« March 2008 | Main | May 2008 »

April 30, 2008

Immigration marches return with messages aimed at voters

"Immigration activists and civil rights leaders are gearing up for rallies and marches in cities across the nation, hoping to revive the stagnant immigration debate in time for the presidential election.

Activists predict turnout for the more than 200 events planned Thursday from Seattle to Miami will be far less than in years past. But they say efforts demanding comprehensive immigration legislation — including pathways to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. — have extended beyond the streets."

SOPHIA TAREEN for the Associated Press.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 05:24 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 29, 2008

U.S. admits negligence in detainee's death

"The federal government has admitted that its negligence was responsible for the death of an illegal immigrant who pleaded during 11 months in custody for treatment for a condition that proved to be terminal penile cancer.

Government lawyers made the acknowledgement last week in a suit that Francisco Castaneda filed before he died at his Los Angeles-area home on Feb. 16 at age 36. Doctors had amputated Castaneda's penis a year earlier to try to stop the spread of the cancer.

A lawyer for family members who have taken over the lawsuit said Monday the admission followed a government physician's sworn statements that she knew a biopsy was the only way to determine whether Castaneda had cancer but never authorized one - a decision that was approved by officials at the headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The case has laid bare the "complete failure, at multiple levels," of the health care system for 300,000 immigrants in federal detention centers, said Conal Doyle, an Oakland attorney representing the family along with the nonprofit group Public Justice. "We are seeking a policy change" and will not settle the case without one, he said."

BOB EGELKO in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 04:55 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 28, 2008

Indiana voter ID law upheld in 6-3 decision

The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter identification law on Monday, concluding in a splintered decision that the challengers failed to prove that the law’s photo ID requirement placed an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.

The 6-to-3 ruling kept the door open to future lawsuits that provided more evidence. But this theoretical possibility was small comfort to the dissenters or to critics of voter ID laws, who predicted that a more likely outcome than successful lawsuits would be the spread of measures that would keep some legitimate would-be voters from the polls. LINDA GREENHOUSE in The New York Times.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 08:44 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Interest in immigration rallies wanes as groups focus on other methods of activism

"The massive Immigration marches of 2006, including the May 1 rally that brought 400,000 people to Grant Park, helped drive Immigration reform to the top of the national agenda and gave new focus to the immigrant community in the Chicago area.

Two years later, Spanish-language morning talk shows are buzzing about a new march. But some community leaders in the suburbs, a vital source of support in past demonstrations, are expressing doubts about whether massive rallies are the right tactic this year."

Vanessa Bauzá in the Chicago Tribune.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 07:29 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 26, 2008

L.A. civil rights attorney files claims over federal immigration raid

"A longtime Los Angeles civil rights attorney is trying a new strategy to push federal immigration authorities to change the way they conduct workplace raids.

Peter Schey filed 114 federal claims for damages late Thursday on behalf of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who were temporarily detained during a recent raid at Micro Solutions Enterprises in Van Nuys."

ANNA GORMAN in the Los Angeles Times.

[The ICE press release is here, and the CHCRL press release is here.] 

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 10:02 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 25, 2008

Labor leaders meet to discuss Mexican immigrant workers' rights

"It's a critical time in the U.S. with an enthusiasm for politics unseen in decades, and that's given muscle to the Latino vote, said a U.S. labor leader Wednesday at a conference of Mexican immigrant leaders."

DIANNE SOLíS in the Dallas Morning News.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 06:06 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 24, 2008

The Business of Detention

"When we first began to look at the phenomenon of immigrant detention in the United States, the obvious step to take as investigative journalists was to follow the money. We found that the trail of taxpayer dollars led primarily to the Corrections Corporation of America, a company that had been on the brink of bankruptcy as recently as 2001. Our desire was to present a picture of how the nation’s largest private prison company had partnered with the federal government to detain close to a million undocumented immigrants until they were deported, and in the process fill their empty beds and increase revenue by X percent. CCA now has close to 10,000 new beds under development in anticipation of continued demand."

RENEE FELTZ and STOKELY BAKSH online.

[The reporters "are graduate journalism students at Columbia University and fellows in the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism. This summer, they will be working with News21, a Carnegie-Knight news initiative."  This is a remarkably rich - and developing - work.  Take time to explore all the stories, videos and graphics, and their ongoing blog.]

