View Full Version : Arizona's Immigration law: SB 1070 & HB 2162
Many across the nation are watching the new immigration law passed in Arizona and schedulaed to take effect of July 29th of this year. In this thread I will try to keep updating the status of this law and it's effects on Arizona and the country as a whole.
SB 1070 (http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf)
HB 2162 (http://www.azleg.gov/search/oop/qfullhit.asp?CiWebHitsFile=/legtext/49leg/2r/summary/h.hb2162_ccmemo.doc.htm&CiRestriction=%22lawful+stop%22)
PDF Quick Guide to SB1070 (http://azdatapages.com/sb1070.html)
Corp Commish letter to LA mayor(May 19th, 2010 @ 9:24am)
Text of letter from Arizona Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa after Los Angeles City Council approved boycott of Arizona because of its new immigration law:
Dear Mayor Villaraigosa,
I was dismayed to learn that the Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott Arizona and Arizona-based companies — a vote you strongly supported — to show opposition to SB 1070 (Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act).
You explained your support of the boycott as follows: "While we recognize that as neighbors, we share resources and ties with the State of Arizona that may be difficult to sever, our goal is not to hurt the local economy of Los Angeles, but to impact the economy of Arizona. Our intent is to use our dollars — or the withholding of our dollars — to send a message." (emphasis added)
I received your message; please receive mine. As a state-wide elected member of the Arizona Corporation Commission overseeing Arizona's electric and water utilities, I too am keenly aware of the "resources and ties" we share with the City of Los Angeles. In fact, approximately twenty-five percent of the electricity consumed in Los Angeles is generated by power plants in Arizona.
If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation. I am confident that Arizona's utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona's economy.
People of goodwill can disagree over the merits of SB 1070. A state-wide economic boycott of Arizona is not a message sent in goodwill.
Sincerely,
Commissioner Gary Pierce _________________________
ORANGE COUNTY ( CALIFORNIA ) NEWSPAPER-New Immigrants
This is a very good letter to the editor. This woman made
some good points.
For some reason, people have difficulty structuring their
arguments when arguing against supporting the currently
proposed immigration revisions. This lady made the argument
pretty simple. NOT printed in the Orange County Paper.
Newspapers simply won't publish letters to the editor which
they either deem politically incorrect (read below) or which
does not agree with the philosophy they're pushing on the
public. This woman wrote a great letter to the editor that
should have been published, but, with your help it will get
published via cyberspace!
From:
"David LaBonte"
My wife, Rosemary, wrote a wonderful letter to the editor of
the OC Register which, of course, was not printed. So, I
decided to "print" it myself by sending it out on the
Internet. Pass it along if you feel so inclined. Written in
response to a series of letters to the editor in the Orange
County Register:
Dear Editor:
So many letter writers have based their arguments on how
this land is made up of immigrants. Ernie Lujan for one,
suggests we should tear down the Statue of Liberty because
the people now in question aren't being treated the same as
those who passed through Ellis Island and other ports of
entry.
Maybe we should turn to our history books and point out to
people like Mr. Lujan why today's American is not willing to
accept this new kind of immigrant any longer. Back in 1900
when there was a rush from all areas of Europe to come to
the United States, people had to get off a ship and stand in
a long line in New York and be documented. Some would even
get down on their hands and knees and kiss the ground. They
made a pledge to uphold the laws and support their new
country in good and bad times. They made learning English a
primary rule in their new American households and some even
changed their names to blend in with their new home.
They had waved good bye to their birth place to give their
children a new life and did everything in their power to
help their children assimilate into one culture. Nothing was
handed to them. No free lunches, no welfare, no labor laws
to protect them. All they had were the skills and
craftsmanship they had brought with them to trade for a
future of prosperity.
Most of their children came of age when World War II broke
out. My father fought along side men whose parents had come
straight over from Germany, Italy, France and Japan.
None of these 1st generation Americans ever gave any thought
about what country their parents had come from. They were
Americans fighting Hitler, Mussolini and the Emperor of
Japan. They were defending the United States of America as
one people.
When we liberated France, no one in those villages were
looking for the French-American or the German American or
the Irish American. The people of France saw only Americans.
And we carried one flag that represented one country. Not
one of those immigrant sons would have thought about picking
up another country's flag and waving it to represent who
they were. It would have been a disgrace to their parents
who had sacrificed so much to be here. These immigrants
truly knew what it meant to be an American. They stirred the
melting pot into one red, white and blue bowl.
And here we are with a new kind of immigrant who wants the
same rights and privileges. Only they want to achieve it by
playing with a different set of rules, one that includes the
entitlement card and a guarantee of being faithful to their
mother country. I'm sorry, that's not what being an American
is all about. I believe that the immigrants who landed on
Ellis Island in the early 1900's deserve better than that
for all the toil, hard work and sacrifice in raising future
generations to create a land that has become a beacon for
those legally searching for a better life. I think they
would be appalled that they are being used as an example by
those waving foreign country flags.
And for that suggestion about taking down the Statue of
Liberty, it happens to mean a lot to the citizens who are
voting on the immigration bill. I wouldn't start talking about
dismantling the United States just yet.
(signed)
Rosemary LaBonte
Thursday, May. 20, 2010
Panel to meet on immigration
Bill won't have time to pass
By Noelle Phillips - McClatchy Newspapers
A state Senate subcommittee meets this morning to discuss a bill that would empower local police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop or detain.
However, it's too late in the legislative session for the bill, which mimics Arizona's controversial law, to become state law this year. That leads critics and political watchers to believe today's meeting is more about political theater than creating a new law.
"By doing it when they don't actually have time to pass the legislation, they get credit for the symbolic stand without having to worry about how to fund the measure," said Scott Huffman, a Winthrop University political science professor.
However, Sen. Larry Martin, R-Pickens, who will lead this morning's meeting, said that is not the case. None of the five members of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee are up for re-election, he said.
"We are not playing to anybody," he said. "It's not a pandering-type thing."
Instead, he said, the hearing's purpose is to find out if legislators need to "tweak" South Carolina's immigration law that was passed in 2008 and to compare Arizona's law to it.
The Senate bill would allow state and local police to check immigration status after detaining or arresting a person for another reason. The officer would need reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
People questioned would have to provide identification issued by the S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, a tribal enrollment card or an ID issued by the U.S. government. The bill also includes a provision that would outlaw the hiring of illegal immigrants for day labor.
The Senate bill has 19 sponsors, including Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston.
A similar bill was filed in the S.C. House in late April, but no hearings on it have been scheduled.
Both are drawing criticism from the state's Hispanic community.
"They're, of course, going to target Mexicans," said Ivan Segura, a member of the S.C. Hispanic Leadership Council. "They're, of course, going to target Central Americans. They're going to target people because of the color of their skin."
Martin said South Carolina should tread cautiously in its consideration of the bill, especially since Arizona's law is being challenged in court.
"I don't want to get our state entangled in a legal matter," he said.
Martin agreed it was too late to move the bill forward this year.
May 2, 2010
Obama Warns Political Speech Can Lead to Violence
Posted by: Mike's America @ 8:42 am in Uncategorized | 526 views
Will he take responsibility for false claims made about Arizona immigration law after Sheriff’s Deputy was shot by illegal aliens?
Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of Michigan on Saturday. His speech had more straw man arguments than there were graduates. Apparently, if you oppose his policies you are anti-democratic and seeking to overthrow the legitimate government as defined by him.
In the middle of a long lecture on why strong opposition prevents you from realizing he knows what is best for you and blocks “compromise” (as if he has ever supported real compromise) he dropped the “v” word. Apparently, vocal opposition to his policies “coarsens our culture, and at its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response.”
After eight years of an unrelenting hate campaign directed by President George Bush by top Democrat leaders it’s astonishing to hear Obama demand that now people must watch what they say.
Did Obama’s words lead to violence in Arizona?
But we don’t have to go back to the Bush years to see the hypocrisy in Obama’s speech. Only last week Obama told a crowd in Iowa that the new Arizona immigration law would mean that “Now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers, and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to get harassed ”
Not you might get harassed but YOU ARE going to get harassed by law enforcement. Clearly the man has a chip on his shoulder about law enforcement but let’s put that aside for a moment. Obama’s words were delivered at a time when a rioting mob protesting the Arizona law pelted law enforcement officers in Phoenix with bottles and threatened the safety of a man who supported the law.
Two days after Obama spoke those words, an Arizona Sheriff’s Deputy was shot in the stomach with an AK-47 wielded by a gang of illegal aliens in the Arizona desert. The Deputy was there to investigate drug smuggling. 17 illegals were later caught in the desert including three who may have been involved in the shooting. I suppose Obama will call that police harassment.
Nowhere does Obama take responsibility for his overheated rhetoric which is meant to whip his supporters into an angry frenzy in advance of November’s election. Nowhere in his speech does he suggest that maybe he or his supporters should tone down the angry rhetoric which has become an almost daily feature of Democrat politics.
This kind of lopsided demand for civility leaves us with only one conclusion: Obama is willing to demonize opposition on the right, including false claims about their motives, while actively fanning the flames of anger and hate on the left.
And from what we have seen thus far, we can only expect him to increase this campaign of lies and hate as November approaches. Even if it leads to violence, it serves his cause!
Utah to follow Arizona immigration law?by Associated Press (May 27th, 2010 @ 11:18am)
SALT LAKE CITY - Utah Gov. Gary Herbert says he will sign an immigration bill into law next session if he's still governor, although it is unclear how closely that bill might mirror one in Arizona that's considered the toughest in the nation.
The Arizona law requires that police conducting traffic stops or questioning people about possible legal violations ask them about their immigration status if there is ``reasonable suspicion'' that they're in the country illegally.
Reasonable suspicion is not defined. The law also makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and for illegal immigrants to solicit work.
Herbert told reporters Thursday during his monthly KUED news conference that he favors punishing businesses that hire illegal immigrants.
SB 1070 supporters rally in Tempeby Associated Press (May 29th, 2010 @ 7:32pm)
TEMPE, Ariz. — Thousands of supporters of Arizona's tough new crackdown on illegal immigration are rallying at a baseball stadium outside Phoenix.
The Stand With Arizona rally asks people from around the country to support the state's law in the face of a backlash from opponents including civil rights groups and President Barack Obama.
Supporters are encouraging like-minded Americans to "buycott" Arizona by planning vacations in the state.
Most of Tempe Diablo Stadium's more than 7,000 seats were full Saturday, and hundreds more people milled in the back or sat on the infield
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Los Angeles County on Tuesday became the latest government body to boycott Arizona to protest the state's tough new law targeting illegal immigration. After a heated debate, the county's board of supervisors voted 3-2 to ban new contracts with Arizona-based companies and review those that could be canceled. The county has more than $26 million in contracts with Arizona companies this year. Several California cities, including Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco, have passed similar measures. The Arizona law, set to go into effect July 29, requires police enforcing another law to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are in the country illegally. Supervisor Gloria Molina said law "goes too far." "I am sworn as an L.A. County supervisor to uphold the Constitution. All I can say is that I believe that Arizona's law is unconstitutional," she said. U.S. Justice Department officials have drafted a legal challenge asserting that Arizona's law is unconstitutional because it intrudes on the federal government's authority to guard the nation's borders. Critics of the law also say it unfairly targets Hispanics and could lead to racial profiling. Proponents insist racial profiling will not be tolerated. Dozens of people spoke on both sides of the issue Tuesday, trying to sway Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who was the last to announce his position and finally voted yes. "We need solutions, not boycotts," said Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who voted against the motion along with Supervisor Don Knabe. The boycott also calls the county's pension fund to rid itself of any investments in Arizona's state and municipal bonds. The county does have investment that would be affected by the boycott, said the county's treasurer, Mark Saladino. A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found that about three-fourths of voters in the U.S. think boycotting Arizona because of its immigration law is a bad idea. The national survey of 1,914 registered voters also found that most support the law itself, with 51 percent of voters approving of the measure and 31 percent disapproving. The poll, conducted May 19-24, had a sampling error margin of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
Letter to LA: Boycott in the dark
PHOENIX -- Arizona Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce has suggested that if Los Angeles pursues a boycott of Arizona over its immigration law, Arizona could retaliate by taking back some of the electricity it generates for southern California.
