21st Century America Project

Below, are some of the big stories moving in the Immigration and 21st Century Border news this week, enjoy:

E-Verify To Go Before Congress Today As Business Expresses Mixed Feelings On National Expansion

E-Verify, an employment verification system designed to find undocumented immigrants who are currently working in the country illegally, is set to go before Sub Committee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement in the House today. Read NDN's analysis of the hearing and check back for more tomorrow.

21st Century Border Initiative Webinar: The Governments Border Plan Is Working

NDN is excited to announce that we will be hosting a webinar on February 25th, 2011 at 2:00 pm ET presenting statistics showing how the government is making the border safer place. By presenting these border statistics in a clear way, NDN hopes to facilitate a conversation.  It is imperative that people from all over the country weigh in on this as it informs the debate, and makes it that much richer.

Click here to RSVP.  Log-in information for the webinar will be sent the day of.

Arizona And The 14th Amendment: A Fight The State Cannot Afford

This blog has long contended state passed immigration laws are problematic for many reasons, not least because of the civil rights implications of having un-trained local law enforcement officers profiling people based on their skin color and other characteristics deemed to be "undocumented like." On top of these problems, there are very real economic and legal issues, which are conveniently listed below:

1. Costly Law Suits From Local and National Organizations
2. Possible Involvement Of Federal Government In The Form Of More Law Suits
3. Budget Deficits For Overtime Pay of Local Law Enforcement Officials
4. Backlash from Local Law Enforcement Officials Who Are Divided On Whether The Laws Are Effective
5. National Political Backlash

U.S. Mexico Border Mayors Release Letter On Positive Steps Forward On Making Border Safer

"The results of the Southwest Border Initiative speak for themselves:"

• Border cities are some of the safest in the nation. Border Patrol apprehensions,
• A key indicator of illegal immigration, have decreased 36 percent in the past two years.
• At the same time, we have seen increased seizures of southbound illegal bulk cash and weapons as well as northbound drugs. 
• Since beginning the Southwest Border Initiative in 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed almost 800,000 illegal immigrants from our country and almost 200,000 of them were convicted criminals.

E-Verify, an employment verification system designed to find undocumented immigrants who are currently working in the country illegally, is set to go before Sub Committee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement in the House today.

One group sure to be watching what happens at this hearing closely is business, in particular farmers who believe that without undocumented labor their could be a destabilization of the agricultural economy. 

Shanker Vedantam from the Washington Post has the full story up here:

In an early indicator of how congressional Republicans will legislate on immigration, House GOP leaders are expanding an inquiry into an enforcement program that allows employers to check the immigration status of employees. Many business owners believe that Gallegly and other House Republicans want to make E-Verify, currently a voluntary program for companies, mandatory. Critics of such a move, many of them farmers, warn that it could destabilize the agricultural economy, which is heavily dependent on undocumented immigrants, and jeopardize millions of jobs held by American citizens that are upstream and downstream of farm labor.

As talk turns to making E-Verify mandatory nationally, many in the business communities have begun to express misgivings. The National Chamber of Commerce has expressed mixed feelings about mandatory E-Verify: 

"I have a real mixed reaction from my members," said Randel Johnson, senior vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "Some find it workable, and others do not." "With some companies, it is the logistical problem of having a computer on your construction site" to run the online queries, Johnson added. "If you are running a small business, there is aversion to a new system that will make things more complicated."

The other side of this equation, is what happens to the United States Economy if ramped up enforcement legislation continues but there is no other type of reform which would allow for the legal flow of immigrant labor:

But the elephant in the room is that significant portions of the U.S. economy depend on undocumented immigrants for labor, said Craig J. Regelbrugge, vice president of the American Nursery & Landscape Association. "Simply put, any E-Verify expansion that comes without meaningful immigration reform would be disastrous for the American agricultural economy," he said. "It will leave the United States importing food and exporting jobs."

More on the hearing as it develops.

While an Arizona state passed law which attempts to deny children of undocumented immigrants hit a road block in the state senate judiciary committee yesterday it is still very much alive. Russell Pearce has vowed to move the bill to the state appropriations committee where he has indicated that he does have the votes to pass the legislation. What is interesting about all this legislative maneuvering is where the opposition to the Pearce’s legislation comes from; business and Republican members of Pearce's own party have come out against his proposed legislation.

