andrew Thomas runs for Arizona attorney general next year.
Montgomery works as a prosecutor in the county attorney's office and lost the 2006 attorney general's race to Democrat Terry Goddard. Montgomery, like Thomas, is a Republican who favors tough border controls and aggressive enforcement of immigration laws.
An anti-illegal-immigrant slate would include Thomas running for attorney general, Montgomery running for county attorney, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio running for governor and state Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Ariz., running for sheriff.
The quartet favor state laws punishing businesses that hire illegal immigrants, raids and sweeps of illegals and denying state benefits and welfare to anyone not here legally.
The immigration debate continues to be a top issue, with Arpaio in particular garnering support from conservatives who want stiffer border controls and opposition from Hispanic activists.
Montgomery has filed to form an exploratory committee with the Maricopa County Elections Department. Thomas has done the same for a potential run for state attorney general. Arpaio has pondered a run for governor before but never pulled the trigger. Pearce said he would look at running for sheriff only if Arpaio runs for governor.
A Republican primary for governor could include Arpaio, Gov. Jan Brewer, former Gov. Fife Symington, State Treasurer Dean Martin and Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker. Arpaio said he recently met with Parker but did not say what the two discussed.
Goddard is the expected Democratic candidate for governor in 2010. Goddard takes a less aggressive approach to immigration than Arpaio and Thomas.
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11.
PBA vital to Morristown immigration plan Union OK needed for town to join deportation program
By Tanya Drobness
The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), September 10, 2009
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/morristown_close_to_deputizing.html
Morristown is close to deputizing its police officers, making them immigration agents. But if the Local 43 Police Benevolent Association doesn't agree to participate in the program, the whole deal could fall through, according to federal officials and the police union's attorney.
The police union's approval is being sought because deputized officers would have to commit to the program, known as 287(g), for at least two years under a memorandum of agreement between the town and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, officials said.
'According to the town, they need our consent in order for the memorandum to go through,' said Paul Kleinbaum, the PBA's attorney.
Kleinbaum said members of the organization will review the memorandum. 'I don't know what our position is yet,' he said.
Morristown's business administrator, Michael Rogers, said the town is 'in discussion' with the PBA, but declined further comment.
Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello, who was ousted in the June 2 Democratic primary and has just four months left in office, has said he is ready to sign onto the federal immigration program despite some local opposition.
Cresitello has said six of Morristown's 58 officers will undergo 40 hours of training before the end of the year. Once deputized, the officers will be able to initiate deportation proceedings against illegal aliens charged with serious crimes.
The Monmouth County Sheriff's Office and the Hudson County Department of Corrections, are also among the 79 departments nationwide that have been accepted into the program, which has been overhauled to allay fears it would be used to target or harass immigrant groups.
But the program has come under fire by immigration advocates who fear the program will drive immigrants out of the community and increase tensions between residents and the police.
The Hudson County Department of Corrections has been participating in the program since August 2008, according to ICE's web site.
The program was initially criticized by Congress' investigative arm, the General Accountability Office, for failure to supervise participating agencies.
In May, government investigators said that in some cases, police officers who had been deputized as immigration agents swept up large numbers of immigrants for minor offenses, such as speeding and drinking in public, in an effort to rid their communities of those who were in the U.S. illegally.
Under the revised program, participating agencies are required to make the identification of illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes their priority.
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12.
Drophouse busts are declining, but real trend unclear
By Daniel Gonzalez
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), September 14, 2009
http://www.azcentral.com/community/surprise/articles/2009/09/14/20090914drophouses0911.html
Police have discovered fewer drophouses harboring illegal immigrants this year in metropolitan Phoenix, and authorities say they are also finding far fewer people stashed inside than in the past.
Local authorities have reported 144 drophouses to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials so far this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, compared with the 186 discovered in fiscal 2008.
And instead of 50 or 60 illegal immigrants crammed inside a drophouse, police are finding only 15 or 20 people.
But law-enforcement officials are hesitant to say those numbers point to a decrease in smuggling activity. The officials say there are other factors to consider, such as fewer illegal immigrants crossing the border in Arizona and increasingly sophisticated smuggling organizations.
In recent years, Phoenix has gained the dubious distinction of being the human-smuggling capital of the nation. Smugglers, known as coyotes, frequently hold illegal immigrants inside rented houses like cattle before transporting them from the border region to other parts of the country. Some also beat and torture immigrants to extort extra smuggling fees.
In response, local, state and federal authorities have launched a crackdown, raiding scores of drophouses and prosecuting hundreds of smugglers.
Authorities are encouraged by the decline in the number of drophouses and harbored immigrants, which they say also could be a sign that fewer people are crossing the U.S.-Mexican border illegally, a result of tighter border security and a recession that has dried up jobs.
Border Patrol arrests, one measure of migrant traffic, have decreased significantly in Arizona: They are down 24 percent in the Tucson sector and 18 percent in the Yuma sector. The two sectors, which cover all of Arizona and a portion of California, are among the nine Border Patrol regions on the southwest border.
On Aug. 27, police raided a drophouse on Jefferson Avenue in west Phoenix and found 12 illegal immigrants. The raid was carried out by the Illegal Immigration Prevention and Apprehension Co-op Team, or IIMPACT. The joint task force, run by the Arizona Department of Public Safety with assistance from Phoenix police and ICE, is aimed at combating violent smuggling organizations.
The immigrants told investigators they had been held captive for several days by three smugglers who beat them with closet rods and boards, said Robert Bailey, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
The smugglers had boarded up the windows to prevent escapes.
A neighbor, who didn't want to give his name, said he had no idea the house was being used to harbor illegal immigrants. The only activity he ever saw, he said, was two men who came outside to water plants every other day.
The Jefferson Avenue drophouse shows how smugglers are getting more sophisticated, which may help explain why police are finding fewer drophouses with fewer migrants inside, said Matthew Allen, the special agent in charge of ICE's office of investigation in Arizona.
Smugglers are trying to limit their losses should police raid their drophouses, Allen said.
They also may be trying to protect their 'loads' from kidnapping gangs, known as bajadores. The bajadores kidnap loads of illegal immigrants from smugglers to hold them for ransom, a common crime in the Phoenix area.
Smugglers also seem to be taking extra precautions to keep the locations of drophouses secret and to avoid drawing attention from suspicious neighbors, which is how police find many drophouses.
Illegal immigrants have told investigators that smugglers blindfolded them or ordered them to put their heads down as they were driven to drophouses, making it difficult for an immigrant who might escape to tell police where he had been held.
Smugglers also often take clothes, shoes and socks, leaving migrants only their underwear, to deter escapes. In addition, smugglers seal windows shut with plywood, sometimes even covering windows first with drapes to avoid attracting unwanted attention.
And police have found smugglers who watered plants, kept lawns trimmed and didn't let trash bags pile up outside.
'The smugglers are getting more clever,' said Lt. Joe Sousa, head of the human-smuggling unit of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. 'Last Christmas, we (raided) a house where coyotes put up Christmas decorations just to blend in with the neighborhood.'
Sousa believes there are still plenty of drophouses, based on the number of smuggling vehicles loaded with illegal immigrants his unit finds on highways leading out of Phoenix. His unit raided about 20 drophouses in 2008 and another 20 or so this year.
'It seems like every time we go out to look for load vehicles, we find them,' he said. 'They have to be coming from somewhere.'
At the Jefferson Avenue drophouse, one of the migrants called 911 on a hidden cellphone, said Bob Smart, a DPS lieutenant who runs the unit. Emergency phone operators tracked the vicinity of the drophouse using the cellphone signal, Smart said.
As officers closed in, two coyotes ran. One tossed a black semiautomatic pistol over the fence of a neighbor's yard, Bailey said. Police find firearms in 90 percent of drophouses.
Officers caught one coyote in back of the drophouse, the other hiding nearby behind oleander bushes, Bailey said.
Police arrested a third coyote pretending to be an immigrant. Coyotes frequently try to blend in with smuggled migrants to avoid prosecution, law-enforcement officials say. But police can spot them by looking at their feet, hair and clothes to see if they look like they have walked long miles through the desert.
The task force has arrested 137 smugglers so far this year, more than the 129 arrested in all of 2008, Smart said.
Smart said word has gotten out that police are cracking down on smugglers. Smugglers convicted of kidnapping and extorting illegal immigrants are typically getting seven to 10 years behind bars, and some have received sentences of 15 years or more in prison, Smart said.
'We have a 100 percent conviction rate,' Smart said. 'We haven't lost a single case.'
In July, police found a smuggler hiding under insulation in the rafters of a drophouse, Smart said. The attic temperature was 160 degrees. The coyote nearly died of heatstroke.
'This guy was willing to give his life not to get caught,' Smart said.
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13.
