By Leah Durant

On Wednesday morning US District Judge Susan Bolton blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect, just hours before SB 1070 was to become the most aggressive illegal alien enforcement measure in the country. Opponents of SB 1070 say the law is unconstitutional and a recipe for racial profiling. The law was being challenged in seven lawsuits, including one filed by President Barack Obama’s administration, which sought a preliminary injunction to block the law. Bolton began hearing testimony last week regarding the constitutionality of SB 1070.

Security around the Federal Court House in Phoenix has tightened in recent days in anticipation of a decision by Bolton. Major protests were expected by the losing side of the immigration ruling. At least one group planned to block access to federal offices, daring officers to ask them about their immigration status. The volume of the protests will likely be turned down a few notches because of the ruling by Bolton.

Bolton eliminated the most substantial provisions of the law – including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws. In explaining her reasoning Bolton stated, “There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new (law). “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

The ruling was reminiscent of California’s Proposition 187 ruling a decade ago in which another liberal leaning court blocked another extremely popular anti-illegal immigration law from being enforced. In this ruling Bolton ignored the will of the vast majority of Arizonan and American voters. A recent Rasmussen poll found 65% of people in Arizona support the law, with just 27% opposed. Furthermore, a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll found that 55 percent of Americans supported the law.

The architect of the law, State Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, denounced Bolton’s ruling. “She ignored case law… We’ll win on appeal,” Pearce told Phoenix based News/Talk 92.3 KTAR’s Bruce St. James. Pearce said Bolton’s ruling “is actually outside the law. She’s inserted opinion here.” He said the state will appeal immediately to the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals and that he expects the case to eventually wind up before the US Supreme Court, where he expects it to win on a 5-4 or a 6-3 decision. Arizona governor Jan Brewer has also publicly denounced the Bolton ruling and proclaimed, “the fight is far from over.” Brewer’s lawyers said Arizona shouldn’t have to suffer from America’s broken immigration system when it has 15,000 police officers who can arrest illegal immigrants.

Numerous journalists chronicling the atmosphere in Arizona in the weeks prior to Wednesday’s ruling noted scores of immigrants, many of whom are undocumented, have packed up and left the state in order to avoid prosecution. Many of those interviewed have reported that they plan on resettling in other US states.
Reuters reporters counted dozens of impromptu yard sales in Latino neighborhoods in central and west Phoenix last weekend as residents desperately attempt to sell furniture and other possessions before fleeing the state. The US government estimates 100,000 unauthorized immigrants left Arizona after the state passed an employer sanctions law three years ago requiring companies to verify workers’ status using a federal computer system. There are no figures for the number who have left since the new law passed in April, only anecdotal news reports.

In a sign of a gathering exodus, Mexican businesses from grocers and butcher shops to diners and beauty salons have shut their doors in recent weeks as their owners and clients leave. It is not clear at this time whether illegal aliens who fled will promptly return in light of this ruling. What is obvious is that the Arizona economy and public safety system will continue to suffer if it remains an illegal immigrant haven.

There remains a glimmer of hope that the Supreme Court will right today’s injustice. Other states seeking to copycat the Arizona law are also likely to push forward in their plans to stem illegal immigration. We should not excuse the Obama administration from prosecuting illegal aliens or protecting the border. After all, as Chief Executive of the United States, it is the President’s duty to enforce the law.

By Ker Than

As Mexican crops wither, immigration to the U.S. might increase.

U.S.-bound emigrants ride a Mexican freight train north toward the border (file photo).
Photograph from Reuters

Disputes over illegal Mexican immigrants are already heating up in the United States, thanks in part to a new Arizona immigration law.

But global warming could bring the immigration issue to a boiling point in the coming decades, if a new study holds true.

According a new computer model, a total of nearly seven million additional Mexicans could emigrate to the U.S. by 2080 as a result of reduced crop yields brought about by a hotter, drier climate—assuming other factors influencing immigration remain unchanged.

“The model shows that climate-driven refugees could be a big deal in the future,” said study co-author Michael Oppenheimer, an atmospheric scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey.

(Related: “Climate Change Creating Millions of ‘Eco Refugees,’ UN Warns.”)

Using data on Mexican emigration as well as climate and crop yields in 30 Mexican states between 1995 and 2005, Oppenheimer and colleagues created the computer model to predict the effect of climate change on the rate of people crossing the border.

