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Federal immigration authorities yesterday unveiled 100 new questions immigrants will have to study to pass a civics test to become naturalized American citizens.
The redesign of the test, the first since it was created in 1986 as a standardized examination, follows years of criticism in which conservatives said the test was too easy and immigrant advocates said it was too hard. JULIA PRESTON in The New York Times.
The prospects for immediate Senate action on the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, disappeared Wednesday amid Republican opposition. MICHELLE MITTELSTADT in The Houston Chronicle.
"The yellowing skeletons are stored in filing boxes in the hallway of the old prison outside Laredo. Under fluorescent lights, the dead are stacked in a bay of metal lockers, two high and three across. The walk-in cooler across the hall is larger, but all of the tables are full, too."
SUSAN CARROLL in the Houston Chronicle.
A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in Riverside, New Jersey became the first municipality in the state to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.
Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants had fled and the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.
So last week, the town rescinded the ordinance, joining a small but growing list of municipalities nationwide that have begun rethinking such laws as their legal and economic consequences have become clearer. KEN BELSON and JILL CAPUZZO in The New York Times.
"Nine day laborers are expected to file a federal lawsuit today challenging the legality of a sting operation in Danbury, Conn., last year that led to their arrest on immigration charges.
Those plaintiffs, and a tenth man whose traffic stop for a noisy muffler resulted in his deportation to Ecuador, contend that their arrests were illegal and part of a campaign based on racial profiling. They also say that the city of Danbury, its mayor, Mark D. Boughton, and its police chief acted to enforce federal immigration law without authority."
NINA BERNSTEIN in the New York Times.
"The government is increasingly using secret evidence allowed under new antiterrorism laws to prevent certain critics from entering the United States, according to a group of civil rights and academic organizations.
The group, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, went to court yesterday in Boston seeking to force the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to grant an entry visa to a South African Muslim academic who they said was barred from the United States because of his criticism of American foreign policy."
NEIL MacFARQUHAR in the New York Times.
The Bush administration sued the State of Illinois yesterday, hoping to block a new state law that bars employers from using a federal database to verify that immigrant job applicants are in the United States legally and are authorized to work.
Under the Illinois statute, the ban would remain until Washington certifies that the databases used to verify workers’ eligibility are 99 percent accurate.
With the suit, officials said, the administration is going on the offensive in the courts in response to cases intended to stall a crackdown on illegal immigration that the federal authorities announced last month. JULIA PRESTON in The New York Times.
The administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says prison guards flood wardens with greviences to intimidate them and exert undue influence on a state prison system riven by crisis.
Now the governor is trying to take back some of that power, which was ceded to the politically formidable union in a contract awarded by former Gov. Gray Davis in 2001 and renegotiated three years ago by the current administration. MICHAEL ROTHFELD in the Los Angeles Times.
There could be fireworks tomorrow (Tuesday) at the Virginia Commission on Immigration's first meeting.
The commission is studying the state's immigration policies and advising Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) on whether the state should adopt new policies to restrict of the flow of illegal immigrants into the state.
TIM CRAIG in the WaPo's blog on Virginian politics.As France races to deport 25,000 illegal immigrants by the end of the year — a quota set by President Nicolas Sarkozy — tensions are mounting and the crackdown is taking a toll.
Critics say the hunt threatens values in a nation that prides itself on being a cradle of human rights and a land of asylum. Protesters have gathered by the dozens in Paris to protect illegal aliens as police move in. ELAINE GANLEY for the AP.
Scammers are luring Haitians and Mexicans to Canada on false promises of legalization.
ELYSA BATISTA in the Naples Daily News; ALFONSO CHARDY in the Miami Herald; and
ADRIAN HUMPHREYS in the National Post.
How "a 21-year-old journalism student and jazz fan at the University of North Dakota, moonlighting for $1.75 an hour at The Grand Forks Herald," helped re-position Louis Armstrong in the civil rights movement.
DAVID MARGOLICK in the New York Times.
Despite the National Guard presence, human smugglers continue to try to move people across the border, compounding the loss of life in the Arizona desert.
The Border Patrol says the number of deaths will decline when its agents gain "operations control" of the border. Human rights groups say the deaths will continue until Congress passes legislation allowing people to cross the border legally.
TED ROBBINS for NPR's Day to Day.
"A federal lawsuit filed yesterday charges that agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement unlawfully force their way into the homes of Hispanic families in the New York area without court warrants or other legal justification, sometimes pushing down doors in the middle of the night, in search of people who do not live there.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court in Manhattan as a class action, accuses the immigration agency of conducting the raids in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s protection from unreasonable searches, harming citizens and legal residents of the United States as well as foreigners here illegally."
NINA BERNSTEIN in the New York Times.
"Cities and groups trying to crack down on illegal immigration are finding an obstacle to their efforts — U.S. courts. A string of recent judicial decisions have invalidated many tough ordinances, including those trying to crackdown on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and employers who hire them."