In a letter to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Perce said he was "dismayed" by the vote of the Los Angeles City Council to boycott Arizona.
Pierce quoted from a Villaraigosa statement that the goal of the boycott was "to impact the economy of Arizona. Our intent is to use our dollars or the withholding of our dollars -- to send a message."
Pierce said that approximately 25 percent of the electricity consumed in Los Angeles is generated by power plants in Arizona.
"If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements, so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation," Pierce wrote to Villaraigosa. "I am confident that Arizona's utilities would be happy to take those electrons off your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona's economy."
Pierce said that people of good will can disagree over the merits of SB1070, the Arizona law, but, "A statewide economic boycott of Arizona is not a message sent in goodwill."
The Arizona Corporation Commission regulates utilities, including the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix, the nation's largest nuclear plant. Southern California Edison Co. owns 15.8 percent of Palo Verde, the Southern California Public Power Authority 5.9 percent and the City of Los Angeles 8.7 percent.
Los Angeles gets about 6 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric power, most of that generated by Hoover Dam on the Arizona-Nevada border. It also gets power from some coal-fired plants in Arizona.
The new Arizona law, which has spawned controversy across the nation, requires local law enforcement officers to question the immigration status of anyone they stop for another reason and then have reasonable suspicion that the person is in the United States illegally.
LA County to boycott Arizona
by Associated Press (June 1st, 2010 @ 5:23pm)
LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles County is joining in the economic boycott against Arizona to protest the state's new law targeting illegal immigration.
After a heated debate, the county board of supervisors voted 3-to-2 Tuesday to ban new contracts with Arizona-based companies and review those that could be canceled. The county has more than $26 million in contracts with Arizona companies this year.
Other California cities, including Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco, have passed similar measures.
The Arizona law requires police enforcing another law to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are in the country illegally.
L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina says law ``goes too far.''
Legal eagle: SB1070 will survive challengesby Jim Cross/KTAR (June 3rd, 2010 @ 7:14am)
PHOENIX -- ABC legal analyst Royal Oakes believes Senate Bill 1070, Arizona's new immigration law, will stand up to courtroom challenges, although he says, "It's going to be a long drawn-out process."
The law, which takes effect July 29, is being challenged as unconstitutional and on grounds that it will lead to racial profiling as police ask the immigration status of people they have reasonable suspicion may be in the United States illegally.
When it comes to the racial profiling claim, Oakes said, "The bill could not be more clear. It bans racial profiling. Critics, however, say, `Well, okay, it's fine to ban it. But, if you're a police officer, don't you have the power now to stop -- say 90 out of 100 people -- as they drive by?`"
As for claims that it's unconstitutional, he said, "The Fourth Amendment guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures. The 14th Amendment allows everybody equal protection and due process rights. Some people say that this law gives police so much power that, really, it tramples on those constitutional rights."
Oakes sees as the biggest challenge: "Does Arizona even have a right to pass a law like this or is it exclusively the power of the federal government to regulate immigration?"
Anger over Obama's meeting with Brewerby Associated Press (June 3rd, 2010 @ 6:04am)
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's planned meeting Thursday with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer faces a protest from opponents of Arizona's new immigration law.
Opponents say the law, which Brewer signed, is discriminatory and say Obama isn't doing enough on immigration reform.
Brewer is to meet Obama at the White House, and opponents said they will hold a demonstration there to denounce the Republican governor, ``the discriminatory Arizona law she signed'' and ``President Obama's halfhearted leadership on immigration reform.''
Supporters of an overhaul of U.S. immigration law have accused Obama of not pushing Congress hard enough to pass immigration legislation. Some have said Arizona's law and tough immigration laws in other states are symptoms of a broken immigration system.
Arizona's new law, scheduled to take effect July 29, will require police enforcing any other law to examine immigration status if there is reasonable suspicion a person is in the country illegally. It also makes being in the country illegally a state crime.
Obama says the law is the wrong approach to illegal immigration and his administration is combing through it and preparing for a possible legal challenge. Brewer has been soliciting donations from the law's supporters to defend it.
In an interview Wednesday, Brewer said she hoped she and Obama could agree on solutions to improve border security.
Brewer said she wants to know how Obama's plan to deploy up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the border with Mexico will affect Arizona and what else he has in mind to tighten border security.
She said she'll make a pitch for her own proposal calling for more troops on the border, deployment of helicopters and surveillance drones and completion of a border fence.
The White House said it would lay out for Brewer the ``unprecedented resources'' dedicated over the past 16 months to secure the border.
Hispanics flee Arizona ahead of immigration law
By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
Arizona's tough new immigration enforcement law is fueling an exodus of Hispanics from the state seven weeks before it goes into effect, according to officials and residents in the state.
Though no one has precise figures, reports from school officials, businesses and individuals indicate worried Hispanics — both legal and illegal — are leaving the state in anticipation of the law, which will go into effect July 29.
Schools in Hispanic areas report unusual drops in enrollment. The Balsz Elementary School District is 75% Hispanic, and within a month of the law's passage, the parents of 70 students pulled them out of school, said District Superintendent Jeffrey Smith. The district lost seven students over the same one-month period last year, and parents tell Smith the Arizona law is the reason for leaving.
"They're leaving to another state where they feel more welcome," he said.
The measure, signed into law April 23 by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, requires a police officer to determine a person's immigration status if they are stopped, detained or arrested and there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in the country illegally.
About 100,000 illegal immigrants left Arizona after the state passed a law in 2007 that enhanced penalties on businesses that hired them, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Some early signs suggest another exodus.
Businesses serving the Hispanic community say business is down, signaling that illegal immigrants are holding on to cash in anticipation of a move from the state, said David Castillo, co-founder of the Latin Association of Arizona, a chamber of commerce for nearly 400 first-generation Hispanic business owners.
"(Brewer) signed the law, and everything fell apart," Castillo said. "It's devastating."
Jorge Vargas plans to move to New York City because his air-conditioning business relies mostly on Hispanics. "My business is completely dead," he said.
Juan Carlos Cruz, an illegal immigrant who has worked in plant nurseries for 20 years, huddled with dozens of relatives over the Memorial Day Weekend in the backyard of his brother's Phoenix-area home to plot out the family's next move to avoid what they say will be harassment by police. Virginia and California are the front-runners.
"If I were alone, I'd try to stay. But I have a family, and I have to find a place where we can live with more freedom," said Cruz, who hopes to move July 4 to blend in with holiday weekend traffic. "This is getting too hard."
Paul Senseman, a spokesman for Brewer, said it's difficult to gauge how many people are leaving because of the law, but he said he hears similar reports of people leaving the state.
"If that means that fewer people are breaking the law, that is absolutely an accomplishment," he said.
San Jose condemns AZ immigration law
by Associated Press (June 9th, 2010 @ 9:52am)
SAN JOSE, Calif. - San Jose officials have condemned Arizona's tough new law targeting illegal immigration but have stopped short of an economic boycott of the state.
The City Council on Tuesday voted 9-2 to denounce the immigration law, prohibit city employees from traveling to the state on official business and support legal challenges filed by other groups.
But council members said they didn't think a boycott was appropriate given the city's financial troubles.
San Jose has contracts with Arizona companies for garbage collection and stun guns that are worth millions of dollars.
Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco are among the California cities that have passed economic boycotts of the state.
Arizona's new law allows police enforcing other laws to question people about their immigration status.
Doctor questions AZ immigration law
by Bob McClay/KTAR (June 8th, 2010 @ 3:16pm)
PHOENIX -- Arizona doctors have questions about Arizona's new immigration law.
Dr. Lucas Restrepo of Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, outlined the worries in a letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Restrepo said doctors are concerned because the law "specifies that those who conceal, harbor or shield or attempt to conceal, harbor or shield a foreign person who came to the United States illegally are guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor."
If a doctor treats an illegal immigrant, Restrepo said, "someone could advance the argument that they are shielding or concealing that person."
Restrep said his job is to treat his patients.
"It is not my job to inquire about their legal status, their papers or whether they have violated any laws."
Restrepo said firefighters and paramedics are specifically exempt from the harboring provisions of the law, but doctors are not.
"Any physician has to protect his patients. If I'm going to go around asking whether they have violated the law, whether they are here legally or illegally, then I think I'm going to betray my intentions to help patients and to help people regain their health."
Restrepo added, "My job is very precise. I try to help a person get better. Whether they're criminal, whether they're law-abiding, whether they're a nice person or a terrible person, whether they're Republican or Democrat, I could not care less."
Restrepo said he has called several legislators with his questions, but has no answer on whether doctors, people who work in hospitals and other workers in the medical community are exempt.
Gay groups denounce AZ immigration law
by KTAR.com (June 8th, 2010 @ 3:18pm)
PHOENIX -- More than 20 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality groups condemned Arizona's new immigration law Tuesday, saying it gives license to discriminate.
The groups issued a joint statement, saying, "Arizona's SB1070 takes the state down a path that will lead to racial profiling, discrimination and anti-immigrant extremism. We stand in solidarity with other individuals, organizations and local governments in rejecting the misrepresentation of immigrants put forth in this unjust and ill-conceived measure."
The statement continued: "SB1070 essentially declares an entire class of people to be inherently criminal on the basis of their race and appearance. The consequences of SB1070 are grave and troubling: the inevitability of racial profiling and infringement of civil liberties; the strong probability of violence and harassment against individuals and their families; and the reversal of progress toward creating a more inclusive society."
The groups said Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the immigration bill, is the same governor who last year "stripped away" health insurance benefits from same-sex domestic partners of state employees.
"Brewer's actions as governor demonstrate, at best, callous indifference -- and, at worst, willful malice -- toward immigrants and LGBT people alike," the statement said.
It said all Arizona families have reason to be alarmed.
"The state's new law threatens to tear apart families, separate children from their parents and rip apart loving couples who are building their lives together."
The LGBT groups said they would join others in a boycott against Arizona until SB1070 is repealed or thrown out by the courts.
SB1070 could be affecting schools, businesses
by Bob McClay, Sandra Haros, Kevin Tripp/KTAR (June 10th, 2010 @ 7:11am)
PHOENIX -- Arizona's immigration law, which takes effect July 29, already is affecting some schools and small businesses, according to people close to the situations.
The Balsz Elementary School District in Phoenix is 75 percent Hispanic, and it's been losing students.
"We went back to when the law was signed and then to today. We have 95 fewer students than we did before the law," said Superintendent Jeff Smith.
"People have told our staff in the school that they are leaving," Smith said. "They may say that they're going to different places -- other states perhaps or perhaps back to Mexico."
Smith said it's his "understanding" that the exodus is specifically because SB1070 is about to become law.
Counting students' parents and other relatives, Smith estimates that as many as 500 people have left the district because of the law.
Smith said the drop in enrollment hasn't affected the district's budget -- yet.
"Funding in Arizona is based on the prior year, so we will be funded next year based on the number of students we have this year... Our staff should feel secure with their jobs and so on for next year. The following year is a different story. If enrollment goes down, we would need to make reductions."
He said the district will work hard to educate the students it has.
"The United States Constitution is very clear. We are given the responsibility to educate anyone who lives and resides in our area, in our community. That is the law, and we will continue to follow the law and the U.S. Constitution until such time as that changes."
SB1070 also is taking a toll on Arizona's small businesses, according to James Garcia with the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
"Mom and pop operations -- many of which really came to exist because the immigrant populations were there -- are probably suffering the most, in the most immediate ways," said Garcia.
He said no official data has been gathered, but business owners are reporting business is way down.
"I've talked to some of these people -- people who own a boot shop, people who own a hair salon. They're essentially saying, `I'm losing a lot of my customers. People are leaving. They are making the decision to move.'"
