November
16, 2004
The Message of Proposition 200
By Tamar
Jacoby
Arizona voters sent a signal to Washington on Nov. 2. That front-line
border state is feeling besieged and, not surprisingly, sharply
divided over illegal immigration. Though its booming economy is
dependent on foreign labor, the costs of the unauthorized influx
from Mexico -- smuggler shootouts, bankrupt hospitals, a mounting
toll of deaths in the desert -- have risen to the point that many
residents just can't take it anymore. So on Election Day, Arizonans
voted decisively -- 56 percent to 44 percent -- in favor of a
state ballot initiative to bar illegal immigrants from receiving
government services.
I was deeply disappointed in the outcome: I'd been working for
months to help defeat Proposition 200, both in-state and out.
But having spent a good part of the fall listening to Arizonans
talk about immigration, I worry that the message they sent is
being misinterpreted. Far from a simple anti-immigrant backlash,
their vote for the proposition seemed more like a cry for help
-- a plea for federal action -- and that could be heartening news
for immigration reformers. To me, it proves that given half a
chance, many people are willing to think hard about this difficult
issue and see that a real solution has to go beyond merely getting
tough.
Whether they cast their ballots for or against Proposition 200,
what most Arizonans seemed to want to tell Washington was: Get
to work on a remedy. "The point is to get the conversation
going," said one Phoenix resident I chatted with at a debate.
"It's a federal matter, but they're not paying attention."
The news last week suggested that maybe the administration is
ready to do something. Secretary of State Colin Powell, traveling
in Mexico, announced that immigration reform will be a "high
priority" in the second term. President Bush met with Arizona
Sen. John McCain to discuss a congressional strategy. The challenge
now for both the White House and Congress is to interpret the
voters' broad-brush entreaty. Much as they want change, Arizonans
-- like other Americans -- are far from certain about what kind
of change would be most effective. Now it falls to Washington
to fill in the blanks: to craft and pass a legislative package
that will truly solve the problem of illegal immigration.
It's no accident that the public's concern about immigration
surfaced most virulently in Arizona. A decade of cracking down
on the border in California and Texas has driven the lion's share
of the illegal flow through the Arizona desert. (The Department
of Homeland Security's Tucson Sector accounted for 42 percent
of all Border Patrol arrests last year -- some 1,350 a day along
just 260 miles of frontier.) And people throughout the state are
living with the consequences: a flood of disruptive transients,
soaring service costs and the deadly violence associated with
human smuggling. As far from the border as Phoenix and even beyond,
immigrant smugglers warehouse their clients in filthy stash houses,
then fight over them in gun battles that endanger local residents.
No wonder Arizonans are clamoring for a solution.
But it wasn't Arizonans who turned the state into a national
battleground. That was the work of Washington-based anti-immigration
activists looking for an easy electoral victory. A coalition led
by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, spent
nearly half a million dollars to put Proposition 200, which otherwise
would have gotten nowhere, on the ballot. The group made no secret
of its goal: to repeat what happened in California a decade ago,
when a lopsided vote in favor of a similar referendum, Proposition
187, triggered a national crackdown on immigration.
Nothing seems to frighten FAIR as much as the bipartisan consensus
emerging in Washington in favor of an immigration overhaul. Endorsed
by the president and by senators as different as McCain and Massachusetts
Democrat Edward Kennedy, that reform would combine a guest-worker
program with some sort of legalization for illegal migrants already
in the country. The restrictionist coalition set out to stop this
momentum with what it thought would be an overwhelming landslide
telegraphing voters' generalized hostility toward immigrants.
FAIR cast the issue as a matter of "the people" vs.
"elites" and urged Arizona voters to tell evil "special
interests" -- business, unions and elected officials, who
allegedly benefit from immigrants at the public's expense -- where
to get off.
The nativist activists designed the measure to have maximum public
appeal, and it worked. Who doesn't want to reduce welfare rolls
or think people should have to prove they are citizens in order
to vote, as the proposition requires? The problem is that the
initiative is so sloppily written as to be all but impossible
to implement. (Its main provision would deny illegal immigrants
access to "public benefits" -- a phrase interpreted
by some proponents as covering only welfare payments and by others
as including any and all state-provided services.) More importantly,
it says nothing one way or the other about federal immigration
policy, making it an extremely blunt if not useless instrument
to influence elected officials in Washington.
