Haitian Times - Immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain, trying to win the support of a key voting block, says he — not his opponent Barack Obama — has earned the trust of Hispanic voters by championing an immigration reform bill that nearly killed his presidential bid.

Both McCain and Obama have lavished attention on the Hispanic community as they grapple for votes in key states such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico where large Latino populations could swing the election on Nov. 4.

McCain’s comments came in remarks he was to deliver Monday in San Diego at the annual convention of the National Council of La Raza. Obama appeared before the group on Sunday. It’s the third time in weeks that the two candidates have made appearances at the same events to reach out to the Hispanic community, an indication of the fierce jockeying for a critical pool of voters, a quarter of them undecided in a recent poll.

The AP-Yahoo News poll showed Obama leading McCain among Hispanics, 47 percent to 22 percent, with 26 percent undecided.

McCain, a senator from Arizona, saw his White House bid nearly collapse partly from conservatives’ anger over his effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which opponents branded “amnesty” for millions of illegal immigrants.

“I took my lumps for it without complaint. My campaign was written off as a lost cause. I did so not just because I believed it was the right thing to do for Hispanic Americans. It was the right thing to do for all Americans,” McCain said in the prepared remarks.

“I do ask for your trust that when I say, I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it. I think I have earned that trust,” McCain said.

While he worked with Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy on immigration reform, McCain said, “Senator Obama declined to cast some of those tough votes. He voted for and even sponsored amendments that were intended to kill the legislation.”

As part of his bid to win votes in the Hispanic community, McCain has also issued a new television ad, titled “God’s Children,” in which he lauds the military service of Hispanics.

For his part, Obama has accused McCain of abandoning the immigration effort after protests from within his party contributed to the legislation’s collapse in Congress last year.

Both McCain and Obama support an eventual path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country illegally, although McCain, a senator from the border state of Arizona, has shifted his emphasis to securing the U.S. border.

On Sunday, Obama told La Raza he would push for a 50-percent tax credit to small U.S. businesses that provide workers with health insurance, a program he hopes has special appeal to Hispanics and other minority groups particularly hard hit by the economic slowdown.

“Make no mistake about it: The Latino community holds this election in your hands,” Obama told the group Sunday.

On his way to San Diego Saturday, Obama made some of his strongest comments about the direction the U.S. economy is heading, asserting there is “little doubt we’ve moved into recession” and said decisive government action is needed to right the listing U.S. economy.

The precise cost and details of his tax credit program were not immediately available, but a campaign statement said the “credit would be fully available to small firms, and would be phased out for medium-sized firms. It would also be phased out for small firms with high-income employees.”

As Obama vows government action to battle the deepening American economic slump, McCain has been less sure-footed in attempts to convince voters he understands their struggle with raging energy costs, home mortgage foreclosures and growing unemployment.

The McCain campaign was badly undercut on the economic issue last week when the Arizona senator’s chief economic adviser said Americans were suffering a “mental recession” and had become a nation of “whiners.” McCain quickly rejected the remarks of former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

While McCain has struggled to gain traction on proposals for handling the economic downturn, he has maintained confidence that his experience with security and military affairs leave him better placed in voters’ eyes than Obama, a first-term senator.

Obama vows to quickly withdraw American forces from Iraq to free up troops and resources to fight Taliban and al-Qaida extremists in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border. McCain wants to keep U.S. soldiers and Marines in Iraq indefinitely, drawing them down only when the survival of Iraq’s democratically elected government is assured.

After speaking in San Diego, Obama met with reporters to express condolences to the families of nine American soldiers killed in a militant attack Sunday in eastern Afghanistan. It was the deadliest single attack for the United States in Afghanistan since June 2005. Fourteen more U.S. troops were injured.

“The main thing I want to communicate is that our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of these extraordinary heroes,” Obama said. “And we need to make sure that we’re providing them with every bit of support that we can.”

