Daily news updates from CIS

October 5, 2009

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[For CISNEWS subscribers --

1. Officials fret 2010 Census integrity
2. USCIS prepares for potential surge in applications (story, link)
3. Feds nab Chinese on border in increasing numbers
4. Congressional Hispanic Caucus demands end to 287(g)
5. House funding for fence is questionable
6. KS congressional candidate: end war, finance border
7. Mexican consul laments flood of immigration
8. RI governor blames illegals for state health care woes
9. IL GOP turns to minority candidates
10. MA bucks national immigration trends
11. AZ county losing 287(g) program
12. Change to San Fran. sanctuary policy facing scrutiny
13. VA county exceeds 2008 detentions
14. NJ county ending 287(g) participation
15. Trio of immigrants run for MA city office
16. Foreigners ran $25m tab at PA hospitals in 2008
17. NCLR demands health care for illegals
18. Latino leaders press Census participation
19. OK students rally for DREAM Act
20. Immigration drives expansion of WA city minority businesses
21. Crime driving more Mexicans to U.S.
22. Illegals urged to get swine flu vaccine
23. VA Hispanics celebrate diversity
24. Border deaths expected to exceed 2008 levels
25. Abducted TN newborn rescued (2 stories)
26. NY restaurateur suffers fallout from illegal alien's case
27. Kurdish man fights deportation
28. CA sweeps target Mexican Mafia
29. Mexican extortion rings operating north of border (link)
30. Houston businessman admits harboring illegal alien cop killer (link)
31. ICE nabs Canadian 20 years on the lam (link)
32. Janitor detained in high-profile RI raid offered reprieve (link)

Subscribe to CIS e-mail services here: http://cis.org/immigrationnews.html

-- Mark Krikorian]

1.
Politics count in census
Officials fear tally will be tainted
By Oscar Avila
The Chicago Tribune, October 4, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-bd-census-politics-04-oct04,0,2149033.story

Census Director Robert Groves is a by-the-books statistician, but he recently made a heartfelt plea to a congressional subcommittee: If politics taint the census, 'we're in deep trouble ... as a Census Bureau, as a census and as a country.'

Days later, politics were back in the forefront when that panel's ranking Republican came to Chicago to urge the census to end a partnership with the Service Employees International Union, which has traditionally backed Democrats.

Partnering with the union 'undermines the integrity of the census,' said U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.

From ACORN to illegal immigration, the census has become a flashpoint for partisan bickering, a trend that worries officials and experts who say it could harm confidence in the count.

After weeks of GOP criticism, the census cut ties with ACORN, a community activist organization that faced allegations of vote fraud and the release of a videotape showing ACORN workers counseling undercover operatives about how to run a child prostitution ring.

Now some lawmakers, including Republican U.S. Reps. Mark Kirk and Peter Roskam of Illinois, say SEIU has close financial and operative ties with ACORN and cannot be trusted to conduct census outreach.

Census officials say they have confidence that the union can be a reliable partner and went ahead with a scheduled announcement of a campaign geared to Latinos that includes the union and Spanish-language media.

Union officials say they have received no funding from the census and dismissed the complaints of lawmakers.

Terri Ann Lowenthal, a consultant on census issues, said politics have always played a role in the census, including questions about the use of sampling that some say leads to better counts of minority communities.

'But it is more partisan than I've ever seen,' said Lowenthal, a member of President Barack Obama's transition team on census matters. 'It is very troubling. The consequence will certainly be a diminished public confidence in the process.'

Meanwhile, the lightning rod of illegal immigration has intruded into the once-a-decade count.

Liberal Hispanic groups say they are frustrated that the Obama administration has not followed through on a pledge to push legislation that would legalize millions of illegal immigrants. Some are pushing for a census boycott as a protest.

So far, the effort has gained little traction. But with frustration building, Waukegan activist Margaret Carrasco said she plans to organize a boycott in the northern suburbs, where municipalities are facing an influx of mainly Mexican immigrants.

Carrasco said she realizes that the boycott could have the effect of decreasing federal dollars.

'The sentiment is very strong out there that Obama has not come through for us so what are we going to gain by participating in the census?' Carrasco said. Most major Latino organizations have condemned the boycott, saying it would be counterproductive.

The census does not distinguish between U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants, and that policy has prompted a backlash among conservatives who say it isn't fair that some states might receive greater congressional representation because of a high population of illegal immigrants.

Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, introduced a bill last month that would require the census to ask respondents whether they are legal residents or U.S. citizens. Illegal immigrants would not be factored in when the count is used for congressional seats.

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2.
U.S. immigration agency girds for workload spike
By Tim Gaynor
Reuters, October 2, 2009
http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/2009/10/02/us-immigration-agency-girds-for-workload-spike/

The U.S. government agency in charge of processing naturalization and residency applications is preparing for a surge in its workload if President Barack Obama pushes ahead with federal immigration reform next year granting millions of undocumented workers legal status.

A spokesman for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services said the agency is gearing up to handle the huge increase in applications expected if immigration refom is passed by the U.S. Congress.

'This agency has been preparing for the advent of any kind of a comprehensive immigration reform, and if that means a surge of applications and operations, we have been working toward that,' USCIS spokesman Bill Wright told Reuters.

Immigration — particularly what to do with the almost 12 million illegal immigrants who live and work in the shadows — is a divisive issue in the United States.

Obama supports a comprehensive overhaul of laws to grant undocumented immigrants in good standing the chance to pay a fine and become citizens, as well as cracking down on illegal employers and tightening security on the porous Mexico border. But he faces fierce opposition from minority Republicans in Congress.

His administration, which is pushing a flagship overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system, has indicated that it means to tackle immigration reform next year. This week, The New York Times carried an interview with USCIS director Alejandro Mayorkas.

He said Obama told immigration officials that a legalization program would be part of legislation the White House would propose. Mayorkas said the agency was trying to move quickly to receive all postal applications through secure reception points known as lockboxes — a system that is more efficient than receiving them through local offices.

Wright told Reuters the agency had learned lessons from handling a surge in applications for citizenship last year, by applicants seeking to beat an USA/increase in charges, and to vote in the presidential election in November. He said the agency processes between 6 million and 7 million petitions for immigration benefits each year, including requests for naturalization, work permits and permanent legal residency documents dubbed 'green cards.'

The number of undocumented immigrants who would apply for the program is unknown. One think tank that opposes comprehensive reform said screening a vast number of applicants in the event of a mass legalization of undocumented migrants would present a challenge to the agency.

'One of the biggest undiscussed issues that looms over … amnesty is administrative capacity,' said Steven Camarota, research director of the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. 'We give out a million green cards a year, and the system is overwhelmed by that work load. How can it process ten or 12 million?'

+++

New hope for undocumented Irish as USCIS prepares for surge in visa applications
Agency says it needs to be ready to accept 10m applications in just a few weeks
By Kenneth Haynes
Irish Central, October 4, 2009
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/New-hope-for-undocumented-Irish-as-USCIS-prepares-for-surge-in-visa-applications-63475727.html

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3.
Sharp rise in Chinese arrests at border
At least 261 have been caught this year in Arizona. The illegal immigrants can be big money for smugglers.
By Sebastian Rotella
The Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-chinese-smuggling5-2009oct05,0,4972825.story

Nogales, AZ -- Amid an overall drop in arrests of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S-Mexico border, an intriguing anomaly has cast a new light on human smuggling: Authorities report an almost tenfold spike in the number of Chinese people caught in the southern Arizona desert, the busiest smuggling corridor on the international line.

The Border Patrol in the Tucson sector has arrested at least 261 Chinese border-crossers this year, compared with an annual average of 32 during the last four years, officials said.

'They are the main [non-Mexicans] we catch,' said field operations supervisor Juventino Pacheco of the patrol's international liaison unit in Nogales. 'Lately we have been catching more Chinese than Central Americans.'

When agents find Chinese migrants -- hiding in gulches, perhaps, or huddled in smugglers' vehicles -- they often request help from Dean Delap, the sector's only Mandarin-speaking agent. He taught and studied in China, but had not expected that to prove valuable in Nogales.

'Some are cooperative,' Delap said. 'Some are scared. They've just been arrested, they are in a new place. I put them at ease.'

Chinese remain a small fraction of the overall number processed at the Nogales station -- which guards 31 miles abutting Nogales, Mexico.

The Tucson sector, where the Nogales station is located, recorded about 226,000 apprehensions this year. That is a 24% decline from the last fiscal year -- reflecting the impact of both the U.S. economic crisis and tougher border enforcement, officials said.

The great majority of those arrested were Mexicans. Chinese belong to a category known in the Border Patrol as OTMs: other than Mexicans. And they are big business for smuggling gangs that increasingly have overlapped with Mexico's violent drug mafias.

Highest fees

Mexicans typically pay smugglers about $1,500 for help crossing the sun-seared landscape, which is as dangerous as it is majestic. The fees for Central Americans and South Americans often reach $6,000. A group of Haitians, intercepted a few years ago in Tucson after three nights spent hiking in circles in a canyon, had coughed up $10,000; another $10,000 was to have been paid upon arrival in the Chicago area.

The Chinese -- nearly all of them from Fujian province -- pay the most. They often have to work off debts of $30,000 to $70,000 over several years as indentured servants in the sweatshops and kitchens of New York and other cities.

Sophisticated Asian mafias organize intricate journeys to the U.S. A typical route leads from Beijing to Rome to Caracas, Venezuela, to Mexico City to the border, according to Matthew Allen, chief agent of the Phoenix office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

'It's much more elaborate' than smuggling Latin Americans, Allen said. 'Waiting in hotel rooms, calls on cellphones, code words. . . . The trend [in increased arrests] stands out as apprehensions are going down overall.'

But the uptick in arrests of Chinese does not necessarily reflect a major influx from that country, officials said. Statistical barometers are imperfect.

High-priced smugglers are better at dodging defenses, so it's hard to assess the correlation between arrests, crossing rates and the number who succeed in illegally immigrating.

Nothing new

Chinese smuggling made headlines at its peak in the early 1990s, when flotillas carrying would-be immigrants swarmed the coasts of Southern California, Mexico and Central America.

Ten people died in June 1993 when the ship Golden Venture ran aground in New York carrying 286 immigrants, more than the total captured this year at the Arizona border.

A crackdown at sea and tighter political asylum rules reduced the flow.

Today, Asian smugglers favor air routes, exploiting favorable visa policies for Chinese travelers in countries including Ecuador, Honduras and Venezuela, which are hubs for their travel to Mexico, officials said.

U.S. investigators have gathered intelligence about thousands of Chinese who have settled temporarily in Ecuador with the intention of sneaking into the United States, according to a high-ranking federal official who requested anonymity when discussing the international surveillance.

'The smugglers are attuned to nuances in South American visa policies, and will adapt,' Allen said.

The number of Chinese apprehended along the Southwest boundary fluctuates. Borderwide arrests hit 2,060 in the 2006 fiscal year, dipped to near 700 during the next two years, and then rose to 1,221 as of August, according to the Border Patrol.

The patrol's McAllen sector in south Texas, a high-volume corridor for non-Mexicans because of its relative proximity to Central America, led all sectors with at least 667 arrests of Chinese by August, officials say.

But proportionally, the Tucson area experienced the most dramatic surge.

One reason for that, officials said: the convergence of drugs and illegal immigrants in the Sonora-Arizona area. The dominant drug mafia in the region, the Sinaloa cartel, 'saw an opportunity to get into Chinese smuggling,' said Border Patrol spokesman Mario Escalante.

The evolving alliance between traffickers of drugs and of immigrants -- once separate specialties -- is complex. According to investigators, drug lords use their firepower to control turf and tax others for the use of border corridors, known in Spanish as plazas, charging $50,000 to $100,000 a week.

'The drug trafficking organizations in the plazas control who smuggles, what they smuggle, where they smuggle,' Allen said.

Overlapping fields

At times, when drug mafias are at war or when moving drug loads is difficult, muscling in on the human smuggling racket brings easy profit and less risk, Pacheco said.

And whereas violent retaliation is common among drug traffickers after a big bust, it's less so among smugglers whose immigrants are caught.

'Losing Chinese, you lose money but not an investment upfront,' Pacheco said. 'They don't buy the Chinese, they charge them.'

Nonetheless, Allen said, 'the drug and alien smuggling groups are still separate entities. Once human smugglers make it into the U.S. with their loads, there is not coordination.'

Chinese immigrants intercepted by the Border Patrol have often spent months on the road.

'Some speak a few words of Spanish,' Delap said. 'Most of them communicate with hand gestures and body language.'

Delap, who majored in political science and minored in Chinese at Brigham Young University, taught English in Yunnan and Xinjiang provinces eight years ago. He has been with the Border Patrol two years.

He sees the chance to use his knowledge of Chinese language and culture as one humanitarian aspect of the Border Patrol, which frequently rescues immigrants from the desert.

Although his conversations with Chinese immigrants focus on basic information, it is clear that his presence is reassuring.

'A lot of times at the end of the shift when I have to go, they realize that and a lot of questions come flooding out: Where are they going, when will they be leaving the detention facility, what will happen,' he said. 'I explain the best I can.'

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4.
Hispanic Caucus Calls for Ending Program That Identified 100,000 Illegal Aliens, Many With Criminal Records
By Penny Starr
The CNS News, October 2, 2009
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/54918

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has asked the Obama administration to 'immediately terminate' a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program that has identified more than 120,000 illegal aliens over the past three years..

'On behalf of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), we write to ask that you immediately terminate all Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) under the 287(g) program and cease to establish such agreements,' reads the letter to President Obama.

'These agreements are the subject of serious concern as local law enforcement agencies have used the new powers to target communities of color, including a disproportionate number of Latinos, for arrest,' says the letter. 'The 287(g) program, which was significantly expanded throughout the Bush Administration, relinquishes the power to enforce federal immigration laws to local law enforcement and corrections agencies. … The misuse of the 287(g) program by its current participants has rendered it ineffective and dangerous to community safety.'

The program, the 287 (g) section added to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, created a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security’s ICE and state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws.

The Sept. 28 letter is signed by caucus leaders Reps. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.).

The letter cites a March 2009 Government Accountability Office report that 'found alarming examples of mismanagement and insufficient oversight of this controversial program.'

However, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said 287(g) has undergone a 'sea change' since the 'standardization' of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was announced by Secretary Janet Napolitano in July, and that the changes were designed to make the program more accountable.

'ICE takes the concerns raised about the program by the signatories to this letter very seriously,' Matthew Chandler told CNSNews.com. 'The new, standardized 287(g) agreements that were announced in July strengthen ICE's oversight of the program and make our communities safer by identifying and removing criminal aliens who pose a public safety threat.'

'This new agreement supports local efforts to protect public safety by giving law enforcement the tools to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens,' Napolitano said in a July 10 statement. 'It also promotes consistency across-the-board to ensure that all of our state and local law enforcement partners are using the same standards in implementing the 287(g) program.'

The new MOA aligns 287(g) local operations with major ICE enforcement priorities, specifically, the identification and removal of criminal aliens, according to DHS.

The DHS said the new MOA also defines the objectives of the 287(g) program, outlines the immigration enforcement authorities granted by the agreement, and provides guidelines for ICE’s supervision of local agency officer operations, information reporting and tracking, complaint procedures and implementation measures.

'The 287(g) program is an essential component of DHS’s comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy,' ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton said in the same July 10 statement. 'The new agreement strengthens ICE’s oversight of the program and allows us to better utilize the resources and capabilities of our law enforcement partners across the nation.'

The letter from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus says state and local law enforcement 'use their expanded and often unchecked powers under the 287(g) program to target immigrants and persons of color.'

'It is our opinion that no amount of reforms, no matter how well-intended, will change this disturbing reality,' the letter states.

CNSNews.com sent inquiries by e-mail and telephone to Reps. Gutierrez and Velazquez to explain how federal immigration law could be better enforced in the United States if the 287(g) is eliminated. The representatives were also asked to comment on the success of the program, which since January 2007 has identified more than 120,000 individuals as 'potentially removable aliens,' most of whom are incarcerated in local jails, according to DHS.

As this story went to press, the congressional representatives had not responded. However, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) commented on the Hispanic Caucus’s letter about 287(g), telling CNSNews.com: 'This is just another ploy by amnesty advocates to open our borders and stop enforcing the rule of law. This program has been an effective tool in cracking down on illegal immigration and enforcing our laws. We should make it a nationwide effort instead of shutting it down.'

To date, the Memorandum of Agreement had been signed with 66 state and local law enforcement agencies in 23 states, with more than 1,000 officers trained and certified by ICE, according to DHS.

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5.
Border fence, detainee issues dominate debate
By Humberto Sanchez and Chris Strohm
Congress Daily (Washington, DC), October 1, 2009
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1009/100109cdpm2.htm

The House on Thursday approved the $33.5 billion fiscal 2010 Energy and Water Appropriations bill after naming conferees for the fiscal 2010 Homeland Security spending bill.

The Energy and Water spending bill passed, 308-114, and Senate action on the bill could come next week. Conference negotiators on Wednesday finished the measure, which represents a 1 percent increase above the $33.3 billion provided in fiscal 2009.

The House named conferees for the Homeland Security spending legislation but a scheduled meeting later on Thursday was postponed. A Senate Appropriations Committee aide said negotiators decided they 'were not ready to proceed at this time.'

House action on the Homeland Security conference came after approving, 258-163, a nonbinding motion to instruct conferees offered by House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Harold Rogers, R-Ky.

Under the motion, the transfer of prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military detention center to the United States would be prohibited; photos of abuse of detainees in U.S. custody would never be made public; and the compromise bill would have to be made available to the public for 72 hours before being considered by the House.

Rogers also plans to offer the motion as an amendment to the bill when conferees meet.

The compromise Homeland Security Appropriations bill will probably not include controversial language requiring the Homeland Security Department to build 700 miles of reinforced double-layered physical fencing along the Southwest border, one lawmaker said.

