Please visit our YouTube, Twitter and Facebook pages.

1. Obama admin. takes hard line
2. Sen. McCain calls for security
3. Trial for NE city law in 2012
4. Slaying highlights dangers
5. KS lawmakers introduce bill

1.
Taking a Hard Line: Immigrants and Crime
By Julia Preston and Kirk Semple
The New York Times, February 17, 2011

After months of internal wrangling and confusion over an ambitious nationwide program allowing state and local police agencies to identify immigrants with criminal records, Obama administration immigration officials have decided to take a hard line against communities that try to delay or cancel their participation in the program, according to documents made public late Wednesday.

The program, Secure Communities, was initiated in late 2008 and is a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s strategy for enforcing immigration laws. The documents include e-mails and other materials showing deliberations among officials of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which runs the program.

The documents show that well into the second year of the program, as officials were moving forcefully to extend it to hundreds of law enforcement agencies across the country, the officials remained deeply confused over whether state and local governments could decline to join it. The internal discussions intensified as cities and states — including Arlington County, Va., San Francisco, Santa Clara County, Calif., Washington, and the states of Colorado, New York, Oregon and Washington — were considering whether to opt out.

But late last year, the documents show, officials from ICE, as the federal agency is known, reaffirmed its policy that every local jurisdiction in the country would be required to join the program by 2013. The officials developed a plan to isolate and pressure communities that did not want to participate.

One document, dated Jan. 2, 2011, suggests a “tactical approach to sensitive jurisdictions” for local immigration officers working to expand the program. It recommends that they bring nearby communities into the program, to create a “ring” around the “resistant site.”

The Secure Communities program connects the state and local police to Department of Homeland Security databases, allowing them to use fingerprints to check the immigration history, as well as the criminal record, of anyone booked after arrest. If a fingerprint match shows that the suspect is subject to deportation, both the immigration agency and the police are notified. As of this week, the program had been activated in 1,049 local law enforcement agencies in 39 states.

Agency officials said the program has led to the deportation of about 58,300 immigrants with criminal convictions since it was started in 2008.

Immigrant advocacy groups strongly oppose the program, saying it has led to deportations of thousands of illegal immigrants who had no criminal records, separating established families. Immigrants’ groups have held protests to dissuade local governments from signing on.

About 15,000 pages of agency documents were released through a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Center for Constitutional Rights and immigration lawyers at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. The Associated Press obtained the documents separately and reported on them on Wednesday.

Several dozen documents were culled for release by the groups, which oppose the Secure Communities program.
. . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/us/18immigration.html

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

2.
McCain calls for increasing security after border agent is killed in Mexico
By Jordy Yager
The Hill (DC), February 17, 2011

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Thursday pressed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to tighten security along the southwestern border in the wake of an attack by a drug cartel in Mexico that killed a federal agent and wounded another.

“I am convinced, tragically, that if the status quo remains, that violence will continue to spill over onto our side of the border,” said McCain as he called for increased security measures.

McCain’s push came as lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee peppered Napolitano with questions about the effects of the president’s fiscal 2012 budget on the safety of the country and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona, said DHS has done an unprecedented job of securing the border and that seizures of illegal cash, drugs and weapons, as well as dealing with undocumented immigrants, were all increasing. But, she said, the numbers had not improved fast enough in the Tucson sector, one of the most highly trafficked areas of Arizona.

Napolitano said that is why President Obama’s budget focuses heavily on increasing resources to that region of the border. Obama has requested $43.2 billion for homeland security, an increase of $300 million from last year.
. . .
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/144977-mccain-stresses-security-after...

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

3.
Trial on Neb. city's immigration law set for 2012
By Timberly Ross
The Associated Press, Febraury 18, 2011

A legal fight over an eastern Nebraska city's ordinance that bans hiring or renting to illegal immigrants isn't likely to be resolved anytime soon.

A federal judge on Thursday scheduled an April 2012 trial in the lawsuits challenging Fremont's voter-approved ban as discriminatory and contrary to what is allowed by state law. The combined lawsuits were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund, also known as MALDEF.

