we are still here!!!

WE ARE WORKING ON WWW.DREAMACTTEXAS.BLOGSPOT.COM

its been a while visitors....we have great news though

DREAM

SENATE MAY VOTE ON DREAM ACT SOON!

***IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED***

Wednesday, July 18, 2007
It is not too late to call your senators!!
Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) have introduced the DREAM Act as an amendment (SA 2237) to H.R. 1585, the Department of Defense authorization bill, which is now being debated in the Senate. The amendment will need 60 votes to pass. Its adoption would be a giant step forward for the DREAM Act, which would then stand an excellent chance of becoming law this year. It is imperative for all DREAM Act supporters to call your Senators. You can find your Senators' phone numbers here.

CALL BOTH OF YOUR SENATORS AND TELL THEM
"PLEASE VOTE FOR THE DURBIN-HAGEL-LUGAR DREAM ACT AMENDMENT TO H.R. 1585SO THAT IMMIGRANT STUDENTS BROUGHT HERE AS CHILDRENCAN REALIZE THEIR POTENTIAL"

Your Senators' phone numbers are online at: http://www.senate.gov/general /contact_information/senators _cfm.cfm

The DREAM Act in Brief:
The DREAM Act is narrowly tailored
It would apply only to individuals brought to the U.S. at least 5 years ago as children, who have grown up here, and who have remained in school and out of trouble. They could get a green card 6 years after graduating from high school if during that time they continue on to college or serve in the military.
The DREAM Act is not a "mini-amnesty"
At its core, amnesty is forgiveness for wrongdoing. That does not apply to DREAM Act students who were all brought here years ago as children. The DREAM Act rewards them for staying in school or serving our country.
The DREAM Act would benefit taxpayers
The DREAM Act would provide hope to immigrant students and lead many more of them to remain in school. As an example of the fiscal benefits of this, a RAND study showed that a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant woman who graduates from college will pay $5,300 more in taxes and cost $3,900 less in government expenses each year than if she had dropped out of high school. This amounts to an annual fiscal benefit of over $9,000 per person every year, money that can be used to pay for the education of other children. State and local taxpayers have already invested in the education of these children in elementary and secondary school and deserve to get a return on their investment
You can find more information about the DREAM Act here.
Information from National Immigration Law Center @ www.nilc.org

A story we hear so often...

