Border and limits

QueEx · May 14, 2006

<center>Mexico's Fox Calls Bush to Discuss Border</center>

May 14, 6:00 PM (ET)
Associated Press
By NEDRA PICKLER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Mexican President Vicente Fox telephoned President Bush on Sunday to discuss comprehensive immigration reform as members of Congress expressed concern that using National Guard troops to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the border would further burden an overextended military.

The criticism on the eve of Bush's planned Oval Office speech to the nation on immigration came from Democrats, but also an important Republican negotiator in the immigration debate - Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. He said National Guard troops cannot secure the border over the long term and that he does not think it is wise even in the short term.

White House spokeswoman Maria Tamburri said Bush made clear to Fox in the morning telephone conversation that "the United States considered Mexico a friend and that what is being considered is not militarization of the border, but support of border capabilities on a temporary basis by the National Guard."

She said the two presidents discussed cooperative efforts under way along the border and that Bush reiterated to Fox "his commitment to comprehensive immigration reform."

She said Fox "reached out" to Bush, but she did not know how long the call lasted or the time it occurred.

A news release from Fox's office said the Mexican president initiated the call and characterized Bush as "analyzing the administrative and logistical support of part of the National Guard, not the army, to help police on the border."

The Mexican release said that Bush and Fox agreed that a comprehensive immigration reform is needed in the United States.

"In the conversation, President Bush reiterated his conviction that the migration issue can only be resolved with an integral and comprehensive reform," said the release.

"We've got National Guard members on their second, third and fourth tours in Iraq," Hagel said. "We have stretched our military as thin as we have ever seen it in modern times. And what in the world are we talking about here, sending a National Guard that we may not have any capacity to send up to or down to protect borders? That's not their role."

The president's national security adviser said sending troops to patrol the border with Mexico is among the ideas Bush is considering on immigration.

Bush planned to say in his national address at 8 p.m. EDT Monday how the government should deal with border security and illegal immigrants already in the United States, Stephen Hadley said.

"This is not about militarizing the border," Hadley said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "The president is looking to do everything he can to secure the border. It's what the American people want."

Bush is considering the National Guard plan as he seeks support from conservatives in Congress for his immigration bill. Bush wants to allow foreigners to get temporary work permits to enter and work in the U.S., but many conservatives want a tougher approach on illegal immigrants trying to sneak into the country.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he supported using the National Guard on the Mexican border. He said lawmakers who doubt that the National Guard, whose members have served for years in Iraq and went to the Gulf Coast after last summer's hurricanes, could take on border patrol duty are "whining" and "moaning."

"We've got to secure our borders," Frist said on CNN's "Late Edition.""We hear it from the American people. We've got millions of people coming across that border. First and foremost, secure the border, whatever it takes. Everything else we've done has failed. We've got to face that. And so we need to bring in, I believe, the National Guard."

Hagel said the bill under debate in the Senate that he helped write would double the 12,000-strong Border Patrol force over the next five years. "That's the way to fix it, not further stretching the National Guard," he said on ABC's "This Week."

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said there may be a need for troops to fill in while the Border Patrol is bolstered. But he did not seem confident that the National Guard could take on the extra duty.

"We have stretched these men and women so thin, so thin, because of the bad mistakes done by the civilians in the military here, that I wonder how they're going to be able to do it," Biden said, also on ABC.

About 100 National Guard troops are serving on the border to assist with counter-drug operations, heavy equipment support and other functions. Bush is considering an increase into the thousands, and Hadley would not directly rule out using armed National Guard troops directly on guard duty.

Hadley also would not say whether Bush supports building a fence or wall along part of the border with Mexico. Hadley said the president and Congress will have to decide how immigrant workers who are in the U.S. illegally can become citizens.

Frist said the full Senate planned to begin debating the immigration bill Monday and that it would take up to two weeks to pass.

Senators would have to resolve any differences with the House version of the bill, which did not address the guest worker issue but increases penalties for illegal immigration activities and funds a 700-mile border fence.

http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20060514/D8HJQHE81.html?PG=home&SEC=news

elexington1989 · May 17, 2006

[FRAME]http://www.gazette.net/stories/051706/montnew194940_31966.shtml[/FRAME]

QueEx · May 17, 2006

<center>Immigration Proposals Pass Test In Senate
Guest-Worker And Citizenship Provisions Survive</center>

Washington Post
By Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 17, 2006; Page A0

A fragile Senate coalition backing a broad overhaul of the nation's immigration laws survived its first legislative test yesterday, beating back efforts to gut provisions to grant millions of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and hundreds of thousands of foreigners a new guest-worker permit.

But President Bush's efforts to win House conservatives to his immigration proposals still faced an uphill climb. A day after a prime-time televised address to the nation, Bush continued to make his case yesterday that immigration legislation must be comprehensive -- tightening control of the borders, offering a new temporary guest-worker visa to foreign workers, and offering most illegal immigrants a path to lawful employment and citizenship.

"In order for us to solve the problem of an immigration system that's not working, it's really important for Congress to understand . . . that the elements I described all go hand in hand," Bush said in a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

But House Republicans, who passed legislation last year to crack down on illegal immigration without offering new avenues to legal employment, were not budging.

"I understand what the president's position is. I have made it pretty clear that I have supported the House position," said House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

The legislative action in the Senate, coupled with the response to Bush's speech in the House, underscored how difficult it will be for Congress to produce a compromise that can reach the president's desk. With conservative activists including National Review editors and Rush Limbaugh lambasting the speech, the White House dispatched Vice President Cheney to calm the party's base.

In an interview on Limbaugh's nationally broadcast radio show, Cheney said the White House is well aware of "legitimate concerns out there on the part of a lot of folks" and is moving quickly to address them. Cheney said the president has "given serious consideration" to erecting a wall along parts of the southern border to keep illegal immigrants out.

"We think you've got to address all those aspects and facets of the problem," he said. "And where appropriate, fences or security barriers make good sense."

But in the Senate, the bipartisan coalition appears to be holding behind broad-based legislation that would tighten border controls, create a new guest-worker program, and offer illegal immigrants who have been in the country at least five years a legal work permit and a path to citizenship. Undocumented workers who have been here for more than two years but less than five would have to return to a border crossing to receive a temporary work permit and then apply for a green card. Illegal immigrants who have been here less than two years would have to return home.

Senators voted 55 to 40 to kill an amendment, offered by Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), that would have prohibited the implementation of any guest-worker program for illegal immigrants until the secretary of homeland security certified that the bill's border security provisions were fully funded and operational.

Supporters called it a "common-sense approach" that would have avoided a repeat of a 1986 amnesty program that legalized millions of undocumented workers but failed to secure the border. But opponents said it would effectively kill the compromise by putting off the guest-worker programs for years.

A few hours later, the coalition voted 69 to 28 to kill an amendment by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would have eliminated the central plank of Bush's immigration policy, a program to offer temporary guest-worker visas to 325,000 foreign workers a year. Dorgan and some union leaders said the program would "in-source" a steady flow of cheap labor that would compete for low-skilled jobs, lowering wages for everyone.

The Dorgan proposal appeared to be gaining steam when conservatives received a Heritage Foundation study concluding that the Senate's guest-worker program would allow an estimated 103 million foreigners to legally immigrate to the United States over 20 years. A rush of Senate Republicans first voted to support Dorgan but switched their votes under pressure from Senate GOP leaders, who feared an embarrassing rebuke to the president a day after his national address.

The Senate did overwhelmingly back an amendment by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) that capped the number of guest-worker visas at 200,000. The original version would offer 325,000 visas a year, plus up to 20 percent more each year when that total was reached.

Senators both for and against the immigration measure expressed confidence that the bill will be passed by the end of next week. But the Senate's progress appeared only to entrench Republican opposition in the House. Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) pronounced Bush's speech "unconvincing." Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) pronounced himself "annoyed." And Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) declared that Bush had "insulted a lot of people" and "made the situation worse."

At least 73 House Republicans have signed a letter saying they will never accept any plan that offers legal work and citizenship to undocumented workers, and House Republican leadership aides said that number is likely to climb.

"I don't underestimate the difficulty in the House and Senate coming to an agreement on this issue," Boehner said, "but I do think it is possible."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...6051600843.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

QueEx · May 19, 2006

The following was posted by illdog in a new thread
but move to this thread on the same subject/topic.
___________________________________________


[FRAME]http://news.monstersandcritics.com/roundups/article_1164872.php/News_Roundup[/FRAME]

QueEx · May 21, 2006

<center>Abandoned: 
the Mexican orphans of the rush to cross US border</center>

Alexis Silva Carreno plans to head
north: 'Sometimes I want to die'

By James Hider in San Andreas Nicolas Bravo
(Filed: 21/05/2006)

When Alexis Silva Carreno was nine years old, his father left Mexico to find work 800 miles away across the US border in Houston, Texas. Alexis was devastated and begged his father not to go. It was not until his mother also headed north that the boy's entire world collapsed.

