OC Immigration Attorney

President Obama today called for a “practical, common sense” immigration system that will help the U.S. economy and maintain America’s immigrant tradition — and he put the pressure on Republicans to get it through Congress.

“Reform that brings accountability to our immigration system cannot pass without Republican votes,” Obama said in his first major immigration speech as president . “That is the political and mathematical reality.”

Obama said his administration has already taken record-setting actions to strengthen the border, and he urged Congress to approve “a pathway to legal status” for the 11 million or so illegal immigrants who are already in the United States.

Immigration has become “a source of fresh contention” in recent days because of the new Arizona law that gives police greater authority to question people’s citizenship, Obama said. His administration is expected to file a lawsuit against Arizona, but the president did not discuss potential legal action.

Speaking to lawmakers, academics, and community leaders gathered at American University, Obama touted his plan by stressing the immeasurable contributions that immigrants have made to the United States, and the frequent discrimination they faced throughout history. “Immigrants have always helped to build and defend this country,” Obama said.

Obama said political posturing on an emotional issue has delayed congressional action in years and month past. “Into this breach,” he said, “states like Arizona have decided to take matters into their own hands.”

“These laws also have the potential of violating the rights of innocent American citizens and legal residents,” Obama said, “making them subject to possible stops or questioning because of what they look like or how they sound.”

At points in his speech, Obama criticized both sides of the immigration debate.

Some rights groups all but encourage illegal immigration, Obama said, though at least 11 million people are in fact breaking the law by not going through the citizenship process, and they should be held accountable.

As for critics of “amnesty,” Obama said it’s simply impossible to deport 11 million people. Doing so would disrupt communities and break up families, he added, as many undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens because they were born here.

The president said he has already taken major steps to better protect the border, proclaiming — twice — that “we have more boots on the ground near the southwest border than at any time in our history.”

As for his pathway to citizenship plan, President Obama said it will help create “a younger workforce and a faster growing economy than many of our competitors,” Obama said. “And in an increasingly interconnected world, the diversity of our country is a powerful advantage in global competition.”

Residents of Fremont, a small city in Nebraska, voted Monday to banish illegal aliens from jobs and rental homes. The law would bar landlords from renting to those in the country illegally.

Opponents of the new law argued that the City of Fremont simply could not afford the new law. They said that paying to defend such a local law, which is all but certain to be challenged in court, would require a significant cut in Fremont city services, or a stiff tax increase, or both.

However advocates argued that federal authorities had failed to enforce their own immigration restriction and that they had to take care of such matters themselves. They complained that illegal immigrants were causing an increase in crime, taking jobs that would once have gone to longtime residents, and changing the character of their quiet city, some 30 miles of farm fields from Omaha.

Shortly after the results were announced, officials from the A.C.L.U. Nebraska pledged to file a lawsuit as quickly as possible; claiming that if this law goes into effect it will cause discrimination and racial profiling against Latinos and others who appear to be foreign born, including U.S. citizens.

Fremont’s Hispanic population, practically nonexistent two decades ago, has grown to about 2,000 people, according to some estimates. Moreover, no one knows how many illegal immigrants live in Fremont.

In recent years, many towns and cities across the nation considered adopting laws restricting illegal immigrants. However, in most cases, political leaders and town councils have been the ones to pass the provisions and not the voters. Additionally, the laws have proven politically-tangled: measures in some towns are still being fought in court, while some other cities have dropped the issue.

On March 12, while Leslie Cocche stood at the Fort Lauderdale Tri-Rail station awaiting the train to Miami, where she attends College, a U.S. Border Patrol agent suddenly began questioning her, and eventually discovered that the 18-year-old Peruvian was in the country illegally. Cocche then was arrested, handcuffed and handed over for deportation proceedings.

In contrast to the controversial Arizona state law that would allow police officers to request immigration papers from individuals, federal immigration agents are allowed to demand documents from any foreign national at any time.

Even after Homeland Security said that immigration authorities would focus on removing convicted foreign criminals, apparently the situation has not changed much.

Officials of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Homeland Security agency in charge of deportations, acknowledge that deportations of noncriminal immigration-law violators are continuing, but say the agency now views them as “low-priority.”

