Customs and Border Protection officers at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry in San Diego stand by guns confiscated along the U.S.-Mexico border.

President Barack Obama has done what many critics of immigration reform wanted – put border security first.

Obama sent more investigative agents to the border, poured money into upgrading ports of entry and targeted traffickers who smuggle in people and drugs, then smuggle out guns and cash.

Shifting the focus away from those who come to the U.S. illegally in search of work, he planted it squarely on criminals who foment violence in Mexico and kidnap and kill inside the United States.

Obama hopes those moves will gain him leverage in dealing with the thorniest part of immigration reform: creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But will his gambit work?

In three tries in three years, Congress has failed to pass an immigration bill, mainly due to opponents’ vague insistence on “border security first.” No one has said who and what will determine that the border is secure, but the mantra provides clever cover for an unwillingness to deal with the nearly 12 million people living in the U.S. illegally.

Last week, Obama hinted he’s aware of that.

“If the American people don’t feel like you can secure the borders,” he told reporters, “then it’s hard to strike a deal that would get people out of the shadows and on a pathway to citizenship who are already here, because the attitude of the average American is going to be, ‘Well, you’re just going to have hundreds of thousands of more coming in each year.’ ”

There is no comprehensive immigration bill moving through Congress so far this session, although several bills deal with various aspects of the issue. In his 2010 budget proposal, Obama plans to ask Congress to provide $27 billion to beef up border enforcement and security.

Under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, nearly 670 miles of fence and barriers went up on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Border Patrol was doubled to about 18,000 agents. The immigration agency’s Fugitive Operations Teams saw its budget soar from $9 million in 2003 to $218 million in 2008.

Thousands of people were arrested in crackdowns on employers and in raids of private homes. Nearly 350,000 immigrants, a record, were deported.

It took billions of dollars to create jail space to house those awaiting deportation. Thousands of employers began using an immigration database to check whether the people they’ve hired can legally work in the U.S.

Still, Bush’s record doesn’t satisfy a main congressional critic, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

“It’s not enough,” Cornyn said, pointing out that the number of border agents pales in comparison with, say, New York City’s police force, which has nearly 40,000 officers.

Obama has been building on Bush’s work. He said he wants to take a more thoughtful approach to enforcement than, as he put it, “just raids of a handful of workers.” His administration is concentrating on companies that recruit undocumented workers who may be depressing U.S. wages, but won’t ignore people working illegally at those businesses.

He hasn’t given in to the demands of some of his strongest supporters – immigration advocates and Latinos – for a moratorium on workplace raids. He’s also made Mexico’s drug violence a high priority for the Homeland Security Department.

“It’s been clear since Janet Napolitano became secretary, the border enforcement is not going to weaken one iota,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the book “The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11.”

“She has not backed off any of the significant border measures put in place by the previous administration.”

Some immigration opponents warn that Obama is shifting enforcement from cracking down on illegal immigration in the U.S. to helping Mexico with a problem it should be solving itself.

Concerns over Mexico’s drug violence and its spillover into the U.S. make it tough to criticize Obama’s efforts. It’s difficult to argue that the U.S. should be spending money arresting hotel maids and day laborers while drug dealers and gun traffickers are on the loose.

After the release of the department’s raid guidelines, one of the harshest immigration reform critics, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, said he was cautiously optimistic.

So for now, Obama can show he’s at least made an attempt to placate the critics.

Suzanne Gamboa covers immigration for The Associated Press.

President Barack Obama has done what many critics of immigration reform wanted — put border security first.

Obama sent more investigative agents to the border, poured money into upgrading ports of entry and targeted traffickers who smuggle in people and drugs, then smuggle out guns and cash.

Shifting the focus away from those who come to the U.S. illegally in search of work, he planted it squarely on criminals who foment violence in Mexico and kidnap and kill inside the United States.

Obama hopes those moves will gain him leverage in dealing with the thorniest part of immigration reform: creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But will his gambit work?

In three tries in three years, Congress has failed to pass an immigration bill, mainly due to opponents’ vague insistence on “border security first.” No one has said who and what will determine that the border is secure, but the mantra provides clever cover for an unwillingness to deal with the nearly 12 million people living in the U.S. illegally.

Last week, Obama hinted he’s aware of that.

“If the American people don’t feel like you can secure the borders,” he told reporters, “then it’s hard to strike a deal that would get people out of the shadows and on a pathway to citizenship who are already here, because the attitude of the average American is going to be, ‘Well, you’re just going to have hundreds of thousands of more coming in each year.”‘

There is no comprehensive immigration bill moving through Congress so far this session, although there are several bills dealing with various aspects of the issue. In his 2010 budget proposal, Obama plans to ask Congress to provide $27 billion to beef up border enforcement and security.

Under Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, nearly 670 miles of fence and barriers went up on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Border Patrol was doubled to about 18,000 agents. The immigration agency’s Fugitive Operations Teams saw its budget soar from $9 million in 2003 to $218 million in 2008.

Thousands of people were arrested in crackdowns on employers and in raids of private homes. Nearly 350,000 immigrants, a record, were deported. It took billions of dollars to create jail space to house those awaiting deportation. Thousands of employers began using an immigration database to check whether the people they’ve hired can legally work in the U.S.

Still, Bush’s record doesn’t satisfy a main congressional critic, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

“It’s not enough,” Cornyn said, pointing out that the number of border agents pales in comparison with, say, New York City’s police force, which has nearly 40,000 officers.

Obama has been building on Bush’s work. He said he wants to take a more thoughtful approach to enforcement than, as he put it, “just raids of a handful of workers.” His administration is concentrating on companies that recruit undocumented workers who may be depressing U.S. wages, but won’t ignore people working illegally at those businesses.

He hasn’t given in to the demands of some of his strongest supporters — immigration advocates and Latinos — for a moratorium on workplace raids. He’s also made Mexico’s drug violence a high priority for the Homeland Security Department.

