Now, courts are swamped because of illegal immigration
February 20, 2008
Courtesy of AZCentral.com
Courts unable to keep up with border arrests
Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 20, 2008 12:00 AM
The government has started cracking down on illegal border crossers in the Tucson Sector. But limited resources in Arizona’s federal-court system are blocking the goal of prosecuting everyone who enters the country illegally.
The Border Patrol has referred 757 cases to authorities since the government began prosecuting illegal crossers in the Tucson area on Jan. 14. Up to 42 are prosecuted daily, and there are plans to prosecute up to 100 cases a day in the busiest human-smuggling area on the border.
But federal courts in Tucson can hold only 60 immigration defendants a day, and even if they could handle the 100-a-day workload, that amounts to prosecuting only 10 percent of those arrested by the Border Patrol.
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Still, officials expect the threat of prosecution and prison time to deter illegal crossers.
The Operation Streamline policy, which has proved effective in the Yuma Sector and two parts of Texas, involves filing charges against nearly everyone caught crossing the border illegally.
Mexican authorities confirm that illegal immigrants have been deterred from crossing into the Yuma Sector by the prospect of spending two weeks to six months in prison for the misdemeanor crime.
Historically, illegal immigrants have immediately been shipped back to Mexico if they did not have criminal records. Foreign criminals are deported after serving their prison sentences. And if they are caught re-entering illegally again, they are charged with felonies, which can carry sentences up to five years.
Demand on courts
The U.S. District Court of Arizona is the nation’s busiest, presiding Chief Judge John M. Roll said. He said judges in his district sentence 500 felons a year, compared with a national average of 90. His office has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lend magistrates.
U.S. Magistrate Glenda Edmonds said she and her colleagues in Tucson typically handle half a dozen pretrial hearings a day.
To meet the demand of the new flux of immigration cases, one magistrate takes them all for a week in a rotation system.
“If we get to the point where we get to 100 cases a day in this building, we will need at least one more magistrate,” Edmonds said.
Lawyers are also in short supply. The Department of Homeland Security has lent the U.S. Attorney’s Office four lawyers to help prosecute the new immigration cases.
First Assistant Federal Public Defender Heather Williams said there are only 32 panel lawyers who are willing to handle Streamline cases on a contract fee from the government.
The court may increase the maximum caseload per lawyer or assign a public defender exclusively to immigration cases, Williams said, concluding that her office “will be able to handle fewer criminal cases.”
Operation Streamline was created to deter illegal immigration. The Yuma Sector saw a 70 percent drop in arrests last year at a time arrests borderwide fell 20 percent.
The policy was credited, along with extra border agents and improved fencing. Yet even in the Yuma Sector, where the Border Patrol arrests one-tenth of those arrested in the Tucson Sector, authorities have been unable to prosecute everyone.
The Border Patrol has referred 1,511 immigrants for prosecution since the program was extended to the entire sector in the fall. It made 4,066 arrests.
Courtroom holding space is a limiting factor in Yuma, too. Judges say they can handle up to 75 prosecutions a day, but because of space constraints, only 30 cases can be sent.
In the Tucson Sector, the Border Patrol has no immediate plans to phase in more than 100 prosecutions daily. That means at its peak, only one in 10 of those arrested can be prosecuted.
Still, Deputy Chief Robert Boatright said the clampdown is having results. He said that, in the 15-mile target area where the program was launched, a 79 percent recidivism rate has plummeted to 46 percent. Elsewhere in the Tucson Sector, immigrants re-enter 80 to 92 percent of the time.
“We’ve been able to gain control of that area, maintain control of that area and widen out that area,” Boatright said.
Tucson Sector agents arrested 11 percent fewer border crossers in January than they did a year earlier, although many believe this has as much to do with a slowing U.S. economy and Arizona’s strict employer-sanctions law.
Boatright said even a 10 percent risk of being imprisoned appears too great for many immigrants.
“I’ve talked to detainees, and they say it’s just not worth it to them,” said Ray Kondo, assistant chief in Arizona for the U.S. Marshal Service, which transports and houses the prisoners.
Effect on prisons
With federal detentions taking in the extra misdemeanor-immigration convicts, some prison-reform watchdogs worry that the prisons will run out of bed space and create a demand for more prisons or a crunch to release other criminals early.
Kondo said that won’t happen because once prosecutions reach their quota, people will be deported as fast as they are convicted.
Even if Arizona’s prisons get overloaded, federal prisoners can, and routinely do, get transferred to facilities throughout the country.
Reformists such as Judy Greene of Justice Strategies are unconvinced, knowing the government faces a million border crossers a year.
“This looks tough but accomplishes very little. It will increase pressure for expanding the detention systems,” she said. “It’s going to cost a lot of money and drain resources from more important cases.”
Two weeks ago, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Tucson Democrat, met for the fourth time with judges and federal agents about Streamline.
