From the Dispatch

New Resource on How to Respond to Arizona Copycat Bills

Suman Raghunathan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:18:28 -0400

To date, legislators in up to 22 states have expressed interest in introducing legislation based upon Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, despite a current federal court injunction barring implementation of many of its most draconian provisions.

Many anti-immigrant proposals have already failed this year in states across the nation including in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arkansas, and Kansas. Arizona's law is currently barred after a federal court decision. Yet even as the US Department of Justice continues to investigate SB 1070 for preempting federal immigration law and legal experts underline the law's unconstitutionality, anti-immigrant legislators and advocacy groups continue to attempt to bring similarly mean-spirited and regressive laws to other states.

A new briefing document, Fighting Back Against Copycat Immigration Laws Like Arizona's, prepared by Henry Fernandez of the Center for American Progress in close consultation with Progressive States Network; Immigration Policy Center; National Immigration Forum; Media Matters Action Network; and the Southern Poverty Law Center, provides a useful set of talking points and facts that outline how anti-immigrant proposals such as Arizona’s are misguided, unconstitutional, based upon fake data, and extremely expensive for states and localities. In addition to highlighting how advocates and state legislators can shift the immigration debate by introducing and advancing positive, pro-immigrant legislation, the briefing document is also designed to provide you with effective and well-researched arguments and talking points should an Arizona ‘copycat’ proposal come to your state.

Some additional resources to bolster the talking points, facts, and arguments outlined in the Center for American Progress memo include more on Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's anti-immigrant crusad e; how lawsuits against SB 1070 seek to maintain clear federal responsibility over immigration law; and more from PSN on how many anti-immigrant legislators falsely claimed crime rates in Arizona were soaring as the state's number of immigrant residents increased - thereby justifying the need for laws such as SB 1070.

States and legislators can provide a powerful counterpoint to anti-immigrant legislation by introducing legislation that provides solutions and expands opportunity for all residents, immigrant and native-born alike. Legislators can also join forces with other progressive elected officials to stand up against anti-immigrant politics and divisive rhetoric. Coalitions such as State Legislators for Progressive Immigration Policy, a dynamic and growing set of progressive elected officials from 32 states (affiliated with Progressive States Network), are calling for common-sense approaches to immigration policy via media briefings and introducing pro-immigrant legislation in states nationwide.

Progressive States Network encourages state legislators to support pro-immigrant policies and to join State Legislators for Progressive Immigration Policy (SLPIP) by signing on to our principles for Progressive Immigration Policy here.

Fremont, NE Considers Steep Property Tax Hike to Defend its Anti-Immigrant Law

Suman Raghunathan — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:18:28 -0400

Outlining just how costly it is for states and municipalities to be anti-immigrant, the City Council of Fremont, Nebraska is weighing a hefty 18% property tax hike to bankroll defending its controversial anti-immigrant local ordinance in court. The law was set to go into effect on July 31, but had been put on hold pending a lawsuit in federal court.

In June 2010, Fremont voters approved a local law that bars local landlords from renting to undocumented residents and also prohibits employers from hiring undocumented workers. The ordinance, the first and so far only successful anti-immigrant proposal to be approved in the wake of Arizona's infamous SB 1070, met with swift legal challenges from the ACLU of Nebraska and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and is currently being debated in federal court. In preparation, the town of 25,000 residents is aiming to raise roughly $750,000 to cover the legal fees to defend Fremont's anti-immigrant law - which have reportedly already been lowered by attorney and Kansas Secretary of State candidate Kris Kobach, who is the author of many state and local anti-immigrant bills and is affiliated with the controversial Immigration Reform Law Institute and its parent organization, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

As PSN has discussed in previous Dispatches, anti-immigrant laws at the state and local level have largely been struck down by the federal courts, which generally find these proposals to be unconstitutional. Arizona's SB 1070, by far the most sweeping and draconian anti-immigrant state law, made it a state crime to be undocumented; required all state and local law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of individuals they believed were undocumented, ; prohibited individuals from seeking work on the street; and made it a crime to aid or transport undocumented immigrants in the state. Most of SB 1070's most troubling components, which effectively pre-empt the federal government's authority over immigration laws, were struck down in a federal court decision in late July. Many other similar local ordinances in relatively small towns were also struck down by the courts after protracted and costly legal battles. Hazelton, Pennsylvania's ordinance cost its taxpayers $2.4 million; the legal fees to defend Farmers Branch, Texas's anti-immigrant law cost its taxpayers $4 million; and Valley Park, Missouri's ordinance cost its taxpayers $270,000.

