Immigration News

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Immigrants sue New Orleans hotelier for 'exploitation'
'We would have not have come if we had known the truth'

Immigrant workers recruited from South America and the Dominican Republic after Hurricane Katrina sued a prominent hotelier Wednesday, saying they are being exploited.

More than 80 workers from Peru, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic have joined the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court against Decatur Hotels LLC and its president and chief executive, F. Patrick Quinn III. The workers are employed in housekeeping, maintenance and other hotel support jobs in New Orleans.

Mary Bauer, a Southern Poverty Law Center attorney who helped file the lawsuit, said workers were lured by recruiters in their home countries with promises of high wages and steady work.

They spent $3,500 to $5,000 for travel and other expenses, which Bauer said Decatur Hotels had yet to reimburse, and are being paid between $6.02 and $7.79 per hour without the overtime pay they were counting on, she said.

"They are hugely in debt. They say, 'We would have not have come if we had known the truth,'" Bauer said.

Luis Lopez, a room service employee from the Dominican Republic, said he's spent most of the last two months without the work hours he was promised. His last paycheck was for just $18, far less than the $500 to $600 he expected to earn every two weeks or even the $325 he would have earned on the job he left in his home country.

"They brought us here, and they don't even treat us like human beings," he said through a translator.

His wife, with whom he has three young children, is getting desperate as debt collectors swarm in and she can't buy food, Lopez said, crying as he held small photos pulled from his wallet.

Patricia LeBlanc, a lawyer for Decatur, said she had not seen the lawsuit Wednesday but the company's records indicate that all the foreign workers were getting satisfactory hours.

"We were satisfied and really happy with the foreign workers who came under the program," she said. "Work force is a problem here and we were happy with these workers."

Quinn declined comment except to say in a statement Wednesday that his company contracted with a recruiter to find workers to staff its hotels.

The lawsuit against Decatur, which operates luxury hotels including the Astor Crowne Plaza, says the company abused the H-2B visa program to bring in foreign workers.

Such visas can be obtained by employers who certify that no one in the U.S. can do the work. LeBlanc said Decatur used the visa program for the first time after Hurricane Katrina because of widespread difficulty finding hourly workers.

The visas, which typically are good for less than a year, tie workers to the employer, so a worker may not take employment elsewhere even if working conditions are not as expected, a provision Bauer says effectively indentures immigrant workers.

Bauer said the use of the workers also denied jobs to residents displaced by Katrina. Housing has been a major obstacle to many who want to return after the storm, but Decatur has been housing immigrant workers instead of hiring displaced residents, she said.

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It's 'Get These People Out of Town'
As more communities consider measures aimed at expelling illegal immigrants, one group files suit in hopes of stopping such laws.


Since July, when the Pennsylvania city of Hazleton passed an ordinance aimed at making it "one of the most difficult places in America for illegal immigrants," dozens of other communities have picked up on the idea, saying local governments must find ways to expel illegal immigrants.

Already, laws have passed in a handful of places: In Valley Park, Mo., population 6,518, landlords over the weekend began evicting tenants who were not legal residents. In Riverside, N.J., families departed so quickly that they left piles of mattresses behind.

On Tuesday, in hopes of stopping the spread of the ordinances, opponents filed federal lawsuits against Hazleton and Riverside, arguing principally that the local governments were violating the supremacy clause of the Constitution by attempting to regulate immigration, which is a federal matter.

Cesar A. Perales, president and chief executive of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is suing Hazleton, called his case against the ordinance "a slam-dunk." But a victory in court, he said, will not address the anger that is growing in small-town America, where many blame illegal immigrants for a range of social ills.

"There is now this crazy climate of 'get these people out of town,' " Perales said. "The laws are a reaction and a response to this sentiment. But it is also feeding it, and saying to people in these small towns that these [immigrants] are bad and they shouldn't be here with us."

A second lawsuit was filed against Riverside Township by the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, making similar arguments: that the ordinance governs conduct that falls under federal law; that it violates federal housing regulations and the Civil Rights Act; and that its terminology is "vague and ambiguous."

Hazleton Mayor Louis J. Barletta this summer attracted national attention to his former coal-mining town northwest of Philadelphia that has seen an influx of between 7,000 and 11,000 Latino immigrants. Disturbed by a May slaying that was allegedly committed by an illegal immigrant, Barletta declared that "illegal immigrants are destroying the city," and "I don't want them here, period."

On July 13, by a vote of 4 to 1, the City Council passed his Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which suspends the license of any business that "employs, retains, aids or abets" illegal immigrants; imposes a fine of $1000 per day on any landlord renting property to an illegal immigrant; and declares that all official city business be written in English only. People wishing to rent apartments in Hazleton will be required to apply for city residency licenses, which will only be granted after citizenship or legal U.S. residency is established.

Barletta on Tuesday said Hazleton's residents were "prepared to take the fight to the highest court in the United States," and had arranged a defense fund to defray the city's legal costs. Even if the ordinance fails the legal challenge, Barletta said, it will have been worth it, because illegal immigrants are leaving.

"It's been incredible. We have literally seen people loading up mattresses and furniture and leaving the city en masse," he said. "That was our goal, to have a city of legal immigrants who are all paying taxes. It's already been effective."

When attorneys for the Congressional Research Service, Congress's nonpartisan research arm, studied Hazleton's ordinance in June, they concluded that it "would arguably create a new immigration regulatory regime independent from the federal system," and would "very likely" be struck down in court. The report quotes a 1976 Supreme Court decision that found that regulation of immigration is "unquestionably exclusively a federal power."

But the report also noted that Hazleton was entitled to use local licensing law to regulate the employment of illegal immigrants. Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri law professor and former immigration advisor to former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, said states had prevailed by proving that their immigration measures were consistent with federal objectives. The "grey areas" in the Hazleton ordinance, he said, involve issues such as renting to illegal immigrants, which Congress has never specifically addressed.

Christopher Slusser, Hazleton's city solicitor, said the city was "not trying to regulate immigration. What we're doing is penalizing landlords and business owners who employ" illegal immigrants.

The outcome of the legal challenge may determine how widely Barletta's idea spreads.

Already, five communities have passed ordinances based on Hazleton's, and 17 more are considering similar moves, according to the Puerto Rican legal group, which is tracking the effect of Hazleton's law. The city of Palm Bay, Fla., will vote on a similar ordinance Thursday.

In Avon Park, Fla., and Kennewick, Wash., similar ordinances were considered and defeated, in part because of doubts over whether they would pass legal muster.

Even in communities where ordinances passed easily, implementation has proven confusing and sometimes painful.

In New Jersey, a coalition of 35 Riverside businesses immediately organized to oppose the ordinance, which has caused "a lot of fear and everyone running in different directions," said David Verduin, a spokesman for the group. Already, he said, two landlords have calmed down enough to re-rent apartments to immigrants who left Riverside in a panic.