OR: Illegal Scholar
The Willamettee Week,
November 20, 2006
By Beth Slovic

Carlos is a bright high-school senior who wants to go to college. Here's the problem: He's an undocumented immigrantCarlos is 17 years old with closely cropped black hair and an off-center smile. A senior at Southeast Portland's Franklin High School, he dresses like many of his peers-in spotless Adidas sneakers, extra-large hooded sweatshirts and crisp black pants that hang a foot below his waist. He loves The Simpsons, Snoop Dogg and the Oakland Raiders. He drops his G's and peppers his speech with exaggerated "yeaahs." He's a typical teenager.
Except for two things.
First, he's a "gifted" student and writer, according to his teachers. His GPA is 3.52, and his schedule is loaded with honors classes and Advanced Placement courses.
Second, he's an illegal immigrant. Carlos' parents brought him to this country from Mexico on a tourist visa when he was almost 8 years old. More than nine years later, the family is still here-hidden in plain view in one of Southeast Portland's working-class neighborhoods.
Carlos is aware his presence in this country is at the center of one of the most heated debates in American politics today. (WW agreed not to publish his real name or photograph.) "It affects me every day, this whole immigration thing," Carlos says.
But he has learned to live with it. "I don't worry about it," Carlos says of the possibility that he could one day be deported. "I'd have to start over again, but that's the case for everybody."
To a certain extent, his calm is understandable. Even though Carlos wasn't born in the United States (if he had been, he'd be a U.S. citizen), he is one of an estimated 1.8 million undocumented children for whom public schools in the United States are safe havens. A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case ruled that public schools must educate all kids, including illegal immigrants, who are nonetheless breaking federal law by living here.
"I will not deny the fact that we have certain percentages of students who are undocumented," says Franklin principal Charles Hopson. "But I don't even entertain arguments about who we should educate."
But now, as a senior in high school, Carlos faces a host of written and unwritten rules that simultaneously punish and seduce the world's tired, huddled masses.
Carlos could go to college, or he could get to work.
The irony embedded in America's immigration policy is that most Americans would turn a blind eye if Carlos decided he wanted to go straight to work, resigning himself to a life of low wages as a landscaper, a waiter or a construction worker.
Instead, Carlos wants to go to college. And this country's response-after shepherding him through high school-is as confusing and inconsistent as the Medicare Part D doughnut hole.
"In kindergarten through 12th grade, it's wink wink, nod nod," says Jennifer Satalino, a manager at the Northwest Education Loan Association, a charitable group in Portland that helps low-income students pay for college. "But now we're slamming the door."
Carlos came to this country with his mother and his younger brother almost a decade ago. His father was already in Portland at the time, having made the trip to the United States about 18 months earlier.
Looking back, Carlos does not remember much about his life in Mexico, but it all seems very innocent to him now, a time in his life when he spent many carefree hours playing with his little brother, he says.
"It was pretty much a normal kid's life, I guess," Carlos says, sitting with his parents on a tan sectional sofa in their neatly appointed, beige living room.
It was October when Carlos arrived in Oregon, where his father had settled after a few months in California. It was raining all the time. And Carlos was startled to discover that his family was poor. Somehow he'd imagined life in America would be like life on American television.
"The image that you get from the U.S.A. is that, when you come here, you're going to be in a happy, sunny, rich little neighborhood with a whole bunch of little kids and you're just going to play," he says. "When we got here, it was kind of the opposite."
Enrolled in the second grade, Carlos was just about to turn 8 and his brother was 7, but his parents immediately started working. And since the couple could not afford babysitters at the time, the boys often returned to an empty home, where they watched television and entertained themselves. Carlos' mother, who is 40 and petite with curly reddish hair, says she still feels guilty. In fact, her only recurring nightmare has nothing to do with being deported. Instead, she's haunted at night by images of her two children at home alone looking sad and bored, she says.
Adjusting to life in America, Carlos' parents enrolled in adult-education classes, where they studied English three days a week. At the same time, Carlos and his brother were learning English at Sunnyside, then an elementary school in Southeast Portland. Today, they all speak fluent English, although the parents have light Mexican accents. And switching back and forth between Spanish and English causes Carlos to forget words in both languages, he says.
The family has not returned to Mexico once since their departure. Their only option for returning would be to sneak across the border, and the family is not willing to take that risk.
The parents do take other risks, though.
To work, they use fake Social Security numbers, which they bought nine years ago for about $30 apiece on a street in Woodburn, in a transaction that went something like a drug deal, Carlos' father says. "You have to go and look for it," says Carlos' father, who is 39, stout and 6 inches shorter than his son. "You go to the streets and ask for it."
