New Immigration Lawsuit Filed

By Associated Press December 10, 2007

Lawyers have filed a second lawsuit challenging Arizona's new employer-sanctions law in an end-of-the-year rush by business groups to stop it before it goes into effect Jan. 1.

The lawsuit was filed Sunday night, two days after a federal judge said the groups fighting the anti-illegal immigration law sued the wrong government officials.

The groups are now targeting the state's 15 county attorneys. In addition, their lawyers said Monday they planned to add a request for a temporary restraining order, which would put the law on hold until a judge can determine its constitutionality.

"Our objective is to have the court rule in December _ before the Jan. 1 effective date _ to enter an injunction to block the law because it's unconstitutional," said David Selden, one of the lawyers working on the case.

The employer sanctions law is meant to take away economic incentives for people who cross into the U.S. illegally. It punishes business owners who knowingly hire illegal immigrants by suspending their licenses for up to 10 days. Second-time violators would have their business licenses permanently revoked.

The law also requires businesses to verify the employment eligibility of new workers through a federal database.

Business groups have been fighting the law since the Republican-majority Legislature and Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano approved it this summer. They've argued that it's an unconstitutional burden on employers and poisons Arizona's business climate.

Supporters said state punishments were needed because the federal government hasn't adequately enforced a federal law that already prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The new lawsuit came after U.S. District Judge Neil Wake ruled on Friday that the first lawsuit against the governor and state attorney general had targeted the wrong authorities. Wake said county prosecutors actually have the power to enforce the restrictions.

In addition to naming Arizona's county attorneys, the lawsuit also was filed against Attorney General Terry Goddard and Fidelis Garcia, director of the Arizona Registrar of Contractors.

Julie Pace, an attorney for the business groups, said the latest lawsuit contains the same arguments the first one did against the employer-sanctions law _ that it's an unconstitutional attempt by the state to regulate immigration and that cracking down on hiring illegal immigrants is the sole responsibility of the federal government.

Pace said the latest lawsuit also includes evidence that business groups face imminent crackdowns. She said business groups believe county prosecutors already have illegal hiring complaints on file, and that requests will be made to the county attorneys to provide that information.

The judge had said in Friday's ruling that the business groups had no legal footing to make the challenge because they hadn't shown that they faced imminent crackdowns.

The plaintiffs are providing evidence including a declaration by an Arizona employer who states that he is knowingly hiring an undocumented worker and intends to do so after Jan. 1 and has been specifically threatened by the county attorney that he is going to be prosecuted under the new law, Pace said Monday.

Promises by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas _ the chief prosecutor in the state's most populous county _ to enforce the law applied to all people in his county and didn't single out the groups challenging the law, Wake ruled.

Pace said the judge has 72 hours to hold a hearing to decide whether a temporary restraining order is justified. If business groups get a chance to argue the validity of the law in court, Pace said they're optimistic about getting it put on hold.

"If we can get him to the merits of our case, we're going to win," Pace said, "because so many parts of the law are unconstitutional. It's a pretty clear-cut case."

Chertoff seeks unified DHS, sets 2008 priorities

By Elizabeth Newell
enewell@govexec.com December 12, 2007

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff highlighted the department's 2007 achievements Wednesday, also naming four key areas that he plans to focus on in the coming year: border security and immigration, secure identity, cybersecurity, and operations.

Chertoff also said the department will spend the next year looking internally to improve the way it functions as a single, unified institution. He said one of the obstacles is excessive congressional oversight. While insisting that he believes monitoring is good for the department, he said DHS is dealing with "oversight run amok." In 2007, DHS officials testified before Congress 224 times.

In the five-year history of the agency, officials have provided 7,800 written reports and answered 13,000 questions for the record.
Chertoff said while this is a drain on time and resources, his primary problem is that the 86 committees or subcommittees with jurisdiction over DHS have an excessively narrow view of the department. "My plea to Congress is ... please give us a reasonable number of points of contact so we can engage in a dialogue that is disciplined and helps us pursue, in an organized fashion, the type of overall assessment of what is important and how to manage this department that only those who have the big picture have the ability to assess for us."

