At a press conference today, the ACLU and other civil rights groups will outline details of a legal challenge they will file to SB 1070, Arizona's immigration law:

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Immigration Law Center, which argue the law is unconstitutional, were expected to outline their legal strategy at the Arizona state capitol in Phoenix.

More here. Separately, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will hold a press conference at 5:45 p.m ET outlining the Democrat's immigration law overhaul, which Obama says will be tough to pass this year.

(Photo credit: Archiwum Panstwowe w Krakowie)

Via John Wesley Hall (aka Last Night in Little Rock) at FourthAmendment.com:

AZ: State immigration law signed; what does an illegal alien look like?

The Arizona state immigration bill, S.B. 1070, was signed into law by the Governor yesterday. It permits detention on reasonable suspicion of being an illegal alien, and the burden apparently is on the detainee to prove he or she is a citizen. How does one prove citizenship? Carry your birth certificate? Won't the footprint be a little dated? No picture on a birth certificate. Isn't the burden of proof in a warrantless detention on the government? Doesn't the Fourth Amendment protect illegals the undocumented already inside the U.S.? It has to [in order]to protect the rest of us.

Arizona's S.B. 1070 makes a mockery of our Constitution. Congress needs to put immigration reform front and center now and pass legislation that would invalidate S.B. 1070 and prevent other states from following in its footsteps. [More...]

The absurdly discriminatory immigration bill passed by the Arizona House passed the Senate yesterday. Absent a veto by the Republican Governor, Jan Brewer, it will become law.

The bill would require immigrants to carry their alien registration documents at all times and require police to question people if there's reason to suspect they're in the United States illegally. It also targets those who hire illegal immigrant day laborers or knowingly transport them.

This bill is a racial profiling horror show in the making. What to do? Protest? That ship seems to have sailed. Better: Boycott Arizona. No hotels, no airlines based there, no merchandise manufactured there. Cross the Grand Canyon off your summer travel plans. Forget Sedona and Scottsdale. Colorado is lovely this time of year.

The Arizona House has passed a bill similar to one passed by the state Senate criminalizing undocumented presence in the state. With some minor reconciliation changes, it will go to the Governor for signing into law. Included in the bill are provisions that:

• Create a new state misdemeanor crime of willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document.
• Allow officers to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they're legally in the country.
• Ban so-called soft immigration policies at local police agencies and allow people to sue if they feel a government agency has adopted a policy that hinders the enforcement of illegal immigration laws.
• Prohibit people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day-labor services on street corners.
• Make it illegal for people to transport illegal immigrants if the drivers of vehicles know their passengers are in the country illegally and if the transportation furthers their illegal presence in the country.

This bill gives cops the power to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being undocumented. What a mandate for racial profiling. I hope people boycott Arizona and products made there if this bill gets signed into law. Let their tourism industry suffer the consequences. Visit New Mexico or Colorado instead. [More...]

The National Mall in Washington is ready for today's March for America. Maybe now that the Dems have their 216 votes and the vote won't happen until this evening, it will get some attention.

Tens of thousands of people are expected from all over the country. You can follow along here or on Twitter here or on Facebook.

Sen. Lindsey Graham is feeling his oats. His constituents ought to send him back to pasture. His latest: He threatens that if the health care bill passes, there will be no immigration reform this year.

“The first casualty of the Democratic health care bill will be immigration reform. If the health care bill goes through this weekend, that will, in my view, pretty much kill any chance of immigration reform passing the Senate this year,” Graham said in a statement blast-emailed to the Washington press corps.

Graham's influence over the detainee trials and Guantanamo is going to his head. The Dems should refuse to listen to him.

March for America and comprehensive immigration reform this Sunday. I hope you will all check out the ad on the right and do your part.

No human being is illegal. This is an opportunity to march for democracy, march for American workers, march for family unification and march for justice.

March 21, National Mall, Washington DC
March at 2:00 pm

The ACLU has released an issues brief arguing against the criminalizing of the undocumented. It's both unlawful and harmful to public policy.

The use by states and localities of criminal laws to go after undocumented immigrants simply for being undocumented is generally unlawful, because the federal government has sole power to regulate immigration.

[More...]

Homeland Security Secret Janet Napolitano announced today the U.S. will temporarily halt deportations to Haiti.

Those with deportation orders will be allowed to remain in the U.S. Those held in detention centers will remain jailed, Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler said.

The Haitians who are here should receive TPS (Temporary Protected Status.) Homeland Security can designate a country for TPS based, among other things, on internal armed conflict, overwhelming natural disaster, or extraordinary temporary conditions preventing safe return of its nationals.

Several members of Congress who represent Haitian communities have been pressuring the Obama administration to give temporary protected status, or TPS, to Haitians illegally in the U.S. The designation would allow Haitians to remain and work legally in the U.S. The latest disaster gave new urgency to the lawmakers' demand.

According to Homeland security, 30,000 Haitians in the U.S. have orders to leave and about 160 are in detention.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday said the Obama Administration is ready to move forward with plans to create a path to citizenship for the undocumented.

Under the administration’s plan, illegal immigrants who hope to gain legal status would have to register, pay fines and all taxes they owe, pass a criminal background check and learn English.

.... “Let me emphasize this: we will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows,” she said, adding that the recovering economy would be strengthened “as these immigrants become full-paying taxpayers.”

Unfortunately, Napolitano continued to express support for local enforcement of federal laws and other stricter enforcement procedures. More on her speech is available at the Center for American Progress, including a video of her remarks.

While President Obama said this week that immigration reform will have to wait until next year, his Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has been racheting up former Bush policies of punitive enforcement.

Janet Napolitano, defended the administration’s assertive strategy against illegal immigrants and companies that employ them, relying largely on programs started under President George W. Bush.

....Ms. Napolitano said security problems on the border were inextricably linked not only to the drug trade, but also to the problem of illegal workers in far-flung cities across the country. The government needs to address illegal immigration at the same time it attacks the Mexican mafias, she said.

[More...]

Does anyone remember Agent Orange? If this is what Janet Napolitano has in mind for Homeland Security, fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a wild and bumpy ride.

The U.S. Border Patrol plans to poison the plant life along a 1.1-mile stretch of the Rio Grande riverbank as soon as Wednesday to get rid of the hiding places used by smugglers, robbers and illegal immigrants.

If successful, the $2.1 million pilot project could later be duplicated along as many as 130 miles of river in the patrol’s Laredo Sector, as well as other parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Are they going to force Sheriff Joe Arpaio's inmates to do the planting? [More...]