The Hershey Company, the iconic candy maker that cultivates an image of all- American goodness and corporate responsibility, has a public-relations problem involving its foreign workforce.

The corporation, which wants to be the world's sweet shop, is being labeled a sweatshop by students from foreign countries who are brought to the U.S. under a State Department program (the J-1 visa) billed as a "cultural exchange". (My colleague Jessica Vaughan has commented on the program here.) Read more...

The former Juarez crime reporter who received political asylum in the United States after claiming that his life had been threatened says Mexican police, not drug traffickers, are the greatest threat to Mexican reporters.

"The narcos don't care (about reporters)," Jorge Luis Aguirre said on Univision's Sunday Spanish-language news program, Al Punto. "How does a reporter concern them if they control the government and control the police?" Read more...

The Texas cities of Mission and El Paso are experiencing a population and business boom, as thousands of Mexicans flee violence in the border states of Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, and Chihuahua, according to a story in yesterday's Mexico City daily Reforma.

The newspaper reports that many of the newcomers arrive with investor visas, which the United States provides to persons who bring job-creating investments with them. My colleague David North has written frequently about the EB-5 investor program; for his blogs postings on it, see here. Read more...

In his syndicated column last week, Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos wrote about the fundamental importance of credibility in journalism. Credibility, he said, is a journalist's job: "If a journalist can't be believed, his work isn't worth anything."

Ramos's concern for professional ethics and truth-telling adds a touch of irony to his claim – made on the air and in another column – that President Obama has broken a promise to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, aka NALEO. Read more...

As President Obama addresses the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza today in Washington, he will face renewed pressure to push for “comprehensive immigration reform” legislation that would not only provide legal status to illegal immigrants but expand future immigration from Latin America and other parts of the world. Read more...

As I was doing research over the weekend, I read a New York Times story with a dateline of Los Angeles, August 12, 1950. Here is the lead:

Much of the economic distress among seasonal farm workers results from a concerted, long-term effort by big "corporation farms," particularly in California, to keep wages at rock bottom by the use of foreign labor, the President's Commission on Migratory Labor was told today.

As we have noted here before, at least two Arizona reporters have reported on public skepticism about the refusal of federal officials to speak directly about concerns that smugglers or other illegal border crossers have caused some of the recent, devastating fires in the Arizona borderlands.

Now one of those reporters, Leo Banks of the Tucson Weekly, has come out with the most comprehensive report yet. Read more...

Editor's note: This is the first installment of a 25-year anniversary series on the lead up to passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which was signed into law in late 1986.

In November of 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which offered amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants and established sanctions for employers who hired those not authorized to work in the country. Read more...

I’m a native of Baltimore and a lifelong fan of the Orioles. A few years ago, when the Orioles played a home game against the Red Sox, I had the unpleasant experience of watching and listening as thousands of Red Sox fans proudly, loudly and sometimes obnoxiously cheered for their team. I cracked to a friend, “Now I know what it feels like to live in an occupied country.”

A similar scene unfolded in Pasadena, Calif., on Saturday, where fans of Mexico’s soccer team filled the Rose Bowl with Mexican flags and nationalistic fervor as their team defeated the U.S. by a score of 4-2. Read more...

Sen. Robert Menendez says the comprehensive immigration reform bill (S.1258) he and some Democratic colleagues introduced this week offers "a complete solution - a real solution - to end undocumented immigration and restore the rule of law." He adds that it "signals to the American people that we are serious about fixing our broken immigration system." Read more...

The scandal that would drive him from office was building slowly when President Richard Nixon had a press conference 39 years ago today. Speaking of the previous month's fateful break-in at the Democratic headquarters in the Watergate building, the president declared that "the White House has had no involvement whatever in this particular incident." Read more...

The issue of who or what has caused devastating fires in Arizona's borderlands obviously should be pursued vigorously, with due care not to tie it unfairly to the issue of illegal immigration. Sen. John McCain didn't advance that effort on Saturday when he offered no substance to support his claim that some of the fires are caused by illegal immigrants. Read more...

For at least two years now, Arizona journalist Leo W. Banks has been writing and speaking about the strange silence of the federal government on the connection between forest fires in southern Arizona and the smugglers of drugs and human beings.

Banks has contrasted the widespread public belief that the fires are caused by the smugglers – either accidentally or in an effort to distract the Border Patrol – with the refusal of federal officials to address the issue. Read more...

Last week this blog noted a comment by economist Pia Orrenius that U.S immigration policy is effectively "restricting high-skilled immigration, which tends to be legal, and is encouraging low-skilled immigration." Read more...