Linda Valdez of the Arizona Republic has the full story here:

The business community, which has long seen the GOP as their party of choice, testified against two Senate bills aimed at challenging birthright citizenship. Business leaders understand the damage all the negative publicity will do to the state. But instead of allowing a vote that likely would have doomed the bills, Sen. Ron Gould held the bills in committee. He didn’t have enough GOP support to pass them.

Valdez does an excellent job of contextualizing what this means for the politicians in Arizona who seek to scape goat immigrants for political gain:

Clearly Pearce is effective in achieving his agenda. He proved that last year with SB 1070, which made him a cable news star – and allowed him to claim the crown as de facto governor when Jan Brewer won the election. (She would have lost the primary if Pearce hadn’t handed her SB 1070 to sign.)  So Pearce is effective when it comes to getting what he wants.  But is Pearce effective in leading the state? He has power completely out of proportion to the number of people who voted for him.  Should Republicans feel comfortable allowing him to shove them to the ideological edge of a flat Earth? To redefine their party as a party that is deaf to business?

The last point above is an important one: a national trend is occurring, in states where there is proposed legislation to regulate immigration locally, business is generally the most vocal opponent.

How can a party that claims to be pro small business and anti regulation pursue an agenda that according to the business community in their states is hurtful to industry and the economy?

The real question is how long can this go on before the national media starts to notice this glaring dichotomy in the current enforcement rhetoric out there.

Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce's plan to push an augmentation of the 14th Amendment through the  state legislature has hit a big snag this week.

The legislation, which would deny the children of immigrants birthright citizenship, did not have enough votes to pass out of the State Senate Judiciary.

Alia Beard Rau of the Arizona Republic has the full story here:

The Senate versions of Arizona's birthright-citizenship bills hit a wall Monday afternoon. After three hours of testimony, a key sponsor held the measures to avoid a vote of his own Senate Judiciary Committee. Based on questioning from committee members, the bills didn't appear to have enough support to move forward.

Just because the legislation does not have enough votes to pass in the Judiciary Committee, does not mean that the legislation is dead:

Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, could bring the bills back to the committee later, or they could be referred to a committee that may be more receptive. "It's going to come back," said Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, who opposes the package. "Nothing's dead until sine die." The Legislature adjourns when it is sine die, which means its work is done.

One thing was very clear, the practicality of this legislation has been called into question. Especially once it became clear that the legislation was more about the meaning of the 14th Amendment then it was about actually doing anything productive or constructive on immigration reform:

For two hours, the audience got a lesson in constitutional history and a debate over U.S. Supreme Court rulings. The bill's sponsors want to push the high court to reconsider how the 14th Amendment is interpreted and stop the United States from granting citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants. The 14th Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."

The real question here is if this eventually passes the State legislature, can Arizona afford a new round of costly legal battles over a law that is designed to create a conversation about the crafting of the 14th Amendment.

NDN is excited to announce that we will be giving a webinar on February 25th, 2011 at 2:00 pm ET on how the Governments Border Plan Is Working.

We will be breaking out some of the statistics showing how the government is making the border safer in a presentation that clearly shows that the border is safer now then it has been at any other time.

This webinar is important for a couple of reasons:

1.  There is still a pervasive narrative in the nation that the border is out of control. Not only is this patently false  but it is hurtful on macro and a micro level.

On the macro level, Members of Congress say that without the border being secure they will not move on broader reforms.

On a micro level, the characterization that the border is out of control actually hurts the economies of the cities that neighbor the border.

The more that statistics and first hand accounts of what is actually happening on the border reach the  the harder it becomes for misinformation about what is happening on the border to be disseminated.

2.  By presenting these border statistics in a clear way, NDN hopes to facilitate a conversation about what is actually being done to make our south west border safer.

If there are statistics that are presented in this presentation that raise skepticism, this webinar is your opportunity to raise questions about the strategy currently being employed along the border.

It is imperative that people from all over the country weigh in on this as it informs the debate and creates a constructive back and forth conversation about what can be done to create a more harmonious southern border region.

