In a news item related to the previous post, two Texas city mayors have presented differing opinions on a proposal to bring war equipment from concluded Middle Eastern operations to the border.

The Send Equipment for National Defense Act (creative title, huh?) says that 10 percent of certain equipment, from Humvees to night vision equipment, be sent to the border with Mexico for border enforcement. The mayors from El Paso and Laredo apparently are not of the same mind on the plan. As per this Texas Tribune article:

The proposal has drawn criticism from Mayor John Cook of El Paso, who has vigorously disputed assertions that his city, which sits across the border from Ciudad Juárez, is affected by the same violence that has plagued northern Mexico.

“I would invite them to come to El Paso, and we can look at the inventory of equipment that’s coming back from Iraq and they can tell me where they’d want to locate this,” Mr. Cook said. “To me, it’s just showing a whole lot of ignorance.”

The mayor said moving war zone equipment to the border would send the wrong signal to Mexico and potentially damage the robust symbiotic economic relationship between the two countries. El Paso and Ciudad Juárez trade more than $70 billion annually, Mr. Cook said.

But Mayor Raul Salinas of Laredo, which has the nation’s largest inland port, said he welcomed the equipment and did not view it as an unnecessary militarization of the border.

“I would welcome any resources and equipment that would help us to be more vigilant along the border,” Mr. Salinas said. “And if it’s equipment that would provide support, I would welcome it with open arms.”

Mr. Salinas has also had to fend off accusations that his city is as violent as its Mexican counterpart, Nuevo Laredo. In fact, data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation show that El Paso and Laredo are among the safest cities of their respective sizes in the country.

I don’t really read the paper’s website on a regular basis, and while I know The Washington Times editorial board — and the newspaper in general — has a rightist bent, it has apparently jumped on the bandwagon like much of the anti-immigration crowd, recently calling Obama’s leadership, particularly on immigration, a throwback to “19th century Marxism:”

Far from progressive, Mr. Obama’s leadership is a throwback to 19th century Marxism, characterized by the politics of resentment that pits groups against each other – in this case, illegal occupiers against legal Americans. By challenging states attempting to observe immigration laws, the Obama administration hastens the fundamental change that is unmooring the nation from its founding principles. That’s not the change voters wanted when they sent Barack to the White House.

The editorial also had this to say about Obama’s stance on immigration:

This isn’t your father’s America. As promised, President Obama is “fundamentally transforming” the nation with a plan to flood the United States with individuals whose hearts belong to other lands.

First, I missed the connection of Marxism to immigration. If the GOP wasn’t so wild-eyed against immigration — in which many immigrants attempt to get into the nation to provide for their families back home — the Republican Party would probably garner more support from the Hispanic vote. After all, on almost every other issue that matters, Hispanics are actually rather conservative. They enjoy their luxuries (the ones who are lucky enough to “make it,” anyway), and they are, nearly without exception, quite religious. They would certainly, again if the GOP wasn’t so out of touch on the immigration issue, vote for conservative candidates en masse. So, this issue is not about some Marxist class struggle. That would be what we call hyperbole, and it makes The Washington Times editorial board scantly different than any of the other crazed commentators on radio or FOX News who will say anything at all to get Obama out of office. I will admit this much: it takes balls to so vehemently and falsely criticize the policies of the first African American president in American history and at the same time, insult millions of Hispanics, some of whom risk their lives, and the lives of their families, to get here. Do their hearts really belong to other lands? I don’t think so. Their hearts belong to this land, and they prove it in the desert every day. The Times board must have also forgotten that Ronald Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986. Ah, but I forget: that was at a time when Democrats and Republicans actually worked together to get things accomplished.  Those were the days.

First published on Blogcritics.

***

My home state, Georgia, falling in lockstep with Arizona and other states that have attempted to take a cavalier approach to the immigration delimma, recently passed its own law, and Gov. Nathan Deal subsequently told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he intends to sign the bill into law.

Proponents of the bill, which allows local and state law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of suspects, say the passage is a triumph in light of the federal government’s inadequate enforcement measures, while opponents claim the bill will put more burden on local businesses and will result in racial profiling.

Photo credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC - Ouafae Azhari (foreground) shouts out as other demonstrators protest Georgia House Bill 87 outside the Capitol on the final day of the 2011 legislative session.

Rep. Matt Ramsey, the Georgia House bill sponsor, had this to say after the bill’s passage:

It’s a great day for Georgia. We think we have done our job that our constituents asked us to do to address the costs and the social consequences that have been visited upon our state by the federal government’s failure to secure our nation’s borders.

