Federal judge blocks key parts of Arizona immigration law

The ruling halts implementation of provisions that require police to determine the immigration status of people they stop and suspect of being in the U.S. illegally. An immediate appeal is expected.

By Nicholas Riccardi and Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times

July 28, 2010

Reporting from Phoenix and Tucson

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked most of a controversial Arizona immigration law just hours before it was to take effect, handing the Obama administration a win in the first stage of a legal battle expected to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton in Phoenix issued a temporary injunction against parts of the law that would require police to determine the status of people they lawfully stopped and suspected were in the country illegally.

Bolton also forbade Arizona from making it a state crime to not carry immigration documents, and struck down two other provisions as an unconstitutional attempt by Arizona to undermine the federal government's efforts to enforce immigration policy.

In her 36-page decision, Bolton wrote that the provisions would have inevitably "swept up" legal immigrants and were "preempted" by the federal government's immigration authority.

"The court by no means disregards Arizona's interests in controlling illegal immigration and addressing the concurrent problems with crime," she wrote. But, she added, "it is not in the public interest for Arizona to enforce preempted laws."

Gov. Jan Brewer vowed a swift appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "We would have liked to have seen it all upheld, but a temporary injunction is not the end of it," she said through a smile after an appearance in Tucson. "I look at this as a little bump in the road."

Immigrant rights advocates, who had been gearing up for protests after the law takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, were ebullient.

"It's a victory for the community," said Lydia Guzman, president of Somos America, or We Are America. "It means justice will truly prevail."

Bolton's decision came as little surprise to many legal experts, who had predicted that the law, SB 1070, would be halted because it appeared to contradict U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Brewer signed the measure April 23, saying it is needed to protect Arizona from violence and lawlessness associated with illegal immigrants entering the country from Mexico.

Half of all people stopped for entering the country illegally are detained on Arizona's southern border.

Civil rights groups and then the Obama administration sued, contending that the measure would lead to racial profiling and interfere with the federal government's ability to regulate immigration. The law would allow Arizona, for example, to prosecute people the federal government might believe have a right to remain in the country, such as asylum seekers.

"While we understand the frustration of Arizonans with the broken immigration system, a patchwork of state and local policies would seriously disrupt federal immigration enforcement and would ultimately be counterproductive," the Justice Department said in a statement. "States can and do play a role in cooperating with the federal government in its enforcement of the immigration laws, but they must do so within our constitutional framework."

Many of the parts of the statute that Bolton, an appointee of President Clinton, allowed to go into effect are largely technical. She preserved a clause that forbids any local entity from creating a policy of less than full enforcement of federal immigration laws, as well as a provision that makes it a misdemeanor to block traffic to solicit work or hire a worker -- an effort aimed at getting rid of day laborers.

But she found that the federal government was likely to prevail in trial in its arguments against the other provisions, making it likely that her temporary order will eventually become permanent, said Andy Hessick, a law professor at Arizona State University.

"It would be very surprising if the permanent injunction were to differ after trial," he said.

The law's author, state Sen. Russell Pearce, predicted in a television interview that the measure would be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote -- an allusion to the majority of justices who are Republicans. But Gabriel "Jack" Chin, a law professor at the University of Arizona, said the issue may not break down in a partisan manner in the judiciary.

"I think they're going to hesitate to say the United States wants to let a person in because he might be able to give us information, but the state of Arizona can arrest him," Chin said. "For those saying, 'Wait till the conservative wing of the Supreme Court gets their hands on this,' I'm not so sure."

The Supreme Court already will consider another Arizona law this fall. That law dissolves any business that repeatedly and knowingly hires illegal immigrants. The court may signal its view of SB 1070 in that decision.

In Arizona, where the immigration debate has grown to a deafening roar, the discussion was less about legal details and more about how illegal immigration has changed the state.

Faye Yanez, 65, and her husband were leaving a Home Depot in Tucson on Wednesday morning when they heard of the decision. "We feel slighted," said Yanez, a school teacher. "The state should have a right to take care of the state because the federal government isn't doing anything."

Susie Baker, 53, who remodels homes in Tucson, felt differently. "I am thrilled," she said as she headed into the store. "I think Jan Brewer is out of her mind. She is bringing harm to Arizona."

Baker said she often hires Latinos on home projects, and doesn't ask them their immigration status.

"To me, it doesn't matter," she said. "They are willing to do the work."

Politicians' reactions also were divided largely on whether they supported the bill. It received votes from all Republicans in the state Legislature and no Democrats.

The state's two Republican U.S. senators, John Kyl -- who recommended Bolton for the federal bench -- and John McCain said in a statement that they were disappointed by the ruling. "Instead of wasting tax payer resources filing a lawsuit against Arizona and complaining that the law would be burdensome, the Obama administration should have focused its efforts on working with Congress to provide the necessary resources to support the state in its efforts to act where the federal government has failed to take responsibility," they said.

Outside the federal courthouse in Phoenix, Vice Mayor Michael Nowakowski, a Democrat and strong foe of the law, said debate over SB 1070 had been a political sideshow that didn't make the state safer. He dismissed polls showing a majority of voters in Arizona and in the U.S. back the measure.

"Polls are for politicians before elections; they're not for civil rights," said Nowakowski, contending that many civil rights laws would have polled poorly in the 1950s and '60s.

Michelle Dallacroce, a Phoenix-based activist against illegal immigration, said she saw a silver lining in the ruling. "About a year or two ago, during the [presidential] elections, the media had a blackout on what was going on regarding illegal immigration," Dallacroce said.

Now, immigration is constantly on the news. "In 2010," she said, "Arizona has jump-started this major issue."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-arizona-immigration-20100729,0,6815859,print.story

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Court ruling unlikely to change politics of immigration

The equation spelling gridlock in Congress remains unchanged: The comprehensive overhaul promoted by Obama — and Bush — lacks any GOP support in the Senate, and therefore cannot pass.

By Ken Dilanian and Lisa Mascaro, Tribune Washington Bureau

July 28, 2010

Reporting from Washington

A federal judge's rejection of the most controversial elements of Arizona's immigration law is unlikely to change the entrenched immigration politics in Washington, where not a single Republican senator supports the overhaul that many experts say is needed to fix what President Obama calls a "fundamentally broken" system.

The contours of the problem are no mystery: An estimated 11 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S., and more are drawn every day by untold numbers of jobs — from dishwasher to strawberry picker — that Americans find unattractive. Deporting them all is impossible, and without a tamper-proof national ID card, there is no sure way to prevent businesses from hiring them.

There also is little hope of rendering a 2,000-mile border with Mexico impenetrable to illicit crossers as long as there is economic opportunity on the U.S. side.