He added, "If they run a salon, if they run a small restaurant, those people are taking a real hard hit on a very short-term, immediate basis. If you go door-to-door with those businesses, that's what they're going to tell you, `We're losing our customer base.'"
Garcia said the failure of businesses that cater to the immigrant community would have a ripple effect on the entire community and the whole state.
Gov. Jan Brewer's office said that citizens and legal residents have no reason to leave Arizona and questioned whether there are facts to support falling enrollment and spending by Hispanics.
The governor's spokesman, Paul Senseman, said it might be a little early to say Hispanic school enrollment is plummeting.
"There doesn't appear to be any empirical evidence that this is occuring at all," Senseman said, although he said he has heard anecdotal stories about students leaving.
When it comes to businesses, Senseman said there are lots of economic forces at work, such as the housing crisis and the recession.
"Other things are creating shifts in our economy. There's no doubt it's happening nationally. Arizona is not the only state."
Boycotts of Arizona because of the new law also are to blame, Senseman said.
Asked what a businessman should think if he sees his customer base falling, Senseman said, "I would be furious with people like Congressman (Raul) Grijalva, who have suggested that businesses boycott and that people leave. It is our own Arizona congressman who has suggested that out-of-state businesses should boycott these kind of Arizona businesses."
Legal residents and citizens shouldn't fear the new law, Senseman said, adding that he thinks there's lots of misinformation out there.
Jun 08, 2010
Big jump in Latino registration for Democrats unlikely to turn Arizona blue
The number of Latinos registering to vote as Democrats in Arizona has jumped from 100 a week to 500 in the seven weeks since a tough new immigration law was adopted, The Arizona Republic reports.
The newspaper says many of those registering are young Latino citizens whose parents may be undocumented.
But, the newspaper says, the electoral impact may not be as great as in California after passage of a GOP-sponsored ballot initiative in 1994 to clamp down on illegal immigration by prohibiting undocumented people from receiving health care, public education and other services.
That measure, which was later declared unconstitutional, is widely viewed as solidifying California's growing Latino population as Democratic and tipping the then-Republican state to a solidly Democratic one, the newspaper says.
But such a shift is less likely in Arizona, the newspaper notes, because the Latino vote is lower than in California and there are also fewer non-Hispanics with whom to ally to overturn the state's traditional conservative voting pattern.
Arizona also does not have the large unions to help organize the Latino vote as in California, The Republic says.
Mayors mull proposal to condemn SB1070
by Associated Press (June 14th, 2010 @ 7:02am)
OKLAHOMA CITY - The U.S. Conference of Mayors will vote Monday on a proposal that condemns Arizona's new immigration law and asks Congress for an immigration overhaul that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants now living in the country.
The nonbinding resolution being considered at the group's annual meeting in Oklahoma City notes that the law has inspired a boycott of Arizona and says Congress' inaction on immigration led to the passage of the Arizona law.
The proposal also notes that similar proposals were being considered in other states.
The Arizona law requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
Mayors condemn AZ immigration lawby Associated Press (June 14th, 2010 @ 11:58am)
OKLAHOMA CITY - The U.S. Conference of Mayors has approved two resolutions condemning Arizona's new immigration law and asking Congress for an overhaul of federal immigration policies.
The resolutions approved Monday were supported by a majority of the estimated 200 mayors attending the conference in Oklahoma City.
Conference spokeswoman Elena Temple-Webb says both resolutions were approved on a voice vote, with some opposition to both measures.
The first resolution opposing the Arizona law was sponsored by Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon. It opposes the enactment of similar laws in other states.
A second resolution by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa calls for the repeal of the Arizona law and calls upon Congress to pass comprehensive changes to immigration law.
Burlington, Vt., council calls for AZ boycott
by Associated Press (June 15th, 2010 @ 6:06am)
BURLINGTON, Vt. - The Burlington, Vt., City Council is calling for a boycott of the state of Arizona because of a law that state passed that authorizes police to question people about their immigration status.
On Monday, the City Council voted 10-4 for the boycott of Arizona and Arizona businesses.
The vote was in response to a new law in Arizona that requires police to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
Supporters of the boycott filled the auditorium where the meeting was held.
The Burlington Free Press says the measure was supported by Progressive Mayor Bob Kiss and opposed by the city's three Republican councilors.
Chino Valley backs amended Ariz. immigration law
June 15, 2010 12:42 PM - Associated Press
PRESCOTT - The Chino Valley town staff and the mayor will draft a letter to Gov. Jan Brewer, the president of the Senate and speaker of the House in support of Senate Bill 1070 as amended.
The Yavapai County town's council was expected to take it up again June 24.
Councilman Joel Baker said a letter from the council carries more weight than if it comes from an individual.
Chino Valley Police Chief Pat Huntsman said if the law goes into effect by the end of July it will add three hours of transport time to her officers' schedules. Huntsman added they're "sworn to uphold the law and will."
This month, Huntsman said, her officers, like others across Arizona, will start their mandatory training. It will be over the Internet and can be done locally.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/06/15/20100615chino-valley-supports-arizona-immigration-law.html#ixzz0qxDsuOZR
Immigration protest at D-backs game
by Associated Press (June 15th, 2010 @ 2:14pm)
BOSTON - A coalition of immigrant groups are planning a protest outside Fenway Park as the Red Sox begin a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Tuesday's picketers are voicing their opposition at stadium entrances and holding signs to protest Arizona's controversial new law targeting illegal immigrants.
The law, set to take effect July 29, requires police conducting traffic stops or routine questioning to ask about immigration status if officers suspect those being questioned are in the country illegally.
The Diamondbacks have faced similar protests in Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles.
The law has sparked protests and calls for boycotts of Arizona products, including a recent call to move next year's baseball All-Star game from Phoenix.
Sacramento approves sanctions against Ariz.
by Associated Press (June 16th, 2010 @ 2:47pm)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Sacramento is joining the list of cities boycotting Arizona to protest the state's stringent new anti-illegal immigration law set to take effect next month.
The city council voted 6-1 Tuesday to forbid city employees from attending conferences in Arizona, or doing business with companies based there.
Companies affected include Phoenix-based Sundt Construction, part of a downtown revitalization proposal and the lead firm on a library construction job.
To supporters of the measure, this was a civil rights issue. But opponents felt the council should concentrate on local matters.
San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland have passed similar measures.
The Arizona law makes it a crime to be an illegal immigrant and directs police to check the status of anyone suspected of being here illegally.
Chicago to boycott future AZ contracts
by Kevin Tripp/KTAR (June 16th, 2010 @ 1:31pm)
Chicago has found a new way to protest Arizona's immigration law.
The City Council voted to boycott any future contracts with Arizona companies.
Alderman Roberto Maldonado said the boycott does not include current contracts.
"The idea is not to hurt the city of Chicago by breaking existing contracts and therefore penalizing the city of Chicago," Maldonado said. "The idea obviously is to hurt what we feel is the aggressor of such a racist law we feel was enacted in Arizona."
Right now, Chicago has a big contract with Valley-based Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. to provide traffic cameras.
The proposed boycott of future contracts still needs the Chicago mayor's signature.
Sal-XK
06-16-2010, 05:32 PM
Chicago to boycott future AZ contracts
by Kevin Tripp/KTAR (June 16th, 2010 @ 1:31pm)
Chicago has found a new way to protest Arizona's immigration law.
The City Council voted to boycott any future contracts with Arizona companies.
Alderman Roberto Maldonado said the boycott does not include current contracts.
"The idea is not to hurt the city of Chicago by breaking existing contracts and therefore penalizing the city of Chicago," Maldonado said. "The idea obviously is to hurt what we feel is the aggressor of such a racist law we feel was enacted in Arizona."
Right now, Chicago has a big contract with Valley-based Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. to provide traffic cameras.
The proposed boycott of future contracts still needs the Chicago mayor's signature.
Ah my old city figures no surprise. If daily signs that his father would roll over in his grave. But he's been breaking lots of traditions over the years so who knows.
Donors give $20K to help defend AZ immigration law (June 16th, 2010 @ 9:19pm)
PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's office has received nearly $20,000 in private donations to help the state mount a legal defense against lawsuits related to its tough new immigration law.
Nearly 440 people in 46 states and the District of Columbia have contributed to the fund. According to a list of donors provided to The Arizona Republic newspaper, the smallest contribution is $1 and the largest is $750.
Brewer announced last month that she had hired private counsel to represent her in the federal lawsuits pending against the state. She is named as a defendant in four of the five cases.
Arizona's new immigration law is scheduled to take effect July 29. It requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
Who's coming to AZ from Mexico?
by Pamela Hughes/KTAR (June 17th, 2010 @ 9:00am)
PHOENIX -- Arizona's border with Mexico is the busiest crossing for illegal immigrants, and a number of them are criminals, according to the Border Patrol.
Last year, the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol caught 240,000 people trying to sneak into the United States illegally.
"Right about now, we're apprehending between 400 and 600 people a day," said Colleen Agle with the Border Patrol. She said this is the slow time of year; the number of illegal crossers peaks at around 1,000 a day in cooler weather.
Several criminals are among the illegal immigrants, Agle said.
"Rapists, child molesters, a lot of violent gang members."
She said it's tough to determine just what percentage of illegal immigrants have criminal backgrounds, but agents encounter them on a daily basis.
In the past few days, agents at Douglas have arrested an illegal immigrant who had been convicted of rape and another who had been convicted of having sex with a child under 3 years old. A child molester was arrested at a Nogales border crossing and an illegal who had been convicted of manslaughter was arrested in Casa Grande.
"We definitely see these types of individuals on a weekly basis," said Agle, "and I'd say pretty close to every day, we're apprehending somebody (criminal) -- whether it's a child molester or some sort of sex offender or violent gang member. Those are definitely people who are trying to get into the United States."
Sal-XK
06-18-2010, 12:51 PM
Holly crap man were in trouble. You have to listen to this caller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg0pDPK56Ys
I have NEVER heard somebody come across so STUPID in all my life!
She couldn't even tell when she was being insulted.
Sal-XK
06-18-2010, 01:42 PM
I have NEVER heard somebody come across so STUPID in all my life!
She couldn't even tell when she was being insulted.
after finding this I listen to a few more AZ immigration idiots audios and I am scared at how stupid really are and have no understanding of the law at all.
Most of the people who are against the law have not even read the law, if they would take the time to read it they would realize that there will be not more racial profiling then there currently is.
If there are bad cops out there that will use this law to allow him/her to racially profile subjects you can bet they are doing it already, the new law will not change a good cop into a bad cop.
Obama Administration Will Challenge Ariz.'s Law
Gov. Brewer said she's angry over comments by Clinton
POSTED: 10:37 am MST June 18, 2010
PHOENIX -- CBS News is reporting that a senior administration official has said the federal government will indeed formally challenge Arizona's immigration law when Justice Department lawyers are finished building the case.
Gov. Jan Brewer said Thursday she's angry over comments by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during an interview in Ecuador that announced the Justice Department "will be bringing a lawsuit against the act."
"Gov. Brewer is obviously disappointed in how this was handled," said Paul Senseman, Brewer's director of communication. "You'd think they'd at least have the respect to notify our citizens first."
A video of an interview with Clinton and a TV station from Ecuador circulated on the Web on Thursday. In it, Clinton said: "President Obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks the federal government should be determining immigration policy. And the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act."
When Governor Brewer met with President Obama earlier this month, she asked that the Justice Department not file a lawsuit against Arizona's Senate Bill 1070.
Five lawsuits have already been filed in federal court, and Brewer said one more would be a waste of both state and federal taxpayer dollars.
Brewer's office and the White House both insist they are still ironing out a schedule for Obama's staff to travel to Arizona to share details about the President's immigration plan to help the state. Brewer also said her invitation remains open to Obama to come see the state's border problems for himself.
It's unclear why Clinton made the comment because immigration law is not her area. She couldn't be reached for comment.
