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Immigrant News and Headlines

February 22, 2012

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Napolitano reviews South Texas border operations
THE MONITOR: DHS chief tours RGV for 1st time, touts border security
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Judge rejects part of Nebraska immigration law
ASSOCIATED PRESS: ICE agent who fatally shot gunman at Calif. office honored for work fighting child sex crimes
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Immigrant advocates urge Conn. to delay enforcement plan
WASHINGTON POST (Wadhwa Op-Ed): America, keep rewarding your dissidents
WASHINGTON POST: Joe Arpaio says he won’t endorse before Arizona primary
LOS ANGELES TIMES: L.A. conference considers plight of day laborers
ABC NEWS: Romney’s Immigration Stance Alienates Some Latino Mormons
CNN.COM: Does ‘secure the border’ mean ‘keep America white’?
EFE: Group Works to Boost Latino Involvement in Politics
FOX NEWS LATINO: Puerto Rico Gov. Says Latino VP Would Help GOP Win Latino Vote
HARTFORD COURANT (Editorial): Crackdown On ‘Dangerous’ Illegal Immigrants Misfiring
THE HILL: Santorum plays up immigrant roots in Arizona speech
HOMELAND SECURITY NEWS: DHS suspends expansion of Secure Communities in Alabama
HUFFINGTON POST (Reyes Post): Go Deport Yourself: Romney’s “Self-Deportation” Policy Is No Joke
HUFFINGTON POST (Weiler Post): Mitt Romney Isn’t ‘Tough’ On Immigration — He’s a Coward
HUFFINGTON POST LATINO VOICES: Who Could Be The First Latino President Of The United States?
KANSAS CITY STAR: Immigration bills sought by Kobach get lukewarm response in Kansas
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Protesters: GOP Candidates Don’t DREAM Halfway
ORLANDO SENTINEL (Van Warner Op-Ed): Immigration reform a battle of extremes
PRESS-REGISTER: Alabama immigration law target of Comic Cowboys’ humor on Mardi Gras
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Judge delays ruling on Utah immigration law
TECHPRESIDENT.COM: Obama Administration Asks Silicon Valley How It Can Improve Immigration Process For Foreign-Born Entrepreneurs
BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK (Tozzi Post): Making U.S. Visa Programs Work for Tech Entrepreneurs
TEXAS INDEPENDENT: Man returns home after long road through immigrant detention
UNIVISION: Poll: Immigration law looms large over Arizona race
UNIVISION (Torres Column): Notion of Latino “sleeping giant” has pitfalls

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Napolitano reviews South Texas border operations
By Christopher Sherman
February 21, 2012
http://www.valleymorningstar.com/news/south-98224-texas-border.html
MCALLEN, Texas (AP) — The recent reviews of deportation cases to focus on illegal immigrants who have committed crimes or previously been deported is a necessity and shouldn’t demoralize U.S. Border Patrol agents, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors have been reviewing thousands of deportation cases in recent months in an effort to focus resources on such cases. That has left many immigrants who have lived in the U.S. illegally for years in a legal limbo, neither achieving legal status nor facing immediate deportation.
Napolitano, a former Arizona governor, told reporters at a Border Patrol station five miles from the Rio Grande that recently apprehended illegal immigrants remain a priority, but that existing cases must be prioritized to make best use of resources.
“We want to protect public safety and protect the integrity of the immigration system,” Napolitano said. “We want to prioritize removing from the country those who have committed crimes in addition to violating our nation’s immigration laws.”
George McCubbin III, president of the National Border Patrol Council that represents agents, echoed the rank-and-file agents’ concerns about using more discretion in deportation cases.
“It’s just another tool for the administration to allow people to stay here,” said McCubbin, a Border Patrol agent assigned to the Tucson, Ariz., sector. “It’s a backdoor way toward the overall goal, which is amnesty.”
Before Napolitano spoke, about 30 people from local civil rights organizations protested outside carrying signs calling for immigration reform, something Napolitano repeated in her remarks.
Sergio Narvaez, a 63-year-old from Mission, said people who come to work should be respected and deportations should be halted except for those convicted of crimes.
Data released Tuesday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University showed that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiated 39,331 deportation cases in the final three months of 2011 — about one third fewer than in the previous quarter. Even adjusted for seasonal variance, it appeared there were about 10,000 fewer cases than would be expected, according to a statement from TRAC.
“Even with fewer filings there is little evidence that these cases are being better targeted toward serious criminals,” the statement said.
Earlier Tuesday, Napolitano met with area border sheriffs. She said they confirmed that U.S. border communities have so far avoided anything approaching the level of drug-related violence seen across the border in Mexico.
“There are undoubtedly some crimes that occur that are related to drugs, let me not underestimate that,” Napolitano said. “We know. But the kind of violence that you’re seeing on the Mexican side where it’s really cartel on cartel, cartel against law enforcement in a sustained, organized way, that kind of spillover violence we have not seen.”
“I think we can be ahead of and will be ahead of any kind of systemic spillover violence,” she added.
Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner David Aguilar, who is from the area, said he invited Napolitano to see the challenges on this part of the border, among them the distinctive terrain along the winding Rio Grande.
During her day and a half visit Napolitano reviewed port of entry operations at the Pharr International Bridge and flew above the Rio Grande.
More on this topic:
THE MONITOR: DHS chief tours RGV for 1st time, touts border security
By Naxiely Lopez and Jared Taylor
February 21, 2012
http://www.themonitor.com/articles/mcallen-58912-security-touts.html

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Judge rejects part of Nebraska immigration law
February 21, 2012
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/02/21/20120221nebraska-judge-rejects-part-immigration-law.html
A federal judge on Monday rejected a portion of a Nebraska city’s ordinance that would have denied housing permits to illegal immigrants but upheld a requirement that employers verify the citizenship status of people they hire.
U.S. District Judge Laurie Smith Camp found some of the housing provisions in Fremont’s ordinance, approved by voters in 2010, are discriminatory in violation of federal law.
Both sides in the contentious immigration debate claimed victory after the ruling, which stemmed from a combined lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Fremont’s attorney Kris Kobach, who is also Kansas’ secretary of state, said 75 percent of the ordinance was upheld, including a requirement that Fremont employers use the federal E-Verify database to ensure employees are legal.
The judge also determined the city can still require anyone seeking to rent property to apply for a $5 city permit and swear they are in the country legally. Kobach said the ruling simply prevents the city from revoking those permits, even if applicants are found to be illegal immigrants.
“This vindicates the city’s position,” Kobach said.
But attorney Shirley Mora James, who worked with MALDEF on the case, called the ruling a clear victory for the plaintiffs because the housing penalties were struck down.
“The court has gutted the ordinance, in my view. I do not see this as a victory for Fremont,” Mora James said.
Fremont City Attorney Paul Payne said no decisions would be made on when to implement the upheld portions of the law until a city council meeting next week. The law had been on hold while the lawsuits were decided.
Once the ordinance goes into effect, employers in the city of 25,000 will have 60 days to get ready to use the federal E-verify database, so Kobach said that part of the ordinance likely wouldn’t take effect until May. He said the other portions could be enacted next month.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Arizona law that required businesses to use E-Verify or face losing their business licenses.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: ICE agent who fatally shot gunman at Calif. office honored for work fighting child sex crimes
February 22, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ice-agent-who-fatally-shot-gunman-at-calif-office-honored-for-work-fighting-child-sex-crimes/2012/02/22/gIQASH5kSR_story.html?sub=AR
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Perry Woo earned praise for his courage and quick thinking after he fatally shot a colleague who opened fire on a supervisor last week. But before that, he was known for his work investigating sex crimes against children.
Woo received the U.S. Justice Department’s Officer of the Year Award for Missing and Exploited Children in 2004 for an investigation that led to the capture of eight alleged child molesters and pornographers, including the suspected ringleader.
Authorities credited his work for rescuing 30 Mexican children, including an 8-year-old.
ICE officials have not publicly identified Woo as the agent who killed his colleague, Ezequiel Garcia, after Garcia allegedly fired his weapon at Kevin Kozak, ICE’s deputy special agent in charge of investigations in the Los Angeles region.
However, an official familiar with the investigation of the shooting confirmed Woo’s identity to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the source is not authorized to speak publicly.
The shooting occurred Thursday at ICE’s offices in Long Beach. Kozak, ICE’s second-in-command in Los Angeles, had summoned Garcia for a meeting to discuss the agent’s job performance. Authorities say Kozak was shot at least six times, including in the hand, knee and torso. He continued to recover Tuesday.
Without naming him, ICE officials have praised Woo for his actions.
“This agent acted with extraordinary calm and took quick and decisive steps to deal with a very dangerous situation,” ICE Director John Morton said last week.
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice has said the agent attended the meeting and left then returned when he heard shots fired and tried to disarm Garcia. After an intense struggle, the agent drew his own weapon and shot Garcia.
Woo made a mark at ICE by tracking the use of the Internet to commit sex crimes against children. In his most celebrated case, a federal jury in Hammond, Ind., convicted Timothy Julian in 2003.
Prosecutors said Julian rented a mansion in Acapulco, Mexico, and advertised it on the Internet as a resort, featuring a photo of a 12-year-old boy and an offer to provide escorts. One teenage boy testified at trial that he and others who lived at the mansion were expected to provide sexual services to American guests. Another boy testified that Julian raped him.
Julian was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Woo, who led the probe with a postal inspector, was among several law enforcement officials and other civilians honored by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft for “unprecedented cooperation in the recovery of missing and exploited children.”
Woo was identified then as a senior special agent based in ICE’s Fairfax, Va., office.
He is quoted in a 2004 article in The New York Times about sex crimes against children. The story says ICE agents in Fairfax were tracking demand for harder-core pornography with the growth of the Internet.
“Pornography is becoming more pervasive. With Web cams we’re seeing more live molestation of children,” Woo said.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Immigrant advocates urge Conn. to delay enforcement plan
February 22, 2012
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/x565043294/Immigrant-advocates-urge-Conn-to-delay-enforcement-plan#ixzz1n7BTM75j
Immigrant advocates in Connecticut are urging Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to seek a delay in the start of a federal immigration enforcement program that’s raising concerns about potential racial profiling.
The New Haven Register reports that advocates plan to deliver a petition to Malloy and rally at the state Capitol today, when federal officials plan to implement the Secure Communities program statewide. They want Malloy to try to convince federal authorities to delay the program.
Secure Communities involves the FBI sending criminal fingerprint information it receives from local police agencies to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to target criminals in the country illegally. Federal authorities can use the information to ask local police agencies to detain immigrants.
Malloy’s administration plans to review detainer requests on a case-by-case basis.

