Federal compromise bill failure leaves policy gulf
This year, at least 1,169 immigration-related bilk have been introduced in all 50 state legislatures, according to the Washington-based National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Officials say the number of state bills - more than twice as many as in 2006 - is an indication of a void left by a lack of federal action on immigration. But a federal court decision may overturn the states’ and many local governments’ actions.
Although immigration policy falls under federal jurisdiction, states often must pay for federally mandated programs, particularly education, health care and law enforcement. “State legislators busy in the immigration arena have become frustrated by inactivity at the federal level,” says NCSL Policy Associate Dirk Hegen. NCSL has been tracking the various bills, which fall into 14 categories of public policy, such as documentation, employment, education, benefits, legal services and human trafficking.
 
Tennessee legislators proposed 45 immigration-related bills, five of which became laws, says Stephen Fotopolus, policy director for the Nashville-based Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. “This session has been interesting for us because there More are so many people who are trying to be one-issue policy makers,” he says. “Everyone has been looking to do something to say they are addressing illegal immigration.”
While many bills have addressed only one issue, Oklahoma passed an omnibus immigration bill in April that covers four major areas: documentation, public assistance, employment and law enforcement. The law prevents illegal immigrants from obtaining official government identification documents, including driver’s licenses and voter registration cards. The legislation also terminates public assistance or entitlement benefits, with the exception of emergency medical assistance; criminalizes those who have an unlawful presence in the state and/or who harbor and transport undocumented aliens, or make them eligible for bail; and penalizes employers who hire undocumented workers. “Illegals will not come [to Oklahoma] if there are no jobs, no subsidies, and if they know they will be detained if they come in contact with law enforcement,” says State Representative Randy Terrell, R-OkIa., who sponsored the bill. Terrell says those crafting the bill wanted the Oklahoma legislation to be in sync with federal immigration policy.
In June, a comprehensive federal immigration reform bill, which would have provided federal funding to state and local governments to help cover the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants as well as education and health care costs, died in the Senate. The complex, 800-page bill also would have created a pathway to legal residency or citizenship for illegal immigrants now living in the United States. It is unlikely that another immigration bill will be introduced before the 2008 elections, NCSL officials say.
Also, on July 26, Judge James Munley with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania overturned a set of ordinances in Hazleton, Pa., that would have punished businesses and property owners that hire or harbor illegal immigrants. Hazleton’s ordinances served as a model for many similar ordinances in other cities, according to The New York Times. Hazleton Mayor Louis Barletta plans to appeal the decision to the 3rd Circuit Court and may take the case as far at the Supreme Court.
In his ruling, Munley wrote that federal law pre-empts the Hazleton ordinances. The judge claimed that the laws also violated the constitutional rights enjoyed even by illegal immigrants. “Since the Constitution protects even the disfavored, the ordinances cannot be enforced,” Munley wrote.

Previously stalled efforts to renew the federal Voting Rights Act rushed to completion this month, as Congress reauthorized several key provisions that were due to expire next year. One requires federal approval of changes to voting procedures-including for school board contests-in nine states and additional counties and towns with a history of discrimination in their elections. 

Those jurisdictions are subject to section 5 of the Voting Rights Act whenever they make any change to procedures, such as in redrawing school board members’ electoral districts. They must submit changes to the federal Department of Justice for approval, a procedure known as preclearance. Districts subject to section 5 sometimes regard it with frustration because it adds to the cost and difficulty of making even minor changes related to voting. 

The newly adopted measure extends section 5-the preclearance provision-of the Voting Rights Act, first signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 and most recently renewed in 1982, for another 25 years. 

It also extends section 203, added in 1975, which is due to expire next year as well. That section requires states and localities to issue ballots and other election materials in languages other than English under certain circumstances. The requirement applies when more than 10,000 of their voters, or at least 5 percent of eligible voters, have a primary language other than English and have Limited proficiency in English. 

Some House members have argued that the section 5 preclearance provision is outdated and unfairly targets the South, where seven of the nine states subject to the preclearance rules are located. (See map, this page.) 

But civil rights groups say preclearance has been crucial to preserving the voting power of minority citizens. 

In debating the legislation on July 13, the House voted down four amendments proposed by Republicans from Georgia, Texas, and Iowa. 

The first would have eased the requirement for preclearance of electoral changes by the Justice Department. The second would have modified the formula by opening up the department’s oversight to all 50 states; the amendment’s supporters said that subjecting every state to the same scrutiny would logically help voters, but opponents called the proposal a “poison pill” that would sap congressional support for the law and make enforcement unworkable. 

The third would have ended the requirement for assistance to voters who are not proficient in English. The fourth would have extended the law by only 10 years, rather than 25 years as approved by the House. 

