Illegal Immigrants

Religious and labor leaders called upon Congress and President-elect Obama to pass a comprehensive immigration package this year and said that the U.S. economy could not be restored without legalizing the nation's undocumented immigrants. "Immigration reform is a necessity in order to fix the American economy," John Wilhelm, president of Unite Here's hospitality-industry division, said Thursday during a national teleconference call on immigration reform.

As Congress moves slowly on immigration reform, President Obama is making numerous policy changes in enforcement and other areas that are designed to shift priorities and boost confidence in the administration as it lays the groundwork for possible legislation. Most of the changes are being driven by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and are primarily aimed at illegal immigrants with criminal records and employers who hire undocumented workers.

When Jorge Garcia delivered a pizza in Van Nuys in September 2003, he was forced at knifepoint to enter the apartment. Garcia said two men choked him until he passed out. When he awoke, his neck and wrist had been sliced and his stomach burned with an iron. The men told Garcia they had a gun and threatened to kill him. Then the assailants picked him up, threw him in the trunk of his car and dumped the vehicle. Bleeding and in pain, Garcia escaped and sought help.

As California lawmakers struggle with a budget gap that has now grown to $26.3 billion, one of the hottest topics for many taxpayers is the cost to the state of illegal immigrants. The question of whether taxpayers should provide services to illegal residents became a major political issue in California's last deep recession, culminating in the ballot fight over Proposition 187 in 1994.

Based on my e-mail, a lot of folks think the solution to California's state budget deficit is to round up all the illegal immigrants and truck them down to Mexico. Wrong. Even if it were logistically possible and the deportees didn't just climb off the truck and hitch another ride back up north, their absence from the state wouldn't come close to saving enough tax dollars to balance a budget that has a $42-billion hole projected over the next 17 months.

Rennison Vern Castillo thought his legal troubles were nearly over at the end of a jail stay for harassing his ex-girlfriend. But then a U.S. immigration hold order blocked his release. "They think you're here illegally," a jailhouse guard said to him. Castillo, mystified, insisted it was all a mistake. Though born in Belize, he had come of age in South Los Angeles, spoke fluent English, served a stint in the Army and had become an American citizen about seven years earlier.

Federal authorities have repeatedly said their priority is to find and remove illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories, but the U.S. government's stepped-up enforcement in recent years has led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants convicted of nonviolent crimes, according to a new study.

Federal officials Wednesday notified more than 650 businesses around the country, including nearly 50 in Los Angeles, that their records will be audited as part of a widening effort to find companies that hire illegal immigrants. The number of notices issued is the largest ever in a single day and exceeds the total sent out in all of fiscal 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

Forced to slash their budgets, some California counties are eliminating nonemergency health services for illegal immigrants -- a move that officials acknowledge could backfire by shifting the financial burden to emergency rooms. Sacramento County voted in February to bar illegal immigrants from county clinics at an estimated savings of $2.4 million. Contra Costa County followed last month by cutting off undocumented adults, to save approximately $6 million.

In five years of social outreach at Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Los Angeles, Guillermo Armenta has always seen more parishioners stream into this historic haven for illegal immigrants than leave. Until now. In the last few months, he said, nearly a dozen parishioners have told them they plan to return to their homelands because jobs in construction, restaurants and the janitorial trade have dried up here.