In South Korea, Clinton announces sanctions against the north

The U.S. will freeze assets of businesses and individuals associated with the North Korean regime, and collaborate with banks to stop illegal financial transactions. The high-level visit is aimed to show resolve to North Korea in the wake of the sinking of a South Korean warship.

By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

July 21, 2010

Reporting from Seoul, South Korea

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new U.S. sanctions against North Korea Wednesday focused on halting money-making schemes employed by the regime to fund its nuclear program.

"These measures are not directed at the people of North Korea, who have suffered too long due to the misguided priorities of their government," Clinton said at a news conference. "They are directed at the destabilizing, illicit, and provocative policies pursued by that government."

The U.S. will freeze assets of businesses and individuals associated with the North Korean regime, and collaborate with banks to stop illegal financial transactions.

The sanctions also will target luxury items purchased by the regime's ruling elite and seek to stop the abuse of diplomatic privileges in order to carry out illegal activities, Clinton said.

North Korea is already under wide-ranging international sanctions because of its nuclear program, but the U.S. also eased some restrictions in 2008 after Pyongyang agreed to allow inspectors access to its declared nuclear sites. That deal fell apart last year when the North announced that it was walking away from the disarmament-for-aid talks.

Clinton, making an unprecedented trip to South Korea with Defense Secretary Robert M Gates four months after the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship, said that North Korea had the option of ending its isolation.

"North Korea can cease its provocative behavior, halt its threats and belligerence towards its neighbors, take irreversible steps to fulfill its denuclearization commitments and comply with international law," Clinton said.

She added that resuming stalled nuclear talks "is not something we're looking at yet." The North should first take responsibility for sinking of the South Korean warship and agree to dismantle its nuclear programs, she said, "but to date, we have seen nothing" indicating change in Pyongyang's stance.

Earlier Tuesday, Clinton and Gates pledged continuing U.S. support for defense of South Korea in an unprecedented joint visit to the demilitarized zone, about 40 miles north of Seoul.

Their brief tour of the DMZ was the centerpiece of a high-level visit meant to show resolve to North Korea in the aftermath of the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 crew members.

In a statement, Gates said the visit was intended "to send a strong signal to the North, to the region, and to the world that our commitment to South Korea's security is steadfast" and "should deter any potential aggressor."

Clinton emphasized that better relations with North Korea remained possible, an apparent reference to the intermittent six-nation talks, which aim to eliminate the country's nuclear weapons program and bring an end to its decades of isolation.

The talks — which involve the U.S., Japan, Russia, China and both Koreas — have been in limbo since 2008. The Obama administration has sent signals that it would welcome a return to the negotiations, but the sinking of the Cheonan has increased opposition to that course among officials in Seoul.

"We continue to send a message to the North that there is another way," Clinton said as a light rain fell and North Korean soldiers looked on from across the armistice line. "But until they change direction, the United States stands firmly on behalf of the people and government of South Korea."

Gates and Clinton stood on an observation tower under umbrellas and looked through binoculars into North Korea.

"The North Koreans work pretty hard to keep their flag pole higher," Gates noted, referring to a decades-old effort to outdo the South and the U.S. in flagpole heights and other visible symbols of their regime.

North Korean guards peered through a window while Gates and Clinton briefly toured the Military Armistice Commission building, a low-slung plywood structure where semi-regular meetings occur between the two sides.

Inside, the two Cabinet officials stepped into the North Korean half of the building, technically placing them in enemy territory.

It was Clinton's first visit to the demilitarized zone and the third for Gates, but his first as Defense secretary.

Gates and Clinton were scheduled to hold joint talks with South Korean counterparts later Wednesday and to lay a wreath at the South Korean war memorial.

The Clinton-Gates appearance came after an announcement Tuesday of air and naval exercises by the U.S. and South Korea, set to begin this week.

In a sign of the heightened tensions over the Cheonan sinking, North Korea refused to accept a formal notification of the maneuvers conveyed over a telephone hotline Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters.

Instead, North Korea was given notice about the exercises verbally, over a bullhorn in the DMZ, he said.

Pyongyang has denied involvement in the sinking of the Cheonan. But a South Korean-led investigation concluded that the vessel was sunk by a North Korean torpedo.

Fewer than 100 U.S. troops are stationed in the DMZ, though the U.S. maintains nearly 28,500 military personnel in South Korea — 57 years after the armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War.

The continuing troop presence underscored the difficulty the U.S. faces in disengaging from war zones, an issue that Washington now faces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite the recent tensions with North Korea, the U.S. military presence on the peninsula is considered routine, accepted by many South Koreans and by the Pentagon as an ongoing fact of life.

Gates on Tuesday visited Camp Casey, 20 miles south of the DMZ, where 7,000 U.S. troops are stationed. Though the camp once was considered a hardship assignment, soldiers now are permitted to bring their families.

Gen. Walter "Skip" Sharp, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, said that the number of service members who have brought spouses and children had grown from 1,600 two years ago to about 4,200.

New schools and other facilities are being built to accommodate even more families.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gates-clinton-20100721,0,7982966,print.story

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Hijack victims' 24-year ordeal continues

Survivors of a 1986 terrorist attack on Pan Am 73 in Pakistan faced a nightmare together. Now, a tangle of lawsuits over $150 million in compensation from Libya is pitting them against one another.

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

July 21, 2010

The sisters slumped against the bulkhead of the Boeing 747, pretending they were dead.

As five terrorists sprayed the darkened cabin with gunfire and lobbed grenades, someone opened an over-wing exit two rows ahead. Gargi and Giatri Dave, 10- and 13-year-olds traveling home to California alone after visiting family in India, clambered over the seat backs to the open portal.

Gargi stopped, daunted by the two-story drop to the tarmac. Giatri pushed her through, then jumped herself, injuring both feet. Gargi had landed on her head, and as she slipped in and out of consciousness, her hobbled sister dragged her under the plane, clear of the fusillade fired by the gunmen angry that their hijacking had gone awry.

In the 24 years since the Libyan-backed terror attack on Pan Am Flight 73 in Karachi, Pakistan, Gargi has suffered headaches, flashbacks, memory loss and learning problems. Both sisters still bear the psychological scars of the 16-hour siege during which a fellow American was summarily executed before their eyes. Nineteen other passengers died and more than 120 were injured in the chaotic moments before the terrorists were captured.

The ordeal was life-altering and their treatment has been costly. In 2006, the Dave sisters were asked by the law firm of Crowell & Moring to join 176 other surviving passengers, mostly foreign citizens, in a lawsuit seeking compensation from the regime of Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi, who had been accused of instigating the attack. All pledged to share any monetary recovery and to pay the law firm up to a 35% cut.

In 2008, after years of behind-the-scenes negotiations independent of the Crowell & Moring lawsuit, the U.S. and Libyan governments restored diplomatic relations and agreed to settle all outstanding claims. For the three dozen or so U.S. victims of Pan Am Flight 73, Tripoli provided about $150 million.

Gargi, now a 34-year-old Bay Area lawyer, last year received $3 million. Giatri, a 37-year-old radiation oncologist, is due roughly the same once a U.S. Justice Department agency works through the list of claimants.

