By Daniel González
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 6, 2011
Federal immigration officials have quietly backed away from a program in Arizona and other Western states aimed at quickly and efficiently deporting illegal immigrants rather than keeping them in costly detention centers.
Tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, including thousands from Arizona, have been deported under the program over the past several years. Called stipulated removal, it allows the government to quickly deport illegal immigrants held in detention centers as long as they forgo a hearing before a judge to review their legal rights and to determine if they want to fight their case.
The phaseout follows controversies and concerns.
Immigration officials hailed the program as cost-effective deportations for people who wanted to go home. Critics worried that the government was strong-arming immigrants to accept deportation without regard for their due-process rights.
Immigration officials changed course in September 2010 after a federal appellate court ruled that an immigrant held in an Eloy detention center had his rights violated. After that, speedy removals were offered only to illegal immigrants with lawyers, who could help them fight their cases. Lawyers are not provided at taxpayer expense in deportation proceedings.
Since then, immigration officials have not deported a single illegal immigrant through the program in Arizona, said Vincent Picard, a spokesman for ICE in Phoenix. Picard could not provide statistics for other states.
ICE officials did not publicize the dramatic policy change. Many immigrant lawyers and critics of the program were unaware the change had been made.
Time and money
In a deportation proceeding, an illegal immigrant has the right to appear in front of an immigration judge to decide whether to contest the case. The immigrant also has the right to hire a lawyer.
But under stipulated removal, an immigrant who doesn't want to fight deportation gives up the right to a hearing. The immigrant also gives up the right to an appeal. Once the immigrant agrees to those stipulations, the judge signs a deportation order, even if the immigrant is not in the courtroom.
Supporters of stipulated removal, which remains in effect in other parts of the country, say it benefits both the government and illegal immigrants. The program can save time and money.
The illegal immigrant is typically deported within a day or two. In comparison, an illegal immigrant facing deportation can spend weeks or even months in detention. In 2011, the average time was 29 days, according to ICE statistics.
The average daily cost of detention in 2011 was $112.83, said Virginia Kice, an ICE spokeswoman.
"Such agreements between ICE and the alien are advantageous to the government in that it relieves the immigration court of the need to have a hearing, saves ICE additional detention costs, and allows the alien to return to his/her country expeditiously," Picard said in an e-mail.
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors strict immigration enforcement, said the program should be expanded, not scaled back.
Offering stipulated removal only to immigrants who hire their own lawyers bogs down the judicial process and defeats the purpose of the program: to quickly remove illegal immigrants with no legal grounds to remain in the U.S. who want to go home, Vaughan said. It also clogs up immigration courts, making less room for immigrants with strong legal cases to remain in the U.S.
"I see the greater use of stipulated removal as expediting the inevitable, with the result being swifter access to hearings for the people who are more likely to benefit from them," she said.
Phillip Crawford, a former field director for ICE's enforcement and removal operations in Arizona, said it is a shame that stipulated removals have been curtailed.
The program, he said, had several levels of "safeguards" to ensure that the rights of illegal immigrants were protected and that participants understood what they were signing. Each case was reviewed by ICE officers during processing at detention centers, by ICE prosecutors and by an immigration judge who has the power to reject the deportation if the judge believes the immigrant had legal grounds to remain.
He also said the program targeted illegal immigrants from Mexico convicted of aggravated felonies with little chance of legally remaining in the U.S.
"It was an excellent program," Crawford said.
Rights protected?
Critics say stipulated removal circumvents immigrants' rights and largely targeted immigrants who had not committed crimes.
A 30-page report released in September by the National Immigration Law Center accused government officials of pressuring illegal immigrants to accept quick deportation by threatening long detention stays if they tried to fight to remain in the U.S. The government also often didn't provide adequate interpretation and translation to immigrants who didn't speak English, the report said.
The report found that 80 percent of those deported through the program hadn't committed crimes.
The report also found that 96 percent of those deported didn't have lawyers. Therefore, the report concluded, many of those without criminal records may have been eligible to remain in the U.S. if they had had a chance to fight their case.
Instead of deportation, the non-criminals also may have qualified for less-severe voluntary departure, which gives immigrants the chance to return to the U.S. if they qualify for a green card, said Karen Tumlin, managing attorney for the Law Center. Instead, by accepting stipulated removal, immigrants are generally barred from coming back to the U.S. for as long as 10 years and face felony charges for illegally re-entering the country.
The report was based on 20,000 government documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Tumlin said she was unaware that ICE had stopped offering stipulated removals to immigrants unless they had a lawyer. The Arizona Republic discovered the new policy in September, when it began examining the Law Center report.
"If that's true, it would be welcome news," Tumlin said.
The change, she said, alleviates concerns that the quick removals were violating the due-process rights of illegal immigrants.
Illegal immigrants placed in deportation proceedings can sometimes fight their case in court if they meet certain conditions, such as having resided in the U.S. for a long period of time, having no criminal record and having children born in this country.
Evolving program
Launched in 1995 to help alleviate overcrowding in federal, state and local detention centers, the stipulated-removal program was rarely used until President George W. Bush's administration began ramping up immigration enforcement in 2004. The high rate continued during the first two years of President Barack Obama's administration. According to ICE, 32,635 people were deported in 2010.
From 2004 to 2010, immigration officials deported more than 160,000 under the program, according to the National Immigration Law Center's September report.
The report found that more than 24,000 came from the detention center in Eloy, the highest number of any facility in the country.
Internal government e-mails obtained through the Freedom of Information lawsuit and posted online by the National Immigration Law Center show that in 2005 alone, 5,787 illegal immigrants from Mexico detained in Eloy were deported through the program and that stipulated removals accounted for more than 50 percent of all deportations at the center.
In September 2010, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that immigration officials at Eloy had violated the rights of Isaac Ramos. Ramos, an illegal immigrant from Mexico with prior criminal convictions, had agreed to stipulated removal while being detained in Eloy in 2006. The court ruled that the government failed to make it clear to Ramos that he was giving up his right to talk to a lawyer, who could have explained the process and the penalties. The court also ruled that the immigration judge who signed Ramos' deportation order failed to determine if Ramos had agreed to stipulated removal "voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently," as required.
Ramos, who is married to a legal permanent resident and has two U.S.-citizen children, had argued that he should be allowed to return to the U.S. since his rights to due process were violated. The court, however, denied that request.
Since backing away from using stipulated removal, ICE has worked out a different approach in Arizona, Picard said.
Illegal immigrants who do not have legal representation and do not want to contest their cases are given the option of attending "prompt hearings," Picard said.
Held in front of immigration judges, the hearings ensure that immigrants facing deportation are advised of their "full array" of rights under the law, he said. Immigration judges also confirm that the immigrants are aware of any possibility to legally remain in the U.S.
"Only if the judge is satisfied that the aliens are removable under the charges filed against them, and are making a knowing and intelligent waiver of their rights, will the judge order their removal," Picard said.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/11/06/20111106immigration-arizona-deportation-program.html#ixzz1cx6wDGx2
Showing posts with label Expulsions in AZ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Expulsions in AZ. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Amid record deportations from the US, Mexico urges migrants to head home
But despite record deportations, many migrants at a shelter in Nogales, Mexico, now consider the US to be home.
By Lourdes Medrano
Christian Science Monitor
November 3, 2011
Nogales, Mexico: Day and night, hundreds of Mexican migrants stream into this border city after being deported from the US amid record deportations taking place under the Obama administration.
At one migrant shelter in Nogales, workers encourage deportees to return home rather than attempt to cross into the US illegally again, through the treacherous desert that spans both sides of the border.
“There’s a federal program that will pay for your bus ticket so you can get back home,” Valente Camacho Terraza tells a group of migrants arriving at the center, which functions both as a shelter and transportation company.
But "home" for many of them is not the interior town from which they left, but cities in the US where they have worked for a decade or two, or sometimes more. Cuauhtémoc Bravo Guerrero, a migrant at the center who was recently deported from California, says he spent 30 years in the US. He has been at the shelter for days, unsure of his next move. “I want to go back to California,” he says.
Most of the migrants get a couple days of rest and nourishment before deciding whether to return to their states of origin or head back toward the international line. Without money or family ties in Nogales, many accept the Mexican government’s offer, Mr. Camacho says.
But in the past year, he has noticed that a lot of migrants tend to stay longer – some up to a month. He attributes that to the changing make-up of the migrant population.
About five years ago, the shelter was crowded with migrants – mostly men – who kept getting caught after crossing the border repeatedly. That has changed over time to include more women and children, who are housed in another shelter for minors. The mix now includes fewer people heading north and more migrants who are being deported after spending a decade or two north of the border, Camacho says. They linger at the shelter trying to reach family members in the US and figuring out where they might go next.
“Things get complicated for them,” Camacho says.
In an outdoor waiting area, several men wait in silence. Most have just been deported after being picked up in Arizona, California, and other states. No one is eager to share names. Two young men say they were deported after spending time behind bars in Arizona. A middle-aged man who lived in the US for 20 years says he was deported after Phoenix police stopped him while driving with a broken side mirror.
A few miles away, at the downtown border crossing, a Border Patrol bus arrives mid-afternoon with another group of deportees: a boy about eight years old, 23 women and 35 men who walk toward Mexico in a single file.
Officials might try to urge them to continue heading south, but for many their roots are now behind them.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2011/1103/Amid-record-deportations-from-the-US-Mexico-urges-migrants-to-head-home
By Lourdes Medrano
Christian Science Monitor
November 3, 2011
Nogales, Mexico: Day and night, hundreds of Mexican migrants stream into this border city after being deported from the US amid record deportations taking place under the Obama administration.
At one migrant shelter in Nogales, workers encourage deportees to return home rather than attempt to cross into the US illegally again, through the treacherous desert that spans both sides of the border.
“There’s a federal program that will pay for your bus ticket so you can get back home,” Valente Camacho Terraza tells a group of migrants arriving at the center, which functions both as a shelter and transportation company.
But "home" for many of them is not the interior town from which they left, but cities in the US where they have worked for a decade or two, or sometimes more. Cuauhtémoc Bravo Guerrero, a migrant at the center who was recently deported from California, says he spent 30 years in the US. He has been at the shelter for days, unsure of his next move. “I want to go back to California,” he says.
Most of the migrants get a couple days of rest and nourishment before deciding whether to return to their states of origin or head back toward the international line. Without money or family ties in Nogales, many accept the Mexican government’s offer, Mr. Camacho says.
But in the past year, he has noticed that a lot of migrants tend to stay longer – some up to a month. He attributes that to the changing make-up of the migrant population.
About five years ago, the shelter was crowded with migrants – mostly men – who kept getting caught after crossing the border repeatedly. That has changed over time to include more women and children, who are housed in another shelter for minors. The mix now includes fewer people heading north and more migrants who are being deported after spending a decade or two north of the border, Camacho says. They linger at the shelter trying to reach family members in the US and figuring out where they might go next.
“Things get complicated for them,” Camacho says.
In an outdoor waiting area, several men wait in silence. Most have just been deported after being picked up in Arizona, California, and other states. No one is eager to share names. Two young men say they were deported after spending time behind bars in Arizona. A middle-aged man who lived in the US for 20 years says he was deported after Phoenix police stopped him while driving with a broken side mirror.
A few miles away, at the downtown border crossing, a Border Patrol bus arrives mid-afternoon with another group of deportees: a boy about eight years old, 23 women and 35 men who walk toward Mexico in a single file.
Officials might try to urge them to continue heading south, but for many their roots are now behind them.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2011/1103/Amid-record-deportations-from-the-US-Mexico-urges-migrants-to-head-home
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Latino dad of 2-year-old transplant patient faces deportation
EFE
September 26, 2011
Phoenix – In his two years of life, little Jesus Pereyra Jr. has faced some tough trials, first in surviving a heart transplant and now the possibility of being separated from his dad who could be deported.
The little boy, still convalescing, hangs onto his father's legs as if aware that he might soon be gone if forced to go back to his native Mexico.
Like many others, Jesus Pereyra Sr. crossed the Arizona desert on foot illegally in 2005 in a difficult five days's march through scorching heat in search of a better life.
"We had no water or food, they assaulted us and took everything we had, even our shoes," the 24-year-old Pereyra said in an interview with Efe.
With much effort and sacrifice, Pereyra settled in Phoenix and since then has worked in construction and installing swimming pools.
In 2007 he met a neighbor, 22-year-old Raquel Garcia, whom he later married.
Just when the undocumented immigrant thought he had it all, a family and a job, he was detained in a sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pereyra was put in line for deportation in January 2010.
He didn't have the minimum 10 years living illegally in the United States required to appeal his deportation, nor could he regularize his immigration status even though his wife is a U.S. citizen.
Under current law, Pereyra must go back to Mexico for his application to be considered.
While Pereyra was dealing with ICE, his son was diagnosed with a rare condition in June 2010, for which only a heart transplant could save his life.
"I knew then I had to leave the country to obey the judge's order, but I couldn't leave my wife and, above all, my boy who was fighting for his life," Pereyra said.
After three months of waiting and in what the parents call a "miracle," little Jesus received the heart transplant he needed, but now his dad runs the risk of being arrested at any time and deported by ICE.
"It would be impossible for us to take him to Mexico," Raquel Garcia told Efe, because following the transplant their son needs constant medical checkups and the medication he will have to take all his life.
