PHILADELPHIA, HAZELTON

CITY OF HAZLETON APPEALS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

BY WADE MALCOLM
STAFF WRITER
08/25/2007

A two-page, notice-of-appeal document, will start a long legal journey for the City of Hazleton, one it hopes will end with a higher court overturning a district judge's decision ruling the Illegal Immigration Relief Act unconstitutional.

The document, identifying several grounds for appeal, was filed in federal court Thursday. But the appeal will have to wait at least six months before it is heard by a panel of three judges at 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

The appeal was not the least bit unexpected. The city's attorneys were intensely "” and immediately "” critical of U.S. District Judge James M. Munley's decision from the day it was released last month.

"They say patience is a virtue," Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta said. "Certainly it will mean something in this case."

The city is not only appealing Munley's decision, but some of his pre-trial rulings as well, most notably his decision to let several plaintiffs, who are illegal immigrants, sue the city anonymously.

It is "conceivable," Kobach said, that if the appeals court disagrees with Munley on protecting the identity of the Doe plaintiffs, a new trial could be ordered.

"But frankly, I would still say the odds are likely against it," Kobach said.

ACLU attorney Witold "Vic" Walczak downplayed the importance of the pre-trial ruling, saying the case hinges on the ordinance's due process violations and preemption of the federal government's authority over immigration policy.

"We'll have to address (the pre-trial rulings), but I don't think they will play a major role in the appeal," he said. "I've been wrong before but not often in this case."

Statistically at least, the odds of Hazleton winning on appeal are also slim. Last year, the 3rd Circuit overturned only 15 percent of the lower court decisions it heard. If the 3rd Circuit's decision is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which both sides have promised to do, the case may take several more years to resolve.

In the meantime, Barletta said the city will find other ways to deal with the illegal immigration problem, which he feels is destroying the quality of life in Hazleton.

"All we can do is continue to enforce the laws that are already on the books," he said. "If we catch someone who is an illegal alien, we report them to (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and detain them and hope that they are deported."

wmalcolm@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2051

©The Citizens Voice 2007PHILADELPHIA, HAZELTON

CALIFORNIA WITHOUT A MEXICAN

Workplace enforcement without immigration reform will cripple the economy -- and it will be Joe Public's fault.

Los Angeles Times
By Tamar Jacoby
August 25, 2007

The 2004 film "A Day Without a Mexican" was a political satire: an exaggerated fantasy about what would happen in California if all the immigrant workers suddenly disappeared. But now it seems that life may imitate art. Federal immigration authorities are readying a new enforcement tool that could indeed, if applied effectively, all but cripple the California economy.

A new fence? A massive influx of Border Patrol agents? A fleet of airborne drones? No. The new weapon is a simple two-page letter that will go out next month to companies whose employees' names and Social Security numbers do not match those on record at the Social Security Administration.

What makes these letters so potent? The SSA has been sending similar notices for years, but in the past, as long as a company had asked to see a worker's papers and filled out the proper forms, it was off the hook. Now the government is demanding that unauthorized employees be fired and threatening legal action if they aren't. This is expected to trigger widespread layoffs -- self-policing by millions of small and medium-sized businesses in California and other states.

The new measure is popular with the public -- a recent Rasmussen poll found eight in 10 Americans support it -- and understandably so. Voters want to get control of immigration. They're particularly keen to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants. And after years of lax enforcement, they're pleasantly surprised to see the authorities getting tough.

The only problem: Much as we need better enforcement, on the border and in the workplace, that's only half the answer. And without the other half -- better, more realistic immigration laws -- it will wreak havoc.

We've already had a preview of the likely consequences, and not just at the movies. For several years now, tougher border enforcement, plus competition from higher-paying hospitality and construction jobs, have deprived farmers in California and other states of the foreign workers they need to plant and harvest their crops.

The crisis peaks every year in August and September, and the photos start showing up in the newspapers: piles of rotting pears, strawberry plants choked by weeds, unpicked cucumbers grown to monstrous sizes and melons oozing in the fields.

Not even the least skilled, least educated Americans want to work in agriculture these days. More than 70% of U.S. farmworkers are estimated to be illegal immigrants. And if the SSA's no-match letters work -- if employers act on them as expected -- that could drive fruit and vegetable farming out of the United States, putting California's $30-billion-a-year industry at risk.

Agriculture would be just the beginning. According to economists, every farm job sustains three or four others -- at food processing plants, agricultural supply firms, companies that build trucks and other farm machinery -- many of them jobs held by native-born workers. And no-match letters won't go just to farmers. Hotels, restaurants, construction firms, landscaping contractors and healthcare services will get them too.

Those industries can't leave the United States. But they can slow -- slow dramatically -- and downsize. And imagine California "without a Mexican" a year or two from now: crumbling roads, understaffed hospitals, unbuilt classrooms and more.

This economic crunch could have a silver lining -- it might grab the public's attention and generate an outcry for better laws. Millions of Americans who think we don't need immigrant workers might wise up. Politicians who opposed immigration reform this year or last might have a change of heart. And Congress might overhaul the system in 2009, if not before, combining enhanced enforcement with legal ways for U.S. employers to hire foreign workers. That's the other half of the combination we need. And if a no-match crackdown goads us in that direction, the short-term economic pain might be worth it.

But what if, instead of choking the economy, the no-match blitz only drives more of it underground? Some companies will fire their illegal workers and downsize or move. Others will fire and then rehire them -- more deviously or completely off the books. Shady labor contractors will proliferate. Identity theft will skyrocket. Employers who have tried to play by the rules -- asking to see workers' papers, filling out the required forms -- will suffer, while those who deliberately flout the law will thrive and multiply.

The unintended consequences: more underground hiring, more sub-market wages, more mistreatment of immigrants, less tax revenue (most immigrants with fake papers pay taxes -- $5 billion to $10 billion a year in Social Security taxes) and a less regulated, more dangerous workplace for everyone.

Whose fault will this be? Not the feds -- it's their job to enforce immigration law, a job they've neglected for far too long. Some of the blame will lie with Congress, which could have changed the law, making it possible for employers to legally hire the workers they need. But in the end, the mess will be of our own making -- we the skeptical public who signaled to policymakers in May and June that we didn't trust them to rewrite the immigration code.

We told them to enforce existing law without changes, and that's what we're about to get. The question is what we'll do when that doesn't work and whether we can learn from our mistake.

Tamar Jacoby is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

IMMIGRATION REFORM WILL BE IN SMALL, SLOW STEPS

Opinion
VenturaCountyStar
August 23, 2007

There was something for everybody to hate in the compromise immigration "reform" bill narrowly defeated this summer in the U.S. Senate.

But that doesn't mean the pressure for changes has gone away, as the Bush administration proved when it announced a crackdown by executive order against employers of illegal immigrants earlier this month. For sure, that pressure won't ease unless the new campaign or something like it ends the enticement of illegals here with jobs and other benefits.

On the contrary, the longer today's talk-tough-but-do-little practices continue, the more furious become groups like the border-patrolling Minutemen and others who want the Mexican border closed. Similarly, the longer things remain unchanged, the angrier grow labor unions and others disturbed by the obvious exploitation of illegal immigrant workers by American employers who claim they can't find U.S. citizens to take their jobs.

Democrats in Congress stunned those immigrant advocates when, led by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, they agreed to give alleged employer needs precedence over reunited families in deciding who would be allowed into the U.S.A.

So neither side would have liked the defeated compromise, which proposed allowing "guest workers" in at low wages and in quantities set by employers while it also sought a convoluted, expensive system for illegal immigrants to move toward citizenship.

The compromise's demise also left both sides unhappy. They may be relieved and keeping relatively quiet today, but not for long if the Bush move fails. And it well may because it won't cover anywhere near all the businesses that depend on undocumented workers, especially not those who pay their workers in cash.

