Money also would fund crackdown on firms that hire illegal immigrants

WASHINGTON – President Obama will ask Congress for $27 billion to beef up border security and immigration enforcement, administration officials said Wednesday.

The president’s fiscal 2010 budget request, to be delivered to lawmakers Thursday, calls for an 8 percent increase over the current fiscal year.

It also represents a shift away from what Obama officials see as headline-grabbing by the Bush administration, which emphasized erecting fences at the border and conducting high-profile workplace raids that targeted workers. New efforts will crack down on employers who drive the demand for illegal immigrants, White House officials said.

White House officials said their budget request would:

• Increase by nearly 18 percent funding for the Justice Department’s Southwest Border Initiative, which is aimed at slowing the flow of criminals, weapons and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. This $2 billion request would support efforts by Mexico to combat drug cartel violence and apprehend criminals.

• Double funding and provide $46.8 million to the Department of Homeland Security to stop the southbound flow of guns and drug money from the U.S. to Mexico. It would allow DHS to add 44 Border Patrol agents and 65 Customs and Border Protection officers.

• Combat border violence by providing $70 million in new DHS funding to hire 349 special agents, intelligence analysts and criminal investigators to coordinate efforts with the Mexican government.

• Step up efforts to remove criminal immigrants by increasing funding for the DHS Secure Communities program by 30 percent to nearly $200 million. The money would finance hiring 80 law enforcement officers to identify the worst suspected foreign-born criminals in U.S. prisons and elsewhere and help deport them.

• Beef up security at airports and seaports by providing a 12 percent increase for the Transportation Security Administration, for a total of $7.5 billion. The money would be used to buy new X-ray and imaging equipment to help detect concealed weapons and explosives. It would be used for additional security officers at seaports.

• Strengthen E-Verify, the voluntary Web-based system designed to help U.S. employers confirm whether would-be workers are in the nation legally. The request calls for $112 million to improve the reliability of the system and expand its capacity to handle more employers.

WASHINGTON — A unanimous Supreme Court said Monday that undocumented workers who use phony IDs can’t be considered identity thieves without proof they knew they were stealing real people’s Social Security and other numbers.

The court’s decision limits federal authorities’ use of a 2004 law, intended to get tough on identity thieves, against immigrants who are picked up in workplace raids and found to be using false Social Security and alien registration numbers.

Advocates for immigrants had complained that federal authorities used the threat of prosecution on the identity theft charge, which carries a two-year mandatory prison term, to win guilty pleas on lesser charges and acceptance of prompt deportation.

“These prosecutions have been taken off the table,” said Nina Perales, southwest regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The court, in an opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer, rejected the government’s argument that prosecutors need only show that the identification numbers belong to someone else, regardless of whether the defendant knew it.

Breyer said intent is often easy to prove in what he called classic identity theft. “Where a defendant has used another person’s information to get access to that person’s bank account, the government can prove knowledge with little difficulty,” Breyer said.

But immigrants without proper documentation need identity documents and often buy them from forgers, never knowing if they belong to anyone.

Such was the case with the undocumented worker on the winning side Monday. Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, a Mexican immigrant employed at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill., traveled to Chicago and bought numbers from someone who trades in counterfeit IDs.

Unlike earlier fictitious numbers Flores-Figueroa used, these numbers belonged to real people.

Flores-Figueroa had worked at the plant under a false name for six years. His decision to use his real name and exchange one set of phony numbers for another aroused his employer’s suspicions.

He was arrested in 2006 and convicted on false document and identity theft charges.

He appealed his conviction as an identity thief, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis upheld the conviction. With appeals courts divided on the issue, the Supreme Court stepped into the case.

The Bush administration used the identity theft law hundreds of times last year. Workers accused of immigration violations found themselves facing the more serious identity theft charge as well, without any indication they knew their counterfeit Social Security and other identification numbers belonged to actual people and were not made up.

After last year’s raid on a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa, authorities charged 270 undocumented workers with identity theft. They all accepted plea deals in which they also agreed not to contest deportation.

But illustrating the arbitrary nature of the law — which several justices commented on during arguments in February — an additional 100 workers arrested in the same raid faced less serious charges because their identification numbers were made up.

The Obama administration has shifted the main focus of immigration raids to employers.

The case is Flores-Figueroa v. U.S., 08-108.

Court rules for immigrant in ID theft case

CUTLER, Calif. — As migrant workers from Mexico begin their journey north to take summer jobs in fields and construction sites across the U.S., public health officials and others are fanning out to intercept them at food lines and churches in hopes of stemming the spread of deadly swine flu.

Industries such as agriculture and meatpacking rely on an influx of thousands of seasonal workers each year. Officials worry that some of those laborers may be ill and could infect co-workers and others in the U.S.

Mexican consular officials, social service organizations and health authorities are handing out Spanish-language fliers with information on swine-flu symptoms and prevention tips. They are sending out mobile health care crews in buses or vans. And they are urging workers who feel sick to go to the hospital or a free clinic.

The traveling population of poor farmworkers, day laborers and construction workers poses a challenge for authorities, who say it can be difficult for people to wash their hands or go to the hospital if they lack running water or fear deportation.

“People are constantly coming here from Mexico and migrating back and forth,” said Dr. Edward Moreno, director of public health in Fresno County, some 440 miles north of the Mexican border. “That means that people may not have a land line, hot water or Internet access, and no regular doctor.”

Alfredo Mendoza, 24, of the Mexican state of Oaxaca, crossed the border two weeks ago to work with his family pruning California’s vineyards.

“I feel healthy, so I’m just washing my hands a lot and keeping my mouth covered, and not leaving the house other than to work,” he said. “People aren’t too freaked out about the flu here yet. I just feel lucky that I left Mexico before it got really bad down there.”

At a California clinic, Nely Garcia, the 26-year-old wife of a farmworker, filled out forms for her 3-year-old daughter, who had a cough and runny nose. Her mother feared the girl might have the flu, but she turned out to have an eye infection.

Garcia, who was born in Mexico and moved to the U.S. as a child, said she was worried that her family could be exposed to the virus through relatives who recently traveled to the Mexican state of Colima, or through the local school system.

“We have to be really careful because of the children, especially since so many people are making their way back up here. And when we cough we cover our mouths, right?” Garcia instructed her toddler as they waited in Cutler, a farming town of about 4,500 people 40 miles from Fresno.

Down the street, health workers applied hand sanitizer as they passed out Spanish-language brochures about swine flu to 200 people waiting in line to pick up bags of free potatoes, onions and mushrooms.

The global outbreak apparently began in Mexico, where it is suspected of causing nearly 170 deaths and sickening about 2,500 people. The first flu death in the U.S. was confirmed Wednesday: a toddler from Mexico City who was visiting Texas with his family.

