An applicant for a medical-marijuana dispensary and cultivation site has sued Maricopa County, accusing the county of purposely stalling action on its application to prevent it from seeking a state operating license.
The lawsuit by White Mountain Health Center Inc. alleges the county would not certify or reject its registration certificate, one of the Arizona Department of Health Services' first requirements for obtaining a dispensary license.
The White Mountain Health Center wants to open a dispensary and cultivation site in Sun City, which is in an unincorporated part of the county and therefore requires county zoning approval.
Maricopa County last year decided not to allow county employees to accept, process or issue permits for medical-marijuana dispensaries or cultivation sites on county unincorporated land unless marijuana becomes a federally-approved drug.
However, the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, which voters approved in November 2010, allows qualifying patients with certain debilitating medical conditions to use marijuana. It allows local jurisdictions to impose "reasonable" zoning restrictions for dispensaries, and requires local zoning approval before a permit is processed by the state.
The county Board of Supervisors nonetheless opted out of the program after County Attorney Bill Montgomery, named as defendant in the lawsuit, advised the board not to participate in the medical-marijuana program. He said county employees may be subject to federal backlash, and it may make them accomplices in committing a federal offense because marijuana is not an approved drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act.
That is why no county employee has acted on dispensary applications, Montgomery said: To avoid "having to argue the fine details of whether even a denial" of a permit application could be considered a violation of federal law.
In its lawsuit, White Mountain Health Center claims the DHS rejected its application for a registration certificate because the center could not obtain documentation from Maricopa County or from Montgomery showing there are no zoning restrictions that prevent a dispensary from opening in Sun City. DHS and its director, Will Humble, are also named as defendants.
In a letter to Jeffrey Kaufman, attorney for the health center, Montgomery explained the county will not issue zoning verification for medical-marijuana dispensaries "until the threat of federal prosecution is conclusively removed."
After applicants receive their registration certificate from DHS, they must get approval from their local jurisdiction to operate. Cities and towns across the Valley have different requirements for potential dispensary or cultivation-site owners.
A dispensary applicant must meet local zoning requirements.
If a local government rejects the application, the case would need to be handled in the courts, Humble said.
"Each jurisdiction handles it a little differently," Humble said. "Some, you just march into the office and they sign it. Others ask for some more information."
Ken Strobeck, executive director of the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, said he was not aware of any city or town in the state that has disallowed medical-marijuana dispensaries or cultivation sites, as Maricopa County has.
Based on his analysis, Montgomery said, other local jurisdictions that allow medical-marijuana dispensaries should be subject to federal prosecution.
"You can't enforce the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act," Montgomery said. "I don't care if it passed with 90 percent of the vote. Voters are no more entitled to pass something that's unconstitutional than the Legislature, and that's just a legal fact. If it's against the law, you can't enforce it … The medical-marijuana act is not even protected by the Voter Protection Act because it can't protect something that's unlawful."
Kaufman said the White Mountain Health Center is the only applicant for a medical-marijuana dispensary in Sun City.
"Obviously there are a lot of people in Sun City with serious medical conditions that we believe would benefit from medical marijuana," Kaufman said. "The voters in the state have approved medical marijuana, and I think it would be very unfair for the people of Sun City to travel outside of Sun City to go and get medical marijuana."
By Michelle Ye Hee Lee, The Republic|azcentral.com Jun 26, 2012
Permit for pot blocked, suit says - USATODAY.com
Monday, July 2, 2012
Asian immigrants to U.S. outpacing Hispanics
WASHINGTON - For the first time, the influx of Asians moving to the U.S. has surpassed that of Hispanics, reflecting a slowdown in illegal immigration while American employers increase their demand for high-skilled workers.
An expansive study by the Pew Research Center details what it describes as "the rise of Asian-Americans," a highly diverse and fast-growing group making up nearly 6 percent of the U.S. population. Mostly foreign-born and naturalized citizens, their numbers have been boosted by increases in visas granted to specialized workers and to wealthy investors as the U.S. economy becomes driven less by manufacturing and more by technology.
