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QUESTION: Considering you were one of the leading advocates of immigration reform in 2007, do you intend to take up on that role again with President Obama? Or is it too much of a political liability, considering you're running for re-election? MCCAIN: Running for re-election has never been a concern of mine as far as issues like that are concerned. I intend to discuss that with the president-elect. It's pretty clear that our agenda, that all Americans are, is our economy, but I still am committed to comprehensive immigration reform, with the need to secure our borders and a guest-worker...

On his first full day as President, Barack Obama will be greeted by salutes, good wishes - and throngs of protesters on the National Mall demanding immigration reform.   It will be a thunderous welcome, delivered mostly by Hispanic voters who - having provided a critical edge to Obama on Election Day in several key states - are looking for payback. "We voted in the millions, and now we're going to demand progress in the millions," said Angelica Salas, an organizer of the Jan. 21 protest and director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. RELATED: LATINO...

Despite championing immigration reform in 2007, John McCain is poised to lose the Hispanic vote by a landslide margin that is well below President George W. Bush's 2004 performance. Polls show Obama winning the broadest support from Latino voters of any Democrat in a decade, while McCain is struggling to reach 30 percent, closer to Senator Bob Dole's dismal 1996 result than to Bush's historic 40% four years ago. McCain seems to have wound up with the worst of both worlds: He appears to be getting no credit from Latino voters for his past support for immigration reform, while carrying...

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- The new offensive in the presidential election is a Spanish-language air war in which each party is trying to convince Latino voters that the other is no amigo to the nation's largest minority and that it did them wrong during the immigration debacle in Congress. ... Stop the tape! The spots are hard-hitting, but only one hits the target. The McCain-Palin ad is accurate. But the Obama-Biden ad is riddled with problems.

A new Spanish-language John McCain television commercial airing in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico attacks Barack Obama for not doing enough to support the so-called "comprehensive immigration reform" legislation backed by President Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy that was defeated in 2007 after a national uprising in which it was characterized as a massive amnesty scheme. The English-language translation of the 30-second commercial, "Which Side Are They On?" is here: Announcer: Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they? The press reports that their efforts were "poison pills" that made immigration...

Rush Limbaugh, featured in a new, Spanish-language Barack Obama ad, says the commercial distorts his past statements and amounts to "race-baiting" by the Democratic nominee. The commercial, to air in Limbaugh's home state of Florida as well as Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, features a picture of the conservative talk show host and shows his words on the screen: "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out." It was first reported by the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe. "Obama is now stoking racism in the country," Limbaugh wrote in an email. "Obama is a disgrace - he...

If immigration is your number one political priority, what should you do this election? We begin with the observation that Democrats will likely consolidate and expand their control of the Senate and the House. This is good news for the immigration cause. However, in spite of controlling Congress for the past two years Democrats have done virtually nothing on immigration benefits and have continued massive spending on immigration enforcement. So, even though most political analysts are agreed that Democrats are poised for significant gains in the House and the Senate, that alone does not portend any immigration benefits in the...

New McCain ad blames Obama and Democrats for death of immigration overhaul effort.(CNN) – John McCain’s campaign is running a Spanish language ad in battleground states that blames Barack Obama and Senate Democrats for the failure of attempts to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws — even though the Republican nominee and his Democratic counterpart cast identical votes in the key Senate showdowns on that issue last year “Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?” asks the announcer in the 30-second spot, “Which Side Are They On?” “The press reports that their...

All eyes may be on Denver this week, but the Republican National Committee began their meetings to draft an election platform today ahead of next week’s convention. Sparks flew when delegates got into debate over illegal immigration, which reflected where John McCain originally stood on the issue, but has now taken a more conservative stance. Delegates were split into different subcommittees and it was in the national security meeting where members got into heated discussion surrounding the issues of amnesty and English as the official language of the United States. Two delegates wanted to harden the language surrounding the issue...