In that ten-year period, 2 percent of the Mexican population emigrated to the U.S. for every 10 percent reduction in crop yield.

Using the model to extrapolate this real-world figure over the next 70 years, the researchers calculated that 1.4 to 6.7 million adult Mexicans—a number roughly equal to 10 percent of Mexico’s current adult population—could migrate to the U.S. by 2080.

The research is one of the first attempts by scientists to put hard numbers on how climate change can affect human migration patterns.

“Our study is the first to build a model that can be used for projecting the effects on migration of future climate change,” Oppenheimer said.

(Related: “Global Warming Threatens Coffee Collapse in Uganda.”)

Global Warming Study “a Simplification”

Though the new global warming study is “original and very interesting,” it shouldn’t be interpreted as a forecast of what will happen, economist Ian Goldin, who wasn’t involved in the project, said via email.

“The [end of the] time range—2080—is a very long time off, and there are many other factors [besides climate change] which may lead to a very different outcome,” said Goldin, director of the University of Oxford’s James Martin 21st Century School.

Barry Smit, a climate-impact scientist at the University of Guelph in Canada, agreed.

“I wouldn’t take these numbers to the bank,” said Smit, who also wasn’t involved in the research, which is published in this week’s issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To reach their conclusions, the authors had to make some “heroic assumptions,” Smit said, such as that the current economic and political situations of the U.S. and Mexico won’t change for decades.

Study co-author Oppenheimer acknowledged there are many uncertainties in his team’s model. But it’s important for scientists to investigate climate change-induced migration quantitatively, he said.

“This is the first time anybody’s built a model to do this,” Oppenheimer said. “It’s a simplification, and there are a lot of assumptions, but it’s the start of a learning process. As we learn more, the model will improve, and the numbers will get more reliable.”

(Also see “Global Warming Making People More Aggressive?”)

U.S. Should Help Mexicans Adapt to Warming?

Despite its limitations, the Mexican-immigration model could help spur governments to start thinking about how they’ll deal with so-called eco-migrants created by global warming, the University of Guelph’s Smit said.

“The takeaway message for me of this study is that there is indeed a relationship between changes in crop yield and the movement of people,” Smit said. “And to the extent that future climate change will introduce more of those stresses on yields, we can expect more pressures on the movement of people.”

If the U.S. and other developed nations start thinking about climate change-related immigration now, before it becomes a major problem, they could take steps that would help reduce the amount of immigration in the first place, said Robert McLeman, a geographer who studies climate migration at Canada’s University of Ottawa.

Toward this end, developed nations can do a lot to help their poorer neighbors, said McLeman, who wasn’t involved in the modeling.

For example, the U.S. could make it easier for Mexican crops to reach U.S. markets, McLeman said. Or the U.S. could help Mexico create new, non-agricultural employment opportunities by encouraging other industries in rural areas.

“One of the things I encourage policymakers to think about is that people don’t have to migrate if they have other means of adapting to climate change where they already live,” he added.

Emigration is “often a last resort,” McLeman said. “The more options you give people, the less ‘distress migration’ you’re likely to encounter.”

A real-world example of this is Bangladesh, a country whose coastal inhabitants are currently struggling with climate change-related sea level rises, the University of Guelph’s Smit said.

“You might think that this would cause millions and millions of people to move somewhere else, but many of them are adapting,” Smit said.

“They’re doing things to change their basis of living, such as building floating gardens and harvesting crabs.”

No Downside to Preempting Global Warming Immigration?

In some sense, it may not matter whether the study is right or wrong.

The University of Ottawa’s McLeman, for example, argues that many of the things the U.S. could do to help Mexico adapt to global warming will also help improve the quality of life for many of Mexico’s poor.

“A lot of the things that we could be doing are things that we should be doing anyway,” he said.

“Even if it turns out that our future projections about climate change impacts aren’t right, it’s still a good investment. I don’t see any downside to it.”

By David G. Savage

Supporters of Arizona’s immigration law say the Obama administration should be going after local jurisdictions that have proclaimed themselves relatively safe places for illegal immigrants.

Reporting from Washington — Critics of the Obama administration’s decision to sue Arizona over its new law to control illegal immigration accuse the government of overlooking a more obvious target: the dozens of cities that called themselves a “sanctuary” for immigrants.

