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1. E-verify spurs controversy
2. ICE operates busy air service
3. New Yorkers 'betrayed' by senator
4. Enforcement, economy has effect
5. TX atty. works immigration cases

1.
E-Verify requirement in Obama stimulus plan sparks controversy
The system would be used to vet the immigration status of workers
By Jaikumar Vijayan
Computerworld, February 6, 2009

A proposal initially included in President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package that requires entities getting federal funds or tax breaks to use the government's E-Verify program to vet the immigration status of workers is proving to be controversial.

Supporters of the idea say it is needed to prevent illegal immigrants from securing jobs paid for by the stimulus package -- especially in the construction sector, which is slated to receive $104 billion if the measure makes it through Congress intact.

But opponents to including the electronic verification component are complaining about the relative unreliability of the system and its inability to stop people from using fraudulent IDs to get work authorization.

The E-Verify system is operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Citizen and Immigration Services, together with the Social Security Administration (SSA). It is a free, voluntary Internet-based employment eligibility verification system that lets employers compare information from an employee's job application with information contained on DHS and SSA databases to determine work eligibility in the U.S.

According to a DHS description of the program, the SSA database against which the matching is done contains more than 425 million records, while the DHS's immigration databases hold more than 60 million records. In most cases, employers get search results in seconds.

Only about 100,000 employers out of more than 7 million in the U.S. are currently signed up for the program.

Recent enhancements to the system include a photo-screening tool for biometric verification and the availability of naturalization data that can confirm the citizenship status of recently naturalized U.S. citizens. As of this coming May, all federal contractors and subcontractors will have to start using the program when hiring new employees.

The version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed last week by the House of Representatives, included the E-Verify mandate. But that provision has been culled from the Senate version -- prompting frantic lobbying on both sides of the issue to either put it back into the legislation or leave it out permanently.

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington-based immigration watchdog group, estimated that failing to properly vet the employment eligibility of workers under the stimulus plan could result in a large number of undocumented workers getting taxpayer-funded jobs. That could be especially true of the construction industry, where nearly 15% of the workers are illegal immigrants, Camarota claimed.

Camarota argued that there is little reason to oppose the E-Verify program and said that concerns about its reliability have been overstated. He noted that the number of instances where the E-Verify system had mistakenly fingered a worker as being unauthorized for employment was a "tiny fraction" of the overall number of eligibility checks made by employers. In cases where mistakes are made, the process allows for remediation, Camarota said.

He was also skeptical of claims that the E-Verify system would be unable to handle a sudden large-scale increase in employment eligibility checks, noting that it already processes millions of queries. "If there are still bugs to be worked out, including the stimulus jobs would be good thing," because it would prompt quicker remediation, he said.

Other groups, including The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based public policy group, and The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have also pushed for the use of E-Verify.
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http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&...

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2.
Immigration agency's airline flies tens of thousands of deportees out of U.S.
ICE Air flew 367,000 illegal immigrants home last year
By Antonio Olivo
The Chicago Tribune, February 9, 2009

The nondescript 737 jet taxied to the front of the runway line at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

Aboard the flight, 53 passengers stared out windows as their rising plane banked toward Mexico and their handcuffs glinted in the morning sun.

This is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Flight Repatriate, a booming airline ferrying illegal immigrants out of the country.

Flying worldwide from O'Hare and 22 other airports, the so-called ICE Air planes transported more than 367,000 illegal immigrants, including 11,500 from the Chicago area, out of the U.S. from October 2007 to October 2008—a 26 percent increase over the previous fiscal year and 77 percent more than in 2006.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently called for ways to "expedite removal" of thousands more illegal immigrants. The directive surprised advocates who have been lobbying for fewer deportations while they build momentum to reintroduce Immigration reform legislation in Congress by July.

"That was a signal to me that we need to work quicker and speak more effectively to the Obama camp," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who is organizing Immigration rallies in 14 cities.

"The vast majority of undocumented immigrants don't violate any law, other than their Immigration status," Gutierrez argued.

On board Flight Repatriate during a recent trip to the border near El Paso, Texas, the passengers embodied the dashed dreams of deported immigrants everywhere.

Some fretted over U.S.-born children. Others stewed over U.S. residency applications filed years ago. On a flight where many passengers were convicted of other U.S. crimes, still more grappled with alcoholism and other demons that make them poster targets for arrest.