"She didn't even leave any kitchen utensils, she took everything, everything. She left us to be street kids. She forgot her children," he said, sitting dejected in his classroom at the end of a day at school in the village of San Andreas Nicolas Bravo.

As long as migrants can earn in an hour in America what they earn in a day back home, few observers expect President George W Bush's plan to use troops to patrol the Mexican border seriously to stem the flow into the US.

Meanwhile, Alexis's grandmother has struggled to control the lonely teenager and his two brothers as they fell in with others dabbling in drugs and alcohol. Then, a year after disappearing, his father returned with a new wife.

Alexis's family is one of hundreds of thousands torn apart by migration as more and more Mexican women follow their husbands to the United States, desperate to earn enough to give their children a better life as Mexico's rural communities struggle to compete in the global market.

Now even their abandoned children are heading north in increasing numbers. "Migrants used to start leaving at the age of 30, now they are starting at 14 or 15," said Adriana Cortez Jimenez, who runs a number of aid projects to try to slow the migration.

The effect on Mexico's future is potentially devastating. "What's the future for our communities? It's difficult to see. We are losing our people, we are losing our culture," said Mrs Cortez Jimenez.

Since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on America, tighter border restrictions have made it too risky for parents to return regularly to visit their children. In most cases, a telephone call, perhaps once a month, is the only contact.

At 14, Alexis has concluded that his best option, too, is to risk the deadly journey north, illegally crossing the border in search of a better life. He plans to go next month.

"I want to go to school up there or work. To make money so my father will be proud of me," he said, knowing that 400 migrants die attempting the crossing every year.

"In the desert I've heard it is really bad. I've heard there are people who will even steal your water." But, he added: "Sometimes I just want to die anyway."

If Alexis were to stay in his home village, he would probably spend his life doing back-breaking work in the rice paddy fields, where a field that takes two months' work from planting to harvest earns just $50 (£26). So far, there has been no viable government plan to create alternatives that allow the peasant population to earn a decent living.

Every year, about 400,000 poor Mexicans leave. And together those working en el otro lado (on the other side) pump about $20 billion back into the country, providing its second largest source of revenue after oil.

In San Andreas and other villages like it, children are living on moneygrams sent by their absentee parents - and becoming accustomed to a quality of life they could never achieve from the rice paddies. But as contact with parents fades over the years, their only hope of maintaining their standard of living is to head north themselves.

Margarita Sanchez Ramirez is the last remaining shred of her family in La Cantera Uno, a remote village in north-central Mexico. Standing in front of her breeze-block outhouse, the sad-eyed, grey-haired matriarch points at a row of nine US car registration plates nailed to the wall which chart the travels of her seven children, now scattered between Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado and Oklahoma.

"It's hard, very sad," said the 55-year-old, wiping tears from her eyes. Mrs Ramirez's 14-year-old grandson is already talking about leaving school and heading north, dreaming of the life he watches on the cable television that has reached his village - thanks to cash sent by distant parents.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...mex21.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/21/ixnews.html

Greed · May 21, 2006

Mexico Works to Bar Non-Natives From Jobs

Mexico Works to Bar Non-Natives From Jobs
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer
26 minutes ago

If Arnold Schwarzenegger had migrated to Mexico instead of the United States, he couldn't be a governor. If Argentina native Sergio Villanueva, firefighter hero of the Sept. 11 attacks, had moved to Tecate instead of New York, he wouldn't have been allowed on the force.

Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory.

In the United States, only two posts — the presidency and vice presidency — are reserved for the native born.

In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens.

Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for "native-born Mexicans."

Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges.

Mexico's Interior Department — which recommended the bans as part of "model" city statutes it distributed to local officials — could cite no basis for extending the bans to local posts.

After being contacted by The Associated Press about the issue, officials changed the wording in two statutes to delete the "native-born" requirements, although they said the modifications had nothing to do with AP's inquiries.

"These statutes have been under review for some time, and they have, or are about to be, changed," said an Interior Department official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name.

But because the "model" statues are fill-in-the-blanks guides for framing local legislation, many cities across Mexico have already enacted such bans. They have done so even though foreigners constitute a tiny percentage of the population and pose little threat to Mexico's job market.

The foreign-born make up just 0.5 percent of Mexico's 105 million people, compared with about 13 percent in the United States, which has a total population of 299 million. Mexico grants citizenship to about 3,000 people a year, compared to the U.S. average of almost a half million.

"There is a need for a little more openness, both at the policy level and in business affairs," said David Kim, president of the Mexico-Korea Association, which represents the estimated 20,000 South Koreans in Mexico, many of them naturalized citizens.

"The immigration laws are very difficult ... and they put obstacles in the way that make it more difficult to compete," Kim said, although most foreigners don't come to Mexico seeking government posts.

J. Michael Waller, of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, was more blunt. "If American policy-makers are looking for legal models on which to base new laws restricting immigration and expelling foreign lawbreakers, they have a handy guide: the Mexican constitution," he said in a recent article on immigration.

Some Mexicans agree their country needs to change.

"This country needs to be more open," said Francisco Hidalgo, a 50-year-old video producer. "In part to modernize itself, and in part because of the contribution these (foreign-born) people could make."

Others express a more common view, a distrust of foreigners that academics say is rooted in Mexico's history of foreign invasions and the loss of territory in the 1847-48 Mexican-American War.

Speaking of the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans who enter Mexico each year, chauffeur Arnulfo Hernandez, 57, said: "The ones who want to reach the United States, we should send them up there. But the ones who want to stay here, it's usually for bad reasons, because they want to steal or do drugs."

Some say progress is being made. Mexico's president no longer is required to be at least a second-generation native-born. That law was changed in 1999 to clear the way for candidates who have one foreign-born parent, like President Vicente Fox, whose mother is from Spain.

But the pace of change is slow. The state of Baja California still requires candidates for the state legislature to prove both their parents were native born.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060521...91I2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

Greed · May 21, 2006

"I'm Mexican, really," say Central America migrants

"I'm Mexican, really," say Central America migrants
By Tim Gaynor
2 hours, 3 minutes ago

Non-Mexican Hispanics entering the United States illegally are studying up on Mexican history and geography, even learning to whistle the national anthem, to beat U.S. plans to fly them home.

As part of a proposal to overhaul immigration laws and tighten border security, President Bush pledged last week to increase deportations of illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico caught crossing the U.S. border.

Mexicans, who make up most of the almost 1.2 million immigrants detained crossing the border illegally in 2005, are given a criminal background check and then sent over the frontier, usually within a day. Many often try crossing again immediately.

But so-called Other Than Mexican, or OTM, illegal immigrants mostly from Central America, are increasingly being flown back hundreds of miles to their home countries, which can effectively end their dream of entering the United States to earn a better life.

So, many pretend to be Mexicans.

"We heard we could be sent back to our own countries, so many of us are trying to pass ourselves off as Mexicans," Honduran Jorge Alberto Carvajal, 38, said as he stood with a group of Central American migrants outside a shelter in this sweltering city south of Laredo, Texas.

"A lot are learning the Mexican national anthem and the names of the states, and even the names of the state's governors," said Carvajal, a former street trader from the city of San Pedro Sula.

Central American migrants say their journey north through Mexico to the border, often riding train box cars, is so tough they are willing to lie to U.S. agents about their nationality to avoid being flown back.

"I suffered a lot on the train journey. I was thirsty and hungry, and had to sleep in stables with animals," said Guatemalan father of five Jose Posadas, 34, as he prepared to cross the Rio Grande to McAllen, Texas, 140 miles east of Nuevo Laredo.

FALSE IDENTITY

Previously, illegal Central Americans apprehended on the U.S. side of the border were routinely served with a notice to appear before an immigration judge at a later date, after which most just melted into the United States and disappeared.

The majority of the 155,000 OTMs nabbed last year were freed onto the streets of U.S. cities. Bush called that so-called catch-and-release policy unacceptable.

A new strategy to detain the non-Mexican immigrants and fly them home was imposed on the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) border last September, although it has been applied only patchily.

The program started in several areas of the border, notably the Del Rio and McAllen sectors in Texas, which had become swamped by OTMs. It covers citizens of Brazil, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said some 70,000 non-Mexican immigrants have been caught crossing from Mexico since October 1, down 11 percent from the same period a year ago.

At present, a decision on whether to send OTMs home in many cases depends on whether there is detention space to hold them pending repatriation flights.

Border Patrol spokeswoman Maria Valencia said it was common for agents to encounter OTMs attempting to pass themselves off as fellow Spanish-speaking Mexicans, and said some agents might be successfully tricked.