WASHINGTON POST (Wadhwa Op-Ed): America, keep rewarding your dissidents
By Vivek Wadhwa
February 21, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/america-keep-rewarding-your-dissidents/2012/02/21/gIQA50wgRR_story.html
Ever since I became an academic six years ago, I have been one of the biggest critics of U.S. competitiveness policies. I documented, for example, that we had our data wrong when it came to India and China’s advantages in engineering education and R&D, that we didn’t understand how to build innovation centers, and that our assumptions about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship were wrong. I have been particularly vocal about America’s flawed immigration policies. I quantified the amazing contribution that skilled immigrants make in the technology industry and raised the alarm about the reverse brain drain that is in progress. I testified, assertively, to Congress, and have been badgering our political leaders to act on these important issues.
My father, a retired Indian diplomat, called me on several occasions to plead that I tone down my criticism. He worried that I would anger U.S. government officials and they would find some way to have me deported. Indeed, this would have been the case in many countries, where I could have ended up in a Gulag — or worse.
But what happens in America?
The Government gives me an official recognition — Outstanding American by Choice — for my “commitment to this country and to the common civic values that unite us as Americans.” When I received the call from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director, Alejandro Mayorkas, I had tears in my eyes. He told me that the government appreciated all of my efforts to make the country more competitive and that my criticisms of his department had motived his team to work harder to improve the system.
This is the greatness of America and why this country leads the world: Disagreement and debate are cherished. Challenging the norms, thinking outside the box, and questioning those in power is encouraged and celebrated. The louder you speak the more prominence and respect you are given. Society’s heroes aren’t merely revolutionaries or political figures, but opinionated, non-conformist entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.
This is what distinguishes American children from others and why they grow up to be innovators. From childhood, they are encouraged to pursue their dreams and to challenge authority. So they challenge their parents, then their teachers, and then their government. And they learn to work with each other and compete. There are no barriers to success. If you work hard, think smart, and persevere, you achieve success. And this success is celebrated. Reaping fortunes through entrepreneurial success even has a special label: it’s called the American Dream.
America’s unique strength is that it also welcomes foreigners. Yes there is some discrimination and there are a few hurdles to leap over. But once you surmount these, you are treated like everyone else. You are given the same respect and have the same opportunities. You can compete in any field. And this is what has been happening through American history: wave after wave of immigrants has landed on American shores, embodied its values, and helped birthright citizens to work harder and think smarter.
Today, America is in a slump. The ups and downs of the economy and rise of new global competitors are discouraging and often cause American’s to lose hope. But, as someone who came to the U.S. by choice, and who has studied the warts of this country and its competitors, I have no doubt that the U.S. will continue to prosper and lead the world.
It has to—no other country has the ingredients for long-term success.

WASHINGTON POST: Joe Arpaio says he won’t endorse before Arizona primary
By Felicia Sonmez
February 21, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/joe-arpaio-says-he-wont-endorse-before-arizona-primary/2012/02/21/gIQAlGLqRR_blog.html
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose hardline stance on illegal immigration has drawn him national controversy as well as a Justice Department investigation, says he will not endorse a GOP presidential candidate before next Tuesday’s Arizona primary.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in December 2011. (Ross D. Franklin - AP) Arpaio had previously endorsed Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who dropped out of the race last month and endorsed former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).
“You know, I was a Perry guy,” Arpaio said. “We’ll see what happens in the near future. … (Santorum and I) did a lot of joking. We were talking about the border, my philosophy, and a little about religion. And that’s about it.”
The announcement from Arpaio came in a gaggle with reporters during the Maricopa County Lincoln Day Lunch and Straw Poll. Former senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) had addressed the gathering earlier in the afternoon.
Arpaio also said that he plans to hold a news conference on March 1 announcing the results of an investigation into President Obama’s “birther situation,” although he declined to go into detail about what he plans to say.
“Well, you know what, I’m not going there to get my face on TV,” he told reporters. “I can do that a million other ways.”
Arpaio said that he had met with Santorum on Tuesday morning and that Gingrich had called him last week. All of the candidates in the race have asked for his endorsement, he said, but even so, he doesn’t plan to make a move before the Feb. 28 primary.
“Why does everybody want my endorsement?” he asked reporters as he left the luncheon. “I’m the guy taking all the heat from Washington and everywhere else. Why would they want my endorsement? Haven’t figured that one out yet.”
The embattled sheriff said that he hadn’t ruled out endorsing any members of the GOP field – including former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R), with whom there appeared to have been a little bad blood.
In addition to being endorsed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an opponent of Arpaio’s immigration stance, Romney had also sought and won the endorsement of another Arizona sheriff, Paul Babeu, who resigned his volunteer leadership spot with the Romney campaign over the weekend when, in the wake of allegations made by an ex-lover, he revealed that he is gay.
“He seems to have forgotten my number,” Arpaio said of Romney. “He did call me briefly. But he has another sheriff that he went with. And he has a right to go with anybody. But I’m sure McCain has a lot of influence on Mitt Romney.”
Asked about his relationship with McCain, Arpiao responded, “Sure, I don’t get a Christmas card from McCain — sure, he doesn’t like my stance on illegal (immigration) – but he’s a nice guy.”
He also declined to weigh in on the firestorm of controversy surrounding Babeu.
“I’m not going to talk about that,” Arpaio said.
An endorsement from Arpaio of Santorum could shake up the race; most recent polls show Romney leading in Arizona, and while Arpaio has become a controversial figure both inside and outside Arizona, he remains an influential figure within the state GOP.
At Tuesday’s Lincoln Day luncheon, one vendor was selling T-shirts with Arpaio’s face on them next to shirts depicting Gov. Jan Brewer’s (R) now-famous tarmac encounter with Obama last month.
Arpaio said he counseled Santorum to “stop saying secure the border – that’s okay – but don’t say, ‘First, and then we’ll look at it comprehensively.’ ”
“The reason they say ‘first’ is they don’t want to lock ‘em up in the United States like I do. … So, don’t keep blaming it on the border first,” he said. “You notice that’s the new word? ‘Border first?’ Why ‘first?’ Then you’ll look into it?”
Asked how he feels about Gingrich, Arpaio noted that the two have a relationship that extends beyond the current presidential race.
“I put all his Reinvent America videos in all the jails for three years so that all the inmates could do is watch Newt Gingrich,” he said. “Everybody forgets that.”
He also offered some colorful advice for the presidential field when it comes to illegal immigration.
“I hope that whoever is the president of Mexico and the U.S. will get together, have a little beer, and smoke, light up a pipe and get together like I did when I was head of the federal drug enforcement in Mexico right after G. Gordon Liddy and I under Nixon closed the border,” he said. “And then I had to take over. They didn’t like us in Mexico, but we were really able to get together.”
He added that he “did it on blueberry pie that my wife baked, and a little whisky with the attorney general of Mexico.”
“I got more done with blueberry pie than the big stick, and that’s how you get things done in Mexico, or other parts of the country,” he said.
Despite his often-combative relationship with the media, Arpaio at one point during his chat with reporters Tuesday had a friendly back-and-forth with PBS’ Gwen Ifill.
“Are you with PBS?” he asked Ifill.
“I am,” Ifill responded.
“You’ve interviewed me before,” Arpaio said.
Ifill nodded. “I have.”
“Did it come out nice?” he asked.
Ifill responded, “Only when you answered my questions.”

