1. DHS pick seen as a moderate
2. Rep. Tancredo retires from office
3. DHS employee arrested for hiring
4. RI slow to deport criminals
5. UT bill enlists local law enforcement
6. TN sued over policies

1.
Napolitano has built moderate immigration record
By Jacques Billeaud and Arthur H. Rotstein
The Associated Press, December 7, 2008
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jftPDpw-EsXaMpaK_rz-fd...

Phoenix (AP) -- Janet Napolitano didn't begin her tenure as Arizona's governor focused on immigration, but she gradually built a record of trying to confront the state's vast border woes.

As President-elect Barack Obama's nominee to become homeland security chief, Napolitano has won praise from immigrant advocates for her real-world border experience and firm grasp on the complexities of immigration, while hard-liners question the sincerity of her efforts and qualifications to run a huge bureaucracy.

The Democratic governor is a hard-to-predict moderate on immigration. She proposed sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and approved state laws prohibiting immigrant smuggling and the hiring of illegal border-crossers. But she has vetoed 10 measures pushed by border hard-liners, most notably attempts to draw local police into the fight against illegal immigration on a wide scale.

"Napolitano is probably the least bad person that an Obama administration could have picked for the job," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for strict immigration laws. "She has cultivated a hawkish pose on illegal immigration, which is mostly for show but not entirely without foundation."

Ali Noorani, executive director of the pro-immigrant National Immigration Forum, said Napolitano understands this country's dependence on immigration and would be a powerful advocate for overhauling border policies.

"She's a measured, pragmatic, principled leader around immigration issues, and she really understands the balance between border trade and border enforcement and how immigration reform is the undercurrent for both," Noorani said.

Napolitano won the governorship six year ago when voters were growing frustrated with Arizona's status as the busiest illegal entry point on the U.S.-Mexico border. Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are caught trying to sneak into the state each year.

She resisted initial efforts pushed by Republicans in the Arizona Legislature for a state crackdown on illegal immigration, rejected an attempt to make English the state's official language and voiced support for giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

But her administration also cracked down on fake ID rings that produce documents used by illegal border-crossers, sought ways to reduce the costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants convicted of state crimes, and proclaimed loudly that the federal government had to do a better job on immigration.

After declaring a state of emergency because of problems at the international boundary, she proposed putting National Guard troops on border duty, four months before President George W. Bush took up a similar idea.

She vetoed a wide-ranging immigration bill that included penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants, saying a loophole it actually created amnesty for businesses. Last year, she signed a different bill that prohibited such hirings.

She opened the door for local police to dig into immigration by approving a state immigrant smuggling law, though only a few law enforcement agencies have used it since its creation three years ago.

But she rejected proposals that would have criminalized the presence of illegal immigrants in the state and would have given local police the power to enforce federal immigration laws.

That 2005 police powers proposal provided no money for such new duty, which the governor said would cost Phoenix — the nation's busiest hub for transporting illegal workers — $19 million. "As such, it is not a real solution to our immigration problems," Napolitano wrote at the time.

That same year, she vetoed a prohibition on illegal immigrants attending adult education classes, receiving child care assistance and having cheaper in-state tuition status at public universities.

She has urged Bush to help improve visa systems and guest-worker programs. She peppered the feds with invoices for $500 million in unreimbursed costs for imprisoning immigrants convicted of state crimes.

She also told the federal government repeatedly that the agency responsible for investigating smuggling failed to adequately staff its Arizona operation and had a revolving door of leadership.

Angela Kelley, executive director of the Immigration Policy Center in Washington, another immigrant advocacy organization, said Napolitano's deep understanding of the border and corresponding solutions prepare her well for running the country's immigration agencies.

"To have somebody at ground zero on the immigration issue, that's something we haven't seen before at DHS, and that is very badly needed," Kelley said.

Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, an ardent advocate of tougher immigration laws, said he doesn't feel comfortable with Napolitano running a huge bureaucracy whose other responsibilities include protecting the president, coordinating disaster response and securing the nation's transportation systems.

"Outside the narrow field of expertise that she has, there is absolutely nothing that I can think of that would make me feel good about her position there," Tancredo said.

T.J. Bonner, president of a union representing Border Patrol agents, was encouraged by Napolitano's nomination. "She's a border state governor who clearly has the knowledge of the problems being faced," he said. "And more importantly, she understands about the criminal aliens coming across."

Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a volunteer border-watch group, questioned Napolitano's qualifications but said she might be the right person to bring the National Guard back to the border after troops were pulled out this summer.

