CIS: Noticias sobre migración
1.
Obama weighing chances on amnesty package
2.State Dept. debuts new online visa process
3.DHS: 28,000 Haitians have applied for TPS
4.DHS figures show arrests of illegals declined
5.Former chiefs of USCBP urge expeditious appointment
6.Gov't assures privacy of Census data (link)
7.Florida Rep. calls for tighter visa security
8.Proposal seeks to replace E-Verify
9.Congressional Resolution to honor Korean-Americans
10.CIS study links Dem. ascendancy to immigration
11.TX GOP Hispanic candidates claim racial bias
12.Standoff continues over San Fran. sanctuary laws (story, link)
13.AZ county sheriff recovers evidence for profiling suit
14.CA city council to mull support for restrictive bills
15.Venture capitalists throw weight behind investment visa (story, link)
16.NV activists preparing for amnesty push
17.NY activists rally outside Sen. Schumer's offices (link)
18.Chicago radio station hosts collection of ethnic broadcasts
19.NYC Chileans seek comfort from one another
20.Cuban refugees gather for Florida reunion
21.Imam to face expulsion after interfering with terror probe
22.Feds crack down on Atlanta-area MS-13 (story, link)
23.Feds crack fraud ring at Florida 'school' (story, link)
24.Somali man accused of lying to federal agents (link)
25.Nigerian man accused of toddler's murder testifies (link)
26.NV electronics manufacturer charged with illegal hires (link)
27.Russian man accused of illegal money transfers (link)
Subscribe to CIS e-mail services here: http://cis.org/immigrationnews.html
-- Mark Krikorian]
1.
Obama looking to give new life to immigration reform
In an effort to advance a bill through Congress before midterm elections, the president meets with two senators who have spent months trying to craft legislation.
By Peter Nicholas
The Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2010
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/04/nation/la-na-immigration5-2010mar05
Washington, DC -- Despite steep odds, the White House has discussed prospects for reviving a major overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, a commitment that President Obama has postponed once already.
Obama took up the issue privately with his staff Monday in a bid to advance a bill through Congress before lawmakers become too distracted by approaching midterm elections.
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In the session, Obama and members of his Domestic Policy Council outlined ways to resuscitate the effort in a White House meeting with two senators -- Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- who have spent months trying to craft a bill.
According to a person familiar with the meeting, the White House may ask Schumer and Graham to at least produce a blueprint that could be turned into legislative language.
The basis of a bill would include a path toward citizenship for the 10.8 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Citizenship would not be granted lightly, the White House said. Undocumented workers would need to register, pay taxes and pay a penalty for violating the law. Failure to comply might result in deportation.
Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman, said the president's support for an immigration bill, which would also include improved border security, was 'unwavering.'
Participants in the White House gathering also pointed to an immigration rally set for March 21 in Washington as a way to spotlight the issue and build needed momentum.
Though proponents of an immigration overhaul were pleased that the White House wasn't abandoning the effort, they also wanted Obama to take on a more assertive role, rather than leave it to Congress to work out a compromise.
Immigration is a delicate issue for the White House. After promising to revamp in his first year of office what many see as a fractured system, Obama risks angering a growing, politically potent Latino constituency if he defers the goal until 2011.
But with the healthcare debate still unresolved, Democrats are wary of plunging into another polarizing issue.
'Right now we have a little problem with the 'Chicken Little' mentality: The sky is falling and consequently we can't do anything,' Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said in an interview.
Republicans are unlikely to cooperate. On Capitol Hill, Republicans said that partisan tensions had only gotten worse since Obama signaled this week that he would push forward with a healthcare bill, whether he could get GOP votes or not.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said in an interview, 'The things you hear from the administration won't be well received.'
Schumer, speaking as he walked quickly through the Capitol, said he was having trouble rounding up Republican supporters apart from Graham. 'It's tough finding someone, but we're trying,' Schumer said.
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On Thursday, Schumer met with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who oversees the government's immigration efforts, to strategize over potential Republican co-sponsors.
'We're very hopeful we can get a bill done. We have all the pieces in place. We just need a second Republican,' Schumer said in a statement.
Among proponents, there is a consensus that a proposal must move by April or early May to have a realistic chance of passing this year. If that deadline slips, Congress' focus is likely to shift to the November elections, making it impossible to take up major legislation.
'There's no question that this is a heavy lift and the window is narrowing,' said Janet Murguia, president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group.
When it comes to immigration, Obama's strategy echoes that of healthcare. He has deferred heavily to Congress, leaving it up to Schumer and Graham to reach a breakthrough with the idea that he would put his weight behind the resulting compromise.
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2.
State rolls out new online visa application for temporary visitors
By Dawn Lim
NextGov.com, March 4, 2010
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20100304_4399.php?oref=topnews
The State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs is rolling out a new online application process for nonimmigrant visas aimed at reducing processing time. This is the bureau's first step to building the Consular Electronic Application Center, a Web-based system that eventually will host online applications for immigration visas and passports.
The new nonimmigrant visa application, DS-160, combines three forms into one online platform. Once an applicant submits the document online, consular officers can screen it before the visa interview and ask the candidate to fill in any missing information. Applicants must complete the form in English, but they can view as pop-ups foreign translations of the questions.
Nonimmigrant visas generally are required for temporary visitors entering the country with a specific purpose, for instance, international students or tourists seeking medical treatment. The government issued more than 6.6 million nonimmigrant visas at Foreign Service posts in 2008, up 1.2 million from 2005.
The nonimmigrant visa application process officially went online in 2006 when State mandated that the electronic visa application form replace paper questionnaires. But under that system, applicants were required to print out the pages they had filled in online and bring them to a visa interview. The new system cuts down on paperwork: Applicants only need to print out a confirmation sheet with a bar code that allows consular officers to locate the candidate's case in the department's database.
The bureau decided to deploy DS-160 worldwide after a yearlong pilot program ended in September 2009. Eighty-eight consulates and embassies accept visa applications using DS-160, and more are making the transition each week. Adriana Gallegos, a spokeswoman for Consular Affairs, said the bureau expects that DS-160 will be used at every overseas visa-issuing post by the end of April.
But it isn't clear whether State will be able to accomplish that goal. In a statement released in November 2009, State said it was facing 'a technical challenge in meeting our deployment goal' because of the difficulty of developing new foreign language translations. In October 2009, Consular Affairs approved translations of DS-160 into 22 languages, but it takes 64 hours and $8,000 to develop each translation, which limits how quickly the form can be deployed in countries where English isn't widely spoken. So far, DS-160 is available in 11 foreign languages; five more translations are ready to be added and six translations are in the works.
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think-tank that seeks fewer immigrants but better treatment for those admitted, said the new application procedure was a clear sign there would be more automation in the immigrant visa application process. She said electronic forms aid efficiency, but also encourage third-party involvement and introduce the risk of fraud. Vaughan cautioned, 'automation should not cause the review process to be abandoned or diluted in anyway.'
According to the Federal Register, while a third party can assist the petitioner in preparing a DS-160, the applicant must electronically sign the form himself and identify any third party who has assisted in the preparation of the document.
The number of temporary visitors in the United States dropped from 6.6 million in 2008 to 5.8 million in 2009. Geoff Freeman, senior vice president of the nonprofit U.S. Travel Association, said the new Web-based application process is a 'step in the right direction,' but State should work on dealing with the fact that 'the entry process is still not as efficient and welcoming as it needs to be.'
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3.
28,000 Haitians in U.S. seek protected status
By Elizabeth Llorente
The Record (Hackensack, NJ), March 5, 2010
http://www.northjersey.com/news/86498372_28_000_Haitians_in_U_S_seek_protected_status.html
More than 28,000 Haitians living in the United States, including more than 800 in New Jersey, have applied for protection from deportation since January, immigration officials say.
The Obama administration suspended deportations of Haitians who had been in the U.S. by Jan. 12, when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced a few days after the earthquake that undocumented Haitians would be eligible to apply for an immigration benefit known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which allows those who receive it to live and work here for up to 18 months.
Immigration officials say that each week thousands of new applications have come in. The current number of 28,389 Haitian TPS applications nationwide includes more than 6,000 processed in the last week alone, said Katie Tichacek Kaplan, spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Immigration officials estimate that between 100,000 and 200,000 Haitians in the United States could be eligible to apply for TPS. They have until late July to apply, Kaplan said.
While USCIS did not have application numbers for New Jersey, Kaplan said that 821 Haitians have scheduled appointments to get fingerprinted, one of the first steps in applying for TPS. That is an increase of more than 300 Haitians from last week, when the number was 500.
