March 2, 2011

WASHINGTON—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is publishing tomorrow a proposed rule that could save U.S. businesses more than $23 million over the next 10 years by establishing an advance registration process for U.S. employers seeking to file H-1B petitions for foreign workers in specialty occupations. The proposed electronic system would minimize administrative burdens and expenses related to the H-1B petition process—including reducing the need for employers to submit petitions for which visas would not be available under the statutory visa cap.

USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas today announced the opening of a 60-day comment period that will allow businesses and the general public to provide input on the proposed system in order to ensure it best meets the needs of employers that rely on H-1B visas to bring in foreign workers for specialty occupations.

“The proposed rule would create a more efficient and cost-effective process for businesses interested in bringing workers in specialty occupations to the United States,” he said. “Improving the H-1B petition process is part of USCIS’s ongoing efforts to leverage new ideas and innovation to streamline our operations and enhance customer service.”

Under the proposed rule, employers seeking to petition for H-1B workers subject to the statutory cap would register electronically with USCIS—a process that would take an estimated 30 minutes to complete. Before the petition filing period begins, USCIS would select the number of registrations predicted to exhaust all available visas. Employers would then file petitions only for the selected registrations. The registration system would save employers the effort and expense of filing H-1B petitions, as well as Labor Condition Applications, for workers who would be unable to obtain visas under the statutory cap.

The proposed rule, which posted to the Federal Register today for public viewing, contains complete details about the registration system and estimated cost savings. USCIS encourages formal comments on the proposed rule through www.regulations.gov. The comment period runs for 60 days, beginning March 3, 2011, and ending on May 2, 2011.

By Robert Nolin and Danielle A. Alvarez, Sun Sentinel

January 26, 2011

FORT LAUDERDALE —

A Russian with a portfolio of false identities posed as a South Florida immigration lawyer and bilked hundreds of thousands of dollars from compatriots by promising to assist them with immigration and other legal work, police said Wednesday.

David Vyner, 35, of Hallandale Beach, faces five counts of practicing law without a license and one count of fraud based on claims he stole about $370,000 from a husband and wife, a mother and daughter, and two other emigres.

He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in state prison if convicted on the fraud charge and up to five years if convicted on the other counts.

“He stole tons of money,” said Detective John Calabro of the Broward Sheriff’s Office, who arrested Vyner when he turned himself in to Broward’s Main Jail on Tuesday.

The detective said Vyner at times passed himself off as a Russian doctor trying to find work in area hospitals. He also sought work in local doctors’ office.

“He actually got in [a doctor's office] and maybe worked for a week before the doctors figured it out,” Calabro said. “He didn’t see any patients.”

Vyner didn’t limit his impersonations to doctors and lawyers. “Recently, he said he was a rabbi,” Calabro said.

Vyner is a Russian native whose given name was Bagrat Mochkarovsky. He later changed his name to Bagrat Ambartsumyan before legally adopting the name Vyner.

Federal authorities put an immigration hold on him and could deport him after his state charges are resolved.

Vyner, considered a flight risk after previously fleeing while on bail, is being held under a $900,000 bond.

The investigation into his activities started about a year ago, based on Florida Bar complaints.

In a four-page affidavit, investigators said between August 2007 and February 2009, Vyner, posing as an immigration law expert, defrauded Sergey Ponyatovsky of nearly $274,000 for legal services in the prospective immigrant’s case. The work was never done, and Ponyatovsky was returned to Russia.

In 2007, the affidavit said, Vyner, billing at $360 an hour, charged two other immigrants, Natalia Maher, 51, of Key West, and her daughter, Olga Vorobyov, 31, a total of $52,000 to obtain a Social Security number and work permit for Vorobyov.

That same year, the affidavit stated, Vyner charged Juarate Ferreira, a Lithuanian native and naturalized U.S. citizen, $5,000 for unspecified legal work.

In the fourth case, Anna and Sergiy Bereza of Chatham, Mass., paid Vyner a total of $41,000 to assist with a political asylum application, the affidavit said. That application is still pending.

“He told every one of them that he was a lawyer, plus he had outrageous fees,” Calabro said. “These immigrants trusted him and they came across a crook.”

Vyner never appeared in court, just prepared legal paperwork. “He knew how to fill out applications,” the detective said.

