Judge throws out lawsuit against LAPD rule on immigration queries
The slaying of Jamiel Shaw II put a spotlight on Special Order 40, which limits when officers can ask about immigration status. The jurist rules the order doesn’t conflict with federal or state law.
By Joel Rubin
Los Angeles Times

June 26, 2008

A judge Wednesday threw out a lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles resident who wanted to repeal a long-standing LAPD order that restricts when police officers may ask people about their immigration status.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu, granting a motion from the city and the American Civil Liberties Union, said Harold Sturgeon had failed to prove that Special Order 40 was in conflict with federal and state laws that dictate the flow of information between local and federal agencies regarding people’s immigration status.

Sturgeon sued the LAPD in 2006 in an effort to overturn the nearly 3-decade-old order, which prohibits officers from detaining someone solely for the purpose of determining whether he or she is in the country illegally. The order, implemented in 1979 by then-police Chief Daryl F. Gates, is aimed at encouraging illegal immigrants to assist police in cases by ensuring them that their cooperation will not put them at risk.

Sturgeon acknowledged he had no personal experience with the order, but instead brought the lawsuit as a city taxpayer, who argued that his taxes were being used to further an illegal endeavor.

“We’re very pleased,” said Hector Villagra, an ACLU director, after the ruling. For decades, “the Police Department has struck an important balance between public safety and the enforcement of federal immigration law. It has tried to maintain an equilibrium that would allow undocumented witnesses and victims of crime to feel confident that they can come to the police. . . . That balance has been upheld today.”

In court papers, Sturgeon’s lawyers called Special Order 40 “essentially a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy regarding illegal aliens.” They tried to persuade Treu that the LAPD policy unlawfully restricted officers’ ability to share information with federal immigration officials — a claim that city and ACLU attorneys rebutted.

The judge rejected the gambit, saying the order did not prohibit LAPD officers from communicating with federal authorities. Paul Orfanedes, an attorney for Judicial Watch, the group that argued the case for Sturgeon, said he was “disappointed” with the ruling but declined to say whether he expected his client to pursue an appeal.

Wednesday’s ruling had a particularly far-reaching effect because scores of police departments across the country have followed the LAPD in implementing similar policies.

Sturgeon is not the only one to have turned to the courts on the issue. Another lawsuit challenges Special Order 40 on the grounds that it violates an obscure state code that appears to require local police to report to federal authorities the names of illegal immigrants arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking or possession. That case is on hold until an appeals court rules whether the state code is constitutional, said attorney David Klehm, who drafted the litigation.

In recent months, there has been heightened political and public attention on Special Order 40. The policy came under intense scrutiny after the March killing of high school athlete Jamiel Shaw II. Shaw was allegedly gunned down by a reputed gang member who was in the country illegally. The suspect, Pedro Espinoza, had been released from jail the day before the slaying.

Opponents of the order, led by Shaw’s parents, seized on the slaying, saying the boy would not have been killed had police not been hamstrung by the LAPD’s policy. The claims were inaccurate because Espinoza had been arrested in another city and held in a county facility, but they nonetheless prompted a city councilman to call for an amendment to the order and sparked overwhelming public debate.

In delivering his decision, Treu was keenly aware of the intense feelings on both sides of the immigration debate and tried to preempt accusations that he was taking sides. In his ruling, Treu cautioned that it was not “the court’s function to consider the wisdom of the enactment of Special Order 40.” His decision, he said, “is rather a neutral exercise of legal interpretation.”

New Outreach to Blacks as Border Patrol Grows
RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD, New York Times
June 23, 2008

MEMPHIS — Nearly 1,500 miles from his post at the Mexican border, Cyril V. Atherton, a Border Patrol agent, embarked on one of his trickiest missions.

He was here recruiting young blacks to an agency few had ever heard of, trying to entice them to the hot, arid Southwest, where few blacks live, for a job that requires learning Spanish proficient enough to know if their lives are in danger while arresting as many as 100 people at a time.

Any questions?

“I’m just thinking about the snakes,” said Cassandra Holland, crinkling her nose after watching a promotional video filled with agents in adventurous exploits in the desert.

It was a measure of Mr. Atherton’s persuasion — “I can’t say you won’t see one, but you don’t have to hunt them out,” he said — that Ms. Holland filled out an application, joining several hundred others who have applied since the recruitment drive by the agency’s Minority Recruitment Strike Team began in January.

The team is part of a blitz by the Border Patrol to bring its ranks up to 18,000 agents by the end of the year.

With 16,200 agents, the Border Patrol is the largest federal law enforcement agency. But only about 1 percent of its agents are black, and the agency is moving aggressively to recruit members of a group that officials acknowledge have often been overlooked or been difficult to attract and keep because of the lack of blacks in the agency and in the border towns where they work.

The Border Patrol says it has no quota for recruiting blacks, but it says it wants their ranks to be more reflective of the civilian workforce, where they number 11 percent. Hispanics make up the bulk of the agents, 52 percent, a reflection of the agency’s concentration on the heavily Latino Southwestern border. All agents must serve in the Southwest before seeking posts elsewhere, like on the Canadian border.

Some in this economically hurting region seemed willing to look beyond the low numbers of black agents — 150 men, 8 women — in light of the fact that the Border Patrol is one of the few large law enforcement agencies that does not require a college degree or even a high school diploma and can offer pay of $70,000 after just a few years, factoring in overtime.

“It could be a way to get ahead in life,” said Marquees Hodges, 21, a college dropout and unemployed factory worker who filled out an application at a recruiting event here.

Despite its size and rapid growth, the Border Patrol — which began in 1924 with 450 agents, mostly on horseback — is unknown to many people, including in this region, where border issues, despite obsession over them in the Southwest and the halls of Washington, are only occasionally seen on the news.

“I have never heard of the Border Patrol and didn’t even know the border needed to be protected,” Stacey McGhee, a 19-year-old community college student, said while listening to a recruiting pitch by Michael E. Douglas, an assistant chief with the Border Patrol.