Representatives of some organizations that are assisting Haitians in applying for TPS say they had expected more people to have come to them for help by now.
'The numbers seem pretty low,' said Amy Gottlieb, director of the Immigrant Rights Program at American Friends Service Committee in Newark. 'We're hearing that perhaps people are afraid, that they don't trust the process yet.'
Gottlieb said a TPS clinic held last weekend in Newark by a group of organizations drew only 15 Haitians.
TPS generally is granted to undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. whose native country is stricken by such things as natural disasters and armed conflicts.
Although TPS usually is granted for 18 months, it is often extended when a certain region is determined not to have recovered to the point where it can absorb numerous deportees.
Some 53,000 people in New Jersey claim Haitian ancestry, according to the 2006-08 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Meanwhile, last month, New Jersey officials opened a multi-agency resource center in Elizabeth that caters to Haitians 'affected by the recent earthquake,' according to a statement by state Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez.
More than 28,000 Haitians living in the United States, including more than 800 in New Jersey, have applied for protection from deportation since January, immigration officials say.
The Obama administration suspended deportations of Haitians who had been in the U.S. by Jan. 12, when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced a few days after the earthquake that undocumented Haitians would be eligible to apply for an immigration benefit known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which allows those who receive it to live and work here for up to 18 months.
Immigration officials say that each week thousands of new applications have come in. The current number of 28,389 Haitian TPS applications nationwide includes more than 6,000 processed in the last week alone, said Katie Tichacek Kaplan, spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Immigration officials estimate that between 100,000 and 200,000 Haitians in the United States could be eligible to apply for TPS. They have until late July to apply, Kaplan said.
While USCIS did not have application numbers for New Jersey, Kaplan said that 821 Haitians have scheduled appointments to get fingerprinted, one of the first steps in applying for TPS. That is an increase of more than 300 Haitians from last week, when the number was 500.
Representatives of some organizations that are assisting Haitians in applying for TPS say they had expected more people to have come to them for help by now.
'The numbers seem pretty low,' said Amy Gottlieb, director of the Immigrant Rights Program at American Friends Service Committee in Newark. 'We're hearing that perhaps people are afraid, that they don't trust the process yet.'
Gottlieb said a TPS clinic held last weekend in Newark by a group of organizations drew only 15 Haitians.
TPS generally is granted to undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. whose native country is stricken by such things as natural disasters and armed conflicts.
Although TPS usually is granted for 18 months, it is often extended when a certain region is determined not to have recovered to the point where it can absorb numerous deportees.
Some 53,000 people in New Jersey claim Haitian ancestry, according to the 2006-08 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Meanwhile, last month, New Jersey officials opened a multi-agency resource center in Elizabeth that caters to Haitians 'affected by the recent earthquake,' according to a statement by state Human Services Commissioner Jennifer Velez.
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4.
U.S. border arrests down with economy
By Maggie Hyde
The Medill Reports (Northwestern Univ., Chicago), March 3, 2010
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=159034
Some of the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses are staying home, or going elsewhere.
Fewer illegal immigrants were arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2008, but more were deported than in the previous year, statistics from the Department of Homeland Security show.
The number of immigrants apprehended by law enforcement agencies in 2008 was almost 800,000, but that was about 40 percent less than in 2005 and 46 percent lower than in 1999.
Of the number caught in 2008, the most recent data available, more than 90 percent were apprehended through arrests made on U.S. borders. Of those arrests, 97 percent were made on the Southwest border.
Fewer Mexican immigrants were arrested because fewer were enticed to cross the border as the U.S. economy declined, said Donald Kerwin, vice president for programs at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
'There’s no jobs for them to fill,' he said.
Kerwin said the economy is so weak that family members outside the U.S. have been sending money to relatives here, instead of the other way around. He said this is further evidence that the recession has tarnished the United State’s gleaming promise of economic prosperity.
Policy changes in the past few years aimed at cutting illegal immigration have led to greater border enforcement efforts, Kerwin said.
'They’ve prioritized it, ' he said. 'They’ve created programs that feed into that number.'
These programs, like Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s fugitive operations team, were originally designed to arrest illegal immigrants with criminal records. Instead, Kerwin said, these teams were virtually nondiscriminatory and arrested non-criminals in disproportionate numbers.
'They’d pick up people at 7-Eleven,' he said.
The reason deportations are up while arrests are down could also be that more legal immigrants are being denied requests to extend their residency or gain citizenship.
Robert Perkins, an immigration lawyer who has worked in Illinois and California, said that he thinks more people are being placed in deportation proceedings because U.S. immigration courts are denying their immigration cases.
'I certainly can tell you that my own deportation business is up,' said Perkins, who also has an instructional Web site with videos of him drawing on a white board to explain proper legal procedure in immigration matters. He likes to be called 'the Immigration Professor.'
Perkins, who currently works in Los Angeles, said he saw deportations increase after attempts at immigration reform failed in 2007. He said that ICE’s collaboration with local law enforcement teams has also led to more illegal immigrants being deported from non-urban areas.
When the numbers for 2009 are released, Kerwin said he thinks the data will continue to show a downward trend in border arrests, because immigration is so affected by the job market here.
'It’s driven in large part by the economy and it’s absolutely the case that fewer people are coming,' he said.
At the same time, Perkins said it seems like immigration enforcement teams and courts are being stricter on illegal immigrants.
'You have to be very careful,' Perkins said. 'More so than you used to be.'
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5.
Stalled border security nomination worries former commissioners
By Katherine McIntire
Government Executive, March 2, 2010
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0310/030210kp1.htm
A gap in leadership at the Customs and Border Protection bureau has former commissioners concerned.
CBP ex-chiefs Ralph Basham and Robert Bonner and New York City Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly sent letters to key senators in February urging immediate action on the nomination of Alan Bersin to lead the bureau.
Basham, the most recent CBP commissioner, stepped down one year ago this week. He said he initiated the letters to Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, out of growing concern about vacancies at the top of the bureau, especially after acting commissioner Jayson Ahern retired as planned in early January, following the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253.
Baucus and Grassley are chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Finance Committee, which is responsible for holding hearings on the CBP nomination and bringing it to a Senate vote. A committee aide said staffers were reviewing Bersin's paperwork; no hearing has been scheduled. President Obama nominated him in September 2009.
'All of us believe the appointment deserves more focused attention and swift action in the manner of other critical national security nominations,' the former commissioners wrote. Kelly was commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service, CBP's predecessor organization, from 1998 to 2001.
Bersin -- confirmed as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California during the Clinton administration -- has been serving as assistant secretary of international affairs at the Homeland Security Department for the past year. No lawmakers have publicly expressed any concerns about his qualifications.
'Unfortunately, this is another example of ineffective congressional oversight and how oversight is actually hobbling the department and potentially harming homeland security, rather than helping it,' said Daniel J. Kaniewski, deputy director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at The George Washington University.
The Senate Finance Committee's jurisdiction over what essentially is a border security post speaks to the convoluted nature of congressional oversight, Kaniewski said. When Homeland Security was cobbled together from elements of 22 pre-existing agencies in 2003, more than 80 congressional committees and subcommittees retained authority over funding and oversight matters related to those agencies. The Finance Committee's responsibility is a legacy of its role in monitoring the now-defunct U.S. Customs Service.
On Jan. 3, after Ahern stepped down as acting commissioner, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tapped David Aguilar, chief of the Border Patrol, to serve as acting deputy commissioner of CBP. There is no acting commissioner at CBP, a bureau spokesman said. Filling in for Aguilar in an acting capacity is Michael Fisher, formerly the San Diego sector chief patrol agent.
'I want to stress my strong support for the leadership [provided by] the career folks,' Basham said. But Aguilar lacks the authority to make decisions necessary to move the agency forward.
'Because David Aguilar is acting deputy, he cannot make substantial moves within the organization,' Basham said, adding Aguilar faces significant decisions regarding the bureau's 2011 budget. 'It makes it extremely difficult to do the kind of proactive things that need to be done in an agency that is in a critical position,' Basham said.
Kaniewski, a former adviser to President George W. Bush on homeland security issues, said the leadership vacancies at CBP pose a serious vulnerability. 'I don't know [Bersin]. I've never met the man. I'm a Republican. I have no personal interest in seeing him confirmed other than knowing a critical Homeland Security agency is without any semblance of a leadership team.'
'Agencies without leaders put all of us in a vulnerable position,' Kaniewski said. 'Nothing against the acting directors of any of these agencies, but if you are acting in a Senate-confirmed position and you're not going to be the nominee, you don't have the standing within your department, with other departments, or in the White House [to prompt change]. You just don't.'
