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Daily news updates from CIS
October 7, 2009
Support the Center for Immigration Studies by donating on line here: http://cis.org/donate
ATTN Federal employees: The Center's Combined Federal Campaign number is 10298.
[For CISNEWS subscribers --
1. Feds to review detention system policies (story, 20 links)
2. Commerce Chief: immigration can rebuild economy
3. SCOTUS to hear two major immigration cases
4. Fed court to hear RI 'profiling' case
5. Study finds economic woes inhibiting assimilation
6. TX DPS recruiting troopers for border duty
7. IN foreign born population shrinking
8. AZ county sheriff loses enforcement tool (story, 6 links)
9. Houston mayor prefers Secure Communities over 287(g)
10. SC county jail to improve enforcement
11. GA county to implement 287(g)
12. CA historical site preserves immigration history
13. Activists prepare for new amnesty push
14. Critics blast Nebraska meatpacking plants
15. KY program aids immigrant entrepreneurs
16. OK YMCA receives grant for citizenship preparation
17. Chicago immigrant activists press city for 'friendly' policies
18. MA professor attacks enforcement policies
19. CO forum to study issue
20. Mexican family thrives at Florida college
21. Zazi bomb plot disclosed as serious threat
22. Details of Texas bomb plot continue to emerge
23. Honduran man jailed for CA hit-and-run
24. TN infant kidnapping victim returned to mother (link)
25. Smugglers moving illegals via jet skis (link)
26. Former CIA informant accused of imm. fraud (link)
27. Former Border Patrol agent admits aiding smugglers (link)
28. Illegal alien gangster admits killing cop, Olympic hopeful (link)
Subscribe to CIS e-mail services here: http://cis.org/immigrationnews.html
-- Mark Krikorian]
1.
Immigration Officials Weigh Less-Restrictive Detentions
By Spencer S. Hsu
The Washington Post, October 7, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/06/AR2009100601639.html
The United States will review the procedures under which it detains about 380,000 illegal immigrants a year, exploring the use of converted hotels and nursing homes as it seeks to transform a prison-based system into one tiered according to the risk posed by individual detainees, Obama administration officials said Tuesday.
Detailing an overhaul announced in August, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and John T. Morton, assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the measures are intended to make the much-criticized, $2.6 billion-a-year immigration detention system safer and more efficient without adding to its costs.
The changes come as advocates for immigrants pressure President Obama to improve detention standards and legalize millions of illegal immigrants. At the same time, Obama has said tough enforcement policies are essential to winning approval from Congress for any deal to grant legal status.
'We accepted that we were going to continue to have -- and increase, potentially -- the number of detainees,' Napolitano said. Among the review's goals, she said, is improving federal oversight of more than 300 local jails, state prisons and private facilities.
By next October, ICE will rank detainees on the basis of flight risk and public danger, set new requirements for detention facilities based on those risk levels and issue bids for two new-model detention centers, Napolitano said.
Morton will meet with contractors this month to explore converting residential facilities to house non-criminal and nonviolent detainees, such as asylum-seekers, which could be cheaper to operate and less restrictive for occupants.
On Sept. 1, ICE housed about 31,075 illegal immigrants. About half of them were felons, of whom 11 percent had committed violent crimes.
Morton said ICE will implement a medical classification system within six months to identify detainees with special health needs.
The agency also vowed to expedite efforts to provide an online detainee-locator system for lawyers, relatives and others, and to provide Congress this fall with a nationwide plan for less restrictive facilities.
In an interview after the news conference, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called the focus on detention misguided, saying that about half of ICE detainees have no criminal record and await deportation for administrative violations.
'It would be more cost-effective to track these individuals with an electronic monitoring device than to build brand-new facilities to detain them,' Schumer said.
Amnesty International, Human Rights First and the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project released statements saying that they were encouraged but that fundamental reforms were still needed, such as guaranteeing the right to a bond hearing.
Julie Myers Wood, who led ICE from 2006 to 2008, warned that less-restrictive detention facilities can be expensive and, because some illegal immigrants may flee, would not have the same deterrent value.
'I certainly want to be supportive of ICE, but it seems a little unrealistic,' Wood said. ICE detention 'is becoming the new drop house,' she said, referring to the temporary quarters where some smugglers drop off their customers before they disperse into the country, and 'that's what smugglers are going to plan on if you set up facilities that are less secure.'
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U.S. plans to overhaul how immigrants are detained
By Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig-detain7-2009oct07,0,430206.story
US to reform immigrant detention
The BBC News (U.K.), October 7, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8292296.stm
Detention Report Calls for Jailing Fewer Aliens
By Mickey McCarter
HS Today, October 7, 2009
http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/10543/128/
Napolitano announces reforms at immigrant detention centers
Humane treatment, cost savings among Napolitano's goals
By Erin Kelly
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), October 7, 2009
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/10/07/20091007ICE-detention1007.html
Federal officials vow to continue immigration enforcement
Federal immigration officials are revamping the nation's immigrant detention system, but warn that immigration law enforcement will continue.
By Alfonso Chardy
The Miami Herald, October 7, 2009
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/southflorida/story/1270175.html
Jailing noncriminal detainees could end
By Lynn Brezosky
The San Antonio Express News (TX), October 7, 2009
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/63639277.html
Report Critical of Scope of Immigration Detention
By Nina Bernstein
The New York Times, October 6, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/us/politics/07detain.html?hp
Feds announce overhaul of immigration detention system
By Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor (McAllen, TX), October 6, 2009
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/immigration-31359-homeland-security.html
More detained immigrants may be released
By Stewart M. Powell
The Houston Chronicle, October 6, 2009
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6655683.html
Illegal immigrants may be held in hotels, nursing homes
Federal officials announce new policy; report suggests linking workplace enforcement and legalization.
By Dena Bunis
The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, CA), October 6, 2009
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/immigration-detention-system-2596192-immigrants-facil
Some illegal immigrants to be held in old hotels, nursing homes
The Obama administration announced new reforms Tuesday aimed at improving the standards of detention facilities for illegal immigrants.
By Daniel B. Wood
The Christian Science Monitor, October 6, 2009
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/1007/p02s10-ussc.html
Feds to Revamp Immigrant Detention System
New Policy to Shift From Prison Model, Classify Detainees by Risk
By Devin Dwyer
The ABC News, October 6, 2009
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/feds-classify-house-illegal-immigrant-detainees-risk/story?id=8766068
DHS announces immigration detention reforms
By Katherine McIntire Peters
The Government Executive, October 6, 2009
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=43754&dcn=todaysnews
US to overhaul policy of jailing immigrants
Agence France Presse, October 6, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hHUBXebY9QwBmiltGne-1HQwGHdg
U.S. to house detained migrants in converted hotels
By Tim Gaynor
Reuters, October 6, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5955OL20091006
US announces reforms of immigration detention centres
Deutsche Presse Agentur, October 6, 2009
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/288999,us-announces-reforms-of-immigration-detention-centres.html
Hotels eyed as immigrant detention centers
United Press International, October 6, 2009
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/10/06/Hotels-eyed-as-immigrant-detention-centers/UPI-97681254846255/
New Detention Policies to Classify Status of Illegal Immigrants
The Voice of America News, October 6, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-06-voa21.cfm
'Sweeping' Changes In Detention System For Immigrants Due Today
By Mark Memmott
The NPR News, October 6, 2009
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/10/sweeping_changes_in_detention.html
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2.
Commerce chief: Immigrants can rebuild country
By Niraj Warikoo and Kathleen Gray
The Detroit Free Press, October 7, 2009
http://www.freep.com/article/20091007/BUSINESS06/910070311/1322/Commerce-chief--Immigrants-can-rebuild-country
Speaking in Dearborn on Tuesday to about 60 Arab-American and religious leaders, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said that metro Detroiters with roots in the Middle East can help grow the economy but sometimes face problems with discrimination.
Drawing upon his experiences as the son of Chinese immigrants, Locke said, 'We are all immigrants except for the Native Americans ... America owes a great debt to Arab-Americans and people of the Islamic faith.'
Noting that many Arab-Americans are small-business owners, Locke said: 'We need to unleash the power of entrepreneurs.'
To that end, Locke unveiled the department's first-in-the-nation 'Commerce Connection' office, a one-stop shop in Plymouth for businesses to access all the federal government has to offer, from research and development tools to grants and to licensing assistance.
'Too few businesses actually know of the existence of some of our programs, because you needed a GPS system to navigate the federal bureaucracy,' Locke said.
Shereef Akeel, an Arab-American attorney who attended the event, said racial profiling 'created a climate of fear' that affects the economic activity of Arab-Americans.
Locke replied: 'You're quite right ... there is a lot of stereotyping going on.' He said the behavior hurts economic development.
Locke's visit was the latest in a string of meetings with Arab-Americans in Dearborn with department heads in the Obama administration.
He also met with the Midwest Governors Association and said the administration's focus is on economic recovery that includes more jobs.
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3.
Immigration issues to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court
By Elizabeth Stull
The Daily Record (Rochester, NY), October 6, 2009
http://www.nydailyrecord.com/login.cfm?forward=/item.cfm?recID=24340&CFID=13453053&CFTOKEN=86220928 [Subscription]
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hear oral arguments in two significant immigration cases during its fall session, which began Monday.
The case of Padilla v. Kentucky, scheduled for Oct. 13, will address whether attorneys have an obligation to advise foreign-born defendants of the impact of a guilty plea on immigration status.
The second case, Kucana v. Holder, addresses whether federal appeals courts may review certain decisions by the Board of Immigration Appeals. Kucana is on the Nov. 10.
Margaret Catillaz, who Harter Secrest & Emery LLP's immigration law practice and is a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the cases are being 'looked at with great interest' by her colleagues.
The fact pattern in Padilla is not unusual, she said.
In that case, a man who had lived in the United States for 40 years was charged with selling a marijuana. He was told that pleading guilty would not affect his immigration status, but in fact it did.
The standards for what constitutes effective assistance of counsel vary from state to state.
Defense attorneys in New York are expected to advise their clients when a guilty plea could affect immigration status as a collateral consequence, according to Robert Kolken, a partner in the Buffalo firm of Kolken and Kolken Attorneys at Law.
In New York, a defendant who is misadvised about the immigration consequences of a plea may seek to vacate the conviction if he was prejudiced by the misadvice, Kolken said.
In People v. MacDonald, 2003 N.Y. Int. 0135 (Nov. 24, 2003), the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that a court may vacate a conviction and sentence based on ineffective assistance of counsel under Criminal Procedure Law §440.10(1)(h). The defendant must state that he would not have pleaded guilty but for his attorney's advice.
Kolken said he has two pending cases that will be directly affected by the outcome of Padilla.
'It opens up a bit of a can of worms, because there's a lot of collateral consequences to a plea of guilty,' Kolken said.
Even so, he said defense attorneys should find out whether their clients are U.S. citizens and seek help from an immigration attorney in order to advise them appropriately.
'It doesn't take much to make a call to an immigration attorney, to find out whether or not a plea will result in an automatic deportation,' Kolken said.
Many minor offenses that do not involve moral turpitude or an intentional act do not result in deportation. But crimes classified as aggravated felonies - the sale of a small amount of marijuana, for example - can result in automatic deportation for a first offense.
'Kucana'
Kucana also could have a broad impact on immigrants' rights to seek judicial review of deportation decisions, Catillaz said.
Kucana is unusual because the government agrees with the petitioner, she said.
In that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the federal courts may not review motions to reopen a matter in which the Board of Immigration Appeals has denied the motion.
Contrary to all of the other circuit courts, the Seventh Circuit claimed it had no jurisdiction to review denials of motions to reopen, under the Immigration and Nationality Act §242, because it is a discretionary matter under agency regulations.
A white paper by the American Immigration Law Foundation's Legal Action Center states that a 2005 law expanded the jurisdiction of the appeals courts in these matters.
The REAL ID Act of 2005 purported to eliminate habeas corpus review of final removal and deportation decisions. But the law gave the courts of appeals jurisdiction to review legal and constitutional issues involved in removals based on a criminal offense or discretionary decision, the AILF paper states, citing INA §242(a)(2)(D); 8 U.S.C. §1252(a)(2)(D).
If the Supreme Court upholds the Seventh Circuit's decision it could strip the Second Circuit, and other federal courts, of their ability to review such cases.
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4.
Appeals court sets arguments in traffic stop alleged to be racially motivated
The Associated Press, October 7, 2009
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/northeast/view/20091007appeals_court_sets_arguments_in__traffic_stop_alleged_to_be_racially_motivated/srvc=home&position=recent
Providence (AP) -- A federal appeals court is hearing arguments this week over a highway traffic stop of Guatemalan nationals that civil rights advocates said was racially motivated.
The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has scheduled arguments for Thursday morning, 10 months after a federal judge in Rhode Island dismissed a lawsuit that called the 2006 stop unconstitutional.
A state trooper in July 2006 pulled over a van of more than a dozen Guatemalan nationals after the driver switched lanes without signaling. The trooper asked for identification from the van’s passengers, who were later escorted to a federal immigration office in Providence, where they were detained.
U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi ruled in December that the trooper was justified in seeking identification paperwork and immigration documents.
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5.
Immigrants Assimilating More Slowly Than in Past, Due to Recession, Study Says
By Adam Brickley
The CNS News, October 7, 2009
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/55078
The economic downturn has contributed to the slowdown of the rate of immigration and – and has impacted how well immigrants are assimilating into American society, according to a study released Monday by the Manhattan Institute.
'What this recession is doing, is . . . increasing the likelihood that immigrants now in the United States will return home,' Duke University economist Jacob Vigdor said at a news conference Monday. 'With the increased prospects of returning home, the incentive for immigrants to learn English has declined.'
Vigdor, the author of the report, said that average immigrant growth since 1970 had been in the range of 3 percent to 4 percent, but between 2006 and 2007 it declined to only 1.4 percent. In 2007, the foreign-born population increased by only 500,000, as compared to 2.1 million in 2006. The economy slowed immigration rates, and caused a decline in cultural and civic assimilation.
Cultural assimilation is defined as proficiency in using English, intermarriage with native-born Americans, marital status, and number of children. The primary factor in determining civic assimilation is naturalized citizenship. Economic assimilation is defined by several factors that determine immigrants’ 'productive contributions to society,' Vigdor said.
A composite assimilation index, which combines the civic, cultural, and economic indexes, showed that, overall, today’s immigrants are assimilating slower than their counterparts in the year 1900.
The study also found that today’s immigrants have reasonably good English skills on average – but there are some wide variations within immigrant groups.
'Those who arrive without knowing English, although they’re a smaller proportion of the immigrant population overall, are taking a longer time to learn than immigrants of a hundred years ago,' Vigdor said.
English skills for Mexicans immigrants, the least assimilated ethnic group, are worse than the for the immigrant population as a whole, though there is some evidence that their rate of English acquisition may be higher.
'The English skills of newly arrived immigrants from Mexico are relatively poor,' he said. However, he also noted that, 'if you compare them to historical counterparts, though, they’re not completely unprecedented. The English skills of immigrants who arrived between 1896 and 1900 were also relatively poor.'
Still, Vigdor said, 'there is definitely a contrast between immigrants from Mexico and the rest of the modern immigrant population.'
Relative to Mexican immigrants, for instance, Vietnamese immigrants arrived with the linguistic advantage of knowing more English than most Mexican immigrants and have maintained that advantage over time.
