Rep. Stephen Sandstrom said he has about 18 lawmakers lined up to co-sponsor his enforcement-only immigration bill and former House Speaker David Clark, R-Santa Clara, urged the Republican Caucus on Thursday to allow it to go to the floor for a full debate. “I haven’t seen many legislators up here take as much time, effort and occasionally — abuse — on a singular issue as Representative Sandstrom,” Clark said. “He’s earned that particular right.”

Colorado doesn\'t need an Arizona-style immigration crackdown. Yet a bill introduced by Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, duplicates many aspects of the controversial bill passed last year in the Grand Canyon State. In fact, Colorado is one of four states across the country considering similar legislation. We think it\'s unfortunate and counterproductive.

Colorado doesn\'t need an Arizona-style immigration crackdown. Yet a bill introduced by Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, duplicates many aspects of the controversial bill passed last year in the Grand Canyon State. In fact, Colorado is one of four states across the country considering similar legislation. We think it\'s unfortunate and counterproductive.

PHOENIX — The head of a Hispanic Republican group filed legal papers Thursday seeking to recall Senate President Russell Pearce. The petition, filed by Dee Dee Blase, says Pearce should be ousted from his office because of his “overt disdain for the United States Constitution.” It says that is “indicative of his inability to govern as prescribed.”

Arizona is returning to the international spotlight with Thursday\'s introduction of legislation that would strip illegal immigrants\' U.S.-born children of their citizenship and create a two-tiered, birth-certificate process. The intent is to attract a legal challenge that could eventually lead to the U.S. Supreme Court reconsidering whether the 14th Amendment truly grants citizenship to such children.

Here is a link to the Legislative committees for Thursday, January 27, 2011 (Thanks to The Salt Lake Tribune)

Rep. Chris Herrod on Wednesday revealed the first Republican-sponsored bill in the Utah Legislature designed to penalize businesses for hiring workers who are in the country illegally while also trying to require more employers in Utah to participate in the federal E-Verify program. Herrod said he initially intended to combine his proposal with Rep. Stephen Sandstrom’s enforcement-only bill, but his revisions of the proposed “Employment of Unauthorized Aliens Act” were still ongoing through last week as he tried to strip out items he thought might be ruled unconstitutional.

Republican lawmakers called on the Obama administration to return to the era of workplace raids to arrest illegal employees, an approach that contrasts sharply with the president\'s continued push to create a path to citizenship for \"responsible young people\" and deport only those illegal immigrants charged with serious crimes.

President Obama put immigration reform, and with it the link to higher education, back in focus during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night. This overture is welcome and needed for the nation, and more urgently, for Southern Arizona. Obama has broached the necessity of fixing the country\'s immigration system before. It needs reform to make it work for employers who need workers, for people who want to work in the United States but lack the documents to do so legally, and for communities that deal with criminal elements fostered by the underground economy and smuggling linked to illegal immigration.

In response to a recent Roll Call article calling out the nativist lobby, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith wrote a letter to the editor making a series of claims -- many of which he’s been making for the last 20 years -- which simply don’t stack up to the facts. These myths also conveniently obsure the lack of any denial of ties to the nativist lobby. While many of Smith’s easy-to-swallow myths may stir the extreme end of a conservative base, they serve as a yet another distraction from having an open and honest immigration debate.

IN OUR VIEW OK, so now what? As the Daily Herald\'s recent two-part report revealed, the problem of illegal immigration continues to bedevil Utah and the nation. A comprehensive answer remains elusive, but Utah could take at least one step forward if our elected leaders recognize some core realities.

While 2010’s immigration debate centered on the controversial Arizona law, 2011’s promises to be focused on a different — and even more explosive — topic: birthright citizenship. Kris Kobach, the recently elected Kansas secretary of state, is a lawyer and professor of law who specializes in immigration issues. The architect of Arizona’s SB-1070, he is the legal mind behind two new proposals to challenge the automatic granting of citizenship to any child born in the United States, regardless of the legal status of his parents

Click here for the complete Calendar for Legislative Committees for Wednesday, Jan. 26

OREM — It\'s not hard to tell Arturo Morales-LLan is proud to be an American: the evidence is plastered all over the walls of his Orem home. In a over-sized portrait hanging above the stairs, his four children, dressed in red, white and blue, stand in front of an American flag. His shelves are full of books about the Constitution. His desk is cluttered with Americana paraphernalia.

Frustrated with the federal government\'s failure to enact immigration reform, states in 2010 passed a record number of immigration-related bills. Arizona stole the national spotlight with the controversial SB1070, which made it a state crime to be in the country illegally, but, according to a recent report by the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures, immigration was on the agenda for every state that met in regular session in 2010.

Hundreds of Mormon missionaries assigned to serve in Brazil increasingly find themselves preaching not in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo or Fortaleza, but instead in Philadelphia, Pocatello, Idaho, or even Provo. The LDS Church’s São Paulo Missionary Training Center, which can accommodate up to 700 trainees, currently houses only about 60, none of whom is a U.S. Citizen. And the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has lowered the missionary age from 19 to 18 for male Brazilians to make up for the loss of full-time American missionaries.