Immigrant Rights News -- Tues, August 22, 2006

Immigrant Rights News -- Tues, August 22, 2006

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1. A few news reports on the first series of community hearings held last
week in Arizona, Washington state and Michigan (part of our work in the
"Liberty & Justice for All" campaign):

A. Tucson Citizen, "Attendees say migrants abused, exploited in U.S."
B. Arizona Daily Star (two reports), "Immigrant-rights advocates to gather"
and "Border is Topic No. 1 in S. Ariz. Hearing in Sierra Vista; Tucson
advocacy session"
C. The Stranger, "Immigration Counter-Hearings in Bellingham"

2. El Paso Times, "Constitutional rights apply to noncitizens at ports of
entry"

3. Common Dreams, "A Corporate Takeover of American Borders"

4. The Associated Press, "Expert: State Immigrant Laws Might Fail"




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Tucson Citizen
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/frontpage/23176.php

Published: 08.18.2006

Attendees say migrants abused, exploited in U.S.

BLAKE MORLOCK
Tucson Citizen

Not long ago, 400 pounds of sheets fell on Evangelina Guzman at the laundry
she worked at in Phoenix.

Her bosses told her to get back to work and she had to because she is here
illegally and finding work isn't easy, she said.

"They have to treat us with respect," she said last night at a forum hosted
by two immigrant-rights groups. "We don't cross the border to lose our
dignity."

Guzman was one of 20 speakers explaining the problems faced by illegal
immigrants in the U.S. to nine panelists, whose sole role was to listen.

About 130 people showed up at the Armory Park Senior Center to listen to the
comments, given mostly in Spanish.

The panel included U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., Board of Supervisors
Chairman Richard Elías and Derechos Humanos Director Isabel Garcia.

The forum was meant to counter congressional hearings across the country on
problems associated with illegal immigration.

Immigrants' rights activist Violeta Dominguez told the panel America
shouldn't complain about illegal immigrants if the country eats the food
they pick and lives in houses they build.

"We have to leave hypocrisy aside," Dominguez said. "We need these workers.
It is not about charity."

Exploitation was a common theme, as was alleged harassment by the U.S.
Border Patrol.

Gloria Mitchel, from Los Angeles, said her nephew was killed in Border
Patrol custody and said dogs have more rights than illegal immigrants
because dogs must be treated humanely.

"You give assistance to an immigrant, you will go to jail," Mitchel said.
Her report of her nephew's shooting could not be immediately confirmed.

Aurelio Alipa Valencia, a U.S. citizen and a Pascua Yaqui Indian, returned
from a trip to Mexico last weekend, he told the panel. A Border Patrol agent
said his passport wasn't good and he needed a visa, he said.

Valencia's nephew Mario Gamboa Leyva held up his uncle's passport and asked:
"How is it possible that this is not good enough identification?" It was not
clear last night how he managed to get in the country.

The forum didn't necessarily break new ground but was a hearing for people
to be heard who were not invited to testify in front of congressional
members, Grijalva said.

"It's good to get it out in the open," Grijalva said, calling the
Republican-sponsored hearings held around the Southwest a "political road
show."

State Republican Party spokesman Garrick Taylor said Grijalva's forum was no
different.

"Raúl Grijalva should spend less time worrying about grabbing headlines and
instead start rethinking his own open border policies," Taylor said.



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Arizona Daily Star
http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/dailystar/142493.php

Published: 08.17.2006

Immigrant-rights advocates to gather

By Lourdes Medrano
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

A coalition of local and national groups will gather in Tucson tonight to
highlight what they say is the negative effect of the nation's immigration
policies on immigrants and ethnic populations.

The Armory Park gathering will bring together advocate groups for blacks,
Asians, Hispanics and American Indians to provide a voice seldom heard in
this summer's Republican-led congressional hearings on immigration,
organizers said.

The three-hour hearing is part of an effort to underscore what advocates
believe is the potential harm of current and pending immigration legislation
to the rights, well-being and safety of minorities, said Alexis Mazón of the
Coalición de Derechos Humanos in Tucson.

"We want to send the message to Congress that we want an end to border
militarization and to these immigration-enforcement policies that result in
mass detention, incarceration and racial profiling in our communities," said
Mazón, a spokeswoman for the human-rights group. "If you're an immigrant or
a person of color, you will be subject to these repressive policies," she
added.