The lawmaker, who asked to remain anonymous, added that the bill is still expected to include language regarding the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the United States.

The border fencing requirement was added to the Senate bill through an amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. It would require the department to complete the fencing by Dec. 31, 2010. Although the department and other lawmakers say 700 miles of double-layer fencing is both expensive and not needed, an aide said a decision on the language would be made through the conference process.

The language on Guantanamo Bay would require the Homeland Security Department to conduct a threat assessment on detainees to determine how much risk their transfer to the United States would create. It would also allow detainees to come to the United States for trial and prosecution.

Meanwhile, the Senate continued debate on Thursday on the $636.3 billion fiscal 2010 Defense Appropriations bill, approving an amendment from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., that requires top officials to testify before Congress 'promptly' after President Obama decides whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan.

These officials include Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen and Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

The amendment, approved 60-39, comes as pressure mounts to have McChrystal testify on Capitol Hill while the White House continues to weigh plans for Afghanistan.

Levin offered his amendment to counter another introduced by Armed Services Committee ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., which would require such testimony by Nov. 15 regardless of whether the administration had made a decision on Afghanistan. The Senate defeated that amendment by a 59-40 vote.

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6.
Hartman touches on immigration, Afghanistan in Pachyderm speech
By Dion Lefler
The Wichita Eagle (KS), October 2, 2009
http://www.kansas.com/225/story/997026.html

Congressional candidate Wink Hartman said Friday that the U.S. should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan and use the savings to fight illegal immigration.

In a question-and-answer session at the Republican Pachyderm Club, Hartman, a prominent businessman who is running in the 4th Congressional District, said he doesn't think the war with the resurgent Taliban is going well.

'I think I can make a good case for we are not prepared in any shape or form to win in Afghanistan today,' he said.

'If we aren't willing, if this country isn't willing to go over and do it and do it right and get the job done, then we need to try another course of action,' he said. 'I think we need to come back to the borders, we need to come back and take care of ourselves.'

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan under a harsh interpretation of Islamic law from 1996 until 2001 and provided haven to Al Qaida terrorists, including Osama bin Laden.

An invasion by U.S. troops toppled the Taliban government after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, but the Taliban has regrouped and seized control of a large portion of the country from the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.

Pachyderm member Lynda Tyler asked Hartman, if elected, whether he would support increased funding for troops in Afghanistan.

'I would vote against it, because I would pull them out of Afghanistan in a timely fashion,' Hartman replied. 'We need to get back over here and do what's best for us right here.'

That, he said, is immigration control.

'I really believe strongly in protecting our borders and having control of our borders,' Hartman said. 'That would be of great assistance in controlling the environment here, so we don't have to maybe spend billions of dollars over there (in Afghanistan), and obviously the life lost.'

Hartman acknowledged that solving the nation's immigration situation will take time because of the number of undocumented people in the country now.

'We cannot pick up 11 million people and ship them back to wherever obviously that's very unrealistic,' he said.

'But what we can do is when they are stopped for a speeding ticket, they are found in the workplace, wherever they may be found, they should be sent back, yes. And we should work through the visa programs and the legal process to make sure we have control of these people.'

Hartman's stance on immigration got no complaints from the Pachyderms, who are mostly conservatives.

But his stance on pulling troops out of Afghanistan to pay for it did raise some eyebrows.

Bob Aldrich, a former president of the club, said the Taliban's resurgence threatens the United States, Israel and other allies and it has to be stopped.

'If we allow the Taliban to come back, they're going to hit us tenfold,' he said. 'I just don't believe we can pack up our bags and run and hide.'

Aldrich said he believes the U.S. can win in Afghanistan, unlike the Russian Army that occupied the country in 1979, but withdrew in defeat after 10 years of war.

'The caliber of the U.S. military is second to none,' Aldrich said.

Later Friday, Hartman issued a clarification about his statement by email.

'Our policy in Afghanistan should be to prevent the Taliban from retaking control of the country and providing a safe haven for terrorists,' he said. 'If the present administration does not want to commit the human resources needed to do that on the ground, then we should revise our policy to use Special Forces and airstrikes to keep the Taliban on the run. We should never put our soldiers in harm's way unless we are committed to winning the war.'

The Pachyderm Club has been working its way through the long list of candidates for the GOP nomination in the 4th District race.

The next to speak will be small-business owner Jim Anderson on Oct. 16.

Others competing for the nomination include Sen. Dick Kelsey, R-Goddard, Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita, and GOP National Committeeman Mike Pompeo.

On the Democratic side, Rep. Raj Goyle of Wichita and retired court services officer Robert Tillman are contending for the nomination.

The seat is being vacated by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, who is running for Senate against Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays.

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7.
New Mexican consul says U.S. influx is bad for Mexico, too
By Stephen Magagnini
The Sacramento Bee, October 4, 2009
http://www.sacbee.com/news/story/2229189.html

The Mexican government has sent one of its top experts on Mexican migration to Sacramento to dispel myths about the estimated 7 million undocumented Mexicans in the United States.

That emigration 'is very bad business for Mexico -- we are losing our young labor force,' said the new consul general of Mexico in Sacramento, Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez. 'Whole villages are becoming ghost towns.'

Instead of staying in Mexico to create wealth, the workers are coming to the United States to create wealth, Gonzalez Gutierrez said. 'It's not the U.S. subsidizing Mexico -- it's the other way around. The only solution is to create better jobs in Mexico.'

Gonzalez Gutierrez, 45, became consul general in Sacramento in May. He and his staff of 30 serve 800,000 immigrants from Modesto to the Oregon border.

The consulate offers IDs to Mexican immigrants so they can open bank accounts. It also helps people locate relatives, deal with legal problems and find health care.

Gonzalez Gutierrez studied Mexican migration for six years while serving as executive director of the Institute for Mexicans Abroad -- about 12 million worldwide, most of them in the United States.

Gonzalez Gutierrez understands the fear and distrust of undocumented immigrants.

'I see in Mexico exactly the same reaction' to Central Americans, Koreans and others. 'It's part of the human condition. You become concerned when you see a massive inflow of immigrants.'

But sending all the undocumented workers back to Mexico would create more problems for the United States, he said, collapsing the economy and disrupting families.

'They are part of binational families -- many have children and spouses who are U.S. citizens.'

The immigration debate in the United States 'has nothing to do with reality,' Gonzalez Gutierrez said.

Not only are millions of undocumented workers binational, but some of California's key industries -- agriculture, construction, restaurants and hotels -- depend on them. 'To pull the plug on foreign labor is to hurt yourself,' he said.

The undocumented workers were essentially 'invited here by employers who could not fulfill these jobs otherwise -- more than 80 percent of California's farmworkers are immigrants,' Gonzalez Gutierrez said.

'They come because of the huge income gap -- the average Mexican worker makes about $10,000 a year, while the median income for Mexicans 16 years and older in the U.S. is $20,238.'

Undocumented workers pay sales taxes and many pay income taxes through their employers, he said.

They will pay more taxes, complete their educations and contribute more to California if they are given work permits that allow them to go back and forth, he said.

The cost of undocumented immigrants 'is huge on both sides of the border,' Gonzalez Gutierrez said.

Along with laborers, half a million Mexican university graduates are living in America, 'and we need these people in Mexico,' Gonzalez Gutierrez said.

While critics of immigration policy change often accuse the Mexican government of inefficiency and corruption, Gonzalez Gutierrez said, even if Mexico's economy grew at a record 7 percent a year, the income gap would still pull migrants to the United States for decades to come.

Regardless, Mexican migration has dropped 50 percent over the past several years because of the recession, Gonzalez Gutierrez said.

Gonzalez Gutierrez said his job is to promote investment and job creation in Mexico, and to protect and empower Mexicans here and help them integrate into U.S. society.

Their success is key to Mexico's success. 'They are one of the most powerful sources for change we have because they want to make Mexico more democratic and more open,' Gonzalez Gutierrez said.

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8.
Carcieri blasts illegal immigrants to national press
The Providence Journal, October 1, 2009
http://newsblog.projo.com/2009/10/carcieri-blasts-illegal-immigr.html

Governor Carcieri was a key player in dueling conference calls with national media outlets Thursday, serving as the Republican National Committee's latest voice in its fight against Congressional Democrats' push to overhaul the nation's health-care system.

The Rhode Island governor spoke for just under 20 minutes, warning reporters from across the country that the Ocean State cannot afford federal legislation that would expand coverage for an estimated 50,000 low-income men and women through the Medicaid program.

'These would be huge burdens on us as a state,' he said of the expansion and proposals that would block cuts for the existing 180,000 Rhode Islanders who receive health coverage from Medicaid. 'We cannot take on any additional cost right now. We're having a devil of a time trying to manage our way through the costs we have right now.'

When asked about a new study that predicts the number of Rhode Island's uninsured would climb by at least 10 percent over the next decade to 138,000, Carcieri largely attributed the high number to illegal immigrants.

'A large portion of the uninsured, it's true nationally, but probably even a greater proportion in our case, are illegal immigrants, they're immigrants, OK, many of whom are illegal,' he said, noting that another major group is young adults who decide against coverage. 'From an actuarial standpoint, that's not a high-risk group anyway.'

Carcieri's comments came less than four hours after the Democratic National Committee conducted a similar conference call with Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat who supports the health-care overhaul being considered by Congress.

'The fact of the matter is that the status quo is as unaffordable in Maryland as it is in Rhode Island,' O'Malley said. 'We're at a point in our nation, where we need our federal government to step up and take this once in a generation opportunity and actually fix this. No state can go at it alone.'

The O'Malley call was specifically intended to 'pre-but' Carcieri's conference call with the RNC, according to Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael Czin.

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9.
Illinois GOP recruits minorities for longshot races
By Christopher Wills
The Associated Press, October 4, 2009
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/9CB250E0E3C0233386257646000C9427?OpenDocument

Springfield (AP) -- Illinois Republicans know winning statewide office is a long shot, but they're counting on at least two races to help attract new voters to their struggling party.

Hispanic businessman Robert Enriquez will seek the Republican nomination for secretary of state, a position no major Republican wants because it would mean challenging popular Democratic incumbent Jesse White.

And Asian-American lawyer Steve Kim plans to run for attorney general and the chance to face incumbent Lisa Madigan a race declared 'virtually unwinnable' by one top Republican.

The newcomers say they're entering their respective races to win, but acknowledge another goal: to get more minorities to take a close look at the message of the Republican Party.

'What I'm trying to do is open up the world of Republican issues to a community that may not have really looked,' said Kim, 39.

The men say the party's low-tax, pro-business attitude should appeal to the many Hispanics and Asian-Americans who run small businesses and hope to grow. And they say the Republican anti-abortion message matches the beliefs of many Catholic Hispanics and conservative Christian Asians.

With a dismal record in Illinois the past few years, The Republican Party can use all the help it can get.

It doesn't hold a single statewide office. Its last two U.S. Senate candidates one of whom had to be imported from Maryland were thrashed at the polls. No well-known Republicans wanted to step up and run for secretary of state or attorney general.

In fact, Joseph Birkett, the DuPage County state's attorney and former candidate for governor, dropped out of the race for attorney general after learning he'd have to face Madigan. He said the race would be virtually unwinnable because of her political organization and fundraising ability.

So if party leaders want to turn things around, one way is to find support among fast-growing minority groups.

'If we as Republicans don't look to expand to people of different races and different religions and different backgrounds, then shame on us,' said state Sen. Dan Rutherford of Pontiac, who encouraged Kim and Enriquez to run and who is running for treasurer himself.

But some minority leaders say Republicans will have to do more than recruit Hispanic and Asian candidates for races that no one else was willing to enter.

'I can't see where the Republican Party can attract minorities just by putting up candidates. That's sort of assuming it's solely identity and not issues,' said Ann Kalayil, a Chicago-based board member for Asian Pacific Americans for Progress. 'It's a very shallow approach.'

She said many minorities differ from the Republican Party on such issues as immigration reform, health care and education policy.

Still, the Republicans' interest in reaching out to minorities won praise from Kalayil and Selma D'Souza, a Chicago attorney and a member of the board of the Asian-American Action Fund.

D'Souza agreed that minority voters aren't likely to rally around a candidate simply because of ethnicity. But it's possible that Kim or Enriquez could catch fire if they already have a record of hard work and strong relationships within their communities, she said.

Enriquez, who was born in Honduras, is a former Marine and a member of the Illinois Human Rights Commission, which reviews allegations of discrimination.

Kim, born in South Korea, was an aide to Gov. Jim Edgar on trade and Asian affairs. He has also worked for Time Warner Cable and AT&T Illinois and now provides legal services to corporations.

Both are vague on one issue important to many Asian-Americans and Hispanics: immigration reform.

Kim said he hadn't studied the issue thoroughly and could not say what changes might be needed to the country's immigration policies.

Enriquez, 59, said he hesitates to back strict changes that might lead to families being split apart if illegal immigrants are sent home while their American-born children remain here. He also said he sees both side of the debate over issuing drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, an issue he might have to confront as secretary of state, which handles licenses in Illinois.

Other politicians who have run campaigns against long odds warn Enriquez and Kim to be prepared. They'll find it hard to raise money. They'll get little attention from reporters. And they'll spend long hours crisscrossing the state.

They suggested the political rookies focus on the fact that they'll get a chance to discuss their views on important issues and to help the Republican Party. If they lose, they may still succeed in raising their profiles for some future campaign.

'Sometimes people think that when you run for public office your only goal is to get elected,' said Tazewell County State's Attorney Stewart Umholtz, who lost overwhelmingly to Madigan in 2006. 'Going into a race like that, you'd better have other goals.'

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10.
Bay State’s immigrant influx grows
Latest data run counter to US trend
By Maria Sacchetti
The Boston Globe, October 5, 2009
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/framingham/articles/2009/10/05/census_survey_show_state_immigrant_population_rising_despite_slight_drop_in_us/

Massachusetts’ immigrant population rose last year in the middle of the recession, bucking a national trend that showed a decline in foreign-born residents for the first time in decades.

The Bay State’s modest 2.5 percent increase in immigrants puzzled researchers and advocates as the numbers dipped in other states, including California, Florida, and neighboring Rhode Island, according to the Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey.

Theories accounting for the increase abound. It could be that the state’s economy fared better than those of other states, that the census survey simply missed departures from Massachusetts, or that tabulation of a decline could still be coming.

Some researchers suggested that immigrants in Massachusetts - who make up 14 percent of the state population - are inclined to stay put because they are more highly educated than immigrants elsewhere and less likely to be here illegally. That gives them an edge in an economic downturn.

Nowhere is the immigrant tally more surprising than in Framingham, where the estimated number of immigrants rose from 15,037 to 17,727 last year, making it about a quarter of the town’s population of 69,000. Some advocates for immigrants had warned that many were decamping for Brazil, the native country of the largest immigrant group in town, because of the economy and because those who were here illegally had abandoned hope for legal residency.

'People have been saying to me for years, ‘Don’t you see fewer people?’ And I’ve been saying no,’’ said Christine Tibor, director of Framingham’s adult English-as-a-second-language program. 'Our numbers are actually up.’’

The latest figures are based on the American Community Survey, an annual survey of 3 million households nationwide that offers an estimate of the population between the decennial census, which is a head count of the entire United States. In Massachusetts, the survey estimated that the number of immigrants rose to 937,200 last year from 913,957 the year before.

Nationally, the number of immigrants slipped less than 1 percent, leveling off after soaring in previous years. Some experts attributed the national decline to immigrants who are returning to their homelands because of the recession, but others said that the influx of foreigners coming into the United States had plunged.

Researchers looking specifically at Massachusetts said that immigrants are more likely to be here legally and be highly educated compared to immigrants in other states, giving them an advantage in the current economy. About one in five Massachusetts immigrants is here illegally, below the national average of roughly one in three.

More than 80 percent of young adult immigrants in Massachusetts have graduated from high school, compared with 70 percent nationally.

'Massachusetts immigrants could be expected to fare somewhat better in the recession,’’ said Steven Camarota, research director for the Washington, D.C.,-based Center for Immigration Studies.

Massachusetts also might offer a more welcoming environment for immigrants than other states.

Though the Bay State does not allow illegal immigrants to drive or pay in-state tuition in public colleges and universities, Governor Deval Patrick set a welcoming tone by ordering a yearlong study on ways to better integrate immigrants here.

By comparison, neighboring Rhode Island ordered government agencies to crack down on illegal immigrants. Rhode Island’s immigration population dropped nearly 5 percent last year.

It is most likely that immigrants - like anyone else - stayed in Massachusetts because they could find work, said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University.

'Immigrants respond to where the jobs are,’’ said Sum. 'There was no place for them to go.’’

If it weren’t for immigrants, Massachusetts would have lost population in the past decade, Sum said.

The survey results did draw skepticism from some advocates, who said the immigrant communities are notoriously hard to count, partly because a significant minority are here illegally.

'That’s not the experience that we have,’’ said Fausto da Rocha, a local Brazilian immigrant leader, of the numbers showing an increase in immigrants in Massachusetts. He said he believes thousands have returned to their native countries, particularly Brazil, where the economy seemed stronger, a change that he said is visible in churches and neighborhoods and in shops that have closed.

'The community has diminished a lot,’’ he said. 'If there’s not a reform in the spring, more will go home.’’

To be sure, the number of people in Massachusetts who said they were born in Brazil has declined in the years preceding the new 2008 tally - from an estimated 75,000 in 2006 to nearly 64,000 in 2007, according to the American Community Survey.

But the numbers climbed back up last year to nearly 70,000 Brazilians in the state.

Alvaro Lima, research director at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said immigrants returned to Brazil but not in the huge numbers that some believe, partly because Brazil’s economy is not as strong in their hometowns. And some Brazilians moved to other states, such as Louisiana to help rebuild New Orleans.

