Days After Leak About Obama’s Aunt, Immigration Chief Julie Myers Announces Resignation»

Think Progress»

By Amanda Terkel at 12:40 pm

Yesterday evening, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) chief Julie Myers will be stepping down on Nov. 15, although he gave no reason for her departure. From the press release:

Assistant Secretary Julie Myers has announced that she will depart the department on Nov. 15. Julie has been an extraordinary Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and when she approached me in mid-September to discuss her departure, I knew this would be a loss for the department. Julie has been a major force in transforming ICE into a 21st century law enforcement agency. […]

I am grateful for Julie’s many contributions to the safety and security of our homeland, and I look forward to our continued friendship.

Myers has been a controversial figure since the day that President Bush nominated her. She was widely criticized as being a crony hire, being the daughter of former Air Force Gen. Richard Myers and possessing almost no immigration or customs experience. During her tenure, ICE was heavily criticized for carrying out politically-motivated immigration raids.

Myers’s resignation comes just days after a “federal law enforcment official” told the AP that Barack Obama’s aunt was living in the United States illegally. ICE officials, however, are “prohibited from commenting on any individual’s status or the status of any case.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) has called for an immediate investigation into the matter. On Saturday, Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone questioned whether Myers may have been the source of the unauthorized leak.

Recently, Myers also came under criticism for awarding “most original costume” to a government employee who dressed up in a racially-offensive costume at an agency Halloween party.

What Part of "Legal" Don't You Understand, Lou?

by: Truth In Immigration

Thu Oct 02, 2008 at 12:18:17 PM EDT

Part One of "Lou Dobbs' Convention of Lies" analyzed several distortions Lou made on his September 10th edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, at a rally by the Federation for American Immigration Reform. For Part Two, click on the video below:

Truth In Immigration :: What Part of "Legal" Don't You Understand, Lou?

Originally posted at www.truthinimmigration.org Also posted on The Sanctuary In an attempt to temper his aggressive rhetoric towards illegal immigration, Lou Dobbs has often claimed that he supports legal immigration. DOBBS: You cannot reform immigration if you can't control it. You cannot control immigration unless you control the borders. Absolutely. I am also for raising legal immigration.1 [...] I am just excited about legal immigration - I'm more excited.2 Of course, when it comes down to actually supporting legal immigration, Lou backs down. DOBBS: Both presidential candidates support expanding guest worker visa programs, programs that bring in cheap foreign labor at the expense of American workers. Bill Tucker has our report. BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There is no shortage of programs to import foreign workers into the American economy... And there is not a single study documenting the fact that we need all of these guest worker visa programs. But what we do have is eight straight months of rising unemployment and we have, Lou, a Congress ready to add more visas into this mix. Zoe Lofgren yesterday introduced a bill into the House to do what they call recapture 550,000 visas at a time when the unemployment rate in this country is 6.1 percent. They want to add another half million foreign workers into this economy.3 Had Dobbs's staff actually bothered to do some research, instead of repeating talking points from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a designated hate group,4 they would have easily found that: The bill recaptures permanent immigrant visas, commonly known as "green cards," not guest worker visas. About half the visas are family-based (for spouses and minor children of lawful permanent residents), not employment-based. These are not new visas, but visas already allotted by law to family- and employment-based immigrants that USCIS and the State Department failed to use from 1992 to 2007.5 The bill (HR 5882) was recently introduced in the House by Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Jim Sensenbrenner and has received significant bi-partisan support. Even noted conservative Grover Norquist, of Americans for Tax Reform, wrote a letter of support for the bill, stating: H.R. 5882 will recapture un-used green cards back to 1992, and reallocates them to reduce current green card backlog. It also allows any unused green cards to be rolled over to the following year.6 Government officials see the visa recapture bill as a solution to the problem of backlogs. On April 30, 2008, during a hearing on the growing backlogs of visas, Charles Oppenheim, chief of Visa Control and Reporting Division for the State Department, expressed his professional opinion of the bill. Mr. OPPENHEIM: The contemplated bill [HR 5882] will be the final step, I believe, and it will allow us instead of having to have unused numbers fall across to the opposite category, they can be retained for use in that category the following year. That is a tremendous step forward and will allow - if for one reason there was - we were unable to use the numbers this year, then we would have the following years to use them. Rep. LOFGREN: So that would give you a little leeway in your estimates? You wouldn't have to hit perfection every- Mr. OPPENHEIM: Exactly. It is a perfect solution.7 So if everybody agrees that the bill would help smooth out the legal immigration system, why doesn't Lou support it? Maybe it's because he doesn't support any type of immigration, legal or otherwise. __________________________________ 1. Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN, aired 26 May 2006 2. Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN, aired 28 Mar 2007 3. Lou Dobbs Tonight, CNN, aired 10 Sept 2008 4. See: Heidi Beirich, "The Teflon Nativists: FAIR Marked by Ties to White Supremacy," SPLC Intelligence Report, Winter 2007. 5. HR 5882, 110th Congress, 2nd Session, April 23, 2008 6. Grover Norquist, Letter to Chairwoman Lofgren and Ranking Member Steve King, Americans for Tax Reform, 10 Sept 2008 7. "Hearing on Wasted Visas, Growing Backlogs," Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, House Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, 30 Apr 2008

