Dallas Morning News

Bush's strategy to woo Latinos
The president delivers his Saturday morning radio address in Spanish. He celebrates Cinco de Mayo on the South Lawn, and Cuban Independence Day in the East Room. He takes his first foreign trip to Mexico and begins his first European tour in Spain, where the prime minister praises his Spanish and notes that soon more people back home will be speaking it than in Spain. Mere happenstance? Hardly. Mindful of a re-election bid in 2004, President Bush has mounted a full- court press to boost his standing among the nation's rapidly growing bloc of Hispanic voters. From his early presidential visit to Mexico to his ongoing efforts to forge new immigration standards, Mr. Bush is building on the Hispanic outreaches.....

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Illegal immigration, amnesty hurt millions of Americans
President Bush has floated the idea of another massive amnesty program that would legalize 3 million of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. Reaction to the president's proposal is indicative of how far out of touch the political and media elites are from mainstream America. -- The reactions to the White House's mid-July amnesty trial balloon have come from many different quarters. The president has received cheers (and some criticism for not going far enough) from those who view immigration from the perspective of the immigrants, and he as received pats on the back from businesses that are hungry to expand the labor pool.

Nashville Tennesean

Amnesty proposal may spur Hispanic population rise
A new immigration proposal offering some kind of long-awaited ''amnistia'' would make life easier for thousands of illegal Mexicans living in Tennessee. But it also would trigger a Hispanic population boom far beyond what the state experienced in the past decade, both immigration advocates and detractors say. ''Guest'' workers could eventually become permanent residents, gain citizenship and then import extended families. Forecasters on either side of the issue predict that all those family reunions will either provide the state with a source of labor or create a great social and economic burden.

Washington Post

Growers Group Recruits, Transports Mexicans
Townsville, NC - North Carolina imports about one-quarter of the more than 40,000 Mexican workers that enter the United States annually on the temporary visas. They come to this agriculturally diverse state to pick tobacco and cucumbers, chop Christmas trees and dig sweet potatoes. But compared with the estimated 330,000 seasonal farm workers -- mostly illegal -- who descend on North Carolina every year, their numbers are small. Like farmers elsewhere, local farmers complain that the numbers nationally are minuscule because the program is too costly and slow to be useful.

Oklahoman Editorial

Care Needed on New Immigration Policy
Fox is expected to press Bush for a new immigration policy when he visits in early September. During a recent trip to Chicago, Fox said the U.S. should offer "as many rights as possible for as many Mexican immigrants as possible as soon as possible." -- of a general amnesty. It swiftly -- and rightly -- retreated from an idea that's flawed, at least at this point. -- Amnesty essentially would throw U.S. borders wide open. Nearly 3 million people applied for amnesty the last time it was offered, as a "once only" occurrence in 1986 during Ronald Reagan's presidency.

From FAIR

New website dedicated to the fight against amnesty
A new website is on- line dedicated to stopping amnesty or other immigration programs that reward illegal aliens with Green Cards. It's called "nomoreamnesty.com" and it's sponsored by the FAIR Congressional Task Force. Link through to send e-mails, sign the petition and send telegrams. The goal: one million names of American who oppose amnesty. Check it out.

Associated Press

Church stays busy refuge for illegals
Roma, TX - In the game of tag with illegal immigrants, Border Patrol agents say this squat church with its tall, skybound steeple is the safety zone. Its name is La Iglesia de Nuestra Senora del Refugio (the Church of Our Lady of Refuge). It provides refuge for people trying to escape to a better life. "The only thing I know is that hospitals, churches and schools are sanctuaries," the Rev. Hugo Van Den Bussche told The Monitor of McAllen.

St. Paul Pioneer Planet

Local illegal immigrants closely watch amnesty plan
When Antonia Molina sees a white van, flashbacks to "la migra," the immigration officers she hid from while crossing the Mexican border into California, come to her. Two years later in her Twin Cities home, the undocumented woman is still ducking behind windows when a white van appears. -- "My family can have a better life here than in Mexico," Molina said. To make a living, she sticks labels on CDs and packs them in boxes in the non- air- conditioned factory where she works. In the winters, she skins chickens in a poultry plant.

El Paso Times

Some rights advocates feel ignored by Reyes
U.S. and Mexico lawmakers will continue meeting today to review mostly immigration- related matters. During the course of the day, the lawmakers on both sides of the border -- including U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas -- can expect to run into protesters over a number of issues. Several human rights groups who criticize Reyes say he hasn't been willing to meet with them during his entire tenure. One of them is the International Association of Relatives and Friends of Disappeared Persons, a group whose efforts to talk to Reyes have lasted more than a year.

Todd Brendan Fahey

Independence or interdependence: Who do you love?
Vicente Fox, Mexico's President, is working 24/7 on a plan which would erase the U.S./Mexico border and make meaningless any question of national citizenship. The London Telegraph, having interviewed Mr. Fox yesterday, reports the following exchange: Mr Fox wants a NAFTA convergence programme, along the lines of the European Union's, "whereby the Mexican economy has to converge on fundamental variables with the US and Canadian economy." This, he believes, would help Mexico to develop and improve wages...."

