enforcement

Saying they still will not be here legally, Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday told state agencies to deny benefits and even driver's licenses to those illegal immigrants the Obama administration will allow to remain in the country.

In an executive order, the governor said the "deferred action'' program for those who arrived as children does not actually grant them any legal status. And that, she said, makes those in this category ineligible for public benefits under the terms of a 2004 voter-enacted measure.

"Allowing more than an estimated 80,000 deferred action recipients improper access to state or local benefits ... will have significant and lasting impacts on the Arizona budget, its health care system and additional public benefits that Arizona taxpayers fund,'' the order reads.

So she directed all state agencies to change their operations, policies and rules -- and statutes if necessary -- to prevent those in this category from getting benefits.

Brewer also said driver's licenses will be off limits to those in the deferred action program because state law prohibits the Department of Transportation from issuing licenses "unless an applicant submits proof satisfactory to ADOT that the applicant's presence in the United States is authorized under federal law.''

But that directive flies in the face of current ADOT policies which say that licenses are available to anyone with an Employment Authorization Document issued by the federal government without further documentation.

Potentially more significant, an attorney who specializes in immigration law says the governor's action is illegal.

Regina Jefferies acknowledged that those who will be part of the deferred action program will not have legal status. What they have, however, is "lawful presence.''

"They've got permission to be here,'' she said.

In fact, Jefferies said the whole concept of deferred action, while vastly expanded under the president's announcement, is not new. She said federal immigration officials have similarly classified others in the past, such as victims of domestic violence, and made their presence legal.

Jefferies said that classification will not entitle those in the new program to things like food stamps. But she said anyone who is granted deferred action can sue -- she believes successfully -- if the state denies any of these people a driver's license.

Gubernatorial press aide Matthew Benson said his boss disagrees -- and will not back down.

"What President Obama has done confers neither lawful status nor authorized presence,'' he said. "All they've done is defer these individuals' prosecution and deportation.''

He acknowledged MVD has accepted federally issued work permits in the past as proof of legal presence to get a driver's license. But he said that will no longer be the case, at least not without other documentation the Brewer administration believes is proof of legal presence.

And those work cards, by themselves, will not be enough.

"As DHS has told us repeatedly, these individuals who are granted deferred action do not have lawful status,'' Benson said.

Brewer's move comes the same day the Department of Homeland Security began accepting applications from what some organizations have said are a potential 1.7 million individuals who the Obama administration has decided not to try to deport.

In general, those eligible arrived in this country before they turned 16 and are not yet 30. They also need to currently be in school, have graduated from high school or obtained an equivalency diploma, or are honorably discharged veterans.

Under the terms of the program, individuals can seek what amounts to a two-year deferment of any prosecution for being in this country illegally, a deferment that is infinitely renewable -- at least under the current administration.

More to the point, they also will gain permission to work legally in the United States. And it is the issuance of those work documents, Brewer fears, which might otherwise open the door for those in this group to get benefits otherwise reserved for citizens and legal residents.

Benson acknowledged the order also would result in a situation where those who would now be entitled to work will be unable to get the driver's licenses they need to get to their jobs. But he said that is irrelevant.

"This problem was created not by the governor,'' he said. "This problem was created by the president's action to allow these individuals to remain in this country indefinitely and to be provided work permits while they're here.''

Benson said nothing in Brewer's order affects the tuition that those not in this country legally have to pay to attend community colleges and universities. He said it is long settled state law that only those who are citizens or legal residents of the United States, or have "lawful immigration status,'' are entitled to pay the lower rates residents pay.

But Jefferies said she believes that those in the deferred action program may have some claim to the lower tuition.

Benson sidestepped questions of what Brewer thinks should happen, long term, to those who were brought here as children and currently have no legal status.

"That's not what this is about,'' he said.

"President Obama created this problem by picking and choosing what individuals can remain in this country and picking and choosing what parts of federal law he intends to enforce,'' Benson said.

