21st Century America Project

For years the team at NDN/NPI has been a leader in helping policymakers better understand the changing demographics of the United States. We are excited to announce that we are bringing our demographic and public opinion research together under a single banner: The 21st Century America Project. The project will feature work by Morley Winograd and Mike Hais, NDN/NPI Fellows, authors of the critically acclaimed book Millenial Makeover; Alicia Menendez, our new Senior Advisor, who has extensive experience working in these emergent communities; and other NDN/NPI Fellows and collaborators.

Below, please find some of the highlights of our past work on 21st Century America:

2010 Highlights

A Continued Look at the Changing Coalitions of 21st Century America, Poll and Presentation, by Mike Hais and Morley Winograd

Hispanics Rising 2010

The American Electorate of the 21st Century, Poll and Presentation, by Mike Hais and Morley Winograd

Millennial Makeover, a blog by Mike Hais and Morley Winograd

Data Matters Columns, a blog by Mike Hais

2009 Highlights

The Drop Dobbs Campaign

The Anti Vitter-Bennett Amendment Campaign

The New Constituents: How Latinos Will Shape Congressional Apportionment After the 2010 Census, by Andres Ramirez

NDN Backgrounder: Census 2010, Immigration Status and Reapportionment, by Andres Ramirez

Latino Vote in 2008, by Andres Ramirez

2008 Highlights

End of the Southern Strategy, by Simon Rosenberg

Hispanics Rising II

2007 Highlights

The 50 Year Strategy, by Simon Rosenberg and Peter Leyden in Mother Jones

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Announces DREAM Act as Amendment to Defense Authorization

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, announced today that he intends to bring the DREAM Act up for a vote next week as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill.

John Stanton of Roll Call has the full story up at Reid Will Add Immigration Measure to Defense Authorization. Senate Majority Leader Reid, long a proponent of the measure emphasized the importance of passing the legislation.

The Dream Act would provide a pathway to citizenship for children in the country illegally who serve in the military or go to college. The Nevada Democrat called the measure “utterly important.”

He also acknowledged the road blocks that the DREAM Act faced:

“Those Republicans we had in the last Congress have left us,” Reid said, adding that it is nevertheless important to move the smaller Dream Act now.

“We have huge numbers of our military who are Hispanic. I think it is very important for us to move forward on this legislation,” he said.

The vote is expected next week, we will bring you more as it develops.

10% of Illegal Immigrants Held In Detention Centers Have No Access To Legal Aid

According to Ken Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times Illegal immigrants held in isolated jails struggle for legal help.

A survey finds The majority are in facilities beyond the reach of legal aid groups, resulting in caseloads of 100 detainees per attorney, a rights group reports. An additional 10% have no access to any legal aid.

The Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center has released a survey of immigration detention facilities nationwide, and found that:

1. More than half did not offer detainees information about their rights

2. 78% prohibited private phone calls with lawyers

3. More than 80% of detainees were in facilities that were isolated and beyond the reach of legal aid organizations

4. This has created heavy caseloads of 100 detainees per immigration attorney, the survey found

5. Ten percent of detainees were held in facilities in which they had no access at all to legal aid groups.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has increased the numbers of immigrants detained which has created a need for an increase numbers of detainee centers:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, detains about 400,000 immigrants annually at a cost of $1.7 billion this fiscal year, its budget documents say. Agency head John Morton has pledged to overhaul the detention system after years of news reports spotlighting poor treatment and deaths of detainees.

This has stretched the network of lawyers who provide legal counsel to immigrant groups:

Illegal immigrants facing deportation proceedings have no guaranteed right to a lawyer, but a network of nonprofit organizations offers legal help to immigrants in detention. That network is overstretched, and immigrants are often moved to facilities that are far from legal support groups, said the report by the justice center. The report surveyed 150 immigration detention facilities that accounted for 97% of the detention beds.

According to the Migration Policy Institute providing legal counsel to immigrants would actually save citizens money:

Granting immigrants better access to counsel could even save taxpayer money, the immigrant justice group argues, because detainees often would be released sooner, saving the $122-a-day cost of detention.

As the Senate Comes Back Into Session, DREAM Act May Be On The Move

Immigration Activists have long championed passing the DREAM Act, as the Senate comes back into session this week, momentum is building to finally achieve this goal.