“It’s been clear since Janet Napolitano became secretary, the border enforcement is not going to weaken one iota,” said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the book “The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11. “She has not backed off any of the significant border measures put in place by the previous administration.”

Some immigration opponents warn that Obama is shifting enforcement from cracking down on illegal immigration in the U.S. to helping Mexico with a problem it should be solving itself.

Concerns over Mexico’s drug violence and its spillover into the U.S. make it tough to criticize Obama’s efforts. It’s difficult to argue that the U.S. should be spending money arresting hotel maids and day laborers while drug dealers and gun traffickers are on the loose.

After the release of the department’s raid guidelines, one of the harshest immigration reform critics, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith, said he was cautiously optimistic.

So for now, Obama can show he’s at least made an attempt to placate the critics.

Rene Saldivar (seated) with his brother-in-law Aquiles Rojas.

EDITOR’S NOTE – This is the second of a two-part series about U.S. citizens thrown out of the country or jailed because they are mistaken as illegal immigrants. These citizens are caught in the net of an overburdened enforcement network and then stuck in a legal system where the odds are stacked against them.

WASHINGTON – Growing numbers of children of illegal immigrants are being born in this country, and they are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty than those with American-born parents, a report says.

The study released Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center highlights a growing dilemma in the immigration debate: Illegal immigrants’ children born in the United States are American citizens, yet they struggle in poverty and uncertainty along with parents who fear deportation, toil largely in low-wage jobs and face layoffs in an ailing economy.

The analysis by Pew, a nonpartisan research organization, estimated that 11.9 million illegal immigrants lived in the U.S. Of those, 8.3 million were in the labor force as of March 2008, making up 5.4 percent of the U.S. work force, primarily in lower-paying farming, construction or janitorial work.

Roughly three out of four of their children — or 4 million — were born in the U.S. In 2003, 2.7 million children of illegal immigrants, or 63 percent, were born in this country.

Overall, illegal immigrants’ children account for one of every 15 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Illegal immigrants also have become more geographically dispersed, increasingly passing up typical destinations like California in favor of jobs in newly emerging Hispanic areas in Southeastern states like Georgia and North Carolina.

In 2008, California had the most illegal immigrants at 2.7 million, double its 1990 number, followed by Texas, Florida, New York and New Jersey. Still, California’s 22 percent share of the nation’s illegal immigrant population was a marked drop-off from its 42 percent share in 1990.

The latest demographic snapshot comes as President Barack Obama is preparing to address the politically sensitive issue of immigration reform later this year, including a proposal to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Though their numbers have soared over the past two decades, the total number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has declined or remained flat in the last few years. Demographers attribute that to slower rates of migration into the U.S. caused in part by the recession, as well as to deportations and stepped-up immigration enforcement during the Bush administration.

Among the findings:

—One-third of the children of illegal immigrants live in poverty, nearly double the rate for children of U.S.-born parents.

—Illegal immigrants’ share of low-wage jobs has grown in recent years, from 10 percent of construction jobs in 2003 to 17 percent in 2008. They also make up 25 percent of workers in farming and 19 percent in building maintenance.

—The 2007 median household income of illegal immigrants was $36,000, compared with $50,000 for U.S.-born residents. In contrast to other immigrants, illegal immigrants do not earn markedly higher incomes the longer they live in the United States.

—About 47 percent of illegal immigrant households have children, compared with 21 percent for U.S.-born residents and 35 percent for legal immigrants.

—About three-quarters, or 76 percent, of illegal immigrants in the U.S. are Hispanic. The majority came from Mexico (59 percent), numbering 7 million. Other regions included Asia (11 percent), Central America (11 percent), South America (7 percent), the Caribbean (4 percent) and the Middle East (2 percent).

Children of illegal immigrants hold a delicate place in the U.S. On the one hand, the Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that these children — whether they were U.S. citizens or not — were entitled to a public school education. California and a few other states also provide some college tuition breaks to illegal immigrants.

At the same time, the immigrants and their families are among the poorest people in the U.S., easily exploited by employers and subject to arrest at any time. Children who are U.S. citizens cannot petition for their parents to become legal U.S. residents until they are at least 21.

Earlier this year, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that more than 100,000 parents of U.S. citizens were deported over the decade ending in 2007, prompting the department to say it would gather more information about families before deporting immigrants.

The Pew analysis is based on census data through March 2008. Because the Census Bureau does not ask people about their immigration status, the estimate on illegal immigrants is derived largely by subtracting the estimated legal immigrant population from the total foreign-born population.

Hispanic-Americans most likely to be locked up, kicked out

This undated photo released by the ACLU shows Pedro Guzman. Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native - in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write - signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

Pedro Guzman has been an American citizen all his life. Yet in 2007, the 31-year-old Los Angeles native – in jail for a misdemeanor, mentally ill and never able to read or write – signed a waiver agreeing to leave the country without a hearing and was deported to Mexico as an illegal immigrant.

For almost three months, Guzman slept in the streets, bathed in filthy rivers and ate out of trash cans while his mother scoured the city of Tijuana, its hospitals and morgues, clutching his photo in her hand. He was finally found trying to cross the border at Calexico, 100 miles away.

These days, he’s back home in California. Said his brother, Michael Guzman: “We just talk to him and reassure him that everything is fine and nobody is going to hurt him.”

In a drive to crack down on illegal immigrants, the United States has locked up or thrown out dozens, probably many more, of its own citizens over the past eight years.

A monthslong AP investigation has documented 55 such cases, on the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. These citizens are detained for anything from a day to five years. Immigration lawyers say there are actually hundreds of such cases.

It is illegal to deport U.S. citizens or detain them for immigration violations. Yet citizens still end up in detention because the system is overwhelmed, acknowledged Victor Cerda, who left Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2005 after overseeing the system.

The number of detentions overall is expected to rise by about 17 percent this year to more than 400,000, putting a severe strain on the enforcement network and legal system.

