Illegal Migrants

It wasn't yet 8 a.m. when police knocked on Monique Pouille's door, searched her home and took her away -- all because she recharged cellphones for illegal migrants. The 59-year-old volunteer with groups in the Calais region of northern France was put behind bars and interrogated for three hours before being freed. The French government forbids helping illegal migrants, and has set quotas for arrests of those who do as it tries to control growing clandestine immigration. This year's target: 5,000 arrests.

The majority of children of illegal immigrants from Mexico in the Southland fail to graduate from high school, completing an average of two fewer years of schooling than their peers with legal immigrant parents, a new study has found. The study by UC Irvine professor Frank Bean and three other researchers documented the persistent educational disadvantages for such children — who number 3.8 million, with about 80% born in the United States. The study's authors said their findings highlighted the need to help such families gain legal status and a more secure future, arguing that deporting all of them was unrealistic.

As a Latino activist in California for decades, Salvador Reza witnessed a rise in illegal immigration in the 1980s and protested a plethora of harsh measures to control it in the '90s. Now, as a transplanted Arizonan, he is experiencing a deep sense of deja vu. Passage this week of a stringent Arizona bill that would require people to carry proof of legal status and mandate that police check for it is a replay of California's own turbulent history with illegal immigration.

Congressional Republicans are drafting legislation that would require the federal government to develop a plan to add more fencing, sensors, agents and even drones to stop every illegal entry into the United States. The legislative effort offers another example of how a more conservative Congress has steered the immigration debate away from the Obama administration's two-pronged push for reforms and improved border security, and toward strict enforcement of immigration laws. In December, a lame-duck House controlled by Democrats passed the Dream Act, a reform that would have created a path to citizenship for some young illegal immigrants in the U.S., but it was narrowly defeated in the Senate.

Authorities are investigating reports that eight to 10 people came ashore at Crystal Cove State Park in a small boat, then shed their life jackets and some clothes before scattering. Border patrol officials said the group was aboard a panga boat, a type of open-hulled Mexican fishing boat frequently used in coastal smuggling. They arrived at the beach south of Newport Beach on Tuesday at about 7 a.m. A visitor at Moro Beach, one of the beaches at Crystal Cove, called police to report the incident.

Re "The next Americans," Opinion, May 27 Tomas R. Jimenez pretends that the reason immigration legislation is controversial is described by the question, "What effect will these permanently settled immigrants have on American identity?" Like other apologists for the illegals, Jimenez tries to erase the distinction between legal immigrants who have a right to be here and illegal aliens who do not. This is our home. If a man breaks into your home, you throw him out. He has no "right" to demand that he be counted with the invited guests or be made a member of the family with a voice about who else can come into your home.

Rescue ships recovered six bodies of immigrants off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa after a boat bringing dozens of illegal migrants to Italy capsized, officials said. Tunisian ships and the Italian coast guard participated in the rescue operation about 38 nautical miles south of the island. Illegal immigration to Italy has surged recently, with more than 1,000 people landing on the southern coast in the last week and nearly 3,000 so far in June, most from Central and North Africa.

Two American journalists were arrested Saturday after being caught in a boat with illegal migrants en route to Puerto Rico, the Dominican navy said. Edward Barnes, 43, a Time Magazine correspondent from New York, and photographer Michelle Frankfurter, 33, of Washington, face charges because they didn't go through Dominican immigration to leave the country, navy spokesman Octavio Beges Barjan said. They will be charged with participating in an illegal voyage, he said.

Spanish authorities intercepted six boats carrying more than 280 illegal migrants off the coast of the Canary Islands. Hundreds of would-be immigrants trying to reach Europe from Africa have been rounded up at sea in recent days. On Saturday, officials stopped 456 people packed into six boats. More than 6,000 have reached the Canary Islands so far this year.

About 10 million foreigners are living illegally in Russia, evading taxes and civic duties such as military service, a top police official said. Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin said a census planned for October 2002 and the replacement of old Soviet identification papers with new Russian ones--a process scheduled to be completed by 2005--should help "bring most immigrants out of the shadows," the Interfax news agency reported.

Reports of the death of immigration reform in the 112th Congress may be exaggerated. True, immigration politics are divisive and sometimes toxic, and Republicans don't want to enable President Obama to claim another legislative victory as he gears up for the 2012 election. Even so, the strands of effective reform are there, waiting to be knitted together into a grand bargain by political entrepreneurs. Almost everyone accepts that our current approach to immigration needs fixing.

The nation's top border and customs official promised Friday to "restore the rule of law" to the U.S.-Mexico border and prosecute those responsible for the slaying of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in southern Arizona. "We will bring the murderers to justice, and we will support the federal law enforcement authorities and the United States attorney to see that justice is done in this case," Alan Bersin, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, declared at a memorial service for the agent at a Tucson sports stadium.

Authorities are investigating reports that eight to 10 people came ashore at Crystal Cove State Park in a small boat, then shed their life jackets and some clothes before scattering. Border patrol officials said the group was aboard a panga boat, a type of open-hulled Mexican fishing boat frequently used in coastal smuggling. They arrived at the beach south of Newport Beach on Tuesday at about 7 a.m. A visitor at Moro Beach, one of the beaches at Crystal Cove, called police to report the incident.

Leading up to Friday morning's hearing of the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on immigration, the question had to be asked: What could be sillier than comedian Stephen Colbert testifying on farm labor and immigration? Surely the Congress of the United States of America would be sullied by the presence of this mere prankster, this entertainer, this clown, who would appear, audaciously, not as himself but as his fictional alter-ego, the bloviating right-wing talk show host.

U.S. immigration officials are exploring ways to allow certain unauthorized migrants to stay in the country legally through administrative actions rather than the logjammed legislative process, including potentially tens of thousands of students. The ideas are detailed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials in an 11-page memo obtained and circulated this week by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). The memo explicitly states that deferring removal actions against an unrestricted number of illegal immigrants, allowing them to stay here legally, "would likely be controversial, not to mention expensive."

As the furor over Arizona's strict new immigration law escalates, immigrant advocates are preparing to move the fight to the courtroom, where their legal challenges have successfully sunk other high-profile laws against illegal migrants. The American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Immigration Law Center are set to announce in Phoenix on Thursday plans to challenge the measure. U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder said this week that he was considering a possible legal challenge to the law. The law, which is set to take effect in midsummer, makes it a state crime for illegal migrants to be in Arizona, requires police to check for evidence of legal status and bars people from hiring or soliciting work off the streets.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer admitted Monday to helping smuggle hundreds of illegal immigrants through his vehicle lane at the Otay Mesa port of entry. As part of a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Michael Gilliland, 44, pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy, bribery and immigrant smuggling; he faces five to 15 years in prison.

As a Latino activist in California for decades, Salvador Reza witnessed a rise in illegal immigration in the 1980s and protested a plethora of harsh measures to control it in the '90s. Now, as a transplanted Arizonan, he is experiencing a deep sense of deja vu. Passage this week of a stringent Arizona bill that would require people to carry proof of legal status and mandate that police check for it is a replay of California's own turbulent history with illegal immigration.

It wasn't yet 8 a.m. when police knocked on Monique Pouille's door, searched her home and took her away -- all because she recharged cellphones for illegal migrants. The 59-year-old volunteer with groups in the Calais region of northern France was put behind bars and interrogated for three hours before being freed. The French government forbids helping illegal migrants, and has set quotas for arrests of those who do as it tries to control growing clandestine immigration. This year's target: 5,000 arrests.