1. McCain losing Hispanic voters
2. Candidates the same on issue
3. Decision gives momentum to suit
4. AZ campaign signs stir controversy
5. MD county sheriff lauds efforts
6. Feds probing suspect's history

1.
McCain Is Faltering Among Hispanic Voters
By Larry Rohter
The New York Times, October 23, 2008

Espanola, NM -- In the early days of the presidential campaign, Senator John McCain seemed to be in a good position to win support among Hispanic voters. He had sponsored legislation for comprehensive immigration overhaul in Congress, made a point of speaking warmly about the contributions of immigrants and was popular among Latinos in Arizona, his home state, which borders three battleground states here in the Southwest: New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada.

But less than two weeks before Election Day, those advantages appear to have evaporated. Recent Gallup polls show Mr. McCain running far behind Senator Barack Obama among Hispanic voters nationwide, only 26 percent of whom favor the Republican. The possibility that Mr. McCain can duplicate George W. Bush’s performance among Latinos in 2004, when Republicans won 44 percent of the vote, now seems remote.

Both candidates are spending heavily on Spanish-language advertising, and continue to schedule campaign events to focus on the fast-growing Hispanic vote. Last month, Mr. McCain held a town-hall-style meeting at a Puerto Rican community center in central Florida; a few days later, Mr. Obama, of Illinois, came to this heavily Hispanic city of 9,600 people for a rally at a plaza that dates to Spanish colonial times.

In an echo of his overall slide in the polls, some of the issues that have hampered Mr. McCain’s candidacy turn out to have had an even greater impact on the Hispanic population. Latinos cite the crisis in the economy as their biggest concern, trumping immigration and the social conservatism that Republicans thought would help expand Mr. McCain’s appeal among religious, family-oriented Hispanic voters.

And if Republicans were counting on tensions between blacks and Latinos, now the nation’s largest minority, driving Hispanic voters away from Mr. Obama, that also has largely failed to materialize.

Early in the primary season, when Mr. Obama was still a newcomer little known to Latinos outside Illinois, he began campaigning among Hispanic voters, even in states where he knew he would lose to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the favorite among Hispanics. Political analysts say Mr. McCain has only sporadically and belatedly sought to engage Latino voters.

“The McCain campaign was never set up in a way that spoke to Hispanics,” said Matthew Dowd, Mr. Bush’s senior strategist in 2004. “Throughout the entire primary, there was no conversation because they thought that was not where the election was. You can’t start to campaign in September for the general election among Hispanics. They are very frustrated with Bush and the Republicans, so McCain has a bigger hurdle to overcome.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/us/politics/23latino.html

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2.
On immigrtion, Obama and McCain differ mostly in nuanceation
By Michael Collins
The Scripps Howard News Service, October 22, 2008

Washington, DC -- They may disagree over the war in Iraq or the fundamentals of the economy or any number of other pressing issues.

But when it comes to immigration reform -- a topic so volatile that, not long ago, it touched off massive street protests across the country -- there's not a lot of difference in the positions staked out by presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.

"It's pretty much the same," said David Rodriguez, a Latino activist from California.

Indeed, immigration reform may be the singular issue of the 2008 presidential campaign in which Obama and McCain agree the most.

-- Both want to secure the nation's borders and voted in 2006 to build a 700-mile fence along the southern boundary with Mexico.

-- Both argue that legal status should be offered to immigrants who entered the United States illegally as long as they learn English, pay fines and pass a background check.

-- Both promise to crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers. But both also favor increasing the number of people who can enter the country legally to meet the demand for jobs that employers cannot fill.

-- There's also this: Neither candidate has devoted much time or energy on immigration reform while on the campaign trail, much to the dismay of those on both sides of the debate.

"Neither one of the presidential candidates or the vice president (candidates) have been addressing this as fully as they should be doing," said Carl "Two Feathers" Whitaker, one of the leaders of Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen, which wants to stop immigrants from coming into the country illegally.

"They don't want to put that much emphasis on it -- both candidates -- because they're afraid they'll lose some of the Latino vote, and if they keep quiet, they may gain that," Whitaker said. "We don't understand."

It wasn't long ago that immigration reform was on the minds of every politician in Washington.

McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona, co-authored legislation with Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., in 2005 that would have dramatically changed the nation's immigration laws.

The bill included many of the same proposals now supported by McCain and Obama -- more border security, a get-tough approach on employers who hire undocumented workers, a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who entered the country illegally.

But the McCain-Kennedy legislation ran into fierce resistance, especially from McCain's fellow Republicans, and died without ever being put to a vote.

McCain has taken the scars from that battle with him on the campaign trail. As the GOP nominee for president, he now says he understands that Americans want the nation's borders secured before they will embrace comprehensive immigration reform.
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Ironically, the two candidates' similar positions may actually be hurting the chances for comprehensive reform regardless of whoever moves into the White House next January, said Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Because there are no stark differences in their positions, neither candidate is pressing the issue. And because there is no debate over the immigration reform, "there is no shaping of public opinion toward their position," said Camarota, whose Washington-based group favors limits on immigration.

The end result will likely mean the candidate who wins won't be able to claim that his election was a mandate for comprehensive reform. That will make it hard to get any comprehensive bill through Congress, Camarota said.

"It leaves us basically where we were: A president who wants it, a Democratic Senate who wants it, and (Congress) members who are terrified to vote for it," Camarota said.
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http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/37314

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3.
Critics of S.F. immigration policy win ruling
By Bob Egelko
The San Francisco Chronicle, October 23, 2008

San Francisco -- A state appeals court reinstated a taxpayer lawsuit on Wednesday that accuses San Francisco officials of violating a state law that requires police who make drug arrests to notify federal authorities if a criminal suspect doesn't appear to be a U.S. citizen.

