2/27/08 6:45 AM

Bush Administration Outlines Plans for Stepping Up Immigration Enforcement

By Bill Leonard

The Bush administration has announced plans to stiffen and revise its worksite enforcement rules to catch and punish employers that knowingly hire undocumented immigrants.

U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff held a joint press briefing on Feb. 22, 2008, to announce several new initiatives to step up the enforcement of federal immigration laws. Chertoff told reporters that the failure of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform had forced the administration to act.

“Congress didn’t give us comprehensive immigration reform, so we are going to do what we can with the tools that we have, and frankly we have made progress in doing quite a bit,” Chertoff said.

However, Chertoff added, more needed to be done to combat illegal immigration, and both the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice planned to crack down further on employers that flout the law and willingly hire illegal immigrants. He announced that federal fines against employers violating federal immigration laws would increase by nearly 25 percent in March 2008. The change in the fines will include a maximum civil penalty of $16,000 for multiple violations—or an increase of $5,000.

Chertoff also stated that his department would soon release a revised set of rules for employers that receive employee “no-match” letters from the Social Security Administration. The DHS released a new set of no-match regulations in August 2007. However, a federal judge in San Francisco issued a temporary injunction blocking the rules from taking effect after several labor groups joined with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and filed suit to enjoin the rules.

In issuing the injunction, Judge Charles Breyer stated that the DHS had failed to follow proper procedures as required by the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA). According to the RFA, federal agencies must examine the economic impact that new or revised regulations could have on smaller-sized businesses. While refusing to admit that they made any errors in crafting the final no-match rules, DHS officials did agree to conduct the RFA analysis. Breyer then delayed a final hearing on a permanent injunction against the no-match rules until March 24, 2008.

“We are very close to publishing our new no-match rule, which we think will address the issues raised by the court as a consequence of an ACLU lawsuit last year,” Chertoff said. “And we are looking forward to getting this issue resolved in the very near future.”

Another element of the stepped-up worksite enforcement, according to Chertoff, will be a new regulation that would require all federal contractors to participate in the federal government’s electronic employment verification system—E-Verify.

“Now, the federal government needs to lead by example, and in the coming weeks we are going to issue a proposed rule requiring federal contractors to use E-Verify,” Chertoff said. “This will significantly expand the use of E-Verify, and continue to build capabilities that will help people comply with the law and make it harder to violate.”

Chertoff claimed that approximately 1,800 employers were enrolling every week to use the E-Verify program. He said that the growing interest in the verification program proved that U.S. employers were eager to comply with immigration laws and that the E-Verify program was working well.

“Employers are saying they want to get on board with this,” he said. “We have more than 53,000 employers now using E-Verify, which is more than double what we had in fiscal year 2007. And more than 1.7 million new hires have been queried this fiscal year under the system.”

However a group of employer and human resource-related groups have strongly opposed the E-Verify program, claiming that the current verification system is inefficient and error-prone. According to statistics offered by the Human Resource Initiative for a Legal Workforce, E-Verify relies heavily on the Social Security Administration’s database, which has a 4.1 percent error rate.

“When you look at the entire U.S. labor force, then that error rate could potentially affect the employment verification for 6 million U.S. citizens and legal residents,” said Mike Aitken, director of government affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management, which is a member of the HR Initiative. “Rather than forcing states to take the lead, it's time for Congress to create a national employment verification system that is reliable, efficient and secure.”

Arizona recently enacted a law that requires all employers operating in the state to use the E-Verify system. Colorado, Georgia and Minnesota also require some employers to use the system. Several other states, such as Kansas and Indiana, have similar proposals pending in their state legislatures. But Illinois passed legislation in 2007 forbidding employers to use E-Verify until its accuracy could be improved.

A patchwork of state laws will ultimately prove very problematic and burdensome to employers that operate in multiple states, Aitken said.

To address this issue directly, the HR Initiative is joining with several members of Congress to endorse the introduction of the New Employee Verification Act. The intent of the legislation is to establish a new, state-of-the-art electronic employment verification system that is “adequately funded and vigorously enforced.”

Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Social Security, is the chief sponsor of the legislation and is set to introduce the measure on Feb. 28, 2008. Other co-sponsors for the bill include Reps. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Identification Politics

The congressionally mandated national ID system moved with little discussion from big idea to law. As the devilish details emerge, it's proving easier mandated than done--and leaving immigrants to face the consequences.


Brian Beutler


At a moment in congressional history when passing even the narrowest of legislation seems all but impossible, the REAL ID Act is a reminder that, even now, the country's leaders can sneak far-reaching schemes into law like contraband onto an airplane.

Hi RoughN,

I agree that the implementation of this should be thoroughly looked into, granting for the sake of argument that this becomes a law. In my first home country, this has also been an issue, but since there is only one state, the law and implementation thereof is uniform. There is no problem of having several states with different laws about the National ID or the implementation thereof.

IMHO, if the glitches can be cured (privacy of citizens being protected, safeguards from abuses not concerning privacy, harmony of implementation among the several states, etc.) the inconvenience of the National ID far outweighs the benefits. The Taliban is getting stronger (based on what I've watched from the PBS shows) and with the death of one of their leaders, there was the recent news of getting back again to the US.

