August 29, 2007
The recently deported illegal migrant and activist who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year, has asked the Mexico's president to appoint her "peace and justice" ambassador so she can return to the United States.Elvira Arellano, 32, who sought refuge to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born, 8-year-old son, was arrested and sent back to Mexico on Aug. 19 after traveling to Los Angeles to attend a rally for the overhaul of U.S. immigration laws. Her son stayed in the United States.
"What I'm asking for is a diplomatic visa so that I can be an ambassador for peace and justice because I'm not a terrorist and the United States can't continue treating undocumented migrants as terrorists," Arellano told reporters after meeting with President Felipe Calderon at the presidential residence, Los Pinos.
There is no reason for us to recognize any diplomatic status the Mexicans give her – and every reason to permanently ban her from American soil.
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August 27, 2007
Undocumented immigrants are starting to leave Arizona because of the new employer-sanctions law.The state's strong economy has been a magnet for illegal immigrants for years. But a growing number are pulling up stakes out of fear they will be jobless come Jan. 1, when the law takes effect. The departures are drawing cheers from immigration hard-liners and alarm from business owners already seeing a drop in sales.
It's impossible to count how many undocumented immigrants have fled because of the new law. But based on interviews with undocumented immigrants, immigrant advocates, community leaders and real-estate agents, at least several hundred have left since Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill on July 2. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.
Some are moving to other states, where they think they will have an easier time getting jobs. Others are returning to Mexico, selling their effects and putting their houses on the market.
The number departing is expected to mushroom as the Jan. 1 deadline draws closer. After that, the law will require employers to verify the employment eligibility of their workers through a federal database.
"I would say we are losing at least 100 people a day," said Elias Bermudez, founder of Immigrants Without Borders and host of a daily talk-radio program aimed at undocumented immigrants.
Here's hoping that the rate increases as the deadline looms.
And that other states – and the federal government – impose similar employer sanctions.
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Undocumented immigrants are starting to leave Arizona because of the new employer-sanctions law.The state's strong economy has been a magnet for illegal immigrants for years. But a growing number are pulling up stakes out of fear they will be jobless come Jan. 1, when the law takes effect. The departures are drawing cheers from immigration hard-liners and alarm from business owners already seeing a drop in sales.
It's impossible to count how many undocumented immigrants have fled because of the new law. But based on interviews with undocumented immigrants, immigrant advocates, community leaders and real-estate agents, at least several hundred have left since Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill on July 2. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.
Some are moving to other states, where they think they will have an easier time getting jobs. Others are returning to Mexico, selling their effects and putting their houses on the market.
The number departing is expected to mushroom as the Jan. 1 deadline draws closer. After that, the law will require employers to verify the employment eligibility of their workers through a federal database.
"I would say we are losing at least 100 people a day," said Elias Bermudez, founder of Immigrants Without Borders and host of a daily talk-radio program aimed at undocumented immigrants.
Here's hoping that the rate increases as the deadline looms.
And that other states – and the federal government – impose similar employer sanctions.
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August 26, 2007
At least not according to Carlos X. Carrillo, Border Patrol chief of Laredo, Texas.
A Border Patrol chief at one of the nation's most dangerous Southwest border crossings says the agency's mission doesn't include apprehending illegal aliens or seizing narcotics — perplexing front-line agents and angering a congressional critic of illegal immigration."I've said it before and I'll say it again," Carlos X. Carrillo, Border Patrol chief of Laredo, Texas, told guests at a town-hall meeting Thursday. "The Border Patrol's job is not to stop illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol's job is not to stop narcotics. ... The Border Patrol's mission is not to stop criminals.
"The Border Patrol's mission is to stop terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the country."
Law-enforcement agencies consider Laredo to be one of the Southwest's most dangerous border crossings. It is the sister city of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which is controlled by one of that country's most ruthless drug-smuggling rings.
Somebody needs to explain to Carrillo that the interdiction of drugs and immigration criminals is a big part of his agency's job.
Better yet, somebody in Washington needs to tell him that he needs to find a new job, because he no longer works for the US government.
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August 23, 2007
In contrast to the months before and after the 2000 census was conducted, federal officials say they will not suspend raids on illegal immigrants during the population count in 2010.“We would not even consider scaling back our efforts,” said Pat A. Reilly, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The census counts all residents, legal and illegal.
This month, Preston Jay Waite, the Census BureauÂ’s deputy director, cautioned in an interview that raids during the population count would further discourage an already distrustful group from cooperating with government enumerators. Mr. Waite said federal officials did not conduct raids for several months before and after the 2000 census.
Given how politically volatile an issue immigration has become, however, Mr. Waite was quoted by The Associated Press as saying that enforcement agencies “may not be able to give us as much of a break” in 2010.
