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Yesenia Rangel, 12, looked out her window on a Friday morning in February and saw several officers with the letters "ICE" on their sleeves. Yesenia immediately called her neighbors to warn them that immigration officers were outside their Compton apartment building. Then she watched in tears as officers handcuffed her father and took him away. "I thought, 'I'm never going to see my dad again,' " said Yesenia, a U.S. citizen by birth. As federal authorities expand immigration enforcement in California and throughout the nation, teachers, mental health professionals and immigrant rights advocates are raising concerns about the effect on...

MATTAWA, WASH -- . -- Nearly everyone in this small farming community in eastern Washington speaks Spanish -- nearly everyone except those in city government and the Police Department, where English is spoken. And almost everyone who speaks one language does not speak the other. That language barrier has engulfed the community, which has grown over the last 20 years from 300 to about 3,200 year-round residents. Nine out of 10 Mattawa residents speak Spanish at home, and 8 out of 10 adults speak English "less than very well," according to the 2000 U.S. Census. The Columbia River basin community,...

TEZIUTLAN, Mexico — As the U.S. economy heads south, Mexicans may have to head north. That's the fear of many workers here, where the slowdown in the United States already has cut production at manufacturing plants whose output is largely sold in the United States. "If it's bad there, it will be worse here," said Bartolo Juarez, 35, who makes jeans for Levis and Guess at a Teziutlan factory and already has discussed moving to the United States if his job here vanishes. His 12-year-old daughter, Gabriela, has broken down in tears more than once after hearing her parents talk...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A Pentagon official pleaded guilty Monday to passing US military secrets to an agent working for China after being showered with gifts and gambling money, the Department of Justice said. Gregg William Bergersen, 51, faces up to 10 years in jail after admitting to one count of conspiracy to disclose national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it, the department said in a statement. It said Bergersen started handing secret information in March 2007 to Tai Shen Kuo, 58, a Taiwan-born US citizen with business interests in New Orleans. Bergersen worked as a weapons systems...

The Bush administration unveiled a revised rule Friday threatening businesses with prosecution unless they fire employees identified in government records as possible illegal immigrants, offering a new explanation but virtually no change in content from the regulation that a San Francisco federal judge blocked in October. The Department of Homeland Security announced the new version of the so-called no-match rule on its Web site and said it would invite public comments for 30 days. The department then plans to ask U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to lift his injunction. At the same time, it has asked a federal appeals court...

A team of state inspectors strode into the Blue Wave Car Wash in West Los Angeles, past latte-sipping customers in electric massage chairs and into the gritty carwash tunnel. "¿Cuánto gana usted?" the inspectors asked worker after worker, about 20 of them, most Latino immigrants. How much do you make? Each carwashero responded that he earned minimum wage or more -- just as the owner of the Blue Wave, one of the region's busiest carwashes, had told the inspectors. Looking over payroll records, however, the regulators became suspicious. Employees who said they were full time were listed as working just...

Marines 'ghost ride' the MRAP

TO all the people who think that the illegal immigration debate is about electronic fences, NAFTA, Lou Dobbs and such, director Patricia Riggen and screenwriter Ligiah Villalobos offer a polite but emphatic rebuttal. Immigration, say the women, is about survival. It's about learning to be invisible. It's about families. It's about love. That, Riggen says, was the insight she uncovered while leafing through Villalobos' screenplay for "Under the Same Moon", a Spanish-language drama about a Mexican mother who comes to work in Los Angeles, leaving behind her young son across the border. The U.S.-Mexican production, which will open on more...

It's not yet 3 a.m. Juana Rivas grabs her shopping cart and steps off the curb into the dark.She shields herself from the cold with a sweat shirt and jacket, along with a pink hat and gloves she bought at the 99-cent store. Only a barking dog interrupts the silence. Rivas arrives at the first house, lifts the trash can lid and shines her flashlight inside. Nothing. "No hay. No hay," she says in Spanish. She peers into another trash can. Nothing. She zigzags back and forth across the street, stopping at each house to search for aluminum cans, glass...

Speaking on behalf of the Democratic Party, an Iraq combat veteran said Saturday that apparent GOP nominee John McCain should not win the presidential election because he would continue the war in Iraq. Roger Martinez, who served as an Army ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq, noted in the Democrats' weekly radio address that President Bush endorsed McCain this week. Bush said McCain "won't flinch in the face of danger" and McCain strongly supports the U.S. efforts in Iraq. Electing a leader who would continue Bush's policies in Iraq would be a mistake, Martinez said. "Our country and our armed services...

