Texas Immigration Lawyer Blog

Someone should tell the Border Patrol

New York Times Editorial

"To see what immigration hard-liners really have in mind, ride the Lake Shore Limited between Chicago and New York or Boston. It is a daily Amtrak train that is regularly boarded and searched by the Border Patrol, even though it does not cross any international border.

"As Nina Bernstein of The Times reported on Monday, border checkpoints aren’t just at the border anymore. She rode the train in western New York and found agents roaming the aisles, questioning passengers about their citizenship and removing those who could not prove they were here legally. What she described looked like just the kind of aggressive internal immigration enforcement that right-wing politicians have clamored for, but is arbitrary, oppressive and dangerously prone to racial profiling.  

"The Border Patrol says agents ask for people’s documents as part of a “consensual and nonintrusive conversation.” Passengers could decline to answer, but some told Ms. Bernstein that was theoretical, if not fictional, especially on a darkened train at 2 a.m. And train riders and civil-rights advocates told Ms. Bernstein that the burden of document checks falls hardest on people who look like foreigners. A woman who encountered the Border Patrol while riding a train with her boyfriend, who is Mexican, said: “You’re sitting on the train asleep, and if you don’t look like a U.S. citizen, it’s ‘Wake up!’ ”

"This should not be happening. We are well aware of the federal crackdown on illegal immigration, sparked by the clamor for fencing and troops at the border. But we do not recall any discussion of imposing internal immigration checks on public transportation, with agents with dogs and guns randomly hauling people off trains.

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"Administration officials, including the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, have recently said their top priority is catching convicted criminals, gang members and other dangerous immigrants. We welcome the call for restraint and discretion in using limited resources. Someone should tell the Border Patrol."

Drones Begin Flights Out of Corpus Wednesday

Texas Tribune  Julian Aguilar reports

State lawmakers have long been clamoring for an unmanned drone to boost security on the border. On Wednesday they'll get their wish, as an unmanned drone begins patrolling the Texas skies.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced today that the Unmanned Aerial System, or UAS, will begin its initial flight out of Corpus Christi and fill in the gaps left by drones that only patrol from California to West Texas.

Three Indicted In Sale Of Texas Driver’s Licenses To Illegal Immigrants

KWTX.com  reports

Two Texas Department of Public Safety employees and a gas station manager have been indicted in what authorities say was a scheme to sell Texas driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants for $3,000 each.

HOUSTON (August 31,2010)--The U.S. Attorney's Office says an indictment unsealed Tuesday accuses Department of Public Safety Trooper Mark DaArza, 39, of Houston and DPS clerk Lidia Gutierrez, 37, of nearby Galena Park, of processing applicants without proper documentation in a scheme to sell Texas driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants.

The indictment alleges that store manager Maen Bittar, 46, of Houston collected $3,000 or more from applicants before sending them to the DPS office, and then delivered the licenses later.

Report: Immigrants make you richer

Immigration Chronicles Houston Chronicle

The Wall Street Journal has a post on a new report by the San Francisco Fed that finds that immigrants help increase the wealth of most Americans.

This is an excerpt from the WSJ article:

The report, published Monday, was written by Giovanni Peri, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis. He is currently a visiting scholar at the bank. The report counters those who believe immigrants to the U.S. take away the jobs of citizens and depress wages.

"There is no evidence that immigrants crowd out U.S.-born workers in either the short or long run," Peri writes. Instead, the evidence suggests "the economy absorbs immigrants by expanding job opportunities rather than by displacing workers born in the United States." 

Secure Communities Meets Resistance from Police Chiefs

Deportation Nation 

The question of how and whether local police should enforce federal immigration laws was a major topic this week at an unprecedented gathering of police chiefs from 27 major cities. Representatives from police and sheriff departments in Austin, Houston and Fort Worth were in attendence.

The conference took place in New York City – though no local police officials attended. It was convened by the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equality, an organization that promotes police transparency and accountability.

Police chiefs expressed concern about the extra burden Secure Communities – and Arizona copycat bills pending in dozens of states – puts on police departments that are already being asked to do more with smaller budgets.

