Brief for 9 states backs Arizona immigration law

DETROIT – Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has filed a legal brief on behalf of nine states supporting Arizona's immigration law.

The Republican gubernatorial candidate said Wednesday that Michigan is the lead state backing Arizona in federal court. Michigan is joined by Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia, as well as the Northern Mariana Islands.
Cox says states are authorized to enforce immigration laws and protect their borders.
The Arizona law directs officers to question people about their immigration status during the enforcement of other laws and if there's a reasonable suspicion they're in the U.S. illegally.
President Barack Obama's administration recently filed suit to block it, saying immigration is a federal issue.

Arizona Immigration Law FALLOUT: New Law Sparks Fiery Debate

WASHINGTON – Backed into a corner by Arizona's tough new immigration law, Democrats and Republicans alike find themselves grappling with a volatile issue neither party wanted to fight over just before important midterm congressional elections.

As lawmakers learned during the last national debate on immigration, in 2007, the issue incites passions across the country, affecting everything from national security to states' rights to racial ambitions and resentments. It's fraught with political minefields.
Thus, President Barack Obama, the Democrats who control Congress and Republicans who are in the minority are doing a delicate dance, mindful not to anger their electoral bases — or independents — on the issue.
Underscoring the careful maneuvering, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tried to strike a balance in testimony to Congress on Tuesday, saying, "Continually enhancing border security is not only critical for border communities, but is a necessary part of any comprehensive attempt to fix our nation's broken immigration system to make it work for the 21st century."

Is a Biometric Identity Card the Key to Immigration Reform?

Could a national identity card help resolve the heated immigration-reform divide?