The legislation would also require businesses of more than 10 employees to use the federal E-Verify system to check the status of hired employees.

Jann Moore, with the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, said the plan would put undue pressure on businesses amid a still-struggling economic climate:

We’re coming out of [a] recession, and businesses are doing all they can do right now to stay afloat. To turn around and put the responsibility of another policy on business is the wrong thing to do. The timing could not be worse.

Parts of Arizona’s law have been put on hold because of federal challenges of constitutionality. Georgia’s version, which resembles Arizona’s Senate Bill, is one of a handful of state immigration laws that have passed nationwide. It could suffer the fate of Arizona’s since the constitution, opponent say, suggests that the federal government alone confers citizenship.

According to the 14th Amendment, Section 1, Clause 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.

The key words here are “jurisdiction thereof.” Two relevent definitions of “jurisdiction” follow:

1. the right, power, or authority to administer justice byhearing and determining controversies.
2. power; authority; control: He has jurisdiction over allAmerican soldiers in the area.

The above clause does not say, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and the individual states, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” but that jurisdiction belongs to the United States as a whole, and while individual concerns about immigration are understood, states’ attempts to skirt federal law may present a dangerous precedent, not only because of the possibility of racial profiling by law enforcement officials, but because this could result in a hodgepodge of immigration laws across the nation.

Columnist Tom Crawford, with the Georgia Report, said that even if Deal signs the bill, the buck would stop there:

The U.S. Justice Department will challenge the law in federal court and have it set aside – just as they did with the Arizona law. That’s why all this talk about solving the immigration problem at the state level is a sham. This is the federal government’s problem and the blame for not resolving it must fall on the people elected to Congress.

In Georgia’s case, that would be Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss. Both have taken a hard-line approach on the issue of immigration, and both voted “nay” to a reform bill in 2007. Chambliss’ record. Isakson’s record.

In addition to the legal questions of Georgia’s bill, implicit in the discussion is the perceived damage such legislation might do to the economy, which in Georgia is largely agricultural. Local growers have said they are worried that if the immigration bill actually goes into effect, many members of their current workforce will jump ship and local farms won’t have enough labor to pick crops and tend the fields. Outside of the Atlanta metro, the economic impact could be detrimental.

Here is an article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which Gov. Nathan Deal said he intends to sign Georgia’s new anti-immigration bill once it reaches his desk.

In the article, he addresses various business groups, who raise obvious concerns about how the bill would add extra burdens to them if enacted. Here is “Deal Real” himself:

I understand their concerns. I would hope that they would channel those concerns to the level of government that can do something about it, which is the federal government.

The level of government that can do something about it?

Then why the heck is Georgia passing its own immigration bill if the federal government is the level of government that can do something about it? Is he admitting the federal government should be in control of this issue? If so, he is right. If not, his state, like Arizona, most likely has a huge legal battle ahead of it.

Only one of two options is possible: either he has unknowingly confessed that Georgia has entirely overstepped its bounds on the illegal immigration issue and that it was a federal concern all along or he, and everyone who voted in favor of the Georgia immigration bill, has the IQ of an adorable panda bear. Judge for yourself.

Here in Northeast Georgia, plenty of day laborers make their living out in the fields in one of numerous plots of cultivated land, the fruits and vegetables of which support local produce stands in the county. I’ve seen them working the fields, men and women alike, the smarter ones of which wear large-brimmed hats and towels around their necks to prevent severe sunburn and/or skin damage. They make significantly below minimum wage and get paid a certain figure for each bucket picked. That, it seems to me, is a generous system. In other parts of the nation, I would be willing to bet that migrant laborers don’t receive minimum wage (especially if the farm hires illegals) and don’t get the bonus for picking X number of buckets.

Stephen Colbert recently spent a day as a migrant laborer and subsequently testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship & Border Security on the invitation of House Democrat and committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren. Consequently, prior to the five minute message (Which was much longer than his officially submitted address), Colbert was asked by Rep. John Conyers to “remove himself” from the proceedings, saying “You run your show, we run the committee.”

Colbert then deferred to Lofgren, who confirmed that he could stay and deliver his short message. Here is the video:

In the video, as you will see, Colbert, and in characteristic irreverence, mocked Congress by, first, by saying, in character about the proposed agricultural jobs bill,

I’m not in favor of the government doing anything, but I’ve got to wonder, why isn’t the government doing anything?

and second,

Maybe this Ag jobs bill will help. I don’t know. Like most members of Congress, I haven’t read it.