"My son could not get that kind of medical care in Mexico," his mother said, unable to keep back the tears.
Marina Alexandrovich, the immigration attorney representing Pereyra, told Efe that she is currently focused on trying to reopen the immigrant's case since his son's illness occurred after the immigration judge heard his case.
"I only want the chance to be with my family, with my son, to take care of him and work for them," Pereyra said.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/26/latino-dad-2-year-old-transplant-patient-faces-deportation/#ixzz1Zv3riTGm
September 26, 2011
Phoenix – In his two years of life, little Jesus Pereyra Jr. has faced some tough trials, first in surviving a heart transplant and now the possibility of being separated from his dad who could be deported.
The little boy, still convalescing, hangs onto his father's legs as if aware that he might soon be gone if forced to go back to his native Mexico.
Like many others, Jesus Pereyra Sr. crossed the Arizona desert on foot illegally in 2005 in a difficult five days's march through scorching heat in search of a better life.
"We had no water or food, they assaulted us and took everything we had, even our shoes," the 24-year-old Pereyra said in an interview with Efe.
With much effort and sacrifice, Pereyra settled in Phoenix and since then has worked in construction and installing swimming pools.
In 2007 he met a neighbor, 22-year-old Raquel Garcia, whom he later married.
Just when the undocumented immigrant thought he had it all, a family and a job, he was detained in a sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Pereyra was put in line for deportation in January 2010.
He didn't have the minimum 10 years living illegally in the United States required to appeal his deportation, nor could he regularize his immigration status even though his wife is a U.S. citizen.
Under current law, Pereyra must go back to Mexico for his application to be considered.
While Pereyra was dealing with ICE, his son was diagnosed with a rare condition in June 2010, for which only a heart transplant could save his life.
"I knew then I had to leave the country to obey the judge's order, but I couldn't leave my wife and, above all, my boy who was fighting for his life," Pereyra said.
After three months of waiting and in what the parents call a "miracle," little Jesus received the heart transplant he needed, but now his dad runs the risk of being arrested at any time and deported by ICE.
"It would be impossible for us to take him to Mexico," Raquel Garcia told Efe, because following the transplant their son needs constant medical checkups and the medication he will have to take all his life.
"My son could not get that kind of medical care in Mexico," his mother said, unable to keep back the tears.
Marina Alexandrovich, the immigration attorney representing Pereyra, told Efe that she is currently focused on trying to reopen the immigrant's case since his son's illness occurred after the immigration judge heard his case.
"I only want the chance to be with my family, with my son, to take care of him and work for them," Pereyra said.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/09/26/latino-dad-2-year-old-transplant-patient-faces-deportation/#ixzz1Zv3riTGm
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Chuy's owners released without bond following ICE raid
by Stacey Delikat
azfamily.com
April 21, 2011
MESA, Ariz. - A day after more than a dozen Chuy's restaurants were shut down amidst a federal immigration raid, dozens who were lawfully employed by the chain are now out of work.
On Wednesday U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided Chuy's locations in Arizona and California,arresting more than 40 undocumented workers including the restaurants father-son owners, Mark and Christopher Evenson. The chain's accountant, Diane Strehlow, was also taken into custody.
All three appeared in federal court Tuscon on Thursday to face charges ranging from harboring of illegal immigrants to tax evasion. A judge granted them release from jail without bond on the condition they return to court later this month.
Rachel Schooley, of Mesa, worked for Chuy's Mesquite Grill chain for more than eight years and was shocked to learn of the raids and arrests.
"It's just very devastating to me because its more of a home. We were all friends and family, we were there for each other," she said.
Schooley has a 1-year-old daughter and another baby on the way and is now worried about finding a new job. She says neither she nor any of her other co-workers have recieved any official nothttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifice from the restaurant.
http://www.azfamily.com/news/Chuys-owners-released-without-bond-120431734.html#
azfamily.com
April 21, 2011
MESA, Ariz. - A day after more than a dozen Chuy's restaurants were shut down amidst a federal immigration raid, dozens who were lawfully employed by the chain are now out of work.
On Wednesday U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided Chuy's locations in Arizona and California,arresting more than 40 undocumented workers including the restaurants father-son owners, Mark and Christopher Evenson. The chain's accountant, Diane Strehlow, was also taken into custody.
All three appeared in federal court Tuscon on Thursday to face charges ranging from harboring of illegal immigrants to tax evasion. A judge granted them release from jail without bond on the condition they return to court later this month.
Rachel Schooley, of Mesa, worked for Chuy's Mesquite Grill chain for more than eight years and was shocked to learn of the raids and arrests.
"It's just very devastating to me because its more of a home. We were all friends and family, we were there for each other," she said.
Schooley has a 1-year-old daughter and another baby on the way and is now worried about finding a new job. She says neither she nor any of her other co-workers have recieved any official nothttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifice from the restaurant.
http://www.azfamily.com/news/Chuys-owners-released-without-bond-120431734.html#
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Arizona based group responds to Governor Jan Brewer’s joint statement
Tuscson Citizen
April 12, 2011
April 12, 2011
It is unfortunate that Governor Jan Brewer will not uphold the conservative decision of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals with regard to Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law. Two of the three judges in the panel were appointed by Republican Presidents. Judge John T. Noonan, an appointee of President Reagan, wrote that Arizona had clearly tried to create its own immigration and foreign policy, and Judge Carlos T. Bea, an appointee of President George W. Bush, was a partial dissenter. It is irrational for the United States to have 50 different versions of immigration law as rogue states continue to try to implement their own.
State Senator Russell Pearce was the chief sponsor of SB 1070 where he has on numerous occasions spoken passionately for “Operation Wetback” policies, therefore, we must not allow his bigotry and emotions to guide us into situations that clearly violate our Constitution. We have a responsibility to uphold the Constitution and we must continue to defend it, but we cannot defend it when we introduce laws that violate it. Even though we recognize that the immigration system is broken, two wrongs do not make a right with implementing and signing laws that clearly violate the Supremacy Clause.
In March 2011, Arizona Republican legislators sent a clear signal that they wanted to be solution-makers in Arizona as they stayed clear of pushing for criminalizing civil offenses when they voted against five immigration laws recently. It is unfortunate that Governor Brewer is unable to depart from the issue that once made her popular.
We believe we can solve this issue without violating our Constitution with a Secure Borders and Legal Immigration Plan. GOP state legislators across the nation have blamed the federal government and the Obama administration for not addressing this issue. These state legislators have been disingenuous when they say Obama has not secured our borders because under the current administration, more undocumented immigrants have been deported than former President George W. Bush. We believe it is time for the Obama administration and federal lawmakers to fix the broken system in a true bipartisan manner that will secure the borders and provide legal immigration benefitting Americans.
The Arizona SB 1070 law not only violates the Constitution, it has left our state in economic shambles. Our tourism industry has lost millions and millions of dollars. The agricultural industry has experienced labor shortages and deficits. The housing industry is a disaster as foreclosures continue to rise, and small business owners have seen a tremendous loss in their profits that is upwards of 38%. The Republican Party is supposed to be pro business and pro growth, but all this law has managed to do is the opposite of that.
SOMOS REPUBLICANS urges President Obama to fix the broken immigration system that has bipartisan Senator support because Kansas Secretary of State – Kris Kobach will continue to architect numerous unconstitutional laws that have not surpassed any of federal court systems. Kobach introduced and supported laws in California, Arizona, Nebraska and so forth costing states millions and millions of dollars to defend. The Arizona SB 1070 law so far has cost the state of Arizona approximately $4 million to defend and we cannot afford to defend – nor is it fiscally responsible to defend these unconstitutional laws.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Arizona, Bowing to Business, Softens Stand on Immigration
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
The New York Times
March 18, 2011
Arizona established itself over the past year as the most aggressive state in cracking down on illegal immigrants, gaining so much momentum with its efforts that several other states vowed to follow suit. But now the harsh realities of economics appear to have intruded, and Arizona may be looking to shed the image of hard-line anti-immigration pioneer.
In an abrupt change of course, Arizona lawmakers rejected new anti-immigration measures on Thursday, in what was widely seen as capitulation to pressure from business executives and an admission that the state’s tough stance had resulted in a chilling of the normally robust tourism and convention industry.
The State Senate voted down five bills that among other things sought to require hospitals to inform law enforcement officials when treating patients suspected of being in the country illegally and to prod the Supreme Court to rule against automatic citizenship for American-born children of illegal immigrants.
The Senate move was a victory for the Arizona business lobby, which on many issues is more moderate than state lawmakers. And it was a rebuke for the State Senate president, Russell Pearce, a Republican and the driving force behind tough immigration measures, including the law passed last April requiring police to question the status of anyone they stop if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person might be an illegal immigrant.
Opponents of the five bills said that the state’s image had been hit hard, and that it did not make sense to pass new measures while the state had already put itself so far out in front of other states and the federal government on the issue — at a cost to tourism and other industries.
They said that previous immigration bills were still being reviewed by the courts, and that it was not smart to pass new legislation that plainly conflicted with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
“I don’t believe that anyone, including myself, foresaw the national and international reaction” to April’s bill, said Glenn Hamer, chief executive of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who said estimates of lost tourism business ranged from $15 million to $150 million. “Now we have that experience under our belts. We know these measures can cause economic damage; it’s just a matter of degree.”
A letter signed by 60 state business leaders this week blamed last year’s bill for boycotts, canceled contracts, declining sales and other economic setbacks.
“Arizona’s lawmakers and citizens are right to be concerned about illegal immigration,” the letter said. “But we must acknowledge that when Arizona goes it alone on this issue, unintended consequences inevitably occur.”
While Mr. Hamer said he doubted the bills could have been defeated on Thursday without broad-based business opposition, he cautioned that support for tighter restrictions on immigration remained strong in a number of quarters. But, he added, “Our hope is that these types of measures have crested and we could spend our time on efforts that could rebuild our economy.”
Indeed, state politicians and other officials interviewed after the bills’ defeat said it was too soon to tell whether the turnabout represented a long-term change, or merely a breather until the economy rebounds. Concerns about illegal immigration remain a significant issue, and many state leaders are angry with what they describe as the federal government’s unwillingness to take firm action.
But for now, “enough is enough,” said State Senator John McComish, a Republican who voted no on all five bills.
Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, did not take a position on the five bills that were voted down Thursday — her normal practice on legislation that has not reached her desk, a spokesman said on Friday.
An aide said Senator Pearce was unavailable for comment.
Crucial to changing the discussion was a clearly articulated and executed strategy by the state business lobby, which made concerns over negative economic effects a far more significant factor than in the debate last year.
State Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, said business opposition — in contrast to what she called the tepid and delayed efforts of its leaders last year — gave Republicans the political protection they needed to vote no.
“They have been working since January to provide people cover against these bills,” Senator Sinema said. Twenty-one of 30 state senators are Republicans, and none of the bills would have been defeated without many of them voting in opposition.
The effect on the state’s convention and tourism industry after the April vote was immediate. Convention bookings plunged in Phoenix, one of the top destinations in the United States, with large organizations citing the immigration bill when canceling their reservations.
“It was definitely a drastic decline,” said Kristen Jarnagin, vice president of communications for the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association. She and other business officials pointed to data on bookings showing Phoenix’s ranking, on some measures, had dropped from the top four destinations nationwide to 23rd.
So far, Arizona-style anti-immigration bills have not lived up to their advance billing in other states, which despite strengthened Republican legislative majorities have failed to pass any identical bills. Similar proposals are still advancing in some states, but they, too, have encountered strong business opposition.
“Our legislature and our state are suffering from immigration fatigue,” Senator McComish said. “We’ve been at the forefront of this issue, and I think it is time for a timeout.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/us/19immigration.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
The New York Times
March 18, 2011
Arizona established itself over the past year as the most aggressive state in cracking down on illegal immigrants, gaining so much momentum with its efforts that several other states vowed to follow suit. But now the harsh realities of economics appear to have intruded, and Arizona may be looking to shed the image of hard-line anti-immigration pioneer.
In an abrupt change of course, Arizona lawmakers rejected new anti-immigration measures on Thursday, in what was widely seen as capitulation to pressure from business executives and an admission that the state’s tough stance had resulted in a chilling of the normally robust tourism and convention industry.
The State Senate voted down five bills that among other things sought to require hospitals to inform law enforcement officials when treating patients suspected of being in the country illegally and to prod the Supreme Court to rule against automatic citizenship for American-born children of illegal immigrants.
The Senate move was a victory for the Arizona business lobby, which on many issues is more moderate than state lawmakers. And it was a rebuke for the State Senate president, Russell Pearce, a Republican and the driving force behind tough immigration measures, including the law passed last April requiring police to question the status of anyone they stop if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that the person might be an illegal immigrant.
Opponents of the five bills said that the state’s image had been hit hard, and that it did not make sense to pass new measures while the state had already put itself so far out in front of other states and the federal government on the issue — at a cost to tourism and other industries.
They said that previous immigration bills were still being reviewed by the courts, and that it was not smart to pass new legislation that plainly conflicted with the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
“I don’t believe that anyone, including myself, foresaw the national and international reaction” to April’s bill, said Glenn Hamer, chief executive of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who said estimates of lost tourism business ranged from $15 million to $150 million. “Now we have that experience under our belts. We know these measures can cause economic damage; it’s just a matter of degree.”
