Daily news updates from CIS

October 27, 2009 -- Click here for overseas news

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[For CISNEWS subscribers --

1. E-Verify demonstrating success in San Diego
2. Review finds DHS properly spent border funds (2 stories, link)
3. AZ U.S. Attorney to chair enforcement advisory panel
4. GOP split over Census policies (story, link)
5. IL Rep. Gutierrez seeks urgency in amnesty effort
6. Congress unlikely to act on amnesty this year
7. Senate Dems frustrated by E-Verify amendment (2 links)
8. MA Dem. Senate candidates discuss issue
9. Cambodian congressional hopeful targets immigrant vote
10. AFL-CIO report bemoans enforcement
11. NV expanding welfare to illegal alien parents
12. CNMI transitional rules limit foreign labor
13. NE supreme court to hear city ordinance case
14. VA enforcement driving gangs to DC, MD (story, link)
15. San Fran. relaxes vehicle impound rules (story, link)
16. MD police policy violates federal rules, critics say
17. NYC mayor seeks more foreign residents
18. Los Angeles law would target wage theft
19. Dallas police under fire for language-citations
20. Foreigners seeking USCIS services in NE decrease
21. Gay activists seek recognition in immigration law
22. TN activists oppose capital’s adoption of new 287(g) agreement
23. NY program provides information for immigrants
24. Mexican man jailed for smuggling
25. Homosexual Brazilian denied asylum (link)
26. NC GIs accused of marriage fraud (link)
27. Border Patrol nabs 20 illegals arriving by sea (link)

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

-- Mark Krikorian]


1.
Worker-status checking gets done without fuss
Local contractors say new rule helps with hiring process
By Leslie Berestein
The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 27, 2009
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/oct/27/worker-status-checking-gets-done-without-fuss/

In this region rife with federal contractors, employers are heeding a new rule requiring them to ensure that their employees are working legally in this country.

Employers with federal contracts or subcontracts of more than $100,000 and lasting longer than 120 days are now required to use E-Verify, a federal, Internet-based system that checks information provided on workers' employment eligibility verification forms, known as I-9 forms, to ensure that they are eligible to work in the United States.

The system checks employees' Social Security data for authenticity, as well as their immigration status.

Under the new rule, which went into effect Sept. 8, new hires must be screened. So must existing employees working directly on a federal contract, a provision of the rule that has met with ire from the business lobby.

In San Diego, however, where federal dollars keep shipbuilding and other defense-related industries afloat, contractors aren't complaining.

'It has run smoothly for us,' said Karl Johnson, spokesman for San Diego shipbuilder General Dynamics NASSCO, which has multimillion-dollar contracts to build Navy vessels. 'Shipbuilding takes a lot of people, and the system has helped us with the hiring process.'

Like many other federal contractors in the county, the company was already using the free verification system — previously referred to as Basic Pilot — before the rule kicked in.

There are 160,951 businesses enrolled in E-Verify nationwide, 12,692 of them in California, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the program. Congress recently approved funding to extend E-Verify another three years.

In addition to cost and duration of contracts, the September rule applies only to companies whose products cannot be purchased off the shelf and whose work is not produced exclusively offshore, said Sharon Rummery, a spokeswoman for the agency. Companies meeting the criteria must enroll in E-Verify within 30 days of the contract award date and start verifying the information on workers' I-9 employment forms within 90 days of enrolling, she said.

The rule was initially scheduled to kick in last January. A month prior, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed suit against the government in an attempt to halt implementation and demand revisions, a case that is still pending.

Critics of what began as Basic Pilot, first rolled out on a trial basis in 1997 in five states including California, have raised concerns about the potential for false hits, which could complicate employment for those legally authorized to work, particularly foreign-born.

A worker whose screening reveals a discrepancy in his or her documents is informed of the problem and asked to straighten it out within eight working days, Rummery said. If they cannot, they lose their job.

Angelo Amador, executive director of immigration policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the system has become significantly more efficient over the years, making this less of a concern. But he said there are other problems, in particular a provision forcing contractors to rescreen existing employees working on a federal contract. Critics argue that this costs employers money and exposes them to potential litigation.

'It is a costly proposition,' Amador said. 'You need to have HR people going around to make sure to bring everybody in.'

In the case of large companies, the staff hours required to do this work for thousands of employees can add up, Amador said. There are also problems over identifying which existing employees need to be screened or not, a quandary he said some companies might avoid by rescreening everyone. In addition, some labor unions have agreements stating their workers will not be rescreened.

'You have to be careful,' Amador said. 'Our companies are calling us and their attorneys themselves aren't clear on this.'

Companies that profit from federal contracts aren't likely to complain publicly, Amador said, but many have complained privately.

The process is indeed labor-intensive, said Lynnette Williams, a compliance specialist for BAE Systems in San Diego, a federal contractor whose business lines range from ship repair to information technology used by the military.

The ship repair unit, formerly known as Southwest Marine, began using Basic Pilot following a federal audit in 2003 that found 14 employees had turned in fraudulent documents to obtain work. However, the information solutions unit in Rancho Bernardo only adopted E-Verify recently. It has six months to screen existing employees according to the new rule, Williams said.

'It is a lot of work, but you have to do it anyway, Williams said. 'We have to do the I-9, and we have to comply with the federal government, so for us it is another step.'

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2.
Border projects mostly met stimulus goal, DHS review finds
By Spencer S. Hsu
The Washington Post, October 23, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102302651.html

A spokesman for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said a new review by the department's inspector general answers criticism by lawmakers that politics influenced plans to spend $680 million in stimulus funds on border security projects.

A report by DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner, required under the $787 billion relief package approved in February, concluded that U.S. Customs and Border Protection 'generally developed practical, thorough, and comprehensive expenditure plans.'

The Associated Press reported in August that DHS allowed low-priority projects -- such as a sleepy checkpoint in Whitetail, Mont., that received $15 million but only sees about three travelers a day -- to leap-frog more pressing needs. The AP cited statements by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) boasting that he and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) successfully pushed for funds.

A border station in Nogales, Ariz., -- Napolitano's home state -- received $199 million, more than any other site, while one of the nation's highest-priority stations at Laredo, Tex., received none, according to the AP, which said DHS allowed it to review but would not publicize a list of most urgently needed repair programs.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), ranking Republican on the House Committee of Oversight and Government Reform, has called on Napolitano to disclose the border agency's selection criteria. Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) wrote Napolitano saying DHS's plan 'lacks common sense and would represent a terrible waste of taxpayers' money.'

According to Skinner, however, the border agency selected 23 checkpoints for improvements based on 'operational priorities, facility assessments' and project risk, although investigators did not evaluate how the border agency set its priorities or determined its costs.

The 28-page report, which was released Friday to Congress for a 30-day review and obtained by The Washington Post, noted that the $420 million of DHS stimulus funds that were designated for border checkpoints could be spent on only the 43 of 163 stations, known as land ports of entry, that the department owns. The DHS-owned ports are primarily low-volume checkpoints on the Canadian border.

The other 120 ports, including the one in Laredo, Tex., are owned by the U.S. General Services Administration, which received another $300 million for upgrades. DHS officials acknowledged that both agencies coordinate improvements based on the same priority list.

Also, none of the DHS projects met the legislation's goal to 'quick-start' spending by using half the money for work that could begin in June, Skinner said.

A DHS official said the department would not release the list because it is 'constantly changing.' Some projects may have been passed over because full funding was not available, or because they required potentially lengthy environmental or historical reviews and were not 'shovel-ready,' the official said.

'The report released today demonstrates that [Customs and Border Protection] has effectively and objectively managed its Recovery Act projects, bolstering security while investing in local communities across the country,' Napolitano spokesman Sean Smith said in a statement.

Napolitano has halted new border construction projects pending a separate, 30-day department review. A DHS official said the secretary expects to receive the results Friday, which she will review before making her own recommendations soon.

In an e-mailed statement, Issa spokesman Kurt Bardella said, 'It appears that DHS followed their procedures properly in allocating stimulus funds,' but that officials were hamstrung by how the administration and Congress split the money between agencies.

Bardella said DHS 'had to scramble to re-prioritize... projects based on this strictly artificial delineation of funding, the rationale for which remains non-transparent.'

Tester has said he had no role in the decision making.

Dorgan, in an interview, maintained that the spending was nonsensical, and noted that DHS declined an offer by Skinner to review why it was spending some $220 million on 22 Canadian border checkpoints, which Dorgan said on average saw four cars and one truck each per day.

'My point is, that's way out of line,' Dorgan said. 'I'm all for border security, but we can do it for much less than we're spending.'

+++

Questions about border stimulus linger
The Associated Press, October 25, 2009
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/314723

Washington, DC (AP) -- A watchdog's review of stimulus spending by the Department of Homeland Security doesn't resolve the controversy about how the Obama administration allocated the money for border projects.

The inspector general's report, obtained Friday by The Associated Press, says the department generally had a good spending plan. But department officials told the inspector general not to go further and review anything beyond its spending plan, including a decision-making process criticized as secretive and susceptible to political meddling. The department said it's doing its own internal review.

The plan includes $680 million for projects managed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency, which is part of Homeland Security.

In August, the AP reported that the administration did not follow its own list of priorities in handing out $720 million to renovate border crossings; some $420 million came from Homeland Security funds.

Despite President Obama's promises that the $787 billion stimulus plan would be transparent, the department used a selection process for renovating border crossings that is secretive and vulnerable to political influence. This allowed low-priority projects such as small checkpoints along the country's northern border to skip ahead of more pressing concerns at larger facilities on the southern border, according to documents revealed to the AP.

Homeland Security has refused to release its internal priority list for renovating these checkpoints. Officials say the final project list is all they need to make public.

+++

Watchdog: DHS followed rules on stimulus spending
By Eileen Sullivan
The Associated Press, October 24, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/23/AR2009102304300.html

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3.
Burke to head up immigration subcommittee
By Jeremy Duda
The Arizona Capitol Times, October 26, 2009
http://azcapitoltimes.com/blog/2009/10/26/burke-to-head-up-immigration-subcommittee/

U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke will chair a subcommittee on border and immigration law enforcement that will advise U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Burke, who was recently confirmed as the U.S. attorney for Arizona, on Oct. 26 was named as the chairman of the Border and Immigration Law Enforcement Subcommittee. The subcommittee is part of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, a body of about 20 U.S. attorneys who advise the attorney general on a number of issues.

'I am extremely honored to serve in this additional capacity,' Burke stated in a press release. 'Border and immigration issues are not only a District of Arizona priority, but a priority within the entire Department of Justice. I look forward to working with my U.S. attorney colleagues, as well as with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies throughout Arizona to advise the attorney general on these matters.'

When Burke was nominated to the position, he said one of his greatest priorities as U.S. attorney would be border-related crime, especially in terms of human smuggling and drug trafficking. He has declined interview requests from the Arizona Capitol Times on several occasions since then.

Burke’s appointment comes as the debate over illegal immigration and related crime is back in the spotlight. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in July announced changes to its 287(g) program that would focus the program mainly on illegal immigrants who had committed other crimes.

The agencies also refused to reauthorize their agreement with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office that allowed deputies to enforce immigration law on the streets during crime-suppression sweeps. Sheriff Joe Arpaio lambasted the agencies for the changes, though his agency still has a 287(g) agreement that allows it to investigate the immigration status of inmates in its jails.

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4.
Vitter takes on census, immigrant rights groups
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times, October 27, 2009
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/27/vitter-takes-on-census-immigrant-groups/

In his push to have the Census Bureau count the number of U.S. citizens, Sen. David Vitter, Louisiana Republican, is taking a very parochial approach with his colleagues: Your state could be the one to lose an extra seat in Congress.

Mr. Vitter is holding up one of the 2010 spending bills in the Senate, demanding a vote on his amendment to force the census to add a question about citizenship status to its 2010 questionnaire. He has written letters to the senators from nine states he says would lose seats to states with higher illegal immigrant or noncitizen populations, telling them it's in their interest to support him.

'Voting for cloture or against my amendment could very well be a vote to strip your state of proper representation in Congress and cede your state's influence to other states that reward illegal immigrants like California and New York,' he said in his letter to Indiana's two senators, which would be among those at a disadvantage.

But the fight is turning personal as the Census Bureau says it is too late and too expensive to change next year's count. Immigrant rights groups and some Democratic lawmakers say it's mean-spirited and racist to ask the kind of question Mr. Vitter wants.

'It's really a coldblooded political maneuver to discourage participation by people of color,' said Rep. Barbara Lee, California Democrat.

Rep. Joe Baca, California Democrat, wondered 'whether ladies of the night' should be counted — a reference to Mr. Vitter's acknowledged use of an escort service.

Every 10 years, the 535 seats in the House are divided among the states based on population. At root, the new debate is whether only those eligible to vote should be considered for those purposes or whether everyone residing in the country should be tallied.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution says (in part): 'Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed.'

Michael P. McDonald, a professor at George Mason University who studies the drawing of congressional districts, said that language is clear, and, barring a change to the Constitution, seats must be allocated based on the total number of people.

'You'd have to have a constitutional amendment to change the apportionment numbers,' Mr. McDonald said.

Mr. Vitter is not so sure — and his spokesman says before the country can have that debate, it should at least get better data about the scope of the issue.

'Constitutional scholars who've spoken to the senator's office have argued that it is not as clear as district courts have ruled. There has not been a high court ruling on this issue as far as I have learned,' spokesman Joel DiGrado said.