To upend this troubled reality, the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has proposed "comprehensive immigration reform" that seeks a grand compromise: combine tough border and workplace enforcement with a process to legalize the 11 million. The Senate sponsor, Democrat Charles E. Schumer of New York, also has proposed a national biometric ID card intended to make it difficult to hire illegal immigrants, and a guest-worker program to allow low-skilled workers to enter the U.S. temporarily and legally.

Republicans, even those who backed President George W. Bush's failed effort in 2007, have been unwilling to support the measure, meaning it can't pass the Senate's 60-vote threshold. They respond with a mantra: Secure the border first. There can be no talk of "amnesty," they say, until the flow of illegal immigrants is stanched.

That is not realistic, Democrats and many independent experts say. If the U.S. military couldn't secure the borders of Iraq from militants crossing from Syria and Iran, they say, it is unlikely that the Border Patrol or the National Guard can stop every hungry worker or kilo of cocaine moving out of Mexico.

"Unless and until Washington steps up and enacts a coherent, comprehensive and national immigration policy, we will continue to see this debate roil local and state politics from coast to coast," said Frank Sherry, executive director of America's Voice, an immigration rights group. "It can only be solved by Congress and the administration. Comprehensive immigration reform that combines targeted enforcement with a legal workforce is what the American people want."

Yet many Americans reject that premise. They believe that what's needed is tougher enforcement, and they argue that the federal government simply lacks the will.

"Instead of wasting taxpayer resources filing a lawsuit against Arizona and complaining that the law would be burdensome, the Obama administration should have focused its efforts on working with Congress to provide the necessary resources to support the state in its efforts to act where the federal government has failed to take responsibility," said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who once supported an immigration policy overhaul but now, facing a tough challenge in the Republican primary, backs the law in his home state.

Recognizing the desire for tougher enforcement, Obama dispatched 1,200 National Guard troops to the area. The administration also is on track to deport 400,000 illegal immigrants this year, the most in U.S. history. Authorities say their top priority is to remove criminals and those who have been previously deported.

"Over the past 18 months, this administration has dedicated unprecedented resources to secure the border," Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said in a statement responding to the court decision. "DHS will enforce federal immigration laws in Arizona and around the country in smart, effective ways that focus our resources on criminal aliens who pose a public safety threat and employers who knowingly hire illegal labor, as well as continue to secure our border."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has accused Republicans of demagoguery.

"Their position has evolved to be, 'We don't even want to talk about immigration reform unless you secure — read: seal — the border,' " she said in an interview last month. "And the definition of what securing the border means keeps changing, and that then becomes a reason not to address the real underlying issue, which is immigration reform."

The GOP sees it differently. But both sides agree on the state of play: political gridlock.

"Nothing's going to happen before the election," said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), though he held out hope for some action in a lame-duck, postelection legislative session.

"In this atmosphere I don't see anything going anywhere," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig-reax-20100729,0,3808193,print.story

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Injunction puts parts of Arizona's SB 1070 on hold

Though not the final word, the ruling powerfully bolsters the argument that a state cannot preempt federal authority on the matter of immigration.

July 29, 2010

In a victory for the federal government and civil rights advocates, District Court Judge Susan Bolton put a temporary hold on Arizona's harsh immigration law Wednesday, forbidding the most controversial parts of it from taking effect Thursday as scheduled. Her temporary injunction invalidates the portions of the law, among others, that required police officers to check the immigration status of people they stop and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.

The ruling is not the last word on SB 1070; the federal suit against the state will continue. But in granting the injunction — and making it clear that the federal government is likely to prevail at trial — the judge has powerfully bolstered the argument that a state cannot preempt federal authority on the matter of immigration.

Not only are we pleased with the ruling, but we hope it throws cold water on similar proposals percolating in legislatures across the country.

Even though the court did not side with Arizona, the state's powers are not diminished. Its local law enforcement agencies already lead the nation in turning over illegal immigrants to federal authorities, and that will probably continue. Maricopa County alone, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio is under federal investigation for civil rights violations, has assisted in the deportation of 26,000 illegal immigrants since 2007 — about one-quarter of the total deportations nationally during that period. (Los Angeles County is a distant second with about 13,800.) Arizona still has the tools it needs to keep its version of the peace. But in the end, neither Arizona nor any other state will be able to arrest its way out of a problem that requires concerted, comprehensive congressional action. That's why the appropriate response to the injunction is for the frustrated public — in and outside of Arizona — to hold the federal government to its word. It has asserted its authority on the subject, and now it should be pressed to use it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-arizona-20100729,0,1333939,print.story

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Mitrice Richardson may have been spotted in Las Vegas

Her father and a friend report sightings. The woman, now 25, has been missing since Sept. 16, when she vanished after she was released from the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff's station late at night.

By Carla Hall and Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

July 29, 2010

Mitrice Richardson, who vanished after being released from an L.A. County sheriff's station early one September morning last year, may be alive and living in Las Vegas, according to law enforcement officials.

On Thursday, at a news conference in that city, they will make a public plea for her to come forward.

"Please let us know you're OK," Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, said of their message to Richardson. "You're not in trouble. You've done nothing wrong. You are not the subject of a criminal investigation. You will not be arrested."

A friend from Richardson's teenage years said he saw her in a bar at the Rio on Father's Day weekend in June, prompting a search by L.A. County sheriff's investigators. Her father, Michael Richardson, said a Sheriff's Department official told him that they had information on numerous sightings.

Whitmore wouldn't give a number, but said, "They wouldn't be doing this if they didn't believe they had credible information of her whereabouts. They want to prove or disprove beyond a shadow of a doubt that these sightings are indeed fact or indeed not fact."

So far, authorities have neither located her nor established for sure that it was Richardson who was spotted — and not simply a woman who resembles her.

"Absolutely possible," Whitmore said of the latter scenario.

Also working on the case, and to be represented at the news conference, he said, are Los Angeles police — the lead investigators in the disappearance for months — and Las Vegas police. "They want to make it definitive," Whitmore said.

Nothing has been definitive since Richardson —a Cal State Fullerton graduate whose 25th birthday was in April — showed up at Geoffrey's restaurant in Malibu last Sept. 16, acting bizarrely and speaking in gibberish. Unable to pay her $89 dinner bill, she was arrested and taken into custody.

Shortly after midnight, she was released from the Lost Hills/Malibu sheriff's station in Calabasas without her car, which had been impounded, or her cellphone and purse, which were in the car. Several months later, police investigators discovered evidence in her diaries that she was probably suffering from severe bipolar disorder.

The Sheriff's Department was widely criticized for releasing her — without a mental health examination — into the night near the rugged canyon, with neither car nor phone. Sheriff's officials have insisted that she acted normally in custody and have said that they offered to let her stay in the station until she could get a ride.

