AZ Immigration Law Frustrates Business Owners

Chris Kahn
Associated Press
Jul. 19, 2007 04:06 PM

PHOENIX - After flipping through a thick binder of details on Arizona's new immigration law Thursday, Bruce Pavlikowski started to wonder whether it would eventually put him out of business.

The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, makes it a crime to knowingly hire illegal immigrants and requires businesses to verify the employment status of their workers. Anyone could put an employer under scrutiny by immigration authorities with a simple phone call, and this makes employers nervous.

"What if I have a falling out with someone? They can come in now and point out one of my employees and say Check that guy out. I think he's illegal,' " said Pavlikowski, who owns three Burger King restaurants in Flagstaff.

Pavlikowski and about 340 other business owners crowded into a hotel conference room to hear more about the employer sanctions law, which opponents say would have a sweeping effect on the state economy. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, illegal immigrants make up 10 percent of Arizona's work force.

Business leaders have called the law unconstitutional, arguing that it's the responsibility of the federal government to crack down on illegal immigration. Many also worry that they'll now have to defend themselves from false claims of hiring illegal immigrants.

"Everybody's afraid, and you can see why," said David A. Selden, a lawyer who spoke at the conference. "They don't want to be targeted."

Selden represents business groups that have lobbied against the law and asked a federal judge to block it with a preliminary injunction. Another group of businesses known as Wake Up Arizona! is considering proposing a ballot initiative to combat the state's efforts to crack down on illegal hiring.

"The people who passed this didn't think it through," Selden said.

Supporters of the law said the new rules were necessary because businesses that hire illegal immigrants are fueling Arizona's border woes and that the federal government hasn't done enough to enforce a federal law that already outlaws such hirings.

They also point out that the law would punish those who make frivolous complaints against businesses.

Gov. Janet Napolitano has brushed aside criticism from business leaders. She said some employers praise the law and that the business community "has not spoken with one voice" on the issue.

But the law's benefits were lost on Jim Davis, who owns a Phoenix company that manufactures construction components.

"It's a horrible law," Davis said as he walked out of the conference room. "I just think it discriminates against employees and employers."

The law requires all businesses to verify the employment eligibility of workers through a federal database. People who knowingly employ illegal immigrants could face a business license suspension lasting up to 10 days for a first offense.

Businesses that try to circumvent the ban will have their licenses suspended for 10 days. If they're caught a second time, businesses would have their licenses revoked permanently.

However, the law gives some legal protection to businesses that show they've verified the eligibility of workers through the federal records database.

Wake Up Arizona!


By Jacques Billeaud
ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 17, 2007

PHOENIX – A group of Arizona businesses began a public relations assault Tuesday to try to convince the public that a new law that prohibits the hiring of illegal immigrants will devastate the state's economy.

The group, known as Wake Up Arizona!, is considering proposing a ballot initiative to combat the state's efforts to crack down on illegal hiring.

Mac Magruder, a restaurant owner who chairs the group, said the law puts businesses that aren't hiring illegal immigrants in the position of enforcing an immigration law.

“To put it on the backs of the business community is like blaming the weather on the weather person,” Magruder said. “It's just absolutely ridiculous.”

Two weeks ago, Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the employer sanctions proposal into law, though she criticized certain elements. The law prohibits employers from knowingly or intentionally hiring illegal immigrants and requires them to verify the employment eligibility of workers through a federal database.

Violators could face a business license suspension lasting up to 10 days. Second-time violators would have their business licenses revoked permanently. The law takes effect in January.

Two other business groups filed a lawsuit last week challenging the law, contending that the state is intruding on the federal government's responsibility to enforce immigration laws.

An estimated one in 10 workers in the Arizona economy are illegal immigrants.

“(Some businesses) have been getting away with it for 20 years, not complying with the law,” said state Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, author of the law. “They are scared to death they will have to comply with the law.”

Pearce, who noted voters have voiced strong support for employer sanctions, said some businesses that offer work to illegal immigrants were fueling the country's immigration problems and were motivated by a reluctance to pay higher wages.

The lawmaker is among a group of advocates for tougher immigration enforcement who have begun an effort to bring a stricter employer sanctions proposal to Arizona voters next year. Under that measure, first-time violators would face the permanent revocation of their business licenses.

If the courts don't strike down the law as unconstitutional, Wake Up Arizona! said it may seek to put a competing proposal on the ballot. The group's leader said it's too early to specify the contents of such a proposal.

