Arizona flag
This weekend Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is likely to sign a highly controversial immigration legislation that, among other things, requires police officers to investigate a person’s immigration status if they suspect the person is in the country illegally, and allows police to arrest anyone whose status cannot be adequately documented.
Religious organizations have urged the governor to block the bill on the grounds the legislation is inhumane and unethical. President Obama has also condemned the legislation as irresponsible and misguided. But Brewer faces a strong challenge in the upcoming Republican primary, and after having lobbied strongly for a sales tax increase earlier this year, her chances of victory in the primary will be severely weakened if she vetoes the bill.
Arizona’s bill is a direct result of the growing frustration across the political spectrum in the United States with the country’s broken immigration system, and with President Obama’s failure to make immigration reform one of his principal policy priorities.
The consequences for Texas of this legislation are four-fold.
— Immigrants who would have gone to Arizona may instead switch their destination to another state, such as Texas.
— Some of the almost half a million undocumented immigrants in Arizona can now be expected to move to another state, with Texas one of the principal recipients of these individuals.
— Absent comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level this year, we can expect similar legislation to be introduced when the Texas legislature convenes in January 2011. Nonetheless, the prospects that this legislation will actually be passed, let alone debated on the floor, are remote. The bill would be unanimously opposed by Democrats, and would not enjoy the support of both moderate and pragmatic Republican legislators in both the House and Senate.
— The bill, which in practice would result in the racial profiling of Latinos (citizens, legal residents, visa holders and undocumented immigrants), is likely to further tarnish the image of the Republican Party among many Latino voters.
Even if passed into law, the constitutionality of portions of the Arizona bill will be challenged in court, and thus its immediate impact on daily life in Arizona will be limited. That said, the bill sends a very strong message to undocumented immigrants in Arizona, prospective undocumented immigrants currently residing in Latin America, U.S. Latinos, and the U.S. federal government regarding the position of the Arizona Republican Party on the policy of immigration reform.
Mark P. Jones is a Baker Institute Rice scholar and professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.