Four searches of Malibu Canyon led nowhere.

Her parents, who have never been a couple, are divided on whether the new sightings are real.

"I strongly believe," said her father, Michael Richardson, 43. "But I don't believe she's in her right state of mind."

His belief, he said, is bolstered by his own personal sighting — on a trip to Las Vegas in the middle of January. He was with friends from his motorcycle club in a truck pulling onto a downtown street when he saw a young woman in jeans and a baseball cap talking on a cellphone.

" 'God, this girl looks like my daughter,' " he said he thought to himself. So he jumped out of the truck, which was stuck in traffic. "I'm running over to get to where she is. I'm almost getting hit by cars. She was standing in the middle of two palm trees in a restaurant parking lot. And then she's gone. I'm like 'Where was that girl?' "

He said police investigators followed up but found nothing.

Then L.A. County Sheriff's Lt. Mike Rosson called about a month ago to tell him they had a credible sighting in Las Vegas.

Greg Amerson, whom Richardson once took to her winter formal at South Hills High School in West Covina, said he had spotted her at a bar in a Vegas hotel. He later told Lauren Sutton, Richardson's mother's sister-in-law, that she was wearing a white dress with white shoes.

"He approached her from behind and called her name and she turned and looked at him and didn't seem to recognize him," Sutton said. "Then he said she seemed to recognize him and then she turned and walked off very quickly."

Amerson took a few days to pass the information on to relatives. Sheriff's investigators then sought hotel surveillance tapes, but found that they had been taped over. For several days, sheriff's investigators combed Las Vegas, passing out fliers and talking to strippers, bar managers and prostitutes. In the L.A. area, Richardson had occasionally danced professionally at a lesbian bar.

Michael Richardson said Rosson discussed with him the possibility that she was working as a prostitute. He said he believes that it is possible someone is keeping her from contacting family and friends.

Her mother, Latice Sutton, is more skeptical of the sightings.

"I want her to be found," she said. "However, I don't believe that the woman that Greg saw was Mitrice. His sighting is no more credible than other people's in Los Angeles."

Latice Sutton said that Amerson had not seen Mitrice in years and that they were never close.

Sutton said she has entertained the possibility that Richardson disappeared by choice.

"But I know my daughter and her principles, and if she is in her right mind, she would not be out there without contact even if it were to say, 'Mom, I'm OK, but I'm going to stay out there.' "

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0729-mitrice-20100729,0,2507657,print.story

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UC San Diego police investigate noose in stairwell

UC San Diego police are investigating an incident in which a rope resembling a noose was found suspended in a campus stairwell.

The thin piece of rope, crudely fashioned into a loop, was found July 21 in a stairwell in Mandeville Hall, an auditorium that hosts recitals and other performing arts.

So far, police have no leads on who might have created the noose and are seeking help identifying witnesses.

It is the latest incident with racial overtones to emerge on the campus in recent months. Another dangling noose was found in a campus library in February, drawing condemnation and sparking a protest rally attended by hundreds of students. A student later admitted to and apologized for hanging the rope and was suspended.

Racial tensions also were heightened earlier this year by an off-campus party, termed a “Compton Cookout,” that mocked Black History Month. That incident also set off protests and drew national attention to the campus, where African American students comprise fewer than 2% of undergraduates.

For many African Americans, the noose has long been a symbol of oppression and lynchings. Hanging a noose with intent to terrorize is a misdemeanor under state law and can bring up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

The most recent incident has drawn little attention, said campus spokeswoman Judy Piercey. About 6,600 students are attending summer classes in UC San Diego's extension program.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/police-investigating-noose-found-in-ucsd-stairwell.html#more

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TV writer-producer bequeaths $10 million to needy

BERLIN — German prosecutors have charged an 88-year-old former Nazi guard with aiding in the murders of 430,000 Jews at the Belzec death camp during World War II, and with shooting 10 people himself during his time there.

The former guard, Samuel Kunz, No. 3 on the list of most wanted Nazi war criminals published by the Simon Wiesenthal Center , was indicted earlier this month for crimes committed between January 1942 and July 1943, Christoph Göke, a prosecutor in Dortmund, said Wednesday.

In a case with echoes of the trial under way in Munich of John Demjanjuk , Mr. Kunz, an ethnic German who served in the Soviet Red Army, was captured by the German Army and given a choice of whether to remain a prisoner or cooperate with the Nazis, and he chose to cooperate. . Mr. Göke said that Mr. Kunz later trained at the Trawniki SS camp to work as a concentration camp guard.

Unlike Mr. Demjanjuk, who is not charged with specific murders, Mr. Göke said, Mr. Kunz is accused of personally shooting two people on one occasion and eight more on another day.

Mr. Kunz has not been arrested and he hung up without comment when reached briefly by telephone on Wednesday. The Associated Press reported that he said he did not wish to discuss the accusations.

He was informed last week of the charges against him, but law enforcement authorities said they had not taken him into custody because he was not considered a flight risk. Matthias Nordmeyer, deputy press spokesman at the district court in Bonn where Mr. Kunz is expected to be tried, said that no court date had been set.

“This reflects the changed, more proactive German prosecution policy, starting about two years ago,” said Efraim Zuroff, chief Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“It underscores the fact that these people can be brought to justice despite the time that's passed since their crimes were committed, and in that respect it's very important,” Mr. Zuroff said.

German prosecutors last year indicted a 90-year-old man, Adolf Storms, a former SS sergeant, on 58 counts of murder for his suspected role in the massacre of a group of Jewish laborers near the Austrian village of Deutsch Schützen in March 1945. Mr. Storms died last month before he could be brought to trial.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/world/europe/29nazi.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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As Desert Deaths Soar, a Morgue Grows Crowded

TUCSON — Dr. Bruce Parks unzips a white body bag on a steel gurney and gingerly lifts out a human skull and mandible, turning them over in his hands and examining the few teeth still in their sockets.

The body bag, coated with dust, also contains a broken pelvis, a femur and a few smaller bones found in the desert in June, along with a pair of white sneakers.

“These are people who are probably not going to be identified,” said Dr. Parks, the chief medical examiner for Pima County. There are eight other body bags crowded on the gurney.

The Pima County morgue is running out of space as the number of Latin American immigrants found dead in the deserts around Tucson has soared this year during a heat wave.

The rise in deaths comes as Arizona is embroiled in a bitter legal battle over a new law intended to discourage illegal immigrants from settling here by making it a state crime for them to live or seek work.

But the law has not kept the immigrants from trying to cross hundreds of miles of desert on foot in record-breaking heat. The bodies of 57 border crossers have been brought in during July so far, putting it on track to be the worst month for such deaths in the last five years.

