Mexico authorities stage midnight migrant raid

AP:  The lumbering freight train known as "The Beast," a key part of the route for migrants heading north to the United States, rolled to an abrupt, unscheduled stop in the black of midnight.

Mexican federal police and immigration agents had waited silently in the brush alongside for at least hour, visible only by the glint of their powerful flashlights. Read more. 

Anarchy along Mexico's southern border crossings

LA Times 
By Richard Fausset
August 3, 2013

CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico — The Mexican government is pledging to bring order to its wild southern border. The stakes couldn't be higher, and the job couldn't be more difficult.

The proof lies in this dusty border town of 14,000 people. Here, unmonitored goods and travelers float across the wide Suchiate River — the boundary between Guatemala and the Mexican state of Chiapas — on a flotilla of inner-tube rafts. They cross all day long, in plain sight of Mexican authorities stationed a few yards upriver at an official border crossing.

Some of the Central Americans are visiting just for the day. Others are hoping to find work on Mexican coffee plantations or banana farms. But many will continue north toward the United States.  Read more. 

Who’s crossing the Mexico border? A new survey tries to find out.

Washington Post
By Brad Plumer
June 2, 2013

Last year, the Border Patrol caught about 356,000 immigrants trying to cross illegally at the U.S.-Mexico border. That’s thought to be about half of all attempts.

It also isn’t much of a deterrent. About 43 percent of those detained say they’ll try to cross again in the near future — often because they’re trying to get back to a job or family members waiting for them in the United States.

That’s one upshot of a big new survey (pdf) from the National Center for Border Security and Immigration at the University of Arizona. The researchers interviewed more than 1,000 detainees at the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector in 2012.  Read more. 

Immigration Crackdown: Is This Alabama?

“Is This Alabama?” is a project of the Center for American Progress, America’s Voice Education Fund, and Define American. The videos were written and directed by Chris Weitz. Chris Weitz is the award-winning director of “A Better Life,” an authentic and compelling tale of the lives of today’s immigrants.

Is This Alabama?: "In June 2011 Alabama enacted H.B. 56—the most extreme state-level anti-immigrant bill passed to date—which went into effect in September. Now Hollywood director Chris Weitz has turned the camera on Alabama and is asking “Is This Alabama?” You be the judge. Watch and share the videos below."

Immigration Crackdown Joins Failed Wars on Drugs and Crime

From our CIP colleague, Tom Barry, director of the TransBorder Project

Border Lines: "The following is an excerpt from an International Policy Report of the Center for International Policy, which is titled Immigrant Crackdown Joins Failed Crime and Drug Wars. The report, published in April 2009 and written by Tom Barry, is once again available online -- at a time when the Obama administration faces increasing questions about its immigration and drug prohibition policies, as well its practice of criminalizing immigrants, both legal and illegal ones." read more

Immigration Crackdown: Hundreds rally against Alabama immigration law

AP/Boston.com: "Hundreds packed the Alabama Statehouse courtyard on Tuesday to rally against the state's tough immigration law, with organizers saying they chose to send a message on Valentine's Day that lawmakers need to love and respect immigrants." read more

Immigration Crackdown: U.S. Policy Gives Mother of Three Criminal Treatment

Witness for Peace : "Mariela had been living and working in the United States for seven years. A mother of three, she and her partner worked to support her family in Nicaragua and her three-year-old son, a U.S. citizen with her in the U.S. Mariela was deported because she lived in a county that participates in the controversial “Secure Communities” program." read more

Border Sanity: Arizona shouldn't fund questionable border militia

A sane Arizona response to some of its politicians´ insanity. 

azstarnet.com: "The border-militia bill snaking its way through the Legislature sure sends a message: When state lawmakers try to get serious about the U.S.-Mexico border, which is a federal issue, they end up looking pretty silly. State lawmakers are looking to fund the volunteer militia, which was created last year, with $1.9 million.

