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Immigration
Two months after it began its alliance with immigration officials to crack down on gang violence, the San Jose Police Department in California announced that it was ending its partnership with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency; on 24 June, two ICE agents stepped in to help San Jose which was struggling to contain its highest murder rate in twenty years
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The Obama administration has requested a federal judge to temporarily block a tough new immigration law set to take effect in Alabama on 1 September
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Railroad giant Union Pacific Corp. agreed last week to invest $50 million to help protect the U.S.-Mexico border and to improve supply chain security; the announcement comes as the settlement of an ongoing dispute between the railroad company and U.S. border officials over nearly $500 million in fines
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Transportation
Trucks transport roughly $275 billion worth of goods — or 70 percent of the total — that pass between the United States and Mexico annually; the trucks from Mexico, however, often fail to meet U.S. safety standards
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Hacking
A yearlong investigation by the DHS Inspector General has revealed multiple instances of insider hacking at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS); the inspector general found that employees had accessed management-level email and other confidential files
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Immigration
Immigration officials recently broke up an international gang of thieves who were using the Orlando International Airport to smuggle ancient artifacts into the country
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Ground transportation
Smugglers use trains which go from Mexico to the United States to smuggle drugs and other contraband. In the last few years, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) has imposed fines totaling millions of dollars on Union Pacific Railroads for carrying the smuggled goods — even though UP maintained it knew nothing about the illegal shipments; CBP and UP have now settled their dispute
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Immigration
DHS officials are cracking down on sham universities that make millions of dollars by preying on foreign students, especially those from India, with promises of student visas; in January, officials shut down Tri-Valley University in California on suspicion of visa fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering; officials believe that the university made millions of dollars by giving foreign nationals illegally obtained student visas
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A recent report found that the number of immigrants entering the United States from Mexico has fallen to “almost nothing”; Mexico only lost about 0.09 percent of its population due to migration between March 2010 and March 2011, 83 percent lower than in 2006
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Last week water from a rainstorm knocked over a forty-foot section of the U.S-Mexico border fence in Southwestern Arizona; according to Lee Baiza, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument’s superintendent, the fence does not permit water to flow naturally along washes resulting in environmental and structural problems for the fence
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This year state lawmakers have introduced a record number of immigration bills and resolutions according to a new report by the National Conference of State Legislatures; so far in the first half of the year, state legislators have seen 1,592 immigration bills, 16 percent more than the same time period last year
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Immigration
To help put an end to state and local authorities’ objections over the controversial Secure Communities program, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced on Friday that the agency would end its memorandum of agreements with state governors “to avoid further confusion”; the move is designed to ease DHS’s efforts to expand the immigration program across the nation, despite the increasing criticism that the program has received
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Immigration
Last week fourteen people were charged with conspiracy to commit marriage fraud in an attempt to secure citizenship in the United States; the plan involved paying U.S. citizens to enter into false marriages with foreigners from Eastern Europe and Russia to legalize their immigration status; the U.S. recruits were offered as much as $5,000 to participate in the scheme
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Mexico
Mexican police in has arrested a drug cartel leader they say has admitted to ordering the murder of 1,500 people; Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, 33, known as “El Diego,” was the head of La Linea, a gang of hit men and corrupt police officers who acted as the armed wing of the Juarez drug cartel
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Aviation security
A recent DHS inspector general report revealed that the Federal Aviation Administration FAA) had issued pilot and aircraft mechanic licenses to at least twenty-seven individuals with terrorist connections; the report also found that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) still cannot determine the identities of thousands of people who currently hold FAA licenses.
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After news hit that DHS was planning on spending additional money to procure a troubled nuclear detection system that has been plagued with problems, the Obama administration decided to scrap the $1.2 billion program
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Border security
On Tuesday, the Mexican Army accidentally “invaded” the United States when thirty-three of its soldiers mistakenly crossed the border into Texas in Humvees; the soldiers were driving in a convoy consisting of four Humvees when they realized they had started driving on a bridge over the Rio Grande where they could not turn their vehicles around until they entered the United States
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On Tuesday representatives from two major U.S. companies, Microsoft and Nasdaq, headed to the Hill to testify before a Senate subcommittee on immigration policies and its effects on highly skilled foreign workers; speaking before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security, Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general Counsel, urged lawmakers to ease restrictions and immigration laws for skilled overseas workers
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In its first week of fundraising, buildtheborderfence.com, an effort by private citizens in Arizona to build a fence along the U.S-Mexico border to keep illegal immigrants out, has raised more than $100,000; the site first began accepting donation on 20 July and has so far received funding from roughly 2,300 people
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On Tuesday a U.S. lawmaker was arrested for organizing a sit-in in front of the White House; Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois), a staunch advocate for immigration reform, led a protest outside the White House to demand that President Barack Obama stop deporting undocumented immigrants
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The long view
Social Acceptance of Immigrants Working as Politicians or Judges Is Low
Often, the dominant society develops negative attitudes towards immigrants and their descendants because their integration is too successful – and not because they are unwilling to integrate. A possible explanation for negative attitudes towards successful immigrants could be the dominant society’s fear of immigrants occupying influential and value-based occupations. This applies, for example, for immigrants working in local politics or law.