An immigrant, legal or illegal, arrives in the U.S. every 30 seconds

The U.S. Census Bureau now admits that a new immigrant arrives in the United States every 30 seconds. The agency predicted that the nation's population on January 1, 2008 would be 303,146, 284, almost a full one-percent increase from a year ago. Census Bureau demographers said the nation's growth is 'about what we expected."

Immigrants were responsible for more than one-third of an estimated nationwide population growth of almost 2.87 million between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007. About 667,000 immigrants moved to Southern and Western states in the 12-month period ending July 1 — almost double the number who relocated to the Northeast and Midwest, the Census Bureau says.

Nevada is the nation's fastest-growing state, with an overall population increase of 2.9 percent for the 12-month period ending July 1. Arizona, which was the fastest-growing state between 2005 and 2006, slipped to second place. Nevada and Arizona had most of their population gains from other states or foreign nations, not new births. More than 41,000 of Nevada's 72,955 new residents came from other states, while almost 11,000 came from other countries.

Texas' population gain of almost 500,000 people was more than any other state. Runner-up California added about 303,000. California remained the country's most populous state this year, with 36.6 million residents, followed by Texas with 23.9 million and New York with 19.3 million.

Federal judge refuses to block new Arizona law

The state of Arizona has the right to penalize businesses which knowingly hire illegal immigrants. On December 28, a federal judge refused to stall or halt the January 1 implementation of a new state law that will penalize businesses which knowingly hire illegal immigrants. U.S. District Judge Neil Wake denied requests for a temporary restraining order.

Those who would suffer the most from a temporary restraining order would be legal low-skill workers, who would lose jobs and get depressed wages due to competition from illegal immigrants, said Wake. "Even if the injunction is lifted later, their loss will never be paid back," he said. Under the law, employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers can face suspensions of their business licenses for up to 10 days. Repeat violators would have their licenses revoked.

Businesses and advocacy groups already have asked the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an injunction blocking the law. Their requests were filed with appeals of an earlier ruling in which Wake dismissed initial versions of the group's lawsuits.

Those who challenge the law contend that it has the state intruding on the federal government's responsibility for immigration enforcement and is unfair to both employers and workers. The business groups argue that the system posed costly burdens for employers, especially small businesses without computers or human-resource staffs.

In the Phoenix area, desperate home sellers wind up renting to smugglers

The real estate market in metropolitan Phoenix is slow, as it is throughout the U.S. But in the Phoenix area, some sellers are renting to the first applicant with the cash, and too often the renter turns out to be an immigrant smuggler.

A desperate Phoenix-area man rented his home to a couple who paid the deposit in cash. They didn’t haggle over the price. But it turned out the renters were fronts for smugglers who use the house to hide illegal immigrants, and trashed the house, causing $11,000 in damage. In October, a SWAT team drove an armored personnel carrier onto the lawn and raided the house.

Immigrant smugglers see such opportunities in the nation’s mortgage crisis. They rent homes and use them as stash houses for illegals.

The Phoenix metropolitan area is now believed to have about 1,000 immigrant stash houses, located in places where neighbors would not expect to find illegal immigrants hiding, police said. Arizona is the busiest entry point for illegal immigrants coming through Mexico, and Phoenix's proximity to the border has made it the nation's busiest smuggling hub.

DHS 2007 immigration crackdown hit few employers

The Department of Homeland Security announced a clampdown on hiring of illegal aliens in fiscal year 2007, and DHS did arrest nearly four times as many people in the past year as it did in 2003. But only a tiny fraction of those were criminal charges against employers.

Less than 100 owners, supervisors or other hiring officials were arrested in fiscal 2007, compared with 4,900 arrests of illegal workers, providers of fake documents and others.

When six million companies currently employ more than seven million unauthorized workers, this year's 92 criminal arrests of employers amount to a drop in the bucket. Only 17 firms faced criminal fines or forfeitures.

Those 92 criminal arrests included 59 owners and 33 corporate officials, human resources workers, crew chiefs and others in the "supervisory chain." Criminal fines and other penalties grew from $600,000 in 2003 to more than $30 million in 2007, but were dominated by a few large payments.

"Past enforcement actions have been regarded by business correctly as a passing thing. . . . They need to believe it's not just going to go away in a couple of months," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Illegal immigrant labor laws should be enforced as rigorously as child labor laws, he said.

Tancredo leaves presidential race after making immigration a major issue

Tom Tancredo, Congressman from Colorado, having succeeded in his quest to make illegal immigration a major issue in the presidential campaign, officially ended his own bid for the presidency on Thursday. He endorsed former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

Tancredo's campaign was about maintaining "America's English speaking, Judeo-Christian heritage," he said, as the pressure to change grows at the hands of illegal immigrants and Islamic extremists. He had told MSNBC "You can call me a one-issue candidate if you'd like, as long as you realize my issue is the survival of this country as we know it."