In Chicago, the Mexican consulate is sending mobile units to Hispanic neighborhoods to distribute fliers. Community organizations and churches are doing the same.

Pastor Jose Landaverde of Our Lady of Guadalupe Anglican Church in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, which has one of the biggest Mexican communities in the Midwest, said so many people had stopped in to ask about the flu that he planned to address it during Mass.

If seasonal labor trends mirror last year’s, the number of agricultural workers in the U.S. will grow to about 700,000 by June and peak at 828,000 by September, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures. It is unclear how many are from Mexico.

A farmworkers union plans to meet Mexican legal guest workers as they arrive in the U.S. with a medical van, where they can get screened for flu symptoms and learn prevention tactics. The workers will later pick vegetables on North Carolina farms.

Pastors and health care workers also are hoping to reach tomato pickers near the Florida town of Immokalee and field hands harvesting asparagus in Michigan.

The Mexican consulate and local health organizations in California are mounting a prevention campaign that will send buses to isolated communities where there is no doctor. Health care workers aboard the buses will talk to people about swine flu and where they can find medical care.

CHICAGO — The timing is not the best. Immigration-rights rallies are set for Friday as health officials try to clamp down on a swine flu epidemic with roots in the same country as many of the expected demonstrators: Mexico.

Public health officials on Thursday had not advised canceling large-scale events unless they were specifically tied to an institution or location with a laboratory-confirmed case of the illness. They urged people to stay home if they are sick.

In Tucson, a rally is planned for 9 a.m. at Southgate Shopping Center, Interstate 10 and South Sixth Avenue, with a march from there to Armory Park, 220 S. Fifth Ave., starting at 10 a.m.

Organizers of the May Day rallies, which have drawn thousands and even hundreds of thousands of people in recent years, said they would look to recommendations from public health officials about whether to cancel or modify the events.

“We’re monitoring the situation to make sure that anything that is going to be conducive to the health and safety of communities is observed,” said Clarissa Martinez, a director for the National Council of La Raza.

Crowds on Friday were expected to be around the same as last year. In Chicago, which has had the nation’s largest marches in the country, about 15,000 participated in 2008. That’s a dramatic drop from 2006, when more than 400,000 took to the streets.

Thousands also were expected at events Friday in Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Seattle and other cities. Health officials urged participants to use common sense.

“The message ought to be clear that if people are sick no matter whether it’s Cinco de Mayo, a school, a church, a synagogue or any place of worship or anywhere else — a movie theater — they should stay home,” Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Terry Mason said Wednesday.

Some schools have closed because of the swine flu outbreak, and U.S. and Mexican officials have been urging migrant workers to take health precautions and get medical care if they feel sick.

The rallies come as illegal immigrants are being blamed on some conservative blogs and talk shows for spreading swine flu in the U.S. The outbreak is believed to have originated in Mexico, where there are 168 suspected deaths from the disease, before spreading to at least 10 other countries, including the U.S.

The only confirmed U.S. swine-flu death was of a Mexican toddler who family was visiting relatives in Texas; many reported cases were among U.S. citizens who vacationed in Mexico.

“For people who like to blame Mexicans, they are going to blame us for everything no matter what,” said Jorge Mujica, a labor union activist and organizer for Chicago’s immigrant rights march. “We are not going to pay attention to that.”

For most rally organizers, swine flu was secondary to promoting immigration reform, including pathways to citizenship for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants — hopes buoyed with Barack Obama in the White House and a Democratic-controlled Congress.

More than 1 million people marched in cities across the country in 2006, when some in Congress were pushing for tougher laws against illegal immigrants. Although turnout at the marches has dropped steeply since then, organizers say their mission remains the same.

“It’s important for us to continue the fight,” said Margarita Klein with Workers United in Chicago, adding that union workers had been preparing for two months for Friday’s event.

Union leaders said they have set aside differences to promote a unified immigration overhaul plan they hope will get through Congress this year.

“I think we’re in a different position now in April 2009 than in April 2007,” said Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress. “I think it’s become more diverse and mainstream, sort of at the same time.”

Some say immigration reform will help the economy.

“Immigrants are workers that are central to our economic success, and immigration reform is essential for stabilizing our work force,” said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Others say having a new president whose father was from another country — Kenya — has also buoyed hopes.

“You can feel it in the streets, people are waiting for some kind of solution,” said Mujica, the organizer in Chicago. “We have been waiting.”

WASHINGTON – An Obama administration policy to go after employers who knowingly hire and exploit illegal workers is not significantly different from the Bush administration strategy, according to a copy of the guidelines, obtained by The Associated Press.

The new guidelines for immigration agents, which the Homeland Security Department calls a “renewed department-wide focus” will impose fines and criminal charges against employers who break the law.

While the priority is to go after employers, the policy states that agents will continue to arrest illegal workers. The Barack Obama policy, however, stresses that humanitarian guidelines will be followed more broadly than in the previous administration.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said that under her leadership the agency will now be focused on “renewing a priority on employers who are making money off of these illegal immigrants and giving them jobs that should be going to American workers, as opposed to just counting numbers.”

In 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement brought criminal charges against 135 employers and 968 workers.

In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this month, Napolitano said using investigative tools such as auditing documents employees fill out when they join a company, having illegal workers go undercover and talking to people who regularly interact with the employers are all ways to build a case against a business that hires illegal workers.

“What I want to do is deter more employers from intentionally and knowingly hiring illegal workers,” Napolitano said.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Tuesday staunchly defended its “passive surveillance” policy on the emerging swine flu threat, saying that its measured, cautious border monitoring makes sense.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared that more draconian enforcement steps are not yet necessary, even as she acknowledged that officials “anticipate confirmed cases in more states.” She reiterated President Barack Obama’s stance that people are justifiably concerned but need not be alarmed by it.

Some 50 swine flu infections have been identified so far in the United States, but no deaths. In contrast, there have been over 150 deaths in neighboring Mexico, and Asian countries deployed thermal sensors at airports to screen passengers from North America for signs of fever.

Napolitano assured network interviewers of a “very broad multi-agency federal response” and said that she and a number of Cabinet members had met into the night Monday to discuss strategy. She also said the administration wouldn’t wait for a World Health Organization declaration of a pandemic to deliver a pandemic-like response.

Noting that the international health body has elevated its pandemic alert status to Level 4 of a 6-step process, Napolitano said: “We’re prepared as if there were a pandemic. We’re not waiting.”

Obama on Monday responded to the first domestic emergency of his presidency by urging calm — and then dispatching officials to the cameras to again back up that message. He said the flu outbreak was “not a cause for alarm,” even as the government began urgent steps to respond to the small but rising number of cases. The calming words belied an intense reaction across departments and agencies.

