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Despite the devastating consequences of state immigration laws in Alabamaand Arizona, legislators in other states have introduced similar enforcement bills this year. Legislators in Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia introduced an array of costly immigration enforcement bills in their 2012 legislative sessions—some which are modeled on Arizona’s SB 1070. While study after study continues to document how these extreme state laws are costing state economies, disrupting entire industries and driving communities further underground, state legislators clearly aren’t getting the message.

Last month, legislators in Mississippi introduced a slew of anti-immigrant bills. State Senator Joey Fillingane, for example, introduced SB 2090, a bill which requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect is undocumented, makes it a crime to fail to carry proper immigration documents and a crime to harbor or transport an undocumented immigrant, and a misdemeanor for an undocumented immigrant to apply for or solicit work. Both the Mississippi House and Senate passed different versions of this bill, but are expected to hammer out one bill to send to Governor Haley Barbour’s desk for a signature soon.

In Missouri, state Senator Will Kraus recently introduced SB 590, a bill which requires police to determine the immigration status of individuals they reasonably suspect are unauthorized and makes it a crime not to carry immigration documents. Missouri’s bill, like Alabama, however takes the law a step further by requiring schools to verify the immigration status of enrolling students and their parents. Remember that the U.S. Department of Justice blocked a similar provision in Alabama’s immigration law, HB 56, last October. Missouri’s legislature passed the bill out of committee last week—a bill likely to cost Missouri millions.

The House Judiciary Committee in Tennessee advanced an immigration bill this month, HB 2191, a bill which makes it a felony for anyone in the state to knowingly conceal, harbor or transport an undocumented immigrant. Tennessee’s copycat bill, HB 1380—which requires police to question the immigration status of those they suspect of being undocumented—was put on hold this month due to budgetary concerns, despite Governor Bill Haslam’s public support of the bill days earlier. HB 1380 was also shelved last year due to $3 million price tag, but the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Joe Carr, doesn’t seem like he’s giving up.

“Putting it behind the budget doesn’t kill it. It basically parks it,” Carr said. “We are prioritizing the state’s stance on illegal immigration based on the financial resources we have. We’ve got a very targeted approach to tackle illegal immigration here in the state.”

In Virginia, where control of the Governorship, House of Delegates and Senate recently changed hands to those with an enforcement heavy agenda, legislators recently introduced two Arizona copycat bills—SB 460 and its companion bill HB 1060—which allow police to determine the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country without documentation. Although SB 460 failed this week after a split vote in the Senate’s Courts of Justice Committee, it’s companion bill, HB 1060, was recently assigned to Virginia’s House Courts of Justice Sub-Committee.

And that’s only some of the immigration legislation moving through state legislatures. Other states have introduced other enforcement bills this year, each likely to hurt local businesses, families and state coffers.

Just this week, a report out of the University of Alabama estimated that Alabama stands to lose $11 billion in GDP and nearly $265 million in state income and sales tax due to their extreme immigration enforcement law, HB 56. Utah’s copycat law HB 497 (temporarily blocked last year) has cost the state $85,000 to defend, according to government reports. Arizona lost $490 million in tourism revenue last year, $86 million in lost wages, 2,800 lost jobs and more than $1 million in legal fees in defending SB 1070.

As states continue to move forward on these and other immigration enforcement bills, one wonders how much larger the writing on the wall has to be before state legislators realize these laws are costing taxpayers. Yes we need solutions to our immigration problems, but creating a complicated and costly patchwork of state laws isn’t bringing us any closer to that solution.

Photo by Africa Studio.

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As if Mitt Romney’s repeated promise to veto the DREAM Act wasn’t alienating enough, advocates warn that Romney’s continued relationship with famed anti-immigrant hawk Kris Kobach is killing future support from Latino voters, especially in key states like New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Kobach, co-author of Arizona and Alabama’s extreme immigration enforcement laws, appeared in South Carolina Monday night to spin for the Romney campaign following the GOP debate.

Following Kobach’s endorsement of Gov. Mitt Romney last week, the Romney campaign issued a statement accepting Kobach’s endorsement and supporting his leadership on extreme immigration enforcement last in Arizona and South Carolina. Now, however, with Kobach actually appearing on Romney’s campaign trail, advocates say Kobach will damage Romney’s image among Latino voters.

