1. 5270 gang members arrested
2. Cain jokes of electric fence
3. CA law prohibits E-Verify
4. Firms claim skills shortage
5. Protestors against AL law

1.
ICE Arrests 5,270 Illegal Alien Gang Members in Dozens of U.S. Cities in Two-Year Period
By Penny Star
CNSNews.com, October 14, 2011
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ice-arrests-5270-illegal-alien-gang-...

More than 5,000 individuals who were in the United States illegally and were affiliated with criminal gangs were arrested in 2009 and 2010, according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), based on data provided by the Homeland Security Department's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

The arrests were made through ICE’s Operation Community Shield, a program designed to crack down on gang activities in U.S. communities. Since its inception in 2005, ICE has arrested more than 8,000 gang members from more than 700 different gangs, according to the CIS.

CIS’s director of policy studies, Jessica Vaughan, recently moderated a panel discussion including nine sheriffs from across the country who spoke about how Mexican drug cartels and illegal alien gangs are impacting communities and the need for more resources to secure the nation’s border with Mexico.

Terry Johnson, sheriff of Alamance County, N.C., showed a photo of an illegal alien who had been executed in his jurisdiction. Johnson also showed a photo of a large quantity of weapons that had been found and seized by law enforcement from members of a Mexican drug cartel in a car obtained in his county.

“Law enforcement agencies are very concerned about these trends,” Vaughan told CNSNews.com.

Vaughan, who has been collecting and analyzing ICE statistics on foreign gangs in the United States since 2005, said those trends include gangs that are well-financed, resourced and organized. They are also aided by a porous border and policies that can keep law enforcement from identifying and arresting illegal alien gang members, including those working with drug cartels, according to Vaughan.

A map of the United States, which includes Alaska and Puerto Rico, was distributed at the event. It shows how widespread and numerous illegal alien gang operations are across the country, and the associated statistics reflect only those who were taken into ICE custody in 2009 and 2010.

The map is divided into four categories and color-coded to reflect the number of arrests of “non-citizen” gang members from zero to 110, 110 to 220, 220 to 330 and 330 to 440.

The largest concentration of arrests – those ranging from 330 to 440 – were in Los Angeles, Calif., northern Georgia and Milwaukee, Wis.

But the map shows that illegal alien gang members have been arrested in 2009 and 2010 in every single state and Puerto Rico with the exceptions of Vermont, North Dakota, West Virginia and Kentucky.

High concentrations of arrests (220 to 330) took place in towns and cities in California, Texas, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

In a 2008 report on illegal alien gang activity in the United States by Vaughan and Jon D. Feere, the summary lays out the threat these gangs pose to the country.

“Immigrant gangs are considered a unique public safety threat due to their members’ propensity for violence and their involvement in transnational crime,” the report states. “The latest national gang threat assessment noted that Hispanic gang membership has been growing, especially in the Northeast and the South, and that areas with new immigrant populations are especially vulnerable to gang activity.

“A large share of the immigrant gangsters in the most notorious gangs such, as Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Surenos-13, and 18th Street are illegal aliens,” the report states. “Their illegal status means they are especially vulnerable to law enforcement, and local authorities should take advantage of the immigration tools available in order to disrupt criminal gang activity, remove gang members from American communities, and deter their return.”

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2.
Cain Says His Deadly Fence Plan Was ‘a Joke’
By Susan Saulny and Sarah Wheaton
The New York Times, October 16, 2011

At two campaign rallies in Tennessee on Saturday night, the Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said that part of his immigration policy would be to build an electrified fence on the country’s border with Mexico that could kill people trying to enter the country illegally.

But by Sunday morning, in a dramatic change of tone, Mr. Cain, a former restaurant executive, said he was only kidding.

“That’s a joke,” Mr. Cain told the journalist David Gregory during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he was asked about the electrified fence. “That’s not a serious plan. I’ve also said America needs to get a sense of humor.”

Mr. Cain’s attempt to pass off incendiary comments as nothing but a joke may take more effort, however. In making the initial remarks about an electrified fence killing illegal immigrants, Mr. Cain was detailed and repetitive. He did not introduce his thoughts as anything but serious commentary, beginning with the words, “We have a crisis of illegal immigration.”

And the crowds responded with cheers, not laughs.

As Ed Wyatt reported on Saturday from Tennessee:

The remarks, which came at two campaign rallies as part of a barnstorming bus tour across the state, drew loud cheers from crowds of several hundred people at each rally. At the second stop, in Harriman, Tenn., Mr. Cain added that he also would consider using military troops “with real guns and real bullets” on the border to stop illegal immigration.

The remarks were among the most pointed yet by Mr. Cain about illegal immigration, and they come as he is enjoying a surge in national political polls on the back of his victory in a recent Florida straw poll.
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http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/cain-says-his-deadly-fence...

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3.
New California law bars E-Verify requirement for employers
By Paloma Esquivel
Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2011

For years, activists against illegal immigration pushed cities across California to adopt ordinances ordering businesses to verify that their employees were eligible to work in the U.S.

Several cities, including Temecula, Murrieta and Lake Elsinore, complied and required businesses to enroll in E-Verify, an online program that uses federal databases to check the immigration status of workers. Those that refused could face fines or revocation of their business licenses.

But those victories appear to have been wiped out this month with legislation signed into law that prohibits the state, cities and counties from mandating that private employers use E-Verify.