Arnoldo Garcia, a senior program associate with the National Network for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights in Oakland, Calif., said the hearing will shed
light on how acts of discrimination against immigrants and other minorities
have intensified in recent years.

"These policies are destabilizing our communities," he said.

Gerald Lenoir, executive director of Oakland's Black Alliance for Just
Immigration, added: "What most people don't realize is that law enforcement
policies piloted on border and immigrant communities are being extended into
our neighborhoods and cities."

Mazón said the recorded testimony and recommendations for humane immigration
reform will be shared with local, state and federal officials.

If you go
? What: Public hearing on immigration policies.
? When: Today, 6 to 9 p.m.
? Where: Armory Park Community Center Ballroom, 220 S. Fifth Ave.
? More Information: 770-1373.


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Arizona Daily Star
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/142674.php

Published: 08.18.2006

Border is Topic No. 1 in S. Ariz.
Hearing in Sierra Vista; Tucson advocacy session

By Lourdes Medrano
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Border security, illegal immigration and immigrant rights were the talk of
Southern Arizona Thursday, with a congressional hearing on intelligence in
Sierra Vista and an immigrant-advocacy session in Tucson.

U.S. House Intelligence Committee members arrived at Buena High School in
the late morning to explore how intelligence is used to secure the
U.S.-Mexican border.

"Far too often the southern border of the United States is characterized as
a porous crossing for illegal aliens looking for job opportunities in the
United States," Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., of Flagstaff, said as the meeting
opened at the Buena auditorium. The hearing was sparsely attended, and those
present did not have a chance to address the committee members.

"The reality is, however, that human traffickers, drug smugglers,
narco-terrorists, violent criminal gangs, and yes, we even have to consider
the possibility that international terrorist organizations are leveraging
the same routes," Renzi said.

Renzi, along with fellow Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Rush Holt,
D-N.J., peppered two panels of Arizona law enforcement and intelligence
officials with questions on how they protect the border.

Holt said illegal immigrants bring both advantages and disadvantages into
this country — and clearly many in Congress recognize the need for reform.
But narrow immigration laws, such as making felons out of priests and others
who aid illegal entrants, won't help solve the problem, he said.

"We have fallen short. We've allowed our immigration system to deteriorate,"
he said, adding that what is needed is a "humane and realistic process" to
deal with the estimated 10 million to 12 million people living in the
country illegally.

But Issa said the felony charge, included in the House's proposed
legislation that focuses mostly on border enforcement, is a good idea, in
part to keep mayors from declaring their cities "safe havens for illegals."

Testimony from officials with such agencies as the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and
the Arizona Counterrorism Information Center showed that despite enhanced
security measures since Sept. 11, 2001, gaps remain. But the officials also
made clear that there have been no documented attempts of suspected
terrorists trying to enter through the Arizona border.

Nonetheless, throughout the 3 1/2-hour hearing, Renzi, who said he grew up
in Sierra Vista, and Issa, who noted he is Muslim-American, delved into the
threat that drug cartels, or potentially Muslim extremist groups in Mexico,
might pose to this country.

Law enforcement officials said they are committed to protecting the border
with the resources they have, but said more funding is needed to combat the
increasingly sophisticated equipment and weapons of people-smugglers and
drug traffickers.

When asked if the sharing of intelligence among agencies is useful and
effective, Victor Manjarrez, deputy chief patrol agent in the Border Patrol
Tucson Sector, answered that strides have been made: "Can it get better?
Absolutely. We're working on making it better," he said.

The session came as Congress remains deadlocked over different immigration
bills. While the House is pushing for more border enforcement, the Senate
wants passage of a bill that includes a guest-worker plan and the
opportunity for eligible illegal immigrants to stay here legally.

Buena students Heidi Martineau, 17, and Ashley Haas, 16, said they didn't
realize that the border was so out of control. "We need more technology to
get a handle on it," said Martineau, who was at the hearing with other
students away from their government classes.

Petra Leija Falcón, a lead organizer with Tucson's Pima County Interfaith
Council, said the absence of border-area residents who live day-in and
day-out with the effect of immigration policies was all too noticeable.
"They were presenting just one side," she said of the committee. "This will
do nothing to advance immigration reform."

Jim Ehl, a retired Sierra Vista resident, said the hearings will be
effective only if the committee takes its findings seriously. "If its
political posturing, then it's a waste of time."

