Immigration Watch International

On Friday, lawyers for the San Diego Minutemen told a federal judge that the state had no right to rescind the offer after state legislators complained to the California Department of Transportation. The group asked that its blue Adopt-a-Highway sign be put back where it stood without incident for about six weeks until the agency removed it in January. “We were moved to silence our message in response to pressure from the open border advocates and the Latino caucus,” said Minutemen attorney Robert Fuselier. “It all comes down to one thing: We can’t have our speech because if we do, people who don’t like it might become unruly and unlawful.” Attorneys for the state contend the sign was removed because of concerns that demonstrators or vandals could create safety hazards for the 160,000 drivers who pass the checkpoint daily and for Minutemen volunteers collecting litter by the roadside.

The Minutemen have had a polarizing influence in San Diego the last several years, achieving hero status among advocates of tightening border restrictions and sparking outrage from immigrant groups who accuse members of harassing migrant workers.

State lawyer Jeff Benowitz told U.S. District Judge William Q. Hayes the Adopt-a-Highway signs amounted to a “thank-you” from the state, not political messages protected under the First Amendment. He said transportation officials planned to end all sponsorship of roads near Border Patrol stations, and had offered to reassign the Minutemen to a two-mile stretch of state route in a less-trafficked area in eastern San Diego County.

Hayes asked whether the state would continue moving the Minutemen sign if protests followed it. “It would seem you’re saying you’re allowing the people who are unhappy with the message to dictate who can be in the program,” the judge said. “We can do that,” Benowitz responded. “It is not a public forum.”

Courts have found otherwise. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Ku Klux Klan after Missouri officials sought to bar the group from its Adopt-a-Highway program under a regulation prohibiting groups that deny membership based on race or with a documented history of violence.

State legislators, meanwhile, renamed the contested stretch of highway the “Rosa Parks Highway” in honor of the black woman arrested in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala.

California assemblywoman Lori Saldana of San Diego said she was considering legislation that would stop the transportation department from accepting new sponsorships until it develops standards governing who qualified to participate in the highway adoption program. “We want them to say what constitutes a legitimate group,” Saldana said after the hearing. “Do we want these people allowed on a highway near a security checkpoint?”

Police searched the home of San Diego Minutemen leader Jeff Schwilk in 2007 during an investigation into alleged vandalism at three migrant camps in San Diego’s McGonigle Canyon. No members of the group were arrested. “We are not a hate group,” Schwilk said outside the courtroom Friday. “The open borders people have made it very clear that they don’t want our participation anywhere in San Diego County.” He said neither the sign nor the group’s litter cleanup activities created hazards during the six weeks the sign stood.

Hayes said he would issue a written decision on the matter, but it was unclear when.

A man whose wife died as a result of an NHS blunder has lost his right to remain in Britain, in what a coroner described yesterday as an “extraordinary” decision.

Arnel Cabrera, 39, came to Britain from the Philippines in 2003 to join his wife, Mayra, a theatre nurse, who worked at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon. But a year later, Mrs Cabrera died at the same hospital after she was given an epidural during the birth of the couple’s child which was mistakenly injected into her arm. The baby survived. An inquest returned a verdict of unlawful killing and found the NHS trust had been guilty of gross negligence. Now the Home Office has told Mr Cabrera he has failed in his bid to remain in the UK.

David Masters, the Wiltshire coroner who presided over the inquest, said yesterday: “This is extraordinary. In view of the verdict reached at the inquest I find it difficult to appreciate how the Home Office has reached this decision.” In its letter of refusal, the Home Office said Mr Cabrera had “not established a family life with his son in the United Kingdom”. It added: “As his son remains in the Philippines there are no insurmountable obstacles to his family life being continued overseas.”

Alex Rook, the solicitor who handled Mr Cabrera’s immigration case, said: “This is an absolutely dreadful decision. If Arnel’s wife had not been killed, the family would be living happily here. I will be writing to the relevant Home Office ministers asking them to reconsider their decision.” He added: “His wife is killed by one part of the Government [the NHS], then Arnel is told by another part of the Government that he has to leave.” Mr Rook said Mr Cabrera had taken his son, Zac, to the Philippines to be looked after by family until the inquest and related legal proceedings had concluded in the UK, but it was always his intention to build a future in Britain.