Since the first of the year, more than 150 people suspected of being illegal immigrants have been found dead, well above the 107 discovered during the same period in each of the last two years. The sudden spike in deaths has overwhelmed investigators and pathologists at the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office. Two weeks ago, Dr. Parks was forced to bring in a refrigerated truck to store the remains of two dozen people because the building's two units were full.

“We can store about 200 full-sized individuals, but we have over 300 people here now, and most of those are border crossers,” Dr. Parks said. “We keep hoping we have seen the worst of this, of these migration deaths. Yet we still see a lot of remains.”

The increase in deaths has happened despite many signs that the number of immigrants crossing the border illegally has dropped in recent years. The number of people caught trying to sneak across the frontier without a visa has fallen in each of the last five years and stands at about half of the record 616,000 arrested in 2000.

Not only has the economic downturn in the United States eliminated many of the jobs that used to lure immigrants, human rights groups say, but also the federal government has stepped up efforts to stop the underground railroad of migrants, building mammoth fences in several border towns and flooding the region with hundreds of new Border Patrol agents equipped with high-tech surveillance tools.

These tougher enforcement measures have pushed smugglers and illegal immigrants to take their chances on isolated trails through the deserts and mountains of southern Arizona, where they must sometimes walk for three or four days before reaching a road.

“As we gain more control, the smugglers are taking people out to even more remote areas,” said Omar Candelaria, the special operations supervisor for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. “They have further to walk and they are less prepared for the journey, and they don't make it.”

Mr. Candelaria said the surge in discoveries of bodies this year might also owe something to increased patrols. He noted that some of the remains found this year belong to people who died in previous years. But Dr. Parks said that could not account for the entire increase this year. Indeed, the majority of bodies brought in during July, Dr. Parks said, were dead less than a week.

Human rights groups say it is the government's sustained crackdown on human smuggling that has led to more deaths.

“The more that you militarize the border, the more you push the migrant flows into more isolated and desolate areas, and people hurt or injured are just left behind,” said Kat Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the Coalición de Derechos Humanos in Tucson.

At the medical examiner's office in Tucson, Dr. Park's team of five investigators, six pathologists and one forensic anthropologist face an enormous backlog of more than 150 unidentified remains, with one case going back as far as 1993.

Every day, they labor to match remains with descriptions provided by people who have called their office to report a missing relative, or with reports collected by human rights groups and by Mexican authorities.

Since 2000, Dr. Park's office has handled more than 1,700 border-crossing cases, and officials here have managed to confirm the identities of about 1,050 of the remains.

Investigators sift through the things the dead carried for clues — Mexican voter registration cards, telephone numbers scrawled on scraps of paper, jewelry, rosaries, family photographs. Often there is precious little to go on.

“We had one gentleman who came in as bones, but around his wrist there was a bracelet from a Mexican Hospital that had his picture,” said David Valenzuela, one of the investigators.

If no documents are found, the task becomes harder. Many of the deceased immigrants were too poor to have visited doctors or dentists on a regular basis, so no dental or medical records may not exist. Sometimes, a family photograph of the deceased smiling widely is all investigators have to document dental work.

On a recent morning, Bruce Anderson, the forensic anthropologist in the office, was examining the skeleton of an adolescent boy, whose age was somewhere between 14 and 17. His mummified remains were found on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation west of Tucson on July 15. The only lead to his identity was a missing front tooth and the neighboring teeth crowded together in the space.

Dr. Anderson called the Coalición de Derechos Humanos, who had a report of a 13-year-old who had been reported missing this year after crossing the border near Sonoyta, Mexico.

The charity immediately contacted the boy's family to see if he had lost a permanent tooth. Dr. Anderson was still waiting for a reply.

The process takes time, and remains keep piling up. On Monday, Mr. Anderson faced a backlog of 14 new skeletons, in addition to the 40 active cases he is investigating, he said. “One person can't keep up with this load,” he said.

The pathologists are also under strain. One day last week, Dr. Cynthia Porterfield did five autopsies, on remains of border crossers who died in the desert.

Dr. Porterfield was able to identify one: Jesse Palma Valenzuela, 30, who died on July 12. Three of his travel companions had tried to carry his body back to Mexico but became tired and abandoned him, wrapped in a blanket and positioned off the ground in a tree to keep animals from eating him. Then they crossed back into Mexico and notified the Border Patrol.

Agents discovered Mr. Valenzuela's body on July 17, right where his friends said it would be, about two-and-a-half miles east of Lukeville, Ariz., not far from the border. Though decomposed, he was still recognizable.

“He's got quite a few tattoos,” Dr. Porterfield said. “It is how the family ID'd him.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29border.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Ruling Against Arizona Is a Warning for Other States

A federal judge in Arizona on Wednesday broadly vindicated the Obama administration's high-stakes move to challenge that state's tough immigration law and to assert the primary authority of the federal government over state lawmakers in immigration matters.

The ruling by Judge Susan R. Bolton, in a lawsuit against Arizona brought on July 6 by the Justice Department, blocked central provisions of the law from taking effect while she finishes hearing the case.

But in taking the forceful step of holding up a statute even before it was put into practice, Judge Bolton previewed her opinions on the case, indicating that the federal government was likely to win in the end on the main points.

The decision by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to throw the federal government's weight against Arizona, on an issue that has aroused passions among state residents, has irritated many state governors, and nine states filed papers supporting Arizona in the court case.

But Judge Bolton found that the law was on the side of the Justice Department in its argument that many provisions of the Arizona statute would interfere with federal law and policy.

Gov. Jan Brewer said the state would appeal the decision.

Although Judge Bolton's ruling is not final, it seems likely to halt, at least temporarily, an expanding movement by states to combat illegal immigration by making it a state crime to be an immigrant without legal documents and by imposing new requirements on state and local police officers to enforce immigration law.

“This is a warning to any other jurisdiction” considering a similar law, said Thomas A. Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund , which brought a separate suit against the law that is also before Judge Bolton.

The Arizona law stood out from hundreds of statutes adopted by states in recent years to discourage illegal immigrants. The statute makes it a state crime for immigrants to fail to carry documents proving their legal status, and it requires state police officers to determine the immigration status of anyone they detain for another reason, if there is a “reasonable suspicion” the person is an illegal immigrant.

The mere fact of being present without legal immigration status is a civil violation under federal law, but not a crime.

Arizona's lawyers contended that the statute was written to complement federal laws. Judge Bolton rejected that argument, finding that four of its major provisions interfered or directly conflicted with federal laws.

