Immigration News

[Soldier4Christ]

Labor Site Backlash Felt at Polls In Herndon
Three Who Supported Immigrant Center Ousted

Backlash! Incumbents booted over illegals issue
Voters unseat mayor, council members who supported day-labor center

Herndon voters yesterday unseated the mayor and two Town Council members who supported a bitterly debated day-labor center for immigrant workers in a contest that emerged as a mini-referendum on the turbulent national issue of illegal immigration.

Residents replaced the incumbents with challengers who immediately called for significant changes at the center. Some want to bar public funds from being spent on the facility or restrict it to workers living in the country legally. Others want it moved to an industrial site away from the residential neighborhood where it is located.

The labor center forced the western Fairfax County town into the national spotlight last summer as the immigration debate grew deeply contentious. Even though fewer than 3,000 people voted yesterday, advocates on both sides of the issue looked at the Herndon election as a test of public sentiment. Outside groups such as the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration, intervened in the debate, and Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, is suing the town over the establishment of the center.

The council voted 5 to 2 last August to establish the center, but yesterday's vote created an apparent 6 to 1 majority in opposition. Steve J. DeBenedittis, 38, a health club operator and political newcomer, defeated Mayor Michael L. O'Reilly with 52 percent of the vote. Council members Carol A. Bruce and Steven D. Mitchell, who voted for the center, also were turned out of office. Jorge Rochac, a Salvadoran businessman who supported the center and was seeking to become the town's first Hispanic council member, also was defeated.

Elected to the council were challengers William B. Tirrell, Charlie D. Waddell, Connie Haines Hutchinson and David A. Kirby, all opponents of the facility, which was created to help immigrants connect with employers each day.

Two incumbents were reelected. Dennis D. Husch, who was one of the two council members to vote against the center, received more votes than any of the eight other council candidates. J. Harlon Reece was the lone supporter who was reelected. He received the fewest number of votes among the six winners.

Twenty-six percent of the town's 10,203 registered voters came to the polls, up from 20 percent when O'Reilly was elected two years ago, according to Fairfax County figures.

DeBenedittis, the son of a popular former high school art teacher in Herndon, said his victory was the product of intensive door-to-door campaigning and voters' deep discontent over how the labor center issue was handled by the mayor and council in the town of 23,000 residents.

"They didn't like the way the debate went down, and there was the feeling that they were not heard," he said.

DeBenedittis frequently skirted specifics on the labor center issue during the campaign, but he said in at least one candidate questionnaire that the facility on Sterling Road should be limited to legal immigrants.

A disappointed O'Reilly said last night that he was proud of the way he and the council handled the controversy. He said the center remains a quantum improvement over the chaotic ad hoc site in a 7-Eleven parking lot that had become a community eyesore.

"I'm really proud of what I stood for, and proud of what I did," O'Reilly said. "I think there was a lot of misinformation that was out there. There may be a lot more resentment and hatred out there than I anticipated."

Judith M. Markbein, 59, a second grade teacher, said she voted the incumbents out because "when we put money into a day-labor site, we are putting money into people who are illegal. I'm not trying to be prejudiced, but when people are given rights that they haven't earned, it makes me angry."

The challengers attributed their victories not to hatred, but to the council's falling out of touch with voters.

"It's a new direction for Herndon," said Waddell, a systems engineer. "We've got a new slate. We've got a new council. We've got a new mayor. We are going to try to be responsive to the people. That was lost on the council."

Waddell said he favors moving the center to a commercial area and will try to tap private funds for its operation. It now operates in part on a grant from Fairfax County.

"You've got day laborers cutting between yards to get to the center," he said. "I've talked to residents who said they have been awakened at 6 in the morning by laborers sitting on their lawn furniture in the back yard because they are waiting for the center to open. That's not good for the neighborhood."

Hutchinson, who was on the council previously, said the panel ignored the feelings of the community. "I do think the voters have spoken," she said. "I don't know where we go from here."

The center has another year to go on a conditional use permit, and the new council can use that time to seek alternatives, she said. Hutchinson said she also favors moving the center to another area.

Former mayor Richard C. Thoesen, a backer of the center, said he attributed the results to voter frustration over the town's burgeoning immigrant population, which has led to serious residential crowding. He added that Monday's nationwide demonstrations organized by immigrants' rights groups constituted "bad timing" that may have added to the backlash.

He cautioned the new mayor and council to do what they can to reunite the town. "The fallout for Herndon could be devastating if they don't handle this well," he said.

Last year, the Minuteman group, a chapter of an Arizona-based national organization that fights illegal immigration, began appearing at the 7-Eleven. They photographed employers and workers and turned over the evidence to state agencies as well as the Internal Revenue Service.

The Minutemen also have shown up at the new day-labor site, leading to confrontations between supporters and opponents. George Taplin, leader of the local Minuteman group, said the goal is to rid Herndon of illegal immigrants.

Last summer, Herndon Town Hall was forced to unplug its phone lines after listeners of a talk show on WMAL (630 AM) flooded the switchboard with what officials said were hate calls against the day-labor site.

Town officials say it has operated smoothly since its contentious launch in December. With milder spring weather, work has become more plentiful. Bill Threlkeld of Project Hope and Harmony, which operates the center for Reston Interfaith Inc., a nonprofit group that has received a grant from Fairfax County, said recently that about half of the 100 or so workers who come out in the morning find employment.

Reece said the national debate took over a local dispute. "The immigration issue has become such an issue nationally that it affected the local election," he said.

Reece said he could favor moving the center, but he said it will be difficult: "I just don't want to see it closed. I don't want us to go back to the unregulated, chaotic situation like we had before."

