Arizona's immigration strategy: Make life tough

The bill passed this week reflects the government's belief that illegal immigrants will leave or stay away if conditions are harsh enough. Critics say it doesn't work.

By Nicholas Riccardi and Ashley Powers

April 14, 2010

Reporting from Phoenix and Tucson

For years Arizona's government has tried to deter unlawful immigration with a consistent approach -- make life for illegal immigrants so uncomfortable and uncertain that they will leave, or never come in the first place.

So this week, when the House of Representatives passed what's viewed as the toughest state law against illegal immigration in the nation, it was the continuation of a pattern that has been widely popular in the state.

"When you make life difficult," said state Sen. Russell Pearce, author of the current bill and earlier hard-line measures, "most will leave on their own."

There is evidence that is true. The number of illegal immigrants in Arizona dropped 18% between 2008 and 2009, the largest decrease in the nation, according to federal estimates.

"People are not going out to restaurants. They're afraid to do things with their families," said Sergio Gaxiola, 57, of Nogales. "The pressure has been building."

In 2007, the state passed first-in-the-nation penalties for employers who don't ensure their workers are in the country legally. The law led many illegal workers to conclude that they could never find steady jobs in Arizona.

Last year, the state made it a crime for state workers to give illegal immigrants unauthorized benefits, which scared many from applying for government assistance they are allowed.

The sweeping bill, SB 1070, passed by the Legislature on Tuesday makes it a crime to lack proper immigration paperwork and requires police, if they suspect someone is in the country illegally, to determine his or her immigration status. It also bars people from soliciting work as day laborers.

"The bill in its totality is designed to make life miserable for immigrants in the state of Arizona," said Chris Newman, legal director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Critics say the state's approach to combating illegal immigration doesn't work and only stigmatizes Latinos, legal and illegal.

The drop in illegal immigrants, they argue, is largely due to Arizona's cratering economy, which has racked up losses in immigrant-heavy trades faster than most other states.

"The law doesn't matter to someone who's willing to risk their life crossing the border," said Rep. Daniel Patterson, who represents an immigrant-heavy district in Tucson and voted against the bill.

As has happened with other official steps to deter illegal immigration here, Tuesday's party-line vote -- 35 Republicans backed the measure and 21 Democrats opposed it -- was greeted with populist applause from anti-illegal-immigration activists and a smattering of protests from civil liberties and immigrant rights groups. The state Senate passed a similar bill this year; after it approves small fixes in the House version, it will go to Gov. Jan Brewer.

A few dozen people protested the measure Wednesday outside the office of the Republican governor, who has not commented on the bill but is widely expected to sign it. Lydia Guzman, a prominent immigrant rights activist, argued that Pearce's attempts to chase illegal immigrants out of Arizona were hurting the state's economy.

"Every time someone leaves, they take three jobs with them," Guzman said, adding that workers' taxes and spending fund the rest of the economy. "That makes stores close down. We're having a huge problem with vacant homes. It's hurting our bottom line."

Advocates of the attempt to push illegal immigrants out -- known as "attrition through enforcement" -- say the tactic is a natural part of enforcing laws.

"It sends a message that their jurisdiction is not one where you want to be an illegal alien," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which advocates tighter immigration restrictions. "That's what most enforcement is about -- not to lock everyone up, but to get voluntary compliance."

Krikorian said that although it's not possible to arrest every illegal immigrant, enough high-profile arrests will send a message. He noted, for example, that enforcement can discourage drunk driving, even though it's impossible to arrest every drunk driver.

Todd Landfried, a spokesman for a group of businesses that opposed the bill, disagreed with the analogy. He said employers will be wary of hiring anyone who looks foreign for fear that police may be called.

"There is a significant difference between pulling people over for drunk driving and passing laws that create incentives for job discrimination," Landfried said. "It's much more harmful to the broader society."

Critics say the law will lead to stepped-up racial profiling as police ask people who appear foreign to prove they are legal. Immigrants say they already face discrimination and expect it to get worse. Graciela Beltran, 43, of Tucson said she was asked for immigration papers while boarding a bus.

Perla Siquieros, 37, said she would hesitate going to a park patrolled by police should the bill become law. "They don't know if I was born here or married a citizen," she said through an interpreter.

Some said the campaign won't chase them out.

