1. DOJ sues AZ co. sheriff
2. Senate candidates debate
3. Pew report confirms CIS
4. 'Birth tourism' not norm
5. SB1070 mandates E-Verify

1.
Joe Arpaio: Why is Obama administration suing an outspoken Arizona sheriff?
By Lourdes Medrano, Staff writer
The Christian Science Monitor, September 2, 2010

Tucson, AZ -- The United States Justice Department is filing an "unprecedented" lawsuit against Joe Arpaio, the controversial sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County.

In announcing the legal action Thursday, a Justice Department official said that Sheriff Arpaio is refusing to cooperate with a federal investigation into allegations of discrimination and illegal searches and seizures by the department.

The Justice Department said it has been seeking documents relating to its civil-rights probe for 15 months and turned to a lawsuit only as a last resort, adding that this was the first time in 30 years that a police department had not cooperated with a civil-rights investigation.

"The actions of the sheriff's office are unprecedented," said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil-rights division, in a statement.

Arpaio told the Arizona Republic that he thought the lawsuit was "camouflage" for a federal attempt to curtail his anti-illegal immigration sweeps in mostly Latino communities. He also said he had begun cooperating with federal authorities and thought they were making headway toward a solution.

Arpaio and the Obama administration have repeatedly clashed over immigration policy.

A longtime lawman with a penchant for theatrics, Arpaio has been a central figure in the federal government’s practice of enlisting local and state police to enforce certain aspects of immigration law – a program called 287(g).

The program is seen as one of the inspirations for SB 1070, the controversial Arizona immigration law that was signed into law this year but which is now tied up in a court battle. As such, both 287(g) and Arpaio – its most zealous practitioner – have become lightning rods.

A $1 million bounty?

Arpaio’s crackdowns on illegal immigrants are well known on both sides of the US-Mexico border, to the point that his office says he has been sent a death threat by a Mexican drug cartel recently, although the origin of the $1 million bounty on the sheriff’s head is unconfirmed.

It isn’t the first time Arpaio is threatened. “He’s a controversial figure, he’s an outspoken person,” says sheriff's spokeswoman Lisa Allen.

Some blame 287(g) for giving Arpaio and other local law enforcement agencies across the country the authority to go after illegal immigrants. The program, part of the Immigration and Nationality Act created in 1996, emerged from obscurity after the 9/11 attacks and later morphed into federal-local immigration enforcement whose goals prioritized the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants charged with crimes.

More than 70 local law enforcement agencies in 26 states are part of 287(g), which has recorded about 118,500 deportations, according to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Since 2007, 287(g) has allowed the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to help identify and oust more than 26,000 people living in the United States illegally – the highest tally in the country. Second to Maricopa, Los Angeles County helped deport nearly 14,000 illegal immigrants.

Supporters of 287(g) say it is a flexible and mutually beneficial program for both the federal government and local authorities. “If you’re in Arizona, where you have a major problem with illegal immigration, then obviously you’re going to want to use that to every extent you can,” says Bryan Griffith, a spokesman with the conservative Center for Immigration Studies.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0902/Joe-Arpaio-Why-is-Obama-a...

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2.
NH GOP Sen candidates debate AZ immigration law
By Norma Love
The Associated Press, September 2, 2010

Concord (AP) -- Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bill Binnie knows a little something about immigrating to the United States.

The 52-year-old multimillionaire businessman is a naturalized citizen who immigrated legally to the U.S. with his parents from Scotland when he was 5 years old.

He has been running a television ad calling for English to be the country's official language and advocates having the government do more to ensure immigrants learn it. The ad has moved fighting illegal immigration, an issue that plays well with Republicans, to the center of the campaign.

New Hampshire's population is 95 percent white, and the state is far from the Mexican border, where a national debate rages over whether Arizona has the right to target suspected illegal immigrants.

U.S. Census figures show 33,200 of New Hampshire's 1.3 million residents, or 2.5 percent, are Hispanic. Last year, 3,151 illegal immigrants were deported from all of New England, which has a population of about 14 million, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. No figures for New Hampshire were available.

A July poll by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center found that four out of five Republican voters said illegal immigration is a very serious problem and 75 percent supported the Arizona law.

"We should say to all immigrants, all people who come to our country to learn the language of English, that it is in fact part of our culture and it gives everybody the same shot at the American dream and economic opportunity, and that's critical," Binnie told The Associated Press.

Binnie's central campaign theme has been about creating jobs. The new ad shows him with a group of students, saying that English is the language of commerce, science and the Internet.

"Most importantly, it's the language of America. As a U.S. senator, I'll insist that all immigrants learn English," Binnie says. "It's simple. Americans should have allegiance to one flag and have one official language, English."

