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Immigrant advocates rave about Solis as Labor secretary
Several immigrant advocate groups are praising President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for Labor secretary — Rep. Hilda Solis, a California Democrat.
“In nominating a leader as skilled and dedicated as Rep. Solis to this important office, President-elect Obama is sending the clear signal that American workers, regardless of their country of birth, are a valued part of America’s future and a top priority for his administration,” he said.
Another group, Farmworker Justice, said Solis “is an excellent choice for Labor secretary and has long been a supporter of worker rights, including those of farmworkers.”
Read more about Solis here.
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Chertoff: “We’ve arrested a record number of illegal aliens”
In a year-end address, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the administration has “arrested a record number of illegal aliens, including more than 11,000 gang members and 34,000 fugitives.”
Chertoff also said he regretted that Congress did not pass “comprehensive immigration reform” which “was the most balanced approach to border security, and also what we need economically and from a humanitarian standpoint.”
Chertoff was heavily involved in negotiations on Capitol Hill on a broad measure that would have given illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship and created a guest worker program. The measure failed in the Senate.
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Task force: U.S. needs Americanization plan
The United States must embark on an aggressive effort to integrate immigrants, including teaching them English and US. history, a federal task force recommended Thursday.
If this “Americanization” fails, the nation could see major problems in 20 or 30 years, with foreign-born populations detached from the larger society and engaging in anti-social behavior, said Alfonso Aguilar, who heads the U.S. Office of Citizenship.
Aguilar compared the potential strife to what is occurring in some Western European countries where foreign-born populations do not feel part of the larger society and are not accepted by many as full citizens.
“We should not be naive and assume that the assimilation process is going to happen automatically,” Aguilar said, at a press conference.
The task force recommends that the federal government take a leadership role in an “Americanization movement,” but also says that states, local governments, non-profit groups and the private sector should play a key part.
The report strongly emphasizes that immigrants must learn English in order to fully integrate into American society.
Aguilar said that immigrants currently want to learn English but that many cannot find classes.
He said the report is not recommending “an ugly, English-only approach,” but “a friendly, pro-active literary effort.”
Read the report here.
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Homeland Security touts record on border, immigration
The Department of Homeland Security on Thrusday released a fact sheet of “End of Year Accomplisments.” It includes:
— Customs and Border Protection (CBP) increased the size of its work force last year from 46,473 to 51,533 by adding officers, agents and agriculture specialists.
— CBP has doubled the size of the Border Patrol from about 9,000 in 2001 to more than 18,000 as of Nov. 21, 2008.
— CBP has constructed more than 520 miles of vehicle and pedestrian fencing along the Southern Border, including about 93 miles in Fiscal Year 2008. The agency is building toward a total of roughly 670 miles of fencing.
— Since January 2008, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed or returned more than 323,000 illegal immigrants from the United States, about a 20 percent increase over the previous year.
— ICE dramatically increased penalties against employers whose hiring processes violate the law, securing fines and judgments totaling in the millions, as well as jail time for the most egregious offenders.
See the full release here.
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Federal task force to recommend “immigrant integration”
A federal task force that has been studying immigrants and assimilation for two years will release a final report Thursday.
The document is titled: “Building an Americanization Movement for the Twenty-first Century.”
In a press release, the Task Force on New Americans says that one of the recommendations will be to “strengthen immigrant integration into American civic culture.”
It also says that “successful integration involves a message of inclusion that emphasizes American civic principles and welcomes people from all backgrounds to fully become American.”
The task force was formed as part of a Bush Administration effort to promote citizenship.
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Mexico sets up call help-line for illegal immigrants
The Mexican government has opened a special call center in Arizona to help Mexicans caught up in a U.S. crackdown on illegal immigration, the Reuters news agency reported Tuesday.
According to the story, the center is available 24-hours-a-day to field complaints from Mexican nationals about their treatment in the border state, where as many as half a million illegal immigrants live and work in the shadows.
“We want to offer a human voice at the other end of the line, so they can feel protected and know that someone is here for them,” Alejandro Ramos, head of the Mexican Consulate’s Department of Protection, told Reuters.
Read the story here.
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Jailed border agents not on White House pardons list
The White House announced another round of pardons this week and once again, former Border Patrol agents Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos did not make the cut.
Compean and Ramos are serving 12 and 11 years in prison, respectively for shooting a Mexican drug runner and trying to cover it up.
Supporters say that the agents were wrongly convicted for protecting the United States against a criminal illegal immigrant.
Lawmakers — including Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Dianne Feinstein of California — have urged president Bush to pardon the agents.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who has taken up the cause of Ramos and Compean in the House, was upset at the latest round of White House pardons.
