America's Voice Blog

Posted 02/22/12 at 05:15pm By Mahwish Khan

At CNN Debate, DREAMers and UFW’s Dolores Huerta To Protest GOP’s Anti-immigrant Rhetoric

Outside of the CNN GOP debate in Arizona tonight, Dreamers and immigrant rights advocates -- including lifetime activist Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers -- will be protesting the Republican candidates and their anti-immigrant rhetoric, which includes their support for hateful legislation such as the original “papers, please” law, SB 1070.

“...the Latino community in Arizona has woken up due to hateful legislation,” notes the DRM Capitol Group’s press statement. “Governor Mitt Romney has emerged as a strongly anti-immigrant candidate with his rhetoric on the DREAM Act being the most direct. In addition, his "self-deportation" policy, which emerged from the advice of radical anti-immigrant attorney Kris Kobach, author of Arizona’s notorious SB 1070, is nothing more than a disguise of a cruel scheme to make life unbearable for hard working immigrants.”

The DREAMers' clear reading of some GOP candidates' “outreach strategy” to Latino voters was also highlighed in an NPR piece from this morning, where DREAMer Daniel Rodriguez states his opposition to the Gingrich/Romney plan of gutting the DREAM Act to create the ARMS Act -- a bill which would only provide a pathway to citizenship only for undocumented immigrants who choose to join the military.

That idea is offensive to "Dreamers" — undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally when they were young — who want to go to college, said 25-year-old activist Daniel Rodriguez.

"That's telling me I'm good enough to die for this country," Rodriguez said, "but I'm not good enough to study for it and to help it through my knowledge."

NPR also talked to Cesar Vargas:

That's why 28-year-old Cesar Vargas said he doesn't like the idea of a "military only" DREAM Act, even though he wants to join the Marines.

"It tells you, you know, forget about your friends who want to go to college and you take advantage of this, and that's not how it's supposed to be," he said.

And following are the details of the protest, where Cesar and other DREAMers will protest the GOP candidates for president:

Who: Undocumented youth and civil rights activist, Dolores Huerta.
What: Protest outside of the GOP debate to demand the candidates to stop their anti-immigrant rhetoric and support the full DREAM Act or they will lose the Latino vote in Arizona.
When: Wednesday, Feb. 22 - 5:00 local time
Where: Mesa Amphitheatre 263 N Center Street Mesa, AZ 85201

Feel free to also catch them at 8 PM est (5 PM cst), live on U-Stream, embedded below. For more on the debates, visit our twitter feed at 8 PM tonight, where I'll be live-tweeting on behalf of @americasvoice. 


Posted 02/22/12 at 05:11pm By Van Le

Citizens for a Better Arizona to Run Anti-Arpaio Ad During Tonight’s GOP Debate

When the Republican presidential candidates debate in Mesa, Arizona tonight, the grassroots group Citizens for a Better Arizona will be ready for them—with an ad drawing attention to infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and calling for his resignation.

“Learn the real story of America’s Most Sued Sheriff, America’s Most Costly Sheriff and America’s Most Corrupt Sheriff,” says the press release announcing the ad, playing on Arpaio’s self-designated nickname, “America’s Toughest Sheriff.”

Watch the ad here:

Citizens for a Better Arizona is best known for its role in last year’s historic recall of State Senate President Russell Pearce, another anti-immigrant blowhard and the architect of SB 1070, the original anti-immigrant law.  Its ad campaign against Arpaio was announced today by group Co-Founder and President Randy Parraz, who has set his sights on kicking Arpaio out of office now that Pearce has been deposed.

Arpaio will be running for a fifth term as Sheriff this November, and Parraz believes he is newly vulnerable.  The Sheriff has a long history of flagrant civil rights offenses, where his “Ahab-like pursuit of undocumented immigrants” has led to charges of abuse, racial profiling, and gross overreach of authority.  He once forced a mother to give birth while handcuffed to a bed, oversaw a 58% increase in the rate of violent crime,  misspent $100 million in taxpayer funds, neglected to investigate over 400 sex crimes cases, and spent $50 million defending himself against lawsuits.  Last December, the US Department of Justice announced that its investigations of Arpaio had unearthed “a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing” and “a chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations,” and warned Arpaio that he had to change his ways.  This year, Parraz says, there will be a credible Democrat—Paul Penzone—running against Arpaio, as well as a grassroots movement dedicated to installing a new Sheriff.  And, Pearce’s recall has created momentum among activists who once believed removing Arpaio would be impossible.

