OKLAHOMA, TULSA

HISPANIC ENROLLMENT DROPS AT SOME SCHOOLS

By ANDREA EGER World Staff Writer
9/14/2007

Their parents picked them up from school in a car jam-packed with belongings and a U-haul trailer hitched to the b u mper.

That was the first sign.

When the three students did not show up for class the next morning, that is how Principal Judy Feary knew for sure that Kendall-Whittier Elementary School had lost a few more Hispanic students.

"The parents had gone home and packed during the day. They were picking up their kids and heading back to Mexico," Feary said.

Enrollment at Kendall-Whittier has rebounded significantly since the first day of school, when 18 percent of the school's 1,000 students failed to show up.

Now the school is reporting an enrollment downturn of just 40 students compared with 180 around this date in August, but Feary said more and more Hispanic students are leaving all the time for Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, California and Mexico -- anywhere but here.

"We're hearing that many of them are planning to leave in October, before the law takes effect," Feary said.

She was referring to House Bill 1804, which takes effect Nov. 1. It requires law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status of people who are arrested in felony and drunken-driving cases and also contains measures to prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining employment and public benefits.

The departure of some immigrant families, combined with the reluctance of some remaining in Tulsa to send their children to school, is having an impact on schools across the city.

Gary Lytal, the assistant to the superintendent for school and district accountability, said preliminary enrollment data suggest that Tulsa Public Schools has had the smallest percentage increase in Hispanic students in recent years, up by just 0.72 percent, compared with 1 percent to 1.5 percent increases previously.

At Kendall-Whittier, 2601 E. Fifth Place, the loss of 40 students already has cost one teacher's position.

"Many of the children are stressed," Feary said. "We had one mother deported last week who was picked up on an outstanding traffic ticket. She left her children (here) with relatives. We've also had some children tell us their parents are telling them what to do if they don't come home from work, how to stay safe at home and what relatives to call.

"That's a lot of pressure to put on a child."

Rosenstein, Fist and Ringold, the law firm that represents TPS and more than 300 other school districts in Oklahoma, has advised its school clients not to ask about the citizenship of any student or differentiate between students in any special services or programs.

The difficulty in getting some students to attend school is in convincing parents that their children will be safe there.

At Celia Clinton Elementary School, 1740 N. Harvard Ave., student enrollment is up slightly. But Principal Cindy Taylor said 13 of 15 Hispanic students in prekindergarten and kindergarten who were absent on the first day of school still have not shown up.

"We've heard some of them moved to Texas or Kansas, but many of them are here, and their parents won't send them to school because they're concerned that (the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency) is going to take their kids," Taylor said. "Our school interpreter tried to reassure them, but they were too afraid."

Taylor said a school employee who attends a church in the Celia Clinton neighborhood told her that its pastor was warning Hispanic parents that their children could be taken at school. She asked the employee to set the pastor straight.

"My biggest concern is that by next year, some of these kids will be really behind in language and everything else. It's going to kind of spiral down," she said.

Principal Karen Vance of Rosa Parks Elementary School in the Union district, said its number of Hispanic students has remained unchanged, but some faces are different.

"Some previous students have been replaced by new ones moving in, because some families have chosen to move to other states that have friendlier legislation," Vance said.

Administrators at Rogers High School in Tulsa apparently succeeded in preventing an enrollment decline.

The school's registrar, who is bilingual, attended a Hispanic community meeting in August to address parents' concerns and questions.

And Rogers administrators met with the priest at a nearby Catholic church with a large Hispanic population to solicit his help in reassuring parents.

"TPS is taking the stand that we're here to educate and help the students, so everyone should be enrolled," Assistant Principal Lyda Wilbur said. "We want all students to come to school regardless of their legal status."

[COMMENT BY EXPLORA: The teacher said the family was pulling a U-haul. I wasn't aware you could take a U-haul to Mexico. If not, then she might've been 'assuming' they were going to Mexico. (Another assumption?) Maybe they were going to Utah or Arkansas. Best of luck to them wherever they're heading.]

DAY LABORERS SQEEZED ON TWO SIDES
LEGAL CRACKDOWN, JOB SLUMP COINCIDE

By Pamela Constable and Marcela Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, October 10, 2007; Page A01

By sunup every day last month, the parking lot between a filling station and a paint store in Fairfax County was scattered with Latino men, many wearing clean white shirts and pants in hopes of landing a day's work painting apartment walls. They yawned, joked and sipped coffee, but their faces were hard with worry.