Elliott Stonecipher, a demographer in Louisiana whose Op-Ed column in the Wall Street Journal this summer helped spark the debate, said he believes the legal issues are still in doubt, but that the principles involved are clear.

'I have yet to read one spokesperson from the left who will simply argue that noncitizens should get representation in the House of Representatives,' he said. 'They will use all kinds of other arguments, mainly about settled law and the 14th Amendment, but they won't ever jump up and say, 'We believe here's the reason noncitizens should have representation in the House of Representatives.''

The effort has enraged immigrant rights supporters, and a group of Democratic lawmakers from the Asian, black and Hispanic caucuses held a news conference Thursday to denounce Mr. Vitter's efforts. They warned that if his amendment passed it would push back next year's census.

Rep. William Lacy Clay, Missouri Democrat, held up a photo of the warehouse where millions of already printed census forms are stacked seven-stories high, waiting to be mailed out next year.

Mr. Baca, who mentioned Mr. Vitter's association with an escort, has introduced a competing bill that would write into law that no question about citizenship or immigration status may be included in the decennial census.

Questions about citizenship have been included in other census questionnaires that go to smaller samples than the decennial census. The results suggest that California would have five or six fewer seats than it does now if only citizens were counted. Mr. Vitter said the states that lose out on seats under the current system are Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Michigan, South Carolina and his own state of Louisiana.

Democrats have tried once to end the filibuster but were three votes shy of the 60 votes needed to overcome Republicans' blockade, though three Democrats missed that vote.

For now, Mr. Vitter remains deadlocked with Democratic leaders. A spokeswoman for Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland Democrat and chairman of the spending subcommittee that wrote the bill, could shed no light on when Democrats might try to break the impasse.

While he said changing apportionment is unconstitutional, Mr. McDonald said it was an open question whether individual states could use citizenship numbers to draw their congressional district lines.

He said Kansas and Hawaii have excluded nonresidents in drawing some district lines for their state legislatures. In the case of Hawaii, the location of a military base could have led at one point in the past to a state district with no eligible voters.

+++

GOP Splits Over Proposal to Count Illegals in Census
New Majority, October 26, 2009
http://www.newmajority.com/gop-splits-over-proposal-to-count-illegals-in-census

Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), the House’s Ranking Member on the committee responsible for census issues, objected today to a Senate amendment introduced by two Republican Senators.

The amendment, proposed by Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Bob Bennett (R-UT), would block funding to the Census Bureau if it failed to ask questions on citizenship and immigration status in the upcoming 2010 Census.

Rep. Issa, the ranking member for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, responded to a NewMajority question on the Senate amendment by saying that 'denying money [to the census] is unthinkable.' He went on to justify his comment by saying that the census is a constitutional obligation, implying that the Vitter amendment could prevent that obligation from being fulfilled.

Issa, who admitted that his home state of California gets more congressmen than it deserved due to current census practices, argued that the constitution doesn’t differentiate between legal and illegal persons with regards to census figures, but did not say that this disqualified citizenship questions from being asked.

Instead, he agreed that there was 'a valid reason' to obtain citizenship information from census participants, but defended his objections to a change to the 2010 census by saying that 'what we don’t know can’t hurt us.'

Rep. Issa’s comments today put him at odds with fellow Republicans Vitter and Bennett. Issa’s views also conflict with those of Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), a House colleague who sits on his committee, as Chaffetz recently introduced House legislation that mirrored the Senate amendment.

Senators Vitter and Bennett have touted their amendment as one that would ensure that congressional seats and federal funds would be distributed fairly.

'In the past, some states have included illegal immigrants during the census, resulting in the allocation of additional congressional seats. We shouldn’t let these states be rewarded for skirting our federal laws and this amendment would help stop this practice,' said Senator Vitter in a statement when his amendment was introduced.

Senator Vitter’s home state of Louisiana lost one seat during the 2000 round of apportionment, and one report suggests that the 2010 census figures will lead to the loss of one more. Sen. Bennett and Rep. Chaffetz’s state of Utah is expected to gain one seat after next year’s census, but some Utahans believe that the Census Bureau’s refusal to count overseas Mormon missionaries cost them an additional seat after the 2000 census.

Few have lined up to join Sen. Vitter, Sen. Bennett and Rep. Chaffetz in their efforts. Labor groups such as the SEIU have started campaigns to oppose the Senate amendment, and even those who support the principle of asking questions on citizenship have labelled the amendment impractical.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, argued that the amendment was 'a good idea' but came at least a year or two too late. 'From a practical sense, they really can’t change the 2010 census form… the census starts in six months.'

Among the few to support the Vitter-Bennett amendment are Hispanic groups who were already calling for a boycott of the 2010 census.

Rev. Miguel Rivera, head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, told the Wall Street Journal that 'Senator Vitter’s amendment is indirectly helping us achieve and accomplish our purpose' by pressuring Democrats into overhauling immigration policy.

Offered for the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Bill, the Vitter-Bennett amendment has stalled in the Senate since it was first introduced on October 7th. A week later, a vote for cloture on the amendment failed, and the next vote has yet to be scheduled.

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5.
Illinois Congressman: Immigration Reform Cannot Wait
The NPR News, October 27, 2009

President Obama says he wants to change United States immigration policy. But so far, immigration has taken a backseat to other pressing issues, like health care, the economic recession and the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Illinois, wants to bump immigration to the top of the President's agenda. Gutierrez explains why he thinks comprehensive immigration reform cannot wait any longer.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Full audio coverage is available online at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114199526

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6.
Dem senators decry GOP 'slow-walking' on unemployment bill
By Michael O'Brien
The Hill (Washington, DC), October 26, 2009
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/64813-dem-senators-decry-gop-slow-walking-on-unemployment-bill

Republicans have sought to slow down an extension of unemployment benefits for political purposes, a group of Democratic senators charged Monday.

Sens. Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) blasted their GOP colleagues for trying to attach amendments on pet issues to a bill to extend unemployment benefits.
. . .
The senators expressed anger that amendments on issues such as making E-Verify permanent or on depriving funds to the community organizing group ACORN had held up a vote on the package, which is expected to make its way to the Senate floor this week.

+++

Senators differ on extending homebuyer tax credit
By Andrew Taylor
The Associated Press, October 26, 2009

Washington, DC (AP) -- Top Democrats in the Senate are pressing a plan that would extend a popular tax credit for first-time homebuyers but gradually phase it out over the course of next year.
. . .
Reid sought to schedule a vote on the competing measures on Monday but was blocked by top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who is demanding votes on unrelated GOP proposals.

One such proposal would require people receiving unemployment insurance to be processed through the E-Verify program to prove legal immigration status and would require all federal contractors to use E-Verify. E-Verify is an Internet-based system that employers use to check on the immigration status of new hires.
. . .
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwAd_Hkl0Wp7vUUa4T8aD5UILeLwD9BJ0A7O0

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7.
Congress unlikely to progress with amnesty this year
By Chad Groening
One News Now, October 27, 2009
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=739652

An immigration reform activist doesn't think Congress is likely to move forward with amnesty legislation this year, despite the wishes of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

On October 13, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) outlined the 'core principles' of an amnesty bill that he plans to introduce in Congress later this year.

Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) says the legislation would be similar to other amnesty bills from previous sessions of Congress aimed at legalizing the 12-million illegal aliens currently living in the United States while making empty promises of enforcement. However, he doubts Congress is going to move as quickly as Gutierrez and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus would like.

'President Obama said this summer down in Mexico [that] this is not likely to come up until next year. A lot of Democrats don't want to have to go back to their constituents and say, 'Look, we didn't get the economy in shape, we didn't get healthcare done -- but hey, we granted amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.' That's not exactly what the constituents back home are looking for them to do in Washington,' explains Mehlman. 'And there's probably a lot of pressure from within Congress to delay this as long as possible.'

The FAIR spokesman says even though Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) probably would like to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, she desires even more to retain her position as House speaker come January 2011.

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8.
Mass. Dem. Senate hopefuls spar in first debate
By Steve LeBlanc
The Associated Press, October 27, 2009

Boston (AP) -- All four Democratic candidates for the late Edward Kennedy's Senate seat said their party leaders in Congress should force through a health care bill with or without Republican support, despite President Barack Obama's call for bipartisanship.

The four also called for a strong public option Monday during their first debate of the special election.

'When you have the votes, you go for it. We should not wait for this to make sure everybody is happy, because everyone will never be happy,' said Rep. Michael Capuano.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, the front-runner in recent polls, said the 60 Democratic votes in the Senate are enough.

'Bipartisanship is nice,' she said. 'But I think we need good progress on this.'

City Year co-founder Alan Khazei and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca also said as soon as Democrats have enough votes for the bill they should push it through.

There were few fireworks in the debate, with the candidates trying to distinguish themselves from each other despite largely agreeing on most issues.

On the question of immigration, all four said they would support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, but split slightly on whether those already in the country should have access to key services including drivers' licenses.

Coakley said it was a disgrace for the country not to find a way for illegal residents who pay taxes and work to obtain a legal status, but said she'd oppose giving them drivers' licenses, a position echoed by Pagliuca. Khazei said he also thought the country shouldn't provide services to people who are undocumented.

Capuano said choosing between a path to citizenship and driver's licenses was 'a false choice' and said he would only support comprehensive immigration reform, noting his own immigrant background.

'I don't want to pull the ladder up behind me for the next people coming in,' he said.
. . .
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/10/26/mass_senate_democrats_have_a_pair_of_sit_downs/

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9.
Lowell Cambodian leaders say more need to stand up and be counted
By David Perry
The Lowell Sun (MA), October 26, 2009
http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_13643136

More than two dozen people have filed into the basement of the Coalition for a Better Acre building on Merrimack Street on a Wednesday afternoon in July.

They gather for Khmer Connection, to discuss issues facing their community.

A handsome man in a dark suit and yellow tie greets them. He shakes hands and chats.

His name is Sam Meas. He is a Republican running for the 5th District seat in Congress held by Niki Tsongas.

He lives in Haverhill and is a principal with State Street Global Advisors in Boston.

He is thinking of moving to Lowell, he says, with his wife and two daughters.

He is 36. Well, maybe 38, or perhaps, 34. U.S. immigration officials list his date of birth as Dec. 31, 1972; the records of his birth in Cambodia's Kandal Province were destroyed by Pol Pot's regime.

He says he learned to fight for his beliefs as an orphan in the Khao-I-Dang refuge camp in Thailand, where he lived for more than three years, beginning in 1983.

Sponsored by Catholic Charities of Virginia, he arrived on U.S. soil on Nov. 16, 1986.

'From what I understand, some momentum has been lost here,' he says of Lowell's Cambodian-American politics. 'When you don't have a lot of folks well-assimilated to the American political process, people can get discouraged.'

He figures that with Lowell's Cambodian-American population -- '30,000, 35,000?' -- and 'only about 2,000-3,000 registered voters, that's very low. And it's one of the reasons I'm running for office. I really want to inspire and energize other Asian-Americans.'

He knows topping Tsongas won't be easy.

Meas says he wants to inspire the immigrant community. His vision: In five years, two Cambodians on the City Council, in 10 years, a Cambodian mayor.

'Cambodians, Vietnamese, Laotians, we all have a stake in this. The political process is not only open to Caucasian Americans.'

Cambodian refugees who arrived in the 1980s and 1990s wanted survival in their new homeland, not necessarily a role in politics.

Cambodians in Lowell follow their homeland politics, particularly Cambodia's longtime prime minister, Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge officer before changing sides, and opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who frequently visits Lowell to raise money.

But 'to them it is not a priority to say 'I dictate the policy of this city,' says Vong Ros of his community's political involvement in Lowell.

Many Cambodians are still not fluent in English. Perhaps most of all, the genocide ingrained deep mistrust of government.

Dahvy Tran recalls walking out of a Market Basket store in Lowell several years ago, where John Kerry was campaigning.

'It was the first time I realized we elected people like we do here,' says Tran, 22, who works with the Asian Task Force.

Her mother's escape from Cambodia colored family perceptions of politics.

'In Cambodia, if you spoke out against the government they would kill you,' she says. 'Out of fear, you just kind of go with whatever happens. And people who came here were afraid that what happened with the Khmer Rouge would happen again. The Khmer Rouge kept endless lists of people, and the older generation gets nervous, and doesn't want information known.'

Older refugees fear the government turning on them here, too, she says.

'You're talking about a genocide where parents were forced to kill their own kids, and where neighbors ratted each other out to save their own lives. So you looked for who you could trust and if you don't have trust, you don't have a community.'

A high-water moment for Lowell's Cambodian community came a decade ago. Rithy Uong won a seat on the City Council, the first Cambodian-American elected to such a body nationally. His losses in life included two brothers, who died in Cambodia's killing fields.

But for Lowell's Khmer community, Uong was one of their own.

'When he was elected, I was very, very happy and proud,' recalls Socheath Uch, a 69-year-old Cambodian refugee who arrived in Lowell in 1981. 'To see a Cambodian person in office was an opportunity for other people to realize Cambodian people aren't stupid. We vote, and are here to stay.'

Even Uong couldn't believe he won.

Uong was not the first Cambodian to run in Lowell. Sambath Chey Fennell launched an unsuccessful bid for School Committee in 1995.

And Uong did not look only within the Cambodian community for support. He knew politics, spending 1992 in Cambodia, working for the United Nations to monitor elections there.

