Ma'at Hotep EbonyRose

I will attempt to be a bit more specific in answering your query relative to how we would benefit, as a group, in enacting a coalition with outside sources. Being as we really don't have specific sources to formulate the various types of good and services need to offer and also those needed. We must first form exploratory groups of individuals whose expertise will be in the goods and services we will eventually have to offer as well need. This will not be easy because we will be entering the international market for the first time as a united people. We have enough educated people who can come together and strategize as to exactly what we need and how to barter for these items. The same applies as what we have to offer. We need trade delegations, export and import experts, manufacturers of goods and international monetary experts in foreign currencies. We will need international law experts, foreign language translators, scientist, metallurgist, automobile experts, farm impliment experts, military experts, academic experts, building and construction contractors, electronic experts, mechanical experts, etc. Undoubtably we may have to train people to undertake these tasks. We need committes to ascertain how best deal with this geovernment, who will not assist us as we seek a free hand in entering the world of international empowerment. We need individuals with diplomatic skills to interact with foreign copanies or governments. EbonyRose, this will be a hugh undertaking but it has to be done. Our manufactured goods, on the global market, will open up a new area of economic empowerment never before undertaken by our race on a large scale. The same applies to imported goods and services. To say it can be done is an understatement. It has to be done, period. In doing so we put our people to work and put capital back into the community. The main problem I see is we don't control the raw and natureal resources needed to become manufacturers. We cannot expect other to be fair in providing to us these materials because they are use to dealing with us in an un-ethetical manner. Cheat us, if you will. We can overcome this obstacle because we be united in our resolve and that should prevent any underhanding by crooked businessmen. Time and the world is passing us by because we still consider partying, dancing, singing, and overall entertainment (including sports) as our number one expert. And, I might add, we are extremely good at it.

If we can export our natural cultural attributes, why can't we export our expertise in the field of commodities once we figure out exactly what we have to offer. That is, other than sport, play and religion. Planning is everything and but we must start somewhere and soon. We cannot depend on the rest of the world to support us without us supporting ourselves. In the years to come, if our people are to compete on a global scale, our youth must be computer literate instead of video game literate. Our adults buy their children $300. ipods instead of computers. Video games instead of computers. Air Jordans instead of computers. Our young people have to understand that if you cannot spell you cannot read. Education yesterday, education today and education tomorrow should be the slogan for our youth who will one day represent us. We have to insure that not only do they get a good education, we must insure they get an education in the fields required for us to compete on a global scale in the new mellenium. If we train them properly, then the world will open up to a Black, proud, strong and educated people who can compete in any area the world has to offer. And if done right, we will be where we once were: on top. Our youth, however, hold the keys to our success or failure. HOTEP. OLU

Illegal students await immigration plan

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD, AP Education Writer
Mon Jun 4, 1:53 AM ET



At 23, Mariana should be carefree. She is finishing up her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has been accepted to a master's program at Harvard University's education school.

But life is not so simple for Mariana, who insisted that only her first name be published because she is illegally in the United States and worries she could be deported to Guatemala, where she was born.

"I'm even afraid of eating an apple in the library because I'm afraid of getting caught," she said.

Mariana also worries about how she will pay her tuition and what kind of work she will get after she completes school. "What happens next? Without a work permit, how do you exercise your degree?" she said during a recent interview.

Mariana is among an estimated 50,000 undocumented students in U.S. colleges today. These students would be among the people who would benefit from a part of an immigration bill that the Senate plans to resume work on this week.

Children born in the United States to undocumented parents are granted citizenship automatically. A section of the new legislation deals with illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children. They would gain temporary legal status when they graduate from high school as long as they agreed to enroll in college or enlist in the military.

They would be put on a fast, three-year path toward getting their permanent resident status and their green cards. While waiting for that, the students would be eligible for federal student loans and could work legally — options not available to them now.

The overall bill would help roughly 12 million illegal immigrants. For most, it would take a minimum of eight years to get a green card. The larger group also would have to pay fines that would not be imposed on the high-school graduates who came to the U.S. as kids.

In all, about 1 million people now in the country illegally could potentially benefit from the provision aimed at children. Those include students currently in elementary and secondary schools. Current law allows children in the U.S. illegally to get a free K-12 education. They can go to most colleges if they can pay their way.

The immigrants who would benefit from the provision must have been age 15 or younger when they were brought to the U.S. and must have arrived before January of this year. People older than 30 when the law is enacted would not benefit.

While the bill is the subject of widespread debate, the provision addressing students is popular. Advocates say they will try to add it to other bills moving through Congress if the immigration legislation does not pass.

"I'm going to look for every chance I can find to make this the law," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a chief supporter of the idea.

"What we're saying is these kids deserve a chance," he said. "They didn't decide to come to America. Their parents did."

