Federal judge blocks Ala. illegal immigration law

 

A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of Alabama's new law cracking down on illegal immigration, ruling Monday that she needed more time to decide whether the law opposed by the Obama administration, church leaders and immigrant-rights groups is constitutional.

 

 Here is the full story from AP:

 

Federal judge blocks Ala. illegal immigration law

By JAY REEVES, Associated Press – 1 hour ago 

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of Alabama's new law cracking down on illegal immigration, ruling Monday that she needed more time to decide whether the law opposed by the Obama administration, church leaders and immigrant-rights groups is constitutional.
The brief order by U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Blackburn means the law — which opponents and supporters alike have called the toughest in the nation — won't take effect as scheduled on Thursday. The ruling was cheered both by Republican leaders who were pleased the judge didn't gut the law and by opponents who compare it to old Jim Crow-era statutes against racial integration.
Blackburn didn't address whether the law is constitutional, and she could still let all or parts of the law take effect later. Instead, she said she needed more time to consider lawsuits filed by the Justice Department, private groups and individuals that claim the state is overstepping its bounds.
The judge said she will issue a longer ruling by Sept. 28, and her temporary order will remain in effect until the day after. She heard arguments from the Justice Department and others during a daylong hearing last week.
Similar laws have been passed in Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia. Federal judges already have blocked all or parts of the laws in those states.
Among other things, the law would require schools to verify the citizenship status of students, but it wouldn't prevent illegal immigrants from attending public schools.
The law also would make it a crime to knowingly assist an illegal immigrant by providing them a ride, a job, a place to live or most anything else — a section that church leaders fear would hamper public assistance ministries. It also would allow police to jail suspected illegal immigrants during traffic stops.
Finding a way to curtail public spending that benefits illegal immigrants has been a pet project of Alabama conservatives for years. Census figures released earlier this year show the state's Hispanic population more than doubled over a decade to 185,602 last year, and supporters of the law contend many of them are in the country illegally.
Isabel Rubio, executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, which is among the groups that sued over the law, hopes Blackburn will block it entirely but was happy with the temporary reprieve.
"We are pleased that Judge Blackburn is taking more time to study the case," she said.
Republican Gov. Robert Bentley said he would continue to defend the law, and GOP leaders in the House and Senate praised Blackburn — a Republican appointee — for taking time to fully consider the law.
"We must remember that today's ruling is simply the first round in what promises to be a long judicial fight over Alabama's right to protect its borders," said House Majority Leader Micky Hammon of Decatur. "To put it in sports terms, it is the first half-inning of the first game of a seven-game World Series."
While the Obama administration contends the state law conflicts with federal immigration law, state Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, contends the federal government isn't doing its job enforcing immigration laws. Beason said that he spent years researching immigration law to help write the 70-plus page law, and that it's unrealistic to expect a judge to go through it all in a few days.
"You just can't do that," he said.

Charlotteans featured in 'Latino in America' series

Bill and Betty Garcia are part of CNN's two day, four-hour documentary that debuts tonight and runs through tomorrow.

‘Garcia’ now ranks among the top 10 among last names in America.

Bill, former executive director of the International House, is Puerto Rican and Betty is Dominican. They moved from their Latino neighborhoods in New York to Charlotte 15 years ago for more affordable living and escape the grind of big city life.

But now they worry they made a wrong decision. They fear by living in Charlotte their sons are not getting the same Latino experience they had growing up in New York.

The show starts at 9 p.m. Click here to see excerpts from the Garcia's interviews.

Photo: CNN

'Undocumented immigrant' vs. 'Illegal Alien'

Few things in the immigration debate are more controversial than the terms used to describe people in the country illegally.

Not surprisingly, immigration rights activists push for "undocumented immigrants." Enforcement advocates prefer "illegal alien."

We journalists are caught in the middle.

On Monday, a nearly two-hour discussion on the issue at the International Center for Journalist in Washington, D.C., got heated at times as each side charged the other with playing politics and promoting half-truths.

The discussion, led by USA TODAY immigration reporter Emily Bazar, can be watched here.

Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA, which advocates for a reduction of immigrants allowed in the country, says the term undocumented immigrant is unclear . Illegal alien, she contends, describes all groups who arrived illegally or who have overstayed their visas.

"It seems to us that the best way to use the terminology is based on what the law says," she said. "Then, you're being very clear about who you're talking about," she said.