But the long-delayed amends by Libya have been cold comfort. The Daves and other American survivors have been compelled to relive the terror in pursuit of the Libyan money, and the law firm and the foreign passengers left out of the bilateral U.S.-Libyan settlement have laid claim to 90% of the Americans' compensation. A tangle of lawsuits and steep attorney fees now threaten to eat up the fund as the fight over who is entitled to it drags on.

The dispute raises complex legal questions and novel issues of terrorism law. Are the American plaintiffs obliged to share their awards with the foreign victims? Are the Crowell & Moring lawyers still entitled to their agreed cut, which could amount to nearly $40 million? Did the foreign nationals have a right to seek redress in U.S. courts because they included a few Americans in their lawsuit?

"Crowell & Moring is trying to take money it had no role in securing for U.S. victims," said Gargi, who has accused the law firm of luring the U.S. survivors into a contract that is neither legal nor enforceable. She and nine others who have joined her in suing the firm also accuse its lawyers of muzzling dissent with threats of further lawsuits for breach of contract and violating a confidentiality clause of the retainer agreement.

Attorney Gargi has taken leave from private practice to assist the veteran human rights lawyer representing the U.S. survivors in challenging the Crowell & Moring contract. Giatri divides her time between Pasadena and Fresno, leaving the legal quagmire for her younger sister.

"I just don't want to be a victim again," the older sister says with an odd alchemy of defiance and fatigue.

***

As the Karachi siege wore on, shouting and gunfire frightened 2-year-old Nilay Shah into inconsolable wailing. His terrified mother, Nilima, tried to calm him, to no avail.

"A terrorist came up to my mom and shoved a gun into my stomach and told my mom, 'If you don't shut him up, I'll blow his brains out,' " Nilay said, recounting what his mother, aunt and grandmother, who also survived the hijacking, had told him over the years.

A website manager for the New York Giants, Shah doesn't remember the bloody melee that left his left hand permanently disfigured after being hit by a bullet. But the ordeal still encroaches on his life and work these two dozen years later. He loathes flying, yet must accompany the NFL team on its away games.

"I can't sit on the aisle," he said of a phobia he can only explain as a legacy of the hijacking. "There's medication that the team doctor gives me to ease anxiety, but it's still hard."

With his left pinky and ring finger fused into a useless claw, Shah has trouble gripping a steering wheel or wielding a knife and fork. His injury prevented him from playing sports, leaving him only his job on professional football's sidelines to indulge a love of competition.

Shah received his $3 million payout from the Libyan fund late last year. But he heeded Crowell's instructions to deposit the money in an escrow account for redistribution to the larger group — or face a breach-of-contract suit and financial ruin, Shah said.

"We were never allowed to talk to anybody about it," Shah says of the agreement he signed with Crowell before he knew about the U.S. government negotiations. "This law firm had nothing to do with this deal, and they are pitting us against each other."

***

Capt.Bill Kianka had just finished setting up the instruments and navigation system for the pre-dawn takeoff from Karachi for Frankfurt, West Germany. He was about to start the engines when his first officer, Conway Dodge, halted their preflight banter in mid-sentence.

"Gunfire erupted then and we saw bullets ricocheting over the tarmac," Kianka recalled of the aborted startup Sept. 5, 1986. "There were four of them, dressed as security guards.... As they came up the steps, the last one turned around and raked the ramp with automatic weapons fire, scattering everyone away."

A flight attendant surreptitiously closed and locked the cockpit door. Kianka started shutting down the aircraft.

"The first thing you're supposed to do is deactivate the airplane, so it doesn't go anywhere. You turn off all systems and try to get off the airplane, if at all possible. That's what we were doing," Kianka said.

Flight engineer John Ridgway popped open an escape hatch over the pilot's seat, crawled out and slid down the fuselage to the tarmac. Dodge followed as Kianka disabled the last systems.

"I expected them to enter the cockpit at any time. The door was closed, but back then a slight kick would have opened it," Kianka said of his last hurried moments in the cockpit. He then went out the same way as his crew, burning his back as he glissaded over the slope of titanium and fell to the ground.

The three made their way stealthily to the control tower, where they watched the harrowing siege unfold as the sun rose.

The four gunmen were soon joined by Zayd Safarini, kingpin of the terrorist group Abu Nidal, who slipped on board amid the panic and confusion. Safarini combed the 360 passengers in search of Americans, demanding to see passports. He stopped at the seat of Rajesh Kumar and ordered the 29-year-old from Huntington Beach to kneel in front of an open door. When airport authorities failed to deliver another flight crew, Safarini shot Kumar in the head and dumped his body onto the tarmac.

After 15 hours of standoff, the sole engine supplying power to the plane burned out, plunging the cabin into darkness. The gunmen, fearing commandos were about to storm the aircraft, fired into the passengers and threw grenades. Those who could, like the Daves, fled through the exits. When the shooting subsided — some say the hijackers ran out of bullets — Pakistani security forces boarded the plane, freed the remaining hostages and arrested the gunmen. Nineteen, including another American, had been killed in the final shooting spree.

"I've been over the scenario in my mind a thousand times, trying to figure if there was a different way that could have prevented all this," said Kianka, now retired and living in New Jersey. Learning later that the hijackers had intended to explode the plane over Israel, killing all on board and more on the ground, the pilot has concluded that he took the right action.

"Still, I was the captain of that airplane and responsible for all the passengers on it," Kianka said. "I have to live with this for the rest of my life."

Kianka's claim to the Justice Department's Foreign Claims Settlement Commission hasn't worked its way through the bureaucracy yet. When he gets his payout, he doesn't intend to deposit it with the lawyers. On the advice of an attorney friend, he has broken with Crowell to join the Daves' lawsuit, despite threats from the larger victims' group of "a crushing award of substantial damages" for abandoning his original pledge to share any money from the Libyan government.

***

Crowell partner Clifton Elgarten, defending the firm against the Daves' suit, declined to respond to accusations that the firm strong-armed the Americans into handing over their payouts for the larger group, an account now holding about $54 million and available only to the lawyers to cover expenses. "We worked for all 178 victims of the attack," is all that Elgarten would say of the disputes between the attorneys and their U.S. clients.

Lee Boyd, an international human rights lawyer who helped negotiate German compensation for Holocaust victims, alleges in the class-action suit filed for the Daves that Crowell misrepresented the prospects of getting compensation for the multinational group and failed to point out the potential conflict of interest that now divides the firm's clients.

The issue of whether the 2006 retainer agreement with Crowell is valid is before both a private arbitration panel in Washington and a California state court in Los Angeles.

Barring a settlement, the cases are expected to drag on for years, keeping the troubling memories of the hijacking in the forefront of the victims' lives, their compensation locked in escrow and the question of what the U.S. survivors owe the foreigners unanswered.

Unlike the others who have received money, Gargi Dave has put her payout in a personal bank account. Even though she knows it may take years, she says she won't be spending it until the legal uncertainties are over.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-panam73-20100528,0,4484024,print.story

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Infant dies of whooping cough, third confirmed death this year in L.A. County, sixth in state

A third Los Angeles County infant has died of whooping cough, public health officials announced Tuesday.