"Definitely ... Some might fool us to believe they are Mexicans, especially when we are overwhelmed and we are trying to process a large, large group," she said by telephone from Washington.

Agents were skilled at picking out impostors from their Mexican neighbors, Valencia said, but migrants like Posadas said they are now going to great lengths to try and beat border police and avoid deportation.

"I told (the Border Patrol) I was from the Zaragoza district of Reynosa ... I studied the streets of the area, and even had the names of my Mexican parents worked out," said the restaurant worker from Escuintla, Guatemala.

"They caught me ... and now I'll try again."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060521...9RZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

Greed · May 26, 2006

US Senate approves immigration reform

US Senate approves immigration reform
by Charlotte Raab
Thu May 25, 7:38 PM ET

The US Senate adopted sweeping reforms of immigration law that would allow millions of undocumented workers to seek legal status in the United States.

The bill passed 62-36 despite deep divisions within the majority Republican Party but with the backing of Republican President George W. Bush.

Adoption of the Senate text with bipartisan backing of Republican John McCain and Democrat Edward Kennedy does not guarantee its final adoption, however, as it differs sharply from a parallel bill passed in the lower House of Representatives, and the two must be reconciled.

"Today is not the day to celebrate. We have won a big battle but not the war," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said.

The Senate bill would create 200,000 temporary work visas for foreigners who take low-skill jobs here, and double the number of US Border Patrol agents on the border with Mexico.

Most controversial is a provision that would allow many of the estimated 11.5 million foreign workers here illegally, many of them Mexican, to gain legal status.

The bill also includes funding to build a 600 kilometer (370 miles) wall along the southern US frontier.

The consequences of reform are so great for Mexico that Mexican President Vicente Fox and first lady Marta Sahagun were in the United States Thursday to address US-Mexican labor and immigration issues.

"This is a decisive moment and I am talking about a noble, sensitive and just cause," he said in Seattle, in the northwestern US state of Washington, where he was to visit a Boeing airplane factory. He will visit retailer Costco, coffee maker Starbucks and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The US Chamber of Commerce welcomed the Senate text.

"This bill constitutes a sound bipartisan legislative blueprint which addresses both the security and economic needs of the country," its vice president Randel Johnson said in a statement.

Senators wrapped up two months of debate on the reforms Bush has sought for more than two years. The bill aims to stem illegal immigration but welcome illegal immigrants who have already been integrated into US society.

It is derided by some as an "amnesty".

"The problem with this bill is that it is an amnesty bill, or a legalization bill, that I think is just fundamentally unfair to millions of people waiting around the world trying to get into this country legally, as well as the millions who have come into this country and waited and paid dearly, I might add, to come into this country legally," Senator Rick Santorum said.

Not so, said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist: "We've taken a bill that the American people would have concluded was amnesty and by my lights, we took the amnesty out while we put the security in."

The Senate bill will be submitted to bicameral negotiations, but will be difficult to bring in line with a much tougher version passed in the House of Representatives.

In December, the House approved a plan that would make unapproved US entry a federal crime and would bolster border security. Immigrants' rights activists and religious officials, including the Catholic Church, opposed the legislation.

Immigration is likely to be a particularly hot issue during mid-term elections in November and some Republican proponents worry that its failure could prove very costly on the campaign trail.

"This is going to be a delicate negotiation between the House and Senate. I wish them well," House Republican leader John Boehner said.

The House bill has sparked some of the largest protests in recent US history, with millions of predominantly Hispanic demonstrators taking to the streets in major American cities since late March to defend their contribution to US society and the economy.

"The American people may have different views as to how we should address this issue, but I think all of them think we ought to address it," said McCain.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2006052...POFOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

QueEx · May 27, 2006

Re: US Senate approves immigration reform

<center>Immigration Issue Splits the GOP
Key House Member Calls Senate Bill a 'Non-Starter'</center>

Washington Post
By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 27, 2006; Page A05

The immigration issue threatened to cleave the Republican Party yesterday, as a key GOP House member chided President Bush's top political adviser and labeled a central element of the Senate's hard-fought immigration bill a "non-starter."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a prominent player in the approaching House-Senate negotiations over immigration legislation, told reporters that the two chambers are "180 degrees apart" and that compromise is possible only if the Senate jettisons some of its bill's most prized provisions. The Senate proposal to allow millions of illegal immigrants to pursue citizenship, he said, amounts to amnesty, and "amnesty is wrong, because amnesty rewards someone for illegal behavior."

Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) is known as an especially cantankerous conservative, and some degree of posturing and bluffing is typical in both houses before their members launch negotiations over contentious matters. But the House's top GOP leaders made no effort to dilute Sensenbrenner's pointed comments, even those that bordered on ridiculing the White House.

Asked at a morning news conference about the faith that some Republicans place in Bush -- who generally backs the Senate version -- to move the House from its hard-line position, Sensenbrenner replied: "The president dispatched Karl Rove, guru in chief up there, to the Republican conference, both this week and last week. . . . And they [House Republicans] jumped all over Rove. And they said the president is not where the American people are at. The Senate is also not where the American people are at."

Sensenbrenner's remarks suggest that GOP leaders face a formidable task in bridging the party's divide on an emotional issue five months before the midterm elections. The Senate's 55-member Republican caucus fractured over the immigration bill that passed Thursday, with 23 voting for it and 32 voting against it. By contrast, Democrats were nearly unified, backing the measure 38 to 4.

The GOP divisions underscored the issue's complexity and its resistance to easy analysis. Among Arizona's Republicans, Sen. John McCain led the fight for the bill, while Sen. Jon Kyl was a key critic. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) championed the bill, while his state's other GOP senator, Jim DeMint, derided it.

Of the five Republican senators weighing presidential bids in 2008, only one -- George Allen (Va.) -- voted against the bill. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), also an opponent of the bill, said yesterday, "I think Allen comes out closer to where Republican primary voters are."

Rutgers University political scientist Ross K. Baker said the immigration issue poses a serious threat to the party. Since the Reagan administration, he said, "it's been a stable coalition between the party's business and chamber-of-commerce wing and its social conservatives." Now, Baker said, the first group cherishes the cheap labor that illegal immigrants provide, "while many Republicans, especially in the Sunbelt, really feel the country is being overwhelmed by the alien tide."

The House in December passed an immigration bill dealing only with tougher border and workplace enforcement. It would make felons of the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. A key element of the Senate bill would allow most of those immigrants to remain in the country and possibly become citizens.

Sensenbrenner said he will oppose the Senate provision, even if it were allowed to take effect only after there is proof of dramatically fewer illegal crossings from Mexico, thanks to tougher border enforcement efforts.

"A pathway to citizenship, also known as amnesty . . . is a non-starter," he said. A guest-worker program "can be on the table if it does not contain an amnesty," he said, "but only if the employer sanctions and the increased border patrols are effective."

Sensenbrenner said many of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants will leave voluntarily if the government enforces the House's proposed sharp sanctions against employers who hire them. "With the border controls and the enforcement of employer sanctions, the jobs for illegal immigrants will dry up," he said. "And if you can't get a job because employer sanctions are enforced, my belief is that a lot of the illegal immigrants will simply go back home."

Sensenbrenner disputed the argument that illegal immigrants are essential in handling "certain jobs that Americans will not do." He said: "Americans will do and have done any job as long as they're paid enough money."

Americans "are willing to spend whatever it takes to secure the border," he added. As for his reputation as a tough negotiator against senators, Sensenbrenner proudly cited an article that said "I've been known to eat them for breakfast and to pick my teeth with their bones."

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.), the chamber's third-ranking Republican leader, "shares the concerns about the Senate approach raised by Chairman Sensenbrenner," his office said yesterday. Blunt opposes "any plan that creates a path to citizenship for those who are in the country illegally," the statement said, and he "remains focused on a border security-first approach."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...6052601647.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

QueEx · May 28, 2006

Re: US Senate approves immigration reform

[frame]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5025158.stm[/frame]

muckraker10021 · May 28, 2006

I'm one of the individuals who is paying this young man's legal bills, I'll keep you posted. Check out the PBS video link.
<hr noshade color="#d90000" size="12"></hr>..

[PDF]http://mywebpage.netscape.com/camarilla10028/StudentsPrizeIsaTripIntoImmigrationLimbo.pdf[/PDF]

QueEx · May 28, 2006

Whats the relationship to your post above and the subject of this thread ?