“We have to hold him [Arpaio] accountable,” Parraz said during the ad unveiling.  “We have to show politicians that there are consequences to this kind of behavior and create room for Republicans who are sane.”

After tonight’s Republican debate, the ad will air a few more times in Arizona in the next few days.  The Arizona primary is scheduled for next Tuesday, February 28.

Posted 02/22/12 at 02:47pm By Mahwish Khan

Tonight’s GOP Debate in Arizona: Latinos Can Expect Tough Talk, No Solutions on Immigration

last four candidatesImmigration has been a hot topic in the GOP presidential primary, despite the fact that most Republican voters are focused on other issues.  But Latino Voters – a key segment of the electorate that Republicans will need in order to win the general election—have been watching the Republican primary debates in alarm.  And, many will be watching tonight's GOP presidential debate in Arizona, which airs at 8 PM ET on CNN.

As Columnist Ruben Navarrette noted last September:

The Republican Party has dug itself an awfully deep hole with Latino voters. And every time a Republican talks about immigration, the hole gets a little deeper.  That includes nearly all the 2012 Republican presidential candidates.

Last week, Dana Milbank wrote in a Washington Post column:

[t]he Hispanic population is expected to double – to 30 percent of the United States population – in the coming decades. So if Latinos continue to vote 2-to-1 for Democrats, the Republican Party will become irrelevant.

Nowhere is this political reality truer than in Arizona, the leading state in anti-immigrant “papers please” laws like SB 1070 and host to tonight’s GOP presidential debate. The 2010 census shows Arizona moving into a battleground territory: from 2000 to 2010 the Latino population grew by 46.27%. Latinos now constitute 29.6% of the population in Arizona.

For Latino voters, the immigration issue is personal, and politicians who play politics with their friends and families will be punished at the ballot box. As we move from the Republican primary debate into the general election, this fact will become more problematic for the GOP nominee.

Francisco Heredia, State Director for Mi Familia Vota Arizona told us:

We’re out on the streets talking to voters every day.  We know that the political landscape in Arizona is changing rapidly due to the growing numbers and incredible potential of the Latino vote," said . Politicians who ignore or alienate this voting bloc during the primary season will pay the consequences come November, as Latino voters get more and more engaged in the democratic process, turning Arizona into a swing state.

It didn’t have to be this way.  While few Republican voters name immigration their top issue, it’s a big issue for Latinos.  And, aNovember poll found that a strong majority of general election voters—and Republicans—support the same type of immigration reform that Latinos do.  This is consistent with other polls that show strong support for comprehensive immigration reform among voters of all political persuasions.

Yet for some reason, Republican Presidential candidates continue to think that a hardline, anti-immigration stance is smart politics. Rick Santorum views all undocumented immigrants as law-breakers (“everything you're doing while you're here is against the law”).  And Mitt Romney has taken a strident anti-immigrant stance, vowing to veto the DREAM Act, arguing for “self deportation” and welcoming the endorsement of Kris Kobach, architect of the infamous Arizona and Alabama anti-immigrant laws.

Kobach is one of the architects of Romney’s so-called “self-deportation” policy.  Also called “attrition through enforcement,” self-deportation advocates want to make life so miserable for immigrants that those not picked up for deportation, pick up and leave on their own, en masse.  That was the intended purpose of Arizona’s SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56, which have already cost these states dearly in both dollars and reputation. 

Extreme positions on immigration will make it virtually impossible for the eventual GOP nominee to reach the coveted 40% threshold among Latino voters in the general election.  This in turn will make it that much harder for the GOP to win key swing states like Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico and, now, Arizona. 

