Detainees in limbo after facility closes

More than 400 people moved from immigration site undergoing scheduled maintenance; lawyers say delay could affect trials

By Anna Gorman
LOS ANGELES TIMES

Article Launched: 12/27/2007 03:03:42 AM PST

LOS ANGELES -- More than two months after the immigration detention center on Terminal Island temporarily closed for preventive maintenance and 408 detainees were transferred to other facilities, immigration officials said they have no date set for its reopening and are still assessing the repairs necessary.
Meanwhile, immigration judges have approved the government's requests to move the majority of the 299 pending cases from San Pedro to other courts across the nation. The changes of venue have frustrated many immigrants and their attorneys, who said the transfers have delayed cases and affected their outcome.

When the San Pedro Processing Center closed Oct. 22, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the repair work -- including to a hot water boiler and a fire suppression system -- would take at least a month. ICE said at the time that there were no plans to close the center but that they were considering transferring control to a private company because of the high cost of upkeep.

Last week, ICE declined to discuss the future of the center. The agency issued a statement saying, "At this time, ICE is working with engineering and construction professionals to evaluate the extent of the work to be done."

Spokeswoman Virginia Kice said it's important to do a thorough assessment.

"If that takes longer than anticipated, we still need to do it right," she said.

The majority of the San Pedro detainees, 230, were moved to Texas, and 132 were sent
to Arizona, 26 to Washington and 20 to other facilities in California.
Kice said the agency's goal is to keep court cases moving through the system while contractors evaluate the San Pedro facility. Changes of venue on fewer than 50 cases are still pending, Kice said.

"Our priority is ensuring those detainees get fair and timely hearings," she said.

'Sitting in detention'

But immigration attorneys said that is not how it has worked out for many. Some had been appearing before the same judges for months or years and their cases were in the final stages. Now, they are waiting for new court dates with new judges.

"It's pretty grim," said American Civil Liberties Union attorney Nora Preciado, who specializes in immigration detention. "This whole transfer just delays their cases. It just keeps them sitting in detention for no good reason."

Salvadoran immigrant Hugo Bolanos, 32, had a court date set in San Pedro on Oct. 25 but was transferred to Texas three days earlier. That court session was canceled and now he is waiting for a new date in Texas.

Bolanos came to the United States in 2000 and was placed in immigration detention five years later after serving time for a drug-related criminal conviction. The government planned to deport him, but Bolanos fought the case in immigration court and won. The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed the decision, he said.

Bolanos had hoped the judge would order him released Oct. 25. Now he is not sure what is going to happen because he lost representation when he was moved.

"The truth is the transfers have affected us very much," he said from the detention center in Texas. "We don't have access to our attorneys or witnesses."

Another detainee, Naseeb Aburajab, was transferred to Texas on Oct. 20, two days before what he believed would be his final court hearing in San Pedro. Aburajab, 40, who is Palestinian but raised in Kuwait, is fighting to stay in the country based on the hardship to his wife and two children, all U.S. citizens.

Since he has been in Texas, the San Pedro judge issued a decision in his favor. The government has not released him from custody.

"They are the muscles," he said. "I really can't do anything."

ICE officials said they considered detainees' criminal histories, medical conditions and status of their legal cases when making the transfers. Most detainees had to be transferred out of state because of limited bed space in California, especially for criminal detainees or those with medical or psychiatric problems, according to ICE.

The other center in Los Angeles County is Mira Loma detention center in Lancaster, which is run by the Sheriff's Department and can house about 1,000 detainees. ICE approved adding 400 beds but is still awaiting its budget allocation to see whether the expansion can proceed. But even with added beds, Mira Loma cannot house certain detainees.

"San Pedro played a vital role because it was equipped to house the more serious criminal offenses as well as the medical cases that we can't currently accommodate at Mira Loma," Kice said.

Distance from lawyers

Lina Balciunas, who is representing a Vietnamese asylum seeker, said she successfully fought the government's attempt to change the venue to Texas in her client's case. Instead, the judge sent the case to the court in Lancaster.

"The witnesses are here, the evidence is here, I am here," she said.

But when Balciunas came to a scheduled hearing in Lancaster earlier in December, she was told the case file was still in Texas. Her client also remains in Texas because the Mira Loma detention facility said it couldn't accept him because he has cancer.

