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Immigrant Stories: Headlines and News

February 24, 2012

REUTERS: Evangelical leaders call for immigration overhaul
ASSOCIATED PRESS-ALABAMA: House approves bill making immigration law change
ASSOCIATED PRESS-MISSISSIPPI: State activist: Immigration bill is ‘ethnic cleansing’
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Actor’s life reflected in role
UNIVISION NEWS: Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir gives voice to immigrant community
WALL STREET JOURNAL (Favole Post): Obama to Hispanics: ‘I’ve Got Another 5 Years’ to Fix Immigration
ABC NEWS: Obama: ‘I’ve Got Another Five Years Coming Up’
USA TODAY: Obama: I’ve got five years to revamp immigration
NEW YORK TIMES: Salvadoran May Face Deportation for Murders
WASHINGTON POST (Sargent Post): Romney: Arizona immigration law a `model’
WASHINGTON POST (Dvorak Column): Forcing Frederick County’s immigrants to speak English: Dubious motives, obvious benefits
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Beck backs driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants
ASSOCIATED PRESS: LAPD chief: Illegal immigrants should get licenses
AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA (Farrell Column): The powerful economic case for immigrants
BIRMINGHAM NEWS (Garrison Post): Immigration law morality addressed at Samford University conference
BLOOMBERG: ‘Rotting Crops’ Show Need for Immigration Changes, Vilsack Says
BOSTON GLOBE: Fingerprint rule shakes Conn. City
CNN (Garcia Op-Ed): How Obama could win in a landslide
CNN: Democrats attack Romney over immigration
CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY: Schumer Asks Arizona Governor to Testify on Immigration Law
GOVERNMENT SECURITY NEWS: Schumer challenges AZ governor to testify on border security
THE HILL: Sen. Schumer invites Ariz. governor to hearing on controversial anti-immigration law
HUFFINGTON POST: Jan Brewer, Arizona Governor, Invited To Testify About State’s Harsh Immigration Law
DETROIT FREE PRESS: Immigration conference focuses on concerns of racial profiling near U.S.-Canada border
HUFFINGTON POST (Cabrera Post): Immigrants in the Time of Kobach
MSNBC: Does Rubio have the credibility to help draw Latino votes?
NATIONAL REVIEW (Baldwin and Murdock Column): Romney: A Conservative on Immigration?
POLITICO: Dems’ takeaway: Romney ‘extreme’ on immigration
POLITICO: Democrats chase Arizona dream
SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Undocumented immigration activist won’t be deported
TIMES-PICAYUNE: Immigrants can be deported for filing false tax returns, Supreme Court finds
UNIVISION NEWS: Why an enemy of Arizona’s immigration law backed Mitt Romney
WNYC.ORG: Irish Immigration Bill Raises Questions in Latino, Asian Communities

REUTERS: Evangelical leaders call for immigration overhaul
By Tom Bassing
February 24, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/24/us-immigration-evangelicals-idUSTRE81N04X20120224
Evangelical Christian leaders took up a bully pulpit on Thursday to call for a “humane” overhaul of the U.S. immigration system in response to tough crackdowns on illegal immigrants enacted by Alabama and other states.
“Because I’m a Christian I believe in comprehensive, common-sense, humane immigration policy,” the Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the New York-based National Latino Evangelical Coalition, told a conference of evangelical leaders in Birmingham.
“Hospitality is not at the margins of scripture. Jesus wasn’t kidding around when he said, ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me,’” Salguero said at the G92 South Immigration Conference at Samford University.
Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah have all passed “omnibus” immigration crackdowns since Arizona blazed the trail in 2010 with a law requiring police to check the status of all those they arrested and suspected of being in the country illegally — a measure since blocked by a court.
The conference, whose name is derived from the 92 references in the Old Testament to “ger,” Hebrew for stranger or immigrant, brought together evangelical Christians, legal experts and ethicists “to respond to immigration issues in a biblical way.”
“We are called to welcome the stranger, that’s what scripture tells us. We’re not asking people to break the law, we’re asking to reform a broken law,” Salguero said of federal immigration policies. “It’s a complex, complicated issue, but its not unsolvable.”
Alabama’s immigration law, passed in June, requires police to detain people they suspect of being in the United States illegally if they cannot produce proper documentation when stopped for any reason, among other measures.
Parts were blocked by a U.S. Appeals court, including a provision that permits the state to require public schools to determine the legal residency of children upon enrollment. But the court left most of the law untouched.
The state law “pretty clearly was designed to make life unlivable and enlists all Alabamians in making life unlivable” for illegal immigrants, said David Smolin, a professor of constitutional law as Samford’s Cumberland School of Law who addressed the conference. “It’s clearly a test case, to push to see how far states can go.”
President Barack Obama made a campaign promise in 2008 to push through a comprehensive immigration overhaul, tightening border and workplace enforcement, and easing a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants who paid fines, learned English and went to the back of the line, but has failed to deliver it.
Alabama Republicans who support the state’s immigration law say it will help create jobs for legal residents by driving out undocumented workers and their families, pegged at 75,000 to 160,000 people by the Pew Hispanic Center.
While the Alabama Legislature is considering modifying its law - after gaffes including the arrests last year of two foreign autoplant workers legally present in the state - a spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Robert Bentley said the governor had no intention of repealing it.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told the conference “there are about half a million Hispanic Americans” who are Southern Baptists, about 40 percent of whom are in the country illegally. Fifty-nine percent of them are from Mexico, he said.
“This should not surprise us. There is no other border in the world with as big a gap in living standards on opposite sides as there are on the U.S. and Mexican sides of our border,” he added.
The forum in Birmingham was the second in what organizers say will be a series of evangelical church conferences on immigration around the nation.

