1. Perry attacks on Romney
2. AZ Gov. defends law
3. MA Gov. launches effort
4. KS touts local police
5. ACLU alleges assaults

1.
Illegal immigrant attack on Mitt Romney persists
By Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen
Politico (DC), October 20, 2011

It’s hard to dispute that Rick Perry’s he-hired-an-illegal-immigrant attack on Mitt Romney was a cheap shot.

It’s even harder to dispute that it worked beautifully.

Put aside the fact that Perry’s broadside was recycled, and barely relevant to the debate. Just focus on the raw politics of it.

The Perry campaign went into the debate well aware that it needed to accomplish a number of objectives, including rattling Romney, displaying toughness and turning the coverage away from scrutiny of Perry’s stumbling — sometimes bumbling — debate performances.

Mission accomplished.

It wasn’t pretty, but by taking a health care question and spinning it into a surprise attack on whether Romney knowingly employed illegal immigrants for lawn work, Perry achieved all three objectives. Just look at the numbers.

* A Google news search turns up more than 7,000 mentions of the exchange.

* On Fox, the favorite of GOP primary voters, Sean Hannity opened his post-debate segment with the accusation. The charge echoed the next hour on Greta Van Susteren’s show, where Sarah Palin was the guest. Over the next 24 hours, the charge was mentioned in more than 40 segments across cable.

* Last night, the exchange was mentioned on the CBS, NBC and ABC evening news, with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos telling “World News” viewers that Perry’s accusation was “the most important exchange of the debate.”

“Some of the slick washed off Mitt Romney,” Perry press secretary Mark Miner said. “It clearly caught him off guard. He became very agitated and confrontational. It highlights the mistrust that primary voters have for him and shows he is not comfortable with his own past.”

Romney advisers called Perry’s comments an obvious effort to distract from his own problems on the immigration issue. They contend that the story will be short-lived — of more interest to reporters than voters.

Kevin Madden, an informal adviser to the Romney campaign who was national press secretary in 2008, said the media “will always obsess over conflicts like this — it was definitely their favorite part of the debate. The question is: Will voters, when their No. 1 issue is the economy?”

Madden called the widespread coverage of Perry’s charge “emblematic of the divide between what reporters think is the story coming out of the debate and what voters are focused on.”
. . .
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66488.html

********
********

2.
AP Exclusive: Brewer Touts Immigration Law in Book
By Paul Davenport
The Associated Press, October 20, 2011

Gov. Jan Brewer provides behind-the-scenes details in her new book about her handling of Arizona's controversial immigration enforcement law last year, including a tense meeting with President Barack Obama and her administration's attempts to avoid being branded racist over the crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Brewer devotes much of the book to defending the immigration law, describing it as a fair, effective and necessary response to what she said amounts to Washington turning a blind eye on border security. She said her administration was aware early on that the state would face an outcry and allegations of racism, and responded by making what they thought were important changes to the law to minimize those concerns.

Brewer's 228-page book is going on sale Nov. 1. The Associated Press purchased a copy early.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin wrote the book's foreword, calling Brewer a straight-talker who does what she believes is right even when it's difficult. The book is called "Scorpions for Breakfast: My Fight Against Special Interests, Liberal Media, and Cynical Politicos to Secure America's Border."

Brewer focused heavily on her fight against Washington on the immigration issue, and the book hardly touched on her 2010 successful election campaign. It made no mention of an embarrassing pause during a televised debate that drew national attention.

Brewer blames Obama and his administration for fanning controversy surrounding the immigration law, which grew to include ongoing court challenges, mass protests and boycotts of Arizona.

The Republican governor said Obama, labor unions and other critics of the bill were serving their own agendas by mischaracterizing its provisions while trying to deflect attention from weaknesses in border security.

Brewer wrote that Arizona's illegal immigration crisis had been intensifying as the state became an attractive gateway for drug and human smuggling.

With fallout that included smugglers hiding immigrants in urban drop houses and engaging in shootouts with competitors, the state enacted several laws. That included a 2007 law, recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, to penalize employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Brewer said momentum for an additional state response grew when an Arizona rancher was fatally shot about 20 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border in March 2010, when SB1070 was already working its way through the Legislature. Authorities said footprints led to the border, but the case is unsolved.

After the rancher's killing, it wasn't acceptable to do nothing about a crisis that puts the public, particularly border-area residents, at risk while burdening the state with added costs for schools, prisons and hospitals, Brewer said. She called it a "state of fear" that needed to end.

The law elevated Brewer to the national political stage and led to a meeting with Obama in Washington. Brewer said she had difficulty arranging the meeting with Obama, but that one finally was scheduled for June 3.