Two Senators, New York Democrat Chuck Schumer and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, certainly seem to think so. They recently presented an immigration-bill blueprint to President Barack Obama that includes a proposal to issue a biometric ID card - one that would contain physical data such as fingerprints or retinal scans - to all working Americans. The "enhanced Social Security card" is being touted as a way to curb illegal immigration by giving employers the power to quickly and accurately determine who is eligible to work. "If you say [illegal immigrants] can't get a job when they come here, you'll stop it," Schumer told the Wall Street Journal. Proponents also hope legal hiring will be easier for employers if there's a single go-to document instead of the 26 that new employees can currently use to show they're authorized to work.
But with a congressional skirmish over comprehensive immigration reform on the horizon, skeptics from the left and the right have raised numerous concerns about the biometric ID - some of which pop up every time a form of national identification is proposed, and some that hinge on the shape this plan ultimately takes.
The sheer scale of the project is a potential problem, in terms of time, money and technology. The premise of using a biometric employment card (which would most likely contain fingerprint data) to stop illegal immigrants from working requires that all 150 million–plus American workers, not just immigrants, have one. Michael Cherry, president of identification-technology company Cherry Biometrics, says the accuracy of such large-scale biometric measuring hasn't been proved. "What study have we done?" he says. "We just have a few assumptions."
Schumer estimates that employers would have to pay up to $800 for card-reading machines, and many point out that compliance could prove burdensome for many small-to-medium-size businesses. In a similar program run by the Department of Homeland Security, in which 1.4 million transportation workers have been issued biometric credentials, applicants each pay $132.50 to help cover the costs of the initiative, which so far run in the hundreds of millions. "This is sort of like the worst combination of the DMV and the TSA," says Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the ACLU, an organization that has traditionally opposed all forms of national ID. "It's going to be enormously costly no matter what."
Lynden Melmed, former chief counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, says the pace of expanding the program is crucial. He believes that issuing the cards on a rolling basis and viewing them as "the next version of the driver's license" makes the idea of a nationally issued biometric ID seem much less daunting. "I think that there is a risk in overreaching too quickly," he says.
Another potential issue is whether the card will result in people being wrongfully denied work. The average person isn't equipped to determine whether two fingerprints are a match - even FBI fingerprint experts have their off days, as when they incorrectly implicated a Portland, Ore., attorney in the 2004 bombings in Madrid - which means employers would be relying on an automated system. And that, as well as the fingerprinting process itself, invariably leads to some small number of mistakes.
In testimony given at a Senate immigration hearing in July 2009, Illinois Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, who has led the drive for immigration reform in the House, pointed out that an error rate of just 1% would mean that more than 1.5 million people - roughly the population of Philadelphia - would be wrongly deemed ineligible for work. "This is no small number," he said, "especially in this economy, where so many workers already face extraordinary obstacles to finding a job." Dean Pradeep Khosla, founding director of Carnegie Mellon's cybersecurity lab, estimates that the error rates of computerized systems would likely be less than 2% (and could be less than 1%) but says they can never be zero. Civil-liberties advocates, citing the secret post-9/11 no-fly lists that innocents couldn't get their names removed from, worry about whether those mistakenly put on the no-job list will ever be given the chance to correct the information.
Many skeptics also worry about false positives that come not from the computer but from counterfeits or employers looking to bypass the system. "It's naive to think that this document won't be faked," Calabrese says. "Folks are already paying $10,000 to sneak into the country. What's a couple thousand more?" In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Schumer and Graham said the card would be "fraud-proof" and that employers would face "stiff fines" and possibly imprisonment if they tried to get around using it. But Cherry half-jokes that someone could falsify such an ID in 15 minutes, and Khosla says that while current technology makes fingerprints the most feasible biometric marker to use, they're also one of the easiest to steal.
Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, believes that keeping biometric information out of a centralized database is "the biggest challenge." Otherwise, she says, the prospect of having millions of fingerprints on hand would be too tempting for the government not to abuse. In their op-ed, the Senators said the information would be stored only on the card.
Although the card is being presented as existing solely for determining employment eligibility, "it will be almost impossible to say that this wealth of information is there, but you can only use it for this purpose," Coney says. "Privacy is pretty much hinged on the notion that if you collect data for one purpose, you can't use it for another." Calabrese expresses worries that this ID will become a "central identity document" that one will need in order to travel, vote or perhaps own a gun, which Melmed calls "mission creep."
Some dismiss privacy concerns as reflections of general government mistrust rather than legitimate technology issues. But Melmed believes that the practical issues will have to be addressed before the "social-acceptance debate" over biometric cards can even begin, and both rely on many details that the Senators have yet to present. "People are waiting to see something in writing," Calabrese says. "But the idea doesn't fill people with a warm, fuzzy feeling."

Thousands rally for immigration reform in DC

WASHINGTON – Frustrated with the pace of action to overhaul the country's immigration system, thousands of demonstrators descended on the nation's capital Sunday, waving American flags and holding homemade signs in English and Spanish.

President Barack Obama, who promised to make overhauling the immigration system a top priority in his first year, sought to reassure those at the rally with a video message presented on giant screens at the National Mall. The president said he was committed to working with Congress this year on a comprehensive bill to fix a "broken immigration system."
Obama said problems include families being torn apart, employers gaming the system and police officers struggling to keep communities safe.
The president, whose comments were released as he worked to get last-minute votes on a health care overhaul, said he would do everything in his power to forge a bipartisan consensus on immigration reform.
Some demonstrators were disappointed immigration reform hasn't come sooner.
Adolfo Recinas, 38, held one end of a large banner reading "Latinos for Legalization and Immigration Reform." Recinas said his message to Congress was: "Don't make any more excuses."
"I'm illegal and I got a business. I pay taxes," said the Prince Georges County resident who moved to the U.S. some 23 years ago and now lives northeast of D.C.
There are about 12 million undocumented immigrants. March organizers said people traveled from around the country in hopes the rally will re-energize the legislative effort to create a mechanism for them to gain legal status.
"It is hard because most people are worried about health care reform and stuff," said Manuel Bettran, a 21-year-old college student from Chicago who came by bus.
Bettran said his parents overstayed their visas in the U.S. but were able to take advantage of an amnesty in the 1980s to become citizens.
"Fortunately, they were able to become citizens during the last amnesty but I know many people that weren't that lucky," said the American-born Bettran, adding that his brother was never able to gain legal status and had to leave the U.S.

