Promises and Accusations

A Closer Look at Migration in Tuesday's Debate

After avoiding the topic altogether during their first debate, President Obama and Mitt Romney finally addressed migration last night during the town-hall session in New York. If you missed the debate, the clip below captures their responses to the one question posed on immigration policy. ABC/Univision also has a fairly concise rundown of the two candidates' positions as articulated last night.

Romney addressed the topic first, stating that his top two priorities are streamlining the legal immigration system and stopping illegal immigration, in that order. President Obama responded by suggesting that his administration has already addressed each of those issues, reminding viewers that there are currently more agents patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border than at any other time in history and that “the flow of undocumented workers across the border is actually lower than it’s been in 40 years.” He went on to contrast his own enforcement strategy to the one proposed by Governor Romney:

[If] we’re going to go after folks who are here illegally, we should do it smartly and go after folks who are criminals, gangbangers, people who are hurting the community, not after students, not after folks who are here just because they’re trying to figure out how to feed their families. And that’s what we’ve done.

This statement aptly summarizes the Obama’s administration case for its approach to undocumented migration: that prioritizing the removal of immigrants who pose a threat to public safety is a smarter and more humane use of enforcement resources. However, as critics have been wont to point out, Obama’s policies have, thus far, failed to meet his stated goals.

In his use of the word “gangbangers” as shorthand to personify the type of migrant that should be targeted for deportation, President Obama employed a dubious tactic also invoked by Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan during his 2010 reelection campaign. In response to a question from the Mountain Xpress on collaboration with federal immigration authorities, Duncan’s began by touting his department’s participation in the WNC Gang Task Force. In these statements, Obama and Duncan are both appealing to the common association in public discourse between immigrants and criminality. Shortly after the debate, Colorlines.com published an excellent response to Obama’s use of this association, pointing out that only 4% of migrants deported by the Obama administration in the first quarter of 2012 had an “aggravated felony” on their record, and only 14% had any criminal record at all. Those numbers hardly paint a picture of targeted enforcement to preserve public safety, especially from an administration that portrays its policies as so uniquely humane.

Pivoting to contrast his position on immigration enforcement to his opponent's, the president pointed out that one of Romney’s immigration advisors, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, co-authored Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. In doing so, he raised the topic of “self-deportation,” a term Romney invoked during the GOP primary as his preferred tool to address undocumented migration. This strategy, also commonly known as “attrition through enforcement,” seeks to make life so onerous for migrants without legal status that they choose to leave the United States on their own. This notion is the animating force behind laws like Arizona’s SB1070 and Alabama’s even more aggressive HB56, which this blog will explore in more detail next week.

As their responses to the immigration question drew to a close, Romney and Obama took turns pointing fingers over the failure of comprehensive immigration reform efforts. Campaigning in 2008, Obama promised to introduce such a bill during the first year of his presidency. In a recent interview with Univision, Obama described his lack of action on the issue as the “biggest failure” of his presidency to date. Romney, somewhat ironically appearing to channel the lament of many immigrant rights advocates, accused the president of failing even to try. Obama responded by pinning blame on Republicans in Congress, asserting that “we have not seen Republicans serious about this issue at all.” This claim is largely true. However, immigrant communities in North Carolina will not soon forget that our own U.S. Senator, Kay Hagan, was one of five Democrats to join with the GOP to filibuster the DREAM Act, which would have opened up a path to citizenship for over 50,000 undocumented young people in our state alone.

The candidates finished their exchange by appealing to hope, especially within the Latino community, whose support both parties covet in this election cycle and those to come.

Obama: I can deliver, Governor, a whole bunch of Democrats to get comprehensive immigration reform done. 

Romney: I’ll get it done. I’ll get it done. First year.

After offering these grandiose promises of reform and snide implications about their respective opponent's ineffectuality, President Obama and Governor Romney moved quickly along to the next issue. It remains to be seen whether and how each intends to follow through with his promise in 2013 and beyond.

What Comes Next?

Examining the U.S. Supreme Court's Arizona v. United States Ruling

In April 2010, as Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070, Arizona’s harsh new immigration enforcement measure, into law, the storm of condemnation from critics around the country focused mostly on the law’s requirement that police check the immigration status of anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” is present in the United States without legal status. Detractors have long insisted that the “show me your papers” provision, as it quickly came to be known, serves as a blank check for local police to engage in racial profiling. Even the majority of U.S. residents who approve of the law recognize this likelihood, though they generally deem racial profiling to be an acceptable price to pay in order to achieve the law’s larger goal of accelerated immigration enforcement. National polls conducted by The Economist and The New York Times during the week following SB1070’s passage each found that over 70% of respondents agreed that the law was likely or very likely to result in disproportional targeting of Arizona’s Latino residents by local police. Still, this belief did not prevent majorities of respondents in both polls from expressing support for the law.