Georgia's Draconian Voter Verification System Passes Federal Muster

Cristina Francisco-McGuire — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:09:25 -0400

Two years of courtroom battles ended on Monday as Georgia received a green light from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to go ahead with its controversial voter verification system, a major step backward for the state. "It came as something of a shock," said Laughlin McDonald, the voting rights project director for the American Civil Liberties Union, which joined a lawsuit against the voter ID system.

DOJ itself has blocked the program in the past, calling it “a flawed system” that subjects a disproportionate number of minority voters to “additional and, more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote.” However, DOJ backpedaled once Georgia revised the system last week to only include first-time voter registration applicants; initially, first time voters as well as voters making technical changes to their driver’s licenses were affected by the program.

A Burdensome ID System: Georgia’s voter verification system checks voter registration information against drivers' license and Social Security databases – databases that are, according to voting rights groups, error-ridden. Voter registration procedures further require birth certificates and other documents as proof of citizenship, which many people, especially students, minorities, and the elderly, cannot readily access.

The flawed procedures were brought to light before the 2008 presidential election, when thousands of US citizens were erroneously flagged as non-citizens. After a coalition of voting rights groups sued the state on behalf of Jose Morales, a naturalized Latino citizen incorrectly purged from the voter rolls, the voter verification system was blocked until a Section 5 review could be completed. Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Georgia and other states with a history of discrimination are required to submit any changes in voting procedures to the DOJ or the US District Court in Washington DC for pre-clearance prior to implementation.

Fear of a Rightwing Supreme Court: The scope of Georgia’s now approved system is actually much broader than a proposed version that was rejected by DOJ in 2009, which would have only applied voter verification to first-time applicants who registered by mail and did not provide proper identification. Though DOJ has not issued a formal statement explaining its actions, Laughlin McDonald of the ACLU speculated that DOJ pre-cleared the program because Georgia's lawsuit specified that if the court found its system constitutional under the Voting Rights Act, then it should also rule all of Section 5 unconstitutional – people “were concerned what this [Supreme Court] would do if it was given an opportunity to rehear a case like this."

Resources

Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Justice Department approves Georgia voter verification system
ACLU - ACLU Intervenes in Georgia Voting Rights Act Challenge
Morales v. Handel - Letter from Civil Rights Division Acting Assistant Attorney General to Georgia Attorney General
Georgia v. Holder
NAACP Legal Defense Fund - Case: Georgia v. Holder
US Department of Justice - About Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act
Progressive States Network - Indiana Supreme Court Upholds Restrictive Voter ID Law
Progressive States Network - The New Voter Suppression and the Progressive Response

As Deportations Soar to Historic Levels Nationwide, Federal Immigration Officials Are Quietly Halting Deportations of Students

Suman Raghunathan — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 15:04:24 -0400

Amid a tightening circle of immigration enforcement by the federal government, officials are quietly halting deportations of some student activists organizing in favor of the federal DREAM Act.

In a rare glimpse of internal immigration policy priorities, the Obama Administration and Department of Homeland Security officials acknowledged over the weekend they have avoided pursuing deportation orders against many undocumented students across the nation who have not committed crimes – an immigration term called 'deferred action'. The acknowledgment comes as the number of deportations continues to reach unprecedented levels under the Obama Administration – nearly 390,000 immigrants were deported in 2009, roughly 20,000 more than in the final year of the Bush administration.

Many undocumented youth have been at the forefront of increasingly public actions calling for comprehensive immigration reform as well as the federal DREAM Act, a bill that would grant eventual legal status to undocumented high school graduates who meet a series of requirements, including being longtime US residents, entering the country before the age of 16, and enrolling in community college, a university, or the armed forces.

Deportation Data Released: These statistics come in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, where the Department of Homeland Security released data this week on the roughly 47,000 immigrants deported over the past 18 months through a controversial federal immigration enforcement program, Secure Communities. Similar to 287(g) agreements and Arizona's now temporarily suspended SB 1070, the program seeks to empower state and local law enforcement authorities to enforce federal immigration laws - an approach that PSN has detailed as ineffective, expensive, and one that erodes community trust in the police.