"You definitely have to be careful; it's riskier here now," Jose, a Phoenix restaurant worker who came to Arizona from Mexico 20 years ago, said in Spanish. "But my whole family is here. This is only a stage we're living through. It will change."

Among many Latinos, however, the overall sentiment was one of disbelief.

Adriana, 40, an illegal immigrant in Tucson, fears she won't be able to drive her two U.S.-born children to appointments without risking being stopped by police.

"I'm afraid. I can't do nothing. . . . My whole life is here. My dreams are here," said Adriana, who is taking English classes. "I'm worried about me and everybody. My family, my kids. We can't do nothing. We're trapped."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-arizona-immigration15-2010apr15,0,3230923,print.story

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U.S. adoptions of Russian children suspended

The Foreign Ministry announcement comes amid outrage over the case of a boy sent back to Russia alone.

The Associated Press

April 15, 2010

MOSCOW

A spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry says all adoptions by Americans of Russian children have been suspended.

Andrei Nesterenko said at a televised briefing Thursday that the freeze will be in effect until the two countries reach an agreement on adoption procedures.

The announcement comes after an American women sent back her 7-year-old adopted Russian son to Moscow on a plane by himself. The adoptive mother said the boy had severe psychological problems and that she had been misled by his Russian orphanage.

The case has ignited strong outrage in Russia.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fgw-russia-adoptions16-2010apr16,0,2354915,print.story

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Adoptive parents speak up over mother who sent back Russian boy

They blame adoption agencies rather than her, saying parents are often misled and left to deal with extreme problems without training or options.

By Bonnie Miller Rubin

April 15, 2010

Reporting from Chicago

To many, the act seemed callous, even abusive: A Tennessee woman sent her 7-year-old adoptive son home to Russia alone last week, with a note that she no longer wanted him.

Although the episode has been roundly condemned and authorities are investigating whether any laws were broken, adoptive parents of troubled children are speaking out.

Rather than condemn Torry Hansen, 33, they castigate the adoption agencies that do not always accurately describe a child's troubled past, leaving families to cope with extreme behavioral problems without training or options.

"There are days when we've all felt like that Tennessee mom," said Linda McBride of Chicago, who adopted three boys -- now 19, 14 and 13 -- from Russia in 2002.

Thousands of overseas adoptees flourish in the U.S., but others face numerous health risks, such as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, attachment disorders, mental health issues and other disabilities that will last a lifetime.

"I never understood the importance of those early years," McBride said. "I was just excited about being a mom."

No one condones Hansen's action, but many can sympathize.

Hansen, a registered nurse, brought her son home eight months ago from an orphanage near Vladivostok. When she sent him back, she said the boy was violent and threatened to burn down her home with her inside. The boy's birth mother reportedly was an alcoholic.

Linda Baker of suburban St. Louis can understand -- at least a little.

"It's been a living hell for the last eight years," said Baker, who adopted two children from Bulgaria. "I want to ask these people passing judgment: 'What would you do if your child threatened to kill you every day?' "

Baker, like many other parents, has tales that are way beyond normal child-rearing: lying, stealing, fire-setting, and violent and self-harming behavior that puts younger siblings and family pets in danger.

Support groups are filled with parents who are living in lockdown conditions to keep everyone safe.

"I have heard stories of . . . explosive anger or long, out-of-control rages precipitated by a minor change in routine . . . or simply being told 'no,' " said Nancy Petersen of Roselle, Ill., who adopted two Russian children in 1997 and is a member of the Illinois chapter of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption.

Since 1991, more than 50,000 Russian children have been adopted by U.S. citizens, according to the State Department.

Add the former Soviet bloc countries, and the region is second only to China as a source of international adoptions for Americans, who are often drawn overseas by the difficulty of adopting domestically.

But prospective parents can be unprepared for the behavioral and emotional challenges that sometimes await them, said Judy Stigger, an adoption therapist in Evanston, Ill.

"Parents -- especially of older children -- need to presume there will be ongoing difficulties . . . but preparing for that is often complicated because there are just so many unknowns," Stigger said.

Because children can be superficially charming and their disabilities invisible, their problems often get blamed on "bad parenting." And the right kind of intervention can be scarce, expensive and not covered by insurance.

