Legal Status

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is proposing to make it easier for illegal immigrants who are immediate family members of American citizens to apply for permanent residency, a move that could affect as many as 1 million of the estimated 11 million immigrants living here illegally. The new rule, which the Department of Homeland Security will post for public comment Monday, would reduce the time illegal immigrants are separated from their American families while seeking legal status, immigration officials said.

WASHINGTON - A widow who conceived a baby from the sperm of her late husband is not automatically entitled to Social Security survivors benefits to help raise the child, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 9-0 decision rejected the claim that a biological child of a married couple, even one born years after the father died, always qualifies as his survivor under the Social Security Act. Instead, the justices upheld the government's multi-part definition of who deserves survivors benefits.

The federal government's E-Verify program, which seeks to reduce the hiring of illegal immigrants, is becoming increasingly popular, with 1,000 new businesses signing up each week despite concerns about its reliability. More than 124,000 businesses, including nearly 10,000 in California, are signed up for the Web-based identification program that enables employers to check whether an employee is authorized to work, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

California's agency that licenses lawyers wants to admit an illegal immigrant to practice law, an unprecedented request that the state's highest court decided Wednesday to review. The State Bar of California certified Sergio C. Garcia after he passed a written test and a moral examination, sending it to the California Supreme Court for routine approval. The bar informed the court at the time that Garcia was undocumented. In a unanimous decision, the state high court ordered the bar to explain why an illegal immigrant should be given a legal license and invited briefs from other parties, opening the door to a potentially heated debate over national immigration policy.

Jiovanna Campbell was 9 when her uncle killed himself. Beyond her parents, he was the only family she had known since coming illegally to the U.S. at age 3. Her parents sold everything they owned to take his body back to Mexico, she recalled. They stayed for a few months while her parents coped with the death. Then they returned to the Bay Area, crossing the border illegally with others in a car. Campbell finished high school, enrolled in college, married a U.S. citizen and bought a home.

California's agency that licenses lawyers wants to admit an illegal immigrant to practice law, an unprecedented request that the state's highest court decided Wednesday to review. The State Bar of California certified Sergio C. Garcia after he passed a written test and a moral examination, sending it to the California Supreme Court for routine approval. The bar informed the court at the time that Garcia was undocumented. In a unanimous decision, the state high court ordered the bar to explain why an illegal immigrant should be given a legal license and invited briefs from other parties, opening the door to a potentially heated debate over national immigration policy.

The Obama administration will announce Friday a proposed new regulation that would allow certain undocumented immigrants to remain in America while applying for legal status -- a step aimed at keeping families intact and one that may also shore up the president's support with Latino voters. As it stands, people living in the U.S. illegally who leave the country to apply for a green card face years of separation from family members. Depending on how long they've lived in America, once they leave they are barred from returning for up to 10 years.

The college dreams of thousands of students who are illegal immigrants moved closer to fulfillment Wednesday after the state Senate approved a bill that for the first time would give them access to public financial aid. Part of a two-bill package known as the California Dream Act, the measure would allow undocumented students who qualify for reduced in-state tuition to apply for Cal Grants, community college waivers and other public aid programs....

Maliwan Clinton recalls her first taste of America with a shudder. In this fabled land of the free, she was enslaved behind razor wire and around-the-clock guards in an El Monte sweatshop, where she and more than 70 other Thai laborers were forced to work 18-hour days for what amounted to less than a dollar an hour.

­The Obama administration is proposing to make it easier for illegal immigrants who are family members of American citizens to apply for legal permanent residency. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security will post for public comment an administrative change intended to reduce the time illegal immigrants would have to spend away from their families while applying for legal status, officials said. The current system requires the applicant to first leave the U.S. to seek a legal visa, but under the proposed change illegal immigrants could claim the time apart from a spouse, child or parent would create “extreme hardship” and allow them to remain in the U.S. as they begin the process.