The result is the detention of citizens with the fewest resources: the mentally ill, minorities, the poor, children and those with outstanding criminal warrants, ranging from unpaid traffic tickets to failure to show up for probation hearings. Most at risk are Hispanics, who made up the majority of the cases.

“The more the system becomes confused, the more U.S. citizens will be wrongfully detained and wrongfully removed,” said Bruce Einhorn, a retired immigration judge. “Nothing could be more regrettable than the removal of our fellow citizens.”

Jim Hayes, ICE director of detention and removal, said he is aware of only 10 cases of U.S. citizens detained over the past five years. Even if combined with the cases found by the AP, “that’s not an epidemic,” Hayes said. He refused to identify any cases, citing privacy laws.

He added that agents investigate any claims to U.S. citizenship, but they often turn out to be false. He said U.S. citizens sometimes claim to be foreign-born, and that immigration officials never knowingly hold someone they can “definitively” determine is a citizen.

It’s impossible to know exactly how many citizens have been detained or deported because nobody keeps track. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project in Arizona, testified at a U.S. House hearing last year that her group alone sees 40 to 50 jailings a month of people with potentially valid claims to citizenship.

“These cases are surprisingly, painfully common,” she said.

The nonprofit Vera Institute for Justice found 322 people with citizenship claims in 13 immigration prisons in 2007, up from 129 the year before. That number does not include possible citizens in the nation’s more than 300 other immigration prisons.

What is clear is that immigration detentions — including those of citizens — have soared in recent years. One reason is a heightened concern for security that arose out of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Another is a political climate that encouraged a tough stance on illegal immigration, especially after Congress failed to pass immigration reform legislation almost three years ago.

After 2003, the nation launched several programs to detain more immigrants, including one that called on local police and sheriffs for help. Before 2007, just seven state and local law enforcement agencies worked with immigration. By last November, more than 950 officers from 23 states had attended a four-week program on how to root out and jail suspected illegal immigrants.

A Government Accountability Office investigation has since found that ICE did not ensure local officials properly used their authority and failed to collect data to assess the program. As a result, ICE is rewriting agreements with 67 agencies.

The program came under fire partly because it gives local officers so much leeway to decide who to stop. Almost one in 10 Hispanic adults born in the U.S. report that police or other authorities stopped them and asked about their immigration status in 2007, according to a Pew Hispanic Center survey of more than 2,000 people.

———

It was a local sheriff’s office that sent Guzman out of the country.

He was picked up near his home in Lancaster, Calif., on March 31, 2007, by Los Angeles County sheriff’s department officers on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. He had tried three times to board a private plane, showing lottery tickets for passage on one attempt, officers said in a report. He had also stolen a car and told officers his mother’s car was broken.

A judge gave him three years’ probation and three months in jail for vandalism.

At the jail, Guzman told officers he was born in California, a response noted in official records. But a sheriff’s employee still got Guzman to sign an agreement to leave the country without a hearing.

On the day he arrived in Mexico, Guzman called a relative to say he didn’t know where he was, and asked a passer-by. The answer: Tijuana. Then the phone cut off.

Guzman was finally returned to California legally in August 2007.

Now he can no longer stand the sun because it reminds him of Mexico. His family will not let him talk about the ordeal because it upsets him. He has frequent counseling sessions, but he is shaky, stutters and seems to hear voices, according to his brother.

“He is our brother, somebody’s son, that they deported,” said Michael Guzman. “California is like the main capital of Latin Americans. It doesn’t matter whether you are a citizen or not. If you look Hispanic, they can question you. Deportation can happen to anybody.”

Neither the sheriff’s office nor immigration officials would discuss the case, citing pending litigation. The family has sued Los Angeles County and the federal government.

“When the whole story is told, people will see and understand what has occurred,” said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office.

In the meantime, Guzman’s mother, Maria Carbajal, often works the graveyard shift at a Jack in the Box because she is afraid to leave him alone during the day.

———

American citizens also have been caught in the net of increased workplace arrests and jail sweeps.

Workplace arrests rose from 517 in fiscal year 2003 to 6,274 in 2008. Julie Myers, former Homeland Security assistant secretary overseeing ICE, said agents quickly sort out which workers are citizens during raids. She added that federal law, court decisions and search warrants give immigration agents the authority to enter workplaces to question everyone inside, including citizens.

But the raids have already led to several lawsuits.

In 2007, 114 U.S. citizens and permanent residents sued after a raid on Micro Solutions Enterprises, a computer printer equipment recycler in Van Nuys, Calif. They alleged illegal detention and sought $5,000 damage each.

In 2008, the union representing workers at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants sued on behalf of eight citizens and legal residents caught up in raids.

In one case, three citizens and nine others, all Hispanic, sued after ICE agents raided their New Jersey homes as part of what was dubbed Operation Return To Sender. The lawsuit alleges that an immigration agent pulled a gun on one of the citizens, a 9-year-old boy.

A program to sweep jails and deport immigrants who have committed crimes is more popular. But critics fear the temptation is to deport anyone for anything because they are seen as bad seeds, even if they are American citizens.

———

Rennison Castillo arrived early at the Seattle immigration office on Oct. 28, 1998, to take his citizenship oath. He was dressed in a freshly starched Army uniform and was eager to grab a good seat. He sat in the second row.

Born in Belize, Castillo had lived in the U.S. since he was 7 and had served two years in the Army. But his superiors told him he could not stay in the Army without citizenship. So he took the citizenship test and passed easily, missing only one question, on the name of a locally elected official.

“I felt pretty good. I felt I definitely accomplished something, because having a citizenship to the United States was something that I felt proud of,” Castillo said.

Seven years later, the U.S. government locked Castillo in a Tacoma, Wash., immigration jail. He had been picked up at the Pierce County jail, where he had spent eight months for violating a restraining order and for residential burglary.

At the holding cell, an officer asked if he wanted to go home. He thought she meant his home in Lakewood, Wash. “Yes,” he answered. “I’d love to go home.”