Changes in policy have placed new hurdles on path to citizenship but immigrants remain just as likely to pursue naturalization are ever. However, illegal immigrants are a clear exception to the pattern.
Again, comparing different immigrant groups showed vastly different naturalization rates, Vigdor said.
'Amongst (Vietnamese immigrants), who are largely political refugees and from a poor country, the rate of naturalization over time is very high,' he said. 'If you look at those Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in the United States in the late 1970s, over 90 percent of them have become naturalized citizens by 2007.'
However, among Mexicans, the citizenship picture is quite different.
'Among Mexican immigrants who arrived in the late 1970s, even by 2007, less than half of them have become naturalized citizens,' Vigdor said. 'That reflects, in part, the fact that many of these Mexican immigrants are in the country illegally.'
One other striking finding, he added, is that the study found that many of those Mexican immigrants who had the ability to become naturalized Americans, chose not to.
'Many of these early Mexican immigrants would have been eligible for amnesty under IRCA (the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986), but even taking this into consideration, the naturalization rates of Mexican immigrants are low,' Vigdor added.
The study also found that there aren’t a lot of immigrants waiting to age 50 become citizens, even though long-time permanent residents become eligible to take a citizenship test in their native language after that age. .
'Overall, while there is a tendency for older immigrants to be more likely to be naturalized, there is no spike at age 50,' Vigdor said. 'There’s more of a smoother relationship between age and naturalization. So, the conclusion that I take away from this is that there is not a large group of immigrants who would really love to become citizens but don’t want to learn English. Those immigrants who are interested in citizenship, by and large, will be interested in learning English.'
The assimilation study is based on a combination of Census Bureau data and the annual American Community Survey. It measures the degree of similarity or distinction between the native-born and foreign-born populations of the United States on a zero to 100 scale. The index is recalculated annually with up-to-date data.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Manhattan Institute report is available online at: http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_59.htm
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6.
DPS Looking To Recruit Troopers For Border Patrol
By Diane Tuazon
The KWES News (Midland, TX), October 6, 2009
http://www.newswest9.com/Global/story.asp?S=11269165
Midland, TX -- Patrolling the Texas-Mexico border has always been a dangerous challenge, but for the Department of Public Safety in Midland, they're recruiting more troopers; ones that will be assigned specifically to work those Texas borders.
'Our main focus is to patrol rural highways. We've been shifting to keeping violence on the other side of the border,' Corporal Shanna Malone said.
Malone says so far she's seen a good response with people interested in the job.
'I've been contacted by different people who are interested in joining the academy,' Malone said.
Some citizens agree, saying that the increase in security on the border is highly needed.
'A lot of people come illegally and risk their lives not making it all the way across the field. I hope this works and that they do well patrolling,' Midland Resident, Gabby Reyes, said.
Those who are chosen for the job will have to take a 10 week class in Austin. Once they pass the class, they'll sign a two year contract to work at a border station.
'It's being offered to experience law enforcement and their obligation is border stations. We have 37 border stations needing to be secured,' Malone said.
'It's a risky job, but I'd probably feel a lot safer hopefully if they do their job right,' Reyes said.
DPS officials say finding extra troopers to help keep our borders safe may take some time, but will benefit in the long run.
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7.
Foreign-born population falls
Exodus of Hispanic students seems to have slowed
By Angela Mapes Turner
The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN), October 7, 2009
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091007/LOCAL/310079965/1002/LOCAL
West Noble schools conducted an unusual collection drive in March: They gathered books and letters for Hispanic students educated in American schools but whose families were prompted by the recession to return to Mexico.
The recipients, Jose and Lisbeth, were among dozens of immigrants who left Noble County during winter and spring because of Noble County’s rising unemployment, alarming local schools and businesses.
The exodus the school district saw during the winter break slowed to a trickle over the summer, West Noble administrators said.
'We were extremely pleased with enrollment numbers at the beginning of this year,' said West Noble Elementary Assistant Principal Candice Holbrook, the district’s English as a New Language director.
But the numbers have only held steady – not bounced back – and are symptomatic of what’s happening across the state, according to recent census data.
Indiana’s foreign-born population decreased by nearly 3 percent from 2007 to 2008 as the recession, which began in December 2007, devastated the manufacturing-dependent Hoosier job market.
Overall, the foreign-born population in the U.S. dropped slightly last year for the first time in nearly four decades, the data said.
Enrollment of Hispanic students did bounce back in Fort Wayne. Fort Wayne Community Schools, which has the largest population of Hispanic students in Allen County, lost 20 Hispanic students during the first semester of last school year.
But the district’s enrollment of Hispanic students today is up nearly 90 students since January, spokeswoman Krista Stockman said.
Of course, not all Hispanic students are immigrants, although in West Noble’s case, a large number are. Many also are U.S. citizens, a generation or two removed from their ancestral homelands.
Expert opinion is mixed as to whether the total decreased because immigrants are leaving or because fewer are arriving. When it comes to illegal immigration, it’s difficult to know how many are leaving because no one can say how many were here.
The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration policies, estimates the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. has declined by 11 percent through May 2008 after peaking in August 2007. That amounts to 1.3 million fewer immigrants, a report by the center said.
But the Pew Hispanic Center says the return flow of immigrants to Mexico from the U.S. appears to have been stable since 2006. That non-partisan research institute also points out that U.S. Border Patrol data show fewer Mexicans trying to cross into the United States illegally.
The schools are probably as good an indicator as any of the exodus, said Gilberto Pérez Jr., director of the Northeastern Center’s Bienvenido Program, a mental health program for Hispanic immigrants based in Goshen. Perez said he’s noticed a decrease in the number of young men and young families coming into his programs.
In March, The Journal Gazette reported that the recession and crackdowns on illegal immigration had prompted immigrants to leave. Their absence was especially noticeable in the small city of Ligonier, where the West Noble School Corp. in 2007 had the highest percentage of limited-English-speaking students in the state.
After the economic markets’ collapse in September 2008, West Noble began noticing immigrant families uprooting and moving – if not back to Mexico, where most of Noble County’s immigrants are from, then somewhere else.
By March, the school district had lost about 50 Hispanic students. At West Noble Elementary, the equivalent of an entire class – 20 students – was gone.
One was second-grader Lisbeth, whose mother told West Noble staff she’d been placed in a first-grade class at her Mexican school because she doesn’t read or write Spanish.
'Lisbeth misses her teachers,' she and her brother, Jose, wrote in a letter to West Noble staff in March. 'Our school in Mexico doesn’t compare even a little bit to yours.'
EDITOR'S NOTE: The American Community Survey can be found online at: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/
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8.
Arpaio vows to press on with immigrant sweeps
By JJ Hensley
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), October 7, 2009
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/10/07/20091007Arpaio2871007.html
Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday promised that his deputies will continue to enforce immigration law despite the lack of a contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that authorizes immigration enforcement on the streets and in the jails.
The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote today on a new agreement that would authorize deputies to continue an immigration-enforcement program in Maricopa County jails.
However, Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox said Tuesday that she would ask the board to table the vote until federal immigration officials signed off on the agreement, in accordance with county policy.
'There's a possibility it could get continued,' she said. 'It's probably 50-50 right now.'
Arpaio said he would continue enforcing immigration law on the streets thanks to an opinion from County Attorney Andrew Thomas that allows suspected illegal immigrants to be charged as co-conspirators in their own smuggling. Sheriff's officials said deputies also would rely on a provision of the federal criminal code that allows local law enforcement to detain someone for 'brief warrantless interrogation' where circumstances indicate the person could be in the country illegally.
'I am free of the federal government,' Arpaio said.
The decision to remove part of an agreement that authorized street-level immigration enforcement from deputies but allow such enforcement to continue in the jails was a political ploy from Washington, D.C., Arpaio said.
A local ICE spokesman said the agreement Arpaio signed was pending until the Oct. 15 signing deadline.
Since 2007, the Sheriff's Office has operated under an umbrella agreement authorizing the street-level enforcement and jail operations, but ICE officials announced in July that all the contracts with local law-enforcement agencies were under review. Federal officials have come under pressure from civil-rights, labor, religious and pro-immigrant groups to end the program, known as 287(g), because of racial-profiling fears.
Arpaio said he was prepared to sign a new umbrella agreement, which stressed a focus on enforcing immigration laws only in cases of serious crimes. But an ICE official presented the sheriff with a contract that would authorize the operations only in the jails.
A canvass of agencies in the U.S. with both street-level and jail-enforcement agreements indicated that ICE's decision to remove the street-level provision with the Sheriff's Office was unique.
At a news conference Tuesday, Wilcox and local immigration leaders called for the federal government to abolish the local-enforcement agreements altogether.
'Immigration laws are complex,' said Danny Ortega, board chairman of the National Council of La Raza. 'ICE should be in the jails doing that job.'
The two arms of the ICE agreement have yielded results that vary widely, with the jail operation detaining nearly 30,000 suspected illegal immigrants and deputies on the streets arresting about 1,900 suspected illegal immigrants who aren't suspected of other crimes.
The agreement Arpaio signed means deputies shouldn't be able to conduct immigration screenings on the street and will have to take suspects to ICE, where federal agents can determine if the people meet the criteria for detention and removal.
Arpaio vowed to continue the crime-suppression operations, promising a sweep in two weeks.
The interaction with ICE during the last sweep could give insight into the practical impact of Arpaio losing the street-level agreement. When sheriff's posse members and deputies descended on Chandler in July, federal immigration agents would not take custody of nine suspected illegal immigrants who were not suspected of other crimes.
The new ICE task-force agreement includes provisions that detail the types of immigrants and severity of crimes agents should target, starting with offenses such as murder and kidnapping in Level 1; moving to property crimes in Level 2 and leaving a broad category of undefined 'other offenses' in Level 3.
Republican U.S. Rep. Trent Franks from Arizona and Texas Rep. Lamar Smith issued a statement supporting Arpaio's theory that the ICE agreement was political.
'Instead of launching a politicized attack against a local law official who has yielded great success with the 287(g) program, the Obama Administration should replicate the success we have experienced in Maricopa County in other areas that are desperately in need of similar solutions,' the joint statement read.
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Arizona Sheriff's Powers Cut
By Miriam Jordan
The Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125487274278469239.html
Feds limit Arizona sheriff's immigration powers
By Jacques Billeaud
The Associated Press, October 7, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4nY72M0hFVOHUzIrqYpD67DoBxgD9B5TRFG0
Sheriff Joe, Napolitano face off over illegal immigration
By Javier Soto
AZ Family, October 7, 2009
http://www.azfamily.com/news/Sheriff-Joe-Napolitano-face-off-over-illegal-immigration-63668757.html
Arpaio: Crime Sweeps Will Continue
By Sarah Buduson
The KPHO News (Phoenix), October 7, 2009
http://www.kpho.com/news/21224150/detail.html
Immigration Hard-Liner Has His Wings Clipped
By Randal C. Archibold
The New York Times, October 6, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/us/07arizona.html
Feds strip Arpaio of immigration authority
By Gary Grado
The East Valley Tribune (Phoenix), October 6, 2009
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/145445
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9.
White steering clear of 287(g) concept
By Susan Carroll
The Houston Chronicle, October 7, 2009
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/immigration/6655736.html
Mayor Bill White is distancing himself from a controversial federal program that trains local law enforcement to identify suspected illegal immigrants, saying this week that he favors an automated immigration screening program in the city's jails.
This spring, after a Houston Police Department officer was critically injured in a shooting by an illegal immigrant, White formally requested that Department of Homeland Security officials expedite his request that the city participate in the 287(g) program, which would train jailers to act as de-facto immigration agents.
ICE officials announced in July that HPD had been accepted into the program. But since then, the city and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been locked in protracted negotiations over a range of issues related to the program, from how it should be administered to which agency should shoulder the costs.
White, who is running for U.S. Senate, now appears to be backing away from the program, saying ICE officials were 'bureaucratic' in the negotiations. Vincent Picard, an ICE spokesman, declined comment on the Houston negotiations.
'Rather than letting us simply write the agreements on our own terms, they want to put language in there that we object to,' White said. 'We don't want anything that creates obligations on the part of the city, or that would be inconsistent with our policies not to divert patrol officers from solving crimes.'
White said this week that he has not eliminated the possibility of participating in 287(g) on the city's terms, but would prefer to participate in another ICE program instead. That program, 'Secure Communities,' gives local law enforcement agencies access to a massive immigration database to check suspects' immigration history.
White said that unlike 287(g), the Secure Communities program would require 'no special agreement' with DHS or cost nearly as much. City officials had estimated 287(g) would cost an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million a year to operate and require training for 22 police officers and two supervisors in Houston's jails.
However, the city so far lacks the technical capability to directly access ICE's immigration database. White said he plans to have the technical problems resolved before the end of year, when he leaves office. Immigration screening in the city jails likely will be a key issue for Houston's mayoral candidates, who are vying to replace White in January.
White is expected to take some heat for backing off of 287(g), which is under review by DHS and has sparked protests locally and nationally. The program has been criticized by some members of Congress and immigrant advocates as being vulnerable to racial profiling and lacking oversight by ICE.
Locally, the program's opponents praised the mayor's decision. Cesar Espinosa, a Houston immigrant advocate who has organized protests against the program, said he was 'definitely happy' that the mayor was shying away from having city's jailers trained as immigration agents, calling 287(g) 'flawed.'
Some supporters of the program expressed dismay but not surprise about the mayor's position, accusing him of playing politics.
'I didn't think he meant it out of the shoot,' Larry Youngblood, a member of Texans for Immigration Reform, said of White's request last spring. 'He's pretty much a political animal.'
Spurred by shooting
White denied politics played a factor in his decision.
He said he realized after the March shooting of HPD Officer Rick Salter, who was critically injured by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record, that the city needed better access to suspects' immigration records.
White said he would have preferred for the city to just have access to the government's immigration database last spring, but was told by DHS officials that he would need to sign up for 287(g) in order to use the database.
The city's goal from the start was to target 'noncitizens who have committed violent crimes, serious property crimes and serious narcotics crimes' and ensure they are deported after coming into the jails, White said. He stressed that the city never intended to go after minor offenders.
Youngblood said the added manpower from 287(g) is needed to help target dangerous offenders at HPD's jails.
'It's not about mowing the grass,' he said. 'It's about crime. If they show up in our city jail, or they're arrested at an accident scene, they need to be deported.'
White said the city has allowed ICE agents full access to the city's jails since 2006. Suspects who are charged with Class B misdemeanors and more serious crimes already are screened against immigration databases because they are transferred to the custody of the Harris County Sheriff's Office, which participates in Secure Communities and 287(g).
Espinosa said immigrant advocates will monitor the city's planned participation in the Secure Communities program with the goal of ensuring that it does not lead to racial profiling or the deportation of people who are accused of minor crimes.
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10.
County jail to start 'more efficient way' to process illegal immigrants
By Hatzel Vela
The WCSC News (Charleston, SC), October 7, 2009
http://www.live5news.com/Global/story.asp?S=11270555
North Charleston, SC -- While the federal government tries to change the way illegal immigrants are deported, a local jail is grappling with how to better process those inmates.
The Charleston County Detention Center is the only jail facility in the state authorized to hold illegal immigrants who are being detained by Immigration Customs Enforcement.
In the current policy, booking officers have to ascertain if a detainee was born in a foreign country. If so, they have to send ICE an e-mail with the detainees' information.
