immigration

Mondays Musings: All They Have Is Fear Itself

In a time of challenge, the GOP panics - The one upsmanship for who could be harder on Muslims we saw among Republican President candidates this past week was a powerful reminder that the GOP has long ceased being a “conservative” party and has descended into a far more pernicious “reactionary” period. This is a subject I have discussed at length over the years, including in this long form magazine piece and in this recent piece about how fear will drive the Republicans this election cycle. The fear of modernity that is driving the reactionary right these days is perhaps the most significant force in American politics today, one that is crying out for an equally muscular and modern liberalism to challenge it head on.

Another example of this kneejerky fear of others and foreign threats was the House GOP’s terribly disappointing reaction to the Paris attacks. Of all the things the House GOP could have done last week, the Ryan-led House rushed out a bill – with no hearings and overriding their own internal rules about time needed to consider legislation – making it far tougher for the US to admit Syrian refugees. Regardless of the merits of the bill, the haste in which it was rushed out made it appear to be designed more to undermine and embarrass the President in the middle of an important foreign trip than to develop a more effective, bi-partisan response to the growing threat of the Islamic State. Paul Ryan’s choice was craven, nasty politics in its purest form in a time of challenge, the very opposite of patriotism.

Contrast this not ready for prime time behavior with that of the Democrats: the President continued his important trip to Asia, selling among other things his newly negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement; and Hillary Clinton gave a thoughtful and mature speech about defeating the Islamic State. Senate Democrats also made a valuable contribution to this nascent debate, countering Ryan’s refugee with a proposal to close the NRA supported loophole that allows those on the terror watch list to legally buy guns in the US (something we think has happened several thousand times, and yes this is a real debate).

There can be no doubt that the nation needs to both develop a better response to the Islamic State and have a respectful, public debate about it. Given how the two parties responded last week to Paris, I am proud of how the Democrats have responded, and worried about where the GOP is headed at a time when we need to come together, work with our allies and be smart (see here for my thoughts on the US should move forward now “After Paris.”)

The US remains a welcoming, generous nation - And while I disagree with Ryan’s refugee bill, I also want to challenge the assertions by some that we are an ungenerous nation when it comes to allowing immigrants into the US. Since 1950 the US has allowed close to 50 million immigrants into the US legally. Another 4 million refugees have resettled here, and another 11 million or so have come here without authorization. In the past 65 years, the US has absorbed 65 million new immigrants – an extraordinary number, equal to 1/5th of our total population today. We are currently taking in 1 million new legal immigrants every year in the US; so over the next 100 years at current rates we will take in 100 million more new immigrants. This graph does a good job capturing both the scale of the recent migration into the US, and its diversity. So while we may head into the Thanksgiving break disappointed with the GOP, we should not for a moment buy into the argument that America is anything but a generous and welcoming nation to immigrants from throughout the world.

See the graph below for US immigration trends ("200 Years of Immigration to the U.S.", Natalia Bronshtein).

I remain convinced that the Democrats should make it far more explicit on their strategy for improving the immigration system. I offered this three part plan as a starting point, one that would include reintroducing the House Democrats immigration bill from 2014, fully funding the Vice President’s Central American plan and supporting the aggressive efforts by this Administration – and repeatedly blocked by the GOP – to make the deportation of dangerous criminals the highest priority of our immigration enforcement system.  Pro-reform advocates should stop playing defense now and go out and make it clear how we want to modernize and improve America's terribly broken immigration system. 

Polling/National Landscape – The GOP field saw changes last week: Trump’s lead increased across the nation and in the early primary states; Carson, as we predicted, has begun to fade; Cruz and Rubio are making meaningful gains. If current trends continue the GOP race could soon be a three way among Trump, Rubio and Cruz with a large group in the back of the field hanging on by their fingernails and not much else.

The Democratic side saw Hillary having another good week, appearing Presidential and competent in the days after Paris. Bernie Sanders, however, choose to go ahead and give a major address on “democratic socialism,” an act that seemed to reinforce both the liabilities and limitations of his spirited candidacy. What should be worrisome to the Democrats, however, is the initial hit in the polls Obama took this week. After what was the very best run he had had in almost three years in Gallup, the President lost 5 or so points in the last few days. It is a reminder to Democrats that while there is now great optimism about the revitalized Clinton campaign, the performance of the President over the next year will matter as much to 2016 as what she does. It will be important for the President to return from his foreign trip and take control of the substance and politics of this debate about how to best rid the world of the Islamic State and bring a better day to Syria and the broader Middle East.

