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May 2008
SAVE Act gets another hearing, sort of
A House subcommittee on Thursday held a hearing on several immigration-related bills including one known as the SAVE Act.
The SAVE Act — or Secure America with Verification and Enforcement Act — would increase the Border Patrol by 8,000, train more state and local police to enforce immigration law, and require that all businesses, within four years, use a government program to verify the legal status of their employees.
Most of the House members pushing the SAVE Act are Republicans, however the author of the legislation is a Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina.
Shuler testified at the hearing of the Subcommittee on Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism.
“Dishonest employers who seek to exploit low-skilled immigrant labor are the primary cause for the rapid increase of our illegal population,” he said.
In addition, Shuler said that illegal immigrants who traffic drugs are a problem in his district.
One of the main provisions in the SAVE Act, a federal employee verification program known as E-Verify, has been assailed by critics including Hispanic groups, immigrant advocates, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
They say it relies on faulty federal databases and would reject many legal residents and citizens by mistake.
Shuler said at the hearing that 94 percent of workers are approved in 5 seconds.
“I have the utmost confidence in the program,” he said.
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Immigration raid could limit supply of Kosher meat
A huge immigration raid last week on the country’s largest kosher slaughterhouse could have a substantial impact on the thousands of Jews who follow Jewish dietary laws, as well as on non-Jews who purchase kosher meat, the Washington Post reported Thursday.
The raid occurred last week at Agriprocessors Inc., a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa. Nearly 400 workers were arrested on immigration violations and criminal charges. It is the latest in a string of enforcement operations around the country.
The raids have been controversial leading Hispanic lawmakers on Capitol Hill to denounce what they called “inhumane” tactics by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.
ICE has denied such accusations.
Read the Washington Post story here.
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ACLU: Feds denying basic rights to workers caught in immigration raid
The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday accused the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security of denying basic legal protections to workers arrested at a large immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, last week.
The raids have been controversial leading Hispanic lawmakers on Capitol Hill to denounce what they called “inhumane” tactics by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.
ICE has denied the accusations.
“ICE conducts its law enforcement operations lawfully, professionally, and humanely,” said James Spero, deputy assistant director of ICE’s Office of Investigations.
Spero made the remarks at a House hearing Tuesday.
He also said that ICE takes “extraordinary steps to identify, document, and act appropriately” regarding humanitarian concerns of people encountered during the raids, including cooperation with public health and social service agencies.
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Immigration amendment dropped from Iraq bill
Foes of illegal immigration rejoiced Wednesday after word got out that Democratic senators dropped an amendment that would have given five year visas to agricultural workers who are in the United States illegally.
The amendment, by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., had been attached to a large spending bill to pay for the Iraq war. Feinstein said it would have provided emergency relief for farmers facing a critical labor shortage.
Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the Feinstein amendment and others were dropped in order to make the Iraq spending bill more acceptable to Republicans.
Georgia GOP Sens. Johnny Isakson, and Saxby Chambliss, as well as other lawmakers had urged Reid to drop the immigration provision from the bill.
“There’s no greater domestic issue in this country than illegal immigration, and I am pleased the Senate rejected this attempt to grant amnesty on a bill designed to give our soldiers the resources they need,” Isakson said, in a joint press release with Chambliss.
Chambliss added: “I’m pleased the Senate recognized that removing this bad provision was the right thing to do. We need to ensure that funding for our troops is approved and delivered as quickly as possible without getting bogged down in an unrelated immigration debate.”
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Hispanic lawmakers denounce immigration raids
Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Tuesday said that federal agents are conducting “inhumane” immigration raids that hurt children, including many U.S. citizens.
Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif, chairman of the caucus, said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency conducting the raids, is tearing families apart.
“It’s not ICE’s job to intimidate individuals, regardless. It’s not ICE’s job to humiliate individuals. It’s not ICE’s job to leave hundreds of children without parents,” he said, at a Capitol Hill press conference.
The event was prompted in part by a raid last week at Agriprocessors Inc., a meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, where 389 workers were arrested on immigration violations and criminal charges. It is the latest in a string of enforcement operations around the country.
Kathy Thill, a nun with the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas who works with the Latino community in Iowa, spoke emotionally about the raid and its aftermath.
She said she found “hundreds of people in shock and distress” at a church which became a shelter for many who feared being arrested.