In Missouri, Catholic officials are attempting to resettle 20 families who have been forced to leave their Valley Park homes since Saturday, said Hector Molina, director of the Hispanic ministry of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Police contacted three or four landlords to tell them that their renters were illegal immigrants, said Officer Kevin Templeton. Among them was Ed Sidwell, who had staunchly supported the ordinance, but who did not realize that though his tenant was in the country on a legal work permit, the tenant's wife and two of his three children were not.

The tenant moved out this weekend, to a new home in the next county. Sidwell said it was "the hardest thing" he had seen.

"There's a lot of sadness," said Sidwell, 63. "It is very stressful, because you are dealing with people's lives." But he said that he thought the ordinance was necessary to protect the quality of life in Valley Park, which is 88% white and 3% Latino, according to the 2000 census.

On a recent night, Sidwell said, he drove through town with his two grandchildren, and "there were 15 guys standing out there — workers — they're standing out there, drinking beer and carrying on. If I did not live in the area, I would be scared to death to drive down these streets."

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Immigrant Takes Refuge in Chicago Church
CHICAGO

Immigration activists around the country are taking up the cause of a single mother who invoked the ancient principle of sanctuary and took refuge in a Chicago church rather than submit to deportation to Mexico.

Elvira Arellano, 31, was holed up for a second day Wednesday at Aldalberto United Methodist Church with the support of the congregation's pastor. With her was her 7-year-old son, Saul, an American citizen.

 Federal officials said there is no right to sanctuary in a church under U.S. law and nothing to prevent them from arresting her. But they would not say exactly what they planned to do, or when.

The protest raised the spectacle of agents barging into a church and dragging her out.

"She is the face of the movement," said Emma Lozano, executive director of the Chicago immigration-rights group Centro Sin Fronteras, who was at the church with Arellano.

In Phoenix, Martin Manteca of Mi Familia Vota said Hispanic activist groups were organizing a vigil in her support. Lozano said an event also was scheduled in Detroit.

Arellano also has attracted attention from political officials including Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who has voiced his support. And Dolores Huerta, a leader in the effort to organize the nation's farm workers, plans to come to Chicago to show her support, according to Huerta's daughter, Alicia.

A few dozen supporters gathered at the storefront church, sitting in the pews and praying for Arellano. But the doors were not barricaded, and there were no apparent efforts to fortify the church.

Arellano, who is president of United Latino Family, which lobbies for families that could be split by deportation, had been ordered to appear at the immigration office in Chicago at 9 a.m. Tuesday, but instead went to the church, where she is an active member.

She said that if authorities want her, they will have to come and get her.

"My son is a U.S. citizen," she told reporters. "He doesn't want me to go anywhere, so I'm going to stay with him."

Pastor Walter Coleman said his congregation offered Arellano refuge after praying about her plight. Coleman said he does not believe Arellano should have to choose between leaving her son behind or removing him from his home.

"She represents the voice of the undocumented, and we think it's our obligation, our responsibility, to make a stage for that voice to be heard," he said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said there is nothing preventing the U.S. government from arresting her at the church.

"Ms. Arellano willfully violated U.S. immigration laws and is now facing the consequences of her actions by failing to report to immigration authorities," said agency spokeswoman Gail Montenegro. "We will arrest and deport her as required by law at an appropriate time and place."

Legal experts agreed that the traditional doctrine that people are protected from arrest in a church is not recognized under U.S. law.

But Joel Fetzer, associate professor of political science at Pepperdine University in California, said: "If the government comes in, it's going to look very jack-booted fascistic. It would look very bad."

Churches and synagogues also tried to offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants escaping civil war in El Salvador during the 1980s, a civil disobedience activity known as the Sanctuary movement. Susan Gzesh, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago who assisted the churches and synagogues that offered sanctuary, said she does not believe federal authorities ever went into the churches to make arrests.

Arellano illegally crossed into the United States in 1997 and was deported shortly afterward. She returned within days, living for three years in Oregon before moving to Chicago in 2000. Arrested two years later at O'Hare Airport, where she was working as a cleaning woman, she was convicted of working under a false Social Security number and ordered to appear at the immigration office in Chicago.

Activists said her desire to come here to work and provide a better life for herself and her son illustrates why they believe the nation's immigration laws must be changed.

"She is a leader in the movement who has made the issue of family unity the key issue in the question of the undocumented," her pastor said. "That is the most sympathetic issue there is."

Others are not so sure.

"I don't think the immigration debate should be focused on a woman who ... disregards an order," said Carlina Tapia-Ruano, a Chicago lawyer and president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Tapia-Ruano said she worries that Arellano's story will be used by extremists on both sides of the issue and cited as an example "of how illegals come here to be in flagrant disregard of our laws, and I don't think that's true."

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Indian tribe: Illegals cost us $3 million a year
Government has failed to secure group's 75-mile stretch of U.S.-Mexican border

Illegal immigration's toll pushes Tohono tribe to plead for money


EAST OF SELLS - From a remote mountaintop overlooking the vast Tohono O'odham Reservation, the smugglers have created their own sacred spot, a shrine to the Virgin de Guadalupe covered in prayer cards and candles.

Slowly over the years, the Tohono O'odham Nation has tried to take its land back from people-smugglers and drug runners, tribal leaders say, giving the U.S. Border Patrol unprecedented access to their reservation in hopes of stemming the tide of illegal activity.

But tribal leaders are crying out for more help from the Department of Homeland Security, saying they are incurring $3 million annually in costs associated with the federal government's failure to secure their 75-mile stretch of U.S.-Mexican border. The tribe is seeking compensation for costs ranging from migrant autopsies to police overtime.

"We're caught in the middle of this whole problem," Tribal Chairwoman Vivian Juan-Saunders said. "It creates a really high stress level for our people."

Juan-Saunders said the problem stems directly from a piece of legislation, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, that did not recognize Indian nations as sovereign governments.

So the 25 tribes along the nation's northern and southern borders have to go through states for security funding, adding a layer of bureaucracy and leading to consternation by tribal members. They have complained that they are often left out of federal decision-making.

Within the past month, she said, tribal leaders have met with top Department of Homeland Security officials, including Secretary Michael Chertoff.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., said he wants to help the Tohono O'odhams, but the window to get a bill passed this session is closing.

Grijalva said he hopes to create a buzz about changing the legislation this session and then push for a bill next time around.

"They're supplementing this enforcement activity, and they deserve to have a direct pipeline," Grijalva said. "I think their request is more than justified; I think it's overdue."

But despite all the visits and lobbying and talk of legislation, "it doesn't seem to go anywhere," Juan-Saunders said.

