Bush May Extend Immigrant Deadline
By Sonya Ross
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush urged Congress to extend a deadline for illegal immigrants to remain in the United States while they pursue legal residency.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the president was sending a letter to House and Senate leaders Tuesday expressing his support for extending the deadline to take advantage of a temporary regulation change that spared illegal immigrants from having to travel to their home countries before seeking a green card.
Typically, illegal immigrants who leave the United States are barred from returning for up to 10 years.
The original deadline passed at midnight Monday. Immigration offices around the country were flooded with last-minute requests.
Several bills are pending in Congress to address the problem, and Fleischer said Bush supports extending the deadline so that many immigrant families can remain intact. The White House estimated that an extension would affect about 200,000 people.
"The president is very concerned about what would happen to families of immigrants ... who would be forced to separate from their loved ones," Fleischer said. "The president stands on the side of these immigrants and their families."
Bush was sending letters to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. He plans to work with lawmakers to determine how long the extension should last, Fleischer said.
"He wants to sign legislation to protect these immigrants," Fleischer said.
The new law, which took effect in December, will assist approximately 640,000 illegal immigrants. To apply, an immigrant must be sponsored by an employer or by a close relative who is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident.
Ziglar Choice Puzzles USCIS Watchers
Bush's pick to head the agency has no experience in immigration
By Dena Bunis and Minerva Canto
The Orange County Register
WASHINGTON -- As news of James Ziglar's selection as immigration commissioner got around late Friday, the most frequent reaction was, "Who is he?" "I don't know this guy," said Newport Beach attorney Mitch Wexler, who heads the nation's second largest chapter of American Immigration Lawyers Association in Southern California. "No one I've spoken to seems to know who he is."
Hearing reports that Ziglar, named by President George W. Bush, might be a friend of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott prompted Wexler to visit Lott's Web site, but he didn't learn much about Lott's views on immigration.
Ziglar, in fact, was in the same church choir as Lott during high school.
And while few Americans probably recognize his name, some might remember a historic role he played when on Jan. 8, 1999, he called the Senate to order for the impeachment of President Clinton.
Immigration advocates in Washington are fearful that his lack of any experience with immigration issues will set back immigration policy. But others say what the beleaguered agency needs most is good management.
"I'm more interested in seeing whether he upholds his offices and enforces our laws," said Barbara Coe, head of the Huntington Beach-based California Coalition for Immigration Reform and co-author of Proposition 187. "I like what I hear about his former management experience."
As Senate sergeant at arms, Ziglar's job involves mostly protocol and law enforcement. A lawyer, he has a background in government and finance, and while at the Department of the Interior for two years he helped reorganize several of its functions.
"This is someone with a lot of managerial experience," said Frank Bean, an immigration scholar at the University of California, Irvine. "It's kind of consistent with the Bush administration," which has brought in many people who are good managers but don't have a background in the fields they are going to manage.
If he is confirmed by the Senate, Ziglar will not be the only commissioner without an immigration portfolio. Two of the past three USCIS chiefs had a blank slate on immigration.
Gene McNary, a St. Louis county commissioner, was USCIS chief under former President George Bush. Before him, Commissioner Alan Nelson was a California lawyer with close ties to President Reagan.
"Immigration is one of the biggest issues facing America, and it's amazing that this gentleman has no experience having worked with these issues," said Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana. "These issues are very complicated, very nuanced, and affect families every day."
Maybe the agency has had so many problems over the years, Sanchez said, because "it doesn't have people at the top who really understand what's going on." The most recent commissioner, Doris Meissner, had a long career in immigration policy.
Despite that, USCIS was often under siege during her tenure.
Long backlogs for naturalization, a scandal surrounding the citizenship of thousands without adequate criminal background checks and a recent audit that said USCIS couldn't account for hundreds of weapons in its possession plagued the agency.
Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration group, said the selection of Ziglar "reflects the generally low priority that immigration has consistently had from both political parties. Nobody really wants to touch immigration."