One of the most vocal student advocates is Marie Gonzalez, a 21-year-old junior at Westminster College in Missouri. She has made numerous trips to Washington to tell her story.

Her parents were deported to Costa Rica two years ago. Gonzalez, whose deportation was deferred, said she could be sent back next year.

She said saying goodbye to her parents was awful. "There's no words to describe it. It's been absolutely terrible. I'm an only child. They're my best friends," she said.

But she said she cannot contemplate departing the United States for Costa Rica, a country she left when she was 5. "I've thought about visiting, but not going back to live there," she said. "That would be like a crashing of my dreams."

Student advocates say many of their peers drop out of high school because illegal immigrants typically only get jobs for low-skilled workers.

But the provision is motivating some students to stick with their studies, said Tam Tran, 24, who just graduated from UCLA.

"The idea that it might pass someday — that they might be able to use their college degree to get a job — that drives people," said Tran, who was born in Germany to Vietnamese refugees.

Neither Germany nor Vietnam recognizes her as a citizen, so she considers herself stateless in some ways and a typical American in others, Tran said.

She said she tries not to dwell on her status and that of many of her friends.

"It's like a form of rejection," she said. "We can't fully participate in what we have worked hard to become a part of."

___

On the Net:

National Immigration Law Center: http://www.nilc.org/

UCLA group advocating for undocumented students: http://www.ideasla.org/home.html

McCain, Romney clash over immigration
By BRENDAN FARRINGTON, Associated Press Writer



Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain (news, bio, voting record) and Mitt Romney clashed on Monday over the immigration bill, with McCain embracing the measure as a practical solution and Romney dismissing it as unworkable.

Speaking in politically crucial Florida, with its heavy concentration of Cuban and Haitian immigrants, McCain argued that while the bill is imperfect, it is an attempt to secure U.S. borders, help the economy and identify those who have entered the nation illegally.

The four-term Arizona senator chided rivals who are trying to score points on the issue. McCain never mentioned any names but his target was obvious — Romney.

"To want the office so badly that you would intentionally make our country's problems worse might prove you can read a poll or take a cheap shot, but it hardly demonstrates presidential leadership," McCain told members of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.

Romney answered back.

"The immigration approach proposed by Senators McCain and Kennedy falls short of a workable solution to an important problem," the former Massachusetts governor said in a statement. Romney said he respected McCain, but his opposition was based on a "principled disagreement about policies and priorities related to enforcement of our immigration laws."

The immigration measure would tighten security on the Mexican border while allowing some of the 12 million illegal immigrants a chance to stay in the United States and eventually become citizens.

President Bush has spoken out in favor of the bipartisan bill. Romney did not mention the president, instead describing the immigration approach of McCain and liberal icon Kennedy.

McCain said Bush understands the political implications.

"The president knows. He spent eight years as governor of Texas," McCain told The Associated Press after his speech. "The Republican Party must address this issue, if, in my part of the country, we expect to attract Hispanic voters."

McCain stands alone among the major candidates in supporting the bill. He has criticized Romney for opposing the measure based on provisions that would provide a path to legalization.

"I will never conduct my campaign in such a way that it makes our country's most difficult challenges harder to solve. I hope you will hold all candidates to that same standard. Pandering for votes on this issue, while offering no solution to the problem, amounts to doing nothing. And doing nothing is silent amnesty," McCain said to loud applause.

Another GOP rival, former New York city Mayor Rudy Giuliani, also opposes the bill, but has said he is willing to compromise on how to deal with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States as long as he is satisfied all security issues are addressed.

Romney has not offered a detailed plan on how he would handle illegal immigrants, but he said recently a priority would be to deport criminals and remove illegal immigrants from government assistance programs.

Romney's response to the bill has varied with his audience. Most of his criticism has focused on the so-called Z-visa, a document proposed for registering the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the country.

Last month in South Carolina, home to the type of social conservatives Romney is courting, he said, "I think we should not call it the 'Z' visa; we should call it the 'A' visa, because it's amnesty and that's what it stands for."

Yet a week later in Florida, he said, "There are some who get involved in whether it is technically amnesty or not and I'm not really trying to define what is technically amnesty. I'll let the lawyers do that."

Despite his amnesty complaints, Romney said he would not favor rounding up the illegal immigrants already in the country. Rather, he supports them self-reporting to immigration authorities.

McCain chose a supportive crowd to deliver his 25-minute address Monday. Many of the Miami area's business leaders are immigrants or children of immigrants. He was given an extended ovation before beginning his speech and his remarks were interrupted several times by applause.

"Florida is a living testament to the benefits of immigration, a great and prosperous state built in large part by immigrants who came here to escape tyranny and despair," he said.

