IMMIGRANT FAMILY FIGHTS TO BEAT THE ODDS
SISTERS VOW TO GRADUATE, JUST AS THEIR BROTHER DID


By Jason Wermers
jwermers@news-press.com
Originally posted on August 19, 2007

Alexia Ramirez is well aware she doesn't face the best odds of succeeding.

The 14-year-old, who lives in the Manna Christian RV Park in Bonita Springs, will begin her ninth-grade year at Estero High on Monday.

She knows of friends like herself "” immigrants "” who have not made it through high school, succumbing to pressures of drug abuse or to the call to work to support the family.

But she has an example to follow. Her 18-year-old brother, Luis, graduated from Estero last spring.

The family emigrated from Matamoros, Mexico, first to Texas, then to Lee County, seven years ago.

Luis and Alexia learned English in Lee County schools. Alexia was beneficiary of bilingual teachers in second and third grades.

She already is starting to lend a hand to immigrant children coming up behind her. She has served as a volunteer tutor at New Horizons Super Kids Club in Bonita Springs for children who speak little or no English.

"The little kids are learning at a young age so they can succeed later in life," Alexia said. "I like teaching people something, but mostly the little kids."

Michelle Ramirez, 11, followed in her older siblings' footsteps. She is about to enter fifth grade at Spring Creek Elementary, the same school her sister attended. And because she was not yet in school when the family arrived in the United States, she learned English at home from Luis and Alexia.

"I was scared my first year," Michelle said. "I didn't know anybody."

But she made friends. And her teachers helped her master English.

"They've done well," she said of her teachers. "They helped me a lot in school."

Sergio and Josefina Ramirez work to support their children. Sergio is a construction worker; Josefina cleans a clubhouse at a nearby apartment complex.

Luis Ramirez is setting his sights on earning a college degree. Alexia and Michelle hope to follow his example.

Alexia said she wants to become an English for Speakers of Other Languages teacher in the United States. Michelle would like to be a social worker in Mexico when she grows up.

"It's good," Alexia said of the Lee County school system. "They taught me a lot more stuff that I wanted to know than when I was in Mexico."

Lidia Avila, Claudia Avila-Lopez and Diane Bennett listen as speakers at a rally describe raids on suspected illegal immigrants in Columbia, Tenn. (JOHN PARTIPILO / THE TENNESSEAN / FILE)



RAIDS PROMISE TO MAKE BAD IMMIGRATION SITUATION WORSE

TODAY'S TOPIC: CLOSING IN ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Tennessean.com
Our View
08.21.07

The fear level is running high in Maury County after a series of raids on trailer parks to arrest suspected illegal immigrants.

In May, Maury County Sheriff's Department deputies and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents entered a home at Countryside Village and arrested 24 people, all Hispanic. Fourteen of the suspects have since filed suit against Maury County Sheriff Enoch George and Department of Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff (Homeland Security oversees ICE), alleging that the officers entered the home illegally, without warrants, and that they singled out the suspects based on their ethnicity.

Some of the arrestees also say they are in the U.S. legally. George has not commented on the lawsuit, and an ICE spokesman said that suspects are arrested if they cannot immediately prove they are here legally.

More raids took place in June and July in Maury County. In all, about 80 people have been deported. The lawsuit has been amended to include subsequent raids. And while some of these arrestees certainly should not have been allowed to remain, a volatile atmosphere has set in, and county and federal officials should consider calling a halt to these raids. The collateral damage of such a strategy is too great.

Sheriff George has said that in the May raid, officers were investigating a gun case when they uncovered evidence that the others were undocumented immigrants. That does not explain why the further raids were conducted, unless they were purely to root out cases of illegal immigration, and not of violent crimes.

If there is no suspicion of guns, drugs or foul play, it is hard to understand why authorities could not request documentation individually, and work with community agencies and the church community to handle the situation calmly and in such a way that there would be no question that individuals were treated fairly.

Instead, the raids carry a perception of political show, to satisfy the strident voices claiming that illegal immigrants are stealing jobs and committing crimes against U.S. citizens. And, indeed, the Bush administration said earlier this month that it would step up enforcement of immigration laws because Congress failed to pass the president's immigration reform plan.

With more than 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, massive raids and sweeps are a risky approach. Not only will legal immigrants get unfairly caught up in the justice system, simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and could not prove their citizenship on the spot; also, the fear emanating from news of the raids will drive many immigrants into hiding.

The U.S. Census Bureau noted as much last week, when it asked that federal agents suspend raids during the upcoming census count, knowing that they can't get an accurate count when ICE officers are also knocking on doors to deport people.

Ultimately, though, the key issue is fairness. It is hoped that the Maury County raids were, indeed, conducted appropriately. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that all people, not just citizens, be free from illegal searches and seizures.

The notion that all undocumented immigrants are guilty until proved innocent goes against what this nation stands for.

AIDING MEXICO KEY TO HALTING MIGRANT TIDE

The Arizona Republic
Aug. 19, 2007 12:AM

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that in 1999 about 968,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States, and a conservative estimate says that there are 8 million illegal immigrants currently in the country. That is a huge problem that the country faces, but an even larger problem for the people of Arizona because the majority are coming from Mexico, with which we share a border.

I'm not going to address the question of what to do with the immigrants already residing in the country; instead, I'm going to propose measures that I think should be taken to drastically reduce the flood of new immigrants.

Since the issue has suddenly become prime-time news, the question for Arizona policymakers is what to do about this problem. Do we support President Bush's proposal to build a wall? I think there is a more-productive and less-insulting answer.

To find the elusive answer, you must first ask a question. Why do people give their life savings to be smuggled across a border, an invisible line?

They do this because they want a chance at the American Dream, to live in the wealthiest country in the world and have their own chance at financial success. A typical Mexican worker will make one-tenth the salary of his illegal Mexican-American counterpart.

The problem is obvious, as is the solution. Arizona must take steps to improve the economic conditions in Mexico by encouraging statewide businesses to invest there and by pressuring the national government to adopt a policy similar to the Marshall Plan that was used to rebuild Western Europe after World War II.

Arizona has already taken positive steps in this direction with its involvement in the free-enterprise zone that extends 90 miles into the interior, which has been created to help promote American investments. This program has granted corporations that build factories in this zone a significant tax break and has given many otherwise unemployed people a steady income.

I think that this program should be expanded so that the free-enterprise zone extends 200 miles into the interior so that the program will positively affect other cities besides the border towns. Corporations need a greater incentive to build factories in this zone, so I believe Arizona should increase tax cuts and give the companies incentives to build more factories.

However, for corporations to qualify for these tax reductions, they must pay all their employees at least a minimum wage of $5 an hour.

This is a compromise because the wage is lower than the U.S. minimum wage, but it ensures that all workers will make a living wage similar to what they might make in America. Hopefully, these conditions will be enough of an incentive for these people to work in Mexico instead of risking illegal immigration.

