Issues of concern to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus & Hispanic lobby & advocacy groups

USA Immigration Debate 2006

Hispanics have already surpassed blacks as the largest minority group in the U.S.
If current trends continue, by 2050, Hispanics will make up 25 percent of the population.

Issues: America as a land of opportunity, border & homeland security, amnesty, temporary "guest" worker program, immigration policy reform, deportation, immigrants' rights & rights of working illegal alien community, Mexican response to tightened U.S. immigration laws, proposed crackdowns by communities, conservative anti-immigrant movements, racism, discrimination, scare politics, Mexican border fence, human trafficking, smuggling, offering permanent residence or citizenship, considering it a crime to help illegal immigrants, considering it a felony to be in US illegally, allowing healthcare (driver licenses, tuition-education grants)...

According to most estimates, about 11 million undocumented immigrants are now in the U.S., with about 56% coming from Mexico and 22% from other Latin American countries. Many Latino immigrants end up settling or working in California, Texas, and Arizona, although noticeable numbers now reside in the South, Midwest, Northeast, and Rocky Mountain states. Approximately two-thirds have been in the U.S. for 10 years or fewer. Recent statistics from the Pew Hispanic Research Center indicate that undocumented immigrants account for about 4.9% of the civilian labor force, or 7.2 million workers out of a total U.S. labor force of 148 million.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus www.chci.org
Latino Civil Rights & Advocacy Organization
- National Council of La Raza www.nclr.org
Pew Hispanic Center: http://pewhispanic.org
Center for Immigration Studies: http://www.cis.org

American Civil Liberties Union http://www.aclu.org


Punish Illegal Immigrants? Welcome Them as Future Citizens? Congress Debates Immigration

Immigration was a major subject as President Bush and Mexican President Vicente Fox met this week.  They were in Cancun, Mexico, joined by the new prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper.  The North American leaders also discussed trade and other issues during their two days of meetings.

The two presidents both support the idea of a guest worker program that would not punish illegal immigrants now in the United States.  But Mister Bush's Republican Party is divided on issues of immigration reform.

The Pew Hispanic Center says fifty-six percent of illegal immigrants in the United States are from Mexico.  It estimates that the United States has eleven million to twelve million illegal immigrants.  Some other estimates put the number higher.

In Washington, a vote this week cleared the way for the full Senate to debate an immigration bill.  The Judiciary Committee approved legislation that would make it possible for some illegal immigrants to become American citizens. 

They would have to prove they have jobs and are not wanted for crimes.  They would also have to learn English and pay any tax debts.

The proposal would also expand guest worker programs to let four hundred thousand people into the country each year.  After six years they could ask for permission to stay permanently.

The Senate bill conflicts with legislation approved by the House of Representatives in December.  Under the House version, illegal immigrants and anyone who helps them could face criminal charges. 

In the past week, many thousands of Latinos and others marched in Los Angeles and other cities to protest that legislation.  Students walked out of high school classes to join the protests.

Demonstrators in Los Angeles gather to protest federal legislation that would build more walls along the U.S. - Mexico border and make helping illegal immigrants a crime
Demonstrators in Los Angeles gather to protest federal legislation that would build more walls along the U.S. - Mexico border and make helping illegal immigrants a crime

 

Anger at the House bill could hurt efforts to get more Latinos to vote Republican in congressional elections this November.  The party controls both houses of Congress.

Some lawmakers want to discuss only border enforcement and security.  They oppose legislation that would permit illegal immigrants to become citizens.  They say it is not fair to immigrants who obeyed the law.

Others support changing the immigration laws as a way to improve the lives of those living in the country illegally now.  Supporters say the economy depends on them.  They say these workers do jobs that Americans refuse to do. 

Opponents might not dispute that.  But they say there is currently not enough enforcement of laws against employing illegal immigrants in jobs that Americans will do.  The building trades are often used as an example.

Last Monday, President Bush spoke at a ceremony for new citizens.  He expressed support for guest worker programs for economic reasons.  But he also said he will not support any plan that pardons all of those who have been working in the United States illegally.

IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English was written by Nancy Steinbach.
I'm Steve Ember with IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. 01 April 2006


Deep Rifts in US Senate Over Immigration

02 April 2006

U.S. senators are voicing sharp divisions on what should become of millions of illegal immigrants, as they consider a variety of proposals to reform America's immigration system. Meanwhile, immigrant-rights rallies continue, with a march in New York City.

In what has emerged as a fierce and polarizing immigration debate, there is one idea that senators agree on: that the United States must have greater control over its borders, through which hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens pass every year. But there is little agreement on how to accomplish that goal, or how to treat the more than 11 million undocumented aliens estimated to be living in the United States.

Speaking on ABC's This Week program, Illinois Democratic Senator Barack Obama said he favors a three-step approach.

"Improving border security, tightening employer sanctions [penalties for those who hire illegal workers]. The second provision is providing a pathway to citizenship. We have 11 to 12 million undocumented workers in the country. We want to regularize their lives. The third component is a guest worker program," said Obama.

Also appearing on This Week, Republican George Allen of Virginia said there must be no reward for breaking U.S. laws.

"There is a consensus in America that we need to secure our borders," commented Allen. "If we have a reward of illegal behavior, all we will get is more illegal behavior. There are many people who have come into this country legally."

Backers of the citizenship path counter that illegal aliens would have to pay fines and submit to background checks, among other steps, in order to be considered for eventual citizenship.

Senator Obama says it is the only practical option available.

"The notion that somehow these 12 million people are going to get on a bus and go back across the border just is not realistic," he added.

But Senator Allen disagrees, arguing that, if labor laws prohibiting the employment of undocumented workers were rigorously enforced, illegal aliens would return to their native lands on their own.

"The main point is: enforce the law. Right now, it is illegal to hire those who are [here] illegally. And if there is a workable, efficient, practical way of hiring legal workers in this country, employers will do that. Then, those who are here illegally will see that they cannot find work in this country, and they are going to have to leave," he argued.

Yet U.S. business groups warn of dire consequences for the U.S. economy, if the supply of inexpensive labor from abroad were to disappear.

Immigrant-rights groups point out that many illegal aliens have U.S.-born children, who are American citizens, and that forcing the parents to leave the country would tear families apart.

Protesters pray during the The Great Walk in Solidarity With Immigrants in New York, April 1, 2006,
Protesters pray during the The Great Walk in Solidarity With Immigrants in New York, April 1, 2006,

A bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives would designate illegal aliens as felons, and mandate constructing more than 1,000 kilometers of new fence along the U.S. - Mexico border. What action the Senate may take is unclear, but many immigrants and immigrant-rights supporters have vociferously protested the House legislation as an abdication of America's history as a welcoming nation.

 

Sunday, demonstrators marched across New York's Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Dozens of other demonstrations have been held across the country in recent weeks.

 


Illegal Immigration in a Nation of Immigrants
By Peter Fedynsky 28 March 2006
Washington, D.C. www.voa.com

The United States, a nation of immigrants, is currently engaged in a heated debate about illegal immigration. According to government estimates, there are eight to ten million illegal immigrants in the United States and another half million cross the border each year.  The immigration debate involves a range of proposals, from amnesty to deportation.

More than 500,000 people protested in Los Angeles on Saturday, demanding that Congress abandon measures passed in the House of Representatives that would add 1100 kilometers of fence along America's 3200-kilometer border with Mexico, and declare illegal immigrants and organizations that help them -- to be felons.  Demonstrations were held in other U.S. cities, including Dallas, Phoenix, Milwaukee, and Columbus, Ohio.

Among the protesters was Mariana, an illegal immigrant who arrived from Mexico City 15 years ago.  "I've been here most of my life.  My kids were born here," she said.

Mariana would be a criminal, if the House bill becomes law.

President Bush's proposal is less punitive. He wants to secure the border, shut down document counterfeiting rings, and stop smugglers who traffic in human beings. He is also seeking to create a guest worker program that would provide temporary employment without a guarantee of permanent residence or citizenship.

 

President Bush speaks at a immigration naturalization ceremony at the Daughters of the American Revolution administration building in Washington Monday, March 27, 2006
President Bush speaks at a immigration naturalization ceremony at the Daughters of the American Revolution administration building in Washington Monday, March 27, 2006

"This program would provide a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill the jobs that Americans are unwilling to do,” said Mr. Bush. “Workers should be able to register for legal status on a temporary basis."

 

But, Dale McGlothlin, an immigration reform activist, says the President's plan would drive down wages for all Americans. "It doesn't matter how hard you work or how much you want to work. Unless you work for less money, you are not going to have a job in the future," said the chief operating officer of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

The president's own Republican Party is split on immigration between business interests who want a supply of cheap workers and those who say illegal immigrants strain the American economy, schools, health care, and culture.  And Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican, says illegal immigrants violate the rule of law.

"The crime they have committed is coming into this country without our permission.  The penalty that is supposed to be applied to that, under the law that we have today is deportation."

But Mariana says deportation would destroy her family. "The most important thing is to keep our families together."

Immigration reform advocates protested on Monday at the U.S. Capitol, where the Senate is exploring more lenient alternatives, including amnesty, for resident illegals.  President Bush, however, is opposed to amnesty, saying it would encourage more illegal immigration.

The Senate has scheduled two weeks for the immigration debate.


Discuss the influence of Hispanic Americans

Overview: What is the definition of the term "Hispanic"? Use this article and lesson plan to have students identify organizations that support Hispanic Americans, and to determine legislative successes of the Hispanic rights movement. Challenge students to formulate opinions on how organizations play a role in passing legislation to benefit Hispanic Americans.

Objectives

Students will be able to:

Students should understand and use complex cultural concepts such as adaptation, assimilation, acculturation, diffusion, and dissonance drawn from anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines to explain how culture and cultural systems function.

Students must understand the paradigms and traditions that undergird social and political institutions. They should be provided opportunities to examine, use, and add to the body of knowledge related to the behavioral sciences and social theory as it relates to the ways people and groups organize themselves around common needs, beliefs, and interests.

Procedure
1.Have students read the CNNfyi.com article and ask the following:

2. Refer students to the first Web site below to determine the percentage of the American population that claimed Hispanic origin in 1980 and in 1990. Have students determine whether the Hispanic population is rising or declining in proportion to the population.

3. Cecilia Munoz states, "The American dream is very vivid to us, and for those of us who are immigrants or their descendants, we are engaged in making that a reality." How would you define the term, "American dream"? Why do you think she states that the American dream is more vivid to immigrants? Explain.

4. Have students identify laws that were passed in an effort to guarantee equal rights for Hispanic Americans. These laws include the 1968 Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Voting Rights act of 1975. Then ask: What changes were implemented as a result of these laws? Have these laws improved the lives of Hispanic Americans? Give examples to support your opinions.

5. Ask students: What is bilingual education? Point out to students that some people have argued that English-only policies reflect a bias against minority groups, especially Hispanic Americans. Analyze this argument with respect to bilingual education. Have students write position papers on whether or not they support bilingual education. Have students share their papers with the class and discuss.

6. Inform students that Hispanic Americans have a number of organizations that work for their interests. They include: the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and The League of United Latin American Citizens. Have students conduct research to create a list of these organizations. Then, divide students into small groups and instruct each group to investigate ones of f the organizations listed. Have groups present their findings to the class. Then ask: Why are these organizations important to Hispanic Americans?

Assessment
Have students write essays identifying how organizations discussed in class play a role in passing legislation to benefit Hispanic Americans.

Challenge
Students can examine the history of immigration in the United States. Divide the class into small groups, and have each group select one period in U.S. history to examine. Have each group research immigration data pertaining to its era, including the origins of those who immigrated to the United States. Have each group express its information in visual form, such as a chart or graph. After groups present their data, discuss the changes that have occurred in immigration patterns and responses to these patterns by native born citizens.

Extension
Instruct students to write essays that explore the following question: How have Hispanic immigrants changed American culture? Have students share their essays and discuss how Hispanic immigrants have been influential in their own community. What are some of the societal benefits and drawbacks associated with immigration?

• Is the 2000 U.S. Census correct?
March 13, 2001
• Spanish Translation of this Discussion/Activity
• Hispanic Population
• USINS INS Internet Home Page
• ACLU and Immigrant Rights
• IOM / OIM International Organization for Migration / Organisation internationale pour les migrations / Organización internacional para las migraciones


CNNfyi.com article:  Trying to categorize Americans of Spanish origin can be confusing.

This growing, diverse minority group includes people of Mexican descent, Spanish heritage, Cuban parentage, Puerto Rican and Costa Rican ancestry, among many others.

"There isn't a perfect definition of our people," said Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, a nonprofit civil rights organization for Hispanic people.

In fact, Hispanic people can't even agree on a term that best encompasses the entire minority group, she said in a phone interview from her office in Washington.

"In California, people prefer 'Latino,' but in the Southwest they prefer 'Hispanic.' Some people in the Mexican-American community like the term 'Chicano' to describe themselves," she explained.

Even the latest census, which reports the Latino population has increased by nearly 60 percent in the last 10 years, struggles to find an adequate term.

When filling out the 2000 census, Hispanics could choose either "Mexican," "Puerto Rican," "Cuban" or "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino."

If a census-taker marked the latter category, additional space was provided to specify an origin, such as Costa Rican, Colombian or Panamanian.

Vivid American dream

"The first census that tried to count us was only in 1980," said Muñoz. Before that year the census only asked the general question, "Do you have a Spanish surname?", she said.

"Suddenly everyone is noticing we are the largest minority, but it didn't happen overnight," she added.

She attributes half of the population swell to immigration and half to a growing birth rate.

While Latinos used to be concentrated in the five biggest states, the latest census shows growth in places like the South, where unprecedented economic growth lured workers.

"Hopefully our growth will improve minority relations. We are very eager to share our history, but we do suffer from the misconception that we just got here," Muñoz said.

"We have an extraordinary amount of diversity in this community, but on key concerns we tend to feel the same," said Muñoz.

Policies about immigration and English-only legislation tend to polarize the Hispanic minority," she said.

"It feels personal ... like it is a knee-jerk reaction to our presence in our own country. The American dream is very vivid to us, and for those of us who are immigrants, or their descendants, we are engaged in making that dream a reality," said Muñoz.

Quick facts from the 2000 census

  • In the 2000 census, 35.3 million Hispanics were counted in the United States. That excludes the 3.8 million Hispanics in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
  • Mexicans accounted for 58.5 percent of all Hispanics.
  • Salvadorians made up the largest group of Hispanics from Central America (besides Mexicans).
  • More than three-quarters of Hispanics live in the West or the South.
  • More than 60 percent of Puerto-Ricans live in the Northeast.
     

     


  • The growing power of the Hispanic vote

    October 3, 2001

    CNN) -- The race for mayor in Houston, Texas, provides a unique look into the diversity of the Hispanic vote in the United States.

    Among the three top contenders is Councilman Orlando Sanchez, who hopes to become Houston's first Hispanic mayor.

    On the surface, at least, it would seem he has a good shot, since the city's Hispanic population has blossomed over the last 10 years to nearly 750,000 -- the largest ethnic group in the city.

    But the politics isn't that simple.

    Sanchez is a Republican-leaning Cuban-American; Democratic-leaning Mexican-Americans dominate the city's Hispanics.

    The non-partisan election November 6 may well indicate where Latinos' strongest loyalties lie: with a name or with a political party.

    Sanchez is counting on the former. Throughout the campaign he's walked the streets of Latino neighborhoods, introducing himself to potential voters - often in Spanish.

    As a Cuban-American immigrant, he said, he has a lot in common with Mexican-Americans. "My family has gone through the same struggles that they have gone through," he said. "I know the difficulties. These people understand that I understand." At least one voter seems convinced. Caroline Ponce, who is of Mexican heritage and a self-described life-long Democrat, counts herself in Sanchez's corner, political differences notwithstanding.

    "I would like for him to be in office, being that he is Hispanic," said Ponce.

    She didn't change her mind, even when told Sanchez is a Cuban-American:

    "It doesn't make any difference," she said.

    Indeed, a poll conducted by the University of Houston Center for Public Policy at Rice University, and published in the Houston Chronicle in late September, shows Sanchez is holding his own against incumbent Mayor Lee Brown. When potential voters were asked whom they would vote for if there were a runoff election between the two candidates, respondents were nearly split down the middle.

    More than 38 percent of the voters polled said they would pick Brown, but Sanchez was close on his heels with almost 36 percent support. More than 27 percent polled said they didn't know which candidate would get their vote on Election Day.

    Even if Sanchez is successful in his bid to win over the Hispanic community, he faces an uphill battle.

    Get out the vote

    First, Hispanics turn out at the polls at a lower rate than any other ethnic group in the city. While they make up about 37 percent of the city's population, they comprised only about 9 percent of the voters in the last mayoral election, according to University of Houston political science professor Richard Murray.

    "They are working extremely long hours often," Murray said. "They really don't have much time for politics in this culture. You can't win by mobilizing Hispanics in Houston yet, but they are, year by year, becoming a more significant voting block in this city." Sanchez is up against other obstacles as well. He faces two formidable and better-financed candidates: incumbent Brown and fellow Councilman Chris Bell.

    Brown, a former New York City police commissioner and drug policy chief in the Clinton administration, is Houston's first African-American mayor.

    "A Hispanic candidate like Sanchez has to work much harder than Lee Brown does," said Murray. "Lee Brown will have 97 percent of the Black voters behind him. He just has to turn them out."

    If nothing else, Sanchez's candidacy has Brown on the defensive. The incumbent is quick to point out his administration set up a Hispanic advisory committee that he meets with on a daily basis. One of his closest political consultants is Mark Campos, a second-generation Mexican American, the mayor frequently notes.

    "This mayor has done a lot for our community, and for us to turn our back on him is just not in the character of Hispanic leaders of Houston, Texas," said Campos.

    Brown also harshly criticizes Sanchez for failing to support a variety of social programs, including affirmative action.

    "For someone to vote against it they can't really represent a very important segment of our community," said Brown.

    Sanchez responds that he's not against the concept of affirmative action. Instead, he opposes Houston's version of it.

    "What I have said is that this city's current ordinance is unenforceable. They know that. We know that. And we're asking the taxpayers to pay for a program that cannot be enforced in a court of law," said Sanchez.

    When campaigning, Sanchez prefers to talk about his promises to do something about nagging sewer problems and downtown streets that seem to be in a perpetual state of repair.

    Asked if it's time Houston had a Hispanic mayor, Sanchez said, "I think it's time Houston (has) a mayor that takes care of the issues. And if that's a Hispanic, so be it."

    Sanchez's formula for victory includes increasing Hispanic voter turnout and convincing enough conservative white voters that Bell, the only Anglo among the three leading candidates, is too liberal. Analysts say Sanchez is also calculating that should no single candidate get more than 50 percent of the vote in November, he could somehow win in a runoff.

    "There's a real chance, it's not the most likely chance, but there's a real possibility that that's the way the race could play out," said Murray, the political scientist.

    Whether Sanchez can pull off an upset won't be determined for a month or so. Even if he can't, he said his candidacy itself part of a larger victory for Hispanics all over the United States.

    "We're just part of the fabric that is America. I see many cities across the nation now putting up Hispanic candidates, some winning, some not," he said. "But the fact of the matter is, the Hispanic community is going to participate and is going to make a contribution to the political process in this country."


    Hispanics: A People in Motion
    The Pew Hispanic Center is dedicated to improving understanding of the diverse Hispanic population in the United States and to chronicling Latinos’ growing impact on the nation. The Center conducts nonpartisan research on Latino trends in demographics, economics, education, immigration and identity, and its polls and nationwide surveys explore Latino attitudes on public policy issues as well as their beliefs, values and experiences. This report was originally published as a chapter in Trends 2005, a Pew Research Center reference book that examines current developments and long term trends on issues such as politics, religion and public life, the media, the internet, the Hispanic people, the states, and national and global public opinion. ... More information >>

     

    The Politicization of US Hispanics

    In a previous note, we discussed the empowerment of Hispanics as a political force in the USA.  Now the word "empowerment" is somewhat abstract.  To quote (out of context) from Paternostro's book,

    "Empowerment" is the word of the nineties for groups working for women  in the developing world and in the African American and Latina communities in the U.S.  In "The Empowerment of Women: A Key to HIV Prevention," an abstract that discusses an AIDS prevention project for young inner-city women, empowerment is defined as "the belief that women own their lives, that they can know what is right for them, and that by working together, they can positively influence what happens to them."  The world of foundations and of the World Bank is funneling billions of dollars into programs targeted to "empower women" in ways ranging from giving women access to bank credit to teaching them how to negotiate safe sex.  Yet it is curious that, regardless of these efforts, there is still no word for "empowerment" in Spanish.  Empoderamiento would be the transliteration, but it just does not sound right.  It sounds unnatural.  I have never heard anyone use it --- not even the experts.  ...  Is the word "empowerment" such a foreign and imported --- and uncensored --- concept for Latins that there is no space for it?

    In that previous note, we attempted to deal with the issue less abstractly by presenting some survey data about whether US Hispanics believe that they "can make a difference in the world" and they "are aware and involved in matters of local or national concern."  Now, even these attitudinal statements are still fuzzy and abstract.  What makes a "difference in the world"?  What does "awareness" mean?  What does "involvement" mean?

    In this note, we will show some survey data related to the participation of US Hispanics in specific public activities.  By now, we recognize that the power of a group is not necessarily measured simply in terms of its absolute size.  There are many examples of numerically small groups that are able to dictate the social and political agenda through a loud, unified voice (see the book by Noelle-Neumann), often by brilliantly manipulating the media.  Conversely, large groups whose points of view are not articulated in the media are effectively powerless.  In the calculus of politics in the USA today, public policies are determined by politicians elected to their offices.  This means that politicians need to appear to be sensitive to the needs of large blocs of voters.  The public realm is where the voices of these groups can be heard. 

    The data come from the Total Audience Survey conducted by Magazine Metrics in 1997.  This is a mail survey of 18,100 adults (age 18+) drawn as a representative of the total population in USA.  In the following table, we show the participation percentages for a dozen public activities.  Across the board, the US Hispanics have about the same participation rates as the general population.

    Participated in Last 3 Years

    % US Hispanic Adults % Total US Adults
    Talked or wrote to the editor of a magazine or newspaper   8% 10%
    Talked or wrote to an elected official about an issue 13% 16%
    Written something that has been published   6%   6%
    Addressed a public meeting 16% 14%
    Take an active part in any political or local civic issue   8% 10%
    Worked for an environmental or conservation organization   5%   5%
    Actively worked for a political party or candidate   4%   5%
    Participated in other volunteer work (non-political) 25% 27%
    Ran for public office   1%   1%
    Served on a charitable or company board of directors   5%   6%
    Donated to a charity 49% 55%
    Worked to improve the quality of life in your community 23% 23%

    (source: Total Audience Survey, Magazine Metrics)

    We recognize that the US Hispanic population is not a homogenous group.  Just as in the general population, there are groups with different national origins, life experiences, religious beliefs, education, values, attitudes and lifestyles.  The voice of a group does not have to be uniformly shared among its members, for it is often articulated by charismatic spokespersons.  In turn, a spokesperson will gain greater attention and respect because politicians may ignore an individual's opinions but they would not want to offend an entire voting bloc.

    We applied a segmentation algorithm (known as the K-means clustering method) to these 12 data items for the US Hispanics, and formed two clusters of persons.  About 22% of the US Hispanics fall into a cluster that we call politically active.  For this group, we show their participation rates in the list of public activities in the following table.  Across the board, these people are much more politically active than the others.  

    Participated in Last 3 Years % US Hispanic Adults %Politically Active
    US Hispanics
    Talked or wrote to the editor of a magazine or newspaper   8% 23%
    Talked or wrote to an elected official about an issue 13% 37%
    Written something that has been published   6% 19%
    Addressed a public meeting 16% 54%
    Take an active part in any political or local civic issue   8% 31%
    Worked for an environmental or conservation organization   5% 18%
    Actively worked for a political party or candidate   4% 10%
    Participated in other volunteer work (non-political) 25% 77%
    Ran for public office   1%   3%
    Served on a charitable or company board of directors   5% 19%
    Donated to a charity 49% 91%
    Worked to improve the quality of life in your community 23% 78%

    (source: Total Audience Survey, Magazine Metrics)

    Demographically, the politically active US Hispanic is more likely to be male, better educated and more affluent. There is a sharp disjunction between the politically active segment and the other US Hispanics. 


