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Migrants a top issue for voters
Republic Poll finds candidates' stances important

Matthew Benson
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 2, 2006 12:00 AM

It's a night like any other at Granny's Closet Bar and Restaurant in Flagstaff.

Lights low, a handful of people are gathered at what's more of a blue-collar bar than a college hangout. Christmas lights dot the ceiling; a statue of a giant lumberjack stands out front. Bud Light seems to be the drink of choice.

Then the issue turns to illegal immigration.
The mood sours.

"Too many of them immigrants are coming over here and taking jobs from American citizens," says Kiley Fellars, a 32-year-old power-line worker from Buckeye.

"They get over into our country and then they cause havoc and grief," chimes in Charlie Thompson, 28, a resident of Surprise and fellow member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

From the sprawling suburbs of the East Valley to the boutiques of Sedona and the border towns farther south, illegal immigration is on the minds of voters and the lips of politicians. It could be the issue of 2006 in Arizona politics.

That's borne out by results of a recent Arizona Republic Poll of 602 registered voters.

More than nine in 10 respondents said a candidate's approach to illegal immigration would be at least somewhat important when it comes to deciding their vote for governor. Nearly two-thirds called the issue very important.

"It is undoubtedly the biggest issue for this year," Arizona State University pollster Bruce Merrill said. "In my own work, it's clearly coming out as the main issue."

An estimated half-million immigrants enter the United States illegally each year, joining the roughly 11 million already here, about 300,000 to 500,000 of whom are in Arizona.

Some melt into communities, providing cheap, needed labor to the state's agricultural and service industries. Others live on the margins, engaging in criminal activity and fueling fears of gangs and terrorism.

With security tightened along more-populous sections of the 1,951-mile Southwest border, Arizona's comparatively desolate stretch now is the most porous. Last year, more than half of the 1.2 million arrests the Border Patrol made were in Arizona.

Many state residents talk in panicked terms. Arizona is being overrun, they say. Government is, or acts as if it is, powerless to stem the tide of undocumented residents coming to their communities and their neighborhoods.

"They're willing to risk their lives to get here," said Kateryna Boyce, an 18-year-old freshman at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. "I don't really think that anything's going to work."

While illegal immigration is a federal responsibility, poll respondents gave the state government poor marks for its work on the matter. And neither party was immune.

Twenty-two percent of those polled said the Republican-controlled state Legislature has done enough on the issue in the past year. Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, received a thumbs-up from 31 percent of residents.

Rep. Russell Pearce sees trouble in the figures for the governor.

Pearce, R-Mesa, is one of the Legislature's staunchest opponents of illegal immigration, and said Napolitano has been little more than a roadblock to his efforts in recent years.

Pearce pointed to the governor's recent declaration of an emergency along the border as a sign that public opinion has forced her to re-evaluate her stance.

"She's read the polls," Pearce said. "She's very Clinton-esque on this. That's why she's changed her tune."

But House Minority Leader Phil Lopes, D-Tucson, said the numbers aren't the political warning they would appear. He doubts Napolitano will be vulnerable on the issue in her 2006 re-election bid as long as voters perceive that she is addressing it. In other words, what she does will be less important than the act of doing something.

Residents themselves have not reached a consensus on border strategy.

Some, such as NAU freshman and registered Republican Zachary Obrey, 18, "feel sorry" for undocumented immigrants and "don't want them to be kicked out."

Seated inches away was Boyce, also a Republican.

"I've met illegal immigrants who hate everything about America," she said. "They're just here for the money. That bothers me."

More than half of poll respondents said they'd support the passage of a state law to revoke business licenses from companies caught hiring undocumented workers. One-third said construction of a fence along the border would be effective.

Fellars, a Democrat, is typical: " Something needs to be done. I just don't have the answer. I wish I did."

Politicians are equally muddled. Some talk in terms of guest-worker programs. Others detail plans for a border fence and mass deportations.

Ed Pohland has an idea. The 69-year-old Sun City resident advocates a multipronged approach that includes the development of a national identification card, stiffer fines for companies that hire undocumented workers and the elimination of a provision that gives residency to children born to undocumented immigrants.

But he's skeptical. He's watched for too long while too little has been accomplished.

"I don't think government's ever going to get serious about putting an end to it," he said.

His baseball cap pulled low, Pohland is prowling a miniature-golf course in Sun City. He's frustrated, and it's a feeling shared by many.

Take John Baily, a recent California transplant who owns a payroll-services business in Show Low. He likes the idea of a border fence as a first step.

"I think they could do like at Guantanamo Bay and have two chain-link fences and, in between, a mine field," Baily, 50, said. "A wall would put a lot of people to work and keep them employed, but it would be very expensive. Land mines are a lot cheaper than walls."

Bluster? It's tough to tell with the superheated rhetoric coming from both sides of the immigration debate.

Somewhere in the middle sit millions of Arizonans.

People like Laura Boyd.

The Sun City resident, 68, has lived in the Valley since 1951. She called illegal immigration a "top issue," especially since "no one's addressed it in all the years I've lived here."

Boyd worries about crime in the metro area and suspects illegal immigration is making it worse. But as a first-generation American - her mother emigrated from Sicily in 1920 - Boyd sees the value of many cultures coming together under one flag.

"Once a Sicilian, always a Sicilian," she boasts, adding, "Very definitely an American."



Reporter Robbie Sherwood contributed to this article.