Immigrant families leave Arizona and tough new law (June 22nd, 2010 @ 9:01pm)
By AMANDA LEE MYERS, Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX (AP) - "Cuanto?" asks a young man pointing to four bottles of car polish at a recent garage sale in an east Phoenix neighborhood.
The question, Spanish for "How much?" sends Minerva Ruiz and Claudia Suriano scrambling and calling out to their friend, Silvia Arias, who's selling the polish. "Silvia!"
Arias is out of earshot, so Suriano improvises.
"Cinco dolares," she says. "Five dollars." And another sale is made.
As the women await their next customer in the rising heat of an Arizona morning, they talk quietly about food and clothes, about their children and husbands. They are best friends, all mothers who are viewed as pillars of parental support at the neighborhood elementary school.
All three are illegal immigrants from Mexico.
They're holding the garage sale to raise money to leave Arizona, like many others, and to escape the state's tough new law that cracks down on people just like them.
The law's stated intention is unambiguous: It seeks to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and to discourage them from coming here.
There is no official data tracking how many are leaving because of the new law. "It's something that's really tough to get a handle on numerically," said Bill Schooling, Arizona's state demographer. "It's not just the immigration bill. It's also employer sanctions and the economy. How do you separate out the motivating factors?"
But anecdotal evidence provided by schools and businesses in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods and by healthcare clinics suggest that sizable numbers are departing. Ignacio Rodriguez, associate director for the Phoenix Roman Catholic diocese's Office of Hispanic Ministries, said churches in the area are also seeing families leave.
Priests are "seeing some people approach them and ask for a blessing because they're leaving the state to go back to their country of origin or another state," he said. "Unless they approach and ask for a sending-off blessing, we wouldn't have any idea they're leaving or why."
Ruiz and Suriano and their families plan to move this month. Arias and her family are considering leaving, but are waiting to see if the law will go into effect as scheduled July 29, and, if so, how it will be enforced.
The law requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state's streets.
Ruiz, Suriano and Arias are representative of many families facing what they consider a cruel dilemma. To leave, they must pull their children from school, uproot their lives and look for new jobs and homes elsewhere. But to stay is to be under the scrutiny of the nation's most stringent immigration laws and the potentially greater threat of being caught, arrested and deported. They also perceive a growing hostility toward Hispanics, in general.
On the quarter-mile stretch of Phoenix's Belleview Street where both Ruiz and Suriano live, more than half the apartments and single-family homes have "for rent" signs out front.
Alan Langston, president of the Arizona Rental Property Owners & Landlords Association, said his group doesn't track vacancy rates but that his members believe they will be affected by people leaving because of the new law.
The friends say most of the vacancy signs went up after the new law was signed in late April.
"Everyone's afraid," Arias says.
The three friends are key members of a parents' support group at their children's school down the street, said Rosemarie Garcia, parent liaison for the Balsz Elementary School District.
"They are the paper and glue and the scissors of the whole thing," Garcia said. "I can run to them for anything."
With two of the women leaving and the other thinking about it, Garcia is concerned about the school's future.
"It'll be like a desert here," she said. "It's a gap we'll have all over the neighborhood, the community, our school."
Ruiz, Suriano and Arias met three years ago at cafecitos, or coffee talks, held at the school. Now their families hold barbecues together and their children have sleepovers.
Arias, 49, and her day laborer husband paid a coyote to come to Arizona 15 years ago from Tepic, Nayarit on Mexico's central-western coast. Their children, ages 9, 11 and 13, are U.S. citizens.
"I don't want to leave but we don't know what's going to happen," she says.
Ruiz, 38, and her husband, who builds furniture, came to the U.S. from Los Mochis in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa about six years ago on tourist visas, which expired long ago. Two of their kids, ages 9 and 13, are here illegally, while their 1-year-old was born here. The family is moving to Clovis, N.M., where they have family. "It's calmer there," Ruiz says.
Suriano, 28, and her husband crossed the desert six years ago with their then-toddler. The boy is now 9, and the couple has a 4-year-old who was born here. They're moving to Albuquerque, where they don't know anyone but already have lined up an apartment and a carpentry job for him.
"I don't want to go," Suriano says, wiping away tears. "We're leaving everything behind. But I'm scared the police will catch me and send me back to Mexico."
Some people in the neighborhood are not sympathetic.
"Bye-bye, see you later," says 28-year-old Sarah Williams, who lives two blocks south of Ruiz and Suriano with her 5- and 7-year-old children and her aunt. "They're taking opportunities from Americans and legal citizens."
However, Williams, says she doesn't support Arizona's new law because she believes it will lead to racial profiling.
The law still faces several pending legal challenges. The U.S. Justice Department also is reviewing the statute for possible civil rights violations, with an eye toward a possible court challenge.
The law's backers say Congress isn't doing anything meaningful about illegal immigration, and so it's the state's duty to step up. They deplore the social costs and violence they say are associated with illegal immigration.
The law's critics say it will lead to racial profiling and discrimination against Hispanics, and damage ties between police and minority communities.
As the debate plays out, dozens of healthcare clinics in central and southern Arizona say many of their Hispanic clients aren't showing up for scheduled appointments. They say they're either afraid to leave the house or they're moving away, said Tara McCollum Plese, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Association of Community Health Centers, which oversees 132 facilities.
"Some are actually calling the clinics and asking if it's safe to come, if they need papers," since the new law passed, she said.
Sick people avoiding treatment can become a public health problem, she said. "We're actually worried about communicable diseases."
If enough people stop going to the clinics, she said, some services could be cut, and some clinics, especially in rural areas, could be forced to close.
Schools may face laying off teachers and cutting programs because of fewer students, educators say.
Parents pulled 39 children out of Balsz Elementary, which has a 75 percent Hispanic student body, since April 23, the day the law was signed by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer. In the small, five-school district, parents have pulled out 111 children, said district Superintendent Jeffrey Smith, who cites the new law as the leading factor.
Smith said each student represents roughly $5,000 in annual funding to the district, so a drop of 111 students would represent roughly a $555,000 funding cut.
Many schools across Arizona have seen a steady decline in Hispanic students in recent years, although some district superintendents say the current drop is more dramatic. Schools attribute the declining numbers to the recession and to the state's employer-sanctions law, which passed in 2007 and carries license suspensions and revocations for those who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Area businesses also say they're seeing the effects of people leaving the state.
Steve Salvato, manager at the family-owned World Class Car Wash, just around the corner from Belleview Street, said business is down 30 percent. Salvato said the car wash relies mostly on Hispanic customers and points to the new law for the recent decline in business.
"A lot of people have just packed up and moved," he said, adding that a strip mall across the street used to be bustling on weekends. "Now it's like a ghost town."
A nearby Food City grocery store reports a 20 percent to 30 percent drop in business.
Back at the garage sale, the three friends have a row of tables strewn with Barbie dolls, bicycle helmets, old movies and a Jane Fonda workout video. A laundry basket is overflowing with children's toys, and a shopping cart is filled with clothes.
They are selling off pieces of their lives.
Their easy banter, mostly in Spanish, quickly turns to tears when they're asked about their impending separation. Ruiz and Suriano have pleaded with Arias to follow them to New Mexico.
"They're my companions," Suriano says of the other two women. "We do everything hand-in-hand."
Mexico asks court to reject AZ immigration law
by Associated Press (June 22nd, 2010 @ 4:36pm)
PHOENIX -- Mexico on Tuesday asked a federal court in Arizona to declare the state's new immigration law unconstitutional, arguing that the country's own interests and its citizens' rights are at stake.
Lawyers for Mexico submitted a legal brief in support of one of five lawsuits challenging the law. The law will take effect July 29 unless implementation is blocked by a court.
The law generally requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a ``reasonable suspicion'' they're in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state's streets.
Citing ``grave concerns,'' Mexico said its interest in having predictable, consistent relations with the United States shouldn't be frustrated by one U.S. state.
Mexico also said it has a legitimate interest in defending its citizens' rights and that the law would lead to racial profiling, hinder trade and tourism, and strain the countries' work on combatting drug trafficking and related violence.
``Mexican citizens will be afraid to visit Arizona for work or pleasure out of concern that they will be subject to unlawful police scrutiny and detention,'' the brief said.
It will be up to a U.S. District Court judge to decide whether to accept the brief along with similar ones submitted by various U.S. organizations.
A spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer did not immediately return a call for comment on Mexico's brief. Brewer, who signed the law on April 23 and changes to it on April 30, has lawyers defending it in court.
Brewer and other supporters of the bill say the law is intended to pressure illegal immigrants to leave the United States. They contend it is a needed response to federal inaction over what they say is a porous border and social problems caused by illegal immigration. They also argue that it has protections against racial profiling.
Mexican officials previously had voiced opposition to the Arizona law, with President Felipe Calderon saying June 8 that the law ``opens a Pandora's box of the worst abuses in the history of humanity'' by promoting racial profiling and potentially leading to an authoritarian society.
Calderon voiced similar criticism of the law during a May visit to Washington.
U.S. officials have said the Obama administration has serious concerns about the law and may challenge it in court. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton recently went further by saying a lawsuit is planned.
Arpaio anxious to enforce new law
by Jim Cross/KTAR (June 28th, 2010 @ 6:33am)
PHOENIX -- Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says he's looking forward to enforcing Arizona's tough new immigration law which takes effect July 29.
Arpaio has been under investigation by the federal government for 18 months for his enforcement of the state's employer sanctions law.
"For alleged racial profiling," Arpaio said. "I haven't heard anything yet, but that's not stopping me."
Arpaio has been arresting illegal immigrants for three years. The major change is that, under the new law, he can jail them instead of turning them over to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The sheriff said he plans to launch another of his crime suppression sweeps -- aimed at finding illegal immigrants working, possibly with stolen identification documents -- the minute the new law takes effect.
"I'm not going the day after. I'm going to do it the minute after midnight. I'm not going to wait until the day after," he said.
The new law requires local law enforcement officers to question the immigration status of any person they contact and have reasonable suspicion to believe is in the United States illegally.
cico7
06-28-2010, 08:28 AM
Ok, Ask everyone if they are here legally. That would eliminate profiling.
The law generally requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a ``reasonable suspicion'' they're in the country illegally.
Wait. Define "The law generally requires... ". Either the law requires it, or the law does not
require it.
Does the law allow or require the LEO to ask the question?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRjLX1O5Ln8http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRjLX1O5Ln8
Does the law allow or require the LEO to ask the question?
The law reads... "where reasonable suspicion exists that a person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when particable, to determine the immigration status of the person."
Obama meets with immigration activistsby Associated Press (June 28th, 2010 @ 1:52pm)
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is meeting with activists who are pressing him for action on immigration legislation and Arizona's tough new enforcement law.
The meeting Monday at the White House includes prominent labor leaders and Hispanic activist organizations, according to participating groups. It comes as Obama faces calls to move forward on comprehensive immigration legislation, something he's pledged to act on despite long odds of success.
Activists were also expecting an update on the administration's plans to challenge Arizona's contentious new law that requires police officers to question a person's immigration status if there's reason to suspect they're in the country illegally.
Obama is meeting Tuesday with Hispanic lawmakers.
ACLU issues travel warnings to Arizona (June 30th, 2010 @ 2:37pm)
By BOB CHRISTIE
Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX (AP) - The nation's top civil liberties group on Wednesday issued travel alerts for Arizona, saying the state's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants could lead to racial profiling and warrantless arrests.
American Civil Liberties Union affiliates in Arizona, New Mexico and 26 other states put out the warnings in advance of the Fourth of July weekend. The Arizona chapter has received reports that law enforcement officers are already targeting some people even though the law doesn't take effect until July 29, its executive director said.
The alerts are designed to teach people about their rights if police stop and question them.
The Arizona law requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally. It also makes it a state crime for legal immigrants to not carry their immigration documents and bans day laborers and people who seek their services from blocking traffic on streets.
