And Bill --- you did not demonstrate where I was obfuscating...in that post --- you know why because I was not...

And I have not been --- you just have been in denial about being unable or unwilling to deal with the critcisms I have offered regarding your approach...

Criticisms which must be cured if it is to have any chance of being adopted or implemented...

I am still waiting for you to demonstrate where I have said anything that was inaccurate --- and I repeatedly had asked Bill in the past if he would like me to cease and desist on this thread --- and he had never said yes...so I just find your statement a little bit unfair...

It's not about unfair. It's about taking a snippet of what is said in this particular topic and putting it out of context in an entirely different thread " within quotes " taking another personal jab at Bill for what was said here, applying to immigration. That is what is not nice and tends to end what was a pretty nice discussion.

This is what I have been saying all along. You cannot advance comprehensive immigration policy in the United States in the 21st century without support from all constituencies which requires compromise...

Otherwise, your plan has no chance...

You cannot just cut the business community out of the process.

July 21, 2008
Editorial
Pushing Back on Immigration

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/opinion/...agewanted=print

There is nothing good about the country’s ever more merciless campaign of immigration enforcement. But at least there are emerging signs of resistance, from one of the most important, yet curiously disengaged, players in the debate: employers.

States and cities complain about the broken immigration system, but they can’t create the intricate web of policies needed to fix it — that’s up to Congress. All they can do is try to crack down locally on illegal immigrants and the businesses that hire them. The result has been haphazard enforcement without reform, which only makes the problem worse.

States have passed overly punitive laws to revoke the licenses of businesses caught hiring the undocumented and to force employers to participate in E-Verify, the deeply flawed federal system for checking workers’ documents. More than 175 bills relating to immigrant employment have been introduced by states this year.

As Julia Preston reported in The Times, business has begun pushing back. In Arizona, home to some of the most rabidly anti-immigrant politicians and advocates, a business group had huge success gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would soften some of the most stringent employer punishments enacted last year.

In other states, business groups have helped to kill tough immigration bills. They argue that they need workers, that it is too hard to avoid hiring undocumented ones, and that ill-conceived laws go overboard in punishing well-meaning companies and their legal employees. They are also pushing measures to bring in more legal workers and to fix the error-plagued federal system for verifying documents of new employees.

Workplace raids by federal agents have vividly exposed the widespread hiring of illegal workers, but many employers counter that they are not all scofflaws. Antidiscrimination laws bar them from looking too closely at employees’ identity papers, or checking their immigration status after they are hired. “The system is just as broken for employers as it is for immigrants,” a lawyer for two California companies told Ms. Preston.

As with anything in the immigration debate, there are complicated truths at work here. Many companies have operated with impunity in hiring and abusing undocumented low-wage workers, people who are all the more compliant because they are illegal. Like immigrants, good employers need a path to get right and stay right with the law. Current immigration law — with far too few visas and no path to legalization for the undocumented — does not provide one, and misguided state and local enforcement efforts simply layer on the confusion. They impose undue hardships on by-the-books businesses and reward the exploiters.

If the country is ever going to emerge from the immigration chaos that Congress bequeathed it last year, it will be because business interests — largely seen as AWOL in the bitter debate — finally joined the fight.

I appreciate your response.

Well, I have not treated Bill any differently than I have treated a number of other people posting their names in response to other threads that they were not a part of --- I have done the same to Marine, Mac2, Arne, rla, and g4A to name a few --- and they never had the reaction that Bill had and once I realized it really irked Bill --- I did apologize to him and I promised not to do it again --- but you must have missed that...

And I did not print anything that was inaccurate -- I restated some of the discussion from this thread --- and Bill is the one who (over?)reacted yet again with vulgar language...

Now, I could react in a similar fashion to his vulgarities, but I choose not to...

And I do not react personally to this site, as I have said before. You suggested that I was getting personal. I find this site entertainment. Political entertainment. think a lot of people here may take this site too personally. Maybe that is my problem --- I do not take it personally enough...

What was originally posted was a basic outline by Bill.. that if done would probably stop a lot of appeal for illegal immigration. I checked this past week, and there are still thousands of visas left for immigrants to get to do crop work, so if they are coming to work they should step up and get a legal means of working here. (easiest visa to get)

Bill's main points were A B & C

A. Stop mixing issues

B. National ID Cards

C. Employer Crack-downs

But a few are trying to force answers for: (including myself, but mine were more observations, but I should have stayed more on topic)

A.
A1. More Details
AA1. More and more speculative details
AAA1. Who knows what we'll need here until we do A
AAAA1. Total unknown.

And getting upset and push when he doesn't have ALL the answers. Well if he or we had all the answers we'd just march it to the congress and say - Here is your perfect plan.

I spent the week-end with my niece who is Admin of HR over a large Hotel chain here. They do run all the Social Security numbers given to them by prospective employees through a Federal check system, if they get a bad one back they don't hire that person. The problem is, the Fed system isn't so hot and is not very up to date. But the employer has done everything they can do to check the validity of the potential employee.

Nevada has changed to the new holographic Driver's License, and as each persons comes up due it's automatically updated to the new, supposedly unalterable, style of DL where it shoots your picture up to a satellite at the same time it puts it on your DL. (Digital Photos)


National ID. I have my quirks about it and those will pop up in further down the line like AAA1. One of those details people in charge didn't think about, but can be adjusted. I'm not sure why they don't just continue with the biometric Visas. If we go to Denmark, Netherlands or Italy to visit relatives - everyone has a Passport. Any which way it does the same thing. Nevada has come up with several proposals where a National ID card would be cost free to just about everyone. There was also this..



So cost would not be a factor on an individual level. I can only imagine many US Citizens will fight it on a violation of privacy issue. There are also pro arguments to it. Who is here is supposed to be here, the amount and level of identity theft is HUGE and needs to be stopped.

Anyway, that's about it for now.. let me go through some newer articles and see what else I can find. But, I pretty much see Nevada as already moving down the path to a National ID before it's required.

Terra --

Thanks for the outline...but I must take issue with several points...

First, the stop mixing issues is really an i. for me and not the first prong of the plan --- since it defines how the issue should be framed rather than providing an actual element for eventual implementation...this is why I have suggested that Bill's approach is more a two prong approach...

i. Stop Mixing the Issues (not A.)

I. National ID (not

II. Stricter Employer Enforcement (not C)

Now, you can try to characterize some of my statements as being a part of A (i) but they are not if you examine them more closely.

They really fit within the National ID approach or a third roman numeral

III. Implementation and Collateral/Incidental Impact

Now, Bill and others can deny that roman numeral III. is necessary --- but anyone familiar with the implementation of legislation or regulations knows that before a bill can proceed impact statements are done discussing feasibility, testimony is taken from affected agencies, and which agencies will be impacted or should be impacted is discussed in detail, and which areas additional laws and changes should be implemented to allow for the proposal to be as effective as possible. Now Bill can suggest as he has on other matters that this is all beyond the scope of his proposal, but I think that it ignores the overall feasibility of the approach.

i. Stop Mixing the Issues (not A.)
-Insofar as it is possible --- other issues which are irrelevant concerning immigration reform should not be integrated into this discussion. However, a natural concern is national security.

I. National ID (not

-we have already agreed that unlike the Real ID situation a plan has to be developed which makes it possible for all citizens to get National IDs no matter where they are located.
-I believe that there is also agreement that a new uniform identification system needs to be adopted for legal immigrants which standardizes the documentation/identification process for thos persons

II. Stricter Employer Enforcement (not C)

-The National ID database has to be made available to employers and this system needs to be modernized so that employers can use it as an effective database for determining a person's legal status available nationally since the present system is a mess --- I think there is agreement on this -- since without a resource that can provide employers with accurate information regarding the legal status of potential employees enforcement of laws against employers will be unlikely to succeed
-Enforcement of the laws against employers has to be increased (more on this later)

III. Implementation and Collateral/Incidental Impact

A. Implementation
-Funding is necessary to get this done -- how much? Where will the money come from? What is the priority under which immigration as a policy reform proposal should take within the national agenda of priorities? Is the plan self funding or funding neutral in any sense? Will it require tax increases to finance? How palatable would such increases be in the present political climate? To what extent would persons on this thread/site support such increases?

-Coalition building -- the NY Times editorial I recently posted addressed this issue -- the only way comprehensive immigration reform is ever to become a reality is if employers are involved and engaged in the effort. You cannot cut employers out and hope to get comprehensive reform. What other groups if should be engaged in coalition building. What compromises are available to achieve passage?

B. Collateral/Incidental Impact
-Bill has refined his proposal in subsequent e-mails to suggest that selective enforcement will be allowed of the immigration laws saying that he does not believe that any laws need to be changed --- such that deportation can take place of people on a case by case basis.
-In my mind, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of our immigration laws -- many of which do not allow discretion to law enforcement, prosecutors and judges in many instances.
-In addition, this interpretation of the law ignores another recent New York Times editorial and article where illegal immigrants have been imprisoned. We have 12 million or more illegal immigrants. If we start putting them in jail as they are be under present law our jails which are overcrowded will require more holding cells and more detention centers as a consequence of this reform plan. How are these issues to be dealt with?
-Where are the personnel going to come from to provide the additional employer enforcement? Bill suggests that border agents could be reassigned, but this then leaves our borders vulnerable just as we are improving security along the border. Is this the right approach? What will that cost?
-National security -- to what extent should efforts continue to try and reasonably control the border? Should we adopt a policy approach as Bill suggests which focuses less on border control and more on eliminating the primary reason for illegal immigrants coming which he asserts is economic. Are economic reasons the only reasons illegal immigrants come to the US?
-Bill suggests that he supports enforcement of the nation's immigration laws? Is that really possible with this plan given problems already identified and others yet to be identified? What laws need to be changed if any?

No, it is you who are trying to redefine how the issue should be framed by both your willingness to mix the issues of legal immigration with illegal immigration and by your calling the approach "a plan" so you can then make the stretch of calling it a "proposal" and then scrutinize it at the level of it being a formal proposal to congress or a congressional bill with budget consideration but without the benefit of classified law enforcement intelligence reports.

If you approach the issue of illegal immigration with consideration for our need for legal immigrants, than that is a different approach altogether. Like I said, we don't have a legal immigration problem. There's no need to mention our need for legal immigrants in the context of dealing with excessive illegal immigration.

This is not an additional step to my 3-step approach. This would be the expansion of step 2 and 3 in my approach if the goal were to turn the approach into an actual detailed plan. I agree with Terra's outline.

Fair enough...you think I am trying to redefine the plan, but A. or i. is a definitional -- or defining element...it can not be implemented...

How do you implement not mixing the issues?

Yes, but a condition precedent --- its an exclusionary element -- it is not actually a part of the approach -- plan --- call it what you like...

Now you want to argue over your approach and what it should be called...gee whiz...

We actually do have a legal immigration problem if you were listening to anything Terra said. The present system has a heck of a lot of delay built into it -- and employers have trouble getting accurate information from the federal government -- and we accept many different forms of ID for legal immigrants which adds to the confusion...so you can try and finesse this like it is just about illegal immigration - but part of the problem is the difficulty in telling the difference between the two --- if for you that isn't a problem with the legal immigration system then I do not know what is.

That is the most basic problem of all.

Of course you do. That is easy. Its not my plan...

Terra's has the appearance of simplifying things, but in reality it only hides the extraneous issues which still need to be dealt with before the approach may be implemented...

But then you have seemed resistent to it becoming a plan...

If you do not want to turn your approach into a plan...which is what I always thought an approach was --- what exactly are you interested in doing with it...

Feeding it, cuddling up with it -- playing catch with it....?

By abstaining from the practice of mixing the issues.

First of all, I listened to everything Terra said and I responded to what she said. If you were listening to me and not just your own obfuscation you would know that.

Second, problems with the processes of immigrating legally are administration problems. You don't fix administration problems by breaking the law. If we had a legal immigration problem, we wouldn't be as diverse of a nation as we are and we would have less people willing to migrate. Like I said:We are talking about two things here, the "will" and the "way." If more people are willing to come here legally than we can handle, then that's proof that we don't have a problem with the "will." If there are Americans willing to take those jobs at a decent wage, then that's proof that there is no shortage of able bodies. And if we did have a shortage of able bodies, but couldn't get the willing-to-migrate-legally immigrants in fast enough, then that's an administration problem, the "way." The way to fix problems with the "way" is not to sidestep the "way" with illegal immigrants.