“Everyone has noticed the hypocrisy of the government going after Arizona and ignoring the sanctuary cities,” said Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “They have it exactly backwards. Arizona is applying federal law, and sanctuary cities are violating it.”

Justice Department lawyers on Thursday asked a judge in Phoenix to block Arizona’s law from going into effect on the grounds it interferes with federal immigration policy. The law is due to take effect in the coming week.

The Justice Department lawyers say the government wants to catch and deport criminal immigrants, but it does not wish to take custody of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who are otherwise abiding by the law.

Beginning in the 1980s, more than 40 cities and counties adopted ordinances or resolutions declaring they were sanctuaries for immigrants. Police and other city employees were told they should not ask about a person’s immigration status, and they should not tell federal agents if they learned a person was here illegally.

More recently, many of these cities have backed away from such policies. But there continues to be debate over whether local officials have a duty to alert federal agents about illegal immigrants.

The Justice Department disputes the contention that its policy is hypocritical. “There is a big difference between a state or locality saying they are not going to use their resources to enforce a federal law, as so-called ’sanctuary’ cities have done, and a state passing its own immigration policy that actively interferes with federal law,” said Tracy Schmaler, a department spokeswoman.

Kris Kobach, the Kansas law professor who drafted the Arizona law, said he particularly objected to cities that have a policy of freeing criminals who are illegal immigrants without notifying federal immigration officials. “It’s pretty clear they are breaking the law. And they are doing it with impunity,” he said.

He pointed to a provision Congress added to the immigration laws in 1996. It says state and local agencies and their officials “may not prohibit or in any way restrict” their employees from “sending” information about a person’s immigration status to the agency then known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

But Congress did not set a penalty for violations. And since then, neither Republican or Democratic administrations have taken legal action to enforce it, according to government officials and immigration lawyers.

Michael Hethmon, a lawyer for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, blames politics and the unusual coalition supporting loose enforcement. “Neither employers nor the ethnic interest groups have wanted these laws enforced,” he said. “It’s about both immigrants’ rights and cheap labor.”

But the legal difficulty of enforcing immigration laws goes even further. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative, said the Constitution shields states and localities from federal dictates. “Congress cannot compel the states to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program,” he said in a 1997 ruling.

Cities with sanctuary policies deny they shield known criminals from immigration agents.

The Los Angeles Police Department has had a policy for more than 30 years that prohibits officers from initiating contact with someone just to determine whether they are in the U.S. legally. LAPD officials have said the policy encourages illegal immigrants who witness crimes to assist police without fear of being deported.

In the last two years, U.S. immigration officials have launched a new alert system that they believe can solve the problem of deporting criminal immigrants. It also has potential to defuse much of the controversy over “sanctuary” cities. Known as “Secure Communities,” it permits federal immigration authorities to scan fingerprints of newly arrested suspects. Los Angeles County participates in the program.

Officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement downplay the significance of “sanctuary” policies. “None of these municipal laws have yet interfered with our ability to make our streets safer,” said Matt Chandler, an agency spokesman.

By Daniel Gonzalez

Arizona’s tough new immigration law is slated to take effect Thursday, but the nation’s immigration enforcement agency has not indicated whether it will cooperate with police who are trying to enforce it.

Without cooperation from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, much of the law would become unenforceable: Police would have no way of determining, from federal authorities, the legal status of suspected illegal immigrants as the state law requires. And that would severely hamper efforts to arrest them for violations of the law.

As a result, local police officers might have to release suspected illegal immigrants if they can’t determine their status.

“If the Department of Homeland Security says, ‘SB 1070 is unconstitutional, don’t cooperate,’ . . . then much of what is going on here shuts down. Not necessarily all of it, but a lot of it,” said Gabriel Jack Chin, a University of Arizona criminal-law professor who co-authored a legal analysis of the law.

Police officers sometimes contact ICE to check the immigration status of suspected illegal immigrants, and if ICE determines the people are in the country illegally, it usually responds to pick them up.

But officials from Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and the Border Patrol, have refused to disclose the agencies’ plans for dealing with SB 1070, which is expected to launch a flurry of calls for assistance from local police. They will say only that they are monitoring a federal lawsuit that is seeking to block the law.

The law makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally. It states that an officer engaged in a lawful stop, detention or arrest shall, when practicable, ask about a person’s legal status when reasonable suspicion exists that the person is in the U.S. illegally.

