The GOP and Immigration

Interesting article in today's New York Times on GOP positions on immigrants:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/us/politics/tough-stance-on-immigrants-questioned-by-some-in-gop.html?_r=1&hp -- perhaps they are realizing they are alienating a large and growing proportion of the electorate? 

I have given a few talks on immigration policy in the last few weeks, and it is clear that comprehensive immigration reform is the logical way forward.  We need to look at the fact that we have 10-12 million undocumented immigrants as an important issue.  Why wouldn't we want to be able to document and track these people? (except for the fact that they provide cheap labor, etc...)  It's time to start changing the discourses around our broken immigration system and look at why we need to provide more visas. The situation in Alabama is a clear indicator of the problems inherent with our current situation.  Situations where families have children who are citizens and yet have to live in the shadows, or legal immigrants fear harassment.  We can and should do better.

Muslim integration issues -- from the New York Times

Today's column by John Vinocur raises several important points -- in the broader context of the Euro crisis, European politicians have chosen to avoid the issue of Muslim immigrants and immigrant integration:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/world/europe/18iht-politicus18.html?pagewanted=1&ref=europe.  Vinocur references to two recent studies, one by Gilles Keppel in France and the other by German researchers, examining issues related to Muslim integration.  These are important issues, and despite the urgency of the Euro crisis, it will be interesting to see if and how these issues play out politically, particularly with the upcoming French presidential elections.

On the Euro Crisis

Although this blog is focused on immigration, I have been following the crisis in Europe and will also start sharing some of my thoughts on this issue.  As I tell my students on a regular basis, what happens in the next few months will have ramifications for European integration, global markets, and Transatlantic politics for the foreseeble future. Europe is in the process of dragging the U.S. and other parts of the world into a double-dip recession.
After reading various analyses and following the economic and political manuevers over the last two years it has become clear to me that two underlying factors are important to unerstanding the current situation:

1) the political scene and type of political leadership has shifted dramatically since the passage of the Maastrich Treaty at the end of the 1990s.  This shift began with the election of mostly conservative governments in the early 2000s.  These leaders came to power at a time when voters were rejecting an EU constitution, and a backlash against immigration, multiculturalism, and issues about national identity were driving policy.  European integration was taking a backseat to a revival of nationalist sentiment, often embodied in the rise of far right politicians like Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen.  Parties like the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) embodied rising Euroskepticism.

It also doesn't help that the most important politician in this developing drama, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, has proven undecisive, and unwilling to take bold measures when needed.  She has left the situation for the IMF, ECB and European Commission to play out, dragging out the Greek default so they can prepare the ground for bailing out the banks that will be damaged.

2) A blind pursuit of integration in late 1990s and early 2000s led European leaders to ignore major warning signs from Greece, even before they joined the Euro.  Others have done a good job of chronicling this mess, and I recommend Michael Lewis' new book Boomerang (and the interview on Fresh Air).  Without any means of sanctioning governments who weren't meeting convergence criteria, the Eurozone left itself open to exactly the scenario we are seeing today, a country which will have to default because there was no fiscal discipline.  I do believe Greece will have to default and leave the Eurozone, but it will be a long drawn-out process, which will leave Europe in an economic mess for years to come.

More later...

Paul Scheffer, 'Immigrant Nations"

Here is a short excerpt from my review of Paul Scheffer's new book Immigrant Nations which will be published in Ethnic and Racial Studies  in the Spring:

Paul Scheffer (translated by Liz Waters), IMMIGRANT NATIONS, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011, 390 pp., £19.99 (paper).

As Paul Scheffer notes in his Epilogue, this book is the result of many years of discussion, literature review and analysis after the publication in 2000 of his controversial article “The Multicultural Drama” (‘Het multiculturele drama’, in NRC Handelsblad, 29 January 2000).  Those who don’t know of Scheffer’s role as public intellectual in the Netherlands may want to start by reading the Epilogue.  However, this background is not necessary to gain a great deal from what is clearly an in-depth and well researched book on the way that recent immigration is impacting Europe and the U.S. In this book, Scheffer attempts to reconcile the many conflicting forces that influence both the nature of immigrant integration, and the fundamental issue of citizenship in a global society. 

Day 2 of Texas Tribune Festival

#tribunefest I can't cover all of the discussion today, but will look at a few of the comments that I found interesting.  We started early today with breakfast and Representative Aaron Pena giving us his take on border issues, security, and the need for a guestworker program.  He and I agreed that a guestworker program should be considered a security issue, so that we can actually keep track of immigrants   He emphasized both at breakfast and later in the day at the panel on the economics of immigration reform that those who live on the border have a very different perspective than those who don't.  He noted that it would be a lost opportunity if we don’t deal with immigration.  "Mexicans are like us, carry values that we hold dear, are people of faith, have strong family bonds, and are an asset to us in a global marketplace when when we are competing with India and China." He has been a proponent of a Utah-style guestworker program and thinks the states could be a laboratory for new approaches to immigration.

Eddie Aldrete argued that we have a bad habit of focusing on law enforcement – it’s a component but it can’t be the only focus. "We don’t need to increase the size of the border patrol, if you provide visas they can focus on the bad guys."

Sylvia Acevedo noted that we need to look beyond Mexico -- the demographics show that they are no longer growing as fast and we may need to rely on workers from Pakistan or other parts of the world.

Todd Staples took a more typical approach on illegal immigrants "Comprehension immigration has become a signal that we are giving up.  We need strategies and principles that can get us to where we need to be, like enforcing labor laws through e-verify, but we can’t do that without reforming the immigration system.  We have a failed guest worker program,we need to be documenting current immigrants and a have a pathway to citizenship – from country of origin."

