Understanding Government

Pat Quinn

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed the “DREAM Act” into law Monday, legislation that will create privately-funded scholarships for documented and undocumented immigrants to attend public and private colleges in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune’s Monique Garcia reports that Illinois DREAM Act supporters “will continue to fight for comprehensive immigration reform in Washington, noting the new state law is a small but important step forward.” But Washington can’t deal with the federal version of the DREAM Act, much less comprehensive immigration reform. (more…)

Georgia Pabst of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had a critical — and flawed — piece Saturday on E-Verify, the joint Dept. of Homeland of Security/Social Security Administration program that makes employers check the citizenship status of their workers. Right now, E-Verify is voluntary — but new legislation would make it mandatory. Pabst implies this would be bad for Wisconsin dairy farmers, the vast majority of of whom employ illegal immigrants. But it could have the positive effect of curbing the exploitation of these workers. (more…)

The Chicago Tribune’s Jon Hilkevitch reports that the Chicago Transit Authority is making major, major increases in the number and sophistication of its surveillance cameras thanks to a $16 million U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant. Most CTA train stations have only one camera now — but the plan is that they will each have 10-30. Moreover, the cameras installed are “high-resolution digital video cameras capable of recording even faint facial features from a distance.”

Why in the world is this a priority? A DHS grant usually is intended for emergency prevention and response like counterterrorism, but CTA wants to use the cameras to catch pickpocketers. Meanwhile, the CTA itself is in disrepair, with the whole system needing to be modernized and entire parts of the city not served by rail. CTA needs money from the Dept. of Transportation, not DHS.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Georgia Pabst reports that the Justice Dept., Federal Trade Commission, and Dept. of Homeland Security are launching an investigation into notary publics that scam illegal immigrants. Immigrants mistakenly think that the notary publics are licensed attorneys who can help them apply for citizenship status, but there have been cases where these notaries have taken money without providing any authorized legal guidance. The federal effort includes the creation of an online consumer database that will log complaints against notary publics.

Massachusetts has become the third state to leave U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Secure Communities immigration deportation program joining New York and Illinois. The New York Times’ Julia Preston reports that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is leaving for the same reasons that New York’s Andrew Cuomo and Illinois’ Pat Quinn opted out: the program is not targeting illegal immigrants who are serious criminals, as ICE said it would.

However, the program relies on the FBI and ICE sharing fingerprints collected from local jails and, as I reported on, it is unclear if state governments have the power to stop the FBI and ICE from continuing to share this information. Preston notes that each governor who has pulled out is a Democrat presiding over pretty liberal states. So even if nothing substantial is accomplished by leaving Secure Communities, the Obama administration is being challenged on its immigration polices from the left.