State Rep. John Kavanagh, who sponsored the House version of the law, said ICE’s role, as its name implies, is immigration enforcement, so it should assist and take any illegal immigrants apprehended by state and local police enforcing the new law. But he said the Obama administration is trying to block the agency from cooperating for political reasons. The Department of Justice has sued to keep the law from taking effect, saying it usurps federal responsibility.

“ICE is caught between a ‘Barack’ and hard place, pun intended,” said Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills. “The Obama administration is clearly putting ICE in the middle of a political battle, and when you do that to law enforcement, that is extremely dangerous and I really object to that.”

Kavanagh said lawmakers, when writing the law, did not anticipate that federal authorities might not to cooperate.

“But I will tell you this,” Kavanagh said, “every suspected illegal immigrant that we refer to ICE and ICE declines to assist with, we will record the name of that individual if we have to release them, and any crimes, any murders, and rapes they commit will be on Barack Obama’s administration’s conscience and not ours.”

The law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer on April 23, includes a provision that allows people to sue law-enforcement agencies that refuse to enforce the law. But the provision, Kavanagh said, applies only to state and local agencies, not federal authorities.

ICE position

ICE officials said they are waiting to see whether the law survives court challenges contending that the law is unconstitutional and could lead to racial profiling.

“The DOJ has filed a lawsuit in regards to this law and the outcome of that suit will inform the government’s action going forward,” the immigration agency said in a statement emailed to The Arizona Republic.

The statement also said that the agency’s priority is to go after illegal immigrants who pose a danger to communities.

“ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that focuses first on criminal aliens who pose a threat to our communities. ICE uses lawful discretion on a case-by-case basis to en- sure that throughout all our programs we are meeting our priorities,” the statement said.

John Morton, the director of ICE, has indicated he doesn’t like the law. In May, he told a Chicago newspaper that his agency would not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona police under the law. And earlier this month, Morton said he understood the frustration many communities feel over the issue of illegal immigration, but he did not think it was a good idea for more states to pass similar laws.

“I don’t think that 50 different immigration enforcement laws is the answer to our immigration problems,” Morton told the Associated Press.

In its written statement, the agency said that ICE works every day with local law enforcement in Arizona and around the country.

The agency has signed so-called 287(g) agreements with nine law-enforcement agencies in Arizona that either allow local officers to enforce federal immigration laws or allow jail officials to identify illegal immigrants booked into jails to be processed for deportation. Only one other state, Virginia, has as many.

ICE also is using a federal database in jails in seven counties in Arizona to identify illegal immigrants previously removed from the United States or wanted for a serious crime in another country. ICE plans to expand the program to jails throughout Arizona by next year, officials said.

In 2006, ICE created a unit to respond to calls for assistance from local police, primarily when they encounter groups being held in drophouses or being transported in smuggling vehicles. The unit, staffed 24 hours a day, was created after former Gov. Janet Napolitano and some law-enforcement agencies complained that police were being forced to release suspected illegal immigrants into the community because ICE often lacked the manpower to respond.

During the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the Law Enforcement Agency Response unit has responded to 892 calls for assistance from local police in the Phoenix area and made 3,528 arrests, according to ICE officials.

The unit, however, mainly responds to calls from law-enforcement agencies in the Phoenix area, and along Interstate 17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff, and Interstate 40, which are well-known human smuggling corridors.

History of cooperation
Officials from several law-enforcement agencies in Arizona said they have a good working relationship with ICE, and they do not expect that to change if the law takes effect.

In general, when police officers encounter suspected illegal immigrants, they can call ICE’s 24-hour hotline to check the person’s status. Police also transport suspected illegal immigrants to ICE’s detention center on Central Avenue near downtown Phoenix. In southern Arizona, police also turn over suspected illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol.

At some jails in Arizona, including Maricopa County’s jails, immigration status is checked for every person booked on a state or local charge. Those found to be in the country illegally are held to be processed for possible deportation.

Every person sentenced to state prison in Arizona also has his or her immigration status checked. Illegal immigrants and legal immigrants convicted of deportable offenses are turned over to ICE after completing their sentences.

“I am sure they are going to be overwhelmed with phone calls, but I am sure we will just take it as it comes,” said Sgt. Robert Bailey, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Sgt. Tommy Thompson, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department, said officers frequently contact ICE when they encounter smuggling vehicles loaded with illegal immigrants as part of crime investigations or other situations. Whether calls to ICE will increase under the law “remains to be seen,” Thompson said, but he expects ICE will continue to respond.

