1. DHS head touts border enforcement
2. Feds press judge to okay no-match
3. VA co. enforcement driving illegals out
4. UT chamber of commerce outlines plan
5. DC area illegals buck trend

1.
Chertoff to hand Obama immigration successes
Border Patrol beefed up; fence nearly complete
By Stephen Dinan (Contact)
The Washington Times, December 4, 2008

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff declared success Wednesday on President Bush's vow to double the size of the U.S. Border Patrol and near-success on his pledge to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The two measures leave President-elect Barack Obama in a better position to get an immigration bill passed, he said.

Mr. Chertoff said the Bush administration's recent step-up in enforcement has finally made a dent in illegal immigration, and should ease worries of those who blocked last year's immigration bill, arguing that the government needed to prove it was serious about enforcement before it could legalize current illegal aliens.

"For the first time, we've seen a real significant decrease quarter to quarter in terms of illegal immigrants coming into the country," Mr. Chertoff told reporters. "It doesn't mean the job is done, but it means for the first time we've reversed them and we're moving in the right direction."

Mr. Chertoff said the Border Patrol reached a force of 18,049 agents this week, which he said makes good on Mr. Bush's pledge to double the approximately 9,000 agents he inherited in 2001. Mr. Chertoff said Homeland Security will meet about 90 percent of its goal of fencing or vehicle barriers along 700 miles of the 1,950-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

"I think we have made a very good down payment on confidence and enforcement," he said, though he said it will be up to Mr. Obama to decide whether the federal government needs to do more enforcement before trying to achieve his campaign promise of a "comprehensive" immigration bill that includes a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.

Mr. Bush and a bipartisan coalition of senators tried last year to pass a bill that rewrote the rules for legal immigration, legalized illegal immigrants and promised better border security. But angry voters flooded Capitol Hill with calls, convincing lawmakers that the people lacked confidence that the government would secure the borders, thus sinking the bill.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/04/chertoff-to-hand-obama-i...

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2.
OK sought for immigration raids
By Bob Egelko
The San Francisco Chronicle, December 3, 2008

San Francisco -- The Bush administration is urging a federal judge to let it implement a crackdown on suspected illegal immigrants in the workplace before President George W. Bush leaves office.

In papers filed this week in U.S. District Court, the Department of Homeland Security argued for an accelerated schedule that could allow a regulation known as the no-match rule to take effect by mid-January.

The rule, which the department first proposed in August 2007, would threaten businesses with prosecution unless they fired employees whose Social Security numbers differed from their listings in the Social Security database.

The rule has been held up by a lawsuit filed by the AFL-CIO, other unions and business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Administration lawyers said in their filing that most issues have been resolved and further delays are unwarranted.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/6146034.html

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3.
Prince William seeing effects of immigrant crackdown
By David Sherfinski
The Examiner (Washington, DC), December 4, 2008

Many illegal immigrants have left Prince William County or slid out of public view in the 17 months since the county’s high-profile crackdown on them was proposed.

Student enrollment in the public schools’ English as a Second Language program has dropped by several hundred students over the past year while increasing in surrounding jurisdictions, one sign that immigrants have left.

Fewer day laborers congregate outside the 7-Eleven on the corner of Route 1 and Prince William Parkway in Woodbridge. About 10 of them gathered on a Tuesday afternoon several weeks ago looking for work, to no avail.

Police drive past, paying little attention to the group. In March, police officers cruising the area would have had the right to stop and ask for the men’s residency status if the officers had reason to believe they were in the country illegally.

The county changed its law against illegal immigrants July 1, requiring police to question the residency status only of those arrested, though officers still retain discretion to inquire into immigration status before making an arrest.

But the change is little comfort to many Hispanics, immigration lawyer Ricky Malik said.

“I think people here maybe changed and adapted — who they trust,” said Malik, who has offices in Manassas and Takoma Park. “Basic things — they don’t want to go to the courthouse. They’re hesitant to walk into such buildings. There’s definitely a greater distrust of any authority.”

There are no statistics to prove that illegal immigrants have moved, but figures such as the ESOL data and anecdotes suggest the county’s crackdown, approved in October 2007, and the recession have prompted illegals to leave or at least not wander too far outside their homes.
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http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/120408_Prince_William_seeing_effects_of_...

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4.
Chamber proposes state guest worker program
Immigration » U.S. workers would get first crack at jobs.
By Sheena Mcfarland
The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City), December 3, 2008

Undocumented immigrants would be able to work in Utah legally for a two-year period and have health insurance funded by a special guest worker tax under a plan laid out by business leaders Wednesday.

