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Dana Leigh Marks, president of the National Association of Immigration Judges and a sitting judge in San Francisco, discusses the practice of falsifying stories to gain asylum in the U.S. and the challenge for judges to determine the truth.

New York Times reporter, Damien Cave, talks about how immigration from Mexico is dropping as economic opportunity improves there, and Senior Demographer at the Pew Hisanic Center, Jeffrey S. Passel, talks about demographic trends in immigration from Mexico.

All week, we’ve been speaking with influential Americans about what patriotism and America means to them as part of our series "My America." Today’s guest is Dr. Abraham Verghese, professor of the theory and practice of medicine at Stanford University Medical School, and best-selling author of "My Own Country: A Doctor's Story" and "Cutting for Stone."

Hirokazu Yoshikawa, professor of education in Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, talks about the nearly four million children born in this country to undocumented immigrant parents, and looks at how the circumstances they are being raised in adversely influence their development. Immigrants Raising Citizens is based on data from a three-year study of infants from undocumented immigrant families, and includes important implications his findings have for immigration policy, labor law enforcement, and the structure of community services for immigrant families.

The number of immigrants living in the United States and Western Europe continues to grow. As the foreign-born population increases, so does anxiety about our identity. What does it mean to be American or British or Italian today? How does our identity—our ethnicity, gender, and/or race—change how we vote and contribute to civic life?

About two weeks from now, the State Department will randomly draw 50,000 names from the fifteen million entries for U.S. visas, as part of the Diversity Visa Lottery Program. The Diversity Visa program garnered attention recently, after news that a computer glitch invalidated a drawing in early May, obligating the State Department to nullify 22,000 visas it had previously awarded. 

For two decades millions of people overseas have dreamed of winning a visa to the United States in the diversity visa program. Fifteen million people applied this years, in the hope of winning one of 50,000 working visas or green cards in the random lottery.

Coming on June 15th the first in our latest batch of Radio Rookies stories, which will air every Wednesday and Thursday for the rest of the month.  First up, we'll hear from Alicia, who comes from a mixed-status home, meaning that half of her family are U.S. citizens, the other half are not.  Some people consider her an "anchor baby", but Alicia just feels confused about the expectations her parents have of her, as a citizen, and the guilt she feels that her sister lives under the fear of deportation.  And on Thursday a story about Facebook drama....  

Every year, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards honor the best high school and middle school students in a variety of categories, including painting, journalism and fiction. Past winners include leaders and luminaries in their respective fields, including Joyce Carol Oates, Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. Some 185,000 pieces of art and writing submitted this year, and eighteen-year-old Haris Durrani was one of seven high school seniors to win a gold medal for a portfolio of writing, out of 3,000 portfolio entries.

Today’s fight over immigration is contentious and has the power to derail the agendas of politicians who wade into the issue. Yet federal legislation has been minimal and usually results in short-term solutions, so much so that many states have resorted to creating their own immigration-control laws.

In the past thirty years, the U.S. has gone through a rapid expansion of globalization, and cycles of economic recession and booms, which has resulted in a huge upswing in immigrants, mainly from Latin America, coming to the U.S. to find work. But the story isn't a new one.

The Asian population in the five boroughs spiked 32 percent in the last decade, and New Yorkers of South Asian descent had a lot to do with it. Numbers from the Census Bureau show that Indian American numbers alone skyrocketed 77 percent in Manhattan to reach 25,857, and in the city over all there are now 192,209 people who identify as Asian Indian. In the next few weeks we'll have numbers on the Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Nepali and Indo-Caribbean communities which have also been steadily rising. All of which raises an interesting question.

In late March and early April, a boat filled with dozens of African migrants drifted in the Mediterranean for 16 days with almost no food, fuel or water. Although the boat made contact with various European authorities, no rescue was attempted and 61 people died. On this week’s Underreported, Fred Abrahams, Special Advisor at Human Rights Watch, describes what happened aboard the ship and why an investigation has been launched into how NATO and its member states responded to the ship’s distress calls.

In a speech in El Paso, Texas on Tuesday, President Obama urged immigration reform. The president touted his administration's efforts to meet Republicans' wishes about securing the border, but also made a stern argument for going forward with comprehensive legislation to give illegal immigrants a path towards citizenship. Hispanics are an important demographic in the 2012 elections who care about immigration reform. But it also represented one of the long-stated priorities of the Obama Administration. Today, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will reintroduce the DREAM act in Congress.

President Obama spoke to residents in El Paso, Texas on Tuesday about immigration reform. The president said that his administration had made efforts to answer the calls of Republicans to secure the border, but also argued that breaking up families and punishing children for their parents' illegal immigration was not the way forward.

President Obama is headed to the border town of El Paso, Texas today and is scheduled to speak on the fate of the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. It has been more than ten months since Obama gave his first big policy speech on immigration at the American University in Washington, where he stressed an administrative policy of border control and easing immigration proceedings for legal immigrants. But the Latino community is waiting to hear whether recent behind-the-scenes meetings have led to a more encompassing framework for federal immigration reform — one of Obama's campaign promises back in 2008.

President Obama first made his case for immigration reform on the national stage during the 2008 campaign. Many advocates say they have yet to see that fight play out, but on Tuesday, the president will give a speech to college students and faculty from the University of Texas in El Paso to talk about reform, once again.

Hirokazu Yoshikawa, professor of education in Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, talks about the nearly four million children born in this country to undocumented immigrant parents, and looks at how the circumstances they are being raised in adversely influence their development. Immigrants Raising Citizens is based on data from a three-year study of infants from undocumented immigrant families, and includes important implications his findings have for immigration policy, labor law enforcement, and the structure of community services for immigrant families.

The Alabama State Senate yesterday passed legislation to crack down on illegal legislation. The measure, which is similar in tone to Arizona's controversial SB 1070, already passed the House once. It now returns to the House for final approval before heading to the governor's desk for signature.

The national immigration discussion is also well underway. Republican hopefuls for the 2012 presidential nomination have been laying out their opinions on the issue, and President Obama signaled his readiness to renew conversation this week by convening religious, political and business leaders to the White House to talk about federal-level immigration reform.

As immigration reform legislation moves in and out of Congress, the public pushes for everything from tighter enforcement and border security to comprehensive reform and amnesty. Some measures make it through the gauntlet, but not before a good chewing by Congress and the public. Many fail outright, and some are debated over and over again, amended and re-introduced.

The legislative bills and proposals run the gamut, but one thing they almost always do is incite controversy. Here's a guide to what's on the books, what's on the docket, and what's being debated across the country. 

Audrey Singer, Senior Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, discusses the recent push by Democratic Senators to urge President Obama to honor the DREAM Act, and other recent news on immigration reform.

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