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Prefacing the panel was a brief address by Rebecca Flores of the United Farm Workers. Flores was there to urge attendees to stop by the table in the hall to sign a petition urging Senators John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison to support the pending bill that would allow immigrant farm workers to earn the legal right to stay permanently in this country by continuing to work in agriculture.
This bill, Flores said, “would help the immigrants who are in this country working without any legal papers and being exploited every day of their lives.”
Rozemberg, who is currently pursuing his master’s in International Relations at St. Mary’s, and has worked as a journalist for a decade, including newspapers in Massachusetts and Arizona, currently covers immigration issues for the San Antonio Express-News.
“I think I can safely tell you, with all confidence,” said Rozemberg, “that immigration has become a political hot potato now, more than ever before — immigration and border issues.” As historical background, he explained that the issue has been building up since at least the 1990s, when the Border Patrol began experiencing an unprecedented influx of undocumented immigrants and started a series of operations cracking down on this.
The issue also gained prominence as more and more immigrants began flocking to places other than the usual destinations of California and Texas, such as Georgia and the Carolinas. “I think nowadays you will probably find immigrants in just about every state in the nation,” said Rozemberg.
By the late 1990s, Arizona, because of border crack downs in Texas and California, had become the primary crossing spot for immigrants, and continues to be, though Arizona is now stepping up border surveillance as well.
Rozemberg noted the events of 9/11 also helped propel the issue to the forefront, with those who had taken no interest in the subject before suddenly becoming concerned. “The migrant became the symbol of the problematic porous border for the country for many, many people concerned with illegal immigration,” he said.
Citizens began to link the issue of undocumented migrants, which had previously been considered primarily an economic issue, to security and terrorism, and fringe activists capitalized on this. Groups such as the Minuteman Project and American Border Patrol rose to prominence, as did the names of movement leaders, Jim Gilchrist and Chris Simcox.
Gilchrist, a retired accountant and Vietnam veteran in California, founded the Minuteman Project with the idea of assisting the Border Patrol. Teaming up with him was Chris Simcox, who held similar beliefs and had begun leading small groups in patrolling the Arizona border. In April, several hundred persons from across the country made the news by patrolling Arizona’s border as part of this militia, maintaining that their primary concerns were security and terrorism.
Rozemberg noted their reasoning was, “If ‘José Rodríguez’ from Mexico City can sneak in, so can anybody else, even to possibly an al-Qaida member.” Rozemberg covered and observed this project which, he said, pretty much stuck to the group’s stated mission of reporting illegal immigrants they encountered to the Border Patrol and not taking the law into their own hands. More recently, he had the opportunity to observe their activities in Falfurrias. Gilchrist and Simcox, he noted, have since parted company due to “ego issues.”
“But the Minuteman phenomenon is only one of several efforts that we’ve seen recently in the last few months,” he said, “whereby regular folks — again, just trying to be vigilant, trying to prevent another terrorist attack — feel that it’s their duty to help government. Or, if the government’s not doing their job, to do it for them in terms of implementing national security.”
States that had not been faced with immigration issues are now being confronted with them, Rozemberg noted, often coming up with creative ways to deal with the situation. One of the more notable was the recent action by local police chiefs in New Hampshire, who began arresting undocumented immigrants on charges of criminal trespass under a state law. Eventually this was struck down by a state judge.
In Idaho a county commissioner took it upon himself to begin suing employers of illegal immigrants under federal RICO laws, which were originally intended to hinder mobsters and organized crime. In Delaware a small community began fining undocumented immigrants, with fines starting at $100 a day.
“Interestingly enough, the issue has created a clear and deep rift within the conservative movement or conservative circles in the U.S.,” Rozemberg said. He sees that rift as something that will continue to grow. “I don’t see this movement curtailing any time soon,” he said, “not if the status quo is maintained.”