"Monday Musings" is a new column looking at the national political landscape published most Mondays here on the NDN site.  You find previous versions here

Challenging The GOP's Arguments About Sanctuary Cities and Immigration

The piece was originally entiteld "On Immigration Enforcement, The GOP's Decade of Blocking Sensible Reform."  We have been recirculating it of late, for it remains helpful to understand the current broader debate about immigration.  - Simon Rosenberg, Nov 2017

This week we will see, even by Washington standards, a breathtaking level of cynicism from the national Republican Party on the issue of immigration enforcement (the data backing up the arguments in this piece can be found here, here and here).

For a decade now there has been broad consensus that the huge wave of undocumented immigrants who came into the United States from the early 1990s to the later part of 00s needed federal legislation to resolve; that this enormous influx has overwhelmed law enforcement and immigration courts responsible for managing domestic immigration enforcement, degrading the integrity of a system built for a much lower level of unauthorized migration; that local enforcement desperately wanted to spend their limited resources on going after serious criminals and not law-abiding, job holding undocumented immigrants; that enforcing immigration law is a federal not a local responsibility, something reinforced repeatedly in the courts over the past decade; that the passage of comprehensive reform would have created an orderly process allowing law enforcement agencies at all levels to better focus on the imprisonment and deportation of serious criminals.

As we head into a week of significant debate then on immigration enforcement, it is important to remember a few things:

- Since Comprehensive Immigration Reform was first introduced by Senators Ted Kennedy and John McCain in 2005, Republicans in Congress have blocked its passage on four separate occasions. The most significant instances came in 2006 and 2013/4, when the House Republicans refused to even consider sensible bi-partisan bills passed by the Senate and supported at the time by President Bush and then President Obama. Each of these bills would have helped unclogged an overwhelmed immigration enforcement system in the United States, making incidents like what happened in San Francisco far less likely.

- In 2010, recognizing that the primary method we had for helping unclog the overwhelmed immigration enforcement system – CIR – was not going to happen in the President’s first term, DHS implemented new enforcement priorities known as the “Morton Memos” which prioritized illegal border crossers and undocumented immigrants with serious criminal history for deportation. These reforms brought immediate change to the huge immigration enforcement system in the US, and have resulted in the deportation of more serious criminals and has helped keep illegal entries into the US at historic lows.

- In 2013 and again in 2014, the House Republicans passed legislation designed to overturn these smart reforms, making it impossible for example for DHS to prioritize felons like the suspect in the San Francisco shooting for rapid removal through the immigration enforcement system. And the House doubled down on this approach by threatening to shut all of DHS down earlier this year in a standoff over the implementation of these reforms, including the new Priority Enforcement Program. PEP as it is known was launched last year to forge a higher level of cooperation between federal and local law enforcement to more rapidly remove serious criminals from the country.

Finally, it must be said that the attacks on President Obama’s immigration enforcement record are ridiculous. The President has deported more unauthorized immigrants than any President in American history; after a decade and a half of the US absorbing half a million new undocumented immigrants into the county, the net flow of new immigrants on this President’s watch has dropped to zero (an extraordinary public policy achievement); crime along the entire US side of the border is way down, and the two safest large cities in the US today sit on the border, El Paso and San Diego; reforms initiated by DHS throughout the Obama Presidency, including a new round in late 2014, have made the deportation of violent criminals the highest priority for our immigration system. All of the policies used to achieve these outcomes have been opposed by the House Republicans, and further reform, comprehensive immigration reform, has been repeatedly blocked.

So a proper read of the last decade has been one party, the Democrats, have repeatedly advanced proposals and policy that have strengthened our immigration enforcement system and made the rapid deportation of criminals a priority. The other party, has repeatedly blocked sensible bi-partisan reforms which would strengthened our immigration enforcement system, and have passed additional legislation preventing DHS from continuing policies which have clearly made our border safer and immigration system far more focused on deporting murderers and not moms. If there is a national Party to blame for the tragic event in San Francisco it is far more the fault of the Republicans than the Democrats.

The national GOP’s effort to politicize the tragic shooting in San Francisco is an act of breathtaking and insulting cynicism. For a decade now they have blocked reforms and legislation designed to make incidents like this one far less likely. The new legislation being discussed to crack down on “Sanctuary Cities” will only make a terribly broken system worse, it will generate enormous political ill-will between local and federal law enforcement making the management of our entire national system far more difficult. These bills are hasty, political and ill-thought out. They will only make a serious national problem much worse and seem far more designed to change the subject from Donald Trump’s recent attacks on legal, law abiding immigrants to the US than to solve a vexing national problem exacerbated by their refusal to advance sensible reform over a decade of intense debate. 

If indeed the national Republican Party is serious about building on the extraordinary gains we’ve made in immigration enforcement in recent years, it can:

1) Pass comprehensive reform. HR15 introduced by the Democrats last year included the GOP’s Homeland Security Committee’s package of immigration enforcement provisions. CIR will help allow law enforcement and immigration courts to better target and more rapidly remove serious threats to public safety

2) Fully fund and support the post Morton era reforms by DHS, including the expansion of PEP. These reforms have already produced real results and improvements in border security and domestic enforcement.

