Immigration agency plans new family detention centers

The federal government is accepting bids for up to three new family detention centers that would house as many as 600 men, women and children fighting deportation cases.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a call for proposals last month and set June 16 as the deadline. New facilities are being considered on both coasts and on the Southwestern border. The agency calls for minimum-security residential facilities that would provide a “least restrictive, nonsecure setting” and provide schooling for children, recreational activities and access to religious services.

Family detention has been condemned by human rights groups and immigrant rights organizations as punitive and unnecessary. But immigration authorities said it ensures that immigrants show up for their court hearings and leave the country when ordered deported.

“Family detention has had the desired impact,” ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. “We don’t see as many families coming across the border. That automatic pass is no longer there.”

There are currently two family facilities — a former nursing home in Pennsylvania and a former prison in Texas. The T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas, opened in 2006 and faced protests and lawsuits within the year charging that the children were living in substandard conditions. A settlement resulted in changes in how the children are treated.

New facilities would allow the government more flexibility and enable the agency to keep families together, Nantel said. In Los Angeles this week, three illegal immigrant mothers and their toddlers, including one American child, were among about 60 people discovered at a drop house used by smugglers. Because there is no family facility nearby, the women and children are being housed in a private shelter.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the proposed plan to open new family detention centers.

“After the horrible conditions that were revealed at the Hutto facility, it is very disappointing that the government appears to want to produce more immigration prisons for families and children,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, a staff attorney at the Southern California office.

Arulanantham said most families do not pose a safety or flight risk and should not be detained. Instead, he said, they should post bonds, wear electronic monitors or be part of an intensive supervision program.

“There are other ways to deter illegal immigration without imprisoning children,” he said. “This shows that we have become addicted to incarceration as a method to solving our problems, which it is obviously not.”

In extreme cases, Arulanantham said, he could see families being housed in some sort of halfway house, but not a former prison run by a private prison company.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans to review the proposals and make a decision within several months, Nantel said. The bids could come from county governments or private companies. The facilities would house up to 200 people each, about 150 juveniles and 50 adults. Authorities estimate detainees would be kept at the center for between 20 and 30 days.

The proposal calls for minimal security facilities and refers to the centers as residential family shelters, but says the contractor should structure programs “designed to prevent escapes” and should provide a plan that “monitors resident movement and physically counts residents.” Nobody with a criminal record would be admitted.

Corrections Corp. of America senior vice president Damon Hininger said he was aware of the request for proposals and that the company was “taking a look at it.” The company already runs several immigration detention centers, including Hutto.

Hutto has 450 beds, and as of last week there were about 150 people being held in family detention there. If new facilities are built, Nantel said the agency would consider transferring the families out of Hutto and using it as an adult immigration detention center.

“Running a residential facility in what was a former prison, that was a challenge,” she said. “There have been lessons learned out of Hutto.”

When the center opened, children were given hospital scrubs to wear, forbidden to have toys and allowed only one hour of recreation per day, attorneys said. As a result of the settlement, children are allowed to wear pajamas, move freely around the center and bring toys into their rooms. There also have been changes made to the facility, including adding individual bathrooms, adding murals and replacing metal doors.

Given the national security goals of the Department of Homeland Security, advocates said they are skeptical about future family centers.

“They really do have this penal system model in their heads,” said Andrea Black, coordinator of Detention Watch Network, a coalition advocating reform of immigration detention and deportation. “I think it’s going to be challenging for them to actually be able to run a family facility that is nonpunitive given their current philosophy and practices.”

The need to imprison families stems from the presence of so many illegal families sneaking across the border or hiding in the United States, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit group that advocates a reduction in the number of immigrants.

“This is really recognizing the realities of the illegal alien population,” he said. “They used to let everybody out and trust them to come back. That hasn’t worked out, to say the least. This is simply the pendulum moving back the other way.”

LA Times | Anna Gorman | Sunday, May 18, 2008

Vodka-maker Absolut apologizes, ends ad showing California, Texas as part of Mexico

The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers.

The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan “In an Absolut World,” showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.

But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, were less than ideal for Americans undergoing a border buildup and embroiled in an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor.

More than a dozen calls to boycott Absolut were posted on michellemalkin.com, a Web site operated by conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. The ads sparked heated comment on a half-dozen other Internet sites and blogs.

“In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues,” Absolut said in a statement left on its consumer inquiry phone line.

