Immigration News

[Soldier4Christ]

Medicaid changes hit state's aliens

New federal rules that require Medicaid recipients to prove their citizenship could push huge numbers of beneficiaries off state programs for the poor and disabled and into the ranks of the uninsured, health advocates warn.

The rules, set to go into effect July 1, could have especially severe consequences in California, where 6.8 million people are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state's version of Medicaid.

The changes, approved by Congress in February, are designed to prevent illegal immigrants from receiving full Medicaid benefits. If beneficiaries cannot prove citizenship, the federal government will not provide states with matching funds to cover Medicaid services.

Health advocates say the biggest impact will be on people entitled to benefits who lack birth certificates, passports or other documentation proving citizenship. Nursing home patients, the homeless, the mentally ill and people born at home could be among those most affected.

"It's a big burden on the beneficiaries," said Sherreta Lane, vice president of reimbursement and economic analysis for the California Hospital Association. "They're going to be uninsured rather than insured. ... They're not going to be receiving the care they are today."

California health officials say they plan to implement the new law, but are awaiting further guidance from the federal government. It expects to release official guidelines any day to the states clarifying whether any additional materials, such as military records, can be used to verify citizenship.

"We want to meet the requirements but we want to make sure we do so in a way that we don't penalize people who are legitimately eligible to receive Medi-Cal benefits," said Kim Belshé, secretary of the state's Health and Human Services Agency.

In California, beneficiaries sign a declaration under penalty of perjury that states they are citizens in order to receive full Medi-Cal benefits. The state also matches enrollees' identities with the Social Security Administration.

Under the new law, that's not enough. Starting in July, as new applicants enroll and existing beneficiaries come up for renewal they must present a birth certificate, U.S. passport or other documents demonstrating citizenship.

The change does not affect legal immigrants who qualify for Medicaid. They are already required to prove their status by showing green cards or other documents when they apply.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for full Medicaid benefits, but can receive limited coverage for emergency services. More than 781,000 undocumented immigrants receive such benefits in California.

About 650,000 legitimately enrolled Medi-Cal beneficiaries might not have proper documentation, according to a brief by the California Budget Project, a public policy research group.

"There tend to be more people moving to California than moving to other states, making it more difficult to locate birth certificates," said David Carroll, the group's research director. "This will have a big impact on skilled nursing, hospitals, providers (who treat Medi-Cal beneficiaries). It's impossible to know what the final impact will be."

[Soldier4Christ]

 Jail costs add up for illegal immigrants
Federal reimbursement comes up short for state and county


Oregon taxpayers are paying millions of dollars every year to incarcerate undocumented immigrants.
   During the last fiscal year alone, Oregon Department of Corrections officials estimate they spent more than $32.5 million to house 1,722 undocumented immigrants.
   Closer to home, Multnomah County corrections officials estimate they spent $1.3 million to incarcerate 422 undocumented immigrants last year.
   Border control advocates say the costs are a compelling reason to crack down on people entering the country illegally, especially from Mexico.
   Immigration rights advocates respond that most undocumented immigrants are hard workers who come to this country looking for a better life. They say it’s unfair to characterize an entire community by the minority who break the law.
   Complicating the debate is the fact that corrections officials may be undercounting the number of undocumented immigrants in their custody. A spokesman for the Multnomah County sheriff’s office admits that many undocumented immigrants are released before being fully identified, in large part because of jail overcrowding.
   “If people understood what illegal-alien inmates actually cost them, they’d be amazed,” said Dave Burright, executive director of the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association, which represents the 36 sheriffs who operate the state’s county jails.
   
   Count’s hard to determine
   
   No one knows for certain how many undocumented immigrants are in Oregon prisons and county jails. Unlike the federal government, state and county corrections officials do not have access to immigration records. Immigration is a federal issue, not a state or local one.
   The main reason state and county corrections officials try to determine immigration status is to qualify for federal reimbursement under the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. Created by Congress in 1994, the program is intended to compensate state and county governments for part of their costs in incarcerating illegal aliens.
   But the program relies on the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to identify which inmates are undocumented immigrants. According to ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice, state and county corrections officials try to determine which inmates are foreign-born, then submit a “vetted list” to ICE, which makes the final determination.
   Damon believes ICE identifies virtually all undocumented immigrants in state custody. She says the 1,722 identified by ICE last year was close to the total number of undocumented immigrants.
   “The number we miss is very small — within the margin of error,” she said.
   Multnomah County sheriff’s office spokesman Lt. Bruce McCain said, however, that his agency misses many undocumented immigrants in large part because so many are released before they can be processed. He believes the 422 identified by ICE last year were just a fraction of all the undocumented inmates that passed through the jails.
   According to McCain, the most serious offenders are usually held until they can be fully identified. Inmates booked on lesser charges, such as small-scale drug dealing, are usually released before they can be checked because of jail space limitations.
   “We know we’re missing a lot, but we can’t even begin to guess how many,” McCain said.
   Even for those identified as undocumented immigrants by ICE, the federal reimbursement does not even come close to paying the actual costs of their incarceration. Congress appropriates only a flat amount for the program each year that must be spread among all 50 states. Last year the total was $300 million. The year before that, it was $250 million.
   In fiscal year 2003-04, state corrections officials said they incarcerated 1,716 undocumented immigrants, for which the federal reimbursement came to around $3.4 million.
   The reimbursement rate was only a little higher at the county level. In fiscal year 2005, Multnomah County estimates that it spent approximately $1.3 million to incarcerate 422 undocumented immigrants. But the federal government paid the county just $290,987.
   And Burright says state and county officials aren’t even counting such nondetention costs as medical care for the undocumented immigrant inmates.
   “Medical costs these days are staggering,” Burright said.
   
   Wayward or working?
   
