"The annual inflow of unauthorized immigrants to the United States was nearly two-thirds smaller in the March 2007 to March 2009 period than it had been from March 2000 to March 2005, according to new estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center," Jeffrey Passel and D'Vera Cohn wrote Wednesday for the Pew Hispanic Center.
"This sharp decline has contributed to an overall reduction of 8% in the number of unauthorized immigrants currently living in the U.S. - to 11.1 million in March 2009 from a peak of 12 million in March 2007, according to the estimates. The decrease represents the first significant reversal in the growth of this population over the past two decades.
". . . The Pew Hispanic Center's analysis also finds that the most marked decline in the population of unauthorized immigrants has been among those who come from Latin American countries other than Mexico. From 2007 to 2009, the size of this group from the Caribbean, Central America and South America decreased 22%."
FAIR SAYS MEDIA DIDN'T ASK RIGHT QUESTIONS AFTER BEATING
The progressive media-watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting has reviewed the April incident in which a Seattle news director failed to air a video of a police beating and found the coverage wanting.
The news director at KCPQ-TV, known as Q13, resigned, and an assignment manager was fired after freelance photographer Jud Morris offered the station footage of Seattle police officers stomping on a Latino man's head and body. When Q13 did not air the footage, Morris posted a video of the beating on YouTube and sold the footage to competitor KIRO-TV for $100.
"Fewer reports took note of the fact, also recounted by Morris, that a "key [Q13] staffer was talking to the police as she was viewing' the tape, which he found 'kind of odd' (Seattle Times, 5/8/10)," Janine Jackson wrote in FAIR's "Extra!." "The Stranger alt-weekly (5/19/10) published claims by an unidentified Q13 employee that management was bowing to 'friends at SPD,' " the Seattle Police Department, "in not airing the footage, but it doesn't sound as though pressure was required.
"(Indeed, in SPD's version, the station staffer who called 'didn't think the video constituted a major issue. But [Interim Police Chief John] Diaz said it was up to police commanders to decide if an incident rises to the level of possible misconduct' - Seattle Times, 5/21/10.)"
The video showed gang unit detective Shandy Cobane standing over 21-year-old Martin Monetti. who was lying on the sidewalk, telling Monetti, "I'm going to beat the fucking Mexican piss out of you, homey. You feel me?" and kicking him in the head.
"Journalists seemed genuinely not to understand that what was disturbing was not the 'language' Cobane used with Monetti, but the casually violent racism it evinced in combination with physical abuse. How might such an attitude affect all aspects of Cobane's policing? Is this racism reflected in gang unit policy? Is it OK for police to 'beat the piss out of' people, or to threaten to? Media overwhelmingly declined to pull back from the incident to ask the questions it suggested about law enforcement's approach to communities of color."
The Seattle Times reported in May that Seattle police said they opened an internal investigation April 26, "which was put on hold when the case was referred Monday to a Seattle police detective for a criminal investigation.
"Seattle police said May 14 that the conduct of other officers, including a supervisor, who were present but did not intervene also was the subject of an internal investigation. . . . The FBI has launched a preliminary investigation to determine if Monetti's civil rights were violated.
"Cobane has since apologized for his words that night. Diaz has said racial and ethnic slurs are unacceptable in the department."