According to Dan Toomey, formerly of UMass Lowell's Center for Family, Work and Community, just 250 Cambodians were registered voters in 1997.

'And only 75 voted.'

Uong, a Lowell High School guidance counselor, started feeling the pull that year.

'I hadn't ever cared about politics that much,' says Uong, 49, a former president of the CMAA. 'But after helping with free and fair elections, and seeing people starved for democracy, it was different.'

Uong and others started organizing to enlist a Cambodian candidate.

'We were talking about getting someone to run for the City Council and School Committee. And nobody wanted to run. At the time, I was president of the CMAA, and helped get the Southeast Asian Water Festival here, under Samkhann Khoeun. In 1998, we started talking but no one thought there was hope to get a seat. I finally said, 'I will do it, but I need all of you.''

Fred Faust, a Belvidere resident entrenched in local politics, supported Uong, throwing a party that raised $7,000.

'His friends told him, you're crazy to support somebody who isn't well-known,' Uong says. 'But he stayed with it.'

Mel King, the Boston activist, helped. Members of Boston's Chinatown community held Uong signs in Lowell. There were TV commercials. The Boston media took notice.

Uong finished 11th of 24, in the preliminary in 1999. In the general election, he finished sixth, landing one of the Council's nine seats. He drew nearly one-fourth of his votes from the mostly white, middle-class Belvidere and Upper Highlands areas.

People jumped up and down with joy at his victory party at the Park Cafe.

'You couldn't find a better moment,' he says, still relishing the win.

'If my head gets too big,' he told his friends, 'tell me. If I forget my friends, let me know.'

'Rithy hit it at just the right time for the right support,' says Mehmed Ali, who spent years documenting Lowell's history as director of UMass Lowell's Patrick J. Mogan Center. (He also worked to elect Uong in 2001 and 2003, and waged his own unsuccessful 2007 Council bid.) 'Belvidere 10 years ago was more liberal than it is today, and the support there was critical for him. Nobody else has pulled it off because they haven't gotten the support of the white community. If enough Cambodians voted, they could elect a candidate.'

Uong was regarded as a consensus builder between the newer Southeast Asian residents and the city's predominantly white old guard.

He was re-elected in 2001 and 2003, but resigned in August 2005 after the state Ethics Commission ruled he should not have accepted a 2002 promotion from guidance counselor to housemaster while on the Council.

Ali, now cultural affairs liaison for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, says Uong's resignation may have had little impact.

'He's still well-respected within the Cambodian community. It's possible his downfall deterred others from running. If a candidate who has done a lot for the community didn't make it ... but it isn't easy. Someone who is an immigrant who doesn't speak English as a first language ... there are some people in Lowell who won't vote for a guy born in Wisconsin.'

In 2005, three Cambodian-American candidates were on the ballot in Lowell. Fennell and Rady Mom failed to reach City Council seats, and Vesna Nuon ran his third consecutive losing bid for School Committee. Nuon serves on the appointed city Zoning Board of Appeals.

In 2007, there were no Cambodian candidates. This year, none again, though the ballot includes immigrants from Nigeria (Ben Opara), the Azores, Portugal (Jose Gabriel) and India (Syed Hussain).

'All I know is, I did everything I could possibly do,' says Nuon, 42, one night over coffee. He also works for the state's Sex Offender Registry Board.

'It was not my loss, it was the city's loss. I ran within the larger community. But there's still a long way to go in getting people to register to vote. Then, we can hold our heads up to address the issues.'

'We talk about future leaders and candidates a lot,' Ros says. 'But it gets sidetracked by current conditions.'

Both UML's Center for Family, Work and Community (CFWC) and the non-profit ONE Lowell began working to register Cambodian voters. It was not easy. Survivors of a genocide do not give up their personal information easily.

According to Victoria Fahlberg of ONE Lowell, 1,221 Cambodians were registered to vote in 2001. By 2004, there were 1,889. And by 2005, there were 2,751, up 45 percent in a year.

Lack of funding and resources stalled the registration push, so ONE Lowell has focused on citizenship. Since December 2006, the group helped 1,275 Cambodian refugees apply for citizenship. Fahlberg says 752 have passed the test and become naturalized.

She says ONE Lowell's proportional representation voting proposal, if approved on the Nov. 3 ballot (it would begin in 2011), will increase diversity on elected city boards.

Under the current system, those who get the most votes win. Under proportional representation, voters rank candidates beginning with their top choice. Once candidates reach a certain threshold, a percentage of the leftover votes are moved to a voter's second choice.

Supporters say it better represents the minority and the majority.

'If you look at history, it was many, many years for a French-Canadian name to actually show up on a ballot in Lowell,' says professor Robert Forrant, of UMass Lowell's Department of Regional Economic and Social Development and the CFWC. 'And it was a while after they'd had a significant population here.' It can take two or three generations before new groups have an impact on local politics, Forrant says.

Linda Silka, former director CFWC agrees. 'The folks who grew up in Cambodia and came to the U.S. in their late teens or older, have now produced a generation of young people who are growing up in Lowell. It is their home, and they're becoming young professionals. They have more at stake.

'Sometimes, it takes a little longer, but it will happen. It didn't happen overnight for other ethnic groups in Lowell or anywhere else.'

Chuck Sart, 39, an investigator for the Massachusetts Department of Children and families and longtime community activist, says, 'In American politics, if you're not involved, you're not part of the process. You have to vote, we need the numbers, or we're not going anywhere.'

'Should there be a Cambodian on the City Council? Of course! It would be an added quality to the Council, which should be reflective of the community, a representative government. But we want a candidate that the general population can say, oh, yeah, he's someone that cares about all of Lowell. Not just Cambodians, but about the community at large.'

Uch votes 'every time ...I think I have to vote as an American citizen.' Some of his friends vote, but 'others are just too lazy.'

If all of those who could vote, did, 'we would have people in office. There are a lot of us, and we need to help each other get there.'

The message of the Obama presidential campaign made all things possible, says Dahvy Tran. Last November, her mother voted for the first time.

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10.
Groups call for balance in labor, immigration laws
By Suzanne Gamboa
The Associated Press, October 27, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hzfpubpxar7efzAGfYx8i1Lvc7NwD9BJ9RSO1

Washington, DC (AP) -- Workplace immigration raids during the Bush administration interfered with ongoing labor investigations and allowed employers to exploit workers who complained about conditions on the job, labor groups said in a report released Tuesday.

The stepped-up immigration enforcement came at the expense of rigorous enforcement of labor protections that are guaranteed to all workers regardless of immigration status, the groups said.

'The single-minded focus on immigration enforcement without regard to violations of workplace laws has enabled employers with rampant labor and employment violations to profit by employing workers who are terrified to complain,' said the authors of the report by the AFL-CIO, National Employment Law Project and American Rights at Work Education Fund.

The groups called on the Obama administration to balance immigration and labor law enforcement.

They recommend a return to the type of agreement forged in 1998 between the Labor Department and the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service. It established rules for cooperation but prohibited immigration enforcement from trumping labor law enforcement to ensure immigrant employees would not fear complaining about problem employers.

'You can do both. You can enforce immigration laws and you can protect the workers who are being victimized by unscrupulous employers,' said Julie Martinez Ortega, American Rights at Work research director.

Martinez acknowledged that the Obama administration has ended high-profile raids. Homeland Security Department spokesman Matt Chandler said work site enforcement policy distributed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in April emphasizes targeting immigrants who have committed crimes and focuses on employers who knowingly hire people who cannot legally work in the country to 'target the root cause of illegal immigration.'

Among the disruptive enforcement actions highlighted by the labor groups:

* Agriprocessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, in 2008, where at least three state and federal labor agencies were investigating when ICE raided the plant.

* Pilgrim's Pride plants in five states in 2008, where a union recruiting campaign was ongoing and a law firm was developing a wage-and-hour lawsuit against the company when ICE raided.

* Arrests and detention of several day laborers in Port Arthur, Texas, in 2008. They had complained to their employer for failing to pay their promised $13 an hour wage for demolition work after Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast. The workers were evicted from the refinery where they were housed and the employer tipped off local police and ICE.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Bush administration work site raids helped further worker protections.

The 2008 raid at the Agriprocessors plant came after repeated reports of violations that never resulted in action against the employer. The raid 'burst open all the problems that were there,' said Krikorian, whose center supports tougher immigration reform.

He said the report is 'background music' for labor's ultimate objective of winning legalization for illegal immigrant workers.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The AFL-CIO/NELP report is available online at: http://www.nelp.org/page/-/Justice/ICED_OUT.pdf?nocdn=1

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11.
More welfare going to parents here illegally
The number of families with citizen children receiving aid has nearly doubled since ’07
By Timothy Pratt
The Las Vegas Sun, October 27, 2009
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/oct/27/more-welfare-going-parents-here-illegally/

Jose Silva had just obtained an appointment in three weeks to see whether his family would be eligible for monthly welfare benefits.

'Now I just have to not eat until then,' he joked, standing with his wife on the sidewalk outside the state office on Flamingo Road.

Silva has been without a steady job for a year, one of tens of thousands of workers still reeling from the bottom dropping out of the Las Vegas Valley’s construction industry, the region’s second-largest employer after tourism.

If approved for assistance, the Silvas will belong to the fastest-growing category of families in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Bearing the confusing government label of 'non-qualified non-citizens,' this category refers to families with parents who are not U.S. citizens and children who are.

Since the recession began in late 2007, the average monthly caseload of these families has grown 96 percent, according to state records. About 4,250 of these families of mixed immigration status were on the program’s rolls in September, making it the second-largest category in TANF, after single-parent households.

It is also the only category in the program where parents apply in their children’s name, as opposed to applying in their own. TANF gives monthly checks to the families based on income and the children’s status as citizens and does not require parents to demonstrate that they are in the United States legally.

No one has studied the phenomenon, but Christie D. Batson, an assistant professor of sociology at UNLV who has researched immigrant families, figures the exploding numbers may have at least two causes. Children of immigrants have long been one of the demographic groups getting the least amount of social services, despite showing great need, Batson said. This is because illegal immigrant parents often don’t know about the benefits, or are afraid they could be deported if they seek them.

'But in the past few years there has been a push to better inform these parents, by social service agencies and nonprofits,' Batson said.

So the numbers could be a result of more immigrant families finding out about social service programs, she said.

Also, Batson said, 'there has got to be a correlation between the economy and benefits.'

Gary Stagliano, deputy administrator of the state’s Welfare and Supportive Services Division, said many of the families joining the agency’s rolls may have had one or both parents laid off in the services or construction industries.

The Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute estimated the unemployment rate among Hispanics in Nevada at 16.4 percent for this year’s second quarter, the most recent period available. The state’s overall unemployment rate was 11.3 percent at the time. It is now 13.3 percent.

In another reflection of the withering economy, the number of households with two parents seeking TANF has also exploded. Enrollment under that category has increased 69 percent since late 2007.

Stagliano said this increase may show how the loss of one or two jobs has dropped many families from the middle class in recent months. Many are applying for welfare benefits for the first time. And contrary to historical patterns, many don’t need training to obtain a new job.

'They are not without skills, education or experience,' Stagliano said. 'It’s just that there are no jobs.'

Stagliano said that of the immigrant families report some income, meaning one or both of the parents are not 'completely unemployed.'

Batson said Hispanic immigrants in particular 'place a cultural importance on work,' adding, 'There is a predisposition that work is important, and they don’t tend to stay out of work for a long time.'

Jose Silva said he had worked in construction for 11 years in Las Vegas and was seeking help with paying bills for the first time, after his workload dropped from a few days a week to nothing this summer. His family had dropped all unnecessary expenses, including cable television, cell phones and eating out. But walking into the welfare office wasn’t easy, he said.

'It was weird coming here because I’ve never asked for anything,' he said. But he also said he had paid taxes and had Social Security deductions taken out of his paycheck. 'I’ve worked a long time and I deserve something back.'

Stagliano is aware of the controversy surrounding families like the Silvas, centering on that very issue of whether they deserve public benefits.

'We have people writing in, saying we shouldn’t supply this service,' he said.

But that’s not his call.

'We have to go by rules established by the federal government,' he said. 'Only they can change those rules.'

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12.
Alien workers cannot re-enter NMI using valid entry permits
DHS issues interim final rule on transitional worker program
By Haidee V. Eugenio
The Saipan Tribune (Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands), October 28, 2009
http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?newsID=94634&cat=1

Nonresident workers can exit the CNMI any time during the transition period from Nov. 28, 2009 to Dec. 31, 2014, but they cannot re-enter the islands using their valid CNMI entry permit.

This is based on the interim final rule on the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker Program of the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published in the Oct. 27 Federal Register. It is open for public comments for 30 days.

Alien workers, moreover, may not be able to secure the required CW-1 visa at a U.S. consulate or embassy in their country of origin at least several weeks after the start of federalization on Nov. 28-or at least until early 2010.

This means legal foreign workers in the CNMI will be forced to remain on the islands at least after Christmas or several weeks after Nov. 28 if they still want to continue employment on the islands, except for emergency reasons that will be dealt with by the USCIS on a case by case basis.

Among other things, a foreign worker who wishes to go on vacation after Nov. 28 needs to have his or her employer file a petition for a transitional worker using Form I-29CW as early as Nov. 28, which is the first day of the transition period.

The processing could take up to 60 days. Only after a 'notice of approval' for the transitional status is issued will a foreign worker be able to apply at a U.S. embassy or consulate for a CW-1 visa to be able to re-enter the CNMI.