“The fact that the president has neglected to free these men from their imprisonment while freeing drug dealers, embezzlers and other criminals is insulting to the American people,” he said. “For the sake of justice, let’s hope this is not the last round of pardons and commutations.”
Read about the latest White House pardons here.
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Virginia lawmakers softening on immigration
The Washington Post reported this week that “Virginia, known for some of the nation’s toughest policies on illegal immigration, appears to be abandoning its hard-line approach as state officials consider proposals to help foreign-born residents assimilate, including increasing the number of English classes.”
In the coming weeks, the Virginia Commission on Immigration will send the state’s governor two dozen recommendations, most of which would help immigrants instead of penalizing them, the paper said.
The recommendations include shortening the Medicaid residency requirements for certain qualified immigrants, offering in-state tuition to immigrants who meet specific criteria, and creating an immigration assistance office, the Post said.
Read the story here.
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Groups denounce “wave of hate crimes”
Several groups, including the NAACP and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, joined forces Monday to denounce what they called an “alarming wave of hate crimes” against minority communities across the country.
The event was triggered in part by an incident earlier this month in Suffolk County, N.Y., where a group of white teenagers allegedly beat and stabbed a Hispanic immigrant to death.
Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group, said that violence against immigrants and Latinos has increased substantially in recent years because of “the anger and hatred” surrounding the immigration debate.
“Words have consequences. And hateful words have hateful consequences. In Suffolk County, hate has trickled down to a new generation of Americans,” she said, at a press conference.
According to prosecutors, the six teenagers in Patchogue, N.Y., were searching for Latinos to attack.
Murguia said local officials such as Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, and conservative talk show hosts on radio and cable television are “stoking the fires of anti-immigrant sentiment” which lead to such crimes.
Levy said in a written statement that critics are blurring the distinction between legal immigration, which he and millions of Americans approve of, and illegal immigration.
“It is reprehensible that anyone would suggest that the tens of millions of Americans who favor secure borders are necessarily intolerant or bigoted,” he said. “Since when is enforcing the law seen as something negative and inflammatory?”
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Reactions to Napolitano as possible Homeland Security chief
Groups and lawmakers on both sides of the immigration debate are weighing in on reports that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is the top choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
Napolitano is an advocate of giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. She also ordered the National Guard to the Arizona border to help stop illegal crossings and reduce violence.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immgration Forum, said that the choice of Napolitano “is a welcome signal that President-elect Obama intends to take immigration seriously during his administration.”
“As a border governor, Napolitano has exhibited a clear understanding of the challenges presented by our nation’s broken immigration system,” Noorani said.
Rep. Brian Bilbray, a California Republican who chairs the Immigration Reform Caucus, said he was eager to work with the incoming Secretary of Homeland Security.
“As the governor of a border state, Janet Napolitano knows better than anyone how important border security is to our national security. I believe we can work well together to re-authorize and improve the E-verify program, secure our borders and crackdown on illegal employment,” he said.
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John Malkovich to make documentary about illegal immigrant children
According to the AP, actor and director John Malkovich “is so touched by the plight of migrant children who cross illegally into the United States that he plans to make a documentary about it.”
Malkovich told AP that the documentary will be called “Triple Crissing” and will try to humanize the issue of illegal immigration.
Read more here.
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Obama picks scholars to develop immigration plan
President-elect Barack Obama on Wednesday announced several “policy working groups” of experts to help craft proposals on various topics.
On immigration, he picked Alexander Aleinikoff, dean of the Georgetown University Law Center and Mariano-Florentino Cuellar, a professor at Stanford Law School.
Here are excerpts of their bios, sent out by the Obama transition team:
Aleinikoff has been dean of the Georgetown University Law Center and executive vice president of Georgetown University since July 2004. He has been a member of the Georgetown faculty since 1997. He served as general counsel and executive associate commissioner for programs at the Immigration and Naturalization Service for several years during the Clinton Administration. From 1997 to 2004, he was a senior associate at the Migration Policy Institute. He has written widely on immigration, refugee and citizenship law and constitutional law.
Cuellar is professor at Stanford Law School. His work focuses on how organizations manage complex regulatory, migration, international security, and criminal justice problems. During the Clinton Administration, he served at Treasury as senior advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement, where he worked on countering domestic and international financial crime, improving border coordination, and enhancing anti-corruption measures. He has served on the boards of numerous organizations. He has testified before Congress on immigration policy and separation of powers.
See the list of Obama’s other chosen experts here.
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Many Americans worried immigration could cause terrorism
The German Marshall Fund released an interesting survey this week which showed that 35 percent of Europeans and 40 percent of Americans believe that more immigration leads to increased risk of terrorism.
