"The Greatest Mobilization Since The Days Of Cesar Chavez"...

On Feb. 1, Arturo Hernandez went to his church on the east side of Los Angeles and watched the first PowerPoint presentation of his life. The illegal immigrant from a Mexican village on the Sea of Cortez learned about a bill that had passed the House that would turn him -- and the church that helps his family with child care, his employers in the tony Brentwood section of Los Angeles and the hospitals that treat his family -- into felons.

In subsequent weeks, Hernandez listened to public service announcements on L.A.'s Spanish-language radio stations in which disc jockeys and other celebrities said they wanted him and others like him to let the Senate, which is meeting this week to hammer out its own legislation, know what they think about the proposal. At the same time, his church, the hotel worker's union that represents his wife and the leadership of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles continued to tell him the legislation was, in the words of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony who spoke against the proposed law on March 1 -- Ash Wednesday -- a "blameful, vicious" bill.

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