"I'll give her a fair chance before I start criticizing her," Simcox said.

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2.
Illegal immigration foe Rep. Tom Tancredo retires
By Kristen Wyatt
The Associated Press, December 8, 2008
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gk59MmKZ-pcOZgwnCU8WOD...

Centennial, CO (AP) -- When Tom Tancredo, the lightning-rod Colorado conservative, went to Congress a decade ago, he promised he wouldn't disappear in Washington. He sure didn't.

Tancredo made headlines clashing with Democrats and his fellow Republicans. He could be hard to figure even by his allies. The grandson of Italian immigrants, Tancredo founded the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus and achieved national recognition with aggressive, biting rhetoric against what he called out-of-control immigration and bilingual education.

At home, Tancredo lived six doors down from Columbine High School, but he resisted calls for stronger gun control after the nation's deadliest high school shooting in 1999. He was born Catholic, but converted to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and blasted Pope Benedict XVI for defending immigrants during a papal visit to Washington.

Tancredo was called racist for presidential campaign ads that suggested Latino immigrants are rapists and drug dealers. He once said Miami was like a Third World country because of its growing non-English-speaking population. He suggested America should threaten to destroy Islam's holy city of Mecca in case of a future terrorist attack.

Tancredo's poorly funded, longshot run for president ended in 2007, and he stayed quiet the rest of the campaign.

Now he's retiring, maybe to run for Colorado governor in two years, maybe to join a right-leaning think tank, perhaps one like a suburban Denver organization he ran in the 1990s. An inflexible but at the same time gracious man, Tancredo, 62, knows he made plenty of enemies in Washington. It seems he wouldn't have it any other way.

Tancredo recalls that when he ran for Congress in 1998, he repeatedly made one promise: "I guarantee you this, if you send me there, I'm not going to just take up space. You're going to know there's someone there, and he's gonna be loud and somewhat boisterous."

Tancredo grinned.

"And I think I've lived up to that promise."

His refusal to go along with the crowd didn't win him any plum committee assignments or top billing on major legislation. But it won him a measure of respect, even from those who disagreed with him.

"When he found out he couldn't work within the system to establish what was important for the country, he kind of abandoned that process and went straight to the American people and made that case there," said Mike Coffman, Colorado's Republican secretary of state who will succeed Tancredo in a district that includes Denver's conservative southern suburbs.

Five years ago, Coffman refused to share a stage with Tancredo at an Iraq War rally in Denver, a protest by a veteran against a congressman who received a deferment from service during the Vietnam War.

Now Coffman says he's looking to Tancredo for guidance.

"It is better to be an outsider than to compromise your principles," Coffman said. "He set a course, to go beyond the Congress and to make a case directly to the American people, even if that means alienating your colleagues, which he did."

Some say Tancredo's unflagging interest in illegal immigration overshadowed his other work. Tancredo sponsored 2002's Sudan Peace Act, and he worked to improve diplomatic relations with Taiwan — two arenas few of his constituents would identify with.

"He has great principles that I think were overshadowed by his work on the immigration issue," said Rep. Doug Lamborn, a fellow Republican from a Colorado district just south of Tancredo's.

Tancredo's sharp words will leave him with a single-tone legacy, said Princeton University congressional historian Julian Zelizer.

"When he's discussed, he'll be used I think as one of the examples of what was wrong with the Republican party," Zelizer said. "I think there'll be a lot of people who will say his kind of politics didn't sit well with a lot of Americans."

Tancredo seems a little worried he'll be remembered only for blasting illegal immigrants.

"There are a lot of issues beyond immigration that I want to deal with," he said. He mentioned energy policy, what he sees as a need for more domestic exploration for fossil fuels.

But he was sanguine about his influence if he'd stayed on in Congress.

"I just didn't feel that there was anything left I could do in the House," he said.

It's unclear what may be left for him politically, though he says he's considering a 2010 run against Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter.

Last summer, Tancredo headlined a rally of the Minutemen anti-illegal immigration group at a Denver park during the Democratic National Convention. Just a couple dozen showed up.

Tancredo's phone rings less now, and sitting in his suburban office amid empty bookshelves, he relaxes in a fleece zip-up pullover and seems to look forward most to catching more baseball games starring his grandsons.

But he promises — again — he won't disappear. And he takes pride in his decade in Congress.

"I've been able to move the debate in this country on a major issue. And that doesn't happen very often, that a member of the House of Representatives can do such a thing," he said. "I have been very, very lucky in that regard."

