1. TX Dems attack HALT Act
2. Deportations reach record
3. WA cancels journalist's DL
4. MD continues tuition fight
5. 14 companies fined

1.
Texas Democrats Attack Lamar Smith Over HALT Act
By Julian Aguilar
The Texas Tribune, July 22, 2011

Republican Congressman Lamar Smith’s attempt to strip the Obama administration of its immigration enforcement powers has drawn a harsh rebuke from Texas Democrats in the U.S. House, who say the proposal “is an attack on [the president’s] integrity that should not pass unnoticed or unopposed.”

Rep. Smith, R-San Antonio, this month introduced the Hinder the Administration’s Legalization Temptation (HALT) Act, which would prevent the administration from, among other things, canceling the removal of illegal immigrants, granting protective status to any immigrant and granting parole or issuing deferred action (except in narrow circumstances). It is co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana.

The legislation was filed as a direct response to a directive issued by Customs and Immigration Enforcement Director John Morton, who advised agency offices throughout the country last month to use prosecutorial discretion when deciding which immigrants to refer for deportation proceedings. Morton said the discretion would allow the agency to concentrate its limited resources on finding and deporting dangerous criminal immigrants that pose the greatest risk to the country.

Smith said the president “ignored the will of Congress and the American people” by using his authority to let illegal immigrants stay in the country.

Today in Washington, a coalition led by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, discussed a letter sent to the White House in response to the HALT Act. Gutierrez was joined by U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, and Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso.

“Tying your hands and that of our law enforcement and border security authorities in order to score political points is a new low. It brings new meaning to the term ‘playing politics,’ but in this case has severe consequences for national security and community safety,” the letter states. It is also signed by U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, Al Green, D-Houston, Gene Green, D-Houston, Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, and Ruben Hinojosa, D-Edinburg.

Smith’s allegations comes despite the fact that the Obama administration is on pace to deport or prosecute more immigrants in three years than President George W. Bush did in eight. Department of Justice data reflects that prosecutions for illegal entry since Obama took office are forecasted to be about 132,400 by the end of the year, surpassing the Bush administration’s eight-year total of 122,385. Prosecutions for illegal reentry have averaged about 34,350 annually under Obama, compared to Bush’s annual average of 14,000.

The fact was not lost on Gutierrez, who has previously rebuked Obama for failing to do more to push a comprehensive immigration reform plan that includes the DREAM act.

“The Chairman also forgets that President Obama deports more people -- about 1,100 per day -- than the last President or any President in modern history. He conveniently forgets that the Obama Administration told Congress they are granting deferred action and other delays in deportation less than the previous Administration,” he said to colleagues today, according to a statement. “He also forgets that we are seeing historically low levels of illegal immigration; that communities along the U.S. Mexico border are the most crime-free communities in our nation; and that immigration from Mexico is the lowest it has been in six decades."

But Smith fired back with his own statistics, which he said proved the HALT Act was necessary.

“The Government Accountability Office has found that less than 44% of the border is under the operational control of the Border Patrol. And of that amount, only 15% is under full control,” he said in an email. “Drug-related violence continues to escalate in Mexico and it has spilled over into the U.S.”

Smith also said the Obama administration has contributed to the country’s “unemployment crisis.”

“While 24 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, seven million individuals work illegally in the U.S. Worksite enforcement activities have plummeted by 70% under the Administration,” he said. “There have been fewer arrests of illegal workers, fewer criminal arrests, fewer indictments and fewer convictions.”
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http://www.texastribune.org/immigration-in-texas/immigration/texas-democ...

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2.
Drunken driving, traffic crime deportations way up
By Suzanne Gamboa
The Associated Press, July 22, 2011

Huge increases in deportations of people after they were arrested for breaking traffic or immigration laws or driving drunk helped the Obama administration set a record last year for the number of criminal immigrants forced to leave the country, documents show.