There is also a possibility that an applicant can be denied a CW-1 visa and therefore won't be able to re-enter the CNMI and continue working despite possessing a valid CNMI work and entry permit.

The Form I-29CW is a modified form of the Form I-29, but it is specifically used for the Commonwealth-only Transitional Worker, or CW, program.

David G. Gulick, district director of the USCIS for Hawaii, Guam and the CNMI, along with USCIS field director for Guam and the CNMI Walter L. Haith and community outreach regional lead Janna Evans, held the news briefing on the interim final rule yesterday.

Gulick said that DHS is now working on a process that may allow nonresident workers to re-enter the Commonwealth using their valid CNMI permit during the transition period. This special accommodation, he said, is still pending in Washington, D.C.

He said he is hoping this will be released before Nov. 28 when Public Law 110-229 or the federalization law takes effect in the CNMI.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan, the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, and nonresident worker groups in the CNMI have been pushing for a special consideration for CNMI foreign workers to be able to re-enter using their Commonwealth permits.

Press secretary Charles Reyes said yesterday the Fitial administration will 'review and consider carefully' before commenting on the USCIS regulations.

In a statement yesterday, Sablan said that P.L. 110-229 requires that the transitional worker program be designed to promote the maximum use of U.S. workers. The law is also supposed to prevent wages and working conditions for local residents from getting worse because of competition from alien workers.

'It is widely recognized that at the present time we do not have enough local residents to fill all the jobs in our economy. So we still need alien workers. But thinking ahead, 5-10 years, we are going to want to see fewer alien workers and many more CNMI citizens, U.S. permanent residents, and people from the Freely Associated States filling the jobs in our economy. So I will be examining the rule that was issued today very carefully to make sure that in the long run the result will be more jobs and better paying jobs for local people. That is my goal,' he said.

Public outreach

During yesterday's briefing, the USCIS officials also issued question-and-answer sheets on the CNMI-only transitional worker program rules. See sidebar.

The USCIS has also scheduled public outreach programs for Thursday at the Garapan Street Market and Friday at the American Memorial Park outdoor amphitheater from 5pm to 7pm.

The CNMI-Only Transitional Worker Program is one of several initiatives that implements the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, which expands U.S. immigration law in the CNMI.

In a news release yesterday, the USCIS said that, although U.S. immigration law applies to the CNMI starting on Nov. 28, a transition period will begin on that date during which temporary measures will be carried out to allow for an orderly transition from the CNMI's permit system to U.S. immigration law.

This will give foreign workers time to identify an appropriate visa classification according to the Immigration and Nationality Act.

A 'transitional worker' under CNRA is defined as an alien worker who is currently ineligible for another classification under INA and who performs services or labor for an employer in the CNMI.

The Transitional Worker Visa category is a new nonimmigrant visa classification under INA using the admission code CW-1 for the principal transitional worker and CW-2 for dependents.

The CNMI-Only Transitional Worker Program will be available to two groups of nonresidents: those who are lawfully present in the CNMI and those who are abroad.

Application and fees

Under the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker program, employers may file a petition for a transitional worker with USCIS using Form I-129CW, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker in the CNMI.

This new form was modeled after the existing Form I-129.

The fee for Form I-129CW would be $320, the same amount charged for the I-129 and an $80 biometrics fee.

In addition, the CNRA mandates a 'CNMI education funding fee' of $150 per beneficiary per year, which cannot be waived.

Due to the unique circumstances of the CNMI, the I-129CW fee may be waived in extraordinary situations where an employer can demonstrate an inability to pay the fee and still pay the employee's wage.

With some restrictions, employers may file for multiple beneficiaries on the same I-129CW. Employers must conduct legitimate business and may not engage directly or indirectly in prostitution, trafficking in minors, or any other activity that is illegal under federal or CNMI law.

Under the interim final rule, the CNMI-Only Transitional Worker program includes all occupational categories being used in the CNMI now.

Also, for the first year, the numerical limits for CW-1 status are based on the CNMI government's own estimate of the nonresident worker population, which is 22,417. After the first year, the numerical limit will decrease, as determined by the DHS secretary.

The CW visa classification is valid only in the CNMI and provides no basis for travel to any other part of the United States, including Guam.

Once status is obtained, the CW-1 or CW-2 nonimmigrant may leave the CNMI and return, but must have the appropriate visa for readmission.

The public is encouraged to submit comments on this rulemaking by Nov. 25, 2009.

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13.
Neb. Supreme Court to hear city's immigration case
The Associated Press, October 26, 2009
http://www.action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=11384170

Fremont, NE (AP) -- The Nebraska Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case stemming from Fremont's proposed illegal-immigration ordinance.

The city is appealing an April ruling from a Dodge County district judge. It concluded the city must hold an election on a proposal to ban renting to and hiring illegal immigrants in the city.

City leaders argue the proposal is unconstitutional and could expose the city to costly legal challenges. But Judge John Samson said the matter was out of his hands until voters approved the measure.

Fremont city leaders had asked to bypass the state Court of Appeals and have the high court take the case.

City Attorney Dean Skokan said Monday that a hearing date hasn't been set.

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14.
Gangs flee N.Va. for havens in Md., D.C., report says
By Freeman Klopott
The Washington Examiner (DC), October 27, 2009
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/Gangs-flee-Northern-Virginia-for-havens-in-Md__-D_C__-report-says-8442052-66193202.html

Crackdowns on illegal immigrants and other law enforcement efforts are driving gangs out of Northern Virginia and into Maryland and the District, a report released Monday concluded.

'Many gang members from Northern Virginia are moving or driving to Prince George's and other Maryland counties, into the District of Columbia or further south and west into Virginia to avoid dealing with police departments that are unrelenting in their efforts to keep gangs under control,' authorities wrote in the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force report.

The report said the task force's success is the result of Virginia law enforcement's use of anti-gang policing measures, including the referring of suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities. Since the task force was created in 2003, it has arrested 952 gang members, more than 40 percent of whom were illegal immigrants, the report said.

Experts say jurisdictions such as Montgomery County, where police are told to look away from immigration violations, have become safe havens for gangs.

The law enforcement group hired independent reviewers to develop the 'Comprehensive Gang Assessment,' which studied the effect of the task force's efforts between 2003 and 2008 in Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun and Fauquier counties, as well as Alexandria. The task force has brought federal and local law enforcement agencies together, and the report credits it with helping drive down the region's violent crime rate by 17 percent over the six years of the study.

But officials on the other side of the Potomac said there is no evidence to back up the report's claim -- based on anecdotal evidence -- that the gangs are fleeing into their jurisdictions.

'We simply don't have any evidence to support that assertion,' said Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett's spokesman, Patrick Lacefield. The county's police department recently has made it more difficult for officers to report suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities, even if they're gang members.

Prince George's County State's Attorney Glenn Ivey said violent crime has been dropping in the county, where homicides this year may reach lows not seen since the late 1990s. Violent activity by Hispanic gangs has dropped off since federal authorities successfully prosecuted MS-13 gang leaders on racketeering charges. However, Ivey said, traditionally black gangs like the Crips and the Bloods have been making inroads, but primarily through the jail system and not through migration from other areas.

Jon Feere, a legal policy analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the 'enforcement-free zones' that define Maryland's and the District's approach to illegal immigrants 'benefit only the lawbreaker and are a threat to public safety.'

He added, 'a jurisdiction which welcomes illegal immigration also welcomes gang activity.'

EDITOR’S NOTE: The report is available online at: http://www.preventgangsnova.org/NoVaGangAssessmentSept212009.pdf

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In N.Va., mixed news about gang activity
Serious crime down, but report notes rise in middle school offenses
By Matt Zapotosky
The Washington Post, October 27, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603038.html

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15.
SF Police to Relax Policy on Towing Unlicensed Drivers' Vehicles
By Kimberlee Sakamoto
The KRON News (San Francisco), October 26, 2009
http://www.kron4.com/News/ArticleView/tabid/298/smid/1126/ArticleID/3651/reftab/64/t/SF%20Police%20to%20Relax%20Policy%20on%20Towing%20Unlicensed%20Drivers%20Vehicles/Default.aspx

San Francisco -- Starting Sunday, San Francisco police will begin a new policy on impounding the vehicles of unlicensed drivers, a practice some community members had complained unfairly targeted undocumented immigrants.

In a shift from the current policy whereby the vehicles of unlicensed drivers pulled over in traffic stops would be immediately towed, police will now give those drivers 20 minutes for a licensed and insured person to arrive and drive off the vehicle.

A second offense within six months would result in an immediate 30-day impound of the vehicle.

At a Board of Supervisors hearing earlier this year, members of the immigrant community complained some were being pulled over by police without cause, and worried about possible racial motivations for traffic stops, an accusation police denied. Vehicle impounds are also costly to members of the community struggling to maintain low-paying jobs, community members said.

Mayor Gavin Newsom says police Chief George Gascon 'worked hard on this policy' and felt it was 'the right thing to do.'

The change was addressing 'what was perceived as racial profiling,' Newsom said.

Newsom -- who is under fire from San Francisco's immigrant community for his plans to reject a proposal that would modify the city's sanctuary ordinance on reporting undocumented youth accused of felony crimes -- said the vehicle policy is intended to balance the immigrant community's concerns with those of police, and to 'build trust in the community.'

Newsom rejected the idea that the new policy would allow undocumented immigrants to flout the law.

'Changing the policy -- for 20 minutes -- to me, is not skirting that,' he said. He said the issue was being blown out of proportion.

'To the extent that the 20-minute grace period becomes a concern, we'll fix it -- period,' Newsom said.

The new policy was initiated under the administration of prior police Chief Heather Fong, but will be implemented by Gascon.

On Monday, police insisted the policy change was about public safety.

'This is not a policy about undocumented residents, it's about unlicensed drivers, and it applies to everyone, regardless of immigration status,' said police spokesman Officer Boaz Mariles.

Mariles acknowledged the policy arose out of immigrant community concerns, including financial hardship -- with citation and towing costs running into the hundreds of dollars.

'But we think this is definitely a way to ensure better, safer streets,' he said.

Mariles said some unlicensed drivers buy unsafe vehicles knowing they are likely to be impounded if they are stopped, and he speculated that might change if they know 'there's a way for me to get my car back.'

The 20-minute time limit will be subject to the police officer's discretion. Mariles said he didn't believe it would place an extra burden on officers.

'And we think it's progressive, we think it's forward thinking, and we think other (police) departments will take notice,' Mariles said.

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SF Police To Ease Unlicensed Driver Policy
By Sudhin Thanawala
The Associated Press, October 26, 2009
http://cbs2.com/wireapnewsca/San.Francisco.police.2.1271836.html

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16.
Police rules for illegal immigrants may violate federal law, critics say
By Alan Suderman
The Washington Examiner, October 27, 2009
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Police-rules-for-illegal-immigrants-may-violate-federal-law_-critics-say-8442398-66197782.html

The Montgomery County Police Department's new rules for dealing with federal immigration authorities may violate federal laws and hamper police officers ability to do their jobs, according to critics.

'You can be held more accountable for going 12 miles an hour over the speed limit in Montgomery County than for being a gang member in the country illegally,' said Walter Bader, past president of the Fraternal Order of Police union.

A memo authorized by Police Chief J. Thomas Manger recently instructed officers that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents 'will NOT be contacted, regardless of the individual's legal status and/or perceived gang affiliation,' when a foreign national is arrested for a nonviolent crime.

Federal laws say local governments can't 'prohibit or in any way restrict' police officers from communicating with ICE about the immigration status of 'any individual.'

'By limiting the instances in which the [Montgomery County Police Department] may report to ICE, the policy may be violating federal law,' said Jon Feere, legal policy analyst for the Center of Immigration Studies, which favors more immigration controls. 'For public safety reasons alone, it doesn't make sense to wait for an illegal alien to commit a horrific crime before calling federal authorities.'

In February, the department adopted a policy that required officers to contact ICE when they arrest an immigrant for violent or handgun-related crimes. The policy came after a spate of high-profile crimes by illegal immigrant gang members -- including the shooting death of a 14-year-old on a bus -- but did not mention any prohibitions or restrictions in communicating with ICE.

County police spokesman Capt. Paul Starks said last month's memo was in response to 'explosive' allegations made by an illegal immigrant that police beat him and turned him over to ICE agents to be deported in retaliation for filing a police complaint.

Starks said the department was trying to make sure that if mistakes were made in that instance, they would not be repeated. He added that the department believes it is in compliance with federal law.

The memo also said that all future requests for information or assistance from ICE agents first must go through the special investigations division.

'Many of you have developed professional relationships with ICE agents over the course of your careers and we are not trying to stifle the great work that each of you do on a daily basis,' the memo said. However, the new rule was necessary 'due to the very sensitive nature of this issue and the absolute need to maintain the trust and confidence in our community.'

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17.
Mayor Bloomberg says New York needs more immigration and US visa holders
By Liam Clifford
Global Visas, October 26, 2009
http://www.globalvisas.com/news/mayor_bloomberg_says_new_york_needs_more_us_visa_holders1749.html

New York’s Mayor Bloomberg has spoken out in favour of US immigration and the positive effects it has had on the city.

Bloomberg himself is the grandson of an immigrant who moved to the US from Russia at the turn of the century, which seems fitting in a city where 40 per cent of inhabitants are foreign-born.

