The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Instead of helping to fix the U.S.’s broken immigration system, repealing or limiting the scope of the Citizenship Clause of the 14^th Amendment would actually make things worse by increasing the number of undocumented immigrants and creating significant bureaucratic and financial burdens for all Americans, according to a panel of immigration and civil rights experts.

A federal jury recently convicted an Arkansas man of committing hate crimes against five Hispanic men. The trial conviction of Frankie Maybee is the first under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA).

The recent repeal of ”don’t ask don’t tell” (DADT) encountered a potentially significant setback last night when  the House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Bill of Fiscal Year 2012 that would slow down the process of repeal.

Civil rights and immigration advocates applaud the reintroduction of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act in the Senate. The bill would provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants whose parents brought them to the United States when they were young.

Prosecutors in 10 states, including Kentucky, Florida, and Illinois, have launched a multi-state investigation into allegations that for-profit colleges are using fraudulent methods to recruit students to attend their schools.

The Senate today was blocked from holding a confirmation vote on the nomination of Professor Goodwin Liu to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit when it failed to garner enough votes to overcome a procedural hurdle.

The Florida state Senate is expected to vote as early as today on S.B. 2040, a bill similar to Arizona’s controversial S.B. 1070 anti-immigrant law. If enacted, the Florida law would require employers to use a flawed and costly database to verify the immigration status of all employees and encourage police to engage in aggressive immigration enforcement targeting anyone suspected of being in the state without documentation.

The Senate voted today to confirm the nomination of Edward Milton Chen to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He will become the first Asian Pacific American federal judge to sit in San Francisco and the first Chinese American judge in the Northern District.

In a letter to U.S. Senators, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights today called for the confirmation of Professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

"Professor Liu’s stellar background, his intellectual honesty and independence, and his utmost respect for the Constitution and its values all make him an outstanding candidate," wrote Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference, and Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference.

They urged senators to vote "yes" on both cloture and final confirmation of Liu. A large number of civil and human rights organizations are also supporting Liu’s confirmation.

Liu's nomination has languished for more than a year as some senators employed an unprecedented level of obstructionist tactics to slow down many of President Obama’s nominees.

Read the full letter.