A federal inspector at Newark Liberty International Airport last week pleaded guilty to taking a $4,000 bribe to help smuggle nearly 200 immigrants from India into the U.S.  He said he split the money with another inspector who is currently awaiting trial.

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British writer Ian McEwan received an official apology from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after being denied entry into the U.S. earlier this year.  McEwan had been seeking to come to Seattle for a speaking appearance when an American inspector refused him admittance to the U.S. at the Vancouver airport immigration processing center.

Immigration officials at the Vancouver airport had determined that the size of McEwan’s speaking fees were too large to be considered the honoraria that visitors are allowed to receive.  However, research at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations revealed that no current regulations determine the size limit of allowable honoraria.

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Community activists in Alabama are criticizing a sweep performed by federal immigration officials that resulted in the arrests of 27 day laborers in the city of Hoover last week. 

Hispanic community advocates in the area contend that the agents are only making blanket arrests and are not checking documents.  ICE agents told The Birmingham News that the arrests were the results of ongoing ICE investigations, and that the agency is still processing the detainees to find out the identities and backgrounds of each one.

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A crackdown on migrant smuggling has forced some involved in the practice to move to into communities that are not historically known as stopover points for undocumented immigrants, according to a statement by a Phoenix immigration official to the Associated Press last week.  Smugglers are now being prompted by the attention such immigrant transporting hubs such as Phoenix are receiving to move their business practices to Tucson and other communities in Arizona. 

The government wants to use the same approach in Los Angeles, San Diego and El Paso as they did in Phoenix, because tighter border enforcement in Arizona is expected to send illegal immigrants to other areas, according to officials in the ICE office in Phoenix.