ProgressNow.org Daily News Digest

Kidnappings, Long Feared in Mexico, Send Shivers Across Border - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/world/americas/05mexico.html?ref=world “The relatives of Mexicans in the United States have become a new profit center for Mexico’s crime industry,” said Rodolfo García Zamora, a professor at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas who studies migration trends. “Hundreds of families are emigrating out of fear of kidnap or extortion, and Mexicans in the U.S. are doing everything they can to avoid returning. Instead, they’re getting their relatives out.” The reported rush into the United States by people from the state of Zacatecas is another sign that Mexico’s growing lawlessness is a volatile new factor affecting the flow of migrant workers across America’s border. The violence is adding a new layer of uncertainty to the always fraught issue of Mexican emigration, already in flux because of the economic downturn in the United States.

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Immigration-overhaul supporters hope their hour has come - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-reform19-2008dec19,0,1648825.story Immigrant advocates said Thursday that long-stalled efforts to legalize millions of illegal migrants, crack down on employers who hire them and win more family visas would be revived next year and could possibly succeed in early 2010 following sizable Democratic gains powered by record turnouts of Latino voters in the November election. Frank Sharry of America's Voice, a Washington-based immigrant advocacy organization, said that Democrats who favored a comprehensive reform approach beat Republicans advocating only border control and other enforcement measures in 20 of 22 congressional races in such battleground states as Colorado and New Mexico. Those results were in part driven by Latino voters, who doubled their turnout over 2000, supported President-elect Barack Obama over Republican nominee John McCain 67% to 31% and helped Democrats win, in addition to Colorado and New Mexico, other swing states such as Florida and Nevada, Sharry said. "This is a defining issue among the fastest growing group of new voters in the country," Sharry said of Latino support for immigration reform. "This is a huge priority."

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Report Says Some Judges Are Delaying Citizenship Oaths - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/17/AR2008121703361.html Federal judges in some parts of the United States have delayed the swearing-in of new citizens, keeping millions of dollars in fees that would otherwise go to immigration officials if they were allowed to administer the oaths instead, according to a new government report and immigration officials. In one of the nation's busiest courts, a judge's delay caused nearly 2,000 people to not receive the oath in time to register for November's general election, USCIS ombudsman Michael Dougherty said in a 13-page report released yesterday. The finding adds a new twist to long-standing complaints that applicants for citizenship face long waits, poor service and different treatment depending on which immigration office handles their paperwork. While the USCIS has eased huge backlogs created in summer 2007, with steps such as speeding up FBI security background checks, the new bottleneck points to a turf battle with U.S. district courts.

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Bush Unveils New Rules for Guest Worker Hiring - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12farm.html?ref=washington The Bush administration announced new rules on Thursday that it said would lessen the bureaucratic burden on employers seeking to hire foreign farm workers. Advocates for the workers, however, contended the changes would depress wages and working conditions. The Labor Department released the changes in a document of more than 500 pages, the culmination of reviewing 11,000 comments since it proposed new regulations in February. The changes apply to a guest worker program known as H-2A, after the visa that allows farmers to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis for field jobs they cannot fill with Americans.

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U.S. farm labor rules revamped - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-farmworkers12-2008dec12,0,5182138.story Aiming to ease farm labor shortages, the Bush administration issued sweeping changes to the nation's agricultural guest worker program Thursday, but California growers said the action would have only a minimal effect on their needs. The controversial rules, many months in the making by U.S. labor and immigration officials, would streamline the guest worker application process, revise the way wages are calculated, and modify requirements for demonstrating that a labor shortage cannot be filled with U.S. workers, among other changes. Congress' failure to pass a comprehensive immigration bill, along with crackdowns on illegal immigrants, stimulated efforts to alter the guest worker program. Several farm labor advocates attacked the changes, saying they would drive down wages, displace U.S. workers and reduce federal oversight of potential abuses. But Leon R. Sequeira, the Labor Department's assistant secretary of policy, defended the changes as necessary to boost use of the H2A visa program, which has long been criticized as too cumbersome.

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California Helping Poor and Immigrants Open and Maintain Bank Accounts - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/us/12calif.html?ref=us California is starting what banking experts call the nation’s largest, most ambitious effort by a state government to enable people, especially immigrants and the poor, to open and maintain bank accounts. The program, Bank on California, which is to be announced Friday in Sacramento, will seek to create 100,000 accounts over two years among residents here and in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Fresno. It is based on a two-year trial in San Francisco, where 31,000 accounts were opened by first-time users. “For a governor of a state the size of California to stand up and say access to financial services for everyone is a critical issue is very significant,” said Jennifer Tescher, director of the Center for Financial Services Innovation, a nonprofit research group affiliated with the Shore Bank in Chicago.

