ILLEGAL ALIEN KILLS IN PHILEDELPHIA

Philadelphia Inquirer

Man charged in ramming death at bar
By Maria Panaritis

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Authorities filed murder charges today against a 35-year-old man, saying he exacted revenge against a takeout clerk who had escorted him out of a Bensalem bar last night by killing him in the parking lot a few minutes later with a pickup truck.

Jose Maldonado-Luzuriaga was sent to the Bucks County prison on homicide and related charges this morning after failing to post $3 million bail in the death of William Sullo III of Philadelphia, said First Assistant District Attorney David Zellis.

Maldonado-Luzuriaga had been drinking heavily before he set foot into Salute Restaurant Bar on Knights Road around 10:22 last night, authorities allege in investigative documents released today.

HERE

FoxNews/AP

Deportation Increase in U.S., 350,000 Illegal Immigrants Sent Home in 2008

CHICAGO — Just after dawn, Gerardo Lopez Arellano shuffles along in a line of 51 other shackled men on an isolated tarmac where a white, unmarked federal jet is waiting to take them to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The 24-year-old construction worker who grew up near the Texas border was deported twice before this year, but he is indifferent on this cool morning at O’Hare International Airport.

“I’ll probably be back,” he told The Associated Press.

Arellano is one of nearly 11,200 illegal immigrants deported this year through Chicago, the location of a field office for the Midwest region covered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. By contrast, in 2004 about 6,600 people were deported from the region that includes Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin.

Nationwide, deportations have also increased, with nearly 350,000 immigrants sent home through September 2008, compared with about 174,000 in the same period in 2004.

HERE

The National Council of The Race in the White House. HERE

MORE on La Raza from a much missed Charlie Norwood HERE.

Some of these invaders will soon be marching in the streets of Atlanta demanding “justice” and amnesty.
HERE

Cherokee Ledger News
26 November, 2008

Commissioners take comments on harboring ordinance
By Carolyn Mathews

A public hearing on Cherokee County’s proposed “Harboring Illegal Aliens” ordinance brought out speakers who said legal action against those who are undocumented is long overdue, along with speakers who warned that the passage of such an ordinance would cost the county thousands of dollars in legal fees, while further depressing the business climate in the county. About 50 people attended, and more than 20 addressed commissioners with their concerns.

Both Post 1 Commissioner Harry Johnston and Post 2 Commissioner Jim Hubbard said they were surprised the crowd was so small, considering the controversy surrounding the county’s previous attempt at a similar ordinance, which is in litigation.

(Left: Kris Kobach, second from left, a specialist in immigration law, explains the merits of the proposed ordinance to, from left, county attorney Angela Davis, Post 4 Commissioner Derek Good, Post 3 Commissioner Karen Bosch, and Commission Chairman Buzz Ahrens.)

Commission Chairman Buzz Ahrens said the Board of Commissioners would consider the input it got at the Nov. 17 public hearing and would allow time for continued public input over the next two months, not taking any action on the ordinance before the second county commission meeting in January.

The proposed ordinance, which addresses both the housing and the employment of illegal aliens, is designed to take the place of an ordinance that outlawed only the renting of dwellings to those in the country illegally. That ordinance was scheduled to take effect in 2007, after the commission unanimously approved it at the end of 2006. It was never enforced, and currently is stayed under a consent agreement by a U.S. District Court judge after it was almost immediately challenged in court.

The lawsuit against the county was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the law firms Troutman Sanders LLP and Hernan, Taylor & Lee.

Attorneys for those who challenged the original ordinance say that if the BOC passes the newly proposed ordinance, in will be in violation of the current injunction.

Alan Lubel, an attorney with Troutman Sanders, called the new proposal, “an attempt to pull an end-run on the judge’s injunction.”

“If the commission passes this ordinance, the housing part will put them in violation of the court order,” he said “We will proceed in the existing lawsuit to enforce the judge’s order.”

