AMERICA UNITED MANO al HERMANO

2008-12-08T16:02:00.002-05:00

A life in the shadows
Sunday, December 7
(updated Monday, December 8, 5:41 am)
By Jason Hardin Staff Writer

How do immigrants come here legally?
About 1 million people a year obtain legal permanent resident status in the United States, far fewer than the number who come here or want to come here.
The vast majority of legal immigrants come through a few set paths. For many people who want to come here, there is no realistic path to immigrate legally.
The most common method is having a relative — a child, parent, spouse, brother or sister — who is a citizen or a legal permanent resident. About 700,000 people qualified in this category in 2007.

Another method is through employment. This requires that the employer request a visa for the immigrant. Only about 160,000 people gained permanent resident status this way in 2007. Priority is given to those with “extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics.” For workers classified as unskilled, the chances of getting in this way are poor.
Then there are refugees and asylees. This method is open only to someone “who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her country of nationality because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” About 135,000 people fit into this category in 2007.
Another method involves granting visas to immigrants to create jobs through investing their own money. This method can require investments of at least $500,000. This group numbered less than 1,000 in 2007.

Finally, there is the “diversity lottery.” This method allows 55,000 people who come from countries with low rates of immigration to receive visas. This excludes immigrants from countries such as Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam.

These are not the only methods of legal entry, but other methods are comparatively rare. Often, cases are not clear-cut, and immigration law can be complex.
Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Imagine leaving your house in the morning and wondering if you’ll make it back that night.
Imagine living somewhere for as long as you can remember, then suddenly being ripped away from your loved ones without warning.

Imagine being afraid to talk to the police, to go to a health clinic, to make a wrong turn on the way to the grocery store.
Imagine fear.

To be an undocumented immigrant is to live in a constant state of worry. And with high-profile cases of massive stings and longtime residents finding themselves caught up in a crackdown, those fears are legitimate.

The federal government removed more undocumented immigrants in the past year than any in history — nearly 350,000 in the 12 months ending Sept. 30.
And increasingly, the federal effort is being aided by a new program that essentially deputizes local law officers as federal immigration agents.

To be sure, those on the side of getting tough on illegal immigration note that immigrants put themselves in that position. That no one forced them to come here.
But advocates for immigrants say the crackdown is driving immigrants into the shadows, making them a separate community and fostering crime and alienation.
And, they say, they came for a better life, just as the ancestors of current citizens did. If there were any way to come legally, they would.

Regardless of the debate, the reality is that they are here.
Living in fear.

“Most people think about it every single morning,” one immigrant says. “They think, 'Let me come back to my house tonight.’ ”

A family separated
Moises Campos Palencia was on his way to realizing the American dream — a wife, a young daughter, a business he started from scratch.Until it all fell apart at a traffic light in High Point a few months ago. A police officer pulled him over, saying he’d turned left on red. The next thing Palencia knew, he was in a detention center in Georgia, awaiting deportation.
Although he had lived in the United States since he was a boy, brought here by his parents, Palencia hadn’t been able to attain citizenship, despite his efforts. He planned to try again as soon as his wife obtained her citizenship — which she did a few weeks after he was detained.Now their lives are turned upside down. Palencia has been deported.
His wife, Nayelli Rojas Campos, worries whether she’ll be able to keep up the business, a car audio store on High Point Road.Even more, she worries about their daughter.
“She tells me, 'Mommy, I miss my daddy,’” she said.

The family’s story gives nightmares to countless undocumented immigrants across the Triad. The federal government estimated that nearly 400,000 undocumented immigrants were living in North Carolina in 2007.

One such immigrant, Carlos, a man who came here from Mexico and now lives in Greensboro, said that recent events such as the imminent deportation of Marxavi Angel Martinez, an Alamance County librarian discovered after she visited the health department, have cranked up the paranoia.

The librarian’s arrest came on the heels of a much-publicized roadblock Aug. 8 that many worried was meant to snare undocumented immigrants.

“People were scared,” said Carlos, who did not want to reveal his real name. “There was panic within the Hispanic community.”

Many fear losing all they have built here.

Carlos came here more than a decade ago after he lost his job in Mexico and could not find work. Like immigrants from England or Ireland in previous waves of immigration, he saw opportunity in the United States. There was no way to come legally.

“There was only one goal,” he said. “Work.”

At first, life was brutally difficult. He took off one day a month, spent nights sleeping in the back of a restaurant, even in a van, until it grew too cold.

He decided he needed to learn English after being embarrassed at a McDonald’s when he couldn’t order a hamburger without onions, so he taught himself by watching CNN.
He now has built himself a decent life. He lives in a nice house he has gradually furnished. He is respected by co-workers. He loves to read history, he dreams his daughter will go to college, he wonders if he’ll see his dad, who is ailing and still lives in Mexico, again.
And he could lose it all in a moment. He never stops worrying.
“Every day,” he said.

Carlos mentions a man who called a law enforcement agency for help, gave a false name and wound up being deported.

“When people read that, people get scared,” he said. “I’m not going to call the police.”
Right now, the looming issue for Carlos is his driver’s license, which expires this month. The state has made it much more difficult for undocumented immigrants to get licenses, and he is not sure what he will do when it expires.

“If we have to go to work, we have to drive,” he said.
He’s a careful driver, with no accidents. But even getting in a crash that isn’t his fault could be disastrous.

“I’ll be watching my mirrors all the time,” he said.

Living in the shadows
Kathy Hinshaw gets the calls all the time now.
Is it safe to go to Walmart? Is it safe to see a doctor?

Hinshaw, who came here from Peru, works at UNCG’s Center for New North Carolinians, where she helps immigrants trying to make their way in a new country.
Increasingly, she talks with undocumented immigrants who are scared they’ll be rounded up.
“People are calling and saying, 'Is it safe for me?’ And I don’t know,” she said. “Right now, people are living in constant fear. They are driving only to work. And that is no life.”
Ultimately, that fear is driving the immigrant community into the shadows.
“You think about what I’m going to do tonight, what am I going to cook? But they are thinking, 'Are they going to catch me here?’” Hinshaw said. “The more that fear increases, the more the community will withdraw from participating and being part of the society.”
Traditionally, immigrants to the United States have blended into society. That process hasn’t always been smooth or easy, but over time, it has helped an astonishingly diverse population find common ground — if not necessarily the melting pot of myth, at least a tossed salad.
That has helped the United States avoid the dangerous divides found in some other countries, where huge immigrant communities exist almost completely separately from the societies they inhabit.

Problems arise when young people feel alienated, as if they have no options and no respect. And that’s exactly what is happening here now.

“They are receiving the message that you don’t belong here, that you are nothing,” Hinshaw said, adding that such hopelessness can give birth to crime and gang activity.

At the same time, immigrant advocates say, the crackdown is driving a wedge between immigrants and law enforcement.

Many worry that if they interact with an officer, even as a victim or witness of a crime, they could be deported.

That fear makes immigrants easier targets, advocates say, because criminals may reason that they can prey on them without consequence.

At the same time, the possibility of being picked up by authorities creates a heightened sense of anxiety.

Many who want a crackdown on undocumented immigrants employ a strategy to make life as unpleasant as possible, said Mark Sills, executive director of FaithAction International House, a nonprofit that works with immigrants.

Ultimately, that strategy accomplishes little but creating misery, he said. For immigrants fleeing places where they can’t find work, can’t provide for their families, there is little choice but to endure the indignities, Sills said.

Thanks to rich subsidies for American agribusiness, rural farmers in developing countries can’t compete on the global market and find themselves out of work.
“They can’t survive where they are if they’re going to feed their families,” Sills said. “And there’s only one direction. They can’t go west. They can’t go south. They can’t go east. They can only go north.”

Hoping for change
In many ways, the immigration debate in the United States has calcified in recent years. The failure of immigration bills to pass has left both sides in a bitter stalemate.
That might soon change.

With a new president and with changes in Congress, major immigration legislation likely will be debated in the coming months.

While the particulars — amnesty for current residents, a “guest worker” program, more wall-building — will be debated, no one on either side seems happy with the status quo.
Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes said the federal government needs to do more. More Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are needed, he said, and we need to do a better job processing those who want to come.

Jeremy McKinney, an attorney who specializes in immigration law, wants to see a major rethinking of immigration policy.
“The government is being asked to enforce a fundamentally flawed set of laws,” he said.
Despite common perception, for many immigrants, there simply is no way to come here legally, he said. Forget waiting in line — for many, there is no line.
The country once had a guest worker program that worked well, McKinney said. Immigrants could come, work, then return home. In the meantime, they didn’t have to live in fear.
Even many law enforcement officers want changes.

Randy Jones, a spokesman for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Department, said he strongly opposes amnesty, but that the citizenship process needs to move faster.
“None of us opposes having an easier path to citizenship,” Jones said. “It needs to be streamlined.”

Regardless, there still will be the issue of what to do with those who currently live here illegally.
Carlos, the longtime resident, remains optimistic that immigration reform will soon come.
“Hopefully, one day, I could become legal. I could become a citizen,” he said. “I’d be ready for it and I’d be proud to fit myself into society.”

In the meantime, he hopes he doesn’t get caught. He wants to stay. And he wants a life free of fear.
This is home.

“I love this country so much. American people are some of the most kind people in the world. Now, I have a lot of friends. American people,” Carlos said. “Good friends, that I really consider as my brothers.”
But there’s always that fear.

“It’s not easy living under the shadows.”

Contact Jason Hardin at 373-7021 or at jason.hardin@news-record.com

A danger that she grasps

2008-08-01T14:51:00.002-04:00

Sheehan: Published: Aug 01, 2008 12:30 AM Modified: Aug 01, 2008 05:26 AM

Ruth Sheehan, Staff Writer

One of the last great fictions of the illegal immigration crackdown in North Carolina is this:
Oh, we're not going to start just rounding people up.

Then comes yet another horror story out of Alamance County -- the tale of a library worker who has lived in this country since she was a toddler, arrested at her job, while doing her job.

Suddenly the line between identifying and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes and simply rounding up people known to be illegal immigrants is beginning to blur.

No one recognizes the line fading more clearly than former state Rep. Ruth Cook.

"We're living in dangerous times," she said.

Cook, the first woman to represent Wake County in the legislature, has been a strong voice for progressive causes since the 1950s. She also knows something about dangerous times.

At age 9, Cook was a passenger on one of the last two "Kindertransport" trains that rescued Jewish children from Nazi Germany.

Unlike millions of Jews who perished in the Holocaust, Cook's parents got her, and themselves, out of Germany before World War II started.

Because of the United States' strict immigration policy in the late '30s, her parents landed temporarily in Cuba, where they worked on a Quaker farm. They were admitted to the United States in 1941.

Cook and 36 other children from her transport were taken to England and sheltered in a children's home in Cornwall. She was finally reunited with her mother and father in New York in 1943, when she was 14 years old.

For those who justify their view that illegal immigrants deserve whatever they get in this country because they've broken the law by coming here, Cook remembers all too clearly what it meant to be "illegal" in Germany.

Jews were not allowed to go to certain places or do certain things.

Her point: Sometimes there are laws -- but not all laws are just.

The facts that here in North Carolina we prohibit illegal immigrants from being trained and licensed drivers and that we may prohibit their children from attending community college infuriate Cook.

"Some of these people have been here since they were babies," she said. "I think this is a racist issue."

Of course, in Nazi Germany, the xenophobic, anti-Jewish, "master race" sentiment was coming straight from the nation's rulers.

Here, federal immigration laws and enforcement are such a confused mess that the immigration quagmire is being sorted out county by county and community by community.

Hence the situation involving the Alamance County library worker.

"Here's a woman who has lived here all her life, who has done nothing wrong," Cook said. "Her child is an American citizen. We're going to deport her?

"People say, 'Well, that is the law.' But the law in Germany put Jews in the ovens."

To be clear, Cook is not drawing a direct comparison between North Carolina now and Nazi Germany then.

But the stories of mistreatment of "undesirables" do resonate.

She believes, as I do, that people of conscience cannot sit by and let the immigration morass work itself out.

She knows from experience what can happen when they do.

ruth.sheehan@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4828© Copyright 2008, The News & Observer Publishing Company

A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company

Librarian charged with being illegal alien

2008-08-01T14:47:00.000-04:00

Published: July 30, 2008 at 3:36 PM
GRAHAM, N.C., July 30 (UPI) -- A North Carolina librarian who allegedly lived illegally in the United States since she was a toddler has been charged with using a fake Social Security number.

Marxavi Angel Martinez, 23, was arrested at the library in Alamance County, the Raleigh News & Sentinel reports. She faces four federal felony charges.

Sheriff Terry Johnson, who has been aggressively targeting illegal immigrants, has said that the arrest was related to an investigation of the county health department. The state Bureau of Investigation has been looking into allegations that health department employees wrote notes excusing illegal immigrants from work using names different from those on their medical records.

Randy Jones, a spokesman for the sheriff said that Martinez lied on her application to work at the library.

"That is not a situation where you can say, 'We're not going to tell anybody,' " Jones said.

But people who know Martinez say that a young woman in her situation should not be treated like a criminal.

"To go after productive citizens who have been our neighbors and friends for years? It's insane," said Marilyn Tyler, a retired librarian. "We can't just stand by and let this happen."

U.S. to urge 'fugitive aliens' to surrender

2008-08-01T14:44:00.000-04:00

Story Highlights
Three-week surrender program offered to immigrants ordered to leave U.S.

Those who surrender would get up to 90 days to leave country, no detention

Program to run in five U.S. cities starting Tuesday

Immigrant advocacy group calls program a "gimmick"

From Mike Ahlers
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. immigration officials, taking a new tack to solve an old, intractable problem, say they will give "fugitive aliens" in certain cities incentives to surrender during a three-week period in August.

The program will give fugitive aliens -- people who have been ordered by immigration courts to leave the United States -- up to 90 days after surrendering to get their affairs in order before departing the country.

For those without sufficient financial means, the program also will make arrangements for them to leave the United States. And the program will allow fugitive aliens to avoid detention pending their removal, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Wednesday.

It will also create a record documenting when they left the country, information that would be necessary should the person ever seek to return legally.

The pilot program, which will start Tuesday and run through August 22 in five U.S. cities, could be expanded to other cities, said Jim Hayes, ICE's acting director for detention and removal.

The participating cities are Santa Ana, California; San Diego, California; Chicago, Illinois; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Phoenix, Arizona.

As many as 500,000 fugitive aliens are believed to be in the United States, Hayes said, but he wouldn't guess how many would self-report under the program.

Last year, the government removed about 30,000 fugitive aliens using traditional methods, which include searching for the immigrants and following up on chance encounters they have with police.

One immigrant advocacy group called the program a "gimmick" Wednesday and said it is unlikely many people will enroll.

"I don't see the advantage," said Douglas Rivlin of the National Immigration Forum. "If you're really thinking about leaving the country anyway, I don't see the advantage of stopping into your local ICE office on your way to the airport."

He said many fugitive aliens do not even know they are under a deportation order.

"Hearings are held in absentia. [The government] is just notoriously bad in having the wrong name and address for people. So it's not quite as neat and clean as they say," he said. "It's possible that some folks who are on the verge of [deportation] will come forward, but I find it really unlikely."

Hayes said the program is in response to complaints from community groups and immigrant advocacy groups that ICE has been heavy-handed in its treatment of illegal immigrants during recent crackdowns and about conditions at detention facilities.

Some of the groups have said immigrants would leave the country willingly if given the chance, Hayes said.

Under the program, ICE will publicize a toll-free telephone number that fugitive aliens can call to arrange appointments with ICE case officers. ICE officers will meet with the aliens and determine on a case-by-case basis how long the person can remain in the United States.

ICE will gather biographic information and fingerprints from the aliens and, for those who are not criminals or deemed to be threats to the community, will give them up to 90 days to leave the country, depending upon how long each person needs to get their affairs in order, Hayes said.

A case officer will verify the person's departure at the airport or land port of entry, he said.

The toll-free phone number will be announced next week after it is operational, he said.

"We're excited. We're hopeful this is going to be a successful operation," Hayes said.

He said ICE will continue its regular enforcement actions.

"This is not something that we're doing in lieu of regularly scheduled or other [operations]," Hayes said.

The program does not apply to other illegal immigrants, those who have not been ordered removed by a court.

"We are not going to turn away any individual," Hayes said, but non-fugitive immigrants may or may not be detained, depending on "their particular history and particular immigration history."

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Immigration Discussion at UU Congregation on 27th

2008-07-22T13:48:00.001-04:00

Our national immigration policy and system is broken and few if any steps are being taken to fix it. As a result, states, counties and even towns are taking things in their own hands and making regulations that impact undocumented workers. This Sunday, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Outer Banks in Kitty Hawk, at 10:30 am., Nancy Proctor will facilitate a discussion on the issues of immigration in North Carolina, and local counties and towns. We won’t be talking about what should be in a national immigration policy but how the lack of a federal policy and the implementation of state and county regulations intersect with Unitarian Universalist values of the inherent worth and dignity of every person, justice, compassion, and our interdependence with each other. In preparation you might want to read UU Social Witness Statements, North Carolina Religious Coalition Statements, and the National League of Women Voters Statement. You can visit the blog of local information at American United.

House Rebuffs REAL ID

2008-07-20T03:53:00.000-04:00

House rebuffs REAL ID law
Rules not funded by Congress

The state House voted Wednesday to rebuff a congressional mandate that the state make its driver's licenses more secure, because the federal government did not provide money to enact the changes.
The measure, tentatively approved 72-43 after a heated debate, effectively says North Carolina will not comply with the REAL ID Act without federal funding.

The congressional plan was approved after officials learned that some Sept. 11 terrorists held driver's licenses.

Proponents of the federal law say the stringent security checks it mandates will keep government-issued identification cards out of the wallets of terrorists and illegal immigrants.

But state taxpayers would have to pay $21 million each year through 2017 to comply, in addition to a $20 million software upgrade, said bill sponsor Rep. Nelson Cole, a Reidsville Democrat. He criticized the federal government for requiring states to implement the security checks -- some of which he called a "tremendous burden" -- without offering to foot the bill.

"Without the necessary appropriations and the passing-through of funds to us to make it happen, we cannot do it," Cole said while urging House members to approve the plan.

North Carolina has already spent $4.1 million on implementing some changes from the REAL ID Act, Cole said.

If approved by the Senate and signed into law, Cole's plan would forbid the state from putting more resources into complying with the congressional measure.

But North Carolina would still be allowed to apply for and receive federal grants which could be used to bring the state into compliance. The state has applied for some grants but has yet to receive them, Cole has said.

Rep. Joe Boylan, a Pinehurst Republican, said residents' lives would be greatly interrupted should North Carolina not comply with the REAL ID Act.

For example, if the federal government does not recognize North Carolina identification cards as valid, lawyers won't be able to enter federal courthouses, Boylan said.

"This has much farther implications than just thumbing our nose at Washington, D.C.," Boylan said.

To date, 10 states have officially "opted-out" of the federal plan, by passing laws saying that their agencies will not comply with the law, according to data collected by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Others have passed ceremonial resolutions criticizing the program.

With legislators rushing toward adjournment, it's unclear whether the General Assembly has enough time to pass the bill and send it to Gov. Mike Easley.

The bill awaits a final vote in the House; approval would send it to the Senate for consideration.

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Death Threats

2008-07-20T03:47:00.001-04:00

Published: Jul 19, 2008 12:30 AM
Modified: Jul 19, 2008 03:57 AM
Hispanic leaders fear for safety
Ugly side of debate emerges in threats

Hispanic leaders fear for safety
Ugly side of debate emerges in threats

Kristin Collins, Staff WriterComment on this story For North Carolina's Hispanic leaders, the biggest hazards of the job were once long hours. Now, they include death threats.
A pair of the state's most prominent advocates, Andrea Bazán and Tony Asion, say that for the past several months, each time they have spoken publicly, they have gotten a raft of profanity-laced messages, some of them exhorting them to return to their home countries and others denigrating Hispanics. Several legislators say they have also gotten messages recently that cross the line into racism, and one got a menacing voice mail.
Threats of violence are becoming common enough that Bazán, president of the philanthropic Triangle Community Foundation, has requested protection at some public appearances. Asion, director of the Raleigh Hispanic advocacy group El Pueblo and a former police officer, said he has received two handwritten death threats at his office since May.
"This is not about immigration," Bazán said. "This is not about debating policy. This has moved on to another sphere. This is hate."
Bazán and others say they've gotten disturbing hate mail before. A 2005 effort to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants brought reams of it, but that furor died down fairly quickly. Now, they say, threats and racist messages are becoming routine.
State legislators who supported a bill this year that would have guaranteed illegal immigrants the right to attend state colleges got a raft of messages, some of which smeared immigrants.
Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat who sponsored the bill, said she received one phone message warning that "my days are numbered." She said the message, which included profane insults, felt like a threat.
"I have not seen anything like what illegal immigration elicits," Harrison said. "It's revealing a very ugly side of humanity that I've never seen before."
Beyond the crackdown
Immigration has become an especially controversial subject in North Carolina and across the nation, fueled by the failure of a federal immigration reform bill last year.
Since then, sheriff's departments have started enforcing immigration law, the state's community colleges have barred admission to illegal immigrants, grassroots groups opposing illegal immigration have grown and some politicians have made an immigration crackdown the centerpiece of their campaigns.
Even those who have advocated a crackdown say they don't condone hate mail or threats.
"Certainly, any kind of threatening or antagonistic tone to any debate is unwarranted," said Brian Nick, spokesman for Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who has joined with sheriffs to push for the deportation of illegal immigrants who commit crimes.
But some say anti-illegal immigration activists have given the impression that Hispanics are to blame for all of society's ills, including crime, illness and unemployment.
Deborah Lauter, director of civil rights for the Anti-Defamation League, a New York group founded in 1913 to combat prejudice against Jews, said the ideas and language that have come to define the debate could fuel fringe groups.
"When you describe immigrants as Third World invaders or murderers, or say that they are swarming or coming in hordes, this is dehumanizing language," Lauter said. "That kind of rhetoric inspires others who might act out on hate."
William Gheen, a Raleigh man who has built a grassroots organization to oppose illegal immigration, often accuses Hispanic immigrants of carrying deadly diseases, raping and murdering Americans, plotting to merge the American and Mexican economies, or even reconquer parts of the Southwest for Mexico. He organizes e-mail campaigns against those he doesn't agree with.