"To us, it appears that the rules are being made up as we go along," she said. "The government holds all the cards. Like all of our bureaucracy, everything can take whatever time they choose to take."

Attorneys have also expressed concern that the changes of venue may have a significant effect on their clients' cases because of the wide disparity in rulings by immigration judges and appellate court justices. They also said some detainees may have agreed to move their cases without knowing how it could affect the outcome.

Corporate crooks holding a seminar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR1Jke2NWTA

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Thousands deported to Guatemala every year
Growing numbers sent back as immigration security gets tighter
By Matt O'Brien, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated: 12/26/2007 01:54:27 PM PST

GUATEMALA CITY — Unmarked U.S. government jets roared into La Aurora International Airport, dropped off a crowd of forlorn passengers and roared back into the sky almost every weekday this year.
In their wake, orderly lines of men, women and children, all wearing wristbands, filed down the tarmac. An observant traveler staring out the oval windows of a commercial airliner taxiing nearby might have guessed they were prisoners of some sort.

It has become routine, this daily march of the deported. "Pass right this way," bellowed Rene Mendez, trying to comfort his weary compatriots while also adhering to a tight schedule. "Bienvenidos. Good afternoon. Welcome, muchachos."

In 2004, the United States deported 7,029 Guatemalans; in 2005, it deported 11,512; in 2006, it deported 18,305.

This year, the numbers had already surpassed 21,000 by early this month.

Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said deportations have gone up because of an increase in worksite raids and other enforcement measures in the United States.

Most of the deportees end up passing through this aging air force terminal in Guatemala's capital city airport. That makes Guatemalan immigration official Mendez a busy man. On Aug. 6, two planes arrived in quick succession with more than 200 deportees to process.

"I have an important question. Are all of you guatemaltecos?" Mendez yelled above a din of activity and confusion, just in case the big white Boeing MD-83 planes dropped someone off in the wrong Central American country.

"Si!" the crowd responded in unison.

Domingo Algua Morales, 18, was one of them.

The teenager had been on his way to San Rafael, hoping to slip anonymously into an established pocket of Mayan immigrants living modestly in wealthy Marin County.

"My brother has lived there for almost two years, going to the street corner for work," Morales said. "Later, he found a job in a restaurant.

Discuss the series:
Share your thoughts and comments.
He said if I wanted to come there for a year, he would find me work."
He said his older brother sent back photographs and money to his family in Chichicastenango. He bought land and had a three-story concrete house built for when he returns.

Domingo tried to join him. But he had hardly crossed the infamous Sonora desert into Arizona when border agents picked him up and put him on track for an expedited deportation.

Next, here he was, fresh off his first — albeit involuntary — plane ride, waiting for Mendez to call out the numbers of the luggage piled in the center of the room.

Domingo's was the last of the lot to be called, and the teenager reached down into a brown paper bag and pulled out his two belongings: a pair of ragged shoelaces and his belt — temporarily confiscated, as most were, to make sure he wouldn't strangle himself or others.

Otherwise, all he had left were two Mexican pesos in his pocket, he said, smirking because that would hardly buy him a snack, never mind the trip back to Chichicastenango. But he had a T-shirt on his back. His jeans. His life.

"Many people have died in the desert," said Mendez, the anxious deportees now seated in rows of chairs in front of him. "Others have drowned. Others were mutilated on the trains. Thank God that you're all here, that you're alive!"

The crowd uttered a chorus of thanks for the bureaucrat's glimmer of optimism. Then they had to fill out a form. And soon it was time to move on — another plane was landing, with 88 more men and 16 more women to process.

One organization passed out bagged lunches. Another offered bus vouchers to help deportees get to their far-flung hometowns. There was a table to pick up information about possible job opportunities, but otherwise they were left to fend for themselves.

The Guatemalan government began expanding the scope of its deportee arrival process earlier this year, in an effort to make the system more dignified, but officials there have argued that deportees are still putting a significant burden on the country because it is difficult to reintegrate them into the economy.

And of those so far deported from the United States last year, more than 3,000 faced jail time in the United States for criminal charges, although some of those were strictly immigration law violations.