“I understand that,” replied Mr. Douglas, a native of Owensboro, Ky., and a 19-year veteran who heads the recruitment team.

All eight members of the team are black, and for the past few months they have been scouring the South for new agents. Traveling to high schools, colleges, churches, community centers, black-oriented radio shows — anywhere he hopes he will find an audience — Mr. Douglas offers a pitch that emphasizes a sense of duty to country.

Sometimes, he seems to be offering inspirational life lessons along with his pitch. Stay out of trouble, because a “felony on your record will close every door of opportunity for you,” he says. Fill up your life with acquaintances, “but make five friends, people you know and trust.” Hit the books and “pay attention and get it right.”

“If only one of you listens to me today, I have been successful,” Mr. Douglas said. “I would be ecstatic.”

Team members have been to Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and other states in the South.

Mr. Douglas, speaking to a group of young high school students, made no bones about the lack of black agents. When a young man let out a gasp at the mention of just eight black women in the ranks — “Did you say 8 percent or 8 women?” — Mr. Douglas smiled and nodded.

Reaching its goal of 18,000 agents would make the Border Patrol twice as large as it was in 2001 and meet a mandate set by President Bush.

To meet its target, and meet it quickly, the agency has tried endeavors like sponsoring a Nascar race car and entering a promotional alliance that makes it “the official federal law enforcement officers of the Professional Bull Riders.” The Border Patrol swarmed states with recruiters at events like the “Sunshine Blitz” last weekend in Florida, emphasizing its role in preventing terrorists from crossing and playing down the tedium and more routine arrests of thousands of illegal immigrants.

The Border Patrol union, as well as some members of Congress, have raised concerns about how well recruits are being screened — one was recently ejected from the training academy after being arrested in a gun smuggling case — and how well the new agents are being supervised.

T. J. Bonner, the head of the union, called the minority recruitment team and other tactics gimmicks that mask the problems with growth. He said that by the end of the year nearly half of the agents in the Border Patrol would have less than two years’ time on the job, and that many of those with fewer than five years on the force were leaving for other law enforcement jobs.

“It’s one thing to get to 18,000,” Mr. Bonner said. “It’s another to sustain it with quality people.”

Agency officials said the screening process and academy were rigorous and weed out undesirables. Though the agency does not require psychological testing, a panel of senior agents interviews all prospects to determine their readiness. For every 30 who apply, one gets in, a yield in line with other large law enforcement agencies.

To help keep its application numbers high, the agency in recent years raised the maximum age of recruits to under 40 from under 37 and now allows candidates fluent in Spanish to skip much of the language training at the academy. A fifth of the force’s members are military veterans, and the agency has recruited hard at bases, including overseas this year for the first time, at an installation in Germany.

Here in Memphis, the goal was not only to draw young prospects but also to raise public awareness of the agency and what it does. The recruitment team has generated more than 400 applicants since January, but, in part because it can take six months or more to complete written tests, background checks and other requirements, it is not yet clear how successful the effort has been.

Among the people, all of them black, drawn to a hotel conference room by the recruitment team were a single mother raising two children, a young woman itching for something more adventurous than processing insurance claims, a truck salesman finding business slow and a stream of unemployed people.

Mr. Douglas said he harbored no illusions that the team would solve the agency’s recruitment challenges. But he took solace in the effort to spark at least a little interest, as he did with Xavier Sullivan, 25, a car and truck salesman looking to get out of dead-end jobs in Memphis.

“It’s something different,” said Mr. Sullivan, who learned about the recruitment drive from a radio spot. “It’s a way to change, and it sounds like good benefits to provide for the family I want to have. And I do want to see how it is out there in the West.”

Based on a Politico story from June 10:
“… Becerra, who represents heavily Hispanic East Los Angeles, … said he’s hopeful that Obama’s personal story — as the son of an immigrant who struggled to fit in — will transcend racial boundaries and that the candidate’s positions on health care, education and immigration will lead to an instant connection with Hispanic voters.”

DAVID AYON (LMU) wrote:
“Is it relevant or nitpicking to point out that Obama is not really the “son of an immigrant”? His father was a foreign student who returned to his country after finishing his studies. Obama has a great personal story and wide-ranging experience, but I would not consider it part of the immigrant experience in a meaningful way.”

KARTHICK RAMAKRISHNAN (UCR):
Interesting question, David, and your concern seems to touch on
different conceptions on what constitutes an “immigrant”–either a
narrow legal definition (where temporary visas don’t count), or a more
subjective definition based on behavior.

On the latter, one can look at number of years in a country, but one may
also include home country ties, language skills, transnational political
interest, etc. If transnational engagement is a benchmark, that would
make Obama’s transnational interest in politics stronger than that of
your typical immigrant today, let alone a second-gen immigrant.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call Obama our first “immigrant” major-party
candidate, but he comes as close as anyone in recent memory to have a
foreign-born parent. Does anyone know if there is any POTUS from the
19th or 20th century with a foreign-born parent?

Obama could also be the first one with a significant emigre experience,
although perhaps there are those from military families who have spent
more years abroad.

RODOLFO ESPINO (ASU):
Perhaps, it is nitpicking on my part to point out the “immigrant experience” is very much shaped by place and time. I have not read the N biographies written about Obama to know enough about his upbringing. Was he raised as the son of an immigrant or not? But to essentialize the immigrant experience in the way that defines it by Obama’s father is something that can be very problematic.

What defines the immigrant experience? Is it defined as not having a foreign-born parent enrolled in college and/or not having a foreign-born parent who returns to their home country?

Many people migrate to the United States with the intention of eventually returning. Some return within several years. Some return within several decades. Some never return. Is it only the children of that latter category the ones we would consider to be the sons and daughters of immigrants?

Many people migrate to the United States for differing reasons. Some come to receive an education. Some come to program software. Some come to be with family members. Some come to harvest our fruits and vegetables. Is it only the children of that latter category the ones we would consider to be the sons and daughters of immigrants?

That said, I think you would have reason to nitpick if McCain starts being referred to as a 1st generation Panamanian immigrant.

