From: Vivir Latino

If nothing else, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is a woman of her word. During a telephonic press briefing yesterday, Napolitano proudly crowed the start of unmanned predator drone flights out of Corpus Christi, Texas, beginning on Wednesday, Sept.1.
The rest of the telephonic conference was more of the same with an emphasis on more. I think the Secretary of Homeland Security said the word “more” so many times creating a dramatic crescendo effect that drove home just how militarized the U.S. border with Mexico was becoming and just how far we are from comprehensive immigration reform.
The drones, which beginning tomorrow will be able to monitor the entire U.S. Mexico border, are meant to track the “illegal movement of drugs, money and people”. While I know many will say the “illegal movement” of people refers to the disgusting crime of human trafficking, I picture families and individuals crossing the frontera and wonder how is movement declared illegal and only the movement of certain people.

Napolitano’s language on border enforcement sounded much like what President Obama said during his last big speech on immigration. She touted that under the Obama administration the U.S. Mexico border had more “boots on the ground” and was doing unprecedented border enforcement. Napolitano said:
” Everything that is supposed to be going up is going up”.
One can assume that this means that the record breaking number of deportations are to be celebrated even when according to the DHS Secretary herself yesterday half of those had criminal records. The other half? Were they heads of households? Mothers, fathers, students who could have benefited under the DREAM Act?
Napolitano self-praised her department and the administration that hired her with a “top ten list” of ways that the border was being secured including the expansion of Secure Communities and targeting the “criminal” immigrants. Her late night television type bit highlighted workplace “audits” (are those the same as raids) and acknowledged that those audits are meant to protect “American workers”. The not American workers? Well I guess they can just screw themselves even if studies show them not to be a threat to the “American worker”.
And if you needed more proof of just how far away the administration is from working towards any semblance of comprehensive immigration reform, on yesterday’s telephonic briefing, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano gave a special shout out to Senator “Biometric Chuck” Schumer, thanking him for pushing the $600 million Southwest Border Security bill.

Popularity: 2% [?]

From: Washington Post

Like most Americans, I am a descendant of immigrants and a grateful beneficiary of the opportunities available to our nation’s citizens. My grandparents emigrated from Mexico in the early 20th century seeking a better life, and they found it working in the fields and dairy farms of Texas. Diversity is one of the great strengths of the United States — diversity fueled by the migration of ethnicities, cultures and ideas.

Today, however, there is virtually universal agreement that our immigration process is broken. While security on our southern border has improved in the past decade, it remains inadequate in a post-9/11 world. Many employers hire undocumented workers with little concern about prosecution. Thousands of people cross our borders illegally believing they will not be arrested, expecting instead to receive benefits and, eventually, amnesty.

Based on what I have observed, most illegal immigrants come to America to provide for their families, and by most accounts, they contribute to our economy. Nevertheless, we are a nation of laws. When people break the law with impunity, it encourages further disobedience and breeds further disrespect for the rule of law.

Obama administration officials went to court recently to stop Arizona from enforcing federal immigration laws through a newly enacted state law, arguing that the Constitution gives them sole authority in this arena. How the courts will ultimately decide this question is unclear, but with the federal government’s claim of authority comes responsibility — and so far, our national leaders have failed us.

President George W. Bush pushed for comprehensive immigration reform, but Republican members of Congress refused to join him. Although President Obama and the present congressional leadership have used their majority to enact sweeping health-care and financial reform, they seem to lack the will to try to pass comprehensive immigration legislation. Even my apolitical and saintly 78-year-old mother wonders whether the Democrats are keeping this issue on the table for political reasons, hoping that Republicans will propose enforcement measures that alienate Hispanic voters.

Most recently, some politicians and concerned citizens have expressed a desire to amend the 14th Amendment of our Constitution, which says in Section 1, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Proponents want to discourage undocumented mothers from crossing our borders to give birth to children derogatorily referred to as “anchor babies,” who by law are American citizens. Such a change is difficult to carry out, as it should be, requiring a new amendment ratified by three-quarters of the states.

I do not support such an amendment. Based on principles from my tenure as a judge, I think constitutional amendments should be reserved for extraordinary circumstances that we cannot address effectively through legislation or regulation. Because most undocumented workers come here to provide for themselves and their families, a constitutional amendment will not solve our immigration crisis. People will certainly continue to cross our borders to find a better life, irrespective of the possibilities of U.S. citizenship.

As the nation’s former chief law enforcement officer and a citizen who believes in the rule of law, I cannot condone anyone coming into this country illegally. However, as a father who wants the best for my own children, I understand why these parents risk coming to America — especially when there is little fear of prosecution. If we want to stop this practice, we should pass and enforce comprehensive immigration legislation rather than amend our Constitution.