    Immigration Fight Unites Latinos
    APRIL 3, 2006

    WASHINGTON The recent marches in American cities by perhaps a million immigrants and their supporters - a half-million in Los Angeles alone - demonstrated the emergence of Latinos in the United States as no longer quite so silent a minority.

    Such numbers have been seen on U.S. streets only in connection with the most iconic of movements - marching for civil rights or against the Vietnam War. A vibrant Spanish-language media scene played a critical role in bringing the mostly Latino protesters together.

    "It took on a life of its own," said Richard Estrada, a Los Angeles priest whose church helped begin the March 25 demonstration there, along with social and labor groups.

    "It may well be we're witnessing a turning point," said Ilan Stavans, a professor of Latino culture at Amherst College in Massachusetts. "People have been quietly waiting for a moment like this."

    The turnout followed a swelling of fear over tough legislation that passed the House in December, sponsored by Representative James Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin. It would turn undocumented immigrants - estimated to exceed 11 million - into felons and make it a federal crime to assist them.

    Estrada said that while organizers do not condone illegal entry, immigrants have grown tired of being blamed for many of the nation's ills. "All of this made people say, that's enough," he said.

    Word of the bill spread instantly, thanks to Spanish-language media that have grown explosively. Advertising revenue for Latino network television is expected to rise by 10 percent this year, more than twice the overall rate, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

    Along with the big networks - the dominant Univision and the smaller Telemundo, now owned by NBC - there are more than 60 Spanish-language cable outlets, 160 local television stations and 300 radio stations.

    While English-language newspapers struggle, their Spanish counterparts have thrived, numbering 700. Most carry a constant menu of immigration stories.

    A cartoon in the paper Washington's Voz, for example, depicts a Latino lamenting that he pays his rent, utilities, car payments and taxes, "And now they say I might be a criminal. If this is the American dream, somebody wake me up!"

    Estrada's church, Our Lady Queen of Angels, draws about 11,000 people to Mass each Sunday, most of them immigrants, and has long sheltered the undocumented, an activity the House bill would criminalize. "We were very, very concerned," he said.

    Then Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles issued a national call to action and ordered his own priests to continue helping immigrants. "So we said, let's organize this huge march of the pueblo, of the people," Estrada said.

    Organizers originally expected 20,000 people. But then a top disk jockey, Eddie Sotelo, joined the campaign, followed by other Spanish-language disc jockeys who are normally fierce rivals of his.

    Sotelo, now a citizen, arrived in the United States in the trunk of a car.

    For the audience of Telemundo or Univision, said Stavans of Amherst, "this becomes a referendum on identity, on culture, on politics, on who we are as Latinos." The Spanish-language media, he said, have shown "a talent and a capability to mobilize people" with few historic parallels.

    Univision reaches 98 percent of Spanish-speaking households. On many nights, it outdraws even the main English-language networks, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, among young viewers nationwide.

    While Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cubans and other national groups long stuck largely to themselves, Telemundo and Univision emphasize commonalities, even telling soap-opera actors to speak without national accents.

    "Something changed," said Stavans. "People started to feel touched and connected with the idea that we were all Latinos."

    A new survey by Bendixen Associates of Miami found that on immigration issues, "there seems to be a consensus position among all Latin American ethnicities," said Fernand Amandi, Bendixen's executive vice president.

    Latino immigrants tend to be younger than the American average, and thus more open to such modern technology as cellphones, text-messaging and Web sites that make it easy to organize spontaneous get-togethers.

    That happened Tuesday in northern Virginia, when hundreds of students walked out of their high schools to march together, chanting "Si, se puede," "Yes, we can."

    "They have been reading the news, watching television about immigration reform, listening to the radio - they get it," said Walter Tejada, an Arlington County board member who joined the marchers.

    "They know that criminalizing someone because they're going to sweep someone's house or clean an office - there's something wrong about calling someone like that a criminal. These are their parents we're talking about. The thought that their Mom might be deported is horrible."

    Many Latinos were heartened on March 27, two days after the Los Angeles march, when the Senate Judiciary Committee unexpectedly approved an immigration bill to offer the undocumented millions a path to legality, without the House bill's criminal aspects.

    Estrada attended the session. "I think we did pretty well," he said.

    The ultimate impact of the marches remains unclear, but politicians acknowledge they are not ignoring them.

    Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, on NBC-TV, mentioned the "passion" of the marchers.

    Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Fox-TV that it would be "political suicide" for his party to block efforts to craft a comprehensive, nonpunitive, solution. "We will lose our majority." A debate by the full Senate continues. Prospects for reconciling House and Senate bills are uncertain.

    Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, spoke on CBS-TV of "a chasm" between the two. Sensenbrenner, without retreating, called it the toughest issue in his 37 years in office.


    Latinos Divided on Immigration Issue

    4/10/2006 www.usatoday.com

    PHOENIX (AP) — Contrary to scenes of hundreds of thousands of united Latinos marching across the country in support of immigration reform, a sizable number of the ethnic group opposes the marches and strongly objects to illegal immigration.

    But their voices have largely been muffled by the massive protests, which continued Monday as thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of cities nationwide.

    They are voicing their support of a Senate bill that would give an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the country a chance for U.S. citizenship.

    "That's the objective of the marches — to give the impression that all Latinos are for allowing the illegals to become citizens," said Phoenix resident Lionel De La Rosa. "Well, I'm not."

    The 71-year-old Texas native and Vietnam veteran said he favors punitive measures more in line with the immigration bill passed by the U.S. House in December that would have made it a felony to be in the United States illegally.

    "I'm for that 100%," he said. "As far as my Latino friends are concerned, they all agree on this."

    A 2005 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center found that Latinos in general have favorable attitudes toward immigrants and immigration. But when it comes to illegal immigration, significant numbers have negative views of undocumented immigrants.

    The survey found those feelings are strongest among middle-class and middle-age U.S.-born Latinos.

    And though 68% of Latinos said they believe undocumented immigrants help the economy by providing low-cost labor, nearly a quarter felt undocumented immigrants hurt the economy by driving down wages.

    U.S.-born Latinos looked even less favorably toward undocumented immigrants than foreign-born Latinos. More than a third of U.S.-born Latinos said undocumented immigrants hurt the economy, compared with just 15% of foreign-born Latinos.

    Latinos also are divided over whether to allow undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship, the survey found.

    Though 88% of foreign-born Latinos favored allowing undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship, a smaller number of U.S.-born Latinos, 78%, said undocumented immigrants should be allowed to do so.

    Though views such as De La Rosa's are common among Latinos, they are rarely reflected among Latino leaders, said Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank that favors greater restrictions on immigration.

    "It's easy to tap into the views of the intellectual class, but harder to tap into the views of the common folks," he said.

    And because so much of the debate over illegal immigration comes off as anti-Hispanic, Latinos who favor greater restrictions on immigration are often reluctant to speak out.

    "That's extremely off-putting," Camarota said. "Whatever their views, they keep it to themselves."

    Many Latinos fear being ostracized for their negative views of undocumented immigrants, said Phoenix resident Frank Barrios, 64.

    "There are a lot of Hispanics that are upset about the undocumented just the same way as the Anglo population," said Barrios, a third-generation Mexican-American who traces his family's roots in Arizona to the 1870s. "That group is larger than many people would believe."


    Immigration on Front Burner

    March 27, 2006  Esther Pan  http://www.cfr.org/publication/10211/immigration_on_front_burner.html

    Despite increases in funding for border patrol and other efforts over the last decade, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States continues to grow. Some 750,000 arrive each year, and there are now about 12 million illegal immigrants in the country (Pew Hispanic Center). They make up 5 percent of the total U.S. work force, and take jobs—in industries including construction, food service, and care for children and the elderly—that economists say are necessary to keep the economy running.

    The House of Representatives passed a bill in December proposing tough measures—including building a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and making it a crime to help illegal aliens—aimed at preventing illegal immigration. The Senate judiciary committee approved a bill March 27 that would create a guest worker program for new illegal immigrants and allow illegal workers in the United States to work toward citizenship (NYT). The full Senate and House will now have to try and reconcile the two drafts. The issues surrounding immigration reform are analyzed in this CFR Background Q&A by cfr.org's Esther Pan.

    President Bush pressed his own views in his Saturday radio address, saying he supports new spending for tightened borders but also a temporary worker program to "create a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do."

    The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, DC, nonprofit that studies policies affecting immigration and refugees, offers a side-by-side comparison of all the legislative proposals on immigration currently before Congress, as well as a comprehensive series of background briefs illuminating the major aspects of the immigration issue.

    The new rules proposed in the House immigration bill are setting the Catholic Church in opposition to lawmakers (NYT). Cardinal Archbishop John Mahoney of Los Angeles explained his opposition to the measures in a New York Times editorial, saying, "Denying aid to a fellow human being violates a law with a higher authority than Congress—the law of God."

    Manhattan Institute analyst Tamar Jacoby evaluates the competing immigration proposals in the Wall Street Journal, saying Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has the unenviable task of trying to craft a working compromise on the immigration issue. A Washington Post analysis says any immigration proposal that enacts only punitive measures would be doomed to failure because it ignores the real demand for labor in the U.S. economy. A Congressional Research Service report analyzes the history of guest worker programs and Congressional attempts to reform immigration.

    Meanwhile, the population of illegal immigrants in America—the majority of them from Mexico—continues to grow. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates in a report that, if left unchecked, illegal immigration will help push the U.S. population from its current level of 297 million to 420 million by 2050. A 2005 Pew Hispanic Center report says most immigrants from Mexico had jobs at home, but came to the United States for higher-paid work. Another Pew Hispanic Center report shows that, despite the economic boom of the 1990s, Hispanics in the United States are concentrated in low-paying jobs with lower educational requirements and socioeconomic status than whites.


    Bilingual Material in Libraries Draws Some Criticism

    Published: September 5, 2005
    DENVER, Sept. 4 (AP) - On a rainy Saturday, Miereya Gomez thumbed through a book while her two young sons carried comic books to their father in the children's section of this city's Central Public Library.

    "We come here mostly for the kids, for books and movies - educational and entertainment - in Spanish and English," Ms. Gomez said.

    As the Spanish-speaking population has grown in the United States, libraries have tried to keep pace by stocking up on books, magazines and movies in Spanish.

    In some places, however, critics say taxpayer money should not be spent on a population that can include illegal immigrants or on proposals that promote languages other than English.

    In Denver, where the foreign-born population tripled between 1990 and 2000, largely because of Mexican immigrants, the public library system is considering reorganizing some of its branches to emphasize bilingual services and material.

    Similar efforts have been taken by libraries across the country, from the Queens Library in New York City, whose Web site is offered in English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Russian and Korean, to the large Chinese-language collection at the San Francisco Public Library.

    And it is not just the nation's biggest cities.

    "The interest is in rural areas and cities that aren't the usual Spanish areas, like New York or Miami, but in North Carolina, Illinois and the Midwest," said Carmen Ospina, editor of Critica, a magazine for librarians that highlights Spanish-language material.

    Ms. Ospina said questions about starting Spanish-language collections have come from librarians in Belton, Mo.; Nashville, Ga.; and towns she had never heard of.

    "It's definitely a growing trend," said Carol Brey-Casiano, former president of the American Library Association.

    But the trend is drawing scrutiny in Denver.

    Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, sent a public letter to Mayor John W. Hickenlooper of Denver this summer asking if the library was considering Spanish-only branches or converting to Spanish-language material at the expense of English material. Mr. Tancredo, an outspoken critic of American immigration policies, said he had been contacted by concerned librarians and patrons.

    "When you have a strong cultural identity and there aren't set incentives to become American, it creates a lot of tension and divides the community," said Mr. Tancredo's spokesman, Will Adams.

    Those concerns were echoed by Michael Corbin, a radio talk show host who helped organize a protest outside Denver's central library after sexually graphic content was found in some Spanish-language adult comic books, which were later removed.

    Denver library officials say they are not considering Spanish-only branches in their reorganization plan but are simply trying to accommodate a city where 35 percent of residents are Hispanic.

    Janet Cox, adult services supervisor at the Pueblo Library District, said: "We provide material to meet the needs of the people in the area, whether that be in English or Spanish or another language. That's important. That's what libraries do."


    From Latinos' Rally, Hopes for a Movement
    By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 9, 2006; A01

    On the eve of demonstrations by Latinos in dozens of cities across the country, protest organizers said they would strive to transform momentum over the immigration controversy into a lasting civil rights movement that unifies the nation's largest minority population.

    They face the challenge of appealing to a population that is divided economically, racially and by national origin, a fact that has perplexed marketing and political strategists alike. And some experts say they fear that forming a political coalition around issues more broad-based than immigration might prove daunting.

    The mobilization, which already has drawn hundreds of thousands of people this year to immigration protests in major cities, has yet to produce the visible leadership characteristic of civil rights movements.

    Demonstrations are planned for more than 60 cities tomorrow, and organizers expect that as many as 180,000 people will converge on the Mall, enhanced by frustration over the congressional impasse last week on immigration legislation.

    "Our challenge is to transform this massive movement of people in the streets into a massive movement of people to the polls," said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, where a demonstration last month drew more than 500,000 people. "Ultimately in a democracy, your influence depends on putting people in power to represent your interests."

    If political power comes to a population estimated to number more than 40 million people -- hailing from more than 20 countries -- it will come gradually.

    Only 40 percent of U.S. Latinos are eligible to vote, according to a recent study by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California, and fewer than half vote regularly. One-third of Latinos are too young to vote. And an estimated 27 percent are adults but noncitizens or illegal immigrants.

    Although immigrants from all countries would be affected by changes in the law, a wave of Latino protest coalesced after the House passed legislation that would make illegal immigration a felony and penalize those who employed such immigrants. Apparent agreement on a Senate compromise that would have opened a path to citizenship for millions in the country illegally collapsed Friday under the weight of election-year politics.

    "A community that had essentially been trying to remain invisible suddenly concluded that their invisibility was only making them more vulnerable," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which advocates expanding immigrant rights.

    But Sharry said activism could be undermined if legislation similar to the Senate proposal ever finds its way into law.

    "I suspect a lot people will start busying themselves with getting on the path to legal permanent residence, and that could take the political momentum out of [the movement]," Sharry said.

    This cycle of success followed by complacency has played out during several previous waves of Latino activism -- most recently in California during the 1990s. In 1994, when voters there adopted Proposition 187, denying some public benefits to illegal immigrants, many Latinos perceived the move as a personal attack by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, who had advocated the measure. Mass demonstrations were followed by a surge in voter registration and political activism by Latinos.

    Two successive Democratic candidates were swept into the governor's mansion, and the state became a reliable voter for Democratic presidential candidates.

    Once the sense of crisis abated, fewer California Latinos turned out to vote. In the 2002 general election, for example, Latinos represented 17 percent of registered voters but 10 percent of those who voted.

    Organizers of the demonstrations set for tomorrow said they plan to counter the pattern by convening a national conference in June, probably in Milwaukee, to craft an agenda that carries the movement beyond a single legislative goal.

    "We're going to be talking about what a pro-immigration platform looks like and how to maintain it," said Kimberly Propeack, advocacy director for CASA of Maryland, an immigrant rights group.

    The effort to mold an issue into a movement might be hampered by the absence of a nationally recognized leader to fulfill the galvanizing role that Martin Luther King Jr. played for the African American civil rights movement, or that Mexican American labor activist Cesar Chavez played for West Coast farm workers.

    The lack of such a figure is at least partly due to the nature of the organizations underlying the current mobilization.

    Although many leaders of the civil rights movement emerged from historically black colleges or Protestant churches that fostered the rise of a select group of orators, the recent demonstrations have been the work of a diverse, dispersed, grass-roots network of community service organizations, social clubs, unions and Spanish-language media outlets. The Washington demonstration alone is being coordinated by more than 60 such groups.

    "Without a Dr. King-like figure, we lack the capacity to create that personal connection, not just within our own community but with folks on the outside," said Cecilia Munoz, vice president of policy for National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group. "Someone with that kind of visibility is really useful in terms of educating people."

    Although there is no identifiable leader to reconcile the inevitable fractures that have emerged as so many groups try to harmonize their activities, Salas said the decentralized nature of the movement also has an advantage.

    "There's no one leader who could disappear and affect the movement," she said. "Instead, you have all these local communities with their own independent local leaders."

    And many Latino leaders say that whatever the fate of their movement in the short run, their success over the long term is virtually guaranteed by the millions of U.S.-born Latinos who will be turning 18 over the next decade.

    The most lasting impact of the demonstrations might be the passion it ignites among the young people who participate, said Antonio Gonzalez, executive director of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, which is dedicated to increasing Latino political involvement.

    "The way you get youth to vote is to have a sort of revolution, an evil enemy to fight," he said. "That has just been handed to us by [the Republicans]. We ought to send them a thank-you letter."


    U.S. must advance assimilation of legal immigrants

    By Victor Davis Hanson March 30, 2006 www.mercurynews.com

    Hypocrisy and paradoxes abound when it comes to illegal immigration.

    Even the fiercest critics of illegal immigrants in the American Southwest never seem to check first the legal status of those who fix their roofs, mow their lawns or wash their dishes.

    This past week, thousands of Latino demonstrators, fearful of strict new immigration laws, chanted ``Mexico'' and for some reason waved the flag of the country they fled from and most certainly do not want to return to.

    Increasingly, Latin American governments have elected vocal anti-American politicians -- even as they count on their citizens leaving for the United States in record numbers.

    The Mexican government seeks to entice wealthy retired Americans to build homes south of the U.S. border, even as it exports its own homeless to this country. What a cynical mindset: ``You take our Mexican poor, we'll take your American rich.''

    Opponents of illegal immigration lament the skyrocketing costs of incarcerating thousands of illegal immigrants, and providing health benefits to many others. They ignore that such public-entitlement costs are partially offset by the private subsidy that the cheap labor amounts to.

    On the other hand, supporters of the status quo tend only to cite statistics showing how illegal immigrants prop up the American economy -- as if workers who have little education, less English and no legal status will not get ill, hurt or in trouble.

    Illegal immigration is so embedded in issues of history, exploitation, race, class and money that the mere discussion of it has a way of turning surreal.

    So we talk of a guest-worker program as if the million willing Mexicans a year who won't qualify for it will smile and stay home. And, even for those who do qualify, a guest-worker program is a bad idea, for it perpetuates the notion of ``good enough to work, not good enough to stay.'' We should evolve from, not institutionalize, the two-tier system of ``them and us.''

    We also talk of deportation as if it were feasible to send back 11 million people to Mexico in the largest population movement since the British partition of India.

    And we don't talk of the greatest collective violation of American immigration laws in our history.

    But there is still a solution to the immigration problem: It involves supporting any practice that leads to the assimilation of legal Mexican immigrants into the American mainstream -- and opposing everything that does not.

    Employers and La Raza activists who thrive on the current non-system might not like that approach, but it is the only way to avoid the gathering political and cultural storm.

    As we've seen from second- and third-generation legal immigrants, when a person from Mexico comes to the United States with legal documentation, learns English and regards an unskilled job as the start, not the end, of a career, success most often follows.

    And when immigrants, of all nationalities, find themselves surrounded by others from all over the world, they generally accept English as our vital bond and see that a common culture, not race, is what matters.

    Second, numbers are important. The United States can assimilate hundreds of thousands of Mexicans, as it does with other immigrant groups, who come legally and are integrated throughout the nation in multiethnic neighborhoods. But it cannot assimilate quickly millions of abject poor who live in apartheid communities. There the joy of reaching the United States is replaced by the bitterness of becoming part of its collective underclass.

    Third, immigrants can survive one strike against them, maybe two -- but not three. A Mexican citizen who is here illegally might do well with fluent English and a high-school diploma. But when one is illegal, not fluent in English and without education -- and immersed with millions who share such disadvantages -- then we witness the sort of raw emotion now on display in Congress and on our streets.

    So, given these realities, we should allow those illegal immigrants who have been living and working here for at least five years to start their citizenship process. But we should insist this be a one-time exemption rather than yet another periodic amnesty that encourages others to break the law and unfairly cut ahead in the immigration line.

    Meanwhile, border enforcement, employer sanctions, walls and more officers to prevent illegal immigration will work, but only if we allow Mexico a generous quota of legal immigrants.

    The real immigration debate is about turning legal arrivals into citizens. But we cannot do that until we work with those already here -- and ensure that others in the future come legally and in measured numbers and so don't repeat the shared mistakes of our past.

    VICTOR DAVIS HANSON (author@victorhanson.com) is a classicist and historian at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

    House conservatives blast immigration bill

    DAVID ESPO (AP) March 30, 2006

    House conservatives criticized President Bush, accused the Senate of fouling the air, said prisoners rather than illegal farm workers should pick America's crops and denounced the use of Mexican flags by protesters Thursday in a vehement attack on legislation to liberalize U.S. immigration laws.

    "I say let the prisoners pick the fruits," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, one of more than a dozen Republicans who took turns condemning a Senate bill that offers an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants an opportunity for citizenship.

    "Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter A," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, referring to a guest worker provision in the Senate measure.

    Their news conference took place across the Capitol from the Senate, where supporters and critics of the legislation seemed determined to heed admonitions from both Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to conduct a dignified, civilized debate.

    The House has passed legislation to tighten border security, while the Senate approach also includes provisions to regulate the flow of temporary workers into the country and control the legal fate of millions of illegal immigrants already here. Bush has broadly endorsed the Senate approach, saying he wants a comprehensive bill.

    It was the second day in a row that congressional Republicans aired their differences on an issue that directly affects the fastest growing segment of the electorate. Under Bush's leadership, the Republicans have made dramatic inroads among Hispanic voters, and party strategists fret that the immigration debate could jeopardize their gains.

    On Wednesday, leading GOP senators disagreed whether the legislation amounted to amnesty.

    There was no such debate at the news conference in the House, where not a word was spoken in defense of the Senate bill and even Bush was not spared criticism.

    "I don't think he's concerned about alienating voters, he's not running for re-election," said Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado. He said Republicans could lose the House and Senate over the immigration issue, and he said of the president: "I wish he'd think about the party and of course I also wish he'd think about the country."

    Referring to a wave of demonstrations in recent weeks, Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia said, "I say if you are here illegally and want to fly the Mexican flag, go to Mexico and wave the American flag."

    King analyzed the issue in class terms.

    "The elite class in America is becoming a ruling class and they've made enough money by hiring cheap illegal labor that they think they also have some kind of a right to cheap servants to manicure their nails and their lawn, for example.

    "So this ruling class, this new ruling class of America, is expanding a servant class in America at the expense of the middle class of America, the blue collar of America that used to be able to punch a time clock, buy a modest house and raise their families. ... Those young people are cut out of this process."

    Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and others said Republicans would pay a price in the midterm elections if they vote for anything like the Senate legislation. "Many of those who have stood for the Republican Party for the last decade are not only angry. They will be absent in November," he said.

    Rohrabacher said Americans should be able to "smell the foul odor that's coming out of the U.S. Senate."

    Asked a few moments later whether the same odor was emanating from the president, he said, "I have no comment."

    Rohrabacher, King and others stood at a podium decorated with a bumper sticker reading "Say No to Amnesty," as the Senate slogged through a second suspenseless day of debate.

    The only vote of the day came on a proposal by Frist for a study of the number and causes of deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border. It passed 94-0.

    The more difficult choices lie ahead next week, when critics of the bill are expected to try to strip out the guest worker provision and roll back the provisions relating to 11 million illegal immigrants already here.

    Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has said repeatedly he hopes to find a compromise that is more broadly acceptable than the legislation that cleared his committee over the objections of six Republicans.

    "There's a movement afoot to find consensus," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who voted for the bill that cleared committee.

    He said the president's statements "have been hugely helpful."


    Conservatives Stand Firm on Immigration

    WASHINGTON, March 30 — Conservative House Republicans bluntly warned their leaders Thursday against any immigration compromise that would allow temporary foreign workers and assailed a Senate proposal that would open the way for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.