The campaign against the initiative didn't get going until it
was confirmed that Proposition 200 would be on the ballot -- just
eight weeks before Election Day. Unlike in California 10 years
ago, a broad bipartisan coalition came together to oppose the
measure: Democrats and Republicans, business and labor, grass-roots
ethnic activists and state employees including firefighters and
health care workers. Also unlike in California, where the opposition
was heavily Hispanic, in Arizona it more often showed an Anglo,
Republican face. Leading spokespeople came from the state Chamber
of Commerce and the Phoenix business elite. McCain fought tirelessly
against the measure, and the campaign worked as hard in rock-solid
GOP precincts as in the Latino community. Its two main themes:
that the measure would prove too broad to implement and that it
would do nothing to stem illegal immigration.
The effort failed; we didn't, frankly, even bring the vote as
close as we would have liked. And if anything, the emphasis on
the measure's unclear wording may have backfired, making it easier
for voters to endorse something they knew would never be put in
place -- allowing them, in effect, to send a cost-free message.
But the "No on 200" campaign was successful in significantly
narrowing the margin in favor of the provision. Early polls predicted
passage by a vote of 80 percent to 20 percent. Yet in the end,
nearly one-quarter of the electorate was persuaded to change its
mind -- a remarkable achievement, I believe, given the short campaign
and the emotion that invariably surrounds immigration.
Not only that, but the coalition made these inroads by tackling
the tough issue head-on: not evading the topic of illegal immigration
or denying voters' frustration, but rather urging even the angriest
Arizonans to think harder about what would solve the problem.
"Proposition 200 will not stop a single illegal immigrant
from crossing the border," the campaign proclaimed, calling
on voters to reject the measure in the name of "real immigration
reform."
And ordinary Arizonans did indeed spend two intense months discussing
-- in town hall meetings and op-ed debates, as well as long, substantive
stand-offs on drive-time radio -- what might actually work to
ease the aggravations caused by the illegal influx. There was
no consensus. Even in Arizona, voters don't yet know enough about
the policy options. But proponents and opponents alike mostly
recognize that Proposition 200 will not make for effective enforcement
-- after all, most immigrants come to work, not to vote or get
welfare benefits.
Where does that leave federal officials? History teaches several
unexpected lessons about what kind of immigration reform is likely
to be effective. Though California's Proposition 187 was largely
invalidated in court, Congress essentially implemented it on a
national scale, denying illegal immigrants all but the most minimal
government services, including emergency room health care and
K-12 education. The cutbacks were popular with voters, but they
have done nothing to stem the tide. Nor has a draconian crackdown
on the Southwest border: Despite a tripling of the number of border
agents and a quintupling of their budget in the last decade, more
unauthorized immigrants enter the country now than before the
massive buildup.
Of course, better enforcement is necessary, both on the border
and in the workplace. But we will not regain control of our borders
until we also come to grips with the international forces of supply
and demand that drive record numbers of migrants to our shores.
A real solution, both President Bush and congressional leaders
know, requires that we recognize and manage this inevitable flow
-- by means of a guest-worker program backed up by more effective
enforcement.
The good news out of Arizona is that voters can be educated about
this. Yes, they are frustrated by the illegal influx. Yes, they
are deeply concerned about the rule of law, angry about the way
it is routinely breached on the border and elsewhere. The politics
of immigration are not unlike the politics of free trade: There
is indeed some disconnect between elite and popular opinion, and
the kinds of reforms that are needed aren't easy to explain to
voters.
Still, as the campaign in Arizona shows, reformers need not shrink
from the debate ahead -- the debate the nation will have to have
if we are going to fix our broken immigration system. Concerned
as they are, most voters aren't reflexively anti-immigrant. They
don't necessarily favor a crackdown for a crackdown's sake. What
they want is a solution, not an empty gesture, and many will listen
to politicians -- of either party -- who can explain the difference
and deliver on real reform.
This
article originally appeared in the Washington
Post. Tamar Jacoby is a Senior Fellow at The
Manhattan Institute and her work is reprinted with permission.
