Latest Member Post: Anti - Immigration Groups and the Masks of False Diversity
| Latino leader says new immigration law led to racial-profiling incident |
| SALT LAKE CITY -- Leaders of the Latino community held an emergency meeting Thursday. Many immigrants are afraid of what the new law, formerly Senate Bill 81, means for law enforcement and them during a routine traffic stop. Now Hispanic community leader Tony Yapias says Utah has it's first case of racial profiling thanks to enforcement of the new law. Yapias says an officer in Utah County went too far Thursday morning when he stopped a mother and son near Benjamin because they were driving with their lights on high-beam. The officer then asked about their legal status and put them in the Utah County Jail on what's called an "INS" hold. |
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| Immigration issues dominate jury selection in Guatemalan's case against Stuart hospital |
| STUART -- The often hot button issue of illegal immigration and opinions about undocumented workers living in America dominated much of jury selection Thursday for a trial pitting a brain-damaged Guatemalan man against Martin Memorial Medical Center. Since Monday, a pool of about 155 potential jurors has been reduced to 23, with dozens being dismissed for expressing strong opinions against the false imprisonment lawsuit former patient Luis Jimenez and his guardian filed against the hospital after Martin Memorial chartered a jet in 2003 to return him to Guatemala following two years of unpaid medical care. The hospital took the action after receiving a court order permitting his return to Guatemala, which an appeals court later determined exceeded the court's jurisdiction. |
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| Judge orders force feeding Haitian immigrant |
| A Haitian immigrant may have put a face to ongoing rumors about a hunger strike at the Port Isabel Detention Center. Immigration officials filed a federal lawsuit to force feed inmate Kenson Lima. Court records show the 26-year-old immigrant was rushed to the Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen over the weekend. U.S. District Court Judge Hilda Tagle in Brownsville sided with immigration officials and ordered that Lima be given medical care and fed intravenously to save his life. |
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| MCSO: Illegals Nabbed In Cockfighting Ring |
| PHOENIX -- Sheriff's deputies booked three men into jail on suspicion of animal cruelty and cockfighting. Deputies responded to the scene of an alleged cockfighting ring earlier this week in Harquahala Valley. Eriberto Cuellar, 28; Hector Rivera, 31, and Jose Martinez, 19, were found with several roosters, many of them dead, during a traffic stop near the same location, sheriff's investigators said. |
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| Deportation deferred for student, 23, who didn't know he was undocumented |
| The Department of Homeland Security has deferred Monday's planned deportation of a 23-year-old Florida honors student who didn't realize until he applied for university that he has been undocumented since he was 3 years old. Walter Lara, who considers himself the "all-American guy next door," came to the United States with his parents 20 years ago. He was supposed to be deported to Argentina, a country he says he knows little about. "As I look to celebrate Independence Day with family and friends this weekend, I have once again seen what makes America the best country in the world. Americans are fair, just, and kind," Lara said in a statement. |
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| Woman pleads guilty to running marriage immigration scheme |
| DALLAS (AP) - A 71-year-old woman accused of recruiting family members to marry foreigners seeking green cards pleaded guilty Wednesday to taking part in an immigration fraud conspiracy. Federal prosecutors say Maria Refugia Camarillo of Fort Worth faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when she is sentenced in September. She also must provide a $35,000 lien on her home. Investigators said that from the 1980s until last year, Camarillo and others ran a scheme in which U.S. citizens would marry foreigners willing to pay up to $12,000. Once married, the U.S. citizen could petition for their foreign spouse to receive U.S. permanent residence, also called a green card, and later U.S. citizenship. |
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| Deputies arrest Phoenix business owner through Arpaio's hotline |
| PHOENIX -- Maricopa County sheriff's deputies arrested a Phoenix business owner as part of an identity theft investigation Tuesday morning. Lt. Brian Lee said after receiving information through Arpaio's illegal immigration hotline, deputies served search warrants at Aracruz International Granite, 2310 W. Sherman St., and at the business owner's home in Anthem at approximately 10 a.m. Tuesday. Deputies arrested the owner, Raphael Libardi, 48, of Brazil, near his home for identity theft, mortgage fraud, and being in the country illegally. |
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| Sheriff locks down Phoenix jails |
| PHOENIX, June 30 (UPI) -- The controversial sheriff in Phoenix says he locked down the Maricopa County jails because of rumors of trouble between black and Hispanic inmates. During the lockdown, visitors will not be able to enter the jails and the 10,000 inmates will be confined to their cells, The Arizona Republic reported. Prisoners will still be taken to court and work release and work furloughs will continue. ... He said Monday inmates were apparently upset at not being grouped by race or ethnic background, the newspaper reported. "If we segregate them, they don't like each other, that means I'm giving into them by isolating groups based on the ethnic background," he said. "That's not going to happen." |
