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Pace of illegal immigration slows, study says
The flow of illegal immigration into the United States has declined in the past few years, according to a study released Thursday.
The number of illegal immigrants arriving in the United States has declined from about 800,000 a year earlier this decade, to about 500,000 a year from 2005 to 2008, said the report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research group in Washington.
The findings reverse a decade-long trend where more illegal immigrants arrived in the United States than legal immigrants.
The total number of illegal immigrants — which also includes millions who came legally to the United States and overstayed their visas — appears to have declined since last year — from 12.4 million in 2007 to 11.9 million in 2008. However, the finding is “inconclusive” because of the margin of error in the estimates, the study said.
The study also found:
— Illegal immigrants comprise about 4 percent of the U.S. population and about 30 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population. More than 39 million people born in other countries live in the United States.
— The vast majority of illegal immigrants — four out of five — come from Latin American countries.
— The number of illegal immigrants from Mexico appears to have leveled off since last year at around 7 million.
Read the study here.
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ICE arrests more than 1,700 in anti- gang sweep
More than 1,700 alleged gang members and associates, criminals and immigration violators have been arrested in a nationwide effort to combat street gangs, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Wednesday.
The effort targeted violent street gangs in 53 cities across 28 states, federal officials said.
“Street gangs prey on the neighborhoods in which they operate and they instill fear through intimidation and violence,” said Julie Myers, who heads ICE. “By partnering with other law enforcement agencies across the country, we are successfully targeting these gangs, arresting their leaders, disrupting their operations, and putting their members and associates behind bars.”
Of the 1,759 people arrested, nearly 1,500 were gang members, associates or those otherwise criminally charged, ICE said.
Read the ICE press release here.
Read a story about the operation here.
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Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids
Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Edward Kennedy have proposed a bill that would set minimum standards for treatment of people during and after immigration raids.
It is dubbed the “Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act.”
Immigrant advocates are hailing the legislation.
Ben Johnson, director of the American Immigration Law Foundation, said that the group “applauds Senators Menendez and Kennedy’s efforts to reintroduce the rule of law and the basic principles of fairness and humanity to the enforcement of our country’s immigration laws…Due process and equal treatment under the law are fundamental rights that our country has stood for and are at the heart of the Menendez-Kennedy bill.”
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Desperate housewife Longoria for Obama
Eva Longoria, one of the stars of ABC’s Desperate Housewives, this week urged Hispanic women to vote and support Democrat Barack Obama for president.
Solis said: “We need a fighter like Barack Obama. We need to have someone in the White House that will fight for us to provide good medical coverage, will advocate protecting a woman’s right to choose, and help us push crucial women’s rights legislation through Congress.”
She also said that Obama is the son of immigrants, like many Hispanics and Latinos and “shares many values with the Latino community.”
Longoria, who previously supported Sen. Hillary Clinton, also commented on Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska.
“I’m very confused by the women who have turned their support to Palin because Hillary did not get on the ticket. Palin, for me, represents everything Hillary is not. I don’t know how a woman can support someone who does not support equal pay for women, or the right to choose,” Longoria said.
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Latest McCain video: Where is Obama?
This week, the McCain campaign released an Internet video questioning Barack Obama’s commitment to the Latino community in his native Chicago. It includes interviews with Hispanics in Chicago who say Obama was a no-show in the Latino community.
The English-language video is more than 5 minutes long. See it here:
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Spanish network to air debate tonight
The much-anticipated debate between Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain will be broadcast tonight on the Spanish-language network Telefutura.
The debate will be translated for the Spanish-speaking audience.
“TeleFutura is proud to present this very important event live to our viewers from coast to coast,” said Bert Medina, senior vice president and operating manager of the network. “Hispanics are sure to play a crucial role in this election and we are pleased to be able to provide our audience the opportunity to see the candidates together for the first time.”
TeleFutura reaches 85 percent of U.S. Hispanic households, according to a press release. It is part of Univision Communications, Inc.
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Campaign targets Spanish-speaking citizens
The New Policy Institute, a Democratic organization, launched a new campaign this week to encourage Spanish-speaking citizens to vote in November.
The campaign is called “Adelante” which means “move forward.” It will include “saturation-level” statewide radio spots in several states including Colorado, according to a press release.
See the campaign’s new website here.
An increase in Latino voters would mostly help Democrats because Hispanics generally tend to favor Democrats by a 2 to 1 margin over Republicans.
“The campaign will both encourage people to vote and explain the process of voting, including early and absentee voting, to what is projected to be a large pool of first-time Hispanic voters,” said the release.
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Latino groups pledge to register 1 million new voters
Hispanic groups and Spanish-language media companies announced Thursday an effort to distribute 1 million voter registration cards in seven states with large Hispanic populations.