    "My fear is that if we continue down this path that the Senate has established, that we will have created the biggest magnet ever," said Representative Bob Beauprez, a Colorado Republican. "It would be like a dinner bell, 'Come one, come all.' "

    But the bipartisan authors of a Senate plan that would combine new border protections with a temporary worker program and a process for illegal immigrants to qualify for residency and eventually citizenship said they thought they were gaining support as the Senate moved deeper into its immigration fight.

    Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who helped write the plan approved Monday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the debate a defining moment in the nation's history.

    "Are we going to continue our rich tradition of hundreds of years of welcoming new blood and new vitality to our nation?" Mr. McCain asked. "Or are we going to adopt a protectionist, isolationist attitude and policies that are in betrayal of the very fundamentals of this great nation of ours, a beacon of hope and liberty and freedom throughout the world?"

    Supporters of Mr. McCain's plan said that President Bush's comments in recent days have suggested he was moving toward their position. Under Mr. McCain's proposal, illegal immigrants would be granted permanent residency and the opportunity to apply for citizenship only after foreigners who have followed the rules by applying for residency from their countries have been processed.

    In a speech on Thursday in Cancún, Mexico, where President Bush was meeting with President Vicente Fox, Mr. Bush said, "If they want to become a citizen, they can get in line, but not the head of the line."

    The sharp divisions among Republicans illustrated the difficulty Congress would have in reaching agreement, particularly with midterm elections looming. Lawmakers and Senate officials said the climactic votes would come next week as senators considered amendments and a choice between the Judiciary Committee plan and a proposal by Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, that focuses on tougher law enforcement.

    As the debate rages in Washington, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew Hispanic Center released a national survey indicating that ordinary Americans are also deeply divided over how to handle the 11 million illegal immigrants thought to be living in the United States.

    The poll, conducted between Feb. 8 and March 7, found that 53 percent of the 2,000 people surveyed believed that illegal immigrants should be required to return home, while 40 percent said they should be granted some legal status that allows them to stay in the United States.

    Forty-nine percent said that increasing penalties for employers who hire illegal immigrants would be most effective in reducing illegal immigration. One-third preferred increasing the number of border patrol agents while 9 percent favored the construction of fences along the Mexican border.

    And while 65 percent said that immigrants mostly take jobs that Americans do not want, the survey found that a growing number of people believe immigrants are a burden, taking jobs and housing and creating strains on health care.

    House conservatives emphasized such concerns at a news conference on Thursday. Worried that their party's leadership was weakening in its opposition to plans that would allow illegal workers to remain in the United States, more than a dozen House members staged a "Say No to Amnesty" event after Speaker J. Dennis Hastert suggested on Wednesday that the House might consider a temporary worker program.

    Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, dismissed arguments made by President Bush and business leaders who say the United States needs a pool of foreign workers. He said businesses should be more creative in their efforts to find help and suggested that employers turn to the prison population to fill jobs in agriculture and elsewhere.

    "Let the prisoners pick the fruits," Mr. Rohrabacher said. "We can do it without bringing in millions of foreigners."

    With the Senate considering a worker and citizenship plan starkly at odds with the House approach, Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado and a leading advocate of tough immigration laws, said House conservatives wanted to make clear their resistance to any worker program. "Push is coming to shove," Mr. Tancredo said.

    Despite the outcry from the right, Representative John A. Boehner, the majority leader, said the House would await a bill from the Senate before making firm decisions. "To stand here today and guess at what it might look like and how we might deal with an issue is a lot of speculation that we don't need to engage in," Mr. Boehner said.

    While backers of the bipartisan measure said they were making inroads, opponents of the citizenship proposal said they were not so sure. "The more people find out what is in it, I think there will be more unease," said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama. Like other critics of the legislation, Mr. Sessions said it could be characterized as amnesty for illegal immigrants.

    Authors of the measure bristled at that label. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, described it as a smear intended to build resistance to the legislation.

    "It is not amnesty because the undocumented aliens will have to pay a fine," he said. "They will have to pay back taxes. They will undergo a thorough background investigation. They will have to learn English. They will have to work for six years. And they will have to earn the status of staying in the country and the status of moving toward citizenship."


    Republicans wrestle over U.S.'s 'welcome mat'
     
    MARCH 30, 2006

    It is almost as if they are looking at two different Americas.

    The Senate Republicans who support plans to legalize America's illegal immigrants look at the waves of immigration reshaping the United States and see a powerful work force, millions of potential voters and future Americans.

    The House Republicans who back tough border security legislation in December look at the same group of people and see a flood of invaders and lawbreakers who threaten national security and American jobs and culture.

    But both wings of the deeply divided Republican Party are responding to the same phenomenon: the demographic shift driven by immigration in recent decades, a wave that is transforming small towns and cities across the country and underscoring pressures on many parts of the economy.

    The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, but today the country has more than 33 million foreign-born residents, the largest number since the Census started keeping such statistics in 1850. In 2003, foreign-born residents made up 11.7 percent of the population, the highest percentage since 1910. Over the past 16 years, the newcomers, many of them illegal, have poured into places in the South and Midwest that have not seen sizable numbers of new immigrants in generations.

    The question of how to cope with the 11 million illegal immigrants believed to be living here - whether to integrate them, ignore them or try to send them home somehow - is a question gripping many ordinary citizens, religious leaders, state legislators and policy makers in the White House.

    In their bitter, fractious debate, Republicans in Congress are reflecting what some describe as America's struggle to define itself and, to some degree, politically align itself, during a period of social change.

    The Senate Republicans who emerged victorious in a vote Monday with help from Democrats argue that those illegal immigrants who work, pay taxes and learn English should be fully incorporated into American society.

    The House Republicans who passed a far different bill in December are pushing to criminalize their presence in the United States.

    As the party struggles to reconcile these competing visions, frustrations over the stalemate are spilling into the airwaves and into the streets as some conservatives on talk radio call for a wall to be built along the Mexican border and tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters march in favor of citizenship for the undocumented.

    "Right now, were seeing to some extent the political response to the demography," said Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group. "And even though the legislative proposals are seemingly technical and narrow, they touch these nerves about how we think of ourselves as a people."

    "You end up, after a point, trying to balance our fundamental traditions, the need for order, law and security with a need for openness," Suro said. "Immigration policy, writ large, has always been partly a matter of national identity. It becomes a values-laden debate. Congress is having a hard time with it."

    That difficulty reflects, in part, the swiftness and the enormity of the demographic shift.

    In 1970, there were 9.6 million foreign-born residents in the country, census data show. By 1980, that figure had surged to 14.1 million. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of foreign-born residents jumped from 19.8 million to 31.1 million.

    "I think we've reached a tipping point demographically," said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. "A large enough number of states are being touched by immigrants now that their representatives and senators are being forced to pay attention to this issue."

    Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, who voted for the legalization of the illegal immigrants Monday, says he has seen and felt the shift in his own state.

    "Huge increase," he said of the number of new immigrants. "It's a big issue, and it's one where communities that have adapted to it are more accepting and others are more questioning about the scale of what's taking place."

    When he wrestled with the issue, Brownback decided that he could not join the ranks of those who wanted to simply push illegal immigrants out.

    "This is also about the hallmark of a compassionate society, what you do with the widows, the orphans and the foreigners among you," he said.

    Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, echoed those thoughts during his defense of the legalization program, which would ultimately grant citizenship to the undocumented, and his criticism of conservatives who would try to send them home.

    "Where is home?" Graham asked his colleagues Monday. "Their home is where they've raised their children. Their home is where they've lived their married lives."

    "Whatever we do we have to recognize that for several generations people have made America their home," he said. "We have accepted the benefit of their labor. We have accepted the benefit of their work."

    But to Republican Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who helped spearhead the border security bill in the House, illegal immigrants are far from welcome or essential to this country.

    He was not moved when he saw the tens of thousands of immigrants, some of them illegal, and their supporters rallying against his bill.

    He said he was outraged that people he viewed as lawbreakers felt comfortable enough to stand without fear in front of the television cameras.

    "For years, the government has turned a blind eye to illegal immigrants who break into this country," Tancredo said. "It isn't any wonder that illegal aliens now act as if they are entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship."

    Tancredo's view of the illegal immigrant as an unwanted outsider, an encroacher, is far from uncommon.

    The National Conference of State Legislatures has reported a surge in recent years in legislation intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. As of Feb. 28, state legislators in 42 states had introduced 368 bills related to immigration or immigrants, and many of those bills were intended to limit or restrict illegal immigrants.

    But some Republicans are warning now that tough anti-immigrant legislation may fuel a backlash and threaten the party's hard-won gains with Hispanic voters, whose numbers have surged in recent years.

    Foreign-born Latinos voted for President George W. Bush in 2004 at a 40 percent greater rate than Latinos born in the United States. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strategist close to the White House, warned that Republicans may end up squandering what the party has gained if lawmakers do not embrace a more welcoming vision of America.

    "There is a danger that if the face of the Republican Party is Tancredo that we could be weaker with Hispanics for generations," he said. "If the face of the Republican Party is George Bush or Ronald Reagan, we win. This is up for grabs."
     

    Getting the Word Out on Immigration

    Latino Media Didn't Just Cover Demonstrations, They Helped Organize Them

    By HEATHER NAUERT

    LOS ANGELES, March 30, 2006 — - The enormous turnout at immigration rallies in Los Angeles took this city, the country, and much of the media by surprise -- but not the Spanish-language media, because they played an active role in getting the word out.

    The turnout in the demonstrations on Saturday was estimated at half a million people, a number not seen here since the protests against the Vietnam War.

    "Never in our city have we had so many people come together," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.

    Latinos, including the mayor, are fighting federal legislation that would make illegally entering the United States a felony. To cheers, the mayor said, "We will defeat the legislation, and we will because it's un-American."

    Some who marched at the rally echoed the mayor's sentiment.

    "We were united, and we all came for a single cause," said Maria Huertas, a 27-year-old single mother from Colombia.

    In Washington, politicians have long known that Latinos have the potential to be a major political force, but they have rarely been able to unite for any length of time.

    Despite that, community activists and Latino journalists say Saturday's large turnout was expected.

    "All the Latino community knew about it -- especially those Latinos who don't even know English," said Gustavo Arellano who writes the column "Ask a Mexican" for the newspaper Ocean County Weekly. "They knew what was going on in Congress and they weren't going to stand for it, so they went out there and rallied.

    "You have these protests and somehow everyone's surprised. I wasn't surprised. I'm a member of the media. Latino members of the media were not surprised because we have our ear to the street," he said.

    Activists planned Saturday's rally in just a few weeks and tackled it much the way politicians would go about a campaign. They began meeting in December and determined their goal -- influence the debate in Washington. They scheduled the rally two days before the U.S. Senate took up immigration legislation. "We wanted to impact, really impact," rally organizer Javier Rodriguez said.

    Rodriguez and a handful of other immigration activists devised a plan to use Spanish-language media to get out the message.

    "We knew that if we could present the issue to Spanish media that it would be the vehicle to educate the community," said Jesse Diaz, another rally organizer.

    They encouraged Hispanic media to join an "epic campaign" to get Congress to pass "humane and inclusive" immigration reform. Organizers reminded the media that the Latinos who would benefit from legal protections were their viewers, listeners and readers.

    Latino reporters responded, covering stories about the rally's planning. Some television stations even ran on-air promotions for the event and let Rodriguez and Diaz appear in a televised discussion that lasted four hours.

    The free TV time was no small contribution. Spanish media attract a huge audience in Los Angeles. Univision is the most popular Spanish-language network in the United States. Its national evening newscast beats the leading network newscast by 2-to-1.

    Nearly a dozen Latino radio personalities also took up the cause, encouraging fans to participate in rallies. Every morning, Eduardo Sotelo talked about it on his popular radio show. "I was telling people who listen to me that it was a great opportunity to demonstrate that we're going to be peacefully marching," he said.

    Rodriguez and Diaz, longtime Latino activists, knew that presenting a positive image was essential to influencing leaders in Washington.

    "They said if we're going to go there, go in peace," said Rafael Tapia, a 29-year-old from Mexico who participated in Saturday's rally.

    Not wanting to appear divisive, planners encouraged marchers to leave their Mexican flags at home.

    "They told us to bring American flags so that way the American people will know that we love this country," said Tapia, who heard about the rally while watching Spanish-language television.

    Organizers also relied on church and union leaders to back them up. Unions bused in people from as far away as Texas and Nevada.

    If one thing, the march is making the rest of the country aware that this is a powerful community, one whose power should not be underestimated.

    Rally organizers say that they've won the first battle by organizing their community, but they're not stopping there. They're planning other pro-immigrant rallies in other parts of the country.


    People power wins hope for US illegal immigrants

    By Rick Klein in Washington March 29, 2006

    A US immigration reform bill that would allow 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens eventually and would create a guest worker program for up to 400,000 low-skilled immigrants each year has won the approval of a Senate panel.

    The decision of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday to back the controversial bill 12-6 came as hundreds of thousands of immigration advocates marched nationwide, protesting against a House of Representatives policy to get tough on illegal immigration.

    The vote cleared the first major hurdle to the most sweeping changes to immigration laws in two decades, although significant obstacles remain before any measure becomes law.

    Its supporters credited the huge public rallies with persuading senators that a comprehensive approach to immigration is in order. The stage has now been set for an election-year battle between the Senate and the House.

    The Democrat senator whose proposals formed the basis of the committee's final bill, Edward Kennedy, said: "Americans wanted fairness, and they got it this evening. The demonstrations at the grassroots had a powerful impact. This was a nation-shaking event."

    Under the measure, the nation's 12 million undocumented immigrants would be able to apply for citizenship after six more years of residency if they hold stable jobs, pay back taxes and fines, maintain clean criminal records and learn English.

    The bill would nearly double the number of border patrol agents in the next five years. It would authorise 400,000 new work visas for foreigners living in the US to work in jobs that employers say Americans don't want. The guest worker program would allow immigrants to work legally in the US for up to six years and apply for citizenship in their fourth year.

    The guest worker program has been pushed by the President, George Bush, who warned on Monday against fear-mongering on the divisive issue.

    "No one should play on people's fears or try to pit neighbours against each other," Mr Bush said. "No one should pretend that immigrants are a threat to American identity, because immigrants have shaped America's identity."

    The vote surprised many observers who expected the Republican-controlled committee to approve a bill that would focus primarily on enforcing the nation's borders. Broad legislation is always difficult in an election year, and many across the country want fewer immigrants in the US, believing that immigrants have been taking jobs from Americans.

    In any event, a bruising battle on the Senate floor is expected this week. Even if the Senate approves the bill, any measure that appears to provide amnesty to illegal immigrants faces fierce opposition in the House, which in December passed a bill that would erect a fence along the Mexican border and make it a crime to provide social services to undocumented immigrants.

    The Boston Globe; Cox Newspapers


    Republican Split on Immigration Reflects Nation's Struggle

    WASHINGTON, March 28 — It is almost as if they are looking at two different Americas.

    The Senate Republicans who voted on Monday to legalize the nation's illegal immigrants look at the waves of immigration reshaping this country and see a powerful work force, millions of potential voters and future Americans.

    The House Republicans who backed tough border security legislation in December look at the same group of people and see a flood of invaders and lawbreakers who threaten national security and American jobs and culture.

    But both wings of the deeply divided Republican Party are responding to the same phenomenon: the demographic shift driven by immigration in recent decades, a wave that is quietly transforming small towns and cities across the country and underscoring pressures on many parts of the economy.

    The United States has always been a nation of immigrants, but today the country has more than 33 million foreign-born residents, the largest number since the Census started keeping such statistics in 1850. In 2003, foreign-born residents made up 11.7 percent of the population, the highest percentage since 1910. And over the past 16 years, the newcomers, many of them illegal, have poured into places in the South and Midwest that have not seen sizeable numbers of new immigrants in generations.

    The question of how to cope with the 11 million illegal immigrants believed to be living here — whether to integrate them, ignore them or try to send them home somehow — is a question gripping many ordinary citizens, religious leaders, state legislators and policy makers in the White House. And in their bitter, fractious debate, Republicans in Congress are reflecting what some describe as the nation's struggle to define itself and, to some degree, politically align itself, during a period of social change.

    The Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who emerged victorious on Monday with help from Democrats argue that those illegal immigrants who work, pay taxes and learn English should be fully incorporated into American society as citizens. The House Republicans who passed a far different bill in December are pushing to criminalize their presence in the United States. (The full Senate is expected to vote on immigration legislation next week. Any bill that passes the Senate will have to be reconciled with the House legislation.)

    As the party struggles to reconcile these competing visions, frustrations over the stalemate are spilling onto the airwaves and into the streets as some conservatives on talk radio call for a wall to be built along the Mexican border and tens of thousands immigrants and their supporters march in favor of citizenship.

    "Right now, we're seeing to some extent the political response to the demography," said Roberto Suro, executive director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. "And even though the legislative proposals are seemingly technical and narrow, they touch these nerves about how we think of ourselves as a people."

    "You end up, after a point, trying to balance our fundamental traditions, the need for order, law and security with a need for openness," he said. "Immigration policy, writ large, has always been partly a matter of national identity. It becomes a values-laden debate. Congress has a hard time with it."

    That difficulty reflects, in part, the swiftness and the enormousness of the demographic shift.

    In 1970, there were 9.6 million foreign-born residents in the country, census data show. By 1980, that figure had surged to 14.1 million. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of foreign-born residents jumped to 31.1 million from 19.8 million.

    Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, who voted for the legalization of illegal immigrants on Monday, says he has seen and felt the shift in his own state.

    "Huge increase," he said of the number of new immigrants. "It's a big issue, and it's one where communities that have adapted to it are more accepting and others are more questioning about the scale of what's taking place."

    But when he wrestled with the issue, Mr. Brownback decided that he could not join the ranks of those who wanted simply to push out illegal immigrants. "This is also about the hallmark of a compassionate society, what you do with the widows, the orphans and the foreigners among you," he said.

    Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, echoed those thoughts in his defense of the legalization program, which would ultimately grant immigrants citizenship.

    "Where is home?" Mr. Graham asked his colleagues Monday. "Their home is where they've raised their children. Their home is where they've lived their married lives."

    "Whatever we do," he added, "we have to recognize that for several generations people have made America their home."

    But to Representative Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Republican who helped spearhead the border security bill in the House, illegal immigrants are far from welcome or essential to this country.

    He was not moved when he saw the tens of thousands of immigrants, some illegal, and their supporters rallying against his bill. He said he was outraged that people he viewed as lawbreakers felt comfortable enough to stand without fear in front of the television cameras.

    "For years, the government has turned a blind eye to illegal immigrants who break into this country," Mr. Tancredo said. "It isn't any wonder that illegal aliens now act as if they are entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship."

    Mr. Tancredo's view of the illegal immigrant as an unwanted outsider, an encroacher, is far from uncommon.

    The National Conference of State Legislatures has reported a surge in recent years in legislation intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. As of Feb. 28, state legislators in 42 states had introduced 368 bills related to immigration or immigrants, and many of those bills were intended to limit or restrict illegal immigrants.

    But some Republicans are warning now that tough anti-immigrant legislation may fuel a backlash and threaten the party's hard-won gains with Hispanics, whose numbers have surged in recent years.

    Foreign-born Hispanics voted for President Bush in 2004 at a 40 percent greater rate than Hispanics born in the United States. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and a strategist close to the White House, warned that Republicans could squander what the party had gained if lawmakers did not embrace a more welcoming vision of America.

    "There is a danger that if the face of the Republican Party is Tancredo that we could be weaker with Hispanics for generations," Mr. Norquist said. "If the face of the Republican Party is George Bush or Ronald Reagan, we win. This is up for grabs."


    Washington's anti-immigration policy: How tough is too tough?

    Latin-American news media seemed awestruck by the huge protests that took place in Los Angeles, Chicago and other U.S. cities last weekend, as demonstrators took to the streets to express opposition to the Republicans' proposed new anti-immigration law.

    Mexico, it appears, would be most directly affected by the new law. With only a few months remaining in office before federal elections take place in early July, center-right Mexican President Vicente Fox has achieved nothing significant regarding immigration during his six-year term. His administration seemed pleased that yesterday's revision by the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee of the proposed new law eliminated some of its harshest provisions - like criminalizing the 11 million illegal immigrants who are already in the United States. Still, the mood in Mexico remains one of wait-and-see. Will the full Senate approve the committee's revamped version of the bill, which also provides for a guest-worker program for immigrants?

    Some 500,000 protesters took part in last Saturday's demonstration, in Los Angeles, against the proposed anti-immigration law

    Some 500,000 protesters took part in last Saturday's demonstration, in Los Angeles, against the proposed anti-immigration law

    From news coverage in Latin America of the controversial immigration issue:

    » The proposed new law, known as the Sensenbrenner Bill, is named after its sponsor, Republican Representative James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the heir to the Kotex fortune. Ecuador's El Comercio noted that, as it is written, for illegal immigrants, his proposal "is the most dreaded of all the post-9/11 laws" that have emerged in the U.S. Congress. In its unwelcoming severity, the paper pointed out, it marks a distinct "before and after point in the history of this country of immigrants." The paper quoted Eduardo Giraldo, the head of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Queens, New York, who said: "In 20 years, we Latinos are going to number some 150 million [in the U.S.] and we'll have economic and political weight...." He called the Bush administration's anti-immigrant fervor "a crusade against us." El Comercio noted that, although Bush and the Catholic church have been strong allies in their campaign against abortion and so-called gay marriage, the church is opposed to the criminalizing of illegal immigrants.

    » Mexican President Fox called Bush late last week to discuss immigration and to express his hope that U.S. law-makers would act in a "just and humanitarian" way in addressing the politically hot issue. (EFE/El Nuevo Diario, Nicaragua) Analyzing that high-level, mostly-for-show communication, Carlos Gutiérrez, a Mexican expert in Mexico-U.S. relations, said he doubted the two leaders' phone chat would result in "any concrete announcement about immigration reform that Mexico [would] want," and that he believed Bush had merely used the occasion to press his "obsession about improving security along the [U.S.-Mexico] border."

    Mexicans make their way north, toward the Mexico-U.S. border

    Mexicans make their way north, toward the Mexico-U.S. border

    » Yesterday, a conference on international immigration opened in Mexico City. (La Jornada) Its sponsors are the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. At the gathering, Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez noted that discussions of immigration-related concerns should not focus exclusively on the security theme. Instead, he stressed that they should take into consideration the economic, cultural and ethical aspects of the immigrant's experience, as well as the human rights of immigrants. (Notimex/La Crónica de Hoy) At the conference, Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, speaking for the Vatican, noted that immigration could - or should - be regarded as more of a "resource" than an "obstacle to development." The papal representative argued that "immigration laws must make a distinction between the legal order and the moral order." Calling for laws that are "just," the Catholic official noted that "what is legal is not always just...." (Notimex/Milenio)

    » Mexico's Milenio reports that, in response to efforts by the U.S. Senate's Judiciary Committee to lessen the severity of the Sensenbrenner Bill, the Mexican government is putting forth proposals of its own to better deal with would-be immigrants headed for the United States. The Fox administration wants to try to make sure that "whoever decides to leave [Mexico and head north] does so legally." It is pledging to do more to "combat organizations that are dedicated to the [illegal] trafficking in immigrants," to deal with the violence that has plagued the border region and "to increase sanctions against crimes related to [illegal] immigration." The government also says it will step up development programs in economically strapped regions of Mexico that have yielded the most U.S.-bound immigrants.

    » Op-ed columnist Katia D'Artigues Beauregard (El Universal, Mexico) watched the news of last weekend's protests and, citing the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who turned out around the U.S., asked: "Who's going to stop them?" "When half a million people take to the streets," she noted, "you have to pay attention." Such numbers are important, D'Artigues Beauregard argued, especially as the United States' Hispanic popultion continues to grow. She warned that Washington's policy "against Hispanics," a group that now outnumbers African-Americans in the U.S., could backfire. Law-makers should keep in mind, she suggested, that many Hispanics vote, and that their power as a voting bloc is now strong enough to "change elections."

    Posted By: Edward M. Gomez (Email) | March 28 2006 http://sfgate.com


    Spanish-language media rally immigrants

    GILLIAN FLACCUS
    Associated Press  March 28, 2006

    The marching orders were clear: Carry American flags and pack the kids, pick up your trash and wear white for peace and for effect.