Brewer told reporters after the White House meeting that it was cordial and worthwhile, but she wrote in the book that Obama spent 10 minutes lecturing her about a need for comprehensive immigration reform. She said it amounted to a stump speech and not a useful dialogue.
. . .
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/ap-exclusive-brewer-touts-immigration...

********
********

3.v
New initiative in MA: Immigrant integration
Gy Gene Levanchy
MyFoxBoston.com, October 21, 2011

Governor Deval Patrick is launching a new "think tank" that will help immigrants more easily integrate into society. It meets later Friday.

Eva Millona, the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, recently joined the FOX 25 Morning News to talk more about how this is all going to work.
. . .
http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/morning/new-initiative-in-ma-immigrant-in...

********
********

4.
Kobach: Local cops OK for immigration work
By Steve Fry
The Capital Journal (KS), October 20, 2011

The use of local and state law enforcement officers to enforce immigration law isn't intruding into a federal function, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Thursday.

"It is not encroachment," Kobach said during a symposium focusing on illegal immigration and sponsored by the Washburn University School of Law.

Congress has contemplated and invited states into the regulation of immigration, he said.

Kobach was one of three members of a panel assessing the immigration landscape.

"Breaching Borders: State Encroachment into the Federal Immigration Domain?" is a two-day program conducted at the Bradbury Thompson Alumni Center on the Washburn campus. About 80 people attended the Thursday morning session.

Other members of the panel were:

Nora V. Demleitner, dean and professor of Hofstra University School of Law on Long Island, N.Y., who has taught and written about immigration law and criminal law, specializing in sentencing and collateral sentencing consequences.

Patrick J. Charles, a lawyer who formerly was a legal analyst for the Immigration Reform Law Institute and is an historian for the 352nd Special Operations Group in the U.S. Air Force. Charles has a law degree from the Cleveland-Marshall School of Law and is the author of two law review articles that are standards of review for immigration.

Kobach was chief adviser on immigration law and border security to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft from 2001 to 2003 and was an architect of anti-terrorism programs after 9/11, including the system to fingerprint and register high-risk visitors to the United States.

Kobach earned a bachelor's degree with highest distinction from Harvard University; has a doctorate in political science from Oxford University in England; and a law degree from Yale Law School. He has written statutes focused on illegal immigration.

Kobach said no one would say only the federal Drug Enforcement Administration should investigate drug cases or that only the FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service should investigate certain offenses.

"So it is with immigration," he said.

There are only 6,000 to 7,000 federal agents who investigate immigration, while the New York City Police Department has 35,000 officers, Kobach said, and it is impossible for federal officers to police immigration alone.

The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act invites local law enforcement agencies to help with immigration issues, he said.

Sixty law enforcement agencies have officers deputized to act as federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, Kobach said.
. . .
http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-20/kobach-local-cops-ok-immigration-work

********
********

5.
ACLU: Lawsuit alleges 3 immigrant women assaulted while in ICE custody
By Rafael ROmo and Nick Valencia
CNN, October 21, 2011

A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of three immigrant women who were allegedly sexually assaulted while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Texas, the American Civil Liberties Union said this week.

The ACLU, citing documents it said it had obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, said in a news release that there have been nearly 200 allegations of sexual abuse of immigration detainees jailed at detention facilities across the United States since 2007.

The ACLU release did not give dates of any of the alleged assaults, including those involving the three women who are plaintiffs in the class-action suit. The plaintiffs were identified only as Sarah Doe, Kimberly Doe and Raquel Doe "to protect them from further harm," the ACLU said.

The alleged attacks occurred while the plaintiffs were being transported from the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, to the airport or bus station in nearby Austin, the ACLU said.

Its release did not say where the class-action suit was filed Wednesday, but it said defendants include three ICE officials; Williamson County, Texas, where the Hutto facility is; the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a private prison company that manages the Hutto facility; the former facility administrator for Hutto; and a guard at the facility.

The lawsuit alleges that ICE along with Williamson County and the Corrections Corporation of America were "deliberately indifferent and willfully blind to the fact that (the guard named as a defendant) and other employees regularly violated the rule that detainees are not be transported without another escort officer of the same gender present," the ACLU said.

ICE did not comment specifically on the ACLU's announcement of the lawsuit, but an agency spokeswoman said ICE "maintains a strict zero tolerance policy for any kind of abusive or inappropriate behavior and requires all contractors working with the agency to adhere to this policy."

ICE Public Affairs Officer Gillian Christensen added that the agency requires regular criminal backgrounds checks for its workforce.

"The (Department of Homeland Security) Office of the Inspector General and ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility investigate ALL allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct and the agency takes appropriate action -- whether it is pursuing criminal charges or administrative action -- when those allegations are substantiated," Christensen said in the ICE statement.
. . .
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/21/justice/us-detainees-assault-suit/