June 29, 2007, 7:02PM

Mexicans see hypocrisy in U.S. immigration bill defeat

By LISA J. ADAMS
Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Opinion makers and migrant advocates in Mexico said today that the collapse of U.S. immigration reform plans is a loss for Mexican workers, U.S. employers and anti-terrorism efforts.

U.S. President Bush's plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border collapsed in the U.S. Senate on Thursday.

"This is very bad news for Mexican migrants in the U.S.," said Jorge Bustamante, special rapporteur to the human rights commission for migrants at the United Nations and former president of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte in the city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California.

"It means the continuation and probably a worsening of the migrants' vulnerable conditions."

The Rev. Luis Kendziersky, director of "Casa del Migrante," a shelter for migrants in the city of Tijuana across the border from San Diego, California, said it appeared senators "are focused more on the political game than on the real needs of the people."

"According to polls, the majority of the people (in the U.S.) want legality with concessions for undocumented migrants, but the radicals make a lot of noise," he said. "They are afraid of approving a comprehensive migratory reform that at the end of the day would help the American society."

Editorials in Mexico's major newspapers said the Senate action was hypocritical.

"It's obvious that the politicians of that country want laborers, but they are not willing to legalize the labor that they need," declared an editorial in the national daily newspaper El Universal, whose front page headline announced that the U.S. had "buried" immigration reform.

Migrants "will continue to be subjected to extraordinary means of discrimination," the editorial said, adding that maintaining "this subculture of illegality" in border crossings also does nothing to aid the United States' fight against terrorism.

An editorial in the left-leaning newspaper La Jornada called the decision a "triple shipwreck" — a failure for the Bush administration, the United States and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who unlike his predecessor, Vicente Fox, did not push Washington on the issue.

"The most powerful country on the planet will have to continue living, for many more months, with the scandalous contradiction between its laws and the real needs of its economy, thirsty for cheap labor to guarantee the international competitiveness of its exports, especially in agriculture."

Fox made immigration reform with the United States his top priority when he took office in 2000.

That dream dissolved when the Sept. 11 terror attacks turned Bush's attention to strengthening security at home.

In the wake of Fox's failure to revive the issue, Calderon has spoken in favor of a reform, but refrained from engaging the U.S. on the matter, instead focusing on what Mexico should do at home to strengthen its economy and stem the flow of its workers north.

Calderon did speak out forcefully, however, against the 700-mile (1,130 kilometers) fence Congress approved to increase security on the U.S. border with Mexico.

On Thursday, Calderon called the Senate's decision a "grave error" and a failure to find a "sensible, rational, legal solution to the migration problem."

Authorities on both sides of the border estimate that more than 11 million Mexicans live in the United States, as many of 6 million of them illegally.

"It is very sad what has happened and that we have to now wait three or four more years to find a solution," Father Kendziersky said, referring to the unlikelihood that the U.S. will tackle the issue in 2008, an election year. "During this time how many more families will be divided, how much more suffering will have to occur?"

But not everyone in Mexico was disappointed by the death of the bill, which would have creating a system to weed out illegal workers from U.S. jobs.

Al Rojas, spokesman for the Front of Mexicans Abroad, an advocacy group for Mexicans living in the U.S. and other countries, said the law "would have imposed prejudices, treating migrants like criminals and judging them."

"We didn't think the law lived up to what migrants deserved," he said in a telephone interview. "Faced with a bad law, we preferred that they approved nothing."

———

Associated Press writer Istra Pacheco contributed to this report.

The U.S. economy "could not prosper or advance without the labor of both Mexican and Central American migrants."

EDUARDO VERDUGO: AP
June 29, 2007, 1:19AM

MEXICO'S REACTION Defeat called a 'grave error' President says Senate encourages illegal immigration

By DUDLEY ALTHAUS and MARION LLOYD
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Mexico City Bureau

MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon of Mexico blasted the U.S. Senate's rejection of the immigration bill on Thursday, calling the senators' action "a grave error" that avoided a "sensible, rational and legal solution."

"It's a mistake," Calderon said. "First, because it's a problem that's not being confronted. And with this evasive action the U.S. Senate is making it worse.

"Secondly, by closing the door on legal immigration, the only thing the Senate does is open the door to illegal immigration."

Calderon, appearing at a joint news conference with the visiting President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, said he continues to oppose a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border that was approved by Congress last year. Some 370 miles of fencing will be constructed by 2008, about 153 miles inside Texas. Another 400 miles would be built later.


Calderon 'more realistic'
More than a tenth of Mexico's 110 million people now live in the U.S., many illegally.

As the United States has beefed up border security, people from Mexico and Central America have opted for new — and often perilous — ways of making it across.

On Tuesday, U.S. agents manning a California border checkpoint discovered three Mexican emigrants hiding out inside a truck engine. One of them, a woman, was admitted to a hospital after suffering severe burns from the running motor, according to newspaper reports.

