Dan Kowalski on Immigration Law and Policy

Indictment Accuses Firm of Exploiting Thai Workers

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 06:35:24 -0800

"A federal grand jury in Honolulu has indicted six labor contractors from a Los Angeles manpower company on charges that they imposed forced labor on some 400 Thai farm workers, in what justice officials called the biggest human-trafficking case ever brought by federal authorities."

JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times, Sept. 3, 2010.

Leaving water in desert for migrants not litter, court says

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 06:31:26 -0800

"A federal appeals court overturned the conviction Thursday of a volunteer who left water bottles in the Arizona desert for parched border-crossers and was arrested violating a law that forbids "littering of garbage" in a national wildlife refuge."

BOB EGELKO in the San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 3, 2010.

Mexican Reporter Seeks Asylum After Doing His Job

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:55:30 -0800

"Two years after arriving with his son at a U.S. border crossing at Antelope Wells, N.M. to seek asylum in the U.S., Gutiérrez still waits for an immigration judge to rule on his application and his residency status. The pre-dawn drive that led him to the border crossing — where he was handcuffed and whisked away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — marked the beginning of his exile, one that continues today. His plight, his attorney says, underscores a problem with U.S. reluctance to grant asylum to Mexicans for fear of alienating the Mexican government."

JULIAN AGUILAR in the Texas Tribune, Sept. 2, 2010.

Migrants say Arizona worth risk of crossing

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:51:09 -0800

"Deaths of illegal immigrants in Arizona have soared this summer toward their highest levels since 2005 - a fact that has surprised many who thought that the furor over the state's new immigration law and the 100-plus degree heat would draw them elsewhere along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border."

AMANDA LEE MYERS and JULIE WATSON for the Associated Press, Sept. 1, 2010.

When the Border Patrol Comes Aboard

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:19:50 -0800

"Traveling from New York City to Buffalo on Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited last month, I wondered what I would say if Border Patrol agents showed up on the train at Syracuse or Rochester and asked, “Are you a U.S. citizen?”

My plan was to politely decline to answer, and see what happened next."

NINA BERNSTEIN in the New York Times, Aug. 30, 2010.

Border Sweeps in North Reach Miles Into U.S.

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:13:29 -0800

"Some American-born passengers welcome the patrol. “It makes me feel safe,” volunteered Katie Miller, 34, who was riding Amtrak to New York from Ohio. “I don’t mind being monitored.”

To others, it evokes travel through the old Communist bloc. “I was actually woken up with a flashlight in my face,” recalled Mike Santomauro, 27, a law student who encountered the patrol in April, at 2 a.m. on a train in Rochester.

Across the aisle, he said, six agents grilled a student with a computer who had only an electronic version of his immigration documents. Through the window, Mr. Santomauro said, he could see three black passengers, standing with arms raised beside a Border Patrol van.

“As a citizen I’m offended,” he said. But he added, “To say I didn’t want to answer didn’t seem a viable option.”"

NINA BERNSTEIN in the New York Times, Aug. 30, 2010.

Austin, Minn. at a Crossroads

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:20:27 -0800

"After the Hormel strike [1985-6,] immigrant workers moved to Austin for the meatpacking jobs. Austin is struggling with its own identity as a place that is now home to a growing Latino population."

A 4-part multi-media package reported by ELIZABETH BAIER for Minnesota Public Radio.

Part 1: The strike the changed Austin

Part 2: Newcomers settle in Austin

Part 3. Fear and nostalgia in a changing community

Part 4: Bridging the gap

Broadcast editor: Kate Smith
Web editor: Jennifer Ehrlich
Photographer: Jeffrey Thompson
Web producers: Nathaniel Minor, Elliot deBruyn, Than Tibbetts

Audio Archivists: Sylvia Mohn and Jenel Farrell

Detaining immigrants is big business for some Oklahoma counties

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 07:35:24 -0800

"The detention of illegal immigrants brings in millions of dollars for counties in the state. Jobs, jails and upkeep are funded by dollars generated through federal contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

VALLERY BROWN in The Oklahoman, Aug. 29, 2010.

Repeal Birthright Citizenship — and Then What?

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:39:07 -0800

"[A]s a practical matter, what would the removal of birthright citizenship mean for the country? Pierce the fog of rhetoric and you’ll quickly discover that nobody really knows, including the state and federal lawmakers yelling loudest for change."

MORGAN SMITH in the Texas Tribune.

Students Spared Amid an Increase in Deportations

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 06:42:42 -0800

"The Obama administration, while deporting a record number of immigrants convicted of crimes, is sparing one group of illegal immigrants from expulsion: students who came to the United States without papers when they were children."

JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times.

Austin family finds clues in attic to Chinese pioneer

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 09:12:12 -0800

"They could write chapters in history books about people like Joe Sing, a Chinese immigrant who blazed trails in Austin around the dawn of the 20th century, and his lay-down-the-law wife, Francisca, who helped him. Sing eclipsed one barrier after another poverty, a strange land and language, discriminatory laws to succeed as a businessman, husband and father.

But Sing apparently also was a modest man, and his gritty story went with him to his grave in 1927. There it probably would have stayed had his descendants not discovered a box 80 years after his death."

JUAN CASTILLO in the Austin American-Statesman.

Reunited boy may be deported

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 06:50:52 -0800

"Nearly a decade had passed since Zulma Arevalo last laid eyes on the baby boy she left behind in El Salvador.

She always knew that someday they would be reunited — and that moment came last year, after Enrique, then 9, was caught crossing illegally into the United States to join her. Because of Enrique's age, authorities summoned Arevalo, who was in Omaha.

“It was so strange,” the mom recalled. “I left my son as an infant, and I didn't recognize him. We just stood there staring at each other.

“Then we hugged.”

Arevalo, who has temporary protected status in the United States, was able to take the boy, pending the federal government's final decision on his deportation.

Enrique, who turned 11 this past weekend, easily transitioned into a household of mixed U.S. citizenry. He has lived there since March 2009, the middle of five kids.

His family time here could end, however, after a Monday immigration hearing."

CINDY GONZALEZ in the Omaha World-Herald.

Justice Department sues Arizona over immigration law

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 08:50:18 -0800

"The Obama administration sued Arizona over the state's new immigration law on Tuesday, an assertion of federal power that sets up a rare clash with a state on one of the nation's most divisive political issues."

JERRY MARKON and MICHAEL D. SHEAR in the Washington Post.

"It Can All Return"

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 07:41:36 -0800

"Rafael Robles has been eligible to vote ever since he became a U.S. citizen 23 years ago, but nothing has spurred him to register until two young activists visited his house here last week.

The canvassers were part of an ambitious push to increase turnout of Latino voters in the wake of a controversial state law that requires police to determine the immigration status of people they legally stop and suspect are in the country illegally.

Robles, 60, recounted how his 39-year-old daughter, a Phoenix native, has been stopped multiple times by officers who ask her in broken Spanish where she was born.

"It's only because she is Hispanic," Robles said as he filled out a form to become a voter. He noted how, in decades past, signs were posted at establishments across the Southwest saying no dogs or Mexicans were allowed.

"It can all return," he said."

NICHOLAS RICCARDI, SANDY POINDEXTER and DOUG SMITH in the Los Angeles Times.

Colombian journalist and Nieman Fellow Hollman Morris denied visa

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 05:31:44 -0800

"Renowned Colombian journalist Hollman Morris' U.S. visa application was rejected on June 16, The Progressive is reporting."

SUMMER HARLOW blogging for the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas at Austin.