Joan O'Neill of Wilmette, Ill., thought she was going into the adoption with her eyes open. When she brought 6-year-old Alexi home from a Moscow orphanage in 1994, it was to a loving, supportive family and a team of professionals that included neurologists, psychiatrists and therapists.

"But at the end of the day, as parents, we were left alone with a young boy with unexplained outbursts who could not fall asleep without us," she said.

At the time, the O'Neills thought Alexi was simply a traumatized child, frustrated and confused by the move.

She estimates they spent $100,000 over the years on tutoring and support programs to help the boy, who suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome.

Still, the quest for the right kind of treatment is well worth it, said McBride, the mother of three.

"I was fortunate . . . but it took eight years to get here. My sadness for the Tennessee woman is that she didn't get help. She didn't know that if you work really, really hard, you can have hope."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-russia-adopt15-2010apr15,0,7376983,print.story

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Deadly street shootout strikes fear in Acapulco

In the Mexican resort city, gunmen fire at two men in a car and federal police officers. They also shoot at other vehicles, leaving behind casings from AK-47s, which are favored by drug hit men.

By Ken Ellingwood

April 14, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

A chaotic shootout Wednesday on a hotel-lined boulevard in the beach resort city of Acapulco left as many as six people dead, Mexican authorities said.

Federal police officers patrolling the area came under fire after they heard gunshots and saw attackers shooting at two men in a car, authorities said. The gunmen also shot at other vehicles as they tried to flee, riddling dozens of cars with bullet holes.

The victims included a woman and her 8-year-old daughter. No tourists appeared to have been killed. A federal officer was also slain during the shootout with gunmen, which erupted on busy Miguel Aleman Boulevard, the main tourist drag.

Five people were wounded, according to public safety authorities in Guerrero state.

The midafternoon gun battle could be heard in nearby hotels. Hundreds of spent casings from AK-47 assault rifles -- the type favored by drug-gang hit men -- littered the street. Cars reportedly crashed into one another as innocent drivers tried to escape the shooting.

Guests and workers at the beach-side Hotel Playa Suites, next to where the shooting took place, were rattled by the confusing scene as police poured into the area.

"Police arrived and they kept our guests and workers from leaving, and this unfortunately caused panic among our guests," said Laura Toledo, a reservations manager. "Our customers weren't aware of the shootout, and they became alarmed when so many federal police arrived."

She said most of the guests are foreigners.

In June, 18 people were killed in a fierce battle between suspected drug cartel gunmen and government forces in a separate section of Acapulco's hotel zone, favored by Mexican visitors. None of the dead were tourists.

Wednesday's shootout, in one of the country's best-known resort towns during the spring vacation season, is unwelcome news for Mexican officials. Mexico has repeatedly sought to reassure tourists that they face little risk of being caught up in the country's escalating drug violence because most of it takes place far from resort areas.

More than 22,000 people have died since the government of President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown against drug traffickers in December 2006. Most of the killings stem from feuds between rival trafficking groups along the U.S. border and in key trafficking zones.

Acapulco, which has sought to regain its former glory as a stylish tourist haven, has seen scores of drug-related gang killings during the last three years, though few were in areas frequented by tourists.

The resort is in the Pacific state of Guerrero, an important smuggling corridor and, like many other tourist spots, also coveted by traffickers as a market for street sales.

Turf battles among rival gangs have left more than 300 people dead in and around Acapulco since the Calderon administration's crackdown began, according to confidential government figures cited Wednesday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-fg-acapulco-shooting15-2010apr15,0,6051938,print.story

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EDITORIAL

The census as scare tactic

The Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is clever if nothing else.

April 14, 2010

Maybe the Americans for Legal Immigration political action committee does not understand how the census works. That would explain its call for legislation to allow U.S. Census data to be used to "detect, detain and deport" illegal immigrants. The goal, according to ALIPAC leader William Gheen, is to keep illegal immigrants from "stealing" taxpayer resources and "diminishing representation" for legal Americans.

Right. Except that none of the 10 questions on the 2010 census form pertains to citizenship, legal residency or country of birth. Rather, the form asks questions such as how many people live in a residence, their names, dates of birth and race. So there's no way to use the census information to identify or expel illegal immigrants.

