The Daily Caller:
Two fans at a Phoenix Suns basketball game were ejected from their first row seats and removed from the arena last week after refusing orders from security guards to take off their shirts in support of Arizona’s recently passed law against illegal immigration.
One of the fans, businessman Jim Clark, said he and a friend, who were wearing orange shirts that read “Viva Los 1070,” eventually were allowed to return to their seats during last Wednesday’s game against the San Antonio Spurs after speaking with a security director.
This is not the first occurrence of politics creeping into the Suns basketball games: On Cinco de Mayo, team owner Robert Sarver came up with the idea for the team to wear “Los Suns” on their jerseys in protest of the immigration law. That’s what drove Clark to don his own shirt.
“If they’re going to shove their politics down my throat, I’m going make a message of my own,” Clark told The Daily Caller.
Not only will he be selling those shirts to others, he will be wearing them to more games.. with free tickets from Suns president Rick Welts, who called Clark to apologize and gave him free tickets to other games.
Related to Arizona's new immigration law, we see a piece from Washington Post, headlining "Memo from 2002 could complicate challenge of Arizona immigration law."
Teaser:
The document, written in 2002 by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that state police officers have "inherent power" to arrest undocumented immigrants for violating federal law. It was issued by Jay S. Bybee, who also helped write controversial memos from the same era that sanctioned harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.
The author of the Arizona law -- which has drawn strong opposition from top Obama administration officials -- has cited the authority granted in the 2002 memo as a basis for the legislation. The Obama administration has not withdrawn the memo, and some backers of the Arizona law said Monday that because it remains in place, a Justice Department lawsuit against Arizona would be awkward at best.
"The Justice Department's official position as of now is that local law enforcement has the inherent authority to enforce federal immigration law," said Robert Driscoll, a former Justice Department Civil Rights Division official in the George W. Bush administration who represents an Arizona sheriff known for aggressive immigration enforcement. "How can you blame someone for exercising authority that the department says they have?"
