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Border security
The Senate may yet vote for additional funds for border security before leaving for a month-long recess; Senator Schumer is going to try to push through a bill that provides an additional $600 million for the border; this includes $176 million to hire 1,500 more officers to form a strike force to be deployed in critical areas along the border; Schumer would pay for his measure by raising fees on visas for temporary skilled workers sent to the United States by Indian companies; Republicans, who propose a similar measure, prefer to pay for additional border security by taking unused money from the Obama administration’s economic stimulus program, an idea unacceptable to Democrats
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Immigration
An internal U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) memo, titled “Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” indicates that high level officials within the Obama administration may be considering ways to legalize classes of undocumented immigrants in case Congress does not deal with formal legalization for the estimated 10.8 million immigrants without papers
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Since 27 October 2008 through the end of May 2010, almost 2.6 million people have been screened with Secure Communities; of those, almost 35,000 were identified as illegal immigrants previously arrested or convicted for the most serious crimes, including murder and rape; more than 205,000 who were identified as illegal immigrants had arrest records for less serious crimes; during an eight-month period between 1 October 2009 to 7 June 2010, ICE figures show that 113,453 foreign nations with criminal records had been deported
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Immigration matters // by David B. Palinsky
In a second set back to Arizona’s tough immigration law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied Arizona governor Jan Brewer’s motion seeking expedited handling of the Arizona’s appeal of Judge Susan Bolton’s preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of many provisions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law
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Immigration matters
Citing “the State of Arizona’s right to implement a law its Legislature enacted to address the irreparable harm Arizona is suffering as a result of unchecked unlawful immigration,” the appeal claims only one issue, “whether the district court relied on an erroneous legal premise or abused its discretion” in granting the preliminary injunction
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Border security
Arizona tough immigration law goes into effect tomorrow; it is not clear to what extent the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. immigration enforcement agency, will cooperate with police who are trying to enforce it; ICE officials said they are waiting to see whether the law survives court challenges, contending that the law is unconstitutional and could lead to racial profiling; there is a history of cooperation between ICE and Arizona law enforcement: the agency has signed so-called 287(g) agreements with nine law-enforcement agencies in Arizona that either allow local officers to enforce federal immigration laws or allow jail officials to identify illegal immigrants booked into jails to be processed for deportation
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Border security
A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences argues that global warming could drive millions more Mexicans into the United States in search of work by 2080 due to diminishing crop yields in Mexico; a 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit increase in temperature by 2080, unless agricultural methods have been adapted, would mean crop yields in Mexico would fall by 39 to 48 percent
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The past as prologue
In 2003, Steven Brill, founder of Court TV and American Lawyer magazine, founded Verified Identity Pass and used it to launch the CLEAR program at Orlando International Airport; the program made it possible for pre-registered travelers to skip security checks at airports; the initial 8,000 travelers enrolled in 2003, and the service would grow to nearly 260,000 paying customers in a matter of five years; CLEAR went belly up in 2009, and its assets were bought by Algood Holdings, which relaunched the program; “Same brand, same logo, different company,” says CEO Caryn Seidman Becker
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Border security
Under the Obama administration, the focus of the Merida Initiative is shifting away from high-priced helicopters and airplanes and toward reforming Mexico’s corrupt law enforcement, courts and other government institutions
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Border security
Governor Jan Brewer allocates up to $10 million in federal stimulus money to help law enforcement pay for costs associated with illegal immigration, including drug trafficking and human smuggling; funds will buy satellite phones, SUVs, night-vision scopes, thermal imagers and weapons
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The U.K. hits out at Raytheon, removing the company from the £1.2 billion e-Borders program; the immigration minister Damian Green said earlier today that the program was running at least twelve months late and that Raytheon had been in breach of contract since July last year; Home Office says it has “no confidence” in the company; Raytheon was the lead contractor of the Trusted Borders consortium, which won a £650 million deal in 2007 to build the e-Borders system; other members of the consortium, including Serco, Detica, Accenture, and Qinetiq will keep their contracts; Raytheon was responsible for systems integration, travel services, and overall project management
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Security experts fear that last Thursday car bombing in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, is the beginning of deadly trend which will see a weapon used regularly —and effectively — by insurgents and militants in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere soon making its presence felt on the streets of Mexico
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The EU’s e-passports were supposed to be fool-proof, even impossible to counterfeit; Europol has warned, though, that despite the biometric changes to passports, counterfeiting still remains a major problem for criminals or others “who are determined to do so,” with the provision of documents for irregular immigrants being the main driver of the activity
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Border security
Beginning on 26 July, armed deputies will accompany inspectors to the scales in a corridor that stretches southwest from Interstate 10 at Las Cruces to the New Mexico-Arizona border, along Luna, Hidalgo, and Grant counties; the sense of insecurity among ranchers along the border has increased since the highly-publicized 27 March murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz
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Border security
South Korea has began to install unmanned guard towers, equipped with sensors and machine-guns, along the DMZ; The South Korean military is emulating the system Israel has built around the Gaza Strip — a system of unmanned, armored towers, about five meters (sixteen feet) tall and two meters (six feet) in diameter; at the top of the tower is an armored shelter that conceals a remotely controlled machine-gun; operators control the surveillance and weapon systems atop these towers from a remote central command-and-control location
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Mexico: descent into chaos
Car bombs have been used by terrorists and guerrilla groups in the Middle East, Ireland, Spain, and Colombia — but, until last Thursday, not in Mexico; the Juárez bombing involved an elaborate scheme — the perpetrators dressed a man in a police uniform and laid him on the ground to lure others to the body; the explosion occurred right after a paramedic and a federal agent approached the body; the bombing was part of a brutal war drug cartels have been waging to control the Chihuahua state drug smuggling corridor that has claimed more than 1,500 lives so far this year
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Border security
Various volunteer-based groups patrol the Arizona desert and report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, and generally they have not caused problems; Arizona law enforcement authorities are worried about the latest addition: a local neo-Nazi militia; members of the militia are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor, and assault rifles — and openly proclaim that only non-Jewish, white heterosexual people should be American citizens and that everyone who is not white should leave the country — “peacefully or by force”
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Immigration
The number of deaths among illegal immigrants crossing the Arizona desert from Mexico is soaring so high this month that the medical examiner’s office that handles the bodies is using a refrigerated truck to store some of them, the chief examiner said Friday
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Border security
Environmental concerns and border security clash along the U.S.-Mexico border; the wild Sonoran Pronghorn numbers are down to about 80 in Arizona and they occupy less than 10 percent of their original range — but what is left of their range straddles the border; environmentalists and government stewards of the environment object to the erection of a fence or watch towers, saying they would drive the antelope-like creature to extinction
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Immigration
U.S. federal prosecutions of immigrants soared to new levels this spring; the 4,145 cases referred to federal prosecutors in March and April was the largest number for any two-month stretch in the last five years; the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has fallen — as of January 2009, an estimated 10.8 million people were in the country illegally, one million less than the 2007 — but deportations have been increasing, climbing from 185,944 in 2007 to 387,790 last year
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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.