NDN Blog

Having covered the hardships that many immigrants face as they cross into the United States illegally yesterday, Chris Hawley of the Arizona Republic  has written up a story today, about Yudi an Immigrant woman who attempted to enter the country legally.

If she could get a visitor's visa, she reasoned, she could at least get over the border and look for a job. Then the receptionist began to list the documents needed for a visitor's visa: A bank statement showing thousands of dollars in savings. Property deeds. Car titles. Five years of pay stubs from a good-paying job.

From the same article, not only are the requirements for legal immigrants high, the wait time is equally prohibitive:

Waiting lists for visas are often decades-long because of strict immigration limits. Employers are loathe to sponsor employees for residency, and diversity visa programs aimed at increasing the United States' cultural mix are skewed against Latin America and other regions that already have many citizens living in the United States.

For many however, the lure of jobs and a better life proves too strong:

Yudi, 23, went back to her job at a potato-chip factory, but she couldn't stop thinking about her meager salary and the opportunities in America. Her brother had crossed the border illegally several years before and was working in Colorado.

In March, she struck out alone for the United States.

These journeys are often dangerous:

The trip took her six months. On the Guatemala-Mexico border, she says, she was robbed and gang-raped by four men.

Near Mexico City, she saw a freight train slice off the leg of a fellow traveler after he fell onto the tracks.

On the Arizona border, she hiked through the desert for three days with no food.In Phoenix, she was held captive and raped by six smugglers several times a day for two weeks, until escaping on Sept. 18.

Yudi, is still living in the United States, and has a message for Anti-Immigrant activists who demonize migrants who come to the United States to find a better life:

"All I can tell those people is that if we immigrate illegally, we're not doing it for fun," she said, her voice cracking. "If they really want people to stop immigrating illegally, then give us an opportunity. Give us a chance."

In Arizona,  there have been countless deaths of immigrants crossing from Mexico into the United States, yet it is currently illegal for people to leave water in the desert for those who get lost in the desert.

NDN has written about the perils of crossing the border before, Deaths of Immigrants Crossing Sonoran Desert on the Rise, however to provide some context about just how hot the desert gets, check out the following photos of the remains of immigrants who have died crossing the desert.

DISCLAIMER: these photos are gruesome and not for the faint of heart, having said that they can be seen at the Arizona Daily Star HERE.

Marc Lacy of the New York Times has the full story on why Arizona, has made it illegal to leave water for immigrants crossing the desert here, quotes are below:

Two years ago, Daniel J. Millis was ticketed for littering after he was caught by a federal Fish and Wildlife officer placing gallon jugs of water for passing immigrants in the brush of this 118,000-acre preserve.

“I do extreme sports, and I know I couldn’t walk as far as they do,” said Mr. Millis, driving through the refuge recently. “It’s no surprise people are dying.”

What is surprising is that in Arizona, it is a federal crime to leave water for immigrants in the desert:

Mr. Millis, 31, was not the only one to get a ticket. Fourteen other volunteers for Tucson-based organizations that provide aid to immigrants crossing from Mexico to the United States were similarly cited. Most of the cases were later dropped, but Mr. Millis and another volunteer for a religious group called No More Deaths were convicted of defacing the refuge with their water jug drops.

All of this despite a bevy of obstacles immigrants face:

From 2002 to 2009, 25 illegal immigrants died while passing through the refuge’s rolling hills, which are flanked by mountains and are home to pronghorns, coyotes, rattlesnakes and four different kinds of skunks. Throughout southern Arizona, the death toll totaled 1,715 from 2002 to 2009, with this year’s hot temperatures putting deaths at a record-breaking pace.

Anti Immigrant activists contend that leaving the water jugs destroys the environment and encourages immigrants to cross. Despite opposition from Arizona law enforcement officials, people continue to leave water for immigrants  in the desert:

Mr. Millis, a former high school Spanish teacher who now works for the Sierra Club, disputes the notion that leaving out water jugs is luring more immigrants. He said it was border enforcement efforts that had pushed those seeking to cross into dangerous desert areas.

As for spoiling the environment, he said he collected as many jugs as he left behind. He also recounts how he found the dead body of a 14-year-old Salvadoran girl near the refuge days before he was ticketed.

“People are part of the environment,” he said.

As it turns out indefinitely jailing immigrants, is not only questionable from a civil rights perspective, but also costly to tax payers.

With an increased emphasis on enforcement nationally and an un-equal focus on creating infrastructure to  process the removal of illegal immigrants, detention centers are filling up at an alarming rate.

Jeremy Redmon of The Atlanta Journal Constitution has the full story in his article Growing illegal immigration Backlog In Court More detained indefinitely at Greater Expense.