The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce delivered its proposal to the Legislature's Immigration Interim Committee. The plan is designed to address concerns employers have about keeping their workforce intact while complying with state and federal laws.

"This is something that we can do now that will address solutions and address fundamental problems in our immigration system," said Wesley Smith, policy director for the chamber. "There are folks here that want to work and contribute. If that's the case, we can resolve a lot of issues

Guest Worker Program

The program would:

Support comprehensive immigration reform on a state level

Gain necessary federal waivers to grant temporary work permits and have locals enforce federal laws

Keep tabs on location of all guest workers

Create a surety bond so the state does not foot the bill for immigration law enforcement

Withhold 15 percent of a guest worker's wages to pay for worker's health insurance

Withhold 10 percent of wages into an interest-bearing account that will go back to the worker after completing the guest worker program

Require health and auto insurance

Leaders of the Salt Lake business community are pushing a guest worker program they say would go a long way toward solving illegal immigration problems.

The proposal is designed to give U.S. workers first crack at jobs and to cover health care and other costs with a guest worker tax.

But some Utah lawmakers already are poking holes in the plan. They question what crimes would disqualify an immigrant from joining the program and whether workers in low-paying jobs could afford a 25 percent tax.

by allowing that to take place."

Called Utah's Employer Sponsored Work Program, it would require public notices for open positions at participating companies. Guest workers could only fill positions that no qualified U.S. worker wanted.

The Department of Workforce Services would administer the program. It would allow any undocumented immigrant who had not committed a major crime to sign up to work in the state legally for a two-year period with the option for renewal. About 15 percent of their wages -- the same amount withheld for Social Security tax -- would be collected in a tax used to pay for health insurance and for administrative costs. Another 10 percent would be withheld and put into an interest-bearing account that would be returned to workers who completed the program with no problems. The interest would be used to cover the program's costs.
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http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11131770

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5.
Illegals dig in
By Kathleen Miller
The Examiner (Washington, DC), December 4, 2008

Workers congregate at the intersection of University Boulevard and Piney Branch Road in Takoma Park last year, at a popular spot where day laborers would regularly try to find work. Factors including high demand for hospitality workers for the upcoming inauguration and the difficulty of returning home are keeping immigrants in the D.C. area. Examiner File Experts say the Washington region’s immigrant population remains stable, even as an economic downturn and tougher enforcement have caused the first recent decreases in illegal immigration nationally.

National organizations have seen the number of illegal immigrants decrease, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 1.3 million fewer people in the United States illegally. But locally, factors from a high demand for hospitality workers for the upcoming inauguration to the difficulty of returning home seem to be keeping immigrants here.

An October report from the Pew Hispanic Center said there were roughly 11.9 million illegal immigrants living in the United States in March 2008, down 500,000 people from the 12.4 million population estimate it reported in 2007.

The study said it was the first time in a decade that more immigrants were entering the country legally than illegally.

From 2000 to 2004, about 800,000 illegal immigrants a year entered the United States, but now the numbers have dropped to 500,000 a year, the report says. Meanwhile, legal immigration remains steady with about 650,000 authorized immigrants moving here each year.

Leaders of local immigrant advocacy groups such as CASA de Maryland and Virginia’s Tenants and Workers United say they’ve heard reports of immigrants heading home in other parts of the country, but they’re not seeing it here. Neither group checks the immigration status of the people they work with, so they can’t speak specifically about illegal immigrants, but they can discuss trends in the area’s immigrant community as a whole.

“The answer is a lot of people talk about it in a wishful way,” said Mario Quiroz, spokesman for CASA de Maryland. “They say, ‘I’m going to go home to be with my family,’ but in actuality, I have only seen one family who’s actually left.”

Quiroz says CASA, which operates day labor centers throughout Maryland, is seeing a 20 percent or so increase in those looking for work.

“Whatever conditions you have here are still probably better than what they have at home,” Quiroz said. “People used to send $300, $400, $500 a month back home; now they’re just saying, ‘Well, we’re having a bad time here too’ and not sending what they used to send.”

The Center for Immigration Studies, which favors stricter controls on all immigration, says the decline in the U.S. illegal immigrant population predates the current economic slump. The group reports a net loss of about 1.3 million illegal immigrants between August 2007 and May 2008, when the population slid from 12.5 million to 11.2 million.

Mark Krikorian, the center’s executive director, said he believes both the economic recession and increased enforcement efforts are causing the decline.

“The bad economy is not necessarily a self-correcting phenomenon for illegal immigration,” Krikorian said. “They’re not just going to leave because the housing market is tanking here when things are bad in their home country too, so increased enforcement is playing a role as well.”
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http://www.dcexaminer.com/local/Illegals_dig_in1204.html