AV's Executive Director Frank Sharry summed it up:

 The bad news for the Republican Party is that tonight’s debate will feature not only anti-immigrant posturing by the candidates on stage, but a large viewing audience of Latino voters throughout the state and nation as well.

Posted 02/22/12 at 04:17am By Van Le

Kobach-Supported Anti-Immigrant Bills Likely Dead in Kansas

kris kobachAnti-immigrant allies of Mitt Romney just did not have a good weekend.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports today that the Kansas state legislature probably won’t be moving forward with a slate of immigration bills supported by Secretary of State Kris Kobach.  Kobach, who has managed to impose his anti-immigrant vision on states like Arizona and Alabama, appears to be a swing-and-a-miss in his own home state.

State legislators quoted by the Lawrence Journal-World, it seems, have carefully noted the impact of Kobach-authored laws like SB 1070 and HB 56  and concluded that it isn’t for them:

“I don’t sense the support in the Senate for that kind of legislation,” said Senate President Steve Morris, R-Hugoton.

House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, said, “I don’t have a burning desire to address immigration this year.”

O’Neal said he doesn’t want to pass a law that guarantees putting the state in litigation “just for political expediency so somebody can have a good vote.”

House Democratic Leader Paul Davis of Lawrence said the more people learn about the effects of similar Kobach laws in Arizona and Alabama “the more people shy away from the direction he wants to go.”

Which direction is that?  From the Wichita Eagle:

Lawmakers heard last week about crops rotting in fields in Alabama and Georgia after residents both legal and illegal fled the states; about a German Mercedes-Benz executive having been detained in Alabama after a traffic stop until his passport could be retrieved; about churches and charities fearing their ministries would be harmed by an anti-harboring law; and of state Rep. Ponka-We Victors, D-Wichita, who is of American Indian and Latino heritage, having been hassled and detained by border control agents while visiting family in Arizona.

Hence why a broad swath of allies stepped up to oppose the law:

Several business and religious leaders lined up in opposition. They said the bills would lead to racial profiling, and make the state less safe because undocumented workers would be unwilling to volunteer information to police about crime activity for fear they would be deported.

Morris, however, said there is quite a bit of support for a bill that would allow some undocumented workers to apply for a legal status that would allow them to work in Kansas industries facing labor shortages.

Kansas, by the way, is a state which needs more laborers so badly that it is petitioning the federal government for a waiver to begin a legal guest worker program.  Is Kris Kobach, in his anti-immigrant frothing, really so willing to ignore the Kansas economy and what it needs?

Posted 02/21/12 at 02:12pm By Pili Tobar

New York Times Editorial Blasts GOP Candidates On Immigration

ronald reaganIn advance of tomorrow’s GOP debate in Mesa, Arizona, an editorial in the New York Times today captures how the Republican candidates for President have lurched far to the right on immigration.

As the New York Times puts it, the current crop of Republican “candidates have abandoned decades of Republican moderation on immigration, disowning views once held by Ronald Reagan, both Presidents Bush and Congressional Republicans — like Mel Martinez, Sam Brownback, Lindsey Graham and John McCain — who once led a sizable coalition for bipartisan reform but have since either left the Senate or their principles behind.”

Don’t be surprised if the pandering to the nativists in the Republican Party gets even worse in tomorrow’s Arizona debate.  While candidates are likely to tout their support for Arizona’s extreme anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, it is worth noting that an independent statewide poll conducted in November 2011 found that 78% of the state’s citizens, including 69% of Republicans, support a path to citizenship for immigrants.

The full editorial titled, “Immigration and the Campaign,” follows below:

The Republican presidential candidates have not made immigration a focus of their campaigns. But, as they head toward a debate on Wednesday in Arizona, ground zero for anti-immigrant hostility, it is a good time to ask them hard questions about immigration. The odds are bad that they will have sensible answers.

These candidates have abandoned decades of Republican moderation on immigration, disowning views once held by Ronald Reagan, both Presidents Bush and Congressional Republicans — like Mel Martinez, Sam Brownback, Lindsey Graham and John McCain — who once led a sizable coalition for bipartisan reform but have since either left the Senate or their principles behind.

