(CNN) — A federal judge in Charleston, South Carolina blocked Thursday parts of the state’s anti-illegal immigration law approved by the legislature last summer.

District Judge Richard Mark Gergel blocked three parts of the law, known both as SB20 and Act 69.

The first section blocked makes it a felony to transport or conceal a person “with intent to further that person’s unlawful entry into the United States” or to help that person avoid apprehension.

A second section makes it unlawful for an adult to “fail to carry” an alien registration card or receipt.

And the final section blocked would have allowed local law enforcement with “reasonable suspicion” to detain any person the officers believe is in the United States illegally.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson focused on the parts of the law that Gergel let stand.

“The United States Supreme Court will ultimately decide this matter in the coming year. Until then, it appears that many important aspects of the South Carolina law will go into effect on 1-1-2012,” said Wilson.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, which had challenged the law, praised the judge’s decision.

“We are very pleased that the judge decided to block the most problematic previsions of the law” said Andre Segura, an ACLU attorney who argued against the bill adding “this is yet another setback for this anti immigration legislation that we’ve seen in other states and we’ve now seen the majority of courts that have weighed in these issues have decided that these laws are unconstitutional and should be blocked while there is a full hearing in the matter.”

SB20 was approved by the state legislature and signed by Gov. Nikki Haley on June 27.

It includes new requirements for the verification of legal status of new workers. In addition it has the requirement that the legal status of prisoners be checked and mandates the transfer of illegal immigrants to federal authorities after they complete their sentences.

Rob Godfrey, Haley’s spokesman said, “If the feds were doing their job, we wouldn’t have had to address illegal immigration reform at the state level. But, until they do, we’re going to keep fighting in South Carolina to be able to enforce our laws. Governor Haley is hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will soon do what Congress and the executive branch have failed to do, which is allow the states to pick up the slack where Washington has failed.”

Stewart detention center is located in a remote Georgia location at least an hour away from any sort of communication or service providers. This is primarily because CCA often buys cheap land in order to cut construction costs and increase profit margins. Relatives and representatives of those detained at Stewart find it nearly impossible to visit or communicate with the inmate, that is if they even know that he or she is being held there.

Correction Corporation of America’s Stewart facility in Lumpkin, Georgia is the largest private detention center in the nation. It holds 2000 detainees, charging taxpayers up to $200 a night and producing yearly profits that hover between $35 and $50 million. The facility secures more income through cost cutting measures that range from denying basic necessary services to detained immigrants to limiting access to their family members.

Stewart detention center is located in a remote Georgia location at least an hour away from any sort of communication or service providers. This is primarily because CCA often buys cheap land in order to cut construction costs and increase profit margins. Relatives and representatives of those detained at Stewart find it nearly impossible to visit or communicate with the inmate, that is if they even know that he or she is being held there.

As if that weren’t enough, CCA charges inmates more than $5 a minute to make a phone call. To pay for this, inmates work in the facility and earn a whopping $1 a day. Five days of hard work gives them just enough time for a one minute phone call.

This is an intrinsic and essential problem with our current immigration system, it is putting profit over sensible policy. CCA and GEO the two larges private prison operators currently profit close to $5 billion and their share prices are at an all-time high. What is worse, local, state and federal government agencies continue to yield their power to corporations. From Florida (Southwest Ranch) to California (Adelanto) more and more Wal-Mart sized private detention centers are being co-opted with opportunistic officials and legislators. The money machine is just too perfect.

Recent anti-immigration laws in Alabama (HB56) and Georgia (HB87) guarantee that neighbor facilities will have an influx of “product.” In the past few years, CCA has spent $14.8 million lobbying for anti-immigration laws to ensure they have continuous access to fresh inmates and keep their money racket going. In 2010 CCA CEO Damon T. Hininger received $3,266,387 in total compensation.

Yet, numerous cases of abuse, neglect and flat-out exploitation have exposed the reality of the system: As long as private prisons are increasing their profits, it doesn’t matter who gets hurt or locked-up.

On November 18th, a coalition of immigrant and civil rights organizations will conduct a powerful vigil and occupation outside the Stewart facility in Georgia. The demand: Shut down Stewart Detention Center now and cancel private prison contracts. Our immigration system is broken and yet corporations seam to be reaping billions in benefits. Who cares? After all YOU are paying for it.

The shocking events that unfolded at Penn State last week are a stark reminder of the sludge that rises to the surface when a sexual abuse scandal is uncovered. Victims often fail to speak out — perhaps out of embarrassment, perhaps out of fear, perhaps out of the sheer fact that no one will take them seriously.

