The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 24, 1987, Image 3

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    Tuesday, February 24, 1987TThe Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
INS director: Hiring of illegal aliens
needs to be made criminal offense
By Melanie Perkins
Staff Writer
j The practice of hiring illegal
iliens must l>e made a criminal ol-
fense before people will stop hiring
|thein, the San Antonio district direc-
Uoi of the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service said Monday,
have always maintained once
make it criminal to hire undocu-
lented aliens, that the business
Immunity is sufficiently law-abid
ing to comply with the law and
;therefore remove the magnet that
Bntinues to draw people from all
comers of the world into our midst,”
|chard Casillas said to a crowd of
Bout 200.
I Casillas and representatives of the
Texas Employment Commission
and the Equal Employment Oppor
tunity Commission were guest
spe ikers Monday at an immigration
law conference at the Brazos Center.
■The conference, an effort to edu-
A&M prof: Act gives
U.S. totalitarian image;
needs modification
Rep. Joe Barton
cate the public on the policies and
penalties connected with the Immi
gration Reform and Control Act of
I98(i, was sponsored by Congress
man Joe Barton, R-Ennis, and at
tended by residents of Brazos and
surrounding counties.
The immigration act, signed into
law by President Ronald Reagan on
Nov. 6, 1986, addresses two primary
issues. First, amnesty will be granted
to illegal aliens who came to the
United States before Jan. 1, 1982,
and who have lived here contin
uously since then. Secondly, civil and
criminal penalties will l>e imposed on
employers who knowingly hire un
documented workers.
Barton said Congress appropri
ated $420 million this year, $419
million for next year and a similiar
amount for the year after to imple
ment the new law. Beginning next
year. Congress authorized up to $1
billion for each of the next five years
to aid local and state governments in
implementing the new law.
Casillas said the first step in imple
menting the new law, which pre
empts state sanction laws, is a public
education period from Dec. 1, 1986
to June 1, 1987. He said the INS will
publish regulations dealing with the
law in March or April.
According to Casillas, the period
from June 1, 1987 to May SI, 1988 is
the citation period. During this time,
written warnings will l>e given to ev
ery employer hiring undocumented
workers. A second offense during
this period could bring a civil order
and lines.
On June I, 1988, the Immigration
Reform and Control Act of 1986 will
lie fully ef fective. Employers can he
fined $250 to $2,000 per illegal alien
on first offense, $2,000 to $5,000
per alien on second offense, and
$3,000 to $10,000 per alien on third
offense.
Ismael Alvarez, regional council
for the EEOC, stressed the impor
tance of knowing the provisions of
both the immigration law and Title
VII of the Cavil Rights Act of 1964,
which addresses discrimination on
lx>th natural origin and citizenship.
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Texas turned down in plea
on housing for prisoners
The 'Texas A&M Student Sen
ate will consider a bill calling on
the Board of Regents to increase
their efforts and funding in the
area of minority recruitment at its
meeting Wednesday at 7 p.m. in
204 Harrington.
The bill describes minority stu
dent enrollment at A&M as intol
erably low and showing no signs
of significant improvement.
Jerry Rosiek, the bill’s author,
said A&M spent about $1.5 mil
lion on minority recruitment last
year, which is only half of what
the University of Texas is spend
ing, but it is an increase from the
$300,000 spent by A&M three
years ago.
The bill calls on President
Frank E. Vandiver and the Board
of Regents to spend more time
and devote more attention to the
recruitment issue.
The Senate will also consider
but not debate several bills in
cluding one that would create an
ad-hoc committee to study the
idea of placing a student rep
resentative on the Board of Re
gents.
As written, the bill would give
the committee two years to inves
tigate the possiblity of such a
move before any action would be
taken.
Another hill would create a
committee for high school public
relations and recruitment.
Miles Bradshaw, speaker of the
Senate, said the hill would simply
formalize the already common
practice of A&M students return
ing to their high schools to re
cruit.