Gheen said he does not condone violence or racism and has never made threats, and he dismissed claims that groups such as his could spark threats. "The only violence I'm seeing are the dead, maimed and raped Americans ... that are victims of illegal aliens," Gheen said.
However, other anti-illegal immigration activists say the movement has developed an ugly side.
"Something has gotten distorted, and it's creating a lot of hate," said Jim Gilchrist, the Southern California founder of the Minuteman Project, which organizes citizen patrols of the Mexican border.
Gilchrist said there are extremists on both sides of the issue and that he has received threatening messages from people on the pro-immigrant side of the debate. But lately, he said, he gets more hate mail from people on his side of the issue. He said groups are now fighting among themselves, and some have adopted messages that he considers racist.
Gilchrist said one California Minuteman chapter made a fake video depicting its members shooting a Mexican crossing the border illegally.
Blogs as soapboxes
Bazán said that in the past few months, she has gotten several nasty calls at home and has been the subject of violent talk on blogs, where she was referred to as a target.
The talk frightened her enough that she sent her children to stay with her ex-husband and stayed away from home for several days in June, when it was announced that she was the new board chairwoman of the well-known Hispanic advocacy group National Council of La Raza.
On the day of the announcement, a person commenting on one blog about her new post commanded others to "buy guns" and referred to Hispanic immigrants as "monkeys." "The time is coming to fight back and yes many will die in this fight," the comment read.
Bazán said she has met with Durham police to make them aware of the threats.
When she speaks publicly, a guard often protects her. She had a full-time private guard last week at a La Raza convention in San Diego.
Bazán, along with some other Hispanic advocates, said they have begun reporting messages they consider hateful to the state Human Relations Commission.
G.I. Allison, director of the commission, which was formed to ensure equal opportunity in housing and other areas, said he receives regular complaints of hate messages and threats against Hispanics. The commission recorded 38 hate incidents in the first half of this year, but it doesn't track how many are against Hispanics.
Asion said he frequently receives messages that he considers racist, but the recent death threats were the most troubling.
The author claims to be watching Asion, threatens bombings and dismemberment, invokes the Ku Klux Klan and commands Asion to "go home Mexico."
Asion said he hasn't gone to police because there is little they can do. But he said he now fears for his staff members.
"I tell my folks, if you get a box and it doesn't have a return address, you don't know where it's from, don't open it," Asion said. "These are the times that we're living through."
<>
kristin.collins@newsobserver.com or (919)

287(g) funding cut back by NC Liberal David Price

2008-07-14T08:15:00.000-04:00

3Comments
House Appropriations Hurts Immigration Enforcement
by James R. Edwards, Jr.
Pos\

New congressional restrictions on immigration enforcement should worry Americans about the direction of immigration policy after this year’s election.
The Democratic majority on the House Appropriations Committee, led by North Carolina liberal David Price, put handcuffs on the popular 287(g) program. The FY 2009 Homeland Security Appropriations bill shuts off nearly all enrollment of state and local police departments in this program.
The bill, as passed by the House Appropriations Committee, prohibits Homeland Security from “enter[ing] into any agreement delegating law enforcement to any state or political subdivision of a state as authorized under such section 287(g), other than at a jail, prison, or correctional institution . . . .”
The committee report explains, “[B]ill language is included requiring ICE to prioritize the delegation of federal immigration enforcement authorities to state and local correctional agencies, and to preclude the use of any funds for the delegation of federal authorities to organizations that fail to comply with the terms of their agreements.”
Continued
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In other words, the bill curtails new 287(g) enrollment for police departments of states and localities. A fig leaf implies police have abused their 287(g) delegated authority (which isn’t at all the case).
The bill leaves open the remote possibility of new 287(g) participation by law enforcement agencies. But the vast majority will be “agreements that will maximize the identification of aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States and have been convicted of dangerous crimes.”
Identifying criminal aliens quickly and putting them through deportation proceedings while they serve their prison sentences is important. But a program for that already exists: the Institutional Removal Program (renamed the Criminal Alien Program).
And the Democratic legislation goes overboard. The language specifies that the targeted aliens should be both illegal aliens and “convicted of dangerous crimes.” This will keep all but the most violent criminal aliens in the United States, because Congress has de-emphasized them that way. This legislation is pro-criminal alien and pro-illegal immigration.
First, there’s no good reason to care whether a foreign-born criminal is a legal or illegal immigrant. Either way, we should kick them out of this country forever.
Second, what do the bill’s authors consider “dangerous crimes?” They don’t say. Why should criminal aliens who have run up criminal records for offenses short of murder, rape or armed robbery get to stay here?
Some of us might consider drunk driving to be a dangerous crime (as do Price’s North Carolina colleagues Sue Myrick and Mike McIntyre). Or ID fraud or theft — certainly not victimless crimes. Or aiding and abetting a terrorist to exploit loopholes and get a driver’s license in order to get on a plane, as happened with 9/11 hijackers.
America has made great progress over the past several years involving state and local law enforcement to take illegal and criminal aliens off our streets, behind bars and deported quicker.
The 287(g) program was created in 1996. It was intended to give state and local police the option of being actively involved in immigration enforcement. More and more states and localities have sought to join up, and these jurisdictions have aggressively adopted laws empowering their law officers and putting illegal and criminal aliens on the defensive.
Virtually unused until Alabama and Florida joined in 2003, some 55 jurisdictions (including Mecklenburg County and seven other North Carolina sheriff’s departments) and nearly 800 officers across the nation participate in the 287(g) program, says Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
About 80 new 287(g) requests are in the works. More than 60,000 illegal or criminal aliens have been deported since January 2006, thanks to 287(g).
State legislatures increasingly seek to empower their police officers to go after illegal and criminal aliens. The National Conference of State Legislatures recently reported that more than half of 1,100 immigrant-related bills filed address law enforcement. Many of the nearly 200 bills in 35 states involving immigration policing authorize their states to participate in the 287(g) program.
With widespread, popular support for this program and its newfound success, the new majority running Congress is trying to shut off immigration enforcement. Couple that weak-on-enforcement stance with Sen. Barak Obama’s proamnesty position, and the writing is on the wall.
If Democrats solidify their majorities in both houses of Congress, plus take over the administration, Americans fed up with mass immigration, illegal aliens and lax enforcement can expect the worst. Unified liberal government will further emasculate immigration enforcement, push through amnesty, increase already intolerably high legal immigration and roll back every good immigration measure adopted since 1996.
The FY09 Homeland Security appropriation is just a precursor of the harmful direction “new management” will take the federal government.

NPR North Carolina sees push to register young latino voters.

2008-07-07T20:35:00.002-04:00

N.C. Sees Push To Register Young Latino Voters
by Adam Hochberg

Adam Hochberg/NPR
Ruben Campillo, advocacy coordinator for the Latin American Coalition, helps Gilberto Canela fill out a voter registration form. Canela's 12-year-old daughter, Aurora, looks on.

“One of the things that we're seeing today in North Carolina is a lot of politicians running on an anti-Latino campaign, knowing that these folks can’t vote anyway, so you can go ahead and bash them to your heart's content.”El Pueblo Executive Director Tony Asion

All Things Considered, July 7, 2008 · North Carolina's Latino population has almost doubled since the beginning of the decade. But that growth hasn't been accompanied by an increase in political power, because only a small percentage of Latinos vote.

It is a disparity some of the state's Hispanic leaders are trying to address.
Registration Push
During a recent shopping trip to a mall in Charlotte, college student Ambar Ramos and her family found something for which they had been searching for quite a while: a place where Ramos could register to vote.

Ramos and her family were at Plaza Fiesta, which caters to Hispanics. On this day, the Latin American Coalition was registering voters. And Ramos – the U.S.-born daughter of undocumented Mexican parents – says her mother led her to the registration table.
"She's been wanting me to vote. Like, as years go by, she's like, 'Oh, I can't wait for you to vote, I can't wait for you to register,'" says Ramos. Asked why it is so important for her mother that she votes, Ramos says it is because her father had been deported.

"They're fighting for him to come back legally," says Ramos, "and since she can't vote, I guess she wants actually a president that will do something good for immigrants."

Ramos says she is not yet sure for whom she will vote, but Hispanic leaders hope politicians will start paying more attention to voters like her.

Speaking For Their Parents
Ramos is part of a fast-growing demographic in North Carolina's Latino community: young adults born in the United States to immigrant parents. The Latin American Coalition is making a special effort to register them. Organizer Ruben Campillo has been to high schools and other places where young people hang out. His table at Plaza Fiesta is a few yards from where a Latin rock band is playing.

"For us as a community, I think it's particularly important that we reach out to those young people, because those are the only ones in their family who are now eligible to vote," says Campillo. "Some of their parents may be encouraging them to register and to be a voice for them."
Indeed, the Pew Hispanic Center found that while almost 400,000 adult Latinos live in North Carolina, about 70 percent are ineligible to vote because they are not U.S. citizens. That is the highest percentage of nonvoting Hispanics of any state in the country.

Tony Asion, executive director of the Latino advocacy group El Pueblo, worries Latinos are being marginalized in the political debate.
"One of the things that we're seeing today in North Carolina is a lot of politicians running on an anti-Latino campaign, knowing that these folks can't vote anyway, so you can go ahead and bash them to your heart's content," says Asion.

Immigration A Central Issue
Most state political leaders would dispute the notion that they are "bashing" Latinos, but several have made immigration a central campaign theme. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.) kicked off her re-election bid with a television commercial spotlighting a federal program designed to deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Dale Folwell was among several Republican state legislators up for re-election who spoke at a small rally in June, declaring illegal immigration a "major crisis."

"I can tell you that there are two things that civilizations never survive," Folwell says in a campaign ad. "That's a devaluation of their currency or a devaluation of their language. And these are two things that Americans are facing."

These politicians say their immigration positions are not anti-Latino. Dole's campaign points out that her advertisement about deporting criminals does not mention any ethnic group.
Meanwhile, Folwell said at the rally that not "everybody who's brown is here illegally." But some audience members were uneasy about the Latino voter drives, especially when it comes to registering U.S.-born children of undocumented parents.

Marion Larabee is a member of the Minutemen, a group that wants Congress to change the Constitution, or have the courts clarify it, so those children would no longer be considered American citizens.

"They should be citizens of where their parents are [from]. And if their parents are illegal, they're illegal. They're illegal right along with their parents. And they have no right to vote. They're taking advantage of our laws, and this is not right," said Larabee.
Community Grows, Strengthens

Latino groups in North Carolina say they hope to register a couple thousand new voters this summer. While that's likely to have only a small effect on this year's election. But Latinos now account for more than half the enrollment in N.C. schools and the Hispanic birth rate continues to rise, foretelling a day when tens of thousands of young Latino-Americans will become eligible to vote.

14,000 illegal imigrants deported from GA, NC, SC

2008-07-05T16:38:00.000-04:00

Associated Press - July 5, 2008 1:34 PM ET

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Federal immigration officials say more than 14,000 illegal immigrants have been deported from Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina since October.
U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez tells The Greenville News that the agency deports more people every year.
Federal agents find out about illegal immigrants in several different ways. Some jails screen all their prisoners and notify agents when they find someone in the country illegally. Others are caught in workplace raids or by fugitive teams.
Illegal immigrants who lose their appeals to stay usually are sent home on a plane. Gonzalez says that costs taxpayers up to $700 a flight.

Fake drivers licenses

2008-07-04T04:38:00.001-04:00

Friday, July 04, 2008 1:07 AM E-mail to a friend
addthis_pub = 'bthomas35';

By Shavonne Potts
spotts@salisburypost.com
ALBEMARLE — A Mount Pleasant woman is facing federal charges for issuing identification cards to illegal immigrants.

Authorities had been investigating Susan Honeycutt, 50, a license examiner at the Albermarle DMV, for about 18 months. She has been a license examiner since 1999.
Investigators say between January 2007 and June 2008 Honeycutt issued 150 fake North Carolina driver's licenses with nonexistent addresses.Investigators say Honeycutt and two men made the transactions happen by charging others up to $5,000 to come to North Carolina to process the licenses. In fact, none of the people who received the 150 licenses Honeycutt issued were legal.

According to documents filed in New York, from January 1, 2007, to around June 18, 2008, Vijendra Gangadeen and Richie Seupersad, made trips to North Carolina from New York.
All three are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, trafficking in false identification documents and aiding and abetting.
A special agent with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement submitted an affidavit June 26 to establish probable cause.The N.C. Department of Transportation and ICE officals were conducting a joint investigation. In the document, the agent provides details of recorded telephone conversations between Gangadeen and a confidential source.

On March 31, 2008, Gangadeen, who is an illegal alien, drove from Queens, N.Y., through the Bronx, N.Y., as part of his trip to North Carolina, a federal complaint said.
Based on the recorded conversations, investigators discovered Gangadeen had made at least 10 trips between May 2007 and January 2008 to North Carolina.

A surveillance video was taken June 18, 2008, at the Albermarle DMV office parking lot. The video shows Seupersad arriving in a car around 1 p.m. with two others, whom the document identifies as "customer-3" and "customer-4", to have driver's licenses made. Both customers, the affidavit said, were illegal aliens.

Seupersad was Gangadeen's North Carolina contact.In a statement from a N.C. DMV representative, investigators said each license examiner is issued a Resource Access Facility Indentification number (RAC ID) that is linked to each license an examiner issues.
Authorities found the RAC ID assigned to Honeycutt issued a fraudulent license to Gangadeen in April 2007. The ID had false information, including a nonexistent North Carolina address. A year later, Honeycutt issued Gangadeen a replacement North Carolina license and a driver's license to a "Customer-2," an illegal alien.Honeycutt was arrested June 27, Gangadeen and Seupersad, three days later.All have been released on bond — Honeycutt, $50,000 and both Seupersad and Gangadeen, $150,000.

The two men are restricted to only travel in parts of New York and New Jersey.Gangadeen is represented by New York attorney John J. Byrnes and Honeycutt is represented by Todd Smith, of Graham, while Seupersad's attorney is Andrew Patel, based in New York.
As officials continue to investigate, two other Albemarle DMV employees were placed on administrative leave.

Rowan County Sheriff's Capt. John Sifford, said the only similar fake ID scam they've encountered in Rowan in recent years was in early 2006 when an East Spencer couple were found with computers, digital cameras, laminators and other office supplies. It was suspected the man and woman, who were illegal, were making false ID's for other illegal immigrants.

Federal agents raid local DMV office in Albamarle, NC (Stanley County)

2008-07-02T18:04:00.000-04:00

Honeycutt accused of arranging for and issuing false licenses to illegal immigrants

By Jay Almond, News Editor

Tuesday, July 1, 2008 — Federal agents arrested a local driver’s license examiner Friday following a six-month investigation into her activities.

Susan Honeycutt, 50, a DMV driver’s license examiner since 1991, was detained at her Mt. Pleasant home by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) officers.

Honeycutt’s charges stem from allegations she knowingly arranged for and issued approximately 150 false licenses to illegal immigrants.

Those licenses, investigators said, were based on fraudulent information and non-existent addresses.

The case is being handled in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan by U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia.

The sealed complaint filed in Garcia’s office states that from around January 2007 through June 2008, Honeycutt, along with Vijendra Gangadeen, Richie Seupersad and others, knowingly agreed and conspired to commit offenses against the United States to transfer false identification to illegal immigrants.

Further, it suggests Gangadeen drove from Queens, N.Y. to North Carolina, where Honeycutt provided him with the fraudulent N.C. driver’s licenses from a DMV office.

Surveillance video set up at the local DMV office June 18 shows Seupersad arrive and enter the office with another individual.

The pair exits the office a short time later and another individual gets out of the car and goes into the office.

DMV records indicate that at about 1 p.m. and again at about 1:20 p.m. that day, Honeycutt issued two false N.C. driver’s licenses to the customers who arrived with Seupersad, both identified as illegal immigrants.

Honeycutt is not the only employee of the N.C. DMV in Stanly County, but thus far in the investigation, no other local arrests have been made.

Although neither is identified in the complaint, two other employees in the Stanly County office, Greg Honeycutt, a law enforcement officer with the DMV License and Theft Bureau, and Wendy Honeycutt, a driver’s license examiner, were placed on leave for up to 30 days with pay.

Such leaves are part of the division’s protocol during any office involved investigation, DMV officials said.

As such, either or both individuals could possibly return to duty during the allotted 30 day period.

“What we do in situations where we need to look into matters in more detail is invoke an investigatory placement,” DMV representative Margaret Howell said.

“At this point it is an investigation that has been going on for six months.

“DMV has been working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on this investigation.”

ICE and DMV internal affairs investigators may have confiscated at least one computer from the N.C. 73 office along with other evidence believed to be pertinent to the case.

The actual DMV office building is shared by the North Carolina State Highway Patrol (NCSHP), which is in no way involved with the investigation, according to DMV officials.

ID rules make getting a license tougher

2008-07-01T11:33:00.001-04:00

Raleigh Times Observer

Even renewal will be a minor hassle

Every year it's a bit harder to get a new driver's license in North Carolina, or to renew your old one. Strict proof-of-identification rules have forced drivers to dig up more paperwork before they visit the Division of Motor Vehicles for that precious piece of plastic.

Starting this summer, you'll leave the DMV office with a new kind of paperwork in hand -- instead of that new plastic.

DMV will send you off with a temporary driving certificate, if you qualify -- and a promise to mail the actual driver's license to your home within 20 days.

The change starts today in the Lillington DMV office and will be phased in by October in all 124 offices across the state. All the new, duplicate and renewal licenses previously issued on the spot in local offices -- 2.6 million licenses last year -- will now be produced at DMV headquarters in Raleigh.

For most drivers, the change is just a procedural hassle. You'll take the usual tests, and the DMV will record your photo and signature before you leave the office.

You'll be able to drive legally with your 20-day paper certificate -- and your old plastic license will still serve as a photo ID -- until a new license arrives by mail.

But you may discover more profound changes if you haven't renewed your license in the past several years. Before the DMV pronounces you fit to drive a car, it now digs deep into your identity and your background.

The DMV says it wants to do a better job of knocking out identity fraud and identity theft. Before it issues your license, the DMV will spend up to 20 days verifying:

WHO YOU ARE, REALLY. New drivers must produce two forms of ID. Not even a U.S. passport is considered sufficient proof, by itself, of your identity.

(For license renewals, your old North Carolina license is enough -- for now. You can get details on all of this at local DMV offices or online at www.ncdot.gov/dmv/.)

WHETHER YOU HAVE USED A DIFFERENT NAME TO GET A LICENSE IN THE PAST. Your photo will be checked against 25 million mug shots in DMV's database, which includes multiple images for drivers who have renewed their licenses several times in the past.

(DMV officials say this photo-recognition technology would have kept one clever crook from getting multiple licenses under 41 names over a three-year period in the 1990s. His brazen fraud came to light after a traffic stop in Tarboro three years ago; the driver got away.)

WHETHER YOU ARE IN THE UNITED STATES LEGALLY. In most cases that means a valid Social Security number or appropriate federal immigration documents.

If you have a Social Security number, your full name and birth date must be identical in both the federal Social Security and the state DMV databases.

Maybe the Social Security Administration doesn't know your middle or your married name, or when you were born. If so, the DMV will withhold your license until you get the feds to fix their records.

WHETHER YOU ARE BARRED FROM DRIVING IN ANOTHER STATE. You won't get your license if you are flagged in the National Driver Register because another state DMV says your license has been revoked or suspended.

The national register is designed to help states warn each other about dangerous drivers. Alas, it also snags good drivers who have had clean records for decades but have ancient paperwork problems that must be resolved in other states.

"We estimate that 90 to 95 percent of our customers will receive their licenses in three to five days," Wayne Hurder, deputy DMV commissioner, said at a recent state Board of Transportation meeting.

"Most of our customers have been in our database for 20 or 25 years," he said. "It's the other 5 to 10 percent that will require more extensive investigation."

The General Assembly changed the law to provide for a 20-day certificate and first-class mail delivery for the actual licenses. Home delivery is one way to help verify that a driver hasn't provided a bogus address.

Even this will be tricky. The DMV found that 133,000 drivers in 144 North Carolina ZIP codes pick up their mail at the local post office, because the Postal Service does not give them home delivery.