More specifically, Secure Communities seeks to establish agreements with state and local law enforcement authorities and departments to cross-reference all who are booked on suspicion of committing a crime through immigration databases in a search for undocumented residents. If it becomes clear through such a search that an individual apprehended by the police lacks valid immigration status, they are then transferred to federal immigration officials and often swiftly deported. Immigrant rights advocates have raised numerous concerns about due process violations of immigrants apprehended through the program. The effort, increasingly a focus of the Department of Homeland Security's immigration enforcement priorities, has been touted by officials as a targeted effort to focus on undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes and single them out for deportation. Secure Communities is also rapidly expanding: the program now operates in 494 jurisdictions in 27 states - a major expansion compared to only 14 jurisdictions just 18 months ago. Federal immigration officials plan on extending the program to every law enforcement jurisdiction nationwide by 2013.

Yet the data revealed via the FOIA request shows the program is in reality a broad immigration dragnet, and one that overwhelmingly sweeps up undocumented immigrants who have committed no crime at all: 79% of those already deported through the program committed no crime or committed only minor offenses such as unpaid tickets or driving with a broken taillight. 28% of those deported through the program had no criminal record at all and were not convicted of any crime, yet were still deported. In addition, jurisdictions that have entered into Secure Communities agreements find it difficult to rescind their participation: San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey noted he is attempting to withdraw his jurisdiction from their agreement, and has not yet been able to do so.

Federal DREAM Act Gaining Support: In the midst of this troubling data on deportations, it appears immigration officials are increasingly recognizing that students seeking college education should not be targets. As federal immigration reform (including the bipartisan DREAM Act) has lagged, DREAM Act lead sponsor Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL and the second-highest ranking Senate Democrat) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) called for a moratorium on deporting students. The Obama Administration and the Department of Homeland Security declined to impose such a moratorium even as they continued to call for passage of the DREAM Act. In the meantime, it appears the Department of Homeland Security is granting 'stays' of students' deportations on a case-by-case basis – yet are generally avoiding deporting student activists.

Wage Theft by Employers Surging in Wake of Arizona’s Anti-Immigrant Law, Even as Judge Blocks Implementation of Key Provisions

Suman Raghunathan — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:44:07 -0400

The Arizona Interfaith Alliance for Worker Justice, a worker center in Phoenix, has seen a “huge spike” in wage theft -- violations of minimum wage laws -- since the passage of SB 1070, Arizona’s anti-immigrant law. "Employers are even more brazen in their mistreatment of workers," said Executive Director Trina Zelle in an interview with In These Times. "Increasingly, 'Go ahead, try and make me pay you' is the response workers hear when they confront their employers over unpaid wages."

Workers' rights organizers report that the law's passage in April has already begun to drive immigrant workers even further underground, effectively silencing them in the face of rampant workplace rights violations. The irony is that this makes undocumented immigrants an even more attractive workforce for unscrupulous employers, who know they can illegally underpay them without fear of those employees reporting them or taking them to court. “If we ever hope to bring immigrant workers out of the shadows in which they’ve been laboring,” says Kim Bobo, Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, “we need to forcefully oppose anti-immigrant legislation and stand up for both comprehensive immigration reform and vigorous enforcement of the nation’s labor laws.”

Progressive States Network's model legislation for wage law enforcement outlines how wage enforcement campaigns can counter anti-immigrant rhetoric by raising wage standards for all workers and uniting native and immigrant communities to oppose unscrupulous employers.

Judge Strikes Down Worst Provisions of SB 1070: Yesterday, a federal judge struck down key provisions of SB 1070 as likely violating federal law or being unconstitutional, reinvigorating hope among immigrant communities that state anti-immigrant laws will fail to gain traction. Key provisions that were blocked include:

Requiring police officers to investigate the immigration status of individuals they stop who they suspect are undocumented;
Mandatory detention of individuals who are arrested if they cannot verify they are authorized to be in the U.S.;
Imposing state criminal penalties on non-citizens who fail to register with the Department of Homeland Security or failing to carry registration documents;
Warrantless arrests of individuals who are deemed by state or local police officers to be "removable" from the U.S.; and,
State statutes that make it a crime for alleged undocumented immigrants to work.

The initial court injunction will be followed by a full hearing to determine whether these provisions, as well as the law's other troubling components, will be permanently struck down. The ruling echoes numerous other legal decisions that struck down broad state anti-immigrant laws - and should serve as a warning to other states that enacting copycat legislation similar to Arizona's will lead to costly legal proceedings and, as discussed above, only serve to empower unscrupulous employers to violate wage laws.