The confirmation of the death -- the sixth pertussis-related death this year in the state -- comes a day after the California Department of Public Health expanded criteria for those who should be vaccinated against the highly contagious disease amid what is shaping up to be the worst outbreak in 50 years.

“This expanded set of recommendations is an appropriate response to the epidemic in Los Angeles County and statewide,” Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, the county's public health director, said in a statement. “Vaccination is our best defense against pertussis . This is a disease that is especially dangerous for infants under six months of age, who are not old enough to have received the number of vaccine doses needed to be protected against whooping cough.”

So far this year, nearly 1,500 cases of whooping cough have been reported statewide, about 289 in Los Angeles County, including 184 laboratory-confirmed cases, officials said. All of those killed by the disease were infants.

Officials did not say how old the latest victim was, or when or where the death was reported.

Last year, 304 cases of whooping cough were reported statewide, including the deaths of three infants,  according to state public health officials. Slightly more than half the cases, 156, were reported in L.A. County, which had one of the deaths. 

In addition to the normal course of vaccines recommended for infants, state officials are now recommending vaccines for children age 7 and up, women of child-bearing age including those who are pregnant, those ages 65 and over and infant caregivers.

Early symptoms of whooping cough may be confused with a cold, and many do not develop the tell-tale “whooping” cough sound. Fielding urged those who suspect they might be ill to seek medical help immediately and ensure that their vaccines are up to date, especially if they live with or have contact with infants.

According to a recent study cited by L.A. County public health officials, when the source of an infant's whooping cough infection could be identified, 41% contracted the disease from a sibling, 38% from their mother, and 17% from their father.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/infant-dies-of-whooping-cough-third-confirmed-death-this-year-in-la-county-sixth-in-state.html#more

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Helping Haitians help themselves

The administration should make good on its promise to expedite the immigration to the U.S. of about 55,000 Haitians who have been approved for visas.

July 21, 2010

In January, President Obama pledged not to forsake or forget Haiti during what promised to be a long and painful recovery from the worst earthquake to hit the island nation in 200 years. To that end, the administration immediately sent military assistance and millions of dollars in emergency aid. But it has yet to take another crucial step: expediting the immigration to the United States of the 55,000 Haitians who already have been approved for visas by the Department of Homeland Security.

These Haitians, sponsored by relatives who are either legal residents or citizens, have met all requirements; among other things, they have provided the government with legally binding affidavits from family members guaranteeing financial support so that they do not become a public burden. Due to a monumental backlog of visas available for Haitians, however, officials say the process takes from four to 11 years. Given the dire circumstances in Haiti and the administration's promise of staunch support, it is both logical and humane to speed this process on their behalf. And there is precedent for doing so. In 2007, President George W. Bush allowed Cubans whose family petitions had been approved to enter the country ahead of schedule, and he did the same for refugees from Indochina and Kosovo. Haitians certainly need visas just as badly, so why the disparate treatment?

Removing tens of thousands of people from Haiti's ruins and allowing them to live and work in the United States would automatically turn them into providers and benefactors, speeding the island nation's recovery. Even before the 7.0 earthquake, remittances were crucial to its survival, but now they are indispensable. Millions of Haitians living abroad, including about 800,000 in the U.S., sent home nearly $2 billion last year, and World Bank economists expect to see a 20% surge this year. And the bang for the buck is significant, with up to 10 people benefiting from the funds sent home by each emigrant.

Legislation to create a family reunification program for Haitians, modeled on the Cuban program, is pending in Congress. But it is unnecessary. Obama only has to give the order and the Department of Homeland Security will move Haitians to the front of the line. Time is of the essence; 1 million people remain displaced, and hurricane season has begun.

The Obama administration has kept its word about sending money to Haiti, but the country's recovery cannot progress without the assistance of its diaspora. Obama should help Haitians to help themselves.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-haitians-20100721,0,1122378,print.story

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Helping homeless vets

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki says he wants to end homelessness among veterans within five years. But what's missing is a sense of urgency.

July 21, 2010

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki declared last year that he intended to end homelessness among veterans within five years. That was welcome news to Los Angeles, where advocates say there are more veterans on the streets and in shelters than in any other part of the country — about 8,000 on any given night, by the VA's estimate. But while we're pleased that efforts to combat homelessness have become a top priority, they haven't yet shown the urgency that Shinseki's pledge demands.

One example of this, oddly enough, is in the VA's recent agreement to spend $20 million to convert one of the buildings on its campus in West Los Angeles into therapeutic housing for up to 90 veterans who are chronically homeless. The building is one of three on the campus that had once been used to house and treat disabled veterans but have been largely idle since the 1980s. Not to sound like ingrates, but why not convert all three buildings at the same time? The cost per unit would be lower and more beds would be assured.

Led by Santa Monica Mayor Bobby Shriver, local officials have been urging the VA for years to do just that, only to run into an array of bureaucratic and political hurdles. The task was made more complicated in 2007, when Congress barred the VA from leasing property at the West Los Angeles campus to private developers. The move successfully stopped the VA from parceling out land to developers to help pay its bills, as intended, but it also made it harder for nongovernmental groups to raise private dollars to build housing for veterans there.

Not that the VA seems to be short on funds for homeless vets. To achieve his goal of getting all veterans off the streets by 2014, Shinseki has committed $3.2 billion from the VA's budget. The amount needed to refurbish the buildings in West Los Angeles is a tiny fraction of that sum. Instead, what seems to be missing is the will to shift this effort into a higher gear.

Local VA officials point with pride to the ever-expanding "continuum of care" offered to homeless veterans, including about 1,500 beds around the county and even more vouchers for affordable housing. Most of that aid, however, is for veterans who need short-term help to get back on their feet and reintegrated into the community. The VA's own estimates show that almost a fourth of homeless veterans have multiple afflictions, and they're best served by the kind of long-term supportive housing that's in desperately short supply. We hope that Shinseki, who is coming to L.A. on Wednesday, will leave with a greater appreciation of the magnitude of the homelessness problem and the resources waiting to be tapped.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-veterans-20100721,0,1169533,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Report Says U.S. Fails to Assess Drug Aid to Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Despite claims by the United States and Mexico that drug traffickers are feeling the effects of the countries' joint offensive, a review by the Government Accountability Office has found that millions of dollars have been spent without enough regard for whether the money is doing any good.

The office did say in a report to be released Wednesday that the Obama administration had done a better job in recent months of spending the roughly $1.6 billion set aside to fight drug traffickers in Mexico and Central America. Critics in the region have said bureaucratic hurdles have delayed the aid, which includes training and helicopters.

But the report said the State Department, which is overseeing the so-called Merida Initiative to combat drugs in the region, had failed to set specific targets to determine whether the money was having the desired effect of disrupting organized crime groups and reforming law enforcement agencies.

“Without targets to strive toward, State cannot determine if it is meeting expectations under the Merida Initiative,” the report said.