While the actions that Arizona can directly take are vital, I don't believe they will stop even a small percentage of the illegal immigration. To truly combat illegal immigration, Arizona lawmakers need to pressure the national government to take a more-comprehensive stand against illegal immigration by adopting a plan like the Marshall Plan that applies to all of Latin America.

Currently, the United States is spending $7.3 billion annually on border patrol and is projected to spend well over $8 billion on a state-of-the-art border fence. A more-sensible solution would be to redistribute those funds toward an economic-aid program that would benefit all Latin America because many of the illegal immigrants are actually coming from other Latin American countries through Mexico.

Another viable option that Arizona lawmakers could propose, which would make an immediate impact, is to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement to include all Latin America. The North American Free Trade Agreement made a significant economic impact on Mexico, and it has also been very beneficial for the United States. Why can't it work with all of Latin America?

Illegal immigration is obviously an ongoing and ever-increasing problem for Arizona, but I believe with careful evaluation of the problem and implementation of some version of these two proposals, meaningful progress can be made to stem the problem.

I understand that putting up a fence is the easiest and most-visible way to address the issue, but it isn't solving the root problem. It's like trying to plug the holes in a sinking ship. Instead, we need to throw these sinking Latin American countries a life preserver.

This essay by Dawson Thomas Rauch, a recent graduate of Fountain Hills High School, earned an honorable mention in the Young Steward of Public Policy Scholarship Award Program by the Morrison Institute for Public Policy.

THREE AMIGOS LAUNCH SUMMIT TALKS AMID PROTESTS

Norma Greenaway, Richard Foot and
Andrew Thomson, CanWest News Service
Published: Tuesday, August 21, 2007

MONTEBELLO, Que. - Arctic sovereignty, border security and the war in Afghanistan topped the agenda as the three North American leaders began their summit meeting Monday against the backdrop of stubborn protests and concerns about the threat of Hurricane Dean sweeping toward Mexico.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper greeted U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon at the heavily fortified Chateau Montebello, an aging luxury resort on the banks of the Ottawa River. The serene scene was out of sight of angry clashes between protesters and police, and Harper blew off reports of their activities.

"I've heard it's nothing," he commented to reporters over his shoulder as he waited to greet the U.S. president. "A couple of hundred? It's sad."

The prime minister then ushered Bush inside for a private meeting as Secret Service personnel pulled parts of a presidential bicycle from a golf cart and carried them into the lodge. Bush and Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, also on hand for the summit, later took a spin around the grounds on their bikes.

--- Meanwhile, outside the gates of the luxury compound, riot police used tear gas, pepper spray and plastic bullets to quell protesters rallying against North American integration.

Hundreds of Surete du Quebec, RCMP and OPP officers, armed with batons, shields and gas masks faced a belligerent faction of the more than 1,000 protesters on site. Many protesters took direct hits to their eyes, staggering back for medical attention. In response, protesters in gas masks, goggles and balaclavas hurled rocks, tomatoes, and bottles filled with stones at the police.

Five police officers suffered minor injuries. Two men and two women were arrested.---

Video of the outside events was played on two monitors inside the lobby of the chateau, but a Canadian official said the prime minister had barely had time to glance at it.

In their private meeting, Harper and Bush discussed Canada's efforts to assert its sovereignty over the Northwest Passage. Harper specifically mentioned comments on the weekend by Paul Cellucci, a Bush-appointed former U.S. ambassador to Canada, that the Northwest Passage should be considered part of Canada. The U.S. insists it is international waters, but a Canadian official said after the meeting that the U.S. president "took note" of Cellucci's comments on the issue.

On Afghanistan, Canadians officials said Harper restated his position that the Canadian military mission in the war-ravaged country would not be extended without parliamentary consensus.

The two leaders also talked at length about security concerns at the border. They are expected to announce an agreement today that is aimed at finding ways to keep people and goods flowing across the border in the event of a crisis.

Hanging over the two-day summit were mounting worries about the toll hurricane Dean, which already devastated Jamaica overnight Sunday, might take as it headed toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and possibly on to the U.S. mainland. In a sign Calderon may leave earlier than expected, he and Harper rushed to hold their bilateral meeting before their dinner with Bush. The Canadian and Mexican leaders had been scheduled to continue their talks on Wednesday.

The Canadian government has offered up to $2 million in immediate relief to countries hit by the hurricane.

The Mexican president and his family spent the weekend at the prime ministerial summer retreat at Harrington Lake, Que., with Harper and his family in what officials described as a typical cottage weekend of swimming, boating and sing-songs around a campfire.

They also celebrated Calderon's 45th birthday with a cake.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters aboard Air Force One the president was being kept abreast of developments with hurricane Dean, getting repeated updates on its potential effect on Mexico and Texas.

The summit has been a source of angry protests for weeks, primarily because of the three leaders' plan, conceived in 2005, to try to more closely integrate the security and commerce of the continent. The process is known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

Opponents in all three countries have denounced what they say are secret negotiations over everything from energy trade to border security that they say as an assault on their respective countries' sovereignty.

The three leaders had their first trilateral meeting of the summit at a working dinner Monday evening inside an opulent mansion on the Montebello property that normally operates as a heritage museum.

The Canadian-themed menu included appetizers of smoked duck and seared scallops, followed by rack of Nunavut caribou with cranberries, plus pralines, English cream and red berry coulis for dessert.

Earlier in the day, Harper arrived at sunny and warm Montebello about an hour ahead of Bush, who was met at the Ottawa airport by Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean.

His scheduled 15-minute private meeting with Jean turned into a 30-minute chat in the government terminal, after a U.S. Marine collapsed on the tarmac while standing guard at one of the president's waiting helicopters. The unconscious guard was treated on the asphalt, then carried into an ambulance on a spinal board before Bush boarded his helicopter for the quick flight to Montebello.

At Montebello, the leaders were moved around the grounds in a motorcade of golf carts, some decorated with Canadian flags.

Protesters were supposed to be kept far from the leaders' private talks at two staging areas about two kilometres away. But many, armed with banners and painted signs, gathered on the main road through Montebello that passes the hotel complex. They were met there by a wall of riot-equipped police officers. Montebello's main roads were closed by police soon after most of the protesters - estimated at about 1,000 people - arrived at noon Monday.

Faced with police resistance, most front-line protesters opted for an impromptu sit-in. Others began dousing their bandannas with vinegar in anticipation of tear gas attacks.

Dozens of journalists from the three countries were packed into the resort's curling rink, and given only minimal access to the leaders.

The three leaders will meet today with the North American Competitiveness Council, a collection of 30 CEOs and corporate chairmen, 10 from each country. The independent body was created under the SPP to advise leaders on how best to strengthen North American integration.