Her spokesman, C.J. Karamargin, said Giffords supports the stronger enforcement and has been advised that it has worked elsewhere, but Giffords shares concerns about the drain on resources for the criminal-justice system.
“Those concerns are valid,” Karamargin said, “She wants these federal agencies to have the resources but doesn’t want them wasted on something ineffective.”
Election year means no immigration reform
February 20, 2008
Despite the public’s cry for reforms, election-year politics will keep politicians from plain talk and solutions.
In an election year, the prospects of straight talk by the presidential candidates on immigration reform are slim. The issue is too complex and highly contentious.
The public would like to see the problem of illegal immigrants tackled by Washington. But most Americans oppose shortcuts to citizenship for the 12 million or more “undocumented” immigrants. Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are competing for the Hispanic vote. They aren’t talking tough about deporting illegal workers and their families, most of whom are Hispanic. After all, friends and family of illegal Latinos often have the vote.
On the Republican side, the candidates tend to talk sternly about repatriating illegal immigrants. Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona has the awkward history of having cosponsored a bill with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts last year that would have given illegal aliens a route, involving penalties, fines, and fees, to legal status and citizenship.
Anyone saying that proposal is amnesty is a “liar,” Senator McCain has said. But every program in the world that has allowed illegal immigrants to stay has been called an “amnesty,” notes Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. He proposes shrinking the number of illegal immigrants gradually through enforcement of the laws.
“To get the nomination, McCain has thrown straight talk off the bus,” charges Mr. Krikorian.
Another immigration expert, Joseph Chamie, research director at the Center for Migration Studies in New York, argues contrariwise that legalization is the “only viable long-term option” for dealing with illegal immigrants.
Mr. Chamie longs for “an honest dialogue” by politicians with the public on immigration. That, he says, is unlikely before the election next fall.
“Yes, legalization is an amnesty, in effect,” he says. “Yes, it is a reward to those who entered the United States illegally. Yes, illegal immigration does – for some people – depress wages. Yes, it is a matter of national security.”
So far, though, “lawmakers are saying one thing and doing another,” Chamie says. “I can understand why people are frustrated, angry.”
As the presidential campaign moves on, illegal immigration will heat up. Democratic and Republican presidential candidates will use the issue to seek votes.
Chamie estimates that as many as 48 million mostly Hispanic people living in the United States, about one-fifth of the population, are not eager to see their relatives, friends, and ethnic comrades deported as the result of a crackdown on illegal aliens. Moreover, as the weather improves in the spring, Chamie expects demonstrations by immigrants and their supporters wanting legalization.
Many will push for loose immigration policies to suit their interests, Chamie says. Businesses see immigrants as cheap labor, he says. Roman Catholic bishops, he continues, will urge opening the nation’s doors to more immigrants, many of them Catholic.
In 1986, with strong support from President Reagan, the government gave nearly 3 million illegal aliens legal status or amnesty. It was to be the last such amnesty.
Since then, though, neither Republican nor Democratic administrations have seriously tried to stem the growing number of illegal immigrants by penalizing their employers. Only last year did the Bush administration and some states take more serious enforcement action.
“That is starting to bear fruit,” says Krikorian. Anecdotal evidence suggests some Mexicans here illegally are going home and fewer are coming north. Illegal aliens in states cracking down, such as Oklahoma and Arizona, are shifting to Texas or other more friendly states.
Both Republicans and Democrats agree on the need to tighten US borders. Last Monday, President Bush proposed increasing spending on border security by 19 percent. He calls for nearly $500 million to hire 2,200 new border patrol agents and $2 billion over two years for more fencing and high-tech surveillance along the border with Mexico.
But even with tighter borders, the problem of 12 million illegals remains.
Krikorian says consistent, across-the-board enforcement of existing laws will prompt many illegals to give up and deport themselves. “Enforcement is what the public wants,” he says.
But Chamie doubts many illegal Hispanic immigrants will leave voluntarily, even with hard enforcement of the laws. They have become too socialized to American ways. Their children may not even speak Spanish. The women like their relative independence here, compared with life in their home countries.
If a new system of employer verification identification to catch illegal workers becomes workable, many will find work off the books, rely on extended families to survive, or even panhandle and wash cars for $5, Chamie predicts.
Washington, given the way it works, may eventually compromise on some mixture of enforcement, more secure borders, and legalization.
He’s 22 and been deported 14 times!
February 20, 2008
By MyFoxColorado
22-year-old Human Smuggler Arrested for 15th Time 22-year-old has been deported 14 times prior to today’s arrest
At 8:21am a deputy pulled over a silver Chevy Venture van in the eastbound lane of I-70 for a license plate violation. The deputy discovered 13 illegal immigrants inside the vehicle.
The driver said he planned on delivering the twelve adult males in various locations that included
Omar Alaverez-Mecedo, age 22, was arrested and charged with Human Smuggling, a class three felony, and operating a vehicle without a valid driver’s license, a class two misdemeanor.
