Arizona Legislation Ignores Causes of Immigration

Arizona solidified its status this week as the capital of anti-immigrant legislation.

On Monday the Arizona Senate approved a measure that requires local law enforcement to determine an individual's legal status if there is a reasonable suspicion that he or she is an unauthorized immigrant.

Opponents of the measure claim that it requires police to engage in racial profiling. A New York Times editorial said that the Arizona legislature had “stepped off the deep end of the immigration debate,” adding that the law would do little to reduce unauthorized immigration and would distract local law enforcement.

The bill was passed after months of legislative debate, fueled in recent weeks by the killing of respected Arizona rancher Robert Krentz. Krentz was shot in late March near the border along a well-known narcotics smuggling route.

No arrests have been made in the murder, but political bloggers and talk-show hosts pounced on the issue, calling on the government to “secure the border.” The resulting Arizona state measure is another in a decades-long series of immigration legislation focused almost exclusively on enforcement.

This enforcement-only approach to immigration is particularly popular during times of high unemployment, but it ignores the root causes of migration in immigrants' countries of origin: poverty and a lack of jobs.

The lion’s share (81%) of undocumented immigrants to the U.S. are from Latin America, particularly Mexico and Central America. Almost half (47%) of Mexicans live in poverty and 18% are mired in extreme poverty, unable to meet their basic food needs. Economic conditions in Central America are even harsher.

Given the conditions pushing immigrants from these countries and the opportunities in the U.S., walls have not been effective in keeping them out. Border enforcement increased exponentially during the 1980s and 1990s, but unauthorized immigration simultaneously reached historic levels. The push of Latin American poverty and the pull of U.S. jobs trumps the billions spent on the border.

Border militarization has also inadvertently increased the amount of immigrants settling in the U.S. Until the 1980s immigration from Mexico was often circular, with migrants working for a period of time in the U.S. and returning to their homes with their savings for the rest of the year.

But as increased enforcement raised the costs of multiple border crossings, migrants have chosen to settle in the U.S. – and call for their family members to join them. Although the border has been ineffective in keeping out immigrants, it has been successful in locking them in.

There are now about 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. Given the lack of opportunities for education and job growth, one in five (21%) unauthorized immigrant adults and one in three (33%) children of unauthorized immigrants – 73% of whom are U.S. citizens – live in poverty. In both cases these poverty rates are more than double the rates for those born in the U.S.

Although they are better off economically than in their home countries, immigrants in the U.S. face a mounting set of obstacles to their economic well-being and an increasing sense of being unwelcome.

The tragic killing in Arizona looks as if it will reinforce policies that criminalize immigrants in the U.S. while failing to address the root causes of migration both here and overseas.