The United Nations High Commission on Refugees has asked the Bush administration to grant Temporary Protected Status to citizens and nationals of Colombia residing in the US. Advocates say that not only does the decades-long civil war that shows no sign of ending, the country is enveloped in a serious humanitarian crisis with random violence permeating all areas of the country.

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Officials in Florida recently raided a series of gift shops believed to be engaged in money laundering, dealing in fraudulent immigration documents, and employing undocumented immigrants. Five people, all owners of the raided businesses, have been indicted, primarily on charges of employing people unauthorized to work in the US.

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This week the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard arguments in a case seeking to end the government’s practice of withholding the names of those immigrants who were detained in connection with the investigation into the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. While most of the more than 1,200 people detained have been released and deported, experts estimate that more than 30 people remain in detention. A trial court earlier rejected the government’s argument that releasing the information would compromise the investigation.

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The outgoing US ambassador to Mexico, Jeffrey Davidow, recently warned that by continuing to push for major immigration reform, the Mexican government is risking alienating the US and possibly doing long term damage to relations between the two countries. However, a White House spokesperson recently said that the US remains committed to working with Mexico on migration issues.

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Twenty-one workers are the Newark Liberty International Airport have been accused of using fraudulent immigration documents to secure jobs that allowed them access to restricted security areas, according to officials who completed a background check. Officials say that while the workers will be prosecuted, there is no suspicion that any of them had terrorist connections.

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A federal judge recently ruled that the law requiring all airport baggage screeners to be US citizens is unconstitutional and issued an injunction against the enforcement of the law. The Justice Department maintains that the ruling applies only to the workers who were plaintiffs in the case, and not to any of the other estimated 8,000 people who will lose their jobs because of the law, which went into effect this week.

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The Center for Immigration Studies, a research organization favoring reduced immigration, recently issued a report blaming the Internal Revenue Service for making it easy for undocumented immigrants to work in the US. The IRS will issue a federal taxpayer identification number to anyone who asks, because it wants to collect taxes from as many people as possible. According to CIS, undocumented immigrants take this number and use it to obtain other official documents. They say that since September 11^th, the goal of collecting taxes should be subordinated to tax collection. Immigrant advocates say that it should be possible for immigrants who want to pay taxes to do so, even if they are undocumented. The report is available online at http://www.cis.org/articles/2002/back1202.pdf.

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It was recently revealed that Iraqis living in the US have been targeted for special surveillance in an effort to uncover terrorist organizations in the US. Many Iraqis find this an odd use of resources, arguing that there are few groups more opposed to Saddam Hussein than those who have fled his dictatorship.

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Three contractors who provided labor to citrus growers were sentenced to 12 years in prison this week. They had been convicted last summer on charges that they enslaved undocumented immigrants and forced them to work.

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This week saw a number of arrests at airports as officials continue to try to ensure that workers with security clearances are authorized to work in the US. At the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, 63 people were arrested for misusing Social Security numbers, and another 53 were arrested for immigration violations. At airports in the New York City area, 118 people were arrested. Since Operation Tarmac began nearly a year ago, about 800 people have been arrested. None of them have had any links to terrorism.

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According to a new report from the General Accounting Office, the INS has been unable to locate more than half of the 4,000 people the government sought to interview about the September 11 terrorist attacks. The apparent reason for this is the failure in the past to enforce the requirement that nonimmigrants keep the INS informed of their current address. Because the INS lacks the resources to prosecute people who fail to comply, in comments to the report the Justice Department suggested increasing the penalties for noncompliance. The report is available online at http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?gao-03-188.