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 06:23 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 23, 2008

Inmate count in U.S. dwarfs other nations'

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

The United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations. ADAM LIPTAK in The New York Times.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 07:42 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 21, 2008

Justices turn down 11 death penalty appeals

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away appeals from 11 death row prisoners in seven states, including one who killed his adoptive parents and continued to live in their home as their bodies decomposed, then cleaned up the scene so he could have a party for friends.

The justices’ orders declining to review the cases were not unexpected, given the court’s ruling last week in a Kentucky case that the state’s procedure for lethal injections did not amount to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment. Barriers to executions in other states may also be lifted soon. DAVID STOUT in The New York Times.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 05:39 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Separate and unequal jails proposed?

"Tammy Besherse, an attorney for S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center which advocates for the poor, acknowledged that some families of illegal immigrants may not like seeing their loved ones transferred to a jail several counties away for relatively minor offenses but said the state has a legal right to house inmates where it sees fit.

A larger problem, Besherse said, is that by concentrating all the immigrants in their own jails may raise the issue of "separate but equal" facilities, that are not really equal at all.

"There would be a lot of potential for the undocumented immigrants to receive substandard treatment, food, etc.," Besherse said in an e-mail. "These guards will now know for a fact the inmates aren't here legally. That could lead to abusive situations.""

ROBERT MORRIS in the Sun-News.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 07:24 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 19, 2008

Pope speaks up for immigrants

Even as he was flying to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of protecting immigrant families, not dividing them.

He raised the issue again in a meeting on Wednesday with President Bush, and later that day spoke in Spanish to the church’s “many immigrant children.” And when he ends his visit to New York on Sunday, he will be sent off by a throng of the faithful, showing off the ethnic diversity of American Catholicism. DANIEL WAKIN and JULIA PRESTON in The New York Times.

 

Posted by Amanda Becker at 04:52 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

ICE still hunting for the other Jesus

"Federal immigration agents executing arrest warrants for workers at the Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant in Mount Pleasant arrested the wrong Jesus García at his home near the plant – despite his repeated assurances that he was a legal permanent resident."

DIANNE SOLÍS in The Dallas Morning News.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 11:31 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

ICE, courts in tug of war for suspects

ICE and a Houston criminal court fight over who gets the body. 

SUSAN CARROLL* has the story in the Houston Chronicle.

* 2003-2004 IJJ Border Justice Fellow.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 08:37 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

A Legal Dilemma

"The way Jaime R. Villagran tells it, to avoid going to jail, he would have had to break one law to obey another.

The Guatemalan native acknowledged that he owed more than $11,000 in child support when he appeared last month in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court. But to pay it, Villagran told the judge, he would have to work illegally because he was awaiting permanent residency and work authorization from the U.S. government. He refused to do that."

THERESA VARGAS in the Washington Post.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 04:34 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 18, 2008

Tally of those arrested in immigration raids at Pilgrim's Pride plants climbs to 311

"All of our students and campuses are impacted because Pilgrim's is the number one employer," said Judith Saxton, public information officer for the Mount Pleasant district.

Ms. Walley said she was struck by the number of children who showed support for those visibly shaken.

"It was not just our Hispanic children who were upset," she said. "It was all the children. It affected the whole school."

 DIANNE SOLÍS and STELLA M. CHÁVEZ in the Dallas Morning News.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 05:18 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 17, 2008

Katrina, Rita and the Houma: We Lost Everything

Louisiana may be best known as the home of Mardi Gras and the football Saints, as a stirring pot of jazz and blues and zesty cuisine. Thanks to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, it may forever be the memory stick for disaster, for images of broken levees and a stifling Superdome, and for tales of heroism and despair in now-familiar places like the Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

But it is also Indian Country, land of the mostly forgotten. It is home to the United Houma Nation, nearly half of whose members were displaced up and down the bayou, their homes battered by hurricane winds or flooded by avalanches of water.

Read IJJ Senior Fellow VICTOR MERINA's accounts of the Houma in Louisiana for RezNet here and here.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 04:04 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

LAPD chief vows to clarify policy on immigrants

"Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton said Wednesday that the department's controversial policy on dealing with illegal immigrants was widely misunderstood by the public and some of his own officers, and he would clarify the rule in the next couple of weeks. Bratton strongly defended the basic intent of the policy -- known as Special Order 40 -- which prohibits officers from initiating contact with individuals for the sole purpose of determining whether they are illegal immigrants. The 29-year-old policy was designed to encourage illegal immigrants to cooperate with police without fear of being deported."

