1. ICE vows to ramp enforcement
2. New rules sought for attorneys
3. DOJ finds vetted judges more stringent
4. ICE silent on raid strategies
5. Illegals continue to re-patriate
6. Illegal alien remains in church

1.
Immigration agency vows more enforcement
By Amy Taxi
The Associated Press, August 23, 2008

Santa Ana, CA (AP) -- Federal immigration officials vowed Friday to intensify efforts to track down illegal immigrants after scrapping a trial "self-deportation" program that attracted only eight volunteers.

Though the 2 1/2-week effort produced few volunteer deportees among illegal immigrants who are under court orders to leave the country, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said his agency will arrest more of them this year than last — and still more next year as more agents are assigned.

"We are going to continue our enforcement of immigration law whether it is convenient for people, or whether it's not convenient," Jim Hayes, ICE's acting director of detention and removal operations, told reporters.

"Congress has mandated that we enforce these laws and that is what we intend to do," he said.

Immigrant advocates accused ICE of using the failure of the "Scheduled Departure" program to justify raids that have caused many illegal immigrants to live in fear of a pre-dawn knock on the door. They ridiculed the self-deportation program, saying it gave people no incentive to surrender.

"It seems to me ICE used this as nothing more than a publicity ploy as a means to justify their harsh enforcement of immigration law," said Charles Kuck, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Kuck said he supports enforcement but that ICE could handle cases in a gentler way after arresting people at home. Instead of jailing them, for example, they could allow them to wear ankle bracelets while preparing to depart.

The self-deportation pilot program gave illegal immigrants up to 90 days to leave the country and was intended to quell criticism that its enforcement is heavy-handed and disruptive to families. Critics noted that those who participates were barred from returning to the United States for as long as a decade.
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http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i5prhLjHvlhYqvnvbzyaGXUtL1WAD92NJNS81

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2.
Immigration lawyers' misconduct targeted in federal proposal
Rule changes would set new minimum standards for the attorneys and give greater disciplinary power to judges rather than state bar regulators.
By Richard B. Schmitt
Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2008

Washington, DC -- The Bush administration has quietly proposed to overhaul the disciplinary process for lawyers practicing in the nation's immigration courts, aiming to weed out abusive and incompetent ones.

The proposed changes would set new minimum standards of conduct for the attorneys and give judges greater power to punish them.

The proposal is part of a broader Justice Department effort -- focused until now mostly on judges -- to overhaul the immigration court system.

The rules would replace a disciplinary system that has long deferred to state bar regulators.

"Immigration judges should have the tools necessary to control their courtrooms and protect the adjudicatory system from fraud and abuse," said Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review, which circulated the rules for public comment late last month. "This proposed rule seeks to preserve the fairness and integrity of immigration proceedings, and increase the level of protection afforded to aliens in those proceedings."

Current rules subject immigration lawyers to sanctions when deemed "in the public interest" -- a category interpreted to include criminal and other serious misconduct.

The proposal is more specific, spelling out actionable offenses by a lawyer. Among them would be failing to adequately communicate with clients; lacking "diligence" in filing court pleadings or taking other actions; or acting in a way that is "prejudicial to the administration of justice or undermines the integrity" of the process.

Since 2000, the immigration review office has taken action against nearly 400 immigration lawyers -- but most of those actions piggybacked on moves by state regulators.

Critics call the process time-consuming and ineffective in protecting clients.

The new rules would empower the executive office to summarily discipline lawyers convicted of a "serious crime" or whose license has been suspended -- without waiting for final action by state regulators.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig23-2008aug23,0...

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3.
Vetted Judges More Likely to Reject Asylum Bids
By Charlie Savage
The New York Times, August 24, 2008

Washington, DC -- Immigrants seeking asylum in the United States have been disproportionately rejected by judges whom the Bush administration chose using a conservative political litmus test, according to an analysis of Justice Department data.

The analysis suggests that the effects of a patronage-style selection process for immigration judges — used for three years before it was abandoned as illegal — are still being felt by scores of immigrants whose fates are determined by the judges installed in that period.

