ImmPolitic

Welcome to ImmPolitic, the National Immigration Forum’s blog. Here we will comment on current developments in immigration policy and politics from the perspective of a Washington-based, national pro-immigrant organization.

Would Answering Demands for More Enforcement Allow Us to Move on Immigration Reform?

August 03, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

There has been a developing strain of argument in the immigration debate, recently expounded by Edward Schumacher-Matos in a Washington Post Op-Ed, that goes like this, “If Obama would just accede to the demands of politicians calling for more National Guard, Border Patrol, etc. on the border, we could move on to consider reforming our immigration system.” 

 

The problem with this argument is that it assumes that politicians who are calling for more enforcement sincerely think that more enforcement is needed.  In reality, politicians who are telling us that the Obama Administration  doesn’t have the “cojones” to enforce immigration laws are doing so because they are trying to stir up voters in advance of the November elections.  Giving these politicians what they want now is not going to stop their demands.  They will just create new ones. 

 

It’s happened before.  As we wrote about here and here, a series of enforcement “benchmarks” were set in the 2007 immigration reform legislation.  Those “benchmarks” have largely been met, and more enforcement resources have been deployed that were not contemplated at the time.  Still, politicians who are opposed to actually fixing our broken immigration system call for more enforcement.  They have moved the goalposts, and they will move them again.

 

All the proposals for more enforcement—such as the McCain/Kyl “10 Point Plan”—come in the context of record enforcement that is already taking place—in the interior and on the border. 

 

On the Southwest border, apprehensions of persons illegally crossing the border—a measure of the total number of people trying to cross illegally—decreased 23 percent from 2008 to 2009, continuing a trend that has resulted in a 53 percent drop since 2004. 

 

The rhetoric about illegal immigration being out of control and leading to crime and other problems is loudest in Arizona, despite the fact that crime in that state has been dropping for years.  You wouldn’t know that from listening to (among others), Arizona Senator John McCain and Governor Jan Brewer, both of whom are running for re-election and are facing (or have faced) immigration hardliners running against them in the primaries. 

 

The statistics on crime and border apprehensions are not classified.  They are as available to these politicians as they are to me.  So are stories in the press that contain interviews with law enforcement officers in border communities who maintain that their communities are as safe as they’ve ever been.

 

However, despite the unprecedented resources already deployed on the border, the Obama Administration is sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the border beginning this week, and the administration has asked Congress for an additional $500 million    in emergency funds for “enhanced border security” and law enforcement.  This is all beginning to feel more like the public financing of the campaigns of politicians who are running against immigration hardliners.  It may provide only redundant enforcement. 

 

Instead of agreeing to the demands of politicians who will always call for more enforcement, the Administration should talk more about what it has done, as it did in this press release from the Department of Homeland Security on “Southwest Border Next Steps.”  The public is constantly being bombarded by assertions that the border is out of control from politicians and some elements of the media who want to paint that picture.  The Administration should do a better job of explaining what has been done and why we need reform.  It should not throw additional resources at a problem when those additional resources cannot be justified.

 

The immigration laws are broken, and it is Congress’ job to fix them.  Without immigration reform, the extra spending on the border is not going to do much.  As DHS Secretary Napolitano has said about securing the border and enforcing the law, “to do this job as effectively as possible, DHS needs immigration reform.”

 

Image: iStockphoto/jlsohio

Border Enforcement Politics

Arizona Asks for “Expedited Appeal,” but Facts Don’t Warrant Emergency Consideration

July 30, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

On July 29, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for an expedited hearing to overturn Wednesday’s ruling by District Court Judge Susan Bolton that put on hold the most controversial parts of Arizona’s “show me your papers” law.

 

The motion filed by Arizona claims an expedited schedule is warranted “to address the irreparable harm Arizona is suffering as a result of unchecked unlawful immigration.” 

 

“Good cause exists to expedite this appeal … because it is an appeal of a preliminary injunction enjoining several key provisions of SB 1070 that the Arizona Legislature determined were critical to address serious criminal, environmental, and economic problems Arizona has been suffering as a consequence of illegal immigration and the lack of effective enforcement activity by the federal government.”

 

An article in Time on July 30 was the latest to question the hysteria being promoted by Arizona’s politicians about illegal immigration in Arizona and along the southwest border in general.  

 

“Consider Arizona itself — whose illegal-immigrant population is believed to be second only to California’s. The state’s overall crime rate dropped 12% last year; between 2004 and 2008 it plunged 23%. In the metro area of its largest city, Phoenix, violent crime — encompassing murder, rape, assault and robbery — fell by a third during the past decade and by 17% last year. The border city of Nogales, an area rife with illegal immigration and drug trafficking, hasn’t logged a single murder in the past two years.”

