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From the Los Angeles Times

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Immigration, state by state

Utah is the latest state to consider a local fix to a federal problem. The federal government needs to step up.

March 14, 2011

Fueled by frustration, states are striking out and creating their own immigration rules.

Utah is the latest state to consider a local fix to a federal problem. Lawmakers this month passed a package of reforms that includes granting police broader powers to check the immigration status of those arrested and creating a state guest-worker program for illegal workers.

And more than a dozen other states are pushing immigration legislation that ranges from the benign to the ridiculous. In Oklahoma, for example, lawmakers are seeking to ban motorists from picking up illegal day laborers, while South Carolina's Legislature is considering making it a felony to sell a fake ID to immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally.

So far, none of the proposals go as far as Arizona's draconian anti-immigrant law, known as SB 1070, that requires people to carry identification proving they are authorized to be in the U.S. But like Arizona, other states that adopt immigration enforcement measures will probably face legal challenges over attempts to encroach on the federal government's authority.

The flurry of proposals should serve as a wake-up call to Washington. Congress has failed in the last few years to provide a comprehensive solution to the nation's broken immigration system and instead has wasted time sparring over building bigger fences and funding stricter enforcement programs. The White House hasn't done much better. President Obama has spoken eloquently about the need to overhaul immigration but has offered little else.

Washington can't continue to abdicate its authority to the states. Lawmakers and the White House must begin the conversation and provide some legislative action.

Meanwhile, Congress can provide some short-term relief. Lawmakers should revive the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors bill, known as the DREAM Act. The bill would provide a conditional path to legalization to young illegal immigrants who attend college or serve in the military and plan to address the nation's need for skilled and unskilled labor.

And Republicans and Democrats can also reconsider legislation to help farmers. Last year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Valley Village) sponsored the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act, or AgJobs. The bill remains a viable approach to helping farmers by providing temporary work permits for certain types of farmworkers and their families who are in the U.S. illegally.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-utah-20110314,0,1593734,print.story

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The conversation: Three views on immigration policy

Immigration enforcement plan Secure Communities should be shelved or retooled

The Obama administration is right to enforce immigration laws, and smart to focus on those who pose the greatest danger to communities. With an estimated 11 million people illegally living and working in the United States, immigration officials can't deport everyone, and would waste precious resources in the effort to do so.

But Secure Communities isn't succeeding at targeting violent criminals. Instead, it is increasingly diverting police from public safety for other purposes. The White House should heed the recommendations of police chiefs who are calling on federal immigration officials to stop trying to turn police into immigration agents.

-- Los Angeles Times editorial

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Obama should consider Utah's common-sense, market-based answer to the immigration question

As Reagan himself pointed out: "Are great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal alien invasion, or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people won't do? One thing is certain in this hungry world: No regulation or law should be allowed if it results in crops rotting in the fields for lack of harvesters."

In other words, if businesses can't find U.S. workers for certain jobs, government should not stop them from hiring the foreign workers they need. […]

The Utah immigrant work permit program should serve as a model for Republicans in other states, and even in Congress, about how to address the immigration crisis within a conservative framework of limited government and the free market. The "Utah solution" demonstrates that there are Republicans who want to work on the issue constructively -- and are willing to pass laws welcoming to immigrants.

-- Alfonso Aguilar, Politico

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More support for the 'Utah Way'

[T]he "Utah Way," as some are calling it, is also a fraternal attack on Republicans, in Washington and elsewhere, whose only strategy is to demonize, criminalize and deport 11 million illegal immigrants. […]

Utah's guest-worker bill doesn't grant citizenship, of course, but in every other way it's exactly what national Republicans have derided as "amnesty." It would grant work permits to undocumented immigrants, and their immediate families, who pay a fine, clear a criminal background check and study English.

The bill's chief sponsor, state Rep. Bill Wright, is a plain-spoken dairy farmer who describes his politics as "extremely" conservative, likes Sarah Palin and believes he may have once voted for a Democrat - possibly 40 years ago for sheriff. He admires the work ethic of the Hispanic farmhands he's employed over the years and doesn't care much for anything the government does, least of all the idea that it might deport millions of immigrant workers and their families.

-- Lee Hockstader, The Washington Post

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Stop illegal immigration: America's not a "free-for-all"

[Ron Paul] is tough on illegal immigration. He wrote on his Web site that "decades of misguided policies" have left America "a free-for-all." He has a six-point plan to stop illegal immigration:

-- Mark Berman, Opposing Views

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/03/the-conversation-three-views-on-immigration-policy.html

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Done with the death penalty

California should follow Illinois, the latest state to stop executions.

March 14, 2011

Illinois last week became the latest state to stop committing what in some cases may amount to government-sponsored murder. California should be next.

