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

I will follow this up with a long awaited update on Paco. After 3 years of hearings and worry Paco received a favorable ruling from the immigration court and his removal was cancelled. He now is a permanent resident of the U.S. For all those folks that gave sincere advise, I thank you. For those that were hateful I hope you can accept that in this case justice has been served.

Here in mid america we have gone from 0% Hispanic to approximately 7%. Some say 75% may be undocumented. A larger Mexican restaurant here has many young males working at no pay. They only get tips. We have just completed a 3 year ordeal challenging a removal order which turned out successful with a cancellation of removal order. Now the work is to try to get higher education at an affordable cost (in state tuition) for a H.S. honor student. Finding many pitfalls in this quest also. For student-any of these may fit your thesis material.

quote:

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

NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!



NEVER GIVE UP!!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by chuck:
I will follow this up with a long awaited update on Paco. After 3 years of hearings and worry Paco received a favorable ruling from the immigration court and his removal was cancelled. He now is a permanent resident of the U.S. For all those folks that gave sincere advise, I thank you. For those that were hateful I hope you can accept that in this case justice has been served.

CONGRATULATIONS, PACO!!!!!!!!

PATIENCE HAS ITS REWARDS!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by chuck:
Here in mid america we have gone from 0% Hispanic to approximately 7%. Some say 75% may be undocumented. A larger Mexican restaurant here has many young males working at no pay. They only get tips. We have just completed a 3 year ordeal challenging a removal order which turned out successful with a cancellation of removal order. Now the work is to try to get higher education at an affordable cost (in state tuition) for a H.S. honor student. Finding many pitfalls in this quest also. For student-any of these may fit your thesis material.

RESEARCHERS SAY BACKLOG COULD SPUR 'REVERSE BRAIN DRAIN'
MANY GREEN CARD SEEKERS WAIT SEVEN YEARS OR MORE

By John Boudreau
Mercury News
Article Launched: 08/22/2007 01:34:02 AM PDT

For more than 1 million immigrant professionals and their families, applying for green cards is the bureaucratic equivalent of an interminable phone tree: Please hold and hold and hold, according to a new study to be released today.

The backlog can be seven or more years, a frustrating experience that could eventually lead to a "reverse brain drain" as engineers, researchers and doctors give up and return to their home countries, the report's authors said. However, they do not provide data that backs their suspicions.

As of Sept. 30, 2006, there were more than 500,000 workers, and another 555,000 family members, waiting for green cards, according to the report, a third in a series under the title "America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs." It was prepared by researchers at Duke, New York and Harvard universities.

The study is part of ongoing research that looks at the importance of immigrant entrepreneurs to the U.S. economy. In addition to immigration backlog estimates, the report reveals that foreign-national inventors file large numbers of patents from the United States.

New York University sociologist Guillermina Jasso culled reports from the U.S. Department of Labor and the Citizenship and Immigration Services to come up with her estimate of the backlog of 1 million highly skilled immigrants and their family members awaiting permanent resident status in the United States.

Every year, the United States grants green
cards to about 120,000 of these applicants. So even those who have cleared bureaucratic hurdles still must wait as long as seven to 10 years, she said.

One reason for the long wait is federal law limits the number of visas issued to immigrants from any one of the major sending countries to just 7 percent of the total employment-based visas available every year. So immigrants from China, India, Mexico and the Philippines who populate the American workforce could end up waiting much longer than those from, say, Iceland.

There is no single federal agency that compiles backlog numbers, Jasso said. "We are using the best available data to try to come up with a number," she said.

Report co-author Vivek Wadhwa said the research is designed to spotlight highly skilled immigrant workers whose plights have been overshadowed by the debate in Washington about illegal immigrants.

Earlier this year, Wadhwa reported that 52 percent of Silicon Valley start-ups had at least one immigrant as a key founder.

The latest report reveals that foreign nationals living in the United States were named as inventors or co-inventors in 25 percent of patent applications filed from the United States in 2006, and they accounted for 36 percent of the patent applications from California.

