Full gallery at the New York Public Library.

Quotes from Samuel McKewon’s article in the Nebraska State Paper (12.12.08).

• Quality

“When Ekeler, CEO of Overland Products in Fremont, posted notifications that he would use a federal E-Verify program to determine whether prospective employees had viable Social Security numbers, job applications quickly dropped. […] Ekeler said. “…I didn’t want undocumented workers to make my life miserable.”

Ekeler, who was appointed chairman of a Fremont task force on immigration, gave testimony in favor of Nebraska implementing an E-Verify program during a three-hour hearing on illegal immigration Friday in front of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee.”

Just as interesting would be Mr Ekeler’s opinion on the quality of his firm’s products after the notified he’d be using E-Verify. It doesn’t take a Nobel laureate to figure out that as his recruitment pool dried up the average quality of the prospective employees ought to have lowered considerably which in turns must affect his output one way or the other.

Now everybody’s free to run his firm the way he wishes and Mr Ekeler can choose not to employ un-documented foreigners, but why on Earth would he try to impose the same policy on his fellow entrepreneurs?

• Stupidity

“The lack of effective federal laws – and, in some cases, failed applications of the laws already on the books – has created a “tragic scenario,” for the state’s 35,000-55,000 estimated illegal immigrants, Ashford said, in the “development of an underclass of workers who can’t progress because they don’t have the legal status to work here.”

Hence, Ashford said, an E-Verify system, run by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, becomes one way to dissuade undocumented workers from living and working in Nebraska. The federal program costs about $500 million per year and is fully funded through March 2009. Ten states, including neighboring Colorado and Missouri, have passed E-Verify laws. Rhode Island has it by a governor’s executive order.

“Even though there are a lot of consequences that are not positive, especially in rural Nebraska, I come up to a brick wall. I cannot get around the idea that the state is somehow complicit by not providing an enhanced way of checking.””

I’m not sure I’ve seen such a beautiful piece of conscious stupidity since Isabella of Spain expelled the Jews and the Moors from her realm in 1492 fully aware it would devastate it but certain it was the only way to please God. The only difference here is that a fair dose of double-talk and hypocrisis is added to the mix.

I’m not sure that the best way to help this tragic underclass of workers is to prevent them from living and working. By the way I don’t want to sound picky on words but in my mind “to dissuade one from living” is oddly similar from “to persuade one to die”. Anyway what can you expect from people that intend to spend 500 million dollars (0.6% of the state GDP) on a policy that has “a lot of consequences that are not positive”.

• Racism

“One testifier said there were “100,000 terrorists who want to hurt us” in the United States, adding “if you can get 20 million people into this country, you can get anything into this country.” A second interrupted the hearing with an objection that another speaker had been allotted too much time. A third accused the Judiciary Committee of taking bribes from large corporations to keep illegal immigrants employed within the state. […]

“Right now, someone is arrested who is not documented, they bond out and leave,” he said.”

After a few lines our old pal racism comes back. He is in good company: populism, infringement on Civil Rights… hmmm I’m lovin it!

Still, Ashford, law enforcement doesn’t want to engage in a federal program allowed under section 287g of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act, which partners ICE agents to train law enforcers in how identify, process and detain illegal immigrants they come across in their daily police work.”

For once the police is being quite sensible. Nebraska’s policemen are not too keen on arresting about a tenth of the state’s workforce, surely they have better thing to do such as fighting gangsters and arresting real terrorists.

Once more the paranoia and self-interest of some is costing all a great deal.

XICALCAL, Guatemala (AP) — For years, the only people in this valley were those too old or too young to make the trip to the United States. Now the village bustles again with deported workers.

The reason is a raid that happened nearly two years ago and 3,000 miles away. On a bitterly cold March morning in New Bedford, Mass., dozens of immigration agents swarmed the Michael Bianco Inc. textile factory on the water’s edge and arrested 361 people, mostly Central American women.

The sweep was among the first of more than a dozen showcase raids as the U.S. cracks down on illegal immigration. Arrests of undocumented workers have risen tenfold since 2003, to 4,077 last year. Fines for employers have jumped from a few dozen companies paying $45,000 in 2003 to 863 facing penalties totaling $30 million.

