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DHS Appoints Advocate for Immigration Complaints | Fox News Latino.

The Department of Homeland Security appointed a new public advocate to handle questions and complaints about the agency’s immigration policies.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said Monday that senior ICE adviser Andrew Lorenzen-Strait will lead the effort.

Lorenzen-Strait’s appointment was to be announced Tuesday.

Morton said the position was created to ensure that the public and immigration advocates understand various changes being made within the department and what the changes mean for those immigrants being jailed by immigration authorities or those facing deportation. Lorenzen-Strait will also address concerns about ICE enforcement involving U.S. citizens.

“We have undertaken a significant number of reforms from a policy perspective and we want to make sure they are evenly understood in the public and advocacy communities,” Morton said.

Lorenzen-Strait, a lawyer who has been an ICE adviser since 2008, said he sees his new job as being the facilitator “of a two-way dialogue.” He will report to Gary Mead, ICE’s head of enforcement and removal operations.

In recent months DHS has announced changes in the way authorities determine which undoucmented immigrants are deported.

In June, Morton outlined when agents and immigration prosecutors could use discretion in opting not to pursue a deportation case. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano went a step further in August when she announced the review of roughly 300,000 pending deportation cases as part of the department’s efforts to focus its resources on deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records, repeat immigration law offenders and those who pose a public safety or national security threat.

After a review of cases pending in Baltimore and Denver, DHS officials earlier this year recommended closing more than 1,600 deportation cases involving non-criminal undocumented immigrants. The review is ongoing in other parts of the country.

Morton said Lorenzen-Strait will be responsible for helping the public understand the prosecutorial discretion policy and other changes as well as addressing complaints about the changes.

Abraham H. Foxman: The Road Ahead for Immigration Reform.

There’s no doubt immigration will be one of the critical political and social issues of 2012. While substantial progress has been made on one significant concern — improving border security — overall the system remains broken. Whether America is successful in reforming it depends on the tone of the discussion in this country, guidance from the courts, and the prevailing political winds.

So far, when it comes to immigration and efforts by some states to impose a solution absent federal reform, we have seen a combination of initiatives — unevenly applied at best, constitutionally untenable at worst — and a national discussion that has wavered between constructive debate and hateful, ugly stereotypes.

In short, the immigration reform debate has engendered a mix of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Let’s start with The Good: Both former President George W. Bush and President Obama have supported proposals for comprehensive immigration reform. In a 2006 speech, President Bush stated that “an immigration reform bill needs to be comprehensive, because all of the elements of this problem must be addressed together — or none of them will be solved at all.” Five years later, in his May 2011 address in El Paso, Texas, President Obama echoed those remarks, asserting that “what we really need to do is keep up the fight to pass genuine, comprehensive reform.”

This past August, in the absence of a legislative progress toward immigration reform, President Obama on his own took some small positive steps, using his executive authority to ease some of the hardships the broken immigration system is causing, especially for youth and families. For example, the federal Department of Homeland Security now exercises prosecutorial discretion to target the agency’s enforcement resources on those who pose the greatest risk to the public. However, the administration’s actions do not obviate the need for comprehensive legislative reform.

There’s also good news in the broad public support for meaningful reform. Recent studies indicate significant public support for reforms including streamlining the process for employers to hire foreign-born workers to perform seasonal work.

In an October 2011 national poll conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, we found that a strong majority of Americans — 60 percent — were in favor of a six-year path to citizenship if the children had arrived here before they were 15 years old and had lived here at least five years. And 65 percent of Americans said that children of illegal immigrants who were born in the U.S. should be considered American citizens.

Sixty percent of those polled indicated they would oppose any change in the 14th Amendment that would remove automatic citizenship for anyone born in the U.S.

Now comes The Bad: Many states across the nation — including Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina — have moved to pass anti-immigrant laws that are on shaky ground constitutionally and of questionable efficacy. Some courts are already reacting to these anti-immigrant laws by striking down the most controversial of the provisions.

The Supreme Court this term will rule on the legality of Arizona’s SB 1070, the state law which seeks to push undocumented immigrants out by way of punitive measures. Passed in 2010, the Arizona law was the first in a wave of harsh state immigration laws that are having detrimental consequences on industry, citizens, and documented and undocumented immigrants alike.

