Immigration debate begins in Senate
By Suzanne Gamboa
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The seemingly impossible task of finding a way to tighten borders against illegal immigrants while maintaining a flow of low-wage workers for U.S. businesses gets under way in Congress, pitting two Republican bases against each other.

The House managed to pass a border security bill last year - pleasing conservatives clamoring for an immigration crackdown. But that came only after House leaders beat back an attempt by some GOP members to include President Bush's proposal for a temporary worker program.

In contrast, the Senate is wading right into the thorny guest worker issue.

Debate was starting Thursday with the Senate Judiciary Committee taking up an immigration reform bill drafted by the committee's chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

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Report finds U.S. bad for Hispanics' health
Randolph E. Schmid
Associated Press WASHINGTON - Millions of Hispanics come to America looking for jobs and educations, but staying here seems to be bad for their health.

The longer Hispanics are here, the more likely they are to become obese, to develop diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. And Hispanics born here have even higher rates of those illnesses, a new government report shows.

The analysis of immigrants' health by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention comes on the heels of a report calling for more educational programs for Hispanics, who are expected to increase to nearly one-fourth of the U.S. population in coming years.

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Fox warns that U.S. labor need will grow
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Aboard The Presidente Juarez — Flying high above the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexican President Vicente Fox leaned forward to make this point: In a few years, he said, the United States may be begging Mexico for the very workers it's now trying to keep out by building a wall along the border.

With the looming retirement from the work force of the U.S. baby boom generation, and with Mexico's population-growth rate declining, immigration from Mexico will slow just as demand for workers in the United States will be growing, he told Knight Ridder.

"I am absolutely convinced that by 2010, the United States will have a great demand for workers and laborers to sustain its economy and to sustain its population of retirees and pensioners," the president said. "And in that very year, Mexico will need its young people to help its own economy and to attend to its own retirees."

Though it may be true that our need for laborers will grow, that is a problem that Immigration needs to address in streamlining the process that allows foreign nationals to work here but does not excuse Fox's cavalier attitude toward the onslaught of Mexicans entering the USA illegally. If we treated the Mexicans as they treat the Guatemalans or Hondonrans, etc. , Fox would be screaming. This is a case of the Mexican government needing to remove the stick from their own eye before they try to remove the splinter in ours. - mm

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Major AIDS crisis may hit Tijuana, report says
Researchers on both sides of border urge fast action
By Cheryl Clark
Union-Tribune Staff Writer

Tijuana, long thought to have a relatively small prevalence of HIV infection, is on the cusp of an alarming AIDS outbreak rivaling those experienced by many major U.S. cities, including San Diego, with as many as one in 125 people ages 15 to 49 now infected.

That's the conclusion of a new report from the University of California San Diego and Mexican researchers, who predict a public health crisis in Tijuana if steps aren't taken quickly.

“This suggests we may be on the verge of a major HIV-AIDS outbreak in Tijuana,” said Steffanie Strathdee, chief of UCSD's division of international health and cross-cultural medicine and the principal author of the report.

“HIV prevention efforts and treatment should be a priority in the border region, but no one has been paying attention to this problem,” she said. “Interventions to reduce ongoing spread of HIV are urgently needed.”

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Examine Mexico's Real Intent Before Reforming Immigration

The article was written by Yeh Ling-Ling, executive director of Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America (DASA). She has 10 year of prior experience preparing immigration applications.

"The Mexican government has actively encouraged illegal migration. They and activists of Mexican descent here have vigorously lobbied for unlimited guest worker visas and amnesty for millions of Mexican migrants. If amnestied and naturalized, six million migrants could add before long tens of millions of voters, energy consumers, jobseekers and social service users through births here and chain migration. Children born here of illegal aliens and guest workers are also U.S. citizens and future voters. Is Mexico using legal and illegal migration to extend the Mexican nation?" asks Ms. Yeh.

"For the sake of racial harmony and our national unity, President Bush and Congress should substantially reduce legal and illegal immigration", says DASA executive director Yeh.

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Gov´t launches website to help migrants Wire services
El Universal
Miami Herald The government is launching a website to help Mexicans in the United States compare the costs of wiring money back home, officials announced Tuesday.

The website, which will go online in May, aims to help the 10 million Mexicans residing in the United States and their families in Mexico "to improve their standard of living by knowing the market," said Luis Fabre, vice president of the nation´s National Commission for the Protection and Defense of Users of Financial Services.

Fabre said he hopes the website, www.remesamex.gob.mx , will generate more competition among the wire service companies used by Mexicans, who sent home US$20 billion last year. Remittances make up Mexico´s second-largest source of foreign income, behind oil.

Again, this is the Mexican government, not a private business. -mm

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Ice Initiatives To Combat Southwest Border Violence

As the agency with the broadest law enforcement authority in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is uniquely positioned to combat vulnerabilities and threats to America that arise from the nation’s borders. ICE has established aggressive intelligence and investigative operations at the nation’s ports of entries, between the ports and in the nation’s interior.

The southern border of the United States is a region particularly vulnerable to cross-border criminal enterprises and the violence associated with them. In recent years, ICE has seen an unprecedented surge in brutality by drug and human smuggling & trafficking organizations along the Southwest border.

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Report: Latinos' futures uncertain
By Michelle Mittelstadt
The Dallas Morning News
Whittier Daily News WASHINGTON

The destiny of the country's 40 million Latinos remains "highly uncertain," complicated by language barriers and low participation in high-skilled jobs, education and health care coverage, according to a new study.

The future economic strength of a graying nation is intertwined with the well-being of a rapidly expanding, younger Latino population that will represent an ever larger share of the U.S. work force as baby boomers retire, the National Research Council said in a two-year study issued Wednesday.

The council, an arm of the National Academies of Science, identified a series of challenges confronting Latinos: overrepresentation in low-wage industries, insufficient English proficiency, illegal immigration status that results in lower pay, and health challenges among them.

But the study's researchers identified education as the biggest hurdle, noting that Latinos have higher school dropout rates, lower college enrollment and less job training than the overall population in an economy ever more reliant on higher-skilled jobs.

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Truck carrying illegal entrants leads Border Patrol on chase
Arizona Daily Star

The driver of a stolen vehicle carrying 18 illegal entrants led Border Patrol agents and Highway Patrol officers on a 25-minute chase on Tucson's freeways this morning.

At about 7 a.m., a Border Patrol agent ran the license plate of a red Ford F150 pickup truck on Interstate 19 and realized the truck was stolen, said Johnny Bernal, a Border Patrol spokesman. Bernal said the agent tried to pull over the truck near the Valencia exit, but the truck sped off.

The Border Patrol agent soon decided to end his pursuit, because "he didn't want to put anybody at any risk," Bernal said.

When the driver of the truck continued north, the Border Patrol notified the Highway Patrol, the Marana Police Department and Border Patrol air support. The pursuit continued on Interstate 10 and ended when the driver took the Tangerine Road exit. Just before 8 a.m., the driver and passengers bailed out and ran away, but were caught and arrested after a foot chase by Highway Patrol officers, Bernal said. The truck was carrying 18 illegal entrants from Mexico who were riding in the extended cab and flatbed of the truck, Bernal said.

The driver, a 21-year-old male, is facing charges of alien smuggling. The driver’s partner in the operation was a 37-year-old convicted felon with a history of robbery, unauthorized use of a vehicle and assault. He will be facing charges for re-entering the country as an aggravated felon, Bernal said.

Bernal said no one suffered injuries.