EUNICE MOSCOSO for Cox News Service.
"They pounded on my door so hard that my walls shook," said Dana Ayala, a Filipino native and U.S. citizen who has lived in the Wood River Valley for 13 years. "My 19-year-old son opened the door to see what was the matter and six agents pushed their way into my home.
"They never informed us who they were, they just barged into our house. They never showed us a warrant."
Ayala said the agents later told her that they were looking for a "sexual predator" by the name of Luis Gonzales, someone she had never heard of and had never lived in her home.
"I have two teenage daughters," she said. "I'm not going to let a pedophile stay here."
Ayala said her children are U.S. citizens and her husband is a Mexican native who has legal residency in the United States.
She said the agents searched the home and questioned the occupants for about half an hour, were rude and abrupt and have left her family traumatized, especially her 18-year-old daughter who is mentally retarded."
TERRY SMITH in the Idaho Mountain Express.
"Art Ruiloba, spokesman for the Gadsden Independent School District, said 11 children were removed from Chaparral schools Monday by sheriff's deputies and Border Patrol agents. The parents or legal guardians were present. Six children were from elementary schools, four from middle school and one from high school."
LOUIE GILOT in the El Paso Times.
The Border Patrol has reported a large drop in the number of illegal immigrants apprehended at the border with Mexico this year, the consequence, the agency says, of additional agents and the presence of National Guard troops. Yet the number of migrants dying while trying to cross here in Pima County is on pace to set a record, according to the county medical examiner.
Pima County, which includes the Tucson area, is one of the busiest areas for illegal crossings along the 2,000-mile border. The medical examiner’s office handled 177 deaths of border crossers in the first eight months of this year, compared with 139 over the same period last year and 157 in 2005, the year the most such deaths were registered. RANDAL ARCHIBOLD in The New York Times.
"At Heritage Hill Elementary, where 65 percent of the students are Hispanic, the first day of school was nearly a crisis.
That day, Aug. 28, immigration agents raided Koch Foods, a poultry packing plant in Fairfield, and arrested 161 suspected illegal immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and other countries.
Tianay Outlaw, principal at Heritage Hill, knew that some of her 310 students would be affected. With 45 percent of her students designated as "limited English proficient," Outlaw feared some youngster would be related to the detained workers."
DENISE SMITH AMOS in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Anti-illegal immigration groups are marshaling their forces in Kansas, saying crackdowns on illegal immigration in neighboring states like Oklahoma and Missouri have driven hordes of undocumented workers to the state.
"They come to the path of least resistance -- and right now that is Kansas," said Susan Tully, national field director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. ROXANA HEGEMAN in Business Week.
"The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union wants a federal judge to stop immigration officials from conducting what the union calls illegal workplace raids.
A lawsuit to be filed Wednesday morning in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas, alleges that agents unlawfully detained workers and violated their constitutional rights during raids of six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in December. The lawsuit also demands that the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pay damages to workers."
OSKAR GARCIA for the Associated Press.
"When I tried to report to the cafeteria during the raid, ICE agents accused me of trying to run away. They held me in handcuffs. I'm a U.S. Citizen, born in Iowa. My parents live in Mississippi. My government treated me like a criminal, and I didn’t do anything wrong. I knew our rights were being violated. What they're doing in these raids is illegal," said Mike Graves, who has lived in the United States his entire life, works at the Marshalltown, Iowa, Swift and Company plant, and is a member of UFCW Local 1149."
UFCW Press Release; and here's a link to the lawsuit.
Amid stepped-up federal efforts to curb illegal immigration, some school districts with large numbers of immigrant students are crafting new policies intended to balance cooperation with federal officials, protection of student privacy, and the safety of students during enforcement operations.
In Albuquerque and Santa Fe, N.M., for example, school personnel are barred from putting information about a child’s immigration status in school records or sharing it with outside agencies, including federal immigration authorities. Personnel are also told to deny any request from immigration officials to enter a school to search for information or seize students. School officials—with the help of lawyers—instead would determine whether to grant access.
Meanwhile, some small communities with an influx of immigrants are weighing how best to respond if children are left stranded at school because family members have been detained in an immigration raid. MARY ANN ZEHR in Education Week.
"158 immigrant advocacy groups from around the country are accusing Western Union, the largest U.S. money-transfer company, of charging exorbitant fees while failing to adequately reinvest in immigrant communities. In Los Angeles on Monday, the groups launched a nationwide boycott of Western Union, demanding that the Englewood, Colo.-based money-transfer giant lower its fees and put some of its profit back into the communities that use its services."
ANDREA CHANG in the Los Angeles Times.
The "Lawyermobile" is an RV that acts as a roving office for Jamie Hernan, Christopher Taylor and Jerome Lee, the boyish-looking barristers whose larger-than-life likenesses adorn both sides. The vehicle rolls into apartment complexes and soccer matches offering Spanish-language tutorials on immigration law.