In the meantime, the Tohono O'odhams say they are having trouble controlling the illegal crossings through their land, which has been crisscrossed with at least 160 smuggling trails.

Agents have made more than 187,000 arrests since Oct. 1 in the "west desert," a 160-mile stretch from Sasabe to the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge that includes the Tohono O'odham Reservation.

Because the tribe's land is so vast and remote, roughly 2.8 million acres, comparable to the size of Connecticut, the smugglers still operate in some areas with impunity. They built their shrine, leaving piles of pesos in the wooden box that holds the figurine. Nearby, smugglers have discarded empty canvas bags used to carry marijuana over the tribe's sacred mountains.

The Tohono O'odham Police Department, with 65 sworn officers, spends 60 percent of its time on illegal immigration. Border Patrol agents scour the tribe's land, and the tribe recently approved allowing the National Guard onto the reservation.

But the tide of undocumented immigrants, although diminished from the peak of 1,500 crossings a day a few years ago, is still taxing.

The nation has tons of trash dumped on its land by undocumented immigrants, even on sacred sites, Juan-Saunders said. It has paid for the autopsies of at least 51 migrants, including three children, since January, at a cost of $1,200 to $1,400 each, she said.

"These resources should be spent on education and health care and infrastructure and economic development," she said.

"But we have no other choice than to do what we can to protect our people."

Since 2001, the tribe has received about $900,000 in security grant money distributed by the state to purchase equipment to deal with emergencies, Juan-Saunders said.

Julie Mason, a state Homeland Security spokeswoman, said Arizona is one of the only states to have a position dedicated to working with the tribes on security issues.

All five Homeland Security regional advisory councils, which decide how federal grant allocation decisions are made, include tribal members, she added.

In 2003, nearby Santa Cruz County received close to $1.5 million of Arizona's $61 million in Homeland Security grants.

Last August, the tribe received $200,000 after Gov. Janet Napolitano declared a state of emergency along the border because of the rampant people and drug smuggling on tribal land and in Arizona's four border counties.

Mason added that Napolitano has advocated direct funding for the tribes on the border.

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Arrest of Mexican a 'major break'
Officials say suspect is linked to gang that raped, killed women

The arrest of a Mexican construction worker in Denver this week is being called a "major break" toward solving the murders of hundreds of women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, officials said.

Edgar Alvarez Cruz, 30, is believed to be linked to a gang of men who raped and killed several women between 1993 and 2003, and authorities said they expect him to lead them to other suspects.

Alvarez Cruz, who has a criminal record in Colorado dating to 2002, was arrested Tuesday by U.S. marshals at his girlfriend's home in west Denver.

He is being held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in El Paso, Texas, as an illegal immigrant.

Maria Peinado, Alvarez Cruz's girlfriend in Denver, said Friday that his arrest was a case of mistaken identity and that he wasn't in Juarez when the killings he is accused of happened.

"And he doesn't have the resources to kill someone from here," said Peinado, 27. She said that her boyfriend moved to Denver from Juarez in 1999 and had not returned.

Antonio O. Garza Jr., U.S. ambassador to Mexico, was confident that authorities have the right man, calling Alvarez Cruz's arrest a "major break" in helping to solve the deaths of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez, a city that borders El Paso.

"We believe Alvarez Cruz's arrest will help U.S. and Mexican law-enforcement authorities solve numerous cases involving the murders and disappearances of women in Ciudad Juarez," Garza said in a statement released Thursday.

The slayings of more than 300 women, some of whom where found dumped in the desert, has terrorized the city for nearly 15 years. Police have arrested suspects, but some have been acquitted and others have died before they were sentenced.

Claudia Bañuelos, spokeswoman for the attorney general's office in the state of Chihuahua, said that two other men are in custody. Bañuelos said that Alvarez Cruz and the two men are being investigated in the deaths of eight women - ages 15 to 21 - whose remains were found in 2001 in a field near a road.

Bañuelos said that the Chihuahua attorney general would not comment on whether those eight slayings are linked to the hundreds of others.

Ken Deal, chief deputy U.S. marshal in Colorado, said they received information from Mexican officials in June that Alvarez Cruz could be in Denver.

Deal said that authorities kept surveillance on him until the U.S. marhal's office in Texas and a liaison in Mexico told them Alvarez Cruz could be in the country illegally and "that he was wanted for questioning with the homicides in Mexico."

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Man dies during immigration interview in Miami; wife fears deportation

Maritza Hernandez was joyous as she headed to the immigration office with her husband Juan. After years as an undocumented immigrant, a green card seemed finally in reach.

But Juan Hernandez had a heart attack while being interviewed by an immigration officer and died. And now his widow fears deportation, though officials aren't saying that's a path they're pursuing.

 The case may be the first of its kind and it touches on the unique U.S. policy on Cuban refugees.

Juan received a green card in 1993, because federal law allows Cubans to apply for residency after a year in the country. Maritza came from the Dominican Republic in 2001, but the law allows immediate relatives of Cubans to apply for green cards under the same terms, even if they're not from the island nation.

Now, what appeared definite is in flux.

``It's possible she may be put in deportation proceedings,'' said Jorge Rivera, lead immigration attorney for 53-year-old Maritza.

The story began Aug. 10. Maritza was interviewed by an immigration officer for about 20 minutes, and then her husband was summoned.

The questioning came to a halt when the officer asked the man when he proposed to his wife. Juan couldn't remember.

``The officer asked again and even said, 'How can you not remember that?''' said Johanny Uzcategui-Kahn, an attorney for the couple who attended the interview.

Juan then suddenly pressed a wallet to his chest and lead against the wall. His lawyer ran to get Maritza and asked a guard to call 911.

``I thought he had fainted,'' Maritza said. ``But then he turned pale and bluish in the face, around the eyes. I knew then he was in real trouble.''

Juan was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Rivera plans to ask for approval of Maritza's green card request despite her husband's death, but officials wouldn't say how they'll proceed.

``With every case, we take all factors into consideration, and it will be decided as dictated by the Immigration and Nationality Act,'' said Ana Santiago, a Miami-based spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

For now, Maritza plans to ship her husband's body back to Cuba for burial.

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ICE official says government won't enter Chicago church where illegal immigrant sought refuge

Immigration enforcement officers do not plan to enter a church where a single mother sought sanctuary rather than submit to deportation to Mexico, a government official said Friday.

But Elvira Arellano, 31, and her supporters say only a stay of deportation will ensure that she and her 7-year-old son, an American citizen, are not forcibly removed from the Adalberto United Methodist Church.

“The situation doesn't change,” Arellano said in Spanish.

Arellano has been living in the church since Tuesday, when she was supposed to surrender to authorities for deportation.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had said they would apprehend Arellano at a time and place “of their choosing” and that nothing prevented them from going into the church.