Foreign-national innovators also played a major role in international patent applications filed by numerous large U.S. companies. In 2006, they contributed to 72 percent of Qualcomm's international patent applications, 60 percent of those filed by Cisco Systems, 58 percent for Intel and 38 percent for Hewlett-Packard. They also represented 41 percent of the patent applications filed by the U.S. government.

The arduous green-card application process could trigger a wave of immigrant professionals returning to their home countries, Wadhwa said.

Immigrants awaiting green cards can find themselves in career limbo for many years. If they change job titles, even within their sponsoring companies, they must begin the green card application process again, said Wadhwa, who is executive-in-residence at the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke.

"These guys can't go anywhere," he said. "You can't go from being a programmer to a project manager because that's a different position.

"The difference between the skilled workers and the unskilled workers is, the unskilled workers are in desperate situations. They are not going back," Wadhwa said. Indian and Chinese engineers, on the other hand, can return home and find themselves in great demand, he said.

At the moment, though, there is no research that shows a vast exodus of highly skilled immigrants, Jasso said.

"There is no question that if someone faces a seven-year wait, they may become discouraged and go elsewhere," she said. "But we just don't know. Even if someone leaves, it does not mean they leave forever. Immigrants have demonstrated they want to go where their skills and knowledge will be put to the best use."


IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

To read the report, go to www.globalizationresearch.com.

GREEN CARDS NOW EASIER FOR CUBANS BORN ABROAD
THE UNITED STATES HAS MADE IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE BORN TO CUBAN PARENTS OUTSIDE CUBA TO OBTAIN GREEN CARDS UNDER THE CUBAN ADJUSTMENT ACT

Posted on Wed, Aug. 22, 2007
BY ALFONSO CHARDY

A recent decision by federal immigration authorities will make it much easier for people born outside Cuba to obtain a U.S. green card if at least one of their parents was born in Cuba.

Under the decision, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will no longer require that those born outside Cuba file documents specifically saying they are Cuban citizens. Cuban consular papers saying they are children of at least one Cuban parent will be enough to prove Cuban citizenship.

The July 31 decision is likely to benefit thousands of foreign nationals born abroad of Cuban parents -- particularly Venezuelans whose parents fled Cuba shortly after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.

The Cuban expatriate community in Venezuela, numbering between 25,000 and 50,000 people, is one of the largest after the one in Miami.

Increasing numbers of Venezuelans are leaving their homeland as President Hugo Chávez steers the South American country toward socialism.

The new green card decision is based on a Miami case in which the application of a Venezuelan born of Cuban parents was rejected by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in May 2006 on the grounds he could not conclusively prove he was a Cuban citizen.

Venezuelan-born Armando Vázquez was elated at the decision.

''I've been waiting for this for a long time,'' said Vázquez, 42, who works in the construction industry. He and his wife arrived with their 8-month-old daughter in 1999, one year after Chávez was first elected.

His parents fled Cuba in 1961 and resettled eventually in Venezuela.

They have now left Venezuela and are living in South Florida, Vázquez said.

''I'm so happy this decision went in my favor because I don't want to go back to Venezuela the way things are going there,'' Vázquez said.

Vázquez's Miami immigration attorney, Larry Rifkin, appealed the government's denial in his client's case to the service's administrative appeals office -- and won.

''This decision will benefit thousands of people, mainly Venezuelans of Cuban ancestry, who desperately need this,'' Rifkin said.

He added that the effort to reverse the previous immigration service position was ''unnecessary'' because the Cuban Adjustment Act already contained language that enabled Cubans born abroad to qualify for U.S. green cards.

The Vázquez case reverses a June 2006 decision that restricted green cards to foreign nationals who could produce Cuban documents specifically saying they were Cuban citizens.

The 2006 case revolved around a green card application filed by Liliana Lozano Buschini, a Venezuelan whose mother had been born in Cuba. Buschini's application, however, was denied because she did not have a Cuban passport, birth certificate or government-issued certificate.

She had only certified letters from a Cuban consular official.