James Ziglar Has a Good Reputation as a Senate Staff Supervisor but Lacks
Immigration Experience
By Frank Davies
The Philadelphia Inquirer
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's choice to supervise the overhaul of the nation's immigration agency is the U.S. Senate sergeant-at-arms, known for his fairness and managerial experience.
But he has no background in immigration issues.
Activists on all sides of immigration policy reacted with concern yesterday to the nomination of James Ziglar, 55, to be the next commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Ziglar, 55, a close boyhood friend of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, has served since 1998 as the Senate's chief administrator, supervising a staff of more than 750 with an annual budget of $120 million.
A Washington lawyer in the 1970s, Ziglar jumped into the financial-services industry in the 1980s, and served as managing director of Paine Webber, now UBS PayneWebber, in New York for eight years. He also served a brief stint as an assistant secretary of the Interior Department, overseeing the Bureau of Mines and U.S. Geological Survey.
"Jim Ziglar is an experienced manager who will work diligently to reform the BCIS," President Bush said in a statement announcing the nomination late Friday. "His history of overseeing large organizations and tackling management challenges makes Jim an excellent choice."
Ziglar's nomination, which will require Senate confirmation, ran into skepticism from immigration lawyers and activists.
"I don't think you'd put someone in charge of the IRS who doesn't know tax law, or someone to head the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] who doesn't know securities law," said Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
"This is a potentially distressing signal to the people who most depend on immigration services," Butterfield added.
A spokesman for another group that wants to crack down on illegal immigration and beef up enforcement said he was "concerned by Ziglar's lack of experience."
"We're looking for a manager who can hit the ground running," said David Ray, associate director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "Immigration is out of control and this agency is in crisis. We just hope he has the management experience to do the job."
Bush has said he wants to revamp the USCIS and divide it into two agencies - one for enforcement, concentrating on illegal immigration, the other for service, working with legal immigrants. Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum, which defends immigrants' rights, said she was withholding judgment on Ziglar: "The key is going to be whether he
surrounds himself with top policy people."
Investigative Series on USCIS Wins Pulitzer
The Portland Oregonian won the 2001 Public Service Pulitzer Prize for its six-part investigative series on the BCIS. The series focused on due process abuses, including the retroactivity and mandatory detention provisions of IIRAIRA, and detention of asylum seekers. It also looked at other problems, such as the loss of files, poor training, low pay, and little discipline of agency workers, as well as USCIS reorganization proposals. This is a link to the entire series: http://www.oregonlive.com/ins/
Flush Times for Coyotes
By Jeremy Schwartz
The Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times
FALFURRIAS, Texas -- Sometime after 1 a.m. on a recent morning, federal agents put four men under surveillance at a Falfurrias motel, a place on the edge of town known as a popular meeting spot for undocumented immigrants and the people who smuggle them north.
In the motel parking lot, the agents found three pickups and a van, each with keys in the ignition and the rear seats removed. Filled water jugs were on the floor.
The scene fit the classic profile of an immigrant smuggling case, in which immigrants are smuggled across the Rio Grande, then through the brush surrounding the checkpoints such as the one in Falfurrias, and finally picked up for their final rendezvous, usually Houston.
The suspected smugglers at the motel were arrested and brought to the checkpoint where Border Patrol agents tried to build a case against them.
Such cases are booming along the Texas-Mexico border.
Arrests of coyotes, or immigrant smugglers, have increased 129 percent over last year, according to U.S. Border Patrol officials in the McAllen sector, which stretches from Brownsville to Zapata County's Falcon Lake to Victoria.
Relying on coyotes
While increased focus on finding and prosecuting coyotes explains some of the rise in the numbers, some Border Patrol officials as well as critics of the agency say the squeezing of the border has forced more immigrants than ever into the arms of human smugglers.
"With the beefing up of Border Patrol at the border, it's very possible more people are turning to smugglers," said Nestor Rodriguez, co-director for the Center for Immigration Research at the University of Houston.
The Border Patrol's strategy over the last decade has been to amass agents in urban border areas, forcing would-be immigrants into more isolated areas and away from cities like Brownsville and El Paso.
The strategy has worked, inasmuch as illegal immigration in those cities has slowed to a trickle. But by being forced into outlying areas, immigrants have had to rely on the expertise of coyotes who know the terrain.
