"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 4/24/'06 12PM
"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 4/24/'06
4/24/'06 - The following article(s) were found in the media. Several stories are provided ... with links to the original sources ... for your convenience:
- With backs to wall, U.S. considers fences
- Tennessee becomes battleground in immigration debate
- Leading the Charge Against Illegal Aliens
-------------------------------------
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0423natborder.html
With backs to wall, U.S. considers fences
By BOB KEEFE, LILLY ROCKWELL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/23/06
SAN YSIDRO, Calif. — Juan Rivas remembers people running through the ball fields near his house, right in the middle of baseball games.
"We'd be at a game and we'd see 100 people, sometimes more, run right through here," Rivas, 32, said as he played with his two nephews recently near the same fields. "The border patrol would be right behind them."
 Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images | ||
| Young Mexican nationals peer through the border wall last year at the beach along San Ysidro, Calif. Congress is considering extending the wall. | ||
 | ||
|
Today, Rivas and others who live in this border town between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, say they rarely see illegal immigrants on the run anymore.
Not since the U.S. government erected the fence, that is.
Some here call it La Linea ("The Line" in Spanish) or the Tortilla Wall. Built beginning in the early 1990s, the $70 million border fence that separates southwestern California from Mexico is made of concrete and steel, and is topped with surveillance cameras, sensors and floodlights. It covers about 14 miles, starting at the Pacific Ocean and running inland just past San Ysidro.
And it may grow. Congress is about to debate again a bill that would add an additional 700 miles of walls, broken up in large spans in California, Arizona and Texas. Currently, only about 60 miles of fences are scattered across other spots in California and Arizona. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and other Republicans will ask for about $2.2 billion to pay for the fence, along with training for Border Patrol agents and other security measures.
Proponents say the additional walls, with a high-tech array of cameras, motion sensors and other equipment, are necessary to stem the tide of illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico and protect the United States from terrorists.
"Border security is the first step," for better national security, said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.). Along with more fencing along the border, Price supports the use of military personnel to oversee it. "We have a very porous border and none of the restrictions or laws in place seem to have any effect."
Talk to people here about how well the wall works, and you'll get mixed reactions.
U.S. customs officials who work on the border say that since the fence was erected, the number of illegal immigrants they've caught has decreased from 530,000 in 1993 to 127,000 in 2004.
But people who live near the fence aren't sure.
"I don't think it does any good, really," said Cruz Ramirez, a Texas native who retired to San Diego County after 18 years in the Marine Corps. Rivas legally immigrated to the United States from Mexico with his parents when he was about 4.
The existing border fence is just up the hill from a nursery where he and his wife sell palm trees and bougainvilleas. Even though Border Patrol officers seem ever-present along the fence, Ramirez noted that plenty of illegal immigrants still get through.
"Every country should protect its borders," said Ramirez, 59, motioning toward the fence and Mexico. "But I think the money [for more fencing] would be better spent on education and getting the government over there to get more involved so their people won't have a reason to cross over here."
Over, under, around, through
Illegal immigrants seem determined to find ways to get over, under or around any barrier the United Statres erects.
Patrol officers have discovered nearly 40 tunnels under the existing fence in the past five years, including a massive mile-long tunnel that is believed to have been used by drug dealers and led to a warehouse near San Diego.
They've also found collapsible ladders next to the wall on the Mexican side, and frequently find places where holes are cut in the fence. There's also been an increase of people who go around the fence and try to enter the country along the California coast, often disguised as recreational anglers.
"We will constantly be battling this cat-and-mouse game that smugglers [and illegal immigrants] play here on the border," said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Diego.
Neither she nor a U.S. Customs official would comment on the proposal for a bigger fence, saying it is not their place to discuss pending legislation.
Organizations such as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a volunteer group that has gained notoriety for its patrols of the border primarily in Arizona, say the fence needs to be extended.
"Clearly the border fence, especially the one proposed ... would eliminate the millions of people we catch a year," said group co-founder Chris Simcox, a former newspaper publisher in Tombstone, Ariz. "We need to continue increasing border security and the security of our coasts at any cost."
