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1. Unemployment at record high
2. DHS targets employers of illegals
3. UT police awaiting guidance
4. UT police chief continues defiance
5. UT residents show concern

1.
Recession hits immigrant workforce harder than native workforce
Foreign-born workers -- both skilled and unskilled, legal and illegal -- have endured greater increases in joblessness than their native-born counterparts over the last 18 months, one study shows.
By Teresa Watanabe
The Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immiglabor30-2009apr30,0,6885931...

Immigrants have been hit harder than native-born Americans by the recession, with larger increases in joblessness among both educated and uneducated workers, according to a study released today.

Immigrants in California -- both legal and illegal -- fared particularly poorly, with jobless rates here nearly tripling to 12.2% in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 4.5% in the third quarter of 2007, according to the report by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based research group that supports immigration restrictions. The study is based on U.S. Census statistics.

Nationally, the immigrant jobless rate rose to 9.7% from 4.1% during that period, while the rate for native-born workers rose to 8.6% from 4.8%.

The jobless rate for Latino immigrants grew twice as fast as that for non-Latino immigrants, the study showed.

The figures represent a change from the last five years, when the housing boom created a plethora of construction and other jobs and helped boost the immigrant employment rate above that of natives.

Steven Camarota, the study's coauthor, said many of the immigrant job losses came in low-skill occupations hit hard by the recession. In construction, for instance, the immigrant jobless rate climbed to 20% in the first quarter of 2009 from 4.7% 18 months earlier. About one-fourth of all workers nationally and two-thirds in Los Angeles County are foreign-born. Sergio Rascon of the Laborers' International Union of North America Local 300, whose Los Angeles County construction workers are overwhelmingly Latino and heavily immigrant, said the recession's fallout is the worst he's ever seen. He said more than 1,000 workers are currently listed on the union's out-of-work list; at the height of the housing boom a few years ago, he said, there were none.

In downtown Los Angeles alone, he said, the out-of-work list has tripled since last year, to 600 members.

"Never did I ever think it would be as bad as it is now," Rascon said.

The heavily immigrant sector of janitorial services is also reeling from widespread job losses. Downturns in the home financing industry in Orange County and among high-tech firms in Silicon Valley have particularly hurt, said Mike Garcia, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1877, which represents about 25,000 janitors statewide.

San Jose-based Cisco Systems Inc. recently cut its janitorial staff to 108 from 210 -- a move the union is protesting.

"We've never experienced this kind of pressure on janitors before," Garcia said.

The jobless rate among immigrants with less than a high school education remained lower than that of their native-born counterparts.

The picture is worse for educated immigrants. The jobless rate among immigrants with a bachelor's degree rose to 6.3% in the first quarter of 2009 from 2.6% 18 months earlier. Meanwhile, the rate among native-born college graduates rose to 4% from 2.5%.

Manuel Pastor, codirector of the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, said educated immigrants may be faring worse because they tend to face obstacles converting their foreign degrees into U.S. credentials and therefore may work in less-skilled fields subject to higher job losses.

Humara Ahmed, a 42-year-old Pakistan native who lives in Palos Verdes, was a millionaire with a college degree, a monthly income as high as $25,000, a six-bedroom home, investment property and her own home-loan and restaurant businesses a few years ago. But as the recession deepened, she lost everything last year. Months of feverish job hunts -- applying for up to 12 jobs a day -- produced nothing.

She trained to become a taxi driver, which didn't pan out. Now she is training to become a food service manager at $10 an hour.

"I couldn't eat or sleep, and cried every day," she said. "I lost confidence in myself."

Camarota said the mounting job losses call into question whether the U.S. should continue to admit so many immigrant workers -- 1.3 million last year. He also said the figures show a "superabundance" of less-educated U.S. workers available for jobs, undercutting the argument to legalize undocumented migrants.

But Pastor said that impending baby boomer retirements will leave the nation in need of immigrant labor.

"As our demographic profile ages, we will need to bring more folks in," he said.

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2.
Immigration Agents to Turn Focus to Employers
By Ginger Thompson
The New York Times, April 30, 2009

Washington, DC -- In an effort to crack down on illegal labor, the Department of Homeland Security intends to step up enforcement efforts against employers who knowingly hire such workers.

Under guidelines to be issued Thursday to Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices, agents will be instructed to take aim at employers and supervisors for prosecution “through the use of carefully planned criminal investigations.”

Senior officials of the Homeland Security Department said Wednesday that illegal workers would continue to be detained in raids on workplaces. But the officials said they hoped to mark an abrupt departure from past practices by making those arrests as part of an effort to build criminal and civil cases against employers.

Under the Bush administration, the officials said, most raids were conducted largely on the basis of tips that an employer was hiring illegal workers, rather than on information gleaned from audits of employer records or undercover investigations. As a result, agents rounded up thousands of illegal immigrants but rarely developed the evidence necessary to show whether businesses were knowingly using illegal labor.

Last year, for example, nearly 6,000 people were arrested in workplace immigration raids across the country, but only 135 were employers or managers. The new guidelines, meant to provide a road map to agents who have been operating with little guidance and oversight from Washington, instruct them to pursue evidence against the employer before going after the workers.

“Enforcement efforts focused on employers better target the root causes of illegal immigration,” say the guidelines, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “ICE must prioritize the criminal prosecution of actual employers who knowingly hire illegal workers because such employers are not sufficiently punished or deterred by the arrest of their illegal work force.”