"And it's up to states to try to do all they can to enforce their existing laws'' he continued. "The governor's going to do everything she can to minimize the damage from the president's deferred action move and to limit the cost to taxpayers.''
  Read more about Jan Brewer orders denial of benefits to illegal immigrants Obama is allowing to stay

Long after they were ordered out of the country, thousands of criminal aliens from places like China, Cuba, Vietnam and Pakistan remain free in the United States to commit new crimes because their home countries refuse to take them back.

For years, this unique problem percolated under the political radar. But recent crimes by immigrant felons have lawmakers scrambling to punish nations that refuse to repatriate their own citizens. The Obama administration and many Democrats in Congress, however, are blocking punitive legislation, preferring to let the State Department handle the issue diplomatically.

Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, is leading the charge in Congress to change the law, pushing to withhold visas to nations that refuse to take back their own.

"I don't know why the State Department seems to take the side of foreign countries over our own American interest in the United States," Poe said, urging the U.S. to tell those countries: "Look, you take these people back or the consequence is going to be no visas for your nation."

Under a 2001 Supreme Court decision, U.S. immigration officials are only permitted to hold someone for six months after their incarceration. So when a home nation refuses to take back their national, the U.S. is required to release them -- no matter what they've done.

The issue recently came to Poe's attention after three especially heinous crimes were committed by men ordered deported years ago.

In June, a judge sentenced 22-year-old Shafiqul Islam, a Bangladeshi national, for the murder of 73-year-old Lois Decker.

"This man was a dangerous criminal," said Hudson New York District Attorney Paul Czajka. "He should not have been in the United States. At the very least, he should have been in detention."

Islam murdered Decker after serving a year for sexually assaulting a child. After his release from prison, a judge ordered Islam deported.

Bangladesh, however, refused to take him back. Because of the 2001 high court ruling, Islam stayed in the country.

"Lois had so much more living to do. She'll never see her grandchildren marry. Or see them have children. She loved her family, her friends and her church," lamented Decker's daughter Sue Call at Islam's sentencing hearing.

Police say Decker was at home when Islam broke in and strangled her to death in March. Decker taught Sunday school, volunteered at church and supported veterans' groups. Her case ignited a storm of criticism in tiny Hudson, N.Y., but it is hardly isolated. More than 50,000 criminal alien immigrants ordered deported remain in the U.S.

Those nations with the highest numbers, in order, are: Cuba, China, India, Pakistan and Vietnam.

Another example is 35-year-old Binh Thai Luc. Luc was a career thief who served an eight-year term in California state prison. A judge kicked him out of the U.S. but when Vietnam refused to take him back, he was released onto the streets of San Francisco. In March, Luc allegedly bludgeoned to death a family of five.

In Boston, a Cambodian gang member stabbed and beat 16-year-old Ashton Cline-McMurray to death with a golf club. The boy, disabled with cerebral palsy, was attacked while walking home from a football game. Originally, prosecutors charged Loeun Heng with murder, which carried a life sentence. However, in 2003 they agreed to a plea bargain, believing Heng could be deported. Last year, when he was released from prison, Cambodia refused to take him back, putting him back on the streets.

"They said he would never set foot basically on American soil again," said the boy's mother Sandra Hutchinson. "It's crazy. They're just letting him back out there to do it to somebody else." Eventually, Cambodia relented and took him back.

But these cases caught Poe's attention. His first bill introduced last year refused any visas -- student, business or tourist -- to any country that refused to repatriate their criminals. That bill went nowhere, opposed by the travel industry, the administration and Democrats in Congress

Back again in the House Immigration Subcommittee, Poe is trying again. This year, his bill only applies to visas for diplomatic staff from countries that refuse deported nationals. But many Democrats believe even that is too aggressive.