Rutilo Morales, 36, from the San Marcos department of western Guatemala, said he was surprisingly relieved to be here after the harsh treatment he said he received at the hands of prison guards in Texas.

"I told them there were insects in my food," Morales said. "The guard told me, 'The worms also have a right to eat.'"

Carlos Gustavo Martin, 43, a carpenter who spent months detained in a Limestone County, Texas, jail, said, "We feel like terrorists. We are humble people, simple people, working people."

Jose Salvador Enriquez, 33, who spent 15 years in Los Angeles and has three children there, said he had temporarily obtained political asylum to live in the United States, but lost it and was deported last year. He tried to cross the border and was arrested and deported again.

"I have to think a lot about what I'm going to do now," he said.

Another man had lived in Long Island so long — since he was 11 years old — that he had no idea what to do in Guatemala.

"I want to know where the American embassy is and stuff like that," he said in English, with a New York accent, declining to give his name.

Two other men, speaking in separate interviews, sported splotches of white paint on their forearms. A few days earlier, they were staying at a Texas detention facility when a guard ordered them to come out and paint a wall in the middle of the night, from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., they said.

"He just said paint there, and I painted," said Santos Ajucum, as he mulled over how to get home to Totonicapan.

As the migrants arrived, journalists from El Diario, Guatemala's biggest tabloid newspaper, were waiting.

The newspaper covers deportation flights as meticulously as it does soccer scores — with each article comes the number of deportees who arrived that day, the total year-to-date number, and a smattering of photos and quotations from those willing to talk.

The faces of rejected migrants, and their stories of desperation, danger and disappointment, appear in Guatemala's national media almost every day.

And yet, every day, they keep coming.
http://origin.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_7810288

Flushing Them Out
Joe Arpaio and Andrew Thomas are teaching the rest of the nation how to terrorize illegal immigrants


Daniela's world is very small. Though she was born in Mexico and traveled thousands of miles to Phoenix, she might never leave her neighborhood again. As an undocumented immigrant in Maricopa County, it's just too risky.
Her eldest child longs for the family to take a trip to California and see the ocean, but Daniela, the mother of four American citizens and one undocumented child, ages 5 to 13, doesn't travel ****her than three blocks from her home. She's terrified.

Her husband, a welder, leaves for work before dawn. She never knows if he'll come home.

Daniela has very few friends — there's no one she can trust not to report her, especially now that the county sheriff has an illegal immigration hotline.

She can't leave her house to buy groceries; she's heard that the sheriff stations deputies at Food City.

Daniela lives down the street from a drug dealer, not a safe environment for a young family. She knows the guy's name, his address and she's seen him do business. But she can't call the police — they might take her away.

She's learned how to walk quietly, to stay in the shadows. The only place Daniela allows herself to go is her children's elementary school. She volunteers there six hours a day. She says it's her responsibility to be active in her children's education. But when she walks to school (she won't drive, ever) she makes sure to go with one of her few friend or her kids.

"You can't walk alone because if you are walking alone and you get taken, who is going to tell your family you are gone?" she says. "When you walk, you walk fast and you walk quiet. You don't talk to nobody. If someone is speaking to you, you don't say anything."

Daniela's children can't sleep through the night. They have nightmares about their parents getting caught and deported.

"We are the only support for my children. If we get arrested, we don't have another person to take care of my children," say says, starting to cry. "When they ask, 'What's going to happen to us, Mom, if you get arrested?' I lie to them. I say, 'We have a plan my love, my sweetie. Someone will take care of you and your brothers. Nothing is going to happen to you.' But it's a lie."

Daniela also wakes up at night, crying. In her dreams, she relives her border crossing. She came to America to meet up with her husband when she was 17, their 8-month-old baby in tow. In the border town of Agua Prieta, she was assaulted by a "coyote," slang for a person who smuggles immigrants across the border. The coyote stole her money, her identification, and tried to steal her baby.

"They tell me they will take my baby," she says in her slow, practiced English, from inside a classroom at her children's elementary school. That was 13 years ago, but from the look on her face, it could have been yesterday. "They say, 'You will never see your baby again.'"

To save her young son, Carlos, she made a decision that haunts her to this day: She paid a strange woman $600 to drive him safely to Phoenix. It was a painful gamble, but one that paid off. Carlos survived.