"In terms of crossing, people are turning to coyotes more because they can't just cross in downtown Matamoros," said Nathan Selzer, a representative for the Harlingen-based immigrant advocacy group Proyecto Libertad. $2,000 per immigrant
While in Mexico recently, Selzer spoke with a coyote about the Border Patrol's Operation Rio Grande strategy, which massed agents in Brownsville. "He said 'mucho mas negocio.' It's definitely good for business," Selzer said.
Said Jesse Jimenez, a Border Patrol spokesman for the McAllen sector: "Ever since Operation Rio Grande, it's been more difficult, so people are paying more to get past the checkpoints."
According to Jimenez, prices for a trip from the Mexican side of the border to Houston have risen some 900 percent since the operation's inception in 1997, from $200 to as much as $2,000 per immigrant. Prices for Central and South American immigrants can approach $10,000.
Eligio Peña, assistant-agent-in-charge of the Falfurrias station, said apprehensions of non-Mexican immigrants have increased sharply recently, bringing even more money into smugglers' coffers.
'It's not safe'
A 23-year-old immigrant from Antiguo Cuscatlan in El Salvador, who would identify himself only as Carlos, said the going price from his country is $7,000, half of which is usually paid in advance.
"But it's not safe," he said. "They'll leave you on the road or you can get robbed by Mexican customs."
Law enforcement officials said smuggling rings have evolved into well-disciplined organizations that can approach the level of some drug cartels. Mervyn M. Mosbacker, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said some smuggling operations use sophisticated tracking equipment and are structured to reduce their vulnerability to law enforcement.
"We've dealt with some highly organized organizations that are very disciplined," Mosbacker said. "They generally have someone in charge and people directly under him or her in charge of different aspects. Then they hire drivers and guides. Some operate on both sides of the river."
The drug connection
Some smuggling groups are linked with drug cartels, using the same routes and smuggling methods, Mosbacker said. And because penalties for human trafficking are generally much lower than for drug smuggling, some drug smugglers may be making the switch to the increasingly lucrative coyote business.
"The cost-benefit analysis might lead someone to smuggle aliens rather than drugs," he said.
And like drug smuggling rings, immigrant smugglers have a violent edge, officials said.
"There's violence against persons who would be a threat to the organization, either competitors or people cooperating with law enforcement," Mosbacker said. "Then there's violence against the aliens, either predatory violence . . . or holding aliens hostage while they demand payment from a third party."
Another byproduct is a kind of enslavement of smuggled immigrants. "It's rare to pay all at once," Selzer said. "They get smuggled into Houston where there's a job waiting for them until they pay off their debts. Basically it's indentured servitude. It's a big business."
'Big business'
But while smuggling arrests are on the rise, apprehensions of the undocumented immigrants the coyotes bring into the country have dropped all along the border by about 20 percent.
For example, apprehensions in the McAllen sector have dropped by 23 percent compared to last year, while arrests of smugglers has gone up 129 percent.
Border Patrol officials struggle to explain the unexpected decrease in apprehensions. Tomas P. Zuniga, of the Dallas regional Border Patrol office, said there may be a variety of factors slowing illegal immigration, including the effectiveness of the Border Patrol strategy and the hope of would-be immigrants that newly elected President Vicente Fox will turn the Mexican economy around.
Caught at checkpoints
"Or it could be they are coming in unenforced areas and placing their lives in an unknown entity: smugglers," he said.
That rationale might explain why agents at the Falfurrias checkpoint are busier than ever, even as apprehensions at the border plummet. Immigrants and their smugglers have learned new routes to avoid agents on the border, but haven't figured out how to get past the checkpoints, some officials have hypothesized.
"We're trying to explain it and of course we're having a little problem," Zuniga said. "But we need to understand it so we can effectively deploy our agents." Officials in Falfurrias have asked for additional agents, but as of yet reinforcements have not arrived. Zuniga and Jimenez said that if the trends of the last few months continue - in which apprehensions at the checkpoint increased 17 percent while falling in the rest of the sector - more agents will be deployed in Falfurrias.
