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.

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

Will Prejudice about Immigrants and Crime Hamper Gulf Cleanup?

June 17, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

 

The other night, the President addressed the nation from the Oval Office on the federal government’s efforts to contain the worst oil spill in American history, which is still uncontrolled in the Gulf of Mexico.  He spoke of the magnitude of the government’s mobilization to fight the spill:

 

“We now have nearly 30,000 personnel who are working across four states to contain and clean up the oil.  …  And I’ve authorized the deployment of over 17,000 National Guard members along the coast.” 

 

Even as this story focuses the administration and the nation, the story of our broken immigration system intrudes. 

 

The St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Office (Louisiana) put out a press release on June 10 saying that Sheriff Jack Stephens asked immigration authorities,

 

“to look into reports of illegal aliens among those working in the oil spill clean-up effort, which he said was part of an overall effort by the Sheriff’s Office to prevent criminals from entering under the guise of doing legitimate work.”

 

The Sheriff said that his office is “concerned illegal aliens with criminal records represent a danger to our parish,” and the Sheriff’s office has set up check points throughout areas affected by the spill.

 

It’s not clear how a check of immigration status would protect the parish from potential criminals, especially since immigrants (including undocumented immigrants) tend to be less prone to crime than the native born.

 

While the Sheriff cited experiences with those “with crime in mind” taking advantage of the Hurricane Katrina cleanup, the real problem with crime in the wake of Katrina was from employers who were under-paying or not paying workers who were doing the back-braking cleanup work.  Immigration checks will not stop this from occurring again.  Perhaps the Sheriff should have called the Department of Labor, which is charged with enforcing labor laws that were so flagrantly violated during the Katrina cleanup.  That’s not ICE’s mission.

 

In reaction to the Sheriff’s statement, Lucas Diaz, Executive Director of Puentes New Orleans (quoted in Colorlines) said,

 

“It’s the same kind of language you see everywhere else at the local, state and federal policy level, where they try to take a harsh position and scare the public into thinking that anyone who might lack documentation and appears to be Latino is a criminal.”

 

Unfortunately, as long as Congress pushes off fixing our broken immigration system, these sorts of misguided efforts will be common.  In this case, just as the federal government is engaged in an unprecedented mobilization to keep the oil spill from wrecking the environment of the Gulf states, the misplaced focus on keeping “illegal aliens” out of the area might just work against the government’s efforts.

 

Image by Flickr User DVIDSHUB.

State-Local Immigration Enforcement

The Melting Cup

June 16, 2010 - Posted by Maurice Belanger

World Cup soccer is being contested in South Africa, and in this town there are a lot of TVs tuned to the games.  It is truly amazing that so much excitement is generated by so little scoring. 

The World Cup decides the best in the world in soccer, but the “world” in World Cup has another meaning.  Players, no matter what team they are on, are from all over the world. 

On the U.S. team, there are a number of players who are either immigrants themselves or whose parents are immigrants.  Any of them, at least in theory, could have chosen to represent the country of their birth or the country of their parents.

Benny Feilhaber is Brazilian.  His grandparents fled Austria for Brazil when Hitler’s Germany took over.  His family migrated again, to California, when he was six years old.  Through his grandparents, he was able to obtain an Austrian passport in order to play for a time for a German team. 

Stuart Holden is from Scotland, and came to the U.S. when he was 10.  He gained his citizenship four years ago.

Jose Torres, a Texan of Mexican descent, gave up a chance to play in the Olympics on the U.S. team in order to play with the Pachuca, Mexico, club team.  He is now back with the U.S. team in South Africa.

Goalkeeper Tim Howard (who was key to keeping England to one goal in the opening game for the U.S.) could theoretically have represented Hungary, the country of his mother’s birth.

The parents of Oguchi Onyewu came to the U.S. from Nigeria, and his father played soccer for Howard University.

Jozy Altidore’s parents are from Haiti, and earlier this year he raised more than 100,000 pounds (from England, where he was playing on the Hull city team) for Haitian earthquake relief.

Other players with immigrant parents or who are dual citizens on the U.S. squad are Carlos Bocanegra (father is from Mexico); Jonathan Spector (both grandparents on his mother’s side are German and he has a German passport; Maurice Edu (both parents are from Nigeria); Landon Donovan (father is from Canada); and Hercules Gomez (both parents are from Mexico).

There are a number of other American dual nationals who have chosen to represent other countries in the World Cup. 

The U.S. is certainly not alone in having immigrants and dual nationals on its roster.  As Brent Latham of ESPN notes in this story on the World Cup,

In the age of migration, dual-nationals are hardly a uniquely American issue. Rare will be the competitive team at this year’s World Cup that doesn’t count a number of them among its ranks.

Among the more interesting cases, according to Latham, are those of

Gonzalo Higuain, a French-born forward who debated playing for France before deciding to represent Argentina; Liedson, a naturalized Portuguese striker who didn’t leave Brazil until he was 25 but now will play against that country in the World Cup; and Peter Odemwingie, a Nigerian born in the former Soviet Union who has never lived in Africa but will represent the Super Eagles at the World Cup on that continent.

And so, with soccer players at least, there is a free flow of talent, and the world’s top talent is playing with those teams where they feel they can make their best contribution.  It should all make the games more interesting, perhaps will throw us a few surprises and—who knows?—perhaps there will be some scoring.

Photo by Flickr user Dundas Football Club.

Famous Immigrants Immigrant contributions

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