The Canadian members of the council, each appointed by Ottawa last summer, are Dominic D'Alessandro, of Manulife Financial; Paul Desmarais Jr., of Power Corporation; David Ganong, of Ganong Bros.; Richard George, of Suncor Energy; Hunter Harrison, of Canadian National; Linda Hasenfratz, of Linamar Corp.; Michael Sabia, of Bell Canada; Jim Shepherd, of Canfor Corp.; Annette Verschuren, of The Home Depot, and Richard Waugh, of Scotiabank.

Council members from the three countries will release a report to the three leaders, showing what progress has been made so far on the SPP, and what still needs to be done.

Critics say the council is proof that the three governments are only consulting big business, and ignoring everyone else, in their pursuit of closer economic and security ties.

With files from Jack Aubry, Ottawa Citizen

© CanWest News Service 2007

ICE



Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrest a suspect during a pre-dawn raid in Santa Ana, Calif., in this file photo from Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007. The Census Bureau plans to ask immigration enforcement officials to suspend raids during the 2010 census to help improve accuracy in counting illegal immigrants. (AP Photo/Mark Avery/File)

U.S.: CENSUS WON'T DETER IMMIGRATION RAIDS

By Stephen Ohlemacher
Associated Press Writer
August 18, 2007

WASHINGTON --Immigration officials sharpened their message a day after being coy about whether they would agree to halt enforcement raids during the 2010 census. "We won't entertain any request to scale back our efforts," Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Kelly Nantel said Friday.

Census officials had planned to speak with immigration agents about curbing enforcement during the population count, the Census Bureau's second-ranking official said in an interview earlier this week.

Raids during the population count would make an already distrustful group even less likely to cooperate with government workers who are supposed to include them in the headcount, Deputy Director Preston Jay Waite had said.

When asked Thursday if the immigration enforcement agency would consider suspending raids during the census, spokeswoman Pat Reilly said, "If we were, we wouldn't talk about it."

"We're an investigative agency," she added. "We don't talk about how we target our enforcement activities."

The Constitution requires the Census Bureau to count everyone, including illegal immigrants, in the census.

Immigration agents informally agreed to cooperate with the Census Bureau during the 2000 census by not conducting any large-scale raids, said Waite and Kenneth Prewitt, who directed the Census Bureau during the 2000 count.

Public discussion about possibly repeating the policy in 2010 knocked the Bush administration off message a week after two members of the president's Cabinet announced stepped-up efforts to enforce the nation's immigration laws.

Nantel said she wanted to clarify the enforcement agency's position.

"I don't want there to be any question in the American people's mind as to whether or not ICE would suspend enforcement efforts," Nantel said. "The answer to that is emphatically no."

----
On The Net: Immigration and Customs Enforcement: http://www.ice.gov/

ICE DEPORTS HIGH-PROFILE CRIMINAL FUGITIVE ALIEN TO MEXICO
WOMAN WHO SOUGHT REFUGE IN CHICAGO CHURCH ARRESTED DURING A WEEKEND TRIP TO L.A.







LOS ANGELES - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced today that a criminal fugitive alien who spent a year seeking to elude federal capture inside a Chicago church has been deported to Mexico following her arrest by ICE here yesterday afternoon.

Elvira Arellano, 32, a citizen of Mexico, was arrested by ICE officers Sunday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles. Arellano was taken into custody without incident based upon an order of removal originally issued in 1997.

After being processed at ICE's staging facility in Santa Ana, Calif., Arellano was transported 100 miles to the border crossing at San Ysidro, Calif., where she was turned over to Mexican immigration officials late yesterday. ICE coordinated closely with representatives from the Mexican consulate to ensure Arellano's safety during the evening repatriation.

Arellano's U.S. citizen son was with her at the time of her arrest. At Arellano's request, he was left in the custody of her traveling companions, including Pastor Walter Coleman, the Pastor of the Chicago church where she had received sanctuary for the past year.

Following her removal in 1997, Arellano illegally re-entered the United States, a felony violation punishable by up to 20 years in prison. In 2002, ICE agents arrested Arellano at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, where she was working illegally for a janitorial services business whose employees had access to security sensitive areas of the facility. Subsequently, Arellano was convicted of criminal charges for using another person's Social Security number to illegally obtain employment.

Identifying, arresting, and removing criminal aliens and immigration fugitives - aliens who have ignored court orders to leave the country - is one of ICE's top enforcement priorities. In the first 10 months of this fiscal year, the agency carried out more than 220,000 alien removals.



-- ICE --

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was established in March 2003 as the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is comprised of five integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities.

Last Modified: Monday, August 20, 2007

IMMIGRATION - THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

Descritics.org
August 21, 2007
Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta

It has been a curious few weeks for immigration, emigration and migration across the world. This is one of the most emotional and stressful topics in politics these days as this cuts directly into the heart of our identity. Whether the identity is based around skin colour, language, nationality, religion, or what have you, when the "other" comes in, there is always the potential for chaos. Do not think that this is a rich country problem only, immigration is a problem in places such as Mongolia as well. The Sydney Morning Herald termed it as "INVASION". Now when you hear that some country is being invaded, what does it make you feel? how would you feel if YOUR country is being invaded?

Here's a quick review of the news stories and they just show how challenging immigration is.

1. The Mexican President is criticising the US Congress for suspending the congressional debate on the reform of immigration laws. As you do know, immigration is again turning into a third rail of US politics (as an aside, there are so many third rails, medicare, medicaid, abortion, terrorism, Iraq, *** rights, etc. etc. etc. that it is no wonder that the country is becoming so polarised). But you have to remember that specially the Mexican migration is much different from all other immigration factors. This is because this is primarily illegal. Which is why I find the Mexican leadership's commentary so strange, given that their citizens are technically breaking the law by migrating into USA, I would have expected that they would be quiet! Instead, this pattern of behaviour is quite consistent, it is almost like a right, the right to emigrate into USA illegally. No wonder people get so excited. Why are people getting so excited?

2. One out of ten counties in the USA now has whites as a minority. Leaving aside the intellectual incoherence in which one is comparing a skin colour with a culture, humans do identify with colour. (the attention to colour only seems to happen when the colour is non-white, when it's white, it's apparently fine!). So no wonder that the whites are getting excited. This also further points to why gaining agreement on immigration reform is going to be so complicated.

3. The Economist reports on how two immigrant groups in the USA, blacks and hispanics, are now on a collision course. Some quotes are of interest.

Last year Pew, a pollster, found that one-third of blacks believe immigrants take jobs from Americans"”more than any other group. Yet in some ways their views were benign. Blacks are less likely than whites or even Hispanics to believe that immigrants end up on welfare or commit crimes. Latinos, on the other hand, appear to make no such concessions. One survey of Durham, in North Carolina, found that 59% of Latinos believed few or almost no blacks were hard-working, and a similar proportion reckoned few or almost none could be trusted. Fewer than one in ten whites felt the same way.