She chained him up and told him he would be deported.

Over and over, Castillo said, he told officers he was a citizen. He pleaded with them to check their computer files.

But officials said nothing in their records confirmed his citizenship or his military service. One officer actually recognized Castillo from their Army days at Fort Lewis, Wash., and mentioned their battalion, but told Castillo he couldn’t help.

Then Castillo saw a number posted on the wall for the Northwest Immigration Rights Project. On the group’s advice, he contacted a friend who pulled his military document from the trunk of his car.

Nearly eight months after he was transferred to ICE custody, Castillo was released. He discovered that immigration officials had two files on him, with different numbers, and has since filed a lawsuit. ICE declined to comment because the lawsuit is pending.

“I understand that nothing is perfect, nothing will be perfect, but I don’t understand how they could make a grave mistake like that,” he said. “Because if this happened to me, I’m quite sure it’s happened to somebody else. What’s going to happen to the next person it happens to?”

———

For Ricardo Martinez, born in McAllen, Texas, it was not being able to get back into his own country.

Even though he was a U.S. citizen, Martinez lived in Mexico between the ages of 5 and 17.

Like many border residents with family on the other side, he made frequent trips to Mexico. When he tried to return to the U.S. after a visit to Mexico in July 1999, he was turned away by border officers at Nogales, Ariz., because two copies of his birth certificate, issued years apart, had different hospital registration dates. Not proficient in English, Martinez said he had never noticed the error.

Told to get his documents in order, he got a U.S. passport and was able to get into the country. But the problem was not over.

In January 2006, he went back to Mexico to be with his dying grandmother. When he tried to cross back at Laredo, Texas, in March, he carried his birth certificates, his birth registration card, his passport and state ID cards from Nebraska, California and Texas, where he had worked.

But by that time border security had become far stricter. Agents looked up Martinez in their database and found the earlier problem at Nogales. They claimed his U.S. passport was fake, he said.

Martinez was taken to an inspection room, forced to remove his shoes, searched, handcuffed to a chair and held for two hours while officers questioned his documents, he said. He was told unless he confessed to fraud, he would be sent to prison for six to eight months, according to a court document filed in Martinez’s lawsuit against the government.

“They told me if I didn’t say I was from over there, they would put me in jail. I was frightened,” Martinez said.

He said he asked to call his mother to help prove his citizenship, but was refused.

Martinez’s stepfather, Florentino Mireles, said in a Feb. 27, 2008, affidavit that he called border inspectors to ask why they had taken Martinez’s documents. The response, he said: An officer didn’t believe Martinez was a U.S. citizen because he didn’t speak English.

Afraid of jail, Martinez signed the papers. In an affidavit in his lawsuit, Martinez said he didn’t understand that by signing he was admitting to not being born in the U.S.

It took his parents two years to find an affordable attorney. Finally, at a meeting in Hidalgo, attorney Lisa Brodyaga showed border officers a copy of Martinez’ birth certificate from his parents that included his footprints and a thumbprint and tax records showing he had worked legally in the U.S. Officials agreed he was a U.S. citizen and allowed him to cross the border.

Lloyd Easterling, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, declined comment because Martinez has sued. In court filings, the agency said Martinez denied being physically assaulted or subjected to excessive force and never filed a complaint against the officers.

Brodyaga said the cases of U.S. citizens detained or deported show more than bureaucratic bungling.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’ve seen bureaucratic bungling. This is more than that,” she said. “This is an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, particularly for Mexican-Americans on the border.”

Associated Press staff writers Traci Carl and Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.

Mexican soldiers check the identity of a man during an operation searching for drugs and weapons in Reynosa, on Mexico's northeastern border with the U.S. The administration of President Barack Obama is preparing to send federal agents to the US-Mexico border as reinforcements in the fight against Mexican drug cartels.

WASHINGTON – Members of Congress may be alarmed by the surge in Mexican drug violence and its potential to spill across the border, but they grow silent when the talk turns to gun control as a solution.

With related kidnappings and killings occurring in the U.S., the Obama administration is likely to shift dozens of enforcement agents and millions of dollars to the fight against Mexican drug cartels.

Yet when Attorney General Eric Holder suggested reinstituting a U.S. ban on the sale of certain semiautomatic weapons, many lawmakers balked. The 1994 ban expired after 10 years.

“The Second Amendment Task Force opposes the discussed ban and will fight any attempts that infringe on our Second Amendment rights,” said Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., a chairman of the group. Six Democrats and six Republicans co-signed his statement.

Mexico’s drug violence has killed more than 9,000 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 as gangs battle each other for territory and fight off a government crackdown.

Underscoring the Obama administration’s concern over the violence and the potential for a large-scale spillover into the United States, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Mexico on Wednesday to show support for its crackdown on drug cartels.

Mexico has long tried to get the United States to curtail the number of guns — many purchased legally — that wind up south of the border, where gun laws are much stricter. The State Department says firearms obtained in the U.S. account for an estimated 95 percent of Mexico’s drug-related killings.

“If President Calderon’s policies to roll back organized crime are to be successful, we need to defang the power of the drug syndicates to inflict damage upon our state, local and police forces,” Arturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the United States, said in January. “The best way we can do that is for a real ratcheting up of the United States’ capabilities of shutting down the flow of weapons.”

That may prove tough to do.

After opposition from the National Rifle Association, 22 Democrats joined Republicans in a Senate vote this month to negate the District of Columbia’s tough gun registration requirements and overturn its ban on rapid-fire semiautomatic weapons. More than 80 House Democrats backed a similar measure last year.

The gun lobby has raised more than $20 million for political candidates since the 1990 election cycle, with about 85 percent going to Republicans. That ranks 68th among about 80 industry groups tracked by the OpenSecrets.org campaign finance watchdog.

When border violence comes up in hearings, lawmakers say they don’t see a need for new gun laws.

“I don’t think the solution to Mexico’s problems is to limit Second Amendment gun rights in this country,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Senate GOP’s election committee. “What we can do is help our Mexican friends enforce their own laws.”