But Lisa Navarrete, vice president of The National Council of La Raza, which advocates for immigrant rights, said illegal alien, or especially illegal as a noun, is a pejorative term that dehumanizes and demonizes individuals.

"This is not a legalistic debate, this is a political debate, " she said. And the terms that are used in this debate say more about the speaker than they do the subject. Words matter... We do really have a problem calling a human being illegal. There aren't illegal human beings. They may have committed a criminal act, but they're not illegal. People who speed are not illegal drivers or illegal because they speed."

At the Observer, we do our best to seek the middle ground. We try first to describe that the person has arrived in the country illegally or overstayed a visa, whatever the action, instead of using a specific term. However, because of space requirements, that is often not possible.

So, for Observer reporters, the preferred term is "illegal immigrants." As a synonym we will use the terms undocumented workers or unauthorized as long as its clear we're referring to individuals in the country illegally. We try not to use the words "illegal" or "illegals" as a noun. We also avoid using the term "alien" unless it's in direct quotes.

Hitting the books...

I'm heading back to school, well kind of.

For the next few days, I'll be attending a journalism training program in Washington, D.C., one of 13 journalists picked for a Scripps Howard scholarship to study immigration. The eight-day program is run by the D.C.-based International Center for Journalists.


The program’s goal is to help journalists better “understand the legal, social, economic, and political impact of the immigration debate while providing new skills on how to cover this complex issue.”

If I can, I hope to blog from time to time about the conference. I suspect some of you will be interested in hearing about these same issues: civil rights, enforcement, and the impact of immigration on the economy.

My fellow reporters participating in the conference have quite the experience and backgrounds. They include a public radio reporter from Seattle, a Venezuelan-born news service reporter, a former Inter-American Press Association scholar from California and a D.C.-based producer for Al Jazeera.

We’ll be meeting with some big names from all sides of the issue. They include legislators such as representatives Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican and Charles Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat. We’ll also hear from Steven Camarota, senior researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies, Michele Waslin, senior policy analyst at the Immigration Policy Center and Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center.

Anyone who thinks this is going to be a one-sided discussion should look again at the panelists. And I've only listed a few of them.

Feel free to send me some questions you think I should ask. Just please keep them civil. If they're witty, even better.

Advocacy groups respond to Latino KKK allegations

Carolina advocate Andrea Bazán says she was stunned to hear conservatives compare the largest Hispanic advocacy group to the Ku Klux Klan.

Our colleagues at the (Raleigh) News & Observer report that the nomination of a Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court has brought allegations few thought possible. Some conservatives say Sonia Sotomayor's former membership with the National Council of La Raza should disqualify her for the high court.

La Raza is a Washington-based private non-profit. Its mission is to reduce poverty and discrimination and improve the opportunities for Hispanic Americans. It also aggressively supports immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and advocated for illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition fees.

Former Congressman Tom Tancredo called La Raza "a Latino KKK without the hoods and nooses." And conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh compared Sotomayor to David Duke, who is a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

“It’s outrageous,” Bazán, who chair La Raza’s board, told the paper.

Much of the focus has been on the group’s name: La Raza, which can mean “the race”
Ron Woodard, who leads enforcement advocacy group N.C. Listen, said "They seem to play the race game and to be focused on their race because of their name."

State Sen. Phil Berger, an Eden Republican, who is sponsoring a bill that would bar illegal immigrants from community colleges, said he’s troubled by La Raza’s advocacy work for illegal immigrants.

"If she's a member of the group and she agrees with their policy positions, that would argue against her being on the Supreme Court," he said.

But others say these allegations against La Raza and Sotomayor are a subversive political strategy, much like was used against African American organizations during the civil rights movement.

Said Bazán: "I think we should be looking at the Sotomayor nomination and discussing her qualifications as a judge."

Is worker ID answer to passing immigration reform?

The worker ID may be the best way to ensure workers are authorized and convince Americans the government can actually stop the flow of illegal immigrants, says a N.Y. Senator.

U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a Democrat who will lead the effort to write the Senate’s comprehensive reform bill, has called the worker ID card the best way to ensure U.S. workers are in the country legally and therefore stop the flow of illegal immigration.

"The ID will make it easy for employers to avoid undocumented workers, which will allow for tough sanctions against employers who break the law, which will lead to no jobs being available for illegal immigrants, which will stop illegal immigration," Schumer wrote in his 2007 book, "Positively American."