"Political road shows"

Frustrated with congressional border hearings that they described as shows,

members of several local and national groups held their own public hearing
Thursday in Tucson to address border issues.

"It is no secret that those hearings are more of a political road show,"
said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., referring to the Sierra Vista hearing.

Grijalva presided over the hearing at the Armory Park Community Center
Ballroom and said he would share the findings with Congress.

Presenters ranging from human-rights advocates to medical experts spoke
about border policy and how it was affecting the Hispanic community.

Gerald Lenoir, the coordinator for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration,
said the ongoing border militarization has created a fear of immigration
throughout the nation.

"To be Latino, or Arab or Muslim is to be automatically suspect," Lenoir
said.

Pima County Supervisor Richard Elias, who sat on the panel, agreed. He said
there is a perception that immigration is destroying the United States.

"The truth is, we are the folks who work the hardest, receive the least and
actually see and believe what was and what is the American dream," he said.

Before the hearing, border activist Russ Dove was arrested after entering
the meeting hall and yelling.

Dove, who publicly burned a Mexican flag in April, was asked to leave by
organizers, said Sgt. Decio Hopffer, a Tucson police spokesman.

Organizers called police, and Dove was taken to the Pima County jail on one
count of suspicion of interfering with a permitted event, Hopffer said. His
bond was set at $53.

Border militarization

Also Thursday in Tucson, members of indigenous communities along the
southern border spoke out against increased militarization. They say added
border security makes it difficult for them to travel to ceremonial sites
and to visit family members.

The group Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras is calling for an agreement between
the United States and Mexico, similar to Canada's Jay Treaty, that would
allow them to freely cross the international line with a tribal
identification card. Since many tribal members were born at home and do not
have birth certificates, they do not have passports.

"The border creates divisions in families and creates racism and
discrimination," said José Garcia, governor for Tohono O'odham members
living in Mexico. "To add more border security would only strengthen the
idea that we are two separates and not one blood."

The border between the United States and Mexico cuts through traditional
O'odham land. About 1,300 tribal members live on the Mexican side.

Since 1794, indigenous Canadians have been able to freely trade and travel
between the United States and Canada, which was then a territory of Great
Britain. That right is recognized in the Jay Treaty, also known as the
Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation of 1794, and subsequent laws that
stem from the Jay Treaty.

On StarNet See slide shows, video, special reports, and more focusing on
border and immigration issues at azstarnet.com/ border

Correction:

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt's comments at a hearing in Sierra Vista that immigrants
bring both advantages and disadvantages to this country referred only to
legal immigration, not illegal immigration

? Reporters Stephanie Innes and Aaron Mackey contributed to this article.
Contact reporter Lourdes Medrano at 573-4347 or lmedrano@azstarnet.com.


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The Stranger -- Seattle's Only Newspaper
http://www.thestranger.com/blog/2006/08/immigration_counterh.php#comment-447
712

Immigration Counter-Hearings in Bellingham

Posted by SARAH MIRK at 02:09 PM

Last night I hitched a ride with a school bus full of immigrant rights’
advocates headed to Bellingham. Between the free carrot sticks and friendly
conversation, the drive felt like the trip to summer camp. But the advocates
were headed to northward for more serious reasons: to stage a public hearing
on immigration reform in response to a Republican-centric immigration
hearing held in Bellingham on August 8th.

Dave Reichert hosted that House hearing – in which eight experts (six chosen
by Republicans, two by Democrats) testified about northern border security
to a handful of Congress members and a public audience – on the 8th. While
the audience was filled with anti-immigrant citizens mobilized by the
Minutemen and Stop the Invasion, the hearing itself was dry and
informational, with an emphasis on statistics, not politicking.

But that focus on statistics is part of the problem with the House hearings
held being held around the nation, says Pramila Jayapal, founder of
Washington immigrant advocacy group Hate Free Zone. Jayapal is adamant that
it’s necessary to hold counter-hearings in order to reframe the Immigration
Debate to focus more on the human lives that would be affected by the
legislation and less on equating Homeland Security with keeping out illegal
immigrants.

“A country can have secure borders and it doesn’t mean building a wall
around the country — it means having good economic and foreign policies,”
says Jayapal, “It’s a convenient ploy to combine the issues of immigration
and border security. It’s a beautiful frame.”

