Must voters have to prove citizenship to register?

 The Supreme Court will struggle this week with the validity of an Arizona law that tries to keep illegal immigrants from voting by demanding all state residents show documents proving their U.S. citizenship before registering to vote in national elections.

The high court will hear arguments Monday over the legality of Arizona's voter-approved requirement that prospective voters document their citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal "Motor Voter" voter registration law that doesn't require such documentation.

This case focuses on voter registration in Arizona, which has tangled frequently with the federal government over immigration issues involving the Mexican border. But it has broader implications because four other states — Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee — have similar requirements, and 12 other states are contemplating similar legislation, officials say.

The Obama administration is supporting challengers to the law.

If Arizona can add citizenship requirements, then "each state could impose all manner of its own supplemental requirements beyond the federal form," Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. said in court papers.

A federal appeals court threw out the part of Arizona's Proposition 200 that added extra citizenship requirements for voter registration, but only after lower federal judges had approved it.

Arizona wants the justices to reinstate its requirement.

Kathy McKee, who led the push to get the proposition on the ballot, said voter fraud, including by illegal immigrants, continues to be a problem in Arizona.

Opponents of Arizona's law see it as an attack on vulnerable voter groups such as minorities, immigrants and the elderly.

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Asian illegals

When the topic is illegal immigration, the focus is usually on Latinos. But more than 1 million of the nation's undocumented immigrants are Asian and Pacific Islanders, with an estimated 416,000 of them in California.

The older generation of undocumented Asians tends to stay silent. But Panaligan and other younger members of that group — who have benefited from the temporary protection President Obama extended last year to qualified young people under the Dream Act — think this may be a good time to seize on an opportunity.

They note that 73% of the Asian Americans who went to the polls in November cast votes for Obama, with immigration reform cited as a huge factor. They have seen Republican leaders reconsider the party's hard line on immigration. And they have seen national polls indicating majority support among U.S. citizens for a pathway to citizenship.

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