The Los Angeles Times reports that Schumer will present the worker ID card idea at a hearing this summer on employee verification systems.

Schumer writes that the ID card will make it easy for employers to avoid undocumented workers and allow tough sanctions against employers who break the law.

While some support his idea, it has raised concerns of “big brother” intrusion among some activists like the American Civil Liberties Union.

"The bottom line is that this would be really expensive, really invasive and people will hate it," Chris Calabrese, counsel for the ACLU's technology and liberty project, told the newspaper.

Others say it would be impossible to ensure millions of employers remain in compliance.

"At the end of the day, if we're going to achieve legalization of a major share of the undocumented, we realize there will have to be some give and take over worker verification," Mike Garcia, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 1877 in Los Angeles said. "We're not against it necessarily if all of the other pieces of immigration reform fall into place."

Photo by Robert Giroux/Getty Images

Is Obama holding up E-Verify?

Legislators and advocates are questioning President Obama's commitment to enforcing immigration laws after, again, delaying when federal contractors need to adhere to an order to use an employment-verification system designed to identify illegal immigrants.

Originally scheduled to go into effect last January, the Obama administration rescheduled for June 1. The order to use E-Verify has now been pushed back until Sept. 15.

The administration says it gives the president more time to review the program.

E-Verify is a free program that allows employers to verify applicants’ Social Security numbers with federal databases. We reported last month that more and more N.C. employers are signing up for the program amidst warnings from the government that it is going after unscrupulous employers.

Obama’s own Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, has been on Capitol Hill for months advocating for the program.

“I've seen it work,” Napolitano told a congressional hearing in May. “I used it as a governor. We intend to make it, like I said, an integral part of our ongoing workplace enforcement.”
But with no requirements in place for federal contractors, critics are questioning whether the strong rhetoric is more bark than bite.

"The same administration that rushed through the most massive spending bill in history before anyone had a chance to read it claims to need months of delay to review regulations for a program that state and local governments are already using successfully," said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform, which supports greater immigration enforcement. "The fact that we are facing yet another delay demonstrates that gaining amnesty for people who broke our immigration laws remains a higher priority for President Obama than the plight of millions of unemployed Americans."

Some U.S. representatives like Republicans Ken Calvert of California and Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida are calling on the president to implement E-Verify immediately.

“Frankly, I cannot understand what there is to review,” Brown-Waite said in a statement. “E-Verify… has been in operation since 1997. Furthermore, President Obama was a United States Senator for four years and has had ample time to learn about the E-Verify program.”

Opponents say the program ensnares American job-seekers in database errors, adds to employers' costs and does not actually prevent undocumented immigrants from getting jobs.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that expanding E-Verify could cost $17 billion over the next 10 years.

Tyler Moran of the National Immigration Law Center said the system "simply isn't ready for prime time." He points to a 2007 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that states improvements are needed and the program's "still not sufficiently up to date."

But U.S. officials say many of E-Verify’s earlier problems have been fixed and that the program now has a 96 percent accuracy rate.

Said Rep. Calvert: “When Americans are losing jobs, we should be doing everything we can to ensure that federal funds are going to employ American citizens and legal workers – not illegal immigrants.”

Photo: Mandi Bickes of ResourceMFG interviews a client. The company has enrolled in E-Verify. T.ORTEGA GAINES-ogaines@charlotteobserver.com

Judge: Immigrants' rights violated in Conn. raids

Immigration agents violated the constitutional rights of four illegal immigrants in raids that critics say were retaliation for a city program that provided ID cards to foreigners in the country illegally, a federal judge ruled.

The New Haven raid on June 6, 2007 occurred two days after the city approved issuing identification cards to all city residents, regardless of immigration status, the Associated Press reported. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials deny the early morning raids were retaliatory, saying planning began the year before.

Immigration Judge Michael Straus said the ICE agents went into the immigrants' homes without warrants, probable cause, or consent. He stopped deportation proceedings against the four defendants.

Immigration officials denied the arrests were improper. They said in court documents that they were allowed into the homes during the raids.

ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier told the AP the agency was reviewing the ruling and would decide later whether to appeal. Monday.

Straus wrote that the rights of at least one immigrant were “flagrantly violated."

"The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is 'reasonableness' and, by natural extension, one's reasonable expectation of privacy," the judge wrote. "Nowhere is that expectation of privacy more sacrosanct than in the confines of one's home."

Government case against water-jug activist

Feds describe how illegal immigrants were aided by Tuscon activist leaving water in desert.

