White Supremacists' Distortion of Immigration

¡Hola! Everybody...
As usual, the white supremacist "chatter tank," FAIR, spews put yet another report riddled with methodological errors. This is nothing new, I've written previously about the "studies" churned by FAIR, its sister organization CIS, and other like-minded organizations. Most of these documented hate groups are basically cover for white racism. They get plenty of airplay on the mainstream media, hence lending these extremist hate groups a veneer of respectability. If you ever find yourself debating an anti-immigrant goober from Hooterville, chances are that he or she will sooner or later cite FAIR, CIS, or Vdare propaganda.
I call this crap, "bigotry dressed as research."

Here, another FAIR "study" gets taken apart... You be the judge.

FAIR's Distorted Fiscal Snapshot of Unauthorized Immigrants

New Report Ignores Economic Contributions of Unauthorized Workers and Consumers; Views the Education of Their U.S.-Citizen Children as Nothing More Than a "Cost"

Released by the Immigration Policy Center on Tuesday, Jul 06, 2010

Washington D.C. - Today, Fox News is reporting on data provided to them by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) which amounts to a highly misleading fiscal snapshot of the costs allegedly imposed on U.S. taxpayers by unauthorized immigrants. However, in its rush to portray unauthorized immigrants as nothing more than a drain on the public treasury, FAIR completely discounts the economic contributions of unauthorized workers and consumers. Moreover, FAIR inflates their cost estimate by indiscriminately lumping together native-born, U.S.-citizen children with their unauthorized parents.

FAIR's report suffers from three fatal flaws:

• The report notes that the single biggest "expense" it attributes to unauthorized immigrants is the education of their children, yet most of these children are native-born, U.S. citizens who will grow up to be tax-paying adults. It is disingenuous to count the cost of investing in the education of these children, so that they will earn higher incomes and pay more in taxes when they are adults, as if it were nothing more than a cost incurred by their parents.
  
• The report fails to account for the purchasing power of unauthorized consumers, which supports U.S. businesses and U.S. jobs.
  
• The report ignores the value added to the U.S. economy by unauthorized workers, particularly in the service sector.

In contrast to FAIR's report, the Perryman Group estimated that if all unauthorized workers and consumers were somehow removed from the U.S. economy, the United States would lose $552 billion in total economic activity ("expenditures"), $245 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 2.8 million jobs.

FAIR's data is meant only to reinforce their vision of "attrition through enforcement." It is not rooted in an effort to move the immigration debate forward. The public and the President have made it clear that deporting 11-12 million immigrants isn't reasonable or feasible. Therefore, passing comprehensive immigration reform - which would yield a cumulative $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years - is the only sound economic decision the United States can make.

View Release

Most Backers of Arizona Law Support Humane Immigration Reform

¡Hola! Everybody…
Not being able to write is a fuckin’ bummer! I usually don’t re-post material from other blogs, but the following is something I felt needed to be shared.

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"The Immigrant" 1903

Shocker: Most Backers of Arizona Law Support Humane Immigration Reform

by Frank Sharry

[Note: From the outset, I have noted that early polls regarding Arizona’s Racist Immigration law (SB1070) were basically useless. For one, many Americans don’t really stay on top of the news like the rest of us political junkies. Therefore, not that many people actually knew much about SB1070, let alone its constitutional ramifications. The vast majority of Americans get what little news they devour from the mainstream media. Therefore, a poll two days or even two weeks after the passage of SB1070 might not be measuring a response to the actual law. It might be measuring a concern over immigration, generally speaking. The people behind SB1070 are documented extremist hate groups who have fought tooth and nail against immigration reform. SB1070 isn't reform, it’s codified racism. The following article attempts to peek behind the curtain and yields some interesting insights]

With national polls showing majority support for Arizona’s harsh immigration law, you probably think these voters are hard liners determined to rid the country of immigrants and deny a path to legal status for all of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S., right?

Wrong.

Here’s a shocker: four out of five voters who support Arizona’s new “papers-please” law also support comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. On the flip side, a paltry one in five support rounding up and deporting everyone here illegally.

In a bipartisan survey sponsored by America’s Voice Education Fund and conducted by Lake Research Partners and Public Opinion Strategies of 800 registered voters nationwide, with an oversample of 300 Latino registered voters, we sought to understand the motivations and sentiments underlying the top line support for Arizona’s tough immigration law. Here is what we found:

• Three out of five voters nationwide do indeed support the Arizona law. Not surprisingly, a majority of Latino voters oppose the law.
• At the same time, four out of five of the voters who support the Arizona law also support comprehensive immigration reform with a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants. Only one out of five support deportation as the preferred policy option when asked what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.
• In addition, strong majorities believe that illegal immigration is a national problem, prefer comprehensive reform to Arizona-style laws in their state, and want the problem of illegal immigration acted on now.

