Mexican president tells U.S. governors: migration inevitable, natural

By: MARK STEVENSON – Associated Press

PUERTO PENASCO, Mexico — President Felipe Calderon told U.S. governors Thursday that immigration is an inevitable, natural phenomenon and he urged the U.S. Congress to approve reforms that would allow more Mexicans to work legally north of the border.

Calderon demanded that the United States respect “the right to work wherever one can make the greatest contribution.”

“Immigration is a natural phenomenon that is economically and socially inevitable,” he told the meeting in this seaside resort.

In a rare acknowledgment of the costs of migration for Mexico, Calderon said his country “doesn’t not celebrate migration … our best people are the ones who go.”

Immigration and border security were among the top issues at the meeting, the 25th annual such event between Mexican and U.S. governors from states along the two countries’ common border.

Read the rest from the North County Times here. Read about the American president speaking up for Americans…nowhere.

Hours after having returned from Washington, I got a call from CNN HEADLINE NEWS to respond on camera to the news story below…it seems that they were looking for someone who understood that illegal immigration – and harboring illegal aliens is ILLEGAL – and for someone who has a face for radio.

I seem to fit the bill.

For as long as the CNN link is good
( Church chooses to break law), you can see the 4 minute video of the short debate between an open borders minister and the big bald ugly guy….VIDEO HERE.

Some KC area church leaders pledge to offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants
By LYNN FRANEY
The Kansas City Star

Standing under their Interstate 70 billboard declaring, “Love the immigrant as yourself,” several Kansas City area church leaders pledged Tuesday to offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants threatened with deportation.

None of the Kansas City churches has yet sheltered an illegal immigrant.

But other churches in the New Sanctuary Movement nationwide have let illegal immigrants live on their properties, hoping that immigration agents won’t raid churches to make arrests.

“It is the very soul of our nation that is at stake” in how we treat families in which one or both parents are illegal immigrants but the children are American citizens, said the Rev. Rick Behrens of Grandview Park Presbyterian Church. “We are losing our soul as we separate children from parents.”

The rest here.

Illegal immigrants moving out

USA Today

Illegal immigrants living in states and cities that have adopted strict immigration policies are packing up and moving back to their home countries or to neighboring states.
The exodus has been fueled by a wave of laws targeting illegal immigrants in Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and elsewhere. Many were passed after congressional efforts to overhaul the immigration system collapsed in June.

Immigrants say the laws have raised fears of workplace raids and deportation.

“People now are really frightened and scared because they don’t know what’s going to happen,” says Juliana Stout, an editor at the newspaper El Nacional de Oklahoma. “They’re selling houses. They’re leaving the country.”

Supporters of the laws cheer the departure of illegal immigrants and say the laws are working as intended.

Oklahoma state Rep. Randy Terrill, Republican author of his state’s law, says the flight proves it is working. “That was the intended purpose,” he says. “It would be just fine with me if we exported all illegal aliens to the surrounding states.”

Most provisions of an Oklahoma law take effect in November. Among other things, it cuts off benefits such as welfare and college financial aid.

There’s no hard demographic data on the trend, partly because it’s hard to track people who are in the USA illegally. But school officials, real estate agents and church leaders say the movement is unmistakable.

In Tulsa, schools have seen a drop in Hispanic enrollment.

READ the rest here – from Open Borders Jerry’s site.

From NumbersUSA.com

Senate AgJOBS Fight Expected on Farm Bill

In July, Leader Reid promised to try to include the AgJOBS amnesty for illegal farmworkers in the farm bill (H.R. 2419) when the Senate takes up that measure, which should occur in October. Pro-amnesty advocacy groups are telling their members that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have promised them that the AgJOBS amnesty will be attached to the measure this fall and will be signed into law.

Click here for more information on the AgJOBS fight.

Send a fax ( free ) opposing the AgJOBS amnesty. HERE.

Houston Chronicle
Hope fades for passage of Durbin’s amnesty scheme

The hope for immediate Senate action on the DREAM Act, which would grant legal status to hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, faded Tuesday as the measure’s chief Senate sponsor acknowledged he was having difficulty surmounting Republican opposition.

The rest here.

Note from D.A. – We have defeated the Dream Act before..and will again. We must: The pandering policticians and the radical open borders ethnic lobby must only win once on this – we must win every time.

Lahontan Valley (Nevada) News

More than 40 arrested in regional illegal alien sweep

Personnel from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 40 employees at 11 Northern Nevada McDonald’s restaurants including Fernley Thursday morning in an apparent sweep of [illegal aliens… criminals] an ICE spokesman confirmed.

Read all about it here.

For Immediate Release
September, 27, 2007
Contact: Phil Kent
Phone: (404) 226-3549

Senators Urge President Bush to Promote English

ARLINGTON, VA – “In the decade since the U.S. Commission on
Immigration Reform urged ‘the Americanization of new immigrants,’ two
successive administrations, one Democrat and one Republican, have utterly
failed to strengthen the English component of the citizenship test or to
take other steps necessary to enhance the role of English in the
assimilation of immigrants,'” says ProEnglish Executive Director K.C.
McAlpin. He praises the just-released letter nine U.S. senators sent to
President George W. Bush that urges him to embrace four key English
initiatives.

The letter was sponsored by Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla., and
co-signed by Senators Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., Saxby
Chambliss, R-Ga. Elizabeth Dole, N.C., Richard Burr, R.-N.C., Jim DeMint,
R-S.C., Norm Coleman, R-Minn. and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

“Ten years ago the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by
the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, D-Tex., made a number of cogent
recommendations for action that have languished while assimilation policy is
stuck in reverse,” McAlpin said. The senators’ letter urges the president
to:

* Support a law making English the official language of U.S.
government operations;

* Strengthen the English component of the U.S. Naturalization Test.
The letter quotes a Commission recommendation: “The English test should
accurately and fairly measure an immigrant’s ability to speak, read and
write; the current practice of dictating English sentences for applicants to
write is not an effective means of testing English proficiency.”