Attorneys defending the law against constitutional challenges filed by the ACLU and others argue that the Legislature amended it to strengthen restrictions against using race as the basis for questioning by police. Five lawsuits are pending in federal court, and the U.S. Justice Department is believed to be preparing a legal challenge.
Despite the legislative action, the ACLU still believes that officers will inappropriately target minorities.
"We have a long history of racial profiling in this state, and this is basically going to really exacerbate that problem," said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the ACLU of Arizona.
The ACLU's warnings were accompanied by a "bust card" that citizens or non-citizens can print out or download to their mobile phone instructing them about their rights during encounters with police.
"There is a tremendous amount of misinformation out there about the law," Soler Meetze said. "It's a very complicated piece of legislation that gives police unprecedented powers to stop and question people about their identity and their citizenship. I think it is important for people to have this information easily accessible."
New Mexico's ACLU warned residents that their driver's license may not be accepted as proof that they are in the country legally. The state is one of four that still issues licenses to illegal immigrants.
Arizona's police training board is developing a video training program expected to be revealed Thursday for the state's 15,000 law officers. An outline of the training program said it will teach officers that race and ethnicity cannot be used as targets when enforcing the new illegal immigration law.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law in late April, setting off a firestorm of protests from immigrant rights supporters and an equally vociferous response from supporters of the state's efforts to tackle its illegal immigration problem.
A phone message and an e-mail seeking comment from the governor's office on the ACLU action wasn't immediately returned Wednesday.
Besides ACLU affiliates in Arizona and New Mexico, chapters in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming issued the alerts.
cico7
06-30-2010, 03:43 PM
ACLU "Bust Card"
IF YOU ARE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING:
Stay calm. Don't run. Don't argue, resist or obstruct the police, even if you are innocent or police are violating your rights. Keep your hands where police can see them.
Ask if you are free to leave. If the officer says yes, calmly and silently walk away. If you are under arrest, you have a right to know why.
You have the right to remain silent and cannot be punished for refusing to answer questions. If you wish to remain silent, tell the officer out loud. In some states, you must give your name if asked to identify yourself.
You do not have to consent to a search of yourself or your belongings, but police may "pat down" your clothing if they suspect a weapon. You should not physically resist, but you have the right to refuse consent for any further search. If you do consent, it can affect you later in court.
IF YOU ARE STOPPED IN YOUR CAR:
Stop the car in a safe place as quickly as possible. Turn off the car, turn on the internal light, open the window part way and place your hands on the wheel.
Upon request, show police your driver's license, registration and proof of insurance.
If an officer or immigration agent asks to look inside your car, you can refuse to consent to the search. But if police believe your car contains evidence of a crime, your car can be searched without your consent.
Both drivers and passengers have the right to remain silent. If you are a passenger, you can ask if you are free to leave. If the officer says yes, sit silently or calmly leave. Even if the officer says no, you have the right to remain silent.
ACLU Bust Card (http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform-immigrants-rights-racial-justice/know-your-rights-what-do-if-you)
There is more to it than this, see the rest of the article.
cico7
06-30-2010, 03:57 PM
Where is Arizona anyway? Isnt that near Iowa between Cuba and Puerto Rico state lines?
AZ to release immigration training plan for copsby Associated Press (July 1st, 2010 @ 5:57am)
PHOENIX - Arizona officials plan to release a training program Thursday designed to teach police officers to enforce a tough new crackdown on illegal immigration without racially profiling.
An hour-long video and supporting paperwork will be sent to all 170 Arizona police agencies and publicly released Thursday morning.
Officials released an outline for the video in May.
It will emphasize the importance of professionalism, ethics and integrity, as well as an officer's duty to protect civil rights, according to the outline.
Retired immigration agents also will describe how federal officers are trained to avoid racial profiling and the documents that immigrants are required to carry.
And officers will be taught how to contact federal immigration authorities or local officers certified by the federal government to determine someone's immigration status.
Gov. Jan Brewer ordered the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board to develop the training when she signed the law April 23.
Police bosses will decide the best way to teach their forces. But there is no requirement that all 15,000 Arizona police officers complete the training before the law takes effect July 29.
Opponents have challenged the measure as unconstitutional and have asked that a federal court block it from taking effect. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton plans to hear arguments on the request later this month.
Arizona's law generally requires police officers enforcing another law to question a person's immigration status if there's a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
It restricts the use of race, color or national origin as the basis for triggering immigration questions. But civil rights groups and some police officials argue that officers will still assume that illegal immigrants look Hispanic.
Arizona's law was passed in part with the lobbying muscle of unions representing rank-and-file police officers who argued that they should be allowed to arrest illegal immigrants they come across.
Judge sets hearing for new immigration lawby Associated Press (June 30th, 2010 @ 5:40pm)
PHOENIX - A federal judge set a July 15 for hearing arguments about whether she ought to block Arizona's new immigration law from taking effect.
A Phoenix police officer who filed one of the five challenges to the new law had asked U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton to hold a hearing on his preliminary injunction request before the law takes effect July 29.
Lawyers for the state say the challenges should be dismissed because the suits are based on mere speculation that the law will harm people and predict that the law will be found constitutional. The judge will also hear a request by the state to throw out the officer's lawsuit.
In another lawsuit challenging the law, Bolton set similar hearings for July 22.
Judge stops crucial parts of SB1070
by KTAR Newsroom and Associated Press (July 28th, 2010 @ 10:05pm)
PHOENIX -- A watered down version of what once was the nation's toughest immigration law will go into effect Thursday after a federal judge pulled most of the teeth in the law.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued an injunction Wednesday against certain provisions of the law that has been the subject of nationwide debate and boycotts.
The judge agreed with the U.S. Justice Department that certain parts of the law pre-empt powers reserved to the federal government in the Constitution.
Those included requiring that an officer pursue the immigration status of any person stopped if they have reasonable suspicion the person is in the United States illegally; making it a crime to fail to apply for or carry alien registration papers; making it a crime for an illegal immigrant to solicit, apply for or perform work; and allowing the arrest of a person for a crime that makes the person removable from the United States.
Other parts of the law will take effect Thursday.
Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law in May saying Arizona must act to secure the Arizona-Mexico border because the federal government has failed to do so, called Bolton's ruling a "bump in the road."
"This fight is far from over. In fact, it is just the beginning and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens," Brewer said.
The state planned to appeal Bolton's injunction to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, possibly later Wednesday.
The architect of the law, State Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, denounced Bolton's ruling.
"She ignored case law... We'll win on appeal," Pearce told News/Talk 92.3 KTAR's Bruce St. James.
Pearce said Bolton's ruling "is absolutely outside the law. She's inserted opinion here."
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat who is challenging Brewer this fall and who stepped away from defending the Arizona law in the courts, said he hoped the law still would send a message to the federal government to fix immigration laws.
"If you're going to say we can't do it, make sure that Congress and the Administration start doing their job," Goddard said.
Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, a Republican, echoed Goddard's sentiments.
"During this time, while the law is weaving its way through the court system, it is time for the federal government to deal with immigration reform," Romley said. "The federal government needs to clearly understand it has not just failed Arizona, but it has failed the rest of this nation."
Arizona's U.S. senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, said they were "deeply disappointed" with Bolton's ruling and disagreed with it. They also said the Obama Administration, instead of filing suit against Arizona, should have focused its efforts on working with Congress to resolve the immigration crisis.
"After this decision, it's even more important to implement our Ten Point Border Security plan to protect Arizonans and our country," McCain and Kyl said.
State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, assistant Democratic leader of the Arizona House, said Bolton made the right decision.
"Susan Bolton is a very pragmatic, common sense and a pretty conservative judge, not in the sense of fiscally conservative, but conservative in terms of interpreting the law," Sinema said. "So I think this is a very reasonable and expected outcome."
Bolton issued her ruling electronically from the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix, less than 14 hours before the law was to go into effect at midnight.
Still, security was tight around the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix where a few protesters showed up.
Federal law enforcement officers fanned out around the courthouse, some using mirrors to look under cars. Bomb-sniffing dogs roamed the area and street fences were in place as buffers between possible protesters and the courthouse.
The bomb squad was called in to check a suspicious backpack propped against the courthouse wall.
After the judge's ruling, U.S. Marshal David Gonzalez said police still were on high alert.
"We are monitoring all kinds of different threats and inappropriate communications to judges, to the U.S. attorney's office," Gonzalez said. "Nothing out of the ordinary, but we'll continue to monitor those and look into any one of those inappropriate communications."
Protesters climb crane in downtown Phoenix
by Associated Press (July 28th, 2010 @ 9:51pm)
PHOENIX - Four protesters demonstrating against Arizona's new immigration law have been arrested after scaling a 200-foot-high construction crane in downtown Phoenix to unfurl a banner.
A Phoenix Fire Department spokesman says the four people are experienced climbers and climbed the crane near Central Avenue and Jefferson Street about 6 p.m. Wednesday. Phoenix Fire Department personnel were standing by with rescue gear in case the climbers get stuck.
After they unfurled the protest banner, the four descended from the crane and were taken into custody by Phoenix police who say they likely will be charged with trespassing. The names of the protesters were not immediately released.
Arizona files appeal of SB1070 ruling
by Associated Press (July 29th, 2010 @ 1:08pm)
PHOENIX -- Arizona is appealing a federal judge's order that put most of the state's immigration law on hold.
The state's appeal, filed Thursday, asks the Ninth U.. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton's preliminary injunction so that all of the law can take effect.
Lawyers for Gov. Jan Brewer also asked that the appeal be considered quickly.
Bolton delayed the most contentious provisions of the law on Wednesday. Those included a section requiring officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws if there's a reasonable suspicion the person is in the United States illegally.
Brewer has said she will fight for the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.
SB1070 protesters, police face off in PHX
by Jim Cross/KTAR; Kevin Tripp/KTAR and Bob McClay/KTAR (July 29th, 2010 @ 1:15pm)
PHOENIX -- Police in riot gear confronted protesters to Arizona's immigration law who took to downtown Phoenix streets Thursday and tried to block the entrance to a county jail.
At least 45 people were arrested as the protesters flooded Washington Street between the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and Phoenix City Hall.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- who has taken a tough stance on illegal immigration -- said the protesters tried to block the sally port to his Fourth Avenue Jail. he vowed they would not be allowed to disrupt jail operations.
After arresting several people, deputies closed the doors to the vehicle entrance to the jail.
Protesters also blocked light rail tracks in the downtown area, forcing Valley metro to set up a shuttle train between Central Station and 12th Street.
Valley Metro's Howard Steer said passengers would deboard their trains at 12th street "and then we'll get them on a single train, whether they're continuing from 12th to the downtown core or vice versa headed eastbound."
Authorities said some of those arrested were professional demonstrators who wanted to be arrested. One man tried to hop on top of a police cruiser, and police pulled him down.
The protests came hours after a watered down SB1070 took effect. A federal injunction issued Wednesday blocked the most controversial parts of the law.
Among those arrested in the early hours of Thursday's demonstrations, before the street confrontation began, was former state lawmaker Alfredo Gutierrez.
Gutierrez, a one-time state senator turned immigrants rights activist, was busted by federal agents for trespassing when he walked onto the plaza outside the federal courthouse.
Police flooded the downtown area at daylight, anticipating possibly thousands of demonstrators, although a federal injunction blocked the most controversial parts of the law from taking effect.
Fourth Avenue was blocked off north of Washington Street and Third Avenue was lined with patrol units.
Officers were stationed around federal, county and city buildings in the area.
Police expected as many as 3,000 -- both supporters and opponents of SB1070 -- to gather in the area during the day. They include 11 busloads of protesters that left Los Angeles Thursday morning.
Several hundred people, waving U.S. and Mexican flags, gathered outside the sheriff's headquarters.
The Sheriff's office said had been told about a "Day of Non-compliance -- Jailhouse Rock" to disrupt jail operations and bookings.
"Not going to happen," said Arpaio. "These irresponsible individuals who plan to create so much congestion around the jail that we cannot accept prisoners will end up being prisoners themselves. My deputies will arrest them and put them in pink underwear, count on it."