LOS ANGELES TIMES: L.A. conference considers plight of day laborers
By Paloma Esquivel
February 21, 2012
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0221-day-laborers-20120220,0,4834636.story
The way Omar Sierra remembers it, dozens of day laborers gathered in the Kmart parking lot that day more than 15 years ago. A county mobile health clinic arrived with a mariachi band and free food and offered HIV tests to those waiting for work.
Sierra got in line and sat for his test. He heard a commotion, turned and saw men running. He thought someone was offering a job and wondered whether he should go with them. Then he saw the immigration agents. And he ran as fast as he could.
More than a dozen day laborers were arrested and deported that day in February 1996 in the City of Industry. Those who weren’t, including Sierra, returned to the lot the next day to look for work. This time, they were greeted by an organizer who wanted to enlist workers to fight back.
Sierra, who now lives in Texas, and hundreds of current and former day laborers from across the country gather this week in Los Angeles for a national conference to measure their progress since day laborers began a concerted effort to organize themselves two decades ago.
They will discuss wage theft and worker safety, and they will reflect on the role that day laborers, often seen as little more than loosely banded groups of men looking for a day’s work, have had in challenging local anti-solicitation ordinances, state anti-illegal immigration laws and federal enforcement.
The conference comes as the national immigration and labor debate has become polarized, with tough crackdowns in Arizona, Alabama and other states, and heated rhetoric in the Republican presidential primary campaign. And in ways that activists couldn’t have imagined when they began organizing street corners, the day laborers who gathered this week are prepared to fight back on a national scale.
Sierra, who is now an office worker, came to the conference at the request of Pablo Alvarado, the organizer he met the day after the raid. With his encouragement, Sierra wrote a corrido about the arrests and formed a group of day laborers called Los Jornaleros del Norte. They toured the country singing at rallies and protests and providing the musical background for organizing efforts. And on Monday he and others played the songs that propelled their movement while workers and organizers danced in the main conference room.
At the time of the City of Industry raid, communities throughout Southern California were looking to clamp down on day laborers, accused of harassing residents, littering and creating unsafe conditions.
With the help of immigrant rights groups, day laborers began challenging efforts to arrest or cite workers in city after city, said Alvarado, who is now the director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which organized the conference. They also managed to persuade several communities to build or allow worker centers where day laborers could register, agree on wages and use down time for classes or other activities.
In the years since, worker centers have been built from Pomona to Staten Island, N.Y. And day laborers have become among the most recognizable faces in the nation’s battle over illegal immigration.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, which seeks to restrict immigration, has encouraged local activists to fight back against such centers and the local governments that support them.
Large numbers of day laborers are not eligible to work in the U.S., and they make work difficult for those who are, said the group’s spokesman, Ira Mehlman.
“You have these day labor centers where they’re hiring people essentially off the street,” he said. “Over the years you have the creation of a situation where people who used to do these jobs, and do them legally, can’t compete.”
Day labor groups, in turn, have sought to use their visibility to influence immigration issues on a national level. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network has helped lead the challenge to the Secure Communities immigration enforcement program. Its local groups have challenged state and city efforts to combat illegal immigration and pushed government leaders to adopt pro-immigrant initiatives. And a federal court decision striking down as unconstitutional an anti-solicitation ordinance in Redondo Beach was spearheaded by the group.
The city appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, and the group’s lawyers expect to know this week whether the court will take up the case.
Over the years, Sierra was able to get his legal status adjusted. The days of earning $4 or $5 an hour and not knowing when a job might come are behind him, he said.
But for every person like him who fixes his legal status or gets a permanent job, “there’s always another worker ready to take his place,” he said.
“We’ve accomplished a lot. But there’s still a lot more to be done,” he said.

ABC NEWS: Romney’s Immigration Stance Alienates Some Latino Mormons
By Matthew Jaffe
February 20, 2012
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/romneys-immigration-stance-alienates-some-latino-mormons/
Mitt Romney spent last weekend in the Mormon hotbed of Salt Lake City, Utah, where he married wife Ann decades ago. But while he has so far enjoyed widespread support among his fellow Mormons in the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, a small but vocal faction of Latino Mormons wants to see Romney defeated.
The former Massachusetts governor’s controversial stance on immigration has alienated some Latino Mormons. In all, Latino Mormons make up 7 percent of Mormons in this country, so their potential influence on Romney’s chances of winning both the nomination and the presidency is limited.
In Nevada, for instance, a state with a large population of Latinos and Mormons, Romney cruised to a victory in the caucuses earlier this month, bolstered by the fact that 26 percent of caucus participants were Mormon, and 91 percent of them voted for him.
But the frustration that some Latino Mormons feel is illustrative of the polarizing nature of Romney’s immigration policy among Latinos nationwide, and the effect that could have on Romney’s chances of winning the White House this year. In the run-up to the Iowa caucuses in January, Romney said that as president, he would veto the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for some undocumented children of immigrants who attend college or serve in the military.
The fallout from Latinos was immediate.
When asked the next day whether he would back Romney, Juan Rodriguez, a Republican businessman in Des Moines, didn’t hesitate in his response.
“I wouldn’t vote for Romney because he doesn’t support immigration reform or the DREAM Act,” he said. “My business depends on Hispanics basically, and if there’s no immigration reform, we are going to be very affected. Not just me, but all the businesses that, like us, depend on the Latino community.”
The next week in New Hampshire, Esteban and Selma Lopez, a Latino couple in Goffstown who will vote for the first time in the general election this fall, shared a similar sentiment.
“I work in education and I know first-hand how important the DREAM Act is for Latino youth, for kids who are in this country without having taken part in the decision to come here,” Lopez said. “The short answer is I wouldn’t vote for Romney.”
Even the country’s largest Latino Republican group – Somos Republicans – said it would oppose Romney because of  his immigration policies, deciding to back rival Newt Gingrich instead.
What makes the opposition to Romney of some Latino Mormons different is that their disapproval of his immigration stance stems not from business or professional reasons, but rather from religious ones.
Some Latino Mormons such as Honduran-born Antonella Cecilia Packard believe Romney has betrayed a basic Mormon belief of protecting immigrants, according to a story by the Associated Press’ Russell Contreras.
“A lot of us aren’t supporting him because of his stance against immigrants,” she told Contreras.
Latino Mormons, the AP story noted, cite immigration stories in the Book of Mormon and some recent statements by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints against various policies that target immigrants. In addition, as AP reported, they see Romney as a hypocrite because his own great-grandfather Miles fled to Mexico after an anti-polygamist law was passed in 1882.
If Latinos – Mormons or otherwise – go against Romney, that could pose a real threat to his chances of securing the GOP nomination and, later this fall, the White House. In Arizona, along with Michigan, the next state to vote in the primary on Feb. 28, Latinos make up 18 percent of the state’s eligible voters.
Nationwide, meanwhile, Latinos make up the nation’s fastest-growing voting bloc, with an estimated 12.2 million Latinos set to vote in the general election. While Romney’s immigration stance might have helped him with some conservatives, it might do him an equal – if not greater – amount of harm with Latinos across the country, even among those who share his faith.