3) Fund the Administration’s Central America proposal to help staunch the flow of unauthorized migrants from nearby El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Last summer the House GOP deeply politicized the border crisis, and is now unwilling to follow through on sensible investments which will make future events like this far less likely while improving regional security and economic growth.

This latest focus on "Sanctuary Cities" is another disappointing episode in the GOP's decade long commitment on immigration reform to put politics over smart, sound solutions to a vexing national challenge. 

NDN Analysis: Total Removals, Returns of Unauthorized Immigrants Plummet Under Obama

Over the past several months, NDN/NPI has published a series of analyses which argue that through greater investment, better strategies and deeper cooperation with Mexico, the Obama Administration has made the immigration system better and the border safer while seeing a dramatic expansion of trade with Mexico. 

Today we release a simple analysis which sheds new light on the hotly debated issue of deportations.  Using a broader, more accurate measure of the number of unauthorized immigrants removed from the country since the first year of the Bush Presidency, we find that in fact the total number of “removals[i]” and “returns[ii]” has actually plummeted during the Obama Presidency.  In 2012, the Obama Administration removed and returned almost a million people less than the height of the Bush Presidency.  And every year of the Obama Presidency has seen a sizable decline in the total number of unauthorized migrants removed or returned to their countries (See this piece by the WSJ's Laura Meckler discussing the report). 

Unauthorized Migrants Removed or Returned, FY 2001-2012[iii]

Total DHS Returns and Removals, FY 2001-2012[iv]

So while we do not yet have the full picture of 2013, it is unlikely that the total number of removals and returns increased, as the total number of “removals” (deportations) measured by ICE fell by ten percent from 409,849 to 368,644 from FY 2012 to 2013.

For years, NDN has argued that the Obama Administration’s management of its border and immigration enforcement responsibilities deserves far more praise it has received.  Despite deeply rancorous politics, a very real set of operational and security challenges, and the Republicans’ refusal to adopt long overdue and thoughtful reform, things in the border region are clearly better today.  Crime on the US side of the border is down; net migration is zero today; only 10,000 or so non-border-crosser non-criminal unauthorized migrants were deported in 2013; while US trade with Mexico has almost doubled.  It is our belief that history will declare the Administration’s management of this tough basket of issues a resounding policy success.  For more on this record of success and progress, see below. 

Obama Administration Immigration and Border Enforcement: Key Stats

  • Crime is down along the US side of the border.  The two largest border cities, El Paso and San Diego, are the two safest large cities in America today.
  • Four of the five high-traffic migration corridors across the US-Mexico border are already at or near the Senate bill’s goal of a 90% effectiveness rate.
  • Net migration from Mexico has fallen from its 2001 peak of 770,000 people per year to zero today.
  • Since President Obama took office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has made steps to prioritize removing criminals and recent border crossers. ICE reports that in FY 2013, 82% of the unauthorized immigrants it arrested and removed from the interior US had a criminal conviction.  About two thirds of all 2013 ICE removals were people arrested at the border. Of 368,644 removals, only 10,336 individuals were not convicted of a crime, repeat immigration violators, immigration fugitives, or at the border.
  • In 2012 the Obama Administration implemented Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) to allow about one million DREAMers, unauthorized immigrants brought to the US as youths, to work and study legally in the US.
  • Trade with Mexico has jumped from $340 billion in 2009 to about $550 billion in 2013.  Mexico is America’s 3rd largest trading partner, and 2nd largest export market.  $1.3 billion worth of goods and 1 million people cross the 2000 mile US-Mexico border each day.

[i] “Removals are the compulsory and confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States based on an order of removal. An alien who is removed has administrative or criminal consequences placed on subsequent reentry owing to the fact of the removal” (DHS).

[ii] “Returns are the confirmed movement of an inadmissible or deportable alien out of the United States not based on an order of removal” (DHS).

[iii] Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ENFORCE Alien Removal Module (EARM), February 2013; Enforcement Integrated Database (EID), November 2012.

[iv] Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ENFORCE Alien Removal Module (EARM), February 2013; Enforcement Integrated Database (EID), November 2012; FY 2013 ICE Immigration Removals. Graph prepared by NDN/NPI staff.

Is America Still a Top Destination for Immigrants?

American exceptionalism has become a theme of our immigration debate.  From both sides, we hear that America is a uniquely desirable place that, for good or ill, draws an outsized share of the world’s immigrants.  The truth of this matter is that large-scale immigration is a worldwide phenomenon tied to contemporary globalization.  Porous borders and rising education levels have allowed tens of millions of people in developing societies to become more mobile, and new communications and transportation technologies give everyone access to information about other countries and ways to get there.  Perhaps most important, rising global demand has created vast new opportunities for foreign labor – whether it’s to bolster shrinking labor pools across much of Europe, provide services in thinly-populated, oil-rich countries in the Middle East, or cater to wealthy global elites in dozens of tax havens.