Conservative bloggers in full revolt over immigration
By Peter Hamby
CNN Washington Bureau


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Different conservative blogs have different pet issues -- government transparency, federal judges, Fred Thompson, to name a few.

But no issue in recent memory has united conservative bloggers like the debate over immigration. Their frustration has culminated in a full-scale revolt against the Bush administration and a Senate bill that activists say does little to solve the country's border security problems.

President Bush's pledge to support $4.4 billion in additional border security funds has breathed new life into the bill, but the drumbeat against the legislation shows no signs of quieting. (Watch how senators revived the immigration billVideo)

It's increasingly clear from Web postings and interviews with top conservative bloggers that the immigration bill has done serious damage to the president's credibility among the conservative netroots, the grassroots bloggers on the Web.

Erick Erickson, managing editor of the popular conservative blog RedState.comexternal link, says he receives between 800 and 900 e-mails a day from readers, most of whom are "enraged" by the White House's immigration efforts.

"Of all the issues the president has picked to make his hill to die on, he has picked the one that has divided his base," said Erickson, who lives in Macon, Georgia. "I am shocked by the anger and outrage out there ... You've got war against the president within the Republican party."

When details of an immigration compromise were announced this spring, conservative bloggers were immediately incensed. Michelle Malkinexternal link labeled it "a White House betrayal."

Another popular blogger, Hugh Hewittexternal link, called the bill a "fiasco" and wrote: "this push for this bill is a disaster, Mr. President."
Bloggers: Secure the border first

Conservative bloggers make various arguments against the bill. Some say the bill grants amnesty to illegal immigrants who have already broken the law. Others say normalizing millions of new workers would depress wages and harm American workers.

Most conservative bloggers see border enforcement as the priority, an issue they say the president can enforce on his own without having to push a bill through Congress.

According to several top conservative bloggers, Bush simply has a credibility problem when it comes to border security.

"The administration has not done anything to fix the border or the visa program," said Ed Morrissey, the Minnesota-based founder of the blog Captain's Quartersexternal link. "It's a huge gap in national security. It's been six years past 9/11 and the administration has done nothing to fix either one."

Many bloggers said they are disappointed the president has pushed so hard for the immigration bill while letting the war and other issues conservatives care about fall by the wayside.

"The White House will go out and zealously promote Harriet Miers [the former White House counsel who Bush unsuccessfully nominated for the Supreme Court], defend [Attorney General] Alberto Gonzales, promote this bill, but will not take a firm stand on the war," said Erickson. "I know people who are boiling with rage that the president has been beating up his own side over this bill but won't take the bully pulpit to beat up Democrats over the war."

Bush did little to help his relationship with bloggers on May 29, when he told a crowd in Glynco, Georgia, that critics of the immigration bill "don't want to do what's right for America."

Kathryn Jean Lopez at the National Review asked, "Is the White House just not paying attention?"

The blog Ace of Spades HQexternal link called Bush "incompetent" and "embarrassingly dimwitted" and urged him to retire.

Blogs and anti-immigration organizations used the Web to tap into the growing discontent over the immigration bill, using the Internet to organize phone and fax campaigns to urge senators to vote against the bill. It was a plugged-in show of force that would have been beyond comprehension a decade ago.

"The support for this issue has always been there, but the Internet is the platform the issue has needed to become a force in American politics," said David All, a Republican online strategist based in Washington.
Blogosphere ready for round two

When the bill was stymied by a procedural vote on June 7, the blogs claimed victory. A straw poll of conservative bloggers conducted by the Web site Right Wing News showed that 96 percent of bloggers surveyed were "pleased that the Senate immigration bill did not pass."

Now that the bill is back for a second round in the Senate, Bush could have a difficult time making new friends online beyond a relative handful of the bill's supporters.

"It will be very difficult for him to recover with conservative bloggers," said Robert Bluey, director of the Center for Media & Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation. "When Bush is on to his next issue, I'm not sure if bloggers are going to be there to back him up."

Which begs the question -- is Bush a lame duck among bloggers?

Said Morrissey: "I think that they are going to continue to support him on the war on terror. As for the rest of it, they are looking for ways to reshape the party agenda going into the next election. That's a nice way of saying they are going to consider him irrelevant."



Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/15/bloggers.bush/index.html

Rare tactic may allow immigration votes

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 18, 7:29 PM ET

Only in the arcane world of the U.S. Senate could a quirky gambit known as a "clay pigeon" make the difference between passage of an important immigration measure and its death at the hands of opponents.

Democratic leaders hope the complex maneuver — which makes use of the Senate's labyrinthine rules to insist on votes on amendments — will frustrate conservatives' attempts to derail the embattled immigration bill, instead putting it on a fast track to passage next week.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said he would revive the bill to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants late this week. To do so, though, he needs backing from 60 senators, and a way to guarantee votes on a tentative list of 22 Republican and Democratic amendments whose consideration is seen as vital to satisfying key waverers.