While praising the department for its successes across component agencies, from requiring passports for air travel in the Western Hemisphere to screening cargo entering the United States by land and sea for radiation to responding quickly to almost 60 national disasters, Chertoff identified areas of focus that will "demand our sustained attention in 2008 and likely beyond."

Border security and immigration will continue to be the center of attention going into the new year, he said. While emphasizing the ongoing need for comprehensive immigration reform, Chertoff said DHS must continue to take steps to show it is responding to the problem in the interim.

"There is a profound skepticism about the government's willingness and ability to control illegal immigration," he said. "I recognize the government needs to make a down payment on credibility to the American people to show that we have the willingness to enforce the laws the way they are and that we have all the tools available at our disposal to get the job done."
DHS plans to build almost 400 miles of fence along the southern border in 2008, which, according to Chertoff, would mean that almost the entire expanse of land from the Pacific Ocean to the New Mexico-Texas border would be fortified by either a natural or DHS-installed barrier. The department also will continue to beef up the Border Patrol to meet President Bush's goal of doubling the law enforcement agency before the end of his administration.


Chertoff continues to push improved standards for identification documents through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and the REAL ID program. The initiative, which requires travelers within North and South America to present passports, will expand from its air-only phase to include land in 2008. He said the department is working toward implementing REAL ID, which establishes national standards for state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards despite some reluctance at the state level, and will issue new regulations for the program in the next few weeks.

"Some people have an ideological discomfort with having REAL ID driver's licenses, and I think we ought to have this debate," Chertoff said. "I have yet to have someone explain to me why I'm better off as a citizen if a 16-year-old kid in a college town can take my identity, phony up a driver's license and pretend to be me."

DHS is working with Congress to address emerging cybersecurity threats. The department already has in place systems to detect threatening patterns of network traffic and alert the necessary agencies. Chertoff said the 2008 plans may provide a template for how the government handles cybersecurity threats over the next decade.

Mexican trucks roll on despite opposition

The Bush administration continues to push forward with its controversial project allowing Mexican trucks to move freely on U.S. roads despite strong protests from both chambers of Congress, where legislation is pending.

"Congress has stated clearly that it believes going forward with such a program, without the information needed to assure safety on American roads, is not safe," said Barry Piatt, spokesman for Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.

Dorgan successfully amended the Senate Transportation Appropriations Bill to include language to stop the Mexican Truck Demonstration Program, hoping the Bush administration would respond.

However, even though the House and Senate agreed to retain the language, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA, is continuing with the program.

According to the conference report on the House bill, HR 3074, issued Nov. 13, "None of the funds made available under this Act may be used to establish a cross-border motor carrier demonstration program to allow Mexico-domiciled motor carriers to operate beyond the commercial zones along the international border between the United States and Mexico."

The bill, however, awaits approval by both the full House and the full Senate.

Jenny Tallheimer, spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee, told WND, "At this point the transportation appropriations bill is being lumped with the other appropriations bill into a larger omnibus bill.

"Both the House and the Senate are currently negotiating the details of the larger appropriations bill, and once that is complete the legislation will be introduced in the House and the Senate," she said. "No time table has been set at this point however."

There also is no guarantee that the language in the conference report designed to defund the Mexican Truck program will remain in a new omnibus bill.

Without an appropriation bill containing such language, the program can continue.

FMCSA's website lists 10 Mexican carriers with a total of 55 trucks that are approved to transport goods throughout the U.S.

The FMCSA was asked to comment but did not reply to phone calls or e-mails.

About 40 more Mexican carriers will soon join the 10 already approved. The agency, according to its website, said it "has notified an additional 37 Mexico-domiciled motor carriers that they have successfully passed a Pre-Authorization Safety Audit."

