1. South Coast Today - New Bedford, MA: Settlement reached in Bianco case - Company agrees to pay $850,000 in unpaid wages
2. ABC7Chicago.com – IL: Boy recounts experience of raid in Iowa
3. Gazette Online - Solon, IA: Immigration raids end with four arrests
4. Times Gazette – Shelbyville, TN: Refugee program stayed after feds confirm fraud
5. Sun-Sentinel.com - Fort Lauderdale, FL: New program speeds the decision for immigrants facing deportation - Immigrants facing deportation learn whether they have the right to stay
6. Wall Street Journal – USA: Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons
7. Orlando Sentinel - Orlando, FL: 60 Minutes" to spotlight Orlando woman trying to avoid deportation
8. CharlotteObserver.com - Charlotte, NC: N.C. sheriffs line up 3,100 to deport - Seven sheriff offices this year flagged the suspected immigration violators after their arrests on other charges
9. San Francisco Chronicle – CA: Napolitano to head Homeland Security
10. UI The Daily Iowan (registration) - Iowa City, IA: Immigration raids continue
11. Contra Costa Times - Walnut Creek, CA: Sant Clarita task force nabs 21 in anti-gang raids
12. Tucson Citizen - Tucson, AZ: Detention of migrant women faulted by UA researcher - Problems cited include negligence in medical care, lack of programs for detainees
13. New York Times: A Residency Dream, Now a Nightmare
1. South Coast Today - New Bedford, MA: Settlement reached in Bianco case - Company agrees to pay $850,000 in unpaid wages
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081119/NEWS/811190357
BECKY W. EVANS
November 19, 2008
BOSTON — In its second major settlement in two weeks, Michael Bianco Inc. has agreed to pay $850,000 in unpaid overtime and wages to more than 750 workers, including some who were arrested and deported following a massive immigration raid at the former New Bedford military gear factory.
The agreement settles a federal class action lawsuit filed by Greater Boston Legal Services, a legal advocacy group that has provided free counsel to more than 100 of the 361 undocumented workers arrested in the March 6, 2007, raid.
The lawsuit alleged that Bianco "systematically and intentionally violated the laws requiring time-and-a-half for overtime work by creating a sham second corporation called Front Line Defense Inc.," according to a release from the group, known as GBLS.
Audrey Richardson, a senior attorney at GBLS, said workers had sought overtime before the raid, but former owner Francesco Insolia had made it "crystal clear" that he would not pay overtime. She described the settlement as only "partial justice" for the workers, many whose lives were torn apart when they were separated from their children and families following the raid.
Ms. Richardson called upon President-elect Barack Obama and the new U.S. Congress to push for federal immigration reform that would bring immigrant workers out of the shadows and erase the climate of fear surrounding their workplaces.
Frank Libby, an attorney representing both Bianco and Mr. Insolia, could not be reached for comment.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston announced that Bianco and Mr. Insolia had pleaded guilty to federal charges involving a scheme to hire illegal immigrants. As part of that settlement, the company agreed to pay $460,000 in restitution for overtime pay owed to workers. Ms. Richardson said that sum was included in the $850,000 settlement announced Tuesday during a press conference at GBLS headquarters.
In addition to the overtime pay, Bianco has agreed to pay wages withheld from workers who were as little as one minute late for work, according to GBLS. The lawsuit alleged that workers were routinely docked 15 to 30 minutes of pay because they had waited in long lines to punch in for work due to an insufficient number of time clocks.
The settlement includes money for New Bedford community groups that support and organize immigrant workers and partial compensation for attorneys' fees and costs incurred by legal services groups that represent workers. In addition, the six plaintiffs named in the lawsuit will receive a bonus of $2,000 each in recognition for their courage in coming forward to testify, Ms. Richardson said.
A total of 764 former Bianco employees, including both documented and undocumented workers, will receive payments ranging from less than $20 to more than $8,000, she said. Payment will depend on the length of a worker's employment at the factory and the number of overtime hours worked. Ms. Richardson noted that court rulings have made it clear that federal laws governing payment of wages and overtime cover all workers regardless of their immigration status.
The U.S. Department of Labor will supervise and administer $613,000 in restitution payments to workers. Both GBLS and Organization Maya K'iche, a New Bedford advocacy group for Guatemalan Mayans, will assist in locating workers and distributing checks. The groups have kept in touch with many of the workers who were deported to their home countries and will work with family members to track down other deported workers, Ms. Richardson said.