The survey also showed that 52 percent of Europeans and 47 percent of Americans say that immigration will increase crime in their society.
However, a significant number of respondents also said that they are only concerned about illegal immigrants, not legal ones.
Read more here.
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Rove says immigration reform key to saving GOP
The plan includes “regaining ground among critial voting groups including Hispanics.”
Here is an excerpt:
“The GOP won’t be a majority party if it cedes the young or Hispanics to Democrats. Republicans must find a way to support secure borders, a guest-worker program and comprehensive immigration reform that strengthens citizenship, grows our economy and keeps America a welcoming nation. An anti-Hispanic attitude is suicidal.”
Rove’s roadmap — dubbed “A Way Out of the Wilderness” — was published in Newsweek. See it here.
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Thousands of criminal illegal immigrants released in Houston
Federal immigration officials allowed scores of violent criminals to walk away from a jail in Harris County, Texas despite the inmates’ admission to local authorities that they were in the country illegally, the Houston Chronicle reported this week.
The papers’ investigation found that most of the inmates released from custody were accused of minor crimes, but hundreds of convicted felons — including child molesters, rapists and drug dealers — also managed to avoid deportation after serving time in jail.
Read the story here.
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Feds issue final E-Verify rule
Starting next year, most federal contractors must prove that their employees are in the United States legally.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a final rule on the requirement Friday. It mandates companies to use a federal system — known as E-Verify — that compares employee information to electronic government records.
If the information doesn’t match, the employee has an opportunity to correct the paperwork, often through a trip to a Social Security office.
Federal contracts of more than $100,000 and subcontracts of more than $3,000 issued after Jan. 15, 2009 will be subject to the new rule.
Critics of E-Verify — including civil rights organizations and Hispanic groups — denounced the rule. They say that E-Verify relies on faulty government databases and would cause thousands of citizens and legal residents to be mistakenly rejected for work. They also say it would cripple the Social Security Administration (SSA).
“At a time when our economy is under duress, people are without work and struggling to stay in their homes, why would the federal government expand a policy known to prevent innocent Americans from earning a living,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office.
USCIS says that 96 percent of all queries to E-Verify are authorized instantly and that those who are not approved have the opportunity to fix the problem by correcting their government records.
Jonathan “Jock” Scharfen, acting director of USCIS, recently touted the E-Verify program with reporters, saying that it is the best means available for determining job eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers.
Federal officials also said that criminals with outstanding warrants have been caught through the E-Verify program, which is currently voluntary in most states.
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Feds issue final E-Verify rule
Starting next year, most federal contractors must prove that their employees are in the United States legally.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a final rule on the requirement Friday. It mandates companies to use a federal system — known as E-Verify — that compares employee information to electronic government records.
If the information doesn’t match, the employee has an opportunity to correct the paperwork, often through a trip to a Social Security office.
Federal contracts of more than $100,000 and subcontracts of more than $3,000 issued after Jan. 15, 2009 will be subject to the new rule.
Critics of E-Verify — including civil rights organizations and Hispanic groups — denounced the rule. They say that E-Verify relies on faulty government databases and would cause thousands of citizens and legal residents to be mistakenly rejected for work. They also say it would cripple the Social Security Administration (SSA).
“At a time when our economy is under duress, people are without work and struggling to stay in their homes, why would the federal government expand a policy known to prevent innocent Americans from earning a living,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office.
USCIS says that 96 percent of all queries to E-Verify are authorized instantly and that those who are not approved have the opportunity to fix the problem by correcting their government records.
Jonathan “Jock” Scharfen, acting director of USCIS, recently touted the E-Verify program with reporters, saying that it is the best means available for determining job eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers.
Federal officials also said that criminals with outstanding warrants have been caught through the E-Verify program, which is currently voluntary in most states.
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Tancredo asks Obama to pardon border agents
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., sent a letter to president-elect Barack Obama this week, asking him to pardon two former Border Patrol agents within the first two weeks of his administration.
The agents — Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos — are serving 12 and 11 years in prison, respectively for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and trying to cover it up.
Supporters say that the agents were wrongly convicted for protecting the United States against a criminal illegal immigrant.
Tancredo said the agents were “wrongly imprisoned” and that an Obama pardon would “bring some needed changes” to Washington.
“These are the kind of men whose government failed and destroyed them - all while they were serving a cause greater than themselves. These men deserve justice,” he said, in the letter.
Tancredo urged Obama to pardon the agents during his first two weeks in office so they could spend President’s Day at home.
Tancredo and other lawmakers — including Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Dianne Feinstein of California — have urged President Bush to pardon Ramos and Compean.