We received a lot of feedback about our post yesterday on Walt Staton, 27, a volunteer with the humanitarian group No More Deaths, who was convicted of littering in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

Considering the disparity of arguments being made for and against Mr. Staton on our site, we thought it’d be helpful to share some of the government’s arguments made against Mr. Staton.

Click here to read the full complaint.

Click here to read the verdict

“Agent Collins observed a silver Jeep sport utility vehicle drive into a low area…. In previous weeks, Agent Collins has located numerous full water bottles consistent with humanitarian organizations that work in the area. Agent Collins has also encountered these plastic bottles discarded as garbage further north along these trails.”

Staton's attorney, William Walker, argued in court that leaving full water jugs didn't constitute littering just because someone else disposed the empty container elsewhere, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

Walker told the jury that, based on the prosecutor's theory, if jury members were given a meal in the jury room and then tossed an empty wrapper on the floor, it would mean the court was guilty of littering.

"Just because something can turn into litter from someone else doesn't make it litter," Walker said. "His intent and purpose was for them to drink the water, not to litter."

Activists faces jail time for leaving water in desert

A Tucson man is convicted of littering on federal land because he left jugs of water for illegal immigrants walking through the desert.

Walt Staton, 27, a volunteer with the humanitarian group No More Deaths, faces up to one year in prison and a $10,000 fine. He will be sentenced Aug. 11.

Staton said he will continue leaving water despite the conviction, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

"I was just trying to save lives," he told the paper. "…We're not asking permission from the United States to save people's lives. We never have, because we know they'd say no."

His lawyer argued that leaving full water jugs didn't constitute littering just because someone else disposed the empty container elsewhere.

Prosecutors argued it shouldn't matter what Staton's intentions were. If it did, "Every bank robber would come in here and say they did it to save their dying grandmother," Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence Lee said.

Staton was cited Dec. 4 for littering when U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted him placing unopened gallon containers of water in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge southwest of Tucson.

Photo: A group of migrants cross the desert between Sasabe, Mexico, and Sasabe, Arizona. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

"Anchor babies" not protected under 14th amendment, says commissioner.

A county leader says automatic citizenship issue is "ripe for litigation."

County Commissioner Bill James cited opinions among members of congress and some legal think tanks when he wrote me last week saying U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants should not be granted automatic citizenship.

He was responding to my story about U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal of Georgia and his efforts to change a federal policy that automatically grants citizenship to any baby born on U.S. soil. He and his supporters feel the current policy encourages illegal immigration and makes immigration enforcement more difficult.

James supports the effort, but questions whether the policy needs to be changed. He argues it was “never written to include everyone born in America.”

The debate is wrapped up in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. Ratified in 1869, it was written as a result of slavery. States were saying African Americans were not citizens and therefore were not eligible for any rights. The amendment states:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

The question at hand is whether the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants should be considered "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S.

James argues they’re not.

The longstanding practice giving U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants birthright citizenship has never been directly reviewed by the Supreme Court.

James points out the children of diplomats are not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Their children do not enjoy birthright citizenship. Their embassies, consulates, and residences are considered foreign soil. They can be removed at the will of the president.

But others disagree.

Miguel Manna, a former Charlotte immigration attorney who is now working in Raleigh, says illegal immigrants are subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Here is what he had to say:

“If an undocumented alien breaks a U.S. law or state law he/she is subject to prosecution. If an undocumented alien works in the U.S., despite not having permission to do so, they are still liable for taxes on their income. They also enjoy the benefits of our police protection, and constitutional safeguards, etc. The fact that they are in the U.S. illegally is somewhat irrelevant as most immigration violations are civil in nature.”

Manna said that when the 14th amendment was being drafted vigorous debate ensued about citizenship by birth in the U.S. Some Senators did not want the mere accident of being in the U.S. at birth to determine the great privilege. Others wanted a more expansive definition, to include diplomats and foreign dignitaries.

The reality is, Manna says, “nobody really knows what Congress intended when they added "and subject to the jurisdiction of thereof..."

Photos: Bill James, Library of Congress

Feds reject Georgia's "discriminatory" voter system

Secretary of State Karen Handel says decision will allow non-citizens to vote in Georgia.

