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MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press:
"A baseball players agent illegally smuggled Cuban players into the United States, eventually shipping them to California in hopes that they would be signed by major league teams, federal immigration officials said Tuesday.
The agent, Gustavo "Gus" Dominguez, is charged with paying four aides to transport the athletes and other Cubans to the U.S. in two trips from the island nation. Dominguez, of California-based Total Sports International, has represented several Cuban baseball defectors, including Andy Morales, who was signed into the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox minor league systems after fleeing Cuba six years ago.
Also charged in the 53-count federal indictment were Geoffrey Rodrigues, Robert Yosvany Hernandez, Ramon Batista, and Guillermo Valdez."
New America Media ("NAM") bills itself as "the country’s first and largest national collaboration of ethnic news organizations."
Lately it has cranked out several immigration stories:
Yesterday We Marched, But Today We Wait;
Fearing a Knock at the Door - The Black Undocumented Life;
A Wild-Eyed Gamble with the GOP’s Future;
Mapping the Movement; and
The banners at the meeting read "Somos America," or "We are America." Mexican and Asian immigrants there invoked the dignity of all immigrants, whether legal or not, and declared the current system for entering this country "broken."
Outside, a small group of U.S. citizens held signs of their own: "Wake up and smell the invasion," and "Honk if you want the borders secured."
This showdown took place Oct. 22--not in El Paso, Texas, or Tucson, Ariz., but in the western suburb of Carol Stream. Nearly 1,500 miles from the Rio Grande, border security and illegal immigration have emerged as defining issues in two bitterly contested congressional races in the Chicago suburbs. By OSCAR AVILA and JOHN BLEMER for the Chicago Tribune.
U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) -- public enemy number one at pro-immigration marches in Chicago last spring that drew hundreds of thousands of protesters -- attended a press conference to support Roskam's bid for the 6th Congressional District seat in the west suburbs. About a dozen people protested outside the downtown event. DAVE NEWBART in the Chicago Sun-Times.
PAMELA COLLOFF in the November 2006 issue of Texas Monthly: "His name was Ezequiel Amaya Escobar, although no one knew who he was when his body was discovered one morning last August under a mesquite tree. He was lying five and a half miles from the nearest paved road, in a stretch of South Texas scrubland that Spanish explorers once called El Desierto de los Muertos, or the Desert of the Dead. The austere landscape, which extends from Kingsville to Raymondville, is a patchwork of ranches that includes two of the largest in the country: the King Ranch, to the north, and the Kenedy Ranch, to the south. A Border Patrol checkpoint stands roughly in the middle, on U.S. 77, and Ezequiel had died trying to walk around it. When he was found, his head was resting on his backpack, as if he had stopped in the wilderness to take a nap. He almost looked alive; he had thick black hair that fell just below his ears, and his face was soft and round. But his lips were cracked, his eyes wide open. He was thirteen years old."
P.S., President Bush today signed into law the Secure Fence Act of 2006, but "a leading House Democrat, Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas, who served with the Border Patrol for more than 26 years before running for Congress, charged today that the bill 'represents the worst in election year politics.' Reyes, a member of the House armed services and intelligence committees, called it 'an empty gesture for the sole purpose of sending a false message about the security of our nation.'"
But a year and a half later, with many of her friends planning proms and applying to college, Ms. Bah, now 18, was still wearing an electronic ankle bracelet and tethered to a 10 p.m. government curfew, restrictions that were conditions of her release. And she was still facing deportation to Guinea, where she has not lived since she was 2. By NINA BERNSTEIN in The New York Times.
Here in a state where the wave of border crossers is so great that it washes over every aspect of life, illegal immigration is a flash point in virtually every political race this fall. Moreover, there's a candidate for every view - from those saying "send 'em back and bar the door" to those who'd provide a path for citizenship for some undocumented workers. By GAIL RUSSELL CHADDOCK for the Christian Science Monitor.
