Hispanic / Latino

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:

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:

Arizona's Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio is legendary for his anti immigrant crack downs.

As this America's Voice backgrounder, The Notorious Record of Maricopa County, AZ’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio, makes clear he has gone above and beyond merely enforcing state immigration laws. Now the justice department has taken action.

From the Justice Departments Press Release:

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department filed a lawsuit today against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO), Maricopa County, and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for refusing full cooperation with the department’s investigation of alleged national origin discrimination in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Title VI prohibits discrimination in programs that receive federal funds, and also requires grant recipients to cooperate with investigations of discrimination by providing access to documents, facilities and staff.  MCSO signed contractual assurance agreements as a condition of receiving federal funds, and promised that it would cooperate with investigations of alleged discrimination.

The department filed today’s lawsuit after exhausting all cooperative measures to gain access to MCSO’s documents and facilities, as part of the department’s investigation of alleged discrimination in MCSO’s police practices and jail operations.  Since March 2009, the department has attempted to secure voluntary compliance with the department’s investigation.  MCSO’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation makes it an extreme outlier and the department is unaware of any other police department or sheriff’s office that has refused to cooperate in the last 30 years.

Sherriff Arpaio's lawsuit comes as some are beginning to question whether the cost of the states immigration crack downs are doing more harm than good.

David R. Francis of the Christian Science Monitor in his article Costs will rein in Arizona's immigration crackdown: Arizona can arrest illegal immigrants now, but then what? Prison and deportation are both too expensive to sustain notes:

Beside the moral, humanitarian, and legal issues surrounding illegal immigrants, their apprehension poses a sizable financial cost. In Arizona, police could arrest them under the new state law, but keeping them in already crowded jails costs roughly $100 a day per person. For 5,000 people, imprisonment costs could add up to $182.5 million a year. That's a hefty charge for a state struggling with a budget deficit of at least $368 million.

Presumably Arizona could save money by handing illegal immigrants over to the federal government for deportation. In fiscal 2008, the US deported 369,221 people. Deportations rose to 389,834 in 2009 under the Obama administration, and are predicted to reach 400,000 this fiscal year.

Joel Kotkin, a presidential fellow at the urban futures at Chapman University, recently wrote an editorial for Forbes Magazine on a new 21st Century Business Model for the United States. This article focuses on the positive economic impact of immigrants in the United States.

The article notes:

In our globalized economy, the most enthusiastically touted approaches are those adopted by centralized, state-dominated economies such as China, Brazil and Russia as well as--somewhat less oppressively--those of the major E.U. states.

Yet the U.S. may well be constructing the best sustainable business model for the 21st Century. It is an approach built on the country's greatest enduring strength--an innovative business culture driven increasingly by a diverse pool of immigrants.

The article puts forth a narrative that highlights America's unique ability to take all manner of people and integrate them into a cohesive business model, while also showing that the complexion of the American Business model is changing:

If the U.S. wants to retain pre-eminence, it needs to go with what makes it a great country: its protean national and increasingly post-racial business culture.

This evolution is increasingly evident at the very top of our economy

1. Between 1990 and 2005 immigrants started one quarter of all venture-backed public companies.

2. Large American firms are also increasingly led by people with roots in foreign countries Including 14 of the CEOs of the 2007 Fortune 100. 

3. Even the top tier of corporate America--once the almost-exclusive reserve of native-born Anglo-Saxon--increasingly reflects the diversification of the larger society.

The financial benefit to the country is significant:

Already, for example, eight Indian American CEOs run U.S. corporations with over $2 billion in sales, including companies like Citicorp, Adobe Systems and Pepsico. Pepsi's historic rival, Coca Cola, is now run by Muhtar Kent, a native of Turkey. Foreign CEOs also include Kellogg's Australian-born David Mackay and Ethan Allen's M. Farooq Kathwari, yet another native of India.

It is important to note that this is not just a high skilled immigrant phenomena:

Immigrant commerce also thrives at the grassroots level. It manifests most visibly in the proliferation of small stores, restaurants, food-processing businesses, garment factories and trucking lines.

Overall, immigrants are 60% more likely to start a new business than native-born Americans. The number of self-employed immigrants has grown even in New York City, where the number of self-employed among the native-born has dropped.