The Obama and McCain positions on Iraq were put in stark contrast last week when the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he wanted to link a new status of forces agreement with a three- to five-year timetable for America’s withdrawal.

Speaking with reporters on his campaign plane Saturday, Obama detailed his plans to travel to European capitals and U.S. battlefronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, revealing he would be accompanied by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel and Sen. Jack Reed, a Democrat.

Hagel served as an Army sergeant in Vietnam and was twice wounded in 1968, earning two Purple Hearts. Reed, a West Point graduate, was a former Army Ranger and paratrooper.

In discussing the war and his journey to Iraq, Obama said he hoped both the United States and Iraqi governments would soothe Sunni fears of reprisals by the country’s Shiite majority.

He also said removing American combat forces from Iraq, which he promises to do within 16 months of taking office, will not be “perfectly neat.”

McCain, a Vietnam War veteran, has chided Obama for the dearth of time he has spent in the region, failing to meet with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and not holding a congressional oversight hearing on U.S. security matters.

Asked about such criticism, Obama said: “John McCain has been in Congress 25 years, no doubt about that. If this is a longevity measure, then John McCain wins. On the other hand, before we went into Iraq, I knew the difference between Shia and Sunni.”

That was a dig at the Arizona senator, who once confused the majority and minority religious groups in Iraq. 

OAKLAND PARK, Florida (AP) — Lady Liberty’s welcome was sorely missing from the drab immigration office where Argentine architect Rodolfo Acevedo started his U.S. citizenship application in the early 1990s.

But there were huddled masses, or at least crowds fighting for parking, standing in line, wasting hours in overcrowded waiting rooms, yearning for a little attention from the harried federal employees.

The scene was repeated at offices across south Florida, one of the country’s busiest naturalization hubs, where Acevedo was sent for fingerprints, interviews and more paperwork.

“They were kind of makeshift facilities in a strip mall,” Acevedo said. “There was no welcoming, no warmth from the facilities. The furniture, the finishes, even the colors, the location within the town — it was never feeling like they were there to actually help you.”

A citizen since last summer, Acevedo is drawing on his experiences to design five new offices for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that feature more light and space, playrooms for the kids and a prominent image of the Statue of Liberty’s welcoming face.

The centers are due to open later this year in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, part of a national remodeling of immigration offices that the agency acknowledged in a news release are often “overcrowded, inefficient and located in areas that did not serve the immigration community.”

Acevedo, 47, had been an architect in his home country but could only find work a busboy when he arrived in Florida in 1990. The restaurant’s owner encouraged him to bring his portfolio to network with architects who came in for lunch. One eventually hired Acevedo to help out in his office, and Acevedo is now a partner in that firm, Boca Raton, Fla.-based JMWA Architects.

It may be a coincidence that CIS is using an architectural firm with a lot of naturalized citizens, since many businesses in South Florida have immigrants in the work force. That will likely be the case for the construction crews, too, who in Florida are typically about 35 percent immigrant.

Immigrant advocates welcome the friendlier offices but note that federal authorities have also increased enforcement actions. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year doubled the arrests it made in 2006.

The new offices Acevedo has designed, with a team mostly comprised of other immigrants, will replace existing facilities in Miami and West Palm Beach.

Each has ample parking and is located near public transportation in communities with large immigrant populations. Skylights and large windows will illuminate comfortable waiting areas decorated in soothing pastel colors. Indoor play areas and Internet cafes will offer diversions for waiting children and adults.

Information booths, self-serve computer terminals and private offices promise all the services needed to complete a citizenship application. The heart of each building is a small, sky-lit auditorium for naturalization ceremonies.

The face of the Statue of Liberty is etched into exterior glass surfaces.

The Oakland Park facility will serve immigrants who otherwise would have to travel about 35 miles (56 kilometers) to an office in downtown Miami. Lines outside that building that stretch around the block and last for hours prompted advocacy group Haitian Women of Miami to include anger management tips in its citizenship classes.