The group said its efforts were aimed at defending honest businesses and that the law will even hurt legal workers whose employers hire illegal immigrants.

It would be tough for a small business to survive a 10-day shutdown because of a violation, the group said.

“We do not believe that Arizona's working families should pay the price for mistakes made by the employers,” said Danny Hendon, owner of a car wash business.

Group members said the law will prompt complaints that will be based on the color of a worker's skin without any knowledge of whether the person is in the country illegally.

The group said the law won't cure Arizona's immigration woes and that lawmakers, in crafting the law, purposefully kept business leaders from learning details of the restrictions.

“I am very concerned about politicians that have shifted blame from themselves and their responsibility to solve this problem to businesses,” said Jason LeVecke, a restaurant owner who employs 1,200 people in Arizona.

Pearce said many businesses supported the law and the new rules provide a measure of legal protection for employers who use the database.

It also punishes those who make frivolous complaints and doesn't allow for allegations of illegal hiring based on race, Pearce said.

2. Immigration Bill: Five Fatal Flaws In The Senate Bill

Below is our analysis of the Senate's immigration bill, why it failed to pass, and some recommendations:

A) Procedure: Unlike last year's excellent Senate bill, see

http://shusterman.com/jun06.html#1

this year's bill was written behind closed doors, it was not considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee and there were no legislative hearings. As a result, the bill is a hodge-podge of provisions, some of them terrific, others terrible. We are great believers in the legislative system. Next time, let the Immigration Subcommittee and the Senate Judiciary Committee hold hearings, and iron out the kinks in the legislation BEFORE it reaches the Senate floor. Don't let the Administration write the bill beforehand. Remember what every applicant for naturalization needs to know: Congress writes the laws and the Executive Branch enforces the laws.

B) Enforcement: As an ex-prosecutor for the INS, I know that the present immigration laws are an unenforceable mess. The Senate bill sought to cure this by ratcheting up the penalties on employers of undocumented workers to a point just short of capital punishment. What the anti-immigrant crowd doesn't seem to understand is that the new harsher penalties will be no more effective than the present penalties. How many corporate CEOs are serving hard-time for hiring illegal aliens? Answer: Zero. Why won't the "new and improved" electronic employment verification system mandated by the Senate bill clear up the mess? Simple. Because the original employer sanctions law passed in 1986 spawned a huge multi-billion dollar fraudulent document industry. Employers are not permitted to look beyond the documents submitted to them. Savvy employers like the Swift Meatpacking company, seeking to insulate themselves from liability, voluntarily joined the government's "Basic Pilot" program where no one gets hired until Washington approves. Nevertheless, the government arrested over 1,000 undocumented workers during their raids on Swift a few months ago. Did the Swift execs get prosecuted? No, because they only hired employees who were pre-cleared by the government. Under the Senate bill, all employers would be forced to have their employees approved in advance by the government. A great solution? We think not.
Before we get tough on workplace enforcement, we need to have a national debate on the "sleeper" issue in this area: the creation of a National ID card with biometric features which must be carried by U.S. citizens and immigrants alike. Is this a smart way to enforce the law or is it the beginning of a "Big Brother" society? See an article entitled "National ID Cards, The Sleeper Immigration Issue?" (June 26) on our "Computer Professionals" page at


http://shusterman.com/toc-it.html#B

C) Guest Workers: If awards were given for the most impractical and unenforceable government program, the guest worker plan would win hands- down. Wrap your mind around this: The workers would come to the U.S. for two years, get trained, then return to their native countries for one year to get readjusted to living in poverty. Then they would return to the U.S. for two more years, return home for another year, come back to the U.S. for two more years and then be sent home for good. Does this sound workable to you? Suggestion: If there is going to be a guest worker program, the workers should be allowed to remain in the U.S. with full labor protections, and they should get a green card at the end of the program.

D) Legalization: Here's a great idea which the Senate bill makes too lenient and too harsh both at the same time! Under the legislation, someone who crossed the border illegally last Christmas would have qualified for a "Z" visa while someone who had been working legally on a temporary visa for the last seven years, who lives with his wife and kids, pays taxes, and owns a home, does not. Ridiculous! On the other hand, once it is determined who qualifies for a "Z" visa, what's the point of making them wait another 8-13 years to get a green card? And why should they have to return to their home countries and pay thousands of dollars? Why are we subsidizing foreign airlines and hotels? Do we really want the Immigration Service to spend millions of dollars to set up offices and house examiners in Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, etc.? And, for God's sake, how does the government expect gardeners, nannies and dishwashers to pony up thousands of dollars in fines and application fees?