Some fringe U.S. groups also claim the land is rightfully part of Mexico, while extreme immigration foes argue parts of the U.S. already are being overtaken by Mexico.

“In an Absolut world, a company that produces vodka fires its entire marketing department in a desperate attempt to win back enraged North American customers after a disastrous ad campaign backfires,” a person using the moniker “SalsaNChips” wrote on Malkin’s Web site.

A plan for comprehensive immigration reform designed to deal with an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States - the vast majority from Mexico - collapsed last summer under the emotional weight of the debate.

Absolut said the ad was designed for a Mexican audience and intended to recall “a time which the population of Mexico might feel was more ideal.”

“As a global company, we recognize that people in different parts of the world may lend different perspectives or interpret our ads in a different way than was intended in that market, and for that we apologize.”

Vin & Sprit, Absolut’s Sweden-based parent company, will be acquired by French spirit maker Pernod Ricard SA under a deal reached last week.

AP | Sunday, April 6, 2008

Tight US immigration forces outsourcing: Bill Gates

US high-tech companies are being forced to outsource more jobs overseas because of outdated restrictions on immigration, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told Congress Wednesday.Gates, echoing a longstanding complaint from the technology sector, told a congressional panel that the US immigration system “makes attracting and retaining high-skilled immigrants exceptionally challenging for US firms.”

“Congress’s failure to pass high-skilled immigration reform has exacerbated an already grave situation,” Gates said in remarks prepared for delivery to a hearing of the House of Representatives Science and Technology Committee.

“As a result, many US firms, including Microsoft, have been forced to locate staff in countries that welcome skilled foreign workers to do work that could otherwise have been done in the United States, if it were not for our counterproductive immigration policies.”

Gates said the limits on so-called H-1B visas aimed at highly skilled professionals are far too low for the rapidly growing tech sector.

He said the current cap of 65,000 H-1B visas “is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to the US economy’s demand for skilled professionals.”

The Microsoft founder noted that all the 65,000 visas for the current fiscal year were snapped up in one day last April and that employers are now waiting to apply for visas for fiscal 2009, starting in October.

“Last year, for example, Microsoft was unable to obtain H-1B visas for one-third of the highly qualified foreign-born job candidates that we wanted to hire,” Gates said.

“If we increase the number of H-1B visas that are available to US companies, employment of US nationals would likely grow as well. For instance, Microsoft has found that for every H-1B hire we make, we add on average four additional employees to support them in various capacities.”

Gates also said the United States needs to improve science and math education to train a new generation of tech leaders, reversing a move away from these fields.

“If we don’t reverse these trends, our competitive advantage will continue to erode. Our ability to create new high-paying jobs will suffer,” Gates said.

AFP | Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Lou Dobbs | Mexico To Use Biochips To Curb Immigration

Lou Dobbs | Mexico To Use Biochips To Curb Immigration Read more

Poll: 77% oppose illegals’ licenses

Voters oppose driver’s licenses for illegal aliens by a nearly five-to-one margin, a new Fox 5/Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll finds.As immigration politics explode into the presidential race, polls show Americans are taking a hard line on benefits for illegal aliens, including opposing driver’s licenses and such taxpayer-funded benefits as scholarships at state colleges for illegal-alien students.

The new poll found 77 percent of the adults surveyed opposed making driver’s licenses available to illegal aliens, while just 16 percent supported the idea.

Licenses fared poorly across party lines, including near-blanket opposition among self-identified Republicans, at 88 percent. Among independents and Democrats, it was still overwhelmingly unpopular, drawing 75 percent and 68 percent opposition, respectively.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in September proposed adding New York to the list of seven states that offer licenses to illegal aliens, and the issue has refused to die down since.

Most Democratic presidential candidates have embraced the policy, including front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, arguing it’s a matter of road safety and a valid response to the federal government’s failure to give a path to citizenship to illegal aliens.

But those on the other side, including Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Christopher J. Dodd and the entire Republican presidential field, oppose the idea.

“I think we have to quit inducing people to come and stay if they’re illegal,” said former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, one of the Republican candidates.

On the issue of public benefits, the poll’s sample of California voters found 62 percent opposed state-sponsored college scholarships for children of illegal aliens, while 24 percent supported the concept.

The idea was unpopular in both parties, with Republicans opposed by a margin of 81 percent to 11 percent, and Democrats against it by 50 percent to 33 percent.

The state’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, vetoed a bill last month that would have allowed illegal-alien children to apply for community college fee waivers and other types of financial aid. Mr. Schwarzenegger said the policy would strain public finances and hurt legal-resident students.

