Immigrant rights advocates joined San Francisco city officials for a vigil outside City Hall Wednesday in protest of a controversial Arizona state law being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. SB 1070, passed in Arizona in April 2010, required local police to determine the immigration status of people they reasonably suspected to be in the country illegally. The U.S. Department of Justice challenged the constitutionality of the law and a ......

A tea party activist from Belmont has the go-ahead to begin collecting signatures to place an Arizona-style immigration initiative on the California ballot in 2012, the Contra Costa Times reports. The measure, which proponent Michael Erickson modeled on Arizona's SB 1070 and calls the "Support Federal Immigration Law Act," would require police and highway patrol officers to check immigration status "when they are reasonably suspicious that a person stopped is in ......

Hundreds of protesters outraged by Arizona’s controversial immigration law blocked streets outside the federal courthouse in San Francisco where a hearing about the law was being held before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday morning, KTVU reported. The protesters against the law were met by a small group of the law’s supporters. Opponents of the law carried signs saying “Yes we can” and “Arizona’s racist law, we say ......

Meg Whitman is taking the center stage in state politics this weekend as about a thousand Republican faithful descend on San Diego for their party’s convention. There could be some fireworks, or at least awkwardness, according to the Los Angeles Times. The issue? As KPCC reports, many Republicans are just not that excited about Whitman, their big-spending nominee for governor, who has had trouble energizing the conservative base. Throughout the ......

A federal judge may have taken the teeth out of Arizona's new immigration law, but immigrant rights activists in the Bay Area say the fight is far from over. According to the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, 160 people have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since the city started participating in the Secure Communities program on June 8, reports Francisco Barradas for El Mensajero. Under Secure Communities, ......