1. Virtual fence to be discontinued
2. DREAM Act has supporters, detractors
3. Counties push for non-citizen voting
4. Whitman accuses opponent of lying
5. NY rushes immigrant pardons

1.
Costly virtual border fence in tatters
By Brian Bennett
Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2010

The Department of Homeland Security, positioning itself to cut its losses on a so-called invisible fence along the U.S.- Mexico border, has decided not to exercise a one-year option for Boeing to continue work on the troubled multibillion-dollar project involving high-tech cameras, radar and vibration sensors.

The result, after an investment of more than $1 billion, may be a system with only 53 miles of unreliable coverage along the nearly 2,000-mile border.

The virtual fence was intended to link advanced monitoring technologies to command centers for Border Patrol to identify and thwart human trafficking and drug smuggling. But from the beginning, the program has been plagued by missed deadlines and the limitations of existing electronics in rugged, unpredictable wilderness where high winds and a tumbleweed can be enough to trigger an alarm.

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Homeland Security officials decided on Sept. 21 not to invoke the department's option with Boeing, the principle contractor on the project, and instead extended the deal only to mid-November, Boeing officials confirmed this week. Boeing has charged the department more than $850 million since the project began in 2006.

The government has not released an independent assessment of the program completed in July, but with the two-month Boeing extension about to run out, several members of Congress expect the Homeland Security Department to rule soon on the fate of the invisible fence, the high-tech portion of the $4.4-billion Secure Border Initiative.

Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler would only say that a new way forward for the program "is expected shortly."

But given that the virtual fence has yet to pass muster even in the 53-mile test area — two sections in Arizona that officials acknowledge won't be fully operational until 2013 — and the government's lack of interest in extending Boeing's contract, most do not expect the department to invest billions more in a project that has continually disappointed.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he hoped Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano would act soon. "The program is headed in the wrong direction," Thompson said.

"It would be a great shame to scrap SBInet," said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), who has encouraged the department to bring to the Southwest the technology the U.S. military is using on the Afghanistan- Pakistan border. "Technology is key to solving these border issues."

Even as scrutiny of the program has increased in the last year, Boeing has not provided accurate information on the progress of the program, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released Oct. 18. The study found an unusually high number of errors in the data Boeing gave to the Homeland Security Department.

A spokeswoman for Boeing said the company had "worked closely with Customs and Border Protection to overcome past performance and management challenges." She added that Boeing was committed to completing the testing and delivery of the system at the Tucson and Ajo, Ariz., stations, which comprise the 53-mile test zones.

Some of the technology, such as remote cameras, night-vision video and mobile surveillance, is being used by agents in the Arizona test areas, which see a high level of cross-border traffic. But the effectiveness is far from what was requested by Homeland Security officials and promised by Boeing when the project began.

Daytime cameras are able to monitor only half of the distance expected. Ground sensors can identify off-road vehicles, but not humans, as initially envisioned by the government.

"It turned out to be a harder technological problem than we ever anticipated," said Mark Borkowski, executive director of the electronic fence program at the Homeland Security Department, earlier this year. "We thought it would be very easy, and it wasn't."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-invisible-fence-201...

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2.
Coming Out Illegal
By Maggie Jones
The New York Times, October 21, 2010

Leslie, a history major at the University of California at Los Angeles and an aspiring marathon runner with three part-time jobs and plans for grad school, keeps a neatly folded dark blue T-shirt in her closet among her jeans and her U.C.L.A. Bruins sweatshirt. Like an intimate detail, she reveals it cautiously, wearing it to campus events but not on the streets of Orange County; to a rally with a group of friends, but not alone on a crosstown bus. A senior at U.C.L.A. and the only child of a single working mother, Leslie is brave but not reckless: in the wrong place under the wrong circumstances, the T-shirt’s two words across the chest — “I’m Undocumented” — are provocative enough to upend her life.

Undocumented, and Out The immigration advocates of “the Cabin” (from left): Fabiola, Ilse, Andrea and Leslie.

For most of her 22 years, Leslie — whose only memory of coming to the United States with her mother when she was 6 is of the bright lights along the L.A. freeway — kept her immigration status secret from even close friends. She knew that certain life experiences and rites of passage were out of her reach: visiting her grandparents in Mexico; voting; getting a driver’s license.
. . .
Leslie’s “Undocumented” T-shirt, along with the rallies she attends and the lobbying she has done in Washington and Sacramento, is part of an effort to change her and other undocumented students’ lives through what’s known as the Dream Act. The federal bill, a version of which was introduced in Congress in 2001, would create a pathway to legal residency for immigrants who arrived in this country as children, have been in the United States for at least five years and have graduated from a U.S. high school or obtained a G.E.D. To gain status, they would have to finish two years of college or military service. Supporters argue that the legislation benefits ambitious, academically successful students who will go on to professional careers. Without the Dream Act, many of those same young people will be stuck, much like their parents, in the underground economy.

