tagged w/ SB 1070
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I’d transcribe it for you, Dear Stew Readers, in an effort to spare you the anguish, but the “lyrics” are very clear and hardly mistakable, and I fear a massive aneurysm with the stop and start of transcription. Let’s just call it a cop-out for self-preservation.
http://veracitystew.com/?p=34422I’d transcribe it for you, Dear Stew Readers, in an effort to spare you the... more
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The United States Supreme Court is hearing arguments in Arizona v. United States, the Obama administration's challenge to Arizona's anti-immigration law, SB1070. What they won't be hearing is what and who has fueled this discriminatory legislation.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is one of the most dangerous groups in the country.
Along with like groups in the John Tanton network FAIR has written and pushed laws like SB1070.
Will justice triumph over racial profiling and discrimination fueled by supremacist and nativist fringe groups? We need to stand together in this most pressing time.
Take a stand against FAIR! Sign the pledge and show that we will not tolerate justice being trampled by racism! http://mycuentame.org/justiceoverracismThe United States Supreme Court is hearing arguments in Arizona v. United States, the... more
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Wednesday of this week the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case of Arizona’s SB 1070 by which the state of Arizona effectively legalized racial profiling. It was one of those “American Legislative Exchange Council” conservative, GOPer inspired pieces of legislation.
The most onerous and likely unconstitutional parts of the law were blocked from going into effect by a federal judge early on. So it is interesting that those who support the legislation believe the law has done what it was designed to do, get rid of those “illegals.”Wednesday of this week the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case of... more
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On April 23, 2010, the day Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous immigration bill -- Senate Bill 1070 -- I made a decision to travel to Arizona to work on a book and documentary on the subject of immigration. Watching on the Internet, I was inspired by the student protests at the Arizona State Capital; reminiscent of the civil rights struggle of the 60’s. I arrived in Arizona in time to attend the March in Phoenix, where tens of thousands of Latinos marched in protest of SB 1070. Somehow, I felt a kindred spirit. This was the civil rights movement of my generation. So, I engaged.
But after the march - nothing happened; nothing on the side of those who opposed Senate Bill 1070, that is. Even with the support of the President of the United States, nobody seemed to DO anything about the legislation and other bills being proposed to rid Arizona of all undocumented Latinos.
Election time came and I was hopeful that Arizonans would realize their power at the polls and fire the politicians who sponsor and support anti-immigration legislation. But Arizonans gave Governor Jan Brewer a second term and re-elected Senator John McCain for the fifth time. I talked to many Arizonans at the grass roots level who felt they had no power against the anti-immigration machine that ran the State. I talked to my Latino friends across the country, trying to understand why they wouldn’t simply unite in the example of the African-American civil rights movement. But, no one could explain the complacency.
So when I got an email the other day seeking support for the recall of Senator Russell Pearce, Tea Party favorite, author and sponsor of Senate Bill 1070 and now Arizona Senate President, I decided to write about it and entitled the blog ‘It’s About Time, Arizona.’ A few days later while researching for the blog, I visited the site of the organization responsible for the recall, Citizens for a Better Arizona. And there on the front of the website were the words. ‘It’s About Time.’
Amazing! All of this time, I thought I was the only person on this earth who wondered why Arizonans wouldn’t just stand up and DO something. But as noted on their website, CitizensForABetterAZ.org, since January, 2011, they had been working to gather signatures for the recall of Senate President Russell Pearce. In the end, they gathered more than 18,000 signatures; more than double the signatures needed to force a recall election and more signature than Pearce received when he was elected Senator. Citizens for a Better Arizona co-founder and Phoenix Republican activist Chad Snow explained their purpose, "We want to send a message to Senator Pearce, to every legislator down here at the Arizona legislature, that this kind of extreme, ideologically driven policies will no longer be tolerated in our state.”
I love Arizona. It is one of the most beautiful states I’ve ever visited. On their website, the organization paraphrases Dr. Martin Luther King and reflects my sentiments exactly, “True progress does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability. Things do not get better with the mere passage of time – from one day to the next or from one year to the next. True progress occurs when people – through their hard work, determination and sacrifice – make a decision to ACT.”
Calculated or not, notably missing from the reasons for the recall is Pearce’s anti-immigration legislation. Snow makes it clear that the two main issues that Pearce has worked for - immigration and gun control - are not the reasons for their recall effort. He said, “We don’t take a stand on any of those issues – immigration, gun control. We think those things are irrelevant. We think the most important things for Arizonans is putting our economy back on track and creating jobs. We think that Russell Pearce has a horrible track record and those are not his priorities.”
This historic special recall election is set for November 8, 2011. Never before has an Arizona Senator been recalled and never before has a Senate President, in any state, been recalled at any time in the history of the United States.
Joining the efforts to recall Senator Russell Pearce is independent pollster Michael O’Neil of O'Neil Associates Inc. in Tempe, Arizona. Risking the future of his business and livelihood, O’Neil started Citizens for a Sane Arizona and a website, SaneArizona.com. O’Neil defended crossing the line of neutrality in this statement; "I did this after a great deal of thought because I've maintained a position of absolute neutrality. This case presents such a harm to the state that I basically concluded that it's time for Mike O'Neil, citizen, to step up. I decided this case was just too extreme and just too much to ignore. The harm that's being done to this state, the level of hate and scapegoating just called for stepping up, and damn the consequences."
Go Arizona! It’s About Time. Now, who’s next?
Read Deborah's Op-Ed
on the Recall of Arizona Senator Russell Pearce
@ www.DeborahTV.com on Monday and
Join the Live Discussion
Tuesday, October 25th
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM (Pacific Time)
www.DeborahTV.com (Watch, Listen, Chat)
512-400-4809 - PIN 9008894 (Listen Only)
714-888-7486 (Call in to the Show Only)
Deborah’s Op-Ed - is brought to you by AtHomeLasVegas.com. Log on now for 50-65% off vacation, extended stay and resort living in Las Vagas. www.AtHomeLasVegas.com. Your life. Your style. Your home.
Deborah Robinson is an award-winning journalist, author, producer, documentary filmmaker and television personality. Her life’s passion is to reveal and communicate truth through the media. Deborah’s media work can be found at www.RobinsonOmnimedia.com.On April 23, 2010, the day Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous immigration... more
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On April 23, 2010, the day Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous immigration bill -- Senate Bill 1070 -- I made a decision to travel to Arizona to work on a book and documentary on the subject of immigration. Watching on the Internet, I was inspired by the student protests at the Arizona State Capital; reminiscent of the civil rights struggle of the 60’s. I arrived in Arizona in time to attend the March in Phoenix, where tens of thousands of Latinos marched in protest of SB 1070. Somehow, I felt a kindred spirit. This was the civil rights movement of my generation. So, I engaged.
But after the march - nothing happened; nothing on the side of those who opposed Senate Bill 1070, that is. Even with the support of the President of the United States, nobody seemed to DO anything about the legislation and other bills being proposed to rid Arizona of all undocumented Latinos.
Election time came and I was hopeful that Arizonans would realize their power at the polls and fire the politicians who sponsor and support anti-immigration legislation. But Arizonans gave Governor Jan Brewer a second term and re-elected Senator John McCain for the fifth time. I talked to many Arizonans at the grass roots level who felt they had no power against the anti-immigration machine that ran the State. I talked to my Latino friends across the country, trying to understand why they wouldn’t simply unite in the example of the African-American civil rights movement. But, no one could explain the complacency.
So when I got an email the other day seeking support for the recall of Senator Russell Pearce, Tea Party favorite, author and sponsor of Senate Bill 1070 and now Arizona Senate President, I decided to write about it and entitled the blog ‘It’s About Time, Arizona.’ A few days later while researching for the blog, I visited the site of the organization responsible for the recall, Citizens for a Better Arizona. And there on the front of the website were the words. ‘It’s About Time.’
