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1. SCOTUS to rule on birth-right
2. AZ to consider enforcement bill
3. CNMI Gov. signs immigration bill
4. AL city consults prominent hawk
5. Former DHS official convicted

1.
Justices to Weigh Law on Gaining Citizenship via Parents
By Adam Liptak
The New York Times, March 22, 2010

Washington, DC -- The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide if mothers and fathers may be treated differently in determining whether their children may claim American citizenship.

The case involves Ruben Flores-Villar, who was born in Tijuana, Mexico, but was raised by his father and grandmother, both American citizens, in San Diego. His mother was Mexican, and his parents were not married.

Mr. Flores-Villar tried to avoid deportation by claiming American citizenship. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, rejected that claim under a law that spelled out different requirements for mothers and fathers whose children were born abroad and out of wedlock to a partner who was not an American citizen.

The law, since amended, allowed fathers to transmit citizenship to their children only if the fathers had lived in the United States before the child was born for a total of 10 years, five of them after age 14. Mothers were required to have lived in the United States for a year before their child was born. (The amended law kept the general system but shortened the residency requirement for fathers.)

Mr. Flores-Villar’s father was 16 when his son was born, making it impossible for him to fulfill the part of the law requiring five years of residency after age 14.

Mr. Flores-Villar argued that the differing treatments violated equal protection principles. The Supreme Court has said that sex-based classifications are permissible only if they serve important governmental goals and are substantially related to achieving those goals.

In 2001, the Supreme Court upheld a law that imposed differing requirements in a similar situation. In that case, Nguyen v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, a closely divided court said that American fathers of children born out of wedlock abroad had to get a court order establishing paternity or swear to it under oath for their children to obtain American citizenship. American mothers were not subject to that requirement.

Mr. Flores-Villar said that decision turned on biological factors concerning the establishment of paternity that are not present in his case, Flores-Villar v. United States, No. 09-5801.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/us/23scotus.html

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2.
Debate expected at Legislature on immigration bill
The Associated Press, March 23, 2010

Phoenix (AP) -- The Arizona House is expected on Tuesday to debate a wide-ranging immigration proposal that would criminalize the presence of illegal border-crossers in the state.

If approved and signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer, the bill also would make Arizona the only state to criminalize the presence of the state's estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants through an expansion of its trespassing law.
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http://www.kswt.com/Global/story.asp?S=12186893

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3.
CNMI’s governor signs into omnibus immigration bill
The Radio New Zealand News, March 22, 2010

The Governor of the Northern Marianas has signed into law the omnibus immigration bill that asserts CNMI control over non-resident workers.

The new law also removes all references to immigration and deportation from the Commonwealth Code to conform to the federalization law that came into effect last November.

The Fitial administration-proposed measure passed the House and Senate during back-to-back sessions on Friday afternoon, despite the resistance of Republican House members.

House Bill 17-25 is the first bill in the 17th Legislature to be signed into CNMI law.
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http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=52615

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4.
Immigration lawyer meets with Albertville city leaders
By Stephen McLamb
The WAFF News (Huntsville, AL), March 23, 2010

Albertville, AL -- A prominent immigration attorney, who once served under the attorney general in President Bush's administration, was in Albertville Monday.

Attorney Kris Kobach met with members of the city council and other area cities regarding illegal immigration as Albertville continues to look at ways to curb it.

"[Monday] we were looking at options that the city of Albertville might choose to follow if they want to protect the taxpayers of Albertville," said Kobach.

He said you can put a dollar figure on every illegal household in the form of services, such as health and public education, and that's all paid for by taxpayers' money.

"The rest of the taxpayers are still spending $19,400 a year to pay for public services to that illegal household," Kobach said.

Multiply that number times the number of illegal households in a city, and Kobach said that number can be staggering.

His message is also resonating with other area city leaders.

"So we got to do some kind of incentives to make these employers say 'Hey, I'm going to hire cheap labor, but they're going to be legal'," said Decatur Mayor Don Stanford.
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http://www.waff.com/Global/story.asp?S=12187304

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5.
Was accused of trying to help flout immigration laws
By Shelley Murphy
The Boston Globe, March 23, 2010

A former Department of Homeland Security official once in charge of keeping some of New England’s key ports secure from illegal immigration was found guilty yesterday of deliberately encouraging her Brazilian housekeeper to illegally stay in the country.

“I’m stunned,’’ said Lorraine Henderson, 52, of Salem, who could face up to five years in prison for her conviction. She declined to comment further and was consoled by about 10 relatives and friends, some of whom cried as they embraced her.

Henderson, who rose through the ranks of the US Customs Service after starting as a clerk at age 17, testified during the six-day trial that she did nothing wrong. She was suspended without pay from her $140,000-a-year job as Boston area port director for Customs and Border Protection after her arrest 15 months ago.

Her lawyer, Francis J. DiMento, who had urged the judge to dismiss the one-count indictment for lack of evidence, shook his head after the jury of nine women and three men filed solemnly out of the courtroom after announcing the verdict.

US District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock scheduled sentencing for June 17. A spokeswoman for US Attorney Carmen Ortiz declined to comment on the verdict.

Assistant US Attorney Diane C. Freniere, who prosecuted the case, had told jurors that Henderson “violated the same immigration law that she had taken an oath to uphold.’’

It is not a crime to hire an illegal immigrant to perform occasional domestic work, but it is a felony to encourage or entice an illegal immigrant to stay in the United States.

After about 4 1/2 hours of deliberations and asking the judge to repeat his instruction on the legal definition of encouraging or inducing someone, the jury found Henderson guilty.

The housekeeper, Fabiana Bitencourt, 31, of Peabody, testified last week that she paid $10,000 to be smuggled across the Mexican border into California in summer 2001, then put on a plane to Massachusetts.

She told jurors she started her own cleaning business, working for 10 to 15 customers and earning up to $800 a week. She said that between 2004 and 2008 she cleaned Henderson’s two-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath, four-level townhouse in Salem every couple of weeks, charging $75 each time.

Henderson’s co-worker and neighbor, Nora Ehrlich, testified that Henderson referred her to Bitencourt. But Ehrlich said she fired Bitencourt in late 2005 after learning she was an illegal immigrant. She said she warned Henderson that Bitencourt was in the United States illegally and that she should also let her go.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/03/23/jury_...