Immigration Debate

In Frank del Olmo's analysis of the disparity between Latino and other immigrant groups in education and later success and failure (Commentary, July 8), he neglects to mention the single largest difference between Latinos and other groups: bilingual education. Bilingual education began in the '60s and '70s as a good-hearted effort to engineer a better result for the Latino community, but resulted in an erosion of education in English language skills. Other immigrant groups, notably Asians, were placed in schools and forced to mainstream in English-only curricula.

Maybe it's the subject matter, but the immigration debate is bringing out the Texan in President Bush. In his approach to immigration, Bush is reprising two distinct elements of his strategy as Texas governor. One of those strategies has improved Bush's odds of signing comprehensive immigration reform. The second has diminished his chances of success.

Re "Immigrants have families too," Opinion, May 19 Bill Ong Hing's points are well taken, but he seems to have forgotten that immigration to a foreign country is entirely voluntary. Your siblings and adult children are that important to you? Stay with them, don't come here. He states that these family members who do come to the U.S. immediately go to work in jobs in which there will be shortages soon. If that is the case, they should apply for their own visas. Oh yeah, and those small businesses these kinship immigrants open?

The May immigration raid at Agriprocessors Inc.'s Iowa plant, which resulted in the arrest of 389 illegal immigrants, continues to have abundant negative fallout for the company and its workers. Yet, although the raid garnered national headlines, of more significance to workers everywhere is the ongoing struggle of Agriprocessors' New York employees to organize and the company's effort to thwart them. Three years ago, employees at the meat processing company's Brooklyn distribution center voted to unionize, but Agriprocessors would not honor the vote.

The lone Republican senator inclined to support the Obama administration's bid to pass a major immigration overhaul said Friday that if a healthcare bill passes this weekend, the immigration effort is dead for the year. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is considered a crucial player in the immigration debate -- a Republican prepared to cross party lines and vote for a bill that would provide a path to legal status for the 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally. Graham has spent months working with Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.

Ten weeks after President Bush unveiled his historic immigration reform package, the word is out on the street that it is already dead. But in fact, the battle over the plan is far from over -- and even if no law is passed soon, the initiative has forever changed the immigration debate, making an overhaul of the kind the White House has proposed all but inevitable in a few years, if not earlier.

Federal agents raid a house in Orange in search of illegal immigrants. Some demonstrators at a massive pro-immigrant march in Los Angeles wave Mexican flags in a show of nationalism that upsets others and feeds anti-immigration sentiments. A citizens group wants to give local police the authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants. Stories ripped from today's headlines? Could be, but they also were ripped from headlines in September 1991, October 1994 and January 2001, respectively.

WASHINGTON - Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa delivered a high-profile speech in the nation's capital Monday in support of overhauling immigration laws but sidestepped questions about his future once his mayoral term ends. "I'm focused on the job I've got and want to finish as strong as I can," he told a National Press Club audience. When asked whether he would serve in the Obama administration after his term ends June 30, he said, "When I'm asked, I'll answer the question.

In Arizona, a state long at the forefront of immigration enforcement, President Obama 's immigration reform plan is welcome news to some, and old rhetoric to others. Community leaders on both sides of the immigration debate, however, agreed that the president's plan didn't stray much from a proposal outlined Monday by a bipartisan group in the Senate. The fate of any sort of immigration reform will rely on the fine print, which is yet to be sorted out. Obama said he wants a program that would create a path to citizenship . One key difference between both plans is that the Senate proposal says the federal government must first certify that the U.S.-Mexico border is secure before there is a pathway to U.S. citizenship for the estimated 11 million who are in the country illegally.

When she arrived from Ghana 18 years ago, trained caterer Anna Saakwa was swiftly granted a license in her field. She found work cooking for an old folks' home and learned fluent Danish thanks to the patient tutelage of co-workers and the retirees she was hired to serve. Such was the pleasant experience for most refugees in Denmark until a few years ago, when opponents of immigration gained the upper hand.