IN 1992, Donald Eugene Harding was executed by gas at the state prison in Florence for the 1980 murders of two businessmen in Phoenix.

Harding, 43, was the first person executed in the state since Manuel Silvas in 1976 and was the last to be executed while the gas chamber was the official execution method.

The 38th annual “A” Mountain Good Friday procession will be led by Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas.

More than 1,000 people are expected to participate in a procession up the mountain that will include a 16-foot wooden cross, symbolizing Jesus’ walk up Mount Calvary.

The cross will remain on the mountain through Easter.

Participants should gather at the base of “A” Mountain (Sentinel Peak) at 5 p.m. Friday.

Sentinel Peak Park will be cleared of vehicles at 2 p.m. and closed to the public through the evening.

For more information, call Tucson Parks & Recreation at 791-5909.

The United States needs a guest-worker program so authorities can focus on terrorists and criminals entering the country and spend less time dealing with people who just want jobs.

That isn’t the view of a softhearted liberal or an illegal immigration supporter. That’s the view of the man who heads the U.S. Border Patrol.

And it’s a common-sense view that members of Congress should heed as they debate a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the U.S. House.

Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar was in Tucson this week to talk to residents about the problems his agency faces in trying to arrest truly dangerous people who mingle with the millions of people who cross the border seeking nothing but a job.

Aguilar said more than 1 million people are arrested annually entering the United States from Mexico illegally.

“Illegal immigration has to be mitigated to allow us to secure the border,” Aguilar told about 200 people at a meeting in Sahuarita hosted by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Tucson Democrat.

Aguilar and others with the Border Patrol said those seeking employment should be funneled into a guest-worker program that would free up Border Patrol agents to capture the real criminals.

And there is no shortage of criminals. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said violence associated with drug and people smuggling has reached “epidemic proportions” along the border.

Last week, two people were slain when a pickup truck packed with 23 illegal immigrants, including three children, was ambushed. The assailants thought they were robbing drug smugglers of their load. It was the second such incident in two months.

The resources of federal agencies and state and local law enforcement have been “taxed to their maximum,” Dupnik said. “We are literally overwhelmed by the problem.”

That is the kind of call for a guest-worker program that every member of Congress, regardless of political philosophy, should understand.

This nation will not be safe and secure until the border is secure.

And the border cannot be secure until the millions of people seeking work are screened and allowed to enter legally so authorities can hunt for only those who want to commit crimes and hurt us.

That requires a guest-worker program. And it requires comprehensive immigration reform.

Fernanda Almanza wipes a tear as she hears Gabrielle Schneider.

Gabrielle Schneider didn’t sleep the night after she talked to Vail Middle School students.

She never does after she recounts the horrors she and her family endured in German death camps during World War II. Her parents and a sister did not survive.

She told the students, “the nightmares never stop. They can never stop.”

But the 83-year-old Schneider, sometimes with the help of a walker, goes to schools and other sites whenever people want to hear her story.

The school library was silent as Schneider recently told her tale:

“I remember when my sister was dying. I was sitting on a little stone, and her head was on my lap.”

She told the students how her mother and father were torn from her and her brothers and sisters and how people at the camps literally died of hunger and thirst.

The story is almost too much for 13- and 14-year-olds to comprehend.

“I totally almost started crying. It was very, very difficult to listen to,” eighth-grader Lizzy Simpson said.

But the students understand why they must listen.

“How could people do that to others?” Derrick Johnson wondered out loud.

He said something similar to the Holocaust could happen again. But it would be harder, he said, especially because of people his age who have talked with a Holocaust survivor.

“I can try to make a difference and get the message out,” the 13-year-old said.

Classmate Zachary Sanchez, 13, agreed.

“It’s part my responsibility to let other people know about it,” he said. “People need to hear it because of all the hate going around in the world.”

Longtime social studies teacher Jim Driscoll and former co-teacher Ray Davies, now a prominent human rights figure locally, nationally and internationally, think part of their mission is to let young people interact with those who suffered in the Holocaust.

Their classes’s curriculum always integrates the fact that one individual, no matter the age, can make the world a better place, Driscoll said.