“I was scared to go there,” said Louna Thomas, 38, who applied for citizenship last summer. Her classes at Haitian Women of Miami included American history, English lessons and tips for successfully keeping an appointment, such as getting a baby sitter for her two children.

“If I bring them with me, they say they won’t accept me with the kids,” said Thomas, who left Haiti in 1992.

Acevedo’s designs are part of an image makeover for a federal agency often associated with intimidation and inefficiency. The processing times at the immigration centers in Florida are among the longest in the country; CIS warns cases can take longer than 14 months to be completed in Miami and Orlando.

Federal immigration officials say the new buildings will boost efficiency in processing immigration applications.

Facilities in Orlando, Florida; Denver, Dallas and Portland, Oregon, are also slated for replacement. 

PLAINFIELD, N.J. (AP) — A federal lawsuit challenging a landlord’s right to rent to illegal immigrants has stoked tensions over immigration that have been rising for years in this diverse city of 50,000 south of Newark.

A prominent anti-illegal immigration group filed suit against a Plainfield-based property management company earlier this month, seeking to set a legal precedent by using anti-mob legislation to crack down on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants.

The civil suit alleges the company has so many undocumented tenants in their buildings that it constitutes unlawful harboring, and should be considered by the courts as a criminal enterprise that encourages illegal immigration.

The suit was brought by The Immigration Reform Law Institute — the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform — which previously backed the nation’s first anti-illegal immigration ordinances in Hazelton, Pa., and Riverside, N.J. A judge overturned the Hazelton ordinance, ruling it unconstitutional, and Riverside rescinded its ordinance, with officials saying the town could not afford the legal costs of defending it.

Flor Gonzalez, head of the Plainfield-based Latin American Coalition, worries that her city may become the latest battleground in the nationwide debate over immigration. She says the suit comes at a time when tensions over the city’s large immigrant population have been rising to a boil, with police ticketing day laborers, a recent spate of beatings and robberies against immigrants, and raids by federal immigration officials.

“This is the worst it’s been. There is a lot of unfriendliness and disrespect against immigrants, and a lot has been happening quietly,” Gonzalez said. “We need big help in this town.”

Plainfield City Council President Harold Gibson said he was unaware of the lawsuit, but that city officials had been trying to address concerns over immigration. He cited as example the city’s efforts to find a solution to the day laborer situation that both respects their right to look for work while addressing quality of life concerns.

“I think that the people in Plainfield, in terms of the city council and the general population, they frown on illegal immigration, they don’t want undocumented persons living in the town generally speaking,” he said. “However, my position is that I don’t think we should set ourselves up as an immigration authority in terms of people who come from other countries and work hard to better themselves and help their families.”

The Plainfield suit was filed against Connolly Properties on behalf of a former Connolly employee and two tenants who are U.S. citizens. The tenants allege they were steered into buildings occupied by illegal immigrants who were too afraid about their legal status to complain about decrepit conditions, according to Mike Hethmon, a lawyer for the group that filed the suit.

Connolly Properties has at least 45 rental complexes in northern New Jersey and Allentown, Pa.

Ron Simoncini, a spokesman for Connolly Properties, said company officials were bewildered as to why they had been targeted in a federal civil RICO lawsuit. He said he could not comment further before filing a response to the lawsuit.

Hethmon said his group decided to take on the case as part of its strategy of “attrition through enforcement,” or urging illegal immigrants to leave the country by making it more difficult for them to find employment and housing in the U.S.

“We have felt for a long time that the racketeering statute would be useful in dealing with situations where businesses and commercial enterprises were heavily involved with illegal immigration,” Hethmon said. “We’ve also felt that individual citizens, communities, neighborhoods and law-abiding small businesses have always needed tools with which they can defend themselves against the harmful affects of illegal immigration.”

Using anti-racketeering laws to prosecute landlords is a legal strategy that immigration experts say they expect to be tried in other parts of the nation.