ASSOCIATED PRESS-ALABAMA: House approves bill making immigration law change
February 23, 2012
http://www.necn.com/02/23/12/House-approves-bill-making-immigration-l/landing_politics.html?&apID=7517fd5c32f44766a8bbf8dcc77a883a
The first possible change to the state’s tough immigration law passed the Alabama House Thursday that would allow the use of military identification cards to prove citizenship or legal residency.
The law, being called one of the harshest in the nation, was approved last year and supported by the Legislature’s new Republican majority. Lawmakers are working this session to make changes to address concerns of law enforcement officers, farmers, religious leaders and the business community have had concerning the law. Lawmakers have been stern in asserting they would not weaken the law’s provisions.
The House voted 92-0 Thursday for a bill that allows the use of military identification cards as proof of citizenship or legal residency to buy a car tag or conduct other official business with local or state government. The law requires proper ID.
The sponsor, Republican Rep. Steve Clouse of Ozark, said allowing the use of military ID is a major issue in his district because of the Fort Rucker Army base.
House Majority Leader Rep. Micky Hammon, House sponsor of immigration legislation, said Clouse’s bill would be included in legislation making overall changes. He said it was an oversight that military identification was not included as proof of citizenship in the original bill. He said supporters of the immigration bill did not want to hurt the military.
Some members of the military are not U.S. citizens, but Hammon said all are legal U.S. residents.
“If our military has vetted them, we should accept their IDs,” Hammon said.
House Speaker Mike Hubbard said Thursday the bill to make changes to the immigration law is still being written and he hopes it will be ready to introduce by the time lawmakers take their spring break at the end of March.
He said most of the changes will be “tweaks” like including military IDs as a proof of citizenship or legal residency. Hubbard said the proposed bill, that has not been shown to the general public, is being reviewed by Republican legislative leaders, Gov. Robert Bentley and Attorney General Luther Strange.
“I feel good about the bill that’s been drafted,” Hubbard said.
The speaker said the bill will make some changes, but “we are not backing down at all from the intent of the original bill.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS-MISSISSIPPI: State activist: Immigration bill is ‘ethnic cleansing’
By Emily Wagster Pettus
February 23, 2012
http://www.sunherald.com/2012/02/22/3771206/state-activist-immigration-bill.html#storylink=cpy
About 100 people, including immigrants with small children, gathered Wednesday at the state Capitol to protest an immigration-enforcement bill many called unfair and inhumane.
The bill is similar to a law enacted in Alabama in 2011, including provisions that would require schools to check students’ immigration status. Alabama’s law is considered one of the toughest immigration-enforcement measures in the nation, and parts of it have been blocked by federal courts, including the student check.
Opponents said if the Mississippi bill becomes law, it could lead to racial profiling that would cause immigrants to flee and could leave crops unpicked.
“The intent of the bill is to drive people of out of Mississippi, Latinos in particular. And we call that ethnic cleansing,” Bill Chandler, director of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, said during the rally in the Capitol rotunda.
The bill, sponsored by 15 Republican House members, would require immigrants to carry documents showing they’re legally in the United States. It also would allow law enforcement to check people’s immigration status.
The bill awaits debate in two committees — House Judiciary B and House Education. If it survives, as expected, it will move to the full House for debate.
The bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, said she believes the federal government has failed to enforce immigration laws. She said she wants to ensure people have the proper documentation to be in the U.S.
“There are not going to be crops left dead on the vine,” Currie said. “You can come here and work, but be legal.”
Currie was not at the rally Wednesday because she was attending legislative meetings, she said.
She has heard criticism of the bill, and she believes detractors are misrepresenting her intentions.
“I would suggest what we have here is Bill Chandler, who, his whole job depends on the fact that we have illegal immigrants. He desperately wants to cling to this job instead of having to go out to find a real job. So, he continues to stir people up,” Currie told The Associated Press. “And I read their mail-out. It said, ‘We encourage you to come and bring your children.’ So, you know, I just feel like they’re being used. They’re being used and they’re being scared, by him. Not by me. By him.”
Kathy Sykes, an organizer for MIRA and secretary for the Jackson branch of the NAACP, said she heard a lawmaker say black people should support the law because immigrants are taking jobs that might otherwise go to black residents.
“The only time we had full employment was when we were not getting paid,” Sykes said, referring to slavery. “So do not let someone who has never cared about you or your children influence you to go against your brothers and sisters.”
After the rally Wednesday, groups of immigrants crowded into committee meetings and stopped lawmakers to lobby against the bill.
Rep. Steve Holland, D-Plantersville, got a round of applause from about two dozen immigrants and their advocates after he told them: “I’m on your side.”
“I’m not going to throw anybody out — red, yellow, black or white,” Holland said as he left the group to go into the House chamber.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear arguments March 1 about the Alabama law, which was challenged by the U.S. Justice Department, immigrants’ groups and others.
The bill is House Bill 488.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Actor’s life reflected in role
By Katherine Corcoran
February 24, 2012
http://www.jg.net/article/20120224/ENT01/302249924/1011/FEAT
MEXICO CITY – Demian Bichir learned an important lesson when he left his native Mexico to launch a U.S. acting career and ended up working in a Mexican restaurant in New York: how to live the invisible life of an illegal immigrant with dignity.
It’s a subtle quality he brings to his Oscar-nominated role of Los Angeles gardener Carlos Galindo in the movie “A Better Life.”
Like Galindo, Bichir came to the U.S. illegally. The U.S. amnesty program in 1986 put him on the road to a green card. The character he plays is not so lucky, trying to climb the rungs from day worker to owner of a gardening business while keeping his American-born teenage son from street gangs.
“It was important for me to relate to that time when I arrived in New York,” Bichir said. “Carlos Galindo’s dignity is similar to all those 11 million undocumented workers in U.S. They live their lives with … that power and that passion, and they never give up. That’s me.”
[Read more at the link above.]
More on this topic:
UNIVISION NEWS: Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir gives voice to immigrant community
By Juan Gastelum
February 23, 2012
http://univisionnews.tumblr.com/post/18157020145/oscar-nominated-actor-demian-bichir-gives-voice-to

WALL STREET JOURNAL (Favole Post): Obama to Hispanics: ‘I’ve Got Another 5 Years’ to Fix Immigration
By Jared Favole
February 23, 2012
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2012/02/23/obama-to-hispanics-ive-got-another-5-years-to-fix-immigration/
President Barack Obama told a Hispanic audience that he has “another five years coming up” in his presidency and will use the time to push for an overhaul of the U.S. immigration system.
“My presidency is not over. I’ve got another five years coming up. We’re going to get this done,” the president said in an interview Wednesday with Univision Radio.  The interview came ahead of the president’s trip to Florida Thursday to deliver remarks on energy policy and the economy and to raise money for his re-election campaign.
The Hispanic community has criticized Mr. Obama for doing little to carry out his promise to overhauling the immigration system. They have also taken issue with the Obama administration’s increase in deportations.
Mr. Obama said Republicans in Congress shoulder most of the blame for the lack of progress in changing the country’s immigration laws. “Unfortunately, the Republican side, which used to at least give lip service to immigration reform, now they’ve gone completely to a different place, and have shown themselves unwilling to talk at all about any sensible solutions to this issue, and we’re going to have to just keep up the pressure until they act,” he said.
He also criticized Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “So far, have we haven’t seen any of the Republican candidates even support immigration reform,” the president said. He continued, “In fact, their leading candidate said he would veto even the Dream Act, much less comprehensive immigration reform.”
The Dream Act would grant permanent-resident status to undocumented immigrant students who completed some college or military service. Mr. Romney has called the act a “handout.”
Latinos, who generally lean Democratic, will play a crucial role in the election in states such as Florida and Virginia. Mr. Obama said he doesn’t think the choice for Latinos will be difficult.
More on this topic:
ABC NEWS: Obama: ‘I’ve Got Another Five Years Coming Up’
By Devin Dwyer
February 23, 2012
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/obama-ive-got-another-five-years-coming-up/
USA TODAY: Obama: I’ve got five years to revamp immigration
By David Jackson
February 23, 2012
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/02/obama-ive-got-five-years-to-do-immigration-reform/1?csp=34news#.T0a_jYcgef4

NEW YORK TIMES: Salvadoran May Face Deportation for Murders
By Julia Preston
February 23, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/us/salvadoran-may-be-deported-from-us-for-80-murders-of-americans.html
An immigration judge in Florida has cleared the way for the deportation from the United States of Gen. Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, a former defense minister of El Salvador, finding that he assisted in acts of torture and murder committed by soldiers under his command during the civil war there, including several notorious killings of Americans.
The decision by Judge James Grim of immigration court in Orlando is the first time that federal immigration prosecutors have established that a top-ranking foreign military commander can be deported based on human rights violations under a law passed in 2004, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, intended to bar human rights violators from coming to or living in the United States.
Judge Grim found that General Vides assisted in the killings of four American churchwomen on a rural road in El Salvador in 1980, a crime that caused shock there and in Washington and presaged the bloody violence that would engulf the Central American nation for the next decade. The immigration judge’s ruling is the first time General Vides has been held responsible for those deaths in a court of law.
Five soldiers from the Salvadoran National Guard were eventually convicted of the killings and served long prison sentences. General Vides was the commander of the National Guard at the time of the murders.
The effort by Department of Homeland Security officials to seek the deportation of General Vides, who was El Salvador’s defense minister from 1983 to 1989, is a turnabout in American foreign policy. He was a close ally of Washington throughout the war against leftist guerrillas in the 1980s, and was embraced as a reformer despite rampant rights violations by the armed forces under his command.
Judge Grim also determined that General Vides had assisted in the torture of two Salvadorans, Juan Romagoza and Daniel Alvarado, who testified against him in hearings last spring in the immigration court in Orlando.
“This is the first case where the Department of Homeland Security has taken this relatively new law and applied it to the highest military commander of their country to seek their removal,” said Carolyn Patty Blum, senior legal adviser for the Center for Justice and Accountability, a nonprofit legal group in San Francisco that represented several torture victims in the case. She called the decision “hugely significant” for future efforts to bring immigration cases for human rights abuses against the highest-level military commanders and government officials.
Many details of the judge’s decision were not available on Thursday, since in keeping with general practice in immigration courts, the ruling was not published. His main findings were described by lawyers familiar with the case.
Diego Handel, General Vides’s lawyer, said he had not had a chance to read the lengthy decision and could not comment on it.
The deportation case against General Vides was brought by prosecutors from the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, a unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement created in 2003 to focus on preventing rights violators from entering this country and deporting those already here.
General Vides contested the charges, saying he did not have any direct responsibility for, or even knowledge of, the murders and torture signaled by the government. In the hearings, witnesses, including former American diplomats, said that the general had been working to stop rights abuses by Salvadoran soldiers and to change the culture of a military known for brutality.
Judge Grim’s decision confirmed that General Vides can be deported based on the rights charges brought by the government. Federal officials and immigration lawyers cautioned that there are still several steps to go before the judge will decide whether to issue a final order for the general’s deportation. But lawyers said it would be considerably more difficult now for General Vides to avoid such an order.
A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Nicole Navas, said, “As a matter of policy, I am precluded from commenting on matters still pending before the immigration court.”
General Vides retired as defense minister in 1989, amid praise from United States officials for his performance, and came to settle in Florida as a legal permanent resident.
But the family members of the four churchwomen, as well as some Salvadorans who barely survived prolonged torture during the war, have been tenacious in seeking to hold General Vides responsible for crimes of that era.
In 2000, a Florida jury acquitted General Vides and José Guillermo García, another former Salvadoran defense minister who retired to Florida, of responsibility for the churchwomen’s murders. But in 2002, in a case brought by the Center for Justice and Accountability, another Florida jury found the two officers civilly liable for the torture of three Salvadorans and ordered them to pay $54 million. The deportation proceedings against General Vides stem from that decision.
The four churchwomen killed were Sister Dorothy Kazel of the Ursuline Order; Jean Donovan, a lay missionary; Sister Maura Clarke and Sister Ita Ford, both of the Maryknoll Order.
Sister Ita’s brother Bill Ford fought vigorously for the prosecution of General Vides. Mr. Ford died in 2008.
“Since the women were killed my father made this the single purpose of his life,” his son, Bill Ford Jr., said Thursday. Mr. Ford, who is the principal of Cristo Rey New York High School in Manhattan, said, “I’m sure he knows and is well pleased that one of the men responsible for ordering the death of the women or for the cover-up may no longer be able to live in this country to enjoy the fruits of his brutality.”

