Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

Mexico is setting up a call center in Tuscon, Ariz., to help Mexican citizens who run into immigration problems. Mexican officials say the center is designed to help illegal workers, and that it was prompted by an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment in Arizona. The center, which will have a toll-free number and be staffed 24 [...]

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Though the election dominated last week’s news and will likely dominate next week’s as well, other things have been happening in the world of immigration. Here are a few:

The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement resigned without explanation, effective November 15. Julie L. Myers, who was appointed to the position in 2005, oversaw high-profile raids [...]

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Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, whose department includes Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, announced last week that the government would begin mailing “no match” letters to employers suspected of hiring illegal immigrants. These letters would notify employers that some of their employees were using Social Security numbers that did not match names in the Social [...]

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A new Pew Hispanic Center report says that Latinos made up half of the nation’s growth since 2000. By 2007, they accounted for 15 percent of the population.
USA Today takes a look at immigration in Arizona, where the issue is very much on the political radar.

The collapse of the housing industry has led [...]

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When I.C.E. arrests illegal immigrants, charges of identity theft usually follow. Often, the immigrants have bought fake social security numbers and identification, and sometimes those identities belong to real people. Under a 2004 law, this crime carries federal charges and a prison term of up to two years.
But many illegal immigrants say they did not [...]

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Non-Somali workers protest special accommodations for Muslims in Grand Island, Ne. (Grand Island Independent, via AP)
Like many local law enforcement offices around the country, the sheriff’s department in Outagamie County, Wisc., reports suspected illegal immigrants to I.C.E. through the Criminal Alien Program. But the Appleton Post Crescent reports that many of the people on the [...]

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A four-year-old waits for word of his mother, arrested in an ICE raid. (AP Photo)
Raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue after a sweep netted more than 1,100 suspected illegal immigrants in California last month. On Tuesday, another 300 were arrested in a raid on a poultry processing plant in Greenville, S.C. (video). In a [...]

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Though the country’s attention has been focused on an ongoing financial crisis, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are continuing, and there have been developments in the aftermath of past raids. News 21 gets you up to speed:

“Fear. Stress. Isolation,” says the Hattiesburg American, listing themes in the lives of detainees’ families after the raid [...]

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U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detained 595 suspected illegal immigrants after a raid at a Mississippi electrical parts plant on Monday. The raid targeted Howard Industries, one of the largest employers in Laurel, Miss., a city of about 18,000. Eight of the immigrants are facing federal charges of using stolen social security numbers, according the [...]

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A federal judge upheld Arizona’s Proposition 200, a 2004 law that mandates proof of citizenship for voter registration. News 21 reporters found that Latinos and other voters are often disenfranchised by Prop. 200.
Time magazine delved into Miami Latinos’ shift toward the Democrats. News 21 reporters Don Duncan and Elizabeth Mendez Berry came to the same [...]

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