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1. DHS to freeze fence funds
2. Bill may face NCLR opposition
3. Poll finds allegiance to Mexico
4. CA co. to screen inmates
5. Detainees bemoan transfer

1.
Homeland security chief to freeze funds for expanding virtual fence beyond segments in Ariz.
By Jacques Billeaud
The Associated Press, March 16, 2010

Phoenix (AP) -- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday that she will freeze funds for expanding the virtual fence that originally was supposed to monitor most of the 2,000-mile southern U.S. border by 2011 but now covers only a portion of Arizona's boundary with Mexico.

The virtual fence is a network of cameras, ground sensors and radars designed to let a small number of dispatchers watch the border on a computer monitor, zoom in with cameras to see people crossing, and decide whether to send Border Patrol agents to the scene.

A string of technical glitches and delays has put the virtual fence in jeopardy. Two months ago, Napolitano ordered a reassessment of the project that has thus far cost the government $672 million.

"Not only do we have an obligation to secure our borders, we have a responsibility to do so in the most cost effective way possible," Napolitano said in a statement, which didn't specify the amount of funding that would be frozen. The funds will be frozen until the project's reassessment is completed.

Napolitano also plans to redirect $50 million from the Arizona portion to pay for radios, cameras, thermal-imaging devices and other technology that would be used at the border but wouldn't be strung together in the vastly networked way envisioned for the virtual fence.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, applauded that decision, saying he was pleased that "Napolitano has decided to instead turn to commercial available technology that can be used to immediately secure our border from illegal entries. I have been calling for congressional oversight and administrative action on this issue since it became clear that SBInet was a complete failure."

The fence is known within the government as SBInet.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-virtual-bo...

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2.
La Raza Not Optimistic About Health Bill
By Sean Higgins
Capital Hill, March 15, 2010

Eric Rodriguez, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s top Hispanic advocacy group, told IBD that he was not optimistic that the House Democratic leadership and the Obama administration would include the changes that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is seeking to the health care bill.

That would make it a tough vote for the mostly liberal caucus. All 23 of its House members supported the House health bill in November, but that has since been replaced by a Senate-written version that limits participation by illegal immigrants in the health insurance exchanges the bill would create.

The caucus met privately with President Obama late last week to warn they could not support the Senate bill without changes.

Rodriguez told IBD that, while the final language hasn’t been made public yet, what they have heard so far from the administration is that it would be “very, very hard” to include the changes the caucus wants.

“There are not a lot of reasons to be optimistic at this stage of the game,” he said. “We haven’t gotten a lot of positive signals that the issues that we have been raising (will be addressed).”

The office of Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, did not respond to a request for comment from IBD, as did other caucus members.

A major problem for the caucus it is not clear that the immigration changes could be made at all. The only place to include them would be in a companion “reconciliation” bill, but that may be against Senate rules.

“What they are telling us is that (Senate) parliamentarian has to rule on this,” Rodriguez said.

But he adds that it may not be the end if the parliamentarian votes against it. The president of the Senate — i.e. Vice President Joe Biden — may be able to overrule the parliamentarian, he argues.

“Yes, the president of the Senate can overrule the parliamentarian, according to the rules of the Senate,” Rodriguez said.
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http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politics/1511-l...

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3.
Poll: Mexicans say Mexican-Americans Owe Loyalty to Mexico Over U.S.
By Adam Brickley
The CNS News, March 15, 2010

Nearly 70 percent of Mexicans surveyed said that Mexican-Americans – including those born in the United States – owe their primary loyalty to Mexico, not the U.S., according to a Zogby poll commissioned by the Center for Immigration Studies.

The in-person poll, taken during August and September, sampled 1,004 Mexicans across the country on subjects related to illegal immigration and amnesty in the United States.

When asked “Should the primary loyalty of Mexican-Americans be to Mexico or to the U.S.?” 68.8 percent of respondents in Mexico said that it should be to Mexico, while only 19.7 percent said it should be to the United States. Another 11.5 percent of respondents said they were not sure.