Elsy Hernandez, a former Bianco worker who spoke in Spanish, said during the press conference that no matter how much money she receives from the settlement, she plans to spend it all helping family members who live outside the United States. Ms. Hernandez, who would not identify her country of birth nor her immigration status, said she worked 14 to 16 hours per day at the factory. She said she was paid the same hourly wage of $7.25 per hour and received no overtime.
She described punching out with her Bianco time card at 5 p.m. and then punching in with a different Front Line Defense time card at 5:30 p.m. She said she did the same work for both companies at the factory on West Rodney French Boulevard.
Adrian Ventura, president of Organization Maya K'iche, praised the settlement, saying he hoped it would stand as a lesson to other employers that they must "treat us with dignity and respect and "¦ abide by the law of this country."
He said immigrant workers at area companies are "so afraid because all the time there is talk about raids, and they are violating our rights," he said.
When asked if there were other employers in New Bedford and Massachusetts who were withholding wages and overtime from immigrant workers, Ms. Richardson said she believed there were, but would not answer whether GBLS was involved in any additional class action lawsuits.
"This is the tip of the iceberg, there is no doubt about that," she said.
The former Bianco plant was purchased in November 2007 by Eagle Industries Inc., which has taken over Department of Defense contracts to make military equipment for U.S. troops.
Of the 361 Bianco workers arrested in the raid, approximately 168 were deported to their home countries, primarily in Central America, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency told The Standard-Times that 116 of the workers are awaiting a court ruling on deportation, 26 have received final deportation orders and will be sent to their home countries, and 16 had their residency changed to legal status. The exact status of another 35 cases in the system was unclear.
GBLS attorney John Willshire-Carrera said many of the former Bianco workers are struggling to get by without a job as they wait for their immigration cases to go forward. He said the settlement awards should help some of those families survive.
2. ABC7Chicago.com – IL: Boy recounts experience of raid in Iowa
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=6513127
November 18, 2008
AP
CHICAGO -- Pedro Arturo Lopez was in social studies class when the 13-year-old undocumented boy from Mexico heard the unusual thudding of a helicopter above his small Iowa town.
Moments later Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stormed the Agriprocessors Inc. meat processing plant where his mother worked up to 16-hour shifts cutting beef.
With tears running down his cheeks, Lopez said Tuesday at a Chicago immigration symposium that he was anxious and worried because he did not know what would happen to his mother.
"That day, I sometimes dream it and it's horrible," Lopez said. "It's one of those things that's gonna haunt me."
The effects of the May 12 raid in Postville, Iowa, one of the largest in U.S. history, was the main topic of discussion at the symposium at DePaul University's College of Law.
Experts and activists said the negative effects of immigration raids ripple in communities across the country and pointed to recent examples in Chicago's predominantly Mexican Little Village neighborhood.
Raids are "inhumane and immoral," said Julie Santos, a Midwest spokeswoman for the League of United Latin American Citizens. "This is the impact of broken laws."
She and others vowed to re-ignite their push for comprehensive immigration reform starting Jan. 21, the day after President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration.
Officials with ICE, who were not present at Tuesday's event, have long said raids are an effective way of enforcing laws and have defended their tactics, including the use of armed agents.
Last year in Chicago, agents raided a discount mall in the city's Little Village neighborhood to dismantle a fake document ring. Top ICE officials lauded the raid as one of the agency's most successful operations of the year. A lengthy investigation and the raid resulted in nearly two dozen arrests, including the father of a Chicago alderman.
But activists said the April 24, 2007, raid also affected innocent people. Those inside the mall, which specializes in Mexican goods, have described chaos as armed agents blocked entrances with dozens trapped inside.
After a raid, many are afraid to venture out, which panelists said has happened in many communities.
The Rev. Paul Ouderkirk of St. Bridget's Catholic Church in Postville has worked to rebuild trust and daily life in the community of about 2,300.
Nearly 400 immigrants were arrested and charged with crimes including identity fraud at the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant. Several owners and managers have since been charged with crimes, including violating child labor laws.
"The raid did no good for anybody," Ouderkirk said, describing how the church has housed and fed hundreds since May 12.
Lopez, who immigrated illegally from Mexico with his family when he was 3, said it has been torturous waiting to know what would happen to his mother, Consuelo Vega Nava.
After her arrest officials transferred her to a federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., and then later to a Florida facility before her deportation to Mexico.
Lopez, who has not seen his mother since May 12, said he will be reunited with her when he returns to Mexico next month.