The White House has given no indication that Bush intends to pardon the agents before he leaves office.
This week, the sentences of Compean and Ramos were re-instated after an appeals court dropped some of the minor charges against them, but upheld the bulk of the convictions.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who has taken up the cause of Ramos and Compean, once again asked the current president to act.
“All decent Americans are now calling on President Bush to show some mercy towards these unjustly convicted men who never should have been prosecuted in the first place…This case is an ongoing travesty of justice that needs to be set right and I call on President Bush to do the right thing and commute their sentences,” he said.
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Immigration raid causes Kosher meat shortage?
Financial problems at the company that was the target of a large immigration raid six months ago have caused a nationwide shortage of Kosher meat, USA Today reported Thursday.
The immigration raid occurred six months ago at Agriprocessors Inc. a meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa. Nearly 400 workers were arrested on immigration violations and criminal charges.
The company, which field for bankrupcy last week, owes between $50 million and $100 million to creditors, USA Today said.
It provided about 60% of the nation’s kosher meat.
Postville was one in a string of large raids at workplaces.
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, saying that it is enforcing the law.
Read the USA Today story here.
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New Americans voted for Obama in high numbers
Latino immigrants voted for President-elect Barack Obama in higher numbers than other Hispanics, according to an analysis by the Immigration Policy Center, an advocacy group.
Among all Hispanics, 67 percent supported Obama, according to the analysis. Among Latino immigrants, the number was 78 percent.
It also says that new Americans helped push Obama to victory in several states including Indiana and North Carolina.
Read more here.
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Latino groups push Richardson for Secretary of State
The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a coalition of 26 Latino groups, sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama this week urging him to appoint New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to be the next Secretary of State.Â
Richardson campaigned hard for Obama after his own presidential bid fizzled.
John Trasvina, chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, said: “No one is more qualified to serve as our country’s chief diplomat than Gov. Bill Richardson. He helped free hostages in North Korea, Iraq, Sudan, and Cuba, secured an agreement protecting refugees in Afghanistan, negotiated a peaceful transfer of power in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and brokered a cease-fire in the troubled region of Darfur. He is not just a Democratic Party leader or an Hispanic community leader - he is an American leader.”
Richardson spent much of his childhood in Mexico, the birthplace of his mother. He often campaigned in Spanish.
His accompishments include:
— Two-term governor of New Mexico. First elected in 2002. Re-elected with almost 70 percent of the vote.
— Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, where he oversaw a Democratic takeover of the majority of the nation’s governorships.
— Member of Congress, 1982-1997.
— Secretary of energy in the Clinton administration.
— U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, where he gained high marks for his tenure. In that post, he interviewed and offered a job to intern Monica Lewinsky at the behest of the White House, therefore becoming involved in the scandal that led to President Clinton’s impeachment.
— Negotiated the release of two U.S. contractor employees in Iraq in 1995. The visit included an intense meeting with former dictator Saddam Hussein, who first stormed out of the room after Richardson inadvertently offended him by crossing his legs and showing him the dirty bottom of his shoe, according to an account in Richardson’s biography.
— Also traveled to North Korea, Sudan and Cuba to help win freedom for captives.
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... read the full comment by Liposuction | Comment on New Web site monitors immigration myths Read New Web site monitors immigration myths
AMEN TO THIS PERSON!!! YOU HIT IT ON THE NAIL ALL THE WAY…… “By Buzzm1
December 19, 2008 6:10 PM | Link to this
ENFORCE OUR LAWS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!!!
THERE WILL BE NO AMNESTY!!!
OUR ACCEPTABLE
... read the full comment by TX Amnesty | Comment on Immigrant advocates rave about Solis as Labor secretary Read Immigrant advocates rave about Solis as Labor secretary
AMEN TO THIS PERSON!!! YOU HIT IT ON THE NAIL ALL THE WAY…… “By Buzzm1
December 19, 2008 6:10 PM | Link to this
ENFORCE OUR LAWS AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!!!
THERE WILL BE NO AMNESTY!!!
OUR ACCEPTABLE
... read the full comment by TX Amnesty | Comment on Immigrant advocates rave about Solis as Labor secretary Read Immigrant advocates rave about Solis as Labor secretary
Being ignored by lib-bot dimbulbs n’ moonbats are the growing problems DemocRatz are creating for themselves by backing numerous boondoggles that’ll prove to be disastrous for hardworking American taxpayers. Employers and employees alike are in for increases
... read the full comment by L1M89 | Comment on Immigrant advocates rave about Solis as Labor secretary Read Immigrant advocates rave about Solis as Labor secretary
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