1. Feds won't deport immigrants
2. Senate Democrats plan revival
3. MD DREAM Act petition near goal
4. ACLU promises to bring suit
5. Lilly CEO questions policy

1.
Federal authorities say they won’t deport immigrants with legitimate civil rights claims
The Associated Press, June 22, 2011

Federal immigration officials say they will not deport immigrants pursuing legitimate civil rights claims, a move hailed by advocates as a way to protect a vulnerable population while critics say it encourages abuses.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a memo Friday that “absent special circumstances,” it is against the agency’s policy to deport immigrants in the midst of a legitimate effort to protect their civil rights. ICE officials said the memos were designed to provide guidance on exercising appropriate discretion.

The agency already allowed crime victims and witnesses to crimes to remain in the country.

“To avoid deterring individuals from reporting crimes and from pursuing actions to protect their civil rights, ICE officers, special agents and attorneys are reminded to exercise all appropriate discretion on a case-by-case basis when making detention and enforcement decisions in the cases of victims of crimes, witnesses to crime and individuals pursuing legitimate civil rights complaints,” the memo states.
. . .
But Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank that supports tighter immigration controls, said the policy would encourage more claims as a way to prevent deportations. He questioned how officials would determine what is a legitimate complaint.

“I have no doubt other immigration attorneys will take the hint and use this as a way of keeping their clients from being sent home,” Krikorian said.

Krikorian said the Obama administration was not enthusiastic about enforcing immigration laws and was trying to ensure its civil rights allies that it was on their side.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-authorities-say-they-wont...

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2.
Senators Look To Put Immigration Back On The Front Burner
TPMDC, June 23, 2011

Comprehensive immigration reform has about as much chance of passing right now as an asteroid-sized kidney stone, while even more modest measures, like the DREAM Act, are stalled in Congress. Nonetheless, Democrats are doing their best to keep the issue in the national conversation.

Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Pat Leahy (D-VT), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) held a joint press conference on Wednesday to prod lawmakers into negotiating a bipartisan bill, and introduced their own bill to get talks moving. The bill would follow the familiar formula that's been tried unsuccessfully since President Bush's own legislative push -- an increase in enforcement measures coupled with a path to citizenship for undocumented workers.

They got an unexpected boost on Wednesday from journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, who penned a widely read New York Times piece in which he revealed he was an undocumented immigrant who had hid his status for years growing up and building his career in America. He is now an advocate for the DREAM act, which would give a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants who, like Vargas, came to America as children and have either gone to college or served in the military in the states. In another encouraging development, Southern Baptist Convention recently drafted a resolution calling for comprehensive reform.

Menendez, one of the chief proponents of the DREAM Act in the Senate, told TPM that he had yet to read Vargas' article but that his experience was illustrative of the problems the legislation seeks to address.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/senators-look-to-push-immigra...

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3.
Elections board updates signature count on effort to repeal immigrant tuition bill
The Associated Press, June 22, 2011

The Maryland State Board of Elections has validated more than 47,000 signatures in an effort to overturn legislation allowing certain illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition.

The board said in a letter on Wednesday to Delegate Neil Parrott, a Washington County Republican who is leading the petition drive, that 47,288 signatures were accepted, and 10,217 were rejected.

Opponents of the legislation need to file 8,448 more valid signatures by June 30 to put the bill on next year’s ballot for voters to decide in a referendum.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/elections-board-updates-signature-co...

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4.
South Carolina Immigration Bill Awaits Governor's Signature; ACLU Says it Will Sue
By Elizabeth Llorente
Fox News Latino, June 22, 2011

As a strict immigration enforcement bill sits on the desk of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley for her signature, a coalition of civil rights groups says it will file a lawsuit over the measure if it becomes law.

South Carolina would become the sixth state, after Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Alabama, and Indiana, to have a law that calls on police to check the immigration status of people they encounter during their work and whom they suspect are in the country illegally.

And like the other bills, the South Carolina measure requires employers to use E-Verify, a government database, to check whether someone is eligible to work in the United States.

The bill was sent to the governor, whose spokesman has said she will sign it, after the state House passed it on Tuesday with a 69-43 vote. The measure already had passed the state Senate.

South Carolina House Speaker Bobby Harrell said that federal inaction on fixing the flawed immigration system has left states such as his with little choice but to take the matter into their own hands.

"If Washington refuses to effectively support our law enforcement officers by enforcing immigration laws, it is left up to the states to stand up and do what is right," said Harrell, R-Charleston. "That is exactly what South Carolina did today by making sure our officers have the enforcement tools they need during this time of federal indecision."

The bill, which Haley, a Republican, has indicated she will sign into law, expands on a 2008 South Carolina law, which at the time was considered one of the nation's toughest crackdowns on illegal immigration.

It requires officers to call federal immigration officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally. The question must follow an arrest or traffic stop for something else. The measure bars officers from holding someone solely on that suspicion.
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http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/06/22/south-carolina-immi...

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5.
Lilly CEO Says Immigration Boosts Innovation
By Anna Edney
Bloomberg, June 23, 2011

The U.S. government needs to open its borders to attract and retain talented scientists for drugmakers to employ, Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) Chief Executive Officer John Lechleiter plans to tell a technology conference today.

The pharmaceutical industry faces $1.3 billion in development costs for a single drug and had 95 Food and Drug Administration clearances in the past five years, the lowest in such a span since the late 1970s. The industry is in a six-year window when products that make up 40 percent of pharmaceutical sales lose patent protection, equivalent to a $100 billion loss in annual revenue, he said.

Lechleiter will call for U.S. immigration officials to issue more green cards, formally called permanent resident cards, for highly skilled immigrants along with adopting a shorter, simpler process to obtain the proof to live and work in the U.S. His remarks were part of a five-point proposal to reinvigorate U.S. innovation at a Washington conference.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-23/lilly-ceo-blames-immigration-an...