OTHERS WEIGHED IN WITH OTHER CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL EXAMPLES:
Jeronimo Cortina (UH): Two recent examples of a 2nd generation politician and of an “immigrant” politician: Romney’s father was born in Chihuahua and McCain in Panama. I know that at that time the Canal was under US jurisdiction, however if you apply a pure legalistic interpretation of the law you could make an argument that McCain was not born in US soil.

Louis DeSipio (UCI):
No guarantee that this is a complete list — Woodrow Wilson’s and Thomas Jefferson’s mothers were born in England and Andrew Jackson’s mother was born in Ireland.

Chris Garcia (UNM):
Herbert Hoover’s mother Hulda Hoover, was born in Ontario, Canada. Both of Andrew Jackson’s parents were born in Ireland. The mothers of Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson were English-born. James Buchanan and Chester A. Arthur had Irish-born parents.

June 9, 2008
States Take New Tack on Illegal Immigration
By DAMIEN CAVE, New York Times

MILTON, Fla. — Three months after the local police inspected more than a dozen businesses searching for illegal immigrants using stolen Social Security numbers, this community in the Florida Panhandle has become more law-abiding, emptier and whiter.

Many of the Hispanic immigrants who came in 2004 to help rebuild after Hurricane Ivan have either fled or gone into hiding. Churches with services in Spanish are half-empty. Businesses are struggling to find workers. And for Hispanic citizens with roots here — the foremen and entrepreneurs who received visits from the police — the losses are especially profound.

“It was very hard because the community is very small, and to see people who came to eat here all the time then come and close the business,” said Geronimo Barragan, who owns two branches of La Hacienda, Mexican restaurants where the police arrested 10 employees.

“I don’t blame them,” Mr. Barragan added. “It’s just that it hurts.”

Sheriff Wendell Hall of Santa Rosa County, who led the effort, said the arrests were for violations of state identity theft laws. But he also seemed proud to have found a way around rules allowing only the federal government to enforce immigration laws. In his office, the sheriff displayed a framed editorial cartoon that showed Daniel Boone admiring his arrest of at least 27 illegal workers.

His approach is increasingly common. Last month, 260 illegal immigrants in Iowa were sentenced to five months in prison for violations of federal identity theft laws.

At the same time, in the last year, local police departments from coast to coast have rounded up hundreds of immigrants for nonviolent, often minor, crimes, like fishing without a license in Georgia, with the end result being deportation.

In some cases, the police received training and a measure of jurisdiction from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under a program that lets officers investigate and detain people they suspect to be illegal immigrants.

But with local demand for tougher immigration enforcement growing, 95 departments are waiting to join the 47 in the program. And in a number of places, including Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, police officers or entire departments are choosing to tackle the issue on their own.

State lawmakers, in response to Congressional inaction on immigration law, are giving local authorities a wider berth. In 2007, 1,562 bills related to illegal immigration were introduced nationwide and 240 were enacted in 46 states, triple the number that passed in 2006, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A new law in Mississippi makes it a felony for an illegal immigrant to hold a job. In Oklahoma, sheltering or transporting illegal immigrants is also a felony.

It remains unclear how the new laws will be enforced. Yet at the very least, say both advocates and critics, they are likely to lead to more of what occurred here: more local police officers demanding immigrants’ documents; more arrests for identity theft; more accusations of racial profiling; and more movement of immigrants, with some fleeing and others being sent to jail.

“It is a way to address illegal immigration without calling it that,” said Jessica Vaughan, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports intensified local enforcement. She added, “They don’t just have to sit and wait for Washington.”

Community Complaints

Police officers here in a handful of Gulf Coast counties from Pensacola to Tallahassee said they started hearing complaints about illegal immigrants last year. With the national debate raging and the local economy sagging, many residents began to question whether illegal immigrants were taking Americans’ jobs.

It did not show up in statistics — the unemployment rate in Santa Rosa County was 3.6 percent in 2007, below state and national averages — so the arguments focused in part on unfair competition.

Donna Tucker, executive director of the Santa Rosa County Chamber of Commerce, said illegal immigration “creates havoc within the system” because businesses that used illegal labor often did not pay into workers’ compensation funds and paid workers less.

“Those businesses can survive a lot longer than the ones that are trying to do things right,” Ms. Tucker said.

Some of the frustrations also veered into prejudice.

George S. Collins, an inspector in charge of the illegal trafficking task force in Okaloosa County, said many people wanted to know “why we weren’t going to Wal-Mart and rounding up the Mexicans” — a comment Mr. Collins said was racist and offensive.

Usually though, the complaints were cultural and legal.

Interviews with more than 25 residents and police officers suggest that the views of Harry T. Buckles, 68, a retired Navy corpsman, are common. Outside his home in Gulf Breeze, Mr. Buckles said the main problem with today’s Hispanic immigrants was that they did not assimilate.

Even after hundreds flowed in to rebuild Santa Rosa County, Mr. Buckles said: “They didn’t become part of the community. They didn’t speak the language.”

Echoing the comments of others, he said he became irritated when he heard Spanish at the Winn-Dixie and saw a line of immigrants sending money home at the Western Union. Mr. Buckles said he feared his community would lose its character and become like Miami, with its foreign-born majority and common use of Spanish.

“We see things nationwide and we know that we could be overwhelmed,” he said.

In fact, only about 3 percent of the population of Santa Rosa County is Hispanic, according to census figures compiled in 2006. As a proportion of its population, the Hispanic community here is less than half the size of what is in Omaha or Des Moines — mostly white cities where the Hispanic population is still below the national average.

Santa Rosa is hardly the only place to use a tough approach against a small immigrant population. In Mississippi, where strict laws on false documentation recently passed, only about 1.7 percent of the state’s 2.9 million people were born abroad and more than half of them are in the United States legally, according to estimates from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors tightening restrictions on immigration.

But here, the result is a divide often marked by a lack of in-depth interaction.

On one side are longtime residents like Sheriff Hall, who said immigrant laborers were not involved in fixing his office or home after the hurricanes, and Mr. Buckles, who said his relationship with Hispanics was based mainly on seeing them at stores or construction sites.