All of which means change will come to the immigration system, but nothing as comprehensive as the bill that was defeated, with all its wrinkles and contradictions. Change also will not come quickly, most likely no earlier than next year earliest.

Here are some of the likeliest coming moves, all foreshadowed by this year's failed bill:

"” Authorizing the hiring of hundreds more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to begin cracking down en masse on employers of illegals. Despite Bush's orders, ICE, at the moment, doesn't have a large enough force to do a thorough job and would need thousands more agents.

"” This would be a popular move among those who want to get rid of illegal immigrants without going through a massive deportation program. It's what Colorado's Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, now running as a single-issue presidential candidate, says he wants. Trancredo is on record saying that mass expulsions of the approximately 12 million illegals now here would be impractical. "Attrition through enforcement," he called it in one interview. "If people cannot get the thing they came for "” a job "” they go home."

"” A guest-worker program. Yes, almost everyone knows that time-limited work visas usually don't work well because so many of those using them stay on illegally after their visas expire. But from the apricot groves of California to the apple orchards of the upper Midwest, farmers have been crying for two years about finding too few migrant workers to harvest all their crops.

"” Because those farmers are a powerful lobby and because plenty of factories and packinghouses make similar claims about a shortage of American workers to do rough labor, chances are Congress will create some sort of guest-worker program within the next year or two. The challenges will be to provide screening against possible terrorists and other criminals, find a way to track migrants after they enter this country in order to make sure they don't overstay their time, and to make sure the purported needs of employers are genuine and not merely a ruse to save money via ultra-low wages.

"” Border enforcement. It's almost a sure bet that Congress will soon authorize more money to expand the electronic "fence" now under construction. This is politically safe, as it tramples on none of the major interests contending about this issue "” employers, unions, advocates for equal pay for immigrants and immigrant opponents who claim the newcomers deprive Americans of jobs.

It is a feel-good measure that would let lawmakers of all stripes go home saying they've actually done something about illegal immigration. But whether fences or the electronic devices now planted on parts of the border actually deter illegal crossings is a question yet to be answered.

In short, anyone interested in immigration reform had better get used to the idea it will come slowly and in small pieces, rather than in one sweeping bill as was tried this year. But because the demand for change is so high, more changes will surely follow the recent Bush move.

"” Thomas D. Elias, of Santa Monica, is a columnist and author. His e-mail address is tdelias@aol.com.

Opinion
Santa Cruz Sentinel
August 24, 2007

AS WE SEE IT: IMMIGRATION DISGRACE/MEAN-SPIRITED POLITICAL POSTURING HAS FOLLOWED COLLAPSE OF REFORM LEGISLATION.

Since the collapse in June of the bipartisan, President Bush-backed immigration reform proposal, it's come to this in the American political debate over the people crossing borders illegally to work and live in this country:

Leading Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani takes a political swing Wednesday through California, proclaiming, "I will end illegal immigration" Giuliani earlier had said he supports construction of a fence along the border with Mexico and deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney this week releases a campaign commercial essentially accusing Giuliani of being a hypocrite, since as mayor of New York City he allowed the city to continue being a "sanctuary" that barred local police from tipping off federal immigration authorities about arrests of undocumented immigrants.

Another Republican candidate, Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said officials in Newark, N.J., share partial blame for the brutal murders of three college students earlier this month. Tancredo said the officials failed to deport two of the murder suspects, both undocumented immigrants who had been arrested earlier for other crimes.

The state of New Jersey announces that police officers are now required to notify federal officials when they arrest an illegal immigrant for an indictable offense. The new policy is applauded by groups that oppose illegal immigration, who say sanctuary policies put the public at risk.

This is the aftermath of the loss of political will, and heart, that occurred earlier this summer, when an Internet-fueled campaign aimed at Republican elected officials scuttled the reform deal, which opponents derided as amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Democrats, in turn, didn't like the compromise reform measure because they felt it was too restrictive regarding how long immigrants could stay in the U.S.

Even though Republicans risk losing previous gains in the Latino vote, no one expects anything to be done about the immigration chaos until after the November 2008 elections.

In the interim, the federal Department of Homeland Security, which supervises immigration enforcement, made an announcement that sent a chill through the agriculture, restaurant and tourism industries in Santa Cruz County.

In a move aimed at employers more than workers, the department said it would start enforcing "no match" letters, which inform employers that the names and Social Security numbers of employees on their payroll do not match those provided by the Social Security Administration.

While the warning letters have not yet been sent to local employers, many are already howling, saying they have no way of knowing if an employee is providing a fake number.

Since local immigration experts estimate about 20,000 undocumented people work the fields, wash dishes, landscape yards, cook meals and clean hotel rooms and homes in Santa Cruz County, among many jobs, the federal crackdown could have major consequences for local companies and residents.

Elsewhere in the country, raids have been carried out, and workers deported.

Companies that ignore warning letters face fines of up to $10,000 per employee, or criminal prosecution.

Meanwhile, border enforcement has increased, and the number of overall immigrants is down, based on apprehensions by border officials.

Still, people are living scared and the underlying economic and social justice issues remain unresolved.

We agree with Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, who told the Sentinel Editorial Board this week the current situation is a "mess" and that a mean spirit has taken hold of the political debate over people who come to this country to better their lives and the lives of their children.

Review and Outlook
The Wall Street Journal
August 22, 2007; Page A14

GOP IMMIGRATION MELTDOWN

Are Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani competing for the Republican Presidential nomination, or for the job of vacation replacement for Lou Dobbs? It's hard to tell these days as the candidates attempt to one-up each other's anti-immigration rhetoric.

Mr. Romney has faulted the former New York City mayor for not directing the local police to harass illegal-alien janitors, cooks and bus boys, thus making the Big Apple a so-called "sanctuary city" for the undocumented. Mr. Romney apparently doesn't think the NYPD has anything better to do with its time, though given the record drop in violent crime during the Giuliani years, which coincided with an increase in immigrants to the city, he might reconsider that notion.

Mr. Giuliani has responded by slouching toward Tom Tancredo, unveiling plans to tackle the immigration problem with ID cards, physical barriers and patrols along the Mexican border. But Mr. Giuliani's previous support for these newcomers, who've helped to revitalize New York over the past two decades, makes his more recent rhetoric seem like a gambit to neutralize Mr. Romney's appeals to the restrictionist right. At least Mr. Giuliani still stresses his interest in giving foreigners more opportunities to enter the U.S. lawfully.

Both candidates, however, ignore the reality that more security measures will have limited effect if not paired with a guest worker program that gives foreign nationals more legal ways to access job offers in the U.S. The same goes for the Bush Administration's recently announced plans to step-up "interior" enforcement. Taking U.S. employers to the woodshed won't fix the illegal immigration problem, and it could do real economic harm.

Under the new rules, scheduled to take effect next month, businesses with workers whose Social Security numbers don't match their names could face criminal charges and heftier fines. It's hard to understand the rationale of a policy that holds employers responsible for the inability of the federal government to produce secure Social Security numbers.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was careful to note that business operators who make an honest attempt to play by the rules have nothing to fear. "If they follow the process in good faith, they have a safe harbor," Mr. Chertoff told us in an interview. Yet the feds have repeatedly conducted high-profile investigations and raids on businesses that hired consenting adults with the appropriate paperwork.

The Justice Department in 2001 obtained a 36-count indictment against Tyson Foods, alleging that the food-processing concern had hired 136 illegal aliens to work among thousands of other employees at plants in six states. In November 2006 federal immigration authorities raided Smithfield Foods, the world's largest hog slaughterhouse, alleging that 541 of its 5,000 employees had Social Security numbers that didn't match government records. And last December, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided Swift & Co., a beef and pork processor, rounding up 1,300 of the company's 15,000 employees in six different facilities.

