Immigrants

Frederick -- A Frederick man who died shortly after he was shocked by a police Taser had drunk a lot of alcohol but apparently had taken no drugs, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said yesterday. Jarrel C. Gray, 20, died Nov. 18 after Cpl. Rudy Torres, a 13-year-veteran of the sheriff's office, used the electronic stun gun on him twice in 23 seconds after responding to reports of men fighting outdoors in a Frederick neighborhood about 5 a.m. Torres delivered the first, five-second burst after Gray ignored an order to show his hands, Cpl. Jennifer Bailey said.

Labor groups, immigrant advocates and city leaders applauded yesterday's opening of a Southeast Baltimore employment center, a move designed to keep day workers off street corners and provide them with jobs, training and legal assistance. Operated by the immigrant advocacy group CASA of Maryland, the refurbished brick warehouse at East Fayette and Madeira streets will offer workers an alternative to congregating at a 7-Eleven parking lot on South Broadway, a popular spot for laborers seeking temporary employment.

The biggest - and least talked about - loser in the immigration "grand bargain" announced last week is the planet. The deal amounts to an environmental double-whammy: If enacted, it would cause damage through those provisions meant to increase the number of immigrants in this country and through those designed to keep immigrants out. The legislation requires the construction of 370 miles of border fencing before any liberalizing of immigration is...

Congress' failure to overhaul immigration policy this year has given new impetus to state and local efforts to discourage or drive out undocumented workers. The efficacy of such efforts is highly doubtful, as a patchwork of laws makes enforcement very difficult. Most troubling, though, is that this emotional campaign plays into an all-too-common fear that immigrants, legal or not, pose a threat to native-born Americans - a sentiment likely to result in hostility to all Hispanics, who are by far the fastest-growing segment of newcomers.

WASHINGTON -- Do African immigrants make the smartest Americans? The question may sound outlandish, but if you were judging by statistics alone, you could find plenty of evidence to back it up. In a side-by-side comparison of 2000 census data by sociologists including John R. Logan at the State University of New York, Albany, black immigrants from Africa averaged the highest educational attainment of any population group in the country, including whites...

It used to be that Los Angelenos were much too cool to express outright pride in their city, feeling that boosterism is for yahoos from the Midwest, but when I was there last week I got an earful about what a good place it is from friends who never said anything like that to me before. They always talked about choking traffic, the unreality of real estate prices, the sprawl, smog, blah blah blah, and now they were saying, "I couldn't live anyplace else." The bright burst of civic feeling might have been the result of the bad brush fires - it had been a very dry winter and spring - with a major blaze a month ago right in Griffith Park in the heart of the city.

BUSINESS DOW +79.81 13,556.53 NASDAQ +19.07 2558.45 S&P +10.00 1,522.75 SUN INDEX +0.23 350.05 MARYLAND 120 city principals warned The Baltimore school system sent letters to about 120 principals threatening them with disciplinary action, including termination, if their schools fail to provide a complete set of records for each student by the end of this month. pg 1A Police unravel shooting Two men whom police identified as Morgan State University students had a third student shoot them in the legs this week as a ploy to avoid a fraternity initiation process, authorities said yesterday.

In March 1681, an enterprising young man named Adam Shipley surveyed and patented 200 acres south of the Severn River. That was the start, according to state historians, of the strong family presence in the county, with Shipley family farms stretching over thousands of acres and scores of years. Shipley arrived in the New World in 1668 and worked as an indentured servant before achieving the freedom and social status of a landowner. Like immigrants to this day, it took him years to establish his place in the colonial order.

The General Assembly adjourned yesterday without taking a final vote on a bill dealing with one of the nation's most contentious issues: illegal immigration. Lawmakers in the Senate were bitterly divided over a measure that would allow illegal immigrants who have graduated from Maryland high schools to qualify for in-state tuition. The House of Delegates approved the legislation last month, after an emotional debate that touched on civil rights and the failure of federal immigration laws.

As states nationwide are embroiled in battles over immigrants' rights, Maryland lawmakers are again wrestling with the contentious issue -- and showing signs of easing some restrictions. The most recent flash point: a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Maryland colleges. Immigrant advocates think the bill has the best chance of passing in years. In 2003, the legislature approved the measure, but Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed it; this year, Gov. Martin O'Malley has pledged support.

Palo Alto, Calif. -President Barack Obama has encouraged Americans to start laying a new foundation for the country - on a number of fronts. He has stressed that we'll need to have the courage to make some hard choices. One of those hard choices is how to handle immigration. The U.S. must get serious about the tide of legal and illegal immigrants, above all from Latin America. It's not just a short-run issue of immigrants competing with citizens for jobs as unemployment approaches 10 percent, or the number of uninsured straining the quality of healthcare.

