Daily news updates from CIS

November 6, 2009 -- Click here for overseas news

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[For CISNEWS subscribers --

1. DHS chief faces dilemma over AZ verification law
2. USCBP nominee outlines aspirations for agency
3. Feds deporting accused felons in lieu of prosecution
4. DHS to implement new detention policies
5. ICE nabbing more criminal aliens
6. Issue delaying passage of health care measure (story, 5 links)
7. Citizenship question to be left out of Census (story, 6 links)
8. Mexican governor to address issue
9. CO supreme court hears arguments over ID probe (story, link)
10. SC busy with enforcement of new law
11. Italians paid to build new Dallas bridge
12. AZ city finalizes ICE agreement
13. MD city high struggles to recruit foreign athletes
14. CA groups protest Arpaio's stumping tour (2 stories)
15. Cincinnati Hispanic chamber conducts outreach
16. CO immigrant outreach center shutters
17. Texas unv. conference addresses issue
18. Seventh New England Spanish paper opens up
19. Veteran's wife spared deportation
20. MO man fights wife's deportation
21. Uninsured illegals a plague on nation's roadways
22. NY teen pleads guilty in slaying of Ecuadorean
23. Islamic cleric's deportation case to get new hearing
24. IA kosher meatpacking trial grinds on (link)
25. Gov't drops immigration case against former terror suspect (link)
26. Border Patrol agent charged with corruption (link)

Subscribe to CIS e-mail services here: http://cis.org/immigrationnews.html

-- Mark Krikorian]

1.
Supreme Court query puts Janet Napolitano on the spot
By Josh Gerstein
The Politico (Washington, DC), November 6, 2009
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29222.html

A simple query from the Supreme Court is forcing the Obama administration to wrestle with the limits of states’ authority to enforce immigration laws — and also is throwing an uncomfortable spotlight on Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

On Monday, the justices asked the Justice Department to provide its views on Arizona’s attempt to force employers to verify the immigration status of potential employees. The law being challenged in the cases was signed by Napolitano in 2007, when she was governor of Arizona.

Napolitano has stated that she believes the law is constitutional, but business groups and immigration reform advocates generally in President Barack Obama’s camp are asking the Supreme Court to strike down the statute.

'It is awkward, given the fact that she signed the law,' said Glenn Hamer of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, one of the organizations asking the Supreme Court to take up the issue. 'It’s got to be a difficult situation for the administration.'

A spokesman for Napolitano, Matt Chandler, declined to say whether the secretary, who was once a defendant in the case, would recuse herself from the matter. Her department is in charge of enforcing federal immigration laws and thus could be expected to have a voice in the administration’s position.

But Napolitano won’t make the ultimate call, Chandler said, adding, 'This is a decision for the solicitor general.'

The Justice Department also declined to discuss what consultations will go into the administration’s response to the court’s query. 'The solicitor general is studying the issue,' DOJ spokeswoman Beverley Lumpkin said.

The court’s query demonstrates how the immigration issue forces itself onto the Obama administration’s agenda, even though White House officials have given immigration reform legislation a lower priority than issues such as health care reform and stimulating the economy.

Immigrant advocates said they’re hoping Napolitano will urge the administration to support the challenge to the Arizona law, as improbable as that may seem.

'You can legitimately say Napolitano is wearing a different hat now. She has to take a step back and look at how these efforts have metastasized across the country,' said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council.

'I think the secretary has seen the coin from both sides,' said Ali Noorani of the National Immigration Forum. 'It is the responsibility of DHS to make sure they are the only ones enforcing the immigration laws. ... I think the secretary has to find a way to rectify the situation.'

Hamer noted that Napolitano signed the state law reluctantly amid widespread voter anger about a surge in illegal immigration. 'It was a powder keg,' he said. 'I received death threats. There was a lot of e-mail with capital letters. ... I don’t think anyone would write a profile in courage on how she handled that issue.'

A federal appeals court rejected the legal challenges to the Arizona law. The Supreme Court has not said that it will take the case but wants the administration’s view on whether further review is warranted.

In a separate development, House Republicans are pressing Obama to consider stricter enforcement of immigration laws at workplaces as a way to increase the number of jobs available to those legally entitled to have them.

'U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement work site enforcement actions save and create jobs for Americans and legal workers if the illegal immigrant workers are detained and deported,' Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas and 22 other Republican members wrote Wednesday in a letter to Obama supplied to POLITICO.

Smith said the missive was a response to Obama’s call for job creation ideas during a meeting of his economic advisory board Monday.

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2.
Alan Bersin is at home on a daunting frontier
The nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection sees an opportunity for 'huge change' even though Mexico's drug war has dramatically heightened tensions along the border.
By Sebastian Rotella
The Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-border-czar6-2009nov06,0,2677990.story

On the third day of a sprint through Texas and Arizona, a law enforcement convoy zooms into Nogales. Riding in a sport utility vehicle, Bersin scans a dusty landscape that he knows well: this desert town of 20,000 with its fast-food joints and discount shops facing the pastel facades and helter-skelter skyline of Nogales, Mexico, a city of 300,000 just south of the fence.

Bersin, a compact 63-year-old with the stride of a former star football player at Harvard, arrives at the Nogales station, the U.S. Border Patrol's biggest. His entourage hurries into a roll call room crowded with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, many of them Latinos whose small talk is sprinkled with Spanish.

Bersin is the federal point man at the border for the second time in his career and the officers' likely new boss, having been nominated for commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. He gives a pep talk in crisp tones tinged with his native Brooklyn.

'We will make a huge change at this border,' he says. 'You are here at a moment of history being made. You will tell your grandchildren about it someday.'

The border czar has come to Arizona to assess a smuggling onslaught that generates more arrests and marijuana seizures than anywhere else on the international line. Smugglers use cranes to lift drug-laden cars over the fence; unemployed Mexican miners dig tunnels; cartel pilots fly above the oxygen limit. In Sonora state this summer, police found a Chevy Suburban containing victims of Mexico's drug war: 11 corpses chopped into pieces.

The two nations must seize a rare opportunity for progress, Bersin tells the officers. Encouraging questions and trying to put the group at ease, he jokes that his wife describes him as 'often wrong, but never uncertain.' He paraphrases the French poet Paul Valery: 'The main challenge of our times is that the future is not what it used to be.'

It's classic Bersin. Cerebral, combative and politically connected, he's at ease in the trenches of law enforcement. A resident and scholar of the border, he knows its extremes of squalor and beauty, hope and despair. He thrives on the singular energy of a region that others tend to fear, ignore or misunderstand.

'There is such a difference from everywhere else,' Bersin said. 'It's a place where nations begin and end in a legal and jurisdictional sense. And yet border communities live without reference to that in many ways. It's the idea of 'El Tercer Pais' [the third country] that makes it enormously attractive.'

The son of a pharmacist, Bersin went to Harvard, where he befriended future Vice President Al Gore. He met the Clintons while at Yale Law School and Oxford. In the 1990s, he served as U.S. attorney in San Diego and was given additional duties as the Clinton administration's border czar. Then he detoured into public education, running the San Diego school district and holding the post of California education secretary.

This year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made him her special border representative based in Washington. In September, President Obama nominated him for the commissioner post. Customs and Border Protection, the nation's largest law enforcement agency, has about 60,000 officers guarding the nation's air, land and sea boundaries while trying to speed the flow of legal commerce.

'He has huge credibility with law enforcement, yet he gets the trade part,' said U.S. Atty. Dennis Burke of Arizona. 'With his experience, knowledge of the border, I don't think they've ever had anyone like this guy.'

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration accelerated construction of fences, consolidated all border agencies into the new Department of Homeland Security, and expanded the Border Patrol to about 18,000 agents. Obama has promised to reform immigration laws, so Bersin will feel pressure to show results on border security.

'Him coming back to the border is like back to the future,' said Charles La Bella, who was Bersin's deputy at the U.S. attorney's office. 'There are very similar problems, significantly more pronounced. The violence has gotten everyone on edge. . . . He thinks there are solutions, that if the stars line up right he can do something. If anyone can do it, he can. But it's a daunting task.'

Leaving the federal prosecutor's job in 1998, Bersin surprised friends and observers who expected him to run for public office. Instead, he became superintendent of San Diego schools.

'The quality of the public education I received in New York has been responsible for every success I've had in life,' he said. 'School reform was just coming onto the agenda. I responded to that.'

He fired principals, overhauled the curriculum and received national attention. The Wall Street Journal called him education's version of Rudy Giuliani.

Battles with teachers and other critics grew deafening. He left after a stormy six years, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made him state secretary of education.

'I have always served as the Democrat who Republicans hate to love,' Bersin said.

Bersin returns to the border armed with experience, a BlackBerry filled with contacts in the Obama administration and in Mexico, and a sense that the time is right. After years of struggling to overcome mutual wariness, U.S. and Mexican leaders have attained a historic level of cooperation, he tells the officers during roll call.

'President [Felipe] Calderon is acknowledging corruption in state and local law enforcement and very bravely standing up to the cartels,' he says. 'We are engaging the guns and cash flow south. We are taking co-responsibility with the Mexicans.'

Bersin declined to discuss his nomination because he has not been confirmed. But in interviews, he talked about how the border has evolved and why he's back in the fray. He said he envisions innovative anti-drug offensives: improving intelligence, dismantling financial empires, deepening partnerships with Mexican security forces. He predicts a long fight comparable to the campaign against the mob in America.

Bersin's next stop is the port of entry, where there is no buffer zone -- Mexico begins just south of the inspection booths. Compared with 10 years ago, the tension is palpable. Inspectors in sunglasses scan long lines of vehicles with shotguns at the ready, dogs straining against leashes.

Bersin walks amid exhaust fumes and idling motors, shaking hands, drinking in details. He watches the rusty pedestrian gate busy with people heading into Mexico, many hauling shopping bags and luggage. Hoping to intercept southbound guns and money border-wide, U.S. officers have stepped up scrutiny of departures. Inspectors question crossers; several raffish characters with bogus papers and rolls of cash are led away in handcuffs.

In a second-floor office, inspectors show Bersin works of criminal craftsmanship: antenna-activated compartments for hiding drugs; caches concealed in fuel tanks, mufflers, tire covers, drive shafts.

'What kind of intel do we have on who makes these?' Bersin asks. 'Are these mom-and-pop outfits, or a factory building these? We need to figure out who's doing it. This is a big industry.'

He tours the lockup, where women are held in a cage-like structure and men slump on blankets in a nearby room. Bersin asks prisoners questions in solid, American-accented Spanish.

A small drama catches his eye. An 8-year-old in a black T-shirt and knee-length cutoffs sits with his head buried in his arms, whimpering as an inspector questions him.

Bersin walks over to a scruffy 17-year-old Mexican American accused of attempting to sneak in the child using someone else's passport. Because he's a juvenile, prosecution is unlikely.

Bersin gives the teenager a long look. He says, 'Next time, we need to find a way to punish him.'

Bersin had never worked as a prosecutor before becoming U.S. attorney or as a school administrator before the job as superintendent. The lack of experience helped, he said.

'So long as you understand what you don't know, bringing a fresh eye and an outside perspective can bring an advantage to solving old problems,' he said.

He led the Operation Gatekeeper crackdown in San Diego, then the busiest, most violent corridor, imposing order and cutting crime. But migrant advocates and Mexican officials complained that bigger deployments of agents in San Diego and El Paso pushed illegal crossers into mountains and deserts. At least 5,600 have died since 1994, though not all of them in remote areas, advocates and U.S. officials say.

'He said he was just following instructions,' said Enrique Morones of the Border Angels, a San Diego migrant advocate group. 'What's happening now and what was happening then, it's immoral.'

Then as now, Bersin sat down regularly with critics. Morones said recent meetings suggest that 'he's a kinder, gentler Alan Bersin.' Bersin says migrant advocates seem more moderate today, more interested in dialogue than diatribes.

Bersin also launched an anti-drug campaign that weakened the vicious Arellano Felix cartel of Tijuana. He arranged for a team of Mexican investigators to operate secretly out of San Diego in order to improve intelligence and security -- a first.

'He had some tough conversations with Mexican leaders about Gatekeeper, and about corruption,' La Bella recalled. 'There's no nice way to say, 'We can't trust this guy.' He was able to say it, but maintain respect. He balances toughness and openness.'

That balance is the key to his style. When a Border Patrol agent here complains about injured border runners getting free medical care, Bersin shifts away from hard-nosed rhetoric.

'It's true people take advantage,' he says. 'They do things that shock and frustrate us. There's the classic case of the pregnant woman who crosses to give birth. But we have to see the big picture. These cases are a small proportion. The U.S. does not mistreat people.'

Wrapping up the tour in Nogales, Bersin boards an agency plane bound for Phoenix. It climbs into a sunset that bathes the desert in orange and red. Gazing out the window, Bersin says he's confident that the rugged landscape can be tamed.

'I remain an optimist that we will see significant change,' he said. 'The border was not in good shape in San Diego. We did something about it.'

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3.
Hundreds of accused felons deported rather than prosecuted
By David Schechter and Mark Smith
The WFAA News (Dallas), November 6, 2009
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa091105_mo_deportingjustice.28ae52611.html

Dallas -- Hundreds of accused felons charged with murder, rape, assault and kidnapping have been deported from Dallas County without having to face criminal prosecution.

News 8 has found that the practice to allow charged felons to circumvent the justice system occurs not only in Dallas, but in major cities throughout Texas and the nation.

The accused are undocumented immigrants, many of which are Mexican Nationals, who bond out from jail and are transported by federal immigration buses to the border and then set free.

'That’s tragic and unacceptable,' said David Finn, a former Dallas County District Judge and former federal prosecutor. '... The left hand and the right hand are not on the same page and they're not communicating.'

Finn, along with other authorities, said the problem has been a long-standing 'black eye' on the U.S. criminal justice system.

Based on extensive interviews and research, News 8 found that federal, state and local law enforcement simply fail when it comes to cooperating to ensure accused felons go to trial.

From June through August, at least 20 Mexican citizens facing state felony charges in Dallas County were released to Mexico, according to a News 8 review.

One estimate by the Dallas County District Attorney’s office indicates the number of deported felons may be staggering.

Since 1991, the research estimates that the following accused Dallas felons were set free:

* 128 accused murders

* 18 attempted murderers

* 409 child abuser–rapists

* 54 rapists

One of the accused includes Jose Salvador Tinajero. He faced the possibility of life in prison for allegedly molesting his two step daughters, one of whom was only four years old. News 8 found that he was deported in August prior to trial.

The practice first came to light in mid-August. At the time, Jose Adan Rico faced the possibility of life in prison after he was charged with the violent rapes of two Dallas girls ages 12 and 14.

The girls told police that Rico, 34, entered unlocked doors to their respective apartments and bound their arms and covered their eyes with duct tape. Rico told one girl he had a gun and would kill her if she didn’t quit screaming, one of the victims said.

Instead of going to trial, Rico posted bond and within hours was loaded onto a bus to be set free in Mexico.

At the time, Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins said he planned to meet with federal authorities. He said he hoped to come up with policies and procedures to ensure accused felons went to trial.

But, since Rico’s release, Watkins has not had official high-level discussions to address the issue. He also declined to comment for this story.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials also have repeatedly declined comment. They said their agencies are ready to cooperate with Watkin’s office, if asked.

Others, however, have taken some action.

Dallas County District Judge Mike Snipes said he notified the U.S. Attorney’s office last week about the problem. He asked for more information sharing between federal and local authorities about pending criminal charges.

