Joshua Hoyt

"Change" ... Worth Fighting For!

Joshua Hoyt — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:45:17 -0700

Next Tuesday is the anniversary of the historic election of President Barack Obama and a memorable evening that many of us spent in Grant Park after the polls closed. Just how hard we are going to have to work to win that “Change” we fought for is now clear, and it is time to recommit to each other and to redouble our efforts.

I happened to be standing next to Rahm Emanuel as Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech in Grant Park that night. I have known Rahm many years and we have never been particularly close. But I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “Do us proud.” He joked back, “Nah…. I think we will just go f*** it up!” More seriously I said, “We desperately need legalization for the 12 million undocumented.” Rahm replied, “It all depends on the votes.”

Now it is a year later and we are engaged in a bitter power struggle to win meaningful health care reform. In many ways the undocumented ended up being made the bogeymen of this debate (along with ACORN) by the Republicans, and got thrown under the bus by many Democrats. Meanwhile deportations have increased under the Obama administration, and it is unclear whether the political will to move forward on immigration reform will exist after the exhausting health care battle subsides.

How should we deal at this point with disappointments from this White House? And how do we continue to press towards the “Change” we've been fighting for?

On November 3 in Grant Park, on the first anniversary of the election, we are joining with a broad cross-section of progressive leaders and many longtime supporters of President Obama to rally for the “Change” our nation still urgently needs.

We will be joining together in support of the fight for health care reform with a meaningful public option. We will also be signing a letter to President Obama urging “courage” in moving forward on the range of challenging policy initiatives our nation urgently needs – from immigration and financial regulation reform, to workers' right to organize, to the full inclusion of the LGBT community, to addressing our rapidly warming planet. And we will be pledging to support of each others' efforts over time.

Too often, we work in silos, not seeing the humanity of others or the justice of their causes. But building an America that is fair and inclusive demands that we band together. The political reality is that Rahm will never get the votes that he needs, and will not have the will to cast them, if we are divided.

So please join us at the rally.

Joshua Hoyt is the Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Here are his previous Progress Illinois columns:

"How The Democrats And The DCCC Finally Got Immigration Right," March 16, 2008

"For The Love Of A Demographer," May 13, 2008

"Obama Is 'Chicago Tough' Enough To Tackle Immigration Reform," April 17, 2009

Obama Is "Chicago-Tough" Enough To Tackle Immigration Reform

Joshua Hoyt — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:13:59 -0700

Barack Obama’s first trip to Mexico this week will not be spent enjoying the famous Mexican surf and sun. He and Mexican President Felipe Calderon have a series of difficult issues they must address. Following Calderon's crackdown on the Mexican narcotics cartels, violence has surged in the country. Trade skirmishes have broken out between the U.S. and Mexico. And then there are the thorny issues along our 2,000-mile contiguous border, with drugs and immigrants moving north and rivers of guns flowing south. It's safe to say there will be no time for snorkeling.

The president is facing some mighty tough issues on this trip and last week he demonstrated that he actually is “Chicago-tough." The White House made headlines when it reiterated that Obama is serious about addressing our broken immigration system during his first year in office, including an earned path to citizenship for the undocumented.

Pundits marveled that even our Blackberry-addicted, multi-tasking president would try to take on this divisive issue so early in his first term and during a recession. But there are some very good reasons to act on immigration reform this year. Hopefully, he and Calderon will discuss the shared stake our nations have in pursuing real immigration solutions.

Border and National Security: The cable news talking heads have been having a field day discussing border drug violence, but less attention has been devoted to the fact that our broken immigration system is only strengthening the narco-traffickers. As we have “hardened” our borders with fences and an increasing number of border guards, the smuggling of illegal immigrants has passed over to the control of more violent and more professional criminal gangs. Law enforcement officials in Arizona estimate that human trafficking is a $2 billion-a-year enterprise in that state alone. Creating a rational visa system for low wage workers would drain this swamp and allow law enforcement to focus on drug smugglers and terrorist threats.

Economic Recovery: As long as unscrupulous employers can exploit undocumented workers and use them to pull down the floor on wages, American workers will have a hard time regaining their footing in this economy. That is why both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, the two major labor coalitions in the U.S., agreed this week to work together on immigration reform.

There is a fiscal benefit to comprehensive reform as well. It has been estimated by the Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation that such a plan would create between $48 and $66 billion in new tax and fee revenues by bringing off-the-book workers into the tax system.

Enforcement Alone is Not Working: In the past 15 years we have gone from 4,000 to 20,000 border guards. We are spending some $18 billion a year on border, customs, and immigration enforcement. The 700 miles of border fence cost well over a million dollars a mile. Deportations surged to 357,000 last year alone, the vast majority workers with no accusation of criminal activity. Our federal courts and federal prosecutors are overwhelmed with small-time immigration cases.

