Path to Deportation Can Start With a Traffic Stop
By PAUL VITELLO

While lawmakers in Washington debate whether to forgive illegal immigrants their trespasses, a small but increasing number of local and state law enforcement officials are taking it upon themselves to pursue deportation cases against people who are here illegally.

In more than a dozen jurisdictions, officials have invoked a little-used 1996 federal law to seek special federal training in immigration enforcement for their officers.

In other places, the local authorities are flagging some illegal immigrants who are caught up in the criminal justice system, sometimes for minor offenses, and are alerting immigration officials to their illegal status so that they can be deported.

In Costa Mesa, Calif., for example, in Orange County, the City Council last year shut down a day laborer job center that had operated for 17 years, and this year authorized its Police Department to begin training officers to pursue illegal immigrants — a job previously left to federal agents.

In Suffolk County, on Long Island, where a similar police training proposal was met with angry protests in 2004, county officials have quietly put a system in place that uses sheriff's deputies to flag illegal immigrants in the county jail population.

In Putnam County, N.Y., about 50 miles north of Manhattan, eight illegal immigrants who were playing soccer in a school ball field were arrested on Jan. 9 for trespassing and held for the immigration authorities.

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Arizona's immigration plan meets heavy opposition from police
By JACQUES BILLEAUD
Associated Press Writer

PHOENIX (AP) -- The Legislature's plan to criminalize the presence of illegal immigrants in the state is promoted as a way to lessen Arizona's vast border problems, but it also is drawing opposition from many of the local police agencies that would enforce such a rule.

Opponents say the plan, now being considered by Gov. Janet Napolitano, is an unconstitutional attempt for the state to regulate federal immigration law and would lead to fewer immigrants cooperating in criminal investigations for fear of being sent back home.

Police officials also criticized the enforcement plan for not providing extra money to arrest the tens of thousands of people who each sneak into Arizona, the country's busiest illegal entry point. A separate plan moving through the Legislature would provide communities with $30 million for immigration efforts.

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A Latino movement? Or just a moment?
The Monitor's View

The turnout surprised everyone. More than 500,000 Latino protesters in Los Angeles last month. Nearly as many in Dallas Sunday. On Monday, hundreds of thousands nationwide. It's big, it's unprecedented - and no one knows what it portends.

Quite unexpectedly, a population living in the shadows of American society has emerged into full view and found its voice. Illegal immigrants and their supporters are on the march, galvanized by a House immigration bill heavy on enforcement and offering no path to citizenship.

Most of the protesters are Latinos. And for many, this is their first American political experience - the largest showing of such power from a group that has overtaken African-Americans in number.

But is this a movement in the making or just a moment ?

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TUSD in Fox spotlight
Labor activist's speech gets attention of 'O'Reilly Factor'
By Daniel Scarpinato
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

A politically focused speech at a local high school in which the speaker said "Republicans hate Latinos" is gaining national attention as Tucson Unified School District officials struggle to defend the event.

A day after Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer issued a formal response to questions from a state lawmaker who has been critical of the speech, he and others appeared on cable news to discuss the controversy.

On the Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor," Pfeuffer, Republican state Rep. Jonathan Paton and a Tucson High Magnet School student also debated lingering questions about how the district has dealt with student walkouts and protests over immigration reforms with Bill O'Reilly, the most-watched personality on cable news. Fox devoted two segments to the issue.

The controversial comments were made by labor activist Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers of America, during an April 3 speech at Tucson High, 400 N. Second Ave.

Huerta said she wanted to start a postcard campaign with the theme "Republicans hate Latinos." She also talked about abortion, the war in Iraq and other controversial issues. She did not return calls Thursday to discuss her comments.

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Decoding Immigration Doublespeak
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 14, 2006

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names” – Old Chinese proverb.

The elite media have always been out of touch with American values, and their reporting has often been at odds with reality. (See “Offensive, Tet.”) However, their coverage of the last week’s massive pro-illegal immigration rallies bordered (no pun intended) on the Orwellian, virtually requiring one to believe the inverse of everything they reported. Among their many distortions, sanitizations, euphemisms, and lies were:

• “Pro-Immigration Rallies.”
• Rallying for their Rights
• Organized by Hispanic Radio
• Patriotic and Pro-American The Republican Bill “Criminalizes Undocumented Workers.”
• This is a Civil Rights Rally.

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A Centrist Immigration Plan
By Alan Nathan
Washington Times | April 14, 2006

There are more than 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, while another 400,000 enter from Mexico every year. The tedious and atrophic arguments of "stop being xenophobic because we need them for our economy" vs. "they make us less secure and drain social services" are at a hopeless impasse. The dueling proponents sound like drunken sailors in a sinking ship debating whether they should plug up the hole or bail out the water. There is a way to bring these sides partly together and prevent the drowning.

We should put up a wall or a fence at both the northern and southern borders to the United States, and create a fast-track apparatus for citizenship to all non-documented aliens without criminal records.We could significantly shrink the hemorrhaging traffic while providing to illegal residents a strong enough motive to come forth and reveal their identities for the record. It's a Solomonic compromise delivering unambiguous toughness at the borders while enhancing our national security through non-xenophobic means.

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Cab owner details abduction in S.D., escape in Tijuana
Kidnappings keep investigators busy
By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 14, 2006

José Luis Cano was back at work driving his taxicab this week after surviving a kidnapping that started in San Diego and ended when he escaped the same day from a Tijuana house where he was being held.

“It's difficult to describe how I feel,” he said. “I felt powerless, I felt fearful, and when I was in the house I focused on observing and listening to everything so I could get away.”

Two men were arrested after Cano escaped and reported the crime to Mexican authorities.

It's been a particularly busy week for kidnapping investigators on both sides of the border. Cano is one of several U.S. businessmen snatched off the streets of Tijuana and southern San Diego since April 6.

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Officers seize 28 weeks-old pups found stuffed in van
By Debbi Farr Baker
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Animal control officers confiscated 28 puppies that were stuffed under and taped into the front seat of a van that was trying to cross into the United States from Mexico, authorities announced yesterday.

The dogs ranged in age from 3 weeks old to 5 weeks old and included boxers, Chihuahuas, cocker spaniels and poodle mixes, said Dawn Danielson, director of the county's Department of Animal Services.

“They were jammed under the front seat of the van, and a customs agent saw a paw sticking out,” Danielson said.

Some of the puppies are sick and all require some type of medical care, she said. The dogs are so young they are just past the stage where they would have to be fed by bottle.

“It is still too premature to tell if they all will survive,” she said. “Some of the smaller ones are questionable.”

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Legalizing immigrants could cut flow of money they send home, Mexican economist warn
By Mark Stevenson
ASSOCIATED PRESS
1:17 a.m. April 14, 2006

MEXICO CITY – A proposal in Congress to legalize millions of undocumented migrants in the United States could backfire by slashing the amount of money they send home, Mexican economists warn.

The argument goes like this: Mexicans who have permission to work in the United States will want to bring their families north to live with them, eliminating the main reason they send money home. That would hurt Mexican businesses that have come to depend on the money sent down from the United States.

Miguel Cervantes Jimenez, an economist at Mexico's National Autonomous University, said remittances could drop by as much as 40 percent.