We need a new immigration policy that complements our national security policy as well as our economic policy. In a post-9/11 world, we must know who is coming into this country and why — we cannot have true security if we do not secure our borders. Our policy should reinforce respect for the law through effective enforcement that includes a streamlined deportation process and tougher penalties on employers that hire undocumented workers.

Our immigration policy should also promote commerce and strengthen our economy. The reality is that there are jobs Americans do not want, and there are skilled jobs for which Americans are not available. Our policy should include a more robust temporary-worker program (without more bureaucracy) that attracts both skilled and unskilled workers to sustain our economy.

Finally, our immigration policy must be practical, enforceable and capable of effective implementation without enormous delays or many mistakes. It must also be fair to those who follow the rules.

As our nation’s first Hispanic attorney general, I have seen both the beauty of our tradition of immigration as well as the threats that come with a broken system. We need to fix the process. This work will be complicated, because the best solution will surely affect families, foreign policy, national security, our economy — and will touch upon the very essence of who we are as a country. It will take courage to pass meaningful legislation, but to do less or to take shortcuts places our security at risk. Americans expect and deserve better of their leaders in Washington.

Popularity: 4% [?]

From: Immigration ProfBlog

The U.S. Congress has spent a good portion of the first decade of the 21st century debating immigration reform. After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, two acts of Congress significantly tightened the U.S. immigration laws in the name of the “war on terror.” Congress later considered more far-reaching reform legislation. In December 2005, the House of Representatives passed the Sensenbrenner Bill, which included many enforcement-oriented provisions such as criminalizing the mere status of being undocumented, resulting in mass marches in favor of justice for undocumented immigrants. The Senate later passed a more moderate comprehensive immigration reform bill but Congress ultimately failed to enact it into law. The end result was that Congress could only agree to authorize an extension of the fence along the U.S./Mexico border, little more than a gesture at immigration reform.
With the election of President Obama in 2008, some immigrant rights advocates were hopeful about the possibility of passage of comprehensive immigration reform by Congress. While expressing support for comprehensive immigration reform, Senator Obama had supported driver’s license eligibility for undocumented immigrants, and the DREAM Act, which would provide for undocumented college students to regularize their immigration status.
However, the initial optimism about the possibility for immigration reform during the Obama administration has dimmed after the administration’s initial steps on immigration. President Obama appointed Janet Napolitano, the former Governor of Arizona, to head the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; with respect to immigration, she has focused on enforcement, with the promise of future positive improvements for immigrants through immigration reform. One of the latest enforcement moves by President Obama was to send more than a thousand National Guard troops to the U.S./Mexico border. Disparate negative impacts on Latina/os – including but not limited to deaths on the border, increases in human trafficking, and racial profiling — result from increased border enforcement.
Still, some kind of comprehensive immigration reform continues to be on the minds of some lawmakers. In early 2010, two proposals were on the table in the U.S. Congress, one in the House and one in the Senate. In the summer of 2010, President Obama made a speech in support of comprehensive immigration reform. The fall 2010 midterm elections cooled much interest by members of Congress in immigration reform.
Immigration reform is an important issue to many Latina/os, who voted in large numbers for President Obama, because of the direct and palpable impact on the greater Latina/o community, including many U.S. citizens who are of Latina/o descent. Immigration law and enforcement is viewed by many Latina/os and U.S. citizens as a central civil rights issue, touching deeply on important issues of race and class.
The claim of color-blindness through an expressed desire to simply enforce the U.S. immigration laws, is frequently employed in attempts to avoid addressing the impacts of comprehensive immigration reform, as well as the possible failure of its enactment, on communities of color. We saw the same phenomenon with respect to the disparate racial impacts of the Arizona law, which, it was claimed, simply seeks to enforce the U.S. immigration laws. Color-blindness is an effective rhetorical tool for restrictionists and others to legitimately pursue racial ends, namely to limit immigration from Mexico, as well as Latin America generally and Asia and Africa. Even if one disagrees with the claim of any discriminatory intent, it is clear that the measures have disparate impacts on people of color.

Popularity: 2% [?]