   Jim Ludwick, executive director of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, said the financial costs do not tell the entire story. According to Ludwick, the human cost to the victims of criminal activity by undocumented immigrants is even greater.
   Corrections officials have released a list of 909 undocumented immigrants currently in state prisons, 725 of whom are Mexican citizens. Some of them are serving time for such serious crimes as murder, rape and sodomy.
   “How do you place a price tag on someone who is murdered or raped by an illegal alien? What’s the real cost of all the drugs smuggled into the country?” he asked.
   But Aeryca Steinbauer said terrible crimes are committed by citizens and noncitizens alike.
   “As with any population, there are those who commit crimes. To paint the entire population by the acts of those who break the law is not fair,” said Steinbauer, a coordinator for Causa, an immigrant-rights organization whose name means “cause” in Spanish.
   A recent study by the Oregon Center for Public Policy supports Steinbauer’s position that most undocumented immigrants are hard workers. Titled “Undocumented Workers Are Taxpayers, Too,” it estimates that up to 150,000 undocumented immigrants live in Oregon and earn between $1.9 billion and $2.2 billion in income annually. According to the report, the workers pay between $66 million and $77 million in state and local taxes.

[Soldier4Christ]

Immigration Woes Abound

TAMPA - Fernando Merino-Ronquillo saw the Border Patrol car drive slowly past him, stop, then turn around. He never made it to his construction job that morning in December.

He admitted to the Border Patrol agent that he was in the United States illegally and figured he soon would be sent back to Mexico. But less than six hours after being caught, he was let go.

Across the country, immigrants such as 24-year-old Merino-Ronquillo routinely are released from government custody because there isn't enough space to hold them, according to an April report from the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Thousands are never found again.

Detention space will only get tighter in Florida, officials say, because the 300-bed immigrant jail and court in Bradenton is closing. Today is the last day of hearings at the facility, the only immigrant detention center and court on Florida's west coast. The two judges will move to the immigration court in Orlando. Detainees are being transferred to the Krome Detention Center in South Florida.

The federal government has leased jail and court space from Manatee County since 1996 for about $10 million a year. But the aging facility "doesn't fit the need anymore," said Michael Rozos, the director of detention and removal for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Florida.

He said the government wants to open a large detention center in North Florida, although no plans have been approved.

Border Patrol agents say the space problem has been building for years. "I couldn't believe it when I heard they were closing," said Richard Pierce, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, the agents' union. Before retiring last year, he was based in Tampa.

Agents take the people they catch into custody, Pierce said. But when they notify ICE officials, who are responsible for detention, "they'll say, 'We have no space.'"

"So you'll set up a court date [for the immigrant] and say, 'You gotta be here on this date.' He'll just nod and say, 'Sure, OK.' Then he walks out the door.

"Now," said Pierce, "they're taking away 300 beds."

Many agents wonder why they come to work every day, he said. Officials talk tough, but "what they're really doing is throwing their hands in the air and saying, 'We give up.'"

As of May, the number of immigrants who had been ordered deported and could not be found was up to 590,000.
Bush Says Catch And Remove

Three weeks ago, President Bush went on national television to say the government would end the practice of catching and releasing undocumented immigrants. What he didn't say was that the plan focuses on newly arrived immigrants caught within 100 miles of the border or coastline they crossed.

"The president says from now on the policy is catch and remove," said Border Patrol Council President T.J. Bonner. "The reality is, there simply isn't enough money."

Six years ago this month, Merino-Ronquillo walked across the border near Douglas, Ariz., with about 10 others. A friend brought him to Tampa, where one of his brothers lived.

Within weeks he was working, first roofing new houses, then repairing sewer pipes for a city contractor. He earned $8 an hour on that job, more money than he had ever imagined making in Mexico, he said.

After that he found work with a concrete company building one of the condos in the Channel District.

He had just checked in that morning on Dec. 7 when the Border Patrol agent stopped him and asked to see his green card. He didn't have one. He sat in the patrol car while the agent picked up several more people at the Tampa bus station downtown.

He was questioned at the Border Patrol office. When noon came, he was told he could leave but that he would have to appear later before an immigration judge.

He found a lawyer, hoping for a way to stay in the United States, at least for a couple of years. But that lawyer, John Miotke, of St. Petersburg, had few options to offer.

He had two choices: stay illegally or leave. On May 11 he appeared before immigration Judge R. Kevin McHugh in Bradenton to ask that he not be deported but be allowed to go back to Mexico on his own. This meant that he wouldn't be barred from trying to return to the United States legally in the next several years.

"As soon as I got picked up, I knew it meant it was time for me to go back," he said. He also didn't want to live with a warrant out for his arrest.

Thousands seem to see it differently, according to the Homeland Security Department report.

Federal agents caught nearly 775,000 undocumented immigrants from 2002 through 2004. During that same time, the number of detention beds dropped from more than 19,000 to 18,000.

Because of a shortage of detention beds and staff, more than one-third of the immigrants who had been picked up were let go.
ICE Weighs Priorities

The government now has about 21,000 detention beds and has asked Congress for more, said Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman in Miami. In the meantime, "we are prioritizing our actions," she said. "We prioritize our focus on national security and public safety threats."

According to the HSD report, however, nearly 28,000 of the immigrants caught and released from 2001 through 2004 had criminal records.

The critical April report is the third in a series going back 10 years. In 1996, the Inspector General for the U.S. Justice Department found that the federal government had deported only 11 percent of the undocumented immigrants who had been caught, released and ordered to leave the country. It blamed a shortage of detention beds.

Border agents continued their patrols through 2004, catching 275,680 people, 8,300 more than the year before. Detention space and staff remained tight, the HSD report states. It created what the report calls a "mini amnesty."

But not for Merino-Ronquillo. About Sept. 7, he will fly to Mexico City, then take a bus to his village in the state of Veracruz. There he will have to file a form with the U.S. Consulate to prove he arrived.

He can't imagine what he will find in the place he left behind six years ago, a collection of about 100 people who earn their living working cattle. Over the years, at least one-fourth of them have left for the United States, Merino-Ronquillo said.

He'll follow the debate in Congress, he said, hoping for a change that will let him come back, hoping to come back legally.

[Soldier4Christ]

Latinos to hold congress in L.A.
Nationwide gathering set for September


Inspired by the millions of immigrants who took to the streets to demand legal residency, Latino advocacy groups and politicians have called for a national Latino congress to keep the issue in the political spotlight.

