The Justice Department has brought yet another legal challenge against Arizona, accusing the Maricopa County Community College District in Phoenix of illegally asking foreign nationals to show their Permanent Resident Cards, or “green cards,” before being offered jobs in the 10-college system.

The lawsuit alleges that the school district engaged in a “pattern or practice of discrimination by imposing unnecessary and discriminatory hurdles to employment for work authorized non-citizens,” and seeks a penalty of $1,100 for each of 247 non-U.S. citizens identified during a yearlong investigation.

Full story….

Related: U.S. To Arizona Travelers: Area Is Unsafe

The Washingtom Times

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

They warn travelers that they are entering an “active drug and human smuggling area” and they may encounter “armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed.” Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to “use public lands north of Interstate 8″ and to call 911 if they “see suspicious activity.”

Full story….

I’m Taking Action – Michael Berry of KTRH.com / 950KPRC.com

Gov. Brewer cites ‘wrong legal standard’:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said Thursday she has asked a federal appeals court to lift a lower court’s injunction and let the state’s tough immigration law to go fully into effect.

“This federal judge’s decision applied the wrong legal standard and ignored key provisions of federal law that empower states to enforce immigration laws,” Mrs. Brewer said in a statement.

It’s the latest step in a long legal struggle between Arizona and the Obama administration, which is expected to end with the Supreme Court eventually ruling on the law.

Full story….

Just when you think that DHS can’t get any damn dumber, they do.

The Washington Post:

ACALA, Texas — On each side of a towering West Texas stretch of the $2.4 billion border fence designed to block people from illegally entering the country, there are two metal footbridges, clear paths into the United States from Mexico.

The footpaths that could easily guide illegal immigrants and smugglers across the Rio Grande without getting wet seem to be there because of what amounts to federal linguistics. While just about anyone would call them bridges, the U.S.-Mexico group that owns them calls them something else.

“Technically speaking it’s not a bridge, it’s a grade control structure,” said Sally Spener, spokeswoman for the International Boundary and Water Commission, which maintains the integrity of the 1,200-mile river border between the U.S. and Mexico. The structures under the spans help prevent the river – and therefore the international border – from shifting.

Read the whole thing….

Every Republican candidate should make this a campaign issue this fall.

After a Catholic nun’s death earlier this month in a drunken-driving crash that police say was caused by a repeat-offender illegal immigrant, a key lawmaker wants the federal government to start detaining and deporting every illegal immigrant who commits a drunken-driving offense.

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter last week asking Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to update the rules that allowed Carlos Montano, an illegal immigrant, to be free the morning that police say he crashed into a car carrying three nuns, killing one of them, Sister Denise Mosier.

Current law doesn’t require DUI suspects to be detained, thanks to a 2004 Supreme Court interpretation, but Mr. Smith said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can detain illegal immigrants in such cases anyway, and he wants that to become the policy.

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Washington Times Editorial:

The senator thought he could gain support from Hispanics by attacking some Republicans’ call to review the current interpretation of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, Mr. Reid attacked Republicans saying, “They’ve either taken leave of their senses or their principles.”

BUT

Indeed, Mr. Reid has done a complete turnaround on the issue. In 1993, he proposed an immigration bill known as the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993 (S. 1351). The legislation never became law and only made it as far as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration and refugee affairs. However, the bill Mr. Reid wrote was tough, even by the standards of the most conservative border-state representatives.

The bill’s summary reveals Mr. Reid’s intention:

“A bill to curb criminal activity by aliens, to defend against acts of international terrorism, to protect American workers from unfair labor competition, and to relieve pressure on public services by strengthening border security and stabilizing immigration into the United States.”

Mr. Reid also made sure that the basis of birthright citizenship, the foundation of the 14th Amendment, was “clarified” – ending citizenship for babies of immigrants who were in the United States illegally.

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(CNSNews.com) – Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Ariz., one of four Arizona counties contiguous with the U.S-Mexico border, said Friday that the U.S. Border Patrol has pulled back from parts of the border in his and neighboring counties because manning those areas has become too dangerous.

“And you frankly have Border Patrolmen–and I know this from talking to Border Patrol agents–who will not allow their agents to work on the border because it is too dangerous,” Dever told CNSNews.com in a videotaped interview. “Now what kind of message is that for crying out loud?”

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Two key sheriffs along the Arizona-Mexico border on Tuesday called a planned visit by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton a “political stunt” and described as “pathetic” Obama administration attempts to “cover up its inaction in protecting our borders.”

“The administration blew past their promised Aug. 1 deadline to send 524 National Guard troops to Arizona, and now they are trying to appear concerned by sending the ICE director, who recently received a vote of ‘no confidence’ by ICE’s union,” Arizona Sheriffs Paul Babeu of Pinal County and Larry Dever of Cochise County said in a tersely worded statement.

Read the whole thing….