Immigrant businesses have thrived by providing basic services, such as banks, insurance agents, funeral homes and grocery stores. Some of these businesses arose because the mainstream community had failed to identify opportunities in these markets or had consciously decided to exclude them.

This trend will only continue in the future:

One critical harbinger can be seen in the current crop of students at top U.S. business schools. Between one-third and one-half all students at Stanford, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago and UC Berkeley come from abroad. These schools are training camps for immigrants transitioning into careers as American entrepreneurs.

The article also does a great job of placing the current influx of immigrants in a more historical context by looking at the effect of earlier ethnic groups positive impact on the American economy.

This is a great read and one that focuses on the broader immigration economic picture, which is that in an increasingly globalized economy having a diverse population is a net positive.

A common refrain from anti-immigration organizations is that immigrants weaken the wages of American workers and do damage to the economy. 

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, on a state level the opposite is true:

Immigration actually boost wages and increase productivity overall for states that have large populations of immigrant workers.

The report written by Giovanni Peri, entitled The Effects of Immigrants on U.S. Employment and Productivity examined the following:

The effects of immigration on the total output and income of the U.S. economy can be studied by comparing output per worker and employment in states that have had large immigrant inflows with data from states that have few new foreign-born workers.

Statistical analysis of state-level data shows that immigrants expand the economy's productive capacity by stimulating investment and promoting specialization.

The paper also examined the short and long term effect of immigration on the economy:

Immigration effects on employment, income, and productivity vary by occupation, job, and industry. Nonetheless, it is possible to total these effects to get an aggregate economic impact.

Here we attempt to quantify the aggregate gains and losses for the U.S. economy from immigration.

If the average impact on employment and income per worker is positive, this implies an aggregate “surplus” from immigration.

In other words, the total gains accruing to some U.S.-born workers are larger than the total losses suffered by others.

A lot of great information here, highly reccomend reading from start to finish. The economic data presented here helps to contextualize the current debate over immigrants and wages.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced yesterday substantial implementations of border security measures.

Below are some of the security measures DHS has implemented to date:

1 – Expanded Unmanned Aircraft Systems operations to cover the entire Southwest Border.

Results: On Sept. 1st, CBP will expand Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) flight operations, covering all Southwest border states and providing critical aerial surveillance assistance to personnel on the ground.

2 – Dedicated historic levels of personnel to the Southwest border.

Results: The Border Patrol is better staffed than at any time in its 86-year history, having nearly doubled the number of agents from approximately 10,000 in 2004 to more than 20,000 today – including more “boots on the ground” in Arizona than ever before.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has also deployed a record number of agents to the Southwest border with more than a quarter of its personnel deployed in this region, doubling the number of agents assigned to Border Enforcement Security Task Forces and tripling the number of ICE intelligence analysts working along the U.S.-Mexico border. Further, President Obama has ordered the deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest border to contribute additional capabilities and capacity to assist law enforcement agencies.

3 – Deployed additional technology and complete fencing construction along the Southwest border.

Results: Over the past 17 months, CBP has deployed additional Z-Backscatter Van Units, Mobile Surveillance Systems, Remote Video Surveillance Systems, thermal imaging systems, radiation portal monitors, and license plate readers to the Southwest border. DHS has also completed 646.5 miles of fencing out of nearly 652 miles mandated by Congress, including 298.5 miles of vehicle barriers and 348 miles of pedestrian fence, with the remaining construction scheduled to be complete by the end of 2010.

4 – Increased outbound inspections to interdict illegal weapons, drugs, and cash leaving the United States.

Results: In addition to placing an increased emphasis on screening southbound vehicle traffic, CBP began screening 100 percent of southbound rail shipments for illegal weapons, drugs, and cash – for the first time ever. These enhanced outbound inspections have yielded more than $39.2 million in southbound illegal currency – an increase of more than $29.4 million compared to 2008.

5 – Increased seizures of drugs, weapons, and currency to disrupt the operations of transnational criminal organizations.

Results: In 2009, DHS seized more than $103 million in illegal currency, more than 1.7 million kilograms of drugs and more than 1,400 firearms – increases of more than $47 million, more than 450,000 kilograms of drugs and more than 300 firearms compared to 2008.

6 – Detered illegal immigration through unprecedented investments in border security

Results: Illegal border crossings have been significantly reduced, as apprehensions of illegal aliens decreased from 723,825 in FY2008 to 556,041 in FY2009, a 23 percent reduction, in part as the result of increased security along the southwest border.

