The Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Voting Rights Act last week, only two weeks after ruling that an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote is unconstitutional. The Court’s decision last Tuesday and the idea underpinning it – that voter suppression of ethnic minority and poor voters is no longer an issue that warrants the same federal protections as it once did – sits at odds with their ruling on the Arizona voter ID law.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio engaged in racial profiling of Latinos, violating their constitutional rights in his crackdown on illegal immigration. Civil rights advocates expect the ruling to send a chilling message to other law enforcement agencies that are planning to engage in immigration enforcement. “The order today will have national importance in deterring others across the country,” said Dan Pochoda, one of the prosecuting attorneys.

“SB 1070 is being used as a tool to intimidate and hurt communities,” said Lydia Guzman, the national chairman of the League of United Latin American Citizens’ (LULAC) Immigration Committee, to the board. Almost three years after the bill was signed into law making it mandatory for police to contact immigration authorities if they suspect someone is in the country illegally, the Arizona Civil Rights Advisory Board (ACRAB) heard testimony from undocumented immigrants themselves. 

On Election Day, Arizona remained a red state -- electing Sheriff Joe Arpaio to a sixth term in office, Republican Jeff Flake to the U.S. Senate, and voting for Mitt Romney for president -- while its neighbors, Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado, went blue for President Obama. According to political pundits, the reason those states voted Democrat this year was because of their fast-growing Latino populations. If having a large Latino population was all a state needed to turn blue, then Arizona, which is almost one-third Latino, should have been blue, too. But it wasn’t. 

There are close to 400,000 registered Latino voters in the state, up 23 percent from four years ago, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO). There are a similar number of Mormons living in Arizona, though the community has a longer and more established history of voter turnout. And this year, observers say, Republicans are counting on their vote. 

On September 18, over the pleas of civil rights groups, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton lifted an injunction on the “papers please” provision, siding with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. This means, police in Arizona now are required to inquire about a person’s immigration status if they have reasonable suspicion they are in the country illegally. Police could face lawsuits if they fail to enforce the law to the fullest extent.

The fatal encounter lasted only a few seconds. According to the police report, Jude was in his car with his girlfriend placing an order at Taco Bell, and was told to drive to the front window to pick up the order. As he pulled away from the drive-through, he nearly ran over Adkins  as he was walking his dog. Adkins cursed loudly at Jude and approached the passenger window of his car. Jude and his girlfriend said they then saw Adkins swinging something that resembled a bat. At that point, said Jude, he shot Adkins with a pistol that he had on his lap, then called 911.

In Tucson, the Mexican-American Studies department has been dismantled; the curriculum has been outlawed, its books confiscated and banned; its longtime director has been fired; the teachers have been reassigned; their classes and new curriculum are being monitored and state officials are going into classrooms to ensure that they and their students are complying with the unconstitutional ethnic studies ban, HB 2281. 

U.S. Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism over the federal government’s arguments April 25  in a hearing on Arizona’s controversial immigration law SB 1070. The justices could issue a decision as early as June. Among the key questions at the heart of the case is whether states can enforce their own immigration laws. 

2011 saw a record number of laws restricting abortion in U.S. states. It also saw a record number of state anti-immigrant laws. Coincidence? Maybe not. In 2000, 13 states were considered “hostile” to reproductive rights; by 2011, that number had doubled to 26 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute. 2011 was also a record year for anti-immigrant legislation.