Sen. Russell Pearce

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April 24, 2012 | 10:45 AM | By

Witness testimony from today’s Senate hearing on SB 1070

Photo by SEIU International/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A protester holds a union anti-SB 1070 sign, May 1, 2010

A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning on the constitutionality of Arizona’s SB 1070 and state immigration laws in general brought some heated testimony, with witnesses that included former Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, the controversial anti-illegal immigration law’s chief sponsor.

Oral arguments are set for tomorrow as the U.S. Supreme Court takes on Arizona v. United States, an appeal brought by Arizona that challenges the federal government’s assertion that immigration enforcement is the province of federal officials, and that SB 1070 is therefore preempted by federal immigration law. The Senate hearing today was much less relevant in the larger sense than whatever the high court will decide, but the arguments were interesting. Here are some highlights from today’s witness testimony.

From Pearce, the former Republican state senate president who is now president of BanAmnestyNow.com, and whose testimony connected illegal immigration with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks:

Had law enforcement enforced our immigration laws we would have averted 9/11. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 underscored for all Americans the link between immigration law enforcement and terrorism. Four of the five leaders of the 9/11 attack were in violation of our immigration laws and had contact with law enforcement but were not arrested.

Nineteen alien terrorists had been able to violate our immigration laws, overstay their visas or violate their Immigration statuses with impunity, and move freely within the Country without significant interference from federal or local law enforcement. The abuse of U.S. Immigration laws was instrumental in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people on that tragic day in America.

From the testimony presented by Arizona Sen. Steve Gallardo, a Democrat:

Mr. Chairman and members, I would submit to you, SB 1070′s true intention, its primary objective was to make second-class citizens of U.S. Latinos. To discourage them from voting, from going to school, seeking employment and realizing the American dream.

Immigration enforcement is only a secondary objective and by their own admission, the authors and supporters of SB 1070, intended to harass immigrants, to create a hostile and miserable environment so that immigrants would rather choose to “self-deport,” and have shown no regard for the civil rights abuses of Latino citizens.

This by its very nature defines this strategy is reckless and abusive. SB 1070 is neither an immigration policy, nor a legal position but rather a campaign of harassment and intimidation directed solely according to the person’s complexion.

From Todd Landfried, executive director of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, whose testimony included data on the costs and other effects of state and local immigration measures:

Study after study on jurisdiction after  jurisdiction; year after year, whenever and wherever these laws are tried, the results are always the same and they’re always bad. Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of a single study in the public domain that indicates any one of these jurisdictions have experienced any positive economic impact. Not one.

To be fair, there are studies that show these laws are successful in one aspect: they cause undocumented immigrants to move. Whether they move within the state, out of state, or back home is a difficult question to answer. But what tends to happen to those who remain is we push them deeper into the underground  economy, where these workers suddenly become entrepreneurs and open cash businesses, thereby taking even more money out the economy that we would be better off having in it.

And from Dennis DeConcini, a former Democratic U.S. Senator from Arizona, whose testimony included a television news clip about a Latino U.S. citizen in Phoenix who was profiled shortly after the state legislature in Arizona approved SB 1070 in 2010:

Finally, let’s ask who is the target of SB 1070? If anyone tells you it is only the drug or gun trafficking criminals, they are mistaken. SB1070 targets those with brown skin and in my state, those are my neighbors, my friends, and successful business associates.

I have been a law enforcement officer and a U.S. Senator and when you mix law enforcement at the benefit of political expediency as our Legislature did with SB1070, you create a toxic environment. I am sorry for my state, and I am worried that the ill-considered consequences the actions our State leaders have caused our latino population.

The Senate hearing continued with a questions and answers, which included a back-and-forth over racial profiling and how local law officers are supposed to identify someone who is undocumented. An archived webcast of the hearing can be downloaded here.