Mr Cabrera’s personal injury lawyer, Seamus Edney, also reacted with disgust. “I am staggered by this decision and embarrassed on behalf of our government,” he said. “Arnel was permitted to reside in Britain on the basis that his wife was working - but when she is unlawfully killed by gross negligence by the NHS, he is told he is no longer welcome.” In a statement issued before Mr Cabrera lost his right to remain in the UK, he said he hoped the Government would show him “compassion”. He added: “I have been unable to return to the Philippines during this difficult period and I desperately miss my young son, Zachary.” A spokesman for the Home Office said: “All applications for leave to enter or remain in the UK are carefully considered on their individual merits.”

The couples were coached on how to pass immigration checks with fake answers, even though in some cases they didn’t speak the same language as their purported spouses, officials said. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials who review each citizenship-conferring marriage to ensure legitimacy tipped off federal agents in many cases. At least one of the businesses kept a standing wedding showroom in its office, with a prop cake, an assortment of 10 to 15 wedding dresses and table settings never dirtied with dinner or drink.

“What we’ve seen in the past generally is that a person will meet someone, that person might be desperate for some money, willingly engage in a sham marriage and then they go their own ways,” O’Neill said. “Here, you can see this was much more sophisticated. They incorporated businesses, they obviously sought out people, people came in.”

Officials said some of the immigrants had criminal records, ranging from burglary to battery, drug offenses, domestic violence and even aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. They were primarily from Central and South America, though at least one was from Morocco.

The four companies that allegedly arranged the marriages were incorporated as immigration assistance services. They were All Kind Services, A-3 Services, American Solutions and Services, all based in the Orlando area; and Power of Attorney, based in Daytona Beach. Officials said more arrests were expected. Two people behind Power of Attorney, Larry Humm and Natalia Humm, pleaded guilty this year to conspiracy and fraud charges. She is appealing a nearly four-year prison sentence for masterminding the scheme, while he received three months’ probation in exchange for cooperating with authorities. No telephone listings could be found for three of the companies. A message left at American Solutions and Services on Friday was not returned.

Those arrested were from Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa, Sarasota, Cocoa Beach and Fort Myers. Robert Weber, the agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tampa, characterized the fraudulent marriages as a threat to national security. “[The Americans] did not know their motives; they did not know their intent; they didn’t know where they were coming from — in this case from 11 different nationalities,” Weber said. “They did it for financial gain; they were willing to put our national security and domestic public safety at risk.”

Weber warned that ICE was stepping up enforcement of marriage fraud. The agency investigated more than 5,200 such cases in 2006 and the first half of 2007, up from about 2,300 in 2004. “The bottom line: If you commit marriage fraud, whether as a United States citizen or one illegally in the country, you will become an ICE investigative target and be held accountable for such criminal activity,” Weber said.

A total of 83 people were arrested, including the suspected business operators and couples. The operators were charged with establishing a commercial enterprise to evade immigration laws, punishable by up to five years in jail. The couples, including the Americans, face charges of knowingly entering into a fraudulent marriage to evade immigration laws, also carrying a maximum five-year penalty.

Despite warnings that terrorists would try to recruit people working “airside” in terminals - with direct access to aircraft and baggage - no attempt has been made to check whether foreign workers have committed any offences abroad. The vetting process checks only for crimes committed in Britain. Foreign workers - arriving from inside or outside the European Union - are not checked in their country of origin. This means that someone with a conviction for firearms or explosives offences committed abroad could, for example, take a job loading bags on to aircraft at Heathrow, Gatwick or any other airport, provided they had committed no crimes here.

The security lapse was called “absolutely astonishing” by David Davis, the shadow home secretary, who demanded “full and immediate checks”. Ministers ordered a review of airport security after Samina Malik - the “lyrical terrorist” - was found to have been working in the airside branch of WH Smith at Heathrow. And eight British Muslims are on trial for allegedly plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners using bombs disguised as soft drinks.

The Department for Transport’s head of aviation security said last year that the next terrorist attack “would have the components available airside with the help of people who work there”. There are an estimated 200,000 staff in the “airside” parts of airports employed in shops, cafes or as cleaners in the departure lounge. Others may be employed as baggage handlers, security guards or driving buses between aircraft and the terminal.

The Government brought in emergency rules in 2003 to improve airport security after September 11. Staff working airside were to be vetted to ensure they had no criminal record and had a checkable employment history for the previous five years. However, last night’s BBC2 Newsnight disclosed that officials checked only British criminal records - and that no attempt had been made to find out about any crimes in their home countries. Experts said that meant thousands of foreign workers were not vetted properly. The Government said that it did not want to carry out foreign criminal record checks because it would take too long and involve complicated comparisons between legal systems in different countries.