Mitt Romney has moved farthest to the fringe. His scheme for fixing immigration is mass expulsion: a fantasy of ridding the country of 11 million unauthorized immigrants by making their lives unbearable. The key to his harsh vision is “self-deportation,” the deceptively bland-sounding policy that he introduced at a debate. It accepts that arresting and expelling so many millions would be impossible — like deporting the State of Ohio. But it replaces that delusion with another: That people can be made miserable enough to leave on their own.

Mr. Romney lifted this scheme from a campaign adviser, Kris Kobach, the mastermind of a host of crackdowns that seek to leave unauthorized immigrants not just unable to work, but unable to drive, rent or heat a home, afraid to take children to school or the doctor. In states where “self-deportation” is official policy, the results have been deplorable. In Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County sweeps neighborhoods making mass arrests, and people are afraid to leave home. In Alabama, farm and construction workers have fled by the thousands; tornado victims are afraid to go to a shelter.

These laws hijack the federal government’s responsibility for immigration and have caused a civil-rights emergency. But Mr. Romney’s response has been to condemn the Obama Justice Department for fighting them in court.

Newt Gingrich is slightly less extreme than Mr. Romney. He rightly scoffs that “self-deportation” is a pandering fantasy, and he supports legalizing a few grandmothers and students who join the military, though, like Mr. Romney, he would deny them any chance to become Americans. He, too, staunchly defends rogue states against federal civil-rights enforcement. And, speaking of fantasies, Mr. Gingrich has pledged to complete a double-wall border fence by the end of next year.

Rick Santorum and Ron Paul have been less explicit in their immigration prescriptions, though Mr. Paul has voiced a libertarian’s doubts about a border fence and acknowledged that Hispanics are being made “scapegoats.” He and Mr. Santorum, like the others, support an immediate border lockdown, oppose the Dream Act and want the government to enforce English as an official language.

Poll after poll has shown that the American public supports moderate reform. Many conservatives do, too. In Utah, the Mormon Church has joined a broad coalition of business, civic and religious organizations in endorsing humane immigration measures, free of shrill hostility. In Kansas, Mr. Kobach’s home state, businesses are trying to draft a plan to be more welcoming to immigrant workers. But the Republican presidential hopefuls are busy pandering to the far-right voters that dominate the primaries.

President Obama has hardly been inspiring on this issue. He has pushed deportations to record levels while failing to reform immigration more humanely. But he, at least, understands that the right immigration solution is one that doesn’t reward illegality but channels immigrant energy and aspirations to fruitful ends. It is the hard-won compromise that combines tougher border and workplace controls with a legalization path and a well-designed future flow of workers to meet our economy’s needs.

That’s a plan that Mitt Romney, a few Mitt Romneys ago, once admired. It’s the one he deplores now.

Posted 02/17/12 at 06:36pm By Lynn Tramonte

“Twilight: New Moon” Director Shows Impact of Anti-Immigrant Law on Alabama Families

Cross-Posted at MomsRising.Org:

Last September, a federal court judge allowed a sweeping immigration crackdown law to take effect. That legislation, which was signed into law by Governor Bentley in June of 2011, quickly progressed into a unrelenting nightmare for immigrant families living in the state.  Many in America had no idea what was happening, and many still don’t.

The stories out of Alabama range from sad to scary to completely horrific.  Mary Bauer, the legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, reported that a mother in northern Alabama was told she could not attend a book fair at her daughter’s school without an Alabama state ID or driver’s license. Another father said that his U.S. citizen daughter came home crying from school after other students told her she did not belong there and needed to go back to Mexico—a country she had never even seen. One woman who was nine months pregnant was too afraid to go to a hospital in Alabama to give birth, and her husband was trying to decide whether to risk having the baby at home or try to make it to Florida.

In a matter of two months, a civil rights abuse hotline in Alabama — set up by the Southern Poverty Law Center, National Immigration Law Center (NILC), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), MALDEF, Latino Justice, Asian Law Caucus – had fielded over 4,000 calls.  That number, as you might have already guessed, is far beyond that now.  And, although some provisions of the law have seen been temporarily enjoined by the court, the damage to families and whole communities continues.