"I have never seen so many men out here before or so few trucks," said Vicente Crespo, 37, a Salvadoran who shares an apartment with six other Latino immigrants, five of them in the country illegally. "A year ago, I was working all month and getting $15 an hour. Now, if I'm lucky, I get a job for a few hours and they pay $10."

The reason for this growing job scarcity -- described by immigrant day laborers, counselors and employers throughout the Washington suburbs -- is an economic and legal double whammy. A sharp regional downturn in housing construction has coincided with increased government pressure on employers not to hire illegal immigrants, who have traditionally gravitated to building and remodeling jobs.

The result, they said, has been a domino effect in which spooked employers are firing skilled workers with dubious identification, who in turn are flooding street corners and job programs. There they compete with casual workers for less-skilled jobs, accepting ever lower wages and shorter hours out of desperation.

Crespo and others said the dual squeeze has dramatically changed the atmosphere and tactics of their daily job search. Before, a contractor's van would pull into a parking lot outside a gas station or convenience store. A dozen men would stroll over and bargain for a few moments over wages and hours. Now, they said, there is often a mad scramble, with everyone looking over his shoulder for police cars or immigration vans.

"There's no time to negotiate. You just grab the door handle and jump in," Crespo said. The workers still share housing and beers, hair-raising tales of desert border crossings from Mexico and photos of wives and children back in Central America. But out in the parking lot, he said, "it's every man for himself."

Latino workers expressed confusion and alarm over a bewildering variety of recent government actions designed to curb illegal immigration. In Virginia, several jurisdictions have passed or are considering measures to deny public services to illegal immigrants and empower police to arrest them. A new federal law would allow employers to be prosecuted and fined if they ignore official letters warning that some workers have false or stolen Social Security cards.

Many of the new measures have not been implemented, but the perception of a crackdown has had a palpable chilling effect. At the same time, the immigrants are finding fewer and fewer safe places to seek work. In Maryland, they are welcome at the network of job placement centers operated by the nonprofit agency CASA of Maryland, but in Virginia, the only such center, in Herndon, was besieged by controversy and shut its doors last month, leaving workers to fend for themselves.

At one informal pickup spot next to a gas station in Annandale, where dozens of jobless Latino men gathered last month, several said police were following contractors' vans and giving them tickets if they lingered too long. They said the only way to guarantee a day's work was to arrange by phone to meet a previous employer at another spot.

"We all have to have cellphones now," said German Reyes, 58, a former hospital worker from Mexico who came to Virginia in 2000, hoping to earn a better living in construction. A year or two ago, Reyes said, work was "abundant" in new housing developments, and he could make about $500 a week. Now he is reduced to part-time remodeling for less than half that amount.

The construction downturn alone has badly hurt the immigrant population, which constitutes about 14 percent of the industry's workforce, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in the District. Housing starts nationwide are down 27 percent from two years ago, according to the National Association of Home Builders. In the Washington area, single-family housing starts are at their lowest point since 1992.

The industry slump and the tough new laws against hiring illegal immigrants have particularly affected large construction companies, which hire for longer periods than small contractors, keep more written records and have more to lose if they get in trouble. Big builders are especially worried about the new federal "no-match" law -- temporarily halted by a lawsuit -- that warns them when workers have bad Social Security cards and exposes them to legal prosecution if they fail to fire those workers.

Steven Vermillion, chief executive of Associated General Contractors of Virginia, said the political and legal situation, especially Congress's failure to overhaul immigration laws this year, is making it "more cumbersome for employers to do hiring. . . . Everybody is a little bit confused."

Small contractors, whose home repair or installation businesses normally provide a fallback for immigrant workers, have also been pummeled by the region's residential real estate downturn. With thousands of area homeowners trying to sell instead of improving their property, workers say such firms are hiring less, paying less -- and sometimes not paying at all.


Day laborers in white painting clothes wait near a gas station in Annandale for jobs, which they say are both harder to find and lower-paying now. (By Pamela Constable -- The Washington Post)

On the other hand, small employers' relationships with immigrant workers tend to be more personal and their attitudes more sympathetic. Michael Histon, who owns a waterproofing firm in Mount Airy, picks up several Latino workers every morning from a day-laborer site in Wheaton operated by CASA of Maryland.

