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US turns over Mexican man accused in 1998 massacre 06:35 PM CDT on Sunday, August 24, 2008 Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - A Mexican national wanted in connection with the 1998 drug-related massacre of 19 people in the Baja California resort town of Ensenada has been captured and turned over to Mexican authorities, U.S. immigration officials said Sunday. Officers confronted Jesus Ruben Moncada, 33, at his Los Angeles home Thursday night as he took out the garbage. Moncada, who did not resist arrest, was taken into custody on administrative immigration violations and was returned under heavy security Friday to Mexico where he faces first degree murder, attempted murder and kidnapping charges. He was being held at a Tecate, Baja California prison pending court proceedings, according to the Mexican Attorney General's Office. Moncada told officers he fled to the United States in 1998, illegally crossing the border near San Ysidro, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "This man is suspected of being involved in one of the most heinous mass killings in recent times," Brian DeMore, a field office director for ICE, said in a statement. Authorities believe Moncada was among several gunmen who raided the compound of an alleged drug trafficker near the Baja California beach resort of Ensenada in 1998. They lined the alleged trafficker and 18 members of his family up against a wall and shot them. Eight children were among those killed. Prosecutors contend Moncada was a high-ranking member of a Felix Arellano gang, which carried out the killings to prevent the rival gang's marijuana-smuggling operation from becoming too competitive with theirs. Moncada had been using his real name while living in the U.S., DeMore said.

Tempers flare at meeting on checkpoints Monica Rodriguez, Staff Writer Article Created: 08/23/2008 12:01:42 AM PDT
POMONA - Hours after off-duty police officers engaged in a shouting match with participants at a community meeting, members of the Pomona Habla/Pomona Speaks coalition began taking steps Friday to file formal complaints against the officers.

Coalition representatives met Friday and decided to file complaints with Police Chief Joe Romero's office and the City Council in addition to seeking an independent investigation of Thursday night's incident, said coalition member Arturo Jimenez.

The coalition will also file complaints at the state level, he said.

"We are going to be filing a complaint with the state Attorney General's Office and calling for his involvement," Jimenez said, adding that various state agencies will also be contacted.

Thursday evening's actions on the part of the officers were out of line, Jimenez said.

"What happened (Thursday) was a horrible intimidation tactic," he said.

The incident took place during a community forum organized by the coalition at the Centro Promesa de Dios on West Second Street in Pomona's Arts Colony.

The event drew more than 100 people to discuss traffic checkpoints in the city. It was also a means of collecting residents' ideas that could potentially be included in a list of proposals to be presented to city leaders as a means to address checkpoints.

Members of the audience spoke mostly about negative experiences with checkpoints, but some gave their views on why

they are necessary.

The conflict erupted when a woman commented that regulations requiring licenses are racist policies and that the city should develop alternative means of keeping streets safe without using checkpoints.

She went on to say that even people who have not been through a checkpoint live in stress.

At that point, someone among a group of about a dozen officers shouted: "Get a license!"

Meeting organizers said people who could not show respect for others would be asked to leave, prompting an officer to shout: "This is a community meeting!"

From there a few officers and audience members clustered together shouting at each other.

While some meeting organizers addressed the shouting group, others called on attendees to move toward the front of the stage and continue with the agenda.

Two officers - Phil Bozoich and Jorge Aleman, who were involved in the heated exchange - left the building followed by audience members who with the remaining attendees chanted, "Justicia! Justicia!" meaning justice in Spanish.

The rest of the officers left the gathering shortly after.

Police Chief Joe Romero, who on Friday was already investigating the matter, said the officers attending the meeting did so on their own time and "not in an official capacity" but their actions will be reviewed.

"Those that go into professional law enforcement know that their off-duty actions are as carefully scrutinized as their professional actions," he said.

Officers were sent out to the meeting after calls were made to police seeking their presence, Romero said.

City Manager Linda Lowry has received inquiries from City Council members about the meeting and she "has asked that I look into the entire situation," Romero said.

Among the steps Romero said he will be taking are meeting with Bozoich, who is president of the Pomona Police Officers' Association, "to assess that organization's involvement and naturally I will be meeting with command staff to best determine how to proceed with resolving this situation."

Bozoich said Friday that he had asked members of the association if they would consider attending the meeting.

His request was prompted by two recent traffic collisions. One, on Aug. 15, was a hit-and-run incident on Temple Avenue that left a 19-year-old Ontario woman on life support. The driver reportedly was unlicensed. The second incident, on Aug. 17, involved a drunken, unlicensed driver who hit a police patrol car, injuring the officer and police dog inside.

Bozoich said he saw a newspaper article about the community meeting and thought officers could attend and give their views and possibly start a dialog with the coalition.

Officers were surprised to find the meeting would be in Spanish, but he had Aleman, who is bilingual, at his side translating for him, Bozoich said.

During the meeting, Bozoich said, he and others asked Jimenez for an opportunity to speak.

"We spoke up to give our opinion of checkpoints," he said, adding they were not afforded the opportunity to address the audience.

But Jimenez said everyone had an opportunity to speak, and he told the officers all they had to do was get in line to speak.

Bozoich said people appeared angry with Aleman because he supports checkpoints.

Attending the meeting was "definitely not productive for us as an association," he said.

Romero said the matter is a priority for him and that he canceled plans to attend a training program outside of town and expected to work on the matter throughout the weekend.

monica.rodriguez@

inlandnewspapers.com

WHAT'S IN A NAME? L.A. mayor passed over for speaking role at Democratic convention Some speculate it's because Antonio Villaraigosa backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Others think it's because California is a given for Obama. And there are other theories. August 19, 2008
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa won't have a featured role at next week's Democratic National Convention in Denver, the political pep rally that can be a springboard for the party's brightest stars.

Villaraigosa was a national co-chair for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid. When she bowed out, the mayor was quick to toss his support behind presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama -- and was even tapped to introduce the Illinois senator at a convention of Latino leaders in July.

But as of Monday, Villaraigosa wasn't among the big-name Latino politicians scheduled to speak at the convention. The lineup consisted of former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

Villaraigosa's biggest moment of the week could come when he speaks to the California delegation at a breakfast Thursday, along with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The Los Angeles mayor's office played down any notion of Villaraigosa being snubbed or disappointed.