Buschini's attorney, Stephen Bander, appealed the denial to the immigration service's administrative appeals office and won, arguing a consular document saying the person was a Cuban citizen was sufficient to prove citizenship.

Rifkin, Vázquez's attorney, also appealed his client's case and won the July 31 decision, which eliminates the Buschini requirement.

Now all applicants need to show is a Cuban birth certificate, a passport or a consular paper saying they are the children of Cuban parents or at least one Cuban parent.

In the case of Vázquez, he had a Cuban birth certificate issued by a Cuban consulate in Venezuela -- but it did not say he was a Cuban citizen.

THERE IS NO MOSTER UNDER THE BED

There is nothing to fear from shifting demographics. So why has it become so common to hear people denigrate immigrants?

We think a few xenophobes have used their access to some rather big microphones to feed off this nation's fear of the future - a fear that is quite remarkable, given the success the United States has built with the help of past and present immigrants.

There has been such a long run of slurs that we figure a little balance is in order.

We're not the only ones.

On a campaign swing through New Hampshire, Sen. John McCain said: "I'd also like to tell you that in my state of Arizona, we like the Hispanic heritage. We like the food. We like the music. We like to have Hispanic influence on our state, and we are enriched by it."

What's more, Mexican culture is extremely family-centered, has a remarkable work ethic and demonstrates a reverence for religion and the elderly that seems downright old-fashioned by American standards.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also spoke up for immigrants: "Immigration is what's kept us alive and thriving. It keeps adding to our language and our culture and our cuisines and our religion. I can't think of any laboratory that shows better why you need a stream of immigrants than New York City."

We need more public figures to tell Americans that there is no monster under the bed.

Latinos are the nation's largest minority group with a population of about 44.3 million. They made up nearly half the growth in the period from July 1, 2005, to July 1, 2006. They are largely the reason that Anglos have become a minority in nearly one out of 10 counties.

In Maricopa County, Latinos accounted for about 55 percent of population growth between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006, according to a recent analysis by the Census Bureau.

Demographers estimate that about one-quarter to one-third of Latinos are undocumented. That's a problem that needs to be addressed in an orderly and humane way. But legitimate discussions about the need to legalize this population, create a guest-worker program and regain control of the border too often disintegrate into nasty rhetoric that insults all Latinos and encourages racial profiling.

It's important to counter that kind of talk, both for the sake of Latino-Americans and for the sake of our shared interest in furthering comity among the many groups in this country.

It is also important to remember that immigration isn't the only factor in the nation's shifting demographics.

Latinos, who are primarily of Mexican heritage in Arizona, are also becoming a larger segment of the U.S. population because of high birth rates. Nationwide, the school-age population of the non-Latino Whites has dropped by 4 percent since 2000, but the Latino school-age population has increased 21 percent.

These numbers alarm some restrictionists who think the culture and language are at stake. The fear of change gets exploited. The result is divisiveness, bigotry and resentment.

But demographers understand that these young people will keep our economy dynamic in years to come.

For our own sake, we need to do our best to educate all children and help them become productive adults. Doing that effectively means letting them know their community values them, their culture and their contributions.

It also means believing in the power of our "American Dream" machine to transform immigrants into Americans.

The nature of this nation's population is changing. But the change will make us better and stronger. It always has.

ROBBERIES FRIGHTEN, DON'T DETER MOST DAY LABORERS

By: COLLEEN MENSCHING - Staff Writer

NORTH COUNTY -- In the wake of a series of robberies targeting day laborers, some workers say that they are wary -- but still returning to the scenes of the crimes in hope of earning a wage.

"We're even scared to get in any car now," Omar Ventura said Thursday though a Spanish translator as he waited to be picked up at a Vista site for day laborers.

The San Diego County Sheriff's Department reported Friday that more than 40 victims have now been identified in a two-month North County crime spree. In each incident, robbers posed as employers, drove workers to remote sites and threatened them with knives to get cash and other items of value, according to police.


A combination of misconceptions and job conditions make day laborers particularly vulnerable, according to police and advocates.

