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

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

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

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

Advice for the New Commissioner

April 07, 2010 - Posted by Lena Graber

Among President Obama’s recess appointments during Congress’ spring recess was the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Alan Bersin.

In a statement, Bersin said, ““I am delighted to be at the helm of such a superb organization and look forward to getting to work.” 

There is a lot of work to be done, as he has heard firsthand from border communities. 

As Obama’s Border Czar during most of 2009, Mr. Bersin held several “listening sessions” with border communities to hear their concerns on various aspects of border policy, from the impact of Border Patrol in neighborhoods, to the controversial border fence, to detention conditions in short-term CBP custody, to wait times at ports of entry.  Now we are watching to see how Commissioner Bersin translates what he heard into change.  We offer a long “to-do” list to the new Commissioner: 

First, as the new head of the largest law enforcement agency in the country, Commissioner Bersin must improve the training of agents to guard against racial profiling and respect the rights of border community residents.  Adequate training for Border Patrol must include higher proficiency in language and cultural sensitivity, respect for human, civil, and constitutional rights, best practices in community policing, and environmental conservation.  It must also include a thorough knowledge of immigration law, including identification and protection for victims of crime, persecution, and trafficking.  

Second, CBP needs expanded and effective oversight to ensure that policies are followed and complaints are resolved.  Commissioner Bersin must develop an accessible, transparent, and effective complaint process.  This will require clarifying and publicizing the process, dedicating adequate staff and investigators, communicating with complainants, and providing public information on the aggregated resolutions of cases.  An effective complaint process could improve the agency’s oversight of field offices and agents, provide essential information about commonly raised issues, build greater public trust in the agency, and enhance CBP’s overall accountability to the public it serves. 

Third, CBP must improve its record of engaging with stakeholders.  CBP must establish regular and clear channels for communicating with and receiving concerns from local residents, leaders, land owners, business-owners, advocates, and other interested stakeholders on developments that affect their communities.  The constantly evolving circumstances on the border require a formalized and structured community outreach program, the stated task of which is not just to politely listen, but to work in collaboration with border stakeholders and residents.

Commissioner Bersin must enforce standards for short-term custody.  Although Secretary Napolitano and Asst. Secretary Morton have publicly committed to reforming the immigration detention system managed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, CBP holding facilities in the Southwest have not received comparable attention, nor has CBP acknowledged that its detention problem is just as dire.  Mr. Bersin can lead by recognizing the problem and making it a top priority to improve short-term custody conditions.

Commissioner Bersin must increase CBP’s efforts to prevent border deaths.  Deaths of migrants in the southwest border region have continued to escalate, even as overall traffic has slowed considerably in the last couple of years.  This is a serious concern to communities and humanitarian groups all along the border, not to mention the families of the deceased.  As Commissioner, Mr. Bersin can steer resources to save lives.  A first step in stemming the tide of casualties would be is to increase resources for BORSTAR rescue teams and to improve collaboration with humanitarian organizations. 

CBP must invest in ports of entry, which have suffered significantly in recent years as enforcement attention has focused on operations between the ports.  Infrastructure and staffing at ports of entry must be improved in order to maximize the timely and efficient movement of people and goods across our borders, and to improve border security and the quality of life of border communities. 

Finally, Commissioner Bersin should make sure that CBP is doing its part to protect the environment, particularly along the southwest border.  America’s borders encompass an enormous range of ecosystems and habitats, and border enforcement and construction has significant environmental impacts.  CBP should comply with environmental statutes at all times.  Mr. Bersin should direct CBP to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the effects of border enforcement on border ecosystems, and use this analysis to develop a border-wide monitoring and mitigation plan.

That’s just the top of a long list.  We hope the new Commissioner is up to the task, and will take the concerns of border communities seriously.  Certainly comprehensive immigration reform would alleviate many of these issues.  In the meantime, what CBP needs now is more accountability, improved oversight, and increased engagement with the communities in which its agents operate.

Image from CBP.

Border CBP

Assembly-Line Justice

January 21, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

This guest post was written by Joanna Lydgate, William K. Coblentz Civil Rights Fellow with the Warren Institute in Berkeley, California.

Most Americans have never heard of Operation Streamline, a Bush-era immigration enforcement initiative that began in Del Rio, Texas, in 2005 and has since been expanded across most of the U.S.-Mexico border.  The program requires the federal criminal prosecution and imprisonment of every single person who crosses the border unlawfully.  (Before Operation Streamline began, most unlawful border crossers were processed in the civil immigration system.)

The vast majority of immigrants prosecuted through Operation Streamline have no prior criminal record and have come to the U.S. in search of work or to reunite with family.  Operation Streamline has caused skyrocketing caseloads in the federal district courts along the border and has put an immense strain on local resources.  Between 2002 and 2008, federal magistrate judges along the southwest border saw their misdemeanor immigration caseloads more than quadruple. 

As a fellow with the Warren Institute—a research and policy institute at the University of California Berkeley School of Law—I spent the past year examining Operation Streamline.  I traveled to four border cities in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to see the program in action.  In each city, I watched groups of as many as 70 or 80 immigrants appear before a judge at once, sometimes with just one attorney representing the entire group.  I also interviewed judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and Border Patrol representatives about the program.  I learned through my research that this program is not nearly as popular on the ground as it is with some lawmakers in Washington, DC.  More than one judge I interviewed described Operation Streamline as “assembly-line justice.” 

Last week, my research was released in the Warren Institute’s report, “Assembly-Line Justice: A Review of Operation Streamline,” which concludes that Operation Streamline violates the U.S. Constitution, diverts resources from fighting border violence, and fails to reduce undocumented immigration.  By requiring U.S. attorneys to spend their time prosecuting all unlawful border crossers, Operation Streamline has led to a reduction in the prosecution of more serious crimes along the border, such as drug smuggling and human trafficking.

Operation Streamline’s volume of prosecutions have also forced many courts to cut procedural corners.  Judges conduct en masse hearings, during which as many as 80 defendants plead guilty at a time, depriving migrants of due process.  Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that these en masse plea hearings in Tucson, Arizona violate federal law. 

While Operation Streamline’s proponents point to a recent decline in border apprehensions to argue that the program reduces undocumented immigration, there is no proof that Operation Streamline has caused that decline.  Apprehension rates have always tended to rise and fall in sync with the economy, and the most recent decline is likely due to the U.S. recession, which has greatly diminished job prospects for immigrant workers.

The report recommends that the Obama administration replace Operation Streamline with a comprehensive and effective approach to border enforcement.  Among other things, the administration should return to the longstanding practice of channeling unlawful border crossers through the civil immigration system.  That allows the Department of Homeland Security to deport first-time entrants without draining the resources of the district courts, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Public Defender, or the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Obama administration says it is committed to targeting the criminal enterprises responsible for rising violence along the U.S.-Mexico border.  Operation Streamline is tying up our law enforcement resources by prosecuting thousands of immigrants whose greatest crime is seeking a job.

Border Enforcement

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