ICE then investigates if the detainee is here legally. If they're not in the country legally, an ICE agent has to process them.
''They're going to stay here, go to court. If they get a prison sentence, they go to prison. When they complete the prison sentence then they would be deported. But nobody gets a ticket out of the country charged with crime just because you're an illegal alien,' said Chief Deputy Mitch Lucas said.
But once the new jail opens in March 2010, the system will change, Lucas said.
Twelve booking officers will be trained to directly tap into an immigration database to see if any foreign born inmate is here illegally.
It's a more efficient process that will save everyone time, Lucas said.
If they find out a detainee is here illegally, ICE would have to process them and pay the county $55 every day they stay at the Charleston County Detention Center.
The cost to hold any inmate on a daily basis is $12, Lucas said.
Lucas, who has been the detention center's administrator for four years, said he has seen a steady rise in the number of illegal immigrants who end up in jail.
This reflects the growing illegal immigration problem around the country, he said.
It also emphasizes the fact that immigrants who were victimized and once scared to report crime because of their own immigration status are now reporting crime more often, Lucas added.
'Having access to these ICE databases will help us keep the jail safe by being able to classify people appropriately but also help us get the most violent types off the streets of Charleston and into the ICE system and hopefully deported,' Lucas said.
Lucas admits holding these inmates doesn't help alleviate the overcrowding, which currently plagues the county detention center and forced the county to spend $100 million on a new facility, which is two-and-half times the size of the old jail.
The jail's main building was built to hold more than 660 inmates, but Tuesday's count was about 16,000.
Even though overcrowding is a problem, Lucas said Charleston County Sheriff Al Cannon feels these detainees need to be held somewhere.
If they're illegal, they broke the law and need to be in jail, Lucas said.
Law enforcement shouldn't pick and choose who they hold in jail, he added.
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11.
287(g) moves forward
Deputies will begin deportation training
By Camie Young
The Gwinnett Daily Post (GA), October 7, 2009
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/main.asp?SectionID=6&subsectionID=84&articleID=65431
Lawrenceville, GA -- Gwinnett deputies will leave next week for training on beginning deportation proceedings of illegal immigrants, after commissioners approved an agreement with the federal government Tuesday.
'We have such a large population of illegal aliens from countries around the world living here,' Sheriff Butch Conway said in a statement. 'Now, we will have an avenue when someone is arrested to check their immigration status and place a hold on them for deportation if they are not here legally.'
The 287(g) program is expected to cost about $971,800 in 2009.
Tracy Blagec, a leader with Atlantans Building Leadership for Empowerment, said she was disappointed by the decision. She said she is concerned that the program will exacerbate an already existing racial profiling problem in the county.
'I think the community is going to be very disappointed,' she said, adding that the financially struggling government could afford the program. 'It bodes very poorly for Gwinnett.'
Blagec said her group would continue to lobby federal officials to try to halt the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program.
Chairman Charles Bannister said he was glad to see the much-debated and locally popular program move forward.
'It's what everybody thinks we ought to be doing,' he said, adding that he was also concerned about the costs.
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12.
In immigration debate, the writing’s on the wall
By Tamara Barak Aparton
The San Francisco Examiner, October 7, 2009
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/In-immigration-debate-the-writings-on-the-wall-63654722.html
As the immigration debate rages on national talk shows and at Board of Supervisors meetings, Angel Island is injecting history into the conversation.
Often referred to as the 'Ellis Island of the West,' the century-old U.S. Immigration Station on Angel Island is one of 13 museums taking part in a program launched last week that grapples with issues of citizenship and identity.
The program — 'Face to Face: Immigration Then and Now' — doesn’t advocate for particular policies, but each museum exhibit is set up to encourage visitors to discuss with each other issues surrounding immigration and health care, labor and history.
Angel Island’s exhibit is the nearly 100-year-old poetry of hundreds of mostly Chinese immigrants etched into the walls of the detention buildings. The putty used to cover the writings has shrunk through the years, laying bare tales of hope, despair, deportation and life in limbo, said Dave Matthews, Angel Island park superintendant.
'The walls literally talk to us and tell us the immigrant experience. It’s like the Facebook of the early 1900s,' he said.
The exhibit doesn’t shy away from the darker aspects of Pacific migration, including unconstitutional Chinese exclusion laws stemming from Americans’ fear that immigrants would take their jobs.
The national project, organized by International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, also includes museums like the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Mich., the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle and the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and Ellis Island in New York.
'The immigration debate you see on TV or in the town hall meetings is very divisive and tends to leave out history and what we’ve learned from the past,' said Bix Gabriel, director of communications for International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. 'Museums are about bringing everyday people together to talk about the larger issues.'
The program is being launched as the issue of immigration takes center stage in San Francisco. Legislation approved by the Board of Supervisors Public Safety Committee on Monday would prevent local law enforcement from releasing illegal immigrant youths arrested on felony charges to federal immigration officials unless they are convicted. Mayor Gavin Newsom opposes the legislation.
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13.
The Question Remains
Immigration is coming back as an issue. And supporters of immigration say they are learning from their last defeat.
By Arian Campo-Flores
Newsweek, October 6, 2009
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216812
As Rep. Joe Wilson illustrated with his 'You lie!' outburst during President Barack Obama's speech to Congress, the illegal-immigration issue remains as hot as ever. Lou Dobbs still fulminates about it most evenings on CNN. Conservative talk-radio hosts descended on Washington, D.C., last month for a 'Hold Their Feet to the Fire' gathering, aimed at lobbying against 'amnesty' for illegal immigrants. On the other side, the United We DREAM Coalition organized 125 events around the country a few weeks ago in support of a law that would legalize certain undocumented high-school graduates.
Today's news may be dominated by the health-care debate, but a new battle over immigration reform looms ahead. As Obama repeated yet again last month, in an interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, 'I am not backing off one minute from getting this done.' He has appointed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to spearhead the administration's effort. Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Luis Gutierrez are separately crafting bills that would address the key components of immigration reform: border enforcement, employer crackdowns, temporary work visas, and a path to citizenship for the undocumented. (The latter bill is expected to be introduced in the House later this month.)
Given the conservative rage that flared up at town-hall meetings in August, this might not seem like the most hospitable climate in which to tackle such a toxic issue. Yet pro-immigrant groups insist that this may well be their moment. After their unsuccessful attempt to get legislation passed in 2007, they regrouped, studied what went wrong, and hatched a new approach. 'The advocacy groups fighting for comprehensive reform will be better organized and more effective' this time around, says Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C.
Two years ago, those advocates thought it was their time then. President George W. Bush supported an immigration overhaul that included a path to citizenship for the undocumented, and Democrats had just gained control of Congress. But the effort collapsed in the face of a furious grassroots rebellion over supposed amnesty provisions and opposition from most Republicans and some centrist Democrats. In the eyes of the antilegalization folks, the revolt was widespread. Americans 'are just generally opposed to rewarding people who broke the law,' says Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a group that advocates reduced immigration.
The bill's backers, on the other hand, believe they failed because of a small but effective adversary, and because of their own missteps. 'We thought we were in a policy debate, and it turned out we were in … a political struggle colored by a culture war,' says Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a pro-immigration organization. He concedes that his side underestimated the ferocity of the opposition to reform, even though they knew that immigration has always stirred deep divisions. 'Politicians were afraid of the anti-immigrant forces and not afraid of the base in favor of immigration reform,' says Sharry. In addition, that base suffered from internal rifts, including one between business groups that backed temporary worker visas and labor unions that opposed them. Leaders also wasted too much energy shoring up their own supporters instead of winning new ones, says the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which includes 25,000 Latino evangelical churches. 'I spent more time reaffirming people we already had on our side, rather than meeting with [moderate] Blue Dog Democrats or Republicans.'
Yet conditions seem just as hostile today, if not more so. 'The angry right is more angry now than they were two years ago,' says Rosenberg. They're livid over the battered economy, over Democratic dominance in Washington, over the health-care fight. 'We all know that if and when this heats up, the other side will go absolutely ballistic,' says Sharry. 'It will make the town-hall meetings look amateurish.' The spectacle of right-wing upheaval worries Rodriguez. 'If [Fox News's] Glenn Beck wants to incorporate an anti-immigrant plank within the tea party movement, we are in bad shape,' he says.
Despite all this, proponents of comprehensive reform point to some encouraging developments. For one thing, polling continues to show that a majority of Americans support a package that combines stricter enforcement of immigration laws with legalization of undocumented workers, provided they meet certain requirements. According to a Pew Research Center poll released in May, 63 percent of respondents supported a pathway to citizenship. Obama is also a more committed ally than Bush was, advocates say, and Democrats have firmer control of Congress. Moreover, Latino voters are feeling much more empowered after the 2008 elections. 'Forty-four electoral votes went blue because of the Latino and immigrant vote in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Florida,' says Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigration group (though the claim is impossible to verify, higher turnout and stronger Democratic support among Hispanics undoubtedly contributed to Obama's victory in those states). Now, Noorani and others argue, it's time for the Democrats to deliver.
But the pro-immigration forces know better than to take anything for granted this time. They're organizing grassroots activists to counter their opponents' arsenal: their databases of supporters, letter-writing campaigns, and talk-radio mobilizations. The National Immigration Forum and others launched the Campaign to Reform Immigration for America in June—a coalition that now includes more than 600 business, faith, labor, and immigrant groups. 'Like it or not, policy debates are now campaign-style battles,' says Sharry. 'It's field, it's communications, it's policy, it's legislative strategy, and it's the electoral muscle to back it up.' Rodriguez and his counterparts in the faith community travel to Washington weekly to buttonhole lawmakers. This time, he says, he's skipping those who are already on board. 'We're reaching out to the Eric Cantors of the world,' he says, referring to the conservative House Republican whip.
Reform backers have also recast their arguments as well. In 2007, they often framed the discussion in moral terms ('this is the right thing to do') or policy ones ('this is the sensible thing to do'). Now, they're pursuing communications strategies that they hope will resonate more effectively. For Rodriguez, 'it's a message of assimilation,' he says. 'Let's incorporate [immigrants] and permit them to become great productive Americans.' Noorani offers a fiscal rationale. Why keep undocumented workers in an underground economy where they don't pay taxes, he asks, when instead, they could be contributing sorely needed revenue to the government?
Immigrant advocates are also adopting a more pugnacious stance toward their adversaries. They plan to respond aggressively to attacks and perceived distortions. If conservatives employ xenophobic rhetoric, 'we will not stand idly by,' says Rodriguez. Republicans have already imperiled their future viability as a party by alienating Latinos, he argues. If they continue down this path, 'it will be their death knell.'
Pro-reform groups are going on the offensive against those they consider immigrant bashers. A few weeks ago, America's Voice ran an ad in Roll Call noting that the Southern Poverty Law Center had designated FAIR a 'hate group.' (Mehlman, FAIR's spokesman, responds that the allegation is absurd and that the SPLC is a 'discredited organization.') Meanwhile, a number of groups have launched a campaign calling for CNN to rein in Dobbs, citing his 'racially charged conspiracy theories' and 'hate speech,' as a New Democrat Network press release put it. They've created Web sites, including dropdobbs.com and tellcnnenoughisenough.com, to rally those who are fed up with Dobbs's commentary. 'It's not only offensive,' says Jorge Mursuli, national executive director of Democracia U.S.A. 'It's not fact. And it's being presented as fact on a network that calls itself 'the most trusted name in news.' ' (A CNN spokesperson declined to comment.) Such skirmishes are just a taste of what's to come. Says Sharry: 'This is going to be a knock-down, drag-out campaign.'
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14.
Critics: Hispanics exploited in Omaha meatpacking jobs
By Don Walton
The Lincoln Journal, October 6, 2009
http://journalstar.com/article_dc2de27a-b2ba-11de-a825-001cc4c03286.html
Omaha, NE -- Lured north of the border by the hope of a better life, a largely Hispanic work force labors in Nebraska meatpacking plants under conditions some critics describe as a classic case of worker exploitation.
Immigrant workers, they say, perform demanding tasks in a hazardous environment for relatively low wages, working lengthy hours on punishing production lines.
In some Omaha plants, workers say they're given inadequate bathroom breaks. As a result, they say they end up urinating in their pants while working on the line.
'It's a lot like slavery,' Father Damian Zuerlein said of working conditions for some of his parishioners. He serves a predominantly Mexican congregation of 1,500 families at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in south Omaha.
The state's meatpackers rely on a large influx of immigrant Mexicans, many in the country illegally, for physically demanding work at depressed wages, said Lincoln workers' compensation attorney Rod Rehm.
It's his experience with Nebraska meatpacking plants that they care 'very little about their safety and work conditions,' he said. But representatives of two big industry names strongly disagreed. They said the safety and welfare of their workers is a vital company concern.
'Preventing employee injuries and illnesses is important to us from both a human and economic standpoint,' summed up Gary Mickelson, a spokesman for IBP Inc. His company has six plants in Nebraska, all outside Omaha. They include large operations in Dakota City, Lexington and Madison. The company plans to add a new plant in Norfolk.
Meanwhile, in interviews conducted over six weeks with numerous Hispanics in Omaha and others familiar with the meatpacking industry, a litany of worker concerns emerged. Among them:
Speedy production lines increase safety hazards in an already dangerous workplace filled with sharp knives and hooks and sometimes slippery floors. Injury rates in meatpacking plants are the highest in U.S. manufacturing: Thirty-two of every 100 meatpacking workers nationally suffered occupational injuries or illnesses in 1997, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Wages are comparatively low -- averaging about $8 an hour -- and considerably less than they were in Omaha before plants depended on a Hispanic immigrant labor force.
Some laborers work on the production line up to 10 hours a day, six days a week.
The fast-paced production lines in some plants are 'killing people slowly,' said Sergio Sosa. He is attempting to organize Omaha's growing Hispanic community and its meatpacking workers from his base at Omaha Together One Community, an alliance of 38 church congregations.
Beyond the rigors of productionline work, said Milo Mumgaard, executive director of the Nebraska Appleseed Center for Law in the Public Interest, 'people are not treated with a whole lot of dignity or respect.'
While some criticisms are aimed at the industry as a whole, interviews for this story focused on Omaha plants, including the Nebraska Beef plant on South 36th Street.
Angel Rodriguez said he worked three or four years on the production line there.
'Many people had to pee in their clothes because the work goes so fast and there was no relief to go to the bathroom when you needed to,' Rodriguez said.
Repeated efforts to reach Nebraska Beef management for comment received no response. Three telephone messages, an Aug. 17 letter with details about worker concerns and a letter faxed Thursday went unanswered. Plant officials were unavailable to talk to a Journal Star photographer who visited the plant on Thursday.
At ConAgra, which owns Northern States Beef in south Omaha, officials said the company has worked to address worker concerns.
'We've augmented our safety programs,' said Kathryn DankoLord, vice president of human resources for ConAgra Beef Cos. in Greeley, Colo. The company also has established a hot line for employees to anonymously call in their concerns about working conditions, she said. ConAgra's largest Nebraska operation is a Monfort plant in Grand Island.
Lincoln attorney Richard Endacott, who represents Monfort in workers' compensation cases, said his client 'bends over backwards to assist injured workers,' including accommodating their needs for light duty when prescribed by doctors.
In some respects, Hispanic meatpacking workers represent the latest wave of a vulnerable immigrant work force, following in the footsteps of the Irish, who were consigned to the least desirable jobs in the manufacturing sector, and the Chinese, who helped build the transcontinental railroad.