E-Verify

Every system has to start somewhere, and it doesn't have to be perfect at the start.

These are the questions that only congress can accurately answer.

This is what employers would like you to believe.

Sure it's wise to get feedback from employers. But that doesn't mean we have to do things their way unless you want to live in a fascist state.

There you go again calling it a proposal. There was no refinement either. It was a clarification of why I don't think we need to change the laws after you asked which laws I would change and tried to force me into your false dichotomy.

It's not a question of if you can allow discretion of law enforcement. It's a question of if you can stop discretion of law enforcement. There's no law that says that a cop can enforce speeding laws at his/her discretion either. But you keep ignoring this analogy because you can't dispute it.

This is a problem only if law enforcement on illegal immigrants is not discretional. That's why I suggested shifting the focus to employers. It doesn't mean you don't go after illegal immigrants. It just means you go after them less often. If you go after their reason for being here, employers, then the illegal immigrants self-deport or go to other states. This is proven. And if all states do it, then illegal immigrants have no choice but to self-deport or turn to crime. Not all (and I doubt most) will turn to crime.

These are all questions that would be answered down the road as Terra pointed out. You wouldn't know the answer to these until you took the initial steps. That's why I agree with Lou that we can't reform immigration until we control immigration. You can't fix it if you don't know what's broke. We haven't even tried to control immigration using our existing laws to the full extent.

The first rule of troubleshooting is to isolate the problem.

Inspiring government officials and activists to turn it into a plan or even take the approach while considering other plans. They read blogs too. FYI, the difference between an approach and a plan is that an approach is not limited to one specific plan. It can be applied to several different plans without changing the approach. An approach is somewhere between an attitude and an actual plan.

You've been using the same debate tactic against me that Hilary used against Obama when she said that his speeches were not plans. How well did that work?

If it is not perfect --- then it cannot work because employers are held to have verified the employment status of their employees by

And then under your plan, they will be penalized for having used the system -- if the system is not accurate then it:

1. Does not have an accurate record of legal immigrants and citizens
2. Cannot provide a fail-safe basis for employers employing only legal immigrants
3. Cannot be used as a basis for penalizing employers

Thus, without a "perfect" E-verify system your whole plan could fall apart because it is not possible to hold an employer accountable if the E-verify database is not credible.

Its funny for E-verify to work you need an national ID system --- but a national ID system is unlikely to pass because of the problems associated with implementing the Real ID system...

Volume 2 Number 2
January 28, 2008 Page 47
ISSN 1940-1981
News

Employment Verification
Problems With E-Verify Raise Questions
About Possible National Identification System

http://subscript.bna.com/SAMPLES/wil.nsf/d...7c?OpenDocument

Current employment verification programs such as E-Verify point to potential problems with a national identification system, speakers said at a Jan. 18 conference sponsored by the American Bar Association Homeland Security Law Institute.

With the use of federal government's E-Verify electronic employment verification program increasing, and the possibility that Social Security no-match letters also will be used to identify undocumented workers, "some would call our current system a de facto national identification system" and see the problems with these two approaches as indicative of the problems with national identification, according to Chad Boudreaux, former deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security.

Employment verification tools such as E-Verify and no-match letters "lead back to the databases against which identifications are made," and raise questions about whether or not those databases are "good enough," said Robert Divine, an attorney in Chattanooga, Tenn., and former chief counsel of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Divine questioned whether the cost of a national database and the risk to privacy of such a system was "worth it" to make programs like E-Verify work. He pointed out that companies that currently use E-Verify get a significant number of nonconfirmations in error.

As more companies sign up to use E-Verify, a large number of people will seek to make corrections to their records with the Social Security Administration and SSA may not be able to handle the surge. The same problems could arise under other national identification systems, he said.

Kathy Kraninger, director of DHS's Office of Screening Coordination, said DHS and SSA already have sought to correct some of the causes of erroneous nonconfirmations in the E-Verify system. For example, naturalization documents now are shared with SSA to update their systems because this was a common cause of a nonconfirmation, she said.

Additionally, Kraninger said, correcting Social Security records ultimately is in the best interest of workers who are not confirmed by the E-Verify system, because if the data SSA has is incorrect due to a name change or marriage, that person would not get Social Security benefits.

National ID System Needed for IRCA Enforcement

Programs like E-Verify and enforcement of the Immigration Reform and Control Act eventually will lead lawmakers to institute a formal national identity system, according to Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the CATO Institute.

"The only way to enforce IRCA is through a national identity system," because there are problems at every stage of our current I-9 employment verification procedures, Harper said.

Those problems include an inability to ensure that documents presented to get identification such as a driver's license are valid, the prevalence of forged driver's licenses and other documents accepted as I-9 identification documents, and an inability to control whether or not employers perform a "quality check" of the documents presented when they complete I-9 forms, Harper said.

However, a national identity program is not without its own problems, Harper pointed out. "A tightening of verification procedures would raise the number of people who have a right to work but don't have the documents to prove it that lose their ability to work," he said. Examples include recovering drug or alcohol addicts or homeless persons who may not have identity documents but are lawful citizens, he said.

Additionally, Harper argued that it creates an "insecure system" to rely on one national identity document, such as driver's licenses' that meetsthe requirements of the REAL ID Act. Relying on one identification document creates a "single point of failure," he said.

The REAL ID Act was signed into law in 2005 and provides that if state ID cards are to be considered acceptable for federal purposes such as airline passenger screening, they must comply with standards DHS released Jan. 11.

Identity thieves who seek to steal a valid identity in order to work in the United States would have only one target document under a national identification system, Harper said. Multiple cards and credentials are harder to fraudulently produce, and offer a measure of protection to citizens, he said.

"It is more valuable to 'break' the ID system if there is only one document involved," Harper said. Criminals would have a greater incentive to circumvent the national identification system that relies on one form of ID than they do under systems with multiple forms of ID, he said



How did I know you would say that...still in denial.



Have you taken a look at the political process lately and how it works?

It is based on compromise. You have two choices in our political system. You try and work against powerful corporate interests and you get nothing accomplished or a water-downed piece of legislation -- or you work with them and get a better piece of legislation.

I think your suggestion that because employers are brought into the discussion of what would be the most effective means for providing immigration reform does not make the US a fascist state. Frankly, accusations of this type have the same impact as those where people make Hitler comparisons. They diminish the credibility of the individual using them. If this is how you define a fascist state my friend, then guess what --- it is too late and we already live in one.



Still refusing to call your approach a plan/proposal...

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus
Main Entry: approach
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: A method used in dealing with something.
Synonyms: attack, course, line, modus operandi, plan, procedure, tack, technique

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/approach

Bill what I have repeatedly tried to impart to you is the reality that selective enforcement is not an option under present law. As much as your wishful thinking seeks to establish it as an option, unless you change the law to provide for selective enforcement it will not happen. Since you have to change the law, I have merely asked you which laws you would change. Is there going to be selelective enforcement for all immigration laws?



There is a slight difference in the two examples you provide. A police officer who observes a person speeding and does not pull them over and issue a ticket could be charged with dereliction of duty and official misconduct. Law enforcement who raid an employer who do not charge the illegal immigrants there would likely be charged with similar official misconduct. Can you imagine the public outcry if your proposal became a stated public policy? Communities would be frantic. I can see it now...

Hypothetical News Report:

Immigration officials raided a farm in California today which was employing over 500 illegal immigrants. The employer was arrested and taken into custody. Immigration officials have stated that in line with new department policy the employer will be punished to fullest extent of the law. The illegal immigrants were released on their own recognizance. Community leaders have begun protests outside of the mayor's residence demanding that illegal immigrants be arrested for their illegal conduct. The mayor has refused.



And how are you going to deal with the state laws that provide for mandatory deportation...and federal laws...

Discretionary enforcement...there is no such discretion...

US: Mandatory Deportation Laws Harm American Families
Legal Residents Often Deported for Minor Crimes
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/07/18/usdom16402_txt.htm

(Washington, DC, July 18, 2007) – The mandatory deportation of legal immigrants convicted of a crime, even a minor one, has separated an estimated 1.6 million children and adults, including US citizens and lawful permanent residents, from their non-citizen family members, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

US immigration officials have deported 672,593 immigrants because of criminal convictions since 1997, after Congress passed legislation making deportation a mandatory penalty for a long list of crimes, including minor, non-violent offenses committed years before the laws went into effect. Many of those deported arrived in the US as children and were lawful permanent residents who had lived legally in the country for decades.

“The laws are not only cruel in their rigidity, they are senseless,” said Alison Parker, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s US Program and author of the report. “How do you explain to a child that her father has been sent thousands of miles away and can never come home simply because he forged a check?”

Prior to 1997, immigrants who committed a crime were permitted to go before an immigration judge, who could exercise his or her discretion in imposing penalties. However, the legislation Congress passed in 1996 precluded immigration judges from considering whether deportation would be excessively harsh in light of the immigrants’ family relationships, community ties, US military service records, or the possibility of persecution if returned to their country of origin. The deportation takes place after the non-citizen has completed the terms of the sentence imposed for the crime.

The 88-page report, “Forced Apart: Families Separated and Immigrants Harmed by US Deportation Policy,” is the first comprehensive assessment of the deportation of non-citizens with criminal convictions and the impact on families and communities in the US. The deportation cases documented in the report include:

• A 52-year-old man who lived in the US as a lawful permanent resident for 40 years, served in the US military, has four US citizen sons, and was convicted of possession and sale of small amounts of drugs;

• A father of three US citizen children convicted of breaking into a car and stealing a $10 bottle of eye drops from a drug store;

• A young man who had lived in the US legally as a refugee from Laos since the age of four.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data included in the report, 64.6 percent of immigrants deported for crimes in 2005 had been convicted of non-violent offenses, including non-violent theft offenses such as shoplifting; some 20.9 percent were deported for offenses involving violence against people; and 14.7 percent were deported for “other” crimes.

Human Rights Watch used census data on immigrant family size to estimate the number of spouses and children left behind in the US after their spouse or parent had been deported because of a criminal conviction.

Reform of the 1996 laws was not included in the comprehensive immigration legislation Congress considered this year. However, in January 2007, Congressman Jose Serrano introduced a bill (HR 1176), which would allow immigration judges to consider the interests of US citizen children during deportation hearings. The bill would not, however, protect spousal relationships or other links immigrants have to the US, such as longstanding lawful residence or service in the US armed forces.

“Most members of the European Union and other major democracies take family relationships and other links to the country of immigration into account before a final deportation decision is made,” Parker said. “But immigration judges’ hands are tied in the US; there is nothing they can do to protect families or to acknowledge the many contributions non-citizens have made to their communities or the nation.”

Two immigrants deported because of criminal convictions, Wayne Smith and Hugo Armendáriz, have brought a claim against the US government before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. Smith and Armendáriz, both of whom have wives and children in the US, lived in the country as lawful permanent residents for 25 and 28 years respectively, before their deportations for drug offenses to Trinidad and Mexico.

A hearing in the case, for which Human Rights Watch submitted an amicus curiae brief prepared by the Stanford Immigrants Rights Clinic, will be held this Friday July 20, at the Inter-American Commission in Washington, DC.

Mandatory deportation has illegals on the run
State law limiting benefits looms,
an estimated 25,000 take to road

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 25, 2007
1:00 am Eastern

2008 WorldNetDaily.com

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=57313

Thousands of Hispanics have fled the Tulsa, Okla., area in the shadow of a looming state law that limits benefits and mandates deportation for illegal aliens, according to a report from KTUL television in Tulsa.

The state of Oklahoma recently approved a new law that requires deportation for illegal aliens who are arrested, and limits benefits and jobs to those individuals. The report said in East Tulsa, where a community of Hispanics has grown over recent years, there's been a sudden drop in population.

Business owner Simon Navarro has been in business there 11 years, and said the tough law has chased away 30 percent of the state's Hispanic population.

"Two months ago I heard 25,000 Hispanics have left Oklahoma," he told the station. "They are leaving. A lot have already left.

"People are leaving," he said. "They're scared of the sheriff."

A spokesman for Tulsa's Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Francisco Trevino, said he believes the law – and its results – will hurt restaurants, construction companies and other service corporations such as lawn care.

"They do everything we don't want to do," he said.