FILED UNDER: SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce, Senate hearing, Senate Judiciary Committee, U.S. Supreme Court
April 23, 2012 | 11:58 AM | By

The legacy of SB 1070: Three ways it changed the immigration landscape

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

Anti-SB 1070 protesters in downtown Phoenix on the day the law took effect, July 29, 2010

Two years ago today, Arizona’s Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law a bill known as SB 1070. Already, the strict anti-illegal immigration bill had caused heated debate in and out of Arizona, most notably because it would make it a misdemeanor to lack proper immigration documents in the state – and because it would empower local police to check for immigration status if they had “reasonable suspicion” that someone was in the country illegally.

Back then, I wrote about the broad implications that SB 1070 would likely have. Would there be a political ripple effect, with other states considering similar laws? Would some immigrants decide they’d had enough and leave the state? Would it change the political discourse on immigration, with politicians basing their platforms on strict policies? And if tested in court, would it hold up?

Two years later, the answer to most of those questions is a resounding yes. Save for the latter one, to be decided soon enough as SB 1070 heads to the U.S. Supreme Court this week.

In the relatively short time it has existed, SB 1070 has had a profound effect on the immigration landscape, politically and in human terms. Although four of its most controversial provisions (including the “reasonable suspicion” checks) were blocked by a federal judge in Phoenix in July 2010, just before it went into effect, the law’s implications have been broad indeed.

Here are three aspects of SB 1070′s legacy so far:

1) The ripple effect in the states

Since 2010, dozens of states have introduced their own anti-illegal immigration laws, some modeled directly after SB 1070 and written with the help of the same legal counsel. SB 1070-style laws have been enacted since in Alabama, Georgia, Utah, Indiana and South Carolina.

These new laws are just part of what’s been happening in other states. The National Conference of State Legislatures reported late last year that in 2011, there were 1,607 bills and resolutions relating to immigrants and refugees introduced in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, up from a little more than 1,400 in 2010. Bolstered by the relative success of SB 1070, immigration restriction-minded legislators in many states banded together to introduce new crackdowns.

Many bills went nowhere, but there were some bold ones introduced, including a series of bills last year intended to end birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born babies of undocumented immigrants that was introduced in states like Arizona, Indiana and Iowa. Also voted down was an Arizona “omnibus” bill to deny public services to undocumented immigrants, similarly to what California’s ill-fated Proposition 187 proposed in 1994, and an Arizona bill requiring that hospitals check for patients’ immigration status.

In the states that have enacted SB 1070-style laws, all of these measures face their own court challenges. Federal judges have blocked several of these laws’ most stringent provisions, including a controversial one in Alabama that would require public schools to check the immigration status of students.

In some of these states, judges are waiting to see how the Supreme Court rules on SB 1070. The justices are to weigh whether SB 1070 is in fact preempted by federal immigration law, as the federal government has challenged. If the high court decides that enforcing immigration law is strictly a federal task, it could take the air out of the other state measures; it not, it would empower state legislators to continue with these and similar state laws.

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FILED UNDER: Jan Brewer, Mitt Romney, SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce, U.S. Supreme Court
December 27, 2011 | 12:32 PM | By

Top five immigration stories of 2011, #4: Birthright citizenship

Photo by Victoria Bernal/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The political battle over birthright citizenship exploded almost a year ago, when a series of states began introducing bills seeking to cut off the children born to undocumented immigrants from automatic U.S. citizenship.

The United States, like most countries in the Americas but unlike many European nations, has had a longstanding practice of jus soli citizenship, meaning citizenship is granted to those born on U.S. soil (jus soli is Latin for “right of the soil). Other nations, such as Germany, abide by versions of jus sanguinis (Latin for “right of blood”) citizenship, which there is granted only to children of citizens and/or legal residents.

The notion of barring the children of undocumented immigrants from receiving U.S. citizenship had long lingered on the more extreme fringes of the immigration restriction lobby. But in the anything-is-possible climate that followed the approval of Arizona’s stringent SB 1070 last year, a group of like-minded state legislators banded together and, with the aid of attorneys who worked on SB 1070, created one-size-fits-all model state legislation that would distinguish between babies born to undocumented immigrants and other children when issuing state birth certificates.