Rep. Brian Bilbray, the California Republican who succeeded Tancredo as leader of an Immigration Reform Caucus, said Tancredo was instrumental in making illegal immigration a top issue in Congress. “He shocked Washington into paying attention. He rattled their cages, and that's what it takes,” Bilbray said.

For Shelly Uscinski, Tancredo’s New Hampshire campaign director, he represented the only true conservative in the race. "We had a good run," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, it was a great success. Immigration was not a topic of discussion until Tom made it part of the discussion. Tom can declare a victory as far as I'm concerned."

Illegals use more tax dollars than they contribute

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office has released a report showing that illegal aliens use more tax dollars than they pay, particularly in education, health care and law enforcement.

The study estimated that nationwide, 60 percent of illegal aliens are uninsured and 50 percent of the children are uninsured. The average income of illegals was $27,400, while Americans earned $47,800. This difference puts illegals in a lower tax bracket, reducing the amount of federal and state income tax revenue they generate.

Education is the largest single expenditure in state and local budgets, and multiple states reported 20 to 40 percent higher costs educating non-English speaking students, many of whom have illegal alien parents. In New Mexico, for example, statistics from 2004 show education spending on undocumented immigrants comprised $67 million of the state's $3 billion education budget. The study estimates there are 53.3 million school-age children in the U.S., 2 million of whom are undocumented immigrants.

Undocumented immigrants are more likely to access emergency rooms and urgent care facilities because most do not have health care, the study said. In Arizona and other border areas, states paid nearly $190 million in health care costs for undocumented immigrants in 2000. That amount, which the study says likely has risen since then, represents one-quarter of all uncompensated health care costs in those states that year.

Sex offenders arrested in New York

Twenty-two illegal alien sex offenders were arrested in New York City in early December in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's continuing Operation Predator. A typical offender, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, had been convicted of the rape of his 13-year-old neighbor. He had been sentenced to 10 years probation after being convicted of rape, sexual misconduct and endangering the welfare of a minor.

ICE and the New York City Department of Probation arrested the child predators and criminal alien sex offenders in four boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan. All of those arrested were on probation in New York City for prior felony or misdemeanor convictions for sex crimes including rape, sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, endangering the welfare of a child, sodomy and promoting prostitution. The youngest victim was a six-year-old girl. One of the victims was a 15-year-old boy.

The arrests also included natives of the Dominican Republic, Guyana and Jamaica in the Caribbean. They are now in detention pending removal proceedings. The initiative is a part of the ongoing Operation Predator initiative and a national priority for ICE.

Arizona business are desperate to retain illegal employees

A new law prohibiting Arizona employers from knowingly employing illegal aliens is set to take effect on January 1, and businesses are desperate to find a way to block it. The new law would make employer violators subject to business license suspensions for first offenses and revocations for second offenses.

The business groups appealed a judge's ruling that threw out their initial legal challenge, while in a second lawsuit, a hearing is scheduled for the judge to hear a request to put the law on hold temporarily while considering a longer injunction blocking the law. The appeal was made to the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the first of two lawsuits the groups filed to block the law.

The business groups' notice of appeal does not specify grounds for the appeal. The judge had ruled that the lawsuit needed to be filed against the county attorneys who would have prime responsibility for enforcing the law rather than state officials in general.

Bush again fails to pardon Ramos, Compean

Members of Congress chastised President Bush for not including pardons for former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean among the 29 pardons that the President issued this week.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and presidential candidate, noted the list of those receiving pardons included carjackers, drug dealers, a moonshiner, and others, but 'two names were conspicuously missing. The president has missed yet another opportunity to correct this miscarriage of justice. Agents Ramos and Compean deserve to be pardoned and returned to their families for Christmas,' Hunter said.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican, said Bush's 'heartless ignoring of the fundamental miscarriage of justice in the case of agents Ramos and Compean ... is a snub to the families and a slap in the face to millions of Americans who have pleaded with the president to show some mercy. Instead, he turns around and shows mercy to drug dealers and other criminals and leaves Ramos and Compean to suffer in solitary confinement,' he said.

Rep. Bill Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on international organizations, human rights and oversight, has introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on Bush to immediately commute the sentences. 'President Bush can correct a gross miscarriage of justice with the stroke of a pen, and this resolution will put Congress on record demanding that he do just that,' he said.

U.S. Border Control: Illegal injures elderly man in Florida carjacking

U.S. Border Control: Illegal injures elderly man in Florida carjacking

Illegal injures elderly man in Florida carjacking

An elderly Crestview, Florida man was badly injured when he vehicle was carjacked by an illegal alien at a Wal-Mart over the weekend. Police are looking for two suspects, Guillermo Hernandez, 32, and Valerie Moreno, 21. Hernandez will face charged of carjacking and battery on an elderly person.

