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Christian Peacemaker Team in Arizona/Sonoma Border: Watching the Minutemen

Christian Peacemaker Teams have a presence on the Arizona border in order to observe the Minute Men who have taken it upon themselves to report "illegal immigrants" to the Border Patrol.  The interaction between Migrants and US anglos is a terrible and overwhelmingly complicated situation,  and already scarred by much tragedy.  I used to think that if only people knew the facts, they could work out a reasonable approach to a problem, but I no longer think so.  We have so few forums in which different people with different knowledge and different points of view can sit down peaceably and talk.  We have increasingly hatred among ourselves, and quiet people of good faith on all sides feel compelled to accept being corralled in with extremists.

The following is an article from www.cpt.org:

CPTnet, April 9, 2005
Arizona/Sonora: Watching the wAtchers

Two CPT Arizona members, both grandparents, spent a day watching "Minuteman Project" personnel.  The Minutemen, a vigilante group were watching for migrants to cross fromm Mexico into the United States West of Douglas, Arizona.

CPT  members have been trained as "Legal Observers" by Ray Ibarra, law student and representative of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  During training, Ray said, "The problem to be addressed is not the Minutemen themselves, but the fear and misunderstanding among the U.S. people that is allowing hundreds of migrants to die in the desert while they seek available work...in the U.S."

The CPT members and three other observers, in T-shirts labeled "Legal Observer" and "observadores legales" and carrying vido cameras, deployed themselves to high points above the broken barbed wire fence that represents the U.S.-Mexico border.  East and West as far as the eye could see along the hilly road, Minuteman pickups, vans and SUV´s with California, texas and other registrations were parked at quarter mile intervals.  About two hundred minutemen sat in camp chairs and peered south through their binoculars.

Who are the Minutemen?  They are women and men, many grandmothers and grandfatehrs, who believe that the U.S. government is not doing enough to stop thousands of migrants from entering the U.S.  Some of them believe that these migrants are "diluting" American culture.  A few Minutement carry side arms, which is legal inArizona, and state that they intend to stop any migrants they encounter and turn them over to the Border Patrol.  Ray Ibarra said, "stopping and/or confining anyone except for a breach of the peace is illegal undr U.S. law."  The planned actions of the Minutemen make them vigilantes.

Despite rumours to the contrary, no migrants appeared.  During the afternoon, Mexican authorities on four wheelers were seen to be scouring their frontier making sure that migrants were moved to less confrontational areas of the border.

The CPT suffered no ill treatment apart from some dehydration and sun burn.  Two senior citizen men passed the time of day with the CPTers, and two sheriffs invited the CPTers to call on them for assistance, if needed, as well as warning them of sharp bushes, rattlesnakes and wildcats.  Cochise Sheriff Larry Dever said, "I am very pleased that there has been no violence and no arrests so far, despite several Minuteman demonstrations on the weekend."

Hearing of Dever's words, Ray Ibarra commented, "There was no violence because local law enforcement have alllowed the Minutemen a free hand to operate in Cochise County."  In some California and Texas counties, law enforcement has shut down vigilante activity.

In light of recent abuses that have been perpetrated by Minutemen Project personnel and the lack of response by local and federal officials, it promises to be another long, hot summer for undocumented migrants in the Sonoran desert.

And some correspondence from CPT members in Arizona:

11 April 2005
[Three] VPT Arizona members went on their first night patrol in the Coronado National Forest, about an hour's drive North-West of Douglas.  It is a hot spot for Mexican migrants moving through the area with Minuteman Project personnel camping nearby and trying to turn migrants over to the Border Patrol.  CPT members work with "Legal Observers" who, like CPT workers, are connected to the "No More Deaths" Campaign in the desert.

When CPT members and two Legal Observers arrived at the forest just after dark, ten migrants were already in the hands of Border Patrol officers.  A Minuteman allegedly assaulted a Legal Observer by pushing his camera down.  The Legal Observer called the sheriff who arrived in ten minutes to investigate the charge and counter charges.  The Legal Observers left, the CPT members remained, and the sheriff departed giving both groups warnings of an arrest if he had to return.  Silent tension remained between CPT members and the Minutemen until, eventually, all of the Minutemen left the area.

[One CPTer] decided to stay in the CPT vehicle while [the other two] patrolled a dirt road paralleling the highway outside the park where Minutemen were camped for the night.  As identification the CPTers used glow sticks attached to their red hats.  They walked the back trails from the direcdtion that migrants would be walking in a potential encounter with Minutement.

CPT members met three groups of older Minutemen from Illinois, Colorado and Florida.  Some of the exchanges went like this:  "Who are you?  You must be scouts for migrants.  You won't mind if we call immigration?"  Another speaking into his walky-talky, "They are at my osition right now."  Another Minuteman asked, "What are you guys doing?" [The CPTers] replied, We're just out for a walk in the desert.  We are Christian Peacemaker Teams Members and we want to make sure there is no violence."  A Minuteman's response, "You don't need to be here.  There is no voilence.  Yous houldn't be out walking at night.  Someone might shoot you."  CPT members' reply, "And you guys say there's no violence?"  HIs response, "You shouldn't be walking along [the dirt road] and tripping hte Border Patrol¿s sensors and disturbing people  You should walk along the highway; it is safer."

A Minuteman who had shone an extremely bright light into [a CPTer's] eyes. momentarily blinding him (an agressive act usually intended for migrants) replied when asked the wattage of his light, "That's of no consequence."  [The CPTer] replied, "You know in the desert it is a tradition to offer water and food to strangers.  Do you have some water?"  The man sent the CPTers to his partner in another car where they received a bottle of water to share.

[The two CPTers] held friendly conversations with Michael from Illinois and Grady from Colorado who appreciated that the CPT members were Christians.  At one point Michael said, "I wish there could be a guest migrant visa that would permit these migrants to work at available jobs in the U.S. and then go home to Mexico."  [A CPTer] replied, "we couldn't agree more."

12 April 2005

Below are selections from the CPT journal from the Arizona/Sonora Peacemaker Team.

"Conflict zones are famous for rumors.  Everywhere CPT members work they are careful to identify rumors and avoid passing them on....Douglas, Arizona is as vulnerable to rumors as any place where CPT has a presence.

"Here, U.S. border enforcement policy deliberately channels migrants into the most deadly, inhospitable areas of the desert leading to hundreds of people's deaths each year as they attempt to cross the border.

"As well, currently a vigilante gropup called the Minuteman Project is present in the region.  One of their goals is to round up migrants and turn them over to Border Patrol personnel.  The Minuteman PRoject personnel believe the U.S. government is not doing enough to keep pople out of the U.S: if they don't have official immigration documents. Here in Douglas, a lot of rumors have been flying around.  When I asked a season rporter if this was common, he said, "No, people are scared."

Here are some of the rumors I heard recently over a cup of coffee:

1. Wal-Mart in Douglas has stopped selling bullets during... April in response to the presence of the Minuteman Project.
2. The local schools, including the local college, have had special meetings to talk about what to do in the event that Minuteman personnel come on campus with weapons.
3. Because some of the Minuteman personnel are camping in the Wal-Mart parking lot, supervisors at the store have said that it is ok if people do not want to report to work because of fear of confrontation.
4. White civilians have been knocking on doors and asking people their citizenship.
5. Triple A has been telling its members to not travel through Douglas becaue of increased threats of violence.