Like many immigrants who came before them, more than 20,000 Hispanics now call south Omaha home. They come largely out of desperation bred by poverty, for the same reasons they have always come: jobs, money, opportunity, education, family, hope. But mostly they come for the money.
While the average wage for Nebraska packinghouse production workers is about $8 an hour, starting wages have been as low as $6.50. Today they range near $7.50 an hour.
The huge turnover among immigrant workers tends to hold most wages near the bottom of the scale.
In the 1970s, when the work force was largely European-American and heavily unionized, average wages were closer to $12 an hour, said Lourdes Gouveia, a University of Nebraska at Omaha sociology professor and director of UNO's Chicano/Latino Studies.
'There is no doubt the industry is different today than it was in the 1970s,' said IBP spokesman Mickelson.
'Today's plants are more efficient and involve more technology. Today's plants are also not burdened with the master labor contracts of the past.'
Although low by U.S. standards, today's wages are attractive to impoverished Mexicans and other Latinos who cannot make as much money in their own countries -- if they can find jobs there.
Hence, the expectation of 'an eternally replenishable' labor supply prompts some packing plants to treat workers 'like replaceable widgets,' said Mumgaard of the Appleseed Center.
Gouveia has researched the plight of Hispanics in the meatpacking industry for 10 years. Based on a 40-hour workweek, she said, the average $8-an-hour wage translates into about $17,000 a year - money that supports what is often a large family, sometimes split between here and Mexico.
Desperate for jobs and in many cases anxious to hide their illegal, or undocumented, status, 'workers are under incredible pressure and fear,' Gouveia said. 'They are very vulnerable.'
Jorge -- a fictitious name chosen to hide his identity and protect his job -- is a Mexican immigrant who said he works 10 hours a day, six days a week at an Omaha meatpacking plant, standing on the production line slicing meat off the bone with a knife.
The line operates at an unreasonable speed, he said through an interpreter during an interview one steamy summer night. People wear down, Jorge said, and workers often get hurt.
Eva -- another fictitious name -- is a recent immigrant from El Salvador who also works at an Omaha plant.
'We have to work hard and fast. Too fast. That is the problem,' she said in English with occasional help from an interpreter. 'People get hurt very frequently.'
Eva said she hurt her back when she fell for the third time on a greasy floor. Despite written instructions from a doctor stating she should perform only 'light duty,' she said, she still stands on the production line for up to 10 hours a day, using a hook to move slabs of meat -- and taking pain pills.
The rate of occupational injuries or illnesses among U.S. meatpacking workers -- 32 of every 100 in 1997 -- is the highest in any manufacturing industry, even surpassing both construction and mining, according to OSHA statistics. Workplace injuries can develop into chronic health problems.
Eva's experience with her back injury is a common one, workers' compensation attorney Rehm said.
Once injured employees return to work, he said, some plants he is familiar with fail to honor work restrictions imposed by doctors.
'People making claims often are the first to get fired for little or no reason,' he said.
Some Hispanics come to work 'taped up like football players.' It's called 'work and hurt,' Rehm said.
Often, those who file claims have trouble getting quality health care, he said, and when a worker has no family doctor, the company may pick the physician.
'There's a question whether some of those doctors go the extra mile,' Rehm said.
But Endacott, who represents ConAgra meat companies, said Monfort policy requires injured workers to comply with restrictions set by doctors and report to management if supervisors attempt to require them to ignore those work restrictions.
'The company accommodates those workers with light duty,' he said.
ConAgra 'works very closely with doctors in returning people to the line,' said Danko-Lord, the human resources vice president. 'We are very diligent in working within the restrictions set by doctors.'
And IBP's Mickelson said supervisors have been fired for not following such restrictions.
Yet even without accidents, the work takes a toll. Jorge and Eva show the large, hard knobs on their middle fingers -- the result, they said, of repeatedly using knives and hooks. Both Jorge and Eva agree with Angel Rodriguez on another point.
At their Omaha packing plants, they say, workers often have to 'pee in their pants' because of inadequate bathroom breaks.
ConAgra spokeswoman Joan Lukas said production workers at its plants are given sufficient time for bathroom breaks. Mickelson said no IBP employees are ever refused permission to go the restroom, although they need to first notify their supervisor.
'There is no set time for a restroom break,' he said. 'We just do our best to accommodate the employee.'
Although meatpacking work has never been easy, there are those who remember better days.
Now, 'people are taken advantage of,' said Manuel De Luna, who said he worked three winters in the old Wilson packing plant in Omaha during the 1970s. 'They're working the heck out of them. One person is doing the work that two used to do. The way people are treated is real bad.'
It wasn't always that way, he said.
'I think the average wage back then was about $12 an hour, and we had really good benefits. The company paid all my hospital costs for the birth of one child. I did not pay anything. We had good sick leave, health care, retirement.'
Today, Jorge said he makes $9.25 an hour after 2 years on the job. He has made as much as $10, he said, but has to start again near the bottom of the wage scale after taking time once a year to visit family members, including his parents, in Mexico.
Eva said she is paid $9.05 an hour. When she returns from a scheduled trip home to visit family members in El Salvador, she said, her wages will be reduced to $7.50.
In the 1970s wages were pegged to inflation and climbed as high as $15 an hour for long-term workers, said Gouveia, the UNO professor.
Back then, De Luna said, workers were predominantly European Americans and had strong union representation. Today, none of Omaha's meatpacking plants -- as distinguished from processing ones -- is unionized.
Last year, Angel Rodriguez said, he was fired and thrown out of the Nebraska Beef packing plant after complaining about timely payment of overtime pay and suggesting the possibility of a work stoppage.
'We say, 'If you're not paying overtime, we're not working,'' Rodriguez recalled during an interview at his small frame house in south Omaha. 'I talked loud.'
Later, when he and another worker who had complained were handed their paychecks, he said a foreman told them: 'Here's your check. You're terminated. Leave the building.'
Details of Rodriguez's claim were included in the Aug. 17 letter to Nebraska Beef, which did not respond.
Meanwhile, workers in several Omaha meatpacking plants are showing 'active interest' in seeking representation by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, according to Rick Saalfeld of Omaha, international union representative.
'People are starting to demonstrate their interest,' he said. 'And we're interested in them.'
Only a few of the meatpacking/ slaughter plants in Nebraska are unionized. They include IBP's plant in Dakota City, Monfort in Grand Island, Cargill's Excel plant in Schuyler and Farmland Foods in Crete.
Many workers are reluctant to speak up about working conditions in the meatpacking industry because they fear their undocumented status -- or the undocumented status of a relative or friend -- will come to the attention of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said Zuerlein.
Jorge, who said he is here legally, said conditions at his plant are the worst for undocumented workers.
'Most supervisors know who is undocumented and who is not, and they treat them that way,' he said. 'Undocumented workers are afraid to complain. It's terrible for them.'
He estimates 90 percent to 95 percent of the production workers at his plant are Mexican -- a substantial number of them here illegally.
At her plant, Eva said, almost all production workers are Hispanic, and every week there are new people working on the line.
When INS launched Operation Vanguard, its controversial 1998 strategy to identify undocumented Mexican workers in Nebraska packing plants, she said, 27 of the 60 workers on her production line received letters questioning their legal status.
Rehm, the workers' compensation attorney who has represented Hispanic workers at packing plants from Schuyler to Lexington, said he believes some plants 'consciously realize that a lot of workers will never make a complaint or try to get paid' compensation for work-place injuries.
'It takes some courage to challenge management,' he said.
Supervisors 'play games' with worker complaints, Eva said.
'They just ask another supervisor. They play with the ball. They say if you don't like the work, there are 10 persons waiting to come in.'
INS officials have estimated one of every four workers in packing plants in Nebraska and Iowa is undocumented.
Meatpacking officials say they do not knowingly hire illegal workers.
Among worker complaints, perhaps none has more far-reaching consequences than production-line speed.
It relates to worker safety, said UNO's Gouveia. It dictates how hard people have to work. It affects the availability of bathroom breaks in some plants.
And it also 'raises some issues about the safety of the meat product,' she suggested.
Studies show the faster the line speed, the higher the injury rate, said Rehm.
'Some people cut their hands when the work is fast,' Jorge said.
Zuerlein said some workers in his congregation tell him they know when inspectors or visitors are about to enter their plant because the line suddenly slows down.
Production rates are 'determined by industrial engineers who conduct studies on the workplace and determine the number of employees needed to safely, yet effectively, process certain product mixes,' said IBP spokesman Mickelson.
Along with low wages, line speed is the key to industry profitability and therefore considered 'non-negotiable,' Gouveia said.
'The pressures to retain the pace are enormous. The industry is very much premised on high and relentless line speed.'
Nevertheless, Mexicans living in poverty and hungry for jobs continue to be lured north by packing plant recruiting efforts promising $8 an hour and 'easy work,' Jorge said.
He said he walked 70 miles -- two days and two nights -- to reach the border when he entered the United States.
His wages, he said, are used to support his wife and two children in Omaha, and he also sends money to family members in Mexico. Since his wife is undocumented, he said, he does not claim her as a dependent on his income tax form.
'The wages are awfully good from their perspective,' Rehm said. 'But I feel they are exploited. And so are our communities when the plants drive wages down.'
And what does Eva say?
'The work is very hard. I think the pay is not good, but not too bad.'
Latinos, Gouveia said, 'contribute an enormous amount to the success of this industry and, therefore, to the success of the economy of the state. For that they get remunerated very minimally.'
'Most astonishing to me,' she said, 'is all the concern expressed by the congressional delegation, politicians and the public about issues relating to violation of immigration laws by these workers when so little is said, and so little effort is made by these same political figures, to concern themselves with all these issues affecting workers.
'No one touches the sacred cow.'
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15.
Markets help immigrants get down to business
By Martha Elson
The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), October 7, 2009
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20091007/ZONE02/910070309/Markets+help+immigrants+get+down+to+business
After seven months in the United States, Cuban immigrant Ruben Plasencia is building a small business selling his handmade jewelry.
It's a big switch from his job in Cuba teaching recreation planning at a university, but he's employing a skill he already had - tying knots, such as those used in hammocks - in the thread that he uses to make jewelry.
'Every necklace is unique,' he said. 'I never repeat'
He had his jewelry on display recently at the Jewish Family & Career Services Sunday Farmers Market and Multicultural Bazaar.
The event was outdoors at the building that houses the career services agency, the Louis & Lee Roth Family Center at Cannons Lane and Dutchmans Parkway.
The weekly events, which ended for the season Sept. 27, were designed to be 'incubators' to give new immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs like Plasencia, who lives in the Cloverleaf neighborhood, a chance to test their wares and promote their businesses.
'I never do this in Cuba,' said Plasencia. 'At this moment, I'm working. In the beginning, I have no work.'
He and most of the other vendors are clients of the Jewish agency's Center for Enterprise Development, which provides business training, technical assistance and start-up loans to immigrant entrepreneurs.
The aim also is to help them 'plug into existing' stores and markets, said Gary Liebert, micro business specialist at the agency. This was the first year for the weekly market and bazaar, and a decision will be made later about whether to hold it again next year.
Some clients operate their businesses on the side, in addition to full-time employment. The center seeks referrals of potential clients, and volunteers are needed to help them.
Some of the clients also plan to participate in a holiday market featuring handmade crafts and other items Nov. 15 at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, 1960 Bardstown Road.
Immigrant produce vendors who have participated in the Jewish market and bazaar also have sold produce on Sunday mornings at St. Francis. They are growers at community gardens created through the Kentucky Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program, sponsored by Catholic Charities with help from the University of Kentucky Extension Service.
One of the community garden sites is at New Heights Baptist Church, 7315 Southside Drive. The garden program makes sense, because for many immigrants, 'that's what they're used to' in their native countries, said Lauren Goldberg with Catholic Charities.
Vishnu Dahal Govinda from Nepal talked of selling at a 'very, very big market' in his homeland. In Louisville, finding a place to sell is very difficult without help, he said.
Among other items sold at the Jewish market were African-style clothing from the African Foodway on Taylor Boulevard, run by husband and wife Mulbah and Comfort Kamara; wooden picture frames by Russian artisan Anatoly Abramovich; and henna tattoos and African cosmetics by Somali immigrant Umikulthum Ali.
Some vendors participated in the city's WorldFest event last month on the Belvedere, and the 'Tattoos by Umi' were especially popular there, Liebert said. 'We had people lining up for her designs,' he said.
Among the shoppers at the Sept. 27 market and bazaar were Keith and Sandra Weittig of Lyndon, who said they go to lots of farmer's markets, and Leroy Hooker of the Hikes Point area, who operates a computer service and sales business.
Hooker said he likes to 'support any type of religious groups. I think we're all headed to the same place.'
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16.
Tulsa’s YWCA wins $1.2 million immigration grant
By Mike Averill
The Tulsa World (OK), October 6, 2009
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=298&articleid=20091006_298_0_YWCATu393836
YWCA Tulsa is one of 13 nationwide recipients of a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services grant.
The $1.2 million total grant is for agencies to support citizenship preparation programs for legal permanent residents.
YWCA Tulsa is receiving more than $97,000 to implement its Project Citizenship, designed to help older people and refugees in particular.
Maria Reyes, director of the YWCA’s multicultural center and immigration/refugee programs, said part of the grant money will be used to provide small, customized courses in English as a second language to Burmese refugees in Tulsa.
Reyes said the grant money should provide for three specialized ESL courses and six group naturalization courses as well as holding town hall meetings and cultural cooking classes with the community to help integrate immigrants into the community.
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17.
Chicago Immigration Activists Seek Council Support
The Associated Press, October 7, 2009
http://cbs2chicago.com/wireapnewsil/Chicago.immigration.advocates.2.1233268.html
Chicago (AP) -- Immigrant rights advocates are asking Chicago's City Council to continue its historically immigrant-friendly approach and support a push for federal immigration reform.
The increasingly vocal call by activists has inspired Congressman Luis Gutierrez to craft a reform bill. The Chicago Democrat says details are coming Oct. 13.
Activists say they want to ensure the Obama administration makes good on its pledge for reform. President Barack Obama has said he'll start tackling immigration this year, but activists say there's been little movement.
Emma Lozano heads the Chicago group Centro Sin Fronteras. She says they're stepping up lobbying efforts and heading to Washington, D.C., next week.
Activists and aldermen announced a resolution Wednesday supporting immigration reform. It was expected to win support.
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18.
Chomsky daughter compares treatment of illegal immigrants to that of slaves
By John Hilliard
The MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, MA), October 7, 2009
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/state/x1699617772/Chomsky-daughter-compares-treatment-of-illegal-immigrants-to-that-of-slaves
Framingham, MA -- A college professor had harsh words Tuesday for the nation's handling of immigration, drawing parallels to the treatment of illegal immigrants with America's history of slavery.
'The people who are illegal immigrants are no different than anyone else,' Aviva Chomsky, a Salem State College professor, told students at Framingham High School. 'The government passed a law (that says) they are different.'
Chomsky, the oldest daughter of political activist and MIT professor Noam Chomsky, is the author of six books, including one aimed at dispelling what she calls the myths surrounding immigration in America. She spoke before hundreds of students during an assembly yesterday morning, and focused on the claims that immigrants take jobs away from Americans and don't pay taxes.
She said as more people enter the country to live here, more jobs are generated to meet the demand for services.