More than a dozen people have been wrongly sent to death row in Illinois since 1977, a record that prompted then-Gov. George Ryan to impose a capital punishment moratorium in 2000. Last week it became permanent when Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill banning the practice; at the same time, he commuted the sentences of 15 death row inmates to life without the possibility of parole.

There are plenty of reasons to oppose the death penalty, but our biggest complaint has long been that the American justice system, good as it is, isn't perfect. Police, prosecutors and juries make mistakes. Once a convict is executed, it's too late to set him or her free if evidence of innocence later emerges. Quinn agrees, and his signing statement was dead-on: "Since our experience has shown that there is no way to design a perfect death penalty system, free from the numerous flaws that can lead to wrongful convictions or discriminatory treatment, I have concluded that the proper course of action is to abolish it."

Illinois isn't an aberration — innocent people in many other states, including California, have been sentenced to death. Our zeal for executions is also expensive. If California went the same way as Illinois — abolishing the death penalty and commuting the sentences of those on death row — it would save the Golden State an estimated $1 billion over five years. (This is derived by adding the $137 million a year in court, security and other costs associated with the death penalty to the $400 million that would be saved by not building a new death row facility to replace the crumbling one at San Quentin.)

Illinois is now the 16th state to ban capital punishment. Quinn's critics believe his actions were a betrayal of the state's voters, who widely favor the death penalty, just as they do in California. But state-sponsored murder is the ultimate violation not only of civil rights but of human rights, which is why most developed nations have ended capital punishment. Our constitutional system places a high value on protecting individual civil rights even when the majority wants to take them away.

We execute convicted killers not because it has a deterrent effect on crime — there's little evidence that it does — but because of the visceral satisfaction derived from this form of "justice." But California hasn't executed anyone since 2006 because of court delays, so who's satisfied? Society would be protected just as well by putting convicts in prison for life, without the moral, legal and financial complications of killing them.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-0314-death-20110314,0,1823548,print.story

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From the New York Times

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In Tsunami's Wake, Much Searching but Few Are Rescued

NATORI, Japan — The tsunami that barreled into northeast Japan on Friday was so murderous and efficient that not much was left when search-and-rescue teams finally reached Natori on Monday. There was searching, but not much rescuing. There was, essentially, nobody left to rescue.

The mournful scene here in Natori, a farm and fishing town that has been reduced to a vast muddy plain, was similar to rescue efforts in other communities along the coast as police, military and foreign assistance teams poked through splintered houses and piles of wreckage. The death toll from the 8.9-magnitude quake — the strongest in Japan's seismically turbulent history — continued to climb, inexorably so, as officials uncovered more bodies. By Monday afternoon, the toll stood at more than 1,800 confirmed dead and 2,300 missing. Police officials, however, said it was certain that more than 10,000 had died.

Police teams, for example, found about 700 bodies that had washed ashore on a scenic peninsula in Miyagi Prefecture, close to the epicenter of the quake that unleashed the tsunami. The bodies washed out as the tsunami retreated. Now they are washing back in.

A string of crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima also continued to bedevil engineers who were desperately trying to cool them down. The most urgent worries concerned the failures of two reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, where workers were still struggling to avert meltdowns and where some radiation had already leaked.

The building housing Reactor No. 1 exploded on Saturday, and a hydrogen buildup blew the roof off the No. 3 reactor facility on Monday morning. The blast did not appear to have harmed the reactor itself, government and utility officials said, but six workers were injured in the blasts.

Later Monday, Reactor No. 2 was losing cooling function and workers were pumping in water, according to Yukio Edano, the chief government spokesman.

In the city of Fukushima, gas stations, grocery stores and restaurants were closed, and convenience stores had no food or drinks to sell — only cigarettes. Red Cross water tankers dispensed drinking water to Fukushima residents who waited in long, orderly lines.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan described the triple whammy — the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear troubles — as Japan's “worst crisis since World War II.”

Some 350,000 people have reportedly become homeless and were staying in shelters.

Because of the Fukushima nuclear plants being lost to the national power grid, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, which operates the plants, announced plans for rotating blackouts across the region to conserve electricity — the first controlled power cuts in Japan in 60 years.

Tokyo-area residents worriedly followed a series of confusing statements from the power company about the location and duration of the power cuts. Just after 5 p.m., the utility said it had already started cutting power to parts of two prefectures — Ibaraki, north of Tokyo, and Shizuoka, south of the capital.

Tokyo residents had struggled to get to work Monday as a number of important commuter rail lines ran limited schedules. Six lines featuring Japan's famous shinkansen, or bullet trains, were not running. Six major department stores also closed for the day because staffers were unable to reach the city.

Public conservation of electricity was significant enough, the company said, that the more drastic blackout scenarios were being scaled back. Still, anticipating deep and lengthy power cuts, many people were stocking up on candles, water, instant noodles and batteries for radios.

Toyota also announced it was closing all its factories until at least Thursday.