Richard Besser, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said his agency was aggressively investigating, looking for evidence of the disease spreading and probing for ways to control and prevent it.

The government also issued an advisory warning travelers to cancel any nonessential visits to Mexico — and gently took issue with a European Union health official who said the same thing about travel to parts of the U.S.

At the White House, a swine flu update, delivered by White House homeland security adviser John Brennan, was added to the president’s daily intelligence briefing. And on Capitol Hill, several panels scheduled emergency hearings for this week.

On Tuesday, Napolitano said that federal efforts to get antiviral medications to the states “is under way and is working.”

The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, issued emergency guidance late Monday that allows certain antiviral drugs to be used in a broader range of the population in case mass dosing is needed to deal with a widespread swine flu outbreak.

The agency originally approved the use of the antiviral drug Tamiflu for the prevention and treatment of influenza in adults and children age 1 and older. Another antiviral drug, Relenza, was originally approved to treat people 7 and older and to help prevent flu in those 5 and older.

Napolitano was asked point-blank in one interview if the monitoring that the U.S. is now conducting at entry points in the country is sufficient. “We think that what we’re doing now at the land ports and the airports makes sense,” she replied.

Asked whether tougher steps were under consideration, she said: “That’s something that can be considered, but you have to look at what the costs are. We literally have thousands of trucks and commerce that cross that border … That would be a very, very heavy cost for what epidemiologists tells us would be marginal” in terms of containing the virus.

The White House also aimed to sidestep a potentially problematic diplomatic headache. Press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to discuss whether Obama officials have any concern about when Mexico notified the U.S. of the outbreak — particularly significant given the president’s trip to Mexico on April 16 and 17.

The White House said Monday that its medical unit asked if Mexican health officials and U.S. Embassy medical staff had any concerns about infectious disease and were told they did not. But a White House statement said, “We have no reason to believe they withheld any information they had at the time.”

The first case of swine flu was reported in Mexico three days before Obama’s arrival. Gibbs said the White House was not told, but he stressed that the president’s doctors have no concern about his health.

Health workers wear surgical masks as a precaution against infection at the airport in Mexico City on Sunday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confirming 40 cases of swine flu in the U.S., the Obama administration said Monday it was responding aggressively as if the outbreak would spread into a full pandemic. Officials urged Americans against most travel to Mexico as the virus that began there spread to the United States and beyond.

President Barack Obama urged calm, saying there was reason for concern but not yet “a cause for alarm.”

Yet just in case, administration officials said that they were already waging a vigorous campaign of prevention, unsure of the outbreak’s severity or where it would show up next.

U.S. customs officials began checking people entering U.S. territory. Millions of doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile were on their way to states, with priority given to the five already affected and to border states. Federal agencies were conferring with state and international governments.

“We want to make sure that we have equipment where it needs to be, people where they need to be and, most important, information shared at all levels,” Janet Napolitano, head of the Homeland Security Department, told reporters.

Her briefing came shortly before the World Health Organization raised the severity of its pandemic alert level to four from three on a six-point scale. Level four means there is sustained human-to-human spread in at least one country. Level six is a full-fledged pandemic, an epidemic that has spread to a wide geographic area.

“We are proceeding as if we are preparatory to a full pandemic,” Napolitano said.

She said travel warnings for trips to Mexico would remain in place as long as swine flu is detected.

Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that so far the disease in the United States seemed less severe than the outbreak in Mexico, where more than 1,600 cases had been reported and where the suspected death toll had climbed to 149. No deaths had been reported in the U.S, and only one hospitalization.

“I wouldn’t be overly reassured by that,” Besser told reporters at CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta. He raised the possibility of more severe cases — and deaths — in the United States.

A European Union official warned against travel to parts of the U.S. as well as Mexico, but Besser said that seemed unwarranted.

State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood said the EU commissioner’s remarks were his “personal opinion,” not an official position, and thus the department had no comment. “We don’t want people to panic at this point,” Wood said.

Still Besser said of the situation, “We are taking it seriously and acting aggressively. … Until the outbreak has progressed, you really don’t know what it’s going to do.”

The U.S. stepped up checks of people entering the country by air, land and sea and issued a new U.S. travel advisory suggesting “nonessential travel to Mexico be avoided.”

The confirmed cases announced on Monday were double the 20 earlier reported by the CDC. Besser said this was due to further testing — not further spreading of the virus — in New York at a school in Queens, bringing the New York total to 28.

Besser said other cases have been reported in Ohio, Kansas, Texas and California. He said that, of the 40 cases, only one person has been hospitalized and all have recovered.

Countries across the globe increased their vigilance amid increasing worries about a worldwide pandemic. Obama told a gathering of scientists that his administration’s Department of Health and Human Services had declared a public health emergency “as a precautionary tool to ensure that we have the resources we need at our disposal to respond quickly and effectively.”

“This is obviously a cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert, but it’s not a cause for alarm,” Obama said. He said he was getting regular updates.

The Senate has yet to confirm a secretary of human services, a surgeon general or a director of CDC. The absence of those officials left Besser and Napolitano to brief reporters on the swine flu outbreak.

The quickening pace of developments in the United States in response to the spreading new flu strain was accompanied by a host of varying responses around the world.

Mexico, at the center of the outbreak, suspended schools nationwide. China, Taiwan and Russia considered quarantines, and several Asian countries scrutinized visitors arriving at their airports.

U.S. customs officials began checking people entering U.S. territory. Officers at airports, seaports and border crossings were watching for signs of illness, said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling.

While “the borders are open,” Easterling said officials were “taking a second look at folks who may be displaying a symptom of illness.”

If a traveler reports not feeling well, the person will be questioned about symptoms and, if necessary, referred to a CDC official for additional screening, Easterling said. The customs officials were wearing personal protective gear, such as gloves and masks, he said.

The CDC can send someone to the hospital if they suspect a case, but no one is being refused entry. Also, the CDC is readying “yellow cards” with disease information for travelers, in case they later experience symptoms.The border monitoring resembles that done during the SARS epidemic earlier in the decade.

Multiple airlines, including American, United, Continental, US Airways, Mexicana and Air Canada, said they were waiving usual penalties for changing reservations for anyone traveling to, from, or through Mexico, but had not canceled flights.

Napolitano urged Americans to take “common sense” precautions.

“Common sense means washing hands, staying home from work or school if you feel sick, covering your mouth if you cough or sneeze. These are straightforward and simple measures, but they can materially improve our chances of avoiding a full-fledged pandemic,” she said.

Administration officials said about 11 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile have been sent to states in case they are needed — roughly one quarter of the doses in the stockpile.