Homebuilders also have expressed concerns.

"Sitting here today I understand it's about rounding up criminals, and illegals," said Paul Kane. "But, the Hispanics are fleeing Oklahoma because they think an anti-Hispanic environment is being created."


Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz, telling KTUL television about the departure of illegal aliens from his county (Screen shot of KTUL video)

However, authorities are making their preparations for a full enforcement of the law when it takes effect in November.

Deputies from the Tulsa County sheriff's office are going through training to handle the apprehension and deportation procedures that are being set up. Their training will prepare them to handle the multiple duties of deputy sheriff as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

When they are finished they will be prepared to identify illegal aliens who commit crimes, and make sure they are deported.

Officials say many of those departing apparently are heading either to Kansas or Arkansas. But that may not be for long, since Arkansas is about to adopt a law similar to Oklahoma's, and Kansas is considering a similar move.

Tulsa County Sheriff Stanley Glanz told KTUL that the impact of the illegal alien population is evident all over, especially in the jail.

"We see the effects of gangs, we see the effects of illegal immigrants, we see the effects of drugs, we see the effects of methamphetamines," he said.

"We want to go after the criminal element that we have in this community," added U.S. Rep. John Sullivan. "People that commit crimes, drug trafficking, murder, rape, DUI, carrying a concealed weapon."

The newly trained officers will be on the job as early as October, before the November effective date of the new law. They say the bottom line is that illegal aliens in Tulsa County who commit a crime will be deported.

The state law still may face a legal challenge. Miguel Rivera of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders said it could be in federal court as soon as Oct. 1.

He said the argument likely would be that Oklahoma's House Bill 1804 pre-empts federal immigration law, which is much more lenient than the Oklahoma statute.

The new effort to tighten and enforce immigration limits has prompted a severe reaction. Several billboards have gone up questioning the new law.

One, funded by the United Front Task Force, asks, "Is it OK for Oklahoma to have a law that promotes hate among people?"

The other, by the American Dream Coalition, shows a tearful girl clutching a teddy bear with the statement, "My mommy is not a criminal. She is a hardworking Hispanic woman."

But on the television station's forum page, a listener responded: "We need to put up more signs that say: OKIES don't hate illegal immigrants they just want them legal! Deport all illegal immigrants now."

The Republican who wrote HB 1804, Randy Terrill of Moore, said the plan doesn't discriminate, harass or single out anyone, unless they are breaking the law.

"This isn't about whether you are for or against immigration, or for or against immigrants. It doesn't matter what your skin color is or if you speak with an accent. What matters is if you are in the country legally or illegally. The only people threatened by House Bill 1804 are those who choose to break the law," he said.

It eliminates most taxpayer subsidies for illegal immigrants and allows state and local law enforcement officers to verify the residency status of those arrested. It also cracks down on business owners who employ illegal immigrants.



But Lou calls for enforcing the present immigration laws. If you enforce the present immigration laws you need more personnel and you need to also focus on the border. But you have insisted that border enforcement need not be a priority under your proposal which is aimed at eliminating the jobs which you contend creates the demand for illegal immigration...so which is it going to be -- your approach or Lou's?



Yes, as far as it can be isolated.

As I suggested, your approach may seem like it is simlpified, but without taking into account incidental issues it is just simplistic.

I have tried to provide the fiber necessary to buttress it and make it more likely to succeed not just politically, but also practically.

BUt you are opposed to any integration of the practical necessities to make the approach viable...

And why didn't Hillary's attacks work?

Because Barack provided details --- he added more meat to his speeches, particularly the one in Texas --- he demonstrated that he was not just a man with a speech, but he was a man with a plan.

I have been trying to help you to become a man with a plan as well. But you keep resisting...

So it seems to me like you believe your approach is complete...

And guess what, flexible plans are adaptible as well...they need not remain approaches (though as I have already shown you are playing a semantics game when you refuse to call your approach a plan)

Oh could we run around in circles on this one...



I believe Terra and I both said that there were problems with the legal immigration process. What you ignore is that they relate to the illegal immigration problem.



Exactly --- what do you think E-verify problems are --- they are administrative problems...



No, but you do create a situation where employers cannot get the legal guest workers they need because of bureaucratic delays...

And you do create a problem where employers cannot rely on the information they get from the government as to whether or not their workers are legal or not...



OK, this is one of the most bizarre statement I have ever seen you make.

People are willing or interested in migrating to our nations because of many different reasons -- our freedoms, our economics, the fact that they are suffering where they are now, for opportunity, and for the quality of life -- I doubt people immigrate to our country because our legal immigration laws work....



Yeah, so. The problem is with the way. If people knew they could come here legally then they would not come here illegally. However, because the legal immigration system administratively is so screwed up and people know they would be waiting years --- they take the easy way out -- and break the law -- then they do not have to deal with the bureaucracy and waiting game where whether they get in or not is a guessing game with no hard and fast rules.



Again you are not listening to Terra's post again --- her point has been that there are not Americans willing to do these jobs because not only because of low pay -- but the jobs are horrible jobs -- with a lot of tough, hard, unappetizing work which the illegal immigrants are willing to do and Americans are not willing to do. One interesting point I felt that she made which I was unaware of, was that there are some jobs whcih actually pay quite well -- and still Americans are unwilling to do them.



That is in your opinion.

As long as the present system cannot accomodate the demands of employers -- illegal immigration will exist and continue to grow until the border is shut down.

The way to fix the problem is to sidestep the law until something is done to fix the administrative problem.

Hey, I am not a proponent of breaking the law --- but employers need workers and the system is not working --- so what are they going to do --- this is why I believe while you want to keep your approach simple --- it really is much more complex and it really needs to touch on the legal immigration problem which is a part of the cause of the illegal immigration problem. But you refuse to acknowledge another reality.

I gotta hand it to you Taz. If you are going to spin and stretch the meaning of words, then a thesaurus is a good tool. You can find words that are similar to other words even if they don't technically mean the same thing.

This is a fascist advocacy for cheap labor exploitation if I've ever heard one.

Not the kind of administrative problems that would hinder immigrating, becoming a citizen. E-verify is not about immigrating. It's about verifying the status of citizens.

The subtly of your obfuscation amazes me. Rarely do you respond in context.

Who is taking someone's words out of context now?

Why its Bill who is twisting the meaning of my words...the crown could be yours... BILL --- KING OF OBFUSCATION

In the context of my plan...there is nothing fascist about it --- unless you believe our present politcial system is fascist...

Come on Bill...and approach is a common term for a plan...

ap·proach (-prch)

n.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/approach

4. The method used in dealing with or accomplishing: a logical approach to the problem.

Now, how does this definition differ from that of a plan...

plan (pln)
n.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/plan

1. A scheme, program, or [b]method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective: a plan of attack.[/b]

I think you are dancing my friend...

On the other hand, the obviousness of your obfusctaion...is clearly evident...

I am responding in context...speaking of two different things...

1. Problems with the administration of our legal immigration system have complicated and caused employers and illegal immigrants to use the illegal system rather than the legal system...this is a reality -- which I posted evidence for you to see -- but which you continue to deny...

Bill will not cut illegal immigration
By Oxford Analytica
http://thehill.com/op-eds/bill-will-not-cu...2007-06-13.html

Posted: 06/13/07 06:52 PM [ET]
President George Bush on Monday vowed to push the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill through Congress. That bill stalled in the Senate on June 7.

The focus of political controversy is on the more than 12 million undocumented immigrants illegally residing in the United States. However, in a very tight labor market, demand for both skilled and unskilled immigrant labor is still rising — a phenomenon that the bill only begins to address.

Lawmakers remain bitterly divided over an immigration bill designed to limit illegal immigration and increase opportunities for skilled immigrants to reside in the United States, thus ending the almost total U.S. reliance on family migration (or “chain migration”) for additional immigrant labor. Reducing family migration and increasing skilled migration each have their opponents, but the focus of the debate is on illegal immigration and whether the bill will address it.

The Senate bill, as drafted, has five key elements:

Border security.
In an effort to deter illegal immigration, border security provisions receive a particular emphasis, including:

•increasing border fencing;

•increasing vehicle barriers at the southern border;

•boosting the size of the Border Patrol; and

•installing ground-based radar and camera towers along the southern border.

Alone, these measures would be meaningless. For years, Washington has poured huge amounts of money into border enforcement, to little effect. Demand for entry is too high; the border is long and difficult to patrol; and traffickers are adept at staying one step ahead of border enforcement rules.

Employer sanctions.

Scholars have long argued that policy should target employers who offer jobs to illegal immigrants, rather than the migrants who take them. To this end, the bill:

•creates a single electronic Employment Eligibility Verification System (EEVS), which would require employers to check prospective employees’ details against government databases;

•requires all employers to use EEVS to verify the employment eligibility of existing and future workers;

•limits the range of government-issued documentation (Social Security cards, driver’s licenses, birth certificates) that can be checked against EEVS;

•raises the maximum criminal penalty for “a pattern or practice” of hiring illegal workers from $3,000 per alien to $75,000 per alien; and

•boosts civil penalties sharply.

‘Path’ to legal residency.

The most controversial measure gives illegal migrants a “path” to legal residency. The administration and its backers have argued that, as conditions are attached, the measure is not an “amnesty.” Instead, it allows illegal immigrants to apply for a temporary Z Visa:

To obtain the visa, undocumented migrants must acknowledge that they broke the law, pay a $1,000 fine, and undergo criminal background checks.

Z Visa status does not confer welfare benefits or sponsorship rights.

To obtain a regular legal-residency green card, Z Visa workers must wait in line behind those who applied lawfully, pay an additional $4,000 fine, complete accelerated English requirements, leave the United States and file their application in their home country, and demonstrate merit based on their skills and attributes.


Guest workers.
The bill would also institute new Y Visas for individuals who wish to work in the United States temporarily. Applicants for Y Visas:

•may stay for up to three two-year periods, with at least a year in between;

•must be paid the minimum wage;

•have no access to welfare benefits;

•may only bring their family members for one of their two-year stays; and

•must leave permanently when their visa expires.

However, in the course of Senate negotiations, the overall quota for Y Visas was reduced to just 300,000 per year.

Merit-based immigration.

Currently, 70 percent of all legal U.S. immigrants are family migrants, and only 65,000 temporary visas (H1-Bs) are available for skilled migrants. Transferring from an H1-B to permanent residency (green card) status requires a long and expensive sponsorship process. The bill seeks to reduce the U.S. reliance on family migration by linking visas for skilled immigrants to the demand for particular workers in the U.S. economy. This would involve:

•eliminating green cards for the adult children and siblings of U.S. citizens, and capping green cards for parents of U.S.
citizens;

•limiting accompanying family members to immediate relatives (parents, young children) as opposed to extended family members (grandparents, brothers, older children);

•allocating temporary and permanent visas that give priority to skill, education (with added points for science and math), language competence, employer offers, and age; and

•eliminating the lottery system.

There would be 380,000 visas available under the merit-based system for skilled immigrants. Permanent merit-based visas would come with the entitlement to bring immediate family members.

Effect on immigration.

The immigration bill’s supporters maintain that it would serve U.S. interests by attracting more skilled workers and decreasing legal immigration. However, these claims are open to challenge. Given the dynamism of the U.S. economy, it is already very easy to attract skilled workers — there simply are not enough visas available to meet employer demand. Moreover, it is very doubtful that the bill would lead to a decrease in overall immigration to the United States.

Increased illegal immigration?

http://thehill.com/op-eds/bill-will-not-cu...2007-06-13.html

The bill may actually lead to an increase in illegal immigration, for two broad reasons:

•labor demand/supply problems. Some 800,000 illegal migrants enter the United States annually, fuelling a massive demand for unskilled labor:

Unmet demand. The proposed quota to allow in up to 300,000 unskilled immigrants through the guest-worker program will be insufficient to meet demand. Therefore, the remaining 500,000 members of the annual influx will seek to incorporate themselves into the labor market illegally.

More trafficking? The bill may make the U.S. more attractive to human traffickers, who will lure more migrants with the promise that they can take advantage of Y or Z visas.

Flawed employer verification. While the proposed EEVS system is elaborate, it will only catch employers honest enough to run documents through it. If employers do not bother, it is not obvious how the rules can be enforced. This potential expansion of the “black economy” may have the perverse effect of reducing tax revenue. (Currently, illegal migrants often pay Social Security contributions and tax on the basis of forged identification.)