AUSTIN (AP) — The 5th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals has re
jected Texas’ request to temporarily
house prison inmates at three sites.
Attorney General Jim Mattox said
Monday.
The decision came as Texas De
partment of Corrections officials an
nounced the prison system was back
below the 95-percent capacity limit
and would reopen today. The pris
ons had been closed since last Thurs
day.
Texas had sought permission last
fall to move-.inmates from the over
crowded prison system to the Fort
Wolters National Guard camp near
Mineral Wells, a prison hospital unit
at Galveston and also to exceed 95-
percent capacity at the Wynne
prison unit at Huntsville.
U.S. District Judge William
Wayne Justice refused to grant per
mission, and the appeals court
agreed with him.
“Of course, we are disappointed
that the court disallowed the tempo
rary use of these facilities, but we
knew there was a strong likelihood
the court would rule as it did,” Mat
tox said.
However, the attorney general
said the New Orleans appeals court
did have some good news for Texas.
Mattox said Judge Robert M. Hill,
in a concurring opinion, suggested
that federal courts “should be more
flexible in allowing modification of
consent decrees in ongoing prison
reform litigation.”
Mattox also said the ruling will
have no effect on the state’s appeal
of a Dec. 31, 1986 contempt citation
against Texas by Judge Justice, who
has threatened to fine the state
$80(),5()0 a day unless prison re
forms are completed.
By Doug Driskell
Reporter
The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act
gives the United States a totalitarian
streak that people usually expect
only from the Soviet Union, an
A&M associate professor in philoso
phy said Monday night at a dis
cussion sponsored by the Texas
A&M chapter of the American Cavil
Liberties Union.
“Systematically, foreign festivals
of the arts will begin excluding
American artists,” Dr. Larry Hick
man warned of the possible conse
quences of the act. “If foreign artists
cannot come here, then why should
we be permitted to go there?”
The act is a remnant of the Mc-
Carthy Era. It gives 33 reasons for
excluding individuals from the
United States. Reasons range from
political beliefs to “aliens coming to
the United States to engage in any
immoral sexual act (homosexuali
ty).” The act also excludes individu
als considered a danger to the “wel
fare, safety, or security of the United
States,” or whose entry is deemed
“prejudicial to the public interest.”
“ ‘Prejudicial to the public inter
est’ is the key phrase that you will see
used over and over again by Immi
gration and Naturalization Services
officials because this is the vaguest
point in the act,” Hickman said. “Of
course, this is the one to rely on.”
The act has excluded Nobel lau
reates Gabriel Garcia Marquez and
Pablo Neruda, Mexican writer Gar-
los Fuentes and Colombian journal
ist Patricia Lara, Hickman said.
Lara was invited by Colombia
University to attend an award eero-
mony in October, only to be de
tained for five days in the Metropol-
itain (Correctional Center of New
York (City, and then deported, Hick
man said.
When contacted by the Colom
bian government with a request for
Lara’s release to attend the cere
mony in the custody of the Colum
bian ambassador, the U.S. govern
ment officials ref used.
Dr. Larry Hickman
When asked why Lara was de
tained, the INS officials said they
really could not say because the in
formation on which the expulsion
was made is classified, Hickman said.
A justification was given in No
vember on a “60 Minutes” program
by Assistant Secretary of State Elliott
Abrams. He said Lara was expelled
because there was evidence that she
was a member of the (Colombian ter
rorist group, M-19, Hickman ex
plained.
Lara insists the claims are false,
and when Abrams was asked for evi
dence leading to this conclusion, he
had none, Hickman said. Lara was
excluded only because she wrote a
book on M-19. Abrams now is being
sued by Lara.
Correction
In a Feb. 18 article in The Hut-
tulion. Dr. Thomas (Caceci was
identified as an assistant profes
sor of internal medicine at Texas
A&M.
(Caceci, however, is an assistant
professor of veterinary anatomy.
The Battalion regrets t he error.
It s elev en p.m.
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