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Discussing economic crisis and bailout plan, Savage said Rep. Frank "should be in the gallows for this"

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA
Tue, Sep 30, 2008 4:24pm ET

Summary: Michael Savage said of Rep. Barney Frank's role in proposed federal financial bailout legislation: "Barney Frank should be in the gallows for this. Barney Frank should be in jail for doing this."

Trouble viewing clip? Download: QuickTime

During the September 29 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, while discussing the current financial crisis and Rep. Barney Frank's (D-MA) role in proposed bailout legislation, host Michael Savage said, "Barney Frank should be in the gallows for this. Barney Frank should be in jail for doing this."

Savage later added, "[Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] had the audacity today to say that Barney Frank has the intellect to understand this. Barney Frank, a man who ran a male house of prostitution in his apartment in Washington, which is not the least of his sins, by the way. Actually, it was the least of his sins. The male house of prostitution was nothing if he had brains, but apparently he has no brains." In fact, Frank did not run "a male house of prostitution in his apartment in Washington," as Media Matters for America has noted many times. The House ethics committee -- which, at Frank's request, investigated the allegations made by Stephen Gobie that Gobie was running a prostitution ring out of Frank's house with Frank's knowledge -- determined in 1990 that Frank "did not have either prior or concomitant knowledge of prostitution activities involving third parties alleged to have taken place in his apartment." Moreover, the committee did not conclusively determine whether Gobie was even using Frank's apartment for "prostitution activities," noting in its report that purported evidence offered by Gobie that he had been engaging in prostitution from Frank's apartment collapsed under scrutiny.

Talk Radio Network, which syndicates Savage's show, claims that Savage is heard on more than 350 radio stations. The Savage Nation reaches at least 8.25 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it one of the most listened-to talk radio shows in the nation

From the September 29 broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: Sure, maybe we need a bailout, but not this one, where they put in money for La Raza and ACORN. More money for illegal aliens. Are you crazy? They said that they were going to protect us against golden parachutes for the very crooks who did this to us. I read the fine print -- oh yeah, 20 percent excise tax. That's Barney Frank's answer. Barney Frank should be in the gallows for this. Barney Frank should be in jail for doing this. Look who they're holding up as an intellectual giant? Nancy Pelosi had the audacity today to say that Barney Frank has the intellect to understand this. Barney Frank, a man who ran a male house of prostitution in his apartment in Washington, which is not the least of his sins, by the way. Actually, it was the least of his sins. The male house of prostitution was nothing if he had brains, but apparently he has no brains. Barney Frank has the intellectual capacity to understand this when he's the one who forced greenlining down on banks and said, "You've gotta lend money to unqualified minorities or else we'll sue you?" Now Barney Frank's screaming? And Nancy Pelosi has decimated Congress and the Democrat [sic] Party. It's Nancy Pelosi's fault. That's why this happened.

Anti-immigrant hate speech

Anti-immigrant hate speech

September 11

The National Council of La Raza announced today that it has revamped its “Can We Stop the Hate” web site. The site spotlights what the group considers objectionable speech in the immigration debate in the media.

Given that dozens of anti-immigrant talk show hots and organizations have descended on Capitol Hill this week, it is especially important that information on what these entities are really all about is readily available to those interested in combating intolerance,

wrote NCLR president Janet Murguia.
Murguia was referring to the lobbying days by groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which on Tuesday released a report on immigration and national security.
The Immigration Policy Center also released a news alert in response FAIR’s lobbying regarding illegal immigrants and crime.