The Fremont ordinance is on hold until the court case is resolved.

U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp decided to keep the case in federal court after the Nebraska Supreme Court declined to intervene. A previous trial date of March 15 was canceled.

The attorney representing the city, Kris Kobach, said Thursday that it wasn't unusual for courts to grant plaintiffs more time to look for evidence.

"We do not believe any of the plaintiff's allegations are supported by the facts but respect the court's decision to give plaintiffs the opportunity to make their case," Kobach said.
. . .
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-18/trial-on-neb-city-s-immigration...

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

4.
For Immigration Agents, Slaying Highlights Perils
BPR, February 18, 2011

U.S. and Mexican investigators are looking into the killing of an American Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and the wounding of another in northern Mexico this week by suspected drug traffickers. The incident has rank-and-file agents on both sides of the border accusing ICE of failing to protect them.

Special Agent Jaime Zapata was one of 30 ICE agents posted in Mexico. On Tuesday, he and Special Agent Victor Avila were driving a big blue armored Chevy Suburban with diplomatic plates from San Luis Potosi to Mexico City.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who was briefed by ICE, says the pair had stopped for lunch. When they left the restaurant, the gunmen followed them and ran them off the road. When the agents identified themselves, the cartel members opened fire. Mexico forbids U.S. law enforcement from carrying weapons on its territory.

The facts of the case raise questions: Why were federal agents driving a marked vehicle in an area with a known drug mafia presence that had a standing threat to kill U.S. officers?

"I would be asking questions regarding why they were in such a high-profile car," says Fred Burton, a former deputy chief of diplomatic security for the State Department who is now with the global intelligence firm Stratfor. "What intelligence was known about that route 24 hours ahead of time? Where was the failure point?"

Retired ICE Deputy Director Alonzo Pena, who has experience in Mexico, said in an interview that all embassy personnel drive those armored sport utility vehicles, and that the safety of agents is paramount. An ICE official, speaking on background, added that there were no embassy travel restrictions on the section of highway where the agents were attacked, and there were precautions taken to keep them out of cartel country.
. . .
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/18/133855001/for-immigration-agents-slaying-h...

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

5.
Kansas unveils Arizona-like bill targeting illegals
By David Klepper
Kansas City Star, February 18, 2011

Kansas joined Arizona on the front lines of one of America’s hottest political debates Thursday when conservative state leaders introduced legislation targeting illegal immigrants.

Modeled after Arizona’s controversial law on illegal immigration, the bill proposes several measures to deal with a problem that supporters contend the federal government has too long ignored. The proposed legislation would:

•Require local police to check the legal status of those they suspect might be in the U.S. illegally.

•Require proof of citizenship for anyone seeking public assistance.

•Make it illegal to harbor illegal residents and bolster the penalties for making fake identifications.

•Insist that state and local governments and their contractors run citizenship checks on all new hires.

Rep. Lance Kinzer, an Olathe Republican, wrote the bill with Secretary of State Kris Kobach, also a Republican. Both said the bill took some provisions of Arizona’s law — known as SB 1070 — and added other pieces from earlier proposals in Kansas.

Kobach helped write the Arizona law. Many of its provisions were blocked by the federal courts. Still, Kobach said he thinks the Kansas bill is on solid legal ground.

Kobach predicted the bill would pass, thanks to last November’s election, which put more conservatives in the Legislature and Republican Sam Brownback in the governor’s office. Brownback has yet to weigh in on the bill.

“I heard from many, many constituents last fall that Kansas needs an SB-1070-style bill in Kansas,” Kobach said. “The political climate has become much more receptive to these types of proposals.”

With anti-illegal sentiment running high across the nation, lawmakers in several other states also are looking to implement parts or all of the Arizona law. In addition, Kansas lawmakers are considering repealing a state law granting in-state tuition to children of illegal immigrants and requiring voters to show identification to crack down on illegal immigrant voter fraud.

Like those measures, the new Arizona-style bill is likely to pass the conservative-led Kansas House. But political observers said it could run into challenges in the more moderate Senate.
. . .
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/02/17/2664323/kansas-unveils-arizona-like...