Nebraska's View of Illegal Immigration

Most Americans realize that our federal government's deliberate refusal to control the influx of illegal aliens, primarily from Mexico, has had a deleterious effect on our nation's economy. Scores of California hospitals have had to close their doors because of a tsunami of illegals seeking "free" health care -- and receiving it.

Schools across the country are being forced to deal with the children of those here illegally, with many states now fighting over whether to offer these children in-state tuition to attend state colleges and universities.
Two of the largest business associations in the country are at odds over this issue. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which sees cheap, illegal labor as a boon for big business, favors a program that keeps our southern border open. But the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small business owners, says its members frequently see illegals as competition with legitimate enterprise.
We even see sharp divisions in our politics over this issue, as challengers such as former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth take on former Republican presidential candidate John McCain in that state's primary election this year for the GOP nomination for McCain's Senate seat.
But these are only the most obvious consequences of a misguided policy that has overburdened the most prosperous society on earth, and now the corrosive effects of not enforcing our immigration laws is taking a toll on our body politic at a whole new level.
In my home state of Nebraska, Republican Gov. Dave Heineman currently enjoys sky-high approval ratings from constituents, thanks in large part to his stubborn resistance to tax increases, his principled opposition to Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson's "Cornhusker Kickback," and his veto of a bill that would have provided in-state college tuition for the children of illegals -- a stand that helped him beat back a 2006 primary challenge from former congressman and Nebraska football deity Tom Osborne. Now Heineman has taken another courageous position on behalf of taxpayers by threatening to veto a bill in the Legislature that would provide state-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants.
Unfortunately, Nebraska's Catholic Bishops have come out in favor of the legislation, thereby causing a powerful, Catholic-dominated pro-life group, Nebraska Right-to-Life, to issue an ultimatum: candidates opposing the bill will not receive their endorsement in the upcoming fall election campaign.
"We want to assure that innocent, unborn children will receive prenatal services," says Brenda Eller, president of the group. The group's board voted unanimously to support the bill. "This is the right thing to do from a pro-life position, regardless of the immigration status," Eller declares.
But Gov. Heineman is standing firm. "After a careful and thoughtful review of the various aspects of this issue, we are opposed to illegal immigrants receiving taxpayer-funded benefits," the governor said in a letter read at a public hearing on the prenatal care plan. This once again stands him in good stead with Nebraskans.

Illegal Immigrants Caught Sabotaging American Train Tracks

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is requesting that Federal authorities charge the illegal aliens caught stealing over 500 railroad spikes in North Carolina with terrorism charges, since they entered America illegally and worked to sabotage train tracks in a way that could have resulted in mass casualties.
"We are at war with terrorists and stealing train spikes, which is likely to cause a train to derail is an act of terrorism," said William Gheen of ALIPAC. "The Obama administration must admit that their failure to adequately enforce our border and immigration laws is putting American lives at risk of terrorism."
The Asheville Citizen Times reported on March 2, 2010 that police had arrested TWO ILLEGAL ALIENS, Cruz Mario Carnacion, 37 and Jose Luis Trejo-Yanez for being in possession of more than 500 STOLEN 7-inch spike's that were taken from the railroad tracks owned by Norfolk Southern Railroad.
This latest incident is similar to arrests of illegal aliens stealing railroad tracks and spikes from railroads near Yuma, AZ, which was reported by US Customs and Border Patrol on March 11, 2008.
"We believe that this documented pattern of illegal immigrants stealing railroad parts from tracks and putting American lives at risk is a form of terrorism that will likely not be reported by the national media,"said William Gheen. "America are under attack in our own nation and many times illegal aliens are engaging in domestic terrorism against our citizens and nation."
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is warning Americans of these illegal alien terrorism attempts through an massive online network of supporters and blogger. Activists across the nation are being encouraged to contact their local talk radio shows and elected officials to share this information about the illegal aliens stealing railroad spikes. Activists are also being asked to call their members of Congress and Janet Napolitano at the Department of Homeland Security to ask her to focus on enforcing our existing immigration laws, instead of focusing on trying to pass the current AMNESTY legislation active in Congress.