The increased expenditures and the souring economy have significantly reduced the inflow of unauthorized immigrants into the U.S., but this has not begun to address the issue of the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the country, nor their estimated 30 million U.S. citizen and legal immigrant relatives.

Mass deportation is so impractical and so expensive (estimated to cost at least $206 billion over 5 years) that no one in public life is seriously recommending it. With reduced inflows of illegal immigration, we now have some “breathing room” to address those who are already here in a rational way.

Broken Families: During the last year we deported 357,000 people from the United States, approximately 1,000 a day. Many had U.S. citizen spouses or children, and the human cost has been horrific. A recent Government Accountability Office report estimated that we have deported the parents of 100,000 U.S. citizen children in recent years. A Pew Hispanic Center report released this week states that 73 percent of the children of undocumented immigrants are U.S. citizens, and they are growing up in poverty.

Baby Boomers are now retiring at a steady clip and demand is rising for skilled workers (not to mention their Social Security contributions). Yet at the same time we are creating a new underclass of parentless children who will be unprepared to enter our productive workforce.

President Obama inherited a lot of very difficult problems, from the economy, to two wars, to 46 million uninsured Americans. But if he is really “Chicago-tough” enough to tackle those issues as well as the crisis of our broken immigration system, then I hope he can count on us to have his back!

Joshua Hoyt is the Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. Here are his previous Progress Illinois columns:

"How The Democrats And The DCCC Finally Got Immigration Right," March 16, 2008.

"For The Love Of A Demographer," May 13, 2008

For The Love Of A Demographer

Joshua Hoyt — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:15:01 -0700

Most of my friends and colleagues think of me as a fiery activist for immigrant rights. Indeed, I spend as much time as I can organizing and enjoying good demonstrations. But I'd like to confess that I have a secret, quiet quirk.

I love demographers. Doug Massey of Princeton; Audrey Singer of Brookings; Dowell Myers of the University of Southern California; and Chicago’s own Rob Paral of Notre Dame: Superstars and heroes, one and all!

This is not a quirk shared by many, however. The Illinois Republican Party, for one, has failed to get in touch with its inner demographer and this has meant deep pain at the polling place.

I know that demographers are an understated, tweedy sort of crew, and I doubt one will ever make the cover of Rolling Stone. But I've discovered that they have a wondrous ability to shine a light on the future.

On Thursday, May 1, most of the television crews in the country were out filming the latest immigration marches. I was there myself, enjoying the great parade and speaking to the crowds. But that day, on the inner folds of the nation’s newspapers, demographers were using their numbers to paint a picture of what's to come.

Between 2000 and 2007 the nation’s Latino population grew from 35.7 million to 45.5 million, an impressive 27 percent jump. Even more significant was that, in the last two years, 62 percent of this growth has been through births, not immigration. In Illinois, the Latino population has grown by 390,000 during these last seven years, while the white population has declined by 118,000.

Are these numbers a good thing or a bad thing? Well, like everything else, it depends.

Writing from my particular vantage point -- as a 52 year-old baby boomer -- the statistics look pretty good. It turns out that the average white American is 40.8 years old and the average Hispanic is 27.8 years old. Dowell Myers points out that currently there are some 23 seniors for every 100 workers. However, 20 years from now (when I'm 72), the ratio will have changed drastically to 41 seniors for every 100 workers! The answer to the old Beatles song about "who will feed me when I’m 64" is already clear – Latino immigrants and their children. In addition, undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $7 - $8 billion a year into the Social Security Trust Fund and a recent report by the Social Security Administration credits them with reducing the long term deficit by 15 percent.

Again, from where I sit, these demographic trends look great.But if I were a GOP politician in this state, I might feel differently.

Unfortunately for Illinois Republicans, they continue to allow their party to be defined by anti-immigrant bellowing from the likes of Jim Oberweis, the perennial candidate who recently lost the seat vacated by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Perhaps if Oberweis had used his millions to hire himself a demographer, he would have been warned that over 29 percent of the 14th Congressional District is now made up of immigrants and their children.

Since 2002, Republicans in Illinois have lost seven statehouse seats and one Congressional seat in areas that have large concentrations of immigrants. New suburban Democrats have names like Hernandez, Crespo, and Chapa la Via.

But in the General Assembly, DuPage Republicans like Harry Ramey and Dennis Reboletti keep banging the anti-immigrant drum. They too appear to have no demographer on staff to warn them about Illinois’ changing electorate. For example, during the three years from 2002 through 2004 there were 80,000 new naturalized citizens in Northern Illinois. Since 2004, this number has increased by 56 percent, with 126,000 new applications for citizenship!