The so-called clay pigeon is how he's expected to do it, under a strategy that was still taking shape Monday.

The tactic gets its name from the target used in skeet shooting, which explodes into bits as it is hit. In the Senate, an amendment is the target, and any one senator can demand that it be divided into separate fragments to be voted on piecemeal.

Under the tentative plan, Reid as early as Friday would launch his target — an amendment encompassing all 22 proposals — and shoot it into its component pieces. The Senate would then vote on ending debate on the immigration measure, which would take 60 votes and limit discussion of the bill to 30 more hours. After that interval, all 22 amendments would have to be voted on, with little opportunity for foes to interfere.

Ironically, the move is usually used by mavericks — not leaders — to slow down legislation, not free it from a procedural thicket.

Sen. Tom Coburn (news, bio, voting record), R-Okla., used it last year to protest a bill he complained included excessive spending. By offering and then dividing an amendment that targeted 19 items he deemed offensive, Coburn was able to insist on votes on individual projects.

"It's a brilliant way to gum up the works," said Robert B. Dove, a Senate rules expert who was the chamber's referee for 36 years.

The maneuver appears to be a relatively modern innovation; Dove said he first became aware of it in the early 1970s, when then-Sen. Jim Allen, D-Ala., a master of parliamentary procedures, used it against a bill pushed by the then- majority leader, Sen. Mike Mansfield, D-Mont.

"I remember people being dazzled when he did this," Dove said.

Reid's plan has its risks, chief among them further inflaming the vocal conservative opponents who have vowed to do whatever they can to kill the immigration measure.

Wesley Denton, a spokesman for Sen. Jim DeMint (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., called the plan a "stunning" effort by Reid "to choke off debate and handpick amendments." He threatened that Republicans would unleash the same tactic on the majority in the future.

"I've seen ideas like this really backfire. You pay a price for this kind of thing," Dove said, noting that the Senate functions almost entirely on consensus. "It can be done — I've seen it done — but it's a difficult maneuver."

The Hutchinson Report: Is Illegal Immigration the Greatest Threat to Blacks Since Slavery? Some Say Yes

Date: Thursday, June 21, 2007
By: Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Flamboyant arch black immigration foe Ted Hayes has repeatedly called illegal immigration the greatest threat to black America since slavery. This eye-catching, over-the-top, outrageous bit of hyperbole has set more tongues wagging than celebrity sex gossip. It will probably do more than that on June 23. It could start a riot. That’s the day that Hayes and a handful of other black immigration opponents will march through a black neighborhood in Los Angeles trying to rally blacks under their anti-immigration banner. Immigration reform proponents have plastered the area with leaflets blasting the march and vow to confront the anti-immigration marchers.

Though the march is unique, blacks have been loudly protesting illegal immigration since it became a stormy national issue and ripped apart Congress last year. In May 2006, an odd assemblage of writers, preachers, a homeless rights advocate, professional anti-immigration advocates, and a few local black community residents from the Washington, D.C. area grabbed some momentary camera time with a press conference in Washington, D.C. They called themselves Choose Black America and claimed that the overwhelming majority of black Americans agreed with them that illegal immigration was the prime threat to blacks.

This was hardly a spontaneous gathering of civic-minded blacks outraged over the impact of illegal immigration, and neither was their red-hot rhetoric against the bill. The Federation for American Immigration Reform paid for the airfare, hotel accommodations and expenses for most of the participants, as well as the rental fee for the press conference. The organization has long demanded the toughest possible immigration laws and the tightest possible border control enforcement. But the participants had made their point, and it was that there that a few noted blacks were willing to put their bodies and faces in front of a camera, and oppose immigration reform -- and weren’t scared at being branded bigots in the process.

Their Washington, D.C. flutter was the high water mark for the black immigration foes. With the death of the immigration reform bill in Congress, the group quickly vanished from the public’s radarscope. However, when the Senate briefly resuscitated the bill in April, black immigration opponents got a new lease on life. The Los Angeles march gives them another chance to tap into the ambivalence, frustration, unease and even anger among many blacks over illegal immigration.

The signs that illegal immigration touched a sore nerve in many blacks were there all along. The first big warning sign of black frustration with illegal immigration came during the battle over Proposition 187 in California in 1994. White voters voted by big margins for the proposition that denied public services to undocumented immigrants. But nearly 50 percent of blacks also backed the measure.

Republican governor Pete Wilson shamelessly pandered to anti-immigrant hysteria and rode it to a reelection victory. Wilson also got nearly 20 percent of the black vote in the 1994 election. It was double what Republicans in California typically get from blacks. Wilson almost certainly bumped up his black vote total with his freewheeling assault on illegal immigration. Blacks have also given substantial support to anti-bilingual ballot measures in California.

