Humble enough to listen, confident enough to lead

Autor: Jimena Terán Tassinari. Licenciatura En Estudios Internacionales. Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM).

Editor: Sergio Martínez Peralta. Licenciatura En Ciencias Políticas y Administración Pública. Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM).

Earlier on this week a poll made by Los Angeles Times found out that the strong Californian feeling of taking off the social services from immigrants had changed and take a new way. It is mentioned that now 31% of Californians support the immigrants and cooperated with the idea of enforcing the border with a temporary worker program, and one that would combine stronger border enforcement with a path to eventual citizenship for illegal residents who perform community service, pay back taxes and learn English.

In 1994, Proposition 187 passed with almost 60% of the vote, but the earlier mentioned poll has now the population divided, in which one side agrees with the legalization suggested by George W. Bush and by Obama, as well as a guest worker program that would permit immigrants to visit the United States temporarily for jobs.

Also in California, Jane Harman member of the United States House of Representatives, representing California's 36th congressional district, expressed her discontent with an article in Times in which she said they made her look as if she was opposing and against immigrants and their acceptation in America, while it was otherwise, being her a daughter of immigrants, Harman understands and shows emphatic for them and is already working with some immigration groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.

As there are American leaders which are leading the cause, and other oppressing them, there are also some leaders that make the Latino community proud. Such is the case of the new archbishop from Los Angeles. But more than a catholic leader, for the immigrants, he represents a leader that would proclaim the rights from his people. Jose Gomez which is originally from Monterrey openly supports the immigration reform and in these times of not knowing yet what to expect for the illegal immigrants, he will be playing an interesting role, being a figure of hope, taking in consideration that Catholicism is the principal religion for Mexicans and particularly this is the largest Hispanic diocese in the United States spread over Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties and adding more than 4 million members, 70% of them Latino. Los Angeles would be a key place for him to be, which make up an important number of immigrants in America, according to the Census Bureau in 2008, 15% of the population was constituted by Hispanics.

This event represents a reason for union in Los Angeles which would make Latino community more confident and would bring them together in whatever they purpose. Proof is that the St. Michael Church (Jose Goméz, new home) used to be alone, until the Latino community started to grow bigger and bigger until it become one of the most visited churches, because of the fidelity Hispanic have.

In the immigration debate, there has been an event which fired up the political debate, with this I refer to the past murder of Robert Krentz a rancher from Arizona who helped immigrants who needed a place to sleep or something to eat. His dead made obvious the importance of taking care of the USA-MEXICO border because of its violence.

While in Chicago it appears that some industries are cooperating in order to make possible the immigration reform, due to the opportunity they see in the 540,000 illegal immigrants whom, as they become economically active, could have a huge impact in the economy. This was suggested by a 200-memebers area business coalition that would pursue this reform and is looking up for both the benefit of the immigrants and of the country. All of the movements that are supporting immigrants would have a very important impact when this battle over the immigration reform is over, and hopefully, Americans would recognize the human capital that they have in their very land, willing to work and live by.

Evaluating U.S. Immigration Control Policy in a Recession Context: Priceless

In my next blog contributions in English, I would like to share with you some thoughts about recent (2009) research works on Latino immigrant issues that I consider interesting. You can find links to most of the works that I plan to address in my webpage, in the preliminary presentation of the section titled: Papers, Reports and Field Research.

I would like to start with Wayne Cornelius’ “Evaluating U.S. Immigration Control Policy: What Mexican Migrants Can Tell Us.” This research is a direct product of The Mexican Migration Field Research and Training Program, sponsored by the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (CCIS) at the University of California, San Diego. The research addressed the issue from an inductive, analytical perspective: Based on a case study, it arrives to very solid and specific conclusions about the main problems that undocumented immigration is facing during economic hard-times in the United States.

The CCIS research team conducts its survey research in a little Yucatan town in Mexico, and is working on two other sending communities in the states of Jalisco and Oaxaca. The main research question that the CCIS team addresses is: Does current U.S. immigration control policy deter and prevent illegal entry? The official response at the end of the Bush administration in 2008 was “yes”: Border apprehensions are declining thanks to the detention efforts undertaken by the administration.

The Yucatan-based research offers “alternative” explanations to the decline of border apprehensions: reduced circularity in migration, an outstanding increase in the use of people-smugglers, development of new modes of illegal entry and, most important of all, less demand for U.S. labor. The research ends up by suggesting better ways to control immigration: emphasize workplace enforcement over border enforcement, legalize most undocumented immigrants already in the U.S., fix the legal immigration system, etc. Within the "developmental approach" set of solutions, the research suggests, among other things, to focus on projects that improve the employment base in migrant-sending areas via improving more and better-paid jobs.

I think that the research questions, methodology and findings of this impressive field research are straightforward and powerful, and they can be applied to highlight the study of the current flow of undocumented Mexican immigration to the United States, within the specific context of the U.S. and Mexican economies in recession.

I wonder if the complete CCIS study or similar studies could address other equally important issues that could give us a highly valuable comparative perception on matters like: To what extent are important for the Mexican communities the specifics of the economy of certain U.S. cities Vs. an assumed high mobility of immigrant labor in American cities whenever a city’s economy suffers harder than the economy of other city? Or what is the effect of different local policing policies on immigration on the mobility of the immigrant community as soon as the undocumented immigrant community does not trust anymore the local police once they become “ICE agents”? Or what are the effects of negative public opinion on immigration on internal or external migration of undocumented workers in the U.S. during recession time? And of course, if possible, it would be great to go back to these communities in 2019 to study what happened après le déluge...

Finally, the CCIS research points out the elephant in the room from the Mexican perspective: after more than 25 years of neoliberal policies, the problem of a highly emigrant population for the Mexican economy certainly is not about jobs, it is about well-paid jobs.