One reason blacks and Latinos have failed to form an alliance is philosophical. The black civil-rights struggle, in the South at least, was mostly about asserting legal rights and demolishing barriers to voting by those who were, in theory, already enfranchised. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Latino struggle is quite different. Its goal is often the selective or non-enforcement of the law, particularly on immigration. </span>A common demand, for example, is for local police not to co-operate with federal immigration agents. And, whereas blacks in the 1960s demanded power in proportion to their numbers as adult citizens, Hispanics want rather more.

4. Over on this side of the pond, the African migration into Spain is happening at very high levels, despite very high risk. To try to manage this migration, Spain is trying something else.

The program, promoted by the Spanish and Senegalese governments, aims to bring hundreds of workers to Spain this year with renewable one-year visas and jobs. Workers on one-year permits may have their contracts extended, at which point they have the right to bring over their immediate family. Ultimately, officials here say, the plan is to bring in thousands of immigrants through the program.

Will it work? Of course it will work. Will it reduce illegal immigration? Are you joking? Why would anybody want to just work for 1 year, go through bureaucratic hoops and so on and so forth, when they can easily come over illegally and save money?

5. Take a look at this story where people are actually now getting killed because of immigration. Assam in India has a long history of immigrants from Bangladesh and other parts of India. Assam is relatively rich and also has an industry (tea), which require quite a lot of common labour. Given the shortage of indideneous labour, poor immigrants from bangladesh and migrants from elsewhere in India have flooded into this state. With the result? They have generated angst, and because the political system went into the toilet, the natives revolted. The political parties saw the immigrants as votes and helped them to turn the demographics of the state. The natives massacred thousands of Bengalis and till date, not even a single person has been charged, forget about being sentenced.

6. British immigration laws, specially those relating to high potential migrants were reported to be unlawful as they breached the European Convention of Human Rights (mainly because they imposed conditions on a retrospective basis!). As you can appreciate, most of these migrants were highly skilled and qualified, came over to the UK to take up jobs and fulfill skill shortages. So the laws are back to the drafting board. Furthermore, the fact that the Glasgow terrorist acts were attempted by immigrant doctors in the NHS is another nail in the coffin of the immigration reform in the UK.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Dr. Bhaskar Dasgupta works in the city of London in various capacities in the financial sector. He has worked and travelled widely around the world. The articles in here relate to his current studies and are strictly his opinion and do not reflect the position of his past or current employer(s). If you do want to blame somebody, then blame my sister and editor, she is responsible for everything, the ideas, the writing, the quotes, the drive, the israeli-palestinian crisis, global warming, the ozone layer depletion and the argentinian debt crisis.

PREPARING IMMIGRANT WORKERS FOR CHANGE
A LOCAL NONPROFIT FEARS FALLOUT FROM A NEW POLICY

By Michael Matza
phillynews.com
Inquirer Staff Writer



AKIRA SUWA /Inquirer Staff Photographer
"The Social Security database is known to be faulty," says Anne O'Callaghan, executive director of the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians. "We're very worried about this."


With the federal government pledging to crack down on undocumented workers by using Social Security records as its principal sledge, companies that employ large numbers of immigrants are preparing to feel the heat.

The Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians, a job center for foreign-born workers, with offices in Philadelphia and Upper Darby, is gearing up, too - for the expected fallout.

"We're very worried about this," said Anne O'Callaghan, the center's executive director. "The Social Security database is known to be faulty. If you use it for immigration enforcement, it is certain some significant number of work-authorized immigrants will be unjustly fired."

A report in December by the Social Security Administration's inspector general found the database had an error rate of 4.1 percent. Misspellings, data-entry mishaps, name changes and other mistakes involve about 17.8 million records.

Nonetheless, Department of Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff recently announced a new emphasis on the rules that require companies to terminate employees with dubious Social Security numbers or face fines of up to $2,200 per illegal worker.

How the initiative will work remains to be seen, because a Homeland Security spokeswoman acknowledged last week that an IRS privacy provision prevents direct sharing of information between her department and the Social Security Administration.

The movement for stricter enforcement of existing laws comes on the heels of the Senate's deadlock over legislation to overhaul immigration.

While watching to see whether the government means what it says, groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates immigration restrictions, say the crackdown is overdue.

"The standard response to illegal immigration has been increased border enforcement. And, in fact, such tightening of the border was long overdue," the group wrote on its Web site. "But there has been almost no attention paid to enforcement at work sites within the United States."

Starting next month, authorities are to rigorously enforce the so-called no-match letters that the SSA has, since 1994, sent to companies whenever names, Social Security numbers, and W-2 forms don't jibe.

Companies have frequently ignored the letters with little consequence. Even when new regulations went into effect after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, enforcement generally was lax.

Now "no-match" mailings will include separate letters from the DHS warning companies and suspect employees that they have four months to reconcile discrepancies or face prosecution, deportation, and increased civil penalties against the companies "for knowingly employing an unauthorized person."

To prepare immigrants and employers for workplace raids and other tough enforcement measures, the Welcoming Center, a nonprofit serving Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania suburbs, stresses the contributions of immigrants to the regional economy, holds information sessions for employers, and distributes "The Changing Face of Pennsylvania's Workforce," a 26-page primer about hiring foreign-born workers that includes information about the dozen or so visa categories permitting people to work seasonally or permanently in the United States.

Among the primer's findings:

An average 8 percent of the Greater Philadelphia population was "foreign born" in the decade 1970 to 1980; an average 37 percent was foreign born in the decade 1990 to 2000.

In 1970, the top five countries of origin for immigrants relocating to Greater Philadelphia were all in Europe; in 2005, none were. The leading country in 1970 was Italy. In 2005, it was India.

Whereas immigrants once settled almost exclusively in inner-city neighborhoods, now many settle directly in suburbia. The foreign-born population of Delaware County, for example, rose 33 percent from 2000 to 2005.

Since 2003, the Welcoming Center has provided job referrals and other assistance to more than 2,000 clients from 62 countries. The center's diverse staff of 10 speaks at least eight languages and provides newcomers with leads on where to study English.

At a recent legal briefing the center held for a half-dozen employers, including a home-health-care agency and a Philadelphia community center, there was palpable fear about the impact of the new rules, said lawyer Elizabeth Surin, who gave the briefing.

If we can't verify, do we have to fire them? attendees asked. "It was clear from the audience," Surin said, "it was a big concern."

Although the stereotype of an immigrant is a low-skilled, low-wage, possibly undocumented laborer, the center provides assistance only to people who are legally permitted to work in the United States and can prove it. Many are well educated. They held high-status jobs in their native lands and had to settle for less after arriving here.

The center's goal is to match these people and others like them with appropriate employers - not only because that's a nice thing to do, but also because it makes sense for the region economically.

Pennsylvania's population is among the nation's oldest. Waves of retirements could lead to chronic shortages of qualified workers in health care, information technology, and other critical industries, the center contends.