Resources:
Working In These Times - ‘Go Ahead, Try and Make Me Pay You’: Wage Theft and SB 1070
Progressive States Network - Promoting Wage Law Enforcement Policies in 2010
Interfaith Worker Justice - Thou Shalt Not Steal - A Toolkit on Wage Theft
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) - Court Blocks Implementation of Key Sections of Arizona's Racial Profiling Law
National Employment Law Project (NELP) - Enforcement of Workplace Standards

Anti-immigrant Proposals Continue to Fail in Wake of Arizona’s Law

Suman Raghunathan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:05:36 -0400

In the wake of the April 2010 passage of Arizona’s draconian and misguided anti-immigrant state law, SB 1070, which would give local governments responsibility to enforce federal immigration law, media coverage has focused on the many states, elected officials, and candidates who have voiced their support for similar anti-immigrant legislation. Despite the disturbing situation in Arizona, however, what is increasingly becoming clear is that anti-immigrant policies and initiatives are failing across the country in the wake of SB 1070’s passage, underlining Arizona’s anti-immigrant approach as an outlier.

As this Dispatch will detail, after considerable media hype about Arizona-style bills sweeping across the nation, the reality is that from from Nevada to Arkansas to Massachusetts to Kansas and Rhode Island, anti-immigrant bills and ballot initiatives largely didn't move or failed to make this fall's ballot. A key reason: most state leaders and police chiefs recognize that requiring local governments to assume immigration enforcement responsibilities from the federal government will distract them from fighting violent crime and undermine trust with local residents that are essential to successful community policing.

Table of Contents:

- A Trend of Failed Anti-Immigrant Proposals

- Anti-Immigrant Laws Increase Crime and Hamper Community Policing Efforts

- Lawsuits Against AZ SB 1070 Seek to Maintain Clear Federal Responsibility for Immigration Law

A Trend of Failed Anti-Immigrant Proposals

In the wake of AZ SB 1070’s passage in late April, a far right network of groups and legislators announced plans to move bills in state around the country. But the list of states rejecting those bills continues to grow and efforts to get anti-immigrant proposals on the ballot continue to fail.

Ballot Initiatives Fail in Nevada and Arkansas: The latest state to join this list is Nevada, where Assemblyman Chad Christensen’s effort to gather signatures for an anti-immigrant ballot initiative similar to Arizona’s recently faltered in the face of a lawsuit. Christensen’s effort was challenged by the Nevada Open For Business Coalition, a group that includes State Assemblymen Mo Denis and Ruben Kihuen as well as the Nevada Resort Association, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, and the NAACP. The coalition is also working with the Las Vegas Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The delay caused by the Coalition's multiple legal challenges caused Christensen, who recently lost a June 8 US Senate Primary, to drop his petition rather than attempt to get his broad anti-immigrant proposal on the ballot.

In Arkansas, the anti-immigrant group Secure Arkansas also failed to get its anti-immigrant proposal (which simply re-iterated existing federal law by seeking to bar undocumented immigrants over the age of 14 from receiving public assistance) on the November 2010 ballot. Secretary of State Charlie Daniels rejected the group’s petition after finding they were nearly 10,000 signatures below the minimum required to appear on the ballot.

Anti-Immigrant Legislation Defeated or Blocked in Multiple States: In both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, state leadership refused to allow anti-immigrant legislation to gain traction. In Massachusetts, twenty-seven pages of anti-immigrant budget amendments that resembled Arizona's SB1070 was shot down and ultimately approved as a final bill which simply restated existing federal bars on undocumented immigrants accessing public benefits, and included no new anti-immigrant provisions.

Rhode Island’s anti-immigrant bill, introduced by conservative Democrat State Representative Peter Palumbo, did not even receive a public hearing earlier this summer: the bill was ‘killed’ by House Speaker Gordon Fox, who voiced his opposition to the bill and reiterated that enforcing immigration laws remains the responsibility of the federal government.

And in Kansas, when a conservative legislator sought to attach an Arizona-style anti-immigrant amendment to the state budget, Kansas Representative Delia Garcia challenged its late introduction on procedural grounds and the Republican chair of the chamber's Rules Committee ruled the amendment out of order.

Most High-Immigration States Have Taken a Positive Approach to Integrate New Immigrants: As PSN detailed in a 2008 report, only 11% of undocumented immigrants live in states that have enacted comprehensive punitive anti-immigrant policies. Far more states promote positive integration policies and believe leaving immigration enforcement policy to the federal government is the best approach.

