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.

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

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

Justice Department Lawsuit a Reminder that Congress Must Act

July 07, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

Yesterday, the Justice Department finally filed suit against the State of Arizona.  In doing so, the Obama Administration is taking action against a State that is trying to set its own immigration policy.  Immigration is a federal matter, and the Justice Department suit focuses on that issue.

 

Under the state’s law, police who have “reasonable suspicion” that a person is in the country illegally can ask the person to prove legal status.  Effectively, this will result in many people being turned over to the federal government who do not fit federal priorities.  As the Justice Department release states,

 

“S.B. 1070 will place significant burdens on federal agencies, diverting their resources away from high-priority targets, such as aliens implicated in terrorism, drug smuggling, and gang activity, and those with criminal records.”

 

Reactions predictably divided not just along party lines, but on how politicians felt the lawsuit would play among their electorates. 

 

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona released a statement saying that,

 

“As a direct result of failed and inconsistent federal enforcement, Arizona is under attack from violent Mexican drug and immigrant smuggling cartels.”

 

Brewer has been making claims about the consequences of failed federal action on immigration, going so far as saying, without evidence, that undocumented immigrants were beheading Arizonans.  Her claims seem to be getting more shrill as there has been increasing press coverage about a decrease in crime in Arizona over the past several years, and the decrease in illegal crossings of the U.S.-Mexican border.  (Her effort to portray Arizona as overrun with crime is creating other problems—it’s not very appealing to potential tourists who are already hearing bad things about Arizona.

 

The Governor also says in her statement that she will “not stop fighting to protect the people of Arizona….”  If that was her intent in signing SB 1070, she might have listened to law enforcement in her state.  The police chiefs of the state’s two largest cities support the Justice Department in its lawsuit.  Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, for example, says in a document filed with the lawsuit that he believes SB 1070 “will have a negative effect on … community policing efforts.”

 

Arizona’s two senators also attacked the Justice Department lawsuit, saying in a statement that the Arizona law was needed because,

 

”[t]he Obama Administration has not done everything it can do to protect the people of Arizona from the violence and crime illegal immigration brings to our state.” 

 

They didn’t explain what they meant by this, given that there has been a decline in Arizona’s crime rates coinciding with an increase in the undocumented immigrant population in the state—as well as unprecedented enforcement resources on the border.

 

The statement also asks,

 

”…what are the people of Arizona left to do when the federal government fails in its responsibility?”

 

This and other comments I’ve seen that refer to “the federal government” seem to forget that the legislative branch is part of “the federal government.”  A sole focus on border enforcement is not going to create the legal channels for immigrant workers and family members to meet current and future demands.  Nor will it deal realistically with the millions of undocumented immigrants who have been living and working in this country for many years.  Border enforcement—and immigration enforcement more broadly—is made much more difficult as long as the immigrants who have come to live and work here are treated the same as those who come to commit serious crimes.  Making the rules reasonable is the responsibility of Congress.  The people of Arizona each are represented by two Senators and one Member of the House.  These legislators need to take responsibility and pass comprehensive immigration reform, a sensible solution for our dysfunctional system that has been, and continues to be, supported by a majority of the public.

 

Having states make their own immigration rules to some extent enables Congress to avoid fulfilling its obligation to fix the broken immigration system.  The Justice Department lawsuit reasserts federal responsibility and, until the legislative branch of “the federal government” deals with the problem, we are all going to continue to suffer.

 

Photo: Department of Justice

Arizona Border

Immigration Fiefdoms

June 24, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

We are getting dangerously close to the point where yet another Congress will try to pass the problem of our broken immigration system off to another Congress.  An article in the June 24^th Washington Post reports on the growing trend of states and localities, frustrated with federal inaction, taking matters into their own hands.  Fremont, Nebraska, earlier this week passed by referendum an ordinance requiring employers in the town to use the federal E-Verify system to screen their workers, and prohibiting landlords from renting to undocumented immigrants. 

Even before the Arizona’s SB 1070 passed earlier this year, there was an explosion of state and local ordinances on immigration.  The level of frustration with federal inaction is growing, with no end in sight. 

In the wake of SB 1070, five states, according to the Post are considering “Arizona style” legislation—South Carolina, Minnesota, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania.  The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reports that, by the end of the first quarter of this year, there were 1,180 bills and resolutions introduced in 45 states—a record.  NCSL tracks only state legislatures, so this does not include ordinances on the local level, such as Fremont’s. 

