-- by Spencer S. Hsu, Alejandro Lazo and Darryl Fears, The Washington Post

The arrests this week of nearly 600 immigrant workers at a manufacturing plant in Laurel, Miss., are fueling a national debate over a federal system to check new hires' work documents, a program whose expansion the Bush administration has made a cornerstone of its fight against illegal immigration.

Today The Hispanic Institute and The Common Good co-sponsored "Culture Wars: a Panel Discussion on the Role of Race, Gender, Ethnicity, Religion and Values in the Fall Campaign."

The panel was moderated by Dan Abrams, Chief Legal Correspondent for NBC News. The panelists were:

Editorial -- The New York Times

This month, the Bush administration rolled out a new strategy to solve illegal immigration and just as quickly rolled it back in. It was called Operation Scheduled Departure, and it was simply this: It asked people to turn themselves in.

Voters in the Mountain Regions Often Hard to Figure

-- by Michael Booth, The Denver Post

Cañon City— Standing in the shadow of their brand-new solar electric panels, Pete and Paul Austin launch a brotherly argument whose political implications soar on a late-summer breeze toward the Colorado border and out to the boundaries of the Mountain West.

-- by David Zucchino, The Los Angeles Times

The Garland school district will ask all parents to provide the names and phone numbers of six emergency contacts. The district is also instructing school officials to not allow a student board a bus if a parent is detained or deported and no one else is available to take the child home, The Dallas Morning News reported Saturday.

-- by Laura Martinez, Broadcast Newsroom

Programming television for Hispanic youth is a tough nut to crack, especially when it comes to the increasingly coveted 9-to-14-year-old tween demographic.

-- by Stewart Lawrence, Alternet

-- by Kat Glass, McClatchy Newspapers

A coalition of Hispanic groups offered its recommendations for both party's platforms Thursday, including calls to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to John Trasvina, the chairman of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, 26 of the group's recommendations are already in the Democratic National Committee's draft platform.