So, despite dire warnings that U.S. immigration reform will set off another invasion of America by new immigrants, the data show that many other countries are stronger magnets for foreign workers than the United States.  In fact, when it comes to foreign-born residents, America looks fairly average.

It is true that more foreign-born people live in America today than anywhere else.  But that’s mainly because we are a very large country, with more native-born people as well than anywhere except China and India.  And most of our immigrants came here with our permission: Two-thirds of all foreign-born people living in the United States are naturalized citizens or legal permanent resident aliens, and another 4 percent have legal status as temporary migrants.  That leaves about 30 percent who are undocumented.   

Consider the percentages of foreign-born residents living today in various nations:  America with just under 13 percent of its population foreign-born, according to U.N. data, ranks 40th in the world for immigrants as a share of the population.  By contrast, across the 10 most immigrant-intensive countries, foreign-born people account for between 77 percent and 42 percent of their total populations. 

These unusually high proportions of immigrants appear to be generally linked to global trade and finance.  In the top 10, for example, we first set aside the special cases of Macau and Hong Kong, whose Chinese populations are counted as foreign-born, and Vatican City.  Of the remaining seven nations, four are in the Middle-East – Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain – where tens of thousands of foreign workers are needed to help meet global demand for oil and provide services for native populations grown wealthy off of their oil.  The other three countries in the top 10 are global tax havens and financial centers – Andorra, Monaco, and Singapore -- that draw thousands of global elites followed by foreign workers to provide their services.  

The next 10 most immigrant-heavy countries, where foreign-born persons comprise between 42 percent and 22 percent of their populations, include five more tax havens (Nauru in Micronesia, Luxembourg, Lichtenstein, San Marino, and Switzerland) and three more oil rich, Middle Eastern countries (Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Brunei).  The two others in this group are the special cases of Israel, where Jewish national identity is the draw, and Jordan, home to tens of thousands of people displaced by the Iraqi and Israel-Arab conflicts.

Beyond the top 20 countries for foreign-born residents, numerous other nations that more closely resemble the United States, in economic opportunities and social benefits, also draw immigrants in greater relative numbers than America.  For example, some 19 percent to 20 percent of the populations of Australia and Canada are foreign-born, compared to our 13 percent.  Austria, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway also lead the United States in immigrants as a share of their populations, as do the smaller and less-advanced nations of Estonia, Latvia, Belize, Ukraine, Croatia, and Cyprus.   A similar pattern emerges from OECD data covering 25 industrialized countries from 2001 to 2010.  Over that decade, the share of the American population born somewhere else has averaged 12.1 percent.  By this measure, the United States trails not only such countries as Australia, Austria, Canada, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Israel, as noted above, but also Sweden, Germany, and Belgium. 

This pattern also does not change much when we look at the most recent, annual “net migration rates” of various countries (2012).  That’s a standard demographic measure calculated by taking the number of people coming into a country, less the number of people who leave, and divide by 1,000.   Using that measure, the United States ranked 26th in the world.   At 3.6 net immigrants per-1,000 in 2012, we trail far behind three oil-rich countries averaging 24.1 net immigrants per-1,000 (Qatar, UAE, and Bahrain), 13 tax havens averaging 10.8 per-1,000 (from the British Virgin Islands and the Isle of Man, to the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg), and two countries that have become sanctuaries for refugees (Botswana and Djibouti at 14.9 per 1,000).  In addition, at least four other advanced countries also had much higher net migration rates last year -- Australia, Canada, Spain and Italy, averaging 5.3 net immigrants per-1,000 or a rate nearly 50 percent higher than for the United States.

Given the role of labor demand in migration flows and the particular demand in the United States for skilled workers, it is also unsurprising that, according to the Census Bureau, almost 70 percent of foreign-born people residing here, by age 25 or older, are high school graduates.  In fact, nearly 30 percent hold college degrees, the same share as native-born Americans.  On the less-skilled part of the distribution, of course, we find many undocumented male immigrants.  But as we showed in a 2011 analysis for NDN and the New Politics Institute,  undocumented male immigrants also have the highest labor participation rates in the country:  Among men age 18 to 64 years, 94 percent of undocumented immigrants work or actively seek work, compared to 83 percent of native-born Americans, and 85 percent of immigrants with legal status.

On balance, the data show that the United States is not home to an unusually large share of immigrants, legal and otherwise.  As globalization has increased the demand for labor in dozens of countries while lowering the barriers to people moving to other places for work, America has become fairly average as a worldwide destination.   