Bills based on this model were introduced in several states, including four related bills in Arizona. The idea was to force a Supreme Court reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which since a landmark 1898 ruling has been interpreted as defining how citizenship is bestowed on those born in this country. Here’s Section 1 of the 14th Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

While it seems self-explanatory, opponents of the 1898 definition (which came out of a legal challenge from a young San Francisco-born Chinese American named Wong Kim Ark) argued otherwise. Here’s what John Eastman, a Chapman University law professor who along with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach helped draft the model bill, wrote in a 2006 legal paper:

Textually, such an interpretation is manifestly erroneous, for it renders the entire “subject to the jurisdiction” clause redundant. Anyone who is “born” in the United States is, under this interpre-tation, necessarily “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States. Yet it is a well-established doctrine of legal interpretation that legal texts, including the Constitution, are not to be interpreted to create redundancy unless any other interpretation would lead to absurd results.

The “subject to the jurisdiction” provision must therefore require something in addition to mere birth on U.S. soil.

Anti-birthright citizenship bills were introduced in states that included Arizona (where four related bills were introduced), Iowa and Indiana; a related U.S. Senate resolution seeking a constitutional amendment was introduced by GOP legislators from Kentucky and Louisiana.

In the end, the bills didn’t get much traction. In Arizona, where two of the anti-birthright citizenship bills were voted on in the Senate, these and three other strict anti-illegal immigration bills (including one requiring hospitals to check immigration status, and another “omnibus” bill that would bar undocumented immigrants from public services) were voted down in March.

Much speculation followed: Had the anti-birthright citizenship frenzy contributed to a jump-the-shark moment for immigration restriction in the nation’s statehouses?

As the last several months have shown, not entirely. While the action has cooled in Arizona, as evidenced most recently by the recall of SB 1070 sponsor and former state Sen. Russell Pearce (also a champion of the anti-birthright citizenship movement), other states such as Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina have since enacted their own strict anti-illegal immigration laws.

And while none of these have included an anti-birthright citizenship component, their relative success – in spite of court challenges – has shown that state-level immigration initiatives have yet to lose their popularity.

As for the state-to-Supreme Court trajectory that the architects of the anti-birthright citizenship bills envisioned, based on what they hoped would happen with SB 1070? The high court is set to take on the SB 1070 case early next year, a ruling that could make or break the state law trend. But that’s for another story this week.

Check back in tomorrow for top story #3.

FILED UNDER: 14th Amendment, Anti-birthright citizenship, Birthright citizenship, John Eastman, Jus sanguinis, Jus soli, Kris Kobach, SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce, Top five immigration stories of 2011, Wong Kim Ark
November 10, 2011 | 2:26 PM | By

Five takes on why Russell Pearce went down in Arizona, and what it means

Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images News

One could probably fill a small library by now with the many analyses of Arizona senate president Russell Pearce’s defeat Tuesday in a historic recall election, Arizona’s first recall of a state legislator.

There are different takes on why Pearce, best known for sponsoring last year’s game-changing SB 1070 state anti-illegal immigration law, was ousted from his seat. He was a strident and popular voice within the immigration-restriction lobby, promoting not only a law that empowered local police to check for immigration status (a provision of SB 1070 that remains blocked), but pushing legislation earlier this year that would have kept U.S.-born children of undocumented parents from obtaining automatic U.S. citizenship. And in spite of being partly hung up in court, SB 1070 has inspired a series of imitations, including similar new laws Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia.

When Pearce fell in the recall, defeated by fellow Republican Jerry Lewis, he fell heavily. Below are five pieces exploring what brought down the most powerful individual in Arizona politics, and one of the most influential figures in immigration politics of recent years. The general consensus: While Pearce’s hardline immigration stance played a prominent role in his defeat, it was a combination of problems that ultimately did him in.

  • The Washington Post’s Rachel Weiner had an interesting take on the role of the Mormon Church (both Pearce and Lewis are Mormons) in the defeat of Pearce, whose immigration politics were far to the right of those of the church:

The Mormon church has been trying to reach out to Hispanic voters, and Pearce’s virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric, along with his divisive law, was seen as hurting that effort. Pearce has condemned the church for its anti-SB1070 stance and angered leaders by falsely claiming that he had their support.

