Maryland woman sentenced for conspiracy to commit involuntary servitude and harboring an illegal alien for financial gain
14-Year-Old Nigerian Girl Brought to U.S. and Held Against Her Will
Via Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
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GREENBELT, United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein stated, “This “Too often human traffickers bait young girls with promises of the “The acts committed by this individual — holding a child as a On November 18, 2004, Stella Udeozor was convicted by a federal jury Testimony showed that the couple induced the young girl to come to In addition to constantly yelling at and insulting the victim, the The jury also returned three special findings relating to George Udeozor, age 49, is a fugitive and has not yet been tried in this case. He is currently facing extradition from Nigeria. United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked the U.S. Department |
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— ICE — |
Immigration arrests 9 bosses along with 1,000 workers
Via CNN.com
Strategy to focus more on companies that employ illegal workers
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Federal immigration
authorities arrested nine people linked to the firm IFCO Systems and
rounded up more than 1,000 illegal immigrants in multistate raids,
federal law enforcement officials said.
Among those arrested
and charged in connection with the employment of immigrants are seven
current and former managers and two lower-level employees of the
company, said U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby.
The operation came
as Bush administration officials and a federal prosecutor plan a new
strategy aimed at companies that employ illegal immigrants. IFCO is an
industry leader in the manufacture of wooden pallets, crates and
containers. The criminal complaint involving IFCO charges the seven
managers with conspiracy to transport, harbor, and employ illegal
immigrants for private gain.
Federal
authorities checked a sample of 5,800 IFCO employee records last year
and found that 53 percent had faulty Social Security numbers, an
Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said.
“That
is, they were using Social Security numbers of people that were dead,
of children or just different individuals that did not work at IFCO,”
ICE chief Julie Myers told CNN.
Path to Deportation Can Start With a Traffic Stop
Via NYTimes.com
Henry Rosales Lopez, left, and Fredy Reyes are among the illegal immigrants in custody in Suffolk County, N.Y.
While lawmakers in Washington debate whether to forgive illegal
immigrants their trespasses, a small but increasing number of local and
state law enforcement officials are taking it upon themselves to pursue
deportation cases against people who are here illegally.
In more than a dozen jurisdictions, officials have invoked a little-used 1996 federal law to seek special federal training in immigration enforcement for their officers.
In
other places, the local authorities are flagging some illegal
immigrants who are caught up in the criminal justice system, sometimes
for minor offenses, and are alerting immigration officials to their
illegal status so that they can be deported.
In Costa Mesa,
Calif., for example, in Orange County, the City Council last year shut
down a day laborer job center that had operated for 17 years, and this
year authorized its Police Department to begin training officers to
pursue illegal immigrants — a job previously left to federal agents.
In
Suffolk County, on Long Island, where a similar police training
proposal was met with angry protests in 2004, county officials have
quietly put a system in place that uses sheriff’s deputies to flag
illegal immigrants in the county jail population.
In Putnam
County, N.Y., about 50 miles north of Manhattan, eight illegal
immigrants who were playing soccer in a school ball field were arrested
on Jan. 9 for trespassing and held for the immigration authorities.
Farmers Say They’ve Got Fruit but No Labor
In Washington state, migrants increasingly pass up apple orchards for better-paying jobs.
Via LATimes.com
YAKIMA, Wash. — While much of the country frets about too many illegal
immigrants, farmers in this famed apple-growing region east of the
Cascade Range complain they can no longer find enough.
During
the last two years, Yakima-area apple growers were so short of the
migrant field hands they rely on to prune and pick their prized crop
that a few brought in workers from Thailand.
Others said they never did find enough workers and watched in anguish as precious fruit was left dangling on trees.
This
summer, with farmers expecting a bountiful apple crop, they also
predict that the worker shortage will worsen, threatening a
hand-harvesting industry valued at more than $1.5 billion in Washington
state. In the last big-crop year, growers employed an estimated 42,300
seasonal apple workers, according to state officials.
