Washington State Now Using Inmates to Pick Apples

Washington apple growers have been unable to find enough migrant workers to pick their crops inspite of a wide-spread campagn to recruit pickers.  This is a side effect of the anti-immigration movement nation wide since nearly 400,000 undocumented workers are being deported annually.

Photo:  The Wenatchee World

State apple growers sounded an alarm in recent weeks of a severe shortage of pickers. Signs were put up at orchards. Ads were taken out on radio. Newspapers and TV stations reported the story of the shortage after Gov. Chris Gregoire put out a call for help. Many unemployed workers did apply for jobs, but few stayed.

"It's hard work," she said. There are seven guards to make sure the inmate workers stay on the job until it's done, but it's an expensive proposition for the grower, Wilis admits. McDougall will pay $22 an hour for each inmate. Inmates are paid minimum wage, but deductions for crime compensation, incarceration costs, child support and other bills reduces that to between $1 and $2 an hour. Most of what growers are charged pays for transportation, housing and security. Most inmates picked three or four 800-pound bins of apples in that first day.

So again, we find evidence that undocumented immigrants are not taking jobs away from "normal citizens".  American citizens just don't want to do this kind of work, even if they are out of a job.  And with 9 percent of us officially unemployed, that's a lot of people unwilling to take such a job.

Read more:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016670717_apwainmateapplepickers1stldwritethru.html

Alabama vs. Arizona - Which law is worse for immigrants?

Now in a contest to see which state can drive the hispanics out the quickest, Alabama is winning.  See who is leaving and why.  Are they all illegals, or undocumented ( sin papeles )?  Are they working hard or are they lazy?  Will this open up new jobs for unemployed citizens - putting Americans back to work?  What is the effect on our economy? on individuals caught up in the histeria?

Pedro and his wife, both of whom are undocumented immigrants, decided to put all their belongings in the car and leave with their son for Arizona. Even with its SB 1070 immigration law, they expect Arizona to treat them better than Alabama under its law HB 56.
In a housing complex full of small homes in the city of Florence, two hours from Birmingham, relatives and friends said goodbye to Pedro and his family as they packed and checked the brakes of their car in preparation for the long ride.
Pedro, a construction worker from the state of Guerrero, Mexico, lived in Alabama for seven years. "If it weren't for the law, I'd stay here, but I have a brother there (in Arizona) who says that everything's okay now and there are plenty of jobs," he said.
Life in Alabama is impossible, he told me, and he wasn't confident that the attempts to block the law through the courts would succeed. And even if it did, the immigrant community faces too hostile an environment here to stay, he added.
"You can't drive anywhere; you can't go out because all it takes is seeing a policeman to scare you", Pedro said.
This strategy of wearing down the immigrant community through draconian laws like HB 56 -attrition through enforcement-- is exactly the point for those who have written and endorsed these laws.

Pedro's story echoed those we heard from other immigrants gathered at his house. Some wonder if they should follow his path out of the state or weather the storm here and see if anything changes.
The mosaic of situations reflects how HB 56 has affected everyone, with and without documents alike.
Some undocumented immigrants have native-born U.S. citizen children. Some have undocumented children, some of whom were brought to Alabama as babies. That describes Lizbeth, Pedro's niece, a 19-year-old "Dreamer" (a student who would be eligible for the DREAM Act) who was brought here when she was 2 months old. She married an undocumented young man, and had a baby. Some couples are mixed-status as well--such as Katie, a young woman who was born in Alabama, and her partner, Freddy, an undocumented immigrant who came to the U.S. at the age of eleven. They have three children--all of them native-born citizens--and another on the way. And so on.
The person who'd arrived most recently of those we talked to had been in Alabama for five years. Others have been here for ten, eleven, thirteen, sixteen, twenty. Some are renters; some own their own homes. Everyone has a job: in hotels, cleaning offices and stores, in food processing plants, in the fields doing farm labor, in construction.
But for those without documents HB 56 turns driving to work into Russian roulette. "You're playing it every time, but you have to go to work because it's your responsibility to do it. For my wife and my baby girl, because Pampers don't buy themselves," said Lizbeth's husband, who works in a sawmill.
"Every morning, I have to leave thinking that I've left my sleeping child, and this could be the last time I get to see her," he said
Pedro's sister embodies many immigrants' fear of doing basic tasks, like buying food or going to the doctor. "Yesterday made about four weeks since I last went to the store. My children are eating only corn flakes and fruit because I'm afraid to go out. The day before yesterday the children came down with a bad case of the flu, but I couldn't take them to see the pediatrician, because I'm afraid to go out," she said.