The data focuses on 16 judges who were vetted for political affiliation before being hired and have since ruled on at least 100 cases each.

Comparison of their records to others in the same cities shows that as a group they ruled against asylum-seekers significantly more often than colleagues who were appointed, as the law requires, under politically neutral rules.

Critics of the politicization of the immigration bench say it is not enough that in 2007 the department stopped using illegal hiring procedures. The fact that many of the politically selected judges remain in power, they say, continues to undermine the perceived fairness of hearings for immigrants fighting deportation.

The immigration court “is now the seat of individuals who were appointed illegally, and that means that in the minds of many people the court symbolizes illegality,” said Bruce Einhorn, a Pepperdine University law professor who was an immigration judge from 1990 until he retired last year.

Peter A. Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, wrote in an e-mailed response to questions, “The fact that the process was flawed does not mean that the immigration judges selected through that process are unfit to serve.”

The Bush administration has been accused by Democrats and other critics of improperly bringing politics into the business of federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the General Services Administration and, most notably, the Justice Department, which has been reeling under accusations that officials sought to politicize the apparatus of law enforcement.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/washington/24judges.html

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4.
U.S. agency silent on raid
But officials say immigration enforcement is on increase
By Doug Abrahms
The Citizen Times (Asheville, NC), August 25, 2008

The recent immigration raid at Mills Manufacturing Corp. was part of stepped up enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, although the agency won't say why it targeted the Asheville company.

The agency focuses on immigration enforcement at airports, defense contractors and other businesses it considers critical infrastructure, as well as rooting out criminal illegal immigrants, said Richard Rocha, an ICE spokesman in Washington. He declined to comment on the reasons behind the Mills raid.

Because ICE can only investigate a small fraction of U.S. businesses, the pattern is not so clear, according to immigration experts.

The agency seems to be investigating work sites in industries with large concentrations of illegal immigrants where document fraud, employer collusion or other crimes might be involved, said Steve Camarota, research director at Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors stronger immigration enforcement. The agency has targeted companies across the U.S., he said.

"The problem is scattered across the whole country," Camarota said. "They're looking for cases that are not just run-of-the-mill, five illegal aliens employed by Joe's construction company."

ICE arrested 57 workers for using fraudulent documents to obtain jobs on Aug. 12 at Mills, which makes parachutes for the Defense Department. The company employed about 175 before the raid.

ICE has stepped up workplace raids, and administrative arrests of workers that usually result in deportation jumped from 445 in 2003 to 4,077 last year. Its workplace raids have been scattered around the U.S. across various industries.
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http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008808250305

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5.
Illegal Immigrants Returning to Mexico in Record Numbers
By Kris Gutierrez
The Fox News, August 22, 2008

Dallas -- Illegal immigrants are returning home to Mexico in numbers not seen for decades — and the Mexican government may have to deal with a crush on its social services and lower wages once the immigrants arrive.

The Mexican Consulate's office in Dallas is seeing increasing numbers of Mexican nationals requesting paperwork to go home for good, especially parents who want to know what documentation they'll need to enroll their children in Mexican schools.

"Those numbers have increased percentage-wise tremendously," said Enrique Hubbard, the Mexican consul general in Dallas. "In fact, it's almost 100 percent more this year than it was the previous two years."

The illegal immigrant population in the U.S. has dropped 11 percent since August of last year, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Its research shows 1.3 million illegal immigrants have returned to their home countries.

Some say illegal immigrants are leaving because a soft economy has led to fewer jobs, causing many laborers to seek work elsewhere.

Others argue that a tough stance on immigration through law enforcement has spread fear throughout the illegal population.

"There's no question there's a variety of suggestions that people are in fact returning," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. "Remittances, which is the money immigrants send home to Mexico, have gone down dramatically over the past year. Again, probably part the economy, but also part enforcement, leading to fewer people being here."

