Immigration News: October, 2005 - Volume 12

DHS: CBP, ICE, USCIS

The Department of Homeland Security is creating a policy office headed by undersecretary Stewart A. Baker to develop a comprehensive strategy for improving border security and addressing illegal immigration. DHS is developing an integrated three-legged enforcement strategy, focusing on the unauthorized at ports of entry, between ports of entry and in the interior. One outcome of the strategy may be the merger of the now-separate Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agencies.

DHS brought together 22 federal agencies with nearly 180,000 employees, and President Bush said that DHS needed new flexible personnel rules to "carry out its mission." A federal judge in August 2005 struck down the rules adopted by DHS, saying that they did not guarantee the 60,000 DHS workers represented by unions true collective bargaining rights because DHS reserved the right to "declare any part of any collective bargaining agreement null and void." The judge held that the core of collective bargaining is a "binding contract."

Federal prosecutions for immigration violations more than doubled in the last four years, and immigration violations have surpassed drugs as the most frequently pursued federal crime. US attorneys have shifted their attention to illegal immigration, terrorism-related offenses and gun crimes and away from drugs and white-collar crime.

Border. Some 919,000 foreigners were apprehended between October 1, 2004 and June 30, 2005, including 119,000 "other than Mexicans." There were 65,000 OTMs apprehended in FY04 and 40,000 in FY03, suggesting that more Brazilians and Central Americans are attempting to enter the US from Mexico.

A record 460 migrants died crossing the US-Mexico border in FY05, up from 383 in FY00. Most were Mexicans from the states of Mexico, Guanajuato and Veracruz. Special Border Patrol search units in the Tucson sector rescued 850 migrants in FY05, up from 550 a year earlier.

The US Border Patrol budget rose from $400 million in FY94 to $1.2 billion in FY04; the number of Border Patrol agents rose from 4,200 to 11,200, including 2,850 in Arizona. Robert C. Bonner, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, resigned in September 2005. CBP has 42,000 employees, including the Border Patrol and inspectors at 317 ports of entry.

In April 2005, hundreds of volunteers joined the private Minuteman Project to patrol a 23-mile stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border, generating international attention and leading to similar campaigns elsewhere. In July 2005, CBP Commissioner Robert C. Bonner said: "I applaud the fact that the organization of the Minutemen acted responsibly and didn't take the law into their own hands." Bonner said that CBP was examining ways to create "something akin to a Border Patrol auxiliary" to protect US borders, but DHS leaders said that there were no plans to immediately implement a civilian patrol.

A think tank, the Center for American Progress (www.americanprogress.org/), released a report in July 2005 estimating the cost of removing unauthorized foreigners in the US would be about $22,000 each, or $220 billion to remove 10 million foreigners. The critical assumption in such studies concerns how unauthorized foreigners living unapprehended in the US would react to active new enforcement efforts. The CAP estimated that 10 to 20 percent would depart on their own; if there are more "voluntary departures," the cost would be lower.

US biometrics and entry-exit systems are costing billions, but are not improving security, according to a New York Times article on August 10, 2005. US-Visit, for example, can only record entries, not exits, so it does not provide the fast leads to overstayers that its backers promised. However, DHS continues to press ahead with projects aimed at using unique human characteristics to verify identity. For example, the State Department (DOS) fingerprints and photographs visa applicants at 207 consular offices around the world after checking the personal data provided against DHS records. Upon arrival in the US, visitors with visas are again fingerprinted and photographed to verify that they are the same people who were given the travel documents.

In 2004, all 136 Border Patrol stations on the Arizona-Mexican border were linked to the FBI fingerprint system, which produces results in two minutes. The fingerprint checks turned up 113,747 criminal record hits in the last 11 months, or about seven out of every 50 detainees.

The US maintains that it has "clear and unequivocal" secret evidence that a Canadian-Syrian is a member of Al Qaeda, and arrested him as he was changing planes in the international terminal in September 2002 in New York City. Both Syria and Canada have cleared him, and he is suing the US government for unlawful arrest and detention. The US government argues that aliens changing planes are seeking admission to the US, and do not have usual constitutional rights.

Interior. ICE got a new director in October 2005. Julie L. Myers will head the $3.2 billion, 14,000 employee agency that deals with internal enforcement of US immigration laws.

Seven restaurants owned in part by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper were in the spotlight after a restaurant employee who is unauthorized killed a Denver policeman in May 2005 and fled to Mexico. As a result, the restaurants co-owned by the mayor began verifying the Social Security numbers of new hires.

In 2004, SSA reported that 107 of the restaurant's workers had SSN mismatches, indicating that they were probably unauthorized immigrants. After they departed, only 50 workers were still on the payroll in June 2005. Wages of $8 to $12 an hour and health insurance were not enough to keep a stable work force of legal workers. The manager said: "The simple truth is it's foreign-born workers who are willing to do those jobs and who can be depended on to be loyal, effective, efficient and show up to work." Hickenlooper says that the US should allow unauthorized foreigners to pay fines to become guest workers, and that their fines should be used to "seal" the border.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 119 workers at Petit Jean Poultry in Arkadelphia, Arkansas and removed some to Mexico, leaving their children in day care or schools. ICE said that most of those arrested said they had no children; they apparently hoped to illegally re-enter the US again. Governor Mike Huckabee condemned the raid, saying that productive individuals working to achieve the American dream should not face arrest and removal.