As an immigrant advocate, mother of two young children, and as an American, I am outraged at the way the Alabama government has decided to treat a group of people who only came here to work and take care of their families.  It seems that Hollywood director Chris Weitz is too. He has credits to his name like Twilight: New Moon, About a Boy, and A Better Life, and his latest project is about what’s going on in Alabama.

“A Better Life” took on the plight of immigrants through a touching story of an undocumented father, played by Demian Bichir (who has been nominated this year for an Academy Award for the role), in East L.A. who works long, hard hours trying to make a “A Better Life”  for his young son.  Weitz’s latest project is a series of four short videos outlining the situation in Alabama after passage of it’s anti-immigrant law, each one taking on a different theme and asking the question: Is This Alabama? (also the name of the series).

One of the videos features a Latina sitting with her daughter, afraid to show her face to the camera.

“We’re just asking God to keep our family together,” the woman says, through tears.

Watch:

When asked why he got involved in exposing the reality behind Alabama’s ugly immigration law, Weitz told The Guardian: “I found having made ‘A Better Life’ that I couldn’t walk away from this. The more I knew about the subject [of immigration], the harder it was to turn my back on it. I think I’m in this for the long haul now.”

The other three Alabama shorts (including one featuring a teacher saddened by the disappearance of “her kids” from school, juxtaposed with an angry and ignorant man demanding that all “illegals” leave) can be found here:

http://www.IsThisAlabama.org.

They’re all worth a watch. It’s hard to believe this is happening in the United States in 2012, but it is. The more attention we can bring to the horrific situation in Alabama, the more chance we have to change it.

Posted 02/17/12 at 04:02pm By Van Le

RNC Focuses On Trivialities While Ignoring Major Issues of Concern for Latino Voters

chimichangasIn a hollow effort to distract Latino voters from their Party’s poor record on immigration reform in recent years, the Republican National Committee (RNC) picked fights with Democrats this week over “chimichangas” and perceived insults.  First targeting Jim Messina and now going after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the RNC’s approach is backfiring, because it’s only serving to highlight the reasons why a growing number of Latino voters are turning away from the GOP.

"It is beyond ironic that the RNC is calling out Democrats like Harry Reid for being ‘insensitive’ to Latinos," said Frank Sharry, Executive Director at America’s Voice.  "While Reid stood up for the DREAM Act, it was Republicans that stopped the bill dead in its path, destroying the hopes and dreams of millions of Latino youth.  Now, that’s what I call ‘insensitive.’"  

Polling released last month by Latino Decisions for ABC News and Univision shows one reason why Republicans are doing so poorly among Latino voters.  Among other relevant findings, the poll found that nationwide, 85% of Latino voters support the DREAM Act.  Fifty-four percent of Latino voters “say opposition to the DREAM Act would make them less likely to support a candidate,” while 68% say that a candidate’s support for passing the DREAM Act would make them more likely to support him or her.

The RNC needs to realize that Latinos know the score on immigration.  Rather than engaging in petty partisan politics, Republicans should take a good hard look in the mirror and start changing the way they approach immigration reform.

The folks at NewsTaco today also saw through this distracting red herring, and were furious that politicos were losing their collective heads over trivial things:

"Latino unemployment is stalled at about 11%; Latino education is dismal; yet Latinos are poised to carry the U.S. economy on their shoulders and hold a big chunk of the vote in key swing states. And we’re talking about tacos and chimichangas? If anything, that’s what irritates me. There are real issues to contend with, and the conversation reaches it’s highest pitch when the subject is food?  Even the undercurrent is a farce."

Posted 02/17/12 at 01:28pm By Van Le

New Report Details the Many Ways Maryland’s Immigrants Boost Its Economy

education not deportationA new report released today by the Commission to Study the Impact of Immigrants in Maryland details the many ways in which immigrants of all stripes lift up Maryland’s economy, and recommends steps the state should take to preserve a healthy relationship with all of its residents.