Taking a more serious tone toward the end of the address, he said,

But maybe we could offer more visas to the immigrants, who, let’s face it will probably be doing these jobs anyway, and this improved legal status might allow immigrants recourse if they’re abused, and it just stands to reason to me, that if you’re co-workers can’t be exploited, then you’re less likely to be exploited yourself and that itself might improve paying working conditions on these farms and eventually Americans may consider taking these jobs again … Or maybe that’s crazy. Maybe the easier answer is just to have scientists develop vegetables that pick themselves. … The point is, we have to do something because I am not going back out there.

But the most memorable moment came after the speech during a question-answer portion, in which Rep. Judy Chu from California asked this question:

Mr. Colbert, you could work on so many issues. Why are you interested in this issue?

And, after taking a moment to think, he broke character and said this:

I like talking about people who don’t have any power, and it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come in and do our work, but don’t have any rights as a result. And yet, we still ask them to come here, and at the same time, ask them to leave. And that’s an interesting contradiction to me, and um… You know, “whatsoever you did for the least of my brothers,” and these seemed like the least of my brothers, right now. A lot of people are “least brothers” right now, with the economy so hard, and I don’t want to take anyone’s hardship away from them or diminish it or anything like that. But migrant workers suffer, and have no rights.

Here’s the video:

France, under the directive of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration, began expelling hundreds of Roma this summer, claiming that they were in the country illegally, and today, thousands have come out in protest of the government’s new policies, the immigration issue being just one of them. Another contentious issue is Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and to cut spending.

Credit: Council of Europe via The Economist

According to this Reuters article,

Critics see expulsions of Roma gypsies as part of a drive by Sarkozy to revive his popularity before 2012 elections and divert attention from painful pension reforms and spending cuts.⁽⁽¹⁾⁾

… As if to say to his fellow countrymen: “Sorry about the economic measures I’m taking. Here, let’s expel some immigrants to make up for them.” This tactic doesn’t seem to be working terribly well.

As it happens, although Romania experienced a period of economic growth between 2003-08, the economic recession did not miss that nation either, and beginning in the fourth quarter of 2008, economic activity decreased significantly. Here’s a summary from World Bank.⁽⁽²⁾⁾

As their native country continues to struggle from economic stagnation, Roma are scattered throughout portions of Western and Eastern Europe, as the map to the right shows.

We can, I think, point to various similarities between the dilemma of Romanian emigration across Europe with that of Mexicans and others Latinos seeking to come to the U.S.

First, and perhaps most obvious, is the issue of discrimination and human rights. This article from The Economist addresses some of those concerns regarding Romania:

An ingrained underclass, Roma are the victims of prejudice, often violent, at home in eastern Europe. Thousands have migrated westward to seek a better life, particularly as the expansion of the European Union has allowed them to take advantage of freedom-of-movement rules. Yet although conditions may be better in the west, the reception has rarely been friendly and politicians like President Sarkozy have ruthlessly exploited hostility towards the newcomers.⁽⁽³⁾⁾

This “exploitation” of newcomers we know all too well here in American. From the near 400-year struggle of blacks to integrate as free people in America, to the denigration, and in some cases, dehumanization of Irish immigrants in the 19th century, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the denial of citizenship to Chinese residents already living in America at the time, our history is rife with a near ubiquitous hostility toward newcomers.

Second, as an astute reader of The Daily Beast wrote, Roma exodus across Europe is most likely economically driven, not cultural, for it makes little sense to claim that Roma or Hispanics or any other immigrant would prefer another culture to their own. Immigration is almost always driven by a) economics or b) oppression or nearly unlivable conditions in the homeland. This applies to European immigrants as well as those who seek to come to America from Mexico or elsewhere.

Whipmawhopma had this to say in response to The Beast article on Roma immigration:

I am under the impression that generally speaking most (worldwide) are economic immigrants rather than cultural ones, and bring their own culture and keep it, while making some adaptations. Many only stay for a while and then once they have made enough of a fortune (relatively speaking) they then go home. Many like the hybrid cultural they live in and stay. Some adopt the local culture. Some hate the local culture – meaning how they are treated – so much that they set fire to cars and make much riot if they happen to be in France.

Last week’s The Economist had an article on this. President Nicolas Sarkozy is very unpopular and he’s playing the anti-immigrant card to make himself less unpopular, which isn’t really going to work since the real uproar is about the mild austerity program he’s attempting to put in place.

