Rain falls in a
puddle fi lled
with leaves
Thursday in
Pendleton.
For the
weekend
forecast,
see 2A.
Staff photo by
E.J. Harris
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2015
140th Year, No. 26
Your Weekend
Catch a movie
WINNER OF THE 2015 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
One dollar
House votes to curb refugees
Democrats join GOP to prevent presidential veto on rules for Syrians, Iraqis
By ALAN FRAM
Associated Press
Murray Close/Lionsgate via AP
Jennifer Lawrence stars in
the series conclusion,
“The Hunger Games:
Mockingjay Part 2”
For showtime, Page 5A
For review, Weekend EO
WASHINGTON — In a stinging
rebuke to President Barack Obama by
Republicans and Democrats, the House
ignored a veto threat Thursday and over-
whelmingly approved GOP legislation
erecting fresh hurdles for Syrian and Iraqi
refugees trying to enter the United States.
Forty-seven Democrats joined all but
two Republicans as the House passed the
measure by a veto-proof 289-137 margin,
a major setback to the lame duck president
on an issue — the Islamic State group and
the refugees À eeing it — that shows no
signs of easing. The vote exceeded the
two-thirds majority required to override
a veto, and came despite a rushed, early
morning visit to the Capitol by senior
administration of¿ cials in a futile attempt
to limit Democratic defections.
Thursday’s roll call came six days
after a burst of bombings and shootings
in Paris killed 129 people, wounded
many more and revived post-9/11 jitters
in the U.S. and Europe. The attacks have
turned the question of admitting people
38/18
More
Mexicans
leaving
U.S. than
coming
39/22
PENDLETON
Corp to
take over
as CBARC
director
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press
Purrfection Crew and a number of
private individuals in a ¿ ght to slow
the rising tide of feral and abandoned
SAN DIEGO — More
Mexicans are leaving than
moving into the United
States, reversing the À ow of
a half-century of mass migra-
tion, according to a study
published Thursday.
The Pew Research Center
found that slightly more than
1 million Mexicans and their
families, including Ameri-
can-born children, left the
U.S. for Mexico from 2009
to 2014. During the same
¿ ve years, 870,000 Mexicans
came to the U.S., resulting
in a net À ow to Mexico of
140,000.
The desire to reunite
families is the main reason
more Mexicans are moving
south than north, Pew found.
The sluggish U.S. economic
recovery and tougher border
enforcement are other key
factors.
The era of mass migration
from Mexico is “at an end,”
declared Mark Hugo Lopez,
Pew’s director of Hispanic
research.
The ¿ nding follows a Pew
study in 2012 that found net
migration between the two
countries was near zero, so this
represents a turning point in
one of the largest mass migra-
tions in U.S. history. More
than 16 million Mexicans
moved to the United States
from 1965 to 2015, more than
from any other country.
“This is something that
we’ve seen coming,” Lopez
said. “It’s been almost 10 years
that migration from Mexico
has really slowed down.”
See CATS/10A
See MEXICANS/9A
By GEORGE PLAVEN
East Oregonian
In a surprise announce-
ment Thursday, Valtcho
Jeliazkov — the man hired
to replace Steve Petrie as
director of Oregon State
University’s
Columbia
Basin Agricultural Research
Center — told growers he
has resigned after one year
on the job.
Mary Corp, regional
administrator for OSU
Extension Service, will take
over the position starting
Monday.
Corp
will
continue
to head up
university
outreach in
Umatilla,
M o r r o w
and Gilliam
counties.
The news Corp
came as members of a liaison
committee between farmers,
CBARC and the federal
Agricultural
Research
Service
met
Thursday
morning at the Pendleton
station for an open house
and program updates. They
were joined by Dan Arp,
dean of the OSU College
of Agricultural Science;
Tom Shanower, associate
area director of the ARS;
and Blake Rowe, CEO of
the Oregon Wheat Growers
League.
See CBARC/9A
• What Democrat
shift on refugee
policy means for
Obama. Page 6A
See REFUGEES/9A
Weekend Weather
Fri
Sat
Sun
42/19
More inside
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Marie Johnson of Hermiston places water in a cat trap Friday at a home off of Baxter Road outside
Hermiston.
CAT TRAP FEVER
Rescuers ¿ ght to stay
ahead of increasing cat
population in Hermiston
By JADE MCDOWELL
East Oregonian
For the network of people who
are taking hundreds of stray cats off
the streets in Hermiston each year,
nothing is more frustrating than
hearing someone say letting their cat
roam free without being spayed or
neutered is “no big deal.”
It is a big deal, Cat Utopia director
Cindy Spiess said. It’s a big deal
because cats can have three litters
a year, meaning one male and one
female can have 400,000 descendants
in seven years.
“I don’t think the community
at large has any idea the number of
stray and abandoned animals here,”
she said.
Cat Utopia is a Pendleton-based
rescue, but Spiess said 60 percent
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Marie Johnson of Hermiston sets a cat trap at a residence off
Baxter Road on Friday east of Hermiston.
of the 342 cats taken in by the orga-
nization during the last 12 months
were from Hermiston. That doesn’t
count hundreds more taken in by
Pet Rescue, PAWS, Fuzzballs, the
HERMISTON
Top teen debaters learn to see issues from both sides
High school’s best take turns arguing pros and cons
of domestic surveillance, whether or not they agree
By SEAN HART
East Oregonian
In a student debate Tuesday about
whether the United States government
should curtail domestic surveillance
programs, both sides emerged victo-
rious.
In two separate debates between
two-student teams, one team arguing
in favor of curtailment and one team
opposed won after the judges’ votes
were tallied in the Hermiston High
School auditorium.
The students participating were
Staff photo by Sean Hart
Hermiston High School Advanced Placement Language & Writing juniors in the high school’s Advanced
students Vanessa Ambriz-Mendoza, left, and Valentino Whitesell Placement language and writing course
who prepared for the public policy
review notes during a debate fi nals Tuesday at the school.
debate over the summer. After two
rounds of debate during school, the top
eight were selected to compete in the
¿ nal event Tuesday.
In the ¿ rst debate, Matthew Rada
and Frederick Gonzales argued that the
National Security Agency’s collection
of metadata from phone and Internet
communications was in violation of
the Fourth Amendment to the Consti-
tution, which prohibits “unreasonable
searches and seizures.” If the govern-
ment is not kept “in check,” Rada said,
citizens would lose more rights. And by
straying from its founding principles,
the democracy could become a socialist
See DEBATE/10A