•guest-worker problems. Guest-worker programs have historically suffered from several problems, which may be particularly salient in the United States:

Despite several notable advantages over the United States — national identification cards, an extensive system of internal checks, much more thorough document-checking and a higher tolerance for state intrusion into private life — Germany could not effectively police its post-war guest-worker program.

There are no U.S. exit controls, which make verification that individuals have left the country, as opposed to a job, very difficult.

While 70 percent of the people who came as guest workers to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s returned home, several million remained.

Oxford Analytica is an international consulting firm providing strategic analysis on world events for business and government leaders. See www.oxan.com .

This is distinct from the e-verify issue...

2. I know what E-verify is -- and E-verify problems --- cause problems for employers to know that they have the right information...because the database is not accurate....



How Errors in Basic Pilot/E-Verify Databases Impact
U.S. Citizens and Lawfully Present Immigrants
April 2008

http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/images/Fi...ctsUSC04-08.pdf

The Basic Pilot/E-Verify employment eligibility verification program is being sold as an
easy fix that would curb unauthorized employment by undocumented immigrants. But
state laws mandating businesses to use Basic Pilot/E-Verify, federal administrative efforts
to expand the program, and congressional proposals to require its use by all employers entirely
ignore the effect the program will have on U.S. citizens and lawfully present noncitizens. The
program has been plagued by serious problems since its inception in 1997, including (1) its
reliance on government databases that have unacceptably high error rates that misidentify workauthorized
individuals as not employment-eligible and (2) employer misuse of the program to
take unjustified adverse action against workers.1 These deficiencies will be magnified many
times over if the program is further expanded before they are addressed. The inevitable result
will be to threaten the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of citizens and lawfully present
immigrants who may be either wrongfully dismissed from or refused employment.
 Database errors incorrectly identify U.S. citizens as not authorized for
employment.
 A 2007 independent evaluation of Basic Pilot/E-Verify commissioned by the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) found that “the database used for verification is
still not sufficiently up to date to meet the [Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act] requirements for accurate verification.”2
 These database errors have a disproportionate impact on foreign-born U.S. citizens, with
almost 10 percent initially being told that they are not authorized to work (versus 0.1
percent for native-born U.S. citizens).3 Between October 2006 and March 2007, about
3,200 foreign-born U.S. citizens were initially improperly disqualified from working by
Basic Pilot/E-Verify.4
o Juan Carlos Ochoa became a citizen in 2000. When he applied for and was offered a
job at a car dealership in early 2008, his employer used Basic Pilot/E-Verify to verify
his employment eligibility. The employer received a “tentative nonconfirmation”
notice due to errors in the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) database; 5 SSA
did not have any record of Ochoa’s naturalization. Upon receiving the notice,
Ochoa’s employer fired him, a violation of Basic Pilot/E-Verify rules. Because he is
out of work, he is late on his rent and his electricity has been shut off. Though Ochoa
has a U.S. passport, the local SSA office told him that he must bring in his
naturalization certificate to prove his U.S. citizenship, but he lost it years ago. To
comply with this unreasonable requirement, Ochoa will have to pay close to $400 and
wait up to ten months for a replacement certificate.6
o Abel Pacheco, a naturalized U.S. citizen for eight years, went to look for a new job in
Arizona when he lost his job as a truck driver because of the worsening economy. He
applied with eight different companies, but couldn’t figure out why no one called him
T
Basic Pilot /E-Verify Database Errors Impact Work-Eligible Citizens and Noncitizens | PAGE 2 of 4
National Immigration Law Center | www.nilc.org
back with a job offer. When he finally found work, his new employer notified him
that it had received a tentative nonconfirmation of employment eligibility notice for
him, which turned out to be due to an error in SSA’s database. (It’s very possible that
one or more of the companies that didn’t call him back had run his information
through Basic Pilot/E-Verify and, upon receiving a tentative nonconfirmation, decided
not to take a chance on hiring him. This is an illegal but not uncommon practice (see
below).) By the time Pacheco cleared up the problem by presenting his citizenship
certificate at his local SSA office, the few weeks without an income had forced his
family into financial trouble. “I have to come home and see my wife in the face and
my babies in the face and tell them, you know, that we’re not in the same position we
used to be, and it’s really hurtful, it’s very anguishing because that’s the last thing a
father wants to say to his family,” Pacheco told a reporter.7
o Ken Nagel, a restaurant owner in Phoenix, Arizona, expressed scorn regarding Basic
Pilot/E-Verify after he recently hired one of his daughters, a native-born U.S. citizen,
and, upon feeding her information into the system, received a nonconfirmation of her
eligibility to be employed in the U.S.8
 Database errors incorrectly identify lawfully present immigrants as not
authorized for employment.
 Due to database errors, foreign-born lawful workers are 30 times more likely than nativeborn
U.S. citizens to be incorrectly identified as not authorized for employment.9
o A refugee applied for a job with an oil production company in Texas in 2007. When
his employer entered his information into Basic Pilot/E-Verify, the employer received
a tentative nonconfirmation notice due to errors in SSA’s database. After receiving
the notice, the company fired the worker without giving him an opportunity to contest
the finding, which opportunity is required under law. The refugee went on his own to
SSA to correct the matter, but it wasn’t until the Office of Special Counsel for
Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices (an office within the Civil Rights
Division at the U.S. Justice Department) intervened that the company hired him
back.10
o An employment-authorized immigrant was hired by a laundry facility in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, in 2008. His employer was enrolled in Basic Pilot/E-Verify, but when the
employee’s name was entered into the system, his employer received a tentative
nonconfirmation notice about the worker because of discrepancies in SSA’s database.
The worker was able to resolve the issue with the local SSA field office; however,
when the employer reentered his information into the system, the employer received a
“final” nonconfirmation. Although the employer wanted to keep the worker, under
Basic Pilot/E-Verify rules, the employer had to fire the worker or risk being found
liable for violating immigration laws.11
 Employers violate Basic Pilot/E-Verify rules.
 The 2007 evaluation of Basic Pilot/E-Verify found that the rate of employer
noncompliance with the program rules is “substantial.”12 Specifically, employers engaged
in prohibited employment practices, including preemployment screening, adverse
employment action based on tentative nonconfirmation notices, and failure to inform
workers of their rights under the program.13
o A lawfully present immigrant worker applied for and was offered a job by a
construction, fabrication and maintenance company in Texas in January 2008. The
employer was enrolled in Basic Pilot/E-Verify and received a tentative
Basic Pilot /E-Verify Database Errors Impact Work-Eligible Citizens and Noncitizens | PAGE 3 of 4
National Immigration Law Center | www.nilc.org
nonconfirmation notice about the worker. Violating program rules, the employer did
not give the worker the opportunity to contest the notice. Despite this, the worker
went to the local SSA office and received the appropriate confirmation that he was, in
fact, authorized to work. Even with clarification from SSA, the employer refused to
take the worker back. The worker even enlisted the help of an attorney, who sent a
letter to the employer outlining its obligations under Basic Pilot/E-Verify. The
employer failed to respond.14
o A naturalized U.S. citizen used the services of an employment services company in
San Francisco, California, in November 2007 to look for a job. After applying online,
she was given an appointment and told that there were a number of employers that
would be interested in her based on her extensive work history. The next day, the
employment agency told her that she could not be offered a job because the agency
could not verify her U.S. citizenship. The employment services company was
enrolled in Basic Pilot/E-Verify and received a tentative nonconfirmation notice about
the worker because the system, including the federal databases on which it relies,
could not make a determination about her work authorization. The employment
agency violated Basic Pilot/E-Verify rules by refusing to give her a copy of the notice,
though she requested one in order to seek legal advice. The agency demanded that
she sign the notice right away so it could destroy copies of her documents. When she
refused, the employment agency told her that it could not place her because she was
ineligible to work in the U.S.15
——————————
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT
Tyler Moran, employment policy director | moran@nilc.org | 208.333.1424
NOTES
1 For a summary of NILC’s concerns, see BASIC PILOT/E-VERIFY: NOT A MAGIC BULLET (NILC, Jan.
2008), www.nilc.org/immsemplymnt/ircaempverif/e-verify_nomagicbullet_2008-01-04.pdf.
2 FINDINGS OF THE WEB BASIC PILOT EVALUATION (hereinafter “FINDINGS”) (Westat, Sept. 2007),
www.uscis.gov/files/article/WebBasicPilotRprtSept2007.pdf, at xxi, emphasis added. U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services’ webpage, “Findings of the Web-Based Basic Pilot Evaluation,” which links to
related files, is at
www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=89abf90517e
15110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=a16988e60a405110VgnVCM1000004718190aR
CRD.
3 FINDINGS at 50.
4 Nicholas Riccardi, “Arizona Slams Door on Illegal Immigrants: Some Citizens Have Been Bruised, Too,
as the State Cracks Down,” LOS ANGELES TIMES, Apr. 5, 2008,
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizimmig5apr05,1,6970275,full.story.
5 Employers receive a “tentative nonconfirmation” notice from either SSA or DHS when the agencies are
unable to automatically confirm a worker’s employment eligibility. A “tentative nonconfirmation” notice
is not an indication of an immigration violation, and workers have the right to contest the finding with the
appropriate agency.
6 Veronica Sanchez, “U.S. Citizen Claims He’s Victim of Employer Sanctions,” 12 News, Mar. 7, 2008,
http://img.azcentral.com/12news/news/artic...ns03072008.html. See also Riccardi, supra
note 4.
Basic Pilot /E-Verify Database Errors Impact Work-Eligible Citizens and Noncitizens | PAGE 4 of 4
National Immigration Law Center | www.nilc.org
7 Christina Boomer, “Some Valley Workers Having Trouble with E-Verify,” KPNX-TV, Phoenix, Mar. 24,
2008, www.abc15.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=07e5d455-d95b-4fbb-be43-2d1ee7318972.
8 Ronald J. Hansen, “Economy Serves Up Unhappy Meal: Worst Lull in 2 Decades is Hurting Valley
Restaurateurs,” ARIZONA REPUBLIC, Mar. 3, 2008, www.azcentral.com/business/articles/0303biz-econrestaurants0303.
html.
9 See FINDINGS, supra note 2, at xii-xiii.
10 Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, Civil Rights Division,
U.S. Department of Justice, TELEPHONIC INTERVENTIONS: OCTOBER 1, 2006 – SEPTEMBER 30, 2007.
11 Case relayed to NILC staff by Bruce Nestor of De León & Nestor, Minneapolis, Minnesota, in April
2008.
12 See FINDINGS, supra note 2, at xxii.
13 See id. at xxiii.
14 Information provided to NILC by the Southern Poverty Law Center in January 2008.
15 Technical assistance request call received by NILC in December 2007.

You know what.. I give in regards to immigration.

Let Obama go forward with the amnesty or 'earned citizenship' plan and lets get this conversation over with. It's only been a flipping wedge issue for the past 16 years with no consensus among those who are supposed to make and enforce the laws that protect the US.

When they denied the appeal this past week for Ramos and Compean - I washed my hands of the whole issue.

Terra

I do not think you have to give in...

It is a frustrating problem because even if we knew all the solutions in the world we would likely not have the political will to achieve them...

This is why on this thread I have tried to urge a more practical approach which takes into account the political realities and the fact that any approach to be successful needs to be comprehensive...

I think when you try and distill an approach down too much you tend to exclude elements and this is also why I have tried to suggest supplemental ideas to bolster the goal of solving both the border problem, the illegal employment and inadequate wage problem, and also take into aco"expletive deleted" the employment needs of our businesses and the interests of the illegal aliens...

It is certainly not an easy thing to do as you can attest.

But when we citizens throw in the towel, no one wins.

The status quo benefits the illegal aliens who believe they have a better quality of life in the US than where they would be in Mexico and the employers and no one else...

But the cost is to the communities and the citizens like you and I who are forced to pay more in taxes for health care, education and other social services...

This is why something truly does need to be done...

But, I would like to refer back to another comment you made where you suggested that I was getting personal...and perhaps this is something that would help the conversation...

If the debate could be confined to the issues --- and not get personal --- because I never take anything personally on this site because I do not know the people on this site --- and if I do not know them how can I take anything personally --- so you can curse at me -- call me names --- whatever -- its not going to bother me in the slightest because posters here do not know me ---- but I think many people on this site do get personal and take things personally --- and I do not think they should ---and maybe if on this thread we could just discuss the issues it would be better leaving personalities out.