Immigrants suspected of being in the United States illegally are being held in a detention center in southwest Georgia for months at taxpayer expense, and others remain free on bond for years here amid a severe backlog in the nation’s immigration courts, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.

While the example above is Atlanta specific, the lack of judges available to process immigration related cases is a national problem:

The nationwide court backlog is documented in a recent study by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research organization that monitors the federal government. The study says the number of pending cases in Georgia reached an all-time high of 7,046 this summer. The vast majority of those were deportation cases. Nationwide, there were 247,922 immigration cases pending as of June 21, another all-time high. Georgia ranks 10th among states based on its pending caseload.

In Atlanta, it takes more than a year to process one deportation case, this creates costs on the back end for tax payers who have to pay for immigrants to be detained indefinitely:

Atlanta’s immigration court is so flooded with deportation cases that it takes more than a year — 450 days — to resolve one on average. Cases for inmates at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin are pending for 63 days on average.

Meanwhile, it costs taxpayers $60.50 a day on average to house an inmate at the Stewart County facility. As of Sept. 17, the center was holding 1,890 inmates. That works out to a daily cost of $114,345, based on the average expense.

Basing the success of immigration enforcement on the metric of arrests listed above, by all accounts the administrations current posture, has been a success.

At this point, perhaps it is time to concentrate on creating the infrastructure necessary to not only process the huge numbers of immigrants in detention centers, but also create a system to allow those who want to come to work and then leave.

Television Personality/Superstar Stephen Colbert came to Congress to testify before the immigration subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee to testify on the Agricultural Jobs legislation.

The New York Times Caucus Blog lifted the following Colbert quote from the question and answer period:

“I like talking about people who don’t have any power, and it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights themselves,” he said. “Migrant workers suffer and have no rights.”

Aaron Blake of The Washington Post provided some interesting commentary HERE, but I recommend just  watching his opening remarks below:

Maricopa Country Sherriff Joe Arpaio, is known best known as anti-immigrant crusader, however increasingly he is being known as an elected official who misappropriated state funds for his own personal use.

A report from KPHO Phoenix Television Sarah Buduson shows that  Sheriff Arpaio's may be using state funds to pay his Washington D.C. based Lawyer:

Maricopa County officials say it is unclear how much Maricopa County taxpayers have spent on Washington, D.C., based lawyer representing Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Robert Driscoll is representing the sheriff in the U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights investigation.

What is clear is that this Washington D.C. based lawyer is expensive:

Invoices obtained by CBS 5 show MCSO has paid Ogletree Deakins hundreds of thousands of dollars for work related to DOJ investigation. CBS 5 obtained more than a dozen bills from June 2009 to May 2010.

In September 2009, one bill came to $156,570.18.In May 2010, MCSO paid the law firm $109,857.86.

Much like with the Maricopa County Sherriff's Office budget, it appears that there has been little oversight in how much the Arpaio has been able to utilize state funds:

CBS 5 asked L. Eric Dowell, ,a managing shareholder at Ogletree Deakins how much taxpayer money has been paid to Driscoll. Dowell said he didn't know.

The firm has bill Maricopa taxpayers $3.2 million during the last fiscal year.

This is in addition to the other $80 Million in state funds that the Sherriff's office blew on lavish vacations.

Yvonne Wingett of the Arizona Republic has more in her article Joe Arpaio's office misused up to $80 million, Maricopa County says:

The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday was placed under budget restrictions by the Board of Supervisors after a new report detailed misspending that county budget officials said could be between $60 million and $80 million over five years.

Maricopa County is passing their information off to the federal government, who incidentally is already investigating Sherriff Arpaio for civil rights violations:

Supervisors will forward the county's research to the U.S. Attorney's Office for review. That office is conducting a separate abuse-of-power grand-jury probe of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his employees and others. The U.S. Attorney's Office declined comment.

While some local politician's tried to defend Sherriff Arpaio, it has been difficult because while it is certain that money was misused, it is not clear exactly how much was misappropriated:

Sheriff's interim Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan blamed many of the problems on an antiquated personnel system, but acknowledged the Sheriff's Office was not sure how much money from a restricted jail-tax fund was improperly used to pay for deputies to work in other areas of the agency. Misspending from that fund was one of the key complaints against the agency, because money from the fund may be used only for specific purposes. 

Many local political officers are also feeling the heat, as they had not provided the proper oversight for the dissemination of state funds:

County Manager David Smith acknowledged top county administrators were partly to blame because of a lack of strict oversight. Deputy County Manager Sandi Wilson, who oversees the county's $2.2 billion budget, said administrators for years have run the county on a "trust policy."

"We trust departments to do the right thing, to follow countywide policies, and then we verify that, to the extent we can, through audits," she said. "But even if we had audits, some of this wouldn't have been caught."

