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I'm Maria Hinojosa. This time on Latino USA, perspectives on the confirmation of John Ashcroft as the new U.S. Attorney General.

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.

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 producers of the show were upset over the network's apology, Manuel Miraval, president of the National Puerto Rican Coalition, says TV producers are out of touch with the issue.

After a grueling debate regarding his fitness to head the Justice Department, John Ashcroft has become the nation's new Attorney General. Among the estimated 200 organizations which opposed his confirmation were a number of leading Hispanic groups.

Latino USA's Maria Martin spoke to Latinos with varied perspectives on the Ashcroft nomination and has this report.

Never in this nation's recent history had Latino organizations been so vocal in opposing a president's nomination to the cabinet. Coming together under the banner of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda to oppose John Ashcroft had been such organizations as the National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, MALDEF.

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.

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.

For his opponents, John Ashcroft's confirmation by the U.S. Senate indicates how little representation minorities have in that upper body of the Congress. Again, Marisa de Mayo of MALDEF.

The Department of Justice, which regulates immigration through the INS, as well as legislation such as the Voting Rights Act, is especially important to Latinos. Angelo Falcón of the Institute for Puerto Rican Policy says that now that Ashcroft has been confirmed, Latinos need to mobilize. To dispel the idea held by many Republicans, the Latino organizations represent fringe, liberal interests.

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.