The Michael Bianco raid signaled the government’s new, no-tolerance attitude toward its undocumented population. So far only 160 former Michael Bianco employees have been sent home. But the raid’s impact has had a ripple effect across the U.S., scaring employers into policing their work forces.

Thousands of workers found themselves jobless and gave up on the American Dream, returning to hometowns now struggling to feed the returning populations. One of these is Xicalcal, a collection of homes down a forgotten dirt road in Guatemala’s Mayan highlands.

The area was among the hardest-hit during Guatemala’s civil war in the 1980s, and many people fled as soldiers and militias killed anyone suspected of being a leftist guerrilla. A few ended up in the industrial port of New Bedford, where the fishing and textile factories rarely asked for work papers.

Over the years, hundreds followed, some paying smugglers as much as $6,000 for the trip.

As money flowed back, Mayan women replaced their delicate, hand-embroidered blouses with polyester tops. Men wore ballcaps with “Old Navy” scribbled across the front. Crude huts gave way to three-bedroom concrete homes. But mostly the town emptied, and homes ended up half-finished, rusty rebar reaching for the heavens.

In New Bedford, a town of about 94,000 people, the Guatemalans spent long hours pushing fabric through chattering sewing machines at companies like Michael Bianco. The factory started out making leather goods for brands including Coach, Fossil and Timberland and ended up winning $230 million in contracts to produce military gear for the U.S. war in Iraq.

As far back as 2002, the U.S. Social Security administration suspected Michael Bianco might be hiring illegal immigrants. It sent a letter stating that almost a quarter of workers’ social security numbers didn’t check out. Similar letters arrived each subsequent year.

In December 2005, as rumors swirled of a possible raid, a manager announced over the intercom that employees were welcome to leave for the day, according to a federal indictment. About 75 people scattered, hiding in factory boxes or their cars.

That turned out to be a false alarm, but soon an undercover agent posing as an illegal immigrant was working at Michael Bianco. According to the indictment, the factory’s payroll manager told her how to get illegal papers at the record store across the street.

By 2007, Michael Bianco’s payroll had swelled to almost 650 people. More than two-thirds had fishy social security numbers, and prosecutors allege the company intentionally filled its ranks with undocumented workers to avoid paying overtime. The Guatemalans gladly took the jobs, where they could earn in a half hour what they made in a day back home.

On March 6, 2007, the sewing machines had just clicked into gear when armed agents in black flooded the floor and blocked the exits. Workers scattered and hid — including one found by immigration agents in a box hours after the raid. They broke into applause, congratulating the man for evading capture. Then they arrested him.

News of the raid was splashed across the evening news in the U.S. and made headlines as far away as Guatemala.

Immigrant-rights groups accused agents of leaving children stranded at schools and with baby sitters when they rounded up their parents — allegations Immigration and Customs Enforcement calls baseless. ICE Director Julie Myers called it a good example of a showcase raid.

“As long as there’s a job,” Myers said, “people will keep coming back.”

Nearly two years later, some 200 people are still waiting to see if the U.S. will let them stay. Some are allowed to work while their cases crawl through the court system. Some have no income.

Three teens got green cards because they were unaccompanied minors. At least four other workers have won permission to stay in the U.S., including three who got asylum, which allows them to seek citizenship.

Those deported are flown to the capital, Guatemala City, at the U.S. government’s expense, and most fund the rest of the journey by themselves.

Last month, Michael Bianco founder Francesco Insolia — himself an immigrant from Italy — pleaded guilty to harboring and concealing illegal immigrants. He faces up to 18 months in prison when he’s sentenced in January. He also agreed to pay workers $850,000 to settle a lawsuit claiming back pay.

The raid also had a chilling effect on other employers. Fearing a similar fate, many are turning away anyone whose work papers are suspect. Missouri-based Eagle Industries, which bought Michael Bianco Inc. a year ago, now runs social security numbers through E-Verify, a government database. Some say the government is passing on its responsibilities to employers.

“It isn’t easy for an employer, despite all the rules and regulations,” said Anthony Sapienza, chief executive of the Joseph Abboud high-end men’s clothing factory in New Bedford. “The fact is, you can buy pretty sophisticated documents on the streets and you can get hoodwinked.”

