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The owner of the landmark restaurant and bakery The French Gourmet and a longtime manager there pleaded not guilty to federal charges that they hired illegal workers and lied to the government that they had the proper work documents.

Michel Malecot, president of the restaurant, bakery and catering business on Turquoise Avenue in Pacific Beach, and Richard Kauffmann a manager and pastry chef, were charged with 16 counts of conspiracy, harboring illegal immigrants and false attestation. The charges stem from a raid conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the business in May 2008.

Malecot posted a $75,000 bond and Kauffmann a $60,000 bond after entering their pleas in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Nita L. Stormes.

The indictment alleges that Kauffmann and other managers would hire illegal workers and then certify on government forms that they had verified their Social Security and other documents and they were legal to work in the country.

In a half-dozen instances alleged in the indictment, the restaurant received “no match” letters form the Social Security Administration saying the Social Security numbers submitted in the forms were not valid. The restaurant would then submit new forms with new Social Security numbers falsely saying that the documents appeared genuine, the government charged.

More from the Union Tribune….

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Now that Arizona lawmakers have passed what’s considered some of the toughest immigration legislation in the country, other states are watching to see whether they should follow in the state’s footsteps or stand back.

Arizona’s bill orders immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and requires police to question people if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the United States illegally. It also targets those who hire illegal immigrant day laborers or knowingly transport them.

Critics, including immigrant advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, are concerned that the legislation will foster racial profiling, arguing that most police officers don’t have enough training to look past race while investigating a person’s legal status.

The bill made it through the state Senate on Monday after it was passed by the state House last week. It’s now awaiting the signature of Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. Supporters of the measure expect her to sign it. Latino members of Congress are calling on Brewer to veto it.

more here…

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Some call this the strictest immigration bill ever introduced, is going through the Arizona legislature.

If the bill becomes law, one of its provisions would allow local police to check a person’s immigration status. Currently, that right is reserved for federal agents.

Arizona’s largest police union, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA), has come out in support of the bill.

Additionally, the bill states that officers cannot solely consider race, color or national origin when carrying out their duties.It also says that people living here illegally could face criminal charges and that blocking traffic to pick up passengers and bring them somewhere else for work would be a ticketable offense. Further, the bill would prohibit people from transporting or harboring illegal aliens.

Right now the bill is in the senate and is expected to pass. It will then go to the governor, and she too is expected to sign it. What does it say about the climate for sweeping reform? you tell me.

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Even though most Americans are putting money into the Social Security fund, those taxes are falling short of what’s needed to break even. Commentator Robert Reich, NPR says letting more immigrants into the U.S. may be the answer.

The biggest reason Social Security is in trouble, and Medicare as well, is because America is aging so fast. The baby boom generation is retiring. Seniors are living longer. And families are having fewer children.

Add it all up and the number of people who are working relative to the number who are retired keeps shrinking.

Thirty years ago there were five workers for every retiree. Now there are three. Within a couple of decades, there will be only two workers per retiree. There’s no way just two workers will be able or willing to pay enough payroll taxes to keep benefits flowing to every retiree.

This is where immigration comes in. Most immigrants are young because the impoverished countries they come from are demographically the opposite of rich countries. Rather than aging populations, their populations are bursting with young people.

Once the American economy recovers, most new immigrants to the U.S. will be working for many decades.

Get it? One logical way to deal with the crisis of funding Social Security and Medicare is to have more workers per retiree, and the simplest way to do that is to allow more immigrants into the United States.

Read the Article here…

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Never a dull moment here in San Diego County. Dozens of minor aftershocks continue to rattle nerves as well as the ground Monday following one of the strongest earthquakes to ever hit the region.

Two people were killed and at least 100 injured when a 7.2 temblor rocked Baja and the county Sunday afternoon. At least five subsequent quakes have measured 5.0 or greater, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

On the Immigration front, more than three dozen Haitian earthquake survivors were released from Florida immigration jails on last week after more than two months in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Many had lost relatives in the Jan. 12 earthquake; some had been pulled from the rubble themselves. In the chaotic days and aftershocks that followed, many had been seeking security, food or treatment at the Port-au-Prince airport when they were waved onto military transports or other planes by United States Marines, only to be detained for lack of visas when they landed.