Calderon has placed less emphasis than his predecessor on lobbying for changes in U.S. immigration law, partly, analysts say, out of concern about getting burned.

Former President Vicente Fox's relationship with President Bush soured over Mexico's refusal to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the failure to work out an immigration agreement with Washington.

"Fortunately, Calderon has been more realistic," said Rafael Fernandez de Castro, a Mexico City-based foreign affairs analyst. "He's put fewer eggs in the immigration reform basket and it's not so costly for him and his diplomacy."


Negative impact forecast
However, Fernandez said the failure to move ahead with the reform would have a "very negative impact" on U.S.-Mexican relations, calling immigration "a huge stone that's complicating the relationship in other areas."

The topic of immigration was also part of talks between Calderon and Ortega, who agreed to work together to guarantee "the full respect for migrants' human rights," according to a joint statement.

Ortega, a one-time Marxist president of Nicaragua following that country's 1970s leftist revolution against a U.S.-backed dictator, was in Mexico City to strengthen ties with Mexico and to visit the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The Nicaraguan president had vowed to make the pilgrimage if he won election this year, which he did, returning to power 17 years after being voted out of office.

Nicaraguans account for relatively few of the Central Americans migrating illegally to the United States. Most come from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. But hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans have migrated to Costa Rica for work.

Calderon has been working to repair ties with the rest of Latin America that had become frayed under Fox.

Like his predecessor, Calderon is a political and economic conservative.

He argues that the opportunities offered by the 13-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement can only be fully realized with a freer flow of labor between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

"The American economy could not prosper or advance without the labor of both Mexican and Central American migrants," Calderon said.

dudley.althaus@chron.com; marionlloyd@gmail.com

Sen. Edward Kennedy, right, appearing at a news conference Thursday with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said the immigration overhaul effort is not going away. "We will be back," he vowed.

SUSAN WALSH: ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 29, 2007, 2:07PM

Senators looking to pick up pieces After overhaul bill collapses, work starts on smaller plans

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Even as the Senate dealt a likely fatal blow to President Bush's push to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, some Democrats and Republicans began talking about trying to pass narrower, less ambitious pieces.

Empowered by Thursday's 46-53 vote that effectively killed a bipartisan compromise bill dismissed by many conservatives as amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, many Republicans now are reverting to their key priority: increased enforcement at the Southwest border and in the U.S. interior.

And Democrats, for their part, are considering offering the DREAM Act, which would grant citizenship to illegal immigrant students. And they are looking at ways to address acute labor shortages in agriculture by bringing in more foreign farm workers and placing them on a path to legal permanent residence.

"We have to have a different approach," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said shortly after the Senate fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to keep the tenuous immigration deal alive. "It's clear from the vote that this bill was not the right approach."

Hutchison, who was among 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and one independent voting to shelve the bill, is pressing for what she calls a "graduated approach."

Under her concept, Congress would first pass bills increasing border security and creating a temporary worker program to fill unmet U.S. labor needs before turning to the most controversial aspect: What to do with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Fellow Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who also opposed the bill, agreed. "The one thing we have a consensus on that we need to do is to secure the border and to deal with the document fraud and identity theft that makes our current system so hard to enforce," he said.

But the political and legislative pressures that brought Democrats and Republicans to the table to craft a "grand bargain" on immigration could doom any effort to pass tailored bills. With any immigration legislation needing bipartisan support to get through the narrowly divided Congress, Democrats could block enforcement-only legislation if their concerns are not met, or Republicans could tank any Democratic effort to liberalize legal immigration.

"It will be comprehensive if it's ever done. It will be bipartisan if it's ever done, and it will take political courage," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

It was a day of high drama and deep disappointment for backers of the compromise, which collapsed after weeks of legislative intrigue.

"We will be back," said Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, the bill's lead Democratic architect. "This issue is not going away. And we will ultimately be successful."


A 'grand bargain'
Others were far less optimistic, saying the door appears slammed shut until after the 2008 elections.

"It's time to get real," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., a leading champion of the deal. "I don't see where the will is there for this issue to be resolved."

Bush, at a low ebb in clout with Congress, also offered no sign that he'd seek to revive his chief domestic policy priority. "A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn't find a common ground. It didn't work," a grim-faced president said in Newport, R.I.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, dispatched by Bush to Capitol Hill for weeks of endless bargaining sessions to develop the bill, was equally glum. "I'm disappointed about the fact that there were some necessary tools, which we needed to be able to do more than we can currently do in enforcing the law, that were left on the floor of the Senate today," Chertoff said.

In the end, a bill that was fully embraced by no one and criticized by just about everybody imploded amid entrenched conservative opposition, distrust between both parties and the sense that too many compromises had to be made to keep the deal together.

