Immigration Reform

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

The Senate Judiciary Committee took up comprehensive immigration reform late last week. And, as expected, opponents are already rushing to derail it, arguing that any bill that legalizes the vast majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States will cost billions of dollars and place an unfair burden on taxpayers. Such arguments are merely scare tactics. There's no doubt that granting citizenship to millions of immigrants 13 years from now, as the Senate bill would, will carry a cost, but how much is unclear.

Few people felt the low turnout at this year's May Day march as acutely as Salvador Ramirez. Ramirez, an illegal immigrant from Jalisco, Mexico, pushed a cart among the few thousand immigrant-rights and labor activists Sunday on Broadway, selling American flags. "It's really bad," said Ramirez, 48, who said he lost his job as an electrician because of his lack of documents and became a street vendor a year and a half ago. About halfway through Sunday's march, Ramirez had sold only about 10 to 15 flags, which he buys for $7.50 a dozen.

WASHINGTON - The immigration reform bill crafted by a bipartisan group of senators has deeply split the Republican minority even as lawmakers prepare to take the first votes on the proposal Thursday. Alabama's Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, a conservative former prosecutor with a courtly drawl, has emerged as the leading opponent of the bill. He is aiming at his GOP colleagues with unusual zeal, and calls out the architects of the bill as, essentially, dishonest. "Sen. Flake is wrong: It's not a 13-year path to citizenship or welfare," blared one recent missive from Sessions targeting Arizona's Republican senator, Jeff Flake, who helped draft the legislation.

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Wearing a 2010 vintage Marco Rubio campaign T-shirt and matching button, Cheryl Griffin spewed frustration that the man she helped win a long-shot conservative bid for Senate is now leading an immigration overhaul. An evening downpour was falling on this coastal town, less a city than a hodgepodge of new and old subdivisions. But the weather did not deter Griffin, a small, skeptical woman, or her husband, Mark, a friendly man twice her size with rain dripping from his straw cowboy hat. The Griffins, who came down from neighboring Fort Pierce, were protesting Rubio's appearance at the annual Republican Party dinner.

WASHINGTON - First came the letter-writing campaigns, then the protests at town hall meetings and now the television ads. The last several weeks in New Hampshire have had the feel of a heated electoral season - but the target of this siege, first-term Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, isn't on the ballot until 2016. Welcome to Round 2 in the battle over gun control. The first round ended last month, when a proposal to expand the background check system to cover most commercial gun sales fizzled in the Senate.

In some parts of Koreatown and South Los Angeles, one in three adult residents is in the country illegally, according to a study released Tuesday by researchers at USC. Countywide, about one in 10 adults is an immigrant who crossed the border illegally or overstayed a visa, the study found. Many of those immigrants have put down roots here: Half have been in the country for more than a decade, and 12% are homeowners. Many are also the parents of American citizens. In Los Angeles County, one in five children has a parent living in the country illegally, according to the study.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said that the bipartisan group of senators working on immigration legislation was following a “reasonable timeline” and suggested he would push to get a bill passed in the first half of the year. In a pair of interviews the day after kicking off his public campaign for immigration reform, Obama told the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo that he would put the weight of his office - and his bully pulpit - behind the effort. “I can guarantee that I will put everything I've got behind it,” Obama told Telemundo anchor Jose Diaz-Balart.

WASHINGTON - President Obama expects to see a comprehensive immigration reform bill introduced in Congress “very soon” after his inauguration in late January, he said during a news conference Wednesday. “I am very confident we can get immigration reform done,” Obama said. Obama said that White House staff has already begun conversations with members of the Senate and the House on how to line up the votes to get an immigration bill to his desk for signing. “We need to seize the moment,” said Obama, adding that he is “already seeing signs” that some Republicans are willing to discuss the immigration issue.

SACRAMENTO - Except for illegal immigrants, no group has more at stake in the national fight over immigration reform than California farmers. "It doesn't pay to plant a product if you can't harvest it," notes Mark Teixeira of Santa Maria, who says he had to let 22 acres of vegetables rot last year because he couldn't find enough field hands to gather the crop. "That hurts. " As security has tightened along the California-Mexican border, the flow of illegal immigrant labor into the nation's most productive agriculture state has slowed significantly, farm interests say. "It's very difficult to find crews compared to three or four years ago," reports Greg Wegis, a fifth-generation Kern County farmer who grows cherries, almonds, pistachios and tomatoes, among other crops.

