Immigrants and Politics Blog

[KR: We’re back, after a bit of a break in the month of May. Below is a discussion that occurred on a Latino Politics listserv, provoked by a question by David Ayon at Loyola Marymount (LA). The Obama candidacy has opened up many questions about race, and it also has the potential to open up important discussions about what it means to be an “immigrant.”]

Based on a Politico story from June 10:
“… Becerra, who represents heavily Hispanic East Los Angeles, … said he’s hopeful that Obama’s personal story — as the son of an immigrant who struggled to fit in — will transcend racial boundaries and that the candidate’s positions on health care, education and immigration will lead to an instant connection with Hispanic voters.”

DAVID AYON (LMU) wrote:
“Is it relevant or nitpicking to point out that Obama is not really the “son of an immigrant”? His father was a foreign student who returned to his country after finishing his studies. Obama has a great personal story and wide-ranging experience, but I would not consider it part of the immigrant experience in a meaningful way.”

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[KR: This article in the New York Times is in line with my research on local ordinances occurring even in places where the proportion (or growth) of immigrants is small. Given the case (northern Florida), the role of conservative ideology and local partisan (GOP) dynamics likely plays a significant role.

June 9, 2008
States Take New Tack on Illegal Immigration
By DAMIEN CAVE, New York Times

MILTON, Fla. — Three months after the local police inspected more than a dozen businesses searching for illegal immigrants using stolen Social Security numbers, this community in the Florida Panhandle has become more law-abiding, emptier and whiter.

Many of the Hispanic immigrants who came in 2004 to help rebuild after Hurricane Ivan have either fled or gone into hiding. Churches with services in Spanish are half-empty. Businesses are struggling to find workers. And for Hispanic citizens with roots here — the foremen and entrepreneurs who received visits from the police — the losses are especially profound.
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[KR: Fareed Zakaria runs with Obama’s assertion that spending formative years outside the United States helps with empathy in understanding the consequences of foreign policy. Perhaps other 1.5-gen immigrants in public policy would agree.]

The Power of Personality
When I talk to people in a foreign country, no matter how strange, they are always familiar to me.
By Fareed Zakaria, NEWSWEEK
Dec 15, 2007

I never thought I’d be in this position. There’s a debate taking place about what matters most when making judgments about foreign policy— experience and expertise on the one hand, or personal identity on the other. And I find myself coming down on the side of identity.

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[KR: In the case of immigrants and transnationalism, the work of consulates is typically treated as from “above” and the activism of residents as from “below.” This story complicates the framework, of an individual consul who innovated beyond what the Mexican government may have envisioned.]

Outcry over consul’s removal in Santa Ana
Community leaders say Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro can’t be replaced and plan to protest. The Mexican government asserts that it’s a routine change.
By Jennifer Delson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 14, 2007

The Mexican government has announced that it will remove Consul Luis Miguel Ortiz Haro from Santa Ana, provoking ire among community leaders who view him as an outspoken and unbending advocate for immigrants in Orange County.

Community leaders are collecting signatures to petition for his reinstatement and planning a trip to Mexico City to speak with government officials. They are also planning to protest when Mexico President Felipe Calderon visits Los Angeles next month.

Some residents in this largely Latino city say they have found in Ortiz Haro the sort of fiery leader the town has lacked in recent years.

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[KR: How does one cover a topic when there is no news coverage of it? Letters to the editors offer one possibility. Here is a good question posed by Rudy Espino at Arizona State. Any ideas or suggestions? Please add to comments on this post.].

Immigrant Politics Bloggers,

Of course, you are aware of the most recent inability to muster enough
votes in the Senate for the Dream Act. And if you were following it
closely, you might have noticed that two of the previous co-sponsors of
some version of the Dream Act were among four of the Senators that did
not cast a vote - McCain and Kennedy; the other two no-votes were Boxer
and Dodd.

I would have thought all 4 would have been definite aye votes. But,
perhaps, McCain and Dodd, in particular, were on the campaign trail and
saw the writing on the wall about the likely outcome of this vote.

Well, if you go to a roll call cast one hour before the Dream Act
cloture vote, you find three no-votes: Kennedy, Boxer, and Dodd. McCain
was there on the Senate floor one hour before the Dream Act cloture
vote.

I have yet to find any press accounts questioning why Kennedy and McCain
were gone on this cloture vote. Kennedy, it seems, was clearly not in
the building - of three roll calls that day he was absent on all three.
McCain, on the other hand, was present for two of those three - and the
one who he chose to be absent on was that Dream Act cloture vote.

Strike you as odd?

Rudy

–
Rodolfo Espino, Arizona State University
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science

[Interesting and important report by Margaret Gray on farmworkers in New York and the need for greater labor protections. Story below as reported in the New York Times, and the full report can be downloaded at the following link: http://events.adelphi.edu/news/farmworkers/ ]

Study Finds Farmworkers Unaware of Job Protections
October 24, 2007
LISA W. FODERARO, New York Times

Farmworkers in the Hudson Valley toil long hours for little pay and are largely unaware of the few protections and services available to them, according to a report released yesterday by researchers at Adelphi University and Bard College.