“The Mormon church clearly percolated below the surface to make sure that its members knew that Russell Pearce was making their missionary efforts in Central and South America more difficult,” said Nathan Sproul, Republican strategist

Recall supporters said the Utah Compact — a Mormon model for more comprehensive immigration reform signed about a year ago — helped spark their campaign.

“I’ve heard [Mormon conservatives] say, ‘We need to love people,’ and ‘We shouldn’t be doing this to people,” one source told Religion Dispatches.

  • ColorLines magazine’s analysis pointed to immigration as an important factor, but not the sole one, as Pearce was long criticized for pushing his own pet interests over those of constituents. Julianne Hing interviewed Randy Parraz, co-founder and president of of Citizens for A Better Arisona, which led the recall effort. She wrote:

But while it was on anti-immigrant fear mongering that Pearce made his name, it wasn’t necessarily a pro-migrant solidarity that pushed Arizona voters to choose Lewis over Pearce. According to experts and organizers, Pearce’s electorate was fed up with his myopic focus on immigration enforcement and anti-immigrant bills because they left little time to tackle the issues Arizona voters cared most about: jobs, education and healthcare.

“[People] saw it in the first month of his leadership [as Senate president],” said Parraz. “He was focused on nullifying federal law, changing the U.S. Constitution, putting guns on campuses, cutting education, cutting off people waiting for organ transplants, and instead of spending $1.3 million and allowing 98 Arizonans to live, he sent $5 million to an angry sheriff for immigration enforcement.”

“That kind of politics, people started getting fed up.”

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Russell Pearce recall, SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce
November 7, 2011 | 4:35 PM | By

Is the Russell Pearce recall election a referendum on Arizona’s immigration politics?

Photo by Joshua Lott/Getty Images News

Russell Pearce, the Republican Arizona state senate president whose SB 1070 anti-illegal immigration law continues to inspire similarly strict immigration laws in other states, could lose his seat to a recall Tuesday. He’ll be running against a challenger, fellow Republican Jerry Lewis, in the state’s first-ever recall election involving a state lawmaker.

And while Pearce’s hardline stance on immigration isn’t the sole basis of the effort to oust him, the outcome of tomorrow’s election is being regarded by many as a popular vote on his controversial immigration politics – and on the public image of Arizona that SB 1070 and other proposed immigration crackdowns there since have helped create.

As the polls prepare to open, several news analyses have examined what the recall vote means in terms of Pearce’s and Arizona’s immigration policies and politics:

  • An Associated Press story today referred to the recall election as something “likely to be viewed as a referendum on the state’s hardline immigration policies:”

People on both sides of the debate believe that removing Pearce would send a powerful message to the Legislature that uncompromising stands on immigration and other issues will not be tolerated by voters. On the flip side, a Pearce victory will say a tough stance on illegal immigration is just what voters demand.

“The folks running the recall are trying to send a message to the rest of the Legislature that if they can take out Russell Pearce, then they can take out any one of us, and to get us to stop running bills against illegal immigration,” said Republican Sen. Ron Gould.

Pearce is facing fellow Republican Jerry Lewis, a charter school executive and former accountant who hopes his candidacy will help the district and Arizona shed false images as being home to intolerance.

  • For a story Sunday, the East Valley Tribune in Tempe, Ariz. interviewed Arizona pollster Margaret Kenski, who with others pointed not only to the immigration component, but to dissatisfaction over the perception that Pearce has preferred to advance his own pet issues over those important to voters:

Pearce has made the recall about his signature issue of illegal immigration. But Kenski said the election is about different things to different people.

Her recent polls have found that voters are more concerned about the economy, jobs and education. Those issues have edged out illegal immigration as the former top issue, Kenski said.

Even when looking at illegal immigration, polls have found voters aren’t as strident as Pearce, she said. They almost all want a secure border but there’s more acceptance for guest workers, the notion that Americans won’t do some jobs and some version of the Dream Act.