On the other side are a smaller number of immigrants and employers who use immigrant labor.

Some of the immigrants are newly arrived, sticking mostly to themselves. But the group also includes Antonio Tejeda, 38, a roofer and naturalized American citizen from Mexico who wears an N.F.L. jersey to church and speaks English with a slight drawl; and Ruben Barragan, 19, one of the workers arrested in one of the La Hacienda restaurant raids who, though illegal, spoke English and called his infant son Eric because he wanted him to have an American name.

When told about such men, Mr. Buckles said perhaps the government could find ways to create exceptions. But he was not convinced they deserved to stay.

“They got here illegally,” Mr. Buckles said. “They broke the law as soon as they came.”

The Raids

The half-dozen officers involved in the Santa Rosa operations did not announce their arrival. They detained 13 workers at Panhandle Growers. At the two branches of La Hacienda the police quietly detained 10 workers without resistance. And at Emerald Coast Interiors, a boat-cushion factory, the police arrested a handful more.

Sheriff Hall said that his department received tips that led him to all the locations he visited and that he was responding to a steep rise in complaints about illegal immigration. He said he had been frustrated a year ago by a lack of response from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And this time, customs officials said, he did not contact the agency for input before forming a multicounty task force that led to the February operation.

Sheriff Hall said his men were focused on identity theft and did not need special training because “it’s the same thing we do every day.” He insisted that the officers treated everyone fairly. Unlike Bay County officers, who surrounded construction sites last year and arrested immigrants who ran, “we didn’t chase anyone,” he said.

And at many locations witnesses said the police treated all workers equally.

Managers at the restaurants Okki, El Rodeo, China Sea and La Hacienda said police officers checked all employees’ documents, regardless of their ethnicity.

But other business owners, employees and residents said the police focused disproportionately on Hispanics or the foreign born and seemed determined to scare immigrants out of the area. In many cases, employers said, the officers did not even mention identity theft, narrowing their scope to immigrants.

“They were targeting all the places with Hispanic workers,” said Elvin Garcia, 26, a waiter at El Rodeo.

At Red Barn Barbecue, witnesses said that skin color clearly influenced police procedure. When several officers visited and saw no one who was Hispanic in the kitchen, they moved on. “We offered to give them records, and they said, ‘No, it’s not necessary,’ ” said Randy Brochu, whose family owns the business.

Meanwhile, at Emerald Coast Interiors, three employees — one black, one white, one Hispanic — independently said the police did, in fact, chase a handful of Hispanic employees who ran. Three women, they said, were caught in a ditch behind the main building.

Luis Ramirez, the plant’s operations manager, said the officers asked to see documentation only for the workers who fled. “It was racial profiling,” Mr. Ramirez said.

His company has not filed a lawsuit, so his accusations have not been tested. But Florida courts have repeatedly held that flight alone is not enough to justify a suspicion of criminal activity or arrest. In Bay County, officials said they tried to avoid chasing people now because prosecutors have warned that it undermines their cases.

Even without a chase, immigrant advocates say that local efforts to track down illegal immigrants undermine community safety by scaring immigrants from reporting violent crimes.

“It’s a dangerous route to take,” said David Urias, a staff lawyer with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, which sued Otero County in New Mexico this year after the police raided Hispanics’ homes for minor violations like an unleashed dog. “What you’re going to see,” Mr. Urias said, “is more people pushed into the shadows.”

The Aftermath

Indeed, three months after the sweeps, nearly everyone agrees that the fabric of this community has changed. Hundreds of Hispanic families, both legal and illegal, seem to have disappeared.

John Davy, a co-owner of Panhandle Growers, said some employers “treated their guys humanely” by helping them flee to other areas. “What we’re victims of is a system that’s broken,” he said.

Many residents said they felt torn between competing loyalties to compassion and the law.

“On one hand, I’m sitting here thinking when Ivan was here, you could not get enough people to do the thing that needed to get done,” said Mrs. Tucker at the Chamber of Commerce. “And these illegal aliens, people welcomed them with open arms because they were working hard, they were helping our community. But from a chamber standpoint, you’re operating on the side of the law. It’s a hard thing.”

In the immigrant community, fears now cloud the most basic routines. Many Hispanics said they avoided being seen or heard speaking Spanish in Wal-Mart, even if they live here legally. Others detailed their habit of meticulously checking their cars’ headlights, blinkers and registration to avoid being pulled over.

The message many Hispanics have taken from the raids is simple. “We’re Mexican — they don’t want us here,” said Erika Barragan, 20, whose husband, Ruben, came here illegally roughly six years ago and was one of 23 people scheduled to be deported after the February raids. She said she would go back to Mexico this summer.

Her husband’s employers, Geronimo Barragan (no relation) and his wife, Guilla, are trying to remain positive.

They are citizens and parents of four American-born children, ages 2 to 16. They have lived in Santa Rosa County for more than a decade, founding a Baptist church here and working 16-hour days, six days a week to build two restaurants known for their affordable food and Christian atmosphere, which extends to a ban on alcohol.

They said the raids came as a shock.

“We love the community, and we always tried to do our best,” Mr. Barragan said.

Mrs. Barragan put it more bluntly. “This,” she said, “is like our promised land.”

The Barragans said they did not know their workers were illegal because they provided Social Security numbers and other information that was required. Like most employers, they asked for nothing more.

They have not publicly opposed the sheriff’s actions, and in their effort to move on, they have distanced themselves from his critics. Mr. Barragan even visited Sheriff Hall at his office to tell him he had no hard feelings and would do everything he could to comply in the future.

And yet, the cost has been significant. Both of the restaurants were closed for more than two months. Only one has recently reopened.

Unable to find people in the area who can cook Mexican food, Mr. Barragan, 41, has been scouring the nation, recruiting in Houston, Chicago and Baton Rouge. He has yet to find all the workers he needs, relying on a handful of new hires with work visas that expire in November. He said he wished that Congress could find a way to bring more foreign workers to America legally.