"These rumors may or may not be true, and some would be easy to trace.  I think the significance of these rumors is that many reasonable people believe them to be true, and this speaks to the level of terror that many people in Douglas are feeling.  The population of Douglas is 80% Hispanic.  The MInuteman Project and the presenceof other white supremacist groups has made many people feel like outsiders in their own city and country.

Necesidades en una política de inmigración según el negocio, First Data/Western Union

(Por favor, como siempre, disculpen el español)

El gran negocio First Data/Western Union encabeza un esfuerzo para educar la gente estadounidense sobre la necesidad de reformar las leyes de la inmigración.  Este negocio  propugnar qye haya  los prinicipios siguientes en cualquier reforma:

• Una nueva política debe reconocer que los inmigrantes fartalecen la economía de los EU y diversifican la sociedad.
• Cualquier política nueva debe aplicarse a las necesidades de salud y educaci´'on de los niños de los inmigrantes.  Los niños son nuestro futuro y no debemos ingorarlos.
• La política debe incluir un mecanismo para reducir la lista pendiente de las familias  las que buscan inmigrar a los EU.
• Hay que estar una nueva evaluación completa de las políticas de inmigración y de las políticas para trabajadores inmigrantes en los  EU como medio de cumplir con nuestros valores democráticos.
• Cualquier política tiene que incluir reculaciones nuevas y requisitas nuevas que son razonables, las que se puede hacer cumplir, y las que no son demasiado pesadas ni  para negocios ni para individuos.
• Hay que hacer una reconocimiento que la solución para inhibir inmigración no documentada tiene que abordar las cuestiones de desarrollo económico en que originarse los inmigrantes.
• La nueva política tiene que balancear loas preocupaciones de los inmigrantes con la seguridad de los residentes de los EU.

La cuestión es ´cómo incorporar los inmigrantes, no cómo marginarlos.

Los inmigrantes son obreros esentiales en los negocios de agricultura, hospitalidad, construcción, servicios de salud especialmente para los jubilados, j jardinería paisajista.  Se espera que en diez años sera una gran necesidad de trabajadores inmigrantes para la atención a los ancianos.  Estos negocios son abogados fuertes para la reforma de los procesos de inmigración.

Legal Immigration 101 What Employers Have to Do

(As usual, I am not an expert on this stuff, so don't view this as infallible information)

As we keep hearing, illegal immigrants pour into our country not only because they face extreme poverty at home, but also because there are jobs waiting for them here.  That many of the jobs are illegal is in part due to the incredible difficulty of making them legal.  Jobs most frequently filled by illegal immigrants are in the health care industry, the hotel and resort industry,restaurants, and in those old standbyes, housekeeping and domestic work of various kinds (think Kerik), landscaping and agriculture.

Below I'll try to give you a short version of what employers need to do to obtain permission to legally hire foreign workers for low-paying agricultural jobs.  You'll see that it is bureaucracy to the max, but it's only the government responding to the loudest voices against immigration.  It appears that the burdensome regs make it tempting not just for people who'd exploit illegal immigrants but for those who just can't afford to jump through all these hoops to go the illegal route. It's not just the money, it's the time.  Your harvest may be dead on the fields before you can get your workers.   In addition, if during any of this it's discovered that there are U.S. workers working under conditions less satisfactory than those described below as requirements for foreign workers, the application for employing the foreign workers will be rejected.  It seems altogether plausible to me that the fear of being found with U.S. employees working under conditions different from below would discourage a farmer from making an application.  For instance, if the Department of Labor decides that the going rate you have to pay is above the minimum wage, you have to pay everyone that rate.  You can't pay U.S. citizens or anyone else the minimum wage if it is lower than what the Department of Labor says you should pay.  This means that you don't have money left to pay many people more than the DOL rate if you want to give raises.

To work legally, both employer and potential employee need to apply to the U.S. government.   According to the guidelines provided by the US Department of Labor (this is separate from Immigration regulations), in order to legally hire agricultural workers, an employer

...must agree to engage in independependent positive recruitment of U.S. workers which means an active advertising effort in at least newspapers and radio equivalent to efforts conducted by employers who don't use H-2A workers in areas where there might be US workers available.  Employers can ONLY specify qualifications essential to the job and required by employers of U.S. citizen employees as well.

Wages must be the same as for U.S. workers and must be at least as high as all minimum wages or prevailing hourly wage whichever is higher.  The employers should consult with the Dept of Labor regional office to decide what that rate is.  Similarly piece rate bases must be approved.  If as work progresses piece rate wages result in lower rates than the standard hourly wage, then they must be supplemented to meet the equivalent hourly level, again at the prevailing rate for the same crop or activity.

The employer has to provide free housing to all workers not reasonably able to return to their residences the same day.  Such housing "must be inspected and approved according to appropriate standards.  Housing provided by the employer shall meet the full set of relevant department of labor standards and other relevant standards.  Under some circumstances rental housing meeting the same standards can be provided." 

The employer has to provide either three meals a day or "free and convenient cooking and kitchen facilities."  There can be charges for the provided meals.

The employer is responsible for the following kinds of transportation:

"After the worker has completed fifty per cent of the work contract period, the employer must reimburse the worker for the cost of transportation and subsistence from the place of recruitment to the place of work if such costs were borne by the worker.  The employer must provide free transportation between the employer's housing and the worksite for any worker who is provided housing.  Upon completion of the work contract, the employer must pay economic costs of a worekrs subsistence to the place of recruitment."  There are some varioations to this depending on where the worker goes.

The employer must provide workers comp insurance if required by state law.  If the state doesn't require it, the employer must provide equivalent insurance and prove it to the regional administrator (whoever that is).

The employer must provide all tools and supplies necessary for the work unless common practice for the area and job for worker to have some of his own.

The employer must guarantee employment for at least 3/4 of work period or pay him for that much if he can't employ him the whole time.

"The employer must hire any qualified and eligible U.S. worker who applies for a job until fifty percent of the period of the work contract has elapsed."

The employer can't employ immigrant labor to fill jobs vacant because of strikes or labor disputes.

Employers granted temporary foreign agricgultural labor certification have to pay $100 plus "$10 for each job opportunity certified up to $1000 for each certification.

Employers have to keep records of earnings.  Workers have to get complete statements of hours worked and earnings.  Workers have to be paid at least twice monthly or more often if prevailing habit to do so. All workers have to have copies of job orders or contract.

And the employers haven't even applied yet for certification!  To do this, they have to

...submit a complete labor certification application with the appropriate regional administrator and local authority at least forty five calendar days before the first date on which the workers are needed.  IF the application is accepted within the required framework, the regional administrator will make a certification determination thirty days before the workers are needed.  BUT employers are encouraged  "consult with the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration and others for guidance and assistance  well before the forty five days and to submit their application before 45 days as well to allow for "review, discussion and amendment if necessary." 

When an application is ACCEPTED for consideration, that's just what it's accepted for: consideration, meaning the regional administrator willinform the employer of specific efforts expected of them re recruiting US workers;

"will require that the job order be placed into appropriate intrastate and interstate clearances; and

"may require the employer to engage in independent positive recruitment efforts within a multi'state region of traditional or expected labor supply if the regional administrator determines there is a sufficient supply of labor to be recruited."

If the employer receives approval, he finds himself paying more, as much as $2.00 an hour, for the foreign worker than he would for a domestic worker because of the additional requirements. 

