Full Story: North Jersey.com

To deny children of illegal immigrants U.S. citizenship would be to violate the U.S. Constitution, and to create a permanent underclass of people who are disenfranchised because of the decision of the parents, says Cid Wilson, who is a member of several state and national civil rights groups.

Wilson, the son of Dominican immigrants who — lest there be any questions, he says — migrated here legally, vehemently opposes Pearce’s proposal calling on Arizona to deny birth certificates to children born in the state to undocumented parents.

“These people say that it’s about obeying the law, that the parents didn’t obey the immigration laws,” says Wilson, who lives in Leonia and is a senior vice president and financial analyst at a Wall Street investment firm. “Well, let’s talk about law. It’s the law — it’s in the U.S. Constitution — and it’s crystal clear that if you’re born in the United States, you are a U.S. citizen. I don’t see the courts upholding this if it ever gets passed in Arizona. It is clearly a violation of the 14th Amendment.”

Though the 14th Amendment was crafted mainly for the protection of freed slaves, it went beyond that to secure citizenship for children born here and those born outside the United States to U.S. citizens. And that reach beyond slavery often has made the 14th Amendment the subject of intense debate over whom the authors intended to protect, and how citizenship should be handled.

Congressional bills seeking to deny citizenship to illegal immigrants’ U.S.-born children — whom some call “anchor babies” — have failed to gain traction in the past.

But this time, Wilson and other opponents of Pearce’s proposal believe it can pick up momentum.

“Arizona is the modern-day Mississippi as far as civil rights,” Wilson says evenly. “It’s the modern-day Jim Crow state. It wants to throw everything at immigrants and people of color. This is a state that voted against observing the Martin Luther King holiday in the past.”

Opponents of the Arizona proposal say it wrongly punishes children for the actions of their parents.

“It’s a proposal that would have wide ramifications,” he says. “It would create a permanent underclass of people who, despite being born in the United States, because of the status of their parents, they and their future children would be denied birth certificates.”

Wilson says he is concerned that Arizona’s salvo against so-called “birthright citizenship” will spread across the country. “In this environment, anything is possible,” Wilson says. “It’s an election year, and there’s an anti-immigrant, anti-ethnic environment.”

Wilson, who also is on boards of African-American civil rights groups, says the Arizona proposal flies in the face of “not just children, but African-Americans.”‘

Supporters of Pearce’s proposal see denying the children of the undocumented automatic citizenship as a deterrent to illegal immigration.

Wilson says he doesn’t buy that one of the draws of coming to the United States is the ability to have U.S. citizen children.

“It’s the ‘Help Wanted’ signs that we have for them that attract them here,” Wilson says, adding that having U.S. citizen children does not spare illegal immigrants from deportation, or ease their ability to legalize their immigration status.

“All this would do is create nationless children,” he says.

Full Story:NJ.com

In 1991, Faustino Escamilla snuck across the border from his native Mexico into Brownsville, Texas, eventually making his way to Norristown, Pa. where he worked as a stable hand.

Seven years later, he moved to New Jersey and went to work for a fencing company in Hillsborough. He met a Costa Rican woman with two children and, in 2003, they bought a $197,000 townhouse on which they pay about $5,000 a year in property taxes.

In June 2009, Escamilla, who has no criminal record, was stopped driving with a suspended license. Now, the federal government wants him deported.

“If the case is that I have to leave the country, I would go with my wife to her country,” said Escamilla, 36. “In my country, there is no life there, even to support one kid.”

There are thousands of illegal immigrants like Escamilla in New Jersey, where those with no criminal record are far more likely to be deported than nationwide. So far this year, 64 percent of the 4,000 people ordered deported from New Jersey had no criminal record. Nationally, those without criminal records represent just under 50 percent of those ordered deported.

The disparity infuriates advocates for immigrants.

On the other side of the argument are those who say that simply being here illegally is sufficient grounds for deportation, even though President Obama has told Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to prioritize cases against convicted criminals.