WASHINGTON POST (Sargent Post): Romney: Arizona immigration law a `model’
By Greg Sargent
February 23, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romney-arizona-immigration-law-a-model/2012/02/23/gIQA8ULZVR_blog.html
In terms of the impact it could have in November, the most important moment of last night’s debate may have come when Mitt Romney hailed the Arizona immigration law as a “model” for the nation while Sheriff Joe Arpaio beamed approvingly.
After moderator John King noted that Sheriff Arpaio said it was “political garbage” to not arrest and deport illegal immigrants, and asked Romney if he supported “aggressive” arresting and deportation, Romney went further than just endorsing Arizona’s approach.
“I think you see a model in Arizona,” Romney said, citing the employment verification system, stepped up border patrols and a border fence as goals for his presidency. “You do that, and just as Arizona is finding out, you can stop illegal immigration,” Romney said, adding that he would halt lawsuits against the Arizona law “on day one.” Santorum went even further.
I don’t know how this plays among swing voters — some polls have shown national support for the Arizona law — but if Obama and Dems can make this stick, Romney may have ended any hopes of making any real inroads among Latino voters. And that could have far reaching ramifications in the general election.
One key route to reelection for Obama runs through the western states — what Obama advisers call “the west path.” He can offset expected losses in the Rust Belt but still win reelection by holding on to Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Demographic shifts in the west — rising minorities and falling numbers of working class whites — are more favorable to Obama than in the Rust Belt and midwest region. Latinos could be pivotal here.
More broadly, yesterday’s moment crystallizes a broader set of rising concerns among Republican operatives. They worry that the GOP primary is forcing the candidates to take a tone that’s compromising efforts to rebrand the party as forward looking and inclusive. Even before yesterday’s debate, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal warned against coming across as the “anti-immigrant” party, arguing: “We need to be more articulate in voicing the aspirational spirit of America.” And so moment’s like yesterday’s could help damage the GOP in ways that impact November.
Obama’s own record on immigration has been disappointing in some ways. But as Adam Serwer notes today, by clearly signaling what they would do on immigration as president, the GOP candidates may have saved Obama from his own record and given Latinos a reason to come out for Obama in the numbers he needs.

WASHINGTON POST (Dvorak Column): Forcing Frederick County’s immigrants to speak English: Dubious motives, obvious benefits
By Petula Dvorak
February 23, 2012
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/forcing-frederick-countys-immigrants-to-speak-english-dubious-motives-obvious-benefits/2012/02/23/gIQAxXzlWR_story.html
You’re in America. Speak English.
That’s what my parents say. And it’s exactly what they did when they came to this country from Czechoslovakia more than four decades ago, knowing nothing more than the lyrics to the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B.”
My parents would be all over the legislation passed this week by the Frederick County board of commissioners making English the official language of a fast-growing and increasingly diverse place.
And why not? No driver’s test or school registration form or ballot was printed for them in Czech. If they wanted to live in the United States and prosper, they had to learn English.
In fact, all the immigrants I talked to in Frederick this week — people who came here from India, Nigeria, Vietnam and Pakistan — took the same position as my parents: They had to learn to function in English as soon as they hit American soil.
Hearing all of their stories, and knowing my own, I agree.
But touting universal English gives me pause because it puts me in the uncomfortable position of making common cause with xenophobes. The folks who pushed for this legislation in Frederick aren’t doing it because they want to commune with their new neighbors. They aren’t offering English immersion classes or anything else constructive.
Declaring English the official language is a backhanded slap at immigration and immigrants, usually aimed at Hispanics. It’s straight-up code for Get Out from people freaking out because their town is starting to look less and less like them.
And it’s kind of funny that this is the tactic they choose, because the ability to speak fluent English is hugely empowering for immigrants.
Imagine Trung Huynh’s kitchen at the Lucky Corner restaurant in downtown Frederick if everybody spoke his native language.
Cooking and serving the carmelized pork pots, pho bowls and lotus salad orders would be nothing but a mess of confusion.
“I’ve got Pakistani, Indian, Vietnamese, Spanish. Nobody could do their jobs if we didn’t all speak English,” said Huynh, who came to America when he was 11.
He learned English in school and also studied Spanish. His parents took intense English courses for their first year here.
His father, Pha Huynh, worked his way up to become an executive chef, then opened his own restaurant, where his son is now a manager.
“He could never do that if all he spoke was Vietnamese,” the son said. He sees that problem in other members of the Vietnamese community who are held back by their fear of English.
But his favorite example of that trap is a Latina employee who started as a dishwasher. She spoke almost no English, and for a while, Huynh spoke Spanish to her, until he began noticing she wouldn’t communicate with any other employees and was languishing in her job.
“I stopped it with the Spanish and began teaching her English, making her speak it,” he said. “Now, she’s at the front of the house, talking to people, out there and making better money.”
This story rang my bell because it’s similar to how it happened with my parents, who also landed jobs washing dishes and busing tables.
They struggled to rent an apartment, buy a car and wade through the mountains of paperwork I brought home from school every day, written in English and Spanish.
I was born here, but we spoke Czech at home. When I arrived at the local public school, they put me in an English as a Second Language class. It was in Spanish, and it didn’t last long.
Soon enough, our English got better because it had to. My parents advanced to the front-of-the-house as servers, quickly making enough money to buy a house of their own.
And my teachers soon complained that I wouldn’t shut up in class. (Hard to believe, right?)
My parents weren’t lucky enough to have a boss like Huynh. Same goes for many other Latinos who live and work in downtown Frederick.
Go into any of the cute restaurants along downtown’s main drag, and you’ll probably see white folks as the servers making the big tips and Latinos working in the back, doing the low-paying work.
Besides preventing advancement, shunning English helps create factions in a county that is becoming more and more diverse.
“Language is the main thing in a culture and a society that brings people together,” said Syed W. Haque, a Frederick County doctor who came here from Pakistan in 1992.
He sees patients of many nationalities. And he loves the sound of Spanish, the complexity of an Urdu poem and the quiet rhythm of the new English spoken by Burmese immigrants. But when it comes to aches and pains and illness, English is the only way to communicate clearly.
“In Pakistan, the multilinguistic tussles divided the country,” Haque said. “Language became one of the reasons for so many controversies. And it already divided us here in Frederick.”
It was a wicked fight in Frederick, leading up to the 4 to 1 vote this week by county commissioners to make English the official language. The tone of it was ugly and mean-spirited. But the point is right.
Dvorak will respond to your comments about this column at noon Friday at washingtonpost.com/dvorak, where you can read her previous columns.