From: Latinovations

As an election nears, we always hear increasingly extreme rhetoric from the Republican Party on immigration. But this time around, their fire has turned on the most vulnerable among us; the children. This shameful tactic, which is designed to fire up their most angry anti-immigrant supporters, is not even focused on immigrant children, but rather the American citizen children of immigrants. It is wrong, and it must end.
The right wing and their supporters claim that it is time to “relook” at the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says that if you are born in the United States, regardless of your parents’ status, you are a “natural born citizen”. It was passed in the wake of the Civil War to guarantee the citizenship of slaves and their children. Tampering with this great cornerstone of our society is unthinkable. The Constitution should be amended only to add rights, not to take them away.
For more than 160 years, we have held firm to the idea that the child does not bear blame for the transgressions of the parents. In fact, we go further than that and believe that all children in our nation start with a clean slate and the right to be whatever they would like to be. This was a revolutionary idea in its day, and remains part of our unique American value system. To begin to say, “well, if your parents were here without papers, perhaps you are not as much a citizen” is a shocking move for a country built on equality.
In 2006, I introduced a bill that went in the direction of supporting child citizens—and ensuring further that the problems of their parents do not overly effect their chances at a good life here in America. The inspiration for H.R. 182, The Child Citizen Protection Act, came when I was alerted to the fact that immigration judges were not allowed to consider the effects of a deportation on the child citizens whose families were being broken apart. This struck me as the wrong way to treat children. I wrote a bill which, if it were to become law, would restore partial discretion to immigration judges in cases where removal of an immigrant is clearly against the best interest of a child that is a United States citizen.
There is a stark divide between the right thing to do – pass a comprehensive immigration reform including parts like my Child Citizen Protection Act – and the action that the right wing is demanding – deporting everyone and perhaps stripping children of their citizenship. Using this anti-immigrant rhetoric and seeking a repeal of the 14th Amendment is at odds with the Republican Party’s historic stance; after all it was their party that passed the 14th Amendment in the first place.
The anti-immigrant fever that has gripped some in this nation must be dealt with. We cannot allow our country to slip further along towards a place where specific ethnic groups are made to feel unwelcome. We are a nation of immigrants, and a nation that has always supported the rights of children. Seeking to strip some children of their citizenship is not just wrong, it’s un-American.
U.S. Representative José E. Serrano represents the Sixteenth Congressional District of New York in the Bronx. Congressman Serrano serves on the House Appropriations Committee and is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government . Serrano is also Senior Whip for the Majority Whip operation. He is an active member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and served as Chair of the Caucus from 1993-94. He is now the most senior Member of Congress of Puerto Rican descent.
Serrano is originally from Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. From 1964-66, Serrano served in the 172nd Support Battalion of the U.S. Army Medical Corps. After an honorable discharge from the Army, he returned to the Bronx and worked in a bank and as a school administrator before his election to the New York State Assembly in 1974. First elected to Congress in 1990, Congressman Serrano has been reelected ever since. By the end of his current term, he will be the longest-serving public official in Bronx history.
The Congressman is an advocate for a more humane immigration policy and has fought for the protection of civil liberties in the wake of the Patriot Act. José Serrano has developed a strong reputation for standing up for social and environmental justice.

Popularity: 3% [?]

From: Immigration Impact

Today, after months of political wagering from both Republicans and Democrats, the Senate unanimously passed a $600 million dollar billmarked for border security which is now headed to President Obama’s desk for signature. While the sequence of events leading to this most recent capitulation to the enforcement-first crowd is a little dizzying, the bill’s unanimous passage was partly a product of a bluff called on the Senate floor. Although the substance of the bill could have been much worse, the mere fact that the only major immigration legislation passed thus far in the 111th Congress was another border bill shows how far we are from treating immigration as a serious issue, rather than a political game.

To recap: On August 5, in the last few hours before adjourning for recess, the Senate passed a state aid package. Claiming to call the Republican’s bluff (meaning that as much as they want more border security, Senate Republicans aren’t ever going to give the Democrats a victory on an immigration bill), Senate Democrats brought their version of a $600 million border bill to the floor—“fully funded” through fee increases to business visa categories. Instead of objecting, Senator McCain asked that he and Sen. Kyl be included as cosponsors of the bill. Senator Sessions came down to the floor to say that the bill isn’t enough, but a good start. In a Senate marked by the lack of unanimous consent, no one objected to the bill and it passed by a voice vote. The bill went back to the House for a vote mandated by jurisdictional funding issues, then back to the Senate where it was again passed by unanimous consent today.
Bluff called.
But governing isn’t about bluffing. In all of this heady back and forth and politicking and angling for election in November, the substantive issues of what must be done to fix our broken immigration system are once more lost. The irony is that some of the provisions in this mega-million border bill have strong bipartisan support—enhancing communications systems and creating forward operating bases for Border Patrol have long been championed by border legislators of both parties. For example, the bill:
Provides more money for drug enforcement actions to ATF actually addressing some of the real problems along the border and, if used wisely, could help reduce trafficking and the flow of drugs and money back and forth along the border.
Lacks some of the more controversial and questionable proposals such as funding for the fence or Operation Stonegarden (providing federal money to local law enforcement to conduct immigration enforcement).
Provides more money to the judiciary and immigration courts, which is a sensible acknowledgment that you can’t increase enforcement and ignore the added costs of doing business for the judicial and administrative branches.
But any good that might come of this is likely to be cancelled out by the political points that anti-immigration folks will score with these actions. Immigration activists have come out swinging, accusing the Democrats of knuckling under and ignoring the strong public support for a more comprehensive answer. Political operatives continue to insist that it was essential for Democrats to have a vote on enforcement. Senator Reid’s decision to call for an immediate vote on the bill suggests that the politicians didn’t think they can have this hanging over their heads until September. In short, politicians have made a $600 million dollar investment in their political futures.
And the game continues. President Obama, Sen. Schumer and Sen. Reid have all issued statements claiming that this border security bill is a good first step towards securing comprehensive immigration reform. Yet true to form, Sens. Kyl and McCain, eyeing the cards on the table, claimed the bill, although welcomed, still wasn’t enough. It’s hard to imagine that this will be the last call for emergency funds on the border, as Congress loves to tell its constituents that they are being made safer by money well-spent on border security. This is the real bluff that needs to be called—the one Congress keeps using on all of us.