As far as the couple knows, they are the only ones with their particular Social Security numbers, which they shared with their current employers in order to get their jobs. Presumably, their employers use those numbers to have taxes withheld from their paychecks, just like any other working Portlander, Carlos' father says. But the couple also uses tax identification numbers (issued by the U.S. government to anyone, regardless of their immigration status) to file their annual tax returns, and they somehow manage to receive their refund. A spokesman for the Social Security Administration says the agency doesn't have the resources to investigate all cases of possible fraud, although it is a federal offense to buy fake Social Security numbers. Meanwhile, Carlos' father says the complexity inherent in the tax-filing system benefits workers like him.
"People here rely on that confusion, because it's a way of making a living," Carlos' father says. "Somehow it's good it doesn't make sense."
Carlos' parents say their employers do not know for sure that they are illegal immigrants. "The most important thing is that they are happy with our work," Carlos' father says.
The family has health insurance through the father's job. They pay rent and, by extension, property taxes, meaning they support the funding of Portland's schools.
The family has a checking account, driver's licenses, a phone line in their name and a membership at the local video rental store.
To give their kids the life they couldn't have given them in Mexico, Carlos' mother and father regularly put in overtime at their jobs. Carlos' mother is a waitress at a Lebanese restaurant in Portland. And Carlos' father says he does whatever his bosses ask of him, meaning he works as a driver, construction worker and general laborer. "For people like us, you have to be good in one, two, three positions, because we are immigrants," he says. "They don't tell us, but they let us know."
Early on, Carlos exhibited academic ability, giving his mother and father hope that their son could go to college.
But the father is a bit jaundiced, because his experience tells him Americans depend on undocumented immigrants to fill low-wage jobs, he says.
"We don't need Mexicans with college studies, because there is a lot of people around the world that have already studied, and they are dying to come here," he says.
Carlos' parents refuse to buy him a fake Social Security card. His father says it's because he wants his son, who is still only a child, to stay "clean." "I just don't think he needs it right now," his father says.
In the meantime, Carlos' focus on school has some unintended ironies.
Last May, when about 10 percent of Franklin's students skipped class to protest the immigration legislation making its way through Congress, Carlos stayed behind at Franklin. He thought his time would be better spent in class, he says.
"As a way of action, I study; that's what I do," Carlos says.
Just three miles from his house, Reed College's campus might as well be on another planet. For one thing, full tuition, room and board is $43,530 a year, not including basic expenses like books.
It's a Wednesday when Carlos visits with two of his friends from Franklin. And as he sets out on a tour of the leafy campus, he's looking just as nervous as the other high-school seniors gathered around him.
The culture at Reed is somewhat alien to Carlos.
As the tour winds past dormitories and other grand brick buildings on campus, Carlos' tour guides drop cultural references that Carlos doesn't catch. The school's honor code requires that students "be excellent to each other," one tour guide says, repeating the line from the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (released the same year Carlos was born in Mexico). The Decemberists and Ira Glass recently came to campus, the tour guide later boasts. But Carlos has never heard of either the band or the geeky radio host. On any given day, he's more likely to be listening to Chicano rap by Kinto Sol or reading poetry by Jimmy Santiago Baca than listening to This American Life on NPR.
But Carlos gains confidence when he attends a Spanish literature class and is surrounded by non-native Spanish speakers, who talk slowly and deliberately and, in more than a few cases, rather idiosyncratically. "Tú puedes decir," one student says repeatedly in Spanglish-a phrase that literally means "you could say," but that no Spanish speaker would ever actually say.
Later, at lunch in the campus cafeteria resembling a Vermont ski lodge, Carlos meets with Reed students who answer his questions about the admissions process.
Carlos' classmate from Franklin, also undocumented, has a question, too. And he seems to be speaking for Carlos as well when he poses it to the Reed sophomore, whose parents are from Mexico, she says.
"Were you born here?" he asks, briefly looking up from his hamburger and French fries swimming in ketchup. What he really wants to know is whether the student is a U.S. citizen. But when she says "yes," he simply continues eating.
Carlos barely touches his food. He's too busy answering other students' questions about what kind of music he likes, what kind of classes he wants to take and why he wants to go into "international business," he says, to eat his sandwich.
"The scroungers will eat it," one student tells Carlos, indicating the untouched half of his BLT. Nearby, a gaggle of hungry-looking students is waiting to eat the leftovers from departing students' trays.
"The who?" asks Carlos, jumping slightly from his seat and turning to see where the others are pointing.
Admissions officers at Reed know that Carlos is an undocumented immigrant, and yet they invited him to visit. Although they have not yet reviewed his application, which is due Jan. 15, they say his illegal status does not disqualify him. In fact, one dean recently met with Carlos' family on a Saturday to discuss his application.
However, because Carlos is not an American citizen, Reed says it would consider him alongside other international students. And Reed has very few scholarships for students who are not from the United States.
Yet Carlos isn't an international student in the true sense of the category. He's a local teenager in a city that is increasingly Latino and increasingly Mexican. Paul Marthers, the admissions dean, says the case for Carlos' admission is even more compelling to the college.
"One of the important things for Reed is that it look like America," Marthers says. "We try to stay out of the politics of it."