"These guys work hard, they are orderly and they never complain," Histon said. He said he made sure all his workers had proper documents but added that the crackdown on illegal immigration was a "double-edged sword."

"Let's be honest: Who is going to cut the grass and clean the bathrooms? If they were gone for three weeks, everything would come to a screeching halt," he said.

Inside the Wheaton center, where more than 50 men were waiting for jobs Friday morning, manager Tona Cravioto had other worries. From a steady average of 542 construction jobs a month, he said, clients at the site found 400 jobs in August, and he predicted that the number would fall to 200 by January.

As a result, Cravioto said he is urging men to prepare for a long, hard winter -- three months earlier than last year -- by opening savings accounts, stocking up on staples and looking for menial or indoor jobs. More than 150 have signed up for a county leaf collection program that pays barely minimum wage.

"Cold weather is a phenomenon we can prepare for. But this is something we never expected," he said. "I tell them they have to be more flexible and versatile. You may be a professional painter who could normally earn $18 an hour, but now you must be willing to do dishwashing or snow removal, too."

For a growing number of immigrant workers -- even some with legal documents -- the tradeoff no longer seems worth it. Once proud to send home a monthly money order, many say they can barely afford to pay their own rent while feeling devalued by an increasingly hostile society.

"All my life I heard about the American dream, but now I see doors closing everywhere," said Eduardo Miguel, 27, an electrical worker from Bolivia who lives in Northern Virginia. "I read about how the Irish and Italians worked their way up in American society, but I don't see the same future for us. We are losing our jobs, our mortgages and our rights. What do we have to dream about now?"

LICENSES FOR IMMIGRANTS GAINS SUPPORT


Gov. Eliot Spitzer in the Columbus Day Parade on Monday.

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and DANNY HAKIM
Published: October 9, 2007

ALBANY, Oct. 8 — Opponents have decried Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s move to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants as a “passport to terror” and a “frightening” policy shift that is “dangerous and inconceivable.”

They suggest that the policy will shield illegal immigrants from scrutiny by law enforcement and airport security personnel and make them appear to be in the United States legally.

But the governor’s policy is drawing support from some terrorism and security experts, who, like Mr. Spitzer, regard it as a way of bringing a hidden population into the open and ultimately making the system more secure, not to mention getting more drivers on the road licensed and insured.

The success of the policy, they say, will rest on the reliability of new technology that Mr. Spitzer wants installed in Department of Motor Vehicles offices to verify the authenticity of passports and other documents that the illegal immigrants will be required to submit when applying for licenses.

Some of the new security problems predicted by critics appear unlikely, several security experts said. Having a driver’s license should not make it easier to board a domestic airplane flight, because foreign passports are already accepted as identification at airports. Moreover, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration said, neither a foreign passport nor an American driver’s license is among the criteria used to determine whether the bearer will be subject to extra security screening.

Further, while critics have made much of the fact that several of the Sept. 11 terrorists used driver’s licenses to rent vehicles and board airplanes, they were able to obtain licenses as apparently legal immigrants, if in some cases by presenting fraudulent documentation. As a result, the federal commission that investigated the attacks specifically declined to make recommendations on whether licenses should be granted to illegal immigrants, saying it was not germane to their inquiry.

“If you talk to people in the intelligence and law enforcement communities, when they’re investigating terrorists or crimes or unlawful activity, they want people to be in the system, because that’s how you find them,” said Margaret D. Stock, an associate professor at West Point who also works for the Army as an immigration lawyer.

“I’m a Republican,” she added. “I find it disturbing that people who claim to be law and order types want to let hundreds of thousands of people run around the country without any oversight when there’s a war going on.”

But critics of the policy see it as a retreat.

“There will no longer be any security,” said Frank J. Merola, a Republican and the county clerk in Rensselaer County. A license, he said, “will no longer be different than a fraudulent document on the street.”

“When a police officer walks up to a routine traffic stop,” he said, “he doesn’t know if someone is here legally or illegally.”

Mr. Merola added that his concerns would have been allayed if the governor had proposed creating a second class of driver’s license for the illegal immigrants. Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said his group has generally opposed giving licenses to people who cannot prove they are here legally. However, he said he would not necessarily object to a system like the one Mr. Spitzer is proposing, as long as the verification technology was adequate to prevent fraud.