E) The Points System: Who told the Senate to completely overhaul the legal immigration system in the same bill that deals with the undocumented? Granted the current legal system doesn't work optimally because demand outstrips supply: more people want to immigrate to the U.S. than the present quotas allow. No kidding? Last year's Senate bill would have raised the quotas to allow in people who the U.S. desperately needs: registered nurses, scientists, hi-tech workers, engineers, etc. If the Senators want to improve upon last year's bill, they could add a few more needed professions like school teachers. Instead, they junked the entire family and the employer-based systems and replaced them with what the head of the House Immigration Subcommittee dubbed a "Soviet-style" points system. She should know. Her subcommittee actually held a public hearing on the points system, and it doesn't work. We link to all House Immigration Subcommittee Hearings from our "Immigration Legislation" page at

http://shusterman.com/toc-leg.html#4

See the Subcommittee's hearing on the points system which took place on May 1st at

http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=304

Hit Man Pleads Guilty In Gang Slaying

American Teen's Admission Leaves Mexican Cartel's Secrets Intact

By JEORGE ZARAZUA
San Antonio Express-News
July 20, 2007

LAREDO — The trial of a teenage American assassin for one of Mexico's most powerful drug cartels abruptly ended Thursday when he pleaded guilty to murder, preventing further details of the cartel's operations in the U.S. from being revealed.

The plea agreement was reached before the start of the third day of testimony amid stepped-up security with extra deputies and police stationed around the Webb County Justice Center.

Rosalio Reta, 17, of Houston, agreed to a 40-year sentence in exchange for his confession to helping kill Noe Flores, 27, of Laredo. Prosecutors said gunmen of the notorious Zeta gang working for the Gulf Cartel mistakenly shot Flores multiple times Jan. 8, 2006, outside a family member's home.

Flores' half brother, Mike Lopez, was the intended target because he had angered a cartel leader over a woman, according to prosecutors.

State District Judge Joe Lopez approved the plea agreement, which carried the stipulation that Reta's attorneys could appeal the admissibility of a written confession entered into evidence.

As Reta, who continued to wear makeup to cover facial tattoos, was escorted out of the courtroom, he stared silently at investigators sitting in the audience, saying nothing. Investigators smiled back.

"The admission (of the written confession) basically didn't give us any chance of getting an acquittal in this case," said defense attorney Eduardo Peña. "He basically admitted he was the driver of the vehicle involved in this shooting."

Reta was the first Zeta defendant to request a trial, giving Webb County prosecutors an opportunity to publicly show how the Gulf Cartel was recruiting young men on the U.S. side of the border to protect their drug-trafficking operations.

Witnesses called to testify said they were afraid of retaliation and some expressed fear for their lives. Attorneys and investigators also reported receiving threats prior to this week's trial. On Wednesday afternoon, Reta was unexpectedly placed into solitary confinement amid unconfirmed reports of death threats against him.

A prosecution witness, a former Zeta gunman serving time on a federal illegal weapons conviction, gave detailed descriptions Wednesday of how the cartel established three groups of operatives in Laredo, paying them to perform various assignments, including buying cars for gang use and slayings.

Testimony on the cartel's inner workings was allowed despite repeated objections from Peña, who argued against any mention of the group's criminal history that might prejudice the jury.

Peña also tried unsuccessfully to keep Reta's confession out of evidence.

Reta gave his first confession statement to Laredo police on July 28, 2006, after being extradited from Mexico following his arrest there.

Mexican police say he was part of a group that bombed a Monterrey-area bar that killed four people and injured dozens of others.

Webb County Assistant District Attorney Jesse Guillen said he was satisfied with the guilty plea, adding Reta still faces a second murder trial in connection with the December 2005 killing of Moises Garcia in the parking lot of a Laredo restaurant.

Guillen said Reta is accused of being the triggerman in that killing, which also was a cartel-ordered hit.

jzarazua@express-news.net

Ruben Navarrette Jr.




A fresh voice on political and social issues who challenges readers to think in new ways. Editorial board member of The San Diego Union-Tribune. Twice a week. Also in Spanish.

Ruben appeared May 1 on CNN's "Paula Zahn Now" to discuss the recent immigration marches and the "w-word." Read the transcript here.

