Brewer files appeal with U.S. Supreme Court over immigration law

Source: Arizona Republic

Attorneys for Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday filed a long-awaited petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to overturn a lower court's injunction that blocked portions of Senate Bill 1070, the state's tough immigration law, from taking effect.

In the petition, Brewer's attorneys argue that illegal immigration imposes a hardship on the state, noting that the nation's "broken system leaves the people and government of Arizona to bear a disproportionate share of the burden of a national problem."

The state announced in April that it intended to appeal directly to the high court after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reverse a federal judge's injunction that kept parts of the law from taking effect, including a requirement that police enforcing other laws question people about their immigration status if they have reason to suspect those people are in the country illegally.

In taking the case directly to the Supreme Court - as opposed to seeking a full, "en banc" review by the entire 9th Circuit court - Brewer and Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne hope to have a speedier resolution to the controversy surrounding SB 1070 and questions about its constitutionality.





Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/08/10/20110810arizona-immigration-law-supreme-court-deadline.html

Whether it's misguided or not, the reason states want to do something is because the feds literally do nothing when people file reports about illegal workers, etc. There are ranchers putting up with illegal immigrants swarming over their property, destroying the environment, leaving trash everywhere, and some of them even threaten these property owners with guns. No way in hell would I want to live there.

We need to get some real border protection down there, and crack down hard on the employers who pay illegal workers slave wages. All that does is draw people here illegally, and drive down wages for American workers.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/06/world/americas/immigration.html?hp

The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive. A growing body of evidence suggests that a mix of developments — expanding economic and educational opportunities, rising border crime and shrinking families — are suppressing illegal traffic as much as economic slowdowns or immigrant crackdowns in the United States.

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the United States for the first time had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

American census figures analyzed by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center also show that the illegal Mexican population in the United States has shrunk and that fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004.

The question is why. Experts and American politicians from both parties have generally looked inward, arguing about the success or failure of the buildup of border enforcement and tougher laws limiting illegal immigrants’ rights — like those recently passed in Alabama and Arizona. Deportations have reached record highs as total border apprehensions and apprehensions of Mexicans have fallen by more than 70 percent since 2000.