In many of the states that have passed SB 1070 “copycat laws,” local police are authorized to check an individual’s immigration status during a traffic or any other lawful stop; during an investigation of petty offenses like open container laws, underage drinking, jay-walking, or smoking in an elevator; even during domestic violence incidents where often both the perpetrator and victim are initially arrested. For example, should an undocumented victim of domestic violence call 9-1-1 to report an incident in one of these states, that victim could be deported as a result of the police investigation.

And, of course, there’s The Ugly: The stereotypes, hateful rhetoric, and dehumanizing language about Hispanics, Latinos or immigrants we’ve seen surrounding the issue, especially during the past year, threaten to derail meaningful reform and taint the national discussion.

Regardless of how Americans feel about immigration, appeals to prejudice and bigotry simply have no place in a civil debate.

The climate of bias and hostility toward immigrants that pervades the immigration debate hurts our country and stands in the way of the kind of reform Americans desperately seek to the broken immigration system.

Our own experience in the Jewish community has taught us that when a society begins to distinguish a group as less deserving of rights, then discrimination, exploitation, and worse can follow. The current system fails more than just immigrants seeking opportunity and fair treatment. It fails all of us by refusing to embrace a future that welcomes diversity and equal access to the American dream.

The consequences of a venomous, anti-immigrant climate impact us all. In Alabama, home to one of the nation’s most restrictive immigration laws, headlines report that in the days after the law took effect, as many as 15 percent of Hispanic students were too afraid to attend school. In other states we hear stories about families broken apart, unpicked crops rotting on the vine, the embarrassing arrest of an international car company employee, and damage to tourism.

Without a doubt these stories highlight the imprudence of harsh state immigration laws. These provisions drive a wedge between law enforcement and immigrant communities. In particular, they deter Hispanics or Latinos — whether documented or undocumented — from reporting or serving as witnesses to criminal activities, including hate crimes.

The most severe impact falls upon Hispanics or Latinos who are undocumented or have undocumented family members, friends or co-workers. For such persons, these laws can create credible fear that any contact with law enforcement will result in arrest or deportation.

As we begin a new year, one that promises to bring key decisions from the courts, let us remember that there is a direct connection between the tenor of this political debate and the consequences to our communities. It is incumbent upon all of us to press for fair and workable federal immigration reform and to demand civil dialogue and respect in the process.

On Immigration, Polls Show Most GOP Voters Share Gingrich Stance | Fox News Latino.

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SUMMARY

A series of polls – including one by Fox News released Friday – on immigration show that a majority of respondents, including registered Republican voters, think undocumented immigrants should have a shot at legalizing their status, as long as they meet certain criteria.

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When Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said in a November debate that undocumented immigrants who have deep roots in the United States should have a chance to legally work here, some jaws dropped.

His rivals questioned his conservative credentials. Observers wondered whether he had doomed his chances with Republican voters.

But a series of polls – including one by Fox News released Friday – on immigration shows that a majority of respondents, including registered Republican voters, think undocumented immigrants should have a shot at legalizing their status, as long as they meet certain criteria.

Some experts say the polls underscore that on the issue of immigration, at least, the GOP candidates are largely at odds with voters of their party.

“Gingrich at least put his finger on something – which is, we can play politics all we want but the reality is that these [undocumented] immigrants are integrating and becoming members of this society,” said Allert Grown-Gort, associate director of the Institute for Latino Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann, from Minnesota, assailed former House Speaker Gringrich for supporting “amnesty,” and has vowed that as president she would pursue deporting all the millions of undocumented immigrants.

But that, say many experts, is logistically impossible. And deporting — let alone finding — the millions of undocumented immigrants doesn’t ring as practical, or seem fair, to many Americans, Brown-Gort said.

“One of the ironies about immigration is that it’s the most human of stories,” he said. “Bachmann says she wants to send 11 million people back. What does 11 million look like?

“Well, it’s the entire state of Ohio,” Brown-Gort said. “When you deport somebody, you’re not just deporting them, you’re affecting — you’re doing damage to — the community, to the schools, these are steps that should not be taken lightly.”

