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1. Illegal population declines
2. Obama alienating allies
3. Illegals' tax health care
4. Mexican immigration declined
5. Sheriff excluded from funds

1.
Number of immigrants in the country on decline
By Liz Mineo
The MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, MA), July 30, 2009
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1537495592/Number-of-illegal-imm...

A new report by a center that favors restrictions on immigration shows a decline in the number of illegal immigrants living in the country, a result of both increased immigration enforcement and the poor U.S. economy.

The report by the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, released yesterday, said the illegal immigrant population decreased 13.7 percent, or 1.7 million, from a peak of 12.5 million in the summer of 2007 to 10.8 million in the first quarter of 2009.

The new numbers underscore a "shifting tide" in the trend of the illegal immigrant population, which dropped for the first time in decades, said Steven Camarota, the group's research director.

"After two decades of pretty steady growth, this was a big change," he said. "The decline occurred before the crisis and was due to increased enforcement, but now the economy is the major factor behind the falloff."

Camarota's study is not the first to report the decrease in the illegal immigrant population. In October 2008, the Pew Hispanic Center reported a drop from 12.4 million in 2007 to 11.9 million in 2008.

And in February, the Department of Homeland Security said the unauthorized population dropped from 11.8 million in 2007 to 11.6 million last year.

While impossible to know for sure the number of illegal immigrants in the country, experts calculate estimates by subtracting the legal resident population from the total foreign-born population.

For the report, Camarota said researchers analyzed data for the first three months of 2009 from the Current Population Survey, collected monthly by the Census Bureau.

The report also said the decline shows that fewer people are coming in and more people are going back home. It said the number of new illegal immigrants has fallen by about one-third in the last two years compared to earlier in the decade. At the same time, the number of illegal immigrants returning to their home countries has more than doubled in the same period.

The study echoes reports by immigrant advocates that have noticed growing numbers of immigrants returning home because of the U.S. economic downturn, more immigration enforcement and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Homeland Security reported fewer people were arrested along the U.S.-Mexico border in 2008 compared to the year before. Between 2007 and 2008, the total number of apprehensions dropped 17 percent, from 961,000 in 2007 to 792,000 in 2008.

Fausto Da Rocha, of Allston's Brazilian Immigrant Center, said the Brazilian population in America has decreased over the past few years due to the U.S. recession and immigration restrictions. And the trend could continue, he said.

"People are still waiting for an immigration reform," he said. "If that doesn't happen in the next year, many more will leave."

In Framingham, pastor Samuel Chaves is already seeing that.

"People are not coming in," he said. "I see more people leaving than coming in."

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Illegal-immigrant populace in Ariz. falls by a third, study says
By Daniel González
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), July 30, 2009
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/07/30/200907...

The number of illegal immigrants living in Arizona has plunged by one-third in the past two years amid a dismal job market and stiffer enforcement of immigration laws, according to researchers who released a new report.

Arizona saw the largest decline of any state, according to researchers at the Center for Immigration Studies, whose report shows that the nation's undocumented population fell nearly 14 percent from the summer of 2007 to the first quarter of this year, following years of steady growth.

The report comes as the Obama administration is gearing up to push for major immigration reforms, including a possible legalization program for millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S.

The loss of illegal immigrants has had ramifications for the Arizona economy, with some saying the exodus means less of a drain on taxpayer services and others saying the loss has hurt businesses and tax revenue.

Last week, Chandler-based Bashas' Supermarkets closed three Food City stores in predominantly Latino neighborhoods in Phoenix and Glendale, which some analysts said reflected the beating many businesses have taken as a result of an exodus of Latino immigrants and their families.

The report by the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the nation's illegal-immigrant population fell from a peak of 12.5 million in the summer of 2007 to 10.8 million in the first quarter of 2009, a drop of 13.7 percent.

The center is a research organization in Washington, D.C., that favors less immigration to the United States.

The size of the decline suggests that not only are fewer illegal immigrants coming to the United States but also that a significant number are returning home, said Steven Camarota, a researcher at the center and one of the report's authors.

"It's a significant break" following years of rapid growth in the nation's undocumented population, he said. "We have never seen this large and sustained decline in the illegal population in this way before."

The center's report was based on an analysis of less-educated Hispanic immigrants taken from the Census Bureau's monthly Current Population Survey.

A report last week by the Pew Hispanic Center, which analyzed government population surveys from the U.S. and Mexico as well as Border Patrol apprehensions, found that immigrants, both legal and illegal, are not leaving the country.

Randy Capps, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said there is no question the illegal immigrant population has stabilized. But he believes Camarota's report may have inflated the size of the drop because it focused on a narrower segment of the population: less-educated Hispanic immigrants.

He said any net decline has more to do with the annual return of illegal immigrants to Mexico in the fall and winter months offset by fewer immigrants coming to the U.S. because of a lack of jobs and stepped-up deportations.