It made no difference to the feds that all three companies had voluntarily participated in employment-verification programs set up by the government to vet new hires. Smithfield, Swift and Tyson, which was acquitted on all counts, were not spared the bad publicity and millions of dollars in lost profits due to work stoppages. Some "safe harbor."

The industry expected to be hardest hit by more worksite enforcement is agriculture, where it's an open secret that at least half of the work force may be illegal. Because Americans have better options than working as seasonal strawberry pickers in Arizona, growers will have to decide whether to shut down, move operations somewhere with a steady supply of legal workers, or pay illegals off the books and hope they're not raided. If acute labor shortages ensue, leading to job cuts among native workers -- and higher prices at the supermarket -- the voting public will know where to assign blame.

Mr. Chertoff says his hands are tied because Congress has refused to put in place a guest-worker program that would give U.S. employers legal access to enough foreign labor. "The right way to do this is comprehensively, where you address the economic needs simultaneously with the enforcement," says the Secretary. Agreed, but he and the Administration still have the discretion not to pile more unreasonable and unworkable enforcement policies on top of the existing ones.

None of these worksite raids has turned up a jihadist to our knowledge, despite being conducted in the name of "homeland security." Given that resources are not unlimited, you'd think that DHS officials, like New York's Finest, could find more productive work than chasing down landscapers and treating honest businessowners as if they were criminals

BUSH'S IMMIGRATION CLAMPDOWN

The Nation.
Article
David Bacon
August 22, 2007 (web only)

A year ago, in the middle of the nation's most bitterly fought union organizing drive of the past decade, management at the Smithfield Foods pork slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, North Carolina, sent a letter to 300 workers. The company, Smithfield claimed, had been notified by the Social Security Administration that the workers' numbers didn't match the SSA database. Come up with new numbers, the company ordered, that could pass the "no-match check," or they'd be fired within two weeks.

The Smithfield plant, largest of its kind in the world, employs 5,000 people, about half of whom are immigrants. No one can say for sure how many lacked immigration papers, but as in most meatpacking plants, many undoubtedly did. Despite their status, during the prior year those workers walked out twice to join immigrant-rights marches. They had even shut down production lines protesting the high accident rate. The fear created by the no-match check was an easy way to cut that activism short.

For the past two decades employers have threatened, and often implemented, similar terminations in workplace after workplace. At the Woodfin Suites in Emeryville, California, the hotel threatened no-match firings after workers began demanding compliance with the city's living-wage law. At the Cintas laundry chain, plant managers fired hundreds of employees last year in no-match checks during UNITE HERE's national organizing drive. The list goes on and on.

Now the Bush Administration says that vastly increased checks will become a fact of life in every US workplace. On August 10 Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told reporters that the SSA will soon send letters to all businesses with ten or more employees, listing all workers whose numbers don't jibe. After a ninety-day grace period, the Administration will require employers to discharge those whose numbers are still in question.

The scope of Chertoff's order is staggering. About 12 million people living in the United States have no legal immigration status. Most of them work. In order to get hired, they have to present a Social Security number to their employers. Some use invented numbers, while others borrow existing numbers. This causes no harm to others; if anything, it subsidizes the Social Security fund, since undocumented workers can't claim benefits, although they're paying deductions like everyone else.

Yet if the Chertoff regulation is implemented as announced, as many as 8 or 9 million people will lose their jobs at the end of this year. The impact will be catastrophic. Most undocumented families live close to the margin as it is, from paycheck to paycheck. They would suddenly have no means to buy food, pay rent, clothe their children or send them to school. The human suffering would be immense. Working-class communities, already stretched to provide services to currently unemployed workers, would have no means to meet these additional needs. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for welfare, food stamps, unemployment insurance and almost all other public benefits. Tens of thousands of workplaces would fall silent, as those industries most dependent on immigrant labor would virtually cease to function. Crop cultivation and harvesting would stop immediately. So would meatpacking and most food processing. Hotels and restaurants would turn away customers.

Construction would stall, as laborers and other lower-paid workers would disappear. Shutting down construction would put skilled citizen workers on the streets as well. In convalescent homes, the absence of undocumented caregivers would cause a crisis for the sick, disabled and elderly of all races and nationalities.

Many of the industries that would be affected contribute heavily to Bush and the Republican Party, including to candidates who have called for this kind of Draconian immigration enforcement. Accepted wisdom in Washington says the Administration is pandering to win the support of anti-immigrant extremists in the Republican Party. While this may be true, it hardly explains why the Administration seems so intent on biting the corporate hand that feeds it.

At the August 10 press conference, both Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez provided an explanation. Employers worried about the loss of their workers, Gutierrez said, could avail themselves of existing guest-worker programs, which allow corporations to recruit workers outside the United States and bring them into the country on visas tied to employment. The Administration, he promised, would make the programs easier for employers to use.

In recent years companies have pushed relentlessly to relax caps on guest-worker recruitment and cut already-weak requirements for housing, wages and labor protections. As the cries of employers for workers become louder, it's not hard to predict that Congress will eventually be asked to authorize new contract labor schemes. Providing legal status to people here without papers, however, is excluded from this agenda.

Chertoff's enforcement regulations, and Gutierrez's guest-worker expansion, simply implement by executive order provisions of the immigration bill that Congress wouldn't pass two months ago. That bill also coupled big guest-worker programs with no-match checks and raids. These are the centerpieces of the Administration's immigration reform program, and were originally proposed by some of the country's largest corporations and industry groups.

"We do not have the workers our economy needs to keep growing each year," Gutierrez said at the recent press conference. "The demographics simply are not on our side.... Ultimately, Congress will have to pass comprehensive immigration reform." Chertoff rolled out the same message last year, after huge immigration raids at the Swift meatpacking plants. Congress had to understand, he said, that Bush wants "a program that would allow businesses that need foreign workers, because they can't otherwise satisfy their labor needs, to be able to get those workers in a regulated program."

Firing millions of workers to gain leverage in Congress is a brutal tactic, but the Administration's pressure campaign of raids and no-match checks has been growing for the past two years. Its enforcement actions on the ground are often carried out in cooperation with employers.

When the no-match firings began at Smithfield last November, hundreds of slaughterhouse laborers walked out and stayed out for three days. In an unprecedented accomplishment, they forced the company to rescind the firing order. But after the workers were reinstated, Homeland Security agents came out to Tar Heel in January. They arrested twenty-one people inside the plant and deported them. The fear it inspired broke the back of the union's in-plant organizing strategy.

At the Woodfin Suites in Emeryville, after the company began to threaten no-match terminations, the City Council went to court to prevent the firings. Then Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray, chair of the House Immigration Caucus, called Homeland Security on behalf of company president Samuel Hardage. Bilbray got the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to jump-start an investigation of the immigration status of those workers who, according to the hotel, had been listed in a no-match letter. That was the same group that had demanded enforcement of the living-wage ordinance. All of those listed in the no-match letter were eventually fired.

Firings for no-match discrepancies are a misuse of the Social Security database. The SSA was created not to punish workers but to benefit them, by making disability payments when they get injured and providing pensions when they're too old to work. But for twenty years successive administrations have tried to use Social Security as a tool for immigration enforcement. Employers have used those efforts as pretexts to discharge employees when they organize unions, demand better wages and try to enforce labor standards, or simply to replace higher-paid workers with lower-paid ones.

In the past the Social Security Administration has sometimes been uncomfortable with this betrayal of its mission. Community protest in the 1990s persuaded the SSA to include a paragraph in no-match letters warning employers not to interpret them as evidence of lack of legal immigration status. In 1999, in the middle of the huge Operation Vanguard immigration raids, the SSA even denied the Immigration and Naturalization Service (a predecessor to the ICE) access to its database, after 3,000 people were driven from their jobs in Nebraska meatpacking plants. Since then, however, the ICE has been brought into line by the Bush Administration, and is now more than willing to go after the nation's undocumented.

