TV, Radio Give Legal Advice to Immigrants

Sigala, who had gone to San Juan for an AIDS conference, knew of Arevalo from listening to the lawyer's Spanish-language radio show in Los Angeles that focuses on immigration law.

"I didn't have much faith in lawyers," said Sigala, 37, a Mexican immigrant who was working for an HIV-prevention organization at the time. "But after listening to his show, I thought I should try."

With Arevalo's help, Sigala was granted political asylum -- arguing that he faced persecution in his home state of Jalisco because he was openly gay. Now he hopes to become a permanent U.S. resident.

For many Mexican and Central American immigrants living in California, Spanish-language radio and television are their primary sources of information on immigration law.

They often cannot afford legal counsel, so they rely on the attorneys who appear on morning talk shows and evening newscasts to answer questions and alleviate their fears. Can la migra pick me up as I walk my children to school? Can I apply for a green card if I am a farmworker? Can I get a driver's license even though I don't have my papers?

These days, topics include President Bush's proposal for a guest-worker program, a police officer's inquiries about a person's residency status, and citizen border patrols planned in California.

"The area of immigration law is constantly changing," Arevalo said. "It's one area of the law that lends itself to the political shenanigans of Washington."

As the national debate over illegal immigration heats up and reform advocates become increasingly active, such information sources are even more crucial for California's large immigrant community, said David Ayon, a senior research associate at Loyola Marymount University's Center for the Study of Los Angeles.

"The anxiety level is definitely rising," Ayon said. "So the need for or the appeal of this sort of programming is rising along with that."

In fact, such legal affairs programming has become one way that Spanish-language stations are competing for audiences, Ayon said. The stations legitimize themselves by providing something useful to their viewers.

"They offer information," he said. "It's not unlike the way mainstream news competes offering weather and traffic."