 

There is an exception to these favorable statistics on Arizona crime: In the area policed by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office, there was a 58% increase in violent crime in a period (2002 to 2009) during which the violent crime rate in the state as a whole dropped 12%, according to this analysis by America’s Voice.  Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who heads the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, is notorious for rounding up “illegal immigrants.”  With the state’s politicians whipping Arizona citizens into a frenzy about illegal immigration, Sheriff Arpaio’s roundups have gotten him a lot of publicity.  Judging by the crime statistics, Sheriff Arpaio and his crew have had little time to pursue actual criminals.

 

As for the border itself, the Time story notes that “state and local police are backed along the border by the thousands of federal agents deployed there,” and despite problems on the Mexican side of the border, “the U.S. side, from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, is one of the nation’s safest corridors.”

 

The Arizona law, the article concludes, “was sparked largely by unfounded fears.”

 

So, what’s the emergency?  The Time story quotes El Paso city councilman Beto O’Rourke, giving a hint of what is behind all the noise.

 

“You’ve got a lot of politicians exploiting this fear that the Mexicans are coming over to kill us.”

 

As for Brewer, signing SB 1070 was “a stroke of political genius,” according to the Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza. She had been in a tough primary fight for re-election against two immigration hard-liner opponents. Since signing the law, “both of her primary challengers dropped from the race and she is now considered a clear favorite against state Attorney General Terry Goddard (D).”

 

Image by Flickr user jonathan mcintosh.

Arizona Border Politics

Immigration Enforcement’s Moving Goalposts

July 28, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

There was a story in the Washington Post on July 26 that was yet another reminder of how one-sided the immigration debate has become.  Under the headline “Deportation of illegal immigrants increases under Obama administration,” the Post notes that the 400,000 persons expected to be deported this year is 10 percent above the Bush Administration’s 2008 total.

 

More than half of those being deported are non-criminals, despite ICE’s state focus on deporting criminal aliens. 

 

“The effort is part of President Obama’s larger project ‘to make our national laws actually work,’ as he put it in a speech this month at American University. Partly designed to entice Republicans to support comprehensive immigration reform, the mission is proving difficult and politically perilous.”

 

How successful has the focus on immigration enforcement been at “enticing Republicans to support” comprehensive reform?  A little later on in the story, there is this,

 

“Rep. Hal Rogers  (R-Ky.) … believes the administration is showing ‘apathy toward robust immigration enforcement.’ He said at a House hearing in March that the approach is nothing more than ‘selective amnesty.’

 

Last month, the Center for American Progress published a report written by C. Stewart Verdery, Jr., who is the former DHS Assistant Secretary for Border and Transportation Security Policy.  The report compares enforcement “benchmarks” written into the failed 2007 immigration reform law with what has been accomplished since then.  These benchmarks were inserted at the insistence of Senators who were more concerned about immigration enforcement. 

 

As the report notes, the benchmarks have largely been met.  For example, by the end of this year, there will be 22,000 Border Patrol agents (2,000 more than the 2007 benchmark); construction of the specified physical barriers is nearly complete; millions of dollars in technology has been deployed—unmanned aerial surveillance planes, remote-controlled cameras, mobile surveillance systems, sensors, and other surveillance technology; the government has capacity to detain 33,400 immigrants (1,900 more than the benchmark set in 2007); there is increasing use of electronic worker verification (still by law a voluntary program for most businesses).  The list goes on.

 

The CAP report also notes other areas in which immigration enforcement has become more sophisticated in the last few years.  The US-VISIT program, for example, collects fingerprints from persons entering the U.S. at 2,600 air, sea, and land inspection lanes, allowing the government to run the fingerprints through government databases and preventing the entry of criminals and immigration violators.  A new program requires persons coming to the U.S. from visa waiver countries to submit personal information over a web-based system prior to departure in order to gain travel authorization. 

 

In the interior, the report notes that the budget for Immigration and Customs Enforcement has nearly doubled in the last five years.

 

Yet, for all the growth in immigration enforcement, immigration restrictionists demand more: hundreds of millions of dollars for border enforcement; thousands more Border Patrol agents; National Guard deployment on the border.  The goalposts are always moving.

 

The CAP report notes that,

 

“Some have argued that there should not be any consideration of [comprehensive immigration reform] until the southern border is secure because the drug war in Mexico has escalated and led to incidents of violence on the American side of the border.  …  The question for policymakers is what the best strategy is to minimize violence and illegal immigration.  The compelling need to fix our broken immigration system has only grown as enforcement has increased to robust levels.”

 

For many of the immigrants who now cross illegally to take jobs we offer them, there is no legal option for entry. This drives them to enter illegally, and with enforcement tighter on the border, they are increasingly dependent on criminal enterprises to guide them across.  Those criminal enterprises are increasingly violent as they defend an increasingly lucrative business. 