Tragedy for some has been opportunity for others. Jeff Matos, 24, says without the raid he wouldn’t have been able to leave the overnight shift at a 7-Eleven to work at Michael Bianco. He now earns 50 cents more an hour.

“It’s an unfortunate situation,” he said of the raid. “But it opened up a position for me to get hired.”

Many of the Guatemalans, meanwhile, are stuck.

Dominga Gomez’s husband, Ricardo, was among the deported, and she was fired from her illegal job packing clothes into boxes at a textile factory nearby. But she didn’t leave New Bedford because the U.S. government pays $500 in medication every three weeks for her autistic American son, 4-year-old Mauricio.

Her husband couldn’t support their five children in Guatemala, so he borrowed $6,000 from friends and family to be smuggled back into the United States. He arrived on Oct. 28, 2007, complaining of a sore throat, and felt worse the next day. But Gomez didn’t take him to the doctor because they could be caught.

Soon, he wasn’t breathing. She called an ambulance. He was declared dead. She never found out why.

Living in New Bedford with her 4-year-old, Gomez can’t find steady work because she doesn’t have papers, and now takes odd jobs for cash. Her oldest child, a 19-year-old boy, is in Guatemala. He begs to be smuggled to New Bedford, but she refuses.

“I don’t want to lose a son,” she said. “I already lost a husband.”

Back in Xicalcal, hardly a day passes without another long-lost villager walking up the dusty path. Several were deported before they had paid off smugglers for their trip north. With the prospect of losing land or homes, they borrowed more and headed north again.

But most are staying these days. Table saws whine through the mountain valley as people finish abandoned homes. Many can’t find steady work, and are rapidly using up savings from their time in the U.S.

Victor Garcia, 34, wonders how he’ll feed his four young children. When he worked for Michael Bianco, Garcia was able to send home up to $500 a month. Now, he is lucky to earn 40 Quetzales ($6) a day working in the fields.

“I wasn’t stealing anything,” he says. “I just wanted to work.”

Remittances are dropping. Guadalupe Toj is among the lucky few who still lives on money sent home by her husband. He works illegally at a pizzeria in Boston, but she wonders how long that will last.

“There are so many people coming back,” Toj says. “Who is going to employ so many people? What will they eat?”

A few feet away, her children flip through a deck of playing cards sent by their absent father. They don’t recognize the logo of the Boston Red Sox.

The Arkansas Traveler, 12/8/08

Whenever anyone talks about assisting illegal immigrants, they’re met with angry opposition. Opponents of being nice to illegal immigrants seem to think that they are being helpful when they point out the fact that people are “here illegally” and “breaking the law.”

Guess what? We already knew that.

Just because you break a law doesn’t mean that you’re automatically a horrible person who deserves no charity or consideration. I wonder – how many of the people who cry out that any leniency or assistance given to illegal immigrants is amnesty turn around and advocate the greatest possible mercy when they become illegal parkers?

People complain that illegal immigrants “cut in line” in front of those who go through the process legally. This is bunk. For immigrants from Latin America, there is no “line.” The citizenship process is more like a giant bureaucratic blender operated by the pencil pushers at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (now in its third incarnation in just five years).

First, you try to apply for a green card. Six different desk clerks tell you to bring your papers to six different offices in six different cities – all tell you you’re at the wrong place. You then wait somewhere between five and eleven years, depending on how many people lost your paperwork and who wants copies of mysterious, probably nonexistent forms with names like “XJ2781.” The people at the USCIS phone number give you different instructions every time you call. Assuming you can afford an immigration attorney, you learn that no one really has any idea how the process is even supposed to work.

If you are lucky enough to get a green card, the road to citizenship will still take several more years and countless trips to alphabet soup agencies that no one has ever heard of. One day, you receive a notice in the mail informing you that you are now in the country illegally. This comes a week after receiving a notice informing you that you are not allowed to visit your home country.

A kid who has lived in the United States for her entire life (save perhaps the first week) has a family here, friends, a favorite football team and an acceptance letter to a major university, but she gets strangled in red tape and is exiled from a country that is hers in all but name – and you think she is the villain in the story?

The National Research Council’s studies show that the average illegal immigrant pays much more in taxes than he gets in services, so don’t try to bring that old lie up. All of them pay sales and property taxes, and two-thirds pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes. Although you’re sure to find some bad apples, the majority of illegal immigrants are people who are trying to work within the system but keep getting jerked around by the USCIS apparatchiks.