At a recent press conference, at which he revealed plans for a new campaign platform for immigrant communities living in the US, Mayor Bloomberg said, 'Immigrants are why New York City became America's economic engine.”

“The next time you walk or drive over the Brooklyn Bridge, remember that it was designed by an immigrant engineer. The next time you ride the subway, or pass the Empire State Building or the Rockefeller Center, remember they were all built by immigrant hands.”

Bloomberg’s latest new measures to help US immigration and find their place in their New York communities are expected to help him win immigrant votes in the upcoming Mayoral elections.

He finished his conference by stating his support for increasing US immigration numbers: 'Economically, culturally and socially, we need more immigrants, not less.”

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18.
Alarcon backs wage guarantees for day workers
Advocates endorse law allowing employers to be prosecuted if laborers are not paid.
By Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wage27-2009oct27,0,4846063.story

Advocates for day laborers and other low-wage workers are pushing for a new city law that would target unscrupulous employers by making wage theft a crime in the city of Los Angeles.

They have found an ally in City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who plans to introduce a motion this morning directing the city attorney's office to write an ordinance that would criminalize nonpayment of wages.

'People think that just because they pick up somebody on the street or at a day laborer center that they don't have the responsibility to pay them if they don't like the work,' Alarcon said. 'This would make it illegal for somebody to do that.'

Los Angeles would join a handful of cities, including Denver and Austin, Texas, that hold employers criminally responsible for not paying their employees. State and federal laws govern overtime, minimum wage and other labor standards, but the penalties are typically civil. A local ordinance would allow city prosecutors to file misdemeanor charges against employers.

Alarcon said he was motivated by a recent study that showed many low-wage workers in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago often don't receive minimum wage or overtime pay. The study, based on interviews with more than 4,300 workers, found that 26% of workers weren't paid minimum wage the week before and that 76% of those who worked overtime the previous week weren't paid the proper overtime rate. According to the report, the violations were widespread and occurred in various industries, including construction, child care and apparel.

'We were shocked ourselves,' said Ruth Milkman, a UCLA sociology professor and one of the authors of the study.

Gary L. Toebben, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said people who work deserve to be paid, but that there are a lot of unanswered questions involving a possible ordinance, including what the criteria would be for an arrest and if the measure would cause additional backlogs in the courts. Before any ordinance is drafted, city officials should include private employers in the discussion, he said.

On a recent day at the UCLA Labor Center next to MacArthur Park, UCLA students helped workers draft letters to former employers demanding back pay.

Construction worker Santos Morales told the students that he was owed $415 for fixing a garage at a house four months ago.

Morales, 40, said he doesn't have the right to get a driver's license or immigration documents but that he does have the right to recover his wages.

'I am not asking for anything that isn't owed to me,' he said. 'I did the work.'

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19.
Dallas police draw ire for citing 'non-English-speaking drivers'
The police chief says the tickets would be thrown out and the officers investigated.
By Kate Linthicum
The Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dallas27-2009oct27,0,3949548.story

Over the last three years, police in Dallas have ticketed 39 drivers for not speaking English, even though there is no law requiring drivers be able to do so.

Amid growing public anger, Police Chief David Kunkle announced last week that the citations would be thrown out and that the officers who issued them would be investigated.

The cases came to light when a Mexican immigrant, Ernestina Mondragon, went to the media saying that she had been cited for being a 'non-English-speaking driver' during a routine traffic stop. There is no such law in Dallas, although there is a federal statute that says commercial drivers must be able to speak English.

Mondragon told reporters that she had been driving her daughter to school on Oct. 2 when she was pulled over for making an illegal U-turn. Mondragon, who has been a legal resident since 1980, speaks mostly Spanish. She was cited for disregarding a traffic control device and for failure to present a driver's license, as well as for her inability to speak English.

Mondragon said that she was embarrassed by the incident and that her 11-year-old daughter was traumatized.

The charge was dropped when she challenged it in court. But the case generated an outcry in Dallas, where Latinos make up roughly 40% of the population and are the city's largest racial or ethnic group.

'It's unbelievable,' said Hector Flores, former president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, a nationwide civil rights group. 'It's racial profiling. She was cited for driving while Hispanic. For driving while immigrant.'

The attention surrounding Mondragon's case led police to investigate whether similar charges had been filed in the past. At a news conference Friday, Kunkle said at least six officers had charged 38 other drivers with not speaking English. Kunkle said all the charges would be dropped and people who had paid a $204 fine would be reimbursed.

In Mondragon's case, Kunkle said rookie officer Gary Bromley had been confused by a pull-down menu on his computer that listed 'non-English-speaking driver' as an option, even though it is part of a federal law that Dallas police do not enforce.

Flores said he was suspicious of that explanation and suggested that the officers might have been motivated by racism.

'When there's a shortage of jobs, [racism] increases,' he said. 'We go through these periods where you have English-only battles.'

Flores said he was heartened by the public's reaction, which he said indicated a low tolerance for English-only policies.

In New Mexico, a different English-only policy has stirred controversy.

Several former employees of a hotel in Taos have sued its owner, Larry Whitten, for wrongful termination. They said they were fired after complaining when Whitten ordered them not to speak in Spanish and asked some of them to Anglicize their names. Whitten did not return phone calls seeking comment Monday.

New Mexico is a bilingual state, meaning all official documents must be produced in English and Spanish.

In Taos, where Latinos are the majority, the fired workers have been picketing across the street from the hotel. Latino rights groups also have organized boycotts of Whitten's other hotels in Texas.

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20.
Business slowing at Lincoln immigration center
By Art Hovey
The Lincoln Journal Star, October 27, 2009
http://journalstar.com/news/local/article_df5c958e-c27f-11de-89da-001cc4c03286.html

The economy appears to be pinching the work flow for almost 1,000 employees assigned to Lincoln's regional Immigration and Citizenship Services Center.

Director Jerry Heinauer isn't sure how much of a decline in receipts to attribute to the economy and to a corresponding decline in the number of people who want to move to the United States.

But the numbers for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 show, for example, that applications for employment authorization dropped to 250,000 from 376,000 in fiscal 2008.

And total volume for the 19 different types of applications processed in Lincoln - one of four regional centers in the nation - has fallen to the 600,000 range from the more typical 750,000.

That carries job security implications for some 650 federal employees and another 300 contract workers. It also leaves lingering questions about the extent to which Nebraska and other states may have ceased to be an economic beacon for people entering the country both legally and illegally.

Heinauer said Monday he felt close to being able to announce some good news about new responsibilities for the Lincoln work force that 'can be as many as 500,000 cases a year.'

As matters stood at the end of the fiscal year, the average monthly flow of 80,000 from previous years is off substantially.

'This year, we're closer to 50,000,' he said.

His bosses compensated for that by temporarily rerouting other types of processing chores to Lincoln from a service center in Vermont. The pending developments he alluded to on Monday could mean a more permanent reassignment of work flow to Lincoln from one or more service settings.

On the broader question of a downward trend in immigration patterns, Heinauer would say only that it makes sense the economy is one factor.

But other factors, including 'a visa blizzard' in fiscal 2008, make that difficult to assess.

The blizzard and the spike in the Lincoln work load resulted from federal efforts to ensure that all of the approximately 140,000 visas available to people who had job offers in the United States that year got used.

For that and other reasons, it's difficult to draw solid conclusions about one year's immigration traffic patterns even though the Lincoln office could be regarded as a major crossroads.

But there are other clues to the connection between the service center's results and the extent to which the image of the United States may be fading as an immigration destination for the time being.

* In a July update, analysts at the Pew Hispanic Center said census data showed the inflow of immigrants into the United States from Mexico was lower between March 2008 and March 2009 'than at any point during the decade.' Those same analysts cited information gathered by Mexico's National Survey of Employment and Occupation as indication that border crossings had fallen to 636,000 a year from more than 1 million in two years.

* For Nebraska, census analysis at the University of Nebraska at Omaha shows the annual rate of increase in the state's Hispanic population has been slowing in the second half of the decade.

* The U.S. Border Patrol reported 724,000 apprehensions in fiscal 2008. The Pew analysis said that was the lowest total since 1973. Meanwhile, the regional office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said its deportation numbers for the year that ended Sept. 30 were at 6,317, up from 5,309 the previous year.

The region includes Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas.

Hendrik Van Den Berg, an economics professor and immigration researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said there's not much more than anecdotal information, at this point, about the numbers of U.S. residents returning to Mexico and other countries of origin.

'It would be very interesting to note that, during the Great Depression, we actually had more people leaving the country than entering the country,' Van Den Berg said.

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21.
Activists Press for Homosexual 'Rights' to Be Included in Comprehensive Immigration Reform
By Penny Starr
The CNS News, October 26, 2009
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/56102

Two amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act introduced in the House of Representatives’ current session would add language allowing 'permanent partners' to sponsor their foreign-born 'spouses' to become naturalized citizens.

At a Capitol Hill press conference held Friday by the Asian Pacific Legal Center, a panel expressed support for the legislation as part of its campaign to include family reunification reforms in federal immigration legislation, including for homosexual couples and their children.

'While many groups face enormous obstacles with the backlogs for family-sponsored immigrants, one group has seen its families shut out completely,' said a report released by the legal center in September 2008 and distributed at the conference states.

'Same-sex couples and their children have no standing in U.S. immigration law, and as a result many committed bi-national couples in the U.S. and their families … are forced to separate or live in constant fear of separation,' report added.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced House Resolution 1024 in February 2009 to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to give 'permanent partners' the same rights as heterosexual spouses under the law. The amendment was referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law in March.

In June, Rep. Michael Honda (D-Calif.) introduced HR 2709, which includes the permanent partner language and states it is designed 'to promote family unity and for other purposes.' That amendment was referred to the same subcommittee in August.

Friday’s panel included a homosexual man who said his partner of nine years voluntary returned to Indonesia last week after he was laid off from his job and lost his work visa. Steve Orner said he and his partner plan to move to Canada when they are reunited.

'Joey is my family,' Orner said. 'We got married in Connecticut, but unfortunately immigration does not recognize same-sex marriage.'

Panelists at Friday’s event said the amendments are the first in the House to incorporate 'Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender' rights into immigration reform legislation.

'In 2009, we should be ready as a society to acknowledge that stable American families come in all varieties,' Nadler said when he introduced the Uniting American Families Act. 'We in fact strengthen our communities – and our nation – by encouraging loving couples and families to stay together and live as cohesive units.

'Any committed couple deserves the potential to form a life and a family together – this is a basic human right – and whether that couple is gay or straight should be irrelevant. 'Gay and lesbian Americans in loving, committed relationships deserve the same rights as everyone else,' Nadler said.

'The Reuniting Families Act should be at the heart of comprehensive immigration reform, seeking to fix our broken immigration system while taking into account the current economic climate,' Honda said when he introduced the Reuniting Families Act.

'Our proposed legislation is in line with both American family values and with our short-term need to grow our economy and save taxpayer money,' he added.

Aside from its support for including homosexual rights in immigration reform legislation, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center report also supports the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which limits marriage to the union between one man and one woman.

The legal center report said repealing DOMA is 'an obvious and necessary step to ending federal discrimination against gay and lesbian couples.'

Entitled 'A Devastating Wait: Family Unity and the Immigration Backlogs,' the report includes a long laundry list of recommendations for immigration legislation, including reclassifying spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents as immediate relatives, exempting Filipino World War II veterans from annual quotas and placing a permanent three-year cap on wait times for family-sponsored visas – which would include families headed by 'permanent partners.'

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22.
Revision does little to quiet 287(g) debate
By Kyle Swenson
The City Paper (Nashville), October 25, 2009
http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-news/revision-does-little-quiet-287g-debate

Armed with old arguments and new data, Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall set out last week to sell Nashville again on the controversial 287(g) program.

Following a federal review of the program, a revised version of 287(g) was up for Metro Council approval last Tuesday. The occasion reignited the debates that have followed the county's immigrant screening program since 2007.

However, as the votes last week showed, Council has swung its support firmly behind the program and Sheriff Hall. After a unanimous vote for approval from the Public Safety Committee, Council passed the revised version of the program with a 34 -3 vote.

To supporters, approval was an affirmation of the program's goals. But for critics, the issue is far from over.

Attorney and Conexion Americas board member David Esquivel recapped his criticism of the Nashville program in an interview with The City Paper. Conexion's mission is to help Latino families succeed socially and economically by promoting their integration into the Middle Tennessee community.

Esquivel, citing a U.S. Government Accountability Office study issued earlier this year, says the local program is out of step with the underlying goals of 287(g).

But according to Hall, the Sheriff's Office setup is completely in line with what the Obama Administration would like to see across the country. More than 5,000 individuals have been identified as illegal immigrants in Nashville because of 287(g).

Esquivel and other critics take particular issue with the sheriff's decision to process both misdemeanor and felon offenders through 287(g) screening. The program's goal is to improve public safety by sweeping up violent criminals and felons, they say, but instead of focusing on this group, 287(g) processes minor offenders who pose no immediate threat to the community.

“The reality of the program here is that the vast majority of people who are being identified by this program have committed misdemeanors,” Esquivel said. “Rather than focusing on what I think there's a broad consensus on — which is using this program to target real criminals — we're using it to target people who are not criminals in any sense that the community had in mind when this was rolled out or what it ought to be used for.”

Hall defends the decision to screen every individual passing through the jail, maintaining the program is a preventative protection for the community.

“The problem with the way the system was working three years ago was it only focused on a dangerous felony offender once that event occurred, which was way too late to improve the public safety of our community,” he said.