Amazing! All of this time, I thought I was the only person on this earth who wondered why Arizonans wouldn’t just stand up and DO something. But as noted on their website, CitizensForABetterAZ.org, since January, 2011, they had been working to gather signatures for the recall of Senate President Russell Pearce. In the end, they gathered more than 18,000 signatures; more than double the signatures needed to force a recall election and more signature than Pearce received when he was elected Senator. Citizens for a Better Arizona co-founder and Phoenix Republican activist Chad Snow explained their purpose, "We want to send a message to Senator Pearce, to every legislator down here at the Arizona legislature, that this kind of extreme, ideologically driven policies will no longer be tolerated in our state.”
I love Arizona. It is one of the most beautiful states I’ve ever visited. On their website, the organization paraphrases Dr. Martin Luther King and reflects my sentiments exactly, “True progress does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability. Things do not get better with the mere passage of time – from one day to the next or from one year to the next. True progress occurs when people – through their hard work, determination and sacrifice – make a decision to ACT.”
Calculated or not, notably missing from the reasons for the recall is Pearce’s anti-immigration legislation. Snow makes it clear that the two main issues that Pearce has worked for - immigration and gun control - are not the reasons for their recall effort. He said, “We don’t take a stand on any of those issues – immigration, gun control. We think those things are irrelevant. We think the most important things for Arizonans is putting our economy back on track and creating jobs. We think that Russell Pearce has a horrible track record and those are not his priorities.”
This historic special recall election is set for November 8, 2011. Never before has an Arizona Senator been recalled and never before has a Senate President, in any state, been recalled at any time in the history of the United States.
Joining the efforts to recall Senator Russell Pearce is independent pollster Michael O’Neil of O'Neil Associates Inc. in Tempe, Arizona. Risking the future of his business and livelihood, O’Neil started Citizens for a Sane Arizona and a website, SaneArizona.com. O’Neil defended crossing the line of neutrality in this statement; "I did this after a great deal of thought because I've maintained a position of absolute neutrality. This case presents such a harm to the state that I basically concluded that it's time for Mike O'Neil, citizen, to step up. I decided this case was just too extreme and just too much to ignore. The harm that's being done to this state, the level of hate and scapegoating just called for stepping up, and damn the consequences."
Go Arizona! It’s About Time. Now, who’s next?
Read Deborah's Op-Ed on the Recall of Arizona Senator Russell Pearce
@ www.DeborahTV.com on Monday and Join the Live Discussion
Tuesday, October 25th
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM (Pacific Time)
www.DeborahTV.com (Watch, Listen, Chat)
512-400-4809 - PIN 9008894 (Listen Only)
714-888-7486 (Call in to the Show Only)
Deborah’s Op-Ed - is brought to you by AtHomeLasVegas.com. Log on now for 50-65% off vacation, extended stay and resort living in Las Vagas. AtHomeLasVegas.com. Your life. Your style. Your home.
Deborah Robinson is an award-winning journalist, author, producer, documentary filmmaker and television personality. Her life’s passion is to reveal and communicate truth through the media. Deborah’s media work can be found at www.RobinsonOmnimedia.com.On April 23, 2010, the day Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the infamous immigration... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Medica Consortium blogger
A year ago this month, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 into law, effectively pushing an already vibrant anti-immigrant movement to a new extreme. Over the following months, immigrant rights advocates prepared for the worst, and grappled with multiple setbacks as other states threatened to follow Arizona’s example.
Looking back, though, it’s clear that the draconian immigration law hasn’t quite measured up to its bad reputation—in part because a federal injunction blocked several of its more pernicious provisions. Kent Peterson at New America Media/Frontera NorteSur suggests that anti-immigrant policymakers “overreached” with SB 1070, pushing the restrictionist movement to its own peak with the controversial law.
Arizona’s political influence has waned
Certainly in the long term, the law seems to have done more harm than good to the movement. While it initially added plenty of fuel to the restrictionists’ fire, it has ultimately failed to spread through other states the way many expected it to. While a few states (see Colorlines.com’s infographic or Alternet’s rundown) are still considering SB1070-type laws, most others have backed off the idea.
As Seth Hoy explains at Alternet/Immigration Impact, “states learned from Arizona — the numerous protests, Supreme Court challenge, costly litigation, economic boycotts that are still costing state businesses millions — and rejected similar laws.” Peterson similarly notes that a number of states have moved away from Arizona’s example because of SB 1070’s unexpected economic consequences—chiefly, an estimated $769 million in economic and tax revenues lost as a result of boycotts.
Immigrants still marginalized
That’s not say that the law has had no effect on immigrants. While a federal judge stayed several of its provisions last summer, SB 1070 proved to be a precursor to other insidious state laws targeting immigrants. Empowered by their success with SB 1070 and the ensuing media frenzy, state legislators quickly moved forward with several other harsh laws. As Feet in Two Worlds’ Valeria Fernandez explains, many immigrants in Arizona continue to live in fear even though SB 1070 is only partially enacted. She writes:
When you talk to immigrants in the street, they’ll tell you that not much has changed. Some continue to live in fear that they could be stopped by the police and deported. Others are having a difficult time getting work due to another Arizona law that harshly sanctions employers who hire undocumented immigrants.
At Colorlines.com, Seth Freed Wessler elaborates on the real impact of bills like SB 1070. He writes:
[The bills] send waves of fear and confusion into immigrant communities. … In the period since SB 1070 passed, uncounted numbers of immigrants have fled their homes in Arizona. … And the provisions in the law that were not blocked by the court, including one that makes it a crime to harbor or transport undocumented immigrants, put everyone at risk.
The role of the federal government
Nevertheless, Wessler points out that the federal government—not SB 1070 and not Arizona—is to blame for the brunt of the damage inflicted upon undocumented immigrants in the last year. Besides deporting record numbers of immigrant detainees and significantly expanding border enforcement, the Department of Homeland Security laid the groundwork for SB 1070 with its 287(g) program—which enabled local law enforcement to act as ICE agents. Adding insult to injury, President Barack Obama never came to close to fulfilling his campaign promise of passing comprehensive immigration reform.
Whether he will do so this year is up for debate, but many reform advocates remain skeptical after last year’s ups and downs. As Marcos Restrepo of the American Independent reports, several immigrant rights activists voiced disappointment after Obama convened a White House meeting on immigration last Tuesday. Chief among the critics was Pablo Alvorado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, who said in a statement:
While we appreciate the President’s effort to keep immigration reform on the national agenda, his actions belie his intent…If the President genuinely wanted to fix the broken immigration system, he would respond to the growing chorus of voices calling for the suspension of the secure communities program and move to legalize instead of further criminalize our immigrant communities.
The American Prospect’s Gabriel Arana is similarly skeptical of both the president’s approach to the problem, and his ability to enact meaningful reform:
On one hand, it is laudable that the president has revived the immigration debate, but there is a reason it died last year, even with Democrats in firm control of Congress and the executive branch. Instead of trying to tack immigration reform to an enforcement bill, the president should change the frame and stop talking about immigration as a national-security issue rather than an issue in its own right.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine A. Traywick, Medica Consortium blogger
A year ago this month, Arizona... more
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One year after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill into law, making it a state crime to be an undocumented immigrant in Arizona, immigrant networks have grown stronger. Two years ago, there were no Neighborhood Defense Committees here. Now there are about 20 of these immigrant groups in different parts of Phoenix alone.
“SB 1070 really hurt us, but also united us as one,” says Carreras, a 57-year-old undocumented immigrant from Veracruz, Mexico.
Last summer, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton blocked five provisions of SB 1070 from taking effect, a decision that was upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last week. But the rest of the law has been implemented, including a provision that bans so-called “sanctuary cities”—cities that limit police involvement in immigration enforcement.