Ruben Navarrette Jr., a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union-Tribune, is a fresh and increasingly important voice in the national political debate. His twice-weekly column offers new thinking on many of the major issues of the day, especially on t***** questions involving ethnicity and national origin. His column is syndicated worldwide by The Washington Post Writers Group.

After graduating from Harvard in 1990, Navarrette returned to his native Fresno, Calif., where he began a free-lance writing career that produced more than 200 articles in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, The Fresno Bee, the Chicago Tribune and The Arizona Republic.

In 1997 he joined the staff of The Arizona Republic, first as a reporter and then as a twice-weekly columnist, before returning to Harvard in the fall of 1999 to earn a master's in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government. He joined the editorial board of The Dallas Morning News in July 2000, and in 2005, moved to the Union-Tribune. His column has been in syndication since 2001.

Navarrette draws on both his knowledge of policy and politics and his life experiences to provide meaningful and hard-hitting commentary. He is a gifted and widely sought speaker on Latino affairs, has worked as a substitute teacher in classes from kindergarten to high school, and has hosted radio talk shows. Navarrette has also served as guest host of public television's "Life & Times" and has discussed current affairs on CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel, National Public Radio and The PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer. He also does regular commentary for NPR's "Morning Edition."

His book, "A Darker Shade of Crimson: Odyssey of a Harvard Chicano," drew favorable reviews after it was published in 1993. In 2000, he contributed an installment to "Chicken Soup for the Writers Soul," of the best-selling "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series.

His columns won second place in the 2004 National Headliner Awards presented by the Press Club of Atlantic City. In 2002 and 2003, the Dallas Observer named him "Best Columnist at a Daily Newspaper."

Navarrette was born May 11, 1967, in the farm country of the San Joaquin Valley. He attended public schools in Sanger, Calif., a town of deep roots where all four of his grandparents lived. His father is a 34-year law enforcement officer in Fresno. Ruben Sr. recently became an investigator for the California Labor Commissioner's Office where he enforces fair labor practices in some of the very same grape fields and peach orchards where he and his brothers, along with his parents, worked in the 1930s and 1940s.

Navarrette lives in the San Diego area with his wife and daughter.

Minutemen Attacking Those That Are Different

By Ruben Navarrette
Union-Tribune
July 15, 2007

The people who call themselves the Minutemen claim to be a cross between a law enforcement auxiliary and a giant neighborhood watch program that patrols the border to stop illegal immigration.

If so, there goes the neighborhood. The Minutemen don't just construct their own reality. More and more, they account for their own reality show.

Members of the San Diego unit recently picketed St. Peter's Catholic Church in Fallbrook and held up an effigy of the parish priest, the Rev. Edward “Bud” Kaicher, depicted as the devil. According to one Catholic civil rights organization, the Minutemen used bullhorns to hurl invective at parishioners and taunted Hispanic children who were on their way to make their First Communion, telling them their parents were in the country illegally. Things got really crass when some of the border-watchers made references to the Catholic Church's ***-abuse scandal.

A posting on the group's Web site questioned why, “with all the pediphelia (sic) problems going on in the church,” the clergy would promote a situation where you “have 50 loitering men watching little children playing on the playground each morning.”

What got the Minutemen's sheets in a twist? Father Kaicher tried to help workers find employment by allowing the church to serve as a day laborer pickup site. This put Kaicher and the Catholic Church in the crosshairs of the civilian patrol movement, elements of which have morphed from being anti-illegal immigrant to anti-immigrant and just plain anti-Hispanic. And now, anti-Catholic?

That is the view of the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which recently jumped into the fray on the side of Father Kaicher and condemned the San Diego Minutemen for their “flagrant anti-Catholic bigotry.”

In a harshly worded statement, Catholic League President Bill Donohue insisted that there are legitimate ways to express an opinion, but that this wasn't one of them. “By succumbing to anti-Catholic bigotry and harassment,” he said, “the San Diego Minutemen have discredited their cause and have no moral grounds upon which to make their appeal.” This group and their tactics, he said, should be opposed “not only by Latino Catholics, but by all Catholics.”

Here is something else that should concern all Americans: the fact that what apparently motivates many of these Minutemen to take up a vigil in the desert or protest in front of a big-box store where day laborers gather is a fear that these immigrants are trying to – in the words of Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project – “colonize” the United States by changing the cultural landscape.