Here are the numbers. Like other polls, our latest shows that 60% of voters support the Arizona law nationwide, while 23% oppose it. No news there. But consider this finding: Fully 78% of all voters supported comprehensive immigration reform. Moreover, a whopping 84% of those who supported the Arizona law also supported comprehensive immigration reform.

This bears repeating:

More than 4 out of 5 voters who support the Arizona law support comprehensive reform with a path to citizenship. And 67% of them strongly support comprehensive immigration reform.

How can voters enthusiastically support an Arizona law aimed at expelling undocumented immigrants and even more enthusiastically support comprehensive immigration reform that brings undocumented immigrants onto a path to citizenship? What underpins these seemingly irreconcilable points of view?

At the core, voters’ support was rooted in frustration with lack of action at the federal level. When we asked voters why they supported Arizona’s law, the number one answer -- by a whopping 52% -- was that voters believed the federal government had failed to solve the problem. Only 28% said it was because they thought the law would reduce illegal immigration, and only 12% supported it because they thought it would reduce crime.

Furthermore, by a margin of 53% to 18% voters prefer a comprehensive national solution to a version of Arizona’s law in their own state. This is consistent with the finding that voters believe immigration is a national problem appropriately dealt with at a federal level (56%) rather than handled by individual states (22%).

The passage of the Arizona law has not lessened these voters’ appetite for immediate federal action. Three quarters of voters (76%) want action taken now, as opposed to waiting for action, and two thirds (67%) strongly desire action now.

Voters were asked to choose between three policy options: deporting immigrants in the U.S. illegally; having them stay only as temporary workers; or requiring them to undergo registration with the government, background checks, payment of taxes, learning English, and going to the back of the citizenship line. The results show 22% chose deportation, 8% chose the temporary worker solution, and the third option, the path to legal status, was by far the most popular at 64%.(emphasis added)

Finally, we found that comprehensive reform unites rather than divides Americans, with 77% of Latinos in favor, roughly the same proportion as the electorate as a whole. In fact, comprehensive immigration reform is more popular overall than the Arizona law with every political and demographic group of voters, except for southern Republicans who are equally supportive of both.

Is our poll an outlier? Not at all. Our findings, especially with regard to support for a path to legal status for those in the U.S. illegally, are consistent with what other in-depth polls found. For example, an AP-GfK-Univision poll conducted in early May found that 59% of all voters, and 86% of Hispanic voters, favor “a legal way for illegal immigrants already in the United States to become U.S. citizens.” A CBS/New York Times poll from late April/early May found that 64% of voters favor agree that “illegal immigrants who are currently working in the U.S… should be allowed to stay in their jobs and to eventually apply for U.S. citizenship, or they should be allowed to stay in their jobs only as guest workers.” A late May NBC poll found that 65% of voters nationwide support “allowing undocumented immigrants who are already in the country to pay a fine, learn English, and go back to the line for the opportunity to become American citizens.”

Actually, these results are consistent with polling conducted over the years. In the words of Markos Moulitsas, support for comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship has been “gaudy” for some time. What may surprise many, however, is that voters can simultaneously support the Arizona law and support comprehensive immigration reform even more intensely.

So, to recap, voters – frustrated with federal government inaction -- much prefer “doing something” to “doing nothing.” They increasingly want the problem of illegal immigration addressed now. They understand Arizona but want comprehensive immigration reform. Few want to simply round up and deport all immigrants in the U.S illegally.

Politically, this means that the conventional wisdom about how to interpret majority support for the Arizona law is, as usual, wrong. It means the clucking over at Fox News and chest-thumping by Arizona’s Republican leaders is misplaced. It means that voters want their leaders to recognize the frustration with illegal immigration, to step up at the national level and to replace a broken and chaotic system with a legal and orderly one now.

Instead of ducking it, Democrats should lean hard into the immigration issue, knowing that the problem-solving and pragmatism embedded in their support for comprehensive reform connects them with the broad majority of Americans who are hungry for solutions on this complex issue. It means Republicans who pander to an angry anti-immigrant base will not only continue alienating Latino voters, but will have a very difficult time expanding their support beyond that base.