RICHARD WINTON in the Los Angeles Times.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 09:53 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

Arlington Center Offers Hope in Hard Times

"In Arlington [Virginia,] where officials unanimously approved a resolution last fall welcoming all immigrants, regardless of their status, a day labor center has operated without much fanfare for eight years. And now, even in a budget crunch, officials are asking for mental health counseling for immigrant workers. And they're getting it."

BRIGID SCHULTE in the Washington Post.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 04:48 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 16, 2008

U.S. to Expand DNA Collection During Arrests, Detentions

"The U.S. government will soon begin collecting DNA samples from all citizens arrested for any federal crime and many illegal immigrants detained by federal authorities, adding genetic identifiers from more than a million individuals a year to the swiftly growing federal law enforcement DNA database."

ELLEN NAKASHIMA and SPENCER HSU in the Washington Post.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 05:57 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 15, 2008

The Verge of Expulsion, the Fringe of Justice

"There is a legitimate debate about how liberal the nation’s asylum policies should be. But nobody should be happy to hear that whether people who claim to be fleeing persecution are deported or not turns on how good a lawyer they have — or whether they can afford one at all."

ADAM LIPTAK in the New York Times.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 04:40 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

Scams Targeted Immigrants

"More often than not, when people are victimized in immigration scams, prosecutions are rare. Since unlicensed practice of law became a third-degree felony in 2004, Tampa police have charged three people with the crime."

KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO* in the Tampa Tribune.

* 2003 Western Knight Center Fellow, "Covering the Border."

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 04:28 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 14, 2008

Citizens twice as likely to land in NJ prisons as legal, illegal immigrants

"U.S. citizens are twice as likely to land in New Jersey's prisons as legal and illegal immigrants, according to new data that counter some of the most widely perceived notions about the link between immigration and crime.

Non-U.S. citizens make up 10 percent of the state's overall population, but just 5 percent of the 22,623 inmates in prison as of July 2007, according to an analysis of New Jersey Department of Corrections and U.S. Census data by The Star-Ledger."

BRIAN DONOHUE in the Star-Ledger.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 10:18 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

Workers recover thousands in unpaid overtime

"When he was fired in 2007 from his job at a Hutto countertop factory after he and co-workers complained about not getting paid overtime, Ernesto Leyva harbored doubts about his legal rights. He heard pessimistic advice to forget it, that he wasn't entitled to overtime pay or that labor laws didn't protect someone like him.

But last week, Leyva looked confidently into television cameras and implored immigrant workers like himself not to be intimidated. U.S. employment laws protect workers no matter what part of the world they're from, said the soft-spoken 35-year-old from Veracruz, Mexico.

"Even if other people say no. Even if employers say they're more powerful than you. Those are lies," Leyva said before receiving a check for his share of $30,150 in unpaid overtime wages that he and three other workers received in a settlement of a lawsuit against his former employer, J & H Granite Inc."

JUAN CASTILLO* in the Austin American-Statesman.

* 2003 Western Knight Center Fellow, "Covering the Border." 

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 04:35 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 13, 2008

Child rape tests limits of death penalty

Ever since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty more than 30 years ago, justices have been finding ways to limit it.

In the intervening years, they have employed their interpretations of society's "evolving standards of decency" to remove juvenile and mentally retarded killers from death row.

But on Wednesday the court will consider whether a person who rapes a child is different.  Louisiana prosecutors will argue that the same societal mores that have persuaded justices to spare certain categories of criminals lead in the opposite direction when it comes to child rapists, demanding an expansion of capital punishment, not a retrenchment. ROBERT BARNES in The Washington Post.

 

Posted by Amanda Becker at 09:54 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Central American migrant flow to US slows

Central Americans without documents now face increased security within Mexico, including checks on the train for stowaways. It's also harder for them to head north once they cross into Mexico because of hurricane damage to the train tracks.

The result: The number of non-Mexican migrants stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol has dropped almost 60 percent from 2005, despite increased detention efforts. About 68,000 non-Mexican migrants — mostly Central Americans — were detained last year, compared to 165,000 in 2005. Non-Mexicans make up about 10 percent of all migrants caught by Border Patrol officers. OLGA RODRIGUEZ for the Associated Press.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 08:04 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Deportations: how to grow a gang

With anti-immigrant sentiment rising, mass deportation is making a comeback. During fiscal 2006 and 2007, the number of deportation proceedings jumped from 64,000 to 164,000. This fiscal year, it is expected to hit 200,000, an all-time high.