And in fact, that's not what ALIPAC is really trying to do. What the group truly wants is to stop illegal immigrants from participating in the census. It's a scare tactic: Spread the word that filling out census forms could get you deported and watch the participation rates plummet. As census stunts go, spreading rumors of a count-and-deport campaign is pretty clever -- more effective than previous efforts to have illegal immigrants excluded from the national population count. That proposal died when its proponents realized that the Constitution, in Article I, Section 2, calls for an enumeration of all persons in the country.

It is true that the presence of 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. will affect how many members of Congress each state gets, which is determined by the census. But it's worth noting that there's nothing new about this debate. In antebellum America, the issue was slavery. To the ire of free states, millions of slaves (each counted as three-fifths of a person) were included in the census even though slaves were not citizens and were considered to be property. The count bolstered Southern representation in the House and became a decisive factor in numerous legislative contests.

Now, 145 years after the Civil War, we are still debating how and when to count people who are not citizens. This time around, one of the strongest arguments for counting illegal immigrants is that states have no power to regulate immigration and yet are required by the federal government to spend significant local tax dollars on services for illegal immigrants. The Supreme Court has ruled, correctly in our view, that illegal immigrant children have the right to attend school, and Congress has determined that all residents have a right to emergency medical care.

As for the count-and-deport proposal, the best argument against it is that it won't work. Enforcing laws against employing illegal immigrants and increasing the number of visas for legal job-seekers are much better strategies -- not interfering with an accurate count of the nation's population.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-census15-2010apr15,0,5905404,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Death Toll in China Quake Rises to 617

BEIJING — The death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck western China Wednesday rose to at least 617 people on Thursday, with 10,000 more injured as many remained buried under debris, Chinese state media reported.

The quake, which struck at 7:49 a.m. in Qinghai Province, bordering Tibet, had a magnitude of 7.1, according to China's earthquake agency. At least 18 aftershocks measuring more than 6.0 followed throughout the day, government officials said, according to Xinhua.

China's earthquake agency said the quake centered on Yushu County, a remote and mountainous area sparsely populated by farmers and herdsmen, most of them ethnic Tibetans. The region, pocked with copper, tin and coal mines, is also rich in natural gas.

As with the devastating earthquake two years ago that killed 87,000 in neighboring Sichuan Province, many buildings collapsed, including schools. But with Qinghai's far smaller and less dense population, the toll is likely to remain far lower.

A seismologist, Gu Guohua, said in an interview with the national broadcaster CCTV that 90 percent of the homes in the county seat, Jeigu, had collapsed. The houses, he said, were of “quite poor quality,” with many constructed of wood, mud and brick.

The dead included at least 56 students and 5 teachers who were crushed in the rubble of collapsing schools or dormitories, the English-language government newspaper China Daily reported. Of that number, 22 students — 20 of them girls — died in the collapse of a vocational school, the newspaper quoted the deputy chief of the Yushu education bureau, Xiao Yuping, as saying.

Among those still missing were 20 children buried in the wreckage of a primary school, and as many as 50 people were trapped beneath a collapsed office building that houses the Departments of Commerce and Industry, according to news reports.

“We're in the process of trying to rescue the students,” Kang Zifu, a local fire department official, told CCTV on Wednesday afternoon. “We're hurrying to help them.”

He said at least 32 survivors had been pulled from the debris.

The prefecture that includes Yushu is on the Tibetan plateau, with a population that is more than 96 percent Tibetan and overwhelmingly poor. Many villages sit well above 16,000 feet, with freezing temperatures not uncommon in mid-April. By Wednesday evening, temperatures in the county seat had already dropped to 27 degrees, and snow and sleet were forecast in the coming days.

China National Radio, citing an official with the local Red Cross Society of China , said that 70 percent of the school buildings had collapsed in neighboring Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, an area the size of South Korea that has a population of 350,000. But at least some of the schools had not begun classes yet.

Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, quoted a teacher surnamed Chang who said 5 of the 1,000 students at Yushu Primary School had died.

“Buildings in our school were all toppled,” Mr. Chang said. “Morning sessions had not begun when the quake happened. Some pupils ran out of the dorm alive, and those who had not escaped in time were buried.”

Karsum Nyima, an employee of a local television station in Yushu, told CCTV that the quake had sent people running into the streets not long after daybreak.

“All of a sudden, the houses collapsed,” he said. “It was a terrible earthquake. In the park, a Buddhist pagoda fell down. Everyone is in the street in front of their houses. They are trying to find family members.”

