NDN Blog

File the video below as both funny and sad...

Funny because Jon Stewart is always hilarious and sad because a United States Congressman in total seriousness talks at length about the threat of "Terror Babies."

The video is below:

While Arizona, and other states continue to try to pass state laws that allow local police officers to enforce federal law, the government already has provided a way for employers to verify the citizenship of their employees.

Employee verification is important because it is an already existing way for states to enforce immigration laws without infringing on federal sovereignty.

Jahna Berry of the Arizona Republic has the full story on E-Verify the Department of Homeland Security's employer verification system HERE.

The story notes that businesses in Arizona are already required to utilize E-Verify:

Companies have opportunities to make sure they aren't hiring illegal immigrants.

Prospective hires must show proper identification, and they must submit U.S. government-required paperwork. Under Arizona law, new hires must be vetted by E-Verify, a federal system designed to catch illegal-immigrant workers.

But there are many ways for unauthorized workers to slip through the cracks.

E-Verify is designed to simplify the process of identifying immigrant workers who are in the country illegally:

The Legal Arizona Workers Act, which took effect Jan. 1, 2008, aimed to help close some of those loopholes.

The state law requires that all Arizona employers use the federal government's E-Verify system to check new hires.

It takes seconds to check a new hire's immigration status on E-Verify, a secure electronic database that combines information from several federal agencies. If E-Verify cannot immediately verify that the new hire is eligible to work in the United States, the worker can choose to dispute that finding and has eight business days to appeal with federal officials.

The Arizona law also includes tough penalties for people who knowingly hire illegal workers, including the loss of their business license.

However local businesses for the most part do not utilize E-Verify:

An Arizona Republic analysis of E-Verify figures found that about one-third of the state's estimated 100,000 employers have signed up for the E-Verify program. And the most recent federal hiring data suggests that many new Arizona hires aren't being checked by E-Verify.

Arizona employers made 732,455 E-Verify checks from Oct. 1, 2008, to Sept. 30, 2009. During that same period, Arizona companies made 1.3 million hires, according to U.S. Census figures.

The article notes that going after employers, would have a substantial effect on stopping immigrants from coming to Arizona, because the main draw for immigrants is the lure of higher paying jobs.

Perhaps, Arizona state officials should make existing federal and state laws, which would actually stop immigrants from coming into the country, work before making local officers enforce federal laws.

A recent Fox News Opinion Dynamics Poll finds that 68% of voters, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents say efforts to secure the border should be combined with reform of federal immigration laws. The full poll can be seen HERE.

There is also across the board support to just pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform as a stand alone piece of legislation.

Also worth noting, the poll respondents overwhelmingly reject the idea that the border can ever truly be "secured." 61% of those polled said that it is impossible to seal the border.

The Arizona Republic has a great Arizona candidate statement fact checking feature up on their website here.

The feature takes a statement made by an individual candidate and examines the accuracy of their comment.

Many of the statements made by these candidates have seeped into the national narrative on immigration.

As it turns out some candidates have been less than 100 % truthful in the accuracy of their statements.

The issue: Terror arrest on Mexican border

What we're looking at: In an interview, Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said two things that, when combined, suggest a threat of terrorists infiltrating the United States across the Mexican border. First, he said that a Hezbollah leader was arrested in Tijuana. Second, he said the leader was trying to come across America's border with malevolent intentions.

The comment: A transcript of a July 11 CNN interview shows that Franks said: "Just recently, a Hezbollah leader, Jameel Nasr, was arrested in Tijuana, south of San Diego, and I assure you his intentions were not good, trying to come over our border. And it's astonishing to me that, when we live in a 9/11 world, that border security is focused entirely on just the immigration issue when it really - the national security component is much greater here."

Analysis: Ben Carnes, press secretary to Franks, said the congressman obtained his information from an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, and from the website of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, an organization that studies Islamic threats. Carnes noted that those sites took their information from an article which appeared in early July in the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Seyassah, published in Arabic.

A computer translation of the Al-Seyassah report begins as follows (with errors intact): "Mexican authorities foiled a plot to Foreign Operations Unit in the 'Party of God' is aimed at establishing an infrastructure for logistics of Mexican citizens with the assets of the Lebanese Shiite, by forming a base in South America and the United States to carry out operations against Israeli and Western targets." The article identified the suspect as "Ali Jamil Nasser." It lacked attribution except for crediting "knowledgeable sources."