The newly proposed ordinance includes a new section that imposes local penalties against some businesses that knowingly hire illegal workers and brings the county into compliance with recent state laws by requiring those applying for a business license in the county to check the status of all workers.

It changes the method by which the housing of illegal immigrants would be determined, by having every renter over the age of 18 register with the county business license office and provide proof of citizenship.

It is designed by University of Missouri law professor Kris Kobach, who has designed many similar ordinances on a national level, several still under litigation. Kobach spoke on the intention and design of the ordinance at the pubic hearing.

Kobach noted that a new law regarding undocumented workers is being enforced in Arizona, after being upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicanos Por La Causa, Inc. v. Napolitano. He said it has met with “dramatic” success. He said Cherokee’s proposal, which would require county employers to check their employees’ status using the federal E-Verify system, is similar to the Arizona program.

“The threat of enforcement produced real results,” he said of the Arizona law. “When incentives are stronger to obey laws, they are obeyed. There’s a significant amount of evidence that the illegal workforce self-deports, and that’s what we want to achieve.”

Woodstock residents Billy and Kathy Inman both gave comments to the board. Billy Inman told commissioners the story of an automobile accident in June 2000 in which his 16-year-old son, Dustin, was killed and his wife, Kathy, was injured. Stopped at a traffic light in Ellijay, their vehicle was struck from behind, and they were sandwiched between the striking vehicle and a car in front of them. The driver behind them, Gonzalo Harrell-Gonzalez, who had a valid North Carolina driver’s license, was allegedly in the country illegally. He fled from an Ellijay hospital after the accident and was never apprehended. Inman contends that if Harrell-Gonzalez were not in the country illegally, the accident would not have happened.

“I can’t bring my son back, but I don’t want anyone else to go through the crap I’ve been through,” Inman said. “It’s not right.”

John Fincher, of Canton, who was present at the meeting, said he wanted to know why commissioners were taking on a federal issue. “Seventy-five percent of those in attendance were not Cherokee County residents,” he said.

Several of those who spoke to commissioners said the presence of Hispanics in their neighborhoods was bringing their property values down. Tricia Grindel, of Cherokee Forest Subdivision, called the Hispanic population a “blight on the neighborhood,” and worried that many of the men in the county without families “walk in packs in the streets late at night.”

Grindel said illegal immigrants were “a slap in the face of everyone who immigrates using proper procedures.”

Ken Waldrop, of Woodstock, asked who paid the consulting bill for Kobach’s advice, and wanted to know why the county was spending the money on the proposal while county revenues are down.

“Immigration laws will pass (on the federal level),” he said. “There certainly does seem to be an element of racism here.”

Debbie Seagraves, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, and a Cherokee resident, said she was concerned and dismayed at the proposed “scattershot” ordinance.

“It puts the county at the risk of huge litigation costs,” she said. She noted a New York Times article from Sept. 26, 2007, in which the mayor of Riverside, N.J., George Conrad, who had originally voted in favor of a similar ordinance, said, “I don’t think people knew there would be such an economic burden. A lot of people did not look three years out.” That ordinance against hiring and renting to undocumented immigrants was rescinded, but Kobach claims it was never enforced.

Seagraves said that the housing portion of the Cherokee proposed ordinance, which requires every adult renter in the county to obtain a $5 renter’s license, would create a “database of renters.”

“That’s downright un-American,” she said. “You are adding to the burdens of families who are on the brink of financial disaster and are renting their homes because they can’t sell them.”

Azadeh Shahshahani, an attorney with the ACLU, said that no restricted housing ordinance has ever stood up in court, and that the county would be facing a “difficult and costly legal battle for an ordinance the would fail to withstand constitutional scrutiny.”

She said Farmer’s Branch, Texas, has spent more than $900,000 fighting a legal battle over a similar ordinance, and Escondido, Calif., has spent more than $1 million. Neither of those figures, she said, included attorneys’ fees.

