1. 100k Hispanics left AZ
2. $1.7 million verdict
3. Latino Leaders push amnesty
4. Immigrant groups worried
5. Vice sting criticized

1.
Study: 100,000 Hispanics left Arizona after SB1070
The Associated Press, November 11, 2010

A new study suggests there may be 100,000 fewer Hispanics in Arizona than there were before the debate over the state's tough new immigration law earlier this year.

BBVA Bancomer Research, which did the study, worked with figures from the U.S. Current Population Survey. The study says the decline could be due to the law known as SB1070, which partly entered into effect in July, or to Arizona's difficult economic situation.

The study released Wednesday also cites Mexican government figures as saying that 23,380 Mexicans returned from Arizona to Mexico between June and September.

U.S. census figures from 2008 say about 30 percent of people living in Arizona are Hispanic, or about 1.9 million.

The state is appealing a ruling that put on hold parts of the law, which would have allowed police to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.

Immigrants are heavily employed in Arizona's construction industry, which has suffered _ along with the rest of the state's economy _ in the economic downturn.
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http://azdailysun.com/news/state-and-regional/article_fe9734aa-bf5d-5e05...

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2.
$1.7 million verdict for inmate's untreated cancer
By Bob Egelko
The San Francisco Chronicle, November 11, 2010

A jury has hit the state with $1.73 million in damages in a suit by the family of an illegal immigrant who died of penile cancer that went untreated during more than a year in state and federal custody.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury found state prison doctors partly to blame Wednesday for the death of Francisco Castaneda in February 2007. A separate suit against the federal government is tentatively scheduled for trial in April, the family's lawyers said Thursday.

Castaneda entered the United States with his mother in 1982, at age 10, after fleeing El Salvador during that country's civil war. He was convicted in 2005 of possessing methamphetamine and spent about four months in state prison, then was held in federal detention centers while the government moved to deport him and he applied for political asylum.

According to the lawsuit he filed before his death, a doctor at North Kern Prison in Delano (Kern County) first noticed a growth on his penis in December 2005 and requested an immediate biopsy, but the prison's chief physician rejected it. Castaneda was then transferred to a prison in San Diego, where another doctor recommended a biopsy but failed to follow up, his lawyers said.

Multiple lesions developed and Castaneda's pain increased after he was transferred to federal custody, but doctors and immigration officials provided only pain pills and a clean pair of boxer shorts each day, the family's lawyers said.

A federal physician ordered a biopsy in January 2007, but the immigration agency released Castaneda 11 days later. He then underwent a biopsy and amputation of his penis in a Los Angeles County hospital, the suit said. He died at his Los Angeles-area home shortly afterward at age 36.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/11/BA3M1GAOB8.D...

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3.
Citing clout, Latino labor leaders pushing immigration reform
The Sacramento Bee, November 11, 2010

The leader of the United Farm Workers Union and a top Service Employees International Union official are celebrating Latino roles in western states' Democratic victories, and say they'll use that clout to push for federal immigration reforms -- quickly.

Eliseo Medina, SEIU's international secretary treasurer and a Californian, said in a telephone interview with reporters Wednesday that unions and Latino civic groups invested $8 million to $10 million to get Latino voters in the Southwest to turn out for last week's election.

With Medina at the helm, SEIU invested about $5 million in a Latino-focused independent-expenditure campaign to help boost Democratic Gov.-elect Jerry Brown.

Brown and Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who was re-elected to Congress, both won 65 percent of the Latino vote, which exit polling suggests accounted for 22 percent of California's voters on Nov. 2.

"When attacked, Latino voters surge," said Medina. "There is no question that campaigns characterized by deep disrespect of Latino voters fueled turnout across the Western states -- and played the decisive role in re-electing Sen. (Harry) Reid in Nevada, electing Sen. (Michael) Bennet and Gov. (John) Hickenlooper in Colorado and Gov. Brown and Sen. Boxer in California."

Medina said that jobs and the economy are top priorities for Latino voters, but that immigration reform that would include a path to legal residency to some undocumented workers is " a close second."

Arturo Rodriguez, president of the California-based UFW -- which also stumped for Brown -- also spoke with reporters.

The UFW, along with California growers, supports a bill called AgJOBS, which would open a path to legal residency for some undocumented farmworkers if they agree to continue to work in the fields for a certain amount of time.

Some Democratic leaders, including Senate majority leader Reid of Nevada, have said they may use a lame-duck session before Republicans take control of the House to consider some immigration reform.
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http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/11/latino-labor-leaders-...

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4.
Coziness between jails, ICE worries immigrants
The Associated Press, November 11, 2010

Luis Guerra swore he had nothing to do with any murder, that whoever picked him out of a lineup was wrong. Still, he was held at the Rikers Island jail for more than a year before the charges were dropped.

It didn't end there. Federal immigration officials stepped in because Guerra was in the country illegally, brought over from Mexico as a child. He ended up in federal immigration detention in Texas before being allowed to return to Manhattan; he's now waiting to find out whether he'll be shipped to a country he hasn't seen since he was 9.

Merely being at Rikers put him on the radar of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, said Guerra, 21, who's trying to get a college degree while awaiting word on his future. City authorities made "a mistake, and now I'm paying for their mistake," he said. "I was living a normal life before."

