| | |  Americas & Beyond 
US Democrats to Announce Immigration Reform Plan
 Thomas Ferraro & Tim Gaynor - Reuters
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April 29, 2010
| | Opponents of Arizona's new immigration enforcement law protest outside the state capitol building on April 25 in Phoenix, Arizona. The always volatileUS debate on immigration, already difficult with the November mid-term elections in view, took a turn for the explosive last week when Arizona approved its stringent new law. (AFP/Getty Images/John Moore) | |
Washington/Phoenix – Democratic leaders in the Congress, seizing on the furor over Arizona's immigration crackdown, said on Thursday they would unveil a "framework" for comprehensive overhaul of U.S. immigration laws.
The announcement came as the first legal and political challenges to the new Arizona law were filed in the state and a small group of activists turned out to protest the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team at a game in Chicago.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a measure into law on Friday that makes it a state crime to be in Arizona illegally. It also requires state and local police to determine a person's immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" they are in the United States illegally.
Critics say the law opens the door to racial profiling. Though polls show broad support for Arizona's law both in the state and nationally, it has sparked an outcry among Latinos, civil rights activists and organized labor ahead of planned May Day rallies this weekend.
President Barack Obama's administration said it was considering a court challenge. Obama has called the law "misguided."
In a statement released through his office, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he and his fellow Democrats would discuss their plans at a news conference later on Thursday.
Reid said in the statement that "in order to make immigration reform successful, Republicans need to work with Democrats and demonstrate a true commitment to fixing the flaws in America's immigration system to improve our nation's economic and national security."
Immigration reform, one of the most incendiary issues in U.S. politics, is seen as unlikely to pass the Congress this year and Obama has said lawmakers may not have the appetite to tackle it ahead of the November elections.
FIRST LAWSUITS FILED
Republicans have accused Reid, who faces an uphill battle for re-election in November, of calling for reform merely in a bid to rally support of Hispanic voters in his home state of Nevada.
Passing a bill offering a "path to citizenship" for many of the 10.8 million illegal immigrants in the United States would boost support for Democrats among Hispanics, the country's largest minority.
In Arizona, a group of activists filed a petition with the secretary of state seeking a measure on the November ballot that would put the law before voters. The group, One Arizona, has until late July or early August to submit the more than 76,000 signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot.
And the first two lawsuits challenging the law were filed in federal courts in Arizona - one by a Tucson police officer and the other by the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders.
"It is an attempt by Arizona to regulate immigration and that is a responsibility and authority that belongs exclusively to the federal government under our constitution," Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said at a news conference and rally outside the state capitol in Phoenix.
Saenz's organization, and the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center said they also plan legal challenges.
In Chicago, some two dozen protesters passed out leaflets and chanted "boycott Arizona" outside Wrigley Field, before a baseball game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago Cubs.
Several fans shook their heads when approached by protesters, and one man with a bullhorn shouted "Don't boycott baseball, America's pastime."
Despite the outcry, a Rasmussen Reports poll on Wednesday found that nearly two-thirds - 64 percent - of Arizona voters favored the statute. A telephone survey this week showed that 60 percent of voters nationwide backed such a law.
Republican backers say the law is needed to curb crime in the desert state, which is home to some 460,000 illegal immigrants and is a major corridor for drug and migrant smugglers from Mexico.
(Additional reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix, Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Thomas Ferraro in Washington and Andrew Stern in Chicago; writing by Dan Whitcomb; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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