However, figures from Oct. 1 to June 7 show that the number of criminal and noncriminal removals are almost even. The number of noncriminal removals still exceeds that of criminal deportations, but only by 257 people.

According to Cheryl Little, executive director of the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, the ICE definition of criminal includes people found guilty of minor violations, such as expired driver’s license and illegal entry into the United States.

The Cocche case is particularly galling to immigrant rights advocates because she is in the country not by choice but because her parents brought her here when she was a child and legislation repeatedly introduced in Congress as the DREAM Act would grant young undocumented students green cards.

The U.S. Border Patrol’s assistant chief patrol agent for the Miami Sector, stated that she was found to be illegally in the US, arrested and placed in removal proceedings. Subsequently, her sister and parents were placed in deportation proceedings as well.

Cocche was detained for 11 days and eventually released with the promise that she and her family would report later to immigration court in Miami.

If they lose their case they could all be deported.

A wedding at Taylor Park in St. Albans, Vermont, had all the trappings of a wonderful experience. But, unfortunately the wedding day was marred by overzealous border agents.

According to the bride, not every detail turned out the way it should have. The hair stylist and her husband, who’s African-American, said they became victims of racial profiling on their wedding night, claiming a handful of border patrol officers rudely interrupted their reception demanding to see immigration status papers from the groom and some of their guests.

It was about 9 p.m. when five to six cars of border patrol agents swarmed their party. The groom said he confronted the agents and asked them to leave, but they refused.

Mark Henry, of the U.S. Border Patrol’s Swanton sector, said the agency got a call that night from a “concerned individual” about a “suspicious incident” on Main Street. He said three officers showed up to check it out, which is standard protocol.

Henry said the officers talked to a couple men standing outside the party; however they never checked anyone’s identification or asked to see any papers. Henry said the officers told the party-goers to make sure they had designated drivers, and then left.

The groom, a 28-year-old soccer player with the Vermont Voltage who has lived in Vermont for about 10 years, denied that happened and said he’s appalled.

He claims that because of  the border patrols interruption, his wedding ceremony went south automatically. Everybody left the party. Including most of their guest who came from out of state, which are leaving with a very sour taste of how people are treated in Vermont.
The couple said they had about 70 guests, some of whom were black.

Border patrol officials made no comments on whether there’s an internal investigation into the allegation.

The Homeland Security Department expanded the use of unmanned drones along the U.S.-Mexico border this week, flying for the first time this sort of advanced technology in west Texas.

The Predator B unmanned aerial vehicle is providing support to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to help interdict drug smugglers and detect people trying to cross the border of Mexico -United States illegally, key lawmakers said.

Texas lawmakers have been wanting for years to have an unmanned drone assist in border security operations, but the move had been delayed by bureaucratic wrangling between DHS and the Federal Aviation Administration. Drone flights along the Southwest border had been limited to regions in Arizona and New Mexico.

But several Texas lawmakers ramped up their efforts in recent weeks to get the FAA to approve flights in their state. In conclusion, the FAA signed off at the end of May on allowing drone operations over the western region of the Texas-Mexico border.

According to Senate Commerce committee ranking member Kay Bailey Hutchison, the beginning of UAV flights over the west Texas portion of the U.S.-Mexico borders marks an important advancement for border security in Texas.  Additionally, Hutchison stated that high-tech tools have been spread among the Southwest Border States for too long and that they are working hard to make round-the-clock aerial surveillance the standard for all the 2,000 miles of the U.S. –Mexico border.

House Homeland Security Border Subcommittee Chairman Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, also helped broker the agreement between DHS and FAA.

Now, Customs and Border Protection operates five Predator B drones, which have flown more than 1,500 hours and contributed to the seizure of more than 15,000 pounds of marijuana and the apprehension of more than 4,000 illegal immigrants, according to the agency.

In the past few months, aggressive Mexican drug smugglers and migrants have harassed residents of Cochise County, Arizona. They have burglarized homes and stolen food and clothing, according to local law enforcement officials.

The situation is part of what Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has characterized as “murder, terror and mayhem” and used as justification for the Arizona’s controversial new immigration law. But while several violent high-profile incidents in the Tucson, Arizona, sector have gained national attention and colored political rhetoric, an ABC News analysis of immigration and crime data, combined with interviews with law enforcement officials, shows something very different — that violence and crime on the U.S. side of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico are generally on the decline.

