Please visit our YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter pages.

1. Judge questions prosecutions
2. OK officials assess court ruling
3. Arpaio to expand enforcement
4. TX co. leaders support amnesty
5. Bar Assoc. wants new system

1.
Federal judge questions immigration prosecutions
Sparks suggests it's too expensive to jail those without any significant criminal history.
By Steven Kreytak
The Austin American Statesman, February 6, 2010

In an order filed Friday, a federal judge in Austin questioned U.S. prosecutors for seeking criminal convictions in court against some illegal immigrants, writing that the practice "presents a cost to the American taxpayer ... that is neither meritorious nor reasonable."

The order by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks comes as his docket, like others in Texas, is swollen with defendants charged with immigration crimes.

Most of those prosecuted in Austin have been identified by immigration officers at the Travis County Jail and charged with illegal entry after deportation.

Many of those defendants have no significant criminal history and until a change in enforcement strategy about two years ago would have been deported and not prosecuted.

Sparks entered the order in the cases against three Mexican citizens who have previously been deported and who returned to the United States without permission.

Last fall each was found in the Travis County Jail and charged with illegal re-entry.

The men all pleaded guilty and were sentenced Thursday by Sparks to the time they had already served and are being deported.

On Friday, Sparks wrote in the order that "like many of the defendants prosecuted under the (federal illegal re-entry law) in the last six months" the men "have no significant criminal history."

Sparks wrote that it has cost more than $13,350 to jail the three men and noted that charging them criminally means additional costs and work for prosecutors, defense lawyers, court personnel and others.

"The expenses of prosecuting illegal entry and re-entry cases (rather than deportation) on aliens without any significant criminal history is simply mind-boggling," Sparks wrote.

He said the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case could not state "a reason that these three defendants were prosecuted rather than simply removing them from the United States."

He ordered prosecutors to be prepared to state the reasons for prosecuting such cases.

Neither U.S. Attorney John Murphy nor his assistant who handled the cases in Sparks' court, Garth Backe, could be reached for comment.
. . .
http://www.statesman.com/news/local/federal-judge-questions-immigration-...

********
********

2.
Immigrant law ruling assessed
Federal appeals judges tossed two job provisions but upheld mandated worker status verification.
By Omer Gillham
The Tulsa World (OK), February 8, 2010

State officials are mulling their options after a federal appeals court pruned two key provisions of an immigration law aimed to reduce the number of undocumented workers and families across Oklahoma.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld an injunction Tuesday against employer provisions of the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizens Protection Act of 2007, also known as House Bill 1804. However, the court lifted an injunction on a third provision that requires government contractors to verify the legal status of workers on public jobs.

The provision could affect hundreds of millions of dollars in government work.

However, authorities will not enforce that provision until the 10th Circuit issues a mandate, said Charlie Price, a spokesman for Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

He said the attorney general has until Feb. 16 to ask the full court for a hearing on the rejected provisions.

"We can request a hearing of the full court since this ruling came from a three-member panel of the court," Price said. "We are still deciding this option."

One of the rejected provisions barred employers from firing workers who are legal U.S. residents while retaining workers who entered the country illegally. The three-judge panel also ruled against requiring businesses that hire private contractors to obtain documents showing that the individuals are authorized to work in this country or, if the documents are not provided, to withhold those contractors' taxes at the top rate.

The court's 3-0 decision against the two provisions means that they will not be enforced, pending further legal action.

However, the court ruled 2-1 for a part of the law that requires employers to use a federal computer system, E-Verify, or an equivalent to check the eligibility of job applicants. The provision affects only businesses that get contracts from government entities for physical performance of services, such as construction of roads or bridges.

The law's primary author, Rep. Randy Terrill, said the ruling was a home run for the controversial statute.

"It is massively important and hugely significant that we prevailed on the requirement for E-Verify to be used by contractors for public work," said Terrill, R-Moore. "This was the most significant item of the three provisions under the injunction. I feel confident we can prevail on at least one point, if not two, of the items still under the injunction."

Although the provision has yet to be enforced, construction companies are speaking out about the potential damage it could cause.
. . .
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100...

********
********

3.
MCSO deputies will undergo training to target illegal immigrants
By Alicia E. Barrón
AZFamily.com, February 8, 2010

Phoenix -- When the federal government stripped Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies of their power to enforce federal immigration laws on the streets, the sheriff repeatedly said nothing would change.

