I remember a village had a meeting about their "immigrant problem" some years ago. An official from the old INS was on hand to hear what folks had to say. They told them the INS officer that they expected a roundup of "illegals" to begin immediately. He responded that they had told him where the Latinos were, but not the undocumented aliens.

A lot of immigrant-haters want race to be a stand-in for immigration legal status. Brown=Illegal in their calculus. But the courts have held the opposite to be true. Most Latinos in the U.S. are U.S. Citizens or Lawful Permanent Residents. This means that when the police encounters a person who is Latino, that person is much more likely to be here legally than to be here illegally. So, brown skin is actually a marker of lawful presence, not, as the bigots would have it, of illegality.

This is why ICE can't just roll through Hempstead and stop and question all the Latinos about their legal status.

Now a lot of the unbiased Hispanophobes tell me that "Legal" Latinos should have no objection to being singled out by ICE because of the color of their skin, being questioned about their very right to live here because of their accent, and having to produce evidence of legal status, even if they were born here. Of course, these are often the same folks who complain about having to have their shoes inspected before boarding a plane!

Here is the current list of articles in this series.

What is Immigration 101?

Immigration 101 Overview of the Immigration System

Immigration 101 Employment Based

Immigration 101 Family Based Immigration

Immigration 101 So what makes up a family

Immigration 101 History We need a new Ellis Island

Immigration 101 NonImmigrants

Immigration 101 Coming to the U.S.

Immigration 101 Stopping 'em at the border

Immigration 101 Don't Give Me Your Poor

Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 1

Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 2

Immigration 101 Keeping the Chinese Out Part 1

Immigration 101 The Chinese Exclusion Act Cases Part 2

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 1 Introduction

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 2 How employers evade the law

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 3 The impact of sanctions on immigrants

Immigration 101 Deportation

Immigration 101 Raids!

Immigration 101 ICE Storm-An on the ground look at raids

Immigration 101 Sept. 11 and immigration

Immigration 101 How the Sept. 11 Hijackers got into the United States

Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Pat 1

Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Part 2 Good Moral Character

Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Part 3 English

Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen-Part 4 What is an American?

Reading some of my previous posts, it may strike you that immigration law sometimes seems to conflict with rights protected under various parts of the Federal Constitution, most notably with the First Amendement. You would be right. The evolution of this conflict is seated in a profoundly hysterical reaction to immigration based on a primal racism.

For the first hundred or so years of American history, there were just about no Federal immigration laws. The country had declared its independence in part because King George III had allegedly interfered with immigration to America. More importantly the Constitution did not make allowances for any immigration laws other than setting up a uniform system for immigrants to apply to become citizens. This was important because under strict constructionist interpretation, if the Constitution did not ennumerate a power, then the Federal government does not have that power. In other words, drafting an immigration law would itself be illegal.

I sometimes ask my law students why, before the 1960s, so many Europeans came to the U.S., but so few Asians. I ususally get a round of answers over a wide territory. Most commonly though, students point to the greater distance from Asia to the U.S. than from Europe. I respond that while New York is closer to Europe, San Francisco is closer to China, and yet more European immigrants moved to California than Chinese after 1880.

Chinese were the first group of non-White immigrants to come to the United States from overseas in large numbers. They came to work the mines of California and to build the Transcontinental Rail Road. They were described by contemporary White pundits as the "Yellow Peril" and derided as a "Mongoloid Horde".

It was common for White commentators to speak of the the United States being overwhelmed by Chinese immigrants
but the numbers never bore out the fear mongering. In 1880 there were only 105,000 Chinese immigrant living in the U.S. Only about 2% of all immigrants in the second half of the 19th Century were from Asia, and only a fraction of those were Chinese. By contrast, there were single country immigrations that were overwhelming, but all were from Europe. So, for example, between 1840 and 1880, the same period as peak migration from China, more than 2.4 million Irish immigrated to the United States, a phenominal number given a total population in Ireland of only 8 million. Another million Irish would immigrate during the last twenty years of the 19th Century. 2.7 million Germans came to the U.S. from 1840 to 1880 with 2 million more coming from 1880 to 1900. Italy would generate one of the true floods of immigrants with 2 million coming in the first decade of the 20th Century. Even this number was exceeded by Immigrants from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire which sent 2.1 million immigrants from 1900 to 1910. So the Chinese were a small stream in the 19th Century river of immigration.