The rectangular, gray Bellingham conference room filled with 125 people last
night, mobilized to attend the hearing (titled: “Defending Democracy”) by a
coalition of immigrant right’s groups. Even doomed Cantwell challenger Hong
Tran showed up, kicked off her shoes and stood tiptoe on a chair to string a
“Liberty and Justice for All” sign from the ceiling.

The hearing itself was long. Very long. After about twenty speakers
preaching to the choir about the importance of immigrant rights (someone
from the Chinese community, someone from the Sikh community, someone from
the Latino community, someone from Canada, a farmer, etc. etc.) I felt too
brain dead to be angry about the draconian House bill.

But there were some great, important moments: A woman from Colombia named
Maria Vargas had a near-tears testimony detailing her struggle to claim
asylum for herself and three children after her husband was assassinated.
Two of her children still remain separated from her, unable to gain asylum.

Many Uch, a Seattlite who fled Cambodia as a toddler, told his frustrating
story of being arrested as a teenager and finding out years later his arrest
put him on a list to be deported.

The best moment, though, came when Representative Rick Larsen
(D-Whatcom/Skagit County) responded to the testimonies. Larsen voted for the
House bill, which makes illegal immigration a felony, makes knowingly
providing healthcare to illegal immigrants a felony and mandates immigrants
be held in detention centers while applying for asylum status (which can
take years). Larsen’s short speech went something like this:

Larsen:“I don’t support felonizing illegal immigrants –”
Heckler from the crowd: You voted for it!
Larsen: I don’t support felonizing doctors and priests who help illegal
immigrants.”
Heckler: You voted for it!
Larsen: “We should err on the side of asylum… I’m not an expert, I’m a
member of Congress.”

Beginning July 5th, the U.S. House has held public hearings in several key
locations around the country addressing the House and Senate immigration
bills -- inviting hand-picked experts to inform Congress members while
anyone who wants can come to watch.

Washington immigrant advocates say the officially stated purpose of the
hearings (to inform Congressmembers) is just a cover for their political
purpose. "They're using them to make sure the anti-immigrant voice has a
legitimate place in the political discussion," says Jayapal.

And because of House policy for public hearings, they’re naturally stacked
in favor of the Republican viewpoint.

Initiated by James Sensenbrenner (arch R-WI), chair of the Judiciary
Committee, Congressional policy creates hearings that are stacked in favor
of Republicans. Since Republicans are the majority in the House, Republicans
get to choose the majority of the witnesses at the hearings and also what
they’ll focus on.

One example immigration advocated are quick to point out is that the House
hearings refer to the slightly more liberal Senate immigration bill as the
Reid-Kennedy bill. The bill was actually sponsored by McCain and Kennedy:
bipartisan sponsors instead of two Democrat sponsors. Additionally, some of
the hearings have drawn criticism for being held on military bases.

But is the Republican upper-hand at the hearings such a big deal? After all,
the hearings haven’t been publicized very much at all and the audiences are
mostly Minutemen and groups like Stop the Invasion. Republican organized
hearings featuring mostly Republican viewpoints presenting information to
mostly Republican audiences – where’s the harm in that?

Well, come the next round of haggling over immigration in the House,
Republicans could possibly use the hearings to bolster their position. "They
can go ahead and say, 'We held hearings and this is the opinion we heard.'
It can become a self-justifying circle," Sam Terry, a Hate Free Zone
volunteer, opined at last night’s counter-hearing.

Advocates also believe the reason the audiences are mostly anti-immigrant is
because the Republicans are intentionally not releasing the exact location
of the hearings until right before they occur. "We struggled to hear about
this -- we were scrambling for information," says Hari Kondabolu, who works
the National Rights Working Group. He and other advocates didn't receive the
official word on where the August 8th hearings would be held in until August
7th.

The Bellingham Herald ran a straightforward article about the House hearing
last week. Check out their comments thread for some “Send back the
illegals!” action.



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El Paso Times
Article Launched: 08/20/2006 12:00:00 AM MDT

Constitutional rights apply to noncitizens at ports of entry

Louie Gilot / El Paso Times

The case of a Juárez woman who said she was physically abused in 2001 by an
immigration officer at the Paso del Norte Bridge prompted a decision by the
U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals this month that non-U.S. citizens have
constitutional rights at ports of entry.

"It doesn't matter whether you are a U.S. citizen or not, you have rights.
It may seem obvious but nobody had said it before," said El Paso lawyer Lynn
Coyle, who represents the woman, Maria Antonieta Martinez-Aguero.

