Immigrants Orange County

A federal judge who justified a maximum sentence in a bank fraud case by noting that the defendant was a naturalized U.S. citizen was ordered to reconsider the sentence Wednesday by a federal appeals court in San Francisco.

When President Bush arrives in Irvine on Monday morning to pitch his immigration reform plan, one of his party's best-known local standard-bearers will be maintaining a respectful -- and politically careful -- distance. Dana Rohrabacher, the nine-term Republican congressman from Huntington Beach, generally supports the president, but disagrees with his immigration policies. So Rohrabacher plans to sit out Bush's speech to the Orange County Business Council.

Venturing into a potential hornet's nest, Orange County officials are planning a study aimed at measuring the cost of providing health and social services to both illegal and legal immigrants. The study was requested by the city of Orange Chamber of Commerce and members of the Orange County Grand Jury. It grew out of a similar review in San Diego County, where a state study concluded in August that illegal immigrants took a huge toll on public resources.

When President Vicente Fox meets a group of U.S. residents in Mexico this week, Orange County restaurateur Carlos Olamendi will be among them, lobbying for immigrants' rights. The Republican from Laguna Niguel wants immigrants like himself to have the right to vote in Mexican elections and to be able to cross the border freely. But he opposes government assistance, such as welfare or housing subsidies, to immigrants and others. Instead of invoking the name of former Gov.

Pedro Zamora was on the line, calling from a pay phone at Costa Mesa's Placentia Avenue. He had lost his mica , he said--his identification card from the Immigration and Naturalization Service authorizing him to live and work in this country legally. And he needed to go down to the nearest INS office to get a new one. Could I take him? Pedro had been one of three people we had profiled in March in a story entitled "Life After Amnesty."

Two distraught couples stood waiting for him one early morning last fall outside his cubbyhole in Santa Ana City Hall. "Are you Jose Vargas? Are you the man whose picture is in the newspaper? We have something to tell you about this place that took our money," the new immigrants said. They explained in Spanish how an employment agency had charged them and dozens of others $40 but provided no jobs. Officer Vargas dispensed with the police report.

As dawn broke near the intersection of 17th Street and Placentia Avenue, two dozen men had already lined up at the Costa Mesa Jobs Center. Dozens of others could be seen headed for the center on bicycles, in cars, and on foot from large, nearby apartment complexes. "Some of the men get here way before we open the doors at 6," said Gerardo Jimenez, the city's program manager at the center, who when he arrived greeted the would-be workers with a warm, "Buenos dias, caballeros."

Seated amid four elderly Asian immigrants, Carol Albright, 65, tapped on a drawing and slowly enunciated the word dentist. "Dentist. . . . What does a dentist do?" she asked, coaxing answers from each of her students in turn. Hearing them pronounce their answers properly, she smiled, nodded and pointed to a new picture. Although she never taught as a profession, Albright already has made a name for herself among students as an excellent tutor.

For about a year now, the Primer family has been riveted to the television. Death counts from their disintegrating homeland of Bosnia drone on inside their Mission Viejo apartment. They flip on the electronic images of destruction upon awakening each morning and shut off the talking heads just before going to bed. Even their 2-year-old daughter Andrea's bright blue eyes recognize the ever-present CNN Headline News on the screen.

When Taiwanese immigrant Ke-Chhi Tsai moved to the United States 24 years ago, the one thing she nearly had to leave behind was her faith. A devoted Christian for 60 years, Tsai could not find a congregation where members spoke her native dialect--until about six years ago, when she was spotted at a supermarket by members of the Taiwanese Mennonite Church of Buena Park.

Kathleen Lui's elementary school students were tightly wrung coils of anxiety on their first day of school. Most kids are. But these newcomers to University Park Elementary in Irvine, young students just learning English, had special reason. New country, new school, new classmates, new teacher, new language. There is only so much pressure a child can take.

They're uncles, grandmothers, fathers and family friends. They speak Spanish, Vietnamese, Persian and Chinese. But the thousands of Orange County adults attending Community Based English Tutoring programs share one goal: to help the children in their communities learn English. In fact, the program offering free classes to adults by school districts countywide demands it.

Downtown Santa Ana is known for its historic buildings and vibrant Latino shopping districts. The commercial center also has the distinction of being Orange County's check-cashing capital, something city officials are determined to change. About three dozen check-cashing businesses operate within a 1.6-mile radius of 4th and Main streets, according to an online directory.

Addressing a situation that has festered for years, Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona announced Tuesday a first-of-its-kind review of the way his department treats day laborers and promised guidelines on when deputies should report suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities.

Orange County's law enforcement officials are forming an unprecedented alliance to tackle an age-old problem--the lack of trust between immigrants and police. Through a federally funded outreach project spearheaded by Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas, prosecutors, police and parole officers will unite for the first time to aggressively campaign for improved relationships with the county's two largest immigrant communities, Vietnamese and Mexican.

Despite the growing availability of low-cost medical care for many children, some immigrants continue to seek care from unlicensed practitioners because of economic and cultural barriers, which played a role in the death of an Orange County toddler this week, officials said.

In his attempt to file for permanent U.S. residency under an amnesty law, Jordanian national Nedal Hamad said he had to wait all day to ask a question at one immigration office and stood in line for three hours to obtain a form at another. Hamad, 22, then discovered the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service office on Brookhurst Avenue near his home in Garden Grove. There was no line.

Kiem Do stares at the photographs of his family, his home and his church half a world away, momentarily oblivious to screaming children and shouting adults in the interview room of the Orange County Jail. He looks at the simple cottage where he spent the first 19 years of his life, gazes at the pain-filled faces of his mother and brother-in-law. He buries his face in one hand and cries silently. "I miss my country so much," he says.

A federal judge who justified a maximum sentence in a bank fraud case by noting that the defendant was a naturalized U.S. citizen was ordered to reconsider the sentence Wednesday by a federal appeals court in San Francisco.

Hunger among immigrant families in two of California's largest counties has increased at an alarming rate since September 1997, when a federal welfare reform act mandated that noncitizens be cut from government food stamps, a study conducted by a nonprofit group for Los Angeles and San Francisco counties has found.