His campaign would not say how much he spent on the ad. He has put $3.5 million of his own money into his campaign, according to his latest financial filings.

The ad has had the side-effect of drawing attention to Binnie's position on the Arizona law: He opposes it, because he believes the federal government, not states, should be enforcing immigration laws.

That puts him at odds with not only three-fourths of the state's Republican voters, but also with his three main rivals — former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, attorney Ovide Lamontagne and businessman Jim Bender.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jzQw_8yDqzLjtQyR8z7QiE...

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3.
Illegal immigrants: Which states have lost the most?
The number of illegal immigrants in the US has declined by about 1 million since the start of the recession. A new study looks at the trend state by state. Here are the top five.
By Mark Trumbull
The Christian Science Monitor, September 2, 2010

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States has declined during the great recession, and the trend has been fueled by an exodus from erstwhile boom states like Arizona and Florida.

That's the message from an analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization.

According to the report, the number of unauthorized immigrants living in the US stood at about 11.1 million in March 2009, down from 12 million in March 2007, shortly before the recession began. Although the report doesn't claim to have precise numbers, it estimates that most of the declines have occurred in a relative handful of states: Florida, New York, Arizona, New Jersey, and California.

Several of those are Sun Belt locales where a housing boom went bust, affecting the availability of jobs in construction and related fields. For example, the study suggests that the illegal immigrant population in Arizona fell by perhaps 20 percent, even before the governor signed a controversial law on the issue this year.

The Pew researchers estimate these states to have seen the largest declines in unauthorized immigrant population in 2008 and 2009:

Several states next on the list are also fast-growing Southern or mountain states that were hit hard by the real estate slowdown: Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, Colorado.

In Texas, a state with many unauthorized immigrants that was not so hard hit by the downturn, the total number of illegal residents has not declined, Pew estimates.

Why are they leaving?

The Pew report merely represents an estimate, not a definitive count for the nation or any one state. But its nationwide conclusion is similar to estimates by other groups.

On Thursday, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) wrote that the Department of Homeland Security has put the total number of illegal immigrants at 10.8 million as of early 2009. And the CIS has also calculated a decline in the number of illegal immigrants to 10.8 million.

"The decline started before the recession, in response to the stirrings of enforcement activity at the tail-end of the Bush administration, and then was accelerated by the economic downturn," writes Mr. Krikorian.

To advocates of stronger enforcement, including the CIS, the decline since 2007 is a sign that better border patrol and other measures can result in progress on what has seemed to many Americans to be an intractable problem. At the same time, to the degree that the reduction relates to a poor economy, pressure on America's borders could quickly reverse if and when the job market improves.

Even if the overall number of illegal immigrants in the US has declined by 1 million or more since 2007, illegal immigrants remain a significant presence as a share of both the overall US population (3.7 percent) and the labor force (5.1 percent).
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http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0902/Illegal-immigrants-Which-states-h...

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4.
'Birth tourism' a tiny portion of immigrant babies
By Bob Christie and Paul J. Weber
The Associated Press, September 3, 2010

SAN JUAN, Texas — When Ruth Garcia's twins are born in two months, they'll have all the rights of U.S. citizens. They and their six brothers and sisters will be able to vote, apply for federal student loans and even run for president.

Garcia is an illegal immigrant who crossed into the country about 14 years ago, and the citizenship granted to her children and millions others like them is at the center of a divisive national debate.

Republicans are pushing for congressional hearings to consider changing the nation's 14th Amendment to deny such children the automatic citizenship the Constitution guarantees. They say women like Garcia are taking advantage of a constitutional amendment meant to guarantee the rights of freed slaves, and paint a picture of pregnant women rushing across the border to give birth.

A closer examination of the issue shows that the trend is not as dramatic as some immigration opponents have claimed.

Most illegal immigrants are born to parents like Garcia who have made the United States their home for years.

Out of 340,000 babies born to illegal immigrants in the United States in 2008, 85 percent of the parents had been in the country for more than a year, and more than half for at least five years, according to recent study from the Pew Hispanic Center.

And immigration experts say it's extraordinarily rare for immigrants to come to the U.S. just so they can have babies and get citizenship. In most cases, they come to the U.S. for economic reasons and better hospitals, and end up staying and raising families.

Garcia crossed into the U.S. illegally about 14 years ago, before her children were born, and her husband has since been deported. She earns a living by selling tamales to other immigrants who live in fear of being deported from the slapdash, impoverished colonias that dot the Texas-Mexico border.

"I think that children aren't at fault for having been born here," Garcia said. "My children always have lived here. They've never gone to another country."