[Soldier4Christ]

Sheriff to Start Posse Patrols to Curb Illegal Immigration Flow

(CBS 5 NEWS) - Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced that approximately 100 volunteer posse and Sheriff's Deputies will soon begin randomly patrolling the desert areas and main roadways in southwest Maricopa County as a part of an operation to curb the flow of illegal immigrants entering the county.
 
Arpaio made the announced just as 11 more illegal immigrants were being booked in jail after a Ford Windstar with California plates and 16 people packed inside was stopped by a Sheriff's deputy early Tuesday morning on a traffic violation near Gila Bend.
 
Despite the growing controversy about illegal aliens nationwide, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office remains the only Arizona law enforcement agency willing to enforce a new state anti-smuggling law.
 
"There are so many illegals trying to make it into the county that it's overwhelming my deputies, so I have called on members of my 3000 member volunteer posse to assist," says Sheriff Arpaio.  "It's not only illegals we find and arrest out there, we've also made some recent huge drug seizures involving illegal aliens including nearly 100 pounds of methamphetamine and approximately three pounds of heroin."
 
Posse man Andrew Ramsammy, who was part of Tuesday's arrest team, says that he believes he represents many of his peers when he says that the posse is anxious to be a part of the Sheriff's solution to the immigration problem.
 
"As a group of law abiding people, we are fed up with the number of people who come into this county illegally.  We're tired of the drugs that some of them bring to sell to our young people and we're ready and willing to assist the Sheriff's deputies in the fight against illegal immigration," says Ramsammy.
 
Sheriff Arpaio says Tuesday's arrests include two coyotes, one of whom may be charged with a far more serious offense - endangerment.
 
Virgilio Parra Sabori may face a class 6 felony charge if it is determined that he recklessly left one of his customers to die in the desert.
 
That customer who may have paid as much as $1100 to gain entrance into the country, was a 24-year-old Mexican male found near death by deputies who combed the desert earlier today after being told by other people in the vehicle that one man was left behind. That young man was found lying in the sun on the desert floor and is currently in serious condition in a west valley hospital.
 
Arpaio says today his deputies so far have made seven anti smuggling cases in the last few weeks alone and that 120 illegals have been arrested and jailed.
 
Arpaio houses 10,000 prisoners in his jails, including almost 2000 in a tent city he erected in 1993. Tent City is being expanded to hold an anticipated increase in of inmates being incarcerated in the Maricopa County jails.

[Soldier4Christ]

'Minuteman' Border Volunteers Take 12-City Trek



LOS ANGELES -- The Minuteman Project civilian border patrol group planned to kick off a 12-city tour Wednesday to build support for its get-tough border stance in the wake of pro-immigant rallies around the country.

Organizers said they will use the caravan, which is scheduled to finish on Capitol Hill, to mobilize voters and recruit members. The group is made up of volunteers who patrol the border and strongly oppose illegal immigration.

The group hopes to counter the impact made by the more than 1 million illegal immigrants and their supporters who took to the nation's streets earlier this week. Project officials acknowledged, however, that they would have a hard time mustering the same kind of numbers for a rally of their own. Demonstrations by the Minuteman Project on Monday were scattered and small, often numbering fewer than 100 people per city.

"Our power is not putting a million people on the street, our power is putting 10 million people at the voting box," said Stephen Eichler, the group's executive director. "Their voice is accompanied by a lot of bodies, but our voice is accompanied by even more bodies who aren't going to go out in the street."

The caravan is scheduled to leave from Los Angeles and arrive on Capitol Hill for a May 12 rally as senators rush to pass an immigration reform bill before a Memorial Day deadline set by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Federal lawmakers must then reconcile the Senate bill - which will likely include a guest worker program and a potential path to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants - with a House bill that would criminalize them.

The caravan will include about 100 staff members and supporters, said Eichler. It will stop in President Bush's vacation haven of Crawford, Texas, as well as in Phoenix, Ariz.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Abilene, Texas; Little Rock, Ark.; Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; Montgomery, Ala.; Atlanta; and Richmond, Va.

One supporter, Penny Magnotto of Upland, Calif., said she and a friend were planning to follow the caravan in their RV and visit seven additional states on their return to recruit more members.

"If one in 100 people that we meet up with kind of get it and see that we're nice family people I will be thrilled," said Magnotto, founder of the Minuteman spin-off Minutewomen on the Road.

[Soldier4Christ]

Americans fight back against illegals influx
Fed-up citizens use Yankee ingenuity to report employers, promote 'legals'

With the federal government having a perceived do-nothing attitude to stop the ongoing invasion of illegal aliens into the U.S., fed-up Americans are logging on to the Internet to fight their own battle.

A number of websites have popped up in recent days to not only help authorities identify and locate the unlawful workers, but also expose the employers who provide them jobs and help consumers patronize businesses that hire only legal citizens.

Among the newest is HireUSfirst.com, which looks to provide a national database with an easy-to-use map helping consumers find companies whose employees are legal.

"Rather than outing businesses that hire illegals, we want to provide a listing of businesses that refuse to hire illegals, and encourage like minded consumers to patronize those businesses rather than spend their money at places that put their bottom line before the future of our country," founder Brett Gosch of Thornton, Colo., told WorldNetDaily.

"We ... understand that barring a [weapon of mass destruction] coming across one of our borders and vaporizing a city, our state and federal governments will never do anything serious about illegal immigration or border control. So the burden of doing something meaningful about it rests on the shoulders of common Americans," he writes on the site.