SAN DIEGO – Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday vigorously disputed his opponent's assertion that he had backed away from his own comprehensive plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. “I do ask for your trust that when I say I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it,” the Arizona senator told the National Council of La Raza convention here. “I think I have earned that trust.” On Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told the same group at the San Diego Convention Center that McCain backed off his...

Top priority overall or just top domestic priority? Iraq and the economy can wait, I guess. The clip comes, via reader Edgar M, from today’s appearance before NALEO, in which he and Obama took turns to see who could pander most cravenly on immigration. Truth be told, there’s little new here: Lip service is duly paid to securing the border despite the questioner’s emphasis on comprehensive reform “and not just enforcement,” and he recycles his old line about illegals being “God’s children too” as a way of insinuating, a la his crony’s notorious remarks about telling “the bigots” to shut...

Last year, the so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (Senate bill 1348) went down to a resounding defeat thanks to the vigilance of talk-radio and the blogs. John McCain was a leading voice in favor of passage in the Senate. Since that defeat, John McCain has claimed that he has "gotten the message" that the country does not want the McCain version of "comprehensive reform" and he has avoided the issue in most campaign appearances. But Juan McCain still lurks inside of John McCain. Read the rest at Publius' Forum.

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

Dozens of Fox Valley Hispanics will get the chance to talk with Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party's nominee for president, later this month. And they'll get to do it for free. McCain will be in Chicago on June 18 for a fundraiser at the Drake Hotel, but he'll stick around that night to hold a town hall meeting with Illinois Hispanics. » Click to enlarge image John McCain to speak in Chicago More than 100 are expected to attend, according to the meeting's organizers, Julie Brady and Gabriela Wyatt. Brady, of St. Charles, is the deputy co-chairman of McCain's...

After adjusting his immigration stance when his comprehensive immigration bill died last summer, John McCain, now with the Republican nomination in hand, has once again ruffled conservaive feathers on the immigration issue by returning to the position that almost stopped his campaign dead in its tracks. Last week McCain joined California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in supporting a "comprehensive" immigration plan. "Sen. Kennedy and I tried very hard to get a comprehensive immigration plan through Congress. We must make it a top agenda item," McCain said. But the Arizona senator's staunch defense of such a comprehensive package at the expense of...

Takeway exchange from John McCain's Meet The Press appearance today. TIM RUSSERT: If the Senate passed your bill, S-1433, the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, would you as president sign it? JOHN MCCAIN: Yeah, but the lesson is that it isn't going to come, it isn't going to come. The lesson is that they want the borders secured first. View video here.

This would suggest McCain hasn't learned any lessons from the spring other than Americans aren't where he is — though they should be and he'd sign his bill from the spring so many of us opposed if he were president and it passed: RUSSERT: "If the Senate passed your bill, S.1433, the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill, would you as president sign it? SEN. MCCAIN: "Yeah. But look, the lesson is, it isn't – one, it isn't going to come. It isn't going to come."

White House press secretary Tony Snow, during his last day on the job yesterday, lamented the state of modern political discourse and said President Bush is right about immigration and that his defeated plan will one day be the law.

Given the responses I got the last time I focused on this issue, I almost hate to bring it up…but here goes. I think Tony Snow is exactly right when he says here: “I deeply admire what [Mr. Bush] did on immigration and I think he’s right,” Mr. Snow said. “I think the policies the president outlined generally are the ones that eventually this country is going to adopt.” Let us hope so, because the alternative “solutions” out there - “let everyone in and register them all Democrat” on the left and “ship them all back to Mexico no matter...

Outgoing White House press secretary Tony Snow said today that the Bush administration had underestimated the ferocity of opposition to White House-backed immigration legislation. "I freely admit that we underestimated the (public) skepticism," Snow said over breakfast with a group of reporters on his final day on the job. Snow said that the White House was not prepared for the anger of foes of illegal immigration, who believed that government at all levels had failed to secure the nation's borders. While the public backlash is aimed "not merely (at) the Bush administration," he conceded that the White House "made some...