Thread: {SOB}Economy hard on immigrants

Economy hard on immigrants
Robert Rogers, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 04/05/2008 09:59:19 PM PDT


In the 1930s, one largely untold story of the Great Depression included mass deportation of Mexican nationals - and Mexican-American citizens - from the Southwest.
During the recession of the early 1990s, California voters, in a whirlwind of anti-immigrant backlash, approved anti-immigration legislation.

History has a fairly consistent arc in developed nations: In times of economic languor, immigrant groups tend to come under fire.

As the economy sinks into what may be prolonged recession and the labor market slackens, already strong currents of anti-immigrant sentiment may become bigger, say activists and academics.

"As the economy worsens, history has shown a very strong tendency toward scapegoating immigrant groups," said Jose Zapata Calderon, a professor of sociology and Chicano studies at Pitzer College in Claremont. "And you can see it beginning to take place on an international level right now."

But a countervailing dynamic may also be at work, and possibly serve to blunt the backlash against noncitizens this time around: Years of assimilation and voter registration have made second- and third-generation immigrants a viable political force.

Backlash intensifies

The new dynamic recently has been seen in mass demonstrations and Latino voter registration drives in response to proposed immigration legislation.

At the same time, the economic slowdown and fear of terrorism have fused with concerns about a porous southern border seen increasingly as a gateway not only for illegal immigrants but also terrorists, said Armando Navarro, an ethnic-studies professor at UC Riverside and coordinator of the National Alliance for Human Rights.
The result, he says, is a popular backlash that's leading immigrants to flee back to their homelands.

Signs of stiffening enforcement of federal immigration laws and immigrant flight are already apparent in Arizona, home to some of the country's toughest laws against employers who hire illegal immigrants.

"We have legislation at local and state level that is proliferating, especially in Arizona, that is causing people to ... return to Mexico," Navarro said.

At day-labor centers throughout San Bernardino County, fear of terrorism isn't the issue. The dominant concern is that work is scarce and wages are lean.

Particularly exacting on the pool of immigrant labor is the housing market collapse. As foreclosures skyrocket and homeowners watch their assets plummet in value, housing-supply retailers like Home Depot and Lowe's Cos. - and the day laborers who often congregate around them - feel the impact.

Pastor David Kalke, who heads a San Bernardino Lutheran mission renowned for its bilingual worship and outreach to Latino immigrants, recently began setting up assistance booths at day-labor centers to aid laborers.

At a local Home Depot last month, church leaders befriended laborers who complained of scant work, Kalke said.

"They're talking about the difficulty in getting employment, which has worsened because of the downturn in the construction," Kalke said.

Church leaders offered the laborers snacks and information about local resources. Kalke said a free community clinic the church runs has seen visits increase in recent months from five to 30 patients daily, many of them Spanish-only speakers.

"Life is difficult for them right now," he said.

Last month, anti-illegal-immigration activists appeared at a Pomona City Council meeting to demand closure of the city's day-labor center, a scenario that immigrant activists fear will play out with increasing regularity as the economy worsens.

Political power

Beating back the historical tide against immigrants in times of economic scarcity is the fact that Latinos have reached historic heights in terms of both proportion of the U.S. population and political clout.

No longer the seldom-seen minority group whose interests didn't blip on politicians' radar, the Latino vote is the fastest growing in the country and increasingly commands political attention.

"These are communities that are galvanized by the anti-immigration movements," Calderon said. "It has led to huge marches and steady citizenship and voter registration drives, things that didn't happen during prior periods of immigrant targeting."

Regardless of Latinos' strength as an interest group, though, Americans as a whole are facing a potentially grim period that could affect all immigrants.

The economy, immigration, crime and now state and local budget crises are likely to ensure further deterioration of public services. Health care, public education, and other taxpayer-funded programs are fertile ground for anti-illegal immigration activists seeking to tie the decline in their quantity and quality to the proliferation of illegal immigrants.

Today and tomorrow

National polls have consistently shown Americans to be dissatisfied with the flow of illegal immigrants into the country. A CNN poll in January showed two-thirds of respondents wanted illegal immigration curtailed and only 5 percent wanting it to increase. A closely watched NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll in December found 52 percent of Americans believed "(any) immigration hurts the United States more than it helps it," compared to only 39 percent saying immigration "helps" the country.

The current climate has also fed renewed antipathy toward the North American Free Trade Agreement, which seems to many Americans to have swallowed jobs and wages to the benefit of multinational corporations. Far from the overwhelming Democratic support it enjoyed when it was passed in the 1990s, now Democratic front-runners Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - whose husband, Bill, as president, was the leading voice in favor of NAFTA - labor to explain their qualms about the policy's mixed economic record, sometimes openly criticizing it.

"I'm not a protectionist, but there are issues with these trade agreements that have to be resolved," Calderon said. "A lot of immigrants would not be here if there were jobs in their hometowns. The fact is that they cross the border because they need to find employment, and our trade agreements need to do a better job of ensuring that work is there."

Calderon and others can only use history as a guide to speculate how immigration, economic turmoil and acute insecurity will play out.

Some feel the backlash, fueled by economic decline and an ongoing war on terror, will be blunted by the newfound political clout of Latinos and the country's mood of youthful civic engagement.

Others, like Navarro, fear that passions will be fanned by the swirling winds of terror, economic decay and continued pressure on public services.

"Something changed after 9/11," Navarro said. "The war, and terror, added something new to the backlash against immigration."

http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_8826671

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