"Too often the policy debates on immigration fixate on just one part -- illegal immigration," said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political-science professor at the University of California-Riverside and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "U.S. immigration is more diverse and broader than that, with policy that needs to focus also on high-skilled workers."
"With net migration from Mexico now at zero, the role of Asian-Americans has become more important," he said.
About 430,000 Asians, or 36 percent of all new immigrants, arrived in the U.S. in 2010, according to the latest census data. That's compared with about 370,000, or 31 percent, who were Hispanic.
The Pew analysis, released today, said the tipping point for Asian immigrants likely occurred during 2009 as illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico sharply declined due to increased immigration enforcement and a dwindling supply of low-wage work in the weak U.S. economy. Many Mexicans already in the U.S. have also been heading back to their country, putting recent net migration at a standstill.
As recently as 2007, about 390,000 of the new immigrants to the U.S. were Asian, compared with 540,000 who were Hispanic.
The shift to increased Asian immigration coincides with changes in U.S. immigration policy dating to the 1990s that began to favor wealthy, educated workers. The policy, still in place but subject to caps, fast-tracks visas for foreigners willing to invest at least half a million dollars in U.S. businesses or for workers in specialized fields who have at least a bachelor's degree.
International students studying at U.S. colleges and universities also are now most likely to come from Asian countries, roughly 6 in 10, and some of them are able to live and work in the U.S. after graduation. Asian students, both foreign-born and U.S.-born, earned a plurality (45 percent) of all doctorates in engineering in 2010, as well as 38 percent of doctorates in math and computer sciences and 33 percent of doctorates in the physical sciences.
Several bills pending in Congress that are backed by U.S. businesses seek to address some of the visa backlogs through means such as eliminating per-country limits on employment-based visas or encouraging investment in the sluggish real-estate market. They have stalled amid broader public debate over immigration reform that has focused largely on lower-skilled, undocumented workers.
In recent years, more than 60 percent of Asian immigrants ages 25 to 64 have graduated from college, double the share for new arrivals from other continents.
As a whole, the share of higher-skilled immigrants in the U.S. holding at least a bachelor's degree now outpaces those lacking a high-school diploma, 30 percent to 28 percent.
"Like immigrants throughout American history, the new arrivals from Asia are strivers," said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and co-author of the report. "What's distinctive about them is their educational credentials. These aren't the tired, poor, huddled masses of Emma Lazarus' famous inscription on the Statue of Liberty. They are the highly skilled workforce of the 21st century."
The findings are part of Pew's broad portrait of Asian-Americans, immigrants or U.S.-born children of immigrants who come mostly from China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. Now tied with Hispanics as the fastest-growing U.S. group, the nation's 14.5 million Asian-Americans are becoming visible as founders of startups in Silicon Valley and small businesses across the U.S., as well as candidates for political office and a key bloc of voters in states such as California, Nevada and Virginia, according to experts.
Asian-Americans tend to be more satisfied than the general public with their lives and nation's direction. They lean Democratic, prefer a big government that provides more services, and place more value on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success.
The Pew study revealed wide variations among Asian subgroups.
Poverty: As a whole, Asian-Americans had a poverty rate in 2010 of 11.9 percent, lower than the 12.8 percent for the general U.S. population. By country of origin, however, Koreans, Vietnamese and Chinese were more likely than the average American to live in poverty, at rates of 14 percent or higher.
Education: The share of Asian-Americans who hold at least a bachelor's degree surpasses the national average, 49 percent to 28 percent. Vietnamese, however, fell below the national average at 26 percent. People from India were most likely to have a college degree, at 70 percent.
Unemployment: Asian-Americans 25 and older were somewhat less likely to be unemployed than the national average for the first quarter of 2012 -- 6 percent compared with 7.4 percent for all U.S. workers. But in terms of long-term unemployment, Asian-Americans fared much worse, with median duration of unemployment at 28 weeks, second only to African-Americans (31 weeks). The national average was 22 weeks.
