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1. Detention centers 'hiring' illegals
2. Amnesty activists craft new strategy
3. Economist frets stimulus jobs
4. Former Rep. troops on border
5. RI authorities debate effect

1.
Feds pay illegal immigrants for jobs while in custody
By Susan Carroll
The Houston Chronicle, March 26, 2009

If you were to stop on a street corner anywhere in America and knowingly hire an illegal immigrant to do your laundry or clean your basement, you would be breaking the law.

But for years, the federal government has been paying immigration detainees $1 a day to perform menial work in the nation’s public and private detention centers.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials insist there is no double standard, saying the Voluntary Work Program offers detainees a break from the monotony of incarceration and a chance to earn money while they are locked up.

Rutgers University criminal justice professor Michael Welch called the program a “paradox.”

“It’s ironic that these undocumented immigrants are barred from working legally in the community, but while behind bars, they are not only allowed but encouraged to work for a dollar a day,” Welch said.

ICE officials have found an eager work force in their growing network of detention centers, which house an estimated 400,000 immigrants annually.

The agency does not track participation in the work program on a national level, said ICE spokesman Gregory Palmore, though more than 11,000 detainees participated last fiscal year at one Houston detention center alone.

Immigrant advocates offered general support for the program, saying it at least gives detainees an opportunity to pass the time by doing something other than sitting in a cell.

But the irony of the program is not lost on some.

“Why can the U.S. government hire undocumented immigrants? And not only hire them, but get a day’s work for a dollar?” said Brittney Nystrom, senior legal advisor at the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. “It really is an absurdity.”

ICE says program legal

ICE officials say the program is perfectly legal. There is no specific statute, regulation or executive order authorizing the program, ICE said in a statement.

The program “does not constitute employment and is done by detainees on a voluntary basis for a small stipend,” according to ICE.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6345312.html

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2.
A risky new push for immigration legislation
Advocates of legalization have crafted a plan that could alienate businesses and key Republicans, including Sen. John McCain. But it is designed to lure a powerful new ally -- organized labor.
By Peter Wallsten
The Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2009

Washington, DC -- With their prospects in Congress sinking along with the economy, liberal advocates of giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship are launching a risky strategy to push lawmakers and the White House to take up their cause.

They are devising a proposal in which millions of undocumented workers would be legalized now, while the number of foreign workers allowed to enter the country would be examined by a new independent commission, and probably reduced.

It is a calculation designed to win a new and powerful ally, organized labor, which favors a limit on foreign worker visas. But it risks alienating businesses that rely on temporary workers and could turn off key Republicans such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who in the past has crafted his own compromise plan for legalization.

With unemployment on the rise, the immigration debate has moved to the back burner as lawmakers fear enacting a law that could be portrayed as beneficial for immigrants at the expense of struggling American workers.

Advocates believe that winning support from the AFL-CIO, which opposed previous legalization plans, will help get the issue back on track.

"Last time the coalition was not quite as solid as we would have hoped," said Ali Noorani, director of the National Immigration Forum, one of the advocacy groups negotiating with labor leaders over the new strategy.

Ana Avendaño, the AFL-CIO's point person on the issue, said the labor federation believes the Democrats' enhanced power in Washington represents a "sea change" in which liberal groups can forge ahead without working with Republican-leaning business lobbyists.

"The reality is that we no longer have corporations controlling public policy in the White House and on the Hill," she said.

President Obama reiterated his support for legalization last week during a stop in Southern California, and he told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he would deliver a public statement of support this spring. But advocates are growing anxious that he might prefer to delay what would no doubt be a politically charged fight. Immigration advocates have already raised concerns that the administration has not called off workplace raids that are splitting immigrant families.

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said he and other caucus members leaned on the president to act fast, pointing out that he had found time to satisfy other constituencies.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration27-2009m...

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3.
Local officials await stimulus money
By Jeff Brooks
The Ocala Business Journal (FL), March 26, 2009

Ocala, FL -- New infrastructure, completion of several long-awaited road construction projects, workforce development and education funding are just a few things local leaders hope to address with funds from the $700 trillion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Officials aren’t rushing to the mailbox looking for a check, however, because at this point details are fuzzy about how much money Marion County will receive and when those funds will be available.

“There will be stimulus money that will come to Florida and go to the counties and go to the 6th District of Florida,” said John Konkus, district director for U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns. “We hope it turns the economy around but we don’t know when that will be.”

According to Don Winstead, Gov. Charlie Crist’s special advisor on the stimulus package, Florida will receive about $13 billion over the next three years, a number that could increase as more funds become available. Cities and counties are competing for the money and the state is continuing to identify where the money will be spent.

Winstead said the state started distributing funds in March and while officials want to get the money out “as soon as possible,” it will be summer before a significant amount is released.

Initially, Winstead said, the bulk of the money will go to transportation projects.