THE IMMIGRATION POLICY CENTER

IMMIGRATION POLICY CENTER

…providing factual information about immigration and immigrants in America

http://immigrationpolicy.org/images/File/factcheck/SettingtheRecordStraightonImmigrantsandCrime9-10-08.pdf

September 10, 2008

From Anecdotes to Evidence:

Setting the Record Straight on Immigrants and Crime

Anti-immigrant activists and politicians are fond of relying upon anecdotes to support their oft-repeated claim that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, are dangerous criminals. This mythical claim is usually based on rhetorical sleight of hand in which individual stories of heinous crimes committed by immigrants are presented as "proof" that we must restrict immigration or "get tough" on the undocumented in order to save the lives of U.S. citizens. While these kinds of arguments are emotionally powerful, they are intellectually dishonest. There is no doubt that dangerous criminals must be punished, and that immigrants who are dangerous criminals should not be allowed to enter the United States or should be deported if they already are here. But harsh immigration policies are not effective in fighting crime because—as numerous studies over the past 100 years have shown—immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are not associated with higher rates of crime. This holds true for both legal immigrants and the undocumented, regardless of their country of origin or level of education.

Crime Rates in the United States Fell as the Undocumented Population Doubled

Although the undocumented immigrant population doubled to about 12 million from 1994 to 2004, data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that the violent crime rate in the United States declined by 35.1 percent during this time and the property crime rate fell by 25.0 percent.1 The decline in crime rates was not just national, but also occurred in border cities and other cities with large immigrant populations such as San Diego, El Paso, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami.2

According to a 2008 report from the conservative Americas Majority Foundation, crime rates are lowest in states with the highest immigration growth rates.3 •

From 1999 to 2006, the total crime rate declined 13.6 percent in the 19 highestimmigration states, compared to a 7.1 percent decline in the other 32 states.

• In 2006, the 10 "high influx" states—those with the most dramatic, recent increases in immigration—had the lowest rates of violent crime and total crime.

Statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in June 2008 indicate that the violent crime rate increased for two consecutive years after 2004, before falling again in 2007 (while the property crime rate declined continuously during this period).4 It is highly unlikely that the brief upswing in violent crimes from 2004 to 2006 was related to immigration given that the rates of both violent and property crime declined significantly during the 1990s at the same time the immigrant population increased dramatically.

PAGE 2

Nationwide, Immigrants are Five Times Less Likely to be in Prison Than the Native-Born

A 2007 study by University of California, Irvine, sociologist Rubén G. Rumbaut, found that for every ethnic group, without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated. This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented population.5

The 3.5 percent incarceration rate for native-born men age 18-39 was five times higher than the 0.7 percent rate for immigrant men in 2000.

• Among male high-school dropouts, 9.8 percent of the native-born were behind bars in 2000, compared to only 1.3 percent of immigrants.

In 2000, 0.7 percent of foreign-born Mexican men and 0.5 percent of foreign-born Salvadoran and Guatemalan men were in prison.

• Among male high-school dropouts, 0.7 percent of foreign-born Mexicans and 0.6 percent of foreign-born Salvadorans and Guatemalans were behind bars in 2000.

New Research in New Jersey and California Finds Immigrants Less Likely to be in Prison

An analysis of data from the New Jersey Department of Corrections and U.S. Census Bureau by New Jersey’s Star-Ledger found that "U.S. citizens are twice as likely to land in New Jersey’s prisons as legal and illegal immigrants." According to the Star-Ledger’s analysis, released in April 2008, "non-U.S. citizens make up 10 percent of the state’s overall population, but just 5 percent of the 22,623 inmates in prison as of July 2007."6

A June 2008 report from the Public Policy Institute of California found that foreign-born adults in California have lower incarceration rates than their native-born counterparts. Based on data from 2005, the report found that "the incarceration rate for foreign-born adults is 297 per 100,000 in the population, compared to 813 per 100,000 for U.S.-born adults. The foreign-born, who make up roughly 35% of California’s adult population, constitute 17% of the state prison population, a proportion that has remained fairly constant since 1990."7

Immigration Violations, Not Violent Acts, Account for Most Immigrants in Federal Prison

Some pundits and policymakers have attempted to back up the claim of immigrant criminality by citing a 2005 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) which concludes that 27 percent of all inmates in federal prisons are "criminal aliens."8 However, the use of this figure as "evidence" that undocumented immigrants are prone to criminality is not only highly misleading—it is simply wrong.

All immigration violations fall under the federal system. Even in cases where an immigrant has not committed a criminal offense, or has committed an offense that is relatively minor, immigration violations are automatically prosecuted under the federal system. As a result, undocumented immigrants in federal prisons may have committed a criminal offense, or they may simply be imprisoned in the federal system because of their lack of immigration status.