Mr Davis called for immediate foreign security checks on all people working airside regardless of cost. “This is astonishing given airside at an airport is one of the most vulnerable and critical security points,” he said. “It is doubly astonishing the Government have let it continue to exist.” Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: “It’s crazy to have an elaborate system of checks for British employees but completely ignore potential problems from somebody from another country.”

Asked on Newsnight whether convicted EU terrorists could be working at Heathrow, Jim Fitzpatrick, the transport minister, said: “What we’re absolutely confident of is that any individual who is working at our airports would have to go through the same screening process as anybody who wants to travel or anybody else who is working at our airports to make sure they are safe when they are working in that restricted zone area.” Pilots called for anyone suspected of having a criminal past to be banned from working airside.

The loophole is the latest in the controversy over foreign nationals. In April 2006, Charles Clarke resigned as home secretary after it emerged that 1,013 foreign prisoners, including sex offenders and murderers, were not deported on release from prison. Last year the Home Office admitted 11,000 illegal immigrants were working in the security industry. That came months after it emerged that 27,529 records of British nationals convicted of crimes abroad had been left in box files at the Home Office when they should have been entered on a police database. This year the Crown Prosecution Service admitted losing 4,000 DNA profiles for more than a year. When the checks finally started in February 2008 since when 15 matches were found. Of these people, 11 are known to have committed offences - some serious - in the UK.

Jim McAuslan, the general secretary of the pilots’ union Balpa, said: “If it’s good enough for pilots it should be good enough for anyone else that’s working airside and these checks need to be carried out on everyone.”

A spokesman for the Department for Transport said all airside workers were required to go through the same checks that passengers have to pass through. He said: “Enforcing a check on overseas records would require the co-operation of a large number of foreign countries involving delays and complex comparisons of international legal systems. “It would also have a major impact on an international airport’s day-to-day operations, including preventing many foreign aircrews from landing in the UK. “However, this practical difficulty should not prevent us from requiring checks of UK records. Neither is such a check required by International Aviation Security bodies.”

A spokesman for the airports operator BAA said: “We work very closely with the Department for Transport and ultimately with the Government to take a view on what security measures are appropriate.” A spokesman for the industry body, The International Air Transport Association, added that conditions were laid down by national governments. He said that airlines applied whatever checks were required to by their own authorities, but said security was a national responsibility.

Authorities have lost track of 41,000 people ordered to leave Canada, and in most cases have stopped looking for them, said a federal watchdog Tuesday. In a scathing report, Auditor General Sheila Fraser said most of the missing were failed asylum seekers allowed into the country on temporary permits while their immigration or refugee cases were assessed. However, some of them “may pose a threat to public safety and security,” she added.

Oh, wait — it did happen here. A Homeland Security Inspector General report (pdf) released last year said that the backlog of immigration cases involving immigrants ordered to leave the U.S. had reached 600,000 — and the whereabouts of many of those, whether criminal offenders or non-criminal deportees, couldn’t be determined. It’s important to note that this number represents the backlog, not the number of people missing, as in Canada.

The report put the blame for the backlog, which had been increasing since 2001, on insufficient detention space and systems, along with inadequate staffing. (This focuses on ICE rather than CIS, so it doesn’t take into account the long lines legal immigrants face to get in or change their status if they’re already here.)

There hasn’t been an internal assessment of where the “fugitive” backlog stands more recently. And though Homeland Security has received more beds and staff, it has also stepped up its enforcement efforts, so the backlog may very well still be rising, if at a slower pace.

The Canada case gives occasion to recall that this country’s ad-hoc enforcement-first approach doesn’t necessarily work as smoothly as advocates hope. And, as the editorial board would argue, it isn’t the best approach for the country even when it works as intended.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said she was extremely disappointed at the decision and promised all steps necessary to protect the public. Some of the bail money is thought to have been put up by Norman Kember, the Christian peace worker who was held hostage in Baghdad for four months from November 2005 by a group of insurgents. Abu Qatada had made a video appeal for his release.

The bail decision by the Special Immigration Advisory Tribunal is a fresh blow to the British Government’s anti-terror policies. Last month, the Home Office was forced to abandon plans to deport 12 Libyans, leaving a memorandum of understanding with Libya, signed in October 2005, effectively in tatters.