The FMCSA says there are four U.S. carriers participating in the cross-border program.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., continues to show frustration with the Bush administration.

His spokesman, Joe Kasper, told WND, "Rather than working with Congress to ensure the program is implemented in a manner that is safe and efficient, the department has instead decided to continue its plan of opening our roadways to an increasing number of Mexican trucking companies."

Kasper called it "a dangerous program that threatens our security and the safety of vehicle motorists."

"It now appears the only way Congress can make the department listen is by ensuring it does not have the funds to move the program forward as currently planned," he said.

Southern Poverty Law Center: Leading Anti-Immigration Lobbyist is Bigoted and Hateful

By Brant McLaughlin
Published Dec 12, 2007

Southern Poverty Law Center: Leading Anti-Immigration Lobbyist is Bigoted and On Tuesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) said that the United States' leading anti-immigration organization, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the leaders of whom have testified again and again before Congress and are frequently quoted in the media, has connections to known racist groups and a long track record of bigotry against blacks, Latinos, and Catholics.

SPLC says that the founder of the group, John Tanton, operates a racist publishing company and compares immigrants to bacteria; employs members of white supremacist groups in key positions; adheres to racist conspiracy theories, including those that say Latinos' high birthrates will allow them to take over (and destroy) the United States; and takes money from the eugenics-supporting, race-to-IQ-correlation believing group the Pioneer Fund.

The SPLC asserts that it has found a 40 percent increase in the number of hate groups since 2000. The FBI has published statistics that allegedly reveal a 35 percent rise in hate crimes against Latinos since 2003. The SPLC says these statistics reflect a growing wave of anti-immigration fervor.

"The sad fact is that attempts to reform our immigration system are being sabotaged by organizations fueled by hate," said Henry Fernandez, a senior fellow and expert on immigration at the Center for American Progress.

Tanton began his activist career in the 1960s as an environmentalist and was a member of the Audobon Society as well as a small-town doctor. However, he apparently became obsessed with the idea that overpopulation by human beings leads to environmental degradation after reading Paul Ehrlich's now-discredited 1968 tome The Population Bomb, and from there is was not long before he was led to the conclusion that non-whites lack morals and as a result breed indiscriminately and often, leading to their crowding out of whites with their "savage" and "criminal" populations.

In 1975 Tanton wrote, "[H]uddled masses cast longing eyes on the apparent riches of the industrial West. The developed countries lie directly in the path of a great storm." He had been deeply inspired by a novel called The Camp of the Saints, written by French author Jean Raspail and roundly condemned as racist.

Critics of illegal immigration say that people like Tanton harm their just cause through their distortions of facts, leading people to take the opposite stance of not wanting to deal with the illegal immigrants in the United States in a strict way because their arguments have been tainted by hate speech that they don't believe in.

Cheryl LaBash of U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange, Raymundo Navarro Fernandez of Cuba and Oswaldo Vera of Venezuela discuss how to build solidarity in U.S./Cuba/Venezuela International Relations panel.
WW photo: Bob McCubbin


Workers discuss U.S.-Latin America relations
By LeiLani Dowell
Tijuana, Mexico

Published Dec 12, 2007 11:56 PM
Workers from Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico and the United States shared information and solidarity at a labor conference here on the weekend of Dec. 7-9. Plenary talks discussed the case of the Cuban Five; relations among the U.S., Cuba, Venezuela and Mexico; U.S. “free trade” agreements versus the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA); and the immigrant rights struggle.

Irma Sehwerert, a deputy in Cuba’s National Assembly and mother of René Gonzá***, one of the Cuban Five, represented the five political prisoners held in U.S. jails and their families in an opening event on Dec. 7 dedicated solely to the case. The International Committee to Free the Cuban Five screened “The Trial” (El Proceso), a new documentary jointly produced by the Cuban Institute for the Cinematographic Arts and Industry (ICAIC) and Venezuela’s Telesur.