The immigration process is arbitrary, unfair and unjust. Yes, overstaying a work visa or green card is illegal, but so what?

Let’s take a look back at why we even have laws in this country in the first place. The basic idea can be summed up in 55 words from the Declaration of Independence.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Everyone, everywhere across the world has the exact same rights, and the U.S. government was created to protect them when it can. It does not have the power to give rights or to take them away. Someone born in Juárez has just as much right to apply for a job at a Walmart in Fayetteville as someone born in Honolulu does.

The vast majority of American laws are good ones. They protect us from murderers and crooks and dangerous drivers. But occasionally, a rule will conflict with the natural law and violate someone’s rights. We all have the moral obligation to respect others’ rights. However, an ordinary civilian is under absolutely no moral obligation to obey an unjust law. It’s wrong to break a law against rape because that violates someone’s rights, but it’s not wrong to break a law against aiding a runaway slave.

If the immigration process were reformed and the USCIS started using a just process, then you might be able to make a case that illegal residents are doing something immoral. But why should a hard-working student be deemed undeserving of some private financial assistance just because an incompetent federal agency is too bureaucratic to process her papers?

Chelsea councilor recounts how his Argentine parents, who had lived here illegally, became Americans

CHELSEA – City Councilor Roy Avellaneda traces his political stance on illegal immigration to a pair of newlyweds from Argentina who spent their honeymoon huddled under a rug, on a cold, hard floor in Dorchester.

His parents – Vicente and Isabel Avellaneda – arrived in America in 1970 with suitcases, winter coats, and $500. She stitched trousers in a factory; he baked bread on Blue Hill Avenue in Roxbury. And for two years they lived in uneasy secrecy as illegal immigrants, like so many of their neighbors today.

Avellaneda’s long-kept secret spilled out at a recent state hearing on immigration, following years of reluctance because of the vitriolic national debate on the issue. He said his family is an example of the success that might await the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrants if they are granted permission to stay. His parents are now US citizens and own a landmark bakery on Broadway.

“People wonder where my position comes from,” Avellaneda said, in an interview. “There’s my answer: It’s my roots.”

The news stunned a crowd that had known Avellaneda as a champion of immigrants’ rights – he and other councilors voted last year to declare Chelsea a sanctuary city, a haven for all immigrants. But many immigrants from Central America also were skeptical o f the tall, bespectacled councilor. They view him as a member of the white elite, a college-educated politician who speaks Spanish with an Argentine accent.

“It took me by surprise,” said Gladys Vega, executive director of the nonprofit Chelsea Collaborative, who knew Avellaneda’s sto ry but didn’t expect him to share it. “I asked a woman, ‘Did you understand what he just said?’ She said, ‘I can’t believe it. I thought he was a white guy. I didn’t think he was one of us.’ “

Nationally, politicians and others have recently held up their own stories to show the contributions of illegal immigrants, from 76-year-old US Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, whose Italian mother was once here illegally, to 21- year-old Henry Cejudo, an Olympic wrestler and gold medalist and the son of illegal immigrants from Mexico.

The stories infuriate opponents of illegal immigration, who say the country should not reward people who broke the law. And, they say, not all immigrants are so successful.

“There are plenty of people who applied legally who would love to come here,” said Steve Kropper, cochairman of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, which favors stricter limits on immigration. “Let’s let them come first.”

But in an interview at his bakery, where he has arrived at dawn for decades to work to the whirring of a giant mixer, Vicente Avellaneda said he and Isabel decided to take a shot at a new life.

“It’s one of the chances you have to take in your life,” he said. “I can’t wait 10 years to come and work in this country.”

He and his wife were from humble families in the port city of Rosario, nicknamed the Chicago of Argentina because so many Italians – their own ethnic background – lived there.

They met while dancing to ’60s rock music at a local club. She was 16, a “blond, beautiful girl.” He was 18, a long-haired baker known as Tito who had been working full time since he was 14. His mother had died when he was 11, and he had to help his father and six sisters.

He managed to open a bakery with a sister, but his fortunes began to shift one day when a friend begged Tito to teach him how to bake bread. The man was moving to America and needed a trade to find work.

