Bush Speeches On Iraq: What Have They Achieved?; No More Front Lawns?; Federal Immigration Laws May Get Tougher; Revoking Birthright Citizenship
Bush Speeches On Iraq: What Have They Achieved?
Larry Mantle talks with Ron Elving, Senior Washington Editor at NPR about President Bush's speeches about the war in Iraq.
No More Front Lawns?
As part of Mayor Villaraigosa’s push to reduce traffic in LA, he’s also stumping a plan to encourage housing that permits better transit access and creates walkable communities, thereby reducing automobile use. Part of this means reducing the number of single-family tract homes in the LA basin in favor of more urban row houses and apartments. But to some, this is an attack on the middle class ideal and the American dream. In yesterday’s LA Times, Joel Kotkin, an urban planner and senior fellow with the New America Foundation, had an editorial that argued strongly against the Mayor’s plan. Larry talks to Joel Kotkin, an Irvine senior fellow with the New America Foundation and author of The City: A Global History, Michael Dieden, president, Creative Housing Associates, Developer of Mission/Meridian Station, a transit village in South Pasadena, and Elizabeth Moule, Principal, Moule & Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists. She is a co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism and sits on its Board of Directors.
Federal Immigration Laws May Get Tougher
This week Congress debates Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner’s H.R. 4437, an immigration-enforcement bill approved last week by the Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote. The bill seeks to toughen legal penalties for illegal immigrants and their employers. The most important element of Sensenbrenner’s legislation would enroll all employers in the online system that verifies Social Security numbers of new hires. Other provisions in the bill would make illegal presence in the United States a criminal offense. Right now, only entering illegally is a criminal offense while simply being here illegally is a civil violation. The bill would also make overstaying a visa a criminal offense. Visa-overstayers account for perhaps one-third of illegal aliens living in the United States. Larry Mantle talks with Xavier Becerra, Congressman from California’s 31st district and Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, The Center for Immigration Studies about the provisions of this Sensenbrenner’s legislation.
Revoking Birthright Citizenship
92 members of Congress are supporting a move to end citizenship rights for children born in the United States to parents who are here illegally. Larry Mantle talks about “birthright citizenship” and the efforts by some in Congress to curtail this right granted by the 14th amendment of the US Constitution. Larry Mantle talks with John Eastman, Professor of Law, Chapman University School of Law, and Director of Claremont Institute's Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and Erwin Chemerinsky, Professor of Constitutional Law, Duke University School of Law.