“In general, immigration leads to higher economic growth and greater levels of income per capita not only for the immigrants themselves, but, on average, for the U.S.-born persons as well,” the report states.  The research finds that immigrant workers 1) have skills that are mostly complementary to those of native workers, 2) decrease the costs for the industries they tend to work in, 3) contribute to entrepreneurship and innovation, and 4) spur investment and make the economy more productive.

“Maryland must remain welcoming to immigrants, and the state and its local jurisdictions should further strengthen its efforts to integrate immigrants into the economy and the community,” the commission emphasizes.

In 2010, Maryland was home to almost 804,000 foreign-born immigrants (13.9% of its population), which includes about 275,000 undocumented immigrants, or 4.8% of the state population.  It is estimated that these immigrants pay more in taxes (federal, state, and local) than they use in government services; and that the population, labor force, and economic growth they contribute will facilitate the long term financing of Social Security and Medicare.

The report makes several recommendations it says Maryland needs to pursue in order to ensure itself access to a steady stream of both highly skilled and less skilled workers (“A healthy and growing economy needs immigrants of all types.”)  Among them:

  1. Help the federal government pursue comprehensive immigration reform, which will be essential for a healthy nation and a healthy Maryland.Redouble efforts to provide “superior education” to all young residents, including the foreign born, regardless of immigration status: “A more educated person is good for our society.

  2. They earn more money and are more engaged in the community.

  3. They are better informed workers, consumers and voters.”Steer clear of programs like 287 (g) and Secure Communities, which—when they lead to the deportations of non-criminal immigrants—only harm relationships between law enforcement and immigrant communities.

The report and its recommendations are especially timely in light of the upcoming referendum battle over the newly passed Maryland DREAM Act.  Opponents of the legislation are trying to overturn the state’s effort to provide in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as young children—the exact kind of myopic thinking which the report warns against.

Posted 02/17/12 at 12:40pm By Pili Tobar

How Much Would An Arizona-Style Immigration Law Cost Your State?

reform not racismAs costs mount, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is asking a federal judge to consolidate legal challenges to the state’s “papers, please” immigration law, SB 1070.  Brewer’s learning the hard way that when you attack the Constitution, civil society stands up to protect it.  

Before legislators on other states follow down the Arizona path, they should do a cost/benefit analysis.  Fortunately, many of their colleagues have already done the research for them.  Following is a recap of studies that look at the costs to governments, businesses, and taxpayers in states that considered passing immigration crackdowns.  They show that state-based immigration laws are expensive to implement, defend, and live with.  What’s more, they won’t actually solve the problem, which requires a federal fix. 

Instead of adopting costly, divisive, and alienating immigration reforms at the state level, state legislators should pressure Congress to do its job and pass comprehensive immigration reform.  This is the only fiscally responsible and practical solution.

ECONOMIC COSTS OF STATE-BASED IMMIGRATION LAWS

Industries like tourism and agriculture stand to suffer tremendously when state-based immigration laws are considered, but a groundbreaking study out of Alabama shows the damage is not confined to certain sectors of the economy.  These laws hurt businesses and consumers in various ways.

  • Up to $11 billion in a single year in Alabama. University of Alabama economist Dr. Stephen Addy released a study in January 2012 showing that by driving immigrants out of the state, the state’s anti-immigration law would hurt local businesses in myriad ways.  The plan would reduce consumer demand and destabilize key industries.  Addy estimates that the damage could be between $2.3 billion (1.3% of state GDP) and $10.8 billion (6.2% of state GDP), in addition to costing the state up to 140,000 jobs and up to $357 million in state and local taxes. A report from the Center of American Progress  provides a detailed portrait of the law's economic impact on the state.

  • $490 million to Arizona’s tourism industry in 2010. The group Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform estimated that Arizona’s tourism industry lost $490 million in revenue and 3,000 jobs in 2010 as a result of that state’s law.

  • $300 million in unharvested crops alone in Georgia—ultimately taking $1 billion out of the state’s economy. The president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council estimates that labor shortages suffered by Georgia’s agriculture sector after the state’s law went into effect cost $300 million in unharvested crops—causing a “ripple effect” to state and local business that could end up resulting in $1 billion in losses.