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6.
Gov't offers new assurance census data is private
By Hope Yen
The Associated Press, March 4, 2010
Washington, DC (AP) -- With the 2010 population count looming, the government provided new assurances Thursday that information Americans fill out on their census forms will be kept confidential and not be used for law enforcement.
In a letter to Congress, the Obama administration provided its legal position that census data cannot be disclosed under the Patriot Act, the nation's main counterterrorism law. The government has previously given legal assurances the information will not be used for immigration enforcement.
. . .
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/03/04/govt_offers_new_assurance_census_data_is_private/
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7.
Bilirakis Demands Funding for More Visa Security Units
By Mickey McCarter
HSToday, March 3, 2010
http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/12372/149/
ICE agents investigating visas in US consular posts would stop would-be terrorists like the Christmas Day Bomber, congressman argues
About a year ago, Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) introduced a bill (HR 2892) to shift $1.7 million in the fiscal 2010 homeland security appropriations bill to fund an additional Visa Security Unit in a high-risk consular post overseas.
The bill passed the House, 423-6, but the budget conference committee between House and Senate negotiators reduced that amount to $500,000 in the final version of the appropriations bill.
Then on Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to bomb Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit, Mich., after having boarded it in Amsterdam. Abdulmutallab had a US visa.
But a Visa Security Unit in the United Kingdom, where Abdulmutallab lived as a student for some time, would have investigated his visa and revoked it after the United Kingdom cancelled his UK visa, Bilirakis told HSToday.us.
'That's what they do. They are trained ICE officers. They look into backgrounds, scrutinize visas, and share information,' Bilirakis commented. 'They are supposed to work with consular officers and train them.'
But the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has staffed only 14 of the Visa Security Units with agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) around the world, Bilirakis said. Meanwhile, DHS has identified at least 40 high-risk locations around the world that should receive Visa Security Units.
Each unit would require an annual appropriation of $1.7 million to operate, Bilirakis estimated.
Not only is there not a unit in the United Kingdom, but DHS has no Visa Security Units in high-risk nations like Yemen and Nigeria, Bilirakis said. He has heard the US State Department may have resisted placing some Visa Security Units in particular embassies around the world.
'Diplomacy is okay but we are talking about security and preventing potential terrorists from coming over here and doing us harm,' Bilirakis fumed. 'This needs to be a priority. We need to keep these potential terrorists out of our country, and this is a way to do it. It's very simple.'
Bilirakis asked President Barack Obama about the problem during the Republican retreat visited by the President in January. Obama assured him there would be more money in the budget for Visa Security Units in fiscal 2011, but instead the White House budget proposal was flat on funding for them, Bilirakis said.
'At the rate we are going, it's going to take about 20 years to get all of these locations in place and that's unacceptable. It's a first line of defense,' the congressman lamented.
This year, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) intends to introduce a bill to fund additional Visa Security Units, Bilirakis revealed. Bilirakis intends to work with Smith on the details of the bill.
Budget hearing
Bilirakis asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about Visa Security Units during a budget hearing on Feb. 25.
Napolitano could not identify the number of current Visa Security Units, but she acknowledged they existed only in a small percentage of 220 US consular posts globally.
The secretary revealed that two were added in the previous week and that it was 'reasonable' to staff them in high-risk areas around the world.
Napolitano acknowledged that the State Department had resisted Visa Security Units in some locations.
'This is not just the Department of Homeland Security's decision,' she told the House Homeland Security Committee. 'This is really the Department of State where the Department of Homeland Security will be allowed into an embassy facility to work there. So that is something that we are having to work through at the interagency level.'
Bilirakis requested a report on the locations where State objected and the specifics of its objections. Napolitano agreed to produce such a report.
His questions on the matter followed up a letter that he sent Napolitano on Jan. 21 to inquire about any resistance DHS may have encountered in establishing Visa Security Units.
'I am greatly troubled that expansion of this vital terrorist screening program does not appear to be a priority of the Administration, especially since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab reportedly received a visa in London, which does not have a Visa Security Unit. Although ICE has a plan for deploying additional Visa Security Units in the coming years, the Administration's fiscal year 2010 budget request only included funding to continue visa security activities at existing high-risk locations,' Bilirakis wrote.
At the hearing, Napolitano agreed that an investigation by a Visa Security Unit could have stopped Abdulmutallab from perpetuating the Christmas Day bombing attack by withdrawing his visa, thus barring him from flying to the United States.
Congress authorized DHS to assign personnel to consular posts overseas to review visa applications in Section 428 (e) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-296).
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8.
New way pushed to verify workers' legal status
By Daniel González
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), March 5, 2010
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2010/03/05/20100305lawmakers-pushing-new-e-verify.html
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers led by Arizona Democrat Gabrielle Giffords is pushing for a new federal system to verify who is legally allowed to work in this country.
The proposed system promises to do a better job of preventing illegal immigrants from getting jobs than the current online system, known as E-Verify. A recent report found flaws in the existing system.
First introduced two years ago by Reps. Giffords and Sam Johnson, a Texas Republican, the proposed system is only now gaining attention following the publication of the government-commissioned report, which estimated that more than half of the illegal immigrants run through the E-Verify system are wrongly being deemed authorized to work because they use stolen identities.
Giffords' proposal, known as the New Employee Verification Act, or NEVA, would require employers to run new hires through more federal databases and encourage background checks. Her plan is supported by 10 U.S. lawmakers - three Democrats and seven Republicans. It also has the backing of numerous business groups.
But some analysts question whether the system proposed by Giffords would actually be more reliable than E-Verify at preventing illegal workers using stolen identities from getting jobs. The system also raises privacy concerns because it calls for employers to conduct background checks and collect biometric information on new employees that could be deemed too intrusive.
Giffords and Johnson introduced NEVA in February 2008 partly in response to Arizona's employer-sanctions law, which took effect on Jan. 1 of that year. The sanctions law requires all businesses in Arizona to screen new employees through E-Verify to make sure they are authorized to work in the U.S. The law can force employers out of business for knowingly hiring illegal workers.
Eleven other states also require some or all businesses to use E-Verify. The program is voluntary in other states, but momentum is building in Congress to make E-Verify mandatory nationwide.
Giffords, a former small-business owner, said that in the wake of the sanctions law, she heard many complaints from businesses that E-Verify was not reliable, yet they were being forced to use it.
The problem with E-Verify, she said, is that the system sometimes falsely rejects U.S. citizens and legal workers and wrongly approves illegal workers using stolen identities, putting employers at risk of firing legal workers and hiring unauthorized workers in violation of the law.
The complaints about E-Verify were confirmed in a report by a research company, Westat, hired by the Department of Homeland Security to evaluate the system.
The Westat report found that E-Verify does an excellent job of verifying U.S. citizens and legal workers. The system runs names, birth dates and Social Security numbers against the Social Security Administration's database and Homeland Security's immigration database.
Ninety-three percent of the cases checked were legal workers or U.S. citizens who were accurately identified on the first try.
The Westat report, which surfaced last week, found that E-Verify does falsely reject some U.S. citizens and legal workers but only 0.7 percent of the time.
E-Verify, however, does a poor job of preventing illegal immigrants using stolen identities from getting jobs, the report found. Westat estimated that 54 percent of the illegal immigrants run through E-Verify are wrongly deemed authorized to work, or about 3.3 percent of the total, because of identity theft.
Giffords believes NEVA would do a better job at preventing illegal workers from getting jobs and protecting U.S. citizens and legal workers from being wrongly denied jobs by creating a two-tiered system for verifying whether people are eligible to work in the U.S.
The first step would be mandatory for all employers nationwide. It would require employers to check the information of new employees against the Social Security Administration's database using the National Directory of New Hires, a program initially created to ensure parents are complying with child-support laws. The information could then be checked, if needed, against the Homeland Security immigration database.
The second step would be voluntary. It would encourage employers to hire private contractors certified by the government to conduct background checks on new employees to authenticate their identities and then tie that information to biometric technology, such as thumbprints. Employers who followed those steps in good faith would be granted 'safe harbor' or immunity from prosecution should the system fail to prevent them from hiring illegal workers.
In addition to those two steps, the NEVA system would create a program that lets an employee 'lock' his or her Social Security number by notifying the government when not looking for work to prevent others from stealing it to get jobs, Giffords said.
'We believe NEVA provides a substantial improvement to the current system, which all employers in Arizona are required to use,' Giffords said.
NEVA has been endorsed by several business groups, including the Society for Human Resource Management, National Federation of Independent Business, the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Glenn Hamer, president and CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, said he favors NEVA because it is more foolproof than E-Verify and protects employers from prosecution if they use it.
