Sunday, July 30, 2006

INB 7/30/06: Algerian Detainee Released;Arrests at Mississippi Airport

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 27 - July 30, 2006

1. Algerian Detainee Released
2. Judge Orders Palestinian Freed
3. Employers Get Criminal Charges
4. Arrests at Mississippi Airport

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.

*1. ALGERIAN DETAINEE RELEASED

After spending nearly five years detained in the US for overstaying his visa, Algerian citizen Benamar Benatta was freed July 20 following negotiations between his attorneys and the US and Canadian governments. Benatta was allowed to cross the border into Canada, where officials questioned him and released him. Two days earlier, July 18, the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit confirmed that Canada had issued Benatta a temporary resident permit "for the purpose of allowing [him] to enter into Canada to pursue a claim for refugee status in that country."

Benatta, an Algerian air force lieutenant, came to the US in 2000 for military training and overstayed his six-month visa. He arrived at the Peace Bridge near Buffalo seeking political asylum in Canada on Sept. 5, 2001. Canadian officials detained him, then after the Sept. 11 terror attacks turned him over to the US government, which held him in solitary confinement while investigating him. In November 2001 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) formally concluded that Benatta had no connection to terrorism. But Benatta was detained while he sought asylum in the US. His asylum case was rejected, and at one point he was offered release on a $25,000 bond but was unable to pay. Later, when his attorneys sought his release on bond, the government declined. [Washington Post 7/21/06]

*2. JUDGE ORDERS PALESTINIAN FREED

On July 27, US District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. of Los Angeles ordered the government to free Southern California Muslim community leader Abdel-Jabbar Hamdan, a Palestinian who has spent two years detained on an immigration violation. Department of Justice lawyers responded to the judge's order by filing a last-minute motion on July 28, seeking an emergency stay and claiming that Hamdan is a danger to the public and that he might flee while his deportation case is pending in the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Hatter denied the request the same day, but it was unclear when Hamdan would actually be released from the Terminal Island detention center where he has been held since his arrest on July 28, 2004.

His attorney, Ranjana Natarajan of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in Los Angeles were supposed to draw up conditions of a supervised release. "The judge clearly said the government has no business detaining him," said Natarajan. Hamdan's daughter, Yaman Hamdan, said her family was afraid that the government could still find a way to keep her father locked up.

The government had never charged Hamdan with a crime, but alleged in immigration proceedings that he was linked to terrorism because of his former job as a fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation, a Dallas, Texas-based charity which allegedly channeled funds to the Palestinian armed group Hamas [see INB 12/18/04, 2/12/05, 3/25/06, 6/18/06]. [Los Angeles Times 7/29/06]

*3. EMPLOYERS GET CRIMINAL CHARGES

On July 20 in London, Kentucky, two limited liability companies pleaded guilty to criminal charges of harboring illegal aliens and money laundering in connection with an illegal employment scheme at local area hotels. Asha Ventures, LLC, and Narayan, LLC, agreed to pay $1.5 million cash in lieu of forfeiture and create internal compliance programs. Sentencing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 20. [ICE News Release 7/21/06]

On July 20 in Cincinnati, Ohio, restaurant owner Jiang Fei Jiang was charged in US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio with one count of encouraging or inducing aliens to illegally reside in the US. Jiang was arrested on June 5; 10 employees of Jiang's Bee's Buffet restaurant in Fairfield were arrested at Jiang's home the same day [see INB 6/10/06]. Jiang and six of the workers were found to be illegally in the US. The other four were found to have cases on appeal or immigration benefits pending. [ICE 7/21/06; Journal-News (Hamilton, OH) 7/20/06]

On July 25, a federal grand jury in Cincinnati unsealed a 40-count criminal indictment charging two temporary labor companies, the president of these companies and two of their corporate officers with conspiring to knowingly employ more than 1,000 unauthorized immigrant temporary workers. The workers were hired between December 1999 and January 2005 to sort freight under contract for ABX Air, Inc., which provides air cargo transportation services. The defendants are Garcia Labor Company, Inc, of Morristown, Tennessee; Garcia Labor Company of Ohio, Inc, based in Wilmington, Ohio; Maximino Garcia, president and co-owner of the two companies; Dominga McCarroll, sister of Garcia and former vice president of both companies; and Gina Luciano, director of Human Relations for Garcia Labor Company in Tennessee. Garcia and Luciano are also charged with inducing "aliens" to remain in the US and harboring them. [ICE 7/25/06]