Because firing several million people at once would be economically disastrous to the Administration's corporate supporters, actual enforcement will be, as always, selective. At the August press conference Chertoff acknowledged that the ICE couldn't track down every failure to fire workers listed in no-match letters, but would instead mount highly publicized raids to scare employers into line. The order is intended to encourage employers to act on their own, as Smithfield did. To justify its no-match firings, the company said it was simply implementing Bush's no-match proposal in advance.

It's time for a few reality checks about what this enforcement scheme will and won't accomplish.

Reality check one: Workers who lose their jobs won't leave the country. Immigrant communities are deeply embedded in the social fabric of this country, not only in cities like New York and Los Angeles but also in tiny towns like Bridgeton, New Jersey, and Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. To get here, migrants often take out loans on homes in their countries of origin. Losing a job here can mean losing that home. Family members living there, dependent on remittances from the States, would go hungry. And for many who emigrated because they were hungry themselves, going back is simply not an option.

Reality check two: When Bush and many Congress members push for new free-trade agreements, and implementation of NAFTA and CAFTA, they are creating the very conditions of poverty that are driving people north. With 200 million people in the world living outside the countries where they were born, the flow of migration is not stoppable. Anti-immigrant measures like raids and no-match checks create human misery, but don't stop the movement of people.

Reality check three: Firing millions of undocumented migrants won't create jobs or raise wages for other workers, or end discrimination against workers of color. When Operation Vanguard railroaded thousands of immigrant workers out of Nebraska meatpacking plants in 1999, there was no wave of hiring that followed in Omaha's African-American neighborhoods. A de facto color line--reflecting a common belief among employers that blacks and Chicanos will be more inclined than white workers to fight for better wages and organize unions--keeps them out of many US workplaces. At Smithfield, where black workers did organize, no-match firings and deportations intimidated into silence immigrants who were active in the campaign and created such fear that in-plant activism virtually stopped.

Reality check four: Employers complain about the no-match regulation, and many are sincerely concerned about its impact on business and workers. But some employers will benefit. Increased fear and vulnerability makes immigrant labor cheaper, by making it riskier to protest bad conditions or ask for higher wages.

These realities are inspiring a rising wave of protest in unions and immigrant communities. The week after Chertoff's announcement the United Food and Commercial Workers, the main union for the meatpacking industry, held a conference in Omaha to expose the abuse of rights in last year's raids at the Swift plants. The meeting also discussed plans for opposing the new regulation, which it predicted would lead to more firings and deportations.

"We have to do everything we can to stop these aggressive enforcement actions," said Mark Lauritzen, UFCW packinghouse director. "Last December [in the Swift raids] workers became criminals just by going to work. The Administration is using the ICE as a political hammer to beat up on them."

In California the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) and the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana have organized sit-ins in the offices of Congress members to demand that they take action to protect immigrant communities. Activists were outraged when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi greeted the no-match announcement by saying, "Securing our border remains a top priority for the New Direction Congress."

"Democrats should remember that undocumented people live in Latino and Asian families and communities that include millions of citizens as well," warned MAPA president Nativo Lopez. "They will need our votes next year to elect a new Administration. If they don't defend us now, they give us no reason to come out to the polls a year from now." Both Lopez and Ernesto Medrano, organizer for Teamsters Local 952 in Orange County, opposed this year's Senate immigration bill because of its enforcement provisions, and criticized those Democrats who supported it. "We are not seeing any leadership from our elected officials," Medrano said bitterly. "Why aren't they speaking out on our behalf? We need to take this to the streets."

AUTHORITIES SAY THEY HAVE TRUE ID OF MURDERED TRUCKER

HUDSON COUNTY NOW
From the Jersey Journal newsroom

by Michaelangelo Conte
Monday August 27, 2007, 7:54 PM

County homicide detectives have determined the true identity of the truck driver found bound and stabbed to death in Jersey City on Friday after contacting his family in Central America, officials said today.

Rafael Angel Aguero Espinoza, 50, was bound hand and foot with duct tape when his boss found him in the sleep compartment of his rig parked on Senate Place at Van Winkle Avenue, officials said.

Originally investigators tentatively identified Espinoza as Arnaldo Lopez after finding he had two driver's licenses from different states under that name, Hudson County First Assistant Prosecutor Guy Gregory said yesterday. Espinoza also had a third driver's license under his real name and police were able to confirm his identity when they reached his family in Costa Rica, Gregory said.

It's still unclear if Espinoza was in the country legally but investigators have reached out to immigration officials to determine that and are waiting for a reply, Gregory said. The motive of the murder appears to be robbery and a search of Espinoza's boarding house room in a Jersey City turned up a "sum of money," but Gregory would not say how much.

The autopsy report says Espinoza died as a result of stab wounds to his left bicept and shoulder, as well as one under his left armpit, which was likely the most severe, Gregory said.

Homicide detectives say Espinoza was last seen Aug. 17, but trucking logs found in the cab showed he may have been in Pennsylvania Monday. It's believed he had been dead several days when found.

Anyone with information on the murder is asked to call the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office at (201) 915-1345.

15 MILES OF BORDER FENCE DONE, WITH 685 LEFT TO GO

CONSTRUCTION OF U.S.-MEXICO BARRIER SLOWED BY ENVIRONMENTAL, LABOR AND DESIGN ISSUES

Construction of U.S.-Mexico barrier slowed by environmental, labor and design issues

By Richard Marosi
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Article Launched: 08/26/2007 03:05:29 AM PDT

SAN DIEGO -- Nearly a year after Congress passed legislation calling for the construction of 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, about 15 miles have been built, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Some Republicans and anti-illegal-immigration groups in recent days have criticized the lack of progress, but the Department of Homeland Security -- which had committed to erecting 70 miles of fencing by Sept. 30 -- says the project is back on track after being slowed by environmental concerns, contractor hiring and design issues.

Workers are scheduled to break ground next week on a seven-mile stretch southwest of Tucson, Ariz.; work on the remainder of a 37-mile barrier outside Yuma, Ariz., is continuing as well.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, a longtime fence backer, said in a letter to President Bush last week: "This lack of progress is unacceptable, especially when adequate funding is available to earnestly proceed with fence construction."

Bush signed the Secure Fence Act in autumn in hopes that bolstered enforcement would lead the then-Republican-led Congress to pass a broader immigration overhaul.

Opponents noted that the legislation came during an election year, when many lawmakers expressed skepticism about the fence idea but didn't want to be vulnerable to attacks for being soft on border enforcement.

"It was an election-year political gimmick. People knew that it was more about symbolism than about reality," said

Tamar Jacoby, a Manhattan Institute policy analyst who supports immigration reform.
Homeland Security has set a timetable that calls for 300 miles of new fencing and 150 miles of vehicle barriers to be in place by the end of 2008. Congress allocated $1.2 billion for border-infrastructure improvements this year, and the administration has requested an additional $1 billion for next year.

But construction couldn't begin, federal officials said, until more-effective fencing could be designed, contractors hired and environmental issues addressed. Outside Yuma, for instance, the fencing is being built with small holes to allow a native species, the horned lizard, to move freely across the border. The government also has met with ranchers and local lawmakers opposed to the plan.

"The administration has made the decision to address local land concerns and environmental concerns to the extent that they can. ... It slows the process down, but we're still committed to getting it done. Ultimately, the goal is to secure the border," said Brad Benson, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, the agency responsible for building the fence.

To immigration reform advocates, however, the lack of progress is a hopeful sign that the fencing might never be completed.