'We want to make sure that companies who are playing by the rules are not targeted just because the system is flawed,' Hamer said.
Some analysts, however, question whether NEVA would be more reliable than E-Verify because illegal immigrants using stolen identities would not be detected by the National Directory of New Hires.
'It does not do anything different from protecting against identify theft than what E-Verify does,' said Marc Rosenblum, a researcher at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.
Jim Harper, a policy analyst at the free-market Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., opposes NEVA because it would force many U.S. citizens to give up their privacy in order to prevent a small number of illegal workers from getting jobs. He said the provision calling on employers to conduct background checks on employees is a step toward creating a national ID, which amounts to more government intrusion into private lives.
'I believe the intention of the people who created NEVA was to come up with a better system than E-Verify. It may be better, but it's still not good,' Harper said. The institute favors increasing legal immigration to reduce illegal immigration.
Steven Camarota, a researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies, said it doesn't make sense to get rid of E-Verify and start over from scratch. The center in Washington favors more enforcement to reduce illegal immigration.
E-Verify is 'already up and running, and it seems better to build on that,' Camarota said.
He also says NEVA is a political maneuver by lawmakers who oppose immigration enforcement.
'Why would you want to start over unless your real goal was to delay?' Camarota said.
Giffords, who is up for re-election this November, said that is not true.
She is pushing to have NEVA voted on as a stand-alone bill or included as part of a comprehensive immigration-reform bill expected to be introduced this spring.
'There is no member of Congress that wants a mandatory employment-verification system more than I,' Giffords said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Westat report is available online at: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=3a351e56d3856210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=75bce2e261405110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD
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9.
U.S. lawmakers introduce bill to recognize Korean-American contributions
The Korea Herald, March 5, 2010
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2010/03/05/201003050077.asp
A group of U.S. House lawmakers has introduced a bill to recognize the contributions Korean-Americans have made to the United States, according to Yonhap News.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-New Jersey) and 49 other congressmen, 'urges all people in the United States to recognize the invaluable contributions Korean-Americans have made to this Nation.'
The bill, introduced on Jan. 11 and referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Thursday, said, 'More than a million Korean-Americans, like thousands of immigrants to the United States before them, have built strong families and contributed to dynamic communities ... significantly to the development of the arts, sciences, engineering, medicine, government, military, education, and the economy in the United States.'
The bill noted the first Korean immigrants to Hawaii.
'On January 13, 1903, the arrival of 102 pioneer Korean immigrants to the United States marked the first chapter of Korean immigration in this country,' it said.
It also noted the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, in which the U.S. fought alongside South Korea against invading North Korean forces aided by China.
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10.
CIS Study Links Rising Immigrant Population To Diminished GOP Support
Personal Liberty Digest, March 5, 2010
http://www.personalliberty.com/news/cis-study-links-rising-immigrant-population-to-diminished-gop-support-19646770/
CIS study links rising immigrant population to diminished GOP support As the immigration reform issue continues to create controversy among Washington’s lawmakers, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has released a report on the likely partisan consequences of continued mass immigration.
For the purpose of the study, James G. Gimpel, a professor of government at the University of Maryland, College Park, examined the Republican share of the vote and the foreign-born share of the population over three decades in all U.S. counties.
In his report for CIS entitled 'Immigration, Political Realignment and the Demise of Republican Political Prospects,' he revealed that the electoral impact of immigration has been greatest in counties with large populations, where most immigrants settle. In these locations, Republicans have lost 0.58 percentage points in presidential elections for every one percentage-point increase in the size of the local immigrant population.
In fact, among counties with at least 50,000 residents, where the immigrant share increased by at least two percentage points from 1980 to 2008, a total of 62 percent saw a decline in the Republican percentage. In counties with at least a six percentage-point gain in the immigrant share, approximately 83 percent saw a decline in the GOP vote share.
However, Republicans have remained competitive in presidential elections because losses in high-immigration counties have been offset by gains in low-immigration counties, the report also found.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The CIS study is available online at: http://cis.org/republican-demise
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11.
Incumbents blame losses on ethnic bias
But consultants say 2 Hispanic Republicans just ran poor campaigns
By R.G. Ratcliffe and Chris Moran
The Houston Chronicle, March 4, 2010
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6898049.html
Austin, TX -- Hispanic candidates ran strong in many Republican primary races across Texas this week, but two candidates are blaming their losses on racially polarized voting.
Election returns and political consultants, however, say the losses of Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Leo Vasquez and Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo had more to do with personal issues and poorly run campaigns than ethnicity.
Carrillo's father and half-brother died last year, and Carrillo underwent surgery for a benign brain tumor, all affecting the time he spent campaigning for re-election. Vasquez lost social conservative support, local Republicans said, because he lives with a woman married to another man.
Carrillo started the ethnic angst with an e-mail to supporters indicating racial bias had cost him re-election. That was followed up by Vasquez's campaign manager and girlfriend, SuZanne Feather, sending out an e-mail saying there were 'many similarities' between Carrillo and Vasquez's loss on Tuesday to tea party activist Don Sumners. Vasquez joined in during an interview with the Houston Chronicle.
'It is perplexing that someone could basically spend no money whatsoever and mount no campaign and win as handily as he did,' Vasquez said. 'The same thing happened in the Victor Carrillo race as well.'
But Vasquez's predecessor in office, Paul Bettencourt said Vasquez lost because he had issues in his personal life that cost him the support of social conservative organizations.
Consultant Allen Blakemore, speaking for social conservative leader Steve Hotze, said Republicans were upset with Vasquez for settling a voter-registration lawsuit with Democrats and for not being as vocal on property tax increases as Bettencourt. Blakemore said the 'final blow' came when social conservative leaders learned Vasquez lives with a woman married to another man.
Vasquez admitted social conservative leaders Hotze and Terry Lowry 'probably got him (Sumners) another 10,000 votes and maybe even made the full difference between us.'
'The Republican Party, especially in Harris County, has been, unfortunately, overly controlled and influenced by a small, but vocal group on the religious right, and we need to get back to the core principles of fiscal conservative issues rather than these social issues that are being perpetuated by that small, but vocal, minority,' Vasquez said.
He refused to discuss whether his personal life made a difference. He and Feather said they have had a relationship for a decade.
'Our relationship never seemed to be an issue while we were out writing the checks and putting up the signs and doing other grass-roots work for the Republican Party,' Vasquez said.
Carrillo, who won the 2004 Republican nomination by defeating an Anglo in a runoff, stunned many Republicans by putting out an e-mail blaming his loss Tuesday to a little-known opponent, David Porter, on racially biased voting.
'Early polling showed that the typical GOP primary voter has very little info about the position of Railroad Commissioner, what we do, or who my opponent or I were,' Carrillo said in an e-mail to supporters. 'Given the choice between 'Porter' and 'Carrillo' — unfortunately, the Hispanic-surname was a serious setback from which I could never recover although I did all in my power to overcome this built-in bias.'
Outreach efforts
Republicans have been trying to reach out to Hispanic voters in recent years, but they have been hurt by anti-immigration rhetoric that some take to be anti-Hispanic sentiments. Carrillo's statement likely will fuel that fire.
Election returns from Tuesday's voting show Carrillo lost not only statewide but also in traditionally Hispanic counties, such as Hidalgo and Cameron.
In the Supreme Court Place 9 race, down the ballot from the Railroad Commission race, there were more than 1.1 million ballots cast in a race that gave Eva Guzman the nomination over Rose Vela — meaning at least some of the voters who cast ballots for Porter also voted for one of the Hispanic women.
Republican consultant Ted Delisi said Carrillo spent far less than Railroad Commissioners Elizabeth Ames Jones or Michael Williams did on their re-election campaigns and said Carrillo did little personal campaigning.
'In the end, a bad campaign is just a bad campaign,' Delisi said.
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12.
Supervisors escalate fight about sanctuary law
By Erin Sherbert
The San Francisco Examiner, March 4, 2010
http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/Fight-over-Campos-sanctuary-amendment-continues-86438052.html
San Francisco -- City supervisors on Thursday publicly blasted the Juvenile Probation Department chief for refusing to change his policies of reporting to immigration authorities undocumented youths who have been arrested on suspicion of felonies.
During the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee meeting, Supervisor David Campos put William Siffermann, chief of the Juvenile Probation Department, in the hot seat, questioning him for violating The City’s recently amended sanctuary law, and saying the department’s current policies are an open invitation for racial profiling.
