illegal aliens

WASHINGTON, DC - The Center for Immigration Studies examines sentencing reform legislation now before Congress and finds provisions of concern that could lead to the release of dangerous criminal alien offenders.
 
The Obama administration has announced the pending release of 6,000 felons from federal prisons, of whom an estimated 2,000 are non-citizens. This is the first wave of releases; the total number of serious alien drug offenders released could exceed 13,000.
 
A bill under consideration in the Senate Judiciary Committee, known as the "Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015," S.2123, proposes to go down the same path and shorten the sentences for repeat cross-border drug traffickers, manufacturers, and distributers caught in the future.
 
Dan Cadman, a Center fellow and author of the analysis, said, "It is beyond incomprehensible that Senate leaders would attempt to fast-track a sentencing reform bill painted with such a broad brush that tens of thousands of aliens will be released from federal penitentiaries with no assurance of prompt deportation putting public safety at great risk."
 
The present bill affects sentences going forward, and also is retroactive in effect, which could make it easier for some alien offenders to challenge their deportation.
 
Equally concerning, it does not ensure that released alien prisoners will be detained while in deportation proceedings following their release. Since 2013, the administration has freed more than 76,000 convicted criminal aliens while in deportation proceedings, resulting in an uncounted toll of new crimes.
 
Several specific provisions will shorten the sentences of aliens who are repeat offenders convicted for trafficking illegal drugs into the United States from abroad, and for those caught serving as drug mules. In addition:
 

• Courts will be required to seal juvenile offenders' records, including those
• The bill shortens the sentence for those also charged with illegally possessing or using a firearm to effect the crime (often drug trafficking), from 25 down to 15 years.

"The immigration and public safety priorities of the Republican-led Senate will be apparent if this bill is rushed through like the Trans-Pacific trade and Iran sanctions bills, while Sen Vitter's solid anti-sanctuary bill, S.2146, languishes," said Cadman. "The tragic death of Kate Steinle and so many others seems to have already been forgotten."

Contact: Marguerite Telford
202-466-8185, mrt@cis.org Read more about Thousands of Alien Felons Are Being Released from Prison

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a Republican-backed bill that would crack down on so-called sanctuary cities by threatening to withhold funds to local governments that don't cooperate with federal immigration officials. 

  Read more about Senate Dems block anti-sanctuary city bill

HARRISBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - The mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania on Wednesday said the city will seek a ten-year payment plan after being ordered by a court to pay $1.4 million to lawyers who sued the city over a 2006 ordinance targeting illegal immigrants.

Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi said that if agreed to by the American Civil Liberties Union and other plaintiff lawyers, the payment plan would allow the city of 25,340 to avoid the tax hikes and layoffs it would otherwise need in order to pay the legal fees.

"We lost, so we had to pay. But it was not a wasted cause. We thought we were right," Yannuzzi said. U.S. District Judge James Munley issued his ruling about the fees late on Tuesday.

In 2006, Hazleton's City Council, at the prodding of then-mayor Lou Barletta, passed an ordinance barring local businesses from hiring illegal immigrants and landlords from renting housing to them. Barletta is now a U.S. Representative.

The ACLU and others sued. The subsequent court battle lasted eight years, with appeals going twice to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The city was unable to get past rulings that immigration control was a matter for the federal government.

ACLU lawyers originally asked for $2.8 million in legal fees. But Judge Munley cut that amount by half because the lawyers did not prevail on all their claims.

Munley rejected a 14-year payment plan proposed by Hazleton's lawyer, Kris Kobach, a national activist against illegal immigration who is also the Republican Secretary of State of Kansas. Kobach did not respond to a request for comment.

Omar Jadwat, one of the ACLU lawyers, said the lawyers are committed to finding a payment plan for Hazleton "that works."

Yannuzzi said he did not believe the city would appeal. The court set a Jan. 15 deadline to work out a payment agreement.

  Read more about Pennsylvania city must pay $1.4 million legal fees in immigration fight

JEFFERSON CITY The Missouri House voted 114-37 to override Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of a bill banning the state-funded A+ Scholarship from being awarded to undocumented immigrants.

The Missouri Senate voted to override the veto earlier in the day, so the bill becomes law.

UPDATED AT 6:40 p.m.

JEFFERSON CITY The Missouri Senate voted to override Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of a bill banning the state-funded A+ Scholarship from being awarded to undocumented immigrants.

The bill now moves to the House, where 108 Republicans voted in favor when the bill originally passed earlier this year. That’s one shy of a two-thirds majority, although 11 Republicans were absent and did not vote.