In the course of the investigation it was discovered that “Omar Alaverez-Mecedo’s” real name is Israel Robles-Gaytan. According to ICE, Robles-Gaytan had already been caught and deported fourteen times; he gave law enforcement officials a different name each time.
Robles-Gaytan will be charged with Criminal Impersonation and 2nd degree Forgery in addition to the charges of Human Smuggling and operating a vehicle without a valid driver’s license.
Silvestre Bermudez, age 37, was arrested and charged with Possession of a Forged Instrument and Second Degree Forgery.
Both men were in the country illegally. Alaverez-Mecedo admitted to previously being deported three times prior.
Alaverez-Mecedo and Bermudez are currently being held at the Eagle County Detention Facility with an Immigration Customs Enforcement holds and bond amounts of $15,000 and $2,000 respectively.
The eleven other occupants of the vehicle have been placed in ICE’s custody pending deportation.
A procedure recently adopted in
New source of illegal immigrants: India
February 19, 2008
Illegal emigres defy the image
FASTEST GROWING SOURCE? IT’S INDIA
Article Launched: 02/18/2008 01:30:47 AM PST
The Bay Area has a piece of the nation’s fastest growing group of illegal immigrants. But don’t assume you know who they are.
Turning stereotypes on their head, a recent federal analysis of unauthorized immigration says the most rapidly growing source of illegal immigration is India - the same country whose engineers and programmers help power Google and other Silicon Valley companies, whose doctors heal the Bay Area’s sick, and whose entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have become a force on both sides of the international date line.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are 270,000 unauthorized Indian natives in the United States - a 125 percent jump since 2000, the largest percentage increase of any nation with more than 100,000 illegal immigrants in the United States.
The number of undocumented Indians is dwarfed by the estimated 6.6 million illegal residents from Mexico, according to the estimates from homeland security’s Office of Immigration Statistics. Yet, considering the high level of education of many Indians, immigration experts say the federal report hints at a new phenomenon: a high-skilled undocumented workforce to go along with the nation’s sizable numbers of low-skilled illegal workers.
If trends continue, within three years India would trail only Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala as a source of illegal immigration. Another national immigration expert, Jeffrey S. Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center, estimates that the number of illegal Indians is even higher, at 400,000 people.
Virtually all entered the United States legally but violated the terms of their visas, say experts who study the nation’s much maligned immigration system.
“How do you get in? You come across the border, or you arrive here with a visa,” said Lindsay Lowell, policy director for the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. “Indians aren’t going to be walking across the border like Mexicans.”
Indians are among the most affluent ethnic groups in the United States, with a median household income that is 62 percent higher than the figure for all U.S. households.
Santa Clara County has the largest Indian-born population, and Alameda County ranks fifth, among the nation’s 3,141 counties, according to 2006 census data. But there is no way to know what share of Bay Area Indian immigrants are illegal.
The Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, and the Office of Immigration Statistics report did not provide state or local estimates. Of the 2.5 million people of Indian ancestry living in the United States, about 1 million are not U.S. citizens.
Federal officials calculated the number of illegal immigrants by using census estimates of the total number of immigrants from individual countries, compiling the total number of legal immigrants using federal immigration and naturalization records, and then subtracting the number of legal residents from the total immigrant population to determine the number of undocumented people.
It is certainly a minority of the local Indian community, however, and probably a very small one. Half the people of Indian ancestry living in Santa Clara County are already U.S. citizens, either by birth or naturalization, according to census data. Thousands of others are legal permanent residents, or they are here legally on student, tourist or work visas.
Asked about the number of illegal Indians in Silicon Valley, Banjit Singh, an Indian-born taxi driver waiting for a fare at Mineta San Jose International Airport, said, “Here, there is a little bit. But you go to another city or state, like L.A. or New York, there are many illegal people.” Drivers need to show proof of citizenship or legal immigration status to get a taxi certificate.
But that doesn’t mean the local number is insignificant. Local immigration lawyers say that particularly among Indians, the ups and downs of Silicon Valley’s economy since 2001 are one reason why Indians have fallen out of legal status.
“Most are bachelors; the way they get here is they have a job,” Gabriel Jack, a San Jose immigration lawyer, said of many of his Indian clients.
“They come here as professionals, most often in the H-1B program, and given the fluctuations of Silicon Valley, the business climate, these guys lose their jobs. They get laid off or they wager their hands on a start-up coming in,” Jack said. “The problem with the H-1B program is, you can’t have any significant time between jobs” without falling out of legal status.
Indians made up 44 percent of H-1B applicants in the 2005-06 fiscal year, five times the number from second-place China, according to federal data.
Because an immigrant’s status can be dependent on the status of a spouse, the break-up of a marriage can also create an illegal immigrant.
Among Indians in the United States, “there has been a rapid increase in the divorce rate. If they are on an H-1, maybe the wife is protected and maybe she isn’t,” said Navneet Chugh, an immigration lawyer whose firm is based in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. “The guy is an engineer at HP or Cisco, and he goes home on vacation, and his parents say, ‘We have a girl for you.’ And they get married, and they come here and have all kinds of problems.”