More than a decade later, black attitudes toward illegal immigrants -- which almost always are seen as Mexican illegal immigrants -- was put to the electoral test in Arizona with another ballot initiative. Proposition 200 mandated tough sanctions on employers for hiring illegal immigrants and tighter border enforcement. Exit polls showed that more than 65 percent of blacks backed the measure. As with Proposition 187 in California a decade before, it passed by a landslide.

The vote by blacks on the anti-illegal immigration ballot measures and their antipathy to illegal immigration, as measured by the polls, flies in the face of the staunch support that mainstream civil rights organizations and most of the Congressional Black Caucus have given to the passage of a comprehensive, liberal immigration reform law. It even contradicts the polls that showed during the great immigration debate last year that blacks -- by big margins -- backed liberal immigration reform.

Yet, there was a kicker in those polls, and that was the issue of jobs. Blacks expressed deep worry that they were slipping further behind in the battle for more jobs. And that’s a legitimate fear. Blacks suffer the highest rates of unemployment of any group in America. The job crisis has had an especially devastating impact on young, marginal-skilled and educated black males. In the eternal hunt for scapegoats for whom to dump blame for the job crisis, illegal immigration is the softest of soft targets.

But that’s wrong-headed, misguided and fraught with peril. The prime cause of chronic black unemployment is corporate downsizing, outsourcing, massive cuts in federal and state job training funds and programs, the reluctance and flat-out refusal of many employers to hire those with criminal records and the sneaky and open racial discrimination by private employers.

None of that matters to the rabid black immigration reform foes, and for now, they’re banking that the horror some blacks have over illegal immigration will propel a few souls into the streets of Los Angeles on June 23. They hope that they’ll be cheered on by many more who won’t march. No matter what happens, though, they’ve done a great job in further polarizing blacks and Latinos. That’s the greatest threat of all.

---

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is author of the upcoming book, "The Latino Challenge to Black America: Towards a Conversation Between African-Americans and Hispanics," due out in October.

175 held in Calif. immigration sweep
Fri Jun 22, 11:28 PM ET

A Mexican man wanted for murder and a convicted child molester were among 175 people arrested for deportation in sweeps through Southern California this week, federal authorities announced Friday.

The sweep was part of an operation aimed at capturing immigration fugitives nationwide. Teams operating in Southern California have made more than 1,600 arrests in the past nine months, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

This week agents concentrated their efforts in Orange County. Those arrested included 27 people who have criminal records and are in the country illegally and 26 fugitives who ignored deportation orders by judges, ICE said.

"Foreign nationals who violate our laws and commit crime against our citizens should be on notice that there are serious consequences for their actions," said Jim Hayes, field office director for ICE detention and removal operations in Los Angeles.

Some of those arrested could be charged with illegally re-entering the United States. They could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the felony.

Most of those arrested this week were Mexican nationals but some came from other countries, including India, Kenya and the Philippines, authorities said. They were subject to immediate deportation, and more than half of those arrested have already been sent out of the country, ICE said.

Officials: Arrests not tied to protests
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, Associated Press Writer
Sat Jun 23, 4:34 PM ET


Neighbors of Elvira Carvajal sought refuge in her house so immigration agents wouldn't arrest them. Friends of Herman Martinez asked him to bring them milk for their children because they were afraid to step onto the streets.

In the weeks leading up to the huge pro-immigrant rallies in the spring of 2006, rumors swirled that authorities were on the streets rounding up illegal immigrants across the country. Fear of being caught and deported kept many illegal immigrants, and some legal ones, in their homes.

Non-worksite arrests did indeed jump in the first half of 2006, up 75 percent over the previous year, according to Homeland Security data released to The Associated Press.

However, Immigration and Customs Enforcement insists the increase did not come from random sweeps but from its standing policy of making specific arrests, and that more than two-thirds of those detained already had deportation orders.

"We've said over and over that we don't do random sweeps. We do targeted enforcement," agency spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback said.

ICE maintains that it targets people it considers fugitives, those who remain in the U.S. despite a deportation order. However, during a search for fugitives, agents can also detain individuals they suspect of being in the country illegally in so-called "collateral arrests."

Since the department was created in 2003, it has steadily arrested more people as its budget and resources have grown, Zuieback said. The spike in detentions is "not in the least bit political," she said.

In the first three months of 2006, ICE's fugitive operations program arrested 3,222 people nationwide, according to information released last month, 10 months after the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request. That compared to the 2,174 people arrested in the same period of 2005.

During the height of the 2006 immigration debate, from April through June, the number of arrests jumped to 4,516. That was more than double the 2,234 arrests for the same period of 2005.

ICE's numbers don't include worksite arrests, which more than tripled between fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006, from 1,292 to 4,383. The agency refused to break down those numbers by quarter.