The U.S. deported nearly 393,000 people in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, half of whom were considered criminals. Of those, 27,635 had been arrested for drunken driving, more than double the 10,851 deported after drunken driving arrests in 2008, the last full year of the Bush administration, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data provided to The Associated Press.

An additional 13,028 were deported last year after being arrested on less serious traffic law violations, nearly three times the 4,527 traffic offenders deported two years earlier, according to the data.

The spike in the numbers of people deported for traffic offenses as well as a 78 percent increase in people deported for immigration-related offenses renewed skepticism about the administration's claims that it is focusing on the most dangerous criminals.

President Barack Obama regularly says his administration is enforcing immigration laws more wisely than his predecessor by focusing on arresting the "worst of the worst." He promised in his 2008 presidential campaign to focus immigration enforcement on dangerous criminals. As recently as May 10, Obama said in a speech in El Paso, Texas, that his administration was focused on violent offenders and not families or "folks who are looking to scrape together an income."

Most of the immigrants deported last year had committed drug-related crimes. They totaled 45,003, compared with 36,053 in 2008. Drug-related crime — described as the manufacture, distribution, possession or sale of drugs — has been the No. 1 crime among immigration for years. Drunken driving was third in the number of offenses last year.

An illegal immigrant from Bolivia, Carlos Montano, is awaiting trial in Virginia on charges of involuntary manslaughter in a drunken driving incident that killed Benedictine nun Denise Mosier and injured two other nuns. The case fueled national debate over deportations of criminal immigrants because Montano had two previous drunken driving arrests, in 2007 and 2008. He was not held by ICE or deported after the arrests. An ICE report concluded that new federal immigration policies would have prevented Montano's release.

But the rise in traffic offenders in the deportation statistics and in some other categories worries immigration advocates, particularly because traffic stops are largely made by police, sheriff's deputies and state highway patrol officers. Local law enforcement has become more involved in immigration enforcement because of new programs that encourage it.

Officers "are using their new authority to remove as many unauthorized people from their jurisdictions as they can, and that frequently means going after traffic violators instead of serious criminals," said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute's office at New York University Law School. The institute is a Washington-based think tank on migration.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano noted that most people in the United States are arrested for misdemeanor offenses. But she told the AP that the percentage of felons deported will change over time.

"The more serious offenders are still in prison," she said in an interview Thursday. "We're not going to see them reflected in the numbers until we can begin to remove them."

The issue is one Obama is trying to carefully navigate in his bid for a second term as he relies on the record deportations numbers to bolster his tough-on-enforcement stance while trying to convince immigrant and Latino voters he deserves more time to get a comprehensive immigration bill through Congress.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5izay00ZEOKhGLBuxdetD_z...

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3.
Washington state cancels driver’s license of journalist who disclosed he’s illegal immigrant
The Associated Press, July 21, 2011

Washington state has canceled the driver’s license of a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who publicly said he is an illegal immigrant.

Department of Licensing spokeswoman Christine Anthony says officials opened an investigation after Jose Antonio Vargas’ essay about his background was published in the New York Times Magazine. He wrote that he obtained a driver’s license in Washington.

Anthony says an investigation concluded Vargas wasn’t residing at the address he provided to the Licensing Department. The agency sent Vargas a letter requesting proof of residency, and the letter was returned.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/washington-state-cancels-drivers-...

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4.
In Maryland, an immigration battle redux
By Andrew Seidman
Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2011

The fierce battle to pass a law in Maryland that offers in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants who graduate from the state's high schools immediately launched another fight — one aimed at persuading voters to stop it from taking effect.

Maryland's version of the DREAM Act was approved in May by the General Assembly and signed by the governor, and would have become law on July 1. But in a state where public referendums are rare — the last one was 20 years ago — the polarized tone that dominates the national debate on immigration helped opponents launch a petition drive that had no trouble amassing the minimum 55,700 signatures to put the issue before voters in November 2012. Until then, the new law is suspended.