If Daniela were caught trying to save his life this way in Maricopa County, she'd be charged with human smuggling, the same as the coyote who haunts her nightmares. Today, victims of smuggling are treated the same as the perpetrators, thanks to an interpretation of the law that assigns the same level of responsibility to the criminals who smuggle and the people they sneak across the border.

There's good reason to be afraid. The situation for undocumented immigrants in Maricopa County is arguably the worst in the country, thanks to two men: County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Roberto Reveles, the former president of immigrant rights group Somos America (We Are America), says there is no place in the country worse than Maricopa County.

"It's worse because here there is a statewide effort. The state Legislature is involved, the executive branch — the governor — is complicit, and at the local level, the worst in the country has to be the Maricopa County sheriff and county attorney, who are abusing their power to harass, intimidate, and create fear in the hearts of dark-skinned people," he says.

In October, when the owners of this newspaper were arrested for releasing information about a grand jury subpoena, no group in Maricopa County watched more closely than the undocumented immigrant community, says Antonio Bustamante, a Phoenix defense lawyer litigating a class-action suit against Arpaio and Thomas.

"It was a despicable, cowardly, gutless lack of character thing to do to any human being," he says. "And if they would do that to prominent members of the community — if you're a 'R******R' — you've got no chance."

Undocumented immigrants know better than anyone what it's like to be arrested in the middle of the night, to walk around as moving targets, to sit in jail.
Read More

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-12-27/news/flushing-them-out/1

Illegal immigrant's message to other wannabe workers: Stay put
Los Angeles Times
Dec. 26, 2007 11:28 AM

MEXICO CITY - Lorenzo Martinez, an illegal immigrant who has lived in Los Angeles for six years, has a message for his kin in Mexico's Hidalgo state: Stay put.

The steady construction work that had allowed him to send home as much as $1,000 a month in recent years had disappeared. The 36-year-old father of four said desperation was growing among the day laborers with whom he was competing for odd jobs.

Sporadic employment isn't the half of it. Martinez said anxiety also was running high among undocumented workers about stepped-up workplace raids, deportations and increasing demands by U.S. employers for proof that they were in the country legally.





"Better not to come," Martinez said of anyone thinking about crossing into the U.S. illegally. "The situation is really bad."

That message seems to be getting through. There are numerous signs of a slowdown in illegal immigration.


• A recent survey by Mexican authorities shows that fewer Mexicans say they are planning to seek work outside the country. In the third quarter of 2007, about 47,000 said they'd be packing their bags. That's down nearly one-third from the same quarter a year earlier.


• U.S. border authorities arrested just under 877,000 illegal crossers in fiscal 2007, which ended in September, down 20 percent compared to the year before. A drop in apprehensions is often interpreted as a sign that fewer migrants are attempting the trip.


• The growth rate of the U.S. Mexican-born population has dropped by nearly half to 4.2 percent in 2007 from about 8 percent in 2005 and 2006, according to an analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center.


• Employment of foreign-born Hispanics increased at a slower pace in the first quarter of 2007 than during the same period in the previous three years, according to Pew. The slowdown was particularly noticeable in the construction industry. Growth in employment of foreign-born Hispanics in that sector was 10.9 percent early this year, compared to an average first-quarter growth rate of 19.8 percent from 2004 to 2006.


• The growth in remittances sent to Mexico has dwindled to a trickle. Through October of this year, Mexicans living abroad sent $20.4 billion home to their families, a 1.3 percent increase over the same period in 2006, according to Mexico's central bank. Those sums were growing in excess of 20 percent annually just a few years ago.

What's behind the apparent decline?

Some say it's primarily the slump in U.S. construction, which has been a magnet for undocumented workers over the last few years - one in five Hispanic immigrants works in the building trades. Others say it's largely the result of stepped-up enforcement.

Proponents of tighter security say U.S. workplace dragnets and increased deportations have made big headlines in Latin America, deterring some would-be migrants. American authorities are installing hundreds of miles of new fencing along the southern border. About 15,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents have been deployed to the region, 25 percent more than in 2006. By the end of next year, 3,000 more are slated to be in place.