Now the legislature will be asked to make an exception and allow post office delivery for licenses that can't be mailed to the drivers' homes.

Open Borders Work, Part 1by Philippe Legrain, tag -->Posted June 6, 2008

2008-06-17T23:11:00.001-04:00

Part 1 Part 2
Imagine you were born in a part of the country where farming was no longer productive, or in a rust-belt town where the local factories had closed. You hear of good jobs in California and Colorado, so you decide to move. How would you feel if, when you arrived at the state line, you were denied the opportunity of a better life because you happened to have been born in a different state? Welcome to what it is like to be Mexican.
Freedom of movement is one of the most basic human rights, as anyone denied it can confirm. Yet governments obstruct people’s movement across borders in all manner of arbitrary and iniquitous ways. They require that people prove — how? — that their lives are in danger before admitting them. They determine which family members are permitted to join their relatives and which are not; Danes’ non-European spouses cannot come to live with them in Denmark unless both are age 24 or more. Americans’ foreign girlfriends and boyfriends also struggle to gain admission; the rules for foreign pets are laxer. Those seeking to come to work are vetted through a byzantine set of rules and quotas that delight bureaucrats, lawyers, and lobbyists, but deny most people the opportunity to better themselves and do untold damage to the U.S. and global economy.
Immigration controls are generally seen as normal, reasonable, and necessary, but in fact they are economically stupid, politically unsustainable, and morally wrong. For a start, the freedom to leave a country and enter another is the ultimate safeguard against tyranny. Throughout history, emigrating has often meant the difference between life and death: remember the Pilgrims who set sail on the Mayflower, the Huguenots who fled France to take refuge in England, and the Jews who escaped Nazi Germany. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the shameful recognition that governments had conspired to send countless Jews to their deaths by denying them refuge led to their signing on to Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” In practice, though, this right is often honored in the breach.
While it is vitally important that asylum-seekers are able to seek refuge abroad, fear of persecution is not the only legitimate reason that people might want to cross national borders. They might be seeking a better job. They might want to be with the ones they love. They might simply want to experience something different. And why shouldn’t they be able to?
Those fortunate enough to be rich and highly educated take it for granted that they can move around the world more or less as they please. They vacation in Mexico, safari in Africa, even go on trips around the world; they increasingly work abroad for periods of time; and some end up settling elsewhere — like the many Americans who now live in London, and the many Londoners who now live in the United States. Why, then, do we seek to deny this right to others?
Opponents of open borders often respond that Americans aren’t actually free to go where they choose. They point out, correctly, that one needs a visa to go to many countries and that the Chinese government, for instance, may very well deny you one. But why should America be basing its policies on what the Chinese government does? Should the United States deny people freedom of speech because the Chinese government does so? The point about universal human rights is not that they are necessarily universally applied, but that they ought to be. That others fail to apply them is not a reason for the United States to fail to do so too.
Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own.” But what is the right to leave a country if one cannot enter another? Since even international human-rights law does not give people the right to cross borders freely, the United States should lead by example, by passing a constitutional amendment guaranteeing open borders. Costs and benefits
Many people argue that opening the borders would have devastating consequences. But are the potential costs really so great that they warrant the huge injustice of denying people the possibility of moving freely? Might there not be big benefits to opening up the borders too? And even if one thinks immigration is a threat, are the costs of immigration controls not even greater?
This is not a point of abstract principle. Each year thousands drown trying to reach Europe. More people have died trying to cross from Mexico to the United State in the past decade than were killed on 9/11. By denying desperate people the opportunity to cross borders legally, the United States is driving them to risk death. Of course, voters and government officials would rather migrants didn’t die. But implicitly, they consider it a price worth paying for protecting the borders. That sounds shocking — and it is. But how else can we explain the general indifference to the deaths that U.S. immigration controls cause? Why is the official response always that “we” must remain tough in enforcing “our” border controls, rather than questioning whether the system makes sense? Immigrants are not an invading army; they are mostly people seeking a better life.
Freeing up migration is not just morally right, it is economically beneficial. When workers from poor countries move to rich ones, they too can make use of advanced economies’ superior capital, technology, and institutions, making them much more productive, and the world much better off. The departure of one in six Swedes for North America between 1870 and 1910, relieved pressure on the land, drove up the productivity and wages of those who remained, and helped catapult Sweden from grinding rural poverty to prosperity within fewer than 50 years.
Migrants from poor countries can earn wages many times higher in rich ones, and the money they send home — some $300 billion a year officially, perhaps the same again informally — dwarfs the $100 billion that Western governments give in aid. These remittances are not wasted on weapons or siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts; they go straight into the pockets of local people. They pay for food, clean water, and medicines. They enable children to stay in school, they fund small businesses, and they benefit the local economy more broadly. Where remittances account for a large share of the economy, they slash the poverty rate by a third. Even in countries that receive relatively little, they can cut the poverty rate by nearly a fifth. And by keeping children in school, paying for them to see a doctor, and funding new businesses, remittances can also boost economic growth. What’s more, when migrants return home, they take with them new skills, new ideas, and the money to start new businesses. Africa’s first Internet cafés were started by migrants returning from Europe.
Economists estimate that abolishing immigration controls could more than double the size of the world economy. This dwarfs the benefits of any other public-policy change. Just as the freeing up of international trade and capital flows since the Second World War has helped power a huge rise in living standards across the world, the freeing up of international labor mobility could deliver vast economic gains over the next 50 years. Indeed, the economic gains from migration are akin to those from trade.
Consider an American who requires medical care. He could be treated locally by an American doctor; he could go abroad to be treated by a foreign doctor; the foreign doctor could treat him remotely — over the Internet, for instance; or the foreign doctor could come to the United States to treat him. In the last three cases, the United States is importing medical care from the foreign doctor; the final case, which we classify as migration instead of trade, is simply a form of international services trade where a foreign provider comes to America to offer his services to consumers on the spot. But where services have to be delivered locally — the elderly cannot be cared for from afar; taxi drivers have to operate locally; dishes have to be washed on the spot — international migration is the only form of international trade that is possible. Migration and trade
Now if one accepts that international trade is generally mutually beneficial — because, in a nutshell, it permits greater specialization, reaps economies of scale, reduces prices, increases choice, boosts competition, stimulates innovation, and raises economic growth — then so too, surely, is the particular form of it that involves foreign service-providers crossing borders to ply their trade. And just as governments have no place denying us the opportunity of watching foreign films, eating foreign food, or driving foreign cars, they should not be denying us the opportunity of engaging in mutually advantageous economic transactions with foreigners that entail their moving to our vicinity.
Where governments permit it, a global labor market is emerging: international financiers cluster in New York and London, IT specialists in Silicon Valley, and actors in Hollywood, while multinational companies scatter skilled professionals around the world.
Yet rich-country governments endeavor to keep out Mexican construction workers, Filipino care workers, and Congolese cooks, even though they are simply service providers who ply their trade abroad, just as American investment bankers do. And just as it is often cheaper and mutually beneficial to import computers from China and IT services from India, it often makes sense to import menial services that have to be delivered on the spot, such as cleaning.
Economic theory suggests that the gains from trade are greatest when countries are different. The United States has an aging, well-educated population, while the developing world has a much younger and generally less well-educated population. In effect, the work forces complement each other. It’s unfortunate that many free-traders who rejoice that Vietnamese people are bettering themselves by working in Nike factories to produce shoes for Americans are opposed to their coming to better themselves in America. People who truly believe in open societies and individual freedom are a rare breed.
Part 1 Part 2Part 2
Philippe Legrain is an award-winning journalist and a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. His latest book, Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them (Princeton, 2007), was shortlisted for the 2007 Financial Times Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award.
This article originally appeared in the March 2008 edition of Freedom Daily. Subscribe to the print or email

Minutemen lead by cofounder will converge at the state capital to demand action on illegal immigration in North Carolina.

2008-06-17T18:42:00.000-04:00

Raleigh, NC--A immigration issue rally of historic significance will happen in North Carolina on Wednesday.

A coalition of immigration enforcement and border security groups will converge on the NC Legislature, to ask for emergency legislation.
Minutemen are leading the rally and say it's time for NC to act on the issue illegal immigrants in the state.

There are several other groups participating to bring other perspectives and feedback to the rally. One such group is Americans for Legal Immigration or ALIPAC.
ALIPAC's is based in North Carolina based are known for working only with non-racist and non-violent groups.

The rally is planned for Wednesday, June 18th at 11am until 1pm. It will be in Bicentennial Mall just outside the NC Legislative building on Jones St in Raleigh.
Some other groups that will have a presence are NC Listen, Don't Speak for Me, Americans Have Had Enough, NC Voice and NC Civitas.

Illegal immigration has been a national and individual states issue for some time.
Please tell us your thoughts on the issue on digtriad.
Stay tuned to digtriad and WFMY News 2 for updates on Wednesday's rally and the immigration topic.
Source: WFMY News 2
Copyright: 2008 digtriad.com

More illegal immigrants lack license

2008-06-16T14:25:00.000-04:00

An N.C. law passed in 2006 forbids renewal, but many drive anyway. Sheriffs step up checkpoints.
Kristin Collins
(Raleigh) News & Observer
BENSON --
Luz Gonzalez used to take spur-of-the-moment trips to the beach. Now, she is afraid to drive to the doctor for checkups on her new pregnancy.
She and her husband, Ismael, can no longer have a savings account or a car registered in their names. Every time they drive to church, they watch for the flash of blue lights in the mirror.
The Gonzalezes, who identified themselves by only one of their two surnames, are among many illegal immigrants in North Carolina who are beginning a new life – one without driver's licenses.
A 2006 state law made it impossible for illegal immigrants to renew their licenses. The change was talked about mostly as a tool to combat terrorism – several of the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks had licenses – but it has created a crisis in the Hispanic community and a potential hazard on the roads.
As licenses issued under the old rules expire, advocates and law enforcement authorities say many illegal immigrants, who number an estimated 300,000 in North Carolina, are now driving without licenses or insurance.
“They do not want to be driving without licenses, but it's coming to a point where they can't do things the right way,” said Tony Asion, president of the Hispanic advocacy group El Pueblo. “Realistically, you're not going to ride a bicycle all around the state.”
Without licenses, they are unable to register cars or get insurance, and they are not tested on their knowledge of North Carolina traffic laws. Hispanic advocates say the law makes the roads more dangerous and could drive up insurance rates. Insurance companies charge their customers a fee to cover accidents caused by uninsured drivers, and the fee increases when more uninsured drivers are on the roads.
As the rules have tightened, sheriffs concerned about illegal immigration are setting up license checkpoints and sometimes jailing immigrants for driving without licenses. Those who go to jail risk deportation.
The number of charges for driving without a license is rising, and the share of Hispanics charged is soaring, according to a News & Observer analysis of data from the Administrative Office of the Courts. Hispanics were charged more than any other ethnic group, including whites, even though Hispanics make up less than 7 percent of the state's population. In 2007, 44 percent of charges were against Hispanics, up from 35 percent in 2003.
Some sheriffs say they hope those hardships will prompt illegal residents to leave.
“It's about high time that the DMV make it more strict,” said Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell. “We have bowed down. You go to DMV now and everything is Spanish, and people are tired of it. This is America.”
Bizzell said he has a squad of deputies assigned to setting up license checkpoints and “wolfpacking,” a term he uses to refer to sending marked cars to drive the streets of a small community. Most of those arrested without licenses are Mexican, he said.
“We're trying to make it a little more inconvenient for them,” Bizzell said of illegal immigrants.
For years, North Carolina purposely made it easy for illegal immigrants to get licenses. The Division of Motor Vehicles accepted many forms of identification that illegal immigrants had access to, including identification cards issued by the Mexican government.
Immigrant advocates said the idea was to ensure that a surging immigrant population had insurance and understood driving laws.
The rules began tightening in 2004, when the DMV stopped accepting Mexican ID cards. And in 2006, state lawmakers required a valid Social Security number or visa. Forty-two states have passed similar laws, and a federal law will soon require it in all 50 states.
“If we send the message that you're not going to benefit by remaining in this country illegally, people will get the message and go home,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington, a leading anti-illegal immigration group.
Mehlman said police should not just write tickets for those without licenses but should impound cars, jail those they suspect of being undocumented and contact immigration authorities.
Increasingly, law enforcement is doing just that.
Four county sheriff's departments, including Mecklenburg, are now enrolled in a federal program that allows them to check the immigration status of jail inmates. Three more sheriff's departments – in Wake, Cumberland and Henderson counties – will soon begin the program.

Bill safeguards education access

2008-06-14T22:30:00.000-04:00

Letter published in Daily Advance June 15, 2008

North Carolina Community College System is the first statewide college system to bar illegal immigrants from seeking college degrees. The 58 community colleges in North Carolina have stopped enrolling undocumented students.';

Letter: Bill safeguards education access
Click-2-Listen
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The North Carolina Community College System is the first statewide college system to bar illegal immigrants from seeking college degrees. The 58 community colleges in North Carolina have stopped enrolling undocumented students.
This is not about money. Undocumented students must still pay out-of-state tuition, which is over $2,000 more than the actual cost of their education.
State lawmakers are currently considering House Bill H2717, the Access to Higher Education Act, which would prevent the University of North Carolina Board of Governors and the trustees of the N.C. Community College System from soliciting information about the immigration status of prospective students.
If this bill passes, it would provide opportunities to young people who have grown up in North Carolina and been
educated in our public schools.
According to state law, any student in North Carolina is entitled to a public school education until the 12th grade. That means our state has already invested significantly in these young people's educations.
By allowing any student to pursue higher education, the state can benefit because students who are bilingual and bicultural will be contributing to the state's collective productivity and economic growth.
In-state tuition and federal immigration issues are separate from open enrollment admission.
This is not about special rights; this is about not making the self-defeating mistake of cutting off the ability of our neighbors to achieve and succeed.
Immigrants are here, paying taxes, holding jobs and raising families. Most will be here for the rest of their lives.
While it is good for immigrants to get an education, it is even more important for all of us in North Carolina that they move up the economic ladder and become self-sufficient engines of the state economy. Access to our state's colleges will increase the state's collective productivity and economic growth by preparing an educated work force.
I strongly encourage your readers to contact their state representatives and urge them to support H2717.
Illegal is not a noun. So let's stop the hate.
NANCY PROCTOR
Grandy
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Deportation central;

2008-06-14T22:25:00.002-04:00

Copyright 2008 The News and Observer
The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina)
June 14, 2008 Saturday Final Edition
EDITORIAL/OPINION; Pg. A20
598 words
North Carolina sheriffs lead the way in a campaign to deport illegal immigrants. How far is the state willing to go?
When a wave of illegal immigration flowed across the nation's southwestern border, North Carolina, with its expanding meat industry and booming construction, was a primary destination. Now we're becoming a leader in deporting Hispanic immigrants.
In states such as Arizona, the push against illegal immigration comes largely from state laws limiting benefits and targeting employers. Here, immigration policy is in the sheriffs' hands.
By July, North Carolina will have seven counties, including Wake, where specially trained sheriff's department employees will be able to start deportation proceedings against immigrants accused or convicted of crimes. We'll have more counties qualified for the federal 287 (g) program than any other state.
The sheriffs say they're responding to pressure for an immigration solution, especially now that Congress has, sadly, failed to act. Sheriffs particularly cite high rates of drunken driving among Hispanic immigrants and the tragic fatalities those drivers have caused.
Those concerns are completely understandable. Illegal immigrants convicted of drunken driving and other serious crimes should be prime candidates for deportation. Too many motor vehicle-law offenders -- citizens and noncitizens alike -- have been released from jail to wreak havoc again and again.
Yet there's reason to question the sheriffs' aim. Is deporting dangerous people the program's only goal? It's hard to tell, and not just because several of the sheriffs are aiding Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole's re-election campaign, which plays on popular opposition to immigration.
Fact is, the sheriffs are sending mixed messages about a key concern -- whether the lawmen intend to use the county/federal deportation program as a way to pressure all illegal immigrants to leave.
Last year, Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell said, "This program is not intended as a wholesale roundup of illegal aliens." Yet this week the sheriff, who complains that "everything is Spanish" at the DMV and refers to "another drunk Mexican," said, "We're trying to make it a little more inconvenient for them."
In Alamance County, the vast majority of those targeted for deportation last year had been charged only with traffic violations.
In Wake, Sheriff Donnie Harrison seems to dismiss the concern that many of those facing deportation will be charged with driving without a license: "They're the ones that made the mistake," he says, by coming here illegally. That's no assurance that only serious offenders will be processed.
At this point, it's unclear whether simply showing a law officer false ID is enough to get an illegal immigrant started on the deportation road. If it is, advocates of the county/federal program should say so, up-front. That would put a different and troubling spin on the notion that the deportation effort is aimed only at serious criminals.
Last year the legislature gave the N.C. Sheriffs' Association, a private group that Bizzell currently heads, $750,000 to help with expenses related to setting up the deportation program. This year the group is in line for $1 million more. An N&O news story reports that last year's funds were spent with little or no oversight and may not have been spent effectively.
More oversight is promised, and that's essential. Even better, legislators should rethink their funding of a private organization that openly refers to "illegal alien invaders." North Carolina should respond in a measured way to the problems of illegal immigration. The state should not set out to stomp on some of the least powerful people within its borders.
June 14, 2008

NC Methodist Resolution

2008-06-13T13:03:00.001-04:00

Friday, June 13, 2008

Resolution in Response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Raids and Detention as Passed
Resolution in Response to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Raids and Detention

WHEREAS Jesus called his disciples and followers to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and we, as disciples, are called to embody a new order of love and justice; and

WHEREAS raids on undocumented immigrants in the United States represent governmental failure in addressing complex national and international economic and political dynamics, which close legal avenues and force immigrants into the shadows, where they are subject to exploitation and virtual servitude; and

WHEREAS raids, indefinite detention, and deportation tear families apart and create anguish, economic hardship and terror that is contrary to the Kingdom that Jesus describes; and

WHEREAS, in a new 2008 General Conference Resolution, The United Methodist Church affirms that “regardless of legal status or nationality, we are all connected through Christ to one another…The solidarity we share through Christ eliminates the boundaries and barriers which exclude and isolate. Therefore, the sojourners we are called to love are our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters; indeed, they are us.” [Welcoming the Migrant to the US]

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church calls upon the President of the United States, the Congress, and all relevant departments of the federal government to put an immediate stop to these raids and work for a just, humane comprehensive reform of immigration laws.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that until just and humane immigration reform is enacted on a federal level, the North Carolina Annual Conference (1) urges governors and state legislators within the state of North Carolina to refrain from creating and enforcing legislation that would cause further disruption of the immigrant population, and (2) calls on state government to refuse to allow any state official, including police and state troopers, to enforce federal immigration law, or to ask any immigrant for their documents.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the North Carolina Annual Conference (1) pledges to create a task force to address immigration concerns and develop plans for emergency responses to ICE raids, which might include providing material aid, legal services, childcare, interpretation, and spiritual support, and taking part in vigils and public witness pointing toward justice and humane treatment of immigrants. (Such a task force may include conference representatives from units dealing with global ministries, church and society, religion and race, and racial/ethnic causes, as well as organizations such as United Methodist Women and United Methodist Men and programs such as Justice for Our Neighbors.); (2) Investigate the locations of ICE detention centers with the conference boundaries and consider how to provide ministries, legal support, and other services that will serve the objectives of Christian hospitality and civil and human rights.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this resolution will be sent within thirty days of the end of this conference to President Bush; Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Julie Myers, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for Immigration for Customs Enforcement; as well as all U.S. Representatives and Senators who represent United Methodists within this annual conference.

BE IT ALSO RESOLVED that the North Carolina Annual Conference (1) will engage in study of new General Conference resolutions on migration and immigration and other resources that explore the biblical and theological basis for the church’s positions and responses on these pressing issues; (2) participate in connectional education and training on immigration and collaborate as occasion provides with the United Methodist Task Force on Immigration (an interagency and inter-organizational body mandated by the 2008 General Conference).

FINALLY, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the North Carolina Annual Conference urges all its congregations and their members to pray for the people whose lives are torn apart by ICE raids and detention, and will as appropriate support denominational and ecumenical ministries to assist families affected by raids and detention.

Approved on June 3, 2008 by the N.C. Conference Commissionon Church and Society for submission to the 2008 Annual Conferenceat the urgent request of the General Board of Church and Society
As Passed by the 2008 North Carolina Annual Conference

Illegal immigrants aregood risks, lenders find

2008-06-13T12:47:00.002-04:00

National and state estimates show that Latinos have a far lower rate of foreclosure than subprime borrowers.

dhirsch@charlotteobserver.com
When Miguel left Mexico for the Carolinas, he planned on staying for a year.
That was five years ago. Now, he has a wife, a 1-year-old son and a mortgage that he got in February without a Social Security number.
“It wasn't difficult at all,” Miguel says.

Though illegal immigrants can't get a driver's license in North Carolina anymore, they can still be approved for a home loan.

With an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN), good credit and proof of tax filing, those who aren't legal permanent residents can qualify for a fixed-rate “ITIN mortgage.”
The estimated $3 billion ITIN mortgage market makes up only a tiny fraction of the overall U.S. mortgage market, which originated $2.4 trillion in loans last year.
Yet the borrowers who have ITIN mortgages have proven to be some of the sturdiest as foreclosures climb to record highs.

