President Barack Obama is calling for action to reform U.S. immigration policy

President Barack Obama is calling for action to reform U.S. immigration policy.   Mr. Obama says the U.S. immigration system is “broken and dangerous,” and the country’s borders are too vast for the problem to be solved only by building more fences.”In sum, the system is broken, and everybody knows it,” he said.  “Unfortunately, reform has been held hostage to political posturing and special-interest wrangling, and to the pervasive sentiment in Washington that tackling such a thorny and emotional issue is inherently bad politics,” Mr. Obama added.Speaking at American University’s School of International Service, the president made his first major appeal for a comprehensive reform of the nation’s immigration policies.

He did not announce any new initiatives on the issue, but called overhauling the U.S. immigration system “a moral imperative.”White House officials say the president’s decision to speak about the issue was influenced by several factors, including the state of Arizona’s recent passage of a tough law against illegal immigrants.Mr. Obama said inaction at the federal level has led to what he considers a bad law.”Into this breach, states like Arizona have decided to take matters into their own hands.  Given the levels of frustration across the country, this is understandable.  But it is also ill-conceived,” he said.The new law has been met with protests around the country, although polls show that a majority of Americans questioned support it.The president said a comprehensive solution is needed for America’s immigration problem.  He sought to reassure those who want to get tough on illegal migrants that he does not support giving amnesty to people who are in the United States against the law.”Ultimately, our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship,” he said.  “And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable.”

Mr. Obama also reassured pro-immigrant groups he has no intention of trying to round up and deport those who are in the country illegally.”They know it is not possible.  Such an effort would be logistically impossible and wildly expensive.  Moreover, it would tear at the very fabric of this nation,” said the president.

Mr. Obama urged U.S. lawmakers to have the political courage to address an important issue.Despite the president’s appeal, members of Congress, many of whom are seeking re-election in November, are not likely to take up the controversial issue of immigration reform this year.(VOA)

Arizona to be Sued by US Government

Arizona Immigration Law SB1070 Text 2010 Update  Arizona to be Sued by US Government. The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been quoted as saying that the Department of Justice could be planning to sue the state government over their controversial immigration law, citing that it is unconstitutional.Arizona’s law makes it a criminal offense to be present in the state without proper immigration or resident status.  It requires law enforcement to inquire about immigration status if probable cause to believe that someone is in the country illegally exists.

It also requires that everyone – citizens and immigrants alike, have proof of their status on their person at all times.  This can be accomplished with something as simple as a driver’s license.Many fear that the law will cause racial profiling at massive levels. Even the President has hinted that the law could cause issues for some immigrants.

Governor Jan Brewer plans on fighting hard against any lawsuit.  She found out about a potential lawsuit through a June 8 interview between Clinton and a TV station in Ecuador.  Brewer was outraged, and the AP reports that the governor said “If our own government intends to sue our state to prevent illegal immigration enforcement, the least it can do is inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation.Whether or not a lawsuit will be successful is something that will likely take months – if not a year or more – to determine.  This fight would go all the way to the Supreme Court and set important precedent over what will happen with immigration law.  This is definitely an issue that will polarize natural born citizens and immigrants alike. (AP)

Immigration rallies drawing crowds to Phoenix, boycott of Arizona

PHOENIX Organizers of a boycott of Arizona over the state’s new immigration law called for a one-day suspension Saturday as they bused in people from across the country for a rally at the state Capitol.Supporters plan a rally of their own at a Tempe baseball stadium, encouraging like-minded Americans to “buycott” Arizona by planning vacations in the state.

The dueling events are expected to draw thousands. In San Francisco, groups planned to protest at the Arizona Diamondbacks’ game against the Giants Saturday evening.Critics of the law, set to take effect July 29, say it unfairly targets Hispanics and could lead to racial profiling. Its supporters say Arizona is trying to enforce immigration laws because the federal government has failed to do so.The law requires that police conducting traffic stops or questioning people about possible legal violations ask them about their immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they’re in the country illegally. Reasonable suspicion is not defined.

