HAITIAN LANDING SHOWS CONTINUED SECURITY LAPSES

“People from all sides of the political spectrum are wondering how, under a heightened level of homeland security, a boatload of 214 Haitian immigrants was able to meander up to the coast of Florida, run aground and swim ashore,” Fox News says. “And, they ask, what if these illegal aliens weren't Haitians, but Al Qaeda, or other groups that want to do harm to the United States? If just a few got away, wouldn't they be able to wreak whatever havoc they have in mind from within this country?” Speaking to Fox News, “Retired Border Patrol Agent Jim Dorcy echoed that concern, saying the Tuesday incident is proof that anyone can enter the country illegally if he tries hard enough.” Dorcy said, “I'm here to tell you there is no homeland security unless we do something about our immigration laws.” Other critics of our current out-of-control immigration policy said “Tuesday's immigrant escapade shows not only Americans, but the world, that our security procedures are too lax.”

NY POL WHO WAS ELECTED AFTER LIRR MASSACRE CALLS 9/11 AD ‘EXPLOITATION’

“A Long Island congresswoman who was elected in the aftermath of a commuter train bloodbath that claimed the life of her husband and left her son wounded is decrying a TV ad by her opponent as an ‘exploitation of September 11th,’” Newsday reports. Rep. McCarthy was elected after running on a gun control platform after the Long Island Rail Road shootings. “The ad features Peter Gadiel, whose son James was an assistant trader for Cantor Fitzgerald who died on the 103rd Floor of the World Trade Center last year.” Gadiel, who has spoken in favor of immigration reform after 9/11, says in the ad for Republican Marilyn O’Grady that “I never thought I’d do anything political like this, but I had to let the people of Nassau County know that Carolyn McCarthy has a terrible record on illegal immigration.” In an earlier interview about the ad, Gadiel said, “My son’s dead and Congress is largely to blame. The INS is a creature of congressional policies and if the INS has failed to do its job, it’s failed because Congress has wanted it to fail.”

INS CASE FILES ACCESSIBLE ONLINE

“Prospective immigrants to the United States can now check the status of their cases on the Internet,” Voice of America news reports. “Starting Tuesday petitioners who have a receipt number for an application or petition they filed at an INS Service Center can follow up through the INS website.” [FAIR comment: meanwhile, DMV and local police departments are still unable to check fingerprints or verify an immigrant’s legal status]

U.N. REPORT: MORE COUNTRIES RESTRICT IMMIGRATION, CITING NEGATIVES

“More and more countries are limiting immigration as the number of people on the move increases dramatically,” the AP reports. “Many countries are adopting policies to cut immigration because the influx is causing or adds to rising unemployment and social conflict,” according to the United Nation’s Population Division.

Related: U.N. Population Division report page

FROMA HAROP: THE REAL STORY BEHIND LEWISTON MAINE

Writer Froma Harop says that despite the media’s desire to reduce events in Lewiston, Maine to a simple morality play, more is at stake. Lewiston’s mayor wrote a letter to the Somali community, asking them to stop moving to Lewiston, because they were overburdening the city’s finances. “[W]hat's going on in Lewiston is going on all over America,” observes Harop. “Washington is making immigration policy, while poor and working-class towns are picking up much of the bill.” The end result? “Rich suburbs don't have to deal with the consequences of mass immigration -- poor immigrants can't afford to move there. Lush communities may make use of the inexpensive labor of immigrants, but they don't bear the burdens of educating their children, finding them jobs or supplying them with subsidized housing. All of that is left to dying mill towns, and that is unfair. At the very least, the feds should be paying for it all.”

NJ UNVEILS ANTI-DOCUMENT FRAUD TASK FORCE TO SECURE LICENSES

“The state yesterday unveiled plans for a special task force whose job will be to end the use of phony documents to illegally obtain New Jersey driver's licenses and registrations from motor vehicle agencies,” the Times of Trenton reported. “The announcement came just days after officials wondered whether continued security lapses at the state Division of Motor Vehicles helped a city man obtain a license and register a car along with one of the alleged Washington-area sniper suspects.” State Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox told reporters that “It is safe to say many bartenders and bouncers have had more document-fraud training than DMV clerks.” The Times details the numerous flaws of current DMV databases, which don’t have a record of the documents used to get a license or register a car, and don’t have a means of verifying addresses.

Related: Gannett coverage of the task force

MAINE GOVERNOR SAYS REFUGEES NEEDED FOR ‘ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT’

Despite the high dependence of refugees on public assistance, Maine Governor Angus King says the state “need[s] these people and a bunch of other people for economic development.” King sent an open letter to Maine residents to counter what he believed was negative fallout from a letter from the mayor of Lewiston, Maine, to the Somali refugee community. The letter asked them to stop coming to Lewiston, as they were overburdening the welfare system.

