Greg Siskind on Immigration Law and Policy

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy health 2012! Let's hope for a year of progress on immigration.

Obama Enjoys Big Edge With Hispanics (if They Bother to Vote)

Pew's latest figures are reported by the Washington Post. Long story short - Obama is polling against Romney at 68%-23%, roughly the same number he had in 2008 against McCain. That's probably not because Latinos think the President is doing a great job. It just shows that Romney (and the rest of the GOP candidates) are so far out in looneyland on immigration issues that they've become totally unacceptable. The biggest danger Obama has is the lack of enthusiasm in the Hispanic community. Polling well with Hispanics won't matter so much if they don't get out to the polls next November. The President can hope that growth in the overall number of Hispanic citizens over the four years between elections (probably several million) will make up for a drop in the percent turning out. But it's a gamble and he's going to likely spend 2012 making the case that he is not as much of a disappointment on immigration as many think.

Judge Blocks Sections of South Carolina Law

Just as has been the case for similar measures in other states, South Carolina's harsh new immigration law has been unable to withstand a challenge in the courts. From The New American:

A judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina issued a preliminary
injunction on December 22 against key provisions of the South Carolina immigration statute. The plaintiffs in the  case include a group of civil rights organizations and the United States Department of Justice.

Of the 20 sections of the South Carolina law, four of them were challenged and are now blocked from
enforcement. These four include provisions which that state criminal sanctions for: “harboring and
transporting of unlawfully present persons”; “failure to carry alien registration materials”; “the
creation of fraudulent identification documents”; and the directive to state and local law
enforcement officials to “determine the immigration status of certain persons encountered in
routine traffic stops and other contacts in which there is a ‘reasonable suspicion’ that the person
may be in the United States unlawfully.”

The civil rights groups challenging the law argue that enforcement of the law requires de facto
racial profiling. The Justice Department argues that the Constitution places all power over the
establishment of immigration policy in the hands of the federal government and that the legislature
of South Carolina is thus preempted from passing legislation in that area of the law.

The argument is that once the feds have “occupied the field,” of this or that area of the law or policy, then no other government (state or local) may trespass therein.

 

 

Perry Brings Sheriff Joe to Iowa

Can you say DESPERATION?

Sheriff Joe Sued for Shackling Pregnant Woman in Labor

A bad week gets worse for the Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff. And usually Joe is a leader in his over-the-top antics. But this time he's just a follower. Hat tip to Haim for the tip.

NFAP: Immigrants Behind Half of Venture Funded Start Ups

In case you think that those who say our restrictive immigration policies hurt America's ability to compete and generate good jobs are just spouting off unsubstantiated arguments, here is proof that they're right. From the Wall Street Journal:

Immigrants have started nearly half of America’s 50 top venture-funded companies and are key members of management or product development teams in almost 75 percent of those companies.

Those are the results of a new study by the National Foundation for American Policy, which cites the numbers in calling for changes to immigration policy to make it easier for immigrant entrepreneurs to come to the United States and begin building companies.

Using the “Next Big Thing” list of Top 50 venture-funded companies published in March 2011 in The Wall Street Journal and compiled by research firm VentureSource, a unit of Journal owner News Corp., the research finds that 46 percent, or 23 out of 50, of the country’s top venture-funded companies had at least one immigrant founder.

The research also found that 37 of the top 50 companies, or 74 percent, had at least one immigrant helping the company grow and innovate by filling a key management or product development position. Chief technology officer, chief executive and vice president of engineering are the most common positions held by immigrants in the top 50 venture-backed companies.

The NFAP report notes that legislation is needed to ensure we continue to attract these business superstars. Unfortunately, we have a dysfunctional Congress where most members probably agree that we need changes to attract entrepreneurs but are so cowed by a tiny minority of antis that they're afraid to make even modest changes, much less do anything bold.

Negotiations with Grassley Over Priority Date Bill Falter

Readers of this blog have been having a feisty debate over HR 3012 in the comments and I'm sure this news will reignite the conversation. As many of you know, Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) has placed a hold on 3012. A hold is not fatal, but it definitely slows the process down and makes it a lot harder to pass a bill. Several supporters of HR 3012 were negotiating with Senator Grassley to try and get him to back down. Not surprisingly, Senator Grassley wanted several things in return and they proved just too much. For one, he wanted the provision that raised per country family category limits to 15% dropped. He then wanted to re-establish a per country limit in the employment-based categories to 15%. Beyond that, he wanted to kill the green card lottery with no reallocation of those green card numbers (in other words, just shrink the overall green card numbers by 55,000 per year) and, finally, to include the infamous Durbin-Grassley-Sanders H-1B amendment which would impose massive fees on H-1B applications and make the H-1B process closely resemble the PERM labor certification process. I'll report more as I learn more. 

DOJ Issues Scathing Report on Sheriff Joe

The hammer has fallen. From the Washington Post:

A scathing U.S. Justice Department report released Thursday found that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a “systematic disregard” for the Constitution amid a series of immigration crackdowns that have turned the lawman into a prominent national political figure.

*****

The government found that Arpaio’s office committed a wide range of civil rights violations against Latinos, including unjust immigration patrols and jail policies that deprive prisoners of basic Constitutional rights.

The Justice Department’s expert on measuring racial profiling found the sheriff’s office to be the most egregious case of profiling in the nation that he has seen or reviewed in professional literature, said Thomas Perez, who heads the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

“We found discriminatory policing that was deeply rooted in the culture of the department, a culture that breeds a systematic disregard for basic constitutional protections,” Perez said.

In response to the report, the Department of Homeland Security announced that would sever ties with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and that Arpaio's jail officials will lose their federal authority to check the immigration status of inmates in county jails.

Study Shows Immigration Raises Wages for American Workers

From the Washington Post:

Economist Giovanni Peri has found that an influx of immigrants doesn’t increase the poverty rate by depressing the wages of low-income, native-born Americans and can actually decrease poverty when higher-skilled immigrants enter the workforce.

Peri, a professor at the University of California-Davis, looked at the economic impact of immigration in the United States on wages, then examined whether there was any correlation with the rise in U.S. poverty from 2000-2009. Here are his findings in a new working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research:

There is essentially no effect of immigration on native poverty at the national level. At the local level, only considering the most extreme estimates and only in some localities, we find non-trivial effects of immigration on poverty. In general, however, even the local effects of immigration bear very little correlation with the observed changes in poverty rates and they explain a negligible fraction of them.

Republican Wishful Thinking Regarding Hispanics Not Coming True

Things are just getting worse for the GOP based on the latest polling data. President Obama has not exactly won over Hispanics, but he's in pretty good shape because of the overwhelming dread Hispanic voters feel when it comes to Republicans. NPR reports on the new poll:

The survey of 500 Latino registered voters found that Hispanics continue to lean toward President Obama and other Democratic candidates, and that they feel alienated by Republicans because of their general support for tougher immigration enforcement instead of a path to legal status.

Forty-six percent of Latino voters said Republicans "don't care too much" about Hispanics, and another 27 percent said they "are being hostile," the poll found.

And if Rubio received his party's vice presidential nomination, only 13 percent of Latinos said they would be "much more likely" to vote Republican. Eleven percent said they would be "somewhat more likely" to vote Republican. And 46 percent said it would "have no effect" on their decision.

The poll is still showing the President getting support, but it's soft and he has not sealed the deal. Hispanic voters could still simply stay home on election day.