The Arizona police, she wrote, would have to question every person they detained about immigration status, generating a flood of requests to the federal immigration authorities for confirmations. The number of requests “is likely to impermissibly burden federal resources and redirect federal agencies away from priorities they have established,” she wrote.

While opponents of the Arizona law had said it would lead to racial profiling, the Justice Department did not dwell on those issues in its court filings. But Judge Bolton brought them forward, finding significant risks for legal immigrants and perhaps American citizens. There is a “substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens,” she wrote, warning that foreign tourists could also be wrongly detained.

The law, she found, would increase “the intrusion of police presence into the lives of legally present aliens (and even United States citizens), who will necessarily be swept up” by it. Judge Bolton was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Hannah August, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said, “While we understand the frustration of Arizonans with the broken immigration system, a patchwork of state and local policies would seriously disrupt federal immigration enforcement.”

Some critics said Judge Bolton had decided too quickly. Peter Schuck, a professor of immigration law at Yale, said Judge Bolton should have allowed the law to go into effect, which it was scheduled to do on Thursday, before issuing an order that curbed the power of a state legislature.

“She rushed to judgment in a way I can only assume reflects a lot of pressure from the federal government to get this case resolved quickly,” he said.

Now Judge Bolton's ruling has shifted the political pressure back onto President Obama to show that he can effectively enforce the border, and to move forward with an overhaul of the immigration laws, so that states will not seek to step in as Arizona did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29immig.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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In an unusual move, a state government is developing regulations meant to stop doctors from prescribing higher doses of powerful — and often dangerous — pain killers for patients who are not benefiting from them.

The effort, in Washington State, represents the most sweeping attempt yet to stem what some experts see as the excessive use of prescribed narcotics, and it is being closely watched by medical professionals elsewhere. Among other things, Washington would apparently become the first state to require a doctor to refer patients on escalating doses of pain killers for evaluation if they were not improving.

Experts in pain treatment and drug abuse prevention say the growing use of long-acting pain killers like OxyContin, fentanyl and methadone has been a crucial factor in a nationwide epidemic of overdose deaths, largely from the abuse of such drugs.

Nationwide, fatalities from prescription drug overdoses are the second-leading cause of accidental death behind car accidents and, in some states, are the leading cause, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

Last year, narcotic pain killers accounted for 7 percent of all prescribed drugs, and the number of patients annually taking long-acting versions of them has increased about 30 percent over the last decade.

But a long-running debate has thwarted efforts to address the problem both at the federal and state level.

Drug makers and patient groups have complained that new restrictions would unfairly punish pain sufferers who rely on the drugs. Others, including some doctors and regulators, have argued that the drugs are potentially so dangerous that they need to be even more tightly controlled.

However, the Washington State initiative appears to reflect a growing view that the status-quo is no longer acceptable. Last Friday, an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration overwhelmingly rejected an agency proposal to better control drugs like OxyContin as too weak because it did not require special training for doctors who prescribe such medications.

The effort in Washington is also directed at controlling how doctors use narcotics to treat legitimate pain patients, not at people who illegally obtain the drugs for recreational use. While many patients benefit from pain killers, there is growing evidence from studies, including one in Washington State, that others suffer significant side effects, including lethargy , increased sensitivity to pain and, in the most severe instances, potentially fatal overdoses.

“This is not just about addicts but little old ladies with arthritis starting to die because of this kind of medical practice,” said Dr. Alex Cahana, a pain specialist involved in devising the regulations in Washington State.

Washington State adopted voluntary narcotics use guidelines three years ago, but a statewide survey last year indicated that many doctors were not following them and about half were not even aware of them.

At the direction of the Washington State Legislature, a panel of doctors, nurses, regulators and others are compiling a set of medical practices that prescribers would be legally expected to follow when treating patients with long-term pain from causes other than cancer .

The regulations would not affect how narcotics are used to treat patients with cancer or those at the end of life because experts agree that such patients should receive as much pain medication as necessary.

The panel is expected to require that, among other things, doctors refer patients to a pain specialist for review when their daily medication increases to a specified dosage level and they do not show improvement. The specialist can then determine whether to continue the drug, reduce it or use other treatments like physical therapy .

Recently, the Centers for Disease Control issued a similar recommendation to doctors.

Pain specialists and regulators in Washington State said they thought the requirements were essential because doctors were giving high daily dosages of powerful drugs for ailments like back pain for far too long without evidence that the drugs worked.

The law that created the new regulatory effort in Washington State did not propose specific sanctions or penalties. However, officials there said that a doctor who chose to ignore the new rules could face sanctions from state licensing boards, including potentially losing the right to practice. The company that makes OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, lobbied against the law, saying the new regulations could deprive patients of appropriate treatment.

The initiative sprang out of the efforts of Dr. Cahana and two other people, including a Washington State representative, James C. Moeller, who is also a substance abuse counselor.

Mr. Moeller, who works at a facility in Vancouver, Wash., run by Kaiser Permanente, said he had treated a steady procession of patients in recent years, nearly all of them young and physically dependent or psychologically addicted to high dosages of pain killers.

In the process, Mr. Moeller said, he realized that many doctors who prescribed such drugs had little training in either pain management or substance abuse. So, wearing his legislator's hat, he drafted a bill to require doctors to take a training course to prescribe narcotics.

He said he quickly encountered opposition to the idea from a professional group that represented doctors. At that point, Dr. Cahana and the third man, Dr. Gary M. Franklin, the medical director of the state's Department of Labor and Industries, stepped in.

The two doctors, through different routes, had arrived at the same conclusion — that too many pain patients were getting drugs at dosages that were too high for too long.

“There is a dissonance in not recognizing the nexus between poor pain management and the hyperconsumption of opioids,” said Dr. Cahana, who works at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, using a medical term for narcotic pain killers like OxyContin.

Dr. Franklin, whose department oversees the state's workers' compensation program, said he had long seen the problem play out among claimants. “Injured workers were coming into the system with low back pain and dying two or three years later” from drug overdoses, he said.

This year, Dr. Cahana and Dr. Franklin testified during a legislative hearing on the proposed training requirement, suggesting that legislation should instead require a set of medical practices based on the best available evidence. Dr. Franklin said that a draft of rules would probably be finished by this fall and that the new regulations would be in place by next year.

A major hurdle to making the program work is the lack of pain management specialists, particularly in rural areas of the state, where patients could be referred for evaluation. Dr. Franklin said the state hoped to increase the use of telephone consultations as well as help to finance the training of doctors in pain treatment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/business/29pain.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Congress Moves to Narrow Cocaine Sentencing Disparities

The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that would reduce the disparities between mandatory federal sentences for crack and powder cocaine violations, a step toward ending what legal experts say have been unfairly harsh punishments imposed mainly on blacks.

