Latin America Roundup -- April 21

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Paraguay has a new president. Fernando Lugo, 56, (pictured) dubbed ‘the bishop of the poor,’ is a former Roman Catholic bishop who championed the downtrodden and challenged the long-entrenched political elite. He was elected Paraguay’s president Sunday, ending six decades of one-party rule in this South American nation, writes Patrick J. McDonnell from Asuncion. Picture: Jorge Saenz, Associated Press

Special Order 40, which prohibits police officers in Los Angeles from initiating contact with individuals for the sole purpose of determining whether they are illegal immigrants, gets the treatment in The Times. We speak to immigrants, activists, the police and a pastor on the controversial rules which look set to change. And 40 prominent Angelenos and Southern Californians give their views on Special Order 40.

Los Angeles Times writer Ari B. Bloomekatz went down to a stretch of Oxnard Street in Van Nuys to ask immigrant laborers waiting for work what they think of plans to change the rules. Guatemalan immigrant Diego Cap said the proposed changes to Special Order 40 would only make people even more afraid to talk to police.

At Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles, Bloomekatz interviews Father Richard Estrada, an associate pastor. ‘I have a real, real, real problem’ with the proposed changes ‘because it’s going to increase racial profiling,’ Estrada said. For the last few decades, Estrada has intermittently helped illegal immigrants facing deportation orders and Latin American refugees seeking sanctuary in Southern California churches.

But for Sterling ‘Ernie’ Norris, an attorney for Washington, D.C.-based Judicial Watch, a nonprofit government watchdog group, Special Order 40 is a barrier to effective policing in Los Angeles. Modifying the rules is not enough, he argues. Special Order 40 must be killed. His organization is seeking to give street cops ‘the total freedom’ to contact federal immigration agents when they come across illegal immigrants.

Special Order 40 is hobbling police, according to an LAPD officer who writes about the department for National Review Online and other publications under the pseudonym ‘Jack Dunphy.’ Although the order states only that officers can’t stop people solely to inquire about their immigration status, ‘the policy and the reality are quite different,’ he said in an interview with The Times. The officer asked that his real name not be used.

Finally, 40 prominent Angelenos and Southern Californians sound off about policing, illegal immigrants and the LAPD.

Still in Los Angeles, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a splash when he announced plans last week for ending L.A. Bridges, an anti-gang initiative under fire since the Riordan administration for failing to demonstrate clear results. But in dropping the L.A. Bridges programs and shifting the money to his appointed ‘gang czar,’ Villaraigosa put off yet again answering one key question: Are these programs, which last year received $13.2 million, successful in quelling violence and keeping young people out of gangs? David Zahniser reports.

C. Thi Nguyen defends Los Angeles’s taco trucks in Opinion following reports in recent weeks on new restrictions for vendors . ‘All my best L.A. memories are about girls or taco trucks,’ he writes.

‘People are pretty cheerful around a taco truck; they smile, they talk. On a good night, the crowd around a taco truck is the closest thing we have to a unified Los Angeles soul.’

Demographers, economists and employers are advocating more investment in training and education for the immigrants needed to replace the huge outgoing crop of baby boomers. Teresa Watanabe writes how with baby boomers preparing to retire as the best educated and most skilled workforce in U.S. history, a growing chorus of demographers and labor experts is raising concerns that workers in California and the nation lack the critical skills needed to replace them.

Picture: Wendy Estrada, right, a 30-year-old Honduran immigrant who is training to be a certified nursing assistant, enjoys a joke with resident Edna Berry and employee Beatrice Bustamante at the Center at Park West in Reseda. Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times

Carol J. Williams reports from Cuba on how for lawyers and others involved in the war crimes tribunal in Guantanamo, getting there and back is increasingly difficult.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City