virginia businesses oppose new state employer sanctions

Virginia Employers for Sensible Immigration Policy was formed in anticipation of another flurry of legislation in the General Assembly seeking to crack down on undocumented residents and employers that hire them, business leaders said....Politicians seeking to get tough on illegal immigration have been targeting employers with increasing frequency, a tactic that critics have said allows them to appear responsive without being vulnerable to accusations of intolerance or meanness toward immigrants....

media thinks immigration's hot, voters do not

....When asked to name their top priorities, the Iraq War
still tops the list of issues for both Democrats and
Republicans. "It's raised twice as often as the next-
ranking issue, the economy," according to a recent USA
Today/Gallup poll (11/30/07-12/1/07).

Another recent poll (L.A. Times/Bloomberg,
11/30/07-12/3/07) found only 15 percent of Americans
ranking immigration as one of the top three issues of
concern to them. In fact, noted L.A. Times columnist Tim
Rutten (12/1/07), "more than nine out of 10 Americans
think something matters more than immigration in this
presidential election."

Immigration Contractor Trims Wages

Workers who process visa and citizenship applications are getting a 10 to 20% wage cut as a new low-bid contractor takes over. What's that going to do to the backlog?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/us/02immig.html?ex=1354338000&en=5d64ab1b91d96060&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

CIS's new report blames immigrants for health care crisis, etc

The newest study of immigration by the Center for Immigration Studies blames immigrants for our health care crisis, welfare costs, and overcrowding in public schools. Initial articles about the study on November 29 featured these headlines:
“Study: Uneducated immigrants hurt country” (USA Today)
“Immigrants, illegals use welfare more often” (Washington Times)
“Immigration at Record Level, Analysis Finds” (New York Times)

Here is CIS’s director Steven Camarota interpreting the article for the New York Times.

“Immigrants have had an enormous impact on the lack of health insurance,” Mr. Camarota said. “If we are going to have a debate about health insurance, we should recognize that most of the growth in the uninsured comes from recently arrived immigrants and their American-born kids.”
Mr. Camarota found that about one-third of immigrant families receive some kind of public assistance. The services were mainly food stamps and Medicaid associated with care for their American children, he found. The majority of children in immigrant families, whether the parents are legal or illegal, were born in the United States and so are American citizens.
“The welfare system is designed to help low-income workers with children,” Mr. Camarota said. “The study shows that it is very difficult not to have these public costs if you have low-skilled immigrants in large numbers.”
Mr. Camarota did not present evidence of large scale use of public benefits by illegal immigrants themselves.

You can read an initial critique of the study at http://diversityinc.com/public/2785.cfm (“'Sanctuary City'? More Immigrants, More Political Lunacy”) and the study itself at http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back1007.html (“Immigrants in the United States, 2007: A Profile of America’s Foreign-Born Population”).

More presidential hopefuls go after "illegals"

Rudy Guiliani cashes in:
www.joinrudy2008.com/immigration

And Fred Thompson climbs on the bandwagon with a campaign video that says "secure our borders, and enforce the law. Giving up, by granting amnesty is not the answer:"
http://www.fred08.com/

It'll be more than interesting to see how all this moves the Democrats' positions.

Spitzer drops driver's license plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/nyregion/14spitzer.html?th&emc=th

Guillermo Perez of NY LCLAA says:

The drivers license issue has become THE vehicle for attacking the governor and now he's backing down on his former pro-immigrant position because of pressure from Hillary Clinton's people. The biggest problem has been polls indicating that 70% of New Yorkers oppose the Governor's plan to allow some undocumented access to a drivers license. The attacks on "illegals" has reached a level I've not seen in my seven years of activism on this issue here in New York.

We desperately need a power point presentation with all the bells and whistles (graphics, audio, video, as well as pertinent stats) that we can use to start educating the people who should be our allies in this struggle -- e.g., union activists, people of faith, communities of color, etc. That this can happen in New York is especially disturbing.... Any chance we could get a group of labor educators to help produce this power point before the end of this year? Please feel free to circulate this to anyone and everyone who might be interested in contributing.

In Solidarity,

Guillermo Perez

President, Albany/Capital District LCLAA

518-257-1457

Tancredo: immigrants = terrorists

The "immigration is this year's web issue" train is speeding up and the latest jolt of fuel is Tom Tancredo's campaign ad, which you can see at http://teamtancredo.org/. Just go to the site and you don't have to move a muscle, they'll play it for you. It's classic wedge politics -- a third-tier candidate hopes he can claw his way up by waving the bloody shirt or, failing that, make all the candidates talk about his issue. And it's working: yesterday Gov. Spitzer backed off of drivers' licenses for all.