But they were different. They were a different color, spoke a non-Aryan language, and followed a "heathenish" religion. This was enough to inspire panic and prompt the country's first real immigration laws.

In 1882 the U.S. Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act which prohibitted most Chinese from immigrating to the U.S. It also created the first "green card". Chinese in the U.S. were only allowed to return from visits to their homeland if they possessed a document showing they had lived here legally. This "green card" was not required for Whites travelling back to Europe.

In the mid-1880s there were brutal mob attacks on embattled Chinese communites in the western U.S. Congress responded to terrorism against the Chinese by making the laws against the Chinese tougher.

A law was passed which prohibitted most Chinese from entering the U.S. even if they had the 19th Century version of a "green card". Chae Chan Ping was a native of China. He had lived and worked legally in the U.S. since 1875. In 1887 he decided to return to China for a visit. He obtained one of the "green cards" required under the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, but while he was away Congress passed a new law preventing just about all Chinese from returing. He was understandbly perplexed. He had played by the rules, obtained the card giving him permission to re-enter the U.S., and done everything according to law. He would never have undertaken his vacation home had he known the rules would change and he would be denied re-entry. And yet here he was, faced with the loss of everything he had spent more than a decade working for.

His case would establish the parameters for protecting immigrants under the law. The court's decision will be the subject of the next installment in this series.

Here is the current list of articles in this series.

What is Immigration 101?

Immigration 101 Overview of the Immigration System

Immigration 101 Employment Based

Immigration 101 Family Based Immigration

Immigration 101 So what makes up a family

Immigration 101 History We need a new Ellis Island

Immigration 101 NonImmigrants

Immigration 101 Coming to the U.S.

Immigration 101 Stopping 'em at the border

Immigration 101 Don't Give Me Your Poor

Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 1

Immigration 101 Free Speech Part 2

Immigration 101 Keeping the Chinese Out Part 1

Immigration 101 The Chinese Exclusion Act Cases Part 2

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 1 Introduction

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 2 How employers evade the law

Immigration 101 Employer Sanctions Part 3 The impact of sanctions on immigrants

Immigration 101 Deportation

Immigration 101 Raids!

Immigration 101 ICE Storm-An on the ground look at raids

Immigration 101 Sept. 11 and immigration

Immigration 101 How the Sept. 11 Hijackers got into the United States

Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Pat 1

Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Part 2 Good Moral Character

Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen Part 3 English

Immigration 101 Becoming a Citizen-Part 4 What is an American?

We need you if we are to have any chance of stopping this monster.

We ask you to contact your member of the Suffolk Legislature. If you click here, you will be taken to the web site of the Legislature. Just click on your the picture of your legislator and you will get contact info. We also ask all immigrant rights supporters to contact Legislators Browning, Barraga, and Mystal. These three are on the Consumer Protection Committee which will first hear the Bill. We also ask that everyone call Suffolk Presiding Officer Bill Linsay and urge him to oppose I.R. 1105.

The first, and perhaps best,chance to defeat the Bill is Thursday, Feb. 28 when it goes before the Consumer Protection Committee. Long Island Immigrant Alliance is calling on all organizations to participate in this hearing.

The full Legislature will hold a hearing on the Bill on March 4. A vote may come as early as March 18.

Here are recent blog entries on IR 1105, the newly introduced anti-immigrant bill now before the Suffolk Legislature.

Introduction to the Bill

Newsday calls Suffolk Bill pandering

Suffolk Life Slams Bill for its impact on business

How Suffolk Bill will lead to massive discrimination against Latinos and Asian Americans

Immigration crackdowns do not come cheap

Looking at the Suffolk lawmaking process

How the Suffolk Bill hurts workers

Suffolk Bill will wind up costing homeowners

Suffolk and the Country

Read the article and it will remind you of what happened on Long Island four months ago. ICE seems to have a dragnet out for Latinos, regardless of their immigration status. As we know from direct experience, being brown is enough to get a stop nowadays. Entire communities are put through the wringer in these chaotic raids.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/02/14/imraids_0214.html

Norman Eng from the New York Immigration Coalition told the audience that one of the great fallacies of the immigration debate is that we have done nothing to stop illegal immigration and that we just need to get tougher. He pointed out that there has been a massive expansion of immigration enforcement since the mid-1990s and entering the U.S. illegally has become so dangerous that 200-300 undocumented immigrants die each year in the attempt, but that the pull of jobs is so great that hundreds of thousands of people risk their lives and freedom each year to make the try.