"What Poe's bill will do is throw a monkey wrench into diplomatic relations. It is a nonstarter for that reason," says immigration attorney Dave Leopold. "It makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the secretary of State and the secretary of Homeland Security to make intelligent decisions about when to stop issuing visas to countries that refuse to take their criminal alien deportees."

Poe says the State Department already has the discretion to withhold visas from offending nations, but used it only once in 2005 against Guyana. The country immediately took back its 100 citizens. His bill currently in committee would make the sanctions mandatory.

"These people don't go back. They stay here. They commit crimes. And the countries that are responsible for them don't do anything about it. It's time the United States do something about it and hold these countries accountable," said Poe. "They aren't going to have any choice if we pass this law.'

Fox News contacted Democratic members of the immigration subcommittee, but they declined interviews on the topic. Read more about Rep raises alarm after murders by illegals blocked from deportation by home countries

Although Donald Abar wanted to locally prosecute the man who investigators say is responsible for the death of a Marion County sheriff’s deputy, the decision was out of his hands.

The suspect in the 2007 death of deputy Kelly Fredinburg, Alfredo De Jesus Ascencio, faces two counts of criminal negligence. De Jesus Ascencio, however, is thought to be in Mexico and those crimes are not extridictable.

So the Marion County deputy district attorney announced Monday that the agency is working with Mexican authorities to prosecute De Jesus Ascencio, 25, and that a warrant has been issued in Mexico for his arrest.

“We wanted prosecution here because this is an Oregon case. It happened in our community, Kelly Fredinburg was part of our community, it was kind of a personal thing,” Abar said. “This came to the point where it’s just not going to happen.”

The Marion County District Attorney’s Office plans to charge the case through Article Four prosecution, a unique Mexican statute which allows Mexican citizens who commit crimes in foreign territories to be prosecuted in Mexico.

De Jesus Ascencio was indicted locally on the charges in August 2007 after a head-on traffic crash that occurred in June 2007 on Highway 99E near Gervais. The crash left two people dead: Fredinburg and Ocar Ascencio-Amaya, 19, of Woodburn.

Fredinburg was driving south on Highway 99E en route to an emergency call in Gervais with lights and sirens activated. De Jesus Ascencio was driving north and crossed into the southbound traffic lane, hitting Fredinburg head-on, police said.

Ascencio-Amaya was the suspect’s cousin and was a passenger in his vehicle at the time of the crash.

De Jesus Ascencio was taken to Oregon Health and Science University hospital in Portland where he stayed for several weeks. However, authorities were not able to locate him after his release from the hospital in mid-June.

Abar said that officials think De Jesus Ascencio is in Mexico and that prosecutors have been working with Mexican authorities in locating him.

The warrant, Abar said, has been valid since 2011. Investigators and prosecutors did not alert the public of the development at that time because they worried it would alert De Jesus Ascencio, Abar said. However, Mexican authorities have since mistakenly arrested one of De Jesus Ascencio’s relatives for the charges, and Abar said investigators now think he is aware of the warrant’s existence, so they are making it public.

Sheriff Jason Myers said that Fredinburg’s death was felt by the community and sheriff’s office.

“We’re very, very hopeful that the victim’s family will find some peace in knowing that we haven’t given up and that someone will come forward with the information we need to arrest this fugitive,” Myers said.

Kevin Fredinburg, brother of the fallen deputy, also announced at the press conference that they have established the Oregon Officer Reward Fund, a $20,000 reward offered for information that leads to the arrest of De Jesus Ascencio.

“I can’t relax until he’s caught ... this is one thing I can do that is legal to make that happen,” Kevin Fredinburg said. “It’s time to close this. I’ve been impatient for a long time.”

The fund will exist even when his brother’s case is closed, Fredinburg said. The fund, which will be donation-driven, offers rewards for assistance in future cases that involve the death or critical injury of an officer.

“I’ll stay with it until the day I die, I believe in it that strongly,” Fredinburg said.