Simcox said Wednesday that if President Bush does not deploy military reserves to the Arizona border by May 25, his group and its supporters will break ground on their own fence-building project.
Opponents of the border fence say it only diverts people who want to come into the United States at any cost into more dangerous areas — namely the deadly deserts of California, Arizona and New Mexico.
Last year, 473 migrants died in the desert where temperatures often reach above 100 degrees and rattlesnakes are more common than water. That was up from 330 deaths the year before, according to figures from the Border Patrol.
Advocates for a fence say it works precisely as intended. Immigrants are pushed away from cities and into rural areas, where in some instances they can be located more easily.
Entering U.S. can take hours
The first section of the fence, built in 1992, is made of rusted metal bars taken from old sections of the military's Vietnam-era portable landing strips. A second section, begun in the mid-1990s, is made of metal sheets standing up to 15 feet high and angled at the top toward Mexico.
Together they cover the border just south of San Diego, reaching into the surf of the Pacific Ocean at the west end, and ending in the hills and high desert east of San Diego.
In between, Mexican villages crowd up against the fence on the south side, while the land on the U.S. side is mostly barren.
The main gate along the border fence is where I-5 ends at "Friendship Plaza" in San Ysidro, where more than 25,000 people walk across the border daily. Another 55,000 cars a day fill more than 20 lanes of traffic at the border crossing.
Crossing from the United States into Mexico is easy. Rarely does anybody ask for a visa, passport or other identification. Usually, nobody stops your car. For pedestrians, it takes just a few minutes to walk through the metal turnstiles that separate the two countries.
Crossing from Mexico to the United States is a different matter. Tijuana radio and TV stations monitor and broadcast border crossing times at San Ysidro like traffic reports. Sometimes it takes less than an hour by car or on foot; often it takes several hours.
Anyone who crosses into the United States must show a visa, driver's license, "green card" or other ID to U.S. Customs officials. They must declare anything of value and get their bags inspected for drugs and weapons. Cars and trucks are searched.
Two contries, one culture
The fence may separate two countries, but it can't divide the similar cultures on either side. Spanish is spoken almost as widely on the U.S. side of the border as on the Mexican side. The population in San Ysidro and other parts of southernmost California is almost as predominantly Hispanic as it is in Tijuana.
For many on the U.S. side, the fence is little more than an unnatural part of the local landscape, not unlike a big highway sound barrier or a bridge that slices across a calm waterway. "It's just there," said Rivas, a carpenter. "It's just part of life."
For many who live on the the Mexican side, the fence takes on different meaning. "I don't like it at all," said Tijuana resident Laura Gudino, who has lived all her 56 years in the shadow of the fence.
When she was born in the tiny block house that she still calls home, the fence was a simple structure made of wood, not the intimidating concrete, metal and barbed wire of today. But for Gudino, it has always come with the same distaste.
"The Mexican people go there to work, not to make bad things happen," she said, motioning to the United States.
Sending a message
Mexican President Vicente Fox has called the proposal to extend the border wall "shameful," comparing it to the Berlin Wall.
In Washington, some politicians wonder about the reaction of neighboring countries to the construction of an extended barrier and what it might say to the rapidly growing Hispanic population within the United States.
"What type of message does a wall say to our neighbors in Mexico and South America?" asked Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas). Like some others in Congress, Cuellar advocates a "virtual border" that would instead use more unmanned vehicles and airplanes to patrol the border and track down those crossing into the United States illegally.
Tailored to include some of the same border security provisions that the House passed in December, a Senate proposal mandates 200 miles of fencing in Arizona and doubles the number of border security agents.
But getting an immigration overhaul bill out of the Senate won't be easy. Just before Congress took a two-week Easter recess, a fragile bipartisan compromise collapsed on a floor vote. Republicans are split on this highly controversial issue, with conservatives pushing for border security and moderates wanting a guest worker program as well.
