Graham tells Politico "President Must Step it UP"

President Barack Obama is summoning two key senators to the Oval Office on Thursday for an update on immigration reform efforts — but one of them, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), thinks Obama should be the one giving the update.
Graham, less than thrilled at the notion of providing the equivalent of a book report to the headmaster in chief, said Obama’s lack of direction on immigration reform is hampering Graham’s efforts to recruit additional Republicans to the cause.
“At the end of the day, the president needs to step it up a little bit,” Graham told POLITICO on Tuesday. “One line in the State of the Union is not going to do it.”
For the past six months, Graham and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who meet with Obama at 3 p.m. Thursday — have worked on a reform framework. Their plan, which hasn’t been introduced yet, includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (a liberal must-have) while sweetening the pot for moderates by proposing tough new safeguards, including a biometric national ID card for workers.
To the frustration of many reform advocates, Obama has kept his opinions of the possible deal vague, giving a head nod to reform in his State of the Union speech but not much more.
Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro offered no response to Graham’s challenge but reiterated the administration’s intention to allow Congress to hash things out before Obama weighs in, an approach reminiscent of his health reform strategy.
“The president’s commitment to fixing our broken system remains unwavering,” Shapiro said. “Earlier, the president told members of both parties that if they can fashion a plan to deal with these problems, he is eager to work with them to get it done, and he has assigned [Homeland Security] Secretary [Janet] Napolitano to work with stakeholders on that effort.”
Shapiro went on to reiterate Obama’s core principles — not prescriptions — including resolving “the status of 12 million people who are here illegally.” He punted when asked about the controversial ID system, which has the backing of some immigrant groups while sparking fierce opposition from civil libertarians.
“There are a number of options on the table, but we are clear that we need to build on and improve the existing verification system if we are going to get control of the job market for undocumented workers,” he said.
Napolitano, who has held dozens of meetings on the topic with House members and senators, was supposed to attend a previously scheduled Graham-Schumer meeting Monday, which had to be postponed when Graham’s flight from South Carolina was delayed. She’ll be overseas during Thursday’s meeting, an administration official said.
Graham said he wants a greater sense of direction to break the cycle of distrust that doomed comprehensive immigration reform during the Bush administration, despite the support of a Republican president and major party figures like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
“I think moderate Democrats have to come on board before you get Republicans, and Republicans have to come on board before you get Democrats,” said Graham.
At the moment, only a few brave congressional souls have walked the reform gangplank. With health care blanketing the capital like a horror-movie fog, and jobs, climate change and budget bills next in line for consideration, the chances of passing a politically risky immigration reform bill are somewhere between nil and exceptionally remote.
The hope, instead, is to build a consensus around a measure that could pass sometime in the not too distant, non-election-year future. While many Democrats publicly embrace comprehensive reform, most are privately rooting for inertia rather than tying themselves to any proposal that could be used against them in the midterms.
The tough part for Obama, however, is that the Obama-Graham-Schumer summit is also being closely watched by Hispanic groups, who are demanding proof of action as a reward for their overwhelming support of Obama in 2008.
With a massive March 21 pro-immigration reform rally planned for Washington, and Latinos the fastest-growing segment of the electorate, Obama can ill afford to alienate them.
“For the Latino community in this country, it’s the civil rights issue of their time, so delay obviously adds to disillusionment,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Cuban-American who has urged the administration to move more quickly.
Immigration reform, he added, “would seal the community’s commitment to the Democratic Party.”
That opinion is shared by a collection of Hispanic groups, who have pressured the White House in forceful terms, threatening to withdraw support if Obama doesn’t follow through on his commitment.
But the appetite for a huge new push in immigration is as weak as it has been in years, with moderates like Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) — ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee — saying it’s not even on her radar.
“I’m not even thinking about it,” she said.
And Graham’s friend McCain, now facing a tough primary challenge from anti-immigration-reform conservative J.D. Hayworth, said he hasn’t even spoken with Graham about supporting the latest proposal.
And he offered low marks for Obama’s immigration reform efforts since taking office: “I don’t know what he’s done, so I don’t know how to comment on his performance,” McCain said of his 2008 opponent, adding that any attempt at reform would be “very, very difficult in this environment."

Company Fined Over Immigration Violations At Fairfield Plant

February 12, 2010
A company accused of hiring illegal immigrants has paid a steep fine for employment violations.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency announced Friday that Koch Foods of Cincinnati LLC paid a $536,046 fine for administrative violations of U.S. immigration laws.
The ICE Office of Investigations in Cincinnati conducted a worksite investigation of Koch Foods after receiving information from a concerned citizen alleging that the company was employing more than 100 illegal immigrants at their poultry processing facility in Butler County
In August 2007, ICE subsequently executed a search warrant at Koch's Fairfield processing facility and arrested 161 illegal immigrants and seized relevant documents. ICE also executed a search warrant at Koch's corporate offices in Chicago seizing relevant documents.
Employers are required to complete and retain a Form I-9 for each individual they hire for employment in the United States. This form requires employers to review and record the individual's identity document(s) and determine whether the document(s) reasonably appear to be genuine and related to the individual.
The fine relates to I-9 violations at Koch's Fairfield facility. The company has cooperated with ICE in the investigation employing the use of E-Verify and ensuring that its policies and procedures are in compliance with legal requirements
"Employers have a responsibility to hire men and women who are authorized to work in the United States and fines are an important component of ensuring their compliance," said Brian Moskowitz, Special Agent in Charge of ICE investigations in Michigan and Ohio, in a news release. "The significant civil fines leveled here represent ICE's firm commitment to holding employers accountable."
ICE issued a Notice of Intent to Fine in the specified amount on Feb. 8. The Final Order was issued and fine paid on February 9 in Cleveland. The company has implemented measures revising its hiring and immigration compliance program, and has established new procedures to prevent future violations of federal immigration laws, which includes the removal of the individual employed as the human resource manager during the time period surrounding the violations.