“Arizona has become the testing ground for the most draconian and anti-immigrant legislation in the country,” said Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Some opponents of the law have encouraged people to cancel conventions in the state and avoid doing business with Arizona-based companies, hoping the economic pressure forces lawmakers to repeal the law.But Alfredo Gutierrez, chairman of the boycott committee of Hispanic civil rights group Somos America, said the boycott doesn’t apply to people coming to resist the law. Opponents said they had secured warehouse space for 5,000 people to sleep on cots instead of staying in hotels.

They’re calling on President Barack Obama to order immigration authorities to refuse to take custody of illegal immigrants turned over under Arizona’s law.Supporters of the law sought to counteract the economic damage of boycotts by bringing supporters into the state.

“Arizona, we feel, is America’s Alamo in the fight against illegal and dangerous entry into the United States,” said Gina Loudon of St. Louis, who is organizing the “buycott.” “Our border guards and all of Arizona law enforcement are the undermanned, under-gunned, taxed-to-the-limit front-line defenders trying to hold back the invasion.”The law also makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally or to impede traffic while hiring day laborers, regardless of the worker’s immigration status.(AP)

Mexican migrants head for Arizona despite crackdown

NOGALES, Mexico Kidnapped by bandits, and caught and repatriated three times by the U.S. Border Patrol,  migrant Roberto Santos says Arizona’s tough new immigration law is the least of his worries.”I don’t care if they tell me they’re going to give me life in jail. I’m still going to keep on trying,” Santos, 30, said as he sat on a bench outside a migrant welfare project in this bustling city just south of the border from Arizona.”There’s no other option, Mexico’s dead — I just don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t have a life here anymore,” added Santos, who spent more than a decade in Los Angeles, before being recently deported.

Last month, Arizona passed a tough new law to drive 460,000 illegal immigrants out of the desert state, which straddles one of the principal corridors for human and drug smugglers heading up from Mexico.But despite the looming crackdown which will require state and local police to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect is in the country illegally when it comes into effect in late July — migrants remain undeterred, authorities on both sides of the border say.

The U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson sector said they had arrested 148,000 people in southern Arizona between October and April, around 8,000 more than in the same period last year.In Mexico, migrant welfare agency Grupo Beta says staff have continued to attend to some 150 to 200 migrants a day, either headed north from some of Mexico’s poorest states in search of work stateside, or sent packing over the border by U.S. authorities who have stepped up deportations.

“People are leaving, others are being repatriated, so I don’t see any change,” said Enrique Enriquez, the director of Grupo Beta’s center, which stands a few blocks south of the rusted border fence in Nogales.The controversial new law is supported by almost two thirds of Arizona voters, and a majority of American adults.

‘NO FOOD IN THE HOUSE’

Opponents charge the measure is unconstitutional and a mandate for racial profiling, and have launched legal challenges and an economic boycott to try to derail it.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon is expected to protest it when he meets with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Wednesday for a state dinner.

In an interview last week he slammed the state measure as “frankly discriminatory, terribly backward.” His government issued a warning to Mexicans living in or traveling to Arizona, and asked its consulates there to offer Mexicans legal protection.

Among those particularly motivated to cross north despite the state crackdown are illegal immigrants who used to live in the United States and were swept up in deportations, which reached a record 387,790 last year, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security figures.

Standing among a group of two dozen migrants in the Mexican border city, Miguel Lopez said he would risk arrest and deportation as many times as was needed to rejoin his wife and two young children in North Carolina.”We’ll just have to see who gets tired first,” said Lopez, 31, with a shrug.”I have to keep trying, because my family is over there. I have nothing in Mexico,” he added.

Despite the promise of greater vigilance under the law, some first-time migrants added that they were driven by poverty to seek a better life in the United States, and would push on through Arizona regardless.”We heard about Arizona’s new law on the news, but we need work,” said Gerardo Perez, 30, a farmer who said he earned 80 pesos a day   about $6  in his home state of Chiapas in southern Mexico.(Reuters)

Dallas will join immigration law protests in Arizona

More than two dozen North Texas residents are headed for Arizona to join protests against that state’s new immigration law.The trip is organized by the Megamarch Committee, the same group that held a march through downtown Dallas on May 1 to promote an immigration reform bill that would legalize millions of undocumented workers and their families.Committee members said they want to show support and lend expertise to Latino activists in Arizona.