For his part, Obama has signaled a willingness to tighten restrictions on guns, calling the flow of drug money and guns “a two-way situation.” Yet 65 Democrats said in a letter to Holder that they would oppose any attempt by the administration to revive a ban on military-style weapons.

Congress did provide $45 million this year for Project Gunrunner, a federal program aimed at curbing the flow of guns. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, a Texas Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said he will seek another $30 million over two years for the program and $30 million more to fund efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to crack down on gun trafficking.

Tom Diaz, an analyst at the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group, said cartels use military-style weapons such as the Armalite AR-50, a .50-caliber sniper rifle.

Semiautomatic rifles used by the cartels are imported legally into the U.S. as “sporting” weapons, a policy that was stopped for years but revived under President George W. Bush. The government could stop importation of those weapons under the 1968 Gun Control Act and thus keep them from winding up in Mexico, Diaz said.

Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., who chaired a hearing on guns going to Mexico, said he is not seeking widespread gun control but Congress must do something.

“We don’t want to get distracted by the gun industry lobby of the NRA trying to talk about (how) every attempt to bring some sanity to the situation is somehow an attempt to get rid of everybody’s Second Amendment rights,” he said. “That’s a red herring.”

———

ON THE WEB

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives: www.atf.gov

Drug Enforcement Administration: www.dea.gov

WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff plans to announce changes to rules designed to stop businesses from hiring people working in the country illegally.

The rules proposed to force employers to fire workers whose names don’t match their Social Security numbers. A Homeland Security official, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement Thursday, says Chertoff will describe the changes, which were prompted by a judge’s order.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have sued Chertoff over the rules. They say the rules open the door for discrimination against legitimate workers.

A judge had barred Chertoff from implementing the proposed rules. The department has previously proposed changes to address the judge’s concerns.

WASHINGTON – Illegal immigrants who volunteer to leave the country through an experimental government program may have to wear tracking devices or check in at offices until they go, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday.

Between Tuesday and Aug. 22, people who have ignored deportation orders and have not committed crimes can show up at ICE offices and arrange to leave the country. The offer will only be available in five cities: Santa Ana, Calif.; San Diego; Phoenix; Charlotte, N.C. and Chicago.

About 475,000 people have deportation orders and have not committed crimes, said ICE spokesman Richard Rocha. ICE did not know how many such people are in the five cities.

Those who volunteer will have up to 90 days to take care of personal affairs before leaving.

During that time, volunteers could be required to wear an electronic monitoring device on an ankle confining them to certain areas.

In some cases, those who want to appeal a deportation order could be detained while they fight the order, depending on circumstances of their cases, Rocha said.

Volunteers might get help with flights or bus rides home if they can’t afford the travel. But laws prohibiting people who have been in the country illegally from returning legally for 5 to 20 years would still apply, Rocha said.

Rocha said that by volunteering to leave, immigrants will be able to prove a departure date when they apply to enter the U.S. legally years later.

Congress had considered so-called “report-to-deport” proposals requiring illegal immigrants to report to federal offices, but they failed to become law.

The self-deport idea has left some advocacy group members puzzled.

“The program is a head scratcher, to think people are going to come forward and walk away from their life here. It shows how desperate and delusional this administration has gotten in dealing with illegal immigration,” said Angela Kelly, director of the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Law Foundation.

Frank Sharry, executive director for America’s Voice, said the plan appears to be a political move to convince Republicans the administration is now serious about immigration enforcement.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say there won’t be lines around the block for this program,” Sharry said.

WASHINGTON – KBR Inc. used employees with little electrical expertise to supervise subcontractors in Iraq and hired foreigners who couldn’t speak English, former KBR electricians told a Senate panel investigating electrocutions of 13 Americans.

Experienced electricians who raised concerns about shoddy work and its possible hazards were often dismissed and told, “This is a war zone,” the electricians said Friday.

“Time and again we heard, `This is not the states, OSHA doesn’t apply here. If you don’t like it you can go home,”‘ said Debbie Crawford, a journeyman electrician with 30 years experience.

Crawford and Jefferey Bliss, also a former KBR electrician, testified in the 17th hearing held by the Democratic Policy Committee, which has been examining waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq and the performance of the country’s war contractors. Both Democrats and Republicans attended the hearing.

The Pentagon has said 13 Americans have been electrocuted in Iraq since September 2003. It has ordered Houston-based KBR to inspect all the facilities it maintains in Iraq for electrical hazards.

But Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who chaired the panel, questioned whether KBR could police its own work.

And Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., said, “I am angered that the department (of defense) appears to lack the urgency and outrage that all of us in this room share today.”

In an e-mailed statement, KBR said its investigation so far has not turned up evidence of a link between its work and the electrocutions. “We continue to conduct technical inspections on all facilities serviced by KBR throughout Iraq to ensure safe and proper operations for those we serve,” spokeswoman Heather Browne said in the statement.

The mothers of two soldiers who were electrocuted also testified about the deaths of their sons, Staff Sgt. Christopher Lee Everett and Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth of Pittsburgh.

Everett, a member of the Texas Army National Guard, was electrocuted in September 2005, while using a power washer to clean sand from beneath a Humvee. Maseth, an Army Ranger and Green Beret, was electrocuted in January 2008 while taking a shower in his Army barracks in Baghdad.

“I plead with you to do something to bring an end to this unnecessary cause of death to our soldiers,” said Larraine McGee of Huntsville, Texas. “They should not have to worry about stepping into a shower or using a power washer in the safety of an established base.”

Bliss told the panel “carelessness and disregard for quality of work at KBR was pervasive.”

Electricians were not given the tools needed to do their jobs. Additionally, KBR hired foreigners who were not familiar with U.S. electrical standards and who didn’t speak English.

“I was surprised to discover how many KBR electricians did not have the right experience and training,” Bliss said.

