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1. Obama to renew push
2. MD Gov. to sign bill
3. GA Gov. to sign bill
4. SB1070 Sup. Ct. appeal
5. UT law gets hearing

1.
Obama to renew push for immigration bill
By Alan Gomez
USA Today, May 10, 2011

As legislators in dozens of states continue to cobble together their own solutions to illegal immigration, President Obama is renewing an effort to pass a natural solution that has been long sought by people on both sides of the debate.

After hosting three White House immigration meetings in as many weeks, Obama is scheduled to speak today in the border city of El Paso about the fate of the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S.

The Hispanic community has been waiting more than two years for the effort, since immigration reform was a campaign promise that helped Obama garner 67% of the Hispanic vote in the 2008 election. The president pushed last year for the DREAM Act, which would have allowed some children of illegal immigrants to become legal residents, but the bill died in the Senate.

"There were high expectations raised in the Latino community and, right now, it doesn't appear those expectations are being met," said Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights group, who attended one of the White House meetings.

Any bill that would provide a process for the country's illegal immigrants to gain legal status would face stiff resistance from Republicans in Congress.

Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said Obama is letting the politics of immigration trump his responsibility to secure the Southwest border and target illegal immigrants working in the U.S.

"It seems President Obama has once again put on his campaigner-in-chief hat," Smith said. "The president's push to legalize millions of illegal immigrants is purely political."

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which supports a process to legalize illegal immigrants, agrees that part of Obama's push is political. "The president has always understood that this makes good policy sense, but he is feeling political pressure to start turning the wheels," Noorani said. But he said Republicans will struggle to capture the ever-growing Hispanic vote in the 2012 elections if they continue acting as roadblocks to a federal immigration solution.

In the absence of congressional action, state legislators across the country have tried to piece together their own solutions, resulting in laws that crack down on illegal immigrants in some states, such as Arizona, and laws that help them receive education benefits in others, such as Maryland. In all states, no matter the approach, lawsuits are plentiful.

Obama began to build momentum for a national immigration bill by inviting politicians, law enforcement officials, Spanish-speaking news anchors and Hispanic celebrities to the White House in recent weeks.

His administration supports a plan that would further secure the Southwest border, punish businesses that hire illegal immigrants, and create a legal immigration system that can better meet the needs of U.S. businesses and foreigners who want to work in the country.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower levels of immigration, said if Obama couldn't get Senate Democrats to pass the DREAM Act last year, he stands no chance of passing a larger immigration fix through a divided Congress.

"He's going through the motions so as to satisfy those constituency groups that really care about amnesty," he said.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-05-09-obama-immigration-cha...

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2.
O’Malley to sign immigrant tuition bill
The Associated Press, May 10, 2011

Gov. Martin O’Malley will sign a bill allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition, if they meet certain conditions.

The Democratic governor is set to sign the bill Tuesday in Annapolis.The measure would allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges if they complete two years at a community college.

Students also will have to show that their parents or legal guardian have paid state income taxes. Republican opponents are leading a petition drive to give voters a chance to overturn the legislation.

They have until May 31 to submit a third of the 55,700 signatures needed to put the measure on next year’s ballot. The rest are due June 30.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post_now/post/omalley-to-sign-immigr...

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3.
Deal Plans To Sign Immigration Bill
WSB Atlanta, May 10, 2011

Gov. Nathan Deal said Monday he still plans to sign the state's controversial immigration reform bill into law, but he only has four more days to do that.

Deal told Channel 2's Richard Elliot on Monday that his staff is "working through (the bill) very diligently," but said he does plan to sign it by the Friday deadline.

The controversial bill requires Georgia employers to use the federal government's E-Verify system to check the immigration status of new employees. It also gives police more leeway to check the immigration status of criminal suspects.

GOP legislative leaders applauded the law though some south Georgia Republicans worried it would hurt farmers who hire migrant workers to plant and harvest crops.
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http://www.wsbtv.com/news/27831019/detail.html

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4.
Arizona to take appeal on immigration law straight to Supreme Court
By Warren Richey
The Christian Science Monitor, May 10, 2011

Arizona will appeal directly to the US Supreme Court in a bid to overturn an injunction blocking key parts of the state’s controversial immigration law, state officials announced Monday.