Now I have admitted to teasing --- but this has been in good fun --- and I use sarcasm --- but I am not the only one and I do not think that such actions are particularly offensive...after all I usually only use it in response to persons who use it in response to my posts...

But I do think that this is an important dialogue, though as I said -- I can understand your frustration and misgivings...

The Ramos/Compean case is a tough call -- but the bottom line is they covered it up -- even the US attorney said if they had not the case would never have been brought...

People have to learn not to cover things up...I know they were trying to do their job -- but then do it -- and report it ---

Hopefully this will be taken into account with sentencing...

MOre-E-verify administrative difficulties...

Pennsylvania Employment Law Blog
Posted at 10:18 AM on August 29, 2007 by Michael Moore
Four Reasons to take a "Wait and See" approach to using E-Verify

http://www.paemploymentlawblog.com/2007/08...rify/print.html

Remember the old adage that "No good deed goes unpunished?" I think it applies to voluntarily using the various electronic verification systems available in E-Verify and SSNVS. Although there are electronic resources to assist employers in complying with the I-9 verification requirements, I don't think employers should jump to use them until they are forced to which is clearly on the horizon. Federal Contractors will be forced to use the E-Verify system under administration proposals.

My reasons for taking a "wait and see" approach are as follows:

Using the E-Verify does not provide safe harbor from worksite DHS enforcement. It only protects the employer from assertions by DHS that the employer actual knowledge knowingly hired an unauthorized alien and that only applies if the social security and e-verify documents match to the employee. If the documents don't match, the employer has actual knowledge of a potential unauthorized employee and cannot continue to employee that individual. There is no protection from the employee's claims that the employer engaged in immigration-related discrimination. Although ICE takes the position that an employee is not liable for employee terminations under the safe harbor, that doesn't apply to E-Verify and doesn't stop an employee from filing a claim.

Data base inaccuracies and limitations can put employers at risk for immigration claims. If the data base is inaccurate, which whole justification for the No-Match letters, then employers are inviting immigration complaints by employees terminated for E-Verify problems. Statistically, the E-Verify system states that participating employers matched 92% of employment inquiries. Of the remaining 8%, one percent of the employees contested the E-Verify results. To me, that's the number of potential claims against employers who couldn't hire the employees. That doesn't even include employees who provide one of the myriad of other documents used for I-9 authentication that are not in the data base.

Sources predict the E-Verify system will be overwhelmed when estimated 200,000 government contractors are required to use it. DHS states that the system can handle 25 million inquiries annually. It currently has 19,000 registered employers increasing at a rate of 1000 per month. Employers have only three days to verify I-9 documents and, once they elect E-Verify, they must use it for all employees (not only those who may have immigration issues).

Changes in I-9 documentation requirements will make compliance simpler and E-Verify more effective. The number of Form I-9 documents used to establish identity and employment eligibility will be reduced from the current 29 categories. Employers have little capacity to verify the authenticity of these current documents, and the sheer quantity of accepted documents is an invitation to fraud. This regulation will reduce unlawful employment by weeding out insecure documents now used often for identity fraud. Simultaneously, the government will enhance the E-Verify System to include 14.8 million images stored on the DHS database including green cards. Passport and VISA data will also be added.

Until the system proves its reliability and demonstrates responsiveness, employers could experience unacceptable delays and errors leading to litigation and staffing problems.

Immigrant Verification System Flawed, Critics Say
by Jennifer Ludden

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=16126268

All Things Considered, November 8, 2007 · The immigration overhaul may have died in Congress earlier this year, but a growing number of businesses are adopting one part of it voluntarily. Some 30,000 businesses have now signed onto a federal computer program to check the legal status of new hires, and the Department of Homeland Security says 1,000 more are joining every week.

It's an exponential increase for a system first known as "Basic Pilot." But after running focus groups, DHS now calls it "E-Verify." Critics say the program is rife with errors, and worry its fast expansion will lead to legitimate job applicants being wrongly denied jobs.

Fast System with Shortcomings

A year ago, Fort Myer Construction Company in Washington signed on, hoping to avoid the embarrassment and hassle of an immigration raid as federal authorities increased their efforts. The company has a workforce that is 85 percent Hispanic. Carla Schmidt, a human resources assistant, says she took an hour-long online tutorial to learn how to check applicants' legal status against federal databases and finds the system easy to use.

"As soon as you put in information and click 'submit,' it'll tell you something. Either authorized, not authorized or in process," Schmidt said.

While E-Verify identifies false Social Security numbers, a major shortcoming is that it has not been able to detect legitimate documents that have been stolen. A new system hopes to catch some of that by letting employers compare the photos on certain immigration documents. DHS also wants to negotiate deals with state motor vehicle agencies to include driver's license photos.

Fort Myer's human resources director, Mike Caro, says E-Verify takes away the awkward uncertainty at those times he suspects a job applicant's document may be false.

"We say, 'Okay fine, you say it's legitimate. We're not sure.' So we're going to check you through Homeland Security. And traditionally those people we've questioned, don't return," Caro said.

Challenging the System

Caro says there have been at least a dozen applicants in the past year whom the system did not approve, and when they didn't protest, Caro assumed they were in the U.S. illegally. Fort Myer's project engineer, Rahi Golshan, did dispute his non-confirmation — and was able to prove he had the right to work after all.

"I think I called DHS first and they told me to call Social Security," Golshan says. "Then I took a visit up to Baltimore and went to Social Security office there."

It turned out Golshan's records had not been updated since he became a U.S. citizen. And there are many other cases like Golshan's. Homeland Security officials say they hope to clear them up preemptively. But critics point out there are millions of Social Security records with typos or misspellings. In all, nearly 18 million agency records, or 4 percent, have errors, says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute.

"That represents 1 in 25 new hires in the U.S. being told by the federal government, 'You can't work unless you go and get this straightened out.' I don't think big companies realize that," Harper said.

Employer Misuse

Harper believes if E-Verify were mandated nationwide — as some in Congress propose — the resulting flood of fixes would be a human resources nightmare. And there's another concern.

"The problem is that some employers follow the rules and some employers don't," says Tyler Moran, employment policy director of the National Immigration Law Center. She says to avoid racial profiling, employers are only supposed to conduct the check after they hire someone. But one of the government's own studies found 42 percent of businesses did not do that.

"What the employer was trying to do is cover themselves and say, 'You know what, I'm not going to put in the energy filling out this form until I see if there are any problems.' And so they put them through the system as a way of kind of pre-screening them," Moran said.

Moran says because of the high error rates in the Social Security Administration's records, some who can legitimately work will receive a tentative non-confirmation, but they won't have the chance to correct it if the employer never tells them.

Kathy Lotspeich, acting chief of the verification division of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — which oversees E-Verify — says officials are aware of employer misuse.

"We are in the process of standing up a monitoring and compliance unit, where we would be able to follow up with employers that were not using the program properly," Lotspeich said.

Homeland Security has also begun running radio and print ads in Arizona — in English and Spanish — that explain employees have the right to keep working while they contest E-verify's results.

DHS plans a national media campaign early next year to promote E-Verify and it's forging ahead to mandate the program where it can. Federal agencies had to start using it last month and Lotspeich says officials are working on regulations to require federal contractors to use it.

eVerify Analysis - May 21, 2008 Update
Posted May 30, 2008; updated Jun 06, 2008

http://www.murthy.com/news/n_eveupd.html

After this article was published in its original form, we were contacted by our colleague, Gary Endelman, a reader of the MurthyBulletin, who has been extensively researching the eVerify system. He was able to clarify some matters and correct some information that had been provided by the government. We appreciate his contribution.

The USCIS provided an overview of the status of eVerify and responded to questions from members of the District of Columbia Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) on May 21, 2008. The discussion provided details on the proposed implementation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s eVerify system. Most of the attorneys from the Murthy Law Firm attended this meeting. Katherine Lotspeich, Acting Chief, USCIS Verification Division, and Bruce Friedman, Senior Policy Advisor for Immigration, DHS Office for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, discussed the eVerify system and answered questions related to work authorization problems facing many nonimmigrants, adjustment-of-status applicants, and even recently-naturalized U.S. citizens. Michele Waslin, Ph.D., the Senior Policy Analyst at the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF), provided insights and expressed concerns and a critique of the eVerify system.

eVerify System Voluntary for Most Employers

The eVerify system was covered for MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers in our April 18, 2008 article, eVerify Registration to Qualify for F-1 OPT Extension. While participation in eVerify is currently voluntary for most employers, many states have introduced legislative proposals that would make eVerify mandatory for some or all of their resident employers. Moreover, it will be necessary for employers to register under eVerify in order to get the recent U.S. graduates they need to qualify for optional practical training (OPT) extensions.

eVerify Uses SSA and DHS Databases

Once an employer enters Form I-9 data on a newly-hired employee, the eVerify system compares the information against databases maintained by the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) and the DHS. If the SSA database does not confirm that the new employee is authorized for employment, then a tentative non-confirmation (TNC) notice is issued. The employee must be provided with a written TNC of legal eligibility to work, and must be given the opportunity to amend the I-9 or otherwise resolve the discrepancy by following the instructions in the notice. EVerify compares information provided by newly hired foreign national employees with various government databases to determine whether they are work authorized based on lawful permanent residency (green card status), an Employment Authorization Document (EAD), an H1B visa or from another work-authorized nonimmigrant or other status. If neither the SSA nor DHS database can confirm the work authorization, or if a USCIS Immigration Status Verifier does not make an authorization determination, a final non-confirmation may be issued. A flow-chart (PDF 14.6KB) illustrating these processes was released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office and reproduced for MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers.

According to a pamphlet on the eVerify system provided at the meeting, "Employers may not take any adverse action against an employee because he/she contests the information mismatch. This includes firing, suspending, withholding pay or training, or otherwise infringing upon his/her employment." Furthermore, "the employee must be given eight federal government work days to contact the appropriate federal agency to resolve the information mismatch."

eVerification Confirmation Statistics

Acting Chief Lotspeich stated that 92 to 93 percent of individuals checked through the eVerify system are confirmed for work authorization. The concern expressed by AILF is that just seven or eight percent with problems would translate into tens of thousands who would get stuck with expansion of the program. This would include U.S. citizens and qualified, legally authorized workers. The point was reinforced that, with a comparatively small percentage of U.S. employers participating in eVerify today, problems are ample enough that these would be expected to increase exponentially if or when the number of participating U.S. employers is greatly expanded. There is concern that the eVerify system will not be able to cope with the tremendous expansion. Validly authorized employees, in this case, could be deprived of the opportunity to work and litigation would likely ensue while matters are resolved.

F-1 OPT Employers May Need to Register at Employee's Work Location

Acting Chief Lotspeich advised that DHS is expected to publish guidance making it clear that the employers registering under eVerify for OPT extensions must register at the student's employment workplace and not at the employer's headquarters location. Though not yet fully resolved, this appears to be the direction the DHS taking.

Trends in eVerify

The eVerify system is currently required for all federal agencies. It will soon be required, by regulation, for all personnel of U.S. government contractors for each government contract, as well.

Conclusion

We at the Murthy Law Firm appreciate this information provided by the USCIS, DHS, Acting Chief Lotspeich, Senior Policy Advisor Friedman, and Senior Policy Analyst Waslin. Developments in the eVerify program will be monitored and updates will be provided on MurthyDotCom and for MurthyBulletin subscribers. It is expected that the eVerify program is expanding and that employers should become familiar with its operation, if they are not already using the program on either a voluntary or mandatory basis.