*4. ARRESTS AT MISSISSIPPI AIRPORT

On July 25, ICE agents arrested three undocumented Mexican workers for using fraudulent documents and making false statements to gain employment at the Gulfport-Biloxi Regional Airport in Mississippi. The three men were employed by an airport sub-contractor and were applying for training at the airport in an effort to receive airport security identification badges. Airport personnel contacted ICE to examine the workers' documents; ICE then determined the documents were fraudulent. The three workers were arrested and transported to the Harrison County Detention Center; all three have been charged by the US Attorney's office on criminal counts of possessing counterfeit documents. [ICE News Release 7/28/06]

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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)

Sunday, July 23, 2006

INB 7/23/06: 10,000 March in Chicago; Border Deaths Near Record?

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 26 - July 23, 2006

1. 10,000 March in Chicago
2. "Return to Sender" Hits Central States
3. More Military Base Raids
4. Border Deaths Near Record?

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.

*1. 10,000 MARCH IN CHICAGO

An estimated 10,000 people marched through Chicago in 90-degree weather on July 19, from Union Park to a two-hour rally in Grant Park, to demand legalization for undocumented immigrants and a moratorium on deportations while Congress considers immigration reform. Speakers at the rally included congressional representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), religious leaders and Asian, Arab and Polish community advocates. Immigration advocates plan to march for three days in August from Union Park in Chicago to US House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office in Batavia. [Daily Herald (Arlington Hts, IL) 7/20/06]

*2. "RETURN TO SENDER" HITS CENTRAL STATES

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continued the second phase of its "Return to Sender" interior enforcement operation July 12-20 with raids through the state of Oklahoma and the metropolitan areas of Chicago, Illinois; Louisville, Kentucky; and Kansas City, Missouri. The same operation brought the arrest of 154 immigrants in a July 10-14 sweep through three Ohio cities [see INB 7/16/06]. In the first phase of Return to Sender, 2,179 immigrants were arrested nationwide from May 26 to June 13 [see INB 6/18/06]. The operation targets immigrants who have final orders of deportation.

On July 12, before the Ohio raids were even over, ICE began a four-day sweep in Oklahoma. ICE arrested 46 Mexican immigrants in Tulsa on July 12; all were deported the same day. ICE arrested another 81 people in Oklahoma City July 13-15. The vast majority of the 127 people arrested in the two cities were Mexican, and as of July 17, 100 of them had already been returned to Mexico. The others were from Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Peru, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Zimbabwe. The Oklahoma City Police Department, Tulsa County Sheriff's Office, Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Parole and Probation, US Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force and the Muskogee Police Department assisted with the operation. [ICE News Release 7/17/06]

In simultaneous four-day sweeps July 17-20, ICE agents arrested 37 immigrants in and around Kansas City, 17 in the Chicago area and 12 in Louisville. ICE was helped in the Kansas City raid by the police department of Kansas City, Kansas; in Chicago by the Franklin Park police department; and in Louisville by the Grayson County Sheriff's Department of Leitchfield, Kentucky. In the Kansas City area, 28 people were arrested in the state of Kansas and nine were arrested in Missouri. Those arrested were citizens of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Cameroon; four of the 37 had criminal convictions and 11 had final orders of removal issued by an immigration judge. [ICE 7/21/06; Kansas City Star 7/22/06] In Chicago they came from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, China, Tunisia, Albania, Poland and Ukraine; six of the 17 had criminal convictions and 12 had final orders of removal. In Louisville, those arrested were from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Gambia, Mauritania and Philippines; nine of the 12 had final orders of removal and one had a criminal conviction. [ICE 7/21/06]