"It's just absolutely wrong. The fence is not going to stop anything," said Enrique Morones, president of the Border Angels, a San Diego-based immigrant rights group. "I think people really do realize that it is not the solution. ... It's extremely expensive and it's not effective."

OHIO, FAIRFIELD

ICE

ICE RAID ARRESTS 200 AT CHICKEN PLANT

Immigration agents raided a poultry packaging facility in Fairfield early today and arrested as many as 200 illegal immigrants who were working there.

The raid, one of the largest of its kind this year in Greater Cincinnati, is part of a two-year investigation into the hiring practices at the Chicago-based Koch Foods Company.

The Fairfield processing facility is located at 4100 Port Union Road in Fairfield.

Immigration officials described Koch Foods as an "egregious violator" of U.S. immigration laws, which means the company is suspected of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

Brian Moskowitz, a special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for Ohio and Michigan, said agents arrived with search warrants today and seized documents and other materials that could be used to build a criminal case against company officials. Search warrants also were served today at the company's Chicago offices.

"We're going to look wherever the evidence takes us," Moskowitz said. "No one gets a free pass."

Monte Lobb, a spokesman for the company's Fairfield facility, said he has been trying for several years to weed out illegal immigrants. He said he attempted to work with government agencies but received little help.

"The government won't work with me,'' he said.

Lobb said agents detained more than half of the 200 employees working when the raid began, many of whom he believes are here legally.

"I'm against illegals,'' Lobb said. "I'm not going to do anything to break the law, but people get false papers.''

Moskowitz said agents will focus today on detaining and processing the illegal immigrants rounded up at the facility, where chicken is packaged for sale around the country.

Fairfield and West Chester police departments cooperated with ICE agents in the raids. Many of those arrested today will be questioned and processed at a converted garage at the West Chester Police Department.

Moskowitz said most of the immigrants are believed to be from Africa, Mexico and Latin American countries.

He said agents would attempt to identify everyone who has been detained to determine if they have family or children in the area who rely on them for care. If they do, they may be released pending deportation proceedings.

Koch Foods, which bills itself as "America's chicken specialist," has processing and packaging facilities in Georgia, Indiana, Illinois and other states. According to Forbes magazine, the company was founded in 1973 and had revenues of $1.4 billion in 2005.

The magazine listed it last year as the 274th largest private company in America.

Reporter Leigh Taylor contributed.OHIO, FAIRFIELD

"I'M HOME!!!!!"

Dear Friends,

Keith, boys, and myself, Akiko, all four of us have entered United State through Chicago O'Hara airport on last Friday, August 24th. I passed the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) office, and now I have a stamp on my Immigration Visa, received from US Embassy in Tokyo last month, is the admission into the United State as an immigrant, mean is.... I have temporally Greencard in my hands!

Now I am to receive actual green card within 2-3 month by mail.

It is fifth day today from our arrival. I still wake up from sleep, look around the room, and think where I am. It is miracle what has happened to us.

Friends from our church and neighbors have greeted us at the airport for our arrival, along with a writer from Bradenton Herald, and TV crew from BayNews9. Our close neighbor arranged a limo for us to ride back to home in Bradenton. We had Champaign toss inside car, we enjoyed sunset through the window.

We are still adjusting with 13 hours time different between Japan and US.

We had an interview with AP writer from Tampa this afternoon. Keith said to him that he heard from State Representative that the hard ship waiver do not happen often that there are only one case beside ours, and was for a medical reason. The fact that our story was AP wired to 52 different counties, and we had so many people involved with web site campaign was done by a professional public relation company in the area, I think this was truly a miracle that what has happened to us.

I took my son Leo to his pre school yesterday, was the first time in 8 months I drove my 4Runner. Surprisingly I remembered how to drive!

My life is slowly coming back to normal.

Thank you so much for your support and e-mails through my hard time in Japan.


Akiko Campbell

PESOS FOR PIZZA, OTHER GOODS ON THE RISE

By Rachel Breitman
Reuters

NEW YORK "” When Pizza Patrón announced plans to accept Mexican pesos in its 59 Southwestern stores, the Dallas-based fast food chain was besieged by anti-illegal immigrant hate mail and even death threats.

But rather than fear for its life, the company used the Mexican currency to make a killing.

FOREIGN EXCHANGE: Latest currency quotes

"From the new business perspective, it has been phenomenally successful," said Andrew Gamm, director of brand development for Pizza Patrón.

Once it started selling pizza for pesos in January, the company's same-store-sales rose by almost a third from the previous year. Pizza Patrón has now opened six stores, with plans for 15 more throughout Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, California and Florida by year's end; 40 more in 2008.

Stores in U.S. cities from Dallas to Waikiki have found that accepting international currencies can entice immigrant and tourist shoppers, happy to save a trip to the bank.

"It is about convenience. If somebody walks in and they only have four U.S. dollars, but they have the equivalent of 10 dollars in other currency, a store'll help them out," said Ron Paul, president of Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant market research firm.

"The only stigma is that it sounds like it is supporting illegal immigration," he added.

Caught in the center of a nationwide debate about work permits, health care and legal amnesty for illegal immigrants, stores like Pizza Patrón are sometimes accused of breaking the law.

But according to the Treasury Department, international currency is a legal form of payment in the United States, unlike in some other countries.

MAKING MONEY ON MONEY

The U.S. dollar has been widely accepted in global marketplaces for years, though U.S. retailers were slow to embrace the idea of international currencies.

But as the dollar has declined in value, some national chains started to see pesos, Canadian dollars, and even yen translating into big business.

Wal-Mart Stores accepts pesos and Canadian dollars in its U.S. stores near the Mexican and Canadian borders, using a currency calculator on the price register to update values each day.

In fact, more than 50% of U.S. retail firms along the northern border take the Canadian dollar and 21% near the southern border accept the peso, according to research by Michael Pisani, professor of international business at Central Michigan University.

"The U.S. dollar is not the exclusive global currency it was a decade ago," he explained.

Pisani found that border retailers boost sales as much as 6% by accepting Canadian dollars and Mexican pesos. With one measure of the dollar falling in early August to a 15-year low against a variety of major currencies, foreign tender has gained additional luster.

Many outlets turn an added profit by charging a premium on top of the exchange rates. Though the peso has fluctuated this year from 11.50 to 10.79 pesos per dollar, Pizza Patrón sticks to a flat exchange rate of 12 pesos per dollar.

Stores along the northern border earn as much as 8% on currency transactions and southern border retailers make 3%, said Pisani.

A YEN FOR MORE BUSINESS

Retailers in popular vacation spots, have caught on to the trend, realizing that foreign currency may lure affluent international tourists.

At the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in Waikiki, luxury chains like Bulgari, Fendi, Cartier and Hermes accept the yen, and say it attracts Japanese travelers, especially when the currency's value is on the rise.

The Salvatore Ferragamo store in Waikiki's Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center averages about $12,700 in yen business transactions per month.

But the store factors in certain risks by trying to profit off the vagaries of the $2 trillion-a-day currency market.

With the yen's value sliding to a four-year low in June, yen-toting tourists were skimping on their luxury purchases.

"When the yen is down, shoppers spend less," said Gillis Asao, general manager at Salvator Ferragamo in Waikiki.

The vulnerability to an exchange rate's peaks and valleys keeps some U.S. retailers out of the currency trade.

"If you are accepting foreign currency, you have to exchange it to U.S. dollars, and you associate yourself to currency fluctuations," explained Jack Kaiser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, explaining why foreign currency wasn't more popular in Los Angeles, despite thriving international immigrant and tourist populations.

Finally, fears of counterfeiting keep some companies slow to ditch the dollar as their sole currency.