Under current immigration law, Garcia and others like her don't get U.S. citizenship even though their children are Americans.

With an estimated 11.1 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, the issue strikes a chord with many voters — people like retired Air Force nurse and pediatric nurse practitioner Susan Struck, 66, of Double Adobe, Ariz.

"People come over ... and they have babies with U.S. birth certificates, then they go back over the border with that Social Security number, with that birth certificate," and have access to public services, she said at a recent event near the border organized by conservative tea party activists.

Several prominent Republican leaders share Struck's beliefs on the issue. Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina has been a vocal advocate for changing the Constitution, and he helped the issue gain momentum heading into the midterm elections.

"Women have traveled from across the world for the purpose of adding a U.S. passport holder to their family, as far away as China, Turkey and as close as Mexico," said Jon Feere, legal analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for strict immigration laws.

Still, changing the Constitution is highly unlikely, legal scholars say. Measures have been introduced in each two-year congressional session since 2005, but none has made it out of committee. Constitutional changes require approval by two-thirds majorities in both chambers of Congress, an impossibility now because Democrats have the majority in both houses and most oppose such a measure. Even if that changes after November and legislation is passed, an amendment would still need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

To be sure, some pregnant Mexican women do come to the United States. In border cities like Nogales, women have been coming to the U.S. for decades to give birth, although the primary reason is better medical care, Santa Cruz County sheriff Tony Estrada said. Billboards advertising birthing services in Arizona line streets across the border in Nogales, Mexico.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioCZswZcLXmPTk-ToJLczl...

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5.
Job Eligibility Key to Arizona Immigration Law
By Mickey McCarter
HS Today, September 3, 2010

The state of Arizona filed an appeal last week with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn a preliminary injunction against a tough new immigration law it sought to enact in July.

The US Justice Department, which won the injunction against Arizona, now has until the end of September to file briefs with the Ninth Circuit on the appeal of a decision by District Court Judge Susan Bolton to stop enforcement of controversial aspects of the law, SB 1070.

Bolton will still hear the full case in the future and granted the temporary injunction against the law due to a compelling federal argument that it would harm federal immigration enforcement efforts.

"She didn't decide the whole thing but she parsed it and identified the concerns at the preliminary injunction stage. It took quite a bit of pressure off federal and local law enforcement on detentions," explained Jay Zweig, lead employment partner in the law firm of Bryan Cave in Phoenix, Ariz.

"Until those occur for immigration status, a judge needs to hear more. It left a whole lot of uncertainty as to how it's going to come out at the end of the day. It's more the beginning instead of the end," Zweig told HSToday.us.

That said, Bolton's reasoning in enacting the preliminary injunction was remarkable, Zweig characterized. The judge zeroed in on a real concern that individuals stopped by police for a check of their legal status under SB 1070 would face infringements on their rights.

"The law required that law enforcement detain someone if they stopped them for any reason to determine their immigration status," Zweig noted. "The judge in very layperson's terms, said, if you are stopped for something minor, I am concerned that determining someone's immigration status could result in someone being detained for a lot longer and that has constitutional implications for people who are here legally.

"She really focused on the impact of the law on those people rather than the people that the law is intended to 'catch.' She said she was concerned about the infringement of rights and detention of people. That was the issue," he added.

Should Arizona law enforcement agencies make a legal status check of everyone stopped for a legal reason in the state, state and federal resources could rapidly become overwhelmed with detaining and processing illegal immigrants.

Bolton accepted that the state should not dictate the use of federal resources in granting a preliminary injunction against SB 1070, thus maintaining the status quo. The Ninth Circuit Court will hold a hearing on the injunction in the first week of November and then likely rule on it within 30 days, Zweig said.

Should the Ninth Circuit agree with Arizona, the preliminary injunction could be lifted, allowing the full law to go into effect until the US District Court for the District of Arizona rules on the overall case.

Employer burden

Some provisions of SB 1070 actually did go into effect at the end of July. Those provisions largely sought to toughen a law against hiring illegal immigrants that has been in effect in Arizona since January 2008. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano enacted that prior law as governor of Arizona.

While the previous law required a business to lose its business license if it knowingly hired illegal immigrants, SB 1070 criminalized such conduct. Employers must check their hires through the federal E-Verify employment verification system to determine their eligibility to work in the United States.

Generally speaking, these provisions have not had a significant impact on Arizona employers as they were working to comply with the previous law in the first place, Zweig observed. Public opinion in Arizona is strongly in favor of the tough laws against hiring illegal immigrants.
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http://www.hstoday.us/content/view/14600/128/