We Get E-Mail

Re: The Los Angeles Times
I agree with some earlier letters. The Los Angeles Times, among others, seems to have an anti-white racism and bigotry now built into its corporate psyche. It's often shown in the effusive praise it gives to all non-whites and the insults it heaps on whites. It also shows up in the way the newspaper hides the racial/ethnic descriptions of many outstanding criminal suspects UNLESS they are white. -- The newspaper and its running dog lackeys also think that they can silence true freedom fighters, who want to keep this nation from becoming a third world slum, by calling them "racists," and similar terms.

Omaha World-Herald - Letters

We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us
Glenn Lewis-Contreras writes: In response to Sean Brosnihan: Whose jobs are illegals taking? Are many illegal immigrants working in government? Are there many illegal immigrant CEOs? Has Mr. Brosnihan ever lined up to work in meatpacking or to pick in the fields? Will he be applying to be a housekeeper once our new hotel is constructed? I think not. -- He also stated, "But as long as business are able to hire illegal aliens, there is no need for them to hire real Americans." We all must remember that real Americans are people who live in the Western Hemisphere.[There is a message board on this site]

Sacramento Bee

Dan Walters: New data prove that two-tier society is a fact of California life
Sixteen years ago, two academic researchers took note of the powerful economic and social forces that were just then beginning to sweep through California and made what many thought was a very bold, even risky, projection about the state. -- University of California, Davis, economist Philip Martin and Washington-based sociologist Leon Bouvier concluded in 1985 that with the state's population expanding dramatically due to immigration, and its economy shifting from old- style manufacturing to high technology and services, seeds were being sown for socioeconomic fragmentation.

El Paso Times

Mexican officials urge opening U.S. to trucks
The U.S. should uphold provisions in NAFTA and let Mexican trucks enter the country, and it should recognize that undocumented workers make considerable contributions to the U.S. economy, Sen. Silvia Hernandez, the chairwoman of the Mexican Congress' foreign affairs committee, said Sunday in El Paso. Hernandez, a member of the PRI, spoke for a delegation of nine Mexican officials who are in El Paso through today. The group was spending three days in El Paso to gain understanding of the border.

Omaha World-Herald

Latino Leaders Call for Calm During Probe
Area Latino leaders called for calm, patience and a thorough investigation after an Omaha man was shot and killed by police and three Omahans were injured in an outbreak of violence at a Council Bluffs soccer game. Omaha- based Mexican Consul Jose Cuevas said his office will conduct its own investigation of what happened, then declined further comment until a later time. The Mexican government established the office about a year ago, in part to protect the rights of the area's growing immigrant population. [There is a message board on this site]

Associated Press

Both Employers and Laborers Says U.S. Guest Worker Programs Need Overhaul
While politicians in Washington, D.C., reconsider U.S. policy on illegal immigrants, advocates want better treatment for the tens of thousands of foreign workers already here legally. About 92,000 workers came to the United States last year from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean as guest workers - laborers with temporary work visas. A greater number are expected this year. Guest workers pick onions, peaches and apples, herd sheep, plant trees, shell crabmeat and clean hotels. They often earn in a day what they'd make in a week at home.

The Telegraph - UK

Fox models his vision of North America on EU
President Vicente Fox of Mexico has a vision for North America that Europeans will find familiar: a vast borderless continent, stripped of trade barriers, where people, goods and services flow freely and a dollar is worth the same from the hot south to the icy north. In his first interview with a British newspaper, Mr. Fox laid out a vision that has already caused shivers in Washington and cold sweats in Ottawa. [Related item]

Chicago Tribune

Migrants chilled by health-care ruling
Julia came to the U.S. two years ago, following a husband who couldn't find work in Mexico. After sneaking over the border, she found her way to Houston, where Mexicans without legal residency status tend lawns, watch children and build the houses sprouting across this sprawling city. Now carrying her fifth child in a high- risk pregnancy that requires frequent doctors' visits, 21 - year-old Julia is afraid. Because of a controversy over medical care for illegal immigrants roiling Texas, she is not sure she can get the attention she needs over the next few months to have a healthy baby. [Free Republic item]

San Jose Mercury News

Latino baby boom propels growth spurt
In a sharp break from past patterns, the Latino population growth that is transforming California is fueled not by immigration but by a baby boom among the Latinos who are already here. -- Even if no one else crosses the Mexican border, Latinos will probably become California's ethnic majority within 50 years. Latinos now constitute one-third of the state's population, but over the past decade they made up 80% of its growth. Only 20% of Latino growth was due to immigration, according to a study by the non- partisan Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.

Washington Times

Mexico slams shut its southern door
Authorities are clamping down on the hundreds of thousands of Central Americans crossing Mexico's southern border in what civil rights activists claim is part of the trade- off for any future deal for Mexican migrants in the United States. Plan Sur, in operation since July, means increasing vigilance along the porous 600-mile jungle-covered frontier with Guatemala and Belize, joint operations with the police and the military, and an anti-corruption drive to close the gaps. The plan further aims to create a second barrier to illegal migrants across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec some 200 miles farther west.

The News - Mexico City

Politicians blast performance of U.S. immigration service
A poorly run and overly bureaucratic U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has led to a deterioration of safety conditions along the Mexico-U.S. border and may be contributing to deaths of migrants, a top U.S. lawmaker said Sunday. -- In a weekend immigration meeting with Mexican legislators, U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat from Texas, said the U.S. Congress had approved millions of dollars in INS budget for the purchase of more-advanced surveillance equipment like motion detectors and night vision cameras.