Feds sue Utah over illegal immigration enforcement bill

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah will aggressively fight a federal lawsuit attacking the state's controversial immigration enforcement law, Mark Shurtleff said Tuesday.

The Utah attorney general said the state was careful to tailor HB497 to reflect recent federal court opinions on other states' immigration enforcement efforts, but there are "one or two minor things they still have some heartburn over" that could be corrected by the Utah Legislature in its next session.

READ MORE: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705394800/Feds-sue-Utah-over-illegal-immigration-enforcement-bill.html 

Feds sue to block Utah immigration law

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming the Utah Legislature overstepped its authority when it passed a tough immigration law, arguing immigration enforcement is a federal duty.

"A patchwork of immigration laws is not the answer and will only create further problems in our immigration system," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. "While we appreciate cooperation from states, which remains important, it is clearly unconstitutional for a state to set its own immigration policy."

READ MORE: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52972971-90/497-attorney-bill-department.html.csp 

Editorial: Alabama's Shame

The self-inflicted wounds from Alabama’s most-abusive-in-the-nation immigration law just keep on coming. Last week, a manager for Mercedes-Benz, visiting from Germany, was pulled over in his rental car by a police officer in Tuscaloosa near where a Mercedes plant builds sport-utility vehicles. 


READ MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/opinion/alabamas-shame-cont.html

Bad economy slows foreign-born immigration to Utah

While the illegal immigration debate flared in Utah the past few years, new Census Bureau estimates suggest that immigration here by foreign-born people slowed greatly.

Based on surveys of foreign-born residents who lived in Utah in 2010 — both documented and undocumented — the Census estimates about 15,610 of them immigrated here from 2008 through 2010.

That was down from the 25,422 it estimates immigrated here from 2005 through 2007 — for a 39 percent drop between those two three-year periods.

READ MORE: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/52938759-90/utah-born-foreign-percent.html.csp

More Discretion In Deportations .

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the immigration-enforcement unit of the Department of Homeland Security, said in an outline of the initiative that its "attorneys nationwide will review all incoming cases in immigration court." The ICE said such a review would accelerate the removal of "criminal aliens and other priority cases" and prevent "new low priority cases" from clogging overburdened courts.

READ MORE: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204517204577044503987324914.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Feds offer new guidance on when to dismiss immigration cases

A memo laying out the guidelines, obtained by the Houston Chronicle, offers a clearer picture of the groups of immigrants who would benefit from the Obama administration's much-publicized plan to review 300,000 pending cases in immigration courts.

The review, first announced in August, is designed to cull from the nation's overburdened immigration court docket "low priority" cases - primarily those involving illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for years without committing serious crimes.

READ MORE: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Feds-offer-new-guidance-on-when-to-dismiss-2275353.php

Obama administration showing leniency in immigration cases

The elderly, children who have been in the country more than five years, students who came to the U.S. under the age of 16 and are enrolled in a college degree program, and victims of domestic violence are among those whose deportations could be put on hold under the test program, which begins Dec. 4 and could be broadened in January.
READ MORE: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-review-20111118,0,1046351.story?track=rss