The problem, he said, is that there is a real need for the labor, and a desperation to work, but no rational structure for putting employer and worker together legally. There are only 5,000 low skilled employment based immigrant visas available each year in an economy that uses three quarters of a million undocumented immigrants to perform agricultural work alone. As long as the demand for labor cannot be met legally, it will be met through the current cruel system.

The Long Island Immigrant Alliance and its member groups hope that giving Long Islanders real information will help them make informed judgements about the immigration issue and help to see the faces of their immigrant neighbors.

For more info on the campaign, click on the link below:

http://thenyic.org/templates/documentFinder.asp?did=813

Scroll to the bottom to get some great fact sheets to use in your community.

[Sorry guys, but I still can't figure out how to embed hyperlinks with this program]

The Federal government has documented that employer sanctions, by creating a fear of being penalized for hiring the undocumented, has led to widespread discrimination against Latinos and others who are legally eligible to work. The Suffolk proposal, by imposing new requirements on employers and by substantially increasing penalties, is likely to exacerbate the problem of discrimination.

It is extremely important for the legislature to examine the discriminatory impact the proposal is likely to have on legally-present, work eligible, Latinos, Asian Americans and others who might appear to potential employers to be foreigners. I am not talking about the potential impact of the bill on the undocumented, but rather on U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and other legally work authorized persons.

When Congress passed the original employer sanctions law back in 1986, it required that a study be done of the laws possible discriminatory impacts. Congress was correct in believing that employer sanctions would result in discrimination. Employer sanctions, while ostensively aimed at the undocumented, has led to extensive discrimination in hiring against employment authorized Latinos, Asian Americans and others who appear to be foreign born.

In the most comprehensive study of the impact of employer sanctions, the non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) of Congress conducted a three year long examination of the impact of the law on discrimination. When the employer sanctions legislation was passed, Congress mandated that GAO determine whether widespread discrimination has resulted solely from the law. [GAO Report to Congress Immigration Reform and the Question of Discrimination March 1990 at page 37] The GAO employed six different methodologies to answer this question, including a national employer survey, a hiring audit, a survey of job applicants in five cities, and an analysis of complaints with the Office of Special Counsel of the Justice Department.

Based on employer survey, the GAO concluded that employer sanctions had resulted in a widespread pattern of discrimination. [Id.] According to the report, [t]his pattern existed across a variety of industries in all areas of the Nation and among employers of various sizes. [Id.] The GAO went on to say that the other three methodologies named above further supported our widespread pattern determination. [Id.]

The most damning evidence came from the employers themselves. Employers were asked in a national survey if they had begun any of a several illegal discriminatory practices subsequent to the passage of the employer sanctions law. The GAO survey of a random sample of [American] employers show that an estimated 891,000 employers (19 percent) of the 4.6 million in the population surveyed reported beginning discriminatory practices because of the law. [Id. at page 38] These illegal practices included hiring only persons born in the United States (14.7%), not hiring persons who appeared to be foreign born or who had accents (6.6%), not hiring those with Puerto Rican Birth certificates (1.8%) or refusing to accept some valid work authorization documents issued by the INS while accepting others (13.0%). [Id. At pages 38, 39, and 120] Since these survey relied on employers to self-report discrimination, the actual level of discrimination may have been higher. [Id at page 129]

These discriminatory practices were not restricted to any one area of the country, but were particularly serious in areas of the U.S. with high concentrations of immigrants. In New York City, for example, 21% of employers began discriminatory practices after the passage of the employer sanctions law. [Id.]