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Cleaning Service Used by Chertoff Calls Immigration Laws Unfair - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/10/AR2008121003524.html Every few weeks for nearly four years, the Secret Service screened the IDs of employees for a Maryland cleaning company before they entered the house of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the nation's top immigration official. The company's owner says the workers sailed through the checks -- although some of them turned out to be illegal immigrants. Now, owner James D. Reid finds himself in a predicament that he considers especially confounding. In October, he was fined $22,880 after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators said he failed to check identification and work documents and fill out required I-9 verification forms for employees, five of whom he said were part of crews sent to Chertoff's home and whom ICE told him to fire because they were undocumented. "Our people need to know," said the Montgomery County businessman. "Our Homeland Security can't police their own home. How can they police our borders?" Reid admits he made mistakes but called the fine so excessive that it may put him out of business. Several of his workers moved after ICE agents showed up at their homes, he said.

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Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff unwittingly paid undocumented workers - Los Angeles Tim

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-chertoff11-2008dec11,0,437045.story Raising a common objection among employers as ICE cracks down on illegal hirings across the nation, Reid said it is unreasonable to expect businesspeople to distinguish between fake and real driver's licenses and Social Security cards. Immigration laws are unevenly enforced, he added, allowing big companies to stay in business while crushing small-business owners and workers. He said the rules punish "scapegoats" like him while inviting people at every level -- customers, subcontractors and contractors -- to look the other way while benefiting economically from cheaper labor. "No one wants to put the blame on the head; they'd rather put the blame on the business owner," said Reid, who owns Consistent Cleaning Services. "Damned if I should be fined for employees that I took over to their house." Chertoff declined to comment. "We're very constrained in what we can say about anybody who has any kind of issue with the department," he said.

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Cuban migrants sent home by Mexico - The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/world/latinamerica/articles/2008/12/05/cuban_migrants_sent_home_by_mexico/ Mexico is sending illegal Cuban migrants home for the first time under a new accord aimed at cutting off an increasingly violent human-trafficking route to the United States, an official said yesterday. Before Mexico signed the agreement with Cuba in October, authorities rarely sent migrants back to the communist island. The Cubans were being deported from the resort city of Cancun, said Luis Alberto Molina, an immigration official in Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located.

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Nominee Would Lead ID Program She Opposed - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/us/politics/02license.html?ref=washington As governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for homeland security secretary, pledged that her state would not cooperate with a major domestic security initiative, the Real ID drivers’ license program. The program, which she would direct if confirmed as secretary, imposes stringent requirements on states for confirming the identity and legal residency of people who want drivers’ licenses. Ms. Napolitano said the law would impose huge costs on the states without reimbursement from Washington. In June, she signed into law a bill that forbids Arizona from cooperating with the federal requirements. The state law had no immediate effect, because Arizona already had a federal waiver allowing it to delay enactment until 2009. Last year, as the chairwoman of the National Governors Association, Ms. Napolitano testified before a Senate committee that the program would cost the states $11 billion. Since then, Congress has appropriated $100 million to meet some of the costs. Real ID follows the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission; it was passed without hearings or debate, attached to a mostly unrelated bill.

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Rich countries should keep their doors open to foreign workers, says migration body—chicagotribun

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-world-migration-report,0,5022703.story An international migration organization appealed Tuesday to countries to keep open their doors to immigrant workers despite the global economic crises. The International Organization for Migration said that, despite the current downturn, rich nations will continue to need foreign workers to fill jobs their shrinking work forces cannot or will not do. In its 4th World Migration Report, the Geneva-based intergovernmental body said there are more than 200 million migrants around the world today. Developed nations compete for highly skilled immigrants, but there is also a growing need for low-skilled workers in rich countries, the report said.

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Napolitano: a border-law enforcer in D.C.? - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-napolitano23-2008nov23,0,6596354.story As governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano last year signed into law the nation's harshest penalty for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, a measure that would take away their business licenses for a second violation. She called it the "business death penalty" and the "most aggressive action in the country" to stem the flow of illegal workers. She also criticized Congress and the federal government for failing to act on immigration overhaul. "The states will take the lead, and Arizona will take the lead among the states," she said.

