[JURIST] Two civil rights groups filed suit [complaint, PDF] in federal court Tuesday to block enforcement of a town ordinance [text] passed in November by the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch [official website] requiring apartment renters to show proof of US residency and penalizing landlords who rent to illegal immigrants. The ACLU of Texas [advocacy website; press release], in conjunction with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) [advocacy website; press release], sued to bar the city from implementing the act beginning January 12, alleging that federal immigration law preempts state and local ordinances aimed at regulating immigration, and that the law as drafted is impermissibly vague.

Some local landlords have also spoken against the ordinance [Houston Chronicle report], saying they are not trained to determine whether immigration papers produced by potential renters are forgeries. Two other recent lawsuits have challenged the ordinance, one filed last Friday on behalf of three apartment complexes [JURIST report], and one filed earlier in December alleging that the Mayor of Farmer's Branch broke the Texas Open Meetings Act [PDF backgrounder] during deliberations concerning the ordinance. AP has more.

Last November a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order [JURIST report] against the town of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, preventing the town from promulgating a similar landlord-tenant ordinance designed to discourage illegal immigration.

[JURIST] The bicameral committee of US lawmakers responsible for hammering out a comprehensive immigration reform package [JURIST news archive] may recommend to the new Congress beginning in January that illegal immigrants not be required to leave the country before petitioning for legal status, according to the New York Times Tuesday. The committee, led by Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Representatives Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), expects to have a reconciled bill ready for the Senate to consider in March or April, followed by a House vote in the months following. The committee must reach compromise between a Senate bill [S 2611 summary] passed in May [JURIST report] that would set millions of illegal immigrants on a path to potential citizenship and would authorize a temporary worker program, with the more restrictive House version [HR 4437 summary] passed late last year [JURIST report] which makes unlawful presence in the US a felony subject to deportation and could punish humanitarian groups aiding illegals.

The committee may also decide not to provide sufficient funding for the Secure Fence Act of 2006 [PDF text; HR 6061 summary], which provides for 700 miles of border fencing to be constructed between the US and Mexico. The border fence bill, signed into law [JURIST report] by President Bush in October, was passed by the House and Senate [JURIST reports] after Republican leadership decided to leave comprehensive immigration reform proposals for the next session of congress. The New York Times has more.

[JURIST] Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak [official website; BBC profile] promised Tuesday to repeal Egypt's ongoing 25-year state of emergency once a new terrorism law is passed and to amend the Egyptian Constitution [text] to formally recognize the people of Egypt as the source of sovereign power and permit parliamentary parties to nominate presidential candidates. Mubarak made similar promises [JURIST report] last December, though he did not propose such legislation during the 2006 parliamentary session. Last June, Mubarak again renewed [JURIST report] the emergency laws [EOHR backgrounder], which permit the government to arrest and detain anyone deemed a threat to state security, with detentions renewable every 45 days. The laws also ban public demonstrations and allow military courts to try civilians [JURIST report].

Critics of the Mubarak regime say his promises are empty, and noted that Mubarak has not set a firm deadline for implementing his proposed changes, although he did announce an 18-month timetable [JURIST report] for lifting the state of emergency earlier this month. AP has more.

[JURIST] The Saudi Arabia [JURIST news archive] Interior Ministry [backgrounder] announced Tuesday that the government has freed eighteen former Guantanamo Bay detainees "after meeting necessary legal conditions." A spokesperson for the ministry stated that the government will continue to try to urge repatriation of Saudis from Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], but was unclear as to how many Saudis are still detained there. The US has transferred 29 Saudi nationals home so far this year.

Earlier in December, sixteen Saudis [JURIST report; DOD press release] were released from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Arabian government was holding the latest groups of transferees while investigating whether they have ties to terrorist groups [JURIST report]. VOA has more.

