1. Report: Court delayed naturalizations
2. CA population growth driven by immigrants
3. NY Gov. to meet family of slain Ecuadorian
4. MN Catholic bishops decry immigration raids
5. ACLU probing MD's enforcement policies
6. Illegal charged with PA murders

1.
Immigration report finds citizenship oaths delayed
By Anabelle Garay
The Associated Press, December 17, 2008

Dallas (AP) -- A court prevented nearly 2,000 people from taking the oath of U.S. citizenship in time to register to vote in the November elections, a new report released Wednesday said.

A study by the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman in Washington contends the court refused to schedule additional swearing-in ceremonies to accomodate the large number of naturalization applicants. As a result, 1,951 people did not receive the oath in time to register to vote.

"Courts that choose to assert exclusive authority to naturalize new citizens should also embrace a customer service ethic that recognizes the singular importance of oath ceremonies," CIS Ombudsman Michael Dougherty said in a statement.

The CIS Ombudsman, an independent office within the Department of Homeland Security, decided to not identify the court, said DHS spokeswoman Amy Kudwa.

"The office believes that working the matter privatey better assists individuals seeking naturalization in the future," she said.

The ombudsman said officials from the local U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services district office had explained they were "willing to quickly plan additional ceremonies with the court." But the court told the district director it had already "done more than its share." When the district director suggested USCIS be allowed to hold administrative ceremonies, the court "vehemently refused," according to the report. USCIS provided the information to the ombudsman
. . .
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6169777.html

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

2.
California passes 38 million residents; growth remains steady in the South Bay
By Mike Swift
The San Jose Mercury News (CA), December 17, 2008

Even in the face of a worrying recession, California's population topped 38 million this year for the first time, as Bay Area counties like Santa Clara continued to gain significant numbers of new residents.

The top two reasons, say state demographers: Babies and immigrants.

"Lots of births and lots of people coming from other countries," said Linda Gage, a demographer with the California Department of Finance, which produced new population estimates for the state's 58 counties as of July 1.

The data also shows that Santa Clara County, the state's sixth largest with 1.85 million people, gained about 32,000 people between July 2007 and July 2008, ranking fourth among the 58 counties in population growth. The county grew by 1.74 percent, ranking eighth behind slightly faster-growing counties such as Placer, Imperial and Riverside.

In the South Bay, the growth may well be temporary. Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto, said the growth recorded in the latest state estimates reflect a time when Silicon Valley and the Bay Area were doing better economically than the rest of the nation, attracting job seekers from outside the region and the country.

"I don't expect those strong levels of migration to continue now that the Bay Area is going to participate in the recession," Levy said. "But certainly for the period that ended in June of '08 and began a year earlier, those folks were looking at very strong job pictures through the Peninsula, and that would be my explanation for the very high levels of growing population. I don't expect it to continue."

Nevertheless, Santa Clara County added more people through foreign immigration between 2007 and 2008 than any fiscal year since 2001, while many fewer people ?left the South Bay for other parts of the country than early in the decade. Santa Clara County "is still a very, very attractive destination for our foreign migrants," Gage said.
. . .
http://www.mercurynews.com/census-and-demographics/ci_11258429

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

3.
NY gov due to meet with family of slain immigrant
Newsday (NY), December 18, 2008

New York -- Police continue to investigate the beating death of an Ecuadorean immigrant in Brooklyn as a possible hate crime as his family prepares to have his body flown home for burial.

Gov. David Paterson is scheduled to meet with relatives of Jose Sucuzhanay (suh-KOO'-chen-eye) on Thursday, along with Ecuadorean government officials.

The 31-year-old real estate broker was beaten Dec. 7 by men spouting anti-Latino and anti-gay slurs as he walked arm in arm with his brother near his home in Bushwick.
. . .
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--brothers-hatecr...

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

4.
Bishops call for immigration reform
By Laura Grevas
The Worthington Daily Globe (MN), December 18, 2008

Just days after the two-year anniversary of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid of the Swift and Co. meatpacking plant, Catholic leaders conducted a teleconference Tuesday, discussing the long-term impacts of recent immigration raids on rural communities and calling for compassionate immigration reform.

“While we recognize our nation’s right to maintain secure boarders, we oppose policies and practices that separate families and fuel suspicion, fear, intimidation, hatred and violence,” said Bishop Bernard Harrington of the Diocese of Winona, reading from the Minnesota Catholic Bishops’ Statement on Immigration.

The statement was released Dec. 12, the date marking the second anniversary of the raid and the Mexican celebration of the festival of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the church.

Sister Karen Thein, the Hispanic ministry coordinator at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Worthington and Sister Anna Marie Reha, the director of Hispanic ministry in the Diocese of New Ulm also participated in the call.

“We experience the benefits of our immigrant brothers and sisters. They contribute to our economy; their presence revitalizes neighborhoods and communities. This is clearly seen in our small towns in rural Minnesota,” Reha said.

Thein spoke about the effect the raid has had on the Worthington community.

“Fear continues today,” she said. “People live in the shadows of the community.”

In an interview Wednesday, Thein said she doesn’t think area immigrants fear there will be another raid, but suspicion of strangers in the community lingers.

“If someone comes into their home, they’re not as open about opening doors as they were before,” she said. “When someone comes in that they don’t know or haven’t seen, they would think it would probably be ICE.”

The processing of those detained in the raid continues today, Thein said, causing uncertainty for families left behind.

“We still have people who have had court dates; there still are people who are leaving the country that have to go back,” she said. “Many of the people who stayed, they were not able to work or find jobs.”
. . .
http://www.dglobe.com/articles/index.cfm?id=17321

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

5.
State ACLU Is Probing Anti-Immigrant Policies
Review Seeks Details of Local Initiatives
By Aaron C. Davis
The Washington Post, December 18, 2008; T03

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland has launched a review of local efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants, saying a patchwork of increasingly harsh policies might be violating some residents' rights.

In announcing the project, the group singled out two moves it is questioning: an initiative by Frederick County officials to use local police to identify and help deport illegal immigrants and an Anne Arundel County effort to crack down on county contractors that employ illegal immigrants.

The civil rights group has set up an office to review the laws and to challenge those it thinks have gone too far.

"We need to get a sense of how these laws are being enforced and then see how they're impacting the immigrant community," said Ajmel Quereshi, the ACLU attorney who will head the effort, called the Immigrants Rights Project. "If the laws are hurting those communities, then we will review the constitutionality and see if there are" grounds to challenge, he said.

ACLU chapters and immigrant rights groups in other states have begun similar efforts, although many are not as organized as that in Maryland. Nationwide, the ACLU says about 1,500 anti-immigrant ordinances were introduced by local lawmakers last year, touching on topics including education, employment, housing and voting.
. . .
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/17/AR200812...

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

6.
Illegal alien held over to face murder charges in truck attack
Jose Maldonado-Luzuriaga is put into a police car yesterday following his bail hearing in Bensalem. He was ordered to stand trial on murder charges after allegedly ramming a truck into, and killing, William Sullo III, left. (Trentonian Photo/CARLOS AVILA)
By Artemis Coughlan
The Trentonian (Trenton), December 18, 2008

Bensalem, PA -- An illegal alien from South America was ordered to stand trial on murder charges yesterday after a witness told of diving away from the truck the suspect allegedly used to fatally smash the victim against a wall.
. . .
http://www.trentonian.com/articles/2008/12/18/news/doc4949deb83a33161806...