This post was originally published in Dr. Shapiro's blog

Generational Cycle Is Turning on Immigration

This article originally appeared in the National Journal

Americans have been of two minds about immigration almost since the founding of the Republic. On the one hand, we swell with pride at the welcoming words of Emma Lazarus’s Statue of Liberty sonnet: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free,” and coverage of the swearing in of new citizens from around the globe has become a staple of July Fourth television newscasts.

By contrast, each new large wave of newcomers has led to the emergence of nativist groups and to laws designed to minimize immigration. The arrival of millions of German and Irish immigrants before the Civil War led to the creation of the anti-immigrant Order of the Star Spangled Banner and the electoral successes of the American (or Know Nothing) Party in 1854 and 1856. The waves of Eastern and Southern European immigrants in the late-19th and early-20th centuries produced a revival of the Ku Klux Klan and the passage of a 1924 law, which imposed low nationality quotas on immigrants from that part of Europe as well as Asia and Africa. 

But history also indicates that, although mixed attitudes about it may endure, concern with immigration and fear of immigrants rises and falls as new generations with different attitudes emerge. 

A February national survey of nearly 1,500 Americans between the ages of 18 and 64, conducted by communication research firm Frank N. Magid Associates, suggests that the United States is about to enter a period in which the debate about immigration should become less contentious, primarily because of the increasing presence within the electorate of the tolerant and diverse millennial generation, a cohort now in its teens and 20s. Millennials will represent one out of every three eligible voters by the end of this decade.  

According to Magid, about three in 10 Americans are completely opposed to all immigration—legal and illegal—while an identical number perceive a need for even undocumented immigration, believing that “the United States needs illegal immigrants to do work others won’t.”

The attitudes of other Americans fall between these extremes. The majority agree that “immigration has made America a great country” and that “immigration is an American legacy worth keeping.” About 43 percent would favor making their community “immigrant friendly.” At the same time, 71 percent say that while they favor legal immigration, “illegal immigration is out of control.” Just over 40 percent agrees that “immigration is making America worse,” while only 30 percent disagrees.

Millennials, on the other hand, tend to be more positive about immigrants. For most millennials, immigration is not an abstract or academic matter. It is as up close and personal as their parents, their friends, their classmates, and their next-door neighbors. Nearly one out of five of them have at least one immigrant parent, and almost 30 percent of millennials are Hispanic or Asian—groups containing large numbers of recent immigrants.

As a result, millennials agree more strongly than older generations that “immigration is an American legacy worth keeping,” 57 percent to 52 percent. The majority, 51 percent, also agrees that their community should be “immigrant friendly,” compared with 39 percent of older generations.

They are also less likely to believe than their elders that “illegal immigration is out of control,” 67 percent to 75 percent. Millennials are also likely to accept the proposition that the country “needs illegal immigrants to do the work others won’t,” 37 percent to 22 percent of older generations.

Generational theory says it is the historic role of “civic” generations, such as today’s millennials and last century’s GI generation, to be the cohort in which the acculturation and toleration of newcomers to America reaches its apex.

A major theme of GI generation writers ranging from novelist Herman Wouk, (Marjorie Morningstar), to playwright Neil Simon (Biloxi Blues , Brighton Beach Memoirs) and sociologist Will Herberg (Protestant, Catholic, Jew) was the depiction of the way in which GIs of various ethnicities emerged from their immigrant homes and neighborhoods to achieve acceptance within the larger society.

In 1965, it was a GI generation-dominated Congress and GI president, Lyndon Johnson, that passed immigration-reform legislation overturning the nationality quotas established in 1924. Now, as a new ethnically diverse civic generation emerges in large numbers, American politics will renew its cyclical rhythm and return to policies that once again tolerate and include immigrants from every part of the globe.  

Full disclosure: Michael D. Hais retired in 2006 as vice president of entertainment research from Frank N. Magid Associates after a 22-year career with Magid and continues to do occasional work for the firm.

 

NDN Unveils 21st Century Border Initiative YouTube Page

For months, members of the 21st Century Border Initiative have been busy cultivating a network of stakeholders throughout the Southwest and capturing their thoughts about the state of the U.S. - Mexican border region. Today we're proud to announce the release of a 21st Century Border Initiative YouTube page, a great portal for hearing directly from those in leadership positions – Mayors, Sheriffs, businesspeople – about the extraordinary progress made along the border region in recent years.

Through a new and better strategy, more resources and greater cooperation with our Mexican partners, the border region is much safer today. Crime is down, illegal migration has slowed, seizures of illegal drugs, guns and bulk cash has soared, all while trade and legal border crossings have increased. Despite the very real challenge of the cartel violence, the US side of the border has seen great progress in recent years. The voices on our new site testify to the progress which has made, and the to the very real challenges which remain.