We don't suspend other law enforcement activities at the time of the Census so that we can guarantee an accurate count. We still pick up thieves, rapists, and murders, even though it makes them less likely to fill out a census form or answer the door for a census worker. The public would be outraged if we did.
And for the same reason, we should give no quarter to border jumping immigration criminals.
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A Mexican Senate committee passed a measure Wednesday urging President Felipe Calderon to send a diplomatic note to the United States protesting the deportation of an illegal migrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year.The committee also approved a scholarship to help her 8-year-old U.S.-born son, Saul, who is an American citizen and stayed in the United States.
Elvira Arellano, 32, became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents by defying her deportation order and speaking out from her sanctuary in the Adalberto United Methodist Church. She announced last week that she was leaving to try to lobby U.S. lawmakers for immigration reform.
On Sunday, shortly after she spoke at a rally in a Los Angeles church, she was arrested and deported to Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.
"We cannot remain quiet in view of this injustice and must ask for firm action from our authorities," Mexican Sen. Humberto Zazue said.
He accused the United States of violating international deportation accords by denying her access to the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles.
Arellano, who was at the committee's session, said Saul is in Chicago in the care of his godmother and will attend a Sept. 12 rally for immigration reform in Washington. She said she would help organize a rally in Tijuana that same day to demand Mexican authorities do more to protect migrants.
"For me it is very important that our government take a strong stand to defend all of us who decide to migrate to another country," she said.
In other words, the US is evil for insisting that it has the right to determine which foreigners enter and stay United States. And as for the closing quote from Arellano, she is calling for nothing less than an act of war against the United States. IÂ’d be much more impressed if Mexico instead chose to punish the United States by forgoing all American foreign aid.
And then there is this gem.
If the US is such an evil place, she should prove she is a fit mother by sending for him so that he can be raised in Mexico, not a lawless criminal nation like the United States. Mexico should be protecting its people by acting aggressively to close the border so that Mexican citizens cannot come to a America, where they are abused, exploited, and disrespected.
And when the diplomatic note arrives, it should be used appropriately and then flushed.
Round ‘em up! Ship ‘em back! Rawhide!
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August 22, 2007
And all it took was a highly publicized multiple homicide in a sanctuary city.
Attorney General Anne Milgram today ordered all local police officers in New Jersey to inquire about the immigration status of suspects charged with serious crimes, and to notify federal immigration authorities if there is reason to believe the suspect is in the country illegally.The requirements, which go into effect immediately, apply to suspects arrested for specific indictable offenses and for driving while intoxicated, Milgram said. If the suspect is unable to prove he or she is legally in the United States, the police officer is required to notify Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, she said. The policy also specifies that prosecutors and courts be notified.
Local officers cannot inquire about the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses to crimes or persons requesting police assistance, she said.
"The overriding mission of law enforcement officers in this state is to enforce the state's criminal laws and to protect the community that they serve," Milgram said. "This requires the cooperation of, and positive relationships with, all members of the community. Public safety suffers if individuals believe they cannot come forward to report a crime or cooperate with law enforcement."
It would have been nice if such rules had been in place before. it might have saved the lives of three very promising young people who were murdered by border jumpers.
For that matter, this policy would save lives nationally if implemented in all 50 states.
When I was a kid, the problem of young people drinking and driving and dying in auto accidents earned the border between Wisconsin and Illinois a nickname that sounds like it should apply to the US-Mexico border, given the spiraling number of bodies left in the wake of the border jumpers -- BLOOD BORDER.
H/T Tammy Bruce, Michelle Malkin
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August 20, 2007
Opposition from key talk radio and cable TV hosts helped kill the immigration bill in Congress, a study out today concludes.“What listeners of the conservative talk radio media were hearing, in large part, was that the legislation itself was little more than an ‘amnesty bill’ for illegal immigrants, a phrase loaded with political baggage,” it says.
The study by the nonpartisan Project for Excellence in Journalism quantifies what White House and Capitol Hill phone lines and e-mail inboxes already indicated: Talk radio focused on the immigration debate more intensely than the mainstream media did from April to June.
Conservative hosts touched off a brushfire in the Republican base that President Bush and other party leaders were helpless to contain.
"If media attention translates into political pressure, the argument that talk radio helped kill the immigration bill in Congress has some support in the data," the study says. "Thanks to energetic opposition from Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage, immigration was the biggest topic, at 16%, on conservative talk radio in the second quarter."
But I have to question something about this report. Was talk radio leading the way in opposing the legislation, or was it actually reflecting the sentiment that existed. Most folks I know opposed the legislation on principle before ti became a talk radio topic due to the amnesty provisions -- and were already inclined to do so without any prompting for talk radio. It strikes me, therefore, that the real impact of talk radio was not in creating opposition, but was rather in mobilizing that which already existed by providing more information and encouraging action.
