Sen. McCain spoke to a Latino political group in June.

The Statement:

In an Obama campaign Spanish-language radio ad aimed at Latino voters that aired in New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada during the second week of September, the narrator says, "John McCain abandoned us on immigration reform rather than confront the leaders of the Republican Party."

Does Obama's radio ad accurately describe McCain on immigration?

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WASHINGTON (CNN) – A pro-immigration group announced Wednesday it is beefing up efforts to promote its agenda, eight months before voters head to the polls.

America’s Voice has hired pro-immigration operative Frank Sharry to lead the organization, which will focus on “mobilizing” immigrant voters, and establishing a “campaign-style … rapid response war room.” Sharry is the former head of the National Immigration Forum.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released this week shows that immigration ranks fifth behind the economy, Iraq, health care, and terrorism on the list of the most important issues heading into the elections.

Huckabee is campaigning in Texas prior to the state's March 4 primary.

LAREDO, Texas (CNN) – Saturday morning, Mike Huckabee took a trip to the border he talks about securing at every campaign stop.

Standing on the Northern bank of the Rio Grande in Laredo, Texas, Huckabee looked across to Mexico as a Border Patrol officer briefed him on the efforts being undertaken to stop illegal immigration.

Huckabee, a strong proponent of building a fence along the Southern border, told reporters that it was not about keeping people out, but keeping bad people out. He gave examples of drug and human traffickers as well as terrorists.

“I don’t resent that people want to come here, I’ve always said I thank God every day I’m in a country people are trying to break into, not in a country they’re trying to break out of,” said Huckabee, flanked by Chuck Norris and Rep. Duncan Hunter who has built a fence in his Southern California district.

As the former Arkansas governor tries to drum up support among conservatives just days before the Texas primary, illegal immigration is one of the issues Huckabee has repeatedly used to differentiate himself from frontrunner John McCain.

He almost never mentions McCain by name but in Lubbock on Friday, Huckabee said he’s the only candidate who believes the borders should be secured, as opposed to “wholesale amnesty.”

Asked Saturday if McCain’s position on immigration was too soft, Huckabee refused to answer, “I’m not going to characterize his position because I think that’s not really a healthy thing for me to get into.”

Instead, he reiterated that a border fence favors immigrants who have waited patiently for their legal status and helps fight the “assumption that everyone who is here with some Hispanic background is here illegally. That’s wrong, and that should never happen in the United States of America.”

– CNN Political Producer Alexander Marquardt

Watch John King's report about immigration and the Republican presidential race.

(CNN) — In an effort to preserve his front-runner status in Iowa's Republican presidential nomination race, Mitt Romney is using the hot-button issue of immigration against his rivals.

Chief National Correspondent John King was on the campaign trail with Romney in Iowa and filed this report.

Related video: Watch Romney's new ad

Watch Dana Bash's report about the immigration war between Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

(CNN) — Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney launched a new ad on illegal immigration targeted at Mike Huckabee.

CNN's Dana Bash was on the campaign trail with Huckabee in Iowa and filed this report about Huckabee's response to Romney's ad and about an endorsement Huckabee received Tuesday.

Related Video: Watch Romney's new ad.

Huckabee's immigration plan is derived from a National Review article.

BLUFFTON, South Carolina (CNN) — The nine-point immigration plan released Friday by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee came with a footnote:

"Note: This plan is partially modeled on a proposal by Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies." That proposal by the conservative anti-illegal immigration activist was published in the National Review in May 2005.

Not only is Huckabee's plan strikingly similar to the magazine piece – in some cases, it contains exact quotations copied over from the article.

For instance, the Huckabee plan states that "Employment is the chief draw for most illegal immigrants and denying them jobs is the centerpiece of an attrition strategy."

Krikorian's article contains that same statement, verbatim.

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Watch John Roberts' interview with "Chuck and Huck."

(CNN) – In this video clip, watch CNN’s John Roberts interview former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Huckabee supporter Chuck Norris. The martial arts expert explained how he came to support the Republican presidential candidate. “Mike is a guy who means what he says and says what he means,” Norris told Roberts. “That’s why I jumped on the campaign trail with him.”

Huckabee brushed aside attacks against him by rival Mitt Romney telling Roberts “I’m going to let him say whatever he wants.” “I’m running for president. I’m not running against these other guys.”

Despite Huckabee’s good-natured outlook on his opponent’s jabs, Norris suggested Huckabee can take the rough-and-tumble of presidential politics. “We did some martial arts together and this guy’s tough,” said Norris. “He hung in there with me,” he added.

Huckabee also spoke with Roberts about his views on illegal immigration and his thoughts on the YouTube debate format.

Related video: Huckabee impresses Norris

–CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart

Romney and Giuliani tussled over immigration at the beginning of the debate.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In the first moments of the CNN/YouTube debate, sparks flew between former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on the issue of so-called sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants.

After Romney attacked Giuliani for saying New York was not a sanctuary city, Giuliani responded by saying Romney lived in a "sanctuary mansion" and that Romney employed illegal immigrants at his own home.

