1. Pace of 287 (g) slows
2. Dems add DREAM Act
3. Kerry proposes changes
4. Poll: Tancredo tops GOP
5. Challenger blasts Reid

1.
Fewer local officers become immigration agents
By Alan Gomez
USA Today, September 14, 2010

A federal program that deputizes local police officers to act as immigration agents has seen a sharp drop in interest from law enforcement agencies.

Seventy-two agencies have signed up for the program since it began in 2002, training more than 1,100 local law enforcement officers in 26 states to perform immigration checks and begin deportations. Nine agencies signed on last year and one so far in 2010.

Jim Denney, a former Sutter County, Calif., sheriff who is executive director of the California State Sheriffs' Association, says local departments have been turned off by the controversy that comes with the program, known as 287(g). Only four agencies in California participate.

Denney says the program makes Hispanics suspicious of policeand less willing to cooperate to solve crimes.

"There has to be a level of trust that both sides enjoy in order to work together," he says. "There are going to be times when we have to rely on illegal immigrants to conduct an investigation, and they are going to be concerned if the first thing they think is we're going to round them up."

The program has supporters, including Lexington County, S.C., Sheriff James Metts, whose department joined this year.

Metts says his area's agriculture industry has drawn a large influx of Hispanics and that he has seen "several murders, gang activity, drug activity, coming in with the Hispanic population."

His office did not provide statistics but cited cases in which illegal immigrants were suspects in violent crimes and a 2008 study that found 8.5% of the people in his jail were in the country illegally.

"We're not trying to profile any particular area, race or whatever," Metts says. "We're just trying to keep the quality of life in our community."

Critics of the program, including the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights organization, say it leads to racial profiling. Supporters, including the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tighter immigration controls, say it's a needed tool in the absence of tough federal enforcement.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-09-14-immigration_N.htm

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2.
Democrats pivot on immigration
By Carrie Budoff Brown
Politico (Washington, D.C.), September 14, 2010

In a strategy shift on immigration reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Tuesday that Democrats will try to pass a bill legalizing the status of young, undocumented immigrants if they attend college for two years or join the military.

Reid will offer the DREAM Act as an amendment next week to the Defense Department authorization bill – thrusting the thorny, contentious issue of immigration reform back into the spotlight as Democrats struggle to blunt a Republican surge ahead of the November midterm elections.

“I think it is really important that we move forward on this legislation,” Reid said. “I know we can’t do comprehensive immigration reform. I’ve tried to; I’ve tried so very, very hard. I’ve tried different iterations of this, but those Republicans we had in the last Congress left us.”

The DREAM Act provides a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants if they were in the United States before age 16, and if they have been residents for five years before enactment of the law. Reid could not say whether he has 60 votes to overcome a filibuster but added, “I sure hope so.”

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Democrats would make the defense authorization bill “needlessly controversial” if they added the DREAM Act.

Democrats need some Republican votes, yet it's unclear if any will step forward. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a Republican co-sponsor, has not yet indicated whether he supports adding the DREAM Act as an amendment to the defense bill, his spokesman said Tuesday. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a target for Democrats, will not make a decision until he reviews the bill language, his spokesman said.

And Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who has co-sponsored the legislation in the past, will not vote for the DREAM Act next week, in part because he doesn't believe it's appropriate to add the measure to a defense bill.

“Senator Hatch doesn’t support cynical political stunts," spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier said in a statement. "This defense bill shouldn’t be held hostage to unrelated measures that have no chance of becoming law. He believes we need to keep working to regain the American people’s trust by securing the borders."

Nevertheless, the political calculation is clear: Democrats want to energize Hispanic voters, who have soured on President Barack Obama for failing to produce an immigration reform bill during his first year in office as promised. Reid has also wagered heavily on Hispanics turning out for him in his tough reelection fight against Sharron Angle, his Tea Party-backed Republican challenger

At the same time, however, making the DREAM act a priority would boost immigration to the top of the agenda, at a time when angry voters want something done about the shaky economy. The tough new Arizona law intended to stop illegal immigration by forcing suspects to show proof of legal residency — and the Obama administration’s decision to block it in court — has become a rallying cry for voters disenchanted with the direction of the country.