But won’t a battle over immigration reform mobilize the right, renew the “amnesty” attack, and turn these initial polls around? No. Recent polling by Hart Research Associates shows that comprehensive immigration reform holds up under the toughest attacks on some of the toughest terrain. And consistent with the findings regarding Arizona support trumped by support for comprehensive immigration reform, following a simulated legislative battle over immigration Democrats who support it actually improve their overall standing with voters.

If only the meaning of the nationwide reaction to Arizona’s tough new law broke through to more in the political class. At least Chris Mathews of MSNBC’s Hardball seems to get it. Watch the video in which he concludes that voters want solutions now and yet much prefer comprehensive reform with a path to legal status. He concludes:

“... So why is it so hard to do what the American people -- most of us -- so plainly want done?”

An excellent question. If anything, support for the Arizona law proves that the American people are growing increasingly impatient with Washington’s ineptitude on immigration.

Cross posted at America's Voice and Huffington Post

A note on the cartoon (not used in the original post):

“The Immigrant” (1903) “Is he an acquisition or a detriment?” So asks this timeless Judge cartoon, in which the man just off the boat is a mute witness to the debate swirling around him: “He is a menace;” “He brings me cheap labor;” “He cheapens my labor;” “He brings disease;” “He is brawn and muscle for my country;” “He makes votes for me;” and finally, “He is a puzzle to me.” No one seems more puzzled by the cacophony than the immigrant himself.

Bigotry Dressed as Research

¡Hola! Everybody…
This is the goober redneck muthafuckas (yeah that reads correctly) attempting to disguise their xenophobia as concern for “the rule of law,” or passing out propaganda dressed as “research.”

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-=[ Bigotry Dressed as Research ]=

The anti-immigrant faction hide their bigotry mostly as “concern” for the largely fabricated crises attributed to immigration. In effect, they’re demanding that my rights (or the rights of any person of color) be abridged in the name of “national security.” In this way, they hypocritically hide behind the racism of the “show me you papers” Arizona immigration law (AZ SB1070) and other such measures.

Never mind that a large body of research on undocumented immigrants from a broad range of institutions show the allegations of the anti-immigrant crowd are groundless. Disregard that the most vocal anti-immigrant organizations are hate groups -- documented nativists and white supremacists. No! Don’t look at that! The anti-immigrant bigots assure us that all they want is to make us all safe from the feces-smearing, disease-ridden, promiscuous, lazy, shiftless messakins, and their third world ways, who come here to live off welfare and (paradoxically) take away all the good jobs.

Two organizations, FAIR and CIS (actually, they are one organization, both founded, funded, and run by documented eugenicists, nativists, and white supremacists) are often cited by the goobers as viable, credible supportive evidence for their claims. (I will have more to say about the historical connection between immigration and white supremacists, xenophobes, and racists at a later date.)

Anti-immigrant hate groups' studies make the wildest claims and if you're debating a goober anti-immigrant bigot, you can be sure they will try to slip by a FAIR or CIS-backed study. The problem is the studies are hugely flawed.

Notice that a broad range of credible research organizations, using well-known and accredited social scientists, largely dispute the findings of CIS, FAIR (and also NumbersUSA). Notice also these organizations have documented ties with white supremacists, or actually have these cretins in positions of power. This should make anyone looking to honestly inform themselves about immigration think twice. But conservatives have never been known for their moral reasoning or honesty (though they love to pontificate on morality).

Take, for example the following FAIR “study,” which makes the claim regarding the economic impact of immigration:

“The fiscal costs of illegal immigration do not end with these three major cost areas. The total costs of illegal immigration to the state’s taxpayers would be considerably higher if other cost areas such as special English instruction, welfare programs used by the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers were also calculated.”

Yet, when a credible researcher looked at the FAIR study on the economic impact of the children of undocumented immigrants, he found it made many unsupported claims and that its numbers crunching just don’t add up:

“... the report’s own statistics do not support this claim. Even if the report is correct in its assertion that the cost to states was $7.4 billion in 1999-2000, this represents only 1.9 percent of the $381.8 billion spent nationwide on public elementary and secondary education and a minuscule fraction of the roughly $1 trillion in total spending by state governments. Moreover, the report neglects to mention the estimated 1.1 million undocumented K-12 students in 2000 comprised a mere 2 percent of the total student population and that many state governments -- including California’s -- were running budget surpluses at that time. [emphasis added] It is no more plausible to claim that undocumented students are somehow largely to blame for current budget deficits than it is to claim they deserve most of the credit for the budget surpluses of three years ago.”

