Alabama law affects all aspects of immigrant life

By Perla Trevizo
Times Free Press
Saturday, October 15, 2011

FORT PAYNE, Ala. -- The full provisions of Alabama's new immigration law have yet to be implemented, but already its impact in the immigrant community -- including fear -- is considered much larger than in other states with similar get-tough measures.

"I don't think we saw anywhere near the level of terror from families and children we are seeing [in Alabama]," said Mary Bauer, legal director with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., in a telephone news conference last week.

It's been over two weeks since Alabama's law -- considered by many on both sides of the debate as the toughest in the country -- went into effect. Advocates and immigrants say the result has been a climate of fear that affects everything from families and schools to business and agriculture.

In other states, "we've heard stories of families choosing to leave and rotting crops [because farmers can't find laborers], but not wholesale terror and destruction of families," Bauer said. "The other laws didn't have provisions involving schoolchildren, and the most onerous provisions were [blocked by courts]."

Count Valentina Rodriguez among the immigrants who are afraid for themselves and their children.

The single mother worries about what would happen to her 10-year-old daughter if Rodriguez should be stopped by a police officer and detained for being in the country illegally.

Rodriguez went to Niko Services for Immigrants, a Florida-based nonprofit that has an office in Fort Payne, last week to ask what she could do to sign a power of attorney so friends could keep her daughter if she is deported.

"We don't want people to feel sorry for us, but as parents, these are things you think about," said the Mexico native.

IMPACT

Alabama's immigration law took effect Sept. 29 after a federal judge upheld most of it, including requirements that police officers check the immigration status of people they detain for other reasons and that public schools determine the status of their students and report it to the state.

However, the public school provision temporarily was blocked Friday by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

Nicholas Milano, director of Niko Services, said he's been getting calls day and night from people asking him what they should do.

Bauer said a complaint hotline at Southern Poverty received more than 2,000 calls statewide in less than one week. Calls ranged from sick immigrants who didn't want to drive to a hospital, to parents reporting their Hispanic children being call "wetbacks" and bullied in school, she said.

Fort Payne City Superintendent of Schools Jimmy Cunningham said he's not aware of anything like that happening in his school district. Children are being enrolled in school regardless of legal status, he said, and the documentation is to be used for reporting purposes only.

But parents are afraid, and there have been reports of children taken out of school or not showing up for class. Hispanic students make up about 31 percent of all students in the Fort Payne school district. Since the law went into effect, 34 of 968 Hispanic students withdrew, Cunningham said.

Merchants along the main street of Fort Payne said business has decreased 40 to 50 percent.

"People are not leaving their homes" because they're not here legally and are afraid of being stopped by police, said Silvestre Juan, a naturalized citizen from Guatemala who operates Tienda Latino, where he sells Latin American products and offers money-transfer services.

Jose Barrios, who was visiting Juan, said he has four brothers who left for Tennessee and Kentucky once the law went into effect. But Barrios said his U.S.-born children, ages 8, 13 and 15, and his home keep him in Alabama.

"My wife and I have talked about it, but we just don't know what to do," said the Mexico native who entered illegally in 1992 and has lived in Fort Payne for 14 years.

He signed a power of attorney giving his brother, a legal permanent resident, custody of his children if he and his wife are deported.

A few blocks from Tienda Latino, Juan Vitela talked about the possibility of closing his store, La Unica Beauty Shop, because business is so bad.

Norberta Vitorio, 48, said she lost her job last week after telling her boss she was afraid to drive.

"He asked me if I was in the country illegally, and when I said 'yes,' he told me I couldn't work there anymore because he could get in trouble," she said.

The Mexico native said she plans to go back to her country in January.

The section of the new law that frightens people most is the provision that gives law enforcement the right to check their immigration status if they're detained on other charges or reasons, residents said. Many fear it can lead to racial profiling. It's also the provision that has been blocked by federal judges in other states, including Georgia and Arizona. But it was not part of the Alabama provisions that were blocked by Friday's court ruling.

Vitela said he left the store with another friend, also Hispanic, last week and was followed closely by a police car. As he made a right turn, he was stopped for crossing into the other lane. He and his passenger were asked for their driver's licenses. Each produced his license but noted that passengers had not been asked for ID before.

ENFORCEMENT

The role of local law enforcement in the new law doesn't concern only immigrants. Police and public officials have their own worries.

"We haven't had any training on it whatsoever," said Fort Payne Police Chief Randy Bynum. "It really means a lot of unknowns; we just don't know how we are going to handle it."

So far they haven't made any arrests under the new law, he said.

Ricky Harcrow, DeKalb County Commission president for 16 years, said the county is in limbo on many aspects of the law, including what is required for people renewing their tags. Do they need to verify legal documentation in person or can they still mail it in?

He also worries about how enforcement may affect local governments.

"The cost of [the law enforcement implementation] can get astronomical," he said. "There are so many things involved ... that can be a nightmare."

The law may be hard to implement initially, but something needs to be done about illegal immigration, Harcrow said.

In justifying the bill, its authors cited the economic hardship that illegal immigration has caused the state in health, education and costs for public benefits.

"Illegal immigration is encouraged when public agencies within this state provide public benefits without verifying immigration status," the bill reads.

TWEAK THE LAW?

The Hispanic community in Fort Payne, the largest share of unauthorized immigrants in the country, has grown 86 percent since 2000 -- from 1,574 to 2,930 in 2010 -- attracted primarily by work in the poultry and hosiery industries.

Immigration, legal or illegal, has helped fill jobs that might be hard to fill otherwise, Harcrow said. But he also said immigrants have taken jobs away from people who "probably would have done" the work. Still, he would like to see the law tweaked to include some program or exemption for farmers or poultry growers who need seasonal help, which often is filled by undocumented workers.

"I do think that needs to be looked at on the local level; we know what we need," Harcrow said.

As states get tougher with immigration, farmers have reported crops rotting in the field because they can't get enough workers.

Stephen Talley, from Talley's Farm in Crossville, Ala., said he lost the only Hispanic employee he had on his 12-acre farm, where he grows strawberries and pumpkins. The Mexico native returned to his country with his wife and two U.S.-born children at the end of August, Talley said, when the law originally was scheduled to go into effect. Talley said he wasn't aware of his status.

"Some of the bigger farms are seeing a larger impact, especially apple farmers," he said.

Workers are hard to find, he said.

"During strawberry season I might need five or six people, but from October through April, I don't. I can't supply anyone with s full-time job," he said.

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2011/oct/15/alabama-law-affects-aspects-of-immigrant-life/?print

Immigrants in Ala. fear families being torn apart

By Mark Strassmann
ABC News
October 14, 2011

(CBS News)--Alabama has put itself on the front lines of the battle against illegal immigration with a tough new law. But that law is being challenged as unconstitutional. On Friday, a panel of federal judges in Atlanta weighed in on the most controversial parts of the law, overturning -- at least for now -- two major provisions.

The law requires schools to check the immigration status of students, which the judges have suspended. It also requires legal immigrants to carry papers proving their legal status; the judges suspended that too. But the court let stand a provision that allows the police to detain immigrants they suspect are illegal.

The law took effect six weeks ago and had swift and dramatic effects in Alabama. CBS News correspondent Mark Strassman reports on what this all means.

Liz Betancourt is scared to leave the house in Florence, Alabama.

"I am illegal," she said. "I am not from here."

Her family moved from Mexico to the U.S. when Liz was an infant. She's now 19, but has never applied for citizenship or a green card.

Under the state's new law, if she's picked up by police, she could be deported. And during that process, which can take months, there's no legal guarantee her daughter Idelfy -- born in Alabama and a U.S. citizen -- would stay with her.

But the widespread perception among illegal immigrants is deportation would split families apart -- although deported parents would be allowed to take their children with them.

"We just came here to work," said Betancourt. "Our parents ... they just come here to give their children a good education."

Even a routine trip to the store has many illegal immigrants here worried they'll end up arrested. And in case they're deported, some parents are signing papers, turning over legal care of their kids to someone else.

If Betancourt's deported, her aunt, a U.S. citizen, would care for Idelfy so the baby could stay here.

Fear of deportation is spreading through families living here illegally. In Albertville, Alabama's public schools, 81 of 1,100 Hispanic students have dropped out in the last two weeks.

Alabama employers like farmer Keith Smith are also feeling the effects. Smith needs 20 workers to harvest his sweet potatoes. Most mornings, he's lucky now if only nine show up.

"They're putting me out of business, this law," said Smith, "And if things don't change, if they don't come up with something better, people like me -- we're a has-been."

On the contrary, Scott Beason, the Republican state senator who sponsored the state's new law, argued: "They're displacing Alabama workers. And our goal is to have many Alabamians as possible working."

He points to Alabama's unemployment rate -- just under 10 percent -- and the estimated $290 million Alabama spends educating and caring for illegal immigrants.

"Has the impact been what you expected?" Strassman asked.

"I think so," answered Beason. "All the focus is on the illegal alien and the challenge they may have for being here illegally. People always forget the person who were unable to start a business or who lost their business because the competitor down the road hired an illegal alien."

The Friday decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals here in Atlanta is only temporary. Its final decision could be months away. And Liz Betancourt -- the woman interviewed in our story -- was fired by her cleaning company right after she spoke with CBS News.

CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley asked Strassman what happens next in the court fight.