The GAO also conducted a hiring audit in which pairs of testers (one Hispanic and one a non-Hispanic White) who were closely matched on those characteristics that might affect the hiring decision, applied for the same entry level jobs. The audit observed the hiring practices of 360 employers. [Id. At page 46] According to the GAO the hiring audit results show a high level of national origin discrimination. The hiring audit showed that the Hispanic testers were three times as likely to encounter unfavorable treatment when applying for jobs as were closely matched Anglos. [Id at page 47] Although the discrimination encountered during the hiring audit might not entirely be due to the employer sanctions provision, the GAO concluded that employer sanctions had exacerbated an already serious problem of national origin discrimination. [Id. At page 49]

The GAO found that employers, fearing penalties for violating the employer sanctions law, had adopted discriminatory practices due, in part, to a lack of understanding of the law itself, and difficulty in navigating the complex documentation allowing for unlawful employment. [Id. At page 60] Rather than risk penalties, employers decided to play it safe and not hire persons who appeared to be foreigners. Playing it safe led to massive illegal discrimination.

A 1989 report from the New York City Human Rights Commission based on a hiring audit backed up the conclusions reached by GAO when it found that the employer sanctions provision had resulted in widespread discrimination against those perceived to be immigrants in New York City. [Tarnishing the Golden Door The City of New York Commission on Human Rights, August 1989]

This massive discrimination promoted by the Federal employer sanctions law could be completely overshadowed by discrimation as a result of passage of the Suffolk bill. The Federal law mposed a system of warnings and fines. Suffolk, on the other hand, would impose the business death penalty for violations. Violation of the law could result in a loss of license for an offender, essentially closing the business down. What an incentive to discriminate!

DMI's immigration tool kit includes:

•  2007 Edition of "Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class with an updated executive summary and legislative analyses;

•  Talking points for explaining the middle-class stake in progressive immigration policy clearly and persuasively;

•  A discussion guide that facilitators can use to start a dialogue about immigration and the middle class;

•  A Spanish translation of the report's executive summary, talking points, and discussion questions;•  Op-eds, articles and testimony by DMI staff and others that cite this report;

•  An opportunity to join the discussion on the DMIBlog; 

•  Read archived blog posts about immigration;

•  Read and respond to profiles of the 2008 presidential candidates' positions on immigration.

Introduction
From the mass mobilizations of immigrants across the country, to Lou Dobbs' "broken borders" segment on his nightly TV show, and the impassioned debates in the halls of Congress, state legislatures, and city councils across the nation, immigration policy has leapt to the forefront of the national consciousness.

The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy contends that any debate over immigration policy must be connected to the larger conversation about America's squeezed middle class and those striving to attain a middle-class standard of living. Accordingly, DMI offers a lens through which to evaluate immigration policy that operates from the basic principle that immigration policy is sound only if it also helps to strengthen and expand America's middle class.

With that premise as our starting point, we wrote "Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class: 2007 Edition." First published in December 2005, "Principles" is now updated to reflect recent legislative proposals and a discussion of issues that have emerged as important. It is intended to serve as a guide for those who wish to advance a progressive immigration agenda that reflects the best interests of America's current and aspiring middle class. 

The report includes:

• A middle-class test which can be used to evaluate immigration legislation based on the interests of the current and aspiring middle class, as well as to formulate new policy;

• An in-depth discussion and analysis of the research that backs up the test, including studies on immigrants' economic contributions and their effect on jobs and wages for U.S. workers;

• Appendices that apply the test to specific pieces of legislation recently proposed by the U.S. Congress, giving each bill a grade based on its middle-class impact.