As a security measure, Arpaio put the 1,400 inmates at the Fourth Avenue Jail under 24-hour lockdown and cancelled public visitation. Only legal visits were permitted.
The Sheriff's Office also said that extra security was ordered for Arpaio after federal investigators told him he again is the target of a million-dollar assassination contract by a Mexican drug cartel.
SB1070 took effect at midnight Wednesday although it was stripped of several provisions by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton, ruling on a challenge filed by the U.S. Justice Department. She agreed that some parts of SB1070 unconstitutionally usurped the federal government's authority over immigration enforcement.
About 100 people gathered at the state Capitol in the pre-dawn hours Thursday and marched to the Trinity Cathedral in downtown Phoenix.
Marchers wore shirts that said, "I ain't running any more," and "We will remember in November."
Carlos Velez from Tucson said, although a federal judge blocked the key pieces from taking effect, the issue is far from settled.
If it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, "I think people better realize that court's going to vote 5-4 for it -- not for the stay, but for supporting 1070," Velez said.
Raymond Rodiguez said he is relieved that the judge put a hold on key parts that anger the Latino community.
"I think a lot of people hopefully will be able to stay around as opposed to picking up and uprooting their children out of schools and moving out of state," Rodriguez said. "It will give them breathing room in being able to see what is the next step."
Both opponents and supporters of the law had planned demonstrations Thursday before Bolton issued the injunction against provisions which included requiring police to determine the immigration status of a person they stopped if there was reasonable suspicion that person was in the United States illegally. The state of Arizona planned to appeal Bolton's decision to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday.
LA immigration protesters rolling to Ariz.
by Associated Press (July 29th, 2010 @ 1:28pm)
LOS ANGELES - Hundreds of Southern Californians are rolling to Arizona Thursday morning to protest the state's new immigration law, a day after a federal judge put its key measures on hold.
Nearly a dozen chartered carrying immigrant-rights activists left Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for the ride to Phoenix.
The new law taking effect Thursday was designed to crack down on illegal immigration but critics say it encourages racism against Hispanics.
A federal judge in Phoenix on Wednesday issued a temporary injunction delaying the most contentious provisions, including a requirement that immigrants carry their papers and that police check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.
Arizona's governor says she'll appeal the ruling.
Protesters delay immigration sweep
by Associated Press (July 29th, 2010 @ 1:43pm)
PHOENIX -- Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio delayed the start of his 17th immigration and crime sweep by four hours Thursday because deputies assigned to the patrols were needed outside a downtown jail where hundreds of immigrant rights supporters were rallying.
News of protesters blocking the jail's entrance prompted Arpaio to interrupt a press conference that was intended to kick off the sweep.
Arpaio was heard telling a sheriff's official in a phone call to arrest anyone who resists his deputies.
He said the sweep will definitely be launched in the late afternoon.
The protesters were rallying in opposition to Arizona's new immigration law.
A judge put the most controversial elements of the law on hold, but allowed other portions to take effect.
Most protesters not from Arizona
by KTAR Newsroom (July 29th, 2010 @ 6:21pm)
PHOENIX - Watching television, you'd think thousands of Arizonans have flooded streets to protest SB 1070. But, the reality is most of those caught by TV cameras are from somewhere else. And, many of them are union workers.
Nearly a dozen chartered carrying immigrant-rights activists left Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles for the ride to Phoenix. The buses carried nearly 600 union members.
Several of those arrested in downtown Phoenix Thursday morning were from churches in Colorado and elsewhere.
KTAR reporters talked to dozens of those participating in civil disobedience and we asked them where they were from. The reporters heard cities like Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and Denver.
The new law taking effect Thursday was designed to crack down on illegal immigration but critics say it encourages racism against Hispanics.
Lakesha Harrison says she has heard about the raids and families being torn apart, saying it is not American.
"This is a land of immigrants and everybody here should be welcomed as immigrants and should be helped to figure out a way to become U.S. Citizens," she said.
A federal judge in Phoenix on Wednesday issued a temporary injunction delaying the most contentious provisions, including a requirement that immigrants carry their papers and that police check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.
Arizona's governor says she'll appeal the ruling.
TN lawmakers hail Arizona immigration law
by Associated Press (July 30th, 2010 @ 6:36pm)
PHOENIX - A delegation of Republican legislators from Tennessee visited their Arizona counterparts Friday, hailing Arizona's immigration law and saying they plan a version of their own.
The Tennessee lawmakers meet with backers of the Arizona law before presenting its chief sponsor, Sen. Russell Pearce, with a Tennessee resolution commending Arizona for its work.
Sen. Bill Ketron of Murfreesboro says the Tennessee version being drafted for consideration in 2011 will use the Arizona law as a starting point but be broader. He didn't provide specifics.
Rep. Joe Carr of Lascassas says work on the Tennessee legislation won't be paused because of a federal judge's order Wednesday blocking implementation of parts of it one day before the rest took effect.
Arizona finds itself in the news and in song
by KTAR Newsroom (July 30th, 2010 @ 2:53pm)
PHOENIX - While bashing Arizona has been a popular pastime among musicians lately, one has taken to Youtube to defend the state - sort of.
Comedian Brian Haner has a song on the site called Arizona, a three minute ditty talking about the state's tough immigration laws.
"I'm going to move to Arizona where they enforce the law," he proclaims in an early verse.
Haner comments on finding jobs in the food industry, cleaning dishes and serving meals.
"Don't be surprised when I take your order and I speak English as good as you," he proclaims.
In the video Haner is seen tricking a police officer and avoiding a ticket, and also takes mild shots at President Obama and his administration.
"The guy we elected won fair and square, we've got no one to blame but ourselves," he sings, "but we can change all that when we vote in 2012."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKFuYykPSxI&feature=player_embedded
Lady GaGa rambles against SB1070
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUHaZvRvGqU&feature=related
SB1070 protesters desecrate US flag
by KTAR.com (August 2nd, 2010 @ 2:30pm)
Last week's SB1070 protest brought people to Phoenix from across the country, including immigrant-rights activists bussed in from California.
What were they doing in Phoenix?
Some were desecrating the U.S. flag during the national anthem. Messages spray-painted onto the flag included: "Impeach Brewer" and "Deport Arpaio."
WATCH the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93Ka7y8XrPc&feature=player_embedded
A watered-down version of Arizona's controversial new immigration law went into effect last Thursday after a federal judge put most of it on hold.
Arizona has appealed, with Gov. Jan Brewer saying, "the citizens of Arizona are suffering irreparable harm in terms of their health, safety and welfare every day that the injunction remains in force."
Trace Adkins Tells Crowd to 'Blow' Him If They Don't Like Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Posted by Adam Borowitz on Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 1:34 PM
The Phoenix New Times reports that Trace Adkins shared a few words about SB 1070 at his concert in Phoenix last night:
Well, it looks like Lady Gaga's not the only one who can't keep her mouth shut about political issues during concerts. At last night's Toby Keith show at Cricket Wireless Pavilion in Phoenix, Trace Adkins decided to let the Valley know just how he weighed in on the whole SB 1070 issue. He not only expressed his support for the controversial immigration law, but he also told anyone who doesn't like Sheriff Joe Arpaio to blow him.
Idaho's gov backs Ariz. in immigration lawsuit
by Associated Press (September 3rd, 2010 @ 1:45pm)
BOISE, Idaho - Idaho is backing Arizona's law meant to curb illegal immigration.
Gov. C.L. ``Butch'' Otter said Friday he's filed a court brief backing Arizona's appeal with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Otter says states should be able to concurrently enforce federal immigration laws, provided they don't create new categories of aliens.
Arizona's law would generally require officers enforcing other measures to check immigration status of people they suspect are illegal immigrants.
There are several lawsuits challenging the measure, including cases filed by the U.S. Justice of Department and civil rights groups.
In July, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton put key parts of Arizona's law on hold.
Idaho says it is now among 11 states that have joined in an appeal of Bolton's ruling filed by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.
Wyo. Man Donates $1.5M to Defend Immigration Law
Updated: Thursday, 02 Sep 2010, 7:23 PM MDT
Published : Thursday, 02 Sep 2010, 7:23 PM MDT
JONATHAN J. COOPER & PAUL DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writers
PHOENIX (AP) — A Wyoming man has given more than $1.5 million to help defend Arizona's controversial immigration enforcement measure in court, Gov. Jan Brewer's office said Thursday.
The contribution from Timothy Mellon of Saratoga is the largest to Brewer's defense fund, which has amassed more than $3.6 million from 41,000 donors nationwide. Mellon could not immediately be reached for comment.
Mellon's Aug. 18 donation was 300 times more than the next-largest contribution of $5,000 — an amount donated by at least four people, records show.
The latest legal bills released Thursday show Brewer's office has spent more than $440,000 for the first two months of defending the law.
The bills, obtained through a public records request by The Associated Press, are for work performed through June by Phoenix law firm Snell & Wilmer. They do not cover July hearings in federal court before a judge Susan Bolton temporarily blocked enforcement of the law's most controversial provisions.
Brewer has appealed Bolton's order to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Her office is defending the state against seven lawsuits challenging Arizona's law, including cases filed by the U.S. Justice of Department, civil rights groups and two police officers.
Bolton has dismissed two of the cases.
"The fees incurred have been, and will continue to be, sizeable," Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman said, noting there have been more than 900 legal filings totaling more than 12,000 pages.
The invoices are heavily redacted and don't reveal details about the state's defense strategy or lawyers' thoughts. They show Snell & Wilmer attorneys in frequent contact with the governor's in-house lawyer and occasionally talking with Kris Kobach, a law professor who helped draft the measure and is running for secretary of state in Kansas.
Attorneys met with Brewer and state Sen. Russell Pearce, the measure's chief sponsor, on June 10.
In June, lawyers billed the state between $225 and $450 per hour for more than 1,100 hours of work at a cost of $363,000.
That work follows $77,000 for 241 hours of work in the last 12 days of May.
Arizona's law would generally require officers enforcing other measures to check the immigration status of people they suspect are illegal immigrants.
Border Security & Immigration Defense Fund: keepazsafe.com
States file brief supporting Arizona immigration law
by Associated Press (September 4th, 2010 @ 9:34am)
PHOENIX — Nearly a dozen states have filed a legal brief in support of Arizona's controversial immigration law.
A"friend of the court" brief filed with the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday argues that a federal judge was wrong to block implementation of key provisions of the law.
The brief submitted by Michigan Attorney General Michael Cox argues that the judge used the wrong legal standard to rule on the U.S. Justice Department's request for a preliminary injunction.
It also says the judge erred in ruling that the law interferes with the executive branch's immigration enforcement priorities.
Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Virginia joined in the filing.
Florida drafts 'Arizona-style' immigration bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0FwW3nrKLU
11 countries want to chime in on immigration lawby Associated Press (October 5th, 2010 @ 8:49am)
PHOENIX - Mexico and 10 other Latin American countries want an appeals court to consider their viewpoints in an appeal of a ruling that put parts of Arizona's new immigration law on hold.
The countries are asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for permission to file brief-of-the-court briefs in Gov. Jan Brewer's appeal of the ruling.
The 11 countries say they have an interest in ensuring they have reliable relations with the United States that aren't frustrated by Arizona.
Mexico is joined in the request by Argentina, Boliva, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru.
Supporters of the law say it's intended to confront the state's vast illegal immigration woes that Washington is confronting adequately.
SB1070 opponents ask to intervene in appealby Associated Press (October 5th, 2010 @ 8:55am)
PHOENIX -- Groups that challenged Arizona's new immigration law are asking a federal appeals court to let them file friend-of-the-court briefs in an appeal of a ruling that put parts of the law on hold.
Civil rights groups, a Phoenix police officer, a Latino clergy group and others asked for permission to make filings that will urge the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to uphold the ruling.
Gov. Jan Brewer is appealing the ruling that arose from the U.S. Justice Department's challenge to the law.