On July 7, haaretz.com and investigativeproject.org ran articles attributed to Al-Seyassah. Franks' remark followed, as did numerous conservative blogs and a posting by Fox News.

The Mexican attorney general's office, Tijuana police and the Lebanese Embassy all say they have no record of such an arrest.

"That information has been going around for a few days now, and it's not true," said Octavio Campos, a spokesman for the attorney general.

The issue: Level of border violence

What we're looking at: Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, said the failure to secure the border between Arizona and Mexico "has led to violence - the worst I have ever seen." We look at whether crime statistics show that border violence has been increasing.

The comment: The failure to secure the border between Arizona and Mexico "has led to violence - the worst I have ever seen."

Analysis: FBI Uniform Crime Report data from Arizona border counties and towns show that violent crime and homicides have remained flat or in several cases decreased slightly from 2004 to 2008, the most recent available numbers. For example, there were 77 violent crimes reported in Nogales in 2004 compared with 69 in 2008. There were 716 violent crimes reported in Cochise County in 2004 compared with 446 in 2008.

The issue: Drug traffickers in Arizona mountains

What we're looking at: Arizona House candidate Kelly Townsend says that drug cartels maintain control of mountains in Arizona near the border with Mexico. She says Arizona law-enforcement agencies no longer patrol the mountains because of the dangers posed by the cartels.

The comment: In the first part of a video posted on her website, Townsend stands in front of a mountain range and states: "You look at these mountains. Those mountains out here are all controlled by the cartel. Our police officers don't go up in there for fear they will be outnumbered and killed."

Analysis:  Townsend said in a phone interview that she could not identify the mountains shown in her campaign video. "I can't remember exactly where we went down on the border. ... We had gone to Fort Huachuca. We had gone to Naco. We had gone to Douglas," she said.

Carol Capas, a spokeswoman for the Cochise County Sheriff's Office, said the areas named by Townsend along the border fall under her office's jurisdiction and the office has not halted any patrols in the county.

Edward Schumacher-Matos of the Washington Post has an editorial up today which puts the concept of "border security," in a more historical context. The full piece can be read HERE.

Matos opens his piece with the following harrowing account of his experience on the border:

We were eight Mexican peasants, one smuggler and me -- desperately stretched out in dirt furrows in the night. The Border Patrol helicopter with its huge searchlight kept coming closer. It stopped, hovered and turned the other way.

"Madre," whispered Pablo, who at 17 was the youngest among us.

We took off running, then crawling past a parked Border Patrol jeep that was so close you could hear the patrol officers as they booked a group they had caught. Finally, two hours after squirming under a fence in Tijuana, we were running down empty streets in San Ysidro, Calif., to a safe house and America.

The important contextual information about the passage above is that it occured in 1977.

I retell the story from my days as a reporter to make three points as Congress, moving with surprising speed, is sending the president $600 million in emergency border enforcement funding.

One is that the border will never be "sealed," as some want. Two is that "enforcement first," which Republican legislators are demanding, has already happened. Three is that illegal immigration won't stop until there is a temporary worker program and those already here have been legalized.

The funding provides for 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents and more drones, sensors, legal infrastructure and the like.

The legislation will bring the number of agents on the Mexican border to more than 18,200. Along the 2,000-mile border, that is nine per mile.

Matos then puts the enhanced border security legislation in a more historical context:

History is littered with the folly of fortress strategies, of building walls, from the Chinese to the French. For that reason, the Mexican border was never intended by this or past administrations to be the only line of enforcement.

And then notes that despite the "folly of fortress strategies" over the past several decades the border has allready become much more militirized.

Over the past 15 years, the government has gained operational control over the Texas and California borders. That success has pushed most of the illegal immigration into the Arizona deserts. The new funding is largely to help plug that last gap.

Meanwhile, the old "catch and release" programs ended in 2005. Instead of being given administrative violations, most crossers are now charged criminally and jailed for an average of 60 days if caught a second time. This carries cultural shame for otherwise law-abiding Mexicans. More than 135,000 crossers have been prosecuted in southern and western Texas alone, which is a spreading deterrent.

The border has been expanded, too. The Border Patrol can search without a warrant up to 25 miles away, and in some cases up to 100.