At the same time, their unpredictable income means day laborers don't always make profitable prey. While at least one man reportedly lost slightly more than $100, another victim's wallet is said to have been empty before the robbers got to him.

Money motive

Despite that, authorities believe that the four North County residents charged in the crimes were motivated by money, not an anti-immigrant mentality.

Sheriff's Sgt. Art Wager said there is a widespread belief that many day laborers are undocumented immigrants and would rather let a crime against them go unreported than risk an inquiry into their immigration status. That is a misconception that makes the workers vulnerable, according to Wager.

Ventura, a 39-year-old undocumented immigrant, said he probably wouldn't contact police if someone robbed him. He also said he didn't expect to find a sympathetic ear at a police station.

"Just for being Latino, they don't listen to us anyway," Ventura said.

But Sgt. Wager said this case had revealed many people like Jesus Aguirre, who said through a translator Thursday that he had been robbed this summer, along with two other men picked up at the Vista site. Aguirre said he went to police and would encourage other workers to do the same.

"(The police) took me and they asked me questions, but they treated me very well," said Aguirre, who was back at the Vista site looking for work Thursday morning.

New precautions

The men said they now take precautions such as writing down license plate numbers and descriptions of people picking them up. A camera phone would be added protection, some said, but is too expensive.

Aguirre, 43, said this is his third trip to the United States as a documented immigrant. He said he stays about six months before returning to Mexico. Never, he said, has he had any trouble with employers or been the victim of a crime.

"I never thought of it," Aguirre said.

A study released in 2006 by UCLA suggests that Aguirre may be in the majority, but just barely.

Researchers for "On the Corner: Day Labor in the United States" reported that nearly half of 2,660 workers surveyed in 2004 said they were victims of nonpayment or underpayment by employers in the two months before the survey. In western states, where researchers estimated there were nearly 50,000 day laborers in 2004, the figures were slightly lower.

Of day laborers surveyed in the West, 17 percent reported being subjected to some kind of violence by people who hired them in those two months, while 24 percent said that employers insulted them, according to the study.

Risk factors

Day laborers face particular risks, police said.

As Sgt. Wager put it, "There aren't too many segments of our population that will get in to a stranger's vehicle."

Making matters worse, day labor is part of a cash economy and many workers don't use banks. They carry cash and can be easy -- if inconsistent -- targets.

Aguirre said he lost $80 to the robbers. Another man lost more than $100 in the same incident, but a third had nothing to give, Aguirre said.

Police had questioned the immigration status of 17 percent of workers surveyed in western states, according to the UCLA study.

North County law enforcement agencies consistently said they do not question any victims about immigration status.

"We're not asking that," Wager said. "A victim is a victim."

Consequently, it's hard to tell whether immigration status has influenced victims' decisions to report robberies, he said.

Jurisdictional matters

Law enforcement officials from multiple agencies said there is a line between their duties and those of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Local officers don't turn victims over to immigration officers, according to police. Nor are immigration officers likely to pick up the trail of an undocumented immigrant who came forward as a victim of crime, they said.

That's true even in Escondido, where an immigration officer works out of the Police Department offices, according to police Lt. Bob Benton.

"Believe me," Benton said, "he's busy enough with the criminal aliens ...

"If we start inquiring about the immigration status of these victims, they're going to stop calling us."

Claudia Smith, an immigrants rights activist with California Rural Legal Assistance, said she believes that most police agencies refrain from immigration enforcement.

Perceptions

In Carlsbad, she said, the perception among day laborers is that police are working "hand-in-glove" with immigration officials, with police questioning workers at pickup sites with immigration enforcement following close behind.

"Certainly, that's gotten around," she said. "Then you do not have victims coming forward, or witnesses, should they be undocumented."

Carlsbad police Capt. Mike Shipley said the department has a directive prohibiting officers from questioning the immigration status of victims.

"A victim should be secure in contacting us to report their victimization," Shipley said.

Likewise, there is a directive to notify immigration officials if a suspect in a crime is an undocumented immigrant, he said.

Passing information on to immigration officers in other situations is not "standard operating procedure," but nor is it out of the question, Capt. Shipley said.

