NEWS BYTES

On September 17, 1999 Robert O. Vicars was sworn in as an Immigration Judge in San Diego, California.  Mr. Vicars has been an attorney for the INS and Justice Department for 10 years, before which he was in private practice in California.  He is now the newest of over 200 Immigration Judges in 52 Immigration Courts in the U.S.  

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Lynne Underdown, currently the District Director of the INS office in New Orleans, has been named the newest chief patrol agent for the U.S. Border Patrol.  She is the first woman to hold this position in the history of the agency.  She will be in charge of the 55 agents in the South Florida district, which also covers Georgia, North and South Carolina.  Ms. Underdown began her career in the INS as a Border Patrol agent, and as District Director established an excellent working relationship with immigration advocates.  It is hoped that she will have the same positive impact in South Florida that she did in New Orleans.

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The Laredo Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol also has a new chief patrol agent, John W. Montoya.  Montoya brings 23 years of experience in the Border Patrol to his new position.  The Laredo sector covers 110,000 square miles, with 171 miles of border alone the Rio Grande, and extends northward into Oklahoma.  There are 691 agents assigned to the sector.  Montoya will be in charge of the westward expansion of Operation Rio Grande, a program designed to make undocumented border crossings more difficult.

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Quality Information Systems, Inc., which is headquartered in Troy, Michigan, and has offices in 21 cities, has been fined $450,000 for violations of the H-1B visa program. 

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At a meeting in late September between San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and members of the Latino immigrant community, the mayor heard stories about the fears in which many immigrants live, and assured them he would do all he could to improve their situation. Immigrants spoke of their daily fear of raids and deportation, as well as the harassment they suffer at the hands of local law enforcement. Mayor Brown told them that he “will use every bit of my political power, with your help, to demonstrate every injustice committed by the INS against the people of this city.”

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