Immigration Laws

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The contraption in a basement lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looks like a high school science project, but it was developed by two post-doctoral mechanical engineers. And it just might be a breakthrough that creates wealth and jobs in the United States and transforms the white-hot industry of oil and natural gas hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That is, as long as the foreign-born inventors aren't forced to leave the country. Anurag Bajpayee and Prakash Narayan Govindan, both from India, have started a company to sell the system to oil companies that are desperate for a cheaper, cleaner way to dispose of the billions of gallons of contaminated water produced by fracking.

Anthony D. Romero is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union The mean-spirited anti-immigrant laws of Hazleton, Pa., went on trial Monday. That judicial spotlight will expose the laws as misguided, unconstitutional and undemocratic. The laws would revoke the business permits of landlords who do not immediately evict anyone the city identifies as an "illegal alien"; they also would shut down businesses that did not immediately fire such persons. They would require anyone wanting rental housing to provide immigration documentation to the city.

Amid the debate over Arizona's tough new immigration-control law, two Pennsylvania legislators are weighing in. Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R., Butler) wants to follow Arizona's lead by giving state and local police the power to enforce federal immigration laws. Sen. Daylin Leach (D., Delaware-Montgomery) wants a bill forbidding the state from doing so, on the grounds that such laws usurp federal authority to regulate immigration and "encourage racial profiling. " Metcalfe, who will present his bill in a live webcast from Harrisburg Tuesday, said his "Arizona-modeled legislation" would help crack down on Pennsylvania's estimated 140,000 illegal immigrants.

I wonder what Sarah Greenberg would think about the latest twist to immigration laws. It would allow people to enter the United States if they have $2 million to invest and can employ 10 people. Sarah Greenberg didn't have $2 million when she got to the Port of Boston on February 10, 1921. She was 19-year-old Sarah Ackerman then and I wasn't even a twinkle in her eye. She did have a certain knowledge of the immigration laws, gained standing in line for days around the American Embassy in Warsaw.

Mention immigration and many Americans conjure up visions of desperate men, women and children sneaking across the Mexican border, wiggling their way into American jobs and onto welfare. It's not often one considers the northern border of the United States and how it contributes to the wave of legal and illegal immigration. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Canada is the fourth-largest source of illegal immigrants in the United States. And proposed changes in immigration laws, although aimed mostly at the southern border, will affect Canadians and the northern border as well.

The issues of welfare reform and immigration policy formed the meat and potatoes of this Sunday brunch. Three speakers made their cases at a Bread and Roses Community Fund meeting yesterday at a house in the city's Powelton Village section. They saw forthcoming changes in the welfare system and the tightening of U.S. immigration policy as "a general attack on poor people. " The Bread and Roses Community Fund, which disburses money to local groups seeking social change, held the discussion to "see how immigration policy and welfare reform impact on the poor" of Philadelphia, said Judy Claude, director of the group.

Immigrants and their supporters from throughout the region packed JFK Plaza in Center City yesterday in one of a series of rallies that drew hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of cities nationwide. At the Philadelphia rally, American flags were constantly waving and "God bless America" was chanted over and over again. Participants wore T-shirts proclaiming "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" and carried banners with such messages as "The only people that are not immigrants are the Native Americans.

The country's economy would buckle if undocumented workers were deported, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and a parade of witnesses told U.S. senators in Philadelphia yesterday. Their testimony at the National Constitution Center, offered during a rare Senate Judiciary Committee field hearing to discuss overhauling immigration laws, largely supported a Senate proposal to create a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, at a San Diego border-patrol station, U.S. House members who favor a bill that would make illegal immigrants felons held their own hearing devoted to national security risks posed by ill-enforced borders.

God knows Jesse Jackson likes a good march, but none of the newspapers I read mentioned him being at the massive immigration-rights rally more than a week ago in his hometown Chicago. Estimates put the number of participants at 100,000. Too bad Rev. Jackson wasn't among them. The immigration issue is important to African Americans as well as Latinos. Jackson's presence at the march might have helped steer those two communities to the logical conclusion that they should unite on this topic.

Canada is standing "shoulder to shoulder" with the United States in trying to reduce the risk of more terrorist attacks, Canadian Solicitor General Lawrence MacAulay said yesterday after meeting with Attorney General John Ashcroft. Canada is evaluating its immigration laws, expanding its intelligence operations, putting more money into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and freezing assets of terrorist-connected organizations, MacAulay said. Canadian police are following more than 3,700 tips related to the Sept.