“I think it’s a new tactic, because some of the other things haven’t worked,” said Donald W. Benson, a lawyer with the labor law firm Littler Mendelson, who has been tracking the use of RICO laws in immigration cases. “Congress couldn’t reach a consensus to reform the immigration laws, states are trying to fill in the gaps and they’re having varied success, and local groups are trying to work through local ordinances, so it’s just one part of a much bigger picture of immigration struggles in the U.S.”

The Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — or RICO — was designed to prosecute organized crime, and was initially used to go after the Mafia and white-collar criminal syndicates. The law was expanded in 1996 to include immigration-related provisions, making things like human trafficking, harboring and smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S. punishable felonies.

Now, lawyers in the Plainfield case — and in a few other cases where employers have been sued under RICO for hiring undocumented workers — are arguing that RICO should be more broadly interpreted to include those who hire or rent housing to illegal immigrants.

Benson said most of the attempts to use RICO in this way have been dismissed by judges in the preliminary stages, but that they were slowly gaining some traction, with one case reaching the settlement stage.

Immigrant advocates in Plainfield said they are concerned that a national anti-illegal immigration group has their city on its radar.

“I have no idea why they picked Plainfield,” said Christian Estevez, a member of the Plainfield school board who also sits on Gov. Corzine’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Immigrant Policy. “This has caught us by surprise.”

Estevez said he and other Plainfield residents are reaching out to national immigration advocacy groups for help.

According to the 2000 census, Plainfield is about 60 percent black, a quarter white and a quarter Hispanic. In the past decade, Gonzalez said there’s been a dramatic influx of Hispanic immigrants, mostly from Central America.

Plainfield Mayor Sharon M. Robinson-Briggs said she was not aware of the particulars of the lawsuit, but said immigrants deserved respect, regardless of their status.

“All our residents deserve to be treated fairly and equitably, whether they are born here or not,” she said.

Gonzalez, who does not live in a Connolly property, said she was also working to craft a response the suit on behalf of immigrants in Plainfield.

“The people in this town have to understand — I speak with an accent, I think with an accent, and when I tell them my name is Flor Gonzalez, they hear ‘Gonzalez’ and they assume I’m undocumented,” said Gonzalez, who is a legal resident. “You can say anything you want about me, but you’ll need to prove it. I don’t think they’ll be able to win.”

NEW YORK (IPS/GIN) — As people rush in and out of butcher shops and bakeries on Brooklyn’s Eighth Avenue, He Zhanglao tries to get their attention. The tall, blond missionary speaks in clear Mandarin, and listens carefully to their replies.

The Mormon missionary, whose real name is Trevor Hess, sticks out in this part of Sunset Park, which is home to many Chinese immigrants. Though he’s studying Chinese, he has no plans to visit China, which bars Mormons from doing missionary work. He was instead sent to proselytize in a Chinatown.

Hess, whose Chinese name means “Elder He,” is one of several Mormon missionaries assigned to Sunset Park. Dressed in black or gray suits with small nametags pinned to their jackets, they are easy to spot in a neighborhood where a quarter of the population is Asian. Chinese attendance at the church that the Mormons opened here five years ago has grown noticeably.

“It started with no more than 20 members and now has 80 to 100 weekly attendants,” said Hess, who has worked here for about two years.

Getting those results wasn’t easy. Hess works the street for at least 20 hours a week.

He grew up in a Mormon family in Tremonton City, a tiny town in northern Utah. He studied microbiology and anatomy, and entered a pre-dental program at Weber State University in nearby Ogden, Utah. At 19, he decided to become a Mormon “elder” and missionary.

“I grew up as a member of the church and saw others go away as missionaries, and saw how it changed their lives,” Hess said.

To prepare, he studied at the church’s Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. For three months he attended workshops on how to teach the gospel, and he learned Chinese. Everything else he had to learn on his own.

“They give you enough so you can start. You go out and speak it every day,” Hess said.