Banks aren't required to keep track of how many ITIN home loans they give, so it's difficult to find accurate data on them.

But according to estimates from the Hispanic National Mortgage Association and local lenders, less than 1 percent of ITIN loans have gone into foreclosure. That compares with 1.2 percent for prime mortgages and nearly 11 percent for subprime mortgages given to borrowers with poor credit history, according to the latest available data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Even with the economic downturn and rising immigration crackdowns threatening jobs for undocumented workers, the national numbers appear to be holding up in North Carolina. Among six banks in the Carolinas that have made an estimated 2,800 ITIN loans, 27 mortgages have gone into foreclosure.

Banco de la Gente, which has five branches across the state, reported seven of those. President Manuel Rey said four were caused by deportation, two by divorce and one by economic hardship.

Lenders predict that ITIN loan performance won't falter much even if the mortgage market continues tanking.

As for new loans, they say local demand remains steady even though the credit crunch now makes it harder to get one.

ITINs began around 2000
The Internal Revenue Service has issued more than 12.5 million taxpayer ID numbers since 1996 to foreigners who weren't eligible for a Social Security number, including visa holders legally in the U.S., spouses of U.S. citizens and undocumented workers.

Community banks and credit unions began accepting the nine-digit numbers from mortgage applicants around 2000, most of them illegal immigrants with modest incomes. By law, banks must verify customers' identity, but they don't have to check immigration status.

Mostly smaller banks are making the loans.

A few large banks began accepting them in pilot programs, although many, including Bank of America, still shy away from this controversial community.

Wachovia and Winston-Salem based BB&T take them in limited cases from legal permanent residents or those allowed to be in the U.S. with a visa.

Lenders say the mortgages have held up for a number of cultural and practical reasons:
Illegal immigrants who are serious enough to buy a home typically have families, steady jobs and a sense of community. They're especially careful to follow the rules to avoid drawing negative attention to themselves – and their legal status.

Immigrants often pay their mortgage before anything else, out of pride. They don't want to have to tell relatives back in their native countries that they couldn't keep a house or lose respect from a local Hispanic-oriented bank.

Smaller institutions geared toward Latino borrowers tend to be more careful about who gets approved for loans. They scrutinize ITIN applicants and may require more documents than they would for others, even subprime applicants. In addition to credit scores and tax documents, banks could ask to review utility or cell phone bills, rent payments and even receipts showing money sent home to relatives.

Latino immigrants buy homes they can truly afford because they're looking for a place to live, not something to turn around for a profit.

Latino immigrants frequently live with other adult family members, which means a higher household income and more people contributing to mortgage payments. If someone gets deported or loses a job, others can pick up the slack.

Miguel, whose last name has been withheld, was laid off from a job with a decorative rock company in Chester, S.C., not long after closing on his $70,000 house in Lancaster, S.C. But the 26-year-old hasn't had problems making mortgage payments because his wife, his sister and her husband, who also live with him, have jobs and pitch in.

Miguel said he still wants to return to Mexico some day, though he's now anchored to his Lancaster home. But he's not worried about having to unload a house yet.
“My son was born here. I don't want to take him back to Mexico until he's learned English,” Miguel said. “If I get a legal status, I can go and come and that's my dream.”

Foreclosed homes an option
Lenders said they wouldn't be surprised if “ITIN mortgage” foreclosures eventually go up because immigrants aren't immune to the state of the economy. But unless the government starts systematically deporting hundreds of illegal immigrants a day, lenders said they see no reason for ITIN loan performance to drastically deteriorate.

Local bank leaders said they've actually seen the same if not more demand for home loans from illegal immigrants. Foreclosed properties have emerged as affordable options for some of them.
“In crisis is opportunity,” said Scott Hastings, marketing director for Charlotte-based Citizens Home Loan Inc. “People that come to this country from outside see opportunity … to pick up depressed real estate and go for the long term.”

Interest may be up, but lenders agree that it has become harder for qualified candidates to get an ITIN loan. In the wake of the mortgage meltdown set off by shaky subprime loans, underwriting has become tougher for any loan that smells a little risky.
“Banks are afraid to give these types of loans,” said Rey, the Banco de la Gente president. “We're treated like subprime.”

Rey said closings have dropped since October because the bank's financers are more strict. He said his bank still gets 50 to 70 applications a month, but now averages about nine closings instead of 30.

Another problem: The largest secondary market ITIN buyer in the nation stopped purchasing the loans in January.
The San Diego-based Hispanic National Mortgage Association (also known as HNMA or by the nickname “Hannie Mae”) began a joint venture with Deutsche Bank to package the loans into securities for investors in late 2006. That secondary market helped lenders spread risk and gain capital to make more loans. Now, the number of ITIN loans that lenders can give will be limited to how much they can afford to keep in their portfolios.

HNMA chief executive Leonardo Simpser said his company won't default on the $200 million in loans it has acquired so far, but there's no way to buy more “unless the secondary market comes back or we find significant investors.” He thinks that's not likely for at least a year.
María, 38, said she feels lucky that her loan application was approved by a credit union last summer.

She and her husband moved to the area from Mexico about seven years ago, their three sons joining them later. After all that time, María said she wanted to make an investment that might one day pay for itself or even bring in a little money.

They found a three-bedroom, 2.5-bath house in southeast Charlotte that had gone into foreclosure and bought it for $116,000. The couple and their two oldest sons all contribute to the mortgage. It's harder now with rising food and gas prices, María said, but “we can make it.”
She said she's glad immigrants have the opportunity to become homeowners.

“The only thing we want to do is work, not bother anyone or take anything away from anyone,” she said. “I came with a lot of dreams and I've achieved many of the things I've been hoping to. I've been very happy since I bought my house. I hope to continue this way.” Deborah Hirsch: 704-868-7742

Illegal Immigration -- who profits, who pays from Raleigh News Observer

2008-06-13T11:58:00.000-04:00

Part 1: Jobs lure illegal immigrants to state
North Carolina's employers are enthusiastic beneficiaries of the newcomers' willingness to work. The influx carries costs, too, for taxpayers and blue-collar workers.
Updated: Mar. 6, 2006 12:27 PM Full story
Discuss the impact of illegal immigration in North Carolina. Who benefits, who pays and what should be done to address the issue?
North Carolina: 395,000 illegal immigrants
United States

Part 2: Schools bear burden of immigration
School budgets are feeling the pressure of educating students who are often poor and have little if any command of English. Critics wonder whether the spending is justified.
Updated: Mar. 1, 2006 6:12 AM Full story
Discuss the impact of illegal immigration in North Carolina. Who benefits, who pays and what should be done to address the issue?
Hispanic enrollment (2004-05)
Teaching immigrants' children
Read our immigration series

Part 3: Rural areas adapt to immigrants
Small-town ways can seem changeless, and many natives like it that way. But some rural areas in North Carolina are having to adapt in a hurry to a wave of newcomers with a new language, new customs and new expectations. Case in point: Warsaw.
Updated: Mar. 1, 2006 6:12 AM Full story
Audio slide show: Warsaw, N.C.
Discuss the impact of illegal immigration in North Carolina. Who benefits, who pays and what should be done to address the issue?
Duplin County
Read our immigration series

Part 4: Health care costly for immigrants
In a report in January on the economic impact of Hispanic immigration in North Carolina, researchers at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC-Chapel Hill estimated the state's 2004 cost for health services provided to all Hispanics, legal or otherwise, at $299 million.
Updated: Mar. 6, 2006 12:29 PM Full story
Read our immigration series
Some solutions raise own problems
To make your voice heard

Part 5: Businesses meet immigrants' needs
In North Carolina, where the illegal immigrant population is climbing toward a half-million, businesses are tailoring their products and tweaking their policies to reach the newcomers.
Updated: Mar. 6, 2006 12:28 PM Full story
Discuss the impact of illegal immigration in North Carolina. Who benefits, who pays and what should be done to address the issue?
More ...

Burlington Paper: N.C. Sheriff's Association gets state funding to fight immigration; how money spent unclear

2008-06-13T11:51:00.001-04:00

June 13, 2008 - 9:04AM
McClatchy News Service
Once a low-profile professional organization, the N.C. Sheriffs' Association has jumped into the fray on immigration. Its reward has been a windfall of state money.
The group got $750,000 in state money last year -- its first state funding -- on the promise that it would help North Carolina sheriff's offices begin ferreting out illegal immigrants.
It is expected to get $1 million more in this year's budget, even though very few sheriffs have gained authority to enforce immigration law and the association was unable to spend its full allocation last year. The association, which lobbies and provides training and support services to the state's 100 sheriffs, has no direct role in arresting or deporting illegal immigrants.
Some state legislators say the funding, which has so far come with little oversight, is an attempt to quell controversy.

``The state budget must respond to a worrisome issue where there is public concern and public demand,'' said Rep. Alice Bordsen, a Mebane Democrat who heads the House budget committee that approved the sheriffs' money. Bordsen said she agreed to give the association more money this year despite unanswered questions about how last year's funds were spent. She also said she finds the group's positions on immigration ``worrisome.'' In a resolution, the group refers to ``illegal alien invaders,'' singles out Mexicans as being responsible for much of the state's drug trade and calls for a cut in the number of legal visas for immigrants.

But Bordsen said giving money to the sheriffs' association is ``better than many things we could be asked to do,'' such as passing laws that penalize businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
Lawmakers say they thought the funding would help most of the state's sheriff's offices sign up for the federal 287(g) program, which allows deputies to check immigration status and begin deportation proceedings for illegal immigrants brought into county jails.
The association says it is using the money to help sheriff's offices -- including the Wake County Sheriff's Office, which will begin the program in July -- fill out paperwork, negotiate agreements and cover costs of sending deputies to four-week training.

However, Wake is one of only three new North Carolina offices that have been accepted into the federal program in the past year, and officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement say they don't have the resources to enroll more. ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said no more will join the program in the near future.

That came as a surprise to lawmakers.

Rep. Jimmy Love, a Sanford Democrat who heads the justice and public safety appropriations subcommittee with Bordsen, said that when he included $1 million in this year's budget, he thought many more counties would join the program.

'More people involved'
The sheriffs' association ``represented that there were going to be more people involved, more deputies getting this training,'' Love said. ``All we did, basically, was take their word.''
Love also said legislators did not research the cost of helping offices sign up for the program before granting money. The federal government covers most of the costs of the program, except for the salaries of deputies who train for and carry out immigration duties.
Eddie Caldwell, the association's general counsel, said the group is working with federal officials to find the best immigration enforcement method for each sheriff's office.
In addition to helping the offices that have signed up for 287(g), he said, the group is offering training about other enforcement programs and about state laws regarding immigrants.
Caldwell said the association's main goal is to offer accurate information to sheriffs interested in immigration enforcement.

``This is a complicated and evolving issue,'' Caldwell said. ``There was a tremendous amount of misinformation.''

Caldwell declined to give a detailed accounting of how the state money has been spent. According to a document given to a legislative committee in March, the association spent $620,500 since July on ``technical assistance'' to sheriff's offices and reimbursement of training costs. Included in the costs are the salaries of two new employees hired to oversee the immigration programs, along with a support staffer. Caldwell declined to release their salaries.

The association did not plan to spend the remaining $129,500, according to the document. The money, however, is already in the association's account, state officials say.
Caldwell said the group is awaiting legislative guidance on what to do with the leftover money. He said the program didn't begin until October of last year, which accounts for the lower spending levels this year.

No oversight authority
The association is not required to give more information because the legislature funneled last year's allocation through the Governor's Crime Commission but gave the commission no authority to oversee its spending.
David Jones, the crime commission director, said most private groups must submit a grant application and then be reimbursed for expenses. In this case, he said, ``all that passed was basically a blank check.'' He said the group took $100,000 a month, the maximum allowed under state law, until the money was gone.

The association must a give detailed accounting to the state auditor by March.
This year, Jones said, he asked state budget writers to force the association to go through the standard grant process. If the $1 million remains part of the final budget, Jones said he will be able to monitor its use.

Several advocates have raised questions about the money.
Rebecca Headen of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina said the association has refused to allow the public to attend its meetings about the state-funded program.
And at a meeting last week, the Governor's Advisory Council on Hispanic/Latino Affairs took aim at the group's funding.

``Public funds should go to public organizations that have public accountability,'' said Ebher Rossi, a council member and lawyer from Alamance County. ``They should not go to private groups that are openly anti-immigrant.''

Another council member, Ilana Dubester of Pittsboro, said she sees the state funding as political cover for legislators who need to defend themselves against the charge of being weak on immigration.

``There are a lot of angry people out there,'' Dubester said. ``I imagine that ÃlawmakersÄ are feeling some pressure.''

Local government can’t fix federal failings on immigration

2008-06-11T07:21:00.003-04:00

published June 11, 2008 12:15
Asheville Times
The federal government’s failure to craft a workable immigration policy continues to cause state and local governments to waste time and effort on unfeasible proposals for stemming the flow of undocumented immigrants.
It’s a catastrophic failure at the federal level with long-term ramifications that should outrage every citizen.

Two Western North Carolina lawmakers are behind the latest proposition, a state bill similar to one introduced by U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, D-Waynesville, in the U.S. House.
The state bill, backed by Rep. Charles Thomas, R-Buncombe and Sen. John Snow, D-Cherokee, would require screening through a Department of Homeland Security database for all job candidates in North Carolina.

Businesses that failed to screen applicants through the E-Verify program would risk losing their business licenses.

While Shuler’s bill could have been a reasonable first step toward addressing the problem of illegal immigration at the federal level, the state bill, if passed, promises to do nothing more than damage the state’s economy and create a hardship for businesses.
Immigration is a federal issue and can only be effectively dealt with at the federal level.
Shuler’s bill just a start

As we said months ago when Shuler introduced his bill, the vast majority of those who come to the United States illegally cross the border without documentation because there is a demand for their labor but no legal way for them to enter the country.

No bill that fails to address that reality will solve the problem of illegal immigration. Shuler’s bill was not adequate. It was a beginning, as we said at the time. The federal government has the power and authority to go further and create a way for the up to 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country to achieve legal status. It has the power to create a visa program for guest workers with an adequate number of slots, one that doesn’t essentially turn them into indentured servants.

State lawmakers don’t have that power. They do, however, have the power to cause economic hardship for state businesses.

A 2006 UNC study concluded that the North Carolina Hispanic population contributes more than $9 billion to the state’s economy. Undocumented workers are about half the Hispanic population.

In 2004, Hispanics provided 51,931 workers for the construction industry in North Carolina, 18,400 agriculture workers, 8,041 cooks and food preparation workers and 4,748 food processing workers, according to a study by the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Their buying power amounted to $8.4 billion or an average of $84 million in each of North Carolina’s 100 counties.

The vast majority of those who come to the United States illegally are decent people willing to work hard. They come from countries with failed economies, desperate for a chance to provide a better life for their families.

The unemployment rate has gone up slightly during the current economic slowdown, but at about 5 percent, it remains at what’s considered near full employment. Illegal immigrants are not taking jobs from North Carolina workers, they are satisfying a demand for labor that is not and probably cannot be met by North Carolinians and immigrants here legally.
Status quo unacceptable

That said, no one would argue in favor of the status quo. In private conversations with Shuler, area health, law enforcement and school officials said the continuing influx of illegal immigrants is placing an unsustainable drain on their resources, a spokesman in Shuler’s office said.
The millions of immigrants in the United States illegally create a vulnerable underclass susceptible to victimization. They cannot legally drive on the state’s highways or purchase insurance. Their shadowy status outside the law undermines respect for the law and sews the seeds of instability.

As the controversy over whether North Carolina’s community colleges and universities should deny access to students who entered the country illegally demonstrates, the lack of a functioning federal immigration policy leaves states in a no-win limbo, unable to make decisions in their long-term best interest without fear of flaunting federal law.

A workable immigration policy is critical to national security, national and local economies and respect for the law.

The ongoing failure of the U.S. Congress to legislate a solution can only be characterized as the most unpardonable failure to do the job they were elected to do.

But that doesn’t mean state and local governments should rush into the breech.

Letter to North Carolina ACLU

2008-06-09T16:23:00.001-04:00

I’m currently doing information research on behalf of AMERICA UNITED MANO al HERMANO of the Outer Banks. This organization works with the Latino Community in community outreach, social justice and social action.

We understand that Latinos applying for a license renewal – or a change of address – at the Dare County DMV are being asked to show documentation that they are legally in the country.

I recently read that Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina, said she isn't surprised to see North Carolina have logistical problems implementing the requirements of the Real ID Act. In an article, as published on the web, Barry Smith / Freedom News Service, stated:

The Real ID Act is pretty much at a standstill nationwide," said Marge Howell, a spokeswoman for the Division of Motor Vehicles.

As a means of complying with the federal Real ID Act, the state DMV had planned on implementing a requirement that people who apply for a new or renewed driver's license start producing documentation showing the motorist's proof of identity and legal address beginning Dec. 1. That has now been delayed.

Another change, set to begin on July 1, requires the DMV to mail a motorist's license to a residential address instead of instantly issuing a license. Howell said that program won't go into effect statewide at the beginning of July. Instead, the DMV plans to phase that program in.

I would appreciate the ACLU’s clarification on this matter. Responsible workers with driver’s licenses about to expire, are afraid to renew their licenses, leading to further complications in violating the law and obtaining insurance. Some of these workers have resorted to taking extreme measures, obtaining a license in another state for an exorbitant fee.

What documentation is legally required. Thank you for your assistance,

Nancy ACLU Member, Maryland;
recently renewed after move to North Carolina.

Changes to driver's license policy delayed DMV will eventually mail licenses to residential addressesComments

2008-06-08T20:08:00.001-04:00

June 8, 2008 - 9:31AM

Barry Smith / Freedom News Service
RALEIGH - Sweeping changes in the way driver's licenses are issued that were brought on by the Real ID Act have been placed on hold in North Carolina.
"The Real ID Act is pretty much at a standstill nationwide," said Marge Howell, a spokeswoman for the Division of Motor Vehicles.
As a means of complying with the federal Real ID Act, the state DMV had planned on implementing a requirement that people who apply for a new or renewed driver's license start producing documentation showing the motorist's proof of identity and legal address beginning Dec. 1. That has now been delayed.
Another change, set to begin on July 1, requires the DMV to mail a motorist's license to a residential address instead of instantly issuing a license. Howell said that program won't go into effect statewide at the beginning of July. Instead, the DMV plans to phase that program in.
The DMV plans to test out the central issuance program in one area of the state, likely the Lillington area, for 60 days before phasing in the program statewide.
Howell said DMV officials want to take their time and work out the kinks before phasing the program in to other parts of the state. "It won't be like a light switch and we're in your neighborhood the next day," Howell said.
Currently, when a motorist goes to the DMV to get a driver's license, after completing appropriate tests and payment of the license, the DMV issues the license on the spot.
Once the central issuance program is implemented, the motorist will no longer receive his or her license at the DMV office. Instead, a temporary driving permit, which will not be considered valid for identification purposes, will be issued. The driver's license will then be mailed out of a central location to the driver's residential address.
This presents problems for some motorists who live in areas where the post office does not have residential delivery. Some other people, for various reasons, choose to get their residential mail delivered to a post office box rather than put up a mail box at their residence.
Howell said that the DMV is still working with the U.S. Postal Service to resolve those problems.
Meanwhile, uncertainty about the Real ID Act has prompted the DMV to put plans to implement extensive document requirements on hold. "Since there is now pending legislation affecting the Real ID Act, we are not requesting that same documentation that was going to be necessary if we were compliant with the Real ID Act," Howell said.
Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the ACLU of North Carolina, said she isn't surprised to see North Carolina and other states have logistical problems implementing the requirements of the Real ID Act.
"People realize they have neither the technology or the funding or the manpower to be able to pull this off," Rudinger said.
The ACLU has called the Real ID Act the "Real Nightmare," saying it, in effect, would become a national ID card, since states would be required to share databases.
Federal officials say the Real ID Act of 2005 is intended as a tool to battle terrorism. People boarding commercial aircraft or entering federal buildings or nuclear power plants would be required to produce an identification card compliant with the Real ID Act.

The Governor's Crime Commission

2008-06-05T10:03:00.002-04:00

RALEIGH, N.C. -- will review a program today that's designed to help local law enforcement deport dangerous illegal immigrants.Di

The latest numbers from U.S. Border Patrol agents has the number of illegal immigrants in the United States at 12 million and they now account for about one in every 20 workers.

North Carolina ranks 9th among states in the U.S., with an estimated 206,000 illegal immigrants living in the state.

Supporters of the 287-G program say the program's goal isn't to deport all illegal immigrants from North Carolina, just the violent criminals. But some worry the program targets Latinos and lends itself to racial profiling. Latino advocates say the program is being overused.

Surrounded by four local sheriffs, Senator Elizabeth Dole touted a tough stance on immigration.

"If they're thinking of coming to North Carolina to commit crimes, they darn well better not do it because we're going to get 'em," said Dole.

Four counties in the state are part of 287-G. Durham is the only city police department in the program and Sheriff Donnie Harrison says Wake County is the next to come online.

"This is for the safety of the citizens of Wake County," said Sheriff Harrison.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kay Hagan also supports the program. She met with six sheriffs last week, but some of them still have concerns.

"It's very important that this program is not seen as we're sending deputies down the street to arrest people for being illegal," said Cumberland County Sheriff Earl "Moose" Butler.