"The mayor is a team player and will do whatever is necessary to bring home a win in November," spokesman Matt Szabo said.

Larry Gerston, a political scientist at San Jose State University, said he thought Villaraigosa was passed by simply because California is expected to be an easy win for Obama.

It makes more sense, he said, to have speakers from states that are up for grabs.

GOP pollster and political consultant Arnold Steinberg of Los Angeles thinks the Obama campaign is making a mistake.

"He's the mayor of Los Angeles. I would think they would give him some more attention," Steinberg said.

"Maybe they thought it was easier to pronounce 'Richardson' than 'Villaraigosa.' "

Villaraigosa Embroils City In Losing Lawsuits: Airport Hotels And Port Truckers
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, WalterMooreForMayor.com

You and I, as taxpayers, will be paying dearly for Villaraigosa's inability to pass the bar exam -- despite four tries.

He keeps adopting unconstitutional and unfair policies that embroil the City of Los Angeles in litigation and deter employers from trying to do business here. Let me give you two examples:

Airport Hotels
Villaraigosa and the City Council adopted a patently unfair law that singles out a handful of employers, in one industry (hotels), in one part of town (near LAX), and requires them to pay higher minimum wages than any other employers in our city. Is that fair? Of course not. It makes no sense, and is, therefore, what those of us in the law trade call "a violation of equal protection."

As a result, one of those businesses, the LAX Hilton, has filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles, which is now pending in federal court. You and I, as taxpayers, will foot the bill to defend this patently indefensible law that punishes the Hilton and other hotels near the airport.

Hey, can you guess who benefits from that law, by the way? How about the developers of downtown hotels who contribute to Villaraigosa's and the City Council's campaign funds, and who receive subsidies paid for with your tax dollars? It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

Port Truckers
Villaraigosa and the City Council recently adopted another patently unfair program at the port. Long story short: independent truckers will be denied access to the port, whereas companies that employ union truckers and have old trucks will receive $1.6 billion worth of subsidies to buy new trucks.

Does that sound fair to you? Or does it sound like Villaraigosa is rewarding the unions that fund his campaigns by using his power to crush independent truckers? A federal judge will decide, because the American Trucking Associations filed a federal lawsuit yesterday to invalidate this patently unfair and unconstitutional new policy.

Meanwhile, you and I, the taxpayers, will foot the bill for lawyers to defend the wrong side of a righteous lawsuit.

You know how you can stop this type of craziness? Elect a Mayor who actually passed the bar and, more importantly, who knows right from wrong. You don't have to pass a bar exam to know that it's wrong to pick on a handful of businesses or business people, and make them bear a bigger burden than others in their industry.

If you want a Mayor who will treat people fairly, and who will make L.A. a great place to live and do business, the way it used to be, I'm your man. Help spread the word, would you? Get a yard sign or a bumper sticker. Hand out some flyers. Or contribute money so I can buy radio ads. But do something, would you? Click here to take action.

 Protestors gather in Postville By HENRY C. JACKSON Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press - Sunday, July 27, 2008 POSTVILLE, Iowa

With chants of "end the raids" and "si se puede," or "Yes, we can" hundreds of immigration protesters marched through the streets of Postville on Sunday, bringing a national debate to an isolated corner of northeastern Iowa.

Busloads of protesters from the Twin Cities and Chicago as well as hundreds of others from around the region rallied in this city of about 2,200 to protest a federal immigration raid of the Agriprocessors plant in May.

Many residents sat on their lawns and gaped as approximately 1,000 people walked, stomped and chanted a route about a mile long. The rally started at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, winding its way through town and pausing near the driveway of Agriprocessors.

"This is an awesome moment, a historic moment," said Sister Mary McCauley of St. Bridget's Catholic Church in Postville. "We're calling for reform, not raids."

The May 12 raid at Agriprocessors - the nation's biggest kosher meatpacking plant - was the largest in U.S. history and resulted in 389 arrests. Most of those arrested were Guatemalan and Mexican nationals who lived in Postville and the surrounding area.

Sunday's protesters included hundreds of Hispanics but had a diverse collection of ages, races and genders. Eldery white women marched next to young Hispanic men and Jewish men from Minneapolis and Chicago. They clutched banners and signs like one that read, "United for immigrant and worker rights."

The protesters circled the streets of Postville before returning to the center of town. They passed a much smaller group of anti-immigration protesters along the way, outshouting them during their march.

One of them was Claire Jamison, who said she'd traveled from Minneapolis to protest the protesters. She wore a hat emblazoned with a U.S. Border Patrol logo and held up a sign reading "What would Jesus do? Obey the law" as she shouted across the street.

"I'm just so fed up as an American. We have laws. Why can't they obey our laws?" Jamison said. "I empathize with those people, but they are not victims. They should not have even been here."

Apart from a few moments of cross-shouting, Sunday's protests remained orderly. Local police formed a perimeter around the march, separating anti-immigration protesters from marchers.

The march ended with a rally outside St. Bridget's Church, before a heavy rain storm forced the crowd to disband.

Rabbi Harold Kravitz of the Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minnetonka, Minn. spoke when the rally paused near the driveway of Agriprocessors, on the outskirts of town.

Shouting into a portable microphone, he said the protesters wanted to stop the criminalization of people who come to the U.S. simply to make a living.

"People have come here from Minneapolis, Wisconsin, Chicago, New York and New Jersey...because we care," said Kravitz.

As Kravitz spoke, about a half-dozen Agriprocessors workers stood watching from just inside the company's gates.

Getzel Rubashkin, an Agriprocessors employee and a member of the family that owns it, approached reporters outside of the plant as the rally moved on. He said it was unfair to blame his family and Agriprocessors for the raid and theorized that unspecified competitors and enemies of the plant were behind the enforcement action.

"Look around," he said, after cautioning reporters that he was not speaking on behalf of the company. "There are a lot of people around here who are not necessarily antagonistic to the plant but they can benefit from these stories ... Now, some artificial positions have been created. Agriprocessors doesn't have a position on immigration reform ... it's a business."

The reaction from Postville residents appeared largely supportive. Cindy Moser, 53, from nearby Elkader, said her daughter and son-in-law were marching while she watched her two grandchildren.

"If they want to come and work here I say fine," Moser said. "We all saw the effect of this. My grandson, he told me, 'Grandma, they took my friends away.' I hope this stops."