THEN the employers have to find the workers in Mexico (or wherever, but usually Mexico) and the workers, still in Mexico have to find them.  I haven't figured out how this works.  In any case, to get a H-2A visa, the potential worker has to supply the American consulate in his area of residence with a copy of the potential employer's certificate of approval for hiring foreign agricultural workers (remember the process I described above?) In addition, he must submit two application forms, two identical photos and proof that he meets the minimum job requirements described in the employer's application.  Then you have to wait for approval.  If you have a family, they have to fill out H-4 applications.  It apparently takes years to get an H-4 visa.  H-2A visas are good for 364 days.  If you don't go home and you get caught, you can't get another visa.

There is absolutely no path to citizenship for Mexican agricultural workers who go through the process to enter the country legally.

So here are some interesting statistics:

In 2002, only 2% of the agricultural workers in Arizona were legal.

In 2002, only 41,000 foreign agricultural workers in the United States were legal.  There are an estimated 2.5 MILLION farm workers in the country.  You think there'd be any U.S. food to eat without those illegal immigrants?

Some links for this article;

www.azcentral.com/special03/articles/0207guestworker08.html

http://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/foreign/h-2b.asp

http://usimmigration.visapro.com

Bush-Fox Meeting on immigration en inglés

washingtonpost.com

Bush Renews Support for Immigration Reform

By JENNIFER LOVEN
The Associated Press
Sunday, November 21, 2004; 9:47 AM

SANTIAGO, Chile - President Bush renewed his support Sunday for changes to U.S. immigration law that would allow undocumented laborers to work legally, but stopped short of pledging to Mexican President Vicente Fox that he would push for enaction of the nearly year-old proposal.

Bush made plain that terrorism was his top concern when it came to immigration issues.

"I explained to the president that we share a mutual concern to make sure our border is secure," Bush said after meeting with Fox on the sidelines of an economic summit here. "One way to make sure the border is secure is to have reasonable immigration policies. I assured him that we want people from Mexico treated with respect and dignity."

Sitting next to Fox for brief remarks to reporters, Bush did not say how he would press for the reforms, which he first proposed in January. The Republican-controlled Congress did not move on his proposal this year.

"I told President Fox that I had campaigned on this issue," Bush said, although he gave the proposal - unpopular with his conservative base - a very low profile in his re-election campaign. He mentioned it infrequently, mostly early on in the race, in Southwestern border states or before Hispanic audiences where advisers believed it could give him a boost.

In the session with journalists, Fox did not raise the immigration reform issue specifically, instead talking about his commitment to create jobs in Mexico that would help solve the problem from his side of the border. He did suggest further talks in Washington, hinting he would seek "some form of agreement between the two countries" on the matter.

Fox said afterward he expected meet with Bush in Washington this February or March to discuss migration and trade.

Asked on CNN whether Bush had promised to move the immigration legislation forward, Fox said: "What I got, and very firmly, is his will, his will to attend this issue."

While the administration said the temporary worker initiative would be a legislative priority next year, Bush did not set a deadline for getting it passed.

Bush's plan would allow undocumented workers to get visas to work legally, but the visas would be only temporary and provide no path to citizenship - an approach that Mexican officials have signaled they would embrace, even if reluctantly.

Bush and Fox avoided talking about subjects where they differ, such as Iraq and Cuba, administration officials said.

With the meeting with Fox, followed by a state visit with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos later Sunday and a brief stop in Colombia on Monday, Bush is aiming to dispel the perception of U.S. neglect of Latin America and burnish an American reputation damaged by the Iraq war. It's a second-term diplomatic offensive in the region akin to his recent courting of Europe.

The high-profile meetings with the Chilean leader are Bush's Exhibit A for how free trade can benefit two countries, said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The two countries signed a free-trade pact last year. That could be helpful as Bush pushes for forward movement on a hemisphere-wide accord, resisted by countries such as Brazil and Venezuela.

The Colombia visit, and a brief "pull-aside" conversation with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo during the 21-nation Asian-Pacific economic summit, also could help the president focus on lowering trade barriers. The United States is in the process of negotiating an Andean free-trade pact covering those two nations as well as Ecuador.

Mostly, the several hours of meetings Monday with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a conservative whose war against narcoterrorists and leftist rebels has received major funding from the United States, allows Bush to make a very visible statement about the U.S. commitment to fighting terrorism. It also was meant to highlight American contributions that have helped to bring some stability to a country ravaged by decades of guerrilla war, the official said.

"We put a lot of political support into Uribe," the official said. "We want to underscore that commitment and show that this is something that, number one, is paying big dividends for the American people, it's paying big dividends for the Colombian people."

But turning around the U.S. reputation in South America will not be easy.

The Iraq war is deeply unpopular in Latin America. The administration's commitment to open, freer economies is viewed by some as an unwelcome dictate from Washington. And there is a feeling that the needs of the Western Hemisphere have been neglected by the Bush administration.

© 2004 The Associated Press

Bush y Fox en Chile sobre inimigracion. El Universal del 21 de noviembre 2004

(Hay dos artículos)

Fox se reunirá en Chile con cuatro mandatarios 
José Luis Ruiz/Enviado
El Universal
Domingo 21 de noviembre de 2004

Encuentros bilaterales con Bush, Putin, Lagos y Hu Jin Tao en la cumbre de APEC
Cobertura especial...

Santiago.- Los presidentes de México, Vicente Fox, y de Estados Unidos, George W. Bush, se reunirán hoy en esta capital en el marco del Foro de Cooperación Económica Asia-Pacífico (APEC), cuya celebración se ve afectada por fuertes protestas callejeras en contra de la presencia del mandatario estadounidense.
De acuerdo con el presidente Vicente Fox, esta reunión será de gran importancia para "reiniciar" la relación bilateral, y aseveró que ni el tema de Irak ni otros han afectado el diálogo político, porque los "buenos amigos y buenos socios acostumbran hablarse con la verdad y decirse las cosas".

Sobre el encuentro, en el que se retomarán los temas torales de la agenda bilateral, incluyendo migración, seguridad, comercio y agua, Fox calificó la relación con Bush "tan fuerte como siempre".

Durante la cumbre, también se reunirá con sus homólogos de Rusia, Vladimir Putin; Chile, Ricardo Lagos, y China, Hu Jin Tao.

Con cada uno de sus colegas buscará intensificar la relación política y comercial y discutirán temas de las agendas bilaterales.

Hablan Fox y Bush sobre tema migratorio 
José Luis Ruiz / Enviado
El Universal
Santiago de Chile
Domingo 21 de noviembre de 2004

Vicente Fox explica las prioridades de crear oportunidades de trabajo para los mexicanos en Estados Unidos mientras que George W. Bush habla sobre la necesidad de emplear a connacionales con la oferta laboral estadounidense

08:06 
Los presidentes de México, Vicente Fox, y de Estados Unidos, George W. Bush, sostuvieron aquí un encuentro de más de treinta minutos, tiempo en el que ambos mandatarios trabajaron en los diversos temas de la agenda bilateral, con especial énfasis en el asunto migratorio.

A decir por el propio mandatario estadounidense, esta conversación fue “muy constructiva y abierta” y se dijo complacido por escuchar del presidente Fox que la economía mexicana está creciendo y generando empleos, particularmente en la frontera, y que eso es una "muy buena noticia para Estados Unidos".