At a time when Arizona currently faces a projected budget deficit of $1 billion dollars, a state budget office shows that Arpaio's Office Charged Luxury Trips To County, Misused Up To $80 Million. TPMMuckraker citing  a report issued by The Maricopa County Office of Management and Budget notes:

A further review found that misspending dated back to at least 2006 at a rate of $16 million per year and that retroactively, Apraio's office may have misspent up to $80 million.

But that's not all excerpts of the reports, obtained by TPMMuckraker, show:

Officials from Arpaio's office made trips to:  Orlando, D.C., Honduras, Tempe, Belize, Alaska and Puerto Rico on the county's dime

Racked up other questionable expenses, like: $741 at Sardella's Pizza and Wings.

The county was also charged: $350 for a hotel room upgrade for one official's spouse.

One employee: went on multiple extradition trips without submitting receipts for the $62,750 he or she spent -- including $1,341 on Disney World Yacht Club Resort food and entertainment.

Others expenses charged to the county according to the report include: $1,684 for a portable generator for parade lights on an army tank; $635 at Buca di Beppo when members of the Honduran National Police were in town; and $500 on a carriage ride.

It would seem that Sherriff Joe was using funds designated for prison's to pay for his staffs lavish expenses and vacations:

Jail operations are funded by an exclusive tax levy -- passed in a voter referendum in 1998 -- and are supposed to be distinct from the sheriff's office's funds. County officials charge that Arpaio's office allegedly used the jail operations funds for sheriff's office expenses -- such as salaries for deputies who worked on public-corruption investigations into county supervisors and judges.

The money in the fund was meant to be used to build a brand new prison, despite the fact that these funds have been misused, the prison still has to be built, which would put AZ taxpayers on the hook for around 64 million:

General funds from the county may have to be used to pay as much as $64 million back to the jail operations budget.

With the Senate set to adjourn in a couple weeks and The DREAM Act currently in legislative limbo, attention has turned to Senator Robert Menendez who has indicated that he will drop his own immigration legislation before the Senate adjourns for the Mid-Term elections.

Earlier this month Senator Menendez and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus  met with President Barrack Obama to discuss passing the DREAM Act and the possibility of immigration legislation in the lame duck. From USA Today, Oval Office blog, Obama still committed to 'comprehensive immigration reform':

The White House said that, in the meeting with Obama, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., "discussed the comprehensive immigration reform bill that he plans to introduce in the coming weeks. The president told Senator Menendez that he looks forward to reviewing the bill, noting that he strongly supported the proposal that Senate Democrats outlined earlier this year."

After Senator Menendez's meeting at the White House he announced he was going to be moving forward on his own immigration bill in the Senate. Sam Youngman, of the Hill has more HERE:

Sen. Robert Menendez said Thursday he will introduce comprehensive immigration reform legislation in the Senate before the year's end.

He made the announcement at the White House after a meeting with President Obama.

Menendez also conceded the legislation will only serve as a vehicle that can be reintroduced in the next Congress, but added that Obama told him that he supports the senator's plan to move forward with a bill.

Politico's Scott Wong notes HERE that the legislation is likely to be heavy on border security:

His announcement Wednesday, before about 200 pro-immigration activists at a church near Capitol Hill, came a day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) signaled he would try to pass a separate bill next week providing citizenship to young, undocumented immigrants if they attend college for two years or join the military.

Sources familiar with the Menendez bill said it would include border security provisions, employment verification, a temporary-worker program and a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants now living in the U.S

Senator Menendez said the following at a rally in front of 200 immigration activists:

“A journey of a 1,000 miles begin with a single step,” said Menendez, the Senate’s lone Hispanic member. “There can be no chance if there is no legislation. The reality is that legislation gives the process, the vehicle by which to garner support and to move forward.”

After the Defense Authorization Bill failed to gain enough votes to proceed forward, Senator Richard Durbin  announced that he will bring the DREAM Act back to the Senate floor today.

Elise Foley of the Washington Independent writes in her article Durbin to Re-Introduce DREAM Act on Senate Floor Today:

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) announced today he plans to bring the DREAM Act to the floor again today so it will be “poised and ready to be called” as a standalone bill or an amendment. That’s not to say it will happen soon, though. Durbin said it might not be possible to pass the act for some undocumented students and military service members to gain legal status until a lame duck session or even the next session of Congress.

Senator Durbin is a passionate supporter of the DREAM Act:

“We’re not giving up,” he told DREAM Act supporters at an event organized by Campus Progress. “This is not the end of the fight, it’s just the beginning.”