Organizers are inviting leaders from across the political spectrum to Los Angeles - the country's Latino epicenter - to draft an agenda for strengthening immigrant rights, health care and education.

"These mobilizations have shown that the immigrant community and the Latino community have political potential in impacting public policy," said Angela Sanbrano, president of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities.

"But we cannot assume that we are unified."

In fact, a number of groups favoring tighter controls on illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America count Latino residents among their members.

Joe Turner, founder of Save Our State, a group that has been picketing against undocumented workers at day-labor sites in Glendale and around the region, said efforts like forming the Latino congress help to strengthen groups like his.

"Any call for amnesty this supports is only going to create a backlash," he said.

More than half a dozen immigrant-rights advocacy groups, including the League of United Latin American Cities and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, will sponsor the four-day conference Sept. 6-10 to set a long-term agenda and action plan to improve the lives of immigrants.

But observers say organizers need to be careful not to further divide Americans on the red-hot issue of immigration.

"While you want to mobilize, you don't want to create a countermobilization, and that is very difficult not to do," said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

Still, he said a Latino congress, modeled after similar ethnic and civil-rights conventions held during the 1970s, would be a turning point in Latino politics.

"Latinos have done a tremendous job in electoral politics, but I think you are, in 2006, seeing a watershed moment for nonelectoral political organizing in the United States."

Organizers are inviting Latino leaders - now about 5,000 - from government and chambers of commerce, as well as from the National Council of La Raza.

Its success and impact will depend, in part, on who turns up. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been invited but his office did not return calls to say whether he planned to attend.

Organizers aim to have the country's largest gathering of Latino power assembled.

"We are inviting the whole family," joked Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonprofit Latino voter research group.

"(Latinos) control cities, we have people in the Senate and we are going to only get more prominent, but on the other hand (Latinos) are not giving the policy benefits to the community we should."

Latinos have achieved political clout in Los Angeles, but they have less access to health care and are poorer than the general population. Nearly half of Latino students drop out of high school.

[Soldier4Christ]

Illegal immigration is focus of Capitol rally

Speaker traveling to 48 state capitals makes stop in Salem

About 200 of them gathered on the steps of the Capitol on Friday to alert the public and elected officials of what they say is an unarmed Mexican invasion.

"The next governor of Oregon is not going to be allowed to sit there and do nothing," columnist and author Frosty Wooldridge told the crowd, which responded with thunderous applause.

"In a post 9/11 world, the United States cannot allow, cannot tolerate, cannot condone 3 million people crossing (the border) undocumented, unregistered, unknown for intent, unknown for disease and unknown for what is essentially degrading the citizenship of our own citizens, breaking the rule of law, taking jobs from American citizens, depressing wages for all citizens and essentially creating anarchy in our country," Wooldridge continued, as he again drew a chorus of applauds.

Adults, families with babies and some students began arriving at the rally well in advance of its 11 a.m. start time.

Those in attendance carried a sea of signs that read, "Kulongoski is Failing the U.S. & Oregon," "Illegal is Not a Race, It's a Crime," "Illegals' Demands Are Unlimited," "Save Our Schools, Deport Illegals," "Deport Wyden," "Be Legal or Be Gone," "Remember 9/11" and "Deport Senator Smith."

Salem resident and Leslie Middle School student Dale Busby, 13, skipped school to attend the rally. He stood on the side of Court Street NE waving a large American flag.

As cars, trucks, buses and delivery vehicles drove by, Busby joined a group of adults on the side of the street and repeatedly chanted, "Immigrants welcome, illegals go home." Drivers honked and gave the group a thumbs up.

"I'm here because I want the illegals to go back to wherever they came from because they don't pay taxes and they take jobs from Americans," Busby said.

Melba Rust, a native of the Philippines who became a U.S. citizen in 1978, said she understands why people from other nations want to immigrate to the United States.

"This is a free country; it has more opportunity," said Rust, a Salem nurse who works at a state correctional facility.

"I came here legally," she said. "I think if people want to come here, they should do so legally."

Marlene Lachau, a native of Ontario, Canada, who now is a U.S. resident living in Salem, agreed.

"My parents brought my sister and me here, and they did everything by the book," Lachau said, adding that her parents and sister since have become U.S. citizens.

"But I haven't yet because of ..." she paused and then added, "because of things."

Daryl Hallgrimson of Dayton said he took the day off to attend the demonstration because he has concerns that if the federal government does not soon enforce immigration laws and secure the nation's borders, "We're no longer going to be a country."

Jim Ludwick, the president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, a nonprofit group opposed to illegal immigration, said Americans are fed up with what the government is not doing.

"The primary duty of the federal government is to protect our borders and our sovereignty," Ludwick said, "and they are failing miserably."

OFIR and Citizen Caucus, a conservative group based in Coos County, organized the event.

Addressing the crowd, Wooldridge said illegal migration did not have an adverse effect 10 or 20 years ago.

"But now it is quickening to the degree that it is hurting our schools, our culture, our language, our medical systems, diseases being brought in are horrific and the growing consequences are linguistic, cultural and ethnic apartheid," he said. "We have become victims of another country's failure to deal with its own citizens."

Wooldridge, a retired teacher from Denver, was in town to attend the Salem rally as part of his 21st Century Paul Revere Ride. The ride -- made up of a caravan of motorcycle riders on a tour to the capitals in the 48 contiguous states -- began May 29 in Denver and will culminate in Washington, D.C., in August.

"We will not go away. We will not back down. We will not give in. We'll show the politicians that this is our country," Wooldridge said.

Victoria Taft, the host of an evening talk show on KPAM-AM, also spoke at the gathering.

"I'm here because it's my belief that we need to change the sanctuary laws status in the state of Oregon," Taft said. "We need to require proof of residency in order to get a driver's license, and we need to require citizenship to be able to receive long-term (social) benefits from the state of Oregon as well as voting privileges.

"And we need to get the secretary of state to check to make sure that people are citizens when they vote because, currently, they don't check."

State Reps. Jeff Kropf, R-Sublimity, and Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, also addressed the crowd.

