Advancement Project

February 22, 2012

Appealing to the Right on Anti-Immigration May Not Produce Victory

Originally posted in Huffington Post

Republican front runner Mitt Romney has called for a harsh, punitive policy on immigration and an end to bilingual ballots -- a move that could disenfranchise millions of voters. Some speculate that appealing to the far right on immigration issues will be a winning formula in 2012. But like the proposed ban on bilingual ballots, fueling state anti-immigrant laws could cost GOP candidates Latino and other immigrant votes. Surprisingly, while anti-immigrant omnibus bills passed in five states last year, they were defeated in 25.

What was behind the ability to defeat those laws is examined in a new report released today by Advancement Project, State Battles Over Immigration. State legislatures last year zealously pursued legislation to criminalize immigrants and force their departure. States broke a record for the number of immigration bills introduced in January 2011 with more than 600 filed in all 50 states, most of which were anti-immigrant bills. The pace continued throughout the year to set an all-time record of over 1600 immigration bills introduced in 2011. All but eight states last year enacted some form of anti-immigrant legislation.

The new legislative tactic is omnibus bills that roll a number of related proposals into one proposed law. The spike in these uber-laws resulted in 53 anti-immigrant omnibus bills being introduced last year in 30 states. Referred to as "Arizona copy-cat legislation," after SB 1070 passed in Arizona in 2010, five states -- Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, and Utah --enacted anti-immigrant omnibus bills last year. But what is unexpected is that they were defeated in 25. What the report finds is that the key to success was building coalitions across issues like poverty, and across racial and ethnic lines. Read more on Huffington Post.