Repeat offenders
Some immigrants say that fewer immigrants are coming across because the Border Patrol has become more vigilant in prosecuting repeat offenders. With the prospect of jail time, immigrants have become wary of coming across, said Antonio Garcia, a 22-year-old Michoacan native recently arrested by Border Patrol agents in Falfurrias. "They don't want to risk coming because they could be sent to jail," he said from inside a detention cell.
Selzer said the policy of stricter prosecution may convince more immigrants to stay in the United States instead of returning home because they don't want to risk multiple crossings. "(The policy) could have the opposite effect of what was intended," he said. "People aren't leaving here."
Professor Rodriguez agrees. "There's a clear buildup on the U.S. side of migrants who would normally go back and forth without papers," he said. "Many people find it impossible to return and that accounts for some of the drop."
Several officials have theorized that renewed optimism under Fox has convinced some immigrants to stay in Mexico and wait for an improving economy. That idea draws smirks inside the detention cell at the Falfurrias checkpoint.
"It's a disaster. There's the same poverty," said 48-year-old Pedro De Leon from San Luis Potosi. "So much is lacking and to get better takes a long time. You do everything for your family."
H-1B Applications Unexpectedly down
By Diane Rezendes Khirallah
Information Week
Applications for H-1B visas in February were down roughly 50 percent from the same month last year, in sharp contrast to expectations by IT leaders and the U.S. Congress.
Statistics released by the Immigration and Naturalization Service show there were 16,000 filings for H-1B visas in February, compared with 32,000 in February 2000.
But a spokeswoman for the USCIS cautions against reading too much into that figure. "It can be deceptive," she says, unless the sharp increase in applications by employers in December-the last month when the fee was $500 per H-1B employee-is taken into account. The fee went up to $1,000 per employee on Jan. 1. The demise of many dot-coms doesn't appear to be having a major effect on the program. Most of the top 100 companies using H-1B visas are major companies, according to the BCIS. The top six are Cisco, Intel, Mastech, Microsoft, Motorola, and Oracle. Others include IT-heavy consulting firms such as KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Association of America, an IT trade organization, favors increasing H-1B visas. He argues that business demand this year will exceed the previous 115,000 limit, making last year's cap increase to 195,000 necessary.
But the Council for Economic Development, a research policy organization, opposes more H-1B visas, on the grounds that they "threaten to intensify the burden on an already-inefficient system." The council's reform plan calls for mandating a three-year visa term and auctioning additional visas when market demand exceeds the annual limit.
Immigrant Deadline Extension Is Sought
By Mae M. Cheng
Newsday
With two weeks left for immigrants to take advantage of a legal provision allowing them to become permanent residents without first having to leave the United States, a bipartisan group of New York elected officials yesterday urged a six-month deadline extension.
Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) last month introduced a bill in Congress that would extend the deadline for Section 245(i) of the immigration laws through October. King and other co-sponsors of the legislation said yesterday that they were optimistic the bill would be passed soon.
"This is a fair bill," Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola) said. "It's a family bill...It's the right bill." Currently, immigrants who were in the United States as of Dec. 21, 2000, and whose family members or employers sponsor them to remain permanently in the United States, can become legal residents without having to leave the country if their forms are filed by April 30.
This form of protection is of particular importance to immigrants who have been illegally in the United States for more than 180 days. Current immigration laws bar such immigrants from returning to the United States for several years if they ever leave.
While immigration officials have estimated that about 640,000 people nationally could be eligible to take advantage of Section 245(i), elected officials yesterday argued that many immigrants do not have enough time to get their family petitions or labor certifications filed by the end of the month.
"We know hundred of thousands of people who are eligible won't be able to get their applications in," said Gov. George Pataki, who had urged the New York congressional members to sponsor legislation extending the deadline. Pataki, speaking at a Woodside news conference with other officials, said he is not ready to support a permanent extension of Section 245(i) but believes that a six-month extension "makes a lot of sense." Twenty congressional members have signed onto King's bill.
"It's the least we can do," said Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights), one of the bill's co-sponsors.