In Framingham, signs that the immigrant community is staying can be seen in the number of adults in English classes, which remains high: 650 are enrolled and 550 are on the waiting list, Tibor said.

It is also possible that new immigrants have replaced those who left.

In Tibor’s English classes, refugees from Iraq now join immigrants from Brazil, Russia, and China.

'I hear people saying that people are leaving, but I don’t see anything,’’ said Bruno Bicalho, a 26-year-old music teacher from Ipatinga, Brazil. 'I don’t know even one.’’

But Priscila Silva, a 33-year-old nanny from Belo Horizonte, also in Brazil, said she knows five people who have left.

'It’s been very difficult for immigrants to stay here,’’ she said. 'There aren’t any jobs.’’

Immigrants also may have spread out to the suburbs, said Pablo Maia, owner of a real estate company that has operated for 10 years in Framingham and Marlborough.

'I’m here every day, and I can see the guys are still here,’’ Maia said. 'Some of them, they just moved around, from Framingham to Marlborough to Ashland. If you drive in Massachusetts today you’ll see a Brazilian place everywhere you go.’’

If Massachusetts’ 9.1 percent unemployment rate continues to rise, researchers say it is possible that immigration will decline.

'It may be when we get next year’s data we get a different picture of what’s happening,’’ said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research at the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center. 'Some things may be changing just as we are talking.’’

EDITOR’S NOTE: The American Community Survey is available online at: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/

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11.
Arpaio may lose some immigrant authority
By JJ Hensley
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), October 3, 2009
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/10/03/20091003arpaio-ice1003.html

The controversial agreement that authorized Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies to act as federal immigration agents on the streets appears to have ended, Arpaio said late Friday afternoon.

The sheriff said he signed a new agreement Friday that will allow deputies and detention officers to continue screening every inmate booked into Maricopa County jails to determine their immigration status. But he said federal authorities had not offered an agreement to extend Arpaio's street-level immigration enforcement.

'This just includes the jail, and deep down, I feel that I ought to take it and rip it all up,' Arpaio said. 'On the other hand, I feel it's very critical to have the jail.'

Federal officials on Friday refused to comment on the agreement.

The jail-screening effort helped officials catch nearly 30,000 illegal immigrants since the program began in February 2007, but it was the street-level enforcement that caused the most controversy and produced less substantial results, capturing about 264 illegal-immigration suspects.

Without an agreement that authorizes immigration screenings on the street, deputies will need probable cause to detain a suspected illegal immigrant until federal agents can determine the suspect's immigration status.

'He's not going to be able to arrest people for those kind of routine civil-immigration violations,' said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona.

Changing agreements

The Sheriff's Office had been operating under an umbrella agreement that authorized the street-level enforcement and jail operations, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced in July that all the contracts with local law-enforcement agencies were under review. Federal officials have come under increasing pressure from civil-rights, labor, religious and pro-immigrant groups to end the program, known as 287(g), because of fears of racial profiling.

Arpaio said he had been prepared to sign a new umbrella agreement, which stressed a focus on enforcing immigration laws only in cases of serious crimes, before ICE's Oct. 15 deadline.

Then, ICE's deputy assistant secretary for operations, Alonzo Pena, came to Phoenix late last week and presented the sheriff with a contract that would authorize the operations to continue only in the jails. Attorneys for the Sheriff's Office tried to contact ICE administrators for the past week to determine the outcome of the street-level agreement but failed to get a response, Arpaio said.

With the deadline looming to continue any sort of agreement with ICE, Arpaio signed the jail authorization on Friday. Arpaio said the deal required the approval of the county Board of Supervisors, which meets on Wednesday, the last meeting before the deadline.

'It looks like they're taking away my authority on the streets for political reasons,' Arpaio said. 'They don't have the guts and the courtesy to even come back and say in writing, 'We are not going to continue.' '

A local ICE spokesman said late Friday that the agency would review all the new 287(g) agreements but could not comment while the contracts were pending.

Enforcement rules

Even without an ICE agreement, Arpaio's deputies can continue to enforce various immigration-related laws. The state has laws against human smuggling, and laws on fraud and identity theft have led to many of the department's work-site raids.

The news was met with cautious optimism at the ACLU, which is working with plaintiffs in two lawsuits that accuse Arpaio's deputies of racial profiling in the normal course of their duties and in the 'crime-suppression operations' the Sheriff's Office has conducted during the past 18 months.

Sheriff's deputies will still enforce the state's human-smuggling law, which allows illegal immigrants to be charged as co-conspirators in their own smuggling, but a conviction requires proving clear links to some sort of smuggling activity, said Dan Pochoda, Arizona ACLU legal director.

'It's not like they track them down six months later and say, 'We have evidence that you were smuggled,' ' he said.

Pochoda said the effect of deputies losing federal immigration authority could restrict what deputies can do on the streets.

'It's more than a technicality,' Pochoda said. 'There are many people he's picked up in these sweeps under the 287(g) who are clearly not subject to prosecution under the state human-smuggling law.'

A promise from the sheriff

A Republic analysis of arrest records from 10 of the sheriff's crime-suppression operations showed that more than half the illegal immigrants arrested during the sweeps were held on federal immigration violations and hadn't committed another crime.

During a crime-suppression operation in Chandler this summer, ICE agents told sheriff's deputies that they could not arrest suspected illegal immigrants who met that criteria and instead had to free them after giving them a 'notice to appear' at ICE for processing.

If that situation repeats itself, Arpaio promised he will try to keep tabs on those suspected illegal immigrants.

'I may have to let them back on the streets, but I'm going to get their name, rank and serial number, and I'm going to monitor them,' he said.

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12.
Sanctuary policy fight heats up
By Joshua Sabatini
The San Francisco Examiner, October 5, 2009
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Sanctuary-policy-fight-heats-up-63509617.html

The controversial proposal to alter The City’s sanctuary policy for illegal immigrant youths will receive its first public airing today during a hearing at City Hall.

San Francisco’s sanctuary policy was established in 1989 and is meant to foster an environment in which illegal immigrants feel safe to report crimes, access city services and engage in local government without fear of deportation. After a public back-and-forth between city officials about whether altering the policy to stop reporting some illegal immigrant youths will help or hurt The City, the decision about its future will be made by the Board of Supervisors.

Last year, it was reported that The City was shielding undocumented youths convicted of felonies from deportation.

That revelation prompted Mayor Gavin Newsom to change the policy so that all illegal immigrant youths who are arrested on suspicion of a felony are released to federal authorities.

But legislation introduced by Supervisor David Campos would partially roll back Newsom’s changes. The proposal would not allow local law enforcement to report youth offenders unless they are convicted of the crime or are being charged as an adult.

The legislation has created one of the biggest political fights of the year. Newsom has promised to veto it, even if the supervisors have the eight votes to overturn his veto (eight members of the board continue to support the legislation).

Newsom spokesman Nathan Ballard said the mayor opposes the legislation for 'three main reasons.' Not only does Newsom disagree with using the sanctuary policy to 'shield criminal behavior,' he does not want to put 'the entire policy at risk,' since the legislation is likely to result in a legal challenge, Ballard said.

Furthermore, even if the legislation passes it’s most likely unenforceable, he said.

Campos rejects Newsom’s fears that the legislation would jeopardize The City’s sanctuary policy overall. It’s defensible in the courts, he said, noting that Newsom has supported same-sex marriage and health coverage for all, both of which San Francisco is now fighting in court. The threat of legal challenge is no reason to not afford youths 'due process,' Campos said.

His legislation comes at a particularly sensitive time for Newsom, who’s put himself in the running to be California’s next governor.

Newsom also held a private meeting with San Francisco’s top officials Wednesday to discuss the legal threats surrounding the sanctuary policy. It does not appear that the meeting prompted any of the supervisors to change their votes on the legislation.

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13.
Loudoun turns over more inmates to feds this year
By David Sherfinski
The Washington Examiner (DC), October 5, 2009
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Loudoun-turns-over-more-inmates-to-feds-this-year-8333342-63315992.html

Loudoun County has turned over more suspected illegal immigrants to the federal government so far this year than it did all of last year.

The county turned over 166 suspected illegal immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, from Jan. 1 through Aug. 24, said Sheriff's Office spokesman Kraig Troxell. In 2008, the county turned over 135 suspected illegals to ICE, and in 2007, it turned over 83.

Troxell said 43 inmates currently being held on local charges have been placed on ICE detainers.

Loudoun and Prince William counties are participating in a federal immigration program known as 287(g) that allows local law enforcement officials to enforce some federal immigration laws. Prince William has turned over more than 1,600 suspected illegal immigrants to ICE since July 2007.

Still, the program has come under increased scrutiny. Homeland Security's inspector general is conducting an audit of the program, and a March Government Accountability Office report said the program lacked 'key internal controls.' DHS does not comment on ongoing investigations or audits, said Marty Metelko, a spokeswoman for the inspector general's office.

More recently, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has urged President Obama to immediately end the program.

A letter to the president from the caucus' chairman, Nydia Velazquez, and Luis V. Gutierrez, chairman of the CHC Immigration Task Force, said that while the stated goal of the program was to provide a tool for law enforcement officials, 'it has been our experience that state and local law enforcement officials actually use their expanded and often unchecked powers under the program to target immigrants and persons of color.'

'It is our opinion that no amount of reforms, no matter how well-intentioned, will change this disturbing reality,' they continued. 'We ask you to reconsider your evaluation of 287(g) and instead of reforming it, end it entirely.'

Numerous civil rights organizations also criticized the government's expansion of the program to 11 new jurisdictions this summer, which brought the total number of participants to 77 nationwide.

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14.
Immigration detainees at Middlesex County jail may move within 10 days
By Gene Racz
The Courier News (Bridgewater, NJ), October 4, 2009
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20091004/NEWS/91004002/1008/NEWS0103/Immigration-detainees-at-Middlesex-County-jail-may-move-within-10-days

County and federal officials say the 45 federal detainees still being held at the Middlesex County jail on behalf of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, are expected to be relocated within the next five to 10 business days.

Their imminent transfer comes on the heels of the county's decision Thursday to end its contract with ICE, which allowed detainees to be held in the North Brunswick facility.

The contract was projected to generate upwards of $5 million in 2009. At its peak, the county jail housed more than 150 detainees at once and received a daily stipend of $100 from ICE for each detainee.

At the heart of the county's decision to end the contract was a federal provision called 'Section 287(g),' which basically gives the federal government the ability to train and deputize local officers as federal agents. Subsequently, any county corrections officers who underwent training, and who performed ICE duties, would be under the direct supervision of the federal government.

'The county's chief concern was liability, and there's also a cost implication there with how manpower may be used and we didn't want to be put in that position,' said County Administrator John Pulomena. 'Obviously, there is revenue (loss) implication to this, but there's also cost associated with maintaining the detainees. So, we're looking at our in-tent operation and there will be some financial impact, no doubt.

'But, at the end of the day, it puts the controls and procedures within our own facilities.'

Freeholder Mildred Scott introduced the resolution Thursday recommending that the county terminate the contract. Scott noted that any officers who undergo training and perform ICE duties would be under the direct supervision of the federal government, and this would cause a significant increase in overtime and staffing requirements.

County Counsel Tom Kelso summed up the county's reasoning for terminating its contract with ICE by saying: 'They want us to do their job at the county's expense.'

Under provision 287(g), county personnel assigned to ICE would have to be trained at an out-of-state facility. The federal government would pay for the training, but would not pay the officers' salaries while they were out of state, nor would the federal government pay for any overtime in these officers' absence.

'You've got to look at total picture,' Pulomena said. 'Obviously, when it comes to the liability end, that's a serious concern. There are insurance implications. Right now, if we were to take on this responsibility, I believe from a liability standpoint, our costs would have been impacted for insurance purposes.

'At the end of the day, we're hoping that this is a zero-sum game with the revenue we generate and the cost that we incurred.'

Harold Ort, ICE spokesperson for New Jersey, said the contract termination will result in no net reduction in bed space for ICE's detention and removal operations in New Jersey.

'ICE is always evaluating its detention needs to support our operation in New Jersey and around the country and routinely makes changes in numbers and locations based on placement that best support operational needs,' Ort said. 'ICE is working out the details of transfer with Middlesex County jail, which will provide detainee s with information regarding their new location, (so) that they may contract their families and their attorneys of record.

'Clergy that regularly visit at Middlesex County jail will also be notified,' he said.

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15.
Diversity unfurled on city ballot, but immigrants say more must try
By Jennifer Myers
The Lowell Sun (MA), October 4, 2009
http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_13483596?IADID=Search-www.lowellsun.com-www.lowellsun.com

Lowell, MA -- The portrait of President John F. Kennedy was always there, hanging on the wall in his godmother's house on Terceira Island in the Azores of Portugal. To young Jose Gabriel, it was a symbol of freedom, of hope for the future in a country under the right-wing military dictatorship of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.

In a Nigerian elementary school, Ben Opara was taught that he lived in a democracy. As he matured, he realized that he had been deceived. His country was run by a military dictatorship. Corruption was rampant and expected.

Syed Hussain, who grew up in Hyderabad, India, spent 27 days in an Indian prison for political reasons following a peace demonstration in 1968, later winning the Gandhi-Nehru Memorial Award for his work towards national unity. He dreamed of coming to the land of opportunity -- America.

Those men, from three wildly different corners of the globe all landed in the same spot -- Lowell, Massachusetts -- the melting pot of the Merrimack Valley. Twenty-six percent of the city's residents hail from foreign lands, yet few immigrants have managed to win seats on the City Council, a trend Gabriel, Opara and Hussain hope to end this November.

The last immigrant to serve on the Council was Joe Mendonca, who came to the United States from the Azores, Portugal, in 1966 when he was 6 years old. He finished in 10th place in the 2005 election and was placed on the Council when George Ramirez, who came to Lowell from Colombia, resigned. Mendonca, a former member of the School Committee, was unsuccessful in his 2007 re-election campaign, but is trying again this year. (He declined to be interviewed for this story.)

The 2005 election also saw two Cambodian candidates, Rady Mom and Sambath Chey Fennell.

Victoria Fahlberg, executive director of ONE Lowell, an immigrant resource service provider, said that the problem in the city is not that immigrants do not run for office, it is that they do not get elected.

The most successful immigrant candidate was Rithy Uong, from Cambodia, who won a seat in 1999, 2001 and 2003. He was the first Cambodian-American elected to such a body in the country. Fahlberg said Uong's success can be attributed to his ability to garner support and campaign funds from the city's Belvidere neighborhood, a feat no other immigrant candidate since has been able to accomplish.

This year's candidates said they have been working to engage the city's immigrants and get them more involved in the political process.

'I have said that the City Council is disconnected from the people, but in the same way the people are disconnected from the city,' Gabriel said. 'In the Portuguese community, as long as they have a pastry shop nearby to get their bread they are happy. They need to move past that and get involved, especially the younger generation. They need to step forward and help their parents.'

Gabriel, 52, who came to Lowell in 1981, became a U.S. citizen in 1990.

'The only reason I became a citizen was to vote,' he said, explaining that in Portugal the citizens were not granted that right until 1975. 'If you spoke out against the government the secret police would take you away forever. It was tough.'

Opara, 51, came to Lowell in 1990 to study at UMass Lowell and became a citizen in 2002.

'The night before the first time I was able to vote I could not sleep,' he said. 'I was so proud and many people here take that right for granted.'

Hussain, 54, arrived in the U.S. from India with $150 in his pocket and a wife and three children to support. He became a citizen in 1996 and proudly uses his American passport while traveling in the Middle East.

'All of our communities have many people who would be great candidates for the City Council,' said Gabriel.

'Hopefully the fact that we are running will encourage others to get involved,' said Opara. 'It is so important.'

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16.
Footing the bill for undocumented immigrants
By Jo Ciavaglia
The Bucks County Courier Times (PA), October 5, 2009
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/262/2009/october/05/footing-the-bill-for-undocumented-immigrants.html

Taxpayers footed a $25.3 million bill in 2007-08 to pay for emergency health care for non-citizens in Pennsylvania. Tax-funded subsidies of $2 million went to seven area hospitals.

While U.S. lawmakers seek to exclude illegal immigrant from proposed national health care reform plans, U.S. taxpayers already cover the medical bills for uninsured and undocumented immigrants.

Pennsylvania hospitals received $25.3 million in 2007-08 for the emergency care for nearly 4,700 noncitizens, including illegal residents, who otherwise would have qualified for government health benefits.

Collectively, seven local hospitals in Bucks and eastern Montgomery counties received nearly $2 million in emergency Medicaid reimbursements that fiscal year, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Welfare.

Abington Memorial Hospital alone received $1.4 million for treating 299 undocumented patients.

Medical treatment of illegal immigrants is among the most emotional issues surrounding the national health care reform debate. In opinion polls most Americans support requiring people prove they are a citizen to receive government health care benefits.

But public health and immigration experts worry excluding undocumented immigrants would put everyone at risk, hamper attempts to prevent the spread of disease and lead to an increase in health care spending.

The major House and Senate bills under consideration both bar undocumented U.S. residents from gaining access to government-paid subsidies designed to make insurance affordable, though only the Senate bill includes an eligibility screening mechanism.

The Senate Finance Committee bill would exclude illegal immigrants from buying insurance in the proposed national insurance exchange market for small businesses and individuals.

How large of a burden illegal immigrants are on the U.S. health care system is unclear since accurate statistics are unavailable and hospitals and clinics don't ask patients about their legal status.

New 2008 Census data estimates 9.5 million uninsured people were 'not a citizen,' but the number includes legal immigrant workers, visitors and foreign students.

A 2006 RAND study estimated about $1.1 billion in federal, state and local government funds are spent yearly on health services for undocumented adult immigrants under age 65. That is compared with $88 billion in government spending on health care for all nonelderly adults.