Lizbeth said that "if it's my turn to get taken away, well, it's my turn." "I work all day cleaning stores with my mother. I drive her. I leave my daughter with my aunt, and all I can think of is that if they arrest me, and if I can't come back to see her, it would break my heart. This law is tearing a lot of families apart. We're not here to hurt anyone. We need help to get rid of this law because it's not doing anything good for Alabama, it's hurting the economy," she added.
Katie, the Alabama native, believes that the law is racist. If immigrants are working, "let them work and take care of their families, don't close the door on them." She had a message for the politicians who support the law: "You're so awful! Hispanics are helping out a lot here in Alabama." "And I have a message for Obama. Please, help Hispanics. They helped you."
Lizbeth's husband said that "if the governor says he signed the law to open up jobs for Americans who could do the work immigrants have been doing, why has the economy started slumping so quickly? We're seeing a labor shortage all over the place and no one is coming out to shop in stores because everyone's leaving."

He works at the mill from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., for $7.25 an hour. "I can't tell you how many Hispanics have lost fingers or hands. I also worked as a roofer, on houses that were sometimes 2, 3 stories. It's dangerous work, and in the summer, when the shingles are hot, it's very hard. If Americans can do the jobs that we've done, how come nobody's showing up to take the jobs we've left in the chicken farms and the fields?" he asked.

Journalist Gabriel Thompson wrote the book Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing The Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do, in which he recounts his experiences doing the harsh labor immigrants take on for little money and under precarious conditions.

Thompson worked in a chicken processing plant in Russellville, Alabama, near Florence. In a recent article for ColorLines on HB 56 and how immigration had benefited Russellville, he wrote that "When I relocated to Russellville in 2008, I found that, as a citizen, it was exceedingly easy to 'steal' a job back...As I soon learned, the hard part wasn't getting the job; the hard part was keeping the job. During a single shift I could be asked to tear apart more than 7,000 chicken breasts by hand or carry and dump 30 tons of meat onto an assembly line."
Thompson wrote that immigration had helped Russellville in various ways, including stimulating the economy as consumers and business owners. The same can be said for other parts of the state.

Read more from this source: The Huffington Post

Anti-Latino Racism Slams CNN National News Desk Editor

Nick Valencia is a national news desk editor and former head of the CNN Spanish Desk.  He's a third-generation American citizen recently confronted by racist comments coming from a hate filled woman in Georgia:

Atlanta (CNN) -- "Go home!" she yelled at me. "Why don't you go back home to Mexico before you ruin this country like you ruined your own!"
I was standing in a crowd at the Music Midtown festival in Atlanta, where I live. A few minutes earlier I'd met a group of five people who'd been standing in front of me -- here from Mexico City -- and I had begun speaking Spanish with them.
Atlanta has a growing Latino community, and I am actively involved. Whenever I get the chance to speak to someone in Spanish here, I introduce myself. My new acquaintances and I were talking about what a great time we were having and how remarkable the city of Atlanta was for bringing back the festival to Piedmont Park.
And that's when I heard the yelling woman next to me. As if "go home" wasn't clear enough, the woman -- a 20-something Caucasian -- repeated the words in Spanish.
"Vete!"
I froze. I didn't quite know what to say, and I didn't want to believe she was talking to me or the group of people I had just met.

