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4. Border and Enforcement News:   U.S. and Mexico Resume Migrant Repatriation Flights   Reuters reports the resumption of an annual program of voluntary repatriation flights to take Mexican illegally present immigrants nabbed in the Arizona desert back to their homes in the Mexican interior, authorities said.  The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency stated in a news release that the goal of the program is to save lives while disrupting Mexican human smuggling networks.  The most common cause of death for the 249 people who perished after crossing into Arizona last year was heat exposure in the summer months.  Participants are flown to Mexico City from Tucson International Airport.  Once in Mexico, they are taken by bus to their hometowns.   http://news.yahoo.com/u-mexico-resume-migrant-repatriation-flights-230215033.html   *****   DHS: Backlog Records of 1.6 Million Foreigners Has Been Cut by Half   ExecutiveGov reports that a department of Homeland Security official recently told a Senate panel the unchecked records backlog of 1.6 million potential visa overstays has been reduced by more than half.  The US-VISIT program, a digital finger print system, has revealed 843,000 of the 1.6 million records belong to individuals who are no longer in the country or who have applied for a different visa status.   http://www.executivegov.com/2011/07/dhs-backlog-records-of-1-6-million-foreigners-has-been-cut-by-half/   *****   FBI Upgrades Database to More Quickly Deport Violent Immigrants   Nextgov.com reports that the federal government plans to use an upgraded FBI biometric database to identify dangerous undocumented immigrants for possible deportation more quickly and accurately, according to internal agency documents.  The new “Next Generation Identification” system is meant to support the DHS Secure Communities Program with faster fingerprint processing times and increased accuracy.  In cooperating cities it now takes police less than 20 seconds to compare the prints of a person they stop on the road to the 2 million sets stored in the database of terrorists, sex offenders and others.  Civil liberties groups still express concern that quicker responses from the FBI will not resolve long-standing errors within DHS’ database.   http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/fbi-upgrades-database-to-more-quickly-deport-violent-immigrants-20110719   ***** Drunken Driving, Traffic Crime Deportations Way Up   The Associated Press reports that huge increases in deportations of people after they were arrested for breaking traffic laws helped the Obama administration set a record last year for the number of criminal immigrants forced to leave the country, documents show.  The spike in the numbers of people deported for traffic offenses as well as a 78 percent increase in people deported for immigration-related offenses renewed skepticism about the administration’s claims that it is focusing on the most dangerous criminals.  Immigration advocates worry about local law enforcement’s greater involvement in immigration enforcement because of new programs that encourage it.  Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the AP that the percentage of felons deported will change over time, noting that “the more serious offenders are still in prison.”   http://hosted2.ap.org/APDefault/*/Article_2011-07-22-Criminal%20Immigrants/id-13d0dea3fa2548259f4aa115e0a16d8a   *****   Immigration Fines Cost 14 New England Companies                                                                              The Boston Globe reports that following ICE audits of federal I-9 forms, fourteen New England companies were fined a combined $285,000 during the past fiscal year for failing to document that their workers were in the country legally, federal authorities announced yesterday.  While none of the 14 companies appealed, some negotiated lesser fines; others agree to pay the initial amount ordered.  Nationally, ICE says nearly 4,000 businesses have been fined nearly $7 million combined on such violations.   http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-22/news/29803798_1_fine-amounts-lesser-fines-illegal-immigrants   *****   Four Criminal Immigrants Plead Guilty to Bribing ICE Employee   U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that four convicted criminal immigrants pleaded guilty in federal district court in Atlanta to bribing an ICE employee to alter their reporting requirements and criminal histories. In August 2010 one defendant approached an ICE Enforcement and Removal Assistant (ERA) and offered to pay her $1,500 to cancel his reporting requirement.  The ERA immediately reported the offer to ICE special agents and other investigators and then began to work in an undercover role.  In April 2011, four individuals were indicted; all plead guilty and now await sentencing with max sentences ranging from five to ninety-five years in prison.   http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=36526   *****

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