Illegal immigrants would be stripped of Maryland driver's licenses by 2015 under a last-minute legislative compromise that seeks to end the state's status as a haven for foreigners seeking government-backed credentials. Adopted in the final moments of the 426th General Assembly session, the new policy was designed to bring the state into compliance with a federal security law known as the Real ID Act. The plan narrowly passed the House of Delegates, where many members had sought greater protection for immigrants, after intense pleas by House Speaker Michael E. Busch and under the threat of a special session or the possibility that Maryland licenses would soon be rejected at airports.

Readers of The Baltimore Sun's opinion blog have some strong opinions of their own. Here's a sample: On fighting Third World terrorism: Terrorism gives a job and a purpose for the thousands of unemployed across the globe. On the streets of India or Pakistan, in the villages of Afghanistan it is not too hard to persuade a hungry young man or a woman for that matter that killing Americans, or Indians or Jews is a worthy cause for which the rewards will be reaped in the hereafter. ... The world has too many people, too many of them are bored, others are hungry and mischief will always be afoot - the civilized world must war, must talk, must brandish weapons and also brandish the white flag - those are the only ways to survive.

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -For immigrants in this Rust Belt city, the doorway to America leads through the friendly building on Front Street. But on Friday, the American Civic Association - a place crowded with recent arrivals taking English classes and citizenship exams - became a killing zone. A gunman barricaded the back door of the immigration services center with a car, preventing escape, then entered through the front door. Opening fire, he killed 13 people and seriously wounded four others before apparently committing suicide.

GOP cancels support for driver's permit bill Republican lawmakers rescinded their support Friday of a proposal that would require Marylanders to show proof of U.S. residency when obtaining a new driver's license. They objected to a provision added late Thursday that would permit people already licensed to renew without documenting their legal status. Those licenses would be marked "not federally compliant" and would not be accepted at airports. Del. Ron George, an Anne Arundel County Republican who has sponsored "lawful presence" bills for years, said the amendment would create a confusing "two-tier" system.

Arrests violate immigrants' rights Evidence that senior staff at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement pressured Baltimore agents to meet arbitrary quotas by arresting Latino immigrants adds a disturbing twist to an already shameful incident ("Immigration official told deputy to 'make more arrests,' ICE report says," Feb. 19). It is encouraging that the Department of Homeland Security has referred this issue for further investigation. DHS consistently asserts that its role is to ensure the rule of law. But this position is not credible if DHS officers are being pushed by senior staff to arrest individuals in violation of their civil and human rights.

While it is true that immigrants have helped to rescue and improve our economy in the past, it is not likely that more immigration would be a viable solution to today's economic woes. Jay Hancock's column "Immigrants can come to economy's rescue again" (Jan. 21) mentions the Polish, Russian, Irish, Italian and Greek immigrants who helped give strength to our economy. However, they arrived when we were an industrializing nation and jobs were very plentiful. A willing work force was needed, and these immigrants supplied it. In today's technological society, the opportunities for employment are not so great.

So President Barack Obama, presiding over what will surely be the biggest budget deficits in history, doesn't want the country to go bankrupt. "If we do nothing, then we will continue to see red ink as far as the eye can see," he said at a news conference two weeks ago. He'll summon a "fiscal responsibility summit," he told The Washington Post last week. America, he said, must make "hard decisions" about Medicare, Social Security and other expensive programs. Hard decisions, of course, will include cutting costs and benefits, which will anger Democrats.

2 A federal jury convicted five Muslim men yesterday of plotting to kill soldiers at an Army base in New Jersey in a case that showed an aggressive FBI effort to infiltrate suspected homegrown terror cells. The five men, all Muslim immigrants who have lived in the United States for some time, were acquitted of the related charge of attempted murder. They could face life in prison for their conviction on conspiracy to kill American soldiers during their sentencing scheduled for April. Critics of the government's anti-terrorism approach said the case amounted to entrapment of angry young men and, if not for the actions of the FBI's informants, the group of immigrants would have done nothing more than talk about a possible attack.

Frozen River takes place during hard times in upstate New York, but there's no economic problem to the storytelling. Writer-director Courtney Hunt swiftly establishes a two-pronged narrative formula that keeps an audience on tenterhooks. Within minutes, a hard-bitten wife and mother named Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo), living in a small town outside the Mohawk Reservation on the border with Quebec, discovers her gambling-addicted husband has skipped town with the money she promised her two children would go to a double-wide trailer.