Please visit our YouTube and Facebook pages.

1. Stimulus may provide jobs to illegals
2. Bush policy targeted illegal aliens
3. New NY Senator reversing course
4. Study says conditions improving
5. Los Angeles paying $13m in suit

1.
Is this Congress more immigration friendly?
By William Gibson
The South Florida Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), February 4, 2009

Some Floridians and advocates are celebrating final passage of a children’s health-care bill that extends benefits to legal immigrants.

The bill, some advocates think, signals a positive attitude in Congress toward immigrants. They hope it will lead to comprehensive reform that would legalize millions of foreign residents.

The last session of Congress turned aside reform and focused on fending off illegal immigration at the borders.

"It's a breath of fresh air that the new Congress and president overcame the politically-charged immigration debate that has, for some time, stymied this important legislation,’’ said Angela Kelley of the Immigration Policy Center.
. . .
Meanwhile, a group that wants to restrict immigration warns that the economic stimulus bill in the Senate could create construction jobs for thousands of illegal arrivals.

The group, the Center for Immigration Studies, says the stimulus bill passed by the House would specifically bar illegal workers from taking jobs paid by taxpayers but the Senate version does not, creating a potential magnet for an illegal workforce.
. . .
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/dcblog/2009/02/is_this_con...

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

2.
No longer rounding up just fugitive immigrants
A federal program shifted its focus to boost arrests, a report says, and is going after any undocumented workers.
By Anna Gorman
The Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2009

For more than five years, U.S. immigration authorities have touted the success of a national program aimed at arresting and deporting dangerous criminals and fugitives.

In frequent early morning raids at homes in Los Angeles and around the country, federal fugitive teams have sought out immigrants with criminal records or outstanding deportation orders.

And year after year, the Department of Homeland Security has received congressional support and funds to expand the program.

But new data released Wednesday showed that 73% of the nearly 97,000 people arrested by the fugitive operations teams between 2003 and early 2008 did not have criminal records, according to a report by the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

The data, along with newly released internal memos, show that the agency abandoned its stated mission to go after dangerous fugitives and instead targeted noncriminal undocumented workers -- the "low-hanging fruit," said Peter L. Markowitz, director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law in New York, who sued the government to get the documents.

The memos show that in 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement changed its focus from criminals and fugitives to increasing the number of arrests.

Each seven-member fugitive operations team was expected to increase its annual arrests from 125 to 1,000. At the same time, the agency stopped requiring that 75% of those arrested be criminals and allowed the teams to include non-fugitives in their tally, the memos show.

That, the report said, meant teams were arresting any illegal immigrant they encountered during their operations, regardless of whether the person had an outstanding deportation order or a criminal conviction.

Those early morning home raids drew criticism for splitting families and instilling fear in immigrant communities.

"Maids and landscapers are precisely the people being rounded up by this program," said Margot Mendelson, coauthor of the report.

Fugitives with criminal histories made up 9% of arrests in fiscal year 2007, compared with 32% in 2003, according to the report, which relied on Department of Homeland Security numbers.

Unauthorized workers with no criminal records or outstanding deportation orders made up 40% of arrests in fiscal year 2007, compared with 18% in 2003.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigraids5-2009feb...

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

3.
Gillibrand Backpedaling on Immigration
By Scott Ross
The NBC New York News, February 4, 2009

As a member of Congress, Kirsten Gillibrand voted in favor of penalties for "sanctuary cities" like New York that don't enforce immigration laws. But her ascension to the U.S. Senate has miraculously inspired a change of heart.

"In a lot of these issues, it’s a case of learning more and expanding my view," Ms. Gillibrand told the New York Times following a meeting with Latino political leaders.

Gillibrand's stance on immigration issues appears to have evolved considerably during her confab at the Brooklyn offices of El Diario, a leading Spanish language daily newspaper, which last week ran a headline declaring the upstate Democrat is anti-immigration.
. . .
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28974682/

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

4.
Study says conditions better for immigrant kids
By Anabelle Garay
The Associated Press, February 4, 2009

Dallas (AP) -- Conditions have improved for immigrant children held after arriving in the U.S. without parents or guardians, but some still face inadequate services and overly harsh discipline, according to a study released Wednesday by an advocacy organization.

