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Immigration
#11
Well, a new president begins his job tomorrow. I'm posting this article for those of you who follow the immigration issue. Obviously, the economy and jobs for Americans should come first. But I read that the immigration bills might come piecemeal -so stay informed. NumberUSA is a good place to sign up for alerts and free faxes to send.

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/node


As Obama Takes The White House, Amnesty Ranks Thirteenth (Of Thirteen) On His Priority List

January 16, 2009

By Joe Guzzardi


Admitting defeat is tough. Accepting that you aren’t going to get your way is a bummer.

But the wise course for those on the short end of the stick is to look toward another day instead of pouting and stomping off making rash statements that you can’t deliver on.

Key aides to President-elect Barack Obama have confirmed what I promised to you in my first 2009 column: “Comprehensive immigration reform” is dead— for now and possibly for some considerable time into the future

And the spoiled sport is none other than the National Council of La Raza’s whining brat, Janet Murguia.

The actual death-knell statement made by Obama’s operatives included comments to the effect that in order to “avoid political distractions” and instead to “focus on reversing the economic slide,” the president would have to “delay” some of the “promises” he made during his campaign. [Economy May Delay Work on Obama’s Campaign Pledges, by Peter Baker, New York Times, January 10, 2009]

Just in case anyone missed his administration’s revised focus, Obama will clarify it during an interview with ABC’s This Week which is scheduled to air Sunday:

“I want to be realistic here. Not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped.”

Rahm Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, boiled it down this way:

“Our No. 1 goal: jobs. Our No. 2 goal: jobs. Our No. 3 goal: jobs.”


In a conversation with Murguia about immigration in which he tried to let her down gently, Emanuel reportedly told her that it’s important “to talk” about the issues but that no commitments to a timetable could be made.

But Murguia recognized the brush-off and reacted quickly.

Through a conference called arranged by her fellow Treason Lobbyists at the National Immigration Forum, Murguia said:

“President-elect Obama has made clear a campaign commitment to address this issue in his first year, and we know he takes that very seriously. And we plan to hold him accountable.”


That’s cheek!

The president of a ethnocentric, single-issue organization plans to hold the president of the U.S. “accountable” for not making her narrow agenda among his top priorities.

How, I wonder, does Murguia expect to make good on her pledge?

Murguia, for all her experience, didn’t read the tealeaves.

Obama didn’t really make a “clear campaign commitment.” What Obama did was to speak out in favor of comprehensive immigration reform to those audiences where he knew that position would play well.

If Murguia with her extensive Capitol Hill background bought into Obama’s campaign mumbo-jumbo, then she’s not as sharp as she thinks she is.

Murguia might move to the ledge if she knew just how far down on Obama’s priority list immigration is.

A sidebar in the print edition of the New York Times story cited above categorizes “The New Administration’s Priorities” and divides them into three groups.

As identified, and using the administration’s labels and the Times’ text, they are:

“Immediate Priorities”:

Infrastructure: finance roads, bridges, schools and other construction projects

Tax cuts: provide tax breaks for workers and businesses

Stem cells: reverse restrictions on embryonic stem cell research

National Security: begin withdrawing combat forces from Iraq and begin sending them to Afghanistan.

“Down Payments”:


Health care: computerize medical records and expand a children’s health care program while taking longer to pass a plan offering universal care.

Energy Independence: double alternative energy supplies while waiting to develop a more comprehensive energy policy.

Down the Road:

Trade: renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement may be put on a long timeframe.

Climate Change: a market-based cap on carbon-based emissions may not pass this year.

Repealing Bush’s tax cuts: rather than repeal President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest this year, they may be left to expire under current law in 2010.

Gay rights: overturning a ban on gays serving openly in the military may not happen until later this year.

Immigration: while some rules may be changed right away, a comprehensive overhaul of immigration may take longer.

There you have it.

On Obama’s to-do list, immigration ranks thirteenth and last. And best of all, I can’t think of any federal policy left off Obama’s list that might come in fourteenth.

Note also that when and if Obama gets around to immigration, “some” rules “may” be changed right away but a complete overhaul may take “longer.”