“They stopped part of the law, but everywhere they go on letting the police have a lot of discretion to ask who has documents or not,” says José Acosta, a U.S. citizen who is part of a Neighborhood Defense Committee in the city of Mesa.
http://truthout.org/one-year-after-sb-1070-arizonas-immigrant-networks-are-stronger/1303751089One year after Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed the bill into law, making it a state... more
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The billionaire Koch brothers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to gain political influence and change America. Vote on the worst thing they have done - oil spills, anti-worker, anti-healthcare, anti-immigration, or got a better one? Write it in. Check it out: http://goo.gl/Lua4tThe billionaire Koch brothers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to gain... more
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The Florida legislative session has just begun, and already twelve anti-immigrant bills have been filed, including copycat legislation based on Arizona’s controversial racial profiling bill, SB 1070. Thus far all of them have been filed by the the Republican leadership in the State Legislature but we are still hesitant on how Democrats might vote when it comes to the floor. If any of these bills were to pass, we’d experience a man-made, hurricane of hate and racism — and that’s only the front side of the hurricane:
http://www.economicrefugee.net/legislative-session-early-hurricane-season/The Florida legislative session has just begun, and already twelve anti-immigrant... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After orchestrating a divisive national campaign to deny citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants, Arizona legislators watched their own anti-birthright citizenship bill flounder in the state Senate this week.
ColorLines’ Jamilah King reports that Senate bill 1309—introduced with considerable fanfare only two weeks ago—met significant opposition during its first Senate hearing on Monday and was subsequently withdrawn by one of its chief sponsors, state Sen. Ron Gould (R). The swift defeat comes as a surprise to both supporters and opponents of the bill, as Arizona’s Republican-controlled legislature has managed to pass a number of controversial measures in the last year, without much difficulty.
What’s more, Arizona legislators—headed by Senate president Russell Pearce (R)—have brazenly led the charge against birthright citizenship, with legislation being introduced at both state and federal levels. So while 14 states are attempting to restrict citizenship and force a Supreme Court review of the 14th Amendment, according to Doug Ramsey at the Public News Service, Arizona had appeared to be the most likely to pass the controversial measure.
The effort isn’t completely dead, however. An identical measure introduced into the [STATE?] House may still stand a chance, as it has yet to reach committee. Meanwhile, Gould will keep trying to secure votes for SB 1309, while Pearce considers reassigning the bill to a friendlier committee. Nevertheless, the measure’s easy defeat in a state notorious for embracing hard line immigration laws may bode ill for similar efforts elsewhere.
SB 1070 copycat measures provoke division in Colorado, New Mexico and Florida
Indeed, attempts to pass Arizona-style immigration laws in other states have been repeatedly slowed by myriad legislative roadblocks and growing division between and within political parties.
In Colorado, proponents of an immigration law modeled after Arizona’s SB 1070 say they are planning to withdraw the measure after weeks of deliberation and indecision, reports Scot Kersgaard at the Colorado Independent. Just days after Arizona lawmakers withdrew their vaunted birthright citizenship bill, Colorado Rep. Randy Baumgardner (R) told reporters that legislators—who had hoped to avoid the kinds of costly legal challenges provoked by SB 1070— had failed to resolve the “possibly unconstitutional” elements of the measure.
In New Mexico, an executive order issued by Governor Susanna Martinez (R) that requires police to investigate the immigration statuses of all criminal suspects has sparked the ire of state Democrats. The American Independent’s Matthew Reichbach reports that Democratic legislators held a press conference last week denouncing the order, which is similar to Arizona’s SB 1070 and could lead to racial profiling.
While Martinez was careful to prohibit law enforcement from asking victims and witnesses about their immigration statuses (a practice that has, in Arizona, discouraged immigrant victims and witnesses from reporting violent crimes), Rep. Antonio Maestas (D) voiced concerns that the order could inhibit domestic violence victims from coming forward. Often, law enforcement responding to domestic disputes regard both parties as suspect (even fingerprinting and taking both into custody) until full statements can be taken and assessed—at which time, the victim is released.
But, as I’ve written before, in such cases victims run the risk of being questioned about their immigration status and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In response, Democratic lawmakers are pushing several bills that would overturn the governor’s order.
Meanwhile, in Florida, Republicans are divided over the prospect of introducing their own SB 1070 copycat bill, reports Elena Shore at New America Media/La Prensa, Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R) argues that such a measure would be bad for the state, but newly elected Republican Governor Rick Scott (who campaigned on an anti-immigration platform) maintains that “police should have the ability to ask people for immigration papers while they go about their jobs, even during routine stops.”
Meanwhile, an SB 1070-type bill that was introduced last session may get a makeover as its author, Rep. William Snyder (R), tries to soften its provisions in advance of the upcoming legislative session, which opens March 8.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
See more posts tagged with: American Independent, Arizona, birthright citizenship, colorado independent, colorlines, ICE, Immigration, La Prensa, New America Media, Public News Service, Russell Pearce, SB 1070 | Comment now
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You can use these tags for formatting and linking your comment:by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After orchestrating a... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Arizona lawmakers are expected to introduce an “anchor baby” bill today that would deny birthright citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Modeled after birthright citizenship legislation unveiled by the nativist coalition State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI) earlier this month, the measure is, unabashedly, part of a larger effort on the part of SLLI to challenge existing citizenship law in the United States.
Lawmakers from Georgia, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Carolina have likewise committed to introducing citizenship bills at the state level, while legislators from Nebraska, Indiana, Colorado, Texas and others are determined to implement similarly controversial Arizona-style enforcement measures in their states.
In recent years, communities that implemented harsh anti-immigrant laws have experienced a number of economic and social repercussions which lawmakers continue to overlook in their determination to tighten enforcement. But as nativist policies bleed public coffers and anti-immigrant political speech incites new strains of ethnic violence, the stark consequences of such extremism are becoming harder and harder to ignore.
Devastating local economies
The legal costs of defending constitutionally questionable laws like SB 1070 ought to be obvious. Arizona, which has the rare luxury of drawing from a $3.6 million donor-endowed legal defense fund, spent upwards of $500,000 defending 1070 from legal challenges last year, and could, in the long-term, spend as much $10 million, according to New America Media’s Valeria Fernández.
Yet the think-tank Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—a major supporter of anti-immigrant laws like SB 1070 and birthright citizenship bills—obstinately underplays the financial fall-out of such measures. Ira Mehlman, a national spokesperson for FAIR, reportedly told New America Media that “the costs of litigations pale in comparison to the cost of communities providing healthcare, education and welfare for undocumented immigrants and their citizen children.”
Considerable evidence suggests otherwise. The Brookings Institution, the Udall Center for Public Policy and former President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors have all concluded that immigrants contribute much more to their local economies (through taxes and spending) than they take out through social services (about $800,000 more).
Now, a new report by Southern Poverty Law Center (which, incidentally, has listed FAIR as a hate group since 2007) argues that anti-immigrant laws—not immigrants—have a greater track record of depressing local economies. Gebe Martinez at Campus Progress sums up what happened to five communities “that threw anti-immigration statutes onto their books without fully considering their impact.” He writes:
* Hazleton, Pennsylvania, the leader of the court fights for local immigration enforcement, is in the tank for at least $2.8 million with some estimates totaling $5 million as it defends its ordinance all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
* Riverside, New Jersey suffered a local economic downturn before the city rescinded its anti-immigrant ordinance and welcomed the return of immigrants.
* Farmers Branch, Texas, has spent nearly $4 million in legal fees and is expected to spend at least $5 million to defend its anti-immigration statute with no end in sight.
* Prince William County, Virginia dramatically scaled back a tough immigration statute after realizing the original version would cost millions to enforce and defend in court.
