http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/oba ... 06-05.html

Obama tries to lure more Latino voters
By Manu Raju
June 05, 2007
This week’s charged Senate debate over immigration may give Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) a chance to chip away at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lead with the crucial Hispanic voting bloc.

The New York Democrat won the prized endorsement last week of Los Angeles’s Hispanic mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, but Obama is working closely with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), one of a handful of nationally known Latino officials yet to endorse a presidential candidate.

Taking a break from the presidential campaign trail, Obama this week will be visible on Capitol Hill, as the Senate resumes work on its immigration bill. He is cosponsoring four amendments, including two with Menendez, to the legislation, which would create a path for citizenship for the 12 million immigrants in the country illegally. And this Saturday, Obama’s campaign plans to highlight his work as volunteers go door to door in a host of cities, including several with major Hispanic populations, to support his candidacy.

The success of Obama’s efforts on immigration may be known as early as today. Republican and Democratic negotiators will hold a potentially decisive meeting to determine which of 14 pending amendments will pass muster with their fragile,
bipartisan coalition, whose support is crucial to the fate of the bill.

Republican negotiators are expected to oppose family-reunification amendments, which are central to the efforts this week by Obama and other Democratic presidential candidates. Conversely, groups representing Hispanic immigrants are opposed to the bill unless family provisions are added to the measure.

But if the Senate adopts amendments opposed by the bipartisan group, it could be enough to create a rift within the coalition and sink the underlying bill. And failure in the Senate could provide ammunition for the non-senators in the Democratic presidential race.

“The politics of immigration are still so new and so raw that it’s hard to say with any certainty how this all plays out,â€