The soldiers’ mothers said KBR and the Army knew of the electrical problems before their sons’ deaths. KBR had inspected Maseth’s housing 11 months before he died. The inspector noted that the main circuit panel, the secondary feeder panel and the water tank were not grounded, said Cheryl Harris, his mother.

Grounding reduces the risk of electrocution. Maseth’s family has sued KBR.

McGee said she had been told by the Army that her son’s death was unique. An Army report blamed his death on an improperly grounded generator that powered the power washer. McGee said she was told Everett’s death led to all generators in Iraq being properly grounded.

But in April, she learned from a reporter the Army had issued a report on soldiers’ electrocutions calling them the “unexpected killer.” The report urged the Army to ensure contractors properly grounded electrical systems.

“All this time, I thought Chris’ accident was an isolated incident,” she said. “My son should not have died. Ryan Maseth should have never died. Proper grounding is a basic safety requirement. The problem was known about long before Chris’ death.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodland, released letters they’ve sent to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on the electrocutions. Brady urged the Pentagon release all information on the deaths to congressional committees and spell out steps its taken to prevent other deaths.

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Democratic Policy Committee: dpc.senate.gov/

WASHINGTON – As the construction industry has slumped, the unemployment rate among Hispanic immigrants has climbed, an analysis released Wednesday shows.

For the first time in five years, foreign-born Hispanics have a higher unemployment rate than do Hispanics born in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis of census and Labor Department data.

The unemployment rate for Hispanic immigrants was 7.5 percent during the first months of this year, compared with 6.9 percent among native-born Hispanics. During the same period in 2007, the rates were 5.5 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.

“The unemployment rate has shot up because of the slump in construction and Hispanic workers had done very well finding jobs in the construction industry as it was booming,” said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research. “Having become somewhat dependent on this industry, they were more vulnerable to the downturn.”

An overwhelming majority of jobs lost in the construction industry were held by foreign-born Hispanics.

Mexican immigrants have been hardest hit; their unemployment rate jumped from 5.5 percent last year to 8.4 percent. The employment downturn added about 255,000 Hispanic immigrants, most of whom are Mexican, to the ranks of the unemployed.

Foreign-born Hispanics could have entered the country legally or illegally. The report does not divide the immigrant numbers along those lines although undocumented workers can be found in the construction industry. For that reason, stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws also has played a role in the job losses, Rakesh said.

“The workers were in the wrong sector, the wrong segment of that sector and in many cases the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Michael Fix, vice president of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that studies immigration issues.

Hispanic immigrants not only worked in construction, but largely in home construction, which is suffering a slowdown more so than commercial construction, a sector with more unionized workers.

Hispanic immigrants have continued to look for work after they lost their jobs, being counted as unemployed rather than as out of the job market.

But fewer immigrants of working age are joining the U.S. job market. The economic slump and increased enforcement are likely contributing to the shrinking numbers of new workers, Rakesh said.

Much of the decline for Hispanic immigrant workers appears to be among Central and South American immigrants. That suggests increased the Mexican government’s own immigration enforcement on its southern border is deterring immigrants from traversing the country to find work in the U.S., Rakesh said.

Unemployment rates for non-Hispanics are lower than for Hispanics overall, 4.7 percent versus 6.5 percent in the first three months of this year.

Rakesh said U.S.-born Hispanics have more variety in job occupations and are less concentrated in the construction industry. Lower education levels compared with their non-Hispanic counterparts contribute to their higher unemployment rates, he said.

Other findings in the report:

—The leading areas for new jobs for Hispanics were in business services — 203,000 new jobs — and hospital and health services, 170,000 jobs.

—Hispanic women fared worse than Hispanic men.

—There were 462,000 more immigrants in the Hispanic work force in 2007. That is up slightly from 2006, but significantly lower than the 784,000 in 2005.

— The Hispanic labor force, people age 16 or over who are working or actively looking for work, rose by 630,000 last year, a 3 percent increase compared to a 3.9 percent jump in 2006.

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ON THE WEB

Pew Hispanic Center

Migration Policy Institute

Texas mayors and business leaders have filed a class-action lawsuit to stop construction of the U.S.-Mexico border fence.

The Texas Border Coalition alleges Friday in a suit filed in Washington that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff failed to negotiate fairly with landowners for access to their property. The lawsuit also names Customs and Border Protection officials.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner says the suit is a delay tactic.

Coalition members say a 1996 immigration law giving Chertoff authority to condemn property for the fence also requires that he negotiate fair compensation. They say landowners were offered $100 and were hoodwinked into waiving their property rights.

WASHINGTON – The government’s plan to crack down on illegal workers could cost employers more than $1 billion a year and legal workers billions in lost wages, a study commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says.

Those costs are enough to trigger a federal law that would require the Homeland Security Department to analyze more thoroughly the effect of its proposal, said Richard Belzer, a consultant hired by the chamber to do the study. It was made available to The Associated Press on Thursday.

The department’s proposed “no match” rule would require employers to fire workers who can’t resolve mismatches between their name and Social Security number. The chamber opposes the proposal.

Belzer’s study will be among public comments submitted to the Homeland Security Department on the proposal. The department could adopt the proposal after reviewing the comments. The deadline for comments is Friday.

Social Security sends no-match letters to employers. They often occur because someone is working illegally, but a mismatch can also take place because of typos, misspellings and name changes, among other reasons.

The Homeland Security Department issued average costs for employers based on how many employees they have and what percent might be unauthorized workers. It determined there would not be a heavy cost to employers.

Belzer, a former economist with the Office of Management and Budget, looked at overall costs and multiplied the average costs by the number of employers in each category. He also used the Homeland Security’s estimates that 2 percent of legal workers a year would lose their jobs because they can’t resolve the Social Security mismatch.

That adds up to between 37,000 to 137,000 unable to get work. Belzer estimated their lost wages would be from $8 billion to $37 billion.

Belzer said the crackdown could cost employers who have to carry out administrative paperwork when their employees are affected. The loss of employees could also affect a company’s ability to produce goods.