In the same broadcast, Wu Yong, an officer in the Chinese Army, said that the road to the airport was impassable and that soldiers were digging people out from collapsed homes by hand.

“The most important thing now is that this place is far from everything, with few accessible rescue troops available,” Mr. Wu said. “I feel like the number of dead and injured will keep going up.”

Officials said that rescue efforts were stymied by a lack of heavy equipment. Medical supplies and tents, they added, were in short supply. Phone calls to local government offices went unanswered Wednesday afternoon.

State news media reported that 700 paramilitary officers were already working in the quake zone and that more than 4,000 others would be sent to assist in search and rescue efforts. The Civil Affairs Ministry said it would also send 5,000 tents and 100,000 coats and blankets.

Workers also were rushing to release water from a reservoir after cracks were discovered in a dam, according to the China Earthquake Administration.

Genqiu Renqin, a teacher who lives in Sichuan Province, about 60 miles from Yushu, said he felt the earth shake and immediately drove to see if relatives who lived near the epicenter were safe.

“Almost all of their homes were badly damaged, but luckily no one was seriously injured,” he said, speaking by phone from a town about 25 miles from the county seat. “All the people in the area are camping out for now.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/world/asia/15quake.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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With Cars as Meth Labs, Evidence Litters Roads

ELKHART, Ind. — The toxic garbage, often in clumps, blends in easily with the more mundane litter along rural roads and highways here: used plastic water bottles, old tubing, dirty gloves, empty packs of medicine. But it is a nuisance with truly explosive potential, and evidence of something more than simply a disregard for keeping the streets clean.

“The way to get rid of your meth lab these days is to put it in a plastic bag, then throw it out the car window,” said William V. Wargo, the chief investigator for the prosecuting attorney's office in Elkhart County.

In the last few weeks, as the snow that had obscured the sides of roads, fields and parks has melted, law enforcement officials here have found at least a dozen so-called trash labs, the latest public safety hazard to emerge from the ever-shifting methods of producing methamphetamine.

Each trash lab becomes a crime scene and is proof, officials said, that a new and ever more popular way of making meth does not demand a lot of space or a lot of pseudoephedrine, an essential ingredient. The new method is a quick, mobile, one-pot recipe that requires only a few pills, a two-liter bottle and some common household chemicals.

Law enforcement officials in several states say that addicts and dealers have become expert at making methamphetamine on the move, often in their cars, and they discard their garbage and chemical byproducts as they go, in an effort to destroy evidence and evade the police.

Just as some states had reported progress in stamping out home-based meth labs, this transportable process has presented a new challenge: 65 percent of meth lab seizures in Tennessee, for instance, are now the one-pot, or “shake-and-bake,” variety. The number of meth labs seized in Oklahoma last year increased to 743 from 148 just four years ago, largely because of the prevalence of moving labs. In Indiana, the state police reported that meth lab seizures rose nearly 27 percent from 2008 to 2009.

Mr. Wargo attributed at least half of the new meth activity in Elkhart County to the easier one-pot arrangements. He began seeing the switch in 2008.

“We are so under water on this thing,” he said.

With disturbing frequency, officials in Alabama, Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and other states say they, too, are confronting the problem of trashed labs, and are scrambling to identify and clear the debris — which is often tinged with the drug and other noxious chemicals — before the public stumbles upon it.

“We just drive around, and off the side of the road, there's one, there's one, and there's another,” said Paul G. Matyas, the undersheriff in Kalamazoo County, Mich. “We'll spend all day doing nothing but that.”

Mr. Matyas said someone finding a bottle on the side of the road “might think somebody didn't drink all the pop out of their bottle.”

“Well, that's not pop,” he said. “You pick it up, and it could explode. Acid could spill and burn you. At one of the sites about a week ago, we found a dead deer, and I know exactly what happened.”

In some states, officials estimate that the majority of meth lab seizures are now transportable ones, and that over the last two years, the mobile process has supplanted the home-based method of high-yield production that came to be one face of the meth scourge last decade.

“I scratch my head sometimes,” said Thomas Farmer, director of the Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force , adding that sometimes authorities find more than one pot being made on the move. “We get 10, 15 bottles going at the same time.”

The authorities say that the mobile method has grown in popularity because it is easier, cheaper and harder to get caught than making it indoors, and that most of the cooks are addicts themselves, not dealers or distributors.