CNN.COM: Does ‘secure the border’ mean ‘keep America white’?
By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor
February 21, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/21/opinion/granderson-border-security-canada/index.html?hpt=op_t1
Editor’s note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named journalist of the year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and a 2011 Online Journalism Award finalist. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism. Follow him on Twitter: @locs_n_laughs. Watch him on Tuesdays on CNN Newsroom, 9 am ET hour.
Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) — In case you plan to see Wednesday’s GOP debate, allow me to offer up some crib notes so you don’t get lost.
First, when you hear the candidates talk about “job creators,” that’s just another way of saying “rich people” or “the guy bankrolling my super Pac.”
When someone says “family values,” that’s to remind the audience that they don’t like gay people; “religious freedom” means “Christianity”; and it’s not really a GOP debate until a candidate attacks the “liberal media” for asking questions they’re too afraid to answer.
Now there will be plenty of other buzz words and euphemisms that will be tossed around during the debate, but since it is being held in Arizona, chances are the most popular phrase will be “secure the border.”
We must secure the border.
The candidates will argue that it’s a matter of national security. That it isn’t just the friendly illegal immigrants looking for work we must worry about, but terrorists, drug lords and other criminals who seek to make their way through our porous border. They will say if they were president they would build walls, add troops, even commission a Death Star to keep this country safe.
Newt Gingrich has promised to build a double fence along the entire southern border, adding, “The United States must control its border. It is a national security imperative,”
Ron Paul said “If elected president, I would move to quickly end foreign nation building efforts and use many of the resources we waste playing world’s policemen to control our southern border.”
They all will receive applause, and it will all sound great … until you realize that “secure the border” is slang for “keep the Mexicans out.”
Oh boy, here comes the black guy playing the race card again.
Yep, that’s me — pointing out that the Canadian border is largely ignored in this dialogue despite being more than twice the size of the Mexican border and less than 1% secure, according to a 2011 report by the Government Accountability Office. Even if we were to disregard the 1,538 miles between Alaska and Canada, the 3,987 mile border connecting the lower 48 to our neighbors up north is still much larger than the 1,933-mile stretch that connects us to Mexico.
And yet the attention we give the northern border is miniscule at best when compared to the resources we allocate to the south. There are definitely reasons for serious concern about safety along the Mexican border, but according to our own intelligence, Mexico should hardly be our only concern.
[Read more at the link above.]

EFE: Group Works to Boost Latino Involvement in Politics
February 21, 2012
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/02/21/group-works-to-boost-latino-involvement-in-politics/#ixzz1n7HuX1Ll
The Texas branch of the League of United Latin American Citizens has stepped up its efforts to get Latinos registered to vote and to have more women in the state running for public office.
According to Linda Chávez, state director of LULAC, in the last few months her organization has carried out a series of workshops and seminars specifically aimed at training women interested in politics.
“We’ve won a great deal of participation by women and particularly by organizations headed by Latino women who want to get involved in local politics…as a way of helping their respective communities,” Chávez said in an interview with Efe.
“At the same time we’re trying to boost the Latino vote in general from about 30 percent to 60 percent, and we’re specifically targeting people who are registered voters but don’t go to the polls,” she said.
LULAC has launched a plan of action to help Hispanic women interested in holding public office obtain all the tools they need to run an effective electoral campaign, Chávez said.
The goal, she added, is to prompt women across Texas to run for school boards and city councils, but also to continue with their higher education and become owners of their own companies.
“Our workshops educate candidates about the positions they can seek in the area where they will run, as well as training them in speaking techniques and the best way to collect campaign contributions,” she said.
She also said that the rules governing LULAC, a non-partisan organization, bar it from publicly supporting a candidate, but nothing stops candidates from connecting with an organization that can help them.
Chávez also said that LULAC has identified several metropolitan areas in Texas with large numbers of Latino voters - Houston, Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio and McAllen - where it will focus its efforts in the months preceding the elections.
“And in this electoral year it’s important to get out the Hispanic vote because everything indicates that during the next legislative session more bills will be introduced that attempt to discredit the state’s immigrant community,” she said.
Chávez added that her organization supports comprehensive immigration reform and that her priority is education, an area about whose importance really strikes Hispanic women when they start doing community work.
With more than 5,000 members, the Texas branch of LULAC is the organization’s largest.
According to Census data, 37.6 percent of the Texas population is of Latin origin, but less than half is registered to vote.

FOX NEWS LATINO: Puerto Rico Gov. Says Latino VP Would Help GOP Win Latino Vote
By Suzanne Ramirez de Arellano
February 21, 2012
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/02/21/puerto-rico-gov-says-latino-vp-would-help-gop-win-latino-vote/#ixzz1n7HIj1AA
A Hispanic of national stature on the GOP presidential ticket would help the party rebuild bridges with the community and harness the Latino vote, the Governor of Puerto Rico said.
In an interview with Fox News Latino, Luis Fortuño spoke candidly about a number of issues — from the national elections, his first term as governor, his chances for re-election, and the buzz around conservative circles that peg him as a possible vice presidential candidate.
“The GOP can’t even envision winning the White House if we lose a significant percentage of the Hispanic vote,” said Fortuño, who is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday.
Fortuño believes that the party has an opportunity to engage the fastest growing voting bloc in the nation with a ticket that carries a unique Hispanic perspective.  
“That person can be a Puerto Rican or a Cuban, or whomever,” Fortuño said, “but that person can bring that perspective and I believe commence to rebuild bridges that have been burned with the Hispanic community.”
The Latino population grew from 35.3 million in 2000, to 50.5 million in 2010.
Latinos represent 9 percent of all eligible voters. Many live in key battleground states such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico.
[Read more at the link above.]

HARTFORD COURANT (Editorial): Crackdown On ‘Dangerous’ Illegal Immigrants Misfiring
February 21, 2012
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-states-have-qualms-about-immigration-roundup-20120221,0,2135298.story
Rarely have so many state and local officials had so many misgivings about a federal program, one that is scheduled to be activated in Connecticut today.
The program is called “Secure Communities,” a project of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is supposed to deport dangerous and violent convicted criminals who are in the country illegally. Under the program, fingerprints taken by local police that are now shared with the FBI will also be shared with ICE. If ICE has an interest in the arrestee, it can ask that the person be detained for further investigation.
If the program were actually getting dangerous criminals out of the country, few would complain. But it’s not, very well, and it is causing a lot of collateral damage.
The program has been up and running in some parts of the country since 2008. Such were the complaints that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, created a task force last year to study how the program might be improved.
Task force members said the program was causing the deportation of minor offenders who were never convicted of a crime — and those who were victims of crime. It follows that the program may have a negative effect on community policing by eroding the often tenuous trust between immigrants and officers and making immigrants more reluctant to report crime.
A study at the University of California, Berkeley found that the program had detained about 3,600 U.S. citizens, that 39 percent of those targeted for deportation had a child or spouse who was a U.S. citizen, and that detainees under the program faced a number of due process issues. Who takes care of the citizen children when a parent is deported?
Everyone from Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who has admirably tried to develop a humane immigrant policy, has serious questions about whether Secure Communities is a misnomer. The state does not have the choice to opt out of the program. The rubber will meet the road when ICE tells the state to detain someone that the state would otherwise release. What happens then? Who blinks?
This largely could be avoided if Congress would create a reasonable national immigration policy. But no.