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Indictment Alleges Agriprocessors Managers Knowingly Employed Illegal Immigrants - washingtonpost.co

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103163.html A federal grand jury has issued a 12-count indictment alleging that managers were intricately involved in efforts to employ illegal workers at a kosher slaughterhouse that was the site of one of the nation's largest immigration raids. The indictment includes three new defendants -- Brent Beebe, Hosam Amara and Zeev Levi -- who had not previously faced federal charges in connection with the Agriprocessors plant in Postville. The indictment was issued Thursday and unsealed Friday. Former chief executive Sholom Rubashkin and human resources worker Karina Freund, who were already facing federal charges, also were named in the indictment. The superseding indictment pulls together a handful of cases pending against Agriprocessors employees and lists charges including conspiracy to harbor undocumented immigrants for profit; harboring and aiding and abetting undocumented immigrants for profit; conspiracy to commit document fraud; aiding and abetting document fraud; aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft; and bank fraud.

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New machines scan IDs at border crossings - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2008-11-23-passport-chips_N.htm Agents along the Canada and Mexico borders are using a controversial new machine that can "read" the personal information contained in some government-issued ID cards — such as passports and driver's licenses — as travelers approach a checkpoint. The Homeland Security Department says the new practice will tighten security and speed the flow of traffic. Privacy advocates say the technology could make Americans less secure because terrorists or other criminals may be able to steal the personal information off the ID cards remotely. "There's this strange rush to a fancy or shiny new technology," says Lee Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The cards "are quite vulnerable" to being cloned or having their codes broken.

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Mexico: Emigration plunged 42 percent in last 2 years amid crackdown in United States—chicagotrib

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-lt-mexico-emigration,0,2715079.story Mexican emigration has dropped 42 percent over the last two years, a government study released Thursday showed, confirming that America has become less appealing amid an economic downturn and stepped up raids against illegal migrants. About eight of every 1,000 Mexicans emigrated between February and May of this year, according to the survey conducted by the National Statistics and Geography Institute. That's a 42 percent drop from the same period in 2006. In all of 2007, an estimated 814,000 Mexicans emigrated, compared to 1.2 million in 2006. The figure — which was reached through household surveys — includes all Mexicans who left the country, and did not break down legal and illegal migration. A summary of the investigation did not delve into the reasons for the drop. But experts say America's economic troubles and tighter border security have deterred many Mexicans from risking the journey to the United States, a trip that often means long desert treks, dodging bandits and bribing corrupt police.

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Obama faces pressure on immigration reform - The Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/11/17/obama_faces_pressure_on_immigration_reform/ Before a huge crowd in San Diego last summer, Barack Obama vowed to make fixing illegal immigration a top priority as president, and Latinos nationwide responded with massive support for him on Election Day. Now, they are pressing him to keep his promise. "We voted in large numbers for Obama," said Juan Salgado, board president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a nonprofit based in Chicago, Obama's training ground for immigration issues when he was a senator. "If we're sitting here two and a half years from now and absolutely nothing's been done, people are going to start asking questions." From Cape Cod to California, activists on both sides of the volatile issue are girding for battle. Supporters of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants - most of whom are Latino - want Obama to press for a path to legal residency for them. Opponents say reform is impossible at a time when unemployment is soaring, and instead want tougher border security and less immigration to preserve Americans' jobs.

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Homeland Security to Ease Rules on Federal Contractors’ Hiring of Illegal Immigrants - washingtonpos

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111403388.html In a concession to business groups, the Homeland Security Department will significantly scale back its planned crackdown this winter on federal contractors that hire illegal immigrants. Under a rule published yesterday, the agency said only contractors that do more than $100,000 in federal work will be required to use an electronic government system to check the work documents of new hires. Originally, officials had proposed that companies doing $3,000 in federal work must comply. The agency also said it would require federal contractors to check only laborers used on specific contracts, instead of their entire workforce. The revisions significantly reduce the number of companies that will be subject to the program, which will apply to federal contracts and solicitations issued after Jan. 15. The Bush administration had hoped to make the work eligibility system, called E-Verify, mandatory for nearly 200,000 government contractors, covering about 4 million U.S. workers over 10 years.

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Research group criticizes US treatment of unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors—chicagotribune.c

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-immigrant-children,0,6702493.story 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. "There's no consistent policy. There's nobody who's responsible for these kids, in looking out for their safety," report author Amy Thompson said. "It's being handled in ad hoc fashion." The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration and border enforcement, disputes the center's findings.