Nick Valencia

As a third-generation Mexican-American growing up in Los Angeles, I had never encountered such overt racism. In fact, because my family was long since assimilated, among my Latino friends I was always considered the "pocho" or "white boy" of the group. (As I write this, a part of me knows somewhere in L.A., a friend of mine will be proud to know someone actually considered me Mexican enough to yell "go home" at me.)
My Mexican friends remind me that I am American first, Mexican second and that my English is better than my Spanish.
"Yes," I tell them. "But I can never walk into a room and be white."
Evidently, to some the brown color of my skin means I'm not even American. My friends and family tell me what I experienced that night is a microcosm of what is happening to Latinos across the country. You don't have to look hard to find it. In news stories, in political discourse, on talk radio, in everyday conversation it seems it has become OK to treat Latinos in a negative and antagonistic way -- whether they are new immigrants or longtime Americans. The anti-immigration legislation sweeping across the United States has made this plain. People in my Latino networks say they've noticed the change. And now I understand what they mean.
Like many Americans whose grandparents or parents came here from somewhere else, I live at the intersection of my two cultures. I eat tacos, but I love cheeseburgers. I go salsa dancing, and listen to rock n' roll. I speak Spanish and English, and depending on the crowd, sometimes Spanglish. I love my country and my cultural community. My duality is my reality, just like the 50 million other Latinos in the United States.
I have been luckier than many. Before this incident, the closest I'd ever come to blatant racism was in junior high. I was in the jazz band and played first trumpet. One day our jazz band teacher invited in his predecessor, a local legend who had made Eagle Rock High School's jazz program famous in the 1980s.
The visiting instructor pointed me out and asked me to play him 16 bars of music. I did, but he quickly interrupted.
"Stop, stop, stop. I don't want to hear any of that mariachi music. This is jazz."
I didn't think anything of it. Instead I felt terrible that the legend standing in front of me didn't think I was good enough. I went home that night, and like every night, at 6:30 p.m. my family sat down for dinner to talk about our day.
"How was your day, Nicky?" my dad asked.
So I told him. Outraged, the next day he went to my principal and filed a formal complaint. The legend didn't come back to visit the jazz program again. Weeks later we received a letter in the mail from him apologizing for his insensitive comments. My family saved the letter.
My father was hypersensitive to ethnic identity and deeply proud of his Latino heritage. The son of a naturalized immigrant from El Salvador and a Mexican mother from Texas, he grew up in Los Angeles during a time of racial tension. When I was young he would tell me stories of the race riots in his high school, violence against people of color, and awful accounts of the struggle he had to make it as a Mexican-American teen in the 1960s.
He died when I was 17 years old, but one of the phrases he implanted in my mind before he passed was a statement activist Cesar Chavez made famous:
"Si se puede" -- "Yes you can."
And now, here I was, at 28, with this stranger yelling at me to "leave." I stood there in the middle of a damp crowd on a late Atlanta evening, not comprehending, the wind still and the vibrations of Coldplay's "Yellow" filling the space in the air.
I didn't say a thing.
I didn't have to.
The crowd around us looked in amazement at this woman. Some of them spoke up to her, telling her she was wrong to talk to us like that. The group of people from Mexico City looked at her in disgust and, realizing from the look on my face that I must not be accustomed to what I was hearing, they turned toward me to offer support.
One of them, a young man, grabbed my hand and raised it high in the air.
"Estamos aqui," he said, which translates to "We are here."
It was the "Si se puede" moment.
The woman continued to taunt us for some minutes, but when we did not reciprocate her hatred, she stopped.
The band played a few more songs before ending the set, and the crowd dispersed across the park into the Saturday evening.
As I walked away, the woman and I locked eyes.
"I don't think you understand who you said that to," I told her. Thinking to myself, I am as American as you are.
"What," she said laughing. "Are you some kind of celebrity or something?"
No. But like the Mexicans I was standing with, I am a human being. And I am home.

See more at:  source

Repeal of New Immigration Law in Alabama

State Senator Beasley from Alabama has introduced legislation to repeal the newly enacted laws against illegal immigrants.  He claims most representatives did not understand the negative effects that the law would have on citizens of Alabama.

