E-verify system to eliminate illegal immigrants from jobs

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced a new system to assist employers in verifying the status of their employees in a further attempt to put a strangle-hold on the hiring of illegal immigrants.

The new system now allows employers to match photographs from green cards and work permits against a database that consists of more than 14 million photographs. The idea is that the photographs on either the green card or work permit should match the corresponding picture in the database. That means that the employee is legitimate. If there is no match it would mean that the green card or work permit was either stolen, or illegally improvised.

Emilio Gonzalez, director of the USCIS, is reported as having said that the department is very committed to the idea of workplace enforcement.

The new photo system is part of a volunteer employment verification system known as E-verify that compares the documents that employees provide as the required documents for employment in the U.S. against millions of government records. Some 2,000 businesses are currently signing up to participate in the verification system monthly, and it is understood that the Department of Homeland Security is working on appropriate regulations that would require all federal employers and contractors to use it.

Where the photo on an employee’s documents does not match those in E-verify, the employer has eight days to report this to the Department of Homeland Security, which will in turn start its investigation within two days.

Baby Doc apologizes to Haitians for past wrongs

In a speech recorded in Paris and broadcast over radio across Haiti recently, Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier apologized to Haitians for “causing any physical, moral, economic wrongs to others.” The exiled former Haitian president said he solemnly took the historical responsibility for his deeds and requested forgiveness from the people, asking for the impartial judgment of history.

Despite being exiled in France, Duvalier is trying to influence Haitian politics through his political party, the National Unity Party. In his broadcast he said although he was broken by his 20 years in exile, he was reinvigorated by what he saw as growing support by younger Haitians. However, he did not state in the address if he was seeking to return to Haiti, although he said, “Militants and militant sympathizers of the National Unity Party be ready. We live in waiting of the revival.”

Baby Doc ruled Haiti from the time his father and former Haitian president, Francois “Papa Doc”, died in 1971, until 1986 when he fled the country in exile, in the wake of a popular uprising against him. During his regime there were frequent reports of cruel repression against Haitian citizens, and allegations that he pulled vast sums from the national treasury into his personal accounts, stashed in banks overseas.

New photos reveal a fitter looking Castro

Perhaps contrary to the wishes of the South Florida Cuban community, the reports of Fidel Castro’s death are nothing but rumors.

In a photograph published on the front page of Cuba’s Communist Party youth newspaper “Juventud Rebelde” a fitter Castro was seen standing and shaking hands with Angola’s president Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, after a meeting the two had in Havana, Cuba. Castro was dressed in what now has become his trade mark red, white, and blue track suit, athletic pants and tennis shoes. This was the fist time that Castro has appeared in either a photograph or in television footage standing, and appeared to have gained weight, although he still seems frail compared to the person he was before his intestinal operation last year.

Reports are that the photograph of Castro was released two days before the Cuban leader gave an interview, lasting for over an hour, on Cuban television. During this interview, in an apparent reference to the rumors about his death, said “Well, here I am.”

The Angolan leader, Dos Santos, told Cuba’s state news agency, Prensa Latina that he could see that Castro was recuperating well and he was strong and showed good enthusiasm.

However, Fidel still has not appeared in public for well over a year since he handed over provisional leadership of the country on July 31, 2006 and announced that the emergency intestinal surgery required him to step aside. Because news of his condition since the operation has been kept secret, and there were no images of Castro for some three months, including him not appearing publicly for his 81^st birthday in August, this fueled rumors in the Cuban Diaspora that he had died.