Georgia enacts tough new law targeting illegal migrants
Via Yahoo.com
MIAMI (AFP) – The US state of Georgia has enacted one of the toughest
laws targeting illegal migrants in the United States, requiring
employers to verify the immigration status of workers before hiring
them and penalizing those who hire undocumented workers.
“Georgia is a welcoming state that wants to treat our guests with
Southern hospitality, but we cannot tolerate activity that distracts us
from our ability to embrace those who come here legally,” said Governor
Sonny Perdue in signing the sweeping measure into law on Monday.
“We recognize that immigration is ultimately a national issue that
needs a national solution,” Perdue said. But the new law was necessary
“because we need to know who is living here in Georgia, and for that
matter, who is living in our country”.
The law requires the verification of immigration status for anyone
seeking state social benefits, public jobs or government contracts.
It prohibits businesses from claiming tax credits for undocumented
workers they employ, retains a six-percent salary tax on immigrants,
and demands that police verify the immigration status of anyone
arrested on a serious criminal charge.
Chertoff: U.S. Still Plans Passport Rule
Via Yahoo.com
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration said Tuesday it still plans to
require passports from all foreigners entering the United States by the
end of next year, despite calls for a delay by some Republicans worried
about strained relations with Canada.
At issue is a 2004 law, being phased in over three years, to tighten
U.S. borders against suspected terrorists and other criminals. But
critics on both sides of the nation’s northern border fear the passport
requirement will hamper commerce and tourism between Canada and the
U.S. — the world’s largest trading bloc.
Immigrants’ Interest in Citizenship Surges
Via Yahoo.com
WASHINGTON – Efforts by Congress and local governments to crack down on
illegal immigration — and the protests that followed those efforts —
have produced a surge of interest in learning how to become a U.S.
citizen.
More of the nation’s 8 million legal immigrants are showing up at
citizenship classes and seminars sponsored by churches and community
groups.
“I didn’t think it was important before, but now I think it’s very
important to be a citizen,” Leonida Santana said during a break in a
Saturday morning class discussion about the separation of powers among
Congress, the president and the courts.
Santana, a Dominican Republic native, arrived in the United States
in 1983 and a year later secured a green card, signifying permanent
legal residency. She signed up for the 10 weeks of citizenship
preparation classes after the House last year passed a bill that would
deport illegal immigrants as felons and erect 700 miles of fencing
along the U.S.-Mexico border.
US immigration debate opens up great divide in Republican party
April 18, 2006
Yet again, a key issue for businesses has been
turned into an internal political battle, pitting social conservatives
against more economically liberal voices, writes Stephen Ellis
WHILE the most visible reaction after proposed reforms to US
immigration laws, stalled in Congress last week, was the hundreds of
thousands of mostly Latino demonstrators drawn onto the streets, behind
the scenes most US business leaders were equally disappointed.
Most US business leaders and lobby groups have vigorously supported the
Bush administration’s push for reforms that would legalise the
residency and work status of most illegal immigrants, and put many on a
path to US citizenship.
There are an estimated 11 million people who live and work illegally in the US, up from an estimated 3 million in 1985.
Over recent years, despite increased border security and heavy
spending on fences, aircraft patrols and fancy detection technologies,
the annual inflow is estimated to have hovered around 850,000.
As these individuals have become integrated into the economy, many industries have become dependent on them.
This is particularly true of labour-intensive areas such as
agriculture, low-tech manufacturing, hotels and hospitality,
residential construction and domestic services, where unskilled or
semi-skilled illegal immigrants often form the backbone of the labour
force.
Firms in these sectors have warned of the economic disruption
that would follow if laws were changed to force employers to scrutinise
the credentials of would-be workers more closely, and to increase
penalties on companies found to be employing illegal workers.
This would be a radical departure from the current environment,
where the federal Government, more or less, ignores breaches of the
immigration rules by businesses that hire these workers, in what is a
tacit acknowledgement of economic reality.