For Mrs. Barragan, 39, a warm, thin woman with hair to her waist, the consequences have been more personal. On a recent Wednesday night, her church’s prayer service was half-empty. Many of her friends have left. And many of the employees that her family mentored in the ways of America are gone, taken away by the police.

“That’s what had the most effect on our lives,” Mrs. Barragan said, speaking in Spanish so she could be more specific. “Not closing La Hacienda, or ‘we’re not going to make money,’ or ‘how are we going to pay our bills?’ I personally didn’t think about that. It hurt me more to see them there — handcuffed. The way they went out.”

Her husband agreed, explaining between bouts of tears that some of the deported workers’ families had become victims of more violent crime. “One of them has a small daughter and someone robbed their house while he was in jail,” Mr. Barragan said. “Twice.”

June 10, 2008
BORDER CROSSINGS
Spain, Like U.S., Grapples With Immigration

JASON DePARLE, New York Times

MADRID — With the United States riven by calls to legalize millions of illegal immigrants, Americans might consider the possible effects by looking at southern Europe, where illegal immigration has abounded and so have forgiveness plans.

Link to story

Latinos outraged over CBS report
Gebe Martinez
April 30, 2008 05:46 AM EST
Politico.com

As if Katie Couric didn’t already have enough problems.

Weighed down by record-low ratings at the anchor desk of “CBS Evening News,” and by reports suggesting she will leave that post two years before her multimillion-dollar contract expires, Couric now has civil rights groups — mostly Hispanic — on her back.

And for good reason.

The CBS newscast that carries her name recently aired a one-sided and inaccurate report about illegal immigrant women who give birth to their children in the United States. The news story challenged the broader constitutional law of birthright citizenship and stated — without providing the correct context — that the births cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars annually.

The story’s central figure was a woman identified as an illegal immigrant, who was lying in her South Texas hospital bed — her right arm wrapped around her newborn and her left hand punctured by an intravenous needle — while reporter Byron Pitts lectured her that “many Americans who struggle to take care of their own families think it is unfair that they should have to take care” of non-U.S. citizens.

Immigrant advocates found the report so crass, and so far below the network’s journalistic standards set by legends Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, that they accused Couric of sinking to the depths of Lou Dobbs, the CNN broadcaster and contributor to CBS’s “The Early Show” who has inflamed national anti-immigrant sentiment. One Hispanic group posted on its website a photo of Couric that morphs into Dobbs.

“Anti-Latino falsehoods deserve no time on our public airwaves,” stated a letter to CBS by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Council of La Raza. The groups and others have asked to meet with CBS “to help raise the dialogue and provide the American public an honest and accurate analysis of this nation’s broken immigration system.” And in a separate letter to CBS, the Asian American Justice Center lodged a similar complaint against the entire four-part series that included the report.

CBS has not responded to the civil rights groups’ request for a meeting. “We appreciate the passionate and articulate feedback on our series. We will continue to do our best to listen to the many voices engaged in immigration issues, to produce fair and accurate stories and to bring national attention to this complicated topic,” CBS said in a statement.

The Latino-led action against CBS comes at a critical time. The rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric, hate crimes against Latinos and election-year political pandering on immigration has caused Hispanic leaders to forcefully push back against the scapegoating that touches immigrants and various generations of Latinos.

NCLR, MALDEF and the National Hispanic Media Coalition now have websites aimed at correcting “inaccuracies” in the media. The CBS broadcast is serving as the latest example of unbalanced reporting.

In its written complaint to CBS, MALDEF cited a Texas comptroller’s study noting economic benefits due to the presence of undocumented immigrants. MALDEF also maintained the CBS report exposes the woman “and implicitly leads her to believe that she is protected from deportation.” And it portrayed birthright citizenship as “an unfair benefit to immigrants rather than a core principle” of constitutional law.
One gaping hole in the news story involved a hospital administrator’s statement that the facility has “uncompensated care of over $200 million a year,” which the reporter tied to emergency room care for non-citizens. But how is that known if the hospital does not verify citizenship or legal vs. illegal immigration status?
Civil rights leaders also contended Couric’s broadcast was inconsistent, not just because of her brand as “America’s sweetheart” but also because, in June, she is to receive the 2008 Alice Award, named for Alice Stokes Paul, the women’s suffrage leader and author of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Despite objections to Couric’s broadcast, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joe Baca (D-Calif.) plans to attend the civil rights event honoring Couric. Baca has gathered 399 co-sponsors to his bill to posthumously award Paul the Congressional Gold Medal.

“Right now, I believe that a chance to dialogue with Ms. Couric and the CBS News brain trust may be the most appropriate course of action. They need to be informed that their story was not only offensive to Hispanics but also misleading in its portrayal of immigrants as a drain on society,” Baca said.
The Latinos’ battle for respect is being waged on multiple fronts.

The Hispanic Caucus recently lashed out at Democratic Party leaders for staging House hearings — beginning next week in the Ways and Means Committee — on bills that would enforce the border, sanction employers or extend visas for seasonal workers.

The leadership is refusing to consider broader reforms such as legalizing the 12 million illegal immigrants in the country out of fear it would jeopardize moderate Democrats in swing districts. Though Republicans have failed so far to make immigration a wedge issue in their presidential primaries and recent special elections, Democrats are using the hearings to stall conservatives’ border enforcement bills.
Hispanic Caucus members faulted Democratic leaders for considering only measures that would benefit special interests, such as those needing seasonal worker visas for the summer, or high-tech industries that hire highly skilled employees.

Democratic leaders are “spineless” for not debating comprehensive immigration reform, said Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.).

Top Democrats “want to have, on one side, the support of Hispanics. But on the other hand, they don’t want to spend one cent of political capital” to look out for them, added Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.).
In the media, the Lou Dobbses of the world “say that we bring disease and crime to our country,” NCLR President Janet Murguia said recently. So when CBS aired its report, Murguia wondered, “Is no one above exploiting this issue?”