IMPLEMENTATION COSTS OF STATE-BASED IMMIGRATION LAWS

In 2011, Kentucky, Louisiana and Tennessee abandoned “Arizona-style” bills after official fiscal notes estimated that those bills would cost state and local government agencies tens of millions of dollars to build the necessary bureaucracy and conduct training and government oversight, among other expenses related to implementation.  At a time when many communities are facing budget cuts—especially to their police departments, who would bear the brunt of immigration enforcement costs—this extra expense to do a federal job just didn’t cut it.  In addition to these estimated costs, there is also the certainty of extensive legal costs, as both the federal government and civil rights groups have sued the states to protect the Constitution and civil rights.

  • $40 million in Kentucky—in a best-case scenario. Legislative staff in Kentucky estimated its immigration bill would have cost $89 million over several years to implement. Even assuming the state could save tens of millions in social services and would lose no tax revenues from immigrants who left (assumptions which ignore reality), the net impact of the bill would have been a $40 million loss to the state. 

  • $11 million each year in Louisiana. Representative Ernest Wooton abandoned his attempt to pass an Arizona-style law in 2011 once he saw the state legislature’s estimate of its price tag: $11 million in enforcement, training, and other implementation costs.  “I don’t have $11 million in my pocket,” he said when he withdrew the bill.

  • $5 million in year one and $2.8 million in subsequent years in Tennessee. Between the costs to the state government itself and the Tennessee constitutional requirement that the state government pick up at least some of the costs incurred by local governments, Tennessee’s 2011 anti-immigrant bill would have cost an estimated $5 million in 2011 and $2.8 million for every year after that. 

  • $1.5 million in legal costs in Arizona, in the first year alone. As of February 2011, only nine months after Arizona’s law was passed, the state had spent $1.5 million defending it in court. That number is certainly higher now, and by the time the first of the seven lawsuits filed against it is settled by the Supreme Court in June, it will be higher still.

THE FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE AND PRACTICAL SOLUTION?  COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM

States would lose millions of dollars—money they don’t have—implementing their own anti-immigration laws, and the national immigration system would be more broken than ever.  We can’t restore control and order to the immigration laws with a patchwork of fifty policies in  fifty states.

Studies show that even at the federal level, immigration crackdowns are extremely expensive.  In fact, the only fiscally responsible, practical, and lasting solution would be enactment of comprehensive immigration reform by Congress.  Instead of passing state laws to make political statements, these lawmakers should pick up the phone and pressure Congress to do its job.

  • Mass deportation is extremely expensive: the government would spend $285 billion over five years...so that the economy can lose $2.5 trillion over ten.  A report from the Center of American Progress calculated that the government would need to spend $285 billion in border and interior enforcement in order to deport most of the undocumented immigrants in our country today.  Furthermore, as a study for the Immigration Policy Center by UCLA economist Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda found, removing those workers and consumers from the American economy would result in a $2.5 trillion drop in GDP over the next ten years.

  • Earned legalization: a $1.5 trillion boost to the economy over ten years... The Hinojosa study also found that legalizing current undocumented immigrants would add $1.5 trillion to U.S. GDP over the next ten years. Both immigrant and U.S.-born workers would see their wages increase.

  • ...and $48-66 billion in added tax revenue. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the comprehensive immigration reform bills considered by the Senate in 2006 and 2007 would have generated $66 billion and $48 billion in new tax revenues, respectively. In both cases, legalizing undocumented immigrants in these bills would have paid for itself, as the new revenues far exceeded the costs of implementing the legislation.

HOW TO CALCULATE THE COST OF AN ARIZONA-STYLE BILL IN YOUR STATE

The evidence is mounting that anti-immigrant state laws cost states money, rather than save taxpayer dollars.  It is critical that the public know the costs regardless of whether legislators are forthright in providing a credible analysis to the public.