The rules could draw a storm of complaints from employers, who argue that they are easily duped by workers with bogus documents and that the government has not established a reliable system for verifying immigration status.

The rules are likely to win praise, though, from advocates who have long considered raids at work sites to be symbols of a crackdown that, they say, violates workers’ rights and divides immigrant families while ignoring employer abuses. Raising the bar on what is required to undertake such raids could result in fewer of them.

The guidelines are a significant step toward President Obama’s pledge to overhaul the nation’s immigration system. The president’s aides said recently that he would ask Congress this year to consider changes that among other things would give legal status to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the country.

But a worsening economy could weaken political support for such changes. In the meantime, the administration has begun a review of steps it can take without Congressional approval.

In his news conference Wednesday night, Mr. Obama restated his commitment to an immigration overhaul, saying the United States could not continue with a “broken” system. With regard specifically to workplace enforcement, he said he was looking for “a more thoughtful approach than just raids of a handful of workers, as opposed to, for example, taking seriously the violation of companies that sometimes are actively recruiting these workers to come in.”

“That’s something we can start doing administratively,” he added.

Among Janet Napolitano’s first acts as secretary of homeland security was to order reviews of many parts of the nation’s immigration system. Ms. Napolitano promised to stem the rising tide of illegal immigration by strengthening border enforcement and cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/us/politics/30immig.html

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3.
Immigration enforcement no clear choice
By Jennifer W. Sanchez
The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City), April 29, 2009

West Valley City Police Chief Phayle "Buzz" Nielsen has many more questions than answers about a new state law that allows him to cross-deputize officers as immigration agents:

# How many officers would have to be trained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)?

# Would cross-deputized officers have the right to arrest undocumented people if their neighbors call the cops on them?

# Would officers arrest employers who hire undocumented workers?

# Is the intent of the law to round up the estimated 110,000 undocumented Utahns and put them in jail?

# What about U.S.-born kids who are separated from their undocumented relatives?

And, finally: "Who's going to pay for this? [Lawmakers] create all this stuff, but no one wants to pay for it."

Nielsen and many other law-enforcement officials say they are waiting for further clarification from the Utah Attorney General's Office before they decide what to do.

Under the new law -- also known as SB81, effective July 1 -- local agencies have the option to sign an agreement with ICE.

The Attorney General's Office is currently working on a memorandum of understanding with the federal government about ICE's 287g program. Officials say they don't know when it will be completed.

Nielsen said he's heard the four-week ICE training for officers is a year behind schedule, and he wonders how that would affect Utah law-enforcement agencies that sign up for the program.

"It just brings up 10,000 questions," he said. "It's just going to heat up more as we get to July 1."
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http://www.sltrib.com/valleywest/ci_12254970

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4.
Flap over SB81 enforcement far from over
Immigration » Some cities out, others not sure, backers steamed.
By Derek P. Jensen
The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City), April 29, 2009

Chris Burbank has a credo.

Sure, the Salt Lake City police chief is refusing to have his cops enforce Utah's new immigration law, SB81, because of practical reasons. Cross-deputizing his officers as federal immigration agents could stretch the force thin and bleed the budget.

But beyond that, Burbank has a philosophical objection.

"If we started taking action based solely on [immigration] status, we would be making enforcement decisions based on race and ethnicity," Burbank told The Tribune . He later assured more than 100 Latinos gathered at Centro Civico Mexicano: "Nobody should live in fear."

Mayor Ralph Becker backs the stance, saying Salt Lake City is opting out of SB81 enforcement to preserve its trust with the immigrant community.

"We are concerned about cities opting in," Becker's legislative liaison Ben McAdams told the City Council. "That would have a spillover psychological effect on Salt Lake City."

Burbank raised the hackles of some but relieved others when he made the SB81 announcement earlier this month.

"He basically took a courageous, commendable position," said Tony Yapias, a Latino community activist. "It has helped define what the other agencies will do next."

But South Salt Lake remains perched on the fence. Police Chief Chris Snyder says he's not against SB81, which would give his officers access to federal intelligence. But he's frustrated the state has not provided any funding to defray the costs of sending officers to be trained.
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http://www.sltrib.com/slc/ci_12248088

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5.
Locals seek answers on immigration
By David Demille
The Spectrum (St. George, UT), April 30, 2009

St. George -- Only five residents spoke up during Wednesday's public forum with the St. George City Council, and all five brought up concerns with illegal immigration.

Since January of 2008, the city has implemented several new policies, mandating that city employees and contractors hired for city projects verify worker eligibility through a federal database, inserting the issue into city business licenses and working with other agencies to have local law officers trained as immigration agents.

The five residents said they appreciated the moves, but were concerned about enforcement.

Much-discussed SB81, a statewide immigration reform bill, is set to go into effect in July, but several residents asked whether the new laws would be enforced, which already appears unlikely in some areas of the state.

Some of Utah's largest law enforcement agencies, including the Utah Highway Patrol and the Salt Lake City Police Department, are not using resources to train officers as immigration agents, but St. George Police Chief Marlon Stratton said Washington County is one of two counties where some officers have already been trained. Two jail officers at Purgatory Correc-tional Facility have been certified.

"We felt like our resources were much better served by having our officers at the jail," he said.

Stratton also said 30 people have been deported in the last year through cooperation between the county's gang task force and a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

Residents also asked about the city's stance on E-Verify, a program operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to verify identification and worker eligibility.
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http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20090430/NEWS01/904300336