'There are a lot of people down here who have access to that information,' he said. 'It doesn't have to be that complicated, I don't think.'

Ernesto Fierro, an investigator with Watkin’s office, said he was so troubled by the practice that he compiled estimates of accused Dallas area felons who were released. Fierro also has collaborated on a plan for a joint immigration task force of local and federal agents.

'I’m furious,' he said. 'That's the whole reason I drew this up and wrote it on my own time. I didn't get paid or assigned to do this.'

The Dallas County District Attorney’s office tabled the estimated $200,000 proposal due to budget and personnel cuts.

Fierro, however, continued on his own time to act on tips from a close friend who happens to be a federal ICE officer.

'It’s not his job to do that,' Fierro said referring to tips he receives from the ICE agent about impending deportations. 'It’s not my job to get that call and go do something about it.'

But that's exactly how Fierro got tipped off last week about Juan Antonio Morales, who was accused of the sexual assault of a child.

Fierro returned Morales to the Dallas County Jail only hours before his scheduled deportation to Mexico. He said he was relieved to know that Morales didn’t join the hundreds of accused felons who have already taken bus rides to escape pending charges.

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4.
US Homeland Security Department Proposes Detention Reform
By Carolyn Presutti
The Voice of America News, November 6, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-11-06-voa26.cfm

The United States is looking to reform the way it detains illegal immigrants. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano plans to immediately implement some reforms, and is expected to ask Congress to approve alternatives to detention facilities.

The sun was barely up when Peter Yune looked out the peephole of his house and saw 10 police officers waiting on his doorstep. 'They just barged in,' Yune says, 'pushing me to one side and they told me to stay still.'

In the aftermath, police took away Yune's wife, Jong Park, for immigration violations. Yune concedes Park was living in the U.S. illegally after she was denied permanent residency. Government officials say Park was convicted in 2003 for promoting prostitution. And an immigration judge ordered her removed from the United States.

For 24 hours Yune couldn't find his wife in the detention system. He couldn't concentrate on work. Through an attorney, he learned Jong Park was incarcerated, four hours from his house, in Portsmouth, Virginia.

VOA spoke to Park by phone from inside the jail. We asked how she's doing after a month behind bars.

Park says she is only permitted to step out of her jail cell to eat. And that she is housed with violent criminals.

'My wife is not a criminal,' Yune explains, 'Sure, she didn't have a green card [residence permit]. For her to overstay, if you want to call that a criminal activity, I can't argue with that.'

Immigration advocates say it happens too often. Non-violent detainees placed in criminal jails, where family, friends, and attorneys can't find them.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants Congress to reform detention guidelines. 'We need to better manage the entirety of our detainee populations,' she said.

Secretary Napolitano says nearly 400,000 immigrants were detained last year. Some 32,000 are currently in jail. One alternative under consideration is to use electronic bracelets to monitor them outside of jail. Another idea, sponsorship by community or church groups. Park's family favors that.

Assistant Secretary John Morton explains how it would work. 'You have a trusted, and reputable community organization that's willing to step forward and say we'll ensure this person comes to their hearings and, if they lose, shows up at the airport to be removed,' Morton said.

But that doesn't sit well with Dan Stein of FAIR--the Federation for American Immigration Reform. 'We feel they are going to wind up putting aliens [immigrants] in Hilton Hotels, Holiday Inns, and facilities which in a sense create incentives to remain here, fighting for the right to stay when they have no fundamental case,' Stein said.

Stein also worries that alternatives give immigrants the ability to disappear before their court date.

'I won't run away, so I have my family. I think. I'm not some murderer, I'm not some thief,' Park said.

In 2005, after weeks in custody, detainee Sandra Kenley died in the same jail as Park. Stein and others say quicker deportation is the answer.

'People come here as guests of this country. If they violate the terms of their status and are ordered deported, they can go home immediately. No one is in detention on a coercive basis. They can leave this country any time they want,' Stein states.

But there's one teenager who's hoping that doesn't happen. Park's daughter, 14 year old Soobin. 'Since my mom's gone, everyone feels that. It's kinda hard to replace that around here, so it's really like empty,' she said. 'It feels empty.'

For now, Soobin tries to concentrate on her homework, knowing she can see her mom next week for a 20 minute visit, with a wall between them.

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5.
Immigration agents arresting more criminals
By Cindy Carcamo
The Orange County Register (Santa Ana), November 5, 2009
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/criminal-agency-teams-2638596-orders-country

Immigration agents in charge of chasing down illegal immigrants who are avoiding deportation orders are increasingly focusing their efforts on arresting those with criminal records.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics reflect a shift in the new administration's focus compared to the last three years.

For instance, three years ago only 22 percent of those arrested by fugitive operations agents in the Southern California area had criminal records.

During this fiscal year, more than 50 percent of the 3,039 arrests in the same area had a criminal history.

Beefed-up manpower, stronger partnerships with local law enforcement and a stronger directive from the top to focus on those with criminal backgrounds who are in the country illegally have led to the change, said Robert Naranjo, assistant field office director. He helps lead the agency's Los Angeles Office of Detention and Removal Operations.

Naranjo, whose teams focus on finding those who are in the country illegally with standing deportation orders, said stronger ties with local law enforcement have led to good leads and arrests.

'Criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety are a public priority,' he said. 'We are prioritizing the criminals but we are continuing to pursue cases involving non-criminal immigration fugitives who have ignored court orders to leave the country.'

While agents will continue to arrest those in the country illegally when they run across them during operations, Naranjo emphasized the agency's priority.

'Like any law enforcement agency we have a finite number of resources, so we have to prioritize,' he said.

The ramped up manpower is especially evident in Orange County, where there are now two teams -- one in Santa Ana and another in Laguna Niguel -- dedicated to tracking down people who have ignored orders by an immigration judge to be deported. That's a departure from 2003 when there were no teams in the county. Instead, local operations were run out of Los Angeles.

The two teams were deployed in 2007 to Orange County. In addition, Los Angeles now has eight teams, compared to only two six years ago.

Agency officials have long said they have focused on arresting and deporting people with criminal convictions who ignored deportations orders.

However, immigrant rights activists had accused the agency of not doing what they claimed. The issue came to a head after the Migration Policy Institute highlighted the agency's data, which showed that most of those arrested had no criminal records.

While heartened by the recent numbers, some immigrant rights activists, say they’re waiting to see what the next fiscal year’s numbers will reveal.

'There is clearly a change in the numbers and we welcome that but we want it to be even more focused so they can have lower number of arrests and a much higher percentage of criminals swept up in fugitive operations,' said Carl Bergquist, a policy advocate for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. 'We are still in a wait and see position.'

About three months ago in Los Angeles, Immigration and Customs Enforcement head John T. Morton emphasized the agency's refocused priority in going after criminal offenders who are in the country illegally.

'We're focusing on the worst of the worst…we're focusing on those who are more serious offenders,' Morton said.

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6.
Democrats wary of health-bill defections
Immigration and abortion issues could cost party crucial votes
By Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery
The Washington Post, November 6, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110505441.html

House Democratic leaders were struggling Thursday to contain uprisings on the hot-button issues of abortion and immigration that have left them little margin for error as they attempt to push through a massive health-care reform bill this weekend.

Although confident of victory, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and other Democratic leaders were working to limit defections to the roughly 25 Democrats viewed as 'hard no' votes. There will be 258 Democrats in the House by the time the vote takes place, but to secure the 218 votes needed for passage -- and with prospects dim for Republican converts -- Pelosi can afford to lose no more than 40 members of her caucus. President Obama had been slated to head to the Hill on Friday to push wavering Democrats to get behind the measure, but he called off the trip after Thursday's shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex.

For party leaders, setting a weekend deadline for passage represented a calculated risk, one that could backfire if the vote -- now expected late Saturday or Sunday -- fails or must be delayed. But they feared that if members were given more time to consider the legislation, new issues could arise, particularly as lawmakers digest the results from Tuesday's elections. Most ominous for Democrats were their losses in gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, although the party did prevail in House special elections in New York and California.

The legislation's prospects got a boost with key endorsements Thursday from AARP, the American Medical Association and the American Cancer Society. But Pelosi was still working Thursday night to chip away resistance from antiabortion Democrats, who worry the bill could lead to government funding of the procedure, and from Hispanic members trying to stave off efforts to add a Senate provision that would bar illegal workers from buying private insurance policies through new federally established marketplaces, even with their own money.

'We are right on the brink of passing historic legislation to provide quality, affordable, accessible health care for all Americans,' Pelosi told reporters. Asked whether she had the votes to bring the bill to the House floor, the California Democrat pledged, 'We will.'

The legislation's next stop is the Rules Committee, which is scheduled to meet Friday afternoon to establish a framework for a historic debate on the biggest expansion of health coverage since Medicare and Medicaid were created in 1965. Committee Chairman Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said that more than 50 amendments had been filed by members of both parties and that debate is expected to consume at least five hours of floor time on Saturday. Procedural maneuvering by Republicans could extend that period by several hours and possibly into Sunday.

The final House bill is expected to vary only slightly from the 1,990-page document Democratic leaders unveiled amid great fanfare last week. In addition to a 42-page 'manager's amendment' released late Tuesday, Slaughter's committee will approve the guidelines governing the debate. That rule, she said, is likely to contain a provision aimed at quelling a long-simmering dispute over abortion that has slowed progress in the House for weeks.

As written, the House bill would allow plans offered through new insurance exchanges, set up for individuals without employer coverage, to cover abortion services. But the plans would be required to establish payment firewalls to prevent federal subsidies from covering the cost. Democrats opposed to abortion call that an accounting distinction and are seeking ironclad guarantees.

A compromise measure crafted by Rep. Brad Ellsworth, an antiabortion Democrat from Indiana, would require federal health officials operating the public insurance plan created in the House bill to hire a private contractor to pay abortion providers, thus avoiding direct federal payments. That language is acceptable to Democrats who support abortion rights, but not to many Democrats who oppose abortion, and House leaders were still working Thursday night to craft language that would win back a dozen or so of the 40 Democrats whose votes may be on the line.

As the hours ticked away, Democrats scrutinized the House bill for other potential landmines that could haunt them on the campaign trail next year. Immigration, and the prospect that Republicans will identify a loophole that could be construed as benefiting people who live in the United States illegally, is one area that is receiving a great deal of attention.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (Va.), president of the Democratic freshman class, said he wants to be able to assure his constituents that people 'who are here illegally cannot avail themselves of the infrastructure that we're creating,' although he said he is not necessarily opposed to letting undocumented workers buy insurance through the exchanges on their own. Connolly said he is leaning toward voting in favor of the measure, but he added: 'I want to read the language. I can't afford to be voting for something sight unseen.'

Party leaders are considering relenting on the more restrictive Senate language on illegal immigrants, in the hope of removing a contentious issue from the long list of concerns that must be worked out in a final House-Senate conference. That concerns wavering Hispanic members.

'Yes, you have someone here illegally, that's a bad thing,' said Rep. Charlie Gonzalez (D-Tex.). 'But they are here. And someone's hiring them, by the way, and paying them. And they want to be responsible for their health care. We're going to have a provision that disallows them from purchasing a private plan.'

The lawmakers made their case in a meeting with Obama on Thursday afternoon, but they said they received no commitment. Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-N.Y.) said that the Hispanic caucus has 20 votes riding on the issue and that if the language changes, 'I guess they won't have those 20 votes.' She said of Obama, 'He listened to us, and he knows where we stand.'

Of Thursday's endorsements, the most significant is from AARP, the nation's largest and most influential association of older Americans, which has vowed to lobby House members in advance of the vote. Republicans have blasted the House bill as potentially devastating for seniors, pointing to more than $400 billion in Medicare cuts over the next 10 years.

AARP Vice President Nancy A. LeaMond said the House package would actually strengthen Medicare, the federal health program for people 65 or older, by restraining the program's costs. Congressional budget analysts have said the proposed reductions in spending would add five years to the life of the Medicare trust fund. Hospitals and other providers, meanwhile, have vowed to absorb the reductions without affecting services to seniors.

'We can say with confidence that it meets our priorities for protecting Medicare, providing more affordable health insurance for 50-to-64-year-olds and reforming our health-care system,' LeaMond said in a news briefing.

She praised House leaders for including a plan to close the coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug program known as the 'doughnut hole.' Key Democrats said the group's backing could prove critical to pushing their vote total over the top.

Obama called the AARP boost 'no small endorsement' and told reporters at the White House, 'So I want everybody to remember that the next time you hear the same tired arguments to the contrary from the insurance companies and their lobbyists. And remember this endorsement the next time you see a bunch of misleading ads on television.'

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House Dems say Sat. vote on health care may slip
By Erica Werner and Ricardo Alonso Zaldivar
The Associated Press, November 6, 2009
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul

More Delays? House Health Care Bill Vote May Not Come Until Sunday
Language on Abortion, Illegal Immigrants Key Issue for Some Democrats
By Huma Khan
The ABC News, November 6, 2009
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/HealthCare/health-care-bill-vote-overshadowed-abortion-illegal-immigrant/story?id=9013981

Health Care Bill Could Hinge on Immigration Language
By Stephanie Condon
The CBS News, November 6, 2009
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11/06/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5550449.shtml

Nancy Pelosi is still dealing as vote nears
By Patrick O'Connor
The Politico (Washington, DC), November 6, 2009
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29214.html

Immigration may threaten health vote
By Jared Allen
The Hill (Washington, DC), November 5, 2009
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/66649-immigration-threatens-vote

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7.
Citizenship question will not be added to 2010 census
By Daniel González
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), November 6, 2009
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/11/06/20091106census.html

The 2010 census will not include a controversial question about citizenship that critics said could have led to significant undercounts in Arizona and other states with large immigrant populations.

Undercounting could result in the loss of federal money and diminished political clout for a state because congressional seats are apportioned based on population.

On Thursday, Democrats derailed a push by Republicans in the Senate to include a citizenship question on next year's census. The proposal had sparked a contentious debate over whether all people or only citizens should be used to determine how congressional representatives are allocated to states.

The proposal was co-sponsored by Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Robert Bennett of Utah. They sought to have non-citizens excluded from the population numbers used to allocate congressional seats, saying states with large illegal immigrant populations have an unfair advantage.

'The system is broken, and areas of the country with high illegal populations should not be rewarded with greater representation in Congress,' said Bennett, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

While adding a citizenship question might have benefited states with few immigrants, it would have hurt states like Arizona that have high numbers of illegal immigrants, said Andrew Reamer, a fellow at Brookings, a right-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C.

The census is aimed at counting everyone, regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. Adding a citizenship question would have heightened concerns among illegal immigrants already worried that filling out the forms could give the government information to deport them, Reamer said.

Census officials don't share specific household information with other government agencies. They also are working to encourage everyone, regardless of citizenship, to be counted.

An undercount could make Arizona vulnerable to losing a congressional seat. Arizona's illegal-immigration population already is declining due to stepped-up immigration enforcement and the recession driving undocumented immigrants out of the state. In 2007, researchers estimated Arizona had as many as 500,000 illegal immigrants, or about 9 percent of the state's total population, the highest proportion of any state. A study by the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the state's undocumented population has dropped by a third since then.

An undercount also could reduce Arizona's share of $500 billion in federal funding allocated annually to states to pay for a variety of programs and services, Reamer said. In 2008, Arizona received about $8.2 billion in federal funding, he said.

