June 30, 2007, 1:24AM
Immigration battle is moving to states
Local laws could widely vary from punishment to ’sanctuary cities’

By DAVE MONTGOMERY
McClatchy-Tribune

WASHINGTON — The collapse of congressional efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws is expected to dramatically accelerate an effort by state and local governments to take matters into their own hands to deal with the nation’s 12 million illegal immigrants.

The result, advocates on both sides of the issue say, could be a patchwork of laws and ordinances with vastly different approaches, ranging from measures harshly penalizing illegal immigrants and their employers to the spread of “sanctuary cities” that prohibit police from questioning suspects about their immigration status.

“There’s going to be a barrage of local laws dealing with immigration policy,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a leading sponsor of a White House-backed immigration bill that stalled in the Senate this week. “In some areas of the country, it will be sanctuary. In other areas of the country, if you look at someone who looks illegal, you can lose your business license.”

Senators voted 46-53 against a procedural motion Thursday to move toward a final vote on the bill, effectively killing — at least for now — a years-long push to repair what’s long been assailed as a broken immigration system. The outcome dealt an embarrassing defeat to President Bush, who’s made overhauling immigration law his top domestic priority.

Frustrated over what they perceive as federal foot-dragging, state and local governments already have been stepping up with remedies, a trend that’s almost certain to escalate in the void Congress left.

“If Congress is going to abdicate its responsibilities, then states and cities are going to jump in,” said John Gay, the senior vice president of the National Restaurant Association and the leader of a business coalition that backed the failed Senate bill. “One of the arguments for opposing state and local proposals is that Congress is addressing it. We don’t have that anymore.”

As of April, state legislators in all 50 states had introduced at least 1,169 bills and resolutions on immigration this year, more than twice the number introduced last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Many fell by the wayside but others made their way into law, underscoring the public’s growing intolerance of federal inaction.

Oklahoma lawmakers recently enacted a law that cuts off illegal immigrants’ access to driver’s licenses and many government benefits. A six-month-old Colorado law prevents employers from hiring illegal immigrants and requires them to affirm the legal status of employees.

Cities and towns also have gotten into the act. Farmers Branch, a Dallas suburb, drew national attention by enacting an ordinance that bans landlords from renting to illegal immigrants; the ban is being challenged in court. The town council of another Texas community — Oak Point, northwest of Dallas — narrowly approved a resolution declaring English the official language.

Other states and municipalities have displayed a more welcoming atmosphere. In the Cuban-American stronghold of South Florida, two cities and Miami-Dade County have embraced resolutions calling on the federal government to stop deporting undocumented immigrants.

Thirty-two cities and counties in 16 states — including Houston, San Francisco, Austin and Seattle — have adopted “sanctuary policies” protective of undocumented immigrants, according to the Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress.

With congressional leaders predicting that there’ll be no federal action on immigration at least through the rest of Bush’s presidency, conservative lawmakers in more than half the states are readying legislation to crack down on illegal immigration and enable local officers to enforce immigration laws.

Oh this one is just the cream of the crop. Not only are they protesting ICE raids to find Employers hiring Illegal Aliens (breaking the law), and arresting the illegals in this country (breaking the law), but they are trying to claim it now a “new civil rights movement”. I’m sorry but that is just a slap in the face to all Black-Americans across this country. But they also dare to demand an entire State be their Sanctuary.

I personally feel this is the bait. They stated they would have a violent encounter at their next march, and I feel this is a baiting by them to try to drive the American people out to counter them, then if they start any form of incident to twist it around so it is the “American peoples” fault and once again display themselves as a victim. I would suggest instead everyone print off as much of the materials citing violence, threats, invasion, take over etc as can be found and use their time wisely on that day to visit the nearest FBI office with a care package.

I have read so many reports like this that I have to question if they are all written from the same manuscript.  The twist on words at first was amusing, but I have come to understand it is not a mere slip of the tongue, but rather a controlled and deliberate attempt to alter the perception, and to hit upon the sympathy cords, of the American people to illegal aliens within American borders.  When you correct terminology to be accurate per our Nations Code of Law and Dictionary it gives a new meaning to what they are trying to say.
When you read this, remember those immigrants that are spoken of are illegal aliens, individuals that have chosen to defy our nations laws, refused to take the proper steps to legal immigration, have deliberately chosen to not go to a customs office and request protection in this country, and who knowing they were here illegally at no time made a single step towards working towards legal immigration or citizenship.  If they had taken any measures of respect for this country and its laws, we would not be in the position we are in now in this Nation and they would not be having to experience ICE raids at all.

