Features » November 12, 2008

The Selma of Immigration Rights (cont’d)

Anti-immigrant laws

Anti-immigrant fervor in Arizona began in earnest in the wake of 9/11, and increased over the next few years. In 2004, Arizona voters approved Proposition 200, a citizen’s initiative that mandated people to show proof of citizenship at the polls on Election Day.

“That opened the floodgates to more anti-immigrant rhetoric by legislators, because they saw the overwhelming support that it had by voters,” says Guzman. “So by the 2006 election, all of the candidates [who] were running … had something to say about immigration because it was a popular thing.”

That same election also saw a flurry of ballot initiatives targeting the Spanish-speaking population:

• An amendment to the state constitution making English the official state language. (In 2000, voters had already made English the only language that could be taught in Arizona public schools.)

• A law that denied awarding punitive damages in civil court cases to persons who are in the United States illegally.

• Another law that denied bail to undocumented immigrants who are charged with serious felonies.

• And last but not least, Proposition 300, which denied all “state and local benefits” to those who could not provide proof of citizenship, including college scholarships and financial aid.

State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema has been battling the anti-immigrant forces since she was elected in 2004.

“Many members of the legislature are placed in a very precarious position,” Sinema says. “They personally don’t agree with these pieces of legislation, but are facing a lot of intense pressure from fringe elements of their political party.”

She estimates that about 25 percent of the people who enter the United States illegally live in Arizona. Compounded with a tough economy, she understand why that makes people upset. But Sinema, like Mayor Gordon, says the solution lies with the feds.

“If the federal government refuses to act … what you’re seeing in Arizona will get worse,” Sinema says, “and you’ll see other states begin to take this kind of misguided and inappropriate action.”

Bankrupting Maricopa County

Arpaio rejects all charges of racial profiling or scare tactics.

“The only people that should be fearing to go out are those that have violated the law … and that includes illegal immigrants,” he says.

While prisons and chain gangs made Arpaio famous, so far no evidence exists that the measures have prevented crime. In fact, a 1998 study by Arizona State University Criminal Justice professor Marie L. Griffin – and commissioned by Arpaio himself – found no difference in the recidivism rate or the attitude of inmates who served time after Arpaio’s new prison policies were implemented. Crime rates haven’t decreased, and the prison population itself has continued to grow in correlation with the national average.

Meanwhile, the financial impact of Arpaio’s policies has begun to draw fire, as well. A December 2007 investigation by the Phoenix New Times, a weekly paper, found that from 2004 until 2007, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has more than 50 times as many lawsuits filed against it than sheriffs’ agencies in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York combined.

Losses in court, legal fees and out-of-court settlements (mostly for the mistreatment or neglect of prisoners) have cost county taxpayers more than $41 million since Arpaio took office in 1993. What’s more, the deductible for the county’s insurance policy that covers lawsuits against the sheriff has risen from $1 million to $5 million over the past decade.

At the same time, the number of undocumented immigrants in Arizona may be dwindling.

“They’re leaving,” says Bernasconi, who had trouble finding subcontractors to finish building his daughter’s house in Guadalupe earlier this year. “They don’t have the people for laying the tile, putting in the carpets, putting in the cabinets. … They are going to other states or they are returning to Mexico.”

Annie Loyd, an independent candidate for a local congressional seat, points out that Arpaio’s sweeps are the second recent hit to local business. The first came in January, when a new state law came into effect, fining employers for hiring undocumented workers, and eventually shutting down those businesses.

“Our employer sanctions law created an un-level playing field for us as a state in comparison to other states,” Loyd says. “Immigration is a federal issue and needs to be resolved at a federal level … because it is supposed to be applied equally, across-the-board, throughout the country.”

In the end, it may be the business community that determines if the Maricopa crackdown will continue unabated.

“I consider myself a conservative voter,” says Bob Sitesburg, the owner of Golden Sky Construction in Phoenix. But he says laborers have become increasingly hard to find, and adds that the immigration issue could affect his vote in November. “I’m in an industry where we need those workers,” Sitesburg says.

In January, Arizona became the first state to legally require employers to use E-verify, a Homeland Security system that verifies new employees legal status. President Bush followed suit in June, signing an executive order that mandates all government agencies to use E-verify.

But the system is widely criticized by government officials and business owners, for its 4.1 percent error rates, and for the fact that participating in E-verify doesn’t protect a business that is caught employing illegal immigrants, even if those workers were cleared by the system. It’s just the latest burden for Arizona businesses, which have put a proposition on the November ballot that would loosen the new employer sanctions law.

Local businesses in Phoenix have become increasingly concerned, as well. People moving away or hiding at home means fewer customers, and the bad press associated with nativist groups squaring off against immigrants in the streets doesn’t help the local chamber of commerce attract new business to the area.

Nathan Newman, policy director for the Progressive States Network, who authored a September report titled “The Anti-Immigrant Movement That Failed,” says workplace sanctions, in particular, have raised bipartisan opposition.

“It’s probably the only [issue] I could see,” he says, “where you end up with the chamber of commerce, the head of labor unions, religious groups and human rights groups, all so unanimous in saying ‘This is the wrong approach.’ “

Newman’s study found that the majority of states haven’t jumped on the anti-immigrant bandwagon. And because of business concerns, he doesn’t believe they will.

“It’s not like these waves of anti-immigrant legislation are new things in American history,” Newman says. “This comes in waves, and states have gone through this sort of hysteria in the past. California went through this in the early ’90s. And they looked at it and said ‘Yeah, well, we don’t think so.’ “

But Arizona is not California, and there was no Sheriff Joe in Sacramento 15 years ago. Joan Koerber Walker, CEO of the Arizona Small Business Association, compares Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the United States, to Detroit, which held that rank in the ’60s.

“Law enforcement [in Detroit], with the best intentions, went into heavily racially concentrated areas, specifically looking for felons and lawbreakers,” she says. “The community became polarized, eventually violence broke out, and the businesses in the city of Detroit, many of them never reopened and never recovered.”

She adds: “I would hate to see Phoenix go the same way.” 

[Editor’s note: A radio version of this story–on the National Radio Project’s nationally-syndicated international public affairs show “Making Contact”–can be heard here.]