Accused perpetrators hide their behavior. If discovered they deny, minimize and often blame the victim.

If an intermediary institution, such as the Roman Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, the military or even a university, connects the abuser to the abused, many forms of misdirection emerge: silence, tunnel vision, cover-ups, lies, disingenuousness, a bad memory, changing the subject, plausible deniability and on and on.

At least the sordid details of the Penn State case were revealed and the institution finally moved to act.

What happens when sexual abuse is discovered and the institutional facilitators are identified and hardly anyone notices or cares — let alone does anything about it?

About three weeks before the Penn State scandal broke, two sources reported the prevalence of sexual abuse suffered by the undocumented, most of whom are Hispanic, confined to detention centers. An ACLU report counted nearly 200 formal complaints of sexual abuse between 2007 and 2010 lodged by immigrants housed in these facilities.

At the same time, PBS aired Frontline’s “Lost in Detention,” a film that documents the plight of some 350,000 immigrants detained each year. The cameras focused on the privately-run Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas.

One woman was detained for bouncing a $230 check a decade prior. When interviewed, she recounted in harrowing detail the unwanted groping and sexual battery she endured at the hands of a guard. Rather than subject herself to more degradation, she asked to be deported, leaving behind her four young children who are U.S. citizens.

In conducting a survey at Willacy, a mental health coordinator heard from an HIV-positive male detainee who stated that he was raped repeatedly by another male inmate. The guard simply looked away. A non-English-speaking female told her in wrenching terms about a guard who was “touching her in places that she didn’t want to be touched.”

The ACLU reported on the sexual abuse complaints raised by two Hispanic women detained at the privately-operated T. Don Hutto Center in Taylor, Texas.

One who fled a Central American country fearing political persecution was detained attempting to cross into the United States. An immigration official ruled she was eligible to seek political asylum. On her way to the airport, the driver, a Hutto guard, “started touching me all over. He pulled up my bra, fondled my breasts and put his hand down my pants. He was touching himself.”

The other is a woman who left South America to escape an extremely abusive husband. She was detained crossing the Rio Grande River. Again an immigration officer decided she could seek asylum. On the way to the airport, the same driver “lifted my shirt and began touching my breasts and grabbing between my legs.”

Sexual abuse in detention centers is certainly more pervasive than that reported by the ACLU. Detainees live in isolation and are very vulnerable. They are understandably reluctant to turn in those who guard them, and unlike the Penn State situation where police authorities eventually intervened and blew the case wide open, they have preciously few intermediaries working on their behalf.

As at Penn State, federal officials knew at least something about the charges of sexual abuse in detention facilities. Indeed, the ACLU gained its information from the Department of Homeland Security after prying it out with a freedom of information request.

Once the Penn State allegations became public, howls of indignation filled the air. Not so in response to the detainee findings. Major broadcast and print media were eerily silent.

Key executive branch officials were less than forthcoming. When Cecilia Muñoz, White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, was asked by Frontline about the reports of sexual abuse, she redirected the question to discuss recent attempts by Homeland Security to improve conditions in the detention facilities and the need “to fix a broken system.”

President Obama, speaking about Penn State through his press secretary, said, “If the allegations of what happened up there prove true, what happened is outrageous,” He has said nothing about the sexual abuse charges in his administration’s U.S.-based detention centers.

Jim Lamare is an editor with Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. Email him at jwlamare@gmail.com.

Top rivals for the Republican presidential nomination immediately labeled the former House speaker’s stance as outright amnesty — a virtual swear word in to many GOP conservatives.

With Gingrich rising in the polls, his political gamble on such a volatile issue could play well with moderate Republicans and independents crucial to GOP hopes in next year’s presidential election.

The question is how much it will hurt him in the Republican primaries that kick off with the Iowa caucuses on January 3.

Conservatives hold more sway in the nominating process, and Gingrich might have alienated a key segment of the party’s base support with his comments at Tuesday night’s CNN debate that some illegal immigrants who had lived in the United States for decades should be allowed to stay.

Readers judge GOP contenders after debate

Iowa Rep. Steve King, a conservative Republican, said Wednesday that he disagreed with Gingrich’s position, calling it “a form of amnesty” in an interview with Iowa Public Television.

Asked whether the issue meant King would not support Gingrich, King said that it was “something that concerns me” and that he “moved a little bit away last night.”

Dana Loesch, a CNN political contributor and St. Louis tea party organizer, said Gingrich’s position will anger grass-roots conservatives, but she noted that he has been consistent on the issue in his career.