The American Immigration Council and the Immigration Policy Center have developed formulas to help interested parties calculate the costs of these laws to your states:

Posted 02/16/12 at 03:40pm By Maribel Hastings

Republicans and Immigration: Winning Doña Hortencia Back

voz y votoWASHINGTON -- Conservative Republicans want Marco Rubio to be the vice-presidential candidate in November's presidential election. At least, that's what the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) showed last weekend. While speculation continues about whether or not Rubio will be on the ballot alongside the eventual Republican presidential nominee, the real question is whether Rubio can appeal to Latino voters outside of Florida, and if he can improve the anti-immigrant image the Republican Party has attained in some corners the Hispanic community and with many Latino voters.

It's an image they've put a lot of time into cultivating. It began to solidify after the 2008 elections, when  Republican presidential candidate John McCain, seeking support from the far-right base during the primaries, threw his own immigration-reform bill under the bus and started to talk about walls and border security first." In the general election, he scared off the Latino voters who could have made him more competitive against a Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, who didn't have McCain's record of fighting for comprehensive immigration reform.

We often talk in the abstract about how Latino voters have abandoned the Republican Party as it has allowed its most divisive and abrasive voices to dominate the conversation on immigration.

But every now and then, we run into Hispanics who can explain firsthand why they left the Republican tent.

In Colorado, during this year's Republican caucuses (in which Rick Santorum ultimately beat Mitt Romney), we interviewed Olivia Mendoza, executive director of the Colorado Latino Leadership Advocacy and Research Organization (CLLARO), who told us how she and her family had been legalized under the 1986 amnesty bill signed by Ronald Reagan, and how her family had remained loyal to the Republican Party ever since. But, that all changed in 2008, when, "watching Univisión, John McCain comes out attacking immigration reform, changing his position entirely.""

Doña Hortencia, Olivia's mother, explained why she, her husband and her brother-in-law switched parties in 2008, from Republican to Democrat.

Hortencia told us that they felt a profound gratitude toward Ronald Reagan for signing the 1986 amnesty bill into law. As soon as they became citizens and registered to vote, they supported Republican candidates when they went to the polls. It's a story that's common among many of those legalized under the 1986 amnesty.

"Then we started to pay more attention," Hortencia said.

In 2008, during the Obama-McCain race, the Mendozas didn't like how McCain changed his position on immigration. So they abandoned the Republican Party, registered as Democrats, and voted for Obama.

"In that election my husband told me over and over, 'just check D' (for Democrat). I know that Obama can't help everyone as much as he would like because there are millions of us, but I'm thinking that yes, I'm going to vote for the Democrat again," Hortencia said, when asked about Obama's reelection. This despite the fact that he hasn't fulfilled his promise to pass immigration reform in his first term.

Doña Hortencia continues to follow the Spanish-language media to see what Republicans are saying about immigration. And what Doña Hortencia sees, hears and reads about the Republicans can be summarized this way: "There's a lot of discrimination against us.""

"I've been listening in Spanish to everything that's happened. I've heard the things they've said on television. I see it, I hear it, and I know that it's bad," she said.

In this election cycle, what Latino voters have seen, heard and read includes: that Mitt Romney promotes self-deportation and has promised to veto the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to legal status for undocumented young people; that one of Romney's unpaid advisors is Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State and the brain behind the harshest anti-immigrant laws in the country in Alabama, Arizona and South Carolina; that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich first insisted that his party needed to treat the immigration issue with more humanity, then tried to joke during his CPAC speech that undocumented immigrants could be tracked and located like FedEx or UPS packages.

In Florida, speaking about immigration to the Hispanic Leadership Network, Rubio tried to put a friendlier, more conciliatory face on the Republican side of the issue to the Hispanic audience his party will try to court in November (whether or not he himself is on the ticket). But with the infamy they've created for themselves, the Republicans are going to need a lot more Rubios to win back all the Doña Hortencias out there who have abandoned the party, and to win over new followers as well. During that speech, the group Presente.org met Rubio with a banner saying "Marco, no somos Rubios." (It was a pun on the Senator's name, which means 'blonde' and is also a slang term for light-skinned or white.) I would add that Latino voters also aren't blind, deaf or forgetful. And that goes, to be sure, for both parties.

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