All the amendments were defeated with votes from a united Democratic House minority, along with those of many Republicans. The chamber approved the Voting Rights Act extension by a vote of 390-33. 

The Senate passed the bill on July 20 by a vote of 98-0. President Bush, who had urged prompt passage last week in a speech at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s convention in Washington, said he would sign what he called “this historic legislation.” 

‘A Mixed Bag’ 

In Georgia, school boards view’ the Voting Rights Act as “something of a mixed bag,” said Phillip L. Hartley, a Gainesville, Ga., lawyer who works for the Georgia School Boards Association and many individual districts. Making what he sees as even minor election changes, such as scheduling a tax-levy vote on a date other than a general election, requires submitting the plan to the Justice Department for review or applying to the U.S. District Court in Washington. 

“There’s enormous paperwork and time hassle involved, because [local officials] have got to make those decisions 60 days or longer in advance of when they need to hold the election,” Mr. Hartley said. Such changes “hardly have any arguable effect on racial-minority groups,” he said. In some instances, though, the Justice Department has rejected such voting changes sought by school districts. 

“Obviously, many school districts,” he said, “find the efforts they have to go through to not only to comply with One man, one vote,’ but then to comply with the requirements of the Voting Rights Act” are unnecessary because in today’s world it is not unusual for an African-American to be elected from a mostly white district or vice versa. 

But African-American and other minority candidates are being elected in Georgia because of the Voting Rights Act, said Helen Butler, the executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, an Atlanta-based civil rights group that focuses on the “quality of governance.” 

“We have the largest legislative black caucus in the countryover 50 people [holding office],” Ms. Butler said. “It wouldn’t have been this way without the (Voting Rights Act].” 

As for section 203, which has been swept into the national debate over illegal immigration, “there are a lot of legal citizens who don’t always speak English fluently” and are entitled to language assistance, Ms. Butler said. 

Boost for Minorities 

The preclearance requirements also affect school districts that sometimes have little connection to the states and counties covered by section 5. 

Tulare County, Calif., for example, is not covered by section 5, but five of the 56 school districts in the county are, because their boundaries extend into next-door Kings County, one of the few California counties that come under the preclearance provision. 

For those five districts, the Voting Rights Act imposes a serious obligation when school leaders wish to ask’voters for authority to float a bond or when they adjust electoral districts after a U.S. Census, said Gary deMalignon, a lawyer for Tulare County, which provides legal services to its school districts. 

“It’s’probably the largest part of our work as their attorney,” Mr. deMalignon said of the five districts. 

The Tulare County government, the county’s separate board of education, and other school districts can also be drawn in for Voting Rights Act scrutiny, he said; Currently, for example, the county board of education has asked for the Justice Department’s approval for authority to set up special tax districts to raise money for school construction. Since tax districts could include portions of the five school districts that spill into Kings County, the federal scrutiny is required. 

Still, Mr. deMalignon said, the Voting Rights Act seems to have helped boost Latino membership on local school boards. Three of the five districts were sued in the early 1990s by minority voters, who argued that the seats on the school board, which were all a.tlarge, were inaccessible to minority candidates, he said. The districts settled the suits by agreeing to change from atlarge systems to single-member electoral districts. 

Before the Senate voted, Mr. Hartley, the school lawyer in Georgia, said that despite school officials’ mixed feelings about the Voting Rights Act, many would be alarmed if the preclearance provision were not renewed. 

Catherine P. Clark, the associate executive director for governance at the Texas Association of School Boards, agreed that if the preclearance provision were eliminated, “people would be very alarmed.”

THE IMMIGRATION debate underway in the United States is of critical importance to New Jersey’s business community. With a sizeable immigration population, both documented and undocumented, the result of any legislation passed will resonate throughout our state. I want to highlight some important facts that deserve further consideration. 

According to the Pew Research Center, our state is home to some 360,000 undocumented workers. The Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey does not endorse or support illegal immigration. We do, however, recognize that the undocumented population serves an important economic need within our state. 

One of the key arguments used against undocumented workers is that they take jobs away from willing workers in New Jersey. The state had an unemployment rate of 4.5% in March. In March 1986, New Jersey had an unemployment rate of 5.2%. Despite the influx of more than 360,000 undocumented persons, there was a sharp drop in joblessness over this 20-year stretch . During this same period, the total number of documented workers increased by more than 600,000. This shows that the state’s economy successfully absorbed both documented and undocumented workers. 

Does some worker displacement take place? Yes, but it does so at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. Undocumented workers are not displacing knowledge workers. Citizens and legal residents with a limited education, such as high school dropouts, are the ones at risk. They represent approximately 11% of our state’s workforce. The goal should not be to ensure that these people have lifelong access to low-paying, unattractive jobs by eliminating the supply of undocumented workers. The goal should be to find ways to provide these workers with the skills and education necessary to obtain higher-paying, more productive jobs. 