"It's a combination of (more) personnel, technology and infrastructure," said Ramon Rivera, a spokesman for the Customs and Border Protection agency, of the falling arrest totals.

Immigration experts say tougher enforcement is one of several explanations. The border buildup has encouraged more illegal immigrants to employ professional smugglers, whose success rate is higher than that of individuals, said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

He said tougher enforcement had also discouraged many undocumented workers from returning to their homelands for occasional visits for fear of getting caught re-entering the U.S. Fewer people coming and going across the border means fewer apprehensions.

The fall in arrests also fits a familiar pattern, one that traditionally has more to do with the strength of the U.S. job market than with walls or guards.

"It's the economy, stupid," Cornelius said.

Demographer Jeffrey Passel said the U.S. unemployment rate was the strongest correlating factor he had found in tracking migratory flows. In November, the jobless rate for Hispanics was 5.7 percent, up from 5 percent in November 2006.

"When it's easy to get a job, they come. When it's hard to get a job, they don't," said Passel, senior research associate at the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center.

Border authorities apprehended a record 1.7 million would-be migrants in 2000, the height of the technology boom. That number tumbled over the next three years as the U.S. was rocked by recession, the Sept. 11 attacks and the loss of more than 2 million jobs. About 932,000 illegal crossers were apprehended in 2003, a 44 percent drop from 2000, according to Customs and Border Protection.

At the time, some credited the decline to tightened border security in the wake of Sept. 11. But arrests rebounded strongly in 2004 and 2005 as foreign-born workers flocked to the United States to fill jobs in the building trades.

As the bust in the U.S. housing market eliminates construction jobs, Mexico's economy is proving resilient, giving Mexicans added incentive to stay home. Job creation has been solid over the last two years, with nearly 2 million positions added in the formal economy. Although most jobs in Mexico pay a fraction of what they would in the United States, some Mexicans may be deciding that poorly paid work is better than none, given the uncertainty over the border.

At the same time, Customs and Border Protection has expanded efforts to jail some illegal border crossers for up to 180 days before deporting them. Some American communities have passed laws to deny services to undocumented residents. In fiscal 2007, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 30,000 criminal aliens and immigration fugitives, including 1,300 illegal immigrants netted in a fall dragnet in the Los Angeles area.

Ira Mehlman, media director for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, said the slowing U.S. economy and construction slump are undoubtedly important factors in dip in illegal immigration. But he said the stepped-up enforcement is "changing the mindset" of would-be migrants and the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

"Illegal immigrants are rational people," Mehlman said. "They will change their behavior."

Heightened security has rattled Roberto Guzman. Border patrol agents recently busted the 17-year-old on his first attempt to cross the Arizona border. The teenager said he was quickly deported back to Mexico, but that his brother and uncle were jailed.

Reached by phone at a shelter in the northern Mexican city of Nogales, Guzman said he planned to hang around a day or two in hopes his relatives would turn up. Either way, the farm boy said he plans to return to rural Zacatecas state in central Mexico.

"Maybe some other year," he replied when asked if he would try again.

But Higinio Gonza***, 34, isn't as easily discouraged. Since 2004, he has been working in Sacramento, pulling weeds and hanging drywall, and has returned home once a year visit his family in central Mexico.

In the past, the illegal immigrant has had little trouble slipping back into the United States. Until now. Returning from his mother's funeral in Guanajuato state, Gonza*** has been nabbed twice by U.S. agents at the California border in recent days and deposited him back on the Mexican side.

"There's a lot of surveillance. I've never seen so much of it," he said by telephone from Tijuana.

With three children and wife to feed, he'll wait as long as it takes to get back to Sacramento. He has been weeks without a paycheck.

"I've got to get back to work," he said. "It's difficult to cross, but it's not impossible. And I'm going to make it."

No duplication, please. Your article has already been posted. That's the issue right there with you.

English study may fall on deaf ears

By JULIE MASON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

A new study shows immigrant families markedly improve their English with each generation — but the results aren't likely to end the national debate over language.

The Pew Hispanic Center report found that 23 percent of adult Hispanic immigrants said they were fluent in English, while 88 percent of their U.S.-born children reported the same. The figure increased to 94 percent with grandchildren and successive generations.