'People always come to the U.S. because there's a demand for labor ... everyone who comes here, comes to work,' she said.
The share of immigrants in the state's labor force grew from 8.8 percent in 1980 to 17 percent in 2004, according to the Malden-based Immigrant Learning Center, which in June released a report on immigrants' role in the Bay State's economic development.
By 2007, immigrants made up more than 21 percent of the state's workers between the ages of 25 to 44, which means more immigrants will take on more jobs as older workers age and retire, according to the learning center's report.
To live here legally, immigrants have to apply for a permanent resident card - or serve in the military for at least a year - before applying for citizenship. The agency estimates it can process an application for citizenship within five months, according to its Web site.
The agency's Boston field office had about 5,000 applications for citizenship in July, and nearly 3,000 more for permanent resident status, according to its Web site.
Chomsky drew a parallel between the nation's handling of immigration with the enslavement of African-Americans about 150 years ago, and said in both cases, the government decided that some people had rights and others had none.
Some employers take advantage of immigrants who are here illegally by paying low wages in cash, while some illegal immigrants fake Social Security numbers to get a better job.
Because their pay has state and federal taxes taken out, but they are here illegally, those people pay into services they can't make use of, said Chomsky.
'They lie to be able to pay taxes and have access to a job,' she said.
At Framingham High, about 1,200 of its 8,136 students have limited English proficiency, and about 10 percent of the student body is enrolled into some form of English language program.
'It's Framingham. It's always been an immigrant town,' said Maria T. Carollo Figueroa, chairwoman of the school's world languages department.
Carollo Figueroa teaches Italian and that her family immigrated from Italy to Wyoming in 1956.
She said she talks about the negative attitudes toward immigrants historically, such as accusations during World War II that Italian-Americans were fascists while the U.S. was at war with Italy.
She invited Chomsky to the high school after meeting her at the Brazilian Women's Group in Cambridge.
'My comment to (students) is, immigrants always look better 50 years in hindsight,' she said.
Senior Patrick Greeley said students don't talk much about immigration, illegal or otherwise, but his friends remain receptive to it.
'In my circle of friends, (we're) very open to immigration,' said Greeley.
Mia Cross, another senior, agreed there isn't a lot of discussion about immigration, but students know many of their classmates are from other countries.
Zach Bloomstein, a junior, said he liked what Chomsky talked about yesterday.
'She thinks everyone comes here with a purpose' to help build the country, he said.
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19.
Immigration conference to shed light on ‘complex issue'
By Sharon Sullivan
The Grand Junction Free Press (CO), October 7, 2009
http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20091007/COMMUNITY_NEWS/910069974/1001/NONE&parentprofile=1059
Teachers, sociologists, members of the media, and anyone else interested in immigration are all invited to the '2009 Four Corners Conference: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Immigration' at Mesa State College Friday and Saturday.
A free concert and Tango dance performance in the Recital Hall follows the conference's conclusion Saturday night.
'The conference is an attempt at bringing multiple facets and perspectives on this complex issue to public attention,' said MSC Spanish professor Tom Acker, and an event organizer. 'There's been a lack of clarity, depth and balance on the issue of immigration for many years.'
In fact, misunderstanding when it comes to immigrants, has always been a part of America's past, Acker said, citing past discrimination against Germans, Japanese, Italians and the Irish.
Speakers will include members of academia, as well as a variety of professionals including doctors, lawyers, and social workers from Grand Junction, Denver, Glenwood Springs, Canada and Costa Rica.
'It's a fascinating collection of people (working at all levels of immigration) coming together,' said organizer Julie Barak, and MSC English professor.
Organizers purposely sought an interdisciplinary approach to the conference.
'We didn't want to section it off,' Barak said. 'People all across the culture are looking at immigration issues. When you bring disciplines together like that, people can expand their view.'
Former Mesa State College art professor Toro Sugita will open the conference Friday with a presentation on immigration and art. Other topics covered Friday include border culture and film, sociolinguistic perspectives, the Constitution and undocumented immigrants, and immigration in the classroom.
Saturday, topics include immigration and politics; immigrant integration and Mesa County; plus history and slavery — past and present.
After the conference Carlos and Andrea Elias, will perform a violin and piano duet in the college Recital Hall at 7 p.m. There will also be a choreographed student tango performance by Abigail Ferolla, and Argentine ballads sung by Adriana Rojas.
The conference is $20 for the public; and free for students. The concert and music Saturday night is free for everyone.
Friday's conference will take place in the Grand Mesa Multipurpose Room, just south of the Fine Arts Building. Registration is at 8 a.m. and the opening ceremony begins at 9.
Saturday, the conference is on the third floor of the Academic Building, north of the Fine Arts Building. Registration is at 8 a.m., with the first topic of the day, 'Immigration and Politics, Framing the Issue,' starting at 9.
For more information or to see a complete schedule of speakers and topics visit http://new.mesastate.edu/spanish/fcc/espanol/html.
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20.
Mexican siblings attend Edison State in pursuit of the American dream
By Dave Breitenstein
The News-Press (Fort Myers, FL), October 7, 2009
http://www.news-press.com/article/20091007/NEWS0104/91006066/1006
One by one, over 12 years, the Gomez children immigrated from Mexico to the United States.
First came Jose. Then Marisol. Maria followed. And finally Juan Carlos.
The four siblings have reassembled in Lehigh Acres, just two blocks from one another, and are pursuing the same dream - a college education. Despite a 10-year age difference, each is a sophomore this fall at Edison State College.
'I thought I would never catch up to them, actually,' said 17-year-old Marisol, who took dual enrollment classes in high school to earn college credit. 'Just seeing them on campus, I know that there's always someone there watching over me.'
Maria, 27, an accounting major, is the oldest, followed by Jose, 24, a mathematics education major; Juan Carlos, 20, a civil engineering major; and Marisol, a physical therapy major.
As children, they never gave serious thought to a college education. Their mother only made it to second grade, and their father didn't finish first grade. If they didn't feel like going to school one day, no problem, Maria said; their mother would force them into a full day of chores around the house.
When they came to America, the siblings had two choices: work for the family produce business or get an education.
'If all of us would have stayed in Mexico, we wouldn't have made it to a university-level school,' Juan Carlos said. 'We didn't care about school that much. We thought that finishing high school was it. Then once we got here, we started hearing all these kinds of opportunities about going to college and everybody does it, you know, so we just started doing it.'
They devote weekends to the family business but weekdays are dedicated to school.
'Education is very important these days,' said Maria, who takes her big sister role seriously. 'It's a fact that they're going to get more opportunities if they finish and get a degree.'
The transition hasn't been easy, though. Maria and Juan Carlos admitted to frequent crying spells as they tried to overcome the language barrier. Jose had to adjust his class schedule.
'I quit all of my math classes in order to focus on English,' said Jose, noting he no longer thinks about dropping out.
Juan Carlos recalls school staff deciding whether to place him in middle or high school. After evaluating a transcript full of high-level courses in Mexico, they opted for high school, much to Juan Carlos' dismay.
'I was, like, 'I don't want to go to high school because I didn't even know how to speak English,'' he said.
On school days, the Gomez siblings carpool in Maria's van and spend about 10 hours on campus. While one is in class, others study or read in the library. The van doesn't leave campus until 5 p.m.
Some days, Maria brings her 3-year-old daughter, Gia, to campus, and her aunt and uncles take turns watching her.
This likely will be the last year the four all attend Edison, but Juan Carlos believes the family is well on its way to achieving the American dream.
'I think everybody in America can have his or her own dream,' he said. 'When you know your dream and when you know what you really want, then every decision becomes easy.'
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21.
Disrupted U.S. Bomb Plot Was Seen as Serious Threat
Reuters, October 6, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/10/06/news/news-us-usa-security-newyork.html
Washington, DC (Reuters) -- A recently disrupted bombing plot represented one of the most serious security threats to the United States since the September 11 attacks, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday.
'I can say the investigation is pretty far along. We have a pretty good handle who was involved and what was intended,' Holder told a news briefing.
'This alleged plot was one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country since September 11, 2001.'
An Afghan immigrant, Najibullah Zazi, was indicted last month by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of plotting to explode bombs in the United States. Zazi, who is being held without bail, has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors said Zazi took a bomb-making course at an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, had notes on how to make explosives on his laptop computer and acquired materials similar to those used in bomb attacks in London in 2005, buying acetone and hydrogen peroxide at beauty supply stores.
Holder said the plot, if it had been successful, could have killed 'scores' of Americans, based on the chemicals involved, the history of similar plots and the number of people suspected of being involved.
President Barack Obama met with officials at the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia and congratulated them for their work to thwart the alleged plot.
'You know that we're facing determined adversaries who are resourceful, who are resilient, and who are still plotting,' he said.
The FBI has had under surveillance other suspects it believes may have helped Zazi acquire the chemicals and consulted with him on how to make explosives.
Asked about whether there would be more arrests and others charged, Holder replied, 'It is our intention to bring all those involved in the plot to justice' and 'the investigation is ongoing.'
Zazi initially was charged in Colorado with lying to the FBI. He was later indicted on the terrorism charge in Brooklyn federal court and transferred to New York on September 25.
The investigation became public several weeks ago when police raided apartments in the New York City borough of Queens that Zazi had visited around the time of the anniversary of the 2001 attacks.
Al Qaeda Connection
Holder said Zazi visited Pakistan in 2008, when he allegedly attended an al Qaeda training camp. 'There certainly was an al Qaeda connection,' Holder said.
Zazi's attorney has insisted that his client traveled to Pakistan for innocuous reasons -- to see a dying relative, to get married and to visit his wife.
The suspect's father, Mohammed Zazi, and a New York imam, Ahmad Afzali, accused of having tipped off the younger Zazi that he was under scrutiny, also were arrested on charges making false statements to the FBI.
The New York Police Department had used the imam in the past as an informant. When they asked him about Zazi, he alerted Zazi that he was under surveillance, forcing federal officials to bring him in for questioning sooner than they had initially planned.
'Are there things we could have done differently? I'm sure we'll find there are,' Holder said, adding that overall he was pleased at how well the New York police worked with the FBI.
He also cited the investigation in urging Congress to extend the three surveillance techniques in the Patriot Act that expire later this year, calling them vital tools in protecting the country. The law first was adopted by Congress during George W. Bush's presidency after the 2001 attacks.
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22.
FBI finds weapons, documents in hidden home of teen suspect in Dallas terrorism case
By Melody McDonald
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (TX), October 7, 2009
http://www.star-telegram.com/local/story/1666699.html
Milford, TX -- Off a muddy road in rural Hill County, in a nondescript tan mobile home, Hosam 'Sam' Smadi made his final plans to bring down a Dallas skyscraper, authorities say.
Federal officials learned about the well-hidden mobile home after arresting the 19-year-old Jordanian on Sept. 24. Smadi gave the FBI written consent to search the residence, where he moved Sept. 22.
Inside, officials found a Beretta handgun; two loaded magazines; one box of Winchester 9 mm ammunition; a laptop; a digital camera; and numerous documents, including Smadi s passport, tax returns, a visa and a birth certificate, according to a receipt filed by the FBI that lists the seized property.
Smadi is being held in a federal detention center in Seagoville on a charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. On Sept. 24, federal officials said, he tried to detonate what he believed was a car bomb under Fountain Place, a 60-story tower in Dallas.
The device was a fake provided by FBI employees posing as al Qaeda operatives.
After his arrest, Smadi told federal officials that he had moved out of his dome-shaped apartment in the town of Italy two days earlier and into a mobile home off Hill County Road 4311 near Milford. According to a search warrant affidavit, Smadi gave authorities directions to the residence, which is tucked behind a tin-roofed mobile home.
Members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force located what they believed to be Smadi s home and brought him a photo of it. After Smadi confirmed that it was his new residence, he gave them written consent to search it, according to a search warrant affidavit. Officials also secured a search warrant for the property.
On Tuesday, because of recent rains, the home could be reached only by four-wheel-drive vehicles. The property was vacant, except for a dog. No one answered the door at the mobile home where Smadi stayed or at the tin-roofed home in front.
The property owner s daughter, reached by telephone, said a group of Hispanic men rents the tin-roofed home. She said she was unaware that the teen accused in the terrorist plot had recently rented the tan home.
Federal officials have said Smadi lived and acted alone.
Smadi s brother asks to go home SAN FRANCISCO Hosam Smadi s brother told an immigration judge Tuesday that he wants to go home to Jordan.
Hussein Smadi, 18, appeared before a San Francisco immigration court and told the judge that he wants to rejoin his father in his home country. He offered to pay his own way.
Hussein Smadi entered the United States legally on a tourist visa in 2007 but stayed after it expired and enrolled in high school.
He was arrested on a drug charge Aug. 11 and pleaded not guilty to possession of a controlled substance Sept. 8, according to the Santa Clara County district attorney s office.
Friends say Hussein and Hosam Smadi moved to Santa Clara, Calif., after their mother died. But when Hosam Smadi moved to Italy, south of Dallas, Hussein Smadi remained in Silicon Valley.
Through an attorney, Hussein Smadi said he had nothing to do with his brother or any of the charges against him.
'He s not saying his brother is guilty of anything, but he s saying he had nothing to do with what his brother was accused of,' said Mark Silverman, an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center who was giving Hussein Smadi legal advice.
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23.
Injured 8-year-old San Jose boy wheeled into court to see hit-and-run driver sentenced
By Lisa Fernandez
The San Jose Mercury News (CA), October 6, 2009
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_13500248?source=most_viewed
After a hit-and-run driver barrelled into 8-year-old Alex Casillas in a crosswalk as he hustled to school, doctors doubted he would survive.
But there he was Tuesday, eight months later in a San Jose courtroom, wheelchair bound with both his legs in green casts, a feeding tube beneath his Watchmen T-shirt, facing the driver of that Nissan Sentra for the very first time.
As his parents wept, Alex watched Judge Rene Navarro sentence Marvin Rogelio Martinez Jr to 16 months in prison as part of a plea deal. After that the undocumented immigrant could face deportation back to his native Honduras.
Eight months ago, the idea of Alex even leaving the hospital looked grim. Doctors warned his parents the boy may never emerge from a coma, much less walk again or speak. His struggle to recover has inspired even strangers who have reached out to his family and spurred donations to Alex and his parents, who tried for 14 years to have a child before conceiving their only child.
And his curiosity about the man behind the wheel of that Nissan led him to court.
'But he wants to see this man,'' Alex's aunt, Minerva Cardenas, said before Tuesday's hearing. 'After the accident, he was asking his mom, What does he look like? Is he old?''
The moment Martinez walked into the courtroom, Alex kicked his right leg forward several times and began grunting to his parents. Cardenas said earlier that her nephew's comprehension is pretty good, but he can't walk and is unable to clearly speak.
The hit-and-run accident occurred as Alex and his father, Alejandro 'Alex' Casillas Sr., were walking to school, Alex anxious to get to class early to win a punctuality award.
'This act destroyed my family,' the elder Casillas told the judge in a victim's statement translated by an interpreter. 'This event ended the hopes of my son and ended the hopes of my family. This is the only son we have.'
Casillas told Navarro that 'whatever you decide is a decision well made, but there won't be a time that we can ever repair the damage done. I don't know if my son will ever completely recover.'