His cost estimates are based on the department’s now suspended plan to enforce the no-match rule after the government sent 140,000 employers no-match letters, each with about 10 or more names. A U.S. district judge blocked the plan in October after groups opposed to it sued. The department is appealing.

A law in place since 1981 requires agencies to do a comprehensive study of proposed regulations if the cost exceeds $100 million, said Belzer, an independent consultant.

“This is 10 times that,” Belzer said. “They haven’t done the level of analysis that for almost 30 years would be commonplace.”

Russ Knocke, the department’s spokesman, said while the he is “not shy to talk about the virtues of no-match, it’s difficult to talk about something I have not seen.”

WASHINGTON – The proportion of foreign-born Latinos at the lowest end of the wage scale fell by 6 percentage points over the decade ending in 2005, the Pew Hispanic Center reported Tuesday.

In 2005, foreign-born Latino workers accounted for 36 percent of workers earning less than $8.50 an hour compared with 42 percent in 1995, according to the center’s analysis of U.S. Census data.

In the same period, the portion of foreign-born Latinos earning from $8.50 to $16.20 an hour in 2005 grew by about 5 percentage points.

Expressed in 2005 dollars, low-wage workers in 1995 earned less than $7.69 per hour, and middle-wage workers earned up to $15.38 an hour in 1995 and $16.20 in 2005.

The actual number of Latinos on the lowest end of the wage scale still grew by 1.2 million workers, but that was about 600,000 fewer people than would be expected based on the growth of the foreign-born Hispanic population, said Rakesh Kochar, the center’s associate director for research.

Half of newly arrived Latino immigrant workers were among the lowest wage earners in 2005, down from 64 percent in 1995.

New arrivals also were older, better educated and more likely to be employed in construction than agriculture, the report said.

Legal and illegal workers were considered for the study, but researchers did not differentiate between them in their analysis. Census does not ask immigration status.

The center also found:

• A third of foreign-born Asian workers were in the highest wage group, earning more than $24.03 an hour in 2005, up from a fourth.

• The share of Mexican-born workers in the lowest wage class fell from 48 percent in 1995 to 40 percent in 2005.

• There was no significant change for native-born Blacks or native-born Hispanics, with half of each group in the lower and lower-middle wage groups in 2005 and 1995.

• Native born, non-Hispanic Whites were more likely to be high-wage earners. Twenty-three percent, or 18.5 million, were in the high-wage group in 2005, higher than expected, considering the slower population increase among Whites, smaller shares of Whites in the workforce and a smaller high-wage group.

“There seems to be room for everybody,” Kochar said, noting the progress among immigrants and no significant drops among other groups.

Steve Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, agreed the progress is good news. But Camarota, whose group favors tighter immigration restrictions, questioned whether the United States needs a lot of low-income wage earners.

“It seems we have a glut already,” he said.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., left, and committee ranking Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., second from left, meet with Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, right, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, second from right, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2007, prior to the committee's hearing on immigration reform.

WASHINGTON – Democrats sought assurances Wednesday that President Bush will deliver Republican votes for putting illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship and creating a guest worker program.

The Senate, with Bush’s backing, passed a bill last year that did both, but it wilted into campaign fodder for November’s midterm elections after House Republicans staged hearings around the country opposing it.

“Without the administration’s earnest engagement on this issue, our efforts are likely to suffer the same fate they did last year,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said at a hearing he called to weigh the administration’s support.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told the committee that Bush is committed to seeing a sweeping immigration bill become law, though they were careful not to wade too much into details.

“Secretary Chertoff and I come before you today on behalf of the president with a simple message: We believe that with some hard work a solution can be found, and we pledge to roll up our sleeves and work with you on a bipartisan basis,” Gutierrez said.

Supporters of allowing some of the estimated 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants to remain in the United States are expected to unveil an immigration bill as early as next week.

Closed-door meetings to draft the legislation have been going on for months with Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., and Reps. Luis Gutierrez , D-Ill., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

“There aren’t many issues where President Bush and this Congress are going to be able to come together. … It’s an opportunity that none of us can afford to squander,” Flake said.

Bush has raised the immigration issue several times this year. He named it the issue on which he would find most agreement with Democrats after they won control of Congress last November.

A sticking point is whether to allow immigrants who come as guest workers in the future to remain in the country and seek legal residency after a prescribed period of work.

Many conservatives and immigration-control groups think they should have to return home. Some Democrats also have trouble with bringing in additional immigrants to work because of labor union concerns that they will take jobs away from Americans.

“What interests should be served, the interests of poor people or those around the world … or shouldn’t it be the interests of the people of the United States?” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

Kennedy said the U.S. already grants employers of high-skilled immigrants a chance to seek legal residency for the worker.

Last year’s Senate bill divided illegal immigrants into three groups based on how long they had been in the country and set up different criteria for each. Those in the country less than two years had to leave.

“Whatever measures are passed must work in the real world,” Chertoff said.

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Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov/

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration is proposing to nearly double the cost of becoming a U.S. citizen and drastically raise the cost of becoming a legal permanent resident.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, announced Wednesday it wants to raise the application fee for citizenship from $330 to $595 and the fee for becoming a legal permanent resident from $325 to $905. But the agency plans to eliminate other costs those legal residency applicants often pay while they are waiting for their permanent residency to be final.

Emilio Gonzalez, Citizenship and Immigration Services director, said more than 99 percent of the agency’s costs are paid for with application fees. The increases are needed to make up for lost revenue and to help the agency become “the immigration service of the 21st century,” he said.

“We need to grow. We need to strengthen. We need to modernize. We need to provide the very best possible customer service. We need to provide the very best possible security infrastructure for what we do,” Gonzalez said.

The agency said the new fees would reduce average application processing times by 20 percent by the end of September 2009.

The agency said it would raise $2 billion over those two years from the fee increases. The money is to be spent on improving immigration offices, technology, hiring and training; background checks of immigrants and speeding up completing applications.