Elise Shore, an attorney with MALDEF, agreed with Lubel, arguing that the current ordinance that is stayed and the new proposal both have the same purpose, and the same effect, to discourage landlords from renting to a certain group and to exclude a certain group from renting. She said passage of a new ordinance and the subsequent repeal of the one in litigation would be a violation of the injunction.

D.A. King, an activist on the subject of those in the country without documentation, told commissioners he hopes the ordinance is passed and enforced and that “illegal aliens migrate out of the community.”

He said his sister, who was born in Korea, is an immigrant and the term “immigrant” applies to “those who are here lawfully and do not require amnesty.”

“I think it’s shameful to blur the line,” he said.

Meg Rogers, director of Cherokee Family Violence Center, asked commissioners if the proposed ordinance would affect their efforts to find housing for victims of domestic violence who were in the process of obtaining legal status, and worried that the ordinance might prohibit women in danger from calling them for fear of being turned into authorities.

Kobach said that the enforcement of the ordinance, if passed, would be at the direction of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

He said if a complaint is turned in on a business for employing undocumented workers, or a renter can’t prove citizenship, the county business license office would contact the federal government, which he said is bound by law to provide information on citizenship status to state and local governments. Kobach said the county would be instructed to use either the federal E-Verify system for employment or the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program for benefit entitlement.

HERE – scroll down

Cherokee Ledger News
26 November 2008

Sheriff applies for deportation program
By Carolyn Mathews

After modifications to the federal 287(g) program, the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office has made application for the program.

It is part of the Immigration and Nationality Act and gives state and local law enforcement the authority to perform functions of immigration law enforcement through an agreement.

Sheriff Roger Garrison previously had said he wasn’t interested in 287(g) because he didn’t want the Cherokee County jail to become an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holding facility.

Last year, the sheriff’s office implemented an in-house program to help keep track of those in the country illegally. Capt. Karen Johnson said anyone who wasn’t born in the United States, who is booked into the jail, is asked where they were born, and deputies determine that person’s immigration status.

“We’ve been watching and staying abreast of all the latest changes and modifications,” Garrison said.

He said he spoke to a sheriff in Gastonia, N.C., and found out that agency had a 72-hour clause, which would require ICE agents to take custody of the inmates.

“They had the 72-hour clause, and that sparked our interest,” Garrison said. “We feel that is something reasonable.”

In Mecklenburg County, N.C., which is in close proximity to Gastonia, there is an ICE holding facility. Garrison said inmates are taken to that holding facility and once a week, they are bused to Atlanta to go before a federal judge.

“I don’t know of a holding facility around here, but, fortunately, we are close enough to Atlanta that they can service us pretty easily,” Garrison said.

He said Cherokee kept being compared to Cobb County and their involvement with the 287(g) program.

Before there was an ability to ensure that illegal immigrants would be picked up in a timely manner by federal officials, Garrison said, Cherokee couldn’t accommodate undocumented immigrants for an extended period of time like Cobb does because of its lesser resources.

“Cobb has a 3,000-bed jail and two correctional facilities, which gives them the capacity to distribute inmates throughout their entire system,” he said.

Cherokee’s jail is equipped to house 512 inmates. It currently is over capacity at 560 inmates.

So far in 2008, Cherokee sheriff’s deputies have arrested 1,477 non-U.S. citizens. Forty-five had ICE holds — 38 were released to ICE; four were released to the state; and one was released “to self,” — and there currently are 13 inmates with ICE holds.

As part of the agency’s application, Garrison sent a letter to ICE asking that nine detention officers/deputy sheriff’s receive training through the 287(g) program.

The officers selected for the program will be trained to identify, process and detain immigration offenders through their daily work. Those officers must be a U.S. citizen, must pass a Homeland Security background check, have at least two years of experience, have no pending disciplinary actions and successfully complete the jail enforcement officer training.

The process is still in its infancy stages and takes about 12 to 18 months to complete, Johnson said.

Last week, the sheriff’s office received a response to their August letter requesting participation.

