One of the backbones of American immigration law is, in the words of the Supreme Court’s most recent immigration decision, a state or local government is not allowed to “achieve its own immigra­tion policy.” As the Court explained more than 70 years ago, immigration policy is inexorably tied to foreign policy, and it matters of foreign policy the United States must speak with one voice — not fifty.

There are signs, however, that one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the country does not get this. A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit previously blocked a Dallas suburb’s ordinance prohibiting undocumented immigrants from renting housing, but the full court met today to reconsider that decision:

Farmers Branch was sued four years ago after it passed an ordinance allowing the city building inspector to evict any illegal immigrant renters. Its case will now go before the full membership of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with 10 of its judges appointed by Republican presidents and just five by Democrats. . . .

So far, no court has allowed Farmers Branch to enforce any form of the ordinance. But the appeals court’s rare move to hear the case a second time, months after a different three-judge panel ruled against the city, could be a sign that the town might finally get a victory.

The current ordinance, which replaced an earlier 2006 version, would require all renters to obtain a $5 city license and fill out an application that asks about their legal status. Then, the city’s building inspector would have to check whether any immigrant applying for a license was in the United States legally. Illegal immigrants would be denied a permit, and landlords who knowingly allow illegal immigrants to stay as tenants could be fined or have their renters’ license barred.

Just last term, the Supreme Court struck down much of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law SB 1070, including a provision authorizing state law enforcement officers to “arrest a person if the officer has probable cause to believe . . . [the person] has committed any public offense that makes [him] removable from the United States.” The Court deemed this provision to intrude too far upon the rule forbidding separate state immigration policies, noting that the Arizona law would effectively authorize state officials to target undocumented immigrants without any authorization whatsoever from the federal government. Because “[f]ederal law specifies limited circumstances in which state officers may perform the functions of an immigration officer,” Arizona cannot authorize police to round up immigrants and a Texas town cannot authorize building inspectors to drive immigrants from their home.

So if the Fifth Circuit follows this established law, there is little doubt that they will strike down the Farmers Branch ordinance. There is reason to doubt, however, whether this very conservative court will do so. The Fifth Circuit recently suggested that undocumented immigrants have no rights whatsoever to be free from illegal searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. A Fifth Circuit panel sanctioned a former high school cheerleader because she brought a lawsuit claiming that she shouldn’t be required to cheer for her alleged rapist. Multiple Fifth Circuit judges attended expense-paid “junkets for judges” sponsored by an organization funded by the oil industry. One member of the Fifth Circuit recently tried to force a Justice Department attorney to write a letter attacking President Obama. The Court’s chief judge once yelled at one of her few progressive colleagues to “shut up” during a court hearing.

So the law is fairly clear in this case, but so is the Fifth Circuit’s ideology. The court will inform the country soon which one of these wins out.

An investigation by an independent arm of the Department of Justice concluded on Wednesday that Attorney General Eric Holder had no knowledge about a series of botched gun stings, which began in 2006 under George W. Bush — until the operation’s flaws became public in January 2011.

The 471-page Inspector General’s report on “Operation Fast and Furious” discredits sharp allegations by Republicans in Congress who launched a witch hunt against Holder, subjecting him to hours of interrogation to float conspiracy theories, alleging repeatedly that the Obama administration was using the high-profile gun violence from the operation to garner support for gun regulation, and finding Holder in contempt of Congress.

The report debunks suggestions that Holder attempted to mislead Congress or cover up information, and confirms Holder’s own account of the operation: that it employed “flawed strategy and tactics,” but that Holder did not know about or authorize those tactics. When Holder learned that the operation out of Phoenix had been selling guns to suspected gun smugglers in an attempt to snag traffickers, he initiated changes to Department policy and personnel, and asked for an investigation by the Office of the Inspector General, which concluded:

We determined that Attorney General Holder did not learn about Operation Fast and Furious until late January or early February 2011 and was not aware of allegations of “gun walking” in the investigation until February. We found no evidence that Department or ATF staff informed the Attorney General about Operation Wide Receiver or Operation Fast and Furious prior to 2011. We concluded that the Attorney General’s Deputy Chief of Staff, the Acting Deputy Attorney General, and the leadership of the Criminal Division failed to alert the Attorney General to significant information about or flaws in those investigations.

Although the Office of the Attorney General received various weekly reports from components in the Department that mentioned Operation Fast and Furious, we found that Attorney General Holder did not personally review these reports at the time that his office received them and that his staff did not highlight them for his review. Moreover, we determined that these reports did not refer to agents’ failure to interdict firearms or include information that otherwise provided notice of the improper strategy and tactics that ATF agents were using in the investigation.

The report does hold several lower-level officials responsible for their role in what it calls a ”pattern of serious failures,” and refers 14 DOJ employees for possible discipline. Holder announced today that some officials would be leaving the Department, including former acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Explosives Kenneth Molson, while others would be subject to review.

With this exhaustive report, the Department of Justice can further the real and important work of instituting necessary reforms, hopefully without the continued distraction of defending a bogus campaign to demonize Holder.