In all cases, Vyner billed himself as part of the Nerdinsky Law Group, a Hallandale Beach law firm headed by Leonid Nerdinsky.

Nerdinsky’s wife and partner, Dina Nerdinsky, said they had no affiliation with Vyner.

“We were informed a couple of months ago that he was stating he was part of our law firm and forging our letterhead on documents,” she said.

The Florida Bar lists Leonid Nerdinsky as a member in good standing who has never faced disciplinary action since being admitted in 2003.

Calabro said Vyner has a multi-count fraud warrant out for him from Canada and has been in trouble in his native country. “I think he’s done time in Russia for fraud,” he said.

Upon learning there was a Florida warrant out for him on Dec. 16, Vyner fled to Washington, D.C. He was arrested there on Dec. 28, then skipped out on a $5,000 bond. Tuesday night he called Calabro and arranged to give himself up.

“I guess he got tired of running,” Calabro said.

Find this article at:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/fl-immigration-lawyer-russians-20110126,0,4851885.story

By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, AP Hispanic Affairs Writer Laura Wides-munoz, Ap Hispanic Affairs Writer –

MIAMI – A Republican group that includes former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday night kicked off its efforts to improve the party’s outreach to Hispanic voters, many of whom have criticized Republicans for using harsh rhetoric to attack illegal immigration.

The new Hispanic Action Network is holding a policy conference featuring several well-known Republican speakers. It will focus on issues such as trade, immigration, media outreach and education.

Bush, who met his Mexican-born wife Columba when he taught English in her homeland, said the party needs to become more engaged in the Hispanic community — and not just during election years.

“Typically what happens in politics is you’re working hard and you say, ‘Oh gosh, we better start working at campaigning in the Hispanic community,’ and it’s like Sept. 15,” he told the crowd Thursday night. “This is not about politics. This is about the conservative cause. If you look over the horizon over the next 10 or 20 years…without an active involvement of Hispanics, we will not be the governing philosophy.”

The group is among a growing number of Republican organizations reaching out to Hispanics in advance of next year’s presidential election. It is backed by former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, whose American Action Network funneled more than $30 million in campaign funds to Republicans in about 30 congressional races last year.

With the Latino population growing in swing states such as Nevada, Colorado and Florida, Republicans need to chip away at Hispanics’ overall 2-1 preference for Democrats to have any hope of capturing the presidency.

Democrats are confident their party’s efforts on health care, education and the economy will appeal to Hispanic voters, whom they believe have been turned off by some of the GOP tactics.

But Bush and other Republicans have long maintained their party is a natural fit for Hispanics, particularly recent immigrants. They cite the party’s social conservatism, anti-abortion stance and support for private school vouchers and lower taxes. Voters last year elected Latino Republicans to prominent posts, including Florida Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a possible 2010 presidential candidate, announced a similar effort in Washington, D.C., last month with his Americanos group. The conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, also now has a Spanish Web site, Libertad.org. Meanwhile, Alfonso Aguilar, former President George W. Bush’s first citizenship and immigration czar, now runs the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.

The former president, who is Jeb Bush’s brother, had a stronger and more successful Hispanic outreach program than almost any other national Republican.

Jeb Bush told The Associated Press “the more the merrier” as far as outreach programs go. Unlike Gingrich, he says, he has ruled out running for president in 2012.

As for potential Republican candidates for president in 2012, only former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is scheduled to speak at the conference.

But Republican groups have their work cut out for them following an election year in which Republican Senate candidate Sharon Angle of Nevada ran ads portraying illegal immigrants as thuggish gang members, and Hispanic voters overwhelmingly sided with Sen. Michael Bennet against Republican Ken Buck, a former county prosecutor who had tried to deport more illegal immigrants by seizing income-tax returns from accountants that catered to Spanish speakers. The plan was later thrown out by a court.

The House Republican leadership took a symbolic step toward bridging the gap with Latinos last week in bypassing Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa as the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration. King once suggested on the House floor that an electrified border fence would stop illegal immigrants, likening it to the practice used to corral livestock.

“Obviously there was a message sent with Steve King not being selected for chair,” said Aguilar, who is attending the conference. “But now the question is beyond ending harsh rhetoric: Will they actively propose a conservative proposal that goes beyond border control and domestic enforcement to a temporary work status?”

