"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 4/5/'06 11PM
"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 4/5/'06 11PM
4/5/'06 - The following article(s) were found in the media. Several stories are provided ... with links to the original sources ... for your convenience:
- Debate over illegals roils onion country (AJC)
- Feds to target illegals' fake IDs (AJC)
Immigration advocate Zamarripa to leave Gold Dome (Atlanta Business Chronicle)
Hispanic legislator who led the fight against immigration bill to step down (AP)
- Mainstream media misses the news (Hispanic Link News Service)
- Zamarripa to bow out of politics (AJC)
- A Wall or a Welcome? (Arlington Catholic Herald)
- Democrats push for vote on immigration bill (AP)
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http://www.ajc.com/news/content/business/stories/0406natimfarms.html
Debate over illegals roils onion country
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/06/06
LYONS — Felipe Luis' gut tells him to yank sweet Vidalia onions from the Georgia soil when the harvest opens Monday.
But this year is different for Luis, a legal U.S. resident who has toiled on onion and cucumber farms for more than two decades.
 Kimberly Smith/AJC | |
| Felipe Luis, a legal U.S. resident, plans to stay home Monday in observance of the 'National Day of Action' called by Latino organizations worried about legislation concerning illegal immigrants. | |
 Kimberly Smith/AJC | |
| Field hands hired from Mexico through a federal program are more reliable, says farmer Delbert Bland. | |
 Kimberly Smith/AJC | |
| Javier Martinez packs sweet onions into crates. Onion farmer Delbert Bland uses guest workers through a federal program and says he 'couldn't survive without it.' | |
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Luis' wife was stopped twice last month at police roadblocks he thinks were designed to intimidate immigrants. His 11-year-old daughter has had to deal with rumors at school that immigration agents were going to raid classrooms. And there has been a separate prom for Hispanics at Toombs County High School, just across U.S. 1 from the mobile home where Luis lives with his wife and four children.
So instead of following his hardworking instincts Monday, Luis plans to stay home in observance of the "National Day of Action" called by Latino organizations concerned about a congressional crackdown on illegal immigration.
"If we don't do the hard work," Luis said in Spanish from a front stoop surrounded by zig-zagging clotheslines, "then who will?"
Luis said it's as if America wants immigrant labor but not the immigrants. And the friction between those two sentiments has led to a dishonest immigration system, one that has elevated tensions in the 20-county onion belt between Macon and Savannah.
Take Operation Southern Denial, launched by federal immigration agents in 1998. When they began rounding up illegal immigrants on onion farms, Georgia growers and their legislators howled.
Then-U.S. Rep. Saxby Chambliss accused the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service of using "bullying tactics" at the height of the Vidalia onion harvest.
The INS backed off, allowing growers to use undocumented workers for the rest of the season in exchange for promises that they'd wean themselves off the illegal labor.
Walt Dasher, whose Glennville farm was raided back then, responded by joining the government's guest worker program for seasonal agriculture.
The so-called H-2A program requires farmers to widely advertise positions and assure that no native workers want them. Then they must transport laborers from their home countries, provide free housing and pay a predetermined rate — now more than $8 per hour — that is often well above the prevailing wage in an area.
But Dasher said those requirements were crippling, and he pulled out after just one year. "It's extremely expensive," he said, "and paperwork-heavy."
Today he is like most of the 110 growers and shippers in the $60 million Vidalia onion industry. They depend on migrant workers, many of whom are in the country illegally and use fake Social Security cards, labor experts say. Even farms that use guest workers for harvest often rely on resident immigrants to package and ship the onions.
Now the experience of Vidalia onion growers offers lessons for Congress as it grapples with how to handle the estimated 11 million people already in the country illegally.
A measure being debated in the Senate this week would allow those illegal immigrants to become guest workers.
But the House already has passed a bill that includes no guest worker program. It calls for building a wall on part of the border and making it a felony to be in the country illegally.