Ambos mandatarios abrieron un espacio posterior a su encuentro para comentar con la prensa algunos de los pormenores de la conversación que sostuvieron, y en este tenor el presidente Bush aseveró que el tema migratorio fue el que demandó mayor tiempo en esta reunión bilateral, la primera que se da tras la reelección de Bush.

Mientras, el presidente Fox explicó que una de las prioridades de su gobierno es la de crear las oportunidades de trabajo para los mexicanos, el mandatario estadounidense se refirió a la importancia de conciliar la necesidad de emplear a trabajadores mexicanos con la oferta laboral en Estados Unidos, con la meta de tener un flujo migratorio ordenado, seguro y legal.

Por su parte, el presidente Fox destacó la idea de sostener un nuevo encuentro con Bush en Washington –lo que se prevé suceda en el mes de febrero próximo- y ahí “ojalá poder ir cerrando algunos de estos asuntos con acuerdos firmes”.

“En la reunión hemos felicitado al presidente Bush por su reelección, por su triunfo electoral y los dos tenemos una gran disposición en construir más en estos dos próximos años del gobierno de Fox y en estos cuatro años del gobierno de Bush” , comentó el mandatario mexicano.

Tras la reunión, el canciller, Luis Ernesto Derbez, afirmó que la relación bilateral con Estados Unidos “está en su mejor momento”, lo que derivó en un encuentro cordial en el que los temas bilaterales se trataron de manera abierta y con buen ánimo.

goc

© 2004 Copyright El Universal-El Universal Online 

New Border Deportation Procedures

One of a series of articles on immigration policies, procedures, politics, and incidents which retain their currency.  If the article is originally in Spanish, the English will follow

Rumbo Texas, August 10, 2004
Deportarán a ilegales sin poder defenderse

El Departamento de Seguridad Interior anunció que planea dar a los agentes de la patrulla fronteriza nuevos y amplios poderes para deportar a inmigrantes ilegales en la frontera con México y Canadá sin ofrecerles la oportunidad de presentar sus casos a un juez de inmigración.

La medida, que entrará en vigor este mismo mes, es una amplia expansión de la autoridad de miles de agentes que patrullan las fronteras del país. Hasta ahora, los patrulleros fronterizos se limitaban a entregar a los indocumentados detenidos a los tribunales de inmigración, donde los jueces determinaban si procedía la deportación o podían permanecer en el país.

La nueva norma se aplicará sólo a los inmigrantes ilegales detenidos en un radio de 100 millas de la frontera con México y Canadá que hayan sido aprehendidos durante sus primeros 14 días en territorio estadounidense, según un comunicado de prensa del Departamento.

Las autoridades explicaron que los agentes se concentrarán en inmigrantes que no sean de México o de Canadá, sino de otras nacionalidades. En 2003, unos 37,000 inmigrantes, en particular de Centroamérica, fueron arrestados a lo largo de la frontera en la región suroeste de Estados Unidos.

Illegals will be deported without being able to make an appeal

The Department of Homeland Security announced that it plans to give border patrol agents new and fuller powers to deport illegal immigrants on the borders with Mexico and Canada without providing the immigrants with the opportunity to present their cases to an immigration judge.

The measure, which will come into full force this month is a large expansion of the authority of the thousands of agents who patrol the country's frontiers.  Until now, border patrol agents were limited to presenting detained undocumented immigrants to immigration courts where judges determined if they would be deported or if they could remain in the country.

The new procedure will apply only to immigrants detained within a radius of 100 miles of the borders with Mexico and Canada who have been apprehended within fourteen days of arrival in United States territory.  Authorities explained that the agents will concentrate on immigrants who are not Mexican or Canadian but are other nationalities.  In 2003 some 3700 immigrants, in particular from Central America, have been arrested along the U.S. border in the Southwest.

Immigration: What Reform Will Bring to Our Nation: A Call to Action. A panel discussion

Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico en San Antonio and First Data Corporation presented a panel discussion yesterday, November 15, at UNAM.  Two panels presented, the first from Mexico, the second from the United States.  While both groups stressed the critical need for immigration reform, and while both supported (Samuel P. Huntington be damned) continuing and reformed immigration, it was clear that there are two sets of interests which are not entirely simpatico at this point.  I will return to this topic soon, but would like to say now that it looks likely that we will have immigration reform in the U.S. in the next couple of years because now U.S. business is openly advocating for it.  This is not a bad thing.  What it means is that pro-immigrant advocates have a powerful ally which they should deal with warily but which they should deal with.  Let me stress warily.  Many of the businesses that want Mexican immigrants are low-pay, low to no benefit tourist and service industries.  They must be held to their word that they want Mexican workers to receive same benefits, salary, social security, etc. as U.S. workers.  I don't ever see that many U.S. workers cleaning hotel rooms when I travel so I wonder what they would consider equivalent to  U.S. worker treatment.

The Mexican panel pointed out quite clearly the problems immigration presents to Mexico: the disruption of the social fabric of pueblos where there are no men; the loss of potential labor, etc.  But even more fundamental, they pointed out, were the problems in the Mexican economy which led to emigration.  Some of these are problems within Mexico, but many have to do with the marginalized place of Mexico in the U.S. economic picture: we attract their workers to work in our industries because we actually, with some of our policies, severely discourage the development of Mexican industry.  The "we" includes not only US production beneficiaries of NAFTA but, for instance Citicorp which owns one of the two major banks in Mexico and does not make available loans for the development of local small business.  The other major bank is owned by a Spanish company and if I understood correctly, follows similar practices.

Under Critical Issues: Mexico/La Frontera/Immigration I have put links for some of the U.S. participants in this panel.  They are definitely worth checking out.

EIGHT: David Brooks and David Carrasco on Huntington's "The Hispanic Challenge"

Here is an editorial by David Brooks in The NY Times and an answer by David Carrasco who takes Huntington in the Harvard dialogue which is included on this blog as  SEVEN in this immigration series.

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Americano Dream

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: February 24, 2004

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amuel Huntington is one of the most eminent political scientists in the world. His essay "The Clash of Civilizations" set off an international debate, and now Huntington sees another clash of civilizations, this time within the United States.

"In this new era," he writes in his forthcoming book, "Who Are We," "the single most immediate and most serious challenge to America's traditional identity comes from the immense and continuing immigration from Latin America, especially Mexico."

These new immigrants, he argues, are not like earlier immigrants. Many have little interest in assimilating. "As their numbers increase, Mexican-Americans feel increasingly comfortable with their own culture and often contemptuous of American culture," Huntington argues.

Instead of climbing the ladder of success, he says, Mexican and other Latino immigrants are slow to learn English. They remain in overwhelmingly Hispanic neighborhoods and regions and tend not to disperse, as other groups have. Their education levels, even into the fourth generation, are far below that of other groups. They are less likely to start companies or work their way up into managerial and professional jobs.

Most important, Huntington concludes, they tend not to buy into the basic American creed, which is the bedrock of our national identity and our political culture. "There is no Americano dream," Huntington writes, "There is only the American dream created by an Anglo-Protestant society. Mexican-Americans will share in that dream and in that society only if they dream in English."

Obviously, Huntington is not pulling his punches. You can read an excerpt from the book in the new issue of Foreign Policy magazine at www.foreignpolicy.com. You'll find that Huntington marshals a body of evidence to support his claims. But the most persuasive evidence is against him. Mexican-American assimilation is a complicated topic because Mexican-Americans are such a diverse group. The educated assimilate readily; those who come from peasant villages take longer. But they are assimilating.