Dee Dee Garcia Blase of the grassroots Republican Latino group Somos Republicans said “Romney committed political suicide” when he welcomed Kobach’s endorsement. Outspoken immigration advocate Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) called Kobach’s affiliation with the Romney campaign “appalling” and characterized Kobach as the “Dark Lord of the anti-immigration movement” on a teleconference. And earlier this month, Hispanic Leadership Fund’s Mario Lopez said Romney’s approach to immigration was hurting him as a candidate and the Republican party in general.

As previously reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Kris Kobach has built a long and varied career out of attacking immigrants—first in the Bush Administration targeting legal immigrants from Muslim and Arab countries and later as the architect of city ordinances and state laws targeting unauthorized, mostly Latino immigrants.

But the addition of Kobach to Romney’s campaign is just the latest in Romney’s hard line on immigration. Romney again indicated yesterday that he would veto the DREAM Act should it come up in Congress, arguing that “aiding those eligible under the DREAM Act”—a bill that puts undocumented students who were brought here by their parents on a path towards citizenship—“would only encourage more people to enter the country without documentation.”

Appearing tough on immigration may not hurt Romney during the GOP primary, but come general election time, many wonder how Romney plans to win the Latino vote. Matt Barreto of the University of Washington said that Romney will not win the presidency without at least 40% of the Latino vote, a vote Congressman Luis Gutierrez believes Romney will not receive given his current approach to immigration.

“There is no route to the White House that does not go through a Latino neighborhood. Any winner in either party needs a significant proportion of Latino voters. When you say you want millions of us to leave the country … we will vote against you.”

When it comes to immigration, American voters have established that they want solutions not smears. Politicians, however, continue to read from a different playbook written by a narrow group of voters and commentators.

Photo by Gage Skidmore.

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Immigration has never been a numbers game. When people think of immigration in America, they likely call to mind fear-fueled myths perpetuated by immigration restrictionists, like “immigrants are stealing American jobs” or “immigrants are a drain on our system.” Sadly, numbers and facts have rarely been part of the discussion, especially as state legislatures continue to take immigration law into their own hands. Today, however, the Immigration Policy Center published 50 state fact sheets updated to show just how much immigrants, Latinos and Asians contribute to our country as consumers, taxpayers, workers, entrepreneurs and voters—facts state legislators would do well to consider before passing legislation that drives immigrants, undocumented and documented, from their state.

Legislators in Alabama passed one of the most extreme anti-immigrant laws (HB 56) last year in response to the state’s “immigration problem.” According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Alabama’s undocumented population was 2.5% of total population (or 120,000 people) in 2010—lower than in 22 other states. While Alabama’s undocumented may be smaller than other states, however, their economic contributions are not. Alabama’s undocumented contributed more than $130 million in state and local taxes in 2010.

As Alabama continues to drive undocumented immigrants and their contributions from the state, they also run the risk of alienating documented immigrants, Latinos and Asians in the process. Alabama’s Latino and Asian populations’ combined purchasing power was nearly $6 billion in 2010. Alabama faces a $979 million budget gap in FY2012.

In California, whose undocumented population paid $2.7 billion in state and local taxes in 2010, some recently attempted (and failed) to overturn the California DREAM Act—two laws which allow undocumented students to enroll in California’s public colleges and universities and apply for state-based funding. Studies show that by 2025, California will not have enough college graduates to keep up with economic demand. The California DREAM Act may play a critical role in boosting the number of college grads.

Another part of Georgia’s extreme immigrant law (HB 87) went into effect this month, requiring people to show certain forms of identification before they can get among other things, professional business licenses. While this may seem pretty standard, business leaders in the state are worried that this will slow commerce, cause serious processing delays, and hurt an already struggling economy. At last count, Latino and Asian businesses in Georgia had sales and receipts of $20.6 billion and employed nearly 110,000 people.

State legislatures, the majority of which convene this month, are likely to continue to consider restrictive immigration legislation this year, but it’s critical that they consider exactly how much these punitive laws will cost their state. States are far from fully recovered from the economic recession and many still face large budget shortfalls into FY2013, according to Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Facts don’t lie. Immigrants, Latinos and Asians have and will continue to account for large and growing shares of state economies and populations. Can state legislators really afford to alienate such a critical part of its labor force, tax base, and business community?

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You wouldn’t know it from listening to the ridiculous anti-immigrant rhetoric over the past year, but treating immigrants like actual human beings is a concept some hope catches fire in 2012. The Washington Post recently added “immigrants as people” on “The List: 2012”—their annual zeitgeist-inspired list of ins and outs for the new year. Granted, “peacock feathers” and “Margaret Thatcher” also made the “in” column, but dialing down the immigrant bashing—a message Republican presidential candidates clearly missed during previous debates—is an idea that GOP political strategists are now embracing.