THE HILL: Santorum plays up immigrant roots in Arizona speech
By Geneva Sands-Sandowitz
February 21, 2012
http://thehill.com/video/campaign/211843-santorum-americans-are-different-than-everybody-else-in-the-world
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum reached out to anti-illegal-immigration hard-liners in Arizona while also playing up his own Italian-immigrant roots during a campaign speech Tuesday.
“The economy of this country is struggling, why? Because Americans are different than everybody else in the world. Your ancestors and maybe you came here because you wanted to be free. Your DNA is different than those who stayed behind,” said Santorum at the Maricopa County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day lunch. 
In an impassioned speech, the former Pennsylvania senator touted his family’s emigration from Italy to the United States. 
“I know my grandfather came to this country and brought my dad as a boy, I’ve been back and visited my relatives. They are wonderful people, but they’re nothing like my grandfather,” he said. 
“They weren’t the man who worked for 30 years in a coal mine, digging coal, working hard every single day so he could provide for his son who might someday be able to get a college education or his grandson who might be able to run for president.” 
On Tuesday, Santorum reached out to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his tough stance on illegal immigration, and former state Sen. Russell Pearce, architect of the state’s controversial immigration measure, both of whom attended the Tuesday luncheon. Santorum met privately with Arpaio before the event.
The issue of immigration is key to many GOP voters in the state, which has one of the nation’s most stringent anti-illegal-immigration laws. An endorsement from either Arpaio or Pearce could boost Santorum with conservative voters.
Santorum, who has leaped ahead of the GOP field in national polls, is within striking distance of winning next week’s Arizona primary. A CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday showed Santorum trailing Romney by four points, while a Public Policy Polling survey showed him down by three. 
The GOP hopeful argued, during his address, that government intervention would stifle the qualities that made Americans unique. 
“When you put the yolk of government on a people who want to be free, who have a tradition, who have ancestry of hardworking freedom-loving people, who are willing to go out and fight for that, when you put that yolk upon them they bristle, they stop,” Santorum said. 
“We’re different, we don’t want to be ruled.”

HOMELAND SECURITY NEWS: DHS suspends expansion of Secure Communities in Alabama
February 22, 2012
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20120222-dhs-suspends-expansion-of-secure-communities-in-alabama
Due to ongoing federal litigation against Alabama’s controversial tough new immigration laws, DHS has halted the expansion of the Secure Communities immigration program in the state.
Speaking before the House Homeland Security Committee last week about DHS’ latest budget request, Secretary Janet Napolitano told lawmakers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) already has three quarters of the state covered under the program, “but given the pendency of the litigation, we decided to just hold off on the remaining quarter.”
The contentious Alabama immigration law passed last June includes several strict measures such as requiring schools to check the immigration status of students, prohibiting illegal immigrants from doing business with the state, and barring individuals and organizations from willingly aiding illegal immigrants.
The law has created many unintended consequences like labor shortages in certain industries and slowing down the pace of routine government business as all individuals must prove that they are citizens. The law has been tied up in legal battles, and a federal appeals court has already blocked portions of it.
In Arizona and Georgia, which have similarly strict laws in place, ICE has already activated the Secure Communities program. Napolitano explained that the program came online before court challenges against those states’ immigration laws began.
The DHS Secretary was careful to note that her department still plans to complete its nationwide rollout of the controversial immigration program by 1 October.
Under Secure Communities, local law enforcement officials will automatically share the fingerprint data of detained individuals with the FBI and DHS to determine their immigration status. The goal of the program is to identify and deport dangerous illegal immigrants, but critics argue that it hasbeen used as a tool to deport ordinary law-abiding immigrants and minor offenders, despite its stated goals. Local law enforcement officials have also stated that the program has strained ties with local immigrant communities.
Several states including California, Massachusetts, and Illinois have attempted to opt out of the program, but earlier this year DHS declared that Secure Communities would become a mandatory program and that all states must join by fiscal year 2013.
According to DHS’ fiscal year 2013 budget justification, the system has been deployed to 89 percent of jurisdictions.

HUFFINGTON POST (Reyes Post): Go Deport Yourself: Romney’s “Self-Deportation” Policy Is No Joke
By Raul Reyes
February 2, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raul-a-reyes/romney-immigration-deportation_b_1288974.html
I bet Mitt Romney has a sweatshirt that says I (heart) Florida. His victory in the Sunshine State revitalized his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Florida also gave him an opportunity to explain his immigration policy.
Asked how he would deal with undocumented immigrants, Romney said during the Tampa debate that he believes in “self-deportation.” A crackdown on undocumented immigrants, he explained, would make “people decide they can do better by going home because they can’t find work here…because they don’t have legal documentation to allow them to work here.”
Some spectators in the audience giggled at Romney’s answer. “Self-deportation,” however, is no joke. It amounts to laws that harm undocumented immigrants and Latinos. Let’s break it down and see why self-deportation defies reality, legality, and American values of dignity and human rights.
First of all, Romney’s idea of self-deportation overlooks the obvious. How do we think the estimated 11 million undocumented U.S. immigrants got here? They already “self-deported” themselves right out of their home countries in search of better lives and opportunity. And the fact is, they’re here to stay. In 2011 the Pew Center found that, despite a weak economy and increased enforcement measures, the undocumented population has remained stable. Although unauthorized entries have dropped, Pew reported that few undocumented immigrants are returning to their countries of origin.
It’s amazing that Romney, a successful businessman, doesn’t realize that if the undocumented were to leave, even gradually, it would cause our economy to contract. An exodus of this labor force would hit agriculture and the service sector very hard.
But wouldn’t American workers take these jobs? So far, it hasn’t worked out that way. In Alabama and Georgia, two states that passed strong, harsh immigration laws, farmers are facing severe labor shortages. Alabama has even considered using prisoners because farmers can’t find anyone willing to do backbreaking fieldwork.
Key components of the self-deportation strategy are state and local laws targeting “illegals.” Yet ironically, many of these laws have been found to be of questionable legality themselves. The Department of Justice has challenged many such statutes because they usurp federal authority over immigration and result in racial profiling of Hispanics. In Arizona’s Maricopa County, for instance, the department found that Latinos were up to nine times more likely to be pulled over for traffic violations than non-Hispanics. Its Civil Rights Division has received more than a thousand complaints about Alabama’s law.
Romney favors self-deportation over rounding up undocumented families and removing them from the country. Unfortunately, his solution is equally harsh and inhumane. Self-deportation means passing laws that make the daily lives of the undocumented miserable. It means measures that would bar them from finding work or renting a home and deny them basic services such as water and heat. It means questioning schoolchildren about their parents’ immigration status. These examples aren’t hypothetical. They’re all components of Alabama’s draconian immigration law.
It’s troubling that Romney endorses trampling on constitutional and human rights for the sake of winning his party’s nomination. His stance on immigration shows a lack of compassion from a man whose Mormon ancestors were persecuted across America before settling in Utah, and whose own family crossed the Mexican border a few times themselves. He would be well advised to learn from Ronald Reagan (who granted amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants in 1986) or even George W. Bush (who supported a path to legalization for the undocumented).
Romney might consider that his immigration stance is at odds with his faith; The Mormon Church actively promotes compassion towards all immigrants. Most of all, Romney needs to realize that Americans don’t want a long, slow purge of the undocumented. What we want is sensible, comprehensive immigration reform.