'How is it that after a law was passed, including overriding a mayoral veto, we are now in this situation where we are having to ask this department where they are with their compliance?' Campos said. But Siffermann remained unwavering in his position that the department would be violating federal law if it shielded undocumented youths who had been arrested. He said that in May 2008, federal authorities detained probation officers, interrogated them and threatened to charge them for not reporting undocumented youths that had been arrested.
The U.S. attorney general has since convened a federal grand jury, and that investigation is still pending, Siffermann told supervisors.
'We believe any modification of this policy would create an opportunity for the release of alleged felons who are undocumented into the community and place probation officers at risk of criminal liability,' Siffermann said.
In July 2008, Mayor Gavin Newsom implemented the sanctuary law, which required probation officers to report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement undocumented youths who had been arrested on suspicion of a felony. In November, supervisors amended that ordinance so probation officers could only report undocumented youths when they had been convicted of a felony.
Newsom issued a statement Thursday reiterating his stance.
Campos was hoping Thursday’s meeting would put pressure on the department to begin enforcing the board’s policy.
He has threatened to propose withholding funds from the department or pursuing litigation if it doesn’t comply.
The committee continued the meeting to a future date, giving Siffermann more time to collect data.
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Standoff over sanctuary law
The San Francisco Chronicle, March 4, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=58481
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13.
Sheriff's e-mails tied to profiling suit are recovered
By Yvonne Wingett
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), March 5, 2010
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/03/05/20100305racial-profiling-emails-recovered.html
Maricopa County's information-technology department has recovered information contained in e-mails destroyed by sheriff's officials related to a racial-profiling lawsuit.
The Sheriff's Office has acknowledged it destroyed records from its immigration sweeps and deleted e-mails among employees regarding those operations.
A federal judge last month imposed sanctions on the Sheriff's Office for destroying the evidence. U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow ordered the Sheriff's Office to try to recover the deleted e-mails and swear under oath officials took steps to gather the records.
The Republic has learned the Sheriff's Office recently contacted the Office of Enterprise Technology to see whether the e-mails could be recovered.
Technology officials recovered e-mails dating back to the summer of 2008; it is unclear whether all of the e-mails have been recovered, however.
The Sheriff's Office was not available for comment.
County officials have made arrangements to give the data to attorneys representing the Sheriff's Office in the case.
The racial-profiling lawsuit was filed in December 2007 after a sheriff's crime-suppression operation in Cave Creek that included the arrest of Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres.
Melendres is seeking to stop what he calls 'illegal, discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against Hispanics in Maricopa County.'
The case now includes five individuals who claim deputies have detained them because of the color of their skin, and their lawyers have sought records from the sheriff's crime-suppression operations.
The Sheriff's Office has denied it engages in racial profiling, but the office destroyed records from those sweeps and deleted e-mails among employees regarding those operations.
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14.
Council eyes immigration stance
Politics: Amid mounting pressure from activists and candidates, it may back bills
By Jonathan Randles
The Signal (Santa Clarita, CA), March 4, 2010
http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/25526/
The Santa Clarita City Council on Tuesday will consider endorsing seven pieces of federal legislation intended to cut government benefits to the children of illegal immigrants.
The action would be a purely symbolic show of support for the legislation, all of which is sponsored by Congressman Howard 'Buck' McKeon, R-Santa Clarita.
The council's move to support anti-illegal immigration measures comes after weeks of pressure from city residents and challengers running for a council seat in April's election.
'We do have a problem, we do need to address it and our City Council, as we always do, respond to what our residents request,' Councilwoman Marsha McLean said at a forum held by the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce at the Hyatt Regency Valencia.
Candidates David Gauny, TimBen Boydston and Johnny Pride all said they want the City Council to endorse the bills.
However, not every council candidate thought the move was necessary.
'I've read about these recent bills, they're very nice, very important, but they're a bit of bureaucracy that's an overkill,' said City Council candidate Daniel Henriquez.
'We already have laws on the books at the state and federal level that says we can enforce (illegal immigration), but it's not being enforced,' he said.
The legislation McKeon is sponsoring would, among other things, make English the country's official language, add stricter penalties for those caught crossing the border illegally and build 350 miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Another measure, the Birthright Citizenship Act, would change the Immigration and Nationality Act to exclude granting citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States.
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants full citizenship to any person born within the United States, regardless of whether their parents are legal citizens.
'We need to find solutions to illegal immigration,' McLean said, 'and I support whatever we as a city can legally do.'
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15.
Venture capitalists push two-year visas for immigrant entrepreneurs
By Kim Hart
The Hill (Washington, DC), March 5, 2010
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/85111-venture-capitalists-say-visas-for-immigrant-entrepreneurs-will-spur-job-creation
Venture capitalists lobbied Capitol Hill this week to win support for legislation offering two-year visas for immigrant entrepreneurs.
Legislation sponsored by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the Start-Up Visa Act, would grant immigrant entrepreneurs a two-year visa if they have the support of a qualified U.S. investor for their startup venture.
The bill has received plaudits from the technology community, which has long complained that there are not enough visas for skilled immigrants. Many of the most successful tech companies were founded by immigrants, such as Intel, eBay, Yahoo and Google.
The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) estimates that half of current venture-backed companies were founded by immigrant entrepreneurs.
'Venture-backed companies employ millions of Americans, and many of them would not be here today were it not for the immigrant entrepreneur who founded them,' said Mark Heesen, president of NVCA. 'This bill will help to ensure that the best and brightest innovate and grow their companies in the United States.'
An entrepreneur who created a successful Facebook application stars in a video Kerry's office is sending around to members (below).
'More than 1 million developers and entrepreneurs from at least 180 countries have built on Facebook’s open platform,' said Tim Sparapani, Facebook's director of public policy. 'This rapid growth is a testament to the importance of attracting creative thinkers who have fresh ideas about how Facebook and other forward-thinking companies can facilitate extraordinary new services that improve our society, drive economic growth and create jobs.'
Compete America, a coalition of corporations, educators and research institutions, said supporting immigrant entrepreneurs will lead to more job creation and help the country's economic recovery.
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For Some Immigrants, The Ticket To A Visa Is A Check
By Rob Schmitz
The NPR News, March 5, 2010
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124332014
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16.
Activists rally forces for immigration reform
Immigration reform advocates see time running out
By Lynnette Curtis
The Las Vegas Review Journal, March 5, 2010
http://www.lvrj.com/news/activists-rally-forces-for-immigration-reform-86527812.html
Cynics might call it an exercise in futility, at least this year.
But count Michael Flores among the true believers: those convinced that with a lot of hard work, comprehensive immigration reform legislation could finally move forward in 2010, despite previous failures and the fact that Washington's attention is focused squarely on other issues.
'This is the time,' said Flores, Southern Nevada director of Reform Immigration For America. 'We're organized and we're not going to take no for an answer.'
In November, Flores, 22, began leading the local arm of a national campaign to reform immigration laws in a way that will keep families together and provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.
His job includes lobbying congressional representatives and mobilizing the local Hispanic community and others concerned with getting immigration reform legislation passed. He's trying to get people as excited about the issue as they were in 2006 and 2007, when thousands participated in immigration reform marches in Las Vegas.
It's proven to be a difficult task.
Politicians have put the issue on the back burner in favor of such concerns as health care and the economy. Frustration among reform advocates came to a head after President Barack Obama's State of the Union address in January, during which he devoted a single sentence to immigration reform.
While advocates feel it is time politicians made good on their promises, getting others to remain energized has proven tricky, Flores said.
'People are a little hesitant. They don't want to get their hopes up again.'
Joanna Nuñez, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas student and member of the United Coalition for Immigrant Rights, said a lot of people have lost hope. 'They think it's not going to happen' this year, she said.
Flores and Nuñez gathered last week with about a dozen other student and professional organizers and volunteers at the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada's downtown offices. The meeting of the 'comprehensive immigration reform working group' was equal parts pep rally, brainstorming session and support group.
They shared the emotions people in the Hispanic community are experiencing concerning immigration reform: cynicism, frustration, guarded hope.
'What I'm hearing out there is people are very disillusioned,' said Vicenta Montoya, a local immigration lawyer and community activist. 'People want a realistic presentation of what is politically possible this year.'
Whether or not it's realistic to expect reform in 2010, 'the immigrant rights community doesn't want to let this go by without a fight,' said Petra Falcon, who is part of RIFA's national campaign.
'The president made a commitment publicly when he ran for office to pass comprehensive immigration reform,' she said. 'It's going to happen, with a fight. There are people in this room that can change history.'