"I've missed those days when me and my mom would just walk or go get an ice cream," he said. "I don't want this to be forgotten."
3. Gazette Online - Solon,IA: Immigration raids end with four arrests
http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081118/NEWS/711189930/1006
Erika Binegar November 18th
VINTON - Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested four men — three from Mexico and one from China — in immigration raids of Peony Chinese Restaurants in Vinton and Toledo.
Two employees were arrested at each restaurant, ICE spokesman Tim Counts said. The men face administrative immigration violations for being in the country illegally, Counts said.
A hearing has not yet been scheduled before a federal immigration judge to determine whether the men — whose names were not released — will be deported.
Counts said the enforcement actions — which started about 11:30 a.m. and ended about 2 p.m. — were part of an ongoing investigation.
"A 'raid' denotes something random or chaotic — this is neither," he said.
The same family owns Peony restaurants in Vinton and Toledo.
In Vinton, four Iowa State Patrol squad cars and one Vinton police car were parked outside the popular restaurant near the Benton County Courthouse. State patrol assigned three troopers to Benton and Tama Counties to help ICE.
The Vinton restaurant has been operating for about 15 years. It is now locked, and customers are being told to go elsewhere. The men arrested there were from China and Mexico.
The employees arrested in Toledo were both from Mexico.
4. Times Gazette – Shelbyville, TN: Refugee program stayed after feds confirm fraud
http://www.t-g.com/story/1478471.html
November 16, 2008
By Brian Mosely
A fact sheet released this week from the U.S. State Department reported widespread fraud in the refugee program that has brought tens of thousands of people from Somalia and other African nations to the United States.
The reported fraud spurred the State Department to suspend a humanitarian program in August which was supposed to reunite African "anchor" refugees already in the states with their family members who are still overseas.
DNA testing conducted earlier this year by the government to verify blood ties between anchor refugees and their supposed family members revealed that fewer than 20 percent of those checked could confirm their biological relationships, the fact sheet stated.
The suspension impacts the Priority Three (P-3) Program of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which grants access to those claiming to be "a parent, spouse, or minor child by certain legal residents in the United States."
Priority One (P-1) and Priority Two (P-2) refugees are admitted into the program based upon their vulnerability in their native country, through a referral from the United Nations. The P-1 and P-2 statuses of the program have not been suspended.
An applicant for refugee status must establish that he or she has suffered persecution or has a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, creed or origin.
"In recent years, applications to the P-3 program have been overwhelmingly African -- primarily Somalis, Ethiopians and Liberians -- accounting for some 95 percent of the P-3 applications," the fact sheet from the U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration stated.
When asked about the fraud described, Catalina Nieto, director of advocacy and educational programs for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said that the State Department fact sheet is "a very general report and it is referring to all refugees, not particular to Shelbyville."
The rights group is made up of a coalition of immigrants, refugees and their American-based supporters who work to "improve the rights and the public's perception of Tennessee's rapidly growing foreign-born population."
"We are talking about folks who are eager to reunite with their families and are eager to bring their friends and families to a safe and peaceful place," Nieto said.
Shelbyville has seen an influx of Somali refugees within the past few years, and there has been no reported evidence that any fraud has been perpetrated by local refugees. The suspension, however, may impact local refugees who are hoping to be reunited with family members here.
"The U.S. Government has a fair share of the responsibility to help resettle refugees from war torn areas," Nieto said. "We don't want government bureaucracy to be a significant obstacle for reuniting families."
Fraud uncovered
The DNA tests were conducted after both the Departments of State and Homeland Security jointly decided to test a sample of refugee cases due to reported fraud in the P-3 program, particularly in Kenya, the fact sheet explained.
The rate of fraud varied among nationalities and from country to country, "and is difficult to establish definitively as many individuals refused to submit DNA samples," the State Department said.
Samples of some 500 refugees, who were under consideration for U.S. resettlement through the P-3 program, were initially tested in Nairobi, Kenya.
But after the sample "suggested high rates of fraud," testing was expanded to Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, Guinea, Gambia and Cote d'Ivoire, the State Department said.
"Most of the approximately 3,000 refugees tested are from Somalia, Ethiopia and Liberia," the fact sheet said. The initial DNA testing "was limited to members of families applying for the P-3 program, and not between the applicants and the anchor relative in the United States," the State Department explained.
Family reunification processing and resettlement in Kenya and Ethiopia was halted in March, the State Department said, and the suspension was expanded in May to include the countries where the second round of DNA testing was done. The State Department also stopped accepting applications for the P-3 program on Oct. 22.
