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Meet Kris Kobach, author of the horrible Arizona immigration law and xenophobe, extraordinaire. Kobach is currently the Secretary of State in Kansas, and has a long history of extreme views with regard to immigration.

In this segment, he expands those views, explaining that the purpose of draconian anti-immigration laws like SB 1070 and the Alabama immigration law which is currently killing their economy is really simply a way to force illegal immigrants to "self-deport." If they have family here legally, well, so what?

Kobach comes across as being a reasonable person, but he's really one of the most extreme right-wingers in public life today. While his bios mention his time in South Africa, they don't really expand on what he did while he was there.

Here's an excerpt from the Southern Poverty Law Center on Kobach's stint in South Africa:

He served as president of the Harvard Republican Club and found a mentor in the late Samuel Huntington, an influential political science professor who came to see Latino immigrants as a scourge on American culture.

With Huntington as his advisor, Kobach earned the Harvard prize for the best student thesis in 1989. He analyzed how the South African business community functioned within apartheid and took the unpopular position that investors should not divest their holdings in that country but rather remain as agents of change. A year later, he published the thesis as a book.

On Monday, Kobach will be appearing with Mitt Romney, who he has endorsed for President. In classic Romney-esque fashion, it's difficult to tell where Mitt Romney stands on illegal immigration, since he is running ads in South Carolina which are anti-immigrant, anti-Latino ads, while running Spanish-language ads in Florida talking up his Latino endorsements there. He's flipping at the very same time he's flopping.

With a public appearance in South Carolina with Kobach, I'm sure Mittens plans to sew up the xenophobe vote there, but it's hard for me to believe this will play well with Latino voters nationwide.

Never underestimate the conservative cynicism. It seems they're closing ranks around a candidate who is, as usual, inconsistent about what he believes on immigration. At least, in public. All indications are that Mr. Romney is at least as extreme in his views as his friend Mr. Kobach.

I wonder if Mitt Romney will try and use his Mexican cousins as a bridge to the Latino community. It's hard to imagine that working, since his debate gaffe more or less exposes his utter lack of regard for anyone besides Mitt Romney.

These all-too-rare moments are damned gratifying, aren't they?

In a swift affirmation of Arizona’s fast growing and powerful new political movement, Secretary of State Ken Bennett notified Gov. Jan Brewer that the once seemingly invincible architect of the state’s controversial SB 1070 “papers please” immigration law has officially been recalled. Bennett confirmed that the recall petitions delivered by the Citizens for a Better Arizona “exceeds the minimum signatures required by the Arizona Constitution.”

“Let’s make no mistake about it,” said Randy Parraz, co-founder of the Citizens for a Better Arizona. “Russell Pearce has been recalled.”

According to Bennett’s statement, Pearce has two options: Resign from office within five business days, or become a candidate in the recall election. Either way, Pearce becomes the first state senate president in recent memory to be recalled in the nation.

“No one expected this or picked up on this political earthquake,” said Parraz, one of the main organizers behind the extraordinary grassroots campaign, which electrified a bipartisan effort in Pearce’s Mesa district. Parraz credited a “dramatic shift” over the past six months due to Pearce’s often extremist leadership in state senate.

“We had people pouring into the office,” Parraz said, citing the role of Republicans, Democrats and Independents in the door-to-door canvassing initiative, “and they told us: Russell Pearce is too extreme for our district and state.”

Arizona upended the basic tenets of a free society when its governor signed S.B. 1070, a law that requires police officers in that state to demand papers proving the citizenship or immigration status of people they stop if the officer has some undefined "reasonable suspicion" that they are not in this country legally. Under S.B. 1070, law enforcement will be forced to rely on people's appearance, victimizing citizens and noncitizens alike.

Today, the ACLU, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Immigration Law Center, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ACLU of Arizona, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (a member of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice) filed a federal lawsuit against the state's sheriffs and county attorneys, asking the court to find S.B. 1070 unconstitutional. It violates the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law because it unlawfully invites the racial profiling of Latinos and other people who look or sound "foreign-born." It also violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution by interfering with the federal government's authority to regulate and enforce immigration. Our lawsuit is on behalf of a diverse coalition of Arizona residents and organizations including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Southside Presbyterian Church, the Asian Chamber of Commerce of Arizona, and the Muslim American Society.

