Ian Gordon

How Did Harsh Immigration Laws Spread to Your Statehouse?

Hint: The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council and legal experts like Kris Kobach had a lot to do with it.

| March/April 2012 Issue

Since Arizona passed its anti-immigration law in 2010, 35 other states have attempted to pass similar all-encompassing bills. But this isn't just a case of a bunch of like-minded state pols taking an idea and running with it. Check out the flowchart below to see how the proliferation of immigration bills was coordinated—sometimes by legislators in a "dynamic partnership" with corporate lobbyists.

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The Immigration Hardliner Family Tree

A guide to the funders, think tanks, lawyers, and politicians behind harsh Arizona-style legislation.

—By Ian Gordon

| March/April 2012 Issue

The anti-immigration movement has come out swinging in the past several years, writing and proposing hundreds of restrictive state-level bills and berating a president who has deported more than a million people for not being tough enough. During this year's Republican presidential debates, candidates have peppered their arguments with plans for double-layer border fences, the theory of self-deportation, and even praise for Arizona's immigration crackdown.

This should come as no surprise, given the myriad connections among border hawk politicians, pundits, advocacy groups, PACs, foundations, and legal advisers. Just below, see all those links—family-tree style. And then scroll (or jump) down to see more an in-depth analysis on the clusters that surround John Tanton | Kris Kobach | Daryl Metcalfe | PAC Funding.

First, the paterfamilias, John Tanton:

An eye surgeon and conservationist from northern Michigan whose concerns about overpopulation led him to take a stand against what he calls "mass immigration," John Tanton started the Federation for American Immigration Reform in 1979 and later went on to help fund the creation of the Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA. Those three groups, along with the FAIR-related Immigration Reform Law Institute, have been among the strongest anti-immigration voices in Washington over the past two decades. Even with the success of his groups and their various affiliates—fueled by millions of dollars worth of donations from the Scaife family foundations—Tanton's associations with white-supremacist and nativist groups (including FAIR's past financial support from the Pioneer Fund) have led some former colleagues to distance themselves from the septuagenarian retiree.

Next, the architect, Kris Kobach:

As the man behind the self-deportation movement, it's no surprise that Kris Kobach is a key anti-immigration connector. (Check out Suzy Khimm's profile here.) After all, he's worked with key state legislators, like Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason, and municipal authorities, like notorious Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, in drafting and polishing dozens of restrictive immigration laws. (He says he even wrote parts of Alabama's HB 56 while in a turkey blind.) As a 2004 congressional candidate, Kobach received campaign contributions from Tanton's wife's US Immigration Reform PAC and former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo's Team America PAC. Currently Kansas' secretary of state, the 45-year-old Kobach—referred to by MoJo contributing writer Jack Hitt as "ruggedly handsome in a TV superhero rip-off-his-shirt sort of way" on a January episode of This American Life—has struggled to gain support for an Alabama-like law in the Sunflower State.

Daryl Metcalfe, or the man from SLLI:

Started in 2007 by Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, State Legislators for Legal Immigration works to eliminate "all economic attractions and incentives (including, but not limited to: public benefits, welfare, education and employment opportunities) for illegal aliens, as well as securing our borders against unlawful invasion." The group most notably has pushed for a Supreme Court ruling on the 14th Amendment, which the SLLI believes shouldn't grant citizenship to the US-born children of undocumented immigrants; it also has teamed with the FAIR-aligned Immigration Reform Law Institute to draft legislation ending such birthright citizenship. Metcalfe hasn't shied away from controversy, often referring to the "illegal alien invasion" facing the country and filing an amicus brief (PDF) in support of Arizona's SB 1070. Of the SLLI's 68 members, 15 sponsored copycat legislation in 2010 or 2011.

Anti-immigration? There's a PAC for that:

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC has contributed to a who's who of immigration hardliners, from Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) to Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.). Team America, founded by Tancredo and co-chaired by Bay Buchanan (Pat's sis), has pumped more than $100,000 into House and Senate races since 2004.

Want more data? Check out our one-of-a-kind database, the most comprehensive roundup of state immigration laws publicly available.

164 Anti-Immigration Laws Passed Since 2010? A MoJo Analysis

We crunched the data behind the self-deportation crowd's spate of state laws, the private-prison industry's campaign spending, and more.

—By Ian Gordon and Tasneem Raja

| March/April 2012 Issue

To get a better sense of the legislative push that most famously included Arizona's draconian SB 1070, Mother Jones built a database of the 164 (often curiously similar) anti-immigration laws passed by state legislatures in 2010 and 2011. As you can see below, the number of restrictive laws jumped last year, when five states—Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah—passed Arizona-style bills. For a state-by-state look at these copycat laws, undocumented population demographics, political contributions from the private-prison industry, and more, scroll down the page. See our sources and dive into the full database below.

Just how wide-ranging has the recent anti-immigration push been? Only seven states (Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) failed to pass anti-immigration laws in 2010 and 2011. Most states passed anywhere from 1 to 6 such bills—on everything from driver's license eligibility to the mandatory use of E-Verify—while a few (Arizona, Utah, and Virginia) passed 11 or more. Including Arizona's SB 1070, 36 states considered wide-ranging anti-immigration laws; 6 were successful.