Another source is relatives from India who arrive for a visit on a tourist visa and never go home.
“America is a very attractive country; everybody who comes here wants to stay,” said Shah Peerally, a Silicon Valley immigration lawyer. “I can tell you right now, there are nearly 1 billion people in India, of which maybe 800 million want to come here.”
The United States has deported slightly less than 500 Indians a year in recent years. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, “we have substantially expanded our effort to find visa violators,” said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The government, she said, pursues cases based on public safety, rather than focusing on a specific country of origin.
Silicon Valley companies such as Google say they need to recruit the world’s best talent to compete - and about one in 12 of Google’s U.S. employees, roughly 900 people, are H-1B visa holders. “We have not seen major problems with prospective candidates being out of status,” said Adam Kovacevich, a Google spokesman.
But immigration lawyers like Jack say there is such a backlog of people waiting for green cards - the wait is up to seven years for skilled workers from India as of this month - that an immigrant can still be waiting in line when even a six-year H-1B visa expires.
That can result in an illegal, highly educated, Indian immigrant, they said.
Unless Congress reforms the immigration system, “we are going to see this high-skilled, illegal workforce emerging,” said Frank D. Bean, director of the Immigration Research Center at the University of California-Irvine. “From a narrow economic point of view, it might work. From a social justice, fairness point of view, it’s a time bomb.”
Georiga Bill: Let police seize cars driven by illegals
February 19, 2008
Bill would let police seize vehicles driven by illegal immigrants
If bill was passed, police could take vehicle if it was involved in a traffic accident and driven by an illegal immigrant
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/18/08 A proposal to allow police to seize cars from illegal immigrants prompted an emotional public hearing before a legislative committee Monday.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. James Mills (R-Gainesville), would allow police to seize any vehicle involved in a traffic violation or accident if it’s driven by an illegal immigrant. That includes rented and leased vehicles if the owner should have known the driver was an illegal immigrant.
Malegni argued the bill should be passed for safety reasons.
“I’m putting the memory of my son in your hands,” Malegni told the House Special Rules Committee.
Other witnesses agreed, arguing that people can’t violate traffic laws repeatedly if they don’t have a car.
A spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union opposed the bill, saying it would create an atmosphere of “seize first and ask questions later.” It could also create an atmosphere for racial profiling in traffic stops, the spokesman said.
The racial profiling argument drew a strong denial from committee chairman Calvin Hill (R-Woodstock), who asked witnesses to stay on point. “I don’t want misinterpretation . . . that this is about racial profiling,” Hill said.
Opponents say the measure is unconstitutional because it doesn’t provide due process for taking the car. Under the proposal, the vehicle seizure would work similar to property seizure in drug cases.
“This legislation is opening up a slippery slope to where the state is taking private property,” said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. “Where do we stop? Next, should we take their homes, their businesses? If there’s an immigration raid in a poultry plant, should we seize that?” Gonzalez asked.
Opponents say it would be difficult for a police officer to correctly ascertain a driver’s legal status during a traffic stop.
The legislation is part of a package of proposals introduced this legislative session aimed at punishing illegal immigration in Georgia.
Illegals filing tax forms
February 18, 2008
Boston Globe
More illegal immigrants are rushing to file taxes
Many view move as way to help case for residency
Illegal immigrants are pouring into tax-preparation offices and nonprofit agencies across Massachusetts and the nation to file state and federal income taxes, taking a step that some might deem unthinkable: giving their name, address, and financial information to the government.
In Massachusetts, taxpayers here illegally are lining up from Chelsea to the Berkshires, despite the fear of deportation that is permeating the state after a massive raid in New Bedford last year and smaller raids in Boston-area cities and towns. While typical American taxpayers are wary of the Internal Revenue Service, illegal immigrants see the IRS as a friendly agency that could help in their quest for legal residency.
“It’s catching on that this is one of the things that you do” as a resident of the United States, said Corinn Williams, executive director of the Community Economic Development Center in New Bedford, which is getting 10 calls a day, double the number it got a year ago, from immigrants who want help filing taxes. “If you’re making a case that you want to stay here, without a doubt that’s one of the things that the judge is going to look at.”
The IRS created nine-digit individual taxpayer identification numbers, or ITINs, in 1996, to better track the tax returns of those who are ineligible for a Social Security number. Most taxpayers who use ITINs are believed to be illegal immigrants, though some legal residents - foreign investors, for example - also have them.
In Massachusetts 39,221 ITIN holders filed taxes for the 2006 tax year, up 20 percent from the previous year. Nationally, more than 2.1 million such taxpayers filed in the 2005 tax year, the most recent year available, up nearly 37 percent from the year before.
IRS officials warn taxpayers that filing taxes does not affect their immigration status. But a US Senate proposal in 2006 would have required illegal immigrants to pay back taxes as part of their application for legal residency, fueling the hopes of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in this country.