7 – Increased employer audits to deter violations of employment verification laws and protect American workers.   

Results: Since Jan. 2009, DHS has audited more than 2,785 employers suspected of hiring illegal labor, debarred more than 100 companies and 80 individuals, and issued more than $6.4 million in fines—more than the total amount of audits and fines issued in the entire previous administration.

8 – Deployed Secure Communities technology to all southwest border communities.

Results: The Obama Administration has expanded the Secure Communities initiative—which uses biometric information to identify criminal aliens in state prisons and local jails to expedite removal proceedings—from 14 to 567 locations, including all jurisdictions along the Southwest border. DHS expects to expand this program nationwide by 2013. As of July 31, 2010, this program had identified more than 287,500 aliens in jails and prisons who have been charged with or convicted of criminal offenses, including more than 43,000 charged with or convicted of major violent or drug offenses (level 1 offenses). Through Secure Communities, over 37,900 convicted criminal aliens have been removed from the United States, including more than 10,800 convicted of major violent or drug offenses (level 1 offenses).

9 – Targeted criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety.

Results: The Obama Administration has fundamentally reformed immigration enforcement, focusing on identifying and removing criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety. Overall, criminal removals/returns increased by almost 22,000 between FY 2008 and FY 2009, a 19 percent increase. So far this fiscal year, ICE has removed a record 170,000 criminals from the U.S. DHS will continue to increase focus on removing those convicted of crimes who pose a threat to the safety of communities. 

10 – Boosted funding for Southwest border infrastructure, technology, and law enforcement

Results: The recent passage and signing of Southwest border security supplemental legislation will provide critical additional capabilities to secure the Southwest border at and between our ports of entry and reduce the illicit trafficking of people, drugs, currency and weapons. This law provides $14 million for improved tactical communications systems along the Southwest border and $32 million for two additional CBP unmanned aircraft systems – in addition to $176 million for an additional 1,000 Border Patrol agents to be deployed between ports of entry; $68 million to hire 250 new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at ports of entry and to maintain 270 officers currently deployed to ports of entry; and $6 million to construct two forward operating bases along the Southwest Border to improve coordination of border security activities.

DHS and the General Services Administration (GSA) are also directing more than $400 million in Recovery Act funding to the Southwest border, including funds for:

•    Port and other infrastructure projects in Otay Mesa, California; Antelope Wells, New Mexico; Los Ebanos, Amistad Dam, Falcon Dam and Corpus Christi, Texas; and Nogales, Arizona.

•    Non-Intrusive Inspection Equipment at Southwest border ports of entry, including both low energy and large-scale systems;

•    Modernized tactical communications equipment for the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley Sectors; and

•    Tested, commercially available security technology including thermal imaging devices, ultra-light detection, backscatter units, mobile radios, cameras and laptops for pursuit vehicles, and Remote Video Surveillance System enhancements.

Further, DHS has increased the funds state and local law enforcement can use to combat border-related crime through Operation Stonegarden—a DHS grant program designed to support state, local, and tribal law enforcement efforts along our nation’s borders. Based on risk, cross-border traffic and border-related threat intelligence, nearly 83 percent of 2009 and 2010 Operation Stonegarden funds – more than 124 million dollars – went to Southwest border states, up from 59 percent in 2008.

Much has been written on this blog about increased security on the Southern Border. The Northern Border is another matter.

With the White House and Congress increasing funding for border security the Border Patrol has ramped up enforcement on both the Southern and the Northern Border.

Interior enforcement is nothing new. The Border Patrol has long had jurisdiction in the United States to enforce federal immigration laws.

Those living along the Northern Border are finding that the increase in Border Security is not everything they thought it would be.

New York Times reporter Nina Bernstein in her story Border Sweeps in North Reach Miles Into U.S.  gives a fuller account of  new tensions developing along the Northern Border.

The increase in Border Patrol activity has mostly manifested itself in the train system:

The little-publicized transportation checks are the result of the Border Patrol’s growth since 9/11, fueled by Congressional antiterrorism spending and an expanding definition of border jurisdiction. In the Rochester area, where the border is miles away in the middle of Lake Ontario, the patrol arrested 2,788 passengers from October 2005 through last September.