Onion farmer Delbert Bland favors the Senate approach. Bland's 2,200-acre farm near Reidsville is the largest piece of the 13,700-acre Vidalia onion harvest. He stuck with the H-2A guest worker program following the 1998 raids. "Now I couldn't survive without it," Bland said.
The reliability of field hands who are arriving in buses this week makes them worth the higher wages, Bland said. "Those workers are here with one thing on their mind — to work," he said "They don't have vehicles. It's perfect."
In fact, Bland liked the program too much. He was fined after regulators said he was using guest workers without giving locals a fair chance.
The laborers are generally from the area around Monterrey, Mexico. Many return home to jobs as teachers or truck drivers once the harvest is over, Bland said.
But the reality is that many immigrants, including those in the country illegally, don't want to be short-term guests.
Dona Ciano, 22, paid a smuggler $2,000 to shepherd him across the Mexican border. Ciano gets paid $6 an hour packaging onions in southeast Georgia, more than four times what he says is typical back in his native Tabasco, Mexico. Now he has two children and plans to stay in the United Sates for at least a decade, maybe more.
Ciano said he'd jump at the chance to be a guest worker, but only if he could stay year-round and didn't have to leave after only a few years. "If they sent me back," he said in Spanish, "I'd come again."
To find a workable solution, many in Vidalia onion country are turning to the same man who spoke up during the raids of 1998. Chambliss, a farmer-friendly Republican from Moultrie, is now a U.S. senator.
Chambliss supports the concept of a guest worker program. But he's pushing for several key changes designed to lighten the burden on farmers, including one that would let them pay the prevailing wage in an area.
He reasons that if there's a large enough pool of guest workers, and the program is not perceived as cumbersome, then the need for illegal immigrants — and raids — will evaporate. "We don't want our farmers to have to worry about the government looking over their shoulders," he said.
But Chambliss is fighting a portion of the Senate measure that would put guest workers on the path to citizenship. He proposed an amendment Monday that would require them to return to their home countries after two years and enter the United States legally.
The public, meanwhile, is clamoring for a speedy solution. That includes the people of Toombs County, which sits in the heart of Vidalia onion country and was 9 percent Hispanic in the 2000 census.
The growing population of immigrants from Latin America is putting stress on the local schools and health clinics, said Don Waugh, one of a dozen gray-haired retirees sipping coffee at a McDonald's in Vidalia last week.
"They used to be all migrant workers," said Waugh, a retired golf course construction manager and longtime resident of the Sweet Onion City. "Now they're sticking around. That's what's killing us."
Waugh accepts, however, that the "onions would rot in the fields" without immigrant workers.
And he thinks it's unfair to tell those here illegally to go home after 20 years of winking at immigration laws.
Mike Cochran, who owned a uniform-making company in Vidalia before retiring, compared the immigration situation to America's dependence on foreign oil. A lot of people complain about it, but the politicians don't have the backbone to fix it, Cochran said as he leaned back in his chair and addressed the McDonald's coffee club.
Cochran said he suspects the same thing will happen in Congress this year. The only solution he sees is cutting more people off welfare. Hunger, he said, is perhaps the only thing that would make Americans harvest onions in 95-degree heat.
"If it involves sweatin'," Cochran said, "we don't want to do it."
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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/0406metimfraud.html
Feds to target illegals' fake IDs
Atlanta among 10 cities cited in crackdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/06/06
WASHINGTON — Acknowledging widespread security lapses within the nation's immigration system, the Bush administration announced Wednesday it is opening anti-fraud task forces in 10 cities, including Atlanta, to crack down on fake driver's licenses, passports and other methods used to obtain immigration benefits.
"Millions have used fraudulent documents" to obtain work permits or to provide cover for criminal or terrorist activities, said Julie Myers, assistant Homeland Security secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who cited "an epidemic" of bogus identification documents generated by highly sophisticated crime networks.
The enforcement initiative, which combines Homeland Security immigration agencies, the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal and local agencies, is to operate in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia and St. Paul, Minn.
Many agencies involved
Details about the initiative were sketchy. But led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the task forces build on existing partnerships to bring investigators together from a variety of agencies with expertise in different aspects of document and benefit fraud, a news release announcing task forces said.