"We frequently have people complain about certain issues, and we might pass that info along," Shipley said. "Generally, we're not fishing for migrant workers without documentation."

Hate versus opportunity

Tina Jillings, co-founder of the advocacy group known as the Coalition for Peace, Justice and Dignity, said attacks on migrants fall into one of two categories, or a combination of both.

"Sometimes it is a crime of opportunity, but in other cases, it is a hate crime," she said.

Authorities say these robberies appear to have a strictly economic motive.

On Friday, police made a fourth arrest in the multiagency investigation. April Marie Lewis, 24, of Escondido, joined the ranks of suspects Nicole Couch, 32, and Thomas Malcolm Graham, 32, both of Escondido, and Kevin Anderson, 32, of Vista. All were arrested last week and all know each other, officials said.

Detective Daniel Laibach of the Encinitas Sheriff's Station got a break in the case after day laborer who had been robbed in July spotted his assailants 10 days ago.

"They were in different cars, but ... he recognized them," Laibach said.

Laibach said the suspects, though some share an upper-class Escondido address, are unemployed. They don't own the home they lived in, Laibach said. A relative does.

Drugs involved

Laibach said suspects Couch and Graham told him they committed the robberies to support a drug habit. Couch possessed drugs at the time of her arrest and Anderson was caught with drug paraphernalia, according to county booking logs.

Booking charges against the other two suspects did not involve drug offenses, logs showed.

Jillings believes anti-illegal immigration activity by groups such as the Minutemen has influenced attacks against day laborers.

"In this climate of racist activities becoming acceptable and so blatant ... people don't really look at it as a crime," Jillings said.

Day laborer Ventura said that Latino immigrants are often depicted as thieves or worse, but that the stereotype stands in contrast to the Anglo names of the suspects.

"(Critics) say that we are thieves and we came here to steal but, as you see, it's not us," he said.

Opposes violence

Michael Spencer, leader the Vista Citizens Brigade, said his group opposes illegal immigration, but doesn't support violence against undocumented immigrants.

"None of us condone anything ... that's really violating a human being, regardless of his immigrations status," Spencer said. "People who do that should be prosecuted."

Ultimately, the district attorney's office decides what charges to bring against defendants.

Prosecuting attorney Bryn Kirvin said that no hate crime charges have been filed in the case and none are anticipated.

"That's not to say that this (crime) isn't taking advantage of a population that we assume doesn't call the police," she said. "But we don't believe that the (suspects) have any association with the Minutemen or that these (victims) were targeted for anything related to their status."

WINDS OF POSITIVE CHANGE BEGIN TO BLOW IN MEXICO

Tue Aug 21, 6:27 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- As of this writing, the three-way summit between the leaders of the United States, Canada and Mexico is only beginning, so one can only imagine what new "triumphs" will emerge from these negotiations, especially with our eternally troubled border-crossing neighbor to the south.

Beneath the surface of the endless bickering with Mexico City over immigration, there are now sufficient indicators of real change in intent and mentality that, if we had smart diplomats and policy-makers, we could totally transform the crucial American-Mexican relationship.

The first hopeful indicator is Mexico's new president, Felipe Calderon, elected last year on the program of the center-right National Action Party (PAN). For the first time in its melodramatic but ill-governed history, beautiful Mexico has a serious "presidente." Little of the old charming but destructive Mexican "machismo" here. Instead, Calderon is a serious businessman who has already moved to create jobs, combat poverty and fight crime. Realizing that the drug mafias had become so powerful that they were suborning many in Mexico's two federal police forces, Calderon is wisely lobbying his congress to replace them with a single professional organization modeled on European agencies.

Is it possible that Mexico -- with its horrendously unequal wealth, its internal corruption and its tradition of exporting its poor and its aggressive to other countries -- is actually going to take responsibility for itself at last?

Listen to an amazing interview with the new Mexican ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, which recently appeared in The Washington Times. For the first time in my long experience with Mexico, we hear a distinguished Mexican diplomat arguing unequivocally for serious and responsible policy regarding the border.