 

Going forward, a strategy to minimize violence and illegal immigration will depend on a comprehensive overhaul of our laws.  A continuation of the same old enforcement-only strategies will not work to make the borders more secure.  They will also not work to gain political support for reform from individuals who are unalterably opposed to it.

Border Enforcement ICE Politics

As the Facts Come Out about Arizona, the Politicians Become More Shrill

July 12, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

The more the press examines the premise behind Arizona’s SB 1070 law, the more it looks to be one of those “emperor-has-no-clothes” stories.  On Sunday, Dana Milbank, of the Washington Post devoted his column to examining the claims being made by Arizona’s politicians about crime in Arizona and comparing them to a reality that can be verified. 

 

ImmPolitic first wrote about the verifiable reality in Arizona back on April 29th and May 5th.  Since then, the mainstream press has increasingly picked up on the fact that claims being made by supporters of SB 1070 contrast sharply with Arizona crime statistics and with the observations of border community law enforcement agencies.  In response, Arizona politicians have made more spectacular (but un-verifiable) claims.

 

Among others, Milbank singles out Senator John McCain, who might be excused for not bothering to check out a claim repeated in several news sources when he said that Phoenix is the “number two kidnapping capital of the world.”  As this exhaustive PolitiFact article notes, kidnapping statistics aren’t really kept in many other cities around the world, and kidnapping experts can only speculate where Phoenix might rank on a world list—somewhere far below number 2.

 

Governor Jan Brewer made the claim that “the majority” of people crossing the border illegally are “coming here and they’re bringing drugs and they’re terrorizing families.”  Milbank notes that, since October 1st of last year, 170,000 undocumented immigrants have been apprehended in the Border Patrol’s Tucson sector.  In the same period, there have been 1,100 drug prosecutions filed.  Even assuming all of those prosecutions are of undocumented immigrants, six-tenths of one percent does not make a majority in the real world.

 

With the press persistently calling into question these and other claims, Governor Brewer has reacted by becoming more shrill. She recently told a local television station that “law enforcement agencies” have been finding people who have been beheaded in the desert, presumably by people crossing into the country illegally. 

 

There has been no evidence to support this claim—certainly not from “law enforcement agencies.”

 

Milbank notes the importance of all these falsehoods:

 

[t]his matters, because it means the entire premise of the Arizona immigration law is a fallacy. Arizona officials say they’ve had to step in because federal officials aren’t doing enough to stem increasing border violence. The scary claims of violence, in turn, explain why the American public supports the Arizona crackdown.

 

In other words, the Arizona law, and public support for it, are predicated on the lies being told by Arizona’s politicians.

 

While the press has been more willing to challenge the assertions of our so-called leaders on this issue, there is a story in the July 12th New York Times reporting that some Democratic governors, gathered in Boston for a meeting of the National Governors Association, would rather run from the problem.  With governors all gathered in Boston, they have an opportunity to challenge their colleague Jan Brewer for shamelessly whipping up people’s fears on false pretenses.  Instead, they have expressed concern about the Obama Administration’s legal challenge to the Arizona law.

 

Some Democratic governors complained about the timing of the government’s lawsuit, coming as re-election campaigns are beginning to heat up.  Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee said of the Justice Department’s lawsuit,

 

“Maybe you do that when you’re strong and not when there’s an election looming out there.”

 

Last I checked, the Constitution doesn’t get suspended in an election year.  The Administration is not deliberately timing the suit for election season; the timing was determined by the fact that the Arizona law goes into effect at the end of this month, and the Administration is claiming that the state law unconstitutionally challenges federal authority on immigration maters.

 

In any event, even if the Justice Department had not filed suit, Democrats would be faced with a debate on immigration during this campaign season.  Republicans have decided that they will (again) take a harsh stance on immigrants and immigration, and they will point to their hard line as a weapon against their opponents.  As Frank Sharry noted in the July 11th Washington Post,

 

Democrats should make the inevitable election-year fight over illegal immigration about comprehensive immigration reform—not just about the Arizona law or lawsuit. They should lean into the debate rather than run from it, calling out Republicans for blocking a solution that strengthens border security, turns off the jobs magnet and makes sure the immigrants here are legal taxpayers.

 

If Democrats want this issue to go away, they’d be better off doing everything they can to pass comprehensive immigration reform.  Until the immigration system is fixed and we deal realistically with immigrants who are living and working in this country illegally, immigration hardliners on the right will try to use the public’s frustration with lack of Congressional action to their political advantage.  Meanwhile, immigrants, their friends, families and supporters, their pastors and rabbis, their employers, and their shop stewards will continue to press for comprehensive reform in thousands of forums across the country.

 

Some Democrats may want to run from this problem, but there is no way they can hide from it.

Image by Flickr user John Gevers. 

Arizona Immigration Reform Politics

Extremist Rhetoric and Violence on the Border

June 18, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

One thing that stuck with me about the movie Hotel Rwanda were the scenes in which armed Hutus scoured the countryside looking for Tutsis to slaughter, while their truck radios were tuned to a station whose DJ was urging them to “kill the cockroaches.” 