"The Departments of State and Homeland Security, along with our resettlement agency partners, are currently discussing how to handle applications that were submitted earlier this year," the fact sheet said.
Impact on refugees
Holly Johnson, State Refugee Coordinator for the Tennessee Office for Refugees said Friday that to her knowledge, the suspension "has not had a significant impact on the local program."
"It will impact refugees nationwide who have submitted a non-fraudulent application for a parent, spouse, or minor child because they will be separated from their family indefinitely," she said.
Johnson said all resettlement agencies "are under strict guidelines regarding the reporting of suspected fraud in refugee families, and we are no different."
"I take it very seriously," Johnson told the Times-Gazette. "Of the hundreds of resettlement cases that I have handled in the ten years that I have worked in the local resettlement program, there were only two cases (in the state) where I suspected the possibility of fraud."
Those cases were reported immediately to their national organization, Catholic Charities, Johnson said, and then were passed on to the State Department and/or the Department of Homeland Security. She added they were not notified of the outcome of these reports because of confidentiality guidelines.
Johnson said that Catholic Charities' focus "is ..tling refugees that the U.S. State Department selects and sends to Middle Tennessee."
"Our goal is to have them living independently within six months of arrival," she said. "The many refugees that have resettled here over the last 40 years have a solid track record of getting on their feet and joining the community very quickly."
Johnson also noted that while those who work with refugees understand the deplorable living conditions that would inspire one to attempt to flee by any means possible, "we strongly believe that the established guidelines must be followed in order to preserve the integrity of the U.S. refugee program."
"In no way do we excuse or condone the falsification of these applications, and are saddened by the fact that honest people are suffering because of the dishonesty of others," Johnson said.
Tyson comments
Gary Michelson, director of media relations for Tyson Foods, which employs nearly all of the Somali refugees that live in Shelbyville, said that Tyson has "zero tolerance for employing people who are not authorized to work in the U.S. That's why we use all available tools provided by the U.S. government to verify the documents of the people we hire."
"We check the employment documents of all new team members when they are first hired," Michelson said.
New hires are required to fill out a Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification Form and are required to present documents that prove identity and employment eligibility.
Since 1998, Tyson has also voluntarily participated in the U.S. government's Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification Program, which is now known as E-Verify, an internet-based system operated by the DHS in partnership with the Social Security Administration.
Tyson also uses the Social Security Number Verification System (SSNVS), an on-line service offered by the Social Security Administration (SSA), which allows registered users (employers and certain third-party submitters) to verify the names and Social Security numbers of employees against SSA records, Michelson said.
"If we learn one of our workers may not have proper authorization to work in this country, we take immediate measures. If they are unable to correct any discrepancies in their documentation, then they are released from employment," Michelson said.
Verifying claims
New methods of verifying family relationship claims are now being developed with the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department said, which may include voluntary DNA testing. The P-3 program in Africa will remain suspended until new measures are finalized and implemented.
However, exactly what measures will be taken against the thousands of refugees who have come into the country through the P-3 program in the last 20 years will be a question for the Department of Homeland Security to answer, the fact sheet said.
Since October 1, 2003, some 36,000 people have arrived from Africa through the P-3 program, the fact sheet explained, but also only some 400 people have arrived from other parts of the world through the program.
The P-3 program has not been suspended for non-African nationalities, the State Department said, noting that "the number of individuals applying from non-African countries, such as Burma, Cuba, etc., is very small."
Citizens from Afghanistan, Bhutan, Burma, Burundi, Central African Republic, Colombia, Cuba, Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe are eligible for consideration through the P-3 Program.
UPCOMING IN THE T-G
The Times-Gazette is seeking refugees who have been affected by the suspension for a follow-up report. Any affected refugees may call staff writer Brian Mosely at 684-1200, Ext. 264.
5. Sun-Sentinel.com - Fort Lauderdale, FL: New program speeds the decision for immigrants facing deportation - Immigrants facing deportation learn whether they have the right to stay
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/local/sfl-flborientation1119sbnov19,0,6144329.story
Luis F. Perez
November 19, 2008
It saves time and millions of taxpayer dollars, and it has just arrived in South Florida
Immigration court's Legal Orientation Program, which kicked off last month at Miami's Krome Detention Center, shaves an average of 13 days off the time it takes to process cases. That means immigrants get a quicker decision on whether they're getting deported or set free. And that translates into millions in savings on detention costs and a more efficient immigration court system.