"Pennsylvania has the second-oldest workforce in America. If demography is destiny, where does that leave us in 10 years?" O'Callaghan asked, adding that work-eligible immigrants are an "undervalued human resource" for the region's productivity.

At the other end of the spectrum are the people who "milk our cows, bake our bread, cut our lawns, build our roofs," immigration lawyer Hector Chichoni said. They may work illegally at the moment, he said, but they deserve a shot at becoming legal. Pathways to legal status are what the Senate legislation contemplated, along with stringent enforcement measures, but efforts at a compromise failed.

Chichoni, 45, an Italian-born, Argentinian-raised Miami lawyer and author of a chapter called "What to Do When the Government Knocks at Your Door: Dealing With Trouble" in a publication for immigrants, believes federal "manpower will never be enough to police all the employers in the United States."

Compounding the problem, he said, is the fact that a portion of the undocumented immigrant workforce - freelance landscapers, for example -is virtually invisible because it operates on a cash-only basis.

"How is the government going identify those people?" he asked. "They are not in the system and will never go into the system."


Contact staff writer Michael Matza at 215-854-2541 or mmatza@phillynews.com.

IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN THREATENS B.U.MPER U.S. APPLE HARVEST

International Heral Tribune
Americas
By Lisa W. Foderaro
Published: August 21, 2007

HAMPTONBURGH, New York: With a look of supreme satisfaction, Jeff Crist squinted at the Ginger Golds and Jonamacs ripening under an incandescent sun on his apple orchard here: the trees were so laden that they almost seemed to strain under the effort.

"It's a vintage crop - a solid quality crop, which means good sugars in the apples," he said. "They should eat very nicely, almost like a good wine."

This is the third year in a row of near-perfect weather, and Crist, a fourth-generation apple grower, like many other growers in the Hudson Valley, is finally feeling secure after a disastrous string of harvests marred by early frost and hail. In fact, Crist is so bullish that he recently bought a 164-acre, or 66-hectare, orchard nearby, bucking the trend of recent decades of selling apple orchards to housing developers.

But while weather conditions have cooperated and industry experts say demand for apples across the United States has approached an all-time high, there are new fears in New York and around the country over whether there will be enough hands to pick the crop. The Bush administration announced new measures this month to crack down on employers of illegal immigrants.

Growers' associations across the country estimate that about 70 percent of farmworkers are illegal immigrants, many of them using fake Social Security numbers on their applications. Under the new rules, if the Social Security Administration finds that an applicant's information does not match its database, employers could be required to fire the worker or risk being fined up to $10,000 for knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant.

"Farmers are required to validate the legal status of their workers, which they do," said Peter Gregg, a spokesman for the New York Apple Association, a nonprofit group representing more than 670 commercial apple growers in the state. "But a lot of times the paperwork is false, so they're unwittingly or unknowingly hiring workers who are here illegally. And then a raid will occur, and all of a sudden their workers will leave."

For apple growers in New York, where the forces of nature and the market have at last come together in their favor, the potential fallout from the new immigration initiative is particularly unsettling.

"We have three billion apples to pick this fall and every single one of them has to be picked by hand," Gregg said. "It's a very labor-intensive industry, and there is no local labor supply that we can draw from, as much as we try. No one locally really wants to pick apples for six weeks in the fall."

Crist, who was recently named apple grower of the year by a leading fruit industry magazine, lobbied in Washington for passage of a new guest-worker program. But the program was included in the overall immigration overhaul legislation that collapsed on the Senate floor in late June. Growers say that only 2 percent of farmworkers nationwide come from the current guest-worker program, which, they say, is plagued by bureaucracy, low capacity and delays.

Another Hudson Valley apple grower, Mark Roe of Roe's Orchards in Blooming Grove, will get five workers through the existing program for the harvest this autumn. He said he planned to hire about seven other pickers. As for past workers, Roe said: "It's hard to tell who's legal and who's not. They all have documents."

He, too, is worried about the tougher immigration rules and what they might mean for his 240-acre fruit and vegetable farm, which was started by his great-great-grandfather in 1827 and is still worked by his grown children.

"We need something better, something grower-friendly," he said.

So far, the Hudson Valley has not been subject to the raids that have rippled through farms and orchards in western New York, especially in the Buffalo area.

"Last year, there were significantly more raids targeting agriculture in New York," Gregg said. "A lot of growers lost numerous workers at the peak of the harvest. They had to scramble to try to find someone else.

"It was difficult. In a lot of cases, there were apples left hanging on the trees."

For now, both Crist and Roe say they have enough pickers for the initial harvest. Workers are now plucking Ginger Golds, one of the first varieties to ripen, and placing them in wooden bins that each hold 2,000 to 3,000 apples.

A crew leader who for decades has recruited workers for Crist's orchards said that if the current source of labor dried up there would be few other alternatives. The workers are mostly Hispanic men who pick citrus fruits in Florida and then move north for the apple harvest.

Despite the labor concerns, growers seem to be optimistic, having emerged from the stretch of growing seasons that were devastated by storms and wild swings in temperature.

"Five or six years ago, we were ready to wrap up our affairs," said Crist, who owns six orchards totaling 600 acres in Orange and Ulster counties. "It looked pretty dismal, and a number of growers either chose to get out or they had to get out. There are less of us today than there used to be. But we're back on solid footing."

In the past two decades, the number of farms in Ulster County, the second-highest apple-producing county in New York State behind Wayne County, has steadily declined, according to Michael Fargione, an educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension, which provides research information and educational programs to farmers. In 1985, 104 farms covered 11,629 acres in Ulster County. By 1996, the number had slid to 63 orchards on 8,632 acres. And by 2001, the most recent year for which figures are available, there were 56 apple orchards on 5,669 acres.

But growers and agriculture experts say that in recent years fewer orchards in the Hudson Valley seem to have fallen to housing developers. "My impression is that over the last three years, the decline has either stabilized or at least reduced its rate," Fargione said.

Roe, whose farm stand was awash in the rosy hues of just-picked peaches and plums, said his family had no intention of selling.

Indeed, the weather this season - with ample rain and sunshine - seems to have strengthened his zest for farming.

"It's been practically perfect," he said. "It's just one of those things you hope for and dream about, and it rarely happens."

I don't understand Explora's hatred of ICE. They are just government officials DOING THEIR JOBS. Unfortunately she is too blinded by her racism and hatred of the law to understand this. America is a great country because it is governed by the rule of law-unlike many Latin American countries where briberies and corruption rule.

Why does the U.S. have to help Mexico economically (see above article)? Why can't Mexico get its own act together? Oh, wait it can't. Why? Because of CORRUPTION! If Mexicans would stand up to their own government (and this is true for other Latin American nations) instead of fleeing to the U.S. then their might be actual change in the actions of their disgustingly corrupt governments. Instead they come up here and try to change OUR government.

