Border Security

WASHINGTON - Senators kept the bipartisan immigration bill largely unchanged Thursday after dispatching dozens of proposed amendments even as they punted many of the thorniest issues to next week. The day's session at the Senate Judiciary Committee revolved largely around the elusive issue of enforcement: how to prevent immigrants from remaining in this country after having entered illegally or overstaying their visas. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the eight authors of the sweeping bill, argued that a strict employment verification system would be among the best tools for clamping down on illegal immigration.

WASHINGTON - President Obama will seek to cement relations with Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, over the next two days with vows of neighborly kinship and future cooperation. But the true test of their ability to work together may be whether they can hold their tongues. Obama's visit to Mexico City comes as the fight over border security and immigration reform has begun to consume Congress. Peña Nieto supports the effort but wants to avoid the mistakes of a predecessor, Vicente Fox, who lobbied for a 2001 immigration reform bill in Congress.

WASHINGTON - Senators writing a landmark immigration bill broke a logjam between farmworker unions and growers Thursday, reaching a tentative agreement on the number of future agricultural visas and pay scales for foreign farmworkers. Labor unions and agricultural industry leaders had been stuck for three weeks on how to legally bring foreign labor into the United States to pick crops and tend livestock at competitive wages. The issue, which is important to California and other farming states, became a major stumbling block in bipartisan efforts to craft a comprehensive immigration bill.

U.S. immigration officials began deporting many Mexican illegal immigrants to their nation's capital this month as part of a humanitarian effort to avoid deporting them to border areas such as Tamaulipas, which are besieged by violence. The two-month pilot program seems to be a smart and responsible improvement over the current deportation policy, one that could save lives and bolster border security. If it proves effective, it should be quickly extended. Under the temporary initiative, the United States will pay about $1.1 million to fly deportees from El Paso, Texas, to Mexico City.

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill to overhaul immigration laws and provide a path to legal status for an estimated 11 million people who overstayed their visas or illegally entered the United States, Senate aides said. The far-reaching legislative package would tighten border security, increase visas for foreign workers and toughen penalties against American employers who hire undocumented workers. Immigrants without legal status who have not committed a serious crime and meet other criteria would be able to obtain work permits and eventually apply to become permanent residents and U.S. citizens.

Congressional Republicans are drafting legislation that would require the federal government to develop a plan to add more fencing, sensors, agents and even drones to stop every illegal entry into the United States. The legislative effort offers another example of how a more conservative Congress has steered the immigration debate away from the Obama administration's two-pronged push for reforms and improved border security, and toward strict enforcement of immigration laws. In December, a lame-duck House controlled by Democrats passed the Dream Act, a reform that would have created a path to citizenship for some young illegal immigrants in the U.S., but it was narrowly defeated in the Senate.

Re "Slap a fee on carry-out bags," Editorial, April 30 In your editorial about plastic bags, you omitted discussing another way in which those bags are utilized. Those of us who are responsible dog owners use plastic bags to dispose of our pets' droppings, in accordance with local law. I, for one, find plastic grocery bags to be of convenient assistance in being a responsible citizen. Robert G. Brewer Sherman Oaks ALSO: Letters: A 'cranky' Gov. Brown Letters: Getting into and out of Israel Letters: Mexico's hypocrisy on border security

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) blitzed the airwaves Sunday to defend the immigration bill being written by four Republican and four Democratic senators. Speaking on seven news shows -- including two Spanish-language broadcasts -- Rubio said the draft legislation lays out a way for those in the country unlawfully to apply for legal status, includes stiff penalties for breaking the law and will make the country's border more secure than ever before. “I just hope that I can convince people that leaving things the way they are now is much worse than approaching it the way we've outlined,” Rubio said on ABC News' “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.” RELATED: Is the border secure?

The fate of 11 million people could hinge on the interpretation of border security. An immigration reform blueprint by a bipartisan group of senators includes a path to U.S. citizenship for those who are in the country illegally. But the blueprint, released Monday, specifies that the federal government must first certify that the U.S.- Mexico  border is secure. Immigrant rights groups fear that millions of people will be in limbo until the security threshold appeases those dissatisfied with the border's status.

Re "Radar shows U.S. border security gaps," April 4 The Times' article describes how an airborne radar system showed that in a small, 150-square-mile area of the U.S.-Mexico border, there were nearly 2,000 successful illegal crossings over a three-month period last year. This comes as a surprise, since we've been told that our border is finally secure. Rep Michael McCaul's (R-Texas) comment, that "you can't measure what you can't see," is a dead-on description of our border security.