Hope At Any Cost
TONY LEYS in the Des Moines Register provides a clear-eyed answer to the question: What part of "desperate" don't you understand?
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November 30, 2008
Miami Herald Running Four-Part Immigration Series
"From one end of the country to the other, one of the longest and most profound immigration flows is experiencing a quiet reversal. The combination of stepped-up border enforcement, aggressive prosecution of illegal immigrants and a weakening U.S. economy has done what decades of debate could not.
A team of Herald reporters and photographers traveled to four countries and throughout the United States to explore the many sides of this story.
The Miami Herald's series, entitled ''Illegal Immigration: Changing Course,'' explores how this trend plays out in different parts of the country for the many groups of people affected.
Today's stories, the first of four parts that run over two weeks, look at two important issues: departing immigrants and remittances. One story follows a family from Mexico who settled in south Miami-Dade 12 years ago to live off of the farm work that has slowly diminished. The other tracks the slowdown in the flow of money from the United States back to the home countries of immigrants. [Another highlights social changes in the receiving countries caused by remittances.]
This coming Wednesday, a package focuses on changes coming to the country's southwest border. Next Sunday, the story looks at impacts across the Caribbean through the lens of Bimini, which for so long served as the last stop on the way to the United States.
The final piece, running Dec. 10, takes you along on one of the daily deportation flights to Latin America. It's a view that's rarely seen by outsiders."
Today's reporting by ALFONSO CHARDY and LIZA GROSS.
November 29, 2008
Due Process Defeat or National Security Victory?
"Making good on his promise to leave his adopted country after 28 years rather than stay and feel like a second-class citizen, Abdul Moniem El-Ganayni and his wife caught a flight out of Pittsburgh on Wednesday en route to Cairo.
The Egyptian-born physicist, a U.S. citizen since 1988, lost his security clearance late last year, along with his job at the Bettis nuclear propulsion lab in West Mifflin, where he'd worked since 1990.
The clearance was revoked by order of Jeffrey Kupfer, acting deputy energy secretary. He said he had "reliable information" that Dr. El-Ganayni was a security risk but refused to let him see any evidence or defend himself.
The scientist filed a federal lawsuit seeking an independent review, charging retaliation for statements he made opposing the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's post-9/11 treatment of Muslims. He said the government invoked national security as a smokescreen to hide its lack of evidence."
SALLY KALSON in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
[Here's a link to the court's order dismissing the case, and the determination by the Secretary of Energy, Samuel Bodman.]
Maryland group sues for release of records
"An immigrant rights group is suing the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office for documents related to its officers participating in a federal immigration enforcement program that has resulted in the arrests of more than 200 illegal immigrants this year.
Casa de Maryland’s lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court, comes after three separate requests under the Maryland Public Information Act were denied earlier this year.
“We’re concerned the officers are relying on racial profiling,” said Justin Cox, a fellow on the legal team of Casa, a nonprofit organization based in Silver Spring."
DANNY JACOBS in the Daily Record.
November 28, 2008
Tenn. Sued Over Green Card Seizure
"A pair of men whose green cards were confiscated at a Franklin driver's license office over concerns the documents were fake are suing the Tennessee Department of Public Safety.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court on Monday against the department and its commissioner, claims that by confiscating and keeping the men's green cards for months, the Tennessee Department of Safety violated several of the men's constitutional rights."
JANELL ROSS in the Tennessean.
November 24, 2008
Trafficking victims' lives in visa limbo
"The federal government has spent seven years and tens of millions of dollars striving to save foreign women exploited in sweatshops or sold as sex slaves in America — yet only about half have gotten special visas for victims willing to help prosecute traffickers, according to a Houston Chronicle review."
LISE OLSEN in the Houston Chronicle.
November 23, 2008
Immigration War Hits Home
"After risking his life in Afghanistan, Chad Brennan figured life back home in Madison would be a snap.
But an immigration dispute has the 32-year-old Army reservist wondering if he'll have to leave the country he loves to be with the woman he loves. The government has banned Brennan's Venezuelan wife, Melissa, from entering the United States until 2014 because of a tourist visa violation several years ago."
STEVE DOYLE in the Huntsville Times.
Servitude often difficult to detect, escape
"They are trapped by fear.
Fear of deportation. Fear of violence. Fear of law enforcement. Fear that because of language barriers, no one will be able to help.
It is fear, social advocates say, that keeps domestic servants living in the country illegally in abusive and often unpaid conditions long after the promise of healthy wages and educational opportunities fade away."
ROBERT SALONGA for the Mercury News.
November 21, 2008
Detention of migrant women faulted by UA researcher
A University of Arizona researcher presented some findings of her forthcoming report on female immigrants in detention Thursday afternoon, claiming some have been mistreated.
Nina Rabin gave a summary of her report to students and faculty.
"Unseen Prisoners: A Report on Women in Immigration Detention Facilities in Arizona" is a collection of interviews, concerns and possible solutions to the conditions women live in while detained and awaiting deportation."
FERNANDA ECHAVARRI in the Tucson Citizen.
November 20, 2008
I See By Your Outfit That You Are A Citizen
"The Houston nonprofit executive was shifting weight in line at an Humble DPS office earlier this month, waiting to renew his driver's license, when he noticed a couple of people in front of him come away looking confused or exasperated.
When he got to the front, he understood why.
The woman behind the counter ran his name, Jose Villarreal, in her computer. Then, he says, she promptly asked him to prove his citizenship.
Villarreal was taken aback. He was born and raised in South Texas, in a little town called Orange Grove, and moved to Houston in 1976. At 61, he'd never been asked by DPS to prove he was here legally."
LISA FALKENBERG in the Houston Chronicle.