According to America's Voice, the DREAM Act is:

"bipartisan legislation that would give eligible young people who were brought to the U.S. as children the opportunity to legalize their immigration status and work towards citizenship."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, has indicated that he would like to bring the DREAM Act to the Senate floor this session. From an interview in El Tiempo:

El Tiempo: On immigration, it seems any hope for a reform is at a standstill. Is there any chance left?

Reid: Contrary to what people think, I don’t think immigration is at a standstill. It’s not at a standstill.The problem is Republicans won’t let us move forward on immigration, it is a federal problem. As I said before, the two Arizona senators are the most opposed to this legislation. Our federal system needs to be fixed. You can’t have states making their own immigration laws, we need comprehensive immigration reform.

And I am going to continue pushing for it, but I can’t do that unless we have a few Republicans supporting us. I have people asking me, “why don’t we put it to a vote?”, and I won’t do it until I know we have the votes because losing the vote would set back immigration for a long time and I don’t want to do that. Republicans will have to get moving because I know what my Democrats will do.

Now, the other issue that lingers is that if I can’t get immigration reform, there is the Dream Act, because I don’t see why someone who has been in the country at least five years should face tough legislation. All we are saying is that these young folks should be able to go to college when they graduate from high school, and when they graduate they should be able to have a work permit, or if they wish, serve in the military two years. What is wrong with this?

Republicans don’t want me to do this either, but I will keep fighting for it. I have five or six calls I need to make to Republicans senators to see if they will work with me on this. I will call them to see if they are willing to support this.

Hazleton, PA Court Ruling Reaffirms Regulation of Immigration as Federal Domain

David G. Savage of The Los Angeles Times has a story up on a U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals decision which struck down a state passed  anti immigrant ordinance.

A city may not punish employers who hire illegal immigrants or landlords who rent to them, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled Thursday, asserting that immigration is "clearly within the exclusive domain of the federal government."

This particular piece of legislation is seen by many as an antecedent to Arizona's controversial anti-immigrant law SB1070. The court's ruling sends a clear message, the federal government is the sole enforcer of immigration laws:

The decision strikes down an anti-immigrant ordinance adopted four years ago in Hazleton, Pa., that inspired a wave of similar measures elsewhere, including in Arizona. The court's unanimous decision is the latest to send the message that Washington sets the rules on immigration, not states or localities.

"Deciding which aliens may live in the United States has always been the prerogative of the federal government," said Chief Judge Theodore McKee of the appellate court. "If Hazleton can regulate as it has here, then so could every other state or locality."

The court case against the legislation is fairly comprehensive, noting that similar legislation has been struck down elsewhere:

The court cited 11 states and several municipalities, including two in California — Mission Viejo and Escondido — that have passed similar laws to punish illegal immigrants or those who do business with them. Most of those measures have been prevented from taking effect.

However, this is not the final work on employer sanctions, the Supreme Court will hear a case in December on an Arizona law which levies steep fines on employers who hire undocumented immigrants:

The ruling is not the final word on this issue, however. In December, the Supreme Court is set to hear an Arizona case to decide whether a state may take away the business licenses of companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

This law, passed when Democrat Janet Napolitano was Arizona's governor, was upheld by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on the grounds that states traditionally control the licensing of businesses. The Supreme Court's conservative justices may be inclined to give state and local officials more leeway to enforce their own laws on crime, employment or housing.

The court decision can be seen here and a press release from ACLU can be seen here.

Crimes in Mexico With American Guns

Richard Esposito of ABC News has written an article detailing the contents of an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms report that shows that three out of four guns used in Mexican violence come from the United States.

The article entitled Mexican Crime, American Guns shows that rising violence in Mexico can be partly attributed to American appetites for Drugs and Guns.

The study, based on Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) data and prepared by the advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, shows that three out of four guns used in crimes in Mexico and submitted for tracing were sold in the four U.S. states that border Mexico.

The numbers bolster complaints by Mexican officials that the country's unprecedented bloodshed – 28,000 people have died in drug-cartel violence since 2006 – is being fueled both by the U.S. appetite for drugs, and by American weapons.

The ATF report which spans the time from 2006 - 2009 shows that:

19,000 guns used in crimes in Mexico were traced to an original sale at a US gun dealer, and the bulk of the guns came from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Texas supplied four in ten of those weapons, and the other three border states provided an additional one third. Mexican law places stringent restrictions on gun purchase and ownership, though it does permit ownership of shotguns and pistols.