As U.S. census nears, fears of a miscount in East Bay
By Matt O'Brien
The Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA), September 11, 2009
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_13318832
Local leaders worry that an East Bay hit hard by unemployment, foreclosures and other economic troubles will be difficult to count when the U.S. Census Bureau tries to document every resident next year.
'Our biggest concern is young black males, 18 to 35,' said Sonny Le, a regional census spokesman. 'We do care about immigrants and recently arrived folks. We do care about people who are linguistically isolated, but surprisingly, those who speak fluent English can also be some of the hardest to count.'
The region has some reason to be worried. The 1990 census overlooked more than 25,000 black residents of the East Bay's two counties, according to the bureau's later estimates. Eight percent were believed to be missed that year in Alameda County and 7 percent in Contra Costa County.
The nationwide census happens every decade. The results are used to draw the boundaries of congressional districts and to determine how much federal money cities and counties will get throughout the next 10 years.
California made improvements that helped the federal agency get a better count in 2000, but many of those gains were attributed to expensive outreach campaigns that state and local governments can no longer afford.
'We're really, truly worried about this census,' said Eric Alborg, the state's deputy census director. 'We don't have that much money.'
Alameda County is expected to be one of the 30 hardest-to-count counties in the nation. Contra Costa does not rank so high, but has pockets from Richmond to the unincorporated Delta community of Bethel Island that census officials have labeled a challenge.
Those concerns brought dozens of city officials and community leaders from across the East Bay to downtown Oakland earlier this month. They talked about how to reach residents considered least likely to respond to the census questionnaires that will be mailed to every American household in April.
The list of hard-to-reach residents includes immigrants who do not speak English, college students, people who live in crowded or inaccessible housing, people who move frequently and those who might be wary of authorities.
The wary group includes some young, black men who live in households that historically have neglected to reveal their presence, Le said.
'A lot of them may be living with their moms, their grandparents, or their girlfriends, illegally, in public housing developments,' Le said. 'They could be there on parole and they're not supposed to be there.'
Le said it needs to be clearly explained that information the census collects about individuals is confidential and not shared with other government agencies.
In 2000, California poured more than $24 million into helping a network of ethnic organizations and niche media outlets spread the message about the confidentiality and importance of the census.
'Basic services could be affected. Police services, maintenance of streets, assisting homeowners with loans to better their houses, health care,' said San Pablo Vice Mayor Genoveva Garcia Calloway, one of the East Bay leaders who attended the census gathering. 'The money depends on those numbers. I don't think people realize that.'
The California Endowment, a private health foundation, announced in July it was donating $4 million toward census outreach in the state's 10 hardest-to-count counties, a list led by Los Angeles and including Alameda and San Francisco counties.
State officials said the Census Bureau has also copied some of the measures that led to California's success in 2000, especially the focus on partnerships with community-based organizations. Alameda County has designed shopping bags that carry the 'Be Counted' message in Spanish, Farsi, Lao, Vietnamese and Chinese.
But while many organizations representing new immigrants are strong and able to quickly distribute messages, Le said the influence of key black organizations in the area has diminished over time. He said the local black press was instrumental in getting more African-Americans counted in 2000, but one of the journalists who made it a priority, Oakland's Chauncey Bailey, was slain in 2007.
'(Bailey) was constantly on our tail about what we were not doing right,' Le said. 'He saw the gaps and the potential problems. ... We don't have him anymore.'
Community organizations weakened by the recession and will have a harder time helping out, said Cedric Brown, chairman of Bay Area Blacks in Philanthropy, which is hosting a Monday forum in Oakland on how local organizations serving African-Americans can assist the census next year.
'If we can get a handful of nonprofits to commit to doing outreach work in the East Bay, that would do a tremendous amount of good,' Brown said. 'If we don't do anything, that's an additional amount of people who don't get counted.'
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14.
New S.F. high school nurtures immigrant youth
By Jill Tucker
The San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/13/BABK19I46L.DTL
The 50 high school students heading to their next class looked like typical teenagers, hauling backpacks, cradling books and laughing. Yet they were far from it.
All recent immigrants, one was an orphan by age 6. Another cared for his sick mother and had rarely gone to school. Several had left home as children, often alone - traveling on buses, trains, cars or by foot to get to a U.S. border.
A few have lived on the street. One is the child of a Hong Kong businessman.
Some can read and write, but not in English. A few can't write the alphabet, even in their native language.
Many arrived in the United States just months or weeks earlier.
Medhanie, 15, came from Eritrea two years ago with little to no schooling. While his English is nearly fluent, thanks to time in front of his American television, his English literacy levels don't reach first grade.
He wants to be a doctor.
Principal Sonia Geerdes knew every student's name as they passed her in the hall, and she knew every one of their life stories. She also predicted their futures.
Within four to six years, she believes, the students - the first class of the city's new San Francisco International High School - will earn high school diplomas. After that, she's confident most will go off to college.
'Their immigration journeys are incredible,' Geerdes said. 'But their dreams have not been crushed. Our job is to make it a possibility. We're not shutting off their dreams.'
Goal of 400 students
The campus, which opened this year with only a freshman class, is currently housed on the fourth floor of Mission High School - a temporary site. It is expected to grow by a grade each year, reaching a maximum of 400 students.
Despite a strapped budget and fairly stagnant high school enrollment numbers, district officials opened the new school to meet the needs of students who all too often fall through the cracks - if they make it into a classroom at all.
Educating recent immigrants is one of the hardest jobs in the public school system. They often lag academically behind their American peers and don't have a grasp of English. Those who arrive as teenagers have little time to catch up. They drop out in greater numbers, and a quarter of those who stick around through senior year often don't pass the state's required exit exam.
Not unlike at all local schools, some students are illegal immigrants. Some are refugees. Some are legal residents, Geerdes said. State law requires all children to attend school. School officials asked that the students be identified in this story only by their first names in an effort to lessen their fear of reprisal from immigration officials.
Before International opened, new immigrant teenagers with limited English and low levels of literacy often were sent to the district's Newcomer High School. There, they spent a year or so almost exclusively learning the language before transferring to a traditional high school where they typically found themselves behind in credits and forced to sink or swim.
Too many sank.
Chem and Shakespeare
International, modeled on a network of similar schools in New York, offers a four-year track, requiring students to complete the course requirements needed for admission to state universities - something not yet required of the district's other students.
At the school, students don't learn the English language as a separate subject. They learn it while performing chemistry experiments or reading 'Romeo and Juliet.'
Shakespeare for those who can barely speak or read modern English?
'That's the challenge,' said English teacher Jacqueline Fix, looking unconcerned.
Group work is a big part of the educational process, with students from multiple countries, speaking various languages, helping each other learn.
A recent biology class had groups of four students shaking ice cream ingredients in a plastic bag inside another plastic bag filled with ice and salt. They were learning the scientific method, as well as relevant vocabulary, including, 'It is so yummy.'
The Internationals Network for Public Schools, which now includes the San Francisco campus as well as one in Oakland and 10 in New York, started the model 25 years ago with a school in Queens.
The four-year graduation rate for the 10 schools is 63 percent, which is 11 percentage points above the rate for New York City's English-speaking students and more than double that of the city's English learners.
Within six years, nearly 90 percent of the International students have graduated. The dropout rate is low, and attendance is high.
'These kids have a triple job: They have to learn English; they have to learn (high school) content; they have to learn a new culture,' said the network's executive director, Claire Sylvan. The success 'comes from very hard work,' she said.
Oakland's experience
Oakland International High School started its third year last week with 220 students on the rolls and new students expected every week of the school year, said Principal Carmelita Reyes.
Early on, it's hard to see success outside the school's walls. Recent test scores show nearly all the students fall below or far below grade level, which shouldn't be surprising given that many couldn't read when they got there.
'Some arrive and know the alphabet and are reading at third-grade level in one year,' Reyes said. 'In (the annual standardized tests), that is not going to show up.'
The long-term goal is that students complete college-prep course work and pass the California High School Exit Exam, Reyes said.
The International schools get about $300 or $400 extra per student from the Internationals Network for Public Schools, money used mostly for training teachers and administrators. The network also paid much of the start-up costs and three-month principal training for the new San Francisco site.
Supporters say every penny is worth the payoff - an education for students who perhaps had little hope of ever getting one.
'It's a courageous battle,' said Mary Richards, who oversees the district's small-school program, including International. 'That's what we're here to do.'
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15.
Business reaction to E-Verify: OMG
By Geoff Earle
The New York Post, September 14, 2009
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/business_reaction_to_verify_omg_hCF0vKsfD8XE0CBy2FCBmK
Washington, DC -- New York business leaders worry that a new federal requirement forcing employers to verify the work status of their employees could raise costs and waste time, while some small businesses say they know almost nothing about how the system works.