Some Latino advocates point out, of the thousands deported out of Alamance and Mecklenburg Counties, more than 80 percent were not violent criminals, but instead were charged with simple traffic violations.

One member of the ACLU, fears 287-G may fan anti-immigration feelings.

"I think there's a link between that misinformation and some of these local law enforcement initiatives," said ACLU member Rebecca Headen.

So far, no accusations of racial profiling have been made against any of the police agencies currently a part of 287-G.

Meantime today, the governor's crime commission (who are these people) will hear from Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran and the Executive Director of El Pueblo about the impact of immigration enforcement on the Hispanic community.

You can contact the commission at: http://www.nccrimecontrol.org/ContactUs.cfm?b=000003,000011,001261

Immigration debate grows from Web roots

2008-06-04T09:45:00.002-04:00

Blogs, forums rife with opinions from advocates, opponents
By Antonio Olivo Tribune reporter
June 4, 2008
Article tools

Minutes after word broke about a Nickelodeon TV special on children affected by Immigration raids, messages like "What part of illegal don't you understand!?!" and "Deport them all!" bombarded Web sites and blogs.Then, in an increasingly common reaction, bloggers from "pro-migrant" sites such as Citizen Orange and The Unapologetic Mexican countered by ridiculing the show's critics.By the end of the day, a Google search for the documentary was more likely to highlight the pro-legalization side of the debate than the anti-immigrant side. Victory, for the moment, was theirs.But the war is just getting started on this increasingly influential front in the Immigration debate.

Related links
Blog: NumbersUSA
Blog: Illegal Immigration ALIPAC
Blog: The Unapologetic Mexican
Blog: Citizen Orange
Blog: A Dream Deferred
Video game: ICED
YouTube video: Glenn Beck's History of Illegal Immigration
YouTube Video: SuperNews! - The Immigration Debate

In what is becoming a rhetorical echo chamber for anyone who types the word "Immigration" into their search engine, the Internet is filling up with clashes—often racially tinged—over deportations, border security and the country's general future in the face of changing demographics.Both sides hope to build popular momentum for a renewed fight over Immigration reform during the next presidential administration.

Squaring off in blogs, on Facebook or in YouTube videos, they see themselves immersed in a cultural battle for the ages and are enlisting students and seniors alike in volunteer squads charged with advancing their side of the argument whenever and wherever possible."I've got 80-year-olds that are . . . Internet fighter pilots," said William Gheen, president of the North Carolina-based Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, a conservative group whose Web campaign helped derail Immigration reform legislation in Congress last year by prompting thousands of faxes, e-mails and phone calls to legislators."Some of them, when they first came on, were scared to death to even interact in this media," Gheen said. "But I've watched them grow. Necessity is the mother of invention, and we're inventing tactics as we go."The dominance on the Internet of conservative groups like ALI-PAC has moved pro-migrant groups to get more active, prompting conservatives to escalate their efforts.

After failing last summer to win legalization for the country's estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants, advocates realized the battle was lost largely on the Web.A study by The Opportunity Agenda, a New York-based social justice organization, showed the presence of anti-legalization groups last summer on social networking sites was twice that of pro-immigrant groups. Some conservative discussion forums on Facebook have dwarfed the opposition with as many as 18,000 members."We haven't yet been able to win the hearts and minds of the average American, and that has to happen before legislation passes," said Jacquelyn Mahendra, who coordinates a Web campaign for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Generally, both sides fall into three categories: e-advocacy blogs calling on readers to pressure legislators, human interest sites that tap into frustrations over federal raids or illegal Immigration, and creative, sometimes comical, games and videos meant to win over the unsuspecting Web surfer who may still be undecided on Immigration reform.The latter group ranges from conservative TV and radio host Glenn Beck's 2006 cartoon "History of Illegal Immigration in a Couple of Minutes," attracting nearly 200,000 YouTube views, to the Web video game "ICED"—a 3-D journey of the pressures faced by deported immigrants that has been downloaded more than 90,000 times since last summer.

Meanwhile, "Great Immigration Debate," a cartoon that mocks both sides, has reaped nearly 3 million views on YouTube and a 2007 Webby Award nomination.Immigrants themselves, frustrated by how they're portrayed, also have entered the fray. In Chicago, one such blogger is Flor Crisostomo, an illegal immigrant who has sought sanctuary inside a Humboldt Park church since January. She also has a MySpace page.

From her Northwest Side perch, Crisostomo, 29, has begun posting bilingual screeds against federal raids, news of her personal stand, and critiques of U.S.-Mexico trade policies that, she argues, have spurred border-jumping."This site will be for the whole world, including groups who are anti-immigrant," said Crisostomo, who once loaded pallets in Pilsen. "More than anything it will be to educate people why we're in this resistance."Prenal Lal, 23, a Fijian immigrant in northern California, is among a growing number of "Dreamers" hoping to show the debate's complexity. Their site, A Dream Deferred, is built around the Dream Act, which proposes temporary legal status for undocumented college students. The bill has languished in Congress.Among the site's links to blogs and videos, an online petition calls on each of the presidential candidates to make the Dream Act a top priority during the first 100 days of a new administration. So far, it has just more than 8,100 signatures—a response that has Lal wondering how much influence she and other Dreamers wield. "I would like to see more people get active in this."While small, such efforts are cumulatively weaving a Web network that can be used for political organizing and fundraising, said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a Washington-based strategy group for Immigration reform."It's just such a potent tool," said Sharry, whose staff has been meeting with political Web firms to devise a national strategy. "Over time, what we'd love to see happen is have bloggers who swarm the way anti-immigrant bloggers do and, eventually, challenge lawmakers to act and debate strategy and policy."To all such pro-migrant ambitions, Gheen and other conservatives say: Bring it on. "We are light-years ahead of the competition," said Gheen, a former political consultant who said he sees his group as part of a "populist movement" of conservative talk show hosts, legislators and others who report what mainstream media do not about Immigration.ALI-PAC has been a persistent voice on the Web, posting videos and receiving 5 million hits on its Web site in May, Gheen said.Such aggressive efforts on both sides have attracted extremists who have charged the debate with a rising level of hateful, violent speech.

"You look at these blogs and there's some horrendous stuff going back and forth," Gheen said, emphasizing that his staff of 14 moderates language on the ALI-PAC site. "You've got [militant Latinos] posting 'Kill all whites' and you've got white nationals over there posting 'Kill all browns.' It's out of control. It's crazy.

"aolivo@tribune.com

Talking points re H2717 Access to Higher Education for Immigrant Students

2008-06-02T13:46:00.002-04:00

This policy change will strengthen our future tax base.
It would give an opportunity to young people who have grown up in North Carolina, and been educated in NC public schools to obtain a higher education while also allowing our state to have access to the long-term economic benefits that these students can provide as a highly educated and bilingual workforce.

This is about investing in the future of NC and the people who live, work and raise families here. Immigrant families are pulling more than their own weight when it comes to the taxes they pay, the contribution they are making to our growing economy, and what they bring to a diverse state like North Carolina.

This is not about special rights; this is about not making the self-defeating mistake of cutting off the achievement and ability to succeed of our neighbors.

This is a workforce development issue.
North Carolina's state and local governments, businesses, and industry are currently recruiting college graduates from outside the state, as well as outside the US, to fill shortages in the fields of business, education, and health services. A number of students who will benefit from this policy change have the potential to satisfy many of these essential job needs in NC.
Immigrants are here, are paying taxes, holding jobs, raising families, and most will be here for the rest of their lives. While it is good for the immigrants to get an education, it is even more important for all of us in North Carolina that they move up the economic ladder and become self-sufficient engines of the NC economy. Access to our state's colleges will increase the state's collective productivity and economic growth by preparing an educated workforce.

These are qualified North Carolina students.
According to the law, any student in North Carolina is entitled to a public school educationuntil the 12th grade, meaning that our state has already invested significantly in their education. These are high school students who have attended elementary and secondary
schools in this state for most of their lives, are likely to remain in the state and are high achieving and highly motivated. By allowing them to pursue higher education, the state can benefit from students who are bilingual and bicultural, and able to contribute to the state's
collective productivity and economic growth.

In-state tuition and federal immigration issues are separate issues from open enrollment admission.
The recent policy change only impacts enrollment to Community Colleges; undocumented students must still pay out-of-state tuition, which is over $2,000 more than the actual cost of educating the students. This policy change reminds us of the need for federal comprehensive immigration reform, so that undocumented families that live, work and contribute to our society can receive legal documentation.

SOURCE: Adelantenc.org

Actions to take about Higher Education for Immigrant Students

2008-06-02T11:00:00.001-04:00

Access to Higher Education for Immigrant Students
Ensure that Higher Education will be available for ALL students:

1. Contact your NC Representative and Senator
NC elected officials could consider legislation this session that would not only ban
undocumented students from the NC Community College System, but also close the doors of
the entire UNC public university system. In order to gain their support, we need to show how
many of us support immigrant students! Don’t let our voices be drowned out by anti-immigrant
rhetoric…contact your local Representative and Senator and just say: “I support education for
all NC students. Don’t close the doors of higher education to anyone!” To find your elected
official, go to: http://www.ncleg.net/ and click on Representation.

2. Contact NC Speaker of the House & President Pro Tem
Contact Speaker of the House Rep. Joe Hackney (919-733-3451, ) Joeh@ncleg.net and
President Pro Tem Sen. Marc Basnight (919-733-6854, Marcb@ncleg.net) to let them know
that you do not want the NC Legislature to ban undocumented students from our community
colleges and universities.

3. Contact Governor Easley
Call Governor Easley (1-800-662-7952-NC only, 919-733-4240, or 919-733-5811) to thank him for supporting undocumented students through his public statements. Ask him to continue his
leadership in support of access to higher education for immigrant students.

4. Write a Letter to the Editor
Let's make sure that the voices heard in the media are not one-sided- all it takes is 150-200
words saying why you believe that all students deserve an opportunity to pursue their education.

5. Join us for some scheduled lobby visits
Members of the Adelante Education Coalition have volunteered to be at the legislature and
accompany people who would like to visit their NC Representative and Senator. See the back of
this sheet for dates and times of these lobby visit days.

6. Keep up with the latest developments
We’ll be hosting several conference calls over the coming weeks and months where we can all
share news, updates, report-backs from visits, and ideas for action. See the back of this sheet
for dates and times of these community conference calls. We'll be hosting several conference calls over the coming weeks and months where we can all share news, updates, report-backs from visits, and ideas for action. Dates and times of these community conference calls are: May 15 (7pm), May 28 (7pm), June 11 (7pm), and June 25 (7pm). Contact Dani Martinez-Moore, Coordinator of the Network of Immigrant Advocates for the NC Justice Center, if you are interested in participating in one of these calls.

7. Get Creative!
Can you think of other great ideas for showing your support? UNC students have started a webbased petition that has already collected hundreds of signatures. Youth leaders have
documented their stories of struggle through PhotoVoice projects. We’d love to hear what you’re
doing in your organization, school, or neighborhood!

Talking Points

This policy change will strengthen our future tax base. Immigrant
families are pulling more than their own weight when it comes to the
taxes they pay, the contribution they are making to our growing
economy, and what they bring to a diverse state like North Carolina.

This is a workforce development issue. North Carolina's state and
local governments, businesses, and industry are currently recruiting
college graduates from outside the state, as well as outside the US, to
fill shortages in the fields of business, education, and health services.

A number of students who will benefit from this policy change have the
potential to satisfy many of these essential job needs in NC.
These are qualified North Carolina students. These are high school
students who have attended elementary and secondary schools in this
state for most of their lives, who are likely to remain in the state. By
allowing them to pursue higher educations, the state can benefit from
students who are bilingual and bicultural, and able to contribute to the
state's collective productivity and economic growth.

In-state tuition and federal immigration issues are separate issues
from open enrollment admission. The recent policy change only
impacts enrollment to Community Colleges; undocumented students
must still pay out-of-state tuition, which is over $2,000 more than the
actual cost of educating the students. This policy change does not
adjust students' documentation status, reminding us of the need for
federal comprehensive immigration reform.

Lobby Visit Days
Wed, May 14 (10am) Tues, May 27 (10am)
Tues, June 10 (10am) Tues, June 24 (10am)

Community Conference Calls
Thurs, May 15 (7pm) Wed, May 28 (7pm)
Wed, June 11 (7pm) Wed, June 25 (7pm)
Contact Irene Godinez, Advocacy Director of El Pueblo for more
information:
irene@elpueblo.org or (919) 835-1525
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Adelante Education Coalition - www.adelantenc.org
SAF – 1317 W. Pettigrew Street, Durham, NC 27705 – 919-660-3652
Rosie Rangel – r.rangle@duke.edu Melinda Wiggins- mwiggins@duke.edu
NC Latino Coalition – Ivan Parra – kmparra@aol.com – 919-225-1673

(Raleigh) News & Observer More illegal immigrants lack license

2008-06-01T14:35:00.001-04:00

An N.C. law passed in 2006 forbids renewal, but many drive anyway. Sheriffs step up checkpoints.
Kristin Collins

BENSON --
Luz Gonzalez used to take spur-of-the-moment trips to the beach. Now, she is afraid to drive to the doctor for checkups on her new pregnancy.

She and her husband, Ismael, can no longer have a savings account or a car registered in their names. Every time they drive to church, they watch for the flash of blue lights in the mirror.
The Gonzalezes, who identified themselves by only one of their two surnames, are among many illegal immigrants in North Carolina who are beginning a new life – one without driver's licenses.
A 2006 state law made it impossible for illegal immigrants to renew their licenses. The change was talked about mostly as a tool to combat terrorism – several of the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks had licenses – but it has created a crisis in the Hispanic community and a potential hazard on the roads.

As licenses issued under the old rules expire, advocates and law enforcement authorities say many illegal immigrants, who number an estimated 300,000 in North Carolina, are now driving without licenses or insurance.

“They do not want to be driving without licenses, but it's coming to a point where they can't do things the right way,” said Tony Asion, president of the Hispanic advocacy group El Pueblo. “Realistically, you're not going to ride a bicycle all around the state.”

Without licenses, they are unable to register cars or get insurance, and they are not tested on their knowledge of North Carolina traffic laws. Hispanic advocates say the law makes the roads more dangerous and could drive up insurance rates. Insurance companies charge their customers a fee to cover accidents caused by uninsured drivers, and the fee increases when more uninsured drivers are on the roads.

As the rules have tightened, sheriffs concerned about illegal immigration are setting up license checkpoints and sometimes jailing immigrants for driving without licenses. Those who go to jail risk deportation.

The number of charges for driving without a license is rising, and the share of Hispanics charged is soaring, according to a News & Observer analysis of data from the Administrative Office of the Courts. Hispanics were charged more than any other ethnic group, including whites, even though Hispanics make up less than 7 percent of the state's population. In 2007, 44 percent of charges were against Hispanics, up from 35 percent in 2003.

Some sheriffs say they hope those hardships will prompt illegal residents to leave.
“It's about high time that the DMV make it more strict,” said Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell. “We have bowed down. You go to DMV now and everything is Spanish, and people are tired of it. This is America.”

Bizzell said he has a squad of deputies assigned to setting up license checkpoints and “wolfpacking,” a term he uses to refer to sending marked cars to drive the streets of a small community. Most of those arrested without licenses are Mexican, he said.
“We're trying to make it a little more inconvenient for them,” Bizzell said of illegal immigrants.

For years, North Carolina purposely made it easy for illegal immigrants to get licenses. The Division of Motor Vehicles accepted many forms of identification that illegal immigrants had access to, including identification cards issued by the Mexican government.
Immigrant advocates said the idea was to ensure that a surging immigrant population had insurance and understood driving laws.

The rules began tightening in 2004, when the DMV stopped accepting Mexican ID cards. And in 2006, state lawmakers required a valid Social Security number or visa. Forty-two states have passed similar laws, and a federal law will soon require it in all 50 states.

“If we send the message that you're not going to benefit by remaining in this country illegally, people will get the message and go home,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington, a leading anti-illegal immigration group.
Mehlman said police should not just write tickets for those without licenses but should impound cars, jail those they suspect of being undocumented and contact immigration authorities.
Increasingly, law enforcement is doing just that.

Four county sheriff's departments, including Mecklenburg, are now enrolled in a federal program that allows them to check the immigration status of jail inmates. Three more sheriff's departments – in Wake, Cumberland and Henderson counties – will soon begin the program.

Illegal Students College House Bill

2008-05-30T09:22:00.002-04:00

House Bill 2717
Status:
[H] Ref to the Com on Education, if favorable, Appropriations on 05/28/2008
Sponsors
Primary:
Harrison; Luebke; Glazier;
Co:
Faison; Fisher; Insko; Jones; Lucas; Parmon; Weiss;

From News Observer:

Illegal immigrants would continue to have access to state universities and community colleges under legislation filed this week by Democratic Reps. Pricey Harrison, Paul Luebke and Rick Glazier.

Their bill would prevent the UNC Board of Governors and the state Board of Community Colleges from requiring prospective students to disclose their immigration status. It was among the dozens of bills lawmakers filed this week just before the Wednesday deadline for legislation to be considered this session.

The bill does not prevent the universities and community colleges from charging much higher out-of-state rates for students who are not U.S. citizens. That's what they do now.

The legislation counters two other bills filed this session by Republican lawmakers that would prevent illegal immigrants from attending the state's universities and community colleges. The issue of those students' admission surfaced late last year when the community college system announced a new policy telling all 58 campuses that they should admit students regardless of their immigration status.

The national furor over that announcement led the system to get an opinion from state Attorney General Roy Cooper's office. That subsequent opinion found that the system could not admit illegal immigrants. The system has now announced it will no longer admit them. UNC officials say the issue isn't settled and therefore have not changed their policy to admit illegal immigrants.

The community colleges and the UNC system say a tiny percentage of their students are illegal immigrants.

Gov. Mike Easley has come out against barring these students from attending community colleges and UNC schools

Dole Talking Points 2

2008-05-30T08:58:00.000-04:00

http://bluenc.com/open-shred-1#comment-96412 for talking points/comments on Dole's position

Dole: Talking Points

2008-05-30T08:20:00.001-04:00

Friday, December 21, 2007

Friday Tidbits

North Carolina: Earlier this week, the Charlotte Observer [dec 2007] slammed Elizabeth Dole on immigration:
Sen. Dole worked hard to help kill a decent immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate in July. It wasn't perfect, but it provided a practical, intelligent way to secure the border -- and pay for it. It also took the sensible step of providing illegal immigrants a conditional path to legal status. Too bad lawmakers such as Sen. Dole were more interested in shouting "amnesty" and opposing any step toward legal status than they were in helping the folks back home.

Subsequently, Dole weakly responded to the paper: 1) confusing inaction with accomplishment 2) listing how she would throw literally billions of dollars at the problem without explaining where those billions would come from, and 3) focusing on ways to enhance border security without addressing exactly what her position is on what should be done with the more than ten million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Dole campaigns on immigration enforcement

2008-05-28T13:52:00.003-04:00

Elizabeth Dole, who has suddenly found herself in a much more competitive race than she expected, is out with her first TV ad. From the campaign release to First Read: "The 60 second ad focuses on Dole’s work to deliver for North Carolina the first and only statewide immigration enforcement plan of its kind in the country." The ad features sheriffs from around the state praising Dole of her efforts to help them get more access to federal dollars to help deal with illegal immigration issues.

Check it out

Hagan and 287

2008-05-27T15:44:00.001-04:00

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kay Hagan says she supports the principals of county-federal partnerships that initiate deportation for illegal immigrants who commit other crimes.

But she told a group of North Carolina sheriffs Tuesday that she has major concerns about how officials are proceeding with the program.

The 287(g) program trains local deputies to identify illegal immigrants and begin deportation proceedings.

Hagan said she would not encourage sheriffs to participate if it costs counties money. She said immigration is a federal issue that should be funded by the federal government.

Hagan also said the county-by-county participation creates a patchwork solution.

Her Republican opponent, incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole, has encouraged sheriffs to join the program.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Hagan to discuss immigration with sheriffs

2008-05-27T10:59:00.002-04:00

channel 11 news: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 | 9:15 AM

RALEIGH, NC -- Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kay Hagan MyVoice@kayhagan.com plans to hold a roundtable with six North Carolina sheriffs to discuss illegal immigration.
The event in Raleigh on Tuesday will give Hagan a handle on a centerpiece issue of her opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole.
Dole has encouraged sheriffs over the past year to participate in the federal 287 (g) program, which trains local deputies to identify illegal immigrants. Sheriffs can then initiate deportation proceedings.
Hagan, who is a state senator, will talk to the sheriffs about the 287 (g) program and the challenges illegal immigration creates for local law enforcement.

Real ID Religious Minorities

2008-05-26T08:58:00.002-04:00

A very interesting article about REAL ID.
News.com special coverage: Real ID vs. the statesTalkBack E-mail del.icio.us Digg this Religious minorities face Real ID crackdown
By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
February 6, 2008 4:00 AM PST

TalkBack E-mail del.icio.us Digg this

Editor's note: A May deadline looms as just one flash point in a political showdown between Homeland Security and states that oppose Real ID demands. This is the third in a four-part series examining the confrontation.

