EDITOR'S NOTE

Janet Murguia was in Colorado recently to meet with Sen. Ken Salazar, former Denver Mayor Federico Peña, and local affiliates of the National Council of La Raza. She stopped by The Denver Post to meet with the editorial board.

Today's Q&A with Murguia is our third installment of "A Conversation With ...," an occasional multimedia report on the people and issues that shape our times.

Janet Murguia, president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, was disappointed this summer as Congress failed to pass President Bush's immigration reform plan, which would have legalized as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border. Murguia talked about that plan, as well as La Raza's desire to get our nation's Hispanics more civically engaged.

The Post: That was really disappointing that [immigration reform legislation] ground to a halt the way that it did. What's next?

Murguia: We were struck by the tone of some of the debate, that it seemed to not just be anti-immigrant, which was pretty clear, but it seemed to be painting a broader brush with the larger Hispanic community. In any respect, we felt like the implications are going to be more negative for the entire Hispanic community than just for the immigrant community.

One of the clearer roads that we have to move forward on as a community ... is around civic engagement. I don't think this is a policy debate anymore. I think we have to work on changing the political landscape for the community. Maybe hold more elected officials accountable for weighing in the right way on these issues.

That means making sure that all folks who are eligible to be citizens are being naturalized ... making sure that people go out and vote once they are registered. Clearly this is not just an issue that affects the Hispanic community but one that affects the whole country, but for the Hispanic community it seems like the stakes are very high. We have, I think, the propensity to be more targeted for discrimination and for racial profiling.

So ... the political dynamics need to change a little bit before we can move forward on this in a way that we believe is rational, orderly, fair and humane.

The Post: Is that the priority of your organization, to build voter traditions?

Murguia: I think you're going to see a ramped up [effort], not just by our organization but by others. Because of the lack of action at the federal level, obviously now hundreds if not thousands of local ordinances are popping up that are taking this very negative anti-immigrant - if not anti-Hispanic - tone. And so we're trying to figure out how do we help our local affiliates combat those efforts. I think ultimately it's not going to be a quick turnaround.

The Post: What would you say is [Republican U.S. Rep.] Tom Tancredo's impact on the debate?

Murguia: Obviously he has what I would consider to be some extreme views on the immigration issue. I don't think they're very constructive in the sense that they help further the discussion on a policy level. I don't know that he's had a dramatic affect nationally. What's happened is that voices like Tancredo's have joined up with the radio shock jocks and others [to create] a wave of negativity.

It's hard to have that kind of discussion in any environment, but in this environment that kind of discourse makes it almost impossible. We need to clear that [negative] landscape.

The Post: Would you speak to the crackdown on employers and their checking of [workers'] Social Security numbers?

Murguia: President Bush has been very eloquent and articulate on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform. And he's given some very important statements on this. But obviously he sees his party very divided. I think now by saying they are going to support these enforcement-only measures, he's trying to have it both ways.

I'm coming at this not as someone who supports open borders but someone who clearly understands in a post-9/11 world we do need to have security and border enforcement. We've got to strike a better balance.

The Post: Can you speak to some of the issues that your local affiliates brought to your attention?

Murguia: One of the areas where a number of our affiliates are involved is community development, revitalizing neighborhoods and taking older buildings, creating housing opportunities. I was in Del Norte and they took me through a few of their sites. They've done a lot of to provide housing for senior citizens, mentally challenged folks, folks with AIDS and HIV who have special needs. One or two of our affiliates ... educate families about the basics of financial literacy. We've seen the impact of the lack of that when we see the foreclosure issue dramatically affecting the Hispanic community and many minority communities. Every year we put 3,000 families into first-time homes and over the course of 10 years we've put 23,000 families into their first homes.

The Post: Any final comments for us?

Murguia: Many folks have tried to marginalize us and throw all kinds things at us: We're for open borders, we're this radical group, we want to give the Southwest back to Mexico. So they've really tried to attack our credibility and they've gone after some of us personally.

I got a very terrible e-mail - one of many. This guy [wrote]: "You need to go back where you came from." But I don't think this the gentlemen realizes that he's sending me home to Kansas. And the irony is that this is true for so many Hispanic families ... . I have two siblings who are federal judges, and four of us went to law school. And you know I worked in the West Wing in the White

House [as an aide to President Clinton]. The shame of it is that our community has made enormous contributions both on the battlefield today in Iraq back to every major war and the fact that we would be questioned about not just our patriotism but whether we belong here is the reason we need to change this environment.

This interview was edited for length.

BY THE NUMBERS
7.6 million

Hispanic citizens who voted in the 2004 national election, up 27 percent from 2000

54

Percentage of eligible Latino voters registered in 2006

71

Percentage of white eligible voters registered in 2006

$35,967

Median income of Hispanic households in 2005

$50,784

Median income of non-Hispanic white households in 2005

21.8

Percentage of Hispanics at poverty level in 2005

8.3

Percentage of whites at poverty level in 2005

Source: www.pewhispanic.org, nclr.org, www.census.gov