Unfortunately, we see far too many instances of illegal aliens repeatedly committing crimes such as drunk driving and child molestation, before they are taken of the streets.

Since 2006, more than 1,000 law-enforcement officers have been trained and certified by the federal program. Currently, 77 local police departments participate in 287(g). Both Virginia and North Carolina lead the country in the number of local departments participating.

The program allows police to investigate a suspect’s immigration status after an arrest had been made for any offense. Under the new guidelines, police will only be allowed to do so in cases where a serious crime has been committed.

John Morton, Assistant Secretary of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said: “In a world of limited resources, our view is that we need to focus first and foremost on people committing crimes in our community who should not be here.”

Despite the newly watered-down regulations, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told reporters: “If I’m told not to enforce immigration law except if the alien is a violent criminal, my answer to that is we are still going to do the same thing, 287g or not. We have been very successful.”

Under Sheriff Arpaio, his department has either identified in jail or arrested more than 30,000 illegal aliens in and around Phoenix, AZ .

In fact, it is that success which many believe has prompted Attorney General Eric Holder to open an investigation of Sheriff Arpaio, focusing mainly on so-called ‘racial-profiling.’ Of course, Obama was elected in great measure due to strong support among Latinos, and Arpaio’s removal of over 30,000 mostly Mexican illegal aliens has angered the Latino community.

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What a week!

And, yes, the results were just as wonderful and just as scary as you might hope and fear.

Most of you are shocked by the Senate’s passage of 4 strong immigration enforcement amendments that would open up hundreds of thousands of jobs to unemployed Americans over the next year alone. Maybe even millions of jobs!

The Sessions E-Verify amendment.  The DeMint fence amendment.  The Vitter no-match amendment. The Grassley E-Verify amendment.

Rightfully, many of you are skeptical.  You are asking us: Did the Senate Democratic Leadership — that has opposed everything that favors unemployed Americans over illegal aliens — suddenly “allow” us to win as a kind of trap? What’s the trick?

First,  you really do need to take a minute to celebrate (just a little). Your pressure has caused the Democratic leadership to retreat a bit. The fact that congressional leaders believe that they have to concede some victories to us shows that your efforts are having some effect.

But, based on our information from inside Congress, we should expect that Senate Majority Leader Reid, House Speaker Pelosi and Pres. Obama have every intention of killing these amendments in a backroom maneuver when the joint Conference Committee negotiates the final bill to be sent to the President. (See below.)

NEXT 2 WEEKS OUR BEST CHANCE FOR IMPROVEMENT THIS YEAR

Friends, we spend most of our time trying to get good legislation just looked at somewhere.

We are in a totally different — and better — position at this moment. What we have now is amazingly good legislation already passed by the U.S. Senate – by easy margins! The good stuff is on the table. It’s on its way to law. It is ours to lose right now.  We haven’t been in a better position than this in a very long time.  Instead of fighting for our lives to stop something really bad, we have something very good to protect and preserve.

Our Action Buffet team already has several important faxes for you to send from your corkboard to protect the 4 Amendments.  But we will come back to you Monday with another task, and perhaps a number of others during the week.  One of our Capitol Hill Team told me late last night that there is no reason to save energy for any other time — NOW is the time to mobilize everything we have.

As you fight, remember that you aren’t fighting just for yourself or your family but for 15 million Americans and their families who currently are desperately searching for a job but can’t find one.

If you win in keeping these enforcement amendments in the DHS bill, hundreds of thousands of jobless families will once again have income, benefits and the hope of not having their houses foreclosed.  Is that enough incentive?

We are highly unlikely to get a better chance to make a huge humanitarian difference the rest of the year.

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For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary Contact: 202-282-8010 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced today that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has standardized the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) used to enter into “287(g)” partnerships—improving public safety by removing criminal aliens who are a threat to local communities and providing uniform policies for partner state and local immigration enforcement efforts throughout the United States. Additionally, today ICE announced eleven new 287(g) agreements with law enforcement agencies from around the country. “This new agreement supports local efforts to protect public safety by giving law enforcement the tools to identify and remove dangerous criminal aliens,” said Secretary Napolitano. “It also promotes consistency across the board to ensure that all of our state and local law enforcement partners are using the same standards in implementing the 287(g) program.” The new MOA aligns 287(g) local operations with major ICE enforcement priorities—specifically, the identification and removal of criminal aliens. To address concerns that individuals may be arrested for minor offenses as a guise to initiate removal proceedings, the new agreement explains that participating local law enforcement agencies are required to pursue all criminal charges that originally caused the offender to be taken into custody. The new MOA also defines the objectives of the 287(g) program, outlines the immigration enforcement authorities granted by the agreement and provides guidelines for ICE’s supervision of local agency officer operations, information reporting and tracking, complaint procedures and implementation measures. “The 287(g) program is an essential component of DHS’ comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy,” said ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton. “The new agreement strengthens ICE’s oversight of the program and allows us to better utilize the resources and capabilities of our law enforcement partners across the nation.” DHS and ICE will begin working with their current 287(g) partner agencies to re-sign the standardized agreements —ultimately, only those agencies with newly signed agreements will be permitted to continue enforcing immigration law. A “sunset clause” will keep the MOA in effect for three years from the date of signing unless terminated by either party. To date, ICE has trained more than 1,000 officers operating under 66 local 287(g) agreements between DHS and law enforcement agencies nationwide. Since January 2006, these 287(g)-trained officers are credited with identifying more than 120,000 individuals, predominantly in jails, who are suspected of being in the country illegally. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA) of 1996 added Section 287(g) to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the DHS Secretary to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies to perform immigration officer functions. Pursuant to these MOAs, designated officers who receive appropriate training and function under the supervision of sworn ICE officers are permitted to perform immigration law enforcement duties.