No television, no wedding or family photographs, and definitely no image of herself on her driver's license: That was the devout Christian life that Nebraska resident Frances Quaring was trying to lead.

Which is why, after the state of Nebraska rejected her request for a license-without-a-photograph in the mid-1980s, Quaring sued the state in a landmark case that ended up at the U.S. Supreme Court. She won, with the justices agreeing that preserving her freedom of religion outweighed the state's interest in requiring an ID photograph.

More than two decades after the Quaring case, approximately a dozen states now offer religious exceptions when issuing driver's licenses. But because of a federal law called the Real ID Act that takes effect on May 11, residents of those states who have pictureless licenses could expect problems flying on commercial airliners and entering federal buildings, including some Social Security and Veterans Affairs offices.

The new rules could affect thousands of Americans in states including

for the rest:
http://news.cnet.com/Religious-minorities-face-Real-ID-crackdown/2009-1028_3-6229258.html

Tips on Health Fairs focus on Latino Community

2008-05-24T14:57:00.002-04:00

Latino Community Outreach Resources

Driver hassled turns out to be US Citizen

2008-05-24T14:54:00.001-04:00

Here's a post from Forsythe County:

My work day has started out with a bit of infuriation. Our bilingual assistant, who was born here and is a U.S. citizen, was stopped last night in her car by a Forsyth County [North Carolina] Sheriff's deputy who had followed her for about fifteen minutes before stopping her. The deputy came to her window and just said, "Show me your papers." She asked which papers he meant, and he said, "You know what I mean. Show me your papers!" She asked if he meant her license and registration, and asked what she had done wrong, and he said, "Show me your papers that prove you're legal." She said that she was legal and therefore didn't have "papers" to prove it, other than a social security card that was at home in a safe, as the SSA advises one to do instead of carrying it around. The deputy got belligerent and cussed her out, harassed her for twenty more minutes with additional incriminating questions and assertions, and finally left her alone and drove off. He never made any assertion that she had committed a traffic violation. She is making a report against him this morning, but can't give his name, because he had tape over the name on his badge last night to conceal his identity.
I can't even tell you how angry this makes me. And scared. Our local sheriff is flouting citizens' constitutional rights in the name of sniffing out illegal immigrants. This sort of unconstitutional search would not be tolerated if the issue were drugs, or theft, or any other suspected crime. I realize that there is a major national issue here, and that most people don't want illegal immigrants here, and that the cost of amnesty to our nation would be something like $117 billion annually because of an increased discrepancy between available benefits and income tax gathered off low-wage workers. I'm not necessarily for amnesty. I'm for holding up the god-damned Constitution of the United States of America and letting nothing, nothing, get in the way of that .... not fear of communism in the 1960's, nor fear of terrorism now, nor fear of insurrection in the future. I feel like we're about to lose sight of what a precious gift we're willfully eroding .... and when our law enforcement officials become corrupt like this, where then do we turn? They're supposed to be the ones protecting us, and protecting those rights. No matter how strongly one feels about illegal immigration, I challenge you to find me one person who feels that it's worth giving up their fourth and fifth amendment rights to find a few illegal immigrants and send them home.

http://jeffisyammeringagain.blogspot.com/2008/05/scary.html

Trooper sentenced for targeting Hispanic women

2008-05-23T09:09:00.000-04:00

Friday, May 23, 2008
NC state tropper sentenced to 6 to 9 years for sexual battery

A North Carolina state trooper who target Hispanic women, some of them illegal immigrants, for sexual battery at traffic stops has been sentenced to between 6 and 9 years in prison. Michael Steele was sentenced by Judge Allan Baddour, and asked for leinency before sentencing.

"I hope if it's in your pleasure, I have a chance to spend time with my family," he said.

Steele, 28, will now spend up to nine years in jail for 10 charges he pled guilty to last month. Those charges range from felonious restraint, to second-degree kidnapping, extortion, assault on a female and sexual battery.

It was August of last year that three Hispanic women claimed he pulled them over in separate traffic stops, touched and kissed them and threatened to kill their families or report them to immigration officials if they did not comply. Some of the victims were illegal immigrants.

"He used his position in a way I've never seen in the almost 18 years I've been a prosecutor," said Jim Woodall, Orange County District Attorney. "I've never seen an officer use his position in this way to target people he felt were powerless against him."

Woodall said this case has affected every member of the highway patrol and beyond.

"Law enforcement in general has been touched and every person who lives in this state who wants to trust law enforcement has been affected by this," he said.

Steele's attorney said his client took responsibility for his actions, has never been in trouble before and is remorseful.

After court, neither Steel's attorney or family had a comment.

According to prosecutors, Steele's prosecutors said that he will probably serve about 8 years.

N.C. lawmakers target ID law

2008-05-19T13:49:00.001-04:00

By Mark BinkerStaff Writer
Monday, May. 19, 2008 3:00 am

RALEIGH — North Carolina would become the latest state to rebel against the federal REAL ID driver's license standards if an atypical mix of lawmakers gets its way. Do you also oppose it? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog. Both fiscal conservatives worried about the law's impact on state spending and more liberal members, who express concerns about the potential for invasion of privacy, signed on to a bill this past week that demands, "No State agency shall comply with the requirements of the REAL ID ACT." That 2005 federal law created uniform standards for state driver's licenses in an effort to make identification harder to fake or obtain for those here illegally.

Should the North Carolina proposal pass and the federal government not change the current law, North Carolinians would be unable to use their driver's licenses for boarding airplanes or entering U.S. government buildings.

"The cost is going to equate to what it costs us to pave 20 miles of new road, and we just can't afford to do that," said Rep. Nelson Cole, a Rockingham County Democrat who is chairman of a pair of key committees on transportation. He estimated that compliance with the law this year would cost at least $20 million, largely for computer upgrades.Cole calls the law an "unfunded mandate," a criticism of federal policies that require costly actions by the states but do not provide money to pay for the actions.Slowing tax revenues and rising costs equate to little room for new programs in the budget that takes effect July 1. At the same time, road construction and other transportation needs are becoming more pressing.

"There's also a lot of questions from a civil liberties perspective," said Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat and the Finance Committee chairman.The law would assemble a mammoth database of personal information. That has been a major sticking point for those concerned about government keeping too close a watch on its citizens or about security failures that could put individuals at risk for identity theft.

In recent years, North Carolina has been criticized for having licenses that are too easy to obtain, making it a draw for those in the country illegally. Legislators say most of those issues have been taken care of and that the REAL ID requirements do little to increase the security of the state's driver's licenses.Maine became the first state to formally reject REAL ID requirements last year; now at least seven states have passed laws similar to North Carolina's. Several other states are in the process of passing laws, including Minnesota, where the legislature voted to reject the federal law over the threat of the governor's veto. In fact, so many legislatures and governors have said they could not or would not comply with REAL ID, that the Department of Homeland Security granted all 50 states an extension for complying with the new rules from May 11 of this year until Dec. 31, 2009.Congress passed REAL ID in 2005, part of a response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Amy Kudwa, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the law was aimed at making sure all states had similar and strict regulations in place for issuing identification.And she cautioned that extensions for compliance eventually will expire, saying that if states don't bring their licenses in line by 2010, "there will be very practical consequences" for residents of those states.Residents from states that don't comply with REAL ID would need to obtain passports or other documentation that complies with the standards to fly or enter federal buildings, she said.And opponents are worried about language that says REAL ID-compliant identification could be needed for any "federal purpose," said Matt Sundeen, a transportation analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures."That's the real hammer here," he said. "People have talked about accessing any federal benefits being a concern."The conference is among a number of groups pushing the federal government to rewrite the REAL ID rules or, failing that, to repeal the law altogether. "The need for secure documentation was one of the main recommendations of the 9/11 Commission," said U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, a Greensboro Republican. Coble said it surprises him that the state legislature would consider such a move because he had been told North Carolina was making good progress in complying with the law."I'm disappointed because I think there's far more good than bad in complying with it," Coble said.A spokeswoman for the state Division of Motor Vehicles declined to comment on the pending legislation.
Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker @news-record.com

Johnson: Immigration tied to economy

2008-05-16T22:25:00.002-04:00

Friday, May 16, 2008
Washington Times

Researcher believes
diversity acceptance
is required to survive
By GREG KATSKI

Cities such as Washington must be prepared to deal with immigration if they are to survive, according to a professor who has studied the issue.

James Johnson Jr., the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discussed immigration in the state and area during a presentation at Washington’s Municipal Building on Tuesday.

The presentation, People on the Move: Implications for North Carolina’s Health and Competitiveness, suggests that “our ability to survive as a nation is based on how to transition from the ‘graying’ of America to the ‘browning,’” Johnson said.

Johnson, whose research on immigration has been cited by a number of national media outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine, warned that local governments not open to change and diversity will struggle economically.

“(Businesses) are not making investments in these kinds of communities,” said Johnson. “Your city manager will tell you that.”
Small cities such as Washington have to embrace the changing demographic landscape of the United States, according to Johnson.

“Your willingness to embrace people who are different means a lot today,” Johnson said. “(Businesses) decide not to come because of bad human-relations policies.”

The Washington Human Relations Council, which hosted the presentation by Johnson, is working to promote diversity acceptance in the area.

Economic growth in Washington will not happen without such acceptance, according to City Manager Jim Smith.

“It isn’t going to be done with attitudes negative towards diversity,” he said.
Johnson said his argument for diversity acceptance is based on the impact that the Baby Boomer generation will have on the economy and work force. Over 86 million workers from the that generation are set to retire within the next 10 years, he said. The Baby Bust generation, expected to fill these job openings, is only 67 million strong, according to Johnson. This will leave a 20-million-person void in the U.S. job market, and put a huge strain on those working to support Social Security for retirees, he said.

“We, as a native population, are aging. Who’s going to take care of us?” Johnson said.
Johnson believes the only way to fill that void is through legal immigration, especially the immigration of Hispanics looking for jobs and stability in the United States.
The percentage of Hispanics in America’s population is projected to increase from 10.2 percent in 1995 to 24.5 percent in 2050, according to Johnson. The population surge of Hispanics will help support the economy and Social Security, he said.
Southern states already are reliant on the services provided by Hispanic immigrants.
“It’s the South where really a lot of immigration is going on,” Johnson said. “People get the impression that all the immigration is going on out West.”

Johnson described North Carolina a “new Hispanic magnet state,” explaining that Hispanic immigrants are attracted to the state because of the wealth of job opportunities.
“It started out with hog, turkey and chicken processing, then construction, then hospitality services,” Johnson said.

North Carolina ranked sixth in the nation among states with the fastest-growing Hispanic populations from 2000 through 2005, according to Johnson.

Johnson, who grew up outside Greenville, said North Carolina has changed greatly since his childhood.
“North Carolina is radically different from when I grew up in the 1950s,” Johnson said. “North Carolina is much more diverse.”
The most common argument against immigration is that Hispanic immigrants waste taxpayers’ money, said Johnson, who doesn’t support that argument.
“Everyone says, ‘But they are a burden on our society,’” Johnson said. “Has anybody seen some concrete evidence that that’s true?”

In 2004, the total estimate of major public costs on Hispanics in North Carolina was $816,559,000, Johnson said. The total estimated taxes contributed to the state by Hispanics came to $755,520,000, he said. This means the net cost of Hispanics to the state was $61,039,000, according to Johnson.

“No group in North Carolina pays its own way,” Johnson said.
Johnson cautioned that although that net cost might seem like a significant amount of money, it does not factor in consumer spending by Hispanics. Hispanics living in North Carolina spent $8.3 billion as consumers in 2004, he said. They also provided workers for 89,000 additional jobs, according to Johnson.

There would be a $10 billion negative impact on the construction trade in North Carolina if those immigrants were sent home, according to Johnson.

“The glass is always half full, and that’s what this country was built on,” said Johnson, selected in September 2007 by Fast Company magazine as one of the “17 … brightest thinkers and doers in the new world of work.”

Before the presentation, Smith and Johnson discussed the effects immigration may have on Washington’s economy.

“We had the chance to talk for about 30 minutes,” Smith said. “We talked about what (Washington) can do to grow economically.”

At the conclusion of the presentation, Johnson was asked how the council could stop discrimination against Hispanics in Washington.

“I think you spend a lot of time working at these issues on moral and social grounds, when you have to work on economic grounds,” Johnson said. “You have to be dumb, stupid, or all of the above not to realize what’s going on

Worker shortage predicted

2008-05-16T13:13:00.003-04:00

WHAT TO DO

Recommendations on community colleges by the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research

1. CHANGE THE WAY STATE MONEY IS ALLOCATED: State money for community colleges is allocated using an outdated measurement -- the previous year's enrollment. During an economic downturn, enrollment jumps, but there is a lag of a year before the colleges see the money. Changing the funding formula would help make the colleges "recession proof."
2. INCREASE FACULTY SALARIES: The average full-time community college faculty member is paid $41,000, ranking North Carolina 46th in the nation. Meanwhile, in average UNC faculty salaries, North Carolina ranks 13th, according to the center, while public schoolteacher salaries put North Carolina 27th.
3. UPDATE EQUIPMENT: Nearly 100 community college programs have been cut because of the lack of money to pay for expensive equipment. The system is behind on 21st century technology, spending an average of $214 per student each year on equipment.
4. DIFFERENTIATE AMONG PROGRAMS, PUTTING MORE MONEY TOWARD HIGH-COST, HIGH-DEMAND PROGRAMS: Currently, all programs receive the same state money per student, though there is a wide difference in cost. For example, health science programs are much more expensive than cosmetology.
5. INCREASE STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES: Adult and working students often need more support such as counseling, financial aid, tutoring and child care services. Sixty-one percent of community college students are nontraditional students, and 46 percent of those leave school the first year.

N.C. CENTER FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH
BY THE NUMBERS: N.C. COMMUNITY COLLEGES
58 Number of community college campuses in the state
800,00 Total number of students
297,000 Number of degree-seeking students
112 Number of illegal immigrant students
$41,000 Average salary for full-time faculty members
28 Average age of community college students in North Carolina
N.C. COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM
Jane Stancill, Staff Writer
The state community college system, embroiled in debate about illegal immigrants, will have to produce thousands of additional graduates each year to deal with North Carolina's looming worker shortage, a new report says.

And those employees may have to come from the state's growing immigrant population, according to a report by the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research to be released today. By 2016, the state's population is expected to grow by 15 percent, and a huge wave of baby boomer retirements means community colleges will need to produce 19,000 more graduates each year -- a 75 percent increase over current numbers.

The nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank calls for more state money for faculty salaries, equipment, student services and academic programs in high-demand areas such as health care.
It also predicts North Carolina will need to tap into the rising number of legal and illegal immigrants. In the past decade, North Carolina's Asian population has increased 128 percent and the Latino population has jumped 394 percent, the center said.

The report comes two days after the community college system announced it would no longer admit illegal immigrants on the advice of the state Attorney General's Office. That policy will be in place until there is further guidance on the issue from the federal government.
No matter how the issue is decided, community colleges will be a big part of the solution in churning out workers for the new economy, said Scott Ralls, the system president, who reversed policy this week on admitting students in the country illegally.

At some point, if the interpretation of federal law opens college doors to them, Ralls said, then they will need to be trained and educated to be full participants in the state's economy. If not, he added, there will be more pressure on North Carolina to solve the work force shortage in other ways, such as by preventing high school and college dropouts.
"We're going to need everyone we can get," Ralls said.
Challenges ahead

The community colleges are a key to pushing North Carolina through a difficult economic transformation, said Ran Coble, director of the public policy research center. The state's 58 community colleges are successful, Coble said. But he added, "You can do a lot to improve their nimbleness and ability to adjust to this fundamental change in the economy."
North Carolina's economy is undergoing a radical reinvention, away from the old manufacturing empires of tobacco, textiles and furniture to pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, biotechnology, banking and financial services. The community college system has built-in impediments to responding, Coble said, including state funding that lags a year behind and anemic faculty salaries and equipment budgets.

Last fall, the center asked Ralls, who was then president of Craven Community College, to outline the challenges ahead.
Ralls calls them four brutal facts:
* More working adult students and the vanishing black male student.
* Low graduation rates and more students who need remediation.
* Predicted worker shortages and immigrants' emerging role.
* Rising enrollment combined with lagging faculty salaries and inadequate equipment.

Ralls said the system must re-energize technical education while also pumping up degree programs, early college high schools and costly health-care programs. The colleges have had to cut student support programs but also need to work harder to reach out to black men, more adult working students and first-year students in danger of dropping out.

"North Carolina needs us to do more," Ralls said, "when we are struggling just to keep pace."
For example, Ralls said, adult students -- many with families -- are now feeling the pressure of rising food bills and skyrocketing gas prices. Some have lost jobs. "During a recessionary period, that's when people need us," Ralls said.

A key to helping people into better jobs will be to expand the college's health-care programs. That costs money in faculty salaries and sophisticated equipment.

Wake Technical Community College President Steve Scott said about 900 people vie for 300 slots in the school's nursing program each year. But enlarging the programs is not simple. Nursing education costs more, and it's hard to attract nursing faculty members with the salaries offered.

There's also a huge demand for automotive and heavy equipment technicians, Scott said. "That's a heavy cost on equipment," he said. "You've got to train people on the latest equipment."

Illegal immigrant ban a first: State's move has shaken up the academic world

2008-05-16T12:53:00.001-04:00

May 15

fordonez@charlotteobserver.com
N.C. community colleges are the first statewide system to bar illegal immigrants from seeking college degrees, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
The move has shaken up the academic world by going beyond the nationwide debate over whether undocumented students should pay lower in-state tuition.

"This has really caught the attention and caused a lot of alarm," said Dan Hurley, the association's director of State Relations and Policy Analysis. "Charging them out-of-state tuition is one thing, but barring them entirely is another."

On Tuesday, N.C. Community College System President Scott Ralls announced the school's 58 campuses would adhere to a recommendation by the office of N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper and immediately stop enrolling undocumented students into degree programs.
Last week, a member of Cooper's staff cited a federal law that bans illegal immigrants from getting state benefits, including a higher education.

Proponents of stronger immigration enforcement applauded Ralls for taking a stand while immigration advocates called it insensitive and prejudicial.

Gov. Mike Easley and University of North Carolina president Erskine Bowles questioned the decision, citing the "considerable legal disagreement about what the relevant federal law really says."

The Department of Homeland Security said this week that admission policies are up to the schools.

"This is such an unfortunate situation for students and our colleges," said Norma Kent, a vice president of the American Association of Community Colleges. "And it isn't at all a simple problem. Community colleges are open-door institutions. That means our mission would traditionally lead us to admit any student who chooses to enroll."

Last year, lawmakers in at least 22 states considered legislation concerning in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. At least 10 states have enacted laws offering the lower tuition to students illegally in the United States.

Legislators in Missouri, South Carolina, Virginia and Arizona have sought to stop illegal immigrants from attending public institutions, but proposed laws have failed to be enacted, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. A handful of public institutions do not enroll illegal immigrants, but the association said the N.C. Community College System is the first to announce a statewide policy barring undocumented students entirely from seeking degrees.

"These are students who are college-ready," said John Moder, senior vice president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities in San Antonio. "We're talking about people who have potential. Why would we want to make it harder for them to develop their talents and contribute to this country?"

Supporters of N.C. community colleges' decision disagreed. They said it doesn't make sense for illegal immigrants to be trained at U.S. institutions since they can't be legally employed here.
"I don't think the intent has ever been to punish people," said Ron Woodard, head of the Cary-based immigration reform group NC Listen. "The intent is to discourage people from coming here illegally. People have to understand we can't take everyone."

Franco Ordoñez: 704-358-6180

Announcing Launch of the Sanctuary

2008-05-16T12:25:00.000-04:00

Announcing the Launch of The Sanctuary at Latino Politico. (from Man Eegee at Latino Politico)
To all our friends and allies in pro-migrant blogtopia (yes! skippy coined that latter word in the phrase), this has been a long time coming. I'm happy to announce the launch of The Sanctuary, a new community-based blog that will feature a solid team of writers on its frontpage that have worked for years to raise the centrality of human rights in the immigration debate.

When fleeing hurricanes in S. Texas, Border Patrol says undocumented not allowed to evacuate

2008-05-16T11:54:00.002-04:00

by: LatinaLista
Wed May 14, 2008 at 13:27:48 PM EDT

The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1. This Friday, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will hold a press conference releasing a new computer model simulation that shows there will be fewer hurricanes later in the century, but the ones that do form will be more intense.

Of all the coastlines in the country, there are two that have always been the most vulnerable and have a greater risk of being hit than the rest of the country: Florida's Atlantic coastline and the Gulf Coast coastline from Florida to Texas.

When these areas know they are in the path of destructive hurricanes, people are evacuated. Åfter Katrina, it was seen that everyone had the right to be moved out of the city and out of potential life-threatening harm.

Yet, in Texas' Rio Grande Valley, officials say that when the time comes to evacuate people only legal citizens will be allowed on the buses.

LatinaLista :: When fleeing hurricanes in S. Texas, Border Patrol says undocumented not allowed to evacuate

The Rio Grande Valley Guardian online news site reports that in the event of an evacuation in the area, people will be prescreened for citizenship before they are allowed on any of the fleet of school buses that will be used to transport the estimated 130,000 people who will need to be evacuated.