“... the FAIR report argue[s] that ‘communities’ limited tax dollars are being diverted to accommodate mass illegal immigration.’ This conveniently ignores the fact that immigrants are part of the taxpaying community. The report attempts to get around the issue by saying that while it ‘is reasonable to ask whether the costs of educating illegal alien students is offset by the taxes paid by their parents…study after study shows that immigrants cost taxpayers more in public services use than they pay in to the system via taxes.’”

Notice that last sentence. The FAIR study makes the factual claim (without documentation) that undocumented immigration has a negative impact on the US economy. Not only is this a false claim, the exact opposite is true:

“However, this simply is not true. In the most authoritative study to date on the economic costs and benefits of immigration, 1997’s The New Americans, the National Academy of Sciences estimated that ‘the average immigrant pays nearly $1,800 more in taxes than he or she costs in benefits’ and that immigrants make a net contribution of “as much as $10 billion a year” to the U.S. economy.”

But here’s the kick in the ass:

“It also is worth noting that The New Americans emphasizes a key fact overlooked in any analysis, such as FAIR’s, which tries to estimate the net “costs” of immigration by taking a single-year snapshot of the economy: ‘Children who consume services and pay no taxes today become contributing taxpayers tomorrow.’” (click here for the brief take-down of FAIR's shoddy research practices)

In short, FAIR and CIS are not so much “research” organizations, but a part of a loud and hysterical anti-immigrant movement given free reign on mainstream media though they are thinly veiled racist organizations spewing hate propaganda.

And I have found the same methodologically flawed tendency in most of the studies done by anti-immigrant organizations. For example, there was the one study claiming that Mexicans were responsible for a spike in rates of leprosy. That study’s “findings,” repeated for weeks on the now defunct Lou Dobbs program on CNN, and done by someone with no real social science, or epidemiological training, was later found to be totally false. When Dobbs was confronted by this on a 60 Minutes segment, he refused to acknowledge the mistake and continued airing segments connecting undocumented immigrants with fabricated “disease plagues.” The same was found to be true of studies blaming immigrants from everything to crime to the theory that undocumented immigrants are part of a conspiracy to retake the southwest (click here for a full expose of the hate groups featured on mainstream media as credible organizations)

Whatever your position on immigration, the one criteria for a sane public discourse should be a discussion based on the facts, not the hysteria of bigoted goobers masquerading as legitimate organizations.

Fuckin’ redneck muthafuckas dressed in labcoats. SMH

-- Eddie

Where the Heart is...

¡Hola! Everybody…
I can write… really. I can sit down, and under the right conditions, I can write prolifically (if not well LOL). However, I am easily distracted. Any change in my writing ritual, any distraction -- a phone call, for example -- will sidetrack me for hours. So, the move has taken away from the everyday ritual -- the familiarity -- and the back pain (at its worst today), has resulted in zero writing. As I settle in to my new apartment, the ritual will come back, but the back pain (exacerbated by sitting) will definitely put a damper on my blogging…

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(St. Michaels at 4th Ave.)

-=[ Home ]=-

A house is not a home…

My first morning here, a bright sunny Sunday morning, I was awakened by a hushed but insistent, not particularly good mariachi singing right outside my window. Annoyed, I got up to see who it was and to request they take their singing ass somewhere else. When I looked, I saw a short, older Latino, dressed in black, with black cowboy hat and boots. He wore dark wrap-around shades, and with the small accordion he held, he played the same three chords over and over again. He sang songs of heartbreak, of love lost and regained and lost again, in his hushed, not particularly good, but insistent voice.

Next to him, stood a large shopping cart full of roses for sale and young Latino/a families on their way from church occasionally stop and purchase a few. Eventually, I notice he is blind, his cane pressed up against his armpit. He comes here most mornings to sing of love lost in that same hushed, not particularly good, but insistent voice.

I have moved from the largely upscale, yuppie Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope to Sunset Park. It’s not that far away, and still somewhat upscale, but there is definitely more diversity. It's a neighborhood first colonized by a wave of Puerto Ricans in the 50s and 60s and later revived by an explosion of Latin American and Asian immigrants. One avenue block up, on 5^th Avenue, you can walk the main drag and see scores of businesses offering their goods and services to the many different Latino/as that live here. Young Salvadoran teen girls and Mexicans from Puebla pass by Dominican hair salons, Puerto Rican and Mexican restaurants, or buy treats from sidewalk vendors selling everything from aguacates to mangoes, caña, and piraguas.

I live in a very young neighborhood of families with both parents, something you rarely see outside of a Latino/a neighborhood. My building, a six-family building, has one family from India, the old patriarch a hilarious character. On the ground floor behind me, lives a Dominican, a single mother of an adolescent girl. Above me, lives a Salvadoran couple with their young son.