MONTGOMERY -- Alabama Sen. Billy Beasley has filed a bill to repeal Alabama's sweeping immigration law, saying it is causing severe workforce shortages and problems in state courthouses and schools.
"The people in the agriculture community are not happy with it because they can't get workers. The folks in the courthouses are not happy with it. The folks in the school business are not happy with it," said the Democrat from Clayton.
Beasley said three other Democrats have signed on as co-sponsors of the proposed repeal, and he hopes more legislators will support the measure.
"I think there is a large contingent of folks who didn't realize what it was going to do," Beasley said.
However, Sen. Scott Beason, who sponsored the immigration law in the Senate, said he will fight attempts to undo or weaken the law.
"I can't imagine that anyone would want to repeal the bill," said Beason, R-Gardendale.
Beasley voted against the bill when it was before Alabama lawmakers. He said the new law has caused a "world of fear" for people in the Hispanic community.
"It's kind of a mean-spirited law," Beasley said.
Beasley said the law has caused workforce shortages in many industries, as legal and illegal immigrants leave the state. He said it also is causing long lines at courthouse and is putting an unfunded mandate on county jails to hold suspected illegal immigrants.
The Clayton senator said he also was doubtful the law would open up jobs for Alabamians because many people don't want the labor-intensive jobs the immigrants are performing.
But Beason said he believes the law is working.
"It's doing what it is supposed to be doing overall," Beason said.
He said the immigration law appeared to be moving an illegal workforce out of the state, and an adjustment period is to be expected. He pointed out the law has been in effect only six days.
He said he believes getting rid of illegal workers will create jobs for Alabamians. "Apparently a lot of people were working an illegal workforce," Beason said.

Read more from this source: 

http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/10/state_sen_billy_beasley_files.html

New Alabama Law: Crops rot in the field

Nueva ley de inmigración de Alabama.  Es el más severa de los EEUU.  Los partidarios dicen que la norma debe producir más trabajo para los ciudadanos mientras que las voces criticas aseguran que saca los derechos civiles. Pero la cosecha se pudre en los campos y los agricultores no pueden encontrar trabajadores suficientes para cosechar, porque la mayoría de los trabajadores - legales y sin papeles - han salido los trabajos y han huido.  Tambien, los administradores de cárceles se preocupan que no tienen espacio ni capacidad para detener más personas.

New immigration law in Alabama.  It's the most severe in the US.  Supporters say that the rule should produce more work for citizens while critics claim that it robs some of civil rights.  But food is rotting in the fields and farmers are unable to find sufficient workers to harvest their crops, since most of the workers have left their jobs and departed from the area.  Jail administrators are also concerned since they don't have the capacity to hold detainees.

National Suicide: Expelling Non-Criminal Immigrants

National Suicide

La política del gobierno federal de Estados Unidos de expulsar inmigrantes que no han cometido ningún delito en medio de una frágil economía es equivalente a “un suicidio nacional”, afirmó este lunes el alcalde de Nueva York, Michael Bloomberg.
“Esto es un suicidio nacional, estamos deliberadamente enviando a nuestro futuro fuera del país”, aseguró el edil durante su aparición en el programa de televisión Morning Joe en el canal MSNBC.
El alcalde indicó que lo que el país necesita en momentos de dificultades económicas son más inmigrantes, “que crean más empleos de los que toman”.
“Necesitamos más inmigrantes. Lo dije antes y he sido ampliamente criticado por eso. Si quieren impulsar la economía de las ciudades, hay una solución muy simple y es que el gobierno otorgue visas para que la gente pueda entrar aquí”, manifestó el funcionario.
El alcalde explicó que el gobierno federal debería comenzar un programa para dar visas de trabajo por siete años a trabajadores inmigrantes, lapso después del cual podrían obtener la ciudadanía completa tanto ellos como sus familias.
Advirtió sin embargo que aquellos inmigrantes que cometieran un crimen bajo este esquema serían rastreados y deportados sin dilación.

  BBC Mundo:   http://mexico.cnn.com/mundo/2011/08/08/el-alcalde-de-nueva-york-considera-un-suicidio-expulsar-a-los-migrantes

Telling the New American Dreamers - "Go Elsewhere !"

By JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 6/15/11 8:02 AM EDT Updated: 6/15/11 4:18 PM EDT

In a major speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the United States risks “national suicide” if it doesn’t adopt a more welcoming immigration policy.

“We will not remain a global superpower if we continue to close our doors to people who want to come here to work hard, start businesses, and pursue the American dream,” Bloomberg said.

 "The American dream cannot survive if we keep telling the dreamers to go elsewhere,” the mayor adds. “It’s what I call national suicide – and that’s not hyperbole.”

Immigration reform, he argues, is the key to creating new jobs and setting the economy on a steady path into the future.
Bloomberg’s speech comes as the Partnership for a New American Economy, of which he is a co-chair, releases a report looking at the role that immigrants play at Fortune 500 companies and the potential. Forty percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants, the report notes.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57013.html#ixzz1UVNClVIv

Texas Gov Still Supports Dream Act: Immigration

Republican Gov. Rick Perry is finding common ground on some immigration issues.  More of this kind of thinking and acting would go a long way in solving our broken system which stresses deportation and encarceration.