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates the cost of treating uninsured illegal immigrants to be $4.3 billion a year, primarily at emergency rooms and free clinics.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigration, says its research suggests the cost is closer to $11 billion a year, mostly for childbirth and pregnancy-related complications involving so called 'anchor babies,' the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

Emergency care covered

Immigration activists, though, argue that opponents exaggerate the amount of public health services that illegal residents use. They contend immigrants either lack information about available services through hospitals or public health clinics or they avoid them for fear of being caught and deported.

'Nobody risks their life crossing the border or get in a raft to come here, so if they get sick they can go to the ER,' said Leonardo Cuello, director of the Pennsylvania Health Law Project, which advocates for the poor, elderly, disabled and immigrants.

Currently legal immigrants are eligible for Medicaid benefits but only after living in the U.S. for five years, though states can waive the requirement to enroll children into the Children's Health Insurance Program.

But hospital emergency rooms are required to treat everyone regardless of their ability to pay or citizenship status, under a 1986 federal law. An emergency medical condition is considered one with immediate severe symptoms that, without immediate attention, seriously jeopardize a person's life, health or limbs.

Hospitals can be reimbursed for providing emergency treatment to noncitizens - which includes legal immigrants and foreign visitors - who are otherwise eligible for Medicaid, the government health program for the poor and disabled.

Federal Emergency Medicaid funding only covers hospital care until a patient's condition is stabilized. Also, to be reimbursed, hospitals must apply for the coverage on behalf of the patient.
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As part of the application process, hospitals must document a patient's immigration status, but they can't directly or require the patient show documentation. They can request information like a Social Security number, but the patient's name and address aren't submitted with the paperwork.

In Pennsylvania, health services for illegal immigrants represented less than half a percent of the overall $15 billion Medicaid budget in 2007-08, the most recent year statistics were available.

Most of the Emergency Medicaid money was spent on inpatient hospital care and 56 percent- nearly $14 million - for pregnancy, childbirth and OB-GYN-related services, according to the State Department of Welfare.

The state also receives $1.1 million in federal funding under a separate program within the 2003 Medicare Part D law called Section 1011. The program reimburses hospitals, certain doctors and ambulance services, some, or all, costs for providing emergency health services to illegal immigrants.

As of June, more than 24,000 providers across the United States are enrolled in the Section 1011 program, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Among local hospitals, only Aria Health System participates, according to the state Department of Public Welfare.

The program authorizes $250 million a year for the payments with one-third of the money earmarked for six border states with the highest illegal immigrant populations; a bipartisan bill currently in Congress (H.R. 1386) calls for making the payments permanent.

Major health issue

The Bucks County Health Improvement Partnership doesn't request information about immigration status from patients treated at its three health clinics, Director Sally Fabian said. The clinics serve uninsured, low-income county residents.

'We sometimes learn about [a patient's] undocumented status incidentally, such as when they don't have a Social Security number,' Fabian said. 'There is no difference to us in providing care to those who are living here legally or those who are undocumented, since all the care is provided for free.'

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced it will include illegal immigrants in its national voluntary H1N1 vaccine program, which will get under way later this month.

From a public health standpoint, it would be 'absolutely absurd' for public health officials to ignore illegal aliens, said David Barton Smith, a research professor in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the School of Public Health at Drexel University.

'I would be very surprised if many people would disagree. Infectious diseases don't check passports or citizenship papers,' Smith said. 'Do you want people who have these infectious conditions to hide? They are the people working the kitchens, taking care of children, cleaning houses doing all the things that bring them in close contact with law-abiding citizens.'

Illegal immigrants are an integral component of the American economy, working in manufacturing, restaurants, construction and service industry, said Cuello, of the Pennsylvania Health Law Project.

'You have a whole group of people who don't have access to preventative care or care that will reasonably happen before emergency room,' he said. 'It obviously produces a major health issue for all of us and that is the thing most people ignore.'

Not providing preventative health services to illegal aliens could end up costing more in the long-term, Cuello said.

'If a woman tomorrow gives birth to a baby in Pennsylvania, the child is a U.S. citizen,' he said. 'By not giving her prenatal care, we may have U.S. citizens born with health problems and we'll be liable as a health system.'

He added that illegal immigrants exist in every first-world country, and anti-immigrant sentiment rises whenever there is an economic downturn.

'The argument they shouldn't have been here in the first place may be a comforting argument,' Cuello added. 'The argument they shouldn't be here in the first place, doesn't help you address the reality that we're in.'

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17.
La Raza President Wants Health Care Reform for ‘Everyone,’ Including Illegal Aliens
By Matt Cover
The CNS News, October 2, 2009
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/54911

National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia said that health care reform should include 'everyone,' and this means illegal immigrants as well because with more people paying into the system it might lower the costs of health care.

Speaking to reporters Thursday at a press conference in support of President Barack Obama’s efforts to pass a government-led overhaul of the nation’s health care system, Murguia said that while the issue of illegal immigrants was politically difficult, there were 'strong' arguments for covering the illegals.

'From our perspective there’s a strong case to be made in this country for us to reform health care [and] it ought to include everyone,' said Murguia. 'There’s a lot of different reasons why we should try to reform this system once and for all so that everyone is covered. The more people who are covered, the more cost-effective and the more and better health outcomes we’re going to have.'

'We know that politically it’s very difficult right now to take on the issue of undocumenteds [but] there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be trying to cover as many people as possible, certainly when it comes to undocumented children,' she said. 'Our goal should be to have health care reform for everyone.'

Both of the current House and Senate versions of health care reform legislation restrict the availability of federal health insurance subsidies to U.S. citizens and legal residents. Title II, Subtitle C, Section 246 of the House health care bill (H.R. 3200), for example, stipulates 'no federal payment for undocumented aliens.'

The Senate bill says that beneficiaries of federal health care programs must be a citizen or national or an alien lawfully admitted to the United States. But neither bill apparently has a provision for verifying citizenship status.

At a speech before the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute in September, President Obama said, 'I want to be clear: If someone is here illegally, they won’t be covered under this plan. That’s a commitment I’ve made.'

Republican attempts to amend the health care legislation to require a photo ID and Social Security number and similar safeguards to receive federally subsidized health benefits have been defeated, largely along party lines.

The National Council of La Raza is the nation’s oldest Hispanic organization.

Murguia joined the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda on Capitol Hill on Thursday to lobby for Obama’s health care policy, saying that the way to resolve the issue of illegal aliens and health care was to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which would stop the 'segmenting' of American society.

'We support health care reform and we support comprehensive immigration reform,' said Muguira. 'Once we take on that issue we’re hoping that we can be done with the issue of trying to segment this country into certain segments of population.'

Comprehensive immigration reform would convert illegal immigrants into legal immigrants who would be permanent legal residents of the United States with an opportunity to be naturalized as U.S. citizens.

At that same speech in September, Obama said: 'I also want to make this clear: Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken.'

'If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all,' Obama said.

Muguira said on Thursday: 'From our perspective, when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform, we need to settle that issue once and for all [because] there’s a group of 12 million individuals who’ve been making important contributions to this country, we need to find a resolution for them.'

When asked exactly what that 'resolution' would be, Murguia said it was a pathway to legalization, adding that once it is passed, the issue of illegal immigrants will not come up again.

Leaders of Hispanic communities in the United States and Puerto Rico chanted for health care reform, including reform that includes a government run health care plan (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
'We need a path to legalization,' said Murguia. 'We can make it happen. Once we do that, we can resolve this issue and won’t see it come up issue after issue, bill after bill. There’s a strong case to be made even today for why health care reform should include everyone.'

When asked by CNSNews.com to clarify whether a pathway to legalization was the solution to getting insurance coverage for illegal immigrants, Murguia said it was 'a solution' and that immigration reform was needed so that all reform proposals would not face this potential roadblock.

'It would be a solution,' she said. 'What we have argued all the time is that we should tackle the issue of comprehensive immigration reform once and for all because it may not be health care reform, it could be any other major reform, but these issues of the status of undocumenteds in this country and what’s right and fair are going to continue to come up.'

'If we can resolve that,' she said, 'I think we’ll go a long way to being able to address these broader reforms without these issues being distractions.'

CNSNews.com asked Murguia whether her 'solution' meant that illegal immigrants would be eligible for federal health insurance subsidies if comprehensive reform is passed. She responded that illegal aliens should be covered along with everyone else, but that who was eligible for which federal programs would depend on the specific reform proposals.

'Right now, there’s a case to be made in the long term for including as many people as possible because it’s more cost-effective and because there’s better health results and all of that,' said Murguia. 'In terms of fairness and cost efficiencies I think it’s in the interest of health care reform to have access to as many people as possible.'

'If we can deal with comprehensive immigration reform and once and for all deal with what the status change would be for those folks, then I think there’ll be a lot of clarity as to what access they would have to any federal government programs or to any subsidies,' she said. 'We just want to make sure we can deal with comprehensive reform so we can have more clarity.'

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18.
Latino leaders launch educational campaign to aid census
By Marjorie Korn
The Dallas Morning News, October 2, 2009
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/national/stories/DN-latinocensus_02met.ART.State.Edition1.4bdadd9.html

Washington, DC -- Building on a successful effort to increase minority participation in the past presidential election, Latino leaders announced a campaign Thursday to ensure that the upcoming census is more accurate than the last.

Sylvia Garcia, a Harris County commissioner and president of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO, said part of the campaign's purpose is to explain why the census is important to the estimated 47 million Latinos nationwide, a group that's historically felt apathetic and alienated from the process.

The census determines how federal funds and congressional seats are allocated, and a community stands to lose $800 for every person who doesn't participate, she said at a news conference.

'All of us locally, in Texas and all other states, need to engage not only our Latino-elected officials but all officials, members of the faith, everyone,' Garcia said.

Last year, 53 percent of Texas' population was minority, most of whom are Hispanic, according to the Census Bureau. It estimates that Latinos were undercounted by about 3 percent in the 2000 census.

The census campaign will include public service announcements, print ads and community outreach designed to educate citizens about the census's importance and confidentiality.

Robert Groves, director of the Census Bureau, said an inaccurate census causes a 'distorted portrait' of the country and that his office is launching its own media campaign, as well as printing 13 million bilingual census forms, to encourage participation.

Because billions of dollars and power in Washington are on the line, census-taking is always contested. But Groves assured Hispanics that his office maintains confidentiality and integrity.

'The product of the census is a political event,' Groves said. 'The process of the census must be vigilantly nonpartisan.'

Participants strongly opposed a call from the Rev. Miguel Rivera, a prominent religious leader, for Latinos to boycott the census until Washington passes an overhaul of immigration law.

'Anybody who suggests that someone should not be counted in the census is being fundamentally irresponsible,' said Arturo Vargas, executive director of the NALEO Educational Fund. He said he expects the outreach campaign will trump Rivera's message.

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19.
Rally today backs bill for temporary citizenship
By Shannon Muchmore
The Tulsa World (OK), October 3, 2009
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20091003_11_A13_TheTul332842

The Tulsa Community College Hispanic Student Association will host a rally Saturday in support of proposed federal legislation that would grant illegal-immigrant students temporary U.S. citizenship while they pursue higher education.

The event, co-sponsored by the Greater Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, will run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 8730 E. Skelly Drive.

The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would allow illegal immigrants who enter the United States before they turn 16 and have lived in the country for at least five years to be eligible for temporary citizenship upon graduating from a U.S. high school or being accepted to a U.S. college, according to the Congressional Research Service.

After completing two years of college or military service, the immigrant would be allowed to petition for permanent citizenship.

The original legislation was introduced in 2007 and defeated by filibuster. It was reintroduced to the Senate in March.

Tina Peña, an adviser for TCC's Hispanic Student Association, said the legislation has a chance to pass this year, particularly if its potential economic impact is considered.

'They (legislators) need to realize that instead of outsourcing jobs abroad, we have those bright minds in our own backyard,' she said.

As many as 65,000 students could be eligible for the act every year, according to the National Immigration Law Center.

Peña said the debate on the legislation
affects all races, not just Hispanics.

'The issue affects all walks of life,' she said.

Ric Braser, TCC's vice president for academic affairs, will give a keynote speech at Saturday's event about the act and its potential effect on the Tulsa area.

The legislation is intended to help students who may have gone to grade school and high school in Tulsa County but who have trouble getting into college because they are illegal immigrants, he said.

'Upon graduating high school, they hit that roadblock and can't get financial aid to support themselves,' he said.

Students who could be helped aren't going to go away, and the act could help them contribute economically, Braser said.

'I'm hoping that this catches the ear of Congress, and they really think about the ramifications of not doing this,' he said.

Other scheduled speakers in support of the legislation will be former Tulsa mayor and University of Oklahoma professor Rodger Randle; Francisco Treviño, executive director of the Greater Tulsa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; and Thalia Shaull, a member of the TCC board of regents.

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20.
Minority-owned companies rising in Tri-Cities
The Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, WA), October 4, 2009
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/business/story/741669.html

An influx of new immigrants and a steady increase in population has encouraged many to become entrepreneurs, especially in the retail and service industries.

'The Tri-Cities has become more accepting of minorities, now,' said Tiffany Kutzke, an African-American woman who grew up in Kennewick. A few months ago, she started her own beauty salon, Gossip at Tiffany's, in Kennewick.

It was natural to think about owning a salon, said Kutzke, 32, who's been a hairdresser for 15 years and managed salons.

She didn't have to take out a loan, and everything worked out with a little help from her clients and others in the community who wanted her to succeed.

They gave her furniture, a washer and dryer and a TV set for the store, and a dealer gave her special discounts on barber chairs.

'I was blessed,' said Kutzke, who invested about $20,000 of her savings in the new venture. The business is doing well and she wants to explore getting a loan through the U.S. Small Business Administration to make it better.

New entrepreneurs, often from minority communities, need help, said Jose Garcia-Pabon with Washington State University Extension in Richland.

He said enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit need to be supplemented with the right business plan and training for success.

He's involved in a new pilot program designed to help minorities, particularly Hispanics, start a business and succeed in the Columbia Basin.

The failure rate of business startups is highest among Hispanics compared with other ethnic groups, he said. They don't always have a good understanding of marketing, getting financing and having a strategic plan for growth, he said.

The WSU training program gives them an overview of important concepts they should consider as entrepreneurs.

The first training session for prospective business owners was earlier this week in Benton City. The next sessions are Friday and Saturday in Moses Lake and Oct. 16-17 in Royal City. For more information, call 372-7389.

It's also important for minority businesses to learn to network, said Carl Adrian, president and CEO of the Tri-City Development Association.

TRIDEC helped Columbia Basin College get money to produce a multicultural business guide last year to help Hanford contractors seek out minority resources.

The guide, which lists African-American, Alaska Native, Native American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic and other non-U.S. native business owners, was distributed free as a community resource, said Donna Campbell, CBC's vice president for instruction, who oversaw the project.

She said CBC would like to update the guide if the college gets more funding for it.

CBC did recently get $600,000 in federal money to help revitalize Pasco's downtown in partnership with other community groups and to offer seminars to business owners, said Cruz Gonzalez, assistant vice president of grants administration.

It'll help make downtown more of a destination, giving many Hispanic-owned businesses an opportunity to expand their market share, he said.

Most first-generation immigrant or minority business owners start small, such as with a restaurant, a retail store or an auto repair shop, he said.

The right business plan and training can help a small business grow, he said. One local success story is Isidro Ortiz, who started a restaurant in downtown Pasco and over time opened several Fiesta Mexican restaurants in the Tri-Cities.

The Tri-Cities is a nice place to do business, said Hemant Mistry, a mechanical engineer and an immigrant entrepreneur who owns India Palace Restaurant near Columbia Center mall.

'The community accepted us nicely and kept us going,' said the native of India, who also owns Bali-Hi Motel in Richland. 'We don't feel like foreigners here.'

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21.
As crime grows in Mexico, more people flee to Texas
By Alfredo Corchado
The Dallas Morning News, October 4, 2009
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/mexico/stories/DN-aguascalientes_04int.ART.State.Edition1.4ba75d6.html

Pabellon De Arteaga, Mexico -- A peculiar smell lingers at the pink and white home near City Hall: burnt candles lighted hours earlier to pray for the safe return of the latest kidnapping victim.

Two other families living nearby in this quiet community of 30,000 find themselves in similar circumstances, awaiting word from missing loved ones – or their kidnappers.

'If this community isn't safe,' said Raquel Ruvalcaba, administrator at a local cultural center, 'then things are bad in Mexico, real bad.'

If anyplace should be safe from the extortions, kidnappings and killings that have gripped this troubled nation, it is the state of Aguascalientes, population of less than 1 million, and its once-quiet communities such as Pabellon de Arteaga.

But now the state is being afflicted with the same kind of crime and insecurity that other parts of Mexico – such as the border with Texas – have lived with for years, a result of the growing reach of drug cartels and the success of anti-drug efforts elsewhere, authorities say. The instability has led to an increase in out-migration, and North Texas is a favored destination.

Over the years, the central state of Aguascalientes, known as Mexico's Rhode Island because of its small size, has gained a reputation for having the best quality of life and safest neighborhoods – 'rich in culture and rich in boredom, the good kind,' quipped Irma Carrillo, an education professor at the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes.

But in the last couple of years, residents say, a steady stream of people from Pabellon and nearby communities, including the city of Aguascalientes, have fled for other parts of Mexico or the United States, particularly Texas.

About 200 residents of Aguascalientes, which means Hot Springs, now call the North Texas area home, and about half have arrived in the past two years, according to Miriam Carrillo, sister of Irma and president of Club de Migrantes Juntos Por Pabellon, an immigrant hometown association.

But there's a poignant difference between the new arrivals and those who came years ago.

'These are people who feel obligated to leave Mexico' because of the crime, said Miriam Carrillo. 'These are the people who used to create jobs back home.'