Some of the participants in the task forces include the Department of Justice, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, Social Security Administration Office of Inspector General, State Department Office of Inspector General, State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Secret Service, and numerous state and local law enforcement agencies.
The announcement came the day before a former Homeland Security official was scheduled to tell Congress that the department is now awarding immigrant benefits, including citizenship, without proper background checks and has failed to investigate nearly 600 cases of alleged bribery, money laundering and other criminal activities by its own employees.
Just last week in Georgia, supporters and critics of the newly approved Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act agreed the state law could be undermined by bogus documents.
A key provision of the act, which passed both houses of the state Legislature last week by big margins, is the section dealing with private employers verifying that their workers are legally in the country. Some say the proliferation of fake documents makes that section of the law, and possibly others, difficult if not impossible to enforce.
Security concerns cited
Michael J. Maxwell, who quit in February as director of the U.S. Office of Security and Investigations for immigration services, is scheduled to testify today to the House Subcommittee on International Terrorism.
"The integrity of the United States immigration system has been corrupted, and the system is incapable of ensuring the security of our homeland," Maxwell said in a statement prepared for the hearing.
That statement is accompanied by more than 70 pages of documentation, internal e-mails and memos he said show an agency awash in security problems and lacking the resources "to open investigations into even the relatively small number of national security cases."
Maxwell's written testimony describes increasing vulnerabilities in the Citizenship and Immigration Services division, which oversees the distribution of work visas, permanent "green card" residency permits and citizenship.
The former official quit in a dispute with his bosses after he briefed members of Congress about security problems.
Among the complaints prepared for his testimony, Maxwell says that employees assigned to perform checks on would-be citizens or permanent residents were increasingly denied access to FBI crime and terrorism databases that record allegations of criminal behavior or security problems.
Case backlog
Maxwell's documentation also indicates that regional immigration offices, including those in Atlanta and Philadelphia, have a backlog of cases of applicants who have been denied residency because of ineligibility or criminal prosecutions. Although these applicants should have been notified and put into removal procedures, their cases are "in limbo" and their official "notices to appear" in immigration court have not gone out, Maxwell says.
Asked about the backlogs, the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Emilio Gonzalez, said the caseload is so large that his agency has to take care so they "don't clog up the court system."
"We have to prioritize" the cases, Gonzalez said.
The immigration services director brushed off Maxwell's criticism of security at the agency. "He has his opinions, and I have mine," said Gonzalez, who joined in the announcement of the task forces.
Paul L. Jones, director of homeland security and justice investigations for the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, said the new anti-fraud effort is a response to a recent GAO report that found extensive fraud in the granting of immigrant benefits.
The government's anti-fraud task forces do not go far enough, Jones said, adding that the system does not penalize the people who use fake IDs and other illegal schemes to obtain immigration permits and visas. Under current practices, a person can lie on an immigration benefit application, be turned down, and later try again and again, Jones said.
The GAO official said that his agency reviewed Maxwell's allegations and found them to be serious. "Our folks say there's enough smoke there," Jones said, adding that the GAO has referred his complaints to the FBI.
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http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/04/03/daily35.html
Immigration advocate Zamarripa to leave Gold Dome
Atlanta Business Chronicle - 6:18 PM EDT Wednesdayby Ryan Mahoney Staff Writer
State Sen. Sam Zamarripa, the first Hispanic elected to the Georgia Senate and the top opponent of a GOP bill targeting illegal immigrants and their employers, has decided not to seek a third term.
Zamarripa (D-Atlanta), a partner at Heritage Capital Advisors LLC, said he plans to concentrate on attracting foreign investment to Atlanta, particularly from China. A member of the Senate Economic Development Committee, he helped create what is now known as the Georgia China Alliance to further that goal after taking office in 2003.
"The Chinese are snooping around," Zamarripa said, "and I'd like to help some groups move into Atlanta, help the Chinese get a beachhead here."Zamarripa, who is of Mexican heritage, also intends to continue his work with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, which joined him in opposition to this year's immigration measure, Senate Bill 529. Zamarripa worked closely on SB 529 with its sponsor, state Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), but ultimately voted against the bill.