Illegal immigration: While immigrants from Asia often obtain visas and arrive legally, many also sneak across the U.S. border or become undocumented residents after overstaying their visas. Up to 15 percent of Asian immigrants in the U.S. are here illegally, compared with 45 percent of Hispanic immigrants.
The Pew survey is based on an analysis of census data as well as interviews with 3,511 Asian adults living in the U.S., conducted by cellphone or landline from Jan. 3 to March 27. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points for all respondents, higher for subgroups.
by Hope Yen - Jun. 18, 2012 11:11 PM Associated Press
Asian immigrants to U.S. outpacing Hispanics
An expansive study by the Pew Research Center details what it describes as "the rise of Asian-Americans," a highly diverse and fast-growing group making up nearly 6 percent of the U.S. population. Mostly foreign-born and naturalized citizens, their numbers have been boosted by increases in visas granted to specialized workers and to wealthy investors as the U.S. economy becomes driven less by manufacturing and more by technology.
"Too often the policy debates on immigration fixate on just one part -- illegal immigration," said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political-science professor at the University of California-Riverside and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "U.S. immigration is more diverse and broader than that, with policy that needs to focus also on high-skilled workers."
"With net migration from Mexico now at zero, the role of Asian-Americans has become more important," he said.
About 430,000 Asians, or 36 percent of all new immigrants, arrived in the U.S. in 2010, according to the latest census data. That's compared with about 370,000, or 31 percent, who were Hispanic.
The Pew analysis, released today, said the tipping point for Asian immigrants likely occurred during 2009 as illegal immigrants crossing the border from Mexico sharply declined due to increased immigration enforcement and a dwindling supply of low-wage work in the weak U.S. economy. Many Mexicans already in the U.S. have also been heading back to their country, putting recent net migration at a standstill.
As recently as 2007, about 390,000 of the new immigrants to the U.S. were Asian, compared with 540,000 who were Hispanic.
The shift to increased Asian immigration coincides with changes in U.S. immigration policy dating to the 1990s that began to favor wealthy, educated workers. The policy, still in place but subject to caps, fast-tracks visas for foreigners willing to invest at least half a million dollars in U.S. businesses or for workers in specialized fields who have at least a bachelor's degree.
International students studying at U.S. colleges and universities also are now most likely to come from Asian countries, roughly 6 in 10, and some of them are able to live and work in the U.S. after graduation. Asian students, both foreign-born and U.S.-born, earned a plurality (45 percent) of all doctorates in engineering in 2010, as well as 38 percent of doctorates in math and computer sciences and 33 percent of doctorates in the physical sciences.
Several bills pending in Congress that are backed by U.S. businesses seek to address some of the visa backlogs through means such as eliminating per-country limits on employment-based visas or encouraging investment in the sluggish real-estate market. They have stalled amid broader public debate over immigration reform that has focused largely on lower-skilled, undocumented workers.
In recent years, more than 60 percent of Asian immigrants ages 25 to 64 have graduated from college, double the share for new arrivals from other continents.
As a whole, the share of higher-skilled immigrants in the U.S. holding at least a bachelor's degree now outpaces those lacking a high-school diploma, 30 percent to 28 percent.
"Like immigrants throughout American history, the new arrivals from Asia are strivers," said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and co-author of the report. "What's distinctive about them is their educational credentials. These aren't the tired, poor, huddled masses of Emma Lazarus' famous inscription on the Statue of Liberty. They are the highly skilled workforce of the 21st century."
The findings are part of Pew's broad portrait of Asian-Americans, immigrants or U.S.-born children of immigrants who come mostly from China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea and Japan. Now tied with Hispanics as the fastest-growing U.S. group, the nation's 14.5 million Asian-Americans are becoming visible as founders of startups in Silicon Valley and small businesses across the U.S., as well as candidates for political office and a key bloc of voters in states such as California, Nevada and Virginia, according to experts.
Asian-Americans tend to be more satisfied than the general public with their lives and nation's direction. They lean Democratic, prefer a big government that provides more services, and place more value on marriage, parenthood, hard work and career success.
