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1. Illegal population dropping
2. UT prisons undecided on role
3. Major SC business cleared
4. MA Brazilians repatriating
5. Smuggling law re-interpreted

1.
Report: U.S. has fewer illegal immigrants
United Press International, July 31, 2009
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/31/Report-US-has-fewer-illegal-immig...

Fewer illegal immigrants are entering the United States and more are returning home, an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data indicates.

The analysis also shows that the legal immigrant population hasn't declined and the overall foreign-born population has held its own, the Center for Immigration Studies said in a release.

The report examined the extent to which stepped-up enforcement and the downturn in the U.S. economy accounted for the trend, the center said.

The center said its "best estimate" was that the illegal population fell 13.7 percent from a peak of 12.7 million in the summer of 2007 to 10.8 million in the first quarter of 2009.

The center said it also found evidence that the number of illegal immigrants returning home has more than doubled in the last two years compared to earlier in this decade.

The fact that data don't indicate a drop in the legal immigrant population indicates that stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws played a factor in the decline of the illegal population, the center said.

If the current trend holds for another five years, the illegal population would be half of its peak in the summer of 2007, the center said, cautioning that there was no way to determine whether the trend would continue.

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2.
Prison uncertain whether it will use staff to enforce immigration for feds
No school, jobs or programming for those determined to be non-citizens
By Steve Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City), August 2, 2009

While other state agencies scramble to implement new laws cutting off undocumented immigrants from state services, the Department of Corrections has a leg up -- it has been denying benefits to undocumented prisoners for years.

Changes for the prison system, thanks to Senate Bill 81, will be limited to screening the status of all new hires and contractors.

But immigration reform could still pinch the department.

Corrections Deputy Director Mike Haddon says the department is waiting for direction from the governor on whether the state probation and parole agents will be "cross-deputized" -- trained to do the federal work of identifying undocumented prisoners.

Waiting on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do that job can take six months to a year, Haddon said. The problem with speeding the process using probation and parole officers: they're already swamped with work on the heels of statewide budget cuts.

"Our staff has a lot to do," Haddon said, saying the department was looking to the Governor's Office for guidance.

Prison officials know they have 341 undocumented inmates locked up in Utah facilities, which comprises nearly 5.5 percent of the state inmate population. But Haddon acknowledged there might be many more not yet tagged as non-citizens.

Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, argues the state and counties should cross-deputize, in part because they will be reimbursed by the federal government for each known undocumented inmate. He believes the current undocumented prison population could be as high as 15 percent.

The immigration status of many inmates already has been determined in county jails by the time they reach prison. ICE agents or cross-deputized county authorities can place a detainer on those people so they can be deported after their jail or prison sentence is over.
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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_12979087

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3.
Immigration checks at SC businesses
By Mola Lenghi
The WPDE News (Grand Strand, SC), August 3, 2009

After spending a month checking South Carolina businesses for violations to a tough new immigration law investigators say the businesses they checked are clean.

The State Department of Labor has spent the last month checking on large businesses -- companies with 100 or more employees -- to see if they're complying with a state law requiring them to check workers' legal status through a federal database.
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http://www.carolinalive.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=332098

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4.
Brockton area immigrant population said to be leveling, even declining in some areas
By Elaine Allegrini
The Enterprise (Brockton, MA), July 31, 2009

Brockton, MA -- For 20 years, Evaldo Diera has catered to Brazilian immigrants, providing them with a taste of home.

But, business at Brazil for You — where you can get everything from meat to jewelry — has gone down 35 percent recently as Brazilians return to their homeland, said Diera.

“Eighty percent of the people that leave don’t have papers,” said Diera.

That follows national trend, according to a report by the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, released this week, that shows the illegal immigrant population peaked at 12.5 million in the summer of 2007, but decreased 13.7 percent or by 1.7 million, according to data taken earlier this year.

The new numbers underscore a shifting tide in the trend of the illegal immigrant population, dropping for the first time in decades, according to Steven Camarota, the group’s research director.

He attributed the decline to increased enforcement and more recently, the economy.

His report follows one done by the Pew Hispanic Center in October of 2008 that showed a drop from 12.4 million in 2007 to 11.9 million in 2008. And in February, the Department of Homeland Security said the population of illegal immigrants dropped from 11.8 million in 2007 to 11.6 million last year.

Though the number of illegal immigrants in the United States is impossible to known for sure. It is estimated by subtracting the legal resident population from the total foreign-born population.

Researchers analyzed data for the first three month of 2009 from the Current Population Survey collected monthly by the Census Bureau, said Camarota.

The report said that 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 had more than doubled in the same period, according to the report.
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http://www.wickedlocal.com/brockton/news/business/x33862236/Brockton-are...

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5.
New look at law could help immigrant's case
By Bob Egelko
The San Francisco Chronicle, August 3, 2009

Mario Sanchez was 22 and living in poverty in La Palma, Mexico, helping to support his parents and five brothers and sisters, when he entered the United States illegally in 1988, and found a job at an Oakland scrap-metal company. Five years later, he returned to Mexico, married his childhood sweetheart and paid a smuggler $1,000 to bring them back across the border.

Today, Sanchez, 43, works as a forklift operator to support his wife and their three U.S. citizen children and his diabetic father, a legal resident. The family lives in an Oakland duplex that they own jointly with a relative. The oldest child, a 14-year-old boy, is in his school's gifted program.

Sanchez is also engaged in a long legal fight to stay in this country. Immigration authorities first ordered him deported after he applied unsuccessfully for political asylum in 2000. Deportation seemed imminent in March, when a federal appeals court reversed its previous ruling in his favor and said U.S. law requires removal of any illegal immigrant who once helped a smuggler.

But last week Sanchez got a reprieve. An immigration board, which had previously ordered him deported, agreed to reopen his case, based on its own reinterpretation of the law. He will be allowed to remain, the board said, if he can prove "good moral character," with a clean record for at least 10 years, and can show that deportation would cause severe hardship to his family.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/02/BAIJ191UJ2.DTL