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1. Many states eye enforcement
2. GA House passes bill
3. UT introduces new bill
4. Los Angeles drops charges
5. Immigrant convicted

1.
Immigration Wars: More States Looking at Arizona-Style Laws
By Huma Khan
ANC News, March 4, 2011

Undocumented nannies, housekeepers or lawn caretakers in the state of Texas can perhaps breathe easy about deportation, as new legislation in the Texas House of Representatives would make it a state crime to hire undocumented workers, except those employed in single-family households.

The bill, introduced by state GOP Rep. Debbie Riddle, is the first of its kind in the country. It's unique in that while it appeases those who want more stringent immigration laws, it doesn't subject Texas households to the rule that would mainly apply to businesses and large employers.

Critics of the bill say it's hypocritical. Supporters charge it's needed in a state where the Hispanic population continues to climb swiftly.

Though it remains stuck in political limbo, the bill reflects a wider push toward implementing tougher anti-immigration laws at the state level. More than 100 immigration-related bills are pending in the Texas legislature alone, including those that would give state and local police officers the authority to enforce federal immigration laws, make English the official language and prevent undocumented students from getting in-state tuition and scholarships.

States across the country, including Georgia and Oklahoma, where the legislatures debated immigration bills this week, have been mulling controversial Arizona-style immigration laws.Thirty-seven states are considering tougher immigration bills, with multiple bills pending in some states.

"The mere fact that Arizona law has sprung up in over 24 other states within a few months of passage, I believe, is historic," said William Gheen, president and spokesman of Americans for Legal Immigration, a group that supports stricter immigration laws.

"We are going to pass more immigration enforcement legislation in the states in 2011 than any year prior. And what we don't get done in 2011 we will get done in 2012," he vowed.

States enacted a record number of bills and resolutions on immigration issues during the 2010 sessions, and every state that met in regular session in 2010 considered laws related to immigrants, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures report. Forty-six state legislatures and the District of Columbia passed 208 laws and adopted 138 resolutions for a total of 346.

The momentum, in part, is being driven by the ascent of Republicans in state legislatures and the U.S. House of Representatives. Many GOP leaders, especially in Southern and Midwestern states, made immigration a flagship issue of their campaigns.

Critics of tougher laws say these newly minted legislators are unfairly targeting immigrants when they should instead be focused on the economy, the No. 1 priority for most Americans.

"I think that you have extremists who have taken over statehouses and governors' officers across the country," said Ali Noorani, executive director of National Immigration Forum. "Rather than fixing the economy and reducing budget deficits, they have chosen to scapegoat immigrants. It's the classic bait and switch, and this time, the immigrant community is the bait."
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/immigration-wars-texas-georgia-oklahoma-a...

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2.
House passes Arizona-style bill aimed at illegal immigration
By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal Constitution, March 3, 2011

Georgia’s House followed Arizona’s lead Thursday, convincingly passing stringent new legislation targeting illegal immigrants and those who harbor them here.

By a largely party-line vote of 113-56, the Republican-controlled chamber approved House Bill 87, also called the Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011.

The 22-page bill now moves to the Senate, where a committee endorsed a similar but shorter measure Wednesday. Republican Gov. Nathan Deal campaigned last year on curbing illegal immigration in Georgia, but he has not yet taken a position on the House and Senate bills.

Like the groundbreaking law Arizona enacted last year, HB 87 would authorize state and local police to verify the immigration status of certain suspects. A federal judge halted a similar provision in Arizona last year after the Obama administration argued it is pre-empted by federal law. Arizona is appealing that judge’s decision.

Hundreds of demonstrators -- a loose coalition of black and Latino civil rights groups, labor unions and national groups such as Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union -- gathered outside the state Capitol during the House debate Thursday to denounce the measure as an “Arizona copycat law” and call on Deal to veto it if it comes to his desk. They said the measure is irresponsible and would turn Georgia into a “show-me-your-papers state, reminiscent of slavery and Jim Crow times.”

Supporters of HB 87, meanwhile, argued the state must act because the federal government has failed to adequately seal the borders and enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Georgia has the ninth-largest population among states, but it is home to the seventh-largest number of illegal immigrants, estimated at 425,000, the Pew Hispanic Center said in a report released last month. Critics say illegal immigrants are burdening Georgia’s hospitals, jails and public schools and taking jobs here amid high unemployment.

“No doubt about it. Our federal government has failed us, and our citizens in Georgia are suffering the consequences,” Republican Rep. Matt Ramsey of Peachtree City, the bill’s sponsor, told the House at the start of more than two hours of debate.

Ramsey has said he has worked on more than 16 drafts of the legislation, partly to protect it against potential court challenges. The ACLU called the measure unconstitutional last month and threatened to challenge it in court if it is enacted.

Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said Thursday that the governor's office will closely watch the bill, which he said "still has a ways to go" through the legislative process.

About 30 protesters attempted to deliver a poster board letter to Deal that was signed by demonstrators asking the governor to veto the bill. They were stopped by Georgia state troopers at the west entrance to the Capitol. After some negotiation, two members of the group were allowed to hand the letter to a receptionist in the governor’s office. Deal did not meet with the group, and it was unclear whether he was aware they were there.

Asked about the call for Deal to veto the legislation, Robinson said: “We can’t veto something that is not on our desk.”

