A slew of stories today about a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center estimating that as of March 2009, the illegal population had dropped to 11.1 million. Pew, though institutionally inclined toward amnesty and mass immigration, does honest work, and this is no exception. But many of the press reports are treating this as momentous, previously unknown news when, in fact, it’s already been reported — twice.
In January of this year, DHS’s Office of Immigration Statistics estimated that the illegal population as of January 2009 was 10.8 million (which, given the margin of error in such estimates, is basically the same as the Pew number). And fully six months before that report, my colleague Steven Camarota estimated that the illegal population as of February 2009 was — 10.8 million.
Pew did more slicing and dicing of the numbers (by state and country) than DHS, which in turn did more than CIS, but the bottom line for policymakers is the same: the illegal alien population can indeed be shrunk without amnesty. The decline started before the recession, in response to the stirrings of enforcement activity at the tail-end of the Bush administration, and then was accelerated by the economic downturn. Steve estimated that from August 2007 to February 2009 the illegal population declined from 12.5 million to 10.8 million — that’s more than 1.5 million illegal aliens we didn’t legalize. Let’s keep trying and see how much more we can reduce the total before we surrender and declare an amnesty. Unfortunately, the current crowd in the White House is undoing enforcement, not ramping it up, so if and when the economy ever turns around, we can expect a new surge in the illegal population.
Showing posts with label illegal immigrants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illegal immigrants. Show all posts
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Whoring for hispanics, the only constant in American politics
The Department of Homeland Security is systematically reviewing thousands of pending immigration cases and moving to dismiss those filed against suspected illegal immigrants who have no serious criminal records, according to several sources familiar with the efforts.
Culling the immigration court system dockets of noncriminals started in earnest in Houston about a month ago and has stunned local immigration attorneys, who have reported coming to court anticipating clients' deportations only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases.
Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said Tuesday that the review is part of the agency's broader, nationwide strategy to prioritize the deportations of illegal immigrants who pose a threat to national security and public safety. Rocha declined to provide further details.
Critics assailed the plan as another sign that the Obama administration is trying to create a kind of backdoor "amnesty" program.
Raed Gonzalez, an immigration attorney who was briefed on the effort by Homeland Security's deputy chief counsel in Houston, said DHS confirmed that it's reviewing cases nationwide, though not yet to the pace of the local office. He said the others are expected to follow suit soon.
Gonzalez, the liaison between the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the immigration court system, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said DHS now has five attorneys assigned full time to reviewing all active cases in Houston's immigration court.
Gonzalez said DHS attorneys are conducting the reviews on a case-by-case basis. However, he said they are following general guidelines that allow for the dismissal of cases for defendants who have been in the country for two or more years and have no felony convictions.
In some instances, defendants can have one misdemeanor conviction, but it cannot involve a DWI, family violence or sexual crime, Gonzalez said.
Culling the immigration court system dockets of noncriminals started in earnest in Houston about a month ago and has stunned local immigration attorneys, who have reported coming to court anticipating clients' deportations only to learn that the government was dismissing their cases.
Richard Rocha, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, said Tuesday that the review is part of the agency's broader, nationwide strategy to prioritize the deportations of illegal immigrants who pose a threat to national security and public safety. Rocha declined to provide further details.
Critics assailed the plan as another sign that the Obama administration is trying to create a kind of backdoor "amnesty" program.
Raed Gonzalez, an immigration attorney who was briefed on the effort by Homeland Security's deputy chief counsel in Houston, said DHS confirmed that it's reviewing cases nationwide, though not yet to the pace of the local office. He said the others are expected to follow suit soon.
Gonzalez, the liaison between the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the immigration court system, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said DHS now has five attorneys assigned full time to reviewing all active cases in Houston's immigration court.
Gonzalez said DHS attorneys are conducting the reviews on a case-by-case basis. However, he said they are following general guidelines that allow for the dismissal of cases for defendants who have been in the country for two or more years and have no felony convictions.
In some instances, defendants can have one misdemeanor conviction, but it cannot involve a DWI, family violence or sexual crime, Gonzalez said.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Anchor babies born in U.S. jumped 48% in 2009, a fact certain to fuel controversy over proposals to halt birthright citizenship
The total number of children in the USA born to illegal immigrants on U.S. soil jumped to 4 million in 2009, up from 2.7 million in 2003, a report released Wednesday estimates.