GOP rival and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney criticized Gingrich’s stance on immigration, saying that it would serve as a magnet for more illegal border-crossers.

“That will only encourage more people to do the same thing. People respond to incentives,” Romney said. “If you could become a permanent resident of the United States by coming here illegally, you’ll do so.”

But in the Fox poll, 66 percent of the nearly 1,000 people surveyed nationally said there should be a path to citizenship if the a person meets requirements such as paying back taxes and learning English.  That goes further than Gingrich’s proposal, which just allows people who – in the example he gave – have lived here for 25 or more years to work here legally, but not be on a path to citizenship.

Nineteen percent of voters in the Fox poll thought all undocumented immigrants should be deported, and another 13 percent take the middle ground of a guest-worker program that would allow immigrants to remain in the United States for a limited time.

Regardless of political party affiliation, most respondents supported a path to legalization.

A majority of Republicans (57 percent), independents (68 percent) and Democrats (73 percent) said they supported giving undocumented immigrants a path to legalization.

Republicans were more likely than Democrats and independents to want the deportation of all undocumented immigrants. But even so, the percentage that did – 26 percent of Republicans, 14 percent of Democrats and 12 percent of independents – was dramatically smaller than those favoring giving a break to immigrants who meet certain criteria.

Another poll, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, a nonpartisan group in Washington, showed that 43 percent of respondents favor combining enforcement with a path to legalization. Another 24 percent thought the U.S. government should focus chiefly on a path to citizenship, and about 29 percent thought the focus should be just on enforcement.

The poll found that while Republican senior citizens preferred enforcement, younger Republicans favored combining enforcement with a path to legalization.

So why has the tenor of the comments on immigration in the GOP debates been decidedly hard-line when polls reflect a Republican voter preference for something softer?

“A lot of the GOP campaigns have been ill-advised by strategists who truly don’t understand the views of likely Republican voters on the issue of immigration,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a Washington, DC based advocacy group.

“The strategists have bought the argument of anti-immigrant restrictionists who in the past five, six years have penetrated the conservative movement.”

Aguilar, like other Latino conservatives, including  U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, has pushed for the Republican Party to soften its take-no-prisoners tone on immigration, particularly if it is to win the support of Latino voters.

“They [restrictionists] have hijacked the issue of immigration in the Republican Party,” said Aguilar, who served in the George W. Bush Administration as chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship. “While they’re a small minority [within Republicans], they’re very vocal, they have a very well-organized political machine and they’re very PR [public relations] savvy. They have convinced the people they advise that the majority of Republicans are anti-immigrant.”

It’s not just polls that indicate divergent views on illegal immigration between voters and campaign talk on the issue, Aguilar says. State Republican legislators themselves have issued warnings about, or helped shelve or defeat, hard-line immigration bills that were introduced in many states.

Of the GOP candidates, Aguilar said, “the only two that understand the importance of the Hispanic voter and view of American Republicans are Gingrich and [Texas Gov. Rick] Perry.”

Perry, who supports some hard-line positions on immigration, came under fire by his fellow GOP rivals for having backed legislation in his state that allows undocumented students to attend public colleges at in-state tuition rates. Perry also does not support the construction of a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, calling it impractical.

“Perry started coming down in the polls,” Aguilar said. “Restrictionists said it was because of his [moderate] comments on immigration, but he came down in the polls because of his poor performance in the debates.”

Contrary to the predictions of many observers that Gingrich would hurt his surging support after his comments on immigration, he has seen an uptick in polls, Aguilar said.

Aguilar, whose group has reached out to various candidates’ campaigns to offer advice on reaching Latino voters, said a Republican candidate would be wise to support “a balanced, common-sense approach to immigration that goes beyond enforcement-only.”

That is an approach, Aguilar said, that can win a Republican candidate support from a conservative base and Latinos, including those who are disillusioned by Obama.

A recent poll by Latino Decisions suggests that immigration reform is the top issue influencing the Latino vote in the lead-up to next year’s presidential race, despite an overall waning interest in the race.

The poll reported that 42 percent of Latino voters were concerned about immigration. Unemployment – which remains higher for Latinos than for the general population — came in second, at a distant 23 percent.