Our inaugural 21st Century Border Project event was held over a year ago, and featured CPB Commissioner Alan Bersin and the Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan discussing the merits of the United States and Mexico working together to create a true 21st century border, one where more good things happen – trade, legal migration – and fewer undesirable things - flows of illegal guns, drugs, people and bulk cash. The video can be seen here. The full transcript of the event can be read here.

Some of the people featured on the new site:

Mayor of Nogales Arturo R. Garino, AZ: Mayor Garino is a former City of Nogales Firefighter and a former Law Enforcement Officer both in the City and Santa Cruz County. He Served over three and a half years as Public Works Director for the City of Nogales under Mayor Cesar Rios, Mayor Marco Antonio Lopez Jr., Mayor Albert Kramer. He is currently the Mayor of Nogales Arizona. In his video Mayor Garino talks about the importance of how the Nogales border is safer then ever.

Vice Mayor of Tucson Richard Fimbres, AZ: Richard Fimbres is a lifelong resident of Ward 5 and Tucson, graduate of St. Ambrose and Tucson High Schools and a 20-year veteran of the Pima County sheriff's Department. He is a Vietnam-era veteran of the United States Army having served as a military policeman, patrol and narcotics dog handler. In his video the Vice Mayor Fimbres talks about the importance of Mexican tourism to Arizona's economy.

El Paso Mayor John F. Cook, TX: John Cook is Mayor of El Paso, Texas. Cook formerly served as president of the El Paso Health Care Facilities Financing Corporation and El Paso Housing Finance Corporation.In his video Mayor Cook discusses the importance of legal migration for the economies of border cities.

Sheriff Tony Estrada, AZ: Sheriff Tony Estrada was first sworn into office on January 1, 1993. Sheriff Estrada was born in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, immigrated with his family as an infant and grew up in Nogales, Arizona. In his video Sheriff Estrada talks about how the border in Arizona is safer then it has ever been.

Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, AZ: Clarence W. Dupnik has served as the Sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, since his appointment in February 1980. County voters endorsed the choice nine months later by electing him to his first four-year term and ratified that decision by re-electing him six additional times. In his video Sheriff Dupnik talks about the dangers of the political rhetoric surrounding the border.

Sheriff Lupe Trevino, TX: Guadalupe "Lupe" Trevino is Sheriff of Hidalgo County, Texas. He currently serves on the State of Texas Homeland Security Office Mass Migration Committee and on the Executive Committee of the Texas Radio Interoperability Coalition. In his video Sheriff Trevino discusses how the border is much safer then political figures would have you believe.

Ruben Barrales, CEO SD Chamber of Commerce, CA: Ruben Barrales is President and CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce. He served in the White House for five years as deputy assistant to President George W. Bush, where he was the President’s liaison to state and local elected officials. In his video Ruben talks about the importance of economic security along the southwest border.

Marco Rubio: Is a great last name enough to woo national Latino voters?

Marco Rubio: Latino friend or foe?  That's the question posed in today's Al Dia:

Líderes hispanos y activistas de inmigración esperaban que Rubio tomara una postura más moderada en vistas de una campaña electoral, pero en su lugar, el republicano ha tomado una postura de mayor oposición al DREAM-Act, y se refiere a cualquier medida que no esté relacionada con la seguridad fronteriza y al verificación de estatus migratorio para trabajar, como “amnistía”.

In short, activists continue to hope that Senator Rubio's position on immigration will evolve...back to what it was.  From Scott Wong at Politico:

as a state lawmaker in 2003 and 2004, Rubio co-sponsored a bill providing an in-state tuition break for high-achieving children of illegal immigrants. As speaker of the Florida House, Rubio blocked several bills from coming to the floor, saying it was Washington’s responsibility to solve the immigration problem.

But rather than stepping up on the issue, Rubio has stepped back.  From Politico:

...backed by grass-roots tea party activists on the campaign trail, Rubio tacked right on the immigration issue and never looked back. He endorsed Arizona’s controversial immigration law that is being challenged by the Obama administration in the courts. And he opposed an earlier version of the DREAM Act that was twice filibustered by Republicans in the Senate.

“My position is unchanged from the campaign that I ran on,” Rubio said. “I’m not here to break campaign promises.”

Marco Rubio is undoubtedly smart and charming.  His future is bright.  He has an opportunity here to demonstrate leadership and to act as a bridge between disparate communities.  Instead, he is playing it safe.  That is the real crisis of leadership. 

Rubio's name is freqently mentioned as a Republican vice-presidential candidate.  The implication is that having a Hispanic on the ticket makes it easier for Republicans to win in the Sunbelt.  But a last name isn't enough to woo Latino voters.  While Rubio carried the Cuban vote, he did not carry the non-Cuban vote in his own state.  If Rubio wants to be a national player he will need to take up the mantle of reform for his people, for his party, for America.  If he doesn't, it will be a big loss for him, for his party and for the people who sent him to congress. 