The decision sets a precedent and could lead to more lawsuits on the border,
legal experts said.

The decision came in response to a preliminary motion by the immigration
officer seeking to dismiss the case on grounds that his alleged victim did
not have constitutional rights to be free from false imprisonment and the
excessive use of force by law enforcement officers because she had not made
official entry into the United States, among other reasons.

The officer, Humberto Gonzalez, now a Border Patrol agent, denies the abuse.

"By no means did he do the things she said he did," said his lawyer, Jeanne
"Cezy" Collins.

The two parties have starkly different versions of what happened on the Paso
del Norte Bridge on Oct. 4, 2001.

According to a lawsuit filed in 2003, Martinez-Aguero, 49, was on a bus with
her aunt at the bridge. Gonzalez, an INS agent at the time, took their
border crossing cards and asked the women to get off the bus. The suit says
he "verbally abused (Martinez-Aguero) and her aunt for not having the new
'laser' border-crossing cards."

Martinez-Aguero said the officer grabbed her, twisted her arms behind her
back, shoved her against a wall and kicked her without provocation. She said
she suffered an epileptic seizure because of the episode.

In his affidavit, Gonzalez said the two women approached him after having
been denied entry into the United States because they had the older, expired
border-crossing card. He said that Martinez-Aguero was very upset and so
verbally abusive, profane and disruptive that he put her under arrest and
she resisted. He said he received scratches in the altercation.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com, 546-6131.

Review the decision at
www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/05/05-50472-CV0.wpd.pdf.


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Common Dreams
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0821-20.htm

Published on Monday, August 21, 2006 by the Baltimore Sun

A Corporate Takeover of American Borders
by Robert Koulish

Borders are a key element of national identity. When borders are violated,
the result is often crisis and war. Look no further than this summer's
conflict in the Middle East, set off by a cross-border kidnapping of Israeli
soldiers by Hezbollah militants. Protection and defense of borders is, for
most nations, a high priority.

Thus, it is troubling to see our government intent upon passing control over
its borders to private companies.

Immigration control is a fundamental exercise of sovereignty, and sovereign
powers are considered almost inviolable. As a legacy of its plenary powers
over immigration, Congress has enacted some of this country's most racist
and arbitrary policies, which the Supreme Court has never struck down.
Examples include Chinese exclusion, national origins restrictions and
expedited removals.

Turning over immigration powers to private companies further endangers
democracy. Immigration policy, programs and current proposals are replete
with references to privatization - enforcement, detention, inspections and
services - that would place the fate of potential immigrants in the hands of
private mercenaries and military contractors.

The Customs and Border Protection's Expedited Removal Program has contracted
with Halliburton to oversee the expansion of the federal government's
capacity to detain immigrants. Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, has
proposed deploying private "Ellis Island Centers" in foreign countries for
the purpose of recruiting and managing guest workers.

Privatization, a neoliberal trend begun in the 1970s, means policy is driven
by profit-seeking. During the early 1980s, the federal government began
experimenting with incarcerating people for profit, using immigrant
detention as its canary in the coal mine. In 1984, the Corrections
Corporation of America, the private-incarceration leader, cut its first deal
with the federal government to operate Immigration and Naturalization
Service detention centers in Houston and Laredo, Texas. Since then, private
incarceration has become a boom industry as well as a lightning rod for
credible human-rights abuse litigation.

U.S.-Mexico border control is also being privatized. After more than a
decade of border militarization with "Operation Gatekeeper" and "Operation
Hold the Line," the deployment of the National Guard and plans for 700 miles
of fencing, in May the government solicited bids from military contractors
Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Ericsson and Northrop Grumman for a
multibillion-dollar contract to build a "virtual fence" of unmanned aerial
vehicles, ground surveillance satellites and motion-detection video
equipment along the border. With final awarding of the Secure Border
Initiative Network set for September, the arrival of military contractors at
the border is imminent.

Add Blackwater Inc., a private security firm that has run mercenaries in
Iraq and New Orleans, and is negotiating a contract to train U.S. Border
Patrol officers, and you get a virtual fence that has guns for hire
welcoming newcomers at ports of entry.

Military contractors and private mercenaries as immigration policymakers
represent a foreboding prospect for any democracy.

Another issue is the use of technologies of power to help manage a cheap
postindustrial labor force. Guest worker proposals are helping to frame
immigration within a neoliberal trade context, which opens another door to
privatized control.

