New York, July 2010
The United States Immigration Newsletter
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Illegal Harvard Student May Stay – For Now
 Cambridge, MA:
Children that were brought illegally to the United States by their parents face an uncertain future as they grow up. During the past weeks several students have been arrested by the immigration authorities for being in the U.S. illegally, and now these students face the possibility of
deportation to
their home countries. The students were all brought to the United States when
they were small children and they no longer remember their old country. One
19-year-old Harvard student was arrested as he was trying to use his student ID
to board a plane back to Boston after having visited his mother. Eric Balderas
has lived in the U.S. since he was four years old. His parents brought him
across the Rio Grande on a raft entering the country illegally. Since that time he has lived
a life just like any other American child. After his arrest in early June, he spent two weeks in detainment in immediate danger of being deported
and contemplating suicide. But after Balderas received tremendous support from the community, including officials from Harvard University, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, and thousands of supporters on Facebook, the immigration authorities granted Balderas temporary reprieve. They put Balderas on “Deferred Status”
meaning he will not be deported unless he breaks the law. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also stated that they usually do not deport students who grew up in the U.S., especially not if they are spoken for by friends, teachers or elected officials. Balderas, and the other students who were also arrested recently, could be saved from deportation if the proposed legislation referred to as the
Dream Act was passed. That would provide children brought illegally to the United States with a chance of becoming U.S. citizens.
However, while President Obama supports the Dream Act, he has also increased enforcement of immigration laws in an attempt to promote
immigration reform to Republicans. As a result, the same people who would be saved by the Dream Act now run a higher risk of detention and deportation.
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More Drones for Border Security
 Washington,
D.C.:
Several more drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) will be deployed in Texas and along the Gulf Coast region to fly patrol missions along the border between Mexico and the United States. The Federal Aviation Agency has given the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) permission to use the unmanned aircraft in the region. President Obama has previously been reluctant to spend additional government money to fund drones to help find and detain illegal border crossers. The issue of using the UAV in fighting illegal immigration has been surrounded by great controversy. In the end,
after some political bargaining by Texas Republicans Rick Perry, the Governor of Texas and John Cornyn
(a U.S. senator), the federal government has agreed to allocate another $500 million and two more drones to the Mexican border. One of the new drones will be operated by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) out of the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station in Texas. The UAVs are the General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers, also known as the Predator B. One of the drones will be patrolling the Mexican border in order to detect groups of illegal immigrants who cross the border in to the United States. Another one of DHS’ new UAVs will be operated in collaboration with the Office of National Drug Control Policy in a new Project: Operation Roadrunner. In Operation Roadrunner the MQ-9 Reapers will scan car license plates on the American side of the
U.S.-Mexico border, primarily in an attempt to apprehend drug traffickers. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department will work together to make the information gathered by the drones available to law enforcement on local, state level,
and federal level. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol already has six Predator B drones in operation. The first drone to be operating along the border was deployed in Arizona in October of 2005. After it had helped in stopping over eight thousand pounds of marijuana
from making it across the border in to the United States, the CBP launched another five drones to operate on both the Canadian and on the Mexican borders. |
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Silent Push for Immigration Reform
 Washington, D.C.:
President
Obama hopes Democrats and Republicans will work together in a process to reform the United States’ immigration system, he said in a meeting with community leaders in June. Obama says he wants the process to be based on a proposal that is already in the U.S. Senate. If the proposal were passed it would not only hold illegal immigrants accountable for working illegally in the United States, but employers would also be responsible for hiring only those who have permission to work in the U.S. There are some employers who take advantage of the flaws of the current immigration system
and hire illegal immigrants. For example, some employers get away with paying workers lower salaries, because the workers do not have work authorization. The new law proposal also aims at increasing the security of the United States’ borders to prevent migrants from crossing into the U.S. illegally. However, the president said that true
border security can only come if the U.S. immigration system is reformed first, and reforming the immigration system also involves providing the 12 million illegal immigrants who are already in the country with a possibility to obtain status as legal immigrants. During Obama’s meeting with the community leaders, some voiced concerns over the way immigration enforcement agencies detain and deport illegal immigrants. One Chicago pastor has been hunger striking in order to focus attention to the issue. Rev. José Landaverde, a survivor of torture in El Salvador’s civil war, took over the hunger strike relay from another minister who had been going 32 days without eating. Landaverde says the nation’s immigration system makes him feel powerless, and that he does not believe his hunger strike will make the reform come sooner.