Murguia’s comrade Frank Sharry, executive director of another open borders advocacy group, America’s Voice, seems at least somewhat more grounded. Sharry projects a window of opportunity open between September 2009 and March 2010 when there are no elections scheduled and Obama may have calmed the turbulent first months of his administration. (Contact America’s Voice here.)

But Sherry’s thinking is wishful too.

Obama advisors are already looking ahead to the November 2010 with an eye toward avoiding the calamitous mid-term election results that plagued Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in 1982 and 1994

Forward thinking is consistent with Obama’s pattern. We know now that he initially began his presidential campaign in January 2005, the same month that he was first sworn in as Illinois’ U.S. Senator.

The outlook for “comprehensive immigration reform” is so bleak that even Obama's “immigration transition team”—two law professors, Tino Cuéllar of Stanford University and Georgetown's Alexander Aleinikoff—has nothing to say.

Neither replied to “repeated requests” from San Antonio News-Express reporter Hernán Rozemberg who wanted their opinion on whether there would be progress on immigration during Obama’s first year. [Immigration Issue on Backburner, by Hernán Rozemberg, San Antonio News-Express, January 12, 2009]

The worst thing that we can expect from the first years of Obama’s administration—and I view this as very bad—is that under new Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, fewer workplace enforcement raids will occur.

We may be surprised—as we were with the conversion we witnessed in Michael Chertoff. Napolitano has promised to go after unscrupulous employers and enforce the border. But I’ll believe it when I see it. [Napolitano Signals Shift in Worksite Raids, by Stewart M. Powell, Houston Chronicle, January 15, 2009]

Ominous sign: Napolitano’s announced first matter of business is to “re-visit” REAL ID—last June, as Governor, she signed legislation refusing to implement REAL ID.

In summary: “I told you so,” “I told you so,” and “I told you so.”

In June 2008, I wrote that Murguia should be removed as La Raza’s president and chief executive officer, a position she’s held for four years without moving the organization’s agenda forward one inch.
At that time, Murguia foolishly warned Lou Dobbs that she would be hold him “accountable” for so-called hate crimes if and when they should be committed. Now Murguia has added Obama to her long list of people who should bow down to her.

Certainly, Murguia’s fellow subversives must be ready to try someone different. How much worse could they do?

In October 2008, my column forecast that you would miss Chertoff when he left. Is there anyone who wouldn’t be more comfortable with Chertoff than Napolitano since all we know about her for sure is that she advocates open borders?

And in January 2009, as I noted in my opening paragraphs, I predicted that amnesty would not pass this year. Not only isn’t one on the horizon but nary a single soul in Obama’s administration is willing to mention the word.
We’re going to have to suffer through occasional idiotic statements from Congressional leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. And I expect camouflaged efforts at amnesty through the ever-present DREAM Act which has been defeated more times than I can count over my twenty plus years of activism.


We have beaten back these types of efforts in economic times much more conducive to amnesty.

Although we must remain ever vigilant, for now we’re safe.

Best of all, we’ve shut the other guys up for a while. What a blessing that is!

Joe Guzzardi [email him] is a California native who recently fled the state because of over-immigration, over-population and a rapidly deteriorating quality of life. He has moved to Pittsburgh, PA where the air is clean and the growth rate stable. A long-time instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School, Guzzardi has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel.

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Reply
#12
Recession hikes immigration aid
Slows checks sent home

February 5, 2009
By RYAN PAGELOW <!-- e --><a href="mailto:rpagelow@scn1.com">rpagelow@scn1.com</a><!-- e -->


It's been a year since 48-year-old Pedro Garcia of Waukegan last sent money home to his 87-year-old mother in Tonatico, Mexico.

The factory where he works cut back his hours, so he has less income to support his family of five here in Waukegan.

[Image: wa04immigrants01.jpg_20090204_21_46_06_1...ageContent]

Linda Gonzalez of Round Lake, a customer service clerk at Supermercado Gonzalez on Grand Avenue in Waukegan, helps Santos Zelaya of Waukegan wire money to his four children in Honduras via Western Union.
(Thomas Delany, Jr./News-Sun)

"We used to send money each month, but now, no. You can't," Garcia said. "We have commitments here."