He sees an understandable frustration growing in both the pro and anti-immigration factions. Those in the pro-immigration camp are moving more “toward the center” politically, with complaints being voiced by border area ranchers who, for the first time, are encountering break-ins and being physically threatened by crossers.
Unless some kind of comprehensive action is taken by Congress, Rozemberg sees no let up in the escalating immigration issue. “One thing is for sure,” he noted. “In the 2008 presidential elections, candidates on either side are not going to be able to dodge the issue. ... They’re going to have to tackle it head on.”
Dr. Janet Armitage, in her presentation, elaborated on anti-immigration groups involved with reform or restriction of immigration. Persons in the reformative social movement are, she noted, seeking partial change in the social system. “It’s not transformative, it’s not revolutionary,” she said, “but what these activists are hoping for is to preserve and improve the United States through changes in immigration law.”
Founder of this movement was John Tanton, who began drawing attention to the issue in the United States in the 1970s. “He wanted to create a movement that would create a world of limits and boundaries,” said Armitage. In just the few years since the end of the 20th century, the number of groups linked to this movement has mushroomed from around 80 to 116, some less than a year old.
They are located in 26 states, as well as Washington, D.C., and represent local, state and national interests. A few are international in scope. Armitage noted there are currently around a quarter of a million activists, primarily operating on a volunteer basis, in this movement.
“Overwhelmingly, it is a grassroots movement,” she said. “Eighty-seven percent are local activists.” They are concentrated in two primary regions, 60 percent in the western U.S. and the remainder in the southern U.S., which includes Texas. Texas originally held claim to the largest number of these groups, but has been overtaken now by the Carolinas and Georgia.
She pointed out another new trend in recent years is the movement of immigrant populations into predominantly rural areas, whereas they previously flocked to urban, industrial centers.
There are two types of activists, Armitage related, paid professionals and part-time volunteers, but all have three basic goals. First, is to decrease the level of immigration, so that cultural and spatial assimilation can occur and, secondly, to bring about a reduction in legal immigration, addressing how we deal with it as far as categories or quotas. Lastly, is the “hot” issue of illegal immigration and putting a stop to it.
Armitage noted there are three other justifications within the movement. “There are activists who advocate that we have to reduce immigration for environmental reasons,” she said. “These are a very new type of activist. They’re young, they’re in their 20’s, they’re educated, they’re well-traveled, they’re multi-lingual.”
The second justification is economic, something that harkens back to immigration in colonial times. However, what was once a blue-collar concern has moved into the white-collar sector, with computer programmers and engineers forming organizations in response to their feelings regarding economic trends and immigration.
The third, and most classic justification, espouses the need to preserve our current culture in the United States. “The concern is really for national identity,” Armitage said, “how does a country absorb people of many different nationalities, ethnicities, racial groups, linguistic groups.”
About 85 percent of organizations in the movement now fall into the environmental and economic categories, Armitage noted, and are a younger, diverse group, including even former immigrants who are now naturalized citizens.
In terms of action, she related there are generally two avenues to take: institutional and extra-institutional. While militia patrolling the border falls under extra-institutional, a growing component involves letter writing campaigns and the signing of petitions, which is more institutional.
A new type of activism that emerged in the 1990s was “bill board democracy,” introduced by Craig Nelson, founder of Project USA. Having lived in different Asian countries, Nelson returned to the United States with strong views on the subject of overpopulation.
In an effort to get his message across, he turned to “truth mobiles,” traversing the country with vehicles that were highly effective mobile billboards for his cause, bearing statistics on the effect of overpopulation on resources, education and the like.
This is only one of several trends that are gaining ground, Armitage pointed out, including conferences that address the issues, watchdog groups and vigilantism.
“They’re becoming much more non-traditional, much more social movement oriented when we think about previous movements in the United States,” said Armitage. “It’s a very dynamic movement … It’s a movement that’s absolutely worth watching, because these are your neighbors, they’re your friends, they could be your parents.” |