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1. Gibbs: amnesty or nothing
2. Obama to meet with Caucus
3. Audit shows strict ID rules
4. Critics challenge Sec. Comm.
5. 60K Haitians apply for TPS

1.
White House Press Briefing by Robert Gibbs, December 20, 2010
eNews Park Forest, December 20, 2010

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Q: I have just two questions. The Center for Immigration Studies reports that in 2008 and 2009, 2.4 million immigrants, legal and illegal, arrived while U.S. citizens were losing 8.6 million jobs. And the question: Why are we importing a million workers a year when 17 million Americans can’t find work?

MR. GIBBS: Well, Lester, as you point out, we have a policy problem that has to be dealt with through comprehensive immigration reform, and that’s the only way we’re going to deal with it.
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http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/latest-national/20637-white-house-pre...

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2.
After immigration bill's demise, Obama to huddle with Hispanic caucus
By Jordan Fabian
The Hill (Washington, D.C.), December 21, 2010

President Obama is scheduled to meet with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Tuesday after an immigration bill high on their priority list failed to clear the Senate.

Obama will huddle with representatives of the 24-member group in the Oval Office at 10:45 a.m., according to the president's daily schedule.

The meeting will take place following the collapse of the DREAM Act, a controversial bill which offers legal residence to children who entered the U.S. illegally if they join the military or attend college.

The DREAM Act passed the House, but the Senate failed to advance the bill over the weekend. A cloture vote -- which requires the support of 60 senators -- failed to pass. Five Democrats from conservative and swing states joined Republicans in opposing the legislation.

Obama and the lawmakers will likely discuss ways to move forward on immigration issues heading into the next Congress, where Republicans will hold the majority in the House and a more robust minority in the Senate.
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http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/134589-after-immigratio...

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3.
Stricter rules for entry are ignored at border
By Susan Carroll
Houston Chronicle, December 20, 2010

More than 18 months after U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors were supposed to start enforcing stringent ID requirements at the nation's land borders, millions of travelers are still being admitted without passports or other secure IDs, a new government audit shows.

An Office of Inspector General report released Monday found that CBP remains unprepared to fully implement the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which officially took effect in June 2009 and requires all travelers, including U.S. citizens, to carry passports or one of a handful of other forms of secure ID.

In the first eight months after the requirements took effect, 2.3 million travelers failed to provide proper paperwork at U.S. land ports of entry.

CBP internal policy, issued shortly before the implementation deadline, only required travelers who provided improper paperwork multiple times to undergo added inspection, resulting in additional screening for about 9,000 people based only on their lack of documentation, according to the report.

Auditors singled out Texas for having the lowest compliance rate in the country, with nearly 1-in-10 travelers — 1.1 million people — arriving at Texas land borders without proper identification during the period of the review.

Critics warned that the failure to fully implement the more stringent ID requirements, mandated by Congress as part of its response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, amounts to a security vulnerability.

Until the new travel document requirement is fully enforced, OIG's auditors wrote, the agency "continues to incur risk" that it will admit travelers falsely claiming to be citizens of the U.S., Canada, Bermuda and Mexico.

"This report highlights why our nation's border security must be our first priority," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in response to the OIG's findings. "The WHTI requirements have been in place for over a year, and it is unacceptable that the administration failed to ask for adequate resources needed to fully comply with the mandate."
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Critic calls policy 'lax'

Janice Kephart, with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter border controls, said the WHTI was designed to provide several layers of security that would help identify someone who means to do the U.S. harm, such as a criminal or terrorist. The policy currently in place in the ports is "extremely lax," she said, and falls short of the original security goals outlined under the initiative.

Nelson Balido, president of the nonprofit, San Antonio-based Border Trade Alliance, said CBP deserves credit for its outreach efforts to educate the public about the added documentation requirements.

"There's still room for improvement, but I think CBP has come a long way over the years," he said.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7348243.html

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4.
Disparities in deportation program raise questions
By Shankar Vedantam
The Washington Post, December 21, 2010

Despite vows by the Obama administration to focus its immigration enforcement efforts on criminals, a quarter of those who have been deported through a program called Secure Communities had not been convicted of committing any crime, government statistics show. And that percentage was vastly higher in some jurisdictions, including Prince George's County, where two-thirds of the 86 undocumented immigrants were not criminals.

The Prince George's rate of noncriminal deportation was the second-highest in the country among counties or cities with at least 50 removals, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement figures through the end of July, the latest numbers made available.