It's the same with his two sisters who also live in the area, one of whom recently lost her job.

As the U.S. recession deepens, Garcia is among a wave of immigrants who have cut back on what they send home -- resulting in the first annual decline in remittances to Mexico since the country's central bank began keeping track of payments 13 years ago.

Money sent from immigrants working in the U.S. to their home countries is Mexico's second-largest source of foreign income after oil.


The funding source dropped 3.6 percent to $25 billion in 2008 compared to $26 billion for the previous year, according to a recent report from the central bank.

In the 27 years Garcia has lived in the United States, he said he's never seen it this bad. But he is not considering returning to Mexico, where he also owns a home, because his children were raised here and the global recession has hit Mexico just as bad.

"For me, it's better here," he said.

Organizations that assist immigrants have seen the number of clients swell recently as they seek job referrals and aid.

"My numbers have increased tremendously over the last four or five months," said Guadalupe Zepeda, a case manager at Mano a Mano Family Resource Center in Round Lake Park.

For example, in November and December the organization saw 180 clients seeking employment referrals, up from 140 during the same time last year. The number of legal permanent residents seeking help filling out applications for food stamps or Medicaid was 314 people in the past six months, on par to surpass last year's 12-month total of 511 applications.

"More than half of the clients that come in have lost their job or have reduced hours of income," Zepeda said.

Despite the economic downturn, Santos Zelaya, 44, of Waukegan, and his wife still manage to send money each month to their four children living with their uncle and grandfather in Olancho, Honduras. But Zelaya estimates he now sends about 30 percent less than he did two years ago because the car warehouse company where they both work has downsized and cut employee hours.

"Before, I used to work 10 hours a day, six days a week," Zelaya said. "Now, I work eight hours, five days a week. And we recently had 20 days of time off with no work."

Because of the cutbacks, he lost his home last year. Still, he said it's better here than in Honduras where a day's work will earn you $5.

He's lived here for the past 10 years under temporary protected status, which the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offered Hondurans following the devastating hurricanes in the 1990s. Zelaya hopes to one day bring his four children, ages 11 to 17, to the United States, if he can find a way to get them legal residency.

"They ask me every day," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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#13
Here's what a nearby community is going through.


[Image: 4380094.jpg]
Mexican national Jesus Garcia-Gonzalez and Immigration Enforcement Agent Joe Halase discuss Garcia-Gonzalez's case with reporters at the Kenosha County Jail.



Published February 15, 2009 | 12:05 a.m.

Double trouble
Illegal immigrants convicted of crimes face deportation after serving sentence
By Mark Hornickel
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Jesus Alberto Garcia-Gonzalez was hoping for a better life when he and his mother illegally entered the United States a decade ago.

But the 19-year-old’s plans changed in December when he was arrested for theft. Now he’s not only facing jail time, but it’s likely he’ll be deported to his native Mexico, leaving behind his wife and child.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for what I did,” Garcia-Gonzalez said last week. “They’re deporting me because I made a bad choice. I failed the country, and I deserve to go back.”

Garcia-Gonzalez was introduced by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials as part of a demonstration at the Kenosha County Jail to show the process illegal immigrants face when they are booked into the jail and then interviewed by ICE agents.

“Once their criminal charges have concluded with the county, instead of being released onto the street, they come into ICE custody and face removal from the United States,” ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro. “ICE is committed to ensuring that criminal aliens are identified and turned over to ICE.”

As of last week, 169 inmates at the county jail — about two-thirds of all the inmates — had ICE detainers, like Garcia-Gonzalez.

In 2008, the Chicago ICE office identified more than 15,000 illegal immigrants who were incarcerated for crimes committed within the office’s six-state area. That number was up from 13,700 the previous year.

While the majority of the Kenosha County inmates with ICE detainers are Mexican natives, there are illegal immigrants from all over the world. Last year, ICE deported people to 190 countries, including Kuwait, Romania, Jordan, Jamaica, Germany, Mongolia and Russia.