The groups seeking to file the briefs include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Brewer to be at CA court hearing on election eve
by KTAR.com (October 26th, 2010 @ 1:20pm)
PHOENIX -- A fund created by Gov. Jan Brewer to defend Arizona's new immigration law against legal challenges now exceeds $1 million, with a hearing scheduled Monday before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
The largest donation to the fund is $1.5 million from Timothy Mellon, an heir to a Pittsburgh steel and banking industry, according to FOX 10 News.
FOX 10 says more than 42,000 people have contributed to the fund. Most donations are between $20 and $100 and mainly from Arizona, California, Texas, Florida and New York. People from all 50 states and the District of Columbia have contributed.
So far, Arizona has paid more than $441,000 in legal fees to defend the law, known as Senate Bill 1070 before it was signed into law by Brewer.
U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued an injunction blocking key portions of the law from taking effect in July. Among the provisions put on hold was one that allowed police to arrest and detain suspected illegal immigrants without a warrant and another that would require immigrants to carry federal documents to prove they were in the U.S. legally.
Although Monday is the day before the general election, Brewer plans to attend the 9th Circuit hearing.
The Republican -- who moved into the governor's chair two years ago when Janet Napolitano became Homeland Security secretary -- is seeking her first full term and holds a comfortable lead over Democrat Terry Goddard in most polls.
Arizona asks 9th Circuit to restore SB1070
by KTAR.com (November 1st, 2010 @ 8:23am)
SAN FRANCISCO -- A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was poised to hear arguments Monday that a federal judge's ruling, striking down key parts of Arizona's immigration law, should be overturned.
The July ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton of Phoenix is being appealed by Gov. Jan Brewer and the state of Arizona.
The rejected provisions of Senate Bill 1070, the immigration law, include a requirement that police, while enforcing other laws, must question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.
ABC legal analyst Royal Oakes said no ruling would come from the 9th Circuit on Monday.
"The decision will not emerge immediately. The judges will take some time -- days or weeks -- to issue their written decision."
Neither Brewer nor the author of SB1070, State Sen. Russell Pearce, were optimistic about getting their way before the three-judge panel.
"This is not a great panel," said Pearce. "I guess it could have been worse, I'm not so sure. It's got two guys on here that you can almost guess their ruling, but we'll win in the United States Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision."
Brewer said, "I think we have a very good solid case. The fact is we know the 9th Circuit is a liberal court that we're headed into."
However, Arizona State University law professor Paul Bender told FOX 10 News that the state's chances would rest with the three judges, picked at random from the 23 judges on the 9th Circuit.
"I hate to say this, but I think it's true. It all depends on the panel," Bender said. "The 9th Circuit has some extremely conservative judges, it has some extremely liberal judges. It's the whole spectrum."
The names of the judges chosen to hear the case were released over the weekend. They are Judge John Noonan, nominated to the court by President Ronald Reagan; Judge Carlos Bea, nominated by President George W. Bush; and Judge Richard Paez, nominated by President Bill Clinton.
If the three-judge panel rules against Arizona, the state could request that the full 9th Circuit hear its appeal. The next stop would be the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oakes said SB1070 would have a better chance at the high court level, provided the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
"You often get 5-4 conservative decisions as opposed to their chances before the 9th Circuit which has a reputation for being more liberal than the U.S. Supreme Court."
Brewer traveled to San Francisco to attend Monday's court hearing -- a trip that didn't set well with Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat who is challenging the Republican governor in Tuesday's election.
"This is pure grandstanding," Goddard said. "The governor has no role whatsoever in this hearing. It is to try to determine whether the injunction was properly granted."
Goddard's office stepped down and allowed Brewer to hire her own attorneys for the appeal on SB1070. Goddard had said that, while he did not agree with the law, he would have defended it vigorously. However, he said he stepped out of the case because there was enough controversy about SB1070.
Brewer, on Fox News, questioned what the federal government will do as more states pass their own versions of SB1070.
"Are they going to sue those states and their governors? Are they going to have 22 states that they're suing? It's unbelievable."
Pearce vented his anger at the Obama Administration.
"They sued Sheriff Joe (Arpaio), they sued us over 1070. This is the first time, the first time in the history of the United States a sitting president has sighted with a foreign government to serve the citizens of this country," Pearce said.
He said Arizona has a right and obligation to protect its border.
"We have an obligation. States have an obligation to their citizens. We're citizens of our sovereign states, not of the United States. Every state is guaranteed a sovereign form of government."
New ID law in Arizona stirs worries for immigrants
Consulate-issued cards will not be recognized
by Alia Beard Rau - May. 31, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Amid the controversial illegal-immigration measures that failed to win enough legislative support this year, one smaller bill did pass.
Starting July 20, state and local government entities no longer can recognize photo-ID cards issued by foreign consulates. The cards often are the sole form of photo identification for individuals living in another country who do not have a passport or a local driver's license.
Some state lawmakers have been trying to pass the law for years as part of a larger push to keep illegal immigrants out of Arizona. They say the ID cards are too easy to fraudulently attain and give the inaccurate impression that all cardholders are in the country legally.
Immigrant-advocacy groups worry the new law will leave some immigrants without a form of identification and further dissuade them from reporting crimes to law enforcement.
The law, Senate Bill 1465, further distinguishes Arizona in its stance on illegal immigration.
More than 30 states accept the cards as a legitimate form of photo identification for citizens of other countries.
In past years, several Arizona city councils, including Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Chandler and Mesa, have voted to officially accept the cards.
Sometimes called "matricula consular" cards, the IDs are issued by some foreign governments to their citizens living, both legally and illegally, in another country. The cards show in which country individuals hold citizenship as well as their U.S. residential address. Cardholders use them to open bank accounts, set up utility services, acquire library cards and, to varying degrees, prove their identity to law enforcement.
In Arizona and the United States, the Mexican Consulate is the dominant distributor of the cards. According to a 2005 congressional report, more than 4 million Mexican consular ID cards have been issued in the United States.
Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, who sponsored SB 1465, said the law stemmed from concern that the Mexican government does not adequately verify the identity of individuals before issuing them a card.
"This is not a secure method of ID," Gould said.
He said if the Mexican government wants to provide a secure form of identification for its citizens living in the U.S., it can do so with a passport.
The Mexican Consulate's office in Arizona disputed that the cards are not secure and could be fraudulently acquired. Spokeswoman Socorro Córdova said in an e-mail that the cards are issued "solely upon a rigorous confirmation of nationality, local residence and identity."
Arizona lawmakers have been trying to get the law passed for nearly a decade. In 2005, it passed the Legislature but was vetoed by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano. Among the reasons listed in her veto letter was concern that it could push foreign nationals to illegally acquire other forms of identification, including forged Social Security cards.
The new law will not affect immigrants' ability to use the cards at private businesses. For example, many banks accept the card as adequate identification to set up an account. The law would forbid, for example, a city from accepting a consular ID card as the only required identification to get a library card or a police officer accepting the card as an official means of identification during an investigation.
Phoenix intergovernmental liaison John Wayne Gonzales said that the cards sometimes are accepted as one of several documents someone may provide to verify identity but that they are not accepted as a primary source of identification.
"Police may look at them if they are available but will not use them as a source of official identification," Gonzales said.
Phoenix Sgt. Tommy Thompson said the new law will have little impact on law enforcement or how police deal with immigrants.
Immigrants are concerned.
"People need a way to identify themselves in order to report crime when they are a victim or witness, and they were accustomed to using (consular) ID," said Connie Andersen, a member of the Valley Interfaith Project, an organization of churches, schools and non-profit agencies. "This tells them they have to put that away. Some people don't have alternative forms of ID. Now, they're not sure what to do."
She said the new law is giving immigrants more reason to avoid law enforcement, even to report a crime.
Some immigrants, she said, have misunderstood the law and now think it is a crime to carry the cards.
Indiana this year passed a law that does make it illegal to use cards issued by foreign consulates. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit challenging that law.
No legal challenges have yet been filed against Arizona's law.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/05/31/20110531arizona-immigration-consulate-id-cards.html#ixzz1NxoITK1F
Brewer chooses attorney for SB1070 appeal
by KTAR.com (June 6th, 2011 @ 11:31am)
PHOENIX -- Gov. Jan Brewer has chosen attorney Paul D. Clement as legal counsel for the appeal of Senate Bill 1070 to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Clement was solicitor general under President George W. Bush.
"Mr. Clement has an impeccable nationwide reputation for his expertise in appellate and constitutional litigation," Brewer said Monday. "He is well-suited to lead our excellent legal team as we advance Arizona's appeal to the Supreme Court."
She added, "Mr. Clement has argued some of our nation's most significant legal cases, and I'm extremely confident in his abilities. I'm optimistic the Supreme Court will choose to hear our defense of SB1070 and certain that Mr. Clement will serve the state of Arizona well."
Arizona plans to ask the Supreme Court to lift an injunction that prevents major parts of SB1070, aimed at curbing illegal immigration, from taking effect. The injunction was issued by a federal judge in Phoenix and upheld by a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Clement is a partner at Bancroft PLLC in Washington, D.C. He is regarded as one of the nation's premier attorneys in practing before the Supreme Court.
Alabama gov signs tough illegal immigration law
by Associated Press (June 9th, 2011 @ 9:00am)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama's governor on Thursday signed a tough new illegal immigration crackdown that contains provisions requiring public schools to determine students' immigration status and making it a crime to knowingly give an illegal immigrant a ride.
The bill also allows police to arrest anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant if they're stopped for any other reason. Alabama employers also are now required to use a federal system called E-Verify to determine if new workers are in the country legally.
Gov. Robert Bentley said the law is the nation's toughest, and groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center agree. The groups say they plan to challenge it.
The legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, Mary Bauer, said Thursday that she expects a lawsuit to be filed before the provisions of law are scheduled to take effect on Sept. 1.
``It is clearly unconstitutional. It's mean-spirited, racist and we think a court will enjoin it,'' Bauer said.
Bentley, who campaigned on passing the toughest anti-illegal immigration bill possible, said he believes the measure can withstand legal challenges.
The House sponsor, Republican Rep. Micky Hammon of Decatur, said the bill was written so that if any part of it is determined to be unconstitutional or violate federal law, the rest will stand.
Alabama's measure was modeled on a similar law passed in Arizona. A federal judge blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's law last year after the Justice Department sued. A federal appeals court judge upheld the decision, and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has said she plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Neighboring Georgia also passed a law cracking down on immigration this year, and civil liberties groups have filed a lawsuit trying to block it.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court will referee another major clash between the Obama administration and the states, this one over Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants. The case could add fuel to the partisan split over tough state immigration laws backed by Republicans but challenged by the administration.
Like last month's arguments over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, the immigration case is expected to be decided at the end of June.
Wednesday's arguments will focus on whether states can adopt their own immigration measures to deal with an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants, or whether the federal government has almost exclusive authority in the area of immigration.
Arizona was the first of a half-dozen states to enact laws intended to drive illegal immigrants elsewhere, a policy known as "attrition by enforcement." Even where blocked by courts, these laws have already had an impact on farm fields and school classrooms as fewer immigrants showed up.
"If the federal government had been doing and would continue to do its job in securing the border here in southern Arizona, this would not be an issue. Unfortunately, they failed to do that so Arizona stepped up and said, `We want to be partners. Here's a role we think we can play,'" said Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, which shares an 83.5-mile border with Mexico in the state's southeastern corner.
The administration says it has both increased border enforcement to keep people from entering illegally in the first place and picked up the pace of deportations. In its first two years, the administration deported nearly 800,000 people, far higher on a yearly basis than President George W. Bush's administration.
The Obama administration sued to block the Arizona law soon after its enactment two years ago. Federal courts have refused to let four key provisions take effect: requiring police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person's immigration status if officers suspect he is in the country illegally; requiring all immigrants to obtain or carry immigration registration papers; making it a state criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to seek work or hold a job and allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without warrants.