The rising number of taxpayers parallels the national debate about what to do about illegal immigration. Advocates point to paying taxes as proof that immigrants help the economy. From 1996 to 2003, according to an IRS study, ITIN holders were responsible for paying the government almost $50 billion, most of which was withheld from their paychecks.
But critics of illegal immigration say paying taxes should not help illegal workers become legal residents. The workers, they say, cost taxpayers millions of dollars in healthcare, education, and other services.
“We are not a nation of taxpayers. That is not the standard by which you attain membership in our society,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which urges the IRS to use its records to help deport people. “It doesn’t buy you a ticket in.”
The IRS does not generally share the taxpayers’ information with federal immigration agents, said IRS spokeswoman Nancy Mathis, and neither does the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, said Commissioner Navjeet Bal. Anyone who earns income here, including illegal immigrants, must pay taxes, state and federal government officials say.
“The tax code, which is enacted by Congress and signed by the president, does not recognize immigration status,” Mathis said. “Anyone who has US-sourced income of a certain amount must pay US taxes.”
The New Bedford raid starkly illustrates the difference between the goals of the IRS and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Last March, federal immigration agents raided a leather-goods factory and arrested 361 illegal immigrants - many of whom also filed taxes. So a few weeks after federal immigration agents arrested the illegal immigrants, the IRS sent some of them refund checks.
Immigrants say the hope that they will one day become legal residents, and the fact that the IRS keeps their information private, helps them overcome their fear of filing taxes.
Eoin Reilly, a lawyer and board member of the Irish Immigration Center, said he has used immigrants’ tax records, in part, to persuade immigration judges not to deport them. Paying taxes, he said, shows a judge that they have good moral character, and he believes that it has helped.
“It just kind of makes the scale tip a little bit,” he said.
One rainy day last week, tax season was playing out in Chelsea. Signs in English and Spanish exhorting people to pay taxes were plastered in storefronts and scattered in restaurants.
Taxpayers trooped into the nonprofit Chelsea Restoration Corp., which helps citizens and noncitizens alike file taxes.
Armando, a 47-year-old illegal immigrant from South America who buses tables seven nights a week and earns $34,000 a year, arrived early Tuesday morning to file. He paid $20,000 to smuggle himself and his son across the US-Mexico border in 2005, and has filed taxes ever since.
Now he uses a fake Social Security number at work that he made up himself. But everything on his taxes is true.
“I wanted to stay in this country, so I made the decision, to win or lose,” said Armando, who did not want to use his last name for fear of being deported, later adding that he will give his $300 refund this year to his son for his college studies.
A 57-year-old Argentine woman with a mop of copper-colored hair filed for the first time in eight years last spring, hoping that Congress would pass a bill to overhaul immigration laws. The measure failed, but she enjoyed the experience. She just received a letter of apology from the IRS saying she had paid $30 too much last year.
“Seriously?” the woman, arms thrown wide, asked Marilyn Garcia, the assistant director of Chelsea Restoration Corp., who translated the letter. “I can’t believe the government owes me money!”
In general, though, illegal immigrants get fewer tax breaks. They cannot claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, which can be $4,700 for a family of four earning less than $12,000, and they cannot claim a new tax rebate just approved by President Bush. Missouri and Kansas also refuse to give state refunds to taxpayers without a Social Security number.
Pasquale Casella, a senior tax adviser at H & R Block based in Pittsfield, said immigrants are eager to follow the law. He visits English classes and ethnic festivals and has increased the number of ITIN filers he handles from a handful five years ago to more than 60 last year. He charges about $80 to prepare a simple return.
“These people have dreams,” he said. “They want a good life for the family.”
But critics say the illegal immigrants should not have been hired in the first place. Steve Kropper, cochairman of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, said businesses should use a federal database to screen for illegal workers.
“We don’t think that those that are being paid on the books or are paying taxes are doing so for charitable reasons,” said Kropper. “It’s a condition of employment.”
The Argentine woman, who works odd jobs caring for sick people, acknowledged she was breaking the law by working in the United States. But she said she was glad to pay her share. The government helped her recently, she said, by paying for an operation when she fell ill.
“I hope that if someday the government offered me legal documents, they will see that I have been complying with the taxes,” she said. “With taxes, at least.”
AZ crackdown on illegal immigration causes problems in UT
February 18, 2008
By Nate Carlisle
The Salt Lake Tribune
TEMPE, Ariz. - As Utah debates how to treat undocumented immigrants, Arizona is watching new laws and an economic downturn drive away those workers, likely sending many to Utah.
No one knows how many people have left Arizona since that state’s latest immigration law, which penalizes employers for hiring undocumented workers, became effective Jan. 1. But with Arizona once having an undocumented immigrant population estimated at 400,000 or more, Utah stands to receive at least some of those who are now fleeing the state.
