The Deep South, already the nation's hottest illegal immigration battleground, will see more action in the coming days, with Mississippi considering an Alabama-style immigration crackdown bill and a federal appeals court set to consider Thursday whether the Alabama law, and a similar one in Georgia, are constitutional.

The legislation and the courtroom battle will serve as a prelude to April 25, when the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over Arizona's SB 1070, the controversial 2010 law that triggered a wave of state-level efforts nationwide to get tough on illegal immigrants.

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If there was still any doubt about Mitt Romney's position on immigration, it was erased last Thursday during the CNN Republican presidential debate in Mesa, Arizona. The former Michigan governor referred to Arizona's controversial HB1070 law as "a model" for the nation. The initiative approved in 2010 that cracks down on illegal immigration has been denounced by Hispanic and immigration rights groups as extreme.

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Activistas de organizaciones nacionales lanzaron la campaña no partidista “Latinos por la democracia: Movimiento hispano” para elevar la participación de votantes hispanos en los comicios presidenciales, estatales y locales de noviembre próximo. El esfuerzo lo impulsan la Liga de Ciudadanos Latinoamericanos Unidos (LULAC), la Federación Hispana y el Consejo Laboral para el Avance Latinoamericano (LCLAA) para inscribir a 200 mil votantes y movilizar al menos a 100 mil latinos a las casillas de votación.

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Consider it an awkward coincidence: The final Republican debate before the Super Tuesday primary took place in Arizona, at the epicenter of the national immigration debate. When the remaining four candidates took the stage on Wednesday night, they were asked about the state’s tough crackdown on illegal immigration, which has defined the local Republican Party in recent years, buoyed the hopes of local Democrats and been condemned by, among others, the U.S. Department of Justice. The candidates needed to answer carefully.

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Politically polarized Wisconsin is next up in the traveling legal battle over whether requiring photo identification to vote discriminates against minorities and disabled people. Critics of mandatory government-issued photo IDs say minorities are disenfranchised by the requirement. The lawsuit says the state constitution declares the only ineligible voters are felons, children and the mentally incompetent.

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The immigration crisis that has roiled American politics for decades has faded into history. Illegal immigration is shrinking to a trickle, if that, and will likely never return to the peak levels of 2000. Just as important, immigrants who arrived in the 1990s and settled here are assimilating in remarkable and unexpected ways.

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Organizaciones no partidistas de Nueva York empezaron a impulsar una mayor participación de los hispanos con miras a las elecciones generales de noviembre. La iniciativa promueve movilizar a los hispanos para que se registren y salgan a votar, con la premisa: es el único medio de lograr avances para la comunidad en todos los órdenes.

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For months, the Justice Department has largely been silent as Republican-dominated legislatures in state after state made it harder for minorities, poor people and other Democratic-leaning groups to vote. On Tuesday, however, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. spoke out forcefully and promised to use the full weight of his department to ensure that new electoral laws are not discriminatory. To live up to that vow, he will have his hands full.

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MESA, Ariz. — At first glance, it had the makings of a spirited election: the leader of Arizona’s crackdown on illegal immigration facing off at the polls with an immigrant from Mexico who believed that the state had gone too far...

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On the tails of TIME Magazine's controversial cover that predicts Latinos will decide the 2012 election, three Latino advocacy groups are determined to make the prediction a reality by registering 200,000 new Latino voters in 24 states before November. The Hispanic Federation, the Labor Council for Latin America Advancement (LCLAA) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), announced in a press conference a coalition project called Movimiento Hispano (or Hispanic Movement, in English). The initiative is to be "a nonpartisan, culturally competent virtual tool that will guide citizens on how to register to vote and engage civically online."

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The Hispanic Federation, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement launched "Movimiento Hispano" in Washington, D.C. last week, as part of a grassroots initiative to register new Hispanic voters and to help Latinos realize the importance of their vote.

"We still have a huge number of people who are eligible to vote and don't vote. Those numbers are staggering, in fact," said Jose Calderon of the Hispanic Federation. "We need to fundamentally change if we're going to progress as a community."

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Hispanic community leaders on Thursday launched an "unprecedented" national campaign to register 200,000 Latino voters and mobilize some 100,000 to go to the polls in November, motivated to do so - activists say - by conservative anti-immigrant rhetoric. The Latinos for Democracy campaign is part of the Movimiento Hispano that includes efforts against the suppression of the minority vote, education about the most pressing issues in the community and integration programs for immigrants.

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Republican political lore has it that Latinos are natural GOP voters. Family-oriented and deeply religious in many cases, Latinos would seem to be a natural segment of the electorate to connect with the Republican social conservative ethos that dominates today's GOP. But voting patterns have shown a different reality – so far, American Latinos have tended, election after election, to prefer Democratic candidates by wide margins.

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For months now the Republican presidential candidates, save one, have mostly ignored Hispanic voters. But that might all be about to change as the campaign now heads south and west. With voting in Iowa and New Hampshire in the rear view mirror, the focus of the political world shifts toward South Carolina, Florida and, in early February, Nevada. Because there are more Latinos in South Carolina – 235,000 – than in Iowa and New Hampshire combined – 151,000 and 36,000, respectively – the tenor of the Republican hopefuls toward Latinos might shift, too.

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U.S. Supreme Court justices grappled with minority voting rights in Texas’s congressional and state legislative districts, trying to find a quick fix against the backdrop of looming deadlines.

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Over the past 10 years, there has been endless posturing in Washington about our broken immigration system. Unfortunately, these debates have achieved nothing to produce critically needed comprehensive immigration reform.

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Republicans in states like Florida are making it more challenging to vote or to register others. Democrats say it's an effort to disenfranchise students, the elderly, the poor, the disabled and minorities — and to unseat President Obama.

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