We used to say that those who believed this sort of thing were racist or nativist. Those labels still fit. According to videos posted on Web sites such as YouTube, the Minutemen have harassed U.S.-born Hispanics and demanded they “go back to Mexico,” and accused Mexican-American police officers of being in league with illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Lately, these citizen patrol groups have turned their attention to employers. In Vista, a Superior Court judge recently blocked a public records request by a group calling itself the Vista Citizens Brigade – an offshoot of the Minutemen – which sought the names, addresses and phone numbers of 111 people who have registered with the city for permission to hire day laborers.

Judge Michael Orfield said he “would have some concerns as to what would happen with that information.”

You think?

OK, so these border bullies aren't fond of immigrants or Catholics or employers. No surprise there. They don't even seem all that fond of each other. Individuals associated with various Minutemen groups around the country have publicly feuded, sued one another and traded accusations ranging from harassment to mismanagement to embezzlement.

Gilchrist was fired by the Minuteman Project's board of directors and accused of running off with hundreds of thousands in donations from private citizens. Gilchrist denied the accusation and sued the board to win back control of the group. Meanwhile, he's set up his own offshoot called “Jim Gilchrist's Minuteman Project.”

It all brings back memories of another group with a colorful past. They preyed on the weak and powerless. They targeted immigrants and Catholics, and anyone else who was different. Their pictures are in history books, waving the American flag and holding rallies. Still, it's hard to know much more about these folks. You can't see their faces. You know, with the hoods and all.

Navarrette can be reached via e-mail at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.






Attacking Those That Are Different

Kimble: Basic Pilot Program Way Off Course

MARK KIMBLE
Tucson Citizen
07.19.2007

It sounds like such a simple way to fight illegal immigration by taking away the lure of work.

Before hiring someone, type his or her name in a computer, and find out if he or she is here legally.

Look at what Google knows about you. How difficult would it be to set up a database to answer one question: legal or not?

That's what Arizona legislators were thinking when they passed an employer sanctions bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Janet Napolitano.

Under the law, which takes effect Jan. 1, any employer who twice knowingly hires an illegal immigrant is permanently put out of business.

How to know if someone is here legally? Simple. The law requires all Arizona employers to use the federal government's Basic Pilot program.

But Arizona employers who want to know what they're getting into should look at the problems encountered by Swift & Co., the nation's third-largest meat producer.

Swift employs 15,000 people in the United States, operating seven plants in seven states. Because illegal immigration has long been a problem in the meat industry, Swift tried to get out in front of the problem.

In 1997 - although it was not required by federal or state laws - Swift signed on to the government's Basic Pilot program. Each potential employee was required to present documents from among those on a federal list proving identity.

In most cases, this was a driver's license and some other document. There are 29 authorized forms of identification, and it is up to the potential employee to decide what to present. It is illegal for the employer to ask for different documents.

In 2001, after Swift had been using Basic Pilot for about four years, the company was sued by the federal government.

The company wasn't accused of hiring illegal immigrants; in fact, just the opposite. It was accused of going too far to determine if workers were legally permitted to work here.
The feds demanded $2.5 million from Swift.

After protracted legal wrangling, Swift settled the case for less than $200,000 without admitting wrongdoing. Swift has $9 billion in annual sales, so the $200,000 settlement was not overly burdensome.

But to a small Arizona company that goes too far in trying to verify a worker's ID, that would be a crushing amount.

Swift's problems didn't end there. In December, federal officers raided six Swift production facilities and detained 1,282 employees suspected of being illegal immigrants.

A Swift vice president who testified before Congress said the raids cost the company more than $30 million in lost work. And the feds have yet to charge any current or former member of Swift management with wrongdoing.

Swift couldn't win: First it was sued for being too aggressive in determining identities, then it was raided for allowing illegal immigrants to slip through the process.

There are many other well-documented problems with Basic Pilot.

● As the name implies, it was intended to be a pilot or test program. Right now, about one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation's businesses use Basic Pilot. By Jan. 1, all 130,000 Arizona business must be added - about 13 times the total nationwide usage now. There is doubt Basic Pilot can handle such rapid growth.
● Basic Pilot tells an employer the person with that Social Security number is permitted to work. It doesn't say if many other people are using the same Social Security number at the same time. And it can't tell if the person presenting that number is the one it is assigned to.
● The employer is prohibited from running the employee through the program before hiring. It must be done within three days after hiring. If there are problems with the worker's documents, he or she must be fired.
● There are errors. Even with relatively few business now using Basic Pilot, the government admits that about 1 in 20 inquires produces a wrong answer. Businesses that use it say that it's actually closer to 1 in 7.