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3.
Official Accused of Hiring Illegal Immigrants
By Katie Zezima
The New York Times, December 5, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/us/06immig.html

Boston -- A federal official who oversees immigration enforcement in three New England states was charged Friday with hiring three illegal immigrants to clean her Salem, Mass., home.

The authorities said the official, Lorraine Henderson, the Boston area port director for the Department of Homeland Security, counseled her housekeeper on how to evade deportation. The housekeeper was cooperating with federal officials and wearing a recording device.

“You have to be careful ’cause they will deport you,” Ms. Henderson told the woman, who is from Brazil, after she asked about filing immigration papers for her new baby, the federal complaint says.

Ms. Henderson is in charge of all international points of entry, including airports and shipping terminals, in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and she supervises more than 200 Customs and Border Protection agency employees. She was also responsible for preventing illegal immigrants from entering the country and processing all foreign citizens at ports. She was appointed to the post in 2003.

According to a biography from the Northeast Supply Chain Conference and Exhibition, where Ms. Henderson lectured on cargo security, she has worked in customs since 1975.

Ms. Henderson surrendered her badge on Friday morning, and was arraigned in the afternoon in federal court and released on $25,000 bond. If convicted, she faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The authorities said Ms. Henderson continued to employ the housekeeper despite knowing she was in the country illegally.

They contend that Ms. Henderson recommended the housekeeper to another customs agent in 2004. In November 2005, prompted by a directive not to hire illegal immigrants, the agent asked the housekeeper about her immigration status. The housekeeper admitted she was in the country illegally, and the agent fired her. She also told the housekeeper she could no longer work for Ms. Henderson.

The authorities said that in 2006 Ms. Henderson told the agent, whom she occasionally drove home, that she continued to employ the housekeeper. The agent reminded Ms. Henderson of the housekeeper’s immigration status. The agent reported Ms. Henderson to her supervisor.

This year Ms. Henderson mentioned to the agent that the housekeeper still cleaned her home, prompting the agent to report Ms. Henderson again. The housekeeper began cooperating with authorities in May but did not record any conversations until the fall, as Ms. Henderson was on assignment in Los Angeles.

Ms. Henderson is also accused of hiring two of the housekeeper’s friends, also illegal immigrants from Brazil, to clean her home while the woman took time off to have her child.

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4.
RI slow on program to deport immigrant inmates
By Hilary Russ
The Associated Press, December 7, 2008
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gDSAGulyPwHAof2YLx_5sU...

Cranston, RI (AP) -- The idea was simple: States could flush their prisons early of nonviolent immigrant convicts while helping the federal government close the books on potentially thousands of pending deportations.

But implementing what's known as the Rapid REPAT program has been anything but quick.

Nearly four months have passed since Rhode Island became the first state to sign up for the program, which allows certain nonviolent immigrants to get out of prison early on the condition they never return to the United States.

But the state has yet to finish creating a way to find such inmates in the prison system. And prison officials say the first deportations are months away.

The program also drew criticism from civil liberties groups who feared immigrants might not understand the rights they were giving up.

"We believe that steps need to be taken to ensure that this truly is a voluntary program," said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union.

But officials said it's a logical cost-cutting approach to reducing the state's illegal immigrant population. Still, fewer than 5 percent of the state's inmate population, which is fewer than 4,000 prisoners, was expected to qualify.

"It's someone who's going to get deported anyway, so why don't we deport them now rather than spending all this money on incarceration and then deporting them?" said Patricia Coyne-Fague, a lawyer for the state corrections department.

Rapid REPAT was modeled after similar programs in New York and Arizona, and federal officials said those initiatives have saved millions of dollars through early inmate release. In the past two years, about 2,600 immigrants in total were removed from both states, according to U.S. immigration officials.

Prison officials said it was not clear how many people would sign up or how much the cash-strapped state would save, since the program is voluntary.

Rhode Island's participation in Rapid REPAT emerged from Gov. Don Carcieri's effort to crack down on illegal immigration.

It followed an executive order in March that required state police and parole officers to identify illegal immigrants for deportation. It also mandated that the state's government agencies and state contractors use a federal database to validate employees' immigration status.

To participate in Rapid REPAT, an inmate must have been sentenced for certain nonviolent criminal offenses such as car theft, drunken driving, drug possession or attempted burglary. The inmates must also be eligible for parole and be facing a final order of deportation from an immigration judge.

An inmate who meets the criteria will be flagged by a new computer program.

"Everything that we're developing, we're building from the ground up," said corrections Director A.T. Wall. "Rhode Island doesn't have this framework yet."