Those children — who are automatically granted U.S. citizenship — represent 5.4% of all children under the age of 18 in the U.S. That compares to 3.7% six years earlier, according to data from the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center. That percentage will continue rising, as an estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the U.S. in 2008 alone — about 8% — came from illegal immigrant parents, the report says.
The study comes as some legislators, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are calling for a revision of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
The percentage of native-born people in the U.S. has fallen for four straight decades, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2008, 12.5% of the population was born outside the U.S., nearing the all-time highs of nearly 15% in the late 1800s.
"The share of the population that is white non-Hispanic is going to drop," said Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer of the Pew Hispanic Center. "The percentage that consists of immigrants and their children is going to increase."
Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which wants lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, said automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. is one of the main magnets for illegal immigration.
Dane said many illegal immigrants are searching for jobs. He said many others come here to have a baby who is entitled to a wide array of government benefits and can eventually help the parents become citizens as well. He calls the practice a "corruption of the rule of law."
Those children — who are automatically granted U.S. citizenship — represent 5.4% of all children under the age of 18 in the U.S. That compares to 3.7% six years earlier, according to data from the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center. That percentage will continue rising, as an estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the U.S. in 2008 alone — about 8% — came from illegal immigrant parents, the report says.
The study comes as some legislators, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are calling for a revision of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
The percentage of native-born people in the U.S. has fallen for four straight decades, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2008, 12.5% of the population was born outside the U.S., nearing the all-time highs of nearly 15% in the late 1800s.
"The share of the population that is white non-Hispanic is going to drop," said Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer of the Pew Hispanic Center. "The percentage that consists of immigrants and their children is going to increase."
Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which wants lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, said automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S. is one of the main magnets for illegal immigration.
Dane said many illegal immigrants are searching for jobs. He said many others come here to have a baby who is entitled to a wide array of government benefits and can eventually help the parents become citizens as well. He calls the practice a "corruption of the rule of law."
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Illegals rape and kill, then Seattle rebukes Arizona over new law
One woman is dead and two others were raped recently and police say each crime was committed by a different illegal immigrant. One of the sexual assaults happened just hours before the Seattle city council passed an ordinance boycotting Arizona over its new immigration law.
Gregorio Luna Luna had a history of beating up his live-in girlfriend Griselda Ocampo Meza. He was also in the U.S. illegally. On May 1, Luna Luna was deported to Mexico. Three weeks later Meza was murdered in her apartment in a violent knife attack.
Franklin County prosecutors say Luna Luna slipped past the border again and killed Meza in front of their five year old son. He's in the county jail awaiting trial.
A suspected rapist in Edmonds, Washington has been deported at least 4 times according to Snohomish County prosecutors. Jose Lopez Madrigal has been charged with raping a woman next to a dumpster behind a Safeway store. A witness to the attack alerted police and Madrigal was taken into custody.
An illegal immigrant just convicted of his possible 3rd strike in Whatcom county- a rape of a homeless woman- has been deported to Mexico five times.
Washington State ranks 11th in the nation in the number of illegal immigrants with an estimated 150,000. They make up 2% of the state's population, but account for 4.5% of those in Washington prisons. In Franklin county, 14% of the jail bookings are illegal immigrants.
Currently, over half of the individuals on the Washington State Patrol's Most Wanted List are suspected illegal immigrants. 18 of the 26 on the list are Hispanic with no place of birth identified. Most are wanted for vehicular homicide and they have languished on the Most Wanted list for several years.
There are about 50,000 felony warrants currently issued in Washington State and according to a source in the U.S. Marshall's office between 30-40 percent are believed to be illegal immigrants.
Gregorio Luna Luna had a history of beating up his live-in girlfriend Griselda Ocampo Meza. He was also in the U.S. illegally. On May 1, Luna Luna was deported to Mexico. Three weeks later Meza was murdered in her apartment in a violent knife attack.
Franklin County prosecutors say Luna Luna slipped past the border again and killed Meza in front of their five year old son. He's in the county jail awaiting trial.
A suspected rapist in Edmonds, Washington has been deported at least 4 times according to Snohomish County prosecutors. Jose Lopez Madrigal has been charged with raping a woman next to a dumpster behind a Safeway store. A witness to the attack alerted police and Madrigal was taken into custody.
An illegal immigrant just convicted of his possible 3rd strike in Whatcom county- a rape of a homeless woman- has been deported to Mexico five times.