“We just need to know who we’re stopping, and have some degree of confidence that the information is accurate,” Mr. Canterbury said. “As long as they have proof of who they are, I don’t think that we would object to something like that.”

Under the new policy, someone applying for a license without a Social Security number would need a valid, current foreign passport, in addition to other documents that would aid in establishing the applicant’s identity.

The passport’s authenticity would be verified through new scanners installed at all Department of Motor Vehicles offices or at a central location by a new unit of specially trained personnel. In addition, under the policy, photo-comparison software will be tested in hopes of keeping people from getting multiple licenses under different names.

“If the photo-comparison technology works and if the D.M.V. uses effective methods for authenticating and verifying foreign-source identity documents, the future New York license will be more robust than today’s driver’s licenses, and of much greater use in screening and investigations involving terrorism,” said Susan Ginsburg, a former staff member of the 9/11 Commission who is now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute and an adviser to the federal Department of Homeland Security.

The most important thing for investigators and intelligence officials, she added, was to be able to track suspects, legal or not.

“Consistency of identity is critical to law enforcement and counterterrorism, and it’s the consistency of identity that the New York system is designed to increase,” she said.

But James M. Staudenraus, an adviser to the groups 9/11 Families for a Secure America and the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License, argued that forgoing a requirement for Social Security numbers meant forgoing the only reliable method for verifying someone’s true identity. Foreign passports varied so widely in quality and antifraud protection, he said, that it was dangerous to rely on them.

“We can’t rely on technology for verifying people’s true identity,” Mr. Staudenraus said.

He worries that once would-be terrorists had access to valid state driver’s licenses, they would raise less suspicion. “Everyone who sees it assumes that the individual carrying it has gone under some sort of a background check,” he said.

The Spitzer policy means that New York driver’s licenses are unlikely to meet the federal guidelines being phased in by 2013 for a federally recognized license known as a “Real ID,” which will require, among other things, proof of legal residency. Under the federal law, at that time, the Real ID or a passport would be needed to board an airplane in the United States. In that case, New York and other states may opt to offer both Real IDs for those who want them, as well as standard driver’s licenses.

The dispute over the Spitzer policy appears headed for the courts.

In most upstate counties, county clerks operate centers for the Department of Motor Vehicles, and a dozen Republican clerks have threatened to defy the policy, even though they act as agents of the governor’s administration. Republican lawmakers have threatened to sue to block the policy, saying the governor did not have the statutory authority to act on his own; the Spitzer administration argues that previous litigation on the matter supports their position.

Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, has called the response hysterical.

“We are not talking about letting more people into this country,” he said, “we are talking about being practical about those who are already here.”

OHIO

BILLBOARD SUPPORTS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS



Reported by: Jenell Walton
Photographed by: 9News
wcpo.com
Cincinnatti OH

It appears a coalition of groups from the Tri-state has a message for the Butler County Sheriff and others who say illegal immigrants should be prosecuted for breaking the law.

9News found a billboard across the street from the Butler County Sheriff's Office near the corner of Knightsbridge Drive and Central Avenue in Hamilton.

It quotes the Bible verse, Leviticus 19:34, "You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you."

Sheriff Richard Jones says his department is following the law when prosecuting illegal immigrants, therefore treating them just like others who break the law.

"I agree with the billboard. Come here, it's a great place to live and obey the law and you'll be treated just as those who are born here," Jones said. "So, it's a good thing. I agree with it as a matter of fact."

Catholics in Alliance, the Hamilton United Ministerial Association and the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform paid for the billboard.

The groups say illegal immigrants should be treated with more respect.

They say those arrested are real people and law enforcement should take that into consideration when prosecuting illegal immigrants.

They say law enforcement should also show more compassion towards illegal immigrants.


©2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

This is one of the best posts I've seen here! But I'm afraid the GOP version of the Bible doesn't contain that verse.

DEPORTEES FILE MOTION OVER FORCED SEDATION

A pastor in Riverside is one of two men who accuse immigration officials of injecting them with potentially lethal doses of anti-psychotic drugs against their will.

By Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 10, 2007

The ACLU filed a motion Tuesday in federal court to stop immigration authorities from forcibly drugging deportees in order to send them back to their home countries on commercial airlines.

The motion comes after an official with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement testified before the Senate last month that 50 immigrants had been given psychotropic drugs against their will over a seven-month period. Thirty-three of them had no previous psychiatric diagnosis.