Locally, that fight includes planning events, staging rallies, sending out news releases and urging anyone who will listen to call their congressional representatives and demand they work on passing immigration reform this year. It means reaching out to churches, labor unions, the business community and anyone else who could potentially help.
Flores helped organize an immigration rally in front of the Lloyd George U.S. Courthouse in January and a protest in front of Aria at CityCenter that coincided with Obama's recent visit. He's putting together another rally, scheduled for April 10, that he hopes will capitalize on momentum generated from a scheduled March 21 immigration reform march in Washington, D.C. Organizers hope to draw at least 100,000 people to the march in Washington.
Flores is taking some time off from his social work studies at UNLV to concentrate on the work.
'Our efforts are very strong,' he said. 'We've created a machine that cannot be ignored.'
Lately, that machine has taken up most of Flores' time. He doesn't mind. He comes from a family of hard workers.
Flores' grandmother emigrated to the United States from Mexico as a teenager and 'had to work her butt off to make it here,' first as a nanny, then as a restaurant worker and finally as the owner of her own restaurants, he said.
Flores was working as a busboy by the time he was 7 years old.
Now he wants to help make sure other immigrant families -- some of whom haven't been so lucky -- are able to stay together through immigration reform.
'It's unbelievable how families are getting torn apart,' he said. 'This has got to be one of the solutions.'
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17.
Dozens rally outside Schumer's office for immigration reform
By Denise M. Bonilla
Newsday (NY), March 4, 2010
Dozens of supporters rallied in front of Sen. Charles Schumer's Melville office Thursday, urging him to propose comprehensive legislation to address immigration reform.
Organized by the Long Island Immigrant Alliance, the rally was attended by groups ranging from the Eastern Long Island NAACP to the Irish American Society of Nassau, Suffolk & Queens. Leaders called for a path to legalization
. . .
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/dozens-rally-outside-schumer-s-office-for-immigration-reform-1.1793994[Subscription]
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18.
A trip back to the homeland – in a dozen languages – right on your Chicago radio dial
By Taras E. Berezowsky
The Medill Reports (Northwestern Univ., Chicago), March 4, 2010
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=159400
On a recent snowy evening at WSBC’s studio on Milwaukee Avenue in Jefferson Park, a former Ukrainian presidential candidate paced in the cramped lounge, waiting to be interviewed on the air.
Earlier, Hindu was heard on the intercom in the hallway as an Indian and Pakistani broadcast their program. The next day, Arabic and Spanish programs would have their turn.
But at that moment, it was time for Ukrainian Wave Radio.
WSBC, the station that hosts Ukrainian Wave, is home to some 30 ethnic radio programs in 13 different languages. One of the oldest stations in the city, WSBC – the call letters stand for World Storage Battery Co. – began broadcasting in 1925.
Clad in a military uniform with medals and official seals, the Ukrainian official looked as though he was about to testify before an army tribunal. Instead, Ivan Bilas readied himself for a conversation with Ukrainian Wave’s hosts, Maria and Mykhailo Klimchak.
'Even priests stop making their rounds in blessing people’s homes with holy water,' Maria said, 'because, they say, ‘The Klimchaks are talking on the radio!’'
The program has been on the air since just after World War II, when its founders, Stepan and Angelina Sambirsky, arrived from Ukraine.
After the Klimchaks immigrated to Chicago in 1993, they helped read the commercials during the show. When the Sambirskys started to think about retiring to Florida, they began handing the reins to the Klimchaks. They’ve been running the show since 1998.
For an hour every Sunday evening, the Klimchaks combine local community news with international issues to bring a little bit of Ukraine to the airwaves. That night, they would discuss the country’s future under its newly elected president, Viktor Yanukovych.
More than 21,000 radio broadcast stations are licensed by the Federal Communications Commission nationwide, according to the agency’s Web site. A small fraction is devoted to a multiethnic format. An FCC spokeswoman said that the agency doesn’t compile data on stations’ formats.
The reason, says Lucyna Migala, is because many stations are afraid from a public relations standpoint to define themselves as multiethnic. Migala is the program director of WCEV, or 'We Are Chicagoland’s Ethnic Voice,' one of Chicago’s seven stations that boast this format.
'There are several all-black, all-Spanish and all-Polish stations because those are the biggest groups,' Migala said. 'But what do the Ukrainians, Lithuanians or Arabs do? They don’t need an entire station, because there aren’t that many people in their communities. But they still need service in their language.'
These services range from delivering community news to interviewing local and national leaders on community issues to playing popular and traditional ethnic music. In a city as ethnically diverse as Chicago, these programs fill an important niche, said Bruce DuMont, founder and president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
'While major market radio stations have focused on mass appeal to maximize revenues,' he said, 'ethnic radio stations have targeted specific listeners who are drawn together by a common language and cultural connections that mass media companies ignore.'
Program hosts, many of them prominent in their communities, act as ambassadors to the listeners they serve.
Yousif Marei, host of 'Islamic & Arab Voice of Chicago' on WCEV, has been embedded in the Muslim and Arabic community for nearly three decades. His show has been on the air for 12 years. Marei specializes in a talk show format, bringing in academics and officials to discuss vital issues facing Chicago’s Muslims.
'Immigrants have to be taught about their new land,' he said. 'Knowing the culture of America – how children get their schooling, getting jobs, learning common sense – is the most important.'
Outside of his radio program, Marei, a 55-year-old Palestinian, serves as president of Islamic & Arab Community Services. In a modest office in Albany Park, he helps clients fill out immigration applications, provides translation services and even officiates marriages.
'These programs do play a role in helping familiarize these communities with political empowerment and helping advance their agendas,' said Rob Feder, former media columnist for the Sun-Times. 'It can be as simple as urging them to participate in the census or register to vote, all the way to the hot issues that can mobilize those groups.'
One important issue for the Muslim and Arabic community after Sept. 11 has been dealing with discrimination. Marei participates in the Community Alternative Policing Strategy partnership and has interviewed several Chicago Police commanders to raise awareness of hate crimes against Muslims. There’s even an active drive to recruit Arabic citizens into the police force, he said.
Marei’s reach is most powerful, however, during the month of Ramadan. Ramadan is a time of spiritual reflection for Muslims, highlighted by ritual fasting. At sundown Marei plays the azan, or call to prayer, over his program, notifying the entire community when to break their daylong fast.
'We reach over 300,000 listeners during Ramadan,' he said. He told a story about how a father began crying in his car while driving with his four kids. When the kids asked why he was crying, the father told them it was the first time he heard the azan on the radio in 20 years.
Religion is one means of connecting with home. In many communities, another main conduit for this type of spiritual connection is popular music.
Ray Rubio, one of the last independent Puerto Rican broadcasters in Chicago, taps into the nostalgia associated with Latin American performers. He prepares biographies of famous musicians on his program, 'El Show de Ray Rubio,' Saturdays on WSBC.
A few weeks ago, one of the most famous Puerto Rican musicians died. Fernandito Alvarez, of the group El Trio Vegabajeño, was 95.
'I had all his albums, turned them into CDs, did his biography and played two hours of his hit songs,' Rubio said. 'There were many.'
Rubio laments the low interest in programs such as his from younger Puerto Ricans. Mainstream Spanish-speaking stations such as 'La Ley' attract those audiences. His main audience is Puerto Ricans who have lived here for decades; new immigrants have slowed to steady trickle.
'The Puerto Rican community is dying and flying away,' he said. 'I’m the last of the Mohicans [in Puerto Rican radio]. Once I fade away, there’s nobody else to take my place.'
Whatever the outlook, in all three communities – Ukrainian, Arabic and Puerto Rican – the hosts labor out of love for the listener.
Sami Khoury, an 86-year-old retiree who lives in Hickory Hills, created a ritual for listening to 'Islamic and Arab Voice of Chicago.'
'I took pictures of Jifna, the town in Palestine where I was born, when I visited years ago,' he said. 'Every Saturday when I listen to [Marei’s] show, I put the picture in front of me, sit in my recliner, and feel like I spent two hours in my homeland.'
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Local Chileans, Feeling at Loose Ends, Try to Connect After Disaster
By Kirk Semple
The New York Times, March 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/nyregion/05chileans.html
It is human nature to seek succor in times of duress, so it makes sense that since a devastating earthquake struck Chile, one shop selling bread and one selling wine have emerged as key centers of comfort for the small Chilean population in the New York region.
At the Los Andes Bakery, a simple shop that sells Chilean specialties in North Bergen, N.J., the working-class customers have lingered over their purchases — traditional breads and pastries like marraquetas and berlines — to share information about their families, hometowns and ways to help.