The eleven new agreements are with the following jurisdictions: Gwinnett (GA) County Sheriff’s Department.; Monmouth (NJ) County Sheriff’s Office; Rhode Island Department of Corrections; Delaware Department of Corrections – Sussex Correctional Institution; Houston Police Department; City of Mesquite (NV) Police Department; Morristown (NJ) Police Department; City of Mesa (AZ) Police Department; Florence (AZ) Police Department; Guilford County (NC) Sheriff’s Office; Charleston County (SC) Sheriff’s Office.

Published Thursday, July 9, 2009

The county charged more people with aggravated forgery in June than any previous month in 2009, with a number of those charged being immigrant workers at Quality Pork Processors who used fraudulent documents to gain employment.

Fifteen people were charged with the felony offense in June, and as of July 3, two more charges had been filed this month. That brings the total in 2009 to 48 cases. There were only 42 cases in 2008.

Many of the cases seen recently are similar to those of Narciso Fernando-Alejo, 32, and Adelina Waldo-Cerna, 33.

Their 505 Ninth St. NW home was searched on July 2, and authorities found a number of fraudulent documents belonging to each person. Fernando-Alejo admitted to detectives that he had used a fraudulent Kentucky ID and Social Security card to gain employment at QPP.

Both face multiple counts of aggravated forgery and are scheduled for court appearances in the next few weeks.

In response to cases like Fernando-Alejo’s, QPP Human Resource Director Dale Wicks said in an e-mailed statement that the company has “cooperated with Law Enforcement.”

“Quality Pork Processors, Inc. uses the tools available to us, including the government’s E-Verify program, which has been used by QPP for many years to authenticate a person’s information regarding authorization to work in the United States,” according to the statement.

The cases have fallen within a broader discussion of immigration, legal and illegal, that has been prominent in Austin recently.

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Dominguez, who builds residential interiors in Arizona and California, said that as word gets around about the program, job applicants without legal status avoid businesses such as his, Andrew Lauren Co., which use E-Verify.

“The system works,” Dominguez said. His San Diego-based company has been using E-Verify for several years in hiring office workers and laborers.

The voluntary federal program has seen a rapid growth in use this year, Department of Homeland Security records show. More than 1,000 employers are signing up each week on average, and employment checks are approaching 200,000 a week.

Use rises each year

“If the goal is not to hire illegal citizens, then you should have it,” Dominguez said.

Halfway through this year 5.5 million worker checks have been made by employers through the E-Verify online service. In 2008, 6.6 million checks were made, twice the number in 2007.

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June 1, 2009, 4:12AM

What do Continental Airlines, the Houston Ballet, the city of Dallas and Sen. John Cornyn all have in common?

They all use the federal government’s E-Verify program to check if their employees are authorized to work in the U.S. legally.

A Department of Homeland Security database of the more than 118,000 public, private and government employers enrolled in E-Verify as of May 1 shows companies big (Tyson Foods) and small (the Ballard Street Café in Wylie) are signed up for the program.

Enrollment has grown exponentially in recent years, with about 1,000 employers signing up each week for the free Web-based program, according to DHS statistics. More than 6,100 Texas employers have enrolled as of May 1, including at least 60 city, county and state agencies.

The city of Houston and Harris County aren’t among them. Lakewood Church and the Houston Rockets, however, use E-Verify.

“Why not do it?” asked Gerry Boren, the city manager of Gun Barrel City, population about 6,100, which sits on Cedar Creek Lake southeast of Dallas. The city started using the system in May, and so far has verified the work authorization of a police officer and two public works employees, he said.

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Larry Morrison of St. George, Utah — owner of Morrison Insulation LLC — told a city council forum that his company “gets ‘two jobs a week’ just by advertising that it uses E-Verify to check its employees’ work status,” and argued that “more businesses should use the system.” (The Spectrum, April 30, 2009).

The fact that small businesses see a public relations benefit through the use of E-Verify undermines the claims of big-business, special- interest groups that argue that the work eligibility verification system places a burden on businesses.
Read the full article

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The legislation makes reforms to increase enforcement, modify wage requirements, and ensure protection for visa holders and American workers. The bill does not eliminate the program or change the numerical cap of visas available to petitioning employers.

“The H-1B program was never meant to replace qualified American workers. It was meant to complement them because of a shortage of workers in specialized fields. In tough economic times like we’re seeing, it’s even more important that we do everything possible to see that Americans are given every consideration when applying for jobs. If there aren’t qualified Americans, companies can use the legal immigration programs we have available, but we must return the H-1B and L visa programs back to their original intent,” Sen. Grassley said in a released statement.

The Durbin-Grassley bill would, among other things:

• Require all employers who want to hire an H-1B guest-worker to first make a good-faith attempt to recruit a qualified American worker. Employers would be prohibited from using H-1B visa holders to displace qualified American workers.
• Prohibit the blatantly discriminatory practice of “H-1B only” ads and prohibit employers from hiring additional H-1B and L-1 guest-workers if more than 50 percent of their employees are H-1B and L-1 visa holders.
• Permit the Department of Labor to initiate investigations without a complaint and without the Labor Secretary’s personal authorization;
• Authorize the Department of Labor to review H-1B applications for fraud;
• Allow the Department of Labor to conduct random audits of any company that uses the H-1B visa program;
• Require the Department of Labor to conduct annual audits of companies who employ large numbers of H-1B workers.
• Provide safeguards for visa holders so they know their rights under the law. This would include wage rates and access to benefits.
• Establish a process to investigate, audit and penalize L-1 visa abuses.

For more information, see Sen. Grassley’s press release .

Link…