Immigrants and Politics Blog

[KR: Apparently the “torpedoes” in the familiar saying refers to Admiral Farragut’s exhortation to ignore naval mines in the Civil War battle of Mobile Bay. According to this article, environmental laws and religious protections don’t seem to be much of a hurdle in the way of building a border fence. Given the now-standard stance of “enforcement first” among all the presidential candidates, it is unclear whether these policies will be reversed next year.]

April 8, 2008
Power to Build Border Fence Is Above U.S. Law
By ADAM LIPTAK, New York Times

Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all.

Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom.

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[KR: The Movement Vision Lab, a project at the Center for Community Change, sponsored an online video contest on the immigration issue and received many submissions. Recently they awarded two top prizes, one for a video on compassion at the US-Mexico border in Arizona, and the other for a spoof on the outdated system of naturalization at the CIS]

Submissions
http://www.youtube.com/video_response_view_all?v=wweD5J2-R0k

Winners
http://www.movementvisionlab.org/blog/announcing-the-results/view

[KR: It is unclear from the story whether the three people on parole are foreign-born and legally in the United States. Does this kind of “creative sentencing” noted by the AP violate equal protection?]

Pa. Judge Sentences 3 to Learn English
March 27, 2008

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) — A judge known for creative sentencing has ordered three Spanish-speaking men to learn English or go to jail.
The men, who faced prison for criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, can remain on parole if they learn to read and write English, earn their GEDs and get full-time jobs, Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. said.

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[KR: Michael Jones-Correa sent out this story on the Latino Politics mailing list. Unlike in 1996, when the Clinton administration made it a priority to make significant headway on the backlog following a surge in applications for naturalization, it does not look like the CIS in 2008 will be speeding up naturalization approvals before the November election.]

Immigration Chief Quits Amid Citizenship Surge
BY SARAH GARLAND
New York Sun
March 14, 2008

The director of an embattled federal immigration agency will step down from his position, leaving the agency in limbo as it struggles to wade through a flood of citizenship applications before the presidential election.

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[KR: Interesting story out of Riverside, where a local lawyer has filed a suit to clarify whether being born in the Panama Canal Zone counts as a “natural born” citizen. The Founders certainly did not have an American empire in mind when drafting such language, but as noted in the latest biography of Alexander Hamilton, they may have had him (and other foreign-born leaders) in mind when inserting the natural-born language.]

McCain’s citizenship faces legal challenge
By Michael R. Blood
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 12, 2008

LOS ANGELES – John McCain has been called an American hero. But is he a natural-born citizen?

A federal judge in Riverside County has been asked to determine whether the Republican presidential candidate, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936, meets the legal test to qualify for the nation’s highest office.

The Constitution requires that only “natural born” citizens hold the presidency, a term on which the Founding Fathers didn’t elaborate.

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[From IB: “.. Two articles, one on academic views of immigration in the context of the Presidential elections from the Chronicle of Higher Ed, and a (short) overview of the presidential candidates’ views of immigration. Perhaps not that much new for those following this carefully, but both are a nice snapshot for students you might be teaching.]

Academics: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i28/28b01001.htm

Candidates:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/03/17/where-clinton-obama-and-mccain-stand-on-immigration_print.htm

[KR: Sent by Irene Bloemraad. The new Arizona law on employer verification may push unauthorized immigrants not only to neighboring states, but also to Canada. One interesting tidbit here is that unauthorized immigrants in Canada cannot enroll their children in school or access health services.]

Firm helps Mexicans get jobs in Canada
Workers are needed, wanted, as long as they follow rules
By Gabriela Rico
The Arizona Daily Star (Tucson)
March 14, 2008

Never mind the jobs Americans don’t do.

A new Tucson business, playing off the state’s new employer-sanctions law, is linking Mexican workers here with high-paying jobs that Canadians aren’t doing. Canada’s labor shortage has created a unique opportunity that a recently opened Tucson business is capitalizing on. The mother-daughter operation, Consultantes Canadienses LLC (Canadian Consultants), specializes in connecting displaced Mexican workers with jobs in Canada.

“My country is going through a crisis,” said Margaret Cid, a native of Toronto. “I have employers telling me, ‘I just want someone who shows up.’ ”

So Margaret Cid and her mother, Carmen Cid, who are Canadian citizens and legal U.S. residents, created a step-by-step guide for how to apply for a job, obtain a visa and get settled in Canada.

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[Posting from Irene Bloemraad on a story that appeared in the New York Times’ Week In Review section. Good summary of the issues rise and fall–now, and in the past].

March 2, 2008
The Border and the Ballot Box
By DAVID LEONHARDT, New York Times

ON June 7 of last year, a bill to overhaul the nation’s immigration system — a bill supported by President Bush and the Democratic leaders of Congress — died in the Senate. It died mostly because of grass-roots opposition, and its downfall appeared to serve as an announcement of the issue’s new political potency. For much of 2007, immigration seemed certain to play a dominant role in the 2008 presidential campaign.

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[KR: Given all of the stories earlier in the year about whether Obama, a second-generation immigrant, was black enough to get African American support, it is perhaps surprising and ironic that he is losing the immigrant vote to Hillary Clinton. Below are links to news articles and opeds trying to make sense of why Obama is heavily losing among Latino and Asian American voters, with potential explanations ranging from name-recognition advantage, to better outreach by Clinton, to intergroup prejudice].

“Asians were a surprise,” said Bruce Cain, director of the University of California’s Washington Center. “It’s the first (presidential) election we have seen where Asian voters were a big factor. They are about 8 percent of the Democratic electorate…. The two major immigrant groups voted for Clinton as opposed to the candidate who has the immigrant background.”

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[KR: A reporter asked me a couple of days ago about immigration and the primary races, and wanted to know why McCain has been able to overcome that issue. Gerald Seib of the Wall Street Journal provides some possible reasons below. Whatever the explanation, it certainly turns the conventional wisdom of 2006 on its head — that immigrant legalization is a third-rail issue for a large part of the GOP base. The big question if McCain gets the nod is: Where will the anti-immigration voter go?]

McCain Gains as Furor Over Immigration Cools
January 29, 2008

CAPITAL JOURNAL
By GERALD SEIB

Six months ago, when Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign was left for dead at the side of the road to the White House, he seemed to have perished because he was in the wrong place on two important issues: Iraq and immigration.

Today, as Republican voters go to the polls in Florida to determine whether Sen. McCain has become the clear favorite to win the Republican nomination, it is worth considering how things have turned around.
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