A few months later, the friend wrote Tito that he had found a job in America and was earning more than Tito and his four employees combined in Rosario.

“If this guy can be a boss,” he recalled thinking, “I can be an owner over there.”

He sold the bakery to his sister, married Isabel, and they moved to Boston in 1970 with tourist visas.

Immediately, they felt lost. An acquaintance failed to pick them up at the airport. They did not understand English. Miraculously, they ran into another newlywed couple from Rosario, who found them a floor to sleep on for two nights.

They moved into a single room on Magnolia Street, and Tito ventured to an employment agency in front of Dudley Station to ask for work. A Mexican immigrant offered to translate for him so he could apply to Kasanoff’s, a Jewish bakery in Roxbury. The boss, a towering redhead, questioned how Tito could work if he did not know English.

“I said, ‘I know my work,’ ” he recalled, his eyes bright with playful confidence, all these years later, even though he is 62 and his head is a mop of gray hair. “I am a baker.”

He worked from 2 a.m. to 1 p.m. for $100 a week, whipping up batches of croissants, challah bread, and dinner rolls. He received several raises and soon was put in charge of the ovens.

But he kept his legal status a secret. Though they were able to move to a spacious house in Revere, Tito and Isabel struggled without papers.

He applied for a second job at Jordan Marsh, but the boss rejected him because he didn’t have a green card. He helped start Al Capone pizzeria in Haymarket, but could not own it.

“I wanted to make the papers,” he said in English, which he taught himself. “I wanted to stay here legally.”

In 1972, he applied for legal residency because someone said his American-born son, Roy, would make him eligible for it.

Instead, three days later immigration officials went to their home and confiscated their passports.

A judge ordered them to go back to Argentina and apply to return legally.

When they left for Rosario, Isabel was pregnant. Little Roy, now 37, was almost 2. It took two years and help from friends before they received permission to return to United States.

In 1980, they opened Tito’s Bakery, where sometimes, over café con leche and pastries, Tito Avellaneda still tells immigrant customers his story and laughs at their surprise. Many of the newer arrivals have risked far more to get here, crossing swollen rivers, paying smugglers thousands of dollars, and traversing the desert for days.

“They are hard-working people,” he said. “They come over here for something because they need it.”

Roy Avellaneda knew only snippets of his parents’ story growing up.

He did not know one of the great ironies of his father’s life: Tito Avellaneda bought the bakery’s gleaming showcases from the same boss at Jordan Marsh who had once denied him a job.

All three Avellaneda sons succeeded.

Roy graduated from Babson College, became a realtor, and has been on the City Council for 10 years – the first Latino to top the ballot. Cristian, 35, is a firefighter, and Nikolas, 25, is a financial analyst.

Though Roy Avellaneda had never told his parents’ story publicly, it influenced his political and business life.

Once he sold a building to a pizza shop owner, an immigrant from Trinidad and Tobago, just because the man reminded him of his parents.

And at last month’s hearing in Chelsea, as he looked into the audience and recognized the same hopes and fears his parents had, he decided, finally, to share his family’s secret.

Eyes widened as he spoke, and then hands came together in applause.

The Sentinel, November 03, 2008

OFFICIALS have arrested three illegal immigrants working in nail bars.

Officers from the UK Border Agency acted on intelligence and raided two shops in Hanley.

They visited Angel Star Nails in Piccadilly and arrested a 23-year-old Vietnamese man who was identified as an illegal entrant. He is being detained, ready to be removed from the country.

Officers also visited Nail Creation in Town Road where they found two more illegal Vietnamese nationals. A 20-year-old woman who had no valid visa was arrested and detained. She has since been removed from the country.

A man was also arrested and has been released on immigration bail pending his removal.

The owner of Nail Creation was issued with an on-the-spot penalty notice and risks a fine of up to £10,000 for each illegal worker.

Nineteen-year-old Phuong Pham, manageress at the shop, said: “It was very upsetting. The woman they have arrested was a relative of mine. She was visiting me after coming over to my wedding at the end of September. She thought she could stay in the country for three months without a visa. She was just sitting in the shop when they came in, she wasn’t even working.

“I came to England in 2003 to do GCSEs and A-levels and then we opened the business in April this year. Since then we have had four raids by immigration officials.