* Repeal Executive Order 13166 that requires all levels of
government as well as other federal funds recipients to provide translation
and interpreter services for non-English speakers.

* Support new initiatives to encourage individuals, businesses,
government entities and others to foster English fluency.

“Enhancing the role of English in our society will strengthen
assimilation and preserve our country’s unity,” Senator Jim Inhofe said.
“This debate is not just about preserving our culture and heritage, but also
about bettering the odds of our nation’s newest potential citizens.”

McAlpin added, “This letter marking the 10th anniversary of the
Jordan Commission report highlights how much of the Commission’s carefully
considered report has been ignored.” A copy of the letter is available on
ProEnglish’s website: www.proenglish.org.
# # #

E-VERFY ( formerly known as Basic Pilot) For employers who want to obey the law on hiring IT IS FREE AND NOW WITH PHOTOS!

E-Verify (formerly known as the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program) is an Internet based system operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA) that allows participating employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of their newly hired employees.

E-Verify is free and voluntary and is the best means available for determining employment eligibility of new hires and the validity of their Social Security Numbers.

What’s New
Photo Tool
E-Verify’s new Photo Screening Tool is the beginning of biometric verification within the E-Verify system. This additional feature will be the first step in giving employers the tools they need to detect identity theft in the employment eligibility process.

The Photo Screening Tool feature allows an employer to check the photo on his or her new hire’s Employment Authorization Document (EAD) or Permanent Resident Card (“Green Card”) against the 14.8 million images stored in DHS immigration databases.

Click here for more info. Note: Your city and county governments are employers..are they and their contractors using E-Verify? ASK THEM…

Gracias Jerry!

System verifies work status: Photo database: Employers can check green-card pictures with federal records.
Found in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Written by Eunice Moscoso
Posted on 2007-09-26

By Eunice Moscoso
Cox Washington Bureau

Published on: 09/26/07

Washington —- Businesses, facing a government crackdown on hiring illegal immigrants, now have one more tool to help them verify a worker’s status.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services unveiled a system Tuesday that matches photographs from green cards and other immigrant work permits against a database of more than 14 million pictures.

If the photos match, the employer will know that the person is using his or her own card, not a stolen or doctored one, federal officials said.

“We are very, very committed to the idea of workplace enforcement,” said Emilio Gonzalez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. “If we have workplace enforcement, we can reduce pressure on our border. That allows the assets that we have on our border … to catch bad people.”

The photo system is part of a volunteer employment verification system known as E-Verify that compares employee information against millions of government records.

About 23,000 businesses across the country participate in the program, and about 2,000 are signing up every month, Gonzalez said.

In addition, the Department of Homeland Security is working on regulations that would require all new federal contractors to use the E-Verify system. A draft of the new rules will likely be released next year, said Gerri Ratliff, deputy associate director of the National Security and Records Verification Directorate at Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Ratliff, who demonstrated the photo match system for reporters, said it showed strong success in a pilot program where 93 percent of all new hires were instantly verified as “work authorized.”

If an employee’s photo doesn’t match, the company has eight days to report the discrepancy to the Department of Homeland Security, which investigates within two days, she said.

The employee is given a letter, available in English and Spanish, that explains that the photo didn’t match and details a process to contest the discrepancy.

In the pilot program, most of the mismatches resulted from problems with information from the Social Security Administration, such as a person not updating a change of name through marriage or a change of legal status, Citizenship and Immigration Services officials said.

Only about 5 percent of the inquiries resulted in people being ultimately rejected or never contesting the mismatch.

Ratliff said Citizenship and Immigration hopes to expand the E-verify program to include driver’s licenses photos, but that it would likely require federal legislation.

Businesses and civil rights groups have argued that the quality of government databases poses a problem.

A federal judge put on hold a Department of Homeland Security effort to crack down on companies that ignore warning letters about employees with potentially fake Social Security numbers, in part because of a lawsuit that raised such concerns.

The lawsuit, by the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups, says the rule “would threaten jobs of U.S. citizens and other legally authorized workers simply because of errors in … Social Security earnings databases.”

Find this article at:
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/printedition/2007/09/26/immig0926.html

Where is the fence? Which is more secure: American borders – or DisneyWorld?

And how long would stockholders of The Disney Company Inc. continue to employ Congress and Bush if they were in charge of securing Disney World?

Maybe another amnesty will solve the crisis?

From the San Jose Mercury on the state of the long promised fence.
Border system plagued by problems
TECHNICAL GLITCHES DELAY ‘VIRTUAL FENCE’
By Spencer S. Hsuand Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post
Article Launched: 09/26/2007 01:36:35 AM PDT

WASHINGTON – Technical and management troubles have caused the government’s effort to secure a portion of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border with a chain of surveillance towers to fall behind schedule, jeopardizing the success of a costly project meant to showcase the Bush administration’s tougher stance on immigration enforcement.

Ground radar and cameras that were to identify illegal border crossers so that armed patrols could be dispatched to capture them have had trouble distinguishing people and vehicles from cows and bushes. The sensors also are confused by moisture, the officials said.

James Jay Carafano, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said the program’s troubles show the danger of premising immigration law changes such as a new guest-worker program on untested long-term enforcement strategies. Bush officials’ rhetoric last year about the virtual fence raised “kind of unrealistic expectations about what you’re going to get at the front end,” he said.

If the program falters, he added, “it’s embarrassing for everyone” who pressed for comprehensive legislation in Congress this year.

Read it all here.