Hiram Winstead, 78, was treated at North Okaloose Medical Center and released that evening. His son, Glenn Winstead, said "His face looks like he was beat with a bat. The palms of his hands are almost gone. There's just no skin there."

But the son said his father was in good spirits and immediately picked his assailant out of a photo lineup, adding that officials know that Hernandez is an illegal alien from Mexico.

On Saturday, when Hiram Winstead was walking to his truck, a Hispanic man approached him. As he returned his cart, Winstead was body-slammed into the parking lot, and his keys were ripped out of his hand, his son said. Driving away, the man was accompanied by a woman and a young child.

Non- citizens are moving electoral, congressional power to border states

The framers of U.S. Constitution intended equal voting rights, and we all know the words “One man, one vote.” The 435 House seats are divided based on total number of people living in each state.

That number includes non-citizens and illegal immigrants, something most Americans don’t realize. Illegal immigration has channeled political clout to California and other border states from the Northeast and Midwest. A University of Connecticut demographics report this fall predicted that California's legal and illegal alien population will account for two of its 53 seats in Congress after the 2010 census. About 30 percent of illegal aliens in the U.S. live in California.

California’s congressional delegation increased by six members in 2002, the result of immigration. Florida, New York and Texas also gained one extra seat each because of their large non-citizen populations.

States that lost representation were Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin. Each of these states is now shy a seat in the House because of illegal immigrants residing elsewhere.

If this continues, 10 to 12 states could eventually control presidential elections, due to the Electoral College, and would literally dominate the House of Representatives. The remaining 40 states, including all of the Upper Midwest, will have little national policy influence.

Republican candidates preparing for Sunday's bilingual 'panderfest'

Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Governor Mike Huckabee, Congressman Duncan Hunter, Senator John McCain, Congressman Ron Paul, Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Fred Thompson, along with John McCain, Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter, are preparing for a bilingual foru being hosted by Spanish language television network Univision on Sunday, December 9. The only candidate who is not confirmed for the Dec. 9 debate is Tom Tancredo. Tancredo has centered his campaign the issue of illegal immigration, and said he would never participate in a Spanish-language forum.

In September, the Democratic candidates held a similar event, referred to by many as a 'panderfest.' The network had tried to schedule a GOP bilingual debate in September, but only McCain and Hunter accepted the invitation from Univision at that time.

Many see the bilingual debates as 'panderfests,' symptomatic of the nation's immigration problems. Univision, however, sees them as a coup. The network claims that its audience surpasses that of cable networks such as CNN and MSNBC.

The GOP contenders are expected to face pointed questions about immigration. They can be expected to tread carefully, trying to protect their standing with conservative voters without alienating the predominantly Hispanic television audience. As in the Democratic debate, the questions will be asked in Spanish and translated into English for the candidates, who will wear earphones. Their responses will be translated into Spanish for viewers.

Judge - prosecutors may have overreacted in Ramos, Compean case

After a hearing in New Orleans, an appeals court judge says federal prosecutors may have overreacted in their case against former border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean. The two men are serving lengthy prison sentences for shooting a fleeing drug suspect.

Judge E. Grady Jolly is one of three judges in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing the appeals. He questioned whether the two agents would have been charged if they had reported the shooting. "For some reason, this one got out of hand, it seems to me," Jolly said of the agents' prosecution. He said it seems "that the government overreacted" in the prosecution that led to a 12-year prison term for Compean and an 11-year term for Ramos.

The agents' attorneys are asking the 5th Circuit to throw out their convictions. A federal jury in El Paso convicted the Border Patrol agents of assault, obstruction of justice and civil rights violations in the wounding of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila near El Paso in 2005. Aldrete survived the shooting, but was arrested in November after an October indictment on various drug charges.

There's no indication when the judges will rule in the appeals. Compean attorney Bob Baskett says he's encouraged by Jolly's comments, but Ramos attorney David Botsford says he's not reading anything into the remarks.

Many illegals arrive here with visas, but never leave

Half the illegal aliens in the U.S. avoid the Mexico-U.S. border. They enter the U.S. by other routes, with many simply arriving by commercial jet. Expired student and tourist visas, phony marriages, unchecked container ships and the Canadian border all contribute much to illegal immigration.

That’s especially true for terrorists. Twelve known al-Qaida operatives. including two conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center attack and four of the 9/11 terrorists, just flew into the U.S. and were admitted on student or tourist visas. They violated those visas by staying past the expiration date, a practice that is not uncommon.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimated in 2006 that about 45 per cent of illegals entered the U.S. with a legal visa, then ignored its expiration date and simply did not leave. The General Accounting Office released a report in 2004 stating that the Department of Homeland Security hasn’t got a clue how many “overstayers” are presently in the U.S.

Dr. George Weissinger, a former Immigration agent and associate professor at Briarcliffe College, says “At least half the illegal aliens in the U.S. came in legally through tourist or non-immigrant visas, but their intention was not to visit, but to stay,” he says.