* Fremont, Nebraska, increased the city’s property tax to help pay the legal fees for its anti-immigration ordinance which it intends to defend.A
A spate of state-level birthright citizenship bills stands to be similarly costly, as the admitted goal of their sponsors is to force numerous court cases that challenge the conventional applications of the 14th amendment—legislation through litigation. But there are other expenses as well. If such legislation were to pass, government agencies would bear the incredibly costly burden of making citizenship determinations for every child born in the United States—a logistical nightmare that neither federal nor state governments are prepared to undertake.
Fueling ethnic violence
As economically devastating as these divisive measures can be, their social impact on communities is often even greater. Politicians bent on enacting anti-immigrant legislation frequently rely on hateful speech and pejorative language to foment public discontent and, in so doing, build citizen support for their measures—with tragic consequences.
Colorlines.com has repeatedly reported on the correlation between bigoted political speech, anti-immigrant legislation, and ethnic violence. Now, Mónica Novoa reports that a new study from the University of Maryland corroborates the connection. Charting the use of anti-immigrant slurs in newspapers and wire services over the last three decades, the study revealed that “a spike in usage of the dehumanizing slurs usually coincided with contentious immigration policy proposals.”
The correlation persists despite the fact that more than 15 years ago, four professional journalism associations—National Association of Hispanic Journalists, Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalists Association and National Association of Black Journalists—advised their members to stop using the phrase “illegal alien” on the grounds that is is “pejorative,” “grammatically incorrect and crosses the line by criminalizing the person, not the action they are purported to have committed.”
While incendiary rhetoric may be an effective way of garnering political support for controversial measures, it all too often fuels violence. Going back to New America Media, Fernández notes that this destructive cycle frequently makes for tragic consequences, as in the case of a 9-year-old girl who was allegedly murdered by members the Minuteman Project, an armed, volunteer border patrol organization. The Latino advocacy organization Cuentame, in partnership with Brave New Films, similarly emphasizes the link between hate speech and increasing incidents of hate crimes against Latinos:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cFuYJwW1s[/youtube]
Anti-birthright citizenship bills would effectively create an underclass of mostly Hispanic non-citizens. It’s an almost certain catalyst for rampant and systemic anti-immigrant discrimination and ethnic violence. As the anti-immigrant lawmakers from Arizona and elsewhere make good on their promises to push a new, more fervent, onslaught of anti-immigrant legislation in 2011, expect the financial and social costs of such extremism to rise further still.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulseby Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Arizona lawmakers are expected... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
The federal trial of three Pennsylvania police officers accused of covering up the murder of an undocumented Mexican immigrant opened last week—reigniting critical discussion about the recent rise of anti-immigrant hate crimes. The officers—former Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Patrolman Jason Hayes—allegedly attempted to conceal the racially motivated nature of the 2008 murder of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez, who was brutally beaten to death in a park by a group of teenagers spouting racial slurs. At the time, Ramirez’s murder underscored a growing trend of anti-Hispanic violence in the U.S., which some attribute to increasingly anti-immigrant political rhetoric.
In recent years, hate crimes against Latinos have increased by 52 percent, a steep rise that Alternet’s Arun Gupta attributes to incessant “right-wing vituperation” and “caustic rhetoric.” In Arizona, where anti-immigrant sentiment has fomented into a bevy of retrogressive and prejudicial state policies, the number of reported hate crimes rose from 161 in 2007 to 219 in 2009. Tellingly, the recent rise in anti-Latino hate crimes runs counter to an overall decrease in reported hate crimes nationwide.
Prevalence of I-Word on television coincides with anti-immigrant hate crimes
At ColorLines, Mónica Novoa points out that a dramatic spike in the use of the word “illegals” in television programming last year coincided with both the passage of Arizona’s SB 1070 and a number of subsequent racially motivated murders:
* In June, Juan Varela—U.S. citizen and a third-genderation Mexican American—was shot to death in Phoenix by a man shouting “You fucking Mexican, go back to Mexico!”
* In July, Sergio Zapata-Zurita’s family was accosted at gunpoint in Washington by a man apparently obsessed with “illegal immigration.
* In August, Martin Reyes—a Honduran immigrant and father of six—was stabbed to death in Baltimore by a crazed man who told police that he “hated Mexicans.”
The irony here is that, while heated discourse surrounding the measure may have contributed to a rash of anti-immigrant hate crimes last year, its implementation in Arizona has inhibited the local victims of those crimes contacting the police—for fear that, under the new law, they will be arrested for being undocumented.
Hate crimes report censored to conceal role of official’s hate speech
Some localities have taken important steps to counter the rise of anti-Latino hate crimes, but at least one of those well-meaning efforts has been undermined by the anti-immigrant Right. Change.org’s Alex DiBranco reports that, in Suffolk County, New York, one ranking official’s affinity for anti-immigrant rhetoric may have compelled him to censor a potentially damning hate crimes report. Suffolk County’s problem with anti-immigrant violence has been in the news since 2008, when the racially motivated murder of an Ecuadoran immigrant highlighted Long Island’s epidemic of racial violence. Following the incident, Suffolk County formed a Hate Crimes Task Force responsible for monitoring hate crimes in the area, and issuing reports of its findings.
But County Executive Steve Levy, who is locally notorious for his anti-immigrant rhetoric, has been accused of editing more than 50 pages from the task force’s most recent report—many of which contained substantial criticism of his administration’s handling of immigrant issues, according to Mike Clifford at the Public News Service. Noting that Levy’s critics have long attributed the rise in anti-immigrant hate crimes to his extreme position on immigration, DiBranco speculates that Levy’s drastic censorship of the report is an attempt to conceal his own role in fostering violence.
Bigotry accusations divide the Republican Party
Following the recent Tucson shooting, the tragic potential of hateful political rhetoric has come to the foreground. The issue has become so heated that it threatens to fracture the Republican Party itself. In the aftermath of the tragedy, and in light of the party’s increasingly extremist positions on immigration, certain party leaders have defected from the GOP, accusing the party of fostering racism for political ends, John Tomasic at the American Independent reports. Most recently, former Colorado Republican Muhammad Ali Hasan and former Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes have spoken out against party bigotry directed at Muslims and Latinos, prompting conservative Latino organization Somos Republicans to launch an anti-bigotry campaign against its own party.
It’s a step in the right direction. But even as a minority of Republicans takes it upon themselves to critically examine the role of the party’s extremist positions and rhetoric, the deadly impact of the party’s institutionalized bigotry nevertheless remains remarkably under-recognized—even as it continues to claim innocent lives.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulseby Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
The federal trial of three... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Yesterday, a coalition of anti-immigrant lawmakers from 14 states unveiled their much-anticipated birthright citizenship bill. The measure would thwart the 14th Amendment by denying citizenship to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. As Julianna Hing notes at ColorLines, sponsors unabashedly admit that, after passing the legislation at the state level, they aim to push it through Congress. If passed, it would effectively become federal law while at the same time force a court case challenging the traditional application of the 14th Amendment.
The bill is is unlikely to do much more than upset the national debate on immigration reform, but it’s nevertheless a sobering reminder of how far some conservatives will go to segregate immigrants further. While immigration reform advocates faced an uphill struggle last year, with few victories to show for it, the stakes are even higher in 2011, as immigration issues become more brazenly racially divisive.
Arizona’s retrogressive policy takes effect
In the “Papers Please” state, where the birthright citizenship bill will make its debut, a controversial K-12 ethnic studies ban has already gone into effect—prohibiting curricula that promotes ethnic solidarity or is designed for students of a particular race or ethnicity. Attorney General Tom Horne, who proposed the ban while he was the superintendent of public instruction, has unabashedly singled out the Tuscon Unified School District (TUSD)’s Mexican American Studies program as its target.
