Immigration added a new person to the U.S. every 30 seconds in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which has announced new projected population stats.

That's a net increase, which means it accounts for those coming in and those leaving. With a net increase of more than 1 million, it's probably safe to say the U.S. is still the most welcoming country in the world.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

After more than two years of huffing and puffing, the Senate this week confirmed Julie Myers to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Next to the bloody judicial fights, hers might have been the most difficult executive nomination of President Bush's two terms — and now, it's a battle he's won.

Myers had been serving as a recess appointment after her nomination was blocked in the Senate two years ago. That appointment would have expired next month without this week's Senate action.

To many senators, Myers didn't appear to have the experience to run a law enforcement agency and her nomination appeared to be tied more to her connections.

Her experience consisted of running a 170-employee section of the Commerce Department, a stint as an assistant U.S. attorney in New York, and service and time in the Justice Department's criminal division.

But after being blocked and getting the recess appointment, she put her temporary time to good use, running an efficient though embattled agency for nearly two years and establishing a track record to be judged by.

Then, just as her nomination was coming to a second showdown this year, she stumbled. She was involved in judging a Halloween costume contest that some ICE employees said was racist. Her nomination ground to a halt.

Still, the Senate is nothing if not fickle. After letting her twist in the wind for some weeks, senators apparently decided they had punished her enough and let her through. She was confirmed without any objection Wednesday night, just before the Senate finished business for the year.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

It has become a popular question among reporters in recent weeks, as if it's some sort of "gotcha" question, what presidential candidates would do about U.S.-born children of illegal aliens if their parents are forced to go back home.

According to the Associated Press, reporters demanded that answer of Sen. Fred Thompson today in Iowa. NBC's Tim Russert posed the same question to Mitt Romney on "Meet the Press" this weekend.

In each case, the candidates gave the obvious answer — it's up to the parents.

I just don't get why this is complicated. To me, this seems about the same as any U.S.-born parent who is planning on taking a job overseas and has to decide what to do about his or her children.

Usually, the parents will take the children with them. Sometimes they might make other arrangements, leaving them with a relative or friend, particularly if they are older.

There's no doubt the children of parents who are caught in raids do end up in a difficult situation, particularly in the immediate aftermath of a raid. Some Hispanic-rights groups say that alone is a reason to halt immigration raids. Those who want a crackdown say U.S. laws shouldn't be held hostage to bad parenting choices.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers says it's "time to bring the American worker out of the shadows," instead of implementing a program to bring in new foreign workers.

The group's solution: a guest-worker program for Americans.

The association wants Americans to have access to the same sort of program President Bush and Congress desire for foreign workers — recruitment, paid travel to where the work is, job training, a decent wage and working conditions, decent housing or a housing allowance, some degree of medical care and paid travel home when the work is done.

"Employers in many fields claim that they are unable to obtain sufficient numbers of American workers to fill their needs. We believe their desire for foreign workers to fill that gap is misguided," NAFBPO Chairman Kent Lundgren says.

"There are American workers available. What employers must do is offer to those unemployed Americans the same things they are willing to give to foreign workers."

Mr. Lundgren points to official unemployment statistics that show the rate of unemployment and partial employment is 8.4 percent, or 80 percent higher than the unemployment rate alone. That amounts to 11.5 million potential workers, he says.

"It's not that there aren't enough American workers. It's that they are often in the wrong place," he says. "An American employer should certainly have a temporary worker program if he feels the need.

"But he should recruit his temporary workers from among the ranks of unemployed Americans before he goes looking abroad for them. He should recruit in Michigan, not Michoacan; Iowa, not India."

— Jerry Seper, national reporter, The Washington Times

Want to know whether you're about to visit a sanctuary city?

The Ohio Jobs & Justice PAC has posted a list of all the sanctuary cities it has been able to identify in the U.S.

In Virginia, Fairfax County and Virginia Beach are the only two listed. Maryland's list includes Baltimore, Gaithersburg and Tacoma Park.

Thanks to ILW.com, which pointed out the new list in their daily immigration law update.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

We just saw this in our in-box:

Press Release, December 13th, 2007

Statewide Umbrella Group Formed For Anti-Illegal Immigration Groups

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANASSAS, VA: Five grass-roots organizations engaged at the locality level on the illegal alien issue have joined together to form a state-wide issue advocacy organization called "Save The Old Dominion" which will advocate for the passage of needed legislative reforms by the General Assembly to the Commonwealth's immigration policies. During last year's legislative session, of the fifty bills introduced that would have helped to discourage the unlawful presence of illegal aliens in the Commonwealth, the only one to achieve passage was a bill that established the Virginia Commission on Immigration which will study the issue. "Save The Old Dominion" will help engage Virginia residents with their elected officials in order to improve on that dismal record of legislative failure.

The initial member organizations of Save The Old Dominion are:

Help Save Loudoun

Vienna Citizens Group

Help Save Hampton Roads

Centreville Citizens Coalition

Help Protect Culpeper

Additional organizational members of Save The Old Dominion are expected in the near future.

More on the group here.

-- David Eldridge, managing editor, WashingtonTimes.com

Hispanics in the U.S. say the immigration debate itself has been unhealthy for them, charging that it has made life difficult even for legal immigrants.

And according to a new survey for the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan think tank, most U.S. Hispanics oppose the new enforcement measures federal and state authorities are pursuing.

It's a stark report showing the depth of the divide over this issue. Among voters overall, support for enforcement is sky-high, and Americans resoundingly say they want an end to illegal immigration.

But the Pew survey found that Hispanics have a different attitude about illegal immigration.