Another site is WeHireAliens.com, an online Hall of Shame whose stated purpose is to expose "alleged" employers of illegal aliens.

"The biggest incentive for illegal aliens to come to the United States is to find work," the site notes. "If there are no employers willing to hire the illegal aliens, then the flood of illegal aliens will subside."

WeHireAliens currently has more than 1,300 employers from at least 43 states on its list.

The page also encourages consumers not to patronize the companies featured, and provides prewritten letters to let businesses know their traffic will suffer directly as a result of their use of unlawful workers.

For those interested in making sure authorities are kept in the loop, there's ReportIllegals.com, which, for $10, "provides a simple, fast, and anonymous way to report illegal aliens and illegal employers to the appropriate U.S. government agencies. It takes only a few minutes to file a report with our service, whereas it would typically take you several hours on your own to find the proper agency and complete and submit a report."

IllegalAliens.us is a clearinghouse of information on the subject, and welcomes online visitors with the message, "Calling an illegal alien an undocumented immigrant is like calling a burglar an uninvited house guest."

It even provides links to sites that sell merchandise on the heated subject. Among the featured items are $18 T-shirts with messages such as "Secure Our Borders" and "Here Legally" on a map of the United States.

"Terrific for the grocery store or protest line," the ad for the "Here Legally" shirt states. "You will be surprised at the overwhelmingly positive comments you'll receive."

[Soldier4Christ]

Bill: Employ illegals, repay state grants
Pennsylvania legislation recovers taxpayer money spent to hire undocumented workers



Lawmakers: Pa. dollars won't pay for illegal immigrants' work
MARC LEVY
Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. - The Legislature on Wednesday unanimously approved legislation that would force local governments, nonprofit groups and businesses to repay state grants if any of the money is used to employ illegal immigrants.

The legislation also raises the possibility that the state could levy a higher interest rate on any of its loans that paid for work by illegal immigrants.

The penalties hinge on whether recipients of the money knew, or should have known, that they or their contractors were employing an illegal immigrant as part of a project that received state money.

The bill passed both chambers without debate or fanfare, and comes at a time when federal lawmakers are considering major changes to the nation's immigration laws.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Ed Rendell said the Democrat was reviewing the legislation and would not say whether he plans to sign it.

The state bill was introduced in December by Rep. Bob Allen, R-Schuylkill, less than a month after federal immigration authorities raided a Wal-Mart distribution center under construction near Pottsville, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

"When the commonwealth invests tax dollars in community economic development projects, one of the primary benefits is that it creates good job opportunities for area workers," Allen said in a statement. "The use of illegal labor undermines that benefit."

Only future grants and loans would be affected by the measure.

All told, the legislation could apply to more than $1 billion in annual state grants and loans. The state government regularly spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on loans and grants to subsidize major civic projects or to help businesses expand.

In addition, the Rendell administration has begun major projects to finance environmental cleanups, improve public water and sewerage, and attract businesses.

Local government agencies, nonprofit development groups and businesses typically apply for the money for a specific project and hire contractors to work on it.

The legislation leaves an out for recipients of the money who notify federal authorities of a suspected violation.

[Soldier4Christ]

Fewer undocumented patients, funds good news for Copper Queen hospital


BISBEE — Three or four years ago, Jim Dickson, CEO of Bisbee’s Copper Queen Community Hospital, was not feeling very upbeat.

He had had to cut back on employees and hours, shutter his skilled nursing facility and close the hospital’s maternity ward. The reductions, he says, were largely due to a massive influx of patients from Mexico — illegal immigrants or residents of nearby Naco, Sonora — who could not pay for services.

Today, however, things are looking brighter for the hospital and its CEO. Federal funds that provide partial compensation for treating undocumented immigrants have finally started to come in. And even better, Dickson says, the number of undocumented patients at the hospital has gone into rapid decline.

“It might be the increased number of Border Patrol agents in the area or it might be the notoriety of the Minutemen,” he said. “But there are just not as many people crossing from Mexico (into the Bisbee area).”

“Whoever is doing it, they are doing a good job because it has meant financial viability for us.”

As evidence, he points to numbers from March and April — traditionally two of the busiest months for undocumented patients. In the past, these were months when the hospital would write off as much as $30,000 in uncompensated losses. But Dickson says the amount has now dropped to less than $7,000.

Pausing to knock on wood, Dickson says he has not been called in at night in the past two years — a common occurrence in years past.

Statistics from the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector also support Dickson’s assertion that local illegal crossings are declining. The agency reported 10,230 apprehensions of undocumented immigrants in Cochise County in March 2006, less than 50 percent of the 21,232 recorded in March 2005.

And the good news for the Copper Queen Memorial Hospital is that not only has undocumented patient flow declined, but federal funds are now coming in to help offset the cost of their treatment.

Section 1011, a recently implemented measure of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), provides $250 million per year for fiscal years 2005-08 to compensate physicians and hospitals for emergency health care given to undocumented immigrants. Reimbursement is partial, and so while the Copper Queen billed $6,500 in Section 1011 costs for the third quarter of 2005, the hospital received a check for only $2,366.

In all, Arizona’s hospitals received nearly $3.3 million in Section 1011 payments for the third quarter of 2005. The Sierra Vista Regional Health Center received $29,125 while Community Health Care of Douglas got $77,064.

While any level of federal contribution is good news for the Copper Queen, the arrival of the funds has been bittersweet for Dickson, since they come after his years of greatest loss — such as 2004, when he reported deficits of $450,000.