Anti-Immigration Laws Passed, 2010-11

Laws That Copycat Arizona's SB 1070

TRACKING THE UNDOCUMENTED

It's no surprise that many undocumented immigrants reside in border states like Arizona, California, and Texas (or in longtime immigrant havens like Florida and New York). But 2010 estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center show that immigrants account for more than 2 percent of the population in the Pacific Northwest, parts of the Plains, and several Southern states. And as many as 25 states—most in the middle of the country—may have seen increases in the percentage of undocumented immigrants from 2005 to 2010.*

Estimated Percentage of the Population That Is Undocumented, 2010

Estimated Change in the Percentage That Is Undocumented, 2005-10

STANDING TO BENEFIT?

Back in 2010, NPR reported on the financial stake private-prison companies like Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group have in the passage of state immigration laws. As former GEO Group president Wayne Calabrese said on a May 2010 call with investors, "Those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained, and that for me, at least I think, there's going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do."

2010 Campaign Contributions from Private-Prison Industry

STILL DREAMING

Not all immigration-related laws at the state level are restrictive. Fourteen states, including Texas under Gov. Rick Perry, have passed so-called state DREAM acts, legislation allowing undocumented students to qualify for in-state college tuition. Five have passed bills to keep such students from qualifying (effectively charging them out-of-state or even international tuition), including Arizona and three other states (Georgia, Indiana, and South Carolina) that passed SB 1070-like laws.

Laws on In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students

Correction: The original version of the in-state tuition map showed Wisconsin as granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants. In fact, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a bill last year repealing that earlier legislation. The map has been changed to reflect this.

*It is important to note that the Pew Hispanic Center study expressed its data in ranges, which reflect significant margins of error. When comparing 2007 and 2010 data, for example, coauthor D'Vera Cohn said that researchers could say with confidence that the numbers went up or down only in four states (and two other groups of states).

Want more data? Check out our one-of-a-kind database, the most comprehensive roundup of state immigration laws publicly available.

Additional reporting by Hamed Aleaziz. Sources: eLobbyist.com, National Conference of State Legislatures, National Council of La Raza, National Institute on Money in State Politics, Pew Hispanic Center, US Census Bureau.

Immigration Hardliners Are Eyeing a New Tactic

—By Ian Gordon

| Thu Dec. 22, 2011 4:00 AM PST

It's been a frenetic year in the battle over state laws on immigration enforcement. The Supreme Court recently announced that it will review Arizona's controversial immigration law, SB 1070, and the Department of Justice has lawsuits pending against Alabama, South Carolina, and Utah, regarding harsh laws of their own. The National Conference of State Legislators reports that state lawmakers introduced more than 1,600 bills and resolutions relating to immigration and immigrants in 2011, up from about 1,400 in 2010.

Even with immigration hardliners hopeful that the Supreme Court will overturn an injunction blocking key provisions of the Arizona law, there are indications that in the coming year they may shift tactics to press for an immigration crackdown. In a USA Today article on Tuesday, reporter Alan Gomez wrote that conservative state legislators have begun turning away from the all-encompassing laws that followed the signing of SB 1070 last April. Instead, according to the bill's architect, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, they hope to bring a specific part of Alabama's HB 56 to their own states:

Kobach said Alabama was the first state to invalidate all contracts entered into with illegal immigrants. A strict reading of the law could mean that any contract, including mortgages, apartment leases and basic work agreements, can be ruled null and void.

"That is one that has a much greater effect than some people might expect at first glance," Kobach said. "Suppose an illegal alien is doing some roofing business and wants to rent some equipment. Some short-term or long-term rental suddenly becomes more difficult to do."

As Gomez pointed out, a federal judge already decided that Alabama cannot use the provision to keep illegal immigrants from renewing mobile-home permits. Apparently, that won't stop other state-level pols, like Pennsylvania's Daryl Metcalfe, the Republican founder of the restrictionist State Legislators for Legal Immigration, from introducing similar measures in 2012:

[Metcalfe] said the recent success of Alabama banning contracts and business transactions by illegal immigrants has placed them on his "wish list" for the upcoming session.

"That's a very good way to expand the fight to shut down access to revenue that they get," he said.

Metcalfe's wish list, it turns out, is quite different from that of the six Alabama religious leaders who called on Gov. Robert Bentley to repeal HB 56 "in the spirit of the Christmas season." Bentley declined to support the repeal effort, responding that "there is nothing unkind, unjust, or unwarranted about asking everyone in Alabama to obey the law."

Alabama Immigrants Organize to Fight HB 56

—By Ian Gordon

| Mon Nov. 7, 2011 3:25 PM PST

Undocumented immigrants in Alabama are fighting back against the state's harsh immigration law—by getting organized.

Last weekend, pro-immigrant activists from the South and beyond headed to the poultry-processing hub of Albertville, located some 75 miles northeast of Birmingham, for a workshop meant to help Alabama's immigrant communities deal with HB 56, the restrictive law that has drawn comparisons to (and in some ways surpassed) Arizona's SB 1070. Albertville, home to many undocumented Latino immigrants who work at local Tyson, Pilgrim's Pride, and Wayne Farms plants, has become a hotspot for immigrant organizing.

The workshop, sponsored by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Southeast Immigrants Rights Network (SEIRN), was based on the Barrio Defense Committee model first introduced in Arizona last year. The idea is simple: train communities to communicate better, know their rights, and have a plan in place should an immigration raid occur. According to NDLON's Marisa Franco, the trainings are all about "lifting up these people's courage." "These laws unleash the ugliest part of this country," she said. "It really opens the door for people to treat each other in a really horrible way. We want to create a space for people to find each other and know 1) we're not alone and 2) we actually have some ways to defend ourselves."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]