In the nation's interior -- the Arizona hoopla aside -- state and local police are extensively collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on any immigrant who has been arrested for anything. Many local jails check every detainee against immigration databases, and all U.S. jails are expected to do so by 2013.

He finishes by noting that what the country needs is not more enforcement, but a Temporary Worker system:

Demanding more "enforcement first" is misleading, if not fraudulent. What is most needed now to make enforcement totally work is a temporary worker program that provides a legal alternative for businesses and immigrants -- and the legalization of those immigrants who came wrongly in the meantime. Then we will have true rule of law.

As the debate over whether to change the 14th Amendment to deny children of immigrants birth right citezenship continues to make headlines, Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle has taken to calling the children of undocumented immigrants "terror babies."

Texas State Rep. Riddle appeared on Anderson 360 to defend her statement.

In the segment, she is unable to verify the accuracy of her statements with hard facts, nor is she able to show that the children of immigrants are a part of a mass conspiracy to "anchor" their parents to American citizens.

She also makes several comments on the out of control violence on the border and the fact that the Obama Administration has done nothing to secure the border.

Please see here, here and here for data that refutes these statements.

She does succeed in making broad generalizations with no discernable reference points other than her opinion.

The video is below:

A new poll released by The Border Network for Human Rights shows that residents along the border feel safe.

The Independent Reaul Group polled in four border states:  

California: El Centro, San Diego

Texas: Brownsville, El Paso, Laredo, McAllen

Arizona: Douglas, Nogales, Yuma

New Mexico: Las Cruces

The results are overwhelming: people who live on the U.S. side of the U.S.-Mexico border feel safe in their communities. Border-wide results are as follows:

• 67% of respondents feel Safe Living in a Border Community
  

• 69% of respondents feel Their Border Neighborhood is as Safe as most U.S. Neighborhoods

• 51% of respondents feel Safe Allowing Child to Play in Neighborhood Park 

• 87.5% of respondents feel Safe Walking and Driving in Their Neighborhood

The full poll including cross tabs can be seen HERE, and the Executive Summary can be read HERE.

With the Senate coming back into session today to pass President Obama's broad border security package, let's take a look at what is in the bill.

President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Border Security legislation contains:

Additional Funding for Border Personnel ($254 million)

$176 million for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents to form a “strike force” to be deployed at areas most needed
$39 million for Customs and Border Protection (to keep current levels of officers
$29 million for 250 new Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry
$10 million for investigators to stop corruption in border patrol and customs and border protection

Additional Funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ($80 million)

$30 million for border interdiction

$50 million for 250 new ICE personnel, including special agents, intelligence analysts, and support personnel
 
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center ($8 million)
 
Federal Judiciary resources for increased caseload ($10 million)
 
Additional Funding For the Department of Justice ($196 million)
 
U.S. Attorneys and other legal expenses along border ($13 million)
U.S Marshals along border ($8 million)
Interagency Crime and Drug Law enforcement along border ($21 million)
Border processing of apprehended drug dealers and human traffickers ($7 million)
FBI along border ($24 million)
DEA along border ($34 million)
ATF along border ($37 million)
Federal Prison System for Immigrant Criminals ($20 million)
Administrative Review and Appeals expediting along border ($2.1 million)
 
Border Funding is Fully Offset By Fees on Companies That Offshore High-Paying American Jobs
 
The bill raises fees on H-1B visas (for temporary skilled workers) for companies who have more than 50 percent of their employees on H-1B visas (this does not affect U.S. tech companies).
 
The bill also raises fees on L visas (given to multi-national transferees) for foreign companies.  The L visa is often used by foreign companies to circumvent the requirements of the H-1B visa.

The Washington Post has an editorial up about Virginia Attorney General Bob Cuccinelli's opinion that police officers in Virginia can ask the immigration status of those that are pulled over for routine traffic violations. The full article can be read HERE.

The impetus for Attorney General Cuccinelli's proclamation is the recent accidental slaying of a nun at the hands of an immigrant.

In a letter, Mr. Cuccinelli essentially gave law enforcement officers the green light to check the immigration status of anyone they stop. Although the letter made headlines after news reports of the Aug. 1 death of a Virginia nun at the hands of an undocumented immigrant who was accused of driving drunk, it is dated July 30 -- two days before the tragic accident. Mr. Cuccinelli issued his pronouncement in response to a lawmaker's query about the status of Virginia law.