"I'm here to encourage enforcement of Oregon law to keep us from becoming a magnet for illegal activity," Thatcher said.

Friday's rally comes amid fierce congressional debate about immigration reform.

In December, the House approved a measure that would increase enforcement and security at the southern border, result in a more than 700 mile-long, double-layered fence along a section of the U.S.-Mexico border, increase fines against employers who hire undocumented workers, penalize people who help illegal immigrants entry the country and make illegal entry a felony.

The measure would not give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

A vastly different bill that passed the Senate in May also would tighten the border but would include a guest-worker program that would give certain illegal immigrants a chance to become U.S. citizens.

Under that program, an employer could only hire a guest worker if that worker has an electronic, tamper-proof identification card. The employer also would have to demonstrate that no American could be hired to do the job.

The two pieces of legislation are expected to undergo arduous negotiations in the coming months as a joint House-Senate conference committee begins work to reconcile the two bills.

[Soldier4Christ]

Byrd Becoming Longest-Serving Senator

Former Sen. George Smathers used to tell the story about how Robert C. Byrd had turned down a half-dozen invitations to join other senators in Florida for deep sea fishing or golf or gin rummy or tennis.

"I have never in my life played a game of cards. I have never had a golf club in my hand. I have never in life hit a tennis ball," Byrd told the Florida Democrat, according to an interview Smathers gave to a Senate historian.

"I don't do any of those things. I have only had to work all my life."

After almost 48 years in the Senate, Byrd is still working. On Monday, the West Virginia Democrat passes the late GOP Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as the longest serving senator in history.

And Byrd is not finished.

Slowed by age and grief-stricken over the recent death of Erma, his wife of almost 69 years, Byrd still is running for an unprecedented ninth term. At 88, he uses two canes as he slowly makes his way around the Capitol. Yet he can thunder orations from the Senate floor.

"I can speak with fire because my convictions run deep," Byrd said in an hourlong interview in his Capitol office. "I'm not just an ordinary senator. I know it and you know it."

That uncharacteristic bit of immodesty came shortly after Byrd was asked whether he will be able to complete a full six-year term that would end when he is 95. When asked about his age and his stamina, Byrd bristles.

"Age has nothing to do with it except as it might affect one's strength, endurance and stamina. Age does not affect me except in my legs," Byrd said. "And I've got a head up here that hasn't changed one iota in the last 25 years."

Byrd's improbable rise began in the coalfields of West Virginia. The adopted son of a miner, he grew up as poor as any American politician, living in a house without electricity, running water or indoor plumbing. His rise to the upper echelons of U.S. politics began in 1946 when, as a fiddle-playing butcher, he won a seat in the state's House of Delegates.

Within 12 years, Byrd had made his way through the West Virginia Senate and the U.S. House. He won election to the Senate in 1958. Dwight Eisenhower was president and it was a year after the Soviet Union beat the U.S. into space with Sputnik.

Eschewing the limelight to focus on the nuts and bolts of Senate business, Byrd quickly became an inside player. He did a lot of grunt work in junior leadership posts, focusing on little details that made his colleagues' lives easier: arranging times for votes and colleagues' floor speeches, and making sure their amendments got votes. He became majority leader - the Senate's top post - in 1977.

He admits to a few errors along the way.

Byrd participated in an unsuccessful filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As a young man, he join the Ku Klux Klan, a mistake he has been saddled with since the early 1940's.

Byrd is a senator from another era. In an age where politics has long since been dominated by soundbites and snappy visuals, he cites Roman history, quotes from the Bible and reads poetry in his Senate speeches.

While young people today program I-pods and design home pages on MySpace.com, Byrd got Congress to require schools and colleges to teach about the Constitution every Sept. 17, the day the document was adopted in 1787. He always carries a copy in his breast pocket and gives each incoming freshman senator one, calling it the "greatest document of its kind."

Byrd also holds the Senate and its rules in reverence. He is quick to rebut attacks on filibusters that allow a minority of 41 senators to defeat legislation, or the ability of a senator to offer amendments on any topic to most bills.

"He is a fierce defender of the Senate and its prerogatives in ways that I think the founding fathers really intended the Senate to be," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.

Particularly "at a time in which both its influence and its power are being usurped by the exaggerated view of the executive of its own powers," added Kennedy, whom Byrd ousted as the Democrats' whip in 1971 in his climb to power.

When Byrd first came to the Senate, he heeded the advice of Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga., to master those rules. He has used them to his advantage ever since.

The Senate, however, has seen much better days, according to Byrd. Partisan politics is now everything. Raising campaign cash is too time consuming. Workweeks are usually kept short, with votes on Fridays a rarity.

Today's senators would be left gasping at the paces Byrd put the Senate through when he ran it. Monday through Friday workweeks. Late-night votes. Fewer recesses. Byrd himself used to hold his weekly news conferences on Saturdays.

"I ran the Senate like a stern parent," Byrd wrote in his memoir published last year, "Child of the Appalachian Coalfields."

Byrd left his leadership post in 1989 to take the helm of the Appropriations Committee, where he turned on a federal spigot of new highways, water projects, federal buildings and job training centers for West Virginia. The largesse included moving a new FBI fingerprint identification center from Washington to Clarksburg, W.Va., where it would eventually employ more than 2,300.

He earned a lot of criticism for being too greedy in directing taxpayer dollars to the Mountain State. Byrd makes no apologies.

"Naturally I was going to send some home to West Virginia. Proud of it," Byrd said. "The roads are there. People have walked up to me in motels all over the state - they're people from other states - they say, 'Senator, I admire your highways.'"

Elections in 1994 and 2002 turned his beloved chairmanship over to Republicans. Byrd naturally has less clout and has to work within the clubby atmosphere on the Appropriations Committee to have an impact.

"He's not involved in as many fights as maybe he was before," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. "But when he chooses to engage he has a significant impact."

Byrd has been a political institution in West Virginia for as long as anybody can remember. He has run 14 times and never lost. But with the state's drift toward the GOP column and with Byrd's advancing age, GOP leaders tried to recruit Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a rising star, to run against him this year.