As president, George W. Bush unsuccessfully pushed for sweeping immigration reform. But so far, the only new Republican proposal on immigration has come from a group of state lawmakers who are hoping for a Supreme Court ruling that would end the granting of automatic citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.

Simon Rosenberg, head of the liberal-leaning NDN organization, applauded the efforts of Republicans such as Jeb Bush to reach Latinos.

“It would be bad for the Latino community to only have one political party working with them,” he said.

But Rosenberg questioned the notion that Hispanics have more in common with conservatives than Democrats, noting that many Hispanics lack health insurance and will benefit from the Democrats’ recent health care overhaul.

He said the GOP needs more than improved outreach.

“There is a reactionary strain in the Republican Party that is angry about how the country is changing,” he added, referring to the effects of immigration. “We are moving toward a majority nonwhite country. That is very difficult for some people to accept. And those people tend to be more Republican.”

Bush and Gingrich support comprehensive immigration reform, but GOP leadership must still satisfy those who want to focus only on border security, including Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who has backed legislation modeled on Arizona’s law. That law requires immigrants to carry papers proving they are in the country legally and police officers to check the status of anyone they believe is in the country illegally. A judge has placed those provisions on hold pending hearings on their constitutionality.

Scott was among the keynote speakers Thursday night at the conference in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables. Others speakers for the event include the co-chair, former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, as well as Puerto Rican Gov. Luis Fortuno, former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and Texas Sen. John Cornyn.

Coleman said he’s proud of the diverse perspectives the conference will offer and hopes it leads to serious debate.

“So much of immigration is about tone,” he said. Coleman added that Florida’s Rubio and New Mexico’s Martinez talk about immigration and border security “but in a tone that is helpful and respectful.”

But neither Rubio nor Martinez will be at the conference, nor will newly elected Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, another Hispanic GOP star. Coleman said both Sandoval and Martinez have just begun their jobs and couldn’t get away. A spokesman for Rubio said the senator would be working on official business outside of South Florida but declined to provide details.

Find this article at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110114/ap_on_re_us/us_gop_seeking_hispanics_9

TALLAHASSEE — Florida legislators should think twice before considering an Arizona-style immigration law, a South Florida law professor warned Monday.

Not only would a Florida law likely be struck down by federal courts, it could backfire on the state’s tourism-based economy, Ediberto Roman, an immigration law expert at Florida International University, told a Senate panel.

“Florida’s population is much different than Arizona’s,” Roman said. “The economy thrives on foreign tourists.”

Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, called the first of a series of hearings to look into the issue. Gov. Rick Scott pledged on the campaign trail to support an immigration bill.

The informal panel is chaired by Miami Republican Anitere Flores. No vote was scheduled for Monday and Flores said the Senate will take a go-slow approach.

The panel included Sen. Mike Bennett, a Bradenton Republican who has filed one of more than four immigration bills for the spring.

As with the Arizona bill, Bennett’s legislation requires police to check the immigration status of criminal suspects and report undocumented immigrants to federal authorities. His bill prohibits racial profiling, but critics say it would be unavoidable.

Roman said Florida legislation would likely suffer the same fate as the Arizona statute. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton struck down most of the Arizona law last year, including a provision requiring police to check on immigration status. The ruling is being appealed.

“It would be an unworkable system to have a variety of states with different immigration laws,” Roman said. “If we follow Arizona’s law, the efforts of local law enforcement would be wasted.”

“We’re frustrated,” insisted Sen. John Thrasher,

R-St. Augustine. “What are we to do?”

Roman suggested more robust guest-worker programs and demanding more compensation from the federal government.

“We can put up all of the fences we want,” Roman said. “But as long as we’re creating the incentive, people are going to get here.”

Further meetings on immigration proposals have not yet been scheduled, but Senate President Mike Haridopolos said earlier this month future hearings would coincide with legislative committee weeks. Those are scheduled for the week of Jan. 24 and the weeks of Feb. 7, 14 and 21.

Find this article at:

http://www.pnj.com/article/20110111/NEWS01/101110322/Professor-warns-of-immigration-law-for-Florida

January 10, 2011

TALLAHASSEE —

The Senate Judiciary Committee has invited speakers to provide information on the hotly debated immigration issue and what impact it has on Florida.

The committee scheduled three hours for Monday’s hearing that will be chaired by freshman Sen. Anitere Flores, a Miami Republican.