After reaching a high of 530,000 in 2007, Arizona's undocumented population now numbers about 350,000, a drop of about 180,000 people, Camarota said.

The exodus is good news for Arizona taxpayers, Camarota said, because illegal immigrants tend to work in low-wage jobs and therefore contribute less in taxes than the public services they use.

But immigrant advocates say the loss of so many people has been a big blow to the state's economy, where empty storefronts, vacant homes and empty apartments dot many immigrant neighborhoods.

"When you lose people, you lose not only workers but people who are consumers, and these people were great consumers," said Elias Bermudez, chief executive and founder of the Phoenix-based Immigrants Without Borders.

Bermudez says the center's estimate that 180,000 illegal immigrants have left is too low.

"I may even go higher than that, as many as 250,000 people," Bermudez said. "I get two or three calls a day from people who say they are leaving."

Capps said he believes the "pause" in illegal immigration to the U.S. should make immigration reform less contentious.

"It makes the conversation a little easier," he said.

Camarota, however, said the declining population could play both ways.

On one hand, it could give a boost to a legalization program because the population is no longer growing and therefore is more manageable, Camarota said.

On the other, it could debunk arguments that illegal immigrants don't leave.

"Some could say (the illegal-immigrant population) is still a big problem, but we are getting it under control," Camarota said, "while others would say, 'Why have an amnesty (program) when there is an alternative and people will go home?' "

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2.
Obama loses immigration allies
By Stephen Dinan
The Washinton Times, July 30, 2009

Three years after President Obama marched alongside Hispanic and immigrant rights activists, they took to the streets Wednesday to march against him, saying he has betrayed them by embracing George W. Bush administration efforts to stem illegal immigration.

Activists marched in Los Angeles and picketed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's appearance in New York, angered over the administration's recent embrace of an electronic verification system for employers and a program that allows local police to enforce immigration laws.

The protests highlight the tough political spot Mr. Obama faces: He enjoyed strong support from Hispanics in last year's election, but activists say he's now risking their support in the future.

"I see the sense of betrayal creeping up," said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, which organized the protest against Ms. Napolitano.

The coalition said the administration is using the right words on immigrant rights but taking the wrong actions to boost enforcement.

"A lot of people see the actions of Secretary Napolitano going in the opposite direction of the reform President Obama promised," she said.

The protests erupted as a report by the Center for Immigration Studies says stepped-up enforcement since 2007 has helped cut the illegal immigrant population in the United States.

The group advocates the reduction of illegal immigration through strong enforcement measures.

The report, being released Thursday morning, says the illegal immigrant population peaked at 12.5 million in summer 2007, or just as Congress was debating a legalization program, but has since fallen to 10.8 million.

Steven A. Camarota and Karen Jensenius, the report's authors, said the fact that legal immigration has not declined shows that enforcement, not the economy, is responsible for the decline in illegal immigrants.

The authors said the electronic employment verification known as E-verify and the police enforcement program were among the key enforcement tools that expanded after 2007 and contributed to the drop.

Speaking in New York to the Council on Foreign Relations, Ms. Napolitano defended the White House's decision to move forward with a crackdown on illegal immigration.

"We are expanding enforcement, but I think in the right way," she said.
. . .
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/30/obama-loses-immigration-...

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3.
Illegal Immigrants Account for $10.7 Billion of Nation’s Health Care Costs, Data Show
By Matt Cover
The CNS News, July 30, 2009

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that “illegal immigrants are not covered” in the health care reform legislation that is now working its way through House committees. But when asked about illegal immigrants who go to public hospitals for care, Pelosi told CNN’s State of the Nation on Sunday the law requires that they be treated.

The cost of treating illegal aliens amounts to nearly $11 billion a year, according to calculations done by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a non-profit group that opposes illegal immigration. And that cost is not expected to go away if a health insurance reform bill becomes law.

“If you’re in this country illegally, should you be able to get health care?” CNN’s John King asked Pelosi. “No, illegal immigrants are not covered by this plan,” she replied.

“And so what happens to a public hospital then, if they walk into the emergency room? The hospital I was at this week, they said, you know, they do 6,000 births a year there and 70 percent of them are for undocumented [patients],” said King.

“I don’t know about that,” said Pelosi. “But I do know that the law requires that if somebody comes in off the street and needs care, that is extended. What we see in this legislation is that people will have access to affordable health care, and it will diminish the number of people going into those private, public hospitals in the manner in which you described.”

According to FAIR’s Director of Special Projects Jack Martin, illegal immigrants cost federal and state governments an estimated $10.7 billion a year in health care spending. The numbers are contained in a report that FAIR plans to publish in the near future.

“The numbers that I’ve been running come up to a total of $10.7 billion a year,” Martin told CNSNews.com. Those costs include the cost of so-called “anchor babies” – babies born to illegal immigrant parents in U.S. hospitals, almost always at taxpayers’ expense.