Resources
Colorlines - The Far-Right Movement Behind Arizona Copycat Bill
Progressive States Network - The Anti-Immigrant Movement that Failed: Positive Integration Policies by States Still Far Outweigh Punitive Policies
Progressive States Network - State Immigration Policy to Promote National Change

Anti-Immigrant Laws Increase Crime and Hamper Community Policing Efforts

One reason many leaders are rejecting Arizona-style anti-immigrant policies is the clear evidence that they undermine public safety. Police chiefs nationwide, including the chiefs of Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, New York, Phoenix, and Tucson, have consistently underlined their opposition to local enforcement of federal immigration law, citing the dramatic and negative impact these approaches have on community members’ willingness to cooperate with the police -- and predicted they will increase crime. Law enforcement leaders such as Salt Lake City Chief of Police Chris Burbank have voiced concerns that burdening them with enforcing federal immigration law will actually make communities less safe: witnesses will be less likely to assist police investigations for fear of disclosing their immigration status; women will fear reporting instances of domestic violence, and crimes will go unreported, affecting all residents' safety.

Recent evidence highlights this problem with anti-immigrant legislation.

More Immigrants Means Less Crime, Not More: Overall, states with high immigration levels have actually seen their crime levels decrease; updated FBI and law enforcement data debunk any connection between higher levels of immigration resulting in more crime. The Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that violent crime declined by 35% from 1994 to 2001 -- a period when the nation saw its undocumented population double. This precipitous drop in crime is part of a national trend, one echoed along the U.S.-Mexico border and in immigrant-heavy cities such as San Diego, El Paso, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami. In fact, even conservative groups found states with the steepest growth among their immigrant residents also report the lowest crime rates. In these 19 states, the total crime rate declined nearly 14% from 1999 to 2006.

Arizona Itself Shows Failure of Anti-Immigrant Approach: Evidence from Arizona highlights why local immigration enforcement is counterproductive to fighting crime. The FBI reports that violent crime has been falling in Arizona for years -- even as the state’s number of undocumented residents rose.

The glaring exception to this trend in Arizona is Maricopa County, which falls under the jurisdiction of its notorious Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Arpaio has devoted considerable (and often-scarce) law enforcement resources to apprehending undocumented residents county-wide. Arpaio’s insistence on apprehending otherwise law-abiding undocumented residents in high-profile (often televised) raids and routine stops of Latino drivers for immigration checks means the Sheriff’s Department has less time to focus on violent criminals and pursue felony warrants. The East Valley Tribune, an Arizona newspaper, won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for their multi-part series on the evolution and impact of Arpaio’s anti-immigrant pursuits.

Despite his ‘law and order’ rhetoric, Arpaio’s approach is a failed law enforcement strategy, and one that has apparently served to increase crime in his jurisdiction-contrary to state crime trends. Recent data from the Arizona Department of Public Safety and compiled by America’s Voice found the Maricopa County crime rate increased by 58% from 2002 to 2009, while the state as a whole saw an average 12% decrease in crime rates. Other Arizona localities that did not engage in broad raids and traffic stops saw their crime rates plunge during the same period: Phoenix enjoyed a 14% decrease in crime; Tempe saw a 26% decrease; and Mesa (Senator Pearce’s district) experienced a 31% decrease.

Misinformation from the Anti-Immigrant Right: Many anti-immigrant legislators and candidates have issued a steady drumbeat of misinformation that attempts to draw a connection between immigrants and crime. AZ Governor Jan Brewer, State Sen Russell Pearce, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and national anti-immigrant groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have attempted to justify and explain their efforts toward draconian state immigration legislation by claiming their proposals will make communities safer.

Yet even as Pearce and Brewer have, in fact, predicted that their state’s anti-immigrant measures will result in lower levels of crime throughout Arizona, evidence from Maricopa County shows that exporting Sheriff Joe Arpaio's brand of anti-immigrant policing will likely reverse the progress made in other parts of the state, imposing Maricopa's failed model on the the whole state.

Resources:
Immigration Policy Center - Arizona's Punishment Doesn't Fit the Crime: Studies Show Decrease in Arizona Crime Rates Over Time
Immigration Policy Center - New FBI data Confirms Falling Crime Rates in Arizona: Violent Crimes Are Down in the State's Three Largest Cities
America's Voice - Arizona Immigration Law Could Lead to Surge in Violent Crime
America's Voice - Fact Sheet: Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Notorious Record
East Valley Tribune - Reasonable Doubt Series
Washington Post - US Police Chiefs Say Arizona Immigration Law Will Increase Crime
Americas Majority Foundation - Immigration and Wealth of States

Lawsuits Against AZ SB 1070 Seek to Maintain Clear Federal Responsibility for Immigration Law

As the evidence increasingly points to how local police and sheriffs enforcing immigration law undermines community policing and increases crime rates, it becomes even clearer why the nation has traditionally kept responsibility for enforcing immigration law in the hands of federal officials. But as PSN has detailed before, Arizona’s law, unprecedented in its scope if it is implemented, would land immigration enforcement (a federal responsibility) squarely in the hands of state government.