'However you cut it, this will add costs to government contracts at times when the federal budget is already over the top,' said Kathryn Wylde of the Partnership for New York City.
The program, called E-Verify, took effect last week, and requires any employer on a federal government contract to collect documents from their employees proving their eligibility to work, and run it through a database to match it with Social Security and other government records.
The plan is to weed illegal immigrants and those without proper work papers out of the system -- but it could also be a headache for business.
One business concern is that the rule can turn employers into an arm of immigration agents.
A wide range of New York employers do business with the federal government -- from construction firms to management consulting and high tech companies and defense contractors.
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16.
South Stockton businesses make allegations of racial profiling
By Jennifer Torres
The Record (Stockton, CA), September 13, 2009
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090913/A_NEWS/909130316#STS=fzl8jmid.1ybr
Stockton, CA -- A group of south Stockton business owners say their customers are being scared away by law enforcement officers who unfairly target Latino drivers and who maintain too intimidating a presence on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Ramiro Reyes - who for more than a decade worked at the Flamingo Club at Airport Way and King Boulevard (formerly Charter Way) - said he organized an association of about 70 merchants who share concerns about Stockton Police Department and California Highway Patrol activity in the area.
They have called for training on racial profiling and for the agencies to reconsider the allocation of their officers.
'They have a job to do, but they need to apply the law to the whole town,' Reyes said. 'We want protection from law enforcement, but we don't want it to destroy the business community.'
Deputy Chief Eric Jones of the Stockton Police Department said neither the King Boulevard corridor nor the people who shop there are being singled out.
'We're doing enforcement throughout the whole city,' Jones said. 'There's no extra concerted effort on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard that is different from other parts of the city.'
Police department representatives have held a meeting with the business owners and have scheduled another for next week. So far, Reyes said, their talks have been productive.
He also has met with officials from the Highway Patrol whose work in the area is part of a state-funded program designed to help local law enforcement agencies quell gang activity.
The effort puts five additional Highway Patrol units in areas, such as King Boulevard that have been identified as problem spots.
'We're going to continue,' Spokesman Angel Arceo said. 'We don't profile. We don't do anything like that. We're going to enforce the law.'
Businesses that line King Boulevard between El Dorado Street and Airport Way serve a predominantly Latino clientele that includes large numbers of immigrants, documented or not.
There are dozens of services that wire money and book bus tickets to Mexico and other Latin American countries. Party supply stores advertise packages for quinceaneras. Many signs and billboards are written in Spanish.
Juan Hernandez has owned Beto's Birria, a small restaurant with an outdoor patio, there for 10 years.
He said he would be pleased if officers were enforcing laws against prostitution or public drunkenness - actions that could make the area safer, cleaner and more appealing to customers.
Instead, he said, it seems to him that officers are singling out Latino drivers, hoping to catch people who don't have a license and stranding them without a car. He said he, too, has been stopped by an officer whose first question was, 'Do you have a Green Card?'
'They are only hurting the businesses and the trash remains,' Hernandez said. 'They come here to go fishing.'
Even among people who aren't committing crimes, seeing so many patrol cars in an area is intimidating enough to keep them from stopping to shop, he said.
'Sales are down drastically,' he said. 'It's harder to eat a taco with me than it is to cross the border.'
Vehicle-code enforcement often is at the center of charges of racist profiling by law enforcement officers.
According to the most recently updated statistics from the U.S. Justice Department, police pull over white, black and Latino drivers at about the same rates.
But after those stops, blacks and Latinos are much likelier than whites to be searched or arrested.
'Racial profiling at traffic stops ... has been sort of a well-known problem for blacks and Latinos for quite a long time,' said Kevin Johnson, dean of the University of California, Davis, School of Law, and an specialist on immigration law and policy.
Citing people who drive without a license isn't a problem itself, he said. 'Anybody who's driving without a license is violating the law.'
But, he said, 'That doesn't mean you can pull anyone over who looks Mexican because they might not have a license.'
And when a large segment of a community is afraid of law enforcement officers, it's not just bad for businesses like Hernandez's; it also could be a blow to public safety, he said.
'If you're worried ... you're going to get deported, it's much less likely you're going to want to go to the police to report a crime or to cooperate as a witness to a crime,' Johnson said.
That concern led the Stockton Police Department several years ago to launch the Latino Education About Law Enforcement Services, or LEALES, program. 'Leal' means loyal or trustworthy in Spanish. The program encourages Latinos, especially immigrants, to report robberies and other crimes, and to establish bank accounts and take other measures that could keep them from becoming victims.
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17.
Small Asian groceries face new competition in chains
By Matt O'Brien and Paul Thissen
The Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA), September 11, 2009
http://www.contracostatimes.com/bay-area-news/ci_13319101
Concord, CA -- They thrived for years on growing local demand for eastern Asian foods, but now the same cravings that made immigrant-owned small groceries so popular is bringing competition from big-league stores.
Two of the biggest Asian supermarket chains in California 99 Ranch and Seafood City soon will open stores here.
The expansion of the Asian food chains into Central Contra Costa has generated excitement among immigrants and others looking for hard-to-find foods at a decent price, but it could spell trouble for the smaller groceries.
'It's been very concerning, but what can you do?' said Sherrie Gaerlan of the Oriental Food Market. 'I just hope my clients will still be around to help me out.'
Gaerlan and her husband have owned their tiny Filipino food store on Clayton Road for eight years, and another family owned it for a decade before them.
The arrival of 99 Ranch Market, which has 29 stores best known for their Chinese and Taiwanese products, is less of a worry to the Gaerlans than is Seafood City, a company with 18 branches specializing in foods from the Philippines.
'I can't compete with the way they price their stuff,' Gaerlan said. 'I can only order a box of this, a box of that.'
After some sleepless nights, she said her husband, Alex, persuaded her to embrace the coming change by focusing on what they do best: knowing their customers.
'We deal with our clients on a personal basis,' she said. 'I know them by name, and what their needs are.'
The sentiment is one that small Asian stores around the area are adopting in response to the new competition. The 99 Ranch store also known as Ranch 99 opens Tuesday in the Park 'n' Shop center on Willow Pass Road. A Seafood City is scheduled to open on Diamond Boulevard in mid-October.
The chains will be tapping into a changing demographic in central Contra Costa, especially Asian immigrants who prefer cuisines from their homelands. Asian residents number about 12,000 in Concord, nearly 8,000 in Walnut Creek and nearly 5,000 in Pleasant Hill, and a few thousand more live in surrounding towns. Many are immigrants, but they are incredibly diverse, from Asian countries as different as Vietnam and Afghanistan.
The Concord store intends to attract not just East Asian customers but also Latinos with a selection that caters to just about everyone, said Teddy Chow, a spokesman for 99 Ranch.
'We'll do well there,' he said. The store will be the company's 11th in the Bay Area.
Kwang Yi, owner of the Concord Korean Market, was not worried. Some of his customers might head to 99 Ranch for cheaper goods, he said, but they will be back at his store for unique and specialty items.
The crowded shelves of his Monument Boulevard shop hold everything from sake to snacks to kitchen utensils. Amid the haphazard collection of posters above the cash register, a printed e-mail shows that the store has permission to rent out shows from the Korean Broadcasting System.
Attached to a Korean restaurant, the market also sells prepared foods that cannot be bought elsewhere, Yi said.
On Clayton Road, the Gaerlans rent out movies from the Philippines and provide passport renewal, airline and remittance services. Their top draw, they say, is Alex Gaerlan's home-cooked food.
At lunchtime, nurses from hospitals in the area arrive at the shop to pick up lumpia or a pork stew called dinuguan. T-shirts celebrating boxing champ Manny Pacquiao and a Filipino rapper adorn one wall.
As much as anything else, the shop is a place to share culture.
'I just enjoy what I do here, interacting with my fellow Filipinos,' Sherrie Gaerlan said.
At Diablo Oriental Foods, which sells Japanese products in Walnut Creek, loyal customer Taz Ogawa said she will probably go to 99 Ranch but the supermarket could not compare with the feeling she gets when she walks into her favorite store on North Main Street. Arriving with her toddler on a recent evening, she zoomed past intricate sweets and bright-colored drinks to choose a slab of tuna.
'They don't know how to treat the sashimi,' she said of the bigger Asian supermarkets. 'They don't know how to open the fish the Japanese way.'
A few miles north, at County Square Market in Pleasant Hill, rumors of the coming chains caused the store to expand its hours.
Until this month, the busy pan-Asian supermarket, which attracts a diverse clientele and has sister branches in Antioch and Vacaville, was the area's biggest.
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18.
Ethnic banking niche works well for WSFS
By Eric Ruth
The News Journal (Wilmington, DE), September 13, 2009
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090913/BUSINESS/909130325/1003
Delaware bankers like to carve out their own spaces. Wilmington Trust's specialty is handling corporate bankruptcy trials. ING Direct is all about coaxing customers into the electronic ether.