"It is very hard for Mexico to preach to the North what it does not do to the South," the ambassador said, referring to his country's cruel treatment of those caught on its southern borders. "Unless we correct the fundamental challenge of the violation of human rights of Latin American or Central American migrants crossing the border into Mexico, it's very hard for me to come up and wag a finger and say you guys should protect the rights of my citizens in this country."

And if there were an attack by outsiders who came to the United States across the Mexican border? "The day that happens, this relationship, as we have known it, is over ..." he said soberly. Then he summed up, "The end game for us, the Mexican government, is to ensure every single Mexican who crosses this border does so legally."

This, of course, is quite amazing for a government that, until only recently, was providing its citizens road maps showing them how to cross the border illegally.

In addition to these changes, when I was in Mexico a year ago, I found demographic developments that have largely gone unnoticed in the United States. A "population revolution" has occurred there; Mexico is effectively approaching population stabilization. Groups like the International Planned Parenthood Organization told our group the time is rapidly coming when there will be little or no more population growth.

In 1972, the average Mexican family had seven children, according to Mexico's National Population Council. Today, the number is 2.1 children per family. The population is growing by only 1.4 percent per year, and the rate is declining, compared to 3.4 percent in the 1970s. That predictably means that the population, which had catapulted to 100 million in the year 2000, will stabilize, and this will have enormous effects on American immigration problems.

Yet, the greatest problem that will face the leaders of the three countries meeting this week in Montebello, Quebec, is something even graver than immigration. It is the extraordinary growing ugliness of the narcotics trade across the Mexican-American border.

In a recent article published by the Foreign Policy Association, one of our finest Mexico scholars, George W. Grayson of the College of William and Mary, follows this sobering problem. He asserts that by the time Calderon took office, "his No. 1 priority had become curbing the activities of the powerful cartels. During the five months between his victory and his swearing-in, drug-related violence had taken the lives of more than 1,000 people. By mid-August 2007, there were 1,539 such deaths for this year to date."

What's more, the violence has been becoming more barbarically gruesome. In Uruapan, the traffickers lobbed five human heads onto a dance floor; whole portions of the country, including zones near the U.S. border, are out of Mexican control; the University of Miami, citing Interpol reports, states that Russian mafias were now operating in the Tijuana-San Diego corridor. Calderon's welcome response: a determination to "take back the country from criminals."

This is all tentatively hopeful, if not at all easy, because professor Grayson sees the core of the problem as an overall "weakening of the Mexican state," which started in the 1980s when the traditional single party of power, the PRI or Institutional Revolutionary Party, began to lose power. The potential reform of Mexico, as welcome as it is, also unseated the harsh controls that the PRI alone could wield over the police and thus over the druggies.

Still, we stand at a special moment in time with Mexico. All of these opportunities could be grasped if we had a creative foreign policy toward our frustrating neighbors and if our best thinkers would work with them at this welcome moment of positive change.

FOR SOME, NEW GREEN CARDS MAY COST $370

Wednesday, August 22, 2007
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands of legal residents whose green cards don't have expiration dates may have to pay $370 to replace them, or risk criminal penalties.

A division of the Homeland Security Department on Wednesday proposed requiring legal residents with those cards to pay a $290 replacement application fee plus $80 for electronic fingerprints and a photo.

Those who repeatedly fail to comply face up to 30 days in prison and a $100 fine, under the proposal.

Citizenship and Immigration Services estimates about 750,000 legal permanent U.S. residents were issued green cards between 1977 and 1989 that lack expiration dates.

Green cards are proof of authorization to live and work in the United States. Legal residents must carry the cards at all times.

Under the proposal, legal residents would have 120 days to replace their cards.

If they fail to apply for a replacement, their green cards would eventually be terminated on a date to be set later. A terminated card would not invalidate an immigrant's status as a legal resident, but could make it hard to travel or get a new job.

Legal residents with cards that need to be replaced would not be individually notified.

The proposal is not final, but legal residents can begin applying now for a replacement if they choose.

The government wants to redo the photos and fingerprints to make sure the cards are updated and accurate.