Opponents of the law say Maryland can't afford to subsidize the college education of illegal immigrants. Supporters, who say they will challenge the petition drive in court, say that the effort used misinformation to persuade people to sign and that the law grants undocumented students only some of the rights enjoyed by other Maryland high school graduates.

"This is just the beginning of the big fight you're going to have over the next 12 to 15 months," said Gustavo Torres, executive director of Casa de Maryland, a Latino and minority rights advocacy group that supports the law. The group expects to raise between $3 million and $5 million for an educational campaign it will launch with the help of 25 other organizations, Torres said.

Maryland Republicans, many of whom voted against the law, say the successful petition drive indicates a high level of public opposition. They argue that the law will cost taxpayers money to educate students who cannot be legally hired in the state.

Of the first 47,000 people who signed the petition, nearly 30% were Democrats and 11% were unaffiliated, according to data from the Maryland State Board of Elections.

"Clearly, this is not a partisan issue as far as the population," said Neil Parrott, a Republican state delegate who organized the petition and referred to the legislation as the "False Hope Act." "They understand it costs too much; they understand it breaks federal immigration laws."

Although immigration laws are largely a federal matter, Washington has left it to states to decide whether undocumented students have the right to pay resident tuition rates in the states where they attend high school.

Illegal immigrants are eligible for in-state tuition in 13 states. On one side of the spectrum lies California, where the U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to hear an appeal to a law that grants in-state tuition to illegal immigrants who meet specific criteria. In Alabama, lawmakers passed a law in June that not only denies in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, it bans them from even enrolling in public colleges.

The Maryland law sets eligibility requirements for undocumented students: They must complete three years of high school in Maryland and prove that their parents file tax returns. After completing two years of community college, a student can transfer to a public university.

The law also stipulates that students who are not permanent residents must provide the community college with an affidavit stating that they will apply to become one within 30 days of becoming eligible. Male students must register with the Selective Service.

The difference in cost for students is substantial: In-state tuition and fees at the University of Maryland run $8,655 annually, but for out-of-state residents they rise to $26,026.

"Marylanders are misinformed about the intent and content" of the law, said Bishop Douglas Miles, pastor of Koinonia Baptist Church in Baltimore. Opponents make it seem like a "free ride, when in truth the law specifically states parents have to be tax-paying Marylanders," he said.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-maryland-tuition-20...

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5.
Immigration fines cost 14 New England companies
By Matt Rocheleau
The Boston Globe, July 22, 2011

Fourteen New England companies were fined a combined $285,000 during the past fiscal year for failing to document that their workers were in the country legally, federal authorities announced yesterday.

The fines followed audits by the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of federal I-9 forms, paperwork that must be filled out by employees when they are hired to show they have legal authorization to work.

Eight of the cited companies were in Massachusetts, including Commercial Cleaning Service in Allston, which was fined $100,000, and masonry contractor D’Agostino Associates Inc. in Newton, fined $22,792.

The immigration agency said it also fined Andover Healthcare Inc. of Salisbury, All In One Insulation Inc. of West Boylston, Polcari Enterprises Inc. of Saugus, Seatrade International of New Bedford, Harvest Co-op Markets of Cambridge, and Collt Manufacturing Inc. of Millis. The amounts of those fines were not released.

Some of the companies were found to have “suspect documents,’’ said Bruce M. Foucart, head of investigations for ICE in New England.

“That means more than likely they had an illegal workforce,’’ Foucart said by phone yesterday. “By not having the proper paperwork, workers had to be let go.’’

Fine amounts were calculated based on the seriousness of violations, whether companies were cooperative, and whether there were multiple offenses, he said.

While none of the 14 companies appealed, some negotiated lesser fines; others agreed to pay the initial amount ordered.

A voice mail left yesterday afternoon at the Allston cleaning company was not returned.

The owner of D’Agostino Associates, Romeo D’Agostino, said his company was fined for not properly filling out paperwork.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/07/22/immig...