'Many of them aren’t in good legal status here, and they’re suffering in silence,' said the owner, Francisco Mejias, a Chilean immigrant who also owns bakeries in Sleepy Hollow and Peekskill, N.Y. — two communities in Westchester County that, like North Bergen, have small concentrations of Chileans.
Across the Hudson from North Bergen, in SoHo, Mauricio Banchieri has seen a similar outpouring of concern among the well-heeled clientele at his store, Puro Chile, a sleek new showcase for Chilean wine, gourmet foods and elegant handcrafts. He held a fund-raiser there on Thursday night, attended by a select group of what he called 'people with large pockets,' many of them members of the Chilean elite in New York.
Yet until this week, neither Mr. Mejias nor Mr. Banchieri had heard of each other.
One might think that in a population as small as the Chilean diaspora in the New York area — about 15,000 residents were either born in Chile or are of Chilean descent, according to the most recent census estimates — the more prominent members would be aware of one another. The vast majority immigrated before 2003.
But they are geographically diffuse. Unlike some immigrant groups, like the Chinese in Flushing, Queens, or Dominicans in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, New York’s Chileans have no large concentrations in any one place.
Chilean society is also rigidly stratified by class, both at home and abroad. So it took one of the most powerful earthquakes on record to nudge the worlds of Mr. Mejias and Mr. Banchieri closer together, even minutely.
Mr. Banchieri acknowledged that he did not know much about the larger Chilean population in New York. As a reporter left his SoHo store to visit the North Bergen bakery, Mr. Banchieri said, 'I’d love to go with you — so I could get a real sense of my community here.'
Patricio Navia, a Chilean who is an assistant professor at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, said the local class division here mirrored Chile’s. 'You have two different worlds that are co-existing in the same country but aren’t necessarily interacting,' he said.
'One group came here because they lacked opportunities in Chile,' he added, 'and the other group came here because they were doing very well in Chile and they wanted to extend their wealth by working here for a few years and making contacts.'
But while the earthquake disproportionately meted out death to the poor in Chile, it has cast both wealthy and working-class immigrants into similar states of anxiety and concern. With telephone systems and the international airport in Santiago severely damaged, Chileans abroad were stymied by a communications blackout that left many, regardless of class, feeling isolated and desperate.
Apart from the Chilean Consulate, there was no broad-based organization in New York to take the lead on centralizing information for Chileans or organizing charitable drives.
'This isn’t a strong community like the Colombians or the Ecuadoreans,' said Luis Mario Ramírez, a Chilean construction worker and a former professional soccer player who has lived in the New York region for 20 years and is a regular at the North Bergen bakery. 'I think the community has awakened to the need to organize itself.'
'We don’t look at each other during our entire lives,' he added, 'but when something happens to us, we start talking. The tragedies bind us.'
Mario E. Tapia, a Chilean who runs the Latino Center on Aging, based in Manhattan, said that during the 1990s, all strata of Chilean society in the United States rallied around a campaign to change Chilean law to allow dual citizenship. At the time, Mr. Tapia headed Centro Civico Chileno, a group formed to lead the campaign.
Once that battle was won, the organization was disbanded.
Since the earthquake, however, Mr. Tapia has reactivated the group for a different cause: He is leading a call for the Obama administration to grant temporary legal immigration status to illegal Chilean immigrants. The special designation, called temporary protected status, was granted to Haitians living in the United States in January, after the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti.
Mr. Tapia said he had discussed the matter with American government officials. He now plans to begin lobbying the Chilean government, which must send a formal request to the Obama administration before the special status can be considered.
If his new campaign is successful, Mr. Tapia speculated, it could lead to a greater sense of unity among Chilean immigrants, and more lasting organizations.
'We were all dormant, and this is waking us up,' he said. 'We’re getting organized.'
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20.
Orlando-area reunion will reflect on Operation Pedro Pan
Dozens of the more than 14,000 Cuban children airlifted to the U.S. in the 1960s will join to swap their experiences
By Victor Manuel Ramos
The Orlando Sentinel, March 4, 2010
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-03-04/news/os-pedro-pan-central-florida-reunion-20100304_1_operation-pedro-pan-refugees-cuban
Susy Rodríguez was 10 years old in Havana when she was awakened by her mother on an early March morning in 1962 and was told that she and her 9-year-old twin brothers had won scholarships to a school in the United States.
Next thing they knew, they were being rushed under the cover of darkness to a neighbor's house where their luggage was waiting, and then to the airport. She remembers waiting for hours in a glass-enclosed customs room, like a fish bowl.
Rodríguez thought the trip was an adventure, but it was one that would forever change her life. She and her brothers, Tony and the late Jorge Garrandés, were three of more than 14,000 Cuban children sent out of Cuba to the U.S. from 1960 to 1962, as their parents sought to save them from state-run schools and indoctrination under Fidel Castro's communist regime.
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The refugee wave of children came to be known as 'Operation Pedro Pan,' led by the Catholic Church with help from the U.S. government and Cuban activists in Miami.
'I do remember when we got on the plane that many of us children just cried,' said Rodríguez, a 58-year-old accountant from Longwood. 'It was just like feeling lost and not being sure of what's going on and where you are going and what's going to happen to you.'
The Cuban children would land in Florida, becoming school-age refugees. Some would live with other Miami relatives, but many would be placed in temporary camps before being sent to orphanages and foster homes throughout the U.S. Many eventually reunited with their parents, when their relatives found ways to join them in exile, but some never saw their loved ones again.
Now in their 50s and 60s, the refugees are marked by their shared experience.
Dozens are planning to meet this weekend for their first Central Florida reunion as they commemorate the 50th anniversary of those freedom flights. Some former campmates located each other through a Miami Herald database of Pedro Pan refugees, where many have posted photos and told their stories.
The connections have led to reunions in Miami, but local organizers said they have found about 50 to 60 refugees in Central Florida and want to bring them together as a community.
'We want to reunite and stay in touch — tell our story,' said Justo A. Martínez, 63, a retired financial advisor in Lake Mary organizing the Central Florida reunion with Rodríguez. 'It was a very difficult decision for our parents to send us to the United States and, despite our success in this country, every Pedro Pan refugee asks himself, ‘Was it the right decision?' I think it was....It was an act of desperation and unselfishness on our parents' part.'
Their migration has been studied in more detail as databases have been compiled with their names and camp assignments, and some of those refugees, such as Florida's former U.S. Sen. Mel Martínez, have risen to prominence. Martínez and others have also started telling and writing their stories, hoping the next generation of Cuban-Americans would know what their parents went through to live in the U.S.
Rodríguez and her brothers were sent to a camp in Florida City, then a rural area south of Miami. After a month there, they were called to the camp's office and told they were accepted to a boarding school in Indiana. It turned out to be an orphanage.
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Once there, her twin brothers were separated and taken to different foster families. Rodríguez was left in the orphanage for three and a half years, before an adult brother took her to live with him in the northeast. When her mother made it to the U.S. and picked her up to live with her in New York, Rodriguez didn't know where she belonged anymore.
Like Rodriguez, many of the refugees gravitated over time to Florida, where they had relatives and a closer connection to their native culture.
Some of them think the isolation from relatives and culture at such a tender age made them a specially resilient immigrant group — and the reunions in Miami and now other parts of the U.S. help them to put the experience in perspective.
'No matter how much you explain your situation to people, rarely do you find someone who really understands what it has been like for us, even among other Cubans,' Rodriguez said. 'We have become very close and very passionate about what this Pedro Pan experience means. We are unique brothers and sisters.'
Orlando's best-known Pedro Pan refugee is the former Senator Martínez, who has told his story about coming to the U.S. as a 15-year-old in his book A Sense of Belonging.
The book tells of how when Martinez was swearing in as a U.S. senator, he locked eyes with his mother and was immediately transported to their goodbye in Cuba 43 years earlier. Those two moments, he wrote, 'represent the dominant markers' in the journey that led him to realize the American Dream, but were also tinged with loss.
He will be among those attending the private reunion this weekend.
'It's a remarkable story of parents trying to send their children to freedom and the desperation they felt, as well as the other side of the great welcome we had here from families that helped us and received us,' said Martínez, 63, now a partner at the Orlando office of the Piper DLA law firm. 'This experience is seared in our lives as an indelible memory.'
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21.
Imam admits tipping off New York bomb suspect
Agence France Presse, March 5, 2010
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/imam-admits-tipping-off-new-york-bomb-suspect/story-fn3dxity-1225837263919
New York (AFP) -- A Muslim cleric is set to be expelled from the United States after pleading guilty to lying to FBI agents when they probed a major bomb plot in New York last year.