Japan's $5 trillion economy, the third-largest in the world, was threatened with severe disruptions and partial paralysis, and the collective anxiety caused a rout in the Japanese stock market. The main Nikkei index fell 6.2 percent in Monday's trading, the worst drop in three years. The broader Topix, or Tokyo Stock Price index, dropped 7.4 percent.

Worried about the severe strains on banking and financial systems, the Bank of Japan pumped about $180 billion into the economy on Monday, and the government considered an emergency tax increase to help finance relief and recovery work.

Thomas Byrne, a senior vice president with Moody's Investors Service, said Monday that his firm saw the Japanese economy as “having the ability to absorb the shock over time.”

“In general, large, wealthy economies have demonstrated a capacity to absorb localized natural disasters,” Mr. Byrne said.

The United States Geological Survey recorded 96 aftershocks on Sunday, and many Japanese were alarmed at several earthquake warnings that appeared as televised bulletins on Monday. A warning at 4 p.m., for example, an alert announced by a gentle trilling bells, told of expected “strong shaking” across the entire waist of Japan, essentially from Tokyo to Kyoto.

The first gripping images of the tsunami came from here in Natori, notably pictures of the towering initial wave lashing a delicate line of trees along the shoreline.

On Monday, across the field of black mud that used to be Natori, brightly clad searchers bent to their work — the police in navy blue, the handlers of sniffer dogs in orange, the military squads in digital camouflage.

They made their way around marooned boats and collapsed houses, finding toys, torn bedding, tangled fishing nets, broken toilets, pieces of cars, pieces of pottery, all the mundane pieces of daily life, now broken. A wheelchair. A rubber ball.

Occasionally, too, they found a body, sometimes already covered by a futon or a tarp.

Off in the distance, a small cluster of buildings stood erect and undamaged on the sad expanse of the mud flats. Outlined against the afternoon sky, they seemed like tombstones.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/asia/15japan.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

2 deputies slain, 2 wounded in small Va. town

by John Raby - Associated Press Writer

VANSANT, Va. - A small southwestern Virginia community is again dealing with a deadly shooting rampage that this time killed two deputies and wounded two more before the suspect who may have been trying to rob a salvage yard was fatally shot by police.

Buchanan County deputies investigating at Roger's Service Center in Vansant on Sunday afternoon were met by gunfire from long range, Virginia State Police said. Two were hit and died at the scene. Two others who arrived also were shot, said State Police Sgt. Steve Lowe.

One deputy has life-threatening injuries and the other was in serious condition, state police said. No names were released late Sunday.

Christina Stiltner lives across the street from the salvage yard in the southwestern Virginia area and had just walked into her home with her 10-year-old son when she heard "pow, pow, pow."

She opened her front door and saw one deputy run into a neighbor's yard. She heard another "pow" and the deputy went down. He was one of the injured, she said.

"It scares you so much," she said. "I sat there thinking 'what's the number to 911'? It shocked me so badly, I didn't know the number to 911."

Residents said such violence is rare in the rural area of about 1,000 people, though in January 2002, a student opened fire on the Appalachian School of Law campus in Grundy just down the road from Vansant after learning he had flunked out of school.

The school's dean, a professor and a student were killed in the attack. Three other students were wounded. The shooter, Peter Odighizuwa, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

"This is a laid-back community. Everybody knows everybody," said Tivis O'Quinn, 68, who has lived in Vansant for 40 years and operates a business less than a mile from the salvage yard. "Nothing like this ever takes place, except for the law school shooting."

Police did not release what sort of weapon was used, but Lowe said the suspect shot from long range. The owner of the salvage yard told police his business was being robbed and he had blocked the suspect's vehicle with his own.

After the shooting, the search was on for the suspect. State police and other officers found him about two hours later and after "some sort of engagement" they shot and killed him, Lowe said.

"I'm not sure what the confrontation was when they encountered him," Lowe said. "Apparently he was identified as the right person."

Lowe said he didn't know if the man fired on police, or if he was armed at the time.

Stiltner said she knew all the deputies involved in the attack because they would often stop by the gas station and restaurant where she works.

Stiltner said she wasn't allowed to return to her home seven hours after the shootings ended. Several other residents were out of their homes late Sunday.

Vansant is a former coal mining town in the mountainous region of southwestern Virginia. O'Quinn said the community experiences "little petty thefts now and then," but nothing like what occurred Sunday.

On display in O'Quinn's office was a 2011 calendar of the Buchanan County Sheriff's Department. The photo features the department's 47 members, including Foster and 24 uniformed deputies.

Buchanan County Sheriff Ray Foster called the shooting "one of a kind" for his department but declined to say anymore.

According to the website The Officer Down Memorial Page, the last Buchanan County sheriff to die in the line of duty was in 1975 of a heart attack. The website lists four on-duty deaths for the department since 1905. The last by gunfire was in 1964.

http://hutchnews.com/Nation/2-deputies-slain--2-wounded-in-small-Va--town

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