Sunday, April 6, 2008
e-Verify Flaws
AZ Bill 2779, effective Jan. 1, 2008, requires mandatory E-Verify participation for ALL new employees hired!

http://immigrationmexicanamerican.blogspot...rify-flaws.html

FLAWS WITH E-VERIFY:

"E-Verify has at least one significant flaw – its treatment of naturalized U.S. citizens. Between October 2006 and March 2007 about 3,200 foreign-born U.S. citizens were initially improperly disqualified from working by E-Verify. Their status was later corrected. Because many did not register their citizenship with the Social Security Administration, they are often listed as possible illegal workers.That's what apparently happened to Ochoa, 47, who became a citizen in 2000 but has since lost his naturalization certificate. He quit his job as a car salesman at the end of last year and got hired by a local Dodge dealership in February. Days later, his new employers called him with bad news – E-Verify classified him as a possible illegal immigrant. He only had a couple of days to convince the Social Security agency otherwise.Ochoa took his U.S. passport, Social Security card, driver's license and Arizona voter identification card to the local Social Security office, but was told he'd still have to request new papers from the Department of Homeland Security, which could take up to 10 months."I love this country, I'm happy in this country," said Ochoa, a father of two, who escaped eviction this month only because a church group paid his rent. "The guy who made this law, I don't know him. He's started destroying a lot of families."Katherine Lotspeich, acting chief of the agency that runs E-Verify, said officials will introduce a number of changes, starting in May, to make it easier to fix the problems that Ochoa and other naturalized citizens have encountered."The last thing we want is to have people who are naturalized citizens deal with this cumbersome process," Lotspeich said of the lengthy wait to get proper paperwork. She added that Social Security should have accepted Ochoa's passport as proof of citizenship."

And some more...

November 28, 2007
REPORT: E-VERIFY FALSE POSITIVES ARE A "SEVERE" PROBLEM

http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/2007/11/r...t-e-verify.html

USCIS officials were provided details details from an outside firm's report yesterday regarding the accuracy of the e-Verify system, the online government database used by employers to check the work authorization of employees. According to Carolyn Shettle, who led the investigative team for Westat Corp., the problems faced by foreign-born US citizens is severe and that nearly 10% of such naturalized citizens were incorrectly identified by the system as unauthorized to work.

According to the report:

The accuracy of the USCIS database used for verification has improved substantially since the start of the Basic Pilot program. However, further improvements are needed, especially if the Web Basic Pilot becomes a mandated national program – improvements that USCIS personnel report are currently underway. Most importantly, the database used for verification is still not sufficiently up to date to meet the IIRAIRA requirement for accurate verification, especially for naturalized citizens. USCIS accommodates this problem by providing for manual review that is time consuming and can lead to discrimination against work-authorized foreign-born persons during the period that the verification is ongoing, especially naturalized citizens.

The report showed that foreign-born employers were thirty times more likely to be subject to a false identification as unauthorized to work than a US-born employee which leads to the obvious conclusion that USCIS' records are either inaccurate or are not being properly integrated in to the e-Verify system. According to the report:

Foreign-born U.S. citizens are considerably more likely to receive erroneous tentative nonconfirmations than are work-authorized foreign-born persons who have not become U.S. citizens. Among foreign-born employees verified by the Web Basic Pilot, the percentage of ever-authorized employees found to be workauthorized after a tentative nonconfirmation was 1.3 percent for noncitizens compared to 10.9 percent for naturalized citizens. The erroneous tentative nonconfirmation rate for naturalized citizens is unacceptably high. Reducing it will take considerable time and will require better data collection and data sharing between SSA and USCIS than is currently the case.

Tentative nonconfirmations have negative consequences for work-authorized employees for two reasons. First, there are very real costs and burdens associated with adverse actions that some employers take against employees receiving tentative nonconfirmations, even though such adverse actions are prohibited by statute. Second, there are burdens associated with visiting an SSA office and, generally to a lesser extent, contacting USCIS.

The reports findings are highly disturbing because the federal government and a number of states are moving down the path of severely penalizing employers who fail to use the system. Provisions in four appropriations bills currently pending in Congress would require employers doing business with a variety of federal agencies to use e-Verify. And several state governments have passed laws either mandating employers use the system or providing "safe harbors" preventing loss of a business license or access to state contracts only for employers who use the system. One state - Illinois - has been disturbed enough by reports of inaccuracies to actually bar employers in the state from using the system until the false positives are down to less than one percent.

I have obtained a copy of the report and you can download it here.
http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/files/Wes...terimReport.pdf

I support enabling Legislation for the Approach, if Linked to Legislation to De-criminalize, tax
and Regulate Drugs. This is a more Holistic Approach--even better if it could be linked to real
universal, not for profit, Health and Wellness Program.

FYI ---

Present enforcement efforts are bearing some fruit...BUT...

Report Credits Drop in Illegal Immigrants to Enforcement
Study Was Based on Census Data That Indicate Number of Less-Educated Hispanics Has Declined

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 31, 2008; A16

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3001936_pf.html

A report released yesterday by a Washington think tank that advocates stricter limits on immigration says the number of illegal immigrants in the country appears to have declined significantly over the past year, at least partly because of the chilling effect of stepped-up enforcement.

The study by the Center for Immigration Studies based its findings on census data that indicate that the number of less-educated, working-age Hispanic immigrants, defined as 18-to-40-year-olds with a high school diploma or less, has dropped by more than 10 percent, or about 830,000 people, since last August.

Previous research suggests that a large share of less-educated foreigners is in the country illegally and that it makes up the bulk of the illegal immigrant population. Furthermore, although earlier declines in the number of these Hispanic immigrants have been linked to a rise in their unemployment rate, the current drop-off began last year almost immediately after Congress abandoned legislation to legalize undocumented immigrants and six months before any significant rise in their unemployment rate had occurred.

During the same period, the number of foreigners who were more educated or non-Hispanic, and therefore far less likely to be illegal immigrants, continued to rise or hold steady.

"The evidence is consistent with the idea that at least initially, more robust enforcement caused the number of illegal immigrants to decline significantly," said Steven A. Camarota, one of the study's authors. "Some people seem to think illegals are so permanently anchored in the United States that there is no possibility of them leaving. . . . This suggests they're not correct. Some significant share might respond to changing incentives and leave."

Several demographers who specialize in estimating the illegal immigrant population expressed concern about the limits of the study's methodology but said they found the possibility that the illegal immigrant population is decreasing plausible. Determining the actual amount of that decline, however, is far more controversial.

The census does not ask about immigration status. Instead, government and independent researchers use a variety of techniques to estimate the number of immigrants in the country illegally. One way is to subtract the number of visas, permanent residency permits and naturalizations granted each year from the total number of foreigners counted by the census. The difference between the number of foreigners who can be accounted for through such records and the total number tallied by the census is considered to be the size of the illegal immigrant population.

Camarota and co-author Karen Jensenius took a different approach, calculating the previous ratio between the number of less-educated Hispanic immigrants counted by the census and the total illegal immigrant population estimated by government researchers, and then applying that ratio to the new, lower number of less-educated, working-age Hispanic immigrants to come up with a new estimate for the total illegal immigrant population. According to their calculations, from August of last year to May, the illegal immigrant population declined by about 11 percent, to about 11.17 million from a high of 12.49 million.

One drawback of Camarota's and Jensenius's method, noted the Pew Hispanic Center's Jeffrey S. Passel, a widely regarded expert on estimating the illegal immigrant population, is that "it tracks something that correlates with the number of illegal immigrants rather than the actual number of illegal immigrants, and it assumes the correlation remains the same."

"If the ratio [between the number of less-educated Hispanic adults and the total number of illegal immigrants] has changed, then the trend could be very different," Passel said.

Even more contentious is the question of what, if anything, the study's findings indicate about the impact that recent national and local immigration policies might have had on the size of the illegal immigrant population. Since December, the unemployment rate of less-educated, working-age Hispanics has risen to 7.06 percent from 4.93 percent, making it that much more difficult to determine whether the continued decline in their population during this period was the result of anything beyond basic economics.

But Camarota and Jensenius suggest that the six-month decline that occurred after the failure of the legalization legislation and before the rise of these workers' unemployment rate is one of several examples of a link between immigration policy and immigrant choices. They note, for instance, that starting in May of last year, when Congress's consideration of the legalization plan began receiving widespread media attention, the number of less-educated, working-age Hispanics began to rise.

"I call it the amnesty hump," Camarota said. He noted that the population increase during this period might not have been statistically significant, but "it seems that what was happening was that fewer illegal immigrants left than might otherwise have done so because they were hoping to qualify for legalization."

Also up for interpretation is the degree to which the drop in the number of less-educated Hispanic adults (and, by inference, illegal immigrants) was the result of fewer foreigners entering the country or more of them leaving. The U.S. Border Patrol reported a 20 percent decline in apprehensions along the southern border over fiscal 2007, a possible indication that fewer illegal immigrants attempted to enter the country.

Camarota and Jensenius note that census data do not answer the question. But the authors suggest that if less-educated Hispanic adults were not leaving in greater numbers than before, their total population would merely grow more slowly, not decline steeply.

Among those who are leaving, the vast majority are probably doing so on their own. Despite a surge in work site raids and other enforcement measures, as well as decisions by various state and local governments to train their police to identify illegal immigrants, only 285,000 immigrants were removed from the United States last year, and many of those were formerly legal immigrants who lost their status after committing a crime.

Camarota and Jensenius said they take this as possible evidence that tougher enforcement can have a multiplier effect, scaring many more illegal immigrants into leaving of their own accord than authorities can pick up. And the authors suggest that if the trends they identify are sustained, "it would cut the illegal population in half within just five years."

However, Randolph Capps, a researcher with the Urban Institute who has studied the number of U.S. children born to illegal immigrants, cautioned against such reasoning.

Even if all the findings in the study by Camarota and Jensenius prove correct, he said, it is probable that the first million illegal immigrants to leave were those who had arrived more recently and had the weakest ties to the United States.

The remainder, including the more than half of illegal immigrant adults who have children in the United States, Capps said, are less likely to leave unless they are removed by the government.

"Having a kid in school provides a really strong incentive to stay," he said. In addition, "People who are more settled in the United States have more options. They can move to another [state or county] where enforcement is not as strict. If they lose a job, they can find another. If one member of the family is arrested and deported, they can find other relatives to stay with."

And what about the incidentals?

-Stepped up law enforcement without a change to present immigration laws will result in a need to detain and/or incarcerate more illegal immigrants an inadmissibles and our prisons and detention centers are presently overcrowded to the extent that an increase would place these persons in inhumane conditions which will require significant funds to refit and construct additional faciltiies to accomodate the millions of illegals who will likely be caught with heightened enforcement
-administrative delay in the present guest worker program denies employers who need guest workers the workers they need to fulfill their employment obligations placing their businesses at risk
-the plan would require additional employer enforcement agents and makes no provision for same either via an apprioruation or the actual number of additional agents needed
-the national ID system will need significant funding for the states to implement or states with opt out like they have from the Real ID system
-under the "approach" (as distinct from an actual plan) the E-verify system which employers rely upon is very flawed with a rate of seven percent false positives which denies citizens and legal immigrants job opportunities
-Congressional passage is unlikely without some level employer support is unlikely

to name a few of the many incidentals which need to be addressed before legislation can go forward...

Do you know if Bill would accept your friendly amendment?

He has seemed pretty reluctant to allow amendments to his approach.

How would you gauge the prospect for passage of your legislation decriminalizng drugs?

They have been leaving the SW for the past 6-12 months because there is limited to no work.. ie, the economy. If and when the economy gets back on track, they will be back. Heck, even a lot of the legal immigrants have gone back to Mexico to work for now... and I didn't even have to ask the Pew Institute about that.

time to up border enforcement while the lull in the economy is there...we can all find common ground on that I hope ---

I know Bill may not want to hear this, but we have a moral obligation to protect immigrant detainees from inhumane conditions.

As our jails, prisons, and detention centers get more and more overcrowded before we have even enacted the Billfmsd approach, we have an obligation as a free society to ensure that these persons are treated in a humane manner. I am not talking about luxury accomodations, but only minimal things like health care, etc.

This is a part of the immigration picture.

It is an incidental aspect of the approach that Bill has proposed.

Protect immigrant detainees
Thursday, July 31, 2008
NJ Star Ledger

http://www.nj.com/opinion/ledger/editorial....xml&coll=1

Some 32,000 immigrant detainees are being held in custody around the nation, including here in New Jersey. They are housed in privately run facilities such as one in Elizabeth as well as county jails and in detention centers run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Those being held run the gamut from suspected terrorists to people seeking political asylum. Whoever they are and wherever they are held, they are entitled to decent health care.

Recent reports -- some of the worst of them out of Elizabeth -- have chronicled a disgraceful system in which detainees were allowed to die be cause of inadequate or indifferent responses to medical emergencies.

In one case, a man from New Guinea fell and fractured his skull. When he started behav ing erratically, he was taken to a disciplinary cell. When he was finally taken to a hospital, he fell into a coma and died.