Why hasn't Elvira spent the same amount of time and effort to change corruption in Mexico that she has spent trying to change U.S. laws? Stop treating her like a martyr. All they did was drop her off in Tijuana. She's not dead or in jail. Grow up.

IMMIGRATION REFORM AS A TOOL IN TOOLBOX

By Ouisa D. Davis
Guest columnist
08/17/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT

Ah, the drama of the recent immigration debacle -- it demonstrates how fear can make the most rational among us irrational. Even Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff decried the use of immigration reform as a political football.

Immigration reform is a national security issue. True, there is no way to prevent a determined terrorist from engaging in criminal activity within our borders. However we have tools in the toolbox to identify threats and possibly thwart terrorist efforts.

One is intelligence gathering. Since Sept. 11, 2001, we have recognized that our intelligence system is flawed. Gathering information about potential criminal activity has become difficult in the technology age. However, there is a constant tension between intelligence gathering and violation of constitutional rights guaranteed to all people who live in the U.S.

Yes, certain provisions of the Constitution protect all people within the country, citizen or not, and cannot be ignored. So, rather than employing questionable investigative tactics that involve torture, illegal arrest and detention and invasion of privacy (for example, wiretapping without a warrant), Congress and the administration would better serve the cause of national security by ensuring that the tactics used are above constitutional scrutiny.

Another tool is diplomatic engagement. Acting as an international bully and refusing to learn about other countries, cultures and ideologies does not serve national security interests. It's high time that the administration uses the tool of diplomatic engagement and stops this pervasive attitude that, "We won't talk to them, we don't agree with their policies, religion, government, leaders, etc.). We don't have all the answers.
And, yes, comprehensive immigration reform is critical; allowing us to track people as they enter and exit the country, stemming the flow of unlawful migration and calling the people who are already here to stand up and be counted.

It's amazing to see rational and intelligent people still froth about the mouth as they talk about the "illegals" -- and how the undocumented population should all be rounded up and deported -- without knowing anything about the immigration laws.

They believe local law enforcement should enforce federal law, even though state and municipal police have neither the authority nor the resources to do so. They refer back to their parents' immigrant story, as if that option still exists. They prefer to rest in stale arguments than to open their minds to the true dynamics of migration.

People came to the U.S. 40 or 50 years ago through quota immigration, done away with in the 1950s. In the 1980s, the low-skilled immigration system was gutted. Over the past 20 years, family immigration has been completely derailed. It was never orderly.

The path to citizenship begins with legal permanent resident status -- and there's no gate to enter that path. Once an immigrant is a permanent resident, they must wait five years to apply for citizenship.

There is no mechanism for a low-skilled worker to become a legal permanent resident. Nor is there an efficient way for a person to bring their families to the U.S. as legal permanent residents. So, they come illegally and we don't know who they are.

To address terrorist threats, cohesive use of all the tools in the toolbox is critical -- including immigration reform. It's not a political football; it's a question of national security.

Ouisa D. Davis is an attorneyat law in El Paso

MOTHER'S DEPORTATION STALLED
IMMIGRATION DEPT. WON'T ACT ON CASE UNTIL MARCH 2009

Maha Dakar will stay in the United States for at least 18 months while Congress decides whether to permanently halt deportation proceedings against her.

The Green Township woman received notice this week that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will take no action on her case until at least March 2009, by which time Congress will have made a decision.

Dakar's case stirred a public outcry last month and prompted the intervention of two Ohio lawmakers because she was facing a forced separation from her husband and four young daughters.

She was scheduled for deportation to Jordan in October, but she would have been unable to leave with her husband. Her daughters, all U.S. citizens, either would have gone with Dakar to Jordan or stayed behind with their father.

The decision to halt deportation ensures they won't have to make that choice in the immediate future.

"We are so happy," Dakar said Thursday.

She and her husband, Bassam Garadah, are here legally but are in an immigration limbo because, as Palestinians, they are considered "stateless." They were not born in the Palestinian territories.

Consequently, they can't move there, and they are not citizens of Kuwait, where they were born.

Garadah has Egyptian travel papers but cannot move permanently to that country or to any other. Dakar has a Jordanian passport, so she can be sent there.

They were deemed deportable in 2005 after they were denied asylum. Dakar has applied for status as a permanent resident, but there is at least a five-year waiting period for a visa that would allow her to stay here legally while her application is processed.

U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Westwood, and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown introduced "private bills" on Dakar's behalf earlier this month.

The bill, if approved by Congress, would essentially make an exception for Dakar and grant her permanent residency.

An ICE spokesman said Thursday the agency will take no action - including deportation - until at least March 2009.

Dakar and her lawyer, Douglas Weigle, said they will continue to seek a long-term solution to her immigration problem because private bills are rarely approved.

"We'll keep exploring other avenues," Weigle said.

Other options could include finding a third-party country, such as Canada, that would be willing to take the entire family before the March 2009 deadline.

Illegal aliens murder
12 Americans daily
Death toll in 2006 far overshadows total
U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, Afghanistan

WASHINGTON – While the military "quagmire" in Iraq was said to tip the scales of power in the U.S. midterm elections, most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens – men, women and children – were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began.

Though no federal statistics are kept on murders or any other crimes committed by illegal aliens, a number of groups have produced estimates based on data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research.

Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001.

Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863. Total U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan during the five years of the Afghan campaign are currently at 289, according to the Department of Defense.




WND Exclusive INVASION USA
Illegal aliens murder
12 Americans daily
Death toll in 2006 far overshadows total
U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, Afghanistan
Posted: November 28, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joseph Farah
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON – While the military "quagmire" in Iraq was said to tip the scales of power in the U.S. midterm elections, most Americans have no idea more of their fellow citizens – men, women and children – were murdered this year by illegal aliens than the combined death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since those military campaigns began.

Though no federal statistics are kept on murders or any other crimes committed by illegal aliens, a number of groups have produced estimates based on data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research.

Twelve Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens, according to statistics released by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. If those numbers are correct, it translates to 4,380 Americans murdered annually by illegal aliens. That's 21,900 since Sept. 11, 2001.

Total U.S. troop deaths in Iraq as of last week were reported at 2,863. Total U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan during the five years of the Afghan campaign are currently at 289, according to the Department of Defense.

But the carnage wrought by illegal alien murderers represents only a fraction of the pool of blood spilled by American citizens as a result of an open border and un-enforced immigration laws.

While King reports 12 Americans are murdered daily by illegal aliens, he says 13 are killed by drunk illegal alien drivers – for another annual death toll of 4,745. That's 23,725 since Sept. 11, 2001.

While no one – in or out of government – tracks all U.S. accidents caused by illegal aliens, the statistical and anecdotal evidence suggests many of last year's 42,636 road deaths involved illegal aliens.

A report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Study found 20 percent of fatal accidents involve at least one driver who lacks a valid license. In California, another study showed that those who have never held a valid license are about five times more likely to be involved in a fatal road accident than licensed drivers.