Third, and perhaps most profound, immigrants, by and large, will do whatever it takes to attempt to escape the economic trappings of their homelands, if it means a better life for their families and their progeny.

Here’s how The Economist article sums up the issue Roma dilemma:

Europeans would be swift to condemn the plight of the Roma were they in any other part of the world. However, eastern European governments are unlikely suddenly to tackle a problem that dates back centuries just because Brussels tells them to. Perhaps self-interest may prove a more powerful motivator. Roma families are far larger than those of the mainstream population: the pool of deprivation is only going to grow. In addition, a recent World Bank study estimates the annual cost of the failure to integrate Roma in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and the Czech Republic at €5.7 billion ($7.3 billion). As the report notes: “Bridging the education gap is the economically smart choice.” If humanitarian arguments fail to carry the day, perhaps economics and demographics might.

1. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68316V20100904 [↩]
2. http://www.worldbank.org.ro [↩]
3. http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2010/08/frances_expulsion_roma?page=6 [↩]

Bad news for the Jan Brewer, anti-immigrant crowd comes today from Time with this report, which finds that four cities in border states with populations under 500,000 people are actually among the safest in the nation. The cities are Phoenix, San Diego, El Paso and Austin. Here’s an excerpt from the Time article:

“The border is safer now than it’s ever been,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling told the Associated Press last month. Even Larry Dever, the sheriff of Arizona’s Cochise County, where the murder last March of a local rancher, believed to have been committed by an illegal immigrant, sparked calls for the law, conceded to the Arizona Republic recently that “we’re not seeing the [violent crime] that’s going on on the other side.”(See photos of the Great Wall of America.)

Consider Arizona itself — whose illegal-immigrant population is believed to be second only to California’s. The state’s overall crime rate dropped 12% last year; between 2004 and 2008 it plunged 23%. In the metro area of its largest city, Phoenix, violent crime — encompassing murder, rape, assault and robbery — fell by a third during the past decade and by 17% last year. The border city of Nogales, an area rife with illegal immigration and drug trafficking, hasn’t logged a single murder in the past two years.

This, of course, flies in the face of Brewer’s previous statement, which was supposed to prove the necessity for Arizona’s immigration bill, that the state was wrought with “bodies in the desert.” As I noted yesterday, there are indeed bodies in the desert, but they are the immigrants themselves.

Most interesting, perhaps, is El Paso, Texas:

Its cross-border Mexican sister city, Ciudad Juárez, suffered almost 2,700 murders last year, most of them drug-related, making it possibly the world’s most violent town. But El Paso, a stone’s throw across the Rio Grande, had just one murder. A big reason, say U.S. law-enforcement officials, is that the Mexican drug cartels’ bloody turf wars generally end at the border and don’t follow the drugs into the U.S. Another, says El Paso County Sheriff Richard Wiles, is that “the Mexican cartels know that if they try to commit that kind of violence here, they’ll get shut down.”

So, the Obama administration and the feds are just welcoming the looting and pillaging that illegal immigration is apparently bringing to our cities, huh? Sure. Listen to Limbaugh, Boortz and the gang, and it’s as if terrorists were invading, or worse, aliens … as in Martians.

In a piece titled, “Arizona’s Real Immigration Problem: Migrant Deaths,” by Byran Curtis adds commentary to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s recently spewed line about how “immigrant crime, drug cartels, ‘bodies in the desert (Brewer’s quote)’ have necessitated that state policemen badger anyone they think looks like an illegal immigrant to hand over their papers, which are supposed to be, according to the new bill, literally on the suspect in question’s actual person. Like in his or her back pocket. Or under his sombrero. We can concoct any number of ridiculous scenarios.

Below is a story of an illegal who actually didn’t make it far enough in the desert to see this dehumanizing bill come to full fruition. As it turns out, the desert is dehumanizing enough, as much or more so than any nonsense Brewer and her allies can hatch from plush government offices:

Diego Gutierrez, a 25-year-old man Mexican man, illegally crossed the border into Arizona sometime around last Friday. Gutierrez was handsome and well built, with big eyes and a head of thick, black hair. In a photo taken by a Pima County medical examiner, he appeared to have a Roman nose. After trudging through the desert on days when temperatures at a nearby airfield reached 106 degrees, Gutierrez began to complain of stomach cramps. He vomited. Gutierrez’s father, who had crossed the border with him, left his son and flagged down a Border Patrol officer. The officer later reported that he and the father found Gutierrez’s body in the wee hours of Monday morning, July 26. Gutierrez was lying on his back under a tree; his head, fittingly enough, was pointed north.