Harold Ort, a spokesman for the Newark field office of ICE, which covers all of New Jersey, said he could offer no explanation for the disparity between the state and national ratios.

Although ICE’s primary focus is on removing illegal immigrants who pose dangers to national security and public safety, “we’re also bound by laws enacted by Congress to remove individuals that we encounter beyond criminal lines who are illegally present in the United States,” he said.

Immigration lawyers say police too often contact ICE after arresting Hispanics for minor offenses.

“What’s the benefit to the public of deporting thousands of people who work hard, pay taxes and never get in trouble?” said Joyce Phipps, the attorney for Escamilla. “These are people who came here for a better life, to raise families.”

Escamilla said he considers his wife’s children his own. His girl is 19, his boy, 13. They were 6 and 1 when Escamilla met their mother.

“We’re trying to get a future for them,” he said in an interview at his Hillsborough townhouse. “I’m the kind of person that works hard. I work hard, if I have to, from 6 in the morning to 8 at night, like I’ve been doing right now. Saturdays. Sundays.”

Some argue it is irrelevant if an illegal immigrant has a criminal record.

“Obviously everyone wants criminals to be removed from the country. That’s a no-brainer,” said Mark Krikorian of the Center of Immigration Studies, which favors restrictions on immigration. “The question is, is it advisable to send a message that only if you’re actually convicted of non-immigration related crimes, you have a chance of being deported? That unless you’re a murderer or rapist or drug dealer you’re pretty much home free?

“That’s a pretty horrible message to send to law enforcement,” he said.

Obama is trying to create a “de facto amnesty without getting Congress’s permission,” Krikorian said, due to his inability to get a reform bill passed that would grant illegal immigrants conditional amnesty.

U.S. DEPORTATION POLICY

ICE’s deportation policy was spelled out in a June 30 memo from John Morton, the agency’s assistant secretary. Morton said the agency lacks resources to deport more than 400,000 illegal immigrants a year — less than 4 percent of the estimated total of 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States — and therefore must prioritize.

The top priority is to remove those who pose a danger to national security and a risk to public safety. Aliens who have not been convicted of a violent crime, or of no crime at all, are listed as lower priorities.

The June 30 memo notes that while ICE can pursue anyone here illegally, regardless of their criminal history, “attention to these aliens should not displace or disrupt the resources needed to remove aliens who are a higher priority.”

Immigration lawyers in New Jersey say they believe deportation hearings for illegal immigrants picked up for minor offenses are on the rise everywhere.

“We are hearing about those kinds of concerns all over the country, cases literally for driving without a license,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “Is that somebody who’s a serious, violent felon? No.

” … My expectation was that the Obama administration would be smarter and more effective in the way it would do its enforcement,” he said.

Advocacy groups for immigrants in New Jersey have recently gotten behind the case of Ramon Gonzalez, a 34-year-old native of Guatemala who crossed the border into California in 1985 and is now slated for deportation.

In 1998 after he was picked up in a raid, a judge ordered him to leave the country within a year. He stayed anyway, keeping his job at a diner. In 2002, he was convicted in Trenton municipal court of a disorderly person’s offense.

In July, ICE sent him a letter asking him to come to its Marlton office. When Gonzalez arrived, he was arrested and sent to the Elizabeth Detention Center for six weeks. He was released last weekend but said he has to leave within three months.

He has two sons with his girlfriend, and together they live in a house he bought in Ewing for $170,000 in 2005. He is scared to return to Guatemala, he said, because criminals there target people who have lived in America, assuming they have money.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do if they send me to Guatemala,” Gonzalez said in the detention center, shortly before his release. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen with me.”

Ort defended ICE’s actions with Gonzalez, even while acknowledging he is probably not a threat to public safety. Still, he called him a “fugitive alien,” citing Gonzalez’s previous refusal to leave the country voluntarily.