A letter signed by 60 state business leaders this week blamed last year’s bill for boycotts, canceled contracts, declining sales and other economic setbacks.
“Arizona’s lawmakers and citizens are right to be concerned about illegal immigration,” the letter said. “But we must acknowledge that when Arizona goes it alone on this issue, unintended consequences inevitably occur.”
While Mr. Hamer said he doubted the bills could have been defeated on Thursday without broad-based business opposition, he cautioned that support for tighter restrictions on immigration remained strong in a number of quarters. But, he added, “Our hope is that these types of measures have crested and we could spend our time on efforts that could rebuild our economy.”
Indeed, state politicians and other officials interviewed after the bills’ defeat said it was too soon to tell whether the turnabout represented a long-term change, or merely a breather until the economy rebounds. Concerns about illegal immigration remain a significant issue, and many state leaders are angry with what they describe as the federal government’s unwillingness to take firm action.
But for now, “enough is enough,” said State Senator John McComish, a Republican who voted no on all five bills.
Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, did not take a position on the five bills that were voted down Thursday — her normal practice on legislation that has not reached her desk, a spokesman said on Friday.
An aide said Senator Pearce was unavailable for comment.
Crucial to changing the discussion was a clearly articulated and executed strategy by the state business lobby, which made concerns over negative economic effects a far more significant factor than in the debate last year.
State Senator Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, said business opposition — in contrast to what she called the tepid and delayed efforts of its leaders last year — gave Republicans the political protection they needed to vote no.
“They have been working since January to provide people cover against these bills,” Senator Sinema said. Twenty-one of 30 state senators are Republicans, and none of the bills would have been defeated without many of them voting in opposition.
The effect on the state’s convention and tourism industry after the April vote was immediate. Convention bookings plunged in Phoenix, one of the top destinations in the United States, with large organizations citing the immigration bill when canceling their reservations.
“It was definitely a drastic decline,” said Kristen Jarnagin, vice president of communications for the Arizona Hotel and Lodging Association. She and other business officials pointed to data on bookings showing Phoenix’s ranking, on some measures, had dropped from the top four destinations nationwide to 23rd.
So far, Arizona-style anti-immigration bills have not lived up to their advance billing in other states, which despite strengthened Republican legislative majorities have failed to pass any identical bills. Similar proposals are still advancing in some states, but they, too, have encountered strong business opposition.
“Our legislature and our state are suffering from immigration fatigue,” Senator McComish said. “We’ve been at the forefront of this issue, and I think it is time for a timeout.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/us/19immigration.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Arizona’s Hispanic population makes significant gains in 2010 Census figures
By Alyson Zepeda
Cronkite News Service
March 14th, 2011
Arizona’s Hispanic population grew far faster than other groups over the past decade, and children of Hispanic ancestry now outnumber those who are white, according to 2010 Census numbers released Thursday.
Of Arizona’s population under 18 years old, 43.2 percent were Hispanic and 41.6 percent were white, the data showed.
“That probably will surprise a lot of people outside of Arizona because Arizona is still thought of as being a pretty white state, but it isn’t, especially for the younger part of the population,” said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C.
Of Arizona’s 6.39 million residents, 1.9 million, or 29.7 percent, were Hispanic, the data showed. The Hispanic population grew by about 600,000, or 46.3 percent, during the decade, while growth for all other groups was 17.3 percent.
YouTube Preview ImageHispanics made up 25.3 percent of Arizona’s population in 2000 and 18.8 percent in 1990.
The change in demographics means Arizona will have to adapt to new challenges, Frey said. For example, its education system may have to focus more on English language instruction in order to adequately prepare students, he said.
“The special needs of the diverse population does need to be taken into account, and it’s especially important in times of fiscal stress, when there’s a lot of resources that are being cut back for all kinds of things,” Frey said.
Leonel Urza, whose family is originally from Guatemala, said he was drawn to Phoenix because he thought it would be a better place to raise his 2-year-old daughter. Urza moved from New York late last year.
“I have a lot of family that lives here,” he said while playing with his daughter at a west Phoenix park. “It’s a clean environment, you know, less populated … It’s more family oriented here.”
Also at the park was Hendricks Peña, who has lived in the Valley for all of his 37 years.
“I think it’s good that this amount of Hispanics are in the Valley of Arizona because they’re not that far away from home either, and this is where we all descend from,” he said.
Despite the growth shown in the census numbers, the Hispanic population fell short of the Brookings Institution’s projections by more than 100,000 people, Frey said, adding that the down economy is the most likely culprit.
But Jennifer Steen, a political science professor at Arizona State University, said the shortfall also could have to do with the difficulty of counting undocumented immigrants or even an exodus of immigrants in response to SB 1070.
“It’s always hard to count those people in any context because they have a lot of reasons to be wary of identifying themselves to a representative of the United States government,” she said.
Demographers have long projected projected that Hispanics will eventually become a majority in Arizona. But even then, Steen said, it will take even more time for the state’s politics to reflect that change.
“Even on the day when Hispanics constitute the majority of the state’s population they still won’t constitute the majority of the voting population,” she said.
From the 2010 Census:
• Among Arizonans younger than 18 years old, 43.2 percent were Hispanic and 41.6 percent were white in 2010.
• Growth among Arizona’s Hispanic population from 2000 to 2010 was 46.3 percent, while growth among other groups was 17.3 percent.
• Of Arizona’s 6.4 million residents, 1.9 million, or 29.7 percent, were Hispanic.
• Hispanics made up 25.3 percent of Arizona’s population in the 2000 Census and 18.8 percent of the population in the 1990 Census.
http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2011/03/14/arizona%e2%80%99s-hispanic-population-makes-significant-gains-in-2010-census-figures/
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
ICE audits target illegal workers
By Mike Sunnucks
Phoenix Business Journal
February 21, 2011
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is auditing more businesses — in particular fast food and quick serve restaurants it suspects might be hiring illegal immigrants. That includes the Southwest and nationally.
The ICE audits are a far cry from the immigration raids conducted by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, said Nancy-Jo Merritt, a partner and employment attorney for the Phoenix law office of Fennemore Craig PC. “It’s not like the sheriff’s thing,” said Merritt.
The ICE actions are more akin to IRS tax audits, while the MCSO raids are more like an episode of “Cops.”
MCSO deputies have gone into businesses to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and seize files. Sometimes Sheriff Joe Arpaio is there with media in tow.
The stepped-up ICE actions target businesses that have workers listed under Social Security numbers that are either bogus or replicated elsewhere, Merritt said.
Merritt said ICE has sent out notice of inspection letters to a number of Arizona businesses telling them to have employment records and I-9 worker identification forms ready within three days.
Restaurants along with hotels, construction and services are among industries that tend to have substantial numbers of immigrants workers, some with legal employment status and some of illegal.
ICE is not allowing employers to ask for extensions to comply with the audit.
Both the ICE audits and sheriff’s raids bring attention to illegal workers and discourage other companies from breaking laws, Merritt said.
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/blog/business/2011/02/ice-audits-target-illegal-workers.html
Phoenix Business Journal
February 21, 2011
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is auditing more businesses — in particular fast food and quick serve restaurants it suspects might be hiring illegal immigrants. That includes the Southwest and nationally.
The ICE audits are a far cry from the immigration raids conducted by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, said Nancy-Jo Merritt, a partner and employment attorney for the Phoenix law office of Fennemore Craig PC. “It’s not like the sheriff’s thing,” said Merritt.
The ICE actions are more akin to IRS tax audits, while the MCSO raids are more like an episode of “Cops.”
MCSO deputies have gone into businesses to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and seize files. Sometimes Sheriff Joe Arpaio is there with media in tow.
The stepped-up ICE actions target businesses that have workers listed under Social Security numbers that are either bogus or replicated elsewhere, Merritt said.
Merritt said ICE has sent out notice of inspection letters to a number of Arizona businesses telling them to have employment records and I-9 worker identification forms ready within three days.
Restaurants along with hotels, construction and services are among industries that tend to have substantial numbers of immigrants workers, some with legal employment status and some of illegal.
ICE is not allowing employers to ask for extensions to comply with the audit.
Both the ICE audits and sheriff’s raids bring attention to illegal workers and discourage other companies from breaking laws, Merritt said.
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/blog/business/2011/02/ice-audits-target-illegal-workers.html
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Congresswoman shot in Tucson rampage
By Shailagh Murray and Sari Horwitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 9, 2011; A01
TUCSON - The mass shooting Saturday morning that gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and killed a federal judge raised serious concerns that the nation's heated political discourse had taken a dangerous turn.
Police are holding a 22-year-old man in the shooting rampage, which occurred outside a supermarket where Giffords was greeting constituents. The gunman shot Giffords in the head at close range and then continued to fire into the small gathering of people, police said.
Police said they think that Giffords was the target of the attack.
Law enforcement and medical officials in Arizona said that at least 18 people were shot in the melee and that six of them had died, including John M. Roll, the chief U.S. District judge in Arizona, and Gabe Zimmerman, Giffords's local director of community outreach. Also killed was Christina Taylor Green, 9, who was born on Sept. 11, 2001, and had gone to the event with a neighbor. Two other Giffords staffers, district director Ron Barber and community outreach aide Pam Simon, were wounded.
Authorities said they were seeking a second man as a "person of interest" who might have been at the scene with the gunman. He is not a suspect in the shooting, authorities said.
It was unclear what might have motivated the suspect, identified as 22-year-old Jared Loughner. On YouTube, an individual using the same name had posted convoluted videos with a vague anti-government message, that law enforcement officials said they were analyzing. As of late Saturday, Loughner wasn't cooperating with investigators.
In an emotional news conference late Saturday, Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik (D) denounced the nation's vitriolic political climate and noted Arizona's part in the rancor after a controversial crackdown on illegal immigration.
"The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous, and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital," Dupnik said. "We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry."
The fiery rhetoric that has taken hold in politics, Dupnik said, "may be free speech, but it's not without consequences."
President Obama dispatched FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III to the scene, and U.S. Capitol Police, charged with protecting members of Congress, urged House members to take "reasonable and prudent precautions" regarding their personal safety.
Peter Rhee, trauma director at University Medical Center in Tucson, where Giffords was listed in intensive care, said a single bullet had struck Giffords in the head and traveled through her brain. Sources close to Giffords said the lawmaker was responsive when she was airlifted from the scene and before surgery.
Despite cautious optimism about Giffords's condition, former U.S. surgeon general Richard Carmona, a family friend of Giffords's, told reporters Saturday night that she could need further surgery. "This is a very devastating wound," Carmona said.
Loughner was tackled by two people in the small crowd that had formed around Giffords, and he was taken taken into custody. A 9mm Glock handgun was recovered. It had what police described as "an extended clip."
Dozens of friends and colleagues gathered at the Capitol on Saturday night for a vigil for Giffords. A somber Obama addressed the tragedy late Saturday afternoon.
"It's not surprising that today Gabby was doing what she always does - listening to the hopes and concerns of her neighbors," Obama said, referring to Giffords by her nickname. "That is the essence of what our democracy is all about. That is why this is more than a tragedy for those involved. It is a tragedy for Arizona and a tragedy for our entire country."
Giffords,who narrowly won reelection to a third term in November and was sworn into office Wednesday, was hosting her first "Congress on Your Corner" event of the new Congress when the gunman appeared, law enforcement sources said.
Steven Rayle, a Tucson doctor, said he saw a young man wearing sneakers and what appeared to be navy-blue sweats approach Gifford with a raised semiautomatic pistol. The man shot Giffords once in the face, he said.
After Giffords fell, Rayle said, people near her tried to flee but were trapped by a table and a concrete post. The gunman fired into the crowd, he said.
"There was nowhere easy to run," Rayle said. "People that were there were just sitting ducks. I don't think he was even aiming. He was just firing at whatever."
An intern to the congresswoman who had nursing training was able to attend to Giffords before emergency workers arrived, a potentially critical intervention, a Giffords aide confirmed.
Law enforcement sources said the gun used in the attack was fitted with a magazine that held about 30 bullets. The shooter had another magazine that held about 30 bullets and two that held about 15 bullets each, sources said, and he also had a knife. Reese Widmier, manager of the Sportsman's Warehouse in Tucson, confirmed that the gun was sold by the store Nov. 30.
The shooting marked the first attempt on the life of a sitting member of Congress since the 1978 killing of Rep. Leo Ryan (D-Calif.) while investigating the Peoples Temple cult compound in Jonestown, Guyana.
Although Loughner's motive remained a mystery, the incident was viewed by many in the political world as a grim bookend to a bitterly contentious campaign season, in which Arizona and Giffords featured prominently.
Last March, Giffords was one of 10 House Democrats who were harassed for their support of the national health-care overhaul. After Giffords voted for the final bill, the front door of her Tucson office was shattered in an early morning act of vandalism.
House Republican leaders had scheduled a vote Wednesday on repealing the health-care law, but they announced after the shooting that it would be postponed, along with other legislative business.
Giffords's seat was targeted by Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections, but she managed to win a tough battle against a tea party-endorsed opponent. The up-and-coming lawmaker, known as a moderate Democrat who stayed in touch with her district, had been singled out by Sarah Palin's SarahPac as one of 20 Democrats representing states that supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president in 2008.