 

Over the past several years, as each Congress has passed the problem of our dysfunctional immigration system off to the next Congress, the rhetoric of the immigration debate has gotten more inflammatory, and I am often reminded of those talk show DJs who played their part in the Rwanda slaughter.

 

The dehumanizing rhetoric is most abundant in the comment section after any on-line media article involving immigrants.  Melissa Del Bosque, of the Texas Observer, writes about that phenomenon here.  Among others, she cites a not untypical comment that appeared below a story about the Border Patrol shooting and killing a Mexican teenager, where the commenter praised the Border Patrol for their “good work,” saying that the Border Patrol was “doing America a great service by keeping these … roaches out of this Once-great nation.”

 

Del Bosque went on to cite other examples. 

 

Unfortunately, the phenomenon is not limited to anonymous cowards sitting in front of a computer with a lot of time on their hands and a lot of hate to spew.

 

There are plenty of talk show hosts who use their radio programs to de-humanize immigrants and Latinos.  This was discussed at length in a report that we talk about here.  An example is the Boston radio host who was removed from the air after calling Mexicans “leeches” and an assortment of other names.

 

Politicians have certainly gotten in to the act.

 

Back in 2008, Representative Steve King (R-IA) suggested in this performance on the House Floor that we build a border wall that would have electrified wire on top that would be “a discouragement for [someone] to be fooling around with it.”  After all, he said, “we do that with livestock all the time.”)

 

More recently, Tom Mullins, the Republican candidate who will run against Representative Ben Lujan in New Mexico’s 3rd Congressional District, suggested in a radio interview that “[w]e could put land mines along the border.”

 

The rhetoric has more than once crossed over into violence.  Some people who are bombarded with messages that certain people are nothing but “leeches” or “livestock” (or an assortment of names pulled from the comment sections of on-line articles that I won’t print here) get the idea that it is OK to kill. 

 

On June 6, two Latino men were found murdered in the Arizona desert south of Phoenix.  While the official story is that that the men were probably victims of drug smugglers, bloggers following this story have expressed their skepticism (for example, here and here) of the official explanation of Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, who is an immigration hardliner and who recently appeared in a campaign ad with John McCain, posing as a border sheriff (Pinal County is not on the border).

 

The killings took place one day after a rally in Phoenix by supporters of Arizona’s SB 1070.  At the rally, anti-immigrant activist Barbara Coe told the crowd,

 

“This is our turning point. The traitors have underestimated the power of Americans. No mas. … God forbid it should come to this but if it should come to this, lock and load.”

 

The suspicion is that the two men were killed by vigilantes.

 

A few days later, on June 11 in Santa Cruz County, according to the Sheriff’s Office, five undocumented men came under fire by unidentified males with high-power rifles and wearing camouflage.  No demands were made by the shooters, and the group was not robbed.  The undocumented men escaped, with one suffering a gunshot wound to the forearm.

 

In their investigation of this incident, police found the skeletal remains of two other persons.

 

It is too early to say whether these particular shootings were the result of anti-immigrant extremists with guns, but it’s pretty safe to say that as Washington continues to let the immigration problem fester, and extremist rhetoric flirts with calls to violence, we are going to be seeing more reports of shooting and murders.

 

Politicians in border states have been raising alarms with the voters about violence on the border.  Perhaps the real problem is the violence encouraged by the purveyors of hate on the internet, on the airwaves, and on the stump.

Arizona Hate crimes Hate speech Politics

In Arizona, It’s Politics, Not Crime, Driving Border Insecurity

May 05, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

In signing Arizona’s new “Papers Please” law, Governor Jan Brewer gave her reasons.

Border-related violence and crime due to illegal immigration are critically important issues to the people of our state….  There is no higher priority than protecting the citizens of Arizona.

As we noted last week, however, it appears that the law was more about politics and discomfort with demographic change than about protecting the citizens of Arizona.  Property and violent crime rates in Arizona are lower than they’ve been in decades. 

CNN last week also noted declining crime in Arizona.

”…violent crimes reported in Arizona dropped by nearly 1,500 reported incidents between 2005 and 2008. Reported property crimes also fell, from about 287,000 reported incidents to 279,000 in the same period. These decreases are accentuated by the fact that Arizona’s population grew by 600,000 between 2005 and 2008.”

CNN also checked out illegal border crossing trends.  In the Tucson Border Patrol sector, apprehensions of persons crossing illegally have fallen from 600,000 in 2000 to 241,000 in 2009.

The May 2nd Arizona Republic took a look at crime in some of Arizona’s border communities.  Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez, of Nogales, Arizona, told the paper that he thinks “Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America.”  The Republic didn’t take his word for it.  They examined FBI statistics for border communities.