DNA testing has emerged as a powerful and sometimes controversial tool for U.S. residents seeking to help overseas relatives enter the country legally. The tests have been invaluable for thousands of citizens or permanent residents who want to sponsor relatives but lack birth certificates or other documents to prove the family relationship. But some immigration lawyers worry that U.S. authorities are increasingly requiring DNA tests even when the paperwork is in order -- adding substantial costs and delays to an arduous process. N.C. AIZENMAN in the Washington Post.
The bad news seems worse when one considers that as Hispanics gain in the U.S. population, the share of Hispanics in poverty doubled from 12 percent in 1980 to 25 percent in 2004. Recent immigrants fared worse. In 2006, the U.S. government drew the poverty line at $20,000 annually for a family of four, or a little more than $1,600 a month. But for those newly arrived from Latin America, the average monthly salary was $900, according to a new report released this week by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). By MARCELA SANCHEZ in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
Bribery of federal and local officials by Mexican smugglers is rising sharply, and with it the fear that a culture of corruption is taking hold along the 2,000-mile border from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego. By RALPH VARTABEDIAN, RICHARD SERRANO, and RICHARD MAROSI for the Los Angeles Times.
Until recently, the glut of pending cases was so large that President Bush’s vow in 2001 to cut the standard wait to six months or less nationwide seemed unreachable. Now immigration officials say they have more than met that goal, shrinking the average wait to five months for a citizenship decision. And no district shows more dramatic improvement than New York, where the wait has officially shrunk to 2.8 months.But the numbers are not quite as rosy as they seem. To accomplish their mission, officials at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services explain, they identified and stopped counting thousands of backlogged cases that they now define as outside the agency’s control, mostly those delayed by unexplained lags in standard security clearances by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. NINA BERNSTEIN in the New York Times.
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Immigration reform legislation has failed to pass this year. Yet the need for comprehensive reform remains acute. In Oxford Analytical.
If you are glued to the tube, you won't hear a peep about the death of habeas.
For that, you have to tune in to the mainstream bloggers, such as SCOTT HORTON and MICHAEL DORF.
For honest print media coverage, go to Australia. (Maybe American papers will catch up in a day or two.)
Frost wasn't enthusiastic about walls, and neither are many of the columnists who have written about the 700-mile wall approved by Congress and the president to stand between Mexico and the United States. I like the take of Dale McFeatters, a Scripps Howard News Service colleague, who recalls famous walls of the past: the Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall, the Maginot Line, the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall. All of these monumental works had at least one thing in common: they failed miserably to accomplish what their visionary builders had in mind. JOHN M. CRISP in Scripps News.
An anonymous AP writer brings us up to speed on the Luis Posada-Carriles case.
And here's a link to today's court filing by the government.
The Republican candidate for Congress in Arizona's Eighth District, Randy Graf, won his party's primary in spite of opposition from the Republican National Committee in Washington. National party leaders believed the Golf professional and former state legislator was too focused on immigration and not prepared to replace retiring Republican Congressman Jim Kolbe, who has held the seat for more than 20 years.
But Randy Graf says the party strategists in Washington don't understand what the immigration issue means for those who live in a district that includes half of the state's total border with Mexico. By GREG FLAKUS for Voice of America.
This website, created by OMB Watch, is a free, searchable database of federal government spending. To begin searching, select either the Grants or Contracts tab at the top left side of this page. You can easily switch back and forth as you search.
A state district court judge in Kentucky ordered 17 Hispanic defendants to be held without bond, in part because they had no social security numbers.
An appellate court judge said the no bond rulings violated the Kentucky and U.S. Constitutions, and ordered the prisoners released.
CHRIS COOPER writes for the Russellville, Kentucky News-Democrat & Leader.
ICE* storms could cost New York state farmers $195 million dollars over the next two years. (Reuters.)
* Immigration & Customs Enforcement
In July 2006 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision upholding border searches of laptops and other computer memory devices. IJJ JUST NEWS blogged it here.
On October 2, 2006 a lower federal court in Los Angeles issued a decision throwing out a laptop border search. The Court wrote: "[E]lectronic storage devices function as an extension of our own memory. They are capable of storing our thoughts, ranging from the most whimsical to the most profound. Therefore, government intrusions into the mind - specifically those that would cause fear or apprehension in a reasonable person - are no less deserving of Fourth Amendment scrutiny than intrusions that are physical in nature." U.S. v. Arnold.