One two-liter bottle might produce about eight grams of meth, enough for the cook to share with his “smurfers” — friends or fellow users who make the rounds at stores, each buying small enough amounts of the main chemical ingredients to stay below the radar of law enforcement, often while meth is being made in the back seat.

States like Tennessee had seen a decrease in meth-related arrests and lab discoveries after passing laws cracking down on consumer access to ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, the decongestants found in common cold medicines. But officials there are seeing those numbers rise again, and they say that is partly because of how smurfers are operating across large territories.

“We thought we had a pretty good grip on it,” said Darrell Weaver, director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control . “We felt like we had it well controlled, but it's a cat-and-mouse game. Now we have seen an increase in methamphetamine labs again.”

In 2003, Oklahoma seized 1,200 meth labs. After passing one of the first laws in the country limiting access to pseudoephedrine, that number plummeted to 148 in 2006. But by 2009, the number had risen to 743.

Statistics from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration show that the number of meth labs, dumps and equipment found nationally from 2007 to 2008, the most recent data available, rose nearly 15 percent, to 6,783, from 5,910. That came after a nearly 58 percent drop over the three previous years, from 17,356 in 2003 to 7,347 in 2006.

Representative Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican who represents the Elkhart area, expressed some of the frustration common among officials who thought they had made good headway against the meth producers through aggressive enforcement of new laws. Mr. Souder said he might propose even tighter restraints on the sale of pseudoephedrine.

“We broke up some of the big labs, and what we have is lot more little points, little pebbles,” he said. “They're harder to find. It is very hard to track this new thing we're trying to deal with because it doesn't have a normal distribution network.”

And when the police do take samples from a trashed lab or stop a car and find a bottle in process, the illegal product confiscated is often too small for state or federal prosecutors to step in.

“The quantity of the labs is increasing, but the amount of product is not that great,” Mr. Weaver, in Oklahoma, said. “You used to find pounds of methamphetamine at a lab.”

The trashed labs can sometimes function like fingerprints, in that they may contain certain telltale signs of a cook's technique. In those cases, it is easier for investigators to connect the dots and bring charges.

“We have forced them further underground, to come up with other means to do this,” said Mr. Farmer, of Tennessee's task force. “I think we are very much still in the game. They know we're out there and after them, on their heels.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/15meth.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From ICE

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ICE Assistant Secretary tells Congress the agency is producing results along the Southwest border

WASHINGTON - Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Morton testified before Congress today on Southwest border security, saying "our efforts to dismantle cross-border criminal organizations are producing results."

In his update before the U.S. House of Representatives' Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Morton outlined ICE's commitment to ensuring that U.S. borders are secure and to curbing the bilateral flow of contraband including guns, money, and drugs.

To that end, ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) combined have seized $85 million in illicit cash along the Southwest border - a 22 percent increase over the same period during the previous year.  Together, they also seized more than 1,400 firearms and more than 1.6 million kilograms of drugs - increases of 22 and 14 percent respectively over the same period last year. 

In addition to moving additional manpower and infrastructure to the Southwest border, ICE has strengthened information sharing and integration with state and local law enforcement agencies as well as with Mexican authorities. ICE has doubled the personnel assigned to the ICE-led Border Enforcement Security Task Forces (BEST), bringing together federal, state, local and Mexican authorities to crack down on crime, and has tripled the number of ICE intelligence analysts along the Southwest border.

"ICE is fully committed to the effort's primary focus of conducting intelligence-driven border enforcement operations to disrupt and dismantle violent cross-border criminal organizations negatively impacting the lives of the people on both sides of our shared border," Morton said.

Morton also discussed new ICE-initiated programs to address the escalating violence around Ciudad Juárez. These include the temporary suspension of removing Mexican nationals with criminal records through Ciudad Juárez and increased collaboration between Mexico's Tactical-Operative Intelligence Unit and the ICE BEST teams to address narcotics smuggling, weapons violations, money laundering and human smuggling and trafficking in the El Paso-Juárez area.

Please visit http://www.ice.gov/doclib/pi/news/testimonies/100414sw-border.pdf to read Assistant Secretary Morton's testimony.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1004/100414washington.htm

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Sarasota County Sheriff's Office joins ICE Secure Communities initiative to enhance identification, removal of criminal aliens

Now the criminal and immigration records of all local arrestees to be checked

SARASOTA, Fla. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announced on Wednesday the successful implementation of a new information-sharing capability by the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office that will help identify and remove criminal aliens from the United States.

