Home > The Border Line > Archives > 2008 > May > 16
Friday, May 16, 2008
Immigration will heat up in Congress next week
The issue of immigration will heat up in Congress next week as the Senate debates an amendment that would give five year visas to agricultural workers who are in the United States illegally.
The amendment — by Sen. Dianne Feinstein — was passed Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee as an amendment to a large spending bill to fund the Iraq War.
“This amendment provides a consistent, stable workforce for an industry that depends almost exclusively on undocumented labor - agriculture,” Feinstein said. “And it provides temporary status for those who have worked in agriculture and who will continue to work in agriculture for a number of years.”
In addition, she said: “This is not amnesty. It is an emergency agricultural worker bill, which will give protected status to those workers who have worked in agriculture within the last 48 months.”
Read Feinstein’s press release here.
Another immigration measure, that would allow more H-2B temporary visas for low-skilled non-agricultural workers, was also approved by the committee as a part of the Iraq spending bill.
Permalink | Comments (9) | Post your comment
Border mayors sue to stop border fence in Texas
Mayors from several Texas border cities filed a class action lawsuit Friday against Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to stop the building of a border fence along the Rio Grande.
The lawsuit alleges that Chertoff violated the rights of land owners along the border by failing to negotiate a “reasonable” price to gain access to their property, a requirement mandated by law.
It also said that Chertoff gave preference to politically connected land owners from having to turn over their property to build the fence while coercing others to sign waivers.
“We will not sit idly by while our property is seized by the federal government to build an expedient, but useless, expensive and potentially damaging wall across the Texas-Mexico border,” said Chad Foster, mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security said the accusations are false.
“We’ve nearly bent over backward to work with landowners. Accusations to the contrary are either ill-informed or just plain wrong,” said Laura Keehner, a spokeswoman for the agency.
Foster is the chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, a group of mayors and business leaders who have joined forces to oppose the border fence.
Read more here.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment
Amnesty International says Mexico aid should not be “blank check”
It seems Rep. Tom Tancredo isn’t the only one worried about the Merida Initiative, a plan to give hundreds of millions of dollars to Mexico and other Latin American countries to fight drug trafficking and violence.
Amnesty International USA said this week that the plan must include “strict accountability mechanisms” to make sure that the U.S. is not “condoning human rights abuses.”
“Aid for Mexico must not be a blank check for Mexican security forces that have been implicated in crimes like rape and torture,” said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. “If the authorization bill does not include strong human rights safeguards, the United States would be sending the wrong message to Mexican security forces at the beginning of this partnership, which could have grave consequences.”
Read the rest of the press release here.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
Many countries deal with illegal immigration
Many countries around the world are dealing with illegal immigration.
This week, Italian police announced that they arrested hundreds of suspected illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe, Albania, Greece, North Africa and China, according to Reuters.
They face charges ranging from illegal entry into Italy to prostitution, drug trafficking and robbery.
The arrests are “a sign of the new right-wing government’s determination to clamp down,” the article said.
Read more here.
