1. Fence construction to continue
2. Palin's record largely unknown
3. Republicans likely to avoid issue
4. CIS report on carbon emissions
5. TX city ban challenged in court
6. NJ accused of illegal inquiries

1.
Judge denies injunction against border fence construction
By Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times (TX), September 3, 2008

El Paso, TX -- U.S. District Judge Frank Montalvo denied a request for a preliminary injunction against the construction of the border fence in El Paso County, County Attorney Jose Rodriguez announced Wednesday.

The request was filed on June 23 by the County of El Paso, the City of El Paso, El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1, the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, Frontera Audubon Society, Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, Friends of Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, and Mark Clark.

The petition was part of their lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security challenging Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's statutory authority to issue waivers of more than three dozen federal laws, as well as related state, local and tribal laws, to expedite the construction of a border fence in El Paso.
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http://www.elpasotimes.com/newupdated/ci_10371881

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2.
Palin's Alaska Record Short on Trade, Immigration Decisions
By Matthew Benjamin and Nicholas Johnston
Bloomberg News, September 4, 2008

By now, many Americans know Sarah Palin's views on guns, gays and abortion. When it comes to matters like trade, immigration, Social Security and Medicare, her record is mostly a blank slate.

Palin, 44, nominated last night to be the running mate of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has dealt with few of the economic issues that concern Americans the most, focusing during her 20 months as governor of Alaska on energy policy above all else.

The reasons: Alaska, whose population of 670,000 is smaller than that of all but three states, has no income or sales tax, few manufacturing jobs and even fewer illegal immigrants. And its economy is based almost entirely on natural resources and tourism.

``She has a limited amount of experience, so we don't know what her stances are'' on larger national issues, said Alaska state House Speaker John Harris, a Republican supporter of the governor.

The McCain campaign yesterday sought to strengthen Palin's hand on the economy. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office who is a top McCain economic adviser, will now also advise Palin.

The next presidential administration will have to grapple with challenges such as taxes, reining in federal spending and the loss of manufacturing jobs abroad.

``Taxes are too high,'' Palin said in her acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Democratic nominee Barack Obama ``wants to raise them.''

Gasoline and Groceries

While McCain, 72, touted Palin's executive experience when he introduced her in Ohio last week, he focused on her life as ordinary person.

Palin, he said, ``understands the problems, the hopes and the values of working people, knows what it's like to worry about mortgage payments and health care and the cost of gasoline and groceries.''

The McCain campaign said yesterday it plans to unveil a television ad arguing that Palin is more experienced than Obama because she oversees 24,000 state employees and a $10 billion budget.

Economists say managing Alaska's economy and budget is different than in other states.

The state's $36 billion Permanent Fund, derived from oil revenue, makes it look more like energy-rich nations such as Abu Dhabi and Norway than the rest of the U.S.

``We are a countercyclical state and we have a huge budget surplus,'' said Gerald McBeath, a political scientist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. ``That makes it hard to compare to other states.''

No Job-Loss Threat

Alaska has just 21,500 manufacturing workers, with 17,200 employed in seafood processing, according to the state labor department. The rest are concentrated in energy and unlikely to be moved overseas.

Illegal immigration, which weighs on the economies of many states, is negligible in Alaska. According to the 2000 Census, the state had only 5,000 undocumented aliens.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aNgqjbjq1iZ4&refer=home

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Palin's immigration views unknown
United Press International, September 3, 2008
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/03/Palins_immigration_views_unknown/...

Palin’s views on immigration remain a mystery
By Jim Snyder
The Hill (Washington, DC), September 3, 2008
http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/palins-views-on-immigration-remain-a-my...

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3.
Expect little, if any, immigration talk from McCain to Republicans
By Todd J. Gillman
The Dallas Morning News, September 3, 2008

St. Paul, MN -- It’s safe to say that if John McCain wants to get booed Thursday night at the Republican convention, he’ll promise to make comprehensive immigration reform a top priority as president.

To survive the primaries, Mr. McCain abandoned his long-held push to create a new guest worker program and a path to citizenship for many of the 12 million illegal immigrants in this country. Critics considered that approach tantamount to amnesty, and Mr. McCain was on the wrong side of the issue for many of the ardent illegal immigration activists in the party.

And so far in St. Paul, the word “immigration” has barely crossed the lips of any convention speaker.

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrat-turned-independent assigned to shore up Mr. Mr. McCain’s bona fides as a maverick, mentioned the issue in passing when he spoke on Tuesday, saying that “if John McCain was another go-along partisan politician, he never would have led the fight to fix our broken immigration system.”

But he glossed over the fact that Mr. McCain backed down when faced with severe GOP backlash — a move that some considered cynical, but others appreciated as a nod to strong sentiment within the party.

“If the people that want a secure border get it, then we’ll have a second debate about how we deal with the people who are here,” said Pete Wilson, the former California governor whose fierce policies on illegal immigration damaged Republican outreach among Hispanic voters for a generation.

“But the first concern, which totally dominates, is the concern about preventing 12 million from becoming 25 or 50, and quite rightly.”

Mr. McCain has never renounced the goal of legalization or a guest worker program, even after the Senate’s last big push for a comprehensive package fell apart last year.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/politics/local/stories/...