“We are assuming that if we contact ICE, they will be there,” Thompson said.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has conducted a controversial crackdown on illegal immigrants for the past several years, said ICE continues to take custody of immigration violators netted during his crime suppression operations and worksite raids even though they were not charged with any state crimes.

“I’m concerned that they might change their policy and not pick up these people unless they are accused of a violent crime,” Arpaio said.

By Leah Durant

In May 2010 the US Bureau of Labor Statistics placed the US unemployment rate at 9.3 percent. Estimates throughout the year have placed the US underemployment rate – a number accounting for those working part-time, but looking for full-time work, at well over 15 percent. This number includes individuals who what to work but have given up searching for jobs altogether.

While many Americans struggle to find the jobs they desperately need, many companies hire illegal immigrants and earn big bucks by keeping wages low and profits high, driving down wages and profits for American citizens, legal residents and honest employers.

One honest employer who feels the pain of this practice is Roman, a tile setter from California. In a recent interview posted on YouTube by the Center for Progressive Urban Politics, Roman describes his struggle to find profitable jobs in an environment in which many of his competitors choose to hire illegal workers. In this illuminating video, Roman describes how competitors who hire illegal workers offer tile setting services for far less than he can, because these employers pay workers extremely low wages. It bears noting that these employment practices are not only unfair, but are also illegal under federal employment law.

“They’re paying slave wages,” Roman said. “I’m competing against people that will work for just about nothing.”

Roman does not blame the illegal immigrants themselves for his economic woes. According to Roman, he understands that illegal workers are trying to provide for their families, just like him. Roman instead blames the contractors who employ illegal workers, and drive down salaries and profits in fields like construction and the skilled trades.

By shedding light on the problem of employers who reject Americans in favor of hiring undocumented workers, Roman raises an important issue. Why are these employers able to get away with this? Why are honest employers like Roman losing business and earnings to those who cheat the system?

It becomes clear from stories like Roman’s that the US desperately needs to fully implement a system to check the work authorization status of its workers. Employers should not have the option to hire and take advantage of anyone, illegal immigrants or otherwise.

The federal government already offers E-Verify, a free, opt-in program that allows businesses to check the legality of new hires. If this program were fully implemented, more Americans like Roman could get back to work and begin earning a living wage.

By Maureen Wood

Today the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held a hearing on “the Ethical Imperative for Reform of our Immigration System.” Many important points were made, but one really stood out: illegal immigration is not a racial issue.

This point was not brought up by someone considered “anti-immigrant,” or any other slanderous term being thrown out in the blogosphere. The point was made by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL). Gutierrez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is lauded by many as a champion of immigrants’ rights.

Gutierrez was the one to ask a room full of his colleagues in Congress, religious leaders and immigration activists why people always focus on Latinos when discussing immigration.

“This is not a fight between the United States and Mexico,” Gutierrez said. He also brought up the statistical fact that 40 percent of illegal immigrants are not of Latino descent.

Immigration reform and illegal immigration are not racial issues. Arguments can be made to call the debates surrounding immigration political or moral, but no credible argument can be formed to call them racial. People from around the world reside within American borders illegally and no one nationality is responsible for the problems illegal immigration is causing our nation.

It is obvious that Hispanic and Latino groups have been extremely powerful and effective in mobilizing their constituents and having their voices heard. This does not mean that Latinos are the only ethnic group concerned with immigration. This point is largely overlooked by the media, thus wrongly simplifying immigration into a racial debate, rather than the multi-faceted, complex debate it really is.

It is time for the media to focus on all groups involved in the immigration debate, rather than simply gratifying the most vocal. The immigration debate must be transformed into a productive and fair conversation, not simply an argument in which people point fingers and choose scapegoats.

“Illegal alien” is not a race or ethnic group. “Illegal alien” is a term that refers to anyone who enters the United States without waiting for authorization such as a visa, lawful resident status or citizenship. Illegal aliens take the jobs of hardworking American citizens and legal residents without participating in the process of the American immigration system.

It is time to remove the racial taint from the immigration debate and see the reality of illegal immigration in the United States.