From January 2004 to November 2007, at least 66 deaths have occurred. Medical experts note that some of them, like the case in Elizabeth, were preventable.

A worthy bill introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) is intended to ensure that detainees receive adequate medical treatment and that the federal government keeps an accurate record of deaths at these facilities.

The bill would require the Department of Homeland Se curity to make sure every detainee receives comprehensive medical and mental health in take screening within 14 days of arriving in custody. It also would provide that no detainee suffers interruption in prescrip tion medications and that those being detained understand how to request medical care.

These are reasonable and humane protections.

Immigration officials argue that such protections for immi grant detainees are already in place, even though they are not required by law.

They say detainees are screened within 14 days, as re quired under the Menendez bill. They also point to the fact that the federal government spends $100 million a year on health care for detainees. Further, they note that 66 deaths per 1.5 million immigrants who moved through these facilities compare favorably with the death rates in state and federal prisons.

We're not sure state and federal prison facilities are the models to be emulated. Moreover, it is important to remember that immigrant detainees are in administrative rather than criminal custody.

The Menendez-Lofgren bill rightly demands accountability and transparency that would better safeguard detainees from substandard, inadequate care and from abuse.

The evidence shows that those safeguards have not been in place, that detainees have suffered and that facilities that house detainees have not been held accountable.

Menendez's bill, which should win swift approval, puts legally binding safeguards and procedures in place to make sure that the care of immigrant detainees doesn't fall through bureaucratic cracks.

I'm not supporting jack-cap until they deal fairly with Ramos and Compean. Period.

Terra:

Don't you agree that they made a big mistake not reporting this in the normal course of things and trying to cover it up?

I think once you try to cover things up you start running into problems since it implies an admission of guilt.

In other words, why cover something up if you did nothing wrong?

As a result, it seemed to me that the US attorney did not want to bring any case against these guys, but for the fact that they tried to cover it up.

Terra:

You never commented on my additions to your outline.

What did you think?

Note: Request of Bill and Taz
Please collaborate and construct a one or two paragraph Statement of the Problem...

Interetsing task --- but I do not know that we can find collaboration on the problem despite prior efforts...

I can only state the problem as I see it ---

There are at least twelve million illegal immigrants in this nation at the present time. Estimates suggest that up to a million illegal immigrants cross into the United States annually from our Southern most borders whether they come from Cuba or Mexico (though often then originate in nations south of Mexico). The immigrants come to the US for a number of reasons including primarily quality of life issues: economic (jobs) and politcial (seeking freedom, political asylum). The continued impact on our economy represents a national security threat. Our porous borders in the wake of the 9/11 attacks represent an aditional national security threat to terrorists and spies infiltrating our nation to do our government and our people harm. American employers, and in fact some industries, are dependent upon illegal immigrants to do jobs which are either too low paying and undesireable by Americans because of the type of labor involved whether it be intensely physical or otherwise repugnant. Some of these jobs are even high paying. Finally, communities throughout the nation have seen illegal immigration as a curse with the impact on education costs, health care, law enforcement, etc., particularly in borer states. The present immigration system is suffering from a number of deficiencies which further complicate the system. First, there are inadequate border agents to monitor the complete US/Mexico border. Second, there are inadequate immigrations agents to inspect the millions of US employers who might be engaged in illegal immigration. Third, the present E-verify system is inadequate to give employer accurate information regarding potential and current employees with as much as 7% of the responses being false-positives for identifying legal immigrants or US citizens as illegal immigrants. As a result, it is unfair and onerous to require employers to use a system which does not work and unfair to legal immigrants and US citizens who may be denied employment which they are eligible for because of E-verify errors. Fourth, employers need employees but the present legal immigration system has so much delay that employers are forced to hire illegal immigrants because the guest worker system cannot guarantee adequate legal immigrant employees annually. Fourth, recent heightened immgratiion enforcement has increased detentions overcrowding a immigrant detention system with facilities that have been described as overcrowded and inhumane, and also crowded prisons as illegal immigrants are being prosecured for crimes. Thus, any reform measures which increases enforcement at any level as heightened broder security and employer enforcement is bound to do, will have to take into account the impact on detention faciltiies and prisons which need modernization and increased capacity. Fifth, as touched ohn above, until our legal immigration system can be reformed to expedite review it will be quite dififcult to address the illegal immigration problem. Lastly, there are significiant costs involved for any reform efforts at a time when govenrment resources are particulalry scarce and the ability of effect real change is dependent upon states having the resources to act. The worst thing we could do is pass a law and not provide the funding to accomplish implementation because this would create low expectations and likely advance the status quo which we can ill afford.

I might ask you to comment on whether you see this as a narrow or comprehensive problem.

As you might imagine, I see this as a problem which requires a comprehensive effort.

Our government usually moves too slow to address problems and as a result when it does address them it is usually remiss in making adjustements and fine tuning. There were recent border efforts. Any subequent reforms are likely to be the last for quite some time. Thus, a comprehensive approach is essential IMHO. We must strike while the iron is hot.

rla...

It would have to be linked to two or three highly related Initiatives--as a General Purpose Package.
It is important to keep all these initiatives conceptualized as Approaches rather than Theories or
Programs, in order to avoid the political rhetoric of getting bogged down in details, arguing about Tactics, when our Goal is to come up with a consensus for a Strategy...

Well, that is fine for discussion purposes, but my feeling has always been toward moving from concept to implementation.

That is what I do professionally. You study an issue and then you take it from the drawing board and make it a reality in the political universe.

So, at some point you get bogged down in details.

I have never been afraid of details. I have always found that they help to make the concepts stronger.

So, while the goal is finding consensus, which I actually thought we had found that regarding Bill's approach. As mnuch as I felt that the approach was lacking in essential refinements I agreed with its overall thrust calling for a national ID system and increasing the enforcement of immogration laws on employers as a means of countering illegal immigration.

But we have this concept.

So -- how do we advance the discussion if we are limited in the amount of detail that we can include?

I thought it was only natural now that we have the agreed upon concept to move forward with trying to flesh out a strategy for implementation and a mechanism for getting the approach to work in the real world.

Maybe we can ask people which elements of my summary they accept and reject...as a next step...and then we can work on the areas where there is a lack of agreement unless Bill wants to offer his own fact scenario and we can blend the two.

1. There are at least twelve million illegal immigrants in this nation at the present time.

2. Estimates suggest that up to a million illegal immigrants cross into the United States annually from our Southern most borders whether they come from Cuba or Mexico (though often then originate in nations south of Mexico).

3. The immigrants come to the US for a number of reasons including primarily quality of life issues: economic (jobs) and politcial (seeking freedom, political asylum).

4. The continued impact on our economy represents a national security threat.

5. Our porous borders in the wake of the 9/11 attacks represent an aditional national security threat to terrorists and spies infiltrating our nation to do our government and our people harm.

6. American employers, and in fact some industries, are dependent upon illegal immigrants to do jobs which are either too low paying and undesireable by Americans because of the type of labor involved whether it be intensely physical or otherwise repugnant.

7. Some of these jobs are even high paying. Finally, communities throughout the nation have seen illegal immigration as a curse with the impact on education costs, health care, law enforcement, etc., particularly in borer states.

8. The present immigration system is suffering from a number of deficiencies which further complicate the system.

9. First, there are inadequate border agents to monitor the complete US/Mexico border.

10. Second, there are inadequate immigrations agents to inspect the millions of US employers who might be engaged in illegal immigration.

11. Third, the present E-verify system is inadequate to give employer accurate information regarding potential and current employees with as much as 7% of the responses being false-positives for identifying legal immigrants or US citizens as illegal immigrants. As a result, it is unfair and onerous to require employers to use a system which does not work and unfair to legal immigrants and US citizens who may be denied employment which they are eligible for because of E-verify errors. Fourth, employers need employees but the present legal immigration system has so much delay that employers are forced to hire illegal immigrants because the guest worker system cannot guarantee adequate legal immigrant employees annually.

12. Fourth, recent heightened immgratiion enforcement has increased detentions overcrowding an immigrant detention system with facilities that have been described as overcrowded and inhumane, and also crowding prisons with illegal immigrants that have been successfully charged and prosecuted for crimes consistent with their entering the United States illegally.

13. Thus, any reform measures which increases enforcement at any level as heightened broder security and employer enforcement is bound to do, will have to take into account the impact on detention faciltiies and prisons which need modernization and increased capacity to handle the increased incarceraton of illegal immigrants which is occuring now and is a natural result of any further immigration reform.

14. Fifth, as touched ohn above, until our legal immigration system can be reformed to expedite review it will be quite dififcult to address the illegal immigration problem. Lastly, there are significiant costs involved for any reform efforts at a time when govenrment resources are particulalry scarce and the ability of effect real change is dependent upon states having the resources to act.

15. The worst thing we could do is pass a law and not provide the funding to accomplish implementation because this would create low expectations and likely advance the status quo which we can ill afford.

George Gascon: The laws cops can't enforce

12:00 AM CDT on Monday, August 4, 2008
George Gascon, a former assistant chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, is a lawyer and the chief of police in Mesa, Ariz.

MESA, Ariz. – Our next president faces a formidable task. He will be forced to deal with two difficult wars, an economic downturn, higher energy prices and a bankrupt federal immigration policy.

To some, immigration pales in comparison with the wars and the economy. But for others, especially police departments in border states like mine, it is all-consuming. The first priority of the next president should be legislation that addresses the legitimate concerns of both the people who believe our borders are out of control and those who want equal protection for everyone living in this country.

Immigration issues are tearing apart communities. Demagoguery and misinformation are shaping public opinion and, in some cases, public policy. In the absence of a clear federal policy on immigration, states and cities are enacting draconian and constitutionally questionable laws.

This patchwork of conflicting local immigration laws is creating an untenable situation for police officials who face demands to crack down on immigrants – demands that contradict policing practices that have led to significant declines in crime.

For police officials, refusing to carry out policies that may violate the Constitution can be career-threatening. Both sides in the immigration debate accuse police departments of misconduct in dealing with immigrants. Some chiefs are making decisions based on bad politics instead of sound policing. In many cases, police officers are making illegal arrests with the acquiescence and sometimes explicit approval of their superiors.

Here in Arizona, a wedge is being driven between the local police and some immigrant groups. Some law enforcement agencies are wasting limited resources to appease the public's thirst for action against illegal immigration, regardless of the legal or social consequences.

America's 500,000 police officers are sworn to enforce the law. But we are increasingly unable to do so. Those who want to restrict immigration criticize us for not arresting immigrants for entering the country illegally. Yet others rightly wonder how we can do our job if some residents are afraid to report crimes or otherwise cooperate with the police for fear of deportation.

Without a national immigration policy, a new culture of lawlessness will increasingly permeate our society. Politicians will pressure police departments to reduce immigration by using racial profiling and harassment. Immigrants who fear that the police will help deport them will rely less on their local officers and instead give thugs control of their neighborhoods.

Many top law enforcement officials were part of the community policing revolution of the 1980s and '90s. We have a deep concern for constitutional rights and social justice. We believe that effective policing requires residents, regardless of immigration status, to trust the police.

We are also students of the mistakes of our predecessors. Past police practices helped lead to the civil unrest of the 1960s, which tore our nation apart along racial and political lines. We do not want to repeat those mistakes.

If we become a nation in which the local police are the default enforcers of a failing federal immigration policy, the years of trust that police departments have built up in immigrant communities will vanish. Some minority groups may once again view police officers as armed instruments of government oppression.

A wink and a nod will no longer suffice as an immigration policy. Effective border control is a critical step. But so is ensuring that otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants have the same protections as everyone else in a modern, free society.

Presidential candidates need to specify the measures on immigration they would present to Congress after Inauguration Day. No doubt, the advisers to John McCain and Barack Obama are counseling them to be vague. That's the wrong advice.

America's police officers deserve thoughtful federal leadership so that we can continue doing our best to provide our country with the security that defines a civilized society.


George Gascon, a former assistant chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, is a lawyer and the chief of police in Mesa, Ariz.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...n1.4d65d3e.html

I think the so-called Immigration problem is a piece of our bigger problem of recognizing what is a person and what is a soverign Nation. As a Nation of Communities, if we teach Citizenship and make it a prrt of Community Life and truly focus on getting every Person included in a community, we would sooner build a base for a workable National Immigration policy. This requires mending the seams between community and State governments and between States and the Federal democratic
Republic.

