1. Rep. out of mayoral race
2. Angle and Sen. Reid debate
3. Immigrants file lawsuit
4. FL candidate drops issue
5. MD candidates debate issue

1.
Focused on immigration reform, Gutierrez not running for mayor
By Abdon M. Pallasch
Chicago Sun Times, October 15, 2010

Rep. Luis Gutierrez took himself out of the running for mayor Thursday, saying his mission must be passing comprehensive immigration reform.

The Chicago Democrat would have started as the best-known Hispanic mayoral candidate. He has a national profile as an immigration reform advocate, stumping in Florida earlier this week with Senate candidate Kendrick Meeks and heading to Nevada today to campaign for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Immigrants from Europe, Asia and other places would all benefit from reform, but immigration is seen as a largely Hispanic issue, and Gutierrez is seen as "an advocate for Latinos," he said. "If I run for mayor of Chicago, I have to be something different than that, something greater than that."

Gutierrez would have to suspend his immigration crusade and concentrate on local issues in Chicago. And he's not willing to do that.

"I don't want to have two things tugging at my heart," he told a packed room of cheering fans at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/2804226,CST-NWS-luis15.article

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2.
Sharron Angle -- Harry Reid debate: Even more immigration
Los Angeles Times, October 14, 2010

Sharon Angle took on Harry Reid’s record on immigration. Reid has said he supports a path to legalization for illegal immigrants.

She said the solution to immigration is to secure the border. She also touted the Arizona sheriff who has developed a reputation for a hard-line stand on immigration.

"I think every state should have a sheriff like Joe Arpaio," she said.

Angle denounced Reid and the Obama administration for speaking out again Arizona’s controversial immigration law, S.B. 1070. The administration sued to block the law from taking effect.

Later in the debate, Reid was asked if he supported a law that would make English the official language of the nation.

"English already is the offical language," he said.
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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/10/sharron-angle-harry-r...

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3.
Lawsuit challenges local immigration enforcement
By Kate Brumback
The Associated Press, October 15, 2010

Three immigrants in Georgia are suing to challenge a government program that allows local authorities to enforce federal immigration law, and they are seeking to have the case declared a class action to represent many other immigrants.

Experts say the lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in Atlanta, could be the first to directly challenge the legitimacy of the 287(g) program, which has been used to identify more than 180,000 illegal immigrants for deportation nationwide since 2006.

"I have heard of nobody filing a lawsuit on this, and I would have heard about it," said Charles Kuck, a prominent Atlanta immigration lawyer and past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The lawsuit names U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton, Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren, an investigator for the Georgia Department of Public Safety and other officials as defendants.

A Department of Public Safety spokesman and a spokeswoman for Warren's office said Thursday their agencies hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment. An ICE spokesman said the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit seeks to define the class as "all Hispanic persons who have been or will be restrained and interrogated within the State of Georgia" by local authorities enforcing federal immigration law under an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

As of late September, the 287(g) program had been used to identify 14,692 illegal immigrants in Georgia for deportation in the four years since Cobb became the first county in the state to launch the program, according to ICE. Three additional counties plus the state Department of Public Safety have since signed agreements.

The lawsuit alleges ICE has failed to train, supervise and otherwise oversee sheriff's deputies in Cobb County, where the three plaintiffs live. It also claims ICE has improperly delegated its power to local authorities.

"This is a bad thing, and it tears apart families," said attorney Erik Meder, who filed the lawsuit. "While these people are certainly in the country illegally, they aren't criminals and don't deserve to be locked up and separated from their families."

Immigration officials have broad discretionary power and should not be issuing a notice to appear — which initiates deportation proceedings — for illegal immigrants who are arrested and discovered to be in the country illegally after initially having been stopped for relatively minor offenses, the lawsuit says.

The program is part of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act, but wasn't used much until 2006. It is intended to train state and local officers in immigration law enforcement and enables them to identify and detain illegal immigrants, who can then be turned over to ICE.