The so-called "grand bargain" knitted together three major concepts: legalization for most illegal immigrants, with significantly beefed-up border and interior enforcement, and a temporary worker program to bring in 200,000 workers annually. It also proposed a historic reordering of legal immigration, de-emphasizing the decades-old focus on family reunification in favor of bringing in the more highly skilled.

While the business sector, organized labor, immigrant-rights groups, religious institutions and others preached the need for a comprehensive fix addressing all aspects of a dysfunctional immigration system, very few offered full support for the bill. And they lobbied to modify many of its key underpinnings.

Their muted support was countered by a campaign by conservative grass roots, amplified by a vocal talk-radio campaign, pressuring senators with waves of calls, e-mails and letters to kill the bill.

"Every day we took a pounding," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who helped write the legislation. "About 20 percent of the population came alive very strongly against the bill."

While the senators' inaction doesn't tie the House's hands, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made no commitments Thursday to bring up the issue — which could expose deep rifts in her own party and expose vulnerable House Democrats to tough votes.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat who chairs the House immigration subcommittee, went further than Pelosi in making it clear that House action is not in the cards.

"The Senate," Lofgren said, "voted for the status quo, and its inability to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform effectively ends comprehensive immigration reform efforts in the 110th Congress."

michelle.mittelstadt@chron.com

Sessions gets his way as immigration bill fails Senator's stand popular among Alabama GOP
Friday, June 29, 2007
By SEAN REILLY
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- As U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions cheered on the defeat of a bipartisan immigration bill Thursday, he could be confident that Alabama Republicans were also applauding. Calls from constituents were lopsidedly against the measure, according to a tally provided by his office, and a top official with the state GOP said he believed that rank-and-file Republicans overwhelmingly opposed it as well.

Elsewhere, the reaction may be more muted.

Earlier this week, several party activists in Western states said the hard-line stance of Sessions and other lawmakers on immigration issues was undercutting efforts to woo the fast-growing Hispanic population.

"I think it hurts us tremendously," said Gilberto Cisneros, chairman of the Colorado chapter of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, a Washington, D.C.-based outreach organization. In the course of the last two election cycles, Republicans have lost control of the Colorado governor's office and both houses of the General Assembly, defeats that Cisneros attributed in part to Hispanic voters veering Democratic.

Not everyone agrees, and Sessions, R-Mobile, said in a Tuesday interview that "we have to do what's right for America."

Risk for GOP?

But the tension underscores what some see as a growing divide between the demands of today's Republican voters and the demographic realities surrounding the party's long-range future. Although the consequences could take years to play out, the risk to the GOP is "huge," said Rodolfo Espino, a political scientist at Arizona State University.

On Thursday, Sessions and U.S. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, both voted with the majority effectively to block further action on the immigration legislation, which would have coupled tighter border security with a plan to put the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S. on a path to citizenship if they meet certain conditions. The failed 46-53 vote in favor of limiting debate likely means that the bill is dead.

Throughout weeks of discussion, Sessions had been one of the measure's harshest critics, labeling it "a disaster" that would do little to halt the flow of illegal immigration.

At a news conference just after Thursday's vote, he struck a more conciliatory note, calling for "a real, fair and compassionate solution to people who've been here for many years illegally but have got deep roots here. ..."

Already, however, Republicans are giving back some of the gains made in the last presidential campaign, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll released Thursday, although it's unclear whether immigration is the biggest cause.

In the 2004 election, President Bush, who backed the bill, drew around 40 percent of Hispanic votes, exit polls indicated. Now, Democrats enjoy almost a four-to-one advantage in party affiliation, the survey showed.

And in a hypothetical matchup between the two parties' leading contenders, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York trounced former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani among Hispanic voters by a 66-27 percent margin.

Already the nation's second-largest ethnic group, Hispanics are also the fastest growing. Between 2000 and 2050, the number of U.S. residents with roots in Mexico and other Latin American nations will roughly triple from 35.6 million to 102.6 million, according to U.S. Census Bureau predictions. In 2000, about one in every eight Americans was Hispanic. By 2050, the projected ratio will be closer to one in four.

How quickly those growing numbers will add up to increased political power, however, is less certain. Only citizens can vote, meaning that millions of both illegal and legal residents are currently unable to cast ballots.

In Arizona, for example, Hispanics now make up almost one-third of the population, but represent about 10 percent of registered voters, Espino said. And because they tend to be working-class and preoccupied with family matters, they are also a hard group for both Democrats and Republicans to reach, he added.

In the Tuesday interview, Sessions said he did not see the Hispanic vote as monolithic.

"I think most Hispanics want an orderly system of immigration," he said. "As long as people are treated fairly and equitably, their vote will be for whoever the best person is."

Espino agreed -- up to a point. Hispanics are focused on fixing the problem, he said, and may also back tighter border security. But where their pride "gets really hurt," he added, is when Hispanics as a group are cast as law-breakers. Whether this year's debate generates any fallout in next year's congressional and presidential elections depends heavily on whether Democrats and Hispanic groups choose to make it an issue, Espino said.