Arizona’s critics celebrated when President Obama’s Department of Justice quickly announced it would sue the state to block SB1070 from taking effect. However, in contrast to many who protested the law around the United States, the Obama administration did not contend that Arizona’s actions amounted to racial discrimination or profiling. Rather, the Justice Department argued that Arizona’s law, as well as others like it in states around the country, seeks to preempt federal law. In other words, the Obama administration contends that local law enforcement agencies are only authorized to enforce immigration law in the specific capacities that they are directed to do so by the federal government. Since immigration is a federal prerogative, according to this argument, individual states do not have the authority to pass laws that conflict with or try to preempt federal laws.

The Supreme Court heard arguments on four separate provisions within Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, and the justices agreed with the Obama administration’s argument on three of the four provisions.

 

The court determined that Arizona had overstepped its authority by criminalizing at the state level two actions (work and failure to carry proof of immigration status) that are subject to federal jurisdiction and not considered federal crimes. It also ruled that a third provision, which gave police the authority to arrest any suspect without a warrant if they believe that person has committed a crime for which they could be subject to deportation, claimed more authority for local police than is permissible under federal law. While Arizona’s attorneys argued that SB 1070 is merely a tool to enforce existing immigration law, the Court agreed with the Obama administration that the state had advanced beyond assistance to the federal government, creating new state immigration laws more stringent than the federal laws already in place. Over the Obama administration’s protest, however, the Court unanimously agreed with Arizona that its “show me your papers” provision does not establish any new state law but is in fact an example of state and local police supporting the federal government in its enforcement of immigration law.

Still, even as it left Arizona’s “show me your papers” provision in place, the high court warned that though that piece of the law may not be unconstitutional on its face, the state must exercise caution in how it is enforced. Any use of racial profiling, the court warned, will make the law vulnerable to being overturned in the future. Many see such targeting of brown-skinned Arizonans as inevitable, given the wide latitude given to individual police officers’ discretion, but racial profiling is notoriously difficult to prove in U.S. courts. A separate lawsuit, filed jointly by the ACLU, NAACP, and several other civil rights groups, employs the racial profiling argument the Obama administration declined to use. That suit, Valle del Sol vs. Whiting, remains pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals, which has declined to block the “show me your papers” provision from going into effect while considering the case.

In light of this, what can we expect from the 2013 legislative session at the North Carolina General Assembly? It remains to be seen. Though the governors of Arizona and Alabama have tried to spin the verdict positively in their public statements, this court ruling has established stricter barriers than those states had previously been willing to recognize. If Republican leaders in Raleigh were speaking truthfully when they suggested that North Carolina will move forward in a way that insulates the state from the costly court battles, the only Supreme Court-approved manner in which to follow the lead of Arizona and other restriction-happy states is the “show me your papers” approach that will be virtually impossible to implement without inviting a storm of lawsuits. While state legislators may scoff at those lawsuits’ merit, the fact that the Supreme Court itself suggested that it may in the near future need to rule on racial profiling suggests that such suits may produce a battle that will be fought all the way up to the high court, which would generate the exact kind of court costs that the previous round of laws in Arizona and Alabama already have.

Additional Resources

• For a more detailed look at the Supreme Court decision’s direct consequences for Arizona and each of the five states that have passed “copycat” enforcement laws based on SB 1070, see the summary published earlier this month by the National Immigration Forum.

• Earlier this year, Mother Jones published an analysis of the 164 anti-immigration laws passed in states around the country during 2010 and 2011.

At the Crossroads

Immigration Politics and Policy in North Carolina

Over the past decade, the Latino population has grown faster in the Southeast than in any other region of the country. The two states with the fastest growth rates, Alabama and South Carolina, have also been two of the most aggressive in pursuing legislation aimed at restricting the lives of undocumented immigrants. North Carolina has experienced demographic change in a very similar manner. Latino population growth here outpaced all but five other states between 2000 and 2010. Buncombe, Henderson, and Haywood Counties each saw their Latino populations grow by more than 100%. In 1990, less than 1% of Buncombe and Henderson County residents identified as Hispanic or Latino. By 2011, that share had grown to 10% in Henderson County and over 6% in Buncombe County.