The checks are “a vital component to our overall border security efforts” to prevent terrorism and illegal entry, said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for United States Customs and Border Protection. He said that the patrol had jurisdiction to enforce immigration laws within 100 miles of the border, and that one mission was preventing smugglers and human traffickers from exploiting inland transit hubs.

This has led to some uncomfortable encounters between Naturalized Citizens traveling domestically:

Ruth Fernandez, 60, a naturalized citizen born in Ecuador, was asked for identification. And though she was only traveling home to New York City from her sister’s in Ohio, she had made sure to carry her American passport. On earlier trips, she said, agents had photographed her, and taken away a nervous Hispanic man.

... and the jailing of students visiting the United States:

But some of the same kinds of students are being jailed by the patrol, like a Taiwan-born Ph.D. candidate who had excelled in New York City public schools since age 11. Two days after he gave a paper on Chaucer at a conference in Chicago last year, he was taken from his train seat and strip-searched at a detention center in Batavia, N.Y., facing deportation for an expired visa.

....and also raised the specter of racial profiling and Arizona's controversial law SB1070:

Another challenge is pending in the 2009 train arrest of the Taiwan-born doctoral student, who had to answer the agent after being singled out for intense questioning because of his “Asian appearance,” he said. His account was corroborated in an affidavit filed this month by another passenger.

Similar complaints have been made by others, including a Chicago couple who encountered the patrol on a train to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., for the woman’s graduation from Vassar College.

“At least in Arizona, you have to be doing something wrong to be stopped,” said the woman, a citizen of Chinese-American descent who said her Mexican boyfriend was sleeping when an agent started questioning him. “Here, you’re sitting on the train asleep and if you don’t look like a U.S. citizen, it’s ‘Wake up!’ ”

With the border increasingly becoming more militarized some see these train stops as a harbinger of worse things to come:

  ...it evokes travel through the old Communist bloc. “I was actually woken up with a flashlight in my face,” recalled Mike Santomauro, 27, a law student who encountered the patrol in April, at 2 a.m. on a train in Rochester.

Across the aisle, he said, six agents grilled a student with a computer who had only an electronic version of his immigration documents. Through the window, Mr. Santomauro said, he could see three black passengers, standing with arms raised beside a Border Patrol van.

 

There has been much written about violence on the border between the United States and Mexico.

What has not been reported with nearly the same frequency is the increase in violence to immigrants who cross into the United States along the southern border.

With increased resources and more focus on enforcement the border is more safe on the American side. Examples of this can be seen here, here, here and here.

The only people who are really suffering death in great numbers on the border is immigrants who are increasingly the target of violence from drug cartels.

As enforcement has increased and the border has become more militarized, the channels with which drug smugglers and human traffickers has been joined. The joining of the drug smugglers and human trafficking has led to an increase in deaths. Mostly the increase in deaths has been to immigrants who are trying to come into the United States.

Sacha Feinman of the LA Times wrote about this growing problem in his report entitled Drug Cartels Imperil Immigrants in the Desert:

.....migrants and drugs once occupied separate worlds. But tougher border enforcement has pushed the groups into the same obscure parts of the desert. The close company adds a new element of danger to migrants' already perilous journey, and may be responsible for a drop in immigration and economic decline in towns that depend on the migrants.

The combination of drug smuggling and human trafficking has now become common place:

Mexico's drug cartels have become a more formidable presence here, taxing the coyotes and threatening their human cargo as they make their way to the border.

As drug smuggling groups find their profits pinched by tighter border enforcement, they have moved into human smuggling, according to U.S. law enforcement officials. And with good reason: The average migrant pays about $1,300 to $1,800 to be smuggled past the bolstered Border Patrol as well as fences, surveillance towers and other new security measures. What once was a wildcat operation with marginal profits has become big business.

This has created a deadly situation for immigrants crossing the desert. Max Fisher of The Atlantic Magazine has a story up showing just how deadly it has become. In his article Mexico Discovers Mass Grave, Yielding 4 Hard Lessons does a great job of contextualizing what has happened on the border.

1. Journey to America Increasingly Dangerous  The Christian Science Monitor's Sara Miller Llana writes, "With attention focused on the US tightening its borders and stepping up deportations, mostly of undocumented Mexicans, the plight of migrants crossing through Mexico is often overlooked. ... The journey through Mexico has become more and more treacherous as suspected drug traffickers branch out into other businesses, including human trafficking.