The Pew study revealed wide variations among Asian subgroups.
Poverty: As a whole, Asian-Americans had a poverty rate in 2010 of 11.9 percent, lower than the 12.8 percent for the general U.S. population. By country of origin, however, Koreans, Vietnamese and Chinese were more likely than the average American to live in poverty, at rates of 14 percent or higher.
Education: The share of Asian-Americans who hold at least a bachelor's degree surpasses the national average, 49 percent to 28 percent. Vietnamese, however, fell below the national average at 26 percent. People from India were most likely to have a college degree, at 70 percent.
Unemployment: Asian-Americans 25 and older were somewhat less likely to be unemployed than the national average for the first quarter of 2012 -- 6 percent compared with 7.4 percent for all U.S. workers. But in terms of long-term unemployment, Asian-Americans fared much worse, with median duration of unemployment at 28 weeks, second only to African-Americans (31 weeks). The national average was 22 weeks.
Illegal immigration: While immigrants from Asia often obtain visas and arrive legally, many also sneak across the U.S. border or become undocumented residents after overstaying their visas. Up to 15 percent of Asian immigrants in the U.S. are here illegally, compared with 45 percent of Hispanic immigrants.
The Pew survey is based on an analysis of census data as well as interviews with 3,511 Asian adults living in the U.S., conducted by cellphone or landline from Jan. 3 to March 27. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points for all respondents, higher for subgroups.
by Hope Yen - Jun. 18, 2012 11:11 PM Associated Press
Asian immigrants to U.S. outpacing Hispanics
Dramatic change in migrant policy - USATODAY.com
In a stunning election-year gambit, President Barack Obama put Republican rival Mitt Romney on the defensive Friday by relaxing the nation's deportation policy toward hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants.
The decision, announced initially by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, appeared calculated to motivate Latino voters in Arizona and crucial presidential battleground states such as Colorado, Florida and Nevada to vote for Obama, a president whose administration has frustrated many Hispanics with its aggressive deportation stance and failure to deliver comprehensive immigration reform.
The policy shift is being carried out by executive order and won't require legislative action.
The announcement was immediately decried by Capitol Hill Republicans who charged Obama was circumventing Congress, which despite years of negotiations has been unable to come to terms on similar legislation, known as the Dream Act. Some critics called the new policy "back-door amnesty."
The executive order comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on the constitutionality of Senate Bill 1070, Arizona's controversial immigration-enforcement law. That much-anticipated decision could come as soon as Monday.
It also comes in advance of Obama's expected appearances before two major Hispanic organizations. Obama is scheduled to speak next Friday at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO, conference in Florida. In July, he is expected to address the National Council of La Raza in Las Vegas.
In more practical political terms, the administration's announcement overshadowed the Romney campaign's launch Friday of a five-day bus tour through six swing states.
The new policy would allow certain illegal immigrants under age 30 to apply to stay in the United States without fear of deportation for two years. They also could apply for a work permit. But they still would not have any legal status in the country.
Those wishing to take advantage of the new policy must prove they were younger than 16 when they arrived in the United States and have lived in the the country for at least five years. They also must either still be attending school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a GED diploma or have been honorably discharged from the military or Coast Guard. Undocumented immigrants with felony or significant misdemeanor criminal records, or who otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety, are not eligible.
"Now, let's be clear: This is not amnesty, this is not immunity," Obama said during remarks in the White House Rose Garden on Friday. "This is not a path to citizenship. It's not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people. It is the right thing to do."
Romney, the GOP's presidential nominee-in-waiting, reacted cautiously to the policy shift during a campaign stop.
"I believe the status of young people who come here through no fault of their own is an important matter to be considered and should be solved on a long-term basis so they know what their future would be in this country," Romney said. "I think the actions that the president took today makes it more difficult to reach that long-term solution."
Romney's measured tone was in contrast to the tough stances he took toward immigration during a grueling GOP primary in which he struggled to win over conservative anti-illegal-immigration activists. Late last year, Romney said he would as president veto the Dream Act.