"Friday's decision conflicts with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision about a similar provision in Arizona's law -- the provision that focuses on whether a local or state police agency can check the immigration status of someone simply because they're suspected of a crime. Because those decisions conflict, legal scholars now say it is much more likely this issue will reach the U.S. Supreme Court."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/14/eveningnews/main20120777.shtml

Cerca de 27.000 hondureños han sido deportados de EE.UU. y México en 2011

Por Agencia EFE
25 Agosto 2011

Tegucigalpa, 24 ago (EFE).- Unos 26.985 hondureños han sido deportados de Estados Unidos y México en lo que va de 2011, informó hoy la directora del no gubernamental Centro de Atención al Migrante en Tegucigalpa, Valdette Willeman.

Willeman detalló a periodistas que solamente de EE.UU. han sido deportados por vía aérea unos 13.985 hondureños, en su mayoría hombres, en tanto que por tierra, procedentes de México, han retornado unos 13.000.

Willeman indicó que de Estados Unidos están llegando cinco vuelos semanales y que no cree que la voluntad política del presidente de ese país, Barack Obama, de reducir las deportaciones de inmigrantes, favorezca mucho a los hondureños.

El pasado lunes llegaron tres vuelos del Servicio de Inmigración de EE.UU. con 130 personas cada uno, manifestó la directora del Centro de Atención al Migrante.

Las autoridades de Tegucigalpa calculan que en Estados Unidos viven un poco más de un millón de hondureños, entre residentes legales e indocumentados, que anualmente envían remesas por más 2.000 millones de dólares.

En promedio cada año son deportados entre 25.000 y 30.000 hondureños de Estados Unidos y México, cifra inferior a los que salen de manera ilegal, alrededor de unos 3.000 cada mes, en busca de una oportunidad de trabajo.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5hHHY_UG2D82lVP9qGS8SFsz8XS7g?docId=1593712

Stranded Student Arms Himself With an Education After Parents' Deportation

By Tania Luviano
Fox News Latino
July 13, 2011

Graduating from high school marks the beginning of a new era for any teenager, but for Marcos Muñoz, the diploma is renewed hope for him and his family.

Muñoz, a San Diego, California, resident, was just 14-years-old when his parents were deported to Mexico, abruptly forcing him to take on the role as father to his little sister.

“Our lives changed in a second. My older sister and I had to learn how to run the house and take care of our 10-year-old sister,” he said.

Muñoz’s priorities changed in a flash. Somewhere along the line, schoolyard drama and popular girls were no match to newfound concerns over economic stresses in his efforts to help his older sister bring money home.

“My parents were hardly making any money in Tijuana, Mexico, and we had to pay the mortgage, electricity, buy food, everything,” he said.

Muñoz made the decision to transfer to a charter school, where he was be able to study on his own time and allowed him to work as much as he wanted to.

And since Muñoz, who wasn't even 16-years-old and therefore not particularly attractive to potential employers, would take any job.

“I started working on a taco shop close to my house. The hours were the worst and I would do all sorts of things, but on top of that I was only making a couple hundred dollars, so it wasn’t enough,” he said.

Tired of not making ends meet, Muñoz got a full time job at a tennis store. His days were long, he would get up at dawn to catch the bus at 6 a.m. to the trolley, and arrive to school two hours later. Already tired, he would continue to his afternoon duties, which included more buses and trains to be able to get to work.

“If you don’t work hard, you’re nobody in this country,” said Muñoz, whose will power would keep him going until midnight, the only time he had to do his homework.

The thought of quitting never crossed Munoz's mind, however, and not working was never an option for him, so dropping-out of school became more and more enticing.

“I wasn’t eating or sleeping well and still my sister and I couldn’t pay the bills. I felt all my hard work was in vain," Muñoz said.

But Muñoz refused to let himself down, and most importantly, he didn’t want to disappoint his parents, who are his biggest motivation.

“They came to the U.S. for the only purpose of providing us a better education, and that’s what I was determined to do,” he said.

His determination and hard work paid off this past June when Muñoz was able to finish high school in just two years with a 3.5 grade point average.

“We are very proud of our son and we know he’ll do bigger things,” said Abel and Zulma Muñoz, who weren’t able to attend their son’s graduation because of their immigration status, but celebrated their son’s accomplishment with the whole family at their home in Tijuana.

Thirty-three percent of all Latinos and Latinas drop out of school in the United States without graduating. Muñoz says many of his friends are in the same boat.

“They are making a big mistake because in this country you are nobody if you don’t go to school," he said. "You can’t even work at McDonald’s if you don’t finish high school.”

But this strong-minded 17-year-old has a bigger dream in mind: he wants to become an odontologist. And he’s in the process of applying for as many scholarships as he can to be able to attend community college in the fall and, in the future, transfer to San Diego State University.

Beyond his education aspirations, Muñoz wants to inspire other Latinos to finish high school and get a college degree. If he can do it, he humbly says, anyone can.

“I want to be an example to other young Latinos, who like me have to work and go to school at the same time," Muñoz said. "And I know they must feel discouraged, but I want to tell them, you can do it!”

And if you ask him who his mentor and most admired role model is, there’s only one name.

“My sister Leslie," he said. "She taught me never to give up and always fight for what you want.”

The drive to success must run in the Muñoz‘s blood. Just like her brother, Leslie, 21, graduated from high school three years ago and currently has two jobs. Additionally, she attends Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California, where she's studying to become an immigration lawyer.

“My parents taught me to always value what you have and never give up in your dreams, to always work hard because later in life it will pay off,” said Marcos.

Still, the family has hurdles to clear. Although, Muñoz works full time at a parking lot in San Ysidro, California, they were evicted from his home just last month.

Tough times lie ahead, indeed. But he says he’s ready for any challenge.

“For my parents and for myself," the teen said, "I will fight for a better future.”

Tania Luviano is a freelance contributor for Fox News Latino.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/community/2011/07/13/stranded-student-arms-himself-with-education-after-parents-deportation/#ixzz1SBVdfNrY

Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North

Economic, demographic and social changes in Mexico are suppressing illegal immigration as much as the poor economy or legal crackdowns in the United States.
By DAMIEN CAVE
The New York Times
July 6, 2011

AGUA NEGRA, Mexico — The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive.

A growing body of evidence suggests that a mix of developments — expanding economic and educational opportunities, rising border crime and shrinking families — are suppressing illegal traffic as much as economic slowdowns or immigrant crackdowns in the United States.

Here in the red-earth highlands of Jalisco, one of Mexico’s top three states for emigration over the past century, a new dynamic has emerged. For a typical rural family like the Orozcos, heading to El Norte without papers is no longer an inevitable rite of passage. Instead, their homes are filling up with returning relatives; older brothers who once crossed illegally are awaiting visas; and the youngest Orozcos are staying put.

“I’m not going to go to the States because I’m more concerned with my studies,” said Angel Orozco, 18. Indeed, at the new technological institute where he is earning a degree in industrial engineering, all the students in a recent class said they were better educated than their parents — and that they planned to stay in Mexico rather than go to the United States.

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the United States for the first time had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

The decline in illegal immigration, from a country responsible for roughly 6 of every 10 illegal immigrants in the United States, is stark. The Mexican census recently discovered four million more people in Mexico than had been projected, which officials attributed to a sharp decline in emigration.

American census figures analyzed by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center also show that the illegal Mexican population in the United States has shrunk and that fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004. Although some advocates for more limited immigration argue that the Pew studies offer estimates that do not include short-term migrants, most experts agree that far fewer illegal immigrants have been arriving in recent years.

The question is why. Experts and American politicians from both parties have generally looked inward, arguing about the success or failure of the buildup of border enforcement and tougher laws limiting illegal immigrants’ rights — like those recently passed in Alabama and Arizona. Deportations have reached record highs as total border apprehensions and apprehensions of Mexicans have fallen by more than 70 percent since 2000.

But Mexican immigration has always been defined by both the push (from Mexico) and the pull (of the United States). The decision to leave home involves a comparison, a wrenching cost-benefit analysis, and just as a Mexican baby boom and economic crises kicked off the emigration waves in the 1980s and ’90s, research now shows that the easing of demographic and economic pressures is helping keep departures in check.

In simple terms, Mexican families are smaller than they had once been. The pool of likely migrants is shrinking. Despite the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, birth control efforts have pushed down the fertility rate to about 2 children per woman from 6.8 in 1970, according to government figures. So while Mexico added about one million new potential job seekers annually in the 1990s, since 2007 that figure has fallen to an average of 800,000, according to government birth records. By 2030, it is expected to drop to 300,000.

Even in larger families like the Orozcos’ — Angel is the 9th of 10 children — the migration calculation has changed. Crossing “mojado,” wet or illegally, has become more expensive and more dangerous, particularly with drug cartels dominating the border. At the same time, educational and employment opportunities have greatly expanded in Mexico. Per capita gross domestic product and family income have each jumped more than 45 percent since 2000, according to one prominent economist, Roberto Newell. Despite all the depictions of Mexico as “nearly a failed state,” he argued, “the conventional wisdom is wrong.”

A significant expansion of legal immigration — aided by American consular officials — is also under way. Congress may be debating immigration reform, but in Mexico, visas without a Congressionally mandated cap on how many people can enter have increased from 2006 to 2010, compared with the previous five years.