At WSFS Bank, a niche has evolved and grown in the arcane industry subset of 'ethnic banking' -- specifically, business loan services tailored to the concentrated communities of Korean-Americans that have coalesced in nearby states, and to the Korean immigrants in Delaware.
In the process, the bank has discovered a dependable business line, identified potential for expansion in tight times -- the bank's lending in Asian-American markets has grown at three times the rate of its overall commercial portfolio.
Bankers say the effort also has brought the unique kind of satisfaction that comes from helping at the grass-roots level in the tightly knit communities of Annandale, Va., and Blue Bell, Pa., where WSFS operates loan offices.
It's the kind of help that newly arrived Korean-Americans can find elusive at bigger banks, partly because of language difficulties, and frequently because of a reluctance among these lenders to be flexible when it comes to credit history, collateral and risk. The Korean-born bankers who lead the effort know that cultural factors often mean a customer's character and competence can be a more reliable gauge than a credit score among recent immigrants.
Customers who have ventured across the ocean to establish a new life know the high stakes of failure, and the support of their community and families can often provide a type of cultural 'collateral' that eases loan officers' minds.
'That's their livelihood. They have everything in it,' said Paul Hyon, who had led the bank's Asian unit. 'Their work ethic is much different than traditional Americans who grew up here.'
The ethnic banking market niche has been well-established in America for decades, particularly in Asian-American communities on the West Coast. In the concentrated Asian-American communities of Los Angeles, researchers have found that Korean and Chinese-Americans have enjoyed greater access to banking services than other minority groups, and consequently have played a great role in community development.
'The way I would characterize these [customers] is a very, very, very strong connection to their community,' said Doug Quaintance, senior vice president of commercial lending at WSFS. 'Korean people want to support their businesses, they want to see them thrive. ... When they're in difficult times, they come closer together.'
Hyon said the dependability of Korean customers was so solid, so reliable, that the default rate was near zero. At the same time, the bankers in Annandale and Blue Bell must work outside the typical due-diligence parameters to ensure that level of comfort -- working closely with customers on a business plan, establishing payment history through utility bills, relying on their personal sense of a person's character and capabilities.
'They tend to be hard workers,' Hyon said. 'The Asian community in general, including the Korean community, is one of the fastest-growing business communities in the United States. However, the work ethic is not enough to move up to the next level. They need a good banking relationship.'
One Korean man, rejected by a big bank for a truck loan, approached WSFS for a business loan and got it. About seven years later, he ended up being a $7 million customer.
In Wilmington, longtime business owner Young Jin Cha found salvation at WSFS when his dry-cleaning shop ran into financial trouble a few years back. He doubts he would have found the same level of understanding at another bank.
'Paul helped me,' he said of Hyon, now president and CEO of MoreBank in Philadelphia. 'Anything I needed, he helped me. ... He knows our culture.'
Another customer, regarded as too risky on paper by the bigger banks, showed the commitment and earnestness that WSFS relationship manager Dae Young Kwak wanted to see.
'When I talked to him, I felt confident. He had a good plan. He knew the location. And the husband and wife were committed to a life here,' he said.
The bank began focusing efforts on Korean immigrants in 2000, opening a retail unit called United Asian Bank in Elkins Park, Pa.
'It operated very successfully. It grew at a faster pace than our traditional retail operations,' Quaintance said. 'All organizations are looking to differentiate themselves from their competition. This seemed to be a market that was underserved by the banking community.'
Seeing that the unit had great potential for expansion, but faced with lean resources for doing it, WSFS sold the United Asian's deposits in 2003, but kept on a core of veterans to sustain the commercial loan portfolio under the WSFS brand. In 2005, the bank dispatched the teams to Annandale and Blue Bell, marketing the endeavor through Korean newspapers and directories.
It's crucial to build a sense of connection and empathy to reach these customers, bankers said, and educate them to what seems mystifying.
'What is really unknown by them are the American ways of doing business, primarily on the financial side,' Quaintance said. 'We have to be able to almost hand-hold them through the process.'
The success has raised some interest in expanding the Asian banking section into other communities, including New York City, he said, possibly in the next five years.
'Every one of these people has a very strong desire to pursue that American dream, and we're helping them through that,' Quaintance said. 'That's where I get the greatest satisfaction.'
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19.
Latino leader touts role of community colleges
Campuses are gateway to higher education for many, official says
By Katherine Leal Unmuth
The Dallas Morning News, September 12, 2009
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/DN-hispaniced_12met.ART.State.Edition1.4c1b99c.html
Community colleges serve a critical role as the gateway to higher education for Latino students, a federal education official stressed to a group of educators Friday.
'In the Latino community, not enough of us are going to college, but when we go, where we start is at the community college,' said Juan Sep˙lveda, director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. 'This is our jump into the college system.'
Sep˙lveda, who led President Barack Obama's Texas campaign, spoke Friday at El Centro College's West Dallas campus, and later at Mountain View College. The president has pushed to give $12 billion in stimulus funds to community colleges over the next 10 years.
According to Dallas County Community College District figures, 28 percent of students enrolled last fall at their campuses were Latino.
Sep˙lveda, a Mexican-American voting rights leader, previously lived in San Antonio and grew up in Topeka, Kan.
The initiative was created by President George Bush in 1990.
Sep˙lveda also said that the Obama administration is pushing for national standards on which to grade schools, instead of having states create their own systems, such as Texas' TAKS program.
'What our sons and daughters get or what's expected of them as far as their reading or math level is all based on where we live,' Sep˙lveda said. 'The level of expectation could go up or down depending on what state you're in.'
However, Texas is one of a few states refusing to work with other states on creating such standards.
DCCCD Chancellor Wright Lassiter and state Rep. Rafael Anch̀a, D-Dallas, attended the event in addition to college and high school students.
Sep˙lveda mostly gathered ideas and spoke about Obama's broad educational goals.
He mentioned that the president supports passage of the Dream Act, which would offer a pathway to legal status for illegal immigrant college students. The crowd broke into applause.
Anch̀a said he'd like Obama to push for passage of the act separate from overall immigration reform.
'It would be a signal to the Latino community that the president continues to be engaged,' he said.
Sep˙lveda also urged higher pay for the most talented teachers, college loan forgiveness for those who decide to become educators and the importance of improving data systems for school districts.
In addition, he mentioned that the government is simplifying the federal financial aid form online and including a Spanish version.
Educators also spoke.
Elizabeth Tamez advocated for faith-based initiatives, citing her work with the Baptist General Convention of Texas' outreach efforts in Hispanic churches.
'We're capitalizing on the churches and congregations,' she said. 'Because the pastor and the priest already have that respect from families.'
Andrew Goldsmith, a community liaison at Dallas' Quintanilla Middle School, said Texas textbooks must include more Mexican and Hispanic history.
'When they study the history of their people it's a very demeaning history,' he said. 'People have to have self-esteem.'
Sep˙lveda mentioned that Thelma Melendez, the newly appointed assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, will probably address the challenge of the increasing number of students with limited English proficiency.
He said the former superintendent of the Pomona, Calif., schools learned English as a second language herself.
Brizette Aguilar, 18, walked from Dallas' aging Pinkston High School across the street to the new El Centro satellite campus to watch the event.
'I hope they do what they say they're going to do,' she said.
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20.
Haiti advocates step up efforts to secure temporary protected status
By Trenton Daniel
The Miami Herald, September 14, 2009
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1232863.html
A diverse group of local leaders and their allies is stepping up efforts to secure temporary protect status, or TPS, for Haitians.
On Monday, the group -- which includes everybody from church leaders to hip hop artists -- will gather at a Little Haiti center to call on the Obama administration to grant TPS to Haitians in the United States, a designation that would allow some 30,000 undocumented Haitians to remain in the country temporarily with a work permit.
The administration is reviewing the possibility of issuing TPS to Haitians, though President Barack Obama said this summer that an immigration overhaul would have to wait until next year.
Haiti advocates argue that Haitians in the United States deserve TPS after a series of deadly storms battered the Caribbean country last year. Congress approved the designation in 1990 for foreign nationals fleeing civil war and natural disasters.
The Monday news conference at the Jean Jacques Dessalines Center is one of several events this week that seek to highlight the contributions of Haitians. Local activists plan to rally in front of the White House on Wednesday.
Former President Bill Clinton, the United Nations' special envoy to Haiti, publicly brought up the TPS issue in August. He urged Haiti advocates to keep the pressure on but to do so respectfully.
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21.