Finding illegal immigrants

Not every person born outside the United States is found eligible for deportation.

Someone who has become a naturalized citizen is not eligible. And someone with a green card is only eligible for removal if they are convicted of certain crimes, Montenegro explained.

Joe Halase, an ICE agent in the Milwaukee Field Office, comes to the Kenosha County Jail once a week to interview inmates targeted for deportation.

Garcia-Gonzalez was arrested in Pleasant Prairie Dec. 10 on 19 counts of theft, 16 counts of criminal damage to property and 14 counts of entry to a locked vehicle when police caught him and a boy stealing from cars.

The next day, ICE lodged a detainer on him after an interview with Halase confirmed Garcia-Gonzalez had entered the country illegally.

“The detainer ... will follow him and follow his case throughout the criminal system,” Montenegro said. “This is somebody who’s here illegally and on top of being here illegally has committed crimes and threatened the public safety.”

Must serve sentences first

Detained inmates still must go through criminal proceedings here — and serve whatever sentence a judge imposes — before immigration officials can proceed. ICE can’t take custody of detainees until they are about to be released from jail.

Not all of the detainees housed in Kenosha County were arrested here. The Kenosha County Jail is one of five jails with which ICE contracts in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.

“We may be shuffling people from this facility to McHenry (Ill.) to appear before the immigration judge,” said James McPeek, Assistant Field Office Director who supervises the Criminal Alien Program out of the ICE’s Chicago Field Office. “There’s various reasons why some of them get sent to specific counties. We kind of designate it wherever we have the space.”

When an inmate completes his or her sentence, ICE takes custody, and the detainee can appear before a federal immigration judge. If the judge orders the detainee removed from the country, ICE begins the deportation process.

“We have government charter flights ... that go all over the world,” Montenegro said.

Starting over

Garcia-Gonzalez illegally immigrated to Arizona when he was in fifth grade. He eventually got his high school diploma.

But when he got his girlfriend pregnant, they moved to Wisconsin, hoping to find work.

He got a job, but was fired when his employer learned he had a false Social Security number.

He tried working cash jobs, doing landscaping and auto mechanics, but soon turned to stealing from warehouses and cars.

“I started making bad choices,” he said. “That’s why I’m here right now.”

Garcia-Gonzalez said there’s a lot of inmates like him in the jail.

“We made bad choices,” he said. “It’s not like I was saying ‘I’m going to rob people because I want to, or I like it.’ I needed help, so I kept doing it. I got caught up.”

Garcia-Gonzalez said he failed the country and regrets what he did. He said he knows he’ll likely be deported, but’s he’s hopeful he can return to the United States one day and become a citizen.

“I thank the Lord, he pulled me out of that habit,” Garcia-Gonzalez said. “So I’m starting a new life now, and I’ll go back to my country, be a man, do it right with my daughter and my wife.”

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#14
The kid was brought here when he was 9. He had no choice. I don't think he should be deported.
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#15
Being a victim of ID fraud stinks.


Created: Friday, February 20, 2009 6:36 p.m. CST
FONT SIZE:
Crystal Lake man charged with identity theft
By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI – <!-- e --><a href="mailto:jduchnowski@nwherald.com">jduchnowski@nwherald.com</a><!-- e -->


WOODSTOCK – A 40-year-old Crystal Lake man accused of using another man’s social security number for employment remained in McHenry County jail Friday on an immigration hold.

Rogelio M. Mota, of 7203 Cowlin St., used a DeKalb man’s social security number on his application at Chroma Corp. in McHenry, said McHenry Deputy Police Chief John Jones. Mota has made $116,335 since Jan. 12, 2004.

The DeKalb man went to McHenry police last month after receiving notification from the Internal Revenue Service that wages connected with his social security number had not been properly reported, Jones said. The DeKalb man had never worked for Chroma Corp., but company officials cooperated with police in determining who had been using that number.

Mota initially refused to tell police his true identity, including a name or birthday, Jones said. After he was arrested, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System showed he had four previous aliases, Jones said.