State Department figures show that Mexicans who have become American citizens have legally brought in 64 percent more immediate relatives, 220,500 from 2006 through 2010, compared with the figures for the previous five years. Tourist visas are also being granted at higher rates of around 89 percent, up from 67 percent, while American farmers have legally hired 75 percent more temporary workers since 2006.

Edward McKeon, the top American official for consular affairs in Mexico, said he had focused on making legal passage to the United States easier in an effort to prevent people from giving up and going illegally. He has even helped those who were previously illegal overcome bans on entering the United States.

“If people are trying to do the right thing,” Mr. McKeon said, “we need to send the signal that we’ll reward them.”

Hard Years in Jalisco

When Angel Orozco’s grandfather considered leaving Mexico in the 1920s, his family said, he wrestled with one elemental question: Will it be worth it?

At that point and for decades to come, yes was the obvious answer. In the 1920s and ’30s — when Paul S. Taylor came to Jalisco from California for his landmark study of Mexican emigration — Mexico’s central highlands promised little more than hard living. Jobs were scarce and paid poorly. Barely one of three adults could read. Families of 10, 12 and even 20 were common, and most children did not attend school.

Comparatively, the United States looked like a dreamland of technology and riches: Mr. Taylor found that the wages paid by the railroads, where most early migrants found legal work, were five times what could be earned on farms in Arandas, the municipality that includes Agua Negra.

Orozco family members still talk about the benefits of that first trip. Part of the land the extended family occupies today was purchased with American earnings from the 1920s. When Angel’s father, Antonio, went north to pick cotton in the 1950s and ’60s with the Bracero temporary worker program, which accepted more than 400,000 laborers a year at its peak, working in the United States made even more sense. The difference in wages had reached 10 to 1. Arandas was still dirt poor.

Antonio, with just a few years of schooling, was one of many who felt that with a back as strong as a wooden church door, he could best serve his family from across the border.

“I sent my father money so he could build his house,” Antonio said.

Legal status then meant little. After the Bracero program ended in 1964, Antonio said, he crossed back and forth several times without documentation. Passage was cheap. Work lasting for a few months or a year was always plentiful. So when his seven sons started to become adults in the 1990s, he encouraged them to go north as well. Around 2001, he and two of his sons were all in the United States working — part of what is now recognized as one of the largest immigration waves in American history.

But even then, illegal immigration was becoming less attractive. In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration added fences and federal agents to what were then the main crossing corridors beyond Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. The enforcement push, continued by President George W. Bush and President Obama, helped drive up smuggling prices from around $700 in the late 1980s to nearly $2,000 a decade later, and the costs continued to climb, according to research from the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. It also shifted traffic to more dangerous desert areas near Arizona.

Antonio said the risks hit home when his nephew Alejandro disappeared in the Sonoran Desert around 2002. A father of one and with a pregnant wife, Alejandro had been promised work by a friend. It took years for the authorities to find his body in the arid brush south of Tucson. Even now, no one knows how he died.

But for the Orozcos, border enforcement was not the major deterrent. Andrés Orozco, 28, a middle son who first crossed illegally in 2000, said that while rising smuggling costs and border crime were worries, there were always ways to avoid American agents. In fact, while the likelihood of apprehension has increased in recent years, 92 to 98 percent of those who try to cross eventually succeed, according to research by Wayne A. Cornelius and his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego.

A Period of Progress

Another important factor is Mexico itself. Over the past 15 years, this country once defined by poverty and beaches has progressed politically and economically in ways rarely acknowledged by Americans debating immigration. Even far from the coasts or the manufacturing sector at the border, democracy is better established, incomes have generally risen and poverty has declined.

Here in Jalisco, a tequila boom that accelerated through the 1990s created new jobs for farmers cutting agave and for engineers at the stills. Other businesses followed. In 2003, when David Fitzgerald, a migration expert at the University of California, San Diego, came to Arandas, he found that the wage disparity with the United States had narrowed: migrants in the north were collecting 3.7 times what they could earn at home.

That gap has recently shrunk again. The recession cut into immigrant earnings in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, even as wages have risen in Mexico, according to World Bank figures. Jalisco’s quality of life has improved in other ways, too. About a decade ago, the cluster of the Orozco ranches on Agua Negra’s outskirts received electricity and running water. New census data shows a broad expansion of such services: water and trash collection, once unheard of outside cities, are now available to more than 90 percent of Jalisco’s homes. Dirt floors can now be found in only 3 percent of the state’s houses, down from 12 percent in 1990.

Still, education represents the most meaningful change. The census shows that throughout Jalisco, the number of senior high schools or preparatory schools for students aged 15 to 18 increased to 724 in 2009, from 360 in 2000, far outpacing population growth. The Technological Institute of Arandas, where Angel studies engineering, is now one of 13 science campuses created in Jalisco since 2000 — a major reason professionals in the state, with a bachelor’s degree or higher, also more than doubled to 821,983 in 2010, up from 405,415 in 2000.

Similar changes have occurred elsewhere. In the poor southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, for instance, professional degree holders rose to 525,874 from 244,322 in 2000.

And the data from secondary schools like the one the Orozcos attended in Agua Negra suggests that the trend will continue. Thanks to a Mexican government program called “schools of quality” the campus of three buildings painted sunflower yellow has five new computers for its 71 students, along with new books.

Teachers here, in classrooms surrounded by blue agave fields, say that enrollment is down slightly because families are having fewer children, and instead of sending workers north, some families have moved to other Mexican cities — a trend also found in academic field research. Around half the students now move on to higher schooling, up from 30 percent a decade ago.

“They’re identifying more with Mexico,” said Agustín Martínez González, a teacher. “With more education, they’re more likely to accept reality here and try to make it better.”

Some experts agree. Though Mexicans with Ph.D.’s tend to leave for bigger paychecks abroad, “if you have a college degree you’re much more likely to stay in Mexico because that is surely more valuable in Mexico,” said Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center.

If these trends — particularly Mexican economic growth — continue over the next decade, Mr. Passel said, changes in the migration dynamic may become even clearer. “At the point where the U.S. needs the workers again,” he said, “there will be fewer of them.”

Praying for Papers

The United States, of course, has not lost its magnetic appeal. Illegal traffic from Central America has not dropped as fast as it has from Mexico, and even in Jalisco town plazas are now hangouts for men in their 30s with tattoos, oversize baseball caps and a desire to work again in California or another state. Bars with American names — several have adopted Shrek — signal a back and forth that may never disappear.

But more Mexicans are now traveling legally. Several Orozco cousins have received temporary worker visas in the past few years. In March, peak migration season for Jalisco, there were 15 people from Agua Negra at the border waiting to cross.

“And 10 had visas,” said Ramón Orozco, 30, another son of Antonio who works in the town’s government office after being the first in his family to go to college. “A few years ago there would have been 100, barely any with proper documents.”

This is not unique to Agua Negra. A few towns away at the hillside shrine of St. Toribio, the patron saint of migrants, prayers no longer focus on asking God to help sons, husbands or brothers crossing the desert. “Now people are praying for papers,” said María Guadalupe, 47, a longtime volunteer.

How did this happen?

Partly, emigrants say, illegal life in the United States became harder. Laws restricting illegal immigrants’ rights or making it tougher for employers to hire them have passed in more than a dozen states since 2006. The same word-of-mouth networks that used to draw people north are now advising against the journey. “Without papers all you’re thinking about is, when are the police going to stop you or what other risks are you going to face,” said Andrés Orozco.

Andrés, a horse lover who drives a teal pickup from Texas, is one of many Orozcos now pinning their hopes on a visa. And for the first time in years, the chances have improved.

Mexican government estimates based on survey data show not just a decrease in migration overall, but also an increase in border crossings with documents. In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, 38 percent of the total attempted crossings, legal and illegal, were made with documents. In 2007, only 20 percent involved such paperwork.

The Mexican data counts attempted crossings, not people, and does not differentiate between categories of visas. Nor does it mention how long people stayed, nor whether all the documents were valid.

Advocates of limited immigration worry that the issuing of more visas creates a loophole that can be abused. Between 40 and 50 percent of the illegal immigrants in the United States entered legally with visas they overstayed, as of 2005, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

More recent American population data, however, shows no overall increase in the illegal Mexican population. That suggests that most of the temporary visas issued to Mexicans — 1.1 million in 2010 — are being used legitimately even as American statistics show clearly that visa opportunities have increased.

Easing a Chaotic Process

One man, Mr. McKeon, the minister counselor who oversees all consular affairs in Mexico, has played a significant role in that expansion.

A lawyer with a white beard and a quick tongue, Mr. McKeon arrived in the summer of 2007. And after more than 30 years working in consular affairs in China, Japan and elsewhere, he quickly decided to make changes in Mexico. Working within administrative rules, State Department officials say, he re-engineered the visa program to de-emphasize the affordability standard that held that visas were to be denied to those who could not prove an income large enough to support travel to the United States.

In a country where a person can cross the border with a 25-cent toll, Mr. McKeon said, the income question was irrelevant. “You have to look at everyone individually,” he said in an interview at his office in Mexico City. “I don’t want people to say, here’s the income floor, over yes, lower no.”

This led to an almost immediate decrease in the rejection rate for tourist visas. Before he arrived, around 32 percent were turned down. Since 2008, the rate has been around 11 percent.

Mr. McKeon — praised by some immigration lawyers for bringing consistency to a chaotic process — was also instrumental in expanding the temporary visa program for agricultural workers. Called H-2A, this is one of the few visa categories without a cap.