After passing both the House and Senate just before the end of the session in March, SB 529 needs only the signature of Gov. Sonny Perdue to become law.
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http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/politics/14271469.htm
Hispanic legislator who led the fight against immigration bill to step down
SHANNON McCAFFREY
Associated Press
ATLANTA - The state Senate's lone Hispanic lawmaker, who rose to prominence during the bitter debate over illegal immigration this session, said Wednesday he will not seek re-election.
Sam Zamarripa, D-Atlanta, said he wants to pursue economic development opportunities in the private sector, particularly strengthening trade ties between Georgia and China.
"The greatest opportunity for me was to pursue things I am very good at related to economic development, and to do that out of the Senate," Zamarripa said.
He did not rule out returning to elected office at some point.
"My mind is wide open and it's going to stay wide open," he said.
Zamarripa said he is proudest of his work on the Senate Economic Development Committee, pushing initiatives to improve Georgia's standing in the global business community. He said he wants to continue his work in the China trade initiative through his private firm and as a volunteer.
Zamarripa was elected to the Senate four years ago. His profile rose significantly this session as immigration took center stage at the Capitol.
One of the most vocal opponents of the legislation to crack down on illegal immigrants in Georgia, Zamarripa also worked closely with the bill's lead sponsor, Sen. Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, to soften some of its harsher provisions.
Nonetheless, Zamarripa still voted against it, arguing that immigration is an issue that must be dealt with by the federal government.
He said the heated debate over the issue had not hastened his departure.
Zamarripa is one of only three Hispanic lawmakers in the Georgia Legislature.
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http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=LATINO-ISLA-04-05-06
Mainstream media misses the news
By JOE de la ISLA
Hispanic Link News Service
05-APR-06
Not until half a million Latinos marched in Los Angeles on March 25 to protest against HR 4437, the federal bill that criminalizes undocumented immigrants and those who help them, did the mainstream media take notice of this rapidly emerging national political force as newsworthy.
I refer to the same mainstream news vehicles that brag about being on the spot 24/7 to provide the public with instant traffic reports, up-to-the-second weather and the latest political scuttlebutt.
It begs the question: When will those individuals who filter what's news for us readers, listeners and viewers differentiate between the relevant and the mundane and inane?
People need reliable information on which to base their opinions and decisions. Lawmakers form their policy worldview precisely from what well-informed people think.
Take a closer look at how Latino families spent March 25:
Wearing sparkling white (for peace) T-shirts, half a million of them, by police estimates, walked in orderly procession through downtown Los Angeles. It was one of the nation's largest demonstrations for any cause in recent years.
The Washington Post ignored it on Page 1, giving an AP wire service account a scant 11 inches next to a four-column 30-inch feature on page 3.
In Phoenix, Ariz., 20,000 more paraded along 24th Street, near the offices of one of the U.S. Senate's architects for an alternative to the draconian HR 4437. Both in Denver and Detroit, 50,000 demonstrated; Milwaukee, Wis., 10,000; Charlotte, N.C. 7,000; Sacramento, Calif., 4,000. The roll call continues in cities throughout the Southwest.
Hundreds of students in Houston marched from Jeff Davis High School to the nearby downtown campus of the University of Houston in favor of the stalled federal Dream Act that would allow undocumented, otherwise eligible high school graduates to afford college.
In Georgia, some 80,000 workers didn't show up for their jobs to protest immigrants' vulnerability if the U.S. Senate passes legislation as oppressive as HR 4437. One street marcher smiled as he waved his "DON'T PANIC, WE'RE HISPANIC" sign. Broadcast and print outlets around the county didn't panic. They barely noticed.
An early CNN report I was listening to put the Los Angeles crowd projection at 25,000 and made no mention of activities in other cities. At least we now have an answer to the question, how many immigrants does it take to illuminate policy?
The fact is protests have been building since December when HR 4437 was passed in the House of Representatives.
