California Immigration

In a move that turns Department of Motor Vehicles clerks into quasi-immigration agents, California will soon require first-time applicants for a driver's license to prove they are legal U.S. residents. But there is one bureaucratic problem: No electronic system exists to verify the accuracy of an applicant's claim of legal status because the DMV, for now, is not plugged into federal Immigration and Naturalization Service databanks.

Gov. Pete Wilson's proposals to quell the rising cost of illegal immigration drew plaudits Monday from some Orange County leaders who have long complained about the problem, but immigrants' rights groups characterized the plan as a brazen attack on minorities. "I applaud him for trying, but it's really an uphill fight," said Tom Dalton, a former Orange County grand juror who has studied the immigration issue.

For four years, Hau Nguyen was imprisoned in Vietnamese re-education camps. On a diet of only three ears of corn a day, the former South Vietnamese army captain was forced to hike 10 miles into the jungle, chop trees into 14-foot sections and drag them back to be sold by the Communists for firewood.

It doesn't matter that Margarita is an illegal immigrant, speaks no English and has neither a driver's license nor a car. In Los Angeles, she has no problem finding work, even with the bad economy. She is one of the army of undocumented domestics in California, doing such essential tasks as caring for children, cooking and cleaning. Willing to work more than 50 hours a week for about $130, she has found parents eager to hire her, regardless of her status.

Gov. Gray Davis wants a court to give him another month to take a position on Proposition 187, the immigration initiative ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge. A state lawyer asked the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday to extend its suspension of proceedings in the case by 30 days while Davis completes his review of the issue, the touchiest legal question to arise in his 3-month-old administration.

Bolstered resources, administrative efficiencies and diminishing demand have allowed the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Los Angeles to chip away at the nation's largest backlog of citizenship applicants, top INS officials said yesterday. "We are on the road to improvement," said INS Commissioner Doris Meissner during a visit to the agency headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.

Trends of Latino immigration will be the topic for a conference this weekend at UC Irvine. Titled "The New Californios: Images, Integration and Policy Toward Latinos," the conference will focus on demographic changes in California as well as current U.S.-Mexico relations. Frank Del Olmo, assistant to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, will be the event's keynote speaker. The conference, which begins at 1:30 p.m.

Gov. Pete Wilson's attempt Tuesday to embarrass the White House about illegal immigration turned into a four-hour trek across the Southern California desert in search of a confrontation with U.S. border officers for the television cameras. State officials had hoped to surprise federal authorities in the small San Diego County town of Alpine on Tuesday morning, showing up at 10:30 a.m.

Gov. Pete Wilson today will propose giving public schools enough money to keep pace with expanding enrollments next year while encouraging another round of fee increases for students in community colleges and the state's two university systems, Administration sources say. Wilson also intends to up the ante in his ongoing battle with the federal government over the cost of providing services to illegal immigrants in California, those sources said.

THE OFFICE Duties of the state's No. 2 office include the largely ceremonial and seldom-performed task of presiding over the state Senate; assuming duties of governor in event of the chief executive's impeachment, death, resignation, removal from office or absence from the state; chairing the Economic Development Commission, and sitting on about six boards and commissions, including the University of California Board of Regents, the State Board of Equalization and the State Lands Commission.