Zuieback rejected the notion that the arrests were a timed show of force. "I think we've been very clear that our mandate is to enforce the law, and that's what we intend to do," she said.

Professor Alex Stepick, who heads Florida International University's Immigration & Ethnicity Institute, disagreed. He believes the Bush administration both stepped up arrests and allowed the rumors to build to assuage the president's conservative base as Congress considered whether to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

"The residual concern on the part of immigrants is part of the Bush administration's policy," he said. "They want to show they are doing something to control immigration."

Last year's demonstrations began in response to legislation that would have redefined illegal immigrants as criminals.

In late March 2006, tens of thousands students walked out of classes. More than 500,000 people took to the streets in Los Angeles alone. On April 1, thousands formed a mile-long line across New York City's Brooklyn Bridge. And despite the rumors of arrests, on May 1 more than a million people demonstrated nationwide.

Even if the random sweeps weren't real, the fear they generated was, said Martinez, a community organizer in Homestead, a town about 30 miles south of Miami that is dominated by immigrants who come to work on South Florida farms.

Carvajal, an advocate with the farmworkers' association in Homestead, said many parents kept their children home from school.

Attendance in prenatal classes fell during the week before the May 1 protests, and even women with high-risk pregnancies refused to go to the clinic, said Natalia Coletti, who works at the Healthy Start Coalition of Miami-Dade County.

"We are still afraid, but now we are more used to that fear," said Homestead resident Lucia de la Cruz, who fled violence in Guatemala more than a decade ago.

Welcome to the real world, Ms. Meyer

Ex-SoCal councilwoman could be deported

By ROBERT JABLON, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jun 24, 12:18 PM ET

All of her life, Zoila Meyer believed she was an American. She even won election to the City Council of Adelanto.

But now she is facing a threat of deportation for illegally voting, because she never became a citizen after being brought to this country from Cuba when she was 1 year old.

"To be honest with you, I'm scared. How can they just pluck me out of my family, my kids?" the 40-year-old mother of four said in a telephone interview Friday.

"If they can do this to me, they can do it to anybody," she said.

After Meyer was elected to the council in Adelanto in 2004, someone told officials that she was born in Cuba, prompting an investigation.

Eventually, "the police came to me and said, 'Zoila, you're not a citizen. You're a legal resident but you're not a citizen,'" said Meyer, who now lives in the San Bernardino County desert town of Apple Valley, near Adelanto.

She resigned after 10 weeks in office in Adelanto, a town of about 23,000.

Meyer, whose story was first reported in the Victorville Daily Press, applied to become a naturalized citizen and continued with her life: raising her children and attending two local colleges to earn degrees toward her goal of working in the justice system as a forensic nurse.

However, because she was not a citizen, Meyer faced a felony charge of illegally voting in the 2004 election.

In April 2006, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent voting and was placed on probation, fined and ordered to pay restitution.

What Meyer didn't realize is that fraudulently voting is a deportable offense.

On June 18, Meyer said, immigration officials showed up at her home and told her to appear at their San Bernardino office.

Her husband drove her to the office on Tuesday, "and they handcuffed me," Meyer said. "They put me in jail and they frisked me and processed me."

"I said 'You're doing this because I voted?"'

The case is unusual but immigration officials were just doing their job when they arrested Meyer, said Lori Haley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"People are arrested on immigration charges from all walks of life," she said. "She can plead her case before an immigration judge, if she feels that she has reason to seek release for removal. ... Everybody has due process when they're arrested."

Meyer was released pending a July 18 appearance before an immigration judge who will determine whether she will be deported to Canada, the last point of entry into the U.S. recorded in her immigration record.

Meyer said she and her parents had visited Canada and she had gone many times to Mexico without anyone ever asking her to prove her citizenship.

Meyer said she does not support illegal immigration but she thinks immigration procedures should be changed to prevent misunderstandings.

"It makes me feel like we're all just numbers," she said of her case. "I see people writing 'this is my country.' It really isn't. It belongs to the government and they decide who stays and who goes .... You think you're free; you're really not."

Senate drives stake through immigration
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer


President Bush's immigration plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border collapsed in the Senate on Thursday, crushing both parties' hopes of addressing the volatile issue before the 2008 elections.

The Senate vote to drive a stake through the delicate compromise was a stinging setback for Bush — who had made reshaping immigration laws a centerpiece of his domestic agenda — engineered by members of his own party.

It could carry heavy political consequences for Republicans and Democrats, many of whom were eager to show they could act on a complex issue of great interest to the public.

"Legal immigration is one of the top concerns of the American people and Congress' failure to act on it is a disappointment," a grim-faced president said after an appearance in Newport, R.I. "A lot of us worked hard to see if we couldn't find common ground. It didn't work."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., his party's lead negotiator on the bill, called its defeat "enormously disappointing for Congress and for the country." But, he added: "We will be back. This issue is not going away."