An Italian court has upheld an order for the seizure of a masterpiece of the J. Paul Getty Museum's antiquities collection, finding that the bronze statue of a victorious athlete was illegally exported from Italy before the museum purchased it for $4 million in 1976. The ruling Thursday by a regional magistrate in Pesaro will likely prolong the legal battle over the statue, a signature piece of the Getty's embattled antiquities collection whose return Italian authorities have sought for years.

STOCKTON -- In the center of a starkly lighted wrestling ring, RJ Brewer glared at the overwhelmingly Latino crowd and spread the flag of Arizona across his back. Buff, mean, white and glistening with baby oil, he snatched the microphone from the referee. "I come from the greatest city in the United States: Phoenix, Arizona!" the wrestler yelled in English. "Phoenix is the only city with a woman in power with the guts to get into the president's face and address the real problem in this country!"

Next week the Obama administration will move forward with a plan to reduce the amount of time undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens spend away from their families while applying to legalize their status. The Times' editorial board wrote in support of the plan. It's a simple fix that essentially streamlinies how applications are processed, and it only applies to spouses and children of U.S. citizens. Under the current system, the immigrants who qualify for a visa, and ultimately a green card, must return to their homeland to pick it up. But the problem is that the moment they leave the U.S., they trigger an automatic sanction that bars them from returning for up to 10 years.

­The Obama administration is proposing to make it easier for illegal immigrants who are family members of American citizens to apply for legal permanent residency. On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security will post for public comment an administrative change intended to reduce the time illegal immigrants would have to spend away from their families while applying for legal status, officials said. The current system requires the applicant to first leave the U.S. to seek a legal visa, but under the proposed change illegal immigrants could claim the time apart from a spouse, child or parent would create “extreme hardship” and allow them to remain in the U.S. as they begin the process.

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is proposing to make it easier for illegal immigrants who are immediate family members of American citizens to apply for permanent residency, a move that could affect as many as 1 million of the estimated 11 million immigrants living here illegally. The new rule, which the Department of Homeland Security will post for public comment Monday, would reduce the time illegal immigrants are separated from their American families while seeking legal status, immigration officials said.

Jiovanna Campbell was 9 when her uncle killed himself. Beyond her parents, he was the only family she had known since coming illegally to the U.S. at age 3. Her parents sold everything they owned to take his body back to Mexico, she recalled. They stayed for a few months while her parents coped with the death. Then they returned to the Bay Area, crossing the border illegally with others in a car. Campbell finished high school, enrolled in college, married a U.S. citizen and bought a home.

WASHINGTON - A widow who conceived a baby from the sperm of her late husband is not automatically entitled to Social Security survivors benefits to help raise the child, the Supreme Court ruled Monday. The 9-0 decision rejected the claim that a biological child of a married couple, even one born years after the father died, always qualifies as his survivor under the Social Security Act. Instead, the justices upheld the government's multi-part definition of who deserves survivors benefits.

A law recognizing the legal validity of marriages contracted in church, passed earlier this year, took effect in Poland, PAP news agency said. The law, passed on the basis of a Concordat Treaty between Poland and the Vatican, gave marriages performed by clergymen binding legal status identical to that of civil ceremonies conducted at state registry offices. According to laws initially enacted by the now-defunct, officially atheist Communist regime, only civil marriages were recognized as legal.

A group of Silicon Valley technology leaders is working to help undocumented students attend college, prepare for jobs and, when possible, find ways to legalize their status. The group, described by Palm Pilot inventor Jeff Hawkins as a loose coalition, is looking to provide assistance and guidance to students in the absence of legislation such as the Dream Act, which would create a path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants who are college students and military service members.

South Carolina's Latino population — and its share of illegal immigrants — has surged in recent years, and the anxiety has surged as well. The number of Latinos in the state jumped 148% from 2000 to 2010, one of the largest increases in the nation. Republican Gov. Nikki Haley pledged, as a candidate in 2010, to bring South Carolina an Arizona-style law cracking down on illegal immigration, and she signed one in June. The anxiety was evident at Monday night's Republican presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, when a flurry of boos erupted after journalist Juan Williams mentioned that front-runner Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico.