The nation’s broken immigration system is creating a crisis for workers and employers in the Texas construction industry. A new study by the Workers Defense Project (WDP) and the University of Texas finds that as many as half of the Lone Star State’s construction workers may be undocumented. Says WDP Executive Director Cristina Tzintzun:

Our immigration policies are broken. They’re not working for businesses, they’re not working for our workers and they’re not working for our state.

Pablo Alvarado, president of the National Day Laborers’ Organizing Network, says in an op-ed in yesterday's Miami Herald that there is reason to believe attitudes are changing against the "Arizona approach" to immigration policies. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the racial profiling provision of S.B. 1070, Alvarado says President Obama's announcement to halt the deportation of those young immigrants who would be eligible for U.S. residency under the terms of the DREAM Act illustrates this shift in thinking.

Donna Gratehouse, who blogs at Democratic Diva and elsewhere on all things Arizona, sends us this.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer gloated over Monday's Supreme Court decision upholding the racial profiling provision of S.B. 1070, describing it as a victory and vindication. But the governor's buoyed spirits were quickly deflated as she learned the U.S. Department of Homeland Security suspended the 287(g) status of many Arizona law enforcement agencies—287(g) is the agreement that allows state and local police departments to perform some immigration enforcement functions.

Tomorrow, we are hosting two fab book events here at the AFL-CIO. If you’re in the Washington, D.C., area, you’re invited to join either or both. The events feature the books Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned and Undocumented and Unafraid: Tam Tran, Cinthya Felix, and the Immigrant Youth Movement.