... Will any of this make a difference for Arizona's roughly 370-mile border with Mexico? With the federal government having spent billions and billions of dollars on the region, is this small amount of money just what the border needs to finally become safe? Is this the tipping point we have been waiting for?

State Sen. Sylvia Allen, a Republican from Snowflake and one of the bill's sponsors, didn't think so.
"I don't have any illusion that we can solve our border problem," she said. "But this will help."

Yes, it's always helpful to have more armed and slightly trained people on the border. This is just what the border needs." read more

Immigration Crackdown: US Hands Over 14,237 Unaccompanied Minors to Mexico in 2011

Fox News Latino: "U.S. authorities handed over 14,237 unaccompanied children and teenagers of different nationalities found traveling alone on the border to Mexico last year, the National Migration Institute, or INM, said. Of the minors handed over to authorities in Mexico, 11,520, or nearly 81 percent, were Mexican and the other 2,717 were of various unspecified nationalities." read more

Immigration Crackdown: Immigration, deportation -- and no right to return?

A Los Angeles Times editorial

latimes.com: "Three years ago, the Justice Department assured the Supreme Court that although it sometimes deported immigrants while they were challenging unfavorable court decisions, it would bring those people back to the United States if they won on appeal. That was U.S. policy, the department asserted. The justices relied on that statement in deciding that immigrants would not suffer irreparable harm if they were forced to leave the country while still appealing their cases.

Now it turns out, according to U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, that the government's assertion may have been false. In fact, it may be that those who are wrongfully deported stand little chance of returning." read more

Border Madness: Arizona Legislature could fund militia for border

More insanity from Arizona.

KTAR.com: "The Republican-led Arizona Legislature is considering a bill to fund an armed, volunteer state militia to respond to emergencies and patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. Gov. Jan Brewer could deploy the volunteers using $1.9 million included in the bill making its way through the state Senate. The militia itself was created by a law signed by Brewer last year." read more

Immigration Crackdown: US Immigration's 'Culture of Cruelty' Stretches from Arizona to Massachusetts

Right on! Clearly describes the consruction of "illegality" that keeps in place our economic exploitation of Mexicans and other Latin Americans and our resulting benefiting from of their low-cost labor.

Huffington Post: "When U.S. citizens rail about "illegals" or ask "what part of 'illegal' don't you understand?" they are subscribing to a set of beliefs that justify cruel and inhumane treatment. What they themselves fail to understand is that "illegality" is not a scientific fact, but a social construction. If a society creates a legal structure that deems some of its members unworthy or "illegal," then illegality comes to be naturalized as an attribute of those who have been accorded that status.

The concept of illegality, the wall between the US and Mexico, the institutions and structures that reinforce the wall's meaning on the border itself ... are part of the system for justifying and enforcing inequality. So are the ideologies and laws that create walls of exclusions that enforce the status of illegality inside the fifty states." read more

Immigration Crackdown--the Reality: Facing deportation to Mexico for a fourth time, he has NH roots

What has motivated a young Mexican man to cross the border--and be deported--four times.

New Hampshire NEWS06: "Four times, Alejandro Olvera-Corona has swum the Rio Grande, paid off the drug cartels that terrorize Mexican border towns, and crossed the Texas desert to make his way north. Just 29 years old, he's now in a Dover jail awaiting deportation to his native Mexico — for the fourth time." read more

Immigration Crackdown - Alabama: Changes coming to immigration law, lawmaker says

Changes coming to immigration law, lawmaker says | al.com: "Alabama Republicans should be ready to reveal their promised "tweaks" to the state's immigration law in the next week or two, State Rep. Jack Williams said today. Williams spoke at a conference sponsored by the Birmingham Area Consortium on Higher Education that looked at several aspects of the tough new law, from its political ramifications to how it's affecting municipalities, schools and health care.