Advocates for immigrants are disturbed by the trend. Albert Ruiz, an organizer for the League of United Latin American Citizens, agrees that more undocumented immigrants are going home — but says families are being torn apart in the process.
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,409221,00.html

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6.
Church shelters Liliana one year
Both sides seem to be in limbo
By Tom Kisken
The Ventura County Star (CA), August 23, 2008

The bullhorns are gone. So are the protesters who bellowed into them Sunday mornings on an otherwise quiet Simi Valley street. The standoff with the city over $39,306 for police security is over, too.

Liliana remains.

A year ago today, the illegal immigrant moved into a small home owned by the United Church of Christ in Simi Valley. She came with her then 5-month-old son Pablito for sanctuary against the threat of being deported to Mexico.

Lawyers are trying to find a way for her to return to her previous home in Oxnard but don't know when something will happen.

People who once protested at the church call federal authorities and demand Liliana's deportation as well as investigations into the church. Immigration officials avoid saying they won't make an arrest on church property, instead declaring they take action at "appropriate times in appropriate places."

The limbo continues, and no one knows how long it will last, including Liliana.

"I don't have any idea," she said through a translator Friday at a sanctuary home decorated with pictures of the Virgin Mary. "I live day by day. I ask God to bring a solution."

Her presence and the church's efforts draw praise from some advocates of immigration reform, anger from people who want the government to enforce its laws and calculated disinterest from others.

"We're just kind of ignoring it at this point. It's not really an issue," said Simi Valley Mayor Paul Miller, who was once at the center of a controversy that drew national attention.

Miller led the city's efforts to bill the church for the security provided at a Sunday morning protest last September against Liliana and illegal immigration. Then he and other city leaders tried to persuade Department of Homeland Security to move quickly on Liliana's case.

Neither effort worked.

"The city has no control over it," he said. "Going into this thing we felt we weren't going to get any results."

Voluntary imprisonment

Liliana, who is 30, conceals her last name, instead using Santuario — Spanish for sanctuary. She comes from Michoacan and was caught trying to cross the border 10 years ago after her request for a student visa was rejected.

She tried to cross the border in a different place, made it and ended up in Oxnard. Her husband is a naturalized citizen. Their three children were born in the United States.

She sought sanctuary in May 2007 after armed immigration agents came to arrest her at her Oxnard home, then gave a short reprieve so she could find someone to care for her children. As part of a national project called the New Sanctuary Movement, she went to the home of a Catholic deacon in Sierra Madre, then to an Episcopal church in Long Beach and finally to Simi Valley.

She lives directly behind the church in a three-bedroom home that was once a parsonage. The only time she leaves is to go to the church.

The doors of the house stay locked. Groceries are delivered. Church members or other supporters stay with her constantly, just in case immigration agents come.

An English tutor visits her three times a week. She cooks, cleans and takes care of her children, who are there nearly every day. Once a week, Catholics deliver Holy Communion.

She said she doesn't feel trapped. She thinks her experiences are making a difference.

"Maybe you can't really see it," she said, "but me being here will remind people to change the law."

To many people, Liliana is the face of an invasion that has brought 12 million illegal immigrants into the country, taking away jobs and opportunities, committing crimes and asking for immigration amnesty.

They say her continuing presence at the church provides the definitive X-ray of a shattered immigration system.

"I think it says that our government is not wanting to enforce our own laws," said Chelene Nightingale, spokeswoman for the Save Our State group that helped organize Sunday protests at the church. "It sends a very clear message that America is in a crisis situation and people aren't paying attention."
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The New Sanctuary Movement is sheltering 14 people across the country, including seven in California. Supporters say it keeps families together, puts a face on the immigration battle and raises the pressure for reform. Opponents say the movement has achieved little.

They say immigration raids and enforcement have grown steadily over the past year. The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tougher enforcement, claims the number of illegal immigrants has decreased by about 1.3 million people over the past year.

"I think that should probably tell you where the nation is going," said Bryan Griffith, the center's spokesman. "Currently, it's veering toward enforcement."
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http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/aug/23/deportation-issue-a-tu...