Officials in Washington and Mexico City typically point to the huge quantities of drugs, guns and money being seized and the number of arrests being made as evidence that traffickers are on their heels. Critics, however, point to the continued violence in Mexico as a sign that the traffickers remain strong.

Nearly 25,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón took office at the end of 2006. Recent days have been particularly bloody, with an attack on a birthday party in Torreón that killed 17 people and a car bombing in Ciudad Juárez.

Precisely measuring the success or failure of the drug war is exceedingly hard, experts say. The number of arrests means little if many detainees are later released or replaced by new recruits. The seizure of huge quantities of drugs does not indicate that traffickers are struggling if even larger loads are getting through to generate big profits.

Violence could be a sign of the traffickers' strength, or it could indicate their weakness and desperation, as the Mexican government has contended.

“It's tricky,” said an American official involved in the drug fight who was not authorized to speak on the record. He suggested that polling on the public perception of the police might be a way to gauge whether Mexican law enforcement was being properly overhauled.

Representative Eliot L. Engel , the New York Democrat who sought the spending review, said in a statement, “Nearly three years and $1.6 billion later, our counternarcotics assistance to Mexico and Central America lacks fundamental measurements of success.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/world/americas/21mexico.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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For Those Deported, Court Rulings Come Too Late

Vincenzo Donnoli was 9 when his family immigrated legally to Brooklyn. He attended Erasmus Hall High School, married and divorced in Flatbush, ran a landscaping business and had five children. But at 51 he is back — alone and jobless — in Pomarico, the hill town in southern Italy where his father was a shepherd, as a deportee banned for life from returning to the United States.

His offense: two misdemeanor convictions for possessing small amounts of cocaine, in 1988 and 2006, both guilty pleas resolved without jail time. Retroactively, immigration authorities added them up to equal an “aggravated felony” that required Mr. Donnoli's automatic deportation last year.

That kind of arithmetic, an aggressive government interpretation of 1996 immigration laws that has been increasingly invoked in recent years, was rejected by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision in June. But the ruling came too late for Mr. Donnoli and thousands of deportees like him, all former lawful residents who have no way to turn that legal vindication into a chance to come home.

“The Supreme Court has said in a series of cases that the government's theories of deportation have been wrong for years,” said Daniel Kanstroom, a professor at Boston College Law School, citing earlier decisions that rejected the government's classification of other minor crimes as deportable offenses. “And yet the legal system has not developed a mechanism to right that wrong for the thousands of people who have been wrongly deported.”

Under the ruling last month, which echoed decisions by four federal circuit courts, including the one covering New York, legal residents with minor drug convictions are eligible to have an immigration judge weigh their offenses against other factors in their lives and decide whether to let them stay.

But deportees who were denied such a hearing have no means to get one now. The Board of Immigration Appeals says it has no jurisdiction over any case after deportation. Government regulations prohibit any motion to reopen the case of someone who has left the country; judicial circuits are divided over that interpretation of immigration law, and a request that the Supreme Court consider the matter is pending.

The Obama administration, which is on track to deport a record 400,000 people this fiscal year, according to government statistics, has shown no eagerness to open the door. Now two dozen legal rights groups are calling for a process that would let immigrants reopen their cases under the ruling last month.

“American principles of justice — fairness, due process and discretion — require that these immigrants now receive their day in court,” the groups wrote in a June 18 letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Janet Napolitano , the secretary of homeland security.

The Justice Department referred questions about the letter to the Department of Homeland Security , where a spokesman, Matthew Chandler, declined to comment on the issues it raised.

But Jan Ting, a Temple University Law School professor and a former assistant immigration commissioner, called the idea of letting deportees return for hearings “far-fetched,” adding, “The federal government has already incurred significant costs in executing the removals of these individuals in a procedure that was certainly legal at the time.”

No one knows just how many cases could be affected, but analyses by state and federal public defenders' associations suggest they could number several thousand. More than 34,000 noncitizens were deported for drug-related offenses in 2008; in New York alone, from 1995 to 2004 more than 258,000 citizens and noncitizens served little or no jail time for misdemeanor possession convictions.

Among the most compelling cases for redress, the advocates say, are those of New Yorkers who were transferred by immigration officials to detention centers in Louisiana and Texas. There, the detainees came under the jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which approved the automatic deportations long after the Second Circuit, which includes New York, had rejected them.

Simply identifying such deportees is a challenge. In a sample of a dozen deportations involving New York misdemeanor drug convictions, culled by The New York Times from a database of Board of Immigration Appeals decisions since 2007, a reporter was able to reach only Mr. Donnoli and two others.

One, Seweryn P. Smieciuch, a 27-year-old bricklayer, is back in rural Poland, which his family left for Greenpoint, Brooklyn, when he was 10. The other, Damon Franklin Spence, 35, is homeless in Jamaica, which he left at 11.

“I have four kids in America,” said Mr. Spence, who ran a sneaker store in Hempstead, N.Y., before two convictions for possession of marijuana led to his deportation last summer.

From a Texas detention center, Mr. Spence had petitioned the Supreme Court himself before his deportation. He argued that if he was expelled while his appeal was pending, he would be denied legal redress. Not true, replied the government in a brief by Elena Kagan , the solicitor general who is a nominee for the Supreme Court, which asserted that if he prevailed in his appeal, he could return.

But he missed the 90-day window to keep his appeal alive, even as the Supreme Court took up the same issue, because he did not receive notice when the Fifth Circuit denied his appeal on Nov. 17. “They don't give you a chance,” he said. “They move you around to try to lose you.”

Mr. Donnoli echoed the sentiment. “I think I got railroaded,” he said by telephone from Pomarico, about 150 miles southeast of Naples. “I'm in hell here.”

To some, deportation to Italy at government expense might sound appealing. But Mr. Donnoli, who had not returned since his 1968 emigration, spent 27 months as a detainee fighting deportation, transferred from a New Jersey jail through a series of detention centers in New Mexico and Texas. He missed his father's funeral and the birth of his grandchild.

Deported last September, he was stranded, penniless, at the Milan airport until an older brother in New Jersey found some cousins who sent him on to Pomarico.

The town had changed during his absence. “They used to have mules; now they have cars,” he said. “The mentality is the same. Over here there's no work, there's no assistance.”

Mr. Donnoli is no paragon, but his oldest daughter, 21, filed papers for his re-immigration under a waiver — even though waivers are banned for drug offenders. His last lawyer has suggested he turn instead to the Immigrant Defense Project in New York.

In her row house in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, his mother, Michelina Donnoli, 83, said she prayed daily for his return.

“I want to see him before God takes me,” she said, weeping. She recalled how unnecessary it had seemed to seek citizenship for herself and her five children, all sponsored by her own mother, a seamstress who immigrated in the 1950s.

Such deportees have been caught in a time warp of American drug policy. In the 1970s, New York's tough narcotics laws spurred a nationwide trend toward mandatory minimum sentences. Now drug treatment and judicial discretion are the preferred approach to low-level offenders.

For legal immigrants, however, zero-tolerance policies have been magnified retroactively: an old conviction punishable by a year or more in jail is grounds for deportation, even if no such sentence was imposed.