It's easy to find evidence that suggests this is so. In their book, "Remaking the American Mainstream," Richard Alba of SUNY-Albany and Victor Nee of Cornell point out that though there are some border neighborhoods where immigrants are slow to learn English, Mexicans nationwide know they must learn it to get ahead. By the third generation, 60 percent of Mexican-American children speak only English at home.

Nor is it true that Mexican immigrants are scuttling along the bottom of the economic ladder. An analysis of 2000 census data by the USC urban planner Dowell Myers suggests that Latinos are quite adept at climbing out of poverty. Sixty-eight percent of those who have been in this country 30 years own their own homes.

Mexican immigrants are in fact dispersing around the nation. When they have children, they tend to lose touch with their Mexican villages and sink roots here. If you look at consumer data, you find that while they may spend more money on children's clothes and less on electronics than native-born Americans, there are no significant differences between Mexican-American lifestyles and other American lifestyles. They serve in the military — and die for this nation — at comparable rates.

Frankly, something's a little off in Huntington's use of the term "Anglo-Protestant" to describe American culture. There is no question that we have all been shaped by the legacies of Jonathan Edwards and Benjamin Franklin. But the mentality that binds us is not well described by the words "Anglo" or "Protestant."

We are bound together because we Americans share a common conception of the future. History is not cyclical for us. Progress does not come incrementally, but can be achieved in daring leaps. That mentality burbles out of Hispanic neighborhoods, as any visitor can see.

Huntington is right that Mexican-Americans lag at school. But that's in part because we've failed them. Our integration machinery is broken. But if we close our borders to new immigration, you can kiss goodbye the new energy, new tastes and new strivers who want to lunge into the future.

That's the real threat to the American creed. 

David Carrasco's response:

Dear David,

I've enjoyed and learned from your many editorials and discussions on evening t.v. I'm a third generation Mexican American who works as an historian of religions at Harvard working on Mesoamerican and Latino history and religions and I appreciated your response to Sam Huntington's book on the threat to national identity caused by Latinos (Feb. 24th). Several of us here at Harvard associated with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and many Latinos around the hemisiphere have been studying these issues and see the patterns of adjustment, assimilation, and what anthropologists call transculturation very differently than Huntington and even from the ways you were responding to him.

Its remarkable, and I think you were suggesting, bad social science that decades after Will Herberg wrote his classic study "Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay on American Religious Sociology" which has been followed by scores of studies showing the richer and more complex histories of the people who dreamed and redreamed the "American dream" and the "American nightmare", that Huntington can write and think like this. He gets broad attention for what promises to be a retrograde study designed more to provoke and I think to hurt, than to inform or illuminate while a book like Latinos: Remaking America edited by Marcelo Suarez Orozco and Mariela Paez is more worthy of study and critique, more helpful in understanding the huge immmigration process from Latin America the US is experiencing. Its alarming to read about Huntington's work which ignores the facts that Latinos are also making creative contributions to US society in the areas of labor, culture (music, sports, fashion, film, art, political discourse) education, family values and literature.

You were right to criticize his puny notion of "Anglo-Protestant Society" as the core of the American experience. But I wondered why you did not invoke the African American experience in the United States and the Americas as a fundamental critique to his "Who Are We"? As a scholar of the history of religions in American cities like New Orleans, El Paso, Texas, Chicago, and New York, the evidence is that these cities have been, to varying degrees more multiracial, multireligious, multiethnic, and multidreaming than the author of Who are We? knows. The evidence shows that these cities were never only "Anglo-Protestant".

One short personal note. My family worked hard to 'assimilate'. My father set up the Job Corps center in El Paso, Texas that is today named after him. My experience at assimilation-including dreaming in both Spanish and English-led me to a painful awareness when I was a teenager growing up in Maryland which I witnessed in many Mexican Americans. It was this. Regardless of how hard we tried, we came to crossroads where someone in the dominant society, a local Sam Huntington, would take a 'difference' AND our efforts to minimize our difference and draw the line between us in ways that degraded our efforts (to particiipate in democracy) and our families. The "contemptuousness" more often came from Anglos. "We notice something about you, even though you try to be one of us-we notice hand gestures and body language, or skin color, or inflections or social affiliations or rhythms that devalue our neighborhood property, our privilege and 'who we are." I heard this from neighbors, from school teachers, from public officials. The awareness was, in spite of individual Anglos who did try to empower us, that there existed a pervasive attitude and practice that said, "You can't be who you are and be who we are and who we are will always be superior to who you are. Go home. This is not your home."

Too bad that Sam can't finish the sentence and look at the fuller stories and lives of Americanos, as you challenge him to do. Who Are We is- We the People!

Finally, you may find it enjoyable to see the film "Americanos: Latino Life in the U.S." produced by Edward James Olmos and the Smithsonian Institution, a project that included a traveling photo exhibit, a book and a music CD.

Davíd Carrasco

Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of Latin American Studies
Harvard Divinity School and Department of Anthropology
Harvard University

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SIX: "The Hispanic Challenge," a review from the right.

The following is a review of Huntington's book, "Who Are We?  The Challenges to America's National Identity," the enlarged version "The Hispanic Challenge."  It is by John Fonte and appeared in The National Review on May 24, 2004.  John Fonte is the Director of the Center for American Common Culture at the Hudson Institute, a Neoconservative think tank (http://acc.hudson.org) .  Before the review, I present a bit of information from The Hudson Institute about the Hudson Institute, about Herman Kahn, the Institute's founder, and about John Fonte.

The Hudson Institute Mission:

"As a public policy think tank, Hudson Institute forecasts long-term trends and designs near-term solutions for government, business and the not for profit world.  We share optimis about the future and a willingness to question conventional wisdom.  We believe in free markets, individual responsibility, the power of technology and a determination to preserve America's security."

The founder of the Hudson Institute was Herman Kahn (1922-1983).  About him, Donald Rumsfeld said, "He was a giant.  He boldly confronted public issues with creativity and the conviction, in his case correct, that thought and analysis could make ours a better world."  Raymond Aron said of him, "As a matter of fact, Herman Kahn, with all his scientific studies, all his subtle analyses, all his hypothetical experiments, remains a reformer (...)

Here is what is said about Herman Kahn on the Hudson Institute Web Page:

Biographical Highlights

Herman Kahn, the most celebrated and controversial nuclear strategist of his day, later to be known also as a futurist, political scientist, geo-strategist and founder and director of the Hudson Institute "think tank,” began his career in the late 1940s with the Rand Corporation as a physicist and mathematician. His co-directorship of the Strategic Air Force Project while being at Rand inspired him to write On Thermonuclear War, the book that elevated him to national and international preeminence. On Thermonuclear War was the first book to systematically analyze the possible effects of nuclear war and the possible strategic options under various circumstances. The book was followed by a sequence of similar studies having a profound impact on the US nuclear and military strategy and on strategic thinking in general (Thinking about the Unthinkable, Crises and Arms Control, On Escalation).

In 1961 Kahn resigned the Rand Corporation and established the Hudson Institute, an organization that developed into a pioneer and model for the new emerging forms of public policy and interdisciplinary research institutions. Kahn became the first director of the Institute, which was set up to do inter-disciplinary freelance research into what he termed "important issues, not just urgent ones."

