Geographic Tags Used in Events

In advance of President Bush's first foreign trip to Mexico later this month, Secretary of State Colin Powell recently met with his Mexican counterpart.

From Washington, D.C., Lakshmi Singh has more.

The changes in the U.S.-Mexico relationship may be more attitude than policy. Immigration was a big focus in talks between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Mexico's Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda.

Castaneda says Mexico wants to fight violence along the U.S.-Mexican border. He believes the problem can be minimized with a guest worker program to allow Mexicans to temporarily work for American businesses. Powell agreed immigrant safety is a top priority.

On the issue of Cuba, Powell says the U.S. will maintain sanctions against the Communist Island. Castaneda criticized that U.S. policy as counterproductive. He says Mexico intends to improve its ties with Cuba. These are among several issues expected to dominate discussions between Presidents Bush and Vicente Fox in Mexico February 16.

For Latino USA, I'm Lakshmi Singh in Washington.

The Bush administration is nearing a decision on final census numbers. Democrats are urging the president to allow statistical sampling to correct an expected undercount. From Washington, Lisette Olmos reports.

Larry Gonzalez, Washington Office Director of the National Association of Latino-Elected Officials, said proper sampling is crucial and affects not only federal monies and social services, but political redistricting as well.

If statistical methods had been used to make up for the differential undercount, Latino and other minority communities would have had additional opportunities in at least 40 different districts to elect the candidates of their choice.

President Bush has stayed clear of the headcount versus sampling debate, but may finally show his hand when he names a replacement for Kenneth Pruitt, Census Director under the Clinton administration. Bush has agreed to meet with Democrats during their caucus retreat in early February to discuss this and other issues.

For Latino USA, I'm Lisette Olmos in Washington, D.C.

The U.S. General Accounting Office has issued the first of several reports on Spanish land grants in New Mexico. From Albuquerque, Catalina Reyes has more.

For 150 years, rural Latinos have argued the U.S. broke its agreement to honor their Spanish and Mexican land grants. Now, the GAO has issued a draft in the first of a series of reports to Congress that may finally lead to redress. New Mexico Land Grant Forum member Roberto Mondragon.

Although it doesn't carry the weight of law, it does provide for recommendations to be given in the event that wrongs were done in the taking of some of the lands from the land grant heirs. After legislation to resolve land grant claims repeatedly failed to clear Congress, New Mexico senators requested studies to define types of grants and analyze how they were implemented. Remaining reports are due by 2003.

For Latino USA, I'm Catalina Reyes in Albuquerque.

In Utah, the Senate is debating a bill designed to strengthen that state's hate crime law. From station KUER in Salt Lake City, Kat Snow reports.

Utah Senator Pete Suazo wants to revise an existing hate crime statute that prosecutors say is so vague and difficult to use that not one person has been convicted under it since it was enacted in 1992. Yet statistics show a steady onslaught of reported hate crimes during that same period. Suazo says Utah must send a message to hate groups.

I think it's time that Utah clearly say their hatred, their poison that they hope to spread is not welcome here, especially as we are about to host the world in about 365 days.

Suazo is referring to the 2002 Winter Olympics. Although the bill does not list protected groups, Suazo says many colleagues oppose it because it implies protection for homosexuality.

For Latino USA, I'm Kat Snow in Salt Lake City.

From Austin, Texas, I'm David Alvarez. You're listening to Latino USA.

Marisa De Mayo is the regional council for MALDEF in Washington.

Most of the attention has focused on his opposing an African American nominee and an openly gay nominee as well as an Asian American nominee. But it has been less publicized that he also has opposed well-qualified Latino nominees including Judge Sonia Sotomayor as well as Richard Paez who also eventually did get confirmed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Raul Izaguirre of the National Council of La Raza had made the case that Ashcroft's record on issues such as racial profiling, he voted against keeping statistics on it, showed, in Yzaguirre's words, a consistent, aggressive, even hostile opposition to the fundamental civil rights of Hispanic Americans.

NCLR's rights president, Cecilia Muñoz, had concerns about the attorney general's record regarding legislation affecting immigrants.

It's important for people to understand that this is one of many nominations we're going to have to deal with and it sets a very important tone. It sends an extremely important message to President Bush about future appointments at the INS and the associate attorney general positions in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. They're only going to want so many fights. So this is a very, very important battle for a variety of reasons.

I understand they have some concerns about certain things that Ashcroft might have, some positions he might have taken 15, 20 years ago.

Lupe Saldana, who served on the Bush-Cheney transition team, says those Latinos who have concerns about the new attorney general really have nothing to worry about.

In John Ashcroft's home state of Missouri, his Senate confirmation received mixed reviews from Hispanics there.

I am the chairman of the Hispanic Leaders' Group of Greater St. Louis.

When we asked for the celebration of the Hispanic Heritage Month, there would always be something coming from the governor's office. In the city of St. Louis, there was an effort to build a dome stadium here. We wanted to make certain that Hispanic businesses were included, and we were included at these meetings. That was something that I remember that Governor Ashcroft did in regard to the Hispanic community.

I'm aghast. This person can be actually the leading force in our country. Just, it just keeps me from sleeping.

He stands on his morals and his religious beliefs, and he says, for example, that here in Missouri, you know, we've had towns around us like Boonville, Missouri, that has been wanting to have gambling boats open, you know, for, and he has definitely been instrumental in making that an impasse and divisive. He's on grounds of morality, but yet he's pro-tobacco. I mean, just, the man makes absolutely no sense. You know, he's against gun control. He's against the right to choose.

They are being expelled at the frontier, many of them. Have all these tragedies of people trying to come here who cannot even arrive to the coasts like happened some months ago. I remember it was just a small news in the newspaper, but for me it was so expressive, so eloquent. It was the case of some Haitians, people coming from Haiti in a poor boat, 60, and they were drowned. They died. They were eaten by the Caribbean Sea. And what attracted my attention was the fact that they were, all of them were farmers. Farmers from Haiti that have been cultivating rice during their entire lives until to the moment in which an expert from the International Monetary Fund went there and said, no more subsidies for the rice. And Haiti began eating U.S. rice, which is highly subsidized by the U.S. government. And there is no IMF expert who goes to the White House and says, no more subsidies for the rice. This immigration process also hidden sometimes in some of these tragic stories about the unequal relationship between countries.