QueEx

muckraker10021 · May 28, 2006

The are thousands of “Amadou’s” in the US. Are we going to throw them all out? In the PBS video, listen to the Georgia RepubliKlan state that Amadou should “go back home”. The whole border patrol at the Mexican border is for the “ditto-heads”. IBM, General Electric, Dell, Hewlett Packard, etc. all have H1 visa workers, primarily from India, running their SAP software, which controls their mainframe computers and their entire networks. The media focus on Mexican & other latinos coming across the southern border is just the “media of mass distraction” highlighting a RepubliKlan wedge issue. If you want to severely curtail the southern border traffic, you fine the employers of these workers. Let’s say $100,000 for the first infraction, $250,000 for the second, and $500,000 each for each subsequent infraction. The flow from the southern border would turn into a trickle in less than 3 months. Lou Dobbs and all the other bloviators on this issue know this. If you feel Amadou’s story is not at all emblematic of “borders & limits” issue, then by all means kill the post.

Amandla!

QueEx · May 28, 2006

muckraker10021 said:
The are thousands of “Amadou’s” in the US. Are we going to throw them all out?

Did I say throw the Amadous out ???

I think many here recognize the obvious difference in the treatment between the Amadous, those from Haiti and others of African descent and whats happening along the southern border. The former are not crossing the border in the millions, pose far fewer problems on public resources and are more likely to be turned away if discovered coming in -- as for the latter, well, its just the opposite. Without question, the politicos and corporate America have an objective that has little, if anything, to do with the Amadous: one is courting a new block of voters and the other easily exploitable labor.

You made an interesting observation: "The[re] are thousands of “Amadou’s” in the US." I don't know exactly what the numbers are and I think you're right, but I don't think the Amadou's, et al., come even close to the 11 million problem that has crossed the southern border. I guess I'm confused why you would link the two.

In the PBS video, listen to the Georgia RepubliKlan state that Amadou should “go back home”.

I heard what he said before I responded above. I also know what the State of Georgia sees as a problem, and its not the Amadous of the world. While the reporter opined that the legislator is "not unsympathetic" to Amadous predicament -- frankly, I don't know whether he is or not nor do I know what other response he could have given -- given that he would have been contradictory to say something different towards Amadou's case considering the stance he and the State of Georgia is taking with regards to the "Millions".

The Amadou's of the world do pose and interesting dilemma: Do we support the "Millions" because it would help the Amadous, or, do we insist that all immigrate legally. Isn't that what Amadou is seeking now ???

The whole border patrol at the Mexican border is for the “ditto-heads”. IBM, General Electric, Dell, Hewlett Packard, etc. all have H1 visa workers, primarily from India, running their SAP software, which controls their mainframe computers and their entire networks. The media focus on Mexican & other latinos coming across the southern border is just the “media of mass distraction” highlighting a RepubliKlan wedge issue.

Well damn; guess I've been fuckin distracted! Why does one have to be a "ditto head" to oppose millions of people illegally crossing the border??? What? - because Limbaugh also opposes it? If Limbaugh, for whatever reason suddenly opposes GW, does that mean he's wrong and that every other right thinking person should then support GW ? I know that you know what I'm getting at: using Buzz words/phrases and tying issues and arguments together may sound good, but they're just as distractive as that media you're talking about. That is, mentioning Ditto-heads (typically universally opposed to most of OUR arguments), and mentioning, by implication, their position on immigration, regardless of the merits, pro and con of illegal immigration, just distorts the issue. Nevertheless, let me say this for the umpteenth time, Fuck GW and Fuck Rush. Now, stripped of the politics, as I see it, we still have an immigration problem and it has nothing to do with the Amadous of the world.

If you want to severely curtail the southern border traffic, you fine the employers of these workers. Let’s say $100,000 for the first infraction, $250,000 for the second, and $500,000 each for each subsequent infraction. The flow from the southern border would turn into a trickle in less than 3 months. Lou Dobbs and all the other bloviators on this issue know this.

Elect me to congress and I'd write and introduce such a measure.

If you feel Amadou’s story is not at all emblematic of “borders & limits” issue, then by all means kill the post.

No. I don't think Amadou's story is emblamatic at all of the borders & limits issue. I wouldn't kill the thread even if I did, but do you see Amadou and the southern border inextricably linked ???

QueEx

muckraker10021 · May 29, 2006

Elect me to congress and I'd write and introduce such a measure.

A single congress-person would not be the way to get such a measure introduced. Congress reacts to the mobilization of mass constituencies. The people who should be advocating for such measures (stiff fines for hiring illegals) such as the entire liberal, progressive community, including labor and the Black congressional caucus in particular, are not. When I see Sharpton & Jesse & Harry Belafonte & all the others marching and advocating with the millions of primarily latinos, WITHOUT addressing big business’s culpability in hiring illegals I am angered. I am angered because Black male unemployment across America , in urban and rural areas is 50 percent plus+. Am I talking about the lettuce & fruit picking jobs that are always talked about in the media as “the jobs americans won’t do”. No! There are a myriad of billion dollar Fortune 500 companies that hire illegals, primarily latinos, with impunity. Let’s focus on just one industry. We’ll start with the Home Building Industry.
Click http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/snapshots/1435.html
What you see here is a snapshot of TOLL BROTHERS, one of the nations largest homebuilders, a 6 Billion dollar revenue company. Scroll down the page, look at the table titled
--Industry: Homebuilders-- These are the largest homebuilders in the USA. You’re looking at combined yearly revenue of OVER $740,000,000,000. (740 Billion Dollars). All of these companies hire massive amounts of illegals and pay them less than they would pay an American citizen, and offer them no benefits (healthcare, 401K etc) It’s right out in the open, its no secret. They all DO NOT hire brothers in any significant number. Just look at the federal statistics, or drive by one of these housing schemes as it is being constructed. You won’t see any American Black Men working on these sites. In fact white boys are complaining that they can’t get hired either. I saw a white boy construction manager veteran on television staing that he was turned down for a major supervisory role of a construction site because, HE COULDN’T SPEAK SPANISH, and most of the construction crew was Spanish.

Has anyone of these companies been significantly fined for blatantly breaking the law by hiring illegals? No! Can a significant portion of the 50 percent + unemployed African American Men handle construction? We all know the answer to that question.

As I said - Congress reacts to the mobilization of mass constituencies. Remember the hysteria over the brief exposure of Janet Jackson’s naked breast during the superbowl. The <s>Faith</s>Fake Based Theocrats were able to pressure congress into raising the broadcast indecency fine up to $500,000. per incident. The victorias secret televised fashion show wasn’t televised for a year. Howard Stern is now on satellite radio. It was a bullshit issue, but congress reacted to the pressure of the<s>Faith</s>Fake Based Theocrats.
Similar pressure must be put on congress regarding the “Corporatists” willful violation of US law pertaining to the hiring of illegals. That’s the crux of this issue, from construction workers to the technology workers running corporate Americas mainframe computers.

do you see Amadou and the southern border inextricably linked ???

I don’t see them inextricably linked because the corollaries between the two are not absolute. Amadou’s connection is with the 11-14 million Latinos, Africans, Caribbean’s, Asians, Europeans who are already here, not the streaming tide of Latino workers who are daily coming across the southern border of the US. As I said this stream would turn into a trickle if current US law was enforced and if the fines were increased accordingly as I suggested. Research how after hurricane Katrina, bush suspended the Davis-Bacon act, which protected local area workers wages. Companies in the Katrina affected areas, egregiously hired illegals, primarily Mexicans and paid them slightly above nothing. After public pressure bush rescinded the suspension of Davis-Bacon but the damage was already done.

The H1 visa workers who run the technological infrastructure(SAP, Peoplesoft etc.) of the Fortune 1000 companies are allowed to be “green carded” at the firms discretion, as ”necessary workers”. Most American citizens don’t know this. The focus of this entire ’debate’ has to shift to these multi-billion dollar companies violation of US law, not people like Amadou.

QueEx · Jun 15, 2006

<center>Sweep Nets Nearly 2,100 Illegal Immigrants</center>

Jun 15, 6:47 AM (ET)
Associated Press
By ANDREW RYAN

BOSTON (AP) - A blitz by federal agents during the last three weeks captured nearly 2,100 illegal immigrants across the country in raids targeting child molesters, violent gang members and past deportees who re-entered the country.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials credited the roundup to a network of 35 fugitive apprehension teams.

"This is a massive operation," said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for immigration enforcement or ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. "We are watching the country's borders from the inside."

The crackdown, dubbed "Operation Return to Sender," kicked off May 26. An Associated Press reporter and photographer accompanied a fugitive task force as it made raids Tuesday night and early Wednesday.

swarm of immigration agents had sped silently, headlights off, down a Boston side street and surrounded an apartment house.

"Police! Policia! Police!" Monico yelled, holding his badge to a window where someone had pulled back the curtain. "Open the door!"

Soon agents led a dazed-looking Jose Ferreira Da Silva, 35, out in handcuffs. The Brazilian had been arrested in 2002 and deported, but had slipped back into the country. He now faces up to 20 years in prison.

