The Department of Homeland Security will grant immunity from deportation to so-called “DREAMers,” undocumented immigrants brought to America as children, and give them work permits to stay in the country.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has filed suit against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, alleging discriminatory police conduct against Latino citizens.

It never becomes the top-shelf, salient issue in American elections until after one or two get stolen. But the permanent discriminated class we’re building out of voter suppression laws should be the headline story to the party that stands to lose the most from the situation. Voter registration among Hispanics and African-Americans has dropped significantly since 2008.

President Obama told a Spanish-language television network, in an interview that will be aired this Sunday, that he would try to pass comprehensive immigration reform “in the first year of my second term.” When running for President in 2008, then-Senator Obama said basically the same thing, promising to tackle immigration reform in his first year in office. That never happened, as health care and the economy dominated the first year of policymaking.

It has been a year and a month since the day the shots pierced the heart of Arizona on January 8, 2011. In all, 19 victims were shot. Six lives were taken and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords gravely wounded. Friends, families, a state and a nation were torn at their emotional seams.

The news crews came for their live shots, talking heads talked, pundits opined, quick clues to a deeper cause and meaning sought and catharsis stated to have been reached in a stirring memorial led by an eloquent President. Over time, the initial raw wounds seemed to merge into the amazing evolving story of strength, resilience and recovery of Gabby Giffords. And, to be sure, there are few parallels in public life to the resilience and recovery of Gabby, it has been stunning, heartwarming and inspirational.

I’m not going to get into the drama of Barack Obama’s run-in with Arizona Governor Jan Brewer at the airport. It’s just cable news fodder, so let them handle it. What does interest me is the fact that the biggest sub-group of Arizonans fascinated with the exchange are the Latino community, an indicator of why Obama went to Arizona in the first place.

Democrats see the chance that President Obama’s heated exchange with Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona on the airport tarmac in Phoenix could help him with the Hispanic voters he came West to court this week.

The Supreme Court just boosted Republican chances to hold the House of Representatives today by throwing out maps drawn by a panel of judges, and ordering new maps for the state’s reapportionment.

The White House announced that Cecilia Muñoz, currently the director of intergovernmental affairs, will become the director of the Domestic Policy Council, replacing Melody Barnes. It’s a strange choice, because she’s caught up in the controversy over the Secure Communities program, which has near-universal condemnation in the Hispanic community.

In a stinging report, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division released their findings of a two-year investigation into Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, showing that he unfairly targeted Latinos and discriminated against them at the expense of other crimes in his jurisdiction, including sexual assault crimes.

In the couple months since Alabama passed HB 56, among the harshest immigration laws in the nation, they have: a) seen crops rot in the fields because farmers cannot find workers to pick the fruits and vegetables, which has cost the state potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue; b) threatened the water service of potential undocumented immigrants; c) forced charities to seek citizenship papers from their recipients, even though that provision and others have been blocked by multiple courts; d) witnessed frustrated employers speak out about the loss of legal Hispanic workers, who have left the state in droves; e) led to 15% of Hispanic students being afraid to attend school; f) arrested top executives of two automakers, Mercedes-Benz and Honda, who were in the state overseeing their plants there.