At issue are students who qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. It was created by President Barack Obama in 2012 to stop the deportation of children brought to the country illegally by their parents.

Because these students were brought to the U.S. as young children and are undocumented through no fault of their own, DACA allows them to legally live, work and study in the U.S. It does not, however, create a path to citizenship.

In response to the federal government’s action, the Missouri Department of Higher Education established a rule last year stating that because the students were now lawfully present in the U.S., they were eligible for the A+ Scholarship.

As long as the students have attended a Missouri high school for three years and graduated with a 2.5 GPA, a 95 percent attendance record and 50 hours of tutoring or mentoring, they qualify for the state-funded scholarship.

Supporters of the bill say it’s unfair for students who are in the country illegally to receive the scholarship when money for the program is tight.

“I am protecting the citizens and permanent residents of this state right now,” said Sen. Gary Romine, a Farmington Republican who sponsored the bill.

Opponents say these students were brought to the U.S. as young children and are in the country illegally through no fault of their own. The students in question kept their grades up, volunteered in their community and stayed out of trouble, advocates say, most while learning English as a second language.

“Why are we punishing children for a fault of their parents?” said Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, a St. Louis Democrat.

Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a University City Democrat whose district includes the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, said the Legislature’s priorities are out of whack.

”People are dying in my district every day,” she said, “and we’re arguing about who gets a scholarship?”

The House is expected to take up the bill tonight. Read more about Missouri GOP overrides veto of scholarship ban for students brought into country illegally

Canadian authorities sent out a fugitive alert last year in the hunt for a man suspected of raping a teenage girl in Alberta – apparently unaware that he was already behind bars in a federal prison in Oregon...

Raed Arook's travels in and out of custody – including three illegal entries into the U.S. – is documented in U.S. court papers...

Canadian authorities now want to get the 39-year-old Arook back into custody on their side of the border, and U.S. officials want to comply under a long-standing extradition treaty between the two North American neighbors.

But Arook is contesting Canada's push to extradite him to Alberta, where the Crown Prosecutors Office wants to put him on trial for the alleged sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in his Edmonton hotel room.

Agents discovered that Arook had first entered the U.S. illegally on April 7, 2007, tripping a Customs and Border Patrol surveillance camera five miles west of the Sweet Grass, Montana...

The U.S. apparently sent Arook back to Canada that June. But a few months later, on Oct. 17, 2007, he was convicted of drug possession in Houston...

U.S. authorities deported Arook to Israel on April 22, 2008.

More than five years later, according to government court papers, a 15-year-old girl in Edmonton, identified as "C.S.," gave authorities an account of her encounter with Arook on Sept. 10, 2013:

The two met outside the Strathcona Hotel, where Arook invited the girl up to his suite to do some methamphetamine. She agreed and entered the hotel lobby with the Israeli....

A desk clerk later told police that hotel workers discovered a fire escape ladder had been pulled down, a common way for hotel guests to sneak people in.

The girl told investigators that she entered the hotel room, where she and Arook and two other males smoked and snorted meth. She recalled waking about 2 p.m. the following day in Arook's bed, both of them naked, and found that she had difficulty walking. She went to Stollery Children's Hospital, where a sexual assault examination showed she had suffered abrasions to her genitalia.

Edmonton police arrested Arook and on Sept. 24, 2013, charged him with sexual assault and sexual interference. Both charges carry maximum sentences of up to 10 years in prison. But a little more than four months later, on Feb. 12, 2014, he posted a $5,000 recognizance bond and was released, according to Canadian authorities.

Arook was supposed to appear for trial last September, but failed to appear at the Court of Queens Bench of Alberta. Canadian authorities issued an arrest warrant the following day. But he was nowhere to be found.

At 12:35 p.m. that very day, a sheriff's deputy in Toole County, Montana, spotted Arook walking south on Interstate 15, about seven miles south of the U.S.-Canada border station at Sweet Grass...

The deputy took Arook to the sheriff's office, where he was questioned by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Arook gave them a phony name...

Arook later gave them his true name, and he was charged in federal court with illegally re-entering the U.S.

Last December, U.S. authorities sentenced Arook to one year and one day behind bars and sent him to the government prison complex in Sheridan, 50 miles from Portland.

Somehow, police and court officials in Canada never got the word.

Early last March, the Edmonton Police Service put out a bulletin that listed Arook as a fugitive....

"Arook's current whereabouts are not known," according to the police bulletin, which urged anyone with information about him to contact police or the Crime Stoppers tip line.