Obama campaigned on a promise to reform immigration in his first year in office, a promise that is believed to have helped him win the majority of Latino votes. Increasingly, Latino voters who consider immigration a priority issue have expressed frustration over what they see as a failure by Obama to push harder for comprehensive immigration reform.

“[Republican candidates] can make inroads into a constituency that was key to Obama winning,” Aguilar said. “They need 40 percent of the Latino vote. Latinos are very upset with Obama. He pandered to them in a very crass way.”

If the Latino Decisions poll is any indication, swaying Latino voters will take work. Even though they are disillusioned,  54 percent Latinos still said in the poll that they were certain that they would vote for Obama in 2012.

Obama’s re-election campaign officials say that Republicans have been no friend to Latinos, and that they have been the obstacle to efforts to reform the immigration system.

“The choice for Hispanic Americans,” said campaign spokesperson Gabriela Domenzain, “is between  a President who passed legislation that kept two million Latinos out of poverty, provided 150,000 additional Hispanic students with the means to go to college, and fought to pass comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act and a Republican field whose leading candidates oppose the DREAM Act and a path to citizenship for immigrants and would slash funding for education, Medicare, and Social Security.”

Peter Robinson: The GOP’s Immigration Fixation – WSJ.com.

The fight for the Republican presidential nomination has produced a spectacle that seems truly odd. Although illegal immigration has in recent years been drying up—according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center, it has fallen to 300,000 in 2009 from 850,000 in 2000, while Princeton’s Douglas Massey says that “[f]or the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero”—the issue remains bitterly contentious in the GOP race.

During a debate in Orlando last month, Texas Gov. Rick Perry defended his state’s policy of charging undocumented aliens the same tuition at state-run colleges and universities as ordinary citizens—a policy that commanded bipartisan support in the Texas legislature when he signed it into law in 2001. Mitt Romney, Herman Cain and the other GOP presidential candidates practically hissed Mr. Perry off the stage, and after the debate much of the tea party joined plenty of regular Republicans in denouncing the man.

If illegal immigration is down, why do Republicans still care so much about it? Permit a Californian to attempt an answer.

Since 1986, when President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, the undocumented population of California has risen to around 2.6 million from around one million. This influx has done just what you would have expected: It has affected every aspect of life in the Golden State.

In California’s public schools, the proportion of children in kindergarten through third grade for whom English represents a second language now stands at almost two out of five. In agricultural regions, entire towns have turned over—with a little zig-zagging, you could hike from town to town for much of the 450-mile length of the Central Valley without hearing any language but Spanish.

Consider one neighborhood in Redwood City, a town on the San Francisco peninsula. Known locally as Little Mexico, the neighborhood, which centers on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Middlefield Road, looks and feels so pervasively south-of-the-border that if you were led there blindfolded you would think you were in Tijuana or Mexicali.

I assumed when I moved to California almost two decades ago that Little Mexico, which then comprised perhaps a dozen blocks, would gradually shrink or atrophy, like North Beach, the Italian neighborhood in San Francisco, or Little Italy in Manhattan. Instead, Little Mexico has roughly tripled in size. Just miles from the headquarters of Apple, Google, HP and Oracle, the engine of assimilation has been humming ineluctably along—in reverse.

Yes, I know. The economic benefits California has derived from immigration, including illegal immigration, have proven enormous. Some studies even suggest that, taking into account the economic growth their labor has made possible, and the sales taxes and other imposts they have paid, undocumented aliens have contributed more to government coffers than they have drawn down.

And even after the American economy finally recovers, falling poverty and birth rates in Mexico suggest that illegal immigration may return only as a small stream—perhaps even a trickle—and not a flood. Over the next decade or so, many of the aliens now in the Golden State will perhaps go home to a modernizing Mexico while Californians come to accept—or at least become resigned to—those who remain, acquiescing in measures that would grant them legal residency and eventually citizenship.

Yet even if a single alien were never again to enter California, and even if half those now in the Golden State illegally were suddenly to return home while the other half magically became citizens, the federal government would still have permitted millions to enter the state in violation of the law. This raises fundamental questions about our constitutional order. How can the federal government fail for years on end to perform a duty as basic as policing the border?