Popularity: 2% [?]

From: Hispanic News

Despite the blow dealt by a federal judge to Arizona’s law aimed at tackling illegal immigration, lawmakers and activists backing similar measures in states across the country say the judge’s ruling won’t dissuade them from pressing on with their campaign to assert local governments’ rights to manage the issue.

“People are going to be completely undeterred by that. We recognize it’s just a district court judge,” said Corey Stewart, the chairman of the board of supervisors in Prince William County, Va. and a proponent of anti-illegal immigration legislation in that state. “This will be pursued by various states and localities until the federal government actually does something substantial to crack down on illegal immigration, both in terms of Border Patrol and internal enforcement.”

On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton ruled that key aspects of a law Arizona passed in April were unconstitutional because they intruded on the federal government’s authority over immigration policy. She blocked parts of the law that required immigration checks on people stopped by police, allowed police to hold individuals pending the outcome of such a check and made it a state crime for foreigners to be in Arizona without immigration paperwork.

While Bolton’s decision in the closely watched dispute may have influence in other states, it only applies directly in Arizona.

The state has appealed the ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose resolution of the case would have a much greater impact since it would have effect in nine Western states that account for about 20 percent of the U.S. population. However, on Friday the 9th Circuit rebuffed Arizona’s request to speed up the appeal, meaning no decision is expected before the November elections.

“From a straight legal point of view, obviously, Bolton’s ruling can’t make them very happy, because a significant decision was made by a very serious judge and it was reasonably well thought out,” said Muzaffar Chishti of the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute. “That has to create a pause for people who thought this is a slam dunk.”

However, Chishti said he doesn’t expect the campaign for new state laws to let up.

“What is the motivation of people who want to replicate Arizona’s law? If their motivation is political, then they will probably want to introduce laws like this as a wedge issue… in an election year,” he said.

The law Arizona passed included about 10 different substantive components built on the state’s existing statutes, so it was never likely that a carbon copy would be passed elsewhere. But attempts to pass similarly broad legislation are underway in Idaho, Oklahoma and Virginia.

Stewart described the strategy this way: “You throw a bunch of things against the wall and see what sticks.”

During the first half of 2010, almost 1,400 immigration-related bills and resolutions were introduced at the state level—close to a record set last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

“There’s clearly a public demand for action and that’s what’s been playing out in all of the states,” said Sharon Tomiko Santos, a Democratic state representative in Washington and co-chair of the NCSL’s immigration task force. “The states are feeling very frustrated with the federal government…The failure of Congress to act [on immigration legislation] really has caused some important economic problems as well as public safety issues.”

However, the ability of state legislatures to actually pass new laws on the issue in the coming months is limited since many are in session only for part of the year and are not due back until early 2011.

Asked about the impact of Bolton’s ruling, Santos said, “I would say it’s a yellow light right now. It’s a moment to pause, I think, and let the legal beagles in every state pore over the judges’ rationale.”

Santos also said Bolton’s finding that the federal government has exclusive control over many immigration-related policies could up the pressure on Washington to act, but she said the action Congress takes might not be the kind of bill she supports involving a path to citizenship for many illegal immigrants already in the country.

“There could be more support for something more draconian,” Santos said. “I think we have to acknowledge the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the November election.”

While many legal experts have endorsed Bolton’s ruling, some believe aspects of her opinion are vulnerable to being overturned by the 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court.

“She just engaged in sheer speculation and took the worst-case-scenario view of everything,” said Peter Schuck, an emeritus and adjunct professor at Yale Law School. “There is a tendency when one engages in this kind of speculation to assume the worst rather than, as I think you are supposed to do in federal-state cases, assuming the least impact….She simply was not straining to defer to the state law and legislature the way a judge is supposed to.”

One portion of Bolton’s decision that has been a particular focus of criticism is her conclusion, in advance of the law taking effect, that forcing local and state law enforcement officials to check all arrestees against a federal immigration database “will divert resources from the federal government’s other responsibilities and priorities.” Local officers are already permitted to make such checks and a law passed by Congress requires the government to respond to them.

“It’s an odd basis for striking down a statute that federal authority exists to do this but if it’s actually used, the feds may think better of it,” Schuck said. “It’s one of the reasons why I really think the judge can be criticized for taking on the case, instead of waiting” to see what happened when the law was implemented, he added.

