A Tale of Justice, Need, and Anxiety - My Thoughts on Crossing Arizona

This week, we have our first non-Frontline documentary. You will notice as we go through the semester that many of the documentaries from sources aside from PBS will have a stronger point of view. Of course, you are always welcome to discuss any biases in your reflection papers and discussion comments. That being said, this may be one of my favorite documentaries that I have assigned this semester. I don't often work on immigration policy, but in Arizona we have all had some first-hand experience with this policy issue. In my opinion, Crossing Arizona highlights the diverse voices of individuals affected by immigration policy, many of whom often go unheard in our immigration policy debates.

You'll notice that the reading on immigration policy focused as much, if not more, on policies affecting legal immigrants, while the documentary focuses primarily on illegal or undocumented immigration across the U.S. Mexico border. Of course, both are intimately related. As we learned, not all immigrants are created equal when it comes to our immigration policies. One of the great points that this documentary makes is that human rights groups, anti-immigration groups, public servants, politicians, and residents of border communities all see the current immigration policies as problematic. Despite this, we have been unable to change our policies. As the law stands, we essentially pose a high risk of death to anyone who risks crossing the border, while simultaneously benefiting from the cheap labor of those who make it across. Certainly, this creates a lot of ethical questions and quandaries for people who live on the border and for our policymakers.

The documentary presents a question that is relevant for our readings this week. What are the possible unintended consequences of policies when we do not fully understand, or are afraid to acknowledge, the causes of problems? In this case, by not acknowledging our demand for cheap labor and our trade policies as push and pull factors affecting immigration, we have instead created "a solution" that does not solve the problem. If a 40 hour walk through the desert in 110 degree heat is not enough to keep people from crossing the border into Arizona, perhaps we need to re-think our understanding of immigration policy.

This documentary also highlights some of the topics we will be discussing next week when we talk about implementation. If you were paying attention at the beginning of the documentary, you may have noticed that the Border Patrol agent talked about policy changes that occurred in 1993 and 1994. If you remember, the readings discussed bills that were passed in 1990 and 1996. The policy change discussed in the documentary is a change in implementation or the carrying out of policies of the border patrol to stop immigration. This change locked down the easiest places through which immigrants could pass, filtering them through the most difficult terrain. I believe that Matt, who will be taking the reins and leading the class next week, will also discuss co-production, or citizen engagement in public service delivery. In this documentary we saw many examples of co-production from the samaritans providing water to the Minutemen camping out on the border. Normally, we think of co-production as a positive thing, but depending on your point of view, you may have seen some examples that made you uncomfortable.

So, what do you think? Did the documentary bring to light a point of view that you did not previously know about or understand? How do you think the various activists and public servants came across? Could you put yourself in "the shoes" of any of the individuals featured?

Immigration Policy

The chapter on immigration policy provides a good overview of the history of our policies toward immigration and the current status of our federal immigration laws. Immigration is an issue that has been on the systemic agenda of the United States since the mid-19th century. During times of recession, depression, war, or turmoil immigration policy is moved to the institutional agenda, often as a scapegoat for economic and security fears. Immigration policy has historically only been on either agenda at the federal level, but for the past 15 years, immigration policy has been placed on an even more active agenda in many state legislatures. For this reason, I decided to match immigration policy with the theoretical chapter on agenda-setting.

Despite the fact that immigration policy has been on the institutional agendas at both the state and federal-levels since at least September 11th, 2001, it may have surprised you that the core of our immigration policy was created by the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. The law has been modified by the 1990 Immigration Act and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, but many of the provisions set forth in 1965 are still active. Did this surprise you at all?

Another thing that may have surprised you from the reading is that we place preferences and restrictions on immigration that make it easier for some immigrants to come through legal channels than others. We have tended to give preference to European immigrants over other nationalities, skilled workers over unskilled workers, and the extremely wealthy over all others. Refugees and members of current immigrants' immediate families also receive preferences. Did any of these preferences surprise you or seem unfair?

Since the mid-1990s, we have increasingly been concerned with the problem of illegal or undocumented immigration. I think that this chapter gives a nice balanced overview of the concerns of those on both sides of the debate. It makes clear that increased immigration, particularly illegal or undocumented immigration, may cause problems such as straining the education and public health systems. It may also create benefits through contributions to  social security by young temporary immigrants and creating a supply for both extremely high and low-skilled jobs that Americans are either unwilling or unable to fill. Less obvious in the readings are the human rights concerns associated with a highly demanded underclass supply of labor. Certainly, immigration is a complex issue and one thing that both sides agree on is the need for reform.

One of the strongest parts of the chapter comes in the conclusion of the article. On page 420, Cochran et al. (2011) state:

The arguments over immigration often appear to be driven by anxieties that have nothing to do with immigrants. Immigration is easy to exploit as the cause of many of the nation's problems because immigrants are an easily identifiable and usually relatively powerless element of society. The nativist arguments resonate with people who fear what they do not know or understand. Those who suffer economic dislocation or fear poverty and crime find an easy target in immigrants. Immigrant rights groups often oversimplify the issues and see immigrants as victims in every effort to gain some control over the problems related to immigration. Most observers of immigration policy recognize that some regulation of the flow of immigration is desirable. How to achieve that regulation and how to ensure fairness and humane considerations are at the root of the controversies over immigration policies.

This paragraph perfectly illustrates the difficulty of passing compromise legislation on this issue. One side of the debate is driven by anxiety and the other by a sense of justice. The rational economic man we discussed last week is rarely seen on either side, and policies that appeal to rationality tend to be lobbied against by advocates and activists on both sides of the issue. It is no accident that the only immigration policies we have seen pass recently are highly partisan policies in states with legislatures dominated by a single political party; for example the anti-immigrant SB1070 and Act 2011-535 in Arizona and Alabama, and the pro-immigrant DREAM Act in CA. Of course, the Supreme Court will likely be asked to weigh in on the constitutionality of many of these propositions in the new future. What do you think about the authors' statement? Do you agree? Do you think any of the policies enacted by states will successfully address the problems associated with immigration? Will they ultimately be upheld by the Supreme Court? What policies do you think might help address the issues?