While there presently is no vaccine available to prevent the specific strain now being seen, there are antiflu drugs that do work once someone is sick. If a new vaccine eventually is ordered, the CDC already has taken a key preliminary step — creating what’s called seed stock of the virus that manufacturers would use.

A private school in South Carolina was closed Monday because of fears that young people who recently returned from Mexico might have been infected. Officials of Newberry Academy in Newberry, S.C., said some seniors on the trip had flu-like symptoms when they returned.

State Department of Health and Environmental Control spokesman Jim Beasley said test results on the students could come back as early as Monday afternoon. To date, there have been no confirmed swine flu cases in the state.

Stock markets fell overseas and in the United States out of concern that the outbreak could derail economic recovery. Airline and other travel-related stocks suffered the sharpest losses.

The New York City school where 28 cases have now been confirmed was closed Monday and Tuesday.

Also, 14 schools in Texas, including a high school where two cases were confirmed, will be closed for at least the next week. Some schools in California and Ohio also were closing after students were found or suspected to have the flu.

In Mexico, the outbreak’s center, soldiers handed out 6 million face masks to help stop the spread of the virus that is suspected in up to 103 deaths. Most other countries are reporting only mild cases so far, with most of the sick already recovering.

Spain reported its first confirmed swine flu case on Monday and said another 17 people were suspected of having the disease. Also, three New Zealanders recently returned from Mexico are suspected of having it.

Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the New York City Department of Health

———

• If you have flu symptoms, stay home to avoid spreading the disease. Do not return to work or school until two days after your symptoms are gone.

• Cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze, and wash your hands frequently.

• Go to the hospital if you have severe symptoms, but if symptoms are mild stay home.

• No need for the general public to wear masks.

• Cook pork to at least 160 degrees.

———

HOW NOT TO GET SICK

———

AT A GLANCE

WASHINGTON – It didn’t take long for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to shoot herself in the foot or for Republicans to make her a target of their opposition to Obama administration policy.

At the heart of the GOP criticism is a recent intelligence analysis from Napolitano’s agency saying veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan could be susceptible to right-wing recruiters or commit lone acts of violence.

When conservative bloggers began writing about the report, Napolitano defended the assessment while acknowledging that some of it should have been rewritten. She went on a number of television news shows to apologize and explain her support for and admiration of veterans.

This was not enough for several Republicans who took to the House floor this week to criticize Napolitano, confirmed to her Cabinet position less than 100 days ago.

“Has this homeland security secretary gone absolutely stark raving mad?” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. “She needs to come before Congress. She needs to answer a few questions.”

On Thursday, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, told Fox News that Napolitano must not understand “the disruption that she has caused” in some parts of the country. “I think the appropriate thing for her to do would be to step down,” he said.

A day earlier, Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, said, “Janet Napolitano should resign or be fired.”

Obama administration aides dismissed the criticism as a “typical Washington game” and “political theater.”

Despite the furor among some Republicans, party leaders did not bring it up in a meeting with President Barack Obama and top White House aides on Thursday. Although House Republican leader John Boehner had indicated earlier it likely would be discussed, his spokesman, Kevin Smith, said the topic was not broached.

White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the right-wing extremist report originated in the Bush administration and Napolitano was working to keep the nation safe from terrorists.

“She doesn’t have time for these games — and neither does the president,” Shapiro said.

The veterans issue wasn’t the only flap. Earlier this week, Napolitano drew criticism for flubbing an explanation of federal law prohibiting people without proper documents from crossing U.S. borders into the country.

In an interview with CNN, Napolitano, whose career has included stints as a U.S. attorney and attorney general and governor of Arizona, said: “Crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil.”

While crossing the border illegally is a crime, most illegal immigrants caught in the United States face only civil penalties and deportation.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., characterized Napolitano’s statements as one of the most “baffling” he has ever heard from a senior government official.

“It is breathtaking that a Cabinet secretary, bestowed by the public with the responsibility to protect our nation’s borders, could be ignorant of the indisputable fact that it is a violation of the criminal code to enter our country illegally,” Sessions said.

Napolitano spokesman Sean Smith said: “She may be new to Washington, but she has been around politics for a long time, and she knows political theater when she sees it.”

Smith said Napolitano spent 16 years enforcing the law on the Southwest border. “Americans can rest assured that she understands what the law is along the border,” he said.

She also has drawn criticism for claiming in an interview that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists entered the U.S. across the Canadian border. The 9/11 Commission found that none came through Canada. But others have, such as the would-be millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam.

Discussing security along the U.S. border on Canada’s CBC News on Monday, Napolitano said, “To the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it’s been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there.”

When asked whether she was talking about the 9/11 terrorists, Napolitano said: “Not just those, but others as well.”

Smith on Thursday said Napolitano acknowledged she misspoke and had been thinking of the millennium bomber.

AP-WS-04-24-09 0433EDT

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court made it easier Wednesday for immigrants seeking to avoid deportation to get another chance at a court hearing.

The decision came in the case of Jean Marc Nken, who came to the United States in 2001 and did not leave when his visa expired.

Nken has since applied for asylum, married a U.S. citizen and had a child, who also is an American. But immigration authorities and federal courts have repeatedly rejected asylum claims, which include the prospect of persecution if he is sent back to the African nation of Cameroon, where he says he was detained and beaten for participating in anti-government protests.

The federal appeals courts have split on what standard to apply to requests to temporarily block deportation while taking another look at immigration cases. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., applied a very tough standard to Nken’s request for a stay and rejected it.

But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the 7-2 decision, overturned the appeals court and sent it back for reconsideration, saying courts should use a less stringent standard. “The whole idea is to hold the matter under review in abeyance because the appellate court lacks sufficient time to decide the merits,” Roberts said.

But justices warned the courts not to start routinely offering stays in deportation cases.

“The alien must show both irreparable injury and a likelihood of success on the merits, in addition to establishing that the interest of the parties and the public weigh in his or her favor,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said.

And the threat of deportation isn’t enough to show irreparable injury, Roberts said. “Aliens who are removed may continue to pursue their petitions for review, and those who prevail can be afforded effective relief by facilitation of their return,” Roberts said.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented.

The case is Nken v. Holder, 08-681.

MEXICO CITY — Confronting a security threat on the America’s doorstep, President Barack Obama arrived Thursday in Mexico for a swift diplomatic mission to show solidarity on drugs and guns with a troubled neighbor — and to prove the U.S. is serious about the battle against trafficking.

After a meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Obama planned to announce he would support an inter-American weapons treaty meant to take on the bloody drug trade. Officials described the plan on the condition of anonymity so they wouldn’t pre-empt the announcement.

The regional treaty, adopted by the Organization of American States, was signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1997 but never ratified by the U.S. Senate. Officials said Obama would push lawmakers to act on it — an opening gesture for meetings that also would include discussion of the economic crisis and possibly clean energy.