The editorial notes that Attorney General Cuccinelli's ruling is nothing more then a re-statement of laws that are already on the books in VA, and are non-binding:

The opinion largely mirrors a 2007 letter issued by Robert F. McDonnell, then attorney general and now governor, which concluded that officers have the authority to ask about immigration status during routine stops. These opinions are nonbinding and do not mandate specific action on the part of the law enforcement officers, giving local jurisdiction the discretion to decide what procedures to adopt. This is a far cry from the recently blocked portion of an Arizona law that required officers to check immigration status if they had "reasonable suspicion" that a person they stopped was in the country illegally. Yet Mr. Cuccinelli's letter and his news conference serve as powerful reminders of the animus and ignorance that fuels so much of the immigration debate.

Virginia already has a number of laws on the books that require officers to check the immigration status of those who are arrested. For example, a 2008 law mandates that the immigration status of anyone arrested and jailed in the state must be checked. This approach dovetails with the federal Secure Communities program, which was begun under the Bush administration and advanced by President Obama. The program makes it easier and more financially feasible for local and state jurisdictions to verify whether someone is in the country legally.

The editorial finishes by pointing out that Virginias Attorney General would better serve the people of his state by actually legislating, then chasing publicity on the back of immigrants:

As for Mr. Cuccinelli, he would do better to devote himself to Virginia's genuine legal problems, rather than grandstanding about immigration matters that require no clarification.

Could'nt have said it better myself...

Syndicated Columnist Ruben Navarrette Jr. has a column up at CNN.com on Sb1070 HERE.

Navarrette Jr. does an excellent job of separating drug violence on the border and illegal immigration.

Governor Jan Brewer and those that support SB1070 have joined these two issues as a reason to pass tough state laws against illegal immigration.

Navarrette Jr. is skeptical of the veracity of this argument:

The new bogeyman of the immigration debate is the Mexican drug cartels. In fact, when you engage a supporter of SB 1070, it's hard to get them to talk about anything else. The cartels are their strong card; why not play it?

One of the arguments floating about -- advanced by Brewer -- is that most illegal immigrants act as drug mules for the cartels.

Too bad Brewer can't seem to find anyone to back that up. Arizona Sen. John McCain said he doesn't believe that most illegal immigrants are used as drug mules. Neither does T.J. Bonner, head of the National Border Patrol Council, the labor union representing nearly 20,000 border patrol agents. Bonner said Brewer's claims are "clearly not the case" and "don't comport with reality."

What is really at work here is Politicians taking advantage of public perception to score cheap political points in an election season. By creating a boogey man out of immigrants and drug dealers, politicians in Arizona are able to rally their base around an issue, that has been grossly over exaggerated.

Jay Heiler, a political strategist and counsel to Gov. Brewer, admits as much in an conversation with Navarrette Jr.:

Heiler is too smart to repeat wild claims. Instead, he stayed focused on public perception. He submits that most of the support for the measure --- polls show that about 55 percent of Arizonans back the law, down from 70 percent when Brewer signed it in April -- is coming from people who are sincerely afraid that Mexico is spinning out of control because of the drug war and that the chaos is spilling into Arizona in the form of kidnappings and other lawlessness.

Yet this perception is wildly out of touch with reality, there have been kidnappings, but they are not of American citizens, rather they are a part of the human smuggling of immigrants into the country:

According to law enforcement authorities, in 2008, nearly 400 kidnappings happened in Phoenix. But a prosecutor told me that most people don't understand that many of these "kidnappings" aren't for ransom. Rather, they're an extension of the human smuggling industry, in which rival coyotes raid each other's "drop houses" and steal the cargo. That's a serious crime, and yet it's probably not what most people think about when they hear the word "kidnapping."

In fact for American citizen's in Arizona, CRIME IS DOWN:

In the first quarter of 2010, violent crime was down 17 percent in the city, while homicides were down 38 percent and robberies 27 percent, compared with the same time period in 2009.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation also confirms it. The number of violent crimes has fallen every year in Phoenix since 2006, the FBI reports. It's part of an overall trend in which, according to the bureau, crime rates are actually going down in cities that have large immigrant populations

Lets hope in the future, politicians in Arizona pay more attention to the facts, and not the whims of their re-election campaigns.