1. WH limits enforcement
2. Nations ask to join lawsuit
3. Report criticizes searches
4. AZ law author loses recall
5. Orchards question crackdown
1.
Obama rolls back immigration enforcement, again
By Neil Munro
The Daily Caller, November 8, 2011
The White House’s immigration lawyers have issued yet another bureaucratic order that will curb the election-year deportation of illegal immigrants, and perhaps spur the supply of Hispanic voters.
The new memo will shelter many illegals who have not committed violent crimes, or who are not suspected of being a national security threat, from routine deportation efforts by professionals in the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency. There are roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, including roughly seven million in the workforce.
The order is a “positive step … [because] it lets officers focus solely on the job at hand, [which is] referring most enforcement actions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency formed for that purpose,” said a Nov. 8 statement from Eleanor Pelta, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
According to Pelta, the memo “realigns the agency’s goals to better reflect its original and intended purpose… [which is] adjudicating immigration petitions and applications,” not enforcement. The AILA’s membership consists of lawyers who are hired by foreigners to avoid deportation, and to gain a share of the many valuable benefits that come with residency and citizenship.
The nine-page memo is titled “Revised Guidance for the Referral of Cases and Issuance of Notices to Appear (NTAs) in Cases Involving Inadmissible and Removable Aliens.”
Hispanic ethic lobby groups have repeatedly urged the administration to scale back enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws, despite a national unemployment rate of nine percent, and a Hispanic unemployment rate of at least 11 percent.
In a series of meetings with administration officials, and in many public statements, the leaders of the ethnic lobbies have said continued enforcement of immigration laws will reduce their ability to rally Hispanic voters behind Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
White House officials, including Obama, recognize the unpopularity of additional immigration during a recession, and publicly say they are required to enforce the nation’s laws. Officials, including Obama, have repeatedly urged the ethnic lobbies to persuade Congress to pass a so-called comprehensive immigration law that would provide valuable citizenship documents to millions of unskilled immigrants and their dependents.
Republican and Democratic legislators, like White House officials, show no desire to publicly champion a controversial immigration or amnesty bill.
Yet Obama’s campaign officials say they need a wave of new Hispanic voters in 2012 to offset his losses among American voters in the mid-West, in blue collar jobs and in swing states, such as Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina. In 2008, Obama won more than 60 percent of Hispanic vote.
Because of this dilemma, administration officials have issued several bureaucratic decisions since June that exploit the laws’ complexity to exempt increasing numbers of illegal immigrants from routine deportation efforts. Justice Department officials have also sued states for passing local immigration laws.
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http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/08/obama-rolls-back-immigration-enforceme...
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2.
South Carolina Immigration Law Challenged by 16 Nations
Fox News Latino, November 9, 2011
Citing concerns for their citizens, sixteen nations from Latin America and the Caribbean have asked to join in the U.S. Justice Department's lawsuit against South Carolina's controversial law that aims to curb the number of undocumented immigrants in the state.
Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile and other countries filed papers Tuesday, asking to join the Justice Department's litigation in Charleston.
The law would require law officers who make a traffic stop to call federal immigration officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally. Opponents say the measure would encourage racial profiling.
The 16 nations state in their filings that the law would lead to state-sanctioned discrimination against their citizens.
Justice Department lawyers are asking the court to stop the law from taking effect in January, saying immigration policy is solely the domain of the U.S. government.
This is not the first time that government's of Latin America have raised concerns about the immigration polices in certain U.S. states. In June of last year Mexico asked a U.S. federal court to declare Arizona's immigration law unconstitutional, arguing that the country's own interests and its citizens' rights were at stake.
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http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/11/09/sc-immigration-law-chal...
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3.
Report Faults Border Patrol on Bus and Train Searches
By Kirk Semple
The New York Times, November 8, 2011
For years, Border Patrol agents have been boarding domestic trains and buses in upstate New York, often many miles from the Canadian border, inspecting passengers’ IDs and arresting illegal immigrants.
Officials have said the checks are an important component of border security and the fight against terrorism, noting that agents have jurisdiction to enforce immigration laws within 100 miles of the border.
But immigrant-rights advocates have countered that the tactic is unconstitutional and akin to racial profiling, and represents a shift from the agency’s principal mandate of policing the border.
Now a new report, to be released Wednesday and based on four years of Border Patrol arrest data from the Rochester area, provides the first in-depth public analysis of the practice.
About three-quarters of those detained during transportation raids between 2006 and 2009 had been in the country for at least a year, and 12 percent had been in the country for more than 10 years, according to the report, which was prepared by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Immigrant Rights Clinic at New York University’s law school.
Only 1 percent of the people detained had been in the country for less than three days, and less than 1 percent were caught as they entered the country. The report used data released by Customs and Border Protection, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, through Freedom of Information Act litigation, its authors said.
“The data paints a disturbing picture of an agency resorting to mission creep in order to increase arrest rates, without regard for the costs and consequences of its practices, including to its own mission to protect the border,” the report concludes.
Kerry Rogers, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, said Tuesday that she could not comment on the report because its authors had not yet provided a copy to the agency.