“It would not be prudent to place additional strain on the general fund to accord the new benefit of providing state-subsidized financial aid to students without lawful immigration status,” the governor said in his veto message, pointing out that California already allows illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition rates.

It was the second time in two years he has vetoed the measure. He also has vetoed bills to extend driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

Meanwhile, on the issue of enforcement, the poll’s sample of 500 Texas voters found strong support for a crackdown: 75 percent said they favor police officers automatically checking legal status during traffic stops, and 66 percent said if someone stopped turns out to be illegal, they should be deported.

Even legal immigrants didn’t fare well in the polling.

The national sample of voters found them strongly against changing the Constitution to allow a legal immigrant to seek the presidency, with more then three-fourths of adults opposing the idea.

Washington Times | Stephen Dinan | Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Chertoff Push Over Licenses Led to a Shift

ALBANY, Oct. 30 - The phone call from a top aide to Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, came two weeks ago, and the message was clear: The department was concerned that Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants would undermine a federal initiative to roll out a new highly secure, nationally recognized license.The prospect of Mr. Chertoff coming out publicly against Mr. Spitzer’s plan caused deep anxiety among Spitzer administration officials, said Michael A. L. Balboni, the governor’s deputy secretary for public safety, who received the call.

The governor and his aides felt they had few options.

The license plan had already set off angry attacks from Republicans and unease among Democratic allies, and had made the governor a target of national groups rallying for tougher immigration policies.

Mr. Spitzer agreed with Mr. Chertoff to a compromise plan on Friday under which the state would offer three levels of driver’s licenses beginning next year, including a limited license that illegal immigrants could obtain but that could not be used to board airplanes or cross borders.

The announcement has done little to quiet the fury Mr. Spitzer set off on Sept. 21 when he declared, without consulting the Legislature, that New York would offer driver’s licenses to the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants living in the state, as a way of making the roads safer and bringing them “out of the shadows.”

An examination of five weeks of policy twists, during which Mr. Spitzer alienated allies and emboldened enemies, reveals a governor almost stubbornly certain of himself and disinclined to consult with those who could be helpful in politically selling or smoothing the way for a divisive initiative.

Most lawmakers first heard about the initial policy when the governor announced it, saying, “The D.M.V. is not the I.N.S.”

County clerks who would have to carry out the policy were not consulted. Nor was Mr. Chertoff’s department.

“There’s a very consistent pattern here of not consulting with his friends,” said Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat. “I must say, at this point, people don’t understand what the thinking and the planning was.”

Aides to the governor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had not foreseen the intensity of opposition the license plan would touch off.

Mr. Spitzer saw it as simply keeping a promise he had made during his campaign last year.

And it was consistent with his desire, after battling the Legislature for a frustrating six months, to govern by exercising the powers of the executive agencies under his control, without legislative interference.

His policy advisers and David J. Swarts, the motor vehicles commissioner, worked quietly on the policy for several months. They presented it to the governor, and then he moved on it.

“We finished, got to a conclusion, said, ‘O.K., now let’s announce it,’” Mr. Spitzer recalled in a recent interview. “It was not a whole lot more than that.”

It did not take long for opponents to make themselves heard. Within a week, county clerks began to rebel. Even New York’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, typically a friendly voice, raised concerns.

Though they acknowledge that they failed to anticipate the reaction fully, Mr. Spitzer and his staff also argue that the issue is so visceral that laying more groundwork might not have made much difference.

“I don’t think it would matter if Lou Dobbs saw us standing next to some police chief,” said one aide to the governor, referring to the CNN anchor, who has been leading an almost nightly crusade against Mr. Spitzer’s policy.

The governor moved to shore up support, enlisting Latino lawmakers and other Democrats to appear with him at press conferences. He also tried to rally them in closed-door meetings before a special legislative session last week.

State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., a conservative lawmaker from the Bronx, strongly defended the governor, arguing for the policy in emotional language on the Senate floor.

Mr. Diaz took aim at the governor’s chief political rival, Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate majority leader, for first supporting the plan and then reversing himself.

But even as Mr. Diaz and others stood up for Mr. Spitzer, talks had begun with the Department of Homeland Security about revising the plan.

Mr. Balboni, a former Republican senator, said he was initially “not enthused about the idea” of having the state adopt the national Real ID card, which has been opposed by some civil liberties groups and immigration advocates. But he came to believe, he said, that it was a way of getting illegal immigrants into the system.