ICE denied the accusations.
“ICE conducts its law enforcement operations lawfully, professionally, and humanely,” said James Spero, deputy assistant director of ICE’s Office of Investigations.
Spero made the remarks at a House hearing earlier in the day. He also said that ICE takes “extraordinary steps to identify, document, and act appropriately” regarding humanitarian concerns of people encountered during the raids, including cooperation with public health and social service agencies.
He also said that ICE was “first and foremost a federal law enforcement agency with the mandate of protecting national security and public safety by enforcing the nation’s immigration and customs laws.”
Read more here.
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Sessions blasts Feinstein immigration amendment
Sparks may fly this week as the Senate considers an Iraq spending bill that includes some immigration amendments.
One of them — by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. — would give temporary visas to farm workers who are in the United States illegally.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said on the Senate floor Monday that the Feinstein amendment other immigration-related amendments were an effort to rush through a “back-door amnesty” without full evaluation by lawmakers and the American people.
The Feinstein measure “is very, very bad policy, bad legislation and should not become law,” he said.
Feinstein has said that the measure provides emergency relief for farmers facing a labor shortage.
“Agriculture needs a consistent workforce.Without it, they can’t plant, they can’t prune, they can’t pick, and they can’t pack,” Feinstein said last week, after the measure was approved by a key committee. “The time has come for Congress to step up to the plate.”
Read more about the Feinstein amendment here.
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Wash Post: Immigration raid jars small town
A raid last week at Agriprocessors, Inc., a large meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa has “upended” the community, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
The article also said that the raid’s “disruptive impact on the nation’s largest supplier of kosher beef and on the surrounding community has provoked renewed criticism that the administration is disproportionately targeting workers instead of employers, and that the resulting turmoil is worse than the underlying crimes.”
Read more here.
In a press release Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that 306 people in Postville were charged with various criminal offenses including aggravated identity theft, falsely using a Social Security number, illegally re-entering the United States after being deported, and fraudulently using an alien registration card.
“Based on the number of criminal arrests, this is the largest criminal worksite enforcement operation ever in the United States,” said U.S. Attorney Matt M. Dummermuth, of the Northern District of Iowa.
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U.S. companies find legal workers in Puerto Rico
Some American companies — facing a crackdown on hiring illegal immigrants and difficulties in using temporary worker programs — are venturing south to solve their labor woes, to Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico is part of the United States, so its residents are American citizens. It has been the focus of recruiting efforts in the past, especially for bilingual police officers and teachers, but the latest trend includes a greater variety of industries, such as hotels and resorts, hospitals, and meat processing operations.
Luis De Rosa, president of the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce of South Florida, said that requests from mainland companies to find workers on the island have increased significantly in the past three months, especially for seasonal employees.
“We are getting calls here all the time,” he said.
Recent inquiries include those from construction companies, hotels, vacation resorts, and hospitals looking for nurses, he said.
De Rosa said that the recruitment of workers in Puerto Rico will likely escalate as the government continues to crack down on illegal immigration.
Read more here.
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Immigration will heat up in Congress next week
The issue of immigration will heat up in Congress next week as the Senate debates an amendment that would give five year visas to agricultural workers who are in the United States illegally.
The amendment — by Sen. Dianne Feinstein — was passed Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee as an amendment to a large spending bill to fund the Iraq War.
“This amendment provides a consistent, stable workforce for an industry that depends almost exclusively on undocumented labor - agriculture,” Feinstein said. “And it provides temporary status for those who have worked in agriculture and who will continue to work in agriculture for a number of years.”
In addition, she said: “This is not amnesty. It is an emergency agricultural worker bill, which will give protected status to those workers who have worked in agriculture within the last 48 months.”
Read Feinstein’s press release here.
Another immigration measure, that would allow more H-2B temporary visas for low-skilled non-agricultural workers, was also approved by the committee as a part of the Iraq spending bill.
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Border mayors sue to stop border fence in Texas
Mayors from several Texas border cities filed a class action lawsuit Friday against Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to stop the building of a border fence along the Rio Grande.
The lawsuit alleges that Chertoff violated the rights of land owners along the border by failing to negotiate a “reasonable” price to gain access to their property, a requirement mandated by law.
It also said that Chertoff gave preference to politically connected land owners from having to turn over their property to build the fence while coercing others to sign waivers.