By numbers alone, the border region appears, as Department of Homeland Security Secretary and former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano put it, is “as secure now as it has ever been.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained and deported a record 387,790 unauthorized immigrants across the U.S. in 2009, and is on pace to set a new record in 2010.

Additionaly, in many of the U.S. border communities themselves, local law enforcement officials report violent- and property-crime rates that have fallen over the past year, and, in several cases, are among the lowest in the country.

Cities like Tucson; Chula Vista, California; and Laredo, Texas, have all seen year-over-year drops in violent crime, murder, and rape. El Paso, Texas, continues to have one of the lowest rates of violent crime of all U.S. cities, just behind Honolulu, according to the latest FBI Uniform Crime Report.

“I don’t see the border in chaos at all,” said Octavio Rodriguez, who studies drug-related violence along the Mexican border at the University of San Diego Trans-Border Institute. “The Tijuana-San Diego border area in particular is very secure.”

Still, observers say the seriousness of the few crimes involving illegal immigrants that have occurred in Arizona border communities may be creating the false impression of a widespread violent crime problem that isn’t there.

“Violence is on the Mexican side, like it’s breathing on us,” said Sheriff Tony Estrada of Santa Cruz County, Arizona, whose county has 50 miles of border with Mexico. “But the Santa Cruz county is very safe as a whole. If there’s any violence here, it’s in the rural areas and canyons… There are probably a lot of things going on we’re not aware of.”

This week, the Senate will consider amendments to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill that would add thousands of additional personnel along the border (including the National Guard), as well as provide millions of dollars for detention beds, technology, and resources.  Yesterday, bowing to pressure, President Obama announced that he would send 1,200 National Guard troops to the border and request $500 million for additional resources.  All of this attention on resources for the border ignores the fact that border enforcement alone is not going to resolve the underlying problems with our broken immigration system.

For more than two decades, the U.S. government has tried without success to stamp out unauthorized immigration through enforcement efforts at the border and in the interior of the country, but without fundamentally reforming the broken immigration system that spurs unauthorized immigration in the first place.  While billions upon billions of dollars have been poured into enforcement, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has increased dramatically.

The only way to stop illegal immigration is to punish the employers who hire unauthorized workers. The best way to stop employers from hiring illegally is by offering lawful permanent residence to illegal immigrants that cooperate with federal authorities in prosecuting the employers that hire them. If an employer hires an unauthorized worker and the worker reports the hiring to the federal government and cooperates with the prosecution, the worker should be granted lawful permanent residence. This would stop employers from continue the practice of hiring undocumented workers. If the US government was serious about stopping illegal immigration, they would start with the source of the problem, which is the pull effect of illegal employment in the US.

A coalition of groups that want to limit immigration, legal and illegal, has an ad claiming that illegal immigrants steal jobs from Americans. That’s a popular talking point among the build-the-fence, seal-the border types, but it’s just not so.

The truth is that immigrants don’t take American jobs, according to most economists and others who have studied the issue.

Policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, Madeleine Sumption, claims that Immigrant workers create almost as many jobs as they occupy. Additionally Sumption added that Immigrant workers often create the jobs they work in and they also buy things making the economy bigger.

As she and a co-author wrote in a report last year for a group created by the British government:

Somerville and Sumption: The impact of Immigration on a nation’s economy remains small, for several reasons. Immigrants are not competitive in many types of jobs, and hence are not direct substitutes for natives. Local employers increase demand for low-skilled labor in areas that receive low-skilled immigrant inflows. Immigrants contribute to demand for goods and services that they consume, in turn increasing the demand for labor. And immigrants contribute to labor market efficiency and long-term economic growth.

Of course, none of that matters to the folks who don’t live in the reality-based universe.

Forget sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll; immigration is a new generational fault line.

In the wake of the new Arizona law allowing the police to detain people they suspect of entering the country illegally, young people are largely displaying vehement opposition.
Meanwhile, baby boomers are siding with older Americans and supporting the Arizona law.

This emerging divide has appeared in a handful of surveys taken since the measure was signed into law. The generational conflict could complicate chances of a federal immigration overhaul any time soon.