John Keeley, communications director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C., is incensed by policies such as Reed's. "That person is not authorized to be in the United States by the U.S. government," says Keeley, who works for a think tank that wants current immigration laws enforced. "I can't understand the sensibility of any institution that would willfully violate federal law."
Keeley says, too, that accepting an undocumented student necessarily means one coveted slot is not going to an equally deserving American student.
But Marthers defends Reed's decision, saying that the admissions process is not a zero-sum game. He adds: "We look at how we can help the individual; we're not getting into the issue of how his parents are here."
Perhaps surprisingly, it may actually be easier for Carlos to attend a private school like Reed than any public institution, where the academic requirements are less rigorous.
The University of Oregon says all applicants must be U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents or international students with appropriate visas. A student who does not fall into any of those categories will not have his application processed, according to Phil Weiler, a university spokesman.
On a recent trip to Western Oregon University, Carlos was admitted on the spot because his GPA is so high. But the public university's letter of conditional acceptance notes that Carlos' application is incomplete until he supplies his Social Security number, which he does not have. Weeks later, it's still not clear to Carlos whether he's been admitted.
Some college-admissions advisers claim that, in practice anyway, many public universities are far less strict-they either fail to follow up on a request for a Social Security number or they allow undocumented students to enroll but charge them out-of-state tuition. In the case of Western Oregon University, that would be a nearly $10,000 difference between $15,789 in-state and $25,284 out-of-state for tuition, fees, books, and room and board.
Either way, say critics, allowing a public institution to educate an illegal immigrant is "a subsidy tantamount to amnesty," according to the Center for Immigration Studies' Keeley. "I can't think of anything more unfair for the American taxpayer," he says.
Then again, without a Social Security number, Carlos cannot apply for federal loans, work-study grants or any other form of public assistance.
"It's completely unjust that a student of his caliber will be denied access to higher education," says Susie Bartley, an English teacher at Franklin who met Carlos when he was a junior.
But without a Social Security number, it's hard to see how Carlos could fulfill his ambition of working for a company as an international businessman.
Aníbal Rivera, a social studies teacher at Franklin, has witnessed many undocumented students like Carlos pass through his classroom. All of them struggle to figure out what they will do after they leave the safety of high school. Some drop out before graduation. Others graduate and then chose to work.
"As a teacher, there is no other issue that causes me as much pain," Rivera says. "[Carlos] would make a great doctor or engineer. He has the potential to be a great asset to our society, but he might not be able to accomplish that."
Rivera's comments are of little comfort to Lars Larson, the radio talk-show host who has become the nose guard for the get-tough-on-immigration movement in Oregon. Larson has banged the drum on this issue for years and was largely responsible for shaping the views of Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Saxton. Larson says of Carlos: "His presence is wrong. He's taken over $100,000 of taxpayers' money for his education. I know that a lot of people say that his parents are just trying to better their lives. So is every meth head and burglar. Here's the not so funny thing: In this state you are regulated by the car you drive, how you add on to your house, if you want to move dirt from your house. We climb on the backs of citizens who cross the line to the littlest degree. Citizens are being held to a higher standard than those who have no right to be here."
Last week, American voters elected a Democratic U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, where efforts to grant amnesty to undocumented children who graduate from American high schools have been stalled for several years but may now have better chances. Referred to as the DREAM Act, the legislation would also pave the way for public universities to offer undocumented students in-state college tuition.
Similar efforts are under way at the state level in Oregon, too. With the help of newly elected state Rep. Ben Cannon, a Democrat who represents the Franklin High area, the Oregon Students of Color Coalition plans to introduce legislation in the next session that, if approved, would grant undocumented immigrants eligibility for enrollment at public universities and in-state tuition rates.
House Speaker-to-be Jeff Merkley says, "There's a great case to be made for this legislation because we all benefit if each individual succeeds to their full potential."
To Carlos, it all boils down to one thing.
"I just want to learn," he says. "But the same thing I want to break is holding me back."
He did not choose to be in this position.
"We are responsible for him being a criminal," his mother says. "Don't care about us, but care about him."
Publishing this story put Willamette Week on the horns of an ethical dilemma, given that its publication could pose a real risk for the teenage subject.
Carlos and his parents agreed to participate, despite that danger. But in agreeing to cooperate, they asked that the newspaper not use Carlos' real name or photograph.
Early on in the reporting, I met with Carlos and his parents and told them that I would be identifyng Carlos' school and teachers, describing what he looks like and quoting him.
The intent was to balance WW's commitment to telling the truth against the welfare of a subject who did not have to tell his story. -Beth Slovic