Billionaire Casino Mogul Sheldon Adelson

As billionaires like Sheldon Adelson or Joe Ricketts write six, seven or even eight figure checks seeking to buy congressional elections and the White House, the overwhelming majority of the nation believe that such election buying needs to be reigned in. According to a recent poll by the Associated Press and the National Constitution Center, more than 8 in 10 Americans — 85% of Democrats, 81% of Republicans and 78% of independents — believe there should be limits on the amount wealthy individuals and corporations can contribute to groups seeking to buy elections.

When Judge Sharon Blackburn ruled last year that a controversial provision in Alabama’s immigration law requiring schools to check the immigration status of newly enrolled students could go into effect, schools immediately saw some Latino students staying home from school or withdrawing out of fear that their families could be deported if they were questioned about their immigration status at school.

About two weeks later, the 11th Circuit temporarily overruled Blackburn’s original decision and stopped schools from asking about the immigration status of new students. And when the appeals court gave its final ruling on Alabama’s HB 56, it struck down most of the harmful immigration law, including the schools provision. Even though the state’s attack on school children was only in effect for two weeks, Justice Department officials reported that over 13 percent of Hispanic children left school in the school year during which the law was briefly in effect.

But a year later and into a new school year, some Alabama school districts are seeing more Latino students. Although the Alabama Department of Education’s full numbers on Latino enrollment across the state will not be available until late October, early signs suggest the court orders blocking the law succeeded in reversing some of its impact on Latino students:

“When the law was first passed, we didn’t know what to expect,” said Jeff Goodwin, superintendent of the Oxford school system. “We lost 10 or 12 after the first week, but then they came back.”

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the Oxford school district has more Hispanic students than any other local school system, and has seen the largest increase in Hispanic residents in the last 10 years. Oxford’s numbers show the school system currently has 336 Hispanic students, an increase from the 324 enrolled in 2011. . . . . The Anniston school system had a slight increase to 40 Hispanic students this year from 32 in the previous year. According to the Census, Anniston’s Hispanic population dropped to 216 from 409 in the last 10 years.

The Calhoun County school system has also seen an increase in Hispanic student enrollment – with 230 Hispanic students this year compared to 215 the previous year.

The fact that schools in Calhoun County are seeing an increasing number of Latino students suggests that the court orders worked. The courts appear to have stopped a discriminatory law from further damaging the state of Alabama, and as a result, immigrant children do not have to be scared of going to school.

In the name of election integrity, Florida governor Rick Scott (R) has aggressively pursued voter purges, restricted voter registration drives and reduced early voting hours. However, his campaign finance reports reveal Scott’s 2010 campaign paid $5,000 to an accused absentee ballot broker for unspecified “contract labor.”

Before the 2011 municipal elections, 74-year-old Hialeh resident Emelina Llanes was accused of being a boletera, or someone who ostensibly helps voters deliver their ballots, but often tries to influence or bribe voters as they fill them out. Llanes, who worked for Mayor Carlos Hernandez at the time, visited elderly members of the community to talk to them about politics and delivered dozens of ballots.

Though records show Scott hired her for his gubernatorial campaign, her work for him remains unclear. Ballot brokering is one of the few methods of voter fraud that is in fact a problem in Miami-Dade County; other boleteros have been charged with forging signatures and taking advantage of senile voters. The Miami Herald’s report on boleteros may provide some insight into Scott’s payment:

“The ‘boleteros’ hover on the edge of the letter and spirit of the law,” said Christian Ulvert, a top state Democratic campaign consultant who has run races in Little Havana and Miami Beach.

“These boleteros in Miami Dade have become like some political consultants,” Ulvert added. “You don’t want them working for you. But you don’t want them working against you. So some candidates figure you just have to pay them.”

Scott won his seat by a margin of 20,745 absentee ballots in 2010. His voter suppression initiatives, such as his unsuccessful attempt to restrict voter registration drives and early voting schedules, have been mostly blocked by judges due to their impact on minority communities.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R), apparently not satisfied with restricting state-wide early voting hours, has now admitted he wants to reduce the number of valid IDs voters can show at the polls. A leaked audio recording of a Tea Party event in Cincinnati caught the Secretary reassuring Tea Party members that the Legislature plans to push strict voter ID requirements that he once opposed:

I was listening to a show one night about these onerous photo ID rules in Ohio. Well, the photo ID law in Ohio is not onerous. As a matter of fact, I suspect the GA [General Assembly] will take up a more strict version of what we have after this election process.

Husted went on to say “we need to streamline” the number of currently eligible voter IDs, and he is “quite confident” the Legislature would take the issue up after the election:

Husted seems to have changed his mind since last year, when he declared, “I would rather have no bill than one with a rigid photo identification provision that does little to protect against fraud and excludes legally registered voters’ ballots from counting.” Ohio’s voter ID bill failed in the Senate, partly due to Husted’s public break with his party.

More recently, Husted’s office has been flooded with criticism over his directive limiting voting hours in spite of requests from multiple election boards to stay open on weekends. He’s also in hot water with a federal judge after he resisted a court order to restore voting hours on the last weekend before Election Day — although Husted ultimately backed down after the judge ordered him to appear in court.