Democrats vigorously fought HB 87 on the House floor Thursday, arguing it would damage Georgia’s agricultural and tourism industries and force the state to defend itself against costly court challenges. Some called it un-American.

“Do we really believe now is the time to create a gestapo state, where every person who looks or sounds [like] or has the surname of an immigrant must provide papers -- as in South Africa -- to prove their citizenship or legal residence?" said Rep. Pedro Marin, D-Duluth.

Among other things, HB 87 would punish certain people who knowingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants here. It would require many private employers to verify their newly hired employees are eligible to work in the United States. It would empower people to sue local and state government officials who don't enforce existing state laws aimed at illegal immigration. And it would penalizes people who "willfully and fraudulently" use fake identification to get a job in Georgia.

Denise Ognio, a tea partyer and accountant who works for a staffing firm in Fayetteville, stressed the need for E-Verify, a free federal program that allows employers to check whether their new hires are eligible to work. She said two older women called the staffing firm to complain about getting W-2 forms showing they owed taxes on jobs they never held. Someone else had used their Social Security numbers when applying for work.

“When we use E-Verify, it takes minutes and it solves problems down the road,” Ognio said. “But now, illegal workers can leave us and go get hired by someone else down the road who doesn’t verify. We are concerned about losing American jobs because illegal immigrants are taking jobs illegally.”
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http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/house-passes-arizona-...

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3.
New Sandstrom immigration enforcement bill emerges
By David Montero
The Salt Lake Tribune, March 3, 2011

Rep. Stephen Sandstrom unveiled the new version of his enforcement-only immigration bill Thursday, believing he had made enough changes to appease Senate leaders and to ensure its passage out of that chamber.

He was wrong.

The Orem Republican had been told to remove “objectionable language” linked to the old bill, HB70, because of its roots in Arizona’s enforcement-only immigration law. That language included the words “reasonable suspicion” when directing a local law enforcement officer to determine the legal status of a person suspected of a crime.

Instead, Sandstrom brought out the new bill, HB497, with those words still in it — saying he had spoken with Ogden Police Chief Jon Greiner, a former state senator, about keeping the words in.

“Reasonable suspicion is just a tool for law enforcement,” Sandstrom said. “It shouldn’t be demonized.”

But within hours of submitting the new bill and following a conversation with Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, Sandstrom pulled out the language and said it was a clerical error that had been retained in the new copy.

Senate President Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, said if those words had remained in the text of the bill, it wouldn’t have passed the Senate.

“It did matter,” Waddoups said. “Everyone associates that as dealing with racial profiling. We don’t want to have that in there.”
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http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51360287-76/bill-sandstrom-enforcement...

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4.
L.A. drops charges against Westwood protesters who supported DREAM Act
By Kate Linthicum
Los Angeles Times, March 4, 2011

Los Angeles on Thursday dropped all criminal charges against nine current and former students who were arrested last year at a Westwood rally in support of the DREAM Act.

The activists faced up to one year in county jail for their role in the May 6 demonstration. The case has been closely watched by civil liberties advocates, who said the prosecution of protesters by Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich was a dangerous shift in city policy and a threat to free speech.

Until recently, first-time offenders arrested in protests were typically granted what is known as a city attorney hearing, an informal alternative to a court date during which defendants could negotiate deals. Often, the sorts of misdemeanor charges the Westwood protesters faced, including unlawful assembly and blocking the sidewalk or street, were dismissed as infractions.

But since taking office in 2009, Trutanich has charged dozens of protesters, including 10 people arrested at an August rally for laid-off janitors in Century City and 24 arrested at three protests against Arizona's controversial immigration bill.

The charges against the Westwood protesters were dropped because they had no criminal records, had not been violent and had not resisted arrest, said Bill Carter, chief deputy in the city attorney's office.

He said that despite the dismissal, the fact that the protesters had appeared in criminal court sent a message.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protesters-20110304,0,5089928.story

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5.
Russian immigrant convicted in NY of ID theft plot
The Associated Press, March 3, 2011

A Russian immigrant was convicted Thursday of hatching a gruesome identify theft scheme that resulted in the mysterious disappearance of a Ukraine-born translator living a quiet life in Brooklyn and the death of a second victim whose body parts turned up in a New Jersey wilderness area.

A jury deliberated seven hours over two days before finding Dmitriy Yakovlev guilty of conspiracy, bank fraud, using stolen credit cards and other charges. There was no specific murder charge, but prosecutors had alleged he killed both victims in a plot to pillage their bank accounts and credit lines.

Only hours after Irina Malezhik vanished in 2007, Yakovlev's wife was on the phone with credit card companies pretending to be the Russian-language translator "in an all-out effort to take Irina's money," prosecutor Amanda Hector said in closing arguments.

Yakovlev, when questioned by the FBI after his arrest in 2009, lied by suggesting Malezhik must have left the country without telling anyone, Hector said.

"He knew what happened to her — he killed her," she said.

Malezhik's body was never found, and defense attorney Michael Gold sought to convince jurors that the government had no solid evidence to back claims that Yakovlev was a "cold-blooded, scary killer." He claimed the victim had been struggling with drinking and other personal problems at the time she went missing.

Prosecutors alleged Yakovlev also killed and dismembered Viktor Alekseyev, a neighbor in his seaside, gated community in Brooklyn. They say he stole the identity of third acquaintance, a retired New York Police Department employee who disappeared without a trace in 2003.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwWiQjGkDDJIA-iQxdnZzf...