This Week in the 21st Century America Project

This weekend, singer Shakira was honored by the Harvard Foundation for her artistic and humanitarian work.  After the ceremony, Shakira offered a message of hope to the Latino community:

The Grammy Award-winning singer...said Latino immigrants in the U.S. facing various anti-immigrant bills will have "justice" as public awareness about their plight grows.

"Justice will come. I'm sure," Shakira told The Associated Press after the award ceremony. "Wherever there is ... a kid, who could be the son or the daughter of a Latino immigrant, who cannot attend a school in the United States of America, that kid should be a concern to all of us and our responsibility."

Shakira's sentiment is on-point with the results of a Pew Research poll released just last week which show that despite a rise in extreme rhetoric against Hispanic immigrants, including the emergence of a campaign to change the 14th ammendment, a majority of Americans oppose such radical proposals.  According to Bruce Drake at Politics Daily:

Proposals to deny citizenship to what immigration hardliners call "anchor babies" born in the U.S. to illegal immigrant parents are unpopular with the public. Fifty-seven percent oppose changing the Constitution's 14th amendment that grants automatic citizenship to anyone born on American soil. Thirty-nine percent favor changing the amendment and 4 percent are undecided.

Pew also released a different set of research last week - one examining the digital habits of Latinos and African-Americans.  The study found that Latinos have less home broadband access than black Americans but share similar rates of Internet and mobile use. Other key findings include both groups using mobile technology for internet access in the absence of home broadband.  Unsurprisingly, more acculturated Latinos reported greater online usage than their less acculturated peers.  In addition, when researchers controlled for income and education, the numbers were consistent across racial groups.  Jill Duffy has a good rundown of the data here.   

Finally, Chuck Raasch uses the scene in Wisconsin to examine the difference between Millennials and other generation when it comes to cooperation and combat.  You can read it here.

The Evolving Politics of SB1070, Arizona and Immigration Reform

In the last few days I've done a slew of interviews with reporters discussing the politics of SB1070 and the decision by the Department of Justice to declare the law unconstiutional.  The national GOP has gone into big time spin mode on this, declaring from the reporters I've spoken to the DOJ suit is political death for "Democrats in the West."   While that scenerio is possible of course, lets look at what we know about how this debate has played out in recent years. There two things we know for sure:

1) When Latinos are demonized by the GOP there is a backlash.  In California in the 1990s, and in national politics in this past decade, when Republican leaders launch a sustained anti-immigrant, anti-Latino Latinos respond, applying for citizenship in higher numbers, registering in higher numbers, voting in higher numbers, and voting aggressively against the Republican Party.  Given that Latinos now make up 15 percent of the national population, and large percentages of the voting population in major states - CA, FL, TX and key Presidential states - AZ, CO, NM, NV - a big shift in the Hispanic vote can dramatically alter the politics of a community, state and the nation. 

2) The Republicans have not shown that their anti-immigrant position works outside a Republican primary audience.   The polling on immigration has been consistent over the past five years.   About 15-20 percent of the country want the undocumenteds to leave and consider immigration a voting issue.  They are largely base Republican voters.  Hispanics too view immigration as a voting issue.  The rest of the country sees immigration as a second tier issue, trailing way behind more important issues like the bad economy, need for better health and foreign policy matters.  And for most of those who view it as an issue of secondary importance they are comfortable with the solution Congress has been proposing called comprehensive immigration reform (in this recent WaPo poll, for example, 57% support allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the US permanently while also giving majority support to SB1070).

So what this means in campaign terms is that a hard-line anti-immigrant stance can work well in a contested Republican primary - think Jan Brewer - but has not shown the capacity to motivate non-Hispanic general election voters in battleground races.  The Republican Party will have a hard time naming a single race the last several elections where a hard-line anti-immigrant candidate won purely on this issue, and virtually no GOP campaign has spent money on the issue in the last month of any race we've studied. In fact, I've argued before, that the emphasis the GOP has put on immigration has actually been a big negative with swing voters for it reinforces the worst attribute of the GOP of recent years - their willingness to put poliitics over problem solving.  For many their obsession with anti-immigrant politics looks feckless, partisan and helps reinforce their lack of seriousness as a party.  For while immigration matters, of course, it is just not as important as some of the more wild-eyed immigrant haters want to believe it is.  Most Americans are just way too smart for that.

Sometimes ithe anti-immigrant stance doesn't even work in a Republican primary audience.  In the 2008 Presidential election, the most liberal Republican on immigration, John McCain, won his party's nomination.  The anti-immigrant candidate, Tom Tancredo, never received more than 1% in any poll taken during the primary season.  And of course Senator McCain was then beaten by someone much more liberal than he on immigration reform, Barack Obama, who despite his pro-immigration reform stance received the largest vote share a Democratic Presidential candidate had received in 44 years. 

