Immigration Reform

Re "Businesses Press Mayoral Candidates on Tax Issue," Sept. 26: It is reassuring to see Los Angeles city officeholders finally giving business tax reform the attention it deserves. Last June, the business community called for the City Council to enact a package of business tax reforms by Oct. 31 in order to prevent this from becoming a political hot potato. Known as the "3 Rs," the package includes reducing the number of tax rates from 64 to five; removing all businesses grossing less than $100,000 annually from the system; and providing relief for all businesses, 15% to 25% over five years.

The president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is calling on the White House to end immigration raids that split up families. Cardinal Francis George spoke at an immigrant-rights rally at a northwest Chicago church. His comments were greeted by cheers from the hundreds gathered. The raids are part of stepped-up federal enforcement targeting illegal immigrants. George says stopping the raids would fulfill the administration's promises of working toward immigration reform.

In a stinging rebuke of the party's expected nominee, Republican platform writers Monday shredded Bob Dole's proposed "declaration of tolerance" on abortion--dramatically underscoring Dole's lack of control over his party on the eve of his nominating convention. At the same time, the platform panel also opened a new conservative front in the continuing controversy over illegal immigration, approving a call for a constitutional amendment that would deny U.S.

Breaking a logjam that has held up a bill on illegal immigration for months, Republican leaders won the support of a crucial lawmaker Thursday for a controversial proposal to allow states to expel illegal immigrant pupils from public schools. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.

Reversing strongly stated earlier positions that had clashed with Bob Dole and party conservatives, presumed vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp said Tuesday in an interview with The Times that he now supports expelling the children of illegal immigrants from public schools and backs the California ballot initiative to repeal state affirmative action programs.

The activists complained of immigrants overwhelming schools and welfare rolls, trashing the environment, voting illegally in U.S. elections--even acting as veritable double agents for Mexico. If such trends continue, warned Peter Brimelow, a British-born New York author and senior editor at Forbes magazine who has emerged as a hero in immigration control circles, "I don't think the country will survive it."

Insults were hurled and fists flew Saturday as demonstrators on both sides of the immigration issue clashed once again outside the Federal Building in Westwood. But unlike an Independence Day skirmish five weeks ago that bloodied demonstrators and frightened motorists on busy Wilshire Boulevard, no one was injured and altercations this time were brief.

Four of five illegal immigrant Latinas in Orange County see themselves as part of their community and nearly two-thirds hope to remain in the United States, but they don't consider taxpayer-subsidized social services a lure to stay, a UC Irvine study has found.

An estimated 830,000 immigrants living in California, predominantly Latino women and children, would lose Medi-Cal health care benefits under immigration changes being considered in Congress, according to a UCLA study being released today. The UCLA study provides the first comprehensive look at how the changes, almost certain to gain final passage, would affect health care for California's poor.