Sunset Park is also home to one of the largest Asian communities in the city. Some say it’s larger than the more famous Manhattan Chinatown. So, in addition to the Latino/a offerings, you can also shop for all things Asian. On 8^th avenue (the number eight signifying luck) you can find Chinese businesses, including grocery stores, restaurants, Buddhist temples, video stores, bakeries, and community organizations, and even a Hong Kong Supermarket. And again, there is that unmistakable youthful energy rubbing up against traditional family structures, as young immigrant families work hard for The Dream. On Sundays, you’re lucky if you’re able to find an empty seat at one of the many different restaurants as families -- mostly young Latino/as and Asians -- all congregate to observe the traditional Sunday repast. Some days you’ll see two or three generations seated together as impatient teens, annoyed at being saddled with tending to their infant siblings, break bread with their parents and grandparents.

I see all of this and I am reminded of the America I knew growing up in New York and I smile, knowing I have arrived home…

Someone recently wrote me privately, asking why I am so angry about what’s going on in Arizona. I feel the answer to that question is self-evident. There are certain values I believe in. There aren’t too many principles I can lay claim to, but the few I value, I hold dear. Two of those principles are fairness and justice. I am light-skinned with blue eyes and I can probably pass for white in Arizona. But for me, racial profiling is deeply offensive to the values of justice and fairness.

And make no mistake about it, Arizona using race to demand that people produce “papers” to prove who they are is a police-state tactic diametrically opposed, not just to my personal values, but that shouldn’t be unacceptable in America. If we don’t stop this law now, similar ones will spread across the nation. Already, lawmakers in at least 10 other states have promised to bring similar bills to their legislatures. The land I was born in, America, is my home. And in my home, racial profiling is wrong. It is un-American is the most essential way.

And if you think you’re safe, or rationalize that this is an intelligent solution to the largely fabricated crisis of immigration, you should think again. And if you’re a person of color and think they won’t profile your black or brown ass, think again. And if you’re a light-skinned Latino/a with blue-eyes internally ashamed of your own kind and in your neurotic eagerness to assimilate, support Arizona’s apartheid-like strategy, think again. For if you allow it to be done to those you fear and loathe, what makes you think it won’t be done to you?

And if you can bring yourself to hate and dehumanize another human being, regardless of their citizenship status, perhaps what you really hate is a part of yourself.

Love,

Eddie

Arizona: Failed State

¡Hola! Everybody…
I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I get caught cruising porn while at work, I will most likely be at the unemployment office the next day, being informed I don’t qualify for gross negligence or something like that.

Enter republican Florida state senator Mike Bennett, captured on video Thursday morning looking at pornographic material on his state-issued computer while on the Senate floor. (click here to watch).

Ironically, as Bennett is viewing the material, you can hear a colleague’s voice in the background debating a controversial right-wing-sponsored abortion bill. “I’m against this bill,” said the colleague, “because it disrespects too many women in the state of Florida.”

I can’t make this shit up, folks…

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-=[ Blaming Messakins ]=-

SB1070: Symbol of Arizona’s Failed Economy and Right-Wing Politics

[Note: While doing some research for a post I had in mind, I came across the following. I can’t improve on it, and I feel it’s too important. It offers a brief highlight of the failed economic policies that have brought Arizona to its knees. I am re-posting it in the hopes that it gets the attention it deserves. Links are in italics]

If other state leaders, even conservative ones from border states like Texas, are not rushing to copy SB1070, it's because whatever their partisan politics, they don't share the peculiar brand of pathological right-wing politics and the hollow economy that has left Arizona such a political and economic basket case.

Other states have grappled with a range of programs to reform their economies and budgets during the current economic crisis. That Arizona's claim to fame in this crisis is immigrant bashing in the form of SB1070 is symbolic of years, even decades of failed political and economic policies. That Arizona politics has promoted low-wage jobs that have left state residents with falling individual incomes relative to the rest of the nation and conditions for the state's children that rank at the bottom of the nation. Since the current economic recession began in December 2007, Arizona has lost 265,000 jobs, or 9.9 percent of the state’s employment . And with little else to offer the unemployed, scapegoating immigrants has become a substitute in Arizona for having a real solution to solving the economic needs of its residents.

Individual Incomes Fall Behind the Nation: For decades, Arizona's average wages and income have been falling behind other states. A University of Arizona business school study from 2005 noted that “over the long term, the real income of the average Arizonan has lagged behind the rest of the nation... Arizona slipped from 94 percent of the U.S. level in 1970 to 86 percent in 2003.” While the bubble economy in the state of the mid-decade gave a slight bump to individual incomes in the state, per capita income fell 4 percent from 2008 to 2009 after having been stagnant for the previous two years, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis recently reported. Arizona was tied for fourth place with Idaho in having the highest drop in personal incomes per capita. Nationally, the decline last year was 2.6 percent.