The bill's Senate supporters fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to limit debate and clear the way for final passage of the legislation. The tally was 46 to 53, with three-quarters of the Senate's Republicans voting to derail the bill.

Lawmakers in both parties said further action was unlikely this year, dooming its prospects as the political strains of a crowded presidential contest get louder.

Only 13 percent of those in a CBS News Survey taken earlier this week said they supported passage of the bill. Almost three times that number, 35 percent, opposed it. Even more, 51 percent, said they did not know enough about the immigration legislation to say whether they supported passage.

"I believe that until another election occurs, or until something happens in the body politic, that what occurred today was fairly final," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., the GOP chairman.

"I don't see where the political will is there for this issue to be dealt with," said Martinez, who helped develop the bill.

House Democratic leaders signaled they had little appetite for taking up an issue that bitterly divides both parties and has tied up the Senate for weeks.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who heads the House Judiciary subcommittee that was to write a version of the bill, said the Senate's inability to move forward "effectively ends comprehensive immigration reform efforts" for the next year and a half.

"The Senate voted for the status quo," the California Democrat said in a statement.

The vote already had led to partisan finger-pointing.

Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, said it was "a reminder of why the American people voted Republicans out in 2006 and why they'll vote against them in 2008."

The measure was the product of a liberal-to-conservative alliance led by Kennedy and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., that forged an immigration compromise intended to withstand challenges from the left and right.

They advocated the resulting measure as an imperfect but necessary fix to the current system, in which millions of illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the U.S.

The proposal would have made those millions eligible for lawful status while tightening border security and creating an employee verification system to weed out illegal workers from U.S. jobs.

The bill also would have set up a temporary worker program and a system to base future legal immigration more heavily on employment criteria, rather than family ties.

Ultimately, though, what came to be known as their "grand bargain" commanded only lukewarm support among important constituencies in both parties. That was no match for the vehement and vocal opposition of Republican conservatives, who derided it as amnesty.

"The end result was a blanket that was too small to cover everyone," said Tamar Jacoby, an analyst at the conservative Manhattan Institute who was a strong supporter. "By its nature, because it was a compromise, it was hard to muster intense support. But the opposition was very intense."

Conservative foes' were among the loudest voices during the debate, led by Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and David Vitter, R-La. Their views were amplified by talk radio and television hosts who attacked the bill and urged listeners to flood Congress with calls, faxes and e-mails.

The conservatives hailed the demise of the bill as a fitting death of an effort that had thwarted the public's will. They faulted Bush and their own party for trying to push through a measure that lacked public support and placed Republicans in a politically tough spot.

"They made a big mistake. I think the president's approach didn't work," Sessions said. Republicans "need to be careful we don't walk into such an adverse circumstance again. This did not work out well. Our own members were placed in difficult positions."

Bush made an unusually personal appeal for passage of the legislation, appearing at a luncheon with Senate Republicans this month to urge them to put aside their skepticism.

He sent Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, as well as his top policy aides, to spend hours in Capitol Hill meetings with senators over a period of months to develop and then help push through the deal.

The two secretaries were on hand to buttonhole senators as they entered the chamber for votes.

The outcome, though, was a stunning reversal from just a few weeks ago, when Bush confidently declared, "I'll see you at the bill-signing."

Mexico's president, Felipe Calderon, said the Senate had made a "grave error" in killing the legislation. The action, he said, would cut off legal immigration, permit continued unlawful immigration and human rights violations and decrease security on both sides of the border.

Voting to allow the bill to proceed by ending debate were 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and independent Joe Lieberman, Conn. Opposing that effort were 37 Republicans, 15 Democrats and independent Bernard Sanders, Vt. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who has been absent from the Senate all year due to an illness, did not vote.

In a mark of lawmakers' ambivalence on the issue, the outcome was substantially different from a test-vote earlier in the week, when the Senate voted 64-35 to revive the bill. Then, 24 Republicans joined 39 Democrats and Lieberman to move ahead with the bill. On Thursday, 12 of those Republicans and six of the Democrats switched their votes and opposed moving forward.

All the Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate voted to end debate and advance the bill. Among the Republican candidates, only Sen. John McCain of Arizona voted to keep the measure alive.

___

On the Net:

Information on the bill, S. 1639, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/

The 2008 elections are going to be very interesting now. I want to see how some of these congressman will do the backstoke. I can just hear it now, "I voted against the immigration bill before I voted for it".

Felipe Calderon needs to worry about the rapmant drug dealing in his own country. Of course he doesn't want to see illegal immigration stopped. Illegal immigration is his countries second highest gross national product behind oil exports.