The Polish bricklayer, Mr. Smieciuch, is an example. He and his brother, Artur, said they had a difficult adjustment when his parents won the green card lottery and moved them to Brooklyn in 1993, especially after their grandfather died and their mother, a hotel worker, returned to Poland for a year. Mr. Smieciuch (pronounced SHMAY-chewkh) began using drugs as a teenager, “to suppress the feelings, not to feel so sad,” his brother said.

The arrest that led to Mr. Smieciuch's deportation occurred in 2006, when he was 23. The police stopped and frisked him, he said, and found a crack pipe with drug residue. A court-appointed lawyer advised him to plead guilty, since he would serve only two days in jail. But he was handed over to immigration agents who labeled him an “aggravated felon,” based on two similar convictions on his rap sheet, then transferred him to detention in Texas. In 2008, in deference to the Fifth Circuit, the Board of Immigration Appeals upheld his deportation.

Now he is living an immigrant's life in Poland. Clean of drugs since his arrest, he said, he married a co-worker in a meat-packing plant, has a newborn and is building a house. Still, he hopes the Supreme Court ruling will open a path back to the United States.

“I was more American than Polish,” he said by telephone from Leszczanka, a farming village 130 miles east of Warsaw. “It wasn't fair.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/nyregion/21deport.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Greek Officials Fear a Terrorist Resurgence

But several hours later, counterterrorism officers joined the investigation after tests on the cartridge cases of the 16 bullets fired at Mr. Giolias were linked to weapons used in attacks by Greece 's deadliest active guerrilla group, the Sect of Revolutionaries.

Now the killing has led the authorities to fear a resurgence of domestic terrorism, a scourge that has haunted Greece since the early 1970s and that has seen a gradual revival over the past year and a half with the emergence of several new militant organizations.

An official at the Greek police headquarters, which itself became a target last month when a letter bomb killed the assistant to the public order minister, confirmed Tuesday that the force was treating the murder of Mr. Giolias as a terrorist act.

The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, gave no details about the investigation but simply stated that the 16 cartridge casings found at the scene of the shooting had been fired from two 9-millimeter pistols used in previous attacks in Athens claimed by the Sect of Revolutionaries: the slaying of police officer in June last year and two attacks four months earlier, one on a police station and the other on a private television channel.

Killings of journalists are rare in Greece. The last was in 1985, when the Marxist guerrilla group November 17, now disbanded, shot Nikos Momferatos, publisher of a conservative newspaper.

But the Sect of Revolutionaries had warned that journalists were on its hit list. In a proclamation issued in February last year, the group accused the media of “manufacturing news to keep the public docile and subservient.”

“Journalists, this time we came to your door, next time you will find us in your homes,” the document said, referring to the armed attack on the private television channel, in which no one was hurt.

The reason that Mr. Giolias was a target remains unclear, although some Web sites have linked him to comments critical of militant groups. Angelos Tsigris, a professor of criminology at Greece's police academy, said Mr. Giolias might have been singled out because he did not employ bodyguards like many of Greece's prominent investigative journalists, with whom he had cooperated. “They might have chosen him because he was an easy target,” Mr. Tsigris said.

Mr. Giolias, head of news at Thema, a private radio station, and one of the journalists behind the dirt-digging news blog Troktiko, was shot in Ilioupoli, an eastern suburb of Athens, at 5:30 a.m. on Monday. A witness quoted by state television said she had seen the killers wearing bulletproof vests and uniforms reminiscent of private security firms.

One of the group buzzed the intercom to Mr. Giolias's apartment and told him that thieves were trying to break into his car, according to statements made later to the police by his wife. The journalist, taking the bait, came down and was showered with bullets as he opened the main door to the building.

Neighbors told state television that they saw Mr. Giolias's wife, who is pregnant with their second child, emerge onto the balcony screaming.

On Tuesday, readers posted hundreds of messages on Troktiko, which claims to attract six million visitors daily. Entries referred to Mr. Giolias as a “hero” or an “intrepid and daring journalist.”

Other contributors lamented the implications of the murder. One said: “Is this the Greece we dreamed of? Are we prey to paid killers?”

Describing Mr. Giolias as “insubordinate, free and independent,” colleagues suspended the blog to attend his funeral Tuesday afternoon.

Troktiko had drawn stinging criticism from other anonymous bloggers when it published disparaging comments about Revolutionary Struggle, a more established terrorist organization, after six people suspected of being members of the group were arrested in April; that group is best known for firing a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy in Athens in January 2007.

Anarchist Web sites have also said Mr. Giolias was responsible for scathing comments about the Sect of Revolutionaries that were posted on Troktiko last year but quickly removed.

While some officials say the latest attack could signal a return of domestic terrorism, some analysts drew a distinction between the style and methods of the Sect of Revolutionaries and the type of terrorism that flourished in Greece in the 1970s and 1980s, chiefly the attacks of November 17, which cited Marxism as its driving influence.

The Sect of Revolutionaries' proclamation bluntly states its stance: “We are not interested in politics, but guerrilla warfare.”

Mr. Tsigris, the criminologist, said what worried him most was that Sect of Revolutionaries was just one of several militant groups, many of which formed early last year in reaction to the killing of a teenager by a police officer in December 2008.

These groups have “different outlooks, goals, methodology,” which complicates the task faced by the Greek police, he said.

“Monday's attack shows that terrorism is alive and kicking in Greece today,” he said, “as it was yesterday and the day before.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/world/europe/21greece.html?ref=world

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Cuts in Home Care Put Elderly and Disabled at Risk

HILLSBORO, Ore. — As states face severe budget shortfalls, many have cut home-care services for the elderly or the disabled, programs that have been shown to save states money in the long run because they keep people out of nursing homes.

Since the start of the recession, at least 25 states and the District of Columbia have curtailed programs that include meal deliveries, housekeeping aid and assistance for family caregivers, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , a research organization. That threatens to reverse a long-term trend of enabling people to stay in their homes longer.

For Afton England, who lives in a trailer home here, the news came in a letter last week: Oregon, facing a $577 million deficit, was cutting home aides to more than 4,500 low-income residents, including her. Ms. England, 65, has diabetes, spinal stenosis, degenerative disc disease, arthritis and other health problems that prevent her from walking or standing for more than a few minutes at a time.

Through a state program, she has received 45 hours of assistance a month to help her bathe, prepare meals, clean her house and shop. The program had helped make Oregon a model for helping older and disabled people remain in their homes.

But state legislators say home care is a service the state can no longer afford. Cuts affecting an additional 10,500 people are scheduled for Oct. 1.

“They yanked the rug out from underneath us,” said Ms. England, who lives on $802 a month from Social Security . “I'm scared. I'm petrified. I can't function on my own. I took care of my husband for eight years. Already I've given up many of my freedoms. Now they've taken our dignity. I'd like them to try living in my body for a week.”

Her case manager, Brandi Lemke, shook her head. “This is not saving any money,” she said.

Ms. Lemke said she feared that Ms. England would “end up in the hospital because of the diabetes” and be in assisted living by the end of the year. “If she takes a fall,” Ms. Lemke said, “she may require more than assisted living can handle.”