“We just received a letter back this week and now we get in touch with our contact in Atlanta and start a needs assessment evaluation,” Johnson said. “They want to see whether or not we have a need. That’s our next step.”

HERE

Center for Immigration Studies

“Surge Two”: Northward Flood of Mexicans Likely to Increase after U.S. Election

By George W. Grayson
October 2008
Backgrounders and Reports
Download the pdf version

Introduction

Escalating violence highlighted by decapitations, torture, and kidnappings plagues Mexicans, with drug cartel hit men and run-of-the-mill thugs generally targeting their victims. Money, revenge, ransom, extortion, access to drugs, and turf battles often explain these heinous activities. On September 15, 2008, however, a major act of terrorism took place for the first time. Around 11 p.m., as thousands of revelers celebrated the country’s Independence Day in Morelia, miscreants heaved fragmentation grenades into the crowd. When the smoke cleared, eight people lay dead, and more than 100 men, women, and children suffered wounds. TV networks beamed video footage of the blood-drenched scene to unbelieving viewers across the country.

Hundreds of military personnel and federal police flooded in to provide security for shocked citizens and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) offered $1 million (10 million pesos) for information leading to the capture of the masterminds and perpetrators of the carnage. Still, Deputy Emilio Gamboa Patrón, owner of a super-sized closet of skeletons and a big shot in the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), admitted that citizens were afraid to cooperate with authorities because so many law-enforcement officials were allied with criminal organizations.1 The army, held in higher esteem, may have more success in attracting informants.

Meanwhile, President Felipe Calderón and other dumfounded politicians speculated on who inflicted the wanton slaughter in the picturesque colonial city, 150 miles to the west of Mexico City in the chief executive’s home state of Michoacán.

Were the perpetrators members of the powerful Gulf Cartel, headquartered just below Texas in Tamaulipas state, whose military component is known as Los Zetas? Did they belong to the Gulf Cartel’s chief rival, the Sinaloa Cartel, centered in Sinaloa state, which nestles between the Sierra Madres and the Pacific Ocean? Could they be affiliated with La Familia (The Family) a shadowy drug gang that took credit for hanging seven banners blaming Los Zetas, three members of which have been taken into custody? Might they be guerrillas either in thrall to drug mafias or launching a freelance strike?

Apart from the delinquents’ identity was the ominous possibility that the attack foreshadowed an escalation in the strife: from homing in on specific victims to indiscriminate terrorism as occurred in Colombia two decades ago. The “Morelia massacre” took place barely a week after the bloodiest day in recent memory as sadists carried out 24 executions in Mexico State alone. A prisoner mutiny on September 14 and 17 at Tijuana’s La Mesa prison took the lives of at least 23 inmates and scores of convicts and guards sustained injuries.

These and other atrocities will profoundly change the dynamics of migration flows to the United States, which — contrary to conventional wisdom — have skyrocketed under Calderón, who took office on December 1, 2006. Mexico’s National Population Council (Conapo) recently reported, based on U.S. Census data, that the number of Mexican migrants living north of the Rio Grande grew by 679,611 in 2007 — a five-fold jump over the increase in 2006 (105,347).2

For cognoscenti of U.S. military policy, allusions to “the Surge” spark images of the five army brigades that President Bush dispatched to join 4,000 Marines in order to secure Baghdad and al Anbar province in Iraq. Off the radar screen is the likelihood of “Surge Two” during the months, if not weeks, after the next American president is sworn into office on January 20. This possible movement will entail not weapons-hefting soldiers and Marines in camouflage gear, but hundreds of thousands of T-shirt wearing, backpack-carrying Mexicans seeking to escape mushrooming insecurity at home.

What might induce Mexicans to risk life and limb even though the U.S. economy teeters on the brink of a financial precipice, the employment picture appears grim even for Americans, and state legislatures are amplifying their crackdowns on lawbreakers in response to constituent sentiment? How will the next U.S chief executive and Congress respond to the pressure sure to build on America’s southern border?