But U.S. authorities knew where he was. Arook was serving the last five months of his prison term in Sheridan. On Aug. 11, he completed his federal time and deputy U.S. Marshals transferred him from the prison to a downtown Portland jail.

Arook is now locked up in the Inverness Jail in Northeast Portland, where he's being held on a provisional arrest warrant out of Canada.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Stacie F. Beckerman is scheduled to hold an extradition hearing on Oct. 30.

Gorder filed a provisional arrest warrant in August that seeks to extradite Arook to Canada, rather than deport him to Israel.

Lawyers in the Oregon Federal Public Defender's Office, representing Arook in his fight to avoid extradition, pointed out in a recent court motion that his heritage is Palestinian, religion is Muslim and citizenship is Israeli. Therefore they seek U.S. documents that might indicate Arook would suffer political or religious persecution in Canada.

Raed Arook was booked into multiple police agencies in Canada and the U.S. after his 2013 arrest in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The 39-year-old Palestinian Muslim, who holds Israeli citizenship, is now fighting extradition to Canada, where he faces rape charges. His lawyers suggest he might be persecuted for his political or religious views.
  Read more about Canada's fugitive turns up in Oregon prison, now faces extradition as suspected child rapist

A new study out Tuesday, Aug. 18, shows that the number of individual states bypassing thorny federal immigration issues and instead finding practical ways to deal with driving privileges for unauthorized immigrants is growing.

The PEW Charitable Trusts report, called “Deciding Who Drives; State choices surrounding unauthorized immigrants and driver’s licenses,” released Tuesday, said 10 states and the District of Columbia passed driver’s license laws for non-citizens in 2013. It had been 11 states until Oregon’s law was repealed by ballot measure last fall.

Two more states, Delaware and Hawaii, passed laws this year granting driver identification to unauthorized immigrants. And four more, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Mexico and Texas, have bills in front of legislative committees.

“So you can see, this issue exemplifies immigration federalism,” said Adam Hunter, a director at the PEW Charitable Trusts whose team put the report together. “All states are grappling with immigration. We have large states, small states and states across the political spectrum that don’t want to address immigration reform, but do want to comply with the REAL ID Act of 2005.”

The act, a voluntary measure for states, sets minimum standards for driver’s licenses on issues such as security features for federal identification. States that issue separate driver’s cards for unauthorized immigrants are required to give them distinctive markings and text that says “not valid for federal identification.”

States such as Washington avoided some of the anticipated problems of having two separate sets of driver’s ID by issuing unauthorized immigrants the same driver’s license as it issues to other residents. Hunter said this proviso means Washington is not in compliance with the voluntary federal law.

“These licenses don’t grant or change anyone’s immigration status,” Hunter said. “Immigration has always been thought of as a federal-level prerogative. This report shows that it is an issue of a growing number of states legislating on matters of importance to their immigrant populations. They’re applying practical solutions on local matters.”

Hunter said it was too early to know whether states who’ve adopted local driver’s license laws have seen an increase or decrease in unauthorized-immigrant population growth, because many of the new laws had only been implemented this year.

Cynthia Kendoll, president of Oregonians for Immigration Reform, the grassroots organization that helped overturn Oregon’s driver’s card law last year, said she’d be more likely to read a PEW report that examined the number of states trying to repeal their laws versus those trying to implement one.

“I don’t expect it’ll (issuing driver’s cards for unauthorized immigrants) come up next session,” Kendoll said. “But then you never know what the Legislature is going to do. I would hope they’d listen to what the people, their constituents, want. And I think that 66 percent of Oregonians (the percentage who voted to repeal the law last November) is a pretty good indication of what the people of Oregon want.”

STATESMAN JOURNAL
Driver cards rejected by wide margin
  Read more about More states tackle driver’s card dilemma

Harsh summer temperatures ushered in an early pear harvest for Hood River Valley.

Fruit bearing trees were ready two weeks early, causing pickers to scramble and collect the crop starting in late July.

The Hood River News talked ramifications with growers around the upper and lower valley. The consensus: summer pears are looking good, if in some cases a little small. Laborers to pick the fruit also remains an issue.

Columbia Gorge Fruit Growers executive director Jean Godfrey said the pear harvest began last week, which is two weeks earlier than its usual mid-August start.

She’s hearing from growers (and the company represents 350 of them), that while the crop is “clean” — meaning low russeting — the overall fruit size is smaller than usual.

