For decades, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and other private-prison companies have been active members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a powerful lobby based in Washington, D.C., responsible for numerous laws that have put millions of people behind bars.

Turn on a television and you\'ll hear frightening tales of illegal immigrants sneaking across the border to steal our jobs and soak up benefits that should be reserved for citizens. No reasonable person doubts illegal immigration is an important issue, but it\'s also a complex one and not something that can be accurately reduced to sound bites and sepia tones. The alarming imagery is being manipulated for all it\'s worth in Campaign 2010.

If Meg Whitman loses the California gubernatorial race because her actions didn\'t jive with her words on illegal immigration, she could become a sacrificial lamb for the rest of us. Her sin is our sin. Because where illegal immigration is concerned, we are all hypocrites.

Employers increasingly are bearing the brunt of enforcement against illegal immigrant labor in the workplace because the federal government has shifted from select, high-profile raids to more widespread audits aimed at ousting unauthorized workers.

A photograph that has appeared in two high-profile Republican campaign commercials, used in both cases to depict what some have called \"scary\" illegal immigrants, is actually a photo taken in Mexico, depicting three Mexican farmers whose crops were destroyed, a British photojournalist has revealed

WASHINGTON — Most politicians in Florida are keeping a safe distance from the explosive issue of immigration this year, but the ongoing national debate could make a crucial difference in the campaigns for governor and several close congressional races.

Saturday afternoon, another college quarterback of Hispanic heritage grabbed the spotlight when Stephen Garcia led South Carolina to an upset of No. 1 Alabama. Then again, University of Washington fans certainly know of Nebraska redshirt freshman Taylor Martinez. He\'s a native of Corona, Calif., who directed Centennial to a state title a couple of years ago, defeating perennial power De La Salle.

It is a bright afternoon early in the month, a moment of anxiety at a sun-faded apartment complex in north Phoenix. Down a dusty breezeway, workers are painting white a recently vacated unit. A few doors away, the power company has posted a shut-off notice for a family that left rather suddenly, in the middle of one recent night. And across a barren courtyard, the blinds are drawn over the only window of another apartment, where a conversation is underway.

The controversy surrounding California Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman’s employment of Nicky Diaz Santillan, an unauthorized immigrant housekeeper, is the latest in what has become a staple of U.S. politics. Since the early 1990s, hardly a political season has gone by without the “outing” of a high-level candidate or nominee for privately employing the very “illegals” they publicly decry. And if one individual deserves credit for creating the climate that makes such exposés common and effective, it is Whitman’s own campaign manager, former California governor Pete Wilson.

SALT LAKE CITY — Immigration has created a deep divide among Utahns and some have been calling for the state to implement a law similar to the one passed in Arizona. With that in mind, Lt. Gov. Greg Bell, who is also a Davis County resident, traveled to Arizona recently to see how the passage of that immigration law is impacting the state.

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) is the latest GOP candidate to come under fire for a campaign ad against illegal immigration. The ad features men and women climbing through a hole in a chain-link fence, set to arguments that Vitter’s opponent, Democratic Rep. Charlie Melancon, wants to welcome undocumented immigrants into the country. Through the fence, the immigrants are greeted by a marching band, a welcoming committee and a group holding a giant check.

Immigration authorities deported a record 392,862 immigrants over the last year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday. About half of those deported — 195,772 — were convicted criminals, also a record, Ms. Napolitano said, and an increase of more than 81,000 deportations of criminals over the final year of George W. Bush’s presidency.

In Lou Dobbs\'s heyday at CNN, when he commanded more than 800,000 viewers and a reported $6 million a year for \"his fearless reporting and commentary,\" in the words of former CNN president Jonathan Klein, the host became notorious for his angry rants against \"illegal aliens.\"

WASHINGTON -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deported a record number of illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2010 with more than 392,000 deportations nationwide. Local ICE officers said more than 92,000 illegal immigrants were sent home from Arizona, and nearly 36,000 of those were convicted criminals.

Reporting from Washington — The Obama administration deported a record number of illegal immigrants in the 2010 fiscal year, according to figures released Wednesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Of the 392,862 deportations from October 2009 through September of this year, about half were illegal immigrants with criminal records.

Immigration attorney Marc Van Der Hout, who is representing Meg Whitman\'s former maid, said his undocumented client has been in the United States for nearly 20 years and has a long work history and family ties to bolster her quest for legal residency. \"There are many people who get to stay who were in her circumstances,\" Van Der Hout said of Nicky Diaz Santillan, housekeeper for Republican gubernatorial candidate Whitman for nine years.