H/T Captain Ed
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An illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son has been deported to Mexico, the church's pastor said.Elvira Arellano became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her religious sanctuary. She held a news conference last week to announce that she would finally leave the church to try to lobby U.S. lawmakers for change.
She had just spoken at a Los Angeles rally when she was arrested Sunday outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church and deported, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had been living.
"She is free and in Tijuana," said Coleman, who said he spoke to her on the phone. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."
Personally, I believe that the doors of Adalberto United Methodist Church should have been kicked off their hinges a year ago so that she could be removed pursuant to a long-standing deportation order -- and that Coleman and his co-conspirators should have been taken into custody and charged for their part in this sham as well.
And if anything, this story points out to the need to do away with automatic birthright citizenship for the children of border jumping immigration criminals like Arellano -- for without it, she would have had no basis for even making a claim to stay.
More At Malkin, Surber, Stop the ACLU, Stix, Jammie Wearing Fool, Captain Ed
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August 19, 2007
The Census Bureau wants immigration agents to suspend enforcement raids during the 2010 census so the government can better count illegal immigrants.Raids during the population count would make an already distrustful group even less likely to cooperate with government workers who are supposed to include them, the Census Bureau's second-ranking official said in an Associated Press interview.
Deputy Director Preston Jay Waite said immigration enforcement officials did not conduct raids for several months before and after the 2000 census. But today's political climate is even more volatile on the issue of illegal immigration.
Enforcement agents "have a job to do," Waite said. "They may not be able to give us as much of a break" in 2010.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman declined to say whether immigration officials would halt raids. "If we were, we wouldn't talk about it," Pat Reilly said.
"For us to suspend that enforcement would probably take a lot more than one meeting," Reilly said. "We would have to discuss this at the highest levels of both agencies."
Why do i suggest stepping up the raids instead of slowing them down? Two reasons.
1) Enforcing our nation's laws and securing our borders should be a priority. If we do enough to enforce the law and rid ourselves of some of the immigration criminals, we might just luck out and have more leave voluntarily before they are caught and deported.
2) Given that the Census is used to fund federal programs and congressional representation, the more immigration criminals we can rid ourselves of the better. Border jumpers should not be getting government services or political representation. After all, they are not even legitimately here. Not only do I not care if they are under-counted, I don't believe they should count at all in any government formula.
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August 16, 2007
The Republican Party's national chairman scolded his party's two top presidential candidates this week for their tough stance on illegal immigration, even as both men moved to try to one-up each other in calling for stricter enforcement.Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, President Bush's handpicked choice for party chairman, chided former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani for opposing and mischaracterizing the Senate immigration bill Mr. Martinez helped craft.
"It's about leading on the tough issues," Mr. Martinez told the St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce in comments first reported in yesterday's St. Petersburg Times. "It was easy to say, 'This wasn't good enough, this isn't right, I don't agree with Martinez.' ... But at the end of the day, what is your answer? How would you solve this?"
How? By doing what the American people want done.
Round 'em up! Ship 'em back! Rawhide!
And we can start with this one.
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August 11, 2007
Today marks an important step forward in alleviating poverty. Millions of hard-working Americans will finally receive a well-deserved pay raise. The federal minimum wage increase goes into effect today – rising from $5.15 to $5.85 per hour. This is the first increase in a decade. It is a step that is long overdue.In fact, today’s increase is the first of three increases which will occur over the next two years. One year from today, it will rise to $6.55 and one year after that, in 2009, it will increase to $7.25. Increasing the federal minimum wage to $7.25 will add nearly $4,400 to a minimum wage worker’s annual income.
The bottom line is this: this two-year increase in the minimum wage will mean the difference between self-sufficiency and living below the poverty line for millions of American families who are struggling to make ends meet. It is an accomplishment for which the Democratic Congress can be very proud.
Now I won't get into a discussion of how an externally imposed artificial increase in wages does not help workers or the economy. That isn't what I'm about here.
Instead, I'm struck by the hypocrisy revealed by Senator Feinstein's reaction to the enforcement of American immigration laws.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who has worked closely with growers, described the new enforcement as a “catastrophe.”“The crisis is that crops will not be harvested,” Mrs. Feinstein said.
That is actually not true -- those crops will, in fact, get harvested. The thing is that growers will have to pay American workers a rate of pay that Americans are willing to accept, not the same amount that they paid two decades ago when I did summer work detasseling corn in central Illinois on days that I didn't have summer school classes. Those harvest jobs are jobs that Americans will do -- if you pay them on an American scale and not the slave wages given to border-jumpers who undermine the wages of American workers.
It is as simple as Economics 101, Senator -- and if you are willing to demand that American employers give a pay raise that does not make sense from an economic point of view, why not tell these folks to give one that the laws of economics clearly require.
