U.S. President Barack Obama set an August 1 deployment date for 1,200 National Guard members to be sent to the Mexican border. Alan Bersin, the U.S. customs and border protection commissioner, said the troops’ mission will be to “support efforts of law enforcement, not to have a direct law enforcement role.” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared that the troops will support “agents working in high-risk areas to disrupt criminal organizations seeking to move people and goods illegally across the southwest border.”

Arizona's law allowing local police to enforce federal immigration law has added new fuel to the debate over immigration reform, an issue that continues to be one of the most difficult national issues. The Obama administration's recent decision to challenge the state law has further raised the stakes. Four religious leaders who recently attended a faith and immigration conference at the Council on Foreign Relations weigh in with their views of reconciling religion and immigration law. Read more

With Arizona’s immigration law SB 1070 slated to go into effect on July 29, legislators around the country continue to look at similar restrictive measures toward undocumented immigrants. The U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit filed against Arizona on July 7 may delay implementation of the law or permanently strike it down, but, either way, state legislators are increasingly acting to take federal policy into their own hands. http://www.as-coa.org/article.php?id=2521

In a pre-release from the forthcoming AQ (to be released July 29, 2010), two U.S. border state governors face off on immigration. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer argues that Washington's failure to enforce existing immigration laws leaves the state with no choice but to take care of matters itself, while her counterpart in New Mexico, Bill Richardson, argues that immigration must remain in the hands of the federal government. http://www.as-coa.org/article.php?id=2517

“We can't take bets on this because it’s illegal and probably immoral,” write the authors of The Houston Chronicle’s Immigration Chronicles blog in a post about whether a U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit will succeed in blocking implementation of Arizona’s controversial immigration law. Legal experts interviewed wager that the case will achieve its end before the July 29 implementation of the legislation. Read an AS/COA analysis of the Justice Department’s federal case against Arizona.

Although there are common themes among immigrants, certain groups do have unique perspectives. We chose to look at two groups, immigrants from Mexico and immigrants who identify themselves as Muslims as these groups are at the forefront of immigration policy and perceptions. Mexican immigrants are more likely to say they're happy in the United States, but also significantly more likely to perceive discrimination against immigrants. They're also more likely to be lower-income and perhaps face more language barriers.