Mota was charged with identity theft, forgery and resisting a peace officer. His case is next due in court Thursday. The most serious charge is a Class 2 felony, which is typically punishable with between three and seven years in prison.

The U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials have placed a hold on Mota’s bond, which means he will face immigration proceedings after his court case is resolved.

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#16
This is all a bit crazy.

Supreme Court hears immigrant's ID theft case

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer Mark Sherman, Associated Press Writer – Sun Feb 22, 8:19 am ET



WASHINGTON – Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, an undocumented worker from Mexico, made a curious and undeniably bad decision. After working under an assumed name for six years, he decided to use his real name and exchanged one set of phony identification numbers for another.

The change made his employer suspicious and the authorities were called in. The old numbers were made up, but the new ones he bought happened to belong to real people. Federal prosecutors said that was enough to label Flores-Figueroa an identity thief.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on prosecutors' aggressive use of a new law that was intended to strengthen efforts to combat identity theft. In at least hundreds of cases last year, workers accused of immigration violations found themselves facing the more serious identity theft charge as well, without any indication they knew their counterfeit Social Security and other identification numbers belonged to actual people and were not made up.

The government has used the charge, which carries a mandatory two-year minimum prison term, to persuade people to plead guilty to the lesser immigration charges and accept prompt deportation. Many of those undocumented workers had been arrested in immigration raids.

The case hinges on how the justices resolve this question: Does it matter whether someone using a phony ID knows that it belongs to someone else?


The government, backed by victims' rights groups, says no. The "havoc wrecked on the victim's life is the same either way," said Stephen Masterson, a Los Angeles-based lawyer, in his brief for the victims' rights groups.

On the other side, Flores-Figueroa and more than 20 immigrants' rights groups, defense lawyers and privacy experts say that the law Congress passed in 2004 was aimed at the identity thief who gains access to people's private information to drain their accounts and run up bills in their name. Surveys estimate that more than 8 million people in the United States are victims of identity theft each year.

Flores-Figueroa acknowledges he used fraudulent documents to get and keep his job at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill. But he "had no intention of stealing anyone's identity," his lawyers said in their brief to the court. He traveled to Chicago and bought numbers from someone who trades in counterfeit IDs.

Had he been caught while using the fictitious name and numbers that went with it, he could not have been charged with the more serious offense.

Federal appeals courts in St. Louis, which ruled against Flores-Figueroa, Atlanta and Richmond, Va., have come down on the government's side. Appeals courts based in Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have ruled for defendants.

The government's use of identity theft charges in immigration cases was on full display in last year's raid on a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. Authorities charged 270 undocumented workers with identity theft, including its threat of two years in prison.

Chuck Roth, litigation director for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, called the charge "a bludgeon" that was intended to elicit guilty pleas to lesser charges. Roth's group joined one of the briefs supporting Flores-Figueroa.

All 270 workers accepted plea deals in which they also agreed not to contest deportation.

An additional 100 workers arrested in the same raid were using unassigned numbers and faced charges with little prospect of prison time.

The case is Flores-Figueroa v. U.S., 08-108.

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#17
Cecilia Muñoz, Senior VP Of La Raza, Appointed To Obama White House Staff
By Digger

Cecilia Muñoz
The Face of Hate
Will Come With A Smarmy Smile
The pro-amnesty racist group La Raza has managed to slip one of it's own into the Obama staff at the White House. Cecilia Muñoz, Senior Vice President of La Raza has been appointed to the intergovernmental affairs position in the Obama White House. This is on top of the recent appointment of pro-amnesty for illegal aliens Bill Richardson as the Commerce Secretary. Anyone who didn't see all these pro-amnesty people being appointed into the Obama administration simply haven't been paying attention.
Here's her official positions she holds as released with the announcement...

---
Cecilia Muñoz, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs

Cecilia Muñoz currently serves as Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), where she supervises all legislative and advocacy activities conducted by NCLR policy staff. Muñoz is the Chair of the Board of Center for Community Change, and serves on the U.S. Programs Board of the Open Society Institute and the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Philanthropies. She is the daughter of immigrants from Bolivia and was born in Detroit, Michigan. In June 2000, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in recognition of her work on immigration and civil rights.
---

However, anyone who thinks that the McCain administration would have been any different, don't be fooled.