However, even Virginia’s Stewart, who supports more immigration-related legislation at the state and local level, said part of Bolton’s ruling is likely to be upheld. “The part of the Arizona law that said you have to carry your immigration papers, that has problems with it and will probably remain struck down,” he said.

While the legal maneuvering over Arizona’s new law has garnered intense and breathless press attention in recent days, the legal battle over state efforts to control immigration is far broader.

The Supreme Court has already agreed to hear arguments on another Arizona law, passed in 2007, that makes it mandatory for Arizona businesses to check their workers through a federal immigration-status database and threatens to shut down businesses who hire illegal immigrants. The Obama administration is asking the court to strike down the so-called employer sanctions law, even though it was signed by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano when she was Arizona’s governor.

And another federal appeals court should be nearing a significant decision on the rights of local governments to ban business transactions with illegal aliens. The Philadelphia-based 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments nearly two years ago on the attempt by the city of Hazelton, Pa. to require landlords and other business owners to verify that their customers were in the country legally. The appeals court hasn’t yet ruled on the case and could do so at any time.

Chishti believes the various court cases and the public controversy are mushrooming into something much bigger than immigration: a huge and potentially historic showdown over the role of the courts and states’ rights.

“This is beginning to look like Marbury v. Madison, the Federalist Papers and the Wallaces in the 1960s. It’s a question of the federal government asserting its authority over the states,” Chishti said. “Federal authority is really being tested in a way it hasn’t been tested in our political debate for a long time….This really focuses attention on it in a different way and it puts a lot of pressure on the Supreme Court.”

Popularity: 3% [?]

From: Chicago Tribune

With the immigration debate heating up — and a federal court case over Arizona’s SB 1070 brewing — you’d think that the U.S. was besieged by growing numbers of illegal immigrants. But you’d be wrong.

Despite the heightened rhetoric and the bloodcurdling vitriol surrounding the issue, illegal immigration has actually declined significantly over the last few years. While journalists like to characterize the anger over immigration as a response to facts on the ground — i.e. people are inundated and incensed — the numbers don’t bear them out.

In fact, the opposite is true. According to a February report by the Department of Homeland Security, the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. actually dropped by a whopping 1 million between 2008 and 2009, which amounts to the sharpest decrease in 30 years. It was the second year of declining numbers.

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Likewise, the Border Patrol reports that apprehensions are down by more than 60% since 2000, to 550,000 last year, the lowest number in 35 years, even though the border is more tightly controlled than ever. As William Finnegan wrote in last week’s New Yorker, “The southern border, far from being ‘unsecured,’ is in better shape than it has been for years — better managed and less porous.”

And there’s more. Despite the drumbeat about hordes of undocumented Mexicans who have come north to take our jobs, consider this: According to the Pew Hispanic Center, between 2005 and 2008, the number of Mexican migrants arriving in the U.S. actually declined by 40%.

It’s not only the number of Mexican illegal immigrants that has dropped. The fact that the U.S. economy is struggling has discouraged high-skilled immigrants from around the globe from looking for jobs in America, and the flow of applicants for H1-B visas, or work permits, has slowed. Before the recession, the entire 85,000 H1-B annual quota would be filled within days of the application date on the first of April. For fiscal year 2010, the quota wasn’t reached until December 2009.

Finally, the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey last fall revealed a historic decline in the percentage of U.S. residents who are foreign-born — from 12.6% in 2007 to 12.5% in 2008. That represents only about 40,000 people numerically, but it is the first time since the 1970 census — 40 years ago — that the foreign-born percentage of the U.S. population has gone down.

So, in the face of all this data showing that legal and illegal immigration is down dramatically, what’s all the fuss about? Why has the debate turned so nasty? Why does it seem worse than it did in 1994, during the debate over Proposition 187, California’s anti-immigrant ballot measure?

The easy answer, of course, is that the economy is tough and historically people have looked for targets to blame for their feelings of impotence.

But today I think there are other contributing factors. The political discourse overall is pretty horrific, and while immigration has always brought out the worst in people, today’s polarized climate only makes matters worse.

Furthermore, the right wing, where much of the anti-immigrant frenzy comes from, no longer has an authoritative voice of reason pressing for decency on the issue. Four years ago, after President George W. Bush unsuccessfully launched his own effort at comprehensive immigration reform, he warned against “harsh, ugly rhetoric.” Today, Bush is hardly heard from and the right has an “open borders” policy on over-the-top rhetoric.

Struggling newspapers seeking to engage readers at any cost are also part of the problem. Whereas racist rants were once confined to marginal websites, today many papers — including this one — have opened their online comments section to, well, complete nut-jobs. Allowing vitriolic racial rhetoric to remain on a mainstream website is to give it a level of acceptability. Just last week, in response to my column on the so-called burka ban in France, a rabid commenter proposed that all those crossing the U.S.- Mexico border without papers should be shot on sight. Nice. Such “dialogue” not only pushes out reasonable people, it emboldens the unreasonable ones. By allowing it to be posted, newspapers are presiding over the mainstreaming of anti-immigrant hate speech.