One deportee, a Christian pastor in Riverside, was pinned down in a holding cell in Los Angeles the day before he was scheduled to be flown to his native Indonesia, the ACLU contended in court papers. Another, a Senegalese man, was wrestled down in the aisle of a plane parked at LAX and injected with medication. Those two deportees were in addition to the 50 cited during the Senate hearing.

"The new information shows the government's forcible drugging policy is more widespread than previously suggested," said ACLU attorney Ahilan T. Arulanantham.

"It's both medically inappropriate and shocking that the government believes it can treat immigrants like animals and shoot them up with powerful anti-psychotic drugs that can be fatal -- without a doctor's examination or court oversight."

The motion comes as part of a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union filed in June on behalf of the Riverside pastor and the Senegalese man, who were detained at Terminal Island and then forcibly drugged during the deportation process. The civil rights group contends that practice violates both the Bill of Rights and federal law regarding the medical treatment of detainees, and may constitute torture.

Both men are appealing their asylum claims. They ultimately were not deported and have been released, pending their appeals.

ICE spokeswoman Lauri Haley would not comment about the pending litigation, but said the forced medications were exceedingly rare. When they are necessary, they are both legal and overseen by "medical professionals," she said.

"Medical sedation is an act of last resort and is rarely used," she said.

According to a brief filed by the government, ICE policy allows for forcibly medicating detainees only if "a medical professional from the U.S. Public Health Service. . . determined that they present a danger to themselves or to others."

The government has not disclosed the circumstances of the forced medications. Only one of the two ACLU plaintiffs even knows what drugs he was given, according to documents recently filed in the case.

The day before he was to be sent back to his native Indonesia, Raymond Soeoth said, two officers pinned him down on a bench in a holding cell and injected him in the buttocks. His medical records show that they gave him two powerful anti-psychotic medications -- Haldol (haloperidol) and Cogentin -- even though he had no history of psychosis.

No doctor had examined Soeoth, an ethnic Chinese and Christian who fled his predominantly Muslim country in 1999 to escape religious persecution, he said. An unsigned note in his medical record, which was attached to the motion, said "psyche meds requested. . . for patient's threats to kill self if deported." Another note said Soeoth was given the medication for "telling officers he would not board airplane."

Dr. Mark Mills, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry retained by the ACLU to review the case, called the involuntary medication "profoundly disturbing."

If Soeoth was suicidal, the appropriate medication would not be Haldol, which can cause serious side effects, but "an anti-depressant or mood-stabilizing drug," Mills wrote in a sworn declaration. Haldol "is never clinically appropriate for patients who are not suffering from some form of psychosis," Mills wrote.

Mills also said that the dose of Cogentin was twice the standard dose of 2 milligrams. "In more than 30 years of psychiatric practice, I have never seen or heard of a case where 4 milligrams was delivered at once, particularly as an initial matter."

The case of the second plaintiff, Amadou Laime Diouf, was equally troubling to Mills, particularly because authorities made no note of the medication they used and because they injected him through clothing, which "greatly increases the likelihood of site infection."

In a sworn statement, Diouf said the incident occurred while on the tarmac at LAX waiting to be flown to his native Senegal. When Diouf asked a flight attendant to talk to the captain because he felt he was being deported in violation of an appeals court order, his immigration escorts grew angry, wrestling him to the floor and injecting him through his pants, he said.

Hearing the commotion, the captain ordered Diouf and the escorts off the plane. But the drug made Diouf's legs numb. He fell going down the stairs, and was disoriented and sleepy for days, he said.

Arulanantham of the ACLU said the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered a stay on Diouf's deportation at the time immigration authorities were trying to remove him.

He said that the Soeoth and Diouf cases showed that the practice has not been limited to plaintiffs posing a danger.

The men and their lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. to issue an order halting the practice while the lawsuit is being settled. Hatter declined to immediately rule on an earlier request to do the same.

Government attorneys, in turn, asked Hatter to dismiss the injunction motion because the plaintiffs could not "demonstrate they face an immediate threat of irreparable injury as they allege occurred in the past."

They also said the policy has changed so that ICE now must get an order from a judge to medicate a detainee.

ACLU attorneys said it was not clear what type of hearing the detainees would get and whether they could appeal.

