Immigration Reform

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.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mark Zuckerberg is being unfriended by progressives angered by television ads from his political advocacy group Fwd.us that praise lawmakers for supporting the expansion of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Their ire is being directed at the billionaire founder and chief executive of Facebook with a protest planned for noon Wednesday at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters shortly before the company releases its first-quarter earnings.

SAN FRANCISCO - Mark Zuckerberg is the public face of one of the world's most prominent companies. But now it's his actions as a private citizen that are making him - and Facebook Inc. - a target of environmentalists and progressive activists, highlighting the pitfalls of political involvement at a level rarely attempted in Silicon Valley. The 28-year-old billionaire co-founder and chief executive of Facebook has funded a political advocacy group called Fwd.us that has come under fire for spending millions on television ads that support expansion of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

PHOENIX - Brenda Juarez has been in this country so long that she doesn't remember what Mexican state she was born in. She hopes she and her mother will be allowed to stay. The two women joined about 300 people at Arizona's state Capitol and thousands across the country at May Day rallies Wednesday, with comprehensive immigration reform the closest to reality it has been in years. A bipartisan proposal by a group of eight U.S. senators includes a 13-year path to citizenship for most of the 11 million people who are in the country illegally, as well as a guest-worker program for future migrants.

PHOENIX - Two groups that rarely see eye to eye - immigrants rights activists and labor organizers - are expected to join forces here Wednesday, marching a mile and a half from the state Capitol to join a picket at the Hyatt Regency hotel where they will demand that an immigration system overhaul include fair rights for workers. At a time where comprehensive immigration reform is the closest it has been in years to becoming reality, May Day rallies are being held in Arizona's capital, in Los Angeles and across the country.

As Congress continues to discuss comprehensive immigration reform, one of the biggest issues businesses are watching is E-Verify, an online system that checks workers' immigration status. The House version of the bill would make E-Verify mandatory for businesses, as it already is in Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. Since its inception in 1996, E-Verify has been criticized for being a burden to business - it provided inaccurate results and was too difficult to use for many small businesses focusing on day-to-day operations.

Comprehensive immigration reform will pass the House of Representatives if reluctant Republicans are convinced that it is a matter of political survival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said at USC on Tuesday. In conversations with other lawmakers, McCain said, he appeals to their “better angels” in arguing that legal status be granted to the 11 million immigrants who are in the country without proper documentation. But he also appeals to his colleagues' “baser instincts” -- that is, the need to attract the Latino voters who abandoned the GOP in the last presidential election.

Providing legal status to the country's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants would boost the U.S. economy and eradicate underground economies in cities such as Los Angeles, a panel of researchers, elected officials and a business tycoon said Monday.  At the annual Milken Global Conference, immigration reform was the focal point of one panel, which included Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp., Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa...

SAN DIEGO - Kathy Gomez estimates that U.S. Border Patrol agents catch 75% of the migrants who try to run through the strawberry fields at her farm near the border with Tijuana. Farther east, Miguel Diaz thinks the number hits 90% at his junkyard near the base of Otay Mountain. But in the San Diego backcountry, rancher Bob Maupin says that, of the migrants who skirt his 250 acres, only 10% get arrested. Across the Southwest, the rate at which the Border Patrol stops illegal crossings has long been the stuff of coffee shop speculation.

DALLAS - President Obama praised former President George W. Bush on Thursday for standing tough in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and for his early support for immigration reform, drawing strong allusions to his current challenges as he paid tribute to his predecessor. Speaking at the dedication of the Bush presidential library, Obama said that walking through the building a few minutes before had reminded him “of the incredible strength and resolve that came through that bullhorn as he [Bush]