“We will not sit idly by while our property is seized by the federal government to build an expedient, but useless, expensive and potentially damaging wall across the Texas-Mexico border,” said Chad Foster, mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security said the accusations are false.
“We’ve nearly bent over backward to work with landowners. Accusations to the contrary are either ill-informed or just plain wrong,” said Laura Keehner, a spokeswoman for the agency.
Foster is the chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, a group of mayors and business leaders who have joined forces to oppose the border fence.
Read more here.
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Amnesty International says Mexico aid should not be “blank check”
It seems Rep. Tom Tancredo isn’t the only one worried about the Merida Initiative, a plan to give hundreds of millions of dollars to Mexico and other Latin American countries to fight drug trafficking and violence.
Amnesty International USA said this week that the plan must include “strict accountability mechanisms” to make sure that the U.S. is not “condoning human rights abuses.”
“Aid for Mexico must not be a blank check for Mexican security forces that have been implicated in crimes like rape and torture,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “If the authorization bill does not include strong human rights safeguards, the United States would be sending the wrong message to Mexican security forces at the beginning of this partnership, which could have grave consequences.”
Read the rest of the press release here.
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Many countries deal with illegal immigration
Many countries around the world are dealing with illegal immigration.
This week, Italian police announced that they arrested hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe, Albania, Greece, North Africa and China, according to Reuters.
They face charges ranging from illegal entry into Italy to prostitution, drug trafficking and robbery.
The arrests are “a sign of the new right-wing government’s determination to clamp down,” the article said.
Read more here.
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Tancredo fails to block foreign aid to Mexico
An amendment by Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., that would have blocked certain foreign aid to Mexico until various conditions were met, was voted down by the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday.
Lawmakers are debating a package of foreign aid, known as the Merida Initiative, that would provide $500 million to fight drug cartels in Latin America.
Tancredo’s amendment would have required the president to certify that the U.S.-Mexico border was secure before aid could be provided to Mexico.
In addition, it would have required a determination that law enforcement agencies in Mexico were not involved or complicit in the trafficking of drugs, weapons or people. Congress would have to approve the president’s certifications.
“Mexico must be required to clean up its act before we send truckloads of our tax dollars south - or we run the risk of American aid being siphoned off by the very drug cartels we are trying to defeat,” Tancredo said, in a press release.
The measure failed by a vote of 23 to 10.
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U.S. drugging immigrants before deportation
The U.S. government has injected hundreds of foreigners it has deported with dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The paper cited medical records, internal documents and interviews with people who have been drugged.
The Post identified more than 250 cases in which the government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the United States since 2003.
Read the story here.
The article is the latest in a series about the poor treatment of immigrants in government custody. Previous installments explored 83 deaths of foreigners being held by the United States and “shabby medical care” in other cases.
See the entire series here.
One of the authors, Dana Priest , won the Pulitzer Prize this year for a series on poor conditions and care of U.S. soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
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Are immigrants assimilating?
Current immigrants — especially Mexicans — are less assimilated than those 100 years ago, a study released Tuesday found.
However, the pace of assimilation over the past 25 years is higher than in previous waves, said the study by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank in New York.
“The nation’s capacity to integrate new immigrants is strong,” said Jacob Vigdor, an associate professor of Public Policy Studies and Economics at Duke University who authored the study.
But the progress “is not present for all groups and in particular, it’s not present among some of the Latin American immigrants that are at the heart of the immigration debate these days,” he added.
The study uses Census data going back more than a century to measure assimilation through various indicators such as English-learning, employment, home ownership, rates of marriage to native-born people, child bearing, naturalization, educational attainment, military service and many others.
Based on these factors, the study creates an assimilation index ranging from 1 to 100, with 100 being complete assimilation.
Currently, immigrants collectively have an assimilation rate of 28. In 1900, it was above 50.
Jeffrey Passel, a demographer with the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research group in Washington, said that the index was flawed as a measure of assimilation.
“Assimilation is a process that takes place over time and over generations. They’re not measuring that,” he said.
In addition, Passel said that the snapshot of immigrant assimilation is weighed heavily towards new immigrants who are clearly going to be less integrated into the larger society. In addition, he said that the study fails to take into account that 30 percent of current immigrants are in the United States illegally, which is vastly different than a century ago.
Read more here.