Among the other touchy points are disagreement over a lapsed U.S. assault weapons ban, a standoff over cross-border trucking, and immigration.

Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama also would tell Mexican officials that he has asked Congress to provide money for Black Hawk helicopters to help Mexico in its drug war.

The escalating drug fight in Mexico is spilling into the United States, and confronting Obama with an international crisis much closer than North Korea or Afghanistan. Mexico is the main hub for cocaine and other drugs entering the U.S., and the United States is the primary source of guns used in Mexico’s drug-related killings.

Calderon’s aggressive stand against drug cartels has won him the aid of the United States and the prominent political backing of Obama — never as evident as on Thursday, when the new president was to stand with Calderon in Mexico’s capital city.

Interviewed Wednesday by CNN en Espanol, Obama said Calderon was doing a “heroic job” in his battle with the cartels.

As for the U.S. role, Obama said, “We are going to be dealing not only with drug interdiction coming north, but also working on helping to curb the flow of cash and guns going south.”

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said consultations with Mexico are “not about pointing fingers, it’s about solving a problem: What can we do to prevent the flow of guns and cash south that fuel these cartels?”

Obama’s overnight Mexican stop came on the way to the Summit of the Americas in the two-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, where he hopes to set a new tone for relations with Latin America.

“We will renew and sustain a broader partnership between the United States and the hemisphere on behalf of our common prosperity and our common security,” he wrote in an Op-ed column printed in a dozen newspapers throughout the region.

In the past, Obama said, America has been “too easily distracted by other priorities” while leaders throughout the Americas have been “mired in the old debates of the past.”

More than 10,000 people have been killed in Mexico in drug-related violence since Calderon’s stepped-up effort against the cartels began in 2006. The State Department says contract killings and kidnappings on U.S. soil, carried out by Mexican drug cartels, are on the rise as well.

A U.S. military report just five months ago raised the specter of Mexico collapsing into a failed state with its government under siege. It named only one other country in such a worst-case scenario: Pakistan. The assertion incensed Mexican officials; Obama’s team disavowed it.

Indeed, the Obama administration has gone the other direction, showering attention on Mexico.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Mexico City that the U.S. shared responsibility for the drug war. She said America’s “insatiable demand” for illegal drugs fueled the trade and that the U.S. had an “inability” to stop weapons from being smuggled south.

Obama has dispatched hundreds of federal agents, along with high-tech surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs, to the Southwest to help Mexico fight drug cartels. He sent Congress a war-spending request that made room for $350 million for security along the U.S.-Mexico border. He added three Mexican organizations to a list of suspected international drug kingpins. He dispatched three Cabinet secretaries to Mexico. And he just named a “border czar.”

The Justice Department says such Mexican drug trafficking organizations represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States.

The White House is vowing more enforcement of gun laws. But it is not pursuing a promise Obama made as a candidate: a ban on assault-style weapons.

That ban on military-style guns became law during the Clinton administration in 1994 but expired under the Bush administration in 2004. When Attorney General Eric Holder raised the idea of reinstating the ban this year, opposition from Democrats and Republicans emerged quickly.

Reopening the debate on gun rights is apparently a fight the White House does not want to take on right now.

“I think that there are other priorities that the president has,” Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said this week.

Mexican leaders, though, say the ban saved lives.

The swooning economy, blamed largely on failures inside the United States, has taken a huge toll on Mexico. About 80 percent of Mexico’s exports — now in decline — go to the United States.

Obama and Calderon are likely to tout the value of that trade, but a spat between their countries remains unresolved. Mexico has raised tariffs on almost 90 American products, a retaliation for a U.S. decision to cancel access to Mexican truckers on U.S. highways despite the terms of a free trade agreement.

On immigration, Obama is expected to make clear he is committed to reforms. The effort is likely to start this year but won’t move to the top of his agenda.

“It’s important because of the human costs,” Obama said in the CNN en Espanol interview. “It’s something that we need to solve.”

Napolitano

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday dismissed criticism of her agency’s intelligence assessments and defended a recent report that says some military veterans could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or lone acts of violence.

Napolitano described the report, issued last week, as part of the department’s routine of analyzing intelligence information to give law enforcement agencies guidance on possible security threats.

During a series of interviews on network news programs, she was asked about the report’s assertion that some U.S. military veterans could be seen as potential converts to right wing extremism during a time of a down economy.

The report was “an assessment, not an accusation,” Napolitano said. “We do not mean to suggest that veterans as a whole are at risk of becoming violent extremists.”

She also said, “I apologize for that offense. It was certainly not intended.”

Napolitano suggested that critics have taken the report’s findings out of context and that there has been a lot of political spinning “out there in Washington, D.C. land.”

Several lawmakers and the American Legion took offense to the report. The Veterans of Foreign Wars defended it as an assessment, not an accusation.

In February, the department issued a similar warning about possible cyber attacks from left wing extremists. In September, the agency reported that right wing extremists over the past five years had used the immigration debate as a recruiting tool. Since September, the agency issued at least four reports on individual extremist groups such as Hammerskin Nation, a skinhead organization.

In the September 26, 2008 Hammerskin assessment, the agency says that a number of the group’s members have received “extensive military training” and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report said the veterans have the training needed to building large scale bombs, like the type used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

The senior Democrat of the House committee with oversight of the department said the most recent report raises privacy and civil liberty issues. “This report appears to have blurred the line between violent belief, which is constitutionally protected, and violent action, which is not,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote in a letter to Napolitano.

Thompson issued a report in 2005 urging the department to do more to counter the activities of right wing extremists. But the report did not mention the military or veterans.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, assailed Napolitano’s department for the report and pressed the agency to apologize to veterans. “To characterize men and women returning home after defending our country as potential terrorists is offensive and unacceptable,” Boehner said Wednesday.

Asked about Boehner’s remarks, Napolitano said, “He wants to make some political hay.”

Napolitano appeared in interviews Thursday on CBS’s “The Early Show,” ABC’s “Good Morning America,” NBC’s “Today” show, CNN and MSNBC.

Bersin

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano named a former federal prosecutor Wednesday to the new post of “border czar” to oversee efforts to end drug-cartel violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and slow the tide of people crossing illegally into the United States.

Napolitano named Alan Bersin, a former Justice Department official who was charged with cracking down on illegal immigration in the 1990s, to fill the post at the Homeland Security Department.

“Alan brings years of vital experience with local, state and international partners to help us meet the challenges we face at our borders,” Napolitano said in a statement. “He will lead the effort to make our borders safe while working to promote commerce and trade.”

Napolitano was to hold a news conference introducing Bersin on a bridge over the Rio Grande linking El Paso with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, a city plagued by violence among drug cartels and Mexican authorities that has killed more than 10,650 people since December 2006.