Liberals on Saturday blamed the tea party movement's sometimes militant rhetoric: for example, Palin's telling supporters via Twitter, "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD," and Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sharron Angle's advocating "second-amendment remedies" to some of the nation's problems.
The link to Palin touched off a war of words Saturday via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook,as prominent left-wing bloggers accused Palin and others of encouraging extremism. Palin weighed in by issuing a call for "peace" on her Facebook page.
Politicians from across the spectrum reacted with shock and alarm. "I am horrified by the senseless attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords," said House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). "An attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society."
The "Congress on Your Corner" program was intended as a way for Democratic lawmakers like Giffords to remain connected to local concerns, especially in highly competitive districts. Giffords was standing outside the grocery store under a banner with her name on it when the suspect approached her and started firing.
Giffords is a former member of the Arizona state Senate and House, and she had served as president of a tire company founded by her father. She speaks Spanish, and her hobbies include motorcycle racing. She is married to Mark Kelly, an astronaut and Navy pilot.
In 2006, she was a top recruit of Rahm Emanuel, then chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and was viewed as the type of young, middle-of-the-road candidate with crossover appeal. That year, she won the Democratic primary in a crowded field. In the general election, she received 54 percent of the vote against the GOP candidate, anti-illegal immigration activist Randy Graf, to succeed retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.).
She easily won reelection in 2008.
The debate sparked by the Arizona crackdown last year on illegal immigrants became a defining issue in Giffords's 2010 campaign. The 8th Congressional District borders Mexico, and although Giffords denounced the law as "extreme," she refused to join a chorus of liberal outrage. She described the measure as a "clear calling that the federal government needs to do a better job."
She supported a Republican effort to add National Guard troops along the border and opposed an effort by a home-state colleague, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D), to boycott Arizona businesses in protest of the state law. Giffords won reelection by fewer than 4,000 votes.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), who as 2010 chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee made Giffords's reelection a priority, called her "one of our very brightest lights."
One of her assignments under the Democratic House majority was to chair a subcommittee that oversaw NASA. Kelly, who married Giffords in 2007, recently commanded the space shuttle Endeavor's trip to the international space station.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/08/AR2011010804020.html
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Rift in Arizona as Latino Class Is Found Illegal
By MARC LACEY
The New York Times
January 7, 2011
TUCSON — The class began with a Mayan-inspired chant and a vigorous round of coordinated hand clapping. The classroom walls featured protest signs, including one that said “United Together in La Lucha!” — the struggle. Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School, nearly all of those attending Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class on a recent morning were Mexican-American.
For all of that and more, Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched.
“It’s propagandizing and brainwashing that’s going on there,” Tom Horne, Arizona’s newly elected attorney general, said this week as he officially declared the program in violation of a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1.
Although Shakespeare’s “Tempest” was supposed to be the topic at hand, Mr. Acosta spent most of a recent class discussing the political storm in which he, his students and the entire district have become enmeshed. Mr. Horne’s name came up more than once, and not in a flattering light.
It was Mr. Horne, as the state’s superintendent of public instruction, who wrote a law aimed at challenging Tucson’s ethnic-studies program. The Legislature passed the measure last spring, and Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law in May amid the fierce protests raging over the state’s immigration crackdown.
For the state, the issue is not so much “The Tempest” as some of the other texts used in the classes, among them, “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and “Occupied America,” which Mr. Horne said inappropriately teach Latino youths that they are being mistreated.
Teaching methods in the classes are sometimes unconventional, with instructors scrutinizing hip-hop lyrics and sprinkling their lessons with Spanish words.
The state, which includes some Mexican-American studies in its official curriculum, sees the classes as less about educating students than creating future activists.
In Mr. Acosta’s literature class, students were clearly concerned. They asked if their graduation was at risk. They asked if they were considered terrorists because Mr. Horne described them as wanting to topple the government. They asked how they could protest the decision.
Then, one young woman asked Mr. Acosta how he was holding up.
“They wrote a state law to snuff this program out, just us little Chicanitos,” he said, wiping away tears. “The idea of losing this is emotional.”
At a recent news conference, Mr. Horne took pains to describe his attack on Tucson’s Mexican-American studies program as one rooted in good faith. He said he had been studying Spanish for several years and had learned enough to read Mexican history books in Spanish and to give interviews on Univision and Telemundo, two Spanish-language broadcasters.
Asked whether he felt he was being likened to Bull Connor, the Alabama police commissioner who became a symbol of bigotry in the 1960s, Mr. Horne described how he had participated in the March on Washington in 1963 as a young high school graduate. He said of his critics: “They are the ‘Bull Connors.’ They are the ones resegregating.”
Mr. Horne’s battle with Tucson over ethnic studies dates to 2007, when Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, told high school students there in a speech that Republicans hated Latinos. Mr. Horne, a Republican, sent a top aide, Margaret Garcia Dugan, to the school to present a different perspective. He was infuriated when some students turned their backs and raised their fists in the air.
The Arizona law warns school districts that they stand to lose 10 percent of their state education funds if their ethnic-studies programs are found not to comply with new state standards. Programs that promote the overthrow of the United States government are explicitly banned, and that includes the suggestion that portions of the Southwest that were once part of Mexico should be returned to that country.
Also prohibited is any promotion of resentment toward a race. Programs that are primarily for one race or that advocate ethnic solidarity instead of individuality are also outlawed.
On Monday, his final day as the state’s top education official, Mr. Horne declared that Tucson’s Mexican-American program violated all four provisions. The law gives the district 60 days to comply, although Mr. Horne offered only one remedy: the dissolution of the program.
He said the district’s other ethnic-studies programs, unlike the Mexican-American program, had not received complaints and could continue.
John Huppenthal, a former state senator who took over as Arizona’s schools chief, said he supported Mr. Horne’s 11th-hour ruling. Mr. Huppenthal sat in on one of the Tucson classes taught by Mr. Acosta, and said that Benjamin Franklin was vilified as a racist and a photo of Che Guevara was hanging on the wall. Besides that, he said, Tucson’s test scores are among the lowest in the state, indicating that the district needs to focus on the fundamentals.
Officials here say those enrolled in the program do better on state tests than those of the same ethnicity who are not enrolled.
The battle means that Tucson, a struggling urban district, stands to lose nearly $15 million in an already difficult budget environment. So far, the school board has stood by the program, declaring that it considers it to be in compliance with the law.
If financing were pulled, the district would have an opportunity to appeal, and school officials were already talking about the possibility of the matter ending up in court. Meanwhile, 11 teachers, including Mr. Acosta, have filed suit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the state restrictions.
A discrimination suit against Tucson’s schools in the 1970s prompted a settlement in which an African-American studies program was created. Later, other ethnic-studies programs were added.
To buttress his critique of the Tucson program, Mr. Horne read from texts used in various classes, which in one instance referred to white people as “gringos” and described privilege as being related to the color of a person’s skin, hair and eyes. He also cited the testimony of five teachers who described the program as giving a skewed view of history and promoting racial discord.
“On the first day of school, they are no different than students in any other classes,” said John Ward, who briefly taught a Latino history class in Tucson. “But once they get told day after day that they are being victimized, they become angry and resentful.”
Augustine F. Romero, director of student equity in the Tucson schools, said the program was intended to make students proud of who they are and not hostile toward others. “All of our forefathers have contributed to this country, not just one set of forefathers,” he said. “We respect and admire and appreciate the traditional forefathers, but there are others.”
The debate over the program’s future, Mr. Romero said, proves more than ever the need for the program. “There’s a fierce anti-Latino sentiment in this state,” he said. “These courses are about justice and equity, and what is happening is that the Legislature is trying to narrow the reality of those things.
“Who are the true Americans here — those embracing our inalienable rights or those trying to diminish them?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/us/08ethnic.html?_r=1&ref=us
The New York Times
January 7, 2011
TUCSON — The class began with a Mayan-inspired chant and a vigorous round of coordinated hand clapping. The classroom walls featured protest signs, including one that said “United Together in La Lucha!” — the struggle. Although open to any student at Tucson High Magnet School, nearly all of those attending Curtis Acosta’s Latino literature class on a recent morning were Mexican-American.
For all of that and more, Mr. Acosta’s class and others in the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American program have been declared illegal by the State of Arizona — even while similar programs for black, Asian and American Indian students have been left untouched.
“It’s propagandizing and brainwashing that’s going on there,” Tom Horne, Arizona’s newly elected attorney general, said this week as he officially declared the program in violation of a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1.
Although Shakespeare’s “Tempest” was supposed to be the topic at hand, Mr. Acosta spent most of a recent class discussing the political storm in which he, his students and the entire district have become enmeshed. Mr. Horne’s name came up more than once, and not in a flattering light.
It was Mr. Horne, as the state’s superintendent of public instruction, who wrote a law aimed at challenging Tucson’s ethnic-studies program. The Legislature passed the measure last spring, and Gov. Jan Brewer signed it into law in May amid the fierce protests raging over the state’s immigration crackdown.
For the state, the issue is not so much “The Tempest” as some of the other texts used in the classes, among them, “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and “Occupied America,” which Mr. Horne said inappropriately teach Latino youths that they are being mistreated.
Teaching methods in the classes are sometimes unconventional, with instructors scrutinizing hip-hop lyrics and sprinkling their lessons with Spanish words.
The state, which includes some Mexican-American studies in its official curriculum, sees the classes as less about educating students than creating future activists.
In Mr. Acosta’s literature class, students were clearly concerned. They asked if their graduation was at risk. They asked if they were considered terrorists because Mr. Horne described them as wanting to topple the government. They asked how they could protest the decision.
Then, one young woman asked Mr. Acosta how he was holding up.
“They wrote a state law to snuff this program out, just us little Chicanitos,” he said, wiping away tears. “The idea of losing this is emotional.”
At a recent news conference, Mr. Horne took pains to describe his attack on Tucson’s Mexican-American studies program as one rooted in good faith. He said he had been studying Spanish for several years and had learned enough to read Mexican history books in Spanish and to give interviews on Univision and Telemundo, two Spanish-language broadcasters.
Asked whether he felt he was being likened to Bull Connor, the Alabama police commissioner who became a symbol of bigotry in the 1960s, Mr. Horne described how he had participated in the March on Washington in 1963 as a young high school graduate. He said of his critics: “They are the ‘Bull Connors.’ They are the ones resegregating.”
Mr. Horne’s battle with Tucson over ethnic studies dates to 2007, when Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, told high school students there in a speech that Republicans hated Latinos. Mr. Horne, a Republican, sent a top aide, Margaret Garcia Dugan, to the school to present a different perspective. He was infuriated when some students turned their backs and raised their fists in the air.
The Arizona law warns school districts that they stand to lose 10 percent of their state education funds if their ethnic-studies programs are found not to comply with new state standards. Programs that promote the overthrow of the United States government are explicitly banned, and that includes the suggestion that portions of the Southwest that were once part of Mexico should be returned to that country.
Also prohibited is any promotion of resentment toward a race. Programs that are primarily for one race or that advocate ethnic solidarity instead of individuality are also outlawed.
On Monday, his final day as the state’s top education official, Mr. Horne declared that Tucson’s Mexican-American program violated all four provisions. The law gives the district 60 days to comply, although Mr. Horne offered only one remedy: the dissolution of the program.
He said the district’s other ethnic-studies programs, unlike the Mexican-American program, had not received complaints and could continue.
John Huppenthal, a former state senator who took over as Arizona’s schools chief, said he supported Mr. Horne’s 11th-hour ruling. Mr. Huppenthal sat in on one of the Tucson classes taught by Mr. Acosta, and said that Benjamin Franklin was vilified as a racist and a photo of Che Guevara was hanging on the wall. Besides that, he said, Tucson’s test scores are among the lowest in the state, indicating that the district needs to focus on the fundamentals.
Officials here say those enrolled in the program do better on state tests than those of the same ethnicity who are not enrolled.
The battle means that Tucson, a struggling urban district, stands to lose nearly $15 million in an already difficult budget environment. So far, the school board has stood by the program, declaring that it considers it to be in compliance with the law.
If financing were pulled, the district would have an opportunity to appeal, and school officials were already talking about the possibility of the matter ending up in court. Meanwhile, 11 teachers, including Mr. Acosta, have filed suit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the state restrictions.
A discrimination suit against Tucson’s schools in the 1970s prompted a settlement in which an African-American studies program was created. Later, other ethnic-studies programs were added.
To buttress his critique of the Tucson program, Mr. Horne read from texts used in various classes, which in one instance referred to white people as “gringos” and described privilege as being related to the color of a person’s skin, hair and eyes. He also cited the testimony of five teachers who described the program as giving a skewed view of history and promoting racial discord.
“On the first day of school, they are no different than students in any other classes,” said John Ward, who briefly taught a Latino history class in Tucson. “But once they get told day after day that they are being victimized, they become angry and resentful.”
Augustine F. Romero, director of student equity in the Tucson schools, said the program was intended to make students proud of who they are and not hostile toward others. “All of our forefathers have contributed to this country, not just one set of forefathers,” he said. “We respect and admire and appreciate the traditional forefathers, but there are others.”
The debate over the program’s future, Mr. Romero said, proves more than ever the need for the program. “There’s a fierce anti-Latino sentiment in this state,” he said. “These courses are about justice and equity, and what is happening is that the Legislature is trying to narrow the reality of those things.