Gonzalez’s lawyer, Steve Traylor, said of his client: “He has a family. He has a house. He’s not a danger. He’s a contributor to society. He’s even filed income taxes.

AN UPWARD TREND

The overall number of deportees — with and without criminal records, combined — has increased almost every year since 2001, reaching a record 387,790 last year.

The total during the 2009 fiscal year — which covers the first eight months of Obama’s presidency — was 5 percent higher than the total for 2008, which fell entirely under President Bush. The 2010 total is poised to approach last year’s.

Reasons for the increase have been debated. Some say Obama is trying to soften conservative opposition to immigration reform by showing a tough hand enforcing existing laws. Others cite improvements in technology, pre-dating his presidency, that allow state and local law-enforcement to more easily learn a person’s immigration status.

Still others, in New Jersey, cite a 3-year-old directive by the state Attorney General instructing police to contact ICE when they have reason to believe defendants for felonies or DWI are here illegally.

That directive apparently was behind the deportation order for Nelvin Alvarez, a painter, who earlier this month was told by an immigration judge in Newark to return to his native Honduras after a DWI conviction, according to his lawyer Niwal Adood.

“His (Alvarez’s) whole problem got triggered when he was stopped and detained for DWI,” Adood said.

Alvarez, who has been in the United States for nearly a decade, is a painter with a wife and two children. Awood said his client built a productive life for himself, supported his family, and has been an asset to the country. He pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of marijuana stemming from the DWI stop. His lawyer said the truck he was driving was a work truck and the marijuana was not his.

After Immigration Judge Margaret Reichenberg ordered him to leave the country, Alvarez expressed gratitude.

“This country has only given me good things,” he said. “And I have

On October 23 2009 I received the visit that no immigrant ever wants to receive. While I was taking an early college class, I received a call from my house that 3 immigration officers had been to my house looking for  me,  and had left a  business card for me to call them back immediately. I did not hesitate one moment and immediately placed the call. I spoke to officer Echavarria “ETCH” from the “I.C.E.” office on Broad st in Newark NJ. I told officer Echavarria that I would meet them immediately in front of the police dept in Paterson. As soon as I arrived to the front of the Paterson police I called the officer again to let him know that I had arrived, but just a few minutes from that point I was immediately arrested by 2 teams of immigration officers.

I was handcuffed behind my back, and stripped of all my personal belongings. I was driven to the I.C.E office in Newark where the officer proceeded to open the entire file they had on me, and he was appalled and ashamed that he had to go and arrest over a non aggravated felony I had committed in 1993 when I was young, stupid, with not much regards for responsibility as I have now.

In 1994 when I received that conviction I accepted responsibilities for my crime of “Receiving Stolen Property” and the number of arrests that I had and I paid for my crime, and also paid all my fines. I grew up, and learned from my experiences. Officer Echavarria looked at my file and he said that I should not have any problems, but I should get a good lawyer to take care of my case. I was released after my picture and my finger prints were taken, but I was advised that I should receive a letter in two weeks to come back and turn myself into the custody of I.C.E.

I immediately called a friend that had been through the same experience, and asked him to refer me his attorney. I visited the office of Melinda Basaran esq. whom I hired immediately. She told me that we could win this case, but that I would have to sit in an immigration facility for a couple of months because I was not eligible to receive bail.

On November 12^th 2009 I walked into the immigration office at 8:30 A.M. to turn myself to the custody of homeland security. I was taken to Essex County Department of Correction facility on Doremus ave in Newark, where I experienced a number of crimes against immigrants and humanity in general.

From my second day at that facility I became involved. I served as an interpreter for the health department. I served as a legal representative for the dorm where I was housed. I documented on a daily base the abuses that we went through as immigrants being held and subjected to state inmate treatment when we should had been treated under the federal standards. In the 4 months that I was housed at that facility, I witnessed hundreds of people that had been deported to all parts of the world, but none more than the people of Central and South America, as well as the people for the Caribbean. On March 15^th 2010 I won my case in front of an immigration judge, and since it has been almost 20 years since the last times I have been in trouble I was immediately able to file for citizen ship which it is still pending to this day.