“In 2000, there were 23 rapes, robberies and murders in Nogales, Ariz. Last year, despite nearly a decade of population growth, there were 19 such crimes. Aggravated assaults dropped by one-third. No one has been murdered in two years.”

The Republic looked at statistics in other border towns.

”…crime rates in Nogales, Douglas, Yuma and other Arizona border towns have remained essentially flat for the past decade, even as drug-related violence has spiraled out of control on the other side of the international line.”

The Republic writes “politicians and the national press have fanned a perception that the border is inundated with bloodshed,” perception that helped push Arizona’s “Papers Please” legislation into law.  The perception of law enforcement officers on the border, however, is very different. 

Here is the perception of Clarence Dupnik, the sheriff of Pima County (which includes Tucson).

“This is a media-created event.  I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure.”

According to the Border Patrol, slain rancher Robert Krentz, whose death led to the latest round off politician demands to “secure the border,”

“…is the only American murdered by a suspected illegal immigrant in at least a decade within the agency’s Tucson sector, the busiest smuggling route among the Border Patrol’s nine coverage regions along the U.S.-Mexican border.”

Though politicians and the press were quick to spread the rumor that Krentz was killed by an “illegal alien,” according to the Arizona Daily Star police are looking at an American suspect.

Over the last 20 years, the border region has been flooded with law enforcement resources—the subject of this new Fact Sheet from the National Immigration Forum.  As Assistant Chief Bermudez of Nogales noted,

“Everywhere you turn, there’s some kind of law enforcement looking at you.  Per capita, we probably have the highest amount of any city in the United States.”

Politicians calling for more border security are doing so more to further their own political carriers than out of concern for public safety.  They appeal to voters not in border communities who can witness the reality, but to others whose perception is shaped by the hysteria the politicians themselves are generating (and unthinkingly fanned by the press).  They are not doing border communities any favors.  The conclusion of the Republic’s story sums up the situation well:

Leo Federico, 61, a retired teacher, said he has been amazed to hear members of Congress call for National Guard troops in the area.

“That’s politics,” he said, shrugging. “It’s all about votes. . . . We have plenty of law enforcement.”

Photo by Flickr user Threaded Thoughts.

Arizona Border Crime Politics

Border Security Mania

April 29, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

At the end of March, there was a drive-by shooting in the District of Columbia just a few miles from the White House.  Four people were killed.  Five more wounded.

No one called for the deployment of the National Guard.

At about the same time, a rancher in southern Arizona was murdered by someone whose tracks led to Mexico.  The murder sparked outrage against the Federal Government, and there have been calls to beef up border security, several hearings in Congress, and a deluge of requests for the National Guard.  The murder galvanized support for the new Arizona law that may well result in a significant portion of Arizona’s population being regularly stopped to show their papers to prove they are not in the country illegally.

Moreover, Arizona’s two Republican Senators released a “10 point plan” that leads off with a call for deployment of the National Guard:

“Immediately deploy 3,000 National Guard Troops along the Arizona/Mexico border, … which shall remain in place until the Governor of Arizona certifies … that the Federal Government has achieved operational control of the border.  Permanently add 3,000 Custom and Border Protection Agents to the Arizona/Mexico border by 2015.”

Let’s step back for a minute.

The murder was a terrible thing.  But even if 50,000 more Border Patrol agents are deployed and 50,000 National Guard are sent to the border, they are not going to be able to stop every crime from happening. Just like anywhere else in the country, the police (or in this case Border Patrol) cannot be everywhere at once. 

In other communities around the country, people get this.  When it comes to the border, however, every incident is an opportunity for politicians to say the border is not “secure” and we must secure it before we even consider fixing our broken immigration system.  The goalposts keep moving back, and there will always be incidents to give politicians excuses to move the goalposts back further.  That’s especially true of politicians who would rather avoid the hard work of reforming our immigration system.

In 2007, conservatives insisted on certain “benchmarks” being met in border enforcement before a legalization program could be implemented.  These were written into the compromise immigration reform legislation at the time. 

What were they?

• 18,000 Border Patrol agents and staff support.  There are now more than 20,000 Border Patrol agents.  This does not include thousands of agents from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and other agencies.  Some of these federal agents are deployed at ports of entry, some are assisting in the fight against drug cartels.
• 570 miles of vehicle and pedestrian fencing, 70 ground-based radar and camera towers, and 4 unmanned aerial vehicles.  There are now nearly 645 miles of vehicle and pedestrian barriers, covering most of the distance between the Pacific Ocean and the Rio Grande River.  Towers have fallen out of favor since 2007, but there are now 28 of them supplemented by 41 mobile surveillance systems with radar and cameras, plus another 16 remote video surveillance systems.  There are 5 unmanned aerial drones.
• Resources to remove anyone crossing the southern border, and detention space for 27,500.  The practice of apprehending someone, booking them, and releasing them until their future court date (so-called “catch and release”) was ended years ago.  Persons apprehended on the border are removed or held in detention.  There are now spaces for 33,400 detainees.