"It is hard enough to keep track of your own currency, let alone someone else's," said Richard Talbot, CEO of Talbot Consultants International, an Ontario-based retail consulting firm.

Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. Click for Restrictions.

IMMIGRANTS BECOME TARGET FOR ALL OF SOCIETY'S ILLS

By Kirsten A. Powers
USA TODAY
Columnists' Opinions
August 29, 2007

What Ronald Reagan once referred to as the "illegal-alien fuss" has fulminated into a frenzy of demonizing where behind every social ill lurks a brown-skinned illegal immigrant.

Reagan famously provided amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in 1986, appreciating America's historical role as a beacon of hope "” a "shining city upon a hill" "” to people around the world. Contrast that with the always-simmering anti-illegal immigrant fury among many who call Reagan their godfather.

After the news of the murders in Newark, where three college students were gunned down execution-style, nearly a week passed with nary a peep from the "law and order" crowd. Then it was divulged that Jose Carranza, one of the alleged attackers, was an illegal alien.

The posse piled on. Incredibly, former House speaker Newt Gingrich declared that "the war here at home" against illegal immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., presidential candidate and anti-immigration demagogue, dropped into Newark to exploit the murders to further his nativist cause.

Many argue that Carranza "” who had been arrested twice in the past year, including once on aggravated sexual assault of a child "” should have been deported to Peru, where presumably he could have preyed on kids there instead.

A systemic failure

The failure here is with our criminal justice system, and that is where the outrage should be directed. If our system had been working, Carranza would have been in prison at the time of the attack. Considering the magnitude of the charge of child rape, his bail should have been prohibitively high. The judge declined that option, setting bail hundreds of thousands of dollars lower than the indictment allowed.

Furthermore, had Carranza been deported, he very well could have returned to the USA. A year-long Rocky Mountain News investigation published last year found that one in five Colorado inmates who had been deported returned to the USA to commit the same crimes for which they were imprisoned.

But the nativists, energized by their success in derailing immigration reform legislation, will pounce on any anecdote that helps them vilify illegal immigrants. Through local ordinances, they have worked to deny illegal immigrants basic rights, though a U.S. District Court found a Pennsylvania city's efforts to engage in immigration enforcement unconstitutional.

Home-grown

The illegal-immigrant scapegoaters seem unaware that Americans are more than able to commit horrible crimes all on their own. In the high-profile murder of a Connecticut family last month, two of the alleged attackers, both U.S. citizens, were on parole. In the widely covered assault in March of a 101-year-old woman in New York, the attacker also was a parole violator. Rather than demonizing illegal immigrants, we should ask why violent offenders are allowed back on the streets to commit more crimes.

The nativists' anecdotal warfare is an old tactic that does not match up with reality.

During the 1990s, despite a steady stream of illegal immigrants, the U.S. crime rate plunged. Mr. Law and Order, Rudy Giuliani, praised illegal immigrants when he was mayor of New York and defended his sanctuary policies. It would be hard to argue that Giuliani would have defended illegal immigrants if they posed any criminal threat to the city he governed. According to a 2006 FBI report, New York "” lambasted by nativists for harboring illegal immigrants "” remains the safest large city.

Today's nativists claim that their only beef with illegal immigrants is that they are "illegal." This claim rings hollow when one considers how similarly the legal Irish and Italian immigrants were treated upon their arrival generations ago.

There is also an amazingly simple way to deal with the fact that they are illegal: Pass comprehensive immigration reform and provide them a path to citizenship.

Kirsten A. Powers is a Fox News analyst who served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1998.

MEXICO CITY


DEPORTED MEXICAN MIGRANT MOM WANTS TO RETURN TO US AS PEACE AMBASSADOR

Associated Press - August 28, 2007 10:54 PM ET

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Deported illegal migrant and activist Elvira Arellano (el-VEE'-ruh ah-ray-AH'-noh) is asking Mexico's president to appoint her "peace and justice" ambassador so she can return to the United States.

Arellano took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born, 8-year-old son. She was arrested and sent back to Mexico on August 19 after traveling to Los Angeles to attend a rally for an immigration reform rally. Her son stayed in the U.S.

In a news release, the office of President Felipe Calderon said Arellano asked the Mexican government to help her get a visa so she can enter the United States. But it did not mention Arellano's request for a diplomatic appointment.

Calderon asked Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa to look into the situation that Arellano and her son face.

Ladrón que roba a ladrón'


Posted on Fri, Aug. 31, 2007
BY PETER DEBRUGE
Special to The Miami Herald

Infomercial sensation Moctesuma Valdez (Saul Lizato) swindles his customers by offering them hope in the form of bogus health products, but it is Emilio and Alejandro (Fernando Colunga and Miguel Varoni) who actually bring it to them.

Technically, all three are thieves, but according to the old Latin American proverb, ''A thief who steals from a thief will receive 100 years of forgiveness,'' so Emilio and Alejandro will earn good karma for their trouble.

Ladrón que roba a ladrón is a Robin Hood story made to feel like a Mission: Impossible adventure, in which the slick rob from the rich to give to the poor. It doesn't matter how thick the door to Mocte's vault is, because one way or another, Emilio and Alejandro are going to find their way in. And to make their plan especially interesting, the duo recruits a gang of blue-collar immigrants -- America's invisible underclass -- to sneak in undetected.

The twist makes for an amusing political statement, but doesn't really hold water. Americans may overlook the people who actually wash their dishes, mow their lawns or park their cars, but they are still quick to lock their doors when confronted with 'suspicious''-looking strangers. If unequal treatment is really these amateur crooks' main grievance, why don't they target The Man, rather than some two-bit TV celebrity?

Ladrón is lightweight enough that none of this much matters. Mocte qualifies as evil because he exploits Latino immigrants when they're down, selling them hair tonic, diet creams and sexual-enhancement ointments that don't work (never mind that they're gullible and vain enough to waste their precious money on products they don't need).

Ladrón is the latest in a series of reasonably polished Spanish-language films to be released by Lionsgate into the broader market. There's nothing so artistic about it as to attract the same art-house crowd that braved subtitles to discover Nine Queens, and yet, it's professional enough that Spanish speakers will be glad to have a heist movie on par with Rush Hour 3 or The Pacifier made in their native tongue.

The cast, composed mainly of telenovela actors, has the handsome-yet-smarmy look of soap-opera stars. They're certainly attractive -- particularly tomboy mechanic Ivonne Montero and handsome meathead Gabriel Soto -- but far from believable. Still, the movie is primarily about fantasy, and everything is exaggerated to such a degree that you play along, just as you might when it's Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan trying to pass themselves off as ordinary people.

Cast: Fernando Colunga, Miguel Varoni, Saul Lisazo, Ivonne Montero.

Director: Joe Menendez.

Screenwriter: José Angel Henrickson.

Producer: Roni Menendez, James McNamara, Benjamin Odell.

A Lionsgate release. Running time: 98 minutes. Playing at area theaters.

'Ladrón Que Roba a Ladrón'
(thieves robbing from thieves)

How do you say, 'A mainstream movie' in Spanish?

Los Angeles Times
By Susan King
August 27, 2007


When Lionsgate decided to make a mainstream movie in Spanish for Latino audiences in the United States, the studio had to find a director who was both bilingual and had "Hollywood sensibilities."

Their search led them to Joe Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants, who had made two indie films and had directed episodic TV.

"They saw this film I made a few years back, called the 'Hunting of Man,' " says Menendez. "It was in English but with a 98% Latino cast. Most indie movies, with rare exceptions, tend not to have happy endings and the uplifting, John Williams-type music. But my movie had that. I grew up loving Steven Spielberg and 'Star Wars' and 'Die Hard.' My tastes were always mainstream."

Menendez recalls Lionsgate asking him, "Do you have anything that can be made in Spanish? What ideas do you have that you could shoot in 20 days and for not a lot of money?"

