1. Raid nabs 300 illegals in SC
2. Candidates continue Spanish ads
3. Senate competitors face off
4. Study: 2.7m illegally registered
5. VA co. makes progress with gangs
6. Activists registering immigrants
7. Same-sex couples ineligible
8. Border agent hit by car

1.
More than 300 arrested in immigration sweep
By Richard Fausset
Los Angeles Times. October 8, 2008

More than 300 suspected illegal immigrants were arrested Tuesday morning at a chicken processing plant near Greenville, S.C. -- the latest in a stepped-up federal enforcement effort that has resulted in the deportation of thousands of illegal workers in recent months.

Tuesday's raid was led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and involved hundreds of agents from numerous agencies. The target was Columbia Farms, a processing plant that had been the subject of a 10-month criminal investigation.

Resident David Wynn witnessed the hubbub from down the street and applauded the news.

"The excuse that they're taking jobs that Americans won't do -- well, that just doesn't hold water anymore," said Wynn, 48, the co-owner of a nearby air-conditioning wholesaler who spoke Tuesday afternoon by phone. "With the economic crisis we've got going on, we've got to put a stop to it."

Workplace raids such as the one at Columbia Farms have become increasingly common as the Bush administration draws near its end, especially since Congress last year failed to pass an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. Critics decry what they contend is the rough treatment of illegal immigrants, as well as the disruption to families.

On Tuesday, ICE Special Agent Kenneth A. Smith of Atlanta said the Greenville raid and others like it get to the root of the problem.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-raid8-2008oct08,...

********
********

2.
Immigration Ad War Continues in Spanish
By Ed O'Keefe
The Washington Post, October 8, 2008

Arguably one of the most intriguing aspects of the presidential campaign is how John McCain and Barack Obama continue to fight over the issue of immigration in only their Spanish language ads. The issue rarely arises in their English-language political debate, but Spanish-speaking television viewers continue to see it mentioned in campaign ads.

The most recent message, "Otra Vez Con Lo Mismo," comes from the Obama campaign and attacks McCain for a message he started airing last week.
. . .
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/07/immigration_ad_war...

********
********

3.
Noriega attacks Cornyn on immigration reform
By R.G. Ratcliffe
The Houston Chronicle, October 6, 2008

Austin -- Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega on Monday said Republican incumbent John Cornyn is an “obstructionist” on immigration reform who wants to have it “both ways” for political purposes.

Noriega, speaking to students at the University of Texas, also likened the $700 billion economic recovery legislation to the invasion of Iraq. Noriega said federal officials have no real plan for helping Wall Street and the American economy.

“The invasion of Iraq was a similar blunder, where you're making it up as you go along,” Noriega said.

Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin said Cornyn has been a leader in the fight for immigration reform. He accused Noriega of “fear-mongering” for votes.

McLaughlin also said it was hypocritical of Noriega to criticize the economic recovery package and then have New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton raise money for him in South Texas a day after she joined Cornyn and 73 other senators in voting for the package.

Though the forum was small, about 20 students participating in a lecture series, Noriega's critiques of Cornyn likely demonstrated the kinds of differences he plans to accentuate with Cornyn when they meet in their first statewide televised debate on Thursday.

That debate will be carried on public broadcasting system channels.
. . .
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/6043748.html

********
********

4.
Study calls into question number of non-citizen voters
By John Riley
The Dallas Morning News, October 7, 2008

The former head of a Washington think tank specializing in immigration issues says that voter registration numbers in Texas and elsewhere may be inflated because of the presence of non-citizens on voter rolls.

David Simcox, former executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, released a study Tuesday afternoon that said an estimated 1.8 million to 2.7 million non-citizen immigrants in the Unites States may be illegally registered to vote, thereby potentially influencing the outcome of the upcoming presidential and congressional elections.

The report also estimated that anywhere from 161,000 to 333,000 non-citizens may be registered to vote in Texas.

Calling the state's political culture "a mix of the worst of Old South Dixieland politics and Latin American politics," Mr. Simcox said Texas has a political history marked by election fraud, sometimes involving Mexican or Mexican-American voters.

Using Texas population estimates from the 2000 census, Mr. Simcox said his study found a disproportionately high number of registered voters when compared to the total number of eligible voters in six major metropolitan counties and five counties near the Mexican border, all having a high percentage of non-citizen residents.