The report, a portrait of the state’s agricultural work force, claims to be the first such study in three decades. It describes a substantial shift in the racial and ethnic makeup of farmworkers in the Hudson Valley since the 1980s, from mostly black to predominantly Hispanic.

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[KR: An oped by an old friend and law professor at Santa Clara University. He urges a conversation about whether it is a good thing for immigration policies to become more local. A worthy question, but also worth asking how the current policy and normative debates are different from the debates during the mid-1990s when state governments were the relevant battlegrounds (and remain so even today). Also worth noting books such as those by Ron Hayduk (Democracy For All) which note that progressive policies towards immigrants in the United States, including voting rights, were historically found at the local and state levels first.

Mr. Gulasekaram’s oped ends on a fairly optimistic note. The evidence today indicates that the majority of immigrants live in politically progressive cities. However, there are more jurisdictions today who have passed explicitly restrictive ordinances versus sanctuary ones, although high legal and economic costs may slow the advancement of Hazleton-like ordinances. Still, it may be little comfort to an undocumented immigrant in a restrictive state or locality to know that there are other places in the U.S. with more liberal policies.]

THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE: Coming Soon - A City ID?
‘Both sides might consider focusing on their shared faith in local action.’

Pratheepan Gulasekaram
San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 2007

While immigration has been historically cast as a federal responsibility, state and city governments have seized upon the U.S. government’s immigration deadlock by stepping in to fill the void. In the first eight months of 2007, local jurisdictions passed more than 170 immigration-related laws - more than doubling the number from 2006.

Not surprisingly, San Francisco has entered the fray. Having already declared the city a symbolic haven for undocumented immigrants, the Board of Supervisors recently proposed issuing municipal ID cards to all city residents. These cards would help undocumented people apply for jobs, access city services and open bank accounts - all to ensure that the immigrant population is employed, educated, willing to report crimes and treated with dignity.

Yet lurking behind the ID proposal is a fundamental constitutional issue. Opponents of the plan argue that the city’s proposal violates the U.S. Constitution because it frustrates principles of federal supremacy and power with regard to immigration matters.

Although the opposition’s claim has legal merit, it is not without irony. Just a few months ago, pro-immigrant forces used the same argument to persuade a federal court to overturn a restrictive ordinance against illegal immigrants in Hazelton, Pa. That measure would have denied such immigrants employment, social services and housing.

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[KR: Adrian Felix presented on this recently at the USC meeting of PRIEC. Brings up some interesting questions about political memberships and belonging based on death (as opposed to the standard notions of birth rights)]

June 11, 2007
In Journey Home to Mexico Grave, an Industry Rises
By EDUARDO PORTER

CONWAY, Ark. — Héctor Acevedo was 22, in this country illegally and far from his mother when he died last month in a car accident outside of town just across the Arkansas River.

But mother and son were soon reunited. The tight-knit immigrant network rallied to repatriate the body, adding Mr. Acevedo to a procession of thousands of dead Mexicans making their way home each year. A survivor of the accident approached a relative of another victim, who worked in a restaurant owned by one of Mr. Acevedo’s relatives.

An uncle identified the body, contacted the Mexican consulate in nearby Little Rock and arranged the paperwork. For $2,300, and a $500 contribution from the consulate, they bought the “Hispanic Package” at Brown’s Christian Funeral Services, which specializes in repatriation of remains to Mexico. Six days after the accident, Mr. Acevedo was buried next to his grandfather in the family plot in González, Tamaulipas, in northeastern Mexico.

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[KR: Here is the study featured in the New York Times on wide disparities in granting of asylum cases across states and according to the gender and past work experience of the immigration judge. (via SSRN)]

Refugee Roulette: Disparities in Asylum Adjudication
Ramji-Nogales, Jaya, Schoenholtz , Andrew and Schrag, Philip G.
http://ssrn.com/abstract=983946
The analysis reveals significant disparities in grant rates, even when different adjudicators in the same office each considered large numbers of applications from nationals of the same country. In many cases, the most important moment in an asylum case is the instant in which a clerk randomly assigns an application to a particular asylum officer or immigration judge.

Using cross-tabulations based on public biographies, the paper also explores correlations between sociological characteristics of individual immigration judges and their grant rates. The cross tabulations show that the chance of winning asylum was strongly affected by whether or not the applicant had legal representation, by the gender of the immigration judge, and by the immigration judge’s work experience prior to appointment.

[A special issue by Carlos Ulises Decena and Margaret Gray (PhD, CUNY Graduate Center) on immigrants in New York State well beyond the large city]
The Border Next Door: New York Migraciones
Carlos Ulises Decena , Margaret Gray
A special issue of Social Text 24:3 (#88)

Addressing how national immigration concerns play out at urban, rural, and suburban levels in the state of New York, this special issue of Social Text offers new insight into an area of study that has long been focused primarily on cities. As new Latino/a immigrants change the culture and social fabric of small communities and reshape policy concerns, suburban and rural regions are becoming key locations for anti-immigrant acts and immigrant social justice organizing. This special issue presents immigrant stories and community and advocacy responses that underscore the need to recognize the diversity of Latino/a immigrant experiences, and it explores the widely varying responses of towns, counties, and both new and established immigrant groups to the race, ethnic, and class tensions usually associated with cities.
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