Some 825,000 immigrants are likely to become legal residents if the Dream Act passes, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a research group. But Steven A. Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors strict enforcement of immigration laws and opposes the Dream Act, argues that the legislation would create another avenue for immigration fraud and added incentive for immigrants to come to the United States. He noted that it rewards illegal behavior and takes college spots and financial aid from students who are legal residents.

Nonetheless, the Dream Act has some bipartisan support, and in this political climate, it’s one of the only immigration bills with any shot of passing. Last month, Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat and chief sponsor of the bill, planned to attach the Dream Act as an amendment to the defense authorization bill, which included the controversial repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The package stalled when supporters were unable to muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. Among Dream Act opponents is Senator John McCain, who co-sponsored a version of the Dream Act in 2007. This year, during which he faced a tough-on-immigration candidate in the primaries, he said he would not support the Dream Act without tighter border controls. Meanwhile, Durbin plans to push it as a stand-alone bill, either in the coming lame-duck session or next year.

In the midst of the political wrangling, the Dream Act advocates — most of them in their early to mid-20s — have become the most outspoken and daring wing of the immigration movement. Borrowing tactics from the civil rights and gay rights movements, in the last year they have orchestrated dozens of demonstrations, hunger strikes, “coming out” events — publicly revealing their undocumented status — and sit-ins in federal offices, risking both arrest and deportation.

Several of these events — like much of the movement — have been largely powered by women, according to many advocates. At recent sit-ins, two-thirds of those arrested were women, including founders and leaders of their local Dream organizations. Women have also stuck with the movement long after many men have dropped out or burned out. Lizbeth Mateo, co-founder of Dream Team Los Angeles, said she and other leaders tried to get more undocumented men to participate in a sit-in in McCain’s Arizona office this year. “We wanted to balance it out,” she said. But with one exception, the men said they were not ready.

Many of these women are daughters of nannies, housekeepers, landscapers — a generation of immigrants who tended to keep a low profile. In contrast, their daughters have been schooled in a more vocal American culture. “We did what we were supposed to do,” Fabiola, an undocumented activist and a recent U.C.L.A. graduate who came to the United States from Mexico as a toddler, told me. “We are the cream of the crop. But because of something we had no choice in, our entire lives are on hold.” Living in the shadows, she said, is no longer acceptable.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/magazine/24DreamTeam-t.html?pagewanted...

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3.
Bucking Anti-Immigrant Trend, Some Communities Push for Non-Citizen Voting
By Elise Foley
The Washington Independent, October 22, 2010

Last Wednesday, a group of progressive volunteers gathered in Monument Square in Portland, Maine, to quiz passersby about citizenship. Could they answer sample civics questions from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services test to become an American citizen? (Most couldn’t.) Did they know how much it costs to become a citizen or how long it can take? (Most estimates were too low.) Did they know about Question 4 on the Portland, Maine, city ballot Nov. 2?

In a city where legal immigrants make up about 15 percent of the population, the progressive groups Maine People’s Alliance and the League of Young Voters are working to encourage voters to extend voting rights to legal immigrants who have not yet become citizens. They argue these residents live, work and pay taxes in the city, but due to the difficulty of obtaining citizenship are unfairly denied the right to determine how the city spends its funds.

“Legal immigrants are active members of the community and shouldn’t be denied a voice because of these major barriers,” said Reva Eiferman, an organizer with Maine People’s Alliance. “There’s a disconnect between the citizenship process within the immigration system and an individual’s right to have their voice heard in their city.”

As cities and states across the country consider legislation aimed at limiting the flow of outsiders to their areas, a few municipalities are moving in the opposite direction, pushing to expand the rights of immigrants living within their borders. In Portland, Question 4 would allow legal immigrants to vote in municipal elections. A ballot proposition in San Francisco aims to take voting one step further, allowing even illegal immigrants to vote in school elections as long as they are the parents of a public school student. In New York, city council members plan to introduce legislation allowing legal residents to vote in city elections within the next few months.

These efforts show that while anti-immigrant sentiment is prevalent, it’s not universal, supporters argue.

“It responds to what’s happening nationwide — the new policies in Arizona included — in a positive way,” Eiferman said.

Non-citizens can already vote in six Maryland municipalities and in Chicago school elections, but the rest of the country gives voting privileges only to citizens. Early in the country’s history, non-citizens were allowed to vote in most states, but as immigration into the United States increased, residents began to restrict voting rights, state by state. (Federal elections have always limited voting to citizens.) By the 1920s, as Europeans moved to the country after World War I, states cut off legal immigrant voting rights entirely, and only a few cities have so far reinstated them.

“It was kind of like the atmosphere now: There was concern about the volume of newcomers and what it means for the nature of America and where it’s headed,” said Ron Hayduk, a political science professor at the City University in New York and a supporter of expanding New York voting rights to non-citizens.

If immigrants can vote, they will never bother to become citizens, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the anti-illegal immigration group Center for Immigration Studies. He said the citizenship process is sufficiently easy for legal immigrants that they should be required to fully commit to the country before getting the right to vote.