"It's too early to tell."

Although the ranks of Hispanics in Alabama are growing rapidly, they still make up barely 2 percent of the state's population, according to the most recent Census Bureau estimates.

In voting against the bill, both Sessions and Shelby defied state business and farm lobbies that supported a provision to create a legal guest worker program. Thursday's vote also came exactly a week after Bush headlined a $1,000-per-person fundraiser for Sessions in Mobile.

But constituent sentiment appears to have been running heavily in the other direction.

Out of roughly 1,800 calls to Sessions' state and Washington, D.C., offices this week, all but about 30 were in opposition to the bill, spokesman Stephen Boyd said via e-mail. Approximately half the callers were from Alabama, with the remainder from out of state, he said.

Although the Alabama Republican Party has not conducted any polls, Executive Director John Ross said Thursday that he believed "the large majority" of state Republicans also oppose the Senate bill.

And while hotels, construction contractors and other businesses say they need immigrant workers to make up for a shortage of native-born labor, Shelby was skeptical. Before embarking on any major changes, the federal government should first focus on ensuring that existing immigration laws are being enforced, he said in a conference call with reporters after Thursday's vote.

"And then we could go to another step."

Hopes dashed for many immigrant workers Millions had hoped passage of immigration bill would lead to normal lives

U.S.-born Stephanie wipes tears from her face after speaking with journalists about the fear she feels of losing her mother as she stands in front of the U.S. federal courthouse in Miami, Fla., Oct. 4. Stephanie's mother, Marta, is one of 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S.

Bush disappointed by immigration reform vote
June 28: President Bush says that he is "sorry the Senate was unable to reach an agreement" on the immigration reform bill.

Updated: 12:36 p.m. PT June 29, 2007
PHOENIX - For day laborers seeking work in a sun-baked parking lot on Thursday, defeat of President Bush's plans for an immigration overhaul has set back their dreams of a normal life.

The bill, which sought to give legal status to many of the 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, failed to get enough support in a make-or-break vote in the Senate.

Workers standing around in searing heat outside a building materials store in Phoenix said hopes of an aboveboard life in this country of immigrants had crashed following news of the morning vote.

"Bush wanted to do something good, but the Senate wouldn't let him. It's disappointing," Miguel Gonza***, 37, who has been in the United States for five years, said in Spanish.

"I have heard nothing but proposals and more proposals since I arrived ... but they all get thrown out for one reason or another," the Mexican national added with a shrug.

Bush has sought an overhaul of U.S. immigration laws for years and this bill may have been his last chance for a significant domestic legislative victory before leaving office at the end of his second term in January 2009.

It tied tough border security and workplace enforcement measures to a plan to legalize illegal immigrants and create a temporary worker program sought by business groups.

For Juan Carlos Esquivel, 36, a day laborer from Mexico City with a wife and three children, the defeat made no sense.

"There's work to be done, we want to do it, and now we can't. So how can that be a victory?" he said, standing in the shade of a mesquite tree in a straw sombrero. "Everybody loses, and the economy will suffer."

'We're trash to them'
Bush was unable to overcome fierce opposition from fellow Republicans who said the measure would reward an estimated 12 million immigrants for taking up residence in the United States illegally.

In Los Angeles, Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony, a key supporter of immigration reform on the West Coast, expressed regret about the Senate's decision.

"Without reform, our current system will continue to permit the exploitation of workers, the separation of families, and will handicap efforts to secure our nation's borders," he said in a statement

Janet Napolitano, the Democratic governor of the border state of Arizona, said she was "sorely disappointed" by the Senate's failure to act on the issue.

"By leaving it unattended, Congress is shirking its responsibility to not only Arizona, but the entire country," she said.

Back in the parking lot, where the temperature hit 107 degrees in the shade, day laborer Bonifacio Sosa said the Senate's move would keep him on the margins of society and on the run from police.

"We are illegals, we are just trash to them, and we'll just have to carry on here in the shadows hiding from everyone," said Sosa, 58, who has raised four children since arriving in the United States 14 years ago.

"I have neither a voice or a vote, except when I pay fines or taxes," he added as traffic roared by in the street.

June 30, 2007, 1:30AM

Shortage of new immigrants blamed for surge of killings East Coast cities that lack an influx of hardworking newcomers see violent crime soar

By MARYCLAIRE DALE
Associated Press

East Coast homicide corridor PHILADELPHIA — Baltimore, Philadelphia and other cities in a bloodstained corridor along the East Coast are seeing a surge in killings, and one of the most provocative explanations offered by criminal-justice experts is this: not enough new immigrants.

The theory holds that waves of hardworking, ambitious immigrants reinvigorate desperately poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods and help keep crime down.