On Thursday, all 58 Democrats plus the two Democratic-leaning independents in the Senate voted to block the citizenship question from moving forward. Thirty-nine Republicans, including Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, voted to keep it alive. Arizona's other Republican senator, John McCain, did not vote. But he indicated beforehand that he supported the proposal to add a citizenship question to the census.

'I think we should know, just as we should know how many citizens are here, we should know how many people who are here illegally as well. That makes sense,' McCain said Saturday after a morning town-hall meeting in Goodyear.

When asked if such a question might discourage participation in the census, which is used for purposes of congressional apportionment, McCain said: 'I don't think you would scare a citizen off. I don't know why it would. I don't mind being asked if I'm a citizen or not.'

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Senate blocks vote on Vitter census bill
By Gerard Shields
The Advocate (Baton Rouge), November 6, 2009
http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/politics/69347842.html

Senate says no to citizenship questions on Census surveys
By Mike Sunnucks
The Phoenix Business Journal, November 6, 2009
http://phoenix.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/11/02/daily60.html

Bennett's census-immigration amendment rejected
By Matt Canham
The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City), November 6, 2009
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_13721132

Census vote defeat will cost Louisiana a House seat, David Vitter says
By Jonathan Tilove
The Times Picayune (New Orleans), November 5, 2009
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/11/census_vote_defeat_will_cost_l.html

Democrats Ditch GOP Effort to Question Citizenship in 2010 Census
By Nomaan Merchant
The Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2009
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/11/05/democrats-ditch-gop-effort-to-question-citizenship-in-2010-census/

Senate blocks census citizenship question
By Andrew Taylor
The Associated Press, November 5, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j47VWOAOXRk4k02WLL6erT3ozmewD9BPIMD88

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8.
Mexican governor to speak on immigration
The San Diego Union Tribune, November 5, 2009
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/05/mexican-governor-speak-immigration/

San Diego -- Amalia Garcia Medina, governor of the Mexican state of Zacatecas, will be the featured speaker Monday at a Tequila Talk sponsored by the Institute of the Americas.

Garcia was elected in 2004 on the Democratic Revolution Party ticket and is the first female governor of the state. In her previous position as a federal deputy, her legislative efforts focused on equal rights for women, human rights and the fight against corruption. Garcia also served as a senator and an assemblywoman in the Legislative Assembly of Mexico City.

The governor will focus her talk, which will be in Spanish, on immigration to the United States, which has reduced the population of Zacatecas by nearly half.

The talk will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the Weaver Conference Center at the University of California, San Diego campus in La Jolla. Cost is $10. Members, full-time teachers and students are free.

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9.
State supreme court hears arguments in tax ID search
Operation Number Games goes under legal microscope
By Chris Casey
The Greeley Tribune (CO), November 6, 2009
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20091106/NEWS/911069977/1002/NONE&parentprofile=1001

Denver -- The nature of a warrant for seizure of tax documents in Greeley — whether it was valid or constituted a 'fishing expedition' — was at the center of arguments when the high-profile Operation Number Games met Colorado's high court Thursday.

The constitutionality of a search of thousands of tax returns at Amalia's Translation and Tax Service in Greeley went before the Colorado Supreme Court.

Weld County law enforcement authorities argued they didn't break the law when they seized the documents to build their case. They said it was impossible for them to be more specific in their search because it involved identity theft.

The Weld County Public Defender's Office and American Civil Liberties Union argued the search and investigation, which resulted in about 100 people being arrested on fraud charges, was illegal because it violated privacy rights and lacked probable cause.

It is expected to be several weeks before the court rules on the criminal and civil cases, which were heard back to back Thursday.

Weld Public Defender James Merson, arguing the criminal case, said, 'police officers in this case executed an open-ended inventory search … unlimited discretion to seize whatever they wanted.' He noted authorities seized tax documents beyond those in tax years 2006-07 specified in the warrant.

Weld Assistant District Attorney Mike Rourke, meanwhile, argued that the warrant contained sufficient probable cause for the search at Amalia's, 1501 9th St. in Greeley. He said an investigation into a specific identity theft case led to Amalia's, where authorities had cause to look for the potential of people using false Social Security numbers. 'Our position is the officers acted reasonably in reliance on the warrant,' he said.

The civil proceeding, brought by the ACLU, asked the high court to rule on the legality of the effort by Weld District Attorney Ken Buck and the Weld County Sheriff's Office to prosecute illegal immigrants who were working using stolen IDs and filing taxes using Individual Tax Identification Numbers. The ACLU's position is that Weld authorities violated the privacy rights of as many as 4,900 taxpayers by keeping copies of confidential information. The ACLU seeks that the injunction on use of the tax filings, ruled by a Larimer District Court judge in April, be upheld.

In the criminal matter, the state high court will review the case against a particular suspect, Ramon Gutierrez, whose tax records were seized. The justices will determine if the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure. The justices also will rule if they should suppress evidence in the case; that would happen if they determine that no reasonable police officer could have exerted 'good faith,' or relied on the search warrant.

After Weld District Court Judge James Hartmann earlier this year ruled the search violated Gutierrez's rights, Larimer District Court Judge James Hiatt in April also ruled the search was illegal. Buck appealed Gutierrez's case to the Colorado Supreme Court.

The validity of the initial search warrant, which was granted by Weld District Judge Marcelo Kopcow, was the focus of much argument on both sides Thursday, especially in the civil case.

Richard Barkley, a Denver attorney arguing on behalf of Weld authorities, said the specification of two potential crimes — identity theft and criminal impersonation — was expressly made in the affidavit, 'so all requirements of probable cause were made.'

Elizabeth Harris, the Denver attorney arguing on behalf of the ACLU, focused on the scope of the search. She said 'there are 5,000 spheres of privacy that are constitutionally protected,' and that the Weld authorities' search went beyond reasonable probable cause standards of the Fourth Amendment. 'This is a classic fishing expedition,' she said.

In Operation Number Games, Weld prosecutors allege as many as 1,300 defendants used false or stolen Social Security numbers to work in Weld and then obtained tax returns with Amalia's help. They were able to do so because the IRS issues nonresidents an ITIN for purposes of filing taxes. According to IRS regulations, Amalia's Tax Service was following the law.

Rourke argued that Gutierrez's constitutional rights were not violated.

'What we were looking for here was information as to who was using the Social Security numbers, and it wasn't information that was otherwise available to law enforcement at the time of the search,' he said after the hearing.

A couple justices noted that the facts of the case make it appear that any facility containing tax records could be the target for a similar search.

'Wouldn't the IRS have all that information in the same way (Amalia's) did?' asked Justice Nancy Rice.

Barkley responded that if the IRS were to have a location in Weld, 'yes, I believe I could' get the information for the investigation.

The matter of 'good faith' has bearing on the criminal case because that's where evidence may or may not be suppressed. The civil case is centered simply on whether the search itself was legal.

Still, during the civil hearing, a couple justices had questions about a police officer acting on good faith in relation to a district judge's warrant. Justice Nathan Coats asked: Couldn't police be acting reasonably if they knew that even a panel, such as the Supreme Court itself, were divided about the validity of the warrant?

After the hearing, Harris said, 'what (Coats) essentially saying is, ‘Don't (police) necessarily exhibit good faith relying on this warrant if reasonable minds could disagree about the constitutionality of the search?' '

She said she doesn't know how to answer that.

'These cases are often in sort of a gray zone of whether or not a search is constitutional,' Harris added. 'Judges often have to make very hard decisions about whether the officer really should have known one way or the other that the search was reasonable.'

In the civil case, Harris said the crux of the ACLU's argument is that the search wasn't reasonable because the level of suspicion — authorities lacked a specific person's tax record they were looking for — didn't match the level of intrusion into people's privacy.

Buck, who listened to the proceedings from the front row of the almost-full courtroom, viewed it differently.

'There have been hundreds of hours of attorney time put into briefing these cases,' he said after the hearing. 'There are seven justices sitting right now trying to decide whether this was a good warrant. We're talking about IRS law, we're talking about administrative law, federal criminal law. And a police officer was supposed to second-guess a district court judge and whether that warrant is valid or not?'

Amalia Cerrillo, owner of the tax preparer's office, also attended the hearings. 'I feel the outcome is going to be good,' she said, in terms of keeping her clients' tax documents private.

Buck was asked if the large-scale identity theft investigation would resume if the Supreme Court rules in his favor.

'I don't know the answer to that,' he said after the session. 'It's a large resource strain, and we'd have to look at whether we'd want to talk to the sheriff's office about whether we'd want to do something like this again.'

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Colorado Supreme Court hears ID theft arguments
By Ivan Moreno
The Associated Press, November 6, 2009
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D9BPKMF03.html

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10.
Firm faces illegal immigration fine
By Prentiss Findlay
The Post and Courier (Myrtle Beach, SC), November 6, 2009
http://www.thesunnews.com/news/local/story/1152703.html

Mount Pleasant, SC -- A Low country firm, Pleasant Places Inc. landscaping, faces a $24,000 state fine for alleged violations of the South Carolina Illegal Immigration Reform Act, officials said Thursday.

Since July 1, the state Office of Immigration Worker Compliance has cited 16 businesses for violations of the new law after conducting audits at 550 firms. Of those cited, only Pleasant Places Inc. has failed to correct alleged violations, said Jim Knight, communications director for the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. The business is accused of failing to verify the legal status of 24 workers hired after July 1, he said. The maximum penalty per violation is $1,000.

Knight said Pleasant Places Inc. is the first business in the state to be cited twice for violating the new law.

On Aug. 11, Pleasant Places Inc., located on Long Point Road, was fined $4,250 for violations of the immigrant worker law, according to the immigration office. Company President Jason E. James on Aug. 13 certified the business was in compliance with the law governing illegal aliens, and the fine was dismissed. On Oct. 20, the company was cited for allegedly failing to verify the status of 24 workers and fined $24,000. The second citation occurred within two years of the first one, so the $24,000 penalty cannot be adjusted even if a good faith compliance effort is demonstrated, Knight said. However, the company can appeal the citation within 30 days to an administrative law judge, Knight said.

'We have not heard from them since the [Oct. 20] citation was issued,' Knight said.

James did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages on Thursday seeking comment. Before the new law took effect, James said at a local meeting of concerned businessmen that about 90 percent of his labor force is Hispanic. Many of the company's 150 or so workers were long-time employees who would not be affected by the new law because it applied only to new hires. However, James emphasized that the new law would have an immediate impact on his labor pool. 'Sixty percent of all applicants will be denied [employment] instantly because they will be illegal,' James said.

He made his comments last December in a presentation about the Illegal Immigration Reform Act at Trident Technical College's Complex for Economic Development.

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11.
Italians, not Texans, building signature Dallas bridge
By Byron Harris
The WFAA News (Dallas), November 5, 2009
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa091105_wz_calatrava.2881028d3.html

Dallas -- Seventy million dollars worth of federal, state and city funds are pouring into the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava.

Supporters hope the span will be a signature for the city. But it may be remembered for something else, because the key jobs in its construction -- tens of thousands of man hours of work — are going to Italians.

On the construction site in the Trinity River bottoms, an American inspector told News 8: 'If you don't speak Italian, it's going to be tough to communicate.'

In broken English, a man who appeared to be a foreman, told me all the welders and helpers on the project — eleven in all — are from Italy.

The Texas Department of Transportation is buying the bridge. The steel comes from Italian company Cimolai. Cimolai imported the workers to build the span without giving Texans a chance at the jobs, which would have been required under H-2B visas, the kind specified for construction jobs.

When asked what kind of visas he and his colleagues had, the foreman in charge of the project said they had 'visa for work (sic).'

Documents show the eleven men came in not as construction workers but 'business visitors' on B-1 visas.

State Department rules do allow commercial or industrial workers to enter the U.S. under B-1 visas. They are permitted to enter the U.S. to 'install, service, or repair commercial or industrial equipment or machinery.'

The rules specifically exclude construction such as bridge-building.

TxDOT spokeswoman Cynthia Northrup White said her agency inquired about the legality of the visas 'months ago' and found no problem.

The document Northrup White uses to defend the agency's position is an October 5 letter from Houston immigration attorney Beatriz Trillos Ballerini. The letter is not addressed to TxDOT, but rather to the Italian firm Cimolai, which presumably paid for her opinion.

Ballerini said the B-1 visas are 'in full accordance with the federal regulations and the Foreign Affairs Manual.' Ballerini cites section 9FAM 41.31N10.1 of the Foreign Affairs Manual, which lets workers use B-1 visas to 'install equipment purchased from a company outside the United States.'

She does not mention the part of the regulations that say the visas are not to be used for construction.

Ballerini did not return News 8's phone calls seeking clarification of her analysis.

Immigration lawyers commonly find parts of the law that fit their clients' needs to justify importing workers, while excluding parts of the law that do not.

An exhaustive News 8 investigation of aircraft mechanics found repair firms importing foreign mechanics as 'scientific technicians' and 'aircraft repair engineers' to fit certain sections of immigration law, when what the workers were really doing was fixing airplanes.

So it is with the Calatrava bridge.

Immigration lawyer Ballerini writes that 'only highly-trained individuals screened for this project possess the specialized knowledge of Cimolai S.p.A distinctive on-site installation technique, including preparation, unique welding procedures, assembly and appropriate lifting.'

This is news to Williams Brothers Construction Company, the general contractor for the bridge.

We asked company spokesman Bill Miller if Italian welders are any different than American welders. 'Presumably no,' he chuckled. 'Nothing that I can name.'

TxDOT officials admit that the Italian workers actually welded the wrong ends of two sections of the bridge together.

'They turned one of the boxes [a massive piece of support steel on the bottom of the structure] around the wrong way,' TxDOT inspector Stan Ybarra told News 8. 'That happens. They’re only human.'

All of this, however, is no joke for unemployed welders in North Texas, who might have been working on Dallas' signature bridge.

'We feel like we have American citizens being cheated out of work -- not only from the bridge, but all over by these visas,' said Steve Anthony of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers. He says he could put 50 welders to work today.

Although the bridge is a signature project for Dallas, Mayor Tom Leppert said the lost jobs are not the city's problem. 'That one's being run by TxDOT, so TxDOT's going to have to be the one to do the fact check, the analysis, all of those sorts of things; they're going to have to be approached.'

Everyone involved in this project points the finger at someone else.

The U.S. consulate in Milan, Italy approved the visas to 'install' the bridge.

TxDOT — citing Ballerini's letter to someone else — says it is the responsibility of the general contractor to make sure the law is followed.

Williams Brothers Construction passes the buck to Cimolai.

Cimolai doesn't speak English.

And the jobless Texas welders trying to find a way to put dinner on the table tonight don't have anyone to plead their case.

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12.
Mesa nails down deal for ICE police training
By Gary Nelson
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), November 6, 2009
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/11/06/20091106mr-287g1107.html

Three years after first considering the idea, Mesa finally has nailed down an agreement to get federal immigration-enforcement training for some of its police officers.

The City Council approved the deal with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week, but not before a local immigration lawyer raised concerns that allowed city leaders to reiterate their commitment both to law enforcement and to civil rights.

Mark Egan, who practices in Mesa, asked for the item to be removed from the council's single-vote consent agenda so he could address the issue during Monday's meeting.

On one level, he said, he benefits personally when immigration law becomes more complex.

'The more the laws don't work, the more work there is for lawyers like me,' he said.