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ICE raid in Iowa could lead to 700 arrests
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a raid Monday morning at Agriprocessors, Inc., in Postville, Iowa.
According to an ICE press release, the action was prompted by “evidence relating to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security numbers and other crimes, as well as a civil search warrant for people illegally in the United States.”
The Des Moines Register reports that Agriprocessors is the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant and that the raid may have resulted in as many as 700 arrests.
Read more here.
ICE said that everyone taken into custody will be interviewed by ICE agents and public health officials “to determine if they have health, caregiver, or other humanitarian concerns.”
“As a result of those interviews, over 40 individuals have so far been released on humanitarian grounds under supervision, pending future immigration proceedings,” the press release said.
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MALDEF angry at Rush Limbaugh
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is angry at Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh made the comment on his radio show.
In a letter to Limbaugh, MALDEF President John Trasvina said the characterization “speaks volumes about your view of America and the role or status of people who do not fit your preconceived notion of what an elected official should be.”
He added: “Perhaps as our community continues to increase its presence as the teachers, lawyers, professionals and civic leaders that our country depends on, you will finally move beyond your outdated mindset which attempts to exclude an entire American population from being the leaders of this nation.”
Latino groups have become more aggressive about objecting to rhetoric in the media.
Several Hispanic organizations recently complained about a report on the CBS Evening News about immigrants who give birth to children in the United States. They said the segment was unfair and one-sided.
In addition, several Hispanic groups started a Web site — www.wecanstopthehate.org — to monitor what they called “hate speech” in the media.
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Tancredo calls for fence on the Canadian border
Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican famous for his fight against illegal immigration, said this week that the United States should build a fence along the Northern border with Canada.
A Canadian government watchdog group found that the agency did not have contact information for 41,000 of the 63,000 people it had tried to expel from the country. Most were rejected refugee applicants.
“Considering that the U.S. and Canada share 5,000 miles of unguarded border, it is imperative the Canadian government track down these individuals,” Tancredo said in a letter to the Canadian Ambassador to the United States. “Our open borders present a serious danger to our citizens and I am calling again on our government to build a fence along our northern border as well as our southern border.”
Read the full Tancredo press release here.
Read more about the watchdog report here.
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Latino museum bill signed into law
President Bush on Thursday signed into law a measure that could lead to the creation of a National Museum of the American Latino in Washington.
The museum would focus on the artistic, cultural, and historical contributions of Hispanic Americans.
Under the measure, a 23-member commission will be charged with bringing together experts, policy makers and other interested parties to discuss the museum’s viability and establish a fundraising plan.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the bill’s passage and signing “helped bring long overdue recognition to the vital place that Latinos have in our national mosaic.”
The effort is spearheaded by Rep. Xavier Becerra, a rising star in the Democratic Party, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Flo., the fist Hispanic woman elected to Congress.
“If progress is measured in baby steps, I think it’s fair to say that the president’s pen today has brought this important project into its adolescence,” said Becerra. “It is my hope that the commission will begin its work soon so that this vision, this dream, will further mature into full reality. It is truly an incredible day.”
Read more here.
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More immigrants suing U.S. because of citizenship backlog
The number of immigrants suing the federal government to force a decision on their backlogged citizenship applications is increasing sharply, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
In fiscal 2005, applicants filed 370 such lawsuits against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. By last year, the number had jumped to 3,900, and applications this year are on pace to surpass 5,200, the Post said.
The backlog was caused by an unprecedented number of applications last year — more than 1.4 million.
Lawmakers have blasted the agency for not preparing for the increase.
At a hearing last month, Sen. Edward Kennedy told Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff that 580,000 people who applied for citizenship in time to vote in November will be denied that chance because of the delays.
Chertoff said that USCIS will process a record 1 million naturalization applications by the end of the current fiscal year, 30 percent more than in 2007.
Read the Washington Post story here.
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GOP senators, Hispanic business leaders push Colombia trade pact
Flanked by a group of Republican senators, Hispanic business leaders Wednesday announced a grass-roots effort to convince the House to pass the Colombia free trade agreement.
The House voted 224 to 195 last month to put off consideration of the trade pact until Pelosi decides the time is right to bring it to the floor. Pelosi has said she wants the Bush administration to address U.S. economic issues first.
But Hispanic leaders called that a slap at the Hispanic community and at Latin America.