... State Sen. Billy Beasley, D-Clayton, who opposed it from the start and has pre-filed an effort to have it repealed, said that the law is hurting the state's education, economy and reputation. "Sometimes if you realize you've made a mistake in your life, you have to have the courage to say I'm sorry and to rectify it," Beasley said .... "So I challenge the members of the Alabama Legislature to dig down deep in your conscience and do what's right for the state of Alabama"" read more

Immigration Crackdown: Justice Department reviews Georgia immigration law

policeone.com: "The Justice Department is reviewing Georgia's tough new immigration law and is discussing it with businessmen and law enforcement officials here, but it has not decided to sue to block the statute like it has in four other states, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Tony West said Tuesday.

West pointed out that the Obama administration is suing to block a similar law in Alabama and that both its law and Georgia's statute are scheduled to come under review by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta at the end of this month." read more

Immigration Politics: 'Anonymous' hacks state of Alabama

WTOL.com: Toledo, Ohio: "The so-called "hacktivist" group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attack on government and law enforcement computers in Alabama on Friday in response to what it called the state's "racist" immigration law. ... It claimed to have stolen sensitive information belonging to more than 46,000 Alabama residents.

The information – obtained "because of your police being lazy when it comes to data security" – allegedly included social security numbers, license plate numbers, dates of birth and addresses. "This was not our desire, or our goal," the person wrote. "Your police administrators have made a terrible mistake and put the lives of tens of thousands of people in jeopardy."" read more

Immigration Crackdown: Gingrich "joke" about tracking immigrants using mail services gets played out in reality

CNN.com: "In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, two Guatemalans allege that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were guilty of unreasonable search and seizure, and racial profiling when they arrested Guatemalan nationals picking up a package at a FedEx facility in Florida. The package contained a passport mailed to one of them by the Guatemalan government in the type of sting Gingrich was jokingly suggesting.

... John De Leon, an attorney representing the two Guatemalans, said the lawsuit "challenges the interaction of private industry and the government in their attack on Latino immigrants in this country. ... There's nothing amusing about the idea of government using corporate efficiency in order to violate people's rights." De Leon,  has filed a suit against ICE and FedEx in U.S. District Court in Florida. "This is a rank operation against a Latino group of people. These passports were lawful passports. There was nothing illegal about them." He accused ICE of conducting warrantless searches of the packages." read more

Immigration Crackdown-Virginia: Illegal immigration bills likely to advance

Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Without the Democrat-controlled Senate that has stopped it in years past, legislation aimed at cracking down on illegal immigrants in Virginia has begun its path through the General Assembly.

Two bills that would require law enforcement officers to make citizenship inquiries of everyone arrested were reported out of subcommittee and are expected to clear the House Courts of Justice Committee today on their way to the full House. The more contentious of the two, House Bill 1060, would require police officers throughout the state to make citizenship inquiries of everyone arrested for any offense, regardless of whether they are taken to jail." read more

Immigration Crackdown: Discrediting “Self Deportation” as Immigration Policy

Immigration Policy Center: "Alabama provides a sterling example of the devastating impact of a strategic and systematic plan being promoted by anti-immigrant groups and lawmakers who have jumped on the bandwagon. The plan is called “attrition through enforcement” (sometimes called “self deportation”) and the groups behind it have created a web of federal and state legislative proposals that seek to reduce illegal immigration by making it difficult, if not impossible, for unauthorized immigrants to live in American society. (These proposals) are part of a larger systematic plan that undermines basic human rights, devastates local economies, and places unnecessary burdens on U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants." read more

Immigration Crackdown: Federal appeals court halts deportation of 7 immigrants, puts new immigration directive to test

The Washington Post: "A federal appeals court has put the Obama administration’s new immigration directive to the test by halting the deportation of seven immigrants alleged to be in the country illegally.

In a 2-1 ruling on Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals demanded the Obama administration explain whether the immigrants can avoid deportation because of two memos released last year by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton urging prosecutors to use “discretion” when deciding whether to pursue immigration cases.

... The court ordered the Obama administration to make a prosecution decision on seven people in five cases by March 19. The immigrants involved all appeared to have clean criminal records and appeared to meet the criteria of the memos, the appeals court judges concluded." read more