Thread: Altoona takes up illegal aliens

http://www.altoonamirror.com/News/artic ... cleID=5161


Wednesday, September 27, 2006 — Time: 12:59:18 PM

City takes up illegal aliens

By William Kibler, bkibler@altoonamirror.com


Altoona City Council will vote tonight on whether to adopt an ordinance that would penalize businesses who hire and landlords who rent to illegal aliens.

The Center for Immigration Studies says Altoona’s proposed ordinance can be a “positive response” to the national immigration crisis.

But the American Immigration Lawyers Association says it’s overreaching.

Advocacy associate Danielle Polen of the AILA says immigration is a federal matter, one that communities like Altoona should stay away from.

“You shouldn’t be putting it in the hands of local officials who are not properly trained” to handle the complexities of immigration, she said.

Her organization also opposes state and local police enforcement of civil immigration laws, as proposed in Congress.

Even immigration officials sometimes have trouble interpreting documents that reflect immigration status, Polen said.

Authorizing ordinary police officers to do it would lead to “heart-wrenching mistakes,” she said.

It also would damage the rapport community policing can create with immigrant communities, she said.

The United States needs to fix its broken immigration system first, then enforce the laws, Polen said.

Researcher John Wahala of the Center for Immigration Studies said when done right, local ordinances can help the nation gain control of a conflicted system choked with an unprecedented immigrant influx.

While local ordinances aren’t necessarily part of the organization’s formula for reform, they can help promote the goal, which is to discourage illegals from staying here, he said.

More than 1 million people enter the country illegally each year, according to the center.

The organization estimates there are about 12 million illegals in the country, a conservative calculation based on government data.

The center recommends enhancing border and work site enforcement while giving officers at all levels the means to identify and detain illegals they encounter in the course of normal activities.

Laws already exist for work site enforcement, passed during a 1986 amnesty that otherwise overwhelmed the Immigration and Naturalization Service, causing workers to quit, leading to the admission of hundreds of thousands under fraudulent identification, Wahala said.

Those 1986 laws included documentation requirements, but there was no “political will” and no effective enforcement mechanism behind them, Wahala said.

The Internet and modern databases provide tools for real enforcement at work sites now, especially given that everyone who is here legally has a Social Security number, he said.

Likewise, those tools enable coordination among federal, state and local systems so police who encounter someone during a traffic stop should be able to determine immigration status.

Polen said the government should radically revise visa limits for legal employment immigration, which are “out of sync with market realities.”

Current law admits 5,000 unskilled workers per year, yet demand by construction, service, hospitality, agriculture, meat-packing and other industries is about 500,000, she said.

“The economic realities don’t match up even remotely,” she said.

The association proposes quotas that fluctuate with demand.

Otherwise, “you can build all the fences you want, but people are still going to manage to get in,” she said.

The Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese has asked the council to reconsider the ordinance.

The ordinance would be unjust, punitive and ineffective, Bishop Joseph Adamec recently told the council.

It would put people of faith in the awkward position of having to choose between following the law and helping those in need, he said.

The diocese supports comprehensive immigration reform that includes securing borders and “fixing a system that is clearly broken,” spokesman Rob Egan said.

Congressman Bill Shuster said Monday that he supports City Council’s ordinance designed to discourage illegal aliens from living and working here.

The ordinance is well-crafted and more likely to withstand court challenge than previous illegal immigration ordinances, based on a review by the Congressional Research Service that he requested, he said in a prepared statement.

“Illegal immigrants are a strain on taxpayers and on social services; they overextend Medicaid and Social Security, but don’t contribute,” Shuster said in the statement. “I say we hold people responsible now.”

Shuster will vote today in favor of a measure that would add more Border Patrol agents and help stem the flow of illegal immigration into the United States.

The More Border Patrol Agents Act of 2006 will recruit, train and deploy immediately more guards to the border to secure America and help prevent illegal immigration.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.

There is a lot of support in the community for this ordinance. Church officials went to the last meeting to plead for the illegals, and I think it had the opposite effect than what they desired. It really angered some of the City Council members, some of whom have family members who are legal immigrants who jumped through all the legal hoops to get here.

I wrote a letter to the editor supporting this ordinance which was published a couple of weeks ago. All of the letters have been supportive of the ordinance except for one person who thought the City Council was wasting its time as we don't have much of a problem with illegal immigration now.

For anyone that doesn't know we have a focus campaign page with information about the ordinance, contact information for council members, and links to articles. Since the ordinance is coming up for a vote now would be a good time to contact the council members to support it. Here is the link to the page.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=39371

Please everyone, go send a quick e-mail or make a call. Just use the form letter if you want.

I'm going to right now! This is important.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=39371

Thanks,
Dixie

http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/15623383.htm

Posted on Wed, Sep. 27, 2006

Altoona latest to consider illegal immigrant crackdown


Associated Press

ALTOONA, Pa. - The City Council has joined the list of local governments around the nation considering a proposal to punish companies that hire illegal aliens and landlords who rent to them.

Altoona's "Undocumented Alien Control Ordinance" proposal is similar to a measure passed in Hazleton earlier this year. Since the Hazleton vote, more than a half-dozen communities in eastern Pennsylvania have either passed or considered similar crackdowns on illegal immigrants, as have a number of municipalities around the country.

A majority of the seven members of the council in Altoona, a city of about 47,000 that is 85 miles west of Pittsburgh, have voiced support for the measure in the past.

But representatives of the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, the American Civil Liberties Union and some community activists have asked the council to table the ordinance rather than taking a vote scheduled for Wednesday night.

Bishop Joseph Adamec of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown said in a statement posted Wednesday on the diocese's Web site that if the ordinance is passed, there should be a "grandfather clause" allowing poor families to get help if needed. Adamec said the proposal could put families, some of whom had been in the country for years, "on the street."

The scheduled vote comes a couple of weeks after a Blair County jury recommended that Miguel Padilla be sentenced to death for the murders of three men outside a city nightclub last year. Immigration authorities have said that Padilla, 27, of Gallitzin, had been in the country illegally from Mexico since he was about 9 years old.

A draft version of the proposal said the influx of illegal immigrants "carries with it many real and potential threats to the public welfare including but not limited to the degradation of public safety, criminality" and school overcrowding.

Hispanic activists and the ACLU sued to overturn Hazleton's illegal immigrant law, but the lawsuit was rendered moot earlier this month when the city passed a replacement law designed to better withstand a legal challenge.

http://www.wtajtv.com/news/local/4252001.html

Altoona City Council voted to adopt a controversial immigration ordinance Wednesday night. The Undocumented Alien Control Ordinance will penalize landlords and businesses who rent to or hire illegal immigrants. They could lose their licenses and face fines up to $1,000.

After months of debate, Altoona Councilmembers voted 6-1 to adopt the ordinance. Councilman Matt Garber was the only one to vote against the proposal. He says he doesn't believe the benefits outweigh the costs. Garber says he thinks it will be too expensive for the city to enforce the housing portion of the ordinance.

The ordinance will take effect in 10 days.

Story Created: Sep 27, 2006 at 10:31 PM EST

Story Updated: Sep 27, 2006 at 10:31 PM EST

Thanks for the news Jenny. How are you all doing since the Padilla trial ended?

I started a separate thread with more articles here. Wanted the separate listing for the victory to show up on our Altoona focus page.

http://www.alipac.us/modules.php?name=F ... ic&t=42440