‘MAD SCRAMBLE’ AS HAITIANS COME ASHORE IN FLORIDA

“A boat carrying at least 220 Haitians on board ran aground off Virginia Key on Tuesday with many passengers leaping off the bow, swimming ashore and swarming the Rickenbacker Causeway,” the Sun Sentinel reports. “The fleeing refugees jumped in the beds of trucks and knocked on car windows while trying to escape. Police blocked the bridge for several hours, causing a traffic jam at rush hour that lasted into early evening.” As of now, “The Immigration and Naturalization Service launched an investigation into whether the trip was connected to smuggling, or whether the people on board banded together to arrange the journey to the United States.” Haitian activist groups were quick to decry what they say is discriminatory treatment for Haitian boat people who arrive in the U.S. “Even as police and immigration agents rounded up the boat's passengers, Haitian and human-rights activists quickly gathered at the causeway entrance to demand fair play for the new arrivals, many of them wet and shivering as they sat on the ground,” the Miami Herald writes. “The Haitians' very public arrival and roundup likely will present a tough new test of a controversial Bush administration policy of prolonged detention for Haitian asylum-seekers in Florida -- a policy critics complain is applied only to Haitians and no other group.”

Related: On FoxNews’s The Big Story with John Gibson, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) and writer Michelle Malkin debated AILA executive director Jeanne Butterfield about what to do concerning the Haitian situation.

ARMY HELPING WITH BIOMETRIC SCREENING AT BORDER

The Army is helping with border screening by providing access to biometric information collected from prisoners captured in Afghanistan. “’Any place we go into -- Iraq or wherever -- we're going to start building a dossier on people of interest to intelligence,’ Lt. Col. Kathy De Bolt said. ‘When they come into one of our checkpoints, we can say You're this bad guy from here,’” AP reports. “The system, known as the Biometrics Automated Toolset (BAT), consists of about 50 laptop computers equipped with scanners that collect biometrics. . . . So far, BAT data have been shared with the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to help them check the identities of incoming foreigners and of foreigners arrested inside the United States, officials said.”

1,000 ILLEGAL ALIENS WAIT FOR CARDS IN MILWAUKEE

“More than 1,000 Mexican nationals stood in line in the cold for as long as three hours Tuesday to apply for identification cards designed to give them greater access to the U.S. banking system,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. “With the identification card, Mexican immigrants will be able to open checking, savings and two-country ATM accounts at North Shore Bank, which has 38 branch offices in Wisconsin. According to Don Cohen, a spokesman for the bank, North Shore is the first Wisconsin-based lender to offer the ID card.”

FAIR TV appearance schedule 10/30

All times are Eastern

FAIR executive director Dan Stein will be on

MSNBC at 2:30 pm, FoxNews at 4:10 pm and CNN at 8:00 pm

FAIR media director Ira Mehlman will be on

CNN at 3:30 pm

FAIR assistant director David Ray will be on

MSNBC at 5:00 pm

REFUGEE NUMBERS DOWN AFTER 9/11

“The number of refugees admitted to the United States declined sharply in the 2002 fiscal year because security concerns stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks bogged down the screening process,” according to the State Department. “The Bush administration has rejected calls from refugee advocates and a bipartisan group of lawmakers to make up for the shortfall in the federal refugee resettlement program, which officials concede marks the biggest drop in two decades,” the New York Times reports. “For this year, President Bush this month approved a ceiling of 70,000 refugees, but he designated only 50,000 slots for people from specific regions. He held the rest in reserve for contingencies that may or may not put them to use.”

‘WHEN IN DOUBT, DEPORT’ STRATEGY FOR FBI, INS CONCERNING POST-SEPT. 11 INVESTIGATION

“Since last September's attacks, federal authorities have wrestled with a stark dilemma: Should they watch, or simply deport, scores of illegal immigrants who may have crossed paths with terrorists?” reports the LA Times. “A lot of times it comes down to dollars and cents.... We just can't afford [surveillance] for as many people as we suspect might have bad intentions,” one FBI agent said. Instead, the agency has moved to deport hundreds of people with connections to terrorism or known terrorists. “We are being forced to use every legal and moral and ethical avenue that we can," an FBI agent said, "to ensure the safety of our citizens."

ANTIGUA PROBES SNIPER SUSPECT FOR IMMIGRATION FRAUD

“A government-appointed commission began an inquiry today into the activities of John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, focusing on allegations of immigration fraud and the nature of the relationship between the two suspects charged in the sniper attacks,” the Washington Post reports. “Central to the investigation will be allegations that Muhammad forged documents and helped Jamaican nationals enter the United States illegally.”

ILLEGAL ALIENS FIND BORDER HARDER TO CROSS

“It's never been this hard to get into the United States," one illegal alien told the Washington Post after being caught trying to enter the U.S. “As Bush pursues the war on terror, the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border instead has become more dangerous and difficult to cross, especially along this desert stretch facing Arizona,” the paper says. Mexican interviewed “said much of Mexico's disillusionment stems from the worsening state of immigration. Improvement on that issue is the number one foreign policy goal of Mexico and a deeply personal issue for millions of Mexicans who have relatives in the United States.” Also, new security measures have made it harder for illegal aliens to find work in the U.S.