Alex DiBranco reports at Change.org that—prior to assuming his new position as attorney general—Horne declared the TUSD to be in violation of the newly enacted law and threatened to withhold $15 million in funds from the school district if it failed to eliminate the Mexican American Studies program within 60 days. TUSD, for its part, is appealing the law while refusing to alter its curriculum.
Immigrant growth results in more Congressional seats…for Republicans
The results of the 2010 census are in and, thanks to a considerable boost in the new immigrant population, southern and western states are now set to gain additional Congressional seats. Sarah Kate Kramer at Feet in 2 Worlds reports that Hispanics, in particular, accounted for at least half of the growth in Texas, Florida, Nevada and Arizona.
While the growth of the Hispanic population has undoubtedly contributed to the election of a number of Hispanic legislators and could set the stage for greater political representation in the long term, the immediate effect of the apportionment looks bleak. The irony, as Kramer notes, is that while immigrant growth secured the apportionment of new congressional seats, those seats will represent predominately Republican states—effectively increasing the power of anti-immigrant lawmakers.
Few victories for immigrants
At the dawn of a new year, undocumented immigrants have gained little ground. New America Media/La Opinion reports that unemployment is still very high in sectors, such as construction, that typically employ large numbers of undocumented laborers, and remains high for Latinos, in particular.
Congress also failed to pass the bipartisan and politically popular DREAM Act, letting down scores of undocumented youth, and Arizona’s SB 1070 is spreading like wildfire to other states. To top it off, 2010 proved to be a record year for deportations—meaning that 2011 is seeing the largest number of divided families to date.
Obama Administration dropped the ball on immigration
The retrogressive nature of the immigration debate has a lot to do with the rise of conservative extremism following President Barack Obama’s election. In the past year, anti-immigrant lawmakers have gone to unprecedented lengths to commandeer immigration reform, defy the Obama administration’s policy goals and, in general, make quite a clamor. But reform advocates, too, have done their fair share to muck up the prospect of comprehensive immigration reform.
As Monica Potts at TAPPED argues, the administration’s consistent focus on enforcement, at the expense comprehensive reform, pushed the immigration debate further to the right—and may have even cost Democrats the Hispanic vote:
President Obama embraced conservatives’ enforcement rhetoric by ramping up deportations without prioritizing reform. This was a self-defeating approach: by buying into a harsh enforcement paradigm, he made the argument for reform much harder.
Whether the administration has learned from its 2010 mistakes remains to be seen. If not, then the gun-slinging lawmen of Arizona will continue defining the nation’s most pressing immigration issues.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulseby Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Yesterday, a coalition of... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After commanding the world’s attention in 2010 with its cavalier stance on immigration, the Arizona state legislature is threatening—once again—to dominate national immigration discourse and policy.
This week, Arizona state Senator and Senate President-Elect Russell Pearce (R) spoke candidly with CNN’s Jessica Yellin about his plans to introduce a birthright citizenship bill in Arizona this coming January—a move likely to be echoed in the impending Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Invoking the hysterical “anchor baby” hype that dominated some right-wing circles earlier this year, Pearce intends to pass state legislation denying automatic (or “birthright”) citizenship to the the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Though birthright citizenship is constitutionally mandated under the 14th amendment and protected by Supreme Court precedent, it has nevertheless become a rallying cry for number of extremely anti-immigrant Republicans.
And while Pearce pushes the measure in Arizona, an influx of Republican U.S. representatives headed by Steve King (R-IA), the incoming chairman of the subcommittee that oversees immigration, will likely attempt to push a similar bill through Congress, according to Valeria Fernández at New America Media.
The plan, Fernández notes, is to take the contentious issue all the way to the (largely conservative) Supreme Court. But even if the issue makes it that far, it’s unlikely that the court would rule in its favor. This issue has reached the Supreme Court twice before (United States v. Wong Kim Arkin in 1898 and Pyler v. Doe in 1982) and in both cases the court maintained that birthright citizenship is constitutionally guaranteed.
Arizona: A model police state
As Pearce pushes the envelope on contentious immigration legislation in 2011, a flock of lawmakers from other states are scrambling to imitate his 2010 trailblazer, SB 1070—the controversial immigration law currently being challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice and a host of public interest organizations. Luke Johnson at the Washington Independent reports that legislators from 25 states are planning to introduce SB 1070 copycat bills next year. While the individual bills vary in scope and detail, they abide by the gist of SB 1070—criminalizing “illegal” immigrants, empowering or requiring law enforcement to ascertain and share the immigration status of individuals based on scant (or no) evidence, etc. Immigrant rights groups are concerned that the copycat bills would lead to racial profiling and the unlawful detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants without criminal records.
While few, if any, of the proposed measures are likely to pass unchallenged, the immense control Republicans now wield over state legislatures is cause for concern—as is the apparently immense influence Arizona lawmakers wield over their conservative neighbors.
Courtesy of the Washington Independent, here’s a breakdown of the states proposing copycat measures, and the likely outcomes:
Most likely to pass: Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina
Maybe: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia
Less Likely: Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island
Arizona’s ethnic studies ban goes into effect
Meanwhile, at the national level, the GOP plans to build support for its hard-line immigration agenda by propagating the fallacious notion that “illegal”immigrants steal American jobs and thus weaken the economy, according to Suzy Khimm at Mother Jones.
Accordingly, incoming House Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) hopes to expand the E-Verify program—a controversial, federally-managed electronic system that allows employers to check the immigration status of potential employees. The program is supposed to drive down undocumented immigration by helping employers identify and then avoid hiring undocumented immigrants, but it has taken heat lately after a study suggested it was inaccurate 50 percent of the time.
Again, the fate of this immigration initiative could be shaped by what happens in Arizona, where an employer sanctions law requiring businesses to enroll in E-Verify has been challenged by the United States Chamber of Commerce. The case was heard before the Supreme Court earlier this month, with the federal government challenging the law on many of the same grounds upon which it is challenging SB 1070—chiefly that it preempts federal law. If the court rules against the employer sanctions law, the ruling could present serious implications for the proposed expansion of E-Verify which, while voluntary, is already unpopular with businesses concerned about the program’s cost and accuracy.
Arizona remains center stage in immigration debate
In 2010, Arizona legislators dominated the national immigration debate. As evidenced by Sarah Kate Kramer’s recap of the year in immigration at Feet in 2 Worlds, immigration discourse and policy across the national centered on several key events in Arizona. Most notably, Arizona made history by passing SB 1070 and a host of other controversial bills including bans on ethnic studies and equal opportunity programs. A campaigning Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) reinvented himself—from an immigrant sympathizer and DREAM Act supporter to a hard-line immigration hawk who just wants to “complete the danged fence.”
Perhaps the most powerful discourse- and policy-shaping tools wielded by Arizona officials, however, were simply lies. In March, public mania over border violence peaked after Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever erroneously claimed that Arizona rancher Robert N. Krentz Jr. was shot dead by an undocumented immigrant. Then, in June, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer made the outrageous (and widely disproven) claim that law enforcement agencies had found beheaded corpses in the Arizona desert.
Through the crafting of draconian immigration laws and the unabashed spread of misinformation, the Arizona legislature cast itself as a major player in the national immigration debate this year. Having done so, it looms as a a powerful force to be reckoned with in the next.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After commanding the... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
While Arizona’s draconian anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, was far from the first controversial immigration measure of its kind, it stands out as a hallmark of increasingly visible nativist sentiment. Numerous legal challenges and a federal injunction notwithstanding, the measure continues to inspire copycat legislation and attract millions in donations. Even as Arizona’s legislature attempts to outdo itself by pushing increasingly outrageous bills, as Care2 reports, SB 1070 remains center stage.