But on Friday, a government official close to the case said immigration agents have decided against entering the church to remove Arellano.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is against ICE policy to discuss operational matters, said the Arellano case carries “no more priority than any of the other 500,000 fugitives nationally.”

Arellano will be apprehended “at an appropriate time and place,” the official said.

Arellano said she was unconvinced that immigration officials would not try to apprehend her at the church, where supporters kept a watchful eye on the flow of traffic at the front door.

“Until I have something in writing that says they are giving me an extension so that I can stay in the country with my son, for me there is no security,” she said.

Arellano was deported shortly after illegally crossing into the United States in 1997. She returned within days. She was arrested in 2002 and convicted of working under a false Social Security number.

She has since become a vocal proponent for immigration reform and is president of United Latino Family, a group that lobbies for families that could be split by deportation.

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States' efforts to enforce immigration unconstitutional?
Legal experts say 1986 federal law forbids enactment of stricter penalties than Congress

States efforts to enforce immigration may be unconstitutional

Lawmakers around the country are passing state laws to get tough on illegal immigration, but legal experts say many of those laws will turn out to be unconstitutional.

More than 550 bills relating to illegal immigration were introduced in statehouses this year, and at least 77 were enacted, according to a survey presented last week at the annual meetings of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

However, NCSL analyst Ann Morse told lawmakers at the conference that a 1986 federal law forbids states from enacting stricter criminal or civil penalties for illegal immigration than those adopted by Congress.

"The federal government decided it was too complicated for the states to enact their own competing laws on this," she said.

So what about the laws passed this year?

"I believe they'll be tested in court," she said.

Illegal immigration bills this year have included measures on education, employment, driver's license, law enforcement, legal services and trafficking.

"Unique among the states, Georgia introduced a bill that addressed all these different policy arenas, and passed it as one bill earlier this spring," Morse said.

Lawmakers like Tennessee state Rep. Gary Moore are frustrated that proposed federal legislation on illegal immigration has stalled in Congress.

"If we could get the federal government to give us a little more leeway, we would see a lot more reforms at the state level," said Moore, a Democrat from Joelton who said a survey of his constituents found immigration was a top concern.

It's unlikely the federal government will want to relinquish enforcement of illegal immigration to the states, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

"This is a prerogative that the feds really guard, particularly in Congress, with a passion that is probably unlike anything else," he said.

Still, the states are likely to try to acquire as much authority over illegal immigration as they can.

"Because the Congress is unable to act, people at your level _ and the local level _ are beginning to take things into their own hands," Papademetriou told lawmakers. "I think we're seeing the beginnings of something that will gradually transfer more power to the states."

Papademetriou was critical of enforcement-only proposals to address illegal immigration. Some proposals, like ramping up U.S. Border Patrol agents by 2,000 each year for the next six years, are unlikely to occur, he said.

"I venture to say, in my humble option, that there is no way in hell you can come close to that number and sustain it," he said.

It would take tens of thousands of applicants to have enough candidates to qualify, to pass training and to become experienced border patrol agents, he said.

"And when they're experienced enough, what's the biggest problem with the Border Patrol? Attrition," Papademetriou said. "Because people are not stupid: If they are well trained, they are going to find a better paying job somewhere, and an easier job."

Arizona state Sen. Jake Flake, a Snowflake Republican and a cattle rancher, agreed that attempts to seal off the border are not likely to be successful.

"I find that if you put a bunch of steers in a pasture and run out of feed, there isn't a fence good enough to hold them," Flake said. "And I think people are the same: When they're hungry, there's not going to be a fence big enough to hold them.

"I don't think we're ever going to change this unless we help build the economy of Mexico," he said.

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County bill model for stopping illegal influx?
Local New Jersey statute requires businesses to certify all employees in U.S. legally

In a new front on the assault on illegal immigration, a proposal would require companies doing business with Suffolk County to certify their employees are in the U.S. legally _ a bill County Executive Steve Levy believes could be a model for municipalities across the country.

"The thing that feeds illegal immigration is the hiring," Levy said in an interview Friday. "If every county and town and state used this type of law, it would go a long way in mitigating the immigration problem. If you dry up the jobs, you dry up the flow of illegal immigration."

Levy's proposal, which has its opponents, would affect about 6,000 companies and agencies that have county contracts. The penalties include fines and potential jail time, and repeat offenders could forfeit their contracts. A public hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, and a vote by the county legislature is expected next month.

A number of other communities, including Hazleton, Pa., and Riverside, N.J., have recently adopted similar measures, but they are being challenged in court.

Suffolk County, on the eastern half of Long Island, has experienced an influx of day laborers from Mexico and Central America over the past decade.

Levy estimated on Friday that number has grown to 40,000. In the past, the county executive has backed efforts to crack down on illegally overcrowded housing in communities like Farmingville, where dozens of people are suspected of living together in single-family homes.

Levy is a Democrat who co-founded a national coalition called Mayors and Executives for Immigration Reform. He has been criticized for his aggressive stance by advocates for day laborers and others, but received critical backing for his proposal this week from Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Part of King's congressional district is in Suffolk County.

"I don't know anyone in the country who is more reflecting the view of the American people than Steve Levy, and he does it under terrible abuse, attack and distortion," King said at a recent press conference attended by representatives from several unions that support the bill.

Opponents say Levy's proposal will further divide the undocumented workers from the rest of the community.

"This is bad for Suffolk because it will increase discrimination and add to a climate of intolerance," said Jim McAsey, director of the local chapter of Jobs for Justice, a coalition of unions, community groups and faith-based organizations.

Levy said tackling the immigration issue has fallen to local officials of both parties because "the federal government has essentially ignored its responsibility" to enforce immigration laws.

"Unless there is some major reform and enforcement of the borders, the immigration problem is going to gobble us up," he said. "The floodgates are open, and there is no incentive for people not to come here."

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Southern states lead nation in immigrant influx
Region has abundance of jobs, relatively low cost of living

Immigrants continue to flock to the Southeast at a faster pace than any other region of the country, according to U.S. Census data released last week.

States like Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee saw their foreign-born populations jump by more than a third from 2000 to 2005, mostly because of Hispanic immigrants from countries such as Mexico and Guatemala, the data show. South Carolina saw a 47 percent increase, the highest in the country.

Experts say the reasons are simple: The region has an abundance of jobs and a relatively low cost of living.

"They're coming here for opportunities," said Douglas C. Bachtel, a University of Georgia demographer, adding that word spreads quickly among immigrant communities once an area catches on. "What happens is a migrant moves to a place and if they like it, they call home ... and say, 'Hey this place is pretty cool. You can sleep on my floor and I can help you get a job.'"

"So once it starts, it picks up steam," he said.

In raw totals, immigrant populations in Southern states still trail the national average and are far behind multicultural bastions like California, New York and New Jersey.