“There are only four people working here, an English girl on reception, myself and two other Vietnamese girls, and we all have the correct papers.

“Vietnamese people are better at nail care because they are fast and work in a different way to English people.

“The two Vietnamese workers came over here already trained. If I took on an English girl I would have to train her.”

The owner of Angel Star Nails was unavailable for comment.

Gail Adams, UK Border Agency regional director for the Midlands, said: “These jobs provide a pull factor for illegal migrants and they can lead to major abuses of the immigrants themselves, with law-abiding businesses being undercut by rule-breaking employers.

“As long as there are illegal jobs, the UK will be an attractive place for illegal immigrants. That’s why we have to put a stop to employers who don’t play by the rules.

“The majority of employers are law abiding, but to tackle those who fail to carry out the necessary checks we’ve introduced fines of up to £10,000 per illegal worker.”

The operations in Hanley come at a time of reform to the UK’s immigration system. An Australian-style points-based system for managing immigration and ID cards for foreign nationals were recently introduced.

Anyone who suspects illegal workers are being employed at a business can call the UK Border Agency’s Stoke-on-Trent Office on 01782 463627 anonymously.

Houston Chronicle, Oct. 26, 2008

Citing decline in arrests of illegal immigrants, they see more agents as the solution

For business and elected leaders in Texas border towns, it’s a simple question: Since arrests of illegal immigrants are declining steadily along the Texas-Mexico border, why should the controversial and costly fence be completed?

An analysis by the Texas Border Coalition, an association of elected officials and business leaders, shows a 56 percent drop in arrests during the last four years by the U.S. Border Patrol on the Texas-Mexico border.

Government officials have maintained for years that fewer arrests mean fewer immigrants are trying to cross the border illegally.

The declining immigration arrests have revived the debate over the effectiveness of the planned fence because only a half-mile of the 110 miles of pedestrian fencing planned for the Texas border is finished. As government budget deficits soar, some question how fiscally prudent it is to build and maintain a project the Congressional Research Service estimates to cost $49 billion.

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, who heads the border coalition, said a steady increase of Border Patrol staffing is responsible for the declining arrests.

“We have a new Border Patrol station opened in Eagle Pass in the last six months, and the Border Patrol has continued to recruit agents,” Foster said. “I think because of their strong presence (on the border), that links back to reduced apprehensions.”

However, some experts maintain that a slowing economy is more responsible for the lower number of arrests. With fewer jobs available, fewer immigrants try to migrate north. That raises an obvious question: When the U.S. economy recovers, won’t more immigrants try to cross into America illegally, thus making a case for a border fence?

Foster, however, said by the time the economy bounces back Congress will have passed long-anticipated immigration reform that includes a guest worker program. Immigrant workers will cross the border lawfully through ports of entry.

His border group notes that in San Diego, where heavy fencing and walls have been in place for years, apprehensions are up 28 percent during the last four years.

“Here we are in middle of a financial crisis, and we’re going to spend billions on something that doesn’t make sense?” said Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas. “Walls don’t work — people go under, over and around them.”

Fence widely opposed

Elected officials from nearly every Texas border town oppose the fence, saying it’s not as effective as more border agents and installing high-tech surveillance technology.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said that by mid-October, 210 of the 370 miles of planned pedestrian fencing and 153 of the 300 miles of vehicle barriers were finished, most of it in New Mexico, Arizona and California.

“Our operational analysis of the border has shown that fencing is a critical component of our border security strategy,” said CBP spokesman Michael Friel. “The Border Patrol has made the determination that fencing is needed in certain areas along our nation’s border.”

Friel said construction will pick up on the Texas border as the Dec. 31 deadline nears to complete all 670 miles of fencing mandated for the Southwest border.

He said it was “not logical” to suggest that areas with fencing have more border crossers.

According to Border Patrol statistics, apprehensions of illegal immigrants along the Southwest border have fallen dramatically in the last four years. In fiscal year 2005, nearly 1.2 million immigrants were arrested, dropping to 1 million in 2006 and 860,000 by 2007. In the first 11 months of the most recent fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, arrests on the border had fallen to 660,000.

The head of a border agents union said fencing only delays illegal immigrants for the few minutes it takes them to climb over the barrier. If there are not enough agents in the area to detain them as they attempt to enter, they simply slip by.