Postville resident Dave Hartley said the protests were unfortunate because they could have been avoided. But the 50-year-old said he didn't fault people for coming to his town to make their point.

"It's not their fault," he said of the protesters. "It just didn't need to get to this, to a boiling point. People knew what was going on in there, in Agriprocessors and this could have been dealt with another way.

"It should have been."

Governor set to slash state workers' pay Employees would get money back when budget's settled Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to sign an executive order next week intended to temporarily reduce pay for 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 per hour to preserve cash until lawmakers reach a budget deal, according to a draft copy of the order obtained by The Bee.

The governor's order also would terminate about 22,000 retired annuitants, temporary workers and seasonal employees, as well as impose a hard freeze that blocks the hiring of roughly 1,700 new employees per month.

Administration officials said the Republican governor expects to take the action Monday, when the budget will be four weeks late as Democrats and Republicans continue to spar over how to resolve a $15.2 billion shortfall.

"The administration is looking into many different options to preserve cash to ensure we have enough to cover our costs," said Matt David, Schwarzenegger's communications director.

But a spokeswoman for Democratic state Controller John Chiang, who pays the state's bills, said he would ignore the governor's order and continue paying full salary, likely forcing a court battle.

"He will pay state workers the salaries that they have earned, and that's full salary," Deputy Controller Hallye Jordan said of Chiang.

The order would take effect for the August pay period and envisions that state workers would receive their back pay in full when a budget is signed. State workers who get paid once at the end of the month still will receive their July paychecks next week.

The move would save roughly $1 billion in cash per month, depending on how many employees are exempt under federal law because they work in health and safety fields, according to Schwarzenegger officials. Each state department head will be responsible for determining which employees are exempt under federal law.

 

Available cash in dispute

 

Word of Schwarzenegger's pending order had circulated through the vast state Corrections and Rehabilitation offices on S Street by the time workers headed home Wednesday afternoon. Several gathered at the nearby 16th Street light-rail station, shaking their heads.

Corrections employee Vicki Rhodes said the governor is "crazy" to think about cutting workers' wages and predicted that the strategy could backfire.

"I guess people will start working on Monday like they're making $6.55 an hour," she said.

Janis Rose, another corrections worker, said Schwarzenegger is posturing and ultimately won't be able to legally cut her pay. "It's utterly ridiculous," she said. "He's acting – and not very well."

The governor believes that without a budget the state could run out of money by mid-September because of a soft economy and low reserves, officials said. Given the state's low credit rating, borrowing from Wall Street without a budget could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars in interest.

But Chiang, in a statement, questioned Schwarzenegger's calculation. He said he believes the state still has enough cash to make it through September without cutting salaries.

Democrats and state employee groups immediately denounced the governor's plan as a political ploy designed to pressure lawmakers into passing a budget.

"The governor is turning the budget crisis into a budget catastrophe," said Yvonne Walker, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents 94,000 state workers. "If it's political pressure by the governor, shame on him, because he is causing harm to the workers who run the state of California. We're not game pieces. We're real people with real lives."

 

Parties jockey for position

 

Democrats and Republicans remain sharply divided over how to bridge a $15.2 billion gap in the $101 billion general fund. Democrats have proposed a series of tax increases, largely on the wealthy, while Republicans want program cuts and a promise of long-term budget reform that would make spending reductions easier in bad years.

Both houses of the Legislature adjourned until Aug. 4, but on Wednesday the Senate summoned its members for a vote next Tuesday.

Senate Republican leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto and Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines of Clovis issued a joint statement Wednesday: "Republicans understand the urgency of getting the budget done as soon as possible, which is our main focus right now. We are working very hard to avoid drastic measures like the one that is being proposed."

Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, and Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, criticized the governor's plan and blamed Republicans for the standoff.

"I have no idea why this would be proposed, but I think it unfairly puts at risk the ability of people who work for the state to pay their bills and pay their rent and pay their mortgages and otherwise maintain their families," Jones said.

Schwarzenegger's order says his action complies with a 2003 ruling by the California Supreme Court that deemed federal labor laws require the state to pay most workers "either federal minimum wage or, for those employees that work overtime, their full salaries" when the state has no budget. The order would require state agencies to stop authorizing overtime for most employees.

The state would pay only the federal minimum wage, which is $1.45 per hour lower than California's minimum wage of $8 per hour. The governor believes the 2003 court decision, White v. Davis, allows the state to pay the federal wage and meet its legal obligations by issuing back pay once the budget is signed.

Walker said SEIU lawyers are reviewing the draft executive order and the 2003 case.

 

Credit unions offer help

 

More than 75,000 state employees work in Sacramento County alone, according to the Controller's Office.

Terry Halleck, president and chief executive of Golden 1, said the credit union likely will float loans to members if the governor cuts their pay. The Sacramento-based firm, founded by California state workers 75 years ago, has a history of offering such deals to direct-deposit members during budget delays.

Golden 1 is the nation's sixth-largest credit union, with $6 billion in assets. About 100,000 of its 686,000 members – roughly 15 percent – are employed by the state.

"Certainly, as a credit union started by state workers, we would immediately give consideration to what we could do to help our members," Halleck said in a cell phone interview.

While the Golden 1 has branded itself as the dominant state worker credit union, others have similar loan programs.

Sacramento-based Schools Financial Credit Union, for example, started a "budget impasse" loan program July 1 that made zero-interest loans available to members crunched by the budget delay. It also offers loan payment extensions for state employee members who have lost income.

Court decisions over the years have given the state authority to pay many bills, including employee salaries, without a budget. The state began withholding pay and $162-a-day per diem July 1 for lawmakers, though they recover all money once the budget is signed.

Under the order, employees of the California Public Utilities Commission, University of California, California State University, California community colleges and legislative and judicial branches are exempt because they are not under the governor's direct authority, though Schwarzenegger encourages such employers to impose similar measures on their own.

 

1992 IOUs declared illegal

 

The state has not imposed a comparable across-the-board pay cut since it paid 93,000 workers with IOUs in 1992, a practice later deemed illegal by a federal judge.

That year, the budget impasse lasted a then-record 64 days, as California was deep in a recession and Democrats and Republicans fought over spending cuts and taxes.

The IOUs became an embarrassing milestone for California, as they marked the first time since the Great Depression that the state paid bills in scrip.