Nevertheless, something did change on Monday. The sheriff raised the stakes in his battle against illegal immigration. The sheriff said that starting Monday every one of his deputies will go through training to specifically target illegal immigrants.

Sheriff Joe says, “I have been saying over and over again that my deputies can enforce the illegal immigration laws.”

The sheriff announced that he is ramping up the county's fight against illegal immigration by increasing the number of trained deputies from 100 to nearly 900.

In October the feds took away the department's street authority to make major immigration sweeps.

Instead, deputies would limit background checks until after a suspect committed a crime and was taken to jail. Under the new program, a simple traffic stop is enough reason to look into someone's background.

Kris Kobach, an expert on immigration law and border security, says the sheriff has "inherent arrest authority" and does not need federal approval to move forward.
. . .
http://www.azfamily.com/news/MCSO-deputies-to-undergo-training-to-target...

********
********

4.
Court passes resolution in support of immigration reform
By Jared Janes
The Monitor (McAllen, TX), February 8, 2010

Edinburg, TX -- Hidalgo County commissioners approved a resolution Tuesday recognizing the contributions of immigrants to the Rio Grande Valley and offering their support to comprehensive immigration reform efforts.

Citing the $400 million that immigrants contribute to the state's economy, the resolution calls for change to immigration policies that cause "great anguish to county residents who daily experience the tragedy of families divided by ineffective laws."

The resolution was approved in advance of a state convention by the Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance where the group will ask Congress to pass legislation that provides a pathway to citizenship for undocumented residents, creates safer communities along the border and establishes a new workers' program.

The Valley's delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives has backed an immigration reform bill introduced in December that is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi.

Commissioner Sylvia Handy, who presented the resolution to the commissioners' court, said counties along the border with Mexico are affected the most by the nation's current immigration laws.

After Hurricane Dolly, many residents who have lived here for years were unable to receive aid when their homes were damaged, she said.

"They have nowhere else to turn," she said. "It breaks our hearts that we can't do anything because we have our hands tied."

El Paso, Harris, Cameron and other counties were asked by the alliance to consider similar resolutions, said Javier Parra, a community organizer with La Union del Pueblo Entero, a member of the alliance. The resolutions show support of the county's chief elected officials to citizens' efforts to obtain immigration reform.
. . .
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/resolution-35211-court-support.html

********
********

5.
Lawyers Back Creating New Immigration Courts
By Julia Preston
The New York Times, February 8, 2010

In a vote at its semiannual meeting in Orlando, Fla., the lawyers’ organization endorsed a recommendation for a separate immigration court system that would be similar to federal courts that decide tax cases.

Behind the seemingly arcane proposal was a portrait of the nation’s immigration courts besieged with new cases arising from an intensified federal crackdown on illegal immigration, and challenged by critics who doubt the courts’ impartiality. The lawyers described the courts’ condition in a report of more than 1,500 pages released last week.

The immigration courts are not courts at all in the way Americans generally think of them. They are part of the Department of Justice, not the federal judiciary, and the judges, although they wear robes and sit in formal courtrooms, are employees of the attorney general.

While Congress has debated since 2006 an overhaul of the immigration system that would include measures to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants, proposals for fixing the courts have been largely ignored.

But the courts have become “an overwhelmed system choked by an exploding caseload,” said Lawrence Schneider, an immigration lawyer at Arnold & Porter in Washington and a main author of the bar association report. The report was ordered 18 months ago by the association’s immigration commission, a nonpartisan panel of lawyers who monitor immigration laws and recommend changes.

In 2008, the report found, Homeland Security agents detained 378,582 immigrants and deported more than 358,000. Last year, the report found, with enforcement continuing at a similar pace, 231 immigration judges heard more than 300,000 cases, an average of more than 1,200 for each judge, or about three times the load of federal district judges.

Judges are “overworked, frustrated, and feel like they are on a treadmill,” Mr. Schneider said.

Immigration cases have become more complex, especially asylum cases, where immigrants are asking to remain in the United States because they claim to fear life-threatening violence if they return home. With the pace of their work accelerating, immigration judges often feel asylum hearings are “like holding death penalty cases in traffic court,” said Dana L. Marks, an immigration judge in San Francisco and the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

Despite their relatively fast performance, immigration judges’ backlogs are growing, the report found, leaving more immigrants stranded in costly detention while they await hearings. As a result of the pressure for speedy decisions, the number of decisions that were appealed to the federal circuit courts has swelled, from 9 percent of decisions in 2002 to 26 percent in 2008, the report found.
. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/us/09immig.html