Thread: Legislation and media raise the temperature

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... fever.html

New buzz in the immigration debate



Legislation and media raise the temperature

By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 13, 2005



In a Tijuana shelter, recently repatriated migrants ponder how they will get back across the border to their jobs in the United States.

In East County, residents whose homes and ranches abut illegal border-crossing routes matter-of-factly give water to migrants who limp onto their property seeking help, then promptly dial the Border Patrol.

This has been part of daily life along Southern California's border with Mexico for years. Undocumented migrants try to come in, residents and federal agents try to keep them out. What has changed is that the debate over illegal immigration has reached fever pitch.



Civilian volunteers spent last month patrolling the border in Arizona looking for undocumented immigrants to turn in. After international media coverage, they are now spawning imitators, including a group that may soon set up camp in San Diego County. The governor of California is cheering them on. Last week, an assemblyman called for the creation of a state border police force.

In Washington, immigration has taken center stage, with a bipartisan bill introduced yesterday that could grant work permits and eventually permanent legal status to an estimated 10 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country. Legislation was approved this week that would prevent undocumented immigrants from obtaining driver licenses and would waive environmental and other laws that could impede construction of border fencing south of San Diego.

What gives? And why now?

"I think a lot of these people are caught up in the emotion of the time," said Campo resident Roger Challberg, 75, who has seen undocumented immigrants trail past his home at the mouth of Hauser Canyon for about a decade. "It's an ebb and flow kind of thing."

The emotion has evolved from a string of events that include demographic changes nationwide, federal policies, the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a recently unsteady economy, and public and governmental reaction to all of the above, immigration experts say.

Add media-savvy activists such as the organizers of Arizona's recent Minuteman Project patrols, and the result is the current border fever.

"It's kind of an unholy confluence of the aftermath of September 11, and activism on the immigration issue by prominent members of Congress and the president, and the attention that has been given by the media to certain aspects of the issue," said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California San Diego. "Particularly the vigilante thing."

This is not the first time that illegal immigration has been high on state and national agendas. In 1994, when California was in an economic slump, then-Gov. Pete Wilson endorsed Proposition 187, a measure to deny state services to undocumented immigrants. It was approved by voters but struck down in the courts.

The same year, in response to heavy illegal immigration traffic through San Diego, the Clinton administration initiated Operation Gatekeeper, which brought border fencing, surveillance equipment and additional Border Patrol agents to the area.

The present buzz over illegal immigration is in part a reaction to Sept. 11, immigration experts say, as talk of national security and controlling open borders has dominated public debate in recent years. Concerns over the post-9/11 economy have also played a part.


But there are quieter, less obvious reasons for the current climate. One has been the steady movement of immigrants, particularly Latinos, out of traditional states such as California, Texas and Florida and into the heartland. Many have been undocumented migrant workers pursuing job opportunities in meat processing and other labor-intensive industries in the South and the Midwest.

"You've got immigrants in places where 20 years ago there weren't any," said Jeffrey Passel, a demographer with the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C. "It is a very different country from what is remembered, sort of nostalgically . . . it does create culture shock."

Not surprisingly, in the late 1990s, the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., began observing a cultural backlash, noticing anti-immigration rallies and even violence targeting new immigrants in northern Georgia.

At the same time, a related backlash was taking place in southern Arizona, as undocumented immigrants, pushed east by Operation Gatekeeper, began crossing in large numbers through areas that had previously seen little if any such traffic.

Many civilian patrols were formed, some less law-abiding than others. This was followed by a surge of political activism that culminated last fall in the passage of Proposition 200, an initiative similar to California's Proposition 187.

When President Bush introduced the idea of a guest-worker plan early last year, it was met with resistance from conservatives in his own party.

"I think the president has created some of this activity on immigration by being such a flamboyant supporter of amnesty and mass immigration," said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., research group that supports restrictive immigration policies.

Enter the Minuteman Project, which attracted hundreds of civilian patrol volunteers – and journalists – to Cochise County, Ariz., last month. A recent search of the LexisNexis database of print and television outlets turned up at least 1,000 mentions of "Minuteman Project" in April.

In the months leading up to and following the Arizona events, radio talk-show hosts have been hammering away on illegal immigration. Rick Roberts of San Diego's KFMB-AM has been supporting a movement by a Chino-based group called Friends of the Border Patrol to bring Minuteman-style patrols to the Southern California border.

Roger Hedgecock of KOGO-AM chose illegal immigration this year as the theme for his annual live broadcast from Washington, D.C., which took place last month.

While the ratings from that period are not yet in, Hedgecock's ratings are up from a 5.7 percent share of the market last fall to 6.0 percent of the market in the winter quarter ending March 30, according to Arbitron.

"Immigration is a hot topic," said KOGO station manager Cliff Albert. "Our ratings would not be what they were unless we talked about topics that people are talking about."

The attention has not been lost on California politicians.

In what his critics have characterized as an attempt to boost waning popularity, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger – who employs former Wilson staffers – recently commended the Minutemen on the "John & Ken Show" on Los Angeles' KFI-AM for doing "a terrific job" and has continued to praise them.

Last week, Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, promoted an initiative to create a state border police force. "Let's have trained law enforcement personnel to do what the Minutemen are doing," he said.

Haynes, who faces term limits, plans to start campaigning for a seat on the state Board of Equalization next year.

Meanwhile, with the attention on the border and those who talk about it, a key part of the illegal immigration debate has received scant attention.

"I think the employer sanctions story is an old one, and it's not a very sexy story," Cornelius said. "It's not like vigilantes and border enforcement in general."

Adds Krikorian: "It's concrete and easy to envision a guy in a Smokey Bear hat patrolling the border. Rooting out fraudulent green cards is kind of dull."

The bill introduced yesterday by senators John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., would call for stricter employer sanctions.

Employers are not legally required to verify identification presented by job applicants, making it difficult for federal investigators to prove wrongdoing when employers break the law. Haynes' proposed state border police would audit employers, but would only enforce federal immigration law.

"My boss hired me right away, and he knew my papers were false," said Enrique Contreras Coronado, 30, who worked four years at a Nebraska beef slaughterhouse before being deported. "He told me there was no problem."

Staying at the Casa del Migrante shelter in Tijuana, Contreras talked about how his American boss even offered to let him have his $5-an-hour job back if he returned to the United States.

Like others at the shelter, he said he heard about the Minutemen and the governor's statements in Tijuana, not in Mexico's interior.

"It's convenient for them to talk about the migrants, but it's not convenient for them to talk about the employers," said Contreras, who would like to be able to obtain a legal work visa. "They never talk about the employers because they have a lot of money, and they shut the government's mouth."


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This is not the first time that illegal immigration has been high on state and national agendas. In 1994, when California was in an economic slump, then-Gov. Pete Wilson endorsed Proposition 187, a measure to deny state services to undocumented immigrants. It was approved by voters but struck down in the courts.

This is why it is so important to get the conservative Federal judges confirmed. The leftists will quash the will of the people every time, just like their Commie cousins.