Polls had shown Byrd, who had cut back on travel to the state to tend to his ailing wife, vulnerable. The National Republican Senatorial Campaign ran an ad - featuring an unflattering picture of Byrd - attacking his voting record.

Byrd raised his profile in the state, lifting his poll numbers. Capito demurred, and Byrd's opponent is GOP businessman John Raese, who's well behind in the polls.

Still, Byrd's taking no chances, having raised more than $3.8 million, far more that any previous campaign.

Some of that support is coming from unlikely sources: Internet-based groups such as MoveOn.org, whose members contributed more than $800,000 to Byrd in less than three days during a fundraising blitz last year.

Byrd's unlikely rise as a darling of the liberal blogosphere came after he came out strongly against the war in Iraq. While prominent Senate Democrats such as 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry of Massachusetts, Hillary Clinton of New York and Harry Reid of Nevada voted to authorize the war, Byrd stood firm in opposition.

Now that public opinion on the war has shifted, Byrd feels gratified.

"The people are becoming more and more aware that we were hoodwinked, that the leaders of this country misrepresented or exaggerated the necessity for invading Iraq," Byrd said.

As for President Bush, Byrd was originally impressed with the Republican, the 11th president the West Virginian has served with since entering Congress in 1953. Not anymore. Tax cuts have drained the Treasury and the war is costing lives and money for domestic priorities.

"History still must render a verdict on him," Byrd said of Bush. "He started with great promise, I thought. I had great hopes for him. I liked the way he seemed to be humble, down to Earth. As time went on, of course, in my judgment he did not bear out my early hopes. I'll leave it at that."

[Soldier4Christ]

Troops reducing illegal border crossings


The arrival of U.S. National Guard troops in Arizona has scared off illegal Mexican migrants along the border, significantly reducing crossings, according to U.S. and Mexican officials.

U.S. authorities said Monday that detentions along the U.S.-Mexico border decreased by 21 percent, to 26,994, in the first 10 days of June, compared with 34,077 for the same period a year ago.

Along the Arizona border, once the busiest crossing spot, detentions have dropped 23 percent, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

The desert region's blistering June temperatures typically drive down the number of migrants, but not so drastically, said Mario Martinez, a spokesman with the U.S. Border Patrol in Washington.

The 55 soldiers who arrived June 3 are the first of some 6,000 troops to be dispatched along the border as part of President Bush's plan to stem illegal immigration to the United States.

The soldiers aren't allowed to detain migrants and have been limited to projects like extending border fences and repairing roads, but the military's presence is keeping would-be crossers away from the area, migrant rights activists said.

Francisco Loureiro, who runs a migrant shelter in Nogales, Mexico, across the border from Arizona, said migrants are afraid of the U.S. troops after hearing reports of abuse in Iraq.

"Some migrants have told me they heard about the troops on television and, because the U.S. Army doesn't have a very good reputation, they prefer not to cross," Loureiro said. Others have been discouraged by smugglers' fees that have nearly doubled to more than $3,000.

Jorge Vazquez, coordinator for Mexico's Grupo Beta migrant aid agency in San Luis Rio Colorado, across from San Luis, Ariz., said that before the troops arrived, his agents encountered at least two dozens migrants daily, most waiting for nightfall to begin their trek through the sandy desert.

"There have been days ... when we've found only three migrants," Vazquez said.

Some migrants may be moving to the California-Mexico border, the only stretch of border that saw a spike in detentions, which were up 7 percent to 5,965 in the first 10 days of June.

But it was too early to tell if the deployment would have a permanent effect on migrant routes and crossings of the 2,000-mile border.

Wearing Army fatigues and hard hats, the soldiers have worked on projects such as installing vehicle barriers to help prevent smugglers from driving cars full of migrants or drugs across the border.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano has said 2,500 troops will be stationed in the four U.S. border states - Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas - by the end of the month.

The deployment plan has been criticized in Mexico as heavy-handed, and the Mexican government has said it will watch to ensure National Guard troops aren't detaining migrants.

Only the most persistent migrants remained in San Luis Rio Colorado, which sits across from the area patrolled by the U.S. Border Patrol's Yuma station, the busiest of the Patrol's 143 outposts.

Migrants in the region walk some 25 miles through the scrub-covered desert with summer temperatures often exceeding 100 degrees, and then hop on cargo trains to reach their destination.

Laureano Miranda, a 37-year-old farm worker from Mexico's Sinaloa state, said he was trying to get back to a construction job in Los Angeles.

Miranda and six relatives, who were sewing pieces of carpet to their shoes to avoid leaving footprints, planned to wait for nightfall and start walking across the border 25 miles west of where the troops were stationed.

Miranda, who earned about $6 a day picking tomatoes in Sinaloa, said he had heard about the deployment but planned to cross into Arizona anyway.

"If there are soldiers or not it's the same thing, because it's always been difficult to cross," Miranda said. "Here, we depend on our luck."

Miranda said he made it into the United States on the first try last year, but he expected a more difficult journey this time.

"We've heard that there are soldiers and armed 'migrant hunters' but we have to try," Miranda said. "If we don't make it in three tries, then we'll go back home."

[Soldier4Christ]

Philly officials cite eatery for English-only sign
But store owner says he won't back down

PHILADELPHIA - An English-only ordering policy at one of the city’s most famous cheesesteak joints has drawn an official discrimination complaint, but the owner said Monday he won’t back down.

The city’s Commission on Human Relations alleges that the policy at Geno’s Steaks discourages customers of certain backgrounds from eating there, said Rachel Lawton, acting executive director.

Geno’s owner Joseph Vento posted two small signs at his shop in South Philadelphia proclaiming: “This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING ’PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.”’

Lawton said that violates the city’s Fair Practices Ordinance, which prohibits discrimination in employment, public accommodation and housing. “It’s discouraging patronage by non-English speaking customers because of their national origin or ancestry,” she said.

Vento, 66, whose grandparents struggled to learn English after arriving from Sicily in the 1920s, said Monday that he isn’t discriminating and has no intention of giving in.

“I would say they would have to handcuff me and take me out because I’m not taking it down,” Vento said.

He said no customer had ever been turned away because of the policy.