This is not at all surprising to me. This happens every day along parts of the border, and from talking with local Hispanics in the area, it’s been happening for years. A local restaurant owner with whom I speak with from time to time is the living embodiment of the American dream. He crossed the border illegally about 20 years ago (an act that he says was extremely dangerous even then) to support his parents back home in a poor region of Mexico. He has been legal in the states for well more than 15 years, has kids in the local school system here, a wife and successful business in town.

Curtis puts the current immigrant deaths in the desert into perspective:

… authorities are finding many dead bodies in the Arizona desert these days, but they are not the victims of immigrant murderers. They are the immigrants themselves. What 1070 misses is that it’s far more dangerous to sneak into Arizona than it is to live here.

This month, there have been 58 dead migrants, including Diego Gutierrez, delivered to the medical examiner of Pima County, the large southern Arizona county that stretches from Tucson south to the border. One hundred and fifty-two dead border crossers have turned up in the office since January. To compare that number to much-fussed about immigrant crime statistics, 152 is more than the total number of people murdered in Phoenix, by anyone, in all of 2009.

***

On a related topic, Rush Limbaugh today on his radio program said the Obama administration, condescendingly calling it a “regime,” said Obama and Co. had no interest in enforcing the border.

But as I was listening to Limbaugh’s unending condescension, I couldn’t help but think that it doesn’t matter one wit about Obama administration’s stance on immigration. I’m quite sure Obama doesn’t support overt illegal immigration, but even if he did, it doesn’t matter. If Limbaugh or others don’t like the current administration’s policies, vote the man out. Just because folks might not agree with the current “regime” in power still doesn’t give Arizona or any other state the authority to circumvent federal law. That’s what elections are for. If people think the current crew is being soft on immigration (I don’t know how this conclusion could be reached since the Border Patrol operates every hour of every day along the border), another election will soon be forthcoming and someone else can be voted in. To bitch and moan about the current administration, which was democratically voted into office by a majority of the population, is childish at best, and plucking from sour grapes at worst.

Arizona immigration reform protesters in Chicago - Credit: Nam Y. Huh/AP Photo

The Daily Beast today featured a photo slide show of the 20 U.S. cities with the most immigrants.

The top five are:

1. Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Fla., metro area
2. San Jose, Calif., metro area
3. Los Angeles, Long Beach, Calif., metro
4. San Francisco, Oakland area
5. New York, Northern New Jersey

Phoenix, Ariz., the capital of the state in which Gov. Jan Brewer and her arrest-anyone-who-is-brown approach to immigration reform, is only 14th. Here is a piece from Richard Florida on how the list was compiled.

Credit: Eric Thayer for The New York Times

As predicted, Arizona’s recently passed immigration was, indeed, deemed unconstitutional on some counts by federal judge, Susan Bolton, who in a preliminary injunction had this to say about the more controversial portions of the measure:

Preserving the status quo through a preliminary injunction is less harmful than allowing state laws that are likely pre-empted by federal law to be enforced. …

There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens. By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose (citing a previous Supreme Court case, a) “‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.”

Yes: “only the federal government has the authority to impose.” This has been the issue, in my mind, all along, and unfortunately, the issue summons the tired, and at this point, almost anachronistic, debate on states’ rights that conservatives like Gov. Jan Brewer have attempted to resurrect, 19th-century-style, and feed off old, now buried, debates.

Brewer had this to say on the ruling, and here is The New York Times’ account:

“This fight is far from over,” said Ms. Brewer, whose lawyers had argued that Congress granted states the power to enforce immigration law particularly when, in their view, the federal government fell short. “In fact,” she added, “it is just the beginning, and at the end of what is certain to be a long legal struggle, Arizona will prevail in its right to protect our citizens.”

And Arizona senator Russell Pearce, a primary sponsor of his state’s bill, said:

The courts have made it clear states have the inherent power to enforce the laws of this country.

Let’s ignore the errancy of this argument for a second (federal jurisdiction does not equal state or county jurisdiction), the one problem here is simply that states don’t actually have the right to go willy-nilly into their own jurisprudence on the topic of naturalization and attempt to enforce federal laws when, in their leaders’ views, the feds aren’t doing their jobs. That’s a usurpation of federal law, and it’s as clear as the night sky. Once and for all, immigration and naturalization are federal concerns. That state officials are dissatisfied with the federal response to immigration is inconsequential and does not give states license, via our Constitution, to go it alone. Or else, we should remake or undo the United States as a collective.