The Arizona law gives police broad powers to check the paperwork of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. Critics say it will lead to racial profiling, while advocates say it’s necessary because the federal government has failed to stop illegal immigration.”We have a responsibility to continue our struggle for justice for everybody, so what threatens our brown brothers and sisters is also a concern for us,” said the Rev. Peter Johnson, who was boarding a charter bus in Oak Cliff early Thursday.

The North Texas bus riders, including both immigrants and American-born citizens, were to hook up with immigration-rights activists in El Paso and Las Cruces, N.M. Organizers say they will drive in a caravan to Nogales, Ariz., where a demonstration is scheduled Friday on the international bridge leading into Nogales, Mexico.

The group, which says all of its demonstrations will be peaceful, returns Sunday.”I’m first-generation but the rest of my family is from Mexico, so I want to help them,” said Raul Garcia, a Dallas painting contractor who carried a poster of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a revered religious symbol for Mexican Catholics, in a stylized pose reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty.

“We’re going over there to open their eyes, to let them know that we’re hard-working people just like them and that we deserve to be treated with dignity. The fact is that (immigrants) contribute a lot to our community.”

Daniela Sánchez, a 23-year-old recent graduate of the University of North Texas, said she hopes the national attention being drawn to Arizona will actually foster debate on a national immigration reform bill that includes legalization for undocumented immigrants.”I do believe we need some kind of immigration reform, but what (Arizona) has done is really unfair,” said the Plano resident. “We’re living in a society that is more diverse and multicultural than ever before and it’s time everyone in government acknowledges that.”

Shakira is shaking it up politically,'I'm here undocumented'

Shakira is shaking it up politically! The bombshell superstar Latin singer from Colombia visited Phoenix on Thursday, stepping right into the eye of the storm on immigration, and wasting no time. (Watch her on YouTube!)”I’m here pretty much undocumented,” she told a crowd at the Carl Hayden Youth Center as they screamed her name and took photos of her with cameras and cell phones.

She met with the city’s police chief and mayor over concerns that a sweeping new state law cracking down on illegal immigration will lead to racial profiling.The Grammy winner said she wanted to learn more about how the law will be implemented if it goes into effect this summer and to meet with Phoenix’s Latino community.”I heard about it on the news and I thought, ‘Wow,'” Shakira told The Associated Press after meeting with city officials. “It is unjust and it’s inhuman, and it violates the civil and human rights of the Latino community … It goes against all human dignity, against the principles of most Americans I know.

“”I’m not an expert on the Constitution but I know the Constitution exists for a reason,” Shakira told reporters after meeting with city officials. “It exists to protect human beings, to protect the rights of people living in a nation with or without documents. We’re talking about human beings here.”Shakira also made a stop at the state Capitol in downtown Phoenix, telling a group of a few hundred community members that if the law were in effect, she could be arrested since she didn’t bring her driver’s license to Arizona.She called on the U.S. Congress to work on immigration reform. “No person should be detained because of the color of their skin,” she said.

The law, signed Friday by Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, is viewed as the toughest on illegal immigration in the nation and has drawn criticism from President Barack Obama, who questioned its legality. The law makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they’re illegal immigrants.