I would agree that an inclusive approach is much more preferable than an exclusive approach. However, I think selling that approach is muchmore dffiicult to do.

The supplemental/comprehensive approach I outline was actually aimed at that.

August 14, 2008

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll...ID=200880813087

Raids a poor substitute for real immigration policy

The arrest of 57 workers at the Mills Manufacturing Corp. in Woodfin on Tuesday on immigration-related charges highlights once again the failure of U.S. immigration policy.

For starters, it illustrates the vulnerability of an underclass of people whose only crime was to cross into the United States without proper documentation in order to make a better life for themselves and their children. Some have been here for years working, contributing to their communities and to the economic benefit of the nation.

A tip from a fellow employee apparently led to the raid by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service.

Asheville City Councilman and congressional candidate Carl Mumpower took some credit for the raid, saying in a press release that an employee at the plant contacted him several weeks ago and “we developed a connection with ICE in Charlotte on Mills Manufacturing.”
Besides creating a population subject to victimization because they live under the threat of deportation, it creates an enormous hardship for employers.

Blow to plant

Mills Manufacturing, which employs 175 people, lost a third of its work force in one swoop. The removal of those workers will affect the plant’s delivery schedule, according to plant officials, though it will not affect production.

The company, a government defense contractor that makes parachutes, was not the target of the investigation and was cooperative, ICE officials said.
Mills Manufacturing was unaware of any improperly documented workers, according to John Oswald, executive vice president and chief executive officer.

He said his company checks all employees’ documents, which typically include driver’s licenses, Social Security cards or Green Cards. It does not have experts who can detect sophisticated forgeries, not should it have to go to such lengths.

“It’s very, very challenging,” Oswald said. “We’re only allowed to look at so many documents. There is a new system called E-Verify, to make sure they are who they say they are. But we’re only allowed to look at the documents they give us, and if at face value they appear to be legitimate, that’s all we’re able to do.”
Mills Manufacturing does use the E-Verify system now, Oswald said, but that does not help with previously hired workers. E-Verify is an Internet-based system operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in partnership with the Social Security Administration. Participation by employers is voluntary.

A report released in November, commissioned by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, found that, while accuracy has improved over the years, the E-Verify program uses a database that does not meet accuracy standards set by Congress. In addition, the E-Verify system cannot detect illegal workers using stolen identity information and stolen Social Security numbers, according to the Government Accounting Office.

In the absence of a comprehensive, realistic immigration policy, raids like the one conducted Tuesday are ineffective at best.
Impact on economy

They will not drive the 11 million to 12 million immigrants here illegally from the country and if they did, it would have an enormous impact on the U.S. economy, which benefits from their labor.

A 2004 study by the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on the impact of Hispanic immigration concluded that Hispanics in general and Hispanic immigration in particular have a positive economic effect on the state. The study found that 41.4 percent of the state’s Hispanic population was born in the United States. Of the remaining 58.6 percent, 76 percent were undocumented.

The study found that Hispanics contributed more than $9 billion to the state economy in taxes and consumer spending, and they are estimated to contribute $18 billion by 2009.
The vast majority of those who come to the United States illegally are meeting a demand for their labor, they desperately need the work and there is no legal way for them to enter the country.

The current visa program for guest workers is wholly inadequate and is set up in such a way that it creates a form of indentured servitude. Unless there is legislation establishing a workable guest worker program, one of two things can be expected to happen: Employers will take the risk of continuing to hire illegal workers, or there will be a serious impact on North Carolina’s and other states’ economies.

Federal lawmakers’ paralysis when it comes to crafting sensible immigration reform creates an irresolvable problem for states, local governments, communities and companies. It also victimizes millions of poor, desperate people.

Ultimately, no law that fails to create a realistic guest worker program and to establish a way for those already in the country illegally to resolve their status will solve the immigration crisis.

I think it is likely a combination...but good news nonetheless and reason IMHO to strengthen border control so when the economy improves they cannot come back.

What's driving illegal immigrants home?
Article Launched: 08/14/2008 08:03:32 AM PDT

By Peter Schrag

Though it hasn't got much notice, there's now fairly wide agreement that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has declined by a hefty 10 percent or more in the past year or so.

But that's pretty much where the agreement stops. Are Mexicans and other illegal aliens being driven home by tougher enforcement, as immigration restrictionists claim? Or is the decline in illegal aliens - from an estimated 12 million-plus to just over 11 million - a trailing indicator of the recession and accompanying decrease in employment opportunities?

In a report issued July 30, the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter restrictions and tougher enforcement, sees the decline at least partly as the result of stepped-up federal raids on workplaces, especially in the Midwest, of the augmented checks at the southern border, and of hundreds of new local and state laws targeting illegal aliens.

But the CIS' "dubious conclusion," counters the liberal Immigration Policy Center, "is undermined not only by an absence of hard data, but by the faulty logic and contradictory statements of the report itself."

CIS research director Steven Camorata, who wrote the report on the basis of his extrapolation of census data, acknowledges that the shrinking job market was at least partially responsible for the decline. But he contends that because the number of illegal residents shrank even before the labor market tightened - but after enforcement got tougher - enforcement is working as intended.

The difficulty with that argument is that jobs in many of the sectors that had high concentrations of illegal workers - construction, particularly - began to evaporate before those in other sectors of economy.

Border enforcement, moreover, began to be tightened in the early 1990s, which, in the estimation of many researchers including those at the impartial Public Policy Institute of California, generated a sharp increase in the numbers of illegal aliens.

When the border was more open, those researchers point out, illegal workers migrated seasonally, returning home during the lean months. As enforcement became tougher with the addition of many more Border Patrol agents, and billions in new fences and electronic gadgetry, crossing became more expensive and dangerous. As a result, hundreds of thousands who had once gone home decided to stay and sent for their families, becoming permanent, sometimes unwilling, immigrants.

In June, Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, issued another report concluding that illegal immigration has always responded to changing U.S. economic conditions, not to political policy.

There have never before been as many illegal workers in packing plants and other non-agricultural jobs, where federal agents can round them up as conveniently as they have in the past year. Nor have those enforcement efforts been as harsh as they have in the May raid on the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, where nearly 400 people were detained.

About 270, most of them Guatemalans, were charged not with ordinary immigration violations but with "aggravated identity theft." Begging to be sent home to families that depend on them and not understanding the charges or process they were caught in, they made plea deals with prosecutors and were summarily convicted and sentenced to five months in federal prisons. Many of their families still don't know where they are.

That those workers, some as young as 13, others parents with children, were willing to work in the brutal, dangerous and abusive conditions that have since been revealed at the Iowa plant - conditions almost surely not unique there - makes it more than probable that fear of detention, even with the harsh new federal methods, pales next to the desperate risks of the work itself.

Would American workers ever be willing to take jobs under the conditions at plants like Agriprocessors? Camarota acknowledges that the arrests, imprisonment and deportation of workers like those at Postville are not the single most important source of the decline in illegal immigrants. The Spanish-language press, he says, acting as an inadvertent megaphone for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, has scared them off.

If he's correct, it begs the question of how cruel enforcement has to be to drive the other 11 million out of the country. Camarota agrees that because of the political clout of employers, enforcement has hit workers much harder. He also acknowledges that those who have left in the past year - and those who didn't replace them - may be "low-hanging fruit" on trees where few easy pickings are left.

On the other hand, if it's the shortage of jobs that sent those illegal aliens home, it undermines the pleas of employers that they're suffering a serious shortage of workers. Maybe with better pay and conditions, Americans could be found for at least some of those jobs.

Peter Schrag is a columnist for The Sacramento Bee (e-mail: pschrag@sacbee.com).
http://www.presstelegram.com/opinions/ci_10195416

There are likely hundreds of stories like this across the land...

It is another reason why our immigration reform needs to be comprehensive in nature IMHO.

YEARS OF HARDSHIP, MOMENT OF GRACE
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
BY STEVE POLITI
Star-Ledger Staff

BEIJING -- The usher kept telling them to sit down, but they couldn't stop springing from their seats. He threatened to kick them out, but they kept on cheering and dancing and clapping.

Henry Cejudo -- the son of illegal Mexican immigrants, a kid so poor he shared running shoes with his brothers, a star wrestler who never slept in his own bed until he was 16 -- was just seconds away from his American Dream. And nothing would keep his family from celebrating.

"We didn't want to get kicked out, man," said one of his brothers, Alonzo Cruz, the tears still wet on his cheeks. "But your little brother is going for the gold. I mean, what are you going to do?"

Only one thing could make his cheering section stand quietly. Henry was on the top of the medal platform, that gold medal dangling from his neck. The Stars and Stripes started rising toward the rafters.

His family turned toward the flag and put their hands over their hearts, and listened to the national anthem.

Their anthem.

You want to see what a gold medal means to a family? What being an American means, too? You had to be in the Olympic wrestling gymnasium on Tuesday afternoon, when the youngest freestyle champion in U.S. history won this improbable championship.

You had to hear Henry Cejudo tell the story of what his family endured just to reach this point. He was born in Los Angeles to illegal immigrants from Mexico City who met in the U.S. His mother, Nelly Rico, was a confused 15-year-old girl when she crossed the border in the dead of night.

"She actually thought it was going to be easy," Henry Cejudo, just 21, said with a smile. "She thought it was going to be Disneyland. She came (to the border) with high heels, all dressed up."

The family would live in the shadows of Disneyland for several years, but their life was no trip to the amusement park. Henry never knew his father, Jorge Cejudo, who spent much of his short life bouncing in and out of prison.

That left Nelly Rico to raise her seven children, and she taught them to understand the opportunity they had living here, to embrace it and to chase their dreams, even if it was never easy.

He and his seven siblings called her "The Terminator" for the no-nonsense way she ran their household, but when wrestling became the passion for her youngest boys, she worked multiple jobs on assembly lines and cleaning bathrooms to make sure they never had to.

Mis niños de oro, she would call them when they returned home from school. My little golden boys.

The family was constantly on the move -- from Los Angeles to New Mexico and to Phoenix -- sometimes to stay away from the influence of Henry's father, other times to find cheaper rent.

"We probably moved 50 times," Cejudo said, so many that he didn't know what to put as his hometown on the U.S. wrestling bio. There was no time to feel sorry for themselves. "If you cry about anything in our house, they laugh at you."

His coach, Frank Saenz, went door to door in their neighborhood raising money to support his travel schedule. Henry and his brothers would sell tamales -- for $1 or $2, depending on what neighborhood they were selling them in -- to help buy equipment.

This is a family that had nothing but each other. Henry and his older brother Angel, the one who inspired him to wrestle, would take turns running laps at the local track. When one brother finished, he would take off their one pair of sneakers and give it to the other.

Angel and Henry also shared a bed -- the bottom bunk -- while two other siblings shared the top. It wasn't until Henry went to Colorado Springs to train with Team USA full time that he had a bed of his own.

"I was lonely, to be honest with you," Henry Cejudo. "I felt like I needed someone next to me."

Cejudo had never won a match in an international tournament coming into Beijing, but as his family waved flags and cheered, he defeated three more-experienced wrestlers. Then, with that gold medal at stake, he flipped Japanese rival Tomohiro Matsunaga to seal the victory.

He fell to his knees and sobbed. The referee held one of his hands in the air as Cejudo used to other to wipe away tears, then he set off sprinting around the arena floor with the Stars and Stripes draped across his shoulders.

The gold medal was his, but soon he will drape it around his mother's neck. Nelly Rico watched yesterday from her latest home in Colorado Springs, too nervous to make the trip to China.

"I'm proud of my Mexican heritage," Cejudo said. "But I'm an American. It's the best country in the world. They call it the land of opportunity, and it is."

He earned $65,000 for this gold-medal victory, from government grants and private donors, but he has no plans to spend a single penny. He wants to put it toward his next goal in life.

"I want to be a millionaire!" he said, not a trace of doubt on his face. "I bet I can do it -- I just won gold, man!"

He looked down to the medal pressed against his chest, a shiny symbol of the Olympic spirit colliding with the American Dream.

Steve Politi appears regularly in The Star-Ledger. He may be reached at spoliti@starledger.com or on his blog, www.nj.com/politi.


http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/bas....xml&coll=1

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