But he said he was concerned that if Mesa officers get the so-called 287(g) training, the city could institute crime-suppression 'sweeps' like those employed by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.

That, he said, would be bad for actual law enforcement.

'The purpose of the Mesa police is to make the city safer, to reduce crime, to find the dangerous criminals who are out there hurting people and making our city unsafe for everybody,' he said. 'The 287(g) agreement does not accomplish the goal of making people safer. It may accomplish the goal of catching illegal immigrants, some of whom may be dangerous criminals just like any large population will have dangerous criminals. But overall, rounding up illegals is not necessarily going to reduce crime.'

Egan pointed out that crime has gone down in Mesa without its police engaging in 'sweeps.'

On the other hand, he said, the sheriff's highly publicized operations have been ineffective in catching violent criminals.

Vice Mayor Kyle Jones, who was on the council in 2006 when the 287(g) training was first proposed, said Mesa has no intention of using the training to round up people on the streets. Rather, it will show detention officers how to use federal databases to identify illegal immigrants who have been arrested for other crimes.

'What we're doing is not giving authority to on-the-street beat officers,' he said.

Mayor Scott Smith said the agreement will keep criminal illegal immigrants from falling through cracks in the system. That's because once they have been tried, convicted and have served time for the offenses for which they were arrested, ICE will take over the case.

Smith referred to several cases where illegal immigrants have been arrested for offenses such as DUI and have stayed on the streets because police and ICE didn't work closely together to determine their immigration status. In some cases, those offenders have caused fatal accidents or committed other serious crimes.

Smith said the ICE deal reinforces the immigration policy he put in place shortly after taking office in mid-2008.

Under that policy, Mesa police will not stop people merely for being illegal immigrants, which is a civil violation. But everyone arrested in the city is asked about their immigration status, and now, Smith said, Mesa police will have a new tool to actually verify whether someone is here legally.

'I feel very comfortable with the way we're using this,' Smith said. 'I feel it's consistent with what we want to do, which is to protect our citizens from crime in a way that also protects us in our rights that we have as Americans - rights that are God-given and that are defined in our Constitution.'

That placated Egan only to a degree.

'I can only hope this doesn't become a Pandora's box, (if) another city council down the line doesn't have the right perspective,' he said.

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13.
A foreign concept
At Gaithersburg High School, most teams struggle to attract diverse rosters
By Preston Williams
The Washington Post, November 6, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110502877.html

Gaithersburg Mayor Sidney A. Katz, a 1968 Gaithersburg High School graduate, has a saying about his home town, where his family has operated a clothing store since 1918.

'When I was growing up, the kids in my class came to the fair to show their cattle,' said Katz, who lived near the Montgomery County Fairgrounds. 'Now we have to take our kids to the fair to show them what cattle look like. It's a very different world.'

Once a rural outpost known for dairy farms, Gaithersburg has grown from a countrified enclave into a multiethnic hub, particularly in the past 20 years, with Holstein talk long ago displaced by such topics as development, immigration and a day-laborer center.

Gaithersburg High, which draws students from inside and outside the community, has evolved with the city, as have so many schools in diverse pockets of the Washington area. But with the exception of soccer, team rosters -- dotted with names such as Cortez and Kpadehyea and Washirapunya and Gwashavanhu -- are not as reflective of the school's demographic shifts, because fewer foreign-rooted students try out for athletics. The lack of participation, administrators say, is attributed to an unfamiliarity with sports that American students have grown up playing.

Although the school plays in the Maryland 4A classification, the largest, the lack of involvement by foreign-born and first-generation American students makes it more of a 3A school in terms of willing bodies, one Gaithersburg coach said. The challenge, athletic officials said, is to convince those students and their families that high school sports can enhance their education and socialization.

One-third of Gaithersburg's 2,000-student enrollment is Hispanic, a group that made up 5 percent of the school population 20 years ago. The school's 26.8 percent black population includes students from 14 African nations. An additional 10.4 percent is Asian.

'You don't have to leave Gaithersburg to go to another country, basically,' said Gaithersburg track coach Fran Parry, who has worked at the school since 1980.

Between 7 and 8 percent of Hispanic boys and 5 to 7 percent of Hispanic girls are projected to play winter and spring sports, according to school athletic administrators. Assistant athletic director Nate Parry, Fran's son, is a 2002 Gaithersburg graduate and also an assistant cross-country coach. He refers to the dearth of sports participation among Hispanics and other groups as 'a cultural disconnect.'

It's a divide that the school is trying to bridge -- and will be for years to come. Three of the elementary schools that feed into Gaithersburg have Hispanic enrollments of between 47 and 61 percent.

Demographic change

These are different circumstances than those encountered by John Harvill during most of his 43 years as football coach at Gaithersburg. Harvill, who has lived within walking distance of the school for more than 50 years, recalls the days when his athletes would have to go home early to milk cows.

King Farm, a former dairy farm in Rockville about 2 1/2 miles from the Gaithersburg campus, is now a 430-acre community of single-family houses, condominiums and apartments not far from the Shady Grove Metro stop. The development shares real estate with barns and silos that remain.

'They do [still] have a couple of farm boys,' Harvill, 84, said of the Gaithersburg High population, 'but I don't know what they're farming.'

Over the years, the Gaithersburg area became a destination for foreign families in part because of its abundance of affordable housing and rental properties, said Bruce Crispell, director of the division of long-range planning for Montgomery County schools.

That demographic change, of families moving in with no ties to the American high school sports culture, has been felt on the Gaithersburg sports teams. School officials and coaches say that many foreign-rooted families view high school athletics as an unnecessary distraction from studying, working or looking after younger siblings. Most families come to the United States for its educational opportunities and jobs, not to play sports.

'The biggest obstacle that we have to overcome is that a lot of our students have to work, because they also are a major provider of the family,' said Gaithersburg Athletic Director Jason Woodward, a 1991 graduate of the school and the Trojans' former baseball coach. 'It's their culture. A lot of times we don't hold Saturday practices, like in boys' and girls' soccer, because the majority of the team is working.'

Students have been known to show up for introductory football meetings expecting information for soccer, not American football. Notes from parents are sometimes written in Spanish, baffling some coaches. Instead of returning mandatory physical forms, a parent might write a letter declaring that his child is healthy.

There have been four-man Gaithersburg relay teams with runners from four different countries. Field hockey coach Don Dillingham, fearful of a dehydration risk, was relieved when the parents of two Muslim girls did not allow them to fast during Ramadan.

Boys' basketball coach Kevin Parrish has seen students show up for tryouts in jeans, unaware of what constitutes proper athletic gear, and unfamiliar with the dedication required to play on the school team.

'Kids try out, especially kids from other countries, and I don't think they really understand what high school sports are all about,' Parrish said. 'They come the first day and think it's [about] having a good time and don't expect the running and the drills and the organization. For some of the kids, that is a shock.'

What's 'homecoming'?

Gaithersburg students can learn about their classmates' native countries at the school's annual International Night. But learning about American high school sports culture is done more by word of mouth and observation, whether it be a pep rally or some other flourish considered routine in the United States.

Sophomore Simba Gwashavanhu, whose family emigrated from Zimbabwe about five years ago, is on the Trojans' football team. He said the only sports he knew when he got here were rugby, basketball and soccer.

Gwashavanhu was a youth football player with the Montgomery Village Chiefs when he first heard the term 'homecoming.' He investigated.

'I asked many people,' said Gwashavanhu, who also was surprised at the number of school dances in his new country. 'Some gave me vague answers, like, 'It's a big game,' and that's it. So I had to go around and ask other people.'

Gaithersburg's homecoming game is Friday night against Bethesda-Chevy Chase.

Sophomore football player Larry Kpadehyea, who moved here from Liberia, was stunned last year when he attended his first Gaithersburg varsity football game, at the stadium named for Harvill.

'When I got to the school that night, I just saw a whole bunch of crowds and just thought, 'Wow, this must be a big deal,' ' Kpadehyea said. 'I thought it would just be the football players and players from the other team and some students coming. There was a whole bunch of parents and other people from other places. I thought, 'Whoa, this is a big game.' '

Nate Parry is trying to attract more foreign students out for cross-country and track by sending information home in the parents' native language. Last spring, he identified Gaithersburg students from 14 African countries -- Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

The home mailings can help, but many families have other priorities. To appeal to parents new to American high school sports, student-athletes themselves have been effective at making the case for them.

Senior running back Axel Ofori, whose family is from Ghana, last year talked relatives into letting his cousin go out for football, stressing to them the discipline that their son would learn. Ofori, who first played football in the eighth grade, has scholarship offers from Louisville and other schools.

'They didn't really know the game,' Ofori said. 'They just knew that people hit each other and get hurt.'

'Most of the time when they find out that their son has a chance to get a free education for college,' said junior football player Sylvester Oni, whose parents are from Nigeria, 'they'll let them do it.'

In another example of how sports and diversity converge at the school, students in the English for Speakers of Other Languages program are phased into PE classes before any other. There are 241 ESOL students at Gaithersburg, from 43 countries.

'Trying something new'

Gaithersburg football coaches think that one high-profile academic and athletic success story among Hispanic athletes could encourage other Hispanics to try out for a sport.

Senior lineman Jonathan Cortez, whose parents are from Costa Rica and El Salvador, turned up in Fran Parry's physical education class three years ago. Parry sized up the 'man mountain,' and later that day escorted him to Coach Kreg Kephart's office.

The 6-foot-4, 305-pound Cortez has developed into a lineman with possible college potential. Cortez said he did not play football as a freshman because he was 'scared and nervous.'

'Most Hispanics I know pretty much . . . feel intimidated,' Cortez said on the bleachers one day after practice. 'Or maybe they're just not familiar with the sports in America. I'm trying something new. I'm trying to bring more people to that same thing.'

Fran Parry, the 2009 All-Met Coach of the Year for boys' indoor track and field, believes those indecisive students are precisely the ones the coaches in all sports need to grab in the hallways, the earlier the better.

'The coaches think because a kid has an interest he's going to come out,' Fran Parry said. 'That doesn't exist. They have an interest, they're reluctant to come out. If you have a reluctant athlete, that's a coaching error on your part. If college coaches did that, they'd be poor; they wouldn't be working. You've got to go out and sell the program and all the benefits.'

'I really think sports serves as sort of a glue that brings the kids together,' said Kephart, a social studies teacher and 1973 Gaithersburg graduate, who has been part of the school's football program for the past 27 years and led the Trojans to the Maryland 4A title in 2000. 'It gives them a common point of interest.

'It's a generational thing,' Kephart said. 'Once the families are here for a generation or so, they have been Americanized. I think that's a little more entrenched on the West Coast than it is here.'

Senior lineman Jay Washirapunya, a 6-foot-4, 310-pounder whose parents are from Thailand, wishes he had gone out for football before his last year of high school. He felt stuck between continents. He would go to his temple, and see other Thai teens awash in their native culture. Why don't I have that? he wondered. But he has spent his entire life in this country. Fumbling for a cultural identity ate at him. He turned to sports.

'Ever since I was 10, I've been trying to get back to my roots, my original nationality,' Washirapunya said. 'I was like, man, I've got to go back to where I am -- America. So I might as well just play football. America is all I know.'

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14.
Immigrant rights groups protest Sheriff Arpaio visit
About 50 people greeted Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who stumped for sheriff candidate Bill Hunt in Anaheim.
By Cindy Carcamo
The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, CA), November 5, 2009
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/sheriff-county-hunt-2639786-rights-arpaio

Anaheim, CA -- They chanted, sang and even danced for 'America's Toughest Sheriff.'

A protest by immigrants rights groups from throughout Orange County and surrounding areas resembled more of a carnival atmosphere than a manifestation against an Arizona sheriff who thrust himself into the national spotlight for forcing inmates to live in tents and wear pink underwear.

Holding signs stating 'Immigration Reform Now' and 'Terrorist,' about 50 people protested a visit by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a polarizing anti-illegal immigration figure who showed Thursday to the Phoenix Club in Anaheim to stump for Orange County sheriff contender Bill Hunt.

Hunt, a former lieutenant who is making his second bid for office, is known for taking on former Sheriff Mike Carona, who now faces prison time on a witness-tampering conviction. He hopes to win the seat now held by Sheriff Sandra Hutchens.

Arpaio's department is under federal investigation on suspicion of racial profiling as well as improper stops and search and seizures. In addition, Immigration and Customs Enforcement cut their partnership with Arpaio to arrest people who are in the country illegally just based on their immigration status.

Individuals representing a variety of Southern California immigrant rights groups, such as Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and various local day laborer rights groups, joined a six-person contingent who had followed Arpaio from Maricopa County with the sole purpose of protesting his presence Thursday in Anaheim and Friday in San Diego.

Jovana Renteria of the Arizona immigrant rights group Puente Movement said she and a handful of others left Maricopa County early this morning to denounce him at the fundraiser.

'We don't want what's going on in Arizona to happen elsewhere,' said the 31-year-old who said she is a U.S. citizen speaking out for those who are in the country illegally.

Naui Huitzilopochtli, spokesman for day laborer rights organization Colectivo Tonantzin in Orange County, called Bill Hunt a hypocrite.

'Bill Hunt used to criticize Sheriff Mike Carona for being corrupt. Now he's inviting Sheriff Arpaio, who is being investigated by the FBI because he's going after his critics,' said the 31-year-old Santa Ana man, who says he is a U.S. citizen. 'I think that's hypocritical of Bill Hunt.'

Other protesters said they are worried Hunt will follow in Arpaio's footsteps.

'It's going to become Maricopa County,' said Gabriela Trujillo, a spokeswoman for Association of Orange County Day Laborers. 'It's just going to mean more racial profiling in our community and more separation of families.'

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'America's Toughest Sheriff' stumps for Hunt
Joe Arpaio comes from Arizona to support candidate.
By Tony Saavedra and Cindy Carcamo
The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, CA), November 5, 2009
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/arpaio-hunt-sheriff-2639829-arizona-county

Anaheim, CA -- Self-proclaimed 'America's Toughest Sheriff' Joe Arpaio of Arizona brought some unusual baggage Thursday to Orange County.

In town to bless the campaign of sheriff's candidate Bill Hunt, Arpaio was dogged by reports that he was being investigated by the FBI for engaging in vendettas against political enemies.

In the last Orange County election, Hunt ran against a sheriff who was under federal investigation, Mike Carona.

Now, Hunt was aligning himself with a sheriff under investigation.

Nobody at the Hunt fundraiser on Thursday at Anaheim's Phoenix Club appeared bothered that the main speaker, Sheriff Joe of Maricopa County, was being probed by the FBI on suspicion of abusing his authority.

Arpaio was greeted by the crowd of more than 200 people as a conquering hero. And Hunt was pronounced the next toughest sheriff.

'We're going to put (Hunt) in the chair,' gushed illegal immigration activist Barbara Coe, as she flung her arms around Arpaio.

Known for taking the frills out of his jail – things like salt and breakfast – Arpaio has so fiercely hunted down illegal immigrants in Arizona that federal authorities fear he is violating other laws in the process.

So be it, Arpaio told Hunt supporters.

The justice department 'is sending nine attorneys to come after me, to investigate my office because we're enforcing laws. It's sad. So, I kicked them out,' Arpaio said to cheers.

'When you're right … you should fight. And I think Bill personifies that,' Arpaio said.

A group of about 50 protesters greeted Arpaio as he made his way into the fundraiser.

