1. DHS expected to end SBI Net
2. E-Verify now has photos
3. Sen. to block deportation
4. Farm labor relies on fake IDs
5. Few using E-Verify checks

1.
Lawmakers expect DHS to cancel troubled border security program
By Aliya Sternstein
NextGov, November 12, 2010

Incoming Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee expect Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will soon cancel the stalled $1.1 billion Secure Border Initiative Network contract with Boeing Co., committee aides said. The border security technology program, known as SBInet, has experienced serious cost, schedule and performance problems since the contract was awarded in 2006.

Aides blamed both the Homeland Security Department and Boeing for the problems, and said lawmakers are concerned the government could lose investments in research and development should Boeing be pulled off the project.

Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., the presumed committee chairman, intends to press the Obama administration for an aggressive timetable for securing the Southwest border with technology and fencing, said aides for King.

In addition, members want to hear how DHS plans to leverage expertise the department and Boeing have gained over the past several years, aides said.

In January, Napolitano froze funding for the troubled project and launched a reassessment of the border security program. DHS officials on Thursday said that review was not yet complete, but they anticipated briefing Congress on a way forward and announcing a decision on SBInet shortly.

GOP and Democratic members of the committee are expecting word from Napolitano as early as next week about the future of the program, often referred to as a virtual fence designed to reduce drug smuggling, illegal immigration and terrorist-related activity across U.S. land borders.

"Eleven months after announcing a moratorium on SBInet spending, the administration still has not presented a strategy to gain control of the border. DHS needs to come forward with a strategy that incorporates both integrated technology and additional fencing," King said. January 2011 will mark the first time DHS has to answer to House Republicans on SBInet problems.

Aides for outgoing committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said they, too, are anxious to learn Napolitano's next move, following the department's decision in September to not renew a one-year option it awarded Boeing in fall 2009. The aides said the department has been granting month long extensions to retain the company while it determines the project's future. The program's original designs included a connected array of surveillance tools, intelligence databases and communications links that would provide DHS headquarters and field operations with a complete picture of border activity. Government officials selected the Southwest border, Arizona in particular, as a starting point for the system because they consider that section to be most vulnerable to security threats.

Napolitano has since shifted the money pegged for the Arizona sector -- $50 million -- to proven technologies, including mobile surveillance units, thermal imaging devices, laptops and cameras for vehicles and radios. Aides for King said Republicans do not oppose moving forward with such stand-alone equipment, but not on an ad hoc basis. Members want to see a roadmap with imminent deadlines for linking the tools.
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http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20101112_2680.php?oref=topstory

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2.
E-Verify Expanded
By Phil Leggiere
HS Today, November 15, 2010

The E-Verify program, an Internet-based system allowing employers to verify eligibility of prospective employees to work in the United States, has been expanded to include US passport photo matching, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas announced last week.

With the new system in place E-Verify employers, according to Napolitano, will now be able to verify the identity of new employees who present a US passport or passport card by comparing that data with State Department records.

"Including U.S. passport photo matching in E-Verify will enhance our ability to detect counterfeit documents and combat fraud, said Secretary Napolitano."

Approximately 10 percent of all E-Verify queries currently provide a US passport to establish both identity and employment authorization in order to prove employment eligibility.

"U.S. passport photo matching is another in the long line of enhancements we have made to improve the integrity of the E-Verify system," said Director Mayorkas. "Adding U.S. passport photos expands our current photo matching efforts and will play a significant role in preventing and detecting the use of fraudulent documents—all part of major anti-fraud initiatives undertaken by the Department."

More than 216,000 employers are enrolled in the program, with over 8.7 million queries run through the system in fiscal year 2009. There have been over 13 million queries run through the system in fiscal year 2010 (as of July 31, 2010).

E-Verify, operated by the Department of Homeland Security in partnership with the Social Security Administration, is currently a voluntary program for most employers and is limited to determining the employment eligibility of new hires only. It is, however, mandatory for some employers, such as those employers with federal contracts or subcontracts that contain the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) E-Verify clause and employers in certain states.

Some in Congress are pushing to make the program mandatory nationally.
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http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/15411/149/

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3.
Feinstein seeks to block Steve Li's deportation
By Jessica Kwong
The San Francisco Chronicle, November 15, 2010

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has asked immigration authorities to halt the deportation of City College of San Francisco nursing student Steve "Shing Ma" Li while she considers introducing a bill that would allow him to stay in the United States temporarily, her office said Sunday.

The California Democrat's effort came as Li's attorney said his removal flight to Peru would no longer happen today, as initially planned. The lawyer, Sin Yen Ling, said the immigration officer that told her of the change of plans did not give her any more details.

"Why? I don't know," said Ling, whose client is at a detention center in Florence, Ariz. "They wouldn't provide me with additional information, but I do think it has a lot to do with the advocacy work that's been happening."

