Teens discuss immigration with Sen. Reid

LAS VEGAS - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is set to return to the Las Vegas high school where one-time rival and tea party candidate Sharron Angle's campaign sputtered to an end after an odd exchange with a group of Hispanic teenagers.

Reid is scheduled to chat Thursday afternoon with the same Hispanic student group at Rancho High School where Angle told more than a hundred teenagers that some of them could be confused as Asian. She also denied using images of Hispanics in a handful of fearful advertisements slamming illegal immigrants.

Reid isn't entering the same tension-filled school room Angle rambled into during the final sprint of the November election. Many of the members of the Hispanic Student Union volunteered for his campaign during the fractious contest in 2010.

But the students do have some piercing questions for Reid, said club adviser and history teacher Isaac Barron, a Reid supporter. The students, whose high school is 70 percent Hispanic, want to ask Reid why the Dream Act died in the Senate a month after the election. The legislation would have cleared a path to citizenship for some children of illegal immigrants.

"The kids were so disappointed," Barron said. "I was sad to tears, as well."

Barron said Reid put up a good fight, but the students also want Reid to call for another vote on the measure this year.

Some of the high-schoolers are illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States by their parents when they were young and likely could have qualified for benefits under the Dream Act, Barron said.

The teenagers struck an unsympathetic front when Angle came to visit the group at their request in October, days after her campaign released the anti-illegal immigration ads criticized by numerous Hispanic groups. A student asked why her advertisements focused on images of Hispanics, and Angle offered a lengthy explanation that some students and Barron found insulting. It was one of her final public appearances in the waning days of the campaign.

Reid's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.