Immigrant backers to hold vigils in Freehold, Keyport
By Minhaj Hassan
The Asbury Park Press (NJ), September 12, 2009
http://www.app.com/article/20090912/NEWS/909120314/1004/NEWS01/Immigrant+backers+to+hold+vigils+in+Freehold++Keyport
An immigrant advocacy group plans to hold candlelight vigils in Freehold, Keyport and eight other towns in New Jersey Tuesday to support the rights of children who may be at risk of being separated from their families because of deportations or detentions.
The New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees says the vigils are intended to show support for children who live in households where at least one parent is undocumented or is a legal permanent resident.
Participants will call for an end to raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, detentions and deportations because they cause children to be separated from their families, the group said. It said some participants mat share stories of being separated from their families and may call for federal immigration legislation that prevents breaking up families.
The vigil in Freehold is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday outside the Monmouth County Sheriff's Office at Main and Center streets. The sheriff's office is among 79 agencies nationwide and three in the state to participate in a federal program that will allow officers to act on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The event in Keyport is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph's Church, 376 Maple Place.
Other vigils are being held in Morristown, Bridgeton, Dumont, Hightstown, Jersey City, Highland Park, Montclair and Newark.
Morristown has become a hotbed for immigration issues as a result of Mayor Donald Cresitello's support for 287(g), the controversial federal program that calls for deputizing police officers to serve as immigration agents. The mayor has yet to sign the agreement to put the program in place.
Diana Mejia, who heads the immigrant resource center Wind of the Spirit in Morristown, said the program will split families and divide the community.
'The people here in Morristown reject the idea that immigrants are to be treated like criminals,' she said. 'People in our community from all walks of life are coming out in droves in support of all families who work and live in our town — with or without papers. We are all members of the same community.'
According to the American Friends Service Committee, an immigrant rights group, New Jersey has detained some 1,000 immigrants in county jails or the Elizabeth Detention Center.
The Hudson County jail is the other agency in New Jersey to participate in the program.
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22.
Firings Spark Protest
By Hubble Smith
The Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 11, 2009
http://www.lvrj.com/business/58935237.html
Busloads of women attending a Teamsters convention in Las Vegas dropped by City Hall on Thursday to join a protest against Republic Services for firing 29 Hispanics who were allegedly attempting to unionize recycling center workers.
The firings are a blatant attempt to intimidate workers who were leading the organizing efforts, Teamsters Local 631 Secretary-Treasurer John Phillipenas said. The fired workers were all Hispanic and long-standing employees, some of them having worked at Republic for 10 years, he said.
Phillipenas said the workers faced extremely hot, dusty and dirty conditions without adequate ventilation and cooling fans. The unacceptable working conditions were just one of the primary issues that prompted workers to seek union representation, he said.
Bob Coyle, president of Republic Services, told the Review-Journal in August that the company conducted a full audit of immigration law compliance and found about 30 personnel files that required further review of Form I-9, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employment eligibility form.
Audits were done regardless of race or national origin of the employees and regardless of whether they were union or nonunion, he said.
Only one person produced proper documentation confirming the ability to work in the United States legally and that employee was immediately returned to work, Coyle said. The others were given time to provide documentation and were unable to do so.
Rosalina Martinez, one of the fired workers, said she's a legal U.S.-born citizen and single mother of five children.
'I'm the only responsible person for my family support and I feed my family,' Martinez said through a translator. 'I've got my legal documents. Republic Services fired me because I was asking for union representation from Teamsters. The company also fired many of my co-workers from their jobs for the same thing. I ask for justice to me and all my co-workers.'
The rally was intended to sway public opinion toward union strategies and to discredit Republic Services, company spokeswoman Michele Voelkening said Thursday. Teamsters officials continue to provide misleading and inaccurate information regarding issues at the recycling center, she said.
'Republic Services has had a long and positive relationship with the Teamsters union, including the harmonious and successful renegotiation of its current five-year contract,' Voelkening said in a statement. 'However, we cannot sit back idly while certain union representatives wantonly distort the facts to create a public perception of wrongdoing.'
Republic Services was not aware of any organizing efforts at the recycling center in March and didn't learn of any such effort until August, she said.
The company has more than 1,100 workers who are members of the Teamsters union and will continue to abide by the law in all of its personnel matters, including the rights of workers to organize, she added.
Kevin Hardison, president of Teamsters Local 631, called for immediate reinstatement of all the fired Republic Services workers and for the company to negotiate union contracts. He also pointed to the 10th floor of City Hall and asked the council to 'act accountable' and review the franchise agreement with the trash disposal company.
'Give it to a company that will respect its workers,' he said.
Phillipenas said Republic 'should be ashamed of themselves' for the firings, mostly women with children who were making $6.50 to $7.50 an hour.
'This isn't about immigration. This is all about corporate greed. This is all about exploiting workers,' the union leader said to cheers from supporting unions, including Culinary Local 226, Service Employees International Union and Teamsters 'sisters' from across the nation.
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23.
Panel offers observations on the impact of immigration on faith in the US
The Boston Globe, September 13, 2009
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles_of_faith/2009/09/how_immigrants.html
At a panel on immigration and faith at the convention Thursday, Luis Lugo, the director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, made a few interesting observations:
Immigration is leading to an increase in the number of Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims in the United States, but a large majority of new immigrants are Christian. This stands in contrast to the situation in Europe, where a much higher percentage of immigrants are non-Christian.
Although Protestants outnumber Catholics in the United States, new immigrants are overwhelmingly Catholic, and as a result, ``immigration is tilting the balance within American Christianity in favor of Catholicism.'' Also, Lugo said, ``We're very close to becoming a minority Protestant country.''
Many of the new immigrants are from Latin America, Africa, and Asia. ``What we are seeing is not the de-Christianization of America, but the de-Europeanization of American Christianity,'' he said. One effect of this, he said, is a rise in Pentecostal and charismatic worship styles in US churches, because those more expressive forms of worship are often preferred by immigrants from the Global South.
Nearly a quarter of all Catholics in the United States are foreign born - the highest percentage among any of the nation's largest faith groups. ``To know what the country will be like in three decades, look at the Catholic church,'' he said.
The Muslim population in the United States is more diverse, in terms of national origin, than the Muslim population in any other country. No more than 8 percent of American Muslims are from any one country. This, again, contrasts with the situation in Europe, where, for example, many German Muslims are from Turkey, many Spanish Muslims are from Morocco, and many French Muslims are from Algeria.
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24.
Program Give Refugees New Life
By Shannon Humphrey
The Daily Press (Newport News, VA), September 13, 2009
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_makingadifference_0913sep13,0,7321928.story
Hampton, VA -- After war broke out in Bosnia in 1992, Mevsudin 'Tony' Harbas spent five and a half months in a Serbian prison camp before coming to the United States in 1996. He didn't speak any English and had lost everything.
Enter Refugee and Immigration Services in Hampton, a center at which the goal is to make the transition to a new country as seamless as possible for immigrants and refugees.
At the center of this program is Susan Smith, education coordinator. Smith designs programs that help refugees learn English. She also recruits and trains volunteers involved with the program.
'The adults need English for work, so we try to eliminate as many barriers as we can,' Smith said. 'They can't get their Social Security card for three to four weeks after they come, so they can't work for four to six weeks. During this period, it's a good use of time to learn English.'
The first program the refugees participate in is Intensive English as a Second Language (ESL). The ESL program focuses on introductions, money, time and job applications. After completion of this three-week program, the refugee/immigrant is matched with a tutor for one-on-one sessions.
Harbas, 35, who completed the program, now works as a caseworker.
'I know how they feel when they come over. They've lost everything,' Harbas said.
'It helps me relate to them better, because I know what I needed at that time and how the office helped me,' he said. 'I want to help the refugees, to give them a second chance at life like I was given.'
As part of his job, Harbas meets the refugees at the airport and takes them to apartments that have been set up for them. Once there, he makes sure they know how to use everything. He also sets up health screenings, helps them apply for a Social Security card and assists in navigating benefits options from their jobs.
Some families have a hard time getting accustomed to their new way of life.
'I remember taking a Congo family to their two-bedroom apartment, and they wanted to know how many families were going to be living with them,' Smith said. 'They didn't understand electricity and other modern ways of living that we take for granted every day.'
One of those modern conveniences was the gas stove.
'We wanted to make sure they knew not to turn the stove on until we could come back in the morning to show them how to use it,' Smith said.
'We told them it was dangerous and could explode. When we came back the next morning the father hadn't gone to sleep, because he couldn't figure out how to turn the refrigerator off. He was afraid it would burst into flames, too.'
Refugees are brought to the Hampton office through the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. The conference serves as parent to the Hampton office, and delivers refugees from Buton, Iraq, Kuwait, Egypt, Cuba, Rwanda, Liberia and other countries.
The refugees have had to make horrible decisions to come to America, Smith said. They leave family behind, and for many of the men, they've had a gun held to their head and were told to join the military or be killed. Others have been forced to flee because of political and religious persecution or due to ethnic cleansing in their home country.
