Pedro Rios, Republican candidate for 32nd Assembly District. (Pedro Rios for State Assembly)

Thirty years ago, Pedro Rios was smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico by his uncle. Today he is a citizen and a Republican candidate for the 32nd Assembly District, which includes part of Bakersfield and an area to the north of the Central Valley city.

In between, Rios benefitted from President Reagan’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a 1986 law which provided a path to citizenship for people who had entered the country illegally. Rios became a citizen in 1996.

But these details were not public until late October. While his Democratic opponent, Bakersfield City Councilman Rudy Salas says he won’t make an issue of Rios’ prior undocumented status, people are taking issue with Rios’ refusal to back President Obama’s DREAM Act, a policy to allow young people who have come to the U.S. illegally to apply for legal residency.

Jose Gaspar, a columnist with the Bakersfield Californian talked to Candi Easter, chair of the Democratic Party of Kern County:

“I think it’s honorable that Rios came here undocumented and became a citizen,” Easter added. “But what I find dishonorable is his opposition to the DREAM Act,” she said. The DREAM Act is proposed federal legislation that would grant a path to citizenship for qualified undocumented youth in this country. And in fact, Rios admits he is against the legislation, saying he wants comprehensive immigration reform instead.

“That is what hurts him the most with the Latino community. His being against the DREAM Act means he has turned his back on helping other undocumented youth which he once was,” said Cal State political science professor Mark Martinez.

Rios said he supports other means that would grant citizenship to the undocumented, although he did not specify anything other than to say “comprehensive immigration reform.”

Then there’s Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the conservative Republican who represents Bakersfield and is House of Representatives majority whip. He leads the list of Rios’ endorsements, but McCarthy himself is strongly opposed to amnesty for illegal immigrants.

An editorial, also from the Bakersfield Californian takes Rios and his backers to task:

What sets Rios apart from the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today — the ones so often demonized by Republicans for breaking the law when they crossed the border? Rios got lucky. That’s all. He was here at an opportune time, during the Reagan administration, when Congress passed an amnesty plan that gave legal status to 3 million illegal immigrants.

But to hear his political supporters tell it, Rios is somehow different, more virtuous and deserving, than the millions of other undocumented immigrants today who weren’t lucky enough to get amnesty.

(Anibal Ortiz: KPCC)

Seeking to gain traction with Latino voters, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney traveled to Los Angeles Monday to deliver his pitch to the annual meeting of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

“I’m convinced the Republican Party is the rightful home for Hispanic Americans,” Romney told more than 1,000 people during a noontime lunch at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in downtown L.A.

The GOP may be Latinos’ “rightful home,” but an NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Telemundo poll last month found them still preferring Democrats. The survey found President Obama leads Romney 63 to 28 percent among Latinos.

Romney sought to close that gap by touting his commitment to lower taxes and fewer regulations. He told the group of business leaders that Latinos have more reason than most to dump Obama: “While national unemployment is at 8.1 percent, Hispanic unemployment is at over ten percent.”

“I like the message,” said Leo Baron, who owns a Texas software company. “He’s a businessman and I’m a businessman. I can relate more to it.”

Romney sought to dispel the perception among many Latinos that the GOP is anti-immigrant. He pointed out that one million people legally enter the U.S. every year.

“I like that,” Romney said. “I want to preserve our heritage of robust, legal immigration.”

Romney quickly added he opposes any amnesty for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country. The room was silent as Romney warned that providing a path to legalization would threaten legal immigration.

“I do think he is still a little disconnected from the majority of Hispanics in the country,” said Victor Arias, who works for Korn-Ferry International in Dallas. Still, the independent voter appreciated Romney making the effort to attend the convention, even if he won’t vote for him.

“It signals that the Hispanic community should matter to the Republican Party,” Arias said. “It hasn’t mattered in the past — it hasn’t seemed like it.”

Bernadette Medrano, a registered Republican who runs an education non-profit in Santa Ana, said she was unimpressed by her party’s candidate. For her, Romney remains a bit of a mystery.

“He’s a man who hasn’t produced his taxes,” Medrano said. “We know very little about him.”

President Obama addressed the convention via a short taped video message.

“We cut taxes for small businesses 18 times,” the president said. “We helped Hispanic-owned businesses access more than $3.8 billion in new loans.”

Outside the convention, about 75 young protesters chanted and held signs that read: “Veto Romney, not The Dream Act.”  Romney opposes the measure. Obama supports it.

Earlier, a group of local Democratic Party elected leaders, including Assembly Speaker John Perez and State Senator Alex Padilla, spoke out against Romney. Padilla criticized Romney’s proposal to reduce benefits in the federal Earned Income Tax Credit.

“That hurts middle class families,” Padilla said. “That hurts Latino families.”

Romney has defended the plan as a way to reduce the deficit.

Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. (Image: KQED "This Week in Northern California")

“I don’t like very much the argument that minorities can’t get an ID,” she said. “That seems to infantilize [them]. We can do this, but people have to be given time. We have to find a way to make it easy. The states are reacting because the federal government has not and we do need to solve this problem. But let’s give people time and doesn’t make it difficult for people to exercise their franchise.”

Davis also asked Rice about the so-called “war on women” that Democrats are claiming the GOP is waging. Rice promptly shot that down…

“There’s no war against women. This is hyperbole of the worst sort. We shouldn’t caricature each other this way. There are people who have strong beliefs about issues of abortion, about life, about choice, strong issues. Let’s respect each other. This is a party that has a lot of powerful and strong women within it, many of them who have views that may be different from my own, but let’s respect each other. I feel welcome in this party and I think it’s time to stop this caricature and hyperbole.”

