The Washington Times reported that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a House Appropriations homeland security subcommittee that the Bush administration is beginning to “turn the tide against illegal immigration”.   

Chertoff also defended the department’s third management reorganization in its four year history and said Bush’s $35 million dollar budget request for the department’s 2008 operation is “sound, sensible and ample,” however lawmakers said the 1 percent increase over 2007 spending falls short. Apprehension rates for illegal aliens have fallen significantly over the past year with U.S. Border Patrol agents making nearly 100,000 fewer arrests. “This reflects less flow, not less success,” Chertoff said.  

Rep. John Culberson, Texas Republican, said morale is a problem among Border Patrol agents, especially after the felony convictions of agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, who were found guilty by a jury in Texas for shooting a drug smuggling suspect and illegal alien in the buttocks. Culberson said agents are now thinking twice “before they draw their weapon in defense of themselves or their country, and that’s a dangerous situation.”  Chertoff said the department supports its agents 110 percent, “as long as they follow the rules in good faith, we will back them to the hilt.”  

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According to the Los Angeles Times, the New Orleans police department issued a directive prohibiting officers from arresting people they suspect are in the country illegally after a traffic stop. The directive is a reaction to a Louisiana statue which makes it a felony for ‘alien students’ and ‘nonresident aliens’ to drive a vehicle without documentation proving that they are in the United States legally.  

The law was intended to prevent potential terrorists from acquiring driver’s licenses or using the highway to commit crimes, but since Hurricane Katrina it has been used to stop and detain Latinos, many of whom came to the city seeking work following Katrina. Attorneys for the drivers arrested feel the state law is invalid because it regulates immigration which is the domain of the federal government.  

While police officials deny using racial profiling, a judge in the recent court case of Juan Herrera-Olvera determined that his arrest was made “without probable cause, because it was a result of a selective enforcement policy, profiling, targeting and arresting Latino drivers.” Melissa Crow, Gulf Coast policy attorney for the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center , said the New Orleans police directive was “a welcome development”, but she “hopes it won’t take a separate court decision in every parish, for every police chief to issue the same directive.”  

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Newsday reports that police and immigration agents shut down 19 money-wiring businesses in Jackson Heights and Corona for allegedly laundering drug money. This sent shock waves through the area where the businesses serve as lifelines for many immigrants in those communities who send money home to their families.  

Most residents said they would look for more established agencies where they don’t have to worry about getting caught up in illegal schemes. However, many don’t have the legal identification papers banks require and have no other choice than to use the remitting stores. Pedro Acosta, a marketing consultant, said he believed “many immigrants will now be far more careful where they go to wire their money home. They are going to have doubts where to put their money because of lack of confidence.”  

The day following the raids Gallegos Courier, a more established business, reported a bump in business due to other businesses in the neighborhood being closed. The normal number of 10 to 15 clients they get a day was doubled. 

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