Fighting the Anti-Immigrant Movement in the States:
Strategy Memo and Resources
by Nathan Newman
Policy Director, Progressive States Network
212-680-3114
www.progressivestates.org/stateimmigrationproject/
Purpose of this Strategy Memo: With the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric and attacks, immigration will inevitably be a major issue in state legislatures in the 2008 session. The goal of this strategy document is to provide an outline of strategies and resources that state legislative leaders and advocates can use to challenge the anti-immigrant movements in their states.
Changing the Narrative on Immigration Politics: Even as anti-immigrant policies have been enacted in a number of states, other states have also been enacting smart, humane policies that raises living standards for all workers, undocumented and native worker alike, while encouraging maximum integration of new immigrants into our communities. State leaders and advocates can use smart policy campaigns to change the public debate on immigration both at the state level and nationally.
Launching the State Immigration Project: Working with allied labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizations, the Progressive States Network is launching the State Immigration Project, which will support state legislative leaders and advocates in challenging the rising anti-immigrant movement at the state level. The goal will be to defeat bad legislation and pass humane immigration legislation where possible, but also to create opportunities to highlight the positive contributions of immigrants to our states. These policy campaigns will emphasize those issues that evoke the many positive feelings the public has about immigrants, a counterbalance to the negative "wedge" messaging of the anti-immigrant rightwing. The campaign overall will have a five-part strategy:
Making Immigration a Winning Issue- The Political Case Against Anti-Immigrant Politics: The reality is that globalization is driving economic changes, including immigration, that cause fear and uncertainty for many voters. If progressives promote economic policies that address the broader economic needs of working families, all polling shows that there is no majority for punitive measures against undocumented immigrants. And given the rapid expansion of legal immigrants voting in US elections, including the doubling of the Latino electorate from 7.5 million voters in 2000 to an estimated 14 million voters in 2008, there is no political leadership future for politicians who promote punitive policies against new immigrants and alienate this growing bloc of voters.
Smart State Policy to Deflect Anti-Immigrant Attacks: Progressive leaders need to promote policies that will highlight that those leading the anti-immigrant charge are actually against the interests of working families of all races and immigrant status. Key progressive immigration strategies include:
Strengthening Progressive Alliances and Finding New Conservative Allies on the Immigration Issue: Beyond individual policy options, advocates and elected leaders need to emphasize that the coalition in support of humane policies involving new immigrants is diverse and cuts into even many seemingly conservative communities. Elected leaders can build on traditional support from many African-American leaders to labor unions to forge alliances with forward-looking business leaders and religious leaders, including many evangelicals, who recognize that smart, humane immigration policies for our communities is a source of both moral and social strength.
Conclusion- Moral Immigration Politics is Smart Politics: As this strategy memo outlines, moral immigration politics are also smart politics in the long-term, since the present coalition for humane immigration policy is rapidly being joined by new citizens who are unlikely to forgive politicians who vote wrong in the coming legislative session. Ultimately, there is no political future for the politicians leading the drive to enact anti-immigrant laws, while those elected leaders who step up with intelligent, humane policies will be the long-term political winners of the current debate.