$20,000 Reward Announced in Search for Suspect Sought in June 2007 Traffic Death of Marion Co. Deputy and Second Person
Oregon State Police - 08/06/12

Anyone with information related to this investigation to help locate De JESUS ASCENCIO can report tips by phone at:

* In Oregon, call 800-452-7888
* From anywhere in the United States for English and Spanish speakers to the Crime Stoppers Tip Line, refer to case #07-28, (bilingual call takers), call 1-503-823-4357
* Residents within Mexico can call the Crime Stoppers Tip Line, refer to case #07-28, (bilingual call takers) at 00-1-503-823-4357
* Residents within Mexico can call the Specialized Unit Against Crimes Committed Abroad (UEDE) at 0-1-555-346-1669

Email tips can be sent to: crimetips20SP@state.or,us . Read more about Suspect in Marion County officer's 2007 death sought in Mexico

On July 29, 2012, a special kind of bus tour across the American Southwest departed from Phoenix, Arizona. The passengers aren’t going to be relaxing in luxury resort spas or sightseeing majestic landmarks in the desert. There are no rock stars on board, at least, not in the way we’re used to thinking.

The people riding on this bus have embarked on a precarious mission to show Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, along with the United States federal government, that they will no longer live in the shadows. They want to let them know that they are no longer afraid, and that they have begun organizing to take a public stand for the rights of undocumented people in the U.S.

Four days earlier, on July 25, a group of protestors gathered outside the U.S. District Court, where Sheriff Arpaio was testifying in a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund on behalf of all Arizona residents (documented and undocumented alike) who have been victims of racial profiling. Arpaio’s own words were used against him during the trial, and he spent six hours responding to racist comments he made in media interviews.

The protestors that Tuesday included four undocumented individuals – Miguel Guerra, Natally Cruz, Leticia Ramirez, and Isela Meraz – who were arrested outside the courthouse for blocking an intersection and had immigration holds placed on them in jail. Everyone but Guerra has been released.

Leticia Ramirez came to the United States with her parents when she was nine years old, and she has been living on this side of the border for eighteen years. Her children were born in Arizona. She does what she can to help others, including volunteering at a neighborhood food program where children get the breakfast and lunch they need every day.

“Life in Arizona has gotten complicated since they passed their anti-immigrant laws,” says Ramirez, who worries daily about her husband while he’s at work. “Now we can’t go out of the house or enjoy time with our children. We’re afraid to leave because of the police who harass us. Because they want to arrest us.”

Miguel Guerra, who has been here for fourteen years and has a wife and three children, works in construction and has been a volunteer with the Puente Human Rights Movement since shortly after the passage of SB1070.

Guerra says, “We want President Obama to see that we are no longer afraid and that that we are demanding that he take action to solve our community’s problems.”

Natally Cruz, who has been in the United States for sixteen years, also volunteers for Puente; she has a seven-year-old son. Isela Meraz came here with her parents at the age of eight and has lived in Phoenix for twenty-one years. She has participated in hunger strikes and has organized art shows for 3^rd Space’s Queer Cultura.

These four protestors, along with many other undocumented residents, have made their lives in the United States. For them it’s not a viable option to return to Mexico. They’ve planted solid roots in Phoenix, where they work hard and contribute to the community in any way they can.

Ramirez, Cruz, and Meraz, who were released the day after they were arrested, have been riding on the UndocuBus, along with Carlos Garcia, an organizer with the “Arrest Arpaio Not the People” campaign and with Puente Arizona. So far, they have been through New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas.

UndocuBus will be in Austin on Friday, August 3, at noon at the Travis County Sherriff’s office. The gathering includes the support of Austin Immigrants Rights Coalition, the University Leadership Initiative, Grassroots Leadership, Proyecto Defensa Laboral and other immigrant advocates in Austin. Undocumented riders will come out publicly, support local people to build barrio defense, and perform peaceful civil disobedience.

