1. Bush book slams Sen. Reid
2. FL illegals fear crackdown
3. TX proposal mirrors AZ law
4. TX Gov. supports AZ law
5. Child at center of dispute

1.
Bush book slams Reid on Iraq and immigration
By Peter Urban
LAs Vegas Review Journal, November 9, 2010

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On immigration reform, Bush blamed Reid for failing to seize the moment when bipartisan reform was most likely to pass.

Shortly after the 2006 elections, Bush approached Sen. Ted Kennedy with a proposal to work together - as they had on education reform - to forge a bipartisan solution to immigration.

Kennedy turned to the two Arizona Republican senators - John McCain and Jon Kyl - to try to produce a bill that would secure the border, provide a temporary worker program and set up a tough but fair path to citizenship for law-abiding immigrants who had been in America for a number of years.

“Passions ran high on both sides of the issue,” Bush said, and had reached a frenzy when a deal seemed at hand.

In late June 2007, Kennedy asked Bush for assistance in getting him a few more days to get a bill passed. Kennedy wanted him to reach out to Reid and request that he delay the Fourth of July recess a few days for the negotiations to proceed.

On page 305, here is Bush's take on the immigration reform defeat:

“Given the importance of the legislation, I thought it would be worthwhile to allow them a little extra time for the bill to pass. Apparently, Harry Reid did not.

I made the pitch, but it was too late. Harry had made his decision. He called a cloture vote, which failed, and then adjourned the Senate. Senators went home and listened to angry constituents stirred up by the loud voices on radio and TV. By the time they came back to Washington, immigration reform was dead.”

The Senate on June 28, 2007 fell 14 votes shy of the 60 needed to advance the immigration reform legislation that President Bush backed.

At the time, Bush said he was disappointed that Congress failed to approve the bill but did not lay the blame at anyone's feet. The New York Times, Associated Press and Reuters noted that Bush had failed to gain support from Senate Republicans.

“Mr. Bush placed telephone calls to lawmakers throughout the morning, but members of his party abandoned him in droves, with only 12 of the 49 Senate Republicans sticking by him on the key procedural vote that determined the bill's fate,” the Times reported.

Reid also blamed the failure on Republicans, saying “there just was not enough Republican support for the president's approach.”

On the Senate floor, Reid forcefully argued for Congress to act on immigration reform and blamed radio and television commentators for ginning up public opposition to the bill.

Summers added that Reid had devoted more floor time to addressing illegal immigration than ever before.
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http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/politics/Bush_book_slams_Reid_on_Iraq_and_immi...

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2.
Undocumented arrivals fear Republican crackdown on immigration
By Alfonso Chardy
The Miami Herald, November 9, 2010

Fear is spreading among foreign day laborers in South Florida after Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, a move immigration activists say will make it more difficult -- if not impossible -- to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants.

``We are frightened that authorities will harden their attitude toward workers like us who need work permits,'' said Guatemalan Ramón Suárez, 33, as he waited for work in a cluster of foreign day laborers at a shopping mall on Bird Road near Florida's Turnpike.

Súarez was one of a half-dozen undocumented foreign day laborers interviewed last week who voiced alarm at the outcome of the Nov. 2 vote and the possibility of an Arizona-style immigration law in Florida in light of Rick Scott's election as governor. During the campaign Scott voiced support for an Arizona-like tough immigration enforcement law in Florida.

In the aftermath of the Republican House sweep, and an increase in the number of Republicans in the Senate, immigrant workers and immigration activists believe a path to residence and citizenship for the estimated 10.8 million undocumented immigrants is now very remote.

``I think it's dead,'' said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that supports immigration control.

Pro-legalization advocates also are pessimistic.

Ira Kurzban, a Miami immigration attorney considered an authority on immigration law, and Cheryl Little, executive director of Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC), would not say legalization is dead, but acknowledged it will be more difficult to attain.

``It'll be an uphill battle,'' Kurzban said. Added Little: ``We're bracing for what likely lies ahead.''

Little also said she and other immigrant rights activists believe an Arizona-style immigration law in Florida is possible now.

``FIAC is . . . gearing up to oppose any copycat Arizona bill, since it now seems more likely such a measure could pass in Florida,'' said Little.

Some of the undocumented day laborers at the parking lot near the turnpike were also worried.

``This frightens us, because if such a law passes, we may have to return to our countries,'' said Alex Suárez, 27, another Guatemalan interviewed in the parking lot where dozens of day laborers waited for work.

The original Arizona law, since weakened by a federal court, authorized police to criminally charge foreign nationals if they were illegally in the state. Under federal immigration law, illegal presence is a civil infraction.

Meanwhile, immigration activists were split on the meaning of election results.

Anti-legalization organizations like NumbersUSA of Arlington, Va., Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) of Washington said voters shifted away from immigration reform toward enforcement. But pro-legalization groups like the National Immigration Forum of Washington said the outcome shows voters want Republicans and Democrats to negotiate a bipartisan solution.