Activists Inflamed Over Immigration Numbers

Feb. 12 -- The population of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has fallen by 1 million in the past two years due to a combination of the recession and increased law enforcement, according to the latest estimate by the Department of Homeland Security. While activists largely agree that the influx of illegal immigrants is at a welcome ebb, some vehemently contest the accuracy of the agency's figures and remain bitterly divided on what impact they should have on the country's immigration policy going forward.
"I strongly disagree with the number of immigrants they say are living here," said Jim Gilchrist, president and founder of the Minuteman Project, a volunteer group of about 1,000 civilians who monitor the northern and southern borders of the continental U.S. for illegal crossings, which they then report to Border Patrol. "There's no credible way to way to tag and count them, and very few will admit to their illegal status, so it's all just a guesstimate at best."
To counter the Homeland Security estimate of 10.8 million illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. as of 2009, Gilchrist offered AOL News his own "guesstimate" of 30 million, which he said was based on older projections put forth by Time magazine and now-defunct banking firm Bear Stearns.
An activist on the opposite side of the immigration debate also questions official government counts.
"There are lots of scholars who do work on immigration, and nobody can give accurate figures," Kat Rodriguez, spokeswoman for immigrants advocacy group Coalicion de Derechos Humanos, told the Christian Science Monitor.
News media frequently confuse the number of illegal immigrants with the number of "apprehensions," a mistaken assumption since one person can be apprehended over and over again on different occasions, said Rodriguez, whose organization seeks to reduce what it sees as suffering among immigrants caused by the militarization of the border region.
Still others, including Shuya Ohno, a spokesperson for the National Immigration Forum -- the self-described "leading immigrant advocacy organization in the country" -- accepted the Homeland Security estimate at face value.
"The DHS figures are the most accurate," Ohno said in an interview with AOL News. "Most rational and apolitical academics put the number between 10 (million)and 12 million."
The full statistical methodology used to reach the estimates is described in the the latest Homeland Security report, which can be downloaded as a PDF from the agency's Web site.
No matter their opinion on the precise figures, activists largely agreed with Homeland Security that the rate of new illegal immigrants entering the country had slowed considerably following the economic meltdown in 2008.
"The reason for the decline is simple: fewer jobs," said Daily Finance's Jonathan Berr.
More contentious is the assertion by Homeland Security and other groups that the decline has as much to do with a corresponding increase in immigration law-enforcement resources made during the tail-end of the Bush administration.
As the Washington Times wrote: "After the last effort to pass an immigration bill failed in mid-2007, the Bush administration announced it would step up enforcement, including high-profile raids and granting powers to enforce immigration laws to some state and local police departments."
Since the election of President Barack Obama, an additional $30 million has been designated toward increasing security on the U.S. southwestern border, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has emphatically asserted that the new administration has taken a different tack than its predecessor, narrowing the focus of joint law enforcement efforts on apprehending "dangerous criminal aliens" as opposed to pursuing those who have committed minor offenses.
The new approach has disappointed both border-control and amnesty-minded groups.
"At a time when enforcement was beginning to pay dividends, the Obama administration has curtailed many aspects of enforcement -- particularly in the workplace," Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform told the Christian Science Monitor. FAIR is a nonprofit citizens' organization that seeks to "improve border security, to stop illegal immigration, and to promote immigration levels consistent with the national interest."
On the contrary, assert some advocates, Obama has taken a stricter and less humane stance on immigration than his predecessor.
"As a Latina, I am fed up with President Obama's lack of leadership on immigration reform," Ana Perez wrote in The Progressive magazine. "More immigrants have been deported in Obama's first year than in the last year of the Bush administration. Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have found a behind-the-scenes strategy to get rid of immigrants. They have the immigration agency comb through local jails and place deportation holds on anyone suspected of being undocumented."
Still, one thing all activists maintain is that the decrease in the population of unauthorized residents affords the country the best opportunity to correct massive problems with U.S. immigration policy. It might be the last chance to do so before a resurgent economy again raises the incentive for people to immigrate illegally en masse.
"What this affords us is a great opportunity to fix the immigration system now," Ohno told AOL News. "Illegal crossing of the border is at its lowest point in 40 years. Just like we wouldn't want to fix a bridge during rush hour, we should take the same consideration with the country's immigration system."
He and his organization, the National Immigration Forum, support a "common sense" approach to allow immigrants who are currently classified as illegal to come forward, pay a fine and get to the back of the line for citizenship requests without fear of being deported.
"I'm saying let's force the debate on this issue and solve the problem," said Minuteman President Gilchrist. "Let's bring left, right and the political center together to make sure immigration is a process that occurs lawfully, according to our Founding Fathers. My main concern is that we might have another million illegal aliens who will come here shortly and stay, and not respect our rule of laws."
Gilchrist wants immigration laws currently on the books to be enforced emphatically, which he believes would require the repatriation of millions of illegal immigrants currently in the U.S.