Ahead of the webinar be sure to check out some of the work we have done highlighting the improvements made on the border:

NDN REPORT: The Governments Border Strategy Is Working

VIDEO: U.S. Mexico Border Mayors Conference Roundtable and Statements From Mayors On Their Cities Safeness

U.S. Mexico Border Mayors Conference: Border Is Safer Today Than Ever Before

So by all means sign up now!

Click here to RSVP. 

This blog has long contended state passed immigration laws are problematic for many reasons, not least because of the civil rights implications of having un-trained local law enforcement officers profiling people based on their skin color and other characteristics deemed to be "undocumented like."

On top of these problems, there are very real economic and legal issues, which are conveniently listed below:

1. Costly Law Suits From Local and National Organizations
2. Possible Involvement Of Federal Government In The Form Of More Law Suits
3. Budget Deficits For Overtime Pay of Local Law Enforcement Officials
4. Backlash from Local Law Enforcement Officials Who Are Divided On Whether The Laws Are Effective
5. National Political Backlash

With Arizona introducing a bill in the state legislature last week to revoke the 14th Amendment, the Arizona Republic has released an editorial outlining why the state can ill afford passing this latest anti-immigrant state law.

You may believe "birthright citizenship" should be ended. Fine. Get involved on the national level. Measures before Congress target birthright citizenship with two different strategies. This is the place to have the debate.  If you think Arizona should be leading this fight, please think again.

The state's efforts to enact immigration laws resulted in one law (employer sanctions) winding up before the U.S. Supreme Court and another one (SB 1070) on an inevitable path toward the nation's big, white marble courthouse.

What this editorial does so well is articulate just how expensive these state passed laws are to the general population of the state while also rightly noting that the appropriate place to have these discussions is the Congress.

Congress is best equipped to host this debate. An Arizona-led court battle over birthright citizenship would also be a waste of money. Arizona faces billion-dollar deficits for years to come. We don't need to throw buckets of cash at high-priced lawyers. What's more, the bills introduced in the Arizona House and Senate last week may be tossed by the courts on grounds that fall far short of the 14th Amendment challenge their authors intend.

Read the full editorial, it goes on to explain exactly how the state passed law would deny children of undocumented immigrants birth right citizenship.

What is most important about this editorial is that it outlines the problem's associated with state passed immigration legislation, from the perspective of a state that is currently grabbling with the fall out from passing these types of laws.

The lessons that Arizona are having to learn should provide ample evidence why other states should think twice about passing their own laws.

As enforcement has increased along the southern border, traditional points where undocumented immigrants have crossed into the United States have been pushed into drug smuggling routes.

This has lead to increased predatory actions by the Drug Cartels in areas where migrants cross. The cartels have begun robbing families of immigrants who cross in remote areas of the desert. In Arizona, a Border patrol agent was recently killed defending migrant crossers from bandits who were attempting to rob them.

Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times recently wrote a story connecting the guns used in the killing of the Border Patrol agent back to a gun store in Arizona:

In a sign of the cost of widespread U.S. weapons smuggling into Mexico, federal law enforcement sources have confirmed that two guns, part of a series of purchases that were being monitored by authorities, were found at the scene of the firefight that killed a U.S. Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona.  Sources said U.S. authorities did not have the ability to adequately monitor the movement of the guns toward the southern border, in part because current laws and low levels of staffing.  As a result, "the next time they became aware of those weapons was when they turned up at the crime scene," said one source, who, like others connected to the case, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing criminal investigation.

As it turns out the most person asking more questions about the flow of guns into Mexico is a Republican Senator, just not the ones from Arizona...

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked the bureau for detailed answers about its gun smuggling investigation, known as Project Gunrunner. In a letter to the bureau, Grassley said there are "serious concerns that the ATF may have become careless, if not negligent, in implementing the Gunrunner strategy." Grassley has focused on allegations that two AK-47s purchased with cash from a dealer in Glendale, Ariz., on Jan. 16, 2010, were then used in the Dec. 14 firefight that left Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry dead. Federal sources said agents were notified about the sale of the guns several days after the purchase.