At that point, Deputy District Attorney Deborah Medved handed a box of tissues to a sobbing Teresa Rosas, who quit her job as a hairdresser to care for son. Martinez turned to face Alex, his parents and aunt. Just a row behind, Martinez's own family including his father, Marvin Sr. and 11-year-old brother, Brian was crying.
Then it was Martinez's turn to speak.
'I'm awfully sorry for what happened,' he said, also through an interpreter.
Martinez was speeding and ran a red light before he smashed into Alex and his father. The 20-year-old grocery store worker said it was a grave mistake to leave the scene and not to have helped Alex.
'If I have to work all my life, it would not be sufficient to pay all I have cost, he said.'
Alex was in a coma after the accident, and although he has slowly improved, he must be cared for around the clock. He can communicate, but only his parents are able to understand his whispers and grunts.
Getting Alex to the courtroom Tuesday was a big undertaking for his family. He doesn't go out much. Once, he was invited back to his school for a celebration. But as he was being wheeled there, he told his mother he couldn't handle it and they returned home before seeing any of his old friends.
On Tuesday, he was determined to finish his journey. His parents dressed him in a black Watchmen T-shirt and long khaki shorts. His father carried him from the house and placed him gently into the car. Both his parents took pains to make sure the feeding tubes inserted into their 8-year-old's stomach were not jarred.
'This is a big deal,'' Cardenas said. 'Alex has to try to be in a good mood. He's in pain. He's still wearing a cast on both legs. But he wants to see this man. After the accident, he was asking his mom, What does he look like? Is he old?''
The morning of Jan. 27, Alex and his father were walking hand-in-hand to Mildred Goss Elementary School. At Story Road and Adrian Way when a Nissan Sentra struck them and took off.
Alejandro broke his ankle, and Alex was thrown to the ground, fracturing his skull and sending him into a coma. Doctors told his parents, both hairdressers, their son may not recover. Yet, a month later, he surprised them all and started breathing on his own. In April, he moved into his aunt's home. In June, he began slowly reading and quietly mouthing words in English and Spanish.
During Tuesday's sentencing, Teresa Rosas clutched her son's hand, occasionally wiping his nose and mouth, other times tickling his chin when he appeared to be in pain. She leaned his head back against the wheelchair's headrest to make him more comfortable.
During the hearing, they learned that Martinez was on the way to pick up his sister to drive her to school. After the accident, he hid his damaged Nissan Sentra, later changed the windshield and told friends he might have to flee back to Honduras.
San Jose police tracked him down four days after the hit-and-run at the grocery store where he worked. Martinez was originally charged with six counts that could have landed him five years in prison. But in August, he shaved three years of that possible sentence, pleading guilty to two felonies: hit-and-run resulting in injury and reckless driving causing injury.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said there is an immigration hold on Martinez. When he completes his prison term, he will face immigration hearings, facing a possible deportation back to Honduras.
Teresa Rosas told a sister that after seeing Martinez's family in tears Tuesday, she feels no anger toward the driver. She said his family members are victims, too.
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24.
Baby, three siblings reunited with Tenn. mom
By Chris Echegaray and Kate Howard
The Tennessean (Nashville), October 7, 2009
Nashville -- The Tennessee woman who said her infant son was kidnapped by a female posing as an immigration agent regained custody of all of her children Tuesday.
Maria Gurrola and her children were reunited at the office of the Tennessee Department of Children's Services, which dropped its claim that Gurrola's four children be removed from her care because of allegations that Gurrola and her husband knew of a plan to sell the baby before the Sept. 29 kidnapping.
Metro police spokesman Don Aaron said in a statement that Metro police agreed that the children should be returned to the parents after extensive interviews by police, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the FBI over the past day.
'At this time, (authorities) do not believe the parents, Maria Gurrola and Jose Carrillo, are involved,' Aaron said. 'Significant unanswered questions remain, however, including why Gurrola and her newborn son were chosen by alleged kidnapper Tammy Renee Silas, 39.'
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http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091007/NEWS01/910070401/Baby+reunited+with+mom+and+dad+in+Nashville
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25.
Border Patrol: Trio used Jet Skis to smuggle undocumented immigrants.
The Brownsville Herald (TX), October 6, 2009
Brownsville, TX -- Federal agents have arrested two men and a woman accused of smuggling undocumented immigrants into the United States using Jet Skiscq.
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http://www.themonitor.com/articles/skis-31349-border-smuggle.html
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26.
CIA records: Cuban exile informed on colleagues
By Laura Wides Munoz
The Associated Press, October 7, 2009
Miami (AP) -- Recently released CIA files from the mid-1960s show Cuban exile and accused terrorist Luis Posada Carriles informed on violent Miami-based efforts to attack Fidel Castro's fledgling Cuban government even as he was deeply involved in helping them.
In the files, the CIA also appeared confident that Posada was a moderate force who would not embarrass the agency or the United States.
'A15 is not a typical kind of 'boom and bang' individual. He is acutely aware of the international implications of ill-planned or overly enthusiastic activities against Cuba,' Posada's CIA handler, Grover T. Lythcott, wrote in a July 26, 1966, memo, using a code name for the Cuban exile.
Lythcott went on to stress that Posada had informally exercised his influence to discourage exile activities that would embarrass W.O. Lady, a code name for the U.S.
Another declassified memo describes Posada as very loyal to the U.S., of 'good character, very reliable and security conscious.'
But Posada would later be accused of masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976, hotel bombings in Havana in 1997 and other alleged crimes. He currently faces charges of immigration fraud in Texas, including lying about involvement in the Havana attacks. He declined to comment.
. . .
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g_OordiARXloytYJykj9YZR8dmXgD9B5U9600
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27.
Former Border Patrol agent pleads guilty to taking bribes, aiding drug smugglers
By Kevin Buey
The Deming Headlight (NM), October 7, 2009
A former U.S. Border Patrol Agent pleaded guilty, Tuesday, to federal charges brought against him in January.
Under a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office, Eric Raymond Macias pleaded guilty to accepting a bribe as a public official and attempting to aid and abet the possession of five kilograms of cocaine with intent to distribute. Under the plea agreement accepted in U.S. District Court in Las Cruces, Macias, who had been assigned to the Deming station, will serve 72 months in federal prison. Formal sentencing will be later this year, said Greg Fouratt, the U.S. Attorney for the State of New Mexico.
'The dedicated men and women of the United States Border Patrol work tirelessly to maintain operational control of the Southwest border,' Fouratt said Tuesday in a statement. 'In so doing, they strive to provide for the security of our nation against threats posed by potential terrorists, narcotics traffickers, and alien smugglers. With the authority their uniforms and badges convey, however, also comes the public's trust. Today, former agent Eric Raymond Macias admitted to abusing his authority and violating that trust.'
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http://www.demingheadlight.com/ci_13500908
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28.
Honduran gang member charged in murder of Chicago boxer
By Mark Konkol
The Chicago Sun Times, October 7, 2009
Alejandro Calderon's Olympic dreams ended in 2007 when a gun-toting thug shot and killed the 19-year-old amateur boxer after mistaking him for a rival gang- banger, police say.
Tips from witnesses and evidence from the murder weapon helped Chicago cold case detectives track the alleged triggerman to Texas, detective Oscar Arteaga said.
On Friday, police arrested Josue Mata, a gang member from Honduras who was being held by federal immigration agents on charges he entered the country illegally. Mata admitted to the killing in a videotaped confession and was brought back to Chicago, where he was charged with first-degree murder and held without bail Monday, police said.
. . .
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/1809389,w-honduran-gang-charge-boxer-murder-100609.article
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International News1. Canada: Gov't seeks Hungarian response to flood of asylum requests
2. Canada: Imm. Min promises response to 'broken' refugee system
3. Canada: Polish gov't want police charged over immigrant's taser death (story, link)
4. Canada: Vicente Fox blasts Canadian visa policy
5. Canada: Placement firm helps foreign doctors navigate system
6. E.U.: French pol calls for Union solidarity on issue
7. U.K.: Gov't promises to expedite Pakistani student visas (story, link)
8. U.K.: Tories want higher quality immigrants
9. U.K.: London police urged not to disband enforcement unit
10. Denmark: Crackdown targets failed Iraqi asylum seekers
11. Italy: Citizen patrols blasted as anti-immigrant
12. Italy: Court clears Germans accused of smuggling
13. S. Africa: Skilled foreigners to be offered fast track
14. S. Korea: Asylum applications reach record high (story, link)
15. Australia: Requests for working holiday visas decline
16. Australia: Report claims immigration sustaining growth
Subscribe to CIS e-mail services here: http://cis.org/immigrationnews.html
-- Mark Krikorian]
1.
Canada urges Hungary to take action following flood of refugee claimants
By Peter O'Neil
The Canwest News Service, October 7, 2009
http://www.canada.com/news/Canada+urges+Hungary+take+action+following+flood+refugee+claimants/2078045/story.html
A sudden wave of refugee claimants arriving in Canadian airports from Hungary has resulted in the federal government calling on Budapest to take action — possibly against organized crime elements — to contain the soaring number of asylum-seekers, Canwest News Service has learned.
The government hasn't yet moved to impose visa restrictions on Hungary, as it did over the summer to deal with a flood of claimants from Mexico and the Czech Republic.
But Ottawa also hasn't ruled out that option after Hungary emerged during the April-to-June period as the third-highest source of claimants, after Mexico and the Czech Republic.
With claims from those two countries falling to a trickle as a result of the summer decision, Hungary is on pace to emerge as Canada's top refugee source country — even though it is a member of the 27-nation European Union that champions itself as a bastion of human rights in the world.
'There are currently no plans to impose a visa on Hungary,' said Alykhan Velshi, spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, in an e-mail. 'Visa-exempt countries are aware that if they do not satisfy the conditions of Canada's visa exemption, the requirement for a visa may be re-imposed.'
In the first half of this year 750 Hungarians made refugee claims, including 578 during the second quarter, from April 1 to June 30.
It was well ahead of war-ravaged countries more commonly viewed as sources of refugees facing persecution and fearing for their safety, like Somalia, Iraq and Sri Lanka.
Alykhan said Kenney has already flown to Budapest to raise his concerns about the increase, and discuss strategies 'to ensure that individuals who benefit from our visitor visa exemption to come to Canada are, in fact, genuine visitors.'
Kenney has previously questioned whether Czech claimants, the vast majority from the Roma minority that has endured a history of discrimination in Europe, were genuine refugees facing persecution and fearing for their safety.
Alykhan said the government, which has provoked anger and threats of retaliation by Prague and the EU as a result of the Czech visa decision, is looking for alternatives in the case of Hungary.
'We're working with (senior government officials) to see if there are others ways to resolve this issue — whether crackdowns on organized crime networks encouraging unfounded asylum claims, or addressing the issue of unregistered immigration consultants misleading people into coming to Canada and making asylum claims.'
Andras Pap, who has written on inadequate Hungarian hate crime laws at the Central European University, expressed sympathy with Canada's concern about the credibility of the claims.
'Under current international law standards Hungarian Roma should not qualify as political refugees, even though Hungary should be much more stringent in providing protection to its minorities,' he said in an e-mail Wednesday. 'Such claims can legitimately be dismissed by Canadian authorities.'
But he said the re-imposition of a visa requirement would be both 'unfriendly' and would do nothing to get Budapest to meet its domestic and international legal obligations to protect the Roma from discrimination and far-right violence, which is on the upswing.
In 2007 there were only 24 claims from Hungary, but that number jumped the following year after the Conservative government, which had been under pressure from the EU to end visa requirements for new EU member countries, finally gave in to pressure from Brussels.
Kenney's predecessor, Diane Finley, announced in the spring of 2008 that citizens of Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, and Slovakia would not require visas. The government had previously lifted the visa requirement for Estonians, in 2006, and Czechs and Latvians in late 2007.
In 2008, as a result of that decision, 288 Hungarians arrived seeking asylum. The total reached 172 for the first quarter of 2009 before more than tripling to 578 from April 1 to June 30.
In 2008 the Immigration and Refugee Board settled 22 claims in favour of Hungarian applicants, while 13 were rejected, eight were abandoned, 39 were withdrawn, and 272 applications were listed as pending.
During the first half of this year none were accepted, one was rejected, 12 were abandoned, 66 were withdrawn, and 940 were pending.
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2.
Canada's 'broken' refugee system will be fixed: Kenney
By Norma Greenaway
The Canwest News Service (Canada), October 5, 2009
http://www.canada.com/news/Canada+broken+refugee+system+will+fixed+Kenney/2072558/story.html
Ottawa -- With the prospect of a fall election fading fast, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says he now aims to unveil before Christmas a package of reforms to fix a 'broken' refugee system that costs Canadian taxpayers an estimated $29,000 for each claimant going through the system.
Kenney, who only last week said the reforms were on 'indefinite hold' because of the constant election threats, told a parliamentary committee Tuesday the reform package is on track for the fall.
Although he declined to provide specifics, Kenney said the reforms are designed to speed a refugee claims process that now can take five or more years and also crack down on phoney immigration consultants charging large amounts of money to help bogus refugees get into Canada.
The current backlog is 60,000 claims, and slightly less than half the refugee claims made in Canada are accepted.
Talk of an election has almost evaporated on Parliament Hill since the NDP said it would support the Harper government until employment insurance reforms are enacted.
This means the government has a period of relative stability to roll out some policy initiatives.
Kenney told the Commons citizenship and immigration committee the cumbersome system for handling refugee claims, which includes the right to appeal to the Federal Court of Canada at three separate stages, is 'an advertisement for people to come and abuse the system.'
He said Canada wants to keep the door open wide for genuine refugees fleeing persecution while closing it quickly for fraudulent claimants who take advantage of the country's generous system of multiple appeal channels to stay in Canada for years.
Kenney said he wants to maintain an appeal avenue in the new streamlined process but did not elaborate on how it would work.
Kenney told reporters later his department officials estimate the tab for each claimant going through the system, which includes everything from language and job training to lodging and social assistance, works out to about $29,000 for Canadian taxpayers.
Refugee reform is considered a major challenge in the minority Parliament.
Although MPs from all parties say they support the idea of speeding the claims system, there isn't agreement on how to fix the problem.
NDP MP Olivia Chow, the party's immigration critic, told reporters the system doesn't need a complete overhaul.
She said the problems can be solved by hiring more refugee board judges to get rid of the backlog; putting more resources into making sure rejected claimants are removed swiftly from the country; and refusing to accept refugee claims from anyone who has been helped by an unlicensed immigration consultant.
Chow said the NDP also opposes fast-tracking claims for those fleeing countries where residents are generally deemed to be safe from persecution, arguing people with legitimate claims from those countries will be given short shrift. The Liberal party is more open to the safe-country idea.
Kenney indicated anew Tuesday that he believes the idea has merit.
'I think it's a bit peculiar that we give precisely the same treatment to, say, a British citizen as, say, a North Korean citizen when it comes to our asylum system,' he told reporters. 'We need to exercise some common sense and other countries have done that.'
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3.
Polish gov't wants RCMP charged
By Neal Hall
The Canwest News Service (Canada), October 5, 2009
http://www.canada.com/Polish+wants+RCMP+charged/2071197/story.html
The Polish government wants criminal charges laid against the RCMP officers involved in the death of an immigrant at the Vancouver International Airport, the Braidwood inquiry was told Monday.
Robert Dziekanski, 40, was Tasered five times and died on the airport floor in October 2007 after arriving in Canada 10 hours earlier after a long flight from Poland.