Three quarters of Hispanics oppose raiding businesses to catch illegal workers, nearly 80 percent don't want police to check to see if someone is in the country legally, and 55 percent say states shouldn't care about legal status when they issue driver's licenses.

This goes a long way to explaining why Congress has failed to pass an immigration bill the last two years.

Congress was being tugged from both sides: Hispanic groups were insisting that even the modest security measures included in this year's bill were too much, while hundreds of thousands of voters were telling their senators the security measures weren't enough.

The immigration bill was simply too precariously balanced to have a chance of passage. So far, nobody has shown how to break through that stalemate.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

The president of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC says former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is surging in the polls as core Republican voters abandon John McCain and Rudy Giuliani over their pro-amnesty, pro-illegal alien records and stances.

William Gheen says this turn of events is bringing Mr. Huckabee's immigration stances under scrutiny and his campaign knows that missteps on this issue can send him back down the ladder like Mr. McCain and Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Gheen says that's why the Huckabee campaign has released the "Secure America Plan," detailing his nine-point plan to facilitate enforcement of the nation's immigration laws and result in a decline in the illegal immigrant population.

"This is exactly what America wants to hear," he says. "America wants to hear about reducing the number or illegal aliens in America. Americans want illegal aliens to return to their home nations as current law dictates.

"However, there is a big problem with Huckabee's plan. While most of the provisions will be positively received by the American public, especially voters, his promises to crack down on employers, build a fence and bolster the border patrol are all nullified" by the plan itself.

Mr. Gheen says Mr. Huckabee makes it clear that illegal aliens will have to leave the U.S. but is advocating a "touch back" provision, which is the same "trick" put forward by supporters of the failed immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate this year.

He says that although Mr. Huckabee would increase visas and expedite immigration processes so "those patiently and responsibly seeking to come here legally will not have to wait decades to share in the American dream," those changes would clearly increase legal immigration levels.

— Jerry Seper, national reporter, The Washington Times

The Southern Poverty Law Center this week added the Federation for American Immigration Reform to its list of hate groups, citing the immigration-control organization as a purveyor of "hate" and "extremism."

The self-proclaimed watchdog group says FAIR's opposition to illegal immigration and calls for a slowdown in legal immigration have less to do with policy and are "rooted more in its anti-Latino and anti-Catholic beliefs."

SPLC's main evidence is FAIR's founder and current board member, John Tanton, has long been listed on its hate list.

What is really appalling to SPLC, it seems, is that FAIR helped defeat President Bush's immigration bill earlier this year, and despite SPLC's opinion of the group, reporters still call FAIR for comment:

"In just the first 10 months of 2007, the group was quoted in mainstream media outlets nearly 500 times with virtually no mention of its more unsavory aspects. Stein was featured on CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" at least 12 times in the same period, along with countless appearances on other television news shows."

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

NumbersUSA, the group that can rightly claim to be one of the major forces that thwarted President Bush's immigration bill this year, has just posted a new look at all of the major Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and finds most of them lacking.

Roy Beck, the group's executive director, says nie of the 15 candidates oppose "most of the measures that experts agree would be necessary to actually stop the illegal flow."

There are 16 different measures, ranging from opposing driver's licenses for illegal aliens to committing to stopping future illegal entry. Only one Democrat scores one "excellent" rating in even one category — Chris Dodd, whose opposition to driver's licenses for illegal aliens helped put Hillary Rodham Clinton on the spot several weeks back.

On the Republican side, Fred Thompson, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter all scored overall "excellent" ratings for opposing amnesty, while John McCain and Rudy Giuliani were rated "bad."

Mr. Beck's e-mail went out to 1.6 million people who are on NumbersUSA's mailing list. Given Numbers' success over the last year, here's betting some of the campaigns have their supporters call and try to get off Mr. Beck's naughty list.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Judicial Watch says its investigation has prompted officials in Phoenix, Ariz., to reverse a policy that barred police officers from cooperating with federal immigration agents.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon announced on Monday that he no longer supports the policy, which prohibited officers from inquiring about the immigration status of persons they encounter.

Mr. Gordon also announced the formation of an illegal immigration expert panel to study the policy and to recommend changes.

"There is no question Judicial Watch's investigation and the threat of a lawsuit prompted Mayor Gordon's sudden change of heart on illegal immigration enforcement," said Tom Fitton, president of the government watchdog group. "The mayor's sanctuary policies have severely damaged business owners and taxpayers . . . We are pleased the mayor has finally come to grips with his administration's failure to adequately address the illegal immigration crisis.

"And we support the mayor's public calls for radical change in the way the Phoenix Police Department enforces federal immigration law," Mr. Fitton said.

For the past four months, Judicial Watch has worked with business, community and law enforcement leaders to bring about a change in Phoenix's status as an illegal alien "sanctuary city," Mr. Fitton said.

He said his D.C.-based organization has conducted a comprehensive investigative and public education campaign concerning Phoenix's immigration enforcement policies — interviewing dozens of people, filing numerous public records act requests and analyzing public documents.

"Judicial Watch looks forward to working with Mayor Gordon's commission to ensure that any that any new policies comply with federal immigration law," Mr. Fitton said. "However, if the commission's work results in police immigration policies at odds with federal law, a Judicial Watch lawsuit would still be on the table."

Several large cities acrosss the country, including New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have policies barring police officers from asking persons' immigration status or detaining them for the sole purpose of determining it.

The policies were intended to foster a better relationship between immigrant communities and the police but recently have been challenged because of the rising numbers of illegal aliens.

— Jerry Seper, national reporter, The Washington Times