Jovana Renteria of the Arizona immigrant rights group Puente Movement said she and a handful of others left Maricopa County early Thursday morning just to show up to the Anaheim event.

'We don't want what's going on in Arizona to happen elsewhere,' said the 31-year-old who says she is a U.S. citizen speaking out for those who are in the country illegally.

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15.
Booklet outlines city's immigration past
By Mark Curnutte
The Enquirer (Cincinnati, OH), November 5, 2009
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20091105/NEWS01/911060349/-1/TODAY/Booklet+outlines+city+s+immigration+past

Reports of teasing and harassment of Hispanic students in suburban schools led the Hispanic Chamber Cincinnati USA to defend all immigrant groups - not just themselves, the latest to arrive in significant numbers.

The chamber, in conjunction with more than two dozen sponsors, will introduce its educational book - 'Cincinnati: A City of Immigrants, Struggling toward Acceptance and Equality' - on Friday to a small group of supporters at the chamber office in Norwood.

The goal is to get the first 15,000 copies into the hands of junior high school students to educate them about the six major groups of immigrants who came to Cincinnati beginning in the 1830s.

Hispanics, the most recent wave to arrive in Cincinnati, are the target of derision.

Indian and Pakistani children are teased because their complexion is similar to that of some Hispanics. A window at a Mason business recently read, 'For service speak English.' Signs in Butler County read, 'Illegal Aliens Here.' An advertising campaign for radio station WLW-AM once proclaimed it as 'The Big Juan,' complete with a photo of a Mexican man with an exaggerated mustache and a donkey off to the side.

'We wrote letters to 530 school principals in this region,' said Alfonso Cornejo, president of the Hispanic Chamber. 'We said, `This is happening to Hispanic youth.' We received seven letters in return, saying, `thank you for letting us know.''

Other immigrant groups featured in the 24-page book are, in order, German, Irish, African-American, Jewish and Appalachian. They were chosen on two criteria: they came in large numbers, compared to the overall population, and they caused outrage from some community segments.

The book is designed for easy reading. There is a two-page immigration timeline.

Another two-page grid quickly explains what drew each group to Cincinnati, its contributions, stereotypes it faced in Cincinnati and how discrimination and prejudice were expressed.

'You don't need a teacher to teach this, but it will be more effective if it used in a classroom,' Cornejo said.

Cincinnati Public Schools is supportive of the book. Book promoters will meet soon with Sycamore Community Schools.

Bridges for a Just Community and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center are educational partners with the chamber. Scripps Howard Foundation and Cincinnati State Community and Technical College are the printing sponsors. Duke Energy will develop a Web site with the book's contents and allow it to be expanded to include other immigrant groups. Cornejo declined to say how much the project cost.

Cincinnati historian Dan Hurley and Cincinnati Museum Center staff reviewed the content for accuracy.

'We want children to take it less personally,' Cornejo said of anti-immigrant sentiment. 'Every group has experienced it. Our hope is the program will encourage young people and others to examine their own immigrant roots - from goetta to guacamole and everything in between - to feel a greater sense of acceptance for all immigrants.'

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16.
Denver immigrant asylum center latest to close
The Associated Press, November 5, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iX32KxAp9ghuIk2XIqLxM2GUtIlQD9BPPTEG1

Denver (AP) -- A Denver center that offered counseling and legal help to immigrants who sought asylum after they were tortured in their home countries has closed after losing its federal grant.

The Rocky Mountain Survivors Center closed last month.

About 50,000 people seek asylum in the U.S. each year. Torture-survivor programs in other cities including Atlanta and Detroit are struggling to stay open after federal funding cuts. A center in Philadelphia has closed.

Annual reports show about 250 people received help in Denver each year. The Denver center received nearly $4.2 million in federal grants over eight years. The Denver Post reports that the money wasn't renewed this year, and board members couldn't find enough private funding.

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17.
Conference addresses changing nature of immigration
By Nehal Patel
The Daily Texan (Univ. of Texas, Austin), November 6, 2009
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/state-local/conference-addresses-changing-nature-of-immigration-1.2054746

In an 'era of restriction' when immigration policies of countries around the world are becoming more strict, dramatic changes can be seen in rates of return migration, according to UT sociology professor Bryan Roberts.

'The migration system from U.S. to Mexico is a good example,' Roberts said. 'A decade ago, approximately 80 percent of migrants to the U.S. came back to Mexico, but now the rate has reversed and only 20 percent of migrants come back.'

Roberts spoke at 'Migration During an Era of Restriction,' a three-day conference on campus from Nov. 4-6 that features scholars and legal experts from the U.S., France, Germany, Spain, Peru, Russia, Turkey and Mexico.

Speakers participated in panels and focused on topics such as changing immigration policies, border control, remittances and legal and human rights issues affecting migrants.

'It is generally agreed upon by scholars that the major reason to migrate abroad is to send remittances back to families in the origin country,' said Teófilo Altamirano, an anthropology professor from Lima, Peru.

In 2005, the amount of migrant remittances in Peru reached $2.47 billion, according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank, Altamirano said. This was the second most important source of income in Peru after the export of materials.

Remittances may provide economic stability but do not necessarily ensure development in the country, especially because most migrants are young to middle-aged men and women from the working class, said UT geography professor Rebecca Torres.

Torres studied neoliberalism in Mexico, focusing on agricultural policies enacted in the country that have shifted resource distribution from small farms to larger ones and resulted in mass migration to large, urban Mexican cities and the U.S.

'The theme of hardship and struggle has been expressed to me many times by migrant families, especially women,' Torres said. 'With the increased militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border, migration has weakened family ties.'

Based on Torres’ research in Veracruz, families headed by females because of males migrating to find work were significantly poorer than male-headed households. More than 50 percent of female-headed households depend on remittances, while only 27 percent of male-headed households do.

'Most people do not realize that migration and development are highly gendered processes,' Torres said.

Migration can also increase the flow of skills from one country to another, said Jacqueline Hagan, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

'Acquiring American entrepreneurship skills was expressed repeatedly by the migrants from Mexico that I interviewed as a reason to go to the U.S.,' Hagan said.

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18.
New England’s 7th Spanish-language paper begins publishing
By Johnny Diaz
The Boston Globe, November 6, 2009
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/11/06/new_englands_7th_spanish_language_paper_begins_publishing/

At a time when the recession is battering newspapers, a group of Latino journalists in Massachusetts has launched New England’s seventh Spanish-language weekly newspaper.

El Tiempo de Boston, or The Boston Times, began publishing last week as a free paper that focuses on communities with large Latino populations. Coverage also includes local immigration, financial consumer stories, and articles about Colombia, Puerto Rico, and Cuba.

'We saw that there was little coverage and information in other media and we wanted to respond to the needs of the Latino community,’’ said Maximo Torres, 60, founding director of the paper, a native of Peru where he was a journalism professor, and former city editor of Boston’s oldest Spanish-language paper, El Mundo.

But El Tiempo de Boston, which draws its revenue from advertising alone, is starting up at a time when many papers are scaling back as the weak economy exacerbates an ad slump. Advertising overall is down 28 percent for newspapers for the first half of the year, according to the Newspaper Association of America. And a new study of multicultural advertising found that national ad spending for Spanish-language media declined about 6 percent from July 2008 to July 2009, according to the Nielsen Co.

There’s already a crowd of Spanish-language papers in the region - all weeklies. They include El Mundo (The World) in Jamaica Plain; La Semana (The Week) and El Planeta (The Planet) in Boston; Siglo21 (21st Century) in Lawrence; Vocero Hispano (The Hispanic Voice) in Worcester; and Providence en Español (Providence in Spanish) in Providence.

'It seems to me that the present weeklies have enough challenges in terms of distribution and advertising that you wouldn’t want to put one more into the mix,’’ said June Carolyn Erlick, publications director at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.

But smaller papers sometimes are better positioned to survive a recession because their niche audiences attract firms that can’t afford ads in bigger dailies, some media observers say.

And the region’s Hispanic population is growing: New England is home to 900,000 Hispanics, including 437,000 in Massachusetts, according to the 2000 Census. Local leaders and media consultants expect those numbers - and the potential growth in advertising - to rise with the 2010 Census. 'I am not sure that the voices around diversity or multicultural marketing are being heard where they need to be heard in terms of media buying decisions,’’ said Greg Almieda, president of Global View Communications, a multicultural marketing agency in Providence.

Competitors question whether the new weekly can survive at a time when advertisers are pulling back.

El Planeta, launched in 2004, has the largest circulation of any local Spanish-language publication with 50,000 copies. Marcela Garcia, editor of El Planeta, which was bought last year by Phoenix Media/Communications Group, said it helps to be owned by a larger media firm, but the paper has not seen ad growth in the past year. 'Flat is the new up nowadays,’’ she said.

Victor Cuenca, publisher of Providence en Espanol, said a decrease in local advertising this year has been offset by a 5 percent increase in national advertising from big marketers. 'They know and realize that we are the only vehicle [in Rhode Island] to reach the Latino community,’’ said Cuenca of his 10-year-old weekly that has a circulation of 25,000 copies.

Alberto Vasallo III, publisher of El Mundo, said his paper, which has circulation of 30,000 copies, has shed about 15 percent in advertising since last year. 'Is the pie big enough for another Spanish language paper? It may be a challenge,’’ said Vasallo, who added that he has offset the recent ad losses by generating revenue by organizing community events such as the annual Latino Festival at Fenway Park, which drew 8,000 people last August.

Siglo21, which in September 2008 expanded from a weekly to become New England’s first Spanish-language daily, in January reverted back to a weekly as ads began to fade. Publisher Victor Manuel Gonzalez Lemus has expanded the paper, which has a circulation of 25,000 copies, by adding a separate monthly guide in Spanish for Boston and Merrimack Valley readers looking for more health, financial, and immigration news.

For Torres and his 12 contributors, writing, editing, and handling ad sales for El Tiempo is a labor of love: They work as unpaid volunteers out of their homes and offices. Each invested money for a total of $5,000, which helped pay initial printing costs of about $3,500. Torres said ads, which sell for $300 for a quarter of a page up to $1,200 for a full page, are now covering the printing costs for upcoming issues.

'It wasn’t the best moment to come out in light of the current economy, but it was the best time for this community to have another option,’’ said Torres, who hopes eventually the paper will generate enough revenue to pay contributors.

The first issue of the paper, which is currently printing 20,000 copies per issue, had articles on Boston’s mayoral elections and the potential impact of the Latino vote. The second issue, out this week and thick with ads, has a story about a Dominican immigrant who died after falling ill at the Suffolk County House of Correction.

'The articles are very in-depth,’’ said John Jairo Munara, a hair stylist in East Boston who read the paper.

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19.
Iraq war veteran's wife spared deportation
Frances Barrios, who was brought to the U.S. illegally as a child, receives humanitarian parole and can stay in Los Angeles and apply for a green card. Her husband suffers from post-traumatic stress.
By Teresa Watanabe
The Los Angeles Times, November 6, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immig6-2009nov06,0,6719071.story

The U.S. government has cleared a pathway to citizenship for the illegal immigrant wife of an Iraq war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress, the family's attorney said Thursday.

Army Spc. Jack Barrios, a 26-year-old Los Angeles native who still experiences nightmares and depression after a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq, had faced the collapse of his family after his wife, Frances, was placed in removal proceedings. Frances, a 23-year-old Guatemala native, was illegally brought to the United States at age 6 by her mother but grew up in Van Nuys, where the couple live with their two young children.

But the uncertainty ended Thursday when family attorney Jessica Dominguez delivered the good news: U.S. immigration officials have extended humanitarian parole to Frances, allowing her to stay here and apply for a green card. Normally, illegal immigrants are required to leave the country for 10 years before they can apply for legal entry, even if they are married to U.S. citizens.

When she was informed of the news, Frances' eyes filled with tears as she slumped onto her husband's shoulder.

'Oh, my, God, thank you so much,' she said.

Her attorney smiled and said: 'You get to stay here to take care of Jack and your children.'

Chris Bentley, a press secretary with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agency was sympathetic and had worked with the family to find a 'reasonable remedy.'

The Barrioses' plight had attracted national attention as an example of the immigration problems suffered by hundreds of U.S. soldiers.

Jack Barrios said his wife was the family's anchor, caring for his 1-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son while he worked 15-hour days at two jobs, and helping him battle his post-traumatic stress.

'She's my everything,' he told The Times last month.

On Thursday, he was all smiles. 'I feel joy. We're going back to a normal life,' he said.

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20.
Dexter couple continues immigration battle
By Zakk Gammon
The KFVS News (Cape Girardeau, MO), November 5, 2009
http://www.kfvs12.com/Global/story.asp?S=11453746

Dexter, MO -- A couple facing separation because immigration issues is getting a second chance. Tom and Cherry Brown got married earlier this year.

Cherry is from the Philippines, so she applied for a work Visa and permanent citizenship. Heartland News spoke with the couple in September, just days after Cherry got a letter in the mail saying her application for the Visa and citizenship had been denied. It stated she had 30 days to leave the United States.

The letter said there was no chance for an appeal, but with the help of local government the couple says they were able to get the case reopened.

The couple also tells Heartland News Representative Jo Ann Emerson's office is working with the couple on this case. There's no word on when this case will be settled, but Cherry will be allowed to stay in the country until a decision is made.

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21.
Uninsured Illegal Immigrant Drivers
By Emily Sinovic
The FOX23 News (Tulsa, OK), November 6, 2009
http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Uninsured-Illegal-Immigrant-Drivers/MrII2m6qAEGSeFP-2gU1Aw.cspx

Illegal immigrants are driving without insurance, and it could cost you thousands of dollars. A Sapulpa mother was driving two children in the backseat, when another car slammed into her car, totalling her car. The other driver was an illegal immigrant. He didn't have insurance, he was drunk, and he had done this before.

Paige Harp had her car for only three weeks before the accident. She had already started planning the new life she have with the ability to apply for jobs and drive to work.

Harp said, 'I was so excited the first week I had my car. I probably filled out 20 applications to different places. I got a call right after the wreck for my first job interview.'

Paige is stuck with a bill for more than $1,500 that she doesn't have. She had insurance, but her insurance did not cover the uninsured motorists.

The man who hit her was an illegal immigrant, driving drunk without insurance.

Sapulpa Police Officer Todd Lawrence was at the scene of Paige Harp's accident. Lawrence said he recognized the illegal immigrant. Lawrence said he arrested the same man earlier this year. Officer Lawrence said, 'I had worked a collision involving him back in January and it was a hit and run collision. He had been drinking then. He had also been arrested for DUI on that particular occasion.'

The same illegal immigrant had given Officer Lawrence different names at each arrest. Officer Lawrence said he quickly realized this man was the same person he arrested for a DUI before. Lawrence went back and realized the same man had given different names during a number of other arrests dating back to 2005.

Lawrence said, had he not recognized the man as being the same person who he previously arrested, the illegal immigrant may not have been charged with a felony because it would have been a first time offense.

Lawrence said, 'Depending on what name he had given that time, he would not have been charged with a felony DUI probably would have been a misdemeanor and probably went to the same city jail.'

The seriousness of the charge makes a difference when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement decides who to deport.

Officer Lawrence said every time Sapulpa PD arrests someone believed to be an illegal immigrant, the police department reports that person to ICE. ICE then decides whether to deport that person.

Lawrence said ICE was notified in January when Lawrence arrested the illegal immigrant for DUI and leaving the scene of an accident. The illegal immigrant was not deported.