Then he had to deal with culture shock, seeing as there is no real Asian community in Tremonton. “I think, ‘Wow, I would have never seen that if I was back in Utah,’” said Hess’ partner, Mont Toronto.

The men have found that newer immigrants, mostly from China’s Fujian province, are more willing to listen to them than immigrants who have lived in the United States longer.

“It varies, from shock that this white guy’s talking to them, to the hand in the face if they don’t want to talk to you,” Hess said.

Residents said they were surprised to see Hess and other Mormons around the neighborhood but added that they have grown used to them.

“At first, to see these tall white people speaking in Chinese was a bit of a surprise,” said Hui Guan, a mother of two and a 20-year neighborhood resident, speaking in Chinese. “After some time, though, I stopped paying attention, because I wasn’t interested.”

That doesn’t mean some residents haven’t absorbed the Mormon message. “A lot of Chinese people know about Christianity,” Hess said.

The Mormon Church purports to have some 50,000 full-time missionaries worldwide, most of them young people under the age of 25. In the United States, it has churches that cater specifically to Chinese Americans in California, New York, Texas and Washington D.C.

Missionary work by various churches and outreach groups in U.S. Chinese communities is increasing.

“I’ve lived here for 11 years, and I think most of the churches already had programs for the Chinese when I first moved here,” said Shao Mei Liang, whose daughter takes part in the children’s activities offered by the 2nd Evangelical Free Church near her home.

The New Life Gospel Church has been working with the Chinese community in Sunset Park since 1994.

“We have English classes given twice a week. An American teacher teaches it, and we currently average 25 students,” said Siu Pik Lau, a member of the New Life Gospel Church’s committee.

Lau has also noticed a significant change in her church’s constituency, as the Sunset Park Chinese community changes.

“Before it was mixed with Cantonese and some mainland Mandarin-speaking people, but now it’s primarily Fujianese,” Lau said. “A big part of the Cantonese has moved away.”

Rapid changes in the Chinese economy have opened the country up to different religious ideologies. Though China bans Mormon missionaries, the Mormons maintain U.S. churches in China and have followers in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

After Hess finishes his assignment in Brooklyn, he hopes to travel, then to resume his pre-dental university studies. But he doesn’t plan to do business in China.

“I have no interest in business,” Hess said. “I’ll probably become an orthodontist. Maybe an orthodontist for Chinese people.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hispanic women born in the United States are more likely to have children out of wedlock than women who are immigrant Hispanics or non-Hispanics, according to an analysis released by Pew Hispanic Center Thursday.

Hispanic women generally, both U.S.-born and immigrants, have higher fertility rates than non Hispanics — 84 births per 1,000 Hispanic women compared with 63 per 1,000 non-Hispanic women.

The differences can also be found between Hispanic women born in this country — 73 births per 1,000 women — and immigrant Hispanic women — 96 per 1,000 women.

Hispanics are 15.1 percent of the U.S. population, according to Census data released last week. Their numbers are growing more because of births than immigration.

One in four children under 5 years old in the United States is Hispanic, the Census Bureau reported. These numbers are likely to fuel growth of the Hispanic population in this country.

One of the more surprising findings in the Pew study was the difference in out-of-wedlock births when comparing Hispanic women born in this country and Hispanic women who are immigrants.

Half of all births to Hispanic women born in this country were to single mothers, according to Pew research. About 35 percent of immigrant Hispanic women who gave birth were unmarried, nearly equal to the rate for non-Hispanic women. The study provided no reasons for the differences in out-of-wedlock rates.

The Pew study looked at many aspects of Hispanic women, showing contrasts not only between Hispanic and non-Hispanic women, but also between Hispanic women born in this country and immigrant Hispanic women.

“They are not just mothers. They also are workers, neighbors, daughters, sisters. They are citizens,” said Felisa Gonzalez, the chief researcher for the analysis.

The analysis also found:

• Hispanic women born in this country are more likely than non-Hispanic women to be in the work force.

