Immigration law

PHOENIX -- Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced Monday she will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that put the most controversial parts of the state's immigration enforcement law on hold.

The planned appeal to the high court comes after Brewer lost an initial appeal April 11, when a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reverse a lower court's order that prevented key parts of the law from being enforced.

SALT LAKE CITY — Two civil rights groups asked a federal judge Friday to stop a Utah immigration law from taking effect next week, saying it would create a police state and violate constitutional rights to due process.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Illegal immigrants could receive college financial aid under legislation approved Thursday by the Assembly and apparently destined for the desk of a new Democratic governor who supports the concept.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Two national organizations are suing Utah to halt a new immigration law they claim encourages racial profiling.

The National Immigration Law Center says an enforcement measure signed by Gov. Gary Herbert in March is just as unconstitutional as a similar Arizona law that courts have already struck down. The American Civil Liberties Union also has joined the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Salt Lake City.

ATLANTA -- Seven college-age Latinos gathered in downtown Atlanta and passed around a microphone, announcing to the world that they were coming out of the shadows as illegal immigrants.

Then, in an act of civil disobedience, they sat down in the middle of a busy street and announced it again to a large and chanting crowd. When they were hauled off to jail, they even declared their status to a pair Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers -- who proceeded to do nothing.

After a night in jail, the seven were free again on April 6, clutching misdemeanor tickets issued by the city for blocking traffic.

So what, one might ask, does it take for an illegal immigrant to get deported in the United States of 2011?

That turns out to be a good question, particularly for immigrants who, like the Georgia youths, call themselves "the Dreamers" -- that is, immigrants who might have achieved legal status through the federal DREAM Act.

The legislation would have offered a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States at a young age, had lived here for at least five years, and enrolled in college or served in the military.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Texas congressman who heads the U.S. House Judiciary Committee has accused the Justice Department of being "hypocritical" for not pursuing legal action against a Utah law approving a guest worker program for illegal immigrants.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said in a letter Monday to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that the Utah law approving the program is unconstitutional, and called the department's inaction a "stark contrast" to the federal government's lawsuit against Arizona for a law "that merely complements and assists in the enforcement of federal immigration law."

"This is hypocritical. If (the Justice Department) chooses not to take legal action against Utah's unconstitutional law, it will be clear the Administration bases their decisions on their own political views rather than constitutional principle," Smith said.