So far the raid looks similar to the raid at a meat-packing plant in Postville, Iowa, earlier this year. Postville drew criticism from many, including an interpreter involved in the aftermath of the raid, who said the illegal immigrants involved didn’t understand their rights.

We think it’s interesting that a raid of this magnitude didn’t happen again until after ICE launched — and scrapped — a much-ridiculed voluntary self-deportation program.

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The New York Times came up with an interesting graphic that rates the performance of these political appointees against the averages for their  area.

Looks like the judges, hand-picked for their politically conservative views, held up their end of the bargain on immigration ….

Related stories:

• Bush Administration appointed political cronies as immigration judges
• Internal Justice report cites illegal hiring practices

“He’ll defend our borders, and enact … smart immigration policy,” said Congressman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

Congresswoman Grace Napolitano, D-California, and Congressman Jose Serrano, D-New York, also made speeches in support of the Chicago Senator.

But local Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, interviewed on Southern California Public Radio 89.3 KPCC, said Obama does not have the strong track record with Latinos of John McCain, Senator from Arizona.

Immigration was part of today’s theme, at least for NDN, a group that bills itself as a progressive think tank and advocacy group and organized a forum on immigration.

Over on sister blog Total Buzz intern Jessica Terrell spent some time with the Minutemen who rallied in Denver.

Now a 10-year study of 3,000 children of immigrants in New York says that second-generation immigrants — in this case Dominicans, Russians, South Americans, Chinese, and West Indians — are assimilating so effectively that they are doing well not only compared to their parents, but also to native-born groups.

The study has been turned into a book,  Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age, by the professors at Harvard and the City University of New York.  We thought you’d be interested in this study because the issue of assimilation has been very controversial when we’ve written about it before. 

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The government has been tracking air passengers for years, but the heavy number of crossings made it difficult to keep tabs at the border, the Post reports.

Now, digitized ID cards are making that work much easier, according to the Post.

 Related Stories:

• Citizens’ U.S. border crossings tracked

Earlier this week Santiago Perez, a Border Patrol agent in Texas, pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of a Mexican national and a Guatemalan national. 

(more…)

During the three-week pilot program, just 8 people volunteered to go home.

I’m writing a story right now with more details. Check back soon to read more. 

But a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California says that foreign-born residents who are not U.S. citizens are among the least likely to use emergency rooms, at least for those health issues that could be treated in a clinic.

More specifically, immigrant Hispanics and Asians use emergency departments less than U.S.-born whites, the report found. Noncitizen immigrants are among the least likely to report a recent emergency department visit, according to the study.

The most likely people to use emergency rooms are Medi-Cal patients, according to the report.

Here are the major findings of the new PPIC report: 

• The uninsured are nearly twice as likely to visit the emergency department as the privately insured but far less likely than Medi-Cal or Medicare patients.
• Children under 18 account for a quarter of emergency department visits.
• Infants have the highest proportion – nearly seven in 10 – of potentially avoidable emergency department visits.
• Medicare patients are frequent emergency room visitors, but fewer than three in 10 visits by patients over 65 were considered avoidable.
• The three counties with the highest per-capita emergency department visit rate are in the Central Valley: Stanislaus, Fresno, and San Joaquin. 

However, the report does not address the fact that people in California illegally are eligible for Medi-Cal, as we’ve reported before. 

As of February 2007, 12 percent of the state’s 6.6 million Medi-Cal eligible patients were considered illegal immigrants. Medi-Cal officials count as illegal immigrants people who can provide neither a Social Security number nor immigration papers.

The study was funded by the California Program on Access to Care, a University of California research program created at the behest of the California legislature 10 years ago. The Public Policy Institute of California is  nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that does not take stances on poltical issues.

Related stories:

• Changing the economics of illegal immigration
• Hospitals deporting illegal immigrants as health care costs rise
• Financial medicine for ERs kicks in

The former couple apparently hired people here illegally and suggested they find spouses through Eharmony, the online dating Web site, or Leisure World, the retirement community in Seal Beach, an ICE report stated.

Marriage to a U.S. citizen could provide them with legal status.

Wilfredo Ngo, 51, and his ex-wife Teresa Ngo, 49, were indicted on four counts: inducing aliens to reside in the United States; knowingly employing illegal aliens; knowingly harboring illegal aliens; and counseling persons to engage in marriage fraud.

The Ngos own A-Plus Senior Planning Services, Inc., a Lake Forest employment agency that provides caregivers to Orange County private homes and elder care facilities.

Their office manager, 43-year-old Gicela Sarabia, was also indicted today on two counts:  inducing aliens to reside in the United States and knowingly hiring illegal aliens. Sarabia is from the Philippines and also in the country illegally, ICE reported.

All three defendants will be arraigned on Aug. 25.

ICE began investigating the business after receiving a lead about a worker with an expired visa. More than 40 people hired by A-Plus Senior Planning Services lacked documents authorizing them to work. The majority were from the Philippines and had overstayed their visitor visas, ICE reported.

Construction of a virtual fence in Arizona has been halted over land use policy. The Interior Department, charged with regulating and protecting the nation’s natural resources, has refused to sign off on the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed environmental assesssment. Homeland Security says the surveillance towers that would form the anchors of the virtual fence would cause no significant environmental impacts. 

Other Homeland Security border-security projects have qualified for waivers exempting them from standard environmental assessments. But this project doesn’t qualify, according to the Associated Press.