In some parts of Koreatown and South Los Angeles, one in three adult residents is in the country illegally, according to a study released Tuesday by researchers at USC. Countywide, about one in 10 adults is an immigrant who crossed the border illegally or overstayed a visa, the study found. Many of those immigrants have put down roots here: Half have been in the country for more than a decade, and 12% are homeowners. Many are also the parents of American citizens. In Los Angeles County, one in five children has a parent living in the country illegally, according to the study.

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Wearing a 2010 vintage Marco Rubio campaign T-shirt and matching button, Cheryl Griffin spewed frustration that the man she helped win a long-shot conservative bid for Senate is now leading an immigration overhaul. An evening downpour was falling on this coastal town, less a city than a hodgepodge of new and old subdivisions. But the weather did not deter Griffin, a small, skeptical woman, or her husband, Mark, a friendly man twice her size with rain dripping from his straw cowboy hat. The Griffins, who came down from neighboring Fort Pierce, were protesting Rubio's appearance at the annual Republican Party dinner.

WASHINGTON -- A conservative think tank said Monday that immigration reform would be costly to taxpayers -- the latest in a growing, but contradictory, body of research on the costs and benefits of providing a path to citizenship for those living in this country without legal status. The Heritage Foundation study swiftly became ammunition for Republicans who are arguing against the sweeping immigration reform measure proposed by a bipartisan group of senators. Heritage said the immigrants would become a drain on taxpayers because they would receive $6.3 trillion more in government benefits over their lifetimes than they would pay in taxes.

WASHINGTON - An influential network of some of the country's wealthiest liberal political donors is steering resources to an advocacy group backing President Obama's agenda and to organizations working to pass immigration reform, providing a surge of money that could boost the president's legislative goals. Democracy Alliance, an invitation-only group that makes funding recommendations to its members, selected the pro-Obama Organizing for Action and immigration reform groups such as the National Immigration Forum as some of its top 2013 priorities at its spring conference in Laguna Beach last week, according to leaders of the organization.

The two candidates for Los Angeles mayor courted Latino voters on Saturday, promising to help those seeking citizenship and to help clean up and enhance Latino neighborhoods like Boyle Heights and Pacoima. Latino voters account for as much as a third of the city electorate. At the Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools Cocoanut Grove Theater, Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti fielded questions at a forum sponsored by the education fund of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, along with other local groups.

MEXICO CITY - President Obama on Friday painted a sunny picture of a modern Mexico emerging from its past troubles, an attempt at rebranding that serves the political aims of both governments but clashes with the realities of a country beset by violence and poverty. On his second day of a swing through Latin America, Obama emphasized optimism about Mexico's economic future and offered a broad endorsement of President Enrique Peña Nieto's reform agenda. Speaking to a crowd largely made up of high school and college students, Obama pushed the next generation of Mexicans to continue to demand change.

SACRAMENTO -- Pointing to an agreement reached between farmworker unions and growers on a migrant worker program, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Saturday that she expects immigration reform to be completed before Congress takes its summer recess. “It just seems like things are being worked out,” she told reporters at the annual convention of the California Democratic Party. “The eloquent voice of 70% of Hispanics voting for Democrats in the last election explained it really clearly to Republicans.” The agreement, reached late Friday, would establish a new "blue card" for workers already in the country, one of the last major components of sweeping legislation being drafted in the U.S. Senate.

The Senate Judiciary Committee took up comprehensive immigration reform late last week. And, as expected, opponents are already rushing to derail it, arguing that any bill that legalizes the vast majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States will cost billions of dollars and place an unfair burden on taxpayers. Such arguments are merely scare tactics. There's no doubt that granting citizenship to millions of immigrants 13 years from now, as the Senate bill would, will carry a cost, but how much is unclear.

May Day protesters marched down streets across the country Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants who have entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas. The crowds numbered in the thousands, not the hundreds of thousands who turned out for the historic immigration marches of 2006. But with a major immigration package being debated in Washington, reform advocates wanted their voices heard. "Listen up, Obama: We are in the fight," people chanted in Spanish in Los Angeles and Chicago.

WASHINGTON - President Obama will seek to cement relations with Mexico's new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, over the next two days with vows of neighborly kinship and future cooperation. But the true test of their ability to work together may be whether they can hold their tongues. Obama's visit to Mexico City comes as the fight over border security and immigration reform has begun to consume Congress. Peña Nieto supports the effort but wants to avoid the mistakes of a predecessor, Vicente Fox, who lobbied for a 2001 immigration reform bill in Congress.