Banks initially cashed the IOUs for employees when the state began issuing them that summer. But as the budget stalemate persisted, some banks refused to accept them, sparking legal action against the state by public employees.

In 1995, U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. found that the IOUs violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The state reached a settlement in 1996 in which it granted state workers as many as seven additional days of paid leave.

---

Immigration law means a borderline existence for U.S. wife of Mexican Email Picture Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times Heather Suarez applies makeup while waiting in a line of cars on the Mexico side the Otay Mesa border crossing during her two-hour morning commute to work in San Diego, which starts each weekday at about 4:15. Because Evaristo Suarez twice entered this country illegally, he must wait 10 years before he can apply to legally return. His wife, Heather, and three children wait with him amid Tijuana's perils. By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 22, 2008 » Discuss Article    (179 Comments)

Stuck in Tijuana traffic, Heather Suarez fixes her strawberry blond hair, applies her makeup and listens to country music on the car radio. This morning, she sings along.

Life ain't always beautiful You think you're on your way And it's just a dead end road at the end of the day. But the struggles make you

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stronger And the changes make you

wise And happiness has its own

way of takin' its sweet time.

For Heather, 29, every day is a struggle. The native of rural Kentucky didn't know how drastically her life would change after she fell in love and married Evaristo Suarez, an illegal immigrant.

The couple assumed that Evaristo, 30, would be eligible for a green card once they got married and that they would raise their family near her hometown. But because he had crossed into the United States illegally more than once, he was denied a visa and must wait 10 years before reapplying to return legally.

So six months ago, Heather and their three young children moved from Kentucky to Tijuana to reunite with Evaristo, who had been living in Mexico since being denied his visa in 2006.

"Even though everybody said all these bad things about Tijuana, Tijuana was my dream to have my family back together again," she said.

But now, Heather said, 2016 seems a long time away.

During her two-hour commute across the border to work in San Diego, she passes women selling pan dulce and tamales. She smells the exhaust seeping through the windows. She checks the radio traffic report. But her thoughts always return to the family's decision to live south of the border. Was it the best choice for her children?

She fears the escalating drug wars and violence in Tijuana -- the kidnappings, slayings and shootouts. She wonders about the quality of education her children will receive in Mexican schools. She thinks about whether her family will have enough money to pay for rent, food and gas.

"Our lives have been completely flipped upside down," Heather said. "I am still torn, kind of living in limbo, not really knowing what is the right thing to do for my kids. I want them to be with their father, of course, but I want them to have a good education too."

It is "painfully common" for illegal immigrants to think they are going back to Mexico for a quick trip to get a visa but then realize they are stuck there for 10 years, said San Diego immigration attorney Kathrin Mautino. Sometimes, she said, they will cross illegally again and risk being caught and facing even harsher penalties.

But if immigrants want to follow the law, families -- often including U.S. spouses and children -- are left with two difficult choices: Live apart or move to Mexico. Mautino said she knows of a few U.S. citizen spouses who have made the same decision as Heather Suarez, but more choose not to move because of concerns about safety, education, medical care or finances.

"If they want to do things right under the law as it exists today, this is what they have to do," Mautino said. "If they do sneak back into the country and they are successful, they are sentenced to life in the shadows."

Heather and Evaristo met in Kentucky through a friend years ago. At the time, she spoke little Spanish and he spoke little English. Using a Spanish-English dictionary to help them communicate, he told her about growing up on a ranch in Mexico with eight siblings. She told him about her childhood, much of it clouded by an alcoholic father.

"I felt such a strong connection with him," she said. "He genuinely wanted to take care of me."

On Christmas Eve 2002, Evaristo asked Heather's parents for her hand. They married early the next year.

At first, Evaristo didn't want his wife to petition for his green card because he didn't want her family to think he was marrying her for immigration papers. But she insisted, saying that she wanted him to be able to earn better wages and more respect.

"I wanted it to be easier for him," she said. "I didn't want him to have to struggle and feel that he didn't have rights."

Once she learned they would have to travel to Ciudad Juarez for Evaristo's visa interview, she spent months planning and preparing. She consulted attorneys and researched what paperwork they would need. She packed a black rolling suitcase full of documents -- wedding photos, rent receipts, tax returns and letters of support.

Heather thought they would have to prove only that their marriage was legitimate.

"We can pass that easy, flying colors," she said. "Apparently that was not the case."

When the couple arrived at the consulate on June 1, 2006, Heather was turned away at the door and told to wait across the street with their children. She got scared. She overheard other spouses talk about cases being denied.

When Evaristo finally emerged, he was in a daze.

"I didn't get it," he said, handing her a paper with two check marks showing that his visa had been denied. "Why?" she asked, stunned.

Because U.S. immigration records showed that he had illegally entered the country more than once, he was ineligible. He would have to wait 10 years before he could apply to reenter.

Back at the hotel, Heather collapsed on the floor in tears.

"They were taking my whole life, all my dreams, right there," she said. "All we wanted to do was to make it right and to come out of hiding. . . . It is like we are being punished for doing the right thing."

The morning after, the couple made a plan. Evaristo would take a bus to his parents' house in Sinaloa and find construction work. Heather would drive home to Kentucky with the children and return to her accounting job. Both would try to find a workable solution.

Heather wrote letters to members of Congress, to President Bush, to Oprah Winfrey, pleading for help. She talked to attorneys. She chatted online with women in similar situations. No one gave her any reason to hope.

So she changed her strategy. They each would save money and build a small concrete house on his parents' land in Sinaloa and they would live there together.

Heather bought a van and packed her and her children's lives in the back: clothes, toys, microwave, television, computer, air conditioner. On her way, she hit a blizzard, the car overheated and the engine failed. Heather spent the rest of her savings, $2,200, on another car, and they drove into Mexico.

"We were back together," she said. "I had done what I needed to do. We were on our way."

Evaristo was thrilled to see his wife and children again, but he felt guilty. He fled Mexico when he was 16 to search for a better life. Now, his U.S.-born children would be living in poverty and attending Mexican schools.

"They are going to live the same life I lived," he said. "What opportunities are they going to have?"