It is a theory that runs counter to the widely held notion that immigrants are a source of crime and disorder.

"New York, Los Angeles, they're seeing massive immigration — the transformation, really, of their cities from populations around the world," said Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson. "These are people selecting to go into a country to get ahead, so they're likely to be working hard and stay out of trouble."

It is only a partial explanation for the bloodshed over the past few years in a corridor that also includes Newark, N.J., and Boston, but not New York City.


Confluence of factors
In interviews, homicide detectives, criminal justice experts and community activists point to a confluence of other possible factors.

Among them: a failure to adopt some of the innovative practices that have reduced violence in bigger cities; the availability of powerful guns; and a shift in emphasis toward preventing terrorism instead of ordinary street crime.

Philadelphia is losing one resident a day to violence, recording 196 homicides through the third week of June. That is slightly ahead of the total at this point in 2006, a year that ended with 406 homicides, the most in almost a decade. On the first day of summer alone, six people were killed in Philadelphia in three street shootings.

In Newark, the homicide toll has soared 50 percent in four years, from 68 in 2002 to 106 in 2006. Baltimore had 140 slayings as of June 10, up from 122 the same time last year. Boston had 75 homicides in 2005, a 10-year high, and 75 in 2006. So far this year, there have been at least 30 slayings.

Some cities "never bothered to institute the reforms, policies and programs that impacted violent crime because they felt immune from what they saw as big-city issues," said Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University in Boston. "Now they're paying the price."

These efforts include limiting gun purchases, suing rogue dealers and deploying officers more strategically, based on crime data analysis.


Disrespect and cynicism
Others blame a resigned acceptance of "quality-of-life" crimes, such as running red lights and vandalism. Some law enforcement authorities argue that ignoring such crimes breeds disrespect and cynicism and leads to more serious offenses.

The vast majority of U.S. homicides — nearly 90 percent in Newark last year — involve guns. And they are more powerful than ever. The weapons of choice are semiautomatics that can spray dozens of bullets within seconds.

"We're seeing 40, 45 shots," said Richard Ross, Philadelphia's deputy police commissioner. In one recent killing, "I think they fired 20 shots into him. That's remarkable."

Some cite a drop in federal aid for ordinary law enforcement in favor of homeland security spending. According to Ross, federal grants used mostly for police overtime in Philadelphia fell from more than $4 million in 2002 to about $1 million last year.

The number of police officers per capita has fallen 10 percent since 2000 in cities of more than 225,000, according to Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox. Yet post-Sept. 11 fears, especially in Boston, have forced police to monitor government buildings and transportation hubs while also watching for street crime, he said.

"We've shifted our resources from hometown security to homeland security," Fox said. "We have left relatively unattended the poor and powerless who face violence every day and hear gunshots every night."

University of Pennsylvania criminologist Lawrence Sherman is a prime exponent of the theory that immigration exerts a moderating effect on crime among poor black men.

"Cities that have heavily concentrated and segregated African-American poverty are the places that have increases in homicide," Sherman said. "The places that have lots of immigration tend not to have nearly as much segregation and isolation" of poor blacks.

Sherman acknowledges the theory is evolving and unproven.

"The fundamental driver of the homicide rate is honor killings among young black men," Sherman said. "What is it about immigration that tends to tone it down? I don't think we know the answer to it."

He said immigrants "change the spirit" of a community and affect the way young black men in poor areas relate to each other.

"It seems a plausible way to account for the big difference in the trajectory of homicides" in stagnant cities versus ones with lots of immigration, he said.

The percentage of foreign-born residents is 11 percent in Philadelphia, compared with 22 percent in Chicago, 37 percent in New York and 40 percent in Los Angeles, according to 2005 census figures.


Victims, not perpetrators

Alison Sprague, executive director of Victim/Witness Services of South Philadelphia, suggested there is some merit to the theory. Immigrants in Philadelphia tend to be crime victims rather than perpetrators, she said.

"I really do think the vast majority of people are trying to earn a living and support their families and stay under the radar," Sprague said. Illegal immigrants, especially, "have every motivation not to get involved in something."

Dorothy Johnson-Speight of Philadelphia, whose 24-year-old son was shot to death over a parking space in 2001, doesn't buy it.

"If there were more immigrants in the city of Philadelphia, there would be less violence? I'm not making the connection here. I'm not getting it," she said.

In New York, city leaders have pushed through strict gun-control laws while attacking social ills such as littering and loitering. New York's homicide toll has plummeted to one-fourth its 1990 high of 2,245. The count could slip below 500 this year.

Just across the Hudson River, in Newark, the poverty and employment picture remains grim. Unemployment hit 18 percent in 2004, and 27 percent of families live in poverty. New York's unemployment rate, by contrast, was 4.9 percent in May.