"I shouted to the police: 'Then, kill me! Kill me!' " Moises Rivera, 35, boasted about the January night he guzzled eight shots of whiskey and fell asleep in his car at a Little Village traffic light. In jail, he sobered up to realize he was heading back to Mexico.

Near him sat Felipe Rodriguez, who was pulled over for speeding. The sunken-eyed restaurant busboy was arrested after showing an Illinois state trooper a fake driver's license.

"I don't smoke; I don't drink," said Rodriguez, 55, describing himself as a bookworm. "My whole family is in Chicago and Indiana, where we were happy."

Following years of secrecy, Immigration officials are more willing to show how deportations work after several highly publicized allegations last year of mistreatment. Among those are an ongoing lawsuit on behalf of deportees who say they were injected with dangerous sedatives such as Haldol, normally used for schizophrenia patients. Federal authorities said the practice is reserved for extremely unruly passengers and requires a federal court order and a doctor's consent.

"It's our goal to be transparent," said Gail Montenegro, Chicago spokeswoman for ICE. "We are mandated to enforce the Immigration laws as they are written and we pursue that mandate fairly and humanely."
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-deportees-09-feb09,0,...

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3.
To Some in Gillibrand’s Old District, Her Evolution Is a Betrayal
By David M. Halbfinger
The New York Times, February 8, 2009

Saratoga Springs, NY -- Now that Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand represents all of New York rather than one conservative swath outside Albany, she has described her shift on hot-button issues like illegal immigration and gay marriage as a broadening of her position.

But in the 20th Congressional District, which first sent Ms. Gillibrand to Washington in 2006, many are taking it as an abandonment of the principles that persuaded them to support a Democrat in this predominantly Republican area.

“I don’t think it’s right when you say one thing and do something else,” said Michelle Boyea, 44, as she sat in her car after running errands around town. If you have a position, and this is what you feel, why would you change it just because you got a new job?”

Ms. Boyea was unhappy with Ms. Gillibrand’s sudden change of heart, after being appointed to the Senate, on issues that had won her re-election in November. She liked the voting record that had earned Ms. Gillibrand a 100 percent rating by the National Rifle Association (Ms. Boyea’s husband owns several firearms). She approved of Ms. Gillibrand’s hard line against illegal immigration and her opposition to gay marriage. “I’m Catholic,” Ms. Boyea said.

But Ms. Gillibrand has softened some of her positions in the weeks since her appointment. She declared her support for gay marriage, not merely civil unions. She assured Latinos and Asians in New York City that she would work to enact a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. And she let Senator Charles E. Schumer, who had enthusiastically supported her selection, reassure downstate voters that she would “evolve” on gun control, too.

To which Ms. Boyea, one of many Republicans here who voted for Ms. Gillibrand in November, offered this rebuke: “I don’t believe you should say things just to make yourself sound better. Don’t follow. If you’re going to be a leader, then lead.”

Across much of the 20th District, which wraps around Albany from Hudson to Glens Falls, reaches into both the Adirondacks and the Catskills and has 200,000 registered Republicans and 125,000 Democrats, Republicans said they liked Ms. Gillibrand’s fiscal conservatism, her work ethic, her frequent town meetings and her attention to farming.

But they especially liked her independence from liberal ideology and from party leaders like Mr. Schumer and the State Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver.

“I respected the fact that she came out and said she was going to back up the guns, and hunting,” said Keith Disbrow, 53, a retired correction officer. “I’m an avid hunter and fisherman. But as soon as Schumer and Silver got to her, I watched her change her tune. She was doing a decent job, but now that she’s going to be a statewide senator, I think they’re going to make her fold. She’s not going to have the Democratic Party’s backing if she doesn’t.”

At a Home Depot store in Wilton, Ray and Tina Morris were buying light bulbs for the steakhouse they own. “She is a Democrat, but she had some conservative positions,” Mr. Morris said. “A little less government, a little less taxation. I was with her on the Second Amendment, for hunting. And on immigration. My feeling is we should probably stop people coming in, find out who’s who, and sort people out.

“But we’re not sure where she’s going now,” Mr. Morris added. “I think she’s hanging around with the wrong people.”