While in Sinaloa, Evaristo earned about $90 a week working in construction, enough to buy food, milk and diapers but not much else. Heather washed their clothes on a washboard and helped her in-laws around the ranch with the chickens and the cleaning. But a few months later, Evaristo's job ended. He couldn't find more work, so he headed to Chihuahua to follow a lead on another job.

Heather didn't want to stay in Sinaloa without her husband, so reluctantly she drove back to Kentucky with the children. She moved in with her sister and got her accounting job back. She started saving again, this time for an attorney.

But it didn't help.

"Things are starting to sink in . . . that the bar is for 10 years and that there is nothing that can be done about it," she said.

That was when she and Evaristo decided to move to Tijuana. It was their chance, she believed, to be together while they looked for another solution. They all met there in November. By January, Heather was working in accounting at Petco in San Diego. Evaristo looked for work too, but it paid much less. They didn't have child care so they decided Evaristo would watch the children and take the oldest, Nicolas, to school.

Having worked all his life, Evaristo said he feels bad that Heather is supporting the family. He is embarrassed what neighbors must think of him when he is at the grocery store or the park during the day. "She's my wife. They're my babies," he said. "I want to take care of them the best I can. . . . I feel like I am not doing my job."



A few minutes after 5 on a Tuesday night, Heather walked out of the sleek Petco building in San Diego and climbed into her 1994 Oldsmobile.

"I'm just going to stop and get some gas," she said to her husband over a two-way radio. "I love you and I'll see you in a little bit."

More than an hour and a half later, Heather crossed back into Tijuana, walked up the concrete steps into her apartment past a clothesline of drying laundry and greeted her children one by one. Sadie, 4, and Diego, 3, were watching a SpongeBob cartoon in Spanish. Nicolas, 9, was crouching over his math book.

"Did you do your homework?" Heather asked Nicolas.

"I don't have school tomorrow," he said. "I don't have school till June."

"That is the first I'm hearing of it," she said to Evaristo.

Evaristo told his wife that Nicolas' classes were canceled for the rest of the week. The teacher sent home a note, but it didn't give a clear explanation. Heather doesn't understand how a school can just close for three days or why her son attends classes only four hours a day.

Heather wants Nicolas and his siblings to attend school in San Diego, but she can't establish residency there to get him enrolled. And they can't afford two households on just her income.

After dinner, the family walked down the street to a small park surrounded by a chain-link fence. Sadie shrieked when Heather, still wearing her nice slacks and high heels, pushed her on a rusty swing. Nicolas later raced his siblings across the playground.

In the sandbox, Diego made a pile of sand. "I'm making a castle," he said proudly to his mother.

When the family first arrived in Tijuana, they looked for apartments in nearby neighborhoods, including one where 13 people were killed in a shootout in April.

They settled on a $300-per-month place in east Tijuana, and until Heather found work, they slept on makeshift mattresses made of clothes. Their landlord gave them a refrigerator, a stove and a table. They recently bought a TV, but they don't turn on the news while the children are awake.

They rarely venture into central Tijuana, limiting their outings to the playground and the local Wal-Mart.

"I'm worried for their safety, for my safety, even for my husband's safety," Heather said.

Here, just a block from their apartment, Heather said she feels comfortable -- at least until night. That's when the sirens start and fear sets in.

Just after 8 p.m., Heather noticed the sunlight fading.

"It's time to go. Come on, it's getting dark," she said, as the family walked home.

anna.gorman@latimes.com

Life in the Shadows is one in a series of occasional articles.

Lebanese militant released in Israel prisoner swap

By ZEINA KARAM – 1 day ago

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Five Lebanese militants freed from prisons in Israel in exchange for the bodies of two captured Israeli soldiers returned home Wednesday to a boisterous welcome from hundreds of cheering spectators.

Israel released Samir Kantar and four others after Hezbollah handed over two black coffins with the bodies of the Israeli soldiers, closing a painful chapter from the 2006 war in Lebanon.

Kantar, who had been serving multiple life terms in Israel for a grisly 1979 attack, wiped away tears as he stood before a crowd in the coastal border town of Naqoura.

The five later flew to Beirut, where they received an official welcome from the president and were congratulated by Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who was last seen in public in January.

"Your return is a new victory and the future with you will only be a shinning march in which we achieve the sovereignty of our land and the freedom of people," President Michel Suleiman said in his address. "I congratulate the resistance (Hezbollah) for this new achievement."

Winning freedom for Kantar was one of the reasons Hezbollah's leader cited at the time for going to war with Israel in 2006.

Kantar was convicted in a nighttime attack that killed a 4-year-old girl, her father and a policeman. Although polls showed Israelis solidly endorsed the exchange, many see Kantar as the embodiment of evil.

"Samir Kantar is a brutal murderer of children and anybody celebrating him as a hero is trampling on basic human decency," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister.

Wednesday's exchange was also a wrenching end to the war for Israel. The soldiers' capture by Hezbollah fighters in a cross-border raid in 2006 triggered the 34-day war. The campaign to bring Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev home had become a national crusade.

The soldiers' Hezbollah captors had withheld any information about them since they were taken, refusing to release pictures or allow the Red Cross to see them. It was not clear if Regev and Goldwasser were killed in the original raid or if they died in captivity. Evidence at the scene indicated both were seriously wounded.

Though officials had suspected they were dead, the sight of the coffins was the first confirmation of their fate.

Regev's father, Zvi, said he fell apart the moment he saw Hezbollah take the coffins out of a van and place them on the ground.

"It was horrible to see it. I didn't want to, I asked them to turn off the TV," he said, choking back tears.

"We were always hoping that Udi and Eldad were alive and that they would come home and we would hug them," he added, using Ehud Goldwasser's nickname. "We had this hope all the time."

An aunt of Regev's sank to the ground when she saw the coffins appear on a small TV hooked up outside the soldier's father's house. Some 50 friends, neighbors and family who had gathered there sobbed, rocked back and forth in prayer, lit candles or tugged at their hair. "Nasrallah, you will pay," several of the mourners vowed.

Other people in the crowd criticized Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, saying the soldiers died for nothing.

The swap was mediated by a U.N.-appointed German official who shuttled between the sides for 18 months.

On Wednesday, Israeli forensic experts examined the remains for several hours, checking dental records among other things, before confirming the soldiers' identities. Israeli generals then went to the families' homes to deliver the news.

After the confirmation, Israel released Kantar and the four other Lebanese prisoners to Hezbollah.