The ATF Report also shows:

The numbers showed that Arizona, Texas and New Mexico had an export rate 169 percent greater than any other states, which the authors suggest may be due in part to less-restrictive gun laws in those states. The top ten source states for supplying crime guns to Mexico in 2009 were Texas (2076 guns), California (1011), Arizona (690), New Mexico (173), Florida (113), Colorado (100, Oklahoma (90), Illinois (84), Nevada (56), and North Carolina (56). In total, the top ten supplier states contributed more than 4,449 guns, or about 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico that were originally sold in the US.

Former President of Mexico Vincente Fox had some interesting observations on the report:

"What is happening is that this huge market of the United States in drug consumption, the largest in the world, is generating the weapons that are sold to Mexican cartels, and is generating the money that is laundered in the United States and brought to Mexico," Fox said.

Arizona Has Spent $365K in June Alone to Defend SB1070

Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services has a story up that shows just how expensive Arizona's controversial anti-immigrant law SB1070 has become.

The article, State Paid 365 K in June to Defend SB1070, details the various legal costs that the state is incurring while defending multiple lawsuits. 

Arizona paid another nearly $365,000 in legal fees in June to defend the state’s new immigration law. ...The June invoice is on top of more than $77,000 the state paid the law firm of Snell & Wilmer in May, after the first lawsuits were filed.

So far the legal bills have not been passed on to tax payers.

But so far it isn’t directly costing taxpayers anything. Gubernatorial press aide Paul Senseman reported Thursday that total donations to a special defense fund Gov. Jan Brewer has set up now top $3.6 million. That includes a single donation of more than $1.5 million from Timothy Mellon of Wyoming.

However There have been a large number of legal filings already filed.

“There have been over 900 legal filings containing over 12,160 pages of legal briefings and new filings are received every day,’’ he said. And aside from the individuals who have sued to overturn all or part of the law, Senseman said 63 others have filed “friend of the court’’ briefs that need to be reviewed and, in some cases, responded to."

As the legal costs continue to mount as new lawsuits continue to be filed, media attention fades, the money from donations will eventually run dry and tax payers will likely be on the hook for large sums of money.

But the amounts to date are likely to be dwarfed with what is to come: The invoices do not reflect the fact that three of the cases actually went to hearings in July before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton, something that likely required a lot of pre-trial preparation. And the state already has filed papers with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to overturn an injunction Bolton ordered blocking the state from enforcing several key provisions while the issue of its legality winds it way through the legal system.

According to the Sedona Times, an Arizona paper, the state faces a budget deficit of 3.2 billion dollars. With legal costs mounting, in these hard economic times, does the state really need to be paying to defend Governor Jan Brewers bad immigration policy?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Chief: Sealing Our Borders is Unrealistic

The commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection Alan Bersin said that sealing the border between the United States and Mexico is unrealistic. 

Brady McCombs of the Arizona Daily Star has the full story in his article entitled CBP Chief: Sealed Border is Unrealistic.

Chairmen Bersin noted that sealing the border was unrealistic before the United States and Mexico came to some sort of agreement on labor:

The commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agrees that Arizona's border needs to be better controlled, but he said completely sealing the international line is unrealistic.

"This is not about sealing the border," Commissioner Alan Bersin said Friday in Tucson. "Until we have a legitimate labor market between Mexico and the United States, people will attempt to come here to work."

Chairmen Bersin contends that reaching an agreement between the two countries on labor cannot be achieved by sealing the border, but rather by legislative action in congress:

To get that legitimate labor market, though, will take immigration-law change, he said. To get backing for it will require reducing the flow of illegal immigration in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector - the busiest for apprehensions, drug seizures and border deaths for a decade - to levels similar to those of other sectors

He does note that there have been great accomplishments along the border, but more can still be done:

A steady decline in apprehensions in the Tucson Sector over the past six years is a good trend, but it's still unacceptable that the sector has more than three times as many as the next-busiest sector. However, with more agents, fencing and technology than ever before, the agency is ready, he said.