Last Friday this blog reported the complaint of a member of Mexico's political establishment that "the ignorance and prejudice that there is in the United States about Mexico is staggering. It's mind-boggling."

That observation came from former Mexican Congressman Carlos Heredia, who now directs the international studies program at the Center for Economic Research and Instruction in Mexico City (CIDE). Read more...

A prominent member of Mexico's political establishment complained Thursday about "mind-boggling" U.S. disregard for his country.

"The ignorance and prejudice that there is in the United States about Mexico is staggering. It's mind-boggling – starting with Capitol Hill," said Carlos Heredia, a former Mexican congressman who now directs the international studies program at the prestigious Center for Economic Research and Instruction in Mexico City. Read more...

The Migration Policy Institute today hosted an interesting discussion on immigration policy and economic competitiveness. Here are two thoughtful nuggets from the discussion that are worthy of consideration. Read more...

President Obama's confident assertions Tuesday about his administration's success in securing the Southwest border don't stand up even to casual examination.

An impressive reduction of a huge number of illegal border crossings can still leave an impressive number of illegal border crossings. Read more...

In her appearance on C-SPAN this morning, Hispanic Federation president Lillian Rodriguez Lopez made it clear that her organization and its allies continue to press President Obama and the Congress for the massive pinata of comprehensive immigration reform. Read more...

Univision's Sunday Spanish-language news program "Al Punto" gave voice to the sort of Latino not often heard on the network: a conservative Republican who does not favor amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Host Jorge Ramos spoke with Adryana Boyne, an immigrant from Mexico who has long been active in Republican politics. In 2008 Boyne was a delegate to the Republican National Convention and was active in the Mike Huckabee presidential campaign. Read more...

The blogosphere is abuzz with the news that the latest edition of the Superman comics series has the superhero renouncing his American citizenship, declaring he is "tired of having my actions construed as instruments of U.S. policy." Read more...

In yesterday's blog, I noted that New York Times reporter Jason DeParle had responded to questions I had emailed him regarding his April 17 front-page story. I did not quote from the response because I had offered to embargo it for a year. I offered the embargo because I thought he might be more comfortable and candid if he knew that the answers would be printed long after the initial controversy of his story had cooled. Read more...

In Friday's blog post, which responded critically to the previous Sunday's lengthy New York Times article about John Tanton, I noted that on April 17, DeParle had responded to an email from me in which I had questioned the story. As I noted in the blog, while DeParle's email said he would send me a note the next day, I had not heard from him. Read more...

When I read last Sunday’s New York Times cover piece on pioneering and polemical immigration restrictionist John Tanton, I thought immediately of John Higham, the eminent historian and author of the classic study of nativism, Strangers in the Land. Read more...

As we observe Earth Day today, it's fitting to note some of the concerns expressed by its founder, the late Sen. Gaylord Nelson. Here are some excerpts from his 2002 autobiography, Beyond Earth Day: Fulfilling the Promise.

If we accept that forging and maintaining a sustainable society is the critical challenge for this and future generations, we must also accept that stabilizing our population will be key to determining our success or failure.
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Politico has provided a concise explanation of yesterday's White House confab in favor of "comprehensive" immigration reform, reporting that "The meeting itself has been framed as an effort to show Obama supporters that he is trying to make progress on the issue even if it's doomed to stall in Congress." Read more...

Juan Jose Gutierrez, the president of an immigration activist group called Vamos Unidos, predicts that hundreds of thousands of people will march in Los Angeles on May Day, demanding legalization for illegal immigrants. In an appearance Sunday on the Univision program "Al Punto", Gutierrez said that legalization is the only way out of the current policy stalemate. Read more...

The Univision Sunday morning program "Al Punto" yesterday offered a discussion that illustrated how the Spanish-language television network frames as "anti-immigrant" any measures directed against illegal immigration. It also included comments from a Los Angeles activist about President Obama's political calculations regarding immigration reform. Read more...

On today's "Democracy Now!" program, co-host Juan Gonzalez interviewed Rep. Raul Grijalva. Both men expressed frustration with the lack of action on immigration reform by Congress and the Obama administration. Here are the principal exchanges, including a suggestion from Gonzalez that it is "time to shut down Phoenix" in protest. The interview took place the day after advocates of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles announced plans for a major demonstration there on May 1: Read more...

The nightly newscast of the Univision network makes little effort to report on legitimate concerns about immigration. Last week, for example, it ignored the CIS report on the high rate at which immigrants make use of federal welfare programs.

But on Tuesday, the newscast came out of a commercial for Kellogg's cereals with this information: Read more...