1. E-Verify bill splits GOP
2. Panel approves subpoena
3. Cong. Dems plan AL protest
4. AL denies DOJ request
5. TX Atty. Gen. on cartels

1.
Immigration bill splits House GOP
By Molly K. Hooper
The Hill (DC), November 3, 2011

House Republicans are split over an immigration bill that is backed by presidential candidate Mitt Romney as the measure is attracting escalating criticism from industry groups and rank-and-file members.

The rift over House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith’s (R-Texas) E-Verify bill is jeopardizing its chances of passing the Republican-controlled House.

Democrats, by and large, oppose the legislation, which would mandate that employers use the E-Verify system to check their employees’ legal work status.

The Obama administration and many Democrats on Capitol Hill want Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. That legislation, however, is considered dead in the 112th Congress.

Smith’s measure in September cleared the Judiciary panel on a party-line vote, though it isn’t clear that the bill has the votes to pass on the House floor.

Republican lawmakers have major concerns with key aspects of the bill’s effects on states’ rights, the federal government’s enforcement of the system and its impact on the agriculture industry, which relies on foreign labor.

Debates over illegal immigration have been a theme of the GOP presidential primary, with Smith’s bill getting some attention.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, has endorsed the national E-Verify mandate, and released a Web ad on Wednesday attacking fellow GOP White House contender Rick Perry, governor of Texas, for his opposition to a statewide E-Verify program.

Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), who has been mentioned as a potential Republican 2012 vice presidential nominee, recently told The Hill that he supports E-Verify “in concept,” adding that “we need an employment-based verification system.”

Rubio said he has heard objections raised from agriculture sector, suggesting he sees the need for flexibility in E-Verify legislation.

Meanwhile, sources say that at least two dozen House GOP lawmakers have an issue with Smith’s bill because it includes language to preempt the states and local governments and keep them from enforcing their own employment verification laws.

The powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has endorsed Smith’s bill, maintains that the preemption provision is vital to its support.

Freshman Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.), who campaigned on battling illegal immigration last year, is leading the opposition to Smith’s bill.

As mayor of Hazleton in 2006, he cracked down on employers who knowingly hired illegal workers. Barletta says that if Smith’s bill were to become law, cities like Hazelton and states like Arizona, which have stringent immigration laws on the books, would be prevented from enforcing their state-passed mandates.

“I have no faith that the federal government is serious about enforcing our immigration laws. They haven’t, I don’t believe they will. And the Supreme Court agrees that the states have the right — why would we come along now and take that away from them? And the United States Chamber gets solidly behind this preemption — which raises all sorts of red flags for me — this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, this bill,” Barletta said in an interview with The Hill.
. . .
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/191529-e-verify-bill-splits-house-gop

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

2.
Subpoena OK’d for ICE’s illegal-immigration data
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times, November 2, 2011

Signaling growing unrest with the Obama administration’s level of cooperation, House Republicans on an immigration subcommittee voted Wednesday to authorize a subpoena to get data on illegal immigrants against whom the government has declined to pursue deportation cases.

The 7-4 party-line vote came two days after the Department of Homeland Security failed to meet an Oct. 31 deadline given to DHS Secretary Janet A. Napolitano last week by Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith. Mr. Smith said he could issue the subpoena as early as Thursday.

Meanwhile, late Wednesday, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced its investigative subcommittee will hold a vote early Thursday to authorize subpoenas for documents related to Solyndra, the failed solar-technology company that received special attention from the White House.

Together, they show an increasing belief among Republicans that the administration is stonewalling requests from the new GOP majority in the House.

At issue in the immigration subpoena are the identities of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who have been arrested by state and local police and run through the government’s Secure Communities program, but whom the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has declined to put in deportation proceedings.

“The American people have a right to know what crimes these 300,000 illegal immigrants committed after ICE intentionally chose not detain them,” Mr. Smith said.

He requested the information in late August, and said at first it seemed like the administration was trying to cooperate. He said he was told ICE produced the list and sent it to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency, for final approval.

But since then the process has bogged down, and Mr. Smith last week gave an Oct. 31 deadline for producing the information. This week, Homeland Security officials told Mr. Smith they discovered they need FBI permission to release some of the data, which caused them to miss the Monday deadline, according to committee members.

All seven Republicans on the panel voted to authorize the subpoena, while all four Democrats opposed it, arguing the administration is making a good-faith effort to compile the information and should be given more time.
. . .
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/2/subpoena-oked-see-adminis...

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

3.
Congressional Democrats plan Alabama trip to protest immigration law
By Mary Orndorff
The Birmingham News, November 3, 2011

A group of Democratic members of Congress opposed to Alabama's immigration law will be in Birmingham later this month to draw attention to what they say is a civil rights emergency.