In an interview last week, Obama told the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion that he supports the DREAM Act, and would take his cue from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on whether it should move separately from a comprehensive immigration reform bill. But he raised concerns that would imperil the broader strategy of a more sweeping overhaul.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42153.html

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3.
Kerry pitches softer approach to immigration raids
By Scott Wong
Politico (Washington, D.C.), September 14, 2010

As Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano led a naturalization ceremony for more than 5,000 new Americans at Fenway Park, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Tuesday pitched a bill requiring federal authorities to take a more “humane” approach when enforcing immigration laws.

The “Families First Immigration Enforcement Act of 2010” calls for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to give state agencies advanced notice before an immigration raid so they can provide translators for the detainees.

The Kerry bill would also require ICE to check detainees to see if any should be released on the grounds that they are too sick, too old, pregnant or nursing, or fall under other vulnerable groups.

A third provision of the bill requires illegal immigrants to be detained near their local ICE office – space permitting – to prevent them from being sent hundreds of miles away from their families.

Kerry said ICE raids across the country, including a 2007 raid in his home state of Massachusetts where 360 workers were detained, triggered reports of detainee mistreatment, families being broken apart, and social and legal services being unavailable.

“This bill represents the humane approach needed to allow ICE to enforce the law without inflicting undue pain and suffering,” Kerry said in a statement Tuesday. “I've heard way too many stories about detainees being denied medical care, or access to a dependent child, elderly parent, or translator. There is no excuse for violations of basic human rights.
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http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0910/Kerry_pitches_softer_appr...

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4.
Poll: Tancredo leapfrogs Maes
By Kasie Hunt
Politico (Washington, D.C.), September 14, 2010

Colorado’s Republican gubernatorial candidate keeps stumbling, and the short-term winner is GOP-turned-American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo.

A new Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday shows Tancredo, the bombastic former congressman known for his anti-immigration crusades, leading GOP nominee Dan Maes for the first time, 25 percent to 21 percent.

It’s a dramatic switch from late August, when the firm’s poll showed Maes leading Tancredo 24 percent to 14 percent.

But the long-term winner is the same: the Democratic nominee, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who earned 46 percent support. That’s up from 36 percent in late August.

The Maes-Tancredo reversal comes in the wake of revelations that Maes didn’t actually serve as an undercover cop in Kansas in the 1980s, as he had claimed on his website. The news, first reported in a Denver Post story, eventually prompted the paper’s editorial board to call on Maes to drop out of the race.

Tancredo quotes the paper in a hard-hitting ad out Tuesday featuring 83-year-old Freda Poundstone, a longtime Colorado political presence who in August claimed she gave Maes $300 in cash to help him pay his mortgage. Maes insists it was a campaign contribution.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42156.html

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5.
First on the Ticker: Angle slams Reid on immigration in latest ad
By Jeff Simon
CNN, September 15, 2010

In a new ad out Wednesday, former Republican state assemblywoman Sharron Angle slams her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as "the best friend an illegal alien ever had."

"Harry Reid - he votes to give special tax breaks to illegal aliens and to give illegal's Social Security benefits even for the time they were here illegally," the ad's narrator says.

The 30-second commercial also slams the powerful Democrat for his opposition to Arizona's controversial immigration law. Reid has been a critic of the law since Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed it earlier this year. A federal judge blocked some of the law's strictest measures in July, hours before they were scheduled to take effect.

"Harry Reid's support for amnesty and his opposition to Arizona's immigration law stands in direct contrast to what the voters of Nevada want," Angle campaign spokesman Jarrod Agen told CNN.
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http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/15/first-on-the-ticker-angl...