HUFFINGTON POST (Weiler Post): Mitt Romney Isn’t ‘Tough’ On Immigration — He’s a Coward
By Jonathan Weiler
February 21, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-weiler/mitt-romney-immigration_b_1291344.html
A particularly insidious linguistic habit in American political discourse is to label as “tough” any right wing position, no matter the context. For instance, you can work diligently to avoid serving your country during a time of war, but if you are a warmonger who advocates bombing other countries at the first opportunity, you are likely to be labeled as “tough.”
Being labeled “tough” because you love the idea of other people dying during wars is only one such misuse of the word. A recent New York Times headline read “Romney’s Tough Immigration View is at Odds with his Church.” The article noted that the Mormon Church has recently played a decisive and admirable role in shifting Utah’s politics in a direction more favorable to undocumented immigrants. For example, the Church worked to promote legislation that would allow undocumented immigrants to attain “guest worker” permits so that they could remain in the United States. It also backed the “Utah Compact,” which the Times described as a “declaration calling for humane treatment of immigrants and condemning policies that separate policies.”
In contrast to the Church, Romney has adopted far-right views on immigration, deriding more balanced policies as “amnesty” and advocating in favor of a climate that makes life so miserable for illegal immigrants and their families that they will engage en masse in “self-deportation.” His position on immigration, which places him on the right-wing of his far right political party is — as even Newt Gingrich has aptly noted — a pander, plain and simple, an attempt to keep up with the GOP’s ongoing rightward shift on immigration. That shift and the response of party elites to it is a good illustration of what Marc Hetherington and I described in our book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics. In spite of the fact that the Republicans’ growing extremism on immigration is almost certainly an electoral loser, GOP politicians are racing to catch up with their increasingly authoritarian base, for which immigration is a cut and dried issue that brooks no compromise and no subtlety of thought. According to the vast majority of authoritarian-minded voters who now populate the GOP base, a path to citizenship is intolerable and immigration is a clear threat to the American economy. If you are in the country illegally, you are a lawbreaker, plain and simple and should be punished accordingly. Therefore, whatever explains the larger global forces that spur migration and regardless of the consequences a punishment-only approach to the issue entails for families or communities is irrelevant. Because his conservative credentials are particularly suspect among the party faithful, Romney’s search for political positions on which to pander to the far right is especially abject. And so it is that the former Massachusetts governor has chosen as one such issue immigration and, on that score, has indulged the authoritarian base with more relish and less conscience than any other GOP presidential aspirant.
You can describe his stated views on immigration in any number of ways — useful for winning the nomination; unrealistic; useless, whatever — but please don’t call them “tough.” Since he began running for president, there has scarcely been a major issue position on which Mitt Romney has taken anything like a principled stand. Apart from believing that he is entitled to his wealth and all the favorable tax policies that have helped him accumulate it, it’s not clear that he believes in anything at all. His position on immigration isn’t “tough.” It’s a further reflection of the core quality he’s demonstrated over and over again — craven cowardice.

HUFFINGTON POST LATINO VOICES: Who Could Be The First Latino President Of The United States?
By Carlos Harrison
February 20, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/20/first-latino-president-us_n_1284429.html
With all the attention being placed on the Latino vote, possible Hispanic vice-president candidates, and the support of influential Latino leaders in the 2012 election cycle, we have to ask, is 2012 paving the way towards the first Latino president? If so, who could it be?
As much as he says no, the talk of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) ending up as a vice presidential pick just doesn’t seem to go away. And then there’s Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, named Tuesday as chairman for the Democratic National Convention.
“This is really a testament to the degree to which both parties recognize that the Latino vote could determine the outcome of the national election,” Stanford University political scientist Gary Segura told The Huffington Post. “I think the Democrats want the stagecraft of having not only a Latino officeholder but, in fact, the mayor of the second-largest city in the United States, and the second largest Spanish-speaking city on Earth, to be the person who stands at the podium on each night to call the convention to order on national television. The stagecraft clearly is intended to help build support in that community.”
Beyond Rubio and Villaraigosa, Democrats and Republicans alike are seeing the Latino handwriting on the wall.
“Both parties understand that the future of their parties is in large part in the hands of the Latino voters,” University of South Florida political analyst Susan MacManus told the Huffington Post, “because it is the fastest-growing demographic and becoming very politically active.”
The question is when will one, or both, put a Hispanic on the ticket.
[Read more at the link above.]

KANSAS CITY STAR: Immigration bills sought by Kobach get lukewarm response in Kansas
By Brad Cooper
February 21, 2012
http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/20/3443968/immigration-bills-sought-by-kobach.html#storylink=cpy
After four days of passionate testimony last week, leading Republican lawmakers don’t appear willing to tackle the aggressive immigration measures that Secretary of State Kris Kobach — a fellow Republican — has been advocating.
“I don’t have a burning desire to address immigration this year,” said House Speaker Mike O’Neal, a Hutchinson Republican. “If we do address immigration in some way, I want it to be something that gets a lot of buy-in and that people can agree this is the way to go.”
Lawmakers in this legislative session have a buffet of choices on immigration compared with last year, when all of Kobach’s ideas were rolled into one bill that died in a House committee. But this year immigration is competing for attention with such big-ticket issues as overhauling the state tax code and school finance reform.
If lawmakers follow some of Kobach’s tougher immigration proposals, however, they would be passing bills that would:
• Deny public benefits to undocumented immigrants.
• Require governments to verify that applicants for public benefits are here legally.
• Make it illegal to harbor undocumented immigrants.
• Require police to verify of the citizenship of anyone they detain if they reasonably suspect that person is here illegally.
Kansas lawmakers could take a narrower approach and go with something that would only require the state to participate in an Internet-based system called E-Verify, which allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States.
Interviews with lawmakers indicated that some variation of an E-Verify proposal might be doable this year.
“I think you will see something happen on immigration, but I think it’s probably going to be pretty limited in scope,” said Rep. Paul Davis, a Lawrence Democrat and the House minority leader.
[Read more at the link above.]

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: Protesters: GOP Candidates Don’t DREAM Halfway
By Teresa Tomassoni
February 22, 2012
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/22/147041160/protesters-gop-candidates-dont-dream-halfway
“Dreamers” — or undocumented immigrant youth who came to the U.S. illegally when they were young — have grown up in public schools and many of them want to go to college to become lawyers and scientists.
They also want to become American. But if Republican candidates make it to the White House, it’s likely that won’t be possible, unless the young immigrants opt to join the military. But this type of hard line immigration stance might make it difficult for candidates to become president.
A week before Arizona’s GOP debate, Mitt Romney rallied supporters inside the Mesa Amphitheater near Phoenix. And another group rallied outside.
The small group of immigrant students protested Romney’s vow to veto the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, more commonly known as the DREAM Act. The bill would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented youth under 35 years of age if they serve in the military or go to college.
GOP Candidates Offer Partial Support
But Romney, along with Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, says he would only support the military portion of the DREAM Act.
“I absolutely believe that those who come here illegally should not be given favoritism or a special route to becoming permanent residents or citizens that’s not given to those people who have stayed in line legally,” Romney said at a debate in South Carolina last month.
Activists like Daniel Rodriguez, 25, say this view is offensive to Dreamers who want to go to college.
“That’s telling me I’m good enough to die for this country,” Rodriguez says, “But I’m not good enough to study for it and to help it through my knowledge.”
At a a fundraiser for fellow Dreamer students in Phoenix, Rodriguez recalled coming to the U.S. at the age of six with his mother who was fleeing domestic violence in Mexico.
“I’m told everyday that I’m not American,” he says, “But that’s all I know and that’s all I consider myself to be.”
Broader Appeal?
The Migration Policy Institute in Washington estimates at least two million undocumented youth like Rodriguez could benefit from the DREAM Act. But the institute’s co-director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, Margie McHugh says many fewer would qualify for the military because of its strict educational and English-language requirements.
“It’s hard to imagine that it would be worth passing legislation just for that small number,” McHugh says.
That’s why 28-year-old Cesar Vargas says he doesn’t like the idea of a “military only” DREAM Act even though he, personally, wants to join the Marines.
“It tells you, you know, forget about your friends who want to go to college and you take advantage of this and that’s not how it’s supposed to be.”
The DREAM Act should be about more than just the military, says Dulce Matuz, president of the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition. She says it’s meant for students who want to fight for the country with their bodies and minds.
“We need intelligent and talented individuals in this nation and we’ve got to respect their decision to join the military or become a scientist.”
Latino Voters
Matuz says she wants candidates to know there are consequences for their statements.
“We’re going to be informing the Latino community about the facts,” she says. Even for President Obama. We’re holding accountable the Republicans and Democrats alike.”
If the candidates keep talking like they are now, Matuz says the Latino community won’t be voting for them.
But in an interview on Univision, a media outlet that serves an Hispanic audience, Gingrich said he’s not worried about losing Latino voters.
“I have a hunch that by this fall we may do better than any other Republican, except maybe Reagan,” Gingrich said.
That’s not likely, according to Rodolfo Espino, a professor of political science at Arizona State University.
“They’ve pretty much blown that opportunity to cater to the Latino vote,” he says.
But Espino says that doesn’t mean President Obama is a shoo-in for the general election.
He says, “Democrats cannot just sit there and assume Latino voters are going to rush into the arms of the Democratic Party.
Democrats need to show Latinos they’re serious about immigration reform, Espino says, and passing the DREAM Act would be a good start.