November 19, 2008
Workers hail 'partial justice' with settlement
"Hundreds of former workers at a New Bedford company that was raided by immigration agents last year will share $613,000 in unpaid wages and overtime pay through a settlement agreement announced yesterday. Lawyers for the workers called it “partial justice.”"
KAREN LEE ZINER in the Providence Journal.
November 18, 2008
Web Sites That Dig for News Rise as Watchdogs
"As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover."
RICHARD PÉREZ PEÑA in the New York Times.
November 17, 2008
Driving While Tejano
JUAN CASTILLO in the Austin American-Statesman has two stories about REAL ID and the special driver license (page 1, above the fold) now issued to noncitizen Texan drivers.
November 14, 2008
Report: Undocumented Kids Mistreated by U.S.
"Federal authorities have compromised the rights and safety of some unaccompanied illegal immigrant children they have detained, and inadequate government guidelines are partly to blame, according to a Texas-based research group.
Many children appeared before immigration judges without legal representation, some were transported home in shackles or cages, and the medical needs of some were ignored, according to a report released Thursday by the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank."
ANABELLE GARAY for the Associated Press.
November 13, 2008
Immigration Benefits Are Lagging for Families of Fallen Service Members
Fallen and Forgotten, an IJJ Fellowship Project.
FERNANDO DIAZ in the Chicago Reporter.
Border fence a mere speed bump
"Near Douglas, 25 miles east of Naco, there is no double fence and very little of the 18-foot barrier. A few miles east, the fence turns into 3-foot-high barricades intended to stop drug smugglers' trucks. Walkers can easily slip through and reach a highway 5 miles north.
"Just look at how open this is," said Ray Borane, former Douglas mayor and now Gov. Janet Napolitano's border adviser.
Borane does not think even a continuous 18-foot barrier will stop immigrants. There's just too much open territory to patrol, he says."
SEAN HOLSTEGE in the Arizona Republic.
November 11, 2008
Latino group may sue parents of hate crime suspects
"While seven Patchogue-Medford High School students are facing criminal charges in the fatal stabbing of an Ecuadorean immigrant, their parents may face a wrongful death civil lawsuit because of their "moral responsibility," a Latino advocacy group said Tuesday."
SOPHIA CHANG and KEITH HERBERT in Newsday.
Skilled immigrants a 'brain waste' in California's workforce
"As a physician in Peru, Luis Garcia amassed nine years of medical education and five years of practice, including successful appendectomies, Cesarean deliveries and other surgeries. Since he immigrated to Southern California four years ago, he has earned a community college degree specializing in geriatrics.
The only work he's been able to find, however, has been cat-sitting, dog-walking and elder care.
That's because Garcia hasn't yet been able to pass the battery of requirements for a U.S. medical license, including several exams and a residency. He represents what a recent report calls a massive "brain waste" of highly educated and skilled immigrant professionals who potentially could, with a little aid, help ease looming labor shortages in California and nationwide in healthcare, computer sciences and other skilled jobs."
TERESA WATANABE in the Los Angeles Times.
November 10, 2008
Mayors worry about cost, feasibility of Utah immigration bill
"State, county and city employees will be required to do the work of immigration agents next summer.
And several mayors worry about where they will find the money to verify the legal residence of everyone who tries to use public services - from 8-year-olds signing up for Little League to seniors attending activity centers.
It's a "can of worms," said Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon."
November 09, 2008
Deported in Coma, Saved Back in U.S.
GILA BEND, Ariz. — "Soon after Antonio Torres, a husky 19-year-old farmworker, suffered catastrophic injuries in a car accident last June, a Phoenix hospital began making plans for his repatriation to Mexico.
Mr. Torres was comatose and connected to a ventilator. He was also a legal immigrant whose family lives and works in the purple alfalfa fields of this southwestern town. But he was uninsured. So the hospital disregarded the strenuous objections of his grief-stricken parents and sent Mr. Torres on a four-hour journey over the California border into Mexicali."DEBORAH SONTAG, PILAR CONCI and TINA LEE in the New York Times.
(Part Five in the New York Times' "Getting Tough" series of articles that explore "efforts by government and others to compel illegal immigrants to leave the United States.")
November 07, 2008
Utility of Federal Immigration Database Debated
"A federal database system the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch wants to use in its plan to keep out illegal immigrants is not capable of providing information about who's in the country illegally, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official said in court documents.
The Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program does not show whether a person is deportable, SAVE program chief John Roessler said in a deposition for the legal fight over whether Farmers Branch can check the immigration status of renters."
ANABELLE GARAY for the Associated Press.
November 06, 2008
In Florida, an Initiative Intended to End Bias Is Killed
"An obscure ballot initiative in Florida intended to end a legacy of bias against Asian-Americans was defeated Tuesday, apparently because voters incorrectly assumed it would prevent illegal immigrants from owning property."
DAMIEN CAVE in the New York Times.
U.S. Citizen Held by Immigration Officials Abruptly Released, Told Case Is Over
"A 25-year-old man held for two months at a Lancaster detention center because immigration officials doubted the validity of his California birth certificate was freed Monday evening after government lawyers acknowledged he is a U.S. citizen."
SANDRA HERNANDEZ in the Daily Journal.
November 05, 2008
Detainee Tries To Prove He Is a U.S. Citizen
"Jose Ledesma has spent two months locked up in a Lancaster immigration detention facility fighting a deportation order, even though his family has provided officials with a copy of his California birth certificate."
SANDRA HERNANDEZ in the Daily Journal.
November 03, 2008
Wounds That Will Not Heal: FGM Victims Seek Asylum
"The women's stories all begin with a searing childhood memory they cannot describe without weeping."
PAMELA CONSTABLE in the New York Times.