Two civil rights groups filed suit in federal court Tuesday to block enforcement of a town ordinance passed in November by the Dallas suburb of Farmer's Branch requiring apartment renters to show proof of US residency and penalizing landlords who rent to illegal immigrants. The ACLU of Texas, in conjunction with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), sued to bar the city from implementing the act beginning January 12, alleging that federal immigration law preempts state and local ordinances aimed at regulating immigration, and that the law as drafted is impermissibly vague.

Some local landlords have also spoken against the ordinance, saying they are not trained to determine whether immigration papers produced by potential renters are forgeries. Two other recent lawsuits have challenged the ordinance, one filed last Friday on behalf of three apartment complexes, and one filed earlier in December alleging that the Mayor of Farmer's Branch broke the Texas Open Meetings Act during deliberations concerning the ordinance.

A lawsuit was filed in federal court by the Southern Poverty law Center on Wednesday against the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). The lawsuit alleges that over the Labor Day weekend, ICE harassed five US citizens of Mexican descent during an illegal immigration shakedown in Georgia. The civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Center claims ICE, illegally detained, harassed and searched the Mexican-Americans' persons based only on their appearance in a raid on a chicken processing plant, violating the US citizens' Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. An ICE spokesman declined to comment on specific claims in the suit, but said of the accusations, they were "patently false."

The goal of the Southern Poverty Law Center is to certify the lawsuit as a class action. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, names ICE, its officials and the 30 agents who conducted the raid as defendants. The illegal immigrant population in Georgia has more doubled since 2000.

Sheryl Jones
Breakng Legal News.com
Staff Writer

NEW ORLEANS (USDOJ) - Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales today announced additional funding, totaling nearly $8 million, for law enforcement agencies and service organizations for the purpose of identifying and assisting victims of human trafficking and apprehending and prosecuting those engaged in trafficking offenses. 

The funding announced today will be used to create new Trafficking Task Forces in 10 cities around the country, building on the current work of over 32 national task forces working as part of a collaborative effort among various Department of Justice components, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Labor and State, and national and community-based organizations to combat human trafficking.  

Increasing and prosecuting human trafficking has been a major priority of the Department of Justice.  Under the direction of the Attorney General, the U.S. Attorneys and the Civil Rights Division have taken the lead in prosecuting human trafficking cases at the federal level.  In fiscal year 2006, the Civil Rights Division, working with the various U.S. Attorneys' offices, initiated 167 investigations, charged 111 defendants in 32 cases and obtained 79 convictions involving human trafficking defendants which reflected more than a twofold increase in convictions over the previous year.  In April 2006, the Department of Justice obtained two of the longest sentences ever imposed in a sex trafficking cases' years each for two defendants in New Jersey.    

Mexico urged President Bush on Monday to veto the Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorizing the construction of a 700-mile fence along the US-Mexico border. A spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox said the bill "hurts bilateral relations, goes against the spirit of cooperation needed to guarantee security in the common, creates a climate of tension in border communities."

Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last week that it was "deeply worried" about the proposed fence construction. The US Senate passed the bill Friday by a vote of 80-19, and included a key provision giving the US Department of Homeland Security "operational control" over US borders within 18 months in an effort to keep illegal substances and illegal immigrants from entering the US. The House of Representatives passed the measure 283-138 on September 15.

The US Senate passed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 Friday by a vote of 80-19, authorizing the construction of a 700-mile fence along the US-Mexico border. President Bush is expected to sign the measure, designed to curb illegal immigration into the United States. A key provision of the bill dictates that the US Department of Homeland Security must have "operational control" over US borders within 18 months in an effort to keep illegal substances and illegal immigrants from entering the US, while also providing for a study to decide whether the government should also construct a fence along the Canadian border. A separate measure will fund construction and maintenance of the fence.

The US House of Representatives passed the border fence bill by a vote of 283-138 September 15. The Mexican government has already expressed its opposition to the scheme.

WASHINGTON (USDOJ) – The U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh today revoked the U.S. citizenship of Anton Geiser of Sharon, Pa., because of his participation in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution while serving during World War II as an armed SS guard at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and other places of persecution, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan of the Western District of Pennsylvania announced today.

Geiser admitted under oath that he served during most of 1943 as an armed SS guard at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp near Berlin, Germany; that his duties included escorting prisoners to slave labor sites and standing guard in the camp’s guard towers; and that he was under standing orders to shoot any prisoner attempting escape. He also admitted serving as a guard at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp and its Arolsen subcamp. Prisoners held at Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald were forced to engage in hard physical labor under extraordinarily brutal conditions. Many prisoners died from exhaustion or disease. Many were shot or hanged. During the period when Geiser served at Sachsenhausen, more 3,000 prisoners were murdered or died from the brutal treatment.