"This sends a message," said Daniel Monico, a deportation officer, after a successful raid early Wednesday. "When we deport you, we're serious."

The operation has caught more than 140 immigrants with convictions for sexual offenses against children; 367 known gang members, including street soldiers in the deadly Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13; and about 640 people who had already been deported once, immigration officials said. The numbers include more than 720 arrests in California alone.

More than 800 people arrested already have been deported.

ICE's 2006 budget increased the number of fugitive task forces to 52, and the Bush administration is pushing for 70 by 2007. The teams face a mounting challenge.

There are more than 500,000 "fugitive aliens" who have been deported by judges and either slipped back into the country or never left. There is often a disconnect between local and state prisons and the federal government that allows illegal immigrants to serve time and be released without being transferred to federal officials for deportation.

The government has conducted large scale sweeps from time to time, including on April 20, when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced a new get-tough policy. That day, agents rounded up 1,100 illegal immigrants in 40 cities.

During the raid late Tuesday, the federal squad, which includes a Boston police sergeant detective, wore bulging bulletproof vests and stiff Kevlar gloves to protect their hands from needles, knives and rusty fences.

Badges dangled on chains around their necks as they passed around wanted posters and shined flashlights on the face of a 24-year-old Latvian man who had served prison time for assaulting a police officer.

The team moved in the dark, climbing fences and hiding behind parked cars to encircle a three-story house in Boston's Allston-Brighton neighborhood. All at once they emerged from the shadows. A half-dozen agents filled the front porch, their knocks on the door echoing down the block. The target had moved, the agents learned, and a team split off and caught him in Weymouth, about 15 miles south of the city.

Another man caught in the recent blitz was a Salvadoran gang member who was convicted in a stabbing that left a 13-year-old boy paralyzed. Agents caught him working at Budget Rental Car at Boston's Logan Airport.

"The problems with immigration aren't going to be solved overnight," Raimondi said as the team sped toward another raid. "You start chipping away at it ... The more teams we get up and running, the more dangerous people we are going to get off the streets."

http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20060615/D8I8JM301.html?PG=home&SEC=news

QueEx · Jun 15, 2006

I hope this isn't an attempt by the administration to round up trouble makers and
criminals -- in effect cleansing the illegal immigrant community of undesirables --
and saying the rest are, OK.

QueEx

elexington1989 · Jun 17, 2006

http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0606/335860.html

elexington1989 · Jun 17, 2006

[WM]javascript:loadxwin('http://www.wjla.com/abc7videopop.hrb?a=f&n=s&s=335860&file=http://video.wjla.com/wjla/iteam0613.wmv',690,410,0,0,0,'video')[/WM]

elexington1989 · Jun 17, 2006

Technical Error

muckraker10021 · Jun 20, 2006

Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized

QueEx :I tried to add this to the "Borders and Limits" thread, but I couldn't post a reply there, something there needs fixing. You can move this post there when you fix it

Muckraker said:If you want to severely curtail the southern border traffic, you fine the employers of these workers...
...Has anyone of these companies been significantly fined for blatantly breaking the law by hiring illegals? No! ...As I said this stream (of illegal workers) would turn into a trickle if current US law was enforced and if the fines were increased accordingly.

<img src="http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/article/pieces/wpLogo_250x42.gif">


Politics, 9/11 Cited in Lax Enforcement


By Spencer S. Hsu and Kari Lydersen <img src="http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/article/pieces/twpLogo_125x20.gif">
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800613.html 
Monday, June 19, 2006

The Bush administration, which is vowing to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal workers, virtually abandoned such employer sanctions before it began pushing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws last year, government statistics show.

Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.

In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three.

The government's steady retreat from workplace enforcement in the 20 years since it became illegal to hire undocumented workers is the result of fierce political pressure from business lobbies, immigrant rights groups and members of Congress, according to law enforcement veterans. Punishing employers also was de-emphasized as the government recognized that it lacks the tools to do the job well, and as the Department of Homeland Security shifted resources to combat terrorism.

The administration says it is learning from past failures, and switching to a strategy of building more criminal cases, instead of relying on ineffective administrative fines or pinprick raids against individual businesses by outnumbered agents.

It is seeking more resources to sanction employers, toughen penalties and finally set up a reliable system -- first proposed in 1981 -- to verify the eligibility of workers. That would allow the government to hold employers accountable for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The Homeland Security Department also is seeking access to Social Security Administration records of workers whose numbers and names don't match -- access that has long been blocked by privacy concerns.

Still, in light of the government's record, experts on all sides of the debate are skeptical that the administration will be able to remove the job magnet that attracts illegal immigrants.

"The claims of this administration and its commitment to interior enforcement of immigration laws are laughable," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an advocacy group that favors tougher workplace enforcement, among other measures. "The administration only discovered immigration enforcement over the past few months, five years into its existence, and only then because they realized that a pro-enforcement pose was necessary to get their amnesty plan approved."

Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, which supports immigrant rights, agreed that enforcement has been "woefully tiny."

"Why should the public believe it, because the government hasn't done it before?" Kelley asked.

In recent months, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which succeeded the INS, has dramatically stepped up enforcement efforts. It won 127 criminal convictions last year, up from 46 in 2004, and obtained $15 million in settlements from an investigation of Wal-Mart and 12 subcontractors last fall, a spokesman said. Comparable figures before 2003 were not tracked, the agency said.

In the past few months, ICE has led several high-profile actions: against a Houston-based pallet-services company, Maryland restaurateurs and Kentucky homebuilders, among others. The activity marks a pronounced shift in emphasis, after increasing bipartisan criticism.

However, experts say the linchpin of comprehensive new enforcement plans -- developing an electronic employment-eligibility verification system to replace the paper I-9 forms used for two decades -- is years from being ready. Meanwhile, a cottage industry of document fraud and identity theft will continue, they say.

While most of the government's get-tough rhetoric has focused on people illegally crossing the border, others noted, about 40 percent of the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States entered the country legally on visas and simply stayed. That means they probably can be caught only at work.

Major work-site crackdowns have run into trouble in the past. A spring 1998 sweep that targeted the Vidalia onion harvest in Georgia, and Operation Vanguard, a 1999 clampdown on meatpacking plants in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota, provide case studies of how the government fared when confronted by a coalition that included low-wage immigrant workers and the industries that hire them, analysts said.

The Georgia raids netted 4,034 illegal immigrants, prompting other unauthorized workers to stay home. As the $90 million onion crop sat in the field, farmers "started screaming to their local representatives," said Bart Szafnicki, INS assistant district director for investigations in Atlanta from 1991 to 2001.

Georgia's two senators and three of its House members, led by then-Sen. Paul Coverdell (R) and Rep. Jack Kingston (R), complained in a letter to Washington that the INS did not understand the needs of America's farmers. The raids stopped.

For Operation Vanguard, the INS used a more sophisticated tactic. It subpoenaed personnel records from Midwestern meatpacking plants and checked them against INS and Social Security databases of authorized workers, then interviewed suspect employees. Of 24,148 employees checked, 4,495, or 19 percent, had dubious documents at about 40 plants in Nebraska, western Iowa and South Dakota. Of those workers, 70 percent disappeared rather than be interviewed. Of 1,042 questioned, 34 were arrested and deported.

Nebraska's members of Congress at first called for tougher enforcement, recalled Mark Reed, then INS director of operations. But when the result shut down some plants, "all hell broke loose," he said.

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns (R), who was governor at the time, appointed a task force to oppose the operation. Former governor Ben Nelson (D), now a U.S. senator, was hired as a lobbyist by meatpackers and ranchers. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R) pressured the Justice Department to stop.

Members of Congress at first hostile to immigrants embraced "all the same people who were so repugnant to them before," Reed said, "and they prevailed." Operation Vanguard -- which was designed to expand to four states in four months and nationwide the next year, eventually including the lodging, food and construction industries -- was killed.

Congress "came to recognize that these people . . . had become a very important part of their community, churches, schools, sports, barbecues, families -- and most importantly the economy," Reed said. "You've got to be careful what you ask for."

The mention of Operation Vanguard provokes strong reactions in Omaha, where people say a similar effort today would still cause trouble.

Henry Davis, chief executive of Greater Omaha Packing Company and a third-generation meatpacker, fumes that the INS singled out Nebraska's beef industry. Davis said there is a symbiosis between his company and its workers. His business, which slaughters 2,400 cattle a day, offers free English and citizenship classes, paid vacations, health fairs and citizenship ceremonies to workers, he said.

Lourdes Gouveia, a sociologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha who has studied the meatpacking industry for two decades, said Operation Vanguard's lessons have gone unlearned. Rather than leave the country after the crackdown, workers just changed jobs.