In a letter released Monday, the Justice Department said the Georgia voter-verification program – which uses Social Security numbers and driver’s license data to check if prospective voters are citizens – is frequently inaccurate and has a “discriminatory effect” on minorities.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that DOJ lawyers said the office of Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel had created a system that “does not produce accurate and reliable information and that thousands of citizens who are in fact eligible to vote under Georgia law have been flagged.”

"This flawed system frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote," Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said in a letter.

Handel, a possible Republican candidate for governor in 2010, slammed the DOJ’s decision. In a statement she said it “shows a shocking disregard for the integrity of our elections.”

“DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists. DOJ completely disregarded Georgia’s obvious and direct interest in preventing non-citizens from voting, instead siding with the ACLU and MALDEF (The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund). “Clearly, politics took priority over common sense and good public policy.”

Photos: AP, Georgia Secretary of State

Dream Act: Pros and Cons

The Dream Act is one of those most controversial issues in the immigration debate.

With Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust recently endorsing the Dream Act, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to hear from some of the leading minds on both sides of the debate.

Some of you probably read the New York Times’ recent series on immigration “Remade in America.” If you haven’t, you should consider checking it out.

I’m going to point you toward a sidebar to the series: The editors’ running commentary that posted online.

In one of the discussions, the editors invited three immigration specialists to weigh in on the Dream Act, which many of you know would give some young illegal immigrants a chance to become permanent residents if they join the military or attend college.

You can read their full statements here. I'm including a boiled down version of what I found most interesting.

Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stronger immigration enforcement.

The issue is what to do about illegal aliens who were brought here as children and have grown up here. They made no decision to leave their native land and break another nation’s laws. And yet this may be the only country they’ve ever known.

Amnesty advocates use the predicament of such people (many of them adults at this point) to try to engineer a broad legalization of illegal immigrants. This, in fact, is the strategic purpose of bill, which would give amnesty to certain illegal immigrants brought here before age 16. Though its scope is not nearly as narrow as advocates would have you believe, it is nevertheless a targeted amnesty. But it is one designed to politically leverage the dilemma of the most sympathetic group of illegals into a more general amnesty.

A legislative package that might actually make sense would have a rigorous legalization process for longtime residents brought here illegally as children (unlike the Dream Act, which is so lax as to virtually guarantee massive fraud). To compensate for such an amnesty, and to ensure its finality, the package must also permanently end chain migration and turn off the magnet of jobs for illegal immigrants.

Tamar Jacoby is president of ImmigrationWorks USA, a federation of employers seeking an overhaul of immigration law.

…. Our fear and misplaced moralism are blinding us to our own interests.

Immigrants are assimilating, and we ought to reward them for it. The kids who would be covered under the Dream Act have mastered English. They’ve graduated from high school, often in families and neighborhoods where that’s difficult and discouraged. They’ve learned enough about America not just to fit in, but to succeed here. And many are willing to risk their lives for their new country.

But millions of newcomers, legal and illegal, are taking similar steps — although we do virtually nothing to help or encourage them. On the contrary, if they entered the country illegally — responding to our mixed signals, half-forbidding but half-inviting them to come do work we need done – we bar them from the very steps we say we want most from them: moving up the socioeconomic ladder and becoming fully participating members of society.

Photo: Paulina is a top student at her Charlotte High School. She wants to attend either UNC or Harvard. She recently visited Washington D.C. to lobby for the Dream Act. DAVID T. FOSTER III-dtfoster@charlotteobserver.com

Harvard president supports college for illegal immigrants

The president of Harvard University caused a stir last week when she pledged support for a federal bill that would provide legal residency to some illegal immigrant students.

The Boston Globe reports that President Drew Gilpin Faust’s backing of the Dream Act surprised students and drew criticism from opponents of the act.

In a letter to federal lawmakers, Faust called the legislation a "life line" for some students. The legislation would allow young illegal immigrants a path to legal residency if they attend two years of college or military service. She acknowledged that students with "immigration status issues" attend Harvard.

Last year in North Carolina, the board of the state’s two-year college system stopped a longtime practice of allowing illegal immigrants to enroll at 58 campuses under out-of-state tuition rates.
In a preliminary report, a board consultant said the state could profit from admitting undocumented students because they would pay $1,650 more in tuition than it costs to allow them to attend.

Faust is the latest leader to pledge support for the controversial bill. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently told Congress she supports the bill. Last month, the College Board, made up of more than 5,000 colleges and universities, announced its backing of the legislation.