I believe that with all the problems besetting the US, terrorism is tops. (I feel so strongly regarding this topic, probably because of my personal experience in my first home country of how Al-Qaeda's cohorts try to destroy everything because of extremism.)

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/fence_9485___article...border_physical.html

Report: Border fence schedule snagged

Kevin Sieff (The Brownsville Herald)
February 29, 2008 - 7:09AM

For the first time since the Secure Fence Act was passed in October 2006, the federal government has acknowledged that it might not meet its objective of building 370 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border before December 2008.

On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office released a statement outlining the challenges the fence’s planners now face.

“Customs and Border Patrol officials reported that meeting deadlines has been difficult because of various factors including difficulties in acquiring rights to border lands,” the document states.

Although the report asserts that construction is currently proceeding as planned, it acknowledges that “keeping on schedule will be challenging.”

The GAO also announced that the construction of a virtual fence in Arizona will be delayed until 2011, three years after its initial deadline.

In its reference to the status of the physical barrier, the report alludes to the nearly 25 lawsuits that the federal government has filed against Cameron, Hidalgo and Starr county landowners in the last two months.

According to lawyers at Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, which represents defendants in several of the pending cases, the federal judiciary is likely waiting for U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to issue a ruling on cases currently being challenged in his court before proceeding.

But despite the admission of legal obstacles facing the construction of a physical fence, the GAO report cites the inevitability of a delay only in the case of the virtual fence.

“This shows that there is flexibility — they’re just not implementing it with the construction of a physical barrier,” said Tino Gallegos, a staff attorney at TRLA. “But the admission of possible delays does point to recognition that they don’t have to adhere to strict deadlines or the original proposal in the case of the fence.”

When it was first announced, the Department of Homeland Security’s deadline created a sense of urgency for local officials. According to DHS’ initial plans, 17 miles of fencing would be built along the border in Brownsville by the end of this year.

As of Feb. 21, 168 miles of pedestrian fence had been built along the U.S.-Mexico border, but no construction has been completed in Cameron County.

The possible delay comes less than a week before Texas’ presidential primary, in which the border fence has become a central issue. Both Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have spoken openly of the need to revise DHS’ current plans and work in closer cooperation with landowners. Representatives from both camps released statements about the GAO report Thursday.

“While the Department of Homeland Security’s track record of failure is hardly a surprise, it doesn’t mean we should give up on knowing and controlling who crosses our borders,” said Josh Earnest, Texas communications director for Obama.

In a prepared statement, Clinton said, “The Bush Administration’s delay in constructing a ‘virtual fence’ along the border underscores the poor planning behind this government’s immigration reform efforts.”

Even a short delay would give the next president, along with Congress, significant oversight on the fence’s implementation.

“This is good news,” said Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos. “It gives everyone time to re-evaluate the need for a physical barrier.”

On Tuesday, Cascos and other county officials met with DHS officials to discuss the possibility of a levee-fence hybrid. After federal officials made it clear that the county would not be reimbursed for the $50 million project, Cascos called the proposal “just too risky to risk taxpayer dollars.”

Sen. John Cornyn, who recently traveled with Cascos along the border, has been a vocal advocate of alternatives to the border fence—including the levee-fence hybrid. Cornyn voiced his disappointment over the virtual fence’s current stalemate, which, for the senator, means one less alternative to a physical barrier.

“In the end,” Cornyn said Thursday, “physical barriers are not the end-all be-all of border security.”

Deportee torn between two countries

Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times


Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents search undocumented immigrants before placing them aboard a plane that will take them back to El Salvador.

A Salvadoran is returned to his native land, leaving one family behind and reuniting with another.

By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 29, 2008

Henry Fuentes closes his eyes and tries to sleep. But he can't. He is restless. He looks out the airplane window. This may be the last time he sees the United States. In less than three hours, he will land in El Salvador, a country he hasn't seen in eight years.

Fuentes hadn't planned on returning.

Immigration agents arrested him at his Houston apartment last month. Now the government was flying him and 115 other illegal immigrants back to Central America. Some had just crossed the border. Others, like Fuentes, had spent years in the United States and held jobs, owned cars and started families.

Like Fuentes, most of the deportees have mixed feelings about being sent home. They are angry about being deported but relieved to be out of detention. They are excited to return to their roots but frustrated by the country's lack of work. They are anxious to be reunited with relatives in El Salvador but distraught about leaving spouses and children behind in the U.S.

"It's very, very hard for me," Fuentes said as he leaned his head back against the seat. "I feel bad, very bad. I feel happiness because I am going to see my children again. I haven't seen them in eight years. But I feel sadness because I left my children behind."

The federal government has stepped up its immigration enforcement in recent years, resulting in record numbers of detainees. Authorities are trying to free up bed space by deporting illegal immigrants quickly and efficiently.

Their primary tool is a fleet of planes used to send home nearly 72,000 illegal immigrants, including about 14,100 criminals, to Central and South America in the 2007 fiscal year. That compares with 50,000 immigrants, including about 9,600 criminals, removed the year before. Authorities said they plan to arrest, detain and deport even more illegal immigrants this year.

The government has ended the practice of "catch and release" and instead is focused on "catch and return," said Michael Pitts, chief of the flight operations unit for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"It's a one-way airline," Pitts said.