Georgia's immigrant population, for example, now makes up about 9 percent of the state's total population and Alabama's is less than 3 percent, compared with the nationwide immigrant population of more than 12 percent. California, with 27 percent of its residents from other countries, has the highest immigrant population in the country.

But the complexion of the South is changing rapidly, a trend that began showing up in the 2000 Census.

Through 2005, South Carolina saw the sharpest immigration increase from the 2000 figures, according to the latest data estimates, which come from the "American Community Survey," a new interim survey conducted by the Census Bureau. The number of foreign-born people living in the state jumped from 115,978 to 170,750. Hispanic immigrants accounted for the bulk of the trend, increasing 70 percent, from 49,608 to 84,274 people.

In Georgia, the number of foreign-born residents jumped from 577,273 to 795,419, or by 38 percent. The Latin-born population, again the largest subsection of immigrants, climbed 46 percent from 300,357 to 439,755.

Alabama saw its immigrant population jump from 87,772 people in 2000 to 120,773 in 2005, an increase of 38 percent. The number of Hispanic immigrants rose from 35,574 in 2000 to 58,101 in 2005, or 63 percent.

Similar trends occurred in Tennessee, with a 40-percent increase in immigration; Arkansas, with 37 percent; and North Carolina, with 30 percent.

Annette Watters, manager of Alabama State Data Center at the University of Alabama, said the influx is spread unevenly across the state depending on what types of jobs are available. Hispanic immigrants have moved into rural and urban areas to take agricultural and construction jobs, while coastal areas have seen a spike in Eastern European immigrants working in tourism jobs, she said.

The Census data estimate that Alabama's European-born population jumped from 18,415 to 21,129.

"People move where they can find a job," she said. "I think the numbers will continue to increase. Alabama's absorption of immigrants hasn't been as great as Georgia's or North Carolina's, and the fact that those two Southern states have been able to absorb more immigrants than we have leads me to believe that we haven't peaked."

Bachtel, at the University of Georgia, said the Census probably has underestimated the trend because so many immigrants are undocumented. He would multiply the figures by 1.5.

"The official numbers are just the tip of the iceberg," Bachtel said. "Nobody knows what it really is."

Because immigrants are frequently young and of childbearing age, immigration often has the most immediate impact on schools, as well as hospitals, Bachtel and other experts said. For example, in Alabama, the Census estimates that 172,656 people do not speak English at home.

"That's 170,000 people that might need language assistance," said Robert Kominski, assistant chief for social and demographic statistics at the Census Bureau. "That has a real impact."

Southern lawmakers, particularly conservatives who want tighter border security, have been at the forefront of the immigration debate in Congress this year, and have spent much of the current congressional recess holding hearings and visiting the border to highlight the issue.

Although experts said the immigration trends will likely continue as long as jobs are available - and some argue that the Southern economy would be hurt without immigrant labor - conservatives said the Census figures underscore the need for tougher enforcement.

"While we welcome those who come here legally, something must be done about the millions who have sneaked into our country illegally," said Republican U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia who visited the Mexico border for several days last week. "They are putting a tremendous strain on Georgia's hospitals, school systems and social welfare programs."

Between 2000 and 2005, Georgia had the nation's largest percentage increase in illegal immigrants, with an average of 50,000 coming in annually, according to a Department of Homeland Security report released Friday. Georgia was home to 470,000 illegal immigrants in 2005, up from 220,000 in 2000. North Carolina went up to 360,000 from 260,000 in the same period, said the department's Office of Immigration Statistics.

Republican U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama said the immigrants are largely low-wage and low-skill workers who are helping to hold down wages for other Americans while draining resources from hospitals and schools.

"What we're doing through the illegal system is allowing a tremendous influx of immigrants who don't have high school diplomas and who statistically will draw much more from the government than they will pay in," Sessions said. "I think we should have comprehensive reform."

[Soldier4Christ]

Pa. city puts illegal immigrants on notice
'They must leave,' mayor of Hazleton says after signing tough new law

An immigrant's grandson, Louis J. Barletta, the mayor of this once-sleepy hill city, leans forward behind the desk in his corner office and with an easy smile confides his goal.

Barletta wants to make Hazleton "the toughest place on illegal immigrants in America."

"What I'm doing here is protecting the legal taxpayer of any race," said the dapper 50-year-old mayor, sweeping his hands toward the working-class city outside. "And I will get rid of the illegal people. It's this simple: They must leave."

Last month, in a raucous meeting, the mayor and City Council passed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. (Barletta wore a bulletproof vest because, he says, Hazleton is menaced by a surge in crime committed by illegal immigrants.) The act imposes a $1,000-per-day fine on any landlord who rents to an illegal immigrant, and it revokes for five years the business license of any employer who hires one.

The act also declares English to be the city's official language. Employees are forbidden to translate documents into another language without official authorization.

The law doesn't take effect for another month. But the Republican mayor already sees progress. "I see illegal immigrants picking up and leaving -- some Mexican restaurants say business is off 75 percent," Barletta says. "The message is out there."

So another fire is set in the nation's immigration wars, which as often burn most fiercely not in the urban megalopolises but in small cities and towns, where for the first time in generations immigrants have made their presence felt. In these corners, the mayors, councils and cops cobble together ambitious plans -- some of which are legally dubious -- to turn back illegal immigration.

'Fear of change'
Last year two New Hampshire police chiefs began arresting illegal immigrants for trespassing, a tactic the courts tossed out. On New York's Long Island, the Suffolk County Legislature is expected to adopt a proposal next month prohibiting contractors from hiring illegal immigrants.

Hazleton has upped that ante, and four neighboring municipalities in Pennsylvania and Riverside, N.J., already have passed identical ordinances. Seven more cities, from Allentown, Pa., to Palm Beach, Fla., are debating similar legislation.

"The ideas that these things are happening spontaneously would be mistaken," said Devin Burghart, who tracks the immigration wars for the nonprofit Center for New Community in Chicago. "What is driving folks is fear of change and changing demographics."

German, Italian and Japanese television crews have interviewed Barletta. He has received 9,000 favorable e-mails and has raised thousands of dollars for the city's legal defense on a Web site called Small Town Defenders. (Two staffers from Sen. Rick Santorum's staff prepared the site; Santorum, a Republican who is in a tight reelection race, has pushed for immigration crackdowns.)

But Barletta and the council just might walk off a legal cliff. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund have sued to block the ordinance, saying it could ensnare many who are here legally.

Even the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which organizes cities and towns to push for tighter immigration quotas and much tougher enforcement, says Hazleton's ordinance is overly broad.

"If you are going to use the word 'illegal immigrant,' you have to be very careful when you are defining that term that it corresponds to federal immigration classification," said Michael Hethmon, a lawyer with FAIR. "You can't use terminology that mixes and matches illegal immigrants and legal immigrants."