Traditional Rules of the Game

During the heyday of the self-proclaimed “revolutionary party,” which held the presidency from 1929 to 2000, drug kingpins cut deals with governors. The Rolex-wearing dons often anted up $250,000 simply to meet with state executives or their interlocutors to attain protection from the various police forces in their bailiwicks. Local law-enforcement chiefs in league with PRI politicians allocated the plazas, areas and corridors where the gangs held sway to produce, store, or ship drugs. They followed a “1-2-3 System”: a pay-off to authorities of $1 million for an interior location; $2 million for a coastal zone; and $3 million for a U.S.-Mexico border crossing. In return for generous bribes, or mordidas, the desperados pursued their illicit activities with the connivance of authorities and in accord with mutually understood “rules of the game.”…. MORE HERE FROM CIS

The Examiner — Denver

Mexican consul: Immigrants leaving Colorado

Denver — Many Mexicans increasingly feel unwelcome in Colorado because of a perceived anti-[illegal alien…. criminal] sentiment, and some are looking back home for opportunities as the economy here sours, Denver’s Mexican consul general says…

We don’t have statistics, but I can tell you with certainty that Mexicans are abandoning Colorado,” he said. “And for a variety of reasons, one being that they are not able to find jobs, they’re looking for other places and some even considering returning to Mexico definitely. Added to that is the fact that many don’t consider the state a friendly place for immigrants.” HERE

Marietta Daily Journal

Bruce Clements: Tired of immigration advocate’s ‘racist diatribes’

Published: 11/17/2008

DEAR EDITOR: Re: Inger Eberhart letter, “Amused by amnesty advocate’s race-baiting,” Thursday’s MDJ

Ms. Eberhart sure pegged immigration advocate Rich Pellegrino when she stated he seems to think “the only answer is totally open borders.”

I, too, resent his narrowly reasoned and frankly, racist diatribes. I am a white male, 61 years old, Marietta High Class of 1965, born in Charleston, S.C., lived in metro Atlanta for 60 years. Yet, before I reached high school I knew the wrongness of racism. By the time I graduated high school I was a vocal advocate of integration and full equality for black Americans.

Over the years I continuously supported left-wing politics. I demonstrated against the war, participated in a “rights” march, worked for the Carter campaign, was dismayed by Reagan’s election, etc.

Not until I reached a position of some little authority in the business world did I begin to recognize the dishonesty and foolishness of the left. I learned that my beliefs and integrity mattered not at all, even to people who knew me well. If I didn’t agree, then I was a racist, liar, etc.

Pellegrino’s latest reveals his prejudice by his neatly worded statements about “… it explodes in our faces” and “… our gated communities in east Cobb. ” Not to mention his misdirection about crime rates. At least he honestly states what Obama is going to do vis-a-vis the Mexican immigration problem.

My subdivision, in 30066 – the middle of east Cobb – consists of homes valued in the lower $100,000 range, resided in by retired people, young families, singles, whites, blacks (both American and African), Hispanics, south Asians, etc. No gates anywhere to be found. Imagine that!

Pellegrino’s prejudice prompts him to be the first to disparage our persons, then ignore and never address any reasoned position. Simply put, he argues that we are all racist liars out to take advantage of anyone that is different from us.

Mr. Pellegrino needs to know that I and many others, even in the South, got over it 40 years ago. He is the worst kind of dishonest, political antagonist. I deeply resent his prejudiced views. My recommendation is that you find someone else’s letters to run in the MDJ. He’s had his turn. Plenty of times.

Bruce Clements

East Cobb

HERE

The Medill Reports — Washington, DC

Partnership with ICE a hot ticket for local law enforcement

Local law enforcement agencies across the country are clamoring for the chance to join the federal government in fighting illegal immigration as applications to partner with the immigration service have spiked and new technology brings more interest…

The program started 12 years ago under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.. To date, Rocha said it has trained 950 local officers and identified more than 75,000 immigrants who may be in violation of immigration laws. HERE