I am not shocked by these appointments, just make sure you pay attention to who is being appointed so that you aren't fooled into thinking amnesty is not on the agenda for President Obama.

Muñoz has worked with La Raza for over 18 years and has pushed hard for amnesty for illegal aliens.
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#18
I read this today in La Raza. Here is a translation. Contact your reps. if you'd like these bills to have a chance.


We need you in there! I just read about these possible bills. Do they have a chance in heck?? I saw this article in La Raza no less.


Stop anti-Laws

Stop anti-Laws

* | |
* 2009-03-16 2009-03-16
* | La Raza | La Raza

Agencia EFE Agencia EFE

Chicago, IL Chicago, IL

The state filed seven Senate bills labeled by anti-political organizations and defenders of undocumented immigrants in Illinois.


Senator Martin Sandoval, president of the Latino Caucus in the Legislature, said the proposals were not even heard in the full Senate.


"We have to stop proposals that seek only to harass a community worker, as are immigrants," Sandoval said, reporting that the Bills were referred to a subcommittee on Thursday.


According to the senator of Mexican origin, this cooperation reached by leaders of both chambers of the House Michael Madigan in John Cullerton of Representatives and the Senate.


The initiatives were submitted by the Republican Senators Carole Pankau, Chris Lauzen and Bill Brady, and the Harry Ramey representative.


"Everyone has a long history of anti fervor and they are not the first such proposals," said Sandoval.

The Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Illinois (ICIRR), said that the proposals, if adopted, would have had a devastating effect among the undocumented immigrant population.


Other measures proposed to cancel the access of undocumented state health insurance All Kids, the coverage of emergency health services and opportunities for youth to gain access to state universities, including private scholarships.



A subcontractor who want to do business at the local, state or federal, they require information on the legal status of their employees through mandatory application of the federal E-verify program.

Senator Pankau explained one of the controversial initiatives to control Medicaid spending due to the state budget deficit of 9.000 billion dollars.


. In a public statement said that most of the deficit has been caused by an unprecedented rise in Medicaid spending. Try to match the income of the state and federal budget dollars, "he said.


He stated that without the appropriate documentation in programs like All Kids, the federal government is not going to share costs, "leaving Illinois to pay one hundred percent of the cost of health care for undocumented members."

His amendment stated that to be eligible for the benefits of All Kids, "a person must be a U.S. citizen or be in one of the categories of non-citizens."


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#19
We might want to help spread this word. Apparently there was supposed to be a large immigration raid at a nearby naval facility -Great Lakes?- and it has been delayed. Can you imagine the jobs that would have opened up for Americans and legal immigrants?? Never mind that people in this country illegally are working at a military naval base??

Call who you can and demand that this raid take place. ICE in Chicago. Mark Kirk

Ricardo A. Wong, Field Office Director
101 West Congress Parkway, Suite 4000
Chicago, Illinois 60605
Phone: (312) 347-2400
Area of Responsibility: Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, Kansas

Please call 1-866-DHS-2-ICE to report immigration or customs violations.

Mark Kirk
Northbrook Office
707 Skokie Boulevard, Suite 350
Northbrook, IL 60062
Phone: 847-940-0202
**************************************************************************************************************************************************

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Within ICE, the front-office vetting of cases has led to some doubts. Last week, for example, ICE postponed plans to raid employers at a military-related facility in Chicago for which they had arranged to temporarily detain as many as 100 illegal immigrants, according to one official. A second official said Napolitano thought the investigative work was inadequate.

The raid would have been the second under the Obama administration. After the first, a Feb. 24 sweep of an engine-parts maker in Bellingham, Wash., that led to 28 arrests, Napolitano publicly expressed disappointment that ICE did not inform her beforehand and announced an investigation into agency communication practices.
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#20
After my head started spinning, I had to stop reading. My brain has shrunk with age and it can't maintain all of that writing. Is there a "nutshell" :?:
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