The bill, which passed the Senate in March, was adopted by the House in a voice vote and now goes to President Obama for his signature.

Administration officials have described the sentencing disparity as “fundamentally unfair,” and Mr. Obama said during the 2008 presidential campaign that it “disproportionately filled our prisons with young black and Latino drug users.”

Under the current law, adopted in 1986 after a surge in crack cocaine smoking and drug-related killings, someone convicted in federal court of possession of five grams of crack must be sentenced to at least five years in prison, and possession of 10 grams requires a 10-year minimum sentence. With powder cocaine, the threshold amounts for those mandatory sentences are 100 times as high.

In the bill passed Wednesday, the amount of crack that would invoke a five-year minimum sentence is raised to 28 grams, said to be roughly the amount a dealer might carry, and for a 10-year sentence, 280 grams.

While crack use has declined since the 1980s, arrests remain common, and some 80 percent of those convicted on crack charges in recent years have been black. A growing number of criminologists have concluded that the sentencing disparity is unjustified and has subjected tens of thousands of blacks to lengthy prison terms while offering more lenient punishment to users and sellers of powder cocaine, who are more often white.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that under the new law, shorter sentences for possessors of small amounts of crack will save the federal prison system about $42 million over the next five years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/politics/29crack.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Money Approved for Design of Suicide Barrier on Golden Gate Bridge

SAN FRANCISCO — For 73 years, people have poured onto the picturesque red-colored span of the Golden Gate Bridge to take pictures, ride bicycles, commute and, in close to two dozen cases each year, to jump to their deaths, an act transportation officials moved to stop Wednesday by authorizing money for a suicide barrier.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the agency that oversees transportation financing in the Bay Area, approved $5 million in federal money for the final engineering and design of a steel mesh net hanging 20 feet below the span, to catch jumpers. Officials estimate the net system will cost an additional $45 million to build and install.

“Having a deterrent on a structure like the Golden Gate Bridge, that has a singular attraction to people who want to jump, is crucial,” said John Brooks, whose 17-year-old daughter Casey leapt to her death in January 2008. “Just by giving someone a few seconds to rethink things makes the odds better that they won't go through with it.”

The hanging metal net design was approved by the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District in February, a landmark decision after decades of debate here over whether the aesthetic and monetary costs made sense and whether potential jumpers dissuaded by such a barrier would just go elsewhere to kill themselves.

While there is no sanctioned count, officials estimate that since the bridge opened in 1937 about 1,300 people have ended their lives by climbing over the four-foot-high railing and jumping more than 200 feet to the dark water below.

Viewers saw those suicidal leaps firsthand in a documentary film called “The Bridge,” which captured the final fall of the almost two-dozen people who jumped to their deaths in 2004, by fixing multiple cameras on the bridge. The eerie images of those jumps galvanized suicide barrier advocates and helped spur the district to authorize a comprehensive study of suicide deterrent options in 2005.

The chosen net design will hang below the pedestrian walkway on the bridge, enveloping any jumpers in metal netting until a “cherry picker” truck arrives to fetch them out, said Mary Currie, a district spokeswoman.

When the plan was approved, district officials stipulated that the barrier could not be built using the money collected in bridge tolls, leaving the source unclear for the $45 million needed to complete the net. “We've found a solution that has minimal impacts visually and aesthetically,” Ms. Currie said. “Now it's just about getting the remaining funding to build it.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29bridge.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Swastika Is Deemed ‘Universal' Hate Symbol

The swastika now shows up so often as a generic symbol of hatred that the Anti-Defamation League , in its annual tally of hate crimes against Jews, will no longer automatically count its appearance as an act of anti-Semitism.

“The swastika has morphed into a universal symbol of hate,” said Abraham Foxman , the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization. “Today it's used as an epithet against African-Americans, Hispanics and gays, as well as Jews, because it is a symbol which frightens.”

Observing the trend, he said that his group had decided it would examine reports of scrawled swastikas for contextual clues. If it appears Jews were not the target, the incident will not be included in the league's annual audit of anti-Semitic hate crimes.

“A year ago, there was a swastika put on Plymouth Rock,” Mr. Foxman said in an interview. “We saw it as a symbol of hatred against America, maybe against immigrants, I don't know. But to count that swastika as an anti-Semitic incident would not be accurate.”

Using the new measure, the Anti-Defamation League logged 1,211 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States in 2009. It included 422 cases of anti-Semitic vandalism like swastika graffiti, as well as violent episodes like the murder of a security guard at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

The tally was down from 2008, which found 1,352 incidents — in part because of the new approach to swastikas. (The group is considering whether to issue a separate report on swastika incidents that were excluded from its audit).

The change was first reported by The Jewish Week , a New York news weekly.

The swastika symbol, a symmetrical, hooked cross sacred to Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, was appropriated by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party and became the defining motif of anti-Jewish hatred. It is still the contemporary calling card of many neo-Nazi groups.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center , a Jewish educational and human rights group based in Los Angeles, said he understood the reasoning behind the Anti-Defamation League's move.

“The swastika is shorthand for every racist and bigot on the planet,” Rabbi Cooper said. “It is amazing that 60 or 70 years later that symbol has not lost any of its potency.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/us/29hate.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Showdown in Arizona

The federal judge who ruled on Arizona's tragic, noxious new immigration law on Wednesday did not stop all of it from taking effect Thursday, but she preliminarily halted the worst of it. And although appeals are certain, Judge Susan Bolton offered clear and well-reasoned arguments affirming the federal government's final authority over immigration enforcement. We hope this is the beginning of the end of the misbegotten Arizona rules and what they represent.

Judge Bolton explained basic points that those who support the Arizona law have ignored or forgotten:

Arizona's law is not a case of a state helping the federal government do a job it neglected. It is a radical upending of immigration priorities, part of a spiteful crusade to force a mass exodus of illegal immigrants. Arizona still has a governor, legislators and law officers determined to pursue immigration enforcement at any cost. It has the country's most prolific immigrant-hunting machinery, mostly because of the Maricopa County sheriff, who indiscriminately raids Latino neighborhoods. With demonstrators converging on the state this week, Arizona threatens to become a national fracturing point on immigration. The Obama administration can do more than just watch. It can reassert the importance of sensible national immigration policies.

The administration can start by rethinking two troubling programs — Secure Communities, which requires immigration checks for everyone booked into a jail, and 287(g), in which local law-enforcement officials are deputized as immigration agents in task forces and in jails.

The Obama administration has resisted calls to abolish the programs, despite warnings of racial profiling, arrests on pretexts and other abuses. But there is no excuse for not pulling the plug on Arizona's 287(g) programs, the largest in the nation.