    Many of the 500,000 people who crammed downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to protest legislation that would make criminals out of illegal immigrants learned where, when and even how to demonstrate from the Spanish-language media.

    For English-speaking America, the mass protests in Los Angeles and other U.S. cities over the past few days have been surprising for their size and seeming spontaneity.

    But they were organized, promoted or publicized for weeks by Spanish-language radio hosts and TV anchors as a demonstration of Hispanic pride and power.

    In Milwaukee, where at least 10,000 people rallied last week, one radio station manager called some employers to ask that they not fire protesters for skipping work. In Chicago, a demonstration that drew 100,000 people received coverage on local television more than a week in advance.

    "This was a much bigger story for the Latino media," said Felix Gutierrez, a professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. "If the mainstream media had been paying better attention, there would not have been the surprise about the turnout."

    Adrian Velasco first learned of House legislation to overhaul immigration policy on Los Angeles' Que Buena 105.5 FM. Over two weeks, the 30-year-old illegal immigrant soaked up details about the planned march against the bill from Hispanic TV and radio. On Saturday, he and three friends headed downtown.

    "They told all the Hispanic people to go and support these things," Velasco said. "They explained a lot. They said, 'Here's what we're going to do.'"

    One of those doing the most talking was El Piolin, a syndicated morning show radio host who is broadcast in 20 cities.

    El Piolin, whose real name is Eduardo Sotelo and whose nickname means "Tweety Bird," persuaded colleagues from 11 Spanish-language radio stations in Los Angeles to talk up the rally on air.

    He said he devised the idea of telling protesters to wear white and carry flags to symbolize their peaceful intent and love of the United States. He also urged parents to bring their children to minimize chances of violence and reminded everyone to bring plenty of water and trash bags.

    "I was talking about how we need to be united to demonstrate that we're not bad guys and we're not criminals," said Sotelo, 35, who crossed into the United States as a teenager and became legal in 1996.

    In Milwaukee, the Spanish-language station WDDW 104.7 made a point of publicizing the House legislation and the protest against it on its morning and drive-time shows two weeks ahead of time.

    Operations manager Armando Ulloa said his goal was at least 10,000 people - and police estimated that was what the rally attracted. After the march, Ulloa said, he called some employers and asked them to be lenient on protesters who missed their shifts.

    In Los Angeles, 10 prime-time Spanish-language news anchors filmed a promotion urging demonstrators to show respect, said Julio Cesar Ortiz, a television reporter who covers immigration.

    "The Spanish media said, 'Do it in a proper way. Do it in a way where's there's pride behind it when you're done,'" Ortiz said.

    Telemundo Chicago, a Spanish-language TV station, began its coverage blitz 1 1/2 weeks before a recent rally, though there was no urging that viewers attend, said news director Esteban Creste.

    "We just told them what was going on," Creste said. "While we were not trying to mobilize people, it might have prompted people to decide to go there."

    Associated Press Writers Emily Fredrix in Milwaukee and Carla K. Johnson in Chicago contributed to this report.


    Bush tells Americans immigrants are not a threat
    Mon Mar 27, 2006

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, warned the U.S. Congress against fearmongering on Monday as the Senate tackled immigration reform, an issue that has split his Republican party and spurred huge protests.

    "The immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way," Bush said, pushing his own proposals at a swearing-in ceremony for 30 new American citizens.

    With his job approval rating at the lowest of his presidency, Bush faces a new test of his political strength on the divisive immigration issue.

    "No one should play on people's fears or try to pit neighbors against each other," he said. "No one should pretend that immigrants are a threat to American identity, because Americans have shaped America's identity."

    The public is divided between those who favor curbing illegal immigration with tighter border security and tougher enforcement and those who say it is essential to bring some 12 million illegal workers out of the shadows with a comprehensive overhaul.

    Bush has stuck to his three-part plan -- border security, stronger enforcement and a temporary worker proposal, a legal way to fill the jobs that Americans are unwilling to do.

    The Senate Judiciary Committee also opened its hearings to craft broad bipartisan legislation that would tighten border security and make it a criminal misdemeanor to be in the country illegally. It too would establish a temporary worker program and provide a way for some of the 12 million illegal immigrants in the country to legalize their status.

    Immigrant groups, labor unions and some business groups are pushing for broad immigration reform that would give some undocumented workers a way to earn permanent status and eventual citizenship. But some conservative Republicans, who normally back Bush, say that would be a form of amnesty and would reward people for illegal behavior.

    Tough new proposals from some members of Congress making it a felony to be in the United States illegally, cracking down on employers and others who help illegal immigrants and plans to build a fence along part of the border with Mexico, sparked hundreds of thousands of mostly Hispanic demonstrators to protest in Los Angeles and other cities.

    "Completing a comprehensive bill is not going to be easy," Bush said. "It will require all of us in Washington to make tough choices and make compromises."


    No crime to help immigrants

    Senate committee bill tosses felony provision for aiding illegal aliens and gives means for green card

    BY GLENN THRUSH AND PETER CLARK
    Newsday Washington Bureau

    March 28, 2006

    WASHINGTON -- The Senate Judiciary Committee rammed through a sweeping immigration reform bill Monday, rejecting a House measure making it a crime to assist undocumented aliens, while creating a way for millions of illegal immigrants to stay here legally.

    Yet as the committee was deliberating, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) cast doubt on the entire effort, threatening to block the bill from ever reaching the Senate floor if a majority of the Senate's 55 Republican senators don't agree to it.

    Frist, a potential 2008 presidential candidate who has courted conservatives, reiterated his threat to introduce his own stripped-down version, which doesn't include the temporary worker or felony provisions.

    "If the bill doesn't have majority support, we'll introduce my bill," said Frist, who refused to say if he supported the compromise hammered out by Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) Monday.

    "I don't want to be pinned down," said Frist, who had set a Monday deadline for passage of the bill and predicts his chamber will pass some form of the bill "within two weeks."

    Specter, who sped through the all-day committee hearing like an auctioneer with an overloaded docket, predicted his bill would pass. Asked about Republican support for the measure, he said, "It's not a majority of the majority, but it's close."

    In the day's most significant action, the committee voted 12-6 to approve an amendment co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) to allow undocumented workers living in the United States to remain while they apply for a green card.

    The measure, which conservatives have criticized as back-door amnesty, allows illegal workers to remain in the country if they pay a $1,000 fine, prove they are learning English and settle their back-tax bills.

    The committee rejected a Republican amendment to require immigrants to return to their home countries as a condition of applying for permanent residency.

    "It rewards illegal immigrants and will be considered an amnesty by Americans," said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). "It will encourage further disrespect for our laws and will undercut our efforts to shore up homeland security."

    As the legislators debated, hundreds of pro-immigrant demonstrators picketed on the Capitol grounds, echoing massive protests elsewhere during the past week.

    "But even if we win today, it's only one step," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the Washington-based National Immigration Forum, speaking to the crowd on the Capitol's West Lawn. "Immigrants pay a lot in taxes and don't get a lot back."

    President George W. Bush, who attended a naturalization ceremony in Washington, didn't comment on the Senate bill, but said, "America is stronger and more dynamic when we welcome new citizens."

    The committee voted 10-7 to throw out the House provision making it a felony for charitable groups and clergy to provide food, shelter and other assistance to undocumented immigrants, an issue that helped spur demonstrations and drew condemnation from Catholic leaders.

    Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), a co-sponsor of the House bill, said he had no problem rolling back the felony clause. "I support the amendment because it takes away the phony issue the Catholic bishops created," he told Newsday. "Even without this amendment, no priest or nun would have been prosecuted. But if this makes them happy, fine."

    The judiciary committee's bill also creates:

    - 12,000 new border patrol positions during the next five years, bringing the total to 23,000.

    - a program for 400,000 guest workers living outside the country, an initiative pushed by the Bush administration.

    - a pilot program proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to allow 1.5 million undocumented agricultural immigrants to obtain five-year temporary visas.

    - new penalties for people who build tunnels under the border or allow tunnels to be built on their property.


    Jewish Group Advocating For Immigrants

    New York Jewish Week - NY, USA

    James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent
    “Path to freedom”: New HIAS CEO Gideon Aronoff, with refugee children, cut his teeth on the Soviet Jewry movement.

    The Jewish community has a new point person in what is shaping up to be the most explosive political issue of the year.

    Gideon Aronoff, the incoming president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, is taking over the 125-year-old immigrant rights group as the debate over differing House and Senate immigration reform bills is turning into a major flashpoint for this year’s congressional midterm elections and the 2008 presidential race.

    The debate has touched off a political storm from right-wing activists, many of whom have broken with President George W. Bush by supporting a harsh House-passed bill that would criminalize illegal immigration — but it has also sparked demonstrations across the country demanding a less punitive approach.

    Aronoff, a veteran of the Soviet Jewry and the immigrant rights movements who until recently served as the Jewish group’s Washington director, said Jewish interests in the intensifying fight are clear, despite the fact that Jewish immigrants and refugees, who come into this country legally in relatively small numbers, are not a factor.

    “Some have argued that because of that, we should just sit on the sidelines,” he said. “But I argue that we have a series of community interests that mandate that we be part of the struggle to find a just and sensible result.”

    On a broad level, he said, Jews have both a religious and historic obligation to make sure America remains a welcoming place. On a practical level, supporting progressive immigration legislation is vital for building and maintaining relations with the other ethnic communities that are coming into their own in 21st-century America.

    “If we’re going to develop our Jewish community ties with the Latino community, with the Asian community, we have to be sensitive to issues of great concern to them,” he said. And that means using the Jewish community’s considerable political muscle and savvy to oppose punitive immigration measures.

    But Jewish security is at risk, too, as the nation stands on the brink of one of its periodic spasms of anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner agitation.

    “We are facing a situation again when the country is changing, and that makes people anxious,” he said. “And the Jewish community, historically, has done badly when the populace was anxious. But today, we are in a position where our strength and our relative security give us an opportunity to bring a strong moral voice to the discussion.”

    Other Jewish leaders say politicians are using anxiety over lost jobs and a changing job market to stir up and tap anger against illegal immigrants — a mode of demagoguery that could spill over to affect other vulnerable groups.

    “It’s this year’s gay marriage issue,” said a top Capitol Hill staffer. “It’s playing with primal emotions about foreigners, which is always dangerous for our community.”

    Although Jewish immigrants and refugees will not be affected by legislation that has sparked the current furor, Aronoff said he doesn’t see any signs that Jewish interest in true immigration reform is slackening.

    “In fact, we see the community rallying around the cause of just, compassionate and realistic immigration reform,” he said.

    Thirty-two Jewish community groups joined HIAS in a letter to the Senate calling for just that, he said. “And HIAS has over 75 Jewish community partners who joined in a broad statement on refugee and immigration policy. So we see a real consensus among the key voices in Jewish life to stay in the debate.”

    Other Jewish leaders note that a continuing Jewish presence in the immigrant rights mainstream is critical to offset the growing involvement of radical groups like International ANSWER — the antiwar, anti-Israel group.

    Aronoff, 42, was born in New York but raised in East Lansing, Mich. He has a bachelor’s from Brandeis and a law degree from Cornell. But instead of the corporate route, he chose to work with Jewish human rights groups, starting with the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews.

    “My experience in the Soviet Jewry movement taught me how essential it is that there be a path to freedom and an escape hatch for victims of persecution,” he said. “That was the core lesson of the Soviet Jewry movement, and it’s one I see in action every day at HIAS.”

    The group he now leads, he said, “recognizes that violating the immigration laws is wrong,” but also believes that an enforcement-only approach — or, worse, criminalizing both illegal immigration and assisting illegal immigrants —does not serve American or Jewish values.
    http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12279


    Associated Press
    Poll Shows Growing Fear Among Immigrants
    By PETER PRENGAMAN , 03.28.2006

    A majority of people who described themselves as legal immigrants for a poll released Tuesday said they believe anti-immigration sentiment is growing and are alarmed by the tone of the debate over reform.

    Just under one-third of them said Congress and President Bush are doing a good job on the issue.

    The findings come as the U.S. Senate considers immigration reform proposals, including legislation approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday that would clear the way for 11 million illegal aliens to seek U.S. citizenship.

    Lawmakers are also considering legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegals and build more fences along the U.S.-Mexican border.

    The poll was conducted by the firm Bendixen & Associates between Feb. 24 and March 21. Researchers said they interviewed 800 people who described themselves as legal immigrants in 47 states and who were reached by random digit dialing in communities with large numbers of immigrants. The said the margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

    When told about reform proposals in Congress, 68 percent of poll respondents said they supported temporary work permits for illegal immigrants and a way for them to apply for residency after learning English and paying a fine.

    That seems to conflict with arguments by some lawmakers who argue that a legalization program would be unfair to legal residents who played by the rules.

    "Nobody comes here to get on welfare," said Perias Pillay, 43, who was 18 when he immigrated legally from Malaysia. He joined a massive immigration rally in Los Angeles. "They come here to work, and as long as we need workers we should let them come."

    The immigration debate has sparked rallies around the nation by immigrant rights supporters, including the weekend rally in Los Angeles that drew an estimated 500,000 people. On Tuesday, hundreds of students in California and Texas staged a second day of school walkouts in protest.

    The poll was commissioned by New America Media, a nonprofit San Francisco-based umbrella organization for more than 700 ethnic media outlets. Co-sponsors included the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning research group, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, an umbrella civil rights organization.

    More than 60 percent of those interviewed said they were alarmed by the tone of the immigration reform debate. Sixty-seven percent said they believed anti-immigration sentiment was growing.

    Asked about lawmakers' handling of immigration issues, 32 percent of those surveyed said Congress and President Bush were doing a good job. Democrats received the highest approval with 38 percent; Republicans garnered 22 percent.

    On jobs, 81 percent of those surveyed said illegal immigrants accept low-end jobs that Americans don't want, and 73 percent said illegal immigrants aided the economy by supplying low-cost labor.

    Delia Adene, 48, who immigrated legally from Mexico and joined the Los Angeles rally, said she was worried about the rhetoric.

    "I feel like people see us as criminals now because we want to help our families," Adene said. "We do need more control of the border, but politicians need to talk about this with human justice in mind."


    Immigration Debate Wakes A 'Sleeping Latino Giant'
    By N.C. Aizenman
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Thursday, April 6, 2006

    Drawing on fear of restrictive immigration proposals that have awakened hundreds of thousands of Latinos to political activism, organizers are using popular Spanish-language radio and networks of community organizations to mobilize protests in Washington and scores of other cities Monday.

    The demonstrations are planned to expand on a groundswell that attracted about 30,000 largely Hispanic protesters in the District last month, about 100,000 in Chicago and as many as 500,000 in Los Angeles, a surprising display of political muscle from a population that makes up a substantial portion of the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants.

    Jaime Contreras, president of the National Capital Immigrant Coalition, predicted that Monday's demonstration at the Washington Monument would draw 100,000 people and that nationally the turnout, in more than 60 cities, would number "in the millions."

    "The sleeping Latino giant is finally awake," Contreras said. "This will be the largest demonstration by immigrants ever held in this country."

    The movement has emerged as a loose coalition of immigrants rights groups, unions and religious and student organizations.

    Organizers are eager to draw other immigrant groups, including Asians and Africans, into Monday's protest. But it is the involvement of so many previously apolitical elements of the Latino community that might prove a watershed in the political and cultural evolution of Hispanics, whose influence has lagged behind their growth into the nation's largest minority.

    The mobilization has drawn into the political mainstream the organizations that have sustained daily life in the Latino community -- churches, Spanish-language radio and social groups.

    "I'm not sure anybody totally understands this phenomenon. . . . But we are happily stunned," said Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, a civil rights organization based in Washington. "We're all very aware that this is history in the making, and the country will be transformed by it."

    The protests will come as Congress begins a two-week recess. The Senate made progress yesterday in resolving differences that have stalled immigration change legislation, but a vote to cut off debate today seemed destined to fail, probably dooming the chance for a final vote before tomorrow's recess.

    With the legislation in play, organizers of Monday's demonstrations can sustain the urgency of their appeal for support.

    According to a count maintained by the New American Opportunity Campaign, a coalition of national groups based in Washington, there have been more than 30 pro-immigration rallies across the country this year with at least 1,000 participants -- and often the number was far higher.

    The movement has attracted informal immigrant social groups -- including at least 10 in the Washington area -- whose previous focus has been exclusively on raising money for charitable projects back in Central America.

    Thousands of Hispanic youths, coordinating their actions by text-messaging on cellphones, have staged walkouts at high schools across the country, including several in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs.

    Many Latinos say they were first spurred to action by a House bill passed in December that would make it a felony to be in the country illegally or to provide assistance to illegal immigrants.

    "We've always been separate and marginalized," said Carlos Rivas, 46, a burly construction worker born in El Salvador who lives in Fairfax City. "But I think the racism in this country has grown so much it's time to say, 'Enough!' . . . Our community needs us to show that we're here, and we're not criminals."

    Rivas said Monday's demonstration is his first foray into political activism.

    Several years ago he joined a group of Salvadorans who host parties to collect contributions to build homes for the poor or people with disabilities in El Salvador. Now that Rivas and other members of the association have decided to become involved in U.S. politics, the network of contacts they developed through their years of community work is coming in handy.

    Early Sunday morning, they gathered in a friend's back yard in Chantilly to prepare hundreds of chicken tamales to sell in their neighborhoods. It was a typical fundraiser for the group -- except that this time they also planned to hand out a flier advertising the march with each tamale.

    While the women gathered around vats of boiling cornmeal, the association's president, Francisco Castro, sat down at a picnic table and began calling acquaintances on his cellphone from a list written on a yellow pad.

    "Hey, brother, how's it going?" Castro asked, raising his voice over the cumbia music on the stereo. "Yeah, we have the tamales for you. But I'm also calling because I want you to commit to convincing 10 people to come to this march. And do you think you could also lend us one of your vans so we can give people rides?"

    There was no need to explain the march.

    Over the past two months, Spanish-language radio hosts have emerged as a driving force behind the immigration rallies. Once relatively rare, the number of Spanish-language media outlets across the nation has grown greatly over the past decade.

    Pedro Biaggi, host of the morning show on Washington's 99.1 El Zol, is virtually unknown among non-Latinos. But the boyish, irrepressible Puerto Rican has achieved celebrity status among the area's large Central American immigrant audience after only a few months on the Spanish-language FM station.

    "I have five hours to do jokes and stupid skits -- and normally that's my job, to help people forget their troubles," Biaggi said. "But this is a case without precedent. Never have we Latinos felt as insecure and persecuted as we do now. I'm Puerto Rican. But I'm brown, too. I am my audience, and I feel totally committed to helping them."


    Illegal Immigrants Expanding Footprint

    WASHINGTON — They are more likely than American citizens to hold jobs but less likely to have high school diplomas. They tend to be younger, and many have children who were born in the U.S., making the kids citizens.

    They are illegal immigrants, their numbers estimated at 12 million as the question of what to do about them reaches a boiling point on Capitol Hill.

    Less than half fit the profile of young men sneaking across the border to find jobs and send money back home to their families. Today, most bring their families with them, according to an analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington.

    "There's about 6.5 million adults who are in families, either couples or couples with children, and there's another 2 million children," said Jeffrey Passel, a senior research associate at the center. "The vast majority of this population is families."

    Immigration has become a national issue as the Senate debates legislation that would tighten border security while enabling illegal immigrants to eventually become citizens.

    One reason for the sudden broader interest: These immigrants now live in more cities and states than ever.

    In 1990, almost half lived in California, the Pew analysis said. By 2004, California's share had dropped to about a quarter, even though the state's illegal population had grown from 1.6 million to about 2.4 million.

    They are moving to states like North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio and Georgia, as they seek jobs and establish communities. North Carolina has nearly 16 times the number of illegal immigrants it had in 1990, the Pew analysis said. The state had 390,000 in 2004, the most recent state numbers available.

    "It's not a regional issue anymore," said Randy Capps, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. "It's a national issue."

    The Pew center estimates there are as many as 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, though researchers acknowledge that they are difficult to count. Other organizations have put the number at 11 million, but all agree the total is rising quickly.

    About a quarter of them arrive in the United States legally and simply overstay their visas, Passel said.

    "We have about 30 million people per year come here on temporary visas, either tourists or visitors for business," he said. "With 30 million folks coming here a year, a very small percent who stay adds up over the years."

    Adult men make up the largest share of illegal immigrants, followed by adult women and then children.

    Many families include relatives of differing immigration status. Nearly two-thirds of the children were born in the United States, making them U.S. citizens.

    Illegal workers make up about 5 percent of the U.S. labor force. More than nine in 10 males illegally here are in that labor force, compared with 83 percent of men born in the United States.

    Illegal immigrants tend to be younger than American workers, which helps explain why they are more likely to hold jobs, researchers said.

    Female illegal immigrants, however, were less likely to work than their American counterparts, perhaps because most have young children, the Pew analysis said.

    Illegal immigrants are concentrated in construction, agriculture and cleaning jobs. They make up 36 percent of all insulation workers, 29 percent of agricultural workers and 29 percent of roofers.

    The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates restricting immigration, recently issued a report saying that immigrants compete for jobs with less-educated Americans, especially high-school dropouts.

    About half of adult illegal immigrants have not graduated high school, the Pew analysis found. About a third have less than a ninth-grade education.

    About a quarter of illegal immigrants have at least some college, with 15 percent holding at least a bachelor's degree.


    Civil debate on immigration
    TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2006

    S
    omething powerful pulled more than half a million people onto the streets of Los Angeles on Saturday, turning 26 downtown blocks into a pulsing sea of white T-shirts and American flags. A veteran police commander said that in 38 years he had never seen a march so huge. Its target was a harsh immigration bill passed by the House that would erect a wall on the southern U.S. border and turn 12 million illegal immigrants - and any who give them aid - into a nation of felons.

    The demonstrations have been timed to a climactic showdown for immigration reform in the capital. On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled debate and a vote on a bill offered by its chairman, Arlen Specter. Unlike the House bill, it seeks comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws - not just tighter borders and stricter enforcement, but also a sensible path to legal status for illegal workers already here and others who want to come.

    Specter and his colleagues are working under intense pressure, since the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, has threatened to put forward a hard- line enforcement bill if the committee fails to complete its work on Monday. Senate staffs were racing over the weekend to nail down compromises before Monday's deadline. Anti-immigrant forces, meanwhile, stand ready to try to torpedo anything other than a strictly get-tough approach.

    That would be an awful outcome for immigrant advocates and for President George W. Bush, who has long argued for comprehensive reform and tried, with limited success, to steer his party away from the one-note harshness of the wall-building crowd.

    Last week, Bush urged Congress to have a civil, respectful discussion about the issue. But with looming elections and Republican presidential jockeying casting a distorting fuzz over the debate, it may be too late for Bush's hands-off approach. If the president really wants a sensible reform bill to reach his desk, he will have to do more than stand on the sidelines, urging everyone to have good manners.

    U.S. bill to broaden immigration law gains in Senate
     
    TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2006

    WASHINGTON With Republicans deeply divided, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Monday to legalize the United States' 11 million illegal immigrants and ultimately to grant them citizenship, provided that they hold jobs, pass criminal background checks, learn English and pay fines and back taxes.

    The panel also voted to create a vast temporary worker program that would allow roughly 400,000 foreigners to come to the United States to work each year and would put them on a path to citizenship as well.

    The legislation, which the committee sent to the full Senate on a 12-to-6 vote, represents the most sweeping effort by Congress in decades to grant legal status to illegal immigrants. If passed, it would create the largest guest worker program since the bracero program brought 4.6 million Mexican agricultural workers into the country between 1942 and 1960.

    Any legislation that passes the Senate will have to be reconciled with the tough border security bill passed in December by the Republican-controlled House, which defied President Bush's call for a temporary worker plan.

    The Senate panel's plan, which also includes provisions to strengthen border security, was quickly hailed by Democrats, a handful of Republicans and business leaders, as well as by the immigrant advocacy organizations and church groups that have sent tens of thousands of supporters of immigrant rights into the streets of a number of cities to push for such legislation in recent days.