Those who are found to be undocumented will be taken by Customs and Border Patrol to "special areas" that are said to "withstand hurricanes." Among these "special areas" used to detain the undocumented immigrants are Border Patrol facilities in Harlingen and Edinburgh.
Seeing that these Border Patrol facilities are of the brick/mortar/steel beam variety, unless they are built with some secret material that is classified, chances are they will provide little protection for the undocumented immigrants and any of the Border Patrol agents who pulled the short straw to stay behind and guard these people.

This would especially be true if the NOAA's predictions that hurricanes will be more intense. We saw what happened with Katrina and Hurricane Andrew which destroyed the town of Homestead, Florida.

And even if a building withstands the 100+ mph winds, what building, not to mention people, can withstand rising floodwaters?
Needless to say, the decision to separate people based on citizenship is not only inhumane but it is foolhardy.

At the slightest chance that something were to happen to these people in these facilities, the United States would be the target of a global public relations fiasco. Our neighbors to the south would most probably start filing lawsuits on behalf of their citizens and the United Nations, with all its members, would definitely condemn the actions of the representatives who acted on behalf of the U.S. government.

The international reputation of the United States has already lost credibility, such an action as separating people based on citizenship in the face of an impending natural disaster, would obliterate any semblance of respect for the USA from it's global colleagues.
If ever there was a case to force the issue: humanity or legality - this is it.

WorkingFilms.org

2008-05-15T19:13:00.001-04:00

Please visit this great blogsite: http://workingfilms.org/blog/?cat=5 for thoughtful insight and resources. Working Films was co-founded by veteran film festival curator and media educator Robert West and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker and organizer Judith Helfand in late 1999.

Working Films is a national, nonprofit organization available to all independent filmmakers and community organizers. We are neither a production company nor a distributor. We bring together the best, brightest and most committed documentary filmmakers and link their work with innovative organizers and educators.
Our services range from coordinating rough-cut community feedback screenings, to developing strategies for outreach, to constructing collaborative campaigns between filmmakers and organizers. We are the only national media outreach organization offering free consultations on using films for social justice to independent filmmakers and community organizers, with over 400 to date.

Their office is located in historic Wilmington, NC, in a 1910 brick firehouse.

New Faces - Use in the Community

2008-05-15T19:09:00.001-04:00

Using the New Faces Project in the Community
In addition to being used in the classroom, New Faces: Latinos in North Carolina is appropriate for popular education on immigration, race relations, and issues of cultural diversity and equity in economic opportunities.
Currently anti-immigrant sentiment seems to be on the rise in the United States, and Latinos are feeling some of the strongest effects of this backlash. It is essential that the wider community has opportunities to gain a greater understanding of who these new Latino immigrants are and to examine the economic and social realities that drive their migration to the United States and to North Carolina.
The documentary clips and accompanying classroom discussion questions can serve as jumping off points for educating your community about the contributions of Latinos to your local area as well as the challenges they face.
Community organizations that serve Latinos may wish to use video clips as part of community forums, dialogues, teach-ins, or other popular education activities.
This curriculum project is broken down into 4 units:
Unit 1: About Latinos
Unit 2: Latino Youth
Unit 3: Latino Workers
Unit 4: Challenges and Contributions
The learning materials are delivered via printable PDF document with lesson plans, resources, and materials to help implement this curriculum. While the primary audience for this project is a secondary school teacher, an organizer can also garner discussion questions ideas from the lesson plans and can use them to facilitate a teach-in session or other educational event.
Check back soon for updates on how other organizations have made use of this curriculum, and don’t forget to give us your feedback on how you used this curriculum in your community.

New Faces: Latinos In North Carolina

2008-05-15T19:01:00.001-04:00

North Carolina has experienced a rapid increase in new Latino populations in every county, from the coastal region, to the piedmont, to the mountains. Teachers and community leaders have expressed concern about the lack of relevant classroom materials to address this population shift.
Therefore Working Films has created New Faces: Latinos In North Carolina, a curriculum-based media project for classrooms and communities that examines the cultural and economic contributions of Latino workers in North Carolina, as well as the challenges they face.

The New Faces educational materials are appropriate for 8th-12th grade literature and social studies classrooms and community groups who are learning about the impact of immigration, race relations, issues of cultural diversity and equity in economic opportunities on Latino communities. The project materials include a DVD of short video clips from documentaries and classroom lesson plans. All materials are available on this site and are free to teachers and non-profit organizations in North Carolina.
The New Faces educational materials pair documentary film clips with lesson plans based on eighth-twelfth grade North Carolina Standards of Study. The curriculum is divided into four units, each with accompanying film clips and lessons plans that feature both classroom exercises and Internet literacy activities to address worker’s rights, race, and economic justice.

Greensboro conference looks at immigrants, faith

2008-05-14T09:56:00.000-04:00

Nearly 300 people turned out for a conference on immigration sponsored by the North Carolina Council of Churches.

The Durham-based North Carolina Latino Coalition helped organize the session Tuesday at Greensboro College.

The group discussed biblical teaching on immigrants, legal issues and immigration reform.
Judy Schlegel of Durham says it's easy to get into arguments about undocumented immigrants. She says it's different when talking about individuals.

The News & Record of Greensboro reported that one participant talked about local police checkpoints outside Catholic Masses held in Spanish.

Katy Parker with the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina says only a few law enforcement agencies have written agreements and the training required by the Homeland Security Department.

Juan Crow

2008-05-09T15:17:00.000-04:00

Juan Crow in Georgia

by Roberto Lovato

This article appeared in the May 26, 2008 edition of The Nation.

From the living room of the battered trailer she and her mother call home, Mancha described what happened when she came out of the shower that morning. “My mother went out, and I was alone,” she said. “I was getting ready for school, getting dressed, when I heard this noise. I thought it was my mother coming back.” She went on in the Tex-Mex Spanish-inflected Georgia accent now heard throughout Dixie: “Some people were slamming car doors outside the trailer. I heard footsteps and then a loud boom and then somebody screaming, asking if we were ‘illegals,’ ‘Mexicans.’ These big men were standing in my living room holding guns. One man blocked my doorway. Another guy grabbed a gun on his side. I freaked out. ‘Oh, my God!’ I yelled.”As more than twenty Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents surrounded the trailer, said Mancha, agents inside interrogated her. They asked her where her mother was; they wanted to know if her mother was “Mexican” and whether she had “papers” or a green card. They told her they were looking for “illegals.”

After about five minutes of interrogation, the agents–who, according to the women’s lawyer, Mary Bauer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, showed no warrants and had neither probable cause nor consent to enter the home–simply left. They left in all likelihood because Mancha and her mother didn’t fit the profile of the workers at the nearby Crider poultry plant, who had been targeted by the raid in nearby Stilwell. They were the wrong kind of “Mexicans”; they were US citizens.

Though she had experienced discrimination before the raid–in the fields, in the supermarket and in school–Mancha, who testified before Congress in February, never imagined such an incident would befall her, since she and her mother had migrated from Texas to Reidsville. Best known for harvesting poultry and agricultural products, Reidsville, a farm town about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta, is also known for harvesting Klan culture behind the walls of the state’s oldest and largest prison. But its most famous former inmate is Jim Crow slayer and dreamer Martin Luther King Jr. His example inspires Mancha’s new dream: lawyering “for the poor.”

The toll this increasingly oppressive climate has taken on Mancha represents but a small part of its effects on noncitizen immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, and other Latinos. Mancha and the younger children of the mostly immigrant Latinos in Georgia are learning and internalizing that they are different from white–and black–children not just because they have the wrong skin color but also because many of their parents lack the right papers. They are growing up in a racial and political climate in which Latinos’ subordinate status in Georgia and in the Deep South bears more than a passing resemblance to that of African-Americans who were living under Jim Crow. Call it Juan Crow: the matrix of laws, social customs, economic institutions and symbolic systems enabling the physical and psychic isolation needed to control and exploit undocumented immigrants. Listening to the effects of Juan Crow on immigrants and citizens like Mancha (”I can’t sleep sometimes because of nightmares,” she says. “My arms still twitch. I see ICE agents and men in uniform, and it still scares me”) reminds me of the trauma I heard among the men, women and children controlled and exploited by state violence in wartime El Salvador. Juan Crow has roots in the US South, but it stirs traumas bred in the hemispheric South.

In fact, the surge in Latino migration (the Southeast is home to the fastest-growing Latino population in the United States) is moving many of the institutions and actors responsible for enforcing Jim Crow to resurrect and reconfigure themselves in line with new demographics. Along with the almost daily arrests, raids and home invasions by federal, state and other authorities, newly resurgent civilian groups like the Ku Klux Klan, in addition to more than 144 new “nativist extremist” groups and 300 anti-immigrant organizations born in the past three years, mostly based in the South, are harassing immigrants as a way to grow their ranks.

Meanwhile, a legal regime of distinctions between the rights of undocumented immigrants and citizens has emerged and is being continually refined and expanded. A 2006 Georgia law denies undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses. Federal laws that allowed local and state authorities to pursue blacks under the Fugitive Slave Act appear to be the model for the Bush Administration’s Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ACCESS) program, which allows states to deputize law enforcement officials to chase, detain, arrest and jail the undocumented. Georgia’s lowest-paid workers, the undocumented, now occupy a separate, unequal and clandestine place that has made it increasingly difficult for them to work, rent homes or attend school.

The pre- and post-Reconstruction regional economic system centered on the stately Southern mansions that once graced Atlanta’s storied Peachtree Street has given way to a more global finance-driven system centered on the cold, anonymous skyscrapers that loom over Peachtree today. And in a more hopeful sign, some veterans of the civil rights struggle against Jim Crow are joining Latino immigrants in what will likely be one of the major movements of the twenty-first century.

These and other facets of immigrant life in Georgia, the Deep South and the entire country are but a small part of the labyrinthine institutional and cultural arrangements defining the strange career of Juan Crow.

The immigrant condition in Georgia worsened in the wake of the failed immigration reform proposal last year. The national immigration debate had the effect of further legitimizing and emboldening the most extreme elements of the anti-immigrant movement in places like Georgia. Since the advent of what he terms “Georgiafornia,” for example, D.A. King, a former marine and contributor to the anti-immigrant hate site VDARE, has leapfrogged into the national limelight to become one of the major advocates for deportation and security-only “immigration reform.” Strengthened by the defeat of national reform, King, State Senator Chip Rogers and a growing galaxy of formerly fringe groups succeeded in getting some of the country’s most draconian anti-immigrant laws passed. These new racial codes are disguised by the national security-infused bureaucratic language of laws with names like the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act (GSICA).

Their efforts were egged on by the Bush Administration’s implementation of the ACCESS program last August. ACCESS provided new excuses for state and local officials to pursue the undocumented in states like Georgia. In tandem with the federal government, King and Rogers led the push to pass GSICA, which requires law enforcement officers to investigate the citizenship status of anyone charged with a felony or driving under the influence. GSICA and federal efforts laid the foundation on which the other legal and social structures of Juan Crow grow.

Georgia’s estimated 500,000 undocumented immigrants must think twice before seeking emergency support at hospitals or clinics because of laws that require them to prove their legal status before receiving many state benefits. “No-match letter” regulations requiring all employers to confirm the Social Security numbers of their employees have been issued by the Social Security Administration and have resulted in firings and growing fear among immigrants. But even without the no-match letters, undocumented immigrants in Georgia have many reasons to fear going to work. If they work at a company with more than 500 employees, for example (and most undocumented immigrants are employed in meatpacking, agricultural, carpet and other industries with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of workers), they must worry about laws that punish employers who knowingly hire undocumented immigrants and mandate that firms with state contracts check the immigration status of their employees. Similar laws denying or restricting housing, education, transportation and other aspects of immigrant life are also being instituted across Georgia.

For a firsthand look at how the interplay of state and federal policies fuels Juan Crow, one need go no further than the immigrant-heavy area surrounding Buford Highway in DeKalb County, near Atlanta. During the weekend of October 18, 2007, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) and other advocacy groups from across the state reported sharp increases in arrests of immigrants in the area. “This weekend alone we received more than 200 phone calls from people telling horrible stories of arrests,” said GLAHR executive director Adelina Nicholls of Mexico City. “There are hundreds of Latinos who’ve been hunted down like animals, taken to jail, and they don’t even know why or whether or not they’ll be released,” said Nicholls more recently.

Nicholls and other advocates are working feverishly in response to the exponential increase in official and extra-official profiling of immigrants. Last year there were forty-four reported armed robberies of DeKalb County-area Latino immigrants in August alone. One especially outrageous incident took place just west of Atlanta, in the rural town of Carrollton, last June. Emelina Ramirez, a Honduran immigrant, called local police to report that her roommates were attacking her, punching and kicking her in the stomach. Ramirez was pregnant. Locals say that when police got to Ramirez’s apartment, officers handcuffed her, took her to jail and then ran her fingerprints through a federal database. After discovering that she was undocumented, they contacted federal authorities as stipulated under ACCESS and GSICA. Ramirez was then deported.

Nicholls says she and GLAHR staff exist in a perpetual state of exhaustion after having to expand their DeKalb County work to deal with cases like Ramirez’s. Adding to their load is the situation in nearby Cobb County, where the local jail has 500 adults captured on streets, at work and in their homes. All of these people, says Nicholls, are awaiting deportation.

Beneath the growing fear and intensifying racial tensions of Georgia lies the new, more globalized economic system that sustains Juan Crow. At the core of the economy in Dixie are the financial dealings taking place in the shiny towers of Peachtree Street, buildings constructed atop the ashes of plantation houses.

Lining Peachtree today are SunTrust, Bank of America and other titans of global finance with major operations in downtown Atlanta. Along with the financial players of Charlotte, North Carolina, the companies occupying the towers on Peachtree are among the prime movers behind the transformation and restructuring of the Georgia economy–and of its race relations. On Peachtree you can find US banks and financial firms investing in companies doing business in post-NAFTA Latin America, where nonunion labor and miserably low wages drive immigration to Georgia and other states. The investment portfolios of many of these companies have grown fat with high-yield investments in the poultry, meatpacking, rug, tourism and other Georgia industries employing undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. The need to keep down the wages of these undocumented workers is fulfilled with the legal, political and psychological discipline of Juan Crow. Along with the most visible legacy of Jim Crow–Georgia’s massive and growing population of black prisoners, housed in Reidsville and other, mostly rural prisons–the Peachtree State’s undocumented immigrants find themselves at the bottom of the South’s new political and economic order.

By keeping down wages of the undocumented and documented workforce, Juan Crow doesn’t just pit undocumented Latino workers against black and white workers. It also makes possible every investor’s dream of merging Third World wages with First World amenities. Promotional brochures put out by the state’s Department of Economic Development, for example, tout Georgia’s “below average” wages and its status as a “right to work” (nonunion) state. Georgia’s infrastructure, its proximity to US markets and its incentives–nonunion labor, low wages, government subsidies, cheap land–allow the state to position itself as an attractive investment opportunity for foreign companies. While the fortunes of Ford, GM and other US companies have declined in the South, the fortunes of foreign automakers here are rising. Companies like Korean car manufacturer Kia, which plans to open a $1.2 billion plant by 2009, see in Georgia and other Southern states a new pool of cheap labor. Of the $5.7 billion of total new investment in Georgia in 2006, more than 36 percent was from international companies–companies that were also responsible for nearly half of the 24,660 jobs created by government-supported foreign ventures that year.

Also critical to the economic strategies formulated in the towers on Peachtree Street is another Latin-centered component: free trade with Latin America. “We are the gateway to the Americas,” boasted Kenneth Stewart, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development. Stewart was among the more than 1,000 people, including three US Cabinet members and finance ministers, trade representatives, investors, corporate executives and politicians from thirty-three countries in the hemisphere, who attended the sold-out Americas Competitiveness Forum at the Marriott on Peachtree Street last June. As an organizer of the event, the gregarious Stewart, like many of the region’s economic leaders, considers hosting the forum a critical part of Atlanta’s bid to become the secretariat of the Free Trade Area of the Americas organization. Local elites support building a $10 million, privately financed FTAA headquarters complex, possibly in the area near Peachtree and the Sweet Auburn neighborhood.

Before being rapidly gentrified by the white-collar employees working in the Peachtree towers, Sweet Auburn, the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr., was one of the cradles of the African-American freedom struggle. Echoing the connection frequently made here between increased globalization and commerce and improved race relations, Stewart told me that free trade “will benefit citizens of Georgia and the citizens of Mexico and other Latin American countries.” But when I asked him about the increased racial tensions, including the murders of some immigrants in Georgia, and about the growing repression of noncitizen Mexican workers, Stewart abruptly ended the interview.

For her part, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin–among the most recent in a long line of African-American Atlanta mayors that includes former Martin Luther King colleague and Wal-Mart consultant Andrew Young (who has an office in a Peachtree high-rise)–also linked local freedom struggles with global free trade. Before the Americas Competitiveness Forum, she and other regional elites distributed splashy brochures promoting the city’s FTAA bid. Included in the brochure was a picture of the headstone of King’s grave, which bears the inscription Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty I’m Free at last. The brochure promoting “the city too busy to hate” also paints a positive, global Kumbaya picture of the plight of Georgia’s migrants: “With its attractive quality of life and rapidly expanding job market, Metro Atlanta draws thousands of newcomers every year and has growing Latin, Asian and African American communities.”

“This is the home of Dr. King,” said Franklin in her welcome speech at the packed forum. “It is in the spirit of peace, it is in the spirit of collaboration and it is in the spirit of fairness that we attack this issue of [economic] competitiveness,” she told her audience in King-like cadences. But had Franklin taken her foreign visitors on the short stroll from their hotel to Sweet Auburn, they would not have found the racial harmony described in the glossy brochures and spirited speeches.

Documented and undocumented Latinos dealing with the economic and political effects of Juan Crow in Georgia (and across the country) find themselves unwitting actors in a centuries-old racial drama, which they must alter if Juan Crow is to be defeated. The major difference today is that Latinos also find themselves having to navigate a racial and political topography that is no longer black and white. Young Latinos, in particular, attend schools that teach them about Jim Crow while giving them a daily dose of Juan Crow.

High school senior Ernesto Chávez (a pseudonym) does not look forward to becoming one of the few undocumented students in Georgia to go to a university like Kennesaw State, which requires them to carry student IDs with special color coding, or to a college that denies them aid and forces them to pay exorbitant, nearly impossible-to-pay out-of-state tuition. He has already learned enough about Jim Crow–and Juan Crow–in high school.

Chávez, who sports a buzz cut and wears baggy clothes, said that when he studied Jim Crow in school, he identified strongly with the heroic generation of African-American youth who rebelled against it. “They couldn’t ride in the same trains, they couldn’t drink from the same fountains,” he said during an interview in a classroom at Miller Grove High School in the Atlanta suburb of Lithonia. “I felt mad when I read about that, even though they weren’t my people,” said the soft-spoken Mexican, who is part of the small but growing minority of Latinos at Miller Grove (African-American students make up about 93 percent of the student body).

Chávez said he came to know the limits of his physical, social and psychic mobility, thanks to the Georgia law that requires people to show proof of citizenship or legal status in order to obtain a driver’s license. “It’s hard to describe what it feels like to be ‘illegal’ here in Georgia. It’s like you can’t move,” he said, his voice cracking slightly. “It feels scary because you know that when you go out to a public place, you might never know if you’re going to come back. I’m really scared because my mother drives without a license. She’s scared too.”

Chávez and other Latino students also expressed their shock and dismay at being discriminated against by some of the descendants of those discriminated against by Jim Crow.

“When I first got here, I was confused. I went to a mostly white school in Gwinnett County and started noticing the fifth-grade kids saying things to me, racial stuff, asking me questions like, ‘Are you illegal?’” said Chávez as he fidgeted nervously in one of those ubiquitous and visibly uncomfortable school desks. “But when I was in seventh grade, I went to Richards Middle School, where it wasn’t the white people saying things, it was black people. They didn’t like Mexican kids. They would call us ‘Mexican border hoppers,’ ‘wetbacks’ and all these things. Every time they’d see me, they yelled at me, threatened to beat me up after school for no reason at all.” Asked how it felt, he said, “It’s like, now since they have rights, they can discriminate [against] others.”

Chávez’s family, along with many immigrant families in Georgia, will be watching closely to see how the state’s justice system deals with the still-pending 2005 case of six Mexican farmworkers killed execution-style in their trailers, which were parked near the cotton and peanut farms they toiled on in Tifton. Pretrial motions began last July in the case, in which prosecutors allege that four African-American men bludgeoned five of the immigrants to death with aluminum baseball bats and shot one in the head while robbing them in their trailer home. Though the face of anti-immigrant racism in the Juan Crow South is still overwhelmingly identified as white by the immigrants I interviewed, some immigrants also see a black face on anti-immigrant hate.

Politically, a growing divide has emerged between pro- and anti-immigrant blacks in Georgia. The African-American face of Juan Crow is embodied by State Senator and probable Democratic Atlanta mayoral candidate Kasim Reed (he’s also considering a gubernatorial bid). Reed proposed a five-year prison sentence for anyone caught trying to secure employment with a false ID. Local Latino and African-American activists have criticized Reed for what Bruce Dixon of the online Black Agenda Report called his “morally bankrupt attempt to outflank Republicans on the right.”