In sharp contrast to the national Republican Party line, Texas Gov. Rick Perry still supports his state's version of the so-called DREAM Act, which permits foreign-born children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition. "To punish these young Texans for their parents' actions is not what America has always been about," the potential dark horse GOP candidate told the New Hampshire Union Leader in his first New Hampshire interview of the 2012 campaign cycle.

Perry has not yet announced whether he will run for president, but he polls well. Real Clear Politics's average of polls, for example, puts him in fourth place behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is also undeclared. Perry opposes passing such legislation on the federal level, but his stance on immigration could tarnish his star among conservatives, who have fought efforts in other states and the U.S. Congress to pass similar legislation. Critics see such laws as a giveaway to people who have broken the law and unfair to American citizens who have to pay out-of-state tuition to attend universities across state lines.[See a roundup of political cartoons on the 2012 GOP primary candidates.]
In 2001, Perry signed the Texas DREAM Act, which allows in-state tuition for students who have lived in Texas for three years and either have obtained a GED or graduated from the state's public or accredited private schools. The state legislature had passed the law with bipartisan support. [Check out a roundup of political cartoons on immigration reform.]
The act is different from the nation version, which Republicans in Congress have battled. The national DREAM Act would provide a pathway to citizenship to some young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors but who demonstrate "good moral character" and who go to a four-year college or join the military. The act was reintroduced in May after it failed to pass in the last Congress—it passed the House late last year when Democrats were still the majority, but Senate Democrats did not have enough votes to get it through. Opponents call the federal DREAM Act amnesty.

Source:
        

By Mallie Jane Kim

Posted: July 25, 2011

 US News    http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/07/25/rick-perry-stands-by-texas-dream-act

Mexico's Birthrate plummets: fewer illegal immigrants

Why are there fewer illegal immigrants these days from Mexico?  The following chart of Mexico's birthrate over the last four decades shows a huge drop from 6.8 to 2 per mexican woman.  This translates into 200, 000 fewer job seekers per year.

By DAMIEN CAVE

Published: July 6, 2011

In simple terms, Mexican families are smaller than they had once been. The pool of likely migrants is shrinking. Despite the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, birth control efforts have pushed down the fertility rate to about 2 children per woman from 6.8 in 1970, according to government figures. So while Mexico added about one million new potential job seekers annually in the 1990s, since 2007 that figure has fallen to an average of 800,000, according to government birth records. By 2030, it is expected to drop to 300,000.

source:  The New York Times

Maria Gonzales: illegal alien. What will you do with her?

Raul’s family has lived in Texas for 4 generations.  He is a US Citizen.  Six years ago he married Maria, whose parents brought her to the US illegally when she was a teenager.  Raul and Maria now have two boys and are expecting another in three months.  Raul works hard and pays all this taxes and mortgage on their home.  Maria confides in you that she is an illegal alien and that her boss is paying her under the table so she can save on her payroll expenses.

You have a choice.  What will you do?

1.       Report Maria and her boss to the authorities, so Maria will be deported.

2.       Keep quiet, do nothing and allow Maria to continue supporting her family even though she arrived here illegally and her boss illegally hired her.

3.       Try to find a way for Maria to become legalized and for her boss to pay all her taxes.

Undocumented Immigrants: a burden or benefit?

Myth: Undocumented workers are a burden on the U.S. economy.

Reality: Immigrants not only pay taxes, but they also contribute significantly to the economy.In a 2007 report, the White House Council of Economic Advisers concluded that..

-. Immigration increases the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by roughly US  $37 billion each year.

- Given that employment has been the main driver behind undocumented immigration to the U.S. in recent decades, it should come as no surprise that this group is particularly hard working and has a high employment rate (96%).

 According to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanic owned firms increased by nearly 44 percent between 2002 and 2007, growing from 1.6 million businesses to 2.3 million.

Employment at Hispanic-owned firms also grew by 26 percent from 1.5 million to 1.9 million workers, a growth rate significantly higher than that of non-minority-owned firms.