The benchmarks have been more than met, especially regarding agents deployed.

OK, so maybe crime has gotten completely out of control since the 2007 benchmarks were set and we do need new benchmarks—another 3,000 Border Patrol agents; another 3,000 National Guard, etc.

Let’s take a look.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the violent crime rate in Arizona (as of 2008, the latest statistics available) has been declining since it peaked in 1993.  It is now lower than it has been since the early 1970s.  The property crime rate has also declined since it peaked in 1995.  It hasn’t been this low since the mid-1960s.  The city with the highest violent crime rate in Arizona, Tucson, ranks 38th nationally (behind Wichita, Kansas).  The decline in crime has coincided with a steep rise in Arizona’s undocumented population.

So why is there a sense that the border is out of control, that crime is out of control, and that draconian anti-immigrant measures are necessary to bring order back to the state?

Timothy Egan takes a stab at explaining what’s going on in this blog post at the New York Times, 

”…this place is a warning of what a state can look like when it’s run by talk-radio demagogues and their television cohorts.”

The same legislature that passed SB 1070 passed a “birther” bill, requiring anyone who wants to run for political office to show their birth certificate, and made it legal for residents to carry concealed weapons—without a permit. 

As the state prepares to spend millions in legal fees defending its new anti-immigrant law,

“Its state parks are orphans, left to volunteers. Its university system is being slashed and picked to death. They even considered a plan to sell the House and Senate buildings.”

Another angle is to look at cost and benefit tradeoffs.  As I mentioned, people in communities around the country understand that the police can’t be everywhere at once.  Yet, people don’t call for officers to be deployed on every street corner.  There is a tradeoff.  Communities must balance their budgets.  They pick priorities, and spend on initiatives that will be most effective in keeping people safe.  To pay for additional security, taxes must go up.  At the federal level, this is not the case.  Politicians can demand—and deploy—millions of dollars of additional resources in a quest for votes.  There is no need to raise taxes.  Money will be borrowed, and the cost will be charged to future taxpayers, who don’t currently vote.

The border is fodder for politicians who are looking for votes from loud and angry people who do not like the changes they see around them, and who listen to talk show hosts whose ratings depend on how well they divide Americans against each other.  We will never have a secure border as long as we have politicians who seek political points with calls for “securing the border” while avoiding the hard work of reforming our immigration system. 

Image by Flickr user Jim Greenhill.

Arizona Border Crime Politics

Then and Now

April 20, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

In the opening scene from “The Senator’s Bargain,” by filmmakers Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini and recently aired on HBO, Senator John McCain, at a dinner for the National Immigration Forum, is movingly reading from a newspaper article on what happens to the body of immigrants who die from the unforgiving desert sun as they try to cross the border to follow their dream of a better life.  That was one reason why we need comprehensive immigration reform, he told the hushed audience.

Back in 2005, on the very day this scene took place, Senator McCain, working with Senator Edward Kennedy, introduced comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would have legalized millions of undocumented immigrants.  Introducing the bill on the Senate floor, McCain said,

“I don’t believe there is another issue that is more important to our Nation than immigration reform. For far too long, our Nation’s broken immigration laws have gone unreformed, leaving Americans vulnerable. We can no longer afford to delay reform.”

The McCain/Kennedy approach contrasted starkly with that of the House, which later that year passed the “Sensenbrenner bill” H.R. 4437, making illegal presence in the U.S. a crime.

That was five years ago.

Yesterday, the Arizona Senate passed legislation, previously passed in the House, that would make illegal presence in Arizona a crime, and gives local police the authority to investigate if they have “reasonable suspicion” that a person is in the country illegally.  Senator McCain said of the bill,

“I think it’s a very important step forward,”

As for immigration reform, apparently Senator McCain now thinks we can afford to delay.  Speaking on a local radio station today, McCain said,

“There’s no point of having immigration reform unless you can have the borders secure first.”

Also yesterday, Senators McCain and Jon Kyl held a press conference to introduce a “Ten Point Border Security Action Plan.”  Mainly, the plan consists of throwing more money and more personnel at the southwest border.  Among other things, the plan calls for 3,000 National Guard troops and 3,000 more Border Patrol agents (in addition to the 20,000 already deployed).  It calls for full funding and support for Operation Streamline, an extremely wasteful effort to throw all migrants crossing the border illegally into jail at taxpayer expense instead of removing them from the country right away.  There is no room in the plan for real solutions to our broken immigration system.

The difference between five years ago and now is that Senator McCain is running for re-election and is facing a Republican primary challenge from former Representative and current immigration hardliner J.D. Hayworth, who was knocked from his House seat in 2006 when his anti-immigrant message apparently didn’t go over with enough of his constituents. In the primary, however, hardliners are more influential, and Senator McCain’s immigration pronouncements today would be unrecognizable to someone listening to him five years ago.  In politics, leadership can sometimes be a liability.