During this same 20-year period, our state has seen a remarkable increase in income. Per-capita income has increased from $18,800 to $43,800. Disposable household income has increased 133% from $16,200 to $37,800. During the period, cumulative inflation represented 84%. This indicates that both per-capita and disposable household income grew consistently and on a real basis. Both increases also outstrip the overall national growth during this period by a sizeable margin. 

With significant growth in both employment and income, the argument that undocumented workers pose an economic threat to New Jersey loses steam. This community adds to the economic strength of our state. Legislative efforts should focus on how to incorporate these members lawfully into our society. They should be held accountable for entering the country illegally, but they should not be barred from becoming full-fledged members of our society. It is in everyone’s interest to find a reasonable, compromise solution to the status of the undocumented population. Let’s focus on that.

Immigration, Diversity, and Broadcasting in the United States, 1990-2001. Vibert C. Cambridge. Athens: The Ohio University Press, 2005. 309 pp. $28.00 pbk. 

The topic of immigration is timely, especially in light of recent regulatory endeavors by various states to facilitate, or exclude, immigrant access to public services. As broadcast and other mass media, which disseminate their product to nearly every home in the United States, may yet be given universal service status (e.g., for disaster warnings), it is also timely that we turn attention to the quality of service these media provide for our multicultural communities. The third installment in the Ohio University Global and Comparative Studies series, Vibert C. Cambridge’s Immigration, Diversity, and Broadcasting in the United States, 1990-2001, provides the foundation for this attention. 

Cambridge, associate professor in the School of Telecommunications and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Ohio University, is uniquely attuned to the relationship between broadcasting and immigration. He, himself, immigrated to the United States from Guyana after working for some time in the broadcasting industry. His personal experience as an immigrant has no doubt fueled his interest in how mass media and multicultural population growth intersect. The extensive research into the multicultural programs and opportunities provided by the U.S. media is evident in the breadth of information shared in this book. 

The major strength of this book is the wealth of historical details presented for each topic covered. Logically, the major waves of immigration into the United States, beginning with colonization, are introduced first, with special attention paid to the changing demographics of the immigrants, ranging from country of origin to age and sex. Settlement patterns are also discussed, which gives readers a context in which to place the specific histories of minority-focused media outlets subsequently presented. The greater part of the book provides historical origins, general descriptions, facts and figures regarding the ethnic press, radio and minority radio, commercial broadcast and public television, cable, and community access. Attention is paid to a wide set of minority communities, including peoples of African, Caribbean, Indian, Native American, Asian, and Hispanic descent. The sheer amount of information offered provides ample opportunities to develop one’s own research questions, as well as draw one’s own conclusions on a number of dimensions. It is on this merit that I would encourage those interested in minority broadcasting and minority depictions in mass media to read this book, as well as suggest its use in the classroom. 

A few criticisms are offered. For example, the first chapter outlines three sets of questions Cambridge hopes to address with his research. In summary, the questions regard how the media have responded to the changing multicultural landscape, whether the media’s responses are conducive to a healthy society, and how these responses might guide the efforts of other nations’ media systems. These research questions are revisited and discussed in the last chapter of the book, but they are largely neglected in the body of the work, receiving only brief mention amidst the bulk of descriptives of media organizations and offerings. Because the presented research findings are not organized according to these research questions, the findings become somewhat disjointed from the purpose of the book and are only revived in their academic relevance in the final chapter. Also, in part because of this disjoining, the question about how the media have responded could benefit from more thorough discussion. It is largely left to the reader to not only recall the various descriptives presented but to synthesize and apply the descriptives in addressing this first question. 

The first chapter also introduces a theoretical framework consisting of social scientific, critical-cultural, and normative theories that will guide the research and research questions. This framework reappears in the fourth chapter, though this chapter focuses more on the history and philosophies surrounding the theories included in the framework rather than exploring the theories proper or discussing how these theories may intersect or inform each other. Furthermore, this framework is not expressly addressed in any other chapter, nor is it used to ultimately summarize or interpret the findings within its context. This lack of use undercuts its inclusion in the book. 

Another criticism regards the relative neglect of market forces in favor of political, social, or cultural motivations to explain media ownership and programming decisions, despite extensive treatment of economic issues. Word choice defining nomothetic methods as “preoccupied” with creating tests is also arguably questionable. 

Nonetheless, the writing is clear and the research substantial. Among the references used are newspapers and newswires, Web sites, television and radio programming directories, books and academic articles, and government and statistical reports. Summaries from in-depth interviews of minority community citizens and media outlets are twice included. Findings are largely reported in narratives written refreshingly in “plain English.” Although readers may discover some shortcomings in this book, such as those above, those shortcomings need not overshadow the immense reference value this book holds for established scholars and students alike.