After leaving Austin, they will continue through Texas to Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. The tour will end in North Carolina at the Democratic National Convention (September 3-6, 2012), where the party that promises reform but has so far produced record deportations, will decide whether to include or exclude the undocumented leaders who have put themselves at great legal risk.

Would you put yourself at risk by riding on UndocuBus if you were undocumented? Do you think these protestors are doing the right thing?

  Read more about UndocuBus Comes to Austin: No Papers, No Fear – Ride for Justice

Roughly one in six illegal immigrants is re-arrested on criminal charges within three years of release, according to new government data being released Tuesday.

Those charges range from murder to drunken-driving and, according to House Republicans pushing out the report, are symptoms of what they describe as a "dangerous and deadly" immigration policy.

The findings, obtained by Fox News, are contained in reports by the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee and nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. They are the result of the committee’s subpoena request for Department of Homeland Security records from October 2008 to July 2011.

The information was analyzed by the CRS, which also broke down the information for criminal immigrants -- legal immigrants who committed crimes and were arrested again over the three-year period. Together, the two groups also had a roughly one-in-six recidivism rate.

The records show 276,412 reported charges against illegal and criminal immigrants over that three-year period as identified by Secure Communities, a federal program that essentially attempts to make best use of resources by identifying and prioritizing which illegal immigrants pose the biggest threat to public safety and should be arrested or deported.

Of the 160,000 people in the database, more than 26,000 were re-arrested -- accounting for nearly 58,000 crimes and violations.

They allegedly committed nearly 8,500 drunken-driving offenses and more than 6,000 drug-related violations. The records also show major criminal offenses, which included murder, battery, rape, kidnapping and nearly 3,000 thefts. Roughly 2 percent of the crimes included carjacking, child molestation, lynching and torture, according to the 13-page Congressional Research Service report.

“The Obama administration could have prevented these senseless crimes by enforcing our immigration laws,” the committee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said. “But President Obama continues to further his anti-enforcement agenda while innocent Americans suffer the consequences.”

The report showed that more than 7,000 of those re-arrested were illegal immigrants. Among their charges were 19 murders, three attempted murders and 142 sex crimes.

The records were subpoenaed last year in large part over concerns that Obama administration changes to Secure Communities was allowing “potentially millions of illegal and criminal immigrants to avoid current immigration law,” according to the GOP-led House committee.

The Department of Homeland Security could not be reached for comment.

Committee members cited one case in which an illegal immigrant was flagged by Secure Communities for a June 2010 vehicle theft and then arrested five months later for attempted grand theft.

He was then arrested roughly six months later in connection with murder. He and two other men allegedly attempted to rob a 68-year-old man. When the victim’s grandson intervened, the illegal immigrant allegedly shot and killed the grandson, according to the committee.

“While this illegal immigrant should have been detained and deported, he was not considered a priority under the Obama administration’s reckless immigration policy and was released onto our streets,” the committee concluded.

  Read more about Republicans decry 'deadly' policy as report shows illegal immigrants committing new crimes

The driver of a car that Oregon State Police said held 55 pounds of "high-grade" cocaine that was found during a traffic stop Tuesday on Interstate 5 near Ashland has been identified as Hipolito Carrillo, 41, of Ontario, Calif.

The man initially gave troopers a false name and birth date.

At about 7:40 a.m. Tuesday, an OSP trooper stopped a 2011 Nissan Altima with California license plates near Milepost 12 for a traffic violation.

A drug dog used during the stop indicated drugs were present and officers said they found 25 individual sealed packages of cocaine hidden inside the car.

Two passengers, an elderly woman and a boy, were released and not arrested, police said.

Carillo remained lodged in the Jackson County Jail Thursday on charges of possession, delivery and manufacture of cocaine, first-degree child neglect and suspicion of being in the country illegally. He was being held without bail.
  Read more about Police identify man arrested after cocaine is found in car