Those most likely to benefit from Arizona's law are lawyers. There will be claims filed if employers are too aggressive or if they're not aggressive enough.

If an employee legally in the country is wrongfully fired because of a Basic Pilot error, the employer will be sued.

Swift was caught in the Basic Pilot net, and it is a massive multinational company with a huge human resources department and a platoon of lawyers.

How will you fare, beginning Jan. 1, if you run an Arizona landscape company or a farm or a small motel?

Mark Kimble appears at 6:30 p.m. and midnight Fridays on the Roundtable segment of "Arizona Illustrated" on KUAT-TV (Channel 6). He may be reached at mkimble@tucsoncitizen.com and 573-4662.

Pair of Mexican Wolves To Be Removed From Wild

July 21, 2007
SPRINGERVILLE, Ariz. (AP) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to permanently remove two Mexican gray wolves from a pack in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in northeastern Arizona.

Officials want to remove the wolves, part of the Mexican Gray Wolf Reintroduction Program in New Mexico and Arizona, because of four incidents in which the pack preyed upon sheep, according to an agency news release.

The wild-born pack, known as the Paradise Pack, is made up of six adult and yearling wolves and an unknown number of 2-month-old pups. The agency says removing two of the older animals should successfully stop the pack from preying on the sheep.

"Permanent removal is always a tough call, but these decisions are made collaboratively by everyone involved in the project," Benjamin Tuggle, the agency's Southwest regional director, said in a statement. "In this case, we all agreed that it would be in the best interest of the pack members remaining in the wild to conduct this permanent removal action."

Once the wolves are removed from the wild, they will not be released.

Currently, the pack is being monitored and live trapping efforts are under way. Supplemental feeding stations should draw the animals away from existing sheep grazing areas.

"It is important to move quickly and alter their current feeding behavior," Duane Shroufe, director of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, said in a statement. "Additional incidents could require the permanent removal of the entire pack, which would not be a positive step for the reintroduction project."

The reintroduction of the Mexican wolf to the wild is a cooperative, multi-agency effort by the Wildlife Service, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, and the White Mountain Apache Tribe, among others.
---
On the Net:

Mexican Gray Wolf Reintroduction Program: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/es/mexicanwolf/

Foster Program For Immigrants Criticized

By LYNN BREZOSKY
The Associated Press
Saturday, July 21, 2007

BROWNSVILLE, Texas -- The strip mall storefront of International Educational Services opens up into cheerful offices and classrooms decorated with American flags. Open a classroom door, and dozens of smiling children look up from their workbooks for a heavily accented group "good morning."

The children are illegal immigrants, and all but one are from Central America. In the afternoon, they will go to foster homes, where they will live until they can be united with a "sponsor" _ a parent, relative or family friend within the United States.

The International Educational Services, Inc. is shown Thursday, July 19, 2007,in Brownsville Texas, as a van drops off children at the entrance. The service takes care and placement of illegal immigrant children in foster homes where they live until they can be united with a "sponsor," a parent, relative or family friend within the United States. (AP Photo/Joe Hermosa) (Joe Hermosa - AP)

It's a better scenario than they would have faced in the past, when children caught crossing the border were locked up like adults. But critics say the majority will eventually fade into the nation's illegal immigrant subculture, easily becoming lost in a maze of homeland security and social service agencies.

In fact, 68 percent of the juveniles never appear in court, according to a 2004 analysis by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Carl Rusnok said it was up to the sponsor to bring children to their proceedings.

"This is fraud-prone and this is an inducement to illegal immigration," said Don Barnett, a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies. "There's no question that smugglers are totally aware of this program and know how to use it."

Barnett found that some children are being turned over to non-relatives because their blood relatives are illegal immigrants who fear being deported if they present themselves.

Smugglers are telling parents to separate from the children once they cross the Rio Grande, he said. Even if they are caught by the Border Patrol the children are all but guaranteed to be in a safe, comfortable home within a day or so and placed with a relative or friend within a few weeks or months.

The parents can meanwhile seek "voluntary departure," which means they can leave without a deportation order on their record _ which would prohibit them from entering the United States within the next 10 years and subject them to jail time if they are caught. They can then try to qualify for a visa or attempt to sneak in again.

If they were caught together, the entire family would be detained at one of the federal government's new family facilities, such as the T. Don Hutto facility in Taylor that has been criticized for prison-like conditions. There would be no chance of avoiding removal proceedings.