Nursing homes here cost the state an average of $5,900 a month; home and community-based services cost $1,500 a month.

Other states have made similar cuts:

¶Florida placed 69,000 people on waiting lists for home or community services last year, and more than 5,700 of them ended up in Medicaid nursing homes.

¶Alabama cut housekeeping services — useful for people who can no longer do some cleaning tasks — for more than 1,000 elderly residents.

¶Arizona sliced independent living supports and respite programs for family caregivers.

¶Kansas, with a $131 million shortfall, will cut independent-living services for 2,800 people with disabilities in the next year.

In Illinois, providers of Meals on Wheels have stopped adding clients because the state was not reimbursing them.

“I'm not getting a cost-of-living adjustment, and now I'm not getting food,” said Joyce Plennert, 83, who is on a waiting list for Meals on Wheels in Palatine, Ill. “Now I'm worried my home services will be cut. Without that, I'd be in a nursing home, if I could find one with room.”

Colorado, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Texas have all made cuts or frozen spending at a time when the elderly population — and the need for services — is growing.

In California, which faces a budget shortfall of $19.1 billion for the 2010-11 fiscal year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger 's office proposed eliminating adult day health care centers that serve 45,000 people and in-home supportive services that help more than 400,000 elderly, disabled or blind residents. The Legislature rejected these cuts but has not yet produced an alternative budget. The state already cut Alzheimer's day care centers and assistance for caregivers.

Because Medicaid regulations require states to provide nursing home care to receive federal Medicaid money, legislators often have more leeway to cut from home services. Advocates for the elderly and the disabled worry that these cuts are just the beginning, because state ledgers tend to recover more slowly than the national economy.

“The situation is grim, and it's safe to say that present trends are expected to continue,” said JoAnn Lamphere, the director of state government relations for health and long-term care for AARP . “Nearly every state has proposed cuts of some sort to Medicaid. Some might seem small, but it's death by a thousand slashes.”

The cuts in Oregon have been particularly painful to people who work with the elderly, because for more than three decades the state has been a leader in rebalancing long-term care away from nursing facilities and toward the home. The cuts here indicate how fragile these services can be against states' needs to reduce spending.

“I'm seeing in a matter of months 30 years of work go down the drain,” said Donald Bruland, the director of senior and disability services for the Rogue Valley Council of Governments.

The state spends more than half its Medicaid long-term-care dollars on home care and has a separate $13 million program for people who do not qualify for Medicaid; on average, states spend just 25 percent of their long-term-care budgets on home and community-based care.

Bruce Goldberg , director of the Oregon Department of Human Services, said the agency did not have an estimate for how many of the people losing home care would end up in assisted-living facilities or in nursing homes — or, if they did, how the state would pay for them.

“We're in new territory,” Dr. Goldberg said. “Long-term care is a cobbled-together system with many holes, and they just got deeper.”

Last week, the Oregon legislature's emergency board scheduled a session for Thursday to reconsider some of the cuts.

In Portland, Ken Poe, 66, requires assistance because of polio, which he got when he was 9. He has little muscle strength and requires oxygen constantly. The state provides 20 hours of care a month in his home.

Mr. Poe, a former pilot and flight instructor, lives as independently as he can, he said — he still drives, though he needs help getting to and from his car — but said he could not afford to pay his aides on the $1,300 a month he gets from Social Security. He often borrows money from a home credit line at the end of the month. Because of severe osteoporosis, he worries about falling in the shower without an aide.

“There are times when I'm struggling to get to the kitchen when I wonder how much longer I can do this,” he said. “But this is my comfort zone. It may look like a mess” — he gestured to cardboard boxes filling the living room — “but the boxes are my system for getting around. Moving to an assisted-living facility would bring on a depression.”

For states, having to cut the Medicaid programs is a double loss, because they come with matching dollars from the federal government. This creates state jobs and much-needed revenue.

Without these, said James A. Davis , a gerontologist at Marylhurst University and executive director of United Seniors of Oregon, “it really is a death spiral.”

“So often the programs to go are the early interventions that save money and keep people healthy,” Professor Davis said. “That comes back to bite you.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/us/21aging.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Weak Times Sq. Car Bomb Is Called Intentional

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Tuesday that the failed Times Square car bomber, Faisal Shahzad , deliberately purchased weak bomb ingredients in an effort to avoid detection by the authorities.

Speaking at the Center for National Policy, a Washington research organization, Mr. Kelly addressed a question that had loomed over the case from the beginning: why a terrorist trained in bomb-making constructed such a relatively weak device. Mr. Shahzad, it turns out, was worried that buying more-potent ingredients would have caught the attention of the authorities, Mr. Kelly said.

Instead of exploding, the bomb fizzled in the back of Mr. Shahzad's 1993 Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square on June 21. He was arrested two days later.

In an interview on Tuesday, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman, said that because law enforcement officials had made it more difficult to buy ingredients for a bomb without being detected, Mr. Shahzad did his best to go unnoticed. Mr. Shahzad ended up buying nonexplosive fertilizer instead of the more volatile ammonium-nitrate-grade fertilizer commonly used in terrorist bombings, as well as legally available M-88 fireworks instead of more potent ones.

“The positive side is it's become more difficult to acquire what once were readily available ingredients for devastating bombs,” Mr. Browne said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/nyregion/21bomb.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Suspect Denies Role in Kennedy Airport Plot

A former government official of Guyana testified on Tuesday that he was not involved in a chilling terrorism scheme aimed at New York City, saying that he had feigned interest in the plan because he hoped its architects would help him raise money to build a mosque.

The former official, Abdul Kadir, is one of four men indicted in a plot to try to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Prosecutors have said that the men, who were exposed with the help of a convicted drug trafficker turned informant, were out to cause a catastrophe that would dwarf the destruction of the World Trade Center. Some law enforcement officials, however, have questioned if the men had the ability to do substantial damage.

By nearly any reckoning, the four accused men were an unusual group. They included Russell Defreitas , a former baggage handler at the airport, and Mr. Kadir, an engineer who had been mayor of Guyana's second largest city, Linden, and later held a seat in the Guyanese Parliament. Both men are on trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, each facing five counts of conspiring to commit an act of terrorism.

Another defendant, known as Abdel Nur, pleaded guilty in June to a count of providing material support for terrorism. The fourth accused man, Kareem Ibrahim, was granted a separate trial.

Mr. Defreitas has not testified. But Mr. Kadir took the stand on Tuesday and wasted little time in declaring his innocence.

Just after being sworn in before Judge Dora L. Irizzary, Mr. Kadir listened as his lawyer, Kafahni Nkrumah, asked if he had agreed to “commit a crime in the United States, specifically attacking gas tanks at J.F.K. International Airport ?”

“No, sir,” Mr. Kadir responded tersely.

He was more expansive in detailing his personal history, describing his schooling and his years as a Guyanese technocrat. He testified that he had seven children, two stepchildren and 24 grandchildren. He described himself as a devout Shia Muslim who had converted from Catholicism and who yearned to build a mosque near his home in Linden, Guyana, where he served a term as mayor.

