Local officials in California are going head to head with federal authorities over a program requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's attempts to deport undocumented immigrants.

The Chicago Tribune's Dahleen Glanton reports that Illinois has "bucked a national trend" with an increase in its 2009 illegal immigrant population. A Pew Hispanic Center study finds that they were 525,000 illegal immigrants in Illinois last year compared to 475,000 in 2008. Nationally, the number of illegal immigrants continues to gradually drop -- from 12 million in 2007 to 11 million in 2009. What is interesting about these numbers is how little they have to do with deportation policy under the Bush and Obama administrations.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has spent the last year dealing with, among other problems, the Supreme Court overturning the city’s gun ban and a media focus on ineffective city law enforcement. However: the Department of Homeland Security absolutely loves the city’s cameras.

The Chicago Tribune’s Alejandro Cancino reports that federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials arrested 370 immigrants in ten Midwestern states the past week. John Morton, the director of ICE, said that 56 percent of those arrested had once been convicted of serious crimes like armed robbery and drug abuse. And nearly all had been convicted of lesser crimes, like driving under the influence. In other words, most immigrants apprehended were guilty of something in addition to the civil offense of being undocumented. The Obama administration has captured illegal immigrants at a higher rate then the Bush administration. But the more salient issue is which immigrants ICE targets.

Is there a difference between an illegal immigrant and an illegal immigrant who has filed papers for residency status?  Immigration raids across the country have rounded up both categories of undocumented workers, and, as Julia Preston reports in the New York Times, Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has decided there is a difference.  Prosecuting a smaller number of illegal immigrants may help ease a backlog of court cases besetting another Homeland Security department -- Citizen and Immigration Services.  But it's also inciting an ideological debate and tension in the ranks at ICE.

The Chicago Tribune has a headline today proclaiming that, according to a Tribune/WGN poll, "Most Chicagoans don't want police to hunt illegal immigrants." That should come as no surprise: Chicago is one of the most pro-immigration spots in the country, with a city hall that has prevented police from checking the immigration status of residents. In fact, what seems more surprising

Recovery, or at least stabilization, may be the watch words on Wall Street and in private industry, but for municipalities in California, it's still very much the darkest hour.  As Ryan Gabrielson of CaliforniaWatch reports that seven different L.A. County municipalities have approached the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department about having the sheriffs take over local policing duties. That's about double what's considered normal in a tough economic period.

Federal authorities are dispatching 1,200 National Guard troops to help patrol the U.S. Border with Mexico. While the vast majority will be pitching tents in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, 224 are headed for the Golden State, a development warmly welcomed by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

The Chicago Tribune's Antonio Olivo reports that police in the Chicago metropolitan area are frustrated and confused about their increasing participation in federal immigration law enforcement matters.  Washington is sending mixed signals in the wake of Arizona's controversial new law, and law enforcement officials around the country are trying to figure out their own role.

I blogged yesterday that a law enforcement crackdown on suspected illegal immigrants isn't unique to Arizona -- it's happening in Chicago's suburbs. The Chicago Tribune's Oscar Avila reports today on one anti-illegal immigrant measure designed by the Obama administration, the Secure Communities initiative.