More than 100 immigrants and their supporters marched through Prince William County yesterday to protest policies they say have torn apart families, caused racial tension and made them fearful of reporting crimes. With chants in Spanish of “Justice!“ and “Stop police brutality,“ the immigrant advocacy group Mexicans Without Borders demanded that county officials rescind a 2007 resolution that allows county police to enforce federal immigration law and denies some public services to illegal immigrants. They say the policy, which drew national attention, has created strife between Hispanic immigrants and police.

Seventy-two years later, Marija Vukasinovic is going home. She left Zagreb, Yugoslavia, in 1937. Her mother was dead, her father dying; Italy, Bulgaria and Hungary each were claiming Yugoslav territory; and Josip Broz Tito and his communists were rising to power. In four years, Adolf Hitler would invade. Marija’s aunt, Pauline Moncovich of Portsmouth, managed to fight through Yugoslav red tape and gain permission for Marija to emigrate.

Ways to better address the needs of Virginia’s foreign-born residents are among the dozens of recommendations made by the Governor’s Commission on Immigration in its final report, released yesterday. Among the proposals for state government are: shortening the amount of time to five years from 10 for a legal permanent resident to be eligible for Medicaid; and joining with private providers of English as a Second Language to make more English classes available.

Although George Bush’s unpopularity contributed to significant GOP losses in 2006 and 2008, the departing president recently gave his party some good advice. Bush restated his confidence in “compassionate conservatism,“ and identified immigration as an area where rhetoric and posture have hurt Republicans seriously—and, if the party does not correct itself soon, perhaps fatally.

With a mother from El Salvador and an Irish-American father from Minnesota, Erik Giblin learned early how to walk between cultures. That knowledge has served him well in his first few months as director of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond’s Office for the Hispanic Apostolate. “What I do now is because of how I was raised,“ said Giblin, 37, who grew up Catholic in Southern California. “In me was created a space for understanding; now I try to create that space in others. “

Whenever I need to hire a cab, I call my favorite driver, Hamad. He moved alone to the U.S. from Sudan 20 years ago to earn money to send back to his wife—a common arrangement among Ameri can immigrants from poorer countries. Hamad owns his own taxi and earns a good living, but he misses his wife and school-age children. Fortunately, he returns to see them for a few months every year. During a recent trip, he saw that people can now make a good living in Sudan, but there is no going back for Hamad—America is home now.

Louisiana—a state with a long history of political corruption and ineptitude—seems to be changing its ways. Last year, its voters elected Bobby Jindal to the governorship. A reformer, a pragmatist, a devout Catholic, a Republican, and a conservative, Jindal promised Louisiana honest, limited government that works. So far, he appears to be keeping his vow.

President-elect Barack Obama’s aunt intends to fight a deportation order and hopes to remain in the United States, her immigration lawyer said yesterday. The Associated Press found that Zeituni Onyango, 56, is staying with relatives in Cleveland after fleeing her public-housing apartment in Boston. Onyango, who is Obama’s father’s half-sister, was ordered to leave the country in 2004 by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from Kenya.