GALVESTON — The crushing news came last month as Maria Sanchez was being prepared for surgery to remove a banana-size tumor along her spine that had crept between her vertebrae. Unable to use her right hand because of the growing tumor, Sanchez, 24, had been at the University of Texas Medical Branch\'s John Sealy Hospital for six days when, she said, a Spanish-speaking doctor told her she had to leave the hospital immediately because she was an illegal immigrant. The doctor said she should have surgery in Mexico, according to Sanchez.

Sen. Luz Robles had a private meeting with U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson Thursday at the Capitol to discuss the viability of her immigration reform bill that is heavily dependent on obtaining a federal waiver to function in Utah. Matheson said he was getting up to speed on the bill, but he recognized the challenges her bill would face.

Rep. Bill Wright unveiled his guest worker immigration bill Thursday and suggested his proposal might be the framework for a comprehensive piece of legislation that has so far been elusive in the legislative process. Wright, R-Holden, said employers should have the right to access and hire the most productive employees.

SALT LAKE CITY — Two lawmakers pushing enforcement-only illegal immigration proposals are digging in their heels against efforts to combine their bills with others because they believe the result would be amnesty. Reps. Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, and Chris Herrod, R-Provo, say in a news release a comprehensive bill isn\'t possible \"given the focus of the guest worker bills on amnesty for illegal aliens.\"

That is shaping up as the primary immigration debate in Congress and the state legislatures. The question is how to move illegal foreign workers from their U.S. jobs to make room for unemployed Americans. In this debate, President Barack Obama has an opportunity for another middle-ground victory that would enhance his “jobs first” credentials.

House Speaker John Boehner’s recent selection of Rep. Elton Gallegly of California over Rep. Steve King of Iowa to head the Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee is one step closer to the kind of reform for which past administrations, including those of former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, had long called.

Mike Huckabee is being fenced in by mayors from several key border states who charge he’s overstating the security threat and making their safe cities look bad. In a letter obtained by POLITICO, the mayors from cities in Arizona, Texas and California — saying they represent 7 million people — responded sharply to a recent op-ed Huckabee wrote in the New York Post in which he said the Department of Homeland Security had “failed miserably” to secure the borders and cited the feds\' assessment that Mexican cartel gangs are present in 200 cities in the U.S.

According to G.A.O. , the E-Verify system confirms 97.4% of workers instantly or within 24 hours; 2.6% of workers receive Tentative Non Confirm. Of these 2.6%, .3% of workers are later confirmed (errors due to name changes, naturalizations, mis-spellings). The final 2.3% receive Final Non Confirm.

SALT LAKE CITY -- A local freshman representative is keeping his promise to his constituents by co-sponsoring a Senate bill dealing with immigration. \"During my campaign, I heard from my voters they want something done, and that is the message they delivered to me loud and clear,\" Rep. Jeremy Peterson, R-Ogden, said during a news conference Wednesday at the Capitol.

A bill that would allow illegal immigrants to attend college at the in-state tuition rate stands a good chance of passing the Colorado Senate, and supporters say the measure could even pass the Republican-controlled House. The conventional wisdom this session had the bill unable to clear the Democrat-led Senate, where a similar measure died in 2009 after a handful of Democrats joined Republicans in voting against it.

FRANKFORT — House Democrats on Wednesday began the process of talking Senate Republicans\' illegal immigration bill to a standstill, with much discussion about its potential cost but no vote scheduled. \"We can\'t just be emotional and have vile hatred at work. We have to look at the fiscal implications, that\'s what we\'re required to do,\" said Rep. Steve Riggs, D-Louisville, chairman of the House Committee on Local Government, which held its first discussion-only hearing on the bill.

About 11.2 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States in 2010, a number essentially unchanged from the previous year, according to a report published Tuesday by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington.

The number of illegal immigrants living in the United States was virtually unchanged last year, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The annual report found 11.2 million living in the U.S., versus 11.1 million in 2009.

They clean the floors of swanky office towers downtown, pick wine grapes in Wenatchee and wash dishes in Belltown restaurants. An estimated 230,000 illegal immigrants were living in Washington state last year — 35 percent more than three years earlier, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Florida saw one of the heftiest declines in populations of illegal immigrants in the nation in the last three years, likely because of a drought of jobs, says a report released Tuesday. In 2007, an estimated 1.05 million illegal immigrants lived in Florida. That total dipped to 825,000 in 2010, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research organization.

AUSTIN, Texas — As a Republican, Rep. Aaron Pena is expected to take a hard line on immigration. But as a Latino who represents a heavily Hispanic district along the U.S.-Mexico border, the South Texas lawyer finds some of the anti-immigrant proposals in the Legislature to be unfair and unnecessarily harsh.