Immigration News June 25
Jun/25/2010 10:20
| Business groups craft response to Arizona |
New York Times - 12 hours ago
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, making good on an inaugural pledge, has stepped up to help lead the national battle for immigration reform. ...
Napolitano: Obama wants immigration overhaul
By IVAN MORENO (AP)
DENVER — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano blamed a "bitterly divided Congress" for failing to create an immigration bill but assured Hispanic political leaders on Thursday that the president remains committed to overhauling the nation's immigration laws.
"Make no mistake about it. President Obama and the administration are committed to comprehensive immigration reform," Napolitano said to cheers and applause of participants at the annual conference of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, a nonpartisan group that represents more than 6,000 political leaders. "But I think we can all recognize, and you as elected officials can recognize particularly, that some reform takes time."
Napolitano highlighted President Barack Obama's effort to make it easier for legal immigrants to become citizens and said Obama has taken a tough approach to securing the U.S.-Mexican border.
She did not mention Arizona's tough new immigration law, which takes effect July 29 if it survives legal challenges. It requires police to question people about their immigration status while enforcing other laws if there's reason to suspect someone is in the country illegally.
Napolitano also provided no details of what an immigration bill would look like, but said that it would be a "big goal" requiring bipartisanship.
"We need partners on this one because the administration's own commitment and even the commitment and the desires of so many groups around the country (who say), 'Do something, do something, do something.' That alone doesn't provide us with the bipartisan legislative agreement that we need to reach," she said.
Napolitano stressed that the administration was committed to tough enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border while working to formulate a bill. This week, Obama asked Congress for $600 million in emergency funds for 1,000 more Border Patrol agents.
Napolitano said lawmakers who say the border needs to be secured before a new immigration bill is introduced "keep moving the goalpost."
"And the word secure really becomes, effectively, 'seal' the border," she said.
Nicolas Dominguez, 54, a trustee at El Paso Community College, said he was satisfied with Napolitano's speech, but added, "I think these speeches need to be followed up by actual actions." He also said he wanted more details about what an immigration bill would look like.
Rosa Varela, a school board member from San Luis, Ariz., said she wanted Napolitano to address the state's new immigration law.
"I'm from Arizona and I would like to see what they are doing. This law is affecting our people," she said.
Sylvia Garcia, the president of NALEO, said the group is trying to get people to understand that an immigration bill may take a while. More than 700 Hispanic political leaders are in Denver for the group's conference, which ends Saturday.
"We're just telling people to be patient," Garcia said. "We have to have faith and patience."
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Immigration Policy in Own Hands
Jun/24/2010 10:30
Lawmakers across country taking immigration policy into own hands
By Michael W. Savage
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 24, 2010
With widespread attention focused on Arizona's tough new law against illegal immigration -- and a measure approved this week in the small town of Fremont, Neb. -- similar proposals are under consideration across the country.
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Five states -- South Carolina, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Michigan -- are looking at Arizona-style legislation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. NDN, a Washington think tank and advocacy group, said lawmakers in 17 other states had expressed support for similar measures.
Since it was adopted in April, the Arizona legislation, which gives law enforcement officers the power to check the immigration status of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, has triggered bitter debate and been challenged in court by advocacy groups. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week that the Justice Department plans to sue Arizona over the law, although a department spokesman has said the matter is under review.
This week, the spotlight shifted to rural Fremont, which narrowly passed an ordinance that would outlaw hiring illegal immigrants or renting property to them.
In the first three months of this year, legislators in 45 states introduced 1,180 bills or resolutions dealing with immigrants, an unprecedented number, according to the NCSL. By the end of March, 107 laws and 87 resolutions had been adopted by 34 states, with 38 bills pending. Not all of the proposals were designed to clamp down on illegal immigrants. Ann Morse, director of the Immigrant Policy Project at the NCSL, said they represented "a spectrum" of pro- and anti-immigration measures.
"When I talk to legislators about what they're doing in the state, they say this is their way of signaling they want federal immigration reform to happen -- that they care deeply about the issue, they're working within the parameters they have and sometimes at the edge, trying to get federal attention," she said.
