Morning News, 4/7/09

By Bryan Griffith, April 7, 2009

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1. Lawmakers call for halt of raids
2. Report wants focused deportations
3. CO Senate defeats tuition bill
4. NJ panel urges for licenses
5. IT employer to pay back wages

1.
Advocates Want Halt on Immigration Raids to Ensure Accurate Census
U.S. Rep. William Clay says he'll ask the Obama administration to suspend immigration raids over the next year, so illegal immigrants don't worry that sharing accurate information with Census workers could somehow expose them to punishment.
The Fox News, April 6, 2009

Some lawmakers are calling anew for the U.S. to relax its immigration laws -- not to provide sanctuary to illegal immigrants, but to ensure statistical accuracy.

The calls come as the Census Bureau prepares to kick off the 2010 Census. Critics argue that unless the government is willing to relax immigration laws, millions of people -- afraid to their share their personal information -- will be left out of the count.

U.S. Rep. William Clay, D-Mo., who chairs a House oversight subcommittee on the Census, said he plans to ask the Obama administration to suspend immigration raids over the next year.

He wants the raids put on hold so illegal immigrants don't worry that sharing accurate information with Census workers could somehow expose them to punishment, even deportation.

"There are many people -- Hispanics, African-Americans, whites, Asians -- who have an irrational fear of government, who distrust government, who don't believe that if they give the federal government personal information, that that information is not going to be confidential," said Arturo Vargas, of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

The kind of move Clay is proposing has been done before -- in 2000, and even earlier.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, was working for the border patrol ahead of the 1990 Census when the orders came down to suspend some enforcement efforts.

"It distorts the count because people might be apprehensive about answering the door, or reporting accurately how many people are living in a house or residence or an apartment, or those kinds of things -- at least that was the rationale," Reyes explained.

But the call to pull back the reins on immigration enforcement is opposed by many of Clay's colleagues, including the ranking Republican on the House oversight committee.

"We're not talking about one day of not doing raids. We're talking about a period of time. Is that a week, a month or a whole year? We cannot suspend law enforcement," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/06/advocates-want-halt-immigrati...

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2.
Criminals should be priority of deportation, report says
By David Olson
The Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA), April 3, 2009

A year ago, Cristina Ramirez was deported from her Nuevo home to Mexico, a country she barely knew.

Ramirez, 32, came to the United States at age 2, and her deportation left her four children, husband and parents -- all U.S. citizens -- emotionally devastated.

As Ramirez's case remains in the immigration-system bureaucracy, the administration of President Barack Obama is coming under increasing pressure to put less priority on arrests of people like Ramirez and more emphasis on illegal immigrants who are criminals and on employers of illegal workers. Ramirez had no criminal record.

A report released Wednesday by America's Voice, which favors liberalization of immigration laws, said spending time and money catching people like Ramirez allows many illegal-immigrant criminals and exploitative employers to remain free.

A February report by the Migration Policy Institute found that illegal immigrants with criminal convictions represented a small share of arrests of those who violate deportation orders.

The Obama administration has already signaled it will focus more than the Bush administration on targeting employers, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered a review of immigration-arrest policies.

Supporters of stronger immigration-law enforcement say not arresting people like Ramirez would give them impunity.

Ramirez, her parents and her brother entered the United States in 1979 with a valid border-crossing card and illegally stayed after the card expired. Her parents later became citizens, but a 1997 change in immigration law made it more difficult for Ramirez to gain legal residency.

After four years of appeals, a deportation order was issued against Ramirez in 2001. She was deported March 27, 2008, as part of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement fugitive-operations program that targets people with standing deportation orders.
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http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_S_deport04.3...

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3.
'Tuition equity' bill fails in Senate
By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post, April 6, 2009

The Colorado Senate today narrowly rejected a bill that would have allowed illegal immigrants in-state tuition after five Democrats joined with Republicans to vote against it.

A disappointed Sen. Chris Romer, the Denver Democrat who sponsored the bill, said it was hard for some lawmakers to support the bill in the current tough economic times.

"You don't make these decisions overnight," Romer said, adding that he would try to bring the legislation back next year.

Controversy had followed the legislation, Senate Bill 170, from its introduction all the way to the Senate floor. The bill only made it out of the Senate Appropriations Committee last week after Democrats called a meeting in the absence of one Republican member on the committee, setting off angry accusations from GOP senators that Democrats had pulled a sneaky maneuver to get the bill approved.