Some modest local coverage was given the month-long, 40-city wake-up call by Border Angels leader Enrique Morones, following the shooting of Mexican national Guillermo Martinez Rodriguez by a Border Patrol officer.
That was the last straw, according to Morones, as he set out to draw attention to the immigration reform issue by planting 4,000 crosses across the country by his faith-based group. He plans a Mexico City action before the July presidential election there.
Soon after his "March for Migrants" reached Washington in February, civic actions followed in Philadelphia, Tampa and New Jersey. A thousand immigrants hit the snowy streets in Philadelphia. Twenty thousand showed up at the nation's capital. Then in Chicago, 100,000 Latinos joined a protest this month. The Spanish-language media and a word-of-mouth campaign led to that two-mile-long march.
Local press in the Southwest mainly carried "small stories" from wire services about the demonstrations, according to Frontera Norte Sur, an online news service from Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
"The dearth of coverage is striking" when contrasted to the extensive play given to the Minuteman project, legislation restricting immigrants and increasing numbers of undocumented workers, it noted.
Newspapers in the Mexican interior as well as along its northern border led with stories about the demonstrations. So did their Internet home pages. Mexico City's El Universal invited its U.S. readers' to comment about the "multitudinous" protests. Sometimes using colorful working-class expressions, these mostly Latino readers lambasted their social exclusion and policies in both the United States and Mexico with their first-hand accounts.
Before March 25, many interested people virtually had to smuggle in information from abroad to know about the goings-on in the United States, even though the lead-up was as loud as a bullhorn. Will Los Angeles and the protests building up for April 10 in Washington awaken the sleeping U.S. media giant?
Can you hear them now?
(Jose de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. He may be contacted by e-mail at joseisla3(at)yahoo.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)
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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/0405zamarripa.html
Zamarripa to bow out of politics
Outspoken state senator will pursue business opportunities
By SONJI JACOBS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/05/06
State Sen. Sam Zamarripa, an Atlanta Democrat who became the first Hispanic elected to Georgia Senate in 2002, announced Wednesday that he will not seek re-election this year.
Zamarripa said that he has decided to bow out of politics for the time being to focus his energy on spurring economic development — particularly global business opportunities — in Atlanta.
"My feeling was that the greatest opportunity for me was to pursue things I am very good at related to economic development, and to do that out of the Senate," Zamarripa said.
Zamarripa said that during his four years as a state senator, he was most pleased with his work on the Senate Economic Development Committee. There, he sponsored and passed legislation that encourages the People's Republic of China to invest in Georgia and build strong business relationships that will create jobs and encourage economic growth in the state. The lawmaker said he plans to continue his work in that area both within his private business and as a volunteer for the city and state.
Zamarripa, who is of Mexican descent, also made a name for himself as a strong advocate for Atlanta's Hispanic community. He was a key player in this year's heated debate over illegal immigration and repeatedly expressed his opposition to Senate Bill 529.
That measure, which awaits Gov. Sonny Perdue's signature to become law, seeks to crack down on illegal immigrants and those who hire them, mostly by verifying the legal status of adults applying for taxpayer-provided services in Georgia and by removing tax breaks for anyone who employs undocumented workers.
Zamarripa worked with the bill's sponsor, Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), to help craft the bill's language. He voted against the measure, saying that he believes the federal government ought to handle illegal immigration issues.
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http://www.catholicherald.com/rausch/06rausch/rausch0406.htm
A Wall or a Welcome?
By Fr. John Rausch
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 4/6/06)
Today between 11 and 12 million undocumented workers fill physically challenging jobs in agriculture, construction, forestry and food processing. They comprise about 10 percent of restaurant workers, nearly a quarter of private household workers and more than half of the 1.6 million agricultural field workers. Undocumented workers play a key role in the U.S. economy, yet immigration policy can either threaten their efforts through overzealous emphasis on enforcement, or welcome their contributions through new legal forms for collaboration.