Romney denied the allegations.

Full story

– CNN Political Assignment Editor Katy Byron

Watch the candidates debate immigration.

(CNN) – Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee jumped into the immigration showdown with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, saying that although immigrants are part of what makes the United States a great nation, "It's our home. We now get to decide who comes into our home. To place somebody above [those waiting for legal immigration] or in front of them in line is the wrong thing to do."

Thompson said federal funding should be cut off to cities that provide sanctuary to illegal immigrants.

Thompson also took a jab at Giuliani, who bashed Romney for employing illegal immigrants, and defended his own record of employee scandals.

"I think we've all had people probably that we've hired that in retrospect probably was a bad decision," Thompson said, referring to a campaign fundraiser and personal friend who resigned from the Thompson campaign because of drug-related crimes and issues with the IRS.

– CNN Associate Producer Natalie Apsell

Former Bush speech writer Michael Gerson is concerned about immigration and poverty.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Bush speech writer and book author Michael Gerson visited the Situation Room this week. Gerson spoke with Suzanne Malveaux about what he thinks in wrong with his party.

“Republicans can’t just talk about budgets. They have to talk about people,” Gerson told Malveaux. “Eventually, you need that message,” he added.

Gerson believes the Republican Party ought to do more to address poverty and “populist economic issues.” He also tells Malveaux that the GOP is making a mistake in blocking comprehensive immigration reform. The “Republican leadership of the Congress is actively alienating the fastest growing group of voters in America,” explained Gerson, referring to the country’s growing Latino population.

Watch Gerson discuss the GOP, poverty, immigration, and what he thinks of some of the 2008 presidential candidates.

– CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer abandoned a plan to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.

ALBANY, New York (AP) — He was once untouchable.

Eliot Spitzer barreled into the New York governor's office barely 11 months ago riding a record-setting wave of popularity. Time magazine had named him "Crusader of the Year" when he was attorney general and the tabloids proclaimed him "Eliot Ness."

The "Sheriff of Wall Street" who had made corporate titans cower then pay up for their misdeeds was going to take the same no-nonsense approach to fixing one of the country's worst governments.

But then he got to work, and hasn't had but a handful of good days since. At the Capitol, he's been hit with scandal and derided as a rich brat who doesn't play well with others. "Eliot's Mess," mocked the tabloids.

The low point came two weeks ago when, battered in the polls and amid concerns that he was threatening to unhinge Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid, he surrendered on his plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

Instead of a rising political star, he is now seen as the standard for rapid political collapse.

"It is very, very unusual for someone to dive this far, that quickly," said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who worked on President Clinton's successful re-election campaign in 1996 and handled Spitzer's ads in his first two campaigns.

Before he was elected governor, Democrats, Republicans, conservatives and liberals loved the two-term attorney general: This new, tough-on-crime, fiscally conservative Democrat who for eight years policed the world's financial markets to protect the little guy.

His father, millionaire real estate developer Bernard Spitzer, boldly told a magazine his son would be the first Jewish president.

No one laughed. As far back as 2005, Fortune said he could be a presidential contender and in 2004, a gaggle of reporters and photographers tracked him at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

At Spitzer's inauguration, he vowed to usher in a new era of vitality, reform, openness and government working for the people. He spoke of working with all, and all seemed to know that if that didn't work, he had the smarts, the political support and the popularity to smash the status quo.

And it worked, for a while. He led and scared lawmakers to unprecedented reforms of the budget process, ethics, and a bloated worker's compensation system that for decades cost employers too much while paying injured workers too little.

Then the status quo fought back.
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DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) — In some polls, immigration ranks behind only the Iraq war and the economy as Iowa voters' top issue.

A recent University of Iowa poll found that 58 percent of Republican voters consider the issue very important.

Republican candidates are trying to convince those voters that they are the ones to fix immigration as they head into the nation's first contest in the presidential primary season.

Iowa's meatpacking industry has become a magnet for illegal immigrants and the impact on taxpayers regularly makes headlines.

Iowa Republicans say the issue can make or break a campaign.

Full story

Ruben Navarette, Jr: Some in denial over immigration issues.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) — Score one for the knee-jerk naysayers. You know the type: those who find it easier to criticize proposed solutions to tough problems than to propose solutions of their own, which then could be criticized.

Faced with the problem of what to do with thousands of illegal immigrants who drive on state roadways every day to go to work for people who insist with a straight face that they want nothing to do with illegal immigrants, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer proposed a controversial, yet terribly sensible, plan to give the undocumented a state-issued driver's license that would be easily discernible from licenses carried by U.S. citizens and legal residents.

The plan hit roadblocks with the extremes, on the right and the left — which is always a good sign. But the criticism kept mounting. And now Spitzer has put the brakes on the plan after a brief but intense debate.

Correction. It wasn't really a debate. It was the rhetorical equivalent of a food fight in which pragmatism and common sense took a back seat to name-calling, fear-mongering and misrepresentation of fact — with a dash of racism.