“We have received anecdotal information where people are being invited to go to Utah, specifically Ogden and some of the communities outside of Salt Lake City,” said Edmundo Hidalgo, president of Chicanos Por La Causa, which promotes education and economic development in Arizona. “The primary attraction is quality of life. People view those communities as having high family values.”
Reza Athari, an immigration attorney who practices in Utah and Nevada, said people leaving Arizona have come to him asking about their legal options. Some people have had to close businesses in Arizona, he said, and some “were concerned with being profiled as undocumented even though they were documented.”
Economics make Utah the most attractive local choice. Arizona’s unemployment rate in December was 4.7 percent. Utah’s was 3.3 percent, by far the lowest among states bordering Arizona.
The employer law’s chief supporter, Russell Pearce, a state representative from Mesa, Ariz., said legislators discussed whether the law would push undocumented immigrants to Arizona’s neighbors. But Russell said lawmakers were looking out for Arizona.
“We certainly don’t apologize,” Pearce said. “Arizona is not going to be a sanctuary state for illegal employers or illegal aliens,” he said.
The employer law was the latest Arizona effort to curb illegal immigration. In 2006, Arizona voted to outlaw in-state tuition or financial aid to undocumented immigrants attending college. The sheriff in metropolitan Phoenix has made national headlines by policing illegal immigration and groups opposed to illegal immigration have begun protesting centers for day laborers.
Besides driving undocumented immigrants to other states, the laws are one of the reasons more people are returning to their home countries, said Estheban Vargas. Vargas works at a migrant shelter in Agua Prieta, Mexico, adjacent to Douglas, Ariz., and keeps statistics on the people who stay there.
“We’re seeing less people coming on their way up [north] and more people on their way back,” Vargas said.
Hidalgo said undocumented immigrants are wary of more than Arizona’s laws.
“They’re so frustrated with this particular state,” Hidalgo said. “They’re frustrated by the attacks. They’re frustrated by the lack of appreciation.”
It’s not clear what an increased undocumented immigrant population would mean for Utah from a tax revenue standpoint. Studies in Texas and Arizona found undocumented immigrants there provided net increases to tax revenues. No similar study has been done in Utah.
Ken Jameson, a University of Utah economics professor, said the migration from Arizona likely will hurt its economy. He said high rates of migration to Arizona coincided with high economic performance there from 1999 to 2005.
“If you reverse the role of migrants it’s entirely possible you’ll reverse the pattern of economic performance,” Jameson said.
Ann Seiden, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said some businesses are reconsidering whether they want to expand in Arizona.
“I think there’s no question Utah will see an in-migration of residents from Arizona,” Seiden said. “Arizona is a state that has historically been built on growth.”
Arizona’s employer law offers lessons for Utah, she said. Seiden said the state must make safeguards so businesses are not prosecuted if they unwittingly hire an undocumented immigrant.
“Overall, the law just makes Arizona an uncertain place to do business,” Seiden said.
ncarlisle@sltrib.com
NJ following AZ’s lead?
February 18, 2008
Senator vows to target N.J. businesses hiring illegal immigrants
By TOM HESTER Jr.
Associated Press Writer
10:56 AM EST, February 18, 2008
TRENTON, N.J.
A
Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney said his decision comes after a federal judge upheld an
“Companies that knowingly hire illegals are destroying job opportunities for the working men and women of New Jersey,” said Sweeney, D-
The Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2003 estimated that New Jersey had 221,000 illegal immigrants, though the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tighter border security and immigration laws, estimates the state has 490,000.
New Jersey has about 8.7 million residents and 4.1 million workers.
Under Sweeney’s measure, which he said he will introduce next week, first-time offenders would have their business licenses suspended for 10 days.
Second offenses would bring permanent revocations, Sweeney said.
In approved, the law would take effect at the end of the year and require employers to verify the legal status of their work forces.
“New Jersey should welcome legal immigrants with open arms, but we need to put up a stop sign for illegals who undermine family, educational and health care support systems,” Sweeney said.
The proposal worries businesses, said Jim Leonard, a vice president with the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.
“We feel immigration is an issue best handled on the federal level,” Leonard said. “Creating a patchwork of laws on this issue throughout the nation makes it even more difficult to run a business.”
John Rogers, a vice president with the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said employers are prohibited from asking certain information about an employee’s background while hiring and are legally required to take Social Security cards that appear valid.
“I fear that another New Jersey-only bill will unfairly ask the employer community to shoulder increased liability and be responsible for what is a national problem,” Rogers said.
On Feb. 8, a federal judge in Arizona dismissed a lawsuit filed by business groups against Arizona’s law, which was approved last year by the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.
Arizona business groups argued the law unconstitutionally infringed on federal immigration powers, but the judge ruled there was no conflict because states regulate business licensing.
The Arizona law took effect Jan. 1. An
Earlier rulings on similar measures have been mixed.
In July, a federal judge struck down a Hazleton, Pa., ordinance that would deny business permits for companies that employ illegal immigrants, but another judge upheld a similar measure in Valley Park, Mo., earlier this month.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Selective immigration policy: will it work?