The Arizona legislation would seem to give the green light for local enforcement agencies to engage in racial profiling, since it is not clear what will constitute “reasonable suspicion” that someone is in the country illegally.  Police might err on the side of incaution, since if they are not seen as sufficiently enforcing the law, private citizens will have the right to sue the police.  With the law’s constitutionally-questionable provisions, the many civil rights abuses that will undoubtedly be spurred by the law, and the right it gives anyone to sue if they don’t think it is being enforced, the law might end up being some sort of lawyers full employment act.

An analysis of the legislation can be obtained from the ACLU here.

The legislation has been sent to the Governor for her signature.  There will be a flurry of activity to get her to veto the bill, beginning with last night’s candlelight vigil in front of the Governor’s office by 150 people. 

You can click here and sign a petition to ask the Governor to veto the bill.

Arizona Border Politics

Outside the Beltway Roundup

April 09, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

With Congress still out on recess, the action on immigration reform continues to be outside the beltway and, in any event, one can get a better sense of the momentum for reform by looking at what is going on around the country.  So, here are a few items from around the country from this week’s news: Advocates from Nashville return from Washington and turn to the task of convincing their fellow Tennesseans that immigration reform is crucial.  North America’s fastest-growing labor union is fed up with ICE, and is taking action.  There will be more major immigration rallies Saturday.  Finally, a new poll from California highlights another aspect of demographic change and a shift in the political climate for immigration reform.

Middle Tennesseans for Immigration Reform
An article in the weekly Nashville City Paper focused on the “sizeable contingent of middle Tennesseans” who traveled in a 10-bus caravan to Washington to attend the March 21st immigration rally in Washington. The article noted that this “surprising show of organizational muscle” may signal a change in the immigration debate in Tennessee.

“Middle Tennessee’s immigrant population has been defined publicly less on its own terms than by a small opposition’s attempts to stymie it.”

Today, however, a new willingness to speak up in its own defense,

”…represents a step forward for the region’s immigrant population as a whole, a sign this widening slice of the demographic is no longer content to remain a cloistered part of the local political and social fabric.”

The article notes that Nashville is already ahead of the curve in tolerance for newcomers.  In the days ahead, the task will be “to turn immigration reform from a minority issue into one all Tennesseans see as crucial.”  As Stephen Fotopulos, Executive Director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition told the paper,

“It’s important for people to know that this is not just an issue in Illinois or New York or California.  This is our immigration system, and it’s failing all Americans, whether you’re an immigrant or not.”

SEIU Wants ICE to Re-Focus
In the wake of a slew of reports about the misdirection of immigration enforcement, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has organized a series of vigils at the offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) around the country.  Thursday, there were vigils in Sacramento and Oakland.  Today, there are vigils in San Jose, Los Angeles, Boston, and St. Paul.  There will be more.  According to SEIU’s media advisory,

“Thursday and Friday’s vigils are an effort to illustrate the ongoing, human cost of this agency’s misguided, out-of-control immigration enforcement strategy…. ICE’s “strategy” of sowing misery in workplaces and communities not only fails to tackle the underlying issue of our broken immigration system, it also contradicts efforts to improve wages and working conditions of all U.S. workers.

A(nother) National Day of Action
Tomorrow, April 10th, tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters are expected to rally in support of immigration reform in Seattle, Las Vegas, Chicago, Philadelphia, El Paso, Providence, and Lakewood, New Jersey.  We look forward to the stories coming out of those events.

Immigration Politics and Demographic Change
An article in April 8th’s Los Angeles Times highlighted a new public opinion poll from the Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California in which Californians were asked their views on immigration reform.  The poll showed that Californians, by wide margins, would support “stronger enforcement at the border” coupled with “a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants who admit they broke the law, perform community service, pay fines and back taxes and learn English.”  More than two-thirds (67%) support such a proposal.  There is similar support for a proposal in which there is stronger enforcement coupled with a guest worker program.

The other option given in the poll, stronger border enforcement plus denial of public services to undocumented immigrants, is opposed by a plurality of Californians.  This opposition contrasts with support for Proposition 187 in the mid-1990s, a ballot initiative to deny public benefits to undocumented immigrants that passed by 60%.

The article discusses a phenomenon that may partially explain why organized opposition to immigration reform is becoming more anemic, while reform advocates seem to be gaining momentum.  That phenomenon is demographic change.  Not the kind of demographic change that we are always talking about, the rapidly-growing Latino and New American electorate, but something else that has been taking place at the same time.