The Spitzer aides also felt they had gained key concessions on Real ID. They included getting the Department of Homeland Security to forgo forcing states to start using more expensive material for their licenses and to ease the timeline so the state did not need to immediately increase staffing levels at the Department of Motor Vehicles, which would have been costly.

But when the governor’s new plan was announced, he lost support from just about everyone. Those who stood by granting the licenses to illegal immigrants felt betrayed. Those Democrats uneasy with the initial plan wondered if this change would solve the problem.

And opponents of the initial plan either declared victory, or vowed to continue to block Mr. Spitzer from issuing any kind of license to illegal immigrants.

Again, many allies felt they were not given a heads up that the announcement was coming.

“I believed the governor, I trusted him,” said Mr. Diaz. “Bruno has been good to me, but I criticized him. Now I’m going to have to go back to the Senate floor and apologize because the governor decided to turn his back on us and make a deal with Washington.”

Assemblyman José R. Peralta, a Queens Democrat, said, “We went out there to defend undocumented immigrants and individuals who were being targeted as far as not being allowed to get licenses, and we were on the road to doing that until this agreement with the federal government.”

Even Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Legislature’s top Democrat, and David A. Paterson, the lieutenant governor, were not told that there would be a shift in strategy until late Friday, the night before the governor announced the deal.

To try to smooth some of the anger, Mr. Spitzer invited Mr. Diaz and a half-dozen other lawmakers, most of them Hispanic and defenders of the original plan, to an Upper East Side diner on Sunday morning to explain his decision.

Feelings were frayed, and the meeting grew emotional. At one point, Mr. Spitzer asked Mr. Diaz to lower his voice because they were in a public place.

“You made me make a fool out of myself,” Mr. Diaz told the governor.

Mr. Spitzer and his aides told the lawmakers that they had been reluctant to send word of the new proposal before they completed negotiations with the Bush administration, which took until the end of the day Friday. And they were clearly worried about what Mr. Chertoff would do if they did not go along.

While Mr. Spitzer tries to repair ties with his old allies, his handling of the issue has only made his Republican foes more determined to keep after him. And, given that the new license system is a year off, and legislative approval will likely be necessary to finance part of it, Albany could see many more months of intense argument over the issue.

“I really don’t believe this is the end of the story,” said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat.

Nicholas Confessore contributed reporting.

NYT | Danny Hakim | Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Homeland Security strikes deal with New York on driver’s licenses

The Bush administration and New York cut a deal Saturday to create a new generation of super-secure driver’s licenses for U.S. citizens, but also allow illegal immigrants to get a version.New York is the fourth state to reach such an agreement on federally approved secure licenses, after Arizona, Vermont and Washington. The issue is pressing for border states, where new and tighter rules are soon to go into effect for crossings.

The deal comes about one month after New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced a plan whereby illegal immigrants with a valid foreign passport could obtain a license.

Saturday’s agreement with the Homeland Security Department will create a three-tier license system in New York. It is the largest state to sign on so far to the government’s post-Sept. 11 effort to make identification cards more secure.

Spitzer, who has faced much criticism on the issue, said the deal means New York “will usher in the most secure licensing system in the nation.”

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he was not happy that New York intended to issue IDs to illegal immigrants. But he said there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“I don’t endorse giving licenses to people who are not here legally, but federal law does allow states to make that choice,” Chertoff said.

“It’s going to be a big deal up in Buffalo, it’s going to be a big deal on the Canadian side of the border,” Chertoff said.

The governor made clear he is going forward with his plan allowing licenses for illegal immigrants. But advocates on both sides of the debate said Spitzer had caved to pressure by adopting the administration’s stance on tighter security standards for most driver’s licenses.

GOP Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who represents the Buffalo suburbs, said he was glad Washington had heeded his concerns about border identification. But he said he feared that Spitzer “is taking this state down a risky path” by giving any kind of license to illegal immigrants.

Under the compromise, New York will produce an “enhanced driver’s license” that will be as secure as a passport. It is intended for people who soon will need to meet such ID requirements, even for a short drive to Canada.

A second version of the license will meet new federal standards of the Real ID Act. That law is designed to make it much harder for illegal immigrants or would-be terrorists to obtain licenses.

A third type of license will be available to undocumented immigrants. Spitzer has said this ID will make the state more secure by bringing those people “out of the shadows” and into American society, and will lower auto insurance rates.