LOS ANGELES TIMES: Beck backs driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants
By Joel Rubin and Paloma Esquivel
February 23, 2012
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0223-beck-licenses-20120222,0,2763942.story
Wading into a divisive, politically charged debate, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said Wednesday that California should issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.
The chief becomes one of the most prominent local figures to support the idea that state lawmakers have battled over repeatedly in the last 15 years. And Beck’s stance is certain to further inflame critics who are already angry at the chief for his efforts to liberalize rules on how his officers impound the cars of unlicensed drivers.
“My personal belief is that they should be able to” have licenses, Beck said in response to a question during a meeting with Times’ reporters and editorial writers. “The reality is that all the things that we’ve done — ‘we’ being the state of California — over the last 14, 16 years have not reduced the problem one iota, haven’t reduced undocumented aliens driving without licenses. So we have to look at what we’re doing. When something doesn’t work over and over and over again, my view is that you should reexamine it to see if there is another way that makes more sense.”
Beck said he does not believe licenses for illegal immigrants should be identical to standard licenses. Saying “it could be a provisional license, it could be a non-resident license,” he acknowledged that state officials would have to find ways to address widely held concerns that giving licenses to people who are in the country illegally could make it easier for terrorists to go undetected.
Such concerns, however, were outweighed for Beck by what he said would be improved safety on California’s roads and the ability of police to identify the people they encounter. “Why wouldn’t you want to put people through a rigorous testing process? Why wouldn’t you want to better identify people who are going to be here?” he said.
Beck, for example, said he expected the number of hit-and-run accidents would decrease if illegal immigrants were licensed, because they would not have to fear being caught without a license at accidents.
In coming out in favor of licenses for illegal immigrants, Beck echoed his predecessor, Chief William J. Bratton, who also voiced support for the idea. Beck signaled a willingness to use his sway as a respected law enforcement leader to lobby for changes in state law that prohibits illegal immigrants from receiving licenses. “I want to be able to move this issue,” he said.
Asked whether he would be permitted in his capacity as police chief to, for example, testify in support of the idea at a legislative hearing, Beck said he had “to follow the lead of the city’s elected officials. The mayor is pretty good with me on that. I know he would support me doing that.” Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa did not respond to calls for comment.
In a brief interview, Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich joined Beck, calling it “a matter of public safety.” Issuing licenses to illegal immigrants, he said, would help ensure that people on the road were capable drivers, although he added that insurance regulations would need to be tightened to combat uninsured drivers. Trutanich said he first voiced his position on licenses last year in La Opinion.
Beck’s comments were embraced quickly by state Assemblyman Gilbert Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), who has been involved in repeated attempts since 1998 to pass a state law allowing licenses for illegal immigrants. The LAPD, he said, “is extraordinary … in that they have not allowed themselves to be politicized on the question of public safety vs. immigration. They truly put public safety first.”
Critics of expanded rights for illegal immigrants were equally quick to condemn Beck for speaking out on the license issue. Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, challenged Beck’s notion that allowing illegal immigrants to have licenses would improve road safety, saying the move would “represent a threat to public safety and national security.” He added that issuing the licenses would be “providing a gold-plated membership card into society for people who are not here legally.”
Beck’s stance on the issue stems from his push in recent months to make controversial changes in the LAPD’s vehicle impound rules for unlicensed drivers. Because illegal immigrants cannot receive licenses in California, they are presumed to make up a disproportionate percentage of the state’s unlicensed drivers and, Beck believes, have been unfairly affected by the current impound protocols.
Under Beck’s proposed changes, officers would continue to impound the cars of unlicensed drivers, but allow those who have auto insurance, a legitimate form of identification and no previous convictions for unlicensed driving to avoid a 30-day hold that carries stiff fees and fines. Drivers would also avoid having their cars impounded if a licensed driver was in the car or able to arrive “immediately.”
The proposed changes set off an angry protest from police union officials and some Angelenos, who argued that the changes would reward people for breaking the law and allow potentially dangerous drivers to remain on the roads — claims that Beck rebutted. The department is delaying the new changes until city officials can review a recent legal opinion from state lawyers that questioned the legality of the moves.
The current battle over licenses for illegal immigrants dates to the late 1990s, when Cedillo and others picked up the issue. In 2003, then-Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill that gave illegal immigrants the right to licenses, but the move was so unpopular that it helped spur the campaign to recall Davis. With Davis ousted and opponents threatening a statewide referendum to repeal the law, Cedillo said he and other supporters agreed to repeal the license law. Incoming Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed to support a new law that included tighter restrictions and identification requirements, but went on to veto those laws multiple times, according to Cedillo.
Cedillo said he plans to introduce legislation again before he is termed out of office at the end of the year. Gov. Jerry Brown has expressed opposition to such a law.
Times staff writer Robert Faturechi contributed to this report.
More on this topic:
ASSOCIATED PRESS: LAPD chief: Illegal immigrants should get licenses
February 22, 2012
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_20023245

AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA (Farrell Column): The powerful economic case for immigrants
By Chris Farrell
February 23, 2012
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/02/23/farrell/
Chris Farrell is economics editor of American Public Media’s Marketplace Money and author of “The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More and Live Better.”
Mass expulsion. Electrified fences. An alien invasion. These are only a few of the incendiary comments that have been targeted at illegal immigrants during the Republican presidential primary contest.
It’s hardly surprising that immigrants — specifically illegal immigrants — came up during the latest Republican debate, held in Arizona Wednesday night. The rhetoric was less incendiary than in previous debates. But it’s all part of a backlash against immigrants, both legal and illegal, that was set in motion long before the current primary season. The anger cuts across traditional party lines.
A signal moment came when the comprehensive immigration reform package pushed by President George W. Bush collapsed in a vituperative frenzy in 2007. The worst labor market since the 1930s, with the Great Recession and subsequent anemic recovery, has only deepened antipathy toward immigrants, especially the estimated 11 million immigrants who entered the United States without documents.
The United States is going through its greatest wave of immigration since the late 19th century and early 20th century. Since 1990, about 1 million immigrants a year have come to America legally, while an average of 500,000 each year have entered illegally or overstayed their visas.
Some 13 percent of the population is foreign born, up from 8 percent in 1990. The comparable figures for Minnesota are 7 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
However, Minnesota’s immigrant population from Africa, Southeast Asia, the former Soviet states and elsewhere has expanded rapidly. For example, from 2000 to 2008, Minnesota’s immigrant population grew by 48 percent, compared with a 22 percent increase nationwide, according to a recent report, “The Economic Impact of Immigrants in Minnesota, 2010,” by Katherine Fennelly and Anne Huart, scholars at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
A lot has gone wrong with the U.S. economy, and over the past two decades more of the blame has been placed on immigrants, legal and illegal. Immigrants, we’re told, are taking jobs away from native-born Americans and they’re driving down wages, especially among less skilled native-born Americans. Unlike previous waves of immigrants, the newcomers show little interest in assimilating into American culture. Immigrants are a fiscal burden on local budgets, from overcrowded emergency rooms to overcrowded classrooms to overcrowded jails.
Yet the economic case for immigration is powerful. The net national result and the net Minnesota result have been positive. On balance, the economic and social benefits of an open-door society have far outweighed the economic and social costs. Yes, economics is only one way to judge the impact of foreign-born residents. But economics lies at the heart of the debate over immigration.
Let’s start with the familiar. America’s frontier industries, from semiconductors to biotechnology, have benefitted enormously from immigrant scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. The numbers may be well known, but they’re still striking. Highly educated foreigners account for about a third of U.S. innovation, measured by international patents issued to U.S. residents. A quarter of U.S-based Nobel laureates over the past half-century were foreign-born. Half of the Ph.D.s working in science and technology in the United States were born elsewhere.
Perhaps the most striking statistic comes from Silicon Valley, the epicenter of high-tech innovation. There, the percentage of start-ups that were founded by immigrants reached 52 percent between 1995 and 2005, according to scholars Vivek Wadhwa, Annalee Saxenian, Ben Rissing and Gary Gereffi.
The economic return from immigration isn’t limited to educated newcomers. Throughout the Twin Cities and elsewhere in the state and country, immigrant entrepreneurs open restaurants, corner grocery stores, travel agencies and other businesses that revitalize neighborhoods. Middle-class families can pay for landscaping services, child care, home health care and other services that once only the very wealthy could afford, freeing them to focus more on career and family. A cottage industry of economic studies suggests the impact on immigrants on the wages of native-born Americans is scant. By every measure, second-generation immigrants are doing better in school than the first generation by a considerable margin. Looking at immigrants from Mexico, the second generation closes about half the gap between its parents and non-immigrants.
Despite the popular association of foreign-born newcomers and crime (think the Godfather and Scarface), immigrants are a force against crime. For instance, the U.S. government’s Industrial Commission report of 1901 found that “foreign-born whites were less criminal than native whites.” More recent research by Robert J. Sampson of Harvard University powerfully suggests that it’s no coincidence rising immigration tracks the reduction in crime in the United States. For example, among Hispanics in Chicago (primarily Mexican-Americans), he calculated that first generation immigrants were 45 percent less likely to commit violence than third-generation Americans, after adjusting for individual, family and neighborhood backgrounds. Second-generation immigrants were 22 percent less likely to commit violence than third-generation Americans. “Cities of concentrated immigration are some of the safest places around,” writes Sampson.
You can see many of these scholarly insights come alive on Lake Street in Minneapolis. Some two decades ago, the urban artery ran through some of the city’s most poverty-stricken and violent neighborhoods. When we spent time on Lake Street for an American Radioworks documentary several years ago, old-timers talked about boarded-up storefronts and frequent drug deals. The first Latino-owned business opened up on Lake Street in 1994. Largely thanks to an influx of Latino immigrants, business along Lake Street has thrived (although that’s a relative term, considering the current economy). The surrounding neighborhoods are full of working-class families, a good number of them undocumented Latinos. They’re here to work.
The worry that the current generation of immigrants is not assimilating like earlier generations is also exaggerated. For example, a recent Pew Center Research study reports that a record 14.6 percent of all new marriages in the United States in 2008 were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from one another. Read what was written about the Italians, the Finns, the Irish, the Germans and other immigrant groups in the 1880s through 1930s. The same charge was commonplace and, as we know from our grandparents, wrong.
None of this is to say immigration — legal and illegal — doesn’t come with costs. Many illegal immigrants live on society’s fringes. Far too few immigrants are doing well enough at school in an economy that increasingly values educational achievement. Schools are often burdened with additional costs of educating students from around the world.
Still, economics of immigration isn’t a zero-sum game where immigrants gain and natives lose, or vice versa. No, even during these troubled times, the better metaphor is an expanding economics pie. A greater appreciation and optimistic read on the economic contribution of newcomers should allow for a more reasoned legislative approach toward immigration reform. As the famed 18th century British conservative Edmund Burke wrote, “All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.”

BIRMINGHAM NEWS (Garrison Post): Immigration law morality addressed at Samford University conference
By Greg Garrison
February 24, 2012
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/02/immigration_law_morality_addre.html
HOMEWOOD, Alabama — Christian speakers opposed to Ala¬bama’s immigration law emphasized biblical mandates of kindness to strangers, aliens and the poor on Thursday during the G92 Immigration Conference South at Samford Univer¬sity.
Jenny Hwang-Yang and Matthew Soerens, staff members of the Chris¬tian organization World Relief, told several hundred students gathered in Reid Chapel that the Hebrew Bible uses the word “ger” — for stranger — as it commands kindness to strangers and aliens. “The Hebrew word ‘ger’ appears in the Old Testament 92 times,” Soerens said. “This is a consis¬tent theme throughout Scripture.”
That gave the conference its name and its mission statement. Christians should keep those moral command¬ments in mind as they minister to ille¬gal immigrants in the United States, said Hwang-Yang and Soerens, co-au¬thors of “Welcoming the Stranger,” a book on sale during the conference.
“We can as a Christian community show mercy and compassion to the immigrants among us,” Hwang-Yang said.
Students received credits for attend¬ing the conference and separate ses¬sions were held for pastors.
“Immigration is accounting for the fastest growth in evangelical churches,” Soerens said. “For the church it’s a mission opportunity. Many are vital believers who breathe new life into our churches.”
Another speaker, the Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition and se¬nior pastor of the Lamb’s Church in New York City, said about 40 percent of his congregation is undocumented immigrants.
“We don’t have a citizenship test to give people communion,” he said.
The coalition has been called upon to care for children who are U.S. citi¬zens, but whose parents have been de¬ported, he said. “The present immigra¬tion system is so broken it separates families,” Salguero said. “It’s a crisis.”
Salguero said opponents of harsh immigration laws often get labeled as promoting illegality, but that’s not true, he said.
“I know we can devise a better law,” he said. “We don’t advocate breaking the law. We advocate a better law.”

BLOOMBERG: ‘Rotting Crops’ Show Need for Immigration Changes, Vilsack Says
By Joe Richter
February 23, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-23/-rotting-crops-show-need-for-immigration-changes-vilsack-says.html
Changes in immigration laws are needed to ensure adequate levels of farm labor and prevent crops from “rotting” in fields, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.
“The sad reality is that crops will be raised in this country this year that may not be harvested because there simply is not the workforce,” Vilsack said today at a conference in Arlington, Virginia. “All of America, but especially farm country, needs comprehensive immigration reform, and we need it now.”
Vilsack called on Congress to have the “political courage” to fix the system, which he said leaves farmers with too few workers for the amount of acreage to be harvested.
“There’s a risk of rotting crops, and with that risk, there’s no excuse for the efforts of some seeking to demonize immigrant labor or prevent meaningful reform of a system that everyone in the Congress and in the country admits is not functioning.”

BOSTON GLOBE: Fingerprint rule shakes Conn. City
By Maria Sacchetti
February 24, 2012
http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/02/24/federal-immigration-program-spreads/5quLk2vqzTRump4qrAYfqM/story.html
Federal immigration officials activated the controversial crime-fighting program known as Secure Communities across Connecticut this week, stunning this city just weeks after the FBI arrested four police officers on charges of harassing immigrants and Latinos.
The launch marked the second New England state to fully deploy the program since it started in 2008 and signaled to the remaining states, including Massachusetts, that the federal government is plowing ahead with the initiative in spite of resistance. The program automatically checks the fingerprints of everyone arrested by state and local police against immigration databases to ensure that they are in the country legally.
Like Governor Deval Patrick, Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut last year sought to delay Secure Communities on concerns that the program - designed primarily to catch and deport criminals - is also deporting high numbers of immigrants who have not been convicted of any crime.
Federal officials activated the program with little public notice, illustrating how quickly the landscape can change.
Few communities were more caught off guard than East Haven, a working city of 29,000 on the Quinnipiac River in southern Connecticut. In December, the Justice Department accused East Haven police of engaging in systemic harassment of Latinos and immigrants. After the four officers were arrested last month, the police chief resigned and the mayor outraged residents by saying he might have “tacos’’ to reach out to the community.
Jorge Zuñiga, a 36-year old construction worker from Ecuador, said the new program would immediately raise fears of retaliation.
“It’s not fair,’’ said Zuñiga. “What are the people going to think? They’re going to think that they wanted to do this to us.’’
Secure Communities, which allows immigration officials to automatically check the fingerprints that police routinely send to the FBI for criminal checks, is in 45 states nationwide, including Rhode Island.
In Massachusetts, only Boston participates in the program after helping to pilot it in 2006, but officials at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement - known as ICE - say the program will be nationwide by the end of 2013. The program also went statewide in Maryland and New Jersey this week.
Federal officials say the goal is to find and deport serious criminals and flagrant violators of federal immigration law, such as those who return to the country after being deported. ICE spokesman Ross Feinstein said the vast majority of the 169,329 immigrants deported since 2008 fell into those categories.
“Secure Communities has demonstrated its effectiveness in transforming immigration enforcement to a focus on criminal offenders,’’ he said in a statement.
But in Boston and elsewhere, critics say Secure Communities is ensnaring immigrants stopped for minor traffic violations and never convicted of any crime.
Federal statistics as of Jan. 31 show that only half of the 446 immigrants arrested by Boston police and deported since 2008 had been convicted of a crime, a figure much lower than the national average of about 74 percent.
Advocates for immigrants also highlight another concern, that the program makes domestic violence victims and others afraid to report crime for fear of being deported.
“We are worried,’’ said Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. “I’m most worried that the program has flaws and that the flaws are not being addressed.’’
[Read more at the link above.]