The Obama administration has promised to target border violence and work with Mexican authorities to curb drugs and arms trafficking. Hundreds of federal agents, along with high-tech surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs, are being deployed to the Southwest.

Two weeks ago, Napolitano traveled to San Diego, Mexico and Laredo, Texas, to meet with officials about border enforcement and curbing violence spurred by warring Mexican drug cartels. Last year, customs officials apprehended 792,321 people who tried to get into the U.S. through the Southwest border, and immigration officials removed more than 369,000, according to Homeland Security statistics.

After announcing Bersin’s appointment on the Texas-Mexico border, Napolitano was scheduled to tour ports of entry in Columbus, N.M. and Nogales, Ariz. While there, she was to meet with local officials and discuss coordinating efforts to disrupt illegal smuggling and reduce illegal immigration.

Later, she was set to join President Barack Obama in Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

In his new capacity at Homeland Security, Bersin will work with international officials and their counterparts in the U.S. and border states.

From 1993 to 1998, Bersin was the federal prosecutor who led the government’s crackdown on illegal immigrants at the California-Mexico border. Bersin and Napolitano were both U.S. attorneys during the Clinton administration.

During his final three years, Bersin doubled as the Southwest border representative for the attorney general. Under his watch, the U.S. rolled out Operation Gatekeeper, a massive increase in border enforcement in the San Diego area.

Most recently, Bersin was chairman of the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority. He also served under California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as education secretary.

“President Obama could not have selected a more qualified, more experienced person to join his administration — especially when it comes to issues along our southwest border,” Schwarzenegger said Tuesday night in a statement.

Earlier, Bersin was the superintendent of San Diego public schools. At the time, Hispanic groups decried the appointment and said Operation Gatekeeper caused a steep increase in deaths by forcing immigrants to attempt treacherous mountain and desert crossings into the United States.

Rene Saldivar (seated) with his brother-in-law Aquiles Rojas.

EDITOR’S NOTE – This is the second of a two-part series about U.S. citizens thrown out of the country or jailed because they are mistaken as illegal immigrants. These citizens are caught in the net of an overburdened enforcement network and then stuck in a legal system where the odds are stacked against them.

WASHINGTON – Growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants are being born in this country, and they are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty than those with American-born parents, a report says.

The study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center highlights a growing dilemma in the immigration debate: Illegal immigrants’ children born in the United States are American citizens, yet they struggle in poverty and uncertainty along with parents who fear deportation, toil largely in low-wage jobs and face layoffs in an ailing economy.

The analysis by Pew, a nonpartisan research organization, estimated that 11.9 million illegal immigrants lived in the U.S. Of those, 8.3 million were in the labor force as of March 2008, making up 5.4 percent of the U.S. work force, primarily in lower-paying farming, construction or janitorial work.

Roughly three out of four of their children — or 4 million — were born in the U.S. In 2003, 2.7 million children of illegal immigrants, or 63 percent, were born in this country.

Overall, illegal immigrants’ children account for one of every 15 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Illegal immigrants also have become more geographically dispersed, increasingly passing up typical destinations like California in favor of jobs in newly emerging Hispanic areas in Southeastern states like Georgia and North Carolina.

In 2008, California had the most illegal immigrants at 2.7 million, double its 1990 number, followed by Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey. Still, California’s 22 percent share of the nation’s illegal immigrant population was a marked drop-off from its 42 percent share in 1990.

The latest demographic snapshot comes as President Barack Obama is preparing to address the politically sensitive issue of immigration reform later this year, including a proposal to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Though their numbers have soared over the past two decades, the total number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has declined or remained flat in the last few years. Demographers attribute that to slower rates of migration into the U.S. caused in part by the recession, as well as to deportations and stepped-up immigration enforcement during the Bush administration.

Among the findings:

—One-third of the children of illegal immigrants live in poverty, nearly double the rate for children of U.S.-born parents.

—Illegal immigrants’ share of low-wage jobs has grown in recent years, from 10 percent of construction jobs in 2003 to 17 percent in 2008. They also make up 25 percent of workers in farming and 19 percent in building maintenance.

—The 2007 median household income of illegal immigrants was $36,000, compared with $50,000 for U.S.-born residents. In contrast to other immigrants, illegal immigrants do not earn markedly higher incomes the longer they live in the United States.

—About 47 percent of illegal immigrant households have children, compared with 21 percent for U.S.-born residents and 35 percent for legal immigrants.

—About three-quarters, or 76 percent, of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are Hispanic. The majority came from Mexico (59 percent), numbering 7 million. Other regions included Asia (11 percent), Central America (11 percent), South America (7 percent), the Caribbean (4 percent) and the Middle East (2 percent).

Children of illegal immigrants hold a delicate place in the U.S. On the one hand, the Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that these children — whether they were U.S. citizens or not — were entitled to a public school education. California and a few other states also provide some college tuition breaks to illegal immigrants.

At the same time, the immigrants and their families are among the poorest people in the U.S., easily exploited by employers and subject to arrest at any time. Children who are U.S. citizens cannot petition for their parents to become legal U.S. residents until they are at least 21.

Earlier this year, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that more than 100,000 parents of U.S. citizens were deported over the decade ending in 2007, prompting the department to say it would gather more information about families before deporting immigrants.

The Pew analysis is based on census data through March 2008. Because the Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, the estimate on illegal immigrants is derived largely by subtracting the estimated legal immigrant population from the total foreign-born population.

With the 2010 census less than a year away, officials have launched a campaign to build trust with undocumented immigrants amid growing concern that millions of people in the country illegally will be afraid to be counted.

At the same time, some immigrant advocates are threatening to tell undocumented immigrants to boycott the census in retaliation for immigration crackdowns, a move that would deny recession-starved cities and towns much-needed federal tax dollars, which are allocated based on population.

The emerging political battle over the census is of particular concern in Arizona, where the huge undocumented population and an ongoing high-profile crackdown have resulted in the arrest and deportation of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants.

The state could lose millions of dollars in federal funding for roads, schools, redevelopment and other projects if large numbers of people are overlooked, said Vianey Celestino, an Arizona spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau.

The census is also used to redraw congressional districts every 10 years. If the census accurately reflects a state’s growing population, it could gain seats.

“We are trying to count everyone,” Celestino said.

During the 2000 census, 63 percent of the state’s residents returned forms. The national response rate was 67 percent, according to census officials.

Census officials estimate that nearly 75,000 Arizona residents were overlooked in 2000, including about 18,750 people in Phoenix, said Tammy Perkins, an official in the Phoenix City Manager’s Office.

A similar undercount in 2010 would cost Phoenix $75 million in revenue over 10 years, Perkins said.