New Gov. Rick Scott supports an Arizona-style law that cracks down on illegal immigrants. Attorney General Pam Bondi supports legislation that would deport illegal immigrants.

Find this article at:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/elections/fl-immigration-hearing-20110110,0,6899816.story

Updated: Jan. 5, 2011
From the time of the nation’s founding, immigration has been crucial to the United States’ growth and a periodic source of conflict. In recent decades, the country has experienced another great wave of immigration, the largest since the 1920s. However, for the first time, illegal immigrants outnumbered legal ones. The number of illegal immigrants peaked at an estimated 11.9 million in 2008, and a 2010 study shows that the figure dropped to about 11.1 million in 2009, the first clear decline in two decades.

Republicans and Democrats have agreed for years on the need for sweeping changes in the federal immigration laws. President George W. Bush for three years pushed for a bipartisan bill before giving up in 2007 after an outcry from voters opposed to any path to legal status for illegal aliens. Since then the issue had in effect been dormant, as both parties were wary of the divisive passions it can arouse. But immigration reform came back to life in April 2010 after the passage of a new Arizona statute that is the nation’s toughest on illegal immigration.

On July 28, 2010, one day before the law was to take effect, a federal judge blocked Arizona from enforcing the statute’s most controversial provisions, including sections that called for officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.

While Arizona’s law was blocked, the center of activity on immigration began to swing toward the states. In the lame-duck session of Congress in late 2010, Democrats put forward legislation that would would allow illegal immigrant students to earn legal status through education or military service. The measure was meant to bolster support among Hispanics, an increasingly important voter group, and in fact, Hispanic support proved crucial in saving some Democrat seats in the midst of a Republican sweep.

It passed the House but was blocked by Republicans in the Senate. And the Republicans given control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections do not support an overhaul of immigration laws that President Obama has promised to continue to push.

Legislative leaders in at least half a dozen states have said they will propose bills similar to Arizona’s law, and have announced measures to limit access to public colleges and other benefits for illegal immigrants and to punish employers who hire them. And at least five states have agreed on an unusual coordinated effort to cancel automatic United States citizenship for children born in this country to illegal immigrant parents.

Opponents say that effort would be unconstitutional, arguing that the power to grant citizenship resides with the federal government, not with the states. Still, the chances of passing many of these measures appear better than at any time since 2006, when many states, frustrated with inaction in Washington, began proposing initiatives to curb illegal immigration.

IMMIGRATION UNDER BUSH

In January 2004, President Bush called for an overhaul of the immigration laws, proposing the broadest changes since legislation in 1986 that gave amnesty to more than three million illegal immigrants. Mr. Bush asked Congress to create a guest worker program that would “match willing foreign workers with willing American employers, when no Americans can be found to fill the jobs.” Immigrants would be authorized as guest workers for three years, then required to return home. The plan offered illegal immigrants in this country the possibility of becoming legal by registering as temporary workers. After opening the debate, Mr. Bush did not press the issue during his re-election campaign that year.

By 2005, frustration was growing over illegal immigration, particularly among voters in states like Arizona and Georgia that had seen a surge in newcomers. In December 2005, the House passed a bill, championed by conservative Republicans, which focused on law enforcement and border security, making it a federal felony to live illegally in the United States and mandating hundreds of miles of fence along the Mexican border. Church groups and organizations representing immigrants and Hispanics protested the measure and organized large demonstrations through the spring of 2006.

In May 2006, the Senate easily passed legislation – crafted primarily by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and by Senator McCain — that offered a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and created a guest worker program. But the differences with the House bill proved too great to bridge, and the legislation died. By October of that year Congress, reflecting the changing mood in the country, passed a bill ordering the construction by the end of 2008 of about 700 miles of border fences.

President Bush seized the initiative again in early 2007, convening negotiations among a small bipartisan group of lawmakers, this time including Senator John Kyl, Republican of Arizona, instead of Senator McCain. They wrote an ambitious bill, which was referred to as comprehensive reform, that proposed to open a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants after fees and other penalties, to create a guest worker program and also to re-orient the immigration system to put more emphasis on importing workers and less on family reunification.

That measure encountered intense opposition from well-organized voters who decried it as amnesty for immigrant lawbreakers. It died in June 2007 when it failed to attract enough votes to reach the Senate floor.