And if CBS is playing to immigration hawks to boost its sagging ratings, the network risks being tuned out by the expanding Latino community. Advertisers know that by 2011, Hispanic buying power will total $1.2 trillion, almost 10 percent of all U.S. purchasing power.

“We are not going to be the victims of anti-immigrant reporting, and we are not going to sit by as the community is demonized,” said Peter Zamora, a MALDEF attorney.

That is the message Latinos are delivering to CBS, with the expectation that balanced reporting on Hispanics and immigrants will be the standard long after Couric’s name is removed from the evening newscast.

Gebe Martinez is a longtime journalist in Washington and a frequent lecturer and commentator on the policy and politics of Capitol Hill.

Napolitano has just vetoed a bill mandating local police to check immigration status:

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/236453.php

Her explanation: this is an unfunded mandate that the state of Arizona cannot afford during tough economic times. Keep in mind this is the same governor that, a couple years ago, declared a state of emergency on Arizona’s border counties (just on the heels of Gov. Richardson doing the same in NM) in order to release federal monies to pay for the overtime of local sheriff’s offices to deal with the influx of immigrants in those counties. Nothing inconsistent here: her veto message today stated that this issue is a federal issue and the federal government has not provided enough funds to support this bill.

Tough issue for the governor to face in Arizona. And tough issue for the voters, too.

In a poll conducted by ASU last fall, the overwhelming majority of Arizona respondents viewed undocumented immigration as a serious or very serious problem. However, when asked if they would be willing to pay more for goods and services to keep those individuals out, 43.78 percent of Arizonans indicated they would be willing to do so, whereas 48.68 percent indicated they would NOT be willing to do so.

This is a key point that has been lost in the discourse among politicians and journalists on this issue, as of late. The framing of immigration is presented such that immigrants to the US are viewed as depressing wages for other workers. Evidence is mixed on this. I am sure with the tough economic times that still lie ahead, we will see more of this argument. However, let’s accept, for a moment, that immigrants do work for less wages and benefits. This would then make the cost of those goods/services cheaper to consumers. If not, then the companies (owners/shareholders in those companies) are making more of a profit. This is a perfect opportunity for any of the candidates to draw more attention to the benefits derived from importing labor as opposed to exporting it. No such luck.

The point is that the American public will tend to be told to view immigration as a problem that costs them; but not enough of a problem to actually want to pay more to fix it. Recently, I had to field a question from the general public about that particular survey question. The individual called me biased and stupid for the question wording and then called the respondents just as biased and stupid for responding the way they did. I guess facts produced by simple cross-tabs can be hard for some individuals to digest causing them to kill both the message and the messenger.

No doubt, Napolitano will soon have her share of sticks and stones to dodge.

Globalized electorates create multiple voting opportunities
Canadians can belong to – and vote in – more than one national group at the same time
Mark Hayward
The Toronto Star
April 18, 2008

The Italian elections this past week saw Silvio Berlusconi elected prime minister for the third time. For the most part, the results will be treated as a minor footnote to the way that other countries carry out the business of democracy. But the Italian elections deserve a second look because they ask some important questions for us here at home.

At the heart of the issue is the fact that Canadian residents who hold Italian passports (some of whom are Canadian citizens as well) were allowed to vote in the election. They gained this right in 2001 and exercised it for the first time in 2006.

The right to vote for citizens who reside outside of a country is not usually seen to be controversial. A recent survey on the subject carried out by researchers at the University of Sussex shows that extraterritorial voting rights are a widespread phenomenon with more than 100 countries granting some form of electoral rights to citizens residing outside the country. Canada allows citizens residing outside the country to cast mail-in ballots, which are tabulated as part of the votes in the riding they normally or had most recently lived in.

However, when the Italian elections were called in February, the Canadian government did not immediately grant permission for Italian citizens living in Canada to participate in the election. And when Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier finally did issue a statement on the subject, the Canadian government’s reaction was less than positive.

Bernier declared that Italians residing in Canada would be allowed to vote in the election but made clear that the Canadian government was placing “strict conditions” on the campaign. The decision to allow voting to be conducted in Canada was granted on a “one-time conditional basis.”

The cause of these concerns is the nature of the Italian electoral system. Unlike Canadian electoral law regarding non-resident Canadians, Italians living abroad are directly represented by members of parliament who represent “virtual” electoral districts that span the globe outside of Italy. Furthermore, individuals who permanently reside outside of Italy are allowed to run for office. So, during the past two months, campaigns were conducted across Canada to elect members of the Italian parliament.

There are only 13 other countries that have a similar system of direct representation for citizens abroad. The list includes Portugal, Algeria, Morocco and Colombia. These countries have all experienced mass emigration over the past 40 years. But the idea of allowing citizens who reside outside a country to have direct political representation is a relatively new one. Most legislation on the subject has been introduced in the past 10 years.

The viability of a global electorate lies with the possibility for instantaneous communication through satellite television and the Internet. Emigration no longer means isolation due to distance.

But as electoral legislation evolves to accommodate a population spread around the world, it must also be placed in the context of a greater openness to cultural diversity that has accompanied the international diffusion of multiculturalism.

The possibility that permanent residents in Canada can vote for, and be represented in, another national parliament suggests it is possible to belong to more than one national community both culturally and politically at the same time, often in the same place. Such developments are part of the new political geography of the 21st century.

The government’s cautious response to the Italian election, a concern that extends to many forms of political organizing in ethnic communities, is an attempt to address fears that such activities might politicize ethnic communities in ways that will have negative effects on Canadian society at large. Things might get out of control and the political unrest of another nation might explode onto the streets of southern Ontario.

However, the political activities of all communities are not monitored in the same way. At more or less the same time that the Italian campaign was taking place, members of the U.S. Democratic party were campaigning as part of the party’s “global primary.” The primary passed with little fuss and certainly no official statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs about the conduct of participants. Are Americans and Italians really that different?

The ambiguities of the government’s position toward the political side of multiculturalism seem more than accidental. A piecemeal approach to the issue provides cover should the government wish to reject future applications for elections or votes. However, it should also be noted that such an approach keeps decisions on such questions in the hands of ministers where they can be shaped to suit the political concerns of the day.