Americans gave millions of dollars in the past year to veterans charities designed to help troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, but several of the groups spent relatively little money on the wounded, according to a leading watchdog organization and federal tax filings. Eight veterans charities, including some of the nation's largest, gave less than a third of the money raised to the causes they champion, far below the recommended standard, the American Institute of Philanthropy says in a report. One group passed along 1 cent for every dollar raised, the report says. Another paid its founder and his wife...

In Brief: GRACE IS GONE stars John Cusack as Stanley Phillips, a former soldier whose wife Grace still serves in Iraq. Stanley is left taking care of their two daughters, Heidi, age 12, and Dawn, age 8. One day, two soldiers visit Stanley. They tell him that Grace has been killed. When Heidi and Dawn return from school, he decides not to tell them about their mother but take them out instead. Longing to give his children their last moments of innocence, he decides to drive them to Florida to visit Dawn’s favorite amusement park, Enchanted Gardens. As Stanley bonds...

SYNOPSIS (from main website): "Jerry is a Marine reservist who was a young patriot and idealist when he served in the first Gulf War. But when he is called up for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq, Jerry is a father of three; older and embittered by a life besieged by broken promises, and unfulfilled desires. Jerry returns a changed man, transformed by horrors committed that go beyond comprehension and sanity, pain inflicted that cannot be forgiven. He lives a life of poverty, his children afraid of his unexplained outbursts of rage, his wife, Nora, unsympathetic to the nosebleeds and night...

Wilmer Valderrama is spotted at the Los Angeles International Airport before heading to Iraq to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops.

'Hello' or 'hola'? For speakers of both English and Spanish, quickly deciding which language to use can be tricky. There are plenty of cues. By Stuart Silverstein Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 7:55 PM PST, November 11, 2007 Cuban-born Maria Carreira, the coauthor of two college Spanish textbooks, can glide easily between her native tongue and English. But in her daily life in Southern California, picking which language to speak can be very complicado. Such as the time when she was at a taco stand where everyone seemed to be ordering and chatting in Spanish. Carreira started placing her order...

Labor leaders from around the world gathered in San Francisco today to call on workers to stand up and take organized action against war in Iraq, saying that politicians can't be counted on to halt the bloodshed. Several speakers cited the civil rights movement of the 1950s and the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s as models to follow, saying that both achieved change that would not have occurred if matters had been left in the hands of those running the country. "Until people get off their asses and do something, there won't be a change," Clarence Thomas, past secretary-treasurer...

A U.S. soldier who said his Christian beliefs compelled him to love his enemies, not kill them, has been granted conscientious objector status and honorably discharged, a civil liberties group said on Tuesday. Capt. Peter Brown -- who served in Iraq for more than a year and was a graduate of the elite U.S. military academy West Point -- said in a statement issued by the New York Civil Liberties Union that he was relieved the Army had recognized his beliefs made it impossible for him to serve. "In following Jesus' example, I could not have fired my weapon at...

Many of the actors in this traveling troupe don't need a script to learn their roles. They're playing their countrymen back in Iraq or Afghanistan in an elaborate simulation designed to teach American soldiers how to deal with a sometimes-hostile civilian population. Up to 85 role players gather six days a week at Fort Riley. Some hope the job leads to a position in diplomacy or military support services. Others say they are working to prevent misunderstandings and violence between troops and their Iraqi and Afghan countrymen. Role players relish the chance to teach their own lessons. "If we see...

When Osama bin Laden issued his videotaped message to the American people last month, a young jihad enthusiast went online to help spread the word. "America needs to listen to Shaykh Usaamah very carefully and take his message with great seriousness," he wrote on his blog, referring to bin Laden by an alternative spelling. "America is known to be a people of arrogance." Unlike bin Laden, the blogger was not operating from a remote location. It turns out he is a 21-year-old American named Samir Khan who produces his blog from his parents' home in North Carolina, where he serves...

A group of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans is preparing a 500 million-dollar class suit against ABC Network in the United States in response to a slur against Philippine medical schools and Filipino medical professionals, aired in the premiere episode of the fourth season of “Desperate Housewives”. In that episode, the character Susan Mayer (played by actress Teri Hatcher) questioned the credentials of her gynecologist over a disputed diagnosis. Mayer said she wanted to check the doctor’s diploma to make sure it didn’t come “from some med school in the Philippines”. The class suit is being filed by the Northern California chapter...