    But even as hundreds of religious leaders rallied on the grounds of the Capitol on Monday, chanting "Let them stay! Let them stay!," the plan was fiercely attacked by conservative Republicans who called it nothing more than an offer of amnesty for lawbreakers. It remained unclear Monday night whether Senator Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, would allow the bill to go for a vote this week on the floor or would substitute his own bill, which focuses on border security. His aides have said that Frist, who has said he wants a vote on immigration this week, would be reluctant to move forward with legislation that did not have the backing of a majority of the Republicans on the committee.

    Only 4 of the 10 Republicans on the committee supported the bill. They were the committee chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Sam Brownback of Kansas. All eight Democrats on the committee voted in favor of the legislation.

    The rift among Republicans on the committee reflects the deep divisions in the party as business groups push to legalize their workers and conservatives battle to stem the tide of illegal immigration. Specter acknowledged the difficulties ahead, saying, "We are making the best of a difficult situation." But he said he believed that the legislation would ultimately pass the Senate and would encourage the millions of illegal immigrants to come out of the shadows.

    "We do not want to create a fugitive class in America," Specter said after the vote. "We do not want to create an underclass in America."

    "I think this represents a reasonable accommodation," he said, referring to the divergent views on the panel. "It's not a majority of the majority, but it's a good number."

    Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said Monday night that President Bush was "pleased to see the Senate moving forward on legislation." Bush has repeatedly called for a temporary worker program that would legalize the nation's illegal immigrants, though he has said such a plan must not include amnesty.

    "It is a difficult issue that will require compromise and tough choices, but the important thing at this point is that the process is moving forward," McClellan said.

    Lawmakers central to the immigration debate acknowledged that the televised images of tens of thousands of demonstrators, waving flags and fliers, marching in opposition to tough immigration legislation helped persuade the panel to find a bipartisan compromise.

    "All of those people who were demonstrating were not necessarily here illegally," said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who sponsored the legalization measures with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Kennedy described the people who would benefit from the bill as "our neighbors," adding: "They're churchgoers. They're the shop owners down the street. They're the people we know."

    The protesters were rallying in opposition to the security bill passed by the House. The House bill would, among other things, make it a federal crime to live in this country illegally, turning the millions of illegal immigrants here into felons, ineligible to win any legal status. (Currently, living in this country without authorization is a violation of civil immigration law, not criminal law.)

    The legislation passed by the Judiciary Committee on Monday also emphasized border security and would nearly double the number of Border Patrol agents over the next five years, criminalize the construction of tunnels into the United States from another country and speed the deportation of illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico. But it also softened some of the tougher elements in the House legislation.

    Addressing one of the most contentious issues, the panel voted to eliminate the provisions that would criminalize immigrants for living here illegally and made an amendment to protect groups and individuals from being prosecuted for offering humanitarian assistance to illegal immigrants.

    Conservatives on the committee warned that the plan would generate a groundswell of opposition among ordinary Americans who had been demanding tighter controls at the border and an end to the waves of illegal immigration.

    Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, said the Judiciary panel "let the American people down by passing out a blanket amnesty bill."

    Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, said the foreign workers would take American jobs during a recession. "Get ready for a real tough time," Kyl said, "when American workers come to your office and say, 'How did you let this happen?' "

    Under the proposal, participants in the temporary worker program would have to work for six years before they could apply for a green card. Any worker who remained unemployed for 60 days or longer during those six years would be forced to leave the country. (Employers could petition for permanent residency on behalf of their employees six months after the worker entered into the program.)

    The legalization plan for the nation's illegal immigrants would require those without documents to work in the United States for six years before they could apply for permanent residency. They could apply for citizenship five years after that. Immigrants would have to pay a fine, back taxes and learn English.

    Graham called it an 11-year journey to citizenship.

    "To me that's not amnesty," he said. "That is working for the right over an 11-year period to become a citizen. It is not a blanket pardon."

    "The president believes and most of us here believe that the 11 million undocumented people are also workers," Graham said. "We couldn't get by as a nation without those workers and without those people."


    Protests Go On in Several Cities as Panel Acts

    By The New York Times

    WASHINGTON, March 27 — Tens of thousands of immigrants here and in several other cities continued a wave of angry protests on Monday over Congressional proposals to arrest illegal immigrants and to fortify the Mexican border.

    In Los Angeles, about 22,000 mostly Hispanic students walked out of school. As some 2,000 gathered at City Hall, others marched through the streets chanting, "We are not criminals!" Students elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, including the communities of Inglewood, Alhambra and Montebello, followed suit.

    In San Francisco, about 1,000 demonstrators marched to the offices of Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which later on Monday approved an overhaul far more favorable to illegal immigrants than a measure already passed by the House.

    About 4,000 people turned out for a rally in Detroit, where Hispanic business owners closed their shops in protest. A crowd of several hundred Hispanic immigrants rallied on Boston Common.

    The protests, having first flared late last week, spread Monday to the Capitol as the Judiciary Committee worked on its version of the legislation. As approved later in the day, the bill, contrary to the House measure, would not make illegal immigration a felony and in fact would clear the way to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.

    About 1,000 demonstrators gathered on the west lawn of the Capitol as clerics of many faiths denounced a House provision that would make it a crime to give aid to illegal immigrants. The crowd cheered at the news that this provision had been stricken from the Senate bill. But about 100 of the clerics, who had bound themselves with plastic handcuffs, marched to a Senate office building and chanted, "Let our people stay!"

    The continuing demonstrations underscored the stakes for illegal immigrants in whatever legislation emerges from Congress. Some conservative commentators, on the other hand, have argued that the protests reflect the kind of social disorder they fear illegal immigration brings.


    Groundswell of Protests Back Illegal Immigrants

    When members of the Senate Judiciary Committee meet today to wrestle with the fate of more than 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, they can expect to do so against a backdrop of thousands of demonstrators, including clergy members wearing handcuffs and immigrant leaders in T-shirts that declare, "We Are America."

    But if events of recent days hold true, they will be facing much more than that.

    Rallies in support of immigrants around the country have attracted crowds that have astonished even their organizers. More than a half-million demonstrators marched in Los Angeles on Saturday, as many as 300,000 in Chicago on March 10, and — in between — tens of thousands in Denver, Phoenix, Milwaukee and elsewhere.

    One of the most powerful institutions behind the wave of public protests has been the Roman Catholic Church, lending organizational muscle to a spreading network of grass-roots coalitions. In recent weeks, the church has unleashed an army of priests and parishioners to push for the legalization of the nation's illegal immigrants, sending thousands of postcards to members of Congress and thousands of parishioners into the streets.

    The demonstrations embody a surging constituency demanding that illegal immigrants be given a path to citizenship rather than be punished with prison terms. It is being pressed as never before by immigrants who were long thought too fearful of deportation to risk so public a display.

    "It's unbelievable," said Partha Banerjee, director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network, who was in Washington yesterday to help plan more nationwide protests on April 10. "People are joining in so spontaneously, it's almost like the immigrants have risen. I would call it a civil rights movement reborn in this country."

    What has galvanized demonstrators, especially Mexicans and other Latin Americans who predominate among illegal immigrants, is proposed legislation — already passed by the House of Representatives — that would make it a felony to be in the United States without proper papers, and a federal crime to aid illegal immigrants.

    But the proposed measure also shows the clout of another growing force that elected officials have to reckon with: a groundswell of anger against illegal immigration that is especially potent in border states and swing-voting suburbs where the numbers and social costs of illegal immigrants are most acutely felt.

    "It's an entirely predictable example of the law of unintended consequences," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, who helped organize the Chicago rally and who said he was shocked by the size of the turnout. "The Republican party made a decision to use illegal immigration as the wedge issue of 2006, and the Mexican community was profoundly offended."

    Until the wave of immigration rallies, the campaign by groups demanding stringent enforcement legislation seemed to have the upper hand in Washington. The Judiciary Committee was deluged by faxes and e-mail messages from organizations like NumbersUSA, which calls for a reduction in immigration, and claims 237,000 activists nationwide, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which has long opposed any form of amnesty, including a guest-worker program advocated by President Bush.

    Dan Stein, president of the federation, acknowledged the unexpected outpouring of protesters, but tried to play down its political significance. "These are a lot of people who don't vote, can't vote and certainly aren't voting Republican if they do vote," he said.

    But others, noting that foreign-born Latinos voted for President Bush in 2004 at a 40 percent greater rate than Latinos born in the United States, said that by pursuing the proposed legislation, Republican leaders might have squandered the party's inroads with an emerging bloc of voters and pushed them into the Democratic camp.

    The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that of more than 11 million illegal immigrants, 78 percent are from Mexico or other Latin American countries. Many have children and other relatives who are United States citizens. Under the House measure, family members of illegal immigrants — as well as clergy members, social workers and lawyers — would risk up to five years in prison if they helped an illegal immigrant remain in the United States.

    "Imagine turning more than 11 million people into criminals, and anyone who helps them," said Angela Sanbrano, executive director of the Central American Resource Center of Los Angeles, one of the organizers of Saturday's rally there. "It's outrageous. We needed to send a strong and clear message to Congress and to President Bush that the immigrant community will not allow the criminalization of our people — and it needed to be very strong because of the anti-immigrant environment that we are experiencing in Congress."

    Like many advocates for immigrants, Ms. Sanbrano said the protesters would prefer that Congress passed no immigration legislation rather than criminalizing those who are here without documents or creating a guest-worker program that would require millions to go home.

    In a telephone briefing sponsored last week by the National Immigration Forum, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez Jr., president of the National Hispanic Association of Evangelicals, warned that elected officials would pay a price for being on the wrong side of the legislative battle.

    "We are talking to the politicians telling them that the Hispanic community will not forget," he said. "I know there are pure hearts that want to protect our border and protect our country, but at the same time the Hispanic community cannot deny the fact that many have taken advantage of an important and legitimate issue in order to manifest their racist and discriminatory spirit against the Hispanic community."

    Seventy of the nation's 197 Catholic dioceses have formally committed to the immigration campaign since the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops began the effort last year, and church officials are recruiting the rest.

    Meanwhile, priests and deacons have been working side by side with immigrant communities and local immigrant activist groups.

    Leo Anchondo, who directs the immigrant campaign for the bishops' conference, said that he was not surprised by the size of the protests because immigration advocacy groups had been working hard to build a powerful campaign. "We hadn't seen efforts to organize these communities before," Mr. Anchondo said. "It's certainly a testament to the fact that people are very scared of what seems to be driving this anti-immigrant legislation, to the point that they are coming out to make sure they speak and are heard."

    Last night in downtown Los Angeles, Fabricio Fierros, 18, the American-born son of mushroom-pickers who came to the United States illegally from Mexico, joined about 5,000 Mexican farmworkers gathered for a Mass celebrating the birthday of Cesar Chavez.

    "It's not fair to workers here to just kick them out without giving them a legal way to be here," Mr. Fierros said, "To be treated as criminals after all the work they did isn't fair."

    John M. Broder and Rachel L. Swarns contributed reporting for this article.


    Uncomfortable facts about immigration
     TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2006

    PRINCETON, New Jersey 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," wrote Emma Lazarus, in a poem that still puts a lump in my throat. I'm proud of America's immigrant history, and grateful that the door was open when my grandparents fled Russia.

    In other words, I'm instinctively, emotionally pro-immigration. But a review of serious, nonpartisan research reveals some uncomfortable facts about the economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular. If people like me are going to respond effectively to anti-immigrant demagogues, we have to acknowledge those facts.

    First, the net benefits to the U.S. economy from immigration, aside from the large gains to the immigrants themselves, are small. Realistic estimates suggest that immigration since 1980 has raised the total income of native-born Americans by no more than a fraction of 1 percent.

    Second, while immigration may have raised overall income slightly, many of the worst-off native-born Americans are hurt by immigration - especially immigration from Mexico. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. The most authoritative recent study of this effect, by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard, estimates that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it weren't for Mexican immigration.

    That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President George W. Bush does, that immigrants do "jobs that Americans will not do." The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays - and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants.

    Finally, modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should - and low- skilled immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net.

    Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more. As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, "We wanted a labor force, but human beings came." Unfortunately, low-skilled immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive.

    Worse yet, immigration penalizes governments that act humanely. Immigrants are a much more serious fiscal problem in California than in Texas, which treats the poor and unlucky harshly, regardless of where they were born.

    We shouldn't exaggerate these problems. Mexican immigration, says the Borjas-Katz study, has played only a "modest role" in growing U.S. inequality. And the political threat that low- skilled immigration poses to the welfare state is more serious than the fiscal threat: The disastrous Medicare drug bill alone does far more to undermine the finances of America's social insurance system than the whole burden of dealing with illegal immigrants.

    But modest problems are still real problems, and immigration is becoming a major political issue. What are we going to do about it?

    Realistically, America will need to reduce the inflow of low-skilled immigrants. Mainly that means better controls on illegal immigration. But the harsh anti-immigration legislation passed by the House, which has led to huge protests - legislation that would, among other things, make it a criminal act to provide an illegal immigrant with medical care - is simply immoral.

    Meanwhile, Bush's plan for a "guest worker" program is clearly designed by and for corporate interests, who'd love to have a low-wage work force that couldn't vote. Not only is it deeply un- American; it does nothing to reduce the adverse effect of immigration on wages. And because guest workers would face the prospect of deportation after a few years, they would have no incentive to become integrated into our society.

    What about a guest-worker program that includes a clearer route to citizenship? I'd still be careful. Whatever the bill's intentions, it could all too easily end up having the same effect as the Bush plan in practice - that is, it could create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised workers.

    America needs to do something about immigration, and soon. But I'd rather see Congress fail to agree on anything this year than have it rush into ill-considered legislation that betrays America's moral and democratic principles.


    Bush Is Facing a Difficult Path on Immigration

    WASHINGTON, March 23 — In the days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, immigration policy was going to be President Bush's signature issue. It was central to his thinking as the former governor of a border state, key to his relationship with President Vicente Fox of Mexico and essential in attracting new Hispanic voters to the Republican Party.

    Five years later, Mr. Bush has at last realized some momentum on immigration policy, but it is probably not the activity he once anticipated.

    He has lost control of his own party on the issue, as many Republicans object to his call for a temporary guest-worker program, insisting instead that the focus be on shutting down the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico. It is not clear how much help he will get from Democrats in an election year.

    The issue will come to the floor of the Senate next week, and the debate is shaping up as a free-for-all that will touch on economics, race and national identity.

    At the end of next week, Mr. Bush is scheduled to meet with Mr. Fox in Cancún, Mexico. Immigration is likely to be a source of tension in their talks.

    In short, Mr. Bush is facing another test of his remaining powers as president.

    On Thursday, he called for calm in a White House meeting with groups pressing for changes in American immigration laws.

    "I urge members of Congress and I urge people who like to comment on this issue to make sure the rhetoric is in accord with our traditions," the president said.

    He added, in a warning to members of Congress, that "the debate must be done in a way that doesn't pit one group of people against another."

    The discussion has intensified as Mr. Bush finds himself caught between two of his most important constituencies: business owners and managers on the one hand, conservatives on the other.

    Philosophically, the president, whose own sensibility on the issue was shaped by his experience as governor of Texas, says he is committed to a program that meets the needs of business: the creation of a pool of legal foreign workers for industries that have come to rely on low-wage labor.

    Mr. Bush also brings to the debate a stated belief that the country benefits from the immigration of hardworking people and their dreams of becoming Americans. He often talks about the United States as a land of immigrants, and on Monday in Cleveland he said that "my only advice for the Congress and for people in the debate is, understand what made America."

    But politically, Mr. Bush must satisfy his most conservative supporters. Many of them view illegal immigration as a strain on schools, the health care system and the economy, and some have warned that in their opinion the nation's cultural identity could be washed away by a flood of low-income Spanish-speaking workers.

    For now, Mr. Bush is trying to navigate the storm with a proposal that tries to satisfy both groups: a toughened border enforcement plan coupled with a temporary guest-worker program that would allow some of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States to register for legal status and remain here for as long as six years.

    "Our government must enforce our borders; we've got plans in place to do so," Mr. Bush said on Thursday. "But part of enforcing our borders is to have a guest-worker program that encourages people to register their presence so that we know who they are, and says to them, if you're doing a job an American won't do, you're welcome here for a period of time to do that job."

    Pollsters say the issue is still fluid among voters, although they expect public opinion to solidify during the coming debate in Congress and as Mr. Bush promotes his plan.

    "He's got a very strong position with the bully pulpit," said David Winston, a Republican pollster, "but the dynamic of the issue at this point is that there is consensus around border security, but people have not come to a similar consensus about what to do with the 11 million in the country."

    Two years ago, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that two-thirds of those surveyed said immigrants who had entered the country illegally should not be allowed to stay and work in the United States for three years, the initial period of stay in Mr. Bush's proposed guest-worker program. There was also little enthusiasm for any increase in immigration, with a plurality saying immigration should be decreased.

    The poll was conducted shortly after Mr. Bush made his first major speech on his immigration plan.

    "Many of you here today are Americans by choice, and you have followed in the paths of millions," Mr. Bush told a cheering, chanting crowd packed with Hispanic leaders in the East Room of the White House in January 2004. Every generation of immigrants, he added, "has reaffirmed the wisdom of remaining open to the talents and dreams of the world."

    But critics said that Mr. Bush's guest-worker program did not go far enough, and that there was deportation, not a green card, at the end of the process. At the same time, his words angered many conservative Republicans, who said the plan amounted to amnesty.

    Mr. Bush dropped his immigration proposals as too risky for his 2004 re-election campaign, but took them up again in 2005. By then, in an effort to calm conservatives, he had switched his tactics, emphasizing the national-security part of the plan.

    "We're going to get control of our borders," he vowed in the East Room of the White House in October 2005 as he signed a $32 billion domestic security bill that had big increases for the Border Patrol.

    This year, Mr. Bush has continued to push the issue and is closely watching what happens on Capitol Hill.

    The House has passed an immigration bill that includes border security, not a guest-worker program. The action is now in the Senate, where it will resume next week.

    There are a rash of competing immigration proposals on both sides, including one from Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, and another from Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. The majority leader, Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, has threatened to offer his own border-security-only bill if the Senate cannot come up with legislation on its own.


    Immigration Debate Is Shaped by '08 Election
    Presidential Hopefuls Offer Their Proposals Ahead of Senate Vote

    By Jonathan Weisman and Jim VandeHei
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Friday, March 24, 2006

    President Bush's effort to secure lawful employment opportunities for illegal immigrants is evolving into an early battle of the 2008 presidential campaign, as his would-be White House successors jockey for position ahead of next week's immigration showdown in the Senate.

    Bush called on Congress yesterday to tone down the increasingly sharp and divisive rhetoric over immigration, as he renewed his push for a guest-worker plan that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to continue working in the United States. But Bush's political sway is already weakened by public unease about the war in Iraq and by Republican divisions.

    Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), whom Bush helped elect as party leader, is threatening to bring a new immigration bill to the Senate floor early next week. It would tighten control of the nation's borders without creating the guest-worker program the president wants.

    Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), a rival of Frist's for the Republican nomination, is promoting Bush's call for tougher border security and the guest-worker program as he embraces the president to shore up his standing with Republican leaders. In the House, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) is garnering support for a long-shot presidential bid with his fierce anti-immigration rhetoric.

    And after weeks of sitting on the sidelines, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) jumped into the immigration debate Wednesday. She declared that Republican efforts to criminalize undocumented workers and their support networks "would literally criminalize the good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself."

    Presidential politics "makes it that much more difficult, of course," said Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.), a strong Bush ally on the issue. "You would hope three years out that we could tamp that out and focus on the policy questions at stake, but maybe that's not possible."

    For Republican presidential candidates, immigration offers up a difficult choice: Appeal to conservatives eager to clamp down on illegal immigration who could buoy your position in the primaries, or take a moderate stand to win independents and the growing Latino vote, which could be vital to winning the general election.

    "The short-term politics of this are pretty clear. The long-term politics are pretty clear. And they're both at odds," said Mike Buttry, a spokesman for Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), another potential GOP presidential candidate.

    Senators had hoped to avoid such acrimony when the Judiciary Committee began drafting its immigration bill early this month. Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) had vowed to write a bipartisan proposal that would bridge conservative demands for much tougher border enforcement with calls from both parties for a guest-worker program to meet the demand for unskilled labor and to address the 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

    But after progress slowed, Frist short-circuited the process. He announced that the Senate will take up border security and immigration enforcement measures on Tuesday -- without a guest-worker component -- if Specter cannot produce a bill by Monday.

    Frist has not ruled out a guest-worker program. But conservatives' grumbling about the president's program found a Senate voice yesterday when Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) announced that he will not accept such a program until "we have proven without a doubt that our borders are sealed and secure."

    At the same time, Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) promised this week to filibuster Frist's enforcement-only bill.

    "If the majority leader is . . . going to bring his own bill to the floor, dealing with only one of the problems we have with immigration, then I will use every procedural means at my disposal to stop that," Reid said on CNN.

    The fight next week will test Republican unity on an issue with social, political and national security implications. Adding to the tumult will be House Republican leaders, who muscled through an immigration enforcement bill in December and plan a series of events in the coming days to trumpet border security.

    The debate will also serve as a test of Bush's ability to sway an increasingly restive Republican Congress on an issue he has championed since his first term. In recent months, under pressure from GOP lawmakers, Bush has retreated from focusing mostly on the guest-worker program to giving equal billing to border security.

    "But part of enforcing our borders is to have a guest-worker program that encourages people to register their presence so that we know who they are, and says to them, 'If you're doing a job an American won't do, you're welcome here for a period of time to do that job,' " Bush said after meeting with groups involved in the immigration fight.

    The leading bills all seek to bolster border enforcement with more police on the frontier and more technology tracking illegal crossings. But a bill co-sponsored by McCain and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) breaks with Specter's proposal by offering an easier road to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country.

    Specter also goes further to exact punishment on illegal immigrants who seek to obtain a guest-worker permit, and his measure could punish those who help illegal immigrants, even church groups that offer shelter. Frist has taken the border security and immigration enforcement provisions from Specter's bill, while leaving behind his guest-worker program.

    Guest-worker proposals would allow businesses to offer special work visas to illegal immigrants already in the country if they can show that U.S. workers will not take the positions. The visas would last for up to six years under the leading Senate proposals, but senators are divided over whether workers would have to return to their home countries for a year before qualifying for a renewal.

    White House aides said Bush remains deeply committed to the guest-worker program, despite resistance from conservatives, and is certain it will help expand the party's support in Florida and in the Southwest, which is emerging as a key battleground in national elections.

    Former congressman Timothy J. Roemer (D-Ind.) said the debate over welfare reform in the 1990s should serve as the model for compromise on immigration today.

    "The middle of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have a responsibility to tackle and solve this issue," he said.

    Kolbe said it is increasingly unlikely Congress will reach an agreement that could make it to the president's desk.

    "I don't think this fire is easily extinguished," he said. "Rarely have I seen an issue that divides people so clearly, with so little possibility of seeking a middle ground."


    500,000 March in L.A. Against Immigration Bill

    Measure Was Passed by U.S. House

    LOS ANGELES, March 25 2006 (AP) -- They surprised the police, and maybe themselves, their T-shirts turning block after block of downtown Los Angeles streets white in a demonstration so massive that few causes in recent U.S. history could have matched it.

    Police said more than 500,000 people marched Saturday to protest a proposed federal crackdown on illegal immigration. Wearing white as a sign of peace -- and waving flags from the United States, Mexico, Guatemala and other countries -- they came to show that illegal immigrants are already part of the American fabric, and want the chance to be legal, law-abiding citizens.

    Police used helicopters to come up with the crowd estimate. "I've been on the force 38 years, and I've never seen a rally this big," said Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr., incident commander for the rally.

    In Charlotte, between 5,000 and 7,000 people gathered Saturday carrying signs with slogans such as "Am I Not a Human Being?" In Sacramento, more than 4,000 people protested during a march honoring the late farm labor leader Cesar Chavez. In Denver, more than 50,000 people protested downtown, according to police who had expected only a few thousand.

    Phoenix was similarly surprised Friday when an estimated 20,000 people gathered for one of the biggest demonstrations in city history, and more than 10,000 marched in Milwaukee on Thursday.

    The demonstrators oppose legislation passed by the U.S. House that would make it a felony to be in the United States illegally. It would also impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of parishioners before helping them, and order the construction of fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border.