The study by the Women's Refugee Commission and the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP also found that the children face delays in being transferred from law enforcement custody. It was based in large part on visits to facilities in Texas and elsewhere around the country where children are detained and housed.

"These kids are really traumatized," said Michelle Brane, director of the detention and asylum program at the Women's Refugee Commission. "It's a challenge to provide them with services."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment. Messages left by The Associated Press for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were not immediately returned. Divisions within both agencies oversee either the apprehension or custody of unaccompanied minors.

More than 90,000 such children were apprehended in 2007 along the country's southern border and about 8,000 of them were placed in U.S. custody, according to the report. Once caught at entry points, the children must be transferred to the custody of Health and Human Services' Division of Unaccompanied Children's Services.

During the past six years since the division has taken over care for immigrant minors, it has placed some children into foster care, housed others in more child-friendly shelters or group facilities and reunited many more with parents or relatives while they wait for outcomes to their immigration cases.

Children have gotten better medical and mental care and received improved educational services, Brane said.

But study authors also found that as the number of children in custody surged, some facilities have become more restrictive and there were few therapeutic programs for children who were victims of gang violence, sexual abuse or abandonment. Children also lacked legal representation, according to the study.
. . .
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6246877.html

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

5.
Los Angeles police officers confront demonstrators at MacArthur Park west of downtown.
Los Angeles to pay $13 million to settle May Day melee lawsuits
By Maeve Reston and Joel Rubin
The Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2009

The City Council on Wednesday agreed to pay nearly $13 million to people injured or mistreated in a May Day melee in MacArthur Park, bringing to more than $30 million the money spent over the last two weeks to settle lawsuits alleging LAPD misconduct.

The action served as a reminder of the Los Angeles Police Department's troubled past and its continuing path toward regaining the trust of some city residents and elected officials.

For the LAPD, Wednesday's $12.85-million payout -- covering most of the claims by immigration demonstrators and bystanders injured May 1, 2007, in MacArthur Park -- has a few strings attached.

Under the settlement, the department must submit to court oversight of its crowd control procedures -- another layer of federal involvement that comes as LAPD leaders are impatient to be free of a long-standing and more onerous monitoring program imposed after the Rampart Division corruption scandal.

The May Day settlement, approved unanimously by the council, comes a week after members agreed to pay $20.5 million to settle civil rights lawsuits filed by four current and former LAPD officers, three of whom were awarded $15 million by a federal jury after claiming to have been falsely arrested and maliciously prosecuted during the Rampart probe. That sum was on top of more than $75 million the city has paid to civilians affected by the 1999 scandal.

"Over $32 million in these last two weeks on Police Department litigation cases -- that's a tremendous amount of money," Councilman Dennis Zine said after the 11-0 public vote. "My concern is that the Police Department needs to be held accountable and responsible. . . . There are still other cases pending. This isn't the end."

He added, "While crime's down, we respect that, the conduct of the officers is important, and the management of the department is ultimately responsible for that."

Council President Eric Garcetti noted that the cost of the May Day agreement was enough to hire almost 130 police officers. "It underscores why police reform is as important as police hiring," Garcetti said. "A handful of officers can cost the city millions of dollars. We saw that in Rampart; we're seeing that here -- more than a handful here."

The settlement approved Wednesday will resolve a class action lawsuit and more than half a dozen individual lawsuits in federal court. It accounts for a large portion of the more than 300 May Day claims against the city.

The allegations of police mistreatment and excessive force resulted from clashes in MacArthur Park as an immigration march wound down. Officers from the LAPD's elite Metro Division used batons and fired rubber bullets to disperse what was a predominantly peaceful gathering. Officials said the confrontations were prompted by a group of agitators who threw bottles and other objects at police. Dozens of people, including a number of journalists and police officers, were injured.

"Our clients are really very happy with this," said Carol Sobel, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs, after the agreement was announced. "What it stands for is recognition that the police were wrong."

Councilman Ed Reyes, who represents the MacArthur Park area west of downtown, said the settlement was part of a community healing process.
. . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-lapd-settlement5-20...