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1. Feds to review detentions
2. IN foreign pop. shrinking
3. AZ sheriff loses tools
4. Mayor prefers Sec. Comm.
5. Zazi bomb plots disclosed

1.
Immigration Officials Weigh Less-Restrictive Detentions
By Spencer S. Hsu
The Washington Post, October 7, 2009

The United States will review the procedures under which it detains about 380,000 illegal immigrants a year, exploring the use of converted hotels and nursing homes as it seeks to transform a prison-based system into one tiered according to the risk posed by individual detainees, Obama administration officials said Tuesday.

Detailing an overhaul announced in August, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and John T. Morton, assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the measures are intended to make the much-criticized, $2.6 billion-a-year immigration detention system safer and more efficient without adding to its costs.

The changes come as advocates for immigrants pressure President Obama to improve detention standards and legalize millions of illegal immigrants. At the same time, Obama has said tough enforcement policies are essential to winning approval from Congress for any deal to grant legal status.

"We accepted that we were going to continue to have -- and increase, potentially -- the number of detainees," Napolitano said. Among the review's goals, she said, is improving federal oversight of more than 300 local jails, state prisons and private facilities.

By next October, ICE will rank detainees on the basis of flight risk and public danger, set new requirements for detention facilities based on those risk levels and issue bids for two new-model detention centers, Napolitano said.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/06/AR200910...

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2.
Foreign-born population falls
Exodus of Hispanic students seems to have slowed
By Angela Mapes Turner
The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, IN), October 7, 2009

West Noble schools conducted an unusual collection drive in March: They gathered books and letters for Hispanic students educated in American schools but whose families were prompted by the recession to return to Mexico.

The recipients, Jose and Lisbeth, were among dozens of immigrants who left Noble County during winter and spring because of Noble County’s rising unemployment, alarming local schools and businesses.

The exodus the school district saw during the winter break slowed to a trickle over the summer, West Noble administrators said.

“We were extremely pleased with enrollment numbers at the beginning of this year,” said West Noble Elementary Assistant Principal Candice Holbrook, the district’s English as a New Language director.

But the numbers have only held steady – not bounced back – and are symptomatic of what’s happening across the state, according to recent census data.

Indiana’s foreign-born population decreased by nearly 3 percent from 2007 to 2008 as the recession, which began in December 2007, devastated the manufacturing-dependent Hoosier job market.

Overall, the foreign-born population in the U.S. dropped slightly last year for the first time in nearly four decades, the data said.

Enrollment of Hispanic students did bounce back in Fort Wayne. Fort Wayne Community Schools, which has the largest population of Hispanic students in Allen County, lost 20 Hispanic students during the first semester of last school year.

But the district’s enrollment of Hispanic students today is up nearly 90 students since January, spokeswoman Krista Stockman said.

Of course, not all Hispanic students are immigrants, although in West Noble’s case, a large number are. Many also are U.S. citizens, a generation or two removed from their ancestral homelands.

Expert opinion is mixed as to whether the total decreased because immigrants are leaving or because fewer are arriving. When it comes to illegal immigration, it’s difficult to know how many are leaving because no one can say how many were here.

The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration policies, estimates the illegal immigrant population in the U.S. has declined by 11 percent through May 2008 after peaking in August 2007. That amounts to 1.3 million fewer immigrants, a report by the center said.
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http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091007/LOCAL/310079965/1002/LOCAL

EDITOR'S NOTE: The American Community Survey can be found online at: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/

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3.
Arpaio vows to press on with immigrant sweeps
By JJ Hensley
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), October 7, 2009

Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday promised that his deputies will continue to enforce immigration law despite the lack of a contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that authorizes immigration enforcement on the streets and in the jails.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote today on a new agreement that would authorize deputies to continue an immigration-enforcement program in Maricopa County jails.

However, Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox said Tuesday that she would ask the board to table the vote until federal immigration officials signed off on the agreement, in accordance with county policy.

"There's a possibility it could get continued," she said. "It's probably 50-50 right now."

Arpaio said he would continue enforcing immigration law on the streets thanks to an opinion from County Attorney Andrew Thomas that allows suspected illegal immigrants to be charged as co-conspirators in their own smuggling. Sheriff's officials said deputies also would rely on a provision of the federal criminal code that allows local law enforcement to detain someone for "brief warrantless interrogation" where circumstances indicate the person could be in the country illegally.

"I am free of the federal government," Arpaio said.

The decision to remove part of an agreement that authorized street-level immigration enforcement from deputies but allow such enforcement to continue in the jails was a political ploy from Washington, D.C., Arpaio said.

