Abstract
The U.S. states are actively legislating on immigrant-related issues. Bill introductions have more than doubled in the past 5 years, rising from 570 in 2006 to 1,374 for first-half of 2010.
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- 1.
The number of bill introductions involving immigrants rose from 570 in 2006 to 1,169 in 2007, then to more than 1,400 for the first-half of 2009, and 1,374 for the first-half of 2010. See National Conference of State Legislatures. NCSL News. “States Step Up to the Plate on Immigration: With no federal legislation, legislators move to enact local solutions”, 28 July 2010. Also see “States Assert New Activist Immigration Role in Altered Political Landscape”. Muzaffar Chishti and Claire Bergeron, 18 Jan 2011. Migration Policy Institute/Migration Information Source. “Midterm Elections Generate Rush of Immigration Measures”. Muzaffar Chishti and Claire Bergeron, 15 Oct 2010. Migration Information Source/Migration Policy Institute.
- 2.
For a survey of recent state-level immigrant-related legislation, see “The Next Wave: Employer Sanctions Bills in the States,” State Legislative Update, Immigration Works USA, 3 Feb 2011.
- 3.
Julia Preston. The New York Times. Political Battle on Illegal Immigration Shifts to the States, 31 Dec 2010.
- 4.
New citation.
- 5.
For information on the unauthorized and legal immigrant populations in the United States, see Pew Hispanic Center. News release, 1 Feb 2011. “Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends” and U.S. illegal immigrant population steady in National Institute for Latino Policy. 2 Feb 2011, Reuters newswire.
- 6.
For the specific case of San Jose, see Context Matters: Latino Immigrant Civic Engagement in Nine U.S. Cities. Series on Latino Immigrant Civic Engagement, summary on San Jose 61–63 Donnelly, Fox, Bada, and Selee. Woodrow Wilson Center, 2010.
- 7.
See Md. legislation proposes in state tuition benefits for some illegal immigrants. The Washington Post. Shankar Vedantam, 29 Dec 2010. For more on the legal grounds for in state tuition waivers, see the news release. MALDEF. MALDEF lauds California Supreme Court ruling upholding AB 540, waiver of out-of-state fees for all qualified students. Los Angeles, 15 Nov 2010.
- 8.
See Staff Commentary: “Even Mostly Unimplemented SB 1070 Still Having a Big Impact” 29 July 2010 Robert Donnelly. Woodrow Wilson Center Mexico Institute.
- 9.
- 10.
Migration Information Source, States Assert New Activist Immigration Role in Altered Political Landscape. Migration Policy Institute.
- 11.
For a detailed analysis, see Midterm Elections Generate Rush of Immigration Measures. Muzaffar Chishti and Claire Bergeron. Migration Policy Institute, 15 Oct 2010.
- 12.
See Randal C. Archibold. “Ranchers Alarmed by Killing Near Border”. The New York Times, 4 April 2010. Also see Jennifer Buske and Paul Duggan. Driver in fatal Va. Crash had previous DUI convictions, 3 Aug 2010. Washington Post.
- 13.
See Roxanne Lynn Doty. The Law into Their Own Hands: Immigration and the Politics of Exceptionalism. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 2009.
- 14.
Tea Party sympathizers assert that immigration should be decreased and that immigration causes the displacement of U.S. workers, at rates higher than moderate voters, according to a poll conducted by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race, and Sexuality. See http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/racepolitics.html.
- 15.
International Relations and Latino Politics. Meeting held on 15 Oct 2010, at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz. From comments from several conference attendees.
- 16.
The South, according to the Census, comprises Delaware; Maryland; Washington, D.C.; Virginia; West Virginia; North Carolina; South Carolina; Georgia; Florida; Kentucky; Tennessee; Alabama; Mississippi; Arkansas; Louisiana; Oklahoma; and, Texas. However, the following states were excluded from the study either because they were not in session in first-half of 2010 (Texas) or because their legislatures passed no immigrant-related legislation in first-half of 2010, according to the NCSL data (Delaware, North Carolina, and Arkansas). Washington, D.C., is not a state and does not have a state legislature, so it was not captured in the NCSL data. .
- 17.
The Census defines the Midwest as: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Of these 12 states, only Ohio and North Dakota (because it was not in session) did not record the passage of any piece of immigrant-related legislation in the period. The western states are: Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, and Hawaii. Of these states, neither Montana nor Nevada recorded immigrant-related legislation in the time period as they were out of session, and the legislation passed in Wyoming, New Mexico, and Alaska was excluded from this analysis.
- 18.
The Northeast, by the Census definition, encompasses Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Immigrant-related legislation was passed in all of these states in first-half of 2010 except for in New Jersey, while the New Hampshire legislation was omitted from this analysis.
- 19.
In a news release, the pro-immigration reform group National Immigration Forum offers seven characteristics for states considering SB 1070-like legislation: (1) A re-elected highly motivated potential bill sponsor, (2) A legislature where a similar bill has already been introduced or that has passed a supportive resolution; (3) A conservative governor and conservative majority in the legislature. National Immigration Forum. Press release. States Take the Lead on Immigration. Katherine Vargas.
- 20.
See “Colorado Introduces Arizona-Style Immigration Bill with Notable Differences.” Latinovations/La Plaza, 21 Jan 2011. At the same time, support for SB 1070 may prove more valuable on the campaign trail and at the primary stage than once in office. Florida Governor Rick Scott, who took office in 2011, for example, was forced by some accounts to backpedal on promises to back similar legislation, on concerns from lawmakers that a bill would tarnish the state’s reputation among Latin American investors. In Virginia’s Prince William County, part of the emerging immigrant gateway of metropolitan Washington, D.C., councilman Frank Principle acknowledged in early 2011 that the economic costs outweighed the public safety benefits of implementing new anti-undocumented enforcement provisions. In remarks in the newspaper X he questioned the validity of the underlying arguments for such enforcement provisions: that undocumented immigrant population is more prone to committing violent crime than the general population. See Florida’s Anti-Immigration Law Receives Cold Response: La Plaza.
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Donnelly, R. (2013). State-Level Immigrant-Related Legislation: What it Means for the Immigration Policy Debate. In: Magaña, L., Lee, E. (eds) Latino Politics and Arizona’s Immigration Law SB 1070. Immigrants and Minorities, Politics and Policy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0296-1_4
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