The article goes on to note that there has been some controversy regarding Operation Gun Runner, particularly critics note that the program does an excellent job of monitoring the flow of guns but much less in actually stopping the guns from heading south of the border. 

These accusations seem somewhat disingenuous given the size of Operation Gun Runner, whose yearly budget is only $10 Million Dollars. If law makers where serious about this perhaps Congress should provide more resources for stopping the flow of guns across our border.

The United States Mexico Border Mayor Association have released a letter to Mike Hukabee regarding his remarks that the Obama Administration has failed to do enough on securing the southern border.

The letter is in response to an Op-Ed placed in the New York Post, Huckabee's editorial can be read here, with some key excerpts from the Op-Ed are below:

"Indeed, DHS efforts to secure our southern flank have failed miserably: In October, the department admitted that more than 1,000 miles of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border were not under "effective federal control." Just after Thanksgiving, a 2,200-foot cross-border tunnel was discovered in San Diego, complete with lighting and ventilation -- and even a rail system."

The Border mayor letter puts things in perspective, and can be read in full HERE:

"As mayors of some of the largest cities along our border with México, we can tell you first hand that the Southwest Border Initiative is certainly working."

"The results of the Southwest Border Initiative speak for themselves:"

• Border cities are some of the safest in the nation. Border Patrol apprehensions,
• A key indicator of illegal immigration, have decreased 36 percent in the past two years.
• At the same time, we have seen increased seizures of southbound illegal bulk cash and weapons as well as northbound drugs. 
• Since beginning the Southwest Border Initiative in 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed almost 800,000 illegal immigrants from our country and almost 200,000 of them were convicted criminals.

Once again, we have an instance of an extreme view of the border being rebuffed by those who actually live on the border.

Lets hope that the next time Mike Huckabee decides to write an op-ed on how the border is out of control he checks his facts, and with the people who actually live in these areas.

Huckabees Editorial was in reaction to a speech by Secretary Napolitano, Simon's take on her speech can be seen here.

And the immigration blog's breakdown of her speach on border security can be seen here

NielsenWire a part of the Nielsen Media Group which measures media consumption nationally, released a report today which noted that among mobile phone users Hispanics and Asians are most likely to be smart phone users.

The full report can be seen here, below is a handy graph which shows the exact break out of usage by race.

The negative economic impact of passing state based anti immigrant legislation is starting to be realized by local governments all over the country. As the new legislative season begins in state governments across the country many local politicians are realizing that passing anti immigrant legislation is bad economic policy as it opens their states to:

1. Costly Law Suits From Local and National Organizations
2. Possible Involvement Of Federal Government In The Form Of More Law Suits
3. Budget Deficits For Overtime Pay of Local Law Enforcement Officials
4. Backlash from Local Law Enforcement Officials Who Are Divided On Whether The Laws Are Effective
5. National Political Backlash

Lois Romano of the Washington Post has the full story here:

"State budget deficits, coupled with the political backlash triggered by Arizona's law and potentially expensive legal challenges from the federal government, have made passage of such statutes uncertain. In the nine months since the Arizona measure was signed into law, a number of similar bills have stalled or died or are being reworked. Some have faced resistance from law enforcement officials who question how states or communities could afford the added cost of enforcing the laws."

Of note, anti-immigrant organizations have begun to characterize SB1070, not as a way for states to actively work towards solving the problems of associated with undocumented immigration at the state level.

Even leaders of these organizations admit that in the current economy states are ill equipped to enforce federal immigration laws. The real purpose of these laws is to begin a national conversation about immigration reform:

"Obviously most places were not going to pass Arizona bills," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tighter immigration laws. "There's always an initial flush of enthusiasm and then the reality of politics sets in. . . . These states are bankrupt - they need to decide what battles they want to fight." But Krikorian also said that the Arizona bill has "done what it was supposed to do" by creating a national discussion on immigration reform in the absence of federal legislation."

While its great that these organizations have seen the light, and can acknowledge that state based immigration laws are expensive and counterproductive, it would be even better if they spent less time in the states and more time in Washington D.C. to work towards passing a federal solution which would help to alleviate the financial burden of enforcement from the states.