This is no way to confront the changing nature of Canada and the world. Like debates about the place of religious law and the meaning of dual citizenship in Canadian society, the globalization of elections reminds us that received ideas about multiculturalism in Canada are starting to fray.

The solution is not as simple as calling for a stronger Canadian identity to bring us all together in spite of differences. Nor is it the reduction of Canada to a merely administrative presence in the lives of its citizens.

Sure we can keep patching things up at the edges, but isn’t it time for a public debate about the meaning of cultural diversity and multiculturalism in this country for the 21st century?

Pope Speaks Up for Immigrants, Touching a Nerve
April 20, 2008
DANIEL J. WAKIN and JULIA PRESTON, New York Times

Even as he was flying to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of protecting immigrant families, not dividing them.

He raised the issue again in a meeting on Wednesday with President Bush, and later that day spoke in Spanish to the church’s “many immigrant children.” And when he ends his visit to New York on Sunday, he will be sent off by a throng of the faithful, showing off the ethnic diversity of American Catholicism.

The choreography underscores the importance to the church here of its growing diversity — especially its increasing Hispanic membership.

Of the nation’s 65 million Roman Catholics, 18 million are Latino, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and they account for more than two-thirds of the new Catholics in the country since 1960.

Millions of other recent arrivals come from Asia and Africa. More and more parishes depend on priests brought from abroad to serve the flock.

Benedict has calibrated his immigration stance with care, stating the need to protect family unity and immigrants’ human rights, but pointedly avoiding any specifics of the American immigration debate, like the issue of whether to grant legal status to illegal immigrants. Yet last week his visit quickly stirred the crosscurrents of the debate.

His comments drew a rebuke from Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado who has been a leading opponent of illegal immigration.

Accusing the pope of “faith-based marketing,” Mr. Tancredo said Benedict’s comments welcoming immigrants “may have less to do with spreading the Gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the Church.” Mr. Tancredo, a former Catholic who now attends an evangelical Christian church, said it was not in the pope’s “job description to engage in American politics.”

On the other side of the issue, some members of the Catholic hierarchy said they were shocked that on the same day that Benedict and President Bush affirmed in a joint statement the need for a policy that treats immigrants humanely and protects their families, federal agents were conducting raids at five chicken plants. They arrested more than 300 immigrants accused of being illegal workers.

The timing was coincidental, immigration officials said, and it was not clear whether the pope had known about the arrests when he met with Mr. Bush.

But the raids surprised some American Catholic leaders, who are often on the forefront of advocacy for immigrant rights.

“I was stunned,” said Cardinal Roger Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest Roman Catholic diocese and one with many Hispanics. “I just feel these raids are totally negative. I thought it was very inappropriate to do it in such a blatant way when the pope was coming, when he has been so outspoken in defending the rights of immigrants.”

The American bishops have been consistently outspoken in favor of legislation to give legal status to illegal immigrants and expand legal avenues for immigrants to bring their family members from abroad.

They and other Catholic activists were among the most visible supporters of a broad bill, supported by Mr. Bush but not enacted by Congress last year, which included a path to legal status for 12 million illegal immigrants.

They took Benedict’s statements last week as affirmation of their work. For while the immigration theme has been overshadowed during Benedict’s trip by his denunciations of the sexual abuse scandal in the church, it was the second issue after the abuse cases that he addressed on the plane from Rome, when he responded to reporters’ questions that were submitted in advance and picked by the Vatican.

The separation of families “is truly dangerous for the social, moral and human fabric” of Latin and Central American families, the pope told reporters aboard his plane. “The fundamental solution is that there should no longer be a need to emigrate, that there are enough jobs in the homeland, a sufficient social fabric,” he said. Short of that, families should be protected, not destroyed, he said. “As much as it can be done it should be done,” the pontiff said.

The pope did not just send a message to the president and the public, he spoke to the bishops. In his private meeting with them on Wednesday evening, he emphasized that recent newcomers to the United States are “people of faith, and we are here to welcome them,” Cardinal Mahony said.

The pope also dwelled on the negative impact of family separation. Several bishops took that as a direct reference to the impact of previous immigration raids and deportations, in which illegal immigrant parents were separated from spouses and children who were United States citizens or legal immigrants.

“Obviously the Holy Father is not encouraging people to do anything illegal,” Cardinal Mahony said. But the raids “do not serve as a deterrent,” he said, adding, “They simply create fear and uncertainty in our communities.”

Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City said the pope was “not going to get into the specific points that our country has to hash out.” Bishop Wester, who is chairman of the Committee on Migration of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the pontiff had told the bishops “very clearly that we need to attend to the basic human rights immigrants have.”

Bishop Wester also criticized the immigration raids, which took place at plants in five states belonging to Pilgrim’s Pride, a major poultry processing company. Immigration officials said they did not consider the pope’s visit when planning the operations, which they said came after a yearlong investigation.

But Bishop Wester said: “It did strike me as inappropriate. The pope comes as a man of peace, a man of good will, the leader of a major religion. Many of the persons arrested were Catholic.”

As recently as mid-March, he said, his committee met with Julie L. Myers, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that carried out the raids. The bishops asked Ms. Myers not to conduct raids in churches and to ensure legal representation for immigrants, Bishop Wester said.

The pope returned to the theme several times over the course of his visit, which ends Sunday. About 4,000 church members from the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens, will hold a prayer service in 29 languages at Kennedy Airport. About half will be immigrants, said Msgr. Ronald T. Marino, the Brooklyn Diocese’s vicar for migration. Many will wear the costumes of their homelands. The pope will not attend, but the crowd will bid him farewell.

“Not a word has to be spoken,” the monsignor said. “What you will see says it all.”

In Washington, Benedict encouraged the American bishops and their communities “to continue to welcome immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home.” That, he said, was the American tradition. And in a meeting with Catholic educators, he emphasized the importance of keeping Catholic schools open, especially to serve immigrants and the underprivileged.