Perhaps the most important benefit of the reimbursement program, he says, is that it has established an accounting system that allows hospitals like his to accurately measure the number and impact of undocumented patients.

Due to sparse and overloaded health care facilities in nearby Naco, Sonora, the Copper Queen Community Hospital — especially its emergency room — has long been a magnet for Mexican citizens who come to the U.S. legally on shopping and tourist visas.

Dickson explained that the hospital does not turn away Mexican patients, documented or otherwise. Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay, and, furthermore, the hospital is concerned that people carrying transmittable diseases like antibiotic-resistant TB and staph infections might return to their border communities untreated.

In an effort to help Naco residents receive attention at emergency rooms in the larger Sonoran cities of Agua Prieta and Cananea, the Copper Queen Community Hospital donated an ambulance to the city.

But while Dickson realizes that his facility will always have some level of demand from the border, he is now finding that it can be managed. “(Patient flow) is not going to stop,” he said.

[Soldier4Christ]

Illegal aliens threaten
U.S. medical system

Docs journal reports hospitals being closed, previously vanquished diseases being spread


Cristobal Silverio emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., in 1997 to work as a fruit picker.

He brought with him his wife, Felipa, and three children, 19, 12 and 8 – all illegals. When Felipa gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Flor, the family had what is referred to as an "anchor baby" – an American citizen by birth who provided the entire Silverio clan a ticket to remain in the U.S. permanently

But Flor was born premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost the San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, oldest daughter Lourdes married an illegal alien gave birth to a daughter, too. Her name is Esmeralda. And Felipa had yet another child, Cristian.

The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding for the family. Flor gets $600 a month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. While the Silverios earned $18,000 last year picking fruit, they picked up another $12,000 for their two "anchor babies."

While President Bush says the U.S. needs more "cheap labor" from south of the border to do jobs Americans aren't willing to do, the case of the Silverios shows there are indeed uncalculated costs involved in the importation of such labor – public support and uninsured medical costs.

In fact, the increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to destroy America's prized health-care system, says a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

"The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences," writes Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of the report. "We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more deadly than what is seen."

According to her study, 84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system.

"Anchor babies," the author writes, "born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income."

In addition, the report says, "many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease."

While politicians often mention there are 43 million without health insurance in this country, the report estimates that at least 25 percent of those are illegal immigrants. The figure could be as high as 50 percent.

Not being insured does not mean they don't get medical care.

Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985, hospitals are obligated to treat the uninsured without reimbursement.

"Government imposes viciously stiff fines and penalties on any physician and any hospital refusing to treat any patient that a zealous prosecutor deems an emergency patient, even though the hospital or physician screened and declared the patient's illness or injury non-emergency," says the report. "But government pays neither hospital nor physician for treatments. In addition to the fiscal attack on medical facilities and personnel, EMTALA is a handy truncheon with which to pummel politically unpopular physicians by falsely accusing them of violating EMTALA."

According to the report, between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because half their services became unpaid. Another 24 California hospitals verge on closure, the author writes.

"American hospitals welcome 'anchor babies,'" says the report. "Illegal alien women come to the hospital in labor and drop their little anchors, each of whom pulls its illegal alien mother, father, and siblings into permanent residency simply by being born within our borders. Anchor babies are citizens, and instantly qualify for public welfare aid: Between 300,000 and 350,000 anchor babies annually become citizens because of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside."

Among the organizations directing illegal aliens into America's medical systems, according to the report, are the Ford Foundation-funded Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Immigration Law Center, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration Policy, Practice, and Pro Bono, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the National Council of La Raza, George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Migration Policy Institute, the National Network for Immigration and Refugee Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Because drug addiction and alcoholism are classified as diseases and disabilities, the fiscal toll on the health-care system rises.

When Linda Torres was arrested in Bakersfield, Calif., with about $8,500 in small bills in a sack, the police originally thought it was stolen money, explained the report. It was her Social Security lump sum for her disability -- heroin addiction.

"Today, legal immigrants must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residency green cards," writes Cosman, a medical lawyer, who formerly taught medical students at the City University of New York. "Illegal aliens simply cross our borders medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any number of communicable diseases."

Many illegals entering this country have tuberculosis, according to the report.

"That disease had largely disappeared from America, thanks to excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin," says the report. "TB's swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those infected because of new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico. This Mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major anti-tubercular drugs. Ordinary TB usually is cured in six months with four drugs that cost about $2,000. MDR-TB takes 24 months with many expensive drugs that cost around $250,000 with toxic side effects. Each illegal with MDR-TB coughs and infects 10 to 30 people, who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later.

TB was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002, when it spiked a 17 percent increase, but Prince William County, just south of Washington, D.C., had a much larger rise of 188 percent. Public health officials blamed immigrants. In 2001 the Indiana School of Medicine studied an outbreak of MDR-TB, and traced it to Mexican illegal aliens. The Queens, New York, health department attributed 81 percent of new TB cases in 2001 to immigrants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ascribed 42 percent of all new TB cases to 'foreign born' people who have up to eight times higher incidences apparently, 66 percent of all TB cases coming to America originate in Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam."

Other health threats from illegals include, according to the report:

    * Chagas disease, also called American trypanosomiasis or "kissing bug disease," is transmitted by the reduviid bug, which prefers to bite the lips and face. The protozoan parasite that it carries, Trypanosoma cruzi, infects 18 million people annually in Latin America and causes 50,000 deaths. The disease also infiltrates America's blood supply. Chagas affects blood transfusions and transplanted organs. No cure exists. Hundreds of blood recipients may be silently infected.
    * Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted. Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy. Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean and Mexico.
    * Dengue fever is exceptionally rare in America, though common in Ecuador, Peru, Vietnam, Thailand, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Mexico. Recently, according to the report, there was a virulent outbreak of dengue fever in Webb County, Texas, which borders Mexico. Though dengue is usually not a fatal disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever routinely kills.
    * Polio was eradicated from America, but now reappears in illegal immigrants as do intestinal parasites, says the report.
    * Malaria was obliterated, but now is re-emerging in Texas.