Around 2006, as the debate over immigration became more contentious, employers concentrated in the Southeast began applying for more workers through the program. Mr. McKeon began hosting conferences with all the stakeholders and deployed new technology and additional staff members. The waiting time for several visa categories decreased, government reports show. For H-2As, Mexican workers can now receive their documents the same day that they apply.

Mr. McKeon also pushed to make the program more attractive to Mexicans who might otherwise cross the border illegally. Two years ago, he eliminated a $100 visa issuance fee that was supposed to be covered by employers but was usually paid by workers. And he insisted that his staff members change their approach with Mexicans who had previously worked illegally in the United States.

“The message used to be, if you were working illegally, lie about it or don’t even try to go legally because we won’t let you,” said one senior State Department official. “What we’re saying now is, tell us you did it illegally, be honest and we’ll help you.”

Specifically, consulate workers dealing with H-2A applicants who were once illegal — making them subject to 3- or 10-year bans depending on the length of their illegal stay — now regularly file electronic waiver applications to the United States Customs and Border Patrol. About 85 percent of these are now approved, Mr. McKeon said, so that in 2010 most of the 52,317 Mexican workers with H-2A visas had previously been in the United States illegally.

“It’s not easy to go through this process,” Mr. McKeon said, “and I think people who are willing to go through all of that and risk going back to the United States where they have to pay taxes, and withholding, I think we should look favorably on them.”

Speaking as the son of a New Jersey plumber, he added: “My bias is toward people who sweat at work because I really think that’s the backbone of our country. With limited resources, I’d rather devote our efforts to keeping out a drug kingpin than trying to find someone who works a couple of months at Cousin Hector’s body shop.”

A Divisive Topic

In the heated debate over immigration, however, this topic is inevitably divisive. Pro-immigrant groups, when told of the expansion to legal immigration, say it still may not be enough in a country where the baby boomers are retiring in droves.

Farmers still complain that the H-2A visa program is too complicated and addresses only a portion of the total demand. As of 2010, there were 1,381,896 Mexicans still waiting for their green-card applications to be accepted or rejected. And the United States currently makes only 5,000 green cards annually available worldwide for low-wage workers to immigrate permanently; in recent years, only a few of those have gone to Mexicans.

On the other side, Steven A. Camarota, a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors reduced immigration, said that increasing the proportion of legal entries did little good.

“If you believe there is significant job competition at the bottom end of the labor market, as I do, you’re not fixing the problem,” Mr. Camarota said. “If you are concerned about the fiscal cost of unskilled immigration and everyone comes in on temporary visas and overstays, or even if they don’t, the same problems are likely to apply.”

By his calculations, unskilled immigrants like the Orozcos have, over the years, helped push down hourly wages, especially for young, unskilled American workers. Immigrants are also more likely to rely on welfare, he said, adding to public costs.

The Orozco clan, however, may point to a different future. Angel Orozco, like many other young Mexicans, now talks about the United States not as a place to earn money, but rather as a destination for fun and spending.

Today he is just a lanky, shy freshman wearing a Daughtry T-shirt and living in a two-room apartment with only a Mexican flag and a rosary for decoration.

But his dreams are big and local. After graduating, he said, he hopes to work for a manufacturing company in Arandas, which seems likely because the director of his school says that nearly 90 percent of graduates find jobs in their field. Then, Angel said, he will be able to buy what he really wants: a shiny, new red Camaro.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/06/world/americas/immigration.html?emc=eta1

Dairy farm loses most workers after ICE raid

Via the Associated Press
NewsTime.com
June 2, 2011

FORT MORGAN, Colo. (AP) — Immigrant rights activists say a roundup of people accused of falsifying documents to work in the U.S. is creating fear and confusion in the community.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced the arrest of 11 people in Fort Morgan. KUSA-TV reports that the arrests took place Wednesday at the Wildcat Dairy. The station reports that 50 of the dairy's 60 workers are now gone.

Morgan County Undersheriff Dave Martin says authorities served arrest warrants at the dairy and Fort Morgan homes. Dairy owner Ed Wilgenburg did not immediately return a message left by The Associated Press.

ICE says 20 egregious violators were indicted by a state grand jury on accusations that they possessed or used fraudulent "green cards" and Social Security cards to obtain employment in the United States.

http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Dairy-farm-loses-most-workers-after-ICE-raid-1405152.php#ixzz1OD5CPU1h

Fewer deportations put 287(g) immigration program at risk; Immigrants’ fear, economy drive decline, critics say

Written by Brian Haas
The Tennessean
May 26, 2011

The number of immigrants detained in Nashville’s deportation program has been nearly halved. Federal dollars earned by the program have been cut by almost two-thirds.

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall, whose 287(g) immigration program has been the subject of years of complaints, said its days are numbered if the declines continue.

“If we continue to trend this way… clearly our resources in the Sheriff’s Office could be better used in areas like mental health,” Hall said. “That’s what we would hope, which would be able to focus in a direct way in other areas.”

Deportation proceedings of jailed Nashville immigrants have dropped 40 percent since 2008 to fewer than 1,500 last year, with federal funding dropping more. Hall said the decline signals success, that immigrants deported for even the most minor crimes don’t return. But critics say a troubled economy and a cautious immigrant community are more likely to blame for the drop.

“The fact that it slows doesn’t suggest to me that the program is working any better or worse,” said Katharine Donato, professor and chair of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Sociology. “The program, yes, has been effective, it’s led to thousands of deportations. But if the population locally isn’t growing at the rate it once was, let’s say two years ago, of course you’re going to get a slowdown.”

Dropping numbers

Davidson County joined the 287(g) program in 2007, which allows deputies to screen and interview inmates to determine whether they are U.S. citizens. Suspected illegal immigrants are then turned over to immigration officials for possible deportation proceedings.

Hall has come under consistent criticism from advocates who say that far too many minor offenders are deported when the program was designed to target dangerous criminals.

Though the number of immigrants caught in the program has declined, a Tennessean analysis of 287(g) data shows that the top five charges immigrants faced in 2010 continued to be traffic or minor crimes. Driving without a license, DUI, implied consent violations, failing to show up to court and misdemeanor warrants made up 56 percent of the charges filed, higher than in prior years.

Hall has countered that he doesn’t determine who is arrested for what charge or who ends up deported.

“When we started we were adamant that we wanted to screen all people,” Hall said. “Everyone who is criminally arrested, taken off the streets of Nashville.”

That isn’t a surprise to immigration attorney Elliott Ozment. Ozment is suing Hall on behalf of two legal immigrants caught up in the 287(g) program, one of whom was held for days.

“I have never seen any evidence of him backing off that policy. If he has, I’m certainly not aware of it,” he said. “The sheriff still hasn’t straightened out the priorities of the 287(g) program.”

Cutting back

Attorney Gregg Ramos, who was on Hall’s 287(g) advisory board before it was dissolved, suspects some of the decline can be attributed to immigrants afraid to be driving Nashville’s streets out of fear of being deported.

“I know people are still scared to come out. They get stopped for playing their music too loud, they get stopped for a tail light allegedly out, they get stopped for tinted windows that are maybe too dark,” Ramos said. “Parents are afraid to engage in their children’s education.”

Donato said the decline can largely be traced to an overall drop in immigration from Latin American countries because of the lagging U.S. economy and a lackluster job market. Immigration from some smaller countries, such as El Salvador, has completely dried up, she said.

“Migration has slowed from Mexico and Latin America related to the economy. It hasn’t disappeared, but it has slowed,” she said.

Whatever the reason, Hall has already scaled back his 287(g) program. He started out with 15 detention deputies and a supervisor. Today, he’s cut back to 12 employees and is already mulling over what it would take to shrink the team even more. And he’s convinced that each cut is another sign of success.

“I think it’s pretty simple,” Hall said. “What’s wrong with ‘It’s worked?’ ”

Additional Facts

Drop in numbers

Number of immigrants held at the Davidson County jail for removal
2007 2,224
2008 2,506
2009 2,068
2010 1,474
2011 465*

*Through May 23, 2011, at 3:15 p.m. SOURCE: Davidson County Sheriff’s Office

Most common charges

Most common charges filed against suspected illegal immigrants held in the 287(g) program in 2010:
Driving without a license: 24.76%
Driving under the influence: 14.69%
Implied consent violation: 8.20%
Failure to be booked: 5.41%
Misdemeanor capias: 3.23%

FUNDS CUT

Federal money received by the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office for holding immigrants under the 287(g) removal program.
2007-08 $1,045,845
2008-09 $659,642
2009-10 $368,867
2010-11 to date $254,797
(Projected to be $360,000)

SOURCE: Davidson County Sheriff’s Office

Georgia detention center is largest in nation

Facility in Stewart, Ga. houses detainees facing deportation from U.S.
By Jeremy Redmon
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 16, 2011

ATLANTA — Georgia doesn't have the most illegal immigrants among the states. Not by far. That distinction, according to official estimates, falls to California.

But Georgia can claim it is tops in something else. It is home to the biggest and busiest jail in the nation for people facing deportation, federal records show.

On average, the privately run Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia held 1,614 detainees per day during the fiscal year ending in September.

That is the most of any of the 252 jails where the federal government houses suspected illegal immigrants, according to figures supplied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The South Texas Detention Complex in Pearsall, Texas, ranked second with an average daily count of 1,527 detainees, followed by the Eloy Federal Contract Facility in Eloy, Ariz., with 1,487.