ICE reportedly issued three notices of intent to fine US employers in 2004. In the first two years of employer sanctions, FY88 and FY89, the INS averaged over 1,000 inspections of US employers each month and found two-thirds of these employers to be in compliance with employer sanctions laws. About a sixth of the employers were fined.

Hurricane Katrina prompted ICE to announce that it would not punish employers who can not verify the legal status of newly hired workers for 45 days (until mid-October 2005) to help displaced workers find new jobs. Critics said that unauthorized foreigners would claim to be Katrina victims to get hired, and there were newspaper reports of Mexicans planning to go to New Orleans and seek construction jobs. ICE provided no guidance on how employers can determine who is a Katrina victim.

Immigrant workers, most from Mexico and Central America, are reportedly rushing to New Orleans to clean up and rebuild, creating day laborer sites in a city that before Hurricane Katrina had few. One result may be the "Hispanization" of New Orleans, as contractors and temporary help firms bring migrants from around the US to the area; both employers and workers are aware that ICE is not enforcing employer sanctions laws to help those whose papers may have been destroyed to get jobs.

Blacks traditionally dominated entry-level jobs in New Orleans, but many lived in the hardest-hit areas and may not return, which would make their homes available to migrants. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin asked local businesspeople in October 2005, "How do I ensure that New Orleans is not overrun by Mexican workers?"

Under Operation Community Shield, ICE agents arrested almost 1,100 gang members between February and July 2005, and announced that 90 percent were unauthorized foreigners subject to deportation. Members of Mara Salvatrucha, a Salvadoran gang known as MS-13 originally formed to counter Mexican gangs in Los Angeles, were about half those arrested.

In August 1995, California labor inspectors found 70 Thai workers restrained from leaving their place of work. They were sewing brand-name garments in an apartment complex in El Monte, a suburb of Los Angeles. The El Monte raid was part of the Targeted Industries Partnership Program, which was curtailed under Democrat Gray Davis but is being revived under Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The US government calls deportation "removal," and 161,676 foreigners were removed in FY04, including 115,000 Mexicans. Many of the those that the government orders deported, however, disappear rather than show up to contest removal orders. In FY04, 47,405 of the 163,857 foreigners ordered deported in FY04 did not appear at their hearings.

Capital Law Centers, in the Washington DC area, filed more than 2,700 fraudulent labor certifications with the Department of Labor on behalf of businesses supposedly trying to hire foreign workers. The names of local business owners were forged in documents requesting foreigners because they could not find US workers. DOL approved the employer requests without checking, and the fraud was discovered only when a DOL approval was sent by mistake to one of the businesses. Immigrants paid the firm $8,000 to $20,000 to get a green card.

USCIS. USCIS operates the Basic Pilot Employment Verification program, and spent $1.5 million in FY04 to check on the status of 700,000 newly hired workers whose information was submitted by the employers who participated voluntarily. (http://uscis.gov/graphics/services/SAVE.htm#two). Basic Pilot began in 1997 in five states, but was suspended between 2001 and 2003. It now operates in all 50 states, with a sunset date of 2008.

Using the web, employers submit information from I-9 forms of newly hired workers. It is checked in automated fashion against SSN and DHS databases. About 84 percent of the applicants whose data was submitted in 2004 were certified as authorized to work; it is not clear whether the remaining 16 percent were lawful workers or not.

Immigrants. The US "admitted" 946,142 immigrants in FY04, up from 705,827 in FY03 but down from 1.1 million in FY02. Most immigrants, 62 percent in FY04, are already in the US when they receive their green cards. The total number of immigrants admitted since the US began keeping records in 1820 reached 70 million in FY05.

The Mexican share of legal immigrants was 18 percent, the same as in the previous two years, followed by four Asian countries that collectively provided a quarter of immigrants: India, the Philippines, China and Vietnam. About 25 percent of the FY04 immigrants indicated they would live in California, followed by 11 percent in New York.

Some 330,000 foreigners and their families are in the backlog waiting for employment-related immigration visas; 140,000 a year are available.

Many of the 150,000 Cambodians resettled in the US after 1975 are dependent on welfare assistance. Some analysts attribute their problems to mental illness, pointing to the fact that two million people, 25 percent of Cambodians, died during the four-year reign of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979. About 10 percent of US Cambodians are in Long Beach. Interviews there in 2005 found high levels of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Pacific Islanders in the United States are not as well off as other Asian immigrants. Samoans, Tongans and the other 246,000 Pacific Islanders in California in the 2000 census have relatively low incomes and low levels of education that were not always apparent when they were grouped with other Asians. Some 34 percent of California adults have at least a two-year college degree, and the percentage among Asian immigrants is higher, but only 10 to 20 percent of Pacific Islanders have at least two years of college.

Some 20,000 military service members have become American citizens since July 2002. Military personnel waiting to naturalize do not have to live in the US five years after they receive a green card, or pay the usual $320 application fee. Immigration officials travel to Iraq for naturalization ceremonies. Some 27,000 troops do not have citizenship.

The 1994 Violence Against Women Act allows unauthorized foreign women whose US husbands are abusive to obtain immigrant visas. In FY04, some 5,076 V-visas were issued.

Eric Lipton, "Hurdles for High-Tech Efforts to Track Who Crosses Borders," New York Times, August 10, 2005. Goyle, Rajeev and David A. Jaeger. 2005. Deporting the Undocumented: A Cost Assessment. July. Center for American Progress. www.americanprogress.org