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NEWS  BYTES
The government of Santa Clara County, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley, has begun a unique program designed to improve the lives of area immigrants.  The program, called the Summit on Immigrant Needs, is run by the county’s Citizenship and Immigration program, and will last for 18 months.  Recently 20,000 surveys were mailed to immigrants, and volunteers are conducting door-to-door interviews to find out exactly what services immigrants need.  It is hoped that the project will lead to the creation of better programs for immigrants, and will help make area businesses and services more responsive to the needs of immigrants. 
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The US and Portugal have reached an agreement that will ease the removal of deportees from both countries.  The cause for concern was the increasing number of Portuguese citizens being deported from the US after the 1996 immigration law.  Many of them chose to return to the Azores, an island group off the coast of Portugal.  Many residents of the islands were upset about this, as the islands had almost no crime and most of those deported had committed violent crimes.  Now the US government will provide more advanced notice to the Portuguese government when Portuguese citizens are deported on the basis of criminal offenses. 
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A J-1 program for international trainees has just been started at the American Immigration Law Foundation.  The program will begin accepting applications next month.  Information on the program is not yet available, but when it is it will be available at www.ailf.org.  
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Rep. Jim Kolbe has asked the Clinton administration to provide more resources in the effort to stop unauthorized border crossings in Arizona.  The request came in the form of a letter telling the President that “unless many more agents and greater resources are immediately sent to southeastern Arizona, a tragedy will occur."  Kolbe wrote the letter after his requests to the INS and Justice Department for more enforcement did not change the situation. 
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Two of the most respected Hispanic advocacy organizations in the US, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDF), have issued statements criticizing the actions of US ranchers who detain illegal immigrants.  LULAC members in New Mexico have also announced their support of the efforts by the Mexican government to sue the ranchers.  The president of the Albuquerque LULAC chapter said of the detentions that “It’s just a semblance of the KKK in cowboy boots. It's appalling that it occurs in this day and age in our country.”  Rancher Roger Barnett, who has been responsible for the detention of over 2,000 migrants, and who is receiving increasing media attention, defends his actions.  According to Barnett, the problem rests with the Mexican government." 
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The first prosecution under a 1995 federal law banning travel abroad for the purposes of engaging in child sex has come to a successful conclusion.  Marvin Hersh, formerly a professor at Florida Atlantic University, has been sentenced to 105 years in prison for smuggling a Honduran boy into the US for sex.  He was convicted in March 1999 on ten counts of smuggling, fraud, and child pornography.  Because federal law requires people to serve at least 85% of their sentences, Hersh will spend a minimum of 89 years in prison. 
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In the one year since a federal court in Washington State ruled that indefinite detention was unconstitutional, the INS office in Seattle has released more than 160 people.  Fewer than five were rearrested, making the arguments of those who were opposed to such releases on the basis that the detainees would commit new crimes after being released seem less plausible.  
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Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) has proposed changes that would make the Charlotte, NC, INS office more responsive to applicants and would cut down on spiraling processing times.  The most important change would be to make the Charlotte office, which currently must clear funding with the Atlanta office, more financially autonomous.  The wait for citizenship at the office is among the longest in the country, more than XXX days. 
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The American Immigration Law Foundation is planning to sue the INS over the unacceptably long delays in processing I-140s.  If the suit is brought, the National Association of Manufactures will be a plaintiff along with AILF.