The National Association of Hispanic Journalists presents an immigration debate with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, CNN's Lou Dobbs, NewsHour's Ray Suarez, and Bread for the World's President David Beckmann discussing immigration issues.
American Perspectives is C-SPAN's weekly look at issues of political and cultural interest. This primetime programming block on Saturday nights features speakers from across the country, representing all points of the political spectrum. American Perspectives airs at 8pm ET.
Bio
Rev. David Beckmann
David Beckmann: A Lutheran minister and an economist, Rev. David Beckmann earned his Master of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics, a Master of Divinity from Christ Seminary in St. Louis, and his undergraduate degree from Yale University. He has received honorary doctorates from Villanova University, the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and Capital University. He is also fluent in Spanish. President, Bread for the World.
Jorge Castañeda
Jorge Castañeda is a Mexican politician and academician who served as Secretary of Foreign Affairs (2000 – 2003).
Lou Dobbs
Lou Dobbs is the anchor and managing editor of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight. Dobbs also anchors a nationally syndicated financial news radio report, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report, and is a columnist for Money magazine and U.S. News and World Report.
Governor Bill Richardson
Governor Bill Richardson was elected governor of New Mexico in 2002 by the largest margin of any candidate since 1964.
Governor Richardson just completed his third legislative session, cutting taxes for more than 500,000 working New Mexicans, creating a statewide pre-kindergarten program, revamping the state's higher education system, and increasing access to quality health care. He was a candidate for the 2008 presidential election.
Ray Suarez
Ray Suarez is a senior correspondent for the "PBS NewsHour." He joined PBS in 1999 from NPR, where he had been host of the nationwide, call-in news program "Talk of the Nation" since 1993. Suarez currently hosts the monthly radio program "America Abroad" for Public Radio International and the weekly politics program "Destination Casa Blanca” for Hispanic Information Telecommunications Network (HITN) TV.
He is the author, most recently, of a book examining the tightening relationship between religion and politics in America, The Holy Vote. Suarez also wrote The Old Neighborhood and has contributed to several other books including What We See and How I Learned English, among others. Earlier in his career, Suarez was a correspondent for CNN, a producer for the ABC Radio Network, a reporter for CBS Radio in Rome, and a reporter for various American and British news services in London.
Veronica Villafane
Verónica Villafañe: is a "convergence journalist," working as TV anchor and producer for the San Jose Mercury News, reporting live for the NBC-11 nightly newscast and several times a week on Telemundo 48. She began her career as the editor of a weekly Spanish-language paper, but has been a television reporter for the past 14 years. She has worked at the local, national and international levels in both English and Spanish-language media with Univisión, Telemundo, CNN en español, Fox-11 News and Reuters. President of National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
I really liked Governor Richardson’s proposal for immigration reform. He criticizes the Immigration Reform Bill currently in Congress for making undocumented workers felons and denying citizenship to US-born children of illegal immigrants. Instead, he argues, we need a path to legalization for those already here combined with enhanced border security.