Meatpackers "need workers, and white Americans are not going to apply for these jobs," said Ben Salazar, a longtime activist and publisher of the newspaper Nuestro Mundo. "Immigrants know they're needed, so they will take their chances."

In an interview, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff acknowledged the administration's record but said a combination of carrots and sticks for business can work.

"It would be hard to sustain political support for vigorous work-site enforcement if you don't give employers an avenue to hire their workers in a way that is legal, because you're basically saying, 'You've got to go out of business,' " Chertoff said.

On the other hand, he said, "businesses need to understand if you don't . . . play by the rules, we're really going to come down on you. . . . That's a very powerful place to stand in resisting people who are going to push back."

Company officials who knowingly employ illegal workers can be fined and, if they continue, face jail time. Housing or harboring illegal workers or laundering money can carry long prison sentences. But the easy availability of fraudulent documents frustrates investigators, as does a law that protects businesses as long as a worker's document "appears on its face to be genuine."

Statistics show that the numbers of fines and convictions dropped sharply after 1999, with fines all but phased out except for occasional small cases. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a 2003 memorandum issued by ICE required field offices to request approval before opening work-site cases not related to protecting "critical infrastructure," such as nuclear plants. Agents focused on removing unauthorized workers, not punishing employers.

ICE also faced a $500 million budget shortfall, and resources were shifted from traditional enforcement to investigations related to national security. Farms, restaurants and the nation's food supply chain "did not make the cut," Reed said. "We were pushed away from doing enforcement."

QueEx · Jul 20, 2006

Re: Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized

<center>Substitute judge tells an illegal immigrant to leave
his courtroom or be sent back to Mexico</center>

Los Angeles Times
By Sam Quinones, Times Staff Writer
8:26 PM PDT, July 19, 2006

A substitute judge hearing the case of an illegal immigrant seeking a restraining order against her husband threatened to turn her over to immigration officials if she didn't leave his courtroom.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Pro Tem Bruce R. Fink told Aurora Gonzalez during last week's hearing that he was going to count to 20 and that if she was still in his courtroom when he finished, he would have her arrested and deported to Mexico.

In an interview Wednesday, Fink said that the woman had admitted in court that she was in the country illegally and that he didn't want her to get in trouble with immigration officials.

"We have a federal law that says that this status is not allowed," Fink said. "You can't just ignore it. What I really wanted was to not give this woman any problems."

He said he thought the couple "obviously wanted to get back together" and that he was trying to avoid granting a restraining order that would keep them apart for at least a year. He said he also thought the court order might lead to Gonzalez's deportation, because her husband would not be able to continue helping her get legal residency.

Gonzalez could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Allan Parachini, spokesman for Los Angeles County Superior Court, said the July 14 incident was under review. "We will take appropriate action after a full investigation of the circumstances," he said, adding that Gonzalez was welcomed to refile for a restraining order.

In her initial court petition, Gonzalez alleged that Francisco Salgado, 51, her husband of six years, was "verbally and emotionally abusive" to her and their two young boys. Gonzalez, who moved into a domestic violence shelter last month, accused Salgado of referring to her with a derogatory term and threatening to call immigration authorities.

In last Friday's hearing in Pomona, Fink asked Gonzalez if she was in fact an illegal immigrant.

"I'm illegal," she said.

"I hate the immigration laws that we have," the judge responded, according to the court transcript, "but I think the bailiff could take you to the immigration services and send you to Mexico. Is that what you guys want?"

Fink then asked Salgado if he wanted his wife deported. Salgado replied he was helping his wife get her legal papers, according to the transcript.

"But she's an illegal alien, right?" Fink said. "She has no right to be here at this point, correct?

"Yes," Salgado said.

At that point, Fink warned Gonzalez to either leave his courtroom or risk arrest.

"I'm going to count to 20, and if you people have left this courtroom and disappeared, she isn't going to Mexico forthwith," Fink said, according to the court transcript. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. When I get to 20, she gets arrested and goes to Mexico."

After Gonzalez left the courtroom, Fink asked Salgado if he wanted to stay, and he said yes.

Fink then dismissed the case: "Well, she brought the proceedings, and if she's not here to go forward, I guess all of the requests are denied."

On Wednesday, Fink, who has been a family law attorney for 35 years, insisted he was seeking what he thought was an agreeable solution for both parties.

"What I saw was nothing more than some yelling and screaming between a husband and wife," he said.

"I also saw that they really didn't want to not be together anymore."

If he had issued the restraining order, Fink said, "we'd wind up with exactly the opposite of what these people wanted."

"The cure could be far worse than the illness," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-illegal20jul20,0,5891326.story?coll=la-home-headlines

QueEx · Jul 27, 2006

Re: Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized

<center>Hispanic Lawmaker Blasts English Proposal</center>

Jul 26, 7:03 PM (ET)
Associated Press
By SUZANNE GAMBOA

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress' standoff over immigration legislation flared into emotional rhetoric Wednesday over a House proposal to make English the nation's official language. A Hispanic lawmaker said that was "code for official discrimination."

Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, lashed out at Republicans during a House hearing on the proposal, saying the effort was designed by the House majority to "derail comprehensive immigration reform and fan the flames of anti-immigrant sentiment before the election."

Hinojosa, who grew up in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, said he was among children who were spanked and punished for speaking Spanish in school. He noted a recent case of a Kansas student who was suspended from school for speaking in Spanish to a friend in a hallway.

Hinojosa said the hearing was particularly troublesome considering a government report that found the Department of Education has not devised sufficient tools for schools to assess how well students with limited English are performing. Hinojosa released the report by the Government Accountability Office after the hearing.

"Rather than focus on an issue that divides this country, we should have focused on how we can help our children learn English," he said.

But supporters of the English language proposal said naming English the official language would send a message to newcomers to learn it.

"We have never been and no serious person is suggesting that we become an English Only nation," said Mauro Mujica, U.S. English Inc. board chairman, which promotes English as a national language. "But the American people decidedly do not want us to become an English Optional nation."

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., said without an organized, official language, "we are all going to descend into chaos." He said knowledge of English should be a requirement for immigrants seeking permission to work in the United States.

"If you are going to come to America then learn our language," he said.

The House and Senate have approved separate immigration bills, but have refused to meet to negotiate compromise legislation. The House leaves for summer recess this week and the Senate takes its August break at the end of next week. Elections are Nov. 7.

The Senate version of the immigration bill declares that English is the "national language" of the United States. But the bill also contains a provision that simply states English is the "common and unifying language" of the United States.

In debating the renewal to the Voting Rights Act this month, however, the House voted to uphold a federal requirement that certain communities provide ballots in languages other than English.

Republicans have been concerned about how their position on immigration might affect President Bush's efforts at bringing more Hispanics into the party. But the coming election season, which usually kicks off after Labor Day, has made immigration a sticky issue for those with competitive races.

Wednesday's hearing by a subcommittee of the Education and Workforce Committee was one of about a dozen held this month on immigration. The House has held most of them to build opposition to provisions in the Senate bill, which would provide millions of illegal immigrants a chance to become American citizens.

The House bill emphasizes an enforcement approach, including subjecting all immigrants illegally in the country to felony prosecution. Many conservatives are pushing for legislation that would put enforcement first, but President Bush has asked for a comprehensive immigration bill.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20060726/D8J3VA1GG.html

QueEx · Aug 2, 2006

Re: Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized

<center>Border Agents Let Fake IDs Go Through</center>

Aug 2, 5:39 AM (ET)
Associated Press
By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Undercover investigators entered the United States using fake documents repeatedly this year - including some cases in which Homeland Security Department agents didn't ask for identification.

At nine border crossings on the Mexico and Canadian borders, agents "never questioned the authenticity of the counterfeit documents," according to Government Accountability Office testimony to be released Wednesday.

"This vulnerability potentially allows terrorists or others involved in criminal activity to pass freely into the United States from Canada or Mexico with little or no chance of being detected," concluded the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, in testimony obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

The GAO probe follows a similar inquiry in 2003 and 2004 when undercover investigators crossed unhindered into the United States at least 14 times using counterfeit drivers' licenses and, in one case, an expired, altered U.S. diplomatic passport. During that investigation, however, border agents in New York and Florida stopped three undercover officials who were using expired and forged passports, drivers' licenses or birth certificates.

By comparison, between February and June 2006, 18 GAO investigators breezed by border agents at checkpoints in California, Texas, Michigan, Idaho, Washington state, and twice each in Arizona and New York. In two cases - in Arizona and California - border agents did not ask the undercover investigators for any identification.

