1. USBP apprehensions dip
2. Candidates ignore issue
3. Hispanics favor Obama
4. States vary on medical care
5. Criminals target illegals

1.
US is slowing the flow of illegal immigration
But despite dips in key stats, Border Patrol's Tucson Sector is still ground zero
By Brady McCombs
The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), October 29, 2008

Apprehensions, border deaths and pounds of marijuana seized — three key indicators of illegal border activity compiled by the U.S. Border Patrol — each dipped in the recently completed fiscal year in the Tucson Sector.

The sector's chief, Robert W. Gilbert, cited the decreases as evidence of the agency's success in slowing illegal immigration, but he stopped short of proclaiming control of the 262-mile stretch of U.S.-Mexico border that has been the busiest along the Southwest border for apprehensions since 1998, for border deaths since 2002, and for marijuana seizures since 2003.

"It's a sign that we are on the right path," Gilbert said Tuesday at a news conference in Tucson. "We had successes in '08 and I think our numbers prove that out, but we are long ways from saying we are where we want to be with border control."
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http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/264648

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2.
Immigration Cools as Campaign Issue
By Julia Preston
The New York Times, October 29, 2008

On the stump, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain rarely talk about immigration, and it was never raised in their three debates.

Yet as this thorny issue has receded from the presidential campaign, the two candidates continue to refine their approach to it — especially in regards to illegal immigration, the most politically sensitive piece of the equation.

Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee, has hardened his tone on how to deal with illegal immigrants, while Mr. McCain, the Republican nominee, has made immigration enforcement a priority, a position in line with the Bush administration’s. Both candidates are responding to the anger many Americans feel about uncontrolled illegal immigration, including working-class voters whom Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama are trying to attract in the final days of the campaign.

Because of persisting political rifts and a crush of priorities related to reviving the economy and unwinding the Iraq war, advisers to the campaigns say it is increasingly unlikely that either candidate would propose to Congress an overhaul of the immigration system during the first year in office, something both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama had pledged to do.

On the assumption that immigration legislation “is not likely to be the first thing out of the box” for the new president, Doris Meissner, who was commissioner of the immigration service under President Bill Clinton, said she was working with a bipartisan group of experts to identify changes that the new president could make without Congress.

“The reforms we need to put in place are so sweeping and the political environment is so hostile to consensus, I think we will be in a phase of longer-term building of public understanding,” said Ms. Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a research group in Washington.

Both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain continue to support legislation that would include a path to legal status for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

As a result, groups that oppose legal status for illegal immigrants, who mobilized a wildfire movement of largely Republican voters against a comprehensive immigration bill last year, are sitting out the presidential race. Instead, they are focusing on Senate and House races, where they hope to stop the Democrats from winning large majorities.

“We’re going to have an incredibly bad White House, so we’re in for some tough defensive battles,” said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, which favors reduced immigration. “We have to make sure we’ve got at least 41 senators so we can block any Obama or McCain amnesty.”

Seeking to broaden support for legalization, Mr. Obama embraces new law-and-order language adopted in the Democratic Party platform at the convention. Although Americans are “welcoming and generous,” the platform states, “those who enter our country’s borders illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law.” Instead of the Democrats’ emphasis, as recently as last year, on integrating illegal immigrants into society, the platform says, “We must require them to come out of the shadows and get right with the law.”

Heather Higginbottom, the Obama campaign’s director for policy, said Mr. Obama had not altered his basic views. If elected, Mr. Obama would insist that illegal immigrants pay back taxes and fines, learn English and go to the back of the immigration line to become legal.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/us/politics/29immig.html

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3.
US Hispanic Voters Favor Obama, But Turnout Will Be Key
By Greg Flakus
The Voice of America News, October 28, 2008

Houston -- Hispanics compose the fastest-growing ethnic minority in the United States. They number more than 44 million people, but represent only about nine percent of the total electorate. Many Hispanic residents are not U.S. citizens and a large percentage of those who are citizens are younger than the minimum voting age. As VOA's Greg Flakus reports from Houston, Texas, surveys of potential Hispanic voters indicate strong support for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. But the impact of this group will be determined by the number of voters who go the polls on November 4.

In heavily Hispanic areas around Houston, the top issues include the economy, health care and immigration. Undocumented workers cannot legally vote and the few who are willing to speak to reporters express little interest in U.S. politics.

But some Hispanics who are citizens are concerned about the status of these illegal immigrants.

One young man says the most important issue is immigration reform because of the difficulties faced by undocumented workers who are part of the Latino community here.

The candidate many Hispanics favor is Barack Obama. However, most Hispanics are very religious and Obama's support for abortion rights troubles some, like this woman.

"One thing I don't like about Obama is that he is for abortion and stuff like that," she said.

But across the nation, Hispanics are supporting Obama by a nearly two-to-one margin. Republican John McCain is having a hard time selling himself with these voters in spite of his co-sponsorship of an immigration reform bill two years ago that would have offered legal status to hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers.

Part of the problem, according to University of New Mexico political scientist Gabriel Sanchez, is that McCain responded to critics within his own party by hardening his position on immigration.