By Leah Durant

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice officially filed a lawsuit against Arizona for its planned immigration enforcement measure SB 1070. The suit names the state of Arizona as well as Governor Jan Brewer as defendants. SB 1070 was planned to take effect on July 29th. During the past few months numerous observers have speculated that the Justice Department would eventually intervene to block the Arizona law from being enforced. Such speculation was confirmed when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton revealed last month in an interview with a foreign television network that the administration intended to challenge the Arizona policy.

In a prepared statement, a senior official at the DOJ accused Arizona of trying to “second guess” the federal government. It went on to state that the “invalid” law interferes with federal immigration responsibilities and “must be struck down.” Ironically, defenders of the Arizona law argue that SB 1070 simply enforces existing law and is necessary because the federal government has consistently failed in its responsibilities to protect the border.

The DOJ statement went on to say that, “This is about who in our constitutional system has the authority to formulate immigration policy.” “And as the Supreme Court has explained, and we believe the constitution makes clear, constitutional and federal law do not permit the development of a patchwork of [immigration laws] throughout this country.”

This argument ignores in some respects the fact that a patchwork system is already in place. Throughout the past few years, a wide range of states, cities and municipalities have passed various forms of policies that govern immigration within their jurisdictions. None may be as aggressive as the one passed by the Arizona state legislature.

In November 2007, for instance, Oklahoma passed HB 1804 which cut off undocumented immigrants from state services and made it a crime for anyone, including citizens, to provide transport or assistance to undocumented immigrants. On the other side of the spectrum, a number of cities have passed ‘sanctuary policies’ that attempt to shield undocumented immigrants from federal immigration authorities. Governor Brewer pointed to the Obama administration’s lack of action on sanctuary policies as evidence of its hypocrisy and refusal to enforce immigration laws.

Brewer also labeled the ruling as, “nothing more than a massive waste of taxpayer funds.” Even Congressional Democratic members from Arizona spoke against the DOJ lawsuit. Harry Mitchell, one of these Democratic members, recently sent a sharply worded letter to President Barack Obama urging him not to sue. In the letter Mitchell writes that:

I believe your administration’s time, efforts and resources would be much better spent securing the border and fixing our broken immigration system,” the two-term congressman wrote in the letter. “Arizonans are tired of the grandstanding, and tired of waiting for help from Washington. … [A] lawsuit won’t solve the problem. It won’t secure the border, and it won’t fix our broken immigration system.”

Mitchell’s argument seems reasonable, but the Obama administration will likely plow forward for largely political reasons. A number of other private organizations have already filed briefs against the Arizona law, which indicate that the administration has not filed suit in order to correct some perceived injustice that is not being addressed elsewhere. A more logical conclusion is that the Obama administration is acting in order to shore up support among Hispanic voters before November’s decisive elections. A number of polls conducted recently indicate that Latino voters have become increasingly disenchanted with Obama’s handling of the immigration debate. A Gallop poll found that during January to May, Latino support for the nation’s first African American president fell from 69 percent to 57 percent. Obama needs to consider the safety of American citizens over short-term political gains that may be obtained through such grandstanding. A lot needs to be done to improve the immigration system in the US and this lawsuit is not a step in the right direction.

By Maureen Wood

As seen by the enactment of recent immigration laws, cities and states are working overtime to pass local immigration measures. Notwithstanding these efforts, a federal program that allows state and local law agencies to take immigration enforcement into their own hands is being vastly overlooked.

On June 25th, while referring to the federal 287(g) program during a conference held at the Georgetown University Law Center, Muzaffar Chishti, a director of the Migration Policy Institute, noted: “away from the limelight of Comprehensive Immigration Reform . . . incredible, important things [are] happening.” Chishti was referring to the federal 287(g) program. This program allows local law enforcement agencies to form agreements with the U.S. government to enforce federal immigration laws.

According to ICE’s website, the federal 287(g) program is an opt-in program aimed at state and local law enforcement agencies. The program allows local law enforcement officers to receive training to enforce federal immigration law as authorized through section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. After receiving the training, local officers are permitted to identify and detain illegal aliens encountered during daily law enforcement duties.

The 287(g) allows federal and local law enforcement the opportunity to collaborate on the implementation of U.S. immigration policy and crimes related to immigration. The program extends the resources of local authorities to deal with crimes, such as human smuggling and gang activity. Since January 2006, participants in the 287(g) program have identified more than 70,000 individuals suspected of being in the country illegally. There are currently 63 local law enforcement agencies participating in the 287(g) program and ICE officers have trained more than 840 local law enforcement officers to enforce immigration law.