Fuentes' journey began late on the night of Feb. 19 at a detention center in Willacy, Texas, when guards told him he was being deported. Early the next morning, Fuentes boarded a bus.

About 7 a.m., his bus pulled alongside a Boeing 737 parked at an otherwise empty airstrip in Harlingen, Texas. ICE Agent Josie Alvarado came aboard, holding a red pen and a clipboard.

"Good morning," she said loudly in Spanish. "You are going to El Salvador. When you get off, put your hands on your head. When we are on the plane, respect the authorities, and we will respect you."

No convicted criminals or gang members were on the flight. They are deported separately.

These deportees get some sympathy from the immigration agents. "We don't treat them as criminals. We treat them as compassionate as we can," Frank Filippone, the ICE officer in charge during the flight, said before leaving Texas. "They are here to make a better life for themselves or to send money back."

That's what motivated Fuentes to leave his family and pay a smuggler $6,500 for the months-long and dangerous trip north through Guatemala and Mexico and across the border. He had divorced his wife and spent his savings fighting for custody of his two children, Denisse, 3, and Harold, 2. He won, put them in the care of his parents, and went north to earn money to support them.

In Texas, Fuentes worked as a machinist, earning about $100 a day. Each month, he sent home about $500. "I want my children to be professionals," he said. "Earning $5 a day in my country, I couldn't do that. That's why I came."

But a few years after settling in Houston, he met and married a Colombian woman who has a green card as a legal U.S. resident. Fuentes became stepfather to her daughter, Natalie, and the couple had a son, Sebastian. Both children are U.S. citizens by birth.

For several years, Fuentes had temporary legal status that was granted to many Salvadorans. But on the morning of Jan. 10, immigration agents showed up at his door. They told him he had a deportation order for failing to appear at an immigration court hearing in 2006. Fuentes told them he had moved and never received the notice.

"I always tried to be responsible, very responsible in my life, you know, because I have children," he said as he sat aboard the flight.

Yet now, he sat aboard the government flight back to El Salvador, with a bag lunch of orange juice, a bologna sandwich and potato chips on the tray table in front of him.

"They say I'm illegal," he said. "What can I do?"

Many of the immigrants around him had never flown before. They looked out the windows anxiously, fumbled to get their seat belts fastened and gasped any time the plane hit turbulence. A few received Dramamine to quell motion sickness.

There are regularly scheduled ICE deportation flights every weekday to Central America, and the U.S. government has also flown immigrants home to Nigeria, Cuba, Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines. Tens of thousands of Mexicans are flown to the border and walk back into their country. The cost of the deportation flights jumped from $96 million in the 2007 fiscal year to $135 million this fiscal year. That works out to just over $600 per deportee. Because detaining an immigrant costs nearly $100 a day, Pitts said, "it's more effective for us to expeditiously get them out of the country."

As the plane touched down in El Salvador, several passengers applauded and cheered.

Then, one by one, they walked down the stairs. One passenger kissed his hand and touched it to the ground. Another shouted, "Ay, el calor" -- Oh, the heat.

Salvadoran police guided them into a cramped room, where Fuentes and the others sat in plastic chairs and ate plates of pupusas and salsa.

Carlos Rivas, assistant chief of repatriation for the Salvadoran government, told them they would talk to a migration officer and undergo a criminal check. Then they would receive their personal property and could go home.

When Fuentes' name was called, he walked into an office and sat down at a desk.

"Is this the first time you have been deported?" a woman asked him.

"Yes."

"Where are you going?"

"San Salvador. I don't know the address, I only know the neighborhood."

"What are you going to do here? Are you going to try to return?"

"I don't know. I have work here, in jewelry."

Fuentes walked into another office, where a woman sat with a locked metal box full of $1 bills for bus rides home.

"Is your family coming to pick you up?"

"They are coming for me, but if you want to give me money, that's not a problem," he said with a smile.

Outside the airport, Fuentes waited on the curb, holding a plastic bag with his letters, pictures and watch. He pulled out the photographs of his wife and children in Houston and read a letter his 10-year-old stepdaughter sent him while he was in detention, signed "La princesa de papa" -- dad's princess.

"I love you, I don't want to cry, because it hurts when I do," she wrote. "If you go to El Salvador, say hi to all of your family. I am going to send you a picture I made for you."

When Fuentes looked up, his parents were standing in front of him.

"Welcome home," his father said.

Tears rolled down his face and he stood up, smiled broadly and hugged them each tightly.

"I love you, Papi," he said in English, and then, catching himself, repeated in Spanish. "Oh man! I missed you so much."

His father reintroduced him to his son, Harold, 10, who was just a toddler when Fuentes left for the United States.

"How big you are!" he said, lifting Harold off the ground and spinning him around. "Give me a kiss. You're so handsome!"

Fuentes hopped in the back of a red pickup truck for the ***py ride home to his house in a neighborhood called "The Mexicans." On the front door, his children had posted a handwritten sign saying: "Welcome Home." Inside, they had taped balloons to the walls. Four nieces and nephews he had never met came running out of the concrete, graffiti-covered house.

His 11-year-old daughter, Denisse, who was so little when her father left for the U.S., walked out of the house with a nervous smile on her face. She stood nearly as tall as him.