What I lived in those 4 months was a life changing experience for me, my family and my friends. I promised myself that I should remain involved and vigilant and help to raise awareness on this issue that is so close to my heart.

By JACQUES BILLEAUD and AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writers Jacques Billeaud And Amanda Lee Myers, Associated Press Writers –

Full Story:Yahoo.com

PHOENIX – A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration law from taking effect, delivering a last-minute victory to opponents of the crackdown.

The overall law will still take effect Thursday, but without the provisions that angered opponents — including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The judge also put on hold parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places. In addition, the judge blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants.

“Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked,” U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled.

Immigration officials in the past 10 months have warned 25 businesses in New Jersey that they may face fines if they failed to ensure that their employees are eligible to work in the U.S., said Harold Ort, the spokesman for the Newark office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Five of the businesses that received a warning, or a notice of intent to fine, are in Bergen or Passaic counties, the officials said. They would provide no more specifics.

The 25 companies, noted Ort, included some that had been audited in earlier years. He said that more detailed information was not readily available. (In the same 10 months, 34 companies received notices that they were going to be audited.)

Violations of employment record keeping, Ort said, include failure to properly prepare what is known as Form I-9, which requires employers to verify a prospective employee’s eligibility.

The companies face fines totaling roughly $1.25 million, he said, again declining to identify them.

“Fine amounts may vary — $110 to $1,100 per violation — depending on mitigating and aggravating factors in a particular case,” Ort said.

Last year, ICE’s top officials in Washington, D.C., said the audits signaled a shift in the agency’s crackdown on illegal immigration. That shift pivots on a more aggressive effort to identify and penalize employers who hire illegal immigrants, immigration officials say. Under George W. Bush’s administration, immigration worksite enforcement often involved raids in which illegal workers were arrested and deported.

In the federal fiscal year 2009, which began in October 2008, 30 companies in the state received audit notices, seven of them in Bergen and Passaic counties. In that same period, five employers received a Notice of Intent to Fine, but none was in Bergen or Passaic, Ort added.

Between October and the end of May nationwide, ICE issued more than 1,500 audit notices; warnings about possible fines for violations were sent to more than 200 employers.

In fiscal 2009, more than 1,400 employers received audit notices, with 172 getting warnings about apparent violations and fines.

Immigration officials say tips from other government agencies and from the public are among the ways they target employers for audits.

E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com

Five of the businesses that received a warning, or a notice of intent to fine, are in Bergen or Passaic counties, the officials said. They would provide no more specifics.

The 25 companies, noted Ort, included some that had been audited in earlier years. He said that more detailed information was not readily available. (In the same 10 months, 34 companies received notices that they were going to be audited.)

Violations of employment record keeping, Ort said, include failure to properly prepare what is known as Form I-9, which requires employers to verify a prospective employee’s eligibility.

The companies face fines totaling roughly $1.25 million, he said, again declining to identify them.

“Fine amounts may vary — $110 to $1,100 per violation — depending on mitigating and aggravating factors in a particular case,” Ort said.

Last year, ICE’s top officials in Washington, D.C., said the audits signaled a shift in the agency’s crackdown on illegal immigration. That shift pivots on a more aggressive effort to identify and penalize employers who hire illegal immigrants, immigration officials say. Under George W. Bush’s administration, immigration worksite enforcement often involved raids in which illegal workers were arrested and deported.

In the federal fiscal year 2009, which began in October 2008, 30 companies in the state received audit notices, seven of them in Bergen and Passaic counties. In that same period, five employers received a Notice of Intent to Fine, but none was in Bergen or Passaic, Ort added.

Between October and the end of May nationwide, ICE issued more than 1,500 audit notices; warnings about possible fines for violations were sent to more than 200 employers.

