« February 2011 | Main | May 2011 »
"Complaints about unpaid wages among Latinos in central Iowa have sharply increased in the past four months, immigrant advocates say."
JENS MANUEL KROGSTAD in the Des Moines Register on Mar. 18, 2011."A top federal immigration official is asking states' attorneys general to help him crack down on fake immigration lawyers and educate immigrants on how to spot them."
SUZANNE GAMBOA for the Associated Press on Mar. 9, 2011."Texans advocating extreme solutions to secure the border — including land mines and booby traps on Texas farmland along the Rio Grande — have a new forum to share their views: a website operated by the Texas Department of Agriculture."
JULIAN AGUILAR in the Texas Tribune on Mar. 9, 2011."From the office of his commercial real estate company here, Mr. Isenberg confers by webcam with Saad Nabeel, a college student who once lived in Texas but now calls from Kuala Lumpur.
Mr. Nabeel’s mood shifts from hopeful cheer to reeling despair. And Mr. Isenberg reassures him, time and again, that despite the daunting odds, he will one day return to live in the United States.
The alliance of Mr. Isenberg, by his own description a hard-driving Jew, and Mr. Nabeel, a Muslim engineering student from Bangladesh who was deported last year, is one of the more unusual tales in the history of immigrants’ struggles to prevail in the American system."
JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times on Mar. 6, 2011.States across the country, including Georgia and Oklahoma, where the legislatures debated immigration bills this week, have been mulling controversial Arizona-style immigration laws.Thirty-seven states are considering tougher immigration bills, with multiple bills pending in some states."
HUMA KHAN for ABC News on Mar. 4, 2011."As many state legislatures consider laws to expand the role of local police departments in control, police chiefs across the country say they are reluctant to take on these tasks and want clear lines drawn between local crime-fighting and federal immigration enforcement, according to a new report by a police research group.
Dozens of police department commanders who participated in the report recommended that local officers should be explicitly prohibited from arresting people solely because of their immigration status, and should have orders to protect victims and witnesses regardless of that status."
JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times, Mar. 4, 2011."Officials with the state's two largest police departments, in Omaha and Lincoln, oppose adoption of an Arizona-style immigration law in Nebraska.
They say deputizing local officers to enforce federal immigration laws would significantly raise taxpayer costs, hurt existing crime-fighting efforts and spawn dozens of lawsuits for false arrest.
The Nebraska proposal, Legislative Bill 48, could discourage members of immigrant communities from sharing information about crimes with police out of fear their immigration status could be checked, said Deputy Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer.
"Our mission is to reduce crime and reduce the fear of crime," he said. "We are afraid and have concerns that LB 48 will hamper those efforts, as it is written."
LB 48 is scheduled for a public hearing Wednesday afternoon before the Legislature's Judiciary Committee. It is among the most anticipated hearings of the current legislative session.
Fremont Sen. Charlie Janssen, the chief sponsor of the measure, disputed the contentions of Schmaderer and Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady. Their opinions make Omaha and Lincoln "sanctuary cities" for illegal immigrants, Janssen said."
"Forty-four-year-old Ramdeo Chankar Singh is at his wit’s end.
The former U.S. soldier, honorably discharged from the Army nine years ago, believes he is fully qualified to become a U.S. citizen, and has been trying to become one for almost a decade. But immigration officials are telling him he doesn’t meet the eligibility requirements.
Not only that, Singh, married to a Trinidadian native like himself, and with two U.S.-born children ages 10 and 5, is now facing deportation. A hearing has been set for March 22."