Where Immigration Legislation Stands Now

I thought this article in Politico really summarized where immigration legislation stands right now in Congress.  The key issues discussed in here is Menendez and his push for more bi-partisanship legislation dealing with immigration.  Another key aspect of the piece is the Republican's reaction to Menendez's push.  Check out the article here:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42856.html
I just found reading all these updates in this article intriguing because of our discussion of modern immigration in class and what Tichenor discusses in his book.  I know immigration in this country has not relatively changed since 1965 with the Immigration and Control Act.  This article made me question if we are possibly heading for a change in contemporary immigration politics.  With the tough elections ahead and the lack of bi-partisanship, I know it will be difficult to see major changes, but one can hope.

Immigration Political Cartoons

I think one of the best ways to evaluate a current political situation is to look at political cartoons.  When I searched on Yahoo I found this cartoon:

I think the best aspect surrounding this cartoon is that it brings a historical context in.  This really ties into immigration history that Tichner describes in his book.  Consideration of history and its patterns are key into understanding what is happening with immigration currently, and it also helps predict what might happen next.

The Recession and Immigration Policy

While reading Daniel Tichenor's book, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America, I found it interesting how he related international crises to more restrictive immigration policies.  In describing this, Tichenor states, "When international crises produce isolationist responses in domestic politics, then, we should expect that the political and structural capacities of political actors advancing immigration restriction will be enhanced" (p. 44).  Although Tichenor published this book in 2002, I still find his evaluation of this pattern still evident in today's politics.  The world has been suffering an economic crisis, and in turn, we have seen political players, such as Jan Brewer, Joe Apairo, and the Tea Party moving towards a more isolationist policy regarding illegal immigration.  There have been arguments from many different political actors that the immigrants crossing the United State's border take jobs from those who are currently unemployed.  I think Tichenor's point is important to understand when analyzing policy changes, such as SB 1070, because it helps better explain why these changes could be happening.

Where Americans Stand

Since we were discussing how attitudes towards immigration have fluctuated in class this week, I thought I would go to Gallup Polls and see if they had a poll on attitude towards immigration (of course they had one.)  Here was the poll they conducted:


http://www.gallup.com/poll/122057/Americans-Return-Tougher-Immigration-Stance.aspx

I found it intriguing of the spike in percentages of people that want to see immigration decreased.  As shown above, only 39% of people wanted to see discrimination decreased in the middle of 2008, as compared to the middle of 2009, which was 50%.  I was disappointed that this poll did not continue into 2010 because it would have been interesting to compare those numbers with the midterm elections and SB 1070.  Despite that, it would be interesting to research if those numbers correlated with the recession.  The poll went further into breaking those numbers down into political parties and such, but overall I think this poll demonstrates that immigration is a rising concern for Americans right now.