Activists like Janvieve Williams of the US Human Rights Network, based in Atlanta, counter the anti-immigrant tide by elevating the tone of the debate and shifting the terms to human rights. As an Afro-Panamanian immigrant, Williams says she feels discrimination from many whites in Georgia, but she also experiences discrimination from mestizo immigrants. Her perception of anti-immigrant sentiments among African-Americans adds another layer to the complex racial dynamics unleashed by Juan Crow. “I’m caught between African-Americans who don’t want to understand immigration and immigrants and Latinos who use words like ‘moreno,’ ‘negritos,’ ‘los negros’ and other terms that are not good,” says Williams.

But rather than see her Afro-Latino identity and her Latin American political experience as a barrier between communities, Williams–who co-hosts Radio Diaspora, a weekly Afro-Latino program that helped promote the 50,000-plus immigrants’ rights marches in 2006–uses Latin American media and organizing experience to cross linguistic and political borders. “We need to move from civil rights to human rights. We need to start using the language and tools of human rights around the issue of immigration. It’s an international issue that needs an international framework,” says Williams, whose organization co-sponsored the visit to Atlanta last May by the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. Williams’s organization brought together many groups who shared stories of Juan Crow with the special rapporteur, who took his report to the UN General Assembly.

In the same way that the concept of civil rights grew as a response to Jim Crow, the human rights framework advocated by Williams and other immigrants’ rights activists in the South and across the country challenges traditional approaches to race and rights. “Some civil rights leaders here don’t think human rights affects us in the United States,” says Williams. “A lot of the [civil rights] elders of that movement are not linked to the human rights movement, and that also gets in the way of working together.”

Not all of Georgia’s civil rights elders fit thirtysomething Williams’s description. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, the lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr., says he did not perceive the threat that some whites and African-American Georgians felt from the massive immigrant marches of 2006; instead he sees in the millions marching in Atlanta and across the country “instruments of God’s will to change this country.” Reverend Lowery, who now leads the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, has spoken eloquently and vociferously against what he considers “wicked” immigration policies and has attended pro-immigrant rallies. He believes that massive immigration to the United States came about because of the workings within the tall buildings like those in spitting distance of his office in the historic Atlanta Life building on Auburn Avenue. “We’ve globalized money, we’ve globalized trade and commerce, but we haven’t globalized fairness toward work and labor. The solution to the ‘problem’ of immigration and other problems is globalization of justice,” he said.

Speaking of the relationship between American blacks and Latino immigrants, Lowery said, “There are many differences between our experience and that of immigrant Latinos–but there is a family resemblance between Jim Crow and what is being experienced by immigrants. Both met economic oppression. Both met racial and ethnic hostility.

“But the most important thing to remember,” said Lowery, as if casting out the demons of Juan and Jim Crow, “is that, though we may have come over on different ships, we’re all in the same damn boat now.”

Scapegoating immigrants won’t help us deal with our biggest problems

2008-05-08T14:17:00.003-04:00

Asheville Paper: May 8, 2008 12:15 am

In the story, “Immigration gets high focus in N.C. governor’s race,” (AC-T, April 20), Tom Stroud was quoted as saying about undocumented or illegal persons, “We’re a country of laws. Do we just turn a blind eye to something that’s being done that’s illegal?”
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Stroud’s question causes one to wonder if a “blind eye” has not already been turned to the laws of the United States:
Indeed, here grew the historic rationale of the Jim Crow laws of the South when a “blind eye” was turned to the federal laws and these local and state laws fed and maintained a segregated society for more than 100 years — with racial discrimination continuing even today.
Hypocrisies at work

Moreover, ABC World News reported recently that one man in Texas had 22 wives. Polygamy has been illegal for many years in the United States, but it is still practiced. This is a case of turning a “blind eye” in at least some states.

Speeding is the number one cause of fatalities on our highways in North Carolina. If a person drives the speed limit, he/she is in danger of being rear-ended.
The state patrolmen do all they can to enforce the speed limits, and they are to be commended.
Yet, one half or more deaths on the roads is due directly to excessive speed.

It is definitely illegal for Americans to torture persons by waterboarding and other such practices.
Yet, the highest authorities in our country have broken the laws of our nation and even international treaties, and no one has spoken louder than a whisper.

On taking life
The Bible and natural law reject murder. “Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment” (Matthew 5:21b NIV).
Yet, we have murdered with drones and missiles thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and only a murmur has been heard.

Why is it that the candidates for governor and Stroud “turn a blind eye to something that’s being done that’s illegal” with such horrible consequences for hundreds of thousands of mutilated and murdered civilians? Why do they seem to “turn a blind eye” also to thousands of valiant veterans who receive inadequate care, when they gave their best for our beloved country?
Need federal jurisdiction

What the candidates for governor should realize is that immigration must be under federal jurisdiction and not under the jurisdiction of counties or states like the Jim Crow laws.
Rather than belittling the undocumented workers, they should deal with the real issues that are hurting this country: the economy, the credit crunch, the crumbling dollar, the price of oil and food, the safety of our families and of our schoolchildren, the care of veterans (to the extent that the state government can help) and fair treatment for all.

These candidates and Stroud need to support, as all the candidates for the presidency, a national solution of comprehensive immigration reform. If not, next year flour may go up more than the 100 percent that it did this past year.

The candidates seem only to blame the undocumented for every problem in the United States. These persons are certainly responsible for any crime they commit. Notwithstanding, as a rule, they are some of the most God-fearing and hardest-working persons in America.
One wonders where these candidates have been: They seem to be extraordinarily out of touch with the agricultural, manufacturing, child care and elderly needs of the people of our great state.
Russell B. Hilliard Sr. is a retired Baptist minister. He lives in Arden.

TONY MELENDEZ CONCERT

2008-05-08T14:08:00.002-04:00

Tony Melendez is a Latino guitarist who overcame the disability of being born without arms. He plays the instrument with his feet. While a professional musician, he also is committed to a mission: “If I can overcome my disabilities, how much more can you do.” It is a mission based upon an acceptance of the intrinsic value of every human being.

America United Mano al Hermano is an organization interested in advancing a more positive relationship between our Latinos and Anglos, especially since in Dare County we have a large number of Latino workers residing here. Despite their hard-working ethic, their presence has caused some fear of divisiveness and anxiety, an anxiety intensified at time by language differences. The integration of such diversity and immigration flows is what historically has made America great but remains a challenge to each generation as our country evolves.

America United is sponsoring the Tony Melendez concert of good will in order to promote a better understanding between our two groups of residents and to enhance a sense of solidarity and mutual respect. Despite our ethnic diversities and language differences we can be one welcoming community. Attendance at this concert together with Latinos is one way of expressing that resolve.

Tony Melendez Concert
June 18, 2008
7 PM
Holy Redeemer

Two choices for Wednesday (Carrsboro Paper)

2008-05-08T13:49:00.002-04:00

May 8, 2008 By Chris Fitzsimon
When the votes are finally counted Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, except for a few possible runoffs, the primary season will be over and the general election push begins.
There are plenty of issues likely to define the general election battle in statewide and legislative races, and plenty of issues that should define it, and if past campaigns are any indication, the two lists are likely to have little in common.One fundamental decision is how to treat immigrants in North Carolina, those who are undocumented and those who have documentation. That is an issue where thoughtful, honest debate has been almost nonexistent.

Gubernatorial candidates of both political parties are talking as tough as they can, none of them supporting the decision by the leadership of the State Community College system to allow undocumented students to enroll if they can pay out-of-state tuition, more than it costs the state to educate a student at a community college campus. Gov. Mike Easley has spoken out strongly in favor of the decision, but all of the people who want Easley’s job publicly oppose it, posturing to deny children who have excelled in North Carolina public schools the right to continue their education.

The community college flap, as frustrating as it may be, isn’t the most troubling part of the current immigration debate. State and local officials are not only crusading against education and even emergency services for people based on their immigration status, they are demonizing human beings in the process and increasing anti-immigrant sentiment to dangerous levels in some parts of the state.

The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners is among the leaders in this demagoguery. The board voted in February to end Spanish-language options on the county phone system, which would limit the access of some citizens to county services. The county health department reinstated the Spanish option after learning that removing it would violate federal law and jeopardize federal funding.

That hasn’t slowed down the anti-immigrant rhetoric one bit. Commissioner Hood Richardson is still at it, now proposing that county employees report the number of residents accessing health department services who have Spanish surnames, calling it a good indicator of “illegals.”
Richardson complained last fall that the county was spending too much money on alternative schools for troubled kids, saying “it costs twice as much to educate them. If they’re incorrigible … let them be out on the streets.”

Now Richardson says that anyone with a Spanish surname is an undocumented immigrant. That could be embarrassing for the Republican county commissioner if Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, the former chair of the National Republican Party, comes to town.

And what will he say if former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stops by, or if some of the local kids see Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez on television and can’t understand how he could be born in New York under Richardson’s ridiculous assumptions? Not to mention New York native Jennifer Lopez or naturalized citizen Gloria Estefan.

Richardson’s claims place him close to Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson in the most offensive statements category. Johnson has said undocumented immigrants have bad morals and described them as alcoholics and pedophiles. Gaston County commissioners have passed a resolution criticizing immigrants for a “lack of social and personal health care standards.”
Those are elected officials making those statements, not anonymous people commenting on websites. That’s what the debate has been reduced to: racism, ignorance of federal law and fear mongering.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of our political discourse that few candidates in either party are willing to stand up to it, though many know better and privately believe otherwise.
A Spanish surname has nothing to do with citizenship. And for most statewide candidates this year, standing up to racists is nowhere to be found in their campaigns, and we are all the worse for it.

Chris Fitzsimon is the director of NC Policy Watch.

Latino Arts & Culture Summit on TV

2008-05-07T12:24:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, May 20, the Latino Arts & Culture Summit will be featured on the television program OPEN/net in Spanish.

The program will discuss the second annual Latino Arts & Culture Summit on OPEN/net for Spanish speaking audiences. Airing from 8-9 p.m., the program is hosted by Yasmin Wurts-Metivier in a conference-room style discussion. As part of the discussion, panelists respond to calls and e-mails from the television audience.
Participating panelists include Banu Valladares, cARTwheels Manager for the North Carolina Arts Council; Pedro Lasch, a visual artist, Board Member of the North Carolina Arts Council, and Assistant Professor of the Practice Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University; and Lizette Cruz Watko, Founder and Executive Director of Diamante, Incorporated, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation, development, and promotion of the culture, heritage and artistic expressionsof the Latino/Hispanic population in North Carolina.
OPEN/net is a public affairs television call-in program that connects viewers across the state to the services and concerns of state government. For more information about OPEN/net, visit www.ncapt.tv.

The Latino Arts & Culture Summit will take place on June 7 at Duke University. For more information, please visit http://www.diamanteinc.org/index_files/Page767.htm.

Hispanics send loud message

2008-05-06T20:33:00.003-04:00

From the Washington Times

Guillermina Ramirez’s message to Beaufort County commissioners was a simple one —a message echoed by others.Ramirez became a legal resident of North Carolina in 2002. This week, she will obtain U.S. citizenship, she told the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners on Monday.But if she were to seek services at the Beaufort County Health Department, she could be listed as a possible illegal immigrant, if a plan proposed by Commissioner Hood Richardson were to go into effect.

In April, Richardson proposed that everyone with a Hispanic surname and seeking certain services at the health department be tallied as an “indicator” of the number of illegal immigrants who use the health department’s services.Ramirez was accompanied Monday evening by at least 35 other Hispanics — legal residents or U.S. citizens all — who showed up at the board’s regular meeting to protest Richardson’s comments. Those comments were made at a joint meeting of commissioners with the Beaufort County Board of Health last month. The entire crowd applauded Ramirez when she finished her statement, including Commissioner Stan Deatherage.Group members paraded individually to the podium, each stating his or her name, birthplace and immigration status.

Jessica Rocha helped organize the demonstration. When she was called upon to speak during the meeting’s public-comment segment, she deferred her time to the group.“We are a group of people here today with Spanish surnames,” Janet Rodman said, after quoting Richardson’s comments made during the April meeting.

Richardson and Deatherage have led a drive to deny social services that are funded by county taxpayers to illegal immigrants. The moves the board has taken to date have been based predominantly on trying to determine the immigration status of health-department clients by how well each speaks English.

Carla Velasquez delivered her address, entirely in Spanish, to the board. The Rev. Cipriano Moreno, who operates a Baptist Hispanic mission in Beaufort County translated for her. Through him, she told the board that she is a legal, permanent resident of North Carolina.Narciso Ibanez was born in the Philippines, but he has been a U.S. citizen since 1972, he told the board.“I am also retired from the U.S. Army,” he said. “I served 22 years.”Arturo Carrano said he was born in North Carolina and is a U.S. citizen. Maria Ricca, an immigrant from Guatemala, said she has been a citizen for 22 years. Jose Lopez told the board he came to the U.S. in 1985 and has been a citizen since 2000. They were followed by an immigrant from Nicaragua and several others who were born in Mexico. School-age children spoke to the board, as did men and women who could have been their grandparents.“As you can see, people with Spanish surnames are a diverse group, including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, as well as people with many other immigration statuses and visas,” Moreno told the board. “Beaufort County has been very public about trying to drive undocumented immigrants from the county, but your proposed measures and the resolutions you have passed are infringing on the rights of all residents of Beaufort County.“Not all people with English surnames have legal residence. Not all U.S. citizens speak English. Not all undocumented residents speak Spanish. The methods that you have proposed to seek out and count undocumented immigrants are clumsy and inaccurate.”

Richardson defended his push to combat illegal immigration at the local level.“My problem is not with you,” he told the group. “My problem is with those that did not do what you all did to become citizens. If you’re here as a citizen, you’re paying taxes and you are paying for illegals, too.”The group’s members were extolled for their solidarity by Commissioner Jerry Langley.“There’s strength in numbers,” he said. “Continue to stand up for what you believe in.”“We will,” Washington resident Nidia Karina Martinez responded. click on title for more

Chicle Events

2008-05-06T02:29:00.001-04:00

SUNDAY EVENTS
CHICLE holds free events at CHICLE several Sundays a month at 5:00 pm. We show films, often in Spanish with English subtitles, have speakers on cultural or political topics, and, occasionally, a musical presentation. These are our presently scheduled upcoming events. It is, of course, possible that some events may change. If you subscribe to our weekly email, you will receive the most up-to-date information.
Click on the dates below for more information.
May 18, 2008, 5:00-6:30 at CHICLE, Nueva Alianza Community, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, Javier Jimenez and Matt Rudolf
Please call us at (919) 933-0398 or e-mail us if you want more information.

Talking/Writing points about “Official English” and its impact.

2008-04-26T21:06:00.000-04:00

Use those points that connect with you and modify in your own style of language. Do not use quotations, use your own words!!!!

TOURISM
· What kind of welcome message for foreign tourists to the Outer Banks
· “The Canadian dollar is much stronger, the Euro is much stronger, and that translates into good travel deals in the United States for Europeans and Canadians,” “If people overseas had postponed a trip the United States for a couple years or so, the strong Euro was probably a nice incentive to make that trip.”
International workers for summer
· According to statistics from Pathways International in Kill Devil Hills, the town just north of Nags Head, an estimated 1,500 certified international workers are employed on the Outer Banks this summer. Most are Russian and most are employed in the seasonal service industry. For example, the six Food Lion stores on the Outer Banks employs about 300 of these foreign workers—mostly Polish and Russian college students—during its busy season of ten to twelve weeks in the summer.
Message
· It is mean-spirited and sends an anti-immigrant message
· Betrayal of our willingness to welcome newcomers
· could lead government agencies to scale back their bilingual efforts,
· More than 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared Jim Crow laws unconstitutional, legislation making English the official language in the United States threatens to cause similar injustices, Enacted throughout the South following Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws enforced racial segregation in schools, parks, cemeteries, theaters and restaurants. Official-English laws draw similar discriminatory lines. Now the issue isn’t the color of a person’s skin, but the language he or she speaks.
· Such laws are contrary to the spirit of tolerance and diversity embodied in our Constitution.
· • It is divisive, creating an "us" and a "them." In many places where English Only has passed, it has created new ethnic tensions or made existing tensions worse.
· It is an insult to the heritage of cultural minorities, including groups whose roots in this country go deeper than English speakers': Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and American Indians.
· Worst of all, the English Only movement serves to justify racist and nativist biases under the cover of American patriotism.
· Having multiple languages would make the U.S. more diverse, interesting, diplomatic and worldly. There are countries where education is bilingual or even trilingual, and children grow up speaking more than one language fluently. Is this not a good thing?
· We must oppose efforts to make English the official language when we refuse to help people learn the language.
Discrimination
· cause discrimination against people who do not speak English
· It can abridge the rights of individuals who are not proficient in English, and because they perpetuate false stereotypes of immigrants and non-English speakers.
· “Today our notion of equality has developed far enough that we know that a law saying white is the official race of America would be struck down as unconstitutional “Well, official English does the same thing, but with language. A classification based on ethnicity should violate the Constitution.”
· Making English the official U.S. language disregards all the Americans who have a different native language and culture. The U.S. is a country of immigrants.Unintended consequences
· Disrupt emergency operations in communities with populations of immigrants and have other unintended consequences.
· Congress has identified discrimination as a problem to be addressed in disaster assistance since Hurricane Camille struck in 1969. The Disaster Relief Act of 1970 included a non-discrimination section.
· Language restrictions would make it difficult for law enforcement officials to question people who speak anything other than English.
· • Presumably each county employee would be charged with interpretation. In practice, this probably means a chilling effect, beyond even the intended purpose of the bill.
· In cases where people are unable to speak English, health, safety and other hazards could arise if they cannot get information in their native languages.
· The amendment poses a threat to civil rights, educational opportunities, and free speech, even in the private sector.

Effectiveness
· Resolutions such as this are ineffective at encouraging immigrants to learn English and fail to address the real problem: the lack of sufficient educational resources available for new residents to learn English quickly. Eliminating foreign language telephone recordings, signs and voter registration materials do nothing to promote English learning.
· The number of minority language speakers is increasing, so is the rate of linguistic assimilation. All available evidence suggests that today's newcomers are learning English – and losing their native tongues – more rapidly than ever before. English was far more "threatened" in earlier times; yet it survived quite nicely without official status.
· If you genuinely wish to help immigrants learn English and assimilate more quickly into American life, this measure is not the answer. In fact, it will further marginalize and isolate immigrants and divide us from one another.
Equal Protection under Constitution and Federal Laws
· "English Only" laws are inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. For example, laws that have the effect of eliminating courtroom translation severely jeopardize the ability of people on trial to follow and comprehend the proceedings.

· “Interfere with the right to vote by banning bilingual ballots, or with a child's right to education by restricting bilingual instruction. Such laws also interfere with the right of workers to be free of discrimination in workplaces where employers have imposed "speak English only" rules.

· On the workplace: In 2002, OSHA took several steps to increase communication on safety issues to the Hispanic community. It set up a Spanish-language Web page at http://www.osha.gov/ and a toll-free number that puts employees in touch with Spanish-speaking OSHA officials. It also created Spanish language safety courses, including the OSHA 10 Hour Construction Outreach course, and made them available through its Education Centers. Additionally, OSHA established alliances with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Hispanic Contractors of America
· According to the American Civil Liberties Union, an employer may not deny a person an employment opportunity because that person is not proficient or fluent in English unless the job actually requires some English language skills, and the person does not possess the particular type and level of English language skill required to do the job.
· According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), any requirement that employees speak English all the time is discriminatory. However, the employer may require the employee to speak English when there is a business necessity. If an employer believes the English-only rule is critical for business purposes, employees have to be told when they must speak English and the consequences for violating the rule. Any negative employment decision based on breaking the English-only rule is considered evidence of discrimination if the employer did not tell employees in advance about the rule.
· Accent - Employers must show a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the denial of employment opportunity because of the applicant's or employee's accent or manner of speaking. Employers should consider whether an applicant's accent or manner of speaking would have a detrimental effect on job performance. Requiring employees or applicants to be fluent in English may violate Title VII, if the rule is adopted to exclude individuals of a particular national origin and is not related to job performance.
· They have a right to ask for an interpreter when seeking medical care. Yet that right has been the law ever since the 1964 Civil Rights Act banned discrimination on the basis of national origin.
· Federal law obligates health care providers receiving federal funding to ensure language access to limited English-proficient (LEP) individuals who cannot communicate with their provider.
· The most important federal law governing language accessibility in health care is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI states that: “No person in the United States shall, on grounds of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Throughout the years, federal court decisions, Department of Justice regulations, and decisions and guidance issued by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have consistently interpreted Title VI protections to extend to people with limited English proficiency, requiring the provision of translation and interpreter services from federally funded recipients. This requirement applies to nearly all health care providers, as federal funding of health care is almost universal. Federal financial assistance for health care includes Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP and block grants to health and welfare agencies, among other sources.
Historical Precedence
· The United States has a long history of multi-lingualism. After the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress published the Articles of Confederation in official German, French and English editions. Few people today are unaware of the growing number of Spanish speakers in Florida and the Southwest, Did you know that German was once commonly spoken in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New York and Ohio? Or that French was spoken in Louisiana, and Dutch and Swedish could be heard rolling off tongues in New York and Delaware?
· Perhaps if third, fourth and fifth generation Americans could go back in time and experience the difficulty their grandparents and great grand parents had as they tried to learn the language of their new homeland, we would not be considering such a measure.