Through the help of Refugee and Immigration Services, they get a second chance at a brand new life.
One Burmese girl, who came to the United States when she was 20, is now enrolled at Thomas Nelson Community College. Her brother was accepted into the Job Corps, a free education and training program that helps young people learn a career, earn a high school diploma or GED and find and keep a job.
'They have the same hopes and dreams we have,' Smith said. 'Our office is here to allow the American dream to unfold in a healthy way.'
One way the program strives to help with this is by getting the refugees used to the transportation system and riding the bus to the office for their tutoring. The office also partners with Langley Federal Credit Union for financial literacy courses, which covers everything from writing checks to paying bills.
Another learning curve for the refugees is the idea of a definitive set of rules and the police.
'Where they're from, the government supports are non-existent. Here, we have systems and rules. This is hard for them to get used to,' Smith said.
'There was ambivalence with authorities in their country, so we work with them so they know the police are here to help them and that they don't need to be intimidated by them.'
Due to all the issues with immigration in the U.S., Smith wants to make one point clear.
'Refugees are here legally. They're taking jobs to improve the work force,' Smith said. 'We're saving their lives and giving them their fair chance at life.'
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25.
Latino farmers remember their roots
By Mike Kilen
The Des Moines Register, September 11, 2009
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090913/LIFE/909130303/1039
Benigno Lopez smoothly swings the machete and, whoosh, tall grasses are laid flat on the garden's border. He takes another fluid swing and another, until his wife grows impatient.
Ramona Lopez yells and whoops in the distance to summon visitors to her side.
'Come look at my peppers!'
'Look, jalapenos.'
'Habaneros.'
'And look at these!'
'Chilies!'
'Most of the time, I'm not as happy as my husband. But this year, when I come and see my peppers ...,' she calls out, finishing the sentence with a look of adoration.
Benigno, who people call Bernie, and Ramona grew up in Jalisco, Mexico, but left behind farm life 13 years ago to move to the United States.
They worked in the meat-packing plant in Marshalltown, became citizens and hoped to one day grow food again.
Now they have a plot of land and are harvesting, thanks to a continuing education program to develop new farmers that heavily taps into Marshalltown's Latino population.
'Take it,' Ramona says, shoving a green tube of something-or-another at the visitor. 'Take it!'
OK, but what is it?
A Mexican yellow squash called a calabacita. Slice it, put it on the grill with a little seasoned salt, she said. Oh, the taste!
Just the day before, as August waned and the vegetables hung ripe with promise, she had a party and served them. It was a special evening in a season of growth.
Years ago, the couple planted a peach tree in their yard and others said it wouldn't grow. But fruit appeared, not every year, but enough to maintain hope that new ideas, new people, could prosper here.
Bernie's father and grandfather grew peaches, mangos, oranges and avocados on their farm.
'Bernie is very happy to work outside. Works 10, 12 hours a day,' Ramona said.
Ramona works at Iowa Home Care, visiting the sick and elderly in their homes, then comes out to see her peppers, which grow on plots at Marshalltown Community College.
Its Entrepreneurial and Diversified Agriculture Program (EDA) led an adult education class last winter, 'Start Your Own Diversified Farm,' whose goal is to help people learn to farm and contribute to the local food economy.
In looking for farmers in Marshalltown, a town long populated with Latino immigrants, it made sense to tap into their willingness and expertise.
A survey of 111 Mexican and Central American immigrants in Marshalltown and Denison by Iowa State's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, which paid tuition for the class, discovered that 83 percent grew up on farms and 93 percent wanted to farm, although buying or leasing land was an obstacle.
A third of the 18 students in the eight-week bilingual class were Latino, joining Anglos, American Indians and Sudanese.
'We always ate. It seemed important that we eat together to help us integrate,' said Linda Barnes, the EDA program coordinator. 'The thing we learned is so much of it is about relationships. The reason that is true is we are talking about food.'
Bernie and Ramona helped recruit Latinos, earned certificates from the class in March and joined a dozen who planted plots in the spring.
Some grew excited on the first warm April day and made the mistake of planting early.
Bernie waited until May 5. He had experience, working on a ranch in Mexico. 'Never with a tractor but with an ox,' he says. 'Old fashioned.'
'He use a tiller here,' his wife adds. 'I'm happy for Bernie to use a tiller.'
Just then Norm McCoy, the farm manager of the college's 80 acres, suggests Bernie may benefit from a weed eater to tackle his chore.
He smiles. New Iowans with unusual ideas like peach trees wisely take some advice from the natives.
It's a longtime dream. While working at the packing plant, a job she didn't like, Ramona began attending farmer's meetings.
'I would go home and look in dictionary what they say. I realized the problems same for farmers everywhere,' she said.
The main challenge for new farmers is money to buy land. But students can establish three years of growing history here, which most lenders require to buy land.
All they want is a few acres, just enough to grow fruits and vegetables and raise a few cows, chickens and sheep to sell to local customers and restaurants.
Claudia Prado-Meza saw the same hunger while talking to traditional Iowa farmers.
'They miss growing food that they know where it goes,' said the Iowa State graduate student in sustainable agriculture, who helps the Marshalltown farmers. 'But they are trapped inside subsidized systems.'
Latino farmers remember their farming roots.
'To hear (Ramona) gush about the potential for growing vegetables is like the embodiment of the American dream,' said John Paulin of Prairie Rivers Resource Conservation and Development.
'But the institutional knowledge of growing truck crops has disappeared.'
Paulin hopes the college program, which became part of an effort carrying the acronym for food in Spanish - COMIDA (County Of Marshall Investing in Diversified Agriculture) - helps connect local farmers and buyers.
Only one-tenth of a percent of Marshall County residents get food directly from farmers, a fourth of the national average. If consumers bought 15 percent, according to a study by Ken Meter of the Crossroads Resource Center in Minnesota, $8 million of new farm income would be generated in the county.
So they are trying to grow farmers in Marshall County, dreamers like Ramona and Bernie.
Ramona steers her truck past the rows of white corn for tortillas, tomato plants and twisting vines of melons.
It hasn't been an easy growing summer with early cool weather and college land that hasn't built up enough organic materials yet. Still, the group gathers enough produce to sell at the Downtown Farmers Market in Des Moines, in McCoy's Pine Crest Farm stand.
She is chomping on a just-picked cucumber and had few complaints.
'This place is the future for new people,' she says. 'We raise seven kids here, three still at home. Marshalltown open the doors to us. We need to do something to give back to the community.'
Adept at translating, Ramona helps recruit immigrants interested in farming while working to save money to buy land.
Her husband, she says, is never so happy as when he can stop to donate garden items at Helping Hands Temporary Services for the less privileged.
She pulls her truck up to the plot of Jorge Ibarra, a 35-year-old construction worker and father of five who learned to farm from his grandfather in Mexico.
'I like to be farmer,' he says. 'I lived on a farm. I like the life.'
He begins filling up boxes of his sweet corn to give away.
Like Ramona, he wants to return something.
As the Iowa sun sets over the standing corn, visitors take home the corn and calabacita to put on the grill, as Ramona instructed.
She also cooked the squash the day before at a party for her daughter Jacqeline, the first in her family to ever leave for college. They ate it near the peach tree in Iowa.
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26.
Oath of Allegiance: 91 become citizens
By John Curran
The Bennington Banner (VT), September 11, 2009
http://www.benningtonbanner.com/ci_13320426
Montpelier -- On the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, 91 people at the Vermont Statehouse honored those who died by becoming United States citizens Friday.
The 91 -- who hailed from 37 countries -- took the 'Oath of Allegiance' in a naturalization ceremony that drew hundreds of family members and friends to the Statehouse for what has become an annual tradition since the 2001 attacks.
The new citizens were serenaded with song, given official citizenship certificates and welcomed as diverse new threads in the fabric of America.
'It is now your right to say what you think, to go where you choose, to worship as you will, without governmental interference, to make yourself whatever you can by hard work performed in your own way, by industry, loyalty and integrity,' said U.S. Circuit Court Judge Peter Hall, who presided.
The ceremony, in the well of the House chamber, was held by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, as it has done each year since 2002.
'It’s a unique and meaningful way to commemorate Sept. 11,' said David Santos, a spokesman for the agency.
Among the new citizens were Tejas Borse, 18, of Essex Junction, and his mother, Bharati Borse, 44, both natives of India.
'I always wanted to be a U.S. citizen,' he said. 'A couple of years back, my family decided that it was time to be a U.S. citizen because the country has given so much to us.
'It’s time to return the favor by being in service for her in anyway we can.'
Pierre Akpo-Sani, 63, of Orwell, a native of Benin, moved to the U.S. in 1974 after meeting his wife Ramona, a Peace Corps volunteer.