ORLANDO SENTINEL (Van Warner Op-Ed): Immigration reform a battle of extremes
By Rick Van Warner
February 20, 2012
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/os-ed-immigration-reform-myword-022012-20120217,0,6140600.story
Common sense and reason are conspicuously absent in most political discourse these days, but particularly so when it comes to the Florida immigration-reform debate. Anyone who dares to poke his head above this mushroom field of political rhetoric risks finding it quickly chopped off.
On one side are hardline groups focused solely on enforcement, while pro-amnesty groups on the opposite end of the spectrum can be just as dismissive to practical solutions that consider all aspects of this complex issue. Caught in between are politicians like Marco Rubio, as recent media reports have pointed out.
No one is safe from being burned by the fireworks surrounding this issue, as Gov.Rick Scott found out last week, courtesy of attack billboards labeling him soft on immigration. The group behind the assault, Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, prefers deportation to deliberation, lockdown over level-headed reform.
While extremists wage public-relations warfare, our elected officials best qualified to tackle this issue end up being stuck on the sidelines, unwilling to step into the crossfire. Like Mel Martinez before him, Sen. Marco Rubio is in a challenging spot, not wanting to be defined by the immigration issue but needing to address it as a matter of credibility.
The extreme politicization surrounding this dialogue makes staking out any workable middle-ground position paramount to political suicide. Therefore, the groups shouting the loudest ultimately only ensure that the status quo remains and that a realistic solution to fix this dysfunctional system will not be achieved.
Any workable solution to reform immigration policy must balance the real need for enforcement with the real economic needs that also exist. The enforcement-focused bills under consideration in the Florida Legislature fall far short of this. A quick-fix answer to this complicated matter will only hurt our state’s economy at a time when we are least prepared to absorb another blow.
The last thing we need in Florida is to give businesses a reason not to relocate here, international tourists a reason to stay home and trade groups a reason to host their conventions elsewhere.
Unfortunately, the ongoing battle of the extremes only serves to stifle practical solutions and trap our decision makers in political quicksand. It’s time to strike a balanced reform policy that includes strong enforcement as part of the solution, not the entire solution.
Rick Van Warner of Winter Park is senior adviser for ImmigrationWorks Florida.

PRESS-REGISTER: Alabama immigration law target of Comic Cowboys’ humor on Mardi Gras
By Roy Hoffman
February 21, 2012
http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2012/02/alabama_immigration_law_target.html
Alabama’s new immigration law, House Bill 56, provided an unintended benefit on Fat Tuesday — grist for the humor mill in the Comic Cowboys’ Mardi Gras parade.
As muscled and hairy Queen Eva led the procession in the Cowboys’ emblem float, a sign made it clear: “Welcome to Alabama the Beautiful: No Habla Espanol.”
Right from Wragg Swamp for the 128th year, the Cowboys proved once again that no institution, politician, or news item is safe from their satire.
There was no mention of Barack, Newt, or Mitt, but plenty of others got zinged — Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley got his share — by the time the cavalcade of lampoons made their way through town.
The topic of immigration was in the air, no doubt.
On the last float, for example, where riders wore sombreros, one placard asked, “How many Mexican workers are left in Alabama? Just Juan!”
“Please excuse our messy signs,” said another. “Due to immigration laws, we couldn’t afford the help.”
[Read more at the link above.]

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Judge delays ruling on Utah immigration law
By David Montero
February 21, 2012
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53561272-90/law-court-immigration-utah.html.csp
A federal judge said Tuesday he will not rule on Utah’s enforcement-only immigration law until the U.S. Supreme Court decides on a similar enforcement-only law in Arizona a few months from now.
U.S. District Court Judge Clark Waddoups, in his decision, said that while the Utah Attorney General’s Office made it clear that the state’s law, HB497, was different from what Arizona passed almost two years ago, it was close enough that the high court’s decision could ultimately impact Utah’s law.
“Because this case addresses significant constitutional issues, the court does not believe it would be helpful to the parties for the court to rule on the present motions before it receives the additional guidance from the Supreme Court,” Waddoups wrote in his two page decision.
The hearing on HB497 pitted U.S. Department of Justice lawyers and attorneys with the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah against Attorney General Mark Shurtleff’s office when they argued for more than six hours in federal court Friday.
The law, which somewhat mirrors enforcement-only immigration measures in Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and Arizona, is a state-based approach that uses local police to enforce federal immigration law. It was signed into law March 15 by Gov. Gary Herbert.
The Justice Department sued Utah in November, claiming the state was flouting the federal government’s jurisdiction over immigration law.
Attorneys with the NILC also argued Utah is overreaching with such a law — despite Utah’s claim that it only requires the legal status of a person be checked if the person is arrested and booked on a felony or Class A misdemeanor offense.
Shurtleff’s office has said the law is distinct from Arizona’s, which was broader in scope and would’ve had undocumented immigrants facing state charges in addition to federal charges for being in Arizona without proper papers.
Shurtleff said he was surprised the judge decided to hold off on ruling and that he allowed the law to remain enjoined until that time.
“He could’ve made that decision a month ago and saved time and expense of the state and federal governments,” Shurtleff said. “I’m disappointed he refused our request to dismiss his temporary restraining order and let our law take effect pending the Supreme Court decision.”
But Shiu-Ming Cheer, immigration attorney with the NILC, said she wasn’t surprised by the judge’s decision — noting Waddoups had hinted at that after the hearing wrapped up Friday.
“We do feel confident in our argument that the law is unconstitutional,” she said.
The Supreme Court will hear Arizona’s SB1070 in April and it is expected to issue a decision in either May or June.

TECHPRESIDENT.COM: Obama Administration Asks Silicon Valley How It Can Improve Immigration Process For Foreign-Born Entrepreneurs
By Sarah Lai Stirland
February 22, 2012
http://techpresident.com/news/21808/obama-administration-lands-silicon-valley-ask-how-it-can-improve-immigration-process
Top officials from the White House and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are in Silicon Valley for the week to solicit viewpoints and input from the startup community on how the administration can improve the way it hands out visas to talented entrepreneurs who’ve landed funding to create new companies.
The USCIS Entrepreneurs In Residence Information Summit is scheduled to take place all day Wednesday at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Mountain View, California. Five people from the world of tech startups have already agreed to participate in the USCIS’ three-month mostly pro-bono entrepreneurs in residence program. The USCIS has not made the names of those people public yet, but they’ll be working with five staffers at the agency to improve the way it hands out visas to entrepreneurs who have landed funding.
This is the latest twist in the growth of a relationship between America’s Internet-powered tech sector and the federal government.
USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas will be on hand to discuss immigration issues with more than 100 people from the startup community who have registered to attend the event. Also there to hash out the agenda for the entrepreneurs in residence will be Ping Fu, the president, co-founder and CEO of GeoMagic, a 3-D software visualization company; Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital; Shervin Pishevar, managing director at Menlo Ventures; and Vivek Wadhwa, a well-known academic who has conducted research into entrepreneurship and the role of immigrants in creating startups in the United States.
The goal of the event is to gather input so that the entrepreneurs in residence can come up with well-thought through ideas for making the process of applying for work visas more transparent and accessible to immigrant founders of new firms. Part of that will involve improving the training of the staff within the immigration department, wrote The White House’ former Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Senior Advisor Doug Rand in a blog post last December.
It might sound vague and bureaucratic, but for foreign entrepreneurs wanting to carry through with their plans to start up a company in the United States, the risk of being denied a visa based on a very narrow view of what a startup company should look like is very real.
Craig Montuori and Jonathan Nelson of Hackers and Founders have been working to push the issue of startup visas for some time, as have others in the technology and startup community. They recently collected dozens and dozens of stories of immigrant founders who have run into problems obtaining the visas, even though many of them have been funded by venture capitalists or have definite plans with other professionals to start companies.
In some cases visas have been denied despite the company having been funded because the startup can’t demonstrate a viable revenue stream yet, said Montuori.
“The first key step we’re pushing for is to establish some metrics by which these companies can be adjudicated,” he said in an interview. “We’ve found that [the USCIS staff] have a very hard time interpreting these early stage companies.”
Columnists like Tom Friedman and tech leaders like Bill Gates have long complained about U.S. immigration policy and its odd unfriendliness toward highly-skilled foreign workers who could be starting companies and creating jobs here, or bringing their skills to improve the talent pool at existing companies.
But comprehensive immigration reform legislation is stalled in congress as is specific bi-partisan legislation that attempts to address some of these startup visa issues. So the Obama administration is left trying to make the most of the rules that it currently has on the books by re-interpreting a more accommodating implementation of those rules with fresh information gathered from the field.
The USCIS is the second agency to experiment with the idea of the entrepreneurs in residence program. The Food and Drug Administration is also currently experimenting with the model, and the project deadline for that group of entrepreneurs in residence for coming up with a speedier approval process for new products is March 31st.
More on this topic:
BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK (Tozzi Post): Making U.S. Visa Programs Work for Tech Entrepreneurs
By John Tozzi
February 22, 2012
http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/running_small_business/archives/2012/02/making_visas_work_for_entrepreneurs.html