Perhaps one reason that the measure has gained such traction across the country is that its crafters have been unequivocal about both their intent and the law’s objective: Attrition through enforcement.
“That’s a fancy way of saying it’s public policy aimed at making the lives of immigrants so miserable that they leave on their own accord,” explained community organizer Marisa Franco on Making Contact, a National Radio Project program. Andrea Christina Mercado, organizing director of Mujeres Unidas Activas and another guest on this week’s show, added that the “attrition through enforcement” strategy exemplified by SB 1070 centers on three pernicious tactics:
“…One is to close off all possibility for economic survival, the second part is to deny access to justice for migrants, making it harder and harder to place a wage claim or a police report, and the third is to normalize mistreatment through rituals of humiliation and hateful language.”
SB 1070: coming to a state near you!
While reprehensible to immigrant rights advocates, the “attrition through enforcement” approach to the immigration “problem” is refreshing to immigration hawks. The strategy’s unabashed method of self-evicting undocumented migrants through calculated marginalization is the kind of tough, no-nonsense policy that hardliners appreciate. Consequently, similar measures have spread like wildfire across states and municipalities. That such laws directly defy federal immigration policy goals seems only to increase their popularity among immigration hardliners.
Case in point: The incoming wave of newly elected, anti-immigrant governors pushing for SB 1070 copycat laws. As Braden Goyette reports at Campus Progress, governors-elect in Georgia, Florida, Nebraska, Mississippi, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Oklahoma hope to follow in Arizona’s footsteps. Nebraska’s Dave Heineman (R) explicitly campaigned on that hope, and Georgia’s Nathan Deal (R) plans to push for a copycat law as soon as January 2011.
State legislators are moving quickly on similar laws as well. Most recently, Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle (R) filed a spate of anti-immigration legislation in advance of the 2011 legislative session. According to Change.org’s Prerna Lal, Riddle’s bills would collectively limit immigrants’ access to public education, intensify the penalties for being undocumented in the state, and even prevent undocumented persons from driving there. In total, the proposed measures embody the attrition-through-enforcement philosophy by attempting to make it impossible for undocumented immigrants to live in the state with any measure of quality of life.
Setting the stage for anti-immigrant laws
The attrition-through-enforcement strategy is contagious. But, as ColorLines’ Seth Freed Wessler points out, infection follows a predictable pattern. Citing a recent Migration Policy Institute study, Wessler explains that anti-immigrant laws tend to pop up in largely homogeneous white communities that experience an increase in the population of immigrants. The actual size of the immigrant population doesn’t seem to matter, and the study found that crime rates are equally irrelevant (and have no correlation to rates of immigration). The only thing that does matter is growth, however small.
It’s important to note that in largely homogeneous communities, which generally tend to be segregated along ethnic lines anyway, small fluctuations in minority populations aren’t glaringly evident to most residents. Growth among immigrant populations doesn’t immediately or spontaneously spark nativist sentiment. In most cases, that growth is noted by incendiary elites, who then repackage and sell it back to the larger community as an “immigration problem.” In Wessler’s words:
Crime is not actually higher because of immigration but individual incidents of crime, or the presence of day laborers on street corners, are used as animating tools by restrictionist groups. Support for the resolutions are drummed up by local politicians and demagogues, as well as national groups that often play a role in drafting the bills, who concoct a narrative about dangerous criminal immigrants.
As I’ve written before, anti-immigrant sentiment is driven by the fear that, as immigrant communities grow larger and more economically competitive, their increasing political power will threaten the status quo. And so politicos feed the immigrant-as-criminal narrative to their communities, bit by bit, eventually passing pernicious laws intended to self-evict the threat.
Thus far, 107 communities have passed anti-immigrant laws in the last 10 years, the bulk of them since 2006, when heightened discourse on immigration reform motivated anti-immigrant groups to redouble their efforts. A few years later, Arizona state senator Russell Pearce (R) teamed up with Kris Kobach—a lawyer for FAIR, the most powerful anti-immigrant group in the nation—to draft SB 1070 which has now unleashed a new wave of oppressive immigration laws.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulseby Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
While Arizona’s draconian... more
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Then there’s ALEC (that only the Supremes apparently think of as a character) not so much a character as a place for characters. ALEC this organization that’s something of a non-lobby-lobby. Those characters include, Senator Russell Pearce, the Corrections Corporation of America which is the nation's largest detainer of undocumented immigrants and a cast of untold (and that adds to the problem) additional supporting actors---largely miscast as members of a “democracy.”
http://www.examiner.com/bexar-county-elections-2010-in-san-antonio/the-prison-industrial-complex-alec-sb-1070-social-engineering-aThen there’s ALEC (that only the Supremes apparently think of as a character)... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
The precarious fate of comprehensive immigration reform has fallen into the hands of staunch nativists. With Republicans now leading the House and a new crop of anti-immigrant governors stepping up to bat, the road to immigration reform just became more arduous than ever.
The results of the mid-term elections are a heavy blow to immigration reform advocates who have recently contended with a DREAM Act defeat, a pandemic of state-level anti-immigrant measures, attempts to stifle Latino votes, and an allegedly disaffected Latino electorate. And, to add insult to injury, the election season was tainted by a slew of race-baiting campaign aids and sensational anti-immigrant soundbytes (AlterNet has the rundown).
But, amid the upset, there is some hope. Despite pessimistic predictions, Latinos voters defiantly flexed their electoral muscle, effectively creating a “Latino firewall in the west” that helped save the Senate for Democrats, according to Elena Shore at New America Media. Moreover, numerous anti-immigrant measures are finally getting their day in court—though the results of those hearings may be as mixed as the outcome of this election.
Immigration reform in the hands of House Republicans
While Democrats retained control of the Senate, the Republican seizure of the House bodes ill for comprehensive immigration reform.
As Elise Foley note at the Washington Independent, immigration legislation will now be at the mercy of John Boehner (R-OH), the new speaker of the house, and Representative Steve King (R-IA), who will now chair the immigration subcommittee. Both legislators oppose comprehensive reform and will likely project their shared anti-immigrant agenda on House legislation:
King tends to be on the extreme end of anti-illegal immigration rhetoric: He favors changes to birthright citizenship to keep U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants from receiving citizenship and argues more states should pass immigration crackdowns like Arizona’s SB 1070. King has pushed for more border enforcement and an electrified fence along the border to keep illegal immigrants out. “We do that with livestock all the time,” he said. […]
Of course, King won’t have ultimate power over the House Republicans’ priorities on immigration. Boehner will set a good deal of the agenda, and is likely to follow some of the plans hinted at in the Pledge to America, a vague but enforcement-heavy document released in September.
Foley also reports that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which supports comprehensive immigration reform, lost three House members this election—Reps. John Salazar (D-CO), Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) and Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX).
An influx of anti-immigrant governors
State gubernatorial races proved similarly disappointing for reform advocates, as a host of anti-immigrant candidates were propelled into office on a wave of Tea Party-backed, anti-immigrant sentiment.
Just before the election, Mother Jones’ Suzy Khimm profiled a series of anti-immigrant gubernatorial front runners, most of whom ended up winning.
In Georgia, a state poised to replicate Arizona’s SB 1070, the governor’s seat went to Nathan Deal, “an early supporter of a birthright citizenship bill that would deny granting citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants.” Moreover, in Nevada and New Mexico, two anti-immigrant Latino candidates prevailed: Susana Martinez (R-NM), who was endorsed by Sarah Palin and accused her opponent of defending child-molesting “criminal illegals,” and Brian Sandoval (R-NV), who supports SB-1070 and famously bragged that his children “don’t look Hispanic.”
Brewer skips town to attend SB 1070 hearing
Meanwhile, Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ) retained her governorship this week, in spite of some really disastrous campaigning. Fittingly, Brewer spent election day appealing the federal injunction issued against SB 1070, the harsh anti-immigrant law that made her famous, last spring.