This blurring of immigration enforcement roles between federal and state officials has already been legally challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice and at least seven prominent national civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and these civil rights groups have filed lawsuits against Arizona’s law which is scheduled to take effect on July 29 if a federal court does not impose an injunction.

Arizona's Law Undermines Federalism and Threatens Racial Profiling: SB 1070’s scope is unprecedented, misguided, and likely unconstitutional: the law not only makes it a crime to lack immigration status, but also allows state and local law enforcement to demand proof of citizenship or immigration status from anyone they believe has ‘reasonable suspicion’ of being undocumented. Apart from greenlighting racial profiling, Arizona’s approach is widely perceived by legal experts as unconstitutional because it requires the state to take on enforcing federal immigration law.

A federal judge heard arguments outlining seven civil rights groups’ opposition to Arizona’s anti-immigrant law on July 22. These groups are asking for a preliminary injunction to freeze implementation of the law, which is scheduled to go into effect on July 29^th.

The lawsuit’s central legal argument (one echoed by the US Department of Justice’s own lawsuit challenging SB 1070) is the law seeks to pre-empt the federal government’s jurisdiction over enforcing federal immigration law, and that it allows the state too much power to enforce immigration law. Finally, the groups’ lawsuit states that implementing the law would cause considerable harm to Arizona residents as a whole. State legislators, immigrant rights advocates, and responsible law enforcement professionals will be hoping the federal courts agree.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - Arizona and the Nation: A Failed State Versus Positive Approaches to Immigrant Integration
Progressive States Network - Arizona Jeopardizes its Economic Future As it Contemplates Passing Anti-Immigrant Law
National Immigration Law Center - NILC and Civil Rights Groups Ask Court to Block Implementation of Arizona Law
American Civil Liberties Union Immigrant Rights Project - Friendly House et.al vs. Halliday et. al: Arizona's Racial Profiling Law
Immigration Policy Center - The Impact of SB 1070: Usurping the Federal Government's Ability to Set Clear Enforcement Priorities
Immigration Policy Center - The Legal Challenges and Economic Realities of Arizona's SB 1070
Progressive States Network - Polling, The Arizona Law, and Majority Support for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Progressive States Network - Press Call: State Legislators for Progressive Immigration Policy

Indiana Supreme Court Upholds Restrictive Voter ID Law

Cristina Francisco-McGuire — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:37:48 -0400

In a disappointing turn of events, Indiana’s Supreme Court ruled 4-1 in favor of the state’s voter ID law, overturning last year’s decision by the Indiana Court of Appeals that deemed voter ID requirements unconstitutional partly because it treated those casting absentee ballots differently from those at voting booths. But in the end, the Indiana Supreme Court majority opinion stated, “It is within the power of the legislature to require voters to identify themselves at the polls using a photo ID.”

Disenfranchising Voters: While most states allow non-photo identification to establish identity, such as utility bills, payroll checks, or other government documents, Indiana only accepts photo ID’s issued by the state or federal government. Though the state allows those without ID’s to vote on provisional ballots, their votes are only counted if they are able to present proper ID within ten days.

The problem is that, while most Americans have government-issued ID’s, studies show that 6-10% of eligible voters don’t have a state-issued driver’s license or ID card, which amounts to potentially disenfranchising as many as 20 million people nationwide who are disproportionately poor, urban, non-white, and elderly.

The American Association of People with Disabilities further estimates that more than three million people with disabilities similarly do not possess state-issued photo ID.
Some US citizens – such as Native Americans born on reservations, and elderly African Americans born in the South under the care of midwives – were never issued birth certificates in the first place, a major roadblock to obtaining a state-issued photo ID.
Victims of natural disasters, such as Katrina, may also have had their original birth certificates destroyed.

A De Facto Poll Tax: In all cases, replacing these documents can be expensive and time-consuming – a new birth certificate can cost more than $40, while a new passport costs $97. Replacement citizenship documents for naturalized Americans costs $220. De facto poll tax aside, processing these requests can take as long as a year – during which time an otherwise eligible voter cannot vote.