“Transportation is the No. 1 priority,” Winstead said. “That can come in a couple of different ways. The Florida Department of Transportation is getting a chunk of money. There’s also federal highway funding. We’re still working on the formula allocating the money to local governments. I don’t know how much at this point there will be for Marion County.”

Ocala City Manager Rick Horst said he’s ready to go on several local transportation projects, but the stimulus plan is complex and may present some problems

“The only thing we’re close to getting a handle on is the transportation projects,” Horst said. “There’s a couple of problems even with that. Right now there’s $10 million to $11 million in projects on the list that should be funded. We have other projects that are shovel-ready. Federal criteria is challenging, it requires a
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http://www.ocala.com/article/20090326/OBIZ/903269963/1357/obiz?Title=Loc...

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4.
Simple Solution for Mexico Border Violence: Send in the Military, Tancredo Says
By Penny Starr
The CNS News, March 27, 2009

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) said the solution to ending the violence along the U.S.-Mexico border would require only one order from the new commander-in-chief, President Barack Obama: send in the troops.

“You can absolutely secure the border with the military,” Tancredo said in a conference call on Thursday with reporters and Roy Beck, president of the immigrant reduction advocacy group, NumbersUSA.

Tancredo said he observed a two-week operation a few years ago along the Canadian border with Idaho where 100 U.S. Marines were stationed along the 100-mile stretch of rugged wilderness, along with the use of three unmanned aerial vehicles and three radar stations. The operation was a joint effort among the Marines, the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Forest Service.

“I assure you that for the two weeks that that was in operation, nothing came across that northern border that we did not see,” Tancredo said. “You can secure the border.”

But, he said, the Bush administration abandoned the idea of using the military to secure the nation’s borders, an idea Tancredo said is necessary now not only to stop the flow of drugs, humans, and weapons but for the safety and security of the American people – especially if the Mexican government fails and millions of people flee north to escape the violence.

The conference call was held to respond to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Mexico and her claim that the United States is culpable for the violence along the country’s border with Mexico. Clinton largely blamed high drug consumption by Americans and American weapons smuggled south to arm drug cartels as the culprits.

“I have no doubt that there are firearms that make their way into Mexico, but the extent to which that is happening is really a debatable point,” Tancredo said. “The huge caches of arms that have been found – the AK-47s and some of the grenade launchers – have not come from the United States.”

“We’ve asked Mexico for the serial numbers, and they’ve refused to give them to us because, in fact, they are not from the United States,” Tancredo said.

“This issue of ‘It’s our fault just as much as their fault’ is a lot of crap, to tell you the truth,” he said. “It’s just another way to go after guns by this administration and also to let Mexico save some face.”

Tancredo said that in addition to securing the border, Congress needs to mandate the E-Verify legislation that requires employers to confirm the legal status of potential employees.
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http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=45702&print=on

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5.
Uneasiness persists over RI immigration order
By Hilary Russ
The Associated Press, March 26, 2009

Simon Hernandez says his convenience store business is down by almost half in the past year. He blames the state's high jobless rate and foreclosure crisis, which hit this heavily Hispanic city hard.

But he also says an executive order signed a year ago by Gov. Don Carcieri cracking down on illegal immigration drove away his largely immigrant base of customers, who told him they were moving to North Carolina and other states where they could live without fear of getting deported.

"They told me they left because of this order," Hernandez said. "It's not only me."

The governor's order was announced a year ago Friday and was aimed at helping state police and employers root out illegal immigrants. But some residents of recession-battered Rhode Island - suffering from one of the nation's highest unemployment rates, at 10.5 percent - wonder whether the order has done anything but stir up angry rhetoric and add to the state's misery.

Carcieri announced the order as the state was facing a $550 million budget deficit. He said illegal immigrants were on a burden on public schools, hospitals and law enforcement agencies and blamed the federal government for not taking action.

His order required state agencies, vendors and contractors to use a federal database known as E-Verify to check the legal work status of new hires. It also directed state police and prison and parole officials to identify illegal immigrants for possible deportation.

The order created an immediate stir. In the days afterward, Capitol police had to remove dozens of demonstrators from Carcieri's office policy office on Smith Hill.

Providence's Democratic mayor, David Cicilline, and police chief, Dean Esserman, said local officers shouldn't be enforcing immigration laws because it would erode community trust in police and chill immigrants' willingness to report crime.

In response, Carcieri, a Republican, appeared on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor," where he agreed with host Bill O'Reilly that it would be "a lot of fun" to have Cicilline arrested.

And within months of the order, members of the governor's Hispanic advisory panel resigned, saying the order made immigrants scapegoats for the state's fiscal woes.

"It has been very successful in dividing the community," said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Still, the order's supporters say it's done what it should: make illegal immigrants feel uneasy.

"It's a deterrent to some illegal immigrants," said Terry Gorman, executive director of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement.
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http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/03/26/ap6219032.html