Last month, the Massachusetts Senate amended its budget bill to require state contractors to confirm that their workers are in the country legally. Earlier, the Massachusetts House narrowly rejected a proposal to restrict public benefits to illegal immigrants.
In Pennsylvania, an Arizona-style bill is in the pipeline. Although police officers must have a separate reason to stop someone, the proposal would direct them to "attempt to verify the immigration status of suspected illegal aliens."
South Carolina is set to discuss an almost identical measure next year. And in Albuquerque, Mayor Richard Berry instituted a similar policy, which was upheld by a council vote.
Anti-illegal immigrant measures in Hazelton, Pa., and Farmers Branch, Tex., are being challenged in the courts.
In Fremont, those on both sides agreed that the town's new ordinance, which will take effect in July, marked a national pattern of local communities taking immigration policy into their own hands.
"I'm afraid this is part of a larger, nationwide trend, most obviously typified by what has happened in Arizona," said Amy Miller, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Nebraska, which is seeking an injunction against the Fremont law. "There is no rational reason for Fremont to be worried about protecting our border. But it is a community, like many in rural Nebraska, where the only population growth has been in new immigrants, many of them people of color."
"What will this lead to? Other municipalities in other states enacting their own laws," said Fremont council member Sean Gitt, who said he decided to support the measure after it was approved by the community.
"Fremont is an example of 'If Washington won't, Nebraskans will,' " said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports tougher immigration enforcement. Others note that the economy may determine whether other jurisdictions follow Arizona's lead.
"The big, overriding issue for nearly every state is the state of their budgets," said Morse. "Taking on additional law enforcement costs and court challenge costs is not at the front of their task list."
Immigration Fight in Nebraska
Jun/22/2010 12:38
- JUNE 22, 2010, 11:59 AM ET
By Clifford M. Marks
Arizona isn’t the only jurisdiction taking the fight against illegal immigration into its own hands.
Fremont, Nebraska–a place most of you have probably never heard of–voted yesterday to ban illegal immigrants from renting property or landing a job in the 25,000-person town, the AP reports. The law requires town officials to evaluate the citizenship status of any person renting property, while employers must check the status of would-be hires using a federal database.
The vote could make the Cornhusker state meatpacking town the latest battleground in a national fight over immigration ignited in April by an Arizona law that would allow law enforcement officials to stop people they think might be in the country illegally.
The ACLU has already vowed a court challenge to the Fremont law, with the head of the group’s Nebraska branch decrying the measure as a violation of federal law. The Fremont ordinance, she said, is “completely out of step with American values of fairness and equality.”
Some town residents interviewed by the AP had a different take. “I don’t think it’s right to be able to rent to [illegal immigrants] or hire them,” said Trevor McClurg. “They shouldn’t be here in the first place.”
But if past experience is any guide, McClurg may be out of luck. Federal courts have a track record of rejecting similar ordinances, including a Hazleton, Pennsylvania provision that would have penalized landlords and businesses for dealing with illegal immigrants, according to the AP. And a federal judge also rejected a Farmers Branch, Texas ban on renting to those in the country illegally.
Why dont they come legally? They can't.
May/08/2010 11:50
Posted on Thursday, Apr. 29, 2010
Why don't they come legally? They can't
By ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
After my last column criticizing Arizona's xenophobic immigration law, I got an avalanche of readers' comments. Most of them were angry anti-immigrant tirades, but some made important points that deserve an answer.
I won't waste your time responding to those that reek of racial prejudice. Instead, I will try to respond to some of the most common criticisms made by intelligent, well-meaning people whose arguments can't be dismissed as coming from the lunatic fringe.
Denise, who describes herself as a ``white Anglo who has lived in Miami all my life'' and wonders ``how much longer I will be able to live in the town I grew up in,'' writes: ``I am already a minority who is discriminated against and often feel that I live in a foreign country because of the huge population of Latins who insist on speaking Spanish.''
Read More...
Immigration Articles
May/08/2010 11:49
U.S. | April 26, 2010
Growing Split in Arizona Over Immigration
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Immigration has always polarized the state. But the new law has widened the chasm in a way few can remember.
U.S. | April 24, 2010 U.S.'s Toughest Immigration Law Signed in Arizona By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill aimed at identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants, reigniting the battle over immigration reform.