For immigrants, the benefits go beyond money.
"The cards tend to be stacked against immigrants seeking relief from deportation," said Cheryl Little, executive director of Miami's Florida Immigration Advocacy Center. Many face forced separation from family. Some face the threat of death if they're returned to their native country. Some have a legal claim to stay and don't know it.
The orientation gives detainees an overview of their rights and the legal process, helps find pro-bono lawyers for some and allows others to better represent themselves. It also convinces some immigrants they have no legal right to be in the country, so it's best for them to cut the court proceedings short and go home.
"This program is extraordinarily important because there are people in the detained setting that are giving up their rights" to stay in the country, said Linda Osberg-Braun, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's South Florida chapter.
The government expanded the program, which it launched in 2003, from 13 sites to 25 across the country in October, bringing it to Krome for the first time. If successful, it might come to the Broward Detention Center next year.
New York City-based Vera Institute of Justice contracts with the immigration court to run the $3.7 million program nationally. Vera, in turn, sub-contracts with local organizations, including the Advocacy Center and Catholic Charities Legal Services, to conduct orientation sessions. As part of its contract, the court required Vera to conduct a program evaluation, which found those who went through the program had their cases processed in 27 days versus 40 days for those that didn't. Since its inception, more than 130,000 detainees have gone through the program. Federal immigration officials estimate it costs $97 a day to house a detainee.
6. Wall Street Journal – USA: Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705334657739263.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
STEPHANIE CHEN November 18
Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons and several state governments have sent thousands of inmates in recent months to prisons and detention centers run by Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group Inc. and other private operators, as a crackdown on illegal immigration, a lengthening of mandatory sentences for certain crimes and other factors have overcrowded many government facilities.
Prison-policy experts expect inmate populations in 10 states to have increased by 25% or more between 2006 and 2011, according to a report by the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.
Private prisons housed 7.4% of the country's 1.59 million incarcerated adults in federal and state prisons as of the middle of 2007, up from 1.57 million in 2006, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a crime-data-gathering arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Corrections Corp., the largest private-prison operator in the U.S., with 64 facilities, has built two prisons this year and expanded nine facilities, and it plans to finish two more in 2009. The Nashville, Tenn., company put 1,680 new prison beds into service in its third quarter, helping boost net income 14% to $37.9 million. "There is going to be a larger opportunity for us in the future," said Damon Hininger, Corrections Corp.'s president and chief operations officer, in a recent interview.
California has shipped more than 5,100 inmates to private prisons run by Corrections Corp. in Arizona, Mississippi and other states since late 2006, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered emergency measures to control a ballooning state-prison population. Prisons were so overcrowded that hundreds of inmates were sleeping in gyms, according to one report. An additional 2,900 prisoners are scheduled to be transferred to private prisons outside the state by the end of next year, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
"Private prisons are a short-term solution while we work on long-term solutions, rehabilitation programs and recidivism strategies," said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the state's corrections department.
Geo Group, of Boca Raton, Fla., the second-largest prison company, has built or expanded eight facilities this year in Georgia, Texas, Mississippi and other states, and it plans seven more expansions or new prisons by 2010. Last month, Geo Group was awarded a contract by Florida's Department of Management Services to design and build a 2,000-bed special-needs prison in that state. Cornell Cos., the nation's third-largest prison company, recently broke ground on a 1,250-bed private prison for men in Hudson, Colo.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons, the government agency that operates all federal prisons and manages the handling of inmates convicted of federal crimes, has awarded 13 contracts since 1997 to prison companies to build prisons and detention centers that house low-security inmates, primarily "low security criminal aliens," says Felicia Ponce, a spokeswoman for the agency. The contracts give the bureau "flexibility to manage a rapidly growing inmate population and to help control overcrowding," Ms. Ponce says.
Outsourcing incarceration to prison companies can reduce a government's cost of housing those prisoners by as much as 15%, according to a study by the Reason Foundation, a research organization in Los Angeles. Private operators say they can build prisons more quickly and operate them less expensively than governments because their payroll costs are lower and they can consolidate prisoners from many far-flung jurisdictions into facilities located in areas where land and building costs are very low.
Some groups accuse the private prisons of neglecting inmates or of putting them in bad conditions. "Profit is still a motive and it's structured into the way these prisons are operated," says Judy Greene, a justice-policy analyst for Justice Strategies, a nonprofit studying prison-sentencing issues and problems. "Just because the system has expanded doesn't mean there is evidence that conditions have improved."
