HOUSTON — The Obama administration is vastly expanding a federal effort begun under President George W. Bush to identify and deport illegal immigrants held in local jails. But here in the city where the effort got a trial start eight months ago, people on each side of the immigration debate have found fault with it.

Under the effort, known as Secure Communities, local officials check every set of fingerprints taken at jails against those of people who have had a brush with federal immigration authorities; in the past, they could check only for a criminal history in the F.B.I. database. If a person turns out to be an illegal immigrant, the case is turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible deportation proceedings in addition to the criminal charges.

A series of Senate floor votes this week seeking to toughen immigration enforcement is giving the Obama administration its first real taste of the chilly climate for overhauling immigration laws.

On Thursday, the Senate approved a measure that would effectively overturn an immigration-enforcement decision announced one day earlier by the Obama administration. The Department of Homeland Security had said Wednesday that it would rescind a Bush administration program aimed at forcing employers to fire workers who are unable to resolve discrepancies in their Social Security records.

Two years after engineering the nation's toughest employer-sanctions law, state Sen. Russell Pearce has taken the lead in a new round of anti-immigration reforms that could have long-lasting effects on Arizona.

One would require school districts to collect data on any student who can't prove legal residency. Another would require state and local officials to enforce federal immigration laws, thus making sanctuary laws illegal.

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to restore $400 million in funding for state and local jails to incarcerate criminal illegal immigrants, a program which would reimburse Fairfax and Prince William counties a total of $1.5 million.

The Tribune again ignores the facts. Our citizens deserve better!

I sat ashen as I watched the news reports. Several chiefs of police, including Mesa’s George Gascón, stood at a press conference and publicly refused to enforce the law. Less than a month after the brutal murder of a police officer at the hands of an illegal immigrant, they snubbed the opportunity to make necessary changes and violated their oaths of office for the sake of political correctness. Meanwhile, citizens are killed, maimed and raped. Illegal immigrants cost citizens billions to educate, medicate and incarcerate, and they take jobs from Americans.

Substandard and abusive conditions in immigration detention “are of the utmost importance,” a federal judge in Manhattan said Thursday, ruling that the Department of Homeland Security’s 2 ½-year delay in responding to a petition for legally enforceable regulations was “unreasonable as a matter of law.”

The judge, Denny Chin of Federal District Court in Manhattan, ordered the Obama administration to grant or deny the petition asking for detention rules within 30 days. He denied the government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit, filed last year by two former immigration detainees and two advocacy agencies, seeking to force a response.

Some undocumented immigrants swept up on minor charges such as fishing without a license won’t face federal detention. Instead, they’ll be released on their own recognizance under an Obama administration directive to a Nashville, Tenn., sheriff who charged 6,000 people with immigration crimes over the past 2-1/2 years.

The “release on recognizance” order by Immigration and Customs Enforcement – a branch of the US Department of Homeland Security – could affect at least some of the 66 US law enforcement jurisdictions that are part of a controversial program which, in essence, deputizes local police to act as de facto immigration agents.

Nearly three years after the Justice Department found that the nation’s immigration courts were seriously overburdened and recommended hiring 40 new judges, only a few hirings have taken place and the case backlog is at its highest point in a decade, according to a study released Wednesday.

The report, by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan group that analyzes data about federal government performance, found that the shortage of judges had contributed to a 19 percent increase in the backlog of cases since 2006 and a 23 percent increase in the time it takes to resolve them.

While cracking down on companies that flout immigration laws, the Obama administration wants to extend simultaneously a hand of friendship to those playing by the rules, according to the newly appointed official in charge of worksite enforcement.

John Morton, assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security, reiterated in a speech Tuesday, June 16, in Arlington, Virginia, the administration’s policy of pursuing criminal prosecutions against employers who knowingly hire illegal workers.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case that questioned whether the federal government could supersede state and local laws blocking a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

The case tested the constitutionality of a provision in a broad 2005 law that created national standards for state driver’s license requirements. The provision in question would give the Department of Homeland Security the authority to waive local legal requirements that stand in the way of the 700-mile border fence.

A Gallup poll released on August 5, 2009 shows that 50% of all Americans believe that immigration should be reduced.  This number is 11 points higher than the figure from an identical poll conducted last year.  Only 14% of Americans say immigration should be increased (down from 18%) and 32% say immigration levels should remain the same (down from 39%).

Fifty-one percent of Arizona voters say it is more important for Congress to pass immigration reform than health care reform.

By a 65% to 20% margin, Arizona voters believe enforcing the borders is more important than legalizing the status of those already living here. Half of the state’s voters (50%) think it is possible to put an end to illegal immigration, while 34% do not.

A new Rasmussen poll shows that 66% of likely voters believe that the government should improve border enforcement and reduce illegal immigration.  However, only 32% of America's "Political Class" agree.

The poll also shows that 77% of likely voters believe that illegal aliens should not be able to receive driver's licenses and 73% of Americans believe that police officers should automatically check to see if someone is in this country legally when that person is pulled over for a traffic violation. 

Seventy-three percent (73%) of U.S. voters believe that a police officer should automatically check to see if someone is in this country legally when the officer pulls that person over for a traffic violation. Only 21% disagree, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of voters also say that if law enforcement officers know of places where immigrants gather to find work, they should sometimes conduct surprise raids to identify and deport illegal immigrants. Twenty-four percent (24%) oppose surprise raids.

In a Washington Post/ABC Poll released just before Barack Obama's inaguration, respondents ranked immigration No. 10 on a list of priorities for the administration. The economy, Iraq War, foreign policy and education were all ranked ahead of immigration. Twenty-one percent said that it was the highest priority, 48 percent said it was high priority, while 29 percent said it was low priority.

When asked about what governments should do to address illegal immigration, 83% of respondents supported stronger border controls, 74% supported cracking down on employers, and 68% supported deportation.

Only 32% of Obama voters considered his support for amnesty as a factor in their decisions to vote for him. 67% said it was either not a factor at all, or they voted for Obama in spite of his stance on amnesty.

60% of voters said reducing illegal immigration and cracking down on employers who hire them is important to them, while only 21% supported "legalizing or creating a pathway to citizenship" for illegal aliens.

57% of voters stated that amnesty would harm American workers and further strain public resources, while only 26% believe amnesty would aid economic recovery and ease public burdens.

Twenty-six of respondents are angry over immigration policy in the United States.

Sixty-two percent say gaining control of the borders is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers.

Sixty-five percent of adults nationwide would like to see the the number of illegal aliens currently in this country reduced.

"The poll, conducted Feb. 22 to 26 with 1,000 respondents, shows that by a 68-25 margin, Americans support the ordinances proposed by Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta and adopted by City Council..."