Steven Camarota, director of research at the CIS, told CNSNews.com that the Spanish phrase translated as “Mexican-Americans” (“los estadounidenses de origen mexicano”) was carefully selected to ensure that respondents knew that it included those born in the U.S. He particularly stressed the Spanish word ‘estadounidenses.’

“It means ‘United States-ian’ -- (that's) how it translates,” he said, “and it’s understood by everyone in Mexico to include, clearly, people born in the United States of Mexican ancestry.”

Camarota also told CNSNews.com that just over one-third of respondents (36 percent) said that they would come to the U.S., if they could. Of that group, 68 percent said they think that Mexican-Americans owe loyalty to Mexico over the United States.

The data shows that the percentage of potential illegal immigrants who hold that belief is nearly identical to the percentage among the general Mexican population, Camarota said.

Other poll results centered on how Mexico itself would react to an amnesty in the United States -- which was the reason for the poll, according to Camarota.

“How an amnesty would be perceived or received in that country is important to think about if you’re arguing for legalization,” he noted. “That’s the number one reason we did it.”

The results clearly showed that illegal immigration tends to encourage more people to emigrate in the future. he said.

“In Mexico, Mexicans overwhelmingly – especially those who have family here (in the U.S. )– overwhelmingly say that it (amnesty) would encourage illegal immigration in the future.”
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http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/55496

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4.
Immigration status of all O.C. jail inmates will be checked
Orange County joins 11 others in California, including L.A., San Diego and Ventura, that are using a federal database and fingerprint identification to deport illegal immigrants who land in jail.
By Paloma Esquivel
The Los Angeles Times, March 17, 2010

All inmates booked into Orange County jails will have their immigration status checked through a fingerprint identification program that started Tuesday.

Orange County joins 11 other California counties -- including Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura -- that have started checking the status of inmates against a federal database as part of a national program to identify and deport undocumented immigrants who land in jail. The program, started in late 2008, is in place in dozens of municipalities nationwide.

Under the Secure Communities Initiative, jail officials will check inmates' fingerprints against FBI criminal records and immigration records maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, authorities said. The database houses fingerprints of people who have had contact with the department, such as those who have applied for some type of immigration benefit. Previously, specially trained deputies screened inmates upon arrival in Orange County jails. Those who were foreign-born were checked further for immigration status.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oc-jail17-2010mar17,0,93029.story

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5.
Move Across Hudson Further Isolates Immigration Detainees
By Nina Bernstein
The New York Times, March 16, 2010

When federal authorities shut down New York City’s only immigration detention center last month, and sent most of its detainees to a county jail in New Jersey over protests by their advocates, Obama administration officials stressed that the jail was only a short drive from the city.

But under a contract with a private telephone company, calls to detainees’ families and lawyers back in New York are decidedly long distance. The result is a 800 percent increase in the cost of a call, to more than 89 cents a minute, in a phone system so cumbersome that detainees say it impedes their ability to contest deportation or contact relatives.

In protest, the detainees have sent appeals for help to the American Bar Association, signed by more than 180 detainees, and have threatened a hunger strike. They cite exorbitant telephone costs as their central grievance, but also complain of poor health care, confiscation of legal documents and mistreatment by guards at the jail, the Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearny.

The isolation of many immigration detainees was underscored last week when a Chinese New Yorker freed from another New Jersey jail had no clue that he had been pardoned by Gov. David A. Paterson four days earlier.

Officials of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that pays jails to house detainees, have said improvements are in the works. But for detainees shifted from the New York jail, the Varick Federal Detention Facility, the possibilities for communication with the outside world have shrunk.

Brian P. Hale, a spokesman for the federal agency, said that a hunger strike began at the Hudson County jail on Monday, adding that it had been organized by the same detainee who started a hunger strike at Varick a few weeks before it ended detention operations. Agents in riot gear broke up that protest after detainees refused to go to the jail cafeteria, officials said then.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/nyregion/17detain.html