In the video above, Alessandra Soler Meetze, Executive Director of the ACLU of Arizona, explains why we're challenging the law, and the impact the law has already had on Arizona residents.

It is practically impossible to think of any legitimate way police could develop a suspicion that someone is here unlawfully without racial profiling. Under this law, people who look "foreign" are more likely to be stopped for minor infractions like having a broken taillight, jaywalking or having an overgrown lawn – and then asked for their papers if police believe, just by looking at them, that they could be in the country unlawfully. That means that U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike will be required to carry papers on them at all times.

S.B. 1070 would essentially turn Arizona into a police state, where merely looking "foreign" authorizes the police to treat you as potential criminal suspect. Which is why many top law enforcement officials oppose this law. Time reports:

Chief John Harris of Sahuarita, the current president of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police, said he opposed the law before Governor Jan Brewer signed it and still does today. He listed his objections: Immigration has traditionally been a federal issue, and the police already have "manpower and budget issues" that will only get worse under the law. "[…] He's also concerned that victims may not report crimes to his officers.

Already, state governments across the country are considering laws similar to Arizona's. It's our hope that the lawsuit filed today will show that such laws will not pass constitutional muster in court, and passing more laws like it will be futile. S.B. 1070 is un-American and undermines our values of fairness and equality for all people. Stand with us, and show that what happens in Arizona stops in Arizona.

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John called out the case in Phoenix involving the murder of a Latino man by his white neighbor the other day: Turns out the murder indeed involved Arizona's new immigration law:

Tension surrounding the passage of Arizona's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigration contributed to the slaying of an Hispanic man, allegedly shot by a white neighbor, a representative of the dead man's family said Friday.

Police and the family said the arrested man, 50-year-old Gary Thomas Kelley, allegedly directed racial slurs at 44-year-old Juan Daniel Varela before the May 6 shooting near their homes.

...

A probable cause statement filed May 6 said Kelley confronted Varela outside Varela's home and repeated racial slurs at Varela. Varela then apparently attempted to kick Kelley who then allegedly pulled out a revolver and shot Varela, police said.

A police statement said the two men had gotten into altercations several times in recent years. The family wants Kelley charged with premeditated first-degree murder, not second-degree murder, with a hate crime allegation, Galindo said.

"This family wants justice. They're asking that violence stop and that Gov. Brewer and other elected officials take responsibility for this hostile atmosphere they have created" by the immigration law and other legislation, Galindo said.

But Phoenix Police Department spokesman, Officer Luis Samudio, said Friday the shooting was not a hate crime, an allegation that under Arizona law could subject a person convicted of a crime to a stiffer sentence.

Robert Shutts, homicide bureau chief for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, said the case remained under investigation and that the murder charge could be upgraded to first-degree and a hate-crime allegation added if evidence warrants.

Shutts wouldn't comment on whether the new immigration law was a factor in the case. But he said authorities weren't trying smooth over the case or minimize it, as the Varela family has alleged.

"That's not even close to the truth," he said. "We are treating this case with ... utmost seriousness." Kelley on Friday remained jailed in lieu of $750,000 bond, facing one count each of second-degree murder and aggravated assault.

The AZFamily.com story has more details:

The alleged killer was yelling racial slurs seconds before he fired the shots that killed 44-year-old Juan Varela.

Varela was a third-generation American, yet his family claims he was called a “wetback” who was going to be sent back to Mexico by the man who murdered him. They claim it was a hate crime and the police are not doing their job. That is a charge the department denies.

A family spokesperson says, “We ask for justice, that’s what the family wants is justice.”

As someone reasonably knowledgeable about hate crimes, I can say that this case throws up all kinds of red flags. It is true that the mere use of ethnic slurs in the commission of a crime is not enough by itself to warrant hate-crime charges, but it is a potential piece of evidence in such a case. More significant is the fact that he had a prior history of agitation in the neighborhood, and it sounds as though that was racial too.

There certainly is plenty to investigate here. The Phoenix police should not be dismissing the potential for this to be a bias crime. And frankly, second-degree murder sounds pretty light, too: This guy went over to his neighbor's property with a gun and began shouting racial slurs at him. Those sound like powerful elements of premeditation to me.

There's some comfort in knowing, at least, that the case is not being handled by Joe Arpaio's detectives. But this case bears close watching.