- President James Madison
Immigrant Voting Texas & Ohio
The Migration Policy Institute has new reports out just in time for March 4th Primaries. Shows a growth in the percentage of immigrant voters in both states from 1990-2006, although the numbers are certainly much bigger in Texas:
Posted on Wednesday, February 27 | 0 comments | Permalink
Interesting Q & A with British Economist
Philippe Legrain has an interesting Q&A on New York Times. It is a few months old, but just saw it re-posted on Politico today. He is a British economist who wrote the book Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them. Here's an excerpt:
It is also widely believed that immigrants take local workers’ jobs, with the assumption that only a fixed number of jobs exist to go around. This is nonsense. We heard similar scare stories when women began to enter the labor force in large numbers: many men thought that if women started working, there would be fewer jobs for them. In fact, of course, most women now work, as do most men. Why? Because people don’t just take jobs, they also create them. They create jobs as they spend their wages because they create extra demand for people to produce the goods and services they consume; and they create jobs as they work, because they stimulate demand for complementary workers. An influx of construction workers, for instance, boosts demand for those selling building supplies, as well as for interior designers. Thus, while the number of immigrants has risen sharply over the past twenty years, America’s unemployment rate has fallen.
Posted on Tuesday, February 26 | 0 comments | Permalink
Bad Politics & Policy in Michigan
Driver's Licenses take center stage again. This time, Michigan lawmakers didn't just decide to stop unauthorized immigrants from having them, but legal immigrants as well.
In a state with a struggling economy, it is unclear if the politicians were trying to make immigrants the scapegoat or just unsavely scaring off the national and international investment that Michigan so desperately needs. Instead of fixing the problem, it appears as though they are now locked in a political debate over Real ID that could have long-term consequences for Michigan residents:
Republicans in the state senate decided to try to package fixing the driver's license mess with bills bringing the state into compliance with the federal "Real ID" program.
Democrats didn't want to rush into that. Eventually, the Real ID effort was shelved, and on Feb. 15, Gov. Granholm signed a bill fixing the driver's license mess ... or so state officials think.
Yes, the bill will enable the secretary of state's office to once again give licenses to the more than 400,000 foreign workers and university students in the state. That is, it will ... eventually.
"We haven't got all the rules worked out quite yet," Land said. "But we are taking names and applications" and hope to process them soon."
Meanwhile, as the governor said, the drivers' license flap has given the state a "black eye" and raised new doubts about the state's sophistication, savvy and ability to compete.
Posted on Tuesday, February 26 | 0 comments | Permalink
New Reports Out on Immigrant Crime
Two studies here, so keep reading. Departing from politics for a minute, the Public Policy Institute of California has released a new study (read it) that shows immigrants having a lower crime rate than their native born peers:
Key findings in the report, Crime, Corrections, and California: What Does Immigration Have to Do with It?:
- People born outside the United States make up about 35 percent of California’s adult population but represent only about 17 percent of the state prison population.
- U.S.-born adult men are incarcerated in state prisons at rates up to 3.3 times higher than foreign-born men.
- Among men ages 18-40 – the age group most likely to commit crime – those born in the United States are 10 times more likely than immigrants to be in county jail or state prison.
- Noncitizen men from Mexico ages 18-40 – a group disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally – are more than 8 times less likely than U.S.-born men in the same age group to be in a correctional setting (0.48% vs. 4.2%).
Meanwhile, RAND has released a new study (read the article) that refutes "the common belief is that illegal immigrants are more likely to engage in crime than legal immigrants."
The study, published in this month's edition of
the journal Criminology and Public Policy, found age, criminal offenses
and other traits are the primary factors in determining whether illegal
immigrants re-offend, and not their legal status.
"That is our finding in a nutshell," said Laura Hickman, an
assistant professor with the Criminal Justice Policy Research Institute
at Portland State University and a researcher at RAND, a nonprofit
research organization based in Santa Monica. "We set out to test a real
straightforward question. It was a question about whether deportable
aliens are cycling through the local criminal justice system."
The study compared deportable immigrants, people who
entered the United States illegally, overstayed their student or other
visas or committed other violations, with non-deportable immigrants -
those with legal documents or those who have become naturalized.
Posted on Tuesday, February 26 | 1 comments | Permalink
McCain & Latinos
"Will McCain Bring Latino Voters Back to GOP?" is the question asked by this post piece - here. It is still unclear how conservative Latinos will vote. Running mates and the Democratic nominee will certainly factor in. But what's clear is that the orginial debate, of who could become the most anti-immigration to turn out the Republican base has been turned on its head. The question Republicans are now asking is "who can appeal to independents?" and, on the issue of immigration, "who can appeal to latinos?"
Here's an excerpt:
Until last week, Mark Malloy was one of many Latinos walking away from the Republican Party. The middle school teacher, son of an American father and a Nicaraguan mother, was part of a supposed swing of conservative Latino voters to the Democratic Party, motivated by the GOP's association with a hard-line immigration stance.
Malloy had grown "so disgusted" with anti-illegal-immigration
measures in his home state of Virginia that last year, he made his
first-ever political contribution to a candidate, Democrat John
Edwards. This month, he even voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the
Virginia primary. Now, with Sen. John McCain the expected Republican
nominee, Malloy says that his decision to turn his back on the GOP
could change. Read More
Posted on Monday, February 25 | 0 comments | Permalink
NYT Interviews Dobbs
Always find these interesting. The New Yorker ran one in late '06, and now the NY Times has done one.
In both cases (and in both cases it was ironically noted), that Dobbs picked the elitist Four Seasons as the restaurant and goes there enough to have a tab. And in both cases they subtly note that America-first Dobbs orders the fifty-six-dollar Dover Sole, caught in Europe (a dish that apparently they are renouned for).
In today's piece, the author more directly attacks Dobbs' immigration views:
Mr. Dobbs admits that mass deportation would never work, although if you press him on what to do about the 12 million, he has no answer. He wants to hold that question “in abeyance” until the border is sealed. I find that oddly passive for someone so convinced of the dangers from the aliens in our midst.
I told him that, and he smiled.As someone that seems to complain incessintly about the lack of solutions and substance coming out of politicians, Dobbs certainly sounds guilty of the same crime.
Posted on Thursday, February 21 | 1 comments | Permalink
New NDN Study shows Hispanics breaking 3-to-1 Democrat
New study shows hard numbers on this year's presidential primaries. As many have expected, Hispanics are trending away from the Republican Party. Here's some stats:
- 75% of Hispanics have voted Democratic (that includes MI & FL)
- Hispanics represent 4% more of the primary electorate, from 9% in 2004, to 13% in 2008 --> that means their voting more in line with their percentage of the population for the first time
Posted on Wednesday, February 20 | 1 comments | Permalink
ICED Video Game is Out
Haven't had a chance to play it yet, just downloading it now. The game stands for "I Can End Deportation" and is a creative attempt to get young people (i'm generalizing) to better understand the problems with our current immigration system. Click Here to download it now.
As a lover of video games, i hope its not only informative, but also plays well.. i'll have more on it soon.
Posted on Tuesday, February 19 | 1 comments | Permalink