"The second-tier cities have fewer economic possibilities for people," said Arlene Bell, a former prosecutor who now runs youth centers in Philadelphia. "When there are no opportunities for kids growing up, no possibility of entering the work force — particularly with their level of education — they're left to their own devices."

June 30, 2007, 1:24AM

Immigration battle is moving to states Local laws could widely vary from punishment to 'sanctuary cities'

By DAVE MONTGOMERY
McClatchy-Tribune

WASHINGTON — The collapse of congressional efforts to overhaul the nation's immigration laws is expected to dramatically accelerate an effort by state and local governments to take matters into their own hands to deal with the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants.

The result, advocates on both sides of the issue say, could be a patchwork of laws and ordinances with vastly different approaches, ranging from measures harshly penalizing illegal immigrants and their employers to the spread of "sanctuary cities" that prohibit police from questioning suspects about their immigration status.

"There's going to be a barrage of local laws dealing with immigration policy," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a leading sponsor of a White House-backed immigration bill that stalled in the Senate this week. "In some areas of the country, it will be sanctuary. In other areas of the country, if you look at someone who looks illegal, you can lose your business license."

Senators voted 46-53 against a procedural motion Thursday to move toward a final vote on the bill, effectively killing — at least for now — a years-long push to repair what's long been assailed as a broken immigration system. The outcome dealt an embarrassing defeat to President Bush, who's made overhauling immigration law his top domestic priority.

Frustrated over what they perceive as federal foot-dragging, state and local governments already have been stepping up with remedies, a trend that's almost certain to escalate in the void Congress left.

"If Congress is going to abdicate its responsibilities, then states and cities are going to jump in," said John ***, the senior vice president of the National Restaurant Association and the leader of a business coalition that backed the failed Senate bill. "One of the arguments for opposing state and local proposals is that Congress is addressing it. We don't have that anymore."

As of April, state legislators in all 50 states had introduced at least 1,169 bills and resolutions on immigration this year, more than twice the number introduced last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many fell by the wayside but others made their way into law, underscoring the public's growing intolerance of federal inaction.

Oklahoma lawmakers recently enacted a law that cuts off illegal immigrants' access to driver's licenses and many government benefits. A six-month-old Colorado law prevents employers from hiring illegal immigrants and requires them to affirm the legal status of employees.

Cities and towns also have gotten into the act. Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb, drew national attention by enacting an ordinance that bans landlords from renting to illegal immigrants; the ban is being challenged in court. The town council of another Texas community — Oak Point, northwest of Dallas — narrowly approved a resolution declaring English the official language.

Other states and municipalities have displayed a more welcoming atmosphere. In the Cuban-American stronghold of South Florida, two cities and Miami-Dade County have embraced resolutions calling on the federal government to stop deporting undocumented immigrants.

Thirty-two cities and counties in 16 states — including Houston, San Francisco, Austin and Seattle — have adopted "sanctuary policies" protective of undocumented immigrants, according to the Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress.

With congressional leaders predicting that there'll be no federal action on immigration at least through the rest of Bush's presidency, conservative lawmakers in more than half the states are readying legislation to crack down on illegal immigration and enable local officers to enforce immigration laws.

SPECIAL REPORT: Collier sheriff, feds try to curb immigrant jail population

By Ryan Mills
naplesnews.com
Saturday, June 30, 2007

They’re in there, but nobody knows for sure who they are.

A snapshot of the Collier County jail population taken in January showed that as many as a quarter of the jail’s 1,150 inmates are self-admitted illegal immigrants. Some staff members believe the actual number could be closer to 33 to 35 percent.

“Obviously it makes it easier if they say ‘I’m here illegally,’” said Capt. Christopher Freeman, who works in the jail. “I guarantee there are people who are not telling us they’re illegal. I don’t know what the number is.”

Through the years, the Collier County Sheriff’s Office has done its best to identify and remove criminal aliens from its jails, officials said. For instance, from the beginning of January to the beginning of May, 74 criminal aliens have been transported out of Collier jails to federal detention lockups for deportation, Chief of Corrections Scott Salley said.

But even that is not enough to adequately free up space in the jails.

“We can’t keep up with demand,” Salley said. “The supply is so huge that we need additional resources.”

Those additional resources are on the way, officials now say.

Within the past six months, the Collier Sheriff’s Office has been establishing a new partnership with the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) that officials believe will make it easier to identify criminal aliens, develop cases against them and ultimately remove them from the jail and from the country altogether.

The new programs are designed to make Collier jails a “one stop — one drop” program for identifying and deporting the worst of the worst criminal aliens, Salley said.

“The most dangerous and high risk will be the priorities,” Salley said. “The murderers, the gang members.”

Collier Sheriff Don Hunter briefly discussed the new programs with the Collier County Public Safety Coordinating Council on June 18.

The first, the Criminal Alien Program — or CAP —is a federal program under the Detention Removal Office designed to identify criminal aliens who are booked into the jail and ensuring they aren’t released into the community by securing a final order of removal before the end of their sentence.