An Economy Built on a Construction Bubble: The Urban Land Institute has referred to Phoenix as the “poster child” for the housing downturn and bad mortgages. The average price paid for office space in the Phoenix metro area tumbled more than 50 percent one year in 2009. Back in 2006, when growth peaked, about 30 percent of the Phoenix area’s economic output was tied to real estate and construction; subtract that bubble economic engine and even the nominal job growth in the state during the last decade collapsed into unemployment and foreclosures.

Part of the problem is that state leaders encouraged a low-wage, bubble-based economic strategy that added a mirage of job and population growth during the last decade, but left the state with poor fundamentals for long-term growth when the financial bubble collapsed nationally. Highlighting the weak economic underpinnings of the state economy, the Arizona Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metropolitan area ranked near the bottom, 192nd of 200 metro areas, for growth in high-tech gross domestic product from 2003 through 2008, according to the Milken Institute.

Fiscal Solutions More Irresponsible Than Any in Nation: Arizona's fiscal crisis is considered one of the worst in the country by the Pew Center on the States. Since 1992, the state has approved 42 tax cuts to its three major revenue sources -- personal and corporate income, and sales -- and eliminated statewide property taxes that accrued to the general fund-- and despite promises of right-wing economic nirvana, the results have been low personal income growth and a generally low-level of resources for human needs.

Arizona has some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, 18.9 percent of the state lacks health insurance, and 276,500 Arizona children do not have coverage. In the most recent Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual “Kids Count” report, Arizona ranked 40th in the nation in child well-being, one of the worst in the nation for its teen birth rate (46th), high-school dropout rate (46th) and percentage of children not attending school and not working (44th).

But what truly distinguishes Arizona is its right-wing, inhumane and short-sighted approaches to addressing its current fiscal problems:

• State leaders passed a law to abolish the state’s KidCare program providing children's health care to 40,000 kids, the only state in the country to take such a step, and only reversed themselves when they discovered they would forfeit billions in federal dollars if they did so.
• Wide-ranging cuts in programs across the state, from eliminating full-day kindergarten to cutting state employee salaries to removing 10,000 families from TANF cash assistance.
• Two-thirds of Arizona state parks will be closed.

And this has been combined with a whole range of other right-wing and just plain kooky laws promoted by the Arizona's legislature.

SB1070 Will Make Arizona's Economic Problems Worse: Passing SB1070 will simply deepen the state's economic crisis. As the National Employment Law Project points out, smaller-scale anti-immigrant ordinances have cost individual localities millions of dollars. And other studies estimate SB1070 will further decimate Arizona’s economy by driving immigrant families, undocumented and legal residents alike, from the state, further depressing demands for goods and already vacant housing tracts.

The Arizona Republic detailed, “More than 100,000 undocumented immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years because of the bad economy and earlier enforcement crackdowns. Now, a new wave of Latinos is preparing to leave.”

“So, rather than massive deportations, we are basically going to encourage them to leave on their own,” said State Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, who is also a criminal-justice professor at Scottsdale Community College. But even he admits that the law will likely drive legal residents and their families out of the state.

The Texas-based Perryman Group found if all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Arizona, the state would lose $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 140,324 jobs.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and other local leaders anticipate a drop in new business creation in the state because of the new hostile environment. Phoenix Vice Mayor Michael Nowakowski observed: “We’re the laughing stock of the country because of these crazy laws.”

(From the Progressive States Network. H/T to the antiracismdsa blog)

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Apartheid]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I recently posted a summary of a pair of peer-reviewed studies finding that at the core of political conservatism is resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include: Fear and aggression; Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity; Uncertainty avoidance; Need for cognitive closure; Terror management.
Never the party to disappoint our worst expectations, the ultra-conservative Arizona GOP-dominated legislature unleashed a law so reprehensible, so anti-American in nature, that it could justifiably be compared to the pogroms of Nazi Germany and South African apartheid. It prompted an online participant to joke that a new sign has appeared when you cross the border into Arizona reading, “Welcome to Arizona where being a prejudiced, racist imbecile isn't just a way of life. It's the law!”