The new law thrust Arizona into the international spotlight last week, with civil rights leaders and others demanding a boycott of the state, and the Mexican government warning its citizens about an “adverse political atmosphere” in Arizona. At least three Arizona cities are considering lawsuits to block the law, and there are two efforts to put a referendum on Arizona’s November ballot to repeal it.Shakira also sought to meet with Brewer during her visit to Phoenix but was told the governor’s schedule was booked, said Trevor Nielson, the singer’s political and philanthropic adviser.Shakira is perhaps best known for her nimble dance moves and songs including “Hips Don’t Lie” and “She-Wolf,” but recently she has become more active in political and social issues.

http://www.youtube.com/v/H7l93bvMiQY&rel=0&fs=1http://www.youtube.com/v/9TJVU7yF6UM&rel=0&fs=1

Arizona's controversial immigration law will spark scores of people to protest in May 1 rallies nationwide and add urgency to pleas for federal immigration reform

CHICAGO Immigrant rights activists hope Arizona’s controversial immigration law will spark scores of people to protest in May 1 rallies nationwide and add urgency to pleas for federal immigration reform.Dozens of marches are planned for Saturday in cities across the country from Los Angeles to Dallas to New York.”What happened in Arizona proves that racism and anti-immigrant hysteria across the country still exists. We need to continue to fight,” said Lee Siu Hin, a coordinator with the Washington, D.C.-based National Immigrant Solidarity Network.

Activists believe opposition to Arizona’s new law  which requires authorities to question people about immigration status if there’s reason to suspect they’re in the country illegally could be the catalyst needed to draw record-breaking crowds similar to those four years ago.

That’s when more than a million across the country united to fight federal legislation considered anti-immigrant. Though the bill, which would have made being an illegal immigrant a felony, was unsuccessful, it triggered massive marches across the nation.Since then, the May 1 movement has fractured and attendance has dropped sharply as attempts to reform federal immigration policy fizzled. In 2006, nearly half a million people took to Chicago’s streets. Last year, fewer than 15,000 participated.But after the Arizona law was signed into law last week, immigration reform advocates have seen a flurry of activity.

Relying on online social networking, churches and ethnic media to mobilize, activists have called for a boycott of Arizona businesses and protested outside Arizona Diamondbacks baseball games. Earlier in the week, two dozen activists chanting “Illinois is not Arizona” were arrested for blocking traffic outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in suburban Chicago.While supporters say the law is necessary because of the federal government’s failure to secure the border and growing anxiety over crime related to illegal immigration, critics say it’s unconstitutional and encourages racial profiling and discrimination against immigrants or anyone thought to be an immigrant.

Activists fear that without federal legislation in place to address the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., other states will follow Arizona’s lead and pass similar legislation.”If Republicans and Democrats do not take care of this albatross around our necks, this will in fact be the undoing of many, many years of civil rights struggle in this country,” said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, where a downtown march is planned on Saturday. “I’m hoping that there is enough fire in people’s hearts and minds to urge them to be mobilized.”

But chances the federal government will step in this year seemed slim.President Barack Obama, who had once promised to tackle immigration reform in his first 100 days but has pushed back that timetable several times, said this week that Congress may lack the “appetite” to take on immigration after going through a tough legislative year.

Meanwhile, activists say problems with a broken immigration system continue to affect millions  raids on workplaces create mistrust of authorities and separate families with mixed immigration status, employers take advantage of immigrant labor and thousands of college students are left in limbo.That includes 19-year-old Patricio Gonzalez who immigrated to the U.S. from Argentina at age five with his family on a tourist visa. It expired and his family wasn’t able to gain legal status.The Memphis teen said he had to drop out of college last fall because he wasn’t eligible for most student aid and couldn’t afford tuition.

“Do you know how difficult it is to see all your friends getting their education, and you’ve grown up with these people for years, they’re part of your family?” he said. “We’re creating lost generations — kids who grow up hopeless with no sense of betterment.”Activists aren’t alone in their opposition, a fact May 1 organizers hope will draw out even more people to rallies on Saturday which also is International Workers Day.California legislators have mulled canceling contracts with Arizona in protest. Denver Public Schools has banned work-related travel to Arizona. And several legal challenges, preventing the bill from going into effect this summer, are in the works.

Immigrant rights activists also say they’re stepping up other forms of action including more civil disobedience tactics. In Chicago, several college students plan to publicly “come out” as illegal immigrants on a downtown stage on Saturday.
“It’s time to come together and show that undocumenteds have dignity. They’re human,” said Douglas Interiano, a spokesman of Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance, which is helping plan Saturday’s march in Dallas.

