National

About 40 medical personnel have arrived at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay amid an increase in the number of hunger strikers at the facility.

With immigration a hot-button issue in Washington, some version of immigration reform is likely this year. Even so, immigrant activist Sandra Sanchez concedes that the country might not be ready for an overhaul of its immigration laws.

Sanchez, director of the American Friends Service Committee Iowa's Immigrants Voice Program, doesn't mean that in political terms, but in practical ones. "We need to be prepared for the wave of millions of potential applicants that will be needing ... legal services," she says. "And we will not have enough resources to serve them."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to review a lower court ruling that effectively bars Alabama from enforcing an anti-immigration law that was considered one of the toughest in the nation.

In an 8-to-1 vote, the justices let stand the lower court decision that prevents the state from enforcing the 2011 law. Justice Antonin Scalia was the sole dissenter, and did so without comment.