Today, though, Democrats delayed debate on the bill long enough to allow Sen. Jennifer Veiga, D-Denver, to make it back from the airport to participate in the debate.

Sen. Ted Harvey, the Republican who was absent from last week's Appropriations meeting while caring for an ailing family member, sarcastically applauded Democratic leadership for waiting for Veiga's arrival.

"I think it's great that we're getting back to the premise of senatorial courtesy," said Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch.

The bill would have allowed any student who had attended a Colorado high school for at least three years and graduated to attend public colleges and universities at the in-state tuition rate, regardless of their immigration status.

Similar bills had failed in previous years, but this year's legislation had the backing of some top Republicans, including Alex Cranberg, chairman of Aspect Energy and a top GOP donor; and Dick Monfort, co-owner of the Colorado Rockies and chairman of the University of Northern Colorado Board of Trustees.

Republicans argued that the bill would run afoul of a 1996 federal law that prohibits illegal immigrants from getting college benefits that are not available to all U.S. citizens. However, nine other states have passed laws allowing in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, and whether the federal law specifically prohibits that practice has not been squarely decided in court.

A challenge to a similar law in California is now pending in that state's supreme court.
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http://www.denverpost.com/commented/ci_12084135

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4.
Panel urges driving rights for illegal immigrants
By Samantha Henry
The Associated Press, April 5, 2009

Newark, NJ (AP) -- Alejandro Chavez, an undocumented immigrant from Puebla, Mexico, worked in the apple orchards of Washington state for years, driving to and from work with a valid state motor vehicle license.

When he moved to New Jersey seven years ago to work on a Morristown horse farm, he lost his driving privileges. The state told him he couldn't transfer his driver's license because he wasn't a legal U.S. resident.

It's a growing issue in New Jersey and in other parts of the country: Should illegal immigrants, a sizable part of many state economies, be allowed to obtain state driver's licenses?

"We may be undocumented, but we invest a lot into this country," said Chavez, who now pays $10 a day to get a ride to work. "I can understand that many believe we don't deserve any rights at all, but I think it's a better system to have people registered, and their identities verified."

An immigration task force appointed by Gov. Jon S. Corzine agrees. The panel recently recommended the state extend driving privileges to illegal immigrants. Corzine opposes the move, saying it's up to the federal government to set national guidelines.

Washington, Illinois, Maryland and New Mexico are the only four states that do not require proof of lawful U.S. residency to get a driver's license, according to The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Agency spokesman Jason King says Utah also issues driving certificates to undocumented workers, but they are not accepted as official identification, and Hawaii will issue an illegal immigrant a state ID, but not a driver's license.

Supporters say granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants makes the roads safer, because applicants are tested, and they say it cuts down on the number of uninsured drivers. They also argue it helps law enforcement efforts to have more people registered in state databases.

Opponents of the initiative say it makes it easier for illegal immigrants to live and work in the U.S.

"As a country we have to make up our mind what we want to do about immigration, but it's always a bad idea for a state to work against federal immigration law," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors stricter enforcement of immigration laws. "It's really a bad idea to say: 'Look, they're here illegally, let's do everything we can to reward that illegal behavior."

New Jerseyans are largely opposed to the idea of granting driver's licenses to undocumented residents, a measure that has been proposed in the state before.
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http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/new_jersey/20090405_ap_...

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5.
Cognizant agrees to pay H-1B workers $500,000 in back wages
IT services firm, Labor Department settle case involving underpayments to 67 visa holders
By Patrick Thibodeau
Computer World, April 5, 2009

IT services provider Cognizant Technology Solutions has agreed to pay $509,607 in back wages to 67 H-1B workers after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor.

White House defends controversial H-1B visa extension

Teaneck, N.J.-based Cognizant is one of the largest H-1B users, having received approval for 467 visas during the federal government's current fiscal year. That put Cognizant, which has more than 60,000 employees worldwide, in seventh place on the list of H-1B recipients for fiscal 2008.

The Labor Department, in a statement released this week, said that the company had violated federal law by failing to pay "proper wages" to H-1B tech workers. Cognizant also "failed to offer all H-1B workers equal benefits or eligibility for equal benefits, and failed to maintain required records," the agency said.