He projected up to 100,000 could march in Texas with similar events planned in El Paso, Houston, Austin and San Juan. Organizers in California predicted up to 100,000 marching in downtown Los Angeles, too.”Given what’s happening in Arizona now it’s crucial for us to speak out and denounce what’s happening,” said Veronica Mendez, an organizer with the Workers Interfaith Network in Minneapolis, Minn., where there’s a Saturday rally. “We all have the same hopes and goals.”(AP)

Illegal immigrants plan to leave over Arizona because of the law

PHOENIX Many of the cars that once stopped in the Home Depot parking lot to pick up day laborers to hang drywall or do landscaping now just drive on by.Arizona’s sweeping immigration bill allows police to arrest illegal immigrant day laborers seeking work on the street or anyone trying to hire them. It won’t take effect until summer but it is already having an effect on the state’s underground economy.”Nobody wants to pick us up,” Julio Loyola Diaz says in Spanish as he and dozens of other men wait under the shade of palo verde trees and lean against a low brick wall outside the east Phoenix home improvement store.

Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants.Supporters of the law hope it creates jobs for thousands of Americans.”We want to drive day labor away,” says Republican Rep. John Kavanagh, one of the law’s sponsors.An estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years as it cracked down on illegal immigration and its economy was especially hard hit by the Great Recession. A Department of Homeland Security report on illegal immigrants estimates Arizona’s illegal immigrant population peaked in 2008 at 560,000, and a year later dipped to 460,000.The law’s supporters hope the departure of illegal immigrants will help dismantle part of the underground economy here and create jobs for thousands of legal residents in a state with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate.

Kavanagh says day labor is generally off the books, and that deprives the state of much-needed tax dollars. “We’ll never eliminate it, just like laws against street prostitution,” he says. “But we can greatly reduce the prevalence.”Day laborers do jobs including construction, landscaping and household work for cash paid under the table. Those jobs have been harder to find since the housing industry collapsed here several years ago.

Standing near potted trees and bushes for sale at a Home Depot in east Phoenix, Diaz, 35, says he may follow three families in his neighborhood who moved to New Mexico because of the law. He says a friend is finding plenty of work in Dallas.Diaz says he has too much to lose by staying – he’s supporting a wife and infant son back home in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas.”They depend on me to survive,” he says. “I’m not going to wait for police to come and arrest me.”Jose Armenta, a 33-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico’s western coast, is already planning to move to Utah within the next 20 days because of a combination of the economy and the new law.”A lot of people drive by,” he says as he watched nearby cars speeding past, “and they yell, ‘Hey, go back to Mexico!'”

Analysts say it’s too soon to tell what lasting effects the law will have on the state’s underground work force, which also includes baby sitters, maids and cooks.A study of immigrants in Arizona published in 2008 found that non-citizens, mostly in the country illegally, held an estimated 280,000 full-time jobs. The study by researcher Judith Gans at the University of Arizona examined 2004 data, finding that they contributed about 8 percent of the state’s economic output, or $29 billion.Losing hundreds of thousands of unskilled laborers wouldn’t hurt the state’s economy in the short term, but it could limit the economy’s ability to grow once it recovers, says Marshall Vest, director of the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.Legal workers who are willing to take any available job now will become more choosy if the unemployment rate falls back to low levels seen before the recession hit.

“That’s really the question, as to whether the existing population is willing to work those (low-level) jobs,” Vest says. “I think economics provides the answer. If job openings have no applicants, then businesses need to address that by raising the offered wage.”Some illegal immigrants, however, intended to stick around.Natalia Garcia, 35, from Mexico City, says she and her husband – a day laborer – will stay so their daughters – both born in the U.S. – can get a good education and learn English. The couple have been living in Arizona illegally for the last 10 years.”Mexico doesn’t have a lot of opportunities,” she says. “Here, we work honestly, and we have a better life.”Olga Sanchez, 32, from southern Mexico, lives in Phoenix illegally with her two brothers, who are 21 and 17. While the youngest boy is in high school, all three work and send money back home to their parents.