There may be those who see hatred as a justifiable means to an end. Perhaps they hope that all this harsh rhetoric will keep even more illegal immigrants at home. But they’d be silly to think that such invective only makes life harder for immigrants. Unfortunately, it also actively degrades our culture, our public square and our democracy.

Popularity: 3% [?]

From: Washington Post

Paul Moncada, the silver-haired police chief of this highway town, spent a recent morning anxiously checking the TV for news about Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, set to take effect in a matter of days.

He sifted through stacks of state training materials, which still left him with lots of questions. And he worried about the frustrated people in town who might sue him for not enforcing the new law well enough, the frustrated people in town who might accuse him of racial profiling and the thousands who cross the blazing desert around here and whose lives he is also duty-bound to protect.

“There’s pressure from all sides, and I understand all the sides,” said Moncada, 56, who grew up here and has served on the force 34 years. “I’m just telling my officers: Do your job. It’s nerve-racking.”

A federal judge has scheduled a hearing Thursday on an Obama administration lawsuit, one of three challenging the Arizona law, which requires officers to check the immigration status of people they arrest or cite for any violation if they have “reasonable suspicion” the person is in the United States illegally. The law has renewed the contentious national debate over immigration reform, sparked huge protests in Tucson and Phoenix and spawned the possibility of similar laws in other states.

Its effects have been somewhat quieter, if no less divisive, in Benson, a town of about 5,000 people, a third of Hispanic descent, about an hour’s drive from the Mexican border. It is a tourist stopover and mostly working-class community of flat-roofed adobe homes, pebbly RV parks and more upscale enclaves such as San Pedro Ranches on the edges of town. And as elsewhere, the debate here has mingled with an already trying situation. The troubled economy forced the state to clip Benson’s budget, and unemployment, foreclosures and minor crime linked mostly to drug addicts has cast some gloom upon the city motto, “Hang out in Benson!”

Some residents have come to associate a general sense of decline with illegal immigration, which is visible here in the desert litter of backpacks and water jugs, and in the crammed-full vans that drivers sometimes ditch along the highways, sending passengers fleeing. In that context, the new law has inspired feelings from profound unease to a kind of righteous victory, which often sort along ethnic lines.

A sense of fear
“Amen” is what Danna Judd said when Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the law in April.

She and her husband, Bevin, a UPS salesman, moved from Tucson to a new house on 22 acres in San Pedro Ranches three years ago, but their rural-lifestyle fantasy was quickly spoiled. They found stashes of clothes when they were out for desert walks. They found a smuggler’s van abandoned in their gravel driveway. More recently, they arrived home with their two kids from an evening baseball game to a scene of floodlights and U.S. Border Patrol agents scrambling across their property.

“My neighbor called and said they were chasing around 20 people,” Bevin Judd said. They ushered the kids to bed, turned on all the lights and locked the doors.

Like many who grew up in Benson, Bevin Judd remembers giving bread and water to Mexican farmworkers who crossed through town when he was a kid. He remembers leaving doors unlocked, keys in the car. “But now it almost seems like there’s a criminal element to it,” he said. The sense that crime has increased with illegal immigration isn’t supported by either local or statewide crime statistics, although that is difficult for some around here to believe.

“It makes you afraid,” said Danna Judd, a deputy city clerk. “You don’t know who is out there. Are they drug smugglers? Do they have guns?”

To the Judds’ relief, the one person who definitely does have guns is their neighbor Bob Dekoschak, 62, who was cleaning out his horse barn in the late afternoon. The wind blew the chimes. His wife, Elise, arrived home from work, and they sat under ceiling fans in their library packed with James Michener novels and books on Latin American culture.

“When we were moving here, we talked to a friend who said, ‘Oh, and how armed are you?’ ” explained Elise Dekoschak, 60, who works for the state government.

Bob Dekoschak, who works for an international software manufacturer, already had a 12-gauge shotgun, but he bought two more, along with a .357 magnum.

As the sun sank into the crumbled landscape, the Dekoschaks talked of feeling isolated from law enforcement, which is spread so thin. They talked about the things they blame, at least partly, on illegal immigration: the state’s failing schools, the closed hospitals, strained local budgets. They question its comparative benefits of cheap lettuce and cheap houses that helped drive Arizona’s boom years.

“When Brewer brought this forth, she did it for those of us on the front lines,” Bob Dekoschak said. “Those of us armed. Those of us with illegals running through our yards. We can’t keep placating the Hispanic community. What we need is a division of Marines . . . ”

He paused. Elise held up her hand. “Wait,” she said. “What’s that?”

A chopping noise; a helicopter, they decided. Maybe Border Patrol.