Working for a revival
High in coal country, Hazleton sits perched on a rocky mountain ridge, and more than once immigration has been the agent of the city's deliverance.

Hazleton (it was supposed to be "Hazelton," but a clerk misspelled the name at incorporation) was founded in the early 1800s atop a thick vein of anthracite coal -- "black diamonds" -- and immigrants arrived by the thousands to mine it. The Irish came first, then Italians and Tiroleans, Poles and Slavs. There were mine disasters, and for decades bosses and workers fought pitched wars. Always there were complaints that the most recent arrivals didn't speak English or understand American customs.

Hazleton's city fathers, though, tended to be progressive. In 1891, the city became the third in the nation to electrify. And they helped silk and garment mills open. Not all of this was wholesome -- worthies from Murder Inc., not least mafia boss Albert Anastasia, owned a few mills. Sometimes politics was settled with fists or a carefully aimed pistol.

In the 1930s the coal mines closed, and then the mills moved south. Barletta was elected mayor in 2000, and he's credited with working hard at Hazleton's revival.

But the big change came half a decade back when Latinos -- Puerto Ricans, who are citizens of the United States, and Dominicans -- began driving west on Interstate 80, fleeing the high housing prices and cacophony of inner-city New York, Philadelphia and Providence. They found in Hazleton a city with an industrial base and cheap housing (an old Victorian could be had for $40,000 five years ago).

Latino-owned markets, restaurants and clothing stores sprang up along Wyoming Street, and property values tripled. Hazleton's population has jumped from 23,000 to 31,000 in the past six years.

Daniel Diaz stands behind the cash register in his supermarket filled with plantains and tamales and Goya products. The gray-haired grocer was born in the Dominican Republic but spent 31 years in New York City. He moved here in 2000. He loved the mountain air and bought properties and invited friends to move here, too.

"Five years ago?" He's incredulous you might think it was better then. "It was d-e-a-d. It's gotten better and better.

"Now? Business is down. I don't get it -- they don't like this revival?"

'War on the illegals'
Barletta says it's not that simple. He says his epiphany came in May, when several illegal immigrants walked up to a local man at 11 o'clock one night and shot him in the forehead. One suspect had four false identity papers. "It took us nine hours of overtime just to run down who he was," Barletta said.

This, he said, came on the heels of crack dealing on playgrounds and pit bulls lunging at cops.

"I lay in bed and thought: I've lost my city," he recalls. "I love the new legal immigrants; they want their kids to be safe just like I do. I had to declare war on the illegals."

In truth, the crime wave is hard to measure. Crime is up 10 percent, but the population has risen just as fast. Violent crime has jumped more sharply, but on a small statistical base. Barletta insists there's no whiff of racial antagonism. "This isn't racial, because 'illegal' and 'legal' don't have a race," he says.

It's not hard, however, to discern a note of racial grievance. Many whites who attended the council vote serenaded Latino opponents with chants of "Hit the road, Jack!" A prominent Hispanic leader said Hazleton had become a "Nazi city."

But it's a complicated tapestry. To walk Sixth Street, near the ridge line, is to hear white old-timers warn about the gang graffiti and drug dealing on playgrounds, and then listen as Latino homeowners echo those complaints. A Puerto Rican metal worker and a ponytailed white truck driver swap stories about Mexican laborers driving down construction wages.

Connie and David Fallotovich sit on their porch on a cool summer evening. They sort of miss their sleepy old white city, and they favor a crackdown -- why should an illegal immigrant get a break? They also see their new Dominican neighbors as a big improvement.

David, a custodian, jerks his head at the house next door. "The couple now is really nice. Tell you the truth, buddy, a white family lived there for 20 years and they were a . . . nightmare."

[Soldier4Christ]

Bill’s cost expected in billions
Analysts eye immigration


WASHINGTON – The Senate’s embattled immigration bill would raise government spending by as much as $126 billion over the next decade, as the government begins paying out federal benefits to millions of new legal workers and cracks down on the border, a new Congressional Budget Office analysis concludes.

Law enforcement measures alone would necessitate hiring nearly 31,000 federal workers in the next five years, while the building and maintenance of 870 miles of fencing and vehicle barriers would cost $3.3 billion. Newly legalized immigrants would claim nearly $50 billion in federal benefits such as the earned income and child tax credits, Medicaid and Social Security.

The CBO report is the most detailed analysis to date of legislation that has divided the Republican Party, energized millions of Hispanics and become a focal point of congressional campaigns from southern Arizona to upstate New York. Under the legislation, passed this spring by a bipartisan Senate coalition, tough border-security measures would be coupled with a path to legal work and citizenship for most of the nation’s 11 million undocumented workers and a new guest-worker program for prospective migrants.

President Bush applauded its passage, but House GOP leaders have dug in their heels against it, favoring a House-passed measure that would make illegal immigrants felons, build hundreds of miles of fencing on the southern border and offer no new guest-worker programs.

The non-partisan CBO analysis is sure to offer fuel for the fight.

“The cost aspect of the Senate plan has never been taken into consideration,” said Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., a firebrand opponent of illegal immigration who is leading the resistance to the Senate bill. “When combined with the policy implementations, this should certainly stick a fork in it.”

Supporters of the legislation cautioned that the CBO’s total needs to be put into context. For instance, most of the $78 billion in discretionary spending that the Senate bill authorizes through 2016 would pay for law enforcement measures that conservatives are pushing for anyway.

The CBO’s five-year cost estimates include $800 million to hire 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents; $2.6 billion to build detention facilities for 20,000; $3.3 billion to build and maintain 370 miles of border fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the U.S.-Mexico frontier; and $1.6 billion to establish a computerized system to verify the eligibility of applicants for employment.

“Most people recognize there is going to be a price tag for fixing a broken immigration system, no question about that,” said Ben Johnson, director of the Immigration Policy Center, which favors the Senate bill. “It still comes down to the moral question of ‘How do we create a new, workable immigration policy?’ ”

In the long run, tax revenue generated by new workers would ease the baby-boom generation’s burden on Social Security and offset virtually all of the additional spending, said James Horney, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“People who don’t like the bill will jump on the 10-year number,” he said. “But I hope others will look at the longer term and realize in the end, the answer is still the same. It’s all a wash.”

[Soldier4Christ]

Illegal aliens linked
to gang-rape wave
The crime epidemic no one will talk about?

A wave of illegal-immigrant gang rapes is sweeping the U.S. while public officials and law-enforcement authorities fear drawing the link, experts say.

Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, a Ph.D. researcher of violent crimes, told WorldNetDaily, "It appears as if there is a fear that if this is honestly discussed, people will hate all illegal immigrants. So there is silence. … But in being silent about the rapes and murders, it is as if the victims never even existed."