But there has also been more general business support for the
reforms proposed by the White House, which would have created a new
category of legal guest workers, and allowed the majority of the
illegals already in the US to stay and eventually become citizens if
they could present a solid work and tax-paying history.
Democrats: Bush, GOP ‘scapegoat’ immigrants
VIA CNN.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — — Democrats blamed
President Bush and the Republican Party on Saturday for blocking
immigration legislation through an orchestrated campaign to “scapegoat”
immigrants.
In her party’s weekly radio address, Rep. Hilda Solis of California
said Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennesse, “lack real
leadership to stop extremists in their party” from thwarting
immigration legislation.
Earlier this month, the Senate failed to
pass a bill when Frist and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid could
not agree on a procedure for voting on amendments to legislation that
would strengthen border security, create a guest-worker program and
offer eventual citizenship to many of the estimated 11 million illegal
immigrants in the country.
“What America saw during the last few
weeks did not happen overnight,” said Solis, the daughter of Mexican
and Nicaraguan immigrants. “The Republican Party set out to scapegoat
immigrants in order to divide voters and win elections long ago, just
as they did in the past elections on issues such as gay marriage.”
Immigrants’ firing leads to protest
15 women lose jobs after attending rally; manager says they were warned
Via The Detroit Free Press
April 11, 2006
|
Activists |
A manager at a Detroit meatpacking plant said Monday that 15
immigrant women were fired last month after attending a protest for
immigrant rights. He said they had been told that they would be
terminated if they missed work on the day of the protest.
But the
workers and an activist working on their behalf said the women were
given no such assurances. If the workers knew they would have been
fired for attending the March 27 rally in Detroit, they never would
have skipped the morning shift, said Elena Herrada, a Detroit activist
who is trying to help the women get their jobs back.
Herrada and
about 20 union officials went Monday to Wolverine Packing Co. offices
on Rivard to inquire about what happened. They were given a letter
signed by general manager Jay Bonahoom, explaining why the workers were
terminated.
Meanwhile Monday, marches were held in Washington,
D.C., Atlanta and other cities to protest proposed changes in
immigration rules. On Sunday, hundreds gathered at Holy Redeemer
Catholic Church in Detroit.
Some of the Wolverine workers were
undocumented, Herrada and one of the workers said, and wanted to march
in the Detroit rally to show their support for immigrant rights.
Tens
of thousands of people, mostly Latinos, protested legislation that
would make it a crime to help undocumented immigrants. The next
morning, when the women reported to work for their shifts as meat
cutters, a supervisor told them to clean out their lockers and go home.
Bonahoom
said that as far as Wolverine knows, the workers were documented, but
an employment agency does the actual hiring. He said the workers had
been told, “written and verbally,” on the Friday before the protests
that their attendance was mandatory on the day of the protest.
They were fired “for standing up for their rights,” Herrada said.
Navy sinks marriage-for-money scam
Eight sailors charged with taking $35,000 for sham marriages
JACKSONVILLE, Florida (AP) — Eight
sailors were charged Tuesday with arranging sham marriages to Polish
and Romanian women to help the women obtain U.S. citizenship and to
collect bigger military housing allowances for themselves.
An
investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement found that none of the women lived
with the sailors they married.
In all, the eight sailors received
$35,000 in fraudulent basic housing allowance payments, investigators
said. One sailor was allegedly getting $1,836 per month.
The Navy
terminated the allowances in November. If convicted, the seven current
and one former sailor from the USS Kennedy and USS Simpson could face
up to five years in prison per count.
Basic housing allowance is
a tax-free payment that active-duty members of the U.S. military
receive to offset their housing costs if they do not live on base. The
amount is based on location, marital status and the number of
dependents.
One of the women, a Polish nanny, was also charged,
and authorities were seeking seven other women, six of them Polish and
one Romanian.