No practical effect?
In the police station, Moncada was listening to radio calls. An officer was investigating a burglary suspect; another was checking out a crystal-methamphetamine lab; a highway patrol officer had stopped two men in a car and needed a Spanish speaker.

“I guess that’s me,” said Moncada, one of two Hispanic Americans on the force of 16 officers. He walked out into the 105-degree noon and sped off in his gray Chevy.

“I don’t know what it is,” he said, gliding onto Interstate 10. “But if you work in the southern part of Arizona, you should speak Spanish.”

At the scene, the patrol officer explained that he’d pulled over the burgundy Dodge Falcon for speeding and following another car too closely. The driver had produced a Mexican license and a proper visa. The passenger produced his legal resident card. But the car was not registered to them. And after Moncada asked a few questions, the two men’s stories did not match.

Moncada watched the two men as the patrol officer searched the trunk, the door frames, the engine, shining his flashlight into its crevices. Nothing. They let the men go.

“I think he was running heat,” the chief said of the driver, referring to a common smuggling tactic around here, in which one car distracts the police so others get through. He got back into his Chevy.

“With the new law,” he said, rehearsing a future scenario, “nothing would have changed on that stop.”

And for Moncada, at least, that is the irony of the new law: Although heightening fears and expectations, threatening lawsuits and creating confusion, it is unlikely to change much about how his officers do their jobs, he said.

Already, if they stop a speeding van and people bail out running, officers generally make the leap and call Border Patrol. The new law essentially requires that call, along with one to verify the immigration status of every local drug addict, drunk driver or shoplifter arrested after next Thursday, when the law takes effect, barring an injunction. Although the law might play out differently in other places, Moncada said, his police will not use it as an excuse to hunt illegal immigrants. As a practical matter, he and other chiefs said, they are simply too busy with regular crime.

“I really don’t know if it will have any significant effect at all,” the chief said. “Will it fill the jails? Probably not. Will it be a deterrent? Probably not.”

He drove down Route 80, past a blur of beige desert, past the iron gate where some ranchers found a body a few weeks ago.

“The poor guy was just laid out there,” Moncada said, pointing to the spot. “We didn’t find any water jugs. No backpack. It was miserably hot that day, 109 degrees. You can only imagine what kind of death . . . ”

‘What’s next?’
When the new law was introduced, Melissa Herrera-DiPeso, who runs a real estate agency in town, interpreted it as a license for the police to racially profile Hispanic Americans. This was based upon her memories of growing up in Tucson, when some white parents didn’t let their daughters play with her. In high school, she had a white friend who was not allowed to have a Mexican boyfriend. Now a successful, glamorous-looking woman with a son attending Stanford University, she has been forced to wonder again how others see her.

“My white friends say, ‘Oh, Melissa, you’re making such a big deal of it,’ ” she said, sitting in her office. “But they’re white. They don’t have to deal with it.”

She, too, is afraid of drug-related violence spilling over from Mexico. And like everyone, she is hopeful that the controversy will push the federal government to deal with immigration reform, although realistically, she figures it won’t. And so she worries, about news that a list of illegal immigrants was circulating in Utah, about a mood of vigilantism that she believes Arizona’s new law has encouraged.

“There’s so much anger and frustration,” she said. “If this law doesn’t work, what’s next?”

Wary of the effects
Down a gravel driveway, behind a locked gate, a man who preferred that only his first name, Marco, be used, considered that question.

He arrived in Tucson seven years ago on a tourist visa, found work framing the new houses. He got a paycheck then and paid taxes. He brought his wife and two kids to join him, and they moved to Benson, where he works for a rancher.

“We’re not just here to benefit,” said Marco, 37. “We’re also giving.”

He rents a trailer where he sat down on an overstuffed couch in a room decorated with frilly maroon curtains, his son’s baseball trophies, family photos, two paintings of Jesus and one of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

He is nervous about the new law, he said, and like everyone else, he is preparing.

He has gathered all the documents he can find in a desperate hope that they might satisfy police asking for papers: some invoices from a store he owns in Mexico; a letter of recommendation from his home town’s mayor. He plans to fix the small crack in the windshield of the sedan he drives to work, an infraction that could lead to his deportation if the law takes effect. He will try to look friendly but unassuming.

“I always try to dress clean, not dirty, like I’ve been walking through the desert,” Marco said. Still, he worries about what might happen.

“Maybe it was a mistake to bring my family here,” he said. “If it gets too tough, I will go. Maybe California.”

Popularity: 7% [?]

From: Ponte Al Dia

As mid-term elections near, political parties are drawing battle lines and building strategies to come out successful in November. For both parties much of their success will be rooted on how well they appeal Latinos — especially in California, Colorado, Texas and Florida where 2/3 of all Hispanic registered voters reside.

Always considered the litmus test and among the top three most important issues, immigration now stands as the number one most vital among Hispanics.