[JURIST] The Russian Supreme Court [official website] Tuesday upheld a sentence of life imprisonment for Nurpashi Kulayev, the only terrorist survivor convicted in connection with the 2004 Beslan school siege [JURIST news archive; BBC backgrounder]. Kulayev filed the appeal [JURIST report] in June, arguing that his conviction was "unlawful and groundless" as the prosecution failed to present evidence implicating him in the terrorism and murder charges. Itar-Tass has more.

Kulayev was found guilty of terrorism [JURIST report] in May. Some 1,300 people, most of them children, were taken hostage in a school building in Beslan, North Ossetia, in September 2004 by militants demanding that Russian soldiers leave Chechnya. In total, 330 people were killed and 783 were wounded when the school roof collapsed in flames during a rescue effort. Officials reported in August that to protect Kulayev from retaliation by other inmates, he will serve his sentence under a different name [JURIST report].

The Supreme Court also ruled on Tuesday that General Nikolai Shepel, former deputy prosecutor in the Beslan school siege trial, violated the law during his investigation into the hostage attack. Interfax has more.

[JURIST] British troops supported by Iraqi forces raided a Basra prison unit [UK MOD press release] early Monday morning, freeing 127 prisoners detained in squalid conditions by a rogue Basra police squad suspected of torturing its prisoners. Following the raid, UK military spokesman Maj. Charles Burbridge said the serious crimes unit of the southern section of Basra was a front organization whose true purpose was to commit crimes and to execute the enemies of rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army [Globalsecurity.org backgrounder], which dominates much of Basra. Burbridge said the prisoners were freed from inhumane conditions, and that many exhibited signs of torture, including crushed extremities, cigarette flesh burns, and gunshot wounds to the arms and legs. Seven gunmen were killed by the Iraqi and British forces during the three-hour raid, with no British casualties.

British troops raided the same Basra prison [JURIST report] in September 2005 to free two British soldiers who had been captured and detained by the serious crimes unit. The New York Times has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The appeals chamber of the Iraqi High Tribunal [official website] has affirmed Saddam Hussein's death sentence [JURIST report] for crimes against humanity committed in the Iraqi town of Dujail [JURIST news archive; BBC trial timeline] in 1982. A spokesperson for the court said Tuesday that the decision still had to be ratified by President Jalal Talabani [official website, in Arabic; JURIST news archive] and Vice Presidents Adil Abdul-Mahdi and Tariq Al-Hashimi before an execution could be carried out, but noted that if the leaders do not ratify the decision "we'll implement the verdict by the power of the law." Talabani has repeatedly said he is personally opposed to the death penalty and will not sign a death warrant [JURIST report], but he has delegated his signing authority to the Shiite vice-president, who will join with his Kurdish counterpart to make the warrant legally binding for all three. According to Article 27 of the statute of the Iraqi High Tribunal [text, PDF], once the death sentence is affirmed it must be carried out within 30 days.

Hussein was sentenced to death by the trial court on November 5. He and six co-defendants are currently standing trial on additional genocide charges in connection with attacks against Kurds during the so-called "Anfal" campaigns [HRW backgrounder]. Last week, two of Saddam's co-defendants denied using chemical weapons [JURIST report] against Kurds, insisting that any action taken was by order of their superiors. Reuters has more. AP has additional coverage.

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected [opinion, PDF] the new federal rules for smog reduction on Friday, stating that the Environmental Protection Agency [official website] "has failed to heed the restrictions on its discretion set forth in the [Clean Air] Act." The smog standards [EPA backgrounder] were introduced in 2004 and required roughly 470 counties designated as "non-attainment" areas [PDF] to reduce the level of smog within a three to seventeen year period. The court said the time period did not align with the federal Clean Air Act [materials] and held that EPA enforcement was not strict enough in states where smog levels have increased.

According to EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood, the EPA has not yet determined if it will seek an en banc rehearing of the case, stating that the "EPA is committed to ensuring our nation's ozone air quality standards are implemented to protect public health and the environment." AP has more.