In a third case, in Texas, investigators offered to show identification - a counterfeit Virginia drivers' license. The border agent replied, "OK, that would be good," but released the investigators before inspecting it, according to the prepared testimony by GAO investigator Gregory D. Kutz.

http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20060802/D8J876080.html?PG=home&SEC=news

Makeherhappy · Aug 2, 2006

[FRAME]http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=5759[/FRAME]

QueEx · Aug 23, 2006

The Cost of Illegal Immigration - 126 Billion

<center>Cost of Senate Immigration Bill Put at
$126 Billion</center>

Washington Post
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 22, 2006; Page A01

The Senate's embattled immigration bill would raise government spending by as much as $126 billion over the next decade, as the government begins paying out federal benefits to millions of new legal workers and cracks down on the border, a new Congressional Budget Office analysis concludes.

Law enforcement measures alone would necessitate the hiring of nearly 31,000 federal workers in the next five years, while the building and maintenance of 870 miles of fencing and vehicle barriers would cost $3.3 billion. Newly legalized immigrants would claim nearly $50 billion in federal benefits such as the earned income and child tax credits, Medicaid, and Social Security.

The CBO report is the most detailed analysis to date of legislation that has divided the Republican Party, energized millions of Latinos, and become a focal point of congressional campaigns from southern Arizona to upstate New York. Under the legislation, passed this spring by a bipartisan Senate coalition, tough border security measures would be coupled with a path to legal work and citizenship for most of the nation's 11 million undocumented workers and a new guest-worker program for prospective migrants.

President Bush applauded its passage, but House GOP leaders have dug in their heels against it, favoring a House-passed measure that would make illegal immigrants felons, build hundreds of miles of fencing on the southern border and offer no new guest-worker programs.

The nonpartisan CBO analysis is sure to offer fuel for that fight.

"The cost aspect of the Senate plan has never been taken into consideration," said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), the firebrand opponent of illegal immigration who is leading the resistance to the Senate bill. "When combined with the policy implementations, this should certainly stick a fork in it."

Supporters of the legislation cautioned that the CBO's total needs to be put into context. For instance, most of the $78 billion in discretionary spending that the Senate bill authorizes through 2016 would fund law enforcement measures that conservatives are pushing for anyway.

The CBO's five-year cost estimates include $800 million to hire 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents; $2.6 billion to build detention facilities for 20,000; $3.3 billion to build and maintain 370 miles of border fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the U.S.-Mexico frontier; and $1.6 billion to establish a computerized system to verify the eligibility of applicants for lawful employment.

"Most people recognize there is going to be a price tag for fixing a broken immigration system, no question about that," said Ben Johnson, director of the Immigration Policy Center, which favors the Senate bill. "It still comes down to the moral question of 'How do we create a new, workable immigration policy?' "

In the long run, tax revenue generated by new workers would ease the baby-boom generation's burden on Social Security and offset virtually all the additional spending, said James Horney, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The report "will be problematic," he said. "People who don't like the bill will jump on the 10-year number. But I hope others will look at the longer term and realize in the end, the answer is still the same. It's all a wash."

The CBO study, released Friday evening, not only details the Senate bill's cost but also enumerates the plan's impact on the population. By 2016, CBO researchers estimate, more than 16 million people would either become legal permanent residents under the bill or attain some other legal status. That total includes 4.4 million legalized undocumented workers, 3.3 million guest workers and 2.6 million family members brought in through the new programs. By 2026, the addition to the U.S. population would jump to 24.4 million.

That number is far lower than the Heritage Foundation's estimate of 103 million immigrants legalized by 2026, a calculation that has been widely circulated in conservative circles. But the CBO estimate is far higher than the 8 million figure White House officials have pointed to in their rebuttal of the Heritage study.

The report said legalized immigrants would represent "only a modest increase" in enrollment for child nutrition programs, food stamps and Medicaid. Caseloads would be 2 to 3 percent higher by 2016, the CBO said.

But that may understate the political costs of those entitlement claims. Over the next decade, legalized workers and their families, in addition to guest workers and theirs, would claim $24.5 billion in tax refunds through the earned income credit and child credit, $15.4 billion in Medicare and Medicaid, $5.2 billion in Social Security benefits and $3.7 billion in food stamps and child nutrition programs, the report estimates.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/21/AR2006082101539.html?referrer=email

QueEx · Aug 23, 2006

<center>Pa. City Puts Illegal Immigrants on Notice
'They Must Leave,' Mayor of Hazleton Says After Signing Tough New Law</center>

Washington Post
By Michael Powell and Michelle García
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, August 22, 2006; Page A03

HAZLETON, Pa. -- An immigrant's grandson, Louis J. Barletta, the mayor of this once-sleepy hill city, leans forward behind the desk in his corner office and with an easy smile confides his goal.

Barletta wants to make Hazleton "the toughest place on illegal immigrants in America."

"What I'm doing here is protecting the legal taxpayer of any race," said the dapper 50-year-old mayor, sweeping his hands toward the working-class city outside. "And I will get rid of the illegal people. It's this simple: They must leave ."

Last month, in a raucous meeting, the mayor and City Council passed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. (Barletta wore a bulletproof vest because, he says, Hazleton is menaced by a surge in crime committed by illegal immigrants.) The act imposes a $1,000-per-day fine on any landlord who rents to an illegal immigrant, and it revokes for five years the business license of any employer who hires one.

The act also declares English to be the city's official language. Employees are forbidden to translate documents into another language without official authorization.

The law doesn't take effect for another month. But the Republican mayor already sees progress. "I see illegal immigrants picking up and leaving -- some Mexican restaurants say business is off 75 percent," Barletta says. "The message is out there."

So another fire is set in the nation's immigration wars, which as often burn most fiercely not in the urban megalopolises but in small cities and towns, where for the first time in generations immigrants have made their presence felt. In these corners, the mayors, councils and cops cobble together ambitious plans -- some of which are legally dubious -- to turn back illegal immigration.

Last year two New Hampshire police chiefs began arresting illegal immigrants for trespassing, a tactic the courts tossed out. On New York's Long Island, the Suffolk County Legislature is expected to adopt a proposal next month prohibiting contractors from hiring illegal immigrants.

Hazleton has upped that ante, and four neighboring municipalities in Pennsylvania and Riverside, N.J., already have passed identical ordinances. Seven more cities, from Allentown, Pa., to Palm Beach, Fla., are debating similar legislation.

"The ideas that these things are happening spontaneously would be mistaken," said Devin Burghart, who tracks the immigration wars for the nonprofit Center for New Community in Chicago. "What is driving folks is fear of change and changing demographics."

German, Italian and Japanese television crews have interviewed Barletta. He has received 9,000 favorable e-mails and has raised thousands of dollars for the city's legal defense on a Web site called Small Town Defenders. (Two staffers from Sen. Rick Santorum's staff prepared the site; Santorum, a Republican who is in a tight reelection race, has pushed for immigration crackdowns.)

But Barletta and the council just might walk off a legal cliff. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund have sued to block the ordinance, saying it could ensnare many who are here legally.

Even the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which organizes cities and towns to push for tighter immigration quotas and much tougher enforcement, says Hazleton's ordinance is overly broad.

"If you are going to use the word 'illegal immigrant,' you have to be very careful when you are defining that term that it corresponds to federal immigration classification," said Michael Hethmon, a lawyer with FAIR. "You can't use terminology that mixes and matches illegal immigrants and legal immigrants."

High in coal country, Hazleton sits perched on a rocky mountain ridge, and more than once immigration has been the agent of the city's deliverance.

Hazleton (it was supposed to be "Hazelton," but a clerk misspelled the name at incorporation) was founded in the early 1800s atop a thick vein of anthracite coal -- "black diamonds" -- and immigrants arrived by the thousands to mine it. The Irish came first, then Italians and Tiroleans, Poles and Slavs. There were mine disasters, and for decades bosses and workers fought pitched wars. Always there were complaints that the most recent arrivals didn't speak English or understand American customs.

Hazleton's city fathers, though, tended to be progressive. In 1891, the city became the third in the nation to electrify. And they helped silk and garment mills open. Not all of this was wholesome -- worthies from Murder Inc., not least mafia boss Albert Anastasia, owned a few mills. Sometimes politics was settled with fists or a carefully aimed pistol.

In the 1930s the coal mines closed, and then the mills moved south. Barletta was elected mayor in 2000, and he's credited with working hard at Hazleton's revival.

But the big change came half a decade back when Latinos -- Puerto Ricans, who are citizens of the United States, and Dominicans -- began driving west on Interstate 80, fleeing the high housing prices and cacophony of inner-city New York, Philadelphia and Providence. They found in Hazleton a city with an industrial base and cheap housing (an old Victorian could be had for $40,000 five years ago).

Latino-owned markets, restaurants and clothing stores sprang up along Wyoming Street, and property values tripled. Hazleton's population has jumped from 23,000 to 31,000 in the past six years.