While he maintained his interest in strategic and military matters, Kahn began to turn his attentions to economics, politics and especially to public policy issues. He became one of the founding fathers of the Futures Studies (futurology) movement contributing to the highest degree to its methodological and theoretical foundations: he developed the scenario method, the application of systems analysis and of mathematical and scientific tools to forecasting, and the organizational bases of interdisciplinary and future-oriented research.

He had a critical and very visible participation in the public debates of his day on topics related to economic development, global trends and the impact of technology. He challenged the neo-Malthusianism and doomsday scenarios and rhetoric popular in the 1970’ and with a series of path breaking studies he contributed decisively to the emergence of a more realistic and pragmatic approach to global problems (The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next 33 Years, World Economic Development, The Next 200 Years and The Coming Boom: Economic, Political and Social).

During his lifetime he was considered: “one of the world's great intellects”, “a mental mutation” possessing “an incredibly high, stratospheric I.Q.“, a “mesmerizing presence”, “spectacular”, “a provocateur in the sedate world of ideas”, “a reformer”, "a technological optimist" or “a futurist who attempted to cope with history before it happens.” Kahn described himself as a "free-thinking intellectual (…) largely determined by a desire to do policy-oriented studies with practical applications (…) pragmatic, eclectic, and synthetic in thinking”. "I'm against ignorance," Kahn once told, "I'm against sloppy, emotional thinking. I'm against fashionable thinking. I am against the whole cliché of the moment".

John Fonte is, as noted, Director of the Center For American  Common Culture at the Hudson Institute.  This center "offers policy advice on civic education, citizenship, and issues concerning the interplay of national identity, multiculturalism, the assimilation of immigrants, global isseus, and the future of American liberal democracy.He is also a Senior Fellow there.  He was a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute where "he directed the Committee to Review National Standards under the chairmanship of Lynne V. Cheney, Vice-President Dick, Cheney's wife.

Other places he has served as consultant include the Virginia Department of Education, the Texas Education Agency, the California Academic Standards Commission, The American Federation of Teachers and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania. 

He recieved his Ph.D. in world history from the University of Chicago and his B.A. and M.A. fromt he University of Arizona.

John Fonte's Review: 

Assimilation Nation: "Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity," by Samuel P. Huntington (Simon & Schuster, 448 pp., $27)

Harvard's Samuel Huntington is perhaps America's foremost political scientist. His forte is comprehensive intellectual analysis of the deepest issues we face. In the 1970s, on President Carter's National Security Council staff, Huntington organized the most thorough strategic review of the Cold War ever undertaken, influencing the Brzezinski and, later, the Reagan counteroffensives against world Communism. In the 1990s, his detailed analysis of the new global fault lines in The Clash of Civilizations alerted a complaisant pre-9/11 world to the dangers ahead. Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity is Huntington doing what he does best. It is a classic¾perhaps the definitive¾overview of the future of the American nation-state. Huntington argues that American identity today is based on both ideology and a common culture. The ideology¾the "American Creed," a belief in liberty, democracy, individual rights, and the like¾is a "product of the distinct Anglo-Protestant culture" brought to North America by the mostly British settlers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Universalist Enlightenment concepts also played a part. These ideas proved especially fruitful because they found "receptive ground in the Anglo-Protestant culture that had already existed in America for over a century." This culture includes the English language; British traditions of law, rights, and limited government; the values of dissenting Protestantism (especially its moralism and anti-hierarchical spirit, which made it different from European Protestantism); the work ethic, economic opportunity, individualism, and Christianity. Huntington contends that two widely accepted propositions about American identity¾that we are a "nation of immigrants" and that our identity is defined solely by the values of the American Creed¾are half-truths that are ultimately misleading. First, he says, we are a classic "settler" nation, in which the ideas and institutions of the original settlers established the core culture that (with modifications) "still primarily" endures. It is this "Anglo" culture in the first place that attracted immigrants, who then, in large measure, did not simply replicate the old country but assimilated into the new¾into the American mainstream. Thus, as a people, we are descendants of settlers and assimilated immigrants, not simply a "nation of immigrants."  Second, although the Creed is a crucial element of American identity, our nation is not solely based on ideas. Huntington notes that a strong believer in the American Creed of liberty, democracy, and individual rights, who lives in Russia or India, is not an American, but a Russian or Indian. That person would be an American only if he immigrated, learned America's language and customs, took the oath of allegiance, and became a loyal citizen of the United States. Moreover, a truly multicultural America (not what exists today, a country with many subcultures within a common civic core) would ultimately become multi-creedal. If ethnic and religious groups had distinct cultures in opposition to the mainstream culture, they would eventually advocate different political creeds and ideologies. Huntington makes it very clear that America's Anglo-Protestant culture is not dependent upon British ethnicity or Protestantism. He heralds our "multiethnic, multiracial society in which individuals are judged on their merits" as "the America I know and love." He declares that "America will still be America long after the WASPish descendants of its founders have become a small and uninfluential minority." The chief weakness of the book, however, is Huntington's failure to articulate the extent to which the principles and politics of America's 18th-century Founders both influenced the pre-existing settler culture and established the moral and intellectual foundation for repudiating all racial and ethnic hierarchies. Some attention to the work of scholars like Thomas West and Charles Kesler could have strengthened the section on the Founders. That flaw, it must be admitted, is a minor one; Huntington's account is otherwise irreproachable. He describes how, since the 1960s, powerful forces among American elites have launched a sustained effort¾one that is, "quite possibly, without precedent in human history"¾to "deconstruct" American national identity. This "deconstruction coalition" operates like the "imperial and colonial" regimes of old, which promoted subnational identities in order to "enhance the government's ability to divide and conquer." Besides support for the subnational, the "denationalized elites" embrace the transnational¾and denigrate affection for and loyalty to the American nation. He quotes the declaration of Amy Gutmann, the new president of the University of Pennsylvania, that it is "repugnant" for American students to learn that they are "above all citizens of the United States" (as opposed to having "primary allegiance" to "democratic humanism"). Huntington, the grand strategist par excellence, explains that the issues of transnationalism, "racial preferences, bilingualism, multiculturalism, immigration, assimilation, national history standards, English as the official language, Eurocentrism," and so on are "all battles in a single war over the nature of American national identity": the attempt by elites to dismantle America's Creed and common culture. For example, Huntington argues that "it would be hard to overestimate the importance" of the effort by elites to promote racial and ethnic group preferences. This is a major assault on a core principle of the American Creed: the concept of equal rights for individuals regardless of race. Significantly, almost all of the deconstructionist measures are strongly opposed by substantial majorities of the American people, leading Huntington to ponder the emergence of "unrepresentative democracy." Huntington declares that the "central issue" concerning immigration after 1965 is not whether it should happen, but whether the new immigrants should be assimilated. Historically, that's what immigration has meant: Americanization. Immigration with assimilation, Huntington states, has been a "great success story" that has brought to America "millions of dedicated, energetic, ambitious, and talented people who became overwhelmingly committed to America's Anglo-Protestant culture and the values of the American Creed." One chapter of this book recently appeared as an article in Foreign Policy, and touched off some controversy. Huntington argues that Mexican immigration today differs from that of the past (and from today's Asian immigration) in a number of important ways, all of which impede assimilation. Mexico shares a 2,000-mile border with the U.S., which makes it easier for immigrants to retain and reinforce old loyalties. Mexican immigrants are highly concentrated in regions that were once part of Mexico, which fosters resentment. And Mexicans are the single largest group of immigrants (and overwhelmingly the largest percentage of illegal immigrants), as a result of which a large number of today's newcomers speak one language, Spanish¾which, in turn, makes English acquisition less important than it was when immigrants spoke a greater variety of languages. Moreover, Huntington tells us, the U.S. "appears to face something new in its history: persistent high levels of immigration." Previously, he notes, immigration reductions greatly facilitated the Americanization of immigrants. Still other cultural factors militate against the assimilation of the Latino immigrants: the emergence of denationalized elites (often corporate leaders); the availability of inexpensive travel and communications; the expansion of dual citizenship; the promotion of multicultural ideology and ethnic identity in schools; and continuing government policies fostering group preferences and bilingualism. We are simply no longer living in the world represented by Ellis Island. It is possible, Huntington surmises, that over the course of the century the U.S. could develop into a bicultural, bilingual nation with two very different peoples¾similar to Canada's bifurcated English and French populations, speaking two different languages and adhering to two different cultures. A preemptive strike against Huntington's thesis has already been launched. Some have made hysterical accusations of "xenophobia" and "racism"; others contend that his evidence does not hold up. The crucial issue is this: To what extent is "patriotic assimilation"¾primary attachment to American identity and sole loyalty to the American nation¾occurring? Huntington points to studies citing loyalty problems among Muslim immigrants. An empirical study of Los Angeles Muslims found that only 10 percent of the immigrants surveyed felt more allegiance to America than to a Muslim country. He also argues that the available evidence suggests that Mexican immigrants' identification with America is "weak." The most comprehensive longitudinal study of the children of immigrants found that Mexican American students (age 13 and 14), whether born in Mexico or in the U.S., "overwhelmingly did not choose 'American' as their primary identification." Among the American-born students in the study only 3.9 percent considered themselves primarily American. Huntington did not cite a Pew Hispanic Center study published in December 2002 that strengthens his case. Taken eight to ten months after the patriotic high point of 9/11, the study revealed that among American citizens of Mexican descent, 55 percent considered themselves Mexican "first," 25 percent chose their primary identification as Latinos or Hispanics, and only 18 percent considered themselves Americans "first." So far, Huntington's critics (such as Michael Elliott in Time Magazine) have pointed only to studies that ask soft, generalized questions (do you feel pride in America?) but not questions that ask for choices between the U.S. and immigrants' birth nations¾which is, after all, what the oath of citizenship is all about. To date Huntington has presented stronger evidence than his critics and it is clear that elites are nervous. Thus, Alan Wolfe writing in Foreign Affairs, finds Huntington “incendiary,” “nativist,” and “exaggerated,” while ignoring the empirical evidence that Huntington presents on, for example, the attitudes of immigrant children concerning American identity. Wolfe charges Huntington with “fatalism,” and then paradoxically implies that there is little that America can do about immigration. According to Wolfe the trouble with Huntington is that instead of providing “leadership,” i.e., supporting elite opinion, the professor “turns himself into a populist” (in other words, stands with the American people). Academics who have been loudly proclaiming¾almost gloating¾that Latino (and Muslim) immigrants are resisting Americanization and choosing instead "selective” or “segmented acculturation" (economic, but not patriotic, assimilation) are now dishonestly attacking Huntington for quoting them accurately. For years, elites on the left and right have suppressed any serious debate over the interplay of immigration, assimilation, and loyalty. Thanks to the strong and courageous voice of Samuel Huntington¾Harvard scholar and American patriot¾they just might not be able to get away with it any longer. This article originally appeared in National Review on May 24, 2004.