The Roswell-based firm's blend of guerrilla marketing and social activism has made it among the biggest — and most controversial — players in a state whose illegal immigrant population has swelled to nearly half a million. Fans say the Georgia-raised attorneys are at the forefront of the latest fight for a marginalized group in the cradle of the civil rights movement. Critics call them profiteers whose activism is more about the bottom line. All agree they are the faces of resistance as communities across the region, frustrated with federal inaction, try to do something about illegal immigration. BRIAN FEAGANS in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.
The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.
Some inmates are outraged. Two of them, a Christian and an Orthodox Jew, in a federal prison camp in upstate New York, filed a class-action lawsuit last month claiming the bureau’s actions violate their rights to the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. LAURIE GOODSTEIN in The New York Times.
The story of Rocio Godinez's family provides a glimpse into the anguish of thousands of immigrants in similar straits. But their case is also different because the mother who first came to authorities' attention is not facing deportation. Her children are. ELIZABETH WHITE for the AP.
"As many as 200 undocumented immigrants who graduated from Arizona high schools have received private scholarship money through Arizona State University to help pay for out-of-state tuition this semester.
University President Michael Crow said at a Friday luncheon that aid has gone to 150 to 200 students, and based on his estimate, the total amount disbursed is about $1.8 million.
The program uses private money already in the university's coffers to help bridge the gap for Arizona high-school graduates ineligible for in-state tuition because of Proposition 300, a new voter-approved law that requires undocumented residents to pay the higher out-of-state tab, Crow said."
YVONNE WINGETTE and RICHARD RUELAS in the Arizona Republic.
A week after the LAPD announced a moratorium on impounding cars of unlicensed drivers because of legal questions, the L.A. city attorney's office determined that the practice is legal in most cases.
The Los Angeles Police Department last month told officers to no longer impound vehicles in traffic stops in which the only offense was driving without a license. Drivers will continue to be cited for that offense. But the vehicle will be impounded only when it cannot be driven away by a licensed driver or parked legally and secured.
The recent LAPD decision touches on what has long been a hot-button issue, because many unlicensed drivers who have their cars towed are illegal immigrants who cannot get driver's licenses. RICHARD WINTON in the Los Angeles Times.
"In living rooms, laundromats, and community centers across Massachusetts, immigrant-rights groups are running an underground campaign to teach illegal immigrants to protect themselves from federal agents. Their instructions to the immigrants: Keep their lips sealed and doors shut unless authorities have a warrant."
MARIA SACCHETTI in the Boston Globe.
Coastside row crop farmers, flower nursery owners and other agriculture industry employers face losing some of their workers under a new national immigration enforcement policy that forces all employers to take action against employees who receive "no-match" letters from the Social Security Administration - meaning the Social Security number they've used to register for work does not match existing records.
In some cases, a clerical error could be the culprit. But in other cases, a mismatch could mean the worker is illegal. If they are, farmers like Giusti will be faced with a tough choice: Fire workers he badly needs at the height of the harvest season, some of whom have been working for him for decades, or face steep fines and possible criminal prosecution for continuing to employ them. JULIA SCOTT in the San Jose Mercury News.
"They'll change the diapers, wash the clothes and cook the dinner. But nannies want a little respect. They don't need "Nanny Diaries" luxuries. But a contract would do. So would minimum wage, paid vacation, sick leave and overtime pay. And notice before firing."
BRIGID SCHULTE in the Washington Post.
"To Bryan, his brother’s new rhetoric, and their estrangement, is a frightening sign of the times. “My family’s situation reflects the political reality in this country now — that civil political discourse and the democratic agreement to disagree has broken down in favor of polarizing invective,” he said."
NINA BERNSTEIN in the New York Times.
The Bush administration has stepped up raids on factories and farms suspected of hiring illegal workers, imposing heavy fines and deporting a record number of illegal immigrants in 2006. The United States Congress this summer failed to approve proposed legislation to revamp immigration laws to make it easier for Mexican immigrants to gain citizenship or temporary work visas, disappointing the Calderón administration. JAMES MCKINLEY in The New York Times.
The jornaleros, or day laborers, hold up fingers and negotiate in scant English for a day or more of work.
But spots like this one have become a target nationwide for anti-immigration activists who see the day-labor sites as an example of illegal immigration running out of control. ANABELLE GARAY for the AP in USA Today.
An ambitions attempt to overhaul America's immigration system failed in Congress, and there is little talk of reviving the proposal anytime soon, but absent reform, some federal agencies are redoubling efforts to enforce existing laws and crack down on the hiring of illegal aliens. The moves are eliciting few cheers from the business community, defenders of undocumented workers or even those who favor a hard-line approach to combating illegal immigration. MICHAEL BOWMAN reports from Washington for Voice of America.