U.S. President Barack Obama came into office with strong voter support among Hispanic Americans, while promising to make immigration reform a top priority. But many lawmakers in Washington oppose easing restrictions on immigration and instead demand a crackdown against illegal immigration.

Hundreds of pro-immigration activists gathered recently near the White House to send President Obama a message:

“We are here to collect on the promises he made to us,” said a female activist.

That promise was sweeping pro-immigration reform. The rally was equal parts political theater, voter outrage and dance party.

“Hey, hey, Obama, don’t deport my mama!,” chanted the protesters.

Such appeals against deporting mamas are not helping this mother. She says when she called police during a domestic violence dispute, she was arrested.  She now faces deportation.

“I am fighting not to be separated from my daughter and for justice for the millions of immigrants in this country,” she said.

Police detained Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and other activists during the protest.  Gutierrez supports immigration reforms, including an end to deporting undocumented, immigrant college students.  These protestors say more than 1 million immigrants have been deported since Mr. Obama’s election.

Speaking to Hispanic activists recently, the president blamed Republicans for failing to enact immigration reforms.

“Let’s be honest, I need a dance partner here and the floor is empty,” said President Obama.

Political analysts say Mr. Obama needs Hispanic voters to win re-election in 2012.  But a recent Gallup Poll shows his approval rating among Hispanics has slipped.

At the rally, the anger was palpable.

“The United States is deporting veterans and that is not American,” said Vietnam war veteran Manuel Valenzuela.

Business leaders testifying on Capitol Hill also seek immigration reform.  But their interests are more narrow. They seek quick visa approval for high tech foreign employees. They say the United States is losing top workers because the immigration process is so cumbersome.

Microsoft attorney Brad Smith says other countries have friendlier immigration policies toward top talent.

“The world economy has changed,” said Smith. “It used to be that people would move in search of the right jobs.  Now jobs move in search of the right people.”

NASDAQ CEO Robert Greifeld says high-skilled immigrants in the U.S. create jobs.

“Among the Fortune 500 companies, we found at least 14 NASDAQ companies with foreign-born founders,” said Greifeld. “These companies have created over $522 billion in market capitalization and employ over 500,000 workers.”

With a sluggish economy, and a still unresolved debate over raising the debt ceiling, there’s much uncertainty in Washington.  But one thing is sure:  those waiting for comprehensive immigration reform are going to wait a little bit longer.

Source: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Obama-Takes-Heat-from-Pro-Immigration-Groups-126290333.html

Virginia, one of nearly 20 states toying with the idea of an Arizona-style immigration law, hurtled onto the national radar screen this week after Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli ruled that police can ask people about their immigration status during routine stops.

While a northern Virginia county has been at the forefront of the push for stricter local immigration laws for three years, none of this activity has prompted the kind of nationwide backlash — in the form of boycotts and a federal government lawsuit — that Arizona triggered with its law in April. Those behind the Virginia proposals, including a proposed statewide law, are hoping their state can avoid the kind of public relations and legal pitfalls that have, at least temporarily, ensnared Arizona.

“This is good policy. … It’s both constitutional and prudent,” said Robert Marshall, the Republican state delegate who originally requested the ruling from Cuccinelli, who is also a Republican. “Our actions here can’t be dismissed.”

Marshall told FoxNews.com he has asked Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell to issue an executive order codifying what Cuccinelli wrote. He expressed doubt that any single piece of legislation will pass through the state Senate, but he suggested a carefully worded directive could help shape the national debate.

He said Arizona went astray by requiring law enforcement officers to ask about immigration status. Cuccinelli describes Virginia’s policy as discretionary.

“Unlike Arizona, you wouldn’t say every time you stop somebody, do this,” Marshall said. “I think that was one of the reasons the Arizona law was (blocked).” Marshall said he’s confident Virginia’s policy would be held up in court if challenged.

Cuccinelli also cited that difference as a key distinction between the two laws.

“The difference, of course, is that the Arizona law enforcement officer is going to be under the cloud of the requirement of that statute,” he said. “But the way we operate it here, we’re in good shape.”

A spokesman for Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said the governor is reviewing her state’s law to see if it can be refined in light of the court decision blocking key parts of it, but was not sure whether she was considering the possibility of making immigration checks discretionary as opposed to mandatory.

