1. Gov't pushed to report deaths
2. AZ ballot fails to garner support
3. San Fran to deport drug dealing youths
4. CA city outraged by sanctuary

1.
Federal Report Recommends Improvements in Reporting Deaths of Immigrant Detainees
By Nina Bernstein
The New York Times, July 3, 2008

The federal immigration agency should report all deaths in detention promptly, not only to the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, but also to state authorities where required by law, the inspector general has recommended after a “special review” of the deaths of two immigrant detainees.

The detainees — a 60-year-old South Korean woman in Albuquerque and a 30-year-old Ecuadorean woman in St. Paul — were among dozens whose deaths in the custody of the agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have drawn scrutiny in the past year.

Congress, advocates for immigrants and the news media have highlighted the lack of systematic accountability in such cases, and documented problems with the medical care provided in the detention system, a patchwork of county jails, privately run prisons and federal facilities.

Both detainees died because of serious medical conditions that existed before they were detained. But the review found that the cases pointed to larger problems with oversight and medical care, including the failure to recognize or act on serious health care deficiencies in both detention centers that had been documented by routine inspections.

The 55-page report, released Tuesday, did not name the two detainees, but one was Young Sook Kim, a cook who died of metastasized pancreatic cancer on Sept. 11, 2006, a day after she was taken to a hospital from the Regional Correctional Center in Albuquerque, a county prison operated by the Cornell Companies.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/us/03detain.html

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2.
Migrant initiatives won't be on ballot
Measures failed to collect enough signatures
By Scott Wong
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), July 3, 2008

Two voter initiatives designed to toughen Arizona illegal-immigration laws will not appear on the fall ballot, the chairman of the campaigns told supporters this week.

Don Goldwater, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate, wrote in an e-mail that initiative campaigns working to strengthen the state's employer-sanctions law and to require police officers to enforce immigration law each failed to collect the 153,365 petition signatures required to put the proposed measures before voters on Nov. 4.

Both Goldwater and state Rep. Russell Peace, the Republican sponsor of last year's employer-sanctions legislation, launched the initiative drives in March 2007.

But they lacked the financial backing needed to hire paid signature gatherers.

"In the end, some would look at this as a defeat," Goldwater wrote to supporters on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"I refuse to overlook our great victories and accomplishments, and neither should anyone else."
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0703goldwater070...

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3.
San Francisco to Halt 'Sanctuary' Policy
By Karl Vick
The Washington Post, July 3, 2008; A02

Los Angeles -- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that the city would begin handing over for deportation juvenile illegal immigrants with drug convictions, reversing a controversial policy of flying the youths back to their home countries at the city's expense.

The flights, rooted in a 1989 ordinance declaring the city a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants, ceased this spring after the U.S. attorney threatened to prosecute officials for harboring criminals.

About the same time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained a city probation official in the Houston airport along with two Honduran juveniles the official was putting on a plane to Tegucigalpa, the capital.

"Which means that San Francisco for all intents and purposes is running its own department of immigration," said Joseph Russoniello, the U.S. attorney for San Francisco. "It's had its own foreign policy, so having its own immigration policy is the next step."

Newsome took responsibility for the embarrassment Wednesday, a day after the controversy overshadowed the popular Democrat's announcement that he's considering running for the governor's seat when Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger's term expires in 2010.

"We're going to fix this," Newsom said.

The controversy, coming in a presidential election campaign in which polls show immigration ranks high as an incendiary issue, highlighted starkly different perspectives both on immigration and on notions of victimhood.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR200807...

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4.
Dumping of illegal immigrant criminals in Yucaipa enrages officials
By Wesley G. Hughes and Andrew Edwards
The San Bernardino Sun (CA), July 2, 2008

Reports that the San Francisco authorities shipped eight juvenile Honduran crack dealers to an unsecured group home in Yucaipa have state Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, outraged with the Bay Area city.

Dutton promised legislation that will get the attention of San Francisco, which has declared itself a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.

The San Francisco Chronicle broke the story of how the city had been flying criminal illegal immigrants to their home countries at city expense to spare them dealing with federal immigration authorities.

When they were forced to halt the airlift, they shipped the juvenile crack dealers to a Yucaipa group home to serve out their sentences.

They had absconded within days and are apparently still at large.

The senator was in high dudgeon during a telephone interview Wednesday afternoon from his Sacramento office.

"I was never so mad. I am totally outraged. It's not right, and it's not fair to the people of Yucaipa or the people of California," he said.

The news touches on the raw nerve of illegal immigration and reawakens Inland views that other Golden State jurisdictions use San Bernardino County as a dumping ground for their problems.
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http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_9771473