In a phone interview late Sunday, Li said, "It's a miracle. Not a big one, but it's still something, and every day that I'm here means I have a chance to not get deported and stay in San Francisco."

Li's case has attracted attention because the 20-year-old says he has no real connection to Peru, nor relatives or friends there. His parents were born in China but moved to Peru in the 1980s to escape the government's one-child policy. They brought Li to the United States at age 11.

The three were arrested in San Francisco Sept. 15 because they were only allowed to stay in the United States through the end of 2002. Li's parents were released and wear electronic ankle bracelets as they await deportation to China.

Many of Li's supporters, who include thousands of college students and visitors to his Facebook page, rallied outside Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer's office in San Francisco on Friday, trying to get her to intervene. Supporters have also engaged in letter-writing campaigns targeting Boxer, Feinstein and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/15/BAP01GC2FP.DTL

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4.
Illegal farm labor relies on don't ask, don't tell
By Chris Collins
Fresno Bee, November 14, 2010

From his cramped trailer office along a dusty road lined with grapevines near Selma, Guillermo Zamora hires farmworkers by the dozens and dispatches them across Fresno County to prune and pick crops.

He's a Mexican immigrant farmworker turned farm labor contractor — the go-to guy for laborers who need jobs and growers who need workers.

Most days, he rumbles along country roads in his Chevy Silverado pickup with orange flame decals. The American flag on the dashboard lets people know where his allegiance lies.

"You ain't going to find a Mexican more proud to be an American," said Zamora, a legal U.S. resident, on a recent summer morning. "This is a beautiful country."

Zamora, though, doesn't hire Americans. Farm labor contractors and most other employers in the Valley's multibillion-dollar agriculture industry rely almost exclusively on immigrants — mostly illegal immigrants.

Employers hire them as long as they have a Social Security card and a green card, both of which can be bought for less than $100 through a vast underground industry of fake-document vendors in the Central Valley.

The system works well for farmers and farmworkers – as well as many restaurants, hotels and construction companies. But many innocent legal residents are hurt because document counterfeiters often hijack their Social Security numbers.

Agriculture employers often say they can't tell whether the cards are real – but hardly any use a voluntary government online program that helps detect fakes. They say that if they did, they would go out of business.

Says Zamora: "I'd end up with no people."

The practice keeps the Central Valley's economy running on a simple, unspoken rule: Don't ask, don't tell. Employees pretend they're legal residents; employers pretend they don't know any better.

"It's a game – a big game," said Joseph Riofrio, a city councilman in the Fresno County town of Mendota, where perhaps a third of the residents are illegal immigrants. "But it's a necessary game. If this game doesn't continue, then the fruit isn't picked, the vegetables aren't picked, and the vibrant agriculture industry stops."

Illegal immigrants interviewed said that they have been able to find jobs in the fields, at packinghouses and with construction companies using fake documents.
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"Illegal immigration today is very much an organized crime," said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which supports stricter immigration enforcement.

Poulsen said it's usually obvious when documents are fake. Immigration law, however, allows employers to feign ignorance.

"It's a loophole," Poulsen said. "You can tell a false immigration card from a good distance away, but an employer can say, 'Oh, I thought it was a good card.' You can't prove they knew, so it's just a wink and a nod. But maybe that's the way the politicians want it."
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http://www.sacbee.com/2010/11/14/3183365/illegal-farm-labor-relies-on-do...

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5.
Few use feds' simple tool to verify legal workers
By Chris Collins and Michael Doyle
Fresno Bee, November 15, 2010

Businesses have a free, simple way to check that their new hires are legal. Although far from perfect, it could reduce the lure of employment that draws illegal immigrants, experts say.

But most employers who depend on illegal workers -- including the vast majority of agriculture businesses in the Central Valley -- won't use it.

And Congress, under pressure from business leaders, refuses to make them -- despite a clear voter mandate to stop illegal immigration.

Called E-Verify, the online government program uses records from the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security to instantly check an employee's legal status after being hired. When word gets around that an employer uses the program, illegal immigrants stop applying, experts say.

A law requiring all businesses to use E-Verify would make it much more difficult for illegal immigrants to find work, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which supports stricter immigration enforcement.

"It's one of the most successful programs that the immigration agencies have undertaken," she said.

The program has run into strong opposition from business groups that say it creates an administrative burden. But experts say the real reason is that E-Verify makes it harder to hire illegal workers.

Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League, an association of agriculture businesses in the Western U.S., acknowledged as much.

"It may work for Costco, but Costco doesn't have the problem I have" -- a shortage of legal residents willing to work in agriculture, he said.

The debate over E-Verify has put local conservative groups in a tricky position: They oppose illegal immigration, but they support businesses that rely on illegal immigrants.
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http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/11/15/2157541/few-use-feds-simple-tool-to-...