Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

Gov. Janet Napolitano, likely the next homeland security secretary. (Wikipedia photo)
Under a new, more liberal administration, ICE will presumably tone down the raids, and the website for the presidential transition says as much:
Immigration raids are ineffective: Despite a sevenfold increase in recent years, immigration raids only netted 3,600 arrests in 2006 and have placed [...]

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North Carolina Senate: Once comfortable Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) is fighting for her political life against Democrat Kay Hagan, whom most polls show is ahead. North Carolina has seen an influx on immigrants since Dole was last up for reelection. If Hagan wins by a narrow margin, they will have made a difference.
Arizona State Senate, [...]

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Obama Looks To Cement Lead In Polls With Final Visit West
In the latest AP-GfK poll released Wednesday, Obama leads Sen. John McCain 50 to 41 percent in Colorado and 52 to 40 percent in Nevada. Looking at the complete data set, the Obama campaign’s push to turn out early voters appears to be working. Of [...]

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A study published earlier this month by the William C. Velasquez Institute looked at statewide polling data and determined that if the election were held today, “Latino voters would provide the margin of victory for democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico.”

Swearing in at a Denver naturalization ceremony this summer
Though most [...]

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A new Pew Hispanic Center report says that Latinos made up half of the nation’s growth since 2000. By 2007, they accounted for 15 percent of the population.
USA Today takes a look at immigration in Arizona, where the issue is very much on the political radar.

The collapse of the housing industry has led [...]

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A Eureka, Calif. newspaper takes a look at immigration in the national election. Where do the candidates stand? Pretty close together.
Paul Kanjorski and Nick Lampson, two of the endangered Democratic Congressman that News 21 looked at this summer, might get a boost from the financial crisis. A new poll shows Kanjorski catching up to [...]

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In 2004, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200, a measure designed to prevent alleged voter fraud by illegal immigrants. Instead, as News 21 documented, Prop 200 has disenfranchised thousands of legitimate voters. In 2006, voters overwhelmingly approved four initiatives against illegal immigrants, including measures denying them bail and punitive damages in civil count cases. Now, the [...]

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Sen. John McCain is well-known for his progressive position on immigration reform—a position that has put him at odds with many in his home state. Now, a recent Time magazine piece looks at how the “conservative” revolt against the Republican presidential candidate in Arizona (and to a lesser extent nationwide) reveals the state GOP’s [...]

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Disenfranchised voter Shirley Preiss, 97. (Photo by Stokely Baksh)
In an article for The Indypendent, former News 21 reporter Renee Feltz revisits Arizona, where thousands of potential voters have been unable to register due to new identification requirements. These voters, most of whom are poor, elderly and/or Latino, would have tended to vote Democratic. Thus it [...]

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Arizona’s State Capitol (AP Photo)
A federal appeals court upheld Arizona’s employer sanctions law last week, ruling that it was not intruding upon Federal jurisdiction.
The law was sponsored in Arizona’s legislature by State Rep. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), who is running a heated campaign for State Senate this year. Pearce considers himself a crusader against illegal [...]

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