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-=[ Arizona Apartheid ]=-

E. A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER, WITHOUT A WARRANT, MAY ARREST A PERSON
IF THE OFFICER HAS PROBABLE CAUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PERSON HAS COMMITTED ANY PUBLIC OFFENSE THAT MAKES THE PERSON REMOVABLE FROM THE UNITED STATES.
-- Provision in Arizona Immigration Law, SB 1070

I have heard all kinds of justifications for this law, all coming mostly from whites who just don’t give a fuck because they don’t see how this will affect their rights. Most supporters of the law, in fact, are basing their justifications on immigration myths. The usual, knee-jerk (bigoted), justifications range from the mild (“immigrants don’t bother to learn the language”). To the disgusting (“immigrants are raping babies”). More insidiously, these defenders of racism frame immigration in terms of “illegal,” “drug cartels,” and “gangs.” Set aside the facts that immigrants learn the language, work hard under often deplorable conditions, commit crime at lesser rates than native borns (even whites), and actually contribute positively to the U.S. economy. The rednecks in Arizona spat on the facts and snuggled comfortably with what is the worst of our shared American tradition: bigotry.

The law’s intended consequences (to target people based on the color of their skin or assumed ethnicity) are easy enough to predict, but the new law will also have unintended detrimental effects on Arizona’s economy.

First, the law essentially legalizes racial profiling, an enforcement policy that has been shown to be ineffective. It specifically targets communities of color by requiring state and local government workers to determine if a person is illegally in the United States based on a “reasonable suspicion.”

Arizona governor Brewer’s “sartorial profiling” remarks notwithstanding (in which she suggested identifying illegal immigrants by their shoes -- I am not making this up), the law will result in racial profiling, as it does not prohibit police officers from relying on race or ethnicity in deciding who to investigate. Of course, not all Latino/as look alike. I am of Puerto Rican descent and I have light skin and blue eyes. Similarly, Mexico’s population has the full range of human phenotypic expression. If you don’t believe me, just watch Telemundo for a hot fuckin second. Moreover, what if I am in Arizona and I’m dating a white woman (as I have been known to do)?

What these goobers fail to understand is that the law undermines the Constitution and empowers local police with federal authority. This isn’t an immigrant issue, you blockheads -- it is a civil rights issue! Your civil rights. The measure does not require the local police to have a search warrant or even suspect that some illegal action has occurred.

What really takes the cake is that these bigots don’t even understand they’re shooting themselves in the foot. One of the unintended consequences of the law is that it will devastate state and local economies. The National Employment Law Project, for example, pointed out that smaller-scale anti-immigrant laws have cost individual localities millions of dollars. The Texas-based Perryman Group calculated that if all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Arizona, the state would lose $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 140,324 jobs. The Immigration Policy Center noted that, “with Arizona facing a budget deficit of more than $3 billion, the new law will “further imperil the state’s economic future.”

Observed Phoenix Vice Mayor Michael Nowakowski, “We’re the laughing stock of the country because of these crazy laws.” Duh... You think?

Ironically, the law hasn’t been well received by the law enforcement community. The costs of arresting, detaining, processing, and transporting undocumented human beings out of Arizona will drain local government treasuries, prompting the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police to oppose the law. There were an estimated 460,000 undocumented immigrants in Arizona as of January 2009, making up 4 percent of the state’s population. If the federal government were to handle the entire undocumented population, the cost would be approximately $23,482 per person, based on a recent study by the Center for American Progress.

But let’s be sure here: this law isn't about reason or good social policy. Many of the defenders of this law and those reporting on it note that immigration is an "emotional" issue. Let's stop and reflect on these emotions for a moment, the heart of this law: pure, naked, fear and hatred. Fear of an America whose face is changing and race/ ethnicity-based hatred.

Love,

Eddie

Fear and Loathing as Policy [Immigration Myths]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Starting tomorrow, I will be posting on Latino/as in America, “Eddie-Style.” If you’re interested in a look at Latino/as from an “engaged Latino scholar’s” perspective, then, by all means, stop by... I am posting the following as a public service. (Fuck you Lou Dobbs)

I will be in court most of the afternoon trying to save a kid from needlessly going to prison. Wish me luck...

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-=[ Immigration Myths ]=-

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

-- John Adams (1735–1826)

“Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,” December, 1770

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Common misperceptions regarding immigration and its effects on American society often result in suspicion, discrimination, racism, and violence. Fear leads to hate. If you feared no one, you would hate no one. The only antidote is knowledge, the only sin, ignorance...

Immigrants don’t pay taxes

All immigrants pay taxes, whether income, property, sales, or other. As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Even undocumented immigrants pay income taxes, as evidenced by the Social Security Administration’s “suspense file” (taxes that cannot be matched to workers’ names and social security numbers), which grew $20 billion between 1990 and 1998.