Abu Qatada, 45, has been convicted in his absence in Jordan of involvement with terror attacks in 1998 and of plotting to plant bombs. The radical cleric once called on British Muslims to martyr themselves, and tapes of his sermons were found in a flat in Germany used by some of the September 11 hijackers.

Fraser noted an improved enforcement since her last audit in 2003, when responsibility for removals was transferred from Citizenship and Immigration Canada to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). In 2006-2007, Canada Border Services Agency removed about 12,600 individuals, including 1,900 criminals who “posed a high risk to Canada,” she said in her report. But “due in part to a lack of exit controls, there is a growing number of individuals whose whereabouts is unknown and who might remain in Canada illegally,” Fraser said.

As of September 2007, the Canada Border Services Agency determined that there were about 63,000 individuals with either enforceable removal orders or outstanding immigration warrants for removal. The agency said it knew the whereabouts of 22,000 of the individuals, but “the remaining 41,000 cases are individuals with immigration warrants for removal, whose whereabouts are unknown to the agency,” said the report. The agency said it did not investigate most of these cases because “this could mean devoting resources in an attempt to find individuals who have already left the country.”

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told reporters: “The CBSA has already put in place quite a few of the recommendations that she (Fraser) has talked about so we’re improving. “It’s not perfect yet but it’s a big improvement over what it has been,” he said.

THE Rudd Government is rejecting asylum seeker applications at a higher rate than the Howard government, according to an analysis of new figures. An Asylum Seeker Research Centre report says the immigration department has knocked back 41 of the 42 cases it has had referred to it since Labor took power after the November 2007 election, a rejection rate of 97.6 per cent. The report, authored by ASRC chief executive Kon Karapanagiotidis, says that is the highest rejection rate since the Victoria-based ASRC started in 2001.

ASRC community campaign co-ordinator Pamela Curr conceded some of the 42 did not have compelling cases, but said others certainly did. “There is no way you can look at some of these cases and, with the guidelines for ministerial decision making, reject them,” Ms Curr said. “We don’t have the figures yet from other advocacy agencies but we know this is going on all around Australia.”

Ms Curr said wrong decisions were being made because of Immigration Minister Chris Evans’ emphasis on clearing backlogs and making decisions more quickly. She said the figures made a mockery of Senator Evans’ assurance that he would bring humanity back to the immigration portfolio. “I think that this government is absolutely dead scared on the refugee issue, after all they lost an election on this back in 2001,” she said. “Now they’re in power, they’ve got a wonderful majority, they’ve got the country behind them but they’re too gutless to tackle the hard issues.”

Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition said he believed the promise of a new dawn in immigration was not being delivered. “I think the minister is still paying too much attention to the immigration department rather than trying to implement the cultural change that was promised,” he said. Mr Karapanagiotidis said while it was too early to form a complete picture of Senator Evans’ approach, it was looking as if the change in government had not brought change for asylum seekers.

Jack Smit from refugee advocacy group Project SafeCom called the figures “disturbing”. The ASRC claims to be the largest provider of aid, advocacy and health services for asylum seekers in Australia.

In the second part of the interview, which aired Thursday night, the TV host and the presidential hopeful discussed topics ranging from the war on terror to torture to illegal immigration. “This is the most fun interview you’ve ever done, I know it is,” O’Reilly joked with Clinton as their conversation drew to a close. “I was going to say it was the most fun interview you’ve ever done,” Clinton smiled back.

It’s no coincidence that Clinton appeared in O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone” just a few days before the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Clinton’s spokesman was quoted earlier this week as saying that O’Reilly has a big audience — and that Clinton wants to reach out, even to those voters who don’t agree with her all the time — O’Reilly’s viewers, in other words.

On the issues, Clinton told O’Reilly, “There is no military solution to what we face in Iraq.” She said the U.S. military has done what it set out to do there, and she said as president, she would begin withdrawing U.S. troops to force the Iraqi government to focus on “what they must do for themselves.” Clinton said she would concentrate her efforts on winning the war in Afghanistan and supporting the “pro-democracy movement” in neighboring Pakistan.