Listen to the interview with Dr. Tracie Keesee, the Consortium's co-founder who co-authored an editorial published in July titled, Policing Immigration: A Job We Do Not Want. Deportation Nation’s Renée Feltz spoke to Dr. Keessee, who is also a 20 year veteran with the Denver Police Department, about the editorial and the concerns raised at the conference.

Cornyn backs off birthright citizenship debate

Houston Chronicle  Paul J. Weber (Associate Press) reports that

HIDALGO — U.S. Sen. John Cornyn on Friday backed off his support of Congress taking up birthright citizenship after earlier joining prominent Republicans who have called for a review of the 14th Amendment.

"It is going after a symptom rather than the cause of the problem in the first place," Cornyn said.

Shift in deportation policy benefits 2 sisters, students at UH and UT

 
Maria del los Angeles Rodriguez is a UH student who was brought to the U.S. when she was 6. She's happy but says she's "not celebrating until I have papers."

Houston Chronicle  Susan Carroll reports on the effect the shift in the policy on deportations and removals have had on the lives of two young women from Houston.

Maria De Los Angeles Rodriguez, a 28-year-old University of Houston student, and her sister, Elvia, a 22-year-old University of Texas student, both had their cases dismissed by the Houston Immigration Court because they did not have criminal records and had been in the U.S. since childhood. The young women had been placed in proceedings because of paperwork filed with U.S.C.I.S. by their father.

"So far, the beneficiaries [of the change in policy in the Houston Immigration Courts] include illegal immigrants in a wide range of deportation cases, including an asylum seeker from El Salvador, a mother of two from Mexico and an elderly woman from Cameroon. Several college students from the University of Houston and University of Texas at Austin also have received notices that their cases have been dismissed. Many were related to U.S. citizens who filed immigration petitions on their behalf, but others were not."

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"Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, stressed on Thursday that the agency is not offering any kind of legalization in connection with the case dismissals. DHS also is not considering for dismissal anyone with a felony record or misdemeanors involving DWI, family violence or sex crimes.

"By culling non-criminals from the nation's clogged court system, immigration officials said they hoped to be able to better target criminals for removal. So far this fiscal year, Rocha said, the agency has removed more than 167,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, a record number."

 

 

Immigration backlash has disturbing parallels with 'mudbloods' of Harry Potter series

Susan Nelson's Guest Column in the Waco Tribune Herald explores the disturbing parallels between the treatment of "Mudbloods" in the Harry Potter series and "illegal aliens" in the real world immigration debate.

Immigrants deported after fishing without a license

The Tennessean Chris Echegaray reports that

"For most who fish in Nashville's lakes and streams, getting caught without a license means a ticket, up to a $50 fine and forfeiting the catch.

"But for immigrants nabbed by Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officers, it can mean a trip to jail and possible deportation to their home countries.

"Since the Davidson County Sheriff's Office instituted an immigration enforcement program in 2007, the wildlife agency issued 820 citations in the county but took only 29 people to jail - all of those immigrants. An agency spokesman initially said officers don't take people to jail for fishing without a license. Shown data that reveal otherwise, a different official said the arrests were actually made because the fishermen weren't carrying valid identification.

"We have to determine they are who they say they are," said Cape Taylor, Region 2 law enforcement manager. "If you can't determine that, and they don't have a valid ID, they are going to be arrested."

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Deportation possible

"Of the 29 immigrants taken to Davidson County's jail for fishing without a license, 25 were processed for deportation. Records show those included three men fishing in J. Percy Priest Lake on April 25 - Isidro Cardoza, 22, Juan Hernandez, 21, and Roberto DeLeon Martinez, 29. One had a single small-mouth bass in a bag. None had fishing licenses or U.S.-issued identification.

"It's unclear what happened to them after the arrest - the sheriff's office can't release the names of people on immigration detainers. No one answered the door at several addresses listed for those arrested.

"Since the start of 287(g) in Davidson County, 7,887 inmates have been processed through the program and 5,338 were deported, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Temple Black said.

"Tennessee and surrounding states require a Social Security number to purchase a fishing license. Illegal immigrants can't have Social Security numbers. The cost begins at $5.50 for a one-day Tennessee fishing license."

 

Crying Wolf

AILA Leadership Blog  David Leopold discusses the August 20th Morton Memo and the reactions it is drawing from anti-immigration restrictionists.