The prosaic description was challenged by prosecutors, who entered into evidence photographs taken in Guyana showing Mr. Kadir and some of his children brandishing dangerous-looking firearms. The authorities said Mr. Kadir planned to show photographs of himself — shirtless, and with pistols shoved into his waistband — to extremists in Iran to bolster his image and gain support for the plan to blow up the fuel tanks.

But Mr. Kadir testified that most of the weapons in the photographs were toys. And he said he never intended to show the pictures in Iran, where he said viewers would most likely be offended by images of a shirtless man without traditional Muslim garb.

While prosecutors portrayed Mr. Kadir as an eager participant in the plot, he testified that he had feigned enthusiasm.

A complaint filed by the United States attorney's office said that on Feb. 19, 2007, Mr. Defreitas and the informant, Steven Francis, showed Mr. Kadir a videotape of the airport fuel tanks.

“Kadir expressed interest, saying that he needed a few weeks to contact some associates who would probably help them,” the complaint stated.

In court, Mr. Kadir said that he demurred that day when invited to join the plot, but that after being asked if he knew others who might assist, he replied, “Give me a few weeks.”

He did not want to respond negatively, he said, because he was hoping that Mr. Defreitas and Mr. Francis would help introduce him to rich American Muslims who might help finance a mosque in Guyana.

“I did not want to sever or cut off the relationship with them,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/nyregion/21kennedy.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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A Promising Preventive

It is easy to understand why the results of a modest-size scientific study in South Africa were met with ecstatic applause on Tuesday at an international AIDS conference in Vienna. Researchers have shown that a vaginal gel could cut a woman's risk of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, by almost 40 percent.

The gel is not perfect. But for the first time in the fight to control the global epidemic, it offers women a way to protect themselves even without the cooperation of their male partners. That is a potentially huge breakthrough .

Women make up half of the 33 million people who are H.I.V.-positive around the world and 60 percent of the new cases in sub-Saharan Africa, where sex is the primary mode of transmission. Even a 40 percent to 50 percent reduction in their infection rate could help slow the epidemic. If further developments yield a more potent gel, as seems likely, the impact could be substantial.

The new study's findings are particularly heartening after six other microbicides failed in clinical trials over the past 14 years.

The gel was tested in 889 women for up to two-and-a-half years in two South African communities, one rural and one urban, where the virus is running wild. Half of the women were randomly assigned to use a gel containing an antiretroviral drug, the other half were given a placebo gel. All were instructed to apply the gel within 12 hours before and 12 hours after intercourse.

Those on the medicated gel were 39 percent less likely to contract H.I.V.; those who used it most regularly were 54 percent less likely. The only discouraging note was that effectiveness seemed to wane over time, possibly because women became less diligent in their use.

The new gel seems destined to take its place alongside condoms and male circumcision as proven techniques for reducing transmission. But not just yet.

The gel's effectiveness will need to be confirmed in a larger clinical trial already under way. Ideally, more potent formulations will be found to boost its protective powers. To get women to use it regularly, marketing experts will have to find ways to make the product more colorful, more appealing, even sexy.

Other good news came from a new study in Malawi showing that if schoolgirls and their families received small monthly cash payments, the girls had sex later, less often and with fewer partners — and were less than half as likely to be infected with the AIDS or herpes viruses — than girls who got no payments. The small payments made it less likely that impoverished girls would agree to sex in return for gifts or money.

Slowing the spread of H.I.V. will require multiple approaches. The challenge will be to find enough money at a time of limited resources when AIDS financing has flattened out. Prevention should save money and many lives. All efforts to support the most promising leads should be pursued.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/opinion/21wed2.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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Hiring and Fairness

Boston, Chicago and San Francisco set a welcome example earlier in the decade when they abandoned counterproductive policies that often barred former offenders from municipal jobs, no matter how minor their crime nor how distant in the past. Connecticut, New Mexico and Minnesota have recently passed laws protecting the employment rights of former offenders. Other states should quickly follow.

City governments recognized years ago that discrimination against former offenders had rendered a huge portion of the urban population unemployable. The records also are notoriously unreliable, often flagging people who were falsely arrested or tried but found innocent of a crime.

Boston responded in 2006 with an exemplary nondiscrimination law that covers municipal hiring and hiring by companies that do business with the city. The city does not conduct a criminal record review for applicants, except for sensitive jobs: police officers or those required to work with children, the disabled or other vulnerable people.

The records search also comes at the end of the process, when the applicant has been deemed qualified and is about to be hired. If the city decides to revoke its provisional offer based on a criminal record, applicants get to challenge the reports.

A law pending in the Massachusetts Legislature would give job applicants statewide access to criminal background reports that have been used to deny them employment. It would exclude from reports felony offenses more than 10 years old and would create a board to investigate the misuse of information on record.

A new law that takes effect in Connecticut in October bars government employers or licensing agencies from looking into a prospective employee's criminal history in connection with most jobs until the person has been “deemed otherwise qualified for the position.” It also requires the agency to take into account the relationship of the crime to the job, the extent of the applicant's rehabilitation and the time that has elapsed since the conviction or release.

Confining people with criminal convictions to the very margins of society is unfair and self-defeating. These sensible new laws recognize that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/opinion/21wed3.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the White House

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Remarks of President Barack Obama on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act bill signing:

It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign – the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act – we are upholding one of this nation's first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness.

It is also fitting that we are joined today by the woman after whom this bill is named – someone Michelle and I have had the privilege of getting to know for ourselves. Lilly Ledbetter didn't set out to be a trailblazer or a household name. She was just a good hard worker who did her job – and did it well – for nearly two decades before discovering that for years, she was paid less than her male colleagues for the very same work. Over the course of her career, she lost more than $200,000 in salary, and even more in pension and Social Security benefits – losses she still feels today.

Now, Lilly could have accepted her lot and moved on. She could have decided that it wasn't worth the hassle and harassment that would inevitably come with speaking up for what she deserved. But instead, she decided that there was a principle at stake, something worth fighting for. So she set out on a journey that would take more than ten years, take her all the way to the Supreme Court, and lead to this bill which will help others get the justice she was denied.

Because while this bill bears her name, Lilly knows this story isn't just about her. It's the story of women across this country still earning just 78 cents for every dollar men earn – women of color even less – which means that today, in the year 2009, countless women are still losing thousands of dollars in salary, income and retirement savings over the course of a lifetime.

But equal pay is by no means just a women's issue – it's a family issue. It's about parents who find themselves with less money for tuition or child care; couples who wind up with less to retire on; households where, when one breadwinner is paid less than she deserves, that's the difference between affording the mortgage – or not; between keeping the heat on, or paying the doctor's bills – or not. And in this economy, when so many folks are already working harder for less and struggling to get by, the last thing they can afford is losing part of each month's paycheck to simple discrimination.

So in signing this bill today, I intend to send a clear message: That making our economy work means making sure it works for everyone. That there are no second class citizens in our workplaces, and that it's not just unfair and illegal – but bad for business – to pay someone less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability. And that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory, or footnote in a casebook – it's about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives: their ability to make a living and care for their families and achieve their goals.