Gov. Jan Brewer said she and Attorney General Tom Horne had decided to take the case directly to the nation’s highest court, asking it to examine whether US District Judge Susan Bolton acted correctly when she issued her injunction in Phoenix last summer.

A three-judge panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the injunction on April 11. Arizona could ask all active judges on the Ninth Circuit to rehear the appeal, but state officials decided it would be faster to take the case directly to the Supreme Court.

“I’ve always known this legal fight would be a long one,” Governor Brewer said, “but now that this is the path we’ve chosen, I am confident Arizona will prevail.”

The Arizona law, known as SB 1070, required state and local police during a valid stop to check the immigration status of anyone they suspected might be in the US illegally.

Opponents complained that it could lead to racial profiling.

The law also required immigrants to carry federal immigration papers, made it illegal for undocumented immigrants to work in Arizona, and authorized warrantless arrests of anyone who had committed a deportable offense.

Judge Bolton blocked the four provisions in a July ruling issued on the eve of the new law taking effect.

Justice Department lawyers representing the Obama administration argued that SB 1070 conflicted with national immigration statutes and policies set in Washington. They said the state law was preempted by federal law.

Arizona officials said the tough immigration law was consistent with tough federal statutes passed by Congress. The problem, they said, was that the Obama administration was unwilling to enforce federal immigration law to protect border states from illegal immigration and associated problems.

The Ninth Circuit agreed with Bolton that the Obama administration was likely to win the case at trial and thus was entitled to an injunction blocking implementation of the four provisions.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2011/0509/Arizona-to-take-appeal-on...

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5.
Utah immigration law gets hearing on day of debut
The Associated Press, May 10, 2011

Police in Utah have been given the authority to check the citizenship status of anyone they arrest — even if only for a few hours.

The new law, House Bill 497, went into effect Tuesday, although civil rights attorneys spent much of Monday trying to persuade state officials to voluntarily delay its implementation.

U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups has a hearing scheduled Tuesday afternoon in Salt Lake City where he could decide to halt enforcement of all or some of the law.

The crux of the argument against the regulation is that it is similar to an Arizona law that is already working its way through the courts.

The Utah law, signed by Republican Gov. Gary Herbert in March, requires people to prove their citizenship if they're arrested for serious crimes — ranging from certain drug offenses to murder — while giving police discretion to check citizenship after traffic infractions and other lesser offenses.

As long as the law can be enforced, the American Civil Liberties Union and National Immigration Law Center warn the fallout could include racial profiling and the unlawful detention of U.S. citizens. The two groups filed a lawsuit last week challenging the measure's constitutionality.

Police chiefs and county sheriffs, however, said very little will change in their handling of immigration laws, and none of them expected a rash of immigration-related arrests. No department contacted by The Associated Press reported any special training or preparation.

"We're not going to be knocking on doors or rounding up people in the parks," Washington County Sheriff Cory Pulsipher said. "The people we're coming in contact with are already engaged in other criminal behavior."

The citizenship status of anyone booked into a Utah jail for a felony or drunken driving is already checked because of a law passed in 2008.

The new law goes further, allowing officers to arrest people for minor offenses if they can't prove their legal presence in the country, which has frightened many Hispanics, Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said.

Already, the department is hearing from shelters and rape crisis centers about victims who refuse to talk to the police because they fear deportation.

"We do our job based on community trust," Burbank said. "When a segment of the community doesn't trust us, the rest of the communities lose trust in the police."

Despite claims by opponents that the law it is almost identical to the Arizona law, Utah leaders closely scrutinized their version for constitutional red flags, said the bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Stephen Sandstrom.

Law enforcement has mostly been supportive of the bill, as well.

"They're going to use this as a tool," Sandstrom said. "They were confident they could implement it, because it's spelled out pretty clearly when a person would be checked."
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/05/10/ap/national/main20061347.shtml