Tag: immigrants

A border fence and gate did not prevent thousands in the Caravan of Immigrants from crossing the Mexican border despite the preventive efforts and large numbers of Mexican police. Here is the most compelling slideshow of images I've found, just scroll down the page to them as there is no independent link.

The Mexican police ultimately gave up. Here is a one minute video of the moment they succeeded into crossing the border.

The Washington Post reports that U.S. Border Patrol Agents refused entry to Canadians who were coming to the U.S. to join the Women's March:

U.S. border agents asked what they planned to do in the United States. “We said we were going to the Women’s March on Saturday and they said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to pull over,’ ” Dyck told the Guardian. Agents then searched their car and examined their cellphones, according to Dyck. Each member of the group was fingerprinted and had their pictures taken.

Finally, after two hours, the agents told Dyck and his friends to turn around. “They said, ‘You’re headed home today,’ ” Dyck told the Guardian. Officials warned that they’d be arrested if they tried to cross at a different spot this weekend, Dyck said. “And that was it, they didn’t give a lot of justification.”

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Donald Trump may be second to Jeb Bush in new polls, but his financial interests keep getting whacked. The latest: Reports of hacked credit card data at Trump Hotels in several cities, dating back to February.

In addition to Macy’s, Univision and Comcast’s NBCUniversal, Trump just got dumped by Serta Mattresses.

On top of all that, the Washington Post reports he's wrong about immigrants and crime. Here's an article I wrote for the Washington Examiner in 2007 stating the same thing: There is No Immigrant Crime Wave.

50,000 children have fled their home countries and arrived in the U.S. since last fall. The number is expected to reach 90,000 by the end of the year. They are desperately in need of humanitarian aid. They should be treated as refugees from the violence in their home countries, not immigration violators. The U.S. should be providing them with asylum, not subjecting them to deportation.

What is DOJ's solution? Yesterday it announced a new policy. [More...]

Bill O'Reilly at Fox News has been peddling his immgrant crime wave bunk. There is no immigrant crime wave.

I've been pointing this out with statistics since 2007.

Crime is down in Arizona and even in border towns like El Paso.

I'm not sure who still listens to O'Reilly, but it's worth nipping this one in the bud.

Maricopa County (Phoenix, AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who instituted such ridiculous shaming punishments as forcing male inmates to wear pink underwear, making juveniles serve on chain gangs and bury the dead, and requiring inmates to sleep in tents, is the subject of a new class action lawsuit by the ACLU and others for racial profiling of Latinos.

The suit alleges Arpaio has been conducting "crime suppression sweeps" of Latinos in an effort to enforce federal immigration laws.

Claiming authority under a limited agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE that actually prohibits the practices challenged here, Defendants have launched a series of massive so-called "crime suppression sweeps" that show a law enforcement agency operating well beyond the bounds of the law.

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Earlier I wrote about Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio's latest shaming punishment for women inmates. Now I see the Sheriff has much bigger problems. The Mayor of Phoenix is asking the FBI to investigate his crackdowns on the undocumented.

In an April 4 letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, Mayor Phil Gordon asked the agency and the Justice Department’s civil rights division to examine what he called discriminatory harassment and improper stops, searches and arrests by sheriff’s deputies in Maricopa County, which encompasses the metropolitan area.

“Over the past few weeks, Sheriff Arpaio’s actions have infringed on the civil rights of our residents,” Mr. Gordon wrote. “They have put our residents’ well-being, and the well-being of law enforcement officers, at risk.”

Arpaio zings back: [More...]

Despite a severe budget shortage, Arizona is set to begin prosecuting 40 to 60 "apprehended migrants" a day.

This is a very expensive program that is unlikely to be a deterrent.

Even with only 40 prosecutions a day, expenses will likely add up to millions of dollars a year for housing, transporting, prosecuting and defending those who are charged.

While a higher number of arrests clearly occur daily in the Tucson sector, trying to prosecute many more on a daily basis clearly would overwhelm the system, various federal officials say.

On the impact: [More....]

A New York Times editorial today sharply criticizes the Republican candidates for President over immigration. It also calls on the Demoratic candidates to speak out more forcefully for sane and workable immigration reform.

The problem is that the country cannot build a fence or send troops and expect its problems to go away. Huge numbers of illegal immigrants never go anywhere near the border: about 40 percent enter legally and overstay their visas. Nor can the government purge workplaces of illegal workers without doing vast damage to the economy. At some point it must address the 12 million undocumented, who cannot be deported en masse.

The Times frames the questions both sides need to answer: [More....]

Back in 2005 I wrote Welcome to America, It Will Only Cost You a Leg , about Moises Carranza-Reye, an immigrant from Mexico who came to Colorado looking for work. He ended up in a county jail on an immigration hold, where he lost a lung and part of a leg after developing a streptococcus infection.

He sued in federal court, and today his lawyer announced a settlement. Carranza-Reye will receive 1.5 million dollars.

About the Park County Jail:

Park County Jail...houses alien detainees under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).....[It] takes in immigration detainees and overflow inmates from other counties and the state prison system, charging $45 a day per prisoner; "This jail is a revenue-generator for the county," says Colorado Springs attorney Lloyd Kordick. "They're actively advertising for customers. They're also trying to minimize their costs, and they really didn't care about the consequences."

The treatment Carranza-Reyes and the other detainees received will make you sick: [More...]

The New York Times has a compelling article today about recent immigration raids in Suffolk County, Long Island, initiated after local police submitted names of those they subjectively believed to have gang affiliations.

Not surprisingly, they were wrong. And some of the Greenport, NY employers of those arrested are helping by providing lawyers and other support.

The raid was part of the two year old ICE program, Operation Community Shield, aimed at undocumented violent gang members. The Long Island raid resulted in 186 arrests. Of the 11 men arrested in Greenport (without warrants while inside their homes) one, a 19 year old, may be associated with a gang -- and even that is hotly disputed.

The 10 others, while accused of immigration violations, were not gang associates and had no criminal records. Instead, they were known as good workers and family men. When they suddenly vanished into the far-flung immigration detention system, six of their employers hired lawyers to try to find and free them.

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The number of children fleeing poverty in other countries and entering the U.S. without parents is on the rise. When caught, they are arrested and detained. Sometimes they are sent back, sometimes they are released into the custody of relatives, foster homes or friends.

Children must not be treated as criminals.

Children entering illegally without parents "are usually fleeing something," often don't have relatives here and, in many cases, have endured trauma such as rape and being held for ransom, said Tricia Swartz, director of the National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children in Washington, D.C.

Across-the-board deportations "would be literally sacrificing children's lives," she said. "Some of them are facing potential execution by gangs."

As for numbers,

Today, about 15.3 percent of migrants seeking asylum protection in the United States are under 18, up from 14.8 percent in 2004, federal records show.

The Department of Justice processes these kids in federal immigration courts. An example of the absurdity:

In Denver's court, a box of toys sits in the lobby. A recent memo encouraged judges to use booster chairs and child-friendly questioning at hearings.