In the dead of night on April 22, 1979, Kantar and three other gunmen made their way in a rubber dinghy from Lebanon to the sleepy Israeli coastal town of Nahariya, 5 miles south of the Lebanese border.

There, in a hail of gunfire and exploding grenades, they killed a policeman who stumbled upon them, then burst into the apartment of Danny Haran, herding him and his 4-year-old daughter outside at gunpoint to the beach below, where they were killed.

An Israeli court found that Kantar shot Danny Haran in front of his child, then smashed her head with his rifle butt.

Haran's wife, Smadar, who had fled into a crawl space in the family apartment with her 2-year-old daughter, accidentally smothered the child with her hand while trying to stifle her cries.

Kantar, a Lebanese Druse who acted on behalf of the Palestine Liberation Front, a small faction of the PLO, denies killing the older child. He says she was killed in the crossfire as he battled Israeli police, and he has never expressed remorse. Kantar was 16 years old at the time.

Two members of his squad were killed in the raid, and the third, taken alive, was released in a 1985 prisoner swap.

Israel held on to Kantar for decades, hoping to use him as a bargaining chip to win new information about an Israeli airman whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986.

But despite dissatisfaction over Hezbollah's report on the airman, provided over the weekend, and under pressure from the captured soldiers' families to bring them home, Israel's Cabinet voted on Tuesday to release Kantar.

Hezbollah's commander in south Lebanon, Sheik Nabil Kaouk, called the swap an "official admission of defeat" for Israel.

Also Wednesday, a Red Cross tractor-trailer arrived in Lebanon carrying wooden coffins containing the bodies of Lebanese and Palestinian fighters. Part of the swap included Israel handing over the remains of some 199 fighters.

In addition to the two soldiers, Hezbollah also handed to ICRC officials body parts belonging to Israeli soldiers killed during the 2006 war.

Mexico’s warm greeting for Miss USA By Michelle Malkin  •  May 29, 2007 09:23 AM

Do you remember what happened in Guadalajara in 2004 during an Olympics qualification soccer match between the U.S. and Mexico? Let me remind you:

The boos nearly drowned out “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and a few dozen fans chanted “Osama! Osama!” as the United States was eliminated by Mexico in Olympic men’s soccer qualifying.

A loud anti-American crowd hollered as Mexico beat the United States 4-0 Tuesday night in the under-23 tournament, claiming a berth in the Athens Olympics. Mexico had already eliminated the U.S. baseball team from Olympic contention.

As U.S. players left the stadium for their bus, several fans — some clutching beers — chanted “Osama! Osama!” in reference to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Police in riot gear had to protect the American players. Bags of urine were tossed at the US team.

Just a tiny minority of America-haters, right? Wrong. Throughout the week-long festivities leading up to the Miss Universe pageant last night, Miss USA, Rachel Smith, was booed and heckled. First, at a national costume event (half-way into the news segment):

Ms. Smith, who fell during the evening gown competition but recovered gracefully, was subjected to hatred again last night during the Top Five interviews, when hecklers in the audience launched into chants of “Mexico, Mexico” and disrupted her entire interview. The two hosts of the pageant, Vanessa Minillo and Mario Lopez, did nothing to chastise the crowd for the rudeness shown to their fellow American.

At least the hecklers didn’t yell “Osama.” Or maybe the microphones just didn’t pick it up this time.

Meanwhile, as Heather Mac Donald points out, the White House continues to attack opponents of mass amnesty as “nativists.”

Yeah, we’re the nativists.

***
Update: A diehard Miss Universe follower e-mails me that another Miss USA, Kenya Moore, was booed in Mexico during the 1993 pageant.

Pageant blogger Sophie Evans notes that Rachel Smith was booed throughout the entire program last night

More flashbacks:

Go back to March 2005, when Mexico beat the U.S. 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier…

Some Mexican fans responded by chanting “Osama! Osama!”

…For Mexico, the game was a measure of revenge for the United States’ 2-0 win in the second round of the 2002 World Cup, a game that dented national pride. But that match was played in South Korea, not Mexico, where the Tricolores are 54-1-4.

A large banner in the upper deck proclaimed: `”El Gigante No Ha Muerto,” or “The Giant Is Not Dead Yet.” There was booing and whistling during “The Star-Spangled Banner” and derisive chants whenever Kasey Keller took goal kicks.

Reconquista, what reconquista?

The origins of this intense rivalry, explains fan Gerardo Gonzales, are historical - and he is not talking soccer history.

“Every schoolboy knows about 1848,” he says, settling in for a lazy afternoon of serious soccer talk at a local cantina. “When they robbed our territory,” referring to when Texas, California, and New Mexico were annexed to the US at the as part of a peace treaty ending the war between the two countries, “that was the beginning.”

Big Weasel, Big Tax Hike, Big Scam
By Walter Moore, Candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, WalterMooreForMayor.com
July 13, 2008

When someone asks you to vote for the proposed $30 million tax hike to fund "anti-gang programs," I want you to utter two words: "Big Weasel."

Big Weasel, you will recall, is the "ex" gang member whose "anti-gang program," called "No Guns," received over $1.5 million from City Hall in a single year.

But Big Weasel wasn't an "ex" gang member at all. The very next year, federal prosecutors charged him with selling an assault rifle, a machine gun, two pistols and two silencers. Turns out he was arming his gang. He pleaded guilty.

No one at City Hall bothers to monitor the hundreds of millions of dollars of your money they routinely hand over to sketchy, unregulated "non-profit" organizations like Big Weasel's.

City Hall, by the way, not only hands over your cash, but gives these unregulated groups your real estate, too. For example, City Hall recently decided to "lease" a fire station to a group called "Aztecs Rising" for ten years for just $1 per year. You and I can't rent a locker in a bus station for $1 per day, much less an entire building for $1 per yer.

City Hall, moreover, can't seem to get its story straight about how how much of your money it spends on these "programs:"

In October 2007, City Council Member Cardenas said, according to the Daily News, that the City spends $78 million per year on gang prevention, suppression and intervention.

In February 2008, a study for which the City paid $500,000 said the City's various "anti-gang" programs cost $160 million per year.

In July 2008, the City Council started claiming, in the proposed ordinance that would raise our taxes, that it spends only $24 million per year on such programs.

That's quite a disparity, isn't it?