“Who are the true Americans here — those embracing our inalienable rights or those trying to diminish them?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/us/08ethnic.html?_r=1&ref=us
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Girlfriend Fights Detention of Her 19-Year-Old Boyfriend
By Gabriela Garcia
Change.Org
January 04, 2011
Tangie Ruiz's MySpace posts read like those of most teenagers: "Summer's almost here! I'm so excited!!!" and "I'm the luckiest girl! I have the most amazing boyfriend!" But suddenly, after months of excited posts about friends, weekend plans, video games, and hanging out at the mall, the posts get dark: “I miss you”; “Please help me get him back.”
Change.Org
January 04, 2011
Tangie Ruiz's MySpace posts read like those of most teenagers: "Summer's almost here! I'm so excited!!!" and "I'm the luckiest girl! I have the most amazing boyfriend!" But suddenly, after months of excited posts about friends, weekend plans, video games, and hanging out at the mall, the posts get dark: “I miss you”; “Please help me get him back.”
That's about the time that Ruiz's 19-year-old boyfriend, Pedro Espinoza, was picked up for riding a bicycle without a light and sent straight to Pinal County Jail in Florence, Arizona, and into deportation proceedings. He'd been on his way home from Ruiz's house to pick up clothes for a camping trip with her family. Since then, he's been sitting in jail, with no charges, for two months.
The baby-faced Pima Vocational High School student, who was en route to receiving a diploma, was brought to the country by his father when he was just 3 months old, and spent his entire life in Tucson, Arizona. His father was working with immigration lawyers to get Espinoza legal documents, but he died when his son was just four years old. Then his grandmother, a legal resident, took over the process, but also passed away. The petition was canceled. Now, Espinoza faces deportation to Mexico, a country he doesn't remember at all, and where he knows no one and has nowhere to live. "Everyday, he is calling [me] crying, so scared," says his girlfriend. "They barely feed him. He feels like he's going to starve to death."
She hasn't accepted the news without a fight. Fundraising car washes every single weekend, meetings with lawyers who were moved to take the case pro bono, collecting character witness letters from admiring mentors and teachers -- those are the activities that have taken the place of what used to be normal teenage past times. "He's a sweet, caring person who will do anything for everyone," she says. "Its tearing our family apart because my mom and brothers have grown to love Pedro, and now we just hear and see his sadness ... he's ready to give up, he's losing hope."
Before he was placed in detention, Espinoza was a volunteer at Salvation Army and a mentor who coached basketball. He is very religious, and attended church every Sunday. Teachers, who speak highly of him, have been trying to help in every way they can. Goldman and Goldman, the firm handling the case, secured a bond for $3,000 but it's not enough to win his release. Ruiz continues to raise funds. She has started a petition hoping the Change.org community can pressure Congress and ICE to intervene and release Pedro from detention so that he can continue his education and volunteer work in the only home he knows.
http://immigration.change.org/blog/view/girlfriend_fights_detention_of_her_19-year-old_boyfriend
Monday, December 13, 2010
Governments across globe struggling with immigration
By Daniel González and Dan Nowicki
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 12, 2010
There are more immigrants in the world today than ever before.
People are crossing the globe in unprecedented numbers, with more than 200 million living outside their home countries. That figure has grown by more than 40 percent in the past decade.
In booming economies, the immigrants, both legal and illegal, are largely tolerated, if not quietly welcomed, because they do jobs that natives can't or won't perform. But in recessions, immigrants often find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion and political will, blamed - accurately or not - for taxing strained social programs and contributing to unemployment rates by working at below-market wages.
In the United States, which has more immigrants than any nation, politicians have begun calling for tougher border security and more deportations as the economy continues to sputter. The resulting crackdowns have been criticized both as not harsh enough and too harsh, with the debate becoming more polarizing seemingly by the day.
But as the rising tension over immigrants across the globe makes clear, immigration is not a challenge just for Americans.
From Asia to Africa to Europe, governments are confronting the same questions that are vexing U.S. policy makers.
An Arizona Republic examination of global immigration issues shows the challenges are universal - and the solutions universally elusive.
For all the myriad approaches, no developed nation has devised a perfect solution, and there has been no one-size-fits-all answer to one of the world's most complex problems.
Like the United States, many countries have tried amnesty, enforcement and guest-worker programs, sometimes alone, sometimes together. Even when a country finds a workable formula, the solution has not been sustainable because immigration and economic factors always are changing.
Spain embraced immigrants for years, with wave after wave of amnesty programs. Then the economy collapsed. Today, Spain is trying to seal its borders.
In Italy, politicians shifted from accepting immigrants to pursuing anti-immigrant measures with zeal, intercepting new arrivals and rounding up and deporting other foreigners. Yet the decline in immigration there, as in the U.S., seems to be tied as much to the economy and lack of jobs as the enforcement measures.
In Germany, guest workers were welcomed for decades. But neither they nor their German-born children and grandchildren fully integrated into the rest of society, partly because they were never given the full rights of Germans. The rest of the country is still grappling with its anxiety and resentment of the group of second-class residents it created.
In the long term, global migration is expected to remain a fact of life on Earth, so immigrants and the immigration backlash will continue to challenge the ingenuity of governments everywhere.
"People are always on the move," said Apichai Shipper, a global-immigration expert and a visiting scholar at UCLA's Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies.
"People were moving before there were nations. People don't move because of nations; people move in spite of nations. I don't think that will ever stop."
Immigration on the rise
There are 214 million immigrants in the world, up 64 million, or 43 percent, from the 150 million migrants in 2000, according to the United Nations. Immigrants now make up 3.1 percent of the world's population, up from 2.9 in 1990.
Many developed countries, especially in Europe, have aging populations and low birthrates, so they depend on immigrants, legal and illegal, not only to fill jobs but also to help cover the growing social-security costs of retirees and support other welfare policies.
"The EU estimates that by 2030 a full 20 million people of Europe will have been retired, and somehow these people must be replaced," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
As countries become more interconnected, it has become easier for people to move across borders and tap into informal social networks to find jobs and housing. Inexpensive phone cards, e-mail and Internet-video connections make it easier for migrants to stay in touch with families back home.
Illegal immigration is a product of that globalization, said Jean-Philippe Chauzy, a Geneva-based spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency that tracks global migration.
There are no hard numbers for how many immigrants are illegal:
- Between 15 and 20 percent of the world's immigrant population may be illegal, Papademetriou has estimated. That would be 32 million to 42 million people based on the world's current immigrant population of 214 million.
- Between 10 and 15 percent of all immigrants in developed countries are there illegally, according to the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, a Paris-based agency made up of 33 democratic, market-based countries, including the U.S.
In the United States, which has developed a formula to approximate its undocumented population, there are an estimated 11.1 million illegal immigrants out of a total of 42 million immigrants. That gives the country both the largest immigrant population and the largest illegal-immigrant population in the world.
There are 2 million to 4 million illegal immigrants living in the European Union, according to a 2008 European Commission study.
Political backlash
In different parts of the world, the nationalities of the migrants change, but the public backlash and political pressures to step up enforcement are similar.
In Washington, lawmakers are mired in a years-long stalemate over how - or whether - to reform the nation's immigration laws. Recently, that discussion has been overtaken by calls for increased border security.
Amid that debate, Arizona drew international attention this spring when Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law what is commonly known as Senate Bill 1070, which seeks to criminalize illegal immigration and enlist police in helping to enforce federal immigration laws.
Those same struggles also are playing out across the world. Europe, particularly, has increasingly viewed illegal immigration with alarm. With unemployment high and voters identifying immigration as a top concern, politicians are emboldened to crack down:
- In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy in August ordered the destruction of several hundred illegal-immigrant camps because of concerns over crime and public-health issues. As a result, more than 1,200 Roma Gypsies were expelled. The deportations have been condemned by the European Parliament, the European Union's 736-member elected assembly.
- In Britain, the coalition government led by Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron has imposed a cap on immigrants from outside the EU. Cameron says he wants to reduce net immigration from the hundreds of thousands who arrived yearly under Labor Party rule to fewer than 100,000.
Immigration issues also influence how those politicians fare at the ballot box, both in the U.S. and abroad:
- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., almost lost his party's presidential nomination in 2008 because of his support for immigration reform.
- In Sweden, where a sniper targeting immigrants has been on the loose since October 2009, members of the far-right anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats in September won 20 seats in the country's 349-member Parliament. The party, which grew out of Sweden's neo-Nazi skinhead subculture, effectively capitalized on rising resentment toward Muslim immigrants to win its first-ever foothold in the assembly. Its electoral success has shaken Sweden's longtime reputation as one of the most friendly and accommodating nations toward immigrants.
Some observers suggest right-wing politicians pander to anti-immigrant feelings in times of economic distress to advance their own agendas and political careers.
"A lot of these extremist far-right groups employ the rhetoric of immigration but also are looking at a number of other key issues in terms of economies, public spending, the maintenance of the welfare state and other areas," said Elizabeth Collett, an expert on European immigration at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, who is based in Brussels, Belgium. "Immigration is often the more visible tool but not the only one."
Cracking down
The trend among nations affected by illegal immigration is increased enforcement.
In the United States, a record number of agents patrol the nation's borders, particularly the southern boundary with Mexico. Lawmakers have spent billions of dollars to build fences along the Mexico border, install sophisticated monitoring equipment and deport record numbers of illegal immigrants.
Spain has had to contend with thousands of illegal immigrants washing up on its shores in leaky boats from Morocco and other poor countries in Africa. Likewise, Italy has struggled to control illegal immigrants pouring in from poorer Eastern European countries, as well as boatloads of Africans crossing the Mediterranean from Libya. Both Spain and Italy have offered multiple amnesty programs to regularize unauthorized migrants. But more recently, the two nations have taken tougher stances, with Spain investing in border security and Italy negotiating an agreement with Libya to intercept migrants on the high seas and return them to Libya.
The stepped-up enforcement, combined with the sagging economy, has led to a drop in the numbers of people entering some countries illegally.
In the United States, 850,000 illegal immigrants entered the country annually from March 2000 to March 2005 when the economy was booming, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington, D.C. From March 2007 to March 2009, when the economy cratered, that number fell to 300,000 a year.
In Europe, illegal-immigrant apprehensions fell nearly 40 percent the first quarter of this year compared with the first quarter of last year, according to Frontex, a European Union agency in charge of controlling illegal immigration.
But cracking down on illegal immigration in one country often just shifts the problem to another. Spain and Italy have been successful in shutting down the flow from Africa, but now illegal immigration is on the rise to the east in Greece.
Likewise in Arizona, many illegal immigrants left for other states after Brewer signed SB1070. And Arizona became ground zero for illegal border crossers when security was tightened in California and Texas in the 1990s.
"Immigration officers use the analogy of squeezing a balloon," Collett said. "If you shut down one area, it opens up somewhere else."
Seeking solutions
Immigration moves in step with the economy: It rises when the economy is strong and drops when it is weak.
Today, with high unemployment in most developed nations, there are no jobs for immigrants, so they stay home and wait to seek work in wealthier nations.
"You can try the best as you can to close borders," the International Organization for Migration's Chauzy said. "But the demand for services, especially cheap services, is still there, and because they (immigrants) have no way to come legally, they will basically use the backdoor."
The challenge for governments is to find ways to manage illegal immigration in a way that benefits their countries. . . . Illegal immigration will always be there because people will always find a way to get in no matter how hard you try to close the borders," Chauzy said. "But you can minimize it. You manage it by opening the doors to the migrants you need or want."
That may sound more simple than it is.
Most developed nations have implemented multiple measures to control immigration. Yet completely effective solutions remain elusive.
Following the money
Immigrants typically move, legally or illegally, in search of better jobs and more opportunities. For example:
- In the United States, annual per capita income is $47,240, according to the World Bank. In neighboring Mexico, the country that sends the largest number of illegal immigrants to the U.S., per capita income is $8,920.
- In Spain, most illegal immigrants come from Morocco. The distance between Spain and Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar is less than 12 miles. But the disparity between incomes in the two countries is huge. Spain's per capita income is $31,870. In Morocco, it's $2,790
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/12/12/20101212global-immigration-main.html#ixzz17zZIzyMs
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 12, 2010
There are more immigrants in the world today than ever before.
People are crossing the globe in unprecedented numbers, with more than 200 million living outside their home countries. That figure has grown by more than 40 percent in the past decade.
In booming economies, the immigrants, both legal and illegal, are largely tolerated, if not quietly welcomed, because they do jobs that natives can't or won't perform. But in recessions, immigrants often find themselves on the wrong side of public opinion and political will, blamed - accurately or not - for taxing strained social programs and contributing to unemployment rates by working at below-market wages.
In the United States, which has more immigrants than any nation, politicians have begun calling for tougher border security and more deportations as the economy continues to sputter. The resulting crackdowns have been criticized both as not harsh enough and too harsh, with the debate becoming more polarizing seemingly by the day.
But as the rising tension over immigrants across the globe makes clear, immigration is not a challenge just for Americans.
From Asia to Africa to Europe, governments are confronting the same questions that are vexing U.S. policy makers.
An Arizona Republic examination of global immigration issues shows the challenges are universal - and the solutions universally elusive.
For all the myriad approaches, no developed nation has devised a perfect solution, and there has been no one-size-fits-all answer to one of the world's most complex problems.