New America Media’s Valeria Fernández reports that Terry Goddard, Arizona’s current attorney general and democratic gubernatorial candidate, blasted Brewer’s decision to attend the SB 1070 hearing and suggested that her relentless defense of the anti-immigrant law has more to do with her connections to the private prison industry than her concern over public safety:
Goddard pointed to Brewer’s staff—including political advisor Chuck Coughlin, president of High Ground Public Affairs, which also represents Correction Corporation of America (CCA), the country’s largest private-prison company —as evidence that she is more concerned with helping private business make a profit than with public safety.
Goddard isn’t the first to make such a claim. Media outlets have reported on Arizona legislators’ suspicious connections to the private prison industry for several months. In June, Beau Hodai revealed for In These Times how SB 1070 was steered and shaped by private prison lobbyists:
… the bill’s promoters are as equally dedicated to border politics as they are to promoting the fortunes of private prison companies, like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Geo Group, which stand to reap substantial profits as more undocumented residents end up in jail.
Hodai’s findings were further validated by a much-publicized NPR investigation last week.
All of the bad press has done little to hurt Brewer, however. She retained her governorship and managed to collect $3 million in private donations to continue defending SB 1070, which she is prepared to take all the way to the Supreme Court.
Of course, that may not be necessary—as Fernández notes, “longtime legal observers who watched the hearing said the judges seemed to be leaning toward partially reinstating the provisions” previously thrown out by federal Judge Susan Bolton. It’s still too soon to tell for sure, but preliminary indicators suggest that legal challenges to recently passed anti-immigrant legislation will obtain mixed results. Two lawsuits against SB 1070 have already been dismissed, while several other anti-immigrant measures have recently been overturned, blocked, or delayed by federal judges.
The fight for comprehensive immigration reform has clearly taken a big hit on all fronts—not least of which, electorally. But while election results were disappointing for reform advocates, they also clearly demonstrated the undeniable electoral might of Latinos—who, in spite of low expectations, came out in strong numbers and disproportionately supported pro-immigration candidates. It’s not over till it’s over.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
The precarious fate of... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Immigration reform activists suffered a disappointing setback this week. The Senate failed to muster enough votes to move forward with an annual defense authorization bill that would have included both the DREAM Act and a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” as amendments. At Feet in Two Worlds, Sarah Kate Kramer has a good breakdown of the floor action.
As Kramer notes, not all is lost. The defense bill—and the DREAM Act with it—are certainly stalled, but Democrats say they plan to try again after midterm elections. The DREAM movement, for its part, seems invigorated by the close call.
Reform activists are hoping to channel that new energy into getting out the Latino vote this November, which will increase the chances of moving forward with the act after elections. But, given the obstacles Latinos are expected to face at the polls, it will be an uphill struggle.
The DREAM continues
While many DREAM activists are disappointed by the vote’s outcome, they remain steadfast in their resolve to provide hard-working immigrant youth with a path to citizenship.
As Julianne Hing of Colorlines reports, the DREAM Act has galvanized youth activists to an unprecedented degree. In one week, supporters of the measure made a record 25,000 calls to their senators, matching the usually overwhelming vigor of nativist callers one-to-one.
Such support for the bipartisan act isn’t surprising. The measure is popular with the public and has even been endorsed by former secretary of state Colin Powell, a self-proclaimed moderate Republican. The DREAM Act also retains the full support of the Defense Department, which included the bill in its 2011 strategic plan in the hopes that it will increase military enlistment during war time.
The new plan is to use the DREAM Act’s popularity to make immigration reform a key issue this election season, thus bringing more Latinos to the polls. Their votes will be crucial to keeping DREAM advocates like Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in office and ensuring that the measure is put back on the table after elections.
Latinos struggling to get out the vote
But Latinos bent on motivating voters in swing states this November will meet some significant obstacles.
According to a report by election watchdogs Demos and Common Cause, several swing states are expected to roll out a number of roadblocks that would effectively stifle minority votes. Art Levine at Truthout reports that Arizona has a long history of discriminating against Latinos, in direct violation of the Voting Rights Act:
Besides a legacy of flouting the Voting Rights Act by failing to do outreach to Hispanic voters or to provide sufficient translators, [Arizona] features a draconian voter registration requirement for a government-issued birth certificate that’s already barred over 30,000 people from voting between 2004 and 2008, although 90 percent of them, court documents indicate, were native-born Americans.
On top of all that, apparent election mismanagement is so widespread that in the state’s largest county alone, Maricopa (home of Phoenix), nearly 30,000 voters – at a rate three times the national average – had their “provisional ballots” discarded as invalid in 2008…
While the findings bode ominously for Arizona’s midterm elections, they are vindicating in a way. Arizona politicians have long argued that they are able to elect anti-immigrant officials because the state’s Latino citizens simply don’t vote—in spite of the fact that they make up 30 percent of the population.
The new report, in combination with Truthout’s investigation, reveals just the opposite. Minority populations in Arizona do vote, but they are actively and frequently disenfranchised by a system set up to impede their suffrage.
Voting against Arizona’s immigration detention system
And, naturally, corruption at the polls begets corruption in government. The Latino votes that were invalidated last election season were a boon to the private detention industry, which is now profiting from the slew of anti-immigrant laws it helped to write.
As Elyse Foley of the Washington Independent notes, Arizona’s SB 1070 was written by a lobbying group funded by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the single largest provider of private detention facilities in the country. Arizona governor Jan Brewer (R) has particularly close ties to CCA, as two members of her staff either work, or used to work, for the company.
Obviously, CCA stands to benefit considerably by any legislation that increases the immigrant detention population—regardless of how that goal is achieved.
Getting people to the polls is essential to fixing the broken immigration system. With the country deeply divided over the immigration, hundreds of thousands of people languishing in detention, and countless youth waiting to become part of the system, those who can vote, must.
Undocumented student and DREAM activist David Cho said it best when he urged young people to vote in a video for Campus Progress. “While members of congress may have the power to vote for or against important legislation like the dream act,” he said, “we have the power to vote for or against every one of them.”
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Immigration reform activists... more
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After months of intense debate over the Obama administration’s efforts to revamp our immigration system, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has made a decisive, though piecemeal, move on immigration reform by adding the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act as an amendment to the defense authorization bill.
The proposed DREAM Act would provide a path to citizenship for immigrant youth who commit to two years of military service or college. It would potentially grant legal permanent status to 825,000 young people, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Reid’s announcement this week is just the latest example of a growing, nationwide backlash against the rising anti-immigrant sentiment in this country. As more anti-immigrant measures are blocked or reviewed by federal courts, and many others are flatly rejected by local governments, federal lawmakers and reform advocates are once again making a strong push for comprehensive immigration reform.
DREAM Act paves way for new comprehensive reform bill
As Elise Foley of the Washington Independent reports, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) have all come out in favor of Reid’s decision, all while insisting that comprehensive reform is still essential. At an immigration forum attended by more than 500 reform advocates yesterday, Menendez announced plans to introduce an immigration reform bill in the Senate, while Gutierrez announced plans to ask Obama to freeze non-criminal deportations until immigration reform has passed.
Dream Act vote unites immigration reform advocates
In particular, Guttierez’s support for passing the DREAM Act independent of comprehensive reform is a change of pace. Guttierez previously stood opposed to “piecemeal” reform efforts. The DREAM Act, which has been heavily lobbied by grassroots activists and has proven much more popular than any other proposed reform bill, was a point of contention among reform activists. While prominent pro-immigrant groups called for including the DREAM Act in a comprehensive reform package, DREAM activists decided to chart their own course.
Gutierrez’s change of heart may have been prompted by widespread frustration on the part of reform advocates, who had hoped to make headway on comprehensive immigration reform as early as last year.