A Superior Court judge dismissed the suit last year, saying the California law on which it was based was an invalid attempt by the state to regulate immigration. The First District Court of Appeal disagreed Wednesday and said the law, though it might affect immigration, is based on the state's legal authority to combat drug trafficking.

The 3-0 ruling allows opponents of San Francisco's immigration policy to try to prove that the city has broken the state law. Passed in 1953, the law requires police to tell federal immigration officials whenever they arrest someone for any of 14 specified drug crimes and have reason to believe that the person "may not be a citizen of the United States." It applies not only to illegal immigrants but also to non-citizens who are legal residents and can be deported for committing serious crimes.

"This decision strikes at the heart of the sanctuary movement," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that joined the lawsuit after it was dismissed. The court did not look into the city's reporting practices, which will be considered later in the case, but Fitton said he has "little doubt that San Francisco is in noncompliance with the law."
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/23/BA6R13MG26.DTL

EDITOR'S NOTE: The court decision is available online at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A120206.PDF

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4.
Candidates cry foul over immigration-related signs
Independent effort links District 17 Dems, unpopular concepts for 'negative ads'
By Dianna M. Náñez
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), October 23, 2008

Campaign signs tying District 17 candidates to open-border policies are causing outrage on both sides of the political aisle and have led to a police investigation.

Steve Carbajal, a Tempe police spokesman, said police are looking into the theft from a street corner of signs that read "Open Our Borders Re-elect Ableser" and "Open Our Borders Re-elect Cahill."

Lori Lieberman, an Arizona State University student and member of the ASU Young Democrats group, is being investigated after an investigator with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office reported seeing her uprooting the signs and loading them in her truck last week, according to Carbajal.

Carbajal said police are preparing to turn over their investigation to the City Prosecutor's Office within the next two weeks. If they decide to prosecute, he said, it would likely be on a misdemeanor charge.

Lieberman could not be reached for comment.

The signs were made and paid for by Jim Torgeson, a former District 20 Democratic candidate who owns the company that printed campaign signs for the Republicans running against incumbent candidates Rep. David Schapira, Rep. Ed Ableser, and Sen. Meg Burton-Cahill, all Tempe Democrats. Torgeson dropped out of the race when a fellow District 20 candidate challenged his nomination petition signatures in a Maricopa County Superior Court lawsuit. He acknowledged that some signatures were from voters who lived outside the district.

Torgeson also paid for and posted signs at several major Tempe intersections that read, "Re-elect Sen. Meg Cahill Reps. Shapira & Ableser Help Them To Support Illegals."

Schapira said Torgeson not only misspelled his name, he also misrepresented his, Ableser's and Cahill's positions on immigration.

"These are attack ads," he said. "I believe that it's time that the federal government steps up and secure our borders, and I've advocated that."

Ableser said he considers the signs "slander" and "lies." He scoffed at the message, saying that no one in the Legislature is for "open borders" and that he has voted for state budget bills that include funding for technology to secure borders and for the recent employee sanctions law, which punishes employers for hiring workers who are in the country illegally.

Torgeson said he has reviewed the Democratic candidates' records and considered the signs a way "to help the candidates get their message out."
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2008/10/23/20081...

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5.
Sheriff boasts success in work on illegal immigration
Majority of arrests leading to deportation came from Frederick city police
By Sherry Greenfield
The Gazette (Frederick, MD), October 23, 2008

Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins is proud of the work his department is doing to catch illegal immigrants that commit crimes here.

Since April, deputies have arrested and housed at the detention center 216 immigrants. Of that, 188 have gone through the immigration proceedings for deportation. The majority of those arrests (52.3 percent) have been made by the City of Frederick Police Department. Sheriff's deputies have arrested 31.4 percent.

Most of the illegal immigrants arrested have come from the countries of El Salvador and Mexico, he noted.

Jenkins (R) boasted to Frederick County commissioners on Oct. 16 that his department's partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in cracking down on illegal immigrants who commit crimes is working. The 287G initiative is so successful it has become a model for other counties throughout the United States, Jenkins said.

"We're starting to get calls from all over the country," he said. "We're the sixth sheriff's office in the country to be involved in the 287G program and housing program. People are starting to see the magnitude of the problem. I don't know where they've been."
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http://www.gazette.net/stories/10232008/mounnew161726_32485.shtml

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6.
Immigration probes how shooting suspect got to NYC
By Colleen Long
The Associated Press, October 23, 2008

New York (AP) -- Federal immigration officials are wondering how a man involved in a subway shootout with police officers had re-entered the U.S. after being deported a decade ago after a drug arrest.

The man, Raul Nunez, illegally used a student's fare payment card to enter a subway station during Tuesday evening's rush hour, police said. Two plainclothes transit officers tried to arrest him, and in a struggle he grabbed one of their guns and shot them, police said.

Nunez, who is from the Dominican Republic, reportedly told authorities he resisted because he was afraid he'd be deported again if he were arrested.

Nunez, 32, was deported June 24, 1998, by an immigration judge after a drug arrest in New York. He was charged in Manhattan with selling cocaine to an undercover officer in 1997. He also had a drug conviction in 1996.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents say they're not sure when he re-entered the country.
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http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hGQFLAbInJVr25kHTYUgo1DJ1yOAD94048PO1