It should also listen to George Gascón, the police chief of San Francisco, who was at the center of the immigration-enforcement debate as the police chief in Mesa, Ariz. He believes public safety is jeopardized when officers waste time chasing low-priority targets, and people in immigrant areas fear law enforcement. He has suggested a pilot program in which Secure Communities would restrict its focus to serious offenders. Immigration and Customs Enforcement should have no problem with that; it says its highest priority is removing “aliens who pose a danger to national security or a risk to public safety.”

Judge Bolton's ruling reminded us all of the unacceptable price of the Arizona way: an incoherent immigration system, squandered law enforcement resources, diminished public safety, the awful sight of a nation of immigrants turning on itself. Mr. Obama took a big risk when he filed suit against the Arizona law, and deserves credit for that. We hope he goes on to make clear to all the states that the Arizona way is not the American way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/29/opinion/29thu1.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the White House

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Insurance for Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions

For too long, too many Americans with pre-existing conditions were left out of the health insurance marketplace. Health insurance companies could charge these Americans more or simply refuse to cover them. But thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the health care system will no longer leave out the people who need care the most.

Starting September 23, the new law makes it illegal for insurance companies to discriminate against children under 19 with preexisting conditions. In 2014, discriminating against anyone with a pre-existing condition will be illegal, but we know Americans need relief now. That's why the new law created the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan. This plan offers coverage to uninsured Americans who have been uninsured for at least six months and unable to obtain health coverage because of a pre-existing health condition like cancer, diabetes or lupus.

Coverage will be available at the same rate as it is for an average person who does not have such a condition and the program is entirely funded by the federal government.  The program is temporary and will last until 2014 when discriminating against anyone with a pre-existing condition will be illegal. If you're interested in joining the program, you can click here to learn more about the program in your state .

Today, HHS issued an interim final regulation laying out the rules for the PCIP program.  The regulation describes the options for determining who has a pre-existing condition, how to verify citizenship, and how an individual can appeal a PCIP decision.  It also details how Federal funding will be allocated, ways to prevent “dumping” of already-insured people into the program, and strategies for preventing fraud.

The regulation also lists the benefits that can and can't be covered under this temporary federal program.  Covered benefits include hospitalization, outpatient care, maternity care, and, hospice, and home health care. 

The list of services not covered parallels that of the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP), which serves government workers and their families, including Members of Congress. And like this program, PCIP prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion services, except in cases of rape or incest, or where the life of the woman would be endangered.  This policy meets the President's commitment throughout the health reform debate to neither expand nor scale back current restrictions on federal funding for abortion and ensures that no federal funds will be used to cover abortion services other than the exceptions mentioned above

Much has been made of this policy by both sides of the debate.  But, in reality, no new ground has been broken.  The program's restriction on abortion coverage is not a precedent for other programs or policies given the unique, temporary nature of the program and the population it serves.  It does not restrict private insurance choices and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act will continue to be guided by the law and the President's Executive Order.

What is new is the benefits from this program detailed in the regulation.  Studies have estimated that 200,000 to 400,000 uninsured people with pre-existing conditions could be helped, doubling the number of Americans insured through existing high risk pools.  And this new coverage will help all of us by reducing medical debt, improving health and worker productivity and reducing the amount of uncompensated care provided to the uninsured, potentially by billions of dollars. 

Every day, the Affordable Care Act is making it easier for Americans to take control of their health care by giving them easier access to better health coverage choices.  The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan helps meet that goal.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/07/29/insurance-americans-with-pre-existing-conditions

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Statement by Deputy Press Secretary Matt Chandler

Release Date: July 28, 2010

“The court's decision to enjoin most of SB1070 correctly affirms the federal government's responsibilities in enforcing our nation's immigration laws. Over the past eighteen months, this Administration has dedicated unprecedented resources to secure the border, and we will continue to work to take decisive action to disrupt criminal organizations and the networks they exploit. DHS will enforce federal immigration laws in Arizona and around the country in smart, effective ways that focus our resources on criminal aliens who pose a public safety threat and employers who knowingly hire illegal labor, as well as continue to secure our border.

“ICE works everyday with local law enforcement across the country to assist them in making their communities safer and we will continue do so in Arizona. At the same time, we will continue to increase resources in Arizona by complementing the National Guard deployment set to begin on Aug. 1 with the deployment of hundreds of additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement personnel that will aid in our continuing efforts to conduct outbound inspections, patrol challenging terrain, and interdict illicit smugglers. We are focused on smart effective immigration and border enforcement while we work with Congress toward the type of bipartisan comprehensive reform that will provide true security and establish accountability and responsibility in our immigration system at the national level.”

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1280342367161.shtm

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From ICE

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87 convicted criminal aliens and fugitives arrested in ICE enforcement surges

RICHMOND, Va. - Seventy-five foreign nationals with criminal records and 12 fugitives were arrested in the Commonwealth of Virginia and Washington, D.C., following two enforcement surges this summer by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

During the two operations in June and July, the last of which concluded Wednesday, ICE officers located and arrested 75 criminal aliens with prior convictions for a variety of crimes, including robbery and narcotics possession with intent to distribute and 12 immigration fugitives. These special operations involved more than 70 officers from ICE and the U.S. Marshals Service.

"A top priority for ICE is to locate and arrest convicted criminal aliens and ultimately remove them from our country in a safe and humane manner," said Washington Field Office Director for ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations Henry Lucero. "Those who come to the United States to prey upon communities in Virginia and Washington, D.C. will be prosecuted for their crimes and ultimately returned to their home countries. The results of these operations demonstrate ICE's commitment to that principle."

The Northern Virginia area accounted for the largest number of arrests made during the operation, where a total of 57 convicted criminal aliens and fugitives were arrested. Twenty-eight criminal aliens and fugitives were arrested in southern and central Virginia.

Of the 87 arrested, 74 were men and 13 were women. They represent more than 19 different nations, including countries in Latin America, the Middle East, the Caribbean and Africa.

Some of those arrested during this operation include:

• Jorge Garcia-Alberto, 46, a Honduran national, who illegally re-entered the United States after being previously removed. He was arrested in Herndon, Va., on a criminal warrant for re-entry. His criminal history includes felony convictions for sale of marijuana, as well as misdemeanor burglary, theft and DUI. Garcia-Alberto is in ICE custody and may face criminal prosecution for re-entry to the United States.
  
  
• Oscar Montoya, 30, an El Salvadoran national, an immigration fugitive and a member of MS-13. He was arrested in Centreville, Va., for immigration violations. His criminal history includes felony drug convictions. He is in ICE custody pending removal from the United States based on an outstanding order from the immigration judge.
  