About two months ago, ICE agents based in Fort Myers began working out of the Collier County jail and performing CAP functions as part of the agency partnership.

There are three ICE agents now working in Collier County, but by this time next year Salley said he expects to have seven ICE agents regularly working out of the jail.

Their role is to use their skills, as well as federal computer systems and databases, to identify illegal aliens in the jail, review their information and develop cases against them.

Instead of relying on names, which can be confusing and easily falsified, officials now are relying more and more on advanced fingerprint systems and biometrics, Salley said.

“Biometrics is improving every day,” Salley said. “Everything from iris scans to capillary action in the palm of your hand or DNA.”

The paperwork to simply place an immigration hold on a criminal alien can take anywhere from three to six hours, Freeman said. Because of the sheer immensity of the problem, the Sheriff’s Office is planning to train 24 of its deputies and corrections officers to perform the immigration functions necessary for CAP.

“We feel that the ICE agents are going to be a strong partner, but they can’t do it alone,” Salley said. “The short term is to help us out here, but they have other obligations. We will, in time, be able to perform these functions with our staff.”

Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows state and local law enforcement agents to investigate, detain and arrest aliens on civil and criminal grounds if the agents have received the proper training. The 24 local deputies have been identified and will receive training in the coming months, Salley said.

When the training is complete, the deputies will have earned the security clearance to use federal computer systems and databases. The ICE computer systems are in the process of being installed in Collier jails, ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonza*** said.

Ultimately, the sheriff’s deputies will be supplementing the ICE agents, Freeman said.

“They (federal officers) can’t be here 24-7 and we are here 24-7,” Freeman said. “The ultimate goal is to get the active criminal aliens ... to get them out of our country. If the sheriff is able to provide the personnel and immigration is able to provide the training and support, then it’s a no-brainer.”

The training under 287(g) will allow jail staff to know who is entering the jail at any time, day or night.

“At 3 o’clock in the morning, when someone gets arrested, we’re going to know who they are,” Freeman said.

Arresting and identifying illegal immigrants is all well and good, but they can’t be deported until they’ve had their day in court. Giving them their day in court soon will be much easier after the Sheriff’s Office establishes an Executive Office for Immigration Review in the jail.

The immigration review office, which is within the U.S. Department of Justice, presides over immigration cases involving detained and criminal aliens.

The Sheriff’s Office already has identified and configured a room in the jail that meets ICE standards for hearings and appeals. ICE icons have been installed as a backdrop. The jail also has a 52-bed wing specifically for criminal aliens, Salley said.

Monitors have been set up so federal judges presiding over immigration cases can conduct hearings from Miami or other locations, Salley said.

The room is ready for use, officials said, and hearings most likely will begin by sometime in August.

“What’s interesting about this particular partnership is they are going to be establishing this teleconference technology,” Gonza*** said. “We do have that capability in certain detention facilities where we contract space. Here this is going to be for the criminal aliens that are incarcerated in Collier County.”

Until the immigration review office is established, officials will have to continue to get transportation orders before moving identified criminal aliens back and forth to Miami for hearings.

The combination of the CAP, the 287(g) training and the immigration review office make the Collier County jail unique, Freeman said.

“There is no other jail that I know that has everything that we have,” Freeman said.

It is important to tackle the problem of illegal aliens in the jail before the problem gets too big to handle, officials said.

As it is, the cost to house and feed illegal immigrants in the county jails adds up to $9,042,444 per year, Hunter told the safety council. And that doesn’t count the costs for judges, juries, prosecutors, public defenders and other court-related costs, he said.

“The important thing for our taxpaying citizens to know is the benefit of identifying illegal immigrants serving time is really going to reduce the tax burden,” Gonza*** said. “If you have a final order ready, you can deport them rather than transport that person to an ICE facility to then begin the deportation proceedings. ... It’s a great situation for not only ICE, but for the fiscal burden that is reduced.”

Criminal aliens who are removed from the jail are transported to the Krome Avenue Detention Facility in Miami-Dade County or to a new 400-bed facility opening this month in Moore Haven. Both are ICE facilities.

“We don’t care where they deport them,” Salley said. “We want to open up a cell bed for a naturalized citizen. ... The amount of money we are paying for people who are not even supposed to be here is astounding.”

Jail officials said that while 74 criminal aliens removed for deportation in five months is a good start, they are confident they will be sending more away in the coming months.

“I imagine those numbers are going to significantly increase when these programs get going,” Freeman said.

State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP)

FY 2006 SCAAP Payment List
FY 2007 SCAAP Guidelines (PDF)
FY 2007 ICE Country Codes (PDF)
FY 2007 Inmate Data File Format (PDF)

FY 2007 SCAAP Funds

The application period for FY 2007 SCAAP funds is now open. All applications must be submitted via the OJP online Grants Management System (GMS). Applicants must complete the GMS registration process by 8:00 pm e.t. on July 11, 2007. All completed applications must be submitted by 8:00 pm e.t. on July 18, 2007.