And photo IDs don’t always reflect current information. Surveys show that only 48% of voting-age women with ready access to their birth certificates have a certificate with their current legal name, while only 66% of voting-age women with access to any proof of citizenship have a document with their current legal name. 10% of all voting-age citizens have a photo ID that does not reflect their current address and current legal name. Among those aged 18-24, the percentage increases to 18%.

The burden of voter ID laws is real, and suppresses the vote of a demographic that is overwhelmingly poor, urban, non-white, and elderly. The decision of Indiana’s Supreme Court will only serve to further disenfranchise an already-disenfranchised population.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - Voter ID Law Struck Down by Indiana Appellate Court
Demos Briefing Paper Series: Challenges to Fair Elections - Issue: Voter ID/proof of citizenship requirements for voting and registration
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - Survey Indicates House Bill Could Deny Voting Rights to Millions of U.S. Citizens
NAACP Legal Defense Fund - Restrictive Voter Identification Laws: A Barrier to the Ballot Box for Eligible Voters
The Brennan Center for Justice - Citizens Without Proof: A Survey of Americans’ Possession of Documentary Proof of Citizenship and Photo Identification
League of Women Voters v. Rokita

Anti-Immigrant Amendments Fail in Massachusetts State Legislature

PSN — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 11:35:03 -0400

Yet another set of anti-immigrant proposals, this time offered as last-minute amendments to a Massachusetts state budget bill, failed to gain traction last week. Twenty-seven pages of draconian anti-immigrant amendments were reduced to text that simply re-states existing bars on undocumented residents applying for public benefits.

When originally approved on May 28^th, the amendment included a slew of anti-immigrant measures that sought to scapegoat undocumented immigrants and prohibit their access to work, shelter, education, and safety in the state. In response, the Student Immigrant Movement and other immigrant advocates organized the MassHope 2010 vigil outside of the State House to highlight the knee-jerk, anti-immigrant nature of the amendments. After 19 days of rallying, protesters celebrated victory.

Failed Anti-Immigrant Legislation Trend : This triumph of reason over politics means Massachusetts joins several other states where anti-immigrant policies have amounted to nothing more than flawed political opportunism and hot air.

Much of this noise emanates from states whose legislatures have already closed their 2010 sessions, making these promises to introduce legislation mirroring Arizona’s controversial recent immigration law, SB 1070, premature at best. Bills for the 2011 state legislative session will not be considered or voted upon for months, leaving their ultimate success or failure still unknown.
Several Governors, including Texas’ Rick Perry, have already declared their intention to veto broad anti-immigrant legislation based on Arizona’s heavily criticized SB 1070.
In other states such as Rhode Island, whose anti-immigrant bill was killed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives even before it received a hearing, support for anti-immigrant politics and rhetoric is simply not as broad as legislators may think.

As the White House attempts to revive efforts to overhaul federal immigration laws, public and voter support for comprehensive immigration reform remains strong. According to polls commissioned by the group America’s Voice, voters on either side of the partisan aisle want common-sense, federal immigration reform that reflects American values, welcomes immigrants and provides them a pathway to citizenship.

Resources:
Immigration Policy Center - The Legal Challenges and Economic Realities of Arizona's SB 1070
Progressive States Network - Arizona and the Nation: A Failing State Versus Positive Approaches to Immigrant Integration
Progressive States Network - Arizona “Copycat” Anti-Immigrant Bill Killed in Rhode Island Without Hearing
America’s Voice - Public Opinion on Immigration Reform

Rahul is a summer immigration policy intern at Progressive States Network and a Drum Major Institute Scholar.

Workplace Standards for Domestic Workers: Breakthrough NY Legislation Approved

Tim Judson — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:59:00 -0400

On June 1, the New York Senate put the state in position to be first in the nation to enact a Domestic Workers' Rights law (S2311) by a vote of 33-28. The New York Assembly led the way in June 2009 when it passed its own version of the bill (A1470). This groundbreaking legislation will extend core labor rights, from fair labor standards to paid sick days, to creating a framework for collective bargaining, to domestic workers. This will include those employed to work in a private home to perform housekeeping and/or to care for children, the infirm, or the elderly.

The two versions of the law must be reconciled, as the Senate bill goes much farther in extending basic labor standards, but Gov. David Paterson pledged last year that he would sign the bill. A campaign to pass similar domestic workers legislation is also active in California.

