News

Jul 9, 2010

Tensions over Arizona's controversial law cracking down on illegal immigration remain heated, with reports that a fund for legal defense of the state measure is growing, and that federal lawmakers are looking for ways to overhaul the nation's immigration system in pieces.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, after meeting with Obama administration officials regarding the state's immigration law, talks with reports on June 28 in Phoenix.

The legal defense fund for the measure pushed by Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, has swelled to $500,000, and the majority of that poured in during the first 48 hours after the U.S. Justice Department announced it was suing to invalidate the law, the Arizona Daily Star reports.

Thomas Chaput, a LaGrange, Ga., man who donated $20 to the fund, told the Tucson-based newspaper that he did it "because our president is stupid."

The money has come from more than 9,000 contributors, the paper reports.

Meantime, federal lawmakers in Congress, still determined to overhaul the nation's immigration system, are looking for ways to do this in pieces, The Arizona Republic is reporting.

One proposed bill they are weighing is dubbed the Dream Act, which would allow young illegal immigrants to become citizens of the United States if they go to college or join the military.

Supporters are touting this measure as the only federal immigration bill that has a chance of passing this year, the paper reports.