|
|
Latest Member Post: Study: Today's immigrants less assimilated
| Town's Hispanics shutter businesses, scatter |
| Postville, Ia. - The phone calls started at 5 a.m. They carried the same message: Immigration was coming. Paul Real, a lay pastor at the Ministerio Hispano, said his phone was ringing off the hook. "Calls have been flying around," he said Monday morning. "There are rumors everywhere." Twelve hours later, Hispanic businesses in downtown Postville were shuttered. Locks held the door at El Sabor Latino grocery store and restaurant. Bowls of chips and salsa were abandoned along with a half-empty bottle of Coke. |
|
|
| 'Can't deport us all,' immigration activists say |
| WEST PALM BEACH - Holding candles and posters that read "Can't deport us all," around 40 activists rallied for about an hour Monday evening in protest of what they say are increased federal roundups of undocumented immigrants. Organized by the Immigrant Rights Coalition of Palm Beach County, the group gathered in front of the federal courthouse on Clematis Street. Organized said they want to draw special attention to the deportation of Haitian nationals who are being forced back to a country wracked by food riots and civil unrest. |
|
|
| Rights workshop held amid immigration raid fears |
| WATERLOO -- An immigrant rights workshop -- put on in response to fears of a possible raid -- drew several hundred people Sunday at Queen of Peace Catholic Church. Hilda, who declined to give her full name because she fears deportation, lives in Waterloo with her 6-year-old daughter and husband, Enfraim, who works in construction. The family said they stayed after Mass for the meeting because they weren't sure what to do if authorities came to their home or work to arrest them. "We wanted to be prepared," Hilda said in Spanish. "We wanted to find out what to do if they detain us." |
|
|
| Border Patrol Chase Ends In Gunfire |
| SPRING VALLEY, Calif. -- Shots rang out in East County Monday after the Border Patrol said a woman tried to run down an agent in an SUV. It happened in the Rancho San Diego area, at state Route 94 and the 3000 block of Millar Ranch Road around 10:45 a.m. According to the Border Patrol, the incident started when a stolen Lincoln Navigator pulled up in front of a home that was under surveillance by the the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force. The vehicle, which was being driven by a woman, left the home and turned up Millar Ranch Road. From there, officials pulled the car over, which they said had two people inside. |
|
|
| OH: FBI Investigates Human Trafficking In Miami Valley |
| DAYTON, Ohio -- The Federal Bureau of Investigations is warning local law enforcement that human trafficking is happening more and more in local neighborhoods. The FBI estimates that more than 100,000 children and young women are victims of human trafficking in the United States today. And, the Dayton area is not exempt from the disturbing trend. Authorities said human trafficking is often undetected. On Monday, officers from approximately 20 different local law enforcement agencies gathered in Centerville to learn how to spot human trafficking and who is at risk. FBI special agent Wendy Surikov said, "People have a misconception of what human trafficking is." |
|
|
| 76 percent of the 968 employees of Agriprocessors were using false or fraudulent SSN's |
| Postville, Ia. -- Buses have begun arriving at the Cattle Congress grounds in Waterloo after hundreds were detained in an immigration raid on a Postville meatpacking plant today. Officials are not allowing media or others near the entrance. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have declined to say how many buses are being used in the raid on the Agriprocessors Inc. plant. At least 300 people were arrested during the operation, the largest of its kind in Iowa, said Claude Arnold, a special agent with ICE. The raid targeted people who illegally used other people's Social Security numbers and were in the U.S. illegally. According to an affidavit, "Based on information thus far developed in the investigation, it appears, based on 2007 fourth quarter payroll reports, that approximately 76 percent of the 968 employees of Agriprocessors were using false or fraudulent social security numbers in connection with their employment." |
|
|
| New ethics complaint targets Ramos-Compean prosecutor |
| A Christian pastor says he has filed an ethics complaint with the Texas Bar Association seeking an investigation into U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's "willfully misleading" statements in the case against former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. Don Swarthout, president of Christians Reviving America's Values, today confirmed his ethics complaint cites Sutton's actions in the case in which Ramos and Compean were convicted of shooting at a drug smuggler who had dropped a load of marijuana near the Texas border and was fleeing back into Mexico. |
|
|
| San Bernardino County expands deportation effort of inmates |
| SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.--The Sheriff's Department is expanding efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants in San Bernardino County jails. Inmates screened by the West Valley Detention Center in 2006 and 2007 determined more than 4,100 inmates were eligible for deportation. The Rancho Cucamonga jail was the only county jailhouse equipped for such screening. Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt has now allocated $100,000 for video conferencing technology that will allow West Valley jailers to interview inmates at other jails. The immigrant screening program will now expand to jails in San Bernardino, Barstow, Victorville and the Morongo Basin. |