TEXAS INDEPENDENT: Man returns home after long road through immigrant detention
By Teddy Wilson
February 21, 2012
http://www.americanindependent.com/212179/man-returns-home-after-long-road-through-immigrant-detention
After a year in the South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, Texas, Nazry Mustakim is finally at home with his wife, Hope. Nazry, or Naz, as his family and friends call him, has spent the last year navigating the complicated US immigration system, with the hopes of regularizing his immigration status and rejoining Hope.
As the Texas Independent reported, on March 30, 2011 Naz was detained by four fully armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Naz was led to believe that because of a previous drug conviction his green card was being suspended, and he would receive a hearing. It would take nearly a year for that to happen.
Because of his drug conviction, Naz was classified as an “aggravated felon” per the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Detention Watch Network has launched a campaign calling on Congress to repeal the laws mandating the detention of undocumented immigrants. The Florida Independent has reported that the law has torn families apart and may violate due process.
After extensive legal maneuvering, Janice Warder, the District Attorney in Cooke County, dismissed a previous felony drug possession charge. This paved the way for a master hearing Feb. 6, during which the prosecutor decided to grant him the waiver to cancel his deportation. Just 24 hours later, Naz was released.
Hope told the Texas Independent about the experience of picking up her newly released husband after a year apart. “I picked up Naz around 8:30 am,” said Hope. They then helped three fellow detainees get some clothes and duffel bags from a local store. “All the girlie ideas I had of our first few hours together disappeared quickly,” said Hope.
Naz is now back home with his wife, and told the Texas Independent about what it was like being home and how the experience has changed them. “Everything just keeps rolling,” said Naz. For Naz the nearly year long ordeal has been difficult. “There are times of hopelessness, powerlessness, but there are sparks of hope,” said Naz. “It is up and down. Just not knowing what the future would hold, but at the same time we know that we had God on our side.”
Part of his frustration was the lack of information available to him about his case while in detention. “I think that the officers in the detention center are clueless,” said Naz. “Most of the time they don’t know anything about your case, and can’t tell you anything.”
Naz also believes that the system can be reformed so that those who are awaiting hearings or are dealing with other immigration issues don’t have to be detained for months at a time. “They keep people there for way too long,” said Naz. “There are different ways they can ensure detainees can appear in court without incarcerating them.”
It is through this experience that Naz and Hope have become outspoken advocates for immigrant rights and against the for-profit prison system they see as the driving force behind immigrant detention in the United States.
“It’s giving us a passion to advocate for immigrants’ rights and immigration reform and to improve the perception of immigrants,” said Hope. “The media perception of immigrants is driven by a profit driven industry of private prisons. These companies like GEO and CCA hire lobbyists to pass these irrational, unreasonable, and draconian immigration laws.”
Hope also believes that anti-immigrant political rhetoric and anti-immigrant laws from Arizona to Alabama have fed into a negative perception of Latinos and people from other countries in the immigrant community.
“If you implant fear in people they will believe the worst of people,” said Hope. ”It becomes hateful, and there is a loss in humanity. As long as people are scared, they won’t care if you detain people with brown skin. It saddens me that I once thought that DHS was there to protect me. It made me sad that we are just a number to them. They say that they are about family unity, but that’s bullshit.”
“Local law enforcement and local courts need to wake up and realize that there is a large portion of immigrants, both authorized and unauthorized, who don’t know anything about immigration law,” said Hope. “What I don’t get is how we can do this over and over again with different ethnicities.”
Through it all, Naz and Hope leaned on each other and their faith. They communicated on a nearly daily basis, despite the high cost of the phone calls. They had a strong network of family, friends, and supporters.
“My faith in God has helped me not become bitter,” said Naz. “I am grateful for all the people who supported me. I know that I’m not all perfect. Because my past is why I was there, but there are people that were just trying to work and make a living that are being detained and imprisoned.”
After his ordeal, Naz said it would be easier to become bitter, but that he wants to look forward. “I saw a lot of people in there who got bitter, and angry at the United States,” said Naz. “They would say that the United States has a lack of compassion – a country that is powerful but lacks compassion. I see it that way also, but I try to look forward in a positive way.”

UNIVISION: Poll: Immigration law looms large over Arizona race 
By Jordan Fabian
February 22, 2012
http://univisionnews.tumblr.com/post/18067768856/poll-immigration-law-looms-large-over-arizona-race 
Immigration is not considered a top issue this year for voters nationwide, but this is not the case in Arizona, according to a new poll released Wednesday. The state’s controversial SB 1070 immigration law could be a significant vote-moving issue the general election in November and serve as a key litmus test issue for Republicans in next week’s presidential primary there.
Sixty-seven percent of likely Republican primary voters say support for 1070 would make them more likely to support a candidate, a NBC News/Marist survey shows. Fortunately for them, most of the GOP presidential field is already well-positioned to satisfy Arizona Republicans on the immigration issue; Mitt Romney (the Arizona front runner), Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich all support the law. Only Ron Paul has in the past expressed reservations about the law.
And among registered voters, a broader sample more representative of the general electorate in November, a 45-percent plurality says they would be more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who supports SB 1070, 31 percent said it would not affect their vote and only 20 percent said it would make it less likely.
That number doesn’t bode well for President Obama, who is looking to pull an upset in November to become the first Democrat since 1996 to win Arizona in a presidential contest. The strategic factor underpinning that goal is the state’s rapidly-expanding Latino population that has been mobilized against SB 1070.
[Read more at the link above.]

UNIVISION (Torres Column): Notion of Latino “sleeping giant” has pitfalls
By Arnoldo Torres
February 21, 2012
http://univisionnews.tumblr.com/post/18024024761/opinion-notion-of-latino-sleeping-giant-has-pitfalls
I can remember back to 1980 when President Carter was running for reelection against a list of Republican candidates, including Ronald Reagan. Ruben Bonilla, the then-National President of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was being encouraged to endorse the president’s campaign. He backed Carter, but Reagan went on to win easily.
This common, apparently benign scenario, has played out for decades but it’s representative of the underlying problem when it comes to how media and politicians treat Latinos.
From 1980 to the mid-1990s, Latino voters were always referred to as the “sleeping giant.” Our population growth has constantly risen at a rapid pace, thus many in politics and the media have recognized the potential political strength of the Latino community and politicians desired the endorsements of top Latino officials.
But at the same time, the disturbing reality is that we have not yet realized that potential at the ballot box. We continue to have a very young population and we have experienced a great deal of obstacles to voting because of state and local barriers. Instead of addressing these issues head on, politicians and the media have just rolled with the punches. Presidential candidates have made lightweight political overtures to Latinos in nearly every election. And the media only gives scant coverage to Latino issues.
How did this happen?
[Read more at the link above.]

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