Praise for U.S.
After the ceremony, he praised his adopted homeland.
'It confirms to me that I am part of the greatest country in this world. I have been to many countries, and I know what I’m saying. This is it,' he said.
Husband and wife Birgit Ryan and Michael Ryan of Hyde Park have lived in Vermont off and on since 1979.
Vermont was home
Retired from his job as operations manager at Digital Equipment Corp. in South Burlington, the native Irishman spent much of his life working in overseas locations but always called Vermont home.
'We would’ve done it before, but it takes a lot of effort and time to do it,' Ryan said. 'It sort of rounds things out. We’ve been really part of this community for a very long time, but this is the final stamp of our approval and your approval, the United States’ approval.'
Birgit Ryan, a native of Germany, said it was 'marvelous' to be part of the ceremony 'to at long last belong to this great country.'
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27.
Immigrant finds help in getting back to America
By Eric Cormier
The Associated Press, September 13, 2009
http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20090914/NEWS01/90914002
Lake Charles, LA (AP) -- It was almost two years since the 27-year-old man had seen his wife and their children, a 4-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl.
'My little boy Hunter was shy, but he recognized my voice and smiled. But my daughter Amber jumped all over me with hugs. I was so happy,' said Elvis Martinez, now legally at home in the country where he had lived illegally since he was 16.
He left Honduras in 1998 to join relatives already in the United States, and try to improve his life. His mother had died.
'She was young, 47, when she got a kidney infection and then died. I took care of her. After that, I didn't want to stay. So I left, and it took me a month and a half to get to America,' Martinez said.
He walked and took buses to Houston, where an aunt lived.
Martinez was among about 2.9 million people who entered the country without authorization from 1995-99, according to a study released in 2006 by the Pew Hispanic Center.
He got a low-paying restaurant job, and eventually a job in a paint and body shop where he worked for more than four years.
While working there, Martinez, met his wife, Hayden, a Lake Charles native.
'I didn't get married for my immigration papers,' Martinez said. 'I got married for love.'
His daughter's name is tattooed on his right forearm; his own on the left.
Encouraged by Martinez's brother, the couple moved to North Carolina for more work opportunities. The weather was too chilly for Hayden, so the family moved to Lake Charles, and Martinez was hired to work in the paint and body shop at a car dealership.
That was when Hayden asked her husband if he had thought about becoming a legal resident.
At Southwest Louisiana Legal Services, he met with local attorney Beth Zilbert and immigration guru Shannon Cox.
'Because he came to the U.S. without legal permission, he had to go back to his home country in Honduras in order to get his visa processed,' Zilbert said.
Martinez reluctantly drove to Houston, walked onto an airliner and flew back to Central America. Unable to afford their rent, his wife and children went to a shelter.
Martinez expected to be out of the U.S. no more than a few months.
But paperwork got lost.
'I was told my visa was denied,' Martinez remembered. 'Why? I couldn't believe it, and I had my family in America. It made me cry.'
He spent time with his family in San Pedro Sula, a city with over 1 million residents in the northwestern section of Honduras near the Caribbean Sea.
And he learned that his tattoos gave people the wrong impression.
'After about a month, I started getting out, going to Internet cafes to communicate with my wife and kids. Police would see me and thought I was a gangster because of the tattoos,' he said.
He had trouble getting a job. 'Business owners didn't want people around like that. They thought it was gangster stuff. But I did get a job in an auto body shop with a guy from Costa Rica,' he said.
Cox remembers getting frequent pay phone calls from Martinez.
'He'd be telling me, 'You have to get me out of here. It's dangerous for me,'' Cox said.
On June 28 coincidentally, the day a coup exiled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya Cox and Zilbert were told that Martinez's visa and green card were available.
'But perseverance pays off,' Zilbert said.
An official at the American consulate called Martinez on Aug. 26.
'I was so happy,' Martinez said.
He was given his immigration papers and immediately bought an airline ticket to Houston.
'I was leaving my family, but I was going to my family. I couldn't believe it,' Martinez said.
Now that he's in Lake Charles, Martinez plans to get a Social Security number, driver's license, open a bank account and start repairing cars again. He also intends to become an American citizen.
'This is a place for opportunity. It's a good place, but you can't mess around in America. You must follow the rules,' Martinez said.
Cox said her client's visa is valid for one year. But permanent residency papers which will let him stay in America 10 years will be available to him in the coming weeks.
'His case should have been done and finished within the first nine months he went back to Honduras,' Cox said. 'The consulate basically lost his immigration packet, added to overall inefficiency.'
She encourages any immigrant 'to come to America the right way. Come legally. I understand why they take the chance, but it's not worth it.'
Returning home voluntarily gave Martinez the right to apply for a visa and waiver. Had he been caught as an illegal immigrant, he could have been deported and faced a potential three-year to lifetime ban.
When he flew into Houston at the end of August, passport and visa in hand, the first step was an interview with a U.S. immigration official.
'He said, 'Welcome to America.' That felt so good,' Martinez said.
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28.
Her duty: Gwinnett woman works to keep sibling in U.S. legally
Her brother, 38, is mentally disabled and has ‘nowhere else to go’
By Mark Davis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 12, 2009
http://www.ajc.com/news/her-duty-136939.html
Ian Button, law-breaker, is in charge of opening the blinds at his sister's Suwanee home every morning. Afternoons, he's happy to watch TV --- 'Pokemon' and 'Knight Rider' reruns are favorites. Nights, he smiles at his 1-year-old niece, Ella, before the child goes to bed.
He's hardly a public enemy; you won't see him on 'America's Most Wanted.' But he is a criminal, technically speaking. Button, 38, is an illegal immigrant living in Gwinnett County.
That hardly makes him unique, according to federal and state statistics. But Button is different: A British citizen, he is mentally disabled, with the intellectual capacity of a 7-year-old. His sister, Lisa Coursey, is his legal guardian.
Three years ago, she brought him to live with her on a visa that has long since expired. If he were to get tossed out of this country, she says, her brother would have nowhere to go.
Fortunately for the family, such a fate does not appear imminent. Authorities say they are busy chasing other, more urgent cases. Still, Button's status leaves him vulnerable to deportation at any time. And his 39-year-old sister has found herself frustrated at every turn in her attempts to make him a legitimate U.S. resident.
Instead of hiding her brother from authorities, Coursey says she's done everything in her power to work with them to solve the problem, to no avail. Federal officials have told her that because her brother's case is of low priority, the soonest it is likely to come up for review is 2017.
People on all sides of the immigration issue say the family's situation is one existing laws don't adequately address. Even a staunch foe of illegal immigration agrees that in this case, the usual rules probably shouldn't apply.
'In the grand immigration debate, people talk about all the undocumented' people living in America, Coursey said recently, sitting at her dining-room table opposite her brother, who favored her with a shy smile.
'We're documented,' she said. 'We've followed all the rules. We've done everything we can. We've hit a brick wall.'
Trinidad to Suwanee
Lisa and Ian Button were born in England to a schizophrenic mother incapable of looking after them. Their aunt in Trinidad took them in.
In 1987, Lisa came to America, sponsored by a Connecticut family. That allowed her to get that all-important document that would-be citizens must have, the green card, issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. She married, divorced, got a degree in forensic psychology and decided life in the Northeast was not to her liking.
'I had friends moving to Georgia, telling me how great it was,' Coursey said. In 1997, she boarded a Greyhound bus for Atlanta. She got a job working at a credit center and rented an apartment in Norcross.
In 2002, she went on a date with a slim, dark-haired man named Ricardo Coursey. The next year, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She and Ricardo married in March 2005.
That same year, she initiated the process to get Ian a green card, filing as a sibling sponsor, so he could become a naturalized American citizen, too. But before she could complete the process, the aunt looking after him died in March 2006.
Ricardo and Lisa boarded a jet bound for Trinidad to get her brother. On the advice of a U.S. Embassy official there, they got a 90-day visa for him, assuming they could get him cleared to remain permanently in America when they returned to Suwanee.
She would soon learn otherwise.
Waiting for a knock
Coursey has a 5-inch stack of letters, faxes and e-mails documenting her efforts to keep her brother here legally. Most of the correspondence occurred between April and June 2006, when Button was here lawfully on his three-month visa.
On April 4, 2006, Coursey sent a 15-page fax to immigration officials. She supplied them with passport information, details of her aunt's death, birth certificates and a physician's assessment that her brother could not look after himself. The case, Coursey wrote, was 'an extreme emergency and humanitarian situation.'
The next day, she visited the Atlanta offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). An official there told her that Button should not have come to America on a 90-day visa if she intended him to stay longer; he should have had a tourist's visa, which can be extended. The CIS worker also dashed her hopes for a speedy resolution. Button's case --- an adult sibling sponsoring an adult sibling --- was low-priority, he said. It likely wouldn't be reviewed for 12 years.