"How are you my daughter, my precious?" Fuentes said before taking her into his arms. She buried her head in his shoulder. But when her grandmother told her to give him a kiss, she turned her head shyly.

"I understand," Fuentes said. "It's been a long time."

His mother, Maria Lidia Zometa, said she never wanted her son to go.

"With pain in my soul, I had to accept that he was leaving," she said. "I have him here again. I don't want him to go back."

But Zometa said she also doesn't know what the family is going to do without the money he sent home. Since Fuentes was arrested, the family has already felt the pinch. The house was filled with furniture purchased with money from Fuentes -- a dining room table, couches, a television and a washing machine.

Fuentes' father owns a jewelry shop, but gang members have robbed him three times. To help out with the bills, his mother borrowed money to start a small store in front of their house. There, she sells diapers, eggs, sodas, chips and napkins.

"These months have been difficult," Zometa said. "I have seven grandchildren to support. It's not easy. . . . Life is expensive here."

After a long night of telling stories, dancing and eating food from the popular Pollo Campero, Fuentes woke at 9 a.m. and walked five blocks to his father's shop. Working, he said, would take his mind off of what happened to him and the decisions he had to make.

He wants to stay in El Salvador and make up lost time with Harold and Denisse. But he also can't imagine living without his wife and children. Texas feels more like home now than San Salvador. Maybe his wife and Natalie and Sebastian could join him here while he saves money for the journey.

"I'll go back because I love USA," he said. "They don't love me, but I love USA."

http://www.milforddailynews.com/homepage/x473886781

Rocky road to citizenship

By Joyce Kelly/Daily News staff
GHS
Fri Feb 29, 2008, 01:00 AM EST

FRANKLIN -
Immigration lawyer Chris Lavery sees the problem too often: an employer who hasn't paid his illegal worker for four months. Lavery has to tell the illegal immigrant what the law says: they have no recourse.

"I'd like to see some sort of cure for that," he said, responding to Librarian Margaret Ellis' question about what immigration issue he'd like to see examined during elections.

Ellis invited Lavery to speak about modern immigration law to draw out the theme in "Dark Tide," by Stephen Puleo, a non-fiction book that she urges the whole town to read.

"The book deals with immigration in the early part of the 20th century. I wanted to (see) how different is immigration today? In some ways, it's the same, just a different group of people," Ellis said.

As the presidential election approaches, Lavery said he would like to see some sort of move to legalize immigrants already here.

"I see every day how difficult it is for people to get legal status. They struggle because there is no way to (be here) legally ... We have a burgeoning underclass of people without status - I'd like to put an end to that," said Lavery, who is also an Irish immigrant.

Lavery spoke about the immigration process, quotas, government partiality and post-9/11 laws, among other topics.

"There's definite favoritism in the system," Lavery said.

The United States, he said, currently grants visa waivers to 29 nations, most of which are European countries including Ireland and England. American immigration law, particularly in terms of issuing visas, is partial to people from better-educated countries, Lavery said.

"And there's always been special interests," he said.

Right now, people from China, India and the Philippines have comparative difficultly gaining citizenship because of the massive backlog of applications from those countries, Lavery said.

"They wait much, much longer than anybody else," he said.

It's also difficult for Brazilian citizens to obtain visas, he said, "because they assume everybody's coming here to stay."

The government had a strict quota system from the 1800s, largely to ban Chinese immigrants, through 1965, that is still "somewhat in place," Lavery said.

Today, every country, regardless of population, has the same quota, he said.

There are few avenues to permanent citizenship: the visa system for those who have close family members who are U.S. citizens, an employer sponsor, and the lottery system, which Lavery equated to "a roll of the dice."

With the exception of comparatively speedy visas for spouses, children and parents of U.S. citizens, each of those options is a difficult or impossible means to citizenship, he said.

The odds of gaining citizenship through the lottery system are about one in 1,000-2,000, he said.

One in three or four asylum applicants are granted legal status, he said, noting that about one-third of the cases assigned to Boston fall into that category.

"It really is essentially like a criminal trial ... You have to prove every part of it. You have to prove you fear going back to your country, prove there was no other place in your country you could stay, that no other country would take you in," Lavery said.

The U.S. government takes this approach, Lavery said, because it views an asylum appeal as an immigrant's last-ditch chance to stay here.

"The presumption is, people will do anything to stay," he said.

The United States makes immigration exceedingly difficult for citizens of a list of countries like Iran, Iraq and "some other nations you'd be surprised" about, such as Saudi Arabia, he said. "We have some very broad laws right now associated with terrorism," Lavery said.

For instance, the United States bars people deemed to have donated to terrorist organizations, even though they may be unaware of any link, he said.

"That includes some Muslim charitable organizations you wouldn't have known" were tied to terrorism, Lavery said. Those people have no legal protections, he said.

"If they decided it applies to you, that's the end of the game," Lavery said.

"Since September 11, there's been a great increase in security steps," he said.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks, the government listed a large group of countries and required all males under age 26 from those countries to register with immigration, he said. They were asked a lot of questions, and many were deported for illegal status, he said.

The extra security checks the government conducts on people from designated countries "can delay the application process almost indefinitely," Lavery said.