Durbin has been a longtime champion of the DREAM Act, and said yesterday’s Republican filibuster of the defense authorization bill (the DREAM Act was a planned amendment) was “a sad moment.” It showed the DREAM Act does not have enough votes to pass, he said, but this could change if voters and student activists continue to pressure senators.

Asked about the possibility of passing the DREAM Act in the lame duck congressional session after the elections:

Asked whether senators could pass the DREAM Act in a lame duck system, Durbin said he was trying to be optimistic. “Some members of the Senate who are not going to return may vote in our favor,” he said. “I hope that’s the case.”

It is important to note that reintroducing the DREAM Act in the Senate is largely a procedural move, and no immediate action appears to be imminent.

Yesterday Republican Senators unanimously voted against moving forward to debate the Defense Authorization bill, which has put an up or down vote on the DREAM Act in limbo for the foreseeable future.

Scanning some of the chatter on the internet, there seems to be some confusion about why Senate Majority Leader voted no at the last minute on the motion to proceed to Defense Authorization. David Herszenhorn of the New York Times has why in his article Defense Bill, With Provision on Gay Ban, Stalls in Senate:

Mr. Reid switched his vote to "no" at the last minute, a procedural maneuver that allowed him to call for a revote.

To be clear, because of Senate procedure, in order for Senate Majority Leader Reid to be able to call the bill up again in the future he had to vote no at the end of yesterday's vote.

The Senate Majority Leader has long been a supporter of the DREAM Act and vowed yesterday to bring the bill back up for a vote, from CSPAN 2:

I also want everyone within the sound of my voice to know we're going to vote on the DREAM Act its only a question of when.

Now, Senate Republicans have said that Democrats have been playing politics with the Defense Authorization bill. Yet, Senate Minority Leader McConnell put out a press release after the vote indicating that he could not support the bill because of the Dont Ask Dont Tell amendment, which was attached to the bill. From Senate Minority Leader McConnell's release:

Democrats have decided to put their own political interests ahead of the collective judgment of our military service chiefs, who are still in the midst of a study about whether “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” can be repealed without hurting combat readiness.

Fair enough, the Senate Minority Leader wants to give the military time to conduct their study... If DADT was the Senate GOP's problem with the Defense Authorization Bill then why did the Senate Minority Leader attempt to file a consent agreement that would bar any IMMIGRATION Amendments from the defense legislation. From CSPAN 2 Senate Minority Leader McConnell's floor statement is below

As I was saying I have indicated to my friend the Majority Leader that I was going to propound a consent agreement, and I will do that at this time, I ask consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of the Defense Authorization bill provided further that amendments be offered in an alternating fashion, between this aisle and that, that the first twenty amendments offered be Defense related amendments within the jurisdiction of the Armed Services Committee, with no amendment related to immigration in order during the first twenty amendments.

The Minority Leaders statements above show that the Senate GOP would not have let either bill go ahead, either in combination or separate. It would seem that the Senate GOP did not want to pass either The DREAM Act or Dont Ask Dont Tell. Highlighting the GOP's duplicity with their no vote on DADT, DREAM Act and Defense Authorization, Senator Richard Durbin said it best, also from CSPAN2:

I would say to my friends and colleagues on both sides of the aisle, where is the justice in this decision, at least have the courage to let us bring this matter to the floor and stand up and vote NO!

But to hide behind this procedural ruse, this unanimous consent request is totally unfair it is inconsistent with the spirit and history of this chamber where we deliberate and debate and vote, but they ran and they hid behind this procedural decision.

David Herszenhorn of the New York Times has the full story on the failure to invoke cloture on the Defense Authorization Bill in the senate. The Defense bill would have been a vehicle for an up or down vote on the DREAM Act, in his story Defense Bill, With Provision on Gay Ban, Stalls in Senate: 

Senate Republicans voted unanimously to block debate of the bill — the huge, annual authorization of military programs — after the majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said he would attach a number of the Democrats’ election-year priorities to it while also moving to limit the amendments offered by Republicans.

The final vote was 56 - 43:

The vote was 56 to 43, with Democrats falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and take up the bill. The Arkansas Democrats, Senators Blanche L. Lincoln and Mark Pryor, sided with all 41 Republicans in opposing debate.

While Democrats criticized Republicans for killing the chance to have an up or down vote on the DREAM Act it is unclear how an actual vote on the immigration legislation would have turned out:

While Democrats immediately sought to blame Republicans for obstructing both the immigration measure, which is known as the Dream Act, and the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” it is unclear how the measures would have fared were the military bill brought up under less intense political circumstances.

...From a policy perspective, the immigration measure was more controversial and Democrats seemed likely to face opposition to it not only by Republicans but from within their own ranks. Adding the measure to the bill would similarly require 60 votes, and aides in both parties said the effort would likely have failed.