When Officer Lawrence was asked if he assumed the illegal immigrant would have been deported after the first DUI arrest, Lawrence responded, 'I had hoped and didn't really assume. The system sometimes works and sometimes does not. We did our part by notifying ICE which is customs and immigration. They did not put a hold on him. He was able to plead guilty, pay his bond and was released.'

A spokesperson for ICE told FOX23, 'If ICE has resources to deport [illegal immigrants] then ICE will deport them. ICE will prioritize resources to go after more serious offenders.'

ICE said it did not have record of notification from Sapulpa PD after the January, but said the illegal immigrant is in the process of being deported now.

Paige Harp says that is something that should have been done much sooner.

Harp said, 'I don't understand it at all. He should've been gone before this.'
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22.
Guilty plea in fatal NY stabbing of immigrant
By Frank Eltman
The Associated Press, November 5, 2009
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyOq7mhNW2WjpPOWuAd607cd0xxgD9BPKHTO2

Riverhead, NY (AP) -- A man who agreed to testify against his friends in a fatal gang attack on an Ecuadorean immigrant pleaded guilty Thursday to hate crime charges, telling a judge he knew from the start they wouldn't 'get away with it.'

'Throw away the knife,' Nicholas Hausch says he pleaded with Jeffrey Conroy as they and five others ran from the scene.

Conroy insisted he had washed the blood off the weapon in a puddle, Hausch said, but he doubted they could fool authorities so easily — he had watched too many 'Law and Order' episodes to believe that.

'I said, 'We're not going to get away with it,'' Hausch told the judge.

Hausch, 18, pleaded guilty to four counts to settle a nine-count indictment, including conspiracy, gang assault, assault as a hate crime and attempted assault as a hate crime in the Nov. 8, 2008, killing of Marcelo Lucero.

The case has focused attention on a decade-long animosity between the largely white population that settled on Long Island after World War II and a growing influx of Hispanics, many from Central and South America suspected of illegally entering the United States.

He has agreed to testify in upcoming trials against the six others; the district attorney will then make a sentencing recommendation, but Hausch still could face a minimum of five years in prison.

The U.S. Justice Department announced in October that it has launched an investigation into hate crimes on eastern Long Island, focused particularly on police response. That followed a September report by the Southern Poverty Law Center that revealed 'a pervasive climate of fear in the Latino community' in Suffolk County.

Lucero, 37, was walking with a friend near the Patchogue train station at about midnight when they were confronted by the teenagers tooling around town allegedly looking for targets, a somewhat routine avocation for them, according to prosecutors.

His friend ran away, but prosecutors say the teens surrounded Lucero, who tried desperately to fight back, smacking one of his assailants with his belt.

Conroy, 18, is accused of plunging a knife into Lucero's chest before running away. Prosecutors say the other six were unaware of the stabbing until Conroy told them.

Conroy, the only one facing murder charges, and the other remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty. His attorney did not immediately return a telephone call for comment Thursday.

'Jeff told us he stabbed the guy,' Hausch explained before entering his plea. 'No one said, `way to go,' or anything like that. It was more like `you're an idiot.''

Although some of the teens discussed splitting up, according to Hausch, they remained together and were arrested a short time later, just blocks from where Lucero died.

'Nick has always accepted responsibility. He has enormous remorse,' defense attorney Jason Bassett said after Hausch entered the plea before state Supreme Court Justice Robert W. Doyle. 'Nick fell in with bigger guys, more popular guys and he wanted to impress them.'

Besides his role in the Lucero killing, Hausch also pleaded guilty to participating in earlier attacks on Hispanics in the Patchogue-Medford area of eastern Long Island. He admitted that on several occasions, he and a number of other teens had attacked Hispanics merely because of their ethnicity. The assaults included peppering the victim with anti-Hispanic slurs, Hausch said. In one case, Hausch and others shot a BB-gun at a Hispanic man, he said.

Joselo and Isabel Lucero, the victim's brother and sister, arrived in the courtroom during Hausch's appearance.

'It's really a big surprise right now,' Joselo Lucero said afterward. 'I think it's a really successful moment.'

Lucero said he was organizing a candlelight vigil Saturday night in Patchogue to mark the first anniversary of his brother's death. 'I'm just trying to have a peaceful event,' he said.

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23.
Judge gets cleric's case back
By Bruce Shipkowski
The Associated Press, November 6, 2009
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20091106_Judge_gets_cleric_s_case_back.html

Trenton (AP) -- The lengthy deportation case of an influential New Jersey Muslim leader has been sent back to an immigration judge for a rehearing.

In a 12-page ruling made public this week, the Board of Immigration Appeals rejected some arguments that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security made in the case against Imam Mohammad Qatanani, the 45-year-old spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County.

The panel, however, also challenged some of the reasoning that led to Judge Alberto J. Riefkohl's ruling in September 2008 granting permanent resident status to Qatanani. A Palestinian, Qatanani lives in Paterson with his wife and three of their U.S.-born children.

The panel recommended the judge further evaluate evidence - which he considered questionable and accorded 'very low evidentiary weight' - that DHS obtained from Israeli officials that the agency claimed proved Qatanani had been convicted of charges linking him to Hamas, classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. It also said Qatanani needed to prove he does not have links to the organization.

'It's important to note that they did not reverse the judge's decision, they just remanded part of the ruling,' Claudia Slovinsky, Qatanani's lawyer, said yesterday.

Harold Ort, a spokesman for the New Jersey office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to comment.

Qatanani came to New Jersey on a religious visa in 1996. But his 1999 bid for U.S. residency was rejected because immigration authorities say he failed to disclose on his green card application a 1993 arrest and conviction in Israel for being a member of Hamas. Qatanani has denied being a Hamas member.

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24.
Ex-Agriprocessors Exec Admits ‘Mistakes,’ Denies Guilt
By Jacqueline Palank
The Associated Press, November 6, 2009

As a federal jury prepares to consider his fate, former Agriprocessors executive Sholom Rubashkin admitted he 'made mistakes' in his management of the Iowa kosher meat plant that last year filed for bankruptcy. But he denied that he intentionally violated fraud and immigration laws, as he’s been charged with doing.
. . .
http://blogs.wsj.com/bankruptcy/2009/11/06/ex-agriprocessors-exec-admits-mistakes-denies-guilt/

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25.
Legal pursuit of Megahed ends
By Elaine Silvestrini
The Tampa Tribune (FL), November 6, 2009

Tampa, FL -- More than two years after he was arrested - and after two courts have since ruled in his favor - the federal government has dropped its legal pursuit of Youssef Megahed.

The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday that it will not appeal an immigration judge's decision not to deport Megahed. The judge ruled in August that the government failed to prove the University of South Florida student is a terrorist.
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http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/nov/06/na-legal-pursuit-of-megahed-ends/

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26.
Border Patrol agent charged in bribery and smuggling case
The Nogales International (AZ), November 6, 2009

A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been arrested on charges of taking bribes in exchange for providing information about sensor locations in the San Rafael Valley and Sonoita, as well as helping to smuggle narcotics from Patagonia
. . .
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2009/11/06/news/doc4af44dd976ebc989076716.txt

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Overseas News

Support the Center for Immigration Studies by donating on line here: http://cis.org/donate

ATTN Federal employees: The Center's Combined Federal Campaign number is 10298.

[For CISNEWS subscribers --

1. Canada: Costs of deportation could reach $500,000 per head (story, link)
2. Bahamas: Minister warns against illegal hiring
3. Bahamas: Poll suggests crackdown popular amongst citizens
4. Netherlands Antilles: Temporary visa draws much interest (story, link)
5. Ireland: Gov't improving measures against benefits scammers
6. Poland: Workers abroad generating nearly $50 bn a year
7. Germany: Cities work to integrate Russian Jewish communities
8. Hungary: Authorities work to police newest E.U. frontier (story, link)
9. Greece: Groups bemoan lack of voice at international summit
10. Turkey: Premier seeks dialogue on issue with Greece
11. Turkey: Six illegal entrants feared dead off Aegean coast
12. Italy: Northern League party defies European court on crucifixes (story, link)
13. Malta: Convention to address interests of Maltese expatriates
14. Israel: Police refute link between crime, Russian arrivals
15. Indonesia: Gov’t extends deadline on Sri Lankan asylum-seekers
16. Australia: Foreign student education industry in turmoil
17. Australia: Rescued seaborne illegals arrive at detention center (link)

Subscribe to CIS e-mail services here: http://cis.org/immigrationnews.html

-- Mark Krikorian]


1.
Cost of deporting someone from Canada could hit $500,000: immigration lawyer
By Ethan Baron
The Montreal Gazette (Canada), November 5, 2009
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada/Cost+deporting+someone+from+Canada+could+immigration+lawyer/2189955/story.html

Vancouver -- Almost 160,000 foreign nationals ordered deported remain in Canada, according to federal data obtained by a Vancouver immigration lawyer.

It can cost up to $500,000 to send a foreign citizen home if a chartered plane and police and medical escorts are necessary, according to the Canadian Border Services Agency. The average cost of removing someone without an escort is $1,500, while escorted removals average $15,000, the CBSA reports.

'This is the first time ever, to my knowledge, that we know the active-removal inventory in Canada,' says lawyer Richard Kurland, who received the numbers from the agency after an access to information request.

Warrants have been issued for the deportation of more than 41,000 people who have disappeared while enmeshed in the deportation process, according to the CBSA data.

Of nearly 18,000 foreigners in the final stage of deportation from Canada, two to nine per cent are criminals, Kurland says.

The remaining 100,000 are still in earlier stages, fighting the deportation orders. 'They’re clinging to the delay vine,' Kurland says. 'As long as their grip is good, they can remain in Canada for years.'

Some of those 100,000 have received stays of deportation orders in court, or have requested an assessment of the risk they’d face if returned home. Others have applied for permanent residency or refugee status.

The CBSA was not immediately available to comment.

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Immigrants lying low
By Tom Godfrey
The Edmonton Sun (Canada), November 6, 2009
http://www.edmontonsun.com/news/canada/2009/11/06/11655136-sun.html

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2.
Immigration minister issues stern warning
The Tribune (Bahamas), November 5, 2009
http://www.tribune242.com/news/11052009_branville_news_pg2

Minister of State for Immigration Branville McCartney used the FNM convention podium last night to issue a stern warning to Bahamians who employ foreigners without proper authorisation.

Speaking on the first night of the convention, McCartney delivered a fiery speech in which he defended the government's record on immigration and put those who break immigration laws on notice.

'We are bringing those who seek to profit from violating our immigration laws before our courts to answer charges,' he told the audience.

The minister acknowledged the hardships faced by many of those who risk their lives for better opportunities here, but said the Bahamas cannot sustain the current rate of illegal immigration - especially in such difficult economic times.

He said the government is determined to protect Bahamian workers and professionals from 'unfair competition' and is therefore refusing work permits to those who enter the country as visitors, or who have entered illegally.

He added: 'Those who hire non-Bahamian professionals without the proper authorisation should be on notice that this FNM government is stepping up its measures to put an end to such practices.'

According to Mr McCartney, the time has come when the Bahamas must 'make a choice' about its identity and the legacy it leaves for future generations.

'We do not have the luxury of sitting idly by as world events shift the climate around us and threaten to sweep us away in a global tide,' he said.

The minister noted that immigrants from around the region and beyond have played an important role in the development of the Bahamas, contributing to education, enriching culture, and broadening the economy.

He said: 'Like our great neighbour to the north, the strength of our economy has made our country a Mecca for people escaping less fortunate circumstances in other countries, both near and far.

'Many risk their lives in search of a share in the promise which our country represents; a promise of prosperity and stability; a promise of peace and of acceptance by a people who have accepted and assimilated generations of immigrants.'

Mr McCartney said that while the government welcomes immigrants who contribute to the expansion of the economy, many who seek to enter today are 'poorly equipped to assist in our further development' - often needing a great deal from the Bahamas in terms of health care, education and training.

'The cost is becoming exorbitant in terms of our limited financial resources. In tough economic times the burden is heavier. We no longer have the capacity to assimilate the ever-increasing numbers of illegal immigrants,' he said, noting that this year alone, more than 4,000 illegal immigrants have been repatriated after being apprehended in the country, at a cost of $1 million.

Mr McCartney went on to speak about the 'ugly underside' of illegal immigration - noting that many illegals are involved with cartels which run the regional drug and gun trades, while others are involved in human smuggling connected to the sex trade.

He said: 'These cartels deal with human life as if people are disposable livestock, strapping dangerous drugs or concealing small arms on vulnerable people, with the promise of free passage to a better life. Many never make it.

'We will never know the number of people that have met their demise attempting to make that passage. It is a cruel irony that some of the descendants of slaves who 300 years ago endured and survived the horrors of the Middle Passage between Africa and the Caribbean, today meet their end in waterlogged tombs like so many Africans did during the slave trade.

Noting that the majority of illegal immigrants come from Haiti, Mr McCartney said he believes it is important to 'hold no malice or prejudice' against the people of this country - 'Indeed, we might rightly admire the Haitian people who have fought gallantly for centuries to control their destiny, a people who were free when many of our ancestors were still enslaved.

'The Haitian people are our brothers and sisters. Our destinies have been linked by proximity, by trade, by family and by friendship,' he said.

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3.
Government efforts to combat illegal immigration backed in Tribune poll
The Tribune (Bahamas), November 6, 2009
http://www.tribune242.com/news/11052009_immigration_news_pg3

Tribune readers who voted in our latest online poll overwhelmingly supported the government's stepped-up efforts to combat illegal immigration.

The tribune242.com poll noted that government has been both criticised and applauded for having a tough stance on immigration during difficult economic times. It asked: 'Given the situation, do you think their approach is excessive or appropriate?'

Of the 205 people who voted, 180 agreed that the tough approach is appropriate, as 'illegal immigrants need to be removed from the country,' while only 25 felt it was excessive, as 'regardless of their status, these people deserve the right to a better life.'

According to one reader, Freddy, 'Human suffering is always a tragedy.'

'The plight of the poverty-stricken people of Haiti is no exception, and we all must have sympathy,' he said.

'Over the years, however, this plight has significantly overwhelmed our sovereignty as an independent nation. It has invaded and saturated our society, our communities and our social systems.

'Haitians overcrowd our schools, our social and health care system - as a matter of fact all our essential services. They saturate our local employment market, they squat on our lands, build unsanitary shanty towns, do not become in a significant way contributors to our revenue stream.

'They send a significant amount of this country's revenue out of this country. They contribute significantly to crime in this country . . . We have sat by for far to long.'

Marvin Bonaby said: 'The illegal immigration situation is a tough one. Tough situations/issues have to be dealt with in a tough manner.'

According to Conchy Joe: 'They may deserve a better way of life, but NOT by destroying the way of life of Bahamians.'

Stanley Jackson Sr added: 'The Bahamas government has failed Bahamians for decades. Haitians, Jamaicans, Africans and Chinese are overrunning the Bahamas while our politicians stand around making stupid speeches that only their wives enjoy. Haitians have raised their flags on their cars and homes in victory over conquest of the Bahamas. Let's remember, Haitians have been fighting for 300 to 400 years. Don't expect them to come here and suddenly stop. If we are not careful, Haitians will be in control of the Bahamas and we will be second-class citizens in our own country while the lawyer politicians and their families who have taken our money go to high ground behind gated communities.'