"We know the ability to speak English is a crucial skill for getting a good job and for integration into society," said D'Vera Cohn, a senior writer for Pew.

"The flip side," he said, "is that many Hispanics believe that language discrimination hinders Latinos from succeeding in America."

Language issues are central to the still unresolved immigration debate in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, with some calling for laws enforcing English-only policies as part of comprehensive reform.


A question for 2008
When he was governor of Texas, President Bush favored bilingualism and disavowed English-only policies. Later, in an unsuccessful effort to win congressional support for his immigration reform plan, Bush took a harder line on language, saying that all new arrivals have a responsibility to learn English.

The debate hasn't gone away. Presidential candidates from both parties frequently field questions from voters about bilingual education policies and whether they support English-only legislation.

Most Democratic candidates favor bilingual education — some, such as Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico are bilingual themselves.

Republicans tend to take a tougher line. Former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts supports English-immersion classes for Spanish-speaking students, and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado favors English-only policies. Fred Thompson, a former senator from Tennessee, said he supports English as the official language.

The findings of the Pew study were based on six different surveys conducted over four years by the organization.

Language is an emotional issue, and it goes to the heart of identity, assimilation and more for immigrants, their descendents and many Americans. But polls show that language concerns aren't that big a deal for many people concerned about immigration.

A CBS News/New York Times poll last summer found just 5 percent of respondents cited immigrants not learning English as a main concern about immigration. Ranking higher as issues of concern were a drain on public services, jobs and crime.


'English-only' response
Mauro E. Mujica, chairman of U.S. English, Inc. an organization that supports English as the official language, noted the Pew survey found that 71 percent of immigrants from Mexico speak little or no English.

"While we can always expect the first generation to struggle with learning English, the fact that more than 7 in 10 Mexican immigrants barely speak the common language of this country is evidence of a major social challenge," Mujica said. "It also serves as a clear rebuttal to those who say that we do not have a 'language problem' in the United States."

Mujica said the Pew study is short-sighted in that the third-generation Latinos included are grandchildren of immigrants who came to the U.S. prior to the "great waves" of immigrants in the 1980s.

"We cannot yet measure the English proficiency of most of the second generation and nearly all the third generation during the era when government multilingualism and native language support have flourished," Mujica said.

julie.mason@chron.com

Crossing Arizona is a documentary film which examines both sides of the immigration debate in Arizona. Crossing Arizona was nominated Best Documentary at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. It is the winner of the One Future Prize 2006 at the Munich Film Festival, the Best Documentary at the Arizona International Film Festival, and audience awards at Cine Las Americas and the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Crossing Arizona explores the varied political, practical, and humanitarian stances of people directly involved in the Arizona immigration influx. It gives voice to the frustrated farmers who day after day repair fences and pick up trash; the humanitarians who place water stations in the desert; farmers who depend upon the illegal work force; political activists who rally against anti-migrant ballot initiatives, and the Minutemen, armed citizens who patrol the border.

It is estimated that 4,500 undocumented people try to cross the Southwest’s Sonoran Desert each day. Heightened security in California and Texas pushed the illegal border-crossers into the Arizona desert. The U.S. Border Patrol recorded 253 immigrant deaths in 2005 in Arizona.

Though the initial focus of the documentary was to cover the humanitarian crisis in Arizona, it evolved to include the political debate on immigration and, through the eyes of people with differing agendas, it cast a spotlight on the inadequacies of U.S. immigration policy in the region.

Director/producer Dan DeVivo is a graduate of Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in social anthropology and a penchant toward independent documentary filmmaking. Based in New York City, he has worked on several projects including Counting on Democracy, We Are Family, and Refusing to Die: A Kenyan Story. His goal with Crossing Arizona has been to put a human face on the issue of immigration.

Will Arizona's Immigration Law Work?

By Froma Harrop
Dec 27, 2007

What would happen if the United States seriously enforced the ban on hiring undocumented workers? We may find out starting Jan. 1, when Arizona promises to do it locally. The Arizona law is tough. Companies that knowingly employ illegal workers will have their business licenses suspended for a first offense and permanently revoked for the second.

Will Arizona's Immigration Law Work?

The law clearly sees the workplace -- not the state's 376-mile border with Mexico -- as the main front in curbing illegal immigration. As a result, it could very well succeed.

