Alabama has become the latest state to enact very strict new immigration policy.  The new law, signed by Governor Robert Bentley, is said to be the most severe in the country, including Arizona’s controversial SB1070. The new Alabama law will require public schools to verify the immigration status of all elementary and secondary students and will bar enrollment to illegal immigrants seeking to attend college.

More unauthorized immigrants have been deported from the United States since 2008 than in any another two-year period in the country's history. Just this past Saturday, the so-called Dream Act, which would have offered a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants who came here as minors, was stalled in the Senate over a vote to bring it to the floor. Why have the past two years been so particularly tough on illegal immigration? And what, if anything, are the next steps for immigration reform?

Yesterday, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the Dream Act, which would allow certain illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as minors a chance to become U.S. citizens, if they enter college or military service. Those eligible are people who were brought into the U.S. before they were 16, have been living here for at least five years, and have earned a high school diploma. In order to gain citizenship, they would have to join the military for two years, or attend a four year college for two years.

Earlier this morning, we talked about the record breaking number of people around the world who are entering America’s green card lottery because they want to make this country their home. The sheer number of people applying for this lottery shows the continuing deep desire to immigrate here. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), of Iowa’s 5th District, will likely have a lot of influence on the Republican party's immigration policies. He’s lined up to become the next chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration when the GOP takes over the house this January.

With less than a month until Election Day, Democrats are hoping to keep control of both the House and Senate while trying to appeal to their core constituencies. Just two years ago, President Obama brought the Democrats back to the White House with the help of Latino voters. Democrats will surely need those votes if they hope to keep their majorities in Congress, but it is not clear that the Latino votes will come through in the mid-terms.  A new poll from the Pew Hispanic Center reports that only 51 percent of Latino registered voters say they are "absolutely certain to vote," this season, compared to 70 percent of all registered voters who say they'll go to the polls.

Why is it looking like so many Latinos will skip voting November 2?

As the debate over immigration rages on in the political spotlight, and candidates all over the country use the sensitive topic as a platform to gain votes for coming November election, Robert Rodriguez’s new movie, "Machete" does the same. Op/Ed pages contributing editor for The Los Angeles Times and creator of  Ask A Mexican, Gustavo Arellano, joins us to discuss Rodriguez's film and its satirical look at the immigration issue, corruption in politics and drug trafficking. He also revels in the revenge fantasy.

Jorge Ramos is an anchor on the Spanish language television network Univision, and author of A Country for All: An Immigrant Manifesto. A familiar face in Hispanic households across America, Ramos regularly covers the immigration debate. Ramos talks about Arizona's hobbled law, and where immigration reform can go from here. He says that the time is right for immigration reform, "but that nobody has the political courage in Congress to do something about it."

Dolores Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers of America alongside Cesar Chavez in 1962. Huerta coined the slogan "Si Se Puede." In the years since, she has gone on to mobilize countless unions, activists and Hispanic organizations. At 80 years old, Ms. Huerta shows no signs of slowing down. She responds to the injunction which blocks major parts of Arizona’s controversial anti-immigration law.

Federal Judge Susan Bolton issued a blow to Arizona's controversial immigration law Wednesday, blocking key parts of the law, including the provision that requires immigrants to carry their papers with them at all times. We take a look at how long the injunction will stay in place and what Arizona's next legal move might be. And we ask what this means for other states that want to craft their own immigration policies. 

Yesterday, just one day before Arizona's controversial immigration law was to go into effect, a federal judge put a last-minute hold on some of the most controversial parts of the law, including the requirement for immigrants to carry papers at all times, and the directive for officers to check the immigration status of people they detain for other reasons.

For civil rights groups who oppose the law, it's a last-minute reprieve. For law enforcement agencies who supported it, it's a disappointing setback. It's been a long three months for supporters and opponents alike since Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed S.B. 1070 into law on April 23rd. 

A new AP-Univision poll says more than eight out of ten Latinos in America believe the most important goal for high school graduates is to continue their educations.  94 percent of the more than 1,500 Latinos polled said they expect their children to go to college.

Arizona continues to attract the spotlight in the fiery immigration debate for taking a tough, conservative stance against undocumented immigrants. Their new law is the far end of the spectrum from more liberal reform proposals, like amnesty. It was, however, a conservative hero, President Ronald Reagan, who signed the last amnesty into law in 1986. 

Three million illegal immigrants were permitted to set roots and build lives in America on the books after the Simpson-Mazzoli Act granted them a path to citizenship while making hiring an undocumented worker a crime. So what happened to those three million? How did their lives unfold after an act of congress and the stroke of a pen protected their presence on our soil? 

The Obama administration has filed suit in federal court, challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s tough, controversial new immigration law. SB1070 requires state and local police to question and possibly arrest those who exhibit reasonable suspicion of being in the country illegally. The justice department says that this is a federal job, which should not be handled by lcal law enforcement.

It’s perhaps the most common complaint levied against illegal immigrants – they are stealing American jobs and bringing down the economy. Now, the United Farm Workers of America is teaming up with "The Colbert Report" to offer farm worker jobs to any American who wants to take them. The organization is encouraging any unemployed Americans, Washington pundits and anti-immigrant activists to sign up for the Take Our Jobs campaign. They say that if you’re okay with long days under the hot sun, small paychecks, no overtime or workers compensation, they will happily train and set up Americans with farm jobs.

When President Obama spoke recently at American University School of International Service in Washington, D.C., Univision anchor Jorge Ramos was watching very closely. Ramos is a familiar face at Univision, the spanish-language network, and he's also been pressing the Obama Administration to make good on its campaign pledge to reform immigration laws. It's been an issue for Ramos since 2008, when Obama was fighting for the nomination. Ramos gleaned this pledge from him: “What I can guarantee,” Obama said, “is that we will have in the first year [of the presidency] an immigration bill that I strongly support.” Ramos called it “La Promesa de Obama,” and he's been pressing the administration to make good on it ever since.

When Arizona's controversial immigration law goes into effect at the end of this month, police officers will be under close scrutiny in their enforcement. A new video hopes to make Arizona's police force equal to that scrutiny. The video was required by Jan Brewer at the law's signing on April 23, and it's been mailed out to all 170 police districts the state. We speak with Larry Talvy, a marshal from Tombstone, Arizona, who has watched the video, about what anxieties it reveals and what situations it hopes to prevent. 

President Barack Obama is scheduled to give a speech on comprehensive immigration reform at the American University School of International Service in Washington, D.C. today. This in the wake of Arizona's controversial immigration law, and the threat of other states passing their own immigration legislation. Valeria Fernandez, a reporter for Feet in Two Worlds — a project of the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School; and Maria Elena Salinas, an anchor at Univision, join us to talk about what they and the hispanic population hope the President will say in his speech.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon will address a joint session of Congress today, as he continues his visit to the United States. Yesterday he joined President Obama at the White House and spoke out against Arizona's recent immigration law.

In the next few months, Arizona will begin to enforce its new immigration law that allows local law enforcement to ask for documentation from people they suspect of being in the country illegally. But its neighbor, New Mexico, vehemently opposes this law and its own House of Representatives has passed a resolution recognizing economic benefits for undocumented immigrants. The rift between the bordering states could make things tricky for law enforcement.

This weekend, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into a law a controversial bill that gives local police the power to check documentation of anyone they suspect to be an illegal immigrant. It has sparked a fierce political debate and enraged many in the Hispanic community. But it has also raised concerns over how local police officers will go about enforcing the law and whether it will lead to racial profiling. Others worry it will burden officers who are already busy addressing other crimes in the state.