In fiscal 2009, more than 1,400 employers received audit notices, with 172 getting warnings about apparent violations and fines.

Immigration officials say tips from other government agencies and from the public are among the ways they target employers for audits.

El 23 de octubre 2009 recibí la visita cual ningun imigrante quisiera haber recibido. Mientras yo estaba tomando una clase en la universidad temprano en la manana, recibí una llamada de mi casa que tres funcionarios de inmigración habían estado en mi casa a buscarme, y habían dejado una tarjeta de visita para que yo los llame de vuelta inmediatamente. No dudé un momento y de inmediato hize la llamada. Hablé con el oficial Echavarría “ETCH” del department de ICE de la oficina en Newark en la calle Broad.. Le dije al oficial Echavarría que lo encontraria  delante del departamento de policía de Paterson. Tan pronto como llegué a la parte delantera de la policía de Paterson llamé al oficial de nuevo para hacerle saber que yo había llegado, pero a pocos minutos a partir de ese momento fui arrestado de inmediato por dos equipos de oficiales de inmigración

Fui esposado a la espalda, y despojados de todas mis pertenencias personales. Me llevaron a la oficina de ICE en Newark donde el oficial procedió a abrir el archivo completo que había en mí, y él estaba horrorizado y avergonzado de que tenía que ir a detenerme por causa a un delito sin agravantes que yo habia cometido en 1993, cuando yo era joven , estúpido, y de poco respeto a la responsabilidad que tengo ahora.

En 1994 cuando fui convicto de los cargos inmediatamente acepte la responsabilidad por mi delito de “recepción de bienes robados” y el número de arrestos que tenía y he pagado por mi crimen, y también pague todos mis multas. Yo crecí y aprendí de mis experiencias.El Oficial Echavarría miro  mi archivo y me dijo que no debería haber ningún problema, pero que deberia conseguir un abogado bueno para hacerse cargo de mi caso.. Los oficiales me pusieron en libertad despues que me tomaran fotos y mis huellas dactilares, pero me aconsejaron que yo reciviria una carta para regresar en dos semanas y quedarme bajo la custodia de I.C.E.

Inmediatamente llamé a un amigo que había pasado por la misma experiencia, y le pedí que me consulte a su abogado. Visité la oficina de Melinda Masaran esq. a quien contrite  de inmediato. Ella me dijo que podíamos ganar este caso, pero que tendría que ser detenido en un centro de inmigración durante un par de meses porque yo no era elegible para recibir libertad bajo fianza.

El 12 de noviembre 2009 entré en la oficina de inmigración a las 8:30 AM para entregarme a la custodia de la seguridad nacional. Me llevaron al condado de Essex instalación del Departamento de Corrección en la avenida Doremus en Newark, donde experimente una serie de crímenes contra los inmigrantes y  la humanidad en general.

Desde mi segundo día en ese centro me involucré. Yo servi como intérprete para el departamento de salud. Yo serví como representante legal de la residencia donde estaba alojado. He documentado a diarion los abusos por los  que pasamos  los inmigrantes detenidos y sometidos a tratos de presos estatales cuando deberíamos de haber sido tratados bajo los estándares federales. En los 4 meses que estube alojado en ese centro, fui testigo de cientos de personas que habían sido deportadas a todas las partes del mundo, pero ninguna más que la gente de Centro y Sudamérica, así como a la gente de el Caribe. El 15 de marzo 2010 gané mi caso ante un juez de inmigración, y desde hace ya casi 20 años desde las últimas veces que he estado en problemas me fue disponible de inmediato poder solicitar de ciudadanía que aún está pendiente en la actualidad.
Lo que viví en esos 4 meses fue una experiencia que cambio mi vida para mí, mi familia y mis amigos. Me prometí que deberia mantenerme su presente y vigilante y contribuir a la sensibilización sobre este problema que está tan cerca de mi corazón.