Want to know why City Council knocked the number down so low -- from $160 million per year to just $24 million per year -- in the ordinance? They did it to con you into thinking they won't use the tax hike to fund other programs -- you know, like when they diverted money from the trash fee hike that was supposed to pay for 1,000 new police officers.

You see, the proposed ordinance says the new revenues cannot be used to "supplant the level of funding previously committed for the programs . . . ." So by setting the number artificially low, at $24 million, they can divert the extra $136 million or $54 million per year already spent on "anti-gang" programs to something really important -- like more subsidies for the developers who fund their campaigns.

That helps explain the second measure City Council approved the same day for November's ballot, which the Daily News summarized thus: "The ballot measure, approved by the City Council on Friday, would erase restrictions on height and the number of units in publicly funded low-income and senior projects." City Council does not care about your quality of life. More density means more units, more profits, more excuses to subsidize contributors' projects.

And you won't believe what passes for an "anti-gang" program. My favorite example is a "program" to teach kids how to install waterless urinals. Seriously: that's one of the programs on which City Hall squanders your money. But that one doesn't even show up in the budget, because it's funded through the DWP.

Hey, here's an idea: instead of funding more "Big Weasel" programs, let's pass Jamiel's Law, so our city is no longer a sanctuary for illegal alien gang bangers.

And while we're at it, let's hire more police. Let's keep hiring until we hit the number Bratton says he needs to make ours the safest big city in America, namely, 12,000, rather than the mere 10,000 officers that Villaraigosa has set as his goal.

The City has more than enough money to bring the police force up to 12,000 officers. Revenues and fees are at an all-time high of $7 billion per year. That's up $1.7 billion per year from just a few years ago.

We don't need a new tax. We don't need a new "Big Weasel" program. We need a new mayor, namely, yours truly, Walter Moore. Click here to help.

Illegal immigrant Convicted Of Assaulting Girl Gets 57 More Months

Illegal immigrant convicted of assaulting girl gets 57 more months
Las Vegas Sun
July 11, 2008

A deported illegal immigrant who returned to the United States and sexually assaulted a young girl will be spending another 57 months in federal prison.

Sergio Hugo Hernandez, 31, of Las Vegas, received that sentence Friday on top of a sentence of 10 years to life that he received in state prison for assaulting the girl, said Gregory A. Brower, U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada.

Officials said Hernandez — already convicted of carjacking and use of a deadly weapon in California — was deported from the country on July 29, 2003. He then was found in the U.S. on April 6, 2007, during an investigating into the sexual assault of a girl under age 14.

Hernandez was convicted Jan. 9 of two felonies tied to the sexual assault of the girl. In February, he pleaded guilty to being a deported alien found unlawfully in the U.S., and today was sentenced to the 57 additional months in prison.

The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Henderson police.

July 11, 2008

Cheap Labor: Chao Pandering to LULAC

If Phil Gramm thinks we’re all “whiners,” then Labor Secretary Elaine Chao must think we’re all idiots. Chao appeared before the League of United Latin-American Citizens’s annual meeting yesterday and pushed for free trade and more cheap foreign labor. Will the pandering ever stop?

But did the Labor Secretary mention the fact that in the four industries in which illegal aliens are most prevalent in this country — that is, leisure, hospitality, landscaping and construction — over the past five years, wages have declined while the administration goes around blabbering, suggesting that more labor is needed in those industries? We doubt it.

Illegal immigrant speaks about life in sanctuary By SOPHIA TAREEN Associated Press Writer

 

CHICAGO --Flor Crisostomo stands before the worn wooden pews of the storefront church and tells the visiting students that she doesn't regret paying a smuggler to get her across the border.

 

The 29-year-old illegal immigrant has defied a deportation order to Mexico, where her three children live, - by seeking sanctuary at the Adalberto United Methodist Church for the past six months.

"There are angry people who don't understand why I am here," she tells the students in Spanish, as she wipes away tears. "I am here to help my children."

Crisostomo, who also writes about her experiences, often talks to school groups. She tells them how she immigrated to the U.S. in 2000 and was arrested in 2006 during a raid at an IFCO Systems site in Chicago.

She is one of 14 illegal immigrants are seeking sanctuary in churches nationwide, claiming the act helps illustrate the plight of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S.

Crisostomo recently sat down with The Associated Press to discuss sanctuary and the election.

Q: Why did you decide to live here and defy a deportation order?

A: We have to show the government that we are many, we are strong, we are humans and that we deserve respect in this country. There's a concept that we're criminals or living on welfare or Social Security. There are millions of cases in the U.S. (like me). The majority are forced out of their countries of origin because of trade policies created with this system of government.

Q: Why aren't the presidential candidates talking about immigration?

A: Because we can't vote for them. We're undocumented. (Also), it's a competition ... the one who touches the topic the least will have the most votes.

Q: If you could vote in the presidential election, who would you vote for and why?

A: Maybe (Barack) Obama. I think that he would govern with humanity.

Q: If you could have the ideal immigration reform, what would it have?

A: The first and the most important: reunite families. The most important thing is to stop violating the rights of children who are U.S. citizens. We need to re-negotiate NAFTA. ... Specifically, they can help farmers and help stimulate (the value) of local products like corn, flour, milk and sugar (in Mexico).

Q: Does that (policy) include learning English?

A: Yes, it's necessary for a day-to-day basis, but it's not possible for everyone. We can learn a little by little. But to force, "English-only" in the whole country, that's not fair also.

Q: Have you learned English?

A: The basics, but not much else.

Q: What would you say to people who say you're a criminal?

A: They have to study and learn about the situation, about the problem of immigration, why we are here ... They should be aware that without the 12 million undocumented, this country will fall.

Q: Tell me about the decision to come to the U.S. alone.

A: When you can't find economic resources in your own country, you have to look for some way to feed your family.

Q: When you were crossing, did you envision becoming a citizen and returning to get your children?

A: No. Only to make a future in our own country and return to be with them.

Q: So, you don't want to be a citizen?

A: Actually, I would like to be a citizen of the U.S.

Q: Why?

A: The plan changed from the moment I was arrested. This is a country and a government that tells the world that it's a country of democracy, of justice, of equality. The principles are contradicting, not corresponding in reality.

Q: Why would you want to be a citizen then?