But the concern over minor crimes is emphasized in the GAO report. The review states that “of the 29 participating agencies we reviewed, 4 agencies told us they used 287(g) authorities to process for removal those aliens the officers stopped for minor violations such as speeding, carrying an open container of alcohol, and urinating in public.”

The report goes on to state, “none of these crimes fall into the category of serious criminal activity that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials described to us as the type of criminal activity… the 287(g) program is expected to pursue.”

Addressing concerns

Neither the report nor the original 287(g) legislation prohibit agencies from screening minor offenders, but the GAO's concern grew out of the lack of available resources.

“Detention space is routinely very limited and it is important for ICE to use these and other 287(g) resources in a manner that will most effectively achieve the objective of the program — to process for removal those aliens who pose the greatest threat to public safety,” the report says.

Sheriff Hall's decision to screen both misdemeanor and felon offenders wastes 287(g) resources, according to Esquivel. The report shows the Nashville program to be in the minority of jurisdictions screening across the board, he says, and if the agency exclusively targeted felons it could better achieve its stated goal.

“There is a way to do this program that would address a lot, if not all, of the concerns that have been raised, and it's hard to understand why the Sheriff won't make that change,” he said.

Hall contends the GAO report, despite being issued this year, is out of date. Numerous agencies have added the program since the study was conducted and many are using 287(g) to screen all defendants entering the jail.

The Sheriff said he recently met with representatives from nine other jurisdictions from the Southeast, all of whom use 287(g) in ways nearly identical to Davidson County. Also, in a conversation this year with Janet Napolitano, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary, Hall said he was told the administration would like to see the jail program adopted by other jurisdictions.

Making revisions

The debate over who should be screened by 287(g) is further complicated by a minor revision included in the new version of the program. There will now be a tiered prioritization of detention for those screened by the program, as laid out in the revision.

Some immigration advocates have seen this move as a discretionary safeguard regarding who is screened and who isn't. That perception is wrong, Hall said. All individuals taken to jail will still be processed in 287(g).

In the new structure, screened violent offenders will be put into detention while minor offenders will be given a federal court date.

“It's the prioritization of detention, it's not the prioritization of who you're going to process,” Hall explained. “[A minor offender] is released through the prioritization system, but from our standpoint they are not ignored in that they are illegally in the country. They have to go answer for that and explain that and the judge will decided what to do with you down the road.”

If the detention revision was in place from the outset of 287(g), the program's biggest controversy might have been avoided.

In July 2008, Berry Hill Police stopped a very pregnant Juana Villegas for apparently changing lanes without a turn signal. Instead of avoiding detention, Villegas was jailed, went into labor, was transported to Metro General Hospital (and reportedly shackled to a bed), gave birth and went hours without seeing her child, and days without seeing her husband.

The deportation process was begun for Villegas before charges were dropped under the glare of local and national media exposure of the case.

Opponents have long criticized the program because it sometimes sends individuals on the path to deportation for something as minor as a traffic stop. And they say the prioritization does not change their opposition to the current structure.

The decision to screen both misdemeanors and felonies has a potential social impact, Esquivel said.

“We have this program that targets people who are not criminals but who may have a misdemeanor offense, like driving without a license,” he said. “If you're an immigrant, you're going to do everything you can to avoid interactions with the police, including reporting being the victim of crime.”

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23.
Clifton center offers information to immigrants
Nonprofit serving Liberians and others seeking legal permanent residency or navigating bureaucracies
The Staten Island Advance (NY), October 26, 2009
http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1256559311184280.xml&coll=1

The Immigrants' Information Center (IIC), a nonprofit organization that provides resources to West African and other refugees, opened a new center last week at 320 Vanderbilt Ave., Clifton.

The Fox Hill educational learning center was turned over to the Immigrants' Information Center for management, placing the nonprofit in an enclave where it can serve Liberians and other immigrants who are seeking legal permanent residency or navigating unfamiliar bureaucracies.

'Your lifestyle will change,' said Moses T. Jensen, president of the IIC. 'Individually, you can create something for yourselves.'

Funding for the center was put up by its founding members, and donations are accepted

The Immigrants' Information Center partners with other service organizations, including Project Hospitality, the Staten Island Liberian Community Association, Immigrant Council Collaboration, Wagner College's Center for Leadership and Service, The Empowerment Zone, Staten Island Nonprofit Association and Community Resource Exchange, New York.

The center will be used to conduct after-school and adult literacy programs, and for most of the Immigrants Information Center's activities.

It will be open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 7:45 p.m.

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24.
Man sentenced in Phoenix human smuggling case
The Associated Press, October 26, 2009
http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=11387327

Phoenix (AP) -- A Mexican citizen has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for holding illegal immigrants hostage at his Phoenix home.

Federal prosecutors say 53-year-old Feliciano Rojas-Vivar, of Puebla, Mexico, previously pleaded guilty to three counts of harboring illegal immigrants for profit and was sentenced last Friday in U.S. District Court.

His 30-year-old stepson was sentenced in March to 46 months in prison in the same case.

Prosecutors say Rojas-Vivar had a history of human smuggling and held the hostages in Phoenix in November 2007.

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25.
Mass. man says his Brazilian husband denied asylum that would have reunited them in the US
By Russell Contreras
The Associated Press, October 26, 2009

Boston (AP) -- A gay Brazilian man has been denied asylum by the Obama administration and won't be reunited with his Massachusetts husband in the U.S., the husband said Monday.

Tim Coco said Attorney General Eric Holder did not act on a Friday deadline in the case of Genesio 'Junior' Oliveira, effectively denying the 30-year-old Brazilian man's request for asylum in the U.S. on humanitarian grounds.

'We needed the Attorney General to make a decision on whether Junior could come home,' said Coco, 48, of Haverhill. 'He didn't take this request seriously.'

The Justice Department did not immediately return messages.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-gay-marriage-asylum,0,106216.story

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26.
3 soldiers accused in Russian bride marriage scheme to gain housing benefits
By Kevin Maurer
The Associated Press, October 27, 2009

Wilmington, NC (AP) -- Sgt. Jason Hawk and his bride met for the first time when he picked her up at a bus stop near his Army base a day before their wedding. Prosecutors say the speedy romance was echoed by a fast honeymoon: Ayna Ivanova returned to New York soon after.

Two other paratroopers who served with Hawk and three women now each face up to five years in federal prison when sentenced for their roles in what authorities say was a marriage scheme that garnered U.S. citizenship for Russian brides and coveted housing allowances for junior enlisted men. Prosecutors said the marriages cost the government at least $200,000 in wages and benefits.

Attorneys for the former soldiers and the women either did not return calls or declined comment on the case, which prosecutors contend stems from the work of Pavel and Alexander Manin, two brothers from Kazakhstan who joined the U.S. military. Kazakhstan, in Central Asia, was part of the Soviet Union until independence in 1991 and still has a large Russian population.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-soldiers-marriage-scam,0,4567227.story

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27.
20 Mexican nationals arrested on Carlsbad beach
The City News Service, October 26, 2009

Border Patrol agents arrested 20 Mexican nationals, including a documented gang member, after the group arrived by boat on a North County beach early Monday, authorities reported.
. . .
http://www.delmartimes.net/news/262021-20-mexican-nationals-arrested-on-carlsbad-beach

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Overseas News

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. Canada: Blind Algerian granted asylum after four year effort (story, link)
2. Bahamas: Gov't pressing prosecution of corrupt officials (link)
3. U.K.: Gov't denies accusations of 'multiculturalism’ plot
4. U.K.: Gov't whitewashed reported link between mass immigration, crime (story, link)
5. U.K.: Immigration swells 50% under Labour rule
6. France: Imm. Min. calls burkas contrary to French values (story, 2 links)
7. Greece: Gov't attacks E.U. over immigration crisis
8. Greece: Eight Afghan illegals drown off coast (link)
9. Israel: Gov't seeking methods to reverse 'brain drain'
10. Israel: Report reveals exploitation of Asian laborers
11. Indonesia: Gov't pledges to continue labor negotiations with Malaysia
12. Indonesia: Detention centers branded 'third world jails'
13. Australia: Detention policy disintegrating as Sri Lankans threaten suicide (story, 9 links)
14. Australia: Gov't to deploy police abroad to deter smuggling ops
15. Australia: Gov't shuts down iPods for detainees program

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

-- Mark Krikorian]


1.
Sanctuary gives way to freedom
Blind man told he can stay in Canada after 4-year refuge in a Montreal Catholic Church
By Andrew Chung
The Toronto Star (Canada), October 27, 2009
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/716528--sanctuary-gives-way-to-freedom

Montreal -- He defied the authorities and avoided deportation for nearly four years by taking refuge at a Montreal Catholic Church, but Abdelkader Belaouni's gamble has finally paid off.

The government has told him he can stay.

Hemmed in, literally, by the walls of the St. Gabriel Catholic Church presbytery, Belaouni, an Algerian national, scarcely left the building, which had become his de facto jail.

Yesterday, Belaouni, who is blind, was still not used to the idea he was free to roam about as he pleased.

'I'm shaking,' he said, as he made his way outside with his coffee. He swore it wasn't the caffeine.

'I'm shaking because I am so happy.'

+++

Blind Algerian wins Canadian residency after living in church for four years
By Tobi Cohen
The Canadian Press, October 26, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5g_huUU_cXIcmd1MOI1HmLIwEMuEQ

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2.
Immigration seeks to fast-track alleged corruption cases
By Jasmin Bonimy
The Guardian (Bahamas), October 26, 2009

Nassau -- The Department of Immigration is looking to fast track several cases in which uniformed immigration officers have been accused of corruption and misconduct, a senior immigration official recently revealed.
. . .
http://freeport.nassauguardian.net/national_local/324402697543595.php

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3.
Jack Straw denies 'secret plot' on mass immigration
Jack Straw last night denied Labour had a 'secret plot' to boost multiculturalism by creating an open door of mass immigration.
By Tom Whitehead
The Daily Telegraph (U.K.), October 27, 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6440594/Jack-Straw-denies-secret-plot-on-mass-immigration.html

The former Home Secretary, now the Justice Secretary, said it was 'just untrue' that the Government had a deliberate policy in the early 2000s to use immigration for political ends and to attack the Right.

It follows claims last week by Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, that the huge increase in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and 'rub the Right's nose in diversity'.

He said Labour's relaxation of controls in 2000/01 was a deliberate plan to 'open up the UK to mass migration' but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its 'core working class vote'.

As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.

Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, yesterday told the Commons it would be 'utterly disgraceful' for ministers to base immigration policy on party politics.

But in an embarrassment for the Home Office, Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, appeared to have no idea there was even a row.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph Mr Straw, who was Home Secretary at the time, said: 'I read the original stories, and more comment on it yesterday, with incredulity, since they are the reverse of the truth. I spent my time as Home Secretary seeking better to control immigration, by new laws and more effective administration. '

He said he was 'damned by many on the Left' for his 1998 Immigration and Asylum Bill.

He did, however, accept that the Government's immigration policies have piled pressures on communities and housing stock.

He said knocking on doors he found 'plenty of people disturbed by the rapid change in their area, with a pretty sudden rise in black, Asian and Eastern European residents, and anger as a consequence that long standing residents were losing out on housing waiting lists. I don’t dismiss either concern.'

He added: 'This is an issue which won’t go away by not talking about it. But I’m just as clear that talk of 'secret plots to encourage mass immigration' are just untrue.'

Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, has called for an inquiry in to Mr Neather's allegations, and, in the Commons, Mr Grayling accused Mr Woolas of failing to answer the question on whether it was true.

He said: 'Would it not be utterly disgraceful for any Government to decide immigration policy not in the interests of the country but in the interests of a political party – and was that what happened?'

Mr Woolas replied: 'I don't know to whom you are referring or to what reports you are referring to.

'But if you want to take the views of somebody with a political motivation then that is up to you.'

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4.
Immigrant crime fear airbrushed from Government report
Warnings of links between mass immigration and crime were removed from a key Home Office report amid fears they would be used by critics, it has emerged.
By Tom Whitehead
The Telegraph (U.K.), October 27, 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6447526/Immigrant-crime-fear-airbrushed-from-Government-report.html

The report, published in 2001, had originally pointed to a risk that organised criminals would exploit increases numbers of migrants.

But the passages were removed from the final document because Downing Street was 'nervous' that such comments would be seized on by extremists.

It is the latest controversy to surround the study, Migration, A Social and Economic Analysis, which was at the centre of a row this week amid claims Labour had a 'secret plot' to use mass immigration to boost multiculturalism and 'rub the Right's nose in diversity'.

Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, claims earlier drafts of the report had suggested the huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country.

He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to 'open up the UK to mass migration' but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its 'core working class vote'.

In the latest revelation, it has emerged a section headed 'Criminal behaviour', written as part of a chapter on the impact of migration, was removed.

The missing section warned: 'Migration has opened up new opportunities for organised crime.'

It reported: 'There is emerging evidence that the circumstances in which asylum seekers are living is leading to criminal offences, including fights and begging.'

One draft also asserted that Britain's record towards Jews fleeing the Nazi regime was 'positively shameful in some respects'. It also said racism towards black migrants in past years had come 'not just from extremists or working class communities, but from politicians and policy-makers at the highest level'.

Both comments were edited out of the published version.

A Cabinet Office spokesman denied that any political pressure was brought to bear on the report.

Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, said: 'With every day that passes it becomes increasingly clear that the Government tried to deceive the British people about immigration policy.

'This is a disgraceful episode.'

Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, said Mr Neather's claims were 'simply not born out by the facts'.

'The biggest reason for illegal immigration into the United Kingdom was not as Mr Neather – who no doubt is on a bonus with his employers – said, it was the abandonment in 1994 by the John Major Government of border controls.'

He added: 'This Prime Minister has a much more robust attitude to migration than the previous prime minister, and the changes we have been implementing have come straight from Gordon Brown,' he said.

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Labour think-tank 'airbrushed link between migrants and crime in immigration report for Blair'
The Daily Mail (U.K.), October 27, 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223296/Labour-think-tank-airbrushed-link-migrants-crime-immigration-report-Blair.html

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5.
The growing rate of open-door migration: Number of new arrivals has surged by 50% under Labour
By James Slack
The Daily Telegraph (U.K.), October 27, 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223223/The-growing-rate-open-door-migration-Number-new-arrivals-surged-50-Labour.html

The rate at which foreigners are swelling the population has increased by 50 per cent since a secret Government immigration policy document was written.

Critics said it was clear evidence that ministers had implemented the controversial Cabinet Office report.

This allegedly claimed mass immigration would make Britain more multicultural and allow Labour to portray the Tories as racists. Speaking in the Commons yesterday, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said it would be 'utterly disgraceful' for ministers to base immigration policy on party politics.

He asked Immigration Minister Phil Woolas: 'Can I invite you to put the record straight - what was the motivation behind the very rapid increase in immigration under this Government?'.

Incredibly, Mr Woolas did not appear to know which report Mr Grayling was referring to - despite the widespread coverage it received over the weekend.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail told how ministers were facing calls for an inquiry into claims by former Labour adviser Andrew Neather that the Government opened up Britain's borders in part to try to humiliate Right-wing opponents of immigration.

His allegations referred to a 2001 report from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a think-tank based in the Cabinet Office, which made the case for mass immigration.

Earlier drafts are said to have included the statement of 'a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural'.

Now an analysis of officials statistics has found that - from the date the report was published - the number of foreign nationals being allowed into the UK surged.

Whitehall statistics show that in the year of the document's publication, 370,000 non-British nationals arrived. That rose to 416,000 the following year and, by 2006, had reached 510,000.

In 2007, it fell back slightly to 502,000 - but this was still an increase of 30 per cent on 2001.

For net foreign immigration - the number of non-British citizens arriving, versus the number leaving - the figures are more dramatic.

In 2001, it stood at 221,000 - but by 2007 it had reached 333,000 - up by 50 per cent. This is the size of the increase in the foreign-born population of the UK.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: 'Now it has been revealed that mass immigration under this government was a deliberate policy concealed from the public, and especially from the white working class whose lives and neighbourhoods have been most affected.

Now immigration will add another seven million to our population over the next 25 years unless really serious measures are taken to cut immigration by at least 75 per cent.'

Opponents claim Labour's bungling of immigration policy has contributed to the growth of the BNP.

Mr Neather, who worked for Tony Blair and Jack Straw, said Labour's relaxation of immigration controls was a attempt to engineer a 'truly multicultural' country and plug gaps in the jobs market. He claimed the 2001 policy paper inspired the 'major shift' in immigration policy.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who was then Home Secretary, has dismissed Mr Neather's claims as ' complete rubbish'.

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6.
French immigration minister says burkas not compatible with national identity
The Radio France Internationale News, October 27, 2009
http://www.rfi.fr/actuen/articles/118/article_5619.asp#

Wearing a burka is 'contrary' to French values, Immigration Minister Eric Besson said in an interview Sunday. Less than a week after deporting three Afghans back to Kabul, Besson has again provoked the anger of opposition members by asserting that French culture is being lost on newcomers.

'I want to launch a major debate over national values and identity,' Besson said, explaining that immigrants should be required to have a better mastery of the French language, of French history and culture. This was 'to reaffirm the values of identity and the pride of being French,' he said.

Besson was clear, saying that the burka is 'inacceptable' in France, but said that a law banning it in public was probably not necessary.

Defending the government’s expulsion of three Afghans last week, Besson said that he doesn’t intend to stop this practice and 'will meet the objectives set out for me' of 27,000 deportations this year.

21,000 undocumented immigrants have already been deported from France this year.

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France to launch national pride campaign in battle against Islamic fundamentalism
By Peter Allen
The Daily Mail (U.K.), October 27, 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1223037/France-launch-national-pride-campaign-battle-Islamic-fundamentalism.html

French immigration official: 'No burqas in the street'
The Associated Press, October 25, 2009
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-10-25-france-immigration_N.htm

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7.
Greece says Europe 'jointly responsible' for migration crisis
Agence France Presse, October 27, 2009
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/greece-immigration.150

Athens (AFP) -- The European Union is 'jointly responsible' for an ongoing surge in illegal immigration that is turning into a humanitarian crisis, Greece's top police official said on Tuesday.

'A continuous humanitarian crisis for which Europe is jointly responsible is occurring on its borders,' Citizen's Protection Minister Michalis Chrysohoidis said in a statement, hours after Greek coastguards recovered the bodies of eight migrants including several children who died trying to cross the Aegean Sea.

'Illegal immigration is a major national and European matter of security and human rights,' Chrysohoidis said, adding that Greece intends to press for a more 'equitable' response among EU member states at a Brussels summit opening Thursday.

Thousands of would-be immigrants and asylum seekers are caught attempting to illegally enter Greece every year, mainly through its broad maritime border with Turkey on the Aegean Sea.

'Every day (we) are called to manage the safety of 300-400 fellow human beings seeking a safe destination in Greece,' the minister said.

The Greek government accuses Turkey of failing to implement a decade-old protocol for the readmittance of expelled migrants. It also wants its European partners, mainly in the north of the continent, to assume a greater role in helping to stem the flow.

The European Union currently has a border agency, Frontex, tasked with patrolling 42,000 kilometres (26,000 miles) of the EU's sea borders and 8,800 kilometres of land frontier.

Earlier this month the agency said it had recorded 14,000 illegal arrivals in Greece by sea in the first six months of 2009, an increase of 47 percent over the equivalent period last year.

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8.
Eight Afghan immigrants drown as boat sinks in Greece
By Nicholas Paphitis
The Associated Press, October 27, 2009

Athens (AP) -- A small boat loaded with Afghan families smashed onto the rocks and sank off an island in the Aegean Sea on Tuesday, causing three immigrant women and five children to drown.

The deadly accident highlighted the plight of thousands of migrants who risk their lives every year to reach the European Union.

Athens accused neighboring Turkey, from where the vessel set off, of doing little to stop thousands of illegal immigrants from arriving in Greece. Human rights groups, however, urged Greece to improve its treatment of migrants and its handling of asylum applications.
. . .
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jwnkKlxE3uVGaa5eHT3MKCqKNtawD9BJI1E80

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9.
Immigration Ministry scraps plan to lure scientists back to Israel
By Ofri Ilani
Ha'aretz (Israel), October 27, 2009
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1123822.html

'What we need is a kind of a vacuum cleaner, to suck back all those Israeli brains from foreign universities,' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced last week. One detailed plan proposed by the Immigrant Absorption Ministry was recently shot down by the Finance Ministry, citing financial concerns, amidst competing proposals to save Israeli academia.

'We've heard plenty of statements but I've yet to see a cabinet resolution to bring back the scientists,' said Omri Ingbar, coordinator of the interministerial committee for absorption in science. 'The brain drain problem is rooted in the lack of employment opportunities. The cabinet must spearhead a move to create new jobs, but it's trying to avoid the responsibility. The treasury wants solutions that don't cost money,' said Ingbar, who heads the returning scientists unit in the Immigrant Absorption Ministry.

The chairman of the Council of Higher Education's planning and budget committee, Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg, yesterday showed the Knesset Education Committee figures indicating a rise in the numbers of scientists immigrating from Europe to the United States.

'Israel's higher education system is fading,' Trachtenberg said, listing 'brain drain, a rise in the average ages of faculty members, an increase in student:teacher ratios and a decline in the prestige of higher education' as factors.

According to Trachtenberg's data, around 1,400 Israeli scholars work in the United States. That number, equivalent to 25 percent of all academic researchers in Israel, is enough to staff two entire universities.

Ingbar said the interministerial committee, which concluded its work in August, proposed creating 500 senior faculty positions in universities and 200 such positions in private colleges, at an annual cost of NIS 800 million a year for seven years. The Finance Ministry decried the cost, and the proposal was shelved without being presented to the cabinet.

'It's easy to ask for billions of shekels to bring back scientists, but you need to look at cost-effectiveness,' a source at the Finance Ministry said.

The Council for Higher Education, meanwhile, presented its own plan of its own, calling for the establishment of competitive academic centers, financed by Jewish donors from abroad. Netanyahu has already voiced his support for the scheme. 'We're a small country, but we've got big pockets of Jewish money abroad, and we've got the Jewish mind,' Netanyahu said.

'They say Jews are loaded with money and the money needs to be mined to bring back the academics,' Ingbar said. 'Instead of looking for creative solutions, we're back to begging.'

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10.
Israeli report says Asia farm labour exploited
Reuters, October 27, 2009
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSLR45420420091027

Tel Aviv (Reuters) -- About 30,000 migrant workers hired by farms in Israel pay thousands of dollars to middlemen for their jobs but earn less than the minimum wage and are cheated out of overtime, according to an Israeli report.

The rights group Kav LaOved says the workers come mostly from Thailand but also Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Palestinian Territories.

Its report calls them 'the most exploited segment of workers in Israel'. The findings were due to be presented to the Israeli Knesset this week before parliament rules on a request for more employment permits from farmers and agri-businesses.

'The farmers are fighting for more employment permits but most of them violate the workers' most basic rights,' the report says. The vast majority of migrants work more hours than the law allows without being paid for overtime.

The group said its findings are based on 'hundreds of complaints by agriculture workers and dozens of inspections by Kav LaOved volunteers at work sites around the country'.

'The Thai workers come from rural areas after paying middlemen in Thailand and Israel brokerage fees running from $8,000-10,000,' the report says.

'Most of them come to Israel and immediately begin working in remote and isolated locations, without knowing basic aspects of Israeli law.'

According to Kav LaOved, 'the most common complaint among agricultural workers is that their wages, especially the Thais', are withheld for months, or sent to their home countries without them receiving any accounting'.

Some employers allow only one day off per month and no paid vacation, and the withholding of passports while 'strongly condemned' by legal authorities, is still commonplace, the report adds.

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11.
Domestic workers who claimed to have fled from abusive employers at the Indonesian Embassy shelter in Kuala Lumpur.
Indonesia Will Continue Migrant Worker Negotiations With Malaysia After Maid's Death
By Anita Rachman
The Jakarta Globe, October 27, 2009
http://thejakartaglobe.com/home/indonesia-will-continue-migrant-worker-negotiations-with-malaysia-after-maids-death/337910

Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Muhaimin Iskandar assured on Tuesday that the family of Muntik Binti Bani, 39, a migrant worker who was beaten to death by her employers, would receive insurance.

Muhaimin is scheduled to leave for Malaysia next month to continue discussions about the protection of Indonesian migrant workers.

Indonesia had stopped sending migrant workers to Malaysia due to concerns over their safety and rights.

Muntik, from Jember, East Java, died at Ampuan Rahimah Hospital in Klang Selangor, Malaysia, on Monday.

She was found in the bathroom when police raided her employer’s home on Oct. 20 on a tip-off from a local resident. When she was rescued, she couldn’t move her legs. Muntik suffered a broken back, broken wrist and deep cut on her legs. Her face was also bruised.

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s Minister of Manpower, S. Subramaniam, promised that Muntik’s employers will be punished. Subramaniam said the Malaysian government would not tolerate anyone who abuses their workers.

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12.
Detention centres branded third world jails
By Steve Cannane
The ABC News (Australia), October 27, 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/27/2725761.htm

An Australian film-maker who visited several Indonesian detention centres has described the 'appalling' conditions asylum seekers are being held in.

Jessie Taylor has told ABC's Lateline program that conditions in some of these centres are akin to 'third world jails'.

Ms Taylor visited 11 camps and spoke to 250 asylum seekers across Indonesia. She says she saw people with rampant skin diseases and infections caused by poor conditions.

At one site in Lombok, the drinking water was polluted.

'Their water is full of these awful chunks of stuff which they described to us as being faeces and fungus,' she said.

She also criticises the size of the cells and the numbers of detainees incarcerated there.

'The jail at Pontianak, which is an equatorial city in West Kalamantan, is one of the worst that we saw,' she said.

'There are very large numbers of male detainees - many of them under the age of 18 - in a tennis court-sized cell, which is just a concrete block with your steel bars on it.

'A lot of the faces looking out of the bars were 13 or 14-year-old boys.'

She says she met one asylum seeker who had been stuck in Indonesia for nine years.

A moral responsibility

The Rudd Government claims the so-called 'Indonesia solution' is both humane to asylum seekers and tough on people smugglers.

Last night on Lateline, Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese said Australia could not take responsibility for those detained in Indonesia.

'Australia had responsibility for Australian law and what occurs within Australia. We cannot, with due respect, take responsibility for everything that happens offshore in other countries,' he said.

But refugee advocates claim the Government still has a moral responsibility to those asylum seekers who were seeking refuge in Australia, but ended up detained in Indonesia.