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4.
Study: Immigrants to blame for pollution
By Martin Bartlett
The KVIA News (El Paso, TX), September 3, 2008

El Paso -- A Washington, DC-based group says you can add pollution and possibly even global warming to the list of things for which immigrants might be to blame.

In a new study, the Center for Immigration Studies said when people move from rural locations around the world to urban centers in the US, they produce disproportionate levels of carbon dioxide.

"My first reaction is that it's completely unfounded and that it's utterly ridiculous," said Isela Avila, a poster-child for bad behavior if you buy into the study's findings.

"My mom was born in Mexico and they came from farming the land, tilling the land kind of thing," she said, but now Avila is grabbing a bite at a fast-food restaurant before jumping back in her car and joining the fossil-fueled mad-dash back to the office.

"Immigration is not inevitable -- it's not the weather," said study co-author Dr. Stephen Camorata. "We have a choice of how many people we let in."

The study which found that immigrants -- legal or not -- average four times as much carbon consumption in the US as in their home country.

"But you also have to remember the contributions that immigrants make even when they migrate to another place," said El Paso immigrant advocate Iliana Holguin.

Holguin is the executive director and managing attorney for Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services -- an arm of the Catholic Church in El Paso which helps people navigate the legal maze of immigration. She says the growth greenhouse gases may have more to do with a worldwide migration from country to city -- not necessarily across borders.

"We see that happening all the time, everyday and it's not just a phenomenon of the immigrant community," she said. "It's easy to blame the immigrant community because a lot of times it doesn't stick up for itself."

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5.
Farmers Branch sued over latest attempt to ban illegal immigrants from rentals
By Frank Trejo
The Dallas Morning News, September 4, 2008

As promised, opponents filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Farmers Branch's latest attempt to ban housing rentals to illegal immigrants.

The action in federal court in Dallas came just five days after U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay issued a final ruling striking down an earlier version of the city's rental ban, Ordinance 2903.

The city had already adopted a replacement measure, Ordinance 2952, to be implemented 15 days after Judge Lindsay's final ruling on the earlier law. Unless a court blocks the newer measure, it will take effect Sept. 13.

But attorney William A. Brewer III, who represents several apartment building owners and one renter, is asking Judge Lindsay to immediately block implementation.

"The details of 2952 are frankly more extreme than 2903," Mr. Brewer said. He said the measure not only allows the city to enter an area of regulation reserved for the federal government but also violates the equal protection and due process provisions of the Constitution.

An attorney for Farmers Branch said city officials had expected the suit, which he called "more of the same."

"It doesn't recognize the major differences between the new ordinance and the old ordinance," Michael Jung said. "The new ordinance defines who can rent an apartment in Farmers Branch by federal law. ... It places the judgment call as to who is here legally in the hands of federal government instead of requiring landlords to make that judgment call."

Difference

Unlike the earlier measure, the new one would not require landlords to check prospective tenants' documents to ensure that they were U.S. citizens or legal residents.

Instead, landlords would be allowed to rent an apartment or house to anyone who obtained an occupancy license by paying $5 and swearing he or she was in the country legally. It would be up to the city to check a federal database to determine if the person was indeed a legal resident.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-fb...

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6.
ACLU says schools still illegally ask for immigration information
By Diane D'Amico
The Presss of Atlantic City (NJ), September 04, 2008

Newark -- Despite a warning two years ago, many of the state's school districts are still violating the law by asking parents to provide a green card, Social Security number or other proof of citizenship for student registration, according to a survey by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.

The report said 139 districts illegally asked for the information and another 48 districts recommended or suggested that immigration or citizenship information would help in the registration.

Department of Education spokeswoman Kathryn Forsyth said Wednesday that Education Commissioner Lucille Davy is very disturbed by the report and that districts have been told yet again to remind all staff of the law. They were also told to remove all references to the information from Web sites and registration forms, even if listed as optional, to avoid confusion.

Forsyth said the state will not tolerate continued non-compliance and will develop its own monitoring system and consider penalties, including withholding state aid, from districts that continued to violate the law.

Local districts listed in the report as requiring either Social Security cards or green cards include: Brigantine, Galloway Community Charter School, Hammonton, Oceanside Charter School, PleasanTech Charter School, Port Republic and Ventnor in Atlantic County; and Sea Isle City, Stone Harbor, and Wildwood Crest in Cape May County.

Those that included the cards among requested or optional information were: Absecon, Buena Regional, Folsom, Margate, and Northfield in Atlantic County; Dennis Township in Cape May County; and Southern Regional in Ocean County. Upper Deerfield Township in Cumberland County said they didn't know if it was needed.

The ACLU contacted 516 of the state's 635 school districts and charter schools during July requesting their enrollment requirements. The group did a similar survey in 2006 amidst concerns that districts were requiring or requesting the information as a way to discourage illegal immigrants from registering their children for school. Both state law and the U.S. Supreme Court say that all children are entitled to attend public school regardless of their immigration status.

"It's very frustrating that this is an ongoing problem," ACLU Executive Director Deborah Jacobs said Wednesday.

She said some districts may still be having a hard time getting rid of the bad habit of requesting a Social Security number, but if the result is keeping children out of school, the problem must be addressed. She said they will continue doing the survey and were pleased the Department of Education also issued a strong statement.
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http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/179/story/247634.html