With the United States putting more pressure on smuggling routes along the Gulf Coast in recent years, drug smugglers have rerouted cocaine and marijuana shipments to the Pacific Coast, particularly through the southern state of Guerrero and the northwestern states of Michoacán and Jalisco, said Arturo Islas, an expert on national security issues.

That shift has led to a sharp increase in violence in those areas, and has put Aguascalientes – with easy access to Texas by way of El Paso and Laredo – squarely in the path of the rerouted contraband.

To finance their operations, drug traffickers have turned this once-tranquil industrious region into a haven of kidnappings, extortions and killings. Drug trafficking crimes rose from 157 in 2005 to 602 in 2007, a 127 percent increase, according to a study by Islas.

'Aguascalientes is an example of why the two governments need to be in constant communications, because any change in policy can lead to unintended consequences,' said Islas, adding that the actual crime numbers are probably much higher since many Mexicans don't report crimes to a tainted police force.

'The violent killings we're seeing in this region are indicators of the presence of drug traffickers in and around Aguascalientes,' Islas said.

Pabellon de Arteaga, proud of its wide avenues and the beauty of the surrounding countryside, is a city of 'professional commuters,' with doctors, teachers, lawyers and engineers traveling daily to jobs in Aguascalientes, the state capital, about 20 minutes away.

'This region has rivers, beauty, scenic areas second to none,' said Mario Molina, the town's unofficial historian and tourism promoter. 'The potential here is unlimited, but unfortunately the tranquility around here is being tested.'

Few know this better than North Texas residents who send their children for annual visits to their home state.

For the past few summers, Fatima Cardona of Irving, a 24-year-old single mother of three, has driven the 18 hours to bring her children and younger brother to Pabellon, part of an effort by Mexican-Americans to help their younger siblings and children recapture their Mexican roots, culture and language during school summer breaks.

Now she locks her children behind closed doors and grows weary from the stories of fear and kidnapping around her: A mechanic who lived nearby left Pabellon after thugs kidnapped him and extorted an undermined amount of cash. Nearby, a grocery store owner also left town for an unknown place.

And the pink and white house, with its burning candles, is just the latest reminder that Mexico's problems, once isolated to the big cities or border towns, have arrived here, too.

'Before, it was very quiet and we trusted everyone, but not anymore,' Cardona said. 'I will breathe a sigh of relief when I cross into Texas again.'

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22.
Immigrants urged to get swine flu vaccinations
Legal status no barrier, state health officials say
By Esteban Parra and Jennifer Price
The News Journal (Dover), October 5, 2009
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20091005/NEWS/910050342

Having lived illegally in the United States for 13 years, a 24-year-old native of Guatemala realizes he's not legally entitled to much.

But the Georgetown resident still hopes he'll have access to the swine flu vaccine that will start arriving in Delaware this week.

'It's important that all people get this opportunity,' said Perez, who would give only his last name. 'This is a virus that has caused deaths, not only in Mexico. This is something we're all aware of.

'Status should not matter.'

Delaware health workers, like their counterparts nationally, agree all people should have access to the swine flu -- or H1N1 -- vaccine regardless of immigration status. This includes Delaware's estimated 30,000 undocumented immigrants, many of whom would be at risk of spreading the virus because they work in the state's food service industry, in restaurants, on farms and in food processing plants.

'From a public health perspective, our goal is protection of the entire public health community,' said Jennifer Wooleyhand of the state Division of of Public Health. 'So there's not going to be people turned away.'

Leaving illegal immigrants unvaccinated would increase the risk to everyone and make it much harder to keep it from spreading, Wooleyhand said.

'The illnesses don't discriminate and neither do we,' Wooleyhand said. 'If we can cut down the amount of people who have the flu from the onset, we can cut down the spread of the flu from the onset.'

Even organizations that favor immigration limits, such as the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said vaccines should be available to undocumented immigrants.

'Everybody, including illegal immigrants, should have this available to them for the public good,' said Bryan Griffith, a center spokesman.

'This is for the citizens' protection as well. They're going to come in contact with illegal aliens, whether they are being employed in businesses that they're using or whether it's on the street.'

While the center is not in favor of illegal immigrants having access to all types of vaccines, it is making an exception regarding swine flu because of the potential for harm, he said.

'Since this is seen as a contagious and possibly lethal type of flu, that is the position taken on this,' Griffith said.

The swine flu virus is expected to hit children, teens and young adults especially hard -- a vulnerability that's compounded because the immigrant population tends to be younger overall than the general population.

Nationally, men 18 to 39 make up 35 percent of the undocumented immigrant population, compared with 14 percent among those born in the U.S. and 18 percent among legal immigrants, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report released last year.

A question of trust

Experts say state and local governments will have to overcome illegal immigrants' fears to persuade them to come forward and be vaccinated.

The locations chosen to administer the vaccinations can influence whether illegal immigrants get the medication, said the Rev. César Gómez of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Georgetown.

Gómez suggests neutral sites where undocumented people tend to gather, such as churches and community centers. He also said health workers should not ask for a lot of background information, because that would scare off some people.

'The people don't want to identify themselves,' he said. 'When someone takes down information on them, it's like they are identifying themselves and if it's a government organization the people will not want to do that.'

Gómez also said the state needs to give out more information on how the vaccines will be distributed.

'I don't have any information to give the community,' he said while fighting a seasonal flu last week.

Wooleyhand said the division has been sharing information -- in English and Spanish -- with local media as well as community centers that serve the Hispanic population. She said the only question public health workers would ask is if the person receiving a vaccination has had prior shots.

'Only medical information in order to know if it is safe to give them the shot,' she said. 'Their immigration status wouldn't come up. It's a non-issue.'

Carlos de los Ramos, public relations director for the Latin American Community Center in Wilmington, said the center plans to hold a free swine flu vaccination clinic once the vaccine is made available to a broader population, which isn't expected until November at the earliest.

Ramos said he doesn't think undocumented immigrants will avoid vaccinations out of fear of having their immigration status exposed.

'We don't think it will be a problem because in the past, when we give [seasonal] flu shots, we never have to ask for identification,' he said.

The community center will be hosting a health fair Oct. 24 to administer seasonal flu shots and give out information on the swine flu virus and vaccine.

Working with schools

Pati Nash, spokeswoman for the Red Clay Consolidated School District, said the district is putting out information about the swine flu in English and Spanish. Red Clay's Baltz, Marbrook and William C. Lewis Dual Language elementary schools, as well as A.I. duPont Middle School, have large numbers of Hispanics and English-language learners.

'We have sent out materials in both languages to our parents, but we do that with any information we send home to parents,' Nash said.

As early as November, students will receive swine flu vaccinations in some schools. For kindergarten through fifth grade, nasal spray will be administered by public health teams. Higher grades will receive injections, with contractors handling grades six through eight. In high schools, officials hope many of the immunizations will be provided by the school-based wellness centers.

Parents will have the right to decide whether their children will receive vaccinations.

Esteban Hernandez, a 30-year-old Selbyville resident who legally immigrated from Guatemala four years ago, said it is great that the vaccine will be offered to everyone, but added that more information needs to be distributed, especially for immigrants.

'There's a lot of people who are afraid of accessing the vaccines because of anti-immigration feelings going on in this country,' he said. 'But this is very important because this concerns everyone's health.'

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23.
Hispanic immigrants retain pride in heritage
By Juan Antonio Lizama
The Richmond Times Dispatch, October 2, 2009
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/HISP02_20091001-221604/296921/

Paulita Matheny, a native of Bolivia, lost her job as a prominent attorney, her social life and her maids when she married and moved to Hanover County eight years ago.

More significant, in the eyes of many, was that she lost her Bolivian identity when she fell under the 'Hispanic' label used by the federal government since the 1970 census.

But that designation barely begins to define a group that comes from dozens of countries, cultures and backgrounds.

To honor and recognize the contributions of the Hispanic cultures to the United States, Congress approved National Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968. Twenty years later, it became National Hispanic Heritage Month and is celebrated Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

'Being a Hispanic, people label you as a Mexican,' Matheny said recently, with her husband, Jim, at their home on Kings Charter Drive in Mechanicsville.

'I'm like, no, Latin America, it's a little bigger than just Mexico. So I learned, in these eight years that I'm here... [to] always say, 'I'm from Bolivia, South America,' so people know exactly what I'm talking about.'

Over the years, as the Hispanic population in the U.S. has grown to 46.9 million to become the largest minority group, the government has tried to capture the diversity by including Hispanic, Latino and Spaniard designations on the census form and asking for a country of origin.

Three-quarters of Hispanics identify themselves by their place of origin or that of their parents, not as Hispanic or Latino, according to the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.

Nationally, those of Mexican origin are the largest group with 64 percent, followed by Puerto Ricans at 9 percent, Cubans at 3.5 percent, Salvadorans at 3.1 percent and Dominicans from the Dominican Republic with 2.7 percent, according to the census.

Last year, about 40,500 Hispanics lived in Henrico County, Richmond and Chesterfield County, the census estimates.

Matheny is not the typical Hispanic immigrant who comes to the United States seeking a better life and economic opportunities or refuge from political persecution and war. But her struggles in adjusting to a foreign country and holding on to her culture have been no different than other immigrants.

She met her husband, a project manager with Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, at a conference in Oklahoma nine years ago. They married a year later.

Matheny said she studied English in Bolivia, but it was hard to speak it when she arrived in Hanover, and some people didn't understand her.

'I found myself like I was speaking like a 5-year-old,' she said. 'I felt like people didn't accept me or they were looking at me like something different. I just couldn't speak about politics with somebody, which is my passion. I was so disappointed with myself. My first goal was trying to speak perfect English.'

But that was only one of the challenges. She also had to learn to cook, to eat leftovers and frozen foods. Maids at her parents' house in Bolivia cooked every meal from scratch.

'I realized that I wasn't in the wonderland,' she said. 'The land of opportunities for many really became the land of the nightmares for me.'

Two years later, she brought her nanny from Bolivia to take care of the couple's son. About that time, too, she began attending St. John Church in Highland Springs and found a larger community of Hispanics.

'I had no clue how big the Hispanic community was in Richmond until we joined the church and then got more involved,' Jim Matheny said.

As their circle of friends from the different Latin American countries expanded, he began noticing the cultural differences, Matheny said.

Sending formal invitations for parties is a common practice. Guests make sure that the first thing they do when arriving at the party is to greet and thank the host for the invitation, he said.

'I could be flipping burgers, all sweaty, they come and shake my hands and say thank you for inviting us and they say goodbye before they leave,' he said. 'My American friends, you don't know when they showed up and you don't know when they left.'

He has also noticed language differences among his wife and friends, Matheny said. For his wife, 'torta' means cake, but for their child's godfather, Juan Coronado, who is from Mexico, the word means sandwich.

Paulita Matheny also learned that many of the children don't speak Spanish at her church and feel ashamed of their parents' Hispanic heritage. When they have bilingual Masses, it's hard to find a child to read in Spanish, she said.

'That's sad, because the less you know about your culture, the less proud you feel about your culture,' she said. 'One of my tasks as a mother was to be sure that my children learn to write and speak Spanish because it's an advantage for them in the future.'

Paulita Matheny speaks Spanish to the couple's two children, who switch seamlessly to English when they talk to their father. Jim Matheny speaks some Spanish, too. Their first child, Paulo Leony, 7, has been spending summers in Bolivia and attending school there. Their second child, James Kendrick, is 2.

'Every day, we do homework in Spanish,' she said. 'I have dedicated an hour a day to do this. We say prayers in English one night and in Spanish the following night.'

At a recent gathering with friends at her house, Paulita Matheny told the guests that Paulo had come home excited because his teacher had asked him to read from a Spanish textbook he had carried to school, and his classmates were in awe.

'I felt for the first time that he was proud to be speaking Spanish,' she told her friends.

Among the friends at the party were Colombia native Diana Velasquez, who lives in Varina with her husband and two U.S.-born teenage twin daughters, and MarÌa GarcÌa Lara and her husband, both of whom are from Mexico. They talked about working hard to make sure that their children grow up fluent in Spanish and appreciate their parents' cultures.

'We have to teach them to love who we are,' GarcÌa Lara, who lives in Hanover, said. 'They should never be ashamed of their Hispanic culture, they should be proud.'

Paulita Matheny will fill out the census form in April and check that she's of the white race, which contradicts many people's perception of Hispanics.

Nine out of 10 Hispanics reported white alone or some other race alone, while less than 4 percent reported black or African-American alone, according to the 2000 Census.

It's clear what she and her husband will check on the census forms, but it complicates things for the children, Matheny said.

'They're not Caucasian. They're not Hispanic. They're half and half,' she said.

After having her children, Matheny began searching for a job, and says she was shocked that law offices wouldn't hire her as a secretary. She had no better luck at retail stores. She got to know the Rev. Wayne L. Ball at St. John Church, and he asked her to help him with his canon law cases involving Hispanics. She plans to pursue a degree in canon law in the future.

She now works as business manager for St. John, which is sharing resources with St. Patrick and Holy Rosary churches.

What surprised her at St. John Church's Spanish Mass is how laborers and professionals mingle together, she said. She comes from a well-to-do family in Bolivia and class divisions are not crossed, she said.

'If I never [had] come to the United States, I would never have learned to be humble.'

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24.
2009 immigrant deaths likely to exceed 2008 total
By Jacques Billeaud
The Associated Press, October 3, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5goebUSBZNXcZattF9F5FJvTUbDNwD9B372C00

Phoenix (AP) -- The number of immigrants who died while sneaking across America's southern border in the last 12 months is expected to surpass the previous year's total, even as fewer people are getting caught entering the country illegally.

The U.S. Border Patrol says 378 people perished near the border during the 11-month period that ended Aug. 31. The death toll is likely to rise in the coming days as the government finishes its tally for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

Immigrant rights advocates say the numbers reflect deep flaws in America's border enforcement, because as the Border Patrol puts more agents and technology in certain spots, smugglers turn to more remote migration routes where enforcement is weaker, thus exposing their clients to more perilous conditions, such as triple-digit summer heat.

'There is a very large increase in the rate of deaths, despite the economic downturn, less immigration and the increase in the number of Border Patrol agents. This shows that our border strategy is having a truly horrifying cost in human lives,' said Kevin Keenan, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties in California.

Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd Easterling said the agency has sent its search-and-rescue crews out at least 444 times in the last year to reach immigrants in distress, installed rescue beacons where immigrants in trouble can signal for help, and run public service advertisements that warn of money-hungry smugglers who will expose them to dangers.

'We want to make sure that our efforts are focused on preventing the border crossings to begin with and target these human smugglers who take people out into these locations and put their lives at risk,' Easterling said.

More than half the deaths in the fiscal year that just ended were reported in Arizona, which became the busiest illegal entry point along the border after the federal government tightened enforcement in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego in the mid-1990s.

Texas ranked second in immigrant deaths, followed by California and New Mexico.

The leading cause of death was exposure to the heat. Other causes included drownings in rivers and drainage canals, homicides by bandits who target immigrants during the long walk across the border, and rollovers of smuggling vehicles.

Nine illegal immigrants who were being smuggled into the country died in June when the SUV they were traveling in lost control and rolled over on a remote highway in Sonoita, Ariz. Twenty-seven immigrants were crammed in the Ford Excursion, which had its rear seats removed to make room for more people. A tire on the vehicle blew out under the weight of the smuggling load. Nineteen others were injured.

Thirteen deaths in September would make the recently ended fiscal year more deadly than the previous year, when 390 deaths were reported. The record of 492 deaths was set in 2005.

A report released this week by the ACLU and Mexico's National Commission of Human Rights called the deaths a humanitarian crisis and recommended that the Border Patrol put more resources into its search-and-rescue operations.

Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, said in a statement that his country has made its own efforts at trying to prevent the deaths.

Sarukhan said Mexico runs media campaigns warning would-be immigrants about illegal border crossings, and it participates in a program in which arrested immigrants are flown from Arizona to Mexico City in hopes of keeping them away from border towns where they would run into smugglers who want to sneak them back into the United States.

Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network, an immigrant rights group based in southern Arizona, said the answer to reducing border deaths is for Congress to overhaul America's immigration policies so that it's easier for immigrants to come into the country safely and they don't have to rely on smugglers for help.

Otherwise, immigrants will continue to risk their lives so they can escape poverty in Mexican and join family members living in the United States, Allen said. 'It's tragically predictable,' Allen said.

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25.
Rescued Nashville baby can't come home yet
By Chris Echegaray
The Tennessean (Nashville), October 3, 2009
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091003/NEWS01/91003025/2066/NEWS03/Rescued+Nashville+baby+still+not+reunited+with+mom

Maria Gurrola held her baby this afternoon for the first time since his abduction, but he was taken from her arms again.

Eight-day-old Yair Carrillo-Gurrola and his three siblings are in the custody of Tennessee Department of Children Services. The four children were removed on Saturday.

'It’s for the children’s safety,' said DCS spokesman Rob Johnson. 'I can’t tell you how long. It will all be reviewed by a judge.'

There's no definite answer on when the children will be reunited with their family.

'It’s a happy resolution to this case,' Johnson said. 'We’re working actively to reunite them, but we don’t know when.'

Jose Antonio Carrillo has not seen his son but he’s relieved he is safe.

'We were ecstatic when so many of the agents came by last night to tell us they had our son,' Carrillo said. 'We cannot wait to see him.'

Authorities were doing a DNA test on the baby because the infant wasn’t still wearing a hospital identification bracelet when he was abducted on Tuesday, Carrillo said.

Police found the child Friday night in Ardmore, Ala. A woman has been charged with kidnapping him.

Carrillo had taken the only picture of his newborn son on his cell phone. That image was widely circulated during the search. In their haste on the day of the birth, family members had left their cameras behind.

'I think that picture really helped,' Carrillo said. 'That one photo was e-mailed everywhere.'

The mother, Maria Gurrola, and the family all have the same thought: Thank God and the police, said Norma Rodriguez, Carrillo’s cousin.