Statistically, that makes them an even greater danger on the road than drivers whose licenses have been suspended or revoked – and nearly as dangerous as drunk drivers.

King also reports eight American children are victims of sexual abuse by illegal aliens every day – a total of 2,920 annually.

Based on a one-year in-depth study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant *** offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. She analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.

As the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. increases, so does the number of American victims.

According to Edwin Rubenstien, president of ESR Research Economic Consultants, in Indianapolis in 1980, federal and state correctional facilities held fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. But at the end of 2003, approximately 267,000 illegal aliens were incarcerated in all U.S. jails and prisons.

While the federal government doesn't track illegal alien murders, illegal alien rapes or illegal alien drunk driving deaths, it has studied illegal aliens incarcerated in U.S. prisons.

In April 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a report on a study of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities during 2003. It found the following:

* The 55,322 illegal aliens studied represented a total of 459,614 arrests – some eight arrests per illegal alien;

* Their arrests represented a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses – some 13 offenses per illegal alien;

* 36 percent had been arrested at least five times before.

"While the vast majority of illegal aliens are decent people who work hard and are only trying to make a better life for themselves and their families, (something you or I would probably do if we were in their place), it is also a fact that a disproportionately high percentage of illegal aliens are criminals and sexual predators," states Peter Wagner, author of a new report called "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration." "That is part of the dark side of illegal immigration and when we allow the 'good' in we get the 'bad' along with them. The question is, how much 'bad' is acceptable and at what price?"

WAGES RISE FOR FOREIGN-BORN LATINOS
August 21, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) - The proportion of foreign-born Latinos at the lowest end of the wage scale fell by 6 percentage points over the decade ending in 2005, the Pew Hispanic Center reported Tuesday.

In 2005, foreign-born Latino workers accounted for 36 percent of workers earning less than $8.50 an hour compared to 42 percent in 1995, according to the center's analysis of U.S. Census data.

In the same period, the portion of foreign-born Latinos earning between $8.50 an hour and $16.20 in 2005 grew by about 5 percentage points.

Expressed in 2005 dollars, low-wage workers in 1995 earned less than $7.69 per hour and a $15.38 hourly wage in 1995 was considered comparable to $16.20 in 2005.

The actual number of Latinos on the lowest end of the wage scale still grew by 1.2 million workers, but that was about 6,000 fewer people than would be expected based on the growth of the foreign-born Hispanic population, said Rakesh Kochar, the center's associate director for research.

Half of newly arrived Latino immigrant workers were among the lowest wage earners in 2005, down from 64 percent in 1995.

New arrivals also were older, better educated and more likely to be employed in construction than agriculture, the report said.

"Construction has definitely been beneficial," Kochar said.

Legal and illegal workers were considered for the study but researchers did not differentiate between them in their analysis. Census does not ask immigration status.

The study also did not analyze the effect of illegal workers on the wage earnings of U.S. workers.

The center also found:

"¢A third of foreign-born Asian workers were in the highest wage group, earning more than $24.03 an hour in 2005, up from a fourth.

"¢The share of Mexican-born workers in the lowest wage class fell from 48 percent in 1995 to 40 percent in 2005.

"¢There was no significant change for native-born African Americans or native-born Hispanics, with half of each group in the lower and lower-middle wage groups in 2005 and 1995.

"¢Native born, non-Hispanic whites were more likely to be high wage earners. Twenty-three percent or 18.5 million were in the high-wage group in 2005, higher than expected considering the slower population increase among whites, smaller shares of whites in the work force and a smaller high-wage group.

"There seems to be room for everybody," Kochar said noting the progress among immigrant workers and no significant drops among other groups of workers.

Steve Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, agreed the progress is good news. But Camarota, whose group favors tighter immigration restrictions, questioned whether the United States needs a lot of low-income wage earners.

"It seems we have a glut already," he said.

TIJUANA



DEPORTED ACTIVIST VOWS TO CARRY ON CAUSE


Elvira Arellano, 32, held her son, Saúl, 8, yesterday at her new apartment in Tijuana, a day after she was deported from the United States.

By Sandra Dibble and Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
August 21, 2007

TIJUANA – A day after her detention in Los Angeles, a deported immigration activist vowed yesterday to continue her campaign on behalf of millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, saying her case can help draw attention to their cause.

Elvira Arellano, 32, who sought sanctuary in a Chicago church to avoid being sent back to Mexico and to continue living with her 8-year-old son, said she would return to the United States only with legal documents. She plans to keep pushing for legislative reforms that would allow undocumented parents of children who are U.S. citizens to remain in the United States.

"If my deportation served to unite people, to prompt them to rise up, to bring together religious and community leaders to fight for legalization, that's what's important," Arellano said yesterday in her new quarters, a sparsely furnished apartment off a thoroughfare in the Otay Mesa section of Tijuana.

Back in Mexico for the first time in a decade, Arellano was reunited in Tijuana with Saúl, her son, a U.S. citizen who is preparing to enter third grade in a Chicago public school. He sat impassively in his mother's lap as she answered reporters' questions.

Arellano said she will remain in Tijuana for a few days, then go see her parents in the central Mexican state of Michoacan. Saúl, who traveled with his mother to Los Angeles on Saturday, will live with a family friend in Chicago.

Until the trip to Los Angeles, Arellano had been living for a year at Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where she had sought sanctuary in August 2006. She decided to leave after efforts to change immigration law failed in Congress, and had embarked on a campaign to resurrect the issue, which she hopes will culminate in a rally in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12.
Arellano had been living without documents in the United States since 1997, and was arrested in 2002 and convicted of working with a false Social Security number.

Arellano was arrested Sunday in downtown Los Angeles by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and deported later that day to Tijuana through the San Ysidro border crossing. She and supporters had been leaving a church when officers took her to a federal detention center.

"This wasn't surprising to me. It was something that sooner or later was bound to happen," Arellano said.

A spokesman for a U.S. group that favors immigration restrictions said U.S. officials acted correctly.

"Here was a woman who defied every law she found inconvenient," said Ira Mehlman, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR. "She forced the government's hand. She defied them to enforce the law."

But Luis Cabrera, the Mexican consul general in San Diego, said the case highlights how immigration laws ignore the bigger picture and break apart families.

"I think there is a question of human justice that should also be considered," he said. "It's tragic that a mother is separated from her child."

Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for ICE, said the bigger picture is the nation's need to protect its borders. She said illegal-immigrant parents of U.S.-born children have the option to take their children with them when they are deported.

"Sadly, U.S. citizen children of illegal immigrants must bear the consequences of their parent's decision to enter or stay in this country illegally," she said.

Arellano was held in Santa Ana and in San Diego before being deported, Cabrera said. U.S. authorities denied her request to meet with Mexican consular officials when she was in Santa Ana, he said.