A survey by National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund showed 27 percent of 1600 Hispanics surveyed — 400 for each of the states mentioned — ranked immigration above unemployment, cost of living, healthcare and education.

A panel mediated by NALEO executive director Arturo Vargas included Democratic strategist María Cardona and GOP strategist Leslie Sánchez. They were at hand at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. July 20, to discuss how each party sees Hispanic influence in the mid-term elections.

Cardona, a native of Bogotá, Colombia, now principal at the Dewey Square Group said, “Latinos should definitely be looked at as a swing vote because we have seen some trends, Republicans should be very frightened.” she said.

Cardona added that although Republicans have made their way to the November elections without the Latino vote times before, she emphasized their need to “further examine” their tactics.

When it came to immigration, Cardona echoed the message promoted by Obama, heightened July 1 during his first speech on immigration since taking office. His message reiterated time and time again that advocacy groups and Hispanics organizations should vent their frustration on Republicans.

Sánchez said told Hispanic Link that Obama’s call to castigate the Republican Party for inaction on immigration was a political ploy.

“Political spin and mobilizing a democratic Latino base for November,” Sánchez said. “It is a serious issue that needs serious attention but not a couple of months prior to an election.”

Sánchez maintained that the immigration debate was “missing a lion” to push for a bill, one such as late Sen. Ted Kennedy who sought support across the aisle, saying, “Republicans want to see sincere efforts.”

And while Sánchez argued the GOP will seek out Hispanic support in November by being “inclusive as they are with their general public,” she made it clear that the term “comprehensive” is code for “amnesty” to Republicans and that if Democrats used that word to garner support, “that dog won’t hunt.”

Cardona quickly countered by saying that “comprehensive is the words Latinos need to hear.”

What both strategist agreed on, however, was that Arizona and its immigration law SB1070 which takes effect this week and challenged federally July 6, was the catalyst for both parties to talk about immigration.

Both Latina strategists put aside their political ideology when Illinois State Senator Iris Martínez said that enforcement moves such as the one made by Arizona were not fueled by a need for safety, but racism. “I’m hearing that Arizona is now trying to pass legislation where hospitals will not issue birth certificates to children of undocumented who are born on U.S. soil,” Martínez said.

Although she backs the administration 100 percent when it comes to securing the borders, she believes that the issue is evolving into an “anti-Latino” one. “Their fight is with Latinos only, no one else,” she later told Hispanic Link.

Sánchez and Cardona both agreed that if immigration is not addressed it would escalate in 2011.

Census Bureau findings show that there are now 47 million Hispanics in the United States. NALEO found that roughly 6.6 million (more than 60 percent) Latinos will vote in November.

Popularity: 3% [?]

From: Vivir Latino

In the late 1990?s, when racial profiling, especially framed in terms like “driving while black”, was in the headlines, Congressmen like John Conyers spoke out about the possibility of legislation aimed at stopping racial profiling. Now, ten or so years later, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. and Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution,
Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Chairman Jerrold Nadler introduced H.R. 5748, End Racial Profiling Act of 2010 (ERPA).
This bill is being introduced in the context of the rising use of police tactics like stop and frisk in NYC and of course laws like Arizona’s SB1070 which make it suspicious to be alive while brown.
From the official press release announcing the legislation late last week:
“The debate over racial profiling has become a central element in a much larger history of adversarial relationships between the police and communities of color,” Conyers said. “Over the past two decades, the tensions between police and minority
communities have grown as allegations of racial profiling by law enforcement agents, sometimes supported by data collection
efforts, have increased in number and frequency. The recent passage of Arizona?s new immigration law has crystallized the terms
of the profiling debate and demonstrates that the combination of racial discrimination and law enforcement represents a volatile
mix across all strata of the minority community. In 2001, we achieved a bipartisan consensus with the Bush administration in
support of profiling legislation and hope that we can rebuild that momentum in support of this long overdue federal action.”

I wonder how effective legislation like this really is though.
The End Racial Profiling Act is designed to enforce the constitutional right to equal protection of the laws by eliminating racial
profiling through changes to the policies and procedures underlying the practice. The legislation will do the following:
1. Establish a prohibition on racial profiling, enforceable by declaratory or injunctive relief.
2. Mandate training on racial profiling issues and the collection of data on both routine and spontaneous investigatory activities, as
a condition of receiving Federal law enforcement funding.
3. Authorize the Justice Department to provide grants for the development and implementation of best policing practices, such as
early warning systems, technology integration, and other management protocols that discourage profiling.
4. Require the Attorney General to provide periodic reports to assess the nature of any ongoing discriminatory profiling practices
So if a county, say, Maricopa County in Arizona, goes through a training program could they get more money to participate in Federal programs like 287(g).
Is anyone else bothered with the idea of using the Feds as the gatekeeper when it comes to determining best policing practices?

Popularity: 4% [?]