“It’s silly not to require that formal step of marrying America instead of just shacking up,” Krikorian said.
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http://washingtonindependent.com/101358/bucking-anti-immigrant-trend-som...

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4.
Whitman accuses Brown of lying to Latinos about her
By Seema Mehta
Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2010

Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman lashed out at rival Jerry Brown on Thursday, accusing the Democrat and his labor allies of spreading lies among Latinos about her position on immigration as her poll numbers have plummeted among that key sector of the electorate.

"It makes me mad that he's just out there telling lies," Whitman said after touring a small Latino-owned Los Angeles business that imports and manufactures decorative metal pieces for homes. "He accuses me of not being truthful. He is the one just not telling the truth on this, and it makes me mad and I'm not going to let it stand."

She accused Brown and unions of running inaccurate ads and distributing mailers that say that she supported Arizona's recent crackdown on illegal immigrants and Proposition 187, the 1994 California ballot measure intended to deny undocumented residents taxpayer-funded services. Whitman has consistently said she was against both measures, a stance that cost her support in the GOP primary campaign.

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But the arguments advanced in ads and mailers are grounded in shards of truth: While she said she opposed a law such as Arizona's for California, she said states have the right to make such decisions.

And although she has consistently said she opposed Proposition 187, she has said undocumented students should be barred from attending publicly funded universities, one of the initiative's planks.

The Brown campaign responded that Whitman has consistently lied during this race.

"Meg Whitman has run the most relentlessly negative and dishonest campaign in California history, and nearly every ad she has put out has been derided as entirely or mostly false by just about every reputable news organization in the state of California and many national ones," said Brown spokesman Sterling Clifford. "So I think Californians know who's not telling the truth."

Whitman's comments, among the sharpest and most emotional she has made on the campaign trail, come on the heels of a new poll indicating that after months of a dead-heat race, Brown has gained an edge with less than two weeks to election day.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-whitman-20101022,0,5123125.story

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5.
Panel Is Facing Deadline on Immigrants’ Pardons
By Kirk Semple
The New York Times, October 21, 2010

In May, as the federal government increased deportations and some states sought to tighten immigration enforcement, Gov. David A. Paterson caused a national stir by announcing a push in the opposite direction: a state effort to speed the granting of pardons to immigrants facing deportation for old or minor criminal convictions.

Nearly six months later, that initiative is finally coming to fruition — with little time to spare.

Hundreds of petitions from legal permanent residents for pardons have swamped the New York governor’s office, and a special clemency panel is rushing to sift through them and make recommendations to Mr. Paterson before his term and the program end on Dec. 31.

The vast majority of the requests were mailed just before an Oct. 1 deadline, compelling the panel to double the frequency of its meetings. “The expectation is that when all is said and done, there will be well over 1,000” petitions, said Morgan Hook, a spokesman for Mr. Paterson. “We literally have boxes of them sitting in the hallway.”

Some of the petitions are elaborate, bound documents numbering scores of pages, with color photographs and affidavits from relatives, employers and others testifying to the petitioners’ worthiness for clemency.

“To some extent this is a competition,” said Manoj Viswanathon, a lawyer who filed a petition on behalf of a Frenchman who holds a green card and served three years in prison in the early 1990s for narcotics and firearm convictions. “It’s like applying to college: there’s so much competition, you want to make your packet stand out.”

But unlike many college applicants, these petitioners are almost completely in the dark about their chances for success. The Paterson administration will say little about the decision-making process or how many pardons the governor expects to issue.

When he announced the formation of the so-called pardon panel, Mr. Paterson specified that it would recommend pardons only for legal permanent residents — green card holders — “who have contributed as New Yorkers and who deserve relief from deportation or indefinite detention.”

Some lawyers and immigrant advocates complain that the governor has provided few guidelines for what makes a strong case.

Margaret Love, a lawyer in Washington who served as the United States pardon attorney under Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, said that lack of guidelines was not surprising, especially given how new and unusual Mr. Paterson’s program is. “A pardon historically is a pretty free-form exercise,” she said. “One reason governors don’t like it is they have to make subjective decisions about people who by definition are not safe bets. It’s scary.”

Mr. Paterson’s own record provides scant guidance. Since taking office in March 2008, he has granted only two pardons to legal permanent residents.

In 2008 he gave one to Ricky Walters, the hip-hop musician known as Slick Rick, who was facing deportation to his native Britain for convictions on attempted murder and weapons charges dating back 17 years. In March, the governor pardoned Qing Hong Wu, 29, who had served three years in prison for a number of muggings committed when he was 15; Mr. Wu went on to become an information technology executive, yet still faced deportation to China, which he had left at age 2.

The governor cited Mr. Wu’s case as one reason for his move to expedite pardons for other immigrants.

The crimes now under review range from misdemeanors to felonies, and from turnstile jumping to murder, officials and lawyers said. Some were committed in recent years, while others date back decades. Most petitioners face deportation for their convictions, and only a governor’s pardon can prevent it, though officials said that in some cases, including those involving certain gun and drug crimes, even a pardon would not prevent deportation.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/22/nyregion/22pardons.html