Justice Seventy Years Delayed: Seventy years after passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), domestic workers like agricultural workers are still denied many basic labor protections under federal law such as overtime pay and the ability to join a union. That omission was an extension of the country's entrenched history of discrimination, particularly in the pre-Civil Rights Act era: both farm and domestic workforces had long been dominated by African Americans.

In the 21^st Century, domestic workers remain one of the most exploited segments of the workforce, being comprised almost entirely of immigrant women: according to Domestic Workers' United, 99% are foreign born, 95% are people of color, and 93% are women. Until 1974, when the FLSA was amended to extend minimum wage coverage to them, domestic workers were not protected by any major federal labor law.

As California showed by passing the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, states can play a leading role in providing basic labor standards for workers abandoned by federal labor law. Just as the United Farm Workers elevated the plight of farmworkers to national attention beginning in the 1960s - and which resulted in passage of the California law - groups such as Domestic Workers United and the National Domestic Workers Alliance have just begun in the last decade to bring similar attention to promoting state and federal reforms on behalf of domestic workers.

Precedent-Setting Standards: Because of the challenging employer-employee relationship involved in domestic employment, the Senate law seeks to create a standard contract for all domestic workers specifying benefits that they are owed. The New York Assembly version has more limited but important benefits - guaranteeing a minimum wage law, prohibiting mandatory overtime, overtime pay, guaranteeing one day of rest per week, and directing the state's Labor Department to investigate a framework for providing employer-provided healthcare and collective bargaining - while the Senate version also provides for:

Paid time off, including six paid holidays, five vacation days, and seven paid sick days (with provision for holiday pay and increased overtime rate on holidays)
Two-weeks, written notice of termination, with violations subject to back-pay
Criminal penalties for violations, including misdemeanor penalties of up to $20,000 and one year in prison for first violations, and similar felony penalties for subsequent offenses
Enforcement either through civil action or prosecution by the Labor Department or Attorney General, with willful violations subject to fines equal to 25% of unpaid wages

A National Breakthrough on Paid Sick Days: Should the paid time off provisions of the Senate bill be included in the final version of the law, New York will be the first state in the country to establish paid time off as a basic labor standard, not just for domestic workers, but for any private-sector employees -- advancing basic labor standards that are common throughout the rest of the world but sorely lacking in the United States. The new law is especially significant for the movement to enact paid sick leave legislation, since it would also be the first time an entire industrial sector has acquired the right to take paid sick time off from work. The Domestic Workers' Rights bill has not met with organized opposition thus far, primarily because of the informal nature of domestic employment.

Arizona "Copycat" Anti-Immigrant Bill Killed in Rhode Island Without a Hearing

Suman Raghunathan — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:26:44 -0400

Immigrant and workers' rights advocates celebrated a victory in Rhode Island this week with the announcement that State Rep. Peter Palumbo's anti-immigrant bill, closely based on Arizona's widely criticized SB 1070, would not get a hearing. Palumbo, a conservative Democrat from Cranston, a community with many immigrant residents, was planning on holding a hearing on his bill this week. Rhode Island was the fourth state to introduce legislation based upon Arizona's anti-immigrant SB 1070 , the nation's most sweeping anti-immigrant law to date, which Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed at the end of April. Legislators in 18 states have announced they will introduce anti-immigrant legislation similar to the recently-passed law in Arizona, but introduction does not guarantee passage or committee consideration. Few states are likely to pass such a bill this year as most legislatures have already adjourned, and will reconvene in early 2011.

Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon Fox came out in opposition to Palumbo's bill, and decided to table it -- the proposal was drafted roughly ten days ago, just before the end of the state's legislative session. Fox noted enforcing immigration laws is a federal matter, and his announcement late Monday night came on the heels of large community mobilizations on the House of Representative floor against Palumbo and his bill. Though Fox denied his decision was informed by immigrant advocates mobilizing against the bill, his decision does seem linked to widespread protests against the bill.

As we explained in greater detail in previous Dispatches, Arizona's recent and misguided anti-immigrant law actively encourages racial profiling by requiring all state and local police officers to demand proof of immigration status from anyone they feel exhibits 'reasonable suspicion' of being undocumented. SB 1070 also makes it state crime to not have proof of legal immigration status at hand at all times.

Resources:
Immigration Policy Center: The Legal Challenges and Economic Realities of Arizona's SB 1070
Progressive States Network - Arizona and the Nation: A Failing State Versus Positive Approaches to Immigrant Integration
Progressive States Network - Arizona Risks Jeopardizing its Economic Future As it Contemplates Passing Anti-Immigrant Law