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| Deportation policies steer illegal immigrants to shadows |
| When the Martinez family drives the half-hour from home into Nashville, wife Deanna is behind the wheel every time. It's not because of some standing debate between husband and wife about who is the better driver. It's because Deanna Martinez's husband is one of the estimated 130,000 to 170,000 illegal immigrants living in Tennessee. He can't renew his driver's license since Tennessee tightened the documentation requirements a few years ago. And Davidson County is the only place in the state where the sheriff's office participates in a federal program in which a traffic stop can lead to deportation. |
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| Can We Tell Those Huddled Masses To Scram? Immigration And The Constitution |
| Immigration has pitted Americans against one another for over a century now. Intriguingly, that's about the same amount of time the federal government has presumed an interest in the issue. Its interference has turned the debate over immigration into a toxic brew. But when we strain the emotion and rhetoric from it, it boils down to a simple question: should the state regulate our comings and goings? From the beginning colonial governments have involved themselves with American immigration. Sometimes that involvement was as total as the French and Spanish kings' spending their subjects' money to export colonists to the New World and then ruling them. Other times there was less picking of poor people's pockets: the British Crown preferred to grant charters. ... As these newcomers transformed the eastern strip of the American continent from a wilderness into 13 British colonies, the Crown continued to influence immigration by unloading its "criminals" there. |
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| ICE launches workplace immigration crackdown |
| (AP:WASHINGTON) The Obama administration launched investigations of hundreds of businesses around the country Wednesday as part of its strategy to focus immigration enforcement on the employers who hire illegal workers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun notifying businesses of plans to audit their I-9 forms _ employment eligibility documents that employers fill out for every worker _ the agency told members of Congress in an e-mail Wednesday. Immigration officers served "Notices of Inspection" to 625 businesses, the Homeland Security Department said. By comparison, 503 such notices were issued to businesses last year, the agency said. Employers are required to keep the I-9 forms and must check the authenticity of documents provided by the employee. The Homeland Security Department said it would not release the names or locations of the businesses that are being audited because of the ongoing investigations. |
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| Feds: American Apparel Hires Illegal Workers |
| American Apparel(APP Quote) touts its patriotism, boasting that it produces all of its clothes on American shores. This shouldn't do much to help that campaign: The U.S. government said today that the t-shirt maker is employing about 1,800 illegal immigrants. The disclosure came as a result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Of the 1,800 workers identified, 1,600 were deemed to be unauthorized to work, while officials were unable to verify the status of the other 200. American Apparel said if the workers are unable to provide proof of eligibility, they will be forced to leave the company. |
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| Border Tunnel Update: US Authorities Say Still Searching for Exit |
| As of late Tuesday evening, U.S. federal authorities were still searching for a U.S. exit to the cross border tunnel they discovered earlier this week between Tijuana and San Diego. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Spokeswoman Lauren Mack says the underground passageway runs more than 640 feet into the U.S. through a drain pipe. She says it goes further, where the people digging the tunnel veered off from the pipe and bore into the dirt. Though, she said agents hadn't explored that section as of Tuesday night. Mack says agents found a luggage cart in the tunnel they suspect the diggers used to haul out dirt. |
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| Illegal immigrants? Firms face employee audits |
| Starting today, South Carolina's largest businesses will be subject to random audits of their employment documents as part of a crackdown on hiring illegal immigrants. The S.C. Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation will focus its attention on businesses that typically hire immigrant workers, said Jim Knight, a department spokesman. "For instance, you can be pretty sure construction and landscaping will be on that list for audits," Knight said. For now, the law, which was passed in 2008, applies to businesses with 100 or more employees and those that do business with state and local governments. |
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| Immigrants in US are asking for money from home |
| FAIRVIEW, N.J. -- For five years, immigrant day laborer Leo Chamale wired money twice a month from New Jersey to his family in Guatemala. Recently, he stepped up to the money transfer window for a different purpose -- to ask that his family send some of his savings back to him. "I hadn't worked for five months, and I was two months behind on rent, so I had them send $1,500," the 21-year-old Chamale said in Spanish. "My mother said, `That's a lot of money!'" With the U.S. economy in a ditch, money transfer agencies have been reporting a decline in the wages immigrants are sending back to their home countries. Now, it appears some immigrants are going a step further -- asking their relatives to wire them money back. |
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