The system isn't working . . . when communities are terrorized by (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing.

Immigration agents "worked closely with DSS both before the operation commenced and at every stage of the operation, to be sure that no child would be without a sole caregiver," Julie L. Myers , the assistant secretary of homeland security, wrote in a letter to Patrick.

Myers, as well as a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that each of the 361 detainees was asked about child-care needs several times. They pointed out that 60 women who were found to be the sole caregivers to their children have since been released, though they will still face a court hearing.

Contrary to Barack's insinuation, it is not US policy to tear children from their mothers' arms.  And perhaps the ICE officials Obama accuses of "terroriz[ing]" -- who are already doing a difficult and thankless job -- deserve a little more respect from the guy who's campaigning to be their boss.

[Senators] later rejected two high-profile Democratic amendments.

One would have postponed the bill's shift to an emphasis on education and skills among visa applicants as opposed to family connections. The other, offered by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., would have ended a new point system for those seeking permanent resident "green cards" after five years rather than 14 years.

All three amendments were seen as potentially fatal blows to the fragile coalition backing the bill, which remains under attack from the right and left.

One of John McCain’s Hispanic surrogates forcefully said Barack Obama is deceitfully inflating his role in the Senate on immigration reform for political benefit.

Prompting this criticism is a claim Obama made before the League of United Latin American Citizens. “I reached across the aisle in the Senate to fight for comprehensive immigration reform,” Obama told the immigration advocates in a speech Tuesday.

 “He was AWOL!” Diaz-Balart said. “I remember when Senator McCain came over here and met with House leadership and he met with the Chairman at that time of the Judiciary, Sensenbrenner here in the House to move this issue. To move the issue forward in meeting after meeting where a number of us in the House where there in the Senate, with multiple senators from both parties, by the way. Senator Obama was nowhere to be seen! He was absolutely AWOL.”

“The reality of the matter is that he has never worked on the issue except he did team up with an anti-immigrant senator, Mr. Dorgan to kill a very important leg of that legislation, the temporary worker program,” Diaz-Balart said.

 The bill Obama is attempting to take credit for was sponsored by McCain and Democratic Sen. Teddy Kennedy (D.-Mass.)

Jack Tapper of ABC News explained Obama’s minor role in the debate on his blog. The relevant part of his explanation is below.

There was a cohesive bipartisan group led by Sens. McCain and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass, that worked to defeat amendments that would hurt the overall bill's chance of final passage -- amendments that were too liberal for the Republicans and too conservative for the Democrats. And on at least five occasions, Obama voted for amendments against the wishes of the bipartisan group, including Kennedy.

These included an amendment Obama offered that would have sunsetted the merit-based evaluation system for immigrants after five years; two amendments from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND, to sunset both the temporary guest worker visa program and the Y-1 non-immigrant temporary worker visa program after five years; and two amendments from Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, that would have removed the requirement that 'Y' non-immigrant visa holders leave the United States before they are able to renew their visa, and would have lowered the annual visa quota for guest workers from 400,000 to 200,000 per year.

Obama voted for all five; Kennedy voted against all five.

"The two spoke separately to some 700 Hispanics attending the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials conference. It's the first of three such appearances each is scheduled to make to Hispanic organizations in less than a month, underscoring the importance of the nation's fastest-growing minority group.

Both McCain and Obama were warmly received at NALEO; the crowd gave each standing ovations and cheered loudly. When McCain spoke, the audience shouted down anti-war protesters who interrupted the Republican's speech four times. The audience chanted Obama's name when the Democrat entered later. As he took the stage, Obama said "Si, se puede!" -- his 'yes we can' campaign slogan in Spanish -- and the crowed echoed him."

Rep. Whip Roy Blunt just put out a press release talking up the Republcian Housing proposals in comparison to what the Dems have on the floor.

But check out this little piece of information at the end of the release:

“NOTE: Embedded in the text of the Democrats’ housing legislation is an order that would divert $35 million of taxpayer resources to “legal organizations with experience in foreclosure law” – that is, trial lawyers. The creation of that slush fund comes on top of another curious section of the bill, directing the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to make a grant to the Raza Development Fund -- an account associated with the National Council of La Raza, a left-leaning advocacy firm.” 