Though Cuccinelli’s ruling drew widespread attention, it’s unclear how much direct impact it will have on Virginia law enforcement.

Virginia Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, a Democrat, said most police forces won’t change their policies in light of the opinion.

“Is it going to affect a single thing? The answer is no,” he said. “A majority of the police forces won’t bother with it.”

Saslaw noted that per Cuccinelli’s opinion, state officers are still advised against arresting anyone for a civil immigration offense. Saslaw said he doesn’t see Virginia, a non-border state, becoming a focal point of the immigration debate any time soon, and he rejected the idea that McDonnell could issue an order codifying Cuccinelli’s ruling.

“We don’t have a dictatorship in Virginia,” Saslaw said. “It would carry absolutely not a shred of legal validity.”

McDonnell spokeswoman Stacey Johnson said Marshall was not specifically calling for an executive order. The actual letter to the governor asked McDonnell to “direct all appropriate law enforcement officers of the commonwealth to implement the policies referenced” in the Cuccinelli decision.

Regardless of how Cuccinelli’s ruling is interpreted, a few Virginia lawmakers are pushing hard to keep their state in the middle of the immigration furor. Though it’s not anywhere close to a border state, Virginia’s illegal immigrant population, concentrated mostly in the north, has been pegged at about 300,000 by the Pew Hispanic Center. Any crime connected to that community has the potential to feed the debate.

Just as the killing of rancher Robert Krentz by a suspected illegal immigrant fueled the push for border security in Arizona, a recent killing in Virginia has stirred emotions over the issue. An illegal immigrant on Sunday was involved in a crash that killed one nun and injured two others — he reportedly had a prior drunk-driving record and was going through deportation proceedings.

The crash happened in Prince William County, which is ground zero for immigration controversy in Virginia. Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart seized on the incident, as he continued to push a proposed immigration law similar to Arizona’s.

Stewart said in an e-mail to FoxNews.com that Virginia will “adjust our course” in light of the Arizona case and said he hopes the federal government decides to sue his state too.

“Virginia has shown in the past that people care about this issue even 2,500 miles away from the most porous parts of our southern border. Especially in Prince William County, we are very close to the nation’s Capitol. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and President Obama can’t ignore what is happening in their own backyard,” he wrote.

Prince William County, which Marshall represents, has a local law that requires police to ask about the immigration status of anyone they arrest. Stewart said Cuccinelli’s ruling doesn’t dramatically change anything there but that “it is good have the Virginia AG on board.”

Stewart is pushing for a statewide policy to require police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest. He claims the proposal anticipates the legal pitfalls that trapped Arizona. He has launched a political action committee to raise money for a public campaign in support of the bill, and he has a started a website, www.virginiaruleoflaw.com, where he is trying to collect 100,000 signatures.

Saslaw ridiculed the push.

“The bill ain’t gonna make it through the General Assembly,” he said. “It won’t even get to a law.”

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/03/virginia-arizona-state-lawmakers-fuel-immigration-debate/

Mexican Cartel Plans To Kill Arizona Sheriff

According to MyFoxPhoenix.com, a man who requested anonymity claims his wife received a text message included an international phone number and instructions to pass the message along on Tuesday evening. The message placed a $1 million bounty on Sheriff Arpaio’s head and a $1 thousand incentive to join the drug cartel..

Lisa Allen of the Sheriff’s office told MyFoxPhoenix.com that they believe the message originated in Mexico. Although the Sheriff routinely received death threats in the past, they believe this threat is credible because of its timing.

While the pleas from American citizens in Arizona and other states fell on deaf ears in Washington, DC, the violence and crime at the U.S.-Mexico border continues unabated.

Sheriff Arpaio has been targeted by the Obama Justice Department and Democrats in his own state because of his tough immigration enforcement policy.

Meanwhile, a deadly Mexican gang is actively plotting to kill U.S. law enforcement officers and their families in Texas, according to a Department of Homeland Security alert that warns U.S. cops to wear body armor and vary routes to avoid being tracked.

The U.S. government has spent billions of dollars to fight Mexican drug cartels yet they continue to be the nation’s largest supplier of illicit narcotics and violent Mexican gangs have expanded into every region of the country, including idyllic rural areas.