Polls have Romney taking a beating among Latinos -- a crucial demographic for both parties -- and even prior to Friday, Romney had signaled that he will try to soften his image among Hispanic voters, who the NALEO Education Fund estimates will number more than 12million in this year's presidential election. The Latino vote could decide close contests in several battleground states.
Obama dominated the Latino vote in 2008 and was able to carry Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada.
Other Republicans, including the 2008 GOP nominee for president, had harsher words for Obama.
"Today's announcement by President Obama is a politically motivated power grab that does nothing to further the debate but instead adds additional confusion and uncertainty to our broken immigration system," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Dream Act supporter, said Friday in a written statement. "Further, I find it interesting that after promising to enact comprehensive reform in the first year of his presidency, the president chose to make this announcement in the middle of his heated re-election campaign. Rather than unilaterally deciding for the American people what they want and how they believe this problem should be addressed, I encourage the president and his administration to finally reach out to Congress and propose legislation on this important issue."
Speaking Friday on CNN, Napolitano disputed suggestions that the policy change was driven by election-year politics.
"First of all, this was a decision out of my office as the secretary of Homeland Security," said Napolitano, a former Arizona governor. "One of the things we've been doing over the last year is re-examining all 340,000 pending immigration cases and trying to restack them in line with our priorities and trying to administratively close cases that are low priority. As we've done that, we've seen this whole category of young people, and we need to go a step further, and this is the next logical step, and that is to defer action."
The overall political impact of the decision on Obama's re-election prospects remains unclear. The new policy won't drive away any voter who isn't already lost to the Obama campaign, one political expert said, and it could put Romney in an uncomfortable position.
"It will add to the message that the Obama campaign already has been crafting to Latinos, that Obama is the stronger candidate from their perspective," said Louis DeSipio, a political scientist at the University of California-Irvine.
"It's trickier for Governor Romney in that he has to decide whether he wants to be the Romney of the primaries, which was very strident on immigration issues, or whether he wants to return to his more traditional position, which is to not really talk about it very much."
Bruce Merrill, a veteran political scientist and pollster, doubted the move will turn out to be a game-changer for Obama, although he noted that his surveys have indicated strong support for the Dream Act in Arizona.
Politically, it will probably only reinforce Obama's already significant appeal to Hispanic voters, he said.
"It really may be that he's doing things that he thinks are the right things to do -- you kind of hope that's the case," said Merrill, now a senior research fellow at Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy. "I just don't think it's going to bring a lot of new Hispanic votes, frankly, to him."
Merrill compared Friday's immigration announcement to Obama's May9 declaration of support for same-sex marriage, which Merrill said was much talked about at the time but probably won't affect the presidential election much one way or the other.
By Dan Nowicki, The Republic|azcentral.com Jun 16, 2012
Dramatic change in migrant policy - USATODAY.com
The decision, announced initially by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, appeared calculated to motivate Latino voters in Arizona and crucial presidential battleground states such as Colorado, Florida and Nevada to vote for Obama, a president whose administration has frustrated many Hispanics with its aggressive deportation stance and failure to deliver comprehensive immigration reform.
The policy shift is being carried out by executive order and won't require legislative action.
The announcement was immediately decried by Capitol Hill Republicans who charged Obama was circumventing Congress, which despite years of negotiations has been unable to come to terms on similar legislation, known as the Dream Act. Some critics called the new policy "back-door amnesty."
The executive order comes as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule on the constitutionality of Senate Bill 1070, Arizona's controversial immigration-enforcement law. That much-anticipated decision could come as soon as Monday.
It also comes in advance of Obama's expected appearances before two major Hispanic organizations. Obama is scheduled to speak next Friday at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, or NALEO, conference in Florida. In July, he is expected to address the National Council of La Raza in Las Vegas.
In more practical political terms, the administration's announcement overshadowed the Romney campaign's launch Friday of a five-day bus tour through six swing states.