Hispanic-owned businesses generated US$  345.2 billion in sales in 2007, up 55.5 percent compared with 2002.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/25/2233839/sc-house-approves-immigration.html#comment#ixzz1Nkjydl6z

Who pays taxes?

My The U.S. Social Security Administration has estimated that three quarters of undocumented   immigrants pay payroll taxes, and that they contribute US $6-7 billion in Social Security funds that they will be unable to claim (Porter 2005......, and an additional US$1.5 billion in Medicare taxes. This money, according to the 2008 annual report of the Social Security Board of Trustees, will help reduce the SSA’s projected longterm
deficit by 15%.


See more of this comment:Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/25/2233839/sc-house-approves-immigration.html#comment#ixzz1NgkZWmr3

Free Services for Undocumented Immigrants?

Immigrants pay $ 80,000 more in taxes than they receive from the gov.

Source:  Comments in the Miami Herald blog by commentor "Archie Bunker"

 Myth: Undocumented immigrants are getting government services for free.

REALITY: They actually give more than they take. Over the past two decades, most studies that have tried to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that the tax revenue generated by immigrants —both legal and undocumented— exceeds the cost of the services they use. Thus, an Economic Report of the President published in 2005 estimated that immigrants paid on average US $80,000 per capita more in taxes than the cost of the government services they were expected to use over their lifetime.

Stephen C. Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that by 2007, the Social Security trust fund had received a net benefit of somewhere between US $120 billion and US $240 billion from undocumented immigrants. That represented 5.4% to 10.7% of the trust fund’s total assets of US$2.24 trillion that year.  The Social Security Administration estimates that two-thirds of unauthorized immigrant workers (about 5.6 million people) were paying into the system in 2007. Unauthorized immigrants paid a net contribution of US$12 billion in 2007 alone.






Click to read more of this comment: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/25/2233839/sc-house-approves-immigration.html#comment#ixzz1NNYck1tc

Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration

 

The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration is a 1997 study on the demographic, economic, and fiscal consequences of immigration to the United States by the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences The NRC report found that although immigrants, especially those from Latin America, were a net cost in terms of taxes paid versus social services received, overall immigration was a net economic gain due to an increase in pay for higher-skilled workers, lower prices for goods and services produced by immigrant labor, and more efficiency and lower wages for some owners of capital. The report also notes that although immigrant workers compete with domestic workers for some low skilled jobs, some immigrants specialize in activities that otherwise would not exist in an area, and thus are performing services that otherwise would not exist, and thus can be beneficial for all domestic residents.  The U.S. Census Bureau's  Survey of Business Owners: Hispanic-Owned Firms: 2002 indicated that the number of Hispanic-owned businesses in the United States grew to nearly 1.6 million in 2002. Those Hispanic-owned businesses generated about $222 billion in revenue.^[3] The report notes that the burden of poor immigrants is not born equally among states, and is most heavy in California.^[4]
On the poor end of the spectrum, the "New Americans" report found that low-skill low wage immigration does not, on aggregate, lower the wages of most domestic workers.

Click to see more of this article from Wikipedia

Immigration Measures Fail

States' immigration efforts fizzle

LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, the AP Hispanic Affairs Writer for the Seattle Times in Miami, writes about the failures of several states in their effort to pass laws similar to the Arizona law SB 1070.  What would cause legislators around the country to have second thoughts about these anti immigration measures?  Are they looking at the economic repercussions?  Are they asking the moral questions?  Are they thinking of the mixed families who would be broken up as a result?  Are they concerned about the illegal bread-winner being sent back to his country, leaving a spouse and children who would now be forced to go on welfare, when they were self-supporting before?