Lawyers at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, who had urged their release for weeks, were jubilant as they waited with relatives outside the Broward County Transitional Center, a privately operated jail in Pompano Beach, for the last ones to walk out. Immigration officials said 40 Haitian survivors would be released on orders of supervision by nightfall. This came on the day that The New York Times reported that at least 30 earthquake survivors were being detained.

Read more here…

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Immigration reform has been put on the back burner for the past year or so. It has been eclipsed by debates over health care reform and job creation. But for many rural farming communities, at least in the West, it’s an issue that continues to burn.

Out in Eastern Colorado, the tiny town of Yuma has recently weighed in on the immigration debate. The town council passed a unanimous resolution calling on the U.S. Congress and the president to “solve our ineffective immigration system.”
For generations the town has relied on immigrant labor, which used to be seasonal. But in the past decade those jobs have become permanent, thanks to the area’s expanding hog farms and feedlots. Today at least a quarter of Yuma’s population is Hispanic, more if you factor in illegal immigrants.

Full story here….

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Many students come to the US to gain great education and future opportunities as a result. At the same time, many prospective students, intend to use the student visa as a cover in order to stay in the US. After 9/11 the rules became tougher, if a student fails to attend school, he must be reported and and may be loose his status. Yet, there are some schools across the country that will enroll students, but will not require attendance. Only to make money.

A Florida language school helped illegally obtain student visas for foreign nationals who never went to class, violating laws enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks exposed weaknesses in the program, authorities said Thursday.

Eighty-one student visa holders purportedly studying at the Florida Language Institute have been arrested. None was on any federal watch list or linked to terrorism, U.S. authorities said, though investigators were checking their backgrounds. The school’s owner, Lydia Menocal, 58, and employee Ofelia Macia, 75, allegedly made $2.4 million over the past three years from foreign nationals applying for U.S. student visas. It was not clear how much they charged each student for the paperwork, authorities said.

Menocal and Macia were charged with conspiring to commit an offense against the U.S., and Menocal faces other charges including falsifying immigration documents, according to a grand jury indictment. ICE officials said the takedown of the school was the largest visa fraud investigation in the agency’s history
More here…

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Anne Arundel County state senator is continuing his efforts to better identify illegal immigrants in the state’s prison system, hoping an increased number of deportations could save Maryland money. Well, it will take more than that to save them money.

The Senator has proposed legislation to require the state Division of Parole and Probation to contact the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency if a pre-sentence investigation report indicates someone has an unlawful immigration status. What a great use of government resources, as if the Division of Parole and probation is not busy as it is, but well he is a Senator.

“The main issue was to catch them on the front end,” he said. “It has the potential to have quite a bit of savings. Every dollar we can save is certainly a benefit.”

It certainly is….

Read more…

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Another step towards Immigration enforcement by policee. Now in California. San Joaquin is one of the latest counties to be part of a Department of Justice and Homeland Security initiative that checks the immigration status of those booked into its jails
San Joaquin and Stanislaus now join eight other counties in California, including Solano, San Diego and Los Angeles, in running the fingerprints of everyone booked into their jails through Homeland Security immigration records, along with other routine criminal record checks.

If fingerprints match those in the Homeland Security database, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is automatically notified and can determine what actions, such as deportation, should be taken.

The goal of the system is to make sure that all those with violent criminal histories who are not naturalized citizens are not released back into the local community.

Read more….

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Sheriff Arpaio is determined to bring down illegal immigrants, even the Federal government is not a barrier anymore. It is Arpaio’s law or the highway. When the federal government stripped Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies of their power to enforce federal immigration laws on the streets, the sheriff repeatedly said nothing would change.

The sheriff said that starting today every one of his deputies will go through training to specifically target illegal immigrants. I wonder what kind of training that is?
The sheriff announced that he is ramping up the county’s fight against illegal immigration by increasing the number of trained deputies from 100 to nearly 900. Sheriff Arpaio also did not comment on when the new enforcement would start. Isn’t it time for some serious Fed action against this Sheriff to send a clear message to all the antis?
Read the article from AZ Family here