Border Arrests Jump for 2nd Year

Border Arrests Jump for 2nd Year

“The head of the Border Patrol said his agents made about 420,000 arrests in the budget year that ended in September, a 15 percent increase from the previous year. It was the second consecutive year that apprehensions went up since the Border Patrol recorded a near 40-year low in arrests in 2011,” Fox News Latino writes.

GOP Rep Says He Would Consider Legal Status, Not Citizenship

“Immigration groups are pressuring five House Republicans in Texas and California to support legislation that provides a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. One of those targeted lawmakers, Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, said Friday that he would consider everything ‘on the table,'” the Houston Chronicle reports.

“But he doubted he could support provisions in a bipartisan Senate bill that grants citizenship to 11 million undocumented immigrants. ‘I certainly think legal status, as opposed to citizenship, is a much easier sell to Republicans,’ Farenthold said.”

Judge Rejects Asylum for Border Protestors, Others Released

“A West Texas judge has denied requests for asylum by two immigrants who surrendered to U.S. authorities at the border with Mexico in September to protest federal immigration policies. Lawyer David Bennion said Friday that he’ll request the judge’s order be suspended on behalf of his clients, Jose Alfredo Cornejo and Brandon Pena Valencia. But he acknowledged that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ‘can just deny or ignore’ the request,” the Houston Chronicle reports.

However, “U.S. immigration officials on Friday evening released five more immigration activists of the 25 who have been in detention since surrendering at the Texas-Mexico border in September to protest immigration policies,” Fox News Latino says.

“One of the 25 immigrants detained in El Paso in September previously was deported. Authorities released 11 people – five of which were women – on Tuesday from that group of young immigrants.”

Santa Clara County May Modify No Detainer Policy

“Two years after Santa Clara County thumbed its nose at federal immigration authorities and began releasing jailed illegal immigrants — even those with a history of serious or violent crime — rather than holding them for possible deportation, the county is poised to relent. Only a handful of other jurisdictions in the country, including Chicago’s Cook County, now refuse to hold any inmates unless U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement pays for the cost of detaining them — which ICE refuses to do,” the San Jose Mercury News reports.

“Local law enforcement officials have been warning since the policy was adopted in fall 2011 that freeing undocumented immigrants who belong to gangs or have been arrested or convicted of violent crimes poses a significant risk in that they may go on to victimize others.”

“Employees of the county’s Pretrial Services department say there may be a link between a drop in the percentage of people who make it to all their court appearances — from 87.6 percent in 2010-11 to 84.3 percent in 2012 — and the no-holds policy. The department has received unconfirmed reports from its officers that ICE agents wait outside county courtrooms with laptops containing booking photos of undocumented defendants, taking them into custody when they appear for their proceedings.”

DHS Has No Worksite Enforcement

“Even as immigration reform remains up for congressional consideration this fall, deportations continue to take place regularly across the Midwest. However, it is less likely to be in the news than it was several years ago. In the 1990s, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would storm workplaces, march dozens of laborers out in handcuffs and load them onto awaiting buses,” USA Today writes.

“Deportations and so called “sweeps” by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents remain a part of life all over the country, but it’s a quieter approach. It targets specific individuals rather than workers or a place of business. Those individuals targeted primarily have serious criminal records or had run-ins with immigration authorities in the past.”

Sen. Flake Says House Could Pass Amnesty

“Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., says he believes chances have improved for the House of Representatives to take up immigration reform after a push last week from religious, business and law enforcement. Flake served in the House for 12 years before his election to the Senate in November, and still has ties there. He told The Arizona Republic that he sensed “some active movement” on a plan in the House that would address the 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States – without offering them a “special” pathway to citizenship that Republicans oppose,” Newsmax writes.