1. Latinos to press for amnesty
2. Imm. hawks alienated Latinos
3. NC sheriffs nab 3100 illegals
4. NY co. exec. apologizes over murder
5. MA plant owners settle labor dispute
6. Security companies profit

1.
Latinos may push Obama on immigration
By Tim Gaynor
Reuters, November 19, 2008

Los Angeles (Reuters) -- After months on the sidelines, Hispanics who voted for Barack Obama in record numbers may put immigration reform back on the agenda once he becomes U.S. president in January.

Some 12 million mostly Hispanic migrants live and work in the United States illegally, and the issue of what to do with them divides Americans.

As a senator, the Democrat Obama backed a bipartisan bill last year supported by his Republican rival Sen. John McCain that sought a path out of the shadows for some of them. Republicans defeated the bill amid criticism that it amounted to "amnesty."

Obama supports a more comprehensive immigration reform which includes a pledge to tighten border security and impose tougher penalties for employers hiring illegal immigrants.

Hispanics who are U.S. citizens, 67 percent of whom voted for Obama on November 4, rate the economy and the war in Iraq as more important issues, but activists and analysts say many also rank immigration as a top issue and they will likely expect action.

"We voted for a person who we believed understood the importance of immigrants to this country," said Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

"While it isn't a strict quid pro quo, there is expectation that he will deliver on these promises," she added.

Fastest Growing Minority

Immigration was not an issue during the campaign as both Obama and McCain sought to tread a fine line between courting Hispanic voters, while not alienating opponents of comprehensive immigration reform.

Latinos are the fastest growing minority group in the country, accounting for about 9 percent of the U.S. electorate. That's important to Democrats eager to flex their muscle in the White House and Congress.

Democrats will have their biggest majority in years when the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives reconvene in January.

"The question for Democrats as they think about tackling immigration reform is, are they going to take (Hispanic support) for granted or are they going to feel they need to do something in the shorter term in order to solidify it?" said Tamar Jacoby, the CEO of ImmigrationWorksUSA, a national employers' coalition incorporated earlier this year.

Divisions run deep. Hard-liners decry illegal immigrants as a drain on resources and want them rounded up and returned to their countries of origin. Obama and vice president-elect Joe Biden would have them pay a fine, learn English and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become U.S. citizens.

Other Issues?

Analysts say Obama would be ill-advised to reopen the divisive fight over immigration at a time when the struggling U.S. economy is shedding around 200,000 jobs a month.

"Trying to argue that we need to legalize people who are illegally in the country when the country is losing jobs at one of the fastest rates in the past 20 years is a really tough sell," said Steven Camarota, research director at the pro-enforcement Center for Immigration Studies think-tank.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4AI1IM20081119?

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2.
Anti-immigration stance costs GOP
Chandra Persaud, a sociologist at Mississippi Valley State University, reflects on the impact immigrants had on the 2008 presidential election. Photo by Charlie Smith.
By Charlie Smith
The Greenwood Commonwealth (MS), November 18, 2008

Mounting hostility toward immigrants during the last four years pushed them away from Republicans and into Democrats’ waiting hands, according to a Mississippi Valley State University sociologist.

Chandra Persaud said their votes would have been enough to turn the election in Barack Obama’s favor if he had needed it.

Hispanics, who now make up 15 percent of the U.S. population according to the latest Census estimates, have traditionally voted Republican because of their Catholic backgrounds and Democrats’ support for abortion rights, Persaud said.

However, as the GOP became increasingly known for its anti-immigrant sentiment, she theorizes, the downward pressure on Latinos, Asians and other immigrant groups brought them together under a candidate they believed would embrace them.

“The main reason driving this vote was inclusion,” she said. “The immigrants made a decision to make their vote count.”

Latinos supported Obama 67 percent to 30 percent for McCain, according to CNN exit polls, and many commentators credited them with shifting states won by George Bush in 2004 such as Colorado, Nevada, Virginia and Florida to Democrats.

The election demonstrated a theory of Persaud’s MVSU colleague, political scientist Larry Chappell, that even if Americans don’t have a legal obligation toward non-citizens they do have a moral obligation.

“Good citizens in the United States should attempt to treat immigrants as informal citizens,” he said.

Whether they want to or not, Americans may be forced to deal with immigrants as they begin to comprise a greater chunk of the populace. By mid-century, the Census Bureau expects Hispanics and Asians to be 39 percent of the population.
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http://gwcommonwealth.com/articles/2008/11/18/news/top_stories/11182008n...

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3.
NC sheriffs release illegal immigration data
The Associated Press, November 18, 2008

Raleigh (AP) -- Sheriffs in seven North Carolina counties have identified more than 3,100 people in their jails processed for deportation proceedings this year.

The North Carolina Sheriffs Association provided legislators Tuesday with data from a program in which sheriffs work with federal immigration officials to determine if people arrested are in the country illegally.
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http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/state/nc-sheriffs-release-illegal-immig...

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4.
Levy apologizes to family of Patchogue stabbing victim
By Reid J. Epstein
Newsday (NY), November 19, 2008

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy yesterday for the first time apologized directly to the family of the Ecuadorean man killed in a Patchogue hate-crime stabbing for calling the assault "a one-day story" and urged "people of goodwill" to denounce intolerance.

"It was a mistake for me to make that comment because it could appear to trivialize the tragic death of Mr. Lucero, and for that, I humbly apologize to his family," he said. "My strong and immediate denouncing of the act was a clear indication that trivializing this event was the last thing I wanted to do."