"I believe it is in our best interest to educate all students to their full potential - it vastly improves their lives and grows our communities and economy," Faust wrote in a letter to members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation who support the bill.

Opponents of the legislation, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said Harvard should not admit illegal immigrants because they displace students here legally.

"Maybe the elites at Harvard should come down from their ivory tower and get some ground perspective on what kind of cost and competition that legal U.S. residents are actually incurring these days," said Bob Dane, spokesman for FAIR.

Mexican Census: Fewer Mexicans migrating north

Much attention is being given to a report about census data out of Mexico revealing a decline in Mexican migration to the United States. The data appears back up what many U.S. experts – and the Observer -- have been saying for months that the bad economy is slowing the flow of illegal immigration.

The New York Times reports that Mexican data show that immigration from Mexico to other countries declined by 25 percent in the year that ended in August 2008 from the preceding year. Some 226,000 fewer people immigrated from Mexico. Most come to the United States.

As with their American counterparts, Mexican researchers say the decline is largely a result of the lack of jobs in the ailing American economy.

"If jobs are available, people come," Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, told the paper. “If jobs are not available, people don't come."

Other researchers argue the drop in crossings from Mexico proves that tough law enforcement at the border and in American workplaces can help reduce illegal immigration.

"The latest evidence suggests that you can reverse the flow," says Steven A. Camarota, a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stronger enforcement of immigration laws. "It is not set in stone, so with some mix of enforcement and the economy, fewer will come and more will go home."

Photo: NEWS & OBSERVER staff/Ted Richardson.

Taco truck flap unfair to east Charlotte?

Ed Garber doesn't like what the taco truck controversy is doing to his neighborhood.

The chairman of the Eastside Political Action Committee says allegations are off base that the clampdown on the taco trucks operating on Central Avenue is a form of ethnic discrimination.

Garber, a longtime Eastside resident who graduated from Garinger High, called me yesterday concerned about a story I posted about similar efforts to reduce the number of taco trucks in Los Angeles, Houston, and Des Moines.

In a Los Angeles Times story, UC Davis law professor Kevin Johnson said the fight against taco trucks in Charlotte and Des Moines is another way to express anti-immigrant views.

Garber says that’s not true and wrongly makes Eastsiders out to look like racists. He said the working class community has long been diverse, made up of African Americans, whites, and Hispanics who have lived together peacefully for years. The only thing people in East Charlotte hate, he says, "is an unproductive person."

And he says the taco truck controversy fails to recognize all the work neighbors have done to highlight local diversity. He noted the popular Taste of the World tour, which showcases area Latino, Asian, African, and Greek restaurants.

"It’s not an ethnic thing," he said. "If you look at how people in East Charlotte live. They eat in these restaurants. We're known for the restaurants. The community is supporting the restaurants. We’re trying to market the restaurants. So for the whole community to be labeled as not accepting of Latino people and diversity it is a slap in the face."

Garber said the clampdown on mobile food vendors is really about enforcing existing laws and protecting established businesses -- some owned by Latinos -- that were losing customers because mobile food vendors didn’t follow city rules.

He stressed the 9 p.m. curfew, which many taco truck owners find egregious, was already in existence but not strictly enforced.

Another new ordinance though requires mobile food vendors to stay 400 feet from each other and from residential neighborhoods, eliminating most of the sites where trucks can park on Central Avenue.

Photos: Yalonda James/The Charlotte Observer, Ed Garber, and Gary O'Brien/The Charlotte Observer

Charlotte taco troubles get attention in L.A.

Charlotte is not the only community cracking down on taco trucks. Similar efforts have taken hold in Los Angeles, Houston, Des Moines, and Hillsboro, Ore.

The Los Angeles Times reports today that as the Latino community has grown in the United States, so have the number of taco trucks catering to them.

We reported in March that dozens of taco trucks in Charlotte have shut down since the city passed an ordinance curtailing hours and where they operate.

Read the Observer story here.

In the LA Times story, Kevin Johnson, dean of the UC Davis law school and a professor of law and Chicano studies, says the fight against taco trucks in Charlotte and Des Moines is another way to express anti-immigrant views.

"It's hard for me to see how this whole taco truck controversy is separate and apart from the continuing clash of cultures in the U.S.," Johnson told the paper.

Here is an excerpt about Charlotte from the LA Times story:

In Charlotte, which has a fast-growing Latino population, residents complained last year that taco trucks were camping out in office parking lots past midnight, bringing crowds and crime to nearby neighborhoods.