Menendez called a friend, screenwriter José Angel Henrickson, before going into the pitch meeting. "I remembered an idea he came up with about a heist pulled off by the people you never notice that are sort of invisible -- the maid, the gardener, the chauffeur. Nobody looks at a Mexican with a broom."

Henrickson refreshed his memory on the plot points, and Menendez went and pitched it -- sort of.

"I forgot half of it, so I had to make up half the movie. They bought it right in the room. I called José and said, 'The good news is that they want to make the movie. The bad news is that I pitched it wrong, and this is the new movie you are going to write.' "

The result, "Ladrón Que Roba a Ladrón," opens Friday. The caper comedy revolves around two veteran thieves who reunite in Los Angeles to rob a TV infomercial guru/con man who has made a fortune selling useless health items to poor Latino immigrants.

Though he won't reveal the film's budget, Menendez says it was "way under" $2 million. He credits his wife Roni's producing acumen for getting the "most bang for so little bucks."

"She could squeeze the last drop out of a rock," he says.

Though Menendez has several ideas for English-language features, he hopes to do more films in Spanish. "But it's all going to depend on the box office," he says.

That language never changes.

MISSOURI, JEFFERSON CITY

DEPORTATION UNDER WAY IN CRACKDOWN ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT

By TIM HOOVER
The Star's Jefferson City correspondent

JEFFERSON CITY | The Missouri Highway Patrol's new policy of checking the immigration status of people who are arrested has resulted in the patrol's first catch, officials said Thursday.

Jose Guadalupe Delacruz, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was arrested Tuesday by Camden County sheriff's officials in connection with an alleged assault, the patrol said. The sheriff's office then contacted the Highway Patrol.

Troopers checked the man's identity against a federal database and found he was not in the country lawfully, officials said.

They also learned there was a Jackson County warrant for the man's arrest for allegedly driving after his license had been revoked.

Delacruz is in the Camden County jail awaiting deportation, officials said.

Gov. Matt Blunt on Monday ordered the Highway Patrol, Capitol Police and Missouri Water Patrol to begin checking the residency status of everyone who is "presented for incarceration."

In this case, though, it was local law enforcement officers who made the arrest, said Lt. John Hotz of the Highway Patrol.

Blunt's directive calls upon the three state law enforcement entities to enter into an agreement with the federal government that would effectively "deputize" the Missouri agencies to enforce immigration laws.

The arrangement will allow Missouri agencies, primarily the 1,100 troopers in the patrol, to check the immigration status of every person they arrest, and in some cases, merely stop. Troopers check a detainee's immigration status with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

If the person is identified as an illegal immigrant, the trooper could take him or her to one of 11 facilities in Missouri that hold federal detainees. Federal immigration agents then would take over.

Seven other states have entered into similar agreements with the federal government, the patrol said.

Hispanic business owners and professionals worry the new statewide initiative will target them for immigration checks just because of their ethnicity, said Jorge Riopedre, secretary of the St. Louis area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

"This is an open door to racial profiling," Riopedre said. "They're not talking about immigrants "” they're talking about Hispanics."

Blunt's spokeswoman Jessica Robinson disputed that assessment.

"The only people affected by this are ones who broke the law, violated the border and have no legal right to be in the United States," she said.

CALDERON TO RETURN TO CONTENTIOUS CONGRESS

By Chris Hawley and Sergio Solache, USA TODAY

MEXICO CITY "” The last time President Felipe Calderón set foot in Mexico's Capitol building, the result was bedlam.
There were fistfights and shoving, protest signs and jeers as opposition lawmakers tried to stop his swearing-in ceremony Dec. 1, claiming he had won the election through fraud.

Saturday, the conservative president will go back into the fray to deliver his first State of the Union address.

He plans to chalk up a few political victories, lay out ambitious plans for the country and try to strengthen his authority after the razor-thin election win last year.

"In these first months, he's been able to take the seat of power, which was his main challenge, but that seat was full of thumbtacks," said Jorge Chabat, a social sciences professor at Mexico City's Center for Economic Research and Education. "The fact that he has consolidated his government and obtained some legitimacy are signs his government is on its way."

Calderón has pleased the Bush administration by extraditing a record 64 fugitives this year, including alleged drug kingpin Osiel Cárdenas, and by asking for U.S. aid to fight drug traffickers.

But he has been highly critical of U.S. plans to build a fence along the border and has demanded that the United States do more to combat the smuggling of guns into Mexico.

Whether Calderón will actually take the podium Saturday is unclear. Last year, opposition lawmakers rushed the dais, forcing then-President Vicente Fox to return to the presidential mansion and deliver the State of the Union address by television.

"I pray that maturity and sense will prevail," Calderón said last week.

The president might deliver a written address to Congress on Saturday, then give the speech Sunday at an auditorium where access would be restricted to invitees.

Mixed record

Calderón of the National Action Party won the election July 2, 2006, by 233,831 votes, or .58 percentage points. The rival Democratic Revolutionary Party refused to recognize the results, touching off months of demonstrations.

After taking office Dec. 1, Calderón moved to adopt a tough-sheriff image. He sent the army to quell drug violence, cut the salaries of high-ranking officials and rammed an overhaul of the government workers' pension system through Congress over the objections of powerful unions.

In an Aug. 4-9 poll commissioned by El Universal newspaper, 64% of Mexicans said they approved of the job Calderón is doing. A similar poll by the Milenio newspaper showed 50% of Mexicans said Calderón was doing better than they expected, compared with 31% who said he was doing worse than expected.

Calderón's critics say the army's drug crackdown is only a temporary fix that puts soldiers in a police role they are not prepared for.

"He sends out the army to fight organized crime, and puts them at risk: from the risk that they could be contaminated by corruption ... to the risk that they will violate citizens' human rights," said Rep. Luis Sánchez of the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Party.

Drug traffickers have killed dozens of high-ranking police in recent months.

Poor Mexicans remain frustrated at the lack of improvement in their daily lives despite six years of economic stability. Anger over the country's lingering poverty helped fuel violent protests in the last months of Fox's presidency.

"If we don't solve the problems of millions of Mexicans who are in misery and we only do cosmetic things, the country could explode," said Rep. Alfredo Ríos of the rival Institutional Revolutionary Party.

A different style

Calderón has shown a talent for negotiating with Congress, something Fox never mastered, said César Hernández, a researcher with the Research Center for Development, a Mexican think tank.

Fox "had a totally different style of governing," Hernández said. "Calderón has showed himself to be a more professional president, more political, more capable of working with and getting things out of Congress."

Despite being a free-market conservative, Calderón re-established diplomatic relations with Venezuela, whose leftist President Hugo Chávez had withdrawn his ambassador to Mexico after an exchange of insults with Fox.

Calderón has also hosted the left-leaning leaders of Spain, Argentina and Brazil.

In public, Calderón has a more focused speaking style than Fox, who cultivated a folksy image but occasionally lacked tact. Fox once made a comment about Mexican immigrants in the USA who "are doing the work that not even blacks want to do."

Calderón's next big test is his proposed overhaul of Mexico's tax system, which is being debated in Congress.

His administration will also probably roll out bills aimed at improving Mexico's elections system and streamlining the courts, Hernández said.

"Much depends on what we're going to see in the coming weeks and whether he really manages to bring about reforms that can restore the people's faith in Mexico's ability to transform itself," Hernández said.

Hawley is Latin America correspondent for USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic

ARIZONA

GROUP ESTIMATES 100 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS LEAVING EVERY DAY

By DANIEL GONZA***
The Arizona Republic
09.01.2007

PHOENIX - Illegal immigrants are starting to leave Arizona months in advance of a new state law that will require employers to verify the employment eligibility of their workers.