Bill to aid immigrant students could pass in new Congress

Bill to aid immigrant students could pass in new Congress
The Salt Lake Tribune wire services
Article Last Updated: 12/17/2006 12:00:00 PM MST


WASHINGTON - Legislation that would let thousands of illegal-immigrant high school students attend college or serve in the military has a good chance of passing in a Congress controlled by Democrats, immigration experts say. A bill known as the DREAM Act would give illegal immigrants a conditional visa that would turn into permanent residency if they complete two years of college or serve honorably for two years in the armed forces. It also would allow them to qualify for in-state college tuition. Cecilia Munoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights organization, said Friday that the DREAM Act - short for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors - is "very, very likely to be on the table" as part of a larger overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. In addition, Carlina Tapia-Ruano, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that the chances for the bill are "excellent." Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., a principal sponsor of the legislation in the House, is planning to introduce a new version early next year. He said he has met many excellent high school students over the years who were undocumented because of a choice their parents made and should not be punished for that. "When someone has lived, in many instances, almost their entire life here, they studied hard, they played by the rules, they should be able to continue studying," he said. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch introduced the original legislation, called the DREAM Act, in 2003 and it passed out of the Judiciary Committee but did not get a full Senate vote. Hatch is not a co-sponsor but still supports the re-introduced version. This year, the DREAM Act had co-sponsors from both parties and passed in the Senate, but found strong opposition from House conservatives pushing for a crackdown on illegal immigration. These members said the DREAM Act amounted to a disguised amnesty. The Democrats' success in winning a House majority in last month's elections gives the bill a better chance, proponents said. The legislation would apply to illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States before age 16, have lived in the country for at least five years prior to the law's enactment, have graduated from high school or obtained a GED, and have no criminal record. The conditional visa would expire in six years if the individual did not successfully finish the two years of higher education or military service. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington estimates that the DREAM Act would make 279,000 people immediately eligible for college enrollment or military service. In addition, 715,000 illegal immigrants between the ages of 5 and 17 would become eligible in the future, according to the group. Margaret Stock, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, said that the DREAM Act could help replenish the military by providing a "highly qualified cohort of young people" that have already passed a background check. "They are already going to come vetted by Homeland Security. They will already have graduated from high school," she said. "They are prime candidates." Tapia-Ruano said that the people targeted by the DREAM Act have lived in the United States since they were small children, are fluent in English and represent the future of the nation. "They are completely acculturized, completely American," she said. "Who is it hurting to provide these individuals the opportunity to continue their education?" But some lawmakers say they'll fight the DREAM Act because it rewards illegal behavior. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who leads a caucus pushing for stronger immigration controls, called for the deportation of an illegal immigrant student a few years ago when the person appeared in a newspaper article about the DREAM Act. "Why should we give a taxpayer subsidy to someone who shouldn't even be in this country, especially when we don't give it to legal American residents from another state?" said Tancredo, referring to in-state tuition. "This kind of thing only increases the 'magnet effect' of benefits that can typically draw even more illegal aliens." Procedural hurdles could also emerge. The legislation might be attached to a broader bill that provides a path to citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants and creates a new temporary worker plan. The larger measure has opponents on both sides of the aisle. - By Eunice Moscoso, Cox News Service

DREAM ACT STATISTICS FROM MPI

FROM THE NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER
DREAM ACT STATISTICS FROM MPI


The following backgrounder by the Migration Policy Institute provides the most complete statistics available about who would benefit from the DREAM Act. The full report is available here.
New Estimates of Unauthorized Youth Eligible for Legal Status under the DREAM Act1
This backgrounder by the Migration Policy Institute discusses the major features of the DREAM Act and provides MPI's estimates of the number of young unauthorized persons likely to be eligible for immigration relief if the DREAM Act were to become law.
Highlights
The DREAM Act, incorporated into the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (S.2611), offers unauthorized youth a path to conditional legal status if they arrived in the United States before age 16, have been in the country for five continuous years, and have graduated from high school or obtained a GED. Conditional legal residents who attend college or join the military within the six years of their conditional status will become eligible for permanent legal status in a "bargain" that is unprecedented in the history of US immigration policy because legal status has never before been conditioned on young adults' educational and military choices.
The law's enactment would immediately make 360,000 unauthorized high school graduates aged 18 to 24 eligible for conditional legal status. We estimate that of the 360,000 young people aged 18 to 24 immediately eligible for the conditional status under the DREAM Act; about 50,000 are currently enrolled in colleges and universities across the United States and thus are likely to be eligible for adjustment to permanent status. We also estimate that for a variety of reasons about 10 percent of conditional legal residents (or 31,000 persons) would not convert from conditional to permanent legal status. Thus, if the act is signed into law in 2006, about 279,000 unauthorized youth would be newly eligible persons for college enrollment or the US military.
We also estimate that about 715,000 unauthorized youth between ages 5 and 17 would become eligible for conditional and then permanent legal status under the proposed legislation sometime in the future.
With comprehensive immigration reform legislation deferred, the framers might consider expanding the number of pathways to permanent status to include such vocationally oriented programs as Job Corps, Department of Labor-certified apprenticeships, and selected non-degree programs offered by proprietary post-secondary schools. These programs could help meet economic demands for non-college educated but technically trained labor.

EDUCATION FOR ALL: PRESS CONFERENCE/DEMONSTRATION

Hello JIFM Members,

For those of you who have responded about the protest - thank you. Here are the final details. We hope to see all of you there, please call or e-mail with any questions.

WHAT: DEMONSTRATION IN SUPPORT OF THE DREAM ACT AND HB 1403, AS WELL AS A CHANCE TO INFORM THE VOTING PUBLIC ON WHICH GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATES SUPPORT EDUCATION FOR ALL!!