'Our supplications were answered,' Rodriguez said as she waited for a carpet cleaning crew working in the home that was the scene of the bloody abduction.

'The police said they worked around the clock and this was a great result,' Rodriguez added.

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Suspect's boyfriend thought she adopted baby
By Kate Howard
The Tennessean (Nashville), October 3, 2009
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091003/NEWS03/91003027/-1/NEWS01/Suspect+s+boyfriend+thought+she+adopted+baby+

The boyfriend of the woman charged with stabbing a south Nashville woman and stealing her baby said he believed they were legally adopting a baby from Texas.

Martin Rodriguez Guerrero says he's been with 39-year-old Tammy Silas for about two years, and he believes she'd wanted a baby all her life. He said he picked her up at the airport Tuesday morning with the infant, who they planned to call Martin Jr., and he had no idea anything was wrong until police arrived Friday night with guns drawn.

Silas has been arrested and now faces federal kidnapping charges. Police believe she followed Maria Gurrola in a rented Kia Spectra on Tuesday morning while she ran errands just a day after leaving the hospital with newborn Yair Carillo-Gurrola, and that she posed as an immigration agent to get inside the home. Once inside, police say she stabbed Gurrola nine times, leaving her with a collapsed lung and serious stab wounds. Gurrola ran for help, and when she returned, the blonde heavyset woman was gone, and so was the baby.

Guerrero, speaking through a translator, said Silas has no history of violence, but he believes the police are impartial. If they say she posed as an immigration agent, stabbed a woman and took her baby, he has no reason not to believe it. But he said things seemed fine from Tuesday until Friday.

'He was in good shape, he didn't cry much,' Guerrero said. 'He ate lots of milk. Everything was fine.'

He believed Silas had been in court all week in Dallas and in El Paso to make preparations to adopt the baby.

They had been buying baby clothes, a bath and a bassinet for about two weeks before the baby arrived, he said. Inside their home on the Alabama side of State Line Road in Ardmore, Ala., baby clothes and other items are scattered through the kitchen. Blue gloves are still on the counter above the blanket Guerrero said the agents put the baby on to take off his overalls and inspect him, to see if he was indeed now 8-day-old Yair Carillo.

Now, he's worried - not about Silas but about his truck payments, and the bills for the house they just remodeled last year.

'How am I going to pay for all this without her income?' he said.

Silas, he said, worked as a translator and grew up in Texas.

In the federal complaint against Silas released this morning, investigators say that

Maria Gurrolla heard the woman who stabbed her make a phone call and say in Spanish, 'it's done.'

Guerrero said that call may have been to him, but he said the call he got was to pick her up at the airport. He said that was in the morning, but after being told the abduction occurred about 1:40 p.m., he said it was probably about 6 p.m.

Guerrero said he spoke with federal investigators last night and told them what he knew. He said he hasn't done anything wrong and doesn't expect he will face any charges.

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26.
Furor over DWI hurting Ossining diner
By Marcela Rojas
The Journal News (White Plains, NY), October 5, 2009
http://www.lohud.com/article/2009910050328

Olympic Diner owner Michael Skirianos appears glum as he sits at his dining room table in his Mahopac home, a tumbler of ice water in one hand and a cigarette in another.

He's not upset, he said, more 'depressed' over the events that have transpired following the arrest of a man who, police say, is an illegal immigrant who drove drunk the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway in the early morning of Sept. 17.

Skirianos' link to the incident is that police told The Journal News the motorist, Henry Garcia, 19, worked as a busboy at the Olympic Diner in Ossining - a charge the longtime restaurateur flat out denies. Skirianos, who has run the popular Olympic Diner in Mahopac for 26 years, opened the Ossining eatery in April at the former Highland Diner, Skirianos said.

'He never worked for me,' Skirianos, 60, said emphatically. 'I'm being unfairly targeted.'

Skirianos has gotten a real dose of the vitriol surrounding illegal immigration.

In the days after the wrong-way driving incident, Skirianos estimated he received some 50 phone calls from angry people threatening to 'blow up' his establishment, he said, or promising never to eat there.

On the LoHud.com forums following the articles, several posters called for a boycott of the diner. 'The owner of the Olympic Diner should be arrested for employing this dirt bag,' one person wrote.

'They made me feel like the biggest criminal,' he said.

Garcia's arrest came less than two months after the scene of a horrific accident on the Taconic, when Long Island resident Diane Schuler drove the wrong way for almost 2 miles and crashed her minivan into a sport utility vehicle, killing herself and seven others. Police said she was driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 percent.

While Skirianos claims to have not hired Garcia, he did say one of his employees told him Garcia lived three blocks from the diner and had come in looking for work a few months ago.

'He never got the job,' Skirianos said.

Investigator Joseph Becerra, of the state police Bureau of Criminal Investigations, said Garcia told state troopers at the time of his arrest he worked at the Ossining diner. Police did not verify his employment, Becerra said.

Garcia, who, police said, had a blood-alcohol level of 0.27 percent, more than three times the legal threshold, is charged with reckless endangerment , a felony, driving while intoxicated and aggravated driving while intoxicated, both misdemeanors, as well as being an unlicensed driver and several other traffic infractions. He was in Mount Pleasant Town Court on Thursday, and the matter was adjourned to Thursday, officials said.

Meanwhile, Skirianos said business is down at least 40 percent. But that's not as troubling, he said, as restoring his integrity.

'I'm not asking people to come back and eat,' he said. 'I just hope people stop thinking that way about me.'

Skirianos, an immigrant himself, arrived in Brooklyn from the Greek island of Ikaria, in 1973, he said. He started working in restaurants as a cook until he was eventually sponsored by one that enabled him to get his 'papers,' he said.

Skirianos, along with his three brothers and cousin, opened the Mahopac Olympic Diner in 1983, he said.

'I'm a very good American citizen. I work hard my whole life. I've always donated to the community,' he said. 'I've been in this country for 36 years and I've never collected unemployment and I've always paid my taxes.'

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27.
Restaurateur fights deportation order on terrorism charges
Businessman accused of help to Kurdish group 21 years ago fights deportation orders
By Francis X. Donnelly
The Detroit News, October 5, 2009
http://www.detnews.com/article/20091005/METRO/910050343/1409/METRO/Restaurateur-fights-deportation-order-on-terrorism-charges

Harbert, MI -- To federal prosecutors, he is a terrorist, mentioned in the same breath as Osama bin Laden.

To his supporters, who are legion in the lakefront resort communities of west Michigan, he is the embodiment of the American dream.

Somewhere between those wildly disparate views is Ibrahim Parlak, 47, a popular restaurant owner who immigrated to the United States in 1991.

In a split decision, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 last month to uphold his deportation. The ruling stems from his actions against Turkey 21 years ago.

Parlak says he is a casualty of the war on terrorism, wounded in the clash between civil liberties and national security.

'One day you feel like you're part of something,' he said. 'Then, next morning, you wake up and you're a foreigner.'

Mostly Parlak has been hurt by time, say supporters.

In 1997, 10 years after he left the Kurdistan Workers Party, it was labeled a terrorist group by the State Department. Then came Sept. 11 and the U.S. view of terrorism would never be the same.

'Parlak has not changed,' said the Rev. Andrew Greeley, a best-selling Chicago novelist who frequently dined at the restaurant before a recent injury. 'The United States has changed.'

Greeley isn't the only one who thinks so.

Supporters range from busboys to corporate titans, from customers to competitors, from conservative politicians to liberal newspaper editorial writers, from a Chicago newspaper columnist to prominent movie critic Roger Ebert.

They've raised $100,000 for legal bills, held potluck dinners monthly to plan strategy, drove five hours to attend court hearings, and plastered 'Free Ibrahim' signs on their cars, homes and businesses.

After the appellate court's decision, supporters began a Web petition that asks President Barack Obama to restore Parlak's permanent residency.

They hoped to obtain 1,000 signatures in 100 days. They reached the goal in four days.

Growing up on a farm in south Turkey, Parlak was a Kurd in a country with no use for them, he said. The government doesn't recognize Kurds as an ethnic group, outlawing their language.

He was a student activist who, at 16, was arrested by police for distributing leaflets calling for an independent Kurdish state.

'Kurds have a right to live in any nation,' he said in an interview. 'No one has a right to stop them.'

Parlak and prosecutors disagree on whether he belonged to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Even then, during the mid-1980s, the resistance group was known for its violent tactics, killing women, fellow Kurds and anyone else deemed unsympathetic to the Kurdish cause.

Parlak said he only helped raise money for it.

But prosecutors said he took surveillance photos, smuggled weapons, used a code name and twice met the group's leader. He also attended a PKK training camp for eight months where he learned how to use a rifle.

'I'm sure he's a great host and he makes a great meal, but he is in fact a murderer,' Robin Baker, then-director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Detroit, had told reporters.

He was referring to an incident where Parlak, who had just finished the training camp in Lebanon, led six armed Kurds as they tried to enter Turkey illegally in 1988.

Traveling with a revoked passport, Parlak had a pistol, grenade and AK-47.

The Kurds were confronted by a Turkish patrol and exchanged gunfire, said prosecutors. The group retreated but not before killing two soldiers.

Parlak said he never used his weapons.

Served 16 months in prison

Parlak was later arrested by Turkish police and convicted for being part of the skirmish that killed the soldiers.

After serving 16 months in prison, he received asylum from the U.S. in 1992.

With little money or knowledge of English, he built a prosperous Middle Eastern cafe in the small town of Harbert.

For 15 years, the slender, soft-spoken restaurateur was known for the small kindnesses extended to workers, customers, neighbors, other businesses.

'He's what a person is supposed to be,' said Martin Dzuris, a conservative radio show host who met Parlak shortly after he arrived in the U.S. 'In the face of evil, he did what he had to do.'

Parlak applied to become a U.S. citizen in 1999.

Two months after Sept. 11, his request was rejected.

Five months later, immigration officials told him he could be deported.

After the attack on the U.S., the FBI reviewed old immigration cases in a search for terrorists who might be living in the country.

With Parlak, investigators found that he had stated incorrectly on his citizenship and green cards applications that he had never been arrested or involved with terrorist activities.

Also, during his asylum request, he downplayed his involvement with PKK and failed to mention that two soldiers died during the border confrontation.

If Parlak had been more forthcoming, he never would have received asylum in the first place, said prosecutors.

Ordered out of U.S. in 2004

The misinformation on the citizenship applications was a deportable offense and, in 2004, a federal immigration judge ruled that he should be kicked out of the country.

Parlak said he mentioned both the arrest and association with the terrorist group during his asylum request.

On the ensuing citizen applications, he thought the question referred to his time in America.

Meanwhile, as his appeals wind their way through the judicial system, he tends to CafÈ Gulistan and the roses and hollyhocks that surround it.

Inside the restaurant are photos, maps and tapestries from life half a world away.

He still believes passionately in the Kurdish cause but doesn't condone terrorism.

In naming his business, he chose a word that Kurds often use to describe their homeland.

The word has come to describe America as well, he said. Despite his troubles, he continues to believe so.

Gulistan is the Kurdish word for 'paradise.'

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28.
Raid targets Victorville gang
By Stacia Glenn
The San Bernardino Sun (CA), October 1, 2009
http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_13464960

Victorville, CA -- Nearly 100 members of a local Hispanic gang with ties to the Mexican Mafia were targeted in a two-year investigation that culminated Thursday in a sweep that spanned two counties.

About 100 law enforcement officers participated in 'Operation Jokers Wild' to serve 75 arrest warrants for members of the notorious East Side Victoria Gang, which has terrorized the city for three decades.

Sheriff's detectives paid early morning visits to 40 homes in Victorville, Hesperia, Adelanto, Apple Valley, Oro Grande, Fontana, Rialto and Murrietta.

Pulled from bed and arrested on a variety of charges were 37 gang members. Another 20 or so were already behind bars. At least one assault rifle and one handgun were seized, along with gang paraphernalia.

'This will represent a sizable dent in the gang presence in the Victor Valley,' said First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, who represents the High Desert.

Authorities touted the investigation's success at a news conference held at the Victorville Fairgrounds, where handcuffed gang members were brought to be photographed and processed.

Many sat in metal chairs in the back of the room, staring straight ahead or scowling as county leaders expressed gratitude and pride in the detectives who spent countless hours building a case against East Side Victoria.

There are close to 200 documented gang members, many of whom are accused of murder, home invasion robbery, trafficking methamphatamine and guns, numerous assaults and extortion.

An indictment listing the targeted gang members and detailing their alleged crimes was sealed Thursday. The gang members arrested in the sweep are scheduled to be arraigned today in San Bernardino Superior Court.

'This is serious business we're talking about,' said District Attorney Michael A. Ramos. 'This is a gang that terrorized this area of the county for three decades.'

A permanent gang injunction remains in place against East Side Victoria, which claims Old Town Victorville as its turf. Granted in 2007, it was the Sheriff Department's first gang injunction.

The gang's top two shotcallers were already in custody but the number three man, Joel 'Bouncer' Pompa, was picked up during the sweep, said Deputy District Attorney Britt Imes.

Pompa worked as a drug dealer and 'tax collector' who collected money that was then funneled to the Mexican Mafia.

Founding member Fred 'Joker' Archuleta was already in prison. Authorities said Archuleta went back behind bars in 2007 for a parole violation and George 'Rascal' DeGraw took control of the gang early last year.

DeGraw, who is the Mexican Mafia's connection to the High Desert, is still jailed while awaiting sentencing on an assault with deadly weapon case. Prosecutors also charged him in July with being a prisoner in possession of a weapon, according to court records.

Detective Jeremy Martinez, case agent on the investigation, said he hopes the operation will ease the minds of residents who fear coming forward and reporting gang crimes.

Violent crimes 'were not being reported due to fear of retaliation by the gang,' said Sheriff Rod Hoops. 'But they have spent over two years on this investigation and as Sheriff, I'm very proud of the work they've done.'

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29.
Purported Mexican cartel members threaten El Paso businesses
By Alfredo Corchado
The Dallas Morning News, October 3, 2009

El Paso, TX -- U.S. businesses are reporting threats by extortionists claiming to be members of drug cartels, a sign that criminal tactics common in Mexico are showing up north of the border.
. . .
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/mexico/stories/DN-extort_03int.ART0.State.Edition1.4bd3c25.html

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30.
Houston businessman guilty of harboring cop killer
By Mary Flood and Susan Carroll
The Houston Chronicle, October 5, 2009

Landscape business owner Robert Lane Camp pleaded guilty this morning to harboring an illegal immigrant who murdered a Houston police officer.
. . .
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6652953.html

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31.
Collier deputies team up with ICE to catch man wanted for 20 years
By Elysa Batista
The Naples Daily News (FL), October 3, 2009

The law finally caught up with Douglas Elmore Brenner in a Homestead motel.

'If you are out there and you're a criminal alien, we're going to find you,' said Brendan Quigley, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement resident agent in charge, on Friday. 'We're going to keep looking for you until we track you down.'

Brenner, a Canadian national, had been evading law enforcement for more than 20 years and is wanted by the Waterloo Regional Police in Canada on a charge of sexual assault on a juvenile under 14. He entered the U.S. in 1984 and assumed the identity of a deceased man in 1986.
. . .
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2009/oct/02/collier-deputies-team-ice-catch-man-wanted-20-year/

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32.
Guatemalan janitor in R.I. wins permanent residency
By Karen Lee Ziner
The Providence Journal-Bulletin, October 3, 2009

Boston -- Gustavo Cabrera, one of 31 janitors arrested last year in a high-profile raid on state courthouses, yesterday won the right to remain permanently in the United States, based on a 1997 law that legal experts say has provided relief to fewer than 200,000 people.

U.S. Immigration Judge Francis L. Cramer granted Cabrera s permanent residency based on the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Relief Act, which provides relief from deportations to certain Nicaraguans, Cubans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans and other foreign nationals. The judge said he was persuaded that Cabrera and his family his wife, a legal permanent resident; and their four children who are U.S. citizens would face considerable hardship should Cabrera be deported to Guatemala, a country he left 25 years ago.
. . .
http://www.projo.com/news/content/GUSTAVO_CABRERA_DECISION_10-03-09_UFFTMHJ_v43.38b0cd8.html

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International News

1. World: U.N. urges developed nations to accept immigrants (story, 8 links)
2. Canada: New book illustrates case against immigration
3. Canada: 88% of young Chinese immigrants are college educated
4. Canada: Afghan translators ponder new Canadian lives
5. Canada: Filipinos raise funds for disaster-stricken homeland
6. Ecuador: Gov't restricting emigration to Galapagos Islands
7. U.K.: Atty. Gen. facing further scrutiny over housekeeper affair
8. U.K.: No. Ireland pol calls for action against anti-immigrant violence
9. Ireland: Chinese youths comprise bulk of those missing from state care
10. France: Brits, French gov'ts to pay incentives to repatriate Afghans
11. Netherlands: Firebrand pol demands prosecution of Integration Min.
12. Netherlands: Moroccan Muslim immigrant is mayor of Rotterdam
13. Finland: Historian urges open dialogue on immigration and asylum policies
14. Germany: Next gov't urged to expedite naturalization
15. Malta: Luxembourg Home Affairs Min. to discuss illegal immigration

Subscribe to CIS e-mail services here: http://cis.org/immigrationnews.html

-- Mark Krikorian]


1.
UN: Russia should reform immigration practices
By Douglas Birch
The Associated Press, October 5, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j11XO83g3FRNnnH12pC88ve7TbBAD9B4VGC04

Moscow (AP) -- Russia should ease barriers to immigration in order to reduce the impact of labor shortages, slower economic growth and other pressures brought on by its ongoing demographic crisis, a United Nations report said Monday.

The report said that Russia should adopt legal and other reforms that insure basic rights and access to services for millions of migrants, many of them from other former Soviet nations, who work in construction and other industries. These workers often face discrimination, exploitation and occasionally even violence.

