Clinton,Obama at LaRaza, South Florida

'I'm proud to have not one, but two front-runners in the race for president of the United States,'' said Janet Murguia, La Raza's president. ``I think it says a lot about our power and our energy to shape this country.''

Vying for support from the country's fast-growing Hispanic electorate, the two leading Democratic presidential candidates said Sunday they would make immigration legislation a priority.

In separate appearances at the National Council of La Raza convention in Miami Beach, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois both vowed to create a legalization path for the country's 12 million undocumented immigrants if they won the presidency. They made the pledges weeks after an immigration overhaul bill collapsed in Congress...
With the presidential primary election season in full swing, some Hispanic activists say the Republican presidential hopefuls' decision to bypass this weekend's National Council of La Raza convention is a political miscalculation.
The Hispanic civil rights group invited three Republican candidates to the convention, but they declined, just a month after passing up the gathering of the National Association of Latino and Elected Appointed Officials.

"They need to understand that the Latino vote will make a big difference in this election," said La Raza president Janet Murguia at a recent news conference. Their absence, she added, "sends a message that we're not important now."