Legalization could still this year, but only if Obama and the lame-duck Democratic-controlled Congress forcibly push through the measure before the new Congress takes office in January. But experts said this would be a risky strategy likely to spark an uproar among Republicans and erode any future bid for bipartisanship.

Activists expect the new Congress to become more aggressive in pushing Homeland Security to roll back the limited leniency the agency had adopted toward some undocumented immigrants in recent months and to toughen enforcement instead.
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/11/09/1916726/undocumented-arrivals-fear...

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3.
Texas Immigration Law Under Proposal Would Resemble Arizona's Hard-Line Approach
The Huffington Post, November 10, 2010

A proposed immigration law soon to be under consideration in Texas closely resembles Arizona's controversial statute and could make the Lone Star State the latest battleground for immigration policy.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that "an Arizona-style crackdown on illegal immigration" is on Texas's 2010 legislative agenda.

Texas state Rep. Debbie Riddle, a conservative Republican, introduced the bill almost immediately after the filing period for 2011 legislation began. According to WOAI:

The measure would be similar to Arizona's controversial SB 1070, in that it would require that local police work with federal immigration officials in determining the legal status of a person who is in their custody.

"If that individual is already being detained, because of another crime, then that officer can inquire as to one's immigration status," Riddle said.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/09/texas-immigration-law-wou_n_780...

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4.
Perry: View of AZ-style immigration law unchanged
The Associated Press, November 9, 2010

Gov. Rick Perry says his perspective hasn't changed after state lawmakers filed Arizona-style bills intended to crack down on illegal immigration.

Perry on Tuesday reiterated his support of Arizona seeking to require police to sometimes question people about their immigration status, but said the law as written isn't right for Texas.

Republican lawmakers filed several hardline immigration bills Monday, the first day for proposing legislation to be considered in the upcoming session.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7286761.html

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5.
Adopted boy at center of immigration dispute
By Tony Messenger and Nancy Cambria
St. Louis Post Dispatch, November 10, 2010

Backed by her country and a horde of supporters, a Guatemalan woman living in southwest Missouri sat before the Missouri Supreme Court Tuesday afternoon seeking custody of the child she hasn't seen in nearly four years.

The woman, Encarnacion Romero, sat in the front row, her pitch-black hair pulled back in a ponytail, unable to fully follow the proceedings. Romero doesn't speak English. A few rows back sat Seth and Melinda Moser, the Carthage, Mo., couple who adopted Romero's then 1-year-old boy after Romero was arrested and jailed in an immigration raid on a Barry County poultry plant in 2007.

The Mosers argue that even if their adoption wasn't proper — which is key to Romero's case — it wouldn't be in the best interest of the child to take him away from the parents he knows now and send him to another country.

The boy, who is a citizen of both the U.S. and Guatemala, speaks only English. Romero is awaiting deportation.

"This is a tragedy," Judge Richard Teitelman said during questioning in the case Tuesday. "The longer the case goes on, it's a case of justice delayed is justice denied."

The case is more than tragic, argued the Guatemalan ambassador to the United States — it's a symbol of the ongoing national and international debate about what to do with immigration policy in America.

"We believe this is a very unfortunate result of the problems of immigration policy in this country," said Ambassador Francisco Villagran de Leon, who attended the arguments before the court and has been providing support to Romero. "Children of undocumented immigrants should not be given up in adoption just because they are here illegally."

Romero was one of 136 alleged undocumented immigrants picked up at a raid of a Barry County chicken processing plant in May 2007 and later charged with various offenses related to the illegal use of false or stolen Social Security numbers.

While Romero was in jail, her child, an infant at the time, was passed around among family members before eventually being adopted privately by the Mosers.

In court documents and arguments in court today, Romero's attorneys argue that she was denied due process rights because the adoption took place while she was in jail, where she lacked proper legal representation. A state appeals court has previously ruled in her favor.

The case has drawn widespread attention nationally and internationally. It's a clash of two seemingly unrelated interests — those concerned about the aftermath of immigration raids that often lead to split families, and those who are fighting for the rights of adoptive parents. And both sides argue they only have the best interests of the child in mind.

Rick Schnake, the Joplin, Mo., attorney representing the Mosers, said that removing the child from the family he has known for the past few years would only compound the tragedy.

"This little boy is 4 years old. He doesn't speak Spanish, he speaks English," Schnake said in making his case to the seven-judge panel. "I don't mean to be caustic about it, but it's not the child's fault she was (in jail)."

But a ruling in favor of the adoptive parents would deeply impinge on critical parental rights, said Tony Rothert, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.

"If the adoption is allowed to stand, it would set a dangerous precedent," he said in a phone interview Tuesday, noting birth parents are entitled to legal counsel at hearings and contact with their children throughout the custody proceedings.

"When these are just discarded, as they were in this case, the whole system would fall apart," he said.
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http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_3e99fc06-5fe5-56a6-9826...