With all the success the 287(g) program has experienced over the past few years, the question to be asked is why more municipalities aren’t participating in the program. With polls reporting some 60 to 70 percent of Americans as being in favor of Arizona’s recent immigration law, it would appear that many more law enforcement agencies would opt to toughen their stance on illegal immigration by adopting 287(g). The federal government, however, has imposed strict limits on the number of states and localities that may apply.

Those opposed to 287(g) often raise three main arguments against its implementation. First, critics argue the use of 287(g) police power will lead to racial profiling. The program is not designed to target any single race, just as illegal immigrants are not of any particular race. Racial profiling can only exist if law enforcement officers implement immigration laws in an unfair manner. The federal legislation does not call for racial profiling and racial profiling is in fact prohibited under federal law.

Critics additionally argue that adoption of 287(g) will cause local law enforcement to make more arrests for minor infractions in an effort to identify illegal aliens. A July 2009, reform to 287(g), however, created a standard agreement which focuses law enforcement on serious criminal offenses to remediate this very concern.

Finally, opponents of 287(g) fear the program will undermine the trust between law enforcement agencies and their communities. While it is important that law enforcement not be seen as villains in their communities, the bottom line is that these officers’ job is to enforce the law – and U.S. immigration law does not permit undocumented aliens to reside within the country’s borders.

The 287(g) program is an excellent option for states and municipalities looking to increase and improve the enforcement of federal immigration law. More local law enforcement agencies should consider 287(g) in order to reassure and protect the millions of Americans frustrated by government inaction on immigration enforcement.

By Wais Hassan

On Thursday, June 17th the House Subcommittee on Immigration Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law held a hearing to discuss the myriad of problems that beset the Immigration Court system in the US. The panel of witnesses included Juan Osuna from the Department of Justice, Karen Grisez from the American Bar Association, Russell Wheeler from the Governance Institute and immigration judges Dana Leigh Marks and Mark Metcalf.

The panel of witnesses agreed that the most important priority for the immigration court system is hiring 2 dozen or more immigration judges. A 2006 review of the immigration system by the DOJ recommended the hiring of 40 Immigration Court judges. In 2006, 230 judges served in immigration courts throughout the US. However, actual hiring of judges was delayed until April 2009, when 10 additional judges were brought on board. Now the present total of judges is 237, which is not a significant increase from 2006 levels. Meanwhile, case backlogs have grown by 23% in the last eighteen months and a staggering 82% over the last 10 years. For FY2008 immigration judges were responsible for completing on average 1,500 cases per judge. The average Federal District judge only has a pending caseload of 400 cases. Furthermore, immigration judges are not provided with much support, the ratio of law clerks to judges is a paltry 1 to 4. The system has to currently deal with 275,000 pending cases, the largest number the system has ever had to deal with at one time.

Juan P. Osuna, Associate Deputy Attorney General of the US DOJ, testified before the committee and provided details about hiring plans within the Immigration Court system. He promised that 47 immigration judges and additional support staff will be hired in 2010 alone. If Congress approves Administration plans for 2011, 20 more judges will be brought on board with the total number of judges equaling 301.

During his testimony, Osuna also highlighted the training initiative that newly hired immigration judges undertake. Panelists did applaud DOJ for implementing these training programs for immigration judges but Representatives like Judy Chu (D-CA) expressed concern that training programs were not rigorous or thorough enough. Newly hired judges complete 5 weeks of training and undertake a test meant to gauge their knowledge of immigration law. The test was first administered to new hires in 2008. However, Mr. Osuna did not have statistics on the initial pass rate of judges who take the test. Judges with longer experience on the bench were not given any assessment. Chu argued that it would be advisable to test those with longer tenures in the immigration courts in order to ensure that they have been keeping up with legal trends and scholarship within the discipline. Mr. Osuna promised he would follow up with the committee and provide more information on how judges have performed on recent tests.

Judge Mark Metcalf argued that judges need more prosecutorial jurisdiction to decide certain cases, especially in cases where it is clear that an individual will receive a stay of removal because of health reasons. Metcalf argued that judges should be able to throw out cases where the alleged defendant is accused of no criminal charge and has health issues that made deportation impossible. Lack of prosecutorial jurisdiction by judges contributes to the huge backlog of cases in the immigration system.