A local ICE spokesman said the agreement Arpaio signed was pending until the Oct. 15 signing deadline.

Since 2007, the Sheriff's Office has operated under an umbrella agreement authorizing the street-level enforcement and jail operations, but ICE officials announced in July that all the contracts with local law-enforcement agencies were under review. Federal officials have come under pressure from civil-rights, labor, religious and pro-immigrant groups to end the program, known as 287(g), because of racial-profiling fears.

Arpaio said he was prepared to sign a new umbrella agreement, which stressed a focus on enforcing immigration laws only in cases of serious crimes. But an ICE official presented the sheriff with a contract that would authorize the operations only in the jails.
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2009/10/07/20091...

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4.
White steering clear of 287(g) concept
By Susan Carroll
The Houston Chroncile, October 7, 2009

Mayor Bill White is distancing himself from a controversial federal program that trains local law enforcement to identify suspected illegal immigrants, saying this week that he favors an automated immigration screening program in the city's jails.

This spring, after a Houston Police Department officer was critically injured in a shooting by an illegal immigrant, White formally requested that Department of Homeland Security officials expedite his request that the city participate in the 287(g) program, which would train jailers to act as de-facto immigration agents.

ICE officials announced in July that HPD had been accepted into the program. But since then, the city and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been locked in protracted negotiations over a range of issues related to the program, from how it should be administered to which agency should shoulder the costs.

White, who is running for U.S. Senate, now appears to be backing away from the program, saying ICE officials were “bureaucratic” in the negotiations. Vincent Picard, an ICE spokesman, declined comment on the Houston negotiations.

“Rather than letting us simply write the agreements on our own terms, they want to put language in there that we object to,” White said. “We don't want anything that creates obligations on the part of the city, or that would be inconsistent with our policies not to divert patrol officers from solving crimes.”

White said this week that he has not eliminated the possibility of participating in 287(g) on the city's terms, but would prefer to participate in another ICE program instead. That program, “Secure Communities,” gives local law enforcement agencies access to a massive immigration database to check suspects' immigration history.

White said that unlike 287(g), the Secure Communities program would require “no special agreement” with DHS or cost nearly as much. City officials had estimated 287(g) would cost an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million a year to operate and require training for 22 police officers and two supervisors in Houston's jails.

However, the city so far lacks the technical capability to directly access ICE's immigration database. White said he plans to have the technical problems resolved before the end of year, when he leaves office. Immigration screening in the city jails likely will be a key issue for Houston's mayoral candidates, who are vying to replace White in January.

White is expected to take some heat for backing off of 287(g), which is under review by DHS and has sparked protests locally and nationally. The program has been criticized by some members of Congress and immigrant advocates as being vulnerable to racial profiling and lacking oversight by ICE.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/immigration/6655736.html

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5.
Disrupted U.S. Bomb Plot Was Seen as Serious Threat
Reuters, October 6, 2009

Washington, DC (Reuters) -- A recently disrupted bombing plot represented one of the most serious security threats to the United States since the September 11 attacks, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Tuesday.

"I can say the investigation is pretty far along. We have a pretty good handle who was involved and what was intended," Holder told a news briefing.

"This alleged plot was one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country since September 11, 2001."

An Afghan immigrant, Najibullah Zazi, was indicted last month by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of plotting to explode bombs in the United States. Zazi, who is being held without bail, has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors said Zazi took a bomb-making course at an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, had notes on how to make explosives on his laptop computer and acquired materials similar to those used in bomb attacks in London in 2005, buying acetone and hydrogen peroxide at beauty supply stores.

Holder said the plot, if it had been successful, could have killed "scores" of Americans, based on the chemicals involved, the history of similar plots and the number of people suspected of being involved.

President Barack Obama met with officials at the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia and congratulated them for their work to thwart the alleged plot.

"You know that we're facing determined adversaries who are resourceful, who are resilient, and who are still plotting," he said.

The FBI has had under surveillance other suspects it believes may have helped Zazi acquire the chemicals and consulted with him on how to make explosives.

Asked about whether there would be more arrests and others charged, Holder replied, "It is our intention to bring all those involved in the plot to justice" and "the investigation is ongoing."

Zazi initially was charged in Colorado with lying to the FBI. He was later indicted on the terrorism charge in Brooklyn federal court and transferred to New York on September 25.

The investigation became public several weeks ago when police raided apartments in the New York City borough of Queens that Zazi had visited around the time of the anniversary of the 2001 attacks.
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http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/10/06/news/news-us-usa-security-newy...