Each paid $6,000 for the weddings to the sailors so
they could petition for U.S. citizenship, according to U.S. Attorney
Paul Perez.
The NCIS investigation began last September when a
Navy petty officer assigned to the Kennedy was approached by a seaman
from the Simpson with the opportunity to receive a basic housing
allowance for marrying a Polish woman.
The seaman who arranged
the marriage was to receive $6,000 from the woman and the petty officer
was to receive the basic housing allowance, officials said.
Five
of the sailors appeared Tuesday in federal court in Jacksonville. They
were released after each signed a $10,000 unsecured bond.
Rallies across U.S. call for illegal immigrant rights
(CNN) — Hundreds of thousands of
protesters turned out Monday in small towns and big cities across the
United States, demanding that undocumented immigrants get a chance to
live the American dream.
Organizers said their
“national day of action for immigration justice” included events in
more than 140 cities in at least 39 states, with drum-banging and
flag-waving masses chanting “Si se puede” — “Yes we can” — in rallies
from coast to coast.
The events served as a visible demonstration
of political clout for supporters of the nation’s estimated 11-12
million undocumented immigrants.
“The sleeping giant is awake —
wide awake — and we’re paying close attention,” said Jaime Contreras,
president of the National Capital Immigration Coalition, one of the
groups involved in organizing the demonstrations.
The protests
began in the morning in communities on the East Coast, then spread
across the country throughout the day and continued into the evening.
Two
of the largest demonstrations were held in Washington, D.C., and
Phoenix, Arizona. Organizers said 500,000 attended the event in
Washington and 200,000 in Phoenix, although police did not provide
official crowd estimates.
In a nod to criticism of demonstrators
who waved foreign flags at earlier pro-immigration rallies, the Stars
and Stripes were on prominent display at many of Monday’s events.
In Washington, protesters held up signs proclaiming, “We Are America.”
“What
we want to achieve is to send a very strong message to the Senate, to
the Congress in general and this administration that immigrants are fed
up, that we are tired, that we work very hard,” Contreras said.
“We
come to this country not to take from America, but to make America
strong. And we do not deserve to be treated the way we have been
treated,” he said.
Immigration bill may lose felony provison
GOP leaders say they don’t support legislation’s tough language
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The top Republicans
in both the House and Senate indicated Tuesday they don’t support
language in an immigration bill that would make entering the country
illegally a felony.
The proposal has drawn the ire of pro-immigrant groups that have staged a wave of protests in recent weeks.
The
provision making illegal immigration a felony was contained in an
immigration reform bill passed by the House in December. But in a joint
statement issued Tuesday evening, House Speaker Dennis Hastert of
Illinois and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee both
indicated they wanted the language dropped.
Frist and Hastert
also criticized House Democrats, who, they said, opposed efforts by
Republicans to strip the provision from the bill before it passed.
“Instead, they voted to make felons out of all of those who remain in our country illegally,” their statement said.
Frist
and Hastert did not specify whether they wanted unlawful presence in
the United States to be a misdemeanor or carry a lesser penalty.
Their
statement was also silent on the question of whether they had come to
any agreement on two issues that have split Republicans — creating a
guest-worker program, or allowing undocumented immigrants in the
country illegally to work their way toward legal status.
The
provision making illegal immigration a felony was part of a bill pushed
by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin
Republican. It passed the House in December by a vote of 239-182, with
only 36 Democrats supporting the final version of the measure.
Responding
to Tuesday’s criticism of Democrats by Hastert and Frist, Jennifer
Crider, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of
California, said “no amount of spin can change the fact that
Republicans wrote and passed the Sensenbrenner bill, which criminalizes
an entire population.”
Crider also said Republicans “are feeling
the heat” after demonstrations that brought out hundreds of thousands
of protesters Monday at rallies in at least 140 cities in more than 39
states.
The U.S. Immigration Law Blog by Ashwin Sharma 