Schurman-Kauflin, who runs the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta, participated in a 12-month, in-depth study of illegal immigrants who committed sex crimes and murders from January 1999 through April 2006. The study found approximately 240,000 illegal-immigrant sex offenders reside in the United States – while 93 sex offenders and 12 serial sexual offenders come across U.S. borders illegally every day.

Schurman-Kauflin said, "Gang rapes by illegal immigrants appear to be gang related. Many of the cases I reviewed involved gang members. As part of being a cohesive group, they offend together. Inflicting brutal gang rapes brings them closer together as a group. It is a way to demonstrate their power. And it sends a message to anyone who dares to cross them."

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC told WND it now is tracking 12 gang rapes by illegal aliens within America's borders since Oct. 2004.

ALIPAC's president, William Gheen, said, "These are just the ones we know of. The real number is much higher."

Gheen told WND he believes the number of gang rapes is increasing as the population of illegal aliens in the U.S. increases.

"Many illegal aliens have a rape and pillage mentality toward America," he said. "The government has shown them they can break our laws on many levels without much fear of enforcement. Why should they think of rape or gang rape any differently?"

Gheen said, "Illegal aliens are more likely to engage in these crimes because rapes and gang rapes are much more common in the gang-rule Third World areas they come from."

MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, a highly organized and well-funded Central American gang, is infiltrating at least 33 states across the U.S., according to law-enforcement authorities. The gang is well-known in Los Angeles, Houston, New York and Washington, D.C., for excessive brutality. Any person suspected of cooperating with authorities is hunted down, tortured and killed. Initiation rites include kickings, beatings and gang rapes.

Gheen said, "These gangs are forcing new female gang members to undergo gang rape to enter the gang and they are asking their male initiates to gang rape American women to become an official member of the gang."

MS-13 relies on metropolitan areas with highly concentrated populations of illegal aliens to boost its spreading membership. Chapters require that initiates perform random acts of violence, such as participating in gang rapes, to gain acceptance, confirm law-enforcement officials.

Three MS-13 gang members were charged in the brutal rapes of two deaf girls, one 14, the other 17, in a Massachusetts park in 2002. One victim, who also suffered from cerebral palsy, was pushed out of her wheelchair before being raped repeatedly.

Illegal alien rapists often maintain several aliases, making escaping justice easier.

Jorge Villa-Gutierrez, 25, is in prison for the gang rape of an 18-year-old Douglas County, Colorado woman. He claimed to have paid only $100 for a fake ID and Social Security number.

Manuel Cantu, 28, pleaded guilty in Middlesex Superior Court February 2005 in Cambridge, Mass., to six counts of rape and one count of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 years old. Cantu also went by the aliases Angel Meza and Angel M. Salvador, according to court documents.

Gheen said, "Illegal aliens have been walking out of American prisons after serving their time at taxpayer expense without being deported. Our government can't or won't find the hundreds of thousands of known felon illegal aliens walking America's streets tonight much less stop the new felons coming in tonight across our unsecured borders."

The Violent Crimes Institute study established a pattern of escalating offenses among illegal aliens, whose first offense was illegally entering the U.S.

Schurman-Kauflin told WND, "Illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes first cross the U.S. border illegally, then gradually commit worse crimes and are continually released back into society or deported. Those who were deported simply returned illegally again. There is a clear pattern of criminal escalation. From misdemeanors such as assault or DUI, to drug offenses, illegal immigrants who commit sex crimes break U.S. laws repeatedly."

Most of the offenders reported in the study were located in states with the highest numbers of illegal immigrants. California was No. 1, followed by Texas, Arizona, New Jersey, New York and Florida. The 1,500 offenders studied had a total of 5,999 victims – averaging four victims each. Of those studied, 525, or 35 percent, were child molestations, 358, or 24 percent, were rapes, and 617, or 41 percent, were sexual homicides and serial murders.

Schurman-Kauflin said, "We need to know who is coming into this country. It is a matter of security, life and death. … Our borders should be secured so that those with evil intentions cannot enter. We need more Border Patrol agents, more training for these agents and a commitment that we will not tolerate predators coming into this country. There must be security and a return to the rule of law."

Last year, officials of the House Judiciary Committee said that U.S. immigration officers and police are not always on the same page. Police do not always inform immigration authorities about arrests of undocumented aliens, and immigration officers are often too late to identify the aliens before they are released on bail.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

New York's arm of the Department of Homeland Security is only interviewing 40 percent of foreign-born inmates at Rikers Island – "a failure that puts criminal aliens back on the streets instead of deporting them," according to the New York Post.

"Gang rape is a form of terrorism. It has been used throughout history as a weapon of terror," Gheen said. "Most Americans do not see the war that is already upon us in our communities and neighborhoods."

Some high-profile gang rapes by illegal immigrants include:

    * December 2002 – In New York, several criminal aliens, who had passed in and out of Rikers and other jails without being detected by immigration officials, brutally beat and gang-raped a Queens mother of two near Shea Stadium. Three of the five rapists were illegal Mexican aliens with multiple prior arrests for crimes including assault, weapon possession and armed robbery.

    * January 2004 – Four illegal aliens were among the five men who brutally gang-raped a New York City woman. "They punched me so hard that I was knocked to the floor," the 43-year-old victim wrote before Supreme Court Justice Randall Eng sentenced one of her attackers, Victor Cruz, to 21 years in prison. Cruz, Luis Carmona, Carlos Rodriguez, Armando Juvenal and José Hernandez pleaded guilty in December to rape and kidnapping charges in exchange for sentences of 20 to 23 years.

    * October 2004 – a 37-year-old North Carolina woman was gang raped by at least seven illegal aliens in Huntersville, N.C.

    * Oct. 4, 2005 – In Immokalee, Fla., 14 field laborers, ranging in age from 18 to 56, broke into an 18-year-old woman's home, dragged her across the street and then took turns raping her. The victim said the men choked and hit her until she became unconscious. When she awoke, a man poured alcohol in her mouth. The men removed her clothing and each one raped her.

    * June 28, 2006 – Texas' Waco Tribune Herald reported illegal immigrants Javier Guzman Martinez, 18, and Noel Darwin Hernandez, 22, have been charged with one count of aggravated kidnapping and one count of aggravated sexual assault of an 18-year-old Tehuacana woman. The girl had been cut with a piece of glass or "other unknown object."

    * July 10 – In Sayre, Pa., the Evening Times reported "Gasper Almilcar Guzman" was among a group of men who were found July 10 to be in this country illegally following a routine traffic stop in Athens Township. Guzman had been convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl in Alabama in 2005. Guzman was deported before he could begin serving his five-year sentence.