Stewart — which is located in Lumpkin and houses detainees from Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina — had the highest count partly because it can hold the most at 1,924.

But ICE also has expanded its enforcement efforts in states that send suspects to Stewart, including Georgia. Among those efforts is a federal fingerprint-sharing program called "Secure Communities." State legislators, meanwhile, are preparing to crack down on illegal immigration, which could send more people to one of several jails where the federal government holds people in Georgia.

Taxpayers, of course, are footing the bill for jailing illegal immigrants in the state and across the nation. ICE's budget for detaining people stood at $1.77 billion last fiscal year. As of the end of December, ICE was holding 33,442 people in jails nationwide.

Activists have called on ICE to shut down Stewart and its other jails in Georgia, complaining they are located in isolated corners of the state far from immigrants' families and attorneys. They also have urged ICE to use less expensive alternatives to detention, such as freeing immigrants on bond and requiring them to check in with the government periodically.

"We are putting a whole bunch of money into a failed immigration system," said Anton Flores-Maisonet of Georgia Detention Watch, a coalition of organizations seeking the closure of all ICE jails in Georgia. "And in the end, the only people who are going to profit are the private prison industries that we are contracting with here in Georgia."

Critics say suspected illegal immigrants could flee while on bond.

"You have to hold people, especially in immigration, because the flight risk is huge," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based group that advocates for tighter immigration controls.

Federal immigration officials said they are required to hold certain offenders in their detention centers, including those who have committed violent crimes. They said they keep tabs on others by making them wear electronic monitoring devices. ICE had a $69.9 million budget for such alternatives last fiscal year.

"One of our long-term goals is ensuring key detention facilities are located near the site of apprehensions, legal service providers, hospitals and medical providers, immigration courts and transportation hubs," ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said. "This nationwide evaluation is ongoing."

Corrections Corp. of America, a $1.6 billion business based in Nashville, owns and operates the Stewart jail. Federal taxpayers pay Stewart County $60.50 per inmate held at that jail per day through an agreement with ICE. That works out to $97,647 per day, based on the last fiscal year's average daily inmate count.

The county, however, keeps only 85 cents per inmate per day for its administrative costs and pays CCA the rest, or $59.65 per inmate per day.

Since 2007, the county has collected about $1.7 million through this arrangement, county officials said. That represents more than half of the county's $3 million annual operating budget.

The jail is the county's largest employer with about 340 workers, most of whom are from the local area, CCA and county officials said. Jobs are crucial in Stewart, where nearly one in five families live below the federal poverty level, according to U.S. census figures.

Some detainees are sent to ICE jails after they are caught crossing the border illegally or overstaying visas. Most in Stewart wound up there after being charged with other crimes, some as minor as traffic offenses, others as serious as rape, robbery and murder. They aren't sent to Stewart, however, until after they complete sentences for any crimes they commit in the United States. Some are transferred to Stewart from state prisons and county jails. Most are originally from Central America and South America.

Those held at the jail wear color-coded uniforms and are segregated, based on the crimes they have committed. The most violent criminals wear red, while the least violent wear blue.

ICE and CCA officials gave a reporter from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution a roughly hourlong tour of the jail. Dozens of detainees were observed quietly watching television, reading and making phone calls from large rooms where they sleep on bunk beds. Others are held in two-man quarters.

Some of the detainees were playing soccer in a fenced-in courtyard. They also have access to Wii video games and a library.

Detainees can voluntarily work for $1 to $3 a day cooking and cleaning, said Mike Swinton, the jail's warden. They can save that money or spend it on MoonPies, pork rinds, chicken ramen noodles or other goods sold in the jail store.

Oscar Leon, 25, who lived in Norcross, spent two months in Stewart late last year before he was deported to Mexico. He said he was struck by how many detainees passed through Stewart. Hundreds leave each week, but buses routinely pull up to the jail, carrying more people to replace them, said the Phoenix High School graduate. Leon was sent to Stewart last year after pleading guilty to driving without a license in Georgia.

"It's just like a well-oiled machine, you know," Leon said in a telephone interview last month from the jail. "One in, one out. One in, one out. It's amazing how many people come in and out in one week."

http://www.correctionsone.com/corrections/articles/3199855-Ga-detention-center-is-largest-in-nation/

Immigration crackdown in Prince William is a cautionary tale

Editorial
The Washington Post
November 24, 2010

AFTER 31/2 YEARS and some $3 million in public spending, Prince William County's crusade against illegal immigrants - launched almost single-handedly by an ambitious local politician who has made nativism his stock in trade - has confirmed the county's reputation as a national symbol of intolerance. Now, a study by scholars at the University of Virginia has exposed just what was achieved, and wasn't, when Virginia's second-largest locality undertook its campaign against undocumented workers.

Prince William citizens had been much less concerned with illegal immigration than with traffic and development, but in 2007 Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart (R-At Large) put the issue center stage and pushed through a policy that turned out to be a precursor to the one adopted this year in Arizona. Implemented in 2008, it authorized police to check the immigration status of anyone they detained who they suspected might be in the country illegally. After a public uproar, the county watered down the policy - immigration checks are now done only after arrest, and for everyone taken into custody - but the damage to the county's name was done.

The study, paid for by the county, concludes that the crackdown did succeed in driving away - though in many cases probably not very far away - a few thousand illegal immigrants, along with some legal ones. That's unsurprising given that illegal immigrants were the targets of such overheated debate.

But the price of that "success" was to cement Prince William's image of hostility toward immigrants, specifically Hispanic ones. While the (largely legal) Hispanic population continued to boom in most area jurisdictions, it stagnated in Prince William after 2007.

Politicians promised that the county's enforcement efforts would save money by slashing public programs benefiting undocumented immigrants. It did no such thing, since illegal immigrants aren't eligible for most such programs. They suggested it would do away with loitering by migrant workers seeking day jobs. In fact, day-worker sites continue to operate today much as they did before.

Politicians also said the campaign would decrease crime overall. But, the report concludes, illegal immigrants constituted a small portion of those arrested, and the crackdown had little effect on most kinds of crime - though it may have contributed somewhat to reductions in aggravated assault and hit-and-run accidents.

The report also blames the crusade for stoking tensions between Prince William police officers and Hispanics, who make up 20 percent of the county's residents. Relations have now improved, but only thanks to an intensive and sustained repair job by the county's well-regarded police department and an enlightened police chief.

Mr. Stewart is now urging other Virginia localities to follow Prince William's lead. He misleadingly portrays the U-Va. report as vindication of the county's crackdown, which it clearly is not. In fact, it is a cautionary tale, and other local officials in the state would be wise to read the report before they embrace the Prince William model.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/24/AR2010112406335.html

Anxiety remains a year after Danbury signs ICE agreement

Robert Miller, Staff Writer
NewsTimes.Com
September 20, 2010

DANBURY -- Nilton Coelho owns Banana Brazil, a luncheonette on Main Street in downtown Danbury. As the name suggests, he serves Brazilian food.

The problem is, there aren't as many Brazilians in the city as there used to be, which means there aren't as many orders for plantains and sausage.

"My business has gone down,'' Coelho said recently.

As a result, he's spending more money on advertising to bring more Hispanics and more whites through the door. The strategy has worked, Coelho said, and that's helped him make up for the decline in Brazilian business.

But there is also the impact of 287(g) -- the federal statute that has become the informal name of the Danbury Police Department's formal affiliation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

The memorandum of agreement between ICE and the city of Danbury was adopted in September 2009.

Fearing deportation, many undocumented immigrants in Danbury -- Brazilians, Hispanics and others -- have pulled up stakes the past few years and left the area, according to some local observers.

The U.S. recession has certainly played a role in stemming the number of immigrants coming to the United States. But ICE has also scattered them out of Danbury, cultural leaders claim.

"They have gone to Waterbury, to Bridgeport, to New York, to Westchester County,'' said Wilson Hernandez, the former president of the Ecuadorian Civic Center in Danbury. "Yes, the economy is a factor, but the other factor -- the biggest -- is the city's anti-immigration policies.''

The ICE partnership brought crowds of people to City Hall in 2008 to protest the city's proposed involvement with federal immigration enforcement officials. Despite those protests, the City Council -- with the support of Mayor Mark Boughton -- voted to join the program.

Two city police detectives -- Louis Ramos and Joseph LeRose -- have undergone training with ICE agents. At a council meeting in June, Police Chief Alan Baker said the program has resulted in "several arrests'' in the city.

Baker said last week that the ICE program simply formalized a working arrangement Danbury already had with ICE -- the same relationship it has with the State Police or the FBI.

Nothing has changed in the city, Baker insisted, and the dire warnings of the City Hall protesters have not come true.

"There haven't been any sweeps," he said. "We're not stopping people to check their immigration status. We don't do that and it hasn't happened.''

In large part, Baker said, that hasn't happened because the Danbury Police Department is opposed to such moves. At the same time, he said, it's also because the department can't afford to do it.

"We don't have the resources,'' Baker said.

Breno DaMata, editor of Communidade News, a local Brazilian weekly newspaper, offered a different take on the city's immigration climate.

"Everybody knows Danbury is not friendly to immigrants,'' DaMata said flatly.

A few blocks away from Banana Brazil, Cleates Xavier -- the owner of Eliza's Store on Main Street -- said he's seen the same loss of Brazilian clientele.