Konstantin Poltoranin, deputy chief of the Federal Migration Service's international and public relations department, told the Interfax news agency Monday that Russia has already taken the necessary steps toward reform.

'Many of the procedures have become more transparent and we can see progress,' he said. 'Russia will decide on its own what migrants it needs and how many. Russia is in no need of a huge inflow of unskilled workers from abroad.'

Migrants in the former Soviet Union not only provide a crucial source of labor for Russia, the report found, they serve a vital economic purpose in their home countries.

The amount of money sent to Tajikistan by its citizens working abroad represents 45 percent of its gross domestic product, the highest level in the world, an earlier U.N. study found. Most of the country's migrant workers are employed in Russia.

Russia's population has fallen by 6.6 million since 1993, despite the influx of millions of immigrants, according to a U.N. report released last year, and by 2025 the country could lose a further 11 million people.

Recent Kremlin efforts to reward women for having more babies have caused a surge in the birth rate, the U.N. has said, but won't make much difference in the long term.

Population levels in many developed countries have stagnated and are expected to fall by 2025, but Russia's population, currently around 142 million, has been in retreat since 1992. Russia's mortality rate is among the highest in the developed world, with average life expectancy for males at barely 60 years.

For reasons that are not fully understood, Russians suffer very high levels of cardiovascular disease. But most experts blame the country's overall high death rate on alcohol. Drinking has been linked to everything from liver disease to Russia's high number of murders, suicides and fatal accidents.

The U.N. has also urged Russia to overhaul the health system to provide more efficient care, while encouraging lifestyle changes to reduce the number of deaths related to alcohol consumption.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The UNHDR is available online at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/

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UN warns against immigration clampdown
By Harvey Morris and Tim Johnston
The Financial Times (London), October 5, 2009
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/25a14ad0-b187-11de-a271-00144feab49a.html?catid=6&SID=google&nclick_check=1

UN Report: Migration Improves Human Welfare
By Daniel Schearf
The Voice of America News, October 5, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-05-voa18.cfm

Migrants Give More than They Take, Says U.N.
By Suzanne Hoeksema
The Inter Press Service, October 5, 2009
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48724

UN calls for better deal for migrant workers
Warns of backlash against world's 1 billion migrants
The CBC News (Canada), October 5, 2009
http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/10/05/un-migrant-workers.html

UN body calls for reform of migration policies
By Ruadhan Mac Cormaic
The Irish Times, October 5, 2009
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/1005/1224255888359.html

National Development Strategy Should Include Migration
Bernama (Malaysian National News Agency), October 5, 2009
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=444583

Migration reform needed, says UN
The BBC News (U.K.), October 5, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8289944.stm

UN report calls for 'new deal' for migrant workers
Agence France Presse, October 4, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gu8jKf28vOnl_2_rSNv1jRsNKBwA

Migrants not a threat, says global UN report
By Fulya Ozerkan
Hurriyet (Turkey), October 4, 2009
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=migrants-not-a-threat-says-global-un-report-2009-10-04

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2.
Immigration bad for us: book
By Mindelle Jacobs
The Tribune (Canada), October 2, 2009
http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1779675

For years, Canadians have been led to believe that mass immigration is necessary to fill labour shortages, make up for our low fertility rates and finance expensive social programs.

In a shot across the bow of political correctness, a new book by the Fraser Institute argues that these beliefs are myths and calls for a serious debate on Canadian immigration policy.

'Many of the reasons with which Canada justifies its high immigration intake are simply not valid and the economic and social costs are not open to discussion,' writes James Bissett, a former executive director of the Canadian Immigration Service.

'We may not yet have reached the tipping point,' he warns in the book, The effects of mass immigration on Canadian living standards and society. 'But if we continue to sleepwalk into the 21st century and ignore this issue, we may find out too late that Canada has been unalterably changed.'

Various contributors weigh in on what they see as the consequences of mass immigration -- Canada's annual immigration rate is the highest in the world -- and offer prescriptions for change.

Bissett calls for a temporary moratorium on new immigrants until the backlog has been eliminated.

He points out 80% of our immigrants are not in the skilled worker category but, rather, enter or are allowed to stay for humanitarian reasons or because they've been granted refugee status.

Canada needs to update its point system for selecting skilled workers so it better reflects the needs of the labour force, he adds.

In his essay, U. S. academic Vernon Briggs questions the quality of university education in certain immigrant-source countries. Very few Third World nations have elite universities, he writes, noting that only one institution from outside the industrialized world, the State University of Moscow, is on the list of the top 100 universities.

'The only way to ensure that the immigrants chosen will do better is to be more selective,' Briggs writes. 'If Canadian universities chose foreign students the way (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) selected immigrants, half their classes would flunk out.'

Herb Grubel, Fraser Institute senior fellow and co-editor of the book, examines the feasibility of financing social programs like pensions, welfare and health care and concludes that in order to meet such objectives immigration would have to skyrocket to 165 million by 2050. That year alone, we would have to take in seven million immigrants, he says.

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3.
Nearly every young Chinese immigrant in Canada has post-secondary education: study
By Joanne Laucius
The Canwest News Service (Canada), October 3, 2009
http://www.canada.com/Nearly+every+young+Chinese+immigrant+Canada+post+secondary+education+study/2065089/story.html

Ottawa -- Call it the China effect.

An astonishing 88.3 per cent of young Chinese immigrants in Canada go to university - more than double the figure for young Canadians as a whole, according to a new study.

When community college was added to the mix, 98.3 per cent of young Chinese immigrants sought post-secondary education by the time they were 21 years old.

Ross Finnie, an economist at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa, expected the figure to be high. But this was astounding, he said.

``These numbers are so high, they don't even seem possible,'' said Finnie, who crunched the numbers from Canada's sweeping Youth in Transition Survey with co-author Richard Mueller at the University of Lethbridge.

Arthur Sweetman, an economist at Queen's University who has done extensive research on immigrant education and labour force participation, calls them ``Generation 1.5'' - immigrants who came to Canada as children and spend at least some years in the Canadian school system.

Generation 1.5 has been thriving in Canada, despite figures that have suggested for the past 20 years that their parents have suffered in the quest for prosperity, said Sweetman.

``Many immigrants come here for the kids. The kids understand that and they work for it.''

The numbers suggest not just a brain gain for Canada, but the foundation of an entrepreneurial class with schooling in Canada and one foot in another culture.

Winnie Ye came to Canada from China at 14 with only a tenuous grasp of English. By the time she graduated from Ottawa's Glebe Collegiate in 1996, she was the Ottawa public school board's top graduate.

Ye's parents, both university professors in China, urged her to study medicine, but she decided on electrical engineering at Carleton University.

After a string of scholarships, a PhD and a three-year post-doctoral sojourn at MIT and Harvard, Ye was named the Canadian Research Chair in Nano-scale IC Design for Reliable Opto-Electronics and Sensors at Carleton last week.

It's a mouthful - and a prestigious appointment for so young a scientist. Ye designs devices that source, detect and control light and develops biosensor systems, research that will help create new vaccines and drugs.

Now 32, Ye could have remained in the U.S. but opted to return to Canada.

``I have lived in Canada for half my life. Canada is my home,'' she said. ``The government has invested a lot in me.''

Immigrant hustle is nothing new. But the China effect continues into the first generation born in Canada, with 81.3 per cent going to university and 13. 6 per cent going to college, Finnie and Mueller found.

The China effect was the strongest in the study, but it wasn't the only one. First and second-generation immigrants from many parts of the world were more likely to seek post-secondary education than those born in Canada. (In the study, second-generation immigrant refers to a child born in Canada of immigrant parents.)

Just under 38 per cent of non-immigrant youth went to university compared to 57 per cent of all first-generation immigrants and 54.3 per cent of second- generation immigrants, said Finnie, who mined the data from the survey, which asked in-depth questions of 26,000 Canadian young people who were 15 in 1999.

The survey, which is following that same group as they grow up, has some of the richest data in the world, ranging from youth study habits to perceptions of their own self-esteem and the social support they get from family and friends.

The immigrant effect was obvious in youth from a number of regions. More than 90 per cent of immigrants from Asian countries other than China (including India and the Middle East) as well as those from African nations went to university or college.

The study also looked at immigrants from English-speaking nations, as well as western and northern Europe. About 70 per cent of them attend university or college, close to the rate for non-immigrants. The only group less likely to go than non-immigrants were those born anywhere else in the Americas, aside from the United States.

The immigrant thirst for education is often explained by suggesting that high aspirations are nurtured by parents who have high levels of education, says Sweetman. But it's not just the children of people with PhDs.

``There's a bunch of kids from Vietnam and Korea with parents who don't have an education,'' said Finnie. ``They have a culture of fostering education.''

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4.
Afghan translators consider new life in Canada
By Bruce Ward
The Canwest News Service (Canada), October 5, 2009
http://www.canada.com/news/Afghan+translators+consider+life+Canada/2067794/story.html

Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan -- Afghan translators who work for the military and other federal agencies at Camp Nathan Smith are divided about the prospect of fast-track immigration to Canada.

But seemingly all of them are eager to find out more details of the measures announced last month by Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. The special-consideration provisions for the translators are expected to be implemented within the next few weeks.

'They say it's only for those whose lives are in danger, but that is all of us,' said Hassan, who like all interpreters cannot be identified in news reports for their own safety.

'All of our families are in danger from the insurgents, not one interpreter more than others. It's all of us,' he said.

'How do they decide in Ottawa who is in danger, and who is not?'

Kenney's announcement, delivered in the latest quarterly report on the Afghan mission, said that to be fast-tracked through the immigration system 'applicants must demonstrate that they face individualized and extraordinary risk, or have suffered serious injury as a result of their work with the Canadian government.'

Although he will carefully consider Canada's offer when all the details are available, Hassan doe not think he will take the opportunity to emigrate, even if he qualifies.

'I have some friends who have already gone to the United States after the Americans made fast immigration possible for their translators. But life is very hard there. They must work at long hours at low-paying jobs to survive.'

Although dangerous, Hassan's job gives him special status in Afghanistan, where the illiteracy rate is about 85 per cent..

'I speak English and I know computers. Not many in my country have these skills,' said Hassan, who is in his mid-20s. 'In Canada and in America, everybody knows English and computers. It would be much harder there for me to get a good job that pays well.'

Abdul, who is about 20 years older than Hassan, takes a quite different view.

'I would like to go to Canada for my children,' he said. 'I don't want this life for them.'

Abdul learned English while his family was living in Pakistan as he was growing up.

'When I a kid, I was always saying I wanted to go to school. One day my grandfather said to me, 'If you go to our cow in the field, you will get milk. What do you get if you go to school?'

'Things are changing, but that attitude is still not uncommon. I would like a better chance for my kids, so I want to know about everything the Canadian government is offering. But for now, in my heart, I think I will go.'

In his statement, Kenney said the government commends the bravery of the translators and recognizes the price they have paid.

'Their lives and those of their families may be threatened by insurgents, and some have suffered serious injury and can no longer work. To recognize their contribution, we will offer them special consideration if they wish to relocate to Canada.'

Kenney said he expects about 150 translators to apply to come to Canada, but the offer is only good until 2011, when Canada's current military mission in Kandahar comes to an end.

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6.
To Protect Galapagos, Ecuador Limits a Two-Legged Species
By Simon Romero
The New York Times, October 5, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/world/americas/05galapagos.html

Galapagos Islands -- The mounds of reeking garbage on the edge of this settlement 600 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast are proof that one species is thriving on the fragile archipelago whose unique wildlife inspired Darwin's theory of evolution: man.

Tiny gray finches, descendants of birds that were crucial to his thesis, flutter around the dump, which serves a growing town of Ecuadoreans who have moved here to work in the islands' thriving tourism industry.

The burgeoning human population of the Galapagos, which doubled to about 30,000 in the last decade, has unnerved environmentalists. They point to evidence that the growth is already harming the ecosystem that allowed the islands' more famous inhabitants -- among them giant tortoises and boobies with brightly colored webbed feet -- to evolve in isolation before mainlanders started colonizing the islands more than a century ago.

The growth has become enough of a threat to the environment that even the government, which still welcomes growth in the tourism industry, has expelled more than 1,000 poor Ecuadoreans in the past year from a province that they feel is rightfully theirs, and it is in the process of expelling many more.

By limiting the population, officials hope to preserve the natural wonders that bolster one of Ecuador's most profitable sectors: tourism. But the measures are feeding a backlash among unskilled migrants who say they are being punished while the country continues to enjoy the many millions of dollars tourists bring to Ecuador, one of South America's poorest nations.

''We are being told that a tortoise for a rich foreigner to photograph is worth more than an Ecuadorean citizen,'' said Maria Mariana de Reina Bustos, 54, a migrant from Ambato in Ecuador's central Andean valley, whose 22-year-old daughter, Olga, was recently rounded up by the police near the slum of La Cascada and put on a plane to the mainland.

The first settlers came to the islands to live off the land, working as fishermen, ranchers and farmers. Now, most of those who make the short flight from Quito, the capital, or sneak on the islands in boats are lured by different sorts of riches: the relatively high wages they can earn as taxi drivers and hotel maids or workers in the islands' growing bureaucracy.

For decades, the country's leaders did little to prevent people from coming here, partly to build the tourism industry and then to ensure the government had a presence among the pioneers. There seemed to be something of a natural limit on growth: the country had put aside 97 percent of the archipelago as a park.

But as tourism and migration grew over the last decade, pressure began building within the archipelago's scientific and environmental community and abroad for Ecuador to act on curbing the islands' population. The United Nations put the Galapagos on its list of endangered heritage sites in 2007.

Scientists here said people had already done significant damage, pointing to fuel spills, the poaching of giant tortoises and sharks and the introduction of invasive species -- including rats, cattle and fire ants -- that threaten animals endemic to the Galapagos.

Even seemingly benign human activities like owning a pet can have outsize consequences here.

''With people come cats, and with cats come threats to other animals found nowhere else in the world,'' said Fernando Ortiz, coordinator of the Galapagos program for Conservation International.

Conflict is built into the rules that allowed the Galapagos to be colonized in the first place, despite a lack of fresh water in the archipelago. Technically, residency is granted to a limited number of people, including those born here and their spouses, people who arrived before 1998 and those with temporary work permits. The police, known in local slang as the ''migra'' for their role in tracking down illegal migrants, set up impromptu checkpoints throughout the islands. But the same government that oversees the expulsions also offers subsidies to people living on the islands.

One subsidy allows gasoline to cost about the same here as on the mainland. Another allows residents to fly between the islands or to Quito for a fraction of what foreigners pay. Loopholes also flourish. For instance, a black market in residency thrives in which migrants marry established residents to obtain coveted identity cards.

The result: Puerto Ayora's streets beckon with discos, food stands and souvenir shops. On the outskirts, a billboard with the image of Leopoldo Bucheli, the pro-development mayor, celebrates a project called El Mirador that is clearing an area on the edge of town to build 1,000 new homes.

''All we want, like people anywhere on this planet, is a dignified existence,'' said Yonny Mantuano, 36, who bought a lot to build a home at El Mirador. He heads the teachers union here, whose 600 members have chafed at one of the government's new attempts to limit subsidies: a measure this year cutting their cost-of-living bonus.

The government's somewhat schizophrenic view of life here is echoed by the sentiments of the people. Margarita Masaquiza, 45, an Indian from Ecuador's highlands who arrived here at the age of 14, abhors the government's expulsions.

''We built this province with our own hands, so, yes, it pains us to see our countrymen deported like animals,'' Ms. Masaquiza said. ''After all, we are indigenous Ecuadoreans, how can we be illegal in our own country?''

But when asked how she felt about the impact of new migrants on her four children and four grandchildren, Ms. Masaquiza adopted a different tone.

''We must preserve opportunities for our families,'' she said.

Most people in the Galapagos live on San Cristobal, an island where a penal colony functioned decades ago, and Santa Cruz, where Puerto Ayora is located. Development is spreading to other parts of the archipelago, as well.

Isabela, the largest of the islands, offers a glimpse into the Galapagos frontier.

Despite its streets of sand, Puerto Villamil, Isabela's main town, looks not unlike a Phoenix subdivision around 2007. Laborers work feverishly on 200 new cinderblock homes on the town's edge. Only about 2,000 people live in the town, but it has one of the Galapagos's highest rates of population growth, about 9 percent a year.

''I earn $1,200 a month here, while I could only earn $500 a month on the continent,'' said Bolivar Buri, 26, a construction worker born in Puerto Villamil who made a small fortune this year when he sold an empty lot for $8,000 that he bought six years ago for $600.

But even in the archipelago's less spoiled areas, there is little doubt that man's intrusion has altered life on the islands that enraptured Darwin.

On the road from Puerto Villamil to the drizzle-shrouded crater of the Sierra Negra volcano, subsistence hunters on horseback scan the forest for wild pigs, a species introduced by mariners over a century ago. White cattle egrets, another introduced species, fly overhead.

One recent day, Manuel Lopez, a cowboy and migrant from the mainland who tends a herd under the volcano's mist, emerged from a forest thick with guava trees.

He paused under the equatorial sun; his gaze narrowed.

''If it is God's will, I'm on this island to stay,'' said Mr. Lopez, 36.

''We must be in Galapagos for a reason,'' he said, prodding a visitor to reply. ''Yes or no?''

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7.
Baroness Scotland faces questions over housekeeper’s tax affairs
By John Bingham
The Telegraph (U.K.), October 4, 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6259379/Baroness-Scotland-faces-questions-over-housekeepers-tax-affairs.html

The cleaner, a Tongan national who was working illegally in Britain after overstaying by five years on a student visa, claimed that the peer did not give her regular payslips or a formal contract of employment.

She alleged that Lady Scotland, the Government’s chief law officer, only spoke about sorting out her tax affairs when the scandal over MPs expenses broke, following disclosures in the Daily Telegraph.