John Fonte is a senior fellow and director of Hudson's Center for American Common Culture.

Contact John Fonte

FIVE: "The Hispanic Challenge" discussed at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Migration Policy Institute

"The Hispanic Challenge?  What we know about Latino Immigration," a conference held at the Mexican Institute of the Migration Policy Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Division of United States Studies, March 29, 2004.  Proceedings at www.migrationinformation.org. It is definitely worth reading the whole report.

Before addressing the proceedings, a word about the Migration Policy Institute.  According to its own description, it is an "independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to the study of the movement of people worldwide. (It) provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international level.  It aims to meet the rising demand for pragmatic and thoughtful responses to the challenges and opportunities that large-scale migration, whether voluntary or involuntary, present to communities and institutions in an increasingly integrated world."  Its four pillars are 1. Migration management; 2. Refugee protection and Humanitarian Response; 3. North American Borders and Migration Agenda; 4. Immigrant settlement and Integration.  Much of its work is from an international, not from a United States perspective.

Abbreviated information about the participants:

Elizabeth Greico, data manager fr the Migration Policy Institute's Migration Information Source.  Has a background with the U.S. Census Bureau and has done many analyses based on demographic data.

David Gutiérrez is Associate Professor of History at the University of California -- San Diego.  Among his interests are Chicano and Mexican immigration history, comparative ethnic politics, and the history of U.S. citizenship and civil rights.  He is a Chicano and a fifth generation Californian.

Michael Jones-Correa is Associate Professor of Government at Cornell specializing in immigration and immigrant politics and ethnic and racial politics in the U.S.

Jesus Silva-Herzog Márquez is professor at the Law School of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónoma de México (ITAM).  He was previously a Mexican Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in a joint program with the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations.  He was a visiting scholar at Georgetown University and appears regularly in the popular press in México.

Demetrios G. Papademetriou is President and co-founder of the Migration Policy Institute.  He was previously at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was Director for Immigration Policy and Research at the U.S. Department of Labor and Chair of the Secretary of Labor's Immigration Policy Task Force.

Andrew Selee organized this conference and is Director of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute.  He spent several years in Mexico working with development and migration programs.

Ricardo D. Stanton-Salazar is Associate Professor of Education and Sociology at the Rosier School of Education of the University of Southern California.  Previously he was Associate Director of USC's Center for American Studies and Ethnicities.  He is a specialist on the role of race and ethnicity in public education, working class racial minority youth development (focus on Latinos in the U.S.) and urban education.

Philippa Strum is director of the Division of U.S. Studies at the Wilson Center and Breuklundian Professor Emerita at City University of New York.

Roberto Suro is the Director of the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based think tank which is supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts.  The mission of the center is "to improve understanding of the diverse Hispanic population in the United States, to chronicle Latinos' growing impact on the nation, and disseminate research to policymakers and the media."  He has  extensive experience in print journalism.

As you might guess from the backgrounds of the participants, this conference essentially rebutted Huntington's arguments.  Their first and very big concern is that "it would be unfortunate to permit serious discussion about Latino immigration to focus on one article that relies on highly questionable scholarship" to the detriment of the more important issues.  This of course is a common problem today in this country: the agenda is often set in a skewed fashion. 

Below is a summary of the remarks.

Dr. Strum in her introduction to the conference outlines the larger questions raised by immigration, Latino or other:

• "What is the probable impact on this nation of a very large number of immigrants from nations with cultures that are markedly different and with different kinds of governmental systems?"
• "Should those immigrants be embraced as potential producers of enhanced diversity and excitement and wealth, or should they be regarded as highly problematic?"
• "If they are to be incorporated into the American polity and economy, what public policies would aid the process?"