The federal prison population is a small share of the total prison population. One cannot make generalizations about the incarceration rates of immigrants based on the immigrant share of the federal inmate population since, according to a 2007 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, only about 8 percent of the U.S. prison population was in federal prisons as of June 30, 2006.9

PAGE 3

At the state and local level, where most U.S. prisoners are held, the incarceration rates for immigrants are lower than for the native-born.

The problem of crime in the United States is not caused or even aggravated by immigrants, regardless of their legal status. This is hardly surprising since immigrants come to the United States to pursue economic and educational opportunities not available in their home countries and to build better lives for themselves and their families. As a result, they have little to gain and much to lose by breaking the law.

Undocumented immigrants in particular have even more reason to not run afoul of the law given the risk of deportation that their lack of legal status entails. Public policies must be based on facts, not anecdotes or emotions. And the fact is that the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.

202-507-7520

Contact: Andrea Nill

Endnotes

1 U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics—Data Online, "Reported Crime in United States—Total, 1960-2006."

2 Ramiro Martínez, Jr., Matthew T. Lee and A. L. Nielsen, "Segmented Assimilation, Local Context and Determinants of Drug Violence in Miami and San Diego: Does Ethnicity and Immigration Matter?," International Migration Review 38(1), March 2004: 131-157; Matthew T. Lee, Ramiro Martínez, Jr. and Richard B. Rosenfeld, "Does Immigration Increase Homicide? Negative Evidence from Three Border Cities," Sociological Quarterly 42(4), September 2001: 559–580.

3 Richard Nadler, Immigration and the Wealth of States (Overland Park, KS: Americas Majority Foundation: January 2008), p. 9.

4 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, January-December 2007 (Washington, DC: June 2008), "Table 3: Percent Change for Consecutive Years."

5 Rubén G. Rumbaut and Walter A. Ewing, The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men (Washington: DC: Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Law Foundation, Spring 2007), p. 6-10.

6 Brian Donohue, "Citizens twice as likely to land in NJ prisons as legal, illegal immigrants," The Star-Ledger, April 12, 2008.

7 Public Policy Institute of California, Immigrants and Crime (San Francisco, CA: June 2008).

8 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Information on Criminal Aliens Incarcerated in Federal and State Prisons and Local Jails, GAO-05-337R (Washington, DC: April 7, 2005), p. 2.

9 William J. Sabol, Todd D. Minton, and Paige M. Harrison, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006, NCJ 217675 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, June 2007), p. 8.

"Border Wars"

Bordering on Success

College Times

By Aaron Tavena

Issue date: 9/11/08 Section: News

Every filmmaker hopes to not only make a quality film, but also to get that film to the widest audience possible. Having secured distribution on Amazon.com, Netflix and Blockbuster, you could say that Collins College film professor Ryan Noble succeeded on both counts.

Set in Arizona, Noble's film, "Border Wars" tackles the ever-present immigration issue, using three misguided patriots who believe that patrolling the borders for illegal immigrants is their civic duty.

Released on DVD last Tuesday, "Border Wars" has already picked up steam on the Amazon charts, very much credited to Noble's success as a writer and a director.

Recently, Noble spoke with College Times about making the film, and what it took to get it on the map.

College Times: How did the film come together?

Ryan Noble: I was creating a documentary series […] about immigration issues. It ended up not getting picked up. But I was really still interested in the topic. The timing was right to do this. I had an idea, so I wrote the script. Because of my connection with Collins, I was able to put this together.

What was shooting like?

We shot it in the fall of 2006. So it's been a couple of years. It was essentially a 14-day shoot. So we had a lot of 12 to 16 hour days. It was late September, early October so it was pretty hot. We shot it out on the west side of town Tonopah, Avondale – it was pretty crazy.

What can you say about casting the film?

The main three actors – two of them were graduates of Collins that had acted in some student films. I knew that they could do it. But this was they're first big film project. Most of the other parts were filled by local well-known actors around here. Shane Black, who plays the father, is pretty much in every independent film around here. [But] most were first-timers.

What do you hope people will take away from this movie?

Honestly, my entire intention was to bring awareness to the dangers of using rhetoric that is borderline hate and even crosses the line into hate speech. I think here's a lot of talk show hosts that use the political issue of immigration to spread hate speech. That can be dangerous – obviously we're demonstrating a danger that is much more palpable and physical.

How did you go about getting distribution for this film?

We played at some film festivals last fall. And then we just started putting the word out to potential distributors. We went through various iterations of interest and non-interest until we settled on York Distributors. They're really good mass distributors and they specialize in distributing directly to DVD. Of course the brick and mortar stores pick and choose based on the internet sales. […] On Amazon, we jumped up 59,000 spots and we're hoping that maybe we can crack the top 1,000.