U.S. Congress mirrors the lives of immigrants

America is a land of immigrants, and official Washington mirrors their struggles and successes.

While the halls of Congress echo with a political battle over immigration laws, the sons, daughters and grandchildren of immigrants sit around the Cabinet table with President George W. Bush -- Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta.
Mel Martinez, who escaped from Cuba without his family when he was 15, was Bush's first housing secretary and now represents Florida in the U.S. Senate.

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The role of immigrants at high levels of government is not only felt in Washington. Two U.S. governors are foreign born -- California Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger of Austria and Michigan Democrat Jennifer Granholm of Canada.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, was born in Los Angeles but grew up in Mexico, the son of a Mexican-born mother and a banker from Boston who worked for Citibank in Mexico City.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, has a Mexican-born wife, Columba.

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Two members of Bush's Cabinet are foreign born.

Labor Secretary Chao came with her family, legally, from Taiwan when she was eight.

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Gutierrez escaped from Cuba with his family when he was five.

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Gonzales, the attorney general, is the son of legal Mexican-American migrant workers.

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Transportation Secretary Mineta, 74, who also served in the Clinton administration as commerce secretary and, earlier, in the House, was among 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry sent to an internment camp during World War II.
Sen. Pete V. Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, recalled how his mother, an illegal Italian immigrant, was whisked away from their home in Albuquerque in 1943 by federal agents seeking Italian sympathizers.

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The father of Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, fled Russia as a young man and became a U.S. citizen. Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat, is the son of a Kenyan-born father and an American mother.
Obama, Domenici, Specter and Martinez all worked on the collapsed Senate compromise to provide an easier path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
In the House, meanwhile, Rep. Tom Tancredo, whose father emigrated from Italy early in the 20th century, was among the most vocal critics of such an approach. He was a main drafter of the tough House-passed bill.

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Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, was born in Hungary and was 16 years old when Nazi Germany occupied his native country. He survived a forced labor camp and emigrated to America.
Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, both Florida Republicans, were born in Cuba.

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