She addresses historical context:

• "The current discussion has existed...since the country was founded."
• "Every wave of immigrants to this country, once fully acclimated and integrated... has tended to be suspicious of the next wave of immigrants."
• "The American history of racial categorization extends to immigrants." 1790, only free wand white were citizens.  1882-1934 series of law making it impossible for Asians to be citizens.  1924 and 1952 quota systems limited immigrants not perceived as truly "white."

Huntington's fear of Hispanic immigrants threatening "the American Dream" echoes Thomas Jefferson himself. 

Demetrios Papademetrious, in his comments, "Focusing the Immigration Discussion," questions why Foreign Policy even published Huntington's article.  He addresses the long history of immigration to this country and the fact that the diverse America, not the Anglo-Protestant America is what already exists.

In "Known Knowns and Unknown Unknowns" (quoting Donald Rumsfeld), Roberto Suro addresses issues instead of simply rebutting Huntington:

• Migration flows: Knowns include "the push/pull model and working of networks...." including the push/pull of family networks and clans and the pull of "labor markets and other attractions."  Patterns have changed over the last decade including move away from temporary migration, changes in departure points so that more come from urban areas, and destinations shifting from traditional areas to the southeast and upper Midwest.
• Maturation of the process after thirty years.  We don't know all the effects of this.  It is a "well-developed and in some cases a multi-generational movement...."
• Know the money flows.
• Do not know impact on interrelationship between sending and receiving communities nor importance of cash going back.
• Don't understand completely the emergence of fully transnational communities.
• Don't fully understand the "impact of ongoing migration on American labor markets and the way the impact changes with U.S. business cycles."  The current business cycle doesn't fit past patterns.
• We do know that in the current cycle, there "is an extraordinary change in the way the poor are demonized.  Twenty or so years ago the poor were demonized by the image of the "Welfare Queen"-- someone who took money but did not work.... Today [the image is of] poor people who work too hard....the workaholic Mexican.
• Adoption of language is very rapid.  "Fear of the loss of English seems so statistically invalid that it is hardly worth discussing."
• We know that good knowledge of English "is the single strongest predictor of where a Latino will fall on [the] continuum of opinion" that marks degree of assimilation.  The less English spoken, the more conservative on social issues, more trusting of government, more fatalistic about their own lives are Hispanics.  The more English spoken, the more within broad parameters of American public opinion the opinions of Hispanics fall.
• "The process [of the incorporation of immigrants] is now taking place in an extremely pluralistic society....one in which many but not all group boundaries are permeable and changeable.  We simply do not have a model for change in this context."

In her comments, "The Foreign-Born from Mexico in the United States: 1960-2000" Elizabeth Greico presents statistical documentation of what has happened during this forty-year period.  In conclusion, she says:

"In summary, the foreign-born population is growing rapidly and is likely to continue to do so....Mexican immigration is the primary driver of growth in the foreign-born population as a whole as well as in the Hispanic foreign-born.  This growth and its impact can be understood only in the proper demographic context.  Both the foreign-born and the foreign-born from Mexico are still relatively small portions of the total population, but what occurs at the national level is often radically different than what occurs at the local level.  While it is important to recognize the small size of the the Mexican immigrant population relative to the total population of the United States, it is equally important to realize that the foreign-born from Mexico are geographically concentrated, posing challenges--and opportunities--at the regional, state and local levels.  Concentrations in traditional immigrant states such as California and Texas are  likely to continue, but there is some evidence to suggest that a greater proportion of Mexican immigrants are going to new centers of growth in states such as North Carolina, Georgia and California."

David Gutiérrez, in "The Search for Relevant Public Policies" regards Huntington's scholarship as "rather shoddy" but addresses  areas in which he is "in at least conceptual agreement" with Huntington. The first is the concern over "the continuing high volume of immigration from Spanish-speaking countries; the second, the large number of people who are already here."  Gutiérrez emphasizes the importance of "decoupling" these two matters while he agrees both are true.  Where starts having trouble is with "the trajectory of causation implicit in the analysis."  Huntington of course has as his own peculiar frame of reference his perception of the identity of the U.S. being "A country with a single national language and a core Anglo-protestant culture."  He also sees the only opposition to this a monolithic Hispanic threat.

Gutiérrez points out that Huntington has a "wish list" of what he wants immigrants to do to conform to his vision of the U.S.: Learn English, commit themselves to becoming better educated, adopt American political values and institutions and limit the number of children they produce." Gutiérrez sees this list coming from an unhistorical perspective and even more, from a perspective of not understanding at all what this country needs to do to engender what it wishes. He points out the opposition to activities of the country to make it easier for people to adjust.  And he says, "If we are truly committed to encouraging people to embrace American political institutions and what Professor Huntington describes as American political and cultural values, does it make sense to lambaste them as a social problem, rather than to praise their work ethic, their family values, and their historical and ongoing contributions to the construction and maintenance of the society?

Gutiérrez addresses Huntington's concerns about the prospect of "separatist politics, or of a Chicano Quebec...."  To prevent this, he says, "doesn't it make sense to be more embracing of their concerns within the context of a democratic tradition?"

Gutiérrez points out that Professor Huntington ignores "the transnational or global context, particularly the economic context, in which migration flows occur.  He does not discuss U.S: economic policies abroad.  He does not discuss in great detail the kind of push mechanism tat NAFTA has provided over the short term [or] the impact of U.S. military policy on destabilizing populations, which leads those populations to escape oppression or to seek economic opportunity.

Gutiérrez points to concerns over "the unintended consequences of globalization that can be seen in South America or Chiapas or Oaxaca, about the outsourcing of U.S. jobs, about the deepening crises in Social Security and Medicare, and about the erosion of the positions of both the American middle class and the large and increasingly disenfranchised working class" as issues which "fit hand in glove with the explosion of the Latino population."

Michael Jones-Correa discusses trans-nationalism and dual loyalties.  He says that these issues are really not unique to Hispanics.  Critical points he makes are that in fact ties from the country of origin do not seem to interfere with the desire to strengthen identification with the United States.

Ricardo D. Stanton-Salazar addresses the questions of "the integration of Latino students," at least in California.  He says that evidence indicates that "the academic development of English Language Learners is best served when they are able to mobilize their own linguistic and cultural resources, [but] the public's demand to assimilate immigrants as quickly as possible have one the day." 

His studies have indicated that when children are not forced to give up their language of origin, they do learn English quite rapidly and, while they still speak "a substantial amount of Spanish in the home" they become quite fluent and prefer English in the wider world.  Furthermore, Latino students with a "high rate of bilingualism" do significantly better academically and, according to studies, "were more likely to exhibit greater social capital, defined in terms of supportive relations with school personnel and adults int he community."

Finally, there are "consequences of rapid one-way cultural assimilation among Latino youth" as seen in a growing body of research.  It leads to marginalization from the extended family and from the "core immigrant community" with consequences of "a greater number of stressful event experiences, parent-adolescent conflicts, engagement in more negative health behaviors during pregnancy, and less insulation from inner-city street life.  Rapidly acculturating U.S.-born children are less confined to the family and adult ethnic institutions and less subject to parental monitoring and control; thus,k they are more likely to adopt the attitudes and cultural styles of native-born disaffected youth....A growing body of research in education...clearly shows that after the elementary grades the public schools are not very effective in the social integration of large numbers of Latino youth."

There are interesting comments in the discussion following these presentations which enhance and expand some of the points made, but you can go to the site to read this part.