Removing illegal immigrants who come in contact with the criminal justice system is a significant part of ICE's nationwide enforcement efforts, but it needs the cooperation of local law enforcement to do so. The relationships that make it work are causing concern not just in New York, but also in places like Arlington County, Va.; Washington, D.C.; Santa Clara County, Calif.; and San Francisco.

Immigrant advocates and some politicians find it disturbing that local officials work with ICE on identifying illegal immigrants. In New York, they say, it puts a city that owes its existence to immigrants in the deportation business and breeds fear among immigrants that any contact with authorities — even reporting crimes — could have severe consequences.

"It is really not a good idea to have large segments of your community be afraid of law enforcement," said Nancy Morawetz, a professor at the New York University School of Law and part of its Immigrant Rights Clinic.

Guerra, testifying at a City Council hearing on the issue Wednesday, said he saw that firsthand after his 2007 arrest on a second-degree murder charge.

"There were people who witnessed the murder, people who could have cleared my name," he said, "but they were afraid to go to the police after they heard what was happening to me with immigration."

ICE has had a presence at New York's main jail complex for at least 15 years. The city Department of Correction says federal regulations require it to comply with things like detainers that ICE puts on inmates it wants custody of.

In the 2010 fiscal year, 3,155 out of 13,386 foreign-born inmates had ICE detainers, and 2,552 of them were released directly into federal custody when they were discharged from Rikers, the department said. Nationwide, about half of the nearly 393,000 people removed from the country in the past year were criminals, according to Homeland Security Department statistics.

"Our top priority is to identify and remove criminal convicted aliens who post a threat to the community and to national security," said ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado.

ICE says the city is obligated to hold anyone the agency has put a detainer on, and Department of Correction spokeswoman Sharman Stein echoed that.

If anything, ICE should be taking more people into the detention and deportation system, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter controls on immigration.

He argued that every illegal immigrant is deportable at any time, and that as it is, ICE exercises discretion in terms of whom it detains. Advocates' fears of a dragnet dragging are overblown, he said.

"I'd be ecstatic if this program worked the way immigrant rights groups fear it does," he said.

The federal agency often comes under fire for its practices, with critics citing issues like transfers of detainees far away from family and friends, and people in the system having limited access to legal resources that could allow them to stay in the country.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hEkNn44uMrGpvtuBWD2GEz...

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5.
Immigration rights group says LAPD violated policy in vice raid on 'hostess club'
Los Angeles Times, November 11, 2010

Los Angeles police are defending their handling of a raid at a downtown hostess club -- an operation that resulted in dozens of arrests of illegal immigrant workers -- after an advocacy group charged that the vice operation violated Special Order 40, a policy governing how officers interact with immigrants.

Advocates from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said the LAPD officers violated that policy in arresting 81 women and seven men Friday at the 907 Club on Hill Street. The advocacy group said most of those arrested were "honest, hard-working immigrants" who might themselves have been victims of abuse.

"The LAPD has acted rashly by arresting those it claims to protect and in the process endanger the delicate balance between local policing and immigration enforcement," CHIRLA director Angelica Salas said in a statement.

Special Order 40 prohibits LAPD officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally. But in a statement released Wednesday, the LAPD said the four-month probe was only related to alleged criminal conduct and was not an immigration investigation.

"It is strictly an investigation into labor code violations, human trafficking concerns, prostitution, possession of fraudulent California identification cards, gambling and violation of a conditional use permit," the department said.

Club 907, like similar "hostess club" establishments, is regulated by the Los Angeles Police Commission. Patrons pay women who work at the clubs for time and companionship that includes talking, buying non-alcoholic drinks or dancing. The club charges $30 per hour, with discounts on certain days of the week.

The Police Commission permit prohibits hostess clubs from serving alcohol and does not allow nudity or other adult entertainment. But the LAPD said that during a four-month investigation their officers witnessed or found evidence of prostitution, lewd conduct, gambling and the use of counterfeit identification.

Police said that on the day of the arrests, they found more than 400 people inside the 907 Club, which had a maximum capacity of 250 patrons.

Officers said they found dozens of female dancers employed by the club with false identification for purposes of employment and found evidence that most were engaging in prostitution. Some 88 people were arrested -- 81 of them women. Only three were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit prostitution: a club manager, and two women who were brought in to dance in bikinis and were allowed to be groped by patrons, police said.

Of the others, 59 were arrested on suspicion of possession of fraudulent California identification, 18 for willfully obtaining personal information, four for gambling violations, two for misdemeanor warrants, one for interfering with police operations and one for violating the club's conditional use permits.

A 17-year-old girl who had been reported missing was found inside and was also arrested on suspicion of possessing false identification. Police also seized two bags of cocaine, over $100,000 in cash, condoms, and liquor.

A 29-year-old club worker who was out on bail Wednesday after her arrest on suspicion of possessing fraudulent identification said that while the women were detained inside the club, officers asked those with “good ID” to step forward and separated them from the others. She believed that officers were trying to determine the workers' immigration status.

The worker, who asked that her name not be used, said that she obtained false documents at the request of club management, who would direct workers to go to MacArthur Park to get identification.
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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/11/immigration-rights-group-s...