Sources: National Academy of Sciences, Cato, Institute, Urban Institute, Social Security Administration

Immigrants come here to take welfare

Immigrants come to work and reunite with family members. Immigrant labor force participation is consistently higher than native-born, and immigrant workers make up a larger share of the U.S. labor force (12.4%) than they do the U.S. population (11.5%). Moreover, the ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is consistently favorable to the U.S., unless the “study” was undertaken by an anti-immigrant group. In one estimate, immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, pay about $90 billion a year in taxes, and use about $5 billion in public benefits. In another cut of the data, immigrant tax payments total $20 to $30 billion more than the amount of government services they use.

Sources: American Immigration Lawyers Association, Urban Institute

Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries

In addition to the consumer spending of immigrant households, immigrants and their businesses contribute $162 billion in tax revenue to U.S. federal, state, and local governments. While it is true that immigrants remit billions of dollars a year to their home countries, this is one of the most targeted and effective forms of direct foreign investment.

Sources: Cato Institute, Inter-American Development Bank

Immigrants take jobs and opportunity away from Americans

The largest wave of immigration to the U.S. since the early 1900s coincided with our lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth. Immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs for U.S. and foreign workers, and foreign-born students allow many U.S. graduate programs to keep their doors open. While there has been no comprehensive study done of immigrant-owned businesses, we have countless examples: in Silicon Valley, companies begun by Chinese and Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and nearly 73,000 jobs in 2000.

Source: Brookings Institution

Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy

During the 1990s, half of all new workers were foreign-born, filling gaps left by native-born workers in both the high- and low-skill ends of the spectrum. Immigrants fill jobs in key sectors, start their own businesses, and contribute to a thriving economy. The net benefit of immigration to the U.S. is nearly $10 billion annually. As Alan Greenspan points out, 70% of immigrants arrive in prime working age. That means we haven’t spent a penny on their education, yet they are transplanted into our workforce and will contribute $500 billion toward our social security system over the next 20 years.

Sources: National Academy of Sciences, Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, Federal Reserve

Immigrants don’t want to learn English or become Americans

Within ten years of arrival, more than 75% of immigrants speak English well; moreover, demand for English classes at the adult level far exceeds supply. Greater than 33% of immigrants are naturalized citizens; given increased immigration in the 1990s, this figure will rise as more legal permanent residents become eligible for naturalization in the coming years. The number of immigrants naturalizing spiked sharply after two events: enactment of immigration and welfare reform laws in 1996, and the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services)

Today’s immigrants are different than those of 100 years ago

The percentage of the U.S. population that is foreign-born now stands at 11.5%; in the early 20th century it was approximately 15%. Similar to accusations about today’s immigrants, those of 100 years ago initially often settled in mono-ethnic neighborhoods, spoke their native languages, and built up newspapers and businesses that catered to their fellow émigrés. They also experienced the same types of discrimination that today’s immigrants face, and integrated within American culture at a similar rate. If we view history objectively, we remember that every new wave of immigrants has been met with suspicion and doubt and yet, ultimately, every past wave of immigrants has been vindicated and saluted.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Most immigrants cross the border illegally

Around 75% have legal permanent (immigrant) visas; of the 25% that are undocumented, 40% overstayed temporary (nonimmigrant) visas.

Source: INS Statistical Yearbook

Weak U.S. border enforcement has lead to high undocumented immigration

From 1986 to 1998, the Border Patrol’s budget increased six fold and the number of agents stationed on our southwest border doubled to 8,500. The Border Patrol also toughened its enforcement strategy, heavily fortifying typical urban entry points and pushing migrants into dangerous desert areas, in hopes of deterring crossings. Instead, the undocumented immigrant population doubled in that time frame, to 8 million -- despite the legalization of nearly 3 million immigrants after the enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. Insufficient legal avenues for immigrants to enter the U.S., compared with the number of jobs available to them, have created this current conundrum.

Source: Cato Institute

The war on terrorism can be won through immigration restrictions

No security expert since September 11, 2001 has said that restrictive immigration measures would have prevented the terrorist attacks -- instead, they key is good use of good intelligence. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were here on legal visas. Since 9/11, the myriad of measures targeting immigrants in the name of national security have netted no terrorism prosecutions. In fact, several of these measures could have the opposite effect and actually make us less safe, as targeted communities of immigrants are afraid to come forward with information.

Sources: Newspaper articles, various security experts, and think tanks

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The above was prepared by the National Immigration Forum, June 2003

For a more thorough contextual look click here

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Love,

Eddie