However, even as doctors have warned the diabetic pastor of fasting, Landaverde
is only drinking water and fruit juice. Although President Obama has said several times that he wants to reform United States’ immigration system,
the biggest change so far have been tougher enforcement of immigration laws and more federal money being spent on securing the U.S. border. |
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Immigration Agents Lose Access to Arrest Data
 Philadelphia,
PA:
Philadelphia is about to end an agreement with the federal immigration authorities to share arrest records with immigration enforcement agents. For a year now Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had access to the computerized data records for arrests in the Philadelphia area. In these records ICE have been able to check
the country of origin and other data of all those who have been arrested. Immigrant advocates says that this agreement has made it possible for ICE to initiate
work towards
deportation even against illegal immigrants who were arrested on minor charges only. The agreement between the city and the immigration authorities where ICE agents get access to the city’s Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System (PARS) to scan it for potential illegal immigrants is up for renewal. According to Everett Gillison, who is the city’s deputy mayor for public safety, it is the mayor’s view that the agreement with the Immigration Authorities should be discontinued. Gillison were attending a church meeting that had gathered more than 300 immigrants last week. At the meeting Gillison said that Philadelphia’s Mayor Nutter, District Attorney Seth Williams and Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, are all in agreement
on the decision to keep the ICE agents out of the PARS data base. Earlier, Mayor Nutter has spoken out to protect the human rights of all immigrants, no matter what their immigration status is. Last year he issued a directive that prohibits public employees on official business from asking people like witnesses or
detainees what their immigration status is. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Philadelphia did not want to make any specific comments about the city’s intention to end the PARS agreement before the city has taken any formal action on the matter. But a spokesperson for
ICE said that the agency prioritizes “convicted criminal aliens, getting dangerous people off the street”. According the spokesman, that is why the Immigration and Customs Enforcement wishes to be able to access Philadelphia’s digital arrest record. |
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Immigration Protesters Arrested in Seattle
 Seattle, WA:
Police has arrested 22 protestors who were demonstrating in support of reforming United States'
immigration
law. During the demonstration in late June, the protestors blocked a traffic intersection in down-town Seattle for more than three hours. Eventually the protestors were carried off one by one by police, but at that time traffic had already been at a
complete standstill for several hours. According to a police spokesperson it was clear that the protestors wanted to be arrested. Several different activist groups from the Washington Immigration Reform Coalition took part in the immigration protests in Seattle. The same groups had blocked the same traffic intersection only a few days earlier, but that time the police never arrested the protestors because the protestors had not caused enough disturbance to warrant their arrest. Pramila Jayapal, the executive director of the group OneAmerica, was among the protestors who demonstrated in the Seattle intersection. Jaypal said that President
Obama should try harder to reform the immigration system in the United States. After the state of Arizona passed
its new and controversial law that allows police to detain people whom they suspect to be in the U.S. illegally, reforming the immigration system is even more important, according to Jaypal. Subsequently the Washington Immigration Reform Coalition is now pushing even harder to get things moving in Washington. During the Seattle demonstration the protestors set up tents and hung up laundry lines. They kept together and paid no attention to irritated drivers honking their car horns, or angry by passers who were shouting curse words at the activists. People who were affected by the delays caused by the demonstrations felt that the protestors were not communicating their views in an appropriate way.
Some suggested that people who might already be in favor of immigration reform could actually be put off by the protestors’ behavior and even change their views on the issue. |
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Arizona Immigration Law Challenged by Whitehouse
 Washington, D.C.:
The state of Arizona is preparing to be sued by the Whitehouse. It is likely that a lawsuit will come from the Whitehouse in early July, to attempt to block Arizona’s controversial new immigration law. The new law, called SB 1070, was passed earlier this year and it is an attempt by the state of Arizona to solve its many problems surrounding illegal immigration from Mexico. State officials in Arizona are already preparing for the expected legal challenge and the governor says that money donations are coming in from all fifty states of America to help in defending Arizona’s new immigration law. So far the state has received $123,000 in private donations and more keep coming in, sometimes as little as one dollar at the time. In the Whitehouse
no one has been willing to disclose any information on the probable lawsuit, but
some experts in legal matters have suggested that the Whitehouse might argue
that Arizona violated the United States Constitution when passing the new
law. According to the Constitution it is the federal government that has the power to regulate immigration to the United States. Arizona has already been hit by five different lawsuits on account of the new law, and President Obama has earlier criticized SB 1070 as being misdirected. Obama said that taking legal action against individual illegal immigrants alone is not the way to solve the country’s problems with illegal immigration. Arizona
Governor Jane Brewer on the other hand, says the president should be spending time and taxpayers’ money on
increasing U.S.
border
security, rather than on suing over Arizona’s attempt to actually do something about their own immigration problems. Senate Bill 1070 (SB 1070) allows police in Arizona to legally stop and check the immigration status of any person as long as there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the United States illegally. Opponents of the new Arizona immigration law say the SB 1070 will lead to harassment of people who are of Latino descent, and that the law might actually hamper effective law enforcement. |
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