Unfortunately, Politico bought this GOP spin about how the GOP candidates will turn support of SB1070 into a winning regional issue and published this largely unsubstantiated and disapointing piece yesterday. Already, this morning we have a clear repudiation of the national GOP narrative in the largest state in the West, California, where Republican Gubernational candidate Meg Whitman has launched billboards in Spanish proclaiming her opposition to SB1070.  Newsweek has published this thoughtful essay making the case that the DOJ suit is smart politics for Obama. My gut is that this piece is closer to the truth than Politico's slightly hysterical initial take.

Whatever the politics of the DOJ suit are I think the government did the right thing.  Once SB1070 was passed, the federal government had to act.  If SB1070 succeeds we could end up with 50 different immigration policies in the US, not a single federal one.  The President was right last week to challenge Congress to quit kicking the can down the road on immigration reform and step up to build a better immigration system.  The Department of Justice was also right to challenge SB1070, a serious threat to the integrity of our federal immigration system. 

So what do we know about the politics of SB1070? Here is my take:

1) It will make it more likely that there is a large Latino vote against anti-immigrant candidates in the heavily Mexican-American West.

2) Outside of Arizona, I have serious doubts that a hard-line anti-immigrant stance will work for the GOP.  Most anti-immigrant voters in the West have already been motivated by many of the anti-Democratic messages of this cycle, and there just isnt a lot of data or experience to indicate that in this tough economy the GOP will be able to make the issue pop with non-Hispanic audiences beyond their base.  There is evidence and experience, however, which shows that if GOPers continue to talk about the issue deep into the fall it can actually hurt them, as it will help brand the GOPer as one those "more extreme" Republicans, a political brand which has been serially rejected by the American people over the past five years, and a positioning that today remains remarkably unpopular.

3) As the legal, economic and societal costs of SB1070 become better understood, it is very likely that the popularity of SB1070 - an extreme approach to a very real problem - will begin to drop.  From a policy standpoint SB1070 is a bad idea, and overtime I think most folks "in the West" will come to agree. 

4) The way the issue plays in each race in the West will, as Meg Whitman has shown, be determined by how each candidate plays it.   Democrats would be smart to hold firm on demanding a comprehensive national solution and not give into the early politics of this new post SB1070 environment.

That's it for now.  Thoughts welcome of course.  For more on these matters check out my first cut reaction to the DOJ suit and this backgrounder on NDN's work on immigration reform.

A Post Fox News Immigration Appearance Piece of Mail

I was in Simon's office after my afternoon TV appearance discussing immigration when I got this Facebook message.  Simon suggested that I consider sharing it. 

Alicia, did Harvard and your privileged life make you Stupid or Fucked Blind?

You know...I hate to sound like a low-life person but I just have to tell you that I can't stand fucked Liberals like you!

Look! Why don't you come spend a few days down here on the border trenches and see how these people act and then you can speak up on this issue.

You quoted "drunk drivers are being confused with the undocumented criminal" ...Look, are you stupid or ignorant or shelter, "have you ever lived around these fucken people?"

And I am not talking about the the upper class rich Foreigners you are probably used to! I am talking about the disenchanted poor ignorant bastards who are coming over here raping this country?

Well ...let me enlighten you Alicia, they fucked hate us!

They are behind a lot of fucken crime. I know because I work around a lot of these people. And I can tell you that not one person I have met gives a shit about you, me, our way of life and much-less America.

The only fucken reason you fucken Liberals want to cater to these people is because you can't wait for the day you give them the power to VOTE.

That's right! People do know your fucked up agenda.

The problem with this is: "these people do not want to assimilate and they don't want to be American. They hate us.

Read your fucken History Alicia! Read what the Visigoth and all those other nomads did to Rome over 4 centuries. It took them time to build up their numbers but they finally brought Civilization to the brink of extension by defeating Rome from within.

IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT!

IS THAT WHAT YOU FUCKEN PEOPLE WILL SCARFACE JUST TO KEEP YOUr FUCKED UP POWER!

PLEASE KNOW THAT I AM NOT A REPUBLICAN OR WHATEVER. I AM JUST GUY DOING HIS PART. AND WHEN I SEE STUPID EDUCATED NAIVE PEOPLE LIKE YOU COME ON TV TAKING OUT OF YOUr ASS...IT PISSES ME OFF TO MY CORE.

I CAN'T STAND PEOPLE LIKE YOU.

SO HAVE A FUCKEN AWFUL DAY AND I PRAY LIFE ROCKS YOU OFF YOUR SHELTERED PRIVILEGED LIFE.

You fucken stupid people!

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