Viewed one way, laws like Arizona’s are a measure of the frustration people feel about federal inaction on immigration.  Even with one of the most troubled economies in the country, Arizona lawmakers decided to risk the high cost of making their own immigration policy, with all the controversy entailed.  The state now faces the prospect of boycotts, out-migration, and millions of dollars in legal fees.

Fremont, a town of just 25,000, will undoubtedly be spending a disproportionate part of its budget on legal challenges to its new law in the near future.

Ann Morse, of NCSL told the Post that legislators tell her that these actions are

“their way of signaling they want federal immigration reform to happen—… they’re working within the parameters they have and sometimes at the edge, trying to get federal attention.”

Not all of the laws and resolutions introduced in the states (and localities) aim to clamp down on illegal immigration.  Since Arizona’s Governor signed SB 1070 into law, dozens of communities have passed or are considering resolutions condemning the Arizona law or calling for a boycott of Arizona.  Princeton, New Jersey, recently decided to issue community identification cards, available to all residents regardless of immigration status.

The spectrum of views incorporated in new state laws and town ordinances are reflective of the frustration of the American people.  As NDN notes in this blog post, the very same Washington Post poll that touted majority support for Arizona’s law also showed majority support for comprehensive immigration reform that includes “a program giving illegal immigrants now living in the United States the right to live here legally if they pay a fine and meet other requirements.”  Support for this practical solution to the immigration problem has been consistent over the last several years.

As time goes on, we are going to have hundreds of jurisdictions with their own immigration policies—until the courts step in and tell us that the proper way to act on our frustrations about the broken immigration system is to press Congress to own up its responsibility and reform the laws.  If it’s Congress that’s broken, then it’s our responsibility to fix Congress.

Image by Flickr user Claudio.Ar

 

Arizona State-Local Immigration Enforcement

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

Harsh Lessons and Border Choices

May 13, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

As Arizona’s SB 1070 moves closer to the day of implementation (end of July), the press has begun to examine some of the economic impacts Arizona is beginning to experience or soon will be.

 

The National Council of La Raza and other organizations have called for a boycott of Arizona, and the Arizona Republic reports that the city of Phoenix alone may lose $90 million over the next five years from conventions that have either cancelled since the law passed or have expressed reservations and may cancel. 

 

Senator Robert Menendez earlier this week issued a statement urging the Major League Baseball Players Association to boycott the 2011 All Star game if it is not moved from Phoenix, where it is scheduled to take place.  Michael Weiner, executive director of the Players Association, has urged repeal of the law and suggested that, if it is not, the Association will consider “additional steps” to protect its members.

 

According to the Los Angeles Times, city officials in Los Angeles, who have called for a boycott of Arizona along with officials in other cities across the country, have identified $56 million in Arizona-based investments that may be re-examined.  For the future, officials “recommended that the City Council suspend travel to the state, refrain from entering new contracts, and review current ones for possible termination.”

 

While the boycotts are mostly a future threat, Reuters reports that some of Arizona’s 50,000 Latino-owned businesses have already taken a hit, as their customers change their habits or prepare to leave the state.  While supporters of the law would probably rejoice at that news, the state’s economy suffers no matter the ethnic origin of the business owner.  The Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce estimates the buying power of Latinos in Arizona to be more than $30 billion.  Economically, this law targets not just “illegal immigrants,” and the Reuter’s story points out that:

 

some business owners say the plunge in spending since the measure was passed has thrown the future of their firms into doubt and threatened the jobs of their legal immigrant and U.S.-citizen employees.

 

According to the New York Times, a spokesperson for Governor Brewer,

 

“called boycotting the state ‘thoughtless and harmful’ and said it was a distraction from the underlying issue of the federal government’s failure to control immigration and the border.”

 

It was the Governor, however, who decided to follow immigration hard-liners and sign SB 1070 into law.  An alternative course would have been to press Arizona’s congressional delegation, including Arizona’s two Senators, to work for immigration reform at the federal level.  Politicians who pursue the more divisive path should not be surprised when the result is … divisiveness. They are putting their political careers ahead of their states’ economies.