Read the Executive Summary In English; En Español 

Read legislative analyses of specific immigration bills
Comprehensive Enforcement & Immigration Reform Act, S 1438
The Secure America & Orderly Immigration Act Of 2005, S 1033
The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, HR 4437
Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, S 2611
The Secure Fence Act, HR 6061
Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform, S. Amdt. 1153 to S. 1348

Articles on immigration policy by DMI Staff
Pro-Immigrant Populism, The Nation
Immigration raid an 'economic dead end', Chicago Sun-Times
Labor Joins La Marcha, TomPaine.com
Dobbs the demagogue, NY Daily News
Bush's Half Measures, TomPaine.com
DMI Immigration testimony before the New York City Council
The Guest Worker Gamble, TomPaine.com
Look Here for Immigration Solutions, Newsday
Letter to the Editor: Illegals and Lost Wages, New York Sun
Beyond Guest Workers, TomPaine.com
Guest-Worker Caste System, TomPaine.com
DMI's Prepared Remarks, Congressional Staff Briefing on Immigration

Other articles discussing DMI's immigration perspective
Middle-class' immigration test, Bangor Daily News
Toward a Sensible Immigration Policy, The Nation
Worker Protections in Immigration Proposal Questioned, The New Standard
Family Apart as Immigration Debate Goes On, The Miami Herald
Immigrants Are Not The Enemy, The Working Life
Guest Workers: What To Do?, The Working Life
Reimagining Immigration, Tapped, the blog of American Prospect magazine
Dealing with Immigration: Increase Immigrant Rights, TPMCafe
Underclass of workers is W's idea of reform, NY Daily News

Read DMI IMMIGRATION AND THE MIDDLE CLASS TOOLKIT in its entirety

Additional Report Analysis and Citations of this Report in the Press
U.S. Senate Proposed 'Grand Bargain' for Immigration Reform Receives Poor Review From Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, DMI
]]> http://www.longislandwins.com/immigration_facts/reports/dmi_immigration.php http://www.longislandwins.com/immigration_facts/reports/dmi_immigration.php Reports Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:52:15 -0500 Demographics - Long Island
• An overwhelming majority of Long Island Hispanics are in the US legally. Nearly 85% of Hispanics in Nassau and Suffolk County are US citizens or have legal status.
• Hispanics are fueling Long Island’s growth - the largely immigrant Long Island Hispanic population now accounts for 12% of the region’s population. There are roughly 300,000 Hispanics on Long Island, signaling a vibrant and growing community.

Hispanic Entrepreneurs: Powering Long Island’s economy
• Long Island’s Hispanic entrepreneurs are thriving, helping the region’s economy remain vibrant. Hispanic-owned businesses in the region grew by over a third between 1997 and 2002; their total sales and receipts jumped by over 20%. Suffolk County saw an even greater jump in the number of its Hispanic-owned businesses, which went up by 50%.
• The region’s Hispanic-owned businesses are sustaining growth and creating jobs for all Long Islanders. Hispanic-owned small businesses in Nassau and Suffolk County generated over $2 billion in sales in a five-year period, and accounted for an estimated 25,000 jobs.

Hispanic Taxpayers: A net positive for Long Island
• Hispanics contribute more than they take from Long Island’s tax base. Long Island’s Hispanics taxpayers contribute an average of $614 more per person annually than they receive in local public services such as education and healthcare.
• Long Island depends on Hispanic tax contributions. In 2004 alone, Hispanics chipped in about $925 million in tax revenues and government fees.
• Long Island tax coffers benefit substantially from Hispanic taxpayers. As a whole, Hispanics pay $202 million more each year into local tax coffers than they use in local services such as schools, health care, and corrections facilities.

Hispanic workers: Crucial to Long Island industries
• Long Island’s Hispanics work hard, and are often more likely to be employed than other Long Islanders. Across the board, Hispanic men and women in both counties are more likely to be working than their fellow Long Islanders.
• Long Island’s Hispanics are increasingly important members of the region’s workforce. The number of Hispanic workers jumped by nearly a third from 2000-2004 alone - a period when the total number of Long Island workers increased by less than 1%.
• Hispanic workers put food on Long Island’s tables and restaurants, tend to the sick and aging, and produce consumer goods. Immigrant workers play key roles in local industries such as manufacturing, health services and home care, and food service.

Hispanic consumers: Generating economic activity and jobs for all Long Islanders
• Hispanics are important consumers on Long Island, and directly create jobs for all Long Islanders. Long Island gained over 50,000 jobs from Hispanic buying power.
• Long Island’s Hispanic consumers alone contributed $5.69 billion to the regional economy in 2004.

(Source: “The Economic Impact of the Hispanic Population on Long Island, New York” Horace Hagedorn Foundation, 2007.