CNN (Garcia Op-Ed): How Obama could win in a landslide
By Charles Garcia, Special to CNN
February 24, 2012
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/24/opinion/garcia-obama-latinos/index.html?iref=allsearch
Editor’s note: Charles Garcia is the CEO of Garcia Trujillo, a business focused on the Hispanic market, and the author of “Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows.” A native of Panama, he now lives in Florida. Watch Garcia on Friday in the 9 a.m. hour on CNN Newsroom. Lea este artículo en español/Read this article in Spanish.
(CNN) — TIME magazine’s cover story, which hit the newsstand Thursday, argues that Latino voters will cast the deciding vote in the upcoming election.
After watching the Republican candidates lock the kryptonite that is the immigration issue around their necks during the Arizona debate, my bet is that President Barack Obama could win another term — even if he loses key swing states such as Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin — but he must make sure he accomplishes one thing first: Connect with Latinos.
Republicans have not connected with Hispanics; the candidates’ approaches to immigration are not compelling and lack substance, from talk of double 30-foot electrified fences to anchor babies and self-deportation. In fact, it could very well be that the 20 Arizona Latino voters on the cover of TIME and half a million more will turn out to vote in Arizona and flip the state to Obama.
Obama comes into the election with 196 electoral votes from safe Democratic states. If he takes Arizona and if Hispanic voters help him flip Missouri, which McCain won by fewer than 4,000 votes, and help him retain Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico and North Carolina, then Obama wins with 279 electoral votes, nine more than the 270 needed. If he can retain Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia or Wisconsin, also populated with many Latino swing voters, then he could win in a landslide.
It is clear, then, that connecting with Latino voters could very well be a tipping point for the president; the question is how to make that connection.
In his book “The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation,” Drew Westen convincingly argues that “people vote for the candidate who elicits the right feelings, not the candidate who presents the best arguments.”
Beyond the shared concern for economic growth, jobs, education and health care, Latinos are focused on immigration because the majority of the undocumented workers living here are from Latin America. This is an issue that resonates at a deeply emotional level with Latinos, whether they are descendants of Spanish colonists or a recently arrived Mexican sleeping on a cousin’s couch.
Thus to really, deeply connect with Hispanic voters, any candidate needs to address the immigration issue by supporting comprehensive immigration reform and the Dream Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for those who earn a college degree or serve two years in the military.
This is a vital first step to earning the trust of Hispanic voters, who understand that the country needs strong border security but also know that we need a fair way to deal with the nearly 10 million economic refugees who are working in this country and contributing to our society. It’s a matter of respect.
So how does Obama — who has a dubious record himself on immigration — win the Latino vote?
First he wins the ground war in the battleground states, which is door-to-door combat.
Next he outspends Republicans in Spanish-language media, just like he did John McCain in 2008, by five to one. It’s no coincidence that on Tuesday, Obama did an interview with L.A.-based “Piolin,” the most influential Spanish-language radio personality in the country. The president reassured Latinos that he is strongly committed to passing comprehensive immigration reform and lambasted the Republican Party for its extreme views and intransigence on the issue.
[Read more at the link above.]

CNN: Democrats attack Romney over immigration
By Paul Steinhauser
February 23, 2012
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/23/democrats-attack-romney-over-immigration/
Mitt Romney’s top campaign advisers were pleased with their candidate’s performance in Wednesday night’s GOP presidential debate hosted by CNN and the Arizona Republican Party–and so were top Democratic Party and Obama re-election campaign officials.
During the debate, Romney defended Arizona’s controversial 2010 illegal immigration law, saying, “You know, I think you see a model here in Arizona.”
The former Massachusetts governor also attacked the Obama administration for its legal challenges against the measure, adding “the right course for America is to drop the lawsuits against Arizona.”
While such a stance may help Romney with the more conservative electorate in the GOP primaries and caucuses, Democratic Party officials feel that if Romney becomes the nominee his stance could hurt him with Hispanic and Latino voters.
The Democratic National Committee quickly put out a web video that used clips of Romney’s comments on immigration from the debate and labeled Romney as “The GOP’s Most Extreme Candidate” on immigration.
“He is supporting the Arizona plan, which even other border states don’t support because it’s extreme,” Stephanie Cutter, Obama Deputy Campaign Manager, told Soledad O’Brien Thursday morning on CNN’s “Starting Point.” “Mitt Romney’s support of that, I’m sure it will be talked about if he’s the nominee. I think he’s alienated a lot of voters by doing that.”
The Romney campaign was quick to respond Thursday.
“This is a dishonest smear from President Obama’s liberal allies and a desperate attempt to distract from his failed record. It will do nothing to help the millions of Hispanics who have been hit especially hard as a result of the abysmal Obama economy,” said Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams. “Hispanics are supporting Mitt Romney because they know he has a proven record as a conservative businessman, and is the best person to rebuild the economy that President Obama has spent three and half years destroying.”

CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY: Schumer Asks Arizona Governor to Testify on Immigration Law
By David Harrison, CQ Staff
February 23, 2012
http://homeland.cq.com/hs/displayalert.do?matchId=153322377
One of the Senate’s top Democrats asked Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Thursday to testify before a Senate panel in April, on the day before the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a case involving her state’s controversial immigration law.
Arizona became a tinderbox in the country’s immigration debate in 2010, when Brewer enacted a bill requiring state and local law enforcement check the immigration status of people they stop or arrest if there is “reasonable suspicion” of a violation. Immigration advocates say the law encourages racial profiling and improperly gives the state powers that are held by the federal government.
A district court blocked part of the Arizona law after the Justice Department sued to stop it from taking effect, and Brewer appealed the judge’s decision to the Supreme Court. Oral arguments are scheduled for April 25.
Matthew Benson, a spokesman for Brewer, said she had received Schumer’s letter but suggested she would not take him up on his offer.
“Of course the governor will be in Washington, D.C., for the Supreme Court hearing, but it doesn’t appear that her appearing before Sen. Schumer’s committee will be the most productive use of her time,” he said. “Talk about a publicity stunt.”
The issue has become a hot topic on the campaign trail, with Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich all voicing support for the Arizona approach at a debate Wednesday. That same day, President Obama told Univision Radio in an interview that he was committed to overhauling immigration law in his second term.
Charles E. Schumer of New York, the Senate’s No. 3 Democrat, has long been an advocate for loosening the country’s immigration laws and has denounced the Arizona law and others like it. Schumer chairs the immigration panel of the Judiciary Committee and has been working for years to overhaul immigration rules. But he has run into fierce opposition from Republicans who favor focusing on stricter border control.
In 2010, Schumer offered the GOP an olive branch by shepherding an emergency spending bill through Congress that appropriated $600 million to hire an additional 1,000 border patrol agents (PL 111-230). But Congress has been unable to agree on major changes to immigration laws, and several states, led by Arizona, have passed their own immigration bills governing state and local law enforcement. Those laws have been held up in court, and observers expect the Supreme Court’s decision in the Arizona law to reverberate nationwide.
In a letter to Brewer, Schumer said the April 24 hearing would examine the “constitutionality and prudence” of the state laws.
“We will be examining whether it is both constitutional and sound public policy for states to enact broad laws, such as SB 1070 in Arizona, that are designed to deter and punish illegal immigration,” he wrote.
The hearing’s timing, he told the governor, is “to make it easier for you to attend the hearing in the event you will already be traveling to Washington, D.C., to attend the oral argument.”
Schumer also took exception to comments Brewer made that federal reluctance to enforce immigration laws had left the state no choice but to take over, and he pointed to his border control bill as an example of his commitment to enforcement. The legislation, Schumer said, doubled the number of agents patrolling the border, and the Homeland Security Department has seen an increase in the amount of currency, drugs and weapons seized along the southwestern border.
“As you frequently ask the president to visit the southern border to discuss border security, we expect that you will be eager to engage in a productive dialogue with the congressional committee responsible for acting upon any border security recommendations you provide,” Schumer wrote.
More on this topic:
GOVERNMENT SECURITY NEWS: Schumer challenges AZ governor to testify on border security
By Mark Rockwell
February 24, 2012
http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/25701/schumer_challenges_az_governor_testify_border_secu
THE HILL: Sen. Schumer invites Ariz. governor to hearing on controversial anti-immigration law
By Daniel Strauss
February 23, 2012
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/212311-sen-schumer-invites-ariz-gov-to-hearing-on-controversial-anti-immigration-law
HUFFINGTON POST: Jan Brewer, Arizona Governor, Invited To Testify About State’s Harsh Immigration Law
By Michael McAuliff
February 23, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/23/jan-brewer-arizona-immigration-law-chuck-schumer_n_1296860.html?ir=Latino+Voices