“We resent the idea that we’re going to use a Latin American ally as some kind of bargaining chip to make a deal for something else,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez said at a Capitol news conference with the senators and business leaders.
Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said he agreed with Gutierrez that the trade agreement’s fate “is a Hispanic-American issue.
“I think you’ve heard from the Hispanic leaders on how they feel about it. It’s a moral imperative, but beyond that it is an issue with the Hispanic community of America.
“We understand, instinctively, the need for this trade agreement to improve the lives of people in Latin America — in Colombia. We know that Colombia, by being at a disadvantage if it doesn’t have a free trade agreement, will backslide economically. It will be a detriment to Colombia.”
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the trade agreement is “very important to our national security,” because the democratically elected government of President Alvaro Uribe is threatened by the Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez.
“If we turn down this free trade agreement, we are saying ‘we support Hugo Chavez and not President Uribe,’ ” Bond said.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the trade agreement “just makes good economic sense here at home, particularly at a time when our economy has grown soft.
“But this is also about how America treats its friends,” Cornyn said. “President Uribe has been one of our best friends. He has joined us in our fight against narco-traffickers, and it’s important to the United States’ national security that we have friendly, democratic governments in Latin America.
“This is not something we can neglect,” Cornyn said. “We cannot use Colombia as a bargaining chip for something else here, in Washington, D.C.”
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Hearing on E-Verify, SAVE Act
Forcing companies to use a government system to verify the legal status of workers would cause thousands of citizens and legal residents to be initially rejected for work and cripple the Social Security Administration, critics told Congress Tuesday.
The system, known as E-Verify, is currently voluntary, but several proposals in Congress — including an immigration enforcement measure known as the SAVE Act — would make it mandatory.
John Trasvina, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that the E-Verify system relies on faulty Social Security Administration (SSA) and Department of Homeland Security databases and would therefore create an official “no-work” list requiring millions of U.S. citizens and legal workers to bear the burden of proving their legal status.
“Forcing a deeply flawed system upon an unstable economy is not the answer,” he told the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security.
The panel’s chairman, Rep. Michael McNulty, D-N.Y., said he was concerned that SSA offices could be overwhelmed with a “massive new workload” as U.S. citizens and other authorized workers try to correct their information.
Rep. Heath Shuler, a North Carolina Democrat who authored the SAVE Act, said that targeting employers is the key to solving the problem of illegal immigration and that the system works.
E-Verify is free, easy-to-use, and allows participants to successfully match 93 percent of new hires to government databases in less than 5 seconds, Shuler said.
Of the remaining 7 percent, the vast majority do not contest the result, he added.
Shuler noted that every congressional staffer and employee of a federal agency has passed through the E-Verify system over the past decade.
“I have the utmost confidence in this program,” he said.
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John McCain: tenor of immigration debate has harmed Republicans
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP candidate for president, said Monday that “the tenor” of the immigration debate has harmed the image of Republicans with Hispanics.
In addition, he said that most Hispanics “want us to have an attitude, which I think most Americans do, that these are God’s children, and they must be taken care of, and the issue must be addressed in a humane and compassionate fashion.”
McCain also launched a Spanish-language website. See it here.
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National day of prayer for jailed border agents
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., on Monday called for a national day of prayer for two former Border Patrol agents who are serving long terms in jail.
Their case has become a cause celebre on talk radio shows and among groups that advocate tougher border controls.
In a press conference, Rohrabacher asked the American people to join him in a national day of prayer on May 11, which is Mother’s Day and the beginning of National Police Week.
“The Ramos and Compean prosecution already represents one of the greatest miscarriages of justice I’ve ever seen and if their case isn’t overturned, every law enforcement officer will be put on notice that if they use their weapon, they could face 10 years in prison,” he said.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of the Western District of Texas, has staunchly defended his prosecution in the case.
Ramos is shown in this AP photograph from January, 2007 when he surrendered to authorities.
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Florida Hispanics increasingly Democratic
For the first time, the number of Hispanic Democrats in Florida is expected to exceed the number of Hispanic Republicans, the Politico reported Monday.
The story says that the Florida secretary of state is expected to release the latest numbers this week.
“The significance of the numerical flip is mostly symbolic, but it’s a powerful symbol at a key moment: Quietly, Democrats are debating whether to mount a full-out, expensive challenge to Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, in Florida,” Politico says.
Read more here.