Strangely, in Tuesday evening’s “economic” debate in Hanover, N.H., immigration, legal or otherwise, was never mentioned. Indeed, Messrs. Romney and Cain have demonstrated less interest in illegal immigration itself than in using the issue to attack Mr. Perry. Mr. Romney, whose jobs plan includes no fewer than 59 points, has said of illegal immigration, “Of course we build a fence,” as if that were all there were to it. If the other GOP candidates wish to place themselves to the right of Mr. Perry on this issue, fine. But Republicans would have more faith in their ability to secure the border if they demonstrated that they had given the matter some thought.

Mr. Perry should stop sounding so defensive. He has opposed illegal immigration as stoutly as anyone, but, alone among the candidates, he has dealt with the reality of life on the border. Since his state has the good sense to provide only modest welfare benefits, he should explain, Texans understand that immigrants come to Texas to work, not to collect handouts. And they see no contradiction between calling on the federal government to enforce the law and making the best of the situation Washington has imposed on them, helping undocumented aliens, once in the state, to acquire skills and an education.

A quarter-century after Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, his example remains instructive. Reagan supported one provision of the 1986 act, an amnesty for the three million undocumented aliens then in the country, only because he believed that other provisions, which fortified border enforcement and required employers to verify the legal status of their workers, would end illegal immigration. “Future generations . . . will be thankful,” the president said, “for our efforts to humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship.”

Thankful? Americans instead feel angry—and, for all his big-hearted openness toward immigrants, I believe Reagan would have shared their anger, recognizing the failure of the federal government to “regain control of our borders” as a profound breach of faith. That breach of faith, he would have insisted, must now be repaired.

Crackdown on Illegal Labor Intensifies – WSJ.com.

The Obama administration intensified a crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants, notifying another 1,000 companies in all 50 states Wednesday the government plans to inspect their hiring records.

Businesses across the U.S. that rely on low-skilled labor are working to stave off Immigration and Customs Enforcement audits, which can lead to the loss of large numbers of employees, reduced productivity and legal expenses.

Wednesday’s surge in so-called silent raids drew criticism from both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and immigrant advocates.

It brought to 2,338 the number of companies audited by ICE in the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 and topped the prior year’s record of 2,196. The audits, affecting such businesses as garment makers, produce growers and fast-food chains, result in the firing of every illegal immigrant found on a company’s payroll.

For employers, the audits can lead to both civil and criminal penalties. The possibilities range from fines and being barred from competing for government contracts to criminal charges of knowingly employing illegal workers, evading taxes and engaging in identity theft.

Employers of all sizes were notified they must hand over I-9 employment-eligibility forms, which contain Social Security numbers, dates of birth and statements by employees of their citizenship status. ICE didn’t identify the businesses because of “the ongoing, law-enforcement-sensitive nature of the inspections,” said a spokeswoman, Gillian Christensen.

Officials of ICE, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, said the audited companies operate in areas defined as “critical infrastructure and key resources,” including food production, information technology, financial services and construction. Affected businesses could include cargo handlers, caterers of food for the military and builders of dams and highways, said immigration lawyers.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the past has refrained from making public comments about the audits. But on Wednesday, Randy Johnson, a senior vice president, said: “We are concerned the audits are being based more on a fishing expedition than firm facts.”

He added, “Because these audits can cost millions of dollars in lost productivity and attorneys’ fees, the government should move carefully and only when based on solid foundation that there is in fact illegal behavior.” ICE doesn’t reveal its criteria for deciding who gets audited.

The U.S. is home to about 11 million illegal immigrants; two-thirds participate in the labor force, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. They typically use a made-up Social Security Number or the identity of a legal U.S. resident or citizen.

Entire sectors have come to rely on illegal workers. Clothing maker American Apparel laid off more than a quarter of its factory workers, or 1,500 employees, after an audit in 2009. It later blamed the audit for a loss of productivity that brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.

Chipotle Mexican Grill, which owns and operates nearly 1,100 outlets, has let go hundreds of workers since an audit that began last year in Minnesota and stretched to Virginia and Washington, D.C. Restaurant analysts expect the company’s financial results to be affected as it seeks to hire and train new workers.