“We don’t build fences that slice and dice people,” said T.J. Bonner, president of the 14,000-member National Border Patrol Council. “We design fences that slow people down … and if you don’t have the agents in place, that’s all you’ve done.”

Bonner said immigration arrests are misleading because agents say two illegal immigrants make it across the border for every one who is detained.

He said the higher number of arrests in San Diego is related to moving agents to Arizona.

“Tucson staffing has increased while the staffing in San Diego has decreased. That explains why (illegal immigrants are) going back to San Diego — because the odds of being caught in Tucson are higher,” Bonner said.

Dual functions

Opposition to the fence has been blunted in some border communities, where the government incorporated the barrier with needed projects.

In Hidalgo County, county and drainage district officials teamed up with the federal government and are rebuilding dirt levees on the river with 22 miles of concrete walls topped with security fencing. The $179 million project, funded in part with $48.5 million in local flood control funds, is on existing right-of-way and does not require land acquisition.

In Laredo, plans to fence miles of riverfront were scrapped when local Border Patrol officials determined it was not needed. Instead, Border Patrol officials added hundreds of agents, are planning to clear thick stands of non-native cane that provides hiding places on the river bank and instituted a zero-tolerance arrest policy for first-time border crossers. As a result, arrests have dropped 23 percent in the last fiscal year.

Washington Post, October 20, 2008

As the presidential election heads into its final days, the issue of immigration remains largely unaddressed. It was not examined during the debates and is not high on either candidate’s list of talking points. Congress has left the issue on the table. Sadly, this congressional reluctance has created a policy vacuum that has widened America’s political divisions and left us with an inconsistent, ineffective and, in many cases, inhumane national policy.

The failure of comprehensive immigration reform last year, when Congress bowed to a vocal minority, unleashed a torrent of initiatives designed to demonstrate that the U.S. government can enforce our laws and secure our borders. In truth, intermittent work site raids, increased local law enforcement involvement and the creation of a wall along parts of our southern border, among other efforts, have done little to address the challenges presented by illegal immigration.

The most visible of these initiatives has been the work site raids in cities and towns across the nation. While these enforcement actions meet the political need to show government’s law enforcement capabilities, they have had minimal effect on the number of undocumented workers in the United States.

The involvement of local law enforcement in immigration enforcement, most prominently in Arizona and parts of the South, has greatly harmed the trust between immigrant neighborhoods and law enforcement and has diverted police from the work of apprehending criminals. The border wall and an unprecedented immigration enforcement buildup along our southern border have failed to deter new entrants to the United States and have discouraged immigrants from leaving.

Perhaps most damaging are the adverse, long-term effects these policies have had on immigrant communities. The overriding emotion many immigrants feel is fear. Not only do legal immigrants worry that a loved one may be swept away in a work site raid or after a knock at the door at home, they are fearful for their own futures — and the futures of their children — in the United States. This is not the way to encourage integration and responsible citizenship.

While some organizations that oppose immigration are delighted by this and hope such an atmosphere will lead to a mass exodus of illegal and legal immigrants, they are likely to be disappointed. What they do not acknowledge is that 70 percent of the undocumented have lived in this country for five years or longer and have no home to return to. These people identify themselves more as Americans than anything else and would rather live here in the shadows than take their U.S.-citizen children back to a place they do not know.

Opponents like to argue that our economy does not need the work of immigrants, now or in the future. Again, they are wrong. The Labor Department predicts that in the years ahead, despite the current economic slowdown, a shortage of low-skilled labor will exist in several important industries, for some beginning as early as 2010. As baby boomers begin retiring, immigrants will help support them by paying billions into the Social Security system.

To many elected officials, immigration has become the new “third rail” of American politics. Refraining from addressing this pressing domestic issue, however, will elevate tensions in states and localities, further alienate immigrants and their communities, and tacitly affirm the acceptance of a hidden and permanent underclass in our country.

The silver lining of this dark cloud upon our immigrant history is that it demonstrates that an enforcement-only approach to illegal immigration is ineffective and contrary to our national interests. A new administration and new Congress will be forced to act — this time in a broad and balanced manner. Otherwise, the American people will be left pondering a wall and wondering why it is not working.