So until the Illinois GOP catches my demography bug, their numbers will continue to decline. It's a pity, really. Demographers could help them set good immigrant policy in education, identify good investments to be made in English learning, and identify gaps in our workforce to be filled with strategic training. Plus a talented demographer is a great thing for every politician, because THEY KNOW HOW TO COUNT!

Joshua Hoyt is the Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Previous columns:

"How The Democrats And The DCCC Finally Got Immigration Right," March 16, 2008.

JOSHUA HOYT: How The Democrats And The DCCC Finally Got Immigration Right

Joshua Hoyt — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:32:19 -0700

On March 8, Democrat and scientist Bill Foster shocked the political world by beating Republican dairy and investment millionaire Jim Oberweis in the special election in Illinois’ 14th Congressional District. This is a case where the Democratic candidate, the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) finally “got it right” on immigration.

Faced with an aggressive, divisive attack by the harshly anti-immigrant Oberweis, Foster presented a positive, nuanced, and humane approach to the issue. At the same time, the DCCC aggressively targeted Oberweis for his hypocrisy on immigration. The combination of a solution-oriented approach by Foster and a hard-hitting offense by national Democrats neutralized the Republican attack’s potential effect on mainstream voters without alienating Latino voters.

This is a road map for future Democratic victories in swing districts where immigration will be an issue.

Anyone active in Illinois politics understands that Oberweis is a hard-line demagogue on immigration matters. He ran some of the harshest anti-immigrant commercials ever seen in Illinois during his 2004 Senate campaign, and he is a Board Member for Numbers USA, a virulently anti-immigration national advocacy group.

Given this history, it was inevitable that Oberweis would attack his opponent Foster as being pro-amnesty, and indeed his numerous TV ads accused Foster of wanting to use taxpayer dollars to help “illegal aliens” get “amnesty”.

Not so long ago, such a strategy might have proved effective in the 14th Congressional District, which was drawn to be reliably Republican territory. But unfortunately for Mr. Oberweis, the district is now home to a large and rapidly growing community of immigrants. In 2005, there were 190,000 Latinos and Asians living within the district’s borders and immigrants and their children accounted for a stunning 29.6 percent of the population. These demographical shifts are continuing across Chicago’s suburbs. During the last four years, vigorous non-partisan voter registration and citizenship efforts by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights have significantly changed the electorate in these areas.

Even knowing that he would face Oberweis’s attacks on the issue of illegal immigration, Foster chose not to adopt the hard-line, enforcement-first “anti-amnesty” position that the DCCC has been recommending over the past several years.

Instead, Foster advanced a positive, nuanced, and solutions-oriented approach to addressing illegal immigration. His position statement on the issue stressed “workable compromise”, “humanitarian” and “comprehensive” reform, and the importance of remaining a “nation of laws” with effective “border security”. Furthermore, rather than keep his distance, Foster reached out to immigrant advocates and Latino community leaders.

At the same time, the DCCC emphasized Oberweis’ major vulnerability on the issue: in November 2005 the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor on behalf of two undocumented workers who had been cleaning Oberweis Ice Cream stores in Chicago’s suburbs for $3.23 an hour. In the weeks leading up to the special election, the DCCC ran a series of mailers, robo-calls, and radio and TV ads highlighting the ICIRR complaint and ridiculing Oberweis’ hypocrisy on illegal immigration.

This tactic clearly infuriated Oberweis. On the of night March 6, just 36 hours before the polls opened, his son, who now runs the family dairy, filed a lawsuit against the DCCC, claiming that the ads were false. The net result? On the eve of the election numerous television stations replayed their archive footage of undocumented immigrants cleaning the Oberweis stores.

On March 8, Foster won the race with a convincing 5,000 vote margin, 53 percent to 47 percent. Dozens of Latino and immigrant activists were working to “Get Out The Vote” for Foster on Election Day and it is well worth noting that Foster carried the heavily Hispanic City of Aurora with a 3,200 vote margin.

This victory shows that a reasonable, solution-oriented approach to immigration combined with a hard offense on Republican hypocrisy can successfully neutralize accusations that Democrats are soft on illegal immigration – even in a Republican-leaning district. It is possible to do this without alienating Latino voters or pandering to the climate of hate that has engulfed the debate on immigration.

Bill Foster deserves to be complemented for running a campaign he can be proud of; the Democratic Party and the DCCC deserve to be complemented for finally getting it right on immigration.

Joshua Hoyt is the executive director of the Ilinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.