• Hispanic women born in this country working full-time earn less — $540 per week — than non-Hispanic women working full time, who earn $615 per week. Immigrant Hispanic women working full-time earn an average $400 per week.

• Almost half of Hispanic women immigrants have less than a high school education. About 46 percent of Hispanic women born in this country have at least some college education.

CHICAGO (AP) — Thousands of chanting, flag-waving activists rallied in cities across the country last week, attempting to reinvigorate calls for immigration reform in a presidential election year in which the economy has taken center stage. 

From Washington to Miami to Los Angeles, activists demanded citizenship opportunities for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and an end to raids and deportations. 

“We come here to fight for legalization. We’re people. We have rights,” said Eric Molina, an undocumented factory worker who immigrated to Zion, Ill., from Mexico. 

Molina, his sister and his 13-year-old daughter Erika, a U.S. citizen, were among about 15,000 people who rallied in Chicago in one of the largest demonstrations of the day. 

Turnout has fallen sharply since the first nationwide rallies in 2006, when more than 1 million people — at least 400,000 in Chicago alone — clogged streets and brought downtown traffic to a standstill. Activists say this year’s efforts are focused less on protests and more on voter registration and setting an agenda for the next president. 

Some said participation likely was lower because many immigrants increasingly fear deportation. 

Margot Veranes, a volunteer organizer in Tucson, Ariz., — where 12,000 took to the streets last year but early estimates Thursday put the crowd at about 500 — blamed the turnout on aggressive enforcement by Border Patrol and police. 

“People have been stopped and deported in the last week. This is a community living in fear,” said Veranes, a researcher for the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades. “You never know when you’re going to be stopped by Border Patrol and now the police.” 

But she said that’s also why people were marching. 

“We’re marching to end the raids and the deportations, but we’re also marching for health care and education and good jobs,” she said. 

Steamy downtown Houston saw between 300 and 400 marchers, including Victor Ibarra, 38, who said he entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico 15 years ago and remains undocumented although he’s tried to attain legal status for the past seven years. 

“I’m here because we need immigration reform immediately,” Ibarra said, wearing handcuffs and chains. “We need to be able to travel and be free.” 

In Washington, immigrant rights groups and social justice organizations were demanding that Prince William County, in northern Virginia, rescind its anti-illegal immigration measure. They also called for an end to raids and deportations and for establishment of worker centers in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. 

Activists also asked the Republican and Democratic national committees to have their presidential candidates enact immigration reform. 

A crowd of about 1,000 gathered on the steps of the Oregon Capitol in Salem to call for changes in immigration and workplace laws within the first 100 days of the next congressional session. Many demanded that Oregon reverse a decision, imposed by the Legislature in February, to require proof of legal residence to get a driver’s license. 

Hugo Orozzo, a 17-year-old high school senior, was among hundreds who marched through the streets of southwest Detroit. He was born in the U.S., but his father was born in Mexico and some other family members are originally from Mexico. 

“It is going to help my family and friends,” Orozzo said of the effort. He carried a preprinted sign that read: “Stop raids and deportations that separate families!” in both English and Spanish. 

In Miami, 75 people marched to the regional immigration offices from the Little Haiti neighborhood. Among them was Elvira Carbajal, who came from Mexico more than a decade ago and is a U.S. citizen but said many of her family members are not. 

“They are going to grow up with this anger of the government for the loss of their parents, parents who were simply trying to give them a better life,” she said. 

In San Francisco, protesters Marta Acuchi and her husband Jose, from Michoacan, Mexico, closed their child daycare center to march with about 400 others. 

“We need to fix the legal situation of immigrants,” she said. “Even if it’s not this year legislators are seeing we’re still here, we’re still marching, we’re still knocking on their door.” 

And in Milwaukee, factory worker Miguel Tesillos, 29, was among hundreds who lined sidewalks waiting for the march to begin. 

