Are immigrants stealing U.S. jobs?

That’s the explosive question at the heart of the latest study released by the Center for Immigration Studies, a research group that advocates tight restrictions on immigration. Although the report somewhat debunks the myth that Americans won’t do the sort…

Anti-immigration activists see opportunity in health care debate

When President Obama showed up for a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Tuesday, he heard more than just protests against health care.

“We don’t need illegals,” yelled a white-bearded protester into his megaphone outside the high school auditorium in Portsmouth, caught on video here. “Send ‘em all back. Send ‘em back with a bullet in the head the second time.”

Protester: Send illegal aliens home ‘with a bullet in the head’

Fresh off the polarizing campaign against the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, which saw GOP figures like Tom Tancredo accusing the judge of being a Latina racist and a member of a Latino KKK, the teabagger health…

Aggressive immigration enforcement may not lead to reform

WASHINGTON — Even as the numbers of illegal immigrants entering the United States plunges and the Obama administration steps up enforcement of the immigration laws, comprehensive immigration reform that would provide a path to legalization for some undocumented immigrants…

Report finds ICE violates its own immigration detention standards

A new report released Tuesday by the National Immigration Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, and the law firm of Holland & Knight concludes that the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit…

Republicans probe Sotomayor on foreign law

It took four months to confirm Harold Hongju Koh as the State Department’s legal adviser, largely because he believed in the relevance of foreign and international law.

By the end of the second full day of questioning Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Wednesday, it was clear that similar issues are troubling Republicans about her confirmation as well. And in her case, it’s a lifetime appointment that’s at stake. In sharp questioning, critics accused her of flip-flopping on the issue, stating in earlier speeches that foreign law should influence judges’ reading of the U.S. Constitution, and then testifying at the hearing that only U.S. law controls cases in U.S. courts.

Conservatives find political fodder in firefighter decision

Monday’s ruling in the reverse discrimination case Ricci v. DeStefano was not particularly surprising for the decision itself, which was widely anticipated. As many court-watchers expected, in a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court held that, by not relying on a promotional exam on which a group of white firefighters had scored well, the city of New Haven had discriminated against the white men in favor of black and Latino firefighters who had not scored as well on the exam.

Yet within hours, conservative groups were spinning events: A 5-4 decision, they claimed, amounted to a unanimous ruling by the sitting Supreme Court justices against nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Abortion clinic violence prosecution cratered under Bush Administration

Scott Roeder, the 51-year-old accused of murdering abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in his Wichita, Kans. church, had a long history of ties to a violent right-wing extremist group, had previously threatened another abortion provider, and had just that week vandalized Tiller’s clinic.

Just as federal law specifically penalizes hate crimes, the law also makes it a federal crime to threaten or commit violence against abortion providers, or to vandalize their clinics. Yet as The Washington Independent revealed last week, the criminal law was not being enforced.

Border crackdown drives up violent immigrant smuggling, kidnapping

Let’s see what Lou Dobbs makes of this one: turns out the crackdown on border crossings by undocumented immigrants has actually led to an increase in the violent smuggling, kidnapping and ransoms demanded for delivering undocumented workers into the United States.

Little-enforced law opens window for suits against extremist groups

The threats started in 1995. It was the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the American Coalition of Life Activists decided to create a poster for their annual meeting listing the names and address of a group of doctors who performed abortions. They called them “the Deadly Dozen,” and declared each guilty of “crimes against humanity.” They offered $5,000 for information leading to their arrest, conviction, or revocation of their medical licenses. ACLA members distributed the poster at the group’s events and published it in an affiliated magazine.