 

Speaking of distractions from the underlying issue, Arizona Senator John McCain, engaged in a primary race against immigration hardliner J.D. Hayworth, recently put out an ad claiming to show support for his “border plan” from a border sheriff.  The ad features McCain and Sheriff Paul Babeau walking along the border near Nogales, Arizona.  Sheriff Babeau, however, is from Pinal County, 115 miles north of the border.  Perhaps McCain had difficulty recruiting an actual border sheriff.  Law enforcement on the border tends to think that the hysteria about controlling the border is all politics.  Assistant Police Chief Roy Bermudez, who actually is from Nogales, recently told the Arizona Republic, “I think Nogales, Arizona, is one of the safest places to live in all of America.”  Bermudez is not alone in his view of the border.  John David Franz, the Mayor of Hidalgo, Texas, a small town opposite the substantially larger Mexican city of Reynosa, reported yesterday than there has not been a single murder in Hidalgo in his 20 years as mayor, and the only kidnapping was by a registered sex offender from California.

 

Mayor Franz was in Washington on May 12 and 13 as part of a delegation of experts from the southwest border to brief Congressional staffers and the press on the border as seen by actual border residents.  Among the issues they raised:

• The border is not “out of control.”  Border residents and local elected officials reiterated the sentiment that the widespread perception of chaos at the border is primarily generated by politicians trolling for votes (the subject of ImmPolitic articles here and here).  From the perspective of actual border residents, backed up by federal statistics, crime is down and there is already plenty of border enforcement.  (One delegate noted that there are now 8.8 Border Patrol agents per mile along the entire southern border.) 

• The lack of federal attention to the infrastructure at ports of entry is economically costly to border communities.  Rather than endless increases in security forces between the ports, border communities would rather see adequate staffing and renovations for the ports of entry.

• More is not necessarily better.  The government needs to be more concerned about quality, not quantity.  Border security would be more effective if the government targeted the right people.  We now have thousands more Border Patrol agents than we did a few years ago.  They need to be better trained if they expect to gain the trust of community members.

• It’s the Border Patrol.  Why aren’t they deployed on the border?  In some communities, Border Patrol agents roam through communities instead of being stationed on the border.  This results in significant police presence in the daily lives and activities of border residents, and this creates tension in the community.

It was refreshing to have the perspective of actual border residents in Washington.  Let’s hope their perspective begins to be taken into account going forward as Congress considers border policy.

 

Image by Flickr user quinn.anya.

Arizona Border State-Local Immigration Enforcement

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

Let the Lawsuits Begin!

April 26, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

Last week, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070, that will require police to investigate a person’s immigration status if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the person is in the country illegally.  The law takes effect in three months.

It will take effect, that is, if it can survive the first round of legal challenges expected to be filed.  Judging by the reaction so far, that will be a long shot. 

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) issued a statement saying that “MALDEF and others will be pursuing all legal avenues to challenge this law,” and that,

“We have every expectation, based upon judicial precedent and unquestioned constitutional values, that SB 1070 will be enjoined before it can ever take effect.”

Another group announcing legal action is the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders (CONLAMIC) Legal Defense Fund, which represents 300 Latino evangelical churches and pastors in Arizona and said it is moving “expeditiously” to challenge the law on constitutional grounds. 

Last Friday, speaking at a naturalization ceremony for military personnel at the White House, President Obama condemned the Arizona law and said,

“I’ve instructed members of my administration to closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation.”

Over the weekend, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon had an op-ed published in the Washington Post strongly condemning the Arizona law and urging Governor Brewer to call a special session of the legislature to fix the law’s flaws.  Until she does, Gordon said,

“we will explore every option available to quell the fear and frustration that have become rampant here. Already, I have called a special meeting of the Phoenix City Council to establish standing to sue the state on the grounds that S.B. 1070 unconstitutionally co-opts our police force to enforce immigration laws that are the rightful jurisdiction of the federal government.”

Former Arkansas Governor and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee appeared on Fox news over the weekend and said that the Arizona law will be a “lawsuit bonanza.”

”…it’s going to open Arizona up to a plethora of lawsuits. I think it’s just a fact that you’ll have so many lawsuits that it will be very very costly to the state of Arizona.”

How costly?  One town in Texas, Farmer’s Branch, enacted a law in 2006 requiring landlords to verify the immigration status of potential renters.  According to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the town has already spent $3.2 million in legal fees related to this ordinance, which was struck down in federal court.  It plans to spend at least another $150,000 on an appeal.

The Immigration Policy Center wrote this blog post giving some idea of what it might cost the state for law enforcement costs, jail processing costs, attorneys’ fees—plus the collateral damage that may result from the Arizona economy if Latinos leave the state.

If there is one good thing to come out of the Arizona legislation, it is to create a new sense of urgency for Congress to act to reform our immigration laws.  There have been a number of reports in the press about immigration reform making its way to the top of the Congressional agenda.