Supporters of open borders predict economic chaos as Arizona companies lose access to cheap labor. Will dishes go unwashed and lawns unmowed? We shall see.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano reluctantly signed the law but vows to enforce it. A moderate Democrat, she maintains a close relationship with the governor of Sonora, the Mexican state to her south. She was also the first American governor to ask for National Guard reinforcements along the border.

Immigration happens to be Washington's responsibility. Federal law already forbids employers to hire undocumented workers. Until very recently, the Bush administration virtually ignored the ban. Whenever anger at this dereliction grew politically problematic, Bush would stage some new military show at the border.

The troop movements provided a nice distraction but seem to have only modestly cut the flow of illegal immigrants. Folks from every continent enter the United States unlawfully through portals far from Mexico. Nearly half of all undocumented workers came here legally but overstayed their visas.

What the fixation on the border does is create unnecessary friction with Latin America. It seems to single out one ethnic group, discomforting even native-born Hispanics who object to illegal immigration. Roughing up poor peasants makes for an ugly visual, as do high fences facing what's supposed to be a good neighbor.

Without the job magnet, of course, most illegal aliens would simply not come here. That would free law enforcement to go after the bad actors trying to enter. The Mexican border would become a far more peaceful crossing that allows an easy back-and-forth of shoppers, tourists, friends and family members.

The question remains, how essential is illegal labor to America's prosperity? One thing is clear: The people who want it should not be providing the answers.

The National Journal asked Napolitano about "business community" complaints that Arizona's law would hurt the local economy. Napolitano said that she hears them, but other parts of the "business community" are telling her, "We're tired of competing against companies that are hiring illegally and therefore don't have to pay the same wages we pay."

And there are non-labor concerns. Explosive population growth, fueled in part by illegal immigration, has created environmental challenges throughout the water-short Southwest. On the social side, a massive influx of impoverished people with little English makes the task of providing education and other services that more vexing.

The president does not seem to share these anxieties. As a cheap-labor conservative, Bush's warm spot for open borders is understandable.

Less explicable are the views of diversity liberals who otherwise despise the man but attribute his policies to a soulful feeling for Mexico. A recent New Yorker article saw Bush's tolerance of illegal immigration through the prism of his experience as governor of Texas, a border state with deep Hispanic roots. No mention was made of Bush's long record as a stomper of labor standards wherever they might impair corporate profits.

Back in Arizona, Napolitano is now readying implementation of a major new immigration law. While it is not totally to her liking, she sees few alternatives. When it comes to fixing illegal immigration, Washington won't become functional anytime soon -- and Arizona can't wait.

More Members Sign Onto SAVE Act

Rep. Heath Shuler’s (D-N.C.) SAVE Act (Secure America with Verification Enforcement [H.R. 4088]) now has 133 bipartisan signers. The SAVE Act will require all employers to use the electronic verification system to keep illegal aliens out of U.S. jobs. NumbersUSA believes that this legislation originating on the Democratic side of the House is just the vehicle to give us a chance to actually pass immigration legislation through a Democratic-controlled Congress that would significantly improve the lives of most Americans. "It's the one [immigration] bill that will pass this Congress," said Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus Chairman Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) in an interview with The Hill. "We have to make this about illegal employment and crack down on employers."