In a 12-minute address on News 12 that invoked President-elect Barack Obama, the destruction of Jewish-owned stores in Nazi Germany and segregation on Long Island, Levy declared that he hoped the death of Marcelo Lucero, 37, would not be in vain. Prosecutors charge that Lucero, who died Nov. 8, was attacked by seven teenagers, one of whom was charged with manslaughter as a hate crime. The others face gang assault charges.

"The best message we can send to those who think as this small mob did is that they will be met by a wall of people of all colors and all political perspectives who will fight for what is morally right and oppose intimidation and physical violence," Levy said.

The second-term executive, who spoke from the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge, also pledged to be more sensitive in his comments about immigration-related issues.

But Levy, who launched a group of elected officials opposed to illegal immigration, defended his longtime policies and said the community's healing process should begin across ideological lines. "The battle lines should not be drawn between those supporting or not supporting differing immigration policies," he said. "Instead, they should be between the likes of those who killed Marcelo Lucero and all people of goodwill who will stand up to evil."
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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-polevy1912188469nov19,...

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5.
Raided factory, workers make deal on owed OT
By Brian R. Ballou
The Boston Globe, November 19, 2008

The former owner of a New Bedford leather goods factory raided by immigration officials early last year has settled a class-action lawsuit, agreeing to pay $850,000 to former employees who worked up to 16 hours a day but weren't paid overtime.

The lawsuit alleged that Michael Bianco Inc. set up a sham corporation, Front Line Defense Inc., to avoid paying overtime wages to employees, many of whom were illegal immigrants. Employees who worked more than eight hours on the same day were required to clock out of day shifts at 5 p.m. from Michael Bianco Inc. and then clock back in for evening shifts at 5:30 p.m. with Front Line, the suit alleged. The workers received two separate checks, to make it appear they had not exceeded the 40 hours a week that would trigger time-and-a-half overtime pay, the suit says. The company made military backpacks and other equipment for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Most of the time, the workers were doing the same work on the same machine as they did during the day," said Audrey Richardson, senior attorney for Greater Boston Legal Services, which represented workers in the case, along with Philip Kassel, an attorney with South Coastal Counties Legal Services. Richardson spoke yesterday during a news conference to announce the settlement.

Michael Bianco Inc. was sold last year to Eagle Industries of Fenton, Mo.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Boston last year, was brought by five former and one current employee of the factory but extends to 764 workers. The amounts of the compensation vary, depending on the hours of overtime each employee worked, with the majority of workers receiving from $1,000 to $5,000 but some getting as much as $8,000, lawyers said. The six employees who raised the allegations will receive $2,000 above the overtime wages, compensation for their efforts in bringing the lawsuit.

The award includes money for employees who were docked up to 30 minutes of pay for clocking in one or two minutes late after waiting in long lines to punch their timecards.

Getting the money to the workers, many of whom have been deported, will be the responsibility of the Department of Labor and Greater Boston Legal Services.

At the news conference in downtown Boston yesterday, several former employees, speaking Spanish and using a translator, discussed the settlement. The employees declined to comment on their immigration status.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/11/19/raided_factory_work...

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6.
Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons
By Stephanie Chen
The Wall Street Journal, November 18, 2008

Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons and several state governments have sent thousands of inmates in recent months to prisons and detention centers run by Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group Inc. and other private operators, as a crackdown on illegal immigration, a lengthening of mandatory sentences for certain crimes and other factors have overcrowded many government facilities.

Prison-policy experts expect inmate populations in 10 states to have increased by 25% or more between 2006 and 2011, according to a report by the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.

Private prisons housed 7.4% of the country's 1.59 million incarcerated adults in federal and state prisons as of the middle of 2007, up from 1.57 million in 2006, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a crime-data-gathering arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Corrections Corp., the largest private-prison operator in the U.S., with 64 facilities, has built two prisons this year and expanded nine facilities, and it plans to finish two more in 2009. The Nashville, Tenn., company put 1,680 new prison beds into service in its third quarter, helping boost net income 14% to $37.9 million. "There is going to be a larger opportunity for us in the future," said Damon Hininger, Corrections Corp.'s president and chief operations officer, in a recent interview.

California has shipped more than 5,100 inmates to private prisons run by Corrections Corp. in Arizona, Mississippi and other states since late 2006, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered emergency measures to control a ballooning state-prison population. Prisons were so overcrowded that hundreds of inmates were sleeping in gyms, according to one report. An additional 2,900 prisoners are scheduled to be transferred to private prisons outside the state by the end of next year, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"Private prisons are a short-term solution while we work on long-term solutions, rehabilitation programs and recidivism strategies," said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the state's corrections department.

Geo Group, of Boca Raton, Fla., the second-largest prison company, has built or expanded eight facilities this year in Georgia, Texas, Mississippi and other states, and it plans seven more expansions or new prisons by 2010. Last month, Geo Group was awarded a contract by Florida's Department of Management Services to design and build a 2,000-bed special-needs prison in that state. Cornell Cos., the nation's third-largest prison company, recently broke ground on a 1,250-bed private prison for men in Hudson, Colo.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons, the government agency that operates all federal prisons and manages the handling of inmates convicted of federal crimes, has awarded 13 contracts since 1997 to prison companies to build prisons and detention centers that house low-security inmates, primarily "low security criminal aliens," says Felicia Ponce, a spokeswoman for the agency. The contracts give the bureau "flexibility to manage a rapidly growing inmate population and to help control overcrowding," Ms. Ponce says.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705334657739263.html?mod=googlenews_wsj [pay site]