Legal Status

For several years now, a handful of states have tried to control illegal immigration by enacting laws that explicitly ban young undocumented immigrants from receiving reduced in-state tuition to public colleges and universities. That was bad enough. Now, education officials in some of those states are stooping even lower and attempting to use the same strategy to discriminate against U.S.-born students whose parents are in this country illegally. Thankfully, state and federal courts have intervened and put an end to those misguided policies.

WASHINGTON - Latino voters' decisive tilt toward Democrats in the presidential election has given new life to proposals that would clear a path to legal status for the estimated 11 million people in the U.S. unlawfully. For the first time in five years, some soul-searching Republicans are calling on the GOP to change its tone and embrace ways to ease the law to keep families together while intensifying efforts to tighten the borders. "For too long, both parties have used immigration as a political wedge issue," Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)

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.

Immigration authorities are bracing for a deluge of applications starting Wednesday when more than 1.2 million young illegal immigrants who were brought to America as children can seek to legally stay and work in the country under President Obama's most ambitious immigration initiative. Even before the first request is filed, critics and advocates alike are warning of potential budget shortfalls and a logjam of paperwork that could mar the program, delay processing and facilitate fraud.

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.

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.

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.