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1. New NY Senator wavering
2. Issue a low priority among Latinos
3. Houston candidates condemn enforcement
4. Children of deportees sue
5. Laid-off workers face expulsion

1.
Gillibrand Hints at a Change of Mind on Immigration
By Michael Powell
The New York Times, January 2, 2009

Kirsten E. Gillibrand, New York’s new senator, suggested to Latino elected officials on Sunday that she would take the lead on some immigration issues — and perhaps quickly drop some positions that they considered objectionable.

In particular, she promised to take a lead in promoting a Congressional bill to roll back a federal provision that discourages states from charging in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants who attend state-supported universities. The bill also would permit illegal immigrants who have grown up in the United States and are attending college to apply for legal status.

And despite her vote in Congress when she was a representative from upstate New York, Ms. Gillibrand said she no longer supported cracking down on so-called sanctuary cities like New York that fail to enforce all immigration laws.

She said she no longer favored the legislation, which would have led to financial penalties for the city. “In a lot of these issues, it’s a case of learning more and expanding my view,” Ms. Gillibrand said in an interview after the meeting.

Some of the Latino elected officials who met with the senator at the Brooklyn offices of El Diario, the Spanish language newspaper, did not sound persuaded by Ms. Gillibrand’s statements. El Diario ran a front-page headline a week ago declaring Ms. Gillibrand to be anti-immigrant, citing her votes in favor of English-only regulations and a bill deputizing local police officers to act as immigration agents.

“The reality we have before us is her voting record; it’s a record that has caused great dismay,” said Melissa Mark-Viverito, who represents East Harlem and the South Bronx in the City Council. “She talked of ‘reconsidering’ and ‘revising,’ and we’ll see what that means.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/nyregion/02kirsten.html

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2.
Immigration is losing urgency as top issue
Economy now principal issue
By Tom Kisken
The Ventura County Star (CA), February 2, 2009

The punches keep coming from both sides, but the slugfest over immigration may be losing some of its urgency.

As activists try to ratchet up pressure on President Barack Obama to halt deportations and work on comprehensive immigration reform, political experts predict he won’t take dramatic action anytime soon because of the economy, the war and need for healthcare reform. A poll by the Pew Hispanic Center suggests that even Latinos are pushing immigration down their list of priorities.

The December survey of 1,007 Latinos nationwide said only one in three people identified immigration as an extremely important issue. On a list of the nation’s most pressing issues that was led by the economy and followed by education, healthcare, national security and the environment, immigration ranked sixth.

“Immigration is very important, but it’s not as important as stabilizing the economy and the leadership of the country,” said Julio Gomez, a real estate agent from Oxnard who sees immigration protests as more of a reminder than a call for immediate action. “Don’t let politicians forget about it.”

Gomez, who was born in Ecuador, is a citizen who legally came to the U.S. in 1987.

Activist still seeks changes

Alicia Flores, director of Hermandad Mexicana community center and advocacy group in Oxnard, contends some of the Latinos who are pushing immigration down their list of priorities are third- and fourth-generation immigrants. She said they’re buffered from the daily injustices of immigration enforcement: deported parents separated from their children and young adults who can’t go to college because they’re not eligible for financial aid.

Flores helped to organize a drive in which 5,000 Ventura County residents signed a letter to President Obama urging his support for immigration reform. They asked for an immediate halt to deportation and workplace raids.

“The Latino community overwhelmingly came out in support of your candidacy,” the letter reads.

Flores attended Obama’s inauguration, shivering in the Washington, D.C., cold with more than 1 million other people. The next day, she carried an immigration reform sign at a rally aimed at the new president.

“Obama said on the day he won the election ‘I’m not going to do the change, you have to do the change,’” said Flores, who believes applying pressure is the way to make sure change happens.

Many immigration activists say providing a path to legal residency would help the economy by reducing the illegal immigrants who are compensated in cash and don’t pay taxes. Flores, director of the Hermandad Mexicana advocacy group in Oxnard, thinks reform will spur spending through a domino effect as simple as enabling illegal immigrants to get drivers’ licenses and buy cars and insurance.
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Mark Krikorian predicted the new president will reduce the number of deportations and workplace raids as a way to appease people pushing for immigration reform. He may push the voluntary E-Verify online systems designed to help employers check on a worker’s immigration status.

It’s too politically dangerous for the president to push for comprehensive reform that includes a path to residency for illegal residents, said Krikorian, leader of a Center for Immigration Studies think tank that advocates more enforcement against illegal immigrants.

But he does think Obama may support smaller bills like the DREAM Act, which offers legal status to young adults who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

“He’s going to throw some bones to the pro-amnesty crowd,” Krikorian said.

Some of the people walking to their cars outside an Oxnard Wal-Mart aren’t looking for bones. They want amnesty for illegal immigrants.

“I see more U.S. citizens who are here for welfare and there are these hardworking people who are getting sent back,” said Amber Arroyo, who is 26 and cleans houses for a living.