Hard-to-count groups

President Barack Obama has been accused of trying to politicize the decennial head count in favor of Democrats. Last week he nominated University of Michigan sociology professor and statistical sampling expert Robert Groves to run the Census Bureau, drawing criticism from Republicans who fear Obama wants to use sampling in addition to the person-by-person tally to calculate immigrants, minorities and other hard-to-count groups that tend to favor Democrats.

Census officials recently began contacting churches, schools and community organizations to help deliver the message that the census has nothing to do with immigration status.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, for example, plans to ask priests of Spanish-speaking congregations to urge parishioners to participate, said Hispanic Ministry Director José Robles.

The U.S. Constitution mandates that, every 10 years, the government count everyone who lives in the U.S. The Census Bureau does not care about immigration status and does not share the information it collects with enforcement agencies, Celestino said.

Beginning in mid-March, the Census Bureau will send questionnaires to every residence in the country. The forms will ask for the names, birth dates and other information of each person living at each residence. The forms do not ask about immigration status. If questionnaires are not returned by the end of April, Census workers will visit each residence up to six times to try to get a response.

Some community leaders are worried that immigrants in the country illegally will be afraid to answer the door if they confuse Census officials wearing federal badges with immigration agents. But officials said they need not worry about anyone showing up if they mail back the census forms.

“What we want to emphasize is increasing the response rate. That is what our energies are focused on,” said Pamela Lucero, the Denver regional partnership coordinator for the Census Bureau. “Our message is: ‘Send it back.’ ”

Immigration enforcement

Even without stepped-up immigration enforcement, immigrants already were among the most difficult groups to count because of language barriers and cultural fears of the government.

“I know that people are afraid of the different raids we are having in the state, especially in Maricopa County, but we can assure them that this information (will be) perfectly safe,” Celestino said.

There are about 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona, or about 9 percent of the population, the highest share of any state in the nation, according to estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a research group in Washington, D.C.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona deported 73,000 illegal immigrants during the last fiscal year, up 64 percent compared with the previous year, which officials largely attributed to more state and local police departments enforcing federal immigration laws, including the controversial neighborhood sweeps and work-site raids conducted by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

In response to the immigration enforcement, some immigrant advocates in Phoenix and other parts of the country are threatening to tell undocumented immigrants to boycott the census.

“This (idea) has been tossed around all over America,” said Alfredo Gutierrez, an immigrant advocate in Phoenix who has a daily radio program on La Campesina, a Spanish radio station (88.3 FM). “This is one time they want to count the Mexicans. They didn’t want to before, but they do now. There is a certain amount of hypocrisy and irony in that.”

Michael Nowakowski, a Phoenix city councilman who chairs the city’s census committee, said a census boycott is a bad idea because it would reduce federal assistance for education and other programs that benefit immigrants and their children.

“I believe it would have a huge impact, but the huge impact would be on the immigrant community,” he said.

Arpaio said he has no intention of backing off from his immigration crackdown because of the census.

“Do you really think I am going to stop enforcing the law because of the census? We are going to continue enforcing all the laws including the immigration laws. I don’t care about the census,” Arpaio said.

Hispanic-Americans most likely to be locked up, kicked out

This undated photo released by the ACLU shows Pedro Guzman. Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native - in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write - signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native – in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write – signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

For almost three months, Guzman slept in the streets, bathed in filthy rivers and ate out of trash cans while his mother scoured the city of Tijuana, its hospitals and morgues, clutching his photo in her hand. He was finally found trying to cross the border at Calexico, 100 miles away.

These days, he’s back home in California. Said his brother, Michael Guzman: “We just talk to him and reassure him that everything is fine and nobody is going to hurt him.”

In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years.

A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

It is illegal to deport U.S. citizens or detain them for immigration violations. Yet citizens still end up in detention because the system is overwhelmed, acknowledged Victor Cerda, who left Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2005 after overseeing the system.

The number of detentions overall is expected to rise by about 17 percent this year to more than 400,000, putting a severe strain on the enforcement network and legal system.

The result is the detention of citizens with the fewest resources: the mentally ill, minorities, the poor, children and those with outstanding criminal warrants, ranging from unpaid traffic tickets to failure to show up for probation hearings. Most at risk are Hispanics, who made up the majority of the cases.

“The more the system becomes confused, the more U.S. citizens will be wrongfully detained and wrongfully removed,” said Bruce Einhorn, a retired immigration judge. “Nothing could be more regrettable than the removal of our fellow citizens.”

Jim Hayes, ICE director of detention and removal, said he is aware of only 10 cases of U.S. citizens detained over the past five years. Even if combined with the cases found by the AP, “that’s not an epidemic,” Hayes said. He refused to identify any cases, citing privacy laws.

He added that agents investigate any claims to U.S. citizenship, but they often turn out to be false. He said U.S. citizens sometimes claim to be foreign-born, and that immigration officials never knowingly hold someone they can “definitively” determine is a citizen.

It’s impossible to know exactly how many citizens have been detained or deported because nobody keeps track. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, testified at a U.S. House hearing last year that her group alone sees 40 to 50 jailings a month of people with potentially valid claims to citizenship.

“These cases are surprisingly, painfully common,” she said.

The nonprofit Vera Institute for Justice found 322 people with citizenship claims in 13 immigration prisons in 2007, up from 129 the year before. That number does not include possible citizens in the nation’s more than 300 other immigration prisons.

What is clear is that immigration detentions — including those of citizens — have soared in recent years. One reason is a heightened concern for security that arose out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Another is a political climate that encouraged a tough stance on illegal immigration, especially after Congress failed to pass immigration reform legislation almost three years ago.

After 2003, the nation launched several programs to detain more immigrants, including one that called on local police and sheriffs for help. Before 2007, just seven state and local law enforcement agencies worked with immigration. By last November, more than 950 officers from 23 states had attended a four-week program on how to root out and jail suspected illegal immigrants.

A Government Accountability Office investigation has since found that ICE did not ensure local officials properly used their authority and failed to collect data to assess the program. As a result, ICE is rewriting agreements with 67 agencies.

The program came under fire partly because it gives local officers so much leeway to decide who to stop. Almost one in 10 Hispanic adults born in the U.S. report that police or other authorities stopped them and asked about their immigration status in 2007, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey of more than 2,000 people.

———

It was a local sheriff’s office that sent Guzman out of the country.

He was picked up near his home in Lancaster, Calif., on March 31, 2007, by Los Angeles County sheriff’s department officers on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. He had tried three times to board a private plane, showing lottery tickets for passage on one attempt, officers said in a report. He had also stolen a car and told officers his mother’s car was broken.

A judge gave him three years’ probation and three months in jail for vandalism.