The departures are drawing cheers from immigration hard-liners and alarm from business owners already seeing a drop in sales.

At least several hundred immigrants have left since Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill July 2, according to interviews with illegal immigrants, immigrant advocates, community leaders and real-estate agents. The number departing is expected to mushroom as Jan. 1, the date the law takes effect, draws closer. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.

Some immigrants are moving to other states, where they think they will have an easier time getting jobs. Others are returning to Mexico.
"I would say we are losing at least 100 people a day," said Elias Bermudez, founder of Immigrants Without Borders and host of a daily talk-radio program aimed at illegal immigrants.

Abel Ledezma, a 31-year-old telephone technician from Mexico, has a work permit, but his fiancee, a waitress, is an illegal immigrant. Ledezma put his house on the market after the governor signed the bill and the two plan to move to Albuquerque, N.M., which Ledezma thinks is more welcoming of illegal immigrants.

"I feel like the people's attitudes towards not only immigrants but also Hispanics has become very rude" in Arizona, he said.

Immigration hard-liners say the exodus is a sign the employer-sanctions law is already working. It is aimed at shutting off the job magnet by imposing harsh penalties on employers caught knowingly hiring unauthorized workers.

Violators face a 10-day suspension of their business license for a first offense and could lose their license for a second offense.

"Shut off the lights, and the crowd will go home," said Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, the main architect of the new law. "I hope they will all self-deport.''

Immigrant advocates, business groups and analysts say the exodus will make it more difficult to find workers and dampen the state's economy. A dozen business groups, including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the law on the grounds it is unconstitutional.

Arizona's labor market is already tight with just 3.7 percent unemployment in July, according to the state Department of Economic Security. Illegal workers leaving the state could make the labor market tighter, which could lead to higher wages but also higher costs for goods and services, said Don Wehbey, the department's senior economist.

There are labor shortages because of a native-born population that is aging and more highly educated and therefore doesn't produce enough low-skilled workers to meet growing demand, said Judith Gans, program manager for immigration policy at the University of
Arizona's Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. As a result, illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans won't do or aren't available to do, she said. "If these workers leave, it's going to hurt the economy and put the state at an economic disadvantage with other states," Gans said.

Some areas of Arizona's economy already are taking a hit because of the hiring law.
Real-estate agent Guadalupe Sosa said illegal immigrants are putting their homes up for sale when there is already an abundance of houses on the market.

What's more, many more are not buying homes because they are worried about losing their jobs under the law.

CALIENTE

APANISH-LANGUAGE HEIST COMEDY ANTI-ANGLO, ANTI-INS, PRO LATINOS

By Roger Moore
the orlando (Fla.) sentinel
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.30.2007

"Ladrón que roba a ladrón" is a long overdue Hollywood overture to America's Latino immigrant community.

While there have been movies aimed at that audience, they're plainly calculated as movies for the naturalized, the assimilated, Spanglish speakers.

"Ladron," a caper comedy, is not. It's in Spanish with English subtitles. It is defiantly anti-Anglo, anti-Immigration and Naturalization Service. It panders to people who might not want too much attention paid to how they got into the United States. It is Hollywood slick, well-acted and with great production values.

And it's funny.

The title is part of a Latin American proverb that translates as "A thief who steals from a thief will receive 100 years of forgiveness."

That's what veteran crooks Emilio (Miguel Varoni) and Alejandro (Fernando Colunga) are after. Alejandro has summoned Emilio from Colombia to take down a man who has gotten rich making infomercials for bogus products ("Water of God," a cure-all, is his best-seller) in between Spanish-language soap operas (telenovelas) for the poor-and-gullible corner of the Latino market.

And even though the two men have a code "” "we never steal from our own" "” they're going to make an exception for Moctezuma Valdez (Saúl Lisazo). They plot a heist and recruit their team.

If you've ever seen a heist picture, you know the drill. You need a driver. Here, he's a parking valet (Ruben Garfias). The valet's tough-talking mechanic daughter (Ivonne Montero) comes along.

You need muscle, a master ditch digger (Gabriel Soto). You need a play-actor, someone who can wear disguises and pretend to be someone he's not. They find a Cuban expat (Oscar Torres, hilarious) who suffers from stage fright.

There also is a nanny (Julie Gonzalo), employed by the millionaire figures in the plot, which has a modest number of twists.

The "mark" figures out there's something up very quickly. That doesn't mean his safe won't be cracked, just that more twists will be necessary. A tunnel must be dug, a strike at an office building must be organized, the mechanic girl must discover her feminine side with the sweaty, too-buff ditch digger.

The cast is a real cross-section of Latino North America, actors good-looking enough to be telenovela stars, as some of them are.

They don't make enough of one big gag, that "immigrants are invisible" to the Anglo world. It's not clever enough to make you forget "Heist," "The Italian Job" or "Ocean's Eleven," "Twelve" or "Thirteen."

But it's cute even if it isn't as intricate as those, and even if it does pander to an "us" who always steal from "them."

quote:

Originally posted by explora:
ARIZONA

GROUP ESTIMATES 100 ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS LEAVING EVERY DAY

By DANIEL GONZA***
The Arizona Republic
09.01.2007

PHOENIX - Illegal immigrants are starting to leave Arizona months in advance of a new state law that will require employers to verify the employment eligibility of their workers.

The departures are drawing cheers from immigration hard-liners and alarm from business owners already seeing a drop in sales.

At least several hundred immigrants have left since Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill July 2, according to interviews with illegal immigrants, immigrant advocates, community leaders and real-estate agents. The number departing is expected to mushroom as Jan. 1, the date the law takes effect, draws closer. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.

Some immigrants are moving to other states, where they think they will have an easier time getting jobs. Others are returning to Mexico.
"I would say we are losing at least 100 people a day," said Elias Bermudez, founder of Immigrants Without Borders and host of a daily talk-radio program aimed at illegal immigrants.

Abel Ledezma, a 31-year-old telephone technician from Mexico, has a work permit, but his fiancee, a waitress, is an illegal immigrant. Ledezma put his house on the market after the governor signed the bill and the two plan to move to Albuquerque, N.M., which Ledezma thinks is more welcoming of illegal immigrants.

"I feel like the people's attitudes towards not only immigrants but also Hispanics has become very rude" in Arizona, he said.

Immigration hard-liners say the exodus is a sign the employer-sanctions law is already working. It is aimed at shutting off the job magnet by imposing harsh penalties on employers caught knowingly hiring unauthorized workers.

Violators face a 10-day suspension of their business license for a first offense and could lose their license for a second offense.

"Shut off the lights, and the crowd will go home," said Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, the main architect of the new law. "I hope they will all self-deport.''

Immigrant advocates, business groups and analysts say the exodus will make it more difficult to find workers and dampen the state's economy. A dozen business groups, including the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the law on the grounds it is unconstitutional.

Arizona's labor market is already tight with just 3.7 percent unemployment in July, according to the state Department of Economic Security. Illegal workers leaving the state could make the labor market tighter, which could lead to higher wages but also higher costs for goods and services, said Don Wehbey, the department's senior economist.

There are labor shortages because of a native-born population that is aging and more highly educated and therefore doesn't produce enough low-skilled workers to meet growing demand, said Judith Gans, program manager for immigration policy at the University of
Arizona's Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy. As a result, illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans won't do or aren't available to do, she said. "If these workers leave, it's going to hurt the economy and put the state at an economic disadvantage with other states," Gans said.

Some areas of Arizona's economy already are taking a hit because of the hiring law.
Real-estate agent Guadalupe Sosa said illegal immigrants are putting their homes up for sale when there is already an abundance of houses on the market.

What's more, many more are not buying homes because they are worried about losing their jobs under the law.

I missed this article in my daily reads - interesting and thanks for sharing!