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1. Obama to test climate for amnesty bill
2. Chief of staff changes tune on amnesty
3. Illegal entry down, drug smuggling up
4. Advocate downplays temporary worker plan
5. Racketeering Lawsuit dismissed

1.
Immigration emerges as an issue for Obama
It's still 'economy first,' but advocacy groups and lawmakers are positioning themselves to take on this political hot button.
By Gail Russell Chaddock
The Christian Science Monitior, April 9, 2009

Call it a trial balloon – on one of the thorniest issues in US politics.

Immigrant rights groups hailed a report in The New York Times today that President Obama plans to take up immigration reform this year. Opponents said the move could jeopardize healthcare reform and other elements of the president’s agenda in tough economic times.

The report, sourced to deputy assistant to the president Cecilia Munoz, reopens in the press an issue that has yet to hit the floors of Congress. It also sends a message to Hispanic groups that helped elect Mr. Obama that their concerns for a path to legalization for some 12 million undocumented workers have not been forgotten.

In a statement, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national civil rights and advocacy organization, “welcomed today’s report in The New York Times that President Barack Obama has made immigration reform one of his top priorities for this year.”

White House plays it down

But White House officials on Thursday played down views that the administration’s priorities are shifting.

“The president has consistently said that he wants to start the discussion later this year, because our immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed,” says White House spokesman Nick Shapiro. “But the economy comes first, that’s why we’re so deeply engaged in that now. We will start an immigration discussion later in the year.”

“Obviously there are a lot of things on his plate and a lot of pressing issues relating to the economy,” said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, in a Thursday afternoon briefing. “I don’t think he expects that it will be done this year. But obviously it’s a big issue out there that the previous administration and Congress worked to try to address, and it’s something the president is committed to addressing, as he said throughout the campaign trail.”

Mr. Gibbs also announced that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and John Brennan, director of the White House Homeland Security Council, will visit border communities next week to meet with local officials and residents over border security.

Congress under pressure

Over the two-week congressional recess, pro-reform groups are mobilizing immigrant, labor, and faith communities to meet some 200 members of Congress.

“This is an unprecedented coordinated campaign to push members of Congress from the places where they live so that members realize that they are representing a constituency ready to create the political space necessary [for reform],” says Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy organization based in Washington.

“What we’re realizing is that in order to fix our economy, we need to fix the immigration system,” he says. “In order to have healthcare for all, we need to make sure that healthcare doesn’t become an immigration debate. Until we fix the immigration crisis, every issue will be taken down the rat hole of immigration politics.”

Pro-reform groups were put off by remarks by Vice President Joe Biden to Central American leaders last week that the US administration would need “some forbearance” in moving comprehensive immigration reform at a time when many Americans were losing homes and jobs.

“The can’t-do crowd will raise its voice again, but poll after poll has shown that the vast majority of Americans are looking for a fair and effective way to fix the immigration system,” said Janet Murguia, NCLR president and CEO, in a statement. “We intend to work with the president and Congress to make this a reality.”

Response to Thursday’s report gives lawmakers an early look at how tough the battle to change the nation’s immigration laws this year will be.

Immigration reformers weigh in

“I expect there is going to be some significant pushback in Congress and from proactive enforcement groups – and more important, behind-the-scenes pushback form Democratic members of Congress calling the White House,” says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which promotes less immigration. “The president is being put under a lot of pressure by some very demanding and, in our view, extremist constituents of his base.”

The issue of border security helped sink immigration reform in 2007. Opponents say that the Obama administration will have even more difficulty convincing the public that it is serious about security – and visits of administration officials to the border won’t do it.
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http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/04/09/immigration-emerges-as...

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2.
Emanuel Now a Backer of Immigration Action
By Laura Meckler
The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2009

WASHINGTON -- As the White House gears up to push an immigration overhaul, advocates are finding they have an unexpected ally in White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Mr. Emanuel has long been a voice of caution on easing rules for immigrants, fearing such a position could hurt Democrats at the polls. That stance has antagonized Hispanic lawmakers and activists, who favor a clearer, easier path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants.

But as chief of staff, Mr. Emanuel has taken concrete steps that are sending a different message. He pushed hard for Congress to act fast on a children's health-insurance bill, including a provision lifting Clinton-era restrictions on benefits for legal immigrant children. He has also arranged for members of the Hispanic media to get special briefings by White House senior officials every two weeks. He did the first one, and put other aides on notice that they were expected to do the same.