Washington State ranks 11th in the nation in the number of illegal immigrants with an estimated 150,000. They make up 2% of the state's population, but account for 4.5% of those in Washington prisons. In Franklin county, 14% of the jail bookings are illegal immigrants.
Currently, over half of the individuals on the Washington State Patrol's Most Wanted List are suspected illegal immigrants. 18 of the 26 on the list are Hispanic with no place of birth identified. Most are wanted for vehicular homicide and they have languished on the Most Wanted list for several years.
There are about 50,000 felony warrants currently issued in Washington State and according to a source in the U.S. Marshall's office between 30-40 percent are believed to be illegal immigrants.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
LA Times: Census should stop counting illegal immigrants as citizens because it adds power to states that shield illegals
Official political innumeracy, enshrined in the census, steals our democracy. We count illegal immigrants the same as citizens and assign states congressional seats accordingly. This awards some states more representatives than they deserve. The census should, instead, count citizens separately, and Congress should reapportion representatives only on the basis of citizen populations. That would ensure that the votes of citizens in all parts of the country are as nearly equal as possible.
Although this largely unrecognized problem doesn't garner headlines, the failure to fix the census may have greater consequences as our political realities change. The unpleasantness in Arizona since it passed a tough immigration law is a likely prelude to infinitely more divisive conflicts.
The Constitution contains a mandate for a census. One of its stated objectives is to enable the proper apportionment of representation, state by state, in the House of Representatives. From the start, however, apportionment has been a mangled affair, a stain on our claim to be a true and fair representative democracy.
The deal worked out in Philadelphia in 1787 counted slaves as three-fifths of a person, even though they could not vote. The third U.S. Congress, meeting from 1793 to 1795, relied on the census of 1790 to apportion its 106 House members. Southern slave states were overrepresented by 10 seats as a result, after applying the three-fifths rule. No one even pretended that the slaves who accounted for those extra seats had any representation at all. The long-term consequences of such unfairness proved catastrophic.
Although this largely unrecognized problem doesn't garner headlines, the failure to fix the census may have greater consequences as our political realities change. The unpleasantness in Arizona since it passed a tough immigration law is a likely prelude to infinitely more divisive conflicts.
The Constitution contains a mandate for a census. One of its stated objectives is to enable the proper apportionment of representation, state by state, in the House of Representatives. From the start, however, apportionment has been a mangled affair, a stain on our claim to be a true and fair representative democracy.
The deal worked out in Philadelphia in 1787 counted slaves as three-fifths of a person, even though they could not vote. The third U.S. Congress, meeting from 1793 to 1795, relied on the census of 1790 to apportion its 106 House members. Southern slave states were overrepresented by 10 seats as a result, after applying the three-fifths rule. No one even pretended that the slaves who accounted for those extra seats had any representation at all. The long-term consequences of such unfairness proved catastrophic.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Illegal immigrant in New York City gets $145,000 payoff because he was held too long
An illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet got a $145,000 parting gift from New York City taxpayers before he was deported, after city lawyers decided his civil rights had been violated when he was held too long on Rikers Island.
Federal rules allow local law enforcement to detain suspected illegal immigrants for 48 hours after their criminal cases are resolved, to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement a chance to pick them up and move them to federal facilities.
Former Brooklyn resident Cecil Harvey, 55 -- backed by an immigration-rights advocacy group -- argued that his rights were violated when he spent more than a month in a Rikers holding pen before being transferred to ICE.
Harvey was shipped to his native Barbados in October 2007; the city settled his civil suit late last year.
The landmark settlement has prompted the Correction Department to dump scores of illegal immigrants on the streets, since federal officials often fail to pick them up within the required two-day window.
Federal rules allow local law enforcement to detain suspected illegal immigrants for 48 hours after their criminal cases are resolved, to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement a chance to pick them up and move them to federal facilities.
Former Brooklyn resident Cecil Harvey, 55 -- backed by an immigration-rights advocacy group -- argued that his rights were violated when he spent more than a month in a Rikers holding pen before being transferred to ICE.
Harvey was shipped to his native Barbados in October 2007; the city settled his civil suit late last year.
The landmark settlement has prompted the Correction Department to dump scores of illegal immigrants on the streets, since federal officials often fail to pick them up within the required two-day window.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Come November, Dems will need all the illegal voters they can get
(Reuters) - Hispanics and Democratic lawmakers furious over Arizona's harsh crackdown on illegal immigrants expect huge weekend rallies across the United States, piling pressure on President Barack Obama to overhaul immigration laws in this election year.