I always get a big kick out of him trying to tell us what we should do in our country as it relates to immigration. It's funny how he never mentions the abuses suffered by illegal immigrants that come into his country from Guatemala and Belize.

http://www.cis.org/articles/2002/back702.html

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ac9311,

__________________________
Africa, my Africa, I have never known you but my face is full of your blood.

- David Diop

Hmmmm ... so, does giving an illegal immigrant legal documentation in fact make them legal??

Illegal immigrants to get ID cards in Connecticut By Lucy Nalpathanchil
Sun Jul 22, 8:36 AM ET


As many U.S. cities and states arrest illegal immigrants in raids and toughen laws against them, a Connecticut city is offering to validate them under a controversial, first-in-the-nation ID card program.

Starting Tuesday, New Haven will offer illegal immigrants municipal identification cards that allow access to city services such as libraries and a chance to open bank accounts.

Supporters say the cards will improve public safety and give undocumented workers protections now afforded legal residents. Critics contend it will unleash a flood of illegal immigration, straining services and wasting taxpayer money.

New Haven officials overwhelmingly approved the program last month in a 25 to 1 vote.

Backers and detractors alike say the program appears to fill a vacuum after Congress failed to act on immigration reform, leaving many towns and cities to struggle with how to deal with a growing undocumented population.

Kica Matos, a leader of local Latino advocacy group Junta for Progressive Action, said undocumented workers are often targeted by thieves and robbed because they carry cash, a result of not being able to open a bank account.

"Part of the reason they can't open bank accounts is because they don't have forms of identification that were valid," she said.

She said two banks had already agreed to accept the new city card, which will be offered to all New Haven residents, as legitimate identification sufficient for opening an account.

Matos estimates 3,000 to 5,000 illegal immigrants live in the city of 124,000 people, many from Mexico, Ecuador and Guatemala.

Yale University Law School, based in New Haven, helped research the city's idea and volunteered legal services. Several immigrants' rights groups also helped build up local support for the identification cards.

PROTESTS

Opponents hope to rally the public against it. Southern Connecticut Citizens for Immigration Reform says the ID cards will change "the entire country as we know it" and is organizing a protest on Tuesday at city hall.

"There are millions of illegal aliens right around us that when these ID cards are available to them, they will rush to them and get some identification that will allow them to go to other cities," said Ted Pechinski, who leads the group.

North Carolina-based Americans for Legal Immigration PAC has circulated a flier in 40 states urging illegal workers to move to New Haven, said its president William Gheen.

"Maybe New Haven needs to learn, if they want the illegals, then they'll get the illegals," he said.

His flier, in English and Spanish, says: "Come to New Haven CT for sanctuary. Bring your friends and family members quickly."

Officials in several cities including New York and San Francisco have expressed interest in possibly starting similar programs, said Matos at Junta for Progressive Action.

The new ID, she added, does not easily identify a person as an illegal immigrant. "That is the last thing that we want to have happen," she said. The card was created with several features to appeal to all residents, including a debit component and access to city services such as parks.

Fatima, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, said she is eager to apply for the card. "The ID will help me because it's a way to be in this country and get people to know who you are, especially for people who crossed the border and lost their papers," she said. "I feel safe here in New Haven."

McCain changes course on immigration

By JENNIFER TALHELM, Associated Press Writer
Thu Aug 2, 7:08 PM ET

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Thursday backed a scaled-down proposal that imposes strict rules to end illegal immigration but doesn't include a path to citizenship.

The move away from a comprehensive measure is an about-face for the Arizona senator, who had been a leading GOP champion of a bill that included a guest worker program and would have legalized many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It failed earlier this year.

"We can still show the American people that we are serious about securing our nation's border," McCain said in a statement, adding that the new bill would "provide an essential step toward achieving comprehensive reform in the future."

McCain's immigration position has been a campaign liability among Republican voters and hurt his efforts to raise money. Other GOP presidential candidates, fellow Arizona Republicans and immigration opponents throughout the country have loudly decried his position.

Observers said McCain's switch was political. "He recognizes his position on the issue is killing him," said Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors vigorous immigration enforcement.

McCain's co-sponsors include Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jon Kyl of Arizona. All three were leading advocates for the unsuccessful comprehensive immigration measure and were bombarded with criticism for their support.

Immigrants' rights advocates jumped to condemn their decision. "It is fairly stunning they have gone from leaders on comprehensive reform legislation to lemmings running over the cliff" with the Republican opponents of the bill, said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum.

Among other things, the bill makes being in the country illegally a criminal misdemeanor and toughens penalties for re-entering after being deported. It mandates an electronic system for employers to check workers' citizenship status and requires illegal immigrants who commit a crime to be held in jail until they are deported.

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Now we might be getting somewhere! However, the "Among other things ..." part is kinda scary!! Never know exactly what that means until they spell it out.