“Anton Geiser’s service as an armed SS guard at several Nazi concentration camps helped to ensure that thousands of men and women held prisoner could not escape the brutal conditions of their confinement,” said Assistant Attorney General Fisher. “The court’s ruling today confirms that the United States is not and never will be a haven for those who participated in Nazi genocide.”

Geiser, 81, immigrated to the United States from Austria in October 1956, and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in March 1962. The district court found that he was not eligible for citizenship because his service to Nazi Germany made him ineligible to immigrate to the United States. Geiser’s service as an armed SS guard, the court concluded, “clearly assisted in the persecution of the prisoners” held by the Nazis at Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Arolsen.

“By standing guard with a loaded weapon under orders to shoot, Anton Geiser helped to ensure that thousands of innocent men and women were forced to endure slave labor, medical experiments, malnourishment and murder,” said Eli M. Rosenbaum, Director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which investigated the case. “Such individuals do not deserve the privilege of living in the United States. The Government will work to remove Geiser from this country as swiftly as possible.”

U.S. Attorney Buchanan stated: “Individuals like Anton Geiser, who assisted the Nazis in their quest to extinguish the lives of millions of innocent men, women and children, do not deserve the benefits of U.S. citizenship.”

The proceedings to denaturalize Geiser were instituted in 2004 by OSI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Pittsburgh. The case is a result of OSI’s ongoing efforts to identify, investigate and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution who reside in the United States. Since OSI began operations in 1979, it has won cases against 103 individuals who assisted in Nazi persecution. In addition, more than 175 individuals who sought to enter the United States in recent years have been blocked from doing so as a result of OSI’s “Watchlist” program, which is enforced in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security.

WASHINGTON (USDOJ) – A San Francisco woman has been removed to Germany based on her participation in Nazi-sponsored acts of persecution while serving during World War II as a guard of female prisoners at the infamous Nazi-operated Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in Germany, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.

A charging document filed in U.S. immigration court in San Francisco by the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which investigated the case, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) alleges that Elfriede Lina Rinkel, 83, a native and citizen of Germany, served as a guard at Ravensbrück from June 1944 until the camp was abandoned in the closing weeks of the war.

“Concentration camp guards such as Elfriede Rinkel played a vital role in the Nazi regime's horrific mistreatment of innocent victims,” said Assistant Attorney General Fisher. “This case reflects the Government's unwavering commitment to remove Nazi persecutors from this country.”

In a settlement agreement reached with the Government, Rinkel admitted that she served as a guard at Ravensbrück, admitted that she was deportable from the United States under a federal law that mandates the removal of aliens who participated in acts of Nazi-sponsored persecution, and agreed to the entry of an immigration court order directing her removal to Germany by September 30, 2006. Rinkel returned to Germany earlier this month pursuant to that order.

When it was established in 1939, Ravensbrück was the only Nazi concentration camp operated exclusively for the internment of female prisoners. The charging document states that while serving at Ravensbrück, Rinkel used a trained attack dog to carry out her guard duties. At Ravensbrück, SS female guards armed with attack dogs forced malnourished women inmates to march to slave labor sites each day, guarded them while they performed manual labor, and then force-marched them back to the concentration camp, where they were held under notoriously inhumane conditions. The charging document alleges that Rinkel’s activities at Ravensbrück assisted the Nazis in persecuting civilians on the basis of their race, religion, national origin, or political opinion, and that her removal from the United States is required by federal law.

Rinkel immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1959. The charging document alleges that she concealed her concentration camp service from U.S. immigration authorities when she applied for her entry visa. Rinkel never applied for U.S. citizenship.

“Thousands of innocent women were brutalized and murdered at Ravensbrück through the active participation of Elfriede Rinkel and other guards, whose principal function was to prevent prisoners from escaping the abominable conditions inside the camp,” said OSI Director Eli M. Rosenbaum. “Her presence in the United States was an affront to surviving Holocaust victims who have made new homes in this country.”

The case is a result of OSI’s ongoing efforts to identify, investigate and take legal action against former participants in Nazi persecution who reside in the United States. Since OSI began operations in 1979, it has won cases against 102 individuals who assisted in Nazi persecution. In addition, more than 175 individuals who sought to enter the United States in recent years have been blocked from doing so as a result of OSI’s “Watchlist” program, which is enforced in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security.