Senate Democrats (2)
(Ark.) - Sen. Pryor
(La.) - Sen. Landrieu

Senate Republicans (1)
(La.) Sen. Vitter

House Democrats (45)
(Ala.) - Rep. Cramer
(Ala.) - Rep. Davis
(Ark.) - Rep. Berry
(Ark.) - Rep. Ross
(Calif.) - Rep. McNerny
(Colo.) - Rep. Perlmutter
(Colo.) - Rep. Udall
(Fla.) - Rep. Boyd
(Ga.) - Rep. Barrow
(Ga.) - Rep. Bishop
(Ga.) - Rep. Marshall
(Ill.) - Rep. Bean
(Ind.) - Rep. Donnelly
(Ind.) - Rep. Ellsworth
(Ind.) - Rep. Hill
(Iowa) - Rep. Boswell
(Kan.) - Rep. Boyda
(La.) - Rep. Melancon
(Mich.) - Rep. Stupak
(Miss.) - Rep. Taylor
(N.H.) - Rep. Hodes
(N.Y.) - Rep. Arcuri
(N.Y.) - Rep. Gillibrand
(N.Y.) - Rep. Higgins
(N.C.) - Rep. McIntyre
(N.C.) - Rep. Shuler *
(Ohio) - Rep. Ryan
(Ohio) - Rep. Space
(Okla.) - Rep. Boren
(Pa.) - Rep. Altmire
(Pa.) - Rep. Carney
(Pa.) - Rep. Holden
(Pa.) - Rep. Kanjorski
(Pa.) - Rep. Murphy
(Pa.) - Rep. Murtha
(Tenn.) - Rep. Cooper
(Tenn.) - Rep. Davis
(Tenn.) - Rep. Gordon
(Tenn.) - Rep. Tanner
(Texas) - Rep. Lampson
(Texas) - Rep. Rodriguez
(Utah) - Rep. Matheson
(Va.) - Rep. Boucher
(Wash.) - Rep. Baird
(Wis.) - Rep. Kagen

* Primary Sponsor

House Republicans (75)
(Alaska) Rep. Young
(Ariz.) Rep. Franks
(Ariz.) - Rep. Renzi
(Ark.) - Rep. Boozman
(Calif.) - Rep. Bilbray
(Calif.) - Rep. Calvert
(Calif.) - Rep. Campbell
(Calif.) - Rep. Doolittle
(Calif.) - Rep. Hunter
(Calif.) - Rep. Miller
(Calif.) - Rep. Rohrabacher
(Calif.) - Rep. Royce
(Colo.) - Rep. Lamborn
(Colo.) - Rep. Musgrave
(Colo.) - Rep. Tancredo
(Fla.) - Rep. Bilirakis
(Fla.) - Rep. Feeney
(Fla.) - Rep. Miller
(Fla.) - Rep. Weldon
(Ga.) - Rep. Broun
(Ga.) - Rep. Deal
(Ga.) - Rep. Gingrey
(Ga.) - Rep. Linder
(Ga.) - Rep. Price
(Ga.) - Rep. Westmoreland
(Ind.) - Rep. Burton
(Ill.) - Rep. Manzullo
(Ill.) - Rep. Roskam
(Ill.) - Rep. Shimkus
(Iowa) - Rep. King
(Kan.) - Rep. Moran
(Ky.) - Rep. Whitfield
(La.) - Rep. Alexander
(La.) - Rep. Baker
(Md.) - Rep. Bartlett
(Md.) - Rep. Gilchrest
(Mich.) - Rep. Walberg
(Minn.) - Rep. Kline
(Mo.) - Rep. Akin
(Mo.) - Rep. Graves
(Neb.) - Rep. Smith
(Neb.) - Rep. Fortenberry
(N.C.) - Rep. Coble
(N.C.) - Rep. Foxx
(N.C.) - Rep. Hayes
(N.C.) - Rep. Jones
(N.C.) - Rep. McHenry
(N.C.) - Rep. Myrick
(Ohio) - Rep. LaTourette
(Ohio) - Rep. Schmidt
(Okla.) - Rep. Fallin
(Pa.) - Rep. Dent
(Pa.) - Rep. English
(Pa.) - Rep. Gerlach
(Pa.) - Rep. Platts
(Pa.) - Rep. Shuster
(S.C.) - Rep. Barrett
(S.C.) - Rep. Ingliss
(Tenn.) - Rep. Blackburn
(Tenn.) - Rep. Davis
(Tenn.) - Rep. Duncan
(Tenn.) - Rep. Wamp
(Texas) - Rep. Burgess
(Texas) - Rep. Conaway
(Texas) - Rep. Culberson
(Texas) - Rep. Gohmert
(Texas) - Rep. Hall
(Texas) - Rep. Marchant
(Texas) - Rep. McCaul
(Texas) - Rep. Neugebauer
(Texas) - Rep. Poe
(Texas) - Rep. Sessions
(Texas) - Rep. Smith
(Va.) - Rep. Drake
(Va.) - Rep. Goode
(Va.) - Rep. Goodlatte
(W.V.) - Rep. Moore Capito

http://www.numbersusa.com/interests/attrition.html
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