Five states- Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah- have adopted variations on Arizona's law. Parts of those laws also are on hold pending the outcome of the Supreme Court case.
Civil rights groups that mounted legal challenges independent of the administration's say the laws encourage racial profiling and ethnic stereotyping. "It blurs what used to be a very bright line, that you can't stop someone and ask for papers based just on how they look," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. "But the impact is on citizens as much as immigrants. It's a dragnet approach that sweeps up law-abiding American citizens based on the color of their skin or ethnic origins."
And the state laws already have had a marked effect on people's behavior, whether or not the laws ever went into force, the groups say.
In some states, crops rotted in fields for want of workers to pick them. In Alabama, where a provision required schools to check student's citizenship status, more than 2,000 students stayed home the first week the law was in effect, said Karen Tumlin, managing attorney for the National Immigration Law Center. Foreign employees, including a German Mercedes-Benz executive, have been detained or ticketed for not carrying immigration documents.
In Arizona, around the time Gov. Jan Brewer signed the immigration law, lifelong Arizona resident Jim Shee twice confronted police officers who came to his car window asking to see his "papers."
Shee, 72, is of Chinese and Spanish descent. "I'm not blond-haired and blue-eyed. My grandkids aren't blond-haired and blue-eyed. I don't want to see this happening to them," Shee said.
He has joined a lawsuit filed by a coalition of civil rights groups. The suit is on hold until the high court renders a decision.
Shee said he carries his passport in case he gets stopped again.
The number of illegal immigrants in Arizona has declined by about a third in recent years, from 530,000 in 2007 to 360,000 in 2011, according to federal government estimates.
Experts have attributed the decrease to several factors, including the economic downturn, tighter border security and state immigration laws. A 2007 Arizona law, allowed to take effect last year by the Supreme Court, prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
But in Arizona and elsewhere, the appetite for new immigration measures appears to have waned, in part because business leaders have objected. Arizona voters ousted Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, the architect of the 2010 law and the driving force behind other Arizona immigration laws, in a November recall election.
"There has been a great deal of buyer's remorse in those states that have enacted Arizona-type legislation," the ACLU's Romero said.
The high court decision will land in the middle of a presidential campaign in which Obama has been heavily courting Latino voters and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney has been struggling to win Latino support after a drawn-out primary campaign in which he and the other GOP candidates mostly embraced a hard line to avoid accusations that they support any kind of "amnesty" for illegal immigrants living in the U.S.
Justice Elena Kagan sat out last year's case and also will not take part in the new immigration case, presumably because of her work in the Obama administration. The court's conservative majority held sway in last year's 5-3 decision.
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Associated Press writer Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed to this story.
WASHINGTON —U.S. Supreme Court justices strongly suggested they would uphold a provision in Arizona's tough immigration law that tells police to check whether people they stop for some other reason are in this country legally.
But several justices also suggested they were troubled by parts of the law that would make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work or not to carry immigration documents.
The hourlong oral arguments Wednesday pointed toward a possible split decision: a partial victory for Arizona that would revive its first-in-the-nation state crackdown on illegal immigrants but weaken the impact of its law.
The Obama administration won lower court rulings that blocked Arizona's law on the grounds that it conflicted with the federal government's control over immigration. But U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald B. Verrilli Jr. ran into steadily skeptical questions from the justices, both liberal and conservative.
Chief JusticeJohn G. Roberts Jr.said he saw no problem with Arizona's police checking with federal immigration officials once someone has been lawfully stopped. "What could possibly be wrong if Arizona arrests someone, let's say for drunk driving … and the arresting officer says, 'I'm going to call the federal agency and find out if this person is here illegally'?"
Verrilli repeatedly said the federal power over immigration was "exclusive" and did not allow any role for the states and police.
But the chief justice said the decision on whether to detain or deport an illegal immigrant still would rest with the federal government, not Arizona. "It's still your decision," he told Verrilli. "It seems to me the federal government just doesn't want to know who is here illegally."
The court's conservatives weren't the only ones who seemed untroubled by the police provision.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by President Obama, asked several questions about it, but seemed satisfied that it need not have harsh consequences.
"What happens in this call to the federal government? 'Yes, he's an illegal alien. No, we don't want to detain him'?" she asked, voicing the words of a hypothetical federal agent.
"The answer is nothing. The individual at this point is released," said Paul D. Clement, Arizona's attorney.
Verrilli was expected to argue that the stop-and-arrest provision, if put into effect, would lead to the harassment and intimidation of Latinos. He said Arizona has 2 million Latino residents, of whom perhaps 400,000 may be illegal immigrants. But before he could deliver his opening comments, the chief justice cut him off: "No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it?"
"That's correct," Verrilli replied.
Roberts said the court would consider only concerns over state-versus-federal power, not civil rights issues that are the subject of other lawsuits.
While Clement, a solicitor general underPresidentGeorge W. Bush, made his argument with few interruptions, Verrilli was stopped repeatedly by justices, just as he was last month during oral arguments over Obama's healthcare law.
"I'm sorry.… I'm terribly confused by your answer," Sotomayor said at one point. "Your argument — that this systematic cooperation is wrong — is not selling very well. Why don't you try to come up with something else?"
JusticeStephen G. Breyeralso said he did not see a problem if "all that happens is a policeman makes a phone call.… I'm not clear what your answer is to that," he told Verrilli.
When Verrilli said the law could lead to "mass incarceration," JusticeAnthony M. Kennedysnapped, "So you're saying the government has a legitimate interest in not enforcing its laws?"
When the solicitor general said the "aggressive enforcement" of immigration laws could offend Mexico, Justice Antonin Scalia objected. "Look, free them from the jails and send them back to the countries that are objecting. What's the problem with that?"
Verrilli replied that U.S. officials needed to work cooperatively with Mexico.
"So we have to enforce our laws in a manner that will please Mexico? Is that what you are saying?" Scalia asked.
Scalia went further than some of the other conservatives, saying a sovereign state had the authority to "defend its borders" and arrest people "who do not belong in the country."
The justices spent far less time on the other parts of Arizona's SB 1070, including provisions that make it a state crime for illegal immigrants to seek work or to be caught without immigration papers.
But Roberts and Kennedy said several times that those provisions were different, appearing to go beyond federal law to create separate state immigration crimes. If the high court were to block those provisions, Arizona would not have the authority to arrest illegal immigrants and keep them in jail.
Critics of the Arizona law predict it will lead to discrimination against Latinos if police are authorized to question motorists and pedestrians about their immigration status. It will "cause intolerable harassment and lengthy detentions," Lucas Guttentag, who teaches immigration law at Yale University and Stanford University, said after the oral arguments.
If the high court were to revive the stop-and-arrest provisions, Arizona could move to enforce the law.
But it would not end the legal battle. Civil rights and civil liberties groups are challenging the measure on different grounds from the Obama administration, saying it would lead to racial profiling and harassment of Latino residents and violate their civil rights.
Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals put on hold four parts of the Arizona law, which was passed in 2010. Elsewhere, judges have blocked parts of similar laws in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Indiana and Utah, awaiting a ruling from the high court.
Only eight justices will rule on the case, probably in late June. Justice Elena Kagan, who preceded Verrilli as the Obama administration's solicitor general, stepped aside, probably because she worked on the case before joining the Supreme Court. A 4-4 tie would preserve the 9th Circuit's ruling.
PHOENIX (AP) - The United States could see an official about-face in the coming months in how it confronts illegal immigration.
Supreme Court justices, weighing arguments over Arizona's tough immigration law, seemed to find little problem Wednesday with provisions that require police to check the legal status of people they stop for other reasons.
Over the last several years, states frustrated with the country's porous borders have rejected the long-held notion that Washington is responsible for confronting illegal immigration. They passed laws to enable local police to address the problem.
If the court upholds those parts of Arizona's law, the ruling would codify that type of local enforcement and open the door to such tactics in states with similar laws, such as Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah.
"I think you'll see more involvement by local police in immigration enforcement, an involvement that hadn't previously been seen," said Kevin Johnson, law school dean at the University of California-Davis and an immigration law expert.
A federal judge put parts of the Arizona law on hold shortly before they were to take effect in July 2010. Other states followed with similar legislation and- combined with other state immigration laws and an ailing economy- played a part in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants moving elsewhere.
"If you want to turn around this invasion, then (you should) do attrition through enforcement," said former state Sen. Russell Pearce, architect of the 2010 law and the driving force behind other Arizona immigration laws.
Arizona has argued it pays a disproportionate price for illegal immigration because of its 370-mile border with Mexico and its role as the busiest illegal entry point into the country.
The Obama administration said the law conflicts with a more nuanced federal immigration policy that seeks to balance national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, human rights and the rights of law-abiding citizens and immigrants.
During arguments over the law, liberal and conservative justices reacted skeptically to the administration's argument that the state exceeded its authority when it made the records check, and another provision allowing suspected illegal immigrants to be arrested without a warrant.
Civil rights groups say Arizona's and the other states' measures encourage racial profiling and ethnic stereotyping.
Immigrant rights advocates, who believed the courts would reject attempts by states to grab more law enforcement power, were not expecting the justices' response. They said a Supreme Court validation of the law would frighten immigrants further and cause Latinos who are in the country legally to be asked about their status.
"The crisis here in Arizona would only multiply," said Carlos Garcia, organizer of an immigration march that drew several hundred people in downtown Phoenix on Wednesday. Authorities said at least nine people were arrested for blocking a street and refusing to move.
"It would mean that anyone, as they are leaving their home- whether they are going to work, to church, wherever they are going- could be asked for their documents," he said.
The court's comments surprised state officials and had, thus far, lost all major court battles over the law.
Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, whose office has helped defend the law, predicted the court will uphold the law because many of its provisions mirror existing federal laws. He said a year from now the state will see even less illegal immigration.
"You won't see anything that noticeable as far as law enforcement goes," Horne said. "But you will see less people sneaking across the border."
It was unclear what the court would do with other aspects of the law that have been put on hold by lower federal courts. The other blocked provisions make it a state crime for immigrants not to have immigration registration papers and for illegal immigrants to seek work or hold a job.
Peter Spiro, a Tempe University law professor who specializes in immigration law, predicted the court would uphold the police check of immigration status in Arizona's law, but said he wouldn't be surprised if the court threw out a provision making it a crime to be without immigration documents.
Such a ruling would let police question people about their immigration status if they have good reason to do so, but police would have to call federal authorities to see if they would want to pick up anyone found to be in the country illegally. If federal agents decline, officers would have to release the person, unless they were suspected of committing crimes, Spiro said.
If that happened, the law would be mostly symbolic, but would still carry some significance for immigrants, Spiro said. "It would make it clear that Arizona is unfriendly to undocumented aliens," Spiro said.
A decision in the case is expected in late June.
May 7, 2012
(Tempe, AZ) Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio says his deputies
conducted the 60th employer sanction/identity theft operation this
morning.
A tip was received from a source that employees were using forged
social security numbers for employment at Interior Solutions located
in the 400 block of West Fairmont Drive in Tempe. The complainant
also stated that they had a conversation with the owner about the
forged identities and no action was taken. Sheriff’s deputies arrested 4
suspects today and are facing charges of identity theft and believed to
be illegal aliens. The investigation is continuing.
Recently three raids were conducted on businesses resulting in the
arrests of 40 illegal aliens by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
The majority were using false identification. The total number of
arrests in employer sanction/identity theft cases now stands at 627.
In the previous 59 employer sanctions/identity theft operations, 100%
of all suspects found to be committing identity theft to gain
employment were illegal aliens.
Arpaio says his office continues to enforce all aspects of the illegal
immigration laws.
Arpaio stresses that one of the benefits of these employer
sanctions/identity theft operations is that they open up job
opportunities for legal citizens.
brendon
05-29-2012, 06:27 PM
Arpaio stresses that one of the benefits of these employer
sanctions/identity theft operations is that they open up job
opportunities for legal citizens.
That right there says it all.
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