The counties mentioned in Mr. Simcox's report were Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Harris, Maverick, Presidio, Starr, Tarrant, Travis, Valverde and Webb counties. The report found that, according to Mr. Simcox's calculations, Dallas, Harris, Presidio and Starr counties had a higher number of registered voters than legitimately eligible voters, a figure that excludes non-citizens and convicted felons.
. . .
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/10/study-calls-into...

********
********

5.
Gang unit sees success
By Cheryl Chumley
The Potomac News (VA), October 7, 2008

Between January and August of 2008, the number of gang members arrested in Prince William County was 197, according to statistics presented to supervisors at Tuesday’s meeting.

By comparison, 255 were arrested throughout 2007, said county police Detective Dennis Gill, and 226 and 263 were arrested in 2006 and 2005, respectively.

The presentation was aimed at giving supervisors an idea of the success level of a special task force unit formed in 1992, when gangs reportedly first appeared in the county, as well as a general overview of the reasons teens and young adults join, and other gang-related basics.

For instance, contrary to widespread belief, the majority of gang members in Prince William are adults, said Gill, who has been a member of the task force for nearly five years.
. . .
Vice chair John Stirrup, R-Gainesville, asked if police statistics were in line with recent findings from the Center for Immigration Studies - a non-profit located in Washington, D.C., to analyze the fiscal and social impacts of immigration – that “60-90-percent of MS-13 gang members are illegal aliens.”

Gill said he couldn’t “speak to the exact percentage, but I can tell you it is significant, yes.”
. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme#Abuse

********
********

6.
Immigration activists campaign to get out the vote
By Antonio Olivo
The Chicago Tribune, October 8, 2008

During the next four weeks, Immigration activists plan to swarm through nearly 700 Chicago-area neighborhoods, visiting some homes several times in a $1 million effort to pull at least 140,000 voters into the polls for the Nov. 4 elections, organizers announced Tuesday.

The campaign, involving about 2,500 volunteers, is part of an aggressive last push across the country to sway the result of the presidential race and several congressional contests in the direction of Immigration reforms.

"This is a serious campaign," said Juan Salgado, president of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which is coordinating the effort. "We have an agenda that's about democracy and living the best ideals of what this country is about."

As the period for registering to vote in Illinois came to an end Tuesday, activists at the news conference inside Daley Plaza displayed a 6-foot-high stack of about 25,000 registration forms signed in the last three months in what was the first phase of their plan to influence the elections.

The next phase will also feature nearly 350,000 live and automated phone calls, 172,000 pieces of mail and intensive lobbying of voters to make a stand for Immigration reform, Salgado said.
. . .
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-immig-voter-campaign-08-oct...

********
********

7.
U.S. immigration won't allow family unification for same-sex couples
By Luis F. Perez
The South Florida Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), October 8, 2008

As soon as Terrence Smith saw his partner step off a plane from England three years ago he knew he had found a soul mate.

It's a modern day love story, starting with an Internet hello. After weeks of online chatting, they met in Atlanta. A long-distance relationship ensued. Then Smith proposed.

If Smith had asked a woman to marry him, he would simply ask immigration officials to grant his wife permanent residence here. It's called family unification and it's the most common way for immigrants to gain legal status in the country. But federal law prohibits same-sex couples from that right.

So the 43-year-old Hollywood lawyer and Halil Akkor, 39, of London, remain separated. So do 36,000 of other same-sex couples across the country, according to Immigration Equality.

"U.S. immigration law intolerably discriminates against gay and lesbian Americans by denying them the same rights received by heterosexual couples," said U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D- Boca Raton, a co-sponsor of the Uniting America Families Act. "This is offensive and unacceptable."

Advocates say the act would grant immigration benefits to same-sex couples so that they could stay together in this country. But the bill has stalled in Congress.

Critics say granting immigration benefits to same-sex couples would be a step toward gay marriage.

"Americans basically support marriage between a man and a woman," said the Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, a church lobbying group.

Up until 1990, homosexuality was grounds for not allowing people into the United States, said Victoria Nielson, legal director of the New York-based Immigration Equality, an immigration rights group that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive individuals.
. . .
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-flbbinational100...

********
********

8.
Border agent hit by car near Campo checkpoint
The San Diego Union Tribune, October 8, 2008

East County, CA -- A Border Patrol agent was injured yesterday afternoon when he was struck by a car whose driver may have been trying to run the Border Patrol checkpoint on westbound Interstate 8 near Campo.
. . .
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20081008-9999-1m8pubsafe.html