"The Brazilian population in the city has gone down by a lot -- at least a third,'' Xavier said.

Part of that decrease is because of the U.S. recession. Brazilians came to Danbury for years in part because there were good-paying jobs here. Now, those jobs are scarce and the Brazilian economy is heating up.

Simply put, people move to find work.

And yet, the anxiety of an ICE arrest -- the fear of deportation -- has not gone away.

The rhetoric on both sides has cooled, Hernandez said, but there is a still "a nervousness" in the city's immigrant population.

"There are still a lot of people who don't know what's going to happen,'' Hernandez said.

Danbury attorney Agostinho Ribeiro, who is of Brazilian heritage, echoed those remarks.

"The mood is different,'' Ribeiro said. "There seems to be an underlying anxiety. There's still a certain discomfort here."

Ingrid Alvarez-DeMarzo, the director of the Hispanic Center of Greater Danbury, called the issue "the elephant'' in the room of the city's policies.

"It's the conversation at the dinner table, at breakfast,'' she said. "We're still finding out what ICE means. There's a lot going on and we don't know. It's a big gray area."

But in some ways, it's not only 287(g) and the city's involvement with ICE that is having an effect on local immigrant populations.

This year, ICE began a program called Secure Communities, which it described on its website as "a comprehensive plan to identify and remove criminal aliens.''

All police departments in Fairfield County, including the Danbury police, are working cooperatively with ICE on the Secure Communities program.

Harold Ort, a spokesman for ICE, said last week that because these people are in the United States illegally, their arrest and deportation is a good thing.

"We're moving in a positive direction to remove criminals as well as illegal aliens,'' Ort said.

Whether it's the 287(g) program or the Secure Communities program, the impact has been felt in Greater Danbury and beyond.

"There has been an increase in people being picked up, a definite increase,'' said Kristan Exner, a Danbury attorney who works on immigration cases. "(Federal officials) are really focusing on criminal arrests and outstanding orders of deportation. It's not just in Danbury, it's in the entire Fairfield County area.''

Michael Boyle, an immigration lawyer with offices in Danbury and New Haven, concurred with Exner.

"I have people being arrested all the time,'' Boyle said. "No question.''

Both Boyle and Exner said they've had cases in which a person arrested for driving while intoxicated had the case turned over to ICE for deportation proceedings.

"A lot of the problems stem from people just not knowing the laws,'' Alvarez-DeMarzo said. "People need some street smarts.''

And, she said, there's not a lot of help in the city, or the state, to help people who are in Danbury illegally work toward legal residency.

"We do the best we can,'' Alvarez-DeMarzo said. "But we're in a city with very limited legalization counseling.''

DaMata said after the presidential election of Barack Obama in 2008, there was widespread hope that comprehensive reform on the nation's immigration policies would clarify what undocumented immigrants needed to do to earn legal status in the United States.

"It's not happening,'' DeMata said. "People are losing faith.''

And, he said, the combination of a sluggish economy and the fear of deportation is only accelerating the process.

"People are thinking, `It's time to leave,''' DeMata said.

Hernandez said that when those people leave, they take away a valuable human resource.

"These people are valuable human assets to the community,'' Hernandez said, adding that their loss will be felt economically and culturally.

"This has been politicians playing the immigration card,'' Hernandez said. "But nobody ever talks about what the cost to the city has been. I'm not running for office or anything. But I think we should get rid of that card forever."

http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Anxiety-remains-a-year-after-Danbury-signs-ICE-666528.php

Costs will rein in Arizona's immigration crackdown

Arizona can arrest illegal immigrants now, but then what? Prison and deportation are both too expensive to sustain.

By David R. Francis
The Christian Science Monitor
August 30, 2010

Suppose the US Supreme Court largely upholds Arizona's tough immigration law and, as a result, Arizona police pick up an extra 5,000 or 10,000 unlawful immigrants next year. Then what?

Arizona could slap illegal aliens with a $100 fine. It could arrest them. Or it could turn them over to federal officials, supposedly to be deported. The latter two options turn out to be expensive.

Around the world, country after country is facing the costly dilemma of what to do with perhaps 50 million illegal, undocumented immigrants collectively. It's a problem for Canada, Britain, France, Italy, and Spain. India tries to limit immigrants from Bangladesh. South Africa has troubles with illegal Zimbabwean immigrants.

Even Mexico has to deal with illegal aliens from Honduras and Guatemala.

Some countries try to obscure the problem. Japan puts black immigrants from Africa, called "trainees," to work at night on construction jobs where they are less visible, says Joseph Chamie, director of the Center for Migration Studies in New York. Other countries ignore the issue. Israel figures that almost half of its 220,000 foreign workers have no work permits.

Beside the moral, humanitarian, and legal issues surrounding illegal immigrants, their apprehension poses a sizable financial cost. In Arizona, police could arrest them under the new state law, but keeping them in already crowded jails costs roughly $100 a day per person. For 5,000 people, imprisonment costs could add up to $182.5 million a year. That's a hefty charge for a state struggling with a budget deficit of at least $368 million.

Presumably Arizona could save money by handing illegal immigrants over to the federal government for deportation. In fiscal 2008, the US deported 369,221 people. Deportations rose to 389,834 in 2009 under the Obama administration, and are predicted to reach 400,000 this fiscal year.

Whether Washington will pay for more deportations is problematic. The United States deports each year less than 4 percent of its estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. At that rate, it would take more than two decades to deport all of them.

The cost to deport all illegal immigrants would be at least $94 billion, Julie Myers, then-head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), estimated in 2007. Other estimates put the cost at three times that.

Because of a limited budget and political factors, each Washington administration has given ICE a set of priorities in enforcing immigration law. The priorities for the Obama administration are aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety, recent illegal entrants, and fugitive aliens (already convicted of crimes or previously deported), according to John Morton, the present head of ICE, in a memo dated June 30. ICE, however, "only has resources to remove approximately 400,000 aliens per year." In other words, Congress has not approved the money to enforce fully the immigration laws it has passed.

That leaves Arizona with the option of using fines and arrests to make life uncomfortable for illegal immigrants. Any serious enforcement of the Arizona law, notes Steve Camarota, research director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, would probably cause some illegal immigrants to go home or move to some other state. That would save taxpayer money.

Polls show the general public would approve of Arizona's measures to shrink its illegal immigrant population, estimated at 460,000.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/2010/0830/Costs-will-rein-in-Arizona-s-immigration-crackdown

What are the costs and benefits of illegal immigrants in the U.S.?

It's hard to say. Most Idaho agencies have no way of knowing how many they serve.
BY BETHANN STEWART
The Idaho Statesman
08/16/10

In the wake of an Arizona law allowing police to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, lawmakers in many states, including Idaho, are looking more closely at illegal immigration - even with that Arizona law recently put on hold by a judge.

But quantifiable data is hard to find, and most of the numbers bandied about are based on research by advocacy groups on either side of the debate. That makes it difficult to know both the costs of illegal workers and the benefits of a low-cost, mobile work force.

A Statesman survey of several Treasure Valley institutions shows that many of them - hospitals, school districts, universities and state agencies - have no mechanism to track the costs and benefits of undocumented workers.

This is not an issue the Idaho controller's office has studied, but many of these costs are difficult to quantify, said Chief Deputy Dan Goicoechea.

Even knowing how many illegal immigrants live in Idaho is nearly impossible.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimated that in 2008 between 25,000 and 40,000 illegal immigrants lived in Idaho - among the lowest in the nation. But the key word is "estimated."

"I challenge anyone to give us the data on the undocumented. We just don't know," said Margie Gonzales, executive director of the Idaho Hispanic Commission.

Complicating the statistics is the Constitution, which grants citizenship to any child born in the United States, including the offspring of illegal immigrants.

Though public schools are often cited among the costs of illegal immigration, they are constitutionally bound to educate all students.

Since federal law prohibits public schools from asking students about their immigration status, legal and illegal immigrant students often are put into the same statistical category: English-language learners.

Federal law also requires hospitals to treat patients who come to emergency rooms, regardless of their ability to pay, so local officials say they don't have reliable numbers on the costs.

Sometimes those payments come from county indigent services offices, which pay medical bills of county residents who show they can't afford them. About $18 million to $20 million per year is spent statewide in indigent funds, with another about $26 million to $30 million from the state catastrophic funds, which help the counties cover the most expensive bills, said Dan Chadwick, executive director of the Idaho Association of Counties.

"The illegal immigrant portion of this, we don't know," he said.

A Senate bill passed in 2009 cleared the way for county offices to begin collecting data on immigration status, Chadwick said. But that will not affect the availability of funds, he said. Idaho law bases eligibility on a 30-day residency in the state, not on status.

"You're not entitled to services if you're not a resident of Idaho," Chadwick said. "I haven't seen it come into play for illegal immigrants."

Taxpayers also pay to send illegal immigrants home. A weekly, and sometimes twice-weekly, deportation flight leaves Twin Falls, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to give a specific number, said spokeswoman Lorie Dankers.

"People might come from other cities, not just Twin Falls," she said. "It's one of those situations where it costs what it costs. I don't know if we can quantify the cost."

The issue isn't going away.

The Legislature's most outspoken critic of illegal immigration, GOP Sen. Mike Jorgensen of Hayden, was defeated in the primary, but others have vowed to take up the charge.