Californians aged 18 to 29 opposed this proposal [to deny undocumented immigrants social services from the state] by more than a 20-point margin, while voters 65 and over supported it by 12 points. That’s a differential of more than 30 points between age groups ... a much larger disparity than when the results were examined by racial or ethnic category. Further, on the more basic question of whether illegal immigrants have an overall positive or negative effect on the state, voters under 45 joined Latino and Asian American respondents in answering that illegal immigrants represent a net benefit.

The difference is not explained by a greater cohort of immigrant young people.  It is true of white young people as well.  Young people are growing up with people from all over the world.  Immigrants are classmates, friends, and co-workers, not “invaders.”  As the Times notes,

”…the growth in the Latino and Asian population in the state has given young Californians a much higher comfort level than their elders with those of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. In both cases, exposure has brought familiarity, which has in turn brought tolerance.”

While young people still vote in lower percentages than their elders, they are still a growing part of the electorate, and yet another reason why immigration reform is not just good politics but good policy.

Image: Reform Immigration FOR America

Events Immigration Reform Politics Public Opinion

The Health of Immigration Reform

March 25, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

The March 21 rally for immigration reform drew 200,000 to the National Mall in Washington.  As it turns out, this impressive show of organization took place on the same day that Congress was turning a chapter in the legislative agenda.  Sunday night, the House passed the Senate’s health care reform bill, which has since become law.  Health care reform has dominated Congressional attention for most of the past year.  It’s over.  (Well, except for campaign ads that will try to convince us that coverage of children under their parent’s (private) health insurance plan until they are 26 years old is socialism.  But I digress.)

 

There is a strong case to be made that immigration reform can now be cleared for take-off.

 

For one thing, there is a matter of numbers (in the) USA.  Immigration reform advocates are organized in unprecedented numbers and with unprecedented energy.  The rally on the Mall on Sunday was the largest event of the day, but it wasn’t the only one.  A thousand people rallied in Denver. In Omaha, a Catholic church overflowed with 600 people who came to listen to speeches supporting immigration reform.  Another hundred people gathered at a Methodist church in the same town to listen to the stories of immigrants hoping Congress will act on reform.  Another 300 people from four religious congregations marched through Grand Island in support of reform.  In Salinas, 10,000 people marched for immigration reform.  Thousands marched in Salt Lake City.  Another thousand in San Jose.  More events have taken place since Sunday.  More will be taking place in the coming weeks (like this one in Las Vegas). 

 

The problem’s not fixed.  Calls to fix it are not going to stop.  Advocates are ready to pressure whoever needs to be pressured.

 

The numbers advocating for reform are impressive—and growing—but so is the breadth of the coalition supporting reform.  Let’s just take a sample of the speaker lineup from the March for America.  Many faiths were represented—by Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of the Catholic diocese of Los Angeles; the Reverend Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Reverend Derrick Harkins, senior pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in Washington, DC; Reverand Dr. Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States and Canada; Rabbi Morris Allen, spiritual leader of the Conservative Jewish Beth Jacob Congregation in St. Paul, Minnesota; and Bishop Minerva Carcaño, Bishop of the Desert Southwest Conference of the United Methodist Church.

 

There were leaders from the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.  There were labor leaders from the AFL-CIO, UNITE HERE, SEIU, and UFCW.  There was Arturo Venegas, former police chief of Sacramento and current project director for the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative.  There were also leaders from the Latin American, Korean American, and Irish American communities—as well as a collection of local and regional immigrant advocacy leaders.

 

As for the political climate in Congress: it could be better.  One school of thought says that, because of the way health care was won, Republicans will refuse to support anything else on President Obama’s agenda.  For example, Senator John McCain was quoted as saying “There will be no cooperation for the rest of this year.”  (I may be getting forgetful, but remind me again when cooperation started in this Congress?)  As for the Democrats, the same school of thought says that a good number of them will balk at tackling another problem before the election.  For example, former Republican Congressman Tom Davis speculates,

 

``Republicans aren’t going to feel intimidated by this [defeat on health care]. And marginal Democrats are not going to want to take another tough vote. [President Obama’s] members will say, `We gave you this vote, but no more.’ They’ll have given him their last ounce of breath.’‘

 

But is Congress really not going to do anything more in this session because half of the Members are going to be sulking in a corner while some others tell us that before they will even consider tackling another difficult problem, we must re-elect them?

 

That’s the story a lot of the media wants to tell.  It is not that simple. 

 

As we have said so many times, immigration is not a partisan issue.  Members are going to be pressed from so many sides, that it is unlikely the immigration debate will fill the same mold as the health care debate.  Perhaps a Catholic Member will be persuaded by someone like Cardinal Mahony.  Perhaps a member representing a rural district in Wisconsin will be persuaded by his dairy farmers.  Or perhaps a decision to reach out to the fastest-growing segment of the electorate will win a vote. 

 

Let’s see what really happens once the dust storm kicked up by the health care debate settles.

Events Immigration Reform Politics

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