Illegal immigrants are the backbone of some sectors of U.S. agriculture. “Given the fact that, admittedly, 70% to 80% of our work force is improperly documented, ICE audits can eliminate that percentage of our productive capacity. You cannot stay in business,” said Tom Nassif, president of Western Growers, an association of fruit and vegetable growers and packers in California and Arizona.

Many employers say they don’t have the ability to police their work forces. They say they also fear discrimination lawsuits, which some have faced, for demanding additional documents from workers they suspect are in the U.S. illegally.

In the past, ICE agents have initiated audits in one region, and companies in the same business were unlikely to face inspection elsewhere. But “businesses can no longer assume an audit is isolated in one location. It’s spreading nationwide,” said Julie Myers, ICE chief during the Bush administration, who advises companies on immigration.

She said some companies are trying to do “proactive I-9 inspections” to ensure their work force is legal.

Larger employers have been increasingly targeted since the establishment earlier this year of an ICE audit office outside Washington.

Enforcement activity during the Bush administration focused on high-profile raids in which thousands of illegal immigrants were arrested and placed in deportation proceedings. Relatively few companies and their executives were prosecuted.

In contrast, the Obama administration has made employers the center of its enforcement strategy because jobs are the magnet for illegal immigration, officials say.

The strategy has been interpreted as an attempt by the president, who favors an overhaul of immigration laws, to show hard-liners he is cracking down on illegal immigration.

It draws flak from more than one part of the political spectrum. Advocates for immigrants say it forces workers to leave well-paying jobs with benefits for lower-paying positions in the underground economy.

“I-9 audits do not diminish the unauthorized work force. Instead, they disrupt operations and expand the cash economy, as workers find jobs with bad-actor employers who exploit them,” said Eliseo Medina, International Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union.

Peter Schey, an attorney for American Apparel, called it “a senseless policy in the name of making a down payment on comprehensive immigration policy.”

Foes of illegal immigration, such as House Judiciary chairman Lamar Smith (R., Texas), say the audits are ineffectual because they don’t result in deportations and enable dismissed illegal workers to find other jobs and displace Americans.

Rep. Smith introduced legislation this week to make mandatory the use of E-Verify, an electronic database run by the government, which checks the work-eligibility of hires.

Wendy Madden, a business immigration attorney in Montgomery, Ala., said several of her clients, in utilities and food production, had received notices of inspection from ICE, and were surprised because they have been participating in E-Verify. “The fact you participate in E-Verify doesn’t mean you won’t be audited,” she said.

Obama is deceiving Hispanics on immigration – Andres Oppenheimer – MiamiHerald.com.

Deportations Hit Record Level – WSJ.com.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the U.S. deported a record 392,862 illegal immigrants and arrested more of their employers this past year than ever before.

Nearly half, 190,000, of those removed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 had criminal records. That figure is 70% higher than the number of people with records deported in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2008, Ms. Napolitano told a news conference Wednesday.

She said the administration of President Barack Obama has purposely targeted illegal immigrants who have been convicted of offenses in the U.S. Those crimes range from murder and sexual assault to misdemeanors, such as minor drug offenses and disorderly conduct.

The White House has also stepped up punishment of those who employ illegal workers. In fiscal 2010, the department scrutinized the employment records of more than 2,200 companies, up from 1,400 the previous year, Ms. Napolitano said.

In the past year, the department criminally charged a record 180 owners, employers and managers, compared with 114 in 2009. Since January 2009, it has imposed about $50 million in fines on businesses that employed illegal immigrants.

Last month, for instance, clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch agreed to pay $1.04 million to settle charges that the company had deficiencies in its employee-verification system.

“ICE has increased the audit and prosecution of employers who repeatedly and egregiously hire illegal workers,” Ms. Napolitano said.

About 11 million illegal immigrants reside in the U.S., according to Department of Homeland Security estimates.

The Obama administration is under pressure to show it is tough on illegal immigration as candidates for Congress and local office from Nebraska to California focus on the issue ahead of the Nov. 2 midterm election.