Alternative lede:
(TheRightFieldLine) - Egged on by a flailing U.S. president in search of a comeback, hispanics, illegal immigrants and Democrat leaders are planning a weekend of street theater, hoping to open the gates to millions of new voters who might rescue Barack Obama from the dreaded likelihood of a one-term presidency.
Alternative lede:
(TheRightFieldLine) - Egged on by a flailing U.S. president in search of a comeback, hispanics, illegal immigrants and Democrat leaders are planning a weekend of street theater, hoping to open the gates to millions of new voters who might rescue Barack Obama from the dreaded likelihood of a one-term presidency.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Desperate Harry Reid puts his own career first by pandering to Nevada's numerous hispanic voters
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, trailing in polls in heavily Hispanic Nevada, wants to pursue legislation to provide legal status for many unlawful immigrants before the Senate tackles a climate change and energy bill and as Democrats defend their congressional majorities ahead of the November congressional elections.
Reid broached the change of priorities during a meeting this week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to two Democratic officials familiar with the developments.
Pelosi has long said the Senate must vote before the House on an immigration bill.
"When you're ready with one, we will take it up," Pelosi says she told Reid.
The slow-moving Senate is far from being ready for debate on either issue. And it's not clear Democrats could muster the 60 votes this year or next to block Republican filibusters of either bill. The president's party traditionally loses seats in midterm elections.
Reid's seat in particular is in peril. The four-term senator, 70, is well-financed and faces only token opposition in the June primary. But independent surveys indicate he is running behind lesser-known Republicans and is battered by the state's double-digit unemployment and record bankruptcies.
In Nevada, 26 percent of the population is Hispanic, according to the census.
Reid broached the change of priorities during a meeting this week with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, according to two Democratic officials familiar with the developments.
Pelosi has long said the Senate must vote before the House on an immigration bill.
"When you're ready with one, we will take it up," Pelosi says she told Reid.
The slow-moving Senate is far from being ready for debate on either issue. And it's not clear Democrats could muster the 60 votes this year or next to block Republican filibusters of either bill. The president's party traditionally loses seats in midterm elections.
Reid's seat in particular is in peril. The four-term senator, 70, is well-financed and faces only token opposition in the June primary. But independent surveys indicate he is running behind lesser-known Republicans and is battered by the state's double-digit unemployment and record bankruptcies.
In Nevada, 26 percent of the population is Hispanic, according to the census.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Two years ago he catered to the open borders lobby; now McCain sort of tacks to the right
Sen. John McCain praised a tough Arizona anti-immigration bill that will let police arrest people who aren’t carrying identification, the latest move in McCain’s rightward shift in advance of a tough Republican Senate primary this summer.
“I think it’s a very important step forward,” McCain said Monday. “I can fully understand why the legislature would want to act.”
It’s a dramatic switch for a senator who supported comprehensive immigration reform with Democratic lion Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) just four years ago. McCain is facing a primary challenge from the right in former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.
His office later said his comments did not represent an endorsement, though a spokeswoman would not condemn the bill, either.
Immigration reform advocates were bewildered.
“He risked his political career for immigration reform, and now he is compromising his principles to fight for his political life,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice and a longtime immigration reform advocate.
Under the Arizona law, which passed the state Senate today and sent to Gov. Jan Brewer (R), police can arrest anyone on “reasonable suspicion” that they are an illegal immigrant. If they’re not carrying a valid driver’s license or identity papers, police can arrest them.
“I think it’s a very important step forward,” McCain said Monday. “I can fully understand why the legislature would want to act.”
It’s a dramatic switch for a senator who supported comprehensive immigration reform with Democratic lion Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) just four years ago. McCain is facing a primary challenge from the right in former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.
His office later said his comments did not represent an endorsement, though a spokeswoman would not condemn the bill, either.
Immigration reform advocates were bewildered.
“He risked his political career for immigration reform, and now he is compromising his principles to fight for his political life,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice and a longtime immigration reform advocate.
Under the Arizona law, which passed the state Senate today and sent to Gov. Jan Brewer (R), police can arrest anyone on “reasonable suspicion” that they are an illegal immigrant. If they’re not carrying a valid driver’s license or identity papers, police can arrest them.
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