“This law is very bad for us,” says Sanchez, who gets about $250 a week cleaning three houses. “I’m afraid of what’s going to happen.”She says the family is going to wait and see if the law takes effect and what the fallout will be before deciding whether to leave. The law is certain to be challenged in court; Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff already are considering lawsuits.”All I ask from God is a miracle for us to stay here and work,” she says.(AP)

Arizona immigrant advocates are preparing to move the fight to the courtroom

Arizona’s strict new immigration law escalates, immigrant advocates are preparing to move the fight to the courtroom, where their legal challenges have successfully sunk other high-profile laws against illegal migrants.The American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Immigration Law Center are set to announce in Phoenix on Thursday plans to challenge the measure.

The law, which is set to take effect in mid-summer, makes it a state crime for illegal migrants to be in Arizona, requires police to check for evidence of legal status and bars people from hiring or soliciting work off the streets.

The key legal issue, according to lawyers on both sides, will be one that also was at the center of the court fight over Proposition 187 in California whether the state law interferes with the federal government’s duty to handle immigration.The announcement of legal action, one of several expected as attorneys across the country scrutinize the law for weaknesses, comes after days of frantic e-mails, conference calls and lengthy strategy sessions. Attorneys haven’t finalized when a court challenge would be filed, but said it would be before the law takes effect.

“The entire country has been galvanized,” said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. “People within the legal community are trying to figure out what we can do…. We have seen an enormous amount of energy responding to this.”

Attorneys who successfully challenged laws against illegal immigrants in California, Texas and elsewhere argue that the Arizona law faces a similar fate because of the federal/state issue. Immigrant advocates also argue that the law could violate guarantees of equal protection if selectively enforced against certain ethnic groups.”The Arizona law is doomed to the dustbin of other unconstitutional efforts by local government to regulate immigration, which is a uniquely federal function,” said Peter Schey, a Los Angeles attorney who led both successful challenges to the 1975 Texas law denying illegal migrant children a free public education and the 1994 California initiative that would have barred public services to illegal migrants. Schey said he also planned to file a separate lawsuit.

But the attorney who helped write the Arizona law said he carefully crafted the measure to avoid those constitutional issues.Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor who handled immigration law and border security under U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft during the Bush administration, said the law does not seek to regulate immigration but merely adds state penalties for what are already federal crimes.

Under the legal doctrine of “concurrent enforcement,” he said, states are allowed to ban what is already prohibited by federal law. As an example, he said, the courts have upheld efforts by Arizona, California and other states to enact sanctions against employers who hire illegal migrants.Kobach, who is running as a Republican candidate for Kansas secretary of state, also dismissed claims that the bill will result in racial profiling. He said he took care to include an explicit ban on using “race, color or national origin” as the sole basis for stopping someone to ask for papers.

“I anticipate that anyone who challenges the law will throw everything but the kitchen sink at this to see if it will stick,” Kobach said. “But this is consistent with federal law.”Indeed, immigrant advocates raise several legal questions. The portion of the law that prohibits laborers from soliciting work in public places is particularly vulnerable, said Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of MALDEF.

The organization has successfully challenged similar laws in Arizona and California. In 2008, a federal judge ruled that an Arizona town could not enforce an anti-solicitation ordinance that advocates said infringed upon the free speech rights of day laborers.In addition, there probably will be due process claims because police officers won’t know who would be eligible for immigration relief, Saenz said. Many arrested won’t have the opportunity to make their claims in immigration court.”There are a lot of people who are going to be arrested and swept into this dragnet who have every right to be in this country,” he said.

Even before lawsuits are filed, immigrant advocates are seeking a commitment from federal officials that they will not enforce the law.On Tuesday, Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee that the law could distract the agency from using its resources to go after serious criminals.”We have concerns that at some point we’ll be responsible to enforce or use our immigration resources against anyone that would get picked up in Arizona,” said Napolitano, who noted that she had vetoed similar measures as Arizona governor.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder also said this week that he was considering a possible legal challenge to the law.Another lawsuit may come from one of Arizona’s own elected officials. Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said this week that he planned to file a lawsuit.”I have under the charter the ability given to me by the people to file a lawsuit on behalf of the people,” Gordon said Tuesday to cheers from a packed City Council meeting and one angry cry of “socialism!”

