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171 Epilogue As I complete this book, the nation is once again embroiled in a bitter debate over immigration control, how best to accomplish it, and what course to pursue in dealing with the resident unauthorized population , whose size is currently estimated to lie somewhere between 10 and 12 million people. Each chamber of Congress has pursued solutions (either singly or in combination) that follow four general formats: criminalization of the act of illegal immigration and unauthorized presence in the United States; extension and expansion of southern border control efforts, including limited or no due-process procedures for those people apprehended there; expansive guest-worker programs; and a broad-scale legalization program. Supporters of each option have publicly defended their preferred solutions with stories with antecedents that have appeared in policy debates past. These stories continue to enjoy resonance today because they are built upon narratives and social constructions that are so firmly entrenched in the policy culture that even such important contextual changes as new administrations, shifts in party ideology and legislative control, and other key events, cannot dismantle them. The latest round of immigration reform efforts has occurred amidst several historic changes in the political and policy dynamics of both the United States and Mexico. First was the November 2000 election of Texas governor George W. Bush to the presidency. As the Republican presidential candidate, Bush had worked to pull the Republican Party back from the anti-immigration message that it had pursued nationally in the 1990s, as well as in the West and South. Having accumulated support from Latino voters in his state (he even increased his share of the traditionally Democrat-leaning Latino vote from 28 percent in 1994 to 49 percent for his 1998 re-election), as well serving as a border state governor, Bush had the credentials to steer the national party in a different direction. During his campaign, Governor Bush established that he was interested in pursuing a large-scale guest-worker program and Newton_pp137-182.indd 171 Newton_pp137-182.indd 171 5/3/08 3:55:10 PM 5/3/08 3:55:10 PM 172 Epilogue offering work eligibility to immigrants already working in the United States unofficially. A second key development was the historic December 2000 Mexican general election that broke seventy-one years of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s control of the presidency. Mexico’s new National Action Party president, Vicente Fox, instantly pursued a policy agenda in which migration and U.S.-Mexico relations were foremost. President Bush met several times with Vicente Fox to informally discuss the issue and invited the Mexican president to make his case before the U.S. Congress during his official state visit in September 2–8, 2001.1 However, any potential U.S.-Mexico binational approach to stem Mexico’s out-migration and authorize the Mexican labor force in the United States was snuffed mere days later as attacks on the United States by al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, redirected the national agenda. Among the many vulnerabilities exposed by the attack was the government’s inability to identify and track dangerous immigrants. Consequently, the attack heightened official and public concerns over an immigration system that, in retrospect, appeared to facilitate the maneuverings and planning of al-Qaeda operatives both within and without the United States. The attack also heightened public and official concerns about border security. Congress dismantled the INS and reassigned its administrative and enforcement responsibilities to the Departments of State and Justice, respectively, while, in turn, these departments were grouped under the new Department of Homeland Security. Doing a Job the Government Won’t Do The fight over federal responsibility has gathered steam since the 1990s, when California emerged as a model for states and localities wishing to assert that a conflict of interest exists on immigration issues. This conflict was defined in fiscal terms in California, and the enforcement of measures intended to bring fiscal discipline would come to rely on citizen policing. In this respect, the state of California essentially approved the activities of border vigilantes and the citizens of the “Light Up the Border” campaign in doing what the federal government would not. Although Proposition 187 did not pass court scrutiny, the ideological wheels were in motion. Soon afterwards, in 2004, Arizona anti-immigration activists offered a 187-style ballot measure, Proposition 200. To them, the lesson of the failure of 187 was that denial of public schooling to undocumented children Newton_pp137-182.indd 172...

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