Deportation

The United States has different laws for illegal immigrants who have lived here for a while and those who are "on the border," favoring the former group, Lavery said.

A sure-fire way to lose one's chance of gaining legal status is falsely claiming U.S. citizenship, according to Lavery.

"If (an illegal citizen) registers to vote, it can be harder to stay than someone who has an extensive criminal record," Lavery said.

In the Boston area, Lavery has observed the largest number of immigrants come from Brazil, Haiti and Ireland, with strong concentrations of Russians and Armenians going to South Boston, Chinese to Quincy, Montserrat natives to Dorchester, and a growing number of Africans, he said.

People from Cameroon are the third-largest group seeking asylum status, he said.

"Right now, there are a great number of people applying for citizenship. In the Boston area, (immigration) offices are filled with people doing interviews from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day, and Saturday, they're trying to catch up," Lavery said.

For more information, Lavery suggested the Irish Pastoral Centre, which offers free immigration clinics on visas, immigration and citizenship issues once a month at the Bad Abbots Restaurant at 1546 Hancock St., Quincy. The next sessions are March 4 and April 1.

City Spotlight: Houston, Texas – A Glimpse of the Diversity Marking ‘The New America’

Date: Friday, February 29, 2008
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Census data for Houston, Texas paints a mosaic of America. Its estimated 2006 population of 2,074,828 includes 868,782 people of Hispanic or Latino origin, 103,557 Asians and 513,275 blacks.

Because of its proximity to Mexico, Houston, for years, has had a relatively large Hispanic population. But it was the period between 1990 to 2000 that saw that area boom.

“Between 1990 and 2000, the Anglo population in Harris County dropped six percent, the African-American population grew by 22 percent, the Hispanic population grew by 74 percent, and the Asian population grew by 76 percent,” said Stephen Kleinberg, a Rice University sociologist considered an authority on Houston area demographics.

“By looking at Houston, you see the whole way by which the new America is taking shape and where it will go in the future,” Kleinberg told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Candidates on the stump for president are well aware of the changing demographics and the impact of immigration on America and Americans. As the March 4 primary approaches in one of the most diverse states in the union, the issue of immigration is at the forefront of discussion.

Of the 23 million in the state, Hispanics account for more than a third -- 8,385,118 -- and the black population is 2,718,515. There also is a large number of Asians, and Native Americans. Because Houston is close to the border, it’s often the first stop for those entering the country from Mexico and Latin American countries, observers say.

“We’re right on the (Interstate) 59 corridor, a direct route to Mexico,” said Ronald Green, a black attorney who has served on the Houston City Council five years.

There are two schools of thought in the black community on how that closeness and the immigration it brings impacts blacks, Green told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“Among those who work in professional jobs, you don’t hear much talk of job competition. But among those in unskilled labor-related jobs, you hear complaints about the number of Hispanics and how the availability of cheap labor drives down wages,” Green said. Another perception, he added, is that Hispanics take the jobs that other people of color don’t want. “You don’t see as many black cooks or bus boys as you did a few years ago. That’s true in other parts of the country as well."

Kleinberg says most of the immigrants who arrive in Texas come through family reunification and are in the country legally, but a large number are here illegally.

“We do not allow enough immigrants to come into this country and do the jobs that we need to have done,“ Kleinberg said.

Each of the major Democratic and Republican candidates have devoted considerable space on their Web sites to presenting their programs for immigration reform.

Sen. Hillary Clinton has “called for comprehensive immigration reform that respects our immigrant heritage and honors the rule of law. She believes comprehensive reform must have as essential ingredients a strengthening of our borders, greater cross-cooperation with our neighbors, strict but fair enforcement of our laws, federal assistance to our state and local governments, strict penalties for those who exploit undocumented workers, and a path to earned legal status for those who are here, working hard, paying taxes, respecting the law, and willing to meet a high bar.”

Sen. Barack Obama said in 2007 on the floor of the U.S. Senate, that "the time to fix our broken immigration system is now ... We need stronger enforcement on the border and at the workplace ... But for reform to work, we also must respond to what pulls people to America. Where we can reunite families, we should. Where we can bring in more foreign-born workers with the skills our economy needs, we should.”

Republican Mike Huckabee says, “Securing our borders must be our top priority and has reached the level of a national emergency. I support the $3 billion the Senate has voted for border security. This money will train and deploy 23,000 more agents, add four drone planes, build 700 miles of fence and 300 miles of vehicle barriers, and put up 105 radar and camera towers ... In this age of terror, immigration is not only an economic issue, but also a national security issue. Those caught trying to enter illegally must be detained, processed, and deported.”

According to John McCain, “Immigration is one of those challenging issues that touch on many aspects of American life. I have always believed that our border must be secure and that the federal government has utterly failed in its responsibility to ensure that it is secure. If we have learned anything from the recent immigration debate, it is that Americans have little trust that their government will honor a pledge to do the things necessary to make the border secure. As president, I will secure the border. I will restore the trust Americans should have in the basic competency of their government. A secure border is an essential element of our national security. Tight border security includes not just the entry and exit of people, but also the effective screening of cargo at our borders and other points of entry.”