Nearly every state in the union tried to tackle immigration on its own this year in the absence of any congressional movement on the matter, and more than half considered Arizona-style enforcement measures, up from just six in 2010.
But an Associated Press review found that in legislature after legislature, nearly all the most punitive measures failed.
What had passed as of Monday mostly reinforced current federal law, though a small number of states actually passed legislation that was helpful to illegal immigrants.
Many measures were set aside so lawmakers could focus on pressing budget crises, but immigrants have also developed more sophisticated lobbying efforts, and business owners came out strongly against tougher sanctions. Some worried about losing sources of labor and gaining extra paperwork. Others feared tourism boycotts like the one organized against Arizona.
Early in the year, high unemployment, a slew of newly Republican-dominated legislatures and nationwide frustration over the failure by the White House or Congress to address the problem suggested Arizona's law would be copied.
That law makes it a state crime for an illegal immigrant to work, penalizes employers who hire them and encourages local authorities to turn over illegal immigrants to federal authorities, among other measures. An appellate court has blocked provisions that require immigrants carry visa documents and allow police broad leeway to question the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country illegally.
Louisiana State Rep. Joe Harrison, a Republican, said federal inaction prompted his interest in state laws on immigration.
"I'm just trying to give them a little Taser move in the right direction," he said.
But Harrison's bill has yet to move out of committee, and most of the others failed, as did most of the proposals requiring businesses to use the federal government's electronic E-verify system to check the eligibility of new hires. Only a few states made any serious attempt to crack down on employers.
So far, only Georgia and Utah have passed comprehensive bills. South Carolina and Alabama are still considering them. Utah's law includes a provision to allow illegal immigrants to work in the state, and the American Civil Liberties Union has already sued Utah over the law's enforcement provisions.
Georgia was the shining example for those hoping to step up enforcement and the closest to Arizona. Its new law allows local officers to check the immigration status of a suspect who can't produce an accepted form of ID. It also includes a provision requiring employers with more than 10 employees to use E-Verify by July 2013, similar to a 2007 law Arizona. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed the bill earlier this month and opponents say they plan to sue the state.
Following the failure of the recent Dream Act in Washington - which would have provided a path to legalization for qualified illegal immigrant students and other young adults - several states adopted legislation this session that helps illegal immigrant students. Maryland approved in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants, Illinois is likely to set up a private scholarship fund for them, and Connecticut expanded in-state tuition for graduate school. An in-state tuition bill in Oregon passed the Senate but has yet to reach the House floor.
Arizona lawmakers ordered school districts to report students' residency, but that was geared toward keeping children who live across the Mexican border from enrolling in Arizona schools.
Only Indiana passed a law to prohibit in-state tuition for those in the country illegally, a largely symbolic move.
Most legislation never gets out of committee, and compromise is always key.
But experts on both sides credit businesses for much of the legislations' failure.
"Business owners came out of the woodwork in a way they hadn't done before," said Tamar Jacoby, president of ImmigrationWorks USA, a national federation of mostly small-business owners who support immigration reform.
Many Florida businesses said they feared the economic damage that would be caused if the state were hit by a tourism boycott like the one immigrant rights groups organized against Arizona.
In Arizona, 60 top executives signed a letter to Arizona's Senate president, asking for a moratorium on immigration bills.
---
Associated Press writers Josh Loftin in Salt Lake City, Kate Brumback in Atlanta, Ken Kusmer in Indianapolis, Molly Davis in Baton Rouge, La., and Roger Alford in Frankfort, Ky., contributed to this report.

 Click for more on this and other articles:  Source:  The Seattle Times

My Immigration Plan

 from a businessman who works in Arizona and writes the Coyote Blog :

More than any subject on Coyote Blog, my immigration posts have engendered more disapproving comments than anything else I have written.  I won’t repeat my position except to say that I don’t care if immigration is currently illegal, because my point is that it should be legal.  In short, my stance has been that our rights do not flow from the government but from our basic humanity, and therefore activities like association, employment decision-making, and property purchase should not be contingent on citizenship.  Its one of those arguments where I wish many on my side of the argument would shut up — If the best argument you can muster for immigration is ‘who will pick the lettuce’, you are not helping very much. 
For the first 150 years of this country’s history, our country was basically wide-open to immigration.  Sure, there were those opposed (the riots in NYC in the 19th century come to mind) but the opposition was confined mainly to xenophobes and those whose job skills were so minimal that unskilled immigrants who could not speak English were perceived as a threat.   It was only the redistributionist socialism-lite of the New Deal and later the Great Society that began to make unfettered immigration unpopular with a majority of Americans, who rightly did not wish to see the world’s poor migrate to the US seeking an indolent life of living off of government handouts.
But, as Congress debates a series of immigration plans that make not sense and don’t seem internally consistent, I will propose my own.  I hope that this plan will appeal to those who to date have opposed immigration because of the government handout problem.  I am sure it will continue to be unappealing to those who fear competition in the job market or who don’t like to be near people who don’t speak English very well; This is an elaboration of the plan from this post:

1. Anyone may enter or reside in the US. The government may prevent entry of a very short list of terrorists and criminals at the border, but everyone else is welcome to come and stay as long as they want for whatever reason.  Anyone may buy property in the US, regardless or citizenship or residency.  Anyone in the US may trade with anyone in the world on the same terms they trade with their next door neighbor.
2. The US government is obligated to protect the individual rights, particularly those in the Bill of Rights, of all people physically present in our borders, citizen or not.  Anyone, regardless of citizenship status, may buy property, own a business, or seek employment in the United States without any legal distinction vs. US "citizens"
3. Certain government functions, including voting and holding office, may require formal "citizenship".  Citizenship should be easier to achieve, based mainly on some minimum residency period, and can be denied after this residency only for a few limited reasons (e.g. convicted of a felony).  The government may set no quotas or numerical limits on new citizenships.
4. All people present in the US pay the same taxes in the same way.  A non-citizen or even a short term visitor pays sales taxes on purchases and income taxes on income earned while present in the US just like anyone else.  Immigrants will pay property taxes just like long-term residents, either directly or via their rent payments.
5. Pure government handouts, like Welfare, food stamps, the EITC, farm subsidies, and public housing, will only be available to those with full US citizenship.  Vagrancy and squatting on public or private lands without permission will not be tolerated.
6. Most government services and fee-based activities, including emergency services, public education, transportation, access to public recreation, etc. will be open to all people within the US borders, regardless of citizenship status, assuming relevant fees are paid.
7. Social Security is a tough beast to classify – I would put it in the "Citizen" category as currently structured (but would gladly put it in the "available to everyone" category if SS could be restructured to better match contributions with benefits, as in a private account system).  But, as currently configured, I would propose that only citizens can accrue and receive SS benefits.  To equalize the system, the nearly 8% employee and 8% employer social security contributions will still be paid by non-citizens working in the US, but these funds can be distributed differently.  I would suggest the funds be split 50/50 between state and local governments to offset any disproportionate use of services by new immigrants.  The federal portion could go towards social security solvency, while the state and local portion to things like schools and medical programs.

With this plan, we return to the America of our founding fathers, welcoming all immigrants who are willing to take the risk of coming here.  We would end the failed experiment of turning citizenship from a voting right into a comprehensive license that is required to work, own property, or even associate and be present within the US border.  Since immigrants today who are "illegal" pay no income or social security taxes into the system today (they do pay sales and, via rent, property tax), this plan would increase tax revenues while reducing some welfare state burdens.
I think if you asked many prospective immigrants, they would agree to this deal – no handouts, just a fair chance to make a living and a life.  However, immigrant advocacy organizations are hugely unlikely to accept this plan, as most seem today to have been co-opted by various Marxist organizations who are opposed to anyone opting out of the welfare state (it is no coincidence that the recent immigration policy protests all occurred on May Day, the traditional Soviet-Marxist holiday).
Finally, I would like to offer one thought to all those who worry about "absorbing" ten or fifteen million new immigrants.  First, I would argue that we have adopted many more immigrants than this successfully in this country’s history, including my grandparents and probably yours.  Second, I would observe that as recently as the last several decades, we managed to absorb 40 million new workers quite successfully, as I wrote here:

Check this data out, from the BLS:

• In 1968, the unemployment rate was 3.8%.  22.9 million women were employed in non-farm jobs, accounting for 34% of the work force.
• In 2000, the unemployment rate was 4.0%.  62.7 million women were employed in the work force, accounting for 48% of the total
• In these years, the number of women employed increased every single year.  Even in the recession years of 1981-1983 when employment of men dropped by 2.5 million, women gained 400,000 jobs

See more of this article and others on the Coyote Blog

Immigration and the Economy

Is it "The Economy Stupid",  as Bill Clinton often reminded himself ?

View this YouTube video for one opinion.

President Obama: Immigration Reform

In the above You Tube video, President Obama ask the country to pass immigration reform.

Is he just looking for the latino vote, or does he want to make real changes?  Is this total politics, just partially political, or genuine concern based on moral principles?

What would happen if it passed?  If it fails to pass?

Do you support the Arizona style laws?
Please comment.