A Saturday panel featured representatives of the Cuban Workers Central (CTC) and Bolivarian Socialist Workers Force of Venezuela. Raymundo Navarro Fernández, director of foreign relations for the CTC, reviewed the history and methods of U.S. domination in Latin America. He said, “You can vote for a government but you cannot change the political system—it means that there is a neoliberal project that is above everything.”

Osvaldo Vera, a national coordinator of the Venezuelan workers’ group, discussed the results of the recent constitutional referendum in his country and plans to continue to deepen the revolutionary process there.

Elvira Arellano—called the “Rosa Parks” of the immigrant struggle, who was recently deported from the U.S. to Mexico and separated from her son, Saulito—and Emma Lozano of La Familia Latina Unida participated in the immigration panel, as did José Medina, a member of the Mexican Congress who was key in founding a new cross-border organization for the rights of Mexican/Chicano people.

Namibia Donadio of the youth group FIST—Fight Imperialism, Stand Together—discussed why youth are inspired by and stand in solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela. She recounted her experiences on a FIST-organized trip to Cuba this summer.

An open letter calling on the leadership of the AFL-CIO and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) to stop slandering Cuba regarding its labor rights was introduced and signed. The letter also called on affiliates to work to free the Cuban Five and end the U.S. blockade of Cuba—the U.S. trade and travel ban that blocks U.S. workers from traveling to Cuba and denies visas for CTC representatives to enter the United States, making it necessary for such gatherings to take place in other countries.

A call for activities for immigrant rights on May 1—the international workers’ day and third anniversary of the “Great American Boycott” of 2006—was well received.

More will be reported on this conference in future issues of WW.

E-mail: ldowell@workers.org

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December 10, 2007

Univision Debate Postmortem: The Six Amigos (Plus Ron Paul)

So, our liveblog effort was a bust thanks to my lack of high-tech closed-captioning, but it doesn't look as if we missed a whole lot in the way of fireworks. Because the immigration debate has been alienating Latino voters, it was in everyone's interest last night to promote Brand GOP (as opposed to Brand Me). Most of the seven candidates present did that, but at the expense of specifics.

In other words, this was a very broad-strokes debate. The Republican candidates have been vying for months to prove just how tough they can be on closing the borders, etc., which is sort of mandatory, as they're trying to win over mostly white, conservative base voters in Iowa and New Hampshire. Then they found themselves in Miami last night before a sea of Latino Americans -- the fastest-growing bloc of voters in the nation. In order to hew to what they'd been saying about immigration reform up until last night, some of which may not have gone over well in this crowd, they had to fiddle with their rhetoric.

That translated to lots of talk of freedom and no trading barbs on sanctuary cities or sanctuary mansions. The central mission was to not tick anyone off, and on that score they probably succeeded.

Most of the candidates stuck to platitudes about the greatness that is America and why it's such a magnet for foreigners. (Even Duncan Hunter toned it down.) While the word "amnesty" did pop up, it was never used to attack a rival. The result was that the forum looked a lot like the ones the much more unified Democratic field has been having.

We did detect one shift of note, however. Back in September, when he was still an obscure, long-shot candidate, Mike Huckabee appeared before a black voters forum that all the front-runners at the time (Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson) skipped. After gladly scolding his rivals for ignoring black voters, Huckabee went on to sound themes of compassionate conservatism that veered dangerously close, we noted, to the Democratic Party.

Huckabee has since vaulted to the front of the pack, in part because of his likability and charm. To stay there, however, he will have to sharpen his edges. Romney was among the first to accuse Huckabee of being a little too compassionate with illegal immigrants. In response, Huckabee unveiled a tough-seeming nine-point immigration and border enforcement plan last week. Yesterday, his campaign went up with its first ad to focus solely on illegal immigration.

Lucky for him, most of the Univision debate's audience probably had no idea who he was back in September. So any shift went undetected, as he joined most of his rivals in trying to persuade the audience that cracking down on illegal immigrants was necessary to keep legal immigration possible in the future.