Immigration, which census figures show declined sharply from the Depression through the 1960s, reached a historic low point the year after Woodstock. From 1860 through 1920, 13 percent to 15 percent of the country was foreign born — a rate similar to today’s, when immigrants make up about 12.5 percent of the country.

Boomers and their parents also spent their formative years away from the cities, where newer immigrants tended to gather — unlike today’s young people who have become more involved with immigrants, through college, or by moving to urban areas.

“It’s hard for them to share each others’ views on what’s going on,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. “These older people grew up in largely white suburbs or largely segregated neighborhoods, while the young people have grown up in an interracial culture.”

In a new report based on census figures titled “The State of Metropolitan America,” Mr. Frey found that Arizona has the largest cultural generation gap, between older Americans who are 83 percent white and children under 18 who are increasingly 57 percent of minorities.

Florida ranks sixth on Mr. Frey’s cultural generation gap list, with a 29 percentage point difference between the percentage of white people among its older residents and the percentage that whites make up of its children.

Some young people agree just as many baby boomers support more open immigration policies. In the poll, a majority of Americans in all age groups described illegal immigration as a serious problem.

Still, divisions were pronounced by age: while 41 percent of Americans ages 45 to 64 and 36 percent of older Americans said immigration levels should be decreased, only 24 percent of those younger than 45 said so.

Still, in interviews across the nation, young people emphasized the benefits of immigrants. Andrea Bonvecchio, 17, the daughter of a naturalized citizen from Venezuela, said going to a high school that is approximately 98 percent Hispanic meant she could find friends who enjoyed both Latin music and her favorite movie, “The Parent Trap.”

Nicole Vespia, 18, of Selden, N.Y., said old people who were worried about immigrants stealing jobs were giving up on an American ideal: capitalist meritocracy.

“If someone works better than I do, they deserve to get the job,” Ms. Vespia said. “I work in a stockroom, and my best workers are people who don’t really speak English. It’s cool to get to know them.”

Her parents’ generation, she added, just needs to adapt.

Activists  outraged at comments made by Lakers’ Coach Phil Jackson to ESPN columnist J.A. Adande, that seem to back  Arizona’s controversial new immigration law plan to rally outside Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles.

“The way we look at it, Phil Jackson is supporting the Arizona law,” said Mario Gonzalez, a longtime Lakers fan and rally organizer. “That’s surprising. It caught us off guard. We want to find out where the team stands on the law.”

John Black, the Lakers’ vice president for public relations, did not respond to telephone messages seeking comment.

Jackson, indicated he had no problem with the controversial Arizona law. Additionally Jackson mentioned, “Am I crazy, or am I the only one that heard [the legislature] say, ‘We just took the United States immigration law and adopted it to our state?’” Jackson said of the Arizona statute.

The Lakers coach then disputed the columnist’s assertion that Arizona legislatures had “usurped” federal immigration law — an allegation widely made by critics who say the law could lead to racial profiling.

“It’s not usurping” federal law, Jackson replied, adding that the Arizona lawmakers “gave it some teeth to be able to enforce it.”

Jackson, long known as a free spirit who in Adande’s words “has showed lefty leanings in the past,” also seems to chastise the Suns’ management for its criticism of the Arizona law.
The Suns’ owner and several players have publicly criticized the statute.

“I don’t think teams should get involved in the political stuff,” Jackson told the ESPN.com columnist and then said that if he heard it right, “the American people are really for stronger immigration laws, where they stand as basketball teams, they should let that kind of play out and let the political end of that go where it’s going to go.”

Gonzalez, the protest organizer, said Monday’s rally was not meant as a call to boycott the Lakers or root against the L.A. squad in its push to repeat as league champions. Rather, he said, the action is aimed at condemning Jackson’s apparent support for the Arizona law and clarifying Lakers management’s opinion on the matter.

Supporters of the rally said they wanted to give Jackson and the Lakers the opportunity to clarify their position on the Arizona law. Activists voiced the hope that both the Lakers and Jackson would follow the Suns’ example and come out against Arizona’s plan.

“We want to give Phil Jackson the benefit of the doubt,” said Nativo Lopez, head of the Mexican American Political Assn. Then Lopez added that there are nuances here that Phil Jackson perhaps is not familiar with, he’s an expert at basketball but not at immigration law.