February 15, 2008
Timothy Hatton
14 February 2008
Europe is moving towards immigration policies that favour the acceptance of highly skilled applicants. This column summarises research showing that such policies may have some effect but cautions that there are limits to the power of selectivity.
It is widely believed that Europe admits too many low-skilled and too few high-skilled immigrants. For more than a decade, immigration researchers have championed the idea that the countries of the EU should adopt the kind of immigration points system for which Australia and Canada are famous. Britain and France have already taken steps in that direction. And last October the European Commission entered the fray when it unveiled a Blue Card scheme, along the lines of the US Green Card, with the aim of attracting highly skilled immigrants.1
Building skill selection into immigration policies seems to be an idea whose time has come, as I noted in my July 2007 Vox column explaining the trend. The question now is: will it work? Will skill- selective immigration policies improve the skills of immigrants as much as European policy makers hope and expect?
Skilled migrants
The Table below summarises a key piece of evidence in favour of selective immigration policies. The first column of figures shows, for a number of OECD countries, the percentage of the immigrant stock in 2001 that was educated to tertiary level. Nearly 40 percent of Australian and Canadian immigrants are tertiary educated while continental European countries languish at around 20 percent or less. Particularly telling to some observers is the comparison between Canada, which has a points system, and its neighbour the United States, which does not.
|
Host Country |
Percent of foreign-born tertiary educated |
Adjusted percent of foreign- born tertiary educated |
|
Australia |
37.9 |
33.1 |
|
Canada |
38.0 |
32.2 |
|
United States |
25.9 |
22.8 |
|
Austria |
11.3 |
20.0 |
|
Belgium |
17.4 |
24.2 |
|
Germany |
14.9 |
17.4 |
|
Denmark |
19.4 |
27.6 |
|
France |
18.1 |
18.7 |
|
Great Britain |
30.5 |
33.0 |
|
Italy |
12.2 |
25.9 |
|
Netherlands |
17.6 |
20.6 |
|
Spain |
21.8 |
24.8 |
|
Sweden |
22.3 |
26.8 |
Source: Belot and Hatton (2008) Table 1.
But things are not quite that simple. For example, 30 percent of US immigrants are Mexicans with low average education, while Canada has relatively few Mexicans. The composition of immigrants by source may itself be influenced by selective policy, but for the most part, this is due to location (as with Mexicans in the US) or colonial heritage (as with Indians and Pakistanis in Britain).
The second column of the Table applies the proportion of high-educated emigrants to the OECD as a whole from each source country to the weight of that country in each destination’s immigration. If the figure in the first column exceeds the figure in the second column then the destination country selects relatively high-educated immigrants given its source country composition. Notice that the gap is positive for Canada and Australia and negative for the leading European countries (but not the US). Policy might be one reason why some countries select more highly skilled immigrants. For example, Abdurrahman Aydemir (2003) finds that, for migration from the United States to Canada, the highly educated are less likely to apply but more likely to be accepted through Canada’s point system to such a degree that the skill-selective policy outweighs the incentive effects that would otherwise favour low-skilled migration. But there are other factors that may also induce high-skilled migration.
What attracts highly skilled immigrants?
In a recent paper, Michéle Belot and I modeled the economic and non- economic forces that drive immigrant selection by education (Belot and Hatton, 2008). We found that economic incentives work: the higher the return to skill in the destination and the lower the return to skill in the source country, the more highly educated the migration stream. We also found that the poorer the country, the more educated are its emigrants relative to the population from which they are drawn. Poverty seems to trump policy in selecting highly educated immigrants from the third world.
Our analysis also revealed that immigrants are more positively selected by education the greater the distance between the source and the destination. And, not surprisingly, past colonial links are associated with negative selection from the source country. Curiously, having a common official or primary language is associated with positive selection while linguistic proximity (between two different languages) is associated with negative selection.
Once we allow for the influence of economic incentives, poverty, cultural and historic links, the remaining differences in immigrant selection between destination countries should reflect differences in policy. But these ‘policy residuals’ do not correlate well with what we know about immigration policies in different countries. They seem instead to reflect past trends and migration choices that are not easily captured by aggregate variables. The very fact that policy effects are obscured in such cross-country comparisons suggests that they cannot be very strong.
The power of policy
Perhaps selective immigration policy is simply not worth the candle. Bur before we jump to that conclusion we need better evidence on the effects of changes in policy. A good example is the change in the Australian points system in the late 1990s that gave even greater emphasis than before to educational qualifications, language ability and recent labour market experience. The evidence from this policy experiment indicates that the reform perceptibly improved the skills of immigrants. And as a result, labour market participation rates were higher and unemployment rates were lower for immigrants admitted after the reform (see Cobb-Clark and Khoo, 2006).