Vento said he posted the sign about six months ago because of concern over the debate on immigration reform and the increasing number of people in the area who can’t order in English. The historically Italian community has become more diverse as immigrants from Asia and Latin America have moved in.

Lawton said Vento could be ordered to take down the signs or face fines. The dispute could end up in court.

“Let them do what they want to,” Vento said. “When it comes, then we’ll deal with it.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted Mary Catherine Roper, a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union, who said Geno’s “has a right to express its opinion, however offensive. ... But there are specific limitations on places of public accommodation, because they are supposed to be available to everyone.”

A city councilman quoted in the paper said the signs were “divisive and mean-spirited.”

Cheesesteaks and ‘freedom fries’
When a non-English speaking customer showed up at the window a short time later, a clerk patiently coached him through the process. Eventually, both said “cheesesteak.”

Vento, a short, fiery man with a ninth-grade education, arms covered in tattoos and a large diamond ring in his ear, also sells “freedom fries” to protest France’s opposition to the Iraq war. He rails against Mumia Abu-Jamal, the man who was convicted of killing police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981 and has become a cause celebre among some death penalty opponents. Memorials to Faulkner are posted at his shop.

Vento said he has gotten plenty of criticism and threats. One person told him they hoped one his many neon signs flames out and burns the place down, he said. But he said he plans to hold his ground.

Competitors are seizing on the controversy. Tony Luke’s issued a statement saying it welcomes all customers “whether or not they speak a ‘wit’ of English.”

And a manager at Pat’s, Kathy Smith, said of Geno’s English-only policy: “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I’d rather listen to the Spanish than the foul language of the college students.”

[Soldier4Christ]

Pilots Work To Save Immigrants

"Paisanos Al Rascate" or "Countrymen To The Rescue" will begin flying its first mission of the year next weekend.

Five immigrants have died in the past three weeks after crossing into the country in New Mexico.

Volunteer pilots drop water bottles from planes and attached is a message with rescue instructions.

"We provide aerial search and rescue looking for immigrants who have been lost or abandoned in the desert by smugglers, that's what we try to find," said Armando Alarcon, of Paisanos Al Rescate.

The group says it's trying to reduce the risk of death, not encourage illegal immigration.

[Soldier4Christ]

Colorado high court kills ballot measure to deny services to illegal immigrants


The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that a proposal to deny most state services to illegal immigrants cannot appear on the November ballot.

The ruling may mean the issue is dead for this year because a key deadline for the November ballot is past, the secretary of state's office said.

The proposed constitutional amendment, promoted by Defend Colorado Now, violates a state constitutional requirement that initiatives deal with only one subject, the court said in a 5-2 opinion.
The measure aimed to decrease public spending for the welfare of illegal immigrants in Colorado and restrict access to administrative services, the ruling said.

Proponents, who include former Democratic Gov. Dick Lamm, already had begun gathering petition signatures to get the measure on the ballot. The state Title Board approved the measure's language this spring.

Dana Williams, a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Gigi Dennis, said the last meeting of the Title Board to approve the wording of ballot issues was in May.

“This is outrageous judicial activism, Exhibit A in how courts disregard precedent to reach a political result,” Lamm said in a statement. “This isn't law, it is raw, naked politics.”

Activist Manolo Gonzalez-Estay challenged the measure in court after the Title Board rejected his request to reconsider its approval of the initiative's language.

Fred Elbel, director of Defend Colorado Now, has said if the court found a problem with the measure, he would revise it and supporters would begin gathering signatures anew.

The measure would not stop the state from paying for federally mandated services such as public education or emergency medical care. But Elbel has said it would prevent illegal immigrants from receiving welfare and in-state college tuition.

Gonzalez-Estay and Elbel did not immediately return calls.

Opponents including former Denver Mayor Federico Pena scheduled a news conference later Monday.

[Soldier4Christ]

Hastert Deals Blow to Immigration Bill

 Hopes for a quick compromise on immigration were dealt a blow Tuesday after House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he wanted to take a "long look" at a Senate bill offering possible citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants.

Hastert said hearings on the Senate bill should be held before appointing anyone to a House-Senate committee to negotiate a compromise immigration bill. Later, he said he was unsure what the House's next move would be.

"We're going to take a long look at it," Hastert said late Tuesday.

House Majority Leader John Boehner agreed. "I think we should know clearly what's in the Senate bill," Boehner said. But he added there are lots of ways to understand its contents.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, also scheduled a hearing for Monday to review provisions in the bill requiring employers to verify that their workers are legal.

Cornyn said he opposes a provision allowing workers to use up to 20 documents to verify they are legal workers. Also, the Department of Homeland Security has raised concerns about how quickly it must have in place an electronic system that employers will use to verify their workers legal status, Cornyn's spokesman Don Stewart said.

"This will give us a chance to look at it in more detail," Cornyn said.

Sending a bill that has already passed the Senate to hearings would be a highly unusual move and make completing a final bill before Congress goes on its summer recess in August far less likely. Disagreement on procedural issue has kept negotiations from starting, but there were hopes that could be resolved this week.

"It's an obvious retreat from where we are," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The Senate passed a sweeping immigration bill nearly three weeks ago. The bill offers most illegal immigrants in the country and future guest workers a path to citizenship.

Last December, the House passed a bill focused on enforcement. It doesn't offer eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants or create a guest worker program. There are many other significant differences in the bills.

The day the Senate bill was approved, Majority Leader Bill Frist, R- Tenn. said waiting to negotiate a final bill would be "irresponsible." Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, echoed his comments a day later, saying voters should be able to assess when they go to the ballot box in November how their lawmakers did on the issue.

Rep. Lamar Smith, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said holding hearings on the Senate bill makes "great sense."

The recent election victory of Republican Brian Bilbray, who made tough anti-immigration measures a centerpiece of his campaign, "changed a lot of people's thinking on the issue," he said. "It shows how politically advantageous it is to talk about the issue and what you would do and what the federal government should do."

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., urged Hastert to drop any plans for hearings.

"Hearings might be beneficial if there was a lack of attention or knowledge on this issue in the House, but that's certainly not the case," Flake said in a statement.