If the plans for a longer fence go through, Enrique Morones — founder of a group called "Border Angels" that sets up aid stations with water and other supplies for illegal immigrants who make it across — wonders what will happen on the nation's other border.
"Are you going to put one on the Canadian border next?" he said. "And then what — are you going to put a lid over the whole country?"
Bob Keefe reported from San Ysidro and San Diego, Calif., and from Tijuana, Mexico. Lilly Rockwell reported from Washington.
------------------------------------
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/14412434.htm
Posted on Sun, Apr. 23, 2006
Tennessee becomes battleground in immigration debate
By Dave Montgomery
Knight Ridder Newspapers
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Pedro Mendoza waded across the Rio Grande three years ago and worked for a while in Houston. Now he stands in an alley just south of downtown Nashville, more than 1,000 miles from his native country.
Like several other Hispanic men clustered nearby, Mendoza, a 49-year-old handyman from Durango, Mexico, is waiting for prospective employers known to drive by in vans or pickups each morning looking for day laborers.
On most mornings, he says, he doesn't wait long. Here in the heart of the Volunteer State, jobs are easy to find.
When one thinks of Tennessee, the Grand Ole Opry, Dollywood and Jack Daniels easily spring to mind. These days, though, the state has become something more: a battleground in the national debate over immigration. Since 1990, illegal immigration into Tennessee has surged tenfold as thousands of foreign-born workers are drawn to a robust job market in the nation's interior.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, an estimated 95,000 illegal immigrants, mostly Hispanic, had settled in Tennessee by 2004, compared to roughly 10,000 in 1990, and demographers believe the number has further increased over the past 15 months. The 2004 tally puts Tennessee 20th in the country, Pew estimates.
Hundreds of proposed immigration restrictions are moving through legislatures in Tennessee and 41 other states, reflecting a get-tough attitude at the state level while national immigration measures roil Congress. Georgia enacted a sweeping crackdown last week with a new law stiffening enforcement and denying many state services to those in the country illegally.
In Tennessee, anger over illegal immigration crackles over the state's talk radio, laces conservative Web sites, and inflames virtually every political race, including the one to replace retiring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, who is using the issue for a possible run at the presidency in 2008.
It also has revealed a far darker reaction.
In November, Daniel Schertz, a former Ku Klux Klan member, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for building pipe bombs to kill Hispanic immigrants. In May 2005, vandals scrawled Nazi graffiti on the La Lupita Mexican store in Maryville, Tenn.
Immigrant rights groups, in turn, are waging a counter-offensive that has drawn thousands of illegal immigrants into the open to participate in rallies similar to those held in other states over the past month. Last week, several undocumented residents joined pro-immigration lobbyist David Lubell as he attended legislative hearings and dropped in on state lawmakers.
"We're still fighting an uphill battle in Tennessee, no about it," said Lubell, director of the Tennessee Immigration and Refugee Rights Coalition, which hopes to empower immigrants regardless of status.
More than 20 mostly restrictive immigration measures have been introduced in the Tennessee legislature, including bills requiring written driver's license exams to be given only in English and proposals for state sanctions on employers of illegal immigrants. Several others, including a measure requiring state employees to turn in undocumented immigrants, have been defeated.
The issue also has become a source of political discomfort for Frist, who, as the U.S. Senate majority leader, is embroiled in the lurching efforts to pass immigration legislation. A proposed compromise collapsed on the eve of a congressional recess in mid-April and senators will try to regroup when they return to work this week.
In eyeing a presidential bid, Frist is being tugged by conflicting forces as he tries to find a workable bipartisan consensus in the Senate without alienating conservatives in his Republican Party, including those in his home state, who are pushing for tougher restrictions on immigration.
The leap-frog growth in illegal immigration is tied to a larger Hispanic migration that reaches into states far from the U.S.-Mexican border as Latino workers move into expanding markets with plentiful jobs in construction, farming, landscaping and service industries.