In a seven-day operation that ended July 14, ICE deportation officers assigned to the Miami Field Office Fugitive Operations Team arrested 61 immigrants in various Florida cities. Most of the arrests took place in South Florida, with 35 in Miami-Dade and 16 in Broward County. The operation targeted people who had remained in the US after losing their asylum cases. In its news release announcing the arrest, ICE did not identify the Florida sweep as part of operation "Return to Sender." [ICE 7/18/06; AP 7/20/06; South Florida Sun-Sentinel 7/20/06]

*3. MORE MILITARY BASE RAIDS

In the early morning of July 18, security officers from the Fort Bragg Directorate of Security and Emergency Services detained 58 contract workers allegedly using false documents to attempt to enter the army base in North Carolina. People whose vehicles clearly identified them as contract workers or people who identified themselves as contract workers were isolated for in-depth document checks, said Fort Bragg spokesperson Tom McCollum. The 58 detainees were turned over to federal agents, who took them to the ICE office in Cary. Some of the arrested workers were from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, said ICE spokesperson Marc Raimondi. The US Marshals, Defense Criminal Investigation Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the US Attorney's Office in Raleigh assisted in the investigation. In the past year, Fort Bragg officials have detained more than 150 people--the vast majority of them construction workers--who allegedly sought access to the base under false pretenses. [ICE News Release 7/18/06; Fayetteville Online 7/19/06]

On July 21, ICE agents arrested 25 immigrant contract workers doing construction and landscaping at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The Air Force collaborated in the operation. The workers' names were put on a list by the six companies doing business on the base, said Frank Hartnett, a spokesperson for the 2nd Bomb Wing at the base. [Shreveport Times 7/22/06; AP 7/22/06]

*4. BORDER DEATHS NEAR RECORD?

Between Oct. 1, 2005, and July 16, 2006, the US Border Patrol recorded 319 deaths by people apparently trying to enter the US, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. The Border Patrol tabulated 326 deaths over the same period last year, and a record high of 472 for the fiscal year. Deaths, rescues and detentions are down in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector as increased enforcement in Arizona seems to have driven would-be immigrants east to Texas or west to California. Deaths are up this year in Texas, except in the Laredo area. [UPI 7/22/06]

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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)

Sunday, July 16, 2006

INB 7/16/06: California Pipeline Firm Raided;Senate OKs Border Funding

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 25 - July 16, 2006

1. California Pipeline Firm Raided
2. Absconder Raids Hit Ohio
3. Cleveland Imam Still Jailed
4. NY Court Backs License Restrictions
5. Senate OKs Border Funding

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.

*1. CALIFORNIA PIPELINE FIRM RAIDED

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 39 immigrants on June 28 at homes in San Diego county, California. Those arrested included 22 Mexican men employed by Burtech Pipeline, a company based in Encinitas which in the past has provided contract services to the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in Oceanside. ICE spokesperson Lauren Mack said none of the arrested Burtech employees worked on the base. The company's contract with Camp Pendleton ended in July 2005, she said.

ICE agents reviewed the hiring records of more than 180 Burtech employees and found 72 of them to be deportable. The agents carrying out the raids were only able to locate and arrest 22 of the workers, but while raiding the homes they arrested another 17 people, including roommates and family members, on immigration violations. One of the arrested Burtech employees was a permanent legal resident with a prior narcotics conviction, whom ICE will now seek to deport; the others lacked legal immigration status.

The arrests were part of an ongoing worksite joint investigation involving ICE and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) under what ICE calls "Operation Safe Cities," allegedly geared to protecting the security of sensitive businesses. Burtech Pipeline cooperated fully with the investigation, according to ICE spokesperson Nadia Koroma. Since 2003, ICE agents have audited nearly 900 companies throughout San Diego county which have contracts with or links to national security facilities. [San Diego Union-Tribune 6/29/06; Washington Times 6/30/06]

*2. ABSCONDER RAIDS HIT OHIO

From July 10-14, ICE agents from Boston, Philadelphia, Buffalo and Detroit fanned out around the Ohio cities of Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland to find 150 immigrants, nearly all of whom were deemed to have ignored deportation orders. The Ohio sweep was part of a national effort dubbed "Operation Return to Sender," in which ICE arrested 2,179 immigrants between May 26 and June 13 [see INB 6/18/06]. Local police and sheriffs collaborated in the Ohio operation, helping ICE to confirm the identities and homes of the targeted immigrants. James E. Brown Jr., a deportation officer for the Immigration Fugitives Operation Unit in Boston, said agents received leads from other law enforcement agencies and by running database searches against immigration court files.

