Arizona's Immigration law: SB 1070 & HB 2162

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Florida drafts 'Arizona-style' immigration bill

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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/articl...#ixzz1NxoITK1F

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.