Although some of the panelists emphasized the need for more "boots on the ground" at the border, the overall sentiment from left, right and the business community was for comprehensive immigration reform. They also recognized that we are in a time period when immigration is a visceral issue that is being driven more by emotion than logic.  It will be interesting to see how these issues play out in Texas over the next couple of years and the role that these leaders will  play.

Overall the conversations were interesting, and the participants provided some insights into the way that the discourses around immigration, race and border security are playing out in the state of Texas. Eddie Aldrete's recommended that we need a new bipartisan commission that can look at the immigration issue. I promised to provide some background on previous commissions and their impact, and will try to do so in the next few days.

At the Texas Tribune Festival Race and Immigration Panels

#tribunefest #tfrace  Spent today at the Texas Tribune Festival, where they had a track on race and immigration in Texas.  The first panel I attended focused on Criminal Justice and Illegal Immigration.  The panelists agreed that border security was important, but it was also important to focus on comprehensive immigration reform. Several panelists agreed that a guestworker program would help in terms of being able to keep tabs on immigrants (as long as it didn't  take away American jobs), and that more cooperation between federal, state and local governments would help the security situation. Linda Graybill from the ACLU stated that we need smart policies that are constitutional, and that don't erode rights.  Charles Foster argued that by cutting off legal immigration options for Mexico and Latin America we created the current illegal immigration problem and that comprehensive immigration reform would encourage circular migration and allow homeland security to track immigrants.  Henry Cuellar emphasized that the security situation at the border (at least on the U.S. side) was not as bad as it is made out to be, according to FBI statistics.  He concluded that immigration has become an emotional issue and politics needs to be taken out of it.

Former ambassador to Mexico, Anthony Garza, had similar comments.  His session was focused on why Mexico and the U.S. need each other.  He argued that the economies are converging and that the political class has not kept pace with the realities of the marketplace, "Politics is the lagging indicator, markets and capital are the leading indicator.  We have a strategic interest in a more prosperous and secure Mexico."

On immigration:  "how we talk about it is important!  We have issues of security, we want to get a grip on who is in this country, and an aggressive guestworker program would help. The Bush initiative was good, but now the issue is toxic, amnesty is a death knell for any legislation, even though it wasn’t amnesty.  We need to build out from a guestworker program. Allowing people to have documents is important – we’ve lost circularity.  A path to citizenship wasn’t as critical as being legitimately in the workforce without fear of being rounded up."

More tomorrow!

Europe, the Arab Spring and immigration

As reported in the New York Times: The European Union authorities Friday sought to set new rules to maintain passport-free travel across large parts of the region, a response to recent moves by some governments to reinstate border controls because of mounting concern over what some see as uncontrolled migration from North Africa and the Middle East. More...

As the Euro crisis continues, it is likely that the immigration issue will become more heated, in conjunction with the increased flows from the Middle East and North Africa. Also, the continued success of the far right will play a role as the political season heats up with elections in France coming up in the spring.  However, the recent Danish election with the left winning the majority leaves the far right Danish People's Party out in the cold after 10 years of supporting the minority conservative government. Certainly more interesting results to come...

On Muslims in the West

Several books have come out recently, or in the case of Peter O'Brien's book, in the last couple of years, addressing issues surrounding Muslims and the West.  To quote from an article on Peter O'Brien:

"Professor O’Brien set out to explore Europeans’ self-perceived rivalry with Islamic civilization in pre-modern times and with the USA in the modern era. “I’m interested in how people from different cultures view each other and ultimately how they can learn to live together.” This interest has spawned his next research project on contemporary European responses to the existence of large numbers of Muslims residing in Europe"

European Perceptions of Islam & America from Saladin to George W. Bush: Europe’s Fragile Ego Uncovered (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009)
http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=328350

Justin Gest's recent book on Muslims in the West also focuses on Europe:

Apart: Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West (New York: Columbia University Press; London: Hurst, 2010)

Apart explores why many Western Muslims are disaffected, why others are engaged, and why some seek to undermine the very political system that remains their primary means of inclusion. Based on research conducted in London's East End and Madrid's Lavapies district, and drawing on over 100 interviews with community elders, imams, extremists, politicians, gangsters, and ordinary people just trying to get by, Justin Gest examines young Muslim men's daily existences. Confronting conventional explanations that point to inequality, discrimination and religion, he builds a new theory arguing that alienated and engaged political behavior is distinguished not by structural factors, but by how social agents interpret their shared realities. Filled with counterintuitive conclusions, Apart sounds an unambiguous warning to Western policy-makers, and presages an imminent American experience with the same challenges. How both governments and people discipline their fear and understand their Muslim fellows may shape democratic social life in the foreseeable future.

Writing as an advocate rather than an academic, Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, global media commentator, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and global managing editor of The Crescent Post. Additionally, Arsalan is also a regular weekly legal affairs/political commentator for the National Public Radio (NPR) show Tell Me More with Michel Martin and a contributing writer for CNN.com and Esquire Magazine (Middle East edition). His new book is Islamic Pacificsm: Global Muslims in the Post-Osama Era.  From the Amazon description: "With the tragic rise of extremism and global racism around the world today, the sociopolitical philosophy of "Islamic Pacifism" is a humanitarian ethical platform rooted within the general concepts of nonviolence and basic Muslim ethical teachings of mercy and compassion towards all of humanity. "