|
|
| Illegal immigrants can stay for now |
| Medrano, husband Jose Arturo and their children were caught by the U.S. Border Patrol crossing into the U.S. in November 2006. They were fleeing their native El Salvador, where, they say, a criminal gang shot at their house while they were inside. The family believes that the attack was aimed at intimidating them into paying a local gang a "tax" on their 10 cattle. The family showed a video of local news coverage of Arturo's slaying to the media, an immigration judge and immigration officials in their campaign to convince authorities that El Salvador is unsafe for them. |
|
|
| Court turns down Chinese man’s asylum claim |
| The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from a Chinese man who sought asylum in the United States because his wife was forced to have an abortion under China's controversial family planning policy. Yi Qiang Yang and his wife had a traditional marriage when he was 20 and she was 17, but they were too young to be married legally in China. Authorities forced his wife to have an abortion when she was eight months pregnant. U.S. immigration policy has made it easier for men in legal marriages to apply for asylum in such situations, but has taken a harder line on men who entered into traditional marriages or were not married at all. There is no dispute that women can seek asylum under the law. |
|
|
| Update: ICE describes raid as 'largest in Iowa history' |
| Postville, Ia. -- At least 300 people were arrested today at the Agriprocessors, Inc. meat packing plant, federal officials said. The operation, which targeted people who illegally used other persons Social Security numbers and were in the U.S. illegally, was the largest of its kind in Iowa, said Claude Arnold, a special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. According to an affidavit, "Based on information thus far developed in the investigation, it appears, based on 2007 fourth quarter payroll reports, that approximately 76 percent of the 968 employees of Agriprocessors were using false or fraudulent social security numbers in connection with their employment." The workers arrested so far were interviewed by agents with the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Public Health Service. Public health officials were included to ensure that their humanitarian needs were being met, said U.S. District Attorney Matt M. Dummermuth. |
|
|
| Missouri expected to OK tough voter ID standards |
| The battle over voting rights will expand this week when lawmakers in Missouri are expected to support a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow elections officials to require proof of citizenship from anyone registering to vote. The measure is a far more rigorous demand than the voter ID requirement recently upheld by the Supreme Court, in which Indiana voters had to prove their identity with a government-issued card. Sponsors of the amendment - which would then require the approval of voters to go into effect, possibly in an August referendum - say it would prevent illegal immigrants from affecting the political process, but critics say it could disenfranchise tens of thousands of legal residents who would find it difficult to prove their citizenship. |
|
|
| TX: More areas see Hispanic majorities |
| For the average West Texan, the Jasso family's story might be uneventful. But for demographers it is a unique case study. The Jassos exemplify the rapidly changing demographics in rural West Texas. While 33 rural counties in the Panhandle/South Plains region lost population during the first six years of this decade, in places like Crosby County, the Hispanic population is growing. It's now the majority group. Crosby County lost 7.4 percent of its population during the same period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Yet, Hispanics became the largest ethnic group in the county. They now narrowly outnumber Anglos, 3,175 to 2,946. "This region is changing before our eyes," said Heflin, whose House District 85 includes the largest percentage of Spanish-surnamed residents. "Many people have left ... so if it wasn't for Hispanics, many more West Texas communities would be like ghost towns." |
|
|
| Iowa bucks remittance trend |
| Alfredo Treto, father of UI freshman Maribel Treto, sends money every three or four months to his parents in Zacatecas, Mexico, to help cover their costs of living. "My parents are getting old," he said. "We're family, and they don't have a check every week. [In Mexico] the social-security programs are not the same as here ... if you don't have money, you stay sick." He is just one of the now-shrinking number of American immigrants who sends money back to family in their home countries, according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank. Iowa's remittance, though, is still rising and so is its immigrant population, according to the study. |
|
|
| New mayor in Dallas suburb to target illegal immigrants |
| A newly elected mayor near Dallas says his top priority will be ridding his suburb of illegal immigrants, the same focus that has drawn national attention in a neighboring city. But Ron Branson said Carrollton will not simply copy the blueprint of Farmers Branch, where an ordinance barring apartment rentals to most illegal immigrants has been put on hold by a federal judge. "I do not want to rubber-stamp what they did," Branson said in Monday's editions of The Dallas Morning News. "We want to make sure we're not profiling, we're following the law, and take advantage of ordinance opportunities." |
|
|
More News >>
|
|
