Arizona Law

If President Obama puts immigration reform at the top of his priority list, Congress should muster the courage to stop him. Obama risks slicing the number of Americans who trust the federal government from the already dismal 22 percent - as determined by a Pew Research poll - to something approaching negative numbers. And for good reason, because our federal immigration policy is not only broken; it's hypocritical. The president's idea of immigration reform is legalizing the immigration status of those who entered the United States illegally - after they pay a fine and endure other inconveniences - while lessening border enforcement.

In a high-profile Pennsylvania case that helped spark the ongoing national debate over immigration policy, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the City of Hazleton has no right to punish businesses or landlords who hire or rent to illegal immigrants. The ruling, by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, upheld a 2007 lower-court decision prohibiting Hazleton from enforcing local immigration ordinances. The judges said federal immigration law preempted Hazleton's controversial 2006 initiatives.

ORLANDO, Fla. - No longer a back-burner issue, immigration is roiling the presidential race as President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney seek to court the nation's swelling Hispanic population. The outcome could influence political battle lines and shape U.S. politics for generations. By week's end, both candidates will address the same Latino political convention in Florida, showcasing contrasting political ideologies at a pivotal time. The Supreme Court is about to render judgment on a get-tough Arizona law, and just last week the Democratic president announced plans to ease deportation rules for some children of illegal immigrants.

Protesting students aren't learning The student walkouts to protest New Jersey taxpayers' decision to deny bloated school funding was a step in the wrong direction. Students are in school to learn, and the most important lesson is that there is only so much water in the well. Maybe if their self-interests were curtailed, by sacrificing the trips to the mall, the cell phones, personal entertainment devices, and other frivolous expenditures, their parents would have more money to pay the higher taxes to keep the bloated school system funded.

JUST TO BE clear about this, Rebecca T. Alpert wants you to help manipulate the selection process for the starting lineups for next month's Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Phoenix. The Temple University associate professor of Religion and Women's Studies is a lifelong baseball fan with an agenda. Alpert wants baseball fans to stuff the ballot box with votes for Latino players. Her goal is to have 18 players of Latino descent starting for both the American and National leagues to draw attention to Arizona's Support Our Law Enforcement and Sage Neighborhoods Act, which allows law-enforcement officials to request documentation and legally detain anyone who might look like an illegal alien.

PHOENIX - Arizona's ban on abortions starting at 20 weeks of pregnancy will take effect this week as scheduled after a federal judge ruled Monday that the new law is constitutional. U.S. District Judge James Teilborg said the statute may prompt a few pregnant women who are considering abortion to make the decision earlier. But he said the law is constitutional because it does not prohibit women from making the decision to end their pregnancies. He also wrote that the state had provided "substantial and well-documented" evidence that a fetus has the capacity to feel pain during an abortion by at least 20 weeks.

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania joined eight other states on Wednesday in a legal brief supporting Arizona's immigration law, just days after the Obama administration sued to block its enforcement. "We believe the lawsuit filed by the federal government in this case undermines the constitutional authority of all our states," said Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, spokesman for Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, who is also the Republican gubernatorial nominee. Corbett's move was news to Gov. Rendell, his spokesman said late Wednesday.

Opponents of Arizona's immigration law rallied in Old City on Thursday to celebrate a federal judge's decision to put on hold controversial provisions of the law, which would have allowed police to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other statutes. "Immigration for some, quite frankly, has become the new segregation," Mayor Nutter told a rally at Welcome Park. "We need to figure out a real pathway to citizenship. We cannot have 50 different rules all across the United States of America.

Posting themselves between Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, a couple dozen demonstrators from civil rights and immigrant-aid groups took aim Wednesday at the only part of Arizona's immigration law that the U.S. Supreme Court did not overturn Monday. Their target was the provision known as "show me your papers," requiring police to verify the immigration status of anyone they detain for any offense. The practical result will be racial profiling, warned speakers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, the NAACP, the New Sanctuary Movement, and the Latino community support group Juntos.

Nine years ago today was the last time that Lizasuain DeJesus saw her youngest daughter, Iriana Morales DeJesus, alive, on a Hunting Park street. Five days later, after neighborhood searches and pleas for her child's return, a local landlord discovered the body of the 5-year-old girl on the second floor of a two-story building, a block from her home, wrapped partially in a trash bag. "Nena," as she was affectionately called, had been strangled and...