"You don't get to say no," he told colleagues at a senior staff meeting early in the administration.

While Mr. Emanuel once predicted that comprehensive immigration reform wouldn't be considered until the second term of a Democratic president, he now says conversations on the issue will begin this year to lay the groundwork for possible action in 2010. The issue is also likely to arise next week when President Barack Obama travels to Mexico to meet with President Felipe Calderón.

For his part, Mr. Emanuel said his views haven't changed, though people may be viewing him in a new light now. In any case, he said, his job now was to represent the president's views.

"It doesn't matter what Rahm thinks," he said in an interview. "It matters what President Obama thinks."

Janet Murguia, president of National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic rights advocacy group, recalled arguing with Mr. Emanuel over immigration issues when they both worked in President Bill Clinton's White House and he looked to protect the president from seeming soft on illegal immigration.

At the time, she said, she was pushing to restore aid for legal immigrants that had been cut off in the 1996 welfare overhaul, and he was arguing that no action was needed. She also recalls disagreements over how strongly to push enforcement provisions aimed at stopping illegal immigration. Mr. Emanuel was advocating a tougher crackdown.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123931821992806781.html

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3.
From arrests to deaths, data reveals changes at border
Arrests plummet, but more drugs, bodies discovered by Border Patrol
By Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), April 10, 2009

Illegal-immigrant arrests are down 29 percent along most of Arizona's border, but corpse recoveries and marijuana seizures are up dramatically, according to new numbers released by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Mario Escalante, a spokesman in the agency's Tucson Sector, said tougher enforcement explains all of the seemingly paradoxical data.

Human-rights organizations and other border-watching groups answer that Mexico's northbound wave of immigration is diminishing because of the recession, and not as a result of beefed-up manpower or enhanced technology along the 2,000-mile Southwest border.

Kat Rodriguez, coordinator for Derechos Humanos, said the government takes credit for tough enforcement when arrests increase, but also boasts that tough enforcement is responsible when fewer immigrants get caught.

"Every year, no matter what the numbers show, they claim it reflects their efforts," she said. "They cut and eat their cake any way they want."

The data debate comes amid reports that the Obama administration is preparing a new campaign for immigration reform.

Previous efforts to overhaul America's system, including bills sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., failed when critics complained that immigration laws should be revised only after U.S. borders are secured.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., said she supports Obama's initiative and recently joined Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., in a letter urging the president to take action. She argued that the lack of reform has hampered security because, in the absence of a guest-worker program, border agents wind up chasing illegal immigrants rather than criminal smugglers.

Giffords, whose district covers southeastern Arizona, said the latest Border Patrol numbers confirm that security has improved.

Along the entire Southwest border so far this fiscal year arrests are down nearly one quarter. In the Tucson Sector, one of nine border-patrol regions in the Southwest, apprehensions fell from 157,614 in the first half of fiscal 2008 to112,466 so far this fiscal year. The Tucson Sector is considered a funnel point for illegal immigration.

Escalante, the Border Patrol spokesman, said would-be crossers have been daunted by tougher enforcement and criminal prosecutions for repeat offenders. Immigrant advocates say the downturn was caused by the recession.
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/04/10/200904...

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4.
Advocate predicts immigration overhaul in speech at Southern Methodist University
By Dianne Solis
The Dallas Morning News, April 10, 2009

An overhaul of the nation's immigration laws will gain renewed traction this fall but probably will be stripped of a temporary worker plan, predicted a veteran immigration-rights advocate in a speech at Southern Methodist University on Thursday.

Rising unemployment means a work-permit plan for future workers – part of past immigration proposals – won't work, said Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigrant advocacy group America's Voice, to a group of about 100 at SMU. But the rising clout of the Democrats after the 2008 elections means the overall plan stands a chance of success, Sharry said.

"What do politicians do when they see a tough issue? They run from it," Sharry said. But the political game's changed, he said.

Sharry ruled out deportations for the estimated 11.5 million people in the U.S. illegally, but argued for tougher enforcement against employers who hire workers without legal status.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-sm...

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5.
Immigration racketeering suit dismissed
The Associated Press, April 9, 2009

Plainfield, NJ (AP) -- A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to use anti-mob legislation to stop a New Jersey property manager from renting apartments to illegal immigrants.

A nationwide group favoring stricter immigration controls argued that Connolly Properties, a large landlord with buildings in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, rented so many apartments to illegal immigrants that it constituted harboring under federal racketeering laws.
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http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20090409_a...