Coursey wrote to U.S. Rep. John Linder, her congressional representative, asking for help. '[Ian] has nowhere to go and we do not know what else to do or who to contact,' she told him.
A series of e-mails between Coursey and Linder staffer Debra Poirot underscore the sister's growing panic as the expiration date of Button's 90-day visa neared.
'This is SO wrong,' she wrote Poirot. 'I've been doing everything the way I've been asked to do ...'
On June 7, she wrote to the National Visa Center, begging it to expedite Button's case. Looking after her brother, she wrote, 'is my duty.'
As the visa deadline of June 28 approached, Coursey considered leaving the country with her brother, then re-entering with a new visa for her sibling, as some officials had suggested. She decided against it. What if agents stopped her brother for some unknown reason and he couldn't return?
June 28 came --- and with it, a fluttering in the stomach. She spent the day wondering if agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the division charged with the apprehension and deportation of illegal residents, would knock on her door.
More than three years later, she still fears hearing that knock.
Problem, fix rare
The Button case is a tough one, federal officials and immigration specialists agree. The law does not recognize that he has the mental capacity of a child, whose case could be expedited. Instead, said Coursey, he's a little boy in a man's 6-foot-2 body.
'This is where nice, middle-age people find themselves in a terrible fix,' said lawyer Sue Colussy, who oversees immigration issues for Catholic Charities, an Atlanta-based nonprofit social services organization.
She suggested that Coursey ask Linder, or U.S. Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, to make Button a U.S. citizen by filing a 'private bill' --- legislation addressing Button's case only.
But those actions, she conceded, 'are very, very rare.'
An aide to Linder declined to discuss the case specifically.
'Congressman Linder ... and his office have always applied a very strict privacy policy when dealing with case work questions,' Derick Corbett, a spokesman for the Duluth Republican, wrote in an e-mail. 'We are certainly not through with this,' he added in a follow-up e-mail.
Kent Goodrich, assistant special agent in charge of ICE's Atlanta offices, said that Coursey has little to fear.
'Based on the number of individuals we have in this country who really need to be removed, he [Button] does not rank anywhere near the top' of the agency's list of potential deportees, he said.
'Nowhere else to go'
Still, the dilemma facing Button and his sister highlights a system that needs fixing, said Joe Rosen, a Smyrna immigration lawyer.
'It's not set up for a case like this,' said Rosen, a former FBI and U.S. Customs agent. 'It's heartbreaking.'
Even people who take a hard stand on illegal immigration admit that Button's story is different than most.
'This is a very, very, very sad story,' said Marietta resident D.A. King, president and founder of the Dustin Inman Society, which opposes illegal immigration and open borders. 'I would help them if I could.'
Button, meantime, enjoys life. He has his own bedroom in a two-story house fronted by an immaculate lawn. Three times a week he attends a Gwinnett training school where he and other disabled people learn job and life skills. He had a girlfriend, but they broke up.
'I think I am happy to be here,' Button said.
If he had to go? 'I don't know,' he said. 'I have nowhere else to go.'
He rose from the dining room table, smiled and said he was going to his room. Coursey watched him go. Button stepped as quietly as a little boy ordered to bed.
'I just want to go to a judge and present my case,' she said. 'Anyone with any common sense can see that we are just trying to do the right thing.'
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29.
American dream goes bust
By Pamela Manson
The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City), September 14, 2009
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13329696
When authorities asked him to help get evidence against a woman suspected of posing as an immigration employee to defraud foreign-born people in Utah, Luis Maco agreed.
All he wanted in return was to stay in the United States while he and his wife waited for their turn to apply for legal residency, the native of Peru said.
But in the end, the woman, Pavlina Dimovski Lopez, was placed on probation -- and Maco was ordered deported. He is slated to appear in immigration court on Sept. 24, when his lawyer will ask that Maco be allowed to stay.
'I might not be in this situation if I didn't offer to help catch her,' Maco said.
The Provo man and his wife, Sonia, overstayed their tourist visas but a change in federal law in 2000 gave them the chance to become citizens. They thought they could shorten the years-long process when a neighbor told them in 2005 about a woman who worked for immigration and who could help them.
'We thought maybe this is the miracle we've been waiting for,' Luis Maco said.
He and his wife went to a Murray hotel room where Lopez and about 10 'paralegals' were assisting a long line of immigrants with paperwork. They were numbers 39 and 40 when they waited overnight to speak with Lopez.
'Everything she said was music to our ears,' Maco said.
Lopez allegedly told the Macos that she could get them a visa in six months. She filled out some papers and collected $2,500 in cash.
Three weeks later, the documents came back from Citizenship and Immigration Services with a note saying they were fraudulent. The Macos then learned there is no way to jump ahead in the line for a visa.
Luis Maco said he and a friend went to the hotel to demand his money back but Lopez refused. After his friend called police, Lopez and her helpers grabbed two bags stuffed with cash and fled, he said.
Maco reported the scam to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and agreed to wear a wire when meeting with Lopez. An ICE agent allegedly said he would get a work permit while the case was pending. But a meeting with Lopez was never arranged, he said.
Lopez has pleaded guilty to five counts of mail fraud and, partly because of health issues, was placed on three years' probation in 2007.
Maco has obtained a temporary work permit and has been working legally as he awaits a final decision. He worries about being separated from his diabetic wife and his four children -- a 19-year-old daughter; a 15-year-old son; and 12-year-old twin daughters.
'For a person coming from another country, the American dream is bigger than to an American,' Maco said. 'It's a dream becoming a nightmare.'
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Scam victims being deported before they can testify
By Pamela Manson
The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City), September 13, 2009
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13329769
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30.
54 US-bound migrants detained at Costa Rican coast
By Marianela Jimenez
The Associated Press, September 14, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_TSaLvP4wQ38HyQKfIFXlWZTb-QD9AMONT80
San Jose, Costa Rica (AP) -- Costa Rican authorities detained 54 U.S.-bound migrants from Africa and Nepal after their boat arrived on the Central American country's coast, officials said Sunday.
Authorities were treating some of the migrants for dehydration after several days at sea and took into custody three suspected Colombian smugglers who were traveling with them, said Sergio Lopez, a spokesman for Costa Rica's security ministry.
Officials originally said all 54 migrants were from Africa. But after interviewing them, authorities reported 15 were from Nepal and 39 from Africa.
One migrant asked a Costa Rican policeman upon arrival: 'How close is this country to the United States?' according to the newspaper Al Dia.
The security ministry released a statement quoting one migrant as saying he left Nepal for India, where he stayed a month, before heading to South Africa. From there he caught the boat promising to take him to the United States.
Migration Director Mario Zamora said the seven women and 47 men would be taken to a detention center in San Jose to join 41 other migrants from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Guinea detained in June and July on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast.
Zamora said the arrival of migrants from Africa is not just a problem for Costa Rica, but has also affected Colombia, Panama and Nicaragua.
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31.
Man mistakenly freed from Benton jail
By Kari Petrie
The St. Cloud Times (MN), September 11, 2009
http://www.sctimes.com/article/20090911/NEWS01/109100047/1009/Man-mistakenly-freed-from-Benton-jail
Foley, MN -- A series of human errors led to the release of a man Wednesday from Benton County Jail who was supposed to be held for immigration officials.
Javier Popoca Dorantes was released from Benton County Jail on Wednesday after he served his sentence for violating an order for protection. His file indicated that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wanted him for being in the country illegally.
But that information didn't appear in the computer system when jail staff checked Dorantes' name before releasing him Wednesday, Benton County Chief Deputy Troy Heck said.
Stearns County deputies eventually arrested Dorantes Wednesday and he was released to immigration officials Thursday, according to Stearns County Jail records.
Heck said there are three systems that are supposed to ensure people are released from jail: Warrants or immigration holds should be listed in the corrections computer system and in a person's paperwork, and Benton County has a color-coded system on files to alert deputies about outstanding warrants.
In Dorantes' case, immigration officials didn't put information into the computer system about their request that he be held for them. And Benton County officials didn't put all the information from Dorantes' paper file into the computer system. So when the jail staff prepared to release Dorantes and checked the computer system, no holds or warrants came up.
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32.
Man charged in slaying of prostitute had been deported 3 times
Police say that DNA material found at hotel after killing matches that of Cesar Gomez, 34.
By Jon Cassidy
The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, CA), September 11, 2009
Garden Grove, CA -- A man arrested and charged with murdering a prostitute at a Garden Grove hotel is a gang member who has been deported to Mexico three times in the last decade, Garden Grove police said at a press conference this morning.
. . .
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gomez-handfield-police-2561579-detectives-grove
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Center for Immigration Studies
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