He’s not alone. As Julianne Hing notes at ColorLines, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) quickly endorsed Reid’s decision, despite its past criticisms of DREAM activists’ unilateral approach. The CHC was careful to downplay the intra-movement tension that has come to define the DREAM Act, in favor of presenting a unified front on immigration reform. For DREAM activists, the endorsement is a welcome move, and gives credence to Reid’s decisive move on the bill.
For local governments, cost outweighs ideology
Meanwhile, the anti-immigrant movement is starting to lose steam, as more localities are outright rejecting popular anti-immigrant measures. They fear inviting costly lawsuits and garnering unwanted attention from the federal government. AlterNet’s Seth Hoy reports that Tomball, Texas and Fremont, Nebraska are the latest cities to opt against strict anti-immigrant enforcement ordinances. Similarly wary of attracting exorbitant lawsuits, legislators in Ohio and Idaho are feverishly revising their own, once-embraced versions of Arizona’s SB 1070.
They have cause for concern. While Arizona has managed to collect $3.6 million in donations to defend SB 1070, other state governments haven’t been so lucky. One city in Texas has already spent $3.2 million defending its three anti-immigrant ordinances.
Federal courts pull no punches on anti-immigrant laws
In another major blow to the anti-immigrant crusade, a federal appeals court blocked an infamous Hazleton, Pennsylvania law that bred copycat bills in several other states. If enforced, the law would have penalized landlords and businesses who rented to or employed undocumented immigrants.
On the same day, the Supreme Court set a date to hear the case against another Arizona law that threatens to penalize businesses for employing undocumented immigrants. The 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, which is based on the Hazleton law, is the first anti-immigrant measure to ever come before the Supreme Court—and with good reason, as the law continues to have a devastating impact on scores of undocumented workers.
As I note for Campus Progress, the Arizona law is one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s primary tools in his own crusade to rid Maricopa County of unauthorized immigrants. The law contains a provision stipulating that undocumented immigrants who obtain employment with the use of a fake ID are guilty of committing a class 4 felony which, in Arizona, means automatic jail without bail. This has contributed to Arizona’s notoriously high rate of immigration-related prosecutions and deportations.
But, if the Hazleton victory is any indication, the Supreme Court case could mean that undocumented workers in Arizona can look forward to a reprieve from Arpaio’s worksite raids sometime in the near future.
Of course, with elections coming up, immigration hawks aren’t going to give in anytime soon. Yet, with anti-immigrant legislation getting blocked left and right, and the DREAM Act gaining steam among newly-unified reform activists, one has reason to be optimistic.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After months of intense debate... more
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by Catherine Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After signing a controversial $600 million border security bill last week, President Barack Obama is drawing fire from immigration reform advocates and anti-immigrant conservatives alike. While the former argue that the new security measures are a step backwards for comprehensive immigration reform, the latter say the bill does too little to secure our borders.
Arizona’s SB 1070 was a challenge to the federal government’s ability to resolve the immigration issue, and the Obama administration took a strong stood against it. The border security bill is almost certainly a demonstration of the administration’s might. But for what, and at whose expense?
The further right the president moves on immigration, the more absurd the opposition’s tactics become. Anti-immigration activists are now directing their ire towards the unborn children of immigrants. Meanwhile, immigration activists in Arizona are butting heads with an increasingly vocal gang of Tea Party members and have yet to see any positive change as a result of the federal lawsuit.
Obama gets an F
At The American Prospect, Adam Serwer argues that Obama’s immigration policies have failed the reform movement, and that they have also failed to bring anti-immigrant conservatives into the fold:
…While President Obama talks like an immigration moderate, in practice his actions are those of an unapologetic immigration hawk who has tightened border security without fulfilling his promise of immigration reform. […] On matters of border security, the administration is doing just about everything a Republican might do in his place, which means that Republicans have had to go to even greater extremes just to provide an excuse for not going along.
The extremist crusade against the 14th amendment, which grants automatic citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., is just one example of the lengths to which some conservatives will go to defy an administration whose immigration policies are already remarkably conservative.
Exposing the myth of the “anchor baby”
True to form, those calling for a repeal of the 14th amendment are now outdoing one another in an effort to appear even more extremely anti-immigrant. This week’s “terror baby” threat has eclipsed last week’s “anchor baby” threat, as some conservatives claim that pregnant immigrants are not only coming to the U.S. to give birth, but to raise their American babies as terrorists.
Robin Templeton of GritTv and Seth Hoy of AlterNet jumped on the issue this week. Both argue that, in far too many cases, the citizenship of an immigrant’s children has little bearing on whether or not she stays in the country, let alone become a U.S. citizen.
Templeton drives the point home by citing the case of Fatoumata Gassama, mother of six U.S. citizens, who fled Senegal to escape genital mutilation and is now faced with deportation. If deported, Templeton writes, “She will have no choice but to return with her children…including her 4 daughters, who would almost certainly be subjected to the same torture from which their mother sought refuge in the United States.”
The “anchor baby” threat is just the latest in a long list of sensational and unfounded claims put forth to demonize immigrants. According to the anti-immigrant contingent, we are at risk of losing jobs to immigrants, losing social services to immigrants, and even being criminally victimized by immigrants. Propagating such baseless misinformation is a common tactic, as most may remember from the health care reform debates.
Checking in on Arizona
Meanwhile in the nation’s anti-immigrant epicenter, Arizona, Tea Partiers are enjoying their heyday, and immigrants’ rights activists have yet to see any positive change resulting from the federal lawsuit against SB 1070.
As Naima Ramos-Chapman reports at Colorlines, gun-toting tea party activists kicked off the week with a border rally headlined by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who advertised some of his own immigration solutions including “a pre-emptive strike to hunt down immigrants on the Mexican side of the border.”
Arpaio’s apparent disregard for Mexico’s sovereignty notwithstanding, his anti-immigrant zeal is nothing new. As Aura Bogado reports for Mother Jones, the sheriff tormented immigrants for years before SB 1070 became a hot topic, indiscriminately rounding up people of color and jailing them under such poor conditions that many have left prison severely injured, while others have died.
On top of that, federal prosecutions of immigrants in Arizona are at a record high this year. According to Elise Foley at the Washington Independent, newly released data shows that immigration cases made up 84.5 percent of prosecutions in Arizona.
That’s good news, no doubt, to Arpaio. Maricopa county ranks among the highest in its prosecutions of non-criminal immigrants. Such findings are harder for reform advocates to swallow, particularly in light of Obama’s repeated assurances that his immigration measures primarily target criminals. The divide between Obama’s promises and the reality of the situation on the ground is glaring, and anti-immigrant forces know it.
In Arizona, for instance, both the state legislature and Governor Jan Brewer remain defiant even in the face of the federal lawsuit against SB 1070 (which itself challenged the president’s resolve on immigration reform), and have since passed or introduced other anti-immigrant bills, in addition to several currently in the works—Nicole Guidotti-Hernandez at Ms. has a good breakdown of recently passed and pending anti-immigrant legislation in Arizona.
Curbing Arizona’s reach
But while numerous states have come out in support of SB 1070, many copy-cat bills have already failed in other states. Many more are likely to meet the same end.
Suman Raghunathan at YES! Magazine suggests that states are broadly rejecting Arizona—thereby demonstrating that the intense anti-immigrant sentiment currently dominating the media belongs to only a small faction of extremists. Raghunathan furthermore argues that it is actually the anti-immigrant movement that is failing.
Given the highly-criticized events at the federal level, such as the signing of the new border security bill and the expansion of the Secure Communities program, Raghunathan’s position is optimistic, to say the least. But maybe, at this point in the game, the immigration reform camp needs a little optimism.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Catherine Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
After signing a controversial $600... more
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