This Week In Immigration News Feb. 26,2010

 The Washington Independant -

To reduce the state debt in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) wants to make a drastic cut in public assistance for legal immigrants. The cut would mostly affect new immigrants, who are not yet eligible for welfare, by eliminating access to essential medical care and basic food and cash assistance. Thirty-seven thousand people will lose aid from the California Food Assistance Program; 24,000 people will lose assistance provided by CalWORKs, which provides families with cash, childcare and job-training; and 48,570 legal immigrants will lose their access to heathcare (through Medi-Cal).

Undocumented immigrants are being left out of the healthcare debate, but a new study shows that even legal immigrants — those who are eligible for government healthcare programs — face challenges that prevent them from receiving adequate care. The study, sponsored by New Yorkers For Accessible Health Coverage and the New York Immigration Coalition, shows that many immigrants are misinformed about two major issues: by receiving public health insurance benefits, they may be considered a “public charge” (which would disqualify them from adjusting their status to lawful permanent resident); and that enrolling in public insurance would affect their ability to sponsor relatives for admission to the United States. Still, others aren’t enrolled because cultural and linguistic barriers prevent them from understanding or applying to be part of the insurance system.


The Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system, which serves to check a potential employee’s eligibility to work in the U.S., works less than half the time to accurately flag unauthorized workers, according to a research report by Westat, a research company based in Maryland under contract to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. E-Verify inaccurately reads unauthorized workers as authorized 54 percent of the time, according to the study. The system is voluntarily used by more than 180,000 employers currently at more than 675,000 work sites and applies only to new hires. “This is a wake-up call to anyone who thinks E-Verify is an effective remedy to stop the hiring of illegal immigrants,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is writing an immigration bill.

Senate Republicans have raised concerns about the jobs bill because it does not require that an employee be a legal resident or citizen, nor does it require use of the E-Verify system. GOP members say the bill does not prevent businesses from trying to gain tax credits by hiring illegal immigrants. Read more about E-Verify, and why the GOP fears undocumented workers, here.

The Economic Policy Institute released a report showing that immigrants who are U.S. citizens are more likely to receive higher wages and experience lower levels of poverty than non-citizens. Surprisingly, the study also found that in 2007, adult U.S. citizen immigrants had a median family income of $57,823, higher than the median family income of native-born citizens ($56,000.) Non-citizen immigrants’ median family income was $38,600. The report suggested that this may be attributed to assimilation and the likelihood of naturalized citizens having attained higher levels of education than non-citizens.

 The Dept. of Homeland Security reports that the illegal population fell significantly between 2008 and 2009, by almost 1 million people (experts agree the main causes are a weak economy and tougher immigration enforcement.) But opinion differs on what those numbers actually mean. Most immigration experts agree that the number of new illegal immigrants entering the country has declined, but some disagree over whether the number of immigrants leaving has increased.

A new report by the anti-immigration think-tank, Center for Immigration Studies, tells Republican leaders to give up on the Latino vote. The center suggests that only after reducing Hispanic immigration into the country can that voting block begin assimilating and becoming Republican. The Immigration Impact writes in an article, “In other words, the CIS report offers not only a grim view of Republican political prospects, but a stereotypical and insulting portrayal of Latino voters who are perceived as too poor and ignorant to vote Republican, and who should therefore be ignored by Republican political strategists until they grow out of their Democratic phase….Apparently, an immigrant has not really become fully part of American society until he or she fervently supports a Republican Party that officially looks down upon immigrants.”