1. McCain speaks at NCLR convention
2. MO law has legal ground questioned
3. Checks lead to more deportations
4. Activists call for probe on death

1.
McCain asks for trust from Hispanics
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times, July 15, 2008

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday denounced those in his party he said have injected "insults" into the immigration debate but refused to back away from his new enforcement-first approach to the issue, telling Hispanic leaders that they must trust he will eventually legalize illegal immigrants.

Mr. McCain told the National Council of La Raza's annual convention that Hispanics should instead be wary of his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, whom he accused of pandering to labor unions and supporting amendments that changed last year's immigration compromise and helped scuttle the bill.

"I cast a lot of hard votes, as did the other Republicans and Democrats who joined our bipartisan effort," Mr. McCain said. "Senator Obama declined to cast some of those tough votes. He voted for and even sponsored amendments that were intended to kill the legislation."

Mr. McCain is trying to drive a wedge between Mr. Obama and Hispanic voters, who are poised to play a huge role in November's election.

The Republican said he is willing to fight for their support, but told them they will have to trust him on immigration. He has changed his stance on the issue and now calls for enforcement of existing laws before he pushes for the rest of the key provisions, like a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

"When I say I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it," he said. "And with all due modesty, I think I have earned that trust."

Democrats said he doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore.

"He can't change the fact that he walked away from his own comprehensive reform bill to appease the right wing of his party," said Rep. Xavier Becerra, California Democrat, who also disputed Mr. McCain's attack on Mr. Obama, pointing out that Republicans praised Mr. Obama for helping last year.

Immigration rights advocates rejected the charge that Mr. Obama's amendments hurt the bill, saying some of those votes were designed to improve it.

Mr. McCain is no stranger to NCLR, having spoken to its national convention repeatedly and having twice won NCLR's Capital Award.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/15/mccain-asks-for-trust-fr...

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2.
Missouri's illegal immigrant law draws worries, applause
By Donna Walter
St. Louis Daily Record/St. Louis Countian (St. Louis, MO), July 14, 2008

While critics examine ways to challenge Missouri's new illegal immigration law, one of its drafters says the law is on solid legal ground.

Kris Kobach, who teaches law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and who helped draft some of the provisions of the law, said he's "not convinced" there will be a legal challenge in the first place.

Most of the provisions mirror federal law, he said, and the provisions that outlaw the hiring of illegal immigrants track closely a municipal ordinance upheld last February by a federal judge in St. Louis.

But John J. Ammann, a law professor at Saint Louis University, said he and a group of colleagues are looking at the law closely to determine whether there's a possibility of bringing a facial challenge to its constitutionality. "We haven't studied it enough to make that determination," he said.

Missouri's law, signed last week, makes it illegal to knowingly employ illegal immigrants and encourages employers in the state to register with a federal program to verify an individual's immigration status. A company that employs illegal immigrants risks a suspension of its business license, with the length of suspension increasing from 14 days for the first violation, to a year for the second and permanently for the third. Illegal immigrants may not receive public benefits, according to the state law.
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http://www.thedailyrecord.com/login.cfm [Pay Site]

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3.
Agents comb jails for immigrant offenders
Crackdown leads to sharp increase in deportations
By Paul Shukovsky
The Seattle Post Intelligencer, July 14, 2008

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reinforced by more agents in the Pacific Northwest, has been combing through more jails looking for foreign-born inmates arrested on criminal charges.

The result has been a large increase in deportations from Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

In the nine months since October, deportations have jumped 39 percent over the same period last year.

So far this fiscal year, ICE has deported 7,345 people compared with 5,256 last year.

And the number of deportees who have criminal convictions has jumped by 26 percent to 2,024 from 1,594.

Neil Clark, director of detention and removal operations for the three states, credited the spike in deportations to an increase in the number of agents dedicated to the Criminal Alien Program, in which agents specifically maintain liaison with municipal, county and state jails.
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/370724_deportation15.html

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4.
Group Calls for Inquiry Into Death of Detainee
By Carmen Gentile
The New York Times, July 15, 2008

Miami, FL -- Just days before the funeral on Saturday of her oldest child, Jacqueline Fleury was still $2,000 short of his burial expenses.

But Ms. Fleury’s greatest concern was not money, she said, but finding out why her son Valery Joseph, 23, who was born in Haiti and arrived in the United States as a young boy, died last month while being held at an immigration detention center in South Florida.

Mr. Joseph’s mother is in this country legally and was working to get a green card for her son, who she said had a learning disability. He was detained by agents of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, in January after he was released from prison where he had served several months for robbery. The agency began deportation proceedings, citing Mr. Joseph’s numerous criminal offenses.

Though Mr. Joseph occasionally suffered seizures, they were controlled by medication, his mother said, and he was in good health.

“He was not sick; he was well,” a solemn Ms. Fleury said in her native Creole, recalling how she had visited her son a week before he died, on June 20.

Still, he was discouraged about his predicament. “So why,” she asked, “did he have to die?”

The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center is calling for an independent investigation into Mr. Joseph’s death and has asked the customs agency for a copy of his medical records.

“Lack of access to adequate medical care is among detainees’ chief complaints,” said the center’s executive director, Cheryl Little, an immigration lawyer. “The ICE detention system is designed to fail detainees like Valery Joseph.”

United States immigration officials disagree. A division of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently released a study it had done showing that the percentage of deaths per 100,000 detainees was “dramatically lower for ICE detainees than for U.S. prisons and jails and the general U.S. population as a whole.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/15immig.html