Like the United States, many countries have tried amnesty, enforcement and guest-worker programs, sometimes alone, sometimes together. Even when a country finds a workable formula, the solution has not been sustainable because immigration and economic factors always are changing.
Spain embraced immigrants for years, with wave after wave of amnesty programs. Then the economy collapsed. Today, Spain is trying to seal its borders.
In Italy, politicians shifted from accepting immigrants to pursuing anti-immigrant measures with zeal, intercepting new arrivals and rounding up and deporting other foreigners. Yet the decline in immigration there, as in the U.S., seems to be tied as much to the economy and lack of jobs as the enforcement measures.
In Germany, guest workers were welcomed for decades. But neither they nor their German-born children and grandchildren fully integrated into the rest of society, partly because they were never given the full rights of Germans. The rest of the country is still grappling with its anxiety and resentment of the group of second-class residents it created.
In the long term, global migration is expected to remain a fact of life on Earth, so immigrants and the immigration backlash will continue to challenge the ingenuity of governments everywhere.
"People are always on the move," said Apichai Shipper, a global-immigration expert and a visiting scholar at UCLA's Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies.
"People were moving before there were nations. People don't move because of nations; people move in spite of nations. I don't think that will ever stop."
Immigration on the rise
There are 214 million immigrants in the world, up 64 million, or 43 percent, from the 150 million migrants in 2000, according to the United Nations. Immigrants now make up 3.1 percent of the world's population, up from 2.9 in 1990.
Many developed countries, especially in Europe, have aging populations and low birthrates, so they depend on immigrants, legal and illegal, not only to fill jobs but also to help cover the growing social-security costs of retirees and support other welfare policies.
"The EU estimates that by 2030 a full 20 million people of Europe will have been retired, and somehow these people must be replaced," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
As countries become more interconnected, it has become easier for people to move across borders and tap into informal social networks to find jobs and housing. Inexpensive phone cards, e-mail and Internet-video connections make it easier for migrants to stay in touch with families back home.
Illegal immigration is a product of that globalization, said Jean-Philippe Chauzy, a Geneva-based spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency that tracks global migration.
There are no hard numbers for how many immigrants are illegal:
- Between 15 and 20 percent of the world's immigrant population may be illegal, Papademetriou has estimated. That would be 32 million to 42 million people based on the world's current immigrant population of 214 million.
- Between 10 and 15 percent of all immigrants in developed countries are there illegally, according to the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, a Paris-based agency made up of 33 democratic, market-based countries, including the U.S.
In the United States, which has developed a formula to approximate its undocumented population, there are an estimated 11.1 million illegal immigrants out of a total of 42 million immigrants. That gives the country both the largest immigrant population and the largest illegal-immigrant population in the world.
There are 2 million to 4 million illegal immigrants living in the European Union, according to a 2008 European Commission study.
Political backlash
In different parts of the world, the nationalities of the migrants change, but the public backlash and political pressures to step up enforcement are similar.
In Washington, lawmakers are mired in a years-long stalemate over how - or whether - to reform the nation's immigration laws. Recently, that discussion has been overtaken by calls for increased border security.
Amid that debate, Arizona drew international attention this spring when Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law what is commonly known as Senate Bill 1070, which seeks to criminalize illegal immigration and enlist police in helping to enforce federal immigration laws.
Those same struggles also are playing out across the world. Europe, particularly, has increasingly viewed illegal immigration with alarm. With unemployment high and voters identifying immigration as a top concern, politicians are emboldened to crack down:
- In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy in August ordered the destruction of several hundred illegal-immigrant camps because of concerns over crime and public-health issues. As a result, more than 1,200 Roma Gypsies were expelled. The deportations have been condemned by the European Parliament, the European Union's 736-member elected assembly.
- In Britain, the coalition government led by Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron has imposed a cap on immigrants from outside the EU. Cameron says he wants to reduce net immigration from the hundreds of thousands who arrived yearly under Labor Party rule to fewer than 100,000.
Immigration issues also influence how those politicians fare at the ballot box, both in the U.S. and abroad:
- Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., almost lost his party's presidential nomination in 2008 because of his support for immigration reform.
- In Sweden, where a sniper targeting immigrants has been on the loose since October 2009, members of the far-right anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats in September won 20 seats in the country's 349-member Parliament. The party, which grew out of Sweden's neo-Nazi skinhead subculture, effectively capitalized on rising resentment toward Muslim immigrants to win its first-ever foothold in the assembly. Its electoral success has shaken Sweden's longtime reputation as one of the most friendly and accommodating nations toward immigrants.
Some observers suggest right-wing politicians pander to anti-immigrant feelings in times of economic distress to advance their own agendas and political careers.
"A lot of these extremist far-right groups employ the rhetoric of immigration but also are looking at a number of other key issues in terms of economies, public spending, the maintenance of the welfare state and other areas," said Elizabeth Collett, an expert on European immigration at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, who is based in Brussels, Belgium. "Immigration is often the more visible tool but not the only one."
Cracking down
The trend among nations affected by illegal immigration is increased enforcement.
In the United States, a record number of agents patrol the nation's borders, particularly the southern boundary with Mexico. Lawmakers have spent billions of dollars to build fences along the Mexico border, install sophisticated monitoring equipment and deport record numbers of illegal immigrants.
Spain has had to contend with thousands of illegal immigrants washing up on its shores in leaky boats from Morocco and other poor countries in Africa. Likewise, Italy has struggled to control illegal immigrants pouring in from poorer Eastern European countries, as well as boatloads of Africans crossing the Mediterranean from Libya. Both Spain and Italy have offered multiple amnesty programs to regularize unauthorized migrants. But more recently, the two nations have taken tougher stances, with Spain investing in border security and Italy negotiating an agreement with Libya to intercept migrants on the high seas and return them to Libya.
The stepped-up enforcement, combined with the sagging economy, has led to a drop in the numbers of people entering some countries illegally.
In the United States, 850,000 illegal immigrants entered the country annually from March 2000 to March 2005 when the economy was booming, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a research organization in Washington, D.C. From March 2007 to March 2009, when the economy cratered, that number fell to 300,000 a year.
In Europe, illegal-immigrant apprehensions fell nearly 40 percent the first quarter of this year compared with the first quarter of last year, according to Frontex, a European Union agency in charge of controlling illegal immigration.
But cracking down on illegal immigration in one country often just shifts the problem to another. Spain and Italy have been successful in shutting down the flow from Africa, but now illegal immigration is on the rise to the east in Greece.
Likewise in Arizona, many illegal immigrants left for other states after Brewer signed SB1070. And Arizona became ground zero for illegal border crossers when security was tightened in California and Texas in the 1990s.
"Immigration officers use the analogy of squeezing a balloon," Collett said. "If you shut down one area, it opens up somewhere else."
Seeking solutions
Immigration moves in step with the economy: It rises when the economy is strong and drops when it is weak.
Today, with high unemployment in most developed nations, there are no jobs for immigrants, so they stay home and wait to seek work in wealthier nations.
"You can try the best as you can to close borders," the International Organization for Migration's Chauzy said. "But the demand for services, especially cheap services, is still there, and because they (immigrants) have no way to come legally, they will basically use the backdoor."
The challenge for governments is to find ways to manage illegal immigration in a way that benefits their countries. . . . Illegal immigration will always be there because people will always find a way to get in no matter how hard you try to close the borders," Chauzy said. "But you can minimize it. You manage it by opening the doors to the migrants you need or want."
That may sound more simple than it is.
Most developed nations have implemented multiple measures to control immigration. Yet completely effective solutions remain elusive.
Following the money
Immigrants typically move, legally or illegally, in search of better jobs and more opportunities. For example:
- In the United States, annual per capita income is $47,240, according to the World Bank. In neighboring Mexico, the country that sends the largest number of illegal immigrants to the U.S., per capita income is $8,920.
- In Spain, most illegal immigrants come from Morocco. The distance between Spain and Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar is less than 12 miles. But the disparity between incomes in the two countries is huge. Spain's per capita income is $31,870. In Morocco, it's $2,790
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/12/12/20101212global-immigration-main.html#ixzz17zZIzyMs
Friday, November 12, 2010
As deportations increase, so do attempts to deport wrong people
By Marian Wang
Tuscon Sentinel
Posted Nov 11, 2010
As deportations have increased under the Obama administration, immigration judges have also increasingly denied requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport people who were legitimately entitled to stay in the country, according to new data obtained by Syracuse University’s Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse.
From July to September of this year, for instance, almost a third of all deportation cases brought by ICE were rejected by immigration judges—up from 12 months earlier, when the rate was one out of every four. According to TRAC, judges have rejected removal orders for more than a quarter of a million individuals in the past five years.
While the judges’ exact reasons remain unclear, records from the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review indicate that many times, immigration officials had either tried to deport the wrong people or requested dismissal because they didn’t have enough evidence to justify deportation. In some cases, judges also granted relief because of an individual’s refugee status, a pending application for change of legal status or for some other reason.
ICE has refused to turn over more detailed data on the deportation cases that were rejected by courts, according to TRAC. In lieu of more data, TRAC noted the following questions:
As we’ve noted, one potential cause for the dismissals could be the staggering backlog of cases in immigration courts—a number that has risen to record levels along with the rise in deportations under the Obama administration.
This week the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted that while dismissals don’t seem to be increasing in Las Vegas, the backlog there is at an all-time high, having ballooned by more than 80 percent this year.
TRAC’s data also show that the trend of rejected deportation cases depends on the court, but the top five in this fiscal year were New York City (with 70% of cases rejected), Portland (63%), Los Angeles (63%), Miami (59%), and Philadelphia (55%).
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/111110_deportation
Tuscon Sentinel
Posted Nov 11, 2010
As deportations have increased under the Obama administration, immigration judges have also increasingly denied requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport people who were legitimately entitled to stay in the country, according to new data obtained by Syracuse University’s Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse.
From July to September of this year, for instance, almost a third of all deportation cases brought by ICE were rejected by immigration judges—up from 12 months earlier, when the rate was one out of every four. According to TRAC, judges have rejected removal orders for more than a quarter of a million individuals in the past five years.
While the judges’ exact reasons remain unclear, records from the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review indicate that many times, immigration officials had either tried to deport the wrong people or requested dismissal because they didn’t have enough evidence to justify deportation. In some cases, judges also granted relief because of an individual’s refugee status, a pending application for change of legal status or for some other reason.
ICE has refused to turn over more detailed data on the deportation cases that were rejected by courts, according to TRAC. In lieu of more data, TRAC noted the following questions:
The new findings about the broad failures in ICE efforts to deport individuals raise two important questions that might be answered with the more extensive data that the agency has sought to withhold from the public. One involves the effectiveness of the agency: is it targeting the individuals for removal who in fact should be deported? The second question concerns the basic fairness of the process: what is the impact on those individuals the agency has wrongly sought to remove who were entitled to remain in the United States?When we asked about the immigration cases brought by ICE that were rejected by judges, ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado said his agency has “no say in what the decision of the immigration judges is going to be,” and reiterated that his agency’s priority is to “remove criminal aliens first.”
The new statistics coincide with a smattering of local reports, which in recent months have noted that immigration courts across the country are increasingly dismissing some deportation cases for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. Here’s a Miami Herald story, for instance, that ran just last week:Last month, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee called for an investigation into the increase in dismissals of deportation cases, alleging that Homeland Security officials are selectively enforcing the law based on “chosen enforcement priorities.”
In August and September, for example, judges at Miami immigration court dismissed 631 deportation cases compared to 449 in June and July.
In fact, the 324 cases immigration judges dismissed in August was the highest monthly case termination figure in the last 12 months, according to statistics the Justice Department's immigration court system released last week.
… While immigration court officials would not speculate on why judges are terminating more cases than before, some attorneys said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement trial attorneys now seem more willing to drop deportation cases against certain foreign nationals.
As we’ve noted, one potential cause for the dismissals could be the staggering backlog of cases in immigration courts—a number that has risen to record levels along with the rise in deportations under the Obama administration.
This week the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted that while dismissals don’t seem to be increasing in Las Vegas, the backlog there is at an all-time high, having ballooned by more than 80 percent this year.
TRAC’s data also show that the trend of rejected deportation cases depends on the court, but the top five in this fiscal year were New York City (with 70% of cases rejected), Portland (63%), Los Angeles (63%), Miami (59%), and Philadelphia (55%).
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/nationworld/report/111110_deportation
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Arizona immigration law has not lived up to reputation; So far, no arrests, no citations and no lawsuits vs. police
by Alia Beard Rau
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 29, 2010 12:00 AM
The nation's toughest immigration law has been in effect for three months. But after the federal courts prevented key portions from going into effect, it has failed to live up to both opponents' worst fears and supporters' greatest hopes.
Immigrant-rights groups and major Arizona law-enforcement agencies say they've heard of no arrests made or citations issued using the statutes created under Senate Bill 1070, and no Arizona resident has taken advantage of the portion of the law that allows them to sue an official or agency that is not enforcing federal immigration law to the fullest extent.
The law that went into effect on July 29 is a shadow of its original self. The day before, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton halted four key provisions from going into effect, including the portion of the law that requires a police officer to verify a person's status when there is reasonable suspicion that the subject is an undocumented immigrant.
Gov. Jan Brewer is appealing Bolton's ruling, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments from both sides Monday in San Francisco.