The White House also faces Hispanic voters frustrated with stepped-up enforcement and scant progress towards an immigration overhaul that would give illegal immigrants a path towards citizenship. Critics of the program say it wastes resources by arresting minor offenders.

Julie Myers, chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the Bush Administration between 2006 and 2008, commended the stepped up enforcement but said much of the department’s focus has been on small employers. “To make the program overall more effective the way they are seeking, ICE is going to have to bring substantial cases against large employers, as well,” she said.

Ms. Napolitano credited a fast-expanding enforcement program begun in 2008, dubbed Secure Communities, for the steep increase in the deportations. Under the program, law-enforcement officials check the immigration status and the fingerprints of prisoners against national databases. More than 650 localities across the U.S. now participate in the program. The department said it was on track to expand the program to all law-enforcement jurisdictions nationwide by 2013.

Immigrant advocates attribute the surge in deportations to the agency’s apprehension of foreigners who did not commit any crime other than entering the U.S. legally and overstaying their visas. The department has rejected that assertion.

Obama: Immigration reform ‘cannot pass without Republican votes’ – The Oval: Tracking the Obama presidency.

President Obama today called for a “practical, common sense” immigration system that will help the U.S. economy and maintain America’s immigrant tradition — and he put the pressure on Republicans to get it through Congress.

“Reform that brings accountability to our immigration system cannot pass without Republican votes,” Obama said in his first major immigration speech as president . “That is the political and mathematical reality.”

Obama said his administration has already taken record-setting actions to strengthen the border, and he urged Congress to approve “a pathway to legal status” for the 11 million or so illegal immigrants who are already in the United States.

Immigration has become “a source of fresh contention” in recent days because of the new Arizona law that gives police greater authority to question people’s citizenship, Obama said. His administration is expected to file a lawsuit against Arizona, but the president did not discuss potential legal action.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the first step on the immigration issue should be “to secure the borders,” and that Obama’s pathway to citizenship amounts to “amnesty” for lawbreakers.

“The President can make progress on this issue, but it will take more than a speech,” the top Senate Republican said. “If he would take amnesty off the table and make a real commitment to border and interior security, he will find strong bipartisan support.”

Speaking to lawmakers, academics, and community leaders gathered at American University, Obama touted his plan by stressing the immeasurable contributions that immigrants have made to the United States, and the frequent discrimination they faced throughout history. “Immigrants have always helped to build and defend this country,” Obama said.

The chances for congressional passage don’t appear great. Like McConnell, congressional Republicans and some Democrats said the government should focus on better law enforcement better moving on to citizenship issues or guest worker programs. In the meantime, lawmakers who are already grappling with new Wall Street regulations and an energy bill must also deal with congressional elections only four months from tomorrow.

Obama said political posturing on an emotional issue has delayed congressional action in years and month past. “Into this breach,” he said, “states like Arizona have decided to take matters into their own hands.”

Arizona’s crackdown is understandable but “ill-conceived,” Obama said, arguing that an immigration system requires a national approach rather than a “patchwork” of state laws that puts too much of a burden on local law enforcement.

“These laws also have the potential of violating the rights of innocent American citizens and legal residents,” Obama said, “making them subject to possible stops or questioning because of what they look like or how they sound.”

McConnell, the Senate GOP leader, criticized Obama for his stand on the Arizona law, saying that “attacks on states filling the breach created by the failure of the federal government won’t secure the border, grow jobs or create solutions for what we all agree is a broken immigration system.”

At points in his speech, Obama criticized both sides of the immigration debate.

Some rights groups all but encourage illegal immigration, Obama said, though at least 11 million people are in fact breaking the law by not going through the citizenship process, and they should be held accountable.

As for critics of “amnesty,” Obama said it’s simply impossible to deport 11 million people. Doing so would disrupt communities and break up families, he added, as many undocumented immigrants have children who are U.S. citizens because they were born here.

The president said he has already taken major steps to better protect the border, proclaiming — twice — that “we have more boots on the ground near the southwest border than at any time in our history.”

As for his pathway to citizenship plan, Obama said it will help create “a younger workforce and a faster growing economy than many of our competitors,” Obama said. “And in an increasingly interconnected world, the diversity of our country is a powerful advantage in global competition.”