In the end, ICE arrested 68 of the Ohio residents they had sought, as well as 86 other people who happened to be at the raided sites. Out of the total 154 immigrants picked up in the sweep, 20 had either been convicted of crimes or were also being sought on criminal charges, according to ICE. The arrested immigrants came from 31 countries, but the vast majority--82 of them--were from Mexico, followed by smaller groups from El Salvador (19) and Mauritania (seven). All but eight of the Mexicans were sent back to Mexico within two days of their arrest. The other people arrested in the sweep are being detained in the Seneca County Jail. ICE now plans to set up a permanent "fugitive operations" team for Ohio by Sept. 30, made up of seven agents working out of an office in Cleveland. [Columbus Dispatch 7/14/06, 7/15/06; Wcpo.com 7/14/06]

*3. CLEVELAND IMAM STILL JAILED

Fawaz Damra, a Palestinian who served as imam of Ohio's biggest mosque, the Islamic Center of Cleveland, remains in what appears to be indefinite immigration detention, seven months after reaching a deal with the US government to be deported. Damra, who has lived in the US since the mid-1980s and was a naturalized US citizen, was convicted in June 2004 of failing to mention in his US citizenship application that he had ties to a group affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Under the agreement, announced last Jan. 5, Damra was to be deported to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Egypt or the Palestinian territories [see INB 1/6/06]. But officials say none of those countries have agreed to accept Damra. "He's a man without a country," his friend Haider Alawan said. [AP 7/14/06]

*4. NY COURT BACKS LICENSE RESTRICTIONS

On July 6, a New York state appeals court ruled 5-0 that the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) can make proof of legal immigration status a requirement to obtain a driver's license. The Appellate Division in Manhattan reversed a ruling issued on May 10 of last year by Justice Karen S. Smith. Smith had told the DMV it exceeded its authority when it began requiring license holders to prove they had valid Social Security numbers and were legally present in the US [see INB 5/14/05]. The appeals court said Smith erred in barring the identity procedures DMV Commissioner Raymond Martinez put in place and said they were "within his authority and enforceable." Foster Maer, a lawyer for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), which represented the plaintiffs, said his group was considering an appeal. [AP 7/7/06]

*5. SENATE OKS BORDER FUNDING

On July 11, the US Senate approved $350 million for "border security" as part of a $32.8 billion domestic security spending bill for the federal fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2006. The appropriation would go for aircraft, buses and other vehicles for the Border Patrol and to improve fences and other border infrastructure. It would be paid for by increasing fees for immigration and customs services. The border security amendment came from Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who also won an amendment providing $648 million for more port inspectors and advanced equipment to scan shipping containers. The border security and port security appropriations are not included in the version of the fiscal 2007 domestic security spending bill already passed by the House. [Reuters 7/11/06]

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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)

Saturday, July 8, 2006

INB 7/8/06: High-Tech Company Raided; Supreme Court Upholds Deportation

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 9, No. 24 - July 8, 2006

1. High-Tech Company Raided
2. Supreme Court Upholds Deportation
3. Palestinian Gets Citizenship on Appeal

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is now archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.

*1. HIGH-TECH COMPANY RAIDED

Over three days from June 13 to 15, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents searched the offices of Sun Valley Technical Repair, a technology company based in Morgan Hill, California, and detained 12 suspected undocumented workers. ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice announced the arrests on June 20; the search warrant is sealed and company officials have declined to comment. The raid stems from a criminal investigation involving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the investigative arm of the Defense Department's inspector general, the US Postal Service, the state Department of Motor Vehicles, Morgan Hill police and the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, a partnership of 16 local, state and federal agencies that investigate large-scale high-tech crimes.