Carol Alvarado, a community leader who served on the Houston City Council from 2002 to 2007, says Houston has been successful in addressing many issues with diversity because leaders have learned the value of sitting down together and talking through problems.

“We have managed to do away with some of the divisiveness and hatred found in other areas because we were already such a diverse community,” Alvarado told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

Several months ago, a move was afoot that would have called for Houston police to act essentially as immigration officers, she said. “We brought together leaders in government, business and construction. Together we said no way will our police take on that additional responsibility.”

Green said the Houston Police Department can not function as the federal Immigration Customs Enforcement. If someone is arrested for a major crime, police run an immigration check. But the biggest problem with Hispanics, Green said, is in reporting crimes.

“Many don’t want to call the police. They don’t want anyone checking their status. They just want to stay here and work,“ he said.

Immigrants who are undocumented are encouraged to go through the citizenship process, Alvarado said, because they come to America to live, work and have a better quality of life, like generations of immigrants before them.

“If all these people left and went back to the Motherland, this city would come to a halt,” she said. “Who would build, clean the hotels, do the landscaping and cook the food?”

When immigrants arrive in Houston, one of their first encounters is with the Houston Independent School District, the nation’s sixth largest public school system, with more than 200,000 students. Of that number, 59 percent are Hispanic, 29 percent are black and eight percent are white.

Many of the Hispanic students are from South America, Mexico or Latin American countries. Many of them speak very little English, but still, the school system sets goals for each student to achieve maximum potential, said Karen S. Garza, chief academic officer for the system.

“At the elementary and middle school level, we are adept with bilingual and ESL (English as a second language) classes. We have quality teachers, and our program is nationally recognized,“ Garza told BlackAmericaweb.com.

Hispanic students who start Houston schools in the lower grades usually transition with language in a few years, learning to speak and understand their lesson in English, she said. Students who come to the system in high school tend to have more difficulty because they tackle more rigorous courses while also trying to adapt to the English language.

Some of the Hispanic students, now about 300 of them, are enrolled in Liberty High School, a charter school that opened in 2005. There the principal and teachers are bilingual, and the courses have the same rigor as typical Houston high schools, but are often taught in Spanish. It’s designed to serve recent immigrants to the United States.

“The bottom line is that you respond to each individual,” Garza said. “It matters not the economic background, race or ethnicity of the student.”

The Houston city government began enhancing its services to accommodate its changing demographics.

“Because of the number of people we have from countries of Hispanic origin, we have to better serve the people who are paying taxes,“ city spokesman Patrick Treyhand told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “You have to deal with them in a language they understand.“

The city also has an office of Citizens Assistance that is staffed to help people with a variety of needs in locating services or making transition.

“We support people in their efforts to obtain citizenship,“ Treyhand said. “Houston prides itself on its diversity. If you work hard and play by the rules, you are just as much a Houstonian as anyone else.”

H-2B visa crisis has employers worried

February 29, 2008

Nantucket Today

By Margaret
Carroll-Bergman
I&M Staff Writer


Island business owners are bracing for a summer labor shortage, with many in the hospitality industry preparing to wash their own dishes and change their own sheets, as a bill which would allow returning foreign workers into the country is tied up in Congress by the Hispanic Caucus, a group demanding immigration reform.


“This is not an immigration thing, this is an economic issue. It is not fair. We are being discriminated against because we are looking for people to come to work in April and May,” said Gerry Connick, owner of the Century House.

Nantucket relies on an estimated 1,500 foreign workers for many of its seasonal businesses. Connick hires six people to work at his 17-room guest house.

“Three are Americans and three are Jamaicans,” said Connick. “This year we’ll be looking for three people.”

Connick said the Jamaicans approach their work with a professional attitude. At the Century House, the sheets are washed in industrial washing machines and hand-fed through an industrial iron. The wooden floors and bathrooms are washed every day.
“They have a smile on their face,” he said. “They know how to treat stains and when to throw a sheet out.”

This year Connick will look to the Boston hotel market to hire replacement chambermaids. He has advertised for help from Nantucket to Florida, but so far has found no workers.
“The greatest foreign aid is hiring foreign workers,” said Connick. “They go home with money and there is no middle man.”

In January, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it had reached its cap for H2-B visa applications for the year.

Since 2004, there has been a cap of 66,000 on annual H2-B visas, which were mostly used up by winter resorts.

In 2005, Congress passed a bill which allows returning H2-B visa workers over the past three years to return without counting against the cap. The bill also divides the visas into 33,000 for the winter and 33,000 for the summer.

“The exemption ran out on December 31,” said Tracy Bakalar, executive director of the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce. “It was very much of a shock this year when we found out that all the visas were used up before we could submit an application.”

Most Nantucket businesses start their season on April 1, but have to apply for visas 120 days before the workers arrive.

“Most seasonal businesses can’t apply for visas until December 1,” said Bakalar. “No one I’ve talked to has received approvals from the U.S. Department of Labor.”

“Where have the 33,000 visas gone?” she asked.

Bakalar said an extension of the 2005 exemption was attached to an omnibus spending bill in both the House and the Senate, but is tied up in the ongoing debate about immigration reform.

Bill Cameron owns Nantucket Bike Shop and Steamboat Pizza. He hires 34 foreign workers and about a dozen Americans each season.