Overview: BJA administers SCAAP, in conjunction with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). SCAAP provides federal payments to states and localities that incurred correctional officer salary costs for incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens with at least one felony or two misdemeanor convictions for violations of state or local law, and incarcerated for at least 4 consecutive days during the reporting period.

NEW! Use of SCAAP Awards: The Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-162, Title XI) included the following requirement regarding the use of SCAAP funds: "Amounts appropriated pursuant to the authorization of appropriations in paragraph (5) that are distributed to a State or political subdivision of a State, including a municipality, may be used only for correctional purposes." Beginning with FY 2007 SCAAP awards, SCAAP funds must be used for correctional purposes only. Jurisdictions receiving SCAAP awards will be asked to report the projected use of these funds at the time the award is accepted.

Reporting Period: The reporting period for the FY 2007 application period is July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006. Only qualifying inmates who served four or more days during this period may be included in the FY 2007 SCAAP application.

Eligible Inmates - Applicant Responsibilities:Unless otherwise prohibited, applicants may submit records of inmates in their custody during the reporting period who: were born outside the United States or one of its territories and had no reported or documented claim to U.S. citizenship; were in the applicant's custody for four or more consecutive days during the reporting period; were convicted of a felony or second misdemeanor for violations of state or local law; were identified and reported using due diligence.

Due Diligence
In preparing the inmate data files of persons meeting the eligibility criteria for SCAAP, jurisdictions shall use due diligence to determine the accuracy of the inmate records and related claims submitted to BJA, and they shall not submit an inmate record if the jurisdiction knows or has reason to know that the information is false or that the inmate does not qualify.

Jurisdictions shall not submit inmate records for an otherwise qualifying inmate where the jurisdiction's records indicated the inmate: (1) was born in the United States or one of its territories, (2) had a claim to U.S. citizenship, (3) was a U.S. citizen, or (4) did not qualify as an undocumented criminal alien in accordance with the SCAAP statute.

Qualifying Criminal Charges and Convictions: To be eligible for reporting, inmates must have been convicted of a felony or second misdemeanor for violations of state or local law, and housed in the applicant's state or local correctional facility for 4 or more consecutive days during the reporting period. Once a person meets these criteria, all pre-trial and post-conviction time served from July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006 may be included in the FY 2007 application.

Qualifying Salary Data: Salary information reported in the SCAAP application must reflect the total salaries and wages paid to full-and part-time correctional officers and others who meet the SCAAP definition (see the FY 2007 SCAAP Guidelines). The reported sum should total the jurisdiction's actual salary expenditures for the applicable reporting period (July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006). The reported salary should not be a projection, estimate, or average. Correctional Officer salary costs may include premium pay for specialized services (e.g., bilingual officers), shift differential pay, and fixed-pay increases for time in service. Salary costs may also include overtime required by negotiated contract, statute, or regulation (e.g., union agreements, contractual obligations, minimum staffing requirements, etc.).

Legislation: SCAAP is governed by Section 241(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1231(i), as amended, and Title II, Subtitle C, Section 20301, Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Public Law 103-322.

Funding: SCAAP payments will be calculated using a formula that provides a relative share of funding to jurisdictions that apply and is based on the number of eligible criminal aliens, as determined by DHS.

Eligibility: States and units of general government that have authority over correctional facilities that incarcerate or detain undocumented criminal aliens for at least 4 consecutive days are eligible to apply for SCAAP funds. The phrase "states and units of general government" encompasses the 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the more than 3,000 counties and cities with jail facilities. All applications must be filed in the name of the state or unit of government.

Only government officials from applying jurisdictions may establish OJP GMS user accounts, and only the Chief Executive Officer or appropriate designee may complete the application certifications and submit the SCAAP application via GMS.

How/When to Apply: FY 2007 applications are being accepted in the OJP Grants Management System (GMS) from June 4, 2007 through July 18, 2007.

Related Information:
FY 2005 SCAAP Award Information
SCAAP Archive Information


Contact Information:
Written Inquiries:
Linda Hammond-Deckard
SCAAP Program Manager
Bureau of Justice Assistance
810 Seventh Street, NW.
Washington, D.C. 20531


Direct Phone Support:
Technical assistance is available Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. eastern time, via the SCAAP Helpdesk at 1-202-353-4411.

For assistance with the GMS login, call 1-888-549-9901 Option 5.

E-Mail Inquiries:
Program and Policy Issues-SCAAP Inquiries: scaap@usdoj.gov
GMS Login Issues-GMS Helpdesk: gmshelp@ojp.usdoj.gov
Banking Issues-OC Customer Service Center: AskOC@ojp.usdoj.gov

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