In the news today: July 17, 2007

• At the top of our news-reel is a story in the New York Times today about how a significant percentage of HIV cases in Mexico can be traced back to migrant workers who went to the U.S. and brought the disease back home.

• The Christian Science Monitor takes a look at how an increasing number of local police across the country are enforcing immigration law.
• The Voice of America reports on lacking health care in immigrant detention centers.
  

Immigrant verification plan makes headway on the state levels

Washington Business Journal reports that at the state levels, more employers will be required to verify that all their employees are legally allowed to work in the United States. The verification process called "Basic Pilot" is voluntary now and only 18,000 companies are signed up and using it. That may chance with state-based legislation:

Though Congress' attempts to make the program mandatory have failed for now, state and local governments are rapidly making Basic Pilot a reality for companies. Companies that do business with Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arizona and Mission Viejo, Calif., are required to enroll in the program. Comprehensive legislation is pending in Missouri and South Carolina to require all employers to participate in the program. More than 30 other states considered similar legislation in the past year.

'New scrutiny' on deaths in immigrant detention centers

The New York Times reports that bipartisan "scrutiny" on deaths in immigrant detention centers may lead to the creation of a body that would be specifically charged with overseeing such centers. Nina Bernstein writes:

No government body is charged with accounting for deaths in immigration detention, a patchwork of county jails, privately run prisons and federal facilities where more than 27,500 people who are not American citizens are held on any given day while the government decides whether to deport them. (...)

Spurred by bipartisan reports of abuses in detention, the Senate unanimously passed an amendment to the proposed immigration bill that would establish an office of detention oversight within the Department of Homeland Security. Detention capacity would grow by 20,000 beds, or 73 percent, under the bill, which is epected to be debated again today in the Senate.

UPI-Zogby poll: All U.S. officials should enforce immigration law

Results of a new UPI-Zogby poll were released on June 22. From the UPI article:

While U.S. officials have asked state and local authorities to help enforce immigration laws, some have balked saying it would hurt their standing in immigrant communities.

But 44.7 percent of the 8,300 participants in a Zogby interactive poll strongly agreed local and state officials should help such enforcement and another 24.4 percent somewhat agreed. A total 25.3 percent of respondents disagreed with 12.6 percent somewhat disagreeing and 12.7 percent strongly disagreeing.

Cohen & Grigsby video links

Following on our post, below, on Cohen & Grigsby, the Pittsburgh law firm that lectured on circumventing U.S. immigration law, we found links to the YouTube video in question.

We also found a much more in-depth article on the situation, published by Information Week. Make sure to check out the comments following the piece.

Earlier: PA law firm that lectured on circumventing immigration law under senator's scrutiny

PA law firm that lectured on circumventing immigration law under senator's scrutiny

The AP reports that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has called on Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to investigate the ethics of the Pittsburgh law firm, Cohen & Grigsby. The law firm posted a clip on the popular video-sharing website YouTube of their attorneys explaining at an immigration conference how to circumvent U.S. immigration law.

From the AP article:

"The goal here of course is to meet the requirements, number one, but also do so as inexpensively as possible, keeping in mind our goal. And our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested U.S. worker," Lawrence Lebowitz, the firm's vice president of marketing, told the audience in May.

Grassley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee, sent a letter to Cohen & Grigsby, demanding to know how many visa petitions have been filed by the firm in the past five years. He denounced the firm's tactics as discrimination.