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., met with seven colleagues plus staff members from more than a dozen other offices Wednesday to plan a pub­lic meeting in Birmingham for them to hear testimony from people af­fected by the law. The schedule has not been set, but it likely will be either Nov. 21 or Nov. 28, Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez has become the leading congressional critic of Alabama's immigration law as a recipe for ra­cial profiling and a throwback to Al­abama's history of discrimination against minorities. In an interview on Capitol Hill Wednesday, he said he wanted the hearing to illustrate how the law is affecting families, farmers, businesses and the overall economy.

"We want to listen to the mothers who are trying to enroll their kids in school, homeowners who are trying to get their water turned on, legislators and the people about the impact this law is having on the broader community," Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez, a leading advocate for an immigration overhaul at the federal level that includes border security and a path to citizenship for certain undocumented immigrants, acknowledges that Alabama's get-tough law was a reaction to Congress' inability to fix the immigration system.

"Absolutely the Congress of the United States needs to do something, but you don't need to inflict this kind of pain," Gutierrez said.

Since the law took effect, Hispanics have fled the state, leaving jobs and pulling their children out of school.

Most of the children of undocumented workers in Alabama "are citizens of the United States, but they're not going to school or getting health care. They're going to be American citizen adults," Gutierrez said.

Groups challenging the law say it has split families that are comprised of both citizens and illegal immigrants, and disrupted government services for all residents.
. . .
http://blog.al.com/sweethome/2011/11/congressional_democrats_plan_a.html

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

4.
AG to DOJ: Show legal authority for enrollment request
By Brian Lyman
Montgomery Advertiser, November 3, 2011

Attorney General Luther Strange told the Justice De­partment on Wednesday that unless it can show it has legal authority to ask Alabama school districts for their enroll­ment information following the state's new immigration law, he will assume it has none and "proceed accordingly."

The Justice Department is suing to block Alabama's strict new immigration law, part of which includes a provision re­quiring school districts to col­lect information on enrolling students' immigration status.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Gen­eral Thomas Perez sent out let­ters to school systems Monday saying that the law "may chill or discourage participation" in school activities. It also re­quested the school systems send information on nine topics addressing enrollment, enroll­ment practices and absences by Nov.ÿ14 "to assist us in determin­ing what further action, if any, is warranted."

The department also asked districts to provide in­formation on school with­drawals and unexplained ab­sences "on a monthly basis, by the 15th of each month."

Strange wrote the Justice Department on Wednesday asking the DOJ to show where it has the power "to demand the information or compel its production."

"Otherwise, I will assume you have none, and will pro­ceed accordingly," he wrote.

Asked what "proceed ac­cordingly meant," Suzanne Webb, a spokeswoman for the Alabama attorney gener­al, said "the letter speaks for itself."
. . .
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20111103/NEWS02/111030322/AG-DOJ-Show-legal-authority-enrollment-request-?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Frontpage|s

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

5.
Texan warns Obama: Mexican cartels 'spilling over' border
Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2011

Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott sent a letter to President Obama on Wednesday warning that Mexican cartel violence is increasingly "spilling over" the border and calling for more security.

Abbott cited a "deadly shootout" involving "cartel operatives" last weekend in the town of Elsa, about 250 miles south of San Antonio, in which a Hidalgo County sheriff's deputy was shot three times. Sheriff's officials have said the deputy was wearing a protective vest and is expected to recover.

Two suspects were charged Wednesday in connection with the attempted drug deal and kidnapping, a contract job to recover a lost load of marijuana for the Gulf Cartel, according to a KRGV-Rio Grande Valley interview with Hidalgo Sheriff Lupe Trevino. Carlos Zavala and Carlos Juan Hernandez were charged with three counts of aggravated kidnapping and two counts of criminal attempted capital murder.

"Thankfully the officer survived, but the Hidalgo County Sheriff confirmed that the shooting spilled over from ongoing drug wars involving the Gulf Cartel in Mexico," Abbott said, noting the shooting was not an isolated incident.

During the last two weeks, he said, three "high-level cartel leaders" have been arrested while hiding in Texas.
Last week, Border Patrol agents arrested Eudoxio Ramos Garcia, 34, the Gulf Cartel's former plaza boss, or regional commander, in Rio Grande City, according to a newspaper in the border town of McAllen, The Monitor. Ramos had been in Texas only a few days at the time of his arrest and had paid $500 to cross the border illegally because his visa had expired.

The day before Ramos' arrest, agents near Santa Maria arrested Jose Luis Zuniga Hernandez, "Comandante Wicho," on a weapons charge, believing he was at one point the plaza boss for Matamoros, across the Rio Grande from the Texas border town of Brownsville, according to The Monitor.

The monitor also reported that on Oct. 20, ICE agents arrested Rafael “El Junior” Cardenas Vela, after a traffic stop by Port Isabel police. Cardenas is the nephew of Osiel Cárdenas Guillen, the former Gulf Cartel kingpin extradited to the U.S. in 2006 and sentenced last year to 25 years in a U.S. prison.

Abbott listed a number of other incidents earlier this year involving cartel violence along the Texas border, including:
. . .
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/texas-attorney-general...