Last month, The Associated Press, citing unnamed Border Patrol sources, reported that the agency had “quietly” stopped the transportation searches. Ms. Rogers said Tuesday that while the agency had reduced its transportation checks as part of a shift in strategy, it had not ceased them.
“It’s not that we’re stopping them,” she said. “We’re just trying to be smarter about how we do it.” Agents are “being more efficient” with intelligence, she said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/nyregion/border-patrol-searches-faulte...
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4.
Author of tough Arizona immigration law loses recall election
CNN, November 9, 2011
The state senator who wrote Arizona's controversial immigration law conceded defeat Tuesday night in a recall election widely seen as a referendum on tough measures against illegal immigrants.
"I want to thank those people who have stood by me," said Russell Pearce, who represented a suburban Phoenix district. "It doesn't look like the numbers are going my direction ... and I'm OK with that."
The recall petition pitted him against fellow Republican Jerry Lewis, who led with 53.4% of the vote with all precincts reporting. Pearce got 45.3%, election officials said.
"If being recalled is the price for keeping my promises, then so be it," Pearce said surrounded by supporters.
The heated campaign has included accusations of dirty tricks, with Lewis supporters saying a third candidate who later dropped out but remains on the ballot -- Olivia Cortes -- was intended to siphon votes from him.
Pearce, a former Phoenix-area sheriff's deputy known for his tough stance against illegal immigration, sponsored the state immigration law that became the focus of national media and legal attention.
"With Sen. Russell Pearce's defeat in this recall election, everyone who practices the politics of fear and division was put on notice," said Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona.
"It's not a substantive platform, and his own constituents clearly said they demand more from their elected officials. It's a game-changer for the state of Arizona that's going to have serious, and I think very positive, ripple effects all across this country."
Passed in 2010, the Arizona law aimed to "discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States."
Among other provisions, it would require that local police, during the enforcement of other laws, check the immigration status of anyone they suspected of being undocumented.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said the measure overstepped Arizona's authority, and the state is seeking a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to settle the issue.
Pearce contends dozens of other states are trying to pass similar legislation, showing the popular support and need for such measures.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/09/politics/arizona-recall-vote/
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5.
With migrant workers scared off by immigration crackdown, Wash. orchards desperate for pickers
The Associated Press, November 9, 2011
Apple growers say they could have had one of their best years ever if a shortage of workers hadn’t forced them to leave some fruit on trees.
Growers in Washington state, which produces about half of the nation’s apples, say the labor shortage was made worse by a late start to their harvest. The growing season got off to a slow start because of a cold, wet spring, and some migrant workers didn’t stick around to wait for it.
But farmers say an immigration crackdown by the federal government and states such as Arizona and Alabama scared off many more workers. They have tried to replace them with domestic workers with little success and inmates at a much greater cost. Many growers have resorted to posting “pickers wanted” signs outside their orchards and asking neighbors to send prospective workers their way.
Jeff Pheasant and his sister Darla Grubb are the fourth generation in their family to grow apples near Soap Lake, about 120 miles east of Seattle. They said their harvest was a week behind because the fruit wasn’t ripe, then another week behind because they had no workers to pick it.
Pheasant Orchards usually has 65 workers at the peak of harvest. Only 50 pickers arrived this year, and many were inexperienced, Pheasant said.
“You have to have people,” Grubb said. “They’re the reason we have fruits and vegetables. We couldn’t do this without our workers.”
About 15 billion apples are picked in Washington each year, all by hand. Orchards line the hillsides and valleys east of the Cascade Range from the Canadian border in the north to the Columbia River in the south.
Growers have struggled for years with labor shortages, but they say this harvest season is one of the toughest yet. Typically, about 70 percent of the state’s farmworkers are in the country illegally. But many Mexican and other migrant workers stayed away this year after some states passed tougher immigration laws and the federal government cracked down.
“We’ve been dealing with this for a number of years now, and until something changes at the federal level, growers are going to struggle having enough workers,” said Mike Gempler, a farm labor contractor for Washington growers.
Gov. Chris Gregoire assembled a delegation of 15 farmers last month for a trip to Washington, D.C., where they urged Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform. At the time, Gregoire estimated the state still needed 4,000 workers to complete the harvest, which could have been the third-largest in state history.
“Our problem now is: How do we get it off the trees?” Gregoire said. “We don’t have a work force, and that is at the doorstop of the federal government.”
Farmers in other states also are struggling with a labor shortage. A Georgia pilot program matching probationers with farmers needing harvesters had mixed results. Some Alabama farmers tried hiring American citizens after the state’s new immigration law chased away migrant workers, but they said the new employees were often ready to call it a day by mid-afternoon. Many quit after a day or two.
In Washington, a state office that matches workers with available jobs posted hundreds of openings at orchards with few takers, and many farmers complained that those who did apply were too inexperienced.
Some critics say growers would have enough workers if they paid more. Washington has the highest minimum wage in the country at $8.67 per hour. Apple pickers are often paid based on how much they pick, but they’re guaranteed at least minimum wage.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/with-migrant-workers-s...