From 1990 to 2000, Tennessee's Hispanic population grew by 278 percent, from 32,741 to 123,838. The state ranked sixth in the growth of foreign-born residents with a 168 percent increase that also included Asians, Africans and other nationalities. Nashville also boasts the nation's largest Kurdish population and served as a regional voting center in the Iraqi elections.
The pattern mirrors that of other states. North Carolina ranked first in the growth of foreign-born workers between 1990 and 2000 with a 274 percent increase. Tennessee's neighbor, Kentucky, ranked 10th, with an increase of 135 percent.
In Nashville, the impact of the influx is evident in the transformation of older neighborhoods south of downtown, where Spanish-language signs sprout from car dealerships, grocery stores and restaurants. Barry Frager, an immigration attorney with offices in Nashville and Memphis, advertises his services on a billboard topped with the eye-catching, "Immigration Problems?"
Each day, Hispanic and other immigrants - some legal, others not - converge at the Woodbine Community Center for night classes in English, job referrals, tax counseling and social networking.
Among those seeking help last week was Marisela Morales, a 36-year-old mother of eight who sold her house and furnishings and paid "a coyote" $2,000 to cross into the United States more than five years ago. Her first stop was Phoenix. She moved to Atlanta and then took to the job trail north to Nashville.
Others follow a similar path, flocking into Tennessee to join family members who got there first or drawn by word-of-mouth tales about abundant jobs and relatively low living costs.
"They want what everybody else wants," says Terry Horgan, director of Catholic Charities' Hispanic services at Woodbine. "They want to make their children's lives better than their own."
But thousands of Tennessee residents, echoing the sentiments of like-minded U.S. citizens in other states, see the illegal immigrants as law-breakers who squeeze Americans out of jobs and strain public services such as schools and law enforcement.
They also put much of the blame for Tennessee's illegal immigration rise to a since-revised 2001 state law that enabled immigrants to get driver's licenses without a Social Security number. Thousands of Hispanics applied for licenses within months after the law went into effect.
U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican who fought against the bill when she was a member of the state senate, said she believes most Tennessee residents want toughened enforcement against illegal immigration. "From my constituents, everybody agrees that the number one thing we have to do is seal the border," she said last week.
Visitors need only to tune in to Phil Valentine on SuperTalk 99.7 WTN every afternoon to hear the outcry. "It has probably been the dominant topic over the last year," eclipsing even the war in Iraq, says the conservative talk show host.
Valentine, who has been on the air in Nashville since 1985, is leader of what he calls "a De-Magnetize Tennessee" movement to eliminate job and benefits for illegal immigrants. A rally last year drew more than 1,500 in Nashville. Valentine is planning a similar event Thursday in Franklin, south of Nashville.
Another anti-immigration advocate is Theresa Harmon, a suburban mother who helped found Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policies. "I have three children," she said. "I do not want them to grow up in a Balkanized county."
------------------------------------
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_18/b3982086.htm
MAY 1, 2006
D.A. King of the Dustin Inman Society says he's battling to protect America's borders and stem the tide of illegal immigrants into Georgia
In the wake of hundreds of thousands of marchers demonstrating across the country in support of immigration reform and a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million to 20 million (depending on what side you ask) illegal immigrants currently in this country, anti-illegal immigration groups have begun to mobilize efforts of their own.
Last month, the Georgia Legislature passed the Georgia Security & Immigration Compliance Act. Among other provisions, the tough state law denies some state-sponsored benefits to anyone who cannot prove their legal status and requires employers to maintain valid employment-authorization documents for workers in order to claim a tax deduction for wages.
One of the principle architects of the law is D.A. King. The 6-ft., 2-in. former U.S. Marine Corps corporal is president of the Dustin Inman Society, a group devoted to raising awareness of the consequences of illegal immigration.
On the eve of an Apr. 17 "No Amnesty!" rally on the steps of the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta, BusinessWeek correspondent Coleman Cowan sat down with King at his home in Marietta, Ga., to discuss his views on immigration, Georgia's Security & Immigration Compliance Act, and his plans for educating Americans about the harms of illegal immigration. Following are edited excerpts from their conversation.
