1. Feds sue over SC enforcement
2. Fed judge strikes more of AL law
3. US deports 250+ Haitians in '11
4. Obama losing Hispanic votes in FL
5. Bachmann on enforcement
1.
Feds Sue Over South Carolina's New Immigration Law
The Associated Press, November 29, 2011
Columbia, SC (AP) – The federal government is suing South Carolina to put a stop to the state's tough new immigration law.
U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles said Monday the government wants a judge to stop enforcement of the legislation that requires officers call federal immigration officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally following a traffic stop for something else.
Nettles said the law is unconstitutional and violates people's right to due process. He says the lawsuit was filed Monday afternoon.
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/11/29/feds-sue-over-south-carolinas...
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2.
New immigration law hits homes
Dekalb County Times Journal, November 28, 2011
Alabama's immigration law is hitting home in more ways than one.
The new law has put the state at the forefront of the legal battle on illegal immigration. The law has been highly criticized and is being challenged in state and federal courts.
Last Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson struck down another portion of the law. Thompson ordered the state to stop denying mobile home permits to people who couldn't provide proof of citizenship.
The state's immigration law prohibits any state agency from conducting business with illegal immigrants. State officials interpreted the law to mean that illegal immigrants couldn't get a yearly permit for manufactured homes and further barred them from getting a different permit that would allow them to move the home along public roads.
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http://times-journal.com/news/article_31dd3816-1a0f-11e1-8464-001cc4c002...
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3.
U.S. deports more than 250 Haitians
Deportees face growing health risks
The Greenbay Press Gazette, November 28, 2011
Port-au-Prince, Haiti — The United States this year has deported more than 250 Haitians, half of whom were jailed without charges in facilities so filthy they pose life-threatening health risks.
Some Haitians faced lengthy confinement in U.S. immigration facilities before the deportations. Officials held Ricardo Lisade of Chicago in a Kenosha detention center for five months before deporting him, and Haitian authorities then placed him on probation without charging him with a crime.
An investigation by the nonprofit Florida Center for Investigative Reporting found evidence that the Obama administration has not followed its own policy of seeking alternatives to deportation when there are serious medical and humanitarian concerns.
One deportee who arrived in April suffered from asthma, hypertension, diabetes, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and head trauma, among other ailments. That same month, the U.S. government deported a mentally ill immigrant whose psychiatric medications were lost by Haitian authorities after his first day in jail.
"What's distinct about the situation in Haiti is that, unlike in other countries, people are immediately jailed, and the conditions in Haitian jails are condemned universally for violating human rights," said Rebecca Sharpless, director of the University of Miami Law School Immigration Clinic, which helps immigrants appeal deportation orders.
The health risks for incarcerated deportees have increased significantly since October 2010, the beginning of a cholera outbreak that has infected more than 470,000 people and killed 6,500, including some prisoners.
International health experts say deportees in Haiti's jails are at risk of contracting cholera, which can spread rapidly in overcrowded cells that lack clean water, soap and waste disposal. Once exposed to cholera, victims can die in less than 24 hours. One deportee has already died — two days after he was released from detention in a Haitian jail cell where he became stricken with cholera-like symptoms.
Haitian authorities said they place approximately half of all deportees in jails to monitor what they term "serious criminals" — a largely arbitrary determination.
These detentions, which have lasted as long as 11 days, have occurred although the Haitian constitution bans the detention of anyone for more than 48 hours without appearing before a judge, and a United Nations treaty states that "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."
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http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20111129/GPG0101/111290487/U...
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4.
Barack Obama's Hispanic Support Erodes, Cutting His Edge in Florida
by Kenric Ward
The Sunshine State News, November 29, 2011
Amid angst over illegal immigration, President Barack Obama is losing support among Hispanic voters, complicating his re-election chances in Florida, a new Quinnipiac Poll shows.
Obama carried the Sunshine State in 2008 with the help of Hispanics, but that support is softening here and elsewhere.
A national Quinnipiac poll conducted Nov. 14-20 shows the president's approval/disapproval rating among Hispanics has dropped to 56-43. Obama won 67 percent of the U.S. Latino vote in 2008.
In Florida, other polls have shown Obama's Hispanic support as high as 82 percent in 2009, and as low as 49 percent recently. He won 57 percent of the state's Latino vote against John McCain in 2008. (Quinnipiac did not break out Florida-specific results in its national survey of 2,552 registered voters.)
"The mainstream punditry has long treated as a fait accompli that the Hispanic vote in the 2012 election is safely in Obama's corner and will, as in 2008, likely tip the balance in swing states like Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, perhaps even Florida. But this looks extremely doubtful," says Stephen Steinlight, an analyst with the conservative Center for Immigration Studies.
"Obama is an enormous disappointment to Hispanics to whom he promised passage of 'comprehensive immigration reform' but couldn't even deliver the DREAM Act. Nor are all Hispanics buying the rationale that this failure is wholly attributable to Republican obstructionism," Steinlight explained.
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http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/barack-obamas-hispanic-support-er...
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5.
Bachmann: Deport all 11 million illegal immigrants, in steps
By Josh Lederman
The Hill, November 28, 2011
Intent on drawing a clear contrast between rival Newt Gingrich and herself, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called for 11 million illegal immigrants to be deported from the United States in steps.
In the week since a GOP debate during which Gingrich supported legalizing some undocumented immigrants, Bachmann has pounded the former House Speaker, likening his position to "amnesty" and circulating a letter he co-authored in 2004 that supported a path for worker legalization.
Asked by radio host Laura Ingraham on Monday about an earlier statement she made differentiating between immigrants who had recently entered the country illegally from those with longstanding ties to the United States, Bachmann said she was never referring to legalization.
"What I'm talking about is the order of deportation, the sequence of deportation," Bachmann replied. "It is almost impossible to move 11 million illegal immigrants overnight. You do it in steps."
Bachmann said deporting those convicted of crimes would be the first step.
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http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/195597-bachmann-deport-all-11-milli...