Loesch called Gingrich’s logic on the matter “unsound,” adding that “breaking the law for a quarter of a century does not make that law somehow less illegal.”

At the same time, Loesch praised Gingrich’s overall performance and said she thought he generally helped himself on the night.

That split perspective was reflected in comments on the conservative website TeaPartyNation.com, which ranged from outright anger at Gingrich to praise for what some posters called a reasonable approach.

“I’m sure Newt will be doing a lot of spinning on this, to disarm the ill-effects,” said one comment with the tag of Vern Shotwell. “Won’t work, at least with me. It’s a bad idea.”

Another comment, tagged John Delasaux, responded that Gingrich’s plan was far short of amnesty.

“Newt’s solution is typical of his deeper thought capabilities, and ‘regularizing’ the illegals by giving them a ‘Red Card’ which allows them to achieve a legal status, without a path to citizenship, is a very creative solution to an otherwise insoluble problem,” said the post by Delasaux.

David Gergen, a CNN senior political analyst, noted Gingrich broke from conservative orthodoxy and took a more humane position than people would generally associate with him.

“I think he’ll take a hit in the conservative community,” Gergen said but added that for moderate Republicans and independents, “seeing the humane side of Gingrich tonight might be a plus.”

A CNN/ORC International Poll on Monday put Gingrich atop the GOP presidential field for the first time, with 24% support, compared with 20% for Mitt Romney in second place. However, the poll also found that 9% of respondents said Gingrich was the most likable candidate.

In addition, the poll found that 71% of Republican respondents believe the main focus of immigration policy should be deporting illegal immigrants and stopping more from coming, compared with 42% of Democrats and 54% of independents.

Five things we learned from the debate

Toward the end of Tuesday’s debate on national security, Gingrich called for illegal immigrants with little history or ties to the United States to get kicked out. However, he took a different approach with those who have settled in the country and become community members and contributors to society.

“If you’ve been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you’ve been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don’t think we’re going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out,” Gingrich said.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who usually is more moderate than Gingrich, immediately took exception by saying such a policy would attract more illegal immigrants.

“Amnesty is a magnet,” Romney said, but Gingrich was unswayed.

“I don’t see how the party that says it’s the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century,” Gingrich responded. “And I’m prepared to take the heat for saying, ‘Let’s be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship but by finding a way to create legality so that they are not separated from their families.’ “

On Monday, Gingrich had provided a more detailed description of his plan to CNN, saying long-time illegal immigrants with community ties should be allowed to pay a penalty so they would gain legal status without becoming full citizens.

“You want to become a citizen, you have to go and join at the end of the line the people who are not currently here so that nobody gets cheated for citizenship who’s been obeying the law,” Gingrich said then. As a practical matter, he added, uprooting families by deporting people with 20- and 30-year histories in the country was “not going to happen.”

After Tuesday’s debate, Gingrich told CNN that he wasn’t talking about any kind of blanket amnesty.

“There’s lots of people who will go home” because they are illegal immigrants with no ties or roots in the United States, he said. “There’s also millions who will end up staying.

“I want to be tough, but I do not want to kid people,” Gingrich said, adding that he can’t imagine “any reasonable person” who wants to “tear families apart.”

He also acknowledged a desire to make the Republican Party more palatable to Hispanic voters, a key voting demographic that opposes conservative immigration policies.

“It’s not just the Hispanic community, but we have people who come to America from the whole planet,” Gingrich said, later adding: “It’s important for us to unify the country by having an honest conversation, not just a series of slogans.”

A few minutes later, though, conservative candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota summed up the tea party sentiment about Gingrich’s position, saying: “If you’re legalizing 11 million workers, it sounds like amnesty to me.”

Romney told reporters on Wednesday that Gingrich’s position “offered a new doorway to amnesty.”

“My view is people who come into this country illegally should not have a special break or special pathway to become permanent residents or citizens of this country,” Romney said. “They should be in line or the back of the line with other people who want to come here legally.”

However, former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican who co-sponsored major immigration legislation in 1986, said Gingrich was making sense in view of current realities.

“I think you have to do something like that,” Simpson told CNN. “What are you going to do, deport them all?”

He had another tip for those confronting the issue today: Avoid referring to the solution as a form of amnesty.

“We never used the word ‘amnesty’ because it’s a flash word” that “gets people all juiced up,” Simpson said.

Herman Cain has talked about an electrified fence. Michele Bachmann prefers a “double- walled” model to keep out “anchor babies.” And everyone but Texas Governor Rick Perry agrees that young illegal immigrants who have grown up in the U.S. shouldn’t have the same access to higher education as the children of citizens.