Ultimately, though, equal pay isn't just an economic issue for millions of Americans and their families, it's a question of who we are – and whether we're truly living up to our fundamental ideals. Whether we'll do our part, as generations before us, to ensure those words put to paper more than 200 years ago really mean something – to breathe new life into them with the more enlightened understandings of our time.

That is what Lilly Ledbetter challenged us to do. And today, I sign this bill not just in her honor, but in honor of those who came before her. Women like my grandmother who worked in a bank all her life, and even after she hit that glass ceiling, kept getting up and giving her best every day, without complaint, because she wanted something better for me and my sister.

And I sign this bill for my daughters, and all those who will come after us, because I want them to grow up in a nation that values their contributions, where there are no limits to their dreams and they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers never could have imagined.

In the end, that's why Lilly stayed the course. She knew it was too late for her – that this bill wouldn't undo the years of injustice she faced or restore the earnings she was denied. But this grandmother from Alabama kept on fighting, because she was thinking about the next generation. It's what we've always done in America – set our sights high for ourselves, but even higher for our children and grandchildren.

Now it's up to us to continue this work. This bill is an important step – a simple fix to ensure fundamental fairness to American workers – and I want to thank this remarkable and bi-partisan group of legislators who worked so hard to get it passed. And this is only the beginning. I know that if we stay focused, as Lilly did – and keep standing for what's right, as Lilly did – we will close that pay gap and ensure that our daughters have the same rights, the same chances, and the same freedom to pursue their dreams as our sons.

Thank you.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-lilly-ledbetter-fair-pay-restoration-act-bill-signing

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From ICE

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5 sentenced for unlawfully harboring, transporting and employing illegal aliens

FORT SMITH, Ark. - Five Arkansas residents were sentenced Friday for conspiring to harbor, transport and employ illegal aliens, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents.

Leoncio Amador-Villanueva, 42, was sentenced 18 months in prison and Jose Amador-Villanueva, 39, both of Alma, Ark., was sentenced to 12 months; Juan Amador-Villanueva, 43, of Batesville, Ark., was sentenced to 15 months; and Luis Felipe Martinez, 32, of Lowell, Ark., was sentenced to 30 months. All four were also ordered to serve three years of supervised release following their release from prison. Kelle Stubbs-Amador, 32, of Alma, Ark., was sentenced to time already served and three years probation.

Leoncio Amador-Villanueva, Jose Amador-Villanueva, and Kelle Stubbs-Amador pleaded guilty in October 2009 to conspiracy to harbor, transport, and employ illegal aliens. In addition, Leoncio Amador-Villanueva and Juan Amador-Villanueva entered guilty pleas for money laundering.

Martinez pleaded guilty in December 2009 to causing a financial institution to file a false currency transaction report.

The guilty pleas stemmed from an investigation into the employment and transportation of illegal aliens, as a source of labor for Amador Poultry Contracting and J&A Loading, businesses owned or controlled by the above named defendants. The guilty pleas were based on findings that illegal aliens were knowingly hired by the defendants to work on chicken catching crews, who were transported to various worksites, and were paid in cash.

The defendants were arrested on Sept. 23, 2009, at the time of the execution of search warrants at locations in Alma, Batesville, Lowell, and Springdale, Ark.

In conjunction with these guilty pleas, the individuals agreed to the forfeiture of property totaling more than $1.2 million in U.S. currency, and real and personal property valued at $631,000, for a total forfeiture of more than $1.87 million. The properties were used in the commission of concealing or harboring illegal aliens, were proceeds of the criminal activity or were acquired with profits made from such activity.

"ICE aggressively targets employers who egregiously violate immigration laws by knowingly employing an illegal alien workforce," said Raymond R. Parmer, Jr., ICE special agent in charge of the HSI office in New Orleans. "Businesses that use illegal alien workers to gain an economic advantage over their competition must understand that they will be held accountable for those unlawful practices."

The charges and forfeiture actions are the results of an investigation by ICE HSI agents, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Division, the Fort Smith Police Department, and the Fayetteville Police Department, with assistance from the Alma Police Department, Arkansas State Police, Pope County Sheriff's Office, Atkins Police Department, Johnson County Sheriff's Office, Lamar Police Department and Arkansas Highway Police.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Tracy Triplett and Matt Wilson.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1007/100720fortsmith.htm

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Warren County first in Mississippi to benefit from ICE strategy to enhance the identification, removal of criminal aliens

Uses biometrics to prioritize immigration enforcement actions against convicted criminal aliens

VICKSBURG, Miss. - On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a new biometric information sharing capability in Warren County that helps federal immigration officials identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement's custody for a crime. This capability is part of Secure Communities - ICE's comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.

Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).

If fingerprints match those of someone in DHS's biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offenses first-such as those with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.

"The Secure Communities strategy provides ICE with an effective tool to identify criminal aliens in local custody," 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 remove criminal aliens, preventing them from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our law enforcement partners."

"We want to make sure that our local law enforcement partners know as much as possible about the people in their custody," said Philip Miller, field office director for the ICE Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations in New Orleans. "By using sophisticated biometrics, the Secure Communities initiative allows us to quickly and accurately identify aliens who pose the greatest threat to our communities. And the program requires no additional costs to the local law enforcement agency."

With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability to Warren County, ICE is now using it in 467 jurisdictions in 26 states. ICE expects to make it available in jurisdictions nationwide by 2013.

"We applaud the efforts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in working with us to remove dangerous criminals from within Warren County," said Sheriff Martin Pace. "This is yet another example of local and federal agencies working together effectively to keep our communities safe."

Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 9,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 24,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for the majority of crimes committed by aliens. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as "criminal aliens." Instead, a "criminal alien" is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.

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/1007/100720vicksburg.htm

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Hamilton County to benefit from ICE strategy to enhance the identification, removal of criminal aliens

Uses biometrics to prioritize immigration enforcement actions against convicted criminal aliens

CINCINNATI- On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a new biometric information sharing capability in Hamilton County that helps federal immigration officials identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement's custody for a crime. This capability is part of Secure Communities-ICE's comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.

Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).

If fingerprints match those of someone in DHS's biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offenses first-such as those with convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape and kidnapping.

"The Secure Communities strategy provides ICE with an effective tool to identify criminal aliens in local custody," 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 remove criminal aliens, preventing them from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our law enforcement partners."

With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability to Hamilton, ICE is now using it in five Ohio jurisdictions, including Butler, Cuyahoga, Franklin and Montgomery counties. Across the country, ICE is using this capability in 467 jurisdictions in 26 states. ICE expects to make it available in jurisdictions nationwide by 2013.

"The ability for local law enforcement to run fingerprints against the ICE database is a critical tool in protecting our streets and neighborhoods," Hamilton County Sheriff Simon L. Leis, Jr., said. "Aliens illegally in our country committing crimes in our communities is unacceptable. We are happy to work with ICE to identify those illegal aliens in a streamlined fashion and expedite their removal."

Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 9,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 24,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for the majority of crimes committed by aliens. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as "criminal aliens." Instead, a "criminal alien" is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.

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/1007/100720cincinnati.htm

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