Immigrant Rights News - Friday, August 14, 2009

Immigrant Rights News – Friday, August 14, 2009

 

1. Washington Post: Obama Vows to Focus on Borders.But Immigration Action Won't Come Until 2010

2. American-Statesman: T. Don Hutto detention center united diverse group in protest. Group's efforts helped lead to an overhaul of nation's immigrant detention policies.

3. Los Angeles Times: Arizona immigration debate at heart of littering case

4. New York Times: Napolitano Focuses on Immigration Enforcement

 

 

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Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/10/AR2009081001797.html

 

Obama Vows to Focus on Borders

But Immigration Action Won't Come Until 2010

 

By Cheryl W. Thompson and William Booth

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

 

GUADALAJARA, Mexico, Aug. 10 -- President Obama, attending a North American summit with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, said Monday that his administration will pursue a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. immigration system this year but that no action on legislation will happen before 2010. […]

The president said he expects draft legislation and sponsors by the end of the year, but no action until 2010 because of more pressing issues, including health-care reform, energy legislation and financial regulatory changes. […]

 

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American-Statesman (Austin )

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/08/13/0813hutto.html

 

T. Don Hutto detention center united diverse group in protest

Group's efforts helped lead to an overhaul of nation's immigrant detention policies.

 

By Juan Castillo

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, August 13, 2009

 

When she first set foot in the T. Don Hutto immigrant detention center in Taylor shortly after it opened in 2006, Frances Valdez was not prepared for what she saw behind the former medium-security prison's razor-wire-ringed perimeter. There were children inside. Infants in prison-like uniforms, and pregnant women.

"It was shocking," Valdez said. […]

Last week, three years and three months after the Hutto detention center opened, the Obama administration announced it will stop holding families there as it looks for alternatives to prison cells for some immigration law violators as part of an overhaul of the nation's immigration detention system.

 

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Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-water-immigrants13-2009aug13,0,4654306.story

 

Arizona immigration debate at heart of littering case

The heated issue inflames a court case, in which an Arizona man is convicted for leaving water jugs for migrants in the desert.

 

By Ashley Powers

August 13, 2009

Reporting from Las Vegas

Walt Staton wanted to help people, and his tool was a water jug. On the morning of Dec. 4, he and three others drove southwest from Tucson, to the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, which tens of thousands of illegal immigrants traverse each year.

But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the plastic jugs he left for the immigrants endanger wildlife, and this week Staton was sentenced in federal court in Tucson on a charge of littering. He was given one year of unsupervised probation and ordered to spend 300 hours picking up trash. […]

 

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New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/us/12border.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

 

August 12, 2009

 

Napolitano Focuses on Immigration Enforcement

 

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

EL PASO — A day after President Obama announced that legislation to overhaul immigration laws would have to wait until next year, the secretary of homeland security played down the need for change in a speech here and took a tough stance on enforcing current immigration laws. […]

But Ms. Napolitano argued that the Obama administration had changed Mr. Bush’s programs in critical ways, such as putting an emphasis on deporting criminals and holding more employers responsible for hiring illegal workers.

“But border security will not itself stop illegal entrants into our country,” Ms. Napolitano said. “Our border strategy must be combined with better enforcement of the immigration laws within the United States.” […]

 

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