Applicants now pay a $70 fingerprinting fee. The agency wants to increase that to $80. Fees also are paid for work permits, replacing lost green cards and petitions to adopt orphans from other countries and other benefits.

The largest increases are a jump from $475 to $2,850 for entrepreneurs who want to immigrate to the country and plan to invest in businesses and create jobs, and an increase from $180 to $1,370 for people still applying to be legal residents under the 1986 immigration law that granted amnesty.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, border security and citizenship, criticized the hefty fee hikes, saying they would “price the American Dream out of reach for qualified immigrants” seeking to become citizens.

“We must look to other solutions for funding the necessary work of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services,” Kennedy said. “We are a nation of immigrants and Congress should recognize its responsibility to support the vital work of immigration services by appropriating the necessary funds.”

The proposed increases would not be final until after a public comment and review period. They will likely go into effect in mid-June, Gonzalez said.

Congressional Democrats last week warned in a letter to Gonzalez that they planned to review the agency’s analyses behind any proposed immigration fee increases.

But Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said it was “right for the people who benefit to pay the cost of that benefit – not taxpayers.”

Immigration advocates have been bracing for the expected jump in fees. William Ramos, Washington director for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said the increases would be “devastating to our communities” and “create another obstacle” for those who want to be citizens.

Citizenship and Immigration Services agency is required to do a fee analysis every two years to determine whether money raised from fees is covering costs. The agency last raised its fees in 2004, citing the cost of more intense background checks in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In 2005, it raised all fees $10 for inflation.

Immigrant advocates long have argued that the agency’s costs cannot be absorbed by application fees. They want Congress to appropriate money to help pay costs. They have also criticized the backlogs in applications, lost files and other problems.

Traci Hong, director of the immigration program for the Asian American Justice Center, said the proposed fees would cause a “substantial burden” to Asian Americans, who have a high naturalization rate. About 70 percent of Asian immigrants become citizens, she said.

“Everyone agrees these improvements need to be made. If that is the case we challenge U.S. CIS and Congress to fund this endeavor and not put it on the backs of immigrants and their families,” Hong said.

Any immigration legislation passed this year is likely to include a guest worker program. Gonzalez said it will be up to Congress to decide how to fund costs to his agency for such a program but the fee increases aren’t for a possible guest worker program.

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Citizenship and Immigration Services: www.uscis.gov

WASHINGTON – The government on Thursday unveiled 144 revised civic questions it will try out on immigrants who want to become Americans, as part of an effort to design a more meaningful citizenship test.

“When you raise your hand and swear your allegiance to the United States, you really ought to know what you are swearing allegiance to,” said Emilio Gonzalez, director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, a Homeland Security Department agency. “You ought to internalize by that time, the very values that make this country what it is, the very reason why you are raising your right hand. … Citizenship is not test taking.”

The draft questions will be tried out on immigrant volunteers in 10 cities early next year. Gonzalez was not ready to give specific dates. Applicants must verbally answer six of 10 questions right to pass the civics portion of the test.

The government wants the citizenship test to require a better understanding of America’s history and government institutions. It expects to spend about $6.5 million to make the changes, said Alfonso Aguilar, director of the citizenship office.

Citizenship and Immigration Services has been working for several years to redesign the test. A 2003 attempt was tried out in some cities, failed and was scuttled.

Under the draft questions, no longer would it be sufficient to name the three branches of government (executive, legislative and judicial). Applicants could also be asked why there are three branches.

Acceptable answers could include: So that no branch is too powerful or to separate the power of government.

The redesign is aimed at making sure applicants know the meaning behind some of America’s fundamental institutions, said Chris Rhatigan, an agency spokeswoman.

“There’s not one, rote SAT-type question and answer,” she said.

The questions released Thursday will be given to immigrants who volunteer to take the new draft test.

The questions will be tried out early next year in Albany, N.Y.; Boston; Charleston, S.C.; Denver; El Paso, Texas; Kansas City, Mo.; Miami; San Antonio; Tucson, Ariz.; and Yakima, Wash.

The questions will go into use in the pilot cities before advocacy groups get a chance to point out any problems or concerns. After the questions are tested, the agency plans to spend a year examining results and reviewing the questions with groups with expertise and interest in the tests.

Immigration officials want to narrow the number of questions to 100 and launch the redesigned test in early 2008.

Another possible question would delve into the history of the Civil War. Applicants are now asked, What was the Emancipation Proclamation?

Current applicants need to know that it freed the slaves. In the future, however, prospective citizens will need to have a deeper understanding of the Civil War and name one of the problems that led to it.

Acceptable answers could include slavery, economics or states’ rights, Rhatigan said.

In the pilot, volunteers answering the new test questions can at anytime stop and take the current exam so as not to lose the chance to become a citizen, Rhatigan said.

A variety of groups with varying ideologies about immigration have been working with Citizenship and Immigration Service, meeting with them monthly, to advise the agency on drafting the questions.

Immigration advocates want to ensure that the new test does not make becoming a citizen more difficult, while groups that want to control immigration want to ensure newcomers are not simply memorizing information.

Fred Tsao, policy director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the question about three branches of government is vague.

“The answer could be anything from because the Constitution says so to a long lecture on 18th century French political philosophy, which is where we got the idea,” Tsao said.

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Some examples of draft questions and acceptable answers to be tried out in 10 cities on volunteers seeking American citizenship:

Q: Why do we have three branches of government?

A: So no branch is too powerful.

Q: Name two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy.

A: They can vote, call senators or representatives, run for public office, write a letter to a newspaper; join a political party or other possible answers.

Q: Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream for America. What was his dream?

A: Equality for all Americans, civil rights for all or other possible answers.

Q: Name one important idea found in the Declaration of Independence.

A: All people are created equal; the power of government comes from the people; the people can change their government if it hurts their natural rights or other possible answers.

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Services.

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Citizenship and Immigration Services: www.uscis.gov