We were hoping last week that Univision's moderators would ask the candidates to respond to this scare ad from Tom Tancredo, who boycotted the Spanish-language forum. No such luck. But the debate did prove that the combination of Ron Paul and Hugo Chavez makes for a muy caliente cocktail.

"He's not the easiest person to deal with, but we should deal with everybody around the world the same way: with friendship and opportunity to talk and try to trade with people," said the Texas libertarian congressman, who was immediately greeted with deafening boos. Digging himself in even further, Paul continued, "We talked to Stalin, we talked to Khrushchev, we've talked to Mao..."

¡Dios mio! Considering the history of brutal totalitarian dictatorships in Latin America, this was definitely the wrong audience for Paul's ultra-relativist approach to foreign diplomacy. And then: "Actually, I believe we're at a time where we even ought to talk to Cuba and trade and travel to Cuba...."

No, señor. No. Lots and lots of booing here.

Romney goes up with an ad attacking Huckabee on immigration tomorrow, Horserace reports. The Miami Herald's writeup is here. Jim Geraghty was also not pleased that the debate broadcast was so unfriendly to non-Spanish speakers. Mark Krikorian of NRO posted his takeaways here, while Hot Air had some fun at Geraldo Rivera's expense.

-JANE ROH

Photo Illustrations: Reuben Dalke

Small business owners to be surveyed on "no match" illegal immigration rules

By APRO staff
[12-12-2007]

A federal judge has given the Department of Homeland Security until March 24 to survey small business owners on how the Department of Homeland Security's "no match" illegal immigration rules affect them. The "no match" rules are the DHS's requirement of business owners to verify workers' immigration status within a 90-day period if the social security numbers submitted by employees on W-2 forms don't match the records in the Social Security Administration database.
Federal Judge Charles Breyer handed down the four-page ruling, saying that the Social Security Administration's database was chock full of errors, thereby putting an unreasonable burden on businesses to go through a complicated verification process and possibly having to fire workers if the resources to verify workers weren't available or the employer couldn't meet the time frame set forth by the SSA for compliance.
Since August, 141,000 "no match" letters covering 8 million workers were sent to companies from the SSA. The group filing the lawsuit to halt the the letters said that they want the DHS to drop the rules altogether. However, the DHS is intent on proceeding with rules, saying that the "minor issues" will be corrected by the March deadline and the verification process will move forward.
Employers are often caught in a Catch-22 situation in when the SSA sends a "no match" letter. If an employer cannot complete the verification process, they are still reluctant to fire workers as they fear charges of discrimination. In fact, the DHS Web site states that, "an employer who takes action against an employee based on nothing more substantial than a mismatch letter may, in fact, violate the law."
On the other hand, severe fines are imposed upon employers who fail to follow the verification process within the time frame outlined by the DHS. So, some employers are risking discrimination lawsuits over the federal government's civil and criminal penalties for employment of undocumented workers and terminate employment if the verification process fails.
APRO will keep you posted on the "no match" developments as they arise.
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About APRO
The Association of Progressive Rental Organizations is the official voice of the rent-to-own industry and the most accurate and trustworthy source of rent-to-own news in the industry. Founded in 1980, APRO is the national, nonprofit trade association advocating and representing the rent-to-own industry before the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, courts, media and the public. For more information, visit www.rtohq.org.

Conviven hispanos en tensión con otras minorías

Mundo Hispano - Miércoles 12 de diciembre (12:14 hrs.)

Sin embargo, un estudio publicado hoy augura una relación más armoniosa en el futuro
Los tres grupos admiten las tensiones raciales existentes entre ellos y comparten estereotipos negativos sobre cada uno

Washington, 12 de diciembre.- Las comunidades hispana, negra y asiática, las tres minorías más grandes de EU, conviven bajo una profunda tensión étnica, aunque un estudio publicado hoy augura una relación más armoniosa en el futuro.