2. Why Cartels Are Getting More Violent  The Washington Independent's Elise Foley explains, "It's not the first mass killing by drug cartels, but it may be the largest. Mexican authorities discovered 51 bodies in mass graves in July, and uncovered 55 bodies in a mine in May.

3. Mexican Cartels Pushing South Into New Countries   Reuters' Sarah Grainger reports a "southward push" by the notorious cartels. "Central America is struggling to contain rising violence as powerful Mexican drug cartels, facing an escalating government crackdown at home, expand southward and intensify operations in neighboring nations.

4. War Against Cartels Is Not Going Well  The U.K. Independent's Guy Adams writes, "The discovery on Tuesday afternoon marked a new low in a brutal conflict that has taken the lives of an estimated 28,000 Mexicans since the President, Felipe Calderon, declared 'war' on the nation's wealthy and extraordinarily well-armed drug cartels in 2007. ...

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a report today on immigrant detainees and sexual abuse.

The 24 page report entitled Detained and at Risk: Sexual Abuse and Harassment can be read HERE.

The report provides:

1. Documented incidents of Sexual Abuse

2. Recorded allegations of abuse.

3. Recent proposals by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to address the issue.

4. Recommendations from the Human Rights Watch which emphasize that the agency should make improvements swiftly to improve oversight of the entire detention system and ensure accountability.

Meghan Rhode, women's rights researcher at the HRW, released the following statement with the report:

"ICE has finally recognized the need for stronger protection of people in detention against sexual abuse, but it needs to play catch up quickly. ICE needs to get new rules in place and make sure the rules have the teeth to ensure compliance from the hundreds of facilities across the detention system."

According to the release the report was commissioned after:

It was reported in May that a guard employed by a contractor, Corrections Corporation of America, at the T. Don Hutto immigration facility in Texas had sexually assaulted several detainees.

The guard, who was arrested on August 19, 2010, on suspicion of official oppression and unlawful restraint, allegedly groped women while transporting them to an airport and a bus station where they were being released.

The Congressionally Mandated National Prison Rape Elimination Commission issued a report in 2009 that said:

...immigrants in detention face particular challenges in reporting abuse, including a lack of information about rules governing staff conduct and fear of speaking out against the same authority that is seeking their deportation.

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post featured Suzie Kim of Mother Jones  in an article up HERE, which shows:

As President Obama has increased the number of deportations of immigrants, his administration has not increased the number of federal judges that can actually process the legal removal of immigrants from the country.

On President Obama's increase in enforcement Kim notes:

Obama has devoted nearly all his efforts on immigration to ramped up enforcement, and his administration is on track to deport a record number of illegal immigrants. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency expects the number of deportations to increase by 10 percent above Bush's 2008 total -- and 25 percent above the 2007 total.

A chart provided within the article shows that there has been a clear increase in number deportations:

So while the President has ramped up deportations  as of yet there has been no complimentary increase in the number of judges that can process these increased numbers of deportation.

Obama's Justice Department has also failed to fill an eyebrow-raising number of judicial vacancies in immigration courts. As of March, one out of every six positions remained unfilled, the Center for Investigative Reporting notes. At the time, the agency had promised to hire 47 judges by Sept. 30, but only five new immigration judges have been sworn in thus far. (The empty slots are also a reminder of the glaring number of judicial vacancies that have yet to be filled in the federal courts as well.)

The slowness of the administration to fill judicial vacancies is creating major problems:

The Center for Investigative Reporting explains: There were nearly 248,000 cases pending by the middle of June this year, a whopping 33 percent higher than where the figure stood at the end of fiscal year 2008. … TRAC also found that the average length of time it’s taken to conclude immigration cases during 2010 reached 459 days, a number higher than any year since at least 1998. By state, California remains the leader in average wait times with more than 640 days. One hearing location in San Diego posted an extraordinary average wait time of nearly 1,300 days, or to put it another way, more than three years.

Enforcement only measures are useless unless the infrastructure to process immigration both in and out of the country is changed.

If politicians are serious about solving the current immigration problems facing this country, they will have to look beyond merely throwing money at border enforcement and get serious about creating a process not just for deporting immigrants, but also allows  those that want to come to work, do so legally.