Executive Summary: Fighting the Anti-Immigrant Movement in
the States
Introduction- Changing the Narrative on Immigration
Politics in the States
Launching the State Immigration
Project
Making Immigration a Winning Issue: The Political Case
Against Anti-Immigrant Politics
In
the Short-term, No Need to Give in to Anti-immigrant
Politics
In
the Longer-Term, Anti-Immigrant Politics are Political
Suicide
The
California Precedent: How Anti-Immigrant Politics Marginalized the
Right
Using Smart State Policy to Deflect the Anti-Immigrant
Attack
Wage Enforcement as Immigration Policy
Why
Going After Wage Law Violators Matters
Increasing Immigrant Labor Rights to Undermine Employer
Lawbreaking
What
States are Doing to Enforce Wage Laws
Encouraging Immigrant Integration and
Naturalization
The
Need for Integration Policies
State Policies to Assist
Naturalization
Immigrants and Public Benefits
Citizens Lose Benefits under Bad Immigration
Policies
No
Savings from Benefit ID Rules
Positive Alternative State Policies on Public
Benefits
Voting Reform versus "Voter ID"
Attacks
Immigrant Outreach as Public Safety and Anti-Terror
Policy
Strengthening Progressive Alliances and Finding New
Conservative Allies on the Immigration Issues
Conclusion- Moral Immigration Politics is Smart
Politics
Appendix A: State Immigration Policy
Resources and Links
Broad Immigration Policy Resources
Voting and Naturalization Trends in Immigrant
Communities
Background on the Anti-Immigrant
Rightwing
Data Resources: Demographics and
Economics
Wage
Enforcement as Immigration Policy
Anti-Sweatshop Procurement Policies
Problems with E-Verify Immigrant
Screening
Encouraging Immigrant Integration and
Naturalization
Immigrants and Public Benefits
Research on Taxes Paid and Benefits Used by Immigrant
Communities
Research on Effects of Benefit ID
Rules
Voting Reform versus "Voter ID"
Attacks
Research on Lack of Voter Fraud by
Immigrants
Immigrant Outreach as Public Safety and Anti-Terror
Policy
Community Policing and Immigrant
Communities
Domestic Violence in Immigrant
Communities
Appendix B: Pro-Immigrant Measures Available to
State or Local Governments
A QUICK MENU
OF AFFIRMATIVE IDEAS from the National
Immigration Law Center
During the 2006 and 2007
sessions, legislation dealing with immigration has been promoted and enacted in
many state legislatures across the country. And with the failure of
comprehensive immigration legislation at the federal level, immigration will
likely be even more of a dominant issue in the 2008 state legislative sessions.
Much of this legislation has taken the form of anti-immigrant legislation, where even when the legislation has not passed, the attacks on immigrants has been a subtext undermining many state proposals in areas ranging from health care to voting rights, as the focus on excluding undocumented immigrants from participation has led to political deadlock.
Yet, often less emphasized by the media, state and local governments across the country have also enacted many programs that include immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, within public benefit programs, extend higher education to immigrants growing up in those states, and created a range of programs to better include new immigrants in the cultural life of those communities and bring new citizens more firmly into the democratic system of those states. These pro-immigrant policies include:
Yet despite the many positive pro-immigrant policies extended across the country, a false national narrative that anti-immigrant policies dominate state politics has emerged. The reality is that in the states, we are seeing a mix of both very positive policies favoring the integration of new immigrants, both legal and undocumented, into our communities along with the anti-immigrant policies that get so many of the headlines.
What this reflects is a country where elected leaders, like many voters, are unsure what to do on the immigration issue. More prosaically, it reflects a divide between some politicians thinking they can gain political advantage from directing disdain and even hatred towards a population perceived as lacking the political power to retaliate at the polls versus other elected leaders who recognize that Latino and other new immigrant voting populations are growing in almost every state and that anti-immigrant politics is long-term political suicide for any American political party or movement.
This strategy memo is part of Progressive States Network’s work in helping to develop a positive state immigration legislative program for the 2008 legislative calendar, build a coordinated network supporting the legislation, and create a national messaging strategy aimed to reinforce those state-level strategies. Working with a wide range of allied labor, civil rights, religious, and community organizations, Progressive States is launching the State Immigration Project to support state legislative leaders and advocates to challenge the rising anti-immigrant movement at the state level.
The goal of the State Immigration Project will be to defeat bad legislation and pass humane immigration legislation where possible, but also to create opportunities for hearings and associated positive media to highlight the positive contributions of immigrants to state economies and emphasize those issues that evoke the many positive feelings the public has about immigrants, a counterbalance to the negative "wedge" messaging of the anti-immigrant rightwing. The overall goal is to create a sustained pro-immigrant message in the states throughout 2008, using progressive legislative policies to keep a focus off the anti-immigrant alternatives.
For immigrant advocates, this involves a five-part strategy for the coming legislative sessions in the states and at the local level:
· Emphasize the political costs of anti-immigrant political positions and the long-term political gains from humane, inclusive immigration politics
· Stress the facts that counter anti-immigrant lies
· Promote policies that overcome anti-immigrant "wedge" politics and helps to unite progressive constituencies
· Emphasize the issues that divide even many conservative voters from anti-immigrant advocates
· Generate national messaging on the positive steps being taken by states on the immigration issue
Anti-immigrant advocates have the goal of dominating the media and political debate by pushing their policies aimed at heightening tensions and even hatred between various groups, so progressives need to emphasize the policies that unite most of the population to create an alternative media and political focus.
