1. 287(g) gains acceptance
2. Mexican gov't funds education
3. Small towns seek dialogue
4. VA residents fret violence
5. Citizens unable to register

1.
A Movement Begins: Code Name 287(g)
The WRAL News (Charlotte, NC), September 24, 2008

He could be described as North Carolina’s founding father of 287(g).

In 1972, former sheriff of Mecklenburg County Jim Pendergraph took an oath to protect the public by upholding the laws of the land. His life-long dedication eventually led him to push the limits of local law enforcement by tackling one of the nation’s most daunting challenges - illegal immigration.

According to the Center for Immigration Studies, an estimated 11 million people are in this country illegally at a time when our country faces a strain on the economy, the health care system, social services, unemployment, the courts and an overcrowded prison system.

A few years ago, while he was still sheriff, Pendergraph began crunching numbers. His sheriff’s office was spending more and more money each year on interpreters. He was scrambling for resources to process the growing number of foreign-born, non-English-speaking arrestees.

Pendergraph found a solution in a program called 287(g), named for a paragraph in the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act that allows local and state law enforcement agencies to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to gain access to federal resources in the fight against crime.

Soon, Pendergraph became a champion of 287(g). He launched the program in Mecklenburg County in 2006. It was the first of its kind in North Carolina and east of Arizona. His hawkish efforts made North Carolina a leader in local immigration enforcement. Under his leadership, Mecklenburg County identified and marked 2,000 illegal immigrants for deportation in its first year.

The folks at ICE in Washington, D.C. took notice.

Not long after his accomplishments with the program, Pendergraph was hired by ICE to become executive director for state and local coordination at ICE headquarters in Washington.

Pendergraph is now in his last days with ICE. He recently resigned and will step down on October 24, 2008, just days before the November elections.
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http://www.ncwanted.com/ncwanted_home/story/3597876/

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2.
Mexico quietly helps emigrants to US learn Spanish
By Laura Wides Munoz
The Ledger Enquirer (Columbus, GA), September 24, 2008

For more than a decade, as the immigration debate has swelled on both sides of the border, the Mexican government has been quietly providing money, materials and even teachers to American schools, colleges and nonprofit organizations.

The programs aren't substitutes for U.S. curricula, but educators familiar with them say they provide a lifeline for adult students with little formal education by helping them become literate in Spanish - and by extension, English.

Yet many educators are wary of even talking about the programs, fearing they might stoke an anti-immigrant backlash.

The Mexican government, which spends more than $1 million annually on the programs, has many reasons to provide the aid to the immigrants and their children. The programs allow it to give back to the growing number of Mexicans living legally and illegally in the U.S. Behind oil, remittances from these individuals are the second-largest source of foreign income for the Mexican economy - almost $24 billion last year.

"We don't want the Mexicans in the exterior to feel like milk cows being expressed for the resources they were sending back," said Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, head of the Mexican government's Institute for Mexicans Abroad, which oversees most of the programs.

Mexicans abroad need an education to represent the country well, he said.

"The image and prestige of Mexico is inextricably linked to the image and prestige of these communities in the U.S.," Gonzalez said.

He also acknowledged that many of the adult participants are likely illegal immigrants, a group the U.S. government doesn't want to allow to stay, let alone have to support.

"Mexican involvement in American public education is another symptom of how things are different than the Ellis Island era," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to limit immigration. "With technology, distance doesn't really matter. You never really leave the old country behind."

Krikorian said the U.S. shouldn't rely on Mexico to help integrate immigrants.

"Both the public and a lot of lawmakers want immigration on the cheap," he said. "Contracting out to the Mexican government is a cop-out."
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http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/252/story/449670.html

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3.
Immigration polarizes small-town America;
Some communities are angry about immigration, but the candidates aren't spending much time on the topic
By Jim Tankersley and Christi Parsons
The Chicago Tribune, September 25, 2008

Manassas, VA -- It's patrol day for Maureen Wood and Allison Kipp. Armed with a notebook and cell phone, the two friends set off in a minivan in search of changes they don't like in their hometown.