As they seek to appease nativist rumblings on the right, Republican candidates for president appear willing to take ever-tougher approaches toward illegal immigration.

Perry, the self-described “authentic conservative” of the field, is the exception. As governor of a border state with more than 9 million Hispanic residents, he signed into law a Dream Act enabling undocumented immigrants to attend Texas state schools at in-state tuition rates. “We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society,” Perry explained at a debate in Orlando, Florida, last month. His opponents piled on, and Perry’s standing in the polls tanked.

What sort of world would Perry’s opponents prefer? For a vision of an anti-immigrant Eden, Alabama is a good place to start. On Oct. 14, a federal appeals court temporarily blocked elements of the state’s new immigration law, enjoining it from forcing schools to determine their students’ legal status or requiring police to file criminal charges against immigrants who lack federal papers and appear to be in the country illegally.
No Border State

Unlike Arizona, which made waves with its strict anti- immigration law, Alabama isn’t a border state — and it’s hardly a beacon for illegal immigrants. According to Census data, only 4 percent of its population is Hispanic and only 3 percent is foreign-born. (The comparable numbers nationally are 16 percent and 12 percent.) Yet immigrants who came north to work in Alabama’s fields and chicken- processing plants have inspired what backers of the legislation known as HB 56 proudly call the nation’s “toughest” anti-immigration law. It requires police to demand proof of legal status if they have “reasonable suspicion” that someone is in the country illegally; it bars undocumented immigrants from using a wide range of public services and prohibits anyone from transporting an illegal immigrant in a vehicle.

The law’s constitutionality will be decided in due time; its ill-advisedness is already clear.

Here are some of the law’s immediate consequences: Fearful immigrant parents, mostly Hispanic, have pulled their children out of Alabama schools. While some of the state’s more than 2,000 absent students have returned to classes, others have not. Uneducated children of undocumented parents are unlikely to be a boon to the nation’s social fabric or to economic growth.

Due to what one commercial landscaper called Alabama’s “negative atmosphere,” legal Hispanic residents are leaving the state, creating shortages of workers in construction and agriculture. As Bloomberg News reported in June, the post-tornado reconstruction of Tuscaloosa has been hindered by a lack of skilled labor, partly because, after the law was passed, Hispanic tradesmen began leaving the state. Meantime, during the recent harvest, tomatoes and other crops were left rotting in north Alabama’s fields.

There are other economic costs. Rental properties are going empty; stores and restaurants catering to immigrants have lost customers. Supporters of the legislation argue that by kicking employed immigrants out, they have created an equal number of job openings for unemployed Alabamans.
Zero-Sum Game

Employment isn’t a zero-sum game. One reason job growth in Texas has been high is a steady influx of immigrants — from Mexico and from other states. If immigration killed economies, New York, Los Angeles and other cities with high numbers of illegal immigrants would be disaster zones. It’s worth noting that 40 percent of last year’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants.

So what’s the answer? The Obama administration has been far more aggressive than its predecessor in cracking down on illegal immigration. It has significantly strengthened border enforcement, increased border seizures and deported a record number of illegal immigrants. None of these actions has noticeably mitigated the challenges posed by illegal immigration or anti-immigrant sentiment. Call it “amnesty” if you like, but a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants remains the only sensible resolution.

To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net

Petitioning
Georgia Senators Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss

Created By
Tonna Harris-Bosselmann
Atlanta, GA

A foreign national investor may obtain an EB-5 classification by establishing a new business in the U.S. If there are more than one investor, each petitioning investor must have invested or is actively in the process of investing the required amount for the area in which the new company is principally doing business, and each individual investment must create at least ten full-time jobs for qualifying United States workers.

To obtain an EB-5 classification a petition must be filed with the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS) regional service center. There is no labor certification requirement for this special category. Conditional permanent residence is granted initially for a two-year period. After the second anniversary of granting permanent residence, a review is made. If the company continues to employ the required number of U.S. workers and is continuing to do business permanent residence will be granted.

S/he must submit documentation of outstanding achievements in the specific field. In addition, the applicant must demonstrate that s/he will be coming to the United States to pursue employment in his/her field of expertise. The applicant does not need an offer of employment in the United States.

To obtain an EB1-1 visa, a petition must be filed with the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS). Upon approval, the applicant, his/her spouse and any children under 21 years of age may apply for immigrant visas through adjustment of status in the United States, or through consular processing at a U.S. Consulate outside the United States.