“Our people, we pay taxes, we pay the same as a citizen,” said Tesillos, who has a Green Card. “Maybe the new president can see this point, and do something for us.” 

But activists say they know it will be a challenge to push their issues to the political forefront. 

Immigration reform did not resonate with voters in primary elections who overwhelmingly listed the economy as their top concern. Immigration legislation has stalled and been defeated in the Senate, and presidential candidates have not extensively addressed the issues. 

Democratic presidential rivals Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supported a 2006 bill, sponsored by Republican candidate John McCain, that offered illegal immigrants legal status on conditions such as learning English. All three also have supported a border fence. 

In New York, thousands marched through the streets of lower Manhattan before converging on Union Square. While the theme of rights for immigrants and workers dominated the rally, other causes were on full display. 

There were protesters decrying the U.S. occupation in Iraq and critics of the recent acquittal of three New York Police Department officers in the November 2006 killing of unarmed groom-to-be Sean Bell. 

Joyce Russell, 54, clutched two large signs. One read, “Justice for Sean Bell.” The other said, “No raids,” criticized raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

“When I came to this country, I did things here I never did in my country,” said Russell, who immigrated from Trinidad 22 years ago. She spoke of scrubbing floors on her hands and knees and caring for babies. “You work as a slave, non-stop. If I had it to do all over again I would not come to America.” 

In Chicago, 17-year-old Celeste Rodarte marched with a group of her friends from the city’s West Side. She said her parents came to the United States more than 20 years ago and became citizens last year. 

“I know a lot of people who don’t have papers and I want to help them out,” Rodarte said. 

Seventh-grader Vicente Campos of Milwaukee was granted an excused absence from school to attend the march. He said he was concerned by stories of immigration officials separating parents and children. 

“Immigrants come here to support their families in Mexico,” said Campos, 13. “They’re not all here to do crimes.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak and two colleagues pleaded last week for more visas for seasonal workers they said are needed immediately by seafood processors, resorts and other businesses in their districts. Some of those operations could close or lose a lot of money this spring and summer because there are not enough visas, known as H-2B visas, for the temporary nonagricultural workers they need, the lawmakers told the House Judiciary immigration subcommittee. “Not having H-2B workers will significantly affect the businesses within my district and their ability to keep a professional, trained and dependable work force,” said Stupak, D-Menominee. He was joined by Rep. Tim Bishop, D-N.Y. and Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md. Prospects for relief are uncertain. Attempts to increase H2B visas are trapped in the debate over immigration reform. House negotiations on the issue and a pending immigration enforcement bill broke down before the Easter recess. Supporters of a more sweeping immigration bill oppose the piecemeal approach, while opponents of guestworker programs argue it would hurt American workers. Passing any bill raising foreign workers’ numbers also is a prickly undertaking in an election year. The hearing occurred on the same day Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided Pilgrims Pride poultry plants and Shipley Do-Nuts in Houston in search of undocumented workers. “This issue is collapsing on us,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. “This is one of the most difficult times to move (on the businesses) because we are in a fragile economic state.” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said Congress has not shied away from fortifying U.S. borders, including providing $3 billion emergency border security funding last year. “This Congress has acted quite a bit on border security and interior immigration enforcement, but has not yet acted much in the area of addressing immigration policy fixes,” she said. Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Detroit, suggested policy fixes may have to come piecemeal. “I am thrilled that some people are still talking about comprehensive reform,” said Conyers. “If I can figure out how that is going to happen, before we start breaking this thing down, I will be a developed and dedicated student to whomever is still arguing that.”

MIAMI (AP) — An Ecuadorean couple facing deportation are appealing an immigration judge’s refusal to hear their claim that they were unfairly targeted because their daughter is an immigration activist.

The parents of Gabby Pacheco, 23, a Miami-Dade College student, say they were “selectively targeted” for deportation after Pacheco spoke out about rights for illegal immigrants. Pacheco is in the U.S. legally, but her parents and two adult sisters are in deportation proceedings because they overstayed their visas.