The United States has been down this road before; the mid-1990s saw a similar wave of criminal deportations. That one helped turn a small gang from Los Angeles, Mara Salvatrucha (better known as MS-13), into an international menace and what Customs and Border Protection now calls America’s “most dangerous gang.” It’s not clear that this one will turn out much better. MATTHEW QUIRK in The Atlantic Monthly.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 06:46 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 12, 2008

Legal Immigrants, Until They Sought Citizenship

"The Servanos are among a growing group of legal immigrants who reach for the prize and permanence of citizenship, only to run afoul of highly technical immigration statutes that carry the severe penalty of expulsion from the country.  ... Largely overlooked in the charged debate over illegal immigration, many of these are long-term legal immigrants in the United States who were confident of success when they applied for naturalization, and would have continued to live here legally had they not sought to become citizens."

JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 03:58 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 11, 2008

Clinton proposes 100,000 new police officers

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, campaigning for president in a neighborhood of Philadelphia so rough the mayor said, "Osama bin Laden wouldn't last here," pitched a $4-billion-a-year anti-crime package today that would put 100,000 new police officers on the streets and help stem the tide of repeat offenders back into the country's prisons.

Claiming that her husband's administration "reduced crime to historic lows" in the 1990s, Clinton argued that "we have to get back to doing what we know works." JOHANNA NEUMAN in the Los Angeles Times.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 09:10 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Yuma area border arrests drop 76 percent

Border Patrol agents in the Yuma Sector made 76 percent fewer arrests in the past six months than during the same period a year ago, continuing a two-year decline there and all along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Tightened security, stepped-up enforcement and a weakening U.S. economy contributed to a 17 percent drop in arrests borderwide. The Tucson Sector, the busiest border region, saw a 12 percent decline in arrests over a year ago. The Border Patrol made 157,299 arrests there from October through March. SEAN HOLSTEGE in the Arizona Republic.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 09:06 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Tenn. AG Says Pay Ban Illegal

"A legislative proposal to make it a crime for illegal immigrants to accept pay for work done in Tennessee is unconstitutional, the state's attorney general said in a legal opinion released Wednesday.

Attorney General Bob Cooper wrote in the opinion that the proposal would conflict with the Federal Labor Standards Act, which protects workers' rights to receive minimum and overtime wages."

ERIK SCHELZIG for the Associated Press.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 09:56 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 08, 2008

Detainee Program Strains Va. Jail

"A highly touted partnership between the Prince William County jail and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is showing signs of strain, as crowding at the facility has hit an all-time high and federal agents are taking weeks -- not the agreed-upon 72 hours -- to pick up illegal immigrant suspects, jail officials said."

NICK MIROFF in the Washington Post.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 07:35 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

House Chairmen to Challenge Plans to Finish Border Fence

"Fourteen House Democrats, including eight committee chairmen, said yesterday that they will file a brief supporting a legal challenge to the Bush administration's plans to finish building 470 miles of fencing and other barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of the year."

SPENCER HSU in the Washington Post.  [Here's the Committee's Press Release.]

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 06:08 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 07, 2008

Web site creates community for families of the incarcerated

Prison Talk, a big board with nearly 150,000 members and 2,500 regular readers a day caters to what turns out to be an underserved consumer niche: family and friends of the incarcerated.

The site, which costs nothing to join, was founded seven years ago and has drawn around 3.5 million messages, including poetry, small talk, business deals, memoirs, sermons, laments, photo albums and ideological screeds. Like the sprawling American prison system itself, the board has come to constitute a robust social reality.  VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN in The New York Times Magazine.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 09:05 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Challenges arise to border fence project

Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers." The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom.

The secretary of homeland security was granted the power in 2005 to void any federal law that might interfere with fence building on the border. For good measure, Congress forbade the courts to second-guess the secretary’s determinations. So long as Mr. Chertoff is willing to say it is necessary to void a given law, his word is final. ADAM LIPTAK in The New York Times.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 09:01 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 06, 2008

Legal immigration drops

The number of people who legally immigrated to the U.S. dropped 17 percent last year, largely because of administrative problems, according to a Homeland Security Department report.

