Please visit our YouTube and Facebook pages.

1. MN enclave under scrutiny
2. SW border arrests drop 25%
3. HIV travel ban lifted
4. Program attracts smugglers
5. MA AG calls for amnesty

1.
Terrorism probe casts scrutiny on Minneapolis' Somali immigrant enclave
Little Mogadishu residents talk of a lack of identity and a life of poverty and racism. And they disagree over their former neighbors who are accused of plotting jihad in Somalia.
By Bob Drogin
The Los Angeles Times, November 25, 2009

Barely a block from the Mississippi River sits a neighborhood Mark Twain could not have imagined.

Men with henna-streaked beards and women in full-body hijabs streamed Tuesday past the Maashaa Allah Restaurant, the Alle Aamin Coffee Shop, the Kaah Express Money Wiring stall, the storefront Al-Qaaniteen Mosque and other similar structures.

"When I came here as a refugee in 1995, there were just a few hundred Somalis, and we were very alone," said Adar Kahin, 48, who was a famous singer back home and now volunteers at a local community center.

"Now everyone is here," she said cheerfully. "It's like being back in Mogadishu. That's what we call it, Little Mogadishu."

This corner of Minneapolis -- the de facto capital of the Somali diaspora in America -- presents many faces: hope and renewal, despair and fear.

But more than anything, particularly for the young, it is a place of transition and searching for identity.

"Keeping an identity in this situation is really hard," said Saeed Fahia, who arrived in 1997 and now heads a confederation of Somali organizations. "In Somali culture, all tradition is taught when you are 9 years old, and you learn all about your clan and sub-clan for 25 generations. There's no mechanism to learn that here, and no context."

For the FBI, Little Mogadishu has become the center of an intense investigation into a recruiting network that sent young men to fight in Somalia for a radical Islamist group known as Shabab, or "the Youth."

Investigators say the poverty, grim gang wars and overpacked public housing towers produced one of the largest militant operations in the United States since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Federal officials announced terrorism charges Monday against eight local men, seven of whom remain at large. That brought the total to 14 Minneapolis men who have been indicted or pleaded guilty this year for allegedly indoctrinating, recruiting or training local youths to join a Muslim militia waging war in Somalia against the U.S.-backed government.

Family members say six young men from Minneapolis have died in Somalia in the last 13 months, including one who the FBI believes was a suicide bomber. About 20 local youths are believed to have taken up arms there.

Fahia speculated that those who went to Somalia "are trying to reclaim their identity. They're trying to find a mission in life. They're trying to find out where they come from, and who they are."

Those who left to fight in Somalia prompt no unified response from those who stayed.

Outside the Brian Coyle Community Center, five young men who emigrated from Somalia as toddlers huddled in black hoodies under a cold, clammy fog that turned the day dull gray. They shared smokes and spoke of those who had joined the jihad, or holy war.

"Some of them felt America is the land of the devil," said Said Ali, who is 20, rail-thin and jobless. "They were losing their culture, their language and their religion. They've got family there. They feel at home."

If he had the money, he said, he would go to Somalia too.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-little-mogadishu25-20...

********
********

2.
Arrests of illegal immigrants along border drop 25%
Bolstered enforcement efforts along the Mexico-U.S. border and the weak economy are cited. The trend is also apparent across the Southwest.
By Richard Marosi
The Los Angeles Times, November 25, 2009

San Diego -- Arrests of illegal immigrants along the California-Mexico border declined 25% this year as a weak economy and bolstered enforcement efforts appear to be discouraging treks north, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Tuesday.

The downward trend is evident across the Southwest border as apprehensions fell to levels not seen since the early 1970s. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested 556,000 people last year, 152,200 of them in California, according to statistics released for the federal fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

Apprehension levels, considered the best available indicator of illegal crossing activity, have fluctuated for decades, but have steadily declined since 2000, when there were 1.6 million arrests.

