4. Border and Enforcement News:

Napolitano: ‘Now with enough border resources, time to reform’

The Washington Times reports that Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano has said that the current administration has ‘enough’ resources to secure the border in light of $600 million worth of allocated funds and should begin focusing on comprehensive immigration reform.  She predicts that the additional border security will create a decline in border crossings while increasing the seizure of illegal drugs, guns, and money.

Although Napolitano believes that the additional funds should appease critics that accuse the White House of not doing enough to secure the border, some GOP senators argue that the funds are insufficient.  Senators John McCain and Jim Kyl of Arizona have created a 10-point plan that includes increased funding for Operation Streamline, a program that reimburses Arizona’s border law enforcement for costs related to immigration and drug smuggling along the border.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/13/napolitano-border-spending-bill-signed-time-reform/

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Employer audits rise, individual arrests decrease under Obama

Fox News reports that while audits of employers have risen slightly when compared to the Bush administration, arrests of illegally present worker are down considerably since 2008.  Under Obama, employer audits are up 50 percent and fines have tripled to $3 million, but the number of arrests and deportations of illegally present workers has plunged by more than 80 percent.  So far in 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested 900 workers, compared to 6,000 in 2008.

Marshall Fitz, the director of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, has praised the administration’s policy to focus on criminal employers rather than target workers with high profile raids.  While the Bush administration claimed its high profile raids acted as a deterrent to both employer and employee, the Obama administration has decided not to focus their enforcement efforts against noncriminal workers.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/23/company-audits-illegal-worker-arrests-way/

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DHS reneges on biometric exit program

The Washington Times reports that The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not expected to implement a biometric exit system, a congressionally mandated program that would track the departure of foreign visitors to the U.S. through electronic fingerprint scans.  Instead, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is advocating a biographical solution that would gather the names of departing foreigners. 

In 2009, the United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT), a DHS system that collects electronic fingerprints from foreign visitors as they enter the country, employed a pilot biometric exit program in the Detroit and Atlanta airports.  ICE claims to have arrested 568 overstayers last year as a result of information provided by US-VISIT.  Those who remain after their visas expire represent nearly 40 percent of the estimated 11 million illegally present immigrants in the U.S.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/24/us-visa-violators-unlikely-to-be-fingered/

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U.S. moving to ease deportation policy

The Miami Herald reports that ICE released a memo on August 20^th instructing its legal office to halt deportation proceeding for noncriminal foreign nationals who may be eligible for a green card.  ICE deputy secretary Richard Rocha emphasized his agency’s policy of prioritizing the removal of foreign nationals who have criminal convictions and cited the record number of 150,000 convicted criminals removed from the U.S. in 2010.   The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC) has lauded this new policy of expediting the cases of law-abiding immigrants as a more efficient use of ICE resources and taxpayer dollars.

The memo potentially affects tens of thousands immigrants who are married or related to a U.S. citizen or legal resident who has filed a petition from them. The official memo is available online at: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/27immig_memo.pdf

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/27/1794349/us-moving-to-ease-deportation.html

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