Los tres grupos admiten las tensiones raciales existentes entre ellos y comparten estereotipos negativos sobre cada uno, a pesar de que esperan que la situación mejore en los próximos 10 años, afirma el informe del grupo New American Media (NAM), basado en la primera encuesta multilingüística realizada en el país.

"El informe revela algunas realidades poco halagüeñas que existen en Estados Unidos en la actualidad", dijo en conferencia de prensa Sandy Close, directora de NAM, la mayor organización de información sobre etnias del país.

El 79 por ciento de los hispanos considera que la tensión racial en EU es un problema "muy importante", índice que baja hasta el 65 por ciento para los negros y hasta el 37 por ciento para los asiáticos.

De hecho, el 61 por ciento de la comunidad hispana consultada elige a personas de raza blanca como aquella con la que "más cómoda se siente" a la hora de hacer negocios, una cifra que disminuye hasta el cuatro por ciento a la hora de escoger a asiáticos y al tres por ciento con los afroamericanos.

Uno de los estereotipos que se confirman a través de esta encuesta es el hecho de que el 44 por ciento de los hispanos apunta a la comunidad afroamericana como la responsable de la mayoría de los crímenes que se cometen en el país.

"El estudio reafirma que mientras que las relaciones entre estas etnias y los blancos acaparan los titulares de los medios de comunicación, existen serios problemas entre los grupos minoritarios del país", explicó Sergio Bendixen, presidente de la empresa encargada de llevar a cabo la encuesta.

Tanto los hispanos como los asiáticos expresan un gran optimismo sobre su vida en el país y creen que el trabajo duro trae consigo una recompensa, mientras que más del 60 por ciento de la comunidad afroamericana encuestada no cree en el "sueño americano".

Según revela el informe, ese grupo es el que más aislado se encuentra dentro de la sociedad, a pesar de que es la comunidad que más ingresos obtiene al año por familia.

"Identificar los problemas e iniciar un diálogo común que una a estos grupos en su lucha por la igualdad y contra la discriminación es la manera de salir adelante de esta situación", agregó Close.

No obstante, la encuesta encontró datos que apoyan la teoría de que la situación puede mejorar en el futuro próximo, al encontrar puntos en común, como el patriotismo, la religión, los valores familiares y las tradiciones culturales que comparten.

El 43 por ciento de los hispanos consultados se consideran "muy patrióticos", un número que supera el 36 por ciento de la comunidad afroamericana que se considera como tal, aunque por debajo del 51 por ciento de los asiáticos que aseguran serlo.

Asimismo, la religión es considera "muy importante" por el 77 por ciento de los hispanos, el 88 por ciento de los negros y el 62 por ciento de los asiáticos.

Los tres grupos también están de acuerdo en resaltar que para ellos es más importante pasar tiempo "de calidad" junto a sus familias que trabajar más horas para ganar la mayor cantidad de dinero posible.

E incluso asiáticos y afroamericanos sostienen que tanto la comida como la música y las tradiciones hispanas han enriquecido la calidad de vida de la sociedad estadounidense.

La encuesta, que posee un margen de error de 5 puntos porcentuales, se realizó a 1.105 adultos afroamericanos, asiáticos e hispanos, residentes en áreas que poseen al menos un 10 por ciento de habitantes de esas etnias, entre agosto y septiembre de 2007. (Con información de EFE/AYV)

More border cities see signs of Mara Salvatrucha

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 12/13/2007 01:06:53 AM MST

The recent arrest of a man tied to Mara Salvatrucha doesn't mean the ruthless Central American street gang is on the verge of gaining a foothold in El Paso, law enforcement authorities say.

However, it may portend a growing trend of incursions into other U.S. cities by the gang, which has a reputation for extreme violence, including hacking victims with machetes, controlling prisons and threatening the stability of some Central American countries.

The gang member arrested in El Paso was among a dozen Mara Salvatru