New Mexico to mull changes to immigrant driver's licenses

[Ringel05]

Santa Fe, New Mexico (CNN) -- New Mexico -- one of three states that allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses -- is debating whether to change the practice.
Republican Susana Martinez, the nation's first Latina governor, campaigned on a promise to stop undocumented immigrants from getting licenses.
Currently, illegal immigrants from all over the country come to New Mexico to obtain a license without having the intention of staying here," said Demesia Padilla, the state's secretary of taxation and revenue.
Some scofflaws sell their residency information. One woman, Rosa Pardo-Marrufo, confessed to allowing her address to be used -- charging up to $700 for each application. She was arrested in 2009 and is serving 10 years in prison for fraud.

New Mexico to mull changes to immigrant driver's licenses - CNN.com

 

[waltky]

Granny says lock him up an' throw away the key...

Fugitive Illegal Immigrant Reportedly Arrested for Sixth Drunken Driving Offense in US
September 26, 2011 | Police say they have arrested an illegal immigrant for the sixth time for driving drunk -- an offense the man had been deported for previously, MyFoxBoston.com reports.

Eduardo Torres, 48, was arrested by police in Boxboro, Mass., on Saturday after his car was pulled over and he failed a field sobriety test, according to the website. The man allegedly gave police a name not found in any database.

It was later determined that Torres, who was living in Marlborough, Mass., was a previously deported fugitive wanted by Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the website reports. He has five previous convictions for drunken driving -- three in California and two in Massachusetts.

Torres was reportedly ordered held without bail and is set to be arraigned on Monday.

Read more: Fugitive Illegal Immigrant Reportedly Arrested For Sixth Drunken Driving Offense In US | Fox News

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Supreme Court Will Review Deportation Rulings
September 27, 2011 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Obama administration's appeal of lower court rulings in favor of immigrants who were seeking to avoid being deported.

The justices said Tuesday they would review two rulings by the federal appeals court in San Francisco that allowed immigrants accused of crimes to try to stop their deportations.

Both cases hinge on a provision of immigration law that allows people who have been in the United States legally for more than five years or illegally for more than seven years to seek leniency. The appeals court said immigrants who came as children could count their parents' years in the United States.

The Obama administration opposes that rule, saying it conflicts with its "high-priority efforts to remove criminal aliens."

Source

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - make `em walk the long way home...

ICE arrests 2,901 criminal immigrants
9/29/11 : Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested close to 3,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records as part of a seven-day sweep, it announced Wednesday.

The arrests highlighted the Obama administration’s emphasis on deporting illegal immigrants with criminal records. “The results of this targeted enforcement operation underscore ICE’s ongoing commitment and focus on the arrest and removal of convicted criminal aliens and those that game our nation’s immigration system,” said ICE Director John Morton in a statement. The crackdown took place in all 50 states, and led to the arrest of 2,901 individuals, of which 42 were gang members and 151 were convicted sex offenders, according to ICE.

Eighteen weapons were seized in the raids, which was the largest of its kind and involved more than 1,900 ICE officers. In August, the White House announced that it would suspend deportation proceedings against many illegal immigrants who pose no threat to national security or public safety, and that it would use “prosecutorial discretion” to focus on deporting criminals and people who have flagrantly violated immigration laws. Obama said Wednesday that he has tried to implement immigration policies that are “as fair, humane, just as we can, recognizing, though, that the laws themselves need to be changed,” during an online Q-and-A event with Hispanics.

The ICE announcement came just as a federal judge gave the green light to Alabama to enforce key parts of its controversial immigration law. U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn ruled on Wednesday that Alabama could enforce a law requiring schools to verify students’ immigration status, and for police to determine citizenship and immigration status of those they stop, detain or arrest.

Read more: ICE arrests 2,901 criminal immigrants - Tim Mak - POLITICO.com

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U.S. makes deported immigrants take the long way home
September 29, 2011 - Detainees transferred from one end of the U.S.-Mexico border to the other

Luis Montes slipped across the Rio Grande and had started crawling through a field when a U.S. Border Patrol agent nabbed him. It was a Saturday and the 32-year-old illegal immigrant figured that by Sunday he would be deported back to Mexico, where he would promptly try again to cross into Texas. Instead, Montes was put on a plane, flown halfway across the country and bused to the California-Mexico border. At 2 a.m. Tuesday, U.S. border authorities took off his handcuffs and escorted him to a gate leading to the desert city of Mexicali. Montes was back in Mexico, but about 1,200 miles away from where he started. "This is a great surprise," Montes said as he slipped on his shoes at the dimly lit border crossing.

Across the street, young men gathered outside seedy bars and around taco carts, and Montes wondered if Mexicali was as dangerous as other border cities. "Is there a lot of crime here?" he asked. The once-confident immigrant was reduced to a bewildered traveler, a favorable outcome for U.S. border authorities under a rapidly expanding program that affects about one-fifth of all illegal immigrants arrested along the Southwest border. Montes' deportation was handled through the Alien Transfer Exit Program, which tries to disrupt immigration patterns. For years, immigrants were deported across the border from where they were caught, a practice that allowed them to easily reconnect with smugglers who would try to bring them across again, sometimes within hours.

Under the transfer program, many immigrants who are caught in California are flown to Texas border cities, and the flights return west filled with immigrants caught in Texas. In Arizona, immigrant groups are divided, with some deported through Texas and others through California. Critics view the expansion of the program with trepidation, saying it's costly, breaks up families and deports immigrants into lawless border cities where they are preyed on by criminal gangs. A group of 51 immigrants detained in New Mexico last summer protested their repatriation to northeast Mexico, where the feared Zetas organized crime group has kidnapped and massacred immigrants. But U.S. border authorities said the program, which they say "breaks the smuggling cycle," has proved to be an effective deterrent. Disoriented and discouraged by the additional obstacles of crossing in an unfamiliar area, immigrants are more likely to give up and go home, authorities say.

The number of immigrants repatriated through the program has increased dramatically since its inception in 2008, from 8,931 to 72,154 this federal fiscal year, when it was expanded across the border. Authorities credit the program for contributing to the record decline in apprehensions along the Southwest border. "It's another tool in our toolbox that helps deter people from trying again," said Bill Brooks, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which runs the program with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When immigrants return to Mexico, their first calls are often to smugglers who house and feed them until the next crossing. When Montes was deported to Mexicali last week, his first call was to his wife in Cuernavaca. He needed her to wire him some pesos for food.

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[The Infidel]

They are just committing the crimes Americans wont do....