The first step is to firmly highlight the short- and long-term political costs of anti-immigrant positions by elected leaders. Advocates need to change any media narratives and conventional wisdom that the "smart" position for elected leaders is to attack undocumented immigrants.
The reality is that globalization is driving economic changes, including immigration, that cause fear and uncertainty for many voters. Given stagnating wages for most workers this decade and the low-wage conditions in which immigrants are often employed, this does create fears that new immigrants are undercutting living standards for native workers. When a recent Democracy Corps poll found that 70 percent of the public says the country is on the 'wrong track,' the poll found that this derived from feelings of "big business getting whatever they want in Washington, leaders forgetting the middle class, and America doing nothing about problems at home." Furthermore, a recent Wall Street Journal Poll on the eve of the 2007 legislative elections found that a majority of both Republican and Democratic voters felt that America's current globalization policies have been bad for American workers. When people feel economic fear and don't see anyone acting to help them, anger and scapegoating, as with some of the attacks on immigrants, is often the result. Especially when many leaders aren't offering a more general vision of demanding corporate accountability and standing up for the concerns of working families, that danger of scapegoating just increases.
Yet the public itself is divided and conflicted on immigration. Many voters do advocate beefed up border enforcement, but overwhelmingly support legalization and other measures to bring existing undocumented immigrants into mainstream American society. And while exact numbers change in different polls based on changes in the wording of the question -- a sign of the mixed feelings of voters on the issue -- there is no majority for the kind of anti-immigrant policies promoted by some rightwing forces. For example, a broad survey of polling by the Century Foundation and Center for American Progress found that the public was broadly divided on the costs and benefits from immigration, with many Americans holding deep respect for the hard work and aspirations of new immigrants. Despite claims that anti-immigrant politics would help elect conservative candidates in both 2006 and 2007, progressive candidates actually made gains in states across the country.
This means that there is no real national majority for punitive measures against undocumented immigrants. In a few states, especially those with less experience with older waves of immigration, there has been more visceral reactions around immigration, but the underlying poll numbers show that even in the short-term in such states, an intelligent, progressive response by elected leaders that addresses underlying economic and social fears is a better response than political scapegoating.
While some rightwing politicians see appeals to xenophobia as a smart political strategy, the reality is that Latino citizens are one of the fastest growing demographics-- and a traditional swing vote in elections. Part of the reason for progressive victories in 2006 was a backlash by Latino voters (see also here) against what they saw as anti-immigrant conservative politicians.
Advocates need to highlight these longer term trends. While most focus
has been on the millions of undocumented immigrants, much ignored are the
estimated eight million legal immigrants who are now being mobilized to apply
for citizenship. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed
Officials Educational Fund (NALEO) organized the ya
es
hora ¡Ciudadania! (It's About Time - Citizenship!)
campaign coordinated by national organizations, community groups, unions such as
SEIU, and media partners like Univision to motivate eligible permanent residents
to apply for citizenship. The results of this effort to draw more Hispanics into
the
Citizenship applications doubled in 2007 in areas where the campaign was
launched and have increased 65% across the country (and
over 110% in
Advocates need to point to California where conservative politicians controlled both legislative chambers and the governorship in the mid-90s only to see a Latino backlash against the anti-immigrant Proposition 187 drive massive electoral mobilization and the progressive takeover of the state legislature within a couple of years. Nearly 600,000 Latinos naturalized between 1990 and 1999
Traditionally, Latino citizens have voted at far lower rates than eligible whites,
but that appears to be changing as such potential voters are being mobilized to
vote, just as Latino (and other immigrant) voting spiked in California in the mid-90s
after the anti-immigrant Prop 187 was passed in that state. A key to the
progressive victories in
Before Prop 187 passed, former Congressman and 1996 GOP Vice-Presidential nominee Jack Kemp had warned his party that the party was about to repeat past mistakes, mistakes that alienated ethnic whites for generations with earlier anti-immigrant policies and lost the African-American vote by turning away from civil rights. We need to highlight the prophetic voice of humane conservatives who highlighted the dead-end future for anti-immigrant politics in a country of increasing turnout by new citizens. Similarly, progressive leaders need to be warned that they could lose a historic political opportunity to consolidate a governing majority in the future if they ape the anti-immigrant politics out of s