Mack said ICE has no record of that request. She said Arellano met with consular officials at the Otay Mesa jail.

Immigration officers had been aware of Arellano's case for a long time, she said.

"We did our job and we did it as efficiently as we possibly could considering the high-profile sensitivity of this case," Mack said.

MEXICO CITY

U.S. GUNS BOLSTER MEXICAN TRAFFICKERS


AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini

By IOAN GRILLO
Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Authorities are sounding the alarm about an influx of assault rifles, armor-piercing pistols and fragmentation grenades from the United States, weapons that they say are increasingly being used to kill police and soldiers fighting drug cartels.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials report a sharp increase in both the flow and firepower of U.S. weapons across the border. Particularly worrisome are assault rifles and "cop-killer" pistols.

Mexico has strict firearms laws, few gun stores and a mere 4,300 private licensed gun holders among its 105 million people. The United States, with nearly as many guns as people, has more than 100,000 licensed gun sellers, an industry that makes about 2.8 million small arms a year, and gun laws so loose that arms traffickers easily pick up any weapons they need.

Despite Mexico's gun control laws, criminals have long smuggled guns in from the United States.

"The problem is getting bigger because the illegal possession of arms, and their clandestine introduction to our country, combines with narcotics trafficking," said a government report to Mexico's Senate in June.

It said 99.4 percent of the weapons in the hands of Mexican criminals are suspected of coming from the United States.

At least 11,752 U.S.-sold guns have been found in Mexico since January 2003 - a tiny fraction of what remains on the streets, according to the report.

It did not give figures for previous years. But one indicator of a new gun glut is the fact that hit men drop their guns at crime scenes rather than be caught with them afterward, knowing they are easily replaced, a senior U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico said on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Particularly worrisome are U.S. sales of Belgian-made FN-57 pistols. These fire bullets that "will defeat most body armor in military service around the world today," according to the Remtek weapons site on the Internet. They sell for $800-$1,000 each at dozens of gun stores within a day's drive of the border.

The weapons were unheard of in Mexico until they were used to kill at least a half dozen police officers this year. Among them were Mexico City policemen Felix Perez and Jose Rodriguez, slain in May when a car full of suspected mobsters fired FN-57s whose bullets sliced right through the officers' body armor.

In all, about 100 Mexican officers have been slain since President Felipe Calderon launched an ambitious nationwide crackdown on the drug trade this year.

"U.S. laws allow citizens to have guns that are authentically warlike," Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora complained at a recent news conference. "We have to find a more effective way of stopping these arms from flowing into the country and giving these gangs such significant firepower."

The U.S. Congress has so far resisted these calls. It's particularly easy to buy weapons at the thousands of U.S. gun shows held each year, where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives stopped checking addresses of gun buyers after the National Rifle Association complained that sales plummeted.

Mexico also wants lawmakers in Washington to loosen restrictions on who can see gun-purchasing data, but that's unlikely given the strong opposition from the NRA.

The U.S. government is now restricted in many cases from sharing such information with local police departments, let alone the Mexican government, making it difficult to trace illegal guns or arrest weapons traffickers.

Mexican officials also complain that U.S. judges give firearms traffickers lighter sentences than drug dealers.

Mexican arms traffickers pay U.S. residents a profit of $20 to $200 per weapon to make purchases, the U.S. official said. The guns are then hidden in car compartments, truckloads of consumer goods and even small planes, crossing into Mexico in the same vehicles that carry cocaine, marijuana and heroin north, the official said.

The ATF says it is fighting the problem by sending more agents to the border and giving Mexico a pack of gun-sniffing Labrador retrievers this year.

U.S. officials also put blame on Mexico, saying officials rarely search southbound traffic along the border. But Mexican customs agents who do are often given a grim choice: "plata o plomo" - the silver of a bribe, or the lead of a bullet.

In February, Mexican customs agent Jorge Santillan seized a truck crossing from Brownsville, Texas, to Matamoros, Mexico, carrying a grenade launcher and 17 grenades along with 18 rifles and 17 pistols. The shipment allegedly belonged to the Zetas, a feared group of former soldiers-turned-hitmen.

Days later, the agent was shot to death with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Once inside Mexico, weapons are sold in black-market shops for double the U.S. price.

Mexico City gun enthusiast Daniel Aguilera described illegally buying a submachine gun from vendors in the capital's Tepito barrio who let him test the merchandise on a stack of cans in a tenement building.

"Buying a gun in Mexico is a piece of cake," Aguilera said. "You can get your hands on one in a couple of hours, if you know the right people."

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

MEXICO CITY

U.S. TO HELP MEXICO UPGRADE MAIL SERVICE

Aug 15, 1:33 PM EDT

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The Mexican government has signed an agreement with the U.S. Postal Service to improve Mexico's notoriously inefficient mail agency.

Transportation Secretary Luis Tel*** said the Mexican Postal Service has been neglected for years, while the USPS is "an example of modernity, efficiency and quality."

Under the agreement signed Tuesday, Mexican staff will visit U.S. facilities to analyze procedures and equipment, and the two also will cooperate to improve cross-border services.

U.S. Chief Postal Inspector Alexander Lazaroff said at the signing event that the agreement will address security concerns in both countries.

Tel*** told reporters the government plans to make significant investments in the modernization and automation of the postal service.

"A lot of letters get lost that our citizens send to their families from the U.S., sometimes with money, sometimes with some object of value," he said.

"I can assure you that within two or three years, let's say closer to three years, we'll have a postal service we can be proud of."

© 2007 The Associated Press.

MEXICAN LEADER DISCUSSES JOBS AND EMIGRATION

UNION-TRIBUNE
August 16, 2007

Remittances from Mexicans working in the United States can become key to stemming further emigration, the governor of the central Mexican state of Guanajuato said yesterday.
Gov. Juan Manuel Oliva Ramírez told a roundtable at the University of San Diego's Trans-Border Institute that he hopes to encourage investment in his state through a network of 50 social centers in the United States for immigrants from Guanajuato.

"We know that one of the ways to stemming migration is by creating employment," said Oliva, a member of President Felipe Calderón's National Action Party, PAN.
About 1.2 million people from Guanajuato living abroad send home more than $2.05 billion annually. Guanajuato has a population of about 5 million.

Oliva, chairman of the migratory affairs committee of Mexico's National Governors Conference, is meeting with migrant groups in Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago and New York over the next few days. He is being joined by the governors of Colima and Zacatecas.

Elvira Arellano, seen here 15 August 2007, who became a symbol of the US immigration debate after she sought sanctuary in a Chicago church for a year has been deported, officials confirmed.

I hope these folks have necessary documents. If not, the path to higher education is full of landmines. I'm working with a young man that came to the U.S. uninspected when he was 3. Now a H.S. honor graduate with one year community college, 3.4 GPA. Having many disapointments in quest for affordable higher education.