Daniel Diaz stands behind the cash register in his supermarket filled with plantains and tamales and Goya products. The gray-haired grocer was born in the Dominican Republic but spent 31 years in New York City. He moved here in 2000. He loved the mountain air and bought properties and invited friends to move here, too.

"Five years ago?" He's incredulous you might think it was better then. "It was d-e-a-d. It's gotten better and better.

"Now? Business is down. I don't get it -- they don't like this revival?"

Barletta says it's not that simple. He says his epiphany came in May, when several illegal immigrants walked up to a local man at 11 o'clock one night and shot him in the forehead. One suspect had four false identity papers. "It took us nine hours of overtime just to run down who he was," Barletta said.

This, he said, came on the heels of crack dealing on playgrounds and pit bulls lunging at cops.

"I lay in bed and thought: I've lost my city," he recalls. "I love the new legal immigrants; they want their kids to be safe just like I do. I had to declare war on the illegals."

In truth, the crime wave is hard to measure. Crime is up 10 percent, but the population has risen just as fast. Violent crime has jumped more sharply, but on a small statistical base. Barletta insists there's no whiff of racial antagonism. "This isn't racial, because 'illegal' and 'legal' don't have a race," he says.

It's not hard, however, to discern a note of racial grievance. Many whites who attended the council vote serenaded Latino opponents with chants of "Hit the road, Jack!" A prominent Hispanic leader said Hazleton had become a "Nazi city."

But it's a complicated tapestry. To walk Sixth Street, near the ridge line, is to hear white old-timers warn about the gang graffiti and drug dealing on playgrounds, and then listen as Latino homeowners echo those complaints. A Puerto Rican metal worker and a ponytailed white truck driver swap stories about Mexican laborers driving down construction wages.

Connie and David Fallotovich sit on their porch on a cool summer evening. They sort of miss their sleepy old white city, and they favor a crackdown -- why should an illegal immigrant get a break? They also see their new Dominican neighbors as a big improvement.

David, a custodian, jerks his head at the house next door. "The couple now is really nice. Tell you the truth, buddy, a white family lived there for 20 years and they were a . . . nightmare."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/21/AR2006082101484.html?referrer=email

QueEx · Aug 29, 2006

[frame]http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005818.htm[/frame]

QueEx · Sep 30, 2006

[frame]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5394222.stm[/frame]

QueEx · Oct 19, 2006

<center>Flow of Immigrants’ Money to Latin America Surges </center>

The New York Times
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: October 19, 2006

There is a common cycle to immigration from Latin America. Immigrants arrive in the United States and quickly find work. Several months later — in the case of illegal migrants, as soon as they have finished paying off the smuggler who brought them across the border — they start sending money home.

According to a new report about immigrants’ money transfers to Latin America, the remittances flow from almost every state. Even in states that had virtually no Latin American immigrants only a few years ago, like Mississippi and Pennsylvania, a growing trickle of money is making its way south to places like Tlalchapa, Mexico, or Panajachel, in the Guatemalan highlands.

“Twenty years ago the money was coming from four or five states; now it’s coming from every corner of the country,” said Sergio Bendixen, a Miami pollster who surveyed some 2,500 immigrants, legal and illegal, for the survey on which the report was based.

For the nation as a whole, the flow of money has become a torrent. According to the study, sponsored by the Multilateral Investment Fund of the 47-nation Inter-American Development Bank, remittances from the United States to Latin America this year will total more than $45 billion. That is 51 percent higher than they were only two years ago.

About three-quarters of Latino immigrants who were surveyed send money home regularly, up from some 60 percent in a similar survey in 2004. This may largely reflect growth in the population of illegal immigrants, who tend to send money home more often than others. They accounted for about 40 percent of remitters in the survey, up from a third in 2004.

Moreover, with immigration to the United States a regular part of the life cycle for large numbers of men and women in many parts of Latin America, sending money back to relatives at home has developed into a moral obligation.

“If you don’t send money to your mother, you are a bad son,” Mr. Bendixen said. “Remittances companies say this in their TV ads.”

The study’s estimates on remittances are in line with population figures from the Census Bureau, which found last year that Latin American immigrants made up 6.6 percent of the nation’s household population (that is, excluding people in jail, on military bases and such), more than half the total immigrant population.

The bureau also found that 1.2 percent of the household population of Pennsylvania was born in Latin America, as were 0.7 percent of the population of Ohio and 2 percent of the population of Indiana. These were states with virtually no Latino immigrants five years ago.

According to the data from the Inter-American Development Bank, money transfers from Indiana should approach $400 million this year, with the total from Pennsylvania above $500 million and from Ohio more than $214 million.

Indeed, the study found Latino immigrants sending money from 48 of the 50 states — excluding only Montana and West Virginia, where, Mr. Bendixen said, he did not survey because he expected very few remitters.

In addition to those two states, the survey suffers from very small samples in some with the most recent immigrant populations. But Mr. Bendixen said that in these states, the remittance figures should be off by no more than 10 percent.

The data are consistent with a known pattern in which Latino migrants move from immigrant-heavy states like Illinois to new frontiers like Pennsylvania in search of jobs.

“Somebody who is already here hears about a new plant opening and goes there,” observed Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Institute. “After a while, the word gets back to Mexico, and the migrant stream is no longer from California to a meatpacking plant in Iowa. It’s Mexico to a plant in Iowa.”

The reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina provides an example of how immigrant populations coalesce around jobs. Latino immigrants have flocked to New Orleans, where another study has found that by this summer, they accounted for half the reconstruction force, with 54 percent of them working in the United States illegally.

They too have begun to send money back. According to the bank’s survey, remittances to Latin America from Louisiana should top $200 million this year, a 240 percent increase since 2004.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/us/19migrants.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

QueEx · Oct 19, 2006

Makeherhappy · Oct 19, 2006

Cash flow from Texas leaps as Latin American immigrants share their earnings

[FRAME]http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4270338.html[/FRAME]

QueEx · Oct 27, 2006

Re: Cash flow from Texas leaps as Latin American immigrants share their earnings

<center>Mexico fury as Bush gives go-ahead to border fence</center>

Mark Tran and agencies
Friday October 27, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Relations between the US and Mexico today took a turn for the worse after George Bush signed legislation for a 700-mile border fence to counter illegal immigration into the US.
The move was universally condemned by Mexican leaders. Vicente Fox, the country's president, told reporters that the fence would not stop millions of Mexicans from heading north in search of jobs.

"It is an embarrassment for the United States," Mr Fox said. "It is proof, perhaps, that the United States does not see immigration as a subject that corresponds to both countries."

The president-elect, Felipe Calderon - who takes over from Mr Fox in December - was even more blunt. "The decision made by Congress and the US government is deplorable," he said.
"Humanity committed a grave error by constructing the Berlin wall, and I am sure that today the United States is committing a grave error in constructing a wall along our northern border."

When Mr Bush came to office six years ago, he spoke of a new era in relations between the US and Mexico. However, the new legislation threatens to seriously damage ties between the two neighbours, who share a 2,000-mile border.

Critics see the bill as election year politics, with the Republican party trying every trick in the book to stave off losses in the midterm polls, which are less than a week away.

"It is an empty gesture for the sole purpose of sending a false message about the security of our nation," Silvestre Reyes, a Democratic congressman from Texas, said.

"After six years of controlling the White House, the Senate and the House, their [the Republicans'] signature achievement on border security is a 700-mile fence along a 2,000-mile border. This fence doesn't come close to solving our problem."

Tony Payan, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas in El Paso, doubted whether the bill would help Republicans but predicted it would embitter international relations with Mexico.

"Calderon is going to Washington soon. What is Bush going to say? 'Welcome! I'm going to build a wall between us'?" Mr Payan said.

Immigrant rights activists also voiced concerns that immigrants would travel to more remote and dangerous crossing points in order to attempt to get into the US.

An estimated 11 million Mexicans live in the US, around half of them illegally. Last year, Mexican migrants sent home more than $20bn (£10.5bn) in remittances - the country's second-leading source of foreign income after oil.

The bill signed by Mr Bush does not come with any new funding, and the $1.2bn Congress previously approved is not enough to build the full 700 miles of proposed double-layer fence.

"We have a responsibility to secure our borders," Mr Bush said. "We take this responsibility seriously."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1933391,00.html

neo_cacos · Oct 29, 2006

Re: American Smugglers, Migrant Cargo

Makkonnen said:
oh yeah- try to be a dark skinned black man looking for employment in mexico and see how far you get

i say we return them the same love

YEP....they're as racist as they come. I wish it was not the case...but it's a reality.
neo

GET YOU HOT · Oct 29, 2006

At this time it is critical to protect the boarders, a fence is a good idea, but only as effective as the patrol available to deter/prevent those from entering illegally.

Border and limits

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