A: Because we can make a change within this country. Being a citizen you can make more demands.

Q: Why live in this church?

A: Because this is a church that was made to help the fight of people who are undocumented. The church has opened its doors ... and is here to speak the truth politically.

Q: You never leave?

A: No.

Q:Do you miss your family?

A: My children understand why I'm here and are working within the situation in Mexico. I know that they have food to eat every day.

Q: Do you worry you'll be taken into custody by ICE?

A: No.

Q: Why?

A: Because this is church. I haven't killed anyone.

Q: What would you do if you got deported?

A: I wouldn't resist. They think they are doing the right thing.

Q: How long will you stay in sanctuary?

A: For the time that's necessary.

Mother of Juan Manuel Alvarez, convicted in train deaths, testifies

Daily News

Relatives of the man convicted of murdering 11 Metrolink passengers in a Glendale train derailment said Thursday that he was the product of a violent family that exposed him to incest, rape, substance abuse and drug trafficking over two generations.

Juan Manuel Alvarez’s mother, Leticia Ayala, told a jury that he was an unwanted pregnancy and that she had tried, but failed, to abort her unborn son using folk-medicine brews of herbs and leaves as well as traditional medications.

The nine women and three men on the jury will decide whether the 29-year-old Compton handyman will get the death penalty or spend the rest of his life in prison.

The testimony of family members came on the first day of closing arguments for Alvarez’s defense team. The sentencing phase of the trial follows his conviction last month on 11 counts of first- degree murder.

“Before you sentence the man, you take into account not just the offense, you take into account the man,” court-appointed lead defense lawyer Michael Belter told jurors at the outset of his closing argument.

Jurors did not seem as moved emotionally as they were during the prosecution’s presentation of testimony from family and friends of the victims of the Jan. 26, 2005, Metrolink train derailment. But they were visibly gripped by the accounts of sexual molestation, beatings, emotional abuse and abject family life described by the defense and family members.

Belter asked jurors to recommend life in prison without the possibility of parole for Alvarez, while acknowledging the gravity of his client’s deadly actions that irrevocably devastated the victims’ families.

“We are not here to offer any excuses or justifications,” he said.

The testimony given Thursday presented a tragic family from the border town of Mexicali, where the seeds of Alvarez’s violence can be traced. There, the Juan Alvarez Sr. family carried out unspeakable acts of extreme machismo and dominance over loved ones.

From the time he was a child, Alvarez was mercilessly beaten for no apparent reason by his father, using fists, belts and electrical cords, several relatives testified.

As children, Alvarez, his sister and others in the family were sexually molested by an uncle, relatives said on the witness stand.

Alvarez’s cousin, Otilia Guevara, testified that the same uncle raped her often, even while she visited her grandmother and with the knowledge of her grandmother and several family members.

And in the most emotional testimony of the day, Alvarez’s mother spoke tearfully about being a battered wife for more than two decades at the hands of an alcoholic, drug-addicted husband whose beatings caused the miscarriage of one of her unborn children.

And no one protested or reported the crimes.

“This was Mexico,” Ayala said through a translator.

Even after her husband abandoned her and her young daughter, Ayala said, she crossed the border from Mexico into the United States illegally on foot - five months pregnant with Juan - to be near the man who regularly physically abused her. She said she tried to abort her unborn son in Mexico prior to her U.S. journey.

When her husband was deported, Ayala said, she followed him back to Mexico with young Juan, who had been born in the U.S. In Mexicali, the battering continued and it took its toll on Juan to the point that his reticence to communicate led some teachers to believe he was a deaf-mute.

Young Alvarez, loved ones testified, was withdrawn and quiet - possibly from the physical abuse, to which relatives said he had grown so accustomed that he no longer cried.

“He would never cry,” said his mother.

“Never?” asked her son’s lawyer.

“Never.”

Prosecutors challenged parts of the testimony of Alvarez’s family members, except for his mother, whom they chose not to cross-examine.

Less moving were the testimony of Alvarez’s older cousin Beto Alvarez, who now is helping raise Juan’s son and his adopted daughter, and his estranged wife, Carmen, the woman prosecutors say Alvarez was attempting to impress and win back when he caused the disaster in which a Metrolink train derailed and smashed into another commuter train.

Carmen Alvarez told jurors she is now involved in another romantic relationship and plans to move on with her life.

Moments before she took the stand, Alvarez had turned to look at her and smiled - his only show of emotion to any of his loved ones.

Beto Alvarez was on the stand as defense lawyers introduced a message recorded on his home answering machine just minutes after Juan caused the derailment and carnage.

“I didn’t mean to do this, Beto,” Juan Alvarez said in the message.

“A lot of innocent people died. I don’t deserve to live, Beto. I apologize for everything. Please pray for me.”

NCLR President Talks 

 

POSTED: 4:50 pm PDT July 10, 2008 UPDATED: 6:38 pm PDT July 10, 2008

 

SAN DIEGO -- Janet Murguia is proud of the work the National Council of La Raza does.

 

"We're celebrating 40 years as an American institution in this country. And over those 40 years, we have established a record of service and contribution, not just to the Latino community, but to our country," said Murguia.

 

Murguia, president of the NCLR, is excited to be holding the group's annual conference in San Diego during such an eventful year.

 

"The fact that it is a presidential election year is very exciting and we are seeing already that the Latino vote has made a difference in the primaries, and we are certain that it will make the difference in the outcome of this election," said Murguia.

 

But the NCLR is not without its critics. Some believe the organization is anti-American and pro-illegal immigration.

 

"We have a place on our Web site that responds to some of these ridiculous assertions about our organization, that we're willing to give the southwest back to Mexico, and that we're for open borders. Those are flat out lies, not true," said Murguia.

 

What exactly is the NCLR?

 

"This organization is an American institution that believes in the security of our borders. It believes in the importance of respecting all of law enforcement and the need to have interior enforcement as we look at a comprehensive immigration reform bill. But we also need to reflect that we are a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws and balance the two," Murguia said.

 

She added, "I think our goal (for this weekend's conference) is to make sure that our community feels empowered to be able to weigh in on these elections this year. It's a very historic time, and to do so in a very informed and educated way."

 

Helping to achieve that goal will be one of the highlights of the conference.

 

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain will both be addressing thousands during the conference in an attempt to gain the Latino vote.