At the jail, Guzman told officers he was born in California, a response noted in official records. But a sheriff’s employee still got Guzman to sign an agreement to leave the country without a hearing.

On the day he arrived in Mexico, Guzman called a relative to say he didn’t know where he was, and asked a passer-by. The answer: Tijuana. Then the phone cut off.

Guzman was finally returned to California legally in August 2007.

Now he can no longer stand the sun because it reminds him of Mexico. His family will not let him talk about the ordeal because it upsets him. He has frequent counseling sessions, but he is shaky, stutters and seems to hear voices, according to his brother.

“He is our brother, somebody’s son, that they deported,” said Michael Guzman. “California is like the main capital of Latin Americans. It doesn’t matter whether you are a citizen or not. If you look Hispanic, they can question you. Deportation can happen to anybody.”

Neither the sheriff’s office nor immigration officials would discuss the case, citing pending litigation. The family has sued Los Angeles County and the federal government.

“When the whole story is told, people will see and understand what has occurred,” said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office.

In the meantime, Guzman’s mother, Maria Carbajal, often works the graveyard shift at a Jack in the Box because she is afraid to leave him alone during the day.

———

American citizens also have been caught in the net of increased workplace arrests and jail sweeps.

Workplace arrests rose from 517 in fiscal year 2003 to 6,274 in 2008. Julie Myers, former Homeland Security assistant secretary overseeing ICE, said agents quickly sort out which workers are citizens during raids. She added that federal law, court decisions and search warrants give immigration agents the authority to enter workplaces to question everyone inside, including citizens.

But the raids have already led to several lawsuits.

In 2007, 114 U.S. citizens and permanent residents sued after a raid on Micro Solutions Enterprises, a computer printer equipment recycler in Van Nuys, Calif. They alleged illegal detention and sought $5,000 damage each.

In 2008, the union representing workers at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants sued on behalf of eight citizens and legal residents caught up in raids.

In one case, three citizens and nine others, all Hispanic, sued after ICE agents raided their New Jersey homes as part of what was dubbed Operation Return To Sender. The lawsuit alleges that an immigration agent pulled a gun on one of the citizens, a 9-year-old boy.

A program to sweep jails and deport immigrants who have committed crimes is more popular. But critics fear the temptation is to deport anyone for anything because they are seen as bad seeds, even if they are American citizens.

———

Rennison Castillo arrived early at the Seattle immigration office on Oct. 28, 1998, to take his citizenship oath. He was dressed in a freshly starched Army uniform and was eager to grab a good seat. He sat in the second row.

Born in Belize, Castillo had lived in the U.S. since he was 7 and had served two years in the Army. But his superiors told him he could not stay in the Army without citizenship. So he took the citizenship test and passed easily, missing only one question, on the name of a locally elected official.

“I felt pretty good. I felt I definitely accomplished something, because having a citizenship to the United States was something that I felt proud of,” Castillo said.

Seven years later, the U.S. government locked Castillo in a Tacoma, Wash., immigration jail. He had been picked up at the Pierce County jail, where he had spent eight months for violating a restraining order and for residential burglary.

At the holding cell, an officer asked if he wanted to go home. He thought she meant his home in Lakewood, Wash. “Yes,” he answered. “I’d love to go home.”

She chained him up and told him he would be deported.

Over and over, Castillo said, he told officers he was a citizen. He pleaded with them to check their computer files.

But officials said nothing in their records confirmed his citizenship or his military service. One officer actually recognized Castillo from their Army days at Fort Lewis, Wash., and mentioned their battalion, but told Castillo he couldn’t help.

Then Castillo saw a number posted on the wall for the Northwest Immigration Rights Project. On the group’s advice, he contacted a friend who pulled his military document from the trunk of his car.

Nearly eight months after he was transferred to ICE custody, Castillo was released. He discovered that immigration officials had two files on him, with different numbers, and has since filed a lawsuit. ICE declined to comment because the lawsuit is pending.

“I understand that nothing is perfect, nothing will be perfect, but I don’t understand how they could make a grave mistake like that,” he said. “Because if this happened to me, I’m quite sure it’s happened to somebody else. What’s going to happen to the next person it happens to?”

———

For Ricardo Martinez, born in McAllen, Texas, it was not being able to get back into his own country.

Even though he was a U.S. citizen, Martinez lived in Mexico between the ages of 5 and 17.

Like many border residents with family on the other side, he made frequent trips to Mexico. When he tried to return to the U.S. after a visit to Mexico in July 1999, he was turned away by border officers at Nogales, Ariz., because two copies of his birth certificate, issued years apart, had different hospital registration dates. Not proficient in English, Martinez said he had never noticed the error.

Told to get his documents in order, he got a U.S. passport and was able to get into the country. But the problem was not over.

In January 2006, he went back to Mexico to be with his dying grandmother. When he tried to cross back at Laredo, Texas, in March, he carried his birth certificates, his birth registration card, his passport and state ID cards from Nebraska, California and Texas, where he had worked.

But by that time border security had become far stricter. Agents looked up Martinez in their database and found the earlier problem at Nogales. They claimed his U.S. passport was fake, he said.

Martinez was taken to an inspection room, forced to remove his shoes, searched, handcuffed to a chair and held for two hours while officers questioned his documents, he said. He was told unless he confessed to fraud, he would be sent to prison for six to eight months, according to a court document filed in Martinez’s lawsuit against the government.

“They told me if I didn’t say I was from over there, they would put me in jail. I was frightened,” Martinez said.

He said he asked to call his mother to help prove his citizenship, but was refused.

Martinez’s stepfather, Florentino Mireles, said in a Feb. 27, 2008, affidavit that he called border inspectors to ask why they had taken Martinez’s documents. The response, he said: An officer didn’t believe Martinez was a U.S. citizen because he didn’t speak English.

Afraid of jail, Martinez signed the papers. In an affidavit in his lawsuit, Martinez said he didn’t understand that by signing he was admitting to not being born in the U.S.

It took his parents two years to find an affordable attorney. Finally, at a meeting in Hidalgo, attorney Lisa Brodyaga showed border officers a copy of Martinez’ birth certificate from his parents that included his footprints and a thumbprint and tax records showing he had worked legally in the U.S. Officials agreed he was a U.S. citizen and allowed him to cross the border.

Lloyd Easterling, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, declined comment because Martinez has sued. In court filings, the agency said Martinez denied being physically assaulted or subjected to excessive force and never filed a complaint against the officers.

Brodyaga said the cases of U.S. citizens detained or deported show more than bureaucratic bungling.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’ve seen bureaucratic bungling. This is more than that,” she said. “This is an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, particularly for Mexican-Americans on the border.”

Associated Press staff writers Traci Carl and Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.