DETROIT FREE PRESS: Immigration conference focuses on concerns of racial profiling near U.S.-Canada border
February 23, 2012
http://www.freep.com/article/20120223/NEWS05/120223058/Immigration-Detroit-Northern-Border-Conference
Immigrant advocates from across the U.S. are in Detroit for a two-day conference aimed at finding ways to stop what they say is a growing problem of federal agents profiling and harassing minorities near the border. 
The Northern Border Conference started today and looks at the issue of how groups like Latinos are treated near the border with Canada. Much of the national attention on border issues deals with the southern U.S. border with Mexico, but advocates say they are now seeing an increase in the targeting of minority groups near the border with Canada. 
Southwest Detroit – the heart of the region’s Mexican-American population – is near the border with Canada and has had issues with federal agents over the past year. Some Latinos say they’ve been increasingly stopped and harassed by immigration agents with the Department of Homeland Security. The department has stepped up its enforcement near borders to stop illegal immigration, but some say the crackdown has spilled over to affect legal immigrants and even U.S. citizens.
“Latinos and Arab-Americans are being stopped for no reason while they’re walking down the street, waiting for a bus, or driving,” said Ryan Bates, director for the Michigan branch of the Alliance for Immigrants Rights and Reform. “There is some pretty crass racial profiling across the northern border.”
Last year, federal agents conducted raids in Detroit outside an elementary school and Catholic church that are heavily Latino, sparking renewed concern. Latino social service agencies say they have been targeted by agents who stake out their buildings. In addition, Muslims and Arab-Americans say they’ve been detained and interrogated at border crossings for no legitimate reason.
But an internal review last year by Immigration Customs Enforcement found that its agents were not guilty of the allegations made in Detroit. 
A spokesman for the Detroit office of the Department of Homeland Security did not comment today about the conference. In the past, officials have said their agents do not racially profile. The head of the department, Secretary Janet Napolitano, told the Free Press last year she was concerned about the raid on the Detroit church and would look into that case. 
The conference includes advocates from the state of Washington, New York, San Diego, New Mexico, and other border areas. 
Christian Ramirez of San Diego, with the U.S.-Mexico Border Program of the American Friends Service Committee, spoke at the conference today. He said that harassment has long been an issue for Latinos in the southwest U.S. 
He said “it’s getting worse” as agents become more aggressive in recent years. “It should not be tolerated,” he said.

HUFFINGTON POST (Cabrera Post): Immigrants in the Time of Kobach
By Jorge-Mario Cabrera
February 23, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jorgemario-cabrera/immigrants-latino-voters-2012_b_1297346.html
This week I was reminded of the old proverb in Spanish: “There’s no illness that lasts a full one hundred years and no human being that can withstand it.” No hay mal que dure cien años ni cuerpo que lo resista.
The president’s proposed 2013 budget includes more ammunition to keep “Secure Communities,” the administration’s well-oiled machine, running proficiently for the next few years. Not content with deporting 1.5 million during the first three years, the Obama administration appears content to sacrifice a few hundred thousand more. But try as he may, deportation hawks complain undocumented immigration has rebounded since Mr. Obama took office.
Alabama’s poultry-processing plants and tomato fields were in dire need of working hands; workers not too frightened to come back to the place many have called home for decades in spite of the Gestapo-like conditions they must now face. Some politicians were quietly working on exceptions to ensure the state’s revenues do not tank as a result of their irrational exuberance towards immigrants during their last legislative session.
In the presidential trail, Republican candidates were aiming their cannons at Arizona, one of the nation’s most anti-immigrant states, all the while remaining mum about their tough and unintelligible stances on immigration. On the other hand, the Republican’s anointed Latino of the month, Marco Rubio, was the GOP’s VP of choice, according to a straw poll conducted during the much-elevated CPAC gathering in Washington, D.C. How a Latino son of immigrants could be the beloved child to CPAC is beyond me.
Finally, in Kansas, State Secretary Chris Kobach, a Romney supporter, reared his ugly head to introduce a number of bills that among other things, would criminalize helping an undocumented immigrant, would penalize workers and subject them to a broken and unreliable verification system, and essentially place an immigration cop at every corner to stop anyone suspected of being in the country without authorization.
For undocumented immigrants, there are no best of times. These are definitely the worst of times in a long time.
Lost in hypocrisy-land, the dreams of the American-in-waiting, the immigrant family, mean almost nothing to a political class intent on retaining or gaining power. While millions wail and curse, but also organize, there is good oratory from Democrats, severe xenophobia from Republicans, and a nation that demands responses by imposing the most draconian anti-immigrant measures state by state.
But not all is doom and gloom in 2012. There is a general election season that seems to go on forever.
On November 6, 2012, immigrant and Latino voters have a real opportunity to shift the balance and offer a new narrative about immigrants in America. A TIME magazine article out this week offers a few tips to why and how the GOP and Democrats alike will need to turn their attention to issues that matter to this vibrant and growing electorate, whether that’s in Arizona, Florida, California, or Ohio. That is, if they want to occupy the White House in 2013.
But the shift will not take place on its own. The two major parties are far too invested in keeping alive the status quo that they would rather lose more than half the Latino electorate than “pander” to our legitimate needs. In the end, it must be an organized community, a furious contempt for mediocrity, and a true democracy that will push reform forward.
Perhaps the most potent antidote to counteract the likes of Kobach, Bebeu, Baca, Rubio, Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Obama, Napolitano, et al, is the unswerving, informed, and unambiguous exercise of a most precious right of all: our right to vote.

MSNBC: Does Rubio have the credibility to help draw Latino votes?
February 23, 2012
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/does-rubio-have-the-credibility-to-help-draw-latino-votes/6xoe44s
Video embedded in link.

NATIONAL REVIEW (Baldwin and Murdock Column): Romney: A Conservative on Immigration?
By Steve Baldwin and Deroy Murdock
February 24, 2012
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/291860/romney-conservative-immigration-steve-baldwin?page=1
One of the biggest myths of the 2012 presidential campaign, propagated by Team Romney and the mainstream media, is that Willard Mitt Romney is a hard-liner on immigration issues. One easily could reach that conclusion if Romney were judged on his speeches, press releases, and sound bites.
However, as all conservatives should know, it is foolish to predict how a politician will govern based on campaign rhetoric. The more reliable way to determine a candidate‘s position is to review his actual record.
It is clear the Romney campaign, beginning with his 2008 bid, decided to use immigration as one of the few hooks it had to lure conservatives to its camp. With Romney’s dismal record on fiscal and social issues, his consultants must have concluded that with so little said about immigration by Romney while governor, they could get away with creating a phony record.
Indeed, if one digs deeply, a disturbing pattern emerges. Romney’s “hard-line” positions on immigration suddenly arose as he began thinking of running for president in 2006. Moreover, his current views on immigration usually contradict what he actually said and did as governor. It appears that Romney’s immigration positions have been created solely for his presidential run or were based upon events that simply never occurred.
[Read more at the link above.]