For their part, immigrants get out of prison early and shouldn't have to wait through detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in addition to their prison sentence. Some lawful permanent residents and other categories of immigrant also can qualify.

But those who agree to participate would forfeit their right to appeal their criminal convictions. And they must agree never to return — a tall order for people who might have family in the United States.

If they come back illegally, they could have to serve out the rest of their original sentence and get an additional 20 years in prison for the immigration violation.

"We think it's really critical that these individuals know what they're giving up to participate in the program," said Brown, of the ACLU.

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5.
Despite testimony, immigration bill looks to pass session intact
By Sheena Mcfarland
The Salt Lake Tribune, December 8, 2008
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_11162964

After more than two dozen hours of testimony about illegal immigration from Utahns across the state, it looks as if a comprehensive immigration reform bill will survive with only a couple of minor tweaks.

SB81 attempts to tighten immigration policy by enlisting local law enforcement to play a role, requiring public employers to use a citizenship-verification program and criminalizing the transportation or harboring of an undocumented immigrant for financial gain, among other provisions.

The bill passed in the 2008 session, but will not take effect until July 1, 2009. Members of the legislative Immigration Interim Committee have traveled the state during the last several months, hearing impassioned arguments from all sides, said Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace.

"Most people have been supportive of SB81, and there was some opposition, but a lot of groups have asked for a stronger law," Dee said. "But SB81 is a reasonable compromise."

He sees only two facets of the bill getting amended this year. The bill requires all businesses contracting with the state to hire only legal workers. A bill will be drafted to clarify that a contractor is someone who goes through the bidding process. That would prevent, for example, grocery stores who accept food stamps from being subject to that provision.

Also, a bill extending the date for changes to the Utah driver license to coincide with the federal RealID effective date of January 2010.

Somelawmakers, though, hope to kill the bill outright.

Rep. Stephen Clark, R-Provo, will push replacement legislation that calls for a funded study to see if undocumented workers are helping or hindering the state's economy.

"We've gotten a lot of emotional testimony on the good side and bad side of illegal immigration, but … we need to have a study conducted to look into the real facts of the matter," said Clark, who sits on the immigration committee. "Knee-jerk reactions such as SB81 will not help the state."

Moving slowly and deliberately is something community activist Michael Clara says is financially prudent, especially with the bill's $1.75 million price tag.

"When state agencies are making cuts across the board, there's not going to be much appetite to deal with immigration the way SB81 will deal with it," Clara said. "Utah lawmakers will leave immigration with the federal government and what's driving that is the economic situation. They're going to find they cannot afford to do the job of the federal government."

But some of the bill's proponents say the bill doesn't go far enough.

Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, said he would have liked to see the bill address the cost of educating undocumented immigrants. But "the bill needs to go through intact," said Donnelson, who was defeated in the Republican primary.

One provision in the bill would require law-enforcement officers to verify the citizenship status of inmates and grant authority to local officers to essentially serve as immigration agents.

"Law enforcement doesn't want to be out on the street to make those types of determinations and making arrests solely on their illegal status," said Cache County Sheriff Lynn Nelson, president of the Utah Sheriff's Association. "If there's a crime committed, though, and they're convicted and in jail, we're pretty supportive of the bill."

That authority, though, would require the Attorney General's Office to get permission from the Department of Homeland Security, something the office won't do until after this session.

"We need to find out what the final statute looks like," said Paul Murphy, spokesman for Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "Then we'll work fairly quickly after the session to meet the July 1 deadline."

But some community activists still are saddened that after a full year of hearing testimony pleading for compassion, the bill looks set to make it through largely unchanged.

Manny Aguilar, an activist in St. George, got people together to take English as a Second Language classes, but he now worries that the ESL program will lose state funding for teaching undocumented immigrants.

"If you have a person who is undocumented, you might as well have that person educated. Why would you block them from that?" Aguilar asked.

More disappointing to him, though, was that he felt his testimony had little impact on the committee, with some members seeming to have already made up their minds.

"We're just hoping like crazy that Barack Obama will be compassionate and give us a fair shake," he said.

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6.
Tennessee immigrants fight back fear, sue for rights
Three cases challenge state and local policies
By Janell Ross
The Tennessean December 7, 2008
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081207/NEWS03/812070400/1017/news01

For Enrique Bautista, a turning point came last year at a Franklin driver's license office.

A worker took his Tennessee-issued ID and U.S. government-issued green card and disappeared for 20 minutes. When she came back, it was to say she'd be keeping the documents on suspicion they were fake.