For example, Mode 4 of the recent proposed General Agreement on Trade in
Services, negotiated in the World Trade Organization, would accomplish what
the North American Free Trade Agreement couldn't achieve, reducing migrant
workers to the status of commodities.

Mode 4 would hasten the demise of Human-rights protections for border
crossers, while the Senate's guest-worker provision would help make Mode 4
binding on domestic policy. As an outcome, guest-worker provisions would
expedite the movement of temporary workers, secure private "bantustans" for
border crossers in northern Mexico, and control guest-worker populations in
this country while further marginalizing efforts by NGOs to hold the process
accountable.

Finally, guest-worker policies would provide additional opportunities for
the security-industrial complex at the border. With CCA, Blackwater,
Lockheed Martin and others as gatekeepers, guest workers would come face to
face with law-and-order activities twice removed from public scrutiny.

The looming presence of "virtual" technologies, mercenaries and military
contractors as front-line defenders for U.S. sovereignty is cause for alarm
well beyond the potential for individual human rights violations. It
suggests this country's "deciders" are less interested in physical border
fences that would harm trade and impede the flow of cheap labor than in
securing a system of "virtual fence" and paramilitary strategies that would
facilitate wholesale control over migrants in the name of profit.

Robert Koulish is a political scientist and France-Merrick professor of
service learning at Goucher College. His e-mail is rkoulish@goucher.edu.


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The Associated Press

Expert: State Immigrant Laws Might Fail

By ERIK SCHELZIG
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 19, 2006; 4:46 PM

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Legislatures around the country are passing state laws
to get tough on illegal immigration, but legal experts say many of those
laws will turn out to be unconstitutional.

More than 550 bills relating to illegal immigration were introduced in
statehouses this year, and at least 77 were enacted, according to a survey
presented last week at the annual meeting of the National Conference of
State Legislatures.

However, NCSL analyst Ann Morse told lawmakers at the conference that a 1986
federal law forbids states from enacting stricter criminal or civil
penalties for illegal immigration than those adopted by Congress.

"The federal government decided it was too complicated for the states to
enact their own competing laws on this," she said.

So what about the laws passed this year?

"I believe they'll be tested in court," she said.

State bills aimed at illegal immigration this year have included measures on
education, employment, driver's licenses, law enforcement, legal services
and trafficking.

"Unique among the states, Georgia introduced a bill that addressed all these
different policy arenas, and passed it as one bill earlier this spring,"
Morse said.

Lawmakers like Tennessee state Rep. Gary Moore are frustrated that proposed
federal legislation on illegal immigration has stalled in Congress.

"If we could get the federal government to give us a little more leeway, we
would see a lot more reforms at the state level," said Moore, a Democrat,
who said a survey of his constituents found immigration was a top concern.

It's unlikely the federal government will want to relinquish enforcement of
immigration laws to the states, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of
the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute.

"This is a prerogative that the feds really guard, particularly in Congress,
with a passion that is probably unlike anything else," he said.

Still, the states are likely to try to acquire as much authority on the
subject as they can.

"Because the Congress is unable to act, people at your level _ and the local
level _ are beginning to take things into their own hands," Papademetriou
told lawmakers at the conference. "I think we're seeing the beginnings of
something that will gradually transfer more power to the states."

Papademetriou was critical of enforcement-only proposals to address illegal
immigration. Some other proposals, like increasing the number of U.S. Border
Patrol agents by 2,000 each year for the next six years, are unlikely to
succeed, he said.

"I venture to say, in my humble option, that there is no way ... you can
come close to that number and sustain it," he said.

It would take tens of thousands of applicants to have enough candidates to
qualify, to pass training and to become experienced border patrol agents, he
said.

"And when they're experienced enough, what's the biggest problem with the
Border Patrol? Attrition," Papademetriou said. "Because people are not
stupid: If they are well trained, they are going to find a better paying job
somewhere, and an easier job."

Arizona state Sen. Jake Flake, a Republican and a cattle rancher, agreed
that attempts to seal off the border are not likely to be successful.

"I find that if you put a bunch of steers in a pasture and run out of
feed, there isn't a fence good enough to hold them," Flake said. "And I
think people are the same: When they're hungry, there's not going to be a
fence big enough to hold them.

"I don't think we're ever going to change this unless we help build the
economy of Mexico."



<><><> the end / el fin / tamat <><><>