"It's a security issue," said Bill Wright, Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman. "It's making sure the right person has the right card."

For some legal residents who have criminal records, applying for a new card could lead to deportation. Immigrants who commit crimes varying from shoplifting to murder are considered deportable even if the crime occurred years ago and the immigrant completed a jail sentence or paid a fine for the crime.

"This is a way of asking people to come report themselves," said Crystal Williams, associate director for programs at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Citizenship and Immigration Services said in the Federal Register that it had considered expiring all pre-1989 cards and lowering the fee for replacing the cards.

But it ultimately decided against that because the agency would have to charge other immigrants to cover the costs.

In a news release, the agency said updating the card also will allow it to update cardholder information, conduct background checks and store fingerprint and photo information.

Williams questioned the agency's plan to publicize the card replacements mostly through its Web site and field offices. Since these are legal residents who have been in the country at least 18 years, many have little reason to visit immigration offices or the agency's Web site, she said.

Public comment on the proposal will be taken online at the Federal Register or by mail at Citizenship and Immigration Services through Sept. 21.

FAIRFAX CHAIRMAN FIRES BACK AT PRINCE WILLIAM OVER IMMIGRATION

Associated Press
August 22, 2007

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) - Fairfax County Chairman Gerry Connolly is firing back at Prince William County officials over illegal immigration. Connolly says the crackdown planned by Prince William is unworkable and will lead to racial profiling.

The Prince William plan calls for police to question criminal suspects about immigration status if they have probably cause.

Connolly says he wonders how probable cause will be defined. He says decisions are likely to be made on the basis of someone's accent or appearance, and that's profiling.

But Prince William County Chairman Corey Stewart says police will have objective criteria that don't have anything to do with a person's looks or the way they talk.

Stewart has criticized Fairfax County for being too lax on illegal immigration.

3 NABBED IN MT. KISCO ON IMMIGRATION VIOLATIONS

By SEAN GORMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
August 22, 2007)

MOUNT KISCO - Three men nabbed by federal immigration authorities in the village last week are in the process of being deported.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents apprehended Cesar Humberto Mejia at 108 Grove St. around 6:30 a.m. Aug. 14, according to a Mount Kisco police report.

Mark Thorn, a spokesman for the agency, said ICE's fugitive-operations team was seeking Mejia because he's been ordered deported.

"Because he has already received due process, he is being expeditiously removed," Thorn said.

ICE officials on Aug. 14 also visited 345 and 343 Lexington Ave. around 7 a.m., and took Hector Vasquez-Perez and Ruben De Jesus Morales-Teas into custody, according to village police reports.

Thorn said ICE officials went to Lexington Avenue looking for another fugitive wanted for deportation. The fugitive wasn't found, but Thorn said the agents did encounter two others. He identified them as Morales-Teas and Perez-Vasquez.

Both men entered the country illegally after having been deported before, Thorn said, and were being deported again.

Edwin Aragon of Esquipulas Multiservice knew Morales-Teas as a customer.

"I called the Guatemalan consulate to find out where he was," Aragon said. He found out that Morales-Teas was being held in Texas and facing criminal charges for violating an order of deportation. He said he would try to call the consulate in Texas to argue that Morales-Teas be deported instead of serving a jail term.

Village police, as they have in the past, assisted federal agents by establishing a perimeter around the raided residences.

In March, ICE officials arrested 30 people in a pair of operations on Main and Spring streets in Mount Kisco.

Carola Bracco, executive director of the Neighbors Link community center, which provides services for immigrants, didn't want to comment at length, other than to say the immigration operations create "unease" in the community.

Thorn said the federal agency was working to ensure public safety and the "integrity of the immigration system."

Jim Russell, chairman of Westchester-Rockland Citizens for Immigration Control, said although the raids may get a lot of media attention, he does not see them as an effective tool in stopping illegal immigration.


"I don't think it's the real solution to the immigration problem," Russell said. "The best solution is to enforce the laws as it applies to employers of illegal aliens. That's more effective than occasional roundups or deportations."