"It's very disappointing when you spend all the time, you go to your elected representatives and you get them to do something, and then at the higher level they squash you," said Ted Wegener, founder of the Inland Empire-based Conservative Activists. The group pushed for E-Verify ordinances in Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties.

Cities that adopted such rules are now preparing to comply with the new state law.

"Norco is simply going to repeal their ordinance," City Atty. John Harper said. "I don't think there's any other choice in there."

Harper and city officials in Temecula and Murrieta said that no businesses had been cited or had their business licenses revoked. Murrieta, which late last year adopted its E-Verify ordinance under pressure from residents, allowed people to file complaints if they believed a business was hiring undocumented workers.

But Brian Ambrose, a senior analyst in the city manager's office, said, "We have not received a single phone call…. We did not believe there was ever a problem with illegal immigration here in Murrieta."

In San Juan Capistrano, which mandated the use of the program for some contractors, officials said the new law would require only a minor adjustment to remove the E-Verify requirement from contracts.

Those who sought the state law in reaction to the growing number of localities adopting mandatory E-Verify rules said such moves were a distraction from a larger problem.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-e-verify-20111017,0,5139224.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Flocal+%28L.A.+Times+-+California+|+Local+News%29

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4.
U.S. firms urge action on skilled immigrant reform
By Laura MacInnis and Noel Randewich
Reuters, October 16, 2011

When U.S. restrictions on work permits barred Intel (INTC.O) from moving nearly 50 Finnish engineers to the United States this year, the microchip maker reluctantly parked them in a new research center in Finland.

U.S. and multinational firms are chafing at delays and difficulties securing visas that effectively require them to keep high-skilled workers abroad instead of expanding operations in the United States.

"Tech companies like ours follow where the action is and where the talent pools are," said Young Sohn, chief executive of the semiconductor maker Inphi.

That trend puts pressure on President Barack Obama to set aside his plan for a "comprehensive" overhaul of U.S. immigration policies -- at the risk of angering key Hispanic voters -- and fix the system of work permits and green cards for the likes of engineers and programmers.

"America can't afford to let high-skilled immigration reform remain attached to the controversies that surround comprehensive immigration reform more broadly," executives advising Obama on jobs and competitiveness said this week.

"Given the challenges our economy now faces in a global age, we all need to rethink," the chief executives from GE, Boeing, DuPont and other firms said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also wants quick action on skilled workers because of Capitol Hill's resistance to the sweeping deal sought by Obama that would address undocumented workers and border security at the same time.

"I'm not sure you can do this whole thing in one great big bunch," Chamber President Thomas Donohue said. "We might have to do it a piece at a time. And this is the piece that we really ought to be able to get done in a big hurry."

'CRITICAL SHORTFALLS'

Even with 9.1 percent of Americans unemployed, there are thousands of vacancies in the U.S. manufacturing sector because the U.S. labor force lacks the engineering, computing and math skills companies need.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the cumbersome process to secure visas for top foreign graduates in the United States contributed to "critical shortfalls" in the software industry as well as electronics, pharmaceuticals and aerospace.

"Turning these students out of the country is, to put it bluntly, about the dumbest thing that we could possibly do," he said. "We cannot afford to keep turning away those with skills that our country needs to grow and to succeed. It is sabotaging our own economy."

The United States caps H-1B skilled worker visas at 65,000 a year and often hits the maximum within months, leaving limited options for top-skilled foreign graduates and experts.

And while it issues more than 1 million permanent residency "green cards" each year, only 15 percent are given for economic reasons to workers and their families, and those are subject to nationality quotas that pinch applicants from big countries.

Intel, whose CEO Paul Otellini is a member of Obama's jobs panel, learned in March that the annual cap had already been met for the permits it needed to move over the 50 engineers who previously had worked for Nokia.

The specialists now work in a new R&D center in Helsinki, but Intel said it would have preferred to have them do their mobile computing research in its U.S. facilities.

"Intel's R&D and manufacturing hub is in the United States. It is important to our business group managers to have the flexibility to move individuals with specialized technical expertise to the U.S. to collaborate with existing Intel teams," Intel's staffing manager Idan Zu-Aretz said.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/16/usa-economy-immigration-idUSN1...

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5.
Protesters rally against immigration law in Athens
WAFF (AL), October 17, 2011

Chants, whistles and cheers were heard in the streets of Athens where more than 200 people gathered to protest Alabama's immigration law on Sunday.

"We want the world to see this isn't right," said Elkmont resident Joe Ferrazas. "This isn't the way America was built on."

Protesters marched down Jefferson, Elm and Elkton Streets before reaching the Limestone County courthouse to hold the rally. Part of their message was to show the immigrant community has their support.

"These Hispanics were probably scared to come out by themselves, but them knowing they got other races and other nationalities coming out to support them, it probably makes them feel a lot better," said rally organizer Tamitha Villarreal.

Villarreal said she has a personal reason for being against the law. Her husband is Hispanic and an undocumented immigrant. She said her family inspired her to organize the march.

"Me being scared for my family and him not knowing what to do, and all these other families feeling scared of losing their family, their houses, the land that they worked hard to get; that's why we're here," Villarreal said.

On the other hand, people supporting the law say it's needed to protect jobs for U.S. citizens and immigrants who can legally work in the U.S. However, protesters said it's not about jobs. They're also concerned about racial profiling.
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http://www.waff.com/story/15707688/protesters-rally-against-immigration-...