The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged justice department

From the Team That Brought You Arizona’s SB 1070…

By | 10.18.10 | 10:25 am

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R) is once again teaming up with Kris Kobach, an attorney running for Kansas Secretary of State, to write a new bill cracking down on illegal immigration in Arizona. The two worked together to draft SB 1070, a much-contested anti-illegal immigration law requiring police to More…

Immigration Courts Tossing Out Record-High Number of Cases

By | 10.18.10 | 8:57 am

Houston immigration judges are throwing out an unprecedented number of cases after an internal review of the city’s immigration court docket, the Houston Chronicle reported yesterday. That means many non-criminal illegal immigrants are more likely to be released: About 200 immigration cases have been dismissed per month since More…

Conservative Group Sues DOJ for Info on Its Decision to Sue Arizona

By | 10.08.10 | 2:03 pm

Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, announced today that is has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice to try to get at the government’s reason for suing Arizona over its SB 1070 immigration law. The law’s most controversial provisions, including instructing local law enforcement More…

Napolitano Confirms There Is No Opt-Out Option for Secure Communities

By | 10.06.10 | 5:18 pm

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano confirmed today that Secure Communities, a program that provides federal immigration officials with fingerprint data from local police, is mandatory for local jurisdictions. “We don’t consider Secure Communities an opt in/opt out program,” Napolitano said, according to an Immigration and Customs More…

Brewer Tries to Keep Foreign Governments Out of Immigration Lawsuit

By | 10.06.10 | 3:32 pm

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is protesting a federal court’s decision to allow foreign governments to file “friend-of-the-court” briefs in the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will hear the case in November, ruled Monday that Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, More…

‘Pledge to America’ Plans for Immigration

By | 09.23.10 | 2:17 pm

The GOP’s “Pledge to America” is pretty brief when it comes to immigration issues: It advocates control of the border, enforcement of immigration laws and strengthening visa security. (Notably absent? Any paths to legalization for illegal immigrants already in the country.) The document does not go so far More…

Making Sense of the Arizona SB 1070 Lawsuits

By | 09.03.10 | 11:12 am

Arizona faces seven legal challenges to its SB immigration law — which is part of why the state needs the $3.6 million in donations it has pulled in to defend the law.

Arizona Spends $442,000 in Two Months Defending Its Immigration Lawsuit

By | 09.03.10 | 10:52 am

The state of Arizona spent $442,000 in legal fees in May and June defending its SB 1070 lawsuit from a series of lawsuits, according to documents released Thursday by Gov. Jan Brewer’s office. So far, though, taxpayer funds have not been used for legal fees, as the state More…

DOJ Sues Sheriff Joe Arpaio

By | 09.02.10 | 1:00 pm

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the controversial leading law enforcement officer in Maricopa County, has been delaying a Department of Justice investigation over alleged civil rights abuses by refusing to hand over documents to federal investigators. The investigation started in March 2009, but the DOJ issued an ultimatum More…

DOJ Sues Arizona Over Immigration Practices, Again

By | 08.31.10 | 8:39 am

The Justice Department filed another suit Monday against Arizona for immigration actions by its officials, claiming a network of community colleges engaged in illegal discriminatory practices toward noncitizens.