Bautista, a legal permanent resident, was stunned. He'd never been in trouble with the law. He'd raised five children in the United States, working hard here for decades.

But with no ID of any kind, Bautista would be unable to visit family in Mexico for Christmas or even leave the house without fear.

So, last month, he sued the Tennessee Department of Safety and joined the ranks of Tennessee Latinos filing civil rights lawsuits against state and local governments. They're claiming policies and actions are directly aimed at making Tennessee a less attractive place to settle, even for legal immigrants.

Observers and the plaintiffs themselves say the suits are the strongest evidence so far of a social turning point — a refusal to keep living anonymously and in fear.

"I wanted justice," said Bautista, a 60-year-old construction worker who lives in Franklin. "I just want justice … and to be able to get my license in peace."

A Department of Safety spokesman wouldn't comment directly on the case but said, in general, it is the agency's policy to investigate suspicious documents.

Three major cases have been filed this year alone: Bautista's, one against Metro government over a proposed English-only amendment, and one against the governor and Davidson County Clerk's Office over marriage licenses.

"No less than Thomas Jefferson said all men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain infallible rights," said immigration attorney Elliott Ozment, who is representing Bautista. "The reality is that all people who are present in this country — legally or undocumented — have certain fundamental rights."

There could be more to come. Ozment said measures such as the state's new Illegal Alien Employment Act and Davidson County's 287(g) program — which gives local deputies limited authority to enforce federal immigration law — are driving ordinary immigrants to call the government on its promise.

'Our civil rights movement'

For lawyer Vanessa Saenz, the turning point was a series of phone calls from people looking for help but unwilling to formally protest their inability to obtain a Tennessee marriage license. When the same thing happened to Saenz, a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico engaged to an immigrant, she sued Gov. Phil Bredesen and Davidson County Clerk John Arriola. She and her fiancé were denied a marriage license when he couldn't produce a Social Security card.

County clerks in Tennessee have asked for a Social Security card since 1998, or, failing in that, a valid passport and visa. Saenz's fiancé had only a passport. Tennessee’s policy was enacted as part of a federal initiative to make it easier to track parents who failed to pay child support.

Saenz has taken calls in her office for years from people in her same situation. She's even heard stories about a Kentucky judge just over the Tennessee line who has set up an entire marriage market to serve Tennesseans who cross the state line looking for a place where those without Social Security cards can marry.

She hired one of Nashville's best-known civil rights lawyers, George Barrett, and filed suit, claiming the policy was affecting the ability of Tennessee residents to exercise a constitutionally protected right.

"This is our civil rights movement," Saenz said. "I guess it's our turn now. What the blacks did in the '60s, I guess we are going to do in the 2000s."

The case came to an end in May after the attorney general essentially agreed with Saenz in court documents. He instructed every county clerk in the state to stop denying marriage licenses to those who could not provide Social Security cards.

Will lawsuits spur change?

There is no doubt that states now are seen as the battleground for what could not be accomplished by legislators in Washington, said Jessica Vaughan. She's a senior policy analyst with the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based research organization that advocates for stricter immigration policies.

Vaughan said the unintended consequences of such policies around the country have begun to surface. But that is not a reason to roll those policies back completely, she said.

"No law or legislation is ever perfectly surgical in its application and its impact," Vaughan said. "That's not completely to say that the ends justify the means, but it sounds like some of these things ... are more of a management problem than a conceptual problem."

It's tough to say whether the lawsuits can launch a major change in political consciousness among Tennessee Latinos, said Efren Perez, a Vanderbilt University political scientist. Most of them are new to the state, whereas other states such as California and Texas have a multigenerational presence.

Still, there's evidence to suggest that a 1990s-era California proposal that limited illegal immigrants' access to a number of public services — later found unconstitutional — galvanized Latino political participation and enhanced the sense of group concern.

"The message that people who are behind these policies — people who support them and people who pass them — the messages they are intending may not be the message that people receive," Perez said. "Feeling unwelcome does not mean that you are going to pack up and go home."

Man refused to sign notice

For Bautista, who speaks only limited English, interacting with government agencies is always an anxiety-filled experience. He went to the Franklin driver's license office in November 2007 and failed the exam. When he came back eight days later to try again, as instructed, workers took the cards and asked him to sign a "notice of document seizure."

He refused.

"I told her that I wouldn't sign, that it wasn't right," Bautista said. "They are the driver's license office. They don't have the right to confiscate my green card, my ID maybe, but not my green card. I told her I wouldn't sign."

In January, the office sent a letter acknowledging Bautista's documents were legal. It asked him to come pick them up.