This prompted Lindsey Graham, the lone Republican who has been working with Democrats to draft immigration reform and climate change legislation, to say he would pull his support of climate change legislation unless it were scheduled before immigration reform.

“The only reason I went forward is, I thought we had a shot if we got the business and environmental community behind our proposal, and everybody was focused on it. What’s happened is that firm, strong commitment disappeared.”

This itself is a sad comment on the state of Congress.  It’s April.  Graham is essentially saying that the Senate can do only one thing between now and … October.  For it’s part, the Administration is saying it believes both can be done.  If Graham could convince his Republican colleagues to spend more time contributing to the policy debate, and less time plotting their next filibuster, business would move more swiftly in the Senate.

In her signing statement, Governor Brewer noted something we can all agree with:

“We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act. But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.”

It is way past time for Congress to act.

Image from Reform Immigration FOR America on Flickr.

Arizona Court Cases State-Local Immigration Enforcement

Making Community Policing Illegal

April 22, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

In Arizona, the Governor has not yet signed the new racial profiling bill, SB 1070, that will give police the authority to investigate an individual if an officer has “reasonable suspicion” that the individual is in the country illegally.  It also gives Arizonans the right to sue the police if they don’t think the police are sufficiently enforcing the law.

Yesterday, the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative held a press conference to talk about concerns with the bill from a law enforcement perspective.

As reported in the Arizona Republic, former Mesa (Arizona) Police Chief George Gascón talked about how the law might lead police to engage in racial profiling, even if not intentionally:

“It will increase the risk that police officers, especially those who are untrained, will be placed in a situation where they will try to comply with the law and will be looking for characteristics to try to determine whether someone is here without authority.  People who appear to be of Hispanic descent, who speak with an accent, are going to be targeted.”

Gabriel Chin, a University of Arizona law professor, put it differently:

“If you’re in a high non-citizen neighborhood, that plus race plus other things . . . it isn’t difficult to put people in a position where the cop can forcibly stop them and start asking questions.”

In other words, if you are in an immigrant community and you look like…an immigrant, you will be in a “position” for cops to forcibly stop you and start asking questions.

The bill, Chief Gascón argued, “will have a catastrophic effect on policing and set back community policing efforts for decades.”

“People will be more hesitant to report crimes, and that will create some very, very tough circumstances for local police in dealing with crime issues in areas heavily visited by people here from other countries.”

The Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police also stated their opposition to the bill, saying that it would “negatively affect the ability of law enforcement agencies across the state to fulfill their many responsibilities in a timely manner.”

Colorado Springs Chief Richard Myers (also speaking in the press conference) cautioned that Arizona residents might not like the shift in priorities that the law may bring about:

“If I have a shots-fired call or the potential to stop someone who might be checked for documented status, I’m going to do that before I respond to shots fired because I won’t get sued if don’t respond to shots fired,” he said.

Also, as police focus on non-criminal undocumented immigrants, other work won’t be getting done.  Maricopa County in Arizona has already experienced this.  As Sherriff Joe Arpaio made it a priority to round up immigrants, his agency wasn’t going after felons on the loose.  By 2008, there were more than 40,000 outstanding felony warrants in the county.  These were people who had committed more serious crimes than walking across the border illegally, but who were nonetheless not a priority for Sherriff Joe. That number has gone down recently, after a coordinated effort by federal and local forces—to 38,000.  As U.S. Marshal David Gozales noted, “many fugitives commit other crimes while avoiding arrest.”  On the other hand, the favorite targets of Sherriff Joe are mostly providing for their families while avoiding deportation. 

There are enforcement associations who are in favor of the bill.  According to the Arizona Republic, Officer Justin Harris, president of the Glendale Law Enforcement Association, offered a sort of preventive detention rationale for the bill:  By taking undocumented immigrants off the streets, police will be preventing crimes they might commit.

You can’t argue with that.  It is also true that, since most crimes are committed by citizens, taking citizens off the streets would allow police to prevent crimes they might commit. 

The specter of states following Arizona’s lead and declaring open season on Latinos is one element of the increasing pressure on Congress to fix the broken immigration system.  On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed that moving immigration reform forward in this Congress is a “moral imperative” even if it means postponing climate change legislation.

A recording of the press conference by the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative should soon be available here.

Image from Flickr user Toban Black.

Arizona State-Local Immigration Enforcement

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