A total of 1.05 million people became legal permanent residents in 2007, falling from 1.27 million a year earlier, according to the report by the department's Office of Immigration Statistics. SUZANNE GAMBOA for the Associated Press.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 08:33 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

MD county's immigration crackdown lands 41 in jail

During the first month of Prince William County's immigration crackdown, 89 people were questioned about their citizenship status, and 41 were taken to the county's adult detention center. Although officers have reason to think the 41 people arrested are in the country illegally, all but two were charged with a series of misdemeanors and felonies unrelated to their immigration status. KRISTEN MACK in the Washington Post.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 08:30 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 04, 2008

Detention facility for immigrant kids sued for abuse

"Eight immigrant teenagers held at a facility for unaccompanied minors filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming they were abused and denied access to attorneys."

MICHELLE ROBERTS for the Associated Press.  [See also the TRLA press release with links to the lawsuit.]

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 09:58 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

Immigrants charge that federal raids were unconstitutional

"Ten immigrants on Thursday charged that warrantless and abusive pre-dawn raids by federal authorities violated their constitutional rights.

The immigrants, in a federal lawsuit, asserted that ranking Homeland Security officials ordered agents to meet arrest quotas but failed to provide proper training or current addresses for people they were seeking.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages, described eight raids in which agents displayed weapons, sometimes shouted obscenities. In one case, an agent put a gun against a woman's chest and told her to "go back to (her) own country," according to the lawsuit."

JEFFREY GOLD for the Associated Press.  [Visit the Seton Hall Law School Center for Social Justice's website on the lawsuit, including links to the pleadings and more.]

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 08:18 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

The artist behind an iconic image

"There is a father, leading the way with a clear sense of urgency, bent at the waist. A mother, running behind him, despite the prim dress that hugs her knees. A little girl, holding her mother's hand, unable to keep pace, her feet barely touching the ground, her pigtails -- everyone knows the pigtails -- flowing behind."

SCOTT GOLD in the Los Angeles Times.  [Be sure to check out the interactive feature, "Sign of the times."]

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 08:10 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 02, 2008

Divided by death and the Mexican border

At a time when most families come together to grieve, families like Trujillo's are separated -- by their initial decision to illegally cross the border, by their desire to bury relatives back home, and by their fear of never being able to return if they travel to Mexico.

The Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles pays for an immigrant's final journey home if the family is unable to do so. In the last four years, the consulate has shipped more than 1,000 bodies to Mexico for burial. Consul General Juan Marcos Gutiérrez-González said the situation for undocumented relatives who cannot travel with the bodies "is the worst of the worst." ANNA GORMAN in the Los Angeles Times.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 08:53 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Environmental Laws to Be Waived for Fence

"Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the administration has exceeded what Congress intended when it granted the department added flexibility under the Real ID Act. "Today's waiver represents an extreme abuse of authority," he said in a statement. "Waiver authority should only be used as a last resort, not simply because the Department has failed to get the job done through the normal process. It was meant to be an exception, not the rule.""

JULIET EILPERIN in the Washington Post.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 04:41 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

April 01, 2008

Immigration issues end a PA grower's season

Finding and keeping the field hands who can pick 10,000 tomatoes a day during the hot months of August and September is no less a test of organizational traction than any get-out-the-vote drive.

For 35 years, Keith Eckel, 61, one of the largest tomato growers in the Northeast, had the workers and the timing down to a T: seven weeks, 120 men, 125 trailer loads of tomatoes picked, packed and shipped.

This year, however, the new politics of immigration — very much on the mind of many of Pennsylvania’s voters, even if overlooked by the presidential candidates campaigning in this state and around the nation — has put him out of business. PAUL VITELLO in The New York Times.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 11:38 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Where border fence is tall, crossings fall

In Yuma, at least, the fence seems to be preventing illegal border-crossings.

Bernacke, the patrol agent, says that since the triple fence was finished in October, there has been a 72 percent decline in illegal migrant apprehensions in the 120-mile swath of the U.S.-Mexican border known as the Yuma sector. That's because the three walls are separated here by a 75-yard "no man's land" - a flat, sandy corridor punctuated by pole-topped lighting, cameras, radio systems, and radar units, where unauthorized migrants can be chased down by border agents. DANIEL B. WOOD in the Christian Science Monitor.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 11:16 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

No diploma needed in Border Patrol

As the U.S. Border Patrol expands into one of the nation's largest federal law enforcement agencies, critics say it should establish minimum educational requirements and end a long-standing policy of accepting recruits without a high school diploma or GED.

Concerns about Border Patrol's hiring efforts come as the agency races to satisfy a Bush administration mandate to have 18,319 agents on the job by December. JAMES PINKERTON and SUSAN CARROLL in the Houston Chronicle.

Posted by Amanda Becker at 11:12 PM | | TrackBacks (0)