“The trouble with college students is they get out May 1 and work to August,” said Cameron. “We are busy in September, which is busier than June. Many colleges start in the middle of August. Not having foreign workers will definitely slow us down.”

Cameron is hopeful the Save Our Small Business legislation which exempts returning H2-b visa workers will pass within the next 10 days, yet he is fleshing out his default plan to hire European students, but even that is an unknown with the political climate in Serbia.

“We are reaching out for J-1 visa workers, which are students mostly from Serbia and other Eastern Bloc countries,” said Cameron. “We’ve had one family from Jamaica for 18 or 19 years. They are religious. They don’t drink and are punctual. It is hard to turn around and start with someone else. We also don’t know how the J-1 visas will work now that there are problems in Serbia.”

Cameron does hire older workers and would hire retirees, but not many want to work for $12 to $14 an hour.

“It’s hard work. We have 100’s of bicycles going out each day,” he said. “And, pick up and delivery from three bike shops.”

The returning foreign work force, while not large, is critical to the local economy.
Many island business owners have employed the same workers for almost a decade.
“We brought back four Jamaican ladies for the past 10 years,” said Orla Murphy-LaScola, owner of American Seasons Restaurant. “In Jamaica, they have to pay for their kids to go to school. Their quality of life is being questioned. We spoke with one woman today and she is praying every day.”

“The nice thing about Nantucket is we’ve been able to bring people in legally,” Murphy-LaScola added. “ They pay taxes and are not a draw on the economy. They go home when they are told to go home. And, now we can’t get them back in to fill the positions.”
Bartlett’s Farm is able to get foreign workers under J-1 agricultural visas for farm work, yet relies on H2-b workers to work in the kitchen and the store.

Last year, Bartlett’s hired almost 114 employees at the height of the season.

“They were roughly split between American and international workers, with half on J-1 visas and half on H2-b visas,” said Laura Steele, human resource manager for Bartlett’s Farm. “Basically nine or 10 kitchen employees are from Jamaica and won’t be able to return. They have been with us for 10 years and are like family. It’s heart breaking.”

Steele is working with human resource managers in different winter resorts to see if their H 2-b workers can get an extension to work on the island. H 2-b workers in the country can get an extension for up to three years.

“The ones who are here are the only ones who can get an extension,” Steele said. “There is a willingness with the winter resorts to share because if they know where their workers are going, they can get them back.”

How did the returning seasonal H 2-b visa workers get entangled with immigration reform?

A delegation of Cape business owners and Wendy Norcross, executive director of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, went to Washington, DC two weeks ago and lobbied the Hispanic Caucus to allow foreign workers to return this season.

“We met with members of the Hispanic Caucus who said because the H2-b visa is universally liked and works well, they were attaching immigration reforms for illegal aliens who have been in the country for the last five years,” said Norcross. “They are using our bill to get other stuff through. We hold out very little hope. This isn’t something we can debate all summer. The clock is ticking. I am confident we will not see an exemption for returning foreign workers.”

“The Hispanic Caucus is hoping our energy would pull their immigration reforms over the fence for a quick fix,” she added.

Mark Carchidi of Antioch Associates in Hyannis, Mass. brings foreign workers to the Cape and Islands for seasonal employment.

Last year, he recruited about 400 foreign workers, mostly from Jamaica and the Caribbean to come for Nantucket, workers who staff approximately 30 island businesses. Another Cape and Island’s foreign worker broker, Jane Nichols Bishop, declined to be interviewed for this article.

“One of the things we are going to have to explore, if the legislation doesn’t pass, is to secure seasonal employment from sources such as teachers, more students and internships through culinary or technical schools ,” said Carchidi. “We have an internal clock of March 15 to April 1 for it to pass. If something doesn’t shake by then, it will be very difficult to get employees. If passed today, it would be later than the employers would need them. If employers don’t have a contingency plan, they will feel it this summer.”

At American Seasons, Murphy-LaScola is advertising for kitchen staff in Boston and New York.

“Personally, I hope we get open on time,” said Murphy-LaScola. “Myself and my husband will have to do the dishes ourselves if we can’t find help.”

Visas for War Zone Translators Halted Current Quotas Are Nearly Filled By Walter Pincus | Washington Post, Feb 29

The State Department has stopped processing the applications of 551 Iraqi and Afghan translators seeking special visas to come to the United States, because the current legal quota of 500 visas for the program this year is about to be reached, according to department officials.

The applicants, all of whom have worked for U.S. military forces, received an e-mail notice from the State Department's National Visa Center last week. "We have temporarily stopped processing cases," the message said, adding that "the applicant should NOT make any travel arrangements, sell property or give up employment until the US Embassy or Consulate General has issued a visa."

The halt is the latest obstacle for many of the several thousand translators who have worked for U.S. military units in Iraq and Afghanistan, risking their lives and leaving their families vulnerable to retaliation from insurgents who see them as accomplices of American troops. More than 250 interpreters working for U.S. forces or their contractors have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Many American service members have worked to help their former translators gain a visa to come to the United States under a 2006 congressional program initially designed to admit 50 translators per year, a quota later increased to 500.

