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1. Amendment secures national park
2. Delegate seeks probe of CNMI
3 1/3 of Mexicans would immigrate
4. Court leads in prosecutions
5. Critics attack deployment

1.
Bishop says yes to tourists, no to illegal immigration
By Lee Davidson
The Deseret News (Salt Lake City), September 23, 2009

National heritage areas are supposed to help increase tourism. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, persuaded the House to alter one Wednesday so that it inadvertently would not also increase illegal immigrants crossing into the United States from Mexico.

That came as the House voted to extend existence of the Santa Cruz National Heritage Area in Arizona. The bill passed on its second try, after the House adopted amendments by Bishop, and after it barely failed to pass last week.

Among provisions in Bishop's amendment were requiring that nothing in the bill could "impede, prohibit or restrict" efforts to prevent unlawful entries into the United States, including interfering with a wall along the border.

"This area is one that is heavily traveled with narcotic trafficking and human trafficking," Bishop told the House.

He complained that the Border Patrol must seek permits through lengthy processes to build towers or facilities near National Park Service areas, and he didn't want the heritage area to cause any similar delays or problems.
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http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705332026/Bishop-says-yes-to-tourists...

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2.
Another immigration scam bared
By Haidee V. Eugenio
The Saipan Tribune (Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands), September 25, 2009

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (D-MP) said yesterday he has asked the U.S. Attorney's Office to investigate another immigration scam, this time involving Chinese investor(s) promising U.S. “green cards” to those who invest at least $100,000 in a hotel project on Saipan before the federal government takes over local immigration on Nov. 28, 2009.

Besides the $100,000 investment, investors from China are also asked to pay $20,000 in “government tax,” but it is not clear who would be the recipient of this additional tax.

Sablan earlier asked the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Guam and the Northern Marianas to investigate a group of Korean investors promising automatic investor status in the U.S. if they invest in the CNMI.

“Much as the prospectus that came into my hands earlier this year offering Korean investors the promise of U.S. visa status in return for putting money into a project in the CNMI, this most recent proposition promises investors in mainland China that the U.S. will issue green cards to all foreign personnel on the island, i.e., an amnesty. This is just not true,” Sablan said in a statement yesterday.

The scam also promises investors in China of U.S. citizenship to children born in the CNMI, and easy registration among Chinese children for entrance exams in “prestigious domestic universities.”

He said the “apparently growing problem” of investment/immigration scams “is an embarrassment to the people of the CNMI and hurts efforts to delay” the implementation of federalization of local immigration.

“How can I convince those who have worked so long to end the scams and abuses in the Northern Marianas to allow another year of local control, when the scams continue?” Sablan asked in a statement.
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http://www.saipantribune.com/newsstory.aspx?newsID=93836&cat=1

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3.
A third of Mexicans would migrate to U.S.: survey
By Robin Emmott
Reuters, September 23, 2009

Monterrey, Mexico (Reuters) -- One in three Mexicans would migrate to the United States if they had the chance, and many would go illegally at a time of rising drug violence in Mexico, a survey released on Wednesday showed.

Even with the United States hit by its worst recession in decades, many Mexicans still try to cross into the United States illegally, some paying traffickers huge fees.

The survey by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based public opinion research organization, found that 57 percent of Mexicans believe those who move from Mexico to the United States enjoy a better life.

With drug violence becoming a scourge across Mexico, 81 percent of respondents said crime is a major problem and 73 percent said illegal drugs are a serious issue for their country.

Asked if they would like to move to the United States, 33 percent of those taking part in the survey said "yes" and 18 percent said they would move even without the necessary visas.

"People see the U.S. as a land of opportunity ... and they see a lot of problems in Mexico. They are worried about crime, about the economy, drugs and corruption," said Richard Wike, who worked on the nationwide face-to-face survey of 1,000 Mexicans conducted between May 26 and June 2.

The survey has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, the Pew Research Center said.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090923/us_nm/us_mexico_usa

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4.
Study: Houston court leads nation in immigration prosecutions
By Rosa Flores
The KHOU News (Houston), September 23, 2009

An Immigration Customs and Enforcement spokesperson says the bulk of that work comes from a tiny office in the Harris County Jail.

The office isn’t much bigger than a dorm room, but it’s having a huge impact on safety, the sheriff’s department says.

“Any time that we can get a criminal off the street; it doesn’t matter if it’s an illegal alien or a citizen we are making our streets safer for our public,” said Harris County Sheriff Lt. Michael Lindsay.

With the help of a sophisticated federal computer program, trained deputies fingerprint and determine an inmate’s immigration status. Inmates deemed to be “undocumented” are eventually detained by ICE. The inmates with criminal violations face a judge in a downtown Houston federal court.

“We are not trying to deport everybody, just because they are from another country,” said Lindsay. “We are just trying to stop the crime.”

The Syracuse study shows the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas has prosecuted 22,953 immigration cases this year, more than any other federal district court in the country.
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http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou090923_tnt_immigration-prosec...

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5.
Critics: Elite rangers not welcome at Texas border
By Christopher Sherman and Alicia A. Caldwell
The Associated Press, September 24, 2009

McAllen, TX (AP) -- Rancher Mike Landry recently came upon a group of unarmed men dressed in camouflage burglarizing his guest house and stealing a truck from his 11,000 acres in Terrell County, rugged country bordering the Rio Grande in West Texas.

A couple of shots over their heads from his hunting rifle kept nine of them, all Mexican citizens, in place until Border Patrol agents arrived.

"It has really gotten to be pretty spooky," said Landry, who has run cattle in the area for 29 years.

Stories like Landry's seem to bolster Gov. Rick Perry's recent decision to send elite teams from the state's top law enforcement agency, the Texas Rangers, to remote borderlands to help them with security and deter a spillover of the gruesome drug-war violence plaguing Mexico. But Landry's situation never grew violent, and many other ranchers, sheriffs and politicians along Texas' 1,200 mile border with Mexico found the governor's announcement puzzling.

"We have landowners all along the border who are finding their farms and ranches overrun by smuggling operations," Perry said in an announcing how he would spend a fraction of the $110 million the Legislature approved this year for border security.

Since security was tightened at checkpoints in cities like El Paso and Laredo, immigrants and smugglers have been squeezed into places like Terrell County. The county sits between Big Bend National Park, which is too arid for safe passage, and Del Rio, another high-security spot.

Though traffic is up, people in those areas say they fall far short of being "overrun."

Perry's critics note that border crime has been falling in recent years — a point the governor concedes — and question whether sending some of the state's 144 crack investigators supported by Texas National Guard troops to areas that have seen nothing worse than burglaries is a wise use of resources.

Terrell County is 2,300 square miles of desolation just north of the Rio Grande. Sheriff Clint McDonald and his six deputies protect its 1,200 residents on an otherworldly landscape that includes 60 miles of border.

Smuggling traffic is up this year, illustrated by 20 burglaries of ranches and hunting camps compared with two at this time last year, McDonald said, though he noted there was no violent crime. Smugglers' "mules" carry marijuana, cocaine and heroin 30 or 40 miles north of the river in backpacks and break into ranches and hunting camps on their way back to Mexico for food and weapons, he said.

"They're funneling towards us," McDonald said.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090924/ap_on_re_us/us_drug_war_border_violence