Anti-Immigrant Vitriol in Arizona

Arizona has become the "clash of civilizations" in the United States between an older non-Hispanic white population and a younger heavily Hispanic population. Census data show that 76 percent of Arizonans aged 45 and older are non-Hispanic white (and only 15 percent are Hispanic in those ages), whereas less than half (48 percent) of Arizonans under the age of 45 are non-Hispanic white (and 37 percent are Hispanic in those ages). Those two groups comprise 88 percent of the population, with the remainder including American Indians (5 percent), African Americans (4 percent), and Asians and others (3 percent). 


These demographic dynamics almost certainly fed into the decision recently by the State of Arizona to declare that the Tucson Unified School District's Mexican-American program was illegal and would be defunded unless it was dramatically altered.


And, while it less clear at this time what the motivation was for the shooting rampage yesterday at a public meeting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords that killed 6 people and leaves her near death, there is little question that anti-immigrant vitriol has created a very uncomfortable political climate in that state. A good summary of this has been posted on Two Weeks Notice.

Cholera Causes Backlash Against Haitian Immigrants

It's bad enough that Haiti has been suffering a cholera epidemic, on top of the nearly national ruination brought on by last year's earthquake. Now comes word that because of its fear that cholera will arrive with immigrants from Haiti, its island neighbor, the Dominican Republic, has begun deporting illegal Haitian immigrants.

Relations between the two neighbours have historically been tense, but they improved after a devastating earthquake destroyed much of Haiti in January of last year.

At the time, the Dominican authorities announced they would stop deporting Haitians who entered the country illegally.

But since Monday, soldiers have joined police in setting up new roadblocks, not just on the border but also on key roads leading to Santo Domingo.

The United Nations has estimated that before the earthquake, around 600,000 Haitians lived in the Dominican Republic illegally.

Director of Migration for the Dominican Republic Sigfrido Pared says that number has since reached one million.

The story is a reminder that the plight of undocumented immigrants is hard wherever you go in the world, and that globally we need to work harder to attack the reasons why people become undocumented immigrants, which is largely a lack of good jobs in their own country.

Ethiopian migrants drown in Gulf of Aden

Life is not easy in Ethiopia, one of the world's most rapidly growing and poorest countries. Thus, it is not surprising that many look for a better life elsewhere. A favorite route is through Somalia to Yemen, and from there to to Saudi Arabia or even possibly Europe. But, getting smuggled illegally into other other countries is always a risky business and the BBC has reported that as many as 80 Ethiopians drowned when their over-crowded boats capsized in bad weather before reaching Yemen.

Thousands of people attempt the dangerous journey from Africa across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen every year.

The UN's refugee agency says more than 74,000 Africans arrived in Yemen in 2009, fleeing "desperate situations of civil war, political instability, poverty, famine and drought in the Horn of Africa".

Yemen is seen as a gateway to a better life in the Middle East or Europe, but people smugglers often crowd the migrants onto old and unseaworthy vessels.

Hundreds of would-be migrants die before reaching their destination.

Rising Food Prices Again in the Headlines

Rising food prices are a powerful source of unrest in poor countries, so the entire world monitors these prices carefully. Currently they are on the rise again, leading to new concerns. Indeed, this month they rose above the level of 2008, which had sparked food riots in several countries. According to a BBC report, the immediate causes are related largely to weather. 

The current spike in prices is being caused primarily by increases in the cost of sugar and, more importantly, cereals, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.The price of wheat in particular has risen sharply. This is because wildfires last year in Russia, which accounts for 11% of global exports, resulted in an export ban, the institute's director of markets, trade and institutions, Maximo Torero, told the BBC.

The recent floods in Australia, which also accounts for 11% of global exports, has compounded the problem, he said. The price of corn has also risen, because of greater support for biofuels in the US and the increased price of oil, which makes biofuels more attractive. Droughts in Argentina, the world's second biggest exporter of corn behind the US, have also pushed the price up, Mr Torero said. "The situation is very tight. If we have more natural disasters, we could have a problem," he said.

Analysts say that as well as environmental issues, fast-growing world population and the increased demand for biofuels has further put pressure on crop supplies. "Rising food prices will have an effect almost all over the world but especially in poor countries where food and energy are the major things people spend their money on," said George Magnus, senior economic adviser to UBS. "There's a risk, I wouldn't say a huge risk, but some risk of higher energy prices and higher food prices being very destabilising in some countries. "We saw that in 2008 and in Mozambique last year and it's something to watch."

Always in the background, however, is the issue of agricultural subsidies in richer countries that wind up distorting the international prices of food. World Bank President Robert Zoellick has exhorted countries to drop protectionist policies and allow free trade to stabilize food prices. At the same time, The Economist suggests that in India rising food prices are partly a function of structural factors.

Food producers, hampered by land restrictions, archaic retail networks and bad infrastructure, fail to meet extra demand from consumers. Subir Gokarn, deputy governor of the central bank, estimated in October that a 39% rise in income per person in the previous five years might have created an extra 220m regular consumers of milk, eggs, meat and fish. Supplies have not kept up with this potential demand.

Therein lies the real problem. It is not just that we are trying to feed the current population. We are trying to feed them better, and we still have a projected 2 billion more who are expected to be sitting at the world's table over the next four decades.

Anchor Babies Stir Up the Immigration Debate

The new year and a new Republican majority in the US House of Representatives have stirred up the immigration debate, with a renewed focus on anchor babies--children born in the US to non-citizens. The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States, no matter what the status might be of their parents. This amendment was passed after the Civil War because the Supreme Court, in the famous Dred Scott decision just prior to the Civil War, had ruled that persons of African descent could not become US citizens. The 14th amendment repudiated that decision and a later Supreme Court decision applied the birthright principle clearly to immigrants. 


The issue, however, is really not about the 14th amendment, but about the reasons why people migrate to the United States. Although some women from Mexico do cross the border to deliver babies in the United States, having a child in the United States is certainly not the reason for high levels of undocumented immigration. People come looking for work and since it is young adults who predominate in the migrant stream, they are likely to wind up getting pregnant and having children in the United States. (Note: I have seen no one suggesting that what we need is to increase the number of family planning providers to undocumented immigrants.) Nonetheless, as reported today in the NY Times, Arizona is leading the way on the anchor baby issue.

This time, though, Arizona lawmakers intend to join with legislators from other states to force the issue before the Supreme Court.

This coalition of lawmakers will unveil its exact plans on Wednesday in Washington, but people involved in drafting the legislation say they have decided against the painstaking process of amending the Constitution. Since the federal government decides who is to be deemed a citizen, the lawmakers are considering instead a move to create two kinds of birth certificates in their states, one for the children of citizens and another for the children of illegal immigrants.

The theory is that this could spark a flurry of lawsuits that might resolve the legal conflict in their favor.

“This is not a far-out, extremist position,” said John Kavanagh, one of the Arizona legislators who is leading an effort that has been called just that. “Only a handful of countries in the world grant citizenship based on the GPS location of the birth.”

While it is true that very few countries in the world grant automatic citizenship to a person born in their territory, the anchor baby issue is not really about that. It is about the ability of that child later (upon reaching age 21) to sponsor relatives--such as his or her parents--to migrate legally to the United States. Thus, the issue is really about the family preference system in the US, not about birthright per se. Overall, then, it is hard to see anything in the anchor baby fight that will impact immigration to the United States in any measurable way.