sigurs0 / Flickr

The story of more than a dozen farm workers fired after fleeing smoke from the Springs fire in Ventura County has turned out to be the story of more than a dozen farm workers who still have a job.

Maybe.

You see, after the story became a headline, the SoCal farm in question said it was all just a big misunderstanding:

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Ted Soqui for LA Weekly

Nearly one out of every 10 workers in California is here illegally. So says a new USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration report.

The research, released today, also says that more than 1 in 10 Golden State kids (1.2 million of them, or 13 percent) has at least one parent who's here illegally. Who are these people?

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Nanette Gonzalez for LA Weekly

It's May Day, people. And if you don't know what time it is, it means that it's a worker's holiday for marching, fist-pumping and screwing up traffic.

While the May Day marches of yesteryear were massive, we expect they've simmered down (now). Still, labor and immigrants' rights activists are fired up this year over the prospect of immigration reform (you know, all that amnesty business) in Congress:

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culturehighs.com

Perhaps the greatest deterrent for criminals these days is the prospect of facing that group of geniuses on the jury who couldn't figure out a decent excuse to avoid the duty.

Angry cops, omnipresent security video systems and junkyard dogs ain't got nothin' on that. But the job of filling jury seats with Americans who at least have a pulse has become so difficult that state lawmakers now want to allow noncitizens to do the job. Really:

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Atwater Newbie / LA Weekly Flickr pool

For most intents and purposes, Dianne Feinstein is a fairly progressive and pro-immigrant senator from California.

But immigrants' rights groups feel she hasn't gone far enough, fast enough, especially in light of President Obama's call for comprehensive immigration reform that would include a path to citizenship for those who've been here for years:

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A.C. Thamer / LA Weekly Flickr pool

Immigrants' advocates have long argued that entering the United States without permission makes you about as much an illegal immigrant as blowing through a stop sign makes you an illegal driver.

In other words, they have said, nobody can be the embodiment of illicit activity for crossing a boundary. The Associated Press today seemed to agree:

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foulmouthshirts.com

We're not sure what's happened in recent years, but California's stance toward illegal immigrants has gone from the hate of the Pete Wilson '90s to almost nothin' but love today (unless, of course, you listen to AM talk radio).

USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll numbers released over the weekend show that 72 percent of California voters support a path toward citizenship for the undocumented:

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Grant Palmer / Flickr

We told you that, despite popular lore, Los Angeles was NOT turning into Mexico.

USC seems to have done a lot more real research on the topic, however. The school's Population Dynamics Research Group is projecting that a majority of L.A. county residents will be native born by the end of the year.

That's a first ...

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cafepress.com

In what feels to us like a middle finger to those Republicans cheering on draconian "sequester" cuts to the federal budget following a congressional impasse, the Department of Homeland Security says undocumented immigrants are being released from detention centers across America.

The action is apparently in the name of saving money as the cuts loom come Friday:

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foulmouthshirts.com

Despite the oversize voice of hatred heard on local AM radio, a vast majority of you people are cool with making working illegal immigrants here legal.

The latest Public Policy Institute of California survey finds that a record high 76 percent of Californians favor "giving illegal immigrants who have been working here the chance to keep their jobs and apply for legal status."

That's what President Obama proposed to do as part of an immigration reform package he announced this week:

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Unlicensed drivers and those rolling on revoked or suspended documents are nearly three times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident, according to a recent DMV look at 23 years of crash data in California.

That stunning statistic has some calling for a reevaluation of the state's denial of licenses to illegal immigrants, who aren't eligible to drive legally under Gov. Pete Wilson-era law.

The DMV says in a summary that ...

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Pete Souza for the White House.

It took long enough.

But it looks like President Obama is continuing to follow through on promises to make it easier for illegal immigrants to stay in-country.

Reform it is not. But it could be a thank you to the Latino nation that helped give the president a second term in November:

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2012TheVoiceOf

Watching the debate last night, you'd think that Latinos (and not, as conventional wisdom would have it, Ohioans) are going to swing this thing.

The issue aimed at the Latino vote, of course, was immigration. Because that's all us brown folk think about -- getting other brown folk across that border, legally or not.

Anyway, Republican nominee Mitt Romney was right to rake Obama over the coals for his slow action on "comprehensive immigration reform:"

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foulmouthshirts.com

Updated at the bottom: This is one step closer. First posted at 7:03 a.m.

A city ID card for illegal immigrants?

Shouldn't the undocumented just, you know, stay undocumented -- in the dark, underpaid and a permanent part of the underclass?

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says no. He wants city library "universal city services cards" to double as official IDs for those horrible folks who take care of our children, wash our cars and put salad in our bowls:

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Adriano Agullo / Flickr

It hasn't been since 1993, almost 20 years ago, that illegal immigrants have been able to obtain drivers licenses in California.

While critics of the undocumented have said that's a good thing, immigrants' rights groups have argued that the de facto outlaw status of these drivers have led to mass seizures of their cars, a rash of hit-and-run accidents and other roadside maladies for the people of California.

Last night Gov. Jerry Brown took a step toward giving the undocumented driving privileges:

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Dream Activist / Flickr

The California Dream Act, which gives undocumented people who came to the United States as children in-state tuition at state colleges, isn't favored by a majority of California voters.

Neither is the renewed drive to let illegal immigrants obtain California drivers licenses. That doesn't mean you necessarily hate Mexicans.

No, in fact, according to the same Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley-Field Poll, released today ...

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Dream Activist / Flickr

UCLA today announced it has pulled the plug on its end of a controversial college that would have catered to undocumented students.

The National Dream University was planned under a deal between the UCLA Center for Labor Research and the National Labor College. Attendees would not have been UCLA students, according to the school.

Still, UCLA says, the Westwood campus' higher ups didn't give the project a green light:

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Blogging LA

Your photo here.

LAPD Chief Charlie Beck's dream of granting special drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants -- which would largely clear up the impound debate, by giving illegals a fighting chance of making it through the DUI checkpoints alive -- still has a few hearts to win over in the Legislature. And although some licenses should apparently be issued under Obama's new half-amnesty, the DMV is pretty confused about how it's supposed to handle the paperwork.

So L.A. City Hall has been forced to hatch an extra-creative solution, in the meantime:

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DMV

A window has opened for undocumented workers to obtain drivers licenses in California.

The practice, once legal but since outlawed for nearly 15 years, could return under President Obama's program that gives work permits to illegals who came to the United States as children.

The California DMV has been taking some heat for what it will or won't do. Here's what we found out:

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Sheriff Baca uses his words.

As L.A. City Hall and the LAPD lean further and further left on immigration policy -- following in the footsteps of the DREAMy, Latino-friendly state Legislature -- the L.A. County Sheriff has yanked even harder to the right.

Compared to his liberal peers, "Teflon" Sheriff Lee Baca is turning into SoCal's own Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Chris Newman, legal director at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, notes that Arpaio "wasn't always anti-immigrant. He really kind of metastasized into the monster he became. And there are sort of ominous warning signs..."

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