New Report concludes Anti Immigration Law unites Legal and Illegal Latinos

The new legislation in Arizona (U.S.A.), and other punitive immigration related laws implemented with the supposed purpose of regulating the undocumented immigrants, are in fact passed on at state and national government levels to drive illegal immigrants out.

The article on the new Arizona law, which caused lots of protest from Latino celebrities and the president of the United States Obama among many others, can be read here.

However, yesterday (May 10, 2010) the ‘Project on Latino Immigrant Civic Engagement at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars’ released a new report which states that the intent of the authors of these immigration bills have an opposite effect on the population with an illegal status. The groundbreaking report reveals that all of these legislative actions have created stronger bonds between undocumented immigrants, the legal immigrants, and the U.S. Latino populace. This was not the norm before the outpour of anti-Latino immigrant feelings.

The following are revealing passages quoted from the study:

“Currently, there is no national integration policy and local and state governments face the need to design their own programs to encourage immigrants to become civically engaged and participate more fully in their new societies.”

“Cities with a historically established Spanish-language media structure tend to have strong partnerships between these media and service and immigrant advocacy organizations in the joint promotion of civic engagement.”

“As a general trend and regardless of size, cities with historical traditions of Latino immigration, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Fresno, and San Jose, are more likely to address the needs of new Latino immigrants than places with smaller historical flows like Charlotte, Omaha, the Washington, DC metropolitan area, and Las Vegas.”

“There was found an emerging Latino youth organizing network led by both U.S.- and foreign- born immigrants.”

Nine other reports, which were published earlier from the cities of Chicago, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Fresno, Omaha, Los Angeles, Tucson, San Jose and Washington D.C.,  determined their immigrant civic participation. Jonathan Fox, a professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of California in Santa Cruz, said,

"The debate over whether to regularize (by encouraging citizenship) or expel undocumented people, hides the question of the status of the legal permanent Latino population -- millions of whom are eligible to apply for citizenship but have not done so." 

The professor also noted that during the Reagan Administration, the Congress had passed an immigration reform, which made four billion US dollars available for civic studies, English classes and other programs aimed at helping immigrants to achieve U.S. citizenship. . "Few of those programs get meaningful public support today," Fox said.

Corporate America, churches, and non-profit organizations have stepped into fulfilling those needs for that same reason. On an anecdote: these programs are not diminishing, but increasing to the point where waiting lists for citizenship and English classes are now very common. This fact underscores that the immigrants already feel like they belong to the United States of America, and are taking steps to consolidate their relationship with the country in spite of legislators trying to drive them out.