Illegal Immigrants

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.

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.

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.

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.

Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego will become the first counties in California to begin checking the immigration status of all inmates booked into jail as part of a national effort to identify and deport more illegal immigrants with criminal records. Law enforcement officials in the three counties will begin running inmates' fingerprints through federal databases this month to see if they have had any contact with the immigration system.

The federal government's E-Verify program, which seeks to reduce the hiring of illegal immigrants, is becoming increasingly popular, with 1,000 new businesses signing up each week despite concerns about its reliability. More than 124,000 businesses, including nearly 10,000 in California, are signed up for the Web-based identification program that enables employers to check whether an employee is authorized to work, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In a high-stakes battle that could affect California's share of federal funding and political representation, immigrant activists are vowing to combat efforts by a national Latino clergy group to persuade 1 million illegal immigrants to boycott the 2010 U.S. census. The Washington, D.C.

When Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle stepped off a plane at LAX in July 2008 -- a couple of jet-lagged Brits on the lam from the United Kingdom -- they looked for the first uniformed U.S. official they could find. Unfortunately for them, they found one. They thought they had found safe harbor from the English court that three days earlier had convicted them of hate-related writings originating on their website.

On a recent afternoon, 15-year-old Marlon Parras stood on stage in front of 3,000 people and talked about the hardships he and his 13-year-old sister have faced since their parents were deported to Guatemala. He wept as he spoke of his parents' decision to leave them, both American citizens, with relatives and church members so they could continue their education in suburban Atlanta. "This is not a family," Marlon told the crowd. "This is not fair."

A small boat packed with at least 148 illegal immigrants from Africa landed on a beach in the Canary Islands, the Interior Ministry said. The flimsy fiberglass vessel landed as windsurfers were preparing to take to the sea, authorities said. The windsurfers and tourists alerted police. The Africans tried to run inland but were caught, an official said. One man, who was dehydrated and suffered hypothermia, collapsed on the beach and was taken to a hospital. The rest were treated on the scene by Red Cross mobile units.