Posts Tagged: immigration and customs enforcement

Immigration reform dreams deferred

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…)

Detroit-area Latinos don’t believe ICE

John Morton

Niraj Warikoo of the Detroit Free Press reports on Latino leaders’ charges in the Motor City area that the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement agency has abused and wrongfully racially profiled Latino citizens in Michigan. John Morton — the head of ICE — had agreed to conduct a study on these charges when they were brought up in April. A just-released ICE report, though, calls the charges baseless — and now Michigan residents are questioning the credibility of the federal study.

New York leaves Secure Communities

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has pulled out of the federal Secure Communities program for deporting illegal immigrants, reports Kirk Semple of the New York Times. Cuomo follows in the footsteps of Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and the New York governor echoed Quinn’s complaint that the program hasn’t done what U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement said it would do — target immigrants convicted of serious crimes. Cuomo added that the program compromises public safety, impacting the relationship between law enforcement and the Latino community. (more…)

Obama continues Bush immigration enforcement agenda

Kari Lyderson reports for the Chicago News Coop that the White House unsuccessfully pressured Chicago and Cook County to adopt “Secure Communities,” a program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement meant to target illegal immigrants with a criminal record. Lyderson’s reporting is a reminder that the Obama administration has continued Bush administration ICE polices, including the flawed expansion of Secure Communities. (more…)

Immigration enforcement: problems and problematic solutions

Is there a difference between an illegal immigrant and an illegal immigrant who has filed papers for residency status?  Immigration raids across the country have rounded up both categories of undocumented workers, and, as Julia Preston reports in the New York Times, Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has decided there is a difference.  Prosecuting a smaller number of illegal immigrants may help ease a backlog of court cases besetting another Homeland Security department — Citizen and Immigration Services.  But it’s also inciting an ideological debate and tension in the ranks at ICE. (more…)

Chicago area police living in the ICE Age

The Chicago Tribune’s Antonio Olivo reports that police in the Chicago metropolitan area are frustrated and confused about their increasing participation in federal immigration law enforcement matters.  Washington is sending mixed signals in the wake of Arizona’s controversial new law, and law enforcement officials around the country are trying to figure out their own role. (more…)

White Houses pushes for Illinois immigration crackdown

I blogged yesterday that a law enforcement crackdown on suspected illegal immigrants isn’t unique to Arizona — it’s happening in Chicago’s suburbs. The Chicago Tribune’s Oscar Avila reports today on one anti-illegal immigrant measure designed by the Obama administration, the Secure Communities initiative. (more…)

Illinois Feels the Arizona Effect

Arizona’s new law cracking down on illegal immigrants has fired up immigration reform advocates in Illinois.  The Chicago Tribune’s Antonio Olivo reports that two dozen protesters were arrested yesterday for disorderly conduct in Broadview, Illinois. The demonstrators attempted to  block a vanload of illegal immigrants from being deported by the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (more…)

A Return to the Bush Administration ICE Age

Spencer S. Hsu of the Washington Post and Andrew Becker of the Center for Public Integrity broke a shocking story Saturday that the Dept. of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement is reverting back to Bush administration policies that stressed making quotas on illegal immigrant deportations. (more…)

Soon, Our Consumer Goods Will Be DHS-Approved

The New York Times’ Neil Lewis reports that the Obama administration’s Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has taken another step in their policy to crackdown on employers who hire illegal immigrants. ICE will audit 1,000 companies to see if these companies verified that hires are, in fact, legal citizens. The companies are “involved in infrastructure operations like gas and electric utilities and contractors on military bases but not retailers and manufacturers of nonessential goods.”

But wait, there’s more. Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano also wants to encourage companies who use the E-Verfiy computer system to check their worker’s presented documentation against government records. How will Napolitano encourage companies? Why, by having a special logo in their products saying, “I E-Verify.” (more…)