The groups launched a new website — www.YoVotare.org — which will serve “as a one-stop portal to connect Latinos with various unprecedented efforts to register new voters, provide voter information and education tools, and increase voter turnout in November,” the groups said, in a press release.
The groups involved in the effort include the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, the National Council of La Raza, the Univision television network, and many others.
Political analysts say that Latinos could be a crucial voting bloc in several contested states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida.
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Tancredo: Bailout bill should not help illegal immigrants
Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican famous for his fight against illegal immigration, urged Congressional leaders this week to include safeguards in any financial bailout plan to ensure it does not help illegal immigrants.
He said the bill needs to include provisions to “verify the legal residency and identity of potential homebuyers to ensure that illegal aliens are not obtaining federally backed home loans - and that taxpayers are not absorbing the debts of illegal aliens, or bad loans made by banks to illegal aliens.”
“If such protections are not included in the package, I hope you will join me in opposing its passage,” he said, in a letter.
See the letter here.
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Mexican government sending teaching materials to the U.S.
For more than a decade, the Mexican government has been quietly providing money, materials and even teachers to American schools, colleges and nonprofit organizations, the AP reported this week.
The Mexican government spends more than $1 million on the programs targeted to Mexican immigrants in the United States. They “provide a lifeline for adult students with little formal education by helping them become literate in Spanish - and by extension, English,” the story says.
Read it here.
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Poll: McCain winning Florida Hispanics
According to a Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times poll released this week, Republican John McCain is beating rival Barack Obama with Latinos in Florida.
The poll — which showed a tight race overall — showed that McCain is favored by Hispanics 51 to 41 percent. However, the poll’s margin of error is 10.6 percentage points.
Nationwide, Obama is handily beating McCain among Latinos, according to various polls. Florida is different, though, because many of its Cuban-American residents tend to be Republicans.
Roland Sanchez-Medina, vice president of the Cuban-American Bar Association, told the Miami Herald that “Obama’s current drag among Hispanics could hurt the Democratic Party’s chances of unseating three South Florida Cuban-American Republicans in Congress — Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.”
Read the story here.
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Poll: Most Latinos do not want local police to enforce immigration
Nearly one in ten Hispanic adults say that the police or other authorities have stopped them and asked them about their immigration status, according to a nationwide survey released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center.
The survey also found that 81 percent of Hispanic adults said that immigration enforcement should be left mainly to the federal authorities and not local police. In addition, 76 percent said they disapprove of workplace raids.
See more of the survey results here.
Read a story about the Pew report here.
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Federal judge rules: McCain is a natural-born citizen
The U.S. Constitution states that only “natural-born” citizens can become president. McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, leading some to question his ability to run for the nation’s highest office.
According to AP, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the law at the time of McCain’s birth automatically granted citizenship to offspring of U.S. citizens.
Read the AP story here.
Read a previous story about the legal questions surrounding McCain’s birth here.
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Obama ties McCain to Rush Limbaugh in immigration ads
Sen. Barack Obama released a Spanish-language radio and TV ad Tuesday that ties Sen. John McCain to talk show host Rush Limbaugh and immigration hard liners in his party.
The ad will air in Florida, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, Obama campaign officials said.
The ad says that McCain and “his Republican friends” have “two faces” when it comes to Latinos.
The ad shows a picture of Limbaugh with a quote underneath which says, “Mexicans — stupid and unqualified.” A narrator says that McCain wants Latinos to forget “the insults” and “the intolerance.”
Hessy Fernandez, McCain’s spokesperson for Hispanic media, denounced the ad as “hypocritical and desperate.”
“Sen. McCain never used that kind of rhetoric,” she said. “Sen. McCain took a lot of heat, at great political risk, for this issue.”
See the ad here, as featured on the Washington Post web site:
The Obama ad is a reaction to a McCain Spanish language ad that blames Obama for the demise of an immigration bill last year. Obama’s campaign said Tuesday the ad was untruthful. Here it is:
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Obama: Immigration raids are a publicity stunt
Salinas asked Obama whether he supports a moratorium on immigration raids.
Here is his answer: “Raids are a publicity stunt, they are a tactic to push people away from focusing on the failures of the immigration system as a whole. What we have to do is to have a comprehensive immigration plan that has strong border security; that cracks down on employers who are taking advantage of undocumented workers…We’ve got to crack down on them, and we’ve got to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers, making sure that they over time are able to earn their position here in the United States of America.”
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Half of California students have at least one foreign-born parent
The U.S. Census Bureau released some interesting stats on students in the United States, including:
— Half of school kids in California have at least one foreign-born parent, the highest percentage in the nation. In Nevada, 36 percent have at least one foreign-born parent and in New York, its 33 percent.
— West Virginia and Mississippi have the lowest rate of students with at least one foriegn born parent — 2.5 percent.
— In California, Texas and New Mexico, one-third or more of students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade spoke a language other than English at home.