Because most of the 551 whose applications are now held in abeyance must travel to Jordan, Syria or Kuwait to meet with U.S. Embassy personnel as part of the application process, the notice has created concern not just among the hundreds of potential refugees, but also among their sponsors, many of whom are current or former U.S. military personnel who worked with the translators in the war zone.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and signed into law by President Bush last month raised to 5,000 the number of special visas available this year to Iraqi translators and other Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government or American contractors in the war zone. Officials with the departments of State and Homeland Security are still analyzing the legislation to work out the details of how the new program will be implemented.

"We are working on this now with Congress, USCIS [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service], and PRM [State's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration] to see if we can get a broader interpretation that would make it immediately applicable to the Iraqis who have already applied," said one official involved in the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy is under development.

One sticking point, according to State Department officials, is that the new legislative language calls for any Iraqi seeking a special visa to have "experienced or is experiencing an ongoing serious threat as a consequence" of being employed by the United States. The officials are attempting to work out what type of evidence is needed to substantiate "an ongoing serious threat as a consequence of that employment."

The visa program that has been halted contained no such provision, although the translators had to provide a letter signed by a flag officer or the U.S. ambassador in Iraq attesting to their honorable service.

Kennedy, in a statement issued yesterday, said: "It's appalling that the administration is taking so long to issue the guidance necessary to continue the Special Immigrant Visa program for Iraqis with close ties to our government. . . . Every day we delay only further endangers these heroic Iraqis who have saved American lives."

Kirk W. Johnson, who runs the List Project, a nonprofit group seeking to bring threatened Iraqis who worked for U.S. forces to the United States, criticized the suspension and called on the Bush administration to simplify the application and processing system.

"If this doesn't prove why it's President Bush's responsibility to whip these bureaucracies into shape, and why the best intentions of Congress can only nudge things, I don't know what else can," said Johnson, a former staffer with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Iraq. "Until the president weighs in, the bureaucracies will not solve this."

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New Ariz. Law Pressures Migrants to Move By JACQUES BILLEAUD | Associated Press, Feb 29

PHOENIX -- Parents are pulling students out of school. Construction workers are abandoning their jobs. Families are hastily moving out of apartments.

Two months after Arizona enacted a law punishing employers who hire illegal immigrants, the law is already achieving one of its goals: Scores of immigrants are fleeing to other states or back to their Latin American homelands.

Gaby Espinoza, who has been unemployed since November, is among those affected. She gave up looking for a job because of the law and may have to return to Mexico.

Espinoza's husband works here legally, but the law means that employers must ask her for papers, and she faces the daily fear of being deported.

"There's no work over there in Mexico," said Espinoza, who has three U.S.-born children. "People there live so poorly. Here, my kids have health insurance and Medicare. Over there, there's nothing."

Jose Perez Leon, a laborer in Phoenix who wants to return to his home in Mexico City, said jobs were plentiful when he came to Arizona about 18 months ago but began to dry up in the last three months.

"I don't like it here anymore because of everything that's happening," he said. "There's no work."

The Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano approved the law last summer out of frustration with federal efforts to curb illegal immigration. It took effect Jan. 1.

The law suspends or revokes the business licenses of violators and was intended to reduce the economic incentive for immigrants to sneak across the border. Illegal immigrants account for an estimated one in 10 workers in Arizona, which is the nation's busiest gateway for illegal immigration.

Business groups have challenged the law. While awaiting a ruling, prosecutors agreed to hold off bringing cases to court until at least March 1.

Republican state Rep. Russell Pearce designed the law to reduce spending on educating and providing health care for illegal immigrants and their families, and to encourage them to leave Arizona.

"Why in the world do (illegal immigrants) think they have a right to break the law? And we are the bad guys for insisting that the law be enforced? The public doesn't agree with that," Pearce said.

Many school officials believe the law has played a role in falling enrollment. The state's struggling economy and slumping housing market are other factors. Several districts reported losing more than 100 students at least in part because of the law.

The Isaac School District in central Phoenix, with a student body that is 96 percent Hispanic, lost 500 students, said district spokesman Abedon Fimbres.

The departure of so many students upsets people like Jackie Doerr, who is principal at Andalucia Primary School, which is in a separate district in west Phoenix. She said teachers had made progress teaching English to many of the children.

"They have to leave and start all over again. It's just so frustrating when you see how far they have come," Doerr said. "They are probably going to lose it, especially if they go back to Mexico. They are definitely going to have problems."

The law has also contributed to rising vacancies in Phoenix. The slow economy and a market overloaded with rental homes have exacerbated the problem, said Terry Feinberg, president of the Arizona Multihousing Association, a rental housing industry group.

Even so, property managers have reported that the law has also driven away Hispanics who are legally in the country, Feinberg said.

The construction industry says some of its workers are leaving, too, for California, Nevada, Colorado or Texas.

Veronica Avalos, an illegal immigrant who has lived in Arizona for 13 years, has been caring for her three children alone since January. Her husband's Arizona employer closed its doors. He now works in San Antonio building swimming pool decks.

Avalos and her children plan to join him in the coming months, but she worries how the move will affect her 11-year-old son, who is partially blind and has mild mental disabilities.

"We need to look for a school, services and programs for him. He has all those things right now," Avalos said. "But I don't know what will happen in Texas."