Flake sponsored an early version of the Senate bill with Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., who also called for the bill to move forward.

"Only a small, vocal faction wants to stop a sensible guest-worker program and ignore the reality of the 11 million undocumented living in the country now," Kolbe said in a statement. "We must not let any delays impede our progress toward solving this problem."

[Soldier4Christ]

Minuteman founder denies support of bill
Congressman claimed backing of immigration compromise

Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist says he does not support a compromise immigration proposal by Rep Mike Pence, R-Ind., despite the congressman's claim to the contrary.

Pence told a Republican Study Group mini-retreat Monday at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., that Gilchrist backs his plan to form worker-placement centers outside the U.S.

But Gilchrist clarified to WorldNetDaily his remarks to Pence.

"I congratulated Congressman Pence on putting forth alternatives, "Gilchrist explained, "but that does not mean I think the alternatives Congressman Pence proposed are the solution. Quite frankly, I don't."

Gilchrist said the "only solution that has any chance of work is for us to close the borders first, before we start talking about any kind of a guest worker program."

He believes the bill by Rep. James Sensenbrenner that passed the House (HR 4437) is the only solution, not the Kennedy-McCain bill passed by the Senate (S. 2163) or the Pence compromise.

Pence has proposed creating private worker-placement agencies outside the U.S., "Ellis Island Centers," that would be licensed by the federal government to match foreign workers with jobs that U.S. employers cannot fill with domestic workers.

Illegal immigrants would first have to leave the U.S. and then re-enter, only after they had received a guest-worker permit from one of the "Ellis Island Centers" established to screen them for re-entry.

WND pressed Gilchrist on whether he thought there was any merit to this idea.

"These placement centers are simply impractical," Gilchrist replied. "It's going to be like showing up to get a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. Before you know it, every one of the probably 30 million illegal aliens in the U.S. already will claim to have been at one of Pence's centers to get a pass. How are you going to stop the black market in fraudulent documents from forging these passes?"

Gilchrist especially was pessimistic about the idea that Pence's guest-worker suggestion would be enforced.

"What is Congressman Pence going to do if the illegal immigrants just refuse to leave the U.S. to go to one of his centers?" Gilchrist asked. "Is he going to round them up and deport them? I don't think so."

WND asked Gilchrist if he thought employers would respect the guest worker provisions of the Pence plan.

"We have enforcement provisions now that we don't enforce, why should Mike Pence's plan be any different?" Gilchrist answered. "The 1986 law makes it a crime for an U.S. employer to hire an illegal alien today. Why don't we just start by enforcing that law?"

Gilchrist said the U.S. has "millions of illegal aliens being paid under the table by large employers who are openly committing payroll tax fraud and Congressman Pence's proposal just assumes employers are going to quit doing this? I don't think so. Employers are not going to check for Mike Pence's guest worker passes any more than today they fill out the forms I-9 INS forms required by the 1986 law."

WND asked Gilchrist if he had given Pence permission to say the Minuteman Project had endorsed the compromise.

"No," Gilchrist responded, "we did not give Congressman Pence that permission. We admire that attempt to compromise, but any compromise that does not first secure the border and enforce our current laws is going to end up accomplishing nothing." Under Pence's plan, Gilchrist said, "the end result would be that the illegal immigrants already here would just stay and more would feel an open invite to cross the border, assuming they would be 'guest workers' one way or the other."

WND asked Gilchrist whether he considered the Pence compromise to be an amnesty program.

"The Pence plan is going to end up being an amnesty just like all the other guest worker plans," Gilchrist responded. "No matter how you package the idea, as soon you open up the idea that guest workers can stay, every illegal immigrant wanting to be in the U.S. immediately reclassifies themselves as a guest worker.

"Is Pence's bill going to have the billions needed for law enforcement to prove otherwise? Again, I don't think so."

[Soldier4Christ]

Feds arrest 2,100
in illegals sweep
Operation Return to Sender sends agents
across country to target violent criminals


In a nationwide blitz called Operation Return to Sender, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have arrested nearly 2,100 illegal immigrants since May 26.

Officials are targeting child molesters, gang members, violent criminals and others, who have returned to the country after being deported by a judge, the Associated Press reported.

"This sends a message," said deportation officer Daniel Monico after a raid in Boston. "When we deport you, we're serious."

Monico and a swarm of agents surrounded an apartment house last night to arrest 35-year-old Jose Ferreira Da Silva, a Brazilian who had been deported after his arrest in 2002.

Among the illegals arrested in the nationwide blitz are 140 convicted for sexual offenses against children, 367 known gang members and about 640 people who already had been deported, the AP said.

Since the effort began, more than 800 people arrested have been deported.

"This is a massive operation," said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the immigration section of the Department of Homeland Security. "We are watching the country's borders from the inside."

The agency's network of 35 fugitive teams will be boosted to 52 with the 2006 budget, and the Bush administration is lobbying for 70.

Officials estimate there are more than 500,000 "fugitive aliens" who have been deported by judges and either returned to the country or never left.

The AP said the work that led to a series of arrests over the past 20 days began last winter as agents followed up leads and scouted targets.

Raimondi said the "problems with immigration aren't going to be solved overnight."

"You start chipping away at it," he said. "The more teams we get up and running, the more dangerous people we are going to get off the streets."

As WorldNetDaily reported, after a one-year in-depth study, a researcher estimated there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each.

Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.

She concluded that, based on a figure of 12 million illegal immigrants and the fact that more of this population is male than average, sex offenders among illegals make up a higher percentage than offenders in the general population.

[Soldier4Christ]

Mexico's migrant-smugglers hike rates

SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO, Mexico - Smugglers in sunglasses and muscle shirts reclined on withering patches of grass in a tree-covered plaza, blending into clusters of migrants and offering them "safe" trips into the United States.

But on this sweltering day, there were no takers. None of the Mexicans hoping to reach the United States could pay the $3,000 the smugglers demanded to hide them in a car and drive them across the border, a trip that just weeks ago cost $2,000.