The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons report includes a strong prescription for protecting the health of Americans:

    * Closing America's borders with fences, high-tech security devices and troops.
    * Rescinding the U.S. citizenship of "anchor babies."
    * Punishing the aiding and abetting of illegal aliens as a crime.
    * An end to amnesty programs.

[Soldier4Christ]

LA Businesses: Monday's Immigrant Boycott had Small Effect

Monday's boycott of businesses by Hispanic activists produced a ripple in the economy of one immigrant-rich city, according to a study in Los Angeles.

In cities around the United States, hundreds of thousands of people rallied Monday to demand rights for the millions who are in the United States illegally.  It was billed by its organizers as a day without immigrants, and many took the day off work and school.  Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, says the walkout cost Los Angeles more than $52 million.

"And this represents lost wages by the demonstrators, because a lot of the people were told 'you can take the day off, but you won't get paid.'  And then you had the independent truckers at the ports.  They did not work either shift on Monday," he said.

He says the Los Angeles school district also lost money, because some 70,000 students failed to come to class, and schools are paid by the state based on daily attendance.  Many businesses were also closed along the protest routes, where shops and offices were not accessible.

The economist says immigrants, many of whom are in the United States illegally, are an important part of the local economy.

"You have a labor force in LA County of about five million people," he added.  "If you use some standard metrics that you get, say, from the Pew Hispanic Center, you would come up with maybe 244,000 of these people would be undocumented and that's a significant labor force."

Still, the analyst says, the boycott was a not major disruption to the local economy.

"You can say it's a hiccup, because the overall economy is a $1.2 billion a day affair," he explained.

He says the greatest impact was on Latino-owned businesses.

As many as 12 million people may be in the United States illegally, and more than seven million may be part of the U.S. workforce.  One New York analyst said the main impact of Monday's demonstration was to highlight the role of immigrants in the U.S. economy.

Not all who joined the demonstrations supported the boycott, and some worry it could produce a backlash among those who are calling for stricter border controls.  The Latino mayor of Los Angeles urged people to stay at school or work and join the rallies and demonstrations in their free time late in the day.

Economist Jack Kyser says most business owners want a humane solution to the illegal worker-question, but worry that employers could be required to enforce immigration law after Congress finally settles the issue.

[Soldier4Christ]

Bad penny turns up in county clink


An city man wound up in jail last week after police discovered he was an illegal alien who had already been deported once.

South Londonderry Township police responded to a single-vehicle accident on Mt. Wilson Road north of Harvest Road at 9:01 p.m. Thursday and discovered the driver, identified by a California driver’s license as Heriberto Morales, was drunk

The driver was taken to the Hershey Medical Center for treatment of minor injuries, police said. While he was there, police did a computer search on him and found that the identification he had produced was fake.

The driver was actually Heriberto Morales Guevara, 37, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who had been previously been deported, police said.

Upon his release from the hospital, Guevara was arrested and charged with DUI and tampering with public records, police said. He was placed in county prison with bail set at $50,000.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has indicated he faces deportation again

[Soldier4Christ]

The Other Immigration Battle

Washington, D.C. - --Forbes

Immigrants and their supporters have filled the streets in past weeks, to express their dismay over proposed immigration laws in Congress. But a little-known case before the Supreme Court could also affect the millions of undocumented workers in the United States -- and the businesses that employ them.

When undocumented immigrants are underpaid or mistreated, they generally don't sue because they are afraid of deportation. In the last five years, however, documented workers may have found a way around that problem.

Legally employed workers are using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a law originally aimed at organized crime, to fight back against their employers. If the Supreme Court rules that RICO is a valid avenue for redress in these cases, businesses should take notice.

Enacted in 1970, RICO was originally designed to help the government eliminate organized crime. In 1996, however, a little-noticed amendment to the RICO Act opened the civil-action door for parties concerned about foreign labor and frustrated by the U.S. government’s inefficient enforcement of its immigration laws.

The case now at the Supreme Court began when former and current hourly employees of Mohawk Industries (nyse: MHK - news - people ), one of the nation’s largest carpet and rug manufacturers, filed a civil RICO claim in a class-action lawsuit, alleging that Mohawk drove down wages by conspiring with recruiters and temporary agencies to recruit illegal aliens along the Mexican/U.S. border.

The workers alleged that Mohawk, in cooperation with recruiters, encouraged and aided illegal aliens to move to Northern Georgia, where Mohawk hired them, knowing that they did not have authorization to work in the United States.

But Mohawk says RICO shouldn't apply to its labor practices. Why? For a company to be found liable for RICO violations, there must be an "enterprise" distinct from the operations of the company. Originally, enterprise was commonly read as "Mafia family." In some cases, however, courts have found that a group of companies working together for a common purpose can also constitute an "enterprise" under RICO.

Mohawk filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the complaint failed to allege the existence of an enterprise. The federal district court denied the motion, and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the denial.

Mohawk is not the first case of this kind, but it's the first to be taken up by the Supreme Court. The court agreed to hear the case partly to resolve conflicting rulings in the lower courts. In the last five years, more and more plaintiffs have sought to use civil RICO claims against companies allegedly hiring undocumented workers. Such claims have been brought in the Second, Ninth, Sixth, Seventh and Eleventh Circuits, but judges have split on the issue of whether RICO can be used to bring immigration claims.

