Illegal Immigrants

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - It was a short speech, but when Benita Veliz stepped up to the lectern at the Democratic National Convention, she made history. The 27-year-old from San Antonio became the first illegal immigrant to address a national political convention. “Like so many Americans of all races and backgrounds, I was brought here as a child,” she told the crowd Wednesday night. “I've been here ever since.” Veliz, an advocate for the Dream Act - legislation that would pave the way for illegal immigrants to legal residency and citizenship if they go to college or perform military service - talked of being a high-achieving student who graduated early from Jefferson High School, becoming a National Merit Scholar, before graduating from St. Mary's University.

They laughed when Mitt Romney suggested that the solution to illegal immigration was "self-deportation. " Morally obtuse as the Romney approach might be, it may be working. According to an analysis of U.S. and Mexican census data conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center, roughly 6.1 million unauthorized Mexican immigrants were living in the United States last year, down from a peak of nearly 7 million in 2007.  According to the Associated Press, "It was the biggest sustained drop in modern history, believed to be surpassed in scale only by losses in the Mexican-born U.S. population during the Great Depression.

Only 19% of California voters in a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll said those in the country illegally should be required to leave the United States. About two-thirds of survey respondents said illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay with eventual citizenship rights. An additional 10% said they should be permitted to remain in this country to work but should not be allowed to apply for citizenship. At a time when the push for immigration reform has gained momentum in Washington, more than two-thirds of California voters say the current immigration system isn't working and nearly three-quarters favor President Obama 's plan to change it, the poll found.

Re "Border issues still divide the public," Jan. 30 It irks me that immigrants lured to the United States by the availability of jobs, and who may be put on a path to citizenship, are the only ones asked to pay penalties. Businesses big and small welcomed them as cheap labor. Was that not breaking the law just as much as crossing borders illegally? The last time immigration reform was in focus nationally, some of us suggested that simply enforcing laws or enacting new ones that penalized the businesses that employed illegal immigrants would be enough.

Based on my e-mail, a lot of folks think the solution to California's state budget deficit is to round up all the illegal immigrants and truck them down to Mexico. Wrong. Even if it were logistically possible and the deportees didn't just climb off the truck and hitch another ride back up north, their absence from the state wouldn't come close to saving enough tax dollars to balance a budget that has a $42-billion hole projected over the next 17 months.

In five years of social outreach at Our Lady Queen of Angels church in Los Angeles, Guillermo Armenta has always seen more parishioners stream into this historic haven for illegal immigrants than leave. Until now. In the last few months, he said, nearly a dozen parishioners have told them they plan to return to their homelands because jobs in construction, restaurants and the janitorial trade have dried up here.

Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, has introduced legislation that, if passed, would instruct the U.S. Census Bureau not to take into account illegal immigrants and other noncitizens in the 2010 census. I'm all for it. Furthermore, I propose that the government no longer recognize deficits in budgets, record violent crimes in police reports, acknowledge casualties of war or count -- let alone give proper names! -- to hurricanes in weather reports. Vitter's last-minute proposal -- census questionnaires, which are scheduled to be sent out in the spring, have already been printed -- is the latest in the political right's increasingly absurdist "fight" against illegal immigration.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney probably would have been happy to get through the second presidential debate without hearing the phrase "self-deport," a term that Romney used in his primary campaign to plant his flag as the most conservative GOP candidate on immigration. But when a newly aggressive President Obama brought it up, Romney offered a spirited defense -- albeit one that probably didn't help him win over many Latino voters. The exchange took place after Romney had been asked by an audience member what he would do "with immigrants without their green cards that are currently living here as productive members of society.

CHICAGO - Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel say they will push the state Legislature again to try to pass a measure creating a special driver's license for illegal immigrants. This time, the Democrats who control state government say they hope to get the help of Republicans who were stung by a lack of Latino support in the national election earlier this month. Quinn and Emanuel, along with Senate President John Cullerton, a fellow Democrat, expressed their support for such licenses Tuesday.