“I’m hearing that it looks good, but it’s a little smaller than we’d like,” Godfrey said. “That’s due to the weather; it’s been so hot and it stresses the trees. But the crop is about an average-size crop.”

Some growers are seeing full-bodied pears, however.

Bartletts are next for Parkdale grower Gordy Sato, who said the Starkrimson crop is coming in fast this week. All told, “the pears are beautiful,” he said, large and russet-free, referring to the reddish spotting and dimpling that can make most varieties of pears less marketable.

“Our pears are definitely sizing up, generally larger than the lower valley,” said Sato. “I know that some growers are seeing smaller sizes. They had cold weather at the wrong times, and then watering cutbacks, particularly in the Farmers Irrigation District,” he said.

Lower valley grower Craig McCurdy of McCurdy Farms, which grows primarily pears, said that location is key when it comes to fruit size and quality because the topography and soil change the farther south you go.

McCurdy’s farm taps into Farmers Irrigation, and he’s had to cut back on watering due to drought conditions, which affect size and quality. Also detrimental was a hail storm that hammered the lower valley in early May. It narrowly missed his trees, but it damaged others in the area.

His fruit size is good, but quality “might be a little off from what it was last year, just due to heat,” he said. “We’re getting a little sunburn and more yellowing to the fruit, especially on Anjous.”

Craig Mallon, Quality Control Manager at Duckwall Fruit, explained that pears have shrunk throughout much of the valley due to the “defense mechanism” of fruit trees in response to summer heat spells, which scorched into the triple digits.

This could hurt the value of the crop. Smaller pears means smaller profits, he said, as well as less space filled in each bin of fruit.

“The pear size will be smaller than the average year,” said Mallon. “The overall Bartlett crop might be down as much as 10 to 12 percent.”

Another issue local orchardists face is lack of staffing.

“Our main problem is finding pickers,” Sato said. Enrolling in U.S. Labor Department programs last year and this year has helped, but Sato said immigration rules and an aging harvest work force are main contributors to a general work force shortage in Oregon and California.

McCurdy said his farm is okay for the time being. However, “labor is going to become a bigger and bigger issue as we go along,” he said. “It’s not going to go away.” Many of his workers are second or third generation valley residents, and travel across the border between the United States and Mexico.

Increasingly, third generation residents are pursuing careers outside the Ag sector, said McCurdy.

“The third generation graduated from high school here, and most of my employees have kids in college,” McCurdy said. They’re shifting away from ag, he said, because they’ve grown up with it — as have his own children — and “they don’t want anything to do with it.”

At Duckwall Fruit, there’s no shortage of labor for the Bartlett harvest, said Mallon, but the issue could rear up for other varieties later this year.

“It doesn’t seem like an overabundance of staff,” said Mallon.

Godfrey said by the time Anjou picking comes around, there will be a shortage.
  Read more about Pear harvest sweeps in early

Border enforcement isn’t just about the Mexican border.

The frontier with our southern neighbor really is better controlled than it used to be, though that’s not saying much, considering how laughably inadequate enforcement was in the past.

But it’s immigration security overall that we need to worry about, both at the border and the interior. Better border fencing is indeed necessary, but our efforts in non-border areas haven’t even risen yet to the level of “laughably inadequate.” Until they’re addressed, we shouldn’t even be discussing what to do about illegal aliens already here.

The three biggest weaknesses are worksite enforcement, visa tracking, and state and local partnerships with federal authorities.

Weakening the magnet of jobs is key to deterring illegal immigration. The online E-Verify system enables employers to check whether new hires are telling the truth about who they are — but it’s only voluntary. Only by making E-Verify a universal part of the hiring process can we even begin to claim to be serious about enforcement.

People who come here legally on visitor visas but never leave are now the main source of new illegal immigration, accounting for nearly 60% of the 1,000 new illegal aliens a day settling here. We do a better job of checking people in as they arrive, but we don’t track departures. That means we don’t know which visa holders have remained illegally — despite the fact that Congress has mandated such a visa-tracking system eight times since 1996.

It should go without saying that any illegal alien arrested for local crimes should be deported. Yet the Obama administration has dismantled the infrastructure for cooperation between the feds and local law enforcement. Rebuilding these relationships, and protecting cities from predatory lawsuits by anti-borders groups such as the ACLU, is imperative.

Politicians who want legalization of the illegals now, while promising to get around to improving enforcement in the future, are offering the same bad deal as the infamous 1986 amnesty. “Enforcement first” is the only acceptable approach.
  Read more about Weaken the magnet of jobs: Opposing view