Oh, yeah -- and at the same time quit outsourcing American jobs to illegal workers.
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August 10, 2007
The Bush administration on Friday will announce plans to enlist state and local law enforcement in cracking down on illegal immigrants, which previously was largely a federal function, according to congressional sources.The administration is unveiling a series of tough border control and employer enforcement measures designed to make up for security provisions that failed when Congress rejected a broad rewrite of the nationÂ’s immigration laws in June. The plans are scheduled to be announced at 10:30 a.m. by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez.
Details were provided to Capitol Hill on Thursday. As part of the new measures, the secretary of Homeland Security will deliver regular “State of the Border” reports beginning this fall.
In one of the most interesting revelations, the plans call for the administration to “train growing numbers of state and local law enforcement officers to identify and detain immigration offenders whom they encounter in the course of daily law enforcement,” according to a summary provided to The Politico by a congressional source.
“By this fall, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will have quintupled the number of enforcement teams devoted to removing fugitive aliens (from 15 to 75 in less than three years),” the summary says.
In other words, this is a concession that those of us favoring enforcement were right. After all, if the amnesty bill had really been needed, this would not be happening because the federal government would have lacked the authority to implement this plan.
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August 08, 2007
In a new effort to crack down on illegal immigrants, federal authorities are expected to announce tough rules this week that would require employers to fire workers who use false Social Security numbers.Officials said the rules would be backed up by stepped-up raids on workplaces across the country that employ illegal immigrants.
After first proposing the rules last year, Department of Homeland Security officials said they held off finishing them to await the outcome of the debate in Congress over a sweeping immigration bill. That measure, which was supported by President Bush, died in the Senate in June.
Now administration officials are signaling that they intend to clamp down on employers of illegal immigrants even without a new immigration law to offer legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the workforce.
The approach is expected to play well with conservatives who have long demanded that the administration do more to enforce existing immigration laws, but it could also lead to renewed pressure from businesses on Congress to provide legal status for an estimated six million unauthorized immigrant workers.
“We are tough and we are going to be even tougher,” Russ Knocke, the spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said yesterday. “There are not going to be any more excuses for employers, and there will be serious consequences for those that choose to blatantly disregard the law.”
See, we didn't need an amnesty program to start fixing the problem -- we just needed folks to get off their butts and start enforcing the laws that are there. And while this makes the border-jumpers and their apologists upset, all that is being done is carrying out the dictates of our nation's reasonable immigration laws.
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August 03, 2007
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Thursday backed a scaled-down proposal that imposes strict rules to end illegal immigration but doesn't include a path to citizenship.The move away from a comprehensive measure is an about-face for the Arizona senator, who had been a leading GOP champion of a bill that included a guest worker program and would have legalized many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It failed earlier this year.
"We can still show the American people that we are serious about securing our nation's border," McCain said in a statement, adding that the new bill would "provide an essential step toward achieving comprehensive reform in the future."
McCain's immigration position has been a campaign liability among Republican voters and hurt his efforts to raise money. Other GOP presidential candidates, fellow Arizona Republicans and immigration opponents throughout the country have loudly decried his position.
Observers said McCain's switch was political. "He recognizes his position on the issue is killing him," said Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors vigorous immigration enforcement.
This bill might bring meaningful reform and enforcement -- but won't change McCain's chances of getting the nomination.
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August 02, 2007
Now an ongoing epidemic of wage theft from immigrant laborers reflects the many ways that a dysfunctional immigration system robs us all.According to a recent Chronicle story, reports of Houston-area employers refusing to pay immigrants for their work doubled from 2006 to 2007. The U.S. Department of Labor's office here received 842 complaints of businesses stealing back pay in 2006, compared to 371 in 2005. There were 172 in 2004. The department does not investigate complaints against individual employers. Nationally, almost half of all day labors reported being robbed by employers in a two-month period, according to a 2006 survey.
Reports of stolen wages probably account for only a small portion of wage thefts. As about 75 percent of day laborers are undocumented, many shy from complaining to authorities. Because they are low-income workers supporting impoverished families, they often cannot afford to lose precious work hours trying to file charges.
Even so, for those immigrant laborers who came forward last year, the Labor Department recovered $475,000 owed to 453 workers.
I have mixed emotions here. I think employers who rip off workers are scum -- especially having been in such a situation early in my working career. But at the same time, we are talking about folks who are in the country illegally and not working legally -- the transactions they are involved in are illegal from start to finish. Isn't getting ripped off just a part of the price you pay for being a part of a criminal enterprise?
Are those who file such complaints also turned over to immigration authorities for deportation? I think we all know the answer there. Any change in immigration law needs to require that they are.
Or are the feds going to now help folks recover stolen drugs and drug money, and not prosecute the underlying crime?
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