“This is hardly earth-shattering news since Mexico has long represented the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the U.S., despite Uncle Sam’s multi billion-dollar effort to halt the northbound flow of narcotics. The costly investment has failed miserably, according to a federal report that reveals Mexican heroin production has actually doubled in the last year,“ state officials from the public-interest group Judicial Watch.

In the absence of federal enforcement a Mexican border state—Arizona—drowning in an illegal immigration pandemic has passed legislation that bans “sanctuary city” policies and makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. without proper documentation.

The law marks an unprecedented effort by an American state to take immigration matters into its own hands since immigration offenses are currently violations of federal law that cannot be enforced by local police. But lawmakers in Arizona are fed up with the enormous toll that illegal aliens are having on their state as the feds sit idly by and fail to secure the southern border, according to a Judicial Watch report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.

In the past few years they’ve chipped away at the crisis with other measures, though this is by far the most hard-hitting and definitely among the country’s toughest immigration enforcement laws. The measure, passed this week by the Arizona House and previously approved by the Senate, grants police the power to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone suspected of being illegal and requires foreign nationals to carry proof of legal residency. This includes the man known as “America’s sheriff” Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.

Illegal aliens will be charged in state court with trespassing and anyone—documented or undocumented—seeking work from a road or sidewalk will also be criminally prosecuted. Drivers who pick up illegal alien day laborers will also be punished when the law kicks in.

Predictably, immigration advocates are incensed and have called on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to veto the measure which they assert is racist. The legal director of an influential national group La Raza that represents day laborers calls it an “unconstitutional, unwise and odious bill”  created by “demagogue leaders” who have become folk heroes for “white supremacists” throughout the country.

Arizona lawmakers have long searched for ways to curb the colossal impact that illegal immigration has had on their state. A few years ago they enacted a law that punishes businesses that hire illegal immigrants, though the state has not penalized a single employer. Legislators allocated the sufficient funds (about $5 million) to enforce the law but a chunk of the money remains largely unspent by counties throughout the state, according to the JW report.

Source: http://www.postchronicle.com/news/original/article_212317961.shtml

Musicians Boycott Arizona

The federal government is in court this week, trying to block Arizona’s controversial new immigration bill, known as SB1070. Arizona has been hit with several lawsuits and dozens of business boycotts since the law was passed, and musicians have also gotten in on the act: Many are canceling shows in the state, while others are voicing their opposition through music.

Arizona is no stranger to musical protests over its politics. In 1991, Public Enemy’s “By the Time I Get to Arizona” lambasted Arizona’s decision not to recognize the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Stevie Wonder, Bill Cosby and others boycotted the state. The NFL yanked the 1993 Super Bowl from Arizona in response to the uproar, and soon after, voters approved the holiday. Fast forward to 2010, when many musicians hope another boycott, this time over the state’s immigration law, can have a similar impact.

“We have to intervene in order to do whatever we possibly can to limit that state’s ability to function and implement the law,” Zack de la Rocha, of the band Rage Against the Machine, says in a web video he’s produced. He’s organized a boycott of Arizona called The Sound Strike. So far, he’s recruited artists ranging from Kanye West and Nine Inch Nails to Latino bands such as Los Tigres del Norte. Jorge Hernandez says Los Tigres del Norte’s decision to join the boycott was personal: If the Los Angeles musicians were to come to Arizona, he says, they worry that police could detain them.

“They can ask questions, or they can stop me because I look brown, or a different color,” Hernandez says. “We are very sure that there’s going to be problems with our community.”

Hernandez says he supports the boycott in solidarity with Arizona’s Hispanic community. But not playing Arizona won’t really affect his band’s bottom line. The boycott is, however, having an impact on some Arizona music promoters and clubs. Alycia Klein is the general manager for the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix, where the rapper Pitbull canceled his show earlier this month. She says the boycott couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“With the economy as it is, this is the last thing that people are thinking about doing with their money, is going to spend it to have fun, if they’re just still trying to pay their bills,” Klein says. “So when I do have artists that will attract people to come out, and now they’re unwilling to come out, it’s devastating.”

A Hard Sell In Summertime

While hundreds of artists have joined The Sound Strike and say they won’t come to Arizona, so far only a handful of acts have canceled scheduled shows, including Hall & Oates and Los Lobos. But Martin Cizmar, music critic for the alternative weekly New Times in Phoenix, says he’s more worried about the hundreds of bands who might not join The Sound Strike, but just won’t come.