But beefing up the skills criteria for admission will typically have modest effects, as most of those entering through employment streams are well qualified anyway. More importantly, employment-stream immigrants (those who would be subject to a skills test) are only a small proportion of all immigrants. In Europe (as in the US), the overwhelming majority of immigrants come through family reunification or as refugees. For most countries a radical shift towards employment-based immigrants is limited by international treaty obligations towards protecting families and providing sanctuary for refugees. So raising the share of employment-based immigrants up to the Canadian level (about half) would imply significant increase in total immigration – something that would make policy makers think twice.
The bottom line is that adopting more skill selective immigration criteria (and applying them to a larger share of immigrants) is a move in the right direction. It is likely to lead to some improvement in the skills of immigrants and in their labour market performance. Over time it might also take some of the heat out of the immigration debate, as it has in Australia and Canada, where immigration is less controversial despite the fact that immigrants are a much larger share of the population. But it will not transform the immigration landscape, nor will it happen overnight. So let us not expect too much too soon.
References
Aydemir, A. B. (2003), “Are Immigrants Positively or Negatively Selected? The Role of Immigrant Selection Criteria and Self-Selection,” Statistics Canada: Unpublished paper
Belot, M. V. K. and Hatton, T. J (2008), “Immigrant Selection in the OECD,” CEPR Discussion Paper No. 6675.
Cobb Clark, D. A. and Khoo, S-E. (eds.) (2006), Public Policy and Immigrant Settlement, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Wow: NY Times picks up Phoenix human smuggling story
February 15, 2008
Major Immigrant Smuggling Ring Is Broken in Phoenix, Police Say
In some ways, it was just a typical day here, where the police regularly discover houses with dozens of people held by smugglers until they can pay their passage from Mexico. In a separate operation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and the Maricopa County sheriff here announced the arrests of more than 100 people suspected of being in the country illegally who were on probation for various crimes.
But the raids on Thursday morning, by a task force of state, local and federal officers, provided a glimpse behind what the authorities described as one of the more elaborate operations that bring thousands of people across the border in this state, which has more illegal crossings than any other.
At dawn, officers swarmed houses, mostly in western Phoenix, seizing ledgers, money, weaponry and people suspected of involvement in a major, lucrative cell that controlled the transportation of people from a border town, Naco, to Phoenix.
The authorities made 20 arrests, including those of two Cubans accused of directing the operation. They also detained 210 illegal immigrants and discovered 13 so-called drop houses that were way stations for smuggled immigrants, the police said. In all, the authorities planned to arrest about 75 people, they said.
Oddities abounded along the way.
At the house of one man described as a ringleader, the police found several hundred roosters bred and grown for his cockfighting hobby. Another housed a shrine with a life-size statue of Jesus and a pile of $1 and $5 bills and burning candles at his feet, apparently offerings for good fortune.
In another house, a large family photo of a suspect showed him holding a baby, the hand gripping the girl displaying four large, ostentatious rings. An antique four-poster bed filled a small bedroom.
“We often see ‘Scarface’ or ‘Godfather’ posters,” said Lt. Vince Piano of the Phoenix Police Department, a lead investigator. “That’s the mentality.”
Roger Vanderpool, the director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety, said toppling organizations like the one on Thursday was central to disrupting smuggling.
“It’s organized crime,” Mr. Vanderpool said. “Going after the head of the snake, cutting it off, is the effective way of dealing with organized crime.”
Several years ago, as border crackdowns in California and Texas funneled illegal immigrant traffic into Arizona, Phoenix supplanted Los Angeles as the prime transshipment point in the Southwest for human smuggling, federal investigators say.
The role has brought increased violence, including assaults and occasionally the killing of people unable to make full payment for their crossing, shootouts among smugglers stealing one another’s human cargo and kidnapping.
There has been a surge in the discovery of drop houses, where illegal immigrants are kept while waiting to be transported to destinations across the country, aided by an extensive freeway network here not heavily guarded by a Border Patrol focused to the south.
Where drop houses were rarely found a decade or so ago, nearly 100 were discovered last year in Phoenix and several so far this year, including one on Thursday afternoon with 35 people. This suggests that despite reports of immigrants’ leaving Arizona under pressure from the economic downturn and a crackdown by the authorities, others continue to arrive.
The group arrested on Thursday morning, the authorities said, primarily drove people who had just crossed the border at Naco to Phoenix, nearly 200 miles away. They often had their own security escort to ward off bandits known as bajadores.
The suspects were said to have worked with a smuggling ring that is based in Naco, Mexico.
The two men described as ringleaders, Jose Luis Suarez-Lemus of Peoria, Ariz., and Roel Ayala-Fernandez of Phoenix, were charged by the state attorney general’s office with several crimes, including human smuggling, money laundering, conspiracy and participating in a criminal syndicate. They may also face federal charges.
The immigrants, who were charged about $2,500 for their transit, were smuggled across the border through the San Pedro River Riparian National Conservation Area, a remote desert site, the authorities said.
The group typically transported two to four loads of six to 10 people a day mainly using rental cars, perhaps several hundred people in all, the authorities believe. The organization made as much as $130,000 a week.
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