An earlier analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center found that the number of Hispanic students in the nation’s public schools is increasing rapidly, and nearly one-fifth have difficulty speaking English.
Richard Fry, a senior researcher at the Pew Hispanic Center and co-author of the study, said that an increasing number of Hispanic students are bilingual — speaking English and Spanish proficiently.
Read more here.
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Informal hearing highlights illegal immigrant criminals
Army Staff Sgt. Anita Shaw spoke emotionally Thursday about receiving a call in Iraq, during her second tour of duty, that her son Jamiel, a high school football star in Los Angeles, had been killed. Police have charged an illegal immigrant believed to be a gang member with the crime.
“We are supposed to be the land of the free, the proud, the brave, but it seems that we are being taken over by another country././. the illegal alien gang bangers,” she said.
A visibly shaken Shaw appeared before lawmakers in an unusual forum that focused on the victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee arranged the event on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to bring attention to the issue, saying that Americans are being terrorized by illegal immigrant criminals.
The unofficial hearing was decried by immigrant advocates as an attempt to exploit the grief of crime victims to paint all foreigners as criminals in order to further an anti-immigrant political agenda.
The Immigration Policy Center, an advocate group, said that the gathering was “irresponsible and dangerous.”
“It is especially troubling to see lawmakers exploit the pain of the victims of these terrible crimes to promote their political motives,” the group said, in a press release.
Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, said that the unofficial forum was needed because the Democrats — who control Congress — have refused to have a hearing on the topic.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who chairs the House Judiciary subcommittee that overseas immigration issues, said that was not true.
“I don’t know what is the matter with this guy,” she said of King.
Lofgren said she agreed with King’s request to ask the Government Accountability Office to investigate how many crimes have been committed by illegal immigrants.
Once they get that information, they can have a hearing, she said. “We need facts,” she added.
In addition, she said of the unofficial hearing: “If they want to go through fake proceedings, I guess that’s up to them. The public is going to know it’s just a bunch of baloney.”
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Catholic bishops condemn immigration raids
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said this week that immigration raids destroy families and won’t fix the nation’s broken immigration system.
“The humanitarian costs of these raids are immeasurable and unacceptable in a civilized society,” said Bishop John Wester, chairman of the group. “While we do not question the right and duty of our government to enforce the law, we do question whether worksite enforcement raids are the most effective and humane method for performing this duty, particularly as they are presently being implemented.”
Read the press release from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops here.
Read more here
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Border fence needs $400 million, may not be done before Bush leaves office
President Bush wanted to finish building the wall on the Southwest border before he leaves office, but the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday that he cannot promise he’ll meet the deadline, the AP reported.
Customs Commissioner Ralph Basham said the agency needs an additional $400 million to finish the fence.
The plan had been to complete the 670 miles of physical fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of this year. So far, some 344 are complete, the AP said.
Read more here.
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Southern Poverty Law Center to award the “Dobbsy”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group with a history of monitoring hate groups, said Wednesday it will start a new award for people in the mainstream media who “make utterly false or misleading statements that have the effect of denigrating or defaming an entire group of people.”
The are calling the award, the “Dobbsy,” named after CNN anchor Lou Dobbs.
Dobbs constant discussion of illegal immigration has upset Hispanic groups who say he is offensive to Latinos and one-sided on the issue.
Dobbs has denied charges of xenophobia.
Read more about the “Dobbsy” here.
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Polls: support for comprehensive immigration reform in battleground states
A Democratic group called NDN said Wednesday that polls in four battleground states show strong support for comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
The states — Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada — all have large Hispanic populations.
NDN says the majority of people in those states have a positive view of undocumented immigrants, believing that they have come here to work and seek a better life, are not taking jobs from American citizens and are not interested in receiving public handouts.”
Read more here.
Latest comments
Kennedy must have a Lobbiest paying him—he should be ashame he was let off the hook for killing that girl while DWI—my cousin is in jail for killing somebody while DWI—Kennedy must be trying to buy his way to heaven.
... read the full comment by gg | Comment on Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids Read Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids
Whenever a patriotic American Citizen speaks out against the criminal invasion of Illegal Aliens some bigoted, anti-American pro-Illegal Alien zealot will always post an ignorant attack, such as the following foolish trash.
Quote:
... read the full comment by L1M89 | Comment on Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids Read Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids
Criminal behavior includes immpersonating a citizen, pretending to be a legal citizen. That is a crime in every country and you can be arrested, jailed and deported at any time. Mexico tried to deport my daughter, so I know the facts.
... read the full comment by Tom | Comment on Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids Read Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids
I have never been arrested in this country but I have seen other people who were. NO ONE no matter what race, culture, or color, who breaks the law and gets arrested is treated nicely or very humanly when they break the law. NO ONE! including American
... read the full comment by George | Comment on Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids Read Bill would set minimum standards for immigration raids
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