The sharp increase in smugglers' fees is due to the arrival of National Guard troops at the border and plans by Washington for even greater border security, all of which will make the sometimes deadly trip into the United States even more difficult and dangerous. The higher fees have convinced some to cancel plans to sneak into the United States, while others have decided to go it alone.

Mexican and U.S. authorities are already seeing a drop in illegal migration, although it isn't clear if that will last.

Border experts argue the downturn may be temporary while smugglers search for new routes through deadlier terrain and migrants come up with the money to pay the higher fees.

"With all this new security, it is obvious the migrant flow will have to move to more dangerous routes, and smugglers are using this argument to increase their prices," said Francisco Garcia, a volunteer at a migrant shelter in Altar, a farming town of 7,000 that has become a major gathering point for those heading to Arizona.

Smugglers' fees jumped in 1994 after the U.S. sent more agents to what were then the busiest illegal crossing points along the Texas and California borders. The measures funneled migrants into the hostile Arizona desert, making smugglers even more valuable and transforming them from an underground network to a booming illegal industry.

In the past 12 years, the average price for helping migrants move north through the Arizona desert increased sixfold, from $300 in 1994 to $1,800.

Suddenly, smugglers are charging as much as $4,000, migrant rights activists say.

Deaths also have skyrocketed. More than 1,900 people have died crossing the border since October 1998, when the U.S. Border Patrol started keeping count. Some believe the death rate will increase as migrants become desperate, trying to cross through unknown terrain alone or paying smugglers to take them on even more dangerous routes.

Security is only going to get tougher. The U.S. is deploying 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in the coming weeks, and it plans to expand the Border Patrol from just over 11,000 agents to about 18,000 by 2008. There are also proposals to build 700 miles of additional border fence.

Despite all the risks, Andres Flores, a 29-year-old construction worker who was deported to Tijuana from Los Angeles a week ago, planned to cross by himself through the desert near San Luis, Ariz.

Sitting in the central plaza in San Luis Rio Colorado, Flores said smugglers offered to guide him through the hills near San Diego for $2,000, a trek that previously cost about $1,200.

Flores traveled to San Luis Rio Colorado because he believed it would be cheaper.

"Here, they want $3,000 but I don't have to walk," Flores said. "If I had the money, I would pay it because I want to get back to my job."

Those identified by several migrants as smugglers refused to talk to The Associated Press.

Francisco Loureiro, who runs a migrant shelter in Nogales, across the border from Arizona, said the increased security and rising smuggling fees are discouraging many from attempting the crossing.

Loureiro said some smugglers have also began asking for half of the money up front. Before, migrants often didn't have to pay until they reached their destination.

"They tell me that if they had $4,000, they wouldn't be trying to sneak into the United States, because with that money they could open a small business," Loureiro said.

[Soldier4Christ]

 They came, they saw and ... They Stayed

Immigrants: Guest worker program won't work

 SAN BENITO - Jose Luis Vazquez and Elia Garcia know what they're talking about when they predict that new immigrants crossing the border under the U.S. Senate's temporary guest worker program won't go home.

They each came over illegally more than a decade ago. They have children, jobs and houses - a life that would be difficult to dismantle because of a date on the calendar.

While the immigration plan would allow Vazquez and Garcia to stay - after paying fines and back taxes, and learning English - newcomers would compete for one of 200,000 temporary guest worker visas that would be issued each year.

President Bush called for such a plan last month on the theory that these immigrants would earn enough money to help their families and then move home.

The guest worker idea has strong appeal among such industries as construction, where nearly a third of the work force are immigrants.

"It's a win-win," said Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders. "This guest worker program would allow immigrants to come in who are employed and skilled laborers and get them into the system while meeting demands for labor."

But some immigration experts say temporary worker programs have never worked in free market societies, because as workers become used to higher wages and start to assimilate, they don't want to go back. It's even harder to return once children are born here, making them automatic Americans, and the Senate bill allows for spouses of workers also to obtain visas.

"I think the general conclusion of everybody who has studied guest or temporary worker programs is that they are never as advertised," said Michael Teitelbaum, a demographer with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York. "They are never temporary programs, nor are the workers temporary."

Fewer than half the "Bracero" workers brought in to work the farms in World War I, World War II and Korean War went home, said Vernon Briggs, a labor economist at Cornell University.

"These things are a disaster," he said. "They don't stop illegal immigration. What they basically do is encourage people to keep coming."

The Senate immigration bill allows illegal immigrants who have been in the country between two and five years to become legal permanent residents and citizens after paying fines and taxes and learning English. Those here less than two years must leave. If they want to re-enter, it would be through a temporary guest worker program that would provide 200,000 temporary visas a year.

As the House and Senate try to reach a compromise, immigrants like Vazquez and Garcia are watching Spanish television, meeting with immigration advocates, and hoping the marches and protests they have joined in will give legal status to those who are in the United States to work as well as others who will come later.

Between the two of them, they have sneaked across the Rio Grande, overstayed visas and bribed immigration officials to continue living in Texas.

It didn't start out that way for either.

Garcia first crossed over on a tourist visa to clean houses, and moved back and forth across the border frequently. But then she had a baby on the U.S. side. In 1998, she crossed back to Mexico for some shopping, and wasn't allowed back. Her 4-year-old daughter was still in the United States.

She asked a friend to sneak her across the Rio Grande. She hasn't been back to Mexico, where her mother and sisters live, in eight years.

Vazquez came over on a 10-year work visa to work in the fields and fruit orchards. By the time the visa expired in 2002, he had a steady clientele as a mechanic and had brought his wife and three children over. A fourth child was born a U.S. citizen. In 2001, when his wife went back to Mexico to renew her visa, she was denied. He said he paid $900 to have an immigration agent bribed to let her across.

Edith De La Cruz, 36, has the simplest tale. She crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in a car and her documents weren't checked.

Fourteen years later, De La Cruz has two children who are U.S. citizens and a life she says is rooted in America. She hasn't been the few miles back to Mexico, and says it would be wrong to send people back who have contributed years of their life to the U.S. culture and economy.

"We have had to fight, we have children who are accustomed to life here," she said. "It is too much to ask that it all be just temporary."