In the absence of federal legislation, state legislatures stepped in, adopting 206 laws related to immigration in 2008. The majority of new laws were designed to curb illegal immigration, by restricting access of illegal immigrants to driver’s licenses and public benefits, and by cracking down on human smuggling. However, some states sought to aid immigrants with programs to help them learn English and to speed their assimilation in other ways.

On a federal level, officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, stepped up raids at factories and in communities, in a campaign that had started in 2006. The federal agency deported nearly 350,000 immigrants in fiscal 2008. Expanded federal prosecutions of illegal border crossers sharply reduced unauthorized entries in some southwestern border sectors, but also brought a flood of immigration cases in federal courts.

IMMIGRATION UNDER THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Hispanic voters, including many newly naturalized immigrants, helped win several swing states for Barack Obama in 2008. Hispanic groups pressed President Obama to halt workplace raids and to move forward with legislation opening legal pathways for illegal immigrants. But despite early pledges that it would moderate the Bush administration’s tough policies, the Obama administration is pursuing an aggressive strategy for an illegal-immigration crackdown that relies significantly on programs started by his predecessor.

The Obama administration in August 2009 announced an ambitious plan to overhaul the much-criticized way the nation detains immigration violators, trying to transform it from a patchwork of jail and prison cells to what its new chief called a “truly civil detention system.” The plan aimed to establish more centralized authority over the system, which holds about 400,000 immigration detainees over the course of a year, and more direct oversight of detention centers that have come under fire for mistreatment of detainees and substandard — sometimes fatal — medical care.

One move started immediately: the government stopped sending families to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former state prison near Austin, Tex., that drew an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit and scathing news coverage for putting young children behind razor wire.

The decision to stop sending families to Hutto, and to set aside plans for three new family detention centers, was the Obama administration’s clearest departure from its predecessor’s polices. Even so, the Obama administration has embraced many Bush administration policies, including expanding a program to verify worker immigration status that has been widely criticized, bolstering partnerships between federal immigration agents and local police departments, and rejecting a petition for legally binding rules on conditions in immigration detention.

In another enforcement change,the administration replaced immigration raids at factories and farms with a quieter enforcement strategy: sending federal agents to scour companies’ records for illegal immigrant workers.

While the sweeps of the past commonly led to the deportation of such workers, the “silent raids,” as employers call the audits, usually result in the workers being fired, but in many cases they are not deported.

Starting in 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies. The agency levied a record $3 million in civil fines in the first half of 2010 on businesses that hired unauthorized immigrants. Thousands of those workers have been fired, immigrant groups estimate.

Employers say the audits reach more companies than the work-site roundups of the administration of President George W. Bush. The audits force businesses to fire every suspected illegal immigrant on the payroll- not just those who happened to be on duty at the time of a raid – and make it much harder to hire other unauthorized workers as replacements.

After taking office, Mr. Obama had repeated a campaign pledge to offer a comprehensive bill before the end of 2009, and he chose proponents of that approach for senior positions in the administration, notably Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. But the deep recession, with millions of Americans losing jobs, dimmed the political prospects for efforts to increase immigration, and groups opposing legalization remained confident they could block any such proposal.

In broad outlines, officials said, the Obama administration favored legislation that would bring illegal immigrants into the legal system by recognizing that they violated the law, and imposing fines and other penalties to fit the offense. The legislation would seek to prevent future illegal immigration by strengthening border enforcement and cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, while creating a national system for verifying the legal immigration status of new workers.

In May, census data from the Mexican government indicated an extraordinary decline in the number of Mexican immigrants going to the United States. Mexican and American researchers say that the current decline, which has also been manifested in a decrease in arrests along the border, is largely a result of Mexicans’ deciding to delay illegal crossings because of the lack of jobs in the ailing American economy.

THE ARIZONA BILL

On April 23, 2010, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed the nation’s toughest bill on illegal immigration. It requires police officers, “when practicable,” to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials, unless doing so would hinder an investigation or emergency medical treatment. It also makes it a state crime – a misdemeanor – to not carry immigration papers. In addition, it allows people to sue local government or agencies if they believe federal or state immigration law is not being enforced.

