NEWS BYTES

Appearing at a recent swearing in ceremony for 3,000 new US citizens, Attorney General John Ashcroft praised the INS reorganization plan and pledged his support for it.  Saying that the plan would create “an INS that we won’t recognize,” Ashcroft seemed to indicate the most significant changes would be in enforcement, not services, saying prevention of criminal acts is the top Justice Department priority.

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A Brazilian couple living in Massachusetts this week pled guilty to charges of manufacturing and selling fraudulent green cards.  Izabel Guimarais was sentenced to 13 months in prison, and Ene Silva was sentenced to two years and nine months.  Both were also sentenced to two years of probation.  Both are in the US without authorization, and will likely be deported after finishing their sentences.

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Last week a Maryland couple was sentenced to nine years in prison on a conviction of enslaving a teenage girl from Cameroon.  Louisa Satia and Kevin Nanji were also ordered to pay the girl $105,306, an amount the judge called a conservative estimate of the amount the girl should have been paid.  The sentences were enhanced because the judge found that Satia and Nanji had obstructed justice by encouraging witnesses to lie.  The name of the victim is being withheld because she claims to have been sexually abused.

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The government of Cambodia recently gave the United Nations High Commission on Refugees permission to resettle about 900 Montagnard refugees from Vietnam.  It is likely they will be resettled in the US.  The Montagnard, a remote hill tribe, are primarily Christian.  The refugees arrived in Cambodia last year, claiming they were fleeing religious persecution.  The decision of the Cambodian government came in the face of demands by Vietnam that they be returned.

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This week 40 US families prepared to travel to Cambodia to finalize adoptions of Cambodian orphans and obtain visas for their new children.  Last December about 200 families in the process of adopting Cambodian children were disappointed when the INS announced that visas for children adopted in Cambodia would be denied because of concerns about selling babies.

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Last week the INS dropped its appeal in the asylum of a Haitian refugee who was a lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit challenging INS detention of Haitian asylum seekers.  Because the INS has filed a motion with the court seeking to have him dismissed as a plaintiff, many immigrant advocates are concerned that the grant of asylum was designed to get the judge hearing the lawsuit to dismiss it.  Ernest Moise was granted asylum by an immigration judge, but had remained in detention because the INS said it would appeal.  The agency dropped the appeal, clearing the way for Moise’s release.  Attorneys representing the class argue that even though Moise has been released, the basis for the suit – more than 200 Haitian asylum seekers who are in detention – remains.  The suit challenges a recent INS policy change in which Haitian asylum seekers are detained, a move the INS says is designed to discourage an influx of Haitians.

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Officials in California have arrested a mother and daughter on charges of immigration related fraud.  One of the women claimed to be an INS employee, and offered her assistance in helping undocumented immigrants obtain legal status in the US.  Authorities think they conned as much as $57,000 from 21 different people.  The pair face up to seven years in prison if convicted.

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Effective April 8, 2002, the State Department will no longer issue US passports at consulates and embassies abroad because of new security measures that overseas posts do not have the equipment to produce.  While the State Department is not releasing much information on the new security measures, one difference in the new passports is a digitized photograph of the bearer that is part of the passport page, rather than being laminated.

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This week the Executive Office for Immigration Review announced that people who have been granted conditional asylum based on coercive population control before December 17, 1999 are now eligible for full asylum.  The law limits the number asylum approvals for coercive population control to 1,000 a year, creating a backlog of people who have been granted conditional asylum.

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A North Carolina man pled guilty in February to charges of conspiring to provide support to Hezbollah, prosecutors revealed this week.  Prosecutors delayed announcing the plea until family members of Said Mohamad Harb, a US citizen originally from Lebanon, were moved from Lebanon to the US, which Harb requested in exchange for testimony against his co-conspirators.  According to prosecutors, the conspiracy smuggled cigarettes from North Carolina to other states and sold them on the black market, funneling the profits to Hezbollah, which the US government has designated as a terrorist organization.  Even if the judge accepts Harb’s plea agreement, he still faces up to ten years in prison.  The trial of the remaining co-conspirators is scheduled for later this month.

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This week four employees filed suit against Tyson Foods, Inc., claiming that Tyson knowingly hires undocumented immigrants in an effort to keep labor costs low.  The suit was filed under the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations statute, commonly known as RICO.  Originally designed as a weapon against organized crime, RICO has increasingly been used in cases similar to this.  The four plaintiffs, all US citizens, claim that Tyson’s employment of undocumented workers decreased their wages and led to substandard working conditions.  While the burden of proof in a RICO case is high, if found liable, the defendant must pay treble damages, a prospect that could lead employers to reconsider hiring undocumented workers. 

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This week a federal judge ruled that a Somali refugee could not be deported to Somalia because the government there has not officially said it will accept deportees.  Keyse Jama arrived in the US as a refugee in 1996, but lost his permanent residence because of a 1999 assault conviction.  The judge rejected INS arguments that the silence of the Somali government on the issue of deportees indicated willingness to accept them, saying that “the silence of a nonfunctioning government in a lawless territory -- with grave risks to the deported alien -- simply cannot constitute acceptance.”  While the decision applies only in this case, advocates hope that it will encourage the government to change its stance on deportations to Somalia.

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This week the Mexican Consul General in Texas met with regional officials from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to discuss agency plans to improve efforts to inform Spanish-speaking workers of their workplace rights.  Hispanics, who make up about 10.7 percent of the work force, account for 13.8 percent of job related fatalities.  Also, while overall workplace deaths dropped by two percent from 1999 to 2000, deaths among Hispanics increased by more than 11 percent.

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