http://www.la.indymedia.org/calendar/event_display_detail.php?event_id=6084

Title: Protest the gestapo kidnappings of I.C.E.
START DATE: 6/30/2007
START TIME: 12:00 PM
Duration: 3 Hours
Location: Santa Ana
Location Details:
Beginning at 12 Noon at the corner of
3rd and Grand in Santa Ana
Ending in a RALLY and PRESS CONFERENCE
At the Orange County Jail

* Stop the Kidnapping Raids
* Make California a Sanctuary State
* No More Second-Class Treatment
*

On June 25, an emergency meeting was held to respond to kidnapping raids
conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents and Orange
County Sheriff’s Deputies over the last week. One hundred and
seventy-five people were arrested in the raids. At the meeting, which
was attended by people from numerous organizations, a plan was launched
to march against the raids this Saturday June 30th to declare our
determination to stop the raids and to spread the new civil rights
movement that was born in the marches and walkouts for immigrant rights
last year.

We will march through the streets of Santa Ana saying enough, no more
of the raids terrorizing the people of the Latino/a community of Orange
County – no more racial profiling and splitting up of families. Young
and old from different communities, churches and organizations – raise
their voices and expose the moral bankruptcy of these kidnapping raids.
Our movement is strong. On Saturday we must use our power and build the
strength of our movement. This is how we can stop the raids.

A society whose state resources are expended to break up families and
tear mothers and fathers out of the hands of their children must be
saved from its own moral depravity.

Millions of immigrants work, live and go to school under a cloud of fear
every day in California, fear that federal immigration officers will
drag off one of the people they love. The rank inhumanity of that policy
is becoming clear to more people. The mainstream media has begun to tell
the real story of families being split up and torn apart by the raids.
Churches across the country have joined the sanctuary movement.

More and more municipalities throughout California have recognized
officially what is increasingly obvious to millions of people,
immigrants, irrespective of official status play an integral,
indispensable and overwhelmingly positive part in our state, and in our
nation economically and socially. The cities across California and
across the country that have officially declared themselves as sanctuary
cities are simply recognizing a practical reality of modern economic
life. The new civil rights movement stands at the front of the effort to
achieve sanctuary status for cities and states all over. Our movement
and organization stands at the front of the effort to stop the
anti-immigrant raids.

People who are a contributing part of the society are citizens
regardless of where they come from, what forms they have filled out or
what government office they have waited in. The attack on Mexican and
other Latin American immigrants is just bigotry and racism. The
corrosive effect of having a section of people in a society with
separate, unequal and inferior legal rights is unacceptable. The new
immigrant rights and civil rights movement will fight and defeat any
attempt to impose an inferior double standard of rights on immigrants.

March on Saturday to stop the kidnapping raids! March on Saturday for an
end to second-class treatment! March on Saturday to demand full and
equal rights for all immigrants. March on Saturday to demand that our
entire state become a sanctuary for immigrants. Together we can win!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1996629.ece

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-thu_hanes_0628jun28,0,599100.story?coll=chi-business-hed

Hanesbrands plans to send more work overseas

From Tribune news services
Published June 28, 2007

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/4927184.html

June 28, 2007, 2:26AM
U.S., Mexico and Canada to protect threatened monarch butterflies, porpoises

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — The U.S., Mexico and Canada agreed to work together to protect the monarch butterfly, threatened in Mexico by illegal logging destroying its winter nesting grounds.

Meeting in the central Mexican state of Michoacan, where millions of butterflies spend the winter months, the three-nation Commission for Environmental Cooperation, or CEC, formally pledged Wednesday to support conservation initiatives for the monarch, according to a commission statement.

The statement did not offer details on the initiatives.

The monarch butterfly is not listed as endangered, but scientists say deforestation could threaten its existence.

The monarchs’ annual 3,400-mile journey from the forests of eastern Canada and parts of the United States to the central Mexican mountains is considered an aesthetic and scientific wonder.

The nations also agreed to joint efforts to aid the vaquita marina, a gray porpoise native to the Gulf of California. They are sometimes caught in fishing nets and their habitat is damaged by shrimp boats that trawl the sea floor.

Only 500 of the porpoises are thought to exist, environmentalists say.

The CEC — a panel set up by Mexico, the United States and Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement — also said it has launched a Google Earth mapping tool that lets users explore pollution data from more than 30,000 industrial facilities in the three countries.

http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=6706258