But several state statutes created under SB 1070 went into effect on July 29. Individuals on both sides of the issue said after Bolton's ruling that the law still had teeth.
New statutes
The statutes allowed to go into effect do several things:
- Require government officials and agencies to enforce federal immigration laws to the fullest extent permitted by federal law and allow Arizona residents to sue if the official or agency adopts a policy that violates this requirement.
- Allow law enforcement to pull anybody over for any traffic violation if the driver is suspected of engaging in the "smuggling" of human beings for profit or commercial purposes. This could include stopping a driver for a secondary offense such as not wearing a seat belt, which in every other circumstance can be cited only if the driver is stopped for a separate primary violation such as speeding.
- Make it a crime to pick up or be picked up as a day laborer if the vehicle is stopped on a road and impeding traffic.
- Make it a crime to encourage an illegal immigrant to come to Arizona or transport, conceal, harbor or shield an immigrant if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact the immigrant is in the country illegally. This offense has to be during the commission of another criminal offense.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrant-advocacy groups had said they were concerned overzealous law enforcement would misapply these remaining portions of the law, particularly the harboring and day-labor provisions.
Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who sponsored the bill, said in July that even though Bolton struck down parts of the law, the remaining portions still meant "the handcuffs come off law enforcement."
On Thursday, he said that despite there having been no arrests under the law, it has succeeded at driving illegal immigrants out of Arizona and assisting law enforcement.
"It is having the impact needed," he said. "I have talked to law enforcement, and they intend to use these laws."
He said it has also succeeded at getting some law-enforcement agencies to change policies that before did not allow officers to question individuals such as witnesses and crime victims about their legal status.
Law enforcement
But even with the "handcuffs" removed, law enforcement agencies in Maricopa County, Cochise County, Tempe, Glendale, Peoria, Gilbert and elsewhere say they have made no arrests under the new statutes. Phoenix officials did not respond to a public-records request submitted Oct. 8 seeking arrest data.
Mark Spencer, president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, a union that supported the law, did not return calls seeking similar information.
Immigrant-advocacy groups, which have been tracking the issue closely and encouraging individuals to contact them with reports of arrests or racial discrimination, say they have heard of no arrests anywhere in the state.
Mike Tellef, a Peoria Police Department spokesman, said his department has decided to wait on future court rulings before enforcing SB 1070. He said the department has suspended its policy relating to the law.
Glendale Officer Gerald Sydnor said his officers have been told that they can enforce the statutes of SB 1070 not halted by the court. But he said no officers have recommended charges for SB 1070 offenses.
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said Bolton's decision to halt part of the law rendered the entire thing "moot."
"With the law as it is now, not much is going to change," he said.
Dever said the most beneficial part of the law was a portion the judge halted, one that required all law-enforcement officials to check an individual's immigration status. It wouldn't have changed what law enforcement in Cochise already does, he said, but it would have made the requirement uniform across the state.
"Sanctuary policies suggest that, at some point in time, if you cross the finish line, you're home free," he said.
Policy changes
Pearce has said the most important portion of the law allowed to go into effect is the provision that requires local agencies to enforce federal immigration law. He said that will end the trend of "sanctuary cities" because it means cities cannot have policies that, for example, forbid an officer from questioning a witness or crime victim about his or her legal status.
He has criticized several cities for having what he described as sanctuary policies, including Mesa and Chandler.
In September, Mesa changed its policy to no longer forbid officers from questioning the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses, domestic-violence victims, individuals seeking medical assistance, and some juveniles.
Chandler has been examining its policy but has not yet made any changes to it. The city allows officers to question all misdemeanor and felony suspects about their immigration status, but Police Chief Sherry Kiyler has said officers would not ask the status of crime victims, witnesses, civil-traffic violators, or juveniles who are not charged with violent crimes.
Community impact
Gov. Jan Brewer declined to comment about the impact of SB 1070 during its first three months.
Her spokesman, Paul Senseman, said only that her office doesn't have information available about arrests.
Salvador Reza, a day-labor advocate for Puente, grass-roots immigrant-rights group, said the lack of arrests proves SB 1070 is nothing more than a political ploy. He said that law enforcement is still arresting and questioning immigrants about their legal status but that the officers are using existing laws and not SB 1070.
"SB 1070 has not been used as a way to enforce the law in any way, shape or form," Reza said. "It was never needed."
He said he also doesn't believe the law has been successful in its goal of "attrition through enforcement." He said immigrants are leaving Arizona because of the economy and lack of jobs, not because of fear of SB 1070.
Lydia Guzman of the immigration-rights group Respeto said that although she has not heard of any arrests under SB 1070, she believes it has been successful in driving immigrants out of Arizona.
"People are leaving the state," she said.
Connie Andersen of Valley Interfaith Project said the Hispanic community felt a sense of relief after Bolton halted part of the law. But she said a general fear has lingered.
"The population is less inclined than ever before to report crime, and we're hearing about escalations of criminal behavior in pockets where people feel they are unable to call police," Andersen said.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/10/29/20101029arizona-immigration-law-three-months-later.html#ixzz13kmAPwus
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 29, 2010 12:00 AM
The nation's toughest immigration law has been in effect for three months. But after the federal courts prevented key portions from going into effect, it has failed to live up to both opponents' worst fears and supporters' greatest hopes.
Immigrant-rights groups and major Arizona law-enforcement agencies say they've heard of no arrests made or citations issued using the statutes created under Senate Bill 1070, and no Arizona resident has taken advantage of the portion of the law that allows them to sue an official or agency that is not enforcing federal immigration law to the fullest extent.
The law that went into effect on July 29 is a shadow of its original self. The day before, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton halted four key provisions from going into effect, including the portion of the law that requires a police officer to verify a person's status when there is reasonable suspicion that the subject is an undocumented immigrant.
Gov. Jan Brewer is appealing Bolton's ruling, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments from both sides Monday in San Francisco.
But several state statutes created under SB 1070 went into effect on July 29. Individuals on both sides of the issue said after Bolton's ruling that the law still had teeth.
New statutes
The statutes allowed to go into effect do several things:
- Require government officials and agencies to enforce federal immigration laws to the fullest extent permitted by federal law and allow Arizona residents to sue if the official or agency adopts a policy that violates this requirement.
- Allow law enforcement to pull anybody over for any traffic violation if the driver is suspected of engaging in the "smuggling" of human beings for profit or commercial purposes. This could include stopping a driver for a secondary offense such as not wearing a seat belt, which in every other circumstance can be cited only if the driver is stopped for a separate primary violation such as speeding.
- Make it a crime to pick up or be picked up as a day laborer if the vehicle is stopped on a road and impeding traffic.
- Make it a crime to encourage an illegal immigrant to come to Arizona or transport, conceal, harbor or shield an immigrant if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact the immigrant is in the country illegally. This offense has to be during the commission of another criminal offense.
The American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrant-advocacy groups had said they were concerned overzealous law enforcement would misapply these remaining portions of the law, particularly the harboring and day-labor provisions.
Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who sponsored the bill, said in July that even though Bolton struck down parts of the law, the remaining portions still meant "the handcuffs come off law enforcement."
On Thursday, he said that despite there having been no arrests under the law, it has succeeded at driving illegal immigrants out of Arizona and assisting law enforcement.
"It is having the impact needed," he said. "I have talked to law enforcement, and they intend to use these laws."
He said it has also succeeded at getting some law-enforcement agencies to change policies that before did not allow officers to question individuals such as witnesses and crime victims about their legal status.
Law enforcement
But even with the "handcuffs" removed, law enforcement agencies in Maricopa County, Cochise County, Tempe, Glendale, Peoria, Gilbert and elsewhere say they have made no arrests under the new statutes. Phoenix officials did not respond to a public-records request submitted Oct. 8 seeking arrest data.
Mark Spencer, president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, a union that supported the law, did not return calls seeking similar information.
Immigrant-advocacy groups, which have been tracking the issue closely and encouraging individuals to contact them with reports of arrests or racial discrimination, say they have heard of no arrests anywhere in the state.
Mike Tellef, a Peoria Police Department spokesman, said his department has decided to wait on future court rulings before enforcing SB 1070. He said the department has suspended its policy relating to the law.
Glendale Officer Gerald Sydnor said his officers have been told that they can enforce the statutes of SB 1070 not halted by the court. But he said no officers have recommended charges for SB 1070 offenses.
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said Bolton's decision to halt part of the law rendered the entire thing "moot."
"With the law as it is now, not much is going to change," he said.
Dever said the most beneficial part of the law was a portion the judge halted, one that required all law-enforcement officials to check an individual's immigration status. It wouldn't have changed what law enforcement in Cochise already does, he said, but it would have made the requirement uniform across the state.
"Sanctuary policies suggest that, at some point in time, if you cross the finish line, you're home free," he said.
Policy changes
Pearce has said the most important portion of the law allowed to go into effect is the provision that requires local agencies to enforce federal immigration law. He said that will end the trend of "sanctuary cities" because it means cities cannot have policies that, for example, forbid an officer from questioning a witness or crime victim about his or her legal status.
He has criticized several cities for having what he described as sanctuary policies, including Mesa and Chandler.
In September, Mesa changed its policy to no longer forbid officers from questioning the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses, domestic-violence victims, individuals seeking medical assistance, and some juveniles.
Chandler has been examining its policy but has not yet made any changes to it. The city allows officers to question all misdemeanor and felony suspects about their immigration status, but Police Chief Sherry Kiyler has said officers would not ask the status of crime victims, witnesses, civil-traffic violators, or juveniles who are not charged with violent crimes.
Community impact
Gov. Jan Brewer declined to comment about the impact of SB 1070 during its first three months.
Her spokesman, Paul Senseman, said only that her office doesn't have information available about arrests.
Salvador Reza, a day-labor advocate for Puente, grass-roots immigrant-rights group, said the lack of arrests proves SB 1070 is nothing more than a political ploy. He said that law enforcement is still arresting and questioning immigrants about their legal status but that the officers are using existing laws and not SB 1070.
"SB 1070 has not been used as a way to enforce the law in any way, shape or form," Reza said. "It was never needed."
He said he also doesn't believe the law has been successful in its goal of "attrition through enforcement." He said immigrants are leaving Arizona because of the economy and lack of jobs, not because of fear of SB 1070.
Lydia Guzman of the immigration-rights group Respeto said that although she has not heard of any arrests under SB 1070, she believes it has been successful in driving immigrants out of Arizona.
"People are leaving the state," she said.
Connie Andersen of Valley Interfaith Project said the Hispanic community felt a sense of relief after Bolton halted part of the law. But she said a general fear has lingered.
"The population is less inclined than ever before to report crime, and we're hearing about escalations of criminal behavior in pockets where people feel they are unable to call police," Andersen said.
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2010/10/29/20101029arizona-immigration-law-three-months-later.html#ixzz13kmAPwus
Friday, October 29, 2010
Shaping State Laws With Little Scrutiny
by Laura Sullivan
National Public Radio
October 29, 2010
When you walk into the offices of the American Legislative Exchange Council, it's hard to imagine it is the birthplace of a thousand pieces of legislation introduced in statehouses across the county.
Only 28 people work in ALEC's dark, quiet headquarters in Washington, D.C. And Michael Bowman, senior director of policy, explains that the little-known organization's staff is not the ones writing the bills. The real authors are the group's members — a mix of state legislators and some of the biggest corporations in the country.
"Most of the bills are written by outside sources and companies, attorneys, [and legislative] counsels," Bowman says.
Here's how it works: ALEC is a membership organization. State legislators pay $50 a year to belong. Private corporations can join, too. The tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp. and drug-maker Pfizer Inc. are among the members. They pay tens of thousands of dollars a year. Tax records show that corporations collectively pay as much as $6 million a year.
With that money, the 28 people in the ALEC offices throw three annual conferences. The companies get to sit around a table and write "model bills" with the state legislators, who then take them home to their states.
Lobbying Or Education?
One of those bills is now Arizona's controversial new immigration law. It requires police to arrest anyone who cannot prove they entered the country legally when asked. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could be locked up, and private prison companies stand to make millions.
The largest prison company in the country, the Corrections Corporation of America, was present when the model immigration legislation was drafted at an ALEC conference last year.
ALEC's Bowman says that is not unusual; more than 200 of the organization's model bills became actual laws over the past year. But he hedges when asked if that means the unofficial drafting process is an effective way to accelerate the legislative process.
"It's not an effective way to get a bill passed," he says. "It's an effective way to find good legislation."
The difference between passing bills and "finding" them is lobbying. Most states define lobbying as pushing legislators to create or pass legislation. And that comes with rules. Companies typically have to disclose to the public what they are lobbying for, who's lobbying for them or how much they are spending on it.
If ALEC's conferences were interpreted as lobbying, the group could lose its status as a non-profit. Corporations wouldn't be able to reap tax benefits from giving donations to the organization or write off those donations as a business expense. And legislators would have a hard time justifying attending a conference of lobbyists.
Bowman says what his group does is educate lawmakers.
"ALEC allows a place for everyone at the table to come and debate and discuss," he says. "You have legislators who will ask questions much more freely at our meetings because they are not under the eyes of the press, the eyes of the voters. They're just trying to learn a policy and understand it."
Much about ALEC is private. It does not disclose how it spends it money or who gives it to them. ALEC rarely grants interviews. Bowman won't even say which legislators are members.