Ahmad Wais Afzali, 39, reversed an earlier plea of not guilty and admitted in federal court in Brooklyn to making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Under a plea agreement he faces a reduced prison sentence of up to six months.
He would then have to leave the United States, where he is a permanent resident working as an imam at a New York mosque, but not a citizen.
Arrested in September last year, Mr Afzali was charged with lying to FBI agents about tipping off Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant who has since confessed to conspiring to bomb New York.
According to prosecutors, Mr Afzali telephoned Zazi to warn him that he was being watched. Zazi subsequently abandoned the bomb plot and returned from New York to his home in Denver, Colorado.
In court, Mr Afzali wept as he admitted to lying to the FBI, but said he had only called Zazi to help New York police who came to him for information on the terrorism suspect.
'On September 7, I called Najibullah Zazi. During that conversation I told Najibullah that law enforcement authorities had been to see me about him,' he said.
But when the FBI asked him about this six days later, he denied having had the conversation.
'When I was asked whether I had told Zazi about law enforcement being interested in him, I lied and said I did not.'
Mr Afzali, 39, is originally from Afghanistan but has family and deep roots in New York.
The plea bargain saw his charge reduced from lying to the FBI in a terrorism case to simply lying. That will reduce his sentence when a judge rules in April.
However, the bargain also stipulates his departure from the country within 90 days of leaving prison.
Mr Afzali, who remained free on bail ahead of sentencing, said outside the court that he was diabetic and that abroad he would not be able to get proper treatment. 'I just signed my death sentence,' he said.
Mr Afzali said he was 'truly, deeply sorry' but he also sounded a bitter note: 'I helped the government and this is what I get.'
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22.
Feds: Deadly Atlanta Gang Dismantled
Dozens Of Hispanic MS-13 Gang Members In Jail
By Steve Kuzj
The CBS Atlanta News, March 5, 2010
http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/22744101/detail.html
Atlanta -- One of Atlanta's largest and deadliest gang families is in pieces.
A two-year operation has led to the arrest and indictment of more than 70 members of the MS-13 gang.
With many of them in jail, authorities said the streets of Atlanta will be a lot safer now, but this gang has had a large presence in the metro area for years.
CBS Atlanta News first told you about the Mara Salvatrucha gang, or MS-13, in 2007. Police described them as a growing problem, known for their random acts of violence and brutality.
Their dangerous reputation is one reason federal and local law enforcement agencies were so excited to announce a major blow dealt to the gang Thursday.
'In total, 71 MS-13 gang members have been taken off the streets due to coordinated efforts of federal and local law enforcement,' said Acting U.S. District Attorney Sally Yates. 'Through these efforts, MS-13 in the Atlanta area is being dismantled.'
The MS-13 crackdown was an operation two years in the making, involving both local and national law enforcement agencies.
Authorities say the gang is responsible for murders, shootings, assaults and dozens of other crimes in the metro area.
'Many previously unsolved cases including murders, assaults and robberies are now solved. Victims who suffered at the hands of these criminals will now have closure,' said Special Agent Kenneth Smith of Atlanta’s Immigration Customs and Enforcement.
Suspected gang members are already having court hearings.
Yates said what makes MS-13 so dangerous is their extreme level of unpredictable violence.
'They traded in fear, but their violence wasn't limited to rival gangs, rather their violence was chillingly indiscriminate,' said Yates.
Authorities said although they have eliminated a large part of the gang in the Atlanta area, they still have a ways to go.
'From our perspective, this is not the end. This is a serious blow to MS-13, but the battle will continue,' said Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter.
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Officials say arrests mark major victory against violent street gang
By Eric Stirgus and Bill Torpy
The Atlanta Journal Constitution, March 4, 2010
http://www.ajc.com/news/officials-say-arrests-mark-347947.html
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23.
Feds: Student visa fraud ring found at Fla. school
By Jennifer Kay
The Associated Press, March 4, 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jNv0Bl6SeX5PFdAd2VYxcDMsKZ1gD9E833P00
Miami (AP) -- A Florida language school helped illegally obtain student visas for foreign nationals who never went to class, violating laws enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks exposed weaknesses in the program, authorities said Thursday.
Eighty-one student visa holders purportedly studying at the Florida Language Institute have been arrested. None was on any federal watch list or linked to terrorism, U.S. authorities said, though investigators were checking their backgrounds.
'We don't know exactly what they were doing,' said U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman.
The school's owner, Lydia Menocal, 58, and employee Ofelia Macia, 75, allegedly made $2.4 million over the past three years from foreign nationals applying for U.S. student visas. It was not clear how much they charged each student for the paperwork, authorities said.
Menocal and Macia were charged with conspiring to commit an offense against the U.S., and Menocal faces other charges including falsifying immigration documents, according to a grand jury indictment.
Messages left for Menocal at the school and for the women's attorney were not immediately returned.
The women 'made a profit, in effect, by selling student visas 'no questions asked,'' Sloman said.
The investigation 'Operation Class Dismissed' began in 2007 when immigration officials received a tip that the school was processing student visas without requiring attendance in class, said Anthony Mangione, chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Miami office.
Of the approximately 200 students enrolled at Florida Language Institute in each of the past three years, only 5 percent regularly attended class, he said. The school offered classes to help international students improve their English skills.
Menocal and Macia failed to report to authorities, as required by the post-9/11 rules, that the vast majority of the Miami school's students were not coming to class, according to the indictment.
'It's a systemic failure to report to class, not a vacation day here and there,' Mangione said.
One student visa holder was processed for deportation and released, and the rest remain in ICE custody. All were described as being in their 20s. More than 50 came from Thailand, and others came from Syria, Honduras, South Korea, Japan, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Indonesia, Venezuela and Brazil, ICE spokeswoman Nicole Navas said.
Some of the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks had student visas to stay in this country, including one who never showed up for class at a California language school.
Both Menocal and Macia were released Wednesday on bond, authorities said. If convicted, they face up to 5 years in prison on the conspiracy charge, and Menocal faces up to 10 years in prison on the other charges of making false statements. The indictment also seeks the forfeiture of $2.4 million.
Florida Language Institute has been decertified, and investigators were still looking for other students who may have broken the law, authorities said.
ICE officials said the takedown of the school was the largest visa fraud investigation in the agency's history.
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2 Miami women charged with vast student visa fraud
The feds say more than 200 foreigners were able to stay in the U.S. using visas illegally acquired through a small language school.
By Alfonso Chardy
The Miami Herald, March 5, 2010
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/03/05/1513638/florida-language-school-officials.html
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24.
Somali in custody in S. Texas charged with lying about terror ties
By Guillermo Contreras
The San Antonio Express-News, March 5, 2010
A Somali man in custody in South Texas has been indicted on two counts of making false statements to federal agents about his affiliation with terror organizations and his entry into the U.S.
. . .
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/86481467.html
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25.
Nigerian immigrant charged with murdering toddler testifies
Closing arguments in case against Victor Fakoya expected next week
By Cara McCoy
The Las Vegas Sun, March 4, 2010
The fate of 42-year-old Victor Fakoya, a Nigerian immigrant accused of murder in the death of a close friend’s toddler son, soon will be in the hands of a jury.
On Thursday, Fakoya took the stand and testified that whatever might happen was in the hands of God.
'God is in control,' he said in his thick Nigerian accent after his court-appointed attorney, Norman Reed, asked Fakoya if he was nervous.
Fakoya, who will be on the stand again Friday morning, will be the last of dozens of witnesses to give direct testimony in a trial that has spanned almost four weeks.
He is facing a charge of murder by child abuse in the August 2008 death of 2-year-old Daniel Jaiyesimi. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
. . .
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar/04/nigerian-immigrant-charged-murdering-toddler-testi/
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26.
Reno owner accused of employing illegal immigrants
The Associated Press, March 4, 2010
Reno, NV (AP) -- The owner of a Reno electronics manufacturing company has been indicted on charges that he employed illegal immigrants.
U.S. Attorney for Nevada Daniel Bogden says Hamid Ali Zaidi was indicted on Wednesday by a federal grand jury on six counts of encouraging illegal immigrants to reside in the U.S., and aiding and abetting.
. . .
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/mar/04/reno-owner-accused-of-employing-illegal-immigrants/
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27.
Russian Immigrant Accused of Illegally Moving $172M
The Associated Press, March 5, 2010
Portland, OR (AP) -- A Russian immigrant has been indicted on charges of illegally using shell corporations to move $172 million to 50 countries.
. . .
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/russian-immigrant-accused-of-illegally-moving-172m/401028.html
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