Pressed on whether Clinton would crack down on sanctuary cities — those that turn a blind eye to illegal aliens — she said, “No,” she would not. Clinton said illegal aliens should not be discouraged from reporting crimes. Clinton said she shares Americans’ frustration with the “broken” immigration system, but she doesn’t see any advantage to “forcing them into the shadows.” “I’m one hundred percent in favor of tightening our borders, of enforcing the laws against employers, of going after the kind of abuses that we see in the job market.” She blamed “partisan wrangling” for the federal immigration stalemate. Illegal aliens convicted of crimes “should be deported, no questions asked,” Clinton said. But she also said the American people don’t want deputized law enforcement officials going door to door at businesses and homes, looking for illegal aliens.

A conservative group is blasting Clinton’s position on sanctuary cities. “Hillary’s response should be frightening to American families, who are forced to live with frequent criminal activity committed by illegals in sanctuary cities,” the Eagle Forum said in a news release.

The group used the murder of three Newark, N.J., teenagers last year as an example of what’s wrong with sanctuary cities. Three teenagers were killed in a Newark playground last year, allegedly by a Peruvian man who had been released from jail, even though he was in the country illegally.) “It is an outrage that Hillary Clinton is running to become President of the United States, yet she is openly admitting that she will not enforce America’s laws,” said Eagle Forum Executive Director Jessica Echard. “If Hillary Clinton will not enforce the law against sanctuary cities, why should we believe she will enforce any other immigration laws or build the fence?” Echard asked. “She will simply continue the Bush open-border policies which she pretends to condemn and that have allowed our illegal immigration population to nearly double since 2000.”

Suddenly, however, their presence is igniting a controversy that some fear could escalate into the kind of war over illegal immigration that has torn apart Prince William County. In the past month, the Frederick County sheriff has joined with federal authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants, and county commissioners have proposed legislation to ban free translation of county business and require public schools to track down students who are in the United States illegally. “The single biggest threat to our country is the immigration problem. We cannot continue to absorb this population or we will end up in collapse like a Third World country,” said Sheriff Chuck Jenkins, whose officers have identified 18 illegal immigrants in the past two weeks after traffic stops or other incidents. “We are not going out in a white van with a big net, but we are getting the criminal element of the illegal population out of Frederick County.”

Local opponents of the measures, including black, white and Hispanic residents, say the crackdown and other proposed actions smack of racism and political grandstanding. They say Latinos have been welcomed by Frederick’s businesses as a source of cheap labor. Since 1990, the county’s Hispanic population has more than tripled, from fewer than 5,000 to more than 15,000, growing to about 5 percent of the county’s inhabitants. “This is nothing but scapegoating,” said Lydia Espinoza, a community mediator of Mexican American descent. “The immigrant community has been growing here for years, but now people are seeing more Latinos in public, speaking Spanish in stores. They hear about overcrowded houses or issues that can be resolved by the community. Instead, some people are stoking these emotional fires to create group feelings against immigrants.”

Regional organizations on each side have joined the fray. CASA of Maryland, a nonprofit group that lobbies for immigrant rights, plans to present a report today that accuses Jenkins and his department of racial profiling, imprisoning “alarmingly high” numbers of Latinos and using crime fighting as a “subterfuge to deport immigrants.”

Help Save Maryland, a rapidly growing citizens group that opposes illegal immigration, has supported the crackdown in group e-mails, radio interviews and newspaper columns. The coordinator of the Frederick chapter has accused opponents of “playing the race card.”

In the Hillcrest neighborhood, where many of Frederick’s Latinos live (often in households that include legal and illegal immigrants), residents describe growing anxiety. Priests say parishioners have stopped driving to church for fear of run-ins with the police. Check-cashing stores say people are closing their bank accounts. And everyone is asking whether Frederick will become the next Prince William. “I used to love Frederick, but now I don’t feel comfortable here anymore,” said Concepcion Ramirez, 20, a Mexican-born waitress. “I went to high school here, and everyone was so caring and nice. But people are scared of the police now. Every time you get in your car, you are thinking every single moment of what to do if they stop you.”

Despite the contretemps, residents say there is little chance that Frederick will become as bitterly divided as Prince William, where officials approved a number of policies last year to drive out illegal immigrants. In Frederick, the recent proposals to halt public translation services and count illegal pupils are unlikely to become law, in part because they may conflict with state and federal statutes.

One reason for the difference is Frederick’s diverse character, a blend of rural courtliness and urban worldliness. The county’s economic mainstays include military research, dairy farms, high-tech industry and tourism. Its populace includes seventh-generation German Americans, a black middle class and young professionals who commute to Rockville or Washington. It has an active NAACP chapter and an annual Latino Festival.