Is it lobbying when private corporations pay money to sit in a room with state lawmakers to draft legislation that they then introduce back home? Bowman, a former lobbyist, says, "No, because we're not advocating any positions. We don't tell members to take these bills. We just expose best practices. All we're really doing is developing policies that are in model bill form."
So, for example, last December Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce sat in a hotel conference room with representatives from the Corrections Corporation of America and several dozen others. The group voted on model legislation that was introduced into the Arizona legislature two months later, almost word for word.
Bowman says that type of meeting is an informational exchange, meant to help legislators understand policy.
But first ALEC has to get legislators to the conferences. The organization encourages state lawmakers to bring their families. Corporations sponsor golf tournaments on the side and throw parties at night, according to interviews and records obtained by NPR.
Bowman says that's nothing special: "We have breakfasts and lunch. They're at Marriotts and Hyatts. They're normal chicken dinner. Maybe sometimes they get steaks. Yeah, we feed the people. We think that it's OK to eat at a conference."
Videos and photos from one recent ALEC conference show banquets, open bar parties and baseball games — all hosted by corporations. Tax records show the group spent $138,000 to keep legislators' children entertained for the week.
But the legislators don't have to declare these as corporate gifts.
Consider this: If a corporation hosts a party or baseball game and legislators attend, most states require the lawmakers to say where they went and who paid. In this case though, legislators can just say they went to ALEC's conference. They don't have to declare which corporations sponsored these events.
'Scholarships' For Conferences
Kirk Adams, Arizona's House speaker, went to ALEC's most recent gathering in San Diego.
"I have been to ALEC's conferences and they have been pretty educational — the ones that I've been to," he says, adding that the time he spends with corporate executives does not influence his opinions on the issues.
"If we were to believe that a dinner with a lobbyist would purchase a member's allegiance to an issue, then we have much larger problems than that," Adams says. "It's just simply not been my experience at all."
When asked if he paid his own way to the ALEC conference, Adams acknowledges he accepted money from the group to help pay for the trip. ALEC calls this a "scholarship."
Many ALEC members receive these scholarships. But it's not clear who's really paying.
Michael Bowman initially said state Sen. Pearce, who also accepted a scholarship, would know who paid for his trip. But the Arizona lawmaker said ALEC paid for it. Later, Bowman said Bob Burns, another Arizona state Senator, would know. Burns was in charge of pooling money for the scholarships. He did not respond to NPR's repeated requests asking where the money came from.
In an office at the Arizona statehouse, a review of records show that not one Arizona legislator who went to the conference reported receiving any gifts of meals, parties, golf outings or banquets tickets from a private corporation.
Pearce and a dozen others wrote that they received a gift of $500 or more from ALEC.
A review of the two dozen states now considering Arizona's immigration law shows many of those pushing similar legislation across the country are ALEC members.
In fact, five of those legislators were in the hotel conference room with the Corrections Corporation of America the day the model bill was written.
The prison company didn't have to file a lobbying report or disclose any gifts to legislators. They don't even have to tell anyone they were there. All they have to do is pay their ALEC dues and show up.
Produced by NPR's Anne Hawke.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130891396
National Public Radio
October 29, 2010
When you walk into the offices of the American Legislative Exchange Council, it's hard to imagine it is the birthplace of a thousand pieces of legislation introduced in statehouses across the county.
Only 28 people work in ALEC's dark, quiet headquarters in Washington, D.C. And Michael Bowman, senior director of policy, explains that the little-known organization's staff is not the ones writing the bills. The real authors are the group's members — a mix of state legislators and some of the biggest corporations in the country.
"Most of the bills are written by outside sources and companies, attorneys, [and legislative] counsels," Bowman says.
Here's how it works: ALEC is a membership organization. State legislators pay $50 a year to belong. Private corporations can join, too. The tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp. and drug-maker Pfizer Inc. are among the members. They pay tens of thousands of dollars a year. Tax records show that corporations collectively pay as much as $6 million a year.
With that money, the 28 people in the ALEC offices throw three annual conferences. The companies get to sit around a table and write "model bills" with the state legislators, who then take them home to their states.
Lobbying Or Education?
One of those bills is now Arizona's controversial new immigration law. It requires police to arrest anyone who cannot prove they entered the country legally when asked. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants could be locked up, and private prison companies stand to make millions.
The largest prison company in the country, the Corrections Corporation of America, was present when the model immigration legislation was drafted at an ALEC conference last year.
ALEC's Bowman says that is not unusual; more than 200 of the organization's model bills became actual laws over the past year. But he hedges when asked if that means the unofficial drafting process is an effective way to accelerate the legislative process.
"It's not an effective way to get a bill passed," he says. "It's an effective way to find good legislation."
The difference between passing bills and "finding" them is lobbying. Most states define lobbying as pushing legislators to create or pass legislation. And that comes with rules. Companies typically have to disclose to the public what they are lobbying for, who's lobbying for them or how much they are spending on it.
If ALEC's conferences were interpreted as lobbying, the group could lose its status as a non-profit. Corporations wouldn't be able to reap tax benefits from giving donations to the organization or write off those donations as a business expense. And legislators would have a hard time justifying attending a conference of lobbyists.
Bowman says what his group does is educate lawmakers.
"ALEC allows a place for everyone at the table to come and debate and discuss," he says. "You have legislators who will ask questions much more freely at our meetings because they are not under the eyes of the press, the eyes of the voters. They're just trying to learn a policy and understand it."
Much about ALEC is private. It does not disclose how it spends it money or who gives it to them. ALEC rarely grants interviews. Bowman won't even say which legislators are members.
Is it lobbying when private corporations pay money to sit in a room with state lawmakers to draft legislation that they then introduce back home? Bowman, a former lobbyist, says, "No, because we're not advocating any positions. We don't tell members to take these bills. We just expose best practices. All we're really doing is developing policies that are in model bill form."
So, for example, last December Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce sat in a hotel conference room with representatives from the Corrections Corporation of America and several dozen others. The group voted on model legislation that was introduced into the Arizona legislature two months later, almost word for word.
Bowman says that type of meeting is an informational exchange, meant to help legislators understand policy.
But first ALEC has to get legislators to the conferences. The organization encourages state lawmakers to bring their families. Corporations sponsor golf tournaments on the side and throw parties at night, according to interviews and records obtained by NPR.
Bowman says that's nothing special: "We have breakfasts and lunch. They're at Marriotts and Hyatts. They're normal chicken dinner. Maybe sometimes they get steaks. Yeah, we feed the people. We think that it's OK to eat at a conference."
Videos and photos from one recent ALEC conference show banquets, open bar parties and baseball games — all hosted by corporations. Tax records show the group spent $138,000 to keep legislators' children entertained for the week.
But the legislators don't have to declare these as corporate gifts.
Consider this: If a corporation hosts a party or baseball game and legislators attend, most states require the lawmakers to say where they went and who paid. In this case though, legislators can just say they went to ALEC's conference. They don't have to declare which corporations sponsored these events.
'Scholarships' For Conferences
Kirk Adams, Arizona's House speaker, went to ALEC's most recent gathering in San Diego.
"I have been to ALEC's conferences and they have been pretty educational — the ones that I've been to," he says, adding that the time he spends with corporate executives does not influence his opinions on the issues.
"If we were to believe that a dinner with a lobbyist would purchase a member's allegiance to an issue, then we have much larger problems than that," Adams says. "It's just simply not been my experience at all."
When asked if he paid his own way to the ALEC conference, Adams acknowledges he accepted money from the group to help pay for the trip. ALEC calls this a "scholarship."
Many ALEC members receive these scholarships. But it's not clear who's really paying.
Michael Bowman initially said state Sen. Pearce, who also accepted a scholarship, would know who paid for his trip. But the Arizona lawmaker said ALEC paid for it. Later, Bowman said Bob Burns, another Arizona state Senator, would know. Burns was in charge of pooling money for the scholarships. He did not respond to NPR's repeated requests asking where the money came from.
In an office at the Arizona statehouse, a review of records show that not one Arizona legislator who went to the conference reported receiving any gifts of meals, parties, golf outings or banquets tickets from a private corporation.
Pearce and a dozen others wrote that they received a gift of $500 or more from ALEC.
A review of the two dozen states now considering Arizona's immigration law shows many of those pushing similar legislation across the country are ALEC members.
In fact, five of those legislators were in the hotel conference room with the Corrections Corporation of America the day the model bill was written.
The prison company didn't have to file a lobbying report or disclose any gifts to legislators. They don't even have to tell anyone they were there. All they have to do is pay their ALEC dues and show up.
Produced by NPR's Anne Hawke.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130891396
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law
By Laura Sullivan
National Public Radio
10/28/2010
Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.
Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.
"The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."
What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.
"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."
But Nichols wasn't buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?
"They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said.
That's because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona's immigration law.
Behind-The-Scenes Effort To Draft, Pass The Law
The law is being challenged in the courts. But if it's upheld, it requires police to lock up anyone they stop who cannot show proof they entered the country legally.
When it was passed in April, it ignited a fire storm. Protesters chanted about racial profiling. Businesses threatened to boycott the state.
Supporters were equally passionate, calling it a bold positive step to curb illegal immigration.
But while the debate raged, few people were aware of how the law came about.
NPR spent the past several months analyzing hundreds of pages of campaign finance reports, lobbying documents and corporate records. What they show is a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to help draft and pass Arizona Senate Bill 1070 by an industry that stands to benefit from it: the private prison industry.
The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.
Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce says the bill was his idea. He says it's not about prisons. It's about what's best for the country.
"Enough is enough," Pearce said in his office, sitting under a banner reading "Let Freedom Reign." "People need to focus on the cost of not enforcing our laws and securing our border. It is the Trojan horse destroying our country and a republic cannot survive as a lawless nation."
But instead of taking his idea to the Arizona statehouse floor, Pearce first took it to a hotel conference room.
It was last December at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C. Inside, there was a meeting of a secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Insiders call it ALEC.
It's a membership organization of state legislators and powerful corporations and associations, such as the tobacco company Reynolds American Inc., ExxonMobil and the National Rifle Association. Another member is the billion-dollar Corrections Corporation of America — the largest private prison company in the country.
It was there that Pearce's idea took shape.
"I did a presentation," Pearce said. "I went through the facts. I went through the impacts and they said, 'Yeah.'"
Drafting The Bill
The 50 or so people in the room included officials of the Corrections Corporation of America, according to two sources who were there.
Pearce and the Corrections Corporation of America have been coming to these meetings for years. Both have seats on one of several of ALEC's boards.
And this bill was an important one for the company. According to Corrections Corporation of America reports reviewed by NPR, executives believe immigrant detention is their next big market. Last year, they wrote that they expect to bring in "a significant portion of our revenues" from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that detains illegal immigrants.
In the conference room, the group decided they would turn the immigration idea into a model bill. They discussed and debated language. Then, they voted on it.
"There were no 'no' votes," Pearce said. "I never had one person speak up in objection to this model legislation."
Four months later, that model legislation became, almost word for word, Arizona's immigration law.
They even named it. They called it the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act."
"ALEC is the conservative, free-market orientated, limited-government group," said Michael Hough, who was staff director of the meeting.
Hough works for ALEC, but he's also running for state delegate in Maryland, and if elected says he plans to support a similar bill to Arizona's law.
Asked if the private companies usually get to write model bills for the legislators, Hough said, "Yeah, that's the way it's set up. It's a public-private partnership. We believe both sides, businesses and lawmakers should be at the same table, together."
Nothing about this is illegal. Pearce's immigration plan became a prospective bill and Pearce took it home to Arizona.
Campaign Donations
Pearce said he is not concerned that it could appear private prison companies have an opportunity to lobby for legislation at the ALEC meetings.
"I don't go there to meet with them," he said. "I go there to meet with other legislators."
Pearce may go there to meet with other legislators, but 200 private companies pay tens of thousands of dollars to meet with legislators like him.
As soon as Pearce's bill hit the Arizona statehouse floor in January, there were signs of ALEC's influence. Thirty-six co-sponsors jumped on, a number almost unheard of in the capitol. According to records obtained by NPR, two-thirds of them either went to that December meeting or are ALEC members.
That same week, the Corrections Corporation of America hired a powerful new lobbyist to work the capitol.
The prison company declined requests for an interview. In a statement, a spokesman said the Corrections Corporation of America, "unequivocally has not at any time lobbied — nor have we had any outside consultants lobby – on immigration law."
At the state Capitol, campaign donations started to appear.
Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.
By April, the bill was on Gov. Jan Brewer's desk.
Brewer has her own connections to private prison companies. State lobbying records show two of her top advisers — her spokesman Paul Senseman and her campaign manager Chuck Coughlin — are former lobbyists for private prison companies. Brewer signed the bill — with the name of the legislation Pearce, the Corrections Corporation of America and the others in the Hyatt conference room came up with — in four days.
Brewer and her spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
In May, The Geo Group had a conference call with investors. When asked about the bill, company executives made light of it, asking, "Did they have some legislation on immigration?"
After company officials laughed, the company's president, Wayne Calabrese, cut in.
"This is Wayne," he said. "I can only believe the opportunities at the federal level are going to continue apace as a result of what's happening. Those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained and that for me, at least I think, there's going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do."
Opportunities that prison companies helped create.
Produced by NPR's Anne Hawke.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741
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