As both sides gear up for their legal battle, the wild card is the panel of judges who will end up deciding the case.Judges have ruled differently on key immigration questions. In 2007, a federal judge ruled that a Pennsylvania city couldn’t punish landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and employers who hire them. A federal judge also ruled against a Texas measure that sought to ban landlords from renting to illegal migrants.Advocates didn’t succeed, however, in getting the courts to block another Arizona law, which shuts down businesses for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. In 2008, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco refused to stop the law before it took effect, saying that businesses and immigrant rights groups hadn’t shown an adequate need for delaying enforcement.

Schey said he is not confident that legal challenges against the Arizona case would prevail in today’s political and legal climate. The U.S. Supreme Court is a very different panel today than it was when a narrow majority of 5 to 4 struck down the 1975 Texas law denying free education to unauthorized migrant children.”It’s a far cry from a slam-dunk case,” Schey said. “It’s a very close call with the current composition of the Supreme Court. What’s really needed here is federal leadership.”

But Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Irvine’s law school dean, argued that the Arizona law is a far more brazen attempt to regulate immigration than either the Texas or Proposition 187 cases. The Texas law was overturned primarily on equal protection grounds while the California law was struck down as an unconstitutional attempt to usurp federal immigration responsibility.”It is so firmly established that only the federal government can control immigration that I don’t see it,” he said, referring to chances that courts would uphold the Arizona law. “Even with a conservative court and a lot of sympathy to Arizona’s concerns, I don’t see it.”

Arizona's strict new immigration law escalates, immigrant advocates are preparing to move the fight to the courtroom

Arizona’s strict new immigration law escalates, immigrant advocates are preparing to move the fight to the courtroom, where their legal challenges have sunk other high-profile laws against illegal migrants. The Los Angeles attorney who successfully challenged Texas and California efforts to bar illegal migrants from public services said this week that the Arizona law was similarly doomed because it unconstitutionally attempts to usurp federal jurisdiction to regulate immigration and could violate guarantees of equal protection with selective enforcement against certain ethnic groups.The law makes it a state crime for illegal migrants to be in Arizona and requires police to check for evidence of legal status.

“The Arizona law is doomed to the dustpan of other unconstitutional efforts by local government to regulate immigration, which is a uniquely federal function,” said Peter Schey, president of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles. But the attorney who helped write the Arizona law said he carefully crafted the measure to avoid those constitutional issues. Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor who handled immigration law and border security under U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft during the Bush administration, said the law does not seek to regulate immigration but merely adds state penalties for what are already federal crimes.

Under the legal doctrine of “concurrent enforcement,” he said, states are allowed to ban what is already prohibited by federal law. As an example, he said, the courts have upheld efforts by California, Arizona and other states to enact sanctions against employers who hire illegal migrants.

Kobach, who is running as a Republican candidate for Kansas secretary of state, said he took care to include an explicit ban on using “race, color or national origin” as the sole basis for stopping someone to ask for papers.

“I anticipate that anyone who challenges the law will throw everything but the kitchen sink at this to see if it will stick,” Kobach said. “But this is consistent with federal law.” As both sides gear up for their legal battle, the wild card is the panel of judges who end up deciding the case. Judges have ruled differently on key immigration questions.

Even as judges have upheld state employer sanction laws, they have struck down laws banning illegal immigrants from renting property, most recently in Texas last month.Schey himself said he is not confident that legal challenges against the Arizona case would prevail in today’s political and legal climate. The U.S. Supreme Court is a very different panel today than it was when a narrow majority of 5-4 struck down the 1975 Texas law banning unauthorized migrant children from public schools, he said. “It’s a far cry from a slam-dunk case,” Schey said. “It’s a very close call with the current composition of the Supreme Court. What’s really needed here is federal leadership.”