The peer was fined £5,000 by the UK Border Agency last month for employing the Tongan without keeping records of documents purporting to show that she was entitled to live and work in Britain.

Mrs Tapui-Zivancevic has disclosed that she was paid weekly with a cheque made out to her husband Alexander, a solicitor, as she did not have her own bank account because of her illegal immigration status.

Baroness Scotland has made clear repeatedly that she paid tax and National Insurance contributions for her former housekeeper directly.

But the Mail on Sunday reported that the cleaner’s personal records show that no income tax was deducted from her until the end of the last financial year, in April, by which point she had been working there for 10 weeks.

Although she was well below the £6,035 threshold for the year at that point, HM Revenue and Customs confirmed that it would have been more usual for income tax to have been deducted on a monthly pro-rata basis.

Mrs Tapui-Zivancevic said: 'When the expenses scandal was on TV every day she said: ‘I’ve got to sort out your tax’.'

A spokeswoman for the Attorney General declined to comment on the latest claims.

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8.
MLAs to debate motion on migrants
The BBC News (U.K.), October 5, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/8289579.stm

An assembly motion calling on MLAs to recognise the positive contributions of migrants in NI is to be debated on Monday.

Alliance's Anna Lo is behind the motion which also urges a review of the Migrant Workers Strategy and the return of the Racial Equality Forum.

Ms Lo said it was important all MLAs united to send out a strong message that Northern Ireland is 'anti-racism'.

She said it was 'simply not enough just to condemn racist attacks'.

'This motion will give every MLA the chance to say migrants have a place in the centre of our society,' she added.

'They contribute so much to Northern Ireland both in terms of strengthening our economy but also by providing rich cultural influences.

'I am also calling for the Stormont Executive to review the Migrant Workers Strategy and re-establish the Racial Equality Forum.

'Words come easy and it is through genuine actions like these and through the delivery of the Cohesion, Sharing and Integration Strategy that the Executive can prove they are serious about helping migrants and tackling prejudice.'

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9.
Most minors missing from care in Dublin are Chinese
By Jenny Hauser
The Irish Times, October 5, 2009
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1005/1224255887682.html

Some 80 per cent of minors who are reported missing from State care in Dublin are Chinese teenagers who had sought asylum.

According to the Garda missing persons bureau, 28 Chinese minors have been publicised as missing from the care of the Health Service Executive (HSE) over the past 12 months. Seven other minors were reported missing in the same period: four Africans – from Gambia, Somalia, Togo and Nigeria – an Iraqi, a Bosnian teenager and an Irish child.

Most of the Chinese minors went missing from HSE-funded residences in Ranelagh and South Circular Road, two of 24 children’s care homes used by the health executive in Dublin.

Sgt Michael Kennedy, from the missing persons bureau, said the number of missing teenagers could be significantly higher than the number of publicised cases. 'In certain circumstances it would be reasonable to presume they are being trafficked,' he added.

All cases of minors disappearing from State care are reported to the Garda, but only a portion of them are publicised at the request of the HSE.

All of the minors reported missing had said they were between 14 and 17 years. As they were under age, they had to be granted leave to land and were taken into the care of the HSE.

In a statement, the HSE said: 'Those who go missing are primarily in the 16-17 age bracket, with very few exceptions, and in many cases they abscond very soon after arriving in the country.

'The suspicion is that many of these children who have gone missing may have pre-planned this with persons unknown prior to entering the country.' It said this might be done with the aim of reuniting with their families either in the State or elsewhere in the EU.

In a request for more details about missing minors, a spokesperson for the HSE Dublin Southeast said often 'zero [information] was being created' due to their immediate disappearance.

A spokeswoman for the Immigration Council Ireland said there was no national register of unaccompanied minors with the effect that services and departments were isolated from one another.

Figures obtained last June by Fine Gael immigration and integration spokesman Denis Naughton TD showed 486 children had gone missing in State care since 2000, of whom 425 remained missing.

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10.
Calais migrants to get flight home and £1,900
Hundreds of Afghan migrants will be flown home to Afghanistan from Calais on Tuesday with a £1,900 cash payment paid for by British and French taxpayers.
By Peter Allen in Paris
The Telegraph (U.K.), October 5, 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6263067/Calais-migrants-to-get-flight-home-and-1900.html

As well as a guaranteed place on the plane worth around £500, many of those on board will receive the sum and a guarantee of retraining back in their homeland.

However, there will be nothing to prevent any of them travelling all the way back to France the moment they get to Afghanistan.

It is intended to be the first of many flights which will cost millions of pounds, split between France and Britain.

The aim is to reduce the number of migrants who are massing in Calais, which they use as a springboard to try and get to Britain, where they will claim asylum or disappear into the black economy.

The dramatic development followed last month's clearing of 'The Jungle', a notorious Calais squatter camp which was filled with mainly young men from Afghanistan.

The French immigration minister hailed the raid as an important step in the battle to make the northern port 'watertight' to migrants, but was widely criticised after almost all those arrested were later released.

It now appears that a compromise has been reached with many of them who have agreed to accept the huge cash incentive to go home, even if only briefly. The sums involved are worth hundreds of times more in central Asia than in Britain or France.

The French pulled out of a similar deportation scheme a year ago, with First Lady Carla Bruni among those insisting that it was immoral to send Afghans back to their war-torn country.

But now such arguments appear to have been forgotten, with the first plane – believed to be being supplied by a British firm – taking off from London in the early hours, before stopping to pick up some 250 migrants in Paris.

They will then be flown to Kabul, accompanied by police and security guards – believed to be mainly British as French unions have refused to get involved in the scheme.

Many of the deportees be travelling under the so-called 'Global Calais Scheme', which offers the 2,000 euros in cash. The project was outlined earlier this year by Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, who as state Prefect for the Pas-de-Calais, is the most powerful politician in the region.

He said the cash would 'smooth their passage in their home country and enable each and every one of them to realise their ambitions.'

Mr De Bousquet de Florian added: 'We're trying to open their eyes to the illusion of their wish to go to Great Britain. The United Kingdom is not the Eldorado they believe it to be.

'The solution that we advocate is voluntary repatriation. These people are deluded by the people smugglers whose have an interest in maintaining their illusions. The procedure of voluntary repatriation is not simply to buy an airline ticket for each person.'

French charities reacted with anger to the move, saying that the migrants' human riots would be violated.

In a joint statement, 30 refugee groups, said: 'France and Great Britain will try, like in the month of November 2008, a joint operation. Afghanistan is a country at war. It's unacceptable to send back home those who have fled the country looking for protection in Europe.'

Earlier this year, Phil Woolas, Britain's immigration minister, told MPs that the UK and France were 'assessing the feasibility' of repatriation flights as a way of reducing illegal immigration from France.

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11.
Wilders wants Integration Minister charged
The Radio Netherlands News, October 5, 2009
http://www.expatica.com/nl/news/dutch-news/Wilders-wants-Integration-Minister-charged_56970.html

Geert Wilders hopes to use an archaic law to bring charges against Integration Minister Eberhard van der Laan for failing to answer questions on immigration.

Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) asked the Integration Minister Eberhard van der Laan to calculate the cost to the Netherlands of immigrants per individual. Ministers are constitutionally obliged to honour MP’s requests for information and Van der Laan promised to provide answers for Wilders.

The minister duly provided the Freedom Party with 30 pages of raw data but refused to translate the information into the kind of cost-benefit analysis the Freedom Party wanted. 'We do not keep accounts on the value of human beings,' he stated.

Speaking on Dutch breakfast television on Monday, Wilders said that five Freedom Party MP’s have now written to the speaker of the Lower House calling for an investigation. The Freedom Party wants charges brought against the integration minister based on legislation dating from 1855, which says that ministers have to abide by the constitution and provide information.

Forum, the Institute for Multicultural Development, meanwhile commissioned its own study on the cost of immigration last month from economist Peter Nijkamp at the Free University in Amsterdam, in an attempt to take the wind out of the Freedom Party’s sails. Nijkamp said he was amazed such data should be seen as taboo.

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12.
Unifying Dutch city falls to Muslim mayor
By Henry Chu
The Los Angeles Times, October 4, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-rotterdam-mayor4-2009oct04,0,636055.story

Rotterdam, Netherlands -- The veiled women clutch their children's hands as they scurry past the liquor store, ignoring rows of vodka bottles on their way to the Muslim butcher's next door.

Across the street, male customers emerge from the Climax sex shop with their purchases and quickly stride away without a second glance at the Turkish kebab restaurant just opening for lunch.

The conservative and liberal, religious and secular, Dutch and foreign stand side by side here in Rotterdam, in a contrasting and at times uneasy coexistence where social and cultural middle ground can be elusive.

The job of finding that middle ground has now fallen onto the shoulders of a thoughtful Moroccan-born Muslim who arrived in Rotterdam just nine months ago. His address: the mayor's office.

Ahmed Aboutaleb is the first Muslim immigrant to lead a major Dutch city. The son of an imam, he was appointed mayor of Rotterdam late last year and in January became the official face of the Netherlands' second-largest city.

His is the classic immigrant success story, the saga of a youth who landed in the Netherlands as a teenager, worked hard and climbed the social ladder, first as a journalist, then as a politician in free-wheeling Amsterdam.

But his nomination as mayor by political party leaders in Rotterdam, who sought someone of national stature for the largely ceremonial post, took even seasoned observers by surprise.

This is, after all, a city where the national clash over immigration and integration, particularly of Muslims, has been at its most volatile.

In 2002, Pim Fortuyn, a populist and openly gay politician who slammed Islam as a 'backward' religion, was fatally shot by a white assassin claiming to act in support of the Muslim community.

How the 48-year-old Aboutaleb fares as mayor could well have an effect beyond Rotterdam's borders. With ethnic minorities accounting for almost half its population, the city serves in many ways as a laboratory of demographic change for the rest of the Netherlands, and potentially other parts of Europe.

Thus far into his six-year term, analysts say, the bespectacled Aboutaleb has trod softly, getting a feel for Rotterdam's tricky political landscape. Though he is a member of the city's ruling left-wing Labor Party, as mayor he is supposed to hold himself above party politics.

Within the last several weeks, however, Aboutaleb has said that he intends to step into the debate on integration. Although he has not specified how, it will mean navigating a minefield of competing beliefs, agendas and power plays by politicians, activists and bureaucrats.

'That is quite a risk for him, because if he fails . . . there is nobody above him,' said Rinus van Schendelen, a professor of political science at Rotterdam's Erasmus University.

As mayor, Aboutaleb must gingerly maneuver a cultural war pitting those who believe Dutch liberal, secular society to be under threat from a growing religious minority against others who say that Muslims and other immigrants have been unfairly scapegoated.

Right-wing politicians demanded that Aboutaleb demonstrate his loyalty by giving up his Moroccan passport (he holds dual nationality). Geert Wilders, the country's most inflammatory public figure, declared that Aboutaleb's appointment was 'as ridiculous as appointing a Dutchman as mayor of Mecca.'

Muslims, by contrast, were excited that one of their own had risen so high -- an 'Obama on the Maas,' as some have dubbed him, for the river that runs through Rotterdam.

'I was really happy that he became mayor,' said pharmacist Jilani Sayed, 29. 'A mayor has to hold the city together. He's got the potential to do that.'

The mayor's job is largely ceremonial, with the big exception of public safety and police, which comes under his supervision. But what the post lacks in direct authority it makes up for in influence and longevity.

'After every election, you are the one that stays. . . . So people start trusting you as the consistent part of the city government,' said Marco Pastors, head of Livable Rotterdam, the right-wing party of Fortuyn. 'People look up to you, and when you are looked up to, you have powers.'

Aboutaleb declined requests for an interview. A spokeswoman cited the need for him to stay focused on his duties.

Friends and foes praise him for spending his first months on a listening tour of various neighborhoods, to help damp skepticism over the fact that he comes not just from Morocco but -- as egregious for some -- from Amsterdam, Rotterdam's big rival.

But there have been missteps. Critics questioned an official trip Aboutaleb took to Morocco in June, during which he met the country's foreign minister and appeared to step on the toes of the Dutch central government.

In August, a dance party for thousands of beachgoers devolved into pandemonium and brawls in which one man was killed. The mayor, criticized for not assigning enough police officers to patrol the event, ordered a two-year ban on such parties.

And in a foretaste of the challenges that await in the simmering caldron of immigration issues, the city in August fired integration advisor Tariq Ramadan, a well-known Islamic scholar. City officials said Ramadan's hosting of a show on Iranian state television could be perceived as an endorsement of the regime in Tehran.

Although he had no role in the decision, Aboutaleb expressed support for it. That, in turn, outraged many Muslims here, especially the young, with whom Ramadan was a popular reformist figure.

'Aboutaleb goes with the wind of politics,' said entrepreneur Abdel Hafid Bouzidi, 30, who is of Moroccan descent. 'He goes too much to the right.'

Right-wing politicians certainly laud Aboutaleb for criticizing his own and insist that he keep on doing so.

Before his appointment as mayor, his highest-profile moment came during the national uproar after the 2004 slaying of anti-Islamic filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim extremist who shot him and slit his throat. Speaking at an Amsterdam mosque, Aboutaleb sternly told Dutch Muslims that if they did not subscribe to the Netherlands' values of tolerance and openness, they ought to catch the first plane out.

Pastors, the head of Livable Rotterdam, was a member of the conclave of city leaders who nominated Aboutaleb for mayor, and he took some heat within his party for acceding to the choice.

Now it's time, he said, for Aboutaleb to start speaking out on 'friction points' such as homosexuality and the role of women.

'In that position there are three good opportunities a week to do something about it, and he hasn't,' Pastors said. 'I think it's OK to have the first Muslim mayor [of a major city] in Europe. But let it be somebody that means something to the integration of Muslims in Europe, and not just an able civil servant.'

Aboutaleb has acknowledged the pressure on him, especially from foes 'who expect me to fail.'

'If I can succeed, I will be a key element in persuading immigrant communities that they can have access to power. If I fail, it will have huge consequences for those coming behind me afterwards,' he told a British newspaper soon after taking office.

'My job is to build bridges, and Rotterdam is a good place to do that,' he said.

'This is the city of big projects where the sky is the limit, but also a city with high levels of poverty. My job is to be mayor for everyone, from the businessmen to the kid from Suriname just trying to earn a living.'

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13.
Historian slams Finland's immigration and asylum policies
The Helsinki Times, October 5, 2009
http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/domestic-news/general/8242-historian-slams-finlands-immigration-and-asylum-policies-hs-.html

Timo Vihavainen, a historian, was quoted as saying by national daily Helsingin Sanomat on Sunday that immigration was such a taboo in Finland that any suggestion that migration might have a negative impact on Finland was dismissed as discriminatory.

'We have piously entertained the notion that immigrants will come here only to care the elderly, do other low-pay jobs and serve our consumption society without consuming much themselves,' Dr Vihavainen was quoted as saying.

He went on to criticise Finland's asylum policy as well.

'Political asylum is a right traditionally extended to persecuted people. Likewise of course it is their duty to go back once asylum is no longer required.'

Dr Vihavainen said the fine for incitement to racial hatred imposed on Jussi Halla-aho was 'shocking' and added that his fellow scholar at the University of Helsinki had been ostracised for speaking the truth.

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14.
Experts recommend ‘turbo’ naturalisation for immigrants
The Local (Germany), October 4, 2009
http://www.thelocal.de/society/20091004-22337.html

Germany’s next government should speed up the process for granting citizenship to immigrants, according to a new report by a group of migration experts.

As the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats begin to negotiate the framework of their new coalition on Monday, the report by the advisory board of the German Foundation for Integration and Migration could serve as an important road map for future German immigration policy, the magazine Der Spiegel reported.

'We concentrated on what is politically doable that the new government should absolutely go about doing in the next legislative period,' migration researcher Klaus Bade, who chaired the committee, told Der Spiegel.

The report recommends a 'turbo' naturalisation process for especially well-integrated immigrants that would cut the time needed to acquire a German passport from six to four years. The committee says this option would help raise the falling number of immigrants who choose to apply for citizenship.

The experts also recommend revamping the highly criticised practice of forcing the children of binational couples to choose between German and another citizenship upon reaching adulthood. The panel called the current system unworkable and unnecessary in its present form.

In June, the Federal Statistics Office reported that naturalisations in 2008 had hit their lowest level since 1990, with just 94,500 foreigners taking the oath of citizenship, a drop of over 18,000 from the year before and nearly the half the number in 2000.

The report suggests the new CDU-FDP government build an immigration policy based on three pillars. Firstly, the government should enact a point system with qualitative criteria for immigrants.

Secondly, the point system should take into account labour market shortages and give bonus points to well-educated applicants whose skills are in high demand and expedite their work permits.

And lastly, the report recommends that companies in need of specialised labour be allowed to recruit abroad and bring the workers to Germany quickly and with as little paperwork as possible. To pay for the system and to discourage overuse, companies should pay a one-time fee equal to about 20 percent of the annual salary of the new foreign worker. The fee revenue would be used to train German workers.

'These new ideas would help everyone: the employers who struggle for months for work permits for urgently need specialised labor as well as the less qualified in Germany, whose job chances would climb by receiving more training,' Bade told Der Spiegel.

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15.
Luxembourg minister in Malta for migration talks
The Times of Malta, October 5, 2009
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091005/local/luxembourg-minister-in-malta-for-migration-talks

The Luxembourg Minister of Home Affairs, Jean-Marie Halsdorf, is in Malta for talks on illegal immigration and law enforcement.

He was greeted at the airport this morning by Justice and Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici.

Luxembourg is one of the participating countries in the Frontex mission Nautilus IV, currently based in Malta. It is also one of six EU member states that have so far committed to participate in the European Commission's pilot project to resettle immigrants who were granted protection by Malta.

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Center for Immigration Studies
1522 K St. NW, Suite 820
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076
center@cis.org www.cis.org
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