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4.
Only eighteen persons request Brooks Tower Accord permits
The Daily Herald (St. Maarten), November 6, 2009
http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/m147/brooksm147.html

Philipsburg -- Only eighteen undocumented immigrants were able to file requests for Brooks Tower Accord residence permits Tuesday.

More than 400 persons showed up that afternoon to request the one-year residence permit. The Central Government expects to either approve or reject the requests in two weeks.

Project coordinator Tiara Haselhoef said Wednesday that most of the persons who had seen workers at the Immigration and Naturalisation Department (IND) building 'just came for information.' Most of the persons left without entering the building Tuesday, because they didn’t have all the documents to make a request.

The Central Government requires all applicants to complete an application form for the Brooks Tower Accord residence permit, which grants legal residence until November 3, 2010, to each person who qualifies. Not every applicant will receive a residence permit.

If a person doesn’t receive a permit, he or she has until March 1, 2010, to leave.

Brooks Tower Accord (BTA) intake started Tuesday, November 3. Hundreds of persons in the Netherlands Antilles tried to request temporary permits at each of the headquarters in St. Maarten, Curaçao and Bonaire. The Central Government requires copies of the application form, passports, and documented proof that the applicant has lived in the Antilles since before 2006; i.e., paid bills, filed tax forms, land leases, and so on.

Everyone who requests a permit successfully receives a proof of application that protects him or her, at least temporarily, from being deported.

The six weeks of accepting, processing and responding to requests from November 3 to December 15 is costing NAf. 1.4 million (about US $780,000). The Central Government has printed thousands of flyers, pamphlets and brochures promoting the campaign and has launched Websites in four languages explaining the process.

The first day was hectic in St. Maarten, with hundreds of persons crammed into small spaces and fighting for the attention of guards who were scrutinising papers. Many of the 400 left because they didn’t have all the required documents. Only 170 persons were let in to talk with IND workers in the pre-screening phase.

The second day was simpler. Guards split the crowd into two lines – one with numbers in front of IND and one without numbers in the vacant building next door.

Both lines seemed to move faster yesterday.

Intense controls of undocumented immigrants living here will begin after February 28, 2010, because 'you have to give them a chance to appeal,' Haselhoef said.

Haselhoef said authorities had been requested to suspend all organised Immigration controls until after the BTA intake period had ended. Nevertheless, many are avoiding the intake, thinking it is a trap. 'The people are very scared to come here, because they think it’s a hoax and we are trying to pick them up,' Haselhoef said. '[Police] are not entitled to the controls in this period.'

The Central Government will either grant or reject each applicant’s permit after the request has been scrutinised twice. It’s not a one-time guarantee. 'We don’t want people to think that the moment we take it in that we are going to handle it,' Haselhoef said. 'It is not a guarantee. We are going through the papers … and then it will go to the advisors and they will look at it again.'

The first responses will be ready by November 17. Authorities expect everyone who receives the one-year permit to 'go check for your papers and try to get them processed.'

Thirty-three intake officers, pre-screening officials and advisors are working on each of the three islands for the BTA implementation, with workers here operating in two shifts.

Workers at the IND building will be accepting applications from 4:00pm to 10:00pm each weekday and from 8:00am to 10:00pm on Saturdays

+++

Optimism and tension mix as Brooks Tower Accord begins
By Duane Robin
The Daily Herald (St. Maarten), November 4, 2009
http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/m146/brooksm146.html

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5.
Asylum 'shoppers' deported over scam
By Tom Brady
The Irish Independent, November 5, 2009
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/asylum-shoppers--deported-over-scam-1934607.html

One-in-10 asylum seekers who arrived here this year have been deported to other EU member states because they were 'shopping' for benefits.

The extent of the racket was revealed last night after a week-long operation targeting the asylum 'shoppers' -- so-called because they shop around for better benefit deals between various EU countries.

The recent crackdown by the Garda National Immigration Bureau and the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service resulted in the arrest and deportation of 22 people, mainly Somalians, Albanians and Eritreans.

The majority of them were sent back to Britain, but others were flown to Belgium, France and Germany. All of them were found to have had a 'history' in other EU countries where they had either secured a visa, a permit or had lodged a previous asylum application.

Under EU regulations, asylum seekers must be accepted back by the countries where they first landed.

The deportation of the 'shoppers' has become a more regular feature of immigration policy as it is now easier to identify them through the introduction of more sophisticated fingerprinting procedures in the Eurodac system.

In the past, it took up to 10 days to identify a multiple applicant, but a 'shopper' can now be spotted within a few minutes.

All of them were sent back on scheduled flights to minimise the transport costs, but some were accompanied by gardai.

Transferred

The latest arrests mean that a total of 213 people have been transferred under the EU provisions this year -- almost 10pc of applicants.

Although 'shoppers' must be notified in advance that they are to be deported, the authorities have a strike rate of 67pc in locating and transferring the targets. The rest have gone missing.

This compares with a strike rate as low as 40pc in some other EU states.

Immigration authorities expect that the year-end total for asylum shoppers deported from here will at least reach last year's annual toll of 270.

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6.
Polish workers do well abroad
United Press International, November 6, 2009
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2009/11/06/Polish-workers-do-well-abroad/UPI-27681257529591/

Warsaw (UPI) -- Polish citizens who work abroad earned $49 billion in 2008 and sent one-sixth of the money to their families back home, a report shows.

The Polish financial firm Capital One Advisers says over the last five years Polish immigrants were paid $186 billion and transferred almost $31 billion of it to Poland, Polish radio reported Friday.

In Britain, highly skilled immigrant workers who speak English can count on similar wages to British workers, the report indicates.

The average Pole employed abroad earns about $1,930 a month, Capital One Advisers says. However, a report by the Polish financial and business Web site money.pl indicates even higher pay levels, saying most Polish immigrants earn about $2,969 a month and some are paid monthly wages of $4,454.

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7.
German city juggles challenges, benefits of Russian Jewish immigration
By Ben Harris
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 5, 2009
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/11/05/1008797/german-city-sees-successes-challenges-with-russian-jewish-immigration

Osnabruck, Germany -- When they sat down to eat, the 25 people gathered for Shabbat dinner at the temporary synagogue here on a recent Friday night segregated themselves along the spectrum of Jewish identity and experience.

At one end of a long table sat the old-timers, several of whom had been friends since childhood and could trace their family history in the area back more than a century.

Next came the Russian immigrants, mostly middle-aged couples who had arrived in Osnabruck, a city of 160,000 in the west German state of Lower Saxony, as part of the Russian Jewish influx that began with the fall of communism. At the table's far end sat the teenagers, children of the immigrants who were born in Osnabruck or had arrived here as small children.

A bottle of vodka appeared on the table and Michael Grunberg, the community's president, broke into a wide grin.

'We have had to learn some new traditions,' he said.

Grunberg has reason to be happy.

In the past two decades, Russian immigrants have increased the Jewish population of Osnabruck more than tenfold, breathing new life into what had been an aging, dwindling community and generating hope -- for the first time since World War II -- for a Jewish future here.

The influx permitted the community to hire its first rabbi in the mid-1990s. In January, it expects to open its newly renovated synagogue, enlarged to help accommodate the larger Jewish population. Some 30 children now study in the community's Hebrew school on Sundays.

'We are very happy that they came,' Lea Mor, Grunberg's sister-in-law and his deputy on Osnabruck's Jewish council, said of the Russian immigrants. 'Without them we would not have a community.'

It is a pattern that is evident across Germany, where some 90,000 Russian Jews have joined the German Jewish community over the past 20 years -- making the country, by many accounts, the fastest-growing Jewish community in the Diaspora. The immigration was spurred by a German law, now since restricted, that allowed substantial Jewish immigration from former Soviet republics.

Though the number of newcomers has fallen off dramatically in recent years, Russian immigrants still comprise some 80 percent of the country's Jewish population. In smaller communities such as Osnabruck, the figure exceeds 90 percent.

The Russian arrival has enabled an astonishing rejuvenation of Jewish life in Germany. Their numbers have breathed new life into defunct communities and led to the establishment of synagogues, schools and other community institutions.

But it also has brought particular challenges. Perhaps the biggest is how to integrate a culturally and linguistically distinct group that generally lacks Jewish knowledge and an understanding of democratic norms.

Grunberg, whose family has lived in Germany for two centuries, recalled how the Russians in Osnabruck could not understand why, in a country where Jewish communal officials often draw government salaries, he would choose to work for the community without pay. That led to suspicions of corruption.

Grunberg's wife, Ruth de Vries, recalled difficulties in planning community events. Preparing the appropriate amount of food was nearly impossible, since the Russians would pile their plates to overflowing. There were other cultural differences, she said.

'We thought they were arrogant, and they thought we were simple. It was a problem,' said Inessa Goldman, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia who works on Jewish-Christian relations in Osnabruck.

'With time they accepted us,' she said of the German Jewish community.

Other immigrants expected the veteran German Jewish community to provide cradle-to-grave support of the kind they were accustomed to back home in the former Soviet Union.

'They didn't understand that the synagogue can't give them these things,' said Tanja Tschernjawski Gutman, a Ukrainian immigrant who has lived in Osnabruck for nearly 17 years. 'The synagogue is just a religious community, not a social welfare agency.'

Those sorts of misunderstandings gave rise to all kinds of tension in the early years of the Russian immigration to Germany. Nearly 20 years since it began, political skirmishes continue to plague some communities, though the worst appears to be over.

Grunberg has held the community presidency in Osnabruck for 10 years. That’s the kind of control by veteran German Jews that majority Russian communities often resent, but in Osnabruck members of this mostly Russian immigrant community speak admiringly of Grunberg's leadership.

'The epoch of big fights for power and influence ended,' said Tanya Smolianitski, an educator who teaches in several Jewish communities in the western part of Germany and lives about an hour from Osnabruck. 'Those ‘troublemakers’ either already got the power they wanted or left the communities.'

Part of the improvement is because after 20 years, a homegrown generation that speaks fluent German yet understands the Russian mentality is emerging. In Osnabruck, the teenage youth leader speaks both languages. And according to Smolianitski, with more than half the Russian immigrant community over the age of 65, priorities are aligning with those of countless other Diaspora communities, shifting from integration to attracting young people to community life.

The generational shift is evident within families like the Tschernjawskis. Tanja's husband's parents came to Osnabruck seeking a better life and were never much interested in things Jewish, though they recently joined the community. Tanja herself was interested in Jewish life from the start but refuses to acknowledge the role her generation played in reviving Jewish life in Osnabruck, saying she was the one who was saved.

'I am not a hero,' she said.

Tanja's daughter, Karina, sees it differently. Karina studies at a yeshiva for girls in Berlin financed in part by the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, but she returns regularly to Osnabruck.

'My mom and a few of the other parents,' she said,' really saved the synagogue.'

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8.
Europe's new outer frontier Hungary battles illegal migrants
Deutsche Presse Agentur, November 4, 2009
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/features/article_1511397.php/Europe-s-new-outer-frontier-Hungary-battles-illegal-migrants

Roszke, Hungary (DPA) -- At dusk, Sergeant Levente Saja stands in the open countryside and scans the horizon through binoculars. A dirt road separates a field of maize from a wide expanse of scrub and grass.

'This corn makes our job a lot more difficult,' he says.

The cornfield is in Hungary, a member of the European Union and part of the Schengen Zone, which stretches west to Portugal and north to Scandinavia with no internal border checks or further passport scrutiny.

The other field is in war-scarred Serbia, which is not an EU member and where the Balkan ethnic conflicts of the 1990s left the economy and much of its infrastructure in ruins.

Serbia has become one of the main land routes into the European Union for those in search of a better life but lacking the documents to enter legally.

Day and night, men, women and children crawl, run, shuffle and crouch, inching their way across the fields towards Hungary. Saja and his colleagues in the Hungarian border police are tasked with stopping these illegal migrants.

'You never know when they might turn up,' he says.

The Hungary-Serbia border is just one more barrier on a very long journey. Many will have spent months travelling, often on foot, living in unimaginable conditions.

Saja recalls finding an Afghan man just inside the Hungarian border: 'He was lying in a field, exhausted, unconscious.'

After receiving medical treatment, the Afghan requested political asylum, making him the responsibility of the Interior Ministry's Office of Immigration and Nationality.

Most of those apprehended on the 'green border,' as it is known, are Roma, or gypsies, from Serbia, and Kosovo Albanians. Africans appear periodically and in recent months the number of Afghan refugees has noticeably increased, says border police officer Major Szabolcs Revesz.

'Hungary is still not a target country for illegal immigrants,' says Lieutenant Colonel Gabor Eberhardt in his office at police headquarters in the university town of Szeged, southern Hungary.

Last week, the EU border control agency Frontex said illegal border crossings into the European Union declined by 20 per cent in the first half of 2009, largely due to stronger border controls and the economic crisis.

However, the agency noted that illegal immigration into Hungary has climbed exponentially.

Eberhardt said: 'Most who cross the border illegally are heading for Germany, Switzerland or other wealthier countries.'

His department patrols 62 kilometres of Hungary's border with Serbia and its 68-kilometre border with Romania, containing five official border crossings.

Since joining the Schengen Zone in January 2008, Hungary has emerged as an attractive destination for migrants keen to get into Western Europe without the proper papers. This rising demand, coupled with the stepped-up security, is reflected in the prices charged by criminal gangs that provide false papers and transport.

'People traffickers in Kosovo used to charge 1,500 euros (2,200 dollars). Now they are demanding 3,000 euros,' says Eberhardt.

In practice, this fee will often only get the migrant as far as the border: 'Clients' are told to split up and make their own way into Hungary before regrouping. This is when they are usually picked up by border police and either sent back to Serbia or into the slow system for processing asylum claims.

Many, who might have already handed over every cent they had for transport to the West, are simply abandoned in Hungary, sometimes even told that they are already in Switzerland or Germany.

Others make their own way on foot, often following railway lines or the few roads that are the only landmarks in the remote, open countryside.

'As some illegal migrants are on the verge of death when we find them, the first thing we have to do is provide them with medical attention,' Eberhardt says.

Border guards insist that it seems impossible to know how many are making it into Hungary illegally, but Eberhardt is confident the number is low.

'I cannot say we are detecting 100 per cent of illegal border crossings, but somewhere very close to that,' he says.

The strip of border under Eberhardt's watch is just one of five stretches of Hungary's external Schengen borders with neighbouring Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Croatia.

'Although 836 were officially caught in the green border in 2008, the real number of people is probably closer to 2,500,' he says.

The figures only tell part of the story: Children are not included in the official statistics on illegal immigration.

Eberhardt points to a room for mothers and children in the Szeged headquarters, where those apprehended are processed and either returned or sent into the asylum system. The grimness of the barred door and linoleum floor are eased only slightly by a few colourful posters on the wall, rubber play mats and a television.

Officially, more than 900 migrants had been picked up by the end of August, already more than last year's total. And these were just those caught on Hungary's part of the Schengen land border, which runs from the tip of Norway inside the Arctic Circle down to Slovenia on the Adriatic.

Saja, the genial sergeant, knows the 'green border' like the back of his hand, including which drainage ditches and rows of bushes migrants use for cover.

Despite thermal-imaging cameras and helicopter backup - the European Union has poured millions into tightening its expanded eastern border - he and his colleagues more often use simple hunters' tricks. Inadvertently moving a seemingly innocent branch can betray a migrant's passage to the guards.

Although they will sometimes try to evade capture by fleeing - into the cornfields, for example - once caught, the illegal migrants are usually passive and put up little resistance.