In nearby Greenfield, Chris Franco, 34, a mechanical engineer, said that although he had not voted for Ms. Gillibrand, he liked much of what she had said, including her previous stands on immigration. “It’s time to take a stand,” he said. “I’m a Navy veteran, and I didn’t fight for my country to have illegals coming here.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/nyregion/09district.html

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4.
Recession slows illegal border crossings
By Laurence Iliff
The Dallas Morning News, February 9, 2009

Villa Juarez, Mexico -- At 21, Esteban Rodríguez says he should be in Dallas or Houston by now, not jobless in a one-street town in San Luis Potosí, a state that sends many of its sons and daughters to North Texas.

He's even more anxious to leave than José Meléndez, 18, who has a friend in Dallas and would like to be there – yesterday.

But both men are staying put because of a unique situation in their short lifetimes: The worst U.S. recession in decades and tough immigration enforcement make crossing the border illegally a gamble too big to take.

The result: Out-migration from states like San Luis Potosí has slowed.

"What if I get there and there are no jobs?" Rodríguez said in the rapid-fire Spanish of restless youth. And that's assuming he could get the $2,500 for a smuggler in a country where the minimum wage is $5 a day. "Right now, it's better to wait and see."

Mexicans from places like San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas and Michoacán practically have an immigration chip embedded in their DNA, causing them to flee as puberty subsides and America calls to them, often through relatives already there.

Reality has overcome that drive, however.

Analysts agree that the number of illegal Mexican immigrants in the U.S. is falling for the first time in a long time as young people stay put in places like San Luis Potosí and do not replenish those who return home for a variety of reasons, some of them economic ones.

Meléndez, the 18-year-old from Villa Juárez, said word from his friend in Dallas is that the employment situation is dicey for illegal workers. "She says she's working just two days a week, so I am trying to make it here for now," he said. "Maybe I'll go later."

At the same time that many would-be immigrants are staying put, a recent study suggested that an exodus of immigrants from the U.S. was under way, although other U.S. and Mexican authorities dispute that.

Citing U.S. Census Bureau data, a July study by the "pro-immigrant, low-immigration" Center for Immigration Studies found that the Hispanic illegal immigrant population had "declined by 11 percent through May 2008 after hitting a peak in August 2007." The decline, it said, was 1.3 million people – from 12.5 million to 11.2 million – and was mostly "illegal immigrants leaving on their own."

That report was cheered by groups opposing illegal immigration as a vindication of their promotion of tough enforcement to dry up jobs and seal the border.

Steven A. Camarota, one of the authors of the report, said the decline was due to "a reduction in new arrivals and an increase in out-migration."
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/mexico/stories/DN...

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5.
Texas attorney fights illegal immigration rules
By Anabelle Garay
The Associated Press, February 9, 2009

Dallas (AP) -- When Bill Brewer struts through his 48th floor downtown office, he looks like just another high-powered Dallas attorney in an impeccable pinstriped suit and brightly colored tie.

He just might be working for free, however.

When he's not handling disputes for multi-million dollar companies at the firm he co-founded more than two decades ago, he and other attorneys at Bickel & Brewer take on civil rights and commercial cases for clients who might not be able to pay at all.

Since opening the Bickel & Brewer Storefront, the law firm's pro-bono satellite office in predominantly black south Dallas, he has guided lawsuits that, among others, won wheelchair athletes the right to compete in the New York City Marathon and helped a small Hispanic evangelical church nearly swindled out of its building.

The Long Island native also represents Farmers Branch landlords and residents fighting the Dallas suburb's efforts to prevent illegal immigrants from renting apartments and houses. Brewer has filed numerous state and federal lawsuits contending that the city's all-white leadership is trying to drive out the city's growing Latino population.

"Generating an antagonism between Anglos and Hispanics is not the way to go," said Brewer, 57. "This is a state, if it's not already, will soon be, a state where the majority of the people in our community ... are of Hispanic origin."

Calls and e-mails from The Associated Press to Farmers Branch officials for comment were not returned. Mayor Tim O'Hare has previously said illegal immigrants are a drain on the city's schools and neighborhoods.

Brewer's friend, longtime Dallas activist Adelfa Callejo, asked him to get involved after the city council unanimously passed a November 2006 ordinance requiring landlords to check the immigration status of renters. The rule was revised later to include some exemptions.

"What they're doing in Farmers Branch is highly illegal, inappropriate and unconstitutional," said Brewer, then a board member of New York-based LatinoJustice PRLDEF, which fought a similar ordinance in Hazleton, Penn.

Brewer decided to open a division to represent low-income clients while sitting in a Dallas courtroom with partner John Bickel around 1987, some three years after establishing their firm.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6253467.html