Cuba U.S. Military jurors fly to Guantanamo Bay to hear 1st war-crimes trial under Obama

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba U.S. military officers were flying in Sunday to serve as jurors in war-crimes proceedings as the Guantanamo tribunal system geared up for one of its busiest weeks under President Barack Obama.The Pentagon is holding military commission sessions this week for two detainees: a young Canadian going on trial for the slaying of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan and an aide to Osama bin Laden who is to be sentenced after pleading guilty in a deal with prosecutors.

The tribunal system that ground to a halt after Obama took office is coming alive with lawyers, human-rights observers and more than 30 journalists who are at the U.S. Navy base in southeastern Cuba to attend Monday’s proceedings in two courtrooms.Obama has introduced some changes designed to extend more legal protections to detainees, but the tribunals’ long-term future remains cloudy as the president struggles to fulfill a pledge to close the prison altogether.

The trial for Omar Khadr, the Toronto-born son of an alleged al-Qaida financier, is expected to begin Tuesday following pretrial hearings.It is to be the first trial under Obama and only the third at Guantanamo, where the system that former President George W. Bush established for prosecuting terror suspects after the 9/11 attack has faced repeated legal setbacks and challenges.Khadr is accused of lobbing a grenade that killed U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer of Albuquerque, New Mexico, during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted of charges including murder, conspiracy and spying.

His lawyers deny he threw the grenade and argue that Khadr, the last Westerner at Guantanamo, deserves leniency because he was only 15 when he was captured. They contend the prosecution rests on confessions extracted following abuse that included sleep deprivation and threats of rape.”President Obama has decided to write the next sad, pathetic chapter in the book of military commissions and unfortunately the president is starting the military commissions with the case of a child solder,” Army Lt. Col. Jon Jackson, Khadr’s attorney, said at a news conference Sunday.

Khadr said in a May letter to one of his Canadian lawyers, Dennis Edney, that he was resigned to a harsh sentence from a system that he called unfair.”It might work if the world sees the U.S. sentencing a child to life in prison, it might show the world how unfair and sham (sic) this process is,” Khadr wrote.

A spokesman for the military commissions prosecutors, Navy Capt. David Iglesias, said the defendant’s age may be considered at sentencing if Khadr is convicted but has no legal bearing on his prosecution.”What you look to is did he know what he was doing,” Iglesias said. “We’ll let the evidence speak for itself.”The U.S. Supreme Court last week rejected a last-ditch request to halt the trial on grounds the system is unconstitutional.

In the other case, a military panel will begin deliberations as early as Monday on a sentence for Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, a Sudanese detainee who pleaded guilty last month to one count each of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.Al-Qosi was accused of acting as accountant, paymaster, supply chief and cook for al-Qaida during the 1990s when the terrorist network was centered in Sudan and Afghanistan. He allegedly worked later as a bodyguard for bin Laden.

The 50-year-old from Sudan faced a potential life sentence if convicted at trial. Terms of the plea deal, including any limits on his sentence, have not been disclosed. Iglesias said it may remain sealed even after the case is resolved.Both detainees have been held at Guantanamo since 2002.(AP)

Gov. Jan Brewer has removed the state's attorney general from defending Arizona's new immigration-enforcement law

PHOENIX Gov. Jan Brewer has removed the state’s attorney general from defending Arizona’s new immigration-enforcement law, accusing him of colluding with the U.S. Justice Department as it weighs whether to challenge the law in court.Brewer, a Republican, said she took action after state Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat and her potential challenger for re-election, met Friday with Justice Department lawyers, who then met with her legal advisers.

Goddard, who has publicly stated he opposes the law but vowed to defend the state in court as its chief lawyer, said he told the Justice Department team “we need solutions from Washington, not more lawsuits.”Brewer expressed similar sentiments after her legal advisers met with the federal lawyers, vowing to defend the state to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

But she accused Goddard of a lack of resolve on immigration matters and called his meeting with the Justice Department team a “curious coordination.”The immigration law she signed gave her the power to coordinate the state’s legal defense because the Legislature saw a “lack of confidence” in Goddard’s willingness to defend the law, she said.

The U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder Jr., is nearing a decision on whether to challenge the law, which gives the state and local police broad authority to enforce federal immigration law. It allows the police to check the immigration status of people they suspect are illegal immigrants whom they have stopped for another reason.Holder has said he worries the law may intrude on federal immigration authority and lead to profiling. On Thursday he met with police chiefs who oppose the law as divisive and a detriment to getting immigrants to report crime and cooperate with criminal investigations.

Meanwhile, thousands from around the country marched to the state capital, Phoenix, on Saturday to protest the new law, set to become effective July 29.Opponents of the law suspended their boycott against Arizona and bused in protesters from around the country.Midtown Phoenix buzzed with protesters carrying signs and American flags. Dozens of police officers were on standby along the route of the five-mile march, and helicopters hovered overhead.

Supporters of the law expected to draw thousands to a rally of their own later Saturday at a baseball stadium in suburban Tempe, encouraging like-minded Americans to “buycott” Arizona by planning vacations in the state.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 secured warehouse space for people to sleep on cots instead of staying in hotels.

“The point was to be here for this march to show support for these folks, then we’re out,” said Jose Vargas, a union representative for New York City teachers. “We’re not spending a dime here.”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, undergunned, taxed-to-the-limit front-line defenders trying to hold back the invasion,” she said.

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.”