    "I think it's just inhumane. . . . Everybody deserves the right to a better life," said Elger Aloy of Riverside, 26, who brought his infant son to the Los Angeles march.

    Many of the demonstrators who weren't immigrants said they have relatives who are. "My mom came from Mexico. She had to cross the river, and thank God she did," said David Gonzalez, 22. He rejected assertions by advocates of the legislation that it would help protect the nation from terrorism. He said it would hurt Hispanics the most.

    The Senate is to begin debating immigration proposals Tuesday.

    President Bush is pushing for a guest-worker program that could provide temporary legal status to some of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Many of his fellow Republicans are taking a more restrictive stance.


    SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
    Thousands of marchers push for legal status of immigrants
    Rally comes as Senate committee passes bill that would grant citizenship status

    Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, March 28, 2006

    Several thousand protesters marched down San Francisco's Market Street on Monday in a spirited but peaceful call for legal status for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants and a protest against a bill in Congress that would make them felons.

    The midday march, led by a dozen hunger strikers who had fasted in front of the Federal Building for a week, was one of several pro-immigrant demonstrations around the country and came on the heels of a similar rally Saturday in Los Angeles that drew half a million people.

    The San Francisco protesters, including hundreds of high school and college students who walked out of class, chanted in English and Spanish and carried signs reading "This country was built by immigrants," "Did the pilgrims have papers?" and "The taxes we pay ... are they illegal too?"

    The rally occurred as the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., passed legislation including a program that would allow those in the country illegally to become legal citizens.

    Inocencio Quintanar, 38, an immigrant from Mexico, stepped out of the taqueria where he works and waved and cheered as the march went by.

    "We're peaceful people, not terrorists," he said. "We're starting businesses, buying homes, investing in this country. We'd like to be treated as human beings."

    Word of the protest spread through the Bay Area's Catholic churches and Spanish language radio stations and attracted some immigrants who had never participated in a political rally before, including a contingent of mothers pushing baby strollers.

    Mary McGee, 43, a nurse at San Francisco General Hospital, joined the rally in outrage over a bill, HR 4437, passed by the House in December, which would make it a felony to be an undocumented immigrant or to assist one. Currently "illegal presence" is a violation of civil immigration law, not criminal law.

    "It would be illegal for me to care for my patients under the bill," said McGee, a third generation Irish American whose ancestors, she said, were no different from illegal immigrants today.

    "I take care of immigrant families who ... contribute greatly to our country, and I feel like this is a horrific attack on them," she said.

    The Senate Judiciary Committee, including Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, rejected language criminalizing illegal immigrants in the committee's version of legislation approved Monday. The bill included a guest worker program to allow immigrants to come to the United States temporarily for a job and created a process for those here now illegally to become legal citizens.

    "We are aware of the demonstrations. Obviously this is a very important issue to a lot of Californians," said Feinstein press secretary Howard Gantman, speaking by phone from Washington. "Right now the focus is on trying to make a law that works and makes sense."

    Outside Feinstein's Post Street office in San Francisco, the immigration march was joined by scores of Latino anti-war protesters who reached the Bay Area on Monday after a 16-day, 241-mile trek from Tijuana. Limping from the journey, peace march organizer Fernando Suárez del Solar, 50, said the struggle for immigrant rights is linked to the effort to end the war in Iraq.

    "If we didn't have the so-called 'war on terrorism,' we wouldn't have racist initiatives like HR 4437," said Suárez del Solar, whose son, a 20-year-old Marine, was killed in Iraq three years ago to the day. "There are hundreds of immigrant families in this country whose children are dying in Iraq and whose parents are on the brink of being deported."

    In Los Angeles, thousands of students walked out of school Monday in a continuation of the immigrant rights protests there. Thousands of protesters also marched in Detroit, Phoenix, Dallas and Yakima, Wash. And in Washington, D.C., hundreds of religious leaders joined an interdenominational vigil for immigration reform on Capitol Hill.


    Help Wanted as Immigration Faces Overhaul
    Congress Considers New Rules, and Businesses Worry About Finding Workers
     

    By S. Mitra Kalita and Krissah Williams
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Monday, March 27, 2006; A01

    Y
    ear after year, Professional Grounds Inc. runs a help-wanted ad to find landscapers and groundskeepers. Starting wage: $7.74 per hour.

    In a good year, three people call. Most years, no one does.

    So the Springfield company relies on imported labor -- seasonal guest workers allowed to immigrate under the federal guest-worker program -- to keep itself running. For 10 months this year, 23 men from Mexico and Central America will spend their days mulching and mowing, seeding and sodding for Professional Grounds.

    Occasionally, company President Bill Trimmer asks himself: If I doubled wages, would native-born Americans apply? He thinks he knows the answer.

    "I don't think it's a wage situation. It's the type of work and the nature of the work. It's hard, backbreaking work," said Trimmer, who started the company 31 years ago. "I think we're a more affluent society now. They expect more. Everybody expects more. . . . I have contracts, and they want an affordable price, too."

    Here lies the dilemma facing Congress as it attempts an immigration overhaul. Businesses say it is hard to persuade Americans to perform the unskilled jobs that immigrants easily fill. Significantly higher wages might work, but that increase would be passed on to unhappy consumers, forcing Americans to give up under-$10 manicures and $15-per-hour paint and lawn jobs.

    Yet against a backdrop of heightened scrutiny of those who cross U.S. borders and the estimated 12 million migrants already here illegally, most everyone agrees that the current immigration system warrants a severe makeover.

    A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that unauthorized immigrants make up nearly 5 percent of the labor force. In the Washington region, they make up nearly 10 percent of the 3.1 million-strong workforce, providing mainly unskilled labor.

    The federal government has a work visa -- known as H-2B -- that aims to help unskilled migrants enter the country legally. But the government issues only about 66,000 new H-2B visas each year. The guest workers, who generally take jobs in businesses such as restaurants, amusement parks, cleaning companies and landscaping firms, are allowed to stay for 10 months.

    The immigration measure passed by the House last year would allow the guest-worker program to lapse. Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee resumes debating legislation proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). It would create a new guest-worker program that would allow foreigners to enter the United States for three years, with the possibility of renewal for another three years.

    Both House and Senate plans place on employers the onus for verifying the legal status of workers with the creation of a national database of Social Security or work identification numbers. Besides requiring enforcement, the proposals would impose criminal penalties on employers who hire someone not authorized to work in the United States.

    Under current law, companies must review two forms of government-issued identification to verify that a job applicant is a legal resident. Beyond keeping copies of IDs on file, many businesses say they do little more than take workers at their word. While some readily dismiss illegal workers, they don't necessarily report them and their whereabouts to the federal government.

    Businesses say they already patrol job applications to sift out counterfeit documents. At least four out of 10 applicants for jobs at Harry's Essential Grille in Vienna present work documents that look like frauds, such as Social Security cards that feel too thin, said Jason Steward, manager of the restaurant.

    "You have a gut feeling," Steward said. The company he works for, Essential Restaurant Holdings LLC, has hired 200 people since opening its two Northern Virginia restaurants 2 1/2 years ago. About half of its workers are immigrants. He does not object to checking a Social Security number in a national database. But he worries about being the first line of defense for the company. If he messes up, Essential Restaurants could be fined or face criminal penalties under some of the proposals before Congress.

    Brett McMahon, vice president of Bethesda-based Miller & Long Concrete Construction Co., one of the biggest concrete contractors in the country, with $300 million in annual revenue, said his concern is that the legislation would essentially turn his company into "an enforcer of who's legal and who's not." McMahon said, "It's nowhere near that simple to check."

    In the past 15 years, the Labor Department has audited McMahon's company five times looking for illegal workers -- each time finding none, McMahon said. He added that the House bill threatens to bring his business to a "screeching halt" because there is no provision for a guest-worker program or for dealing with the undocumented immigrants already working.

    But advocates of tighter borders say hiring foreigners should be difficult, not just for security but to limit competition between less-skilled immigrants and Americans.

    "Employers in many of these sectors have gotten themselves into a Catch-22 situation where if they do not look the other way and hire illegal workers, they will not be competitive with other businesses," said Jack Martin, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocacy group governed by business leaders and activists favoring national immigration limits.

    "The wages and working conditions where there are large numbers of illegal workers have been driven down to the point where those jobs are not as attractive to American workers," Martin said.

    According to the Pew Hispanic Center data, undocumented workers tend to be clustered in service and construction jobs and make up more than half of the region's janitorial and landscape workers. Forty-three percent of the region's construction workers are illegally in the United States or have only temporary work authorization, the data show.

    Wages for landscaping and groundskeeping workers in the Washington area have risen slightly in recent years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from an average of $9.61 per hour in 1999 to $10.51 in 2004. Professional Grounds' Trimmer said most employees, including guest workers, earn $9 to $11 per hour.

    Construction wages in the Washington area have risen from an average of $15.86 in 1999 to $17.19 in 2004, according to the bureau. McMahon estimated that construction wages these days are even higher -- roughly $20 an hour, plus health care.

    "People think construction is about hiring day laborers in a Lowe's parking lot and throwing them in a pickup and paying them $2 an hour," McMahon said.

    The company has roughly 60 projects underway, including offices, hotels and condominiums, and employs about 2,800 workers in the Washington area -- three-fourths of them immigrants.

    "Every time I put up a crane, they are the guys who show up," McMahon said.

    At Professional Grounds' Springfield office, Trimmer said the guest-worker program insulates him from having to deal with forged documents. Trimmer started using the H-2B program about five years ago to fill the void left by high school and college students who preferred air-conditioned summer internships over the work he could offer.

    The guest workers arrive in February or March and pay $40 a week for housing subsidized by the company. A van picks up and drops off those who can't drive; workers who have driver's licenses pay $3 per day for the use of a company car. Workers pay income, Social Security and Medicare taxes.

    One of his workers, Abelardo Flores, said he likes returning to his wife and three children in Mexico after making money for 10 months. Two other workers, Luciano Arango and Marcos Ochoa, said they would like to permanently live in the United States someday. All said they had worked for the company last year. Trimmer cited investments he makes in the guest workers, from English classes to housing, as proof that he views them as more than cheap labor.

    Once, Trimmer confessed, he did hire an illegal worker: a Nicaraguan man named Victor Parrales on a tourist visa.

    Next week will mark Parrales's 22nd year with the company; Professional Grounds sponsored his green card, and he eventually became a citizen. Parrales now owns a house in Alexandria and boasts the title of vice president.

    A piece of paper taped to Parrales's office door advertises that Professional Grounds needs more workers. In fact, the company says it will pay workers who bring forward qualified candidates a $1,000 referral fee.

    Staff writers Dana Hedgpeth, Neil Irwin, Cecilia Kang and Michael S. Rosenwald contributed to this report.


    'Nation of Immigrants' Needs Borders, Not Amnesty
    By Rep. Patrick McHenry
    Posted Mar 28, 2006

    It is often said that "America is a nation of immigrants." While I agree with this, there is another important point that must not be ignored: America is a nation of laws. These two realities are on a collision course this week as the U.S. Senate debates measures to reform our broken immigration system.

    Illegal immigration threatens our national security and strains our healthcare facilities, schools and social services. The U.S. House stepped up to the plate in December 2005 and passed a strong immigration reform bill that increases border security and takes amnesty off the table. Now it is time for the Senate to respond to the growing problem of illegal immigration and do what's best for the legal immigrants and citizens of this country.

    Our first line of defense against illegal immigration is increasing border security. The 11 million illegal aliens in this country will attest to the ease with which people can cross into our country, unabated and undocumented. The illegal immigration debate implicitly involves a national security angle; if illegal aliens can negotiate our borders with little difficulty, why will terrorists not do the same? Increasing border security -- by constructing fences, bolstering our border patrols and escalating our surveillance capabilities -- is the first, and most important, step in halting the massive in flux of foreign trespassers. This relies on the same principle that you have to patch-up its holes before a ship stops sinking.

    The immigration reform debate begins at the borders, but by no means ends there. There is the question of what to do with the illegal aliens who are already here. Amnesty is not the answer. To grant amnesty to these trespassers is to say "You crossed our borders illegally, you broke our laws and now we are rewarding you with U.S. citizenship -- congratulations!" This is unacceptable; it undermines our legal system and calls into question the very rules and regulations that bind together a civil society. A guest worker program is nothing more than amnesty wearing make-up -- it's easier to look at, but just as ugly underneath. The simple truth is that people who do not respect our laws when entering our country cannot be trusted to respect them after they are here. Giving them a "get out of jail free card" -- both literally and figuratively -- is hypocritical governing and a blatant example of leadership falling asleep at the wheel.

    Providing amnesty to illegal immigrants is a slap in the face to immigrants who came to our nation and faced head-on the process of becoming legal citizens. These immigrants deserve our respect; they are Americans just like you and me. We must make the process of becoming a legal citizen more efficient and reasonable so that other immigrants can follow suit -- the right way. The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services currently processes 7 million immigration applications per year using Windows 95 and paper printouts -- this system is flawed and inefficient. It is high time we replaced our outdated bureaucratic procedures with updated technology. I introduced the Comprehensive Immigration D.A.T.A . Act (H.R. 4412) to modernize the immigration application process by creating a federal computerized database that more efficiently and effectively tracks immigrants applying for visas or U.S. citizenship. Closing the technological gap will equip law enforcement with better tools for enforcing immigration laws and expedite the services to legal immigrants. It is time for America to step into the 21st century to account for those who are stepping over our borders.

    The House's no-nonsense immigration reform bill is the right approach to solving the immigration reform problem -- it strengthens our borders and turns its back on amnesty. The next step on the path to true immigration reform is to upgrade America's outdated system for processing immigration case files. These reforms are milestones of progress, pointing to a time when we can be confident that the system we have works. For now, we are standing at the crossroads between what comprises America -- immigrants and laws. As a nation, we must make certain that the second is strong so that the first will continue to flourish.

    Mr. McHenry, a Republican, represents North Carolina's 10th Congressional District.


    Senators Back Guest Workers
    Panel's Measure Sides With Bush

    By Jonathan Weisman
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Tuesday, March 28, 2006

    A key Senate panel broke with the House's get-tough approach to illegal immigration yesterday and sent to the floor a broad revision of the nation's immigration laws that would provide lawful employment to millions of undocumented workers while offering work visas to hundreds of thousands of new immigrants every year.

    With bipartisan support, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12 to 6 to side with President Bush's general approach to an immigration issue that is dividing the country, fracturing the Republican Party and ripening into one of the biggest political debates of this election year. Conservatives have loudly demanded that the government tighten control of U.S. borders and begin deporting illegal immigrants. But in recent weeks, the immigrant community has risen up in protest, marching by the hundreds of thousands to denounce what they see as draconian measures under consideration in Washington.

    "There is no issue outside of civil rights that brings out the kind of emotions we have seen," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the bill's primary sponsors, who called the controversy "a defining issue of our times."

    Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) rushed committee members to complete their work to meet a midnight deadline imposed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who favors a tougher approach more in line with the version passed by the House last December. But once the committee had acted, Frist declined to say last night whether he would substitute the committee's legislation for his own, which includes no guest-worker program.

    Frist's efforts to wrest control of the issue from the Judiciary Committee could produce a power struggle among Republicans once the majority leader brings up the issue for debate and votes in the full Senate, probably this week. Specter and the other committee leaders may have to muscle their bill through as an amendment if Frist refuses to back down.

    Frist, a presidential aspirant whom Bush helped elect as majority leader, favors tightening control of the nation's borders without granting what he calls amnesty to the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants living in this country. But Bush favors a comprehensive approach, which he says must include some program to answer business's need for immigrant labor.

    "Congress needs to pass a comprehensive bill that secures the border, improves interior enforcement, and creates a temporary-worker program to strengthen our security and our economy," Bush said yesterday at a ceremony to swear in 30 new U.S. citizens from 20 countries. "Completing a comprehensive bill is not going to be easy. It will require all of us in Washington to make tough choices and make compromises."

    Polls indicate about 60 percent of Americans oppose guest-worker programs that would offer illegal immigrants an avenue to lawful work status, and three-quarters of the country believe the government is doing too little to secure the nation's borders.

    But the immigrant community has been galvanized by what it sees as a heavy-handed crackdown on undocumented workers by Washington. The House in December rejected calls for a guest-worker program and instead approved a bill that would stiffen penalties on illegal immigrants, force businesses to run the names of each employee through federal databases to prove their legality, deploy more border agents and unmanned aerial vehicles to the nation's frontiers and build massive walls along sections of the U.S.-Mexican border.

    At least 14,000 students stormed out of schools in Southern California and elsewhere yesterday, waving flags and chanting to protest congressional actions. About 100 demonstrators, including members of the clergy, appeared at the Capitol yesterday in handcuffs to object to provisions in the House bill that would make illegal immigrants into felons and criminalize humanitarian groups that feed and house them. More than a half-million marchers protested in Los Angeles on Saturday, following protests in Phoenix, Milwaukee and Philadelphia.

    "The immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way," Bush said. "No one should play on people's fears, or try to pit neighbors against each other."

    A confrontation between the Senate and House Republicans now appears inevitable.

    "We are eager, once the Senate passes this bill, to sit down and talk with them, but there are certain fundamental principles which we simply cannot compromise on," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who cosponsored the bill that passed the Judiciary Committee largely intact last night. "It has to be a comprehensive approach. As we all know, just building walls and hiring more border patrols are not the answers to our immigration problem."

    Specter, the committee chairman, had tried for weeks to find a middle ground between senators advocating a generous guest-worker program and those categorically rejecting amnesty for illegal immigrants. In the end, that search for a compromise failed because advocates of the guest-worker program had more than enough votes to overcome conservative opposition.

    The panel voted to accept a bill largely patterned on the measure sponsored by Kennedy and McCain. Specter and Republican Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Sam Brownback (Kan.) and Mike DeWine (Ohio) joined the committee's Democrats to win passage.

    The panel's bill would allow the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in this country to apply for a work visa after paying back taxes and a penalty. The first three-year visa could be renewed for three more years. After four years, visa holders could apply for green cards and begin moving toward citizenship. An additional 400,000 such visas would be offered each year to workers seeking to enter the country.

    Senators also accepted a proposal by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would offer 1.5 million illegal farmworkers a "blue card" visa that would legalize their status. The committee also accepted a provision by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) that would shield humanitarian organizations from prosecution for providing more than simple emergency aid to illegal immigrants, rejecting an amendment by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) to require humanitarian groups providing food, medical aid and advice to illegal immigrants to register with the Department of Homeland Security.

    Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) protested that the Feinstein proposal was more focused on offering illegal immigrants a path to citizenship than meeting the labor demands of agriculture. Cornyn suggested the Judiciary Committee bill was moving toward creating a caste of second-class workers.

    But Cornyn may have summed up Senate fears when he referred to energized voters protesting what they see as amnesty for people who violated the nation's laws and made a mockery of its borders.

    "The American people are thinking, 'Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,' " he said. "The only way we can get the confidence of the American people is to convince them we are absolutely serious about border security and law enforcement."


    Immigrants' Voice Reaches the Hill

    Bill Proposing Crackdown Spurs Grass-Roots Movement

    By John Pomfret and Sonya Geis
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Tuesday, March 28, 2006

    LOS ANGELES, March 27 -- On Feb. 1, Arturo Hernandez went to his church on the east side of Los Angeles and watched the first PowerPoint presentation of his life. The illegal immigrant from a Mexican village on the Sea of Cortez learned about a bill that had passed the House that would turn him -- and the church that helps his family with child care, his employers in the tony Brentwood section of Los Angeles and the hospitals that treat his family -- into felons.

    In subsequent weeks, Hernandez listened to public service announcements on L.A.'s Spanish-language radio stations in which disc jockeys and other celebrities said they wanted him and others like him to let the Senate, which is meeting this week to hammer out its own legislation, know what they think about the proposal. At the same time, his church, the hotel worker's union that represents his wife and the leadership of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles continued to tell him the legislation was, in the words of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony who spoke against the measure on March 1 -- Ash Wednesday -- a "blameful, vicious" bill.

    On Saturday, Hernandez, his wife, Gloria, and their three children marched in their first protest -- along with more than 500,000 other demonstrators -- through downtown Los Angeles. "I have lived for 15 years in America," said the 34-year-old gardener. "All that time I have lived with my head down, you know. On Saturday, all these people were telling me to put my head up."

    As the immigrant legislation was heard Monday on Capital Hill, a grass-roots movement of immigrant churchgoers, union members, businessmen, media personalities and laborers was hoping to use the power of their numbers to move the debate. Some in the loosely knit coalition speak of the dawning of a new civil rights movement, drawing parallels with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Chicano labor activist Cesar Chavez.

    While opponents of illegal immigration have been organizing and even launching their own border patrols for some time, the immigrants themselves have been silent. But the turnout at rallies and demonstrations in recent weeks shows a deepening activism.

    Almost three-quarters of a million people in more than 10 cities have marched against the bill. On March 10, about 100,000 marched in Chicago. Crowds have also massed in Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Denver and Phoenix. And protests continued Monday when thousands of students skipped class in California, Texas and other states and demonstrators marched on a federal building in Detroit. Organizers said they were gearing up for a nationwide demonstration April 10.

    The message of marchers was, "We are good people who want to contribute to this nation," said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, which helped organize the Los Angeles march. "More than anything, people were saying, 'This is who we are. Most of the time we're invisible to society, but this is who we are. We're not criminals. We're families. We're mothers, we're fathers, we're workers.' "

    In Los Angeles, which is 47 percent Hispanic, the march was a blunt reminder of Latino power in this city -- illegal or legal. Busboys, gardeners, maids, textile workers, delivery boys, taco truck operators, firefighters, politicians (including Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa), union chiefs and thousands more coursed down Broadway in the heart of L.A.'s downtown predominantly Hispanic shopping district.

    Churches have been at the center of the movement to fight efforts to criminalize aid to illegal immigrants. Mahony's message for Lent announced that archdiocesan priests and pastoral workers would defy the government and continue offering services to people in the country illegally if such efforts are outlawed. Similar statements came from the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez Jr., president of the National Hispanic Association of Evangelicals, which is usually associated with conservative causes.

    Rodriguez called the recent marches the result of "the greatest mobilization since the days of Cesar Chavez."

    "We have businessmen, Christians, non-Christians, Catholics and evangelicals," he said. "We engaged the number one institution in the Hispanic family -- the church. We contacted pastors in parishes, and we worked through local Spanish radio and television. We said, 'Look, if we don't speak up now, it's going to be too late.' "

    Rodriguez cautioned members of the Republican Party who back the tough House bill. "More and more Hispanics are voting, and more and more are voting conservatively," he said. "But if we are abandoned by the Republicans on this issue, it will nullify the possibility of a Republican winning national office."

    In Los Angeles, radio personalities, who normally engage in cutthroat competition, worked together to inform people about the upcoming march, said David Haymore, vice president and general manager of Spanish Broadcasting System in Los Angeles, which runs two of the most popular Spanish-language radio stations in the city. Haymore said that eight days before the march, the program directors and on-air personalities of the major Spanish-language stations here met and "agreed to leave egos at the door, not promote the stations" and make the case on the air for "people to show their unity by marching in downtown L.A."

    During the next seven days, stations aired conference calls that featured disc jockeys from competing stations discussing the immigration bills and the Senate's upcoming debate.

    "The community needs to see us together so they can understand the message that united we are much more powerful," said the host of the city's most popular Spanish morning radio show, Renan Almendarez Coello, better known as "El Cucuy," a character out of a Mexican folktale.

    "We have to be united to demonstrate to the world that this country is made by immigrants."

    Hispanic marchers have dominated the protests. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 78 percent of the nation's approximately 11 million illegal immigrants are from Mexico or other Latin American countries.

    However, other ethnic groups, including the Irish, have joined the debate. In Los Angeles, the campaigning by the Spanish-language media was mirrored by Radio Seoul, the 24-hour Korean-language station in the city, which aired similar spots exhorting this city's 1 million Koreans to take to the streets.

    "We estimate about one in five Koreans in America is illegal," said Dae Joong Yoon, executive director of the Korean Resource Center in Los Angeles.

    "So we all have these people in our families. We know about their struggles. They are working hard."


    SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

    Immigrant Killings  -- Ga. town tries to protect immigrants

    By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO
    ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Thursday, March 30, 2006

    TIFTON, Ga. -- A friendly dog on a leash, a small padlock on the front door, and dark towels over taped-up windows are all that stand between Luis Ortiz and his fear that burglars will again break into his dilapidated mobile home and beat him to within an inch of his life.

    The 43-year-old Mexican immigrant was beaten with a bat in his sleep one night last September. He suffered a broken jaw, his teeth were smashed and his hands were mangled.

    It was one of at least four brutal robberies at immigrant homes in the Tifton area that night that left six people dead, including Ortiz's cousin, and six injured.

    "I stay up nights, wondering if it'll happen again and I've nothing to defend me," Ortiz said in Spanish, sitting on a patched-up sofa in the same trailer where he and his cousin were attacked, with crime-scene tape still rolled up in the dirt outside. "Police told me to buy a gun, but I don't have an ID."

    The fear is shared by many of the thousands of Hispanic immigrants, especially the illegal ones, who have flocked to southern Georgia to pick cotton, peaches, peanuts and cotton. Criminals tend to prey on illegal immigrants because the victims are often too scared of being deported to call the police, and because many have no bank accounts and carry lots of cash.

    Across the country, immigrants are often preyed on by criminals. But the brutality of the September attacks - with the victims beaten, shot and, in at least one case, raped - shocked this farm town of 15,000 into doing more to help the newcomers, most of whom are from Mexico.

    "They're here to stay, and now it's the point where we have to get along," Tifton Police Chief Jim Smith said.

    The effort to help Tifton's illegal immigrants comes amid a debate on Capitol Hill - and in the streets across the country - over whether to crack down on the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants or help them become U.S. citizens.

    It is often difficult to prosecute crimes against immigrants because they are afraid to contact police. So to win the trust of immigrants, Tifton officers have stepped up patrols in trailer parks, where most of the laborers live.

    Also, immigrants who can speak both English and Spanish are being selected to serve as police liaisons in their neighborhoods who can immediately report crimes or other trouble. Only a couple of Tifton's 50 police officers speak a little Spanish, the chief said.

    In addition, the police chief has been recruiting young Hispanics to work as clerks or become officers, like the two U.S.-born Amaya brothers, who will enter the police academy in May. They, their Salvadoran parents and seven siblings live a few mobile homes down a pothole-filled road from Ortiz.

    "Everybody stayed locked up for two weeks for fear of going outside," said Balmori Amaya, 20. "Lots of people here bust their butts to work to send money home. We just don't understand why they'd do that to us."

    Four people - two men and two women from neighboring Colquitt County - have been arrested on murder and other charges in the killings. They are believed to be part of a larger group responsible for similar home invasions, Tift County District Attorney Paul Bowden said.

    He said he will wait for state investigators' final report before determining whether to pursue the death penalty.

    All four are black, stirring speculation that the attacks were racially motivated. Police say there is no evidence of that, but the U.S. Justice Department sent peacemakers to help ease tensions around this town, situated about 170 miles south of Atlanta.

    Tereso Rodriguez, who still lives in the rickety trailer where robbers beat him, his wife and three of his children a few nights before the lethal attacks on Sept. 30, said he wonders if he was the victim of a hate crime.

    "Sometimes I think it was some kind of racism," Rodriguez said. "If it were only stealing, there'd be no need to hit us so much."

    For his part, Ortiz is determined to stick it out in the U.S., where he moved seven years ago from Mexico.

    "I've to help my family. They can't help me," he said.


    Op-Ed Columnist March 30, 2006 New York Times

    Immigrants to Be Proud Of

    Everybody says the Republicans are split on immigration. The law-and-order types want to close the border. The free-market types want plentiful labor. But today I want to talk to the social conservatives, because it's you folks who are really going to swing this debate.

    I'd like to get you to believe what Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas believes: that a balanced immigration bill is consistent with conservative values. I'd like to try to persuade the evangelical leaders in the tall grass to stop hiding on this issue.

    My first argument is that the exclusionists are wrong when they say the current wave of immigration is tearing our social fabric. The facts show that the recent rise in immigration hasn't been accompanied by social breakdown, but by social repair. As immigration has surged, violent crime has fallen by 57 percent. Teen pregnancies and abortion rates have declined by a third. Teenagers are having fewer sexual partners and losing their virginity later. Teen suicide rates have dropped. The divorce rate for young people is on the way down.

    Over the past decade we've seen the beginnings of a moral revival, and some of the most important work has been done by Catholic and evangelical immigrant churches, by faith-based organizations like the Rev. Luis Cortés's Nueva Esperanza, by Hispanic mothers and fathers monitoring their kids. The anti-immigration crowd says this country is under assault. But if that's so, we're under assault by people who love their children.

    My second argument is that the immigrants themselves are like a booster shot of traditional morality injected into the body politic. Immigrants work hard. They build community groups. They have traditional ideas about family structure, and they work heroically to make them a reality.

    This is evident in everything from divorce rates (which are low, given immigrants' socioeconomic status) to their fertility rates (which are high) and even the way they shop.

    Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants have less money than average Americans, but they spend what they have on their families, usually in wholesome ways. According to Simmons Research, Hispanics are 57 percent more likely than average Americans to have purchased children's furniture in the past year. Mexican-Americans spend 93 percent more on children's music.

    According to the government's Consumer Expenditure Survey, Hispanics spend more on gifts, on average, than other Americans. They're more likely to support their parents financially. They're more likely to have big family dinners at home.

    This isn't alien behavior. It's admirable behavior, the antidote to the excessive individualism that social conservatives decry.

    My third argument is that good values lead to success, and that immigrants' long-term contributions more than compensate for the short-term strains they cause. There's no use denying the strains immigration imposes on schools, hospitals and wage levels in some markets (but economists are sharply divided on this).

    So over the long haul, today's immigrants succeed. By the second generation, most immigrant families are middle class and paying taxes that more than make up for the costs of the first generation. By the third generation, 90 percent speak English fluently and 50 percent marry non-Latinos.

    My fourth argument is that government should be at least as virtuous as the immigrants themselves. Right now (as under Bill Frist's legislation), government pushes immigrants into a chaotic underground world. The Judiciary Committee's bill, which Senator Brownback supports, would tighten the borders, but it would also reward virtue. Immigrants who worked hard, paid fines, paid their taxes, stayed out of trouble and waited their turn would have a chance to become citizens. This isn't government enabling vice; it's government at its best, encouraging middle-class morality.

    Social conservatives, let me ask you to consider one final thing. Women who have recently arrived from Mexico have bigger, healthier babies than more affluent non-Hispanic white natives. That's because strong family and social networks support these pregnant women, reminding them what to eat and do. But the longer they stay, and the more assimilated they become, the more bad habits they acquire and the more problems their subsequent babies have.

    Please ask yourself this: As we contemplate America's moral fiber, do the real threats come from immigrants, or are some people merely blaming them for sins that are already here?


    March 30, 2006
    Op-Ed Columnist

    Immigrants to Be Proud Of

    Everybody says the Republicans are split on immigration. The law-and-order types want to close the border. The free-market types want plentiful labor. But today I want to talk to the social conservatives, because it's you folks who are really going to swing this debate.

    I'd like to get you to believe what Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas believes: that a balanced immigration bill is consistent with conservative values. I'd like to try to persuade the evangelical leaders in the tall grass to stop hiding on this issue.

    My first argument is that the exclusionists are wrong when they say the current wave of immigration is tearing our social fabric. The facts show that the recent rise in immigration hasn't been accompanied by social breakdown, but by social repair. As immigration has surged, violent crime has fallen by 57 percent. Teen pregnancies and abortion rates have declined by a third. Teenagers are having fewer sexual partners and losing their virginity later. Teen suicide rates have dropped. The divorce rate for young people is on the way down.

    Over the past decade we've seen the beginnings of a moral revival, and some of the most important work has been done by Catholic and evangelical immigrant churches, by faith-based organizations like the Rev. Luis Cortés's Nueva Esperanza, by Hispanic mothers and fathers monitoring their kids. The anti-immigration crowd says this country is under assault. But if that's so, we're under assault by people who love their children.

    My second argument is that the immigrants themselves are like a booster shot of traditional morality injected into the body politic. Immigrants work hard. They build community groups. They have traditional ideas about family structure, and they work heroically to make them a reality.

    This is evident in everything from divorce rates (which are low, given immigrants' socioeconomic status) to their fertility rates (which are high) and even the way they shop.

    Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants have less money than average Americans, but they spend what they have on their families, usually in wholesome ways. According to Simmons Research, Hispanics are 57 percent more likely than average Americans to have purchased children's furniture in the past year. Mexican-Americans spend 93 percent more on children's music.

    According to the government's Consumer Expenditure Survey, Hispanics spend more on gifts, on average, than other Americans. They're more likely to support their parents financially. They're more likely to have big family dinners at home.

    This isn't alien behavior. It's admirable behavior, the antidote to the excessive individualism that social conservatives decry.

    My third argument is that good values lead to success, and that immigrants' long-term contributions more than compensate for the short-term strains they cause. There's no use denying the strains immigration imposes on schools, hospitals and wage levels in some markets (but economists are sharply divided on this).

    So over the long haul, today's immigrants succeed. By the second generation, most immigrant families are middle class and paying taxes that more than make up for the costs of the first generation. By the third generation, 90 percent speak English fluently and 50 percent marry non-Latinos.

    My fourth argument is that government should be at least as virtuous as the immigrants themselves. Right now (as under Bill Frist's legislation), government pushes immigrants into a chaotic underground world. The Judiciary Committee's bill, which Senator Brownback supports, would tighten the borders, but it would also reward virtue. Immigrants who worked hard, paid fines, paid their taxes, stayed out of trouble and waited their turn would have a chance to become citizens. This isn't government enabling vice; it's government at its best, encouraging middle-class morality.

    Social conservatives, let me ask you to consider one final thing. Women who have recently arrived from Mexico have bigger, healthier babies than more affluent non-Hispanic white natives. That's because strong family and social networks support these pregnant women, reminding them what to eat and do. But the longer they stay, and the more assimilated they become, the more bad habits they acquire and the more problems their subsequent babies have.

    Please ask yourself this: As we contemplate America's moral fiber, do the real threats come from immigrants, or are some people merely blaming them for sins that are already here?


    Immigrants, Yes; Immigration, Maybe

    Poll Finds No Consensus on What to Do About Those Who Are Here Illegally

    By D'Vera Cohn  Washington Post Staff Writer  Friday, March 31, 2006; B02

    People who live in the Washington area have a better opinion of immigrants than most Americans do but share the nation's ambivalence about whether those who are here illegally should be allowed to stay, according to a poll released yesterday.

    The poll found that U.S. residents have growing concerns about the impact of immigration but increasingly positive attitudes about immigrants. Overall, though, it found that immigration issues do not top most people's lists of the nation's biggest problems. In the Washington area, traffic and crime ranked far higher.

    The nonpartisan Pew Research Center and the Pew Hispanic Center commissioned the poll in an effort to influence heated debate over immigration legislation before the Senate. Legislation passed by the House emphasizes increased border security, but proposals in the Senate would create a temporary guest-worker program or a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

    The national poll of 2,000 adults, taken between Feb. 8 and March 7, found that a growing majority of Americans hold positive views of immigrants as individuals, but a growing majority also believe they are more burden than asset to the country. There was no clear agreement on what to do about illegal immigrants: 32 percent want to let them stay permanently; 32 percent would create a temporary-worker program; and 27 percent would deport them all.

    In the Washington area, where a separate survey was taken of 800 residents, most people believe immigrants are more asset than burden, in contrast with the national view. But opinion also is divided here: 37 percent would let illegal immigrants stay; 28 percent would create a temporary-worker option; and 21 percent would require them to leave.

    "People are worried about the cost of immigration, but at the same time they view immigrants with some admiration," said Gabriel Escobar, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center. "That's what sets up the ambivalence."

    The Washington area's more welcoming attitude toward immigrants stems in part from its high incomes, high education levels and good economy, all of which the survey linked to greater likelihood of support for immigrants. Escobar said the region's diverse and spread-out immigration, in contrast with regions where most immigrants are poor and crowded into a few places, also helps build backing for the foreign born.

    The poll found that two-thirds of Americans support creating a database of workers that employers could check to determine whether a job applicant is legal, and three-quarters support requiring all job seekers to have a new kind of government-issued identification card. A smaller share -- but still a majority -- of Washington residents support both ideas, which civil liberties groups strongly oppose.

    The regional poll found that 54 percent of residents favored government-supported day labor centers, such as the one that opened recently in Herndon, and 35 percent opposed them. Reflecting the same attitude found by the poll, a conference of government officials from 10 local Maryland and Virginia jurisdictions expressed its backing for such centers as a tool to manage the crowds of immigrants who gather in public places to seek day work.

    Meeting yesterday at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the officials pledged to ask Congress to reject legislation that punishes illegal immigrants and aim for a measure that helps more of them gain legal status. "We need to be humane, not punitive," said George L. Leventhal (D-At Large), president of the Montgomery County Council.

    Washington area residents agree with the rest of the country that the best way to stem illegal immigration is to punish employers who hire undocumented workers. Half endorsed that view. A third said the Border Patrol should be expanded. Fewer than 10 percent favor building more fences on the border, which is a major provision of the House-passed immigration bill.

    People who live in greater Washington -- a region that stretches from southern Maryland to eastern West Virginia and where one in six residents is an immigrant -- are more likely to say that immigrants accept jobs other U.S. residents won't, that they pay their share of taxes, and that they are not on welfare.

    Ilryong Moon, a Fairfax County School Board member who was born in South Korea, said the survey's findings about the region echo his own experience.

    "They are a part of this vibrant economy, and they also provide opportunities for residents in Fairfax County to enjoy an enriching cultural life," he said. "That is a very valuable experience for our children as they grow in this very global society."

    Staff writer Karin Brulliard contributed to this report.


    Bill allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition advances

    LINCOLN (AP) — Nebraska would become the 10th state in the country to grant tuition breaks to illegal immigrants under a bill advanced Wednesday in the Legislature.

    The measure has to clear two more rounds of debate before it heads to Gov. Dave Heineman where it would likely be vetoed. Heineman said Sunday at a gubernatorial debate that he does not support the idea.

    It takes 30 votes to override a veto. The bill advanced on a 30-5 vote.

    Bill introducer, Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln, said she thought the votes in favor of the measure were “pretty solid.”

    The proposal would allow illegal immigrants who graduated from high school in Nebraska and who are pursuing or promise to pursue legal status to pay in-state tuition at the state’s colleges and universities. They would also have to have lived in the state at least three years.

    Under current law, children of illegal immigrants must pay out-of-state tuition.

    The tuition break would be substantial for a student who choses to attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This year, in-state undergraduate tuition is $4,530 compared with $13,440 for out-of-state. The savings equate to about $36,000 over four years.

    The University of Nebraska Board of Regents supports the measure, with those in favor saying making it easier for the children of illegal immigrants to attend college is in the state’s best interest.

    The tuition break provides an incentive to the students to remain in high school, get an education, and eventually contribute to society and the economy of the state, Schimek said. Not educating them costs even more, she said.

    “If these sons and daughters of illegal immigrants are going to stay in Nebraska ... then it is to the advantage of all of our citizens they have the opportunity for an education,” she said.

    Getting more students to attend college would bolster enrollment and increase revenues to colleges and universities, Schimek said.

    How they voted

    Nebraska lawmakers voted 30-5 on Wednesday to give first-round approval to a bill (LB239) that would allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at Nebraska colleges and universities. The measure needed 25 votes to advance. A “yes” vote was to advance the bill.

    * Senators voting yes: 30, including Matt Connealy, Decatur; Ray Janssen, Nickerson; Mike Mines, Blair.
    * Senators voting no: 5.
    * Present, not voting: 11, including Carol Hudkins, Malcolm.
    * Excused: 3, including Chris Langemeier, Schuyler; Dwite Pedersen, Elkhorn.


    Stance on Immigration Defines U.S.

    The immigration reform debate is going full blast in Washington, but the mayor of New York, the nation's quintessential immigrant city, is still undecided about which of the competing bills being discussed in Congress he supports. Or so it seems.

    Mayor Bloomberg has not taken a public position on this issue that directly affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. Yet he said on Monday that he would make his stand clear in the coming weeks. With more than 40% of city residents foreign-born - an estimated 500,000 of them undocumented - Bloomberg's silence on a matter of such urgency is difficult to understand.

    But immigrant workers, their families and advocates, and many New Yorkers who value the contribution of immigrants - documented or not - to our city are not waiting for the mayor. On Saturday, they will make their stand crystal-clear with a march over the Brooklyn Bridge organized with the help of Latino religious and immigrant leaders.

    "We invite everybody to join us in the Great Walk in Solidarity with Immigrants," said state Sen. Rubén Díaz (D-South Bronx), who also is an evangelical pastor and the coordinator of the protest. "There is a great deal of enthusiasm, and we expect thousands of people."

    Marchers will gather at the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday at 11 a.m. They will cross the bridge and proceed toward the Immigration Building at 26 Federal Plaza.

    And judging by the enormous crowds - more than 500,000 people in Los Angeles alone - that have come out in recent weeks in more than a dozen major U.S. cities to protest the infamous, repressive Sensenbrenner/King bill, Saturday's march from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan should mobilize many thousands of concerned and outraged New Yorkers.

    The outrage is because of the tone the debate has taken in Washington. Immigrants feel that their hard work is not respected, their contribution to American society is not appreciated and their moral character is being questioned by a group of politicians who, for electoral or racist reasons, are trying to use national security as an excuse to unfairly persecute and punish them.

    "More has to be done to enlighten our federal representatives about the contributions Hispanics make every day to this country, and how our plight as immigrants is just as important to the present and future greatness of this country as the immigrants who came before us," said Brooklyn Assemblyman Félix Ortiz, who participated in recent rallies in Chicago, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

    The fact is that immigration reform is an issue of fundamental importance for the nation. Like it or not, immigrant workers are vital for a healthy and growing economy, which is why a guest worker program - with a path towards permanent residency and eventual citizenship - makes as much sense for the country itself as for the immigrant workers who would benefit from it.

    No one should doubt that when a new immigration reform law is finally signed by President Bush, its impact on U.S. economy will be enormous. But much more important is what the form it takes - repressive or fair and comprehensive - will reveal about the moral fiber and the character of this nation founded and built by immigrants.

    "We deserve to be heard," Ortiz said, "not only for our benefit, but to ensure that the legacy of this nation's democracy continues to be known for its openness, freedom and responsiveness."

    Originally published on March 30, 2006 www.nydailynews.com


    2 Cities, 2 Approaches to Immigrants

    THEY marched across the Brooklyn Bridge by the thousands on Saturday, carrying signs, pushing baby carriages, waving flags, enjoying the April warmth. A typical demonstration in New York — a week late.

    The first major demonstration in the old melting pot against proposed immigration legislation took place a week after a protest in Los Angeles. And the turnout, though large, was modest compared with the more than half a million who marched in Los Angeles and the tens of thousands who marched in other cities recently.

    New York, which likes to think it is different even when it isn't, sometimes really is. In many ways, Los Angeles and New York City are similar. From 35 percent to 38 percent of each metropolitan region is foreign-born.

    But California, which shares a border with Mexico and has more undocumented immigrants than New York does, harbors a longstanding unease about immigrants. New York considers immigrants central to its vitality.

    Joseph Salvo, director of the City Planning Department's population division, has pointed out that immigrants compensate for population losses. "If we didn't have immigration, I don't know where we'd be," he said last year when he and a colleague issued a report on the city's diversity.

    That's another main contrast: New York's immigrants make up an international stew while Los Angeles's immigrants are largely Mexican — citizens and noncitizens who share a history and a culture and have become a political force.

    No immigrant group dominates in New York. The largest segment of the city's 3.2 million foreign-born is Dominican, with an estimated 369,000 people, followed by Chinese (261,500). There are Jamaicans, Guyanese, Mexicans, Ecuadoreans, Haitians, Trinidadians, Koreans, Filipinos, Irish, Colombians, Russians — to name just some.

    The city's Puerto Ricans — 789,000 in the 2000 census — are citizens, so they would not be affected by the proposed legislation.

    "Here, you can't have a strategy where you get one dominant group to guarantee 500,000 people because we're so diverse," said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. "You almost have to do what they did in the Mexican community in Los Angeles, with 10 different communities."

    What they did in Los Angeles was mobilize, encouraged by Spanish-speaking radio personalities, labor leaders and Roman Catholic clergy. Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles vehemently attacked a House bill that would make it a federal crime to offer aid to illegal immigrants and pledged a campaign of civil disobedience if it became law.

    Cardinal Edward M. Egan of the Archdiocese of New York has not spoken out on the subject, though an archdiocese spokesman, Joseph Zwilling, said yesterday that in a recent news release the cardinal urged Congress to address immigration reform in a "fair and humane" way.

    CARDINAL Mahony's remarks drew national attention, and Los Angeles's Latino radio hosts — who play an influential role not mirrored in New York — drew crowds, using the airwaves to encourage listeners to demonstrate.

    Poor, illegal immigrants don't have an easy time in New York, where many cope with low wages and crowded, substandard housing. Some encounter bias, especially beyond the city, in eastern Long Island.

    But clearly the political climate in New York is more accepting than it is in California. The mayor of Los Angeles and California's governor are generally supportive of immigrants, but statewide ballot initiatives have outlawed affirmative action in public universities and bilingual education in public schools and the public voted to cut off state-financed services to illegal immigrants.

    New York's policies and politics are so immigrant-friendly that if former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani runs for president, he'll have to explain his pro-immigrant record to Republican hard-liners.

    "New York is a lot more friendly to immigrants, while out there they've mobilized to fight battles," said Nancy Rosas, a California native, at the Brooklyn end of New York's demonstration as she passed Irish and Salvadoran construction workers on a break, cheering on the marchers.

    Most of the protesters probably did not realize that, as David B. Caruso of The Associated Press wrote, they marched from a Brooklyn neighborhood settled by the Dutch across a bridge designed by a German immigrant and rallied near Chinatown in an area that once held Irish slums.

    Along the way, as they crossed the bridge built by Irish, Italian and German immigrant workers, they got a great view of the Statue of Liberty.


    Protest Crosses Bridge Over Troubled Issue
    More Than 20,000 Demand Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants in United States

    By Michelle García
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Sunday, April 2, 2006; A09

    NEW YORK, April 1 -- Within sight of the Statue of Liberty, thousands of young families, teenagers and activists walked across the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday demanding an end to second-class citizenship and amnesty for illegal immigrants.

    The demonstration, which drew more than 20,000 participants, was the latest in a series of protests that have sounded across the nation. The peaceful crowd that turned out reflected New York's cultural mosaic. Chinese immigrants chanted in Spanish while indigenous dancers in feathered headdresses burned sage. Korean folk musicians ushered a crowd that included a clan of women who cried: "Like Martin Luther King, we have a dream."

    "My dream is to have equality for people who come to work," said Alejandra Garcia, 47, a Mexican-born green-card holder. "The United States is becoming richer because of the work of immigrants."

    Her son, who is in the United States illegally, attends college and has hopes of becoming a psychiatrist. "But he won't be able to work," Garcia said. She said that without a policy change, he will remain confined to the underground economy.

    Marchers waved flags of birth countries along with the Stars and Stripes. Many in the crowd were U.S. citizens or green-card holders but said their families included undocumented immigrants. Some said they felt duty-bound to march because they were once illegal immigrants.

    Advocacy groups representing Haitian, Chinese and Mexican immigrants, among others, organized the protest under the umbrella of the International Immigrants Foundation in opposition to legislation approved by the House that would make illegal entry a felony and calls for the construction of a fence along a portion of the southern U.S. border.

    Many stroller-pushing parents and teenagers said the march into Manhattan was their first demonstration. Despite heavy promotion in religious and immigrant media, the protest drew a small fraction of the city's 2.8 million foreign-born population and attracted a far smaller turnout than the 500,000-strong march in Los Angeles last week. A much smaller crowd of fewer than 1,000 protested in Costa Mesa, Calif., on Saturday.

    While some of the banners pledged love for the United States, protesters leveled criticism at President Bush with placards and chants in Spanish of "Listen Bush, we have joined the struggle."