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed lawsuits involving several prison companies over the past decade alleging poor treatment of inmates. Last year, the organization and other parties filed a lawsuit against Corrections Corp. and the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement arm in federal court in San Diego, alleging that the company was operating an overcrowded, unsafe immigrant-detention center in that city. Detainees were routinely assigned in groups of three to sleep in two-room cells -- meaning one had to sleep on the floor near the toilet -- or to temporary beds in recreation rooms and other common spaces, according to the complaint. The suit also alleged that detainees had little access to mental-health care.
"We have serious concerns about for-profit prison companies because they are notorious for cutting essential costs that need to be provided to maintain a safe and constitutional environment for prisoners," says Jody Kent, a public-policy coordinator for the ACLU's National Prison Project.
The lawsuit was settled in June, with Corrections Corp. and Homeland Security agreeing to limit immigrant detainees to the number of inmates the facility was designed for. Louise Grant, a Corrections Corp. spokeswoman, says the company's prison practices complied with federal standards and that it regularly discloses capacity levels and other information in federal filings.
"Our government partners monitor us daily," Ms. Grant says. "There is no cutting corners."
7. Orlando Sentinel - Orlando, FL: 60 Minutes" to spotlight Orlando woman trying to avoid deportation
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2008/11/60-minutes-to-s.html
CBS' "60 Minutes," the nation's No. 1 show the past two weeks, will turn to an Orlando family in this weekend's installment.
The story: Bob Simon looks at the U.S. government's treatment of immigrant widows and its efforts to deport them. The women in the report entered the country legally. But before they could attend hearings to determine if their marriages were based on love, their husbands died. Now U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services wants the women to leave.
One widow is Raquel Williams of Orlando. Her husband, Derek, died of a heart condition. She and their young son, Ian, live with her in-laws.
Her mother, Linda Williams, tells Simon: "They were doing things legally. They filed the right papers. They filed them in a timely manner. Things were not processed in a timely manner. And then my son died. This was not something that you can foresee."
As Simon explains in the story: "Immigration claims basically that a widow is not a wife, that if the widow did not complete the process to become a U.S. resident while her husband was alive, she cannot remain in the country. If that sounds a little strange, wait till you hear what happened to Raquel Williams when she met up with Immigration."
8. CharlotteObserver.com - Charlotte, NC: N.C. sheriffs line up 3,100 to deport - Seven sheriff offices this year flagged the suspected immigration violators after their arrests on other charges
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/breaking/story/363285.html
Benjamin Niolet
Nov. 19, 2008
RALEIGH More than 3,100 people from seven counties were placed in deportation proceedings this year as a result of a program that allows sheriffs to enforce federal immigration laws.
The people were flagged for deportation proceedings after being taken to jail on charges ranging from a traffic violation to murder.
"It certainly documents that there are persons illegally in this state who are committing crimes," said Eddie Caldwell, executive vice president and general counsel for the N.C. Sheriffs' Association, which has received about $1.3 million in state money in the past two years to help sheriffs combat illegal immigration.
More than 1,200 of those who are now facing deportation were stopped for traffic violations other than impaired driving. Civil rights advocates say that arresting someone for speeding because of their questionable immigration status takes limited resources from law enforcement that could be used to fight serious crime. The practice also leaves people of color open to racial profiling.
"A full third of the people who are being deported have been charged with minor motor vehicle violations," said Rebecca Headen, a staff attorney with the ACLU of North Carolina. "There are a lot of leaps being made in the name of making this program sound good to the North Carolina public."
Caldwell presented the numbers to a legislative oversight committee Tuesday.
The counties participating in the program, known as 287(g) for the section of federal law that enabled it, are Alamance, Cabarrus, Cumberland, Gaston, Henderson, Mecklenburg and Wake. The Durham Police Department is also participating but was not included in the sheriffs' association survey.
Cumberland, Henderson and Wake counties and the Durham police joined the program this year. The seven county sheriff offices interviewed 4,511 people suspected of not being legal residents, according to the report Caldwell presented Tuesday. Of those, federal officials identified 3,359 violators. Of that number, federal officials have deportation proceedings pending against 3,182. The remaining 177 have immigration detainers on them, and federal officials are waiting for the resolution of the charges that brought them to the sheriffs' attention in the first place.
A state law that went into effect in January requires all sheriffs to ask about the immigration status of anyone arrested for a felony or impaired dri