Previously, local arrestees' fingerprints were taken and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) maintained by the FBI. Now, as part of the Secure Communities strategy, fingerprint information submitted by state and local law enforcement agencies will now be simultaneously checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in the Department of Homeland Security's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).

If fingerprints match those of someone in DHS's biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE, enabling the agency to take appropriate action to ensure criminal aliens are not released back into communities. Top priority is given to individuals who pose the greatest threat to public safety, such as those with prior convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping.

"The Secure Communities strategy provides local law enforcement with an effective tool to identify criminal aliens," said Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella. "Enhancing public safety is at the core of ICE's mission. Our goal is to use biometric information sharing to prevent criminal aliens from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our law enforcement partners."

"Identification and removal of criminal aliens has been a priority for this office since I took office," said Sheriff Tom Knight. "We initially partnered with ICE in May 2009 to implement the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), but enhancing our partnership to include the Secure Communities strategy will further ensure these offenders are not released back onto Sarasota County streets."

Secure Communities is now being used by 159 jurisdictions in 19 states across the country. ICE expects this capability to be available nationwide by 2013.

Since ICE began using this information sharing capability in October 2008, it has identified more than 21,700 aliens charged with or convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping-more than 4,900 of whom have already been removed from the United States. Most of the aliens subject to removal who have been identified but not yet removed are in legal proceedings or completing their sentences. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 28,400 aliens charged with or convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for approximately 90 percent of the crimes committed by aliens.

The IDENT system is maintained by DHS's US-VISIT program, and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).

"US VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it," said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. "By enhancing the interoperability of DHS's and the FBI's biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation."

"Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens," said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's CJIS Division. "Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals."

For more information, visit www.ice.gov/secure_communities .

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1004/100414sarasota.htm

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From the FBI

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Texas Man Sentenced to 500 Months in Prison for Kidnapping 10-Year-Old Girl

OKLAHOMA CITY—Late yesterday, TERRANCE LYNN MCGUIRE, 27, of Canyon, Texas, was sentenced to 500 months in federal prison for kidnapping a 10-year-old girl and transporting her from Oklahoma to Texas to New Mexico, announced Sanford C. Coats, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma.

“The protection of our children is, and will remain, a top priority of the United States Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice as a whole," said U.S. Attorney Sanford C. Coats. "These tragic and complicated cases require the cooperative effort of federal, state and local law enforcement. That was certainly true with this case, and I commend the diligent work of all law enforcement involved in bringing Mr. McGuire to justice. As a result of this fine work, Mr. McGuire will not victimize another child for more than 41 years.”

According to court records, on January 18, 2007, the minor victim was riding her bicycle near her home in Texhoma, Oklahoma, when at approximately 6:30 p.m. a man stopped to ask for directions and lured the girl into his car. The man, later identified to be Terrance Lynn McGuire, threatened the girl, put a mask over her head, bound her arms, taped her mouth shut, and placed her in the trunk of his car. McGuire drove to Dumas, Texas, and then to his house in Canyon, Texas. The following day, on January 19, 2007, McGuire drove to a convenience store in Clovis, New Mexico, where he released the girl. She notified store employees who immediately called authorities.

In June 2009, McGuire was identified as the perpetrator of the kidnapping based on a tip provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. McGuire was arrested without incident on August 7, 2009, in Canyon, Texas, by the FBI and Canyon Police Department. On September 15, 2009, McGuire pled guilty to one count of kidnapping and transporting the victim across state lines. 

Late yesterday, Chief United States District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange sentenced McGuire to 500 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release after his release from prison. McGuire will be required to register as a sex offender when he is released from prison. Chief Judge Miles-LaGrange also ordered McGuire to pay restitution to the victim and to the Oklahoma Crime Victims Compensation Board in the amount of $7,335.70. 

This case is a result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Texas County Sheriff's Office, Texhoma Police Department, Texas County District Attorney's Office, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Guymon Police Department, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Clovis Police Department, and Canyon Police Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Dave Walling, Lee Borden, and Chris M. Stephens. 

http://oklahomacity.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel10/ok041410.htm

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