"That's leaving the border open more and more," Wood said. "I think it still needs to be addressed. Nothing's been done yet at all."

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Who is for?

Jesse Soriano

As a child in southern Texas, Jesse M. Soriano remembers immigration authorities knocking on his parents' door looking for his Mexican relatives.

"I don't recall any abuse of our family, but they certainly were threatening," he said. "It was scary."

Soriano, whose family moved to Michigan when he was 10, came away less trusting of law enforcement. "You view them as sort of bullies," he said.

Those early experiences helped shape Soriano's view of illegal immigration.

There is no question that people who come to the United States without documentation commit an illegal act, he said. He favors national borders and control of those borders.

"I'm not a complete idealist," said Soriano, who heads the governor's Hispanic Advisory Council.

But he sees as courageous those who cross the border looking for work. "We as Americans can't understand the desperation," he said.

Folks opposed to undocumented immigration are just reaching for explanations to support their position, he said. Rather than talk about the law, he said, society ought to be talking about humans and how to help them.

Soriano has a long history of public service having worked for the U.S. Department of Education, the Michigan Department of Education and Weber State University. He is ethnic minority affairs director for the University of Utah health sciences.

"I don't think we turn our backs on people who are starving and trying to better their lives. To me, that is more important than the law. Maybe we need to look at the law. Maybe it's the law we need to revise."

In Soriano's view, humanity and compassion trump the law.

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Luz Robles

As a girl, Luz Robles crossed the border at Tijuana every day to attend private high school in San Diego.

Her parents were both professors and encouraged her to come to the University of Utah on an international student visa. She joined the U.'s Center for Ethnic Student Affairs, and her work opened her eyes to challenges facing the immigrant community.

"I started seeing what first- and second-generation Latinos were going through, and I couldn't fathom being a second-class citizen because of the color of my skin."