"If the feds won't do it, states are saying, 'We're going to have to do it,' " Idaho state Sen. Monty Pearce, R-New Plymouth, told the Associated Press recently.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/08/16/1304218/what-are-the-costs-benefits-of.html

Agri Star promises big economic effect in Postville

By Jean Caspers-Simmet
Agri News
simmet@agrinews.com

DES MOINES —Agri Star Meat and Poultry, LLC in Postville is ramping up its beef line.

During a Statehouse news conference last week, Hershey Friedman, CEO of Agri Star Meat and Poultry, said production is at 85 to 90 head of cattle per day. That will increase to 150 daily within the next month and 500 head per day over the next year.

Friedman bought the former Agriprocessors plant out of bankruptcy last summer and renamed it Agri Star. Agriprocessors collapsed in the wake of a massive immigration raid in May 2008 when 389 workers were arrested for immigration violations. The raid resulted in charges of fraud, other criminal violations and allegations of worker mistreatment against the company. Sholom Rubashkin, Agriprocessors vice president, was convicted of 86 federal fraud charges.

Friedman said his goal is to expand the plant so that it can process 1,000 head daily within three years. At it's peak, Agriprocessors processed 500 to 600 head in Postville.

"This is a good day for our employees, our community and Iowa cattle producers," said Friedman. "There has been a tremendous void in the kosher food market. We are excited to bring high quality beef items to our customers while at the same time helping boost the economy of Postville and all of Iowa."

"This return to the kosher market is positive for Iowa cattle producers at a time when the market is rebounding," said Bill Northey, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. "Farmers always benefit when a company with strong business practices, such as Agri Star, chooses to invest in Iowa. This expansion helps Iowa as we regain market as a cattle producer."

"I know the importance of hard work and treating people with respect and integrity," Friedman said. "Eight months ago I came to Iowa and started Agri Star Meat and Poultry. I made a commitment to create a quality work place where we could iprovide quality jobs at fair wages while producing quality chicken, turkey, beef and deli products for kosher consumers. It has been a journey, but we have made real progress."

An additional 125 employees have been hired to fill the immediate need created by the beef operation and more workers will he hired. The company has 560 employees. Low-end production jobs pay $8 to $9 per hour, Friedman said. Wages on the beef line range from $12 to $17.

The plant uses E-Verify, a federal verification system to check credentials of all job applicants.

Since acquiring the plant in August 2009, the company has invested $7.5 million to upgrade and modernize the facility. The Iowa Economic Development Board approved $600,000 from the value-added agricultural component of the Grow Iowa Values Financial Assistance Program last fall. The project was also approved for Enterprise Zone tax benefits.

Postville Mayor Leigh Rekow said the city is still dealing with fallout from Agriprocessors collapse.

He said Friedman has met with him often. Friedman's goals are shared by the city — worker safety, fair wages, legal workers and a thriving plant producing jobs and a better living in the community.

"We're pleased that Hershey has accepted the challenge to make Agri Star a world player in the production of kosher meat and poultry," Rekow said. "We are grateful to have him and his plant in our community. We will survive and get back to where we were and maybe even better."

Citation

Mass Deportation Of illegal Immigrants Cost $2.6 trillion over ten years

By Moses Apsan, Esq.
March 20, 2010

This weekend tens of thousands of people from all walks of life are traveling to Washington D.C. to voice their opinion on comprehensive immigration reform. Religious, fraternal, vocational groups, white, black, latinos and orientals all banding together to force congress to fix our broken immigration laws. Yet, even while the country is bleeding with the suffering of these immigrants, anti-immigrant groups have "alternative" solutions for resolving the immigration problem. Many of these groups camouflage themselves in logic, using numbers to prove their point. Yet, in reality it's all a subterfuge for mass deportation and a dislike for people that are different.

Take NumbersUSA.com as an example. They promote a concept they call "Attrition Through Enforcement," which is nothing different than the way bullies treated weaker students in intermediate school. The purpose is to treat illegal immigrants as a non-persons take away their self respect and eventually their ability to earn money to feed their family.

As they explain it: "The principle behind Attrition Through Enforcement is that living illegally in the United States will become more difficult and less satisfying over time when the government – at ALL LEVELS – enforces all of the laws already on the books. The goal is to make it extremely difficult for unauthorized persons to live and work in the United States. There is no need for taxpayers to watch the government spend billions of their dollars to round up and deport illegal aliens; they will buy their own bus or plane tickets back home if they can no longer earn a living here."

Yet in reality what they are talking about is deporting anyone found illegal in the U.S. Matters not if they are not criminals, but hard working, tax paying families. These enforcement-only proponents believe that it's their duty to get illegal immigrant out of "their" county.

I guess, they are blind to the myriad of studies concluding that immigrants benefits our culture and economy. Just yesterday study was released by the Center for American Progress (CAP) that establishes that the enforcement-only approach these restrictionist groups ad-nauseam advocate isn’t sustainable in the long-term. The study estimates that a strategy aimed at deporting the nation’s population of illegal immigrants would cost the government approximately $285 billion over five years. A deportation-only policy would amount to $922 in new taxes for “every man, woman, and child in this country.”

It is indisputable that the price tag for a policy of deportation, whether through " Attrition Through Enforcement" as advocated by NumbersUSA.com or by the more aggressive approach of Maricopa Sheriff’ Joe Arpaio of Arizona, who recently deputized 900 officers to search, hunt and deport for illegal immigrants, is prohibitive. Just the mechanics of conducting a "Nazi" type roundup in such a massive scale is implausible at best. It would require an exceptional deployment of limited resources. This in turn would exacerbate current problems plaguing our overcrowded detention system. Immigration courts would be overwhelmed and would likely result in widespread human rights and due process violations. Not to forget the effect a mass deportation strategy would cripple our delicate economic growth.

These groups, such as NumbersUSA.com insist that they do not advocate a policy of mass deportation, but rather what they euphemistically call “attrition through enforcement” strategy. A strategy that is clearly intended to wear down the person through consistent increased deportations, detentions, and anti-immigrant ordinances. These groups believe, that if they can keep the "torture " up long enough , many immigrants will choose to self-deport at minimal cost to the U.S. taxpayer.

This is their fantasy, studies, such as CAP has make it empirically clear that increased enforcement will not push most immigrants back to their home countries, rather it only forces to hide even deeper in ours.

If the U.S. opted for a more limited program of deportation, the cost associated with any such mass deportation program would be astronomical. CAP estimates that it costs about $23,148 for each person deported. In 2008 ICE deported 349,041immigrants. Using CAP's estimate the cost to government was approximately $8,07,068 formats year alone.

Eventually enlightened anti-immigration groups would determine that they do not want undocumented immigrants to leave. In research released in January, UCLA, professor Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda found that if undocumented immigrants were removed from the economy, it would reduce U.S. GDP by $2.6 trillion over ten years. Hinojosa-Ojeda also confirmed that if undocumented immigrants were put on an earned path to legalization as part of a comprehensive immigration reform law, it would result in some additional $1.5 trillion in our gross domestic product over 10 years.

I guess NumbersUSA should go back to elementary school and re-learn their basic math or perhaps, change their name to BlundersUSA.

http://news.jornal.us/article-4716.Mass-Deportation-Of-illegal-Immigrants-Cost-26-trillion-over-ten-years-Immigration-Reform-Solution.html

U.S. illegal immigrant population declines for second year

The Washington Post
February 10, 2010

U.S. illegal immigrant population falls again

The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States fell by 1 million, or 8 percent, between 2007 and 2009, the U.S. government reported Tuesday.

The decline, to 10.8 million people in January 2009 from 11.8 million in 2007 and 11.6 million in 2008, coincides with the national economic downturn. It marked the first back-to-back drops in the number of illegal immigrants since the federal government allowed many to obtain legal status after a 1986 amnesty.

The report by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics feeds a technical but politically sensitive debate over whether a weaker U.S. economy or tougher immigration enforcement is more responsible for the change.

Advocates for reduced immigration said the findings show the country can shrink the population of illegal immigrants without simply legalizing them. Immigration advocates say enforcement alone is neither practical, affordable nor humane over the long run.

Independent analysts said that, while it appears that declines in the past two years are real and not due solely to changes in methodology in underlying U.S. Census data, the impact of enforcement will only be seen when the U.S. labor market recovers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020903702.html

Migrants struggling for work in Texas return to Mexico as a burden

By ALFREDO CORCHADO
The Dallas Morning News
Monday, February 1, 2010

CORRAL DE PIEDRAS, Mexico – The leader of this community has a message for its native sons and daughters who work in Texas and dream of returning home: Don't do it. You'll regret it.

To make her point, she has the perfect example: her husband.

Teresa Cadena Moreno, 34, the mayor's delegate in this farming community of 5,000 people in central Guanajuato state, has noticed a troubling trend over the past few months. With the slowdown in the U.S. economy, she is seeing a rising number of expatriates returning home. They're not coming just for a Christmas visit or town
celebration, but with every intention of staying permanently. And that has the town in a bind.

They come back with more expectations than they left with. They want better public services – roads, schools, sewer systems – and, more important, jobs. Some complain about the lack of drinking water. Their children often speak only English or broken Spanish.

"It's not easy," Cadena said. "We're a poor community that relies on the remittances of our migrants, not on them returning home to stay."

It's not easy for the returnees, either.

Last fall, Cadena's husband, Jaime Hernández, 32, returned home after working in construction in Tyler. He had every intention of staying put for a while, if not permanently.

