ICE to Expand Se Communities Program in Mass. and N.Y. – NYTimes.com

Obama administration officials have announced that a contentious fingerprinting program to identify illegal immigrants will be extended across Massachusetts and New York next week, expanding federal enforcement efforts despite opposition from the governors and immigrant groups in those states. In blunt e-mails sent Tuesday to officials and the police in the two states, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the program, Se Communities, would be activated “in all remaining jurisdictions” this Tuesday. Last June, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts declined to sign an agreement with the immigration agency to expand Se Communities beyond a pilot program in the Boston area since 2006. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said he wanted to suspend the program, which had already been initiated in a number of counties.

The Lower Floor of the Supreme Court – NYTimes

by Linda Greenhouse, New York Times, 05.02.2012

I found last week’s Supreme Court argument in the Arizona immigration case utterly depressing, and I’ve spent the intervening week puzzling over my reaction. It’s not simply that the federal government seems poised to lose: unlike the appeals court, the justices appear likely to find the heart of Arizona’s mean-spirited “attrition through enforcement” statute, S.B. 1070, permissible under federal law.

Poring over the argument transcript and the briefs, what finally came through as most deeply troubling was this: the failure of any participant in the argument, justice or advocate for either side, to affirm the simple humanity of Arizona’s several hundred thousand undocumented residents.