What's the purpose of the rally on Monday? What do you hope to accomplish?
It's visibility. The American people need to know that they aren't the only ones sitting at home thinking this is crazy to have literally millions of people rallying to promote un-secure borders, rallying in the streets, literally demanding amnesty now, unconditionally. Their position has moved from "We're just here to work," and "We want to be guest workers," to...literally demanding an unconditional path to citizenship.
Is immigration a particularly important issue for Georgia, a non-border state, and if so, why?
Good question. I think it's very important we get our terms straight. There should be a noted distinction between "immigration" and "illegal immigration." We take in 1.3 million immigrants every year. I'm told that's more than the sum total of all the countries on this planet -- which I also find fascinating.
So, we have the largest legal immigration intake, and we have two to three times that many -- also the largest on the planet -- illegal immigration intakes. Immigration is important, but I regard it as a different topic than illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is most definitely important to Georgia in that Georgia right now has the seventh largest population, and one of the fastest-growing populations, of illegal aliens in the country.
State Senator Sam Zamarripa, here in Georgia, put that number at 20 million in a speech in 2003 to the Georgia Senate. Now, I don't have many conversations with the State senator, but I can assure you, he would like to put that genie back in the bottle if he ever could.
What are your thoughts on the Georgia Security & Immigration Compliance Act, or Senate Bill 529, as it was passed by the Georgia House and Senate?
It's interesting to me that people view it as watered-down or toothless. This bill is the strongest state-level legislation aimed at illegal immigration in the nation, by a very wide margin. Once it gets signed and publicized across the nation, we will be envied from coast to coast by people who understand this issue.
It's by far the most comprehensive and effective bill in the country. In it, we have the benefit of something called 287(g), taking advantage of a federal tool that was put into effect in a 1986 immigration-control act, that allows the feds to train state and local police -- not only to enforce state and local immigration laws, but this gives them the authority to apprehend, detain, and make the case for deporting illegal aliens, or more accurately, people who are in violation of Title 8 laws.
As a lobbyist, people have to go down there and explain existing federal law to those making state law, and then you will always have somebody across the hallway saying, "No that's not true." And you can print out the federal code -- I've done it -- and hand it a legislator, and say, "This is the law," and the other side will say, "He's anti-immigrant. Don't pay any attention to him."
In your mind, does the Georgia Bill go far enough to regulate employers to insure they have legally documented workers?
Does it go far enough? No. I look at Senate Bill 529 as, we have poured a foundation on which we can put laws to build further structure. 529 is really a foundation -- that's how I always describe it. No, it's not everything. If I could just write a law and pass it myself, this wouldn't have been it.
What else do you think needs to be done?
The gaping hole in this is that there's no serious penalty for using fraudulent documents to prove immigration status. Were that to be a felony, it would really clean up illegal immigration.
In your opinion, should a law like that apply to not only a worker using fraudulent documents but also to employers willing to accept those documents?
Most certainly, and it already does. The root of this problem is the employers and the bankers. And it always should be "employers and bankers." It's not just employers. If they were punished, as the law presently requires, we wouldn't have this problem.
Why should these laws apply to bankers as well as employers in your mind?
Because they're equally, if not more, connected to the root of the problem than employers. [Laws passed in 1986] make it a felony to encourage an illegal alien to remain in this country, to harbor an illegal alien. And the penalties are magnified for those people who profit commercially from either of those two things. I defy any reasonable person to convince me that making a mortgage loan to someone you know is in this country illegally isn't encouraging them to remain.
Was that ever part of any version of Georgia Bill 529?
No. But I look for states, including Georgia, to introduce legislation regulating the use of the I.T.I.N. [Individual Taxpayer Identification Number] within their own states. I'm of the opinion that even state-regulated banks can be controlled by that particular state and prohibited from using the I.T.I.N. for purposes the federal government makes clear weren't intended.
What do you see as the ultimate goal of your efforts?
The goal of legislation like 529 is to make Georgia less attractive than Alabama or North Carolina or Florida. If you want to come into the country illegally -- and right now you're being allowed to do that -- where do I want to settle?