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Immigration raid takes bite out of nation’s kosher-meat supply - USATODAY.com

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-11-12-raidsixmonthslater_N.htm Financial problems at the company that was the target of one of the largest immigration raids in U.S. history have triggered a shortage of kosher meat and raised prices nationwide. Six months have passed since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided Agriprocessors kosher-meat plant here on May 12 and detained 389 illegal immigrant workers. The company's beef operation has ceased operating and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this past week.

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Immigrant Advocates Reach Out To Obama - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/11/AR2008111101596.html Dozens of immigrant advocates from across the country convened in Washington yesterday to call on President-elect Barack Obama to halt work-site immigration raids and fulfill campaign pledges to offer the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States a path to citizenship within his first year in office.

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Police: Immigrant pummeled and killed by NY gang of teens ‘looking to beat up some Mexicans’

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-stabbing-death,0,3248501.story Seven high school students looking "to beat up some Mexicans" attacked an immigrant from Ecuador on a Long Island street, with one of them fatally plunging a knife into the man's chest during the brawl, police said. A prosecutor compared Marcello Lucero's death over the weekend to a lynching, and the attack was officially labeled a hate crime by Suffolk County authorities. Some outraged supporters of Hispanic immigrants suggested that recent crackdowns on illegal immigration fomented an atmosphere of intolerance that contributed to the attack. "Today, some of the highest leaders of our community also have blood on their hands," said the Rev. Alan Ramirez, a longtime advocate for Hispanic day laborers and Latino immigrants. "I have said for a long time that it would only take time for something like this to happen." The teenagers — one junior and six seniors at Patchogue-Medford High School — were arraigned Monday on gang assault charges and entered not guilty pleas. The teen believed to have wielded the knife, 17-year-old Jeffrey Conroy, was also charged with manslaughter as a hate crime. His attorney did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.

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Border Inspector Accused of Allowing 3,000 Pounds of Cocaine Into U.S. Over 5 Years - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/us/10dea.html?ref=us A veteran customs inspector recently arrested in Texas on drug charges helped traffickers smuggle about 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the country over five years, according to a court document filed last week. The inspector, Jorge A. Leija, 43, allowed smugglers to drive cars loaded with cocaine through his entry lane at the Eagle Pass border crossing, about 140 miles southwest of San Antonio, without inspection, according to testimony by an unnamed Drug Enforcement Administration agent. Mr. Leija was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars from January 2001 to October 2006, the agent said at a bail hearing on Thursday in Federal District Court in Del Rio, Tex.

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Immigration to Go Paperless - washingtonpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110602068.html The Bush administration has launched a major overhaul of the nation's immigration services agency, selecting an industry consortium led by IBM to reinvent how the government handles about 7 million applications each year for visas, citizenship and approval to work in the United States, officials announced yesterday. If successful, the five-year, $500 million effort to convert U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' case-management system from paper-based to electronic could reduce backlogs and processing delays by at least 20 percent, and possibly more than 50 percent, people close to the project said. Those problems have long frustrated new Americans and other immigrants. The new system would allow government agencies, from the Border Patrol to the FBI to the Labor Department, to access immigration records faster and more accurately. In combination with initiatives to link digital fingerprint scans to unique identification numbers, it would create a lifelong digital record for applicants. It also would eliminate the need for time- and labor-intensive filing and refiling of paper forms, which are stored at 200 locations in 70 million manila file folders.

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Large Iowa Meatpacker in Illegal Immigrant Raid Files for Bankruptcy - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/06immig.html?ref=us The kosher meatpacking company in Iowa that has been struggling with criminal charges and huge fines for labor violations, a dwindling work force and declining demand among Jewish consumers since an immigration raid at its main plant, has filed for bankruptcy.

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Troops in Iraq become U.S. citizens - Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-iraq5-2008nov05,0,5446538.story Almost 200 U.S. troops serving in Iraq celebrated Tuesday's elections in a special way: They were sworn in as U.S. citizens. But the 186 men and women -- who hail from 60 countries -- didn't get to cast their first ballot for Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain. They became citizens too late to vote this year. Dressed in fatigues and standing under a giant U.S. flag, the troops took their citizenship oath at a ceremony in a domed marble hall at Saddam Hussein's old Al Faw Palace. "Diverse as your backgrounds may be, you all now have one thing in common: You are all Americans," said U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commander in Iraq. "You represent the very best of all that our nation stands for: freedom, opportunity, equality and service."

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