Ms Taylor believes Australia should take more responsibility because it is financially involved in the detention centres.

'The most obvious thing that makes it Australia's responsibility is that we are paying for it. The other thing is there are so many people in Indonesia who have families here,' she said.

Waiting behind bars

Somayeh Rezai, a medical science student from Perth, has told Lateline her sister is stuck in Indonesia.

'It's a really hard situation. She is in jail with her husband and two kids. She's the only member of our family who lives outside of Australia,' she said.

'During this time my mother got depression and has had a heart attack. I hope the Australian Government can help them to come to Australia.'

Dawood Nadiri, a small businessman from Dandenong, has a brother living in detention in Indonesia.

Mr Nadiri is willing to sponsor his migration to Australia and give him a job.

His brother, Khaliqdad Nadiri, was kidnapped by the Taliban nine years ago. His family presumed he was dead, but he escaped from the Taliban and made it to Indonesia.

Dawood Nadiri realised his brother was alive when he saw footage of him on ABC news.

'It's my dream day to see each other. After eight or nine years it's a long time. I miss him,' he said.

'I thought the Taliban had killed him. Now we are feeling lucky he is still alive.'

Ms Taylor visited Khaliqdad Nadiri in Pontianak and was able to show him footage of his brother on her mobile phone.

She is seeking funding to turn the footage she captured in Indonesian detention centres into a documentary.

'In order to stop the boats, all the Rudd Government needs to ensure [is that] there is a well-run, well-managed processing procedure in Indonesia,' she said.

'And secondly, to increase our resettlement intake slightly to accommodate these people.'

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13.
PM Kevin Rudd's Indonesia plan all at sea as boatpeople threaten suicide
By Stephen Fitzpatrick and Paul Maley
The Australian, October 28, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26270389-5013871,00.html

Kevin Rudd's Indonesian solution was last night in chaos as Indonesian officials confirmed they were locked in a standoff with 78 asylum-seekers who were refusing to leave an Australian Customs vessel.

Indonesian government sources told The Australian the Sri Lankans had refused to give their personal details to Indonesian immigration officials as it emerged that some had threatened to kill themselves.

Officials in Tanjung Pinang were deeply unhappy with the deal struck between Canberra and Jakarta to take the refugees who have been at sea aboard the Australian Customs vessel Oceanic Viking for more than a week.

Yesterday, Indonesian officials indicated they were prepared to defy an order from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono directing the Viking to land its human cargo at the Australian-funded Tanjung Pinang detention centre on Bintan Island.

But after earlier telling reporters Indonesia was not a 'dumping ground' for refugees, provincial governor Ismeth Abdullah softened his remarks but queried the detention centre's readiness.

'Who is going to give (the Sri Lankans) their food?' he asked The Australian. 'Where is the money going to come from for all their expenses?'

Mr Abdullah insisted the asylum-seekers and the Australian ship they were on should not become his problem.

A spokesman for Dr Yudhoyono said the governor's remarks had been limited to the detention centre's capabilities, not to whether the asylum-seekers would be allowed to come ashore.

The confusion underlines the difficulties Kevin Rudd will face as he increasingly looks to Jakarta to manage the influx of Australia-bound asylum-seekers.

The standoff creates a dilemma for Australian officials, with government sources confirming any forcible removals from the Oceanic Viking would be the responsibility of the Australian crew, and not Indonesian police.

It is understood Indonesian police have no authority to act in such a fashion aboard an Australian ship, leaving the 30-odd crew aboard the Viking the task of evicting any intransigents.

The developments followed another torrid day in federal parliament with Mr Rudd accusing former immigration ministers Kevin Andrews and Philip Ruddock of bypassing the UN and the International Organisation for Migration in their handling of the asylum-seeker issue.

Mr Rudd described the Liberals as 'the party of children behind razor wire' and 'the party of children overboard'. The opposition continued its attack on the Rudd government's increasingly shambolic Indonesia solution, demanding to know when Mr Rudd was advised of the decision to detour the Oceanic Viking from the port of Merak where 255 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers intercepted at Mr Rudd's request were landed.

Those on board the vessel yesterday voiced their desperation at being denied passage to Australia, saying they were prepared to die rather than be taken to Indonesia.

Meanwhile, a leading terrorism expert said a 'small number' of Tamil Tigers who are in immigration detention in Indonesia had been intercepted on their way to Australia.

As Indonesian and Australian officials grappled with how to handle the 78, new figures showed 19 of the asylum-seekers to arrive on Australia's shore were return visitors, with eight having been issued temporary-protection visas.

According to Immigration Department figures, 19 of the boatpeople to arrive in Australia since September were return visitors, with 11 having been returned voluntarily. A further eight were issued now-expired temporary-protection visas before departing Australia.

Yesterday, a senior Indonesian government source confirmed the only remaining options were to use force to get the Sri Lankans off the Oceanic Viking, or to offer them a guarantee that Australia and Indonesia would work together to have them resettled in a third country as soon as possible.

Senior Indonesian officials are conscious that forcing the Sri Lankans from the ship, which remained anchored south of Kijang harbour in Bintan yesterday, would look bad and could lead to some of the asylum-seekers deliberately jumping into the water.

However, they have also decided to abandon the pretence that the operation to take the Sri Lankans to Bintan island was being done on emergency humanitarian grounds, because of the alleged poor health of a child on board.

Officials admitted privately yesterday that was merely an opportunity seized on by Dr Yudhoyono to placate the national media, suspicious that the deal to accept the asylum-seekers had been at Australia's insistence.

The Bintan standoff came as local officials questioned the readiness of the Tanjung Pinang detention centre to cope with the new arrivals. Although the centre is supposed to have a capacity of more than 600 and currently houses just over 80, local officials who held a co-ordination meeting to discuss the arrangement cast doubt on whether it could cope with the influx.

'It's not ready to hold them,' said an immigration official who asked not to be named. 'Even though it has the capacity, the infrastructure is not there - there's no running water, the electricity's unreliable.'

A small group of protesters set up at the Kijang port yesterday where the Oceanic Viking had been expected to dock, waving banners that read: 'This is not a place to put Sri Lankan immigrants.'

At the western Java port of Merak, where 251 Sri Lankans were continuing their own standoff with immigration officials and refusing to disembark from the Jaya Lestari 5, a wooden cargo boat intercepted by the Indonesian navy more than two weeks ago, a first breakthrough was made when a UN official addressed the group.

'He's asking those of us who registered with the UN in Malaysia to show the papers proving that we did - which, if he really is a UN official, we would be prepared to do,' said the group's spokesman, known as Alex.

Alex said he understood the 78 Sri Lankans on board the Oceanic Viking had been communicating with Tamil figures abroad to co-ordinate their protest, as had his own group of asylum-seekers.

Yesterday, lawyer and refugee advocate Jessie Taylor said conditions in Indonesian detention centres often left much to be desired. 'We met young 14-year-old boys in jail,' Ms Taylor said. 'It's not unusual to have them there for six to 12 months.'

She said she had grave misgivings about ceding responsibility for managing Australia-bound asylum-seekers to Indonesia.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For further coverage of the Australian immigration crisis, visit Google News at: http://news.google.com/news/story?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&ncl=dBzFEmJzkgdBeHMb83k_PZUcnIPlM&scoring=n

+++

Indonesian Solution 'a shambles'
The ABC News (Australia), October 28, 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/28/2725891.htm?section=world

'We'd rather die than go ashore here'
By Simon Kearney
The Australian, October 28, 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26270388-5013871,00.html

Indonesia governor rebels on refugees
By Tom Allar and Phillip Coorey
The Brisbane Times, October 27, 2009
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/indonesia-governor-rebels-on-refugees-20091027-hj39.html

Asylum Seekers Adrift on Australian Boat
By Kaite Hamann
The Voice of America News, October 27, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-27-voa9.cfm

Indonesia is no refugee dumping ground, says governor
By Geoff Thompson - ‎
The ABC News (Australia), October 27, 2009
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/27/2725837.htm

Rudd under fire over asylum boat delay
By Emma Rodgers
The ABC News (Australia), October 27, 2009
http://news.google.com/news/story?pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&ncl=dBzFEmJzkgdBeHMb83k_PZUcnIPlM&scoring=n

PM attacks Turnbull over asylum seekers
By Sandra O'Malley
The Sydney Morning Herald, October 27, 2009
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/pm-attacks-turnbull-over-asylum-seekers-20091026-hf5l.html

Asylum Debate Stirs Political Debate in Australia
By Phil Mercer
The Voice of America News, October 26, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-26-voa19.cfm

Go easy on boat people, Labor tells Indonesia
By Phillip Coorey and Lindsay Murdoch
The Sydney Morning Herald, October 26, 2009
http://www.smh.com.au/world/go-easy-on-boat-people-labor-tells-indonesia-20091026-hgq9.html

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14.
Police head to Asia to fight smugglers
By Jonathan Pearlman and Yuko Narushima
The Sydney Morning Herald, October 28, 2009
http://www.smh.com.au/world/police-head-to-asia-to-fight-smugglers-20091027-hj3a.html

Australia is preparing to dispatch police across Asia to fight people smugglers and expand intelligence and security ties with Indonesia under a landmark deal that could be unveiled within weeks.

Under the deal with Jakarta - which will build on the Lombok Treaty and the Bali Process - the Government is expected to provide extra funding for detention centres, deploy additional police and customs officials and help to train security officials.

The Government is also planning to send extra police and diplomats to Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Malaysia.

But the Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, said yesterday the so-called Indonesia solution had begun in ''about 2002'' under the former prime minister John Howard, who provided millions of dollars to Jakarta to assist with processing refugees and preventing illegal migration.

''Our engagement with Indonesia on these matters is longstanding and that funding of these measures has been going for many years under successive governments,'' Senator Evans said.

''We have also helped fund some staff and training requirements to make the [detention] centre that was funded under the Howard government operational, to try and improve the skills of those in charge of the centre and to support their staffing needs.''

Since the latest influx of boats, the Government has dispatched senior ministers for overseas meetings with counterparts from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia.

The meetings have focused on plans to expand Australia's deployment of intelligence personnel, customs officials and diplomats to countries such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia, which are departure and transit points for hundreds of thousands of potential asylum seekers.

The Government is also understood to have begun training and dispatching spies from the Australian Secret Intelligence Service to gather information on illegal immigration and to assist with infiltration of people-smuggling networks.

The Australian Federal Police is set to expand its presence in the region and its ties with regional police forces and intelligence agencies, particularly in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia. This will include providing equipment to the Indonesian National Police and deploying anti-people-smuggling officers across Asia.

In its annual report released yesterday, the federal police said people smugglers were working in multinational networks and prevention efforts must involve cross-country co-operation.

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15.
iPod ban for Christmas Island detainees
By Chris Thomson
WA Today (Australia), October 27, 2009
http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/ipod-ban-for-christmas-island-detainees-20091026-hgjv.html

A scheme that let Christmas Island detainees buy iPods with Federal Government money has been scuppered by Australia's immigration department after impoverished locals objected to it.

A Department of Immigration and Citizenship spokesman told WAtoday a loophole allowing asylum seekers to accrue enough credits to buy the coveted portable sound systems was closed on September 1.

'Clients in the immigration detention centre and alternative detention on Christmas Island do not receive any cash allowance but can purchase incidentals through the use of a points-based system called the purchasing allowance scheme (PAS),' the spokesman said.

'Clients could previously accrue points over successive weeks, which enabled them to obtain items such as iPods.

'Under new arrangements implemented on Christmas Island - as a result of the ongoing review of allowances by the department - PAS points may not be accumulated over successive weeks.'

The spokesman said the points were now reset weekly and any unused credits forfeited.

'Like clients in immigration detention onshore, people in the immigration detention centre and alternative detention on Christmas Island receive a maximum of 50 PAS points, equivalent to $50, a week,' he said.

'The PAS is still in place, however under new arrangements people in detention can accrue a maximum of 50 points for incidental items only.

'They cannot accrue points over successive weeks to obtain bigger items.'

The spokesman said the move to limit the points system to basic items only arose from a 'process of continual review and improvement of arrangements on Christmas Island'.

However, Christmas Island Shire President Gordon Thomson said he regretted the changes had been made in response to local objections.

'There was the view that people were able to accumulate points and buy electronic equipment and it's a pity that they won't be able to do that now,' Councillor Thomson said yesterday, hours after the first road was closed for the island's annual red crab migration.

'You know, some of my friends have that view ... and I find it quite disappointing.

'There are people in our community who have put a lot of effort into spreading bad news about refugees and it's become a bit of an epidemic.'

Cr Thomson acknowledged his liberal attitude to detainees was partly why two of his supporters lost their councillor positions at the Christmas Island elections two weekends ago.

'There are people who are doing it pretty hard on Christmas Island that don't like it that refugees are getting a government-supplied iPod when they can't afford one,' he said.

The immigration department spokesman said that iPods previously procured under the PAS scheme had not been confiscated.

He hosed down rumours - expressed anonymously yesterday by several councillors recently muzzled by the shire from speaking to the media - that the department had directly issued iPods and mobile phones to asylum seekers.

'We have never 'issued' iPods or mobile phones to detainees,' he said.

'At no time have clients accommodated in facilities on Christmas Island been able to obtain mobile phones.'

The spokesman said boat people could still use the points to buy cigarettes, phone cards, lollies and extra food.

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Center for Immigration Studies
1522 K St. NW, Suite 820
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076
center@cis.org www.cis.org
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