Friday, May 9, 2008

Raid Catches 33 Illegal Workers At Federal Courthouse

Michelle Malkin: More Reasons for McCain to Avoid the La Raza Conference

Al Sharpton Protests Day Laborer Deportations in Connecticut

"The Rev. Al Sharpton criticized Danbury officials for using undercoverpolice officers to promise jobs to day laborers in 2006, only to turn them over to federal agents for deportation. The arrests were unfair, Sharpton told a Danbury church congregation Sunday. 'I don't lie to folks and then deport them,' Sharpton told about 350 people at New Hope Baptist Church on Sunday. 'I'm coming to a town that switches bait,'" the AP reports. "Mayor Mark Boughton has said waves of immigrants are straining schools and leading to other problems such as crowded housing and unlicensed drivers. A message was left with Boughton on Monday."

Bush Signs Mariana Islands Immigration Bill

"United States President George Bush has signed into law Senate Bill 2739, which applies U.S. immigration law to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; and grants the Commonwealth a non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. U.S. Rep. George Miller, who has sought reform of the Northern Marianas’ labor and immigration laws, said the new law will put an end to the old way of doing business which had led to the exploitation of guest workers and had stifled the local economy," Pacific Magazine reports. "Miller lashed at disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his allies in the former Republican-controlled Congress for blocking reform for over a decade. 'Although it was clear to nearly everyone that the CNMI’s system was broken and unfair, it took a Democratic Congress to end this sordid chapter in American history. This new law responds to recommendations from the Bush Administration, the Clinton administration, the INS, the Commission on Immigration Reform, human rights activists, and many others. This law will usher in a new, safer and more just era for the Northern Mariana Islands, and for the men and women who live and work there,' he said."

Hispanic Immigrants Not Happy With Provision to Favor Irish Illegal Aliens

"An effort by the Irish to secure a special immigration deal solely for illegal immigrants from Ireland isn't sitting well with some of their former partners in the fight for an overhaul of federal immigration policy. Although immigrant organizations officially have refrained from criticizing the Irish, many rank-and-file Hispanic immigrants — who say their families have been hit hardest by deportations — are saying they are shocked that the Irish are quietly working for a separate pact with federal officials," the New York Sun reports. "Irish leaders have defended their proposal for a separate pact by saying it would correct what they call historic inequities, referring in particular to a change in the law in 1965 that reduced the number of visas for the Irish as it opened up those available to immigrants from regions other than Europe." (Via Freedom Folks)

10-year Old Idaho Girl Gives Birth; Illegal Immigrant Charged With Rape

"We broke the unbelievable story last night of a 10-year old girl in St. Anthony who gave birth to a baby. She's now one of the youngest kids in the country to become a mother. Residents both on and off camera were shocked and in dismay over the situation," says KIDK-TV in Idaho. "Lyle Rumsey: 'I don't think anything is wrong with our town. I just think something's wrong with that person.' That person is this man, 37-year old Guadalupe Gutierrez-Juarez. Juarez is actually an illegal immigrant, and is now behind bars in the Fremont County Jail on other rape charges. Since we broke this story exclusively yesterday, we've been checking with sources throughout the North Valley for more information. The criminal complaint against Gutierrez-Juarez says the rape of the 10-year old happened between November and January."

Court Case Seeks to Broaden Asylum for Chinese Affected by One-Child Policy

"Partners of Chinese women who were forced to have abortions are pressing the Supreme Court to make it easier to get asylum in the United States. The Bush administration is resisting the male partners' efforts to get asylum, even though the Republican congressman who wrote a 1996 asylum law said it was intended to cover men as well as women who are victims of China's controversial family planning policy. There is no dispute that women can seek asylum under the law," the Washington Post reports. "U.S. courts have taken varying approaches to claims by Chinese men that they should be allowed to stay in the United States because they have suffered under a policy that generally limits couples to one child."

Politics Interferes With Police Work on Immigration

"But in Los Angeles and New York, as in any number of cities across the country, police officers have other considerations in mind as they take to the streets each day, considerations that are only tangentially connected to fighting crime. The questions of how large a police department a city should maintain and how to distribute the officers are, like any question on the allocation of government resources, political ones," says National Review columnist Jack Dunphy. "And we are still embroiled in a debate over how LAPD officers should deal with illegal immigrants, with the mayor, the police chief, and virtually the entire municipal political apparatus openly hostile to the notion that police officers should expand their role in enforcing immigration laws. The LAPD is currently governed by the terms of Special Order 40, a 1979 modification to department regulations which prohibits police officers from taking police action based solely on a person’s immigration status. A recent high-profile murder prompted City Councilman Dennis Zine, a retired LAPD sergeant, to propose a modest amendment to the regulation that would authorize officers to report illegal-alien gang members to federal immigration authorities. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a man openly and enthusiastically sympathetic to illegal immigrants, has been vocal in his opposition to such a change, as has LAPD Chief William Bratton."