"In order to get through in the Republican primaries, he had to change his stance on an issue like immigration," he said. "And, unfortunately, for those Hispanics out there who care about immigration, those folks are moving back towards the Democratic party."

But Sanchez says immigration has taken a back seat to the economy in this election and that there is no single issue that sets Hispanics apart from other voters.
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http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-10-28-voa58.cfm

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4.
Citizenship often determines who gets medical care
Kidney dialysis is a case in point: Some states won't treat illegal immigrants, but California and a few others believe not treating them is far more costly.
By Alan Zarembo and Anna Gorman
Los Angeles, October 29, 2008

Roughly 2,000 times over the last 17 years, Marguerita Toribio, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, has climbed into a cushioned recliner for the three-hour dialysis treatment that keeps her alive.

She has never seen a bill.

U.S. taxpayers have covered the entire cost of her treatment in California: more than $500,000 and rising, not including a kidney transplant in 1993.

The kidney failed when Toribio briefly moved to North Carolina, which refused to pay for her anti-rejection drugs. She needed to go back on dialysis three days a week to clear toxins from her blood, but North Carolina didn't cover that either.

The best a social worker could offer was a prepaid plane ticket back to California.

"When I came back here, I said, 'There is no way I'm leaving for another state again,' " said Toribio, now 29, before a technician poked two needles into her arm at the St. Joseph Hospital dialysis center in Orange.

Health services and other benefits available to illegal immigrants can vary by the state. Welfare, prenatal care or in-state college tuition might be available in one place and inaccessible across a state line.

The disparities reflect the nation's conflicting attitudes toward its estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. With limited federal guidance, states often are left to make their own decisions, frequently shaped by political winds.

Dialysis offers a striking example of the dilemmas -- and the occasional absurdities -- that result.

The number of patients is not large. In California, illegal immigrants account for about 1,350 of the 61,000 people on dialysis. Their treatment cost taxpayers $51 million last year.

But dialysis stands out because it is often a lifetime commitment. The investment in a single patient over time can easily top $1 million.

Many states draw the line at illegal immigrants. But officials in California, New York and a few other states figure that not treating patients whose kidneys are failing costs more.

That is because patients without regular dialysis frequently end up in emergency rooms, on the brink of death. At that point, federal law requires that they receive dialysis until they are stable enough to be released -- usually only to deteriorate again within weeks and return to the ER.

It's like "rescuing a person from drowning, giving someone a good meal and then pushing them over the side," said Dr. Laurence Lewin, a kidney specialist in Orange County.

Repeated rescuing not only threatens patients' long-term health, it generally costs more than routine care, some experts argue. In Texas, where illegal immigrants generally can't get routine care, some have cycled through the emergency room at El Paso's Thomason Hospital more than 100 times for life-saving dialysis, said kidney specialist Dr. Azikiwe Nwosu.

Such patients are at increased risk of heart attacks and infections.

"Its heartbreaking," said Dr. Claudia Zacharek, a kidney specialist who until recently worked in Galveston, Texas. "Your hands are tied."

In grappling with what services to provide for illegal immigrants, some states tip toward the need to care for the sick. Others see free healthcare as a de facto endorsement of their presence.

Congress tried to establish a balance. In 1986, it barred illegal immigrants from the federal health benefits generally available to the poor, with one notable exception: emergencies. The federal government agreed to share the cost of caring for poor illegal immigrants through state-run Emergency Medicaid programs.

The problem is that the federal definition of an emergency is open to interpretation: an acute condition that, without immediate care, would seriously jeopardize a patient's health or impair bodily functions, parts or organs.

When does an emergency start? When does it end?
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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-dialysis29-2008oct2...

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5.
Deportation-wary migrants targets of crime
Criminals counting on fear of police, experts say
By Daniel González
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), October 29, 2008

One Saturday evening in February, Gumercindo was chatting with a friend outside his central Phoenix apartment complex when a man walked up and demanded $100 from each.

"We told him we didn't have any money," recalled Gumercindo, who declined to give his last name because he is undocumented.

The man threw a large rock at Gumercindo, hitting the 31-year-old Guatemalan immigrant in the head above the right eye. Gumercindo fell to the ground, blood pouring down his face, as the man ran away. He now has a scar the size of a hockey puck where doctors operated to relieve pressure on his brain.

Gumercindo did not report the crime to police. He said that although he is afraid of criminals, he is even more afraid of being deported.

The attack on Gumercindo, and similar ones related by other Guatemalan immigrants in the Garfield neighborhood, is a sign that stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws is jeopardizing the safety of illegal immigrants, some immigrants and law-enforcement experts say.

The Garfield incidents are a recent example. Dozens of Guatemalan immigrants there say they are being routinely robbed by criminals who come by their apartment and demand money. If they don't pay, they get beat up. But the Guatemalans, who are undocumented, have not sought help from police because a general crackdown on illegal immigration has made them afraid.

As a result, "they (immigrants) are likely to take their chances with not reporting a crime and hoping for the best," said Ralph Tranter, former executive director of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police.

There are no statistics that track whether illegal immigrants are refusing more often to report crimes or are being preyed on by criminals because of their legal status. If immigrants aren't reporting crimes, Tranter said, it's difficult to know whether crime against them is on the rise.
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/10/29/200810...