Citizenship

Emperor Elementary School is different from most others. Teachers at the Temple City campus rarely raise their voices in frustration. Children queue up silently after recess, with hardly a word from their instructors. Administrators settle squabbles between children by admonishing them to remember the school's code of conduct: Treat everyone with respect. On the playground, many older students volunteer to play with the youngest ones.

As protesters cited mounting delays for citizenship applicants, the chief INS official in Los Angeles renewed the agency's pledge Tuesday to slice bulging backlogs and cut waiting periods to six months by this summer. However, Richard K. Rogers, district director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, acknowledged that it might take until September to reach the six-month goal.

A Republican state lawmaker associated with militias and other fringe organizations stirred new controversy Friday with the disclosure that four years ago he refused to pay federal income taxes because of what he called his "white man's citizenship." State Sen. Don Rogers of Tehachapi made the assertion during a fight with the Internal Revenue Service over back taxes.

After working intensely for months to register and motivate Latino voters in the Nov. 5 election, members of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional rested for two days. Then they started knocking on doors again. Now, every weekday at noon, a dozen or more workers from the Latino civil rights group leave their headquarters in downtown Santa Ana in search of likely new voters, primarily immigrants from Mexico whose first step is to become citizens.

Overwhelmed by the complexity of creating a new legal category for millions of Mexican nationals scattered across the globe, senior officials here said Wednesday that they will need at least a year before their nation can offer dual nationality, as described under constitutional changes approved by Mexico's Congress this week.

Noncitizens registered to vote this fall with the aid of a Latino civil rights organization and later cast ballots in a central Orange County district that included the hotly contested Nov. 5 race between U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan and Democrat Loretta Sanchez. Nineteen people interviewed by The Times acknowledged that they voted though they had not completed the naturalization process, which is finalized with an official swearing-in ceremony.

Noncitizens registered to vote this fall with the aid of a Latino civil rights organization and later cast ballots in a central Orange County district that included the hotly contested Nov. 5 race between Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and Democrat Loretta Sanchez. Nineteen people interviewed by The Times acknowledged that they voted though they had not completed the naturalization process, which is finalized with an official swearing-in ceremony.

In the heart of Orange County's largest immigrant community, the Latino advocacy group Hermandad Mexicana Nacional has created a potential political powerhouse by helping tens of thousands of new residents become citizens and register to vote as well as offering them food, clothing, jobs and legal advice. The only large-scale organization of its kind in the county, Hermandad has been praised for serving a group of people--mostly poor, Spanish-speaking immigrants--who have nowhere else to go.

In the heart of Orange County's largest immigrant community, the Latino advocacy group Hermandad Mexicana Nacional has created a potential political powerhouse by helping tens of thousands of new residents become citizens and register to vote as well as offering them food, clothing, jobs and legal advice. The only large-scale organization of its kind in the county, Hermandad has been praised for serving a group of people--mostly poor, Spanish-speaking immigrants--who have nowhere else to go.

The Orange County district attorney's office has enlisted the aid of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to investigate allegations of voting by noncitizens first raised by Rep. Robert K. Dornan after he lost the Nov. 5 election, officials said Friday. INS spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the federal agency is cooperating fully with the investigation but declined to offer specifics.