  
• Robert Cummings, 49, of Guyana, a legal permanent resident of the United States, was arrested in Richmond for immigration violations. His criminal history includes felony convictions for possession of a weapon and intent to distribute cocaine. He has been placed in removal proceedings.

Because of their serious criminal histories and prior immigration arrest records, six of those arrested during the enforcement surges will face further federal prosecution for reentering the country illegally after a formal deportation.

The foreign nationals detained during these operations who are not being criminally prosecuted will be processed administratively for removal from the United States. Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining aliens are in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.

These special enforcement actions were spearheaded by ICE's Fugitive Operations Program, which is responsible for locating, arresting and removing at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives - aliens who have ignored final orders of deportation handed down by the nation's immigration courts. ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) give top priority to cases involving aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety, including members of transnational street gangs and child sex offenders.

The officers who conducted this week's special operation received substantial assistance from ICE's Fugitive Operations Support Center (FOSC) located in South Burlington, Vt. The FOSC conducted exhaustive database checks on the targeted cases to help ensure the viability of the leads and accuracy of the criminal histories. The FOSC was established in 2006 to improve the integrity of the data available on at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives nationwide. Since its inception, the FOSC has forwarded more than 550,000 case leads to ICE enforcement personnel in the field.

ICE's Fugitive Operations Program is just one facet of the Department of Homeland Security's broader strategy to heighten the federal government's effectiveness at identifying and removing dangerous criminal aliens from the United States. Other initiatives that figure prominently in this effort are the Criminal Alien Program, Secure Communities and the agency's partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies under 287(g).

Largely as a result of these initiatives, ICE removed a total of 136,126 criminal aliens from the United States last year, a record number.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1007/100728richmond.htm

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DHS statement on Arizona immigration law ruling

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Deputy Press Secretary Matt Chandler issued the following statement July 28 in response to a federal judge's decision on the SB1070 immigration enforcement law in Arizona:

"The court's decision to enjoin most of SB1070 correctly affirms the federal government's responsibilities in enforcing our nation's immigration laws. Over the past eighteen months, this Administration has dedicated unprecedented resources to secure the border, and we will continue to work to take decisive action to disrupt criminal organizations and the networks they exploit. DHS will enforce federal immigration laws in Arizona and around the country in smart, effective ways that focus our resources on criminal aliens who pose a public safety threat and employers who knowingly hire illegal labor, as well as continue to secure our border.

"ICE works every day with local law enforcement across the country to assist them in making their communities safer and we will continue do so in Arizona. At the same time, we will continue to increase resources in Arizona by complementing the National Guard deployment set to begin on Aug. 1 with the deployment of hundreds of additional Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement personnel that will aid in our continuing efforts to conduct outbound inspections, patrol challenging terrain, and interdict illicit smugglers. We are focused on smart effective immigration and border enforcement while we work with Congress toward the type of bipartisan comprehensive reform that will provide true security and establish accountability and responsibility in our immigration system at the national level."

Visit the DHS site for more information.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1007/100728washington.htm

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From the FBI

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FBI, Slovenian and Spanish Police Arrests Mariposa Botnet Creator, Operators

The FBI, in partnership with the Slovenian Criminal Police and the Spanish Guardia Civil, announced today significant developments in a two-year investigation of the creator and operators of the Mariposa Botnet. A botnet is a network of remote-controlled compromised computers.

The Mariposa Botnet was built with a computer virus known as “Butterfly Bot” and was used to steal passwords for websites and financial institutions. It stole computer users' credit card and bank account information, launched denial of service attacks, and spread viruses. Industry experts estimated the Mariposa Botnet may have infected as many as 8 million to 12 million computers.

“In the last two years, the software used to create the Mariposa botnet was sold to hundreds of other criminals, making it one of the most notorious in the world,” said FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III. “These cyber intrusions, thefts, and frauds undermine the integrity of the Internet and the businesses that rely on it; they also threaten the privacy and pocketbooks of all who use the Internet.”

In February, the Spanish Guardia Civil arrested three suspected Mariposa Botnet operators: “Netkairo,” “Jonyloleante,” and “Ostiator,” aka Florencio Carro Ruiz, Jonathan Pazos Rivera, and Juan Jose Bellido Rios. These individuals are being prosecuted in Spain for computer crimes.

Last week, the Slovenian Criminal Police identified and arrested the Mariposa Botnet's suspected creator, a 23-year-old Slovenian citizen known as “Iserdo.” The work of the Slovenian and Spanish authorities was integral to this investigation.

FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Gordon M. Snow said: “This case shows the value of strong partnerships among law enforcement agencies worldwide in the fight against cyber criminals. Cyber crime knows no boundaries, and without international collaboration, our efforts to dismantle these operations would be impossible. The FBI praises the work of our Slovenian and Spanish partners who worked closely with our agents in this case.”

In a statement, Slovenian Minister of the Interior Katarina Kresal and Director General Janko Gorsek, Slovenian Criminal Police, said: “We are glad to cooperate with the United States; the FBI's assistance is invaluable and represents professional affirmation of our force. This case shows that cyber crime issues call for international police cooperation that shouldn't be hindered by geographical borders. The FBI has demonstrated a high level of collaboration in which our countries were equal partners, which was crucial for the success of the investigation and reducing the threat on a global level. This partnership serves as a solid basis for future cooperation.”

Maj. Juan Salom, commander of the Guardia Civil's Cyber Crime Division, noted: “The Mariposa case showed how the coordinated and joint actions of different international police forces, along with the efforts of the Internet security industry, have been able to face the global threat of cyber crime,” he said. “The cyber kingpins know that they are not invincible anymore because the global efforts of the FBI, Slovenian Criminal Police, and Spanish Guardia Civil have shown that it doesn't matter where or how they try to hide, they will be located and prosecuted.”

From 2008 to 2010, the Slovenian citizen created “Butterfly Bot” and sold it to other criminals worldwide. In turn, these criminals developed networks of infected computers—botnets—and the Mariposa variety from Spain was the most notorious and largest. In addition to selling the Butterfly Bot program, the Slovenian citizen developed customized versions for certain customers and created and sold plug-ins (add-ons) to augment the botnet's features and functionality.

This case is significant because it targeted not only the operators of the botnet but also the creator of the malicious software that was used to build and operate it. The success of this investigation was made possible because of the skill, professionalism, and commitment of the Slovenian Criminal Police's Cyber Crime Division and the Spanish Guardia Civil's Computer Crimes Group.

The FBI conducted this investigation with the assistance of the United States Attorney's Office, District of Hawaii, and the Department of Justice's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, Office of International Affairs, and the Botnet Threat Focus Cell. The FBI also received invaluable assistance from the Mariposa Working Group.

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel10/mariposa072810.htm

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