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FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, Arizona, Arizona recall election, Russell Pearce recall, SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce
April 25, 2011 | 1:10 PM | By

Five things to read on the one-year anniversary of SB 1070

Protesters outside the Arizona State Capitol, April 23, 2010

A year ago Saturday, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law the controversial measure known as SB 1070. Among other things, this stringent anti-illegal immigration law was to empower local police to check the immigration status of people they stopped if there was “reasonable suspicion” to believe they were in the country illegally, make it necessary for immigrants to carry their documents, and made it difficult to hire or work as a day laborer.

Numerous parties filed suit, including the federal government on the grounds that the measure was pre-empted by federal law. The law’s most contested provisions were blocked by a federal judge on the eve of its implementation last July 29, though many provisions – including the day labor portion – still went into effect. People protested and an economic boycott of the state ensued. Still, even as parts of SB 1070 remained hung up in court, it could be said that the law set the stage for the tone of immigration politics during the year that followed.

Over the past several days there have been countless news reports and opinions published surrounding the one-year anniversary of what has been the most controversial state immigration measure since 1994′s failed Proposition 187 in California. Here are a few interesting ones:

  • The Arizona Republic had a one-year-later report accompanied by a comprehensive timeline listing important milestones in the life of the Arizona law so far.
  • A piece in New American Media explored the strengthening of immigrant networks in the state, although some fed-up Latinos have left Arizona since the law went into effect.
  • In an interview last week with the Arizona Daily Star, Brewer and SB 1070 sponsor state Sen. Russell Pearce talked about why they believe the embattled law has still been a success; Pearce said undocumented immigrants are “leaving in caravans.”
  • The advocacy journalism website ColorLines pointed out in a piece that while much of the spotlight was on Arizona after SB 1070, it’s the federal government that has been carrying out record numbers of deportations.
  • Earlier this month, after the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld last July’s federal ruling blocking parts of the law, a post on Multi-American looked at how no matter where SB 1070 winds up in court, it already has left its mark on immigration politics.

There have also been some good radio reports on SB 1070, including a special report last Friday from Phoenix’s KJZZ on the law and its aftermath in the state. NPR’s “All Things Considered” also recapped a year of SB 1070 last week.

FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Politics/Justice, Gov. Jan Brewer, SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce, U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
March 22, 2011 | 1:09 PM | By

What killed Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration bills?

Photo by midwinter/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Last week, Arizona’s state senate voted down five major anti-illegal immigration bills, among them two bills seeking to deny automatic U.S. citizenship to babies born to undocumented immigrants, a bill requiring hospitals to check immigration status, and an “omnibus” bill that would bar undocumented immigrants from public services.

In a state whose name has become a synonym for getting tough on illegal immigration, it’s a radical shift from a year ago, when Arizona legislators were considering the stringent SB 1070 sponsored by Sen. Russell Pearce, the Republican who is now state senate president.

What happened? Since the vote late last week, there has been a good amount of analysis that attempts to answer this. Arizona’s business community, already suffering from a post-SB 1070 economic boycott of the state, played a substantial role.

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FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, 14th Amendment, Birthright citizenship, SB 1070, Sen. Russell Pearce
February 23, 2011 | 7:47 AM | By

Arizona back in spotlight after senate committee OKs stringent immigration bills

Photo by Patrick Dockens/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Just like that, Arizona finds itself back at the epicenter of the debate over how far a state can go with immigration enforcement, with perhaps more anti-illegal immigration legislation pending than ever before. Yesterday, the state Senate Appropriations Committee approved bills proposing stringent immigration enforcement measures, including:

- Two companion bills, SB 1308 and 1309, which seek to deny U.S. citizenship to children born to undocumented immigrants

- A  newly introduced “omnibus” bill, SB 1611, that among other things would bar undocumented immigrants from public housing, demand documentation for children to attend public schools, prohibit undocumented immigrants from driving or buying a car, bar them from obtaining a state marriage license, and make it more difficult for employers to hire them

- SB 1405, a bill that would require hospitals to check the immigration status of patients

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FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, 14th Amendment, Birthright citizenship, SB 1070, SB 1611, Sen. Ron Gould, Sen. Russell Pearce, Sen. Steve Smith