The number of cases awaiting resolution before the Immigration Courts reached an all time high of 242,776 at the end of March 2010, according to an analysis of timely court data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). The case backlog has continued to grow—up 6.3 percent—since TRAC’s last report four months ago, and is nearly a third higher (30.4 percent) than it was a mere 18 months ago. The average length of time cases have been waiting increased to 443 days. Mr. Metcalf asserted that, “cases that routinely take less than three hours to try often require more than five years to complete through final appeal.”

The long duration of most immigration court cases is partially attributable to the lack of resources that delay the courts’ ability to process hearings. Delays are also caused by the Board of Immigration Appeals that oversees the work of the district immigration courts. “Streamlining” changes to the BOA structure has led to a seven-fold increase in the number of circuit court appeals over five years (from 2001 to 2006). The backlog within the BIA is not as large as it was in the early 2000s but the process is still quite time-consuming. The BIA fails to complete 95% of its appellate caseload from year to year.

Another alarming deficit of the immigration system is the high number of alien defendants who evade court proceedings and remain free. Between 1996 and 2008, the US allowed 1.8 million aliens—some here legally, to remain free upon their promise to appear in court. A shocking 41%–736,000 individuals never showed for their court date. This repeated dodging of court has produced a massive increase of deportation orders. In 2002, 602,000 orders lay backlogged. By the end of 2008, 558,000 still remained unenforced.

The other three witnesses in the hearing seemed to echo the testimony of Metcalf and Osuna. Judge Marks raised the question of whether the immigration courts should remain in the DOJ structure or be given independent status as an Article 1 Court. Some witnesses like Russell Wheeler were skeptical that such a radical revision could ever happen. However, all witnesses were in agreement that the immigration court system needs a much greater investment of resources in order to tackle the major responsibilities charged to it.

By Leah Durant

The 2010 Census count is winding towards an end this summer but we will not get an understanding of its impact on the political structure of Washington until December 31. The mail-in response portion of the census has been fairly successful according to Census Bureau experts as it generated a 72 percent response rate, the same rate that the 2000 Census generated. The personal interview portion of the census is now in full swing, as temporary workers visit non-responsive households and ask 10 simple questions concerning ethnicity, age, and family size.

One question that has unfortunately been omitted from the questionnaire is citizenship status. Last fall, Republican Sens. Bob Bennett of Utah and David Vitter of Louisiana proposed an amendment requiring that the census include a question on citizenship, a move aimed at removing undocumented immigrants from the count. The Senate rejected their amendment, but Bennett vowed to keep pushing for it in future censuses “so we can fairly determine congressional representation and ensure that legal residents are equally represented.”

The failure to distinguish legal residents from illegal immigrants has caused the apportionment of House seats to skew unfairly. The distribution of House seats is based on population, with 650,000 residents per House seat. If states with large undocumented populations like California were not allowed to count these populations, they would lose a significant number of House seats to states that had a higher ratio of citizens to undocumented immigrants. California, for example, would lose 5 House seats if its 3 to 5 million undocumented residents were not counted in the population.

Furthermore, many states that are projected to lose a seat when the Census statistics are completely tabulated would in fact not lose a seat in Congress if illegal residents were not counted in the overall tally. Some think tanks estimate that if the undocumented were left out in 2010, California, Texas, Arizona and Florida would all lose seats while Midwestern states such as Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Missouri would gain.

Latino advocates are divided over the question of whether legal status within the Census questionnaire should be asked. The Rev. Miguel Rivera, leader of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which represents 20,000 churches in 34 states, has urged undocumented immigrants to boycott the census to protest Congress’ failure to overhaul immigration laws. Other advocates within the Latino community are highly critical of Rivera’s suggestion, believing that undercounting the immigrant population will cause some communities to lose millions of dollars of federal funds.

While no solid estimates are available, it is highly likely that large percentages of the undocumented population will not participate in the census due to the scrutiny they have been receiving in states like Arizona. Having solid estimates of this population would provide academics and government officials with valuable information as they continue to grapple with the nation’s immigration crisis. This incomplete census format is diluting the voting power of millions of American citizens. Unfortunately, excluding the undocumented from census tallies could require a Constitutional Amendment and many weak-kneed Congressmen would rather stall and sidestep than tackle such a controversial issue.

This blog was originally posted on The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leah-durant/counting-the-undocumented_b_622391.html