Do I want to come to Georgia? They've got this bill -- the state police are going to enforce immigration laws. I'm going to have a much more difficult time using my fraudulent documents. They're going to verify me. By next year, I'm not going to get the same services I can get in Florida.
The goal is very clear -- it's to make Georgia less attractive to illegal immigration. If the Federal government isn't going to do its job -- imagine if all 50 states had a 529. So, you have to start somewhere.
So, in your mind, is one of the reasons that there's a need for Georgia Bill 529 that the Federal government has failed to act on immigration reform?
I think it's more accurate to say that the Federal government has refused to act to enforce our existing laws, and to most definitely secure our borders. I always considered myself a pretty liberal person before I started doing this, and a lot of people wince when I say that. I find it very odd that you get put into a slot simply by saying that the borders should be secure and the law should be equally applied -- "Oh, you must be some kind of a rightwing nut."
I have a lot of very liberal views on other issues, which I'm going to keep to myself [laughing]. My goal would be to have our borders as secure as are Mexico's, and have our immigration laws as diligently enforced as Mexico does theirs.
Talk to me about the Dustin Inman Society. What is it?
The Dustin Inman Society is merely a coalition of citizens, and real, legal immigrants with a goal of educating the public on the consequences of illegal immigration. [It's] named after my friend's son. Dustin Inman was in the back seat of the family car in the year 2000 on Father's Day weekend, on his way to go fishing in the mountains with his dad and his mom. An illegal alien, who happened to be from Mexico, who held a valid North Carolina driver's license...ran into the back of his car stopped at a light, at more than 70 miles per hour. [He] killed Dustin, put both of his parents in a coma -- neither of whom were able to go to his funeral, their only son -- and then put his mom, Kathy, in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.
On our Web site, I hope you've seen a page that says "No more deaths." It's a very long list, and that's a fraction of a very long list of people who have been killed because our borders are not secure. The Dustin Inman Society is simply my effort to point out that illegal immigration has consequences.
Are there businesses in Georgia that you feel are running afoul of immigration laws?
I would say the majority of the businesses in Georgia are.
Are there any that the Dustin Inman Society is targeting?
Not to date. I have gone to day-labor sites and taken pictures of the contractors, who pick up what I believe to be illegal labor. And I believe that because I ask them, "Are you here legally, do you have a green card?" And they laugh at me, "No," very boastfully. The contractors give me the finger. One guy wanted to physically challenge me. I'm 25 pounds lighter -- this was a year ago, and it wasn't that great of an idea.
My point is, they know they're breaking the law, the employers and bankers. They know they're in violation, they know that any publicity shined on them will result in them possibly not being able to continue that.
Some of the donations you get come from immigrants, and I noticed that one of the scheduled speakers for Monday is a green card holder. Why are you receiving support from immigrants?
You aren't going to find [a] group in our country who [is] more resentful of our borders not being secure and what I believe are more than 20 million people being allowed to live and work here illegally than the real legal immigrants who have joined the American family lawfully. People who have been fingerprinted, waited in line, gone through the process, filled out the forms, had their backgrounds checked, waited around for seven, eight, 10 years in some cases, to become lawful permanent residents.
And they see half a million people demanding citizenship simply because they can raise their voices louder than the next guy, or because they're somehow connected with some ethnicity. "We're Latino, so we demand equal rights." You're going to find few groups in this country who are more angry about illegal immigration than real, legal immigrants. They call me. I don't call them.
Have you ever received any threats as a result of your views?
When I first started, I got threats -- "We're going to get gangs after you." The hate mail that comes to me from people saying, "This is our continent -- go back to Europe."
They're very, very clear on their message. It's not just, "We want to come here and work for a better life." There are people who will tell you quite clearly, "Most of the United States was stolen from Mexico, and we're going to take it back by any means necessary."
-------------------------------
--
Erik Voss
erik@ICAtlanta.org
404-457-5901 Direct
<< Home