Hispanic men gather at a 7-Eleven. Graffiti sprouts on a back fence. The women catalog it all, planning to take up each item with local authorities.

"This isn't who we are," says Kipp, disgust clouding her face. "This isn't what we want our community to be like."

Ask Kipp and Wood what they're mad about, and the lifelong area residents are explicit: unchecked immigration lies at the heart of their town's troubles.

It's a sense of unrest familiar in small towns and suburbs across America. Immigrants have flooded the country in great numbers in the past. What's different now is where they're settling -- far from the border states and big cities that long absorbed the huddled masses.

Their integration into small-town America is marked in Manassas, as elsewhere, by a language of fear, resentment and anger. Under pressure from longtime residents, local officials have cracked down, ordering police to dramatically increase the amount of time spent checking people's immigration status.

Those authorities say they're targeting illegality. Others say they're simply going after brown people.

If we're due a national conversation about the changing complexion of America, though, it's not happening in the 2008 campaign.

Barack Obama and John McCain both support what they call "comprehensive" immigration reform, but neither spends much time on this volatile topic in his presidential campaign. When they do, they don't address the fundamental tension of America's great immigration debate today.

In Manassas, some old-timers watch their home changing and fight the newcomers. Others fight that backlash.

For all of them, it's a battle for their very identity.
. . .
http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/mccain_obama_imm...

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4.
Sterling in an Uproar Over Violence;
Residents at Meeting Angry Over Incidents
By Jonathan Mummolo
The Washington Post, September 25, 2008

Hundreds of residents packed a high school auditorium Tuesday night at an emotionally charged community meeting called by Loudoun County officials to address a spike in violence in the Sterling area.

Two teenagers were wounded by gunshots outside a residence Sept. 13, and a drive-by shooting Sept. 17 wounded three men. No arrests had been made in either incident as of Tuesday.

About two hours after the double shooting, a 25-year-old man was stabbed after getting into an argument with another man, authorities said. Carlos Popo Hernandez, who has no fixed address, has been charged in a warrant with the stabbing and is wanted by authorities.

Loudoun County Sheriff's Office spokesman Kraig Troxell said the crimes don't appear to be random acts of violence, and he said they seem to be unrelated. "We can't rule out that the double shooting and the triple shooting are related, but there's no obvious connection at this point," he said.

Tuesday night's meeting at Park View High School nearly devolved into a shouting match at several points, with irate residents yelling over county officials and accusing them of not adequately addressing the problems of gangs and illegal immigration. Several residents said they thought that those problems had contributed to crime.

Troxell said the question of whether gangs are connected to the shootings is under investigation, as is the possible involvement of illegal immigrants.

In remarks near the start of the meeting, Sheriff Stephen O. Simpson pointed to successes his office has had in fighting crime and stressed the need for additional resources from the county. He said each of the recent incidents was met with a quick response from sheriff's deputies, and he talked about his office's efforts to combat gang activity.

"These types of things are costly, and they take resources," Simpson said. "It's tough budget times, I know, but we have to stay proactive."

Simpson also noted that a suspect was in custody for an August sexual assault in Sterling. And he announced that a "person of interest" in several nighttime prowler incidents dating to the beginning of the year was in custody on unrelated charges.

In the prowler cases, women in communities including Leesburg and Ashburn were touched in their beds by an unknown man who entered homes through unlocked doors and windows, authorities said.

Simpson asked the residents at Tuesday night's meeting to be vigilant and communicate with law enforcement officials if they have knowledge of crimes.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR200809...

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5.
New citizens sworn in, but can't register to vote at site in West Palm Beach
By Luis F. Perez
The South Florida Sun Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), September 25, 2008

West Palm Beach, FL -- Hundreds of new citizens Wednesday swore their allegiance to the United States in a patriotic ceremony that included immigration officials encouraging them to vote.

Even so, officials from the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services' West Palm Beach office would not allow voter registration groups on their property.

"It's as if we're trying to do something sordid," said Carole Kaye, a Boca Raton immigration attorney who took the day off to help register new citizens to vote. "It's a disgrace that CIS doesn't make it easier for citizens to register."
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/local/sfl-fl...