As a painter in Texas, Hernández made in one day what he makes here in a week, roughly $100, he said. Yes, food is cheaper here and his home is paid for, but after a few weeks "you miss a good steak," he said.

"You have to watch every peso you spend," he said. "Here you fight to maintain whatever you have, not necessarily to get ahead."

In the third quarter of 2009, the Mexican government recorded an unusual trend: 108,078 emigrants returned home to stay, up 30 percent from 2008. The trend was expected to continue through the fourth quarter, though those numbers haven't been released yet.

Meanwhile, money sent home by Mexicans abroad plunged a record 15.7 percent in 2009, a reflection of the sluggish U.S. economy. Remittances are Mexico's No. 2 source of foreign income after oil, totaling $21.2 billion in 2009 compared with $25.1 billion in 2008, according to the central bank.

For a country that says it wants to see its emigrants return home, these trends put Mexico in a quandary.

For more than two decades, the Mexican government has been trying to re-establish bonds with Mexicans living abroad.

The government even has an agency, the Office for Mexicans Abroad, with a campaign that in part aims not just to lure return investment in Mexico, but to encourage emigrants to return home. Just not now.

"There are a lot of pretty, nostalgic words spoken by the Mexican government," said Primitivo Rodríguez, director of the Coalition for the Political Rights for Mexicans Abroad.

"But where is the substance? The question really is, 'How can Mexico reserve a job for you, immigrant, when the government can't even guarantee a job for your cousin or brother back home?' "

Mexico's long, devastating recession and drought have left millions unemployed or underemployed.

Even as President Felipe Calderón declares the recession officially over, it will take time for many municipalities to rise from financial ruin. Last year, the National Association of Mayors reported that more than 70 percent of Mexico's 2,439 municipalities were broke or near bankruptcy.

Corral de Piedras is no exception.

Jesús Ramírez Ramírez, 42, worked in construction throughout the southeastern United States but returned home last year when work became scarce. Now he sells corn on the cob for 10 pesos, about 90 cents, each.

"There's not much work here either. ... I'd like to go back, but it's hard," he said, pointing to one of his seven children.

And the returning emigrants add to the strain on the community, Cadena said.

"We don't have enough room in our schools, much less bilingual teachers, as some students arrive speaking English, and they can't fit in," she said.

"I don't want to sound ungrateful or offensive," she said, "because here almost everyone has a relative living in the United States."

Cadena runs a neighborhood grocery store with help from the money her husband has sent from the U.S. Recently, she said, he has been edgy, staying up late at night, worried about the difficulty of making a living at home. Finally, he told his wife he had decided to leave again.

"Being away from my wife, my kids, my hometown is very painful," Hernández said. "Living apart is no life. But so is living without a good-paying job."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/020210dnintreturn.40d7bb7.html

Immigration Reform Will Ease Economic Decline, Study Says

By Esther M. Gentile
New America Media
January 08, 2010

WASHINGTON--A new study by a leading academic researcher contends that legalizing undocumented workers through comprehensive immigration reform would yield $1.5 trillion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over a 10-year period, generate billions of dollars in additional tax revenue, increase wages and consumer spending, and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The study, “Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” was conducted by Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Hinojosa presented the findings during a telephonic press conference moderated by Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy and advocacy at the Center for American Progress.

“Number one … legalization produces an immediate economic impact, based on what we’ve known happens in previous legalizations. The reason is because legalization empowers workers immediately to become much more committed and integrated into the economy," Hinojosa said.

The report analyzed the economic impact of legislation passed in 1986. Even in an economic downturn, the legalization of undocumented immigrants caused them to move on to better-paying jobs, resulting in more spending and higher tax revenue.

“Undocumented immigrants … are in a sense a hidden economic engine that we have kept repressed in this country” to the extent, Hinojosa said, that when “we allow them to join the economic mainstream we see an immediate impact in terms of wages and on productivity.”

By creating a temporary worker program to allow for future flows of immigrants – something left out of the 1986 legislation – comprehensive immigration reform would have a magnified effect on the economy. “When we allow more low-skilled immigrants to come in, it expands the overall economic pie, and creates jobs up the ladder, like managers, accountants, and salespeople,” said Daniel Griswold, director of the center for trade policy studies at the Cato Institute.

The study also found that enforcement-only policies have a quantifiable negative impact on the U.S. economy beyond the cost of deportations. Unauthorized workers have lower wages, which hurts the wages of American workers and drags down economic growth, according to Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress.

“The movement toward full deportation in this country produces close to $2.6 trillion in economic decline,” according to Hinojosa. “It really accelerates the movement toward recession and depression, like we saw, by the way, in the 1930s.”

“I think there are two very important things about this report,“ noted Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council. “One certainly is that it shines a spotlight on the potential for a very large impact on our economy in a time when we need it. Even in Washington, D.C., $1.5 trillion is a lot of money. But the report also reminds us of where the focus of an immigration reform effort ought to be, and that is about how do we provide benefits to the American economy and to the American worker.”

Legalizing undocumented workers, the panelists said, would neither take jobs away from American workers nor increase the number of unemployed.

“It cannot be in any way justified to try to oppose immigration reform on the basis of an economic argument,” Hinojosa concluded.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0581c954ae507dd951e0a3a56cf0e18e

Nashville accepts immigration detention deal

October 9, 2009
By Janell Ross
THE TENNESSEAN

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall spent much of the summer warning that his office might drop a federal immigration enforcement program because of changes that would have kept case details under wraps.

Now, Hall and a Metro attorney working with the sheriff's office say they have reached an agreement with federal officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over how to handle requests for information. That means the controversial immigration program known as 287(g) probably will continue in Nashville, though with limitations on the number of people who will be detained.

That scaled-back version of the program also would mean less revenue for the Metro General Fund going forward.

In June, the federal agency issued a directive calling for local law enforcement agencies participating in the 287(g) program to stop holding individuals arrested for all but the most serious crimes after they served time on state charges.

Before the policy change, Davidson County was reimbursed $61 for each day individuals were held in Nashville awaiting pickup by federal immigration authorities, often for a few days at a time.

The cost of housing an inmate in the Davidson County jail ranges from a low of $25 a day for inmates in a work release program to $100 a day for high-security inmates with health problems. The cost of housing most of the inmates detained on immigration matters falls somewhere in between, said Karla Weikal, a Davidson County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman.

Overall, Hall expects to see about 30 percent fewer inmates held in the jail on suspected immigration violations, leading to a corresponding decrease in the amount of reimbursements from ICE.

That drop in revenue — from $818,986 in fiscal year 2008-2009 to an estimated $573,290 this fiscal year — is one that Hall says was fully anticipated and doesn't change the fact that 287(g) has been an effective program that has reduced crime in Nashville.

"This program was never about money; it's not something on which we depend. So that's not a problem," Hall said Thursday.

It's been a year of change for the 287(g) program.

In March, a U.S. General Accounting Office report said enforcement programs such as Nashville's, which screened all foreign-born individuals rather than those accused or convicted of serious crimes, led the 287(g) program to fall short of its goal.

A Tennessean investigation last year showed that of the roughly 3,000 people deported during the program's first year, about 81 percent were charged with misdemeanors. About half were caught during traffic stops.

Hall said that federal officials have repeatedly described the Nashville 287(g) program as a "model" operation and have not requested additional changes to the way the Nashville program operates in the new contract. Federally trained Davidson County sheriff's deputies will continue screening all foreign-born individuals brought to the Davidson County jail. Hall had objected to sections of a proposed new agreement with ICE dealing with public access to information about details of individual cases.

"I think we need to be prepared to show the public whenever possible what the program is doing, who it is identifying and just how much crime it is preventing in this county," Hall said. "I think openness and honesty and access to information is always a good policy with only a few law-enforcement-related exceptions."

Lawyer disputes claim

Elliott Ozment, a Nashville immigration attorney and one-time member of the sheriff's 287(g) community advisory board, who was removed by Hall, also has expressed concerns about closing information about the program from public review. Ozment fears that the inability to access public information could put detained individuals at risk and make it harder for families to track their whereabouts.

Ozment disagrees with Hall's assessment that the number of deportations has reduced crime in Nashville, because some of the people arrested were brought to the jail on charges such as fishing without a license or in many cases driving without a license.

"He wants more transparency so that he can continue to issue press releases about the accomplishments as he sees it of Nashville's 287(g) program," Ozment said. "I think this summer when it looked like (Hall) wasn't going to get the political glory or generate much revenue he thought he wanted out altogether."

Hall says that his reasons for considering a withdrawal from the program were limited to the issue of public access to information.

Earlier this week, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced plans to change the way that illegal immigrants awaiting deportation are confined.

Instead of nonviolent, noncriminal immigrants being housed in local jails, individuals and families ordered deported by an immigration court or awaiting a court's decision on a special visa or asylum claim would be housed in former hotels, nursing homes and other sites.

The alternative sites are intended to cut the costs of detaining immigrants, which reached nearly $2 billion in 2008.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the division of the Department of Homeland Security that administers the 287(g) program, will submit to Congress in coming weeks a plan for using alternatives to detention. The agency says possible alternatives will cost only about $14 a day. The alternatives include electronic ankle bracelets for those released on their own recognizance.

Before the new 287(g) agreement can be finalized, the contract will have to be approved by the Metro Council and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091009/NEWS03/910090344/2066/Nashville+accepts+immigration+detention+deal