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"A Mexican journalist seeking asylum in the United States after a series of stories about alleged Mexican military abuses of civilians has been released from an immigration jail after 7 months' detention."
ALICIA A. CALDWELL for the Associated Press.
"Immigrant advocates released video footage yesterday that they say shows federal agents unfairly targeted Latinos in January 2007 outside a 7-Eleven in Southeast Baltimore."
SCOTT CALVERT in the Baltimore Sun.
"Immigrant advocates have released a video they say shows federal agents racially profiling Hispanic day laborers at a convenience store in Maryland. They say 24 Hispanics were arrested while white and African-Americans pass by unquestioned. Three of those targeted have filed claims for damages."
JENNIFER LUDDEN for NPR.
Border sheriffs, who Perry gave $2 million to line the Texas-Mexico border with hundreds of Web cameras, installed only about a dozen and made just a handful of apprehensions as a result of tips from online viewers."
BRANDI GRISSOM in the El Paso Times, Austin Bureau.
"Eight months after the Agriprocessors raid, Postville is still grappling with what its leaders call "a humanitarian and economic disaster," compounded by the recession and a harsh winter. Life isn't much easier for "legal" workers."
BETSY RUBINER for Time Magazine.
"They are down and out in the United States and homesick for Guatemala. And El Salvador. And Honduras. And Mexico.
And they would go back without even an American penny in their pocket if only they had enough to get home.
They are the discouraged and disillusioned Central American and Mexican day laborers who, in a sign of how hard times are in this economy, find themselves so broke they can't send much, if any, money back to loved ones they haven't seen for years."
TONY CASTRO in the Los Angeles Daily News.
His family and fellow detainees say the infection went untreated, despite his mounting pleas for medical care in the 10 days before his death. Instead, after his calls for help grew insistent, detainees said, guards at the Piedmont Regional Jail in Farmville, Va., threw him to the floor, dragged him away as he cried out in pain, and locked him in an isolation cell."
NINA BERNSTEIN in the New York Times.
"Congress created the U-visa in 2000 to bolster law enforcement's ability to investigate and prosecute certain crimes while offering protection to the victims. After an eight-year delay, the government issued its first U-visa last summer.
Through the end of 2008, 65 such visas had been issued, although about 13,300 people have filed applications. Twenty have been denied."
ANNA GORMAN in the Los Angeles Times.
"These days, hate has a new target. "Time for Mexico and Mexicans to get the hell out!!!" blasts a recruiting message on a Klan Web site. In rallies staged in recent years in Laurel, Tupelo and other Mississippi cities, Klan members gathered to accuse Hispanic immigrants of being child molesters, job stealers and destroyers of the American way of life."
DEBORAH HASTINGS for the Associated Press.
"Some 300 women held at immigration detention centers in Arizona face dangerous delays in health care and widespread mistreatment, according to a new study by the University of Arizona, the latest report to criticize conditions at such centers throughout the United States."
DAN FROSCH in the New York Times.
The commutation allows Ignacio Ramos and Jorge Compean to leave prison early. But it is not a pardon, and the conviction will stay on their records. Both will be on probation for three years under terms of the presidential order."
TODD J. GILLMAN in the Dallas Morning News.
"The Mexican government is launching a loan program to help its returning citizens whose American dreams have been dashed by the faltering U.S. economy.
It is offering Mexicans who are leaving because they can no longer find jobs here the chance to apply for loans to jump-start business ventures in their native country."
JUAN CASTILLO in the Austin American-Statesman.
"Federal immigration officials investigating the death of a New York computer engineer from China who died in their custody last summer said Thursday that supervisors at a Rhode Island detention center had denied the ailing man appropriate medical treatment on multiple occasions and that employees had dragged him from his cell to a van as he screamed in pain.
As they disclosed their findings, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ordered an end to their contract with the center, the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., a locally owned jail where the engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, spent his final month after a year in immigration detention. They said they had asked that the United States attorney in Boston review the case for possible criminal prosecution."
NINA BERNSTEIN in the New York Times.
"The federal court interpreter gives an insider’s account of the justice system after one of the largest immigration raids in U.S. history."
An interview with Erik Camayd Freixas by JULIANNE ONG HING in ColorLines.
"A senior federal prosecutor who has worked on a wide variety of cases along the border said that the focus on relatively simple immigration prosecutions was eroding morale at United States attorney offices.
“A lot of the guys I work with did nothing but the most complex cases — taking down multigenerational crime families, international crime, drug trafficking syndicates — you know, big fish,” said the prosecutor, who did not want to be identified as criticizing the department he works for. “Now these folks are dealing with these improper entry and illegal reentry cases.” He added, “It’s demoralizing for them, and us.”"
SOLOMON MOORE in the New York Times.
"[C]ritics are pointing to a growing list of cases involving legal immigrants who have been significantly delayed or outright rejected in their efforts to get or renew licenses, despite being authorized to live and work legally in the U.S."
SUSAN CARROLL in the Houston Chronicle.
In a 33-page decision, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that the Constitution does not entitle someone facing deportation to have a case reopened based upon shoddy work by a lawyer. He said Justice Department officials do have the discretion to reopen such cases.
Immigrants rights groups said Thursday that Mukasey's decision, which comes less than two weeks before the Bush administration leaves office, rejects decades of established legal practice and threatens a population already vulnerable to fraud."
AMY TAXIN for the Associated Press.
"Santos Sosa returned home from a long day of landscaping last month ready to stretch his legs and fill his lungs with the cool night air. About 9:30, he hopped onto his bicycle to pick up a churro, a doughy pastry, for his daughter. As he rode to the store, two robbers knocked him from his bike. One shoved a gun into his face. "Give us your money or you die," the man said.
Sosa, a 46-year-old Honduran immigrant, emptied $300 from his pockets — two weeks' pay in these tough times — and then watched as the robbers took off with his bike.
It was terrifying for Sosa and his wife and daughter, who became hysterical when he arrived home on foot. And it is an experience that has become increasingly common for Hispanic immigrants in Clearwater and elsewhere around the country as economic conditions worsen and robberies go up.
In 2008 alone, the police said, 55 robberies in Clearwater targeted Hispanic men.
Other communities in the Tampa Bay region, from Dade City in Pasco County to Wimauma in southern Hillsborough County, also have seen crimes targeting Hispanics in recent years. Across the nation, the trend has earned its unfortunate victims a nickname: walking ATMs."
JONATHAN ABEL and SAUNDRA AMRHEIN in the St. Petersburg Times.
"Smuggler's Gulch lived up to its infamous name.
For a century, the narrow canyon leading into California from Mexico provided cover for cattle thieves and opium dealers, bandits and booze runners. More recently, it has hidden thousands of illegal immigrants on their journey north, sealing its place in border lore.
Now, it's a fading memory.
The canyon has been all but wiped off the landscape, its steep walls carved into gentle slopes, its depths filled with 35,000 truckloads of dirt as the federal government nears completion of an extensive border reinforcement project at the southwesternmost point of the United States."
RICHARD MAROSI in the Los Angeles Times.
"Locked in a windowless warehouse for three months, Ibrahim Cisse had long given up hope of anyone finding him. Now, his mind raced. How could he possibly have a visitor when no one in this country knew his name?
Nervously, he shuffled into the visitors room.
There, behind the glass partition, was a small woman with short brown hair and kind green eyes. Cisse stared at her suspiciously as he picked up the phone.
My name is Janet, she said, speaking in a soft voice in French. "I came as a friend.""
HELEN O'NEILL for the Associated Press.