Those licenses will be clearly marked to show they are not valid federal ID. Officials, however, would not say whether that meant local law enforcement could use such a license as probable cause to detain someone they suspected of being in the U.S. illegally.

“Besides being a massive defeat for the governor, I can’t imagine many _ if any _ illegal immigrants coming forward to get the driver’s licenses, because they’d basically be labeled as illegal,” said New York Rep. Peter King, the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee.

New York has between 500,000 and 1 million undocumented immigrants, many of whom are driving without a license and car insurance or with fake driver’s licenses, Spitzer said in September when he announced his executive order.

The administration has not finalized standards for Real ID-compliant driver’s licenses. Spitzer said he believed the new licenses would meet those standards or come very close.

Many states say it is too expensive to comply with the law; seven of them have passed legislation opposing Real ID. Neither the governor nor Chertoff would say how much it would cost to put the system in place or who would pay for it.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties, said Spitzer’s move effectively revives a faltering ID program. “The governor’s stunning lack of courage is aiding the Bush administration in clamping down on civil liberties,” Lieberman said.

AP | Devlin Barrett | Saturday, October 27, 2007

Immigrant influx from Eastern Europe is driving down wages, Bank expert warns

The arrival of immigrants from Eastern Europe has forced down the wages of British workers, a Bank of England expert says.Professor David Blanchflower said the average pay rise given to a UK worker had reduced significantly as a direct result of EU expansion.

Workers have an increased ‘fear’ of unemployment - which allows bosses to drive a harder bargain.

Professor Blanchflower is a member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee.

His findings provide the first proof that the arrival of 700,000 Eastern Europeans has left the average worker worse-off.

In 2004, prior to the influx of workers from Poland and other countries, an employee earning £30,000 would have received a pay rise of £1,260.

But a rise given to a worker on the same salary in the middle of this year, would be only £1,050 - a reduction of £210.

The more you earn, the more you would lose out.

Professor Blanchflower said the arrival of Eastern Europeans had ‘increased the fear of unemployment’.

This, he said, ‘tends to have a downward impact on pay, especially in the non-union sector’.

Fear of unemployment is measured by asking the public how they expect the number of unemployed to change over the next 12 months.

A balance is worked out between those giving positive and negative replies.

Across the EU, the ‘fear’ of unemployment has fallen since 2003/4.

This is consistent with most of the other EU countries putting restrictions on the right of Eastern Europeans to work, the professor said.

But, in Britain, which allowed free access to the jobs market, it has increased.

Scroll down for more…

Workers fear they could be replaced by a migrant. As a result wage growth, excluding bonuses, has fallen from 4.2 per cent in 2004 to 3.9 per cent in 2005, 3.8 per cent in 2006 and 3.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2007.

In June, the Retail Price Index inflation measure, which includes mortgage payments and is used in pay bargaining, was 4.3 per cent.

Workers receiving a pay-rise below this rate, as the average employee did, can claim to have suffered a real-terms pay cut.

The same has happened in Ireland, which also opted against restrictions on Eastern Europeans.

There, average weekly earnings growth has fallen from 5 per cent in 2004 to 3.1 per cent in 2006.

Professor Blanchflower said: ‘Given the strong growth rates of both economies, many economists have struggled to find an explanation for this apparent weakness.

‘I believe a rise in the fear of unemployment is the only realistic candidate explanation.’

However, there are benefits, he added, such as helping to keep inflation low.

Earlier this week, it emerged that one in every eight workers is born outside this country.

The Office for National Statistics produced the breakdown from the Government’s Labour Force Survey which questions about 20,000 a month.

It showed that in 1997 there were 1,904,000 employees born abroad, fewer than one in 13 of the country’s workforce.

By 2007 the number born abroad had risen by more than 70 per cent, to 3,269,000.

The number in work has risen since 1997 from 25.5 million to 27.2 million.

But only 310,000 new jobs have gone to workers born in Britain - fewer than one in five of the jobs created by a continuously expanding economy.

The number of British-born workers has actually fallen over the past four years, from a peak of 24.5million in 2003 to 23.9million, the figures showed.

Professor Blanchflower is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College in the U.S. and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Daily Mail | James Slack | Friday, October 26, 2007

Illegals OK’d to drive in N.Y.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has started a major political fight over immigration by ordering state officials to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, prompting at least one county legislature to defy the executive order and pushing toward a showdown in court.The embattled governor’s order has drawn some acerbic commentary, including a cartoon showing Osama bin Laden as a New York City taxi driver. After spending months trying to deflect charges that he used state police to target the Republican leader of the state Senate, Mr. Spitzer appears eager for a fight over this contentious issue.