Sandra De La Garza, lead case manager at the International Educational Services foster program, said she had heard of families purposely breaking up to avoid Hutto. And staffers said there was no doubt the smugglers and immigrant families knew about their agency.

Children at the Brownsville facility seemed upbeat about the whole process, saying they were happy at their temporary homes.

One, a 13-year-old from Honduras, said she thought the journey was fun.

The foster care programs emerged from the 1997 settlement of Flores vs. Reno, a class-action lawsuit against the former Immigration and Naturalization Service. The suit argued it was wrong for children caught by the Border Patrol to be treated punitively like the adults.

Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which abolished INS and created the Department of Homeland Security, the care and placement of illegal immigrant children was transferred to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Children would fall under the purview of social service and not federal law enforcement officials.

The International Educational Services, Inc. is shown Thursday, July 19, 2007,in Brownsville Texas, as a van drops off children at the entrance. The service takes care and placement of illegal immigrant children in foster homes where they live until they can be united with a "sponsor," a parent, relative or family friend within the United States. (AP Photo/Joe Hermosa) (Joe Hermosa - AP)

"The government felt DHS was doing it from a legal authority perspective," said Teresa Brooks, an Office of Refugee Resettlement official responsible for overseeing immigrant foster care programs in the Rio Grande Valley. "They're law enforcement, and that's the way they are."

International Educational Services, which is a nonprofit agency, is one of more than 30 under contract with the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Since January, the agency has received $5 million in federal money for two foster programs and the detention center where ***** are housed a few miles away in Los Fresnos.

Foster parents are reimbursed for costs of feeding their charges and ensuring they experience "environment" _ which can mean trips to parks and malls. All homes are equipped with cribs for the many teenage girls arriving with babies or in advanced pregnancy. Eventually the children will be on their way to a relative or family friend's home _ somewhere on the felt map of the United States that hangs in the agency's hallway.

"We don't have contact with them after that," Brooks said. "It's up to the sponsors to see that they attend court sessions to see if they can stay or not."

Kathleen Walker, a longtime immigration lawyer based in El Paso, said such programs should be embraced for treating children like children rather than prisoners.

She said the government had records of every sponsor and should have no problem following up on cases.

"In this case you have citizens and legal permanent residents providing you with all kinds of information about where they are and where the person is going to be. So if there's a problem it's not like ICE can't go and do something," she said.

"I think what we're trying to do is be humane," she said. "Is the objection here that we want to make sure that children are behind bars and behind concertina wires?"

Jobs In Los Cabos Rival Those In United States

Web Posted: 07/21/2007 01:14 AM CDT

Angela Kocherga
KENS 5 Border Bureau

Many people come to the United States for higher wages and better opportunities, but there's also a place in Mexico where there are so many good-paying jobs, people who once immigrated are staying home.

The La Vista housing development in Los Cabos, Mexico, is named for its stunning view of the Pacific Coast.

The project's developer, Juan Muciño, says the demand for homes in Los Cabos is so high, he's had to bring in workers from other parts of Mexico.

But there are not just any jobs. The pay at the La Vista project is triple the rate in the rest of Mexico, and about the same as the United States, according to one former undocumented immigrant.

He said he went in search of the American dream and was deported, so now, he's building a new dream in Mexico.

"I think Los Cabos is a Mexican dream to workers, to investment, to everybody who wants to work here in Los Cabos," Muciño said.

Much of this Mexican Dream is paid for by U.S. dollars. Developments like La Vista are designed to appeal to the growing number of Americans who want to vacation or live along Mexico's Pacific Coast, and all those dollars pouring in are what's behind the Los Cabos boom.

And there's no sign of slowing down. Good paying jobs are so plentiful, women are working in construction.

Construcion in Los Cabos is only expected to grow. The resort area plans to add thousands of upscale hotel rooms in the next few years.

Comment: Mexico needs legislation to ensure press freedom

Web Posted: 07/20/2007 06:10 PM CDT
Joel Simon and Carlos Lauria

The recent decision by the San Antonio Express-News to temporarily remove its border correspondent from its Laredo bureau was a judicious move. The paper temporarily withdrew reporter Mariano Castillo after a U.S. law enforcement source warned that an unspecified American journalist was on the hit list of a Mexican criminal group.

In the current context of rampant violence, the threat must be taken seriously.

Mexico's powerful drug cartels have repeatedly targeted Mexican journalists, fueling a culture of self-censorship particularly along the border. Despite a constitutional mandate to safeguard freedom of the press, Mexico's federal government has done little either to protect journalists or ensure the free circulation of information.