In one recent case, Mendoza v. Zirkle Fruit Co., agricultural workers in Washington state's fruit industry filed a civil RICO suit, alleging that their employer had conspired with recruiters to hire illegal workers and depress wages.

Although the district court initially dismissed the case based on lack of standing, the Ninth Circuit remanded it, finding a sufficient connection between the defendants' conduct and the employees' damages to support a RICO claim. In January 2006, in a surprise move, Zirkle settled out of court with a $1.3 million payment as well as payment of plaintiffs' legal fees.

The stakes are high for corporations--and CEOs. The RICO threat is compounded by the fact that immigration officials are increasingly targeting executives for prosecution. Immigration agents recently arrested seven current and former executives of IFCO Systems, a manufacturer of wooden crates and pallets, and rounded up more than a thousand of the firm's allegedly undocumented employees.

Julie Myers, chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said there would be "no tolerance for corporate officers who harbor illegal aliens for their work force.…We will use all our investigative tools to bring those individuals to justice, no matter how large or small their company."

IFCO Systems executives aren't alone. Earlier this month, the owners of Kawasaki Restaurants pleaded guilty to felony counts that carry a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. They admitted to hiring illegal immigrants as low-wage employees at their Japanese restaurants, and agreed to surrender more than $1.1 million in cash, property and vehicles.

None of that money will be used to compensate former workers, who can pursue their own claims. Once again, Julie Myers noted that "targeting the profits of illegal alien employment scheming is a tactic [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is adopting nationwide."

Between the increase in civil RICO suits, and the energized federal immigration service, the cost of doing business may have risen significantly. But there are ways of avoiding these costs. CEOs must establish a comprehensive immigration plan to ensure that they comply with current immigration and employment law. In today's increasingly litigious environment, employers can't afford to ignore this new risk.

[Soldier4Christ]

Making phony ID documents for illegal workers is a big business


WASHINGTON - Forgers are making tens of millions, and possibly billions, of dollars selling counterfeit Social Security cards, driver's licenses, immigrant registration cards and other papers to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

The dominant forgery-and-distribution network in the United States allegedly is controlled by the Castorena family, say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. Its members emigrated from Mexico in the late 1980s and have used their printing skills and business acumen to capture a big piece of the booming industry.

Only trained experts can distinguish its fake identity documents from real ones, and the Castorena Family Organization, or CFO, as ICE officials call it, has spread to at least 50 cities in 33 states.

At a sentencing hearing for one family member in December, U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock of Denver said that the CFO's criminal reach is "simply breathtaking" and strikes "at the heart of the sovereignty of the United States of America."

The threat of terrorism has made document forgers even more menacing since the 9/11 attacks. Two of the 9/11 hijackers used fraudulent notarized forms to obtain valid Virginia ID cards, which enabled them to board the two airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center.

Julie Myers, the assistant secretary for ICE, calls document forging an "epidemic." Her agency, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, is waging a nationwide crackdown on forgery rings and has formed multi-agency task forces in 10 cities, including Dallas, Philadelphia, Atlanta and St. Paul, Minn.

The agency's investigations have hobbled many CFO operations, indicting and convicting family members and senior subordinates. But the CFO's fugitive chieftain, Pedro Castorena-Ibarra, still controls operations from Mexico, agency investigators said, and the family enterprise continues to dominate the illicit document trade in the United States.

ICE agents are conducting more than 3,500 investigations nationwide into document forging. They've closed document mills in Charlotte, N.C., Los Angeles, Denver and several other cities in recent months. But CFO cells continue to operate in many cities, including Dallas; Houston; Miami; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; New York; Chicago; Atlanta; and Newark, N.J.

Federal authorities said it's virtually impossible to calculate the financial scope of document forging, but illicit profits easily amount to many millions of dollars, if not billions. One investigation of CFO operations in Los Angeles alone resulted in the seizure of 3 million documents with a street value of more than $20 million.

"We've hit them pretty hard, but have we shut down the entire operation? I don't think we can say that yet," said Scott A. Weber, chief of ICE's Identity and Benefit Fraud Unit in the agency's Washington headquarters. "We know there are many different cells out there, and they are still providing documents."

In recent years, the CFO has faced competition from rival organizations, including a group called the Los Acapulcos Organization, which has cells in Denver and Phoenix. Scores of operatives in both organizations have been arrested and deported to Mexico and other countries in Latin America.

The rise of illegal-document vendors is an unintended consequence of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which is widely considered a failure. It put the onus on employers to ensure that a job applicant has legitimate papers, such as a Social Security card, driver's license or voter-registration card.

Employers complain that they often can't tell real documents from phonies, and they risk being charged with a discrimination violation if they reject a qualified applicant. The 1986 law imposed civil penalties on employers of illegal immigrants, but the sanctions have been enforced haphazardly at best.

Unscrupulous employers also exploited the statute, authorities say. In mid-April, ICE agents raided the nationwide operations of Houston-based IFCO Systems, a pallet-recycling firm, after an undercover investigation led to allegations that midlevel managers were recruiting illegal immigrants and helping them obtain phony documents. Top company officials have said that they thought the documentation was legitimate.

Illegal immigrants are often given packages of phony documents as part of a $2,000 smuggling fee. Others can easily make contact with vendors who operate on street corners or at flea markets in immigrant communities in virtually every city.