April 1 is a critical day for immigration policy. Today, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) begins accepting new H1-B visa petitions for the next fiscal year.

Created in 1990, H1-B visas allow companies to sponsor highly educated foreigners -- architects, doctors, engineers, scientists among them -- to work in the United States for at least three years. The H1-B program, which accounts for nearly all skilled immigrants admitted to work here each year, is capped annually at 65,000 for people with a bachelor's degree or higher, plus an additional 20,000 for those with a master's degree or higher.

Is this enough supply to meet market demand? Not even close. Last year, by the afternoon of the first day petitions were accepted, more than 150,000 had been filed. So USCIS rejected all petitions received after close of business the next day, and then allocated the 85,000 visas via random lottery. USCIS is forecasting a similar crush today for 2009 petitions.

Why in the world are we using a random lottery to allocate an incredibly valuable asset?  Why aren't these visas auctioned off, like any other government license on a valuable commodity?  If we want to rationally allocate these visas where they produce the most benefit, shouldn't they be auctioned?

-Obama says the US should "require undocumented workers who are provided a pathway to citizenship to not only learn English, pay back taxes and pay a significant fine, but also they should be going to the back of the line so they are not getting citizenship before those who have applied legally."

-Obama says it's important to decrease the backlog of applicants and lower application fees because "we keep on increasing the fees so if you've got a hardworking immigrant family, they've got to hire a laywer,  they’ve got to pay thousands of dollars in fees and they just can’t afford it and it’s discriminatory."

-Obama says "something we can do immediately that think is very important is pass the DREAM Act, which allows children who no fault of their own are here, but have essentially grown up as Americans, allow them the opportunity for higher education. I do not want two classes of citizens in this country."

One poll finding this week that shook Democrats came in a survey conducted by Democracy Corps, a consortium organized by party consultants Stan Greenberg, Al Quinlan and James Carville. It asked voters to pick two from a list of seven problems that explain "why the country is going in the wrong direction." 

The survey found that among independent voters, 40 percent -- by far the largest group -- picked this option: "Our borders have been left unprotected and illegal immigration is growing."

I have argued for a long time that the problem both parties face is not the regularization of the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens inside the U.S., but seriousness about border security.  Neither party is serious about the border, and both parties pay a price for this fecklessness.

Contrast the desultory progress on the 370 miles of border fence authorized in 2006 (of which less than 75 new miles have been built, and most of that not the double-fencing that most Americans expect) with the urgent effort to reconstruct Minnesota's collapsed bridge.  I am in the Twin Cities this morning, and the front page story in the Pioneer Press is headlined "Feds earmark an additional $123.5 million for 35W span."  A related story on the rebuilding effort begins:

Rest is for those with time to spare, and Peter Sanderson doesn't have any.

The project manager on the Interstate 35W bridge rebuilding project said there won't be much downtime if the Minneapolis span is to be up and running by Christmas 2008. For the foreseeable future, crews will spend 20 hours a day, six days a week on the job, and rest only on Sunday.

"We're very confident that we can meet the timeline of December 24," Sanderson told reporters Thursday at a kickoff event to highlight the start of the reconstruction.

The 35W bridge matters to people, so work is underway, on a schedule, with designs in place a goal to be reached.

Compare that with Secretary Chertoff's recent progress report on the border fencing given on my show: Few details, no urgency, no promises beyond the most general, and that undermined by a caution about Congressional funding.

The good news is that both of the serious GOP candidates are committed to the border fencing, and the issue will be a feature of the 2008 race. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are both smart enough to detail their plans for border security again and again, and those plans include the fence. 

Democrats would be wise to listen to Dionne and get behind the fence, pushing the funding through in this Congress along with demands for rapid completion of construction according to a detailed schedule.  The Pelosi-Reid Democrats will never do that, and Hillary will try and avoid the issue. 

The GOP should talk about the fence at every opportunity, and it would be a very good thing if the Bush Administration would give them something to talk about.