"They were transitioning from a place for food to a place for folks to congregate," said John Lassiter, an at-large city councilman. "A lot of these neighborhoods are older, struggling with the changing demographic, so they perceive the taco truck and the related use as negatively impacting their quality of life and potentially impacting the value of their primary asset, which is their house."

The City Council responded by passing an ordinance forcing taco trucks to shut down at 9 p.m. and ensuring that several of them could not gather in the same parking lot.

Photos: DIEDRA LAIRD/Charlotte Observer

Did Census aid Japanese-American internment?

A Latino Christian group calling on illegal immigrants to boycott the Census charges the agency with giving information to American surveillance agencies during World War II to identify people of Japanese ancestry.

It’s one of the more controversial accusations being made by the D.C.-based National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which represents about 16,000 churches.

Read the Observer's story about the boycott, here.

Miguel Rivera, president of the organization, says the Census’s promises of confidentiality should not be trusted. He cites a Fordham University study that reports the Census bureau gave a list of everyone with Japanese ancestry to the Treasury Department in 1943.

According to William Seltzer, a senior research scholar in Fordham’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the data from the 1940 census, collected under a pledge of confidentiality, was handed over in seven days. Researchers say the bureau also disclosed information about others to the FBI as well as information about businesses and organizations to war planning agencies, such as the Office of Emergency Management.

Whether the Census provided information on Japanese Americans during World War II has been a highly contested matter for decades, Seltzer says. The controversy was reignited in 2004 when it was reported that the Census Bureau had provided zip-code data from the 2000 census about Arab-Americans to the Department of Homeland Security.

Census spokesman Raul Cisneros acknowledged to the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the Second War Powers Act in 1942 did authorize the Department of Commerce to make certain information available for the purposes of national defense. But he said those laws have been changed.

“Current law . . . explicitly forbids the Census Bureau from disclosing information," he said. "With regards to claims that the government used information to target Arab groups after 9/11, this particular situation involved disclosing information that was already fully available to the public.”

We’re not sure the fact that the Census pulled all that public information together and then handed it over eases anybody’s anxiety.

What do you think?

Photo: AP

S.C. can't afford immigration hotline

A planned hotline to accept complaints about illegal immigrants hasn’t been set up in South Carolina because the agency supposed to operate it doesn’t have the money.

The hotline is part of a new law, considered one of the toughest in the country, passed last year to root out illegal immigrants.

The Greenville News reported today that the Commission on Minority Affairs doesn't have the $287,000 to start the hotline or a database to help track immigration information received by all state agencies.

Sen. Larry Martin, a Pickens County Republican who helped push the immigration law last year, said the hotline and database were considered extras that would only be paid for if lawmakers could eventually find the money.

"The idea was great if we had the money," he said. "It was basically an add-on. But if the funding is not there, it's not there."

Photo: KaCey97007

Japan pays immigrants to fly home

The United States is far from the only country trying to get a handle on a broken immigration system. Italy and Japan have very different approaches to dealing with the problem.

Italy's largely unpatrolled coastline and proximity to Africa makes it a popular destination for smuggling operations. Some 36,000 migrants from Africa and elsewhere arrived by boat last year.

Italian lawmakers voted for a new bill to fine illegal immigrants up to $13,670 and jail people who house them. The Associated Press reports that Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government is being pressured by the anti-immigrant Northern League party in its coalition to halt illegal migration as Italy's economy shrinks in the global downturn.

Under the new Italian legislation, which still needs Senate approval, migrants would not face prison time. But the bill provides for up to three years in prison for anyone who knowingly rents housing to an illegal immigrant.

Critics say the legislation would further marginalize those living in Italy illegally by making them afraid to seek medical help or to register their children at birth for fear of being turned in to police and deported.

Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that Japan is offering to pay hundreds of thousands of blue-collar Latin American immigrants to fly back home. So far, at least 100 workers and their families have agreed to leave the recession-racked country.

In 1990, Japan -- facing a growing industrial labor shortage -- started issuing thousands of special work visas to relatives of their resident immigrants. Today, an estimated 366,000 Brazilians and Peruvians live in Japan.
Under the emergency program, introduced this month, the country's Brazilian and other Latin American guest workers are offered $3,000 toward air fare, plus $2,000 for each dependent -- attractive lump sums for many immigrants here. Workers who leave have been told they can pocket any amount left over.

One condition: They can't come back.

Photo: AP