In Tuesday's filing, they argued that testimony provided by Julie Myers during her Senate confirmation hearing to become chief of ICE contradicted "government officials' repeated assertions that the practice is rare and reserved only for emergencies."

"Based on the numbers Ms. Myers provided, it appears that every month the government forcibly drugs about five noncitizens who are not mentally ill."

I wonder if this says anything about the the attitude of those that came to the U.S. with the only intention of having a better life for their families. Maybe they ARE more responsible than some of the folks that are losing their houses. Those that come here illegally usually have 2 choices. To stay in Mexico or come to the U.S. uninspected. In Mexico they inquire about immigrating to the U.S. and are asked about their profession or their education. They are given little hope of immigrating legally so they take the other route. I'm sorry, if I was in that position I would do the same. I have rambelledon too much so I will stop, I'm just trying to say we need this labor, so the demand for their services is there, so lets do the right thing and give those that are the responsible ones a path to legalization and tighten our borders at the same time.Send the troublemaker back.

Thanks for the post Explora. I just posted the same one. Sorry I duplicated.

ILLEGAL WORKER CRACKDOWN BLOCKED

By Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post
Last update: October 10, 2007 – 8:27 PM

A federal judge barred the Bush administration Wednesday from launching a planned crackdown on U.S. firms that hire illegal immigrants, warning of its potentially "staggering" impact on law-abiding workers and companies.
In a rebuke of the White House, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction against the president's plan to pressure employers to fire as many as 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers, starting this fall.

President Bush made the effort the centerpiece of a reenergized enforcement drive against illegal immigration in August after the Senate rejected his proposal to overhaul immigration laws. But the ruling -- sought by major U.S. labor, business and farm organizations -- highlighted the chasm that the issue has opened between the Republican Party and its traditional business allies.

The case also called attention to the gulf between Washington rhetoric about the need to curtail immigration and the economic reality that many U.S. employers rely on illegal labor, and to the government's inability over nearly three decades to develop adequate tools for identifying unauthorized workers.

In a 22-page ruling, Breyer said the plaintiffs -- a coalition that included the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- had raised serious questions about the legality of the administration's plan to mail Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers. The letters were intended to warn employers that they must resolve questions about their employees' identities or fire them within 90 days. "There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule's implementation will be severe," Breyer wrote, resulting in "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers."

The ruling brought at least temporary relief to some Minnesota employers. "We're very pleased with the ruling," said Kevin Matzek, director of government affairs for Hospitality Minnesota, which represents 3,000 employers in restaurant, lodging, resort and campground businesses. "We were concerned that the new rules would have cost lawfully employed immigrants their jobs."

He said, "It's important that the government look at a comprehensive approach to immigration reform and takes into consideration the needs of the small business community."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the administration will continue to aggressively enforce immigration laws while considering an appeal, which could take at least nine months.

Staff writer Mary Lynn Smith contributed to this report.

Great! Violent criminals should NOT be given any path to be a part of our community. Those that commited the infraction of crossing our borders for a better life and have been responsible members of our communities are the ones we need to stay.

This what Pres. Carter meant when he mentioned several names like Lou Dobs anti immigrant ravings.

FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN



THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN'T FORCE EMPLOYERS TO FIRE EMPLOYEES WHOSE NAMES DON'T MATCH THEIR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS.

By Mary Couchman
Published: Oct 10, 2007, 8:06 PM EDT

U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the Department of Homeland Security's plan to combat illegal immigration would place a financial burden on employers, result in people authorized to work getting fired due to errors in the system and "failed to comply" with policy.

This is the most significant setback in the Bush administration's attempt to secure borders since Congress was unable to approve the president's immigration reform proposal in June.

No timeline has been set for a final ruling, which could take more than a year to argue in court if the department appeals the ruling that says the plan would have "staggering" effects on the workforce.

Immigrant and employee rights activists called the ruling a "victory" as they push for a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the country.

The Bush administration had planned to send letters this fall to 140,000 employers with a total work force of more than 8 million. According to the government, those employers typically had at least 10 workers whose Social Security numbers on W-2 tax forms did not match the government's database.

The letters would give the employer 90 days to resolve the discrepancy and an additional three days for an employee to submit a new, valid number. After that, an employer who failed to fire the worker would be subject to civil fines or criminal prosecution under a 1986 law that prohibits businesses from knowingly employing illegal immigrants.




Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, whose agency issued the rule, said the government would consider its options, including an appeal to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.