    * July 13 -- In Noblesville, Ind., an illegal alien named Miguel Gutierrez, 20, faces two counts of rape for taking a 14-year-old into a garage and participating in a four-man gang rape on the girl. Following the gang rape, the girl was forced into a car and raped again, according to news reports.

    * July 17 – In Greenville, N.C., Fernando Cruz, 41, Walter Ramires, 26, Luis Morales, 24, and Pedro Vasques, 27, were charged with first-degree rape and first-degree kidnapping of a woman. They drove the woman to a field path on the edge of town and took turns raping her.

    * July 21 – Sinoe Salgado Garcia, a 28-year-old Fontana, Calif., man convicted of kidnapping and raping a 4-year-old girl, was sentenced to a 30-year-to-life prison term, according to the Riverside Press Enterprise. The child was found hours later inside a shed, thrown over a 6-foot-tall block wall, investigators said. She underwent surgery to repair damage caused by the rape and sodomy, court records show. The site reported that she also suffered three facial fractures.

    * Aug. 3 – Two young illegal aliens living in Charlotte, N.C., were charged with gang raping an Asheville teenager at the Red Roof Inn. They are 22-year-old Pablo Vasquez Osorio and 23-year-old Marcos Guerrero Fuentes. Both were charged with first-degree rape and kidnapping of a 17-year-old Asheville girl at a Red Roof Inn.

[Soldier4Christ]

Illegal immigration sparks
'race war' in cities, prisons
Hispanic, black gangs battle
amid shifting demographics

Four members of a Hispanic gang in Los Angeles are convicted of federal hate crimes for the cold-blooded slaying of a black man in their neighborhood.

In Maryland, state corrections officials have begun a new study of prison gangs, including the growing numbers of Spanish-speaking gang members, amid mounting violence against prison workers.

A war between Hispanic and black prison gangs set off a series of riots across California this year leaving two dead and more than 100 were injured.

Pat Buchanan, WND columnist and author of the new best-selling book, "State of Emergency," sees them as symptoms of out-of-control immigration into the U.S. mainly from Mexico and Central America.

"The country club Republicans may not recognize what is happening here, but those in America's cities do," he said. "Why are we risking the destruction of our country over this? How many unskilled workers do we need here?"

National crime statistics released by the FBI show homicides up 5 percent last year. But the real story, say experts, is what is happening in urban pockets across the country, where murders – increasingly across racial lines – are way up.

In Philadelphia's 12th Police District shootings have almost doubled over the past year.

In Boston, the homicide rate is soaring.

In Orlando, the homicide count has reached 37, surpassing the city's previous record.

All of this follows a national trend of decreasing violent crime through 2002.

The biggest increase in violence is in smaller cities where gang and drug problems are relatively new. In 2005, jurisdictions with populations between 50,000 and 250,000 saw homicide increases of about 12.5 percent – far larger than the big cities, says David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

"Those numbers tell only part of the story," he said. "Serious crime is concentrated in certain areas within poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods. For people who live in the Trinidad area of Washington, in the Nickerson Gardens housing complex in South Los Angeles and on Magnolia Street in Boston, the citywide statistics have always been meaningless. Their neighborhoods are war zones."

More people are noticing that much of the violence is at least partly racially motivated and tied directly to the rapid increase in Hispanic population over the last decade – much of it due to illegal immigration.

Last month, L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca cited tensions between black and Hispanic gangs for his decision to redeploy deputies to the Compton area, where four people were killed in 20 gang shootings during one July weekend.

In one high-profile example of what's happening on the city streets of Los Angeles, Alejandro "Bird" Martinez and three other Hispanic gang members were joyriding in a stolen van when they came upon a black man parking his car. According to court testimony, they decided to kill him. Three of the four shot Kenneth Kurry Wilson with a .357-caliber revolver, a 9 mm semiautomatic and a 12-gauge shotgun.

Earlier this month, Martinez and three other members of the Avenues, a Hispanic gang, were convicted of federal hate crimes. It is believed to be the first case in which the U.S. Justice Department has prosecuted a minority gang as a hate group, using laws traditionally employed to go after white supremacist groups like skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan.

Recently, a Hispanic teen was murdered by a black assailant who, witnesses said, yelled a gang name as he fled. On June 30, a pair of black gunmen killed three Hispanics, prompting black and Hispanic leaders to call an emergency summit on how to call a halt to the bloodbath in the streets of L.A.

Observers suggest the situation on the streets is complicated by the numbers of gang members returning from prison, where joining a race-based gang is often a matter of survival.

In the case of the Avenues gang, an informant told the FBI members had received an order from the Mexican Mafia prison gang to kill all blacks on sight in their mainly Hispanic neighborhood. Leading up to Wilson's murder, members of the Avenues terrorized other blacks, shooting a 15-year-old boy on a bike, pistol-whipping a jogger and drawing outlines of human bodies in a black family's driveway, according to news reports.

Gang feuds were historically intra-racial rather than interracial. But that situation began to change with the heavy influx of Hispanics in some previously predominantly black neighborhoods.

For instance, in the late 1990s, newly arrived Hispanics began moving into the traditionally black communities of Compton and South Los Angeles. An area that was 80 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic is now 60 percent Hispanic, 40 percent black.

The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations' latest human rights report said there were 41 recorded cases of interracial gang-related hate crime in 2004. But commissioners agreed the real number would be much higher if victims were not afraid to go to the police.

"In the overwhelming number of these cases, Latino gang members spontaneously attacked African-American victims who had no gang affiliation," the commission wrote.

It said conflicts between racially based prison gangs like the Mexican Mafia "can have a significant impact on racialized gang violence in L.A. County and contribute to the levels of hate violence involving gangs."

Meanwhile, in Maryland, officials are increasingly concerned about the impact of growing numbers of Hispanic gang members in state prisons.

Karen V. Poe, spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said the newly arrived Hispanic gangs – like MS-13 – pose a new set of problems in prison.

"They're not your Bloods and Crips," Poe said. "We need to look at communicating with them, understanding what they're saying to one another."

Inside the prisons, tensions are higher than ever because of turf wars between the competing gangs, said Ronald E. Smith, a former Maryland correctional officer who is now a labor relations specialist with a prison workers' union.

"Crips, Bloods, the Black Guerrilla Family, MS-13 – all these gangs are in there and they're all fighting for territory and control of all the drugs that come into the prison, the flow of money – anything they can take to show that they have the authority there," he told the Associated Press.

Smith said about two dozen inmates from competing gangs were involved in a riot inside the medium-security Maryland Correctional Training Center near Hagerstown July 26. Meanwhile, the rate of assaults on correctional officers in the state's maximum-security prisons nearly doubled from about 3.4 per 100 inmates in 2004 to 6.6 in 2005, according to a budget analysis by the nonpartisan Department of Legislative Services.