The new policy would allow certain illegal immigrants under age 30 to apply to stay in the United States without fear of deportation for two years. They also could apply for a work permit. But they still would not have any legal status in the country.
Those wishing to take advantage of the new policy must prove they were younger than 16 when they arrived in the United States and have lived in the the country for at least five years. They also must either still be attending school, have graduated from high school, have obtained a GED diploma or have been honorably discharged from the military or Coast Guard. Undocumented immigrants with felony or significant misdemeanor criminal records, or who otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety, are not eligible.
"Now, let's be clear: This is not amnesty, this is not immunity," Obama said during remarks in the White House Rose Garden on Friday. "This is not a path to citizenship. It's not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people. It is the right thing to do."
Romney, the GOP's presidential nominee-in-waiting, reacted cautiously to the policy shift during a campaign stop.
"I believe the status of young people who come here through no fault of their own is an important matter to be considered and should be solved on a long-term basis so they know what their future would be in this country," Romney said. "I think the actions that the president took today makes it more difficult to reach that long-term solution."
Romney's measured tone was in contrast to the tough stances he took toward immigration during a grueling GOP primary in which he struggled to win over conservative anti-illegal-immigration activists. Late last year, Romney said he would as president veto the Dream Act.
Polls have Romney taking a beating among Latinos -- a crucial demographic for both parties -- and even prior to Friday, Romney had signaled that he will try to soften his image among Hispanic voters, who the NALEO Education Fund estimates will number more than 12million in this year's presidential election. The Latino vote could decide close contests in several battleground states.
Obama dominated the Latino vote in 2008 and was able to carry Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada.
Other Republicans, including the 2008 GOP nominee for president, had harsher words for Obama.
"Today's announcement by President Obama is a politically motivated power grab that does nothing to further the debate but instead adds additional confusion and uncertainty to our broken immigration system," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Dream Act supporter, said Friday in a written statement. "Further, I find it interesting that after promising to enact comprehensive reform in the first year of his presidency, the president chose to make this announcement in the middle of his heated re-election campaign. Rather than unilaterally deciding for the American people what they want and how they believe this problem should be addressed, I encourage the president and his administration to finally reach out to Congress and propose legislation on this important issue."
Speaking Friday on CNN, Napolitano disputed suggestions that the policy change was driven by election-year politics.
"First of all, this was a decision out of my office as the secretary of Homeland Security," said Napolitano, a former Arizona governor. "One of the things we've been doing over the last year is re-examining all 340,000 pending immigration cases and trying to restack them in line with our priorities and trying to administratively close cases that are low priority. As we've done that, we've seen this whole category of young people, and we need to go a step further, and this is the next logical step, and that is to defer action."
The overall political impact of the decision on Obama's re-election prospects remains unclear. The new policy won't drive away any voter who isn't already lost to the Obama campaign, one political expert said, and it could put Romney in an uncomfortable position.
"It will add to the message that the Obama campaign already has been crafting to Latinos, that Obama is the stronger candidate from their perspective," said Louis DeSipio, a political scientist at the University of California-Irvine.
"It's trickier for Governor Romney in that he has to decide whether he wants to be the Romney of the primaries, which was very strident on immigration issues, or whether he wants to return to his more traditional position, which is to not really talk about it very much."
Bruce Merrill, a veteran political scientist and pollster, doubted the move will turn out to be a game-changer for Obama, although he noted that his surveys have indicated strong support for the Dream Act in Arizona.
Politically, it will probably only reinforce Obama's already significant appeal to Hispanic voters, he said.
"It really may be that he's doing things that he thinks are the right things to do -- you kind of hope that's the case," said Merrill, now a senior research fellow at Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy. "I just don't think it's going to bring a lot of new Hispanic votes, frankly, to him."
Merrill compared Friday's immigration announcement to Obama's May9 declaration of support for same-sex marriage, which Merrill said was much talked about at the time but probably won't affect the presidential election much one way or the other.
By Dan Nowicki, The Republic|azcentral.com Jun 16, 2012
Dramatic change in migrant policy - USATODAY.com
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