Immigrants Politics

A voter registration drive with few parallels in U.S. history is being paid for and organized not by a political party but by the government--a consequence of a massive yearlong naturalization campaign expected to create 1.2 million new citizens in time for the November election. At naturalization ceremonies from Los Angeles to New York, unprecedented numbers of new citizens are signing up to vote moments before taking the oath of loyalty to the United States. With the U.S.

Since news broke over the weekend that a bipartisan group of senators was working on a plan to legalize the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and offer them a path to citizenship (but not without first paying financial penalties), and President Obama unveiled a similar proposal Tuesday promising some relief to immigrants while boosting border security and efforts to combat illegal hiring, readers have sent us more than two dozen letters on the topic. As is often the case with immigration reform, many of the letters take uncompromising yes-or-no positions on the concept itself, largely reflecting the debate in Washington up until this past weekend.

From a Maywood storefront on a strip of Slauson Boulevard punctuated with Spanish-language signs for fast-food joints and coin laundries, a group is plotting the next Mexican revolution. Activists there are part of a movement to gain voting rights for millions of Mexicans living in the United States--enough voters to influence Mexico's watershed elections next year. "We can elect the next president of Mexico," said Armando Moreno, a Compton boot salesman and part-time volunteer.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S firing of eight U.S. attorneys returns to center stage today with Senate testimony by D. Kyle Sampson, the former aide to Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales. Whatever one thinks of the administration's conduct in this affair, one of its self-justifying arguments is bizarre for reasons that have nothing to do with possible obstruction of justice. Is it possible that Carol C. Lam was a casualty of the nation's broken immigration policy? The dismissal of Lam, the U.S.

In his immigration Q&A with The Times (April 15), L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa states that public opinion on his stance on illegal immigration is about 500 to 1 against, but that he thinks he was "elected to do what's right, not necessarily what's popular." Does he not realize that he was elected to represent his constituents, not his personal ideology? Perhaps Villaraigosa should remember what happened to former Gov. Gray Davis, another California politician with national political aspirations.

With polls showing him neck and neck with Francisco Labastida, presidential candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, Vicente Fox recently brought his campaign to Mexican communities in the United States. But his rollicking plunge into binational politics was not only reckless but also potentially damaging to future U.S.-Mexico relations.

Since news broke over the weekend that a bipartisan group of senators was working on a plan to legalize the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and offer them a path to citizenship (but not without first paying financial penalties), and President Obama unveiled a similar proposal Tuesday promising some relief to immigrants while boosting border security and efforts to combat illegal hiring, readers have sent us more than two dozen letters on the topic. As is often the case with immigration reform, many of the letters take uncompromising yes-or-no positions on the concept itself, largely reflecting the debate in Washington up until this past weekend.

WASHINGTON - Nearly three in four Americans say that illegal immigrants should be allowed to remain in the country legally, but fewer than half say they should be allowed to apply for citizenship. Those are the key findings of a new national poll, released Thursday, that reflects a positive shift in attitudes toward immigrants now in the United States. The survey, conducted March 13-17 by the Pew Research Center, comes as lawmakers in Washington are attempting to craft a comprehensive plan to deal with some 11 million people who are thought to be in the country illegally.

In his immigration Q&A with The Times (April 15), L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa states that public opinion on his stance on illegal immigration is about 500 to 1 against, but that he thinks he was "elected to do what's right, not necessarily what's popular." Does he not realize that he was elected to represent his constituents, not his personal ideology? Perhaps Villaraigosa should remember what happened to former Gov. Gray Davis, another California politician with national political aspirations.

With polls showing him neck and neck with Francisco Labastida, presidential candidate of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, Vicente Fox recently brought his campaign to Mexican communities in the United States. But his rollicking plunge into binational politics was not only reckless but also potentially damaging to future U.S.-Mexico relations.

From a Maywood storefront on a strip of Slauson Boulevard punctuated with Spanish-language signs for fast-food joints and coin laundries, a group is plotting the next Mexican revolution. Activists there are part of a movement to gain voting rights for millions of Mexicans living in the United States--enough voters to influence Mexico's watershed elections next year. "We can elect the next president of Mexico," said Armando Moreno, a Compton boot salesman and part-time volunteer.

A year after the Republican-controlled Congress passed the harshest immigration controls in a generation, the same legislative leaders have beaten a hasty retreat, in both policy and political gestures. The lawmakers recently restored welfare benefits to legal immigrants, eased the threat of deportation for various refugees and paved the way for large numbers of illegal immigrants to gain permanent residency.

A voter registration drive with few parallels in U.S. history is being paid for and organized not by a political party but by the government--a consequence of a massive yearlong naturalization campaign expected to create 1.2 million new citizens in time for the November election. At naturalization ceremonies from Los Angeles to New York, unprecedented numbers of new citizens are signing up to vote moments before taking the oath of loyalty to the United States. With the U.S.

Mexico's ambassador to the United States said Wednesday that American presidential candidates are indulging in demagoguery to capitalize on voter fears of an unstoppable wave of Mexican illegal immigrants. In a breakfast meeting with The Times' Washington Bureau, Ambassador Jesus Silva Herzog decried California Gov. Pete Wilson's aborted presidential campaign for manipulating the immigration issue for political gain.

Orange County Congressman Ed Royce emphatically proclaimed on Wednesday that he did nothing wrong. The Fullerton Republican did not hire an illegal immigrant during the 1980s. He employed her husband, a U.S. citizen, and he did not know at first that the man's wife was here illegally. But Royce had inadvertently become the latest politician, the others including Gov. Pete Wilson, who have attacked illegal immigration and then been found to have a past relationship with it.