    David Kim, 26, a naturalized citizen, leaned against the bridge. Kim, a librarian, was 12 when his family immigrated. He calls the pending legislation xenophobic and racist.

    "I believe the same logic and system by which people are discriminated against based on race and sexuality is working against the poor immigrant," he said.

    Frank Zhang, 52, a sidewalk portraitist in Times Square, skipped the afternoon tourist crowd to join in the march. The Chinese-born immigrant said he cherishes the ideals that laid the foundation of his adopted country.

    "I like democracy, I like freedom," he said, then reflected on the legislation in Congress: "I don't like that this law makes us all criminals."


    Immigration Bill Protests Hit N.Y.

    Winston Graces of Ecuador was one of the thousands protesting an immigration reform bill in New York on April, 2006. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II) (AP)
    "We have to speak, legal or illegal. We have to speak about this issue."


     
    (CBS/AP) NEW YORK, April 1, 2006 A mile-long line of demonstrators marched across the
    Brooklyn Bridge Saturday, waving flags from more than a dozen countries as they demonstrated against possible immigration reform in Congress.

    Heralded by a cacophony of trumpets, whistles and drums, the crowd of mostly Latin Americans gathered in downtown Brooklyn and trudged a path laden with symbols of the city's immigrant strength on their way to a plaza in lower Manhattan.

    The marchers mustered in a neighborhood settled by the Dutch, crossed a bridge designed by a German, and finished in a square at the edge of Chinatown in an area that once held the Irish slums glamorized in the 2002 film "Gangs of New York."

    On the way, they passed a French statue (the Statue of Liberty), hot dog carts run by Middle Easterners, taxis driven by Russians and police officers speaking Chinese.

    More than 10,000 people flooded Foley Square, turning it into a sea of colorful banners and echoing noise. The crowd came dressed in the colors of Mexico, Uruguay and Ecuador, but just as many draped themselves in red, white and blue.

    "If you hurt immigrants you are hurting America," read a sign held by one marcher. "We are your economy," said another.

    Another marcher, a woman from Mexico who spoke no English, carried a sign reading, "I cleaned up ground zero."

    There were demonstrations across the country this week against legislation already approved in the House, which would make it a felony to be in the U.S. without the proper immigration paperwork.

    Competing legislation under consideration in the Senate would take an opposite approach and give the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. a chance at citizenship.

    "We came to say that we're here," said George Criollo, who arrived in New York a decade ago from Cuenca, Ecuador. "We have to speak, legal or illegal. We have to speak about this issue."

    Criollo, who said his family was in the United States illegally, feared that legislation could lead to his deportation or jailing. In the House, legislation already has passed that would set penalties for anyone who knowingly assists or encourages illegal immigrants to remain in the country.

    This is one of dozens of protests, work stoppages and school walkouts taking place across the country this week.

    The protests follow a two-day summit in Cancun, Mexico, where President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper debated the immigration issue.

    Mr. Bush favors a proposal that would legalize an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants who are already in the U.S. through "guest worker" programs.

    With Fox at his side Mr. Bush explained his view of the so-called guest worker program, CBS News White House correspondent Peter Maer reports.

    "We don't want people sneaking into our country that are going to do jobs that Americans won't do. We want them coming in in an orderly way which will take pressure off of both our borders," Mr. Bush said.

    While both Mr. Bush and Fox support temporary guest-worker programs for Mexican migrants in the U.S, but the measure has met strong resistance by some key U.S. lawmakers.

    Mr. Bush has urged U.S. lawmakers to tread cautiously to avoid further inflaming passions on this divisive issue. But Democratic Party chief Howard Dean on Friday accused the president and Republicans of exploiting the immigration issue for political gain by scapegoating Hispanics.

    The debate over immigration reform is causing a major split within the Republican Party.

    On Thursday, House conservatives criticized President Bush, accused the Senate of fouling the air, said prisoners rather than illegal farm workers should pick America's crops and denounced the use of Mexican flags by protesters in a vehement attack on legislation to liberalize U.S. immigration laws.

    "I say let the prisoners pick the fruits," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, one of more than a dozen Republicans who took turns condemning a Senate bill that offers an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants an opportunity for citizenship.

    "Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter A," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, referring to a guest worker provision in the Senate measure.

    Despite the tough immigration debate back home, the president says he's optimistic that Congress will pass a bill on the politically charged issue.

    The House has passed legislation to tighten border security, while the Senate approach also includes provisions to regulate the flow of temporary workers into the country and control the legal fate of millions of illegal immigrants already here. Mr. Bush has broadly endorsed the Senate approach, saying he wants a comprehensive bill.

    Under Mr. Bush's leadership, the Republicans have made dramatic inroads among Hispanic voters, and party strategists fret that the immigration debate could jeopardize their gains.

    Next week critics of the bill are expected to try to strip out the guest worker provision and roll back the measures relating to the 11 million illegal immigrants already here.
     

    New York Mayor presides over a city where almost half the population came to the U.S. as immigrants

    N.Y. Mayor Seeks New Ways to Tighten Immigration

    Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday offered some of his most explicit views so far on the national immigration debate, calling for much tighter border controls, more generous visa policies for foreign scientists and the granting of permanent residency — though not necessarily citizenship — to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in this country.

    The mayor, who has seized on ideas from both the right and the left on immigration matters, spoke favorably for the first time about erecting a "physical wall" along the borders with Mexico and Canada or using technologies like sensors to detect the movements of migrants across borders.

    "I have said from Day 1, get control of the borders," the mayor said in a radio call-in program on WABC. "People say, 'All right, I want control of the borders, but I don't want a wall.' Well, that's O.K. Just tell me what else works. And nobody's come up with an idea."

    Later, speaking about illegal immigrants, he said: "Legalize them, close the border and be serious about closing the border. And people say, 'Oh, you know, the wall — you can always climb over it.' Well, if 3,000 come through one little point on the border every day and you build a wall so only 10 climb the wall, I would argue that if you get it down to a hundred, if you get it down to a thousand, you'd be successful by that standard."

    Just as Mr. Bloomberg's call for legalizing illegal immigrants has placed him at odds with conservative Republicans, so his call for tighter border controls could alienate liberal Democrats, who make up much of the city's electorate.

    Moisés Pérez, executive director of Alianza Dominicana, a nonprofit group that provides social services in Manhattan and the Bronx, applauded Mr. Bloomberg's condemnation of criminalizing illegal immigrants and his recognition of their economic contributions, but said the idea of a wall was absurd. "Why not build a wall around the entire country?" he asked.

    Deborah J. Notkin, a Manhattan lawyer who is president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which supports gradual legalization of illegal immigrants, said that a fence along the border would not work and would cost far more to monitor than the entire current budget for Customs and border enforcement.

    "The drug traffickers can dig tunnels, the smugglers can get boats and we cannot have a Berlin Wall-type structure become our symbol, and substitute itself for the Statue of Liberty," she said.

    On the radio show, Mr. Bloomberg called for raising the number of H-1B visas, which allow skilled professionals sponsored by their employers to work temporarily in the United States.

    "We are killing ourselves, hurting universities and hospitals and research in this country," he said. "We're losing the battle. Our science is going overseas."

    The mayor also ridiculed rules that bar employers from inquiring about immigration status and said it was difficult for many employers to verify applicants' identification documents.

    "Let's say they don't speak a word of English, O.K.?" he asked. "So that's a good tip, maybe, that the guy wasn't born here. Maybe you should check. Unh-unh. Can't check any more for that person than you check for the person who speaks the king's English."

    Meanwhile, he said, forgers "set up tables in the streets. You can buy a green card and a Social Security card, a combination for $50."


    Mayor Attacks 2 Main Ideas on Immigrants

    Wading into the national immigration debate, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said this week that two major proposals under discussion in Washington — criminalization of illegal immigration and a temporary worker program championed by President Bush — were unrealistic, shortsighted and a distraction from more pressing issues, like better border control and verification of job applicants' documents.

    The mayor, a Republican, all but endorsed amnesty for illegal immigrants, a position that is anathema to most Republican leaders in Washington.

    "We're not going to deport 12 million people, so let's stop this fiction," the mayor said in an interview taped on Monday and telecast last evening on CNN. "Let's give them permanent status."

    The mayor expressed a similar view on Monday morning, during a news conference on Staten Island, when he said large-scale deportations were impossible and added: "We've got to figure out what to do, whether we can engage them and get the value of them being here. They're already here. They do a lot of jobs that a lot of other people don't seem to want to take."

    At the news conference, the mayor said, "I'm not going to focus on any one plan, whether it's the president's, or the McCain-Kennedy one, or any of the others."

    He made similar statements last year during his campaign for re-election.

    The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would make it a federal crime to remain in this country illegally — it is now a violation of civil immigration law — while the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill, proposed by Senators Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and John McCain of Arizona, that would eventually allow an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants to work toward citizenship.

    Mr. Bloomberg has recently spoken up on several issues, like gun control, on which he is at odds with most of his fellow Republicans. While he has repeatedly spurned the notion of running for higher office, some of his aides have persisted in urging him to do so.

    In the CNN interview, Mr. Bloomberg said a guest-worker or temporary-worker program would not work.

    "Are you going to leave after six years?" he asked. "Come on. That's just postponing the problems for the next generation, the next Congress."

    The interview with Mr. Bloomberg was taped while he rode the No. 7 subway line, which goes through neighborhoods in Queens, like Jackson Heights, that are among the most heavily populated by immigrants.

    The mayor said of legalizing immigrants: "It may very well be rewarding lawbreaking. But let's get real. I mean, you know, we don't live in a perfect world."

    Mr. Bloomberg, according to the CNN report, spoke in favor of tighter controls at the borders with Mexico and Canada; a technological system for employers to verify identification documents; and generous visa policies for doctors, engineers and other skilled professionals.

    Mr. Bloomberg has long been seen as supporting immigrants' rights. In September 2003, he signed an executive order that generally prohibited city agencies, including the police, from asking people about their immigration status and from sharing such information with federal agencies. He has also expanded translation services in the city's schools and in Medicaid and welfare offices.

    "He's been pretty consistent in his views on undocumented immigrants," said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an alliance of 150 organizations. "He's very practical. He rightly recognizes that because the federal government hasn't done its job, it creates an additional burden for state and local governments as they try to carry out their job."

    Even so, Councilman Kendall B. Stewart, a Brooklyn Democrat who is chairman of the City Council's Committee on Immigration, called for the mayor to support amnesty explicitly.

    "I think he should say that so that at least all of us in New York City know that he's on the immigrants' side," said Mr. Stewart, who immigrated to the United States in 1973 from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. "You can't say that you support the immigrants and not stand up for them and say exactly how you want to support them."


    American Dreams, Foreign Flags

    Pittsburg, Tex. March 30, 2006 New York Times

    HUNDREDS of thousands of flag-waving demonstrators took to the streets in Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix and dozens of other cities in the last week to protest harsh legislation passed by the House that would make felons of the 12 million illegal aliens living in the United States — along with anyone who provides them with shelter, food or other services. It didn't take long for a bipartisan majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee to get the message and take a softer tack.

    On Monday, four Republicans joined all eight committee Democrats to vote down the controversial penalties. Their proposal also calls for admitting more legal immigrants and temporary workers, allowing illegal aliens already in the country to remain here and earn citizenship if they pay a fine, learn English and study American civics.

    The Senate bill has a long way to go before becoming law, however. Despite their victory in this round, supporters of comprehensive immigration reform must be careful in their tactics, including what symbols they embrace. Although American flags were widely visible among the crowd of a half-million in downtown Los Angeles (organizers had asked marchers to bring them), reports indicated that they were outnumbered by those of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and other countries. And if history is any guide, those foreign banners could spur an anti-immigrant reaction.

    That's what happened in 1994, when 70,000 people marched in Los Angeles, many waving Mexican flags, to show their distaste for Proposition 187, a California ballot initiative that denied social services to illegal aliens and their children. Initially favored by more than 70 percent of voters, the measure was losing steam as the election approached, with a poll a week before the election showing it ahead by only 1 point. But that sea of green, white and red Mexican flags flooding the streets just before the election signaled to many Californians that those demanding equal treatment were more attached to their native country than to the United States. The proposition scored a surprisingly strong 59 percent of the vote, although the courts eventually declared it unconstitutional.

    Similar dynamics are playing out today. For all the talk of national security and the economic costs of immigration, the underlying issue driving the current anti-immigrant frenzy is a deep suspicion that this latest group of newcomers won't do what others have before them did: learn English and embrace American identity.

    Unfortunately, many Latino leaders play right into the hands of those who claim they are different from the Germans, Italians, Poles, Jews, Irish and others who came here in another era. With shouts of "Sí, se puede!" (Yes, we can!) — an old United Farm Workers rallying cry — and signs announcing "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us," the demonstrators are likely to turn off more Americans than they win over. And the sight of thousands of angry Hispanic students from California to Virginia pouring out of schools to join protest marches will only reinforce stereotypes that Latinos care little about education.

    Instead of presenting themselves as an aggrieved, foreign presence, immigration advocates ought to be explaining how similar Latinos are to other Americans in their values, aspirations and achievements. It's an easy case to make.

    Mexican-born men, for example, are more likely to be in the labor force than any other racial or ethnic group, according to the Census Bureau. Nearly half of Latino immigrants own their own homes. While most immigrants from Latin America, especially Mexico and Central America, lag in educational attainment, their children are far more likely to stay in school: according to research by the Pew Hispanic Center, 80 percent of second-generation Latinos graduate from high school. Almost half of second-generation Latinos ages 25 to 44 have attended college, and those who graduate earn more on average than non-Hispanic white workers.

    Latino immigrants are also starting their own businesses at a rapid pace. The Census Bureau reported that entrepreneurship among Latinos is increasing at a rate three times faster than that of other Americans. Americans of Hispanic descent now own 1.6 million businesses generating $222 billion annually; and while Census data didn't distinguish between immigrants and American-born Hispanics, it suggested that much of this growth occurred in heavily immigrant communities.

    Like every generation of immigrants before them, Latinos start out on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, but they don't stay there. They are learning English as quickly as their predecessors, perhaps more quickly thanks to television (a majority of third-generation Latinos speak only English). They are intermarrying at faster rates than earlier ethnic groups, too, with about one-third of married American-born Latinos having a non-Hispanic spouse.

    These facts, if they were more widely known, would go a long way to calming fears about Latino immigration. If Latino advocates hope to influence the outcome of the Senate debate on immigration over the next two weeks, they would do well to spread the word — and trade their ancestral flags for the Stars and Stripes.

    Linda Chavez, chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity in Sterling, Va., was the director of the United States Commission on Civil Rights under President Ronald Reagan.


    Immigrants, Yes; Immigration, Maybe
    Poll Finds No Consensus on What to Do About Those Who Are Here Illegally

    By D'Vera Cohn Washington Post Staff Writer March 31, 2006; B02

    People who live in the Washington area have a better opinion of immigrants than most Americans do but share the nation's ambivalence about whether those who are here illegally should be allowed to stay, according to a poll released yesterday.

    The poll found that U.S. residents have growing concerns about the impact of immigration but increasingly positive attitudes about immigrants. Overall, though, it found that immigration issues do not top most people's lists of the nation's biggest problems. In the Washington area, traffic and crime ranked far higher.

    The nonpartisan Pew Research Center and the Pew Hispanic Center commissioned the poll in an effort to influence heated debate over immigration legislation before the Senate. Legislation passed by the House emphasizes increased border security, but proposals in the Senate would create a temporary guest-worker program or a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

    The national poll of 2,000 adults, taken between Feb. 8 and March 7, found that a growing majority of Americans hold positive views of immigrants as individuals, but a growing majority also believe they are more burden than asset to the country. There was no clear agreement on what to do about illegal immigrants: 32 percent want to let them stay permanently; 32 percent would create a temporary-worker program; and 27 percent would deport them all.

    In the Washington area, where a separate survey was taken of 800 residents, most people believe immigrants are more asset than burden, in contrast with the national view. But opinion also is divided here: 37 percent would let illegal immigrants stay; 28 percent would create a temporary-worker option; and 21 percent would require them to leave.

    "People are worried about the cost of immigration, but at the same time they view immigrants with some admiration," said Gabriel Escobar, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center. "That's what sets up the ambivalence."

    The Washington area's more welcoming attitude toward immigrants stems in part from its high incomes, high education levels and good economy, all of which the survey linked to greater likelihood of support for immigrants. Escobar said the region's diverse and spread-out immigration, in contrast with regions where most immigrants are poor and crowded into a few places, also helps build backing for the foreign born.

    The poll found that two-thirds of Americans support creating a database of workers that employers could check to determine whether a job applicant is legal, and three-quarters support requiring all job seekers to have a new kind of government-issued identification card. A smaller share -- but still a majority -- of Washington residents support both ideas, which civil liberties groups strongly oppose.

    The regional poll found that 54 percent of residents favored government-supported day labor centers, such as the one that opened recently in Herndon, and 35 percent opposed them. Reflecting the same attitude found by the poll, a conference of government officials from 10 local Maryland and Virginia jurisdictions expressed its backing for such centers as a tool to manage the crowds of immigrants who gather in public places to seek day work.

    Meeting yesterday at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the officials pledged to ask Congress to reject legislation that punishes illegal immigrants and aim for a measure that helps more of them gain legal status. "We need to be humane, not punitive," said George L. Leventhal (D-At Large), president of the Montgomery County Council.

    Washington area residents agree with the rest of the country that the best way to stem illegal immigration is to punish employers who hire undocumented workers. Half endorsed that view. A third said the Border Patrol should be expanded. Fewer than 10 percent favor building more fences on the border, which is a major provision of the House-passed immigration bill.

    People who live in greater Washington -- a region that stretches from southern Maryland to eastern West Virginia and where one in six residents is an immigrant -- are more likely to say that immigrants accept jobs other U.S. residents won't, that they pay their share of taxes, and that they are not on welfare.

    Ilryong Moon, a Fairfax County School Board member who was born in South Korea, said the survey's findings about the region echo his own experience.

    "They are a part of this vibrant economy, and they also provide opportunities for residents in Fairfax County to enjoy an enriching cultural life," he said. "That is a very valuable experience for our children as they grow in this very global society."

    Staff writer Karin Brulliard contributed to this report.


    New York Times Published March 30, 2006
    To the Editor:

    Re "Bill to Broaden Immigration Law Gains in Senate" (front page, March 28):

    Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
    (Emma Lazarus)

    We are, and always have been, a nation of immigrants. On balance, those who come to this country have contributed far more than they have taken from it, and they bring with them the forces of change that cause us to grow as individuals, communities and a nation.

    While we struggle with the problem of finding a just solution of controlling our borders, it might be helpful to try to put ourselves in the shoes of those who have immigrated to our shores.

    Like us, they must accept the challenges of daily life. Unlike us, they must learn a new language, adapt to new customs and deal with our bias.

    Charles R. Cronin Jr.
    Lawrence, N.Y., March 28, 2006

    To the Editor:

    It is worth noting that Americans seldom look back with pride on the moments in history when we have restricted the flow of immigrants to this country or intruded upon the rights of any individual, full citizen or not.

    Our most notable and admirable historical moments have come when we expand our tent, include others and accept the contributions of a wider range of people, including those new to our country.

    America is at its best when it finds ways to tap fully into its human resources. Remembering this in uncertain times can be difficult, but it is necessary if we are to avoid mistakes we have made in the past.

    Putnam Goodwin-Boyd
    Florence, Mass., March 28, 2006

    To the Editor:

    My grandparents migrated here from Lithuania at the turn of the last century, fleeing persecution.

    They came here legally. They passed health tests. My grandfather immediately and totally embraced his country. Everyone had to speak English and learned it. My grandfather was always walking around saying, "God bless America — where else can you hold two jobs?"

    Today, there are still immigrants like my grandfather who come here legally and who totally accept the United States, but there are millions with questionable backgrounds who are here to exploit. They are also closing off jobs that Americans need; the construction industry is a prime example.

    I am typical of the way many Americans feel about illegal immigrants. God bless the legal immigrants; deport the illegals.

    Barbara Gordon
    New York, March 28, 2006

    To the Editor:

    Underlying the push for legalizing undocumented workers in one way or another has always been the claim that "Americans won't do those jobs."

    If you can convince me, I might support a guest worker or temporary green card solution, or even the proposal to allow some people to earn entry onto the path to citizenship.

    But to do that, two things must be done:

    First, create a meaningful minimum wage that will apply across the board, from strawberry pickers to kitchen help (and I will gladly pay more, then, for berries and meals); and enforce existing laws against hiring undocumented workers, and let's just see what happens to our economy then!

    Nathalie Guyol
    Waxahachie, Tex., March 27, 2006

    To the Editor:

    Re "It Isn't Amnesty" (editorial, March 29):

    I don't understand how this new immigration bill will do anything but increase illegal immigration.

    It is now against the law for employers to hire illegal immigrants, but they do. It is illegal for anyone to use false documents, but they do.

    Illegal immigrants did not follow the laws when they came here. Why should we expect them to follow the laws now? Who will check that they buy health and car insurance, pay taxes and learn English?

    As long as employers don't go to jail for hiring illegal immigrants and these immigrants are given free education and health care, nothing will change.

    Isn't this new legislation just another effort to legitimize illegal behavior?

    Carol Wheeler
    Katy, Tex., March 29, 2006

    To the Editor:

    You boldly state that the Senate bill "isn't amnesty."

    Let's see: millions of people break the laws of the United States and are allowed to stay in the country and become citizens provided that they pay a paltry $2,000 fine and learn rudimentary English.

    Notably, there is no penalty or mention of what happens to those who choose not to take the pathway to citizenship: they simply stay in the country indefinitely.

    Why not secure the border first and leave the treatment of illegal immigrants until the time that the security problem has been solved? It is as if Congress is in a sinking boat and arguing about where to sail next rather than repairing the leak.

    Bradley W. Johnson
    Hinsdale, Ill., March 29, 2006

    To the Editor:

    Whatever subtle word games The Times and the Senate choose to play, if the Senate's disastrous immigration bill becomes law, impoverished villages across the world will buzz with one word: amnesty!

    Hundreds of millions of people will relearn the lesson of the 1986 amnesty, which is that if you come to America illegally and keep out of sight, sooner or later they will make you legal.

    In 1986, there were three million. This time, there are about 12 million. How many next time?

    John Brock
    Staten Island, March 29, 2006

    To the Editor:

    Paul Krugman ("North of the Border," column, March 27) tells an important part of the story of undocumented workers. But essential things are left unsaid when President Bush grandly says they take "jobs that Americans won't do."

    They will not only work for wages that most Americans understand not to be living wages, but they are also willing to live 12 or 15 to an apartment, sharing dangerous spaces with poor or no heat and dreadful or nonexistent sanitary facilities.

    Where I live, they pay top dollar for apartments, to landlords who take advantage of the "need" of middle-class people for cheap labor to clean their homes, mow their lawns and take care of their children.

    These men and women are willing to live thousands of miles away from parents, children, siblings and a culture and language they understand to provide for their families.

    A few years ago, my husband and I volunteered in a local church program teaching English to mostly undocumented workers. Our students were wonderful people, and we were proud of their progress. These are the people we would fine, prosecute and send home?

    My grandparents, immigrants from a different time, are surely spinning in their graves over the treatment of this new wave of the tired and poor yearning to breathe free.

    Marylyn Rosenblum
    Katonah, N.Y., March 28, 2006

    To the Editor:

    Paul Krugman wrote about the problems associated with immigration. It seems to me that an obvious way to reduce the number of people who are willing to risk their lives to come to this country to get work is to raise the standard of living in Mexico.

    So why not a Marshall Plan for Mexico?

    Marita Poulson
    American Falls, Idaho
    March 28, 2006

    To the Editor:

    Re "North of the Border," by Paul Krugman:

    What the facts of immigration ignore are the facts that cannot be measured.

    Immigrants, legal and illegal, represent the self-selected few who have the unmeasurable courage, skills and talent to overcome what for most of us would be insurmountable obstacles, obstacles in getting here, staying here and eventually becoming successful.

    As our history testifies, the benefits of this inflow, despite recurring social resistance to each new wave, are not immediately apparent but take one or more generations to appear. And we, the current and future native-born, end up all the better for it.

    Stuart Cooke
    New York, March 29, 2006