Attorney Geoffrey Hoffman filed the appeal Friday on behalf of the couple, Gustavo Enrique Pacheco and Maria de Fatima Pacheco Santos, and their two older daughters.

He said the case touches on several constitutional issues including Pacheco’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression and, more directly, the alleged violation of the family’s rights to due process and against unreasonable search and seizure.

U.S. Immigration Judge Carey Holliday had refused to hear their arguments. Pacheco “freely chose to draw unwanted attention to herself and her family,” he wrote in a March 18 response. “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”

Hoffman hopes the Board of Immigration Appeals will see things differently. Selective prosecution cases are difficult to prove but can be brought when government agents demonstrate “outrageous conduct,” he argues.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to comment on the case, citing the pending litigation. But they have said “those who are in violation of U.S. law should not be surprised if they are arrested.”

Pacheco has long spoken out in favor of immigration changes, including one that would allow most students brought to the country illegally as young children to eventually become citizens.

The 2006 raid of the Pacheco home came months after demonstrations across the nation — many led by students — to protest an immigration bill that later failed in Congress.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A new study estimates that Oklahoma’s anti-illegal immigration law will cause $1.8 billion in economic losses as foreign-born workers flee the state.
The projection is based on 50,000 workers, both documented and undocumented, leaving Oklahoma, causing a 1.3 percent reduction in the gross state product over the next few years.
The Oklahoma Bankers Association said it has no stand on the immigration measure, but commissioned the study after reports from banks of problems incurred by companies that employ immigrant workers.
One restaurant that had been making $5,000 payments to a bank each month closed its doors, construction projects have been delayed because of a lack of workers and farm workers have disappeared, banking officials said.
Oklahoma’s House Bill 1804, written by Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, took effect Nov. 1, preventing undocumented immigrants from obtaining driver’s licenses and public services.
It criminalized transporting, concealing or harboring them, and eventually will require employers to check immigration status of prospective employees through an online federal program.
State lawmakers around the country are proposing hundreds of bills this year aimed at curbing illegal immigration, including lawmakers in at least eight states sponsoring legislation similar to Oklahoma’s
While the OBA took no position on the Oklahoma measure’s social policy, “bankers do have concerns about unintended consequences that have come as a result of the bill,” said Don Abernathy, chairman of the association.
“That’s the reason we decided to commission this study, to better understand the facts and get a better handle on the costs to the state’s economy and to bank customers,” he said.
The study, by the Economic Impact Group of Edmond, Okla., was based on Oklahoma having a total foreign-born population of 111,000 to 175,000, with an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 being undocumented workers, mainly from Mexico. The state has an overall population of 3.5 million.
According to officials who conducted the study, Oklahoma’s economic losses will build over the next few years, before a slight recovery in the state gross product as new workers move into the state.
Officials said the study is consistent with similar analyses performed in Texas.
Hispanic leaders have estimated that more than 20,000 undocumented workers, mostly in the Tulsa area, fled the state ahead of the bill taking effect.
Terrill questioned the study’s conclusions after a cursory review of it. He said his legislation was geared toward “an attrition through enforcement approach,” with no mass exodus of undocumented workers expected.
He said, however, the intent of the bill was to have illegal workers leave Oklahoma for other states and there is antidotal evidence that is happening. “We still have no hard numbers,” he said.
Terrill called the report “one of the best reports that money can buy to take shots at House Bill 1804.”
“This debate is about a whole lot more than just economics,” he said. “It is about defending the rule of law, it is about upholding our state and national sovereignty and it’s also about the immorality of employing cheap, illegal labor.”
The lawmaker said an anti-illegal immigration group has estimated Oklahoma loses more than $200 million in state revenue through education, medical and other benefits paid to illegal workers and their families.
Terrill said the OBA report does not account for those benefits in projecting economic losses to the state.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Oklahoma statute as interfering with federal immigration law.