But on July 28, Judge Susan R. Bolton blocked central provisions of the law from taking effect. In her ruling, the judge broadly vindicated the Obama administration’s high-stakes move to challenge Arizona’s law and to assert the primary authority of the federal government over state lawmakers in immigration matters.

The Arizona law had provoked an outcry at home and across the border. Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said that it was worried about the rights of its citizens and relations with Arizona. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles said the authorities’ ability to demand documents was like “Nazism.”

President Obama had criticized the bill shortly before Ms. Brewer signed it. The Arizona law, he said, threatened “to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”

Under a torrent of criticism, the Arizona Legislature and Ms. Brewer made changes to the law on April 30 that they say explicitly ban the police from racial profiling and allow officers to inquire about immigration status only of people they stop, detain or arrest in enforcing existing state law. But the new immigration law also now includes civil violations of municipal codes as grounds to check papers, and opponents were not mollified by the changes.

With the judge’s ruling, the political pressure has now shifted back onto President Obama to show that he can effectively enforce the boarder, and to move forward with an overhaul of the immigration laws, so that states will not seek to step in as Arizona did.

CHILDREN OF ALIENS

Arguing for an end to the policy of automatic citizenship for children born in the United States, which is rooted in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, immigration hard-liners describe a wave of migrants stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to have what are dismissively called “anchor babies.”

People involved in drafting legislation to change that policy say they have decided against the painstaking process of amending the Constitution. Since the federal government decides who is to be deemed a citizen, the lawmakers are considering instead a move to create two kinds of birth certificates in their states, one for the children of citizens and another for the children of illegal immigrants.

The theory is that this could spark a flurry of lawsuits that might resolve the legal conflict in their favor. But most scholars of the Constitution consider the states’ effort to restrict birth certificates patently unconstitutional. 

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, was a repudiation of the Supreme Court’s 1857 ruling, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, that people of African descent could never be American citizens. The amendment said citizenship applied to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

In 1898, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, interpreted the citizenship provision as applying to a child born in the United States to a Chinese immigrant couple. Still, some conservatives contend that the issue is unsettled.

NO MASS EXODUS WITH HARD TIMES

According to a report published in August 2010 by the Pew Hispanic Center, the number of illegal immigrants in the country, after peaking at 12 million in 2007, dropped in 2009. The reduction — to 11.9 million — came primarily from decreases among illegal immigrants from Latin American countries other than Mexico, the report found.

The report, based on census data from March 2009, provides figures that show that more than a year of recession in the American economy, coupled with intensifying immigration enforcement at the Southwest border and in workplaces around the country, brought a reduction of at least 900,000 illegal immigrants.

But the figure that may be most sobering to all sides in the increasingly contentious immigration debate is the estimate that more than 11 million illegal immigrants remain in the United States. The Pew report shows that despite myriad pressures, there was no mass exodus of those immigrants to their home countries, especially not to Mexico. Instead, the report confirms earlier findings by American and Mexican demographers that the flow of Mexicans into the country illegally to look for work had slowed sharply.

While the hottest immigration debate has taken place in Arizona over the last two years, that was not the state with the largest decrease in illegal immigrants from 2007 to 2009, according to the Pew report. Florida, Virginia and Nevada showed the steepest declines — three states that saw booms followed by busts in home construction, an industry that attracts illegal immigrant workers. 

Find this article at:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration-and-emigration/index.html

By FAIR
Published: Thursday, Nov. 4, 2010 – 2:24 pm

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2010 — Majority Favor Arizona-Style Enforcement Law

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Exit polling of Florida voters in Tuesday’s election finds that nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of them rated immigration as an “important” or “very important” factor in determining their votes for Governor and U.S. Senator. By a 57 percent to 36 percent margin, Florida voters would like to see their state implement immigration enforcement measures similar to those enacted in Arizona. The poll of 500 voters was conducted by The Polling Company Inc. on behalf of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

The poll reveals the depth of concern about the impact of illegal immigration on the state. Fully 41 percent of Florida voters said they “strongly support” implementation of state-based policies designed to discourage illegal immigration. Illegal immigration has become a critical issue for the state, as unemployment has risen to 12 percent and Florida taxpayers now pay an estimated $5.46 billion a year to subsidize basic services to illegal aliens and their families.