It has become a rallying point for immigrant rights activists all over the country who say it encourages racial profiling and discourages Latinos from reporting crimes for fear of being deported.
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http://www.ajc.com/news/lawsuit-challenges-local-immigration-683035.html

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4.
Scott's campaign no longer emphasizing immigration
By Laura Wides-Munoz
The Miami Herald, October 15, 2010

Judging by Florida's Republican primary, one could be forgiven for thinking that after the economy, the state's biggest issue was, well, Arizona and its new immigration law.

The Republican candidates for governor filled the airwaves this summer with ads where they tried to out-Arpaio Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff who became the public face behind that controversial law.

Flash forward to the general election.

Arizona and the "i" word have all but disappeared as GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott seeks to shore up support among Florida's Hispanic voters. These folks make up 13 percent of the electorate and have a keen antenna for proposals that smack of racial profiling.

"Immigration was an incredibly effective tool in the primary, but (Scott) knows he's got to focus on other issues," said Republican political strategist Ana Navarro. "There are a lot of people paying attention now who weren't paying attention in August."

Republicans are counting on those people, 12 percent unemployment and uncertainty about the Obama administration's new health care law to overshadow the earlier harsh rhetoric.

And they hope Senate candidate Marco Rubio - who supports the Arizona law, though not in Florida - and whose own parents fled Cuba for the American dream, will attract Hispanic voters otherwise on the fence.

Navarro and Republican State Rep. Juan Zapata are among a number of Hispanic Republican leaders backing Scott who are still concerned about how the former health care executive used immigration in the primaries.

"It's a wedge issue," acknowledged Zapata. "It's troubling."

Yet Republicans and Democrats alike say immigration won't decide Florida races. At a recent gubernatorial debate sponsored by the Spanish-language network Univision, immigration occupied just a few minutes of the hour-long session. Still, it's unclear what role the rhetoric will play when voters finally cast their ballots.

Many Hispanic leaders were outraged by the Arizona law because they feared racial profiling. And they said the requirement that non-citizens carry legal documents at all times could be devastating to Florida, which relies on tourism, especially international visitors from Mexico and South America.

Some recalled the 1970s, when whites in South Florida pushed for an English-only law in response to the growing number of Cuban exiles.

"Folks react to immigration based on the perceived harshness of the rhetoric toward Hispanics," Zapata said.

But he noted that these days immigration has little affect on the state's largest Hispanic voting blocks: Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans. Cubans who reach the U.S. are generally considered "legal" from the moment they arrive, and Puerto Ricans are born citizens as their island is a U.S. commonwealth.
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/15/1874371/scotts-campaign-no-longer-...

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5.
Ehrlich, O'Malley spar over immigration and 'new Americans'
By Haley Peterson
The Washington Examiner, October 14, 2010

Former Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich berated Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley for calling illegal immigrants "new Americans" in Thursday's contentious second debate of the gubernatorial election, as the candidates sparred over immigration, taxes, pension reform and other major campaign issues.

"If someone breaks into my house, is that a new member of my family that night?" Ehrlich prodded his opponent, before a crowd of roughly 200 watching the debate live. "It's not new Americans. [It's] illegals."

O'Malley used the term during the candidates' first formal debate on Monday to little notice. But when the incumbent used the term six times on Thursday, Ehrlich pounced.

"Sadly, as political football, there is this nativism rising up and this desire to blame new Americans for the problems of our economy," O'Malley said in response to a question on whether he would cut state aid to an organization that harbors illegals. "New Americans didn't run Wall Street into the ground. New Americans didn't destroy our savings. New Americans didn't manipulate intelligence information to get us into conflicts we might not otherwise have gotten into."

Ehrlich criticized his opponent for attending a ribbon cutting for Casa of Maryland, a nonprofit Hispanic advocacy group that Ehrlich said teaches illegals how to dodge federal laws.

"We are a multiethnic society but we are a singular American culture premised on English democracy, capitalism, equal opportunity, living the America dream," Ehrlich said.

"I'm livin' it, you're your livin' it, but we did it the right way."

O'Malley replied, "I don't find that clothing people and making sure we reach out with basic dignity and services is un-American, and I think that is a gross and unfair mischaracterization."

O'Malley eventually added that he would cut off funding to groups that are proven to aid illegals.
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Ehrlich_-O_Malley-spar-over-immi...