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1. Nebraska town may suspend law
2. Lawsuits challenge Sec. Comm.
3. Immigration may not help GOP
4. Study: Crop yields and immigration
5. Mexico to send inspectors

1.
Neb. Town May Halt Immigration Law to Save Money
By Margery A. Beck
The Associated Press, Tuesday, July 27, 2010

OMAHA, Neb. -- Faced with expensive legal challenges, officials in the eastern Nebraska town of Fremont are considering suspending a voter-approved ban on hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants until the lawsuits are resolved.

The City Council narrowly rejected the ban in 2008, prompting supporters to gather enough signatures for the ballot measure. The ordinance, which was approved by voters last month, has divided the community. Supporters say it was necessary to make up for what they see as lax federal law enforcement and opponents argue that it could fuel discrimination.

But the council's president, Scott Getzschman, insisted the elected body was concerned about money, not about any lack of support for the ordinance. The City Council is scheduled to vote on suspending the ban on Tuesday night, a day before the city goes to court over the measure.

The city faces lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund. City officials have estimated that Fremont's costs of implementing the ordinance - including legal fees, employee overtime and improved computer software - would average $1 million a year.
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Getzschman said it's not clear how much money the city would save by suspending enforcement of the ordinance. A court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, when a federal judge was expected to consider whether to temporarily block the ban from taking effect as scheduled Thursday. That hearing would likely still take place, though it could be shorter than expected.

Getzschman insisted the council is trying to act in the city's best interests and limit legal costs, even if the savings are small. In the meantime, the city has postponed informational meetings on the ban that were scheduled for this week.

"It just boils down to the fact that the restraining order and injunction is imminent," Getzschman said. "And as a city of Fremont, we're looking at ways of reducing costs."

Ricardo Meza, lead attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund, said that while his group would support a suspension of the ban, a court order temporarily blocking the ordinance could still be needed if the language of the city's resolution is unclear.

The ordinance has put Fremont on the list with Arizona and other cities in the national debate over immigration regulations. Arizona's sweeping law also takes effect Thursday and requires police who stop people suspected of violating a law to check the immigration status of anyone they think is in the country illegally.

The ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense & Education Fund say the Fremont ordinance amounts to discrimination.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/27/AR201007...

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2.
Immigration Enforcement Through Fingerprint Program Draws Fire Immigrant Groups, Some States
By Ivan Moreno
The Associated Press, July 26, 2010

DENVER (AP) — The federal government is rapidly expanding a program to identify illegal immigrants using fingerprints from arrests, drawing opposition from local authorities and advocates who argue the initiative amounts to an excessive dragnet.

The program has gotten less attention than Arizona's new immigration law, but it may end up having a bigger impact because of its potential to round up and deport so many immigrants nationwide.

The San Francisco sheriff wanted nothing to do with the program, and the City Council in Washington, D.C., blocked use of the fingerprint plan in the nation's capital. Colorado is the latest to debate the program, called Secure Communities, and immigrant groups have begun to speak up, telling the governor in a letter last week that the initiative will make crime victims reluctant to cooperate with police "due to fear of being drawn into the immigration regime."

Under the program, the fingerprints of everyone who is booked into jail for any crime are run against FBI criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security immigration records to determine who is in the country illegally and whether they've been arrested previously. Most jurisdictions are not included in the program, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been expanding the initiative.

Since 2007, 467 jurisdictions in 26 states have joined. ICE has said it plans to have it in every jail in the country by 2013. Secure Communities is currently being phased into the places where the government sees as having the greatest need for it based on population estimates of illegal immigrants and crime statistics.

Since everyone arrested would be screened, the program could easily deport more people than Arizona's new law, said Sunita Patel, an attorney who filed a lawsuit in New York against the federal government on behalf of a group worried about the program. Patel said that because illegal immigrants could be referred to ICE at the point of arrest, even before a conviction, the program can create an incentive for profiling and create a pipeline to deport more people.

"It has the potential to revolutionize immigration enforcement," said Patel.

Patel filed the lawsuit on behalf of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which is concerned the program could soon come to New York. The lawsuit seeks, among other things, statistical information about who has been deported as a result of the program and what they were arrested for.

Supporters of the program argue it is helping identify dangerous criminals that would otherwise go undetected. Since Oct. 27, 2008 through the end of May, almost 2.6 million people have been screened with Secure Communities. Of those, almost 35,000 were identified as illegal immigrants previously arrested or convicted for the most serious crimes, including murder and rape, ICE said Thursday. More than 205,000 who were identified as illegal immigrants had arrest records for less serious crimes.

In Ohio, Butler County Sheriff Rick Jones praised the program, which was implemented in his jurisdiction earlier this month.

"It's really a heaven-sent for us," Jones said. He said the program helps solve the problem police often have of not knowing whether someone they arrested has a criminal history and is in the country illegally.

"I don't want them in my community," Jones said. "I've got enough homegrown criminals here."

Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman, said Secure Communities is a way for law enforcement to identify illegal immigrants after their arrest at no additional cost to local jurisdictions. Jones agreed.

"We arrest these people anyway," he said. "All it does is help us deport people who shouldn't be here."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-immigratio...