Federal officials say the declining numbers show that increased enforcement, including fencing, staffing and infrastructure, are affecting migrant flows. Showing progress in securing the border is crucial for the Obama administration's efforts to garner support for immigration reform legislation.

"Our layered approach to security and increased tactical infrastructure, technology and personnel at our borders has led to significant progress in securing our nation," said Jayson Ahern, acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.

But the primary factor driving down illegal crossings is the economy, most experts say. With the disappearance of once-plentiful jobs in the construction and service industries, immigrants have fewer reasons to leave their towns.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-border25-2009nov25,0,5713070.story

********
********

3.
Ban lifted for green-card applicants with HIV
A two-decade-old rule kept those with the virus out of the U.S. Now such immigrants will be able to visit the country and apply for legal status.
By Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times, November 25, 2009

A stamp in Heidemarie Kremer's passport reveals her health status as HIV-positive.

Because of the disease, Kremer -- a native of Germany -- has been barred from becoming a legal resident of the United States. She and her two children are fighting possible deportation, and their plans for the future are on hold.

But that soon may change.

This month, the federal government cleared the way for HIV-positive foreigners to visit the country and apply for green cards, lifting a bar that has been in place for more than two decades.

Kremer, 46, a trained physician and HIV researcher who lives in Miami, said she was relieved that her case might be resolved when she returned to court in February. But she said she also felt a sense of responsibility.

"This is not the end of the story," she said. "What about all the lives that the HIV travel and immigration ban ruined?"

Immigration lawyers in California and around the nation said the ban had caused families to be separated; foreigners to avoid being tested or to go without medication; and highly skilled workers to return to their home countries.

Since the announcement, Los Angeles immigration lawyer J Craig Fong and other lawyers said they had received a flurry of calls and e-mails from HIV-positive foreigners who now had renewed hope. The new rules, including the elimination of HIV testing for green-card applicants, take effect Jan. 4.

"To finally be in a position where I can tell people that they can come to the United States to visit their family or that they can get a green card and stay here with their partner is just incredible," said Victoria Neilson, legal director for Immigration Equality, a national organization that advocated for lifting the ban.

But Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the decision to remove HIV as a bar was based on politics, not science. "It was clearly a politically motivated move," Krikorian said, adding that the decision could have real consequences -- more HIV cases and more costs. "It is extra healthcare spending that we wouldn't have otherwise."
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-immig-hiv25-2009nov25...

********
********

4.
Speedier border-cross program lures Mexican drug smugglers
'Trusted shipper' trucks given little scrutiny by US
By Christopher Sherman
The Associated Press, November 24, 2009

Laredo, Tx (AP) — A U.S. program that offers trusted trucking companies speedy passage across American borders has begun attracting just the sort of customers who place a premium on avoiding inspections: Mexican drug smugglers.
. . .
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/318746

********
********

5.
Coakley says she would support immigration reform
By Julia Spitz
The MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, MA), November 25, 2009

Immigration policy needs to be resolved on a federal level, and the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants need "a path to citizenship," Attorney General Martha Coakley said yesterday.

"We need a policy that makes sense for 12 million people who are stuck in a purgatorial status quo," said Coakley, one of four Democrats hoping to fill the late Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. "It doesn't do us any good to do nothing."

A distinction should be made between hardened criminals here illegally and those whose only crime is immigrating without going through proper channels, she said, though, "I think there have to be some penalties involved" for those who have broken the law in coming into the country illegally.

Violent criminals and drug dealers should be deported, but the federal government "doesn't have either the detention centers or the ability to deport" every person in this country who is here illegally, she said.

"As attorney general, I have gone after the companies that have exploited workers," and getting employers to pay fair wages helps American citizens compete in the marketplace as well, she said.

Coakley is running against U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano, D-8th, City Year co-founder Alan Khazei and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca in the Dec. 8 Democratic primary. The winner will face state Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, or Republican businessman Jack E. Robinson in a January special election.
. . .
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x2071501669/Coakley-says-she-woul...