“You are very fortunate” to hear about the Holocaust from people who experienced it, Davies told the Vail students. “In the next 10 years or so, all the survivors will be dead.”

Schneider has found many avenues for her message.

She has videotaped her story, as have many other survivors, with Steven Spielberg. She also turned to painting and writing.

Her art, haunting paintings of some of her most traumatic Holocaust experiences – encounters with Dr. Josef Mengele, a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau; a barefoot death march through the snow; relieving herself, as everyone had to, in a bucket in front of other concentration camp internees – she shares with the students.

Her book, “Andor Kept His Promise from the Grave,” recounts her life story.

Her salvation, she said, is that she proved Hitler wrong. She survived and has two sons. The older one owns a piano store in Phoenix, the other is a Tucson dentist.

Schneider, who taught piano and accordion lessons for decades, takes care of her ailing husband and speaks of the Holocaust when asked.

The students appreciated her visit.

“We can tell other people, who didn’t get the chance to meet her, what happened,” said 13-year-old Sarada Devi Thanikachalam. “We can carry on her story.”

Gabrielle Schneider recounts her Holocaust horrors during a visit with Vail Middle School students.

IN 1919, a victory fair opened in Tucson to celebrate the end of World War I. A squadron of military airplanes flew from San Diego to perform an aerial exhibition, and troops of the 10th Cavalry from Fort Huachuca marched in a parade.

The Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission will host a presentation April 26 on the restoration of the century-old adobe building it calls home.

The adobe building at 240 N. Court Ave. has undergone a slow, steady transformation since the commission moved in during 1983. Work in recent years has included adobe stabilization, restoration of saguaro rib ceilings and roof work. The restoration is largely complete, said commission Executive Director Sandy Davenport.

The presentation at 5-6:30 p.m. will include Eric Means, a local adobe restoration expert; El Presidio Historic District; and Pima Community College’s interior design program. La Cocina Restaurant will provide a Southwestern buffet.

Early records do not reveal when the commission’s home was built, but records show it was owned for more than a decade before 1900 by ice merchant Royal A. Johnson.

After moving in, the commission rented the building from the city for 17 years. In June 2000 the city gave it to the commission, ending fears the group might be forced out by escalating rent.

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ON THE WEB

Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission: www.pimatucsonwomen.org

The 38th annual “A” Mountain Good Friday procession will be led by Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas.

More than 1,000 people are expected to help carry a 16-foot wooden cross up the mountain, symbolizing Jesus’ walk up Mount Calvary.

The cross will remain on the mountain through Easter.

Participants should gather at the base of “A” Mountain (Sentinel Peak) at 5 p.m. Friday.

Sentinel Peak Park will be cleared of vehicles at 2 p.m. and closed to the public through the evening.

For more information, call Tucson Parks and Recreation at 791-5909.

FLAGSTAFF – The ousted chairman of the Hopi tribe plans a legal challenge to his removal from office.

Ben Nuvamsa was removed from his elected post in late March by the Hopi Tribal Council and is planning to seek an injunction from the Hopi high court to get his job back this week.

Nuvamsa was elected to the post in February but was removed after only 27 days in office. The council nullified his election, deciding he was not eligible to run because he did not meet residency requirements.

Nuvamsa on Tuesday called the council’s actions illegal and unconstitutional, saying a legislative body doesn’t have authority to nullify an election after the fact.

“The council did not vote me in. It is the people who voted me in. And that is what we are fighting about,” Nuvamsa said.

The chairman was removed after allegations that he hadn’t lived on Hopi lands for the previous two years, a requirement to seek office. But Nuvamsa said he has been living at Hotevilla and was eligible.

The tribal election office had reviewed the matter before the vote and agreed, and the council allowed the elections to proceed.

Tribal council members have not returned phone calls on the issue. The vote to remove Nuvamsa was 10-8.

Nuvamsa acknowledged working outside the reservation, including in the White Mountains, which he compared to a U.S. soldier stationed in Iraq or a U.S. senator who travels to Washington to vote.

“My home is Hopi,” he said.

The Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission will host a presentation April 26 on the restoration of the century-old adobe building it calls home.

The adobe building at 240 N. Court Ave. has undergone a slow, steady transformation since the commission moved in in 1983. Work in recent years has included adobe stabilization, restoration of saguaro rib ceilings and roof work. The restoration is largely complete, said commission Executive Director Sandy Davenport.

The presentation will include representatives of the restoration architectural firm; Eric Means, a local adobe restoration expert; El Presidio Historic District and Pima Community College interior design program. La Cocina Restaurant will provide a Southwestern buffet.

Early records do not reveal when the commission’s home was built, but records show it was owned for more than a decade before 1900 by ice merchant Royal A. Johnson.

The commission moved into the building in 1983, renting it from the city for the next 17 years. In June 2000, the city gave the building to the commission, ending fears the group might be forced out by escalating rent.

IF YOU GO

What: Presentation on restoration of the Royal Johnson Building, home of the Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission

When: 5-6:30 p.m., April 26

Where: 240 N. Court Avenue

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Pima County/Tucson Women’s Commission: www.pimatucsonwomen.org

IN 1930, the Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind were closed for lack of funds. The schools’ teachers were owed three months’ back pay.

IN 1988, Evan Mecham became the first governor in Arizona history to be removed from office through impeachment. Mecham was convicted by the state Senate of obstruction of justice and misuse of state funds.

Advocates for comprehensive immigration reform demand that Congress give illegal immigrants a path to legal residency and possibly even citizenship.

Fine. But no one ever said this path couldn’t go through the immigrants’ home countries.

What if the United States allowed millions of illegal immigrants to work toward citizenship, but only if they first returned home and applied to re-enter the U.S. legally?

And what if the entire process happened quickly and only one member of a family needed to make the trek (even if everyone in the family is undocumented) and that, once the representative re-enters with papers, the whole family gets to stay?

This is what’s become known in this debate as the “touchback.” It has a shot at breaking the logjam on Capitol Hill, because it provides a path to legalization without turning that path into a cakewalk.

This requirement that illegal immigrants go home to get right with the law first surfaced last year in a bill proposed by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

Now the idea has won favor with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who last year co-sponsored an immigration reform bill with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

What is still unclear is whether McCain is thinking about defecting to Pence’s camp or whether the Arizonan will try to bring Pence into his camp by peppering the McCain-Kennedy bill with language from the Pence plan. If that happens, you can expect the touchback to be part of the peppering.

But there’s another plan out there that is spicing up this debate, and it comes from two congressmen who last year co-sponsored the House version of McCain-Kennedy.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., are back with new legislation, and they have moved a smidgen to the right by adding even more enforcement measures and a touchback provision similar to the one in Pence’s bill.

The question is whether the Gutierrez-Flake bill is sincere with its return-to-sender requirement, or whether the sponsors are just trying to convince folks that they are tougher on illegal immigrants than they really are in order to get the legislation passed.

Under the Hutchison-Pence plan, an individual could be processed in a week to 10 days. Under Gutierrez-Flake, the entire procedure could take a day or two, leading some conservative critics of the bipartisan bill to mock that requirement as a vacation.

Pence told me that he hadn’t studied the Gutierrez-Flake plan, but his initial impression is that there are serious differences between that bill and the one he proposed.

“It is not simply that an individual is required to leave the country,” he said. “It is that they are required to apply outside the country and be processed outside the country.”

I asked Pence if he thought the Gutierrez-Flake bill was close enough to his plan that the two sides might work out their differences.

“My initial reaction,” he said, “is that it doesn’t go far enough to get me.”

Of course, some critics of the Pence plan think it goes too far, and that if you make the process too onerous, illegal immigrants simply will not participate.

Supporters of comprehensive immigration reform need every vote they can get because they can’t count on the support of skittish Democrats on the conservative end of the spectrum. That’s why they should make a pitch for Pence and the smattering of votes from moderate Republicans he could bring.

To get that support, Gutierrez and Flake might have to put some teeth in their touchback.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union Tribune. E-mail: ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.