| Senate Blocks DeMint’s Effort to Stop Arizona Lawsuit The DeMint Amendment to de-fund the federal lawsuit against Arizona was defeated last week by a 55-43 procedural vote, with no debate or final vote on the amendment allowed. (Roll Call Vote #214, July 21, 2010). As FAIR reported last week, Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and David Vitter (R-LA) introduced the amendment to the small business bill (H.R.5297) that would deny the federal government funding to sue Arizona over its recently enacted immigration enforcement law, SB 1070. Before the vote, DeMint defended SB 1070 and argued that the Obama administration is suing Arizona for enforcing laws the federal government has chosen to ignore. “This bill is very clear. Its intent is to support and enforce the federal law, to protect the citizens of Arizona. Our federal government should be doing its job to secure our borders rather than trying to bully and intimidate the people of Arizona. We should not be suing and really hassling the people of Arizona for doing what we should be doing here, and that is protecting the citizenry.” Read the full article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Illegal Aliens Demand DREAM Act During D.C. Protest Hundreds of illegal alien students staged a protest near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. last week demanding Congress grant them amnesty. Dressed in caps and gowns, they held a mock graduation ceremony in a church and lobbied members of Congress to pass the DREAM Act, a broad amnesty measure disguised as an educational initiative that would allow millions of illegal aliens under the age of 35 who meet a very loose definition of “student” or serve in the military to qualify for green cards. The DREAM Act also allows states to grant in-state tuition benefits for illegal aliens, displacing legal residents competing for a fixed number of college admission slots and taxpayer subsidies. Read the full article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ACLU, MALDEF Sue Fremont, Nebraska over Immigration Ordinance Last Wednesday, the ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed separate lawsuits in Omaha’s U.S. District Court seeking an immediate injunction of the city of Fremont’s new immigration ordinance. Both suits also seek to invalidate the ordinance on constitutional grounds, charging the law violates the Supremacy Clause “because it attempts to regulate matters that are exclusively reserved to the federal government.” In addition, the ACLU charged that the Fremont law would encourage “discrimination and racial profiling against Latinos and other who appear to be foreign born, including U.S. citizens.” Read the full article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . National Guard Troops Head to Border August 1 Senior Homeland Security officials announced last week that the 1,200 National Guard Troops President Obama agreed to send to the U.S.-Mexico border would begin arriving August 1st. According to National Guard Bureau Chief General Craig McKinley, who joined Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton at a Pentagon press conference last week, the troops deployed will consist of entry identification teams and criminal intelligence analysts. The entry identification teams will assist Customs and Border Protection personnel and the criminal intelligence analysts will assist ICE. Read the full article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . With FAIR’s Assistance, Members of Congress File Amicus Brief in U.S.A. v. Arizona Eighty-one Members of Congress 76 Representatives and five Senators filed an amicus brief last week in U.S.A. v. Arizona to voice their support for Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law, SB 1070. The amicus brief (also known as a “friend of the court” brief) was filed to ensure that the Obama Administration’s voice was not the only voice that Judge Susan Bolton, the presiding judge in the federal lawsuit against Arizona, considered as she decides whether to issue a preliminary injunction against the law. Read the full article |
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