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1. Feds pull detainees from RI center
2. DHS Sec.-select outlines policies
3. Fed. judge upholds Bush's changes
4. Survey looks at Hispanics' priorities
5. Illegals found held hostage

1.
Federal immigration officials terminate contract with RI detention facility after inmate death
By Hilary Russ
The Associated Press, January 15, 2009

Providence, RI (AP) -- Federal immigration officials said Thursday that guards at a privately run detention facility dragged a detainee dying of cancer screaming down the hall, even though he had a doctor's note authorizing the use of a wheelchair.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pulled all 153 of its immigration detainees out of the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls last month as it investigated the August death of Hiu Lui "Jason" Ng, a 34-year-old Chinese immigrant. On Thursday, the agency notified Wyatt officials that it would terminate its contract with the jail and permanently stop sending detainees there.

ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said the agency concluded its investigation Monday into the death of Ng, a computer engineer who had settled in Queens, N.Y., and was at the facility for allegedly overstaying a visa.

The agency said Ng's health needs were not properly communicated and that he was denied access to proper medical care at Wyatt at least twice. Its report also describes a videotape that shows guards preparing to take Ng to an interview with federal authorities in Hartford, Conn.

On the tape, ordered by Warden Wayne Salisbury in case Ng resisted, Ng was seen crying and having difficulty standing up. A captain, whose name was redacted from the report, repeatedly told him to get out of his cell on his own, despite the doctor's note authorizing the wheelchair, the report said.

Ng screamed loudly when officers finally picked him up off his bed, placing their hands under his armpits to lift him. They carried him down the hall, facing forward, his feet dragging on the ground as he continued screaming in pain.

A captain ordered an officer to destroy and rewrite a report about the incident in order to include that Ng was "non-compliant," ICE's report said.

Many of ICE's findings mirror claims by lawyers from the Rhode Island chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Ng's family.

"The report documents in excruciating detail the incredibly cruel and inhumane punishment that Mr. Ng endured during his stay at Wyatt," said Steve Brown, Rhode Island's ACLU director, who is representing Ng's family. "This report can't absolve ICE itself of its responsibility for what happened."

ICE's report details months of Ng's detention at several different New England facilities, during which the most serious problems he reported in routine medical exams were depression and an itchy skin rash.

But it also shows the rapid decline of his health because of what his autopsy revealed to be late-stage liver cancer, from which he died in a hospital just over month after arriving at Wyatt.

The report said guards once accused Ng of refusing medication when he couldn't walk to the door of his cell to receive it. Another time, Ng was effectively denied a diagnostic scan when he was denied the use of a wheelchair.

And a nurse at Wyatt failed to pass on information to a doctor or include what were clear instructions for Ng's care to the jail's records after an emergency room visit, the report found.

"We found a consistent lack of communication regarding Mr. Ng's health care needs between security personnel and medical staff," Nantel said.

Salisbury and a spokesman for Wyatt both declined to comment or confirm the termination of the contract. An attorney for the facility did not return a call for comment.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-detainee-death,1,204...

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2.
Napolitano outlines immigration policy
By John Yaukey
The Arizona Republic (Phoenix), January 16, 2009

Washington, DC -- Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, the nominee to be Homeland Security secretary, pledged Thursday to get tougher with employers who hire illegal workers.

"You have to deal with illegal immigration from the demand side as well as the supply side," she told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee during her confirmation hearing. The committee is expected to send her nomination to the full Senate for a vote early next week.

"You have deal with what is drawing people across the border, and that is a job," said Napolitano, a former federal prosecutor and state attorney general.

Napolitano, who signed into law Arizona's employer-sanctions bill, didn't elaborate on her plans for dealing with employers who hire illegal workers. Some critics of immigration reform complain that law enforcement has been lax in prosecuting those employers.

Napolitano's comments dealt with aspects of a larger immigration strategy that she said would include fences along the southern border in some places, technology to track human movement and revisiting the controversial Real ID program, which called for national standards for state driver's licenses.

Napolitano also said improving disaster response, enhancing transportation security and tracking emerging terrorist threats would be among her top priorities.

If confirmed, she would be the nation's third Homeland Security secretary, a Cabinet-level position created after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

As secretary, Napolitano could face an early challenge.

President George W. Bush was in office less than eight months before the 2001 terrorist attacks. Shortly after President Bill Clinton took office in 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center.

Napolitano's hearing was cordial, with committee members pledging to back her nomination.

Despite criticism from opponents that she has opposed tougher immigration enforcement, there was no controversy at the hearing.

She was flanked by Arizona's two Republican senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain, who praised her experience, her competence and, for climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa and beating cancer, her stamina.

"She will bring a wealth of experience to the department," Kyl said.

Napolitano was peppered with questions on immigration and border security, and she stressed the kind of practical approach that has won her praise from governors and national lawmakers.

She said she would meet with the nation's governors and look for ways to improve the concept behind the Real ID program and lighten the burden it imposes on states.

She has opposed the program's tamper-proof, more secure driver's licenses out of concerns they would cost Arizona too much.

"We need to rethink, revisit and re-consult here and then come back to this committee if necessary," she said.

Southern border fences, she said, could be valuable near urban areas. But she said a barrier spanning the entire southern border would be impractical and ineffective in remote regions where technology would work better.

Napolitano was not questioned about the politically charged issue of work-site raids conducted by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. President-elect Barack Obama has been highly critical of the raids.
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/01/16/200901...

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3.
Federal judge refuses to stop Labor Department from changing immigrant farmworker visa program
The Associated Press, January 15, 2009

Washington, DC (AP) -- A federal judge on Thursday turned down a request to stop the Bush administration from instituting new rules that will make it easier for farmers to bring in foreign work crews to harvest their spring crops.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina refused the request from the United Farm Workers and Farmworker Justice to stop the Labor Department from instituting new H2-A visa rules.

H2-A visas are used by the agriculture industry to hire temporary farm workers.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-immigration...

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4.
Economy cited most by Latinos as vital issue for Obama; immigration is No. 6
A survey by the Pew Hispanic Center looks at the priorities Latinos perceive for the Obama administration.
By Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2009

Days before Barack Obama begins his presidency, a new survey has found that Latinos do not believe immigration should be the top priority for the new administration.

Rather, the economy was cited most often by Latinos as an "extremely important" issue for the Obama administration -- followed by education, healthcare, national security and the environment.

Thirty-one percent of Latinos rated immigration as extremely important, whereas 57% said the economy was.

"Latinos are no different from anybody else," said Mark Hugo Lopez, lead author of the Pew Hispanic Center study, released Thursday. "The economic downturn has impacted Latinos in many ways."

The housing market collapse and the decline in the construction industry in particular have left many Latinos out of work, Lopez said.

"It's not that immigration has fallen off the radar entirely," he said. "It's that other issues have become relatively more important."

The Pew researchers, who interviewed 1,540 Latinos nationwide in November, did not ask specifically about immigration policy or potential legislation. Past studies have shown that Latinos disapproved of the aggressive immigration policies of the Bush administration.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-na-latinos16-2009jan16,0,2745656....

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5.
Illegal immigrants held hostage by smugglers
The Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2009

In 2005, police discovered and removed 58 illegal immigrants being held hostage by smugglers in Los Angeles. Two illegal immigrants were found just last Tuesday at a drop house in Lancaster, where they had reportedly been held hostage by smugglers since Christmas Day. Photograph by Richard Hartog Los Angeles Times

Two illegal immigrants were found Tuesday night at a drop house in Lancaster, where they had reportedly been held hostage by smugglers since Christmas Day.
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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/01/two-illegal-imm.html