This period of rapid growth in Western North Carolina’s Spanish-speaking population has coincided with a variety of other significant changes. Over the past few decades, rural North Carolina has experience major job losses in the textile and furniture industries, due largely to factory closures and outsourcing. Throughout U.S. history, the anxiety and anger awakened during periods of economic upheaval have often found expression in hostility toward newcomers. Increased immigration to the South has not caused factories to close or jobs to be outsourced. However, as job losses and increasing migration have occurred at the same time, immigrants have often become a convenient scapegoat.

State politicians have proven perfectly willing to trade on the fear of immigrants, both on the campaign trail and in drafting legislation. While the North Carolina General Assembly has not taken up an immigration crackdown on the scale of states like Arizona and Alabama, several piecemeal bills have been passed into law over the past six years that have made certain aspects of undocumented immigrants’ lives more difficult. In 2006, the state passed a law requiring a valid Social Security number to obtain a North Carolina driver’s license. Two separate bills passed in 2006 and 2011 expanded mandatory participation in the E-Verify system for all public agencies and large private employers. In March 2011, North Carolina also became the tenth state to implement the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Secure Communities program in every county statewide. Through Secure Communities, every fingerprint taken by local law enforcement is matched against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) database. Since undocumented North Carolinians no longer have access to driver’s licenses, this means that if local police choose to make an arrest for driving without a license, a simple traffic stop can ultimately lead to deportation, even for a long-time resident with no criminal record.

Capitalizing on the momentum of Arizona-style anti-immigrant laws passed in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina, last fall the North Carolina House of Representatives announced the formation of a Select Committee to study potential new state immigration laws. Six months ago, as high school senior Juan Ramos stood to testify at a public hearing before that committee, he faced a dilemma that confronts approximately 65,000 new high school graduates across the United States each year. All undocumented students are barred from receiving federal financial aid, and in North Carolina such students are also charged out-of-state tuition, no matter how long they have resided in the state. When Ramos takes his turn at the microphone in the video below, his voice is alternately discouraged and resolute, plaintive and defiant, a paradox that befits the limbo-like status of undocumented young people as immigration policy hovers in uncertain territory. “I’m not afraid of saying that I’m undocumented,” he declares, pausing to collect himself before continuing, “I only ask for opportunities.”



At the conclusion of the public hearing portrayed in the video, co-chairmen Frank Iler of Oak Island and Harry Warren of Salisbury told reporters that the Select Committee would wait for the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona’s immigration enforcement bill, in order to see which strategies pioneered in other states are viable options for North Carolina, before recommending any new action on immigration policy. Since that day, more than six months have passed, and in June the Supreme Court overturned much of Arizona’s law while letting one of its most contentious provisions stand.

The Select Committee will not meet to discuss its recommendations to the General Assembly until after the election this fall, and neither co-chair was willing to speculate this week about what those recommendations will be. In the past, however, the committee’s leaders have made their personal desires clear. Shortly before the Select Committee convened for the first time, Rep. Iler told his hometown newspaper, the Wilmington Star-News, “we need to make North Carolina as unwelcoming as possible for any illegal alien wherever they come from." Last year, Iler and Warren both served as co-sponsors for House Bill 11, “No Postsecondary Education/Illegal Aliens,” which would have barred Juan Ramos and students like him from attending any community college or public university in North Carolina, even at the higher tuition rates they are currently forced to pay.

The future remains very uncertain for immigration policy in North Carolina, but the events of the past year provide important lessons for lawmakers and concerned citizens alike. Over the next few days, this blog will examine the recent U.S. Supreme Court Arizona v. United States decision as well as the experiences of two states closer to home, Georgia and Alabama, who have recently experimented with harsh immigration enforcement laws modeled after Arizona's. Stay tuned!

Additional Resources

• For more information on demographic change in North Carolina and the growing impact of migration from Latin America on the state, read UNC-Chapel Hill professor Hannah Gill's recent paper for the Immigration Policy Center, "Latinos in North Carolina: A Growing Part of the State's Economic and Social Landscape," or her book, The Latino Migration Experience in North Carolina: New Roots in the Old North State.

• To learn more about the experiences of undocumented youth in North Carolina, check out the Al Jazeera documentary The Dreamers.

• The video in this post comes courtesy of NC Policy Watch, whose work I highly recommend for anyone interested in North Carolina politics.