More

Watch Wolf Blitzer's interview with the mayor of "Sin City."

(CNN) — While out in Las Vegas in preparation for CNN's Democratic presidential debate on Thursday, Wolf Blitzer took the opportunity to sit down with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. 

Watch Goodman discuss the Democratic and Republican presidential contenders, the political issues that are important to Las Vegas voters, and how Sin City handles illegal immigration when a third of its population is Latino, according to Goodman.

Related: Analysis: Vegas has become a political boomtown

Rep. Tancredo has released a new ad that links his fight against illegal immigration with the war on terror.

(CNN) — In this report, Correspondent Brian Todd places Rep. Tom Tancredo's, R-Colorado, new political ad in historical context with similar political ads and also takes a look at what the ad may do for Tancredo presidential campaign.

Related: Candidate defends ad portraying terrorist attack

Click here to see CNN's new political portal: CNNPolitics.com

Watch Arizona's governor discuss illegal immigration.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano was in the Situation Room Wednesday.  She discussed illegal immigration, border security, and Western politics with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.  Watch this clip.

Programming note: Watch CNN's Democratic presidential debate from Las Vegas, Nevada on November 15.

Watch Thompson discuss his immigration plan Tuesday.

(CNN) — Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, who in recent days has taken on his opponents over immigration, called for federal funds Tuesday to be cut off for cities that don’t crack down on illegal immigration.

Thompson, surrounded by police officers at a roundtable in Naples, Florida, outlined his first proposals on immigration reform. Thompson’s plan would address increased enforcement by adding at least 25,000 border patrol officers, doubling the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, and finishing a wall on the US/Mexico border.

The former Tennessee senator also called for action against so-called “sanctuary cities”. He said discretionary federal funding should be eliminated for states and cities that don’t report illegal immigrants and said, “We need to tell them, if you’re going to have sanctuary cities in violation of the law, you’re not getting federal money."

Thompson has directly criticized former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani for his handling of immigration while in office, and accused former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney of not speaking out against sanctuary cities until recently. But rival campaigns returned the favor, attacking Thompson on the issue.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) — Most Americans would like to see fewer illegal immigrants in the country, but only three in 10 say all of them should be removed, a poll said Wednesday.

Just 7 percent of those polled said they would like to see the number of illegal immigrants increased; 22 percent said they would like the number remain the same; 16 percent wanted it decreased "a little"; and 22 percent wanted it decreased "a lot," the poll of 1,212 adult Americans found.

Blacks and whites differed over whether the number of illegal immigrants should be increased, with 14 percent of African-Americans saying they did, versus 3 percent of whites.

About one in five (19 percent) of blacks said they thought all illegal immigrants should be removed from the country, versus more than a third (35 percent) of whites who said that.

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Romney said he favored season visas for workers in agriculture and tourism.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said Saturday he favored more seasonal visas to foreign workers in industries such as agriculture and tourism.

Campaigning in northern Michigan, where many employers have struggled to fill jobs in hotels and restaurants during the summer tourist rush, Romney said more temporary workers should be allowed where there are labor shortages.

"The answer to that is simple, which is issue more visas," Romney told reporters. "If our employment sector needs additional immigrant laborers, then issue the visas necessary to provide that work force."

Federal law allows businesses in need of seasonal help to obtain what are known as H2B visas for foreign laborers — if they can prove good-faith efforts to hire locally first.

Some in the hospitality industry worried that President Bush's immigration plan, which stalled in the Senate this year, would have meant more paperwork and hurdles to bring in seasonal workers.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said he could appreciate such concerns because some hotels and restaurants in the Cape Cod resort area had similar problems.

"I'm not going to leave America's employers without the capacity to meet the needs of our consuming public," he said.

Romney, whose father was a Michigan governor and president of American Motors Corp., said that if elected, he would try to help the struggling domestic auto industry by boosting federal investment in energy-efficient technology.

He said federal fuel economy standards have done little to improve gas mileage and have hurt domestic companies more than their foreign competitors.

"Automobile efficiency improvements are important but they should be reached on a collaborative basis with the auto industry," Romney said.

Click here to see CNN's new political portal: CNNPolitics.com

Senator John McCain, R-Arizona.

AYNOR, South Carolina (CNN) — Sen. John McCain, whose reputation among grassroots conservatives has suffered because of his support of this summer's failed immigration reform bill, said Saturday he still supports a guest-worker program as long as the borders are secured first.

"I still think that we need to have a temporary worker program that is associated with tamper-proof biometric documents, and we need to address the issue of 12 million people in this country illegally," McCain told CNN on his "No Surrender" bus after a campaign stop in Florence, South Carolina. "But first we have to secure the borders."

McCain explained how he plans to regain the trust of people who may have given up on him after the immigration debate.

"You do town hall meetings, and have people come and ask you questions, and make comments," McCain said. "Retail politics is what you do, and I have assured people that the lesson is: Americans don't trust the government, so they didn't believe we would secure the borders first."

– CNN South Carolina Producer Peter Hamby