'Justice must be achieved, responsibility determined and wrongdoers be made accountable through criminal prosecution,' said a letter from the Polish government read by lawyer Don Rosenbloom on Monday.
Rosenbloom also told inquiry commissioner Thomas Braidwood that Dziekanski's death was caused by 'a total breakdown in the (airport) operations.'
He said Dziekanski's interaction with police did not justify any use of force.
'Mr. Dziekanski, on first contact, wasn't aggressive but was calm and compliant,' Rosenbloom said.
He argued that the inquiry commissioner should also find misconduct against all four RCMP officers for failing to provide proper medical attention to Dziekanski 'while he was dying on the floor.'
Meanwhile, the lawyer for Dziekanski's mother Zofia Cisowski told the inquiry that the death was caused by excessive use of force by the RCMP and a failure in airport policy.
Walter Kosteckyj urged Braidwood to recommend that the RCMP's use-of-force training model be scrapped.
He also urged the commissioner to recommend that a provincial police force be created to replace the RCMP in B.C.
The RCMP, 'by not being answerable to the (provincial) legislature, is undemocratic,' Kosteckyj said.
Dziekanski, appearing exhausted and unable to find his mother, became frustrated and started throwing furniture, prompting a 911 call to police.
Four officers arrived and gave Dziekanski conflicting orders -- one told him to produce his papers, but when he tried to get his passport from his luggage, another officer told him not to go into his baggage and ordered the man to stand over by a counter.
Dziekanski threw up his arms and grabbed a stapler, which the police took as a threatening move.
Kosteckyj added that once police had handcuffed Dziekanski's hands behind his back, they failed to properly care for the man while in custody.
One officer testified Dziekanski turned blue and his breathing sounded like he was snoring.
But the officer who testified he was monitoring Dziekanski's breathing and pulse said he didn't see the man turn blue.
'How is it possible to be monitoring someone turning blue and not notice it?' Kosteckyj asked.
He estimated Dziekanski was unconscious for about six minutes before the ambulance arrived.
Firefighters, who were first on the scene, believed Dziekanski was dead when he was examined.
One of the firefighters was also critical of police refusing to remove the handcuffs from Dziekanski so he could be properly assessed.
Braidwood has the authority to find fault and make recommendations to the provincial government in his report.
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Poland seeks misconduct finding against Mounties
By Ian Bailey
The Globe and Mail (Canada), October 7, 2009
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/poland-seeks-misconduct-finding-against-mounties/article1313237/
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4.
Ex-Mexican president Vicente Fox denounces visa ruling in Calgary.
By Suzanne Wilton
The Canwest News Service (Canada), October 5, 2009
http://www.canada.com/Mexican+president+Vicente+denounces+visa+ruling+Calgary/2072074/story.html
Calgary -- Canada is making a ``big mistake'' by not backing down on its visa requirements for Mexican nationals, says that country's former president.
Speaking at the University of Calgary, Vicente Fox urged the Canadian government to find a ``better solution'' to its refugee problems, if that indeed is the reason for its recent change in policy in requiring Mexicans to obtain a visa to come here.
``It's a big mistake,'' said Fox, Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006. ``You don't do that to your neighbours, your partners.''
Canada sparked a so-called visa war in July, when Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced the new visa requirement for Mexicans, as well as residents of the Czech Republic.
Critics and experts said the policy chance could hurt trade relations with the European Union, because of the Czech Republic's membership, and with Mexico, a NAFTA partner. Mexico soon retaliated, saying it would require diplomats to have a visa to enter Mexico; the Czech Republic recalled its ambassador in protest.
Seeking to smooth relations with Mexico at a high-profile summit in August, Prime Minister Stephen Harper blamed Canada's refugee system for a decision to impose visas on Mexican nationals, and urged Parliament to enact changes to stave off ``bogus'' claims.
But he showed no indication Canada would rescind the policy.
Mexico is the No. 1 source of refugee claims to Canada, with the number nearly tripling to 9,400 since 2005, according to the Immigration Department.
If Canada's refugee system is to blame, then the country ought to fix the problem instead of imposing penalties on the entire Mexican nation, said Fox, adding many Mexicans work in the U.S. and in Canada in the construction and service industries.
``I don't know how much this great nation realizes what it's losing by requiring that visa,'' said Fox, who addressed the issue during a question-and- answer session following a Monday evening talk on leadership.
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5.
Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Good medicine
By David Dias
The National Post (Canada), October 6, 2009
http://www.financialpost.com/magazine/story.html?id=2072494
Barkaat Ahmad recalls a telephone conversation he had recently with a Pakistani doctor from Toronto. The president of Pro-Active Health Care Recruiting -- a firm based in Sydney, N.S., that specializes in helping foreign doctors find jobs within the Canadian system -- remembers the interview beginning in English, with the doctor impersonally retelling the details of his story.
Then Ahmad took a new tack, switching to Urdu. Immediately, the client opened up, even entrusting Ahmad with private information. 'Nothing else had changed,' he says. 'Just the language.'
These are moments that Ahmad lives for, when he can help immigrants like himself feel more at home and avoid the obstacles his family has had to face head on. With every new client, Ahmad is reminded of his own story -- that of a 19-year-old who followed his brother from Pakistan to Toronto in 1991 in search of economic opportunities.
Seven years later, Ahmad married Saima Haleem, a woman he'd known all his life from Pakistan, and brought her to Canada. Haleem was a family physician, but they soon learned that her training was worth little in Canada.
Their first stop in their five-year journey to get her back into the medical system took them to the United States. 'It was easier for doctors at the time to get into the system there,' says Ahmad. He found a job as an electrical engineer in Boston while Haleem juggled raising a newborn son while studying for medical exams. Three years on, however, she still hadn't found a residency. Then, in 2003, just as Haleem was finishing her certification, Ahmad was laid off and the couple was forced to move back to Toronto, where a job waited for him at Motorola.
It was around that time that Haleem finally completed her medical exams in Canada. Meantime, provincial health authorities, struck by an acute doctor shortage, started to loosen entry requirements for foreign doctors. Finally, in 2004, Haleem was offered a residency in Nova Scotia.
Unfortunately, while Haleem's prospects brightened, Ahmad couldn't find a good job in his own field, so he started thinking about what else he might do. Then it hit him -- for years, he and his wife had been learning the intricacies of Canada's health-care bureaucracy. During that time, they had practically become experts at navigating the system. 'Because of the struggle my wife had to go through,' he says, 'I had a lot of experience.'
Today, Pro-Active runs out of two home offices: one in Ahmad's house in Sydney, and another in the Toronto home of his brother, who works as the company's regional manager. Pro-Active derives its revenue -- well into six figures, according to Ahmad -- from the fees it charges hospitals and health authorities for helping recruit qualified doctors from abroad.
To date, Ahmad has helped hundreds of health-care workers find jobs with around 30 hospitals across the country. He does everything from helping them get certified and finding residencies to connecting them to real estate agents.
And while Pro-Active is contacted by medical professionals from all over the world -- Germany, South Africa, the United States -- Ahmad says that 50% of his base still comes from word of mouth within the Pakistani and Muslim communities in Canada. In fact, he says that in Sydney, thanks in part to Pro-Active, he's started to notice a growing community of Pakistani doctors. 'There are seven or eight families and they all have someone who's a doctor,' he says. 'That feels really good.'
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6.
EU states urged to show solidarity
By Matthew Xuereb
The Times of Malta, October 6, 2009
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091006/local/eu-states-urged-to-show-solidarity
Malta is not alone when it deals with the problems of illegal migration and other EU member states should show solidarity in practice, not just in theory, according to French MP Philippe Cochet.
Mr Cochet said France led the way in applying the principle of solidarity, showing Malta and other member states it was leading by example. France took 92 migrants from Malta last July and promised to take another 100 next year, but did not want to be alone in doing so.
Other member states had to extend their support to a small country like Malta which was facing a 'huge problem' in dealing with influx after influx of illegal migrants, he said.
During a presentation to EU Justice Ministers a fortnight ago, EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot said that out of the 26 member states invited to take part in a pilot resettlement project for Malta last July, only six - France, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, Luxembourg and Lithuania - replied favourably. He urged other member states to follow their example as this was 'a test of their solidarity'. The EU is offering member states €4,000 for every migrant resettled.
Malta is hoping to be able to resettle the majority of its refugees through this project. This will only happen if every member state pledges to take an average of 80 refugees each.
There is no one fixed solution. The problem is a European one and has to be dealt with on a European level, stressed Mr Cochet, who sits on the French Parliament's External Affairs Commission.
'Malta has to be helped. France is happy to offer this help and show other member states we are doing our part. Many did not yet realise the extent of the migration problem in Malta and leaving the situation like this is not an option. The problem will only get worse if we don't act quickly,' he said.
Mr Cochet was in Malta last week to see the situation faced by the island. He visited the Marsa open centre, the Lyster detention centre, and held talks with the Armed Forces of Malta and Home Affairs Ministry representatives.
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7.
UK to cut Pakistanis' visa wait
The BBC News (U.K.), October 6, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8292941.stm
Britain is to cut the time it takes to process visa applications by Pakistanis after a backlog delayed thousands.
Speaking after talks in Islamabad, UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson promised waiting times would fall from two months to 15 days by next month.
The Pakistani foreign ministry is embroiled in a row with the UK over several immigration issues, including delays in the award of UK visas.
Thousands of students hoping to study in the UK are among those affected.
UK Border Agency officials say 5,000 people are affected by the backlog in visa processing - mainly first-time applicants such as students. A further 9,000 appeals against visa refusals are pending.
The delays follow the re-location of the UK's visa office from Islamabad to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates - a move apparently made because of security concerns.
Pakistan says law-abiding citizens are being subjected to unacceptable delays.
'Expertise'
Speaking after meeting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Mr Johnson said moving the visa office was not in itself the cause of the problems.
'The fact is that it was taking us around 60 days to clear visas,' he said.
'But it really has very little to do with moving the visa centre to Abu Dhabi... the problem here was a particular failing with new technology.
'We are now down to between 14 and 28 days. Our objective is by November to ensure that we are providing the same services we aim to provide around the world... 15 working days from the time the application is made to the time it's produced.
'As far as the students are concerned, our understanding is that most universities in the UK have been flexible about this and have given a date to say look, we can still start your university course... by the end of October or early November.'
The British home secretary also said the UK was 'very keen to provide whatever expertise we can' to Pakistan to help it set up a national counter-terrorism agency.
He and UK Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth are in Islamabad for talks with Pakistani officials on the role Pakistan plays in combating terror in the UK.
'No answer'
Over the past three months a blind Pakistani cricket team, a pipe band and a well-known popular musician have all been denied UK visas or experienced lengthy delays in getting them.
The situation came to a head when it emerged recently that thousands of prospective students seeking to embark on courses in the UK were affected.
One student, Razi Farooqui, told the BBC on Tuesday that he was unable to attend his masters course at Oxford University because his visa had still not been processed - despite being submitted in July.
'I feel highly aggrieved,' he told the BBC, 'because the delay has not only meant I will have to postpone my course for a year but also because the British authorities still have my passport and no-one seems to know what has happened to it.
'If I ring the high commission's offices in Karachi or Islamabad they refer me to their Abu Dhabi offices and when I ring that number there is no answer. I have yet to be given an explanation for the delay - it's mind-bogglingly incompetent, especially when I have frequently travelled to the UK over the last 10 years.'
According to a Pakistani government spokesman, both Pakistani leaders urged the British authorities to expedite visa-processing applications.
The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says that students and applicants seeking medical treatment have suffered the most as many of them have missed crucial appointments at colleges and hospitals.
In addition, frequent visitors to the UK, such as musicians and businessmen, have also been denied visas.
+++
Visa snarl-up leaves thousands of Pakistani students barred from UK
By Declan Walsh
The Guardian (U.K.), October 4, 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/visa-pakistan-uk-students-university
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8.
Tories want 'best' migrants in UK
By Brian Wheeler
The BBC News (U.K.), October 6, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8293812.stm
The Conservatives would launch a drive to get more highly qualified migrants to come to the UK, shadow minister Damian Green has said.
The party would keep the government's points based migration system but place an overall annual limit on numbers.
It would cut low skilled migration but push for more high grade workers.
'We want to attract more than our fair share of the brightest and the best,' he told a Tory conference fringe meeting in Manchester.
Mr Green said he wanted to achieve an immigration system as close as possible to the Australian system, which as well as having quotas for some professions also set targets for highly qualified migration.
He said Britain was a global trading nation and it was vital for future prosperity to attract more entrepreneurs and highly qualified graduates to the UK than to rival economies such as Japan or the US.
'Scare stories'
But he also said it was important to control immigration by imposing an overall cap on numbers in order to ease pressure on public services and ease social tensions.
And he hit back at claims politicians on all sides were resorting to 'scare stories' about immigration, insisting some such stories, especially about the impact on primary schools, were true.
But he said the Tories aimed to get immigration under control to 'reduce the threat of social tension', arguing that people will feel 'more welcoming' and 'relaxed' about immigration if they have evidence it is not threatening their local services.
This was particularly important because despite the recession there had been no reduction in immigration and 'actually the numbers are still rising and all the pressures are still there'.
He also expressed concern about the government's earned citizenship scheme, which among other things encourages people to volunteer for activities, including helping political parties.
Mr Green said 'forced volunteering' on a mass scale could have a potentially 'horrific' impact on voluntary groups who would have to police it.
He also said Britain had been 'really lucky as a country' that the big, unplanned influx of migrants from Eastern Europe that had happened in the past few years had been 'hard working and respectable' people.
'We are lucky. We got away with it,' he added.
Interest rates
All of the panel at the Work Foundation event agreed that the quality of data on immigration in the UK was inadequate.
CBI director general Richard Lambert said that when he was a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, which sets UK interest rates, 'we had no idea about the flow of immigrants into our country and what was happening to inflation as a result. Not a clue'.
The Monetary Policy Committee, he added 'at the time was flying blind'.
He backed the government's points based migration system - even though some teething troubles still needed to be ironed out.
And he also suggested that the reason construction firms were bringing in labour from other EU countries - which led to industrial unrest over the summer - was more to do with the quality of the workers rather than their willingness to work for less.
'There are productivity problems which it seems to me is one reason why contractors are not hiring British workers,' he told the meeting.
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9.
Keep trafficking unit, Met urged
The BBC News (U.K.), October 7, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8293936.stm
Proposals by the Metropolitan Police to disband its specialist human trafficking team have been attacked by several leading charities.
The charities, including the NSPCC and Amnesty International, say the move would be seriously detrimental to the fight against trafficking.
They have written to Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson appealing for the unit not to be disbanded.
The Met said the team, set up in 2007, had direct funding for three years.
A final decision on whether the move will go ahead is expected within weeks.
'Specialist knowledge'
The BBC's June Kelly says in the team's short history, it has already been threatened with closure once before, because of funding problems, and later given a reprieve.
Now once again there is a proposal to disband a team which has been described as an international example of good practice, our correspondent says.
If the trafficking team is disbanded, the proposal is for its work to be given to other Met officers.
The charities, which also include End Child Prostitution and Trafficking and the Poppy Project, which helps victims of trafficking, have banded together to protest.
They stress that with victims traded for different reasons - including sex, forced labour, and domestic servitude - specialist policing is needed.
In their letter, they say: 'Human trafficking is a complex, sensitive issue.
