In Mexico, Immigrants' Relatives Watch US Immigration Reform Debate, and Hope Richard Fausset - The Los Angeles Times
go to original May 20, 2013

Patricia Gutierrez of Nashville dances at a birthday party in Salinas, outside Tonatico, Mexico. She spent 11 years in the U.S. before she gained legal status, and she now returns regularly to hold parties for her relatives at a house she bought for that purpose. (Richard Fausset/Los Angeles Times)

TONATICO, Mexico — Armando Guadarrama was navigating his taxi through the narrow streets of this central Mexico pueblo on a recent Saturday morning, some 2,000 miles from the Beltway.

But like many here, Guadarrama was up-to-the-minute with the immigration reform push that is the talk of Washington. When he spoke of its odds, the 40-year-old could sound like a hard-bitten D.C. veteran, grumbling over a scotch at the Old Ebbitt Grill.

He sniffed incredulously at President Obama's statement, a day earlier, that he was "absolutely convinced" that reforms would pass this year. Did Obama really think that enough conservative Republicans would fall in line?

"They're always making promises," Guadarrama said. "They promised immigration reform" — over and over, he noted — "when I was living up there."

But if a bill did pass, he emphasized, his family would benefit immeasurably: His older brother, who works in Illinois without a green card, would probably return to Mexico for the first time in 17 years.

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

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