National exit polling shows that only 31 percent of American voters believe the federal government is doing enough to enforce laws against illegal immigration, while 61 percent say the Obama administration is not acting aggressively enough to deal with the problem. “In Florida and across the nation, voters are making it very clear that if the federal government will not carry out its responsibilities to the American people, they want state and local governments to implement their own policies to enforce those laws and discourage illegal aliens from settling in their states and communities,” observed Dan Stein, president of FAIR.

“The new governor and the incoming legislature will be forced to make difficult cuts as they try to balance Florida’s budget and help unemployed Floridians find jobs. The exit polling shows that they have a clear mandate from the voters to free-up existing jobs and reduce the staggering costs of illegal immigration by adopting sensible state-based enforcement policies,” Stein said.

Polling results also indicate that voters expect their representatives in Washington to demand more vigorous enforcement of immigration laws by the federal government. “The current administration’s refusal to enforce most immigration laws has left state and local governments to fill the void. Clearly voters do not believe the federal government is carrying out its enforcement responsibilities, and the exit polling demonstrates that Florida voters want their congressional representatives to bring that message to Washington,” said Stein.

Results of both the Florida and national exit polls can be found on FAIR’s website, www.fairus.org/election.

About FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country’s largest immigration reform group.  With over 250,000 members nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests.  FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.  

SOURCE FAIR

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO (Reuters) – Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum on Wednesday proposed tougher curbs against illegal migrants in his melting-pot state which he said would go “one step further” than a similar contested Arizona law.

The proposal by McCollum, who is lagging in a race to become the Republican candidate for governor, was certain to thrust Florida into the heated immigration debate that is a major issue ahead of November 2 midterm Congressional elections.

“This legislation will provide new enforcement tools for protecting our citizens and will help our state fight the ongoing problem created by illegal immigration,” McCollum said, presenting the proposed measures at an event in Orlando.

“Florida will not be a sanctuary state for illegal aliens,” added McCollum, accompanied by Representative Will Snyder.

The legislation will require Florida law enforcement officials to check a suspected illegal immigrant’s status in the course of a stop, or a violation of another law. This goes beyond the existing situation in the state where officers are allowed to check immigration status, but not required to.

Florida, especially its southern portion, is a major U.S. migration destination for nationals from the Caribbean and Latin America, making it a cultural and racial melting-pot.

Many migrants work in the Sunshine State’s $9 billion citrus sector, or in other farm industries and tourism.

In the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Democrats hold majorities. But public opinion polls show Republicans gaining ground with an agenda that includes calls for cracking down on illegal immigration.

McCollum’s office said the proposed Florida legislation goes “one step further” than a similar law introduced in Arizona, which has triggered protests and a constitutional challenge from President Barack Obama’s administration.

“I think Arizona is going to want this law,” McCollum said.

Earlier this year, the Arizona legislature passed a law to try to drive illegal immigrants out of the state and stem the flow of human and drug smugglers over the border from Mexico.

A federal judge has since blocked the Arizona law’s most controversial provisions, handing a victory to the Obama administration, which argued the measure was unconstitutional.

DISCRIMINATION FEARS

According to his office, McCollum’s proposed Florida legislation offers more teeth than the Arizona law by giving judges and law enforcement officers more tools in dealing with illegal immigrants, from bond rulings through to sentencing.

His office said the Florida proposal also was strengthened against “potential constitutional challenges.” It addressed the objections raised by the federal judge in the Arizona case by clarifying better the “reasonable suspicion” circumstances in which officers should check immigration status.

The Arizona law sparked fierce protests by immigrant supporters and civil rights groups, who said it encouraged racial discrimination against foreign immigrants.

Anticipating this criticism, McCollum’s office said his proposal for Florida “will not allow for racial profiling.”

The proposed legislation’s provisions require that aliens carry immigration documentation or face a possible misdemeanor penalty of up to 20 days in jail for the first offense.

It allows judges to consider immigration status while setting bond and sentencing. It foresees enhanced penalties against illegal aliens who commit further crimes in Florida,

In addition, the bill requires Florida businesses to check on immigration status of workers.

Some Hispanic associations and migrant groups in Florida have condemned the Arizona law and warned of damaging consequences if similar measures are introduced here.

Obama and his fellow Democrats back a comprehensive reform of immigration policy to tighten border security, but also to allow the 11 million illegal immigrants working in the United States to get onto a path to citizenship.

(Writing by Pascal Fletcher, Editing by Jackie Frank)