âºFirst Raid of Obama Administration Prompts Review from Homeland Security
Immigration activists responded strongly to reports of a raid in Bellingham, Washington, in which 29 employees of an engine manufacturing plant were arrested. It was the first raid to be conducted under the Obama administration. Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said she was not told of the raid until the morning of February 25th, after it occurred. She said that the focus needs to be kept on employers, not employees. “I want to get to the bottom of this”, Napolitano said. Immigration activists are “cautiously hopeful”, according to a report from the Associated Press, that Napolitano’s comments point to an end to workplace raids.
âºLocal and State Immigration Laws Rescinded
Legal challenges, procedural costs, and sensitivity to racism and social profiling have led to a number of non-federal immigration laws being modified or done away with altogether, reports USA Today. “The appetite for these things is going down,” said Migration Policy Institute member Muzaffar Chishti, referring to tough immigration laws on the local and state level. “The cost of enforcing and defending these ordinances is enormous,” he added. Utah, Texas, and Alabama join Iowa as some of the states which are working actively to cut high-expenditure immigration legislation, such as detention initiatives and programs to make English the official language. Such legislation has become far more costly than expected as successful challenges in the courts become more numerous, in addition to pressure from minority representation groups such as the ACLU.
âºNebraska Upholds Pro-Immigrant Legislation
Senator Charlie Jansen gave up on a long battle to reverse existing Nebraska legislation that provides college education to undocumented immigrants under certain circumstances, according to a report from the Omaha World Herald. Sen. Tom White of Omaha also agreed to pull an amendment he introduced that would allow local government entities, such as school districts, to sue employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants to recover costs incurred by the immigrants in the public forum. However, Nebraska lawmakers agreed to push for greater employer scrutiny and a more widespread use of E-Verify and other employee legal verification programs.
âº2010 Homeland Security Immigration Budget Raised by $2.6 Billion
President Obama’s rehashing of the budget allows for more money to be allocated to the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement programs, to a discretionary budget total of $42.7 billion, a 6.5% increase from 2009. The increase includes $1.4 billion for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s efforts to indentify and deport undocumented criminals, $368 million for existing border patrol agents at the Customs and Border Protection agency, $355 million for computer networks and cyber infrastructure, and $260 million for the Homeland Security Grant Program, which is designed to improve information sharing – this money will go toward hiring thousands more intelligence analysts at the state and local level. The administration also requests $110 million for expanding the E-Verify system. In the very short savings column, the administration said it plans to cut $190 million over a five-year period by terminating the Loran-C navigation system for the Coast Guard, which it says is outdated.
âºImmigration Rally Presses Obama for Reform
An immigration rally in a Georgia church drew 3000 on the last day of February, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Rep. Luis Guttierez (D – Ill.), a long serving US congressman and immigration activist from the 4th District in Chicago, spoke as part of a 17-state “Family Unity” circuit. The congressman says that five million juvenile American citizens have had a parent deported. “Our patience is waning,” Gutierrez said during the rally. “It is time to end the deportation and the separation of families.” Local Georgia lawmakers pledged their support. Attendees were disappointed that Obama did not mention immigration issues in his long speech last week, but were hopeful that Janet Napolitano and the administration would bring the desired reforms.
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