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3.
Special Report: Is Immigration a Desert Mirage for the GOP?
By Tim Gaynor and David Schwartz
Reuters, July 26, 2010

Republican state Senator Russell Pearce, a long-time fixture in Arizona politics but until recently a virtual unknown elsewhere, never expected to single-handedly shake up national politics, let alone get under the skin of the White House.

"Nobody could have guessed the impact it would have," Pearce said of the divisive law he crafted to crack down on illegal immigrants in his state -- of which there are nearly half a million. "Who could have guessed that I would have pissed off the president of the United States?"

A 63-year-old father of five and former lawman who worked for the local Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for 23 years, Pearce is clearly reveling in the political shockwaves he has created. He says he is also pleased to have called attention to what he and many other Americans consider misguidedly lenient policies toward illegal immigrants.

As a result, Arizona -- the desert state that provided presidential candidates in Barry Goldwater and John McCain -- has become a crucible for policy on immigration, an issue that crystallizes popular anger ahead of the midterm congressional vote in November.

The state's controversial law goes into effect on Thursday, barring successful legal challenges. It will make it a crime to be in the country without proper documents. Local backers say the legislation's intent is to curb the smuggling of both humans and drugs over the state's porous border with Mexico.

It also requires state and local police officers to check the immigration status of anyone they suspect is unlawfully in the country, even during routine traffic stops. Critics say that this will inevitably result in widespread harassment of Hispanic or Hispanic-looking Americans.

Even so, polls show the Arizona approach is supported by a solid majority of Americans -- a Rasmussen Reports poll in late May found 55 percent of respondents nationally would like a similar law in their own state. Consequently, some political experts say President Barack Obama's steadfast opposition to it will likely help galvanize grass-roots Republican groups.

More significantly, the new law appears to be inspiring copycat efforts in at least 20 other states. That is in addition to the five states that have already introduced similar legislation this year.

As wedge issues go, however, this one may well end up languishing in the desert. Many political analysts say illegal immigration is unlikely to be a deciding factor in all but a handful of contests -- mostly in Arizona itself.

And the eventual backlash against the measure, experts say, could prove severe for its champions, alienating an increasingly affluent Hispanic electorate once considered a potential conservative goldmine for the Republican Party.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66Q2RF20100727?type=domesticNews&f...

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4.
Climate Change Linked to Possible Mass Mexican Migration to U.S.
Lower crop yields and agricultural production could drive as many as 6.7 million across the border by 2080, a study finds.
By Anna Gorman
Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2010

Climbing temperatures are expected to raise sea levels and increase droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires.

Now, scientists are predicting another consequence of climate change: mass migration to the United States.

Between 1.4 million and 6.7 million Mexicans could migrate to the U.S. by 2080 as climate change reduces crop yields and agricultural production in Mexico, according to a study published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The number could amount to 10% of the current population of Mexicans ages 15 to 65.

"Assuming that the climate projections are correct, gradually over the next several decades heading toward the end of the century, it becomes one of the more important factors in driving Mexicans across the border, all other things being equal," said study author Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University.

Of course, Oppenheimer acknowledged, all things will not remain equal. Changes could occur in U.S. immigration and border policy or in Mexico's economy and its reliance on agriculture. But he said this was a simplified first step in studying the effect of global warming on migration.

"Our primary objectives were, No. 1, to give policymakers something to think about and, No. 2, to give researchers a spur to start answering some of the more complicated questions," Oppenheimer said.

Oppenheimer teamed up with two economists, Alan B. Krueger and Shuaizhang Feng, to study the connection between agricultural decline and migration. They looked at Mexican emigration, crop yield and climate data from 1995 to 2005 to make estimates about the next 70 years.

In the past, Oppenheimer said, Mexican farmers from rural areas fled to the United States when they could no longer grow their crops. If the rising temperatures dry out the land and reduce yield as expected, many more farmers could do the same.

Philip Martin, an expert in agricultural economics at UC Davis, said that he hadn't read the study but that making estimates based solely on climate change was virtually impossible.

"It is just awfully hard to separate climate change from the many, many other factors that affect people's decisions whether to stay in agriculture or move," he said.

Over the last 20 years, Mexico has seen a decline in the percentage of people who live in rural areas, Martin said. But much of that is because of economic growth in the nation. "As countries get richer, people leave agriculture," he said.

Nevertheless, Martin agreed that global warming could make farming more difficult and lead to more emigration.
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http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/26/nation/la-na-immig-climate-20100727

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5.
Mexico sends human rights inspectors to border
The Associated Press, July 26, 2010

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said Monday it is sending inspectors to U.S. border crossings to monitor deportations that might result if Arizona's new immigration law goes into effect as planned Thursday.

The law is being challenged by the U.S. government in court, but the federal judge hearing the case hasn't indicated whether she might agree to the challenge's request that the measure be put on hold.

The government's rights commission said monitors will be stationed at border gates in Tijuana across from California, Nogales next to Arizona and Ciudad Juarez and Reynosa across from Texas to ensure migrants are treated properly.

"The implementation of the Arizona Law SB1070 represents a threat to migrants' full exercise of their human rights," the commission said in a statement. "The law violates the principles of nondiscrimination, equality before the law and freedom from arbitrary arrest."

Arizona officials say the law contains safeguards against discriminatory actions in getting tough with illegal immigrants.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/26/AR201007...