 NEWS BYTES
This week President Bush met with Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo. Shortly after the meeting, Portillo told reporters that immigration had been a primary topic of discussion. Portillo said that he asked Bush to expand the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act to include Guatemalans. While the White House has not publicly commented on the meeting, Portillo said Bush “was very firm in saying the United States cannot fully open its doors to everyone wanting to work here, but he can look into ways of making the situation of those people already living here, regular.” There are an estimated two million Guatemalans in the US.
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A native of Jordan was sentenced last week to 18 months in prison for bribing an INS agent in an effort to secure a green card. Suray M.J. Mansour gave an INS agent 0 in 1995 for the green card. Along with the prison sentence, Mansour was also ordered to pay more than ,000 in restitution.
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Last month an immigration judge granted asylum to a French citizen who claimed that he was persecuted because of his role in uncovering a pedophilia ring. Karim Kamal was found to have acted as a “whistleblower,” uncovering corruption in the government of the city of Nice. He claimed that he discovered the ring after his young daughter became ensnared in it. Immigration officials say this is the first time a French citizen has been granted asylum in the US. The INS is debating whether to appeal the ruling. Meanwhile, Kamal and a group of children’s advocates are planning a march during the September United Nations summit on the rights of children to draw attention to the incident.
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A recent study by the Harvard University Immigration Project shows that 85 percent of immigrant children have spent time away from at least one parent during the family’s journey to the US, creating concern about the long-term impact of this disruption on the children’s development. More than 35 percent of the children had been separated from their fathers for five years or more. The study followed 407 immigrant children for three years. While the children were not given psychological evaluations, the study does show that the children suffer higher than average levels of depression.
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Federal investigators have issued subpoenas to at least three women who claimed to be sexually abused by INS employees at the Krome Detention Center near Miami, Florida. They are to testify before a federal grand jury later this month. Advocates are relieved by the subpoenas, having suspected for a number of weeks that the Justice Department had dropped the investigation into the abuse allegations.
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Last Friday, Mariano Faget was sentenced to five years in prison. Faget, who was born in Cuba, was employed by the INS for 35 years. In May 2000, he was convicted of spying for Cuba. He was found to have passed information to a Cuban media magnate, but maintained that it was an error in judgment, not espionage. While prosecutors had sought a ten-year sentence, the judge imposed a lesser sentence, noting that much of the information Faget had passed had been fabricated by the FBI as part of a sting operation.
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This week the country celebrated Independence Day, marking the 225th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. On July 4th, 46 people became United States citizens in a ceremony outside Washington, D.C.
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The Iraqi deputy permanent representative to the United Nations and a second Iraqi diplomat have applied for asylum in the US. Mohammed al-Humaimidi, the UN representative, appeared at a police station in New York City last week and told police that he wanted to apply for asylum. Fela Hesan al-Rubaie, who also represents Iraq at the UN, seems to have presented himself to the FBI last week. The Iraqi ambassador to the UN said that the appointments of both were expiring, but did not make a statement on whether they had defected. At this point, the INS is also not confirming whether the two have sought asylum in the US.
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The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that a contractor in Utah broke the law when it fired a group of Hispanic immigrants who had walked off the job last April. The complaint filed by the NLRB also alleges that several managers at Utah Structural Coatings, Inc. behaved illegally in threatening to report striking undocumented workers to the INS.
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A study published this week in the journal Pediatrics shows that more than one in ten refugee children in the US have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood. The study was conducted by the Refugee and Immigrant Health Program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Lead poisoning leads to a number of developmental problems, and in high enough levels can be fatal. The study notes that as lead poisoning has become less of a problem in the US, due in large part to the elimination of lead based paint, fewer states test for it. It suggests that states begin to test refugee children for lead poisoning. The study is available online at http://intl.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/abstract/108/1/158
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Last week the Supreme Court ruled that the INS cannot indefinitely detain deportable immigrants whose home countries refuse to take them back. Despite this ruling, more than 500 Cuban nationals who have been convicted of felonies and ordered deported remain in detention as the INS decides what to do. While attorneys say the ruling means that the INS must release them now, the INS says that it will study the ruling before making any decision.
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Last year Iowa governor Tom Vilsack announced a proposal to make the state more immigrant friendly. Three cities, Mason City, Fort Dodge and Marshalltown, were designated to receive ,000 from the state to develop ideas to attract immigrants, and then to share their ideas with communities in the rest of the state. Since the announcement of the plan, numerous anti-immigrant groups have targeted the state, and now it appears that many residents of the state are beginning to doubt the plan. Thousands of people in Mason City and Fort Dodge have signed petitions protesting the plan, particularly disputing the idea that the state needs immigrant workers to replace its own aging population. Despite these efforts, the City Council in Mason City this week approved the plan by a 4 to 1 vote, and the other cities involved are also expected to approve the plan.
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