By comparison, 15 percent of the 105 immigrants removed from Prince William County, which has taken a much tougher stance toward illegal immigrants than Prince George's, were not criminals. Even Maricopa County in Arizona - home to Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff in America" - deported noncriminals at a rate of less than half that of Prince George's.

The disparities have left local authorities puzzled and immigrant rights activists outraged.

Immigration officials declined to explain the disparities but defended Secure Communities, which is becoming the nation's central immigration enforcement mechanism.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently credited the program with helping to produce a more than 70 percent increase in deportations of criminals, including gang members, murderers and drug traffickers.

"Secure Communities has resulted in the arrest of more than 59,000 convicted criminal aliens, including more than 21,000 convicted of major violent offenses like murder, rape, and the sexual abuse of children," Napolitano said.

Immigration rights groups say the program has led to the removal of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have committed far less serious crimes or none at all.

"The numbers out of Prince George's are absurd," said Gustavo Andrade, organizing director of CASA of Maryland, an immigrant rights group that is active in the county. "Even one family destroyed because of this kind of program makes it unacceptable."

John Erzen, a spokesman for the Prince George's Department of Corrections, and Maj. Andrew Ellis, a county police spokesman, said they were not aware of any police or jail practices that could explain the numbers. They said that federal authorities decide whom to detain and deport through Secure Communities, which will soon be operating across the country.

The program uses fingerprints collected by local authorities when people are charged with anything from a traffic violation to murder. After the prints are run through a federal database, anyone found to be in the United States illegally can be ordered detained while federal authorities initiate deportation proceedings.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/20/AR201012...

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5.
60,000 Haitians apply for temporary stay in U.S.
The Associated Press, December 20, 2010

Haitian advocates angrily called on the Obama administration on Monday to stop detaining Haitians with criminal records and halt deportations scheduled next month, saying those flights amount to a death sentence amid a cholera outbreak in the earthquake-ravaged country.

The U.S. government's abrupt decision to resume deporting Haitians also will deter others without criminal records from applying to temporarily stay and work in the U.S., cutting off a lifeline to quake survivors, they said at a rally in Miami's Little Haiti.

"Without letting us know they'll resume deportations to Haiti, at a time when Haiti is living under its gravest crisis, it's so unfair," said Marleine Bastien, executive director of Haitian Women of Miami. "It's supposed to be a progressive government. We're gravely disappointed by this."

More than 61,000 Haitians have applied for temporary protected status, which allows illegal immigrants from countries experiencing armed conflict or environmental disasters to stay and work in the U.S. for 18 months. Only those who were already living in the U.S. illegally when the earthquake struck Jan. 12 are eligible.

More than half the applications have come from Florida, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Officials have said they expected 70,000 to 100,000 Haitians to apply before the Jan. 18 deadline.

Meanwhile, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed Dec. 10 that deportations are set to resume next month for Haitians who have completed their criminal sentences, in co-ordination with Haiti's government.

Partly driving the U.S. government's decision was the fact that U.S. law prohibits immigrants from being detained indefinitely, except in extreme circumstances, said ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez. If detainees cannot be returned home, they must be released.

The U.S. anticipates deporting about 700 Haitians with criminal records in 2011, Gonzalez said.

"The Department of State has been working with the Government of Haiti to ensure that the resumption of removals is conducted in a safe, humane manner with minimal disruption to ongoing rebuilding efforts," she said. "Repatriations to Haiti will be conducted in line with ICE's priority of removing criminal aliens who pose the greatest threat to public safety."

At least 351 Haitians have been detained, immigration officials said last week. They had been convicted of crimes such as homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, embezzlement, money laundering and extortion, Gonzalez said.

Still, the advocates said their clients were worried that people with minor infractions such as traffic violations would face deportation.

"People are terrified," said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. "We've got folks who are eligible for temporary protected status who are afraid to come forward and apply now because they think they're going to be detained and deported."

Roughly 31,000 Haitians have orders to leave, but the U.S. temporarily stopped deporting Haitians after the Jan. 12 earthquake, along with granting temporary protected status. Nearly a year later, advocates say conditions in Haiti have not improved enough for deportations to resume.

More than 1 million people remain homeless in Haiti's capital, and a cholera epidemic has killed more than 2,400 people nationwide since October. The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Haiti after deadly clashes that followed the country's first round of presidential elections in late November.
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http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20101220/haiti-immigration-101220/