Others think Obama’s priority list should have one item: “The economy, of course,” said a Filipino woman who offered this solution. “Improve it. Do something.”

Jose Hernandez, a 26-year-old cook from Oxnard, is in the middle. He thinks people living here illegally need to be able to come out of the shadows. But he thinks the key to virtually all of the country’s problems is marked by dollar signs.

“Once we get the economy, everything will be fixed,” he said.
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http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/feb/02/immigration-is-losing-...

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3.
Mayor hopefuls oppose HPD enforcing immigrant laws
By Alan Bernstein
The Houston Chronicle, January 31, 2009

Three presumed candidates for Houston mayor told Hispanic leaders Saturday that the police department should continue to avoid responsibility for enforcing immigration laws.

“The law we are talking about is federal law, and we do have federal officers enforcing that law,” Councilman Peter Brown said.

City Controller Annise Parker said, “We are not in the immigration law enforcement business.”

And former City Attorney Benjamin Hall III told the audience of more than 100 elected officials, business executives and community leaders that police have no right to question city residents about their immigration status based on “the way a person looks externally.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents check the immigration status of suspects jailed by police, but the Houston Police Department does not detain anyone solely on the suspicion of being an illegal immigrant.

The city is thought to be the home of hundreds of thousands of people who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6240487.html

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4.
Families of deported immigrants hope lawsuit, new U.S. president bring change
By Luis F. Perez
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), January 31, 2009

When in December immigration agents picked up Maricela Soza in Pompano Beach, her two children took up the fight to keep their family intact.

Cecia, 12, and Ronald Jr., 9, are among more than 600 youths from across the country poised to participate in a lawsuit that aims to stop the government from deporting parents of children who are U.S. citizens.

But the suit, which would seek class-action status, cannot be filed unless the U.S. Supreme Court orders federal district courts to allow it.

On Wednesday, they lost another battle when Soza landed in her native Guatemala courtesy of the U.S. government. Her children, both born at Broward General Medical Center, vowed to continue fighting.

"I think it will eventually help us," Cecia said. "But I hope it will help a lot of other people."

With her mother gone, she fears that agents may soon come for her father, Ronald Soza, who is fighting to legalize his status.

More than 3 million U.S.-born children have undocumented immigrant parents, according to researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Hispanic Center. For years, immigrant advocates have fought without much success to stop deportations that split up many of those families. Now, with Barack Obama's inauguration comes renewed hope he will halt deportations until Congress changes immigration law.

"We have the feeling that he has the sensitivity," said Nora Sandigo, executive director of Miami-based American Fraternity Inc. and legal guardian of the children. "He understands us. He understands our families."

Lawyers for Sandigo originally filed a lawsuit in Miami federal district court more than two years ago, claiming the government violates civil rights of U.S. children by deporting their parents. After a Miami federal judge said the district court did not have jurisdiction, her lawyer, Alfonso Oviedo-Reyes, withdrew the case and then sued President Bush in the Supreme Court.
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/local/sfl-fl...

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5.
Layoffs mean more than lost wages for H-1B visa holders
By Pete Carey
The San Jose Mercury News (CA), February 1, 2009

For the two out-of-work engineers, it's a race against time. They've lost their Silicon Valley jobs and need to quickly find others at a time when companies everywhere are tightening their belts.

Both are Indians whose advanced degrees were earned at American universities. And both are facing the inflexible rules of their H-1B work visas.

Technically, as soon as they lost their jobs, they were required to leave the country. In reality, they can probably wing it for a week or two, but not much longer.

This stark dilemma is being repeated with increasing frequency across Silicon Valley, according to immigration specialists, as companies downsize to weather a punishing downturn. It's a small number compared with the layoffs of H-1B visa holders during the dot-com crash. But the downturn has sent a wave of concern through the community of immigrant workers who hold the visa, which companies use to hire skilled noncitizens.

Though there is no official tally of visa holders who have been laid off, "It's happening every day," said San Jose immigration lawyer Indu Liladhar-Hathi.

"If they don't have work, they're in trouble," said Gabriel Jack, also a San Jose immigration lawyer. "They've got to get out" of the country, he said. "That's the toughest part about being an H-1B."

The H-1B program was forged in 1990 in a tug-of-war between labor, which has tried to limit its use in favor of American workers, and business, which would like to see it expanded beyond the 65,000 visas currently allowed each year. For American companies it plays at least two roles — as a pool of workers furnished by contracting firms, and as a means of hiring the smaller number of foreign students with advanced degrees from American universities. In technology, H-1B visa holders must have at least a college degree.

A perennially contentious issue, the H-1B visa has drawn fire in recent weeks as layoffs have multiplied. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Microsoft it should lay off guest workers before "similarly qualified American employees." Grassley has co-sponsored legislation to give priority in hiring to American workers.

But Silicon Valley companies have long lobbied for a change in the rules that force U.S.-educated foreign students to leave if they can't quickly find work. Workers brought here by labor contracting firms can remain if they're not working only as long as the contracting firm continues paying them.
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http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11593500?source=most_emailed