 NEWS BYTES
Officials in Palisades Park, New Jersey have uncovered a network of boarding houses that charged immigrants, mostly Koreans, up to ,100 a month for very small spaces. Officials began investigative five houses after one of the residents inadvertently dialed 911 while trying to make an international phone call. Inspectors found numerous code violations at each home, problems that could have been fatal in the event of a fire.
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Pharmacy industry experts say that with the increasing number of prescriptions that need to be filled, and a decreasing number of US trained pharmacists, it may be necessary to begin hiring workers from other countries. Some experts say that there is currently a shortage of about 7,000, nearly seven percent of the 106,000 pharmacists employed in the US.
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Officials in McHenry County, Illinois, just outside Chicago, are investigating the possibility of using the old county jail as an INS detention facility. Currently, the facility is used for storage. In about three months, the county will present the INS with a renovation plan, which the INS will review and use to decide whether to pay for the renovations and use the facility. Up to 72 people could be held there, with the facility making about .4 million a year.
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More than two dozen members of the House of Representatives recently presented a letter to President Bush urging him to grant Temporary Protected Status to Colombians in the US. Colombia is in the midst of a decades long civil war, a war that appears to have no end in sight, particularly in light of the US backed Plan Colombia, which has poured more than .5 billion into the country.
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Shawn P. Moran, a Border Patrol agent, filed a lawsuit last week against two of his supervisors. Moran claims they gave him unfavorable job performance reviews because of his activities as a union steward. According to the lawsuit, one review said “Agent Moran routinely made disparaging remarks about his superiors in his chain of command.” The review also criticized Moran’s use of radio and the Internet to discuss Border Patrol policy.
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Justin Pritchard, a reporter with the Associated Press, is looking for information about how often and in what situations the INS sedates deportees. He can be reached at jdpritchard@ap.org.
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In a surprising occurrence, almost none of the Hondurans and Nicaraguans eligible for an extension of Temporary Protected Status have applied for those extensions. Usually, the INS is overwhelmed by the applications.
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