How did this lower court get around the Ninth Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Romm, and the Supreme Court's 2004 decision in U.S. v. Flores-Montano?
Too soon to tell, but the difference might be that the Court in Arnold tagged the search as "invasive" and "non-routine." In the coming months Fourth Amendment scholars - and the courts - will tell us more.
Horry County may become part of a growing number of localities considering new laws to stem the tide of illegal immigration. A proposed law, sponsored by Myrtle Beach County Councilman Marion Foxworth, would fine Horry County landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and temporarily revoke the business licenses of those who employ them. TRAVIS TRITTEN in the Myrtle Beach Sun News.
"No one knows how many illegal immigrants worked at Ground Zero in the days after Sept. 11. Immigration advocates claim it was thousands. And now, as the workers have become sick, partisans on both sides cast their plight in moral terms," writes DARRYL FEARS of the Washington Post.
Undocumented workers at Cafe Express (owned by Wendy's) in Dallas and Houston had money deducted from their paychecks to pay for lawyers working on their green cards.
But the lawyers screwed up and the workers are left with nothing, according to class-action lawsuits filed in both cities.
) fill in the Dallas picture; (Houston Chronicle) give us the Houston angle.
Today Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE") served Luis Posada-Carriles with an "Interim Decision to Continue Detention," as part of the government's pleadings in an ongoing habeas case in El Paso.
MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA gives us the background in today's Washington Post; ALICIA A. CALDWELL of AP gives us the post-decision fallout.
On Wednesday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in California's drastically overcrowded prisons---a move that aides say will allow for inmates to be transferred to other states without their consent. Such transfers are ordinarily against state law, which requires an inmate's permission since, in many cases, an out-of-state location makes it difficult or impossible for families to visit.
Lawyers for inmates said they would challenge any involuntary moves.At the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit firm that has successfully sued the state on inmate health care and similar issues, director Donald Specter called the emergency declaration ''political theater" by a governor running for reelection, writes JENIFER WARREN for the Los Angeles Times.
By right of birth, Stephanie is a U.S. citizen, but her mother Marta is an undocumented immigrant from Colombia -- and so both mother and child live in daily fear that Marta's deportation will separate them.
That constant, anguished uncertainty is the basis of a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court on Wednesday on behalf of Escobar and dozens of other U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. By CASEY WOODS for the Miami Herald.
CLAUDINE LoMONACO in the Tucson Citizen writes: "According to the courts, the mere presence of an illegal immigrant in a vehicle does not mean the driver has committed a crime. On the streets, however, the Border Patrol calls the shots." Yet, "A 1999 class-action law suit, Gete v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, successfully challenged the Border Patrol's seizure policy. 'It's absolutely incorrect what they're saying that they can seize just because there is somebody illegally in the car,' said Robert Pauw, a Seattle lawyer who filed the suit. 'They cannot do that and it's very clear.'
Here's a link to pertinent documents in the Gete lawsuit.
Those who complain about a do-nothing 109th Congress are not entirely correct. When it comes to national security, real or perceived, our lawmakers are ready to vote for anything that might persuade voters they're hard at work protecting us. For an example, look at immigration reform -- or, more accurately, the campaign-driven facsimile that's just passed both houses. Editorial in the Sacramento Bee.
Today, Tuesday, October 3, 2006, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral argument in two consolidated cases, Lopez and Toledo-Flores. Here's a preview, provided by JASON HARROW.
Your correspondent will be there, watching and listening. The transcript of the argument will be posted here later in the day.
Legal challenges involving immigration, civil rights, abortion and global warming are on the agenda this year as the U.S. Supreme Court opens its annual term. JIM MALONE for Voice of America.
Despite a dissenting vote from Tony Peraica, the Republican candidate for Cook County Board president, a resolution passed a subcommittee Monday that could make the Illinois county a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. JOSH NOEL for the Chicago Tribune.