In Washington, vendors operate openly in the city's ethnically diverse Adams-Morgan neighborhood, only a few miles north of the White House, said James Spero, an ICE agent in the agency's metropolitan Washington office. Peddlers attract potential customers by forming a C-shape with their thumbs and forefingers, a sign widely recognized among illegal immigrants that the peddlers have documents for sale.

A typical transaction usually includes key papers such as a Social Security card, a driver's license and a "green card" granting immigrants permanent U.S. residency. Fees range from $75 to $300, depending on quality.

After a customer places the order, a runner takes the money and a photo to a document mill, typically in a nondescript house or apartment. The false documents are often in the customer's hands within an hour.

Some fakes are laughingly amateurish. Analysts at the ICE document lab in Northern Virginia said they occasionally come across ironed-on laminated cards that contain imprints of the irons. One forger trying to replicate a document from a foreign country used a picture of his uncle as a stand-in for the country's president.

Forgers often use their own fingerprints when documents require them. They also routinely make up or use Social Security numbers that can match many numbers held by legitimate citizens and can be a first step toward full identity theft. Knight Ridder reported last month that the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service routinely receive evidence of people using bogus Social Security numbers, but they refuse to share that information with ICE officials, who want to use the data to search for illegal immigrants and the companies that employ them.

Lawmakers are struggling to craft a new immigration law to correct the last law's shortcomings with tamper-proof identity cards and a nationwide databank, but skeptics fear that resourceful criminals will still find ways to beat the system.

The gold standard for document forgeries, investigators said, comes off the assembly line of the Castorena network. The organization built its fortune by employing the same principles used by successful legitimate corporations: a superior product, franchises in major cities and a coast-to-coast sales force.

CFO counterfeiters microscopically study relevant U.S. documents and meticulously replicate virtually every detail, including some security features that are embedded into the laminate in an attempt to prevent duplication.

Analysts using high-tech equipment at the ICE document lab unfailingly spot forgeries, but the Castorena-produced documents can easily fool employers and even the trained eyes of cops on the street.

Pedro Castorena-Ibarra, one of ICE's 10 most wanted fugitives, allegedly started the operation with three brothers and two sisters after they entered the country and settled in the heavily Hispanic MacArthur Park section of Los Angeles.

In-laws and trusted lieutenants became part of the leadership as the network expanded across the country by charging "franchise fees" of up to $15,000 per month to run document mills.

Key CFO operatives routinely use phony documents to mask their identities. In some cases, they're known only by nicknames, such as "Gabby," the suspected leader in Kansas City, and "Coyote," the Houston cell leader. The leader in Dallas is believed to be Alberto Soto-Ronquillo, who's been part of the CFO for more than a decade, ICE agents say.

For years, the organization supplied most of the nation's print stock of phony documents. Later it distributed computer templates after the high-tech era opened the door to computerized counterfeiting, investigators said. Court documents from a Denver investigation describe the network as "intricately orchestrated and exceptionally well-organized."

The Castorenas forbid local operatives from drug trafficking and other sideline trades that would attract increased scrutiny from law enforcement, investigators said. They also regularly update their products to keep pace with government-mandated changes in official documents.

Castorena-Ibarra, 42, who fled to Mexico to escape federal indictments, still runs the organization, passing orders through surrogates in the United States, said Cory Voorhis, an ICE special agent in Denver.

ICE officials said they're working with Mexican authorities to return him to the United States, but the mustachioed fugitive moves frequently and changes cell phones every few days.

At one point, he was thought be living with his wife and son in a lavishly furnished home in Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara. He travels frequently to Mexico City and is thought to have several mistresses. ICE also has received information that Castorena-Ibarra and other family members have invested in legitimate businesses such as real estate and taxicab companies.

"He's pretty comfortable," Voorhis said. "He believes he's safe."

[Soldier4Christ]

Judge strikes California city's law against day laborers



A Southern California city's ban on day laborers' soliciting work from passing drivers violates freedom of speech, a federal judge has ruled.

The law in Redondo Beach, southwest of Los Angeles, stifles laborers' constitutional right to ask for work, U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall of Los Angeles said in a ruling last week. She also said the ordinance was so broad that it could apply to children selling lemonade at a sidewalk stand or Girl Scouts selling cookies.

With the ban on seeking work from motorists, the city had no "adequate means by which the day laborers could solicit employment," Marshall said.

She said the city's argument that many day laborers were illegal immigrants, and thus not entitled to employment, was irrelevant because the constitutional guarantee of free speech is not limited by immigration status.

Labor and immigrant advocates praised the ruling Wednesday.

"Looking for work should not be a crime," said Pablo Alvarado, coordinator of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which was a plaintiff in the case. "We now have several judicial opinions agreeing, and we hope cities will refrain from engaging in further civil rights violations against day laborers."

But Redondo Beach City Attorney Michael Webb said the ordinance was copied almost word-for-word from an anti-solicitation law in Phoenix that the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld in 1986. He said he planned to appeal Marshall's ruling _ which found differences between the Redondo Beach and Phoenix laws _ to the Ninth Circuit, which oversees federal courts in nine Western states.

"This has been a problem for decades in Redondo, day laborers congregating and seeking employment," Webb said. He said the city had tried a variety of approaches, including strict enforcement of laws against blocking traffic and inviting federal agents to conduct immigration sweeps, before beginning a short-lived crackdown under its anti-soliciting ordinance in October 2004.

Marshall issued an injunction two months later halting enforcement while the suit was pending, an order that the Ninth Circuit upheld last May in a decision that did not address the constitutional issue. The appeals court could resolve that issue for the state and region, however, in a pending case involving a Glendale ordinance that another federal judge struck down in 2004.