“The rabid right that wants to pile on and use this to demagogue the issue will not carry the day in New York state,” he said recently. “Those who view this as a political issue once again are taking the state in the wrong direction.”

The driver’s license issue has once again put the governor at odds with New Yorkers. When New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who inJune abandoned the Republican Party, criticized the order recently, the Democratic governor shot back that the mayor was “dead wrong, factually wrong, legally wrong, morally wrong, ethically wrong.”

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani joined the list of opponents this week. “Governor Spitzer should not give licenses to illegals,” he told the Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday. “It doesn’t make sense.”

The issue heated up late last week, when the Monroe County legislature defied the governor and ordered its county clerk to require anyone seeking a driver’s license to provide a valid Social Security number. The decision runs counter to Mr. Spitzer’s order, in which illegal aliens with valid foreign passports would be eligible to obtain a state driver’s license.

Again, Mr. Spitzer was defiant: “I hate to say it - the clerks have to enforce it,” he said. “The clerks who issue driver’s licenses are agents of the state. They do not make state law on this. State government does.”

In another move, 29 clerks, all but one a Republican, voted to oppose the plan, with 13 vowing to directly disobey the governor, even if ordered to comply. The clerks said their offices would be hard-pressed to determine the legality of applicants.

The issue has prompted high-powered dissent, including on Capitol Hill. Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds, New York Republican, has denounced the order as “bad policy exacerbating our broken immigration system.”

“Those who have come to the United States illegally should not be rewarded with a New York state driver’s license,” he said.

John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary who served on the September 11 commission, called the governor’s decree “absurd.”

“It’s a perfect formula for al Qaeda. They won’t be able to resist it. They will be able to come to New York,” he said. “It’s going to become a magnet to lawbreakers because the surrounding states will adhere to the federal standards.”

Critics say the credibility of a New York driver’s license could be called into question in other states, because applicants would not be required to prove that they have a Social Security number.

The issue began in July 2006, when an appeals court ruled that the state could have wider latitude in issuing driver’s licenses. Republican Gov. George E. Pataki decreed that immigrants would need to prove they were in the United States legally before getting licenses. During the gubernatorial campaign, Mr. Spitzer vowed to change that. With the Republican-led Senate adamantly opposed to any change, the governor bypassed the Legislature by issuing an executive order.

The plan is supposed to go into effect in December, but the Senate’s Republican majority has pledged to override Mr. Spitzer’s order in an emergency session Oct. 22.

The public is opposed to Mr. Spitzer’s plan as well, a recent poll shows.

A Zogby survey of 718 likely voters in New York found that 65 percent of the state’s voters are against the proposal. The poll, taken Oct. 11-15, showed that nearly half - 47 percent - of Democrats oppose the plan, compared with 92 percent of Republicans.

Washington Times | Saturday, October 20, 2007

Illegal immigrants issued ID cards

Illegal immigrants are getting driver’s licenses and identification cards in cities and states that are bucking the national trend to take official documents and public benefits away from them.

New Haven, Conn., began issuing municipal ID cards in July to all residents, including illegal immigrants. New York will join eight other states in giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, starting in December.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer “believes it’s important to bring a significant population in New York state out of the shadows … (and) allow them to participate in the economy,” Motor Vehicles Commissioner David Swarts says.

“It is totally contrary to the trend in most other states,” says Oklahoma state Rep. Randy Terrill, author of a new law that denies illegal immigrants any government ID. It takes effect next month.

“There are huge security concerns when it comes to somebody who is a foreign national in this country possessing official, government-issued” ID, he says.

Swarts counters that safety will improve because illegal immigrants will purchase car insurance and hit-and-run accidents will decrease.

New Haven has issued 3,700 municipal IDs. The card can be used to open a bank account, as a library card and as a debit card at some stores. As many as 15,000 illegal immigrants live in the city.

Laura Perez, 28, opened a checking account with her card. An illegal immigrant from Guatemala, Perez used to keep her money under her pillow. “I feel safe now,” she says. “If we are working so hard, if we are paying our taxes, the cards are a fair thing.”

Tom Fitton, president of the conservative Judicial Watch, says the cards “raise the specter of local governments conspiring with illegals to help them stay here.”

“In the least, they undermine federal law,” he says, “and at worst, they violate the law.”

USA Today | Emily Bazaar

Next Page »