The recent threat shows that U.S. journalists are not immune to the dangers of reporting on drug trafficking, but Mexican journalists have borne the brunt of the violence. The number of killings has spiraled as cartels battle it out over lucrative smuggling routes. Mexico now rivals Colombia as the most dangerous place to practice journalism in Latin America.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists research, 18 journalists have been murdered in Mexico since 2000, six of them in direct reprisal for their work. Meanwhile, five journalists have gone missing since 2005. Three of them were covering crime stories.

Though the drug wars are particularly acute along the U.S.-Mexico border, violence has spread to almost every Mexican state in the past year. Organized crime-related executions have increased 10 percent since President Felipe Calderón took office seven months ago, said Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora. This year has been devastating: More than 1,300 people have been killed in drug-related crimes.

One of the most damaging consequences of this climate of terror is the fear it creates among different sectors of Mexican society. Scores of reporters and numerous outlets are engaging in self-censorship for fear of retaliation.

In late May, the Hermosillo-based daily Cambio de Sonora suspended publication after two bomb attacks and repeated threats in a one-month period. In the central state of Michoacán, five dailies abstain from any reporting on crime, the news magazine Proceso reported this week. In the lawless border city of Nuevo Laredo, identifying drug traffickers by name is off-limits.

Sensitive issues such as drug trafficking, crime, corruption, human rights abuses and other problems that affect the daily lives of ordinary people are not being covered. The absence of a profound debate over issues of public interest is seriously affecting the health of Mexico's democracy.

Although the right to free expression is guaranteed by the Mexican Constitution, thousands of citizens are not able to exercise this right for fear of physical retribution. This unprecedented wave of violence goes beyond the press: It is actually inhibiting the ability of Mexicans to communicate with each other.

The federal government recognized violence against the press as a national problem when it created a special prosecutor's office to investigate crimes against the media in early 2006. But there have been no successful prosecutions partly because murder and assault are state crimes and the federal government has no jurisdiction to intervene. And recent statements by the prosecutor's office downplaying the threat to press freedom are deeply discouraging.

President Calderón can help fulfill his constitutional responsibility by proposing legislation making it a federal crime to conspire to deprive Mexicans of their right to freedom of expression. Such legislation would give the federal government the legal tools it needs to protect the work of the press.

Joel Simon is executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Carlos Lauría is senior program director.

Update From Akiko

Dear Friends in US

I have yet not received my passport back from U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. I am expecting to hear from them sometime this week. And I should be able to give you more information .

U.S. Embassy charges fee to the phone calls and even to the e-mails who have questions about Visa. Before you talk to anyone when you make a phone call, you will be asked for your credit card information. It is operated by Telemarketing Japan, and you will get information about how to file, what to file, what is your status, and all those questions. The fee is 1,500 yen ($15) per call and we can speak with an operator for up to 15 minutes.

I asked a operator for his name when I call last time. he said it is a personal information is not allow to let caller to know. Well.....this is where I got a information from 9 years go for my K-1 Visa. the beginning of night mare.

If I don't hear from U.S. Embassy by the end of next week, I will call and find out what is the status of my case.

My Japanese friend said interesting thing to me the other day.

When I wrote everyone " I'm going home."
I wrote one to my Japanese friends, too.
The way I wrote in Japanese was " Akiko is going back to her country"

She said...."it makes sense, not about your Nationality, but where you have your family, and have a house, is your country. And it is not Japan for Akiko....."

Anyway, I had a phone interview yesterday with Pacific Citizen, Los Angeles CA. The story will be in the next issue, and I will be sending you the link when it comes online. The interviewer, I spoke with on the phone has her father immigrated from Nagano.

The school Leo attends here in Japan will go into the three and a half weeks Summer break from next Thursday. Since Leo is not going back to the school after the Summer, he will have only three days left to see his friends. I was not sure at the beginning, but it ended up, was truly a good idea to send Leo to the pre-school. He now learned some children's songs, had music festival last week, sung and played music with his classmates on the stage. Especially walking to and coming back to the home from school everyday for 20 minutes each way, was great excise, and built him a healthy body. He had no illness while he was here in Japan since January.

By the way, through my pregnancy and labor delivers with our boys, I've having serious back and hip pains for a long time. Since January I had thought about going to a chiropractor so many times, and finally knowing that I am leaving Japan soon, I decided to meet someone, was refereed from