Martin said that he included this cost in his estimate because while the newborns are technically U.S. citizens, taxpayers would never have had to pay their mothers’ medical bills had they not illegally entered the country.

“If the illegal immigrants were prevented from coming into the country or were encouraged to leave the country, that cost would disappear,” said Martin. “Emergency medical care for the delivery of children is the biggest [cost].”

Each anchor baby costs taxpayers an estimated $10,000 each on average, Martin said. These costs are usually paid through Medicaid, the federal program designed to aid America’s poor.

“It’s the same [cost] as any other Medicaid birth, it’s the delivery expenses that average in the neighborhood of about $10,000 per delivery,” he said.

Emergency room care for adults is another “significant” part of illegals’ overall burden, Martin said, one that is primarily borne by states, which subsidize the hospitals whose emergency rooms must treat illegal immigrants, no matter how minor their illness might be.

“It’s a fairly significant contribution,” Martin said, “it comes out of the pocket of the states for the most part because of the fact that it is not covered by Medicaid. The federal government has had a program of partial reimbursement of those expenses but that hasn’t been renewed [by this Congress]. It didn’t begin to cover those expenses [anyway].”

That $10.7 billion is not spread evenly throughout the country, Martin explained, but is borne primarily by states with high populations of illegal aliens -- states such as California, Texas, and Florida.

“In terms of locations, it basically flows with where the largest concentration of illegal immigrants are,” said Martin. “For example, California is the largest and just within the state – not including federal monies – I get that [cost] at $1.6 billion per year.”

In fact, state governments bear the heaviest burden for subsidizing the health care of illegal immigrants. Martin said he calculated that, all told, states pay $6.9 billion per year to care for their illegal immigrant populations.

“The estimates of the costs that are paid by the states in total run to about $6.9 billion,” he said. “The difference between that and the over $10 billion figure is the amount that is paid out of federal funds.”

Martin’s figures are similar to those reported in a 2004 study published by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which showed that illegals accounted for $6.4 billion of federal health care spending – the CIS study did not examine states expenditures.

The CIS study did include federal programs for which illegal immigrants are legally barred, such as Medicaid. However, federal funds still flowed their way due to the fact that illegal immigrant parents gain access to federal welfare and health care benefits through their U.S.-born children.

According to the CIS study, illegals accounted for 13.1 percent of all federal costs of covering the uninsured in 2004, an estimated $2.2 billion per year. Seventeen percent of households headed by an illegal immigrant were using Medicaid, accounting for 1.7 percent of all Medicaid recipients.
. . .
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=51751

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4.
Number of Mexican immigrants dips in U.S.
Marion County, however, is a big draw because of agriculture, I-5
By Thelma Guerrero-Huston
The Statesman Journal (Salem, OR), July 30, 2009

The number of Mexican immigrants crossing the border into the U.S. hit a 10-year low in the past year, but those already living in the nation appear to be staying put, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The report is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's monthly Current Population Survey, Mexico's National Survey of Employment and Occupation, and the U.S. Border Patrol.

The study estimates that immigrants arriving in the U.S. from Mexico dipped by 249,000 from March 2008 to March 2009, a decline of about 40 percent from the previous year.

Marion County has seen a much smaller drop in the number of Mexican immigrants moving into the area.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of immigrants arriving in Marion County fell from 12,930 in the last decade to 12,087, down nearly 7 percent.

"One of the reasons Oregon and Marion County are a big draw for Mexican immigrants is agriculture, and the major Interstate 5 corridor," said Charles Rynerson, a demographer with the Population Research Center at Portland State University.

The Pew study points to a faltering U.S. economy and high unemployment as the reason fewer Mexicans are entering the U.S., many of whom enter illegally.
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http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090730/NEWS/907300364/1001/NEWS

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5.
Arpaio gets no stimulus cash for immigration
By Mike Sunnucks
The Phoenix Business Journal, July 29, 2009

The Barack Obama administration said Wednesday it will give $5.5 million in federal stimulus money to Arizona police agencies to help fight drug trafficking, human smuggling and illegal immigration into the U.S. from Mexico.

But the Maricopa County sheriff’s department and county attorney’s office won’t see any of the money.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday the federal government will give:

$2.9 million to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office to prosecute drug rings.

$1.5 million to the Arizona Department of Public Safety for its crime labs.

$686,000 to the Maricopa County Adult Probation Department to help it assist police in arresting fugitives.

$457,000 to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office to fight the illegal drug trade in Nogales.

The federal money is part of a $30 million pool of cash from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been at odds with the Obama administration on several fronts. The U.S. Justice Department — which is dispersing the grants — is investigating his office for alleged civil rights violations related to immigration and crime sweeps.
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http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2009/07/27/daily61.html