Please visit our YouTube and Facebook pages.

1. Collection of DNA begins
2. AG rules on counsel
3. AZ co. sheriff planning sweep
4. Activists trade barbs on economy
5. Advocates press for amnesty

1.
U.S. to collect DNA samples of arrested immigrants
The Justice Department defends the new policy as an important crime-fighting tool. Activists see it as a violation of privacy.
By Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2009

Beginning today, the U.S. government will collect DNA samples from people arrested and detained for suspected immigration violations, despite concerns that the move violates their privacy rights.

The new Justice Department policy also will expand DNA collection to people arrested on suspicion of committing federal crimes. Previously, the government only obtained DNA from people convicted of certain crimes.

The samples will be added to the national database and used to make identifications through comparisons with crime scene evidence, according to the Justice Department.

"The collection of DNA samples is an important crime-fighting and crime-solving tool," said Evan Peterson, a spokesman for the department.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that it was considering filing a lawsuit and that it would closely monitor the collection of DNA samples.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-dna9-2009jan09,0,44...

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

2.
Mukasey sets limit on immigrants' rights to lawyer
By Amy Taxin
The Associated Press, January 8, 2009

Santa Ana, CA (AP) -- The Bush administration has ruled that immigrants facing deportation do not have an automatic right to an effective lawyer, stoking outrage among immigrant advocates who say the government aims to weaken immigrants' right to fair hearings.

In a 33-page decision, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that the Constitution does not entitle someone facing deportation to have a case reopened based upon shoddy work by a lawyer. He said Justice Department officials do have the discretion to reopen such cases.

Immigrants rights groups said Thursday that Mukasey's decision, which comes less than two weeks before the Bush administration leaves office, rejects decades of established legal practice and threatens a population already vulnerable to fraud.

"People pretend to be lawyers and hang up a shingle and tell the client, 'I am a lawyer and am going to represent you,' and then they don't," said Nadine Wettstein, director of the American Immigration Law Foundation's Legal Action Center.

"If that were to happen, this decision says tough luck."

Mukasey's ruling comes after a series of instances in which immigrants claimed poor legal representation and sought to have their cases reopened after they were ordered to leave the country by an immigration judge.

The country's immigration courts do not track how many immigrants seek to reopen cases for this reason, said Susan Eastwood, a spokeswoman for the federal agency that oversees the immigration court system.

Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, could not say why Mukasey issued the ruling at this time.

Louis Piscopo, an immigration attorney in Anaheim, Calif., said making immigrants think twice about who they hire to represent them in court is a good thing but not like this. Rather, he said the ruling would end up hurting many immigrants who are duped by unscrupulous attorneys, making it harder for them to get a fair hearing.

"It is stripping away protections for people," Piscopo said. "The decision does say you have no right to counsel, which could mean since you don't have a right to counsel, ... whatever kind of counsel you get, it doesn't matter."

Deportation hearings are administrative proceedings and immigration courts are overseen by an agency in the Department of Justice, not the criminal justice system.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, said immigrants need to take responsibility in choosing an attorney. He also said the government has been trying to prevent lawyers from dragging out cases unnecessarily.

"The broad concept is completely valid. Deportation cases are not criminal proceedings, therefore nobody has a right to any kind of attorney let alone a good one," said Krikorian, whose center seeks more restrictions on immigration.
. . .
http://www.pe.com/ap_news/California/CA_Immigrants_Rights_378595C.shtml

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

3.
Sheriff plans immigration sweep west of Phoenix
The Associated Press, January 8, 2009

Phoenix (AP) -- Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio plans the latest in a series of "crime suppression" sweeps on Friday in a rural area west of Phoenix.

An estimated 200 deputies and posse volunteers will fan out near Interstate 10 and Miller Road near the town of Buckeye.

Arpaio calls the area "a hotbed of human smuggling" that breeds violence. The sheriff's office says the bodies of 11 murder victims have been found in the area in the past five years, all determined to be illegal immigrants.
. . .
http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=9641837&nav=HMO6

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

4.
Pro- and anti-immigration advocates invoke the economy
Pro-immigration groups say comprehensive reform would allow immigrants to bolster the nation's economic well-being. Opponents say legalization would further crowd an already dwindling job market.
By Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2009

Religious and labor leaders called upon Congress and President-elect Obama to pass a comprehensive immigration package this year and said that the U.S. economy could not be restored without legalizing the nation's undocumented immigrants.

"Immigration reform is a necessity in order to fix the American economy," John Wilhelm, president of Unite Here's hospitality-industry division, said Thursday during a national teleconference call on immigration reform. The New York-based group represents more than 450,000 workers around the U.S.

Wilhelm said immigration legislation would help the recovery by eliminating exploitation, increasing wages and tax compliance and placing all workers on a level playing field.

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has been an outspoken proponent of legalization, said immigration is a humanitarian and moral issue but also an economic issue.

"Immigrants must be brought out of the shadows so they can fully contribute to our nation's future economic and social well-being," he said.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-me-immigreform9-2009ja...

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

5.
Labor, religious leaders push for immigration overhaul
By Susan Ferriss
The Sacramento Bee, January 9, 2009

With Inauguration Day approaching, prominent religious and labor union figures who want an overhaul of immigration law have high hopes for their cause.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and John Wilhelm, president of the hospitality workers section of UNITE HERE, joined with others Thursday to urge President-elect Barack Obama to start negotiating a change this year.

"We need a just resolution to a public debate that is dangerously corrosive and will only worsen with inaction," Mahony said in a telephone news conference. "To continue to delay action will increase tension in states and localities."

UNITE HERE, one of the fastest growing U.S. unions, organizes workers, many of them immigrants and ethnic minorities, in businesses ranging from garment factories to hotels and casinos.

"I don't think it's possible to fix the economy without comprehensive immigration reform," Wilhelm said.

The union leader said he believes immigrants have always fueled U.S. economic growth and filled legitimate labor needs. But he said the country needs a new immigration system that can better manage and admit workers legally to fill labor shortages.
. . .
http://www.sacbee.com/341/story/1528156.html