SAN DIEGO - Carlos Gonzalez has lived nearly all his 29 years in a country he considers home but now finds himself on the wrong side of the border - and the wrong side of a proposed overhaul of the U.S. immigration system that would grant legal status to millions of people. Gonzalez was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, from Santa Barbara in December, one of nearly two million removals from the United States since Barack Obama was first elected president. "I have nobody here," said Gonzalez, who serves breakfasts in a Tijuana migrant shelter while nursing a foot that fractured in 10 places when he jumped the border fence in a failed attempt to rejoin his mother, two brothers and extended family in California.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The contraption in a basement lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looks like a high school science project, but it was developed by two post-doctoral mechanical engineers. And it just might be a breakthrough that creates wealth and jobs in the United States and transforms the white-hot industry of oil and natural gas hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That is, as long as the foreign-born inventors aren't forced to leave the country. Anurag Bajpayee and Prakash Narayan Govindan, both from India, have started a company to sell the system to oil companies that are desperate for a cheaper, cleaner way to dispose of the billions of gallons of contaminated water produced by fracking.

Postal loss for quarter: $1.3B WASHINGTON - The U.S. Postal Service lost $1.3 billion in the final three months of last year, despite a blizzard of campaign advertising for the fall political elections and a big holiday mail and shipping season. The loss announced Friday was far less than the $3.3 billion in the comparable quarter the previous fiscal year, but still showed the effects of a continued decline in first-class mailing as customers continue to flock to the Internet for e-mailing, bill paying, and the like.

By Jan C. Ting The so-called comprehensive immigration reform proposed by a group of senators and President Obama amounts to immediate amnesty for millions of immigration-law violators, and the lifting of limits on future immigration, with some window dressing designed to assuage skeptical voters. We've seen this act before. The 1986 amnesty promised to fix the immigration problem by granting amnesty to three million immigration-law violators, strengthening the border, and penalizing employers for hiring illegal immigrants.

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators outlined a sweeping proposal Monday to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, saying that the time has come to fix "our broken immigration system. " At a joint news conference, five of the eight senators who signed on to a detailed statement of principles to guide the effort portrayed it as a way to resolve the plight of millions of undocumented immigrants living illegally in society's shadows and to modernize and streamline the legal immigration system.

WASHINGTON - A key group of senators from both parties will unveil on Monday the framework of a broad overhaul of the nation's immigration laws, including a pathway to citizenship for more than 11 million illegal immigrants. The detailed four-page statement of principles will carry the signatures of four Republicans and four Democrats, including Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey. It's a bipartisan push that would have been unimaginable just months ago on one of the country's most emotionally divisive issues.

WASHINGTON - A working group of senators from both parties is nearing agreement on broad principles for overhauling the nation's immigration laws, representing the most substantive bipartisan effort toward comprehensive legislation in years. The six members have met quietly since the November election, most recently on Wednesday. Congressional aides stressed there is not yet final agreement, but they have eyed Friday as a target date for a possible public announcement. The talks mark the most in-depth negotiations involving members of both parties since a similar effort broke down in 2010 without producing a bill.

WASHINGTON - Just in time for inauguration coverage, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has joined CBS News as a contributor. Rice, who served as secretary of state during President George W. Bush's second term, made her debut on Face the Nation Sunday and will be included in inauguration coverage on Monday. CBS News chairman Jeff Fager and president David Rhodes made the announcement Sunday, saying Rice "will use her insight and vast experience to explore issues facing America at home and abroad.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration spent more money on immigration enforcement in the last fiscal year than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to a report on the government's enforcement efforts from a Washington think tank. The report on Monday from the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan group focused on global immigration issues, said in the 2012 budget year that ended in September the government spent about $18 billion on immigration enforcement programs run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US-Visit program, and Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol.

WASHINGTON - New census data released Thursday affirm a clear and sustained drop in illegal immigration, ending more than a decade of increases. The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. dropped to an estimated 11.1 million last year from a peak of 12 million in 2007, part of an overall waning of Hispanic immigration. For the first time since 1910, Hispanic immigration last year was topped by immigrants from Asia. Demographers say that illegal Hispanic immigration - 80 percent of all illegal immigration comes from Mexico and Latin America - isn't likely to approach its mid-2000 peak again, due in part to a weakened U.S. economy and stronger enforcement, but also because of a graying of the Mexican population.