'They don't try to fight,' Saja says. 'They are usually pretty worn out anyway.'

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Somalis, Palestinians, Afghans rebuild lives in Hungary
Deutsche Presse Agentur, November 4, 2009
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/features/article_1511398.php/Somalis-Palestinians-Afghans-rebuild-lives-in-Hungary

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9.
Migrants 'silenced' in Athens global forum on migration - group
By Joseph Holandes Ubalde
The GMA TV News (Philippines), November 6, 2009
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/176391/migrants-silenced-in-athens-global-forum-on-migration-group

An advocacy group claimed that the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) recently held in Athens, had 'deliberately sought to alienate the role of migrants in the discussion process.'

'(It) has demonstrated a clear lack of transparency and accountability where many non-binding agreements are made in closed-door meetings outside the scrutiny of rights-based observers,' the Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility Asia (CARAM) said in a statement.

While the group acknowledges the GFMD as the largest platform for international dialogue on issues related to migration, CARAM said the annual meeting had failed to address the real problems of migrants.

'The GFMD will never become a platform of positive change in the field of migration until it seeks to engage directly with migrants and their communities and halt their continued promotion of failed economic policies,' CARAM said.

The group is opposed to the promotion of migration as a means to generate remittances and keep the economies of developing countries afloat.

Citing a recent study by the United Nations Development Programme on the Human Development Index, CARAM said that in many cases, the quality of education, health, and overall standard of living in developing countries still decreased despite the record-level remittances generated by these nations.

The forum met similar criticisms when it was held in Manila in October 2008. Migrant groups said the GFMD was nothing more than a shoptalk event meant for labor-sending nations to market migrants in other countries.

But organizers of the event in Manila said the forum was a success in ensuring the welfare of migrants especially at the onset of the financial crisis.

CARAM urged participants of the GFMD to undertake several measures to make it more relevant for migrants. It said countries participating in the GFMD should sign and ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.

The group likewise urged GFMD organizers to improve transparency and accountability in the dialogue process.

'This must include the participation of grassroots organisations to address the wider social issues related to migration including addressing gender specific vulnerabilities,' CARAM said, adding that some non-binding agreements should not be made behind closed doors.

CARAM also said that countries hosting female migrant workers must adhere to the latter's existing rights as laid out in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

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10.
Turkish premier seeks dialogue
Kathimerini (Greece), November 6, 2009
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100002_06/11/2009_112186

A letter sent to Prime Minister George Papandreou by his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposes the establishment of a joint council involving the premiers and ministers of both countries to debate key issues of bilateral concern such as the Cyprus problem, tensions in the Aegean and illegal immigration, a top-ranking Turkish diplomat revealed during a visit to Athens yesterday.

Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for European Union affairs, was in Athens to attend a conference on Ankara’s EU accession prospects organized by the International Center for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS). Bagis said Erdogan has expressed his interest in joint discussions with Greek government officials on a range of issues. But Bagis himself kept his cards rather close to his chest on issues of key concern to Greece such as illegal immigration and the Cyprus problem, focusing more on the topic of Ankara’s EU accession bid, due for evaluation by the European Commission next month.

On the issue of Cyprus, Bagis noted that a settlement would be 'beneficial for all involved' but reiterated that Turkey would only open its ports and airports to Cypriot ships and aircraft – in accordance with EU demands – if economic sanctions on the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus are lifted.

As for the problem of illegal immigration, Bagis avoided commenting on the failure by Turkish authorities to honor a migrant repatriation pact signed by Athens and Ankara in 2003, referring instead to the arrests of smugglers that have been made on Turkish soil.

Nevertheless Bagis said he believed Erdogan’s initiative would spur dialogue and could possibly lead to progress on longstanding problems. 'These days we discuss everything in Turkey, things that had been taboo in the past,' Bagis said, referring to a pact signed between Turkey and Armenia last month to restore diplomatic ties.

In a related development yesterday, Turkey’s state-run Anatolia news agency said that Erdogan was planning an official visit to Greece but that a date had yet to be set.

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11.
6 illegal immigrants killed in boat sinking off Aegean coast
Xinhua (Chinese National News Agency), November 6, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/06/content_12401928.htm

Ankara (Xinhua) -- Death toll of illegal immigrants rose to six in a boat sinking off Aegean coast of Turkey, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported Friday.

Two more bodies, one Afghan and one baby, were discovered off the Aegean coast in Bodrum town of the Aegean province of Mugla in Turkey on Friday, according to the report.

On Thursday, Anatolia report said a boat carrying illegal immigrants sank off the Aegean coast in the day, killing at least four Palestinians.

The coastguards and fisher boats finally rescued 13 illegal immigrants, according to Anatolia.

The 13 illegal immigrants were taken to hospitals for treatment in Bodrum.

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12.
Italy: Anti-immigrant party supports crucifix in schools
ADN Kronos International (Italy), November 6, 2009
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=3.0.3960270509

Venice (AKI) -- The anti-immigrant Northern League party has called for the northeastern province surrounding the city of Venice to defy a court ruling and keep the crucifix in public places, including local schools. The move follows a decision by the European Court of Human Rights against the presence of crucifixes in classrooms in Italy, which is an officially secular country.

'The provincial council should keep crucifixes in all public places in the province, school classrooms and defend our identity,' reads the Northern League motion.

'Removal of the crucifix from public places shows a desire to annul the traditions which form the basis of our society, culture and morality,' continues the motion, which is backed by other conservative parties.

It says that 'symbols, celebrations and local traditions such as the Christmas nativity scene have been cancelled in favour of dubious festivals such as Halloween.'

The motion will be debated by the provincial council next Tuesday.

It also cites a 2005 ruling by the surrounding Veneto region's administrative court which opposed the removal of crucifixes from Italian classrooms.

The administrative court ruling said the crucifix 'represents a symbol of Christian culture and civilisation as a universal value that is separate from specific religions and is not discriminatory.'

The mayor of Vicenza, also located in the Veneto region, said on Thursday he would also oppose the removal of the crucifix from schools and public places in the city.

'The Italian government has already announced it intends to challenge the European Court of Human Rights ruling,' said Achille Variati.

The Italian minister of European affairs, Andrea Ronchi, on Wednesday rejected the controversial decision in a TV interview.

'The crucifix will never be taken away, not from any secular place nor from anywhere in our Italy. I think the government should and will appeal this sentence,' Ronchi said.

The Vatican on Tuesday strongly rejected the ruling, saying it was 'wrong and myopic' to exclude a symbol of charity from education.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled the placing of the crucifix in school classrooms infringed parents' right to educate their children 'in conformity with their convictions'.

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Berlusconi says crucifix ruling denies Europe's roots
By Stephen Brown
The Times of Malta, November 6, 2009
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091106/world-news/berlusconi-says-crucifix-ruling-denies-europes-roots

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13.
Teaching of Maltese abroad to be given importance
The Times of Malta, November 5, 2009
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091105/local/teaching-of-maltese-abroad-to-be-given-importance

The rights and interests of Maltese emigrants will be discussed at the third Convention of Maltese Living Abroad which will be hosted by the Foreign Ministry in March.

Foreign Minister Tonio Borg said today that the three-day-conference would discuss the progress and developments registered during the last convention ten years ago as regards protection of the rights and interests of Maltese living abroad. It should also serve as a spring board for initiatives for the future.

The minister said that a considerable number of ideas and suggestions had been put forward by organisations and associations representing Maltese abroad. The organising committee would be giving due importance to participation by youths in order to secure a convention which looked not only to the past and the present but also to the future.

He pointed out that liberalisation of the nationality law had guaranteed access to Maltese citizenship to any person, wherever he was born, who could prove a relationship in the direct line with any person of Maltese nationality born in Malta.

The focus now was on education and learning.

'We should strive to enhance and expand the teaching of the Maltese language abroad, as well as instruction in Maltese history and the peculiarities, traditions and folklore of our nation,' the minister said.

This will be the third Convention for the Maltese living abroad. The first was held in 1969 and the second in 2000

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14.
Police: Russian immigrants have not raised nat'l crime rate
By Lily Galili
Ha'aretz (Israel), November 6, 2009
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126294.html

Immigrants from the former Soviet Union have not raised the crime rate in Israel, police figures show, contrary to some reports following the massacre of the Oshrenko family in Ashdod and the public sentiment that ensued.

A police study finds that the crime rate among immigrants from FSU is less than 2 percent, compared to a little more than 2 percent among the overall population.

The crime rate among FSU immigrants in 2007 was smaller percentage-wise than the portion of society that they make up. Out of 143,000 criminal cases opened in 2007, some 21,000 - about 15 percent - involved FSU immigrants, who make up an estimated 16 percent of the population.

The immigrants' part in crimes such as manslaughter, murder and attempted murder is especially low, police figures show.

All of these figures vary depending on various bodies' definition of 'new immigrant.'

The police's research and statistics department categorizes sectors according to people's origin, ethnicity and number of years in Israel. These categories are not published for reasons of political correctness.

The main transgressions committed by immigrants in 2007 involve disruption of order (31 percent), property related crimes (24 percent), bodily crimes (20 percent), drugs and vice crimes (19 percent).

The immigrants' part in committing manslaughter, murder and attempted murder stood at about 7 percent.

It is very likely that the violent public image of FSU immigrants has been intensified by the numerous brawls they are involved in, particularly the younger ones.

However, racist utterances and calls - like the one to change the Law of Return following the murder of the Oshrenko family - are voiced every time Russian-speakers make the headlines in association with acts of violence. The immigrants as a community are deeply offended by this reaction.

They see this as society's refusal to accept them and a terrible distortion of their contribution to Israel, in light of the small incidence of crime.

Nonetheless, some of them admit that there is a problem - not in crime rates, but in the nature of the crimes committed.

'You can't blame all the Russians, but neither can you hide reality under a politically correct cloak,' says Dr. Elana Gomel, an English Literature lecturer at Tel Aviv University and author of the book 'Atem ve'anachnu' ('You and Us'), about FSU immigrants in Israel.

'The Oshrenko family's murder was a Russian murder,' says Gomel, who immigrated from Russia in 1980. 'There are differences between crime cultures. Behind this brutal murderer there is a tradition of especially brutal crime, even without reason.'

Still, the response to the killing has been disproportional, she says.

'When it comes to the Russians, Russianism becomes the reason, precisely because we are treated with appreciation and alienation simultaneously - just as the Jews were treated in exile. We are the 'Jews' of Israel,' she says.

Some immigrants attribute the brutal character of Russian crime to the Soviet regime, which demonstrated contempt for human life.

In off-the-record conversations, Russian sociologists say that this group of immigrants may not have led to a rise in Israel's crime rate, but has brought with it crime of a different nature.

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15.
Indonesia Issues New Deadline for Australian Ship Carrying Asylum Seekers
By Putri Prameshwari
The Jakarta Globe, November 6, 2009
http://thejakartaglobe.com/news/indonesia-issues-new-deadline-for-australian-ship-carrying-asylum-seekers/340157

The Australian customs ship docked in the Riau Islands would be allowed to stay for another week to resolve the standoff over 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers on board, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

This is the second weeklong extension granted to the MV Oceanic Viking, which has been in Indonesian waters for almost three weeks. The last security clearance, which expired on Friday, was extended to allow the ship to stay in Tanjung Pinang port until Nov. 13, ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said.

'We understand that there are still a few problems to be resolved with the people on board so we are giving one more week,' he said.

Faizasyah said Indonesia would remain flexible in facilitating the negotiations regarding the asylum seekers. They reportedly comprise 68 men, 5 women and 5 children from Sri Lanka’s Tamil ethnic minority who have refused to disembark.

'We certainly hope there will be a resolution in the next week,' he said.

Australian news portal theage.com, however, quoted Chris Lom, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, as saying that the agency, which works with the UN High Commission for Refugees to process refugees, had not contacted the Sri Lankans.

A delegation from Australia arrived in Jakarta on Tuesday to discuss the issue, Faizasyah said, declining to disclose the outcome of the meeting.

In a separate case, Faizasyah said 10 of the 255 Sri Lankan asylum seekers refusing to disembark from a boat in Cilegon port in Banten had agreed to be moved into detention.

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16.
Tenth school for overseas students collapses
By Nick O'Malley
The Sydney Morning Herald, November 7, 2009
http://www.smh.com.au/national/tenth-school-for-overseas-students-collapses-20091106-i254.html

The reputation of Australia's $16 billion overseas education industry has been dealt another blow by the sudden collapse of the Global Campus Management Group, which ran four colleges in Sydney and Melbourne with about 3000 students.

The collapse is particularly embarrassing for the Federal Government, which has been working hard to rebuild the industry's battered image, as hundreds of the Sydney-based students were placed in the school by the Department of Immigration after their previous school, Global College, went broke last year.

Global Campus Management Group is owned by a Cayman Island-based company, GCM Sinoed, which the Herald understands is owned by a Chinese national.

In a statement yesterday the federal Education Minister, Julia Gillard, said the Government took the reputation of the industry ''very seriously'' and was reviewing the laws that governed it.

The 24 HSC students of the Group's Meridian College in Surry Hills would be found a venue to complete their exams next week, said a spokeswoman for the state Education Minister, Verity Firth.

The future is less certain for about 500 Sydney students enrolled in English language, design and commercial cookery, most of whom are hoping to secure permanent residency after completing their courses.

Colleges are required to refund students if courses cannot be completed, but it appears unlikely that Meridian, which interrupted classes at 4.30 on Thursday afternoon to dismiss its teaching staff, will be able to. In this event students will be found positions in other courses or refunded by the industry's insurance body.

According to evidence presented in a recent Senate inquiry, nine other colleges had closed this year alone.

The Australian Education Union called for TAFE positions to be made available to students whose colleges closed, to ensure they received the education they had paid for.

Students who gathered at the college yesterday morning were given no information by the school. ''If this situation was in my country,'' said 24-year-old Nepalese Robin Basnet, gesturing to the students milling around the locked doors of the college, ''I don't know if the building would still be here.''

Mr Basnet has a degree in biology and experience in accounting, but his parents mortgaged their Katmandu home to put him through the $26,000 two-year commercial cookery course because it was the best way to secure a permanent residency in Australia.

Because of the collapse of Global he has now been here three years and though he should be finished in 10 weeks, he has no idea how long it will take him to find another school, or whether he will receive accreditation for the current semester.

Each extra month he studies rather than works, the financial burden on his parents grows.

''If I could get my money back I would just go home. I am sick of this country,'' he said with a sigh. His classmate, 31-year-old Tamadar Acharya, who holds a masters degree in sociology, agrees.

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17.
Boat survivors reach Christmas Island
The Australian Associated Press, November 7, 2009

The survivors from a boat that sank off the Cocos Islands on Sunday have arrived at Christmas Island where they will be placed in mandatory detention.

The LNG Pioneer, a Bahamas-flagged tanker that responded to distress calls by the stricken vessel about 640km northwest of Cocos Island late Sunday night, reached Christmas Island on Friday morning with 27 survivors and the body of a male.

The boat, which had been on its way to Australia with 39 people aboard, sank at 11.15pm on Sunday 350 nautical miles northwest of Cocos Islands, killing 12 of the suspected asylum seekers, including two boys aged 13 and 14.

All are believed to be Sri Lankan.
. . .
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/boat-survivors-reach-christmas-island-20091106-i0yz.html

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Center for Immigration Studies
1522 K St. NW, Suite 820
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076
center@cis.org www.cis.org
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