Republican strategists are apparently growing nervous as GOP presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, continues to alienate Hispanic voters. While Gov. Romney has flipped back and forth on his approach to immigration policy over the years, he announced this past weekend that he would veto the DREAM Act—a bill that puts undocumented students who were brought here by their parents on a path towards citizenship—if Congress were to pass it.

According to Mario H. Lopez, president of the Hispanic Leadership Fund, Romney’s approach isn’t going to sit well with America’s fastest growing voting demographic—Latinos.

Romney’s tin ear on this topic, on immigration, will hurt him should he be the nominee, is hurting the Republican Party and is hurting every conservative who cares about passing conservative legislation in the future.

But Romney’s not the only one. In fact, anti-immigrant rhetoric has increased over the past few years—from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s “beheadings in desert” to Republican Congressman Lamar Smith’s portrayal of immigrants as stealing jobs from Americans. More recently, however, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachman said she would deport every undocumented immigrant in the country while former GOP contender, Herman Cain, “joked” that he would electrify the border fence as a deterrent for unauthorized crossers. Not exactly rhetoric that warms Hispanic voters’ hearts.

Nor, however, does the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement strategies. According to a recent Pew poll, an overwhelming majority of Latinos (59% to 27%) disapprove of the Obama administration’s deportation strategy, which hit an average of 400,000 since 2009—double the annual average of George Bush’s first term.

Perhaps people are just tired of the same failed enforcement strategies and constant immigrant bashing that’s plagued the immigration issue for the last several years. Poll after poll shows that most Americans—even those who consider themselves conservative voters—favor a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living and working in America.

Maybe it’s time for those holding the microphone to take a step back and listen to what American voters really care about—comprehensive solutions to our immigration problems, not just more empty and hate-filled words.

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A review of immigration issues for 2011 reads like a rollercoaster of American politics. Some state legislatures, for example—backed by restrictionists groups—attempted to pass harsh enforcement-only immigration laws. Some states succeeded; others struck down these bills; and a few even passed progressive immigration laws like tuition equity for undocumented students. At the federal level, Congress failed yet again to take major action on immigration, but allowed a few humanitarian and refugee issues to pass. The Obama administration deported a record high number of immigrants, but at the same time issued prosecutorial discretion guidelines in an attempt to prioritize enforcement efforts. While our top 11 blog posts—those most read, shared and commented on in the past year—couldn’t possibly tell the whole immigration story of 2011, the list does provides an interesting snapshot of what moved people and prompted reactions throughout the year.

The 11 most popular blog posts of 2011:

11. Thousands of Children Stuck in Foster Care after Parents Deported, Report Finds (November 4)
10. The Facts (and Numbers) Don’t Matter in Alabama (October 12)
9. Despite Limits, How Padilla v. Kentucky Will Endure (January 27)
8. States that Passed Arizona-style Immigration Laws Now Face Costly, Uphill Legal Battles (June 3)
7. DHS No-Match Rule is Another Nail in Economy’s Coffin (October 27)
6. New Report Reveals Devastating Effects of Deportation on U.S. Citizen Children (April 26)
5. The List: A Modern Day Witch Hunt in Utah (July 15)
4. How Immigrants Can Help America Rise Again (February 2)
3. DHS Announces Expansion of Prosecutorial Discretion Guidelines (August 18)
2. What ICE’s Latest Memo on Prosecutorial Discretion Means for Future Immigration Cases (June 6)

However, the most popular blog this year by far was Immigration Policy Center Director Mary Giovagnoli’s post on the inclusion of the term “anchor baby” in the American Heritage Dictionary—a term initially included without context:

1. “Anchor Baby” Added to New American Heritage Dictionary (December 2)

The editors at the American Heritage Dictionary quickly changed the definition to include the words “disparaging” and “offensive.” And the popularity of the post—featured in USA Today, the New York Times, on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report and across the Twittersphere—proves that words have meaning and that many people really do care about how we use them. Without the readers, activists, advocates and scholars who want a constructive and thoughtful debate on immigration—laid out in the hope of practical policy solutions—we would be left with the uninformed, hateful, divisive rhetoric too often slung around this issue.

No one knows which headlines we’ll be reading in 2012 or which blog posts will be the most popular, but we do know that many Americans are tired of the inflamed rhetoric and failed enforcement policies—policies which continue to hurt families and cost communities. People want real solutions to immigration. As we head into 2012, an election year, we can only hope that common sense and smarter policies prevail.