The lawyer who challenged Redondo Beach's ordinance said a ban on labor solicitation in some areas of a city would be on stronger legal footing than a total ban.

But an ordinance that established a labor recruitment zone would still be unconstitutional "if they put it under a freeway where no one could possibly stop," said Robert Rubin, legal director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in San Francisco, who argued the case before Marshall.

"No one is saying anybody, including day laborers, can go into the street and cause traffic problems," Rubin said. "They do have the right to free speech . . . in the same way that someone hailing a cab does."

The Redondo Beach ordinance makes it a crime to solicit work, business or contributions from a public street or sidewalk, or to hire a person who solicits work.

Marshall said the city had other ways of pursuing its legitimate goals of traffic safety and crime prevention, such as enforcing existing laws against obstructing traffic, parking illegally and loitering.

[Soldier4Christ]

Anti-illegal immigration measure makes San Bernardino ballot

LOS ANGELES – A San Bernardino measure that would prohibit landlords from renting to illegal immigrants and force day laborers to prove legal residency to work has qualified for a special election, a city official said Thursday.

The minimum 2,216 valid signatures had been counted, setting the stage for an election, said San Bernardino City Clerk Rachel Clark.

Joseph Turner, an anti-illegal immigration activist who sponsored the initiative, said it would show cities that they have the power to combat illegal immigration.

Turner said the initiative specifically aimed to circumvent a Supreme Court ruling prohibiting public schools from asking students for proof of legal residency.

“If an undocumented family can't live in the city, they can't send their children to public schools,” he said.

The proposal also would ban taxpayer funded day labor centers, mandate that city business be in English and deny permits to businesses hiring illegal immigrants. In most cases, violators would be fined $1,000.

Nationwide, cities are dealing differently with the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, a majority of whom are Hispanic. While some cities have built day labor centers and declared themselves immigrant “sanctuaries,” others have used city ordinances to arrest day laborers and voted to have their police officers enforce immigration law.

When a special election might be called was unknown. The City Council can first decide to approve the measure without alteration, said Clark.

If the council rejects it, a special citywide election must be held in 90 to 135 days.

Calls Thursday afternoon to the office of Mayor Patrick Morris were not immediately returned.

Just under 50 percent of San Bernardino's 200,000 residents are Hispanic, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. And voters in the city 70 miles east of Los Angeles previously elected twice Judith Valles, a Hispanic woman, as mayor.

“This initiative is divisive and racist in its nature,” said Armando Navarro, coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights, an umbrella for Hispanic activist groups in Southern California. “We are going to mobilize and do all we can to defeat it.”

[Soldier4Christ]

Mexico works to add jobs to ease emigration
Country expected to add 1 million workers this year, economy minister says

AUSTIN, Texas - Mexico is working hard to create jobs so that its people do not have to emigrate to find work and expects to add up to 1 million new jobs this year, Mexican Economy Minister Sergio Garcia said Thursday.

He said employment growth and ebbing population growth in Mexico should ease immigration into the United States, where hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated on May Day in response to moves to crack down on illegal immigrants.

“The most important solution is the generation of employment in our country,” Garcia told a news conference during the World Congress on Information Technology.

“We are working on that. This year by April 15 we had 306,000 new formal jobs generated. The expectation is at least 800,000, possibly 1 million new jobs this year in our country,” he said.

Garcia said the government had undertaken many new efforts to create jobs during the administration of President Vicente Fox, whose six-year term ends this fall.

“They are working intensely in the creation of jobs” by encouraging growth of small and medium-size businesses and improving education and infrastructure, Garcia said.

At the same time, he said Mexico’s population growth was slowing, he said. “The young population that Mexico has now is changing radically,” Garcia said. “So we are in the last years of strong pressure to generate employment.”

[Soldier4Christ]

Immigration issue pushes toward 'top concern'
Zogby survey finds illegals crisis eclipses economy, gas prices


Just as the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, awakened the U.S. to the threat of terrorism, the publicity surrounding the May 1 boycott by illegal aliens and their supporters appears to have made the immigration issue one of Americans' top concerns, according to a new Zogby Interactive survey, and they're taking it out on President Bush.

While the war in Iraq continues to be seen as the top issue facing the nation for 37 percent of respondents, immigration and the war on terror came in with a close second at 32 percent each.

The vote split significantly along political and demographic lines, with 53 percent of Republicans calling immigration a top concern and just 10 percent of Democrats agreeing. The Iraq war and health care, health insurance and prescription drugs were the Democrats' chief concern.

Forty-eight percent of older voters – those over age 65 – gave immigration top billing while only 22 percent of voters under age 30 saw the issue as primary. Voters in Western states, which have been more severely impacted by immigration, ranked immigration first in greater numbers than those in the East.

The current bright U.S. economic outlook put concerns over jobs and the economy in sixth place overall. Even gas prices and utility rates, rapidly rising and the subject of numerous recent proposals in Congress, were the top issue for only 11 percent of respondents.

The focus on immigration was mirrored in the high negative ratings given Bush for his handling of the issue. His 36 percent overall positive job approval rating was heavily weighted downward by the 85 percent who scored him negatively on the issue of immigration.

Further, the immigration issue may be coloring participants' views of the president's performance on homeland security matters. Only 9 percent of voters rated him positive for his leadership in securing the nation's borders, while 45 percent gave him a positive rating for his handling of the broader war on terror – an overall drop from previous surveys.

The survey, conducted April 28 through May 1, included 5,712 respondents.