POLITICO: Dems’ takeaway: Romney ‘extreme’ on immigration
By Alexander Burns
February 23, 2012
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/02/dems-takeaway-romney-extreme-on-immigration-115306.html
Remember how Democrats said they were going to start taking Rick Santorum seriously as a general-election threat, breaking with their all-Mitt Romney, all-the-time messaging on the GOP primary?
Well this morning, Santorum doesn’t make an appearance in the Democratic National Committee’s post-debate video hit – a 55-second compilation of Romney quotes about immigration that are expected to give him trouble with Latino voters.
“Before last night’s debate, Mitt Romney was already on the extreme right on immigration,” the video says. “Then last night, he took another big step to the right.” It shows Joe Arpaio watching in the audience as Romney calls some of Arizona’s immigration policies a “model” for the country.
Among all the groups with whom Romney’s done himself damage in the primary, Democrats are convinced Latinos are at the very top of the list, and as the DNC release shows they’re eager to keep driving a wedge between the GOP front-runner and the hugely influential general-election voting bloc.

POLITICO: Democrats chase Arizona dream
By Alexander Burns
February 24, 2012
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73227.html
President Barack Obama and his party have a modest plan for contesting Arizona in 2012: speeding up time.
Not literally, of course, but Democrats are actively targeting the state this cycle with a push they hope will eventually convert Arizona to permanent swing-state status and test the GOP’s appeal up and down the ballot.
The idea is to accelerate a transition in Arizona that’s already taken hold throughout the West, as the rapidly growing ranks of Hispanic and independent voters have turned once-conservative-leaning states such as Colorado and Nevada firmly purple.
Strategists in both parties say it’s uncertain whether Arizona is changing quickly enough to make it a genuine battleground in 2012 — or anytime soon. The task of competing here looks especially daunting for a president who has clashed repeatedly with local Republicans, and whose Justice Department has sued the state over its restrictive immigration law. Most Republicans think their opponents are chasing a mirage in the desert.
But if they can fire up Latino voters, bring new registrants into the political process and take advantages of state-level miscalculations by the GOP, Democrats are hopeful that they can at least win back some of the territory they lost in the 2010 conservative landslide.
[Read more at the link above.]

SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Undocumented immigration activist won’t be deported
By David Montero
February 23, 2012
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53577979-90/case-morales-undocumented-deportation.html.csp
David Morales might be the first undocumented immigrant who, upon hearing he wouldn’t face deportation, “Tebowed” outside the courthouse.
The 20-year-old activist and student celebrated his legal victory Thursday by mimicking his favorite football player, Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, kneeling and offering thanks to God.
Both men are devout Christians who wear their faith on their sleeve and — just as Tebow says he views his time in the NFL as a platform to glorify God — Morales sees himself as God’s vehicle, too.
“I am a reformer and a revolutionary giving rest to the restless and hope to the hopeless,” he said. “Not because of me, but because that is what God has called me to do. Everything I do is from him, through him and for him.”
Morales’ journey began with his arrest in January last year while traveling on a bus from Utah to Louisiana to attend a Bible college, where he hoped to graduate and become a pastor.
For months afterward, he laid low after being released on bond from U.S. Immigration and Enforcement detention — fearful that he might be jailed again. His parents, also undocumented immigrants, were so convinced he would be deported, they began looking into ways to safely get him to his native Acapulco, Mexico.
But then, the Morton Memo — named for it’s author ICE Director John Morton — came out days before his first deportation hearing in August. Morales took it as a sign from God.
“I know God has a plan for me,” he said.
That memo, at the direction of President Barack Obama’s administration, told ICE attorneys to use prosecutorial discretion. In short, focus on deporting only dangerous criminals and close cases of those who have clean records, are either working or attending school and don’t pose a danger to society.
[Read more at the link above.]

TIMES-PICAYUNE: Immigrants can be deported for filing false tax returns, Supreme Court finds
By John Simerman
February 23, 2012
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/02/supreme_court_sends_tax-time_m.html
The U.S. Supreme Court this week laid down the law on immigrants who knowingly file false returns. As scotusblog.com reports, the high court issued a decision finding that immigration law allows the government to deport people who file false returns because it amounts to “fraud and deceit” that fits under the definition of an aggravated felony.
The case involved a Japanese couple, Akio and Fusako Kawashima, who had been permanent residents of the U.S. for more than a decade before Akio Kawashima pled guilty in 1997 to willfully filing a corporate tax return that lowballed what he owed.
Fusako Kawashima, his wife, pleaded guilty to helping him.
Immigration officials sought to deport the couple, who argued that their convictions didn’t qualify as aggravated offenses.
The case ran up through the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled for the government, and the Supreme Court affirmed the decision in a 6-3 majority opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan dissented.

UNIVISION NEWS: Why an enemy of Arizona’s immigration law backed Mitt Romney
By Uriel J. Garcia
February 23, 2012
http://univisionnews.tumblr.com/post/18152568842/why-an-enemy-of-arizonas-immigration-law-backed-mitt
PHOENIX – State Sen. Jerry Lewis (R) was able to unseat one of the most powerful politicians in Arizona, former state Senate President Russell Pearce, in a November recall election after campaigning on the fact he would bring a cool head to the fiery debate over Arizona’s immigration crackdown law.
But Lewis’ endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has some of his supporters upset because of the candidate’s views on immigration. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is known as an author of Arizona’s and Alabama’s tough immigration laws, advises Romney on immigration policy. Pearce was the main sponsor of the Arizona law.
“We’re really disappointed in Jerry Lewis,” said DeeDee Blase, founder of the Arizona-based Tequila Party, which rallies Latinos to vote in elections largely in favor of pro-immigration reform candidates.
[Read more at the link above.]

WNYC.ORG: Irish Immigration Bill Raises Questions in Latino, Asian Communities
By Erwin de Leon: Feet in Two Worlds
February 23, 2012
http://www.wnyc.org/articles/its-free-country/2012/feb/23/sen-brown-irish-immigration-bill-raises-questions-latino-asian-communities/
Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) recently announced that an immigration bill he filed last year was “about to pop.”
The measure, dubbed the Irish immigration bill, would qualify Ireland for the E-3 visa program which currently applies exclusively to Australian nationals. The bill would increase the number of work visas allocated to the Irish by 10,500 per year.
Brown’s measure has been added to a broader bill introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) that would make it easier for high-skilled foreign workers to obtain work visas in the U.S. Schumer’s bill is a version of the Fairness for Highly Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011 (H.R. 3012) -which passed the House with broad bipartisan support in November.
Brown argued that this is a “no brainer” in his state where there is a strong demand for such a visa program because of “family and cultural ties.”
The senator, who is facing a tough re-election bid this November and stands to gain from the support of Massachusetts’ large Irish population, lobbied the powerful ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), to allow the piece of legislation to move forward and provide a legal pathway for Irish to come to the U.S.
“Supporters argue that the strong cultural ties between the US and Ireland should be recognized in immigration policy,” wrote Noah Bierman in the Boston Globe,  “especially as the Irish economy falters and thousands of skilled workers are clamoring for opportunity across the Atlantic.”
But why should the Irish get a special bill? Filipinos and Chinese have been in the United States since the 1700s, and the Philippines has had a “special bond” with the U.S. which continues to the present. The borders, citizens, economies, and politics of Mexico and the U.S. have been and will always be inextricably linked. Thousands of professionals from the Philippines, China, Mexico, and other nations also clamor for America’s promise of opportunity.
Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Immigration Task Force Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, does not believe any one nationality should be favored.
“I would not support Senator Brown’s standalone bill to add Ireland to the E-3 visa program,” he said.
The author of the Reuniting Families Act (H.R. 1796), Honda would rather see comprehensive immigration reform that addresses the family-sponsored and employment-based visa backlogs in many nations, rather than just one.
Michael Innis-Jiménez, a University of Alabama professor and expert on Latino and Labor issues said focusing on just one ethnic group won’t fill the high and low-skilled gaps in the American workforce.
[Read more at the link above.]