"We are also better prepared, better resourced, here and elsewhere, to accomplish the completion of this task, which is to achieve a secure border and one that is perceived as secure." But there is no numerical goal for apprehensions that would constitute a "secure border," he said. "Our job is to detect and apprehend the large majority of them."

AZ Gov Stumbles Badly In Opening Debate As Gubernatorial Candidates Nationwide Go Anti Immigrant

Carrie Budoff Brown of the Politico has a story up that shows that 20 of 37 Gubernatorial candidates both Democrat and Republican endorsed anti immigrant legislation.

The article Gov. candidates in 20 states endorse anti-immigration laws does an excellent job of contextualizing the larger problems associated with so many candidates endorsing these anti immigrant legislation:

The prevalence of the issue means the Obama administration could find itself battling Arizona-style flare-ups in statehouses across the country, raising pressure on the White House and Congress to break the deadlock in Washington over comprehensive immigration reform.

The Justice Department sued Arizona in hopes of discouraging other states from following its lead and won a ruling blocking provisions of the law that immigrant  advocates found most objectionable. But that hasn’t stopped some gubernatorial candidates from trying to one-up each other on the issue.

The article notes that all of this may just be politcal maneuvering in what is turning into an increasingly ugly election season:
The flood of get-tough statements could be just that — campaign talk that fades against the hard realities of governing and legal threats by the Justice Department. The outcome of a U.S. appeals court hearing on the Arizona law set for early November is likely to determine whether the state-level push stalls out or gains momentum. 
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is the only governor to actually pass anti immigrant legislation, and she is having a pretty tough time right now. An Associated Press story entitled Arizona governor stumbles in televised debate provides an account of her disastrous debate against Democrat Gubernatorial Candidate Terry Goddard:

She stumbled through her opening statement during a televised debate Wednesday night in a cringe-eliciting performance that was quickly turning into an Internet sensation.

Brewer lost her train of thought as she was talking about her successes as governor, smiling and laughing as she struggled to speak.

"We have done everything that we could possibly do," Brewer said before the start of a long pause. "We have, uh, did what was right for Arizona." She then went on to regain her composure and continue with the debate.

She also abruptly halted a session with reporters afterward as she refused to answer questions about her June statement that there have been immigrant beheadings in Arizona.

Video from the debate is below:

 

AZ Governor Jan Brewer Awarded Contracts To Private Prisons Who Benefited From SB1070

Way back in August, NDN came across a YouTube video that Phoenix-based KPHO News Station had produced which highlighted the connection between Jan Brewer, SB1070 and the private prison system in Arizona.

That post can be seen here

The story noted that while tourism and the state economy is taking a beating due to the curious habit of many of the states political elites constantly characterizing Arizona as a war zone to the national media, there is one business that still made tons of money off of SB1070: the private prison system.

The news story purported that many of Gov. Brewer's staff have connections to the private prison system, which granted state contracts and large amounts of money to detention centers that housed immigrants before they were deported.

This story has gone national, and is currently at Huffinton Post here.

The original news clip is below:

Number of Illegal Immigrants in U.S. Fell Study Says

Julie Preston of the New York Times has written a piece on the drop in the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S.

The report entitled Number of Illegal Immigrants in the U.S. Drops, Study Says, cites a recent Pew Hispanic Report  U.S. Unauthorized Immigration Flows Are Down Sharply Since Mid-Decade:

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States, after peaking at 12 million in 2007, fell to about 11.1 million in 2009, the first clear decline in two decades....

The reduction came primarily from decreases among illegal immigrants from Latin American countries other than Mexico, the report found. The number of Mexicans living in the United States without legal immigration status did not change significantly from 2007 to 2009. Some seven million Mexicans make up about 60 percent of all illegal immigrants, still by far the largest national group, the Pew Center said.

However Preston notes that there is an even more important number cited in the report, the 11.1 million immigrants still in the country.

But the figure that may be most sobering to all sides in the increasingly contentious immigration debate is the estimate that more than 11 million illegal immigrants remain here. The Pew report shows that despite myriad pressures, there was no mass exodus of those immigrants to their home countries, especially not to Mexico.

This statistic indicates that despite all of the border security legislation, and all of the press coverage surrounding immigration, immigrants are not leaving.

As important as politicians think drafting legislation solely designed to secure borders, it is also equally important to figure out a way to bring those 11.1 million currently living out of the shadows.

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