Execution stayed for Western Pa. man who killed 6

PITTSBURGH - A judge has indefinitely delayed the execution of an unemployed immigration lawyer responsible for a Pittsburgh-area shooting rampage that left six people dead.

Richard Baumhammers, 44, of Mount Lebanon, was to be executed March 18. Allegheny County Court Judge Jeffrey Manning stayed that execution yesterday after Baumhammers' attorney filed notice of a new appeal. Gov. Rendell signed a death warrant in January.

Prosecutors said Baumhammers, who is white, was motivated by religious and racial animosity. He shot his Jewish neighbor, two Indian men, a Chinese man, a Vietnamese man, and a black man on April 28, 2000.

He was sentenced to death for killing the five victims who died outright. The sixth, Sandip Patel, 32, of Plum, was left paralyzed and died of complications from pneumonia in 2007. - AP

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/85636892.html

[Posted by Ida Micaily]

Report: E-Verify Misses Half of Illegal Workers

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The system Congress and the Obama administration want employers to use to help curb illegal immigration is failing to catch more than half of the unauthorized workers it checks, a research company has found.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/25/us/politics/AP-US-Immigration-E-Verify.html?_r=1&ref=news

Posted by: Melissa Diaz

Whither the Dream

NO federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from attending college in the United States, or requires them to disclose their situation. Most colleges don’t even check immigration status when students apply for financial aid — only 31 percent, according to a survey last year by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Still, illegal students face numerous barriers to higher education. About 65,000 graduated from American high schools last year, but only 5 percent went on to college, according to Roberto G. Gonzales, a professor at the University of Washington and author of a College Board report last year on the plight of minors brought in illegally by their parents and raised here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03alienbx-t.html

[posted by Sonia Vissoni]

In debate about education of immigrant kids, money talks

February 10, 2010

IF BOSTON schools can’t make faster progress in helping students with limited English skills, the US Department of Education will have good cause to withhold some federal aid. Latino and immigrant groups are asking the department to place conditions on money from the federal Race to the Top grant program requiring that Boston schools make aggressive efforts to educate so-called English language learners. The system’s halting record justifies this tough stance.

Students with limited English proficiency, who make up almost one-fifth the Boston Public Schools’ enrollment, drop out at high rates and score poorly on MCAS tests. The city deserves part of the blame. Until recently, the system did not properly test students whose first language is not English, and it failed to make their parents aware of all the services that might help their children.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/02/10/in_debate_about_education_of_immigrant_kids_money_talks/

[Posted by: Juliana Steers]

Rethinking Crime and Immigration

The summer of 2007 witnessed a perfect storm of controversy over immigration in the United States. After building for months with angry debate, a widely touted immigration reform bill supported by President George W Bush and many leaders in Congress failed decisively. Recriminations soon followed across the political spectrum.

http://contexts.org/articles/files/2008/01/contexts_winter08_sampson.pdf

[Posted by: Melissa Diaz]

Leave Immigration Enforcement to the Feds

Recently, mayors throughout the country, and some in New Jersey, have begun negotiating with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE"), a bureau of the Department of Homeland Security, to deputize law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration laws. While I share my colleagues' concerns about national security, immigration enforcement is in the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government. Our efforts to secure our nation from those hostile to it must be tempered by respect for our national heritage and our commitment to civil rights. The plan to deputize local police to enforce federal immigration laws is contrary to those values.
At first blush, the ability of local police to enforce federal immigration law seems like a viable solution to our nation's challenge of illegal immigration. However, piling the additional duty of immigration enforcement upon our already strained local police will do little more than force illegal immigrants and those who associate with them further into society's shadows. The negative effects which will result thereafter are significant.

http://www.michaelwildes.org/documents/LeaveImmigrationEnforcementtotheFeds3.08.pdf

[Posted by: Gloria J]

Report Cites Culture of Ethnic Hatred in Suffolk County

By KIRK SEMPLE

Published: September 2, 2009

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y. — An environment of racial intolerance and ethnic hatred, fostered by anti-immigrant groups and some public officials, has helped fuel dozens of attacks on Latinos in Suffolk County during the past decade, says a report issued Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks hate groups around the country.

“Latino immigrants in Suffolk County live in fear,” said the report, which the law center released at a news conference here. “Political leaders in the county have done little to discourage the hatred, and some have actively fanned the flames.”

The law center, based in Montgomery, Ala., came to prominence in the 1970s for anti-discrimination efforts and its legal battles against the Ku Klux Klan. It started looking at Suffolk County after Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, was stabbed to death last November in Patchogue. Seven youths, who prosecutors say were driven by prejudice against Latinos, are awaiting trial in that case.

The center’s report is the product of months of investigation on Long Island, including scores of interviews with Latino immigrants and local civic leaders. While it draws heavily on news accounts and public records, center officials said it was the most comprehensive compilation of statements and events showing a pattern of hate crimes in Suffolk that were at least tacitly condoned — if not actively encouraged — by some local leaders.

the article : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/nyregion/03suffolk.html?fta=y

Report from the Southern Poverty Law Center : http://documents.nytimes.com/climate-of-fear-latino-immigrants-in-suffolk-county-n-y#p=1

posted by Chanvathei Lonh