“It is a civil rights issue because you cannot take advantage of the benefits of being American — whether you came here from another place or you were born here — if you do not have a quality education. And I think it’s especially a civil rights issue for the poorest kids who are trapped in the worst schools. The truth is people opt out of schools if they have the means. People who are trapped there are the poorest, and that is the height of inequality.”

Rice talked about the need for comprehensive immigration reform and mentioned the economic benefits that immigrants bring to the country, including to high-tech areas like Silicon Valley.

You can watch the interview here:

By Alice Daniel

I’m sitting behind a two-way mirror in an air conditioned office in Fresno as ten voters enter a meeting room and sit around an oblong table.

Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California, introduces himself. He’ll lead this focus group and one directly following it. Initially, people look uncertain — as if they’re not sure what to expect. Yet once these people — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — begin talking, the pain and anger they are feeling over the economic and political landscape soon spills out.

Luz, a single mother of a teenager and a one-year-old, said she just got laid off after 11 years as a supervisor for a produce refrigeration company. She’s scared she won’t have the money to raise her children.

“Probably go homeless,” she says. “Too sad. And I can’t relocate right now because of my family. And it just makes me mad also.”

Daniel, a Democrat, is voting for Mitt Romney because he thinks the country needs a change. He works at Lowes but is about to lose his house to foreclosure and he’s wondering whether he’ll have to move out of state.

“I have four children,” he says. “I have a very good job. I’m about ready to lose my house. You know what I mean? I’ve done everything I can to plan and to make arrangements and to provide.”

Personal stories like these quickly weave their way into the bigger issues affecting the Valley. Dick, a retired dairy farmer and Republican complained farmers don’t get a real say in politics. He’s worried farms are losing their workforce and said it’s unjust for immigrants who aren’t U.S. citizens to get public scholarship money for college, a point disputed by Oscar, a full time student and a Democrat.

“They want everybody to get educated here so there’s nobody working the field to pick the fruit,” Dick says.

But Oscar, a full time student and a Democrat challenged him.

“You contradict yourself,” Oscar says. “You don’t want him to get an education but you want him picking your fields.”

“You don’t need to be educated to dig ditches,” Dick insists.

“But that’s the problem,” Oscar counters. “Who here educated wants to dig that ditch?”

Still, there were plenty of areas of agreement. The majority of people in both focus groups favored an easier path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and almost everyone agreed farmworkers — citizens or not — provide back-breaking labor that no one else is willing to do. Anita, a single mother who works in a family business, grew up picking grapes.

“Not to put anybody down,” she says, “but you don’t see black people, you don’t see white people picking the crops. You just see Mexicans out there.”

And what about the Valley itself — what is its role in California? Many agreed with Suzie, a teacher and a Republican.

“You’ve got San Francisco, you’ve got LA that make a lot of decisions that affect us,” she says. “And the water is one of the number one issues here. We’ve got all the farming and food — but yet that water goes down there. So it almost feels like we are a separate state within the state.”

Lauren, a student at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and a Republican, said lawmakers from LA and San Francisco just don’t understand farm policy. ”When they vote on agricultural issues, they don’t even understand what they’re voting on and they’re just voting. I come from an ag background. My family farms in the Valley, and we don’t have a lot of say and we have a pretty big farm.”

Chriselda, a Democrat, said the effect of bad decisions is devastating.

“I see a lot of empty fields now,” she says. Others mention Firebaugh and Mendota. “I’ve been out there. It’s empty. It’s just empty, and it’s sad to see that.”

November’s ballot measures also triggered lively discussion. Some people thought Proposition 30, Governor Brown’s tax initiative to fund education, was too complicated. Proposition 34 would repeal the death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole. There was strong support for ending the death penalty across the political spectrum, but for very different reasons. Some Republicans like Jason, an auto refinishing technician, thought the death penalty was a waste of money because the appeal process takes too long.

“We don’t use it. Save the money,” he says, “waste it somewhere else.”

Democrats saw it as a moral issue — it’s wrong for the state to take another person’s life.

Moderator Mark Baldassare said the focus groups offer insights into what voters are thinking, not just how they pencil in the ballot.

Listen to Daniel’s story:

More stories from the Public Policy Institute of California focus groups:

From Silicon Valley: Eroding Trust in Government Among Young Voters

Republican presidential candidate Gov. Mitt Romney speaks to the media before a campaign stop with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in Aston, Pennsylvania. Photos: Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images

Don Gonyea reported on Monday’s Morning Edition on the difficult position Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney finds himself in regarding immigration. That position is only exacerbated by the fact that the Republican party has an admittedly spotty record when it comes to courting — and keeping — Latino voters.

At a Republican candidates’ forum in Wisconsin before the state’s primary earlier this month, a speaker who wasn’t on the ballot had strong words for the GOP regarding its low standing among Hispanic voters.

“The way the party … talks about immigration is going to impact the future course of this party and the future course of this nation,” said former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the first Hispanic to hold the nation’s highest law enforcement post.

Gonzales didn’t mention any candidate by name, but during the Republican primaries, none staked out a tougher position on immigration than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

“Of course we build a fence, and of course we do not give in-state tuition credits to people who come here illegally,” Romney said at a debate in Tampa last year. “That only attracts people to come here and take advantage of America’s great beneficence.”

In another debate, Romney touted his 2006 agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to allow Massachusetts State Police troopers to enforce immigration laws to, as he put it, “make sure those people who we arrest are put in jail, to find out they’re here illegally, we’re going to get them out of here.”

It might be a position designed to win votes in Republican primaries, but it hurts the party in the long run, Gonzales said in an interview with NPR.

Listen to or read the full story on NPR by clicking here.