'Given the continually evolving nature of the crime, it has taken the Human Trafficking Team and Non-Governmental Organisations working in the field a number of years to develop their expertise in the area.
'Policing trafficking for forced labour, domestic servitude and all other forms of exploitation requires specialist knowledge and understanding of trafficking, dedicated resources and commitment.'
'Financial pressures'
The charities also warn that when London plays host to the 2012 Olympics it could become even more of a magnet for the traffickers because experience shows that where large number of people gather there is an increased demand for sexual services.
A Met Police spokesman said it had been conducting a review about its response to 'all organised immigration crime and trafficking'.
'This has yet to be ratified but proposes clubs and vice [team] have enhanced resources and take over trafficking for sexual exploitation investigations.'
Aidan McQuade, director of Anti-Slavery International, said getting rid of the team, 'even if there are serious financial pressures', was 'very dangerous'.
'Clubs and vice have experience of trafficking for sexual exploitation but their remit does not cover trafficking for forced labour or domestic servitude,' he said.
On the funding issue, the Home Office said there was a 'clear understanding' with the Met 'that any future funding as of 1 April 2010 would be met from its central budget'.
A spokeswoman added that the Home Office provides funding to the Serious Organised Crime agency, which investigates human trafficking, and the UK Human Trafficking Centre, a police-led multi-agency centre which co-ordinates intelligence and operations.
London is often the first stop in the UK for victims. Human trafficking has been described as the third largest international crime, following illegal drugs and arms trafficking.
The nature of the crime means that the cases which are detected are the tip of the iceberg, according to one senior Met officer.
Giving evidence to the Home Affairs select committee in 2008, Commander Alan Gibson said: 'I would not like to say how much of its is above water.'
Commander Gibson said that in the previous two years the Met had dealt with 211 cases.
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10.
Elderly Iraqi with dementia arrested
The Copenhagen Post, October 7, 2009
http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/47127-elderly-iraqi-with-dementia-arrested.html
Police continue rounding up and arresting rejected Iraqi asylum seekers still living in Denmark
Two more Iraqis have been arrested and face forcible repatriation back to Iraq, despite one of them suffering from dementia.
Hassan Gardi, 72, has been in Denmark for eight years with his wife. Both were arrested yesterday and taken from their residence at the Kongelunden Red Cross asylum centre in Copenhagen, which caters for refugees with special needs.
Gardi’s dementia is worsening according to his doctors but the Immigration Ministry has ruled out dementia as an illness allowing for humanitarian asylum.
The Kirkeasyl support organisation feared that Gardi and his wife would be transported back to their homeland soon and described the situation as ‘horrible and appalling’.
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11.
Citizen patrols hit Italy streets
By Duncan Kennedy
The BBC News (U.K.), October 6, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8291187.stm
Rome -- The first, legal, citizens' patrols have appeared on the streets of Italy.
Supporters say the patrols will enable ordinary people to help police carry out their role of protecting neighbourhoods.
But opponents have argued the groups are no more than vigilantes, many of which are being set up in areas with high immigrant populations.
The city of Messina is one place where they are thriving.
It is a landing point for the island of Sicily and starting point for the most controversial versions of these citizens' patrols.
Here they are called the National Guard.
Others have different names.
The National Guard claims to have around 2,500 members across Italy.
Like the others, it does not have powers of arrest, but the Guard does have a uniform, which is as striking as the group itself.
It consists of khaki shirts, black caps featuring an eagle insignia and an armband with a black sun wheel as a logo.
'Under investigation'
It is the clothing that has earned them comparisons with Mussolini's infamous black shirt volunteer militia, which terrorised opponents in the 1930s, and helped the fascist dictator maintain power.
The new group's uniforms are so provocative, that at least one authority - in Milan - has placed them under investigation.
But the inquiry into whether their uniforms contravene Italy's laws banning Nazi and fascist insignia, has not stopped them beginning their patrols.
Maria Antonietta Cannizzaro is the Guard's leader in Sicily.
With her fellow members, she marches around central Messina, eliciting from passersby a flurry of looks that range from bemused indifference, to mild alarm.
During a break, Miss Cannizzaro volunteered her stark assessment of who is behind Italy's crime wave.
'It's immigrants,' she said. 'The majority of immigrants are drug dealers or prostitutes.
'It would be better for them to be in their country and helped there. It's useless for them to come here.'
The foot soldier in heels said: 'The streets in Italy are not safe, especially in big cities like Rome where people going home are getting attacked and raped'.
Her views on black and Jewish people would be actionable, if printed here.
Reassuring or alarming?
The Italian government insists these patrol groups are under control.
It says they cannot act on their own: They must call in the police if they see trouble.
Mobile phones, not jackboots, are supposed to be their weapon of choice.
One female shopper said: 'I find them reassuring, I'm more secure with them.'
But another woman said: 'I prefer the police to maintain law and order.'
The National Guard is headed by Gaetano Saya, who, having promised to meet us in Messina, failed to show up.
The closest we came to him was his video posted on YouTube.
Wearing the now-familiar militia-style shirt, but this time adorned with a photo of the Italian hero Garibaldi pinned to his chest, he addresses the camera for several, animated minutes.
It is, by turns, a combination of rage, finger pointing and calm, if simplistic, political and sociological analysis of life in Italy.
It amounts to an exaltation of Italy as a place fit only for Italians. He is a patriot not a fascist, he insists.
Nazi-style salute
But in another video we saw, a more sinister side to this group is revealed.
It is a shaky, handheld, recording of a meeting of the Guard. Towards the end a man stands up.
Inexplicably, the camera turns sideways, but there's no mistaking what happens.
The man makes a Nazi-style salute. His gesture is greeted with wild applause.
Opponents say entrusting security to citizens' patrols like the National Guard is a direct challenge to the rule of law.
They include Jean Leonard Touadi, born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and now a member of Italy's parliament who serves on its Justice committee.
'These patrols are an abdication of the responsibility of government,' he said.
'You cannot privatise security...that is a dangerous path which could destroy democracy.'
People patrol
Italy's new citizens' patrols do not all look like the National Guard.
Another branch, calling themselves Veneto Sicuro wear fluorescent jackets, for visibility, not effect, we're told.
They see themselves as true 'ronde', a more benign Italian word for 'patrol'.
The group look and feel unthreatening, a reassuring sight, even, in a country where crime levels genuinely worry many Italians.
Unlike some of the groups, this one doesn't maintain official ties with some of Italy's right-wing political parties, the kind that hold the most muscular views on immigration, like the Northern League.
The League is a vital coalition partner helping sustain the Prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, in office, a role never more important than now, following Mr Berlusconi's troubled summer of alleged sex scandals that have threatened to undermine his hold on power.
Some here believe Mr Berlusconi's acquiescence in the citizens patrol legislation was a price he had to pay for continued League support.
Now he and Italy have got their citizens' patrols.
And they are being viewed in one of two ways: either as an understandable reaction from a responsive government keen to do the public’s bidding as it clamours for action on crime.
Or, as a more cynical search for popularity, even though the groups may play into the hands of some who are anti-assimilation bigots, energised by the corrosive allure of intolerance, rather than the progressive forces of integration.
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12.
Italy acquits migrant rescue crew
The BBC News (U.K.), October 7, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8295727.stm
An Italian court has acquitted three members of a German charity of aiding illegal migration after they rescued a boatload of stranded African migrants.
In 2004, a ship from the Cap Anamur relief group rescued 37 migrants who were stranded in the Mediterranean Sea.
Former Cap Anamur president, Elias Bierdel, as well as the ship's captain and first officer, were put on trial in Agrigento, Sicily in 2006.
Humanitarian groups have welcomed the ruling.
The UN refugee agency had complained that the trial, as well as Italy's tough legislation on illegal immigration, had scared fishermen from rescuing people stranded at sea.
Italy had at first turned away the ship, but let it dock after nearly three weeks when the captain issued an emergency signal.
The three aid workers were detained for several days and then faced trial.
'This verdict is important for all those who do good,' said the ship's captain, Stefan Schmidt.
'My only regret is that with the money we have spent fighting this case for five years we could have been helping people,' he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
All 37 migrants were returned to their home nations after landing in Sicily. Many had claimed they were fleeing fighting in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, but were found to come from Ghana and Nigeria.
Italy, with its long and porous coastline, is a major target for migrants seeking to enter Europe.
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13.
Foreigners with skills to be fast-tracked
By Anna Cox
The Independent (South Africa), October 7, 2009
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=594&art_id=vn20091007064230910C430354
Skilled foreign migrants could soon be granted immediate permanent residence.
This is according to Busi Mkhwebane-Tshehla, acting chief director of refugee affairs at the Department of Home Affairs, who was speaking during the launch of the Johannesburg Migration Advisory Committee (JMAC) yesterday.
Mkhwebane-Tshehla said her department was revisiting its immigration policy. Economic asylum-seekers had to be distinguished from other asylum-seekers, she said.
'South Africa needs more skills, and because migrants need work permits and then have to apply for permanent residence, long delays are caused. We are now looking at amending the acts to grant immediate permanent residence to those with scarce skills,' she said.
Yesterday, Joburg mayor Amos Masondo launched the committee to ensure that migrants in the city feel that they belong. The council had acknowledged, he said, that migration could have positive dimensions.
'There are skilled migrants who maintain ties with their countries of origin who stimulate the transfer of technology and capital. Return migration can increase the positive effects that migration can have on development. Receiving countries are therefore not the only ones to see positive changes in their economies,' he said.
'Sending' countries could also reap benefits when migrants send their remittances to families back home, he said.
Migrants also contributed to enhancing the richness and cultural diversity of a city, he said. Through new forms of artistic expression and involvement in competitive sport, they created a better, more vibrant social 'scape' for the city.
'It is important that local governments continue to grapple with the challenges of migration, diversity and urban governance,' Masondo said.
The JMAC is a body mandated to come up with a strategy to develop regulations and procedures aimed at co-ordinating and promoting the integration of migrants across the city and to oversee its implementation.
Pili Twala-Tau, executive director of community development for the City of Joburg, said although the council had a migrants' desk in the inner city to assist with basic issues such as information and access to city services, the new committee would be going deeper into migrant issues.
The long-term goal, she said, was that social exclusion was addressed through the building of prospects for all people who lived in Joburg legitimately.
Another objective is to increase tolerance for migrants and combat xenophobia through a dedicated programme aimed at eliminating attacks and promoting tolerance.
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14.
Number of asylum seekers hits record
The Korea Herald, October 7, 2009
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/10/08/200910080045.asp
A sharply increasing number of foreigners are turning to the courts while seeking asylum in Korea, according to the Seoul Administrative Court yesterday.
As of the end of August, 99 refugee-related cases were filed, a 10-fold rise from the 9 cases during the same period last year, said court officials.
The figure was also much higher than the past yearly records - one in 2004, seven in 2005, 21 in 2006, 22 in 2007 and 15 last year.
The present law allows those who were denied asylum by the Justice Ministry to appeal to the Seoul Administrative Court within three months.
'As Korea's reputation in the international society has improved recently, an increasing number of foreigners came to seek refuge,' said a Justice Ministry official.
The sharp rise may also be attributable to the launch of the refugee department, newly established at the Seoul Immigration Office in May.
The department, exclusively set to support refugee-related issues, has sped up the application process for asylum seekers, the official explained.
'Also, most asylum seekers tend to turn to the court when denied recognition, as the expulsion measures are to be deferred until all legal processes are over,' the official also said.
Korea signed and joined the U.N. Convention and Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees back in 1992. A total of 2,413 foreigners have sought refugee status in Korea and 145 were granted asylum by the Justice Ministry.
The first refugee to be recognized was an Ethiopian man in 2001.
'Acquiring refugee status in Korea is still more complicated than in other countries,' said Thona Yiombi, a Congolese refugee who was granted asylum after six years of trying, 15 interviews and two denials.
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Refugee Claims Jump 10-Fold
By Park Si-soo
The Korea Times, October 7, 2009
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/10/113_53089.html
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15.
Australian immigration sees a drop in Australian working tourist visas
By Liam Clifford
Global Visas, October 7, 2009
http://www.globalvisas.com/news/australian_immigration_sees_a_drop_in_australian_working_tourist_visas_1700.html
Numbers applying and gaining Australian working tourist visas has fallen. Demand for skilled labor stays strong.
The Australian Minister for Immigration, Chris Evans, has just released his 2009 Territory Summary Report for people entering Australia on the 457 Long Stay Australian Visa.
Amongst other points the main finding was that the number of people applying for Australian Visas and being granted temporary work visas in Australia has dropped, however, the demand for skilled workers is still strong in Australia.
The report found the following:
* Primary visa applications had dropped by 45% compared to June 2oo8, before the financial crisis in Australia.
* Primary visa applications for Australia were down by 11% compared to the previous year
* Visas granted to Irish nationals increased by 8%, where as other major countries decreased by around 30%.
* Visas granted to nurses in Australia increased by 18%, where as other high-demand occupations decreased.
* Average salary for 457 (work sponsored) visa holders of Australia has increased by 6% to $77,500.
The slowing economy has meant that the Australian Government reduced the intake of 457 Australian working visas, the report did however state the importance of the Australian work visa in bringing added expenditure into the economy from working tourists spending money while they were in the country
This is supported by a change in the rules governing employment of working tourists by the Australian government, this will help to avoid exploitation of foreign workers, and underlines the Governments aim of regaining the levels of people applying for Long Stay Australian Visas seen in the past.
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16.
Migration, births gets Australia through GFC
By Drew Cratchley
The Australian Associated Press, October 7, 2009
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,26177688-31037,00.html
Natrual population growth and a steady migration rate are the unsung heroes of Australia's economic resilience through the global financial crisis, new research suggests.
Small business owners should be confident of an economic recovery and the Federal Government should maintain a steady migration rate to underpin that recovery, advisory firm PFK Australia concludes in its latest annual Business & Population Monitor.
Australia's pre-crisis resources boom saw a 'mini baby boom' and record levels of migrant intake, which has gone on to assist the job market by increasing demand for housing, goods and services, the report found.
'Arguably the unsung hero of Australia's defence against the downturn has been our magnificent population growth,' PFK national chairman of enterprise advisers Chris Allen said on Wednesday.
'People power is part of what is driving us along relative to others. Put simply, more people equal more customers, and therefore more jobs.'
The report, compiled with Access Economics, finds Australia's population grew by 1.9 per cent in the past year, helped by the highest birth rate since 1971.
Migration rates remained steady, despite several reductions by the federal government, and that should be maintained to ensure continued economic stability, Mr Allen said.
'Australia's strong migrant intake continues to provide real opportunities for Australian business,' he said.
'These are the customers that businesses should target - new Australians who need homes, furnishings, clothes, food, everything to start their new life in this country.
'An open migration policy has been, and will continue to be important to the success of Australia's economic environment.'
On a state-by-state basis, the Northern Territory was crowned the winner in the economic stakes, while New South Wales has been worst hit by the economic downturn.
The NT displayed population growth, the highest levels of business confidence and high levels of retail and housing investment.
Small business confidence in NSW was well below the national average and housing affordability remains Australia's worst.
The resource-rich states of Western Australia and Queensland were hit by a combination of lower job vacancies, a slump in housing markets or weaker retail spending, the report found.
'The challenge for businesses is to identify the gaps or the slow growth areas in their states and work to address them,' PFK director of enterprise advisers Matthew Field said.
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