Ever since 9/11, fear appears the motivating force behind most U.S. foreign policy and homeland security. The Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, passed by the House of Representatives, criminalizes undocumented immigrants as felons, turns police into immigration law enforcement officers, mandates a 700-mile wall on the Mexican border and makes criminals of anyone who aids and offers support to undocumented immigrants. For some, immigration questions focus solely on legality. No room exists for considering the changed economic realities brought with globalization.
But note, approximately 130 million people live outside their countries of birth, many because of recent neo-liberal trade policies. These policies allow goods and finances to cross boundaries, but not people. Worldwide, labor migration from the southern hemisphere has increased, because globalization has disrupted traditional forms of economic activity, especially agriculture, and people have no other choice. Mexico estimates more than 1 million farmers left their land because of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Many displaced from their land head to the maquiladoras along the U.S. border to find jobs with transnational corporations that pay wages averaging just $45 a week. Faced with dismal choices to provide for their families, many feel forced to risk their lives crossing the desert to become undocumented workers in the U.S.
The new economic reality shows that immigration represents a global issue with global causes requiring a global approach. Since the U.S. economy depends so heavily on immigrant labor, our laws should reflect that reality and welcome the workers.
However, temporary worker programs must guard the rights of guest workers, because historically those programs proved abusive to the laborers. Long hours plus poor working and living conditions fell to Mexicans during the bracero program from 1942 to 1964.
Bishop Thomas G. Wenski, coadjutor of Orlando and chairman of the U.S. bishop' Committee on Migration, summarized the component of a just guest-worker policy as a "comprehensive immigration reform that will provide opportunities for legalization of the undocumented currently living in the United States; temporary worker programs with full worker protections and a path to permanency; as well as a reform of our family immigration system that will allow immigrant families to reunite in a timely fashion."
For people of faith, welcoming the stranger rings like a call from God: "You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you ... for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt" (Lv 19:34, cf. Mt 25:35).
The challenge remains for the wealthiest nation on earth to become one of the most compassionate nations.
Fr. Rausch is a Glenmary Priest who lives, writes and organizes in Appalachia.
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http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/hall/newfullstory.asp?ID=102665
Posted Wednesday, April 5 at 6:16 AM
Democrats push for vote on immigration bill by The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats pushed for a vote on a bipartisan immigration bill Tuesday after Republicans foundered while trying to rally GOP support for a compromise on what to do about the millions of illegal immigrants now in the country.
Democrats set up a showdown over a proposal that would allow the illegal immigrants to remain in the country and become permanent residents after paying $2,000 fines and back taxes, learning English and working six years.
``Are the Republicans going to stand up for comprehensive immigration reform or not?'' Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Tuesday.
Republicans had floated a proposal Monday night and early Tuesday to divide illegal immigrants between those who have been in the country more than five years and those who have not.
Several rank-and-file Republicans objected, and Majority Leader Bill Frist and fellow Republicans spent much of the day trying to find an alternative.
``I don't know that we're going to get a bill,'' said Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio. ``It's tough.''
Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, blocked numerous attempts by Republicans to hold votes Tuesday on selected amendments. ``We do not need a compromise. It's in our bill,'' he said and later set the stage for a test vote on Thursday.
Democrats need 60 votes to overcome objections from conservatives on the immigration bill approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee that is being pushed by Reid.
Durbin acknowledged the votes to cut off debate and force a final vote are not there, but said Democrats had to move because they feared Frist was going to let the clock expire on the bill, in its second week on the floor.
But Republicans blamed Democrats for inaction. ``The other side is delaying, postponing, obstructing and not allowing votes on amendments,'' Frist said.
The House has passed a bill that would shore up border security by putting the military on the border, requiring employer to verify they've hired legal workers and making being in the country illegally a felony.
A strong Senate bill would mean a better bargaining position in conference committee with the House, Durbin said.
The White House repeated President Bush's call for a temporary worker plan as a way to identify the millions of illegal immigrants in the country. The administration said in a statement it wants a bill that does not create ``an automatic path to citizenship.''
--
Erik Voss
erik@ICAtlanta.org
404-457-5901 Direct
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