Catholic leaders say such words have bolstered their work, yet the pope’s emphasis is no surprise in a country where much of the church’s growth and vitality comes from the influx of immigrant Catholics.

Following the polyglot practice of his predecessor, John Paul II, Benedict used Spanish to directly address the Latino portion of his flock during the homily at his Mass at Nationals Park in Washington on Thursday.

The Church has grown thanks to their vitality, he said, and God calls on them to keep contributing.

Priests and bishops who lobby elected officials and minister directly to immigrants can be more explicit.

Monsignor Marino, for example, who also heads the Brooklyn Diocese’s Catholic Migration Office, said, “In my judgment, immigrants are heroes.”

He applauded the pope’s words. “The simple pointing to it as one of his priorities, something coming out of his mouth, is real important,” Monsignor Marino said. “For him to say one sentence means he knows the rest.”

Thomas G. Wenski, the bishop of Orlando, Fla., and a former head of the bishops’ Migration Committee who remains a consultant to it, said he hoped the pope’s visit would have a practical effect.

“The pope’s visit will unleash some good will here so that Congress might live up to its responsibility and deal with the issue,” Bishop Wenski said.

In a letter in December, Cardinal Mahony chastised all the presidential candidates for campaigns that he said had “inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment in the country.” Since then the three remaining candidates, Senators John McCain of Arizona, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have lowered the volume on the immigration issue.

Secular advocates for immigrants also welcomed the pope’s words. “That’s big news,” said Teresa Gutierrez, a coordinator for the May 1st Coalition for Immigrant and Workers Rights. “Any decent comment about the reality of what’s really happening to immigration in the United States coming from such a prestigious person as the pope is extremely helpful.”

Zine wants to amend LAPD policy on immigrants
By Richard Winton,, Andrew Blankstein and David Zahniser
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
April 11, 2008

LAPD officers would be required to report gang members found to be illegal immigrants to federal authorities under a proposal to be introduced in the Los Angeles City Council today. The proposal, by Councilman Dennis Zine, a former LAPD officer, would result in a closer relationship between the department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and is likely to generate controversy.

The plan comes amid a new debate over Special Order 40, a Los Angeles Police Department rule that defines when officers can inquire about the immigration status of suspects. The 29-year-old rule is a cornerstone of the department’s policy toward immigrants and is designed to encourage illegal residents who are victims of crimes or witnesses to cooperate with police without fear of deportation.

Zine described his plan as a modification to Special Order 40 that would formalize how police deal with illegal immigrant gang members. Under the proposal, LAPD officers who are investigating gang members who they believe are illegal immigrants would be required to check on their immigration status — even if the suspects are not under arrest.

If the gang member is found to be in the country illegally, officers would be required to notify immigration authorities. Zine said the hope was that federal officials would take the gang members into custody.

“If an officer stops an individual . . . who is determined to be a gang member, and it’s determined they are also illegally here, then the department should notify immigration,” Zine said. “It directs the resources against the gangs. Immigration needs to use its resources to go after gangs.”

Zine’s proposal would not overturn Special Order 40, which states that “officers shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person.” But Zine’s amendment would be more specific as to how officers can inquire into the immigration status of suspected gang members.

LAPD Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz said such actions were not directly prohibited by Special Order 40. Some officers already check the immigration status of gang members they detain — but others don’t because they believe it’s not permitted under department rules.

Diaz said the new rules would spell out how officers deal with such cases.

“Special Order 40 prohibits only two things. It prohibits our officers from arresting individuals for illegally entering the country, which is a federal misdemeanor,” Diaz said. “It also does not allow our officers to initiate an investigation solely for the purpose of discovering a person’s immigration status.”

He added that Special Order 40 was often mischaracterized and that the LAPD was considering further clarifying to the public and its officers what is allowed.

Special Order 40 has long been controversial.

Two anti-illegal immigration groups have filed suit against the department, saying the rule violates federal and state law.

This week, the family of an L.A. High School football star, who was allegedly slain by a gang member here illegally, appealed to the City Council to amend Special Order 40.

Jamiel Shaw and his wife, Anita, a U.S. Army sergeant who has been serving in Iraq, proposed that the LAPD policy be changed so officers would routinely check the immigration status of known gang members who are crime suspects, which he said would make it easier to immediately deport them.

Jamiel Shaw Jr., who was killed March 2, was on his way home when he was fatally shot by a suspect who was later identified as Pedro Espinoza. Prosecutors allege that Espinoza killed Shaw hours after being released from jail on weapons charges.

When he was arrested in that case in Culver City, police said he told officers that he was a U.S. citizen.

But after Shaw’s slaying, immigration officials determined he had been born in Mexico and had crossed the border illegally with his family at age 4.

Several City Council members expressed skepticism at the Shaws’ proposal.

And on Thursday, there was little immediate comment about Zine’s plan. Several council members said they had not had time to review it.

Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a former police chief, said officers can already do some of the things that Zine is proposing, particularly if they come across a suspect they know was recently arrested and deported.

“If you’re [an officer] driving down the street, and you see someone and say, ‘Let’s stop them to see if they’re here illegally’ — Special Order 40 says you can’t do that,” Parks said. “But if you see someone and say there’s so-and-so, he’s foreign-born, and he was sent out of this country and he’s back, and he shouldn’t be, you can stop him.”

Parks warned that officers should look into a person’s immigration status only after they suspect that that person has committed a crime.

In recent years, Southern California jail systems have teamed up with immigration authorities to better screen illegal immigrants under detention.

L.A. County sheriff’s deputies now check the immigration status of all inmates once their cases have been completed.

Under this system, authorities have identified 20,000 illegal immigrants in Southern California jails between December 2006 and January 2008.

Some immigration-rights activists said they would oppose any effort by the LAPD to inquire about a person’s immigration status before an arrest is made.

Zine’s proposal, if passed, would mean “the end of Special Order 40,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesman for the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, an immigrant advocacy group.

“We believe . . . that getting away from the protection that Special Order 40 provides to most members of the community . . . is not the answer,” Cabrera said.