“Arizona is already a hard sell during the summer,” Cizmar says, “and we’re going to have a long, silent summer with some of this, because people are just going to look at us on the map and think, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go there.’ ”

Cizmar says a big, organized boycott caught people off guard. While he says he’s opposed to the law, he fears that the boycott could really take hold.

“Because people love to jump on a bandwagon nowadays, it doesn’t take too much to get people behind a really big cause,” he says. “If this happens to become the cause of the moment, we’re screwed.”

In response, Cizmar assembled 17 Arizona artists to contribute to a CD called A Line in the Sand. It’s a collection of protest songs against SB 1070. All of the acts finished their songs in just two weeks.

Proceeds from the CD will go to organizations fighting the law, which is what Phoenix-based promoter Stephen Chilton says Sound Strike musicians should be doing.

“Any one of these artists, if they really wanted to make a statement, they could come here and play,” Chilton says. “Rage Against the Machine could do a benefit here and donate the profits to a number of organizations that would have an impact.”

Rage Against the Machine is indeed playing a benefit — in Los Angeles. But a group of musicians, led by the Tucson band Calexico, is asking groups to come to Arizona, play and speak out against the law. Yolanda Bejarano, of the Phoenix group Snow Songs, is part of the organization, called Artists for Action.

“We need to do something here and mobilize people,” she says. “I think it’s better to take positive action and try to do it a different way, instead of just not coming here.”

In the end, as happened back in 1991, if Arizona relents, it may not be over principle. It may well be over the economic impact the boycott has on the state.

Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128720832

Immigration has been a source of political discord since the beginning of our republic — despite the fact that we are a nation of immigrants. As early as the late 1700s, immigration was the subject of legislative action. The very first Congress passed The Naturalization Act of 1790 which read: “That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen…” Congress subsequently extended the waiting period from two to five years in 1795, and to fourteen years in 1798.

The History and Technology Museum in Washington, DC displays a chart that outlines the long legislative history of limits placed on the immigration of various groups: convicts and prostitutes (1875); idiots, lunatics, and persons requiring public care (1882); Chinese (1882-1943); gangs of cheap contract laborers (1885); immigrants with dangerous contagious diseases, paupers, and polygamists (1891); epileptics, insane persons, beggars, and anarchists (1903); the feeble-minded, children under 16 unaccompanied by parents, and immigrants unable to support themselves because of physical or mental defects (1907); immigrants from most of Asia, and adults unable to read and write in English (1917). Legislation since that time set quotas for immigrants by nationality, required registration, and established preferences for certain groups of immigrants, such as those with relatives already here, and workers with skills needed in the US.

Flash forward to the discussion today and we see the results of more than two centuries of progress. Citizenship is no longer limited by race, sex, or creed. Today, naturalization and enforcement of our immigration laws are the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security. However, we again see states and localities attempting to assert jurisdiction over immigration. Although Federal government responsibility for immigration was established by the Supreme Court in 1875, the recent law enacted in Arizona would empower state and local law enforcement officials in Arizona to check the immigration documents of any person they suspect is in the country illegally.

One has to ask how this law could possibly be carried out without some sort of racial profiling. Opponents of the law will undoubtedly argue in federal court that the Arizona state immigration law should be overturned consistent with the 1875 Supreme Court ruling. Law enforcement officials across the US seem split — some arguing that this new authority will make it easier to take criminals who are non-citizens into custody, even when they can’t prove that any other crime has been committed. Others seem to be focusing on the concern that investigative leads will dry up if members of immigrant communities are afraid to report crimes or provide information about the identities of suspects.

And we are not even hearing in recent days about the impacts of illegal immigration on our national and local economies. Are illegals a drain on federal, state, and local budgets? Do illegals take jobs from Americans, depress American wages, or are they an important supply of labor for local industries such as construction and farming? President Obama clearly had it right when he pointed out that state action like that which has taken place in Arizona is a natural consequence of the lack of federal leadership on this important national issue. National immigration reform needs to be mindful of state and local impacts. Real solutions are needed and the time for action is now.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Politics-of-Immigration&id=4171981