Kice said the government is seeking to deport the nine men and three women who were "potentially employed by the targeted business." One is from Nicaragua; the rest are from Mexico. Eight have been released from custody, some after posting bail. "We're looking into whether there were [willful] hiring violations by the business," said Kice. [San Francisco Chronicle 6/16/06, 6/21/06]

*2. SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS DEPORTATION

In an 8-1 decision on June 22, the US Supreme Court ruled that immigrants who return to the US after being deported are "continuous lawbreakers" who lose the right to remain in the US, even after they marry US citizens. The ruling came in the case of Humberto Fernandez-Vargas, a 53-year-old Mexican citizen who entered the US illegally in the 1970s and was then deported several times. He had been in the US continuously since 1982 and had applied for permanent legal residency after marrying a US citizen in 2001. He was arrested and deported to Mexico two years ago; his wife, Rita, continued the legal battle on his behalf.

The Court upheld a strict interpretation of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which says that "an alien [who] reentered the United States illegally after having been removed" may not seek to have his or her case "reopened or reviewed. [He] is not eligible and may not apply for any relief, and the alien shall be removed at any time after the reentry."

Several courts had earlier taken the same position, while the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California had ruled that Congress did not mean to apply the 1996 law retroactively. The Supreme Court insisted that Congress meant the law to apply to every deported immigrant who had returned illegally to the US and remained here. Fernandez-Vargas "had an ample warning" of the law in 1996, and "he chose to remain after the new statute became effective," Justice David Souter wrote in Fernandez-Vargas vs. Gonzales.

The court did suggest that the outcome might be different for once-deported immigrants who married US citizens or applied to become legal residents before 1996. In the lone dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said Fernandez-Vargas would have been eligible to stay in the US before the 1996 law was passed, so it was unfair to apply the law to him retroactively now. [Los Angeles Times 6/23/06; Washington Post 6/23/06]

*3. PALESTINIAN GETS CITIZENSHIP ON APPEAL

On June 23, US District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles ruled that Palestinian immigrant Aiad Khaled Barakat should be allowed to become a naturalized US citizen. Barakat is one of the so-called "LA 8": seven Palestinians and a Kenyan whom the government arrested in 1987 and sought to deport for alleged associations with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). All eight have denied being PFLP members. The government initially tried to deport all eight of them, but in 1997 Barakat and another of the group were granted legal residency. Barakat's lawyers had appealed to the federal court after US immigration officials rejected his petition for citizenship last year; they claimed he lied in his citizenship interview about an association with PFLP leader Ali Kased.

Federal officials have 60 days to appeal the judge's ruling, but American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) staff attorney Ahilan Arulanantham, who litigated the case, said it was "extremely, very, very unlikely that they'll appeal." "The judge listened and found [Barakat] to be credible," said Arulanantham. "It was very fact-intensive testimony that would be very difficult to reverse on appeal." [AP 6/23/06; Los Angeles Times] Attorney Marc Van Der Hout, who represents several of the LA 8, said officials could theoretically try to deport Barakat in violation of Judge Wilson's orders, using a retroactive provision of the Patriot Act. "But...I don't think they're going to try to do that," he said. Barakat told Judge Wilson he needed to get citizenship soon so he could visit his ailing mother, who will turn 79 next month, then return to the US, where his children were born and raised.

If his petition for citizenship goes unchallenged, Barakat would become the first of the eight to become a citizen. Another of the eight, Basher Amer, has returned to Bethlehem in the West Bank. Michel Ibrahim Shehadeh and Khader Musa Hamide have green cards but are fighting deportation in immigration court over allegations that they financially supported terrorists by distributing a Palestinian magazine. Their cases were delayed last summer, with no indication of when they will be heard, Van Der Hout said. Hamide's Kenyan wife, Julie Mungai, is a permanent resident, as are Naim Sharif and Amjad Obeid, Barakat's attorneys said. Obeid's brother Ayman remains in the US on a work permit and is waiting for word on his application for permanent residency. [LAT 6/24/06]

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Contributions toward Immigration News Briefs are gladly accepted: they should be made payable and sent to Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012. (Tax-deductible contributions of $50 or more may be made payable to the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute and earmarked for "NSN".)