WHEN: THIS MONDAY, NOV. 6TH - 4PM

WHERE: LEE HIGH SCHOOL 6529 BEVERLY HILL LN. HOUSTON TX 77057

PLEASE COME DRESSED IN YOUR CAP AND GOWNS OR ANY SCHOOL RELATED SHIRT

SEE YOU THERE!!

JIFM-UH Meeting Dates. JOIN US!!

JOIN JIFM-UH... EVERY OTHER THURSDAY @ 6:30PM

Sept. 28, 2006 Baltic Rm 77, UC Underground

October 12, 2006 Baltic Rm 77, UC Underground

October 26, 2006 Baltic Rm 77, UC Underground

November 02, 2006 Rodeo Rm 264 UC 2nd Floor
November 16, 2006 Baltic Rm 77, Underground

December 1st week Lacation:TBA

Volunteers are always needed to accomplish our

High School Presentations

during the

Fall Semester.

Log on to our WEBSITE for more details

WWW.UHJIFM.ORG

NEW WEBSITE & 1ST MEETING INFORMATION

CLICK BELOW!!!

uhjifm.org

THANKS TO OUR WEBMASTER CARLOS FOR CREATING THE INFORMATIVE AND USEFUL WEBSITE FOR OUT HB 1403/SB 1528 STUDENTS AT THE

UNIVESITRY OF HOUSTON AND .

___________________________________________________

welcome back hb 1403 coogs!

WHO: Are you a current House bill 1403/SB 1528 student? JOIN JIFM-UH, A student organization that advocates for the passage of the DREAM Act and the rights of immigrant students.

WHAT: WELCOME BACK MEETING

WHEN: THURSDAY, AUG. 31

WHERE: AGNES HARNOLD HALL
3RD FLOOR (CMAS LOUNGE)

TIME: 6:30PM

free pizza & drinks

“If we don't fight for our DREAM, nobody else will"

Chronicle features JIFM-UH protesters....

Immigration hearing prompts dueling protests
By ROSANNA RUIZ, ANITA HASSAN and RHEA DAVIS
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Protesters from both sides of the immigration debate gathered this morning outside the Harris County Civil Courthouse where a congressional hearing on the issue was being conducted inside.U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, who has convened hearings about illegal immigration around the country, is in Houston today to hear from local leaders, law enforcement officers, and others about the contentious issue.Before the hearing, about 75 protesters gathered on the steps of the courthouse. The opposing sides waved U.S. flags, held banners, and chanted slogans. They were separated by waist-high steel fences and periodically tried to shout each other down."I am not a racist, I don't mind Hispanic people being here, but they need to come here legally,'' said Nancy Ward, who stood with the protesters calling for tighter controls on immigration.About two dozen people, some waving American flags and carrying signs that read "stop the invasion protect or borders,'' remained outside the courthouse once the hearing began. One side, which included members of U.S. Border Watch, called for greater enforcement of existing immigration laws and border security. The other group, which favors "comprehensive'' immigration reform, assailed the hearing as a one-sided sham."I'm here because I feel like we want all these people working here, but we don't want them to be legal,'' said Robert Wager, a member of The Metropolitan Organization, or TMO, a multi-denominational organization. "We want immigrants here, but we don't want to give them legal status, or maybe we just want to pay them a pittance.''Desmond Taylor, a member of the Texas chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corp, said illegal immigration is a great expense for Americans."I'm objecting to illegal aliens costing us a fortune,'' said Taylor, a 64-year-old retired management consultant.Brian Kohl, who took time off work to attend the protest, said illegal immigration promotes gang violence and drug trafficking, but he supports those who come here legally."If they come to become American and become part of its tradition, then they are welcome with open arms,'' said the 33-year-old U.S. Border Watch member. "For any other reasons they are not.'' Macario Ramirez, an immigrant advocate, said: "This is a one-sided hearing done by a bunch of clowns...immigrants are here to work, they're not here to take.''Although the two groups remained peaceful, they often shouted at one another.Theresa Z. Padilla said she was saddened by the comments made by some people during the rally. She said she hated to hear people saying illegal immigrants cause an increase in crime and are a burden on the economy. "My parents were not criminals, they worked really hard and put a lot of money into this system, '' she said.

rosanna.ruiz@chron.com
rhea.davis@chron.com
anita.hassan@chron.com

CHECK IT OUT ONLINE!
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4120959.html