Economics, demographics and political culture explain divide between NM and AZ immigration policies

Photo by Jonathan McIntosh

History, economics, population growth and political culture all go a long way to explain how two next-door neighbors –New Mexico and Arizona – can have two vastly different reactions to immigration, several history and economics experts say.

Arizona last month passed the nation’s toughest immigration law as well as a statute that outlaws ethnic studies programs in K-12 classrooms.

By comparison New Mexico doesn’t demand immigration status of individuals seeking a state driver’s license.

And so far there’s no broad-based push for a tough immigration law in New Mexico, although Albuquerque, the state’s largest city, has enacted a policy that will ask immigration status of every person arrested within the city limits.

So how do next-door neighbors that share a history — both were ceded by Mexico to the U.S. in the 19th century — arrive at vastly different conclusions on the same issue?

Here are a few things to consider:

Arizona’s Latino population grew just as the state’s population grew by a whopping 28.6 percent from 2000 to 2009, adding 1.5 million people, including many from outside the region lured by Arizona’s climate.

New Mexico’s Hispanic population, by contrast, has remained stable for some time at more than 40 percent of a state population, while the state’s population has grown slowly. New Mexico added roughly 200,000 people between 2000 and 2009.

And Arizona is suffering greater economic distress than its next-door neighbor. Times of economic stress sometimes are remembered afterward as eras of tougher immigration laws, a University of New Mexico historian says.

“I would say that periods of high economic anxiety often lead to heightened levels of anxiety about (and practices that tend to exclude) certain immigrant groups,” University of New Mexico assistant history professor Sam Truett told the Independent via e-mail.

Truett cited two historical examples in which high economic anxiety contributed to tougher immigration laws in American history: the “repatriation” efforts against Mexicans in the early 1930s, which coincided with the onset of the Great Depression; and Operation Wetback, a government program in the early 1950s that had as its goal removing about one million illegal immigrants from the southwestern United States, focusing on Mexican nationals. That also took place at a time of economic anxiety, Truett wrote.

“In both cases, Mexican immigrants were either deported outright or pressured to go back to Mexico; and in both cases, U.S.-born Mexican-Americans also suffered,” Truett noted.

Tough times in Arizona

It’s no overstatement to say that Arizona is reeling financially. In September 2009 Arizona became the first to lose 10 percent of its workforce, even surpassing Michigan, according to a November report by the Pew Center on the States.

To balance its state budget these days, Arizona is selling government buildings, closing highway rest stops and making deep cuts to programs. The state’s explosive population growth put pressure on Arizona’s state budget right as tax revenues began to decrease. Arizona had $7 billion in revenue vs. $11 billion in spending as it began to draft the 2010 state budget, Arizona’s state treasurer told the Pew Center on the States.

But Arizona hasn’t only cut programs. Arizona voters on Tuesday backed a temporary one-cent increase to the state’s sale tax to help close the state’s budget gap.

Yes, things are bad in New Mexico. The state is considering closing half its highway stops. But programs have been trimmed, not gutted. And the state Legislature resisted broad-based tax increases during this year’s regular session and a four-day special session.

As tough as times are in Arizona relative to New Mexico, Truett cautioned against tying the two states’ disparate reactions to immigration to one factor, especially economics. It’s a complex stew.

Opposition to ethnic studies program ‘strikes closer to the heart of what is going on’

David Gutierrez, who teaches Chicano history at University of California at San Diego, agrees that economics contribute, but probably more important are long-term demographic changes happening in Arizona.

Arizona’s Latino/Hispanic population now makes up 30.1 percent of the state’s population, according to the U.S. Census.

But Arizona’s Latino population is “rising from a comparably small base and this is creating tremendous anxiety among self-defined native whites,” Gutierrez wrote. “My sense of this is underscored when we consider the companion piece of legislation that came out of Arizona a few days after the profiling law, the statute that basically criminalized teaching ethnic studies in K-12 classrooms in Arizona public schools. This, it seems to me, strikes closer to the heart of what is going on in Arizona than the economic issues.”

Gutierrez was referring to an Arizona law that bans the teaching of ethnic studies in K-12 classrooms and targeted a Tucson school district’s program in particular, some say.

Arizona State Schools Superintendent Tom Horne, a Republican running for Attorney General in that state, has said ethnic studies promotes racism and wants such programs ended.Donald Coes and Melissa Binder, both economics professors at UNM, agree with Gutierrez. The size of each state’s Hispanic/Latino populations, and their history, go a long way to explain some things.

“Much of the big Hispanic population in Arizona is of fairly recent origin,” Coes wrote the Independent. “But here it’s centuries old, so that the Hispanic tradition and influence in NM state politics and government is more important.”

Coes went to add:

“While there are some of the same pressures for conservative politicians to play an anti-immigrant card, Arizona-style, that’s political suicide in New Mexico, at least at the state level (the southern House district–formerly (Steve) Pearce’s, now tenuously (Harry) Teague’s may be an exception).  I think those rather different political pressures in the two states explain a lot.’”

Politics and history are “more relevant than the economics, Binder agreed.

New Mexico Hispanics hold more political power

The size and the long-term presence of New Mexico’s Hispanic population also helps to explain New Mexico’s political culture, which is vastly different than Arizona’s.

As of 2007 New Mexico had 657 elected officials who identified as Hispanic or Latino, compared to 354 in Arizona, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

Among those elected officials are some of the most powerful people in government – Gov. Bill Richardson; House Speaker Ben Lujan; and Sen. Majority Leader Michael Sanchez.

But were it not for one change in Arizona’s top state post, that state’s law might not be in effect either, Truett wrote. Democrat Janet Napolitano left as Arizona’s governor to become President Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security, raising then-Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer to the position of governor.

“Take a look for instance at Napolitano’s claim that she wouldn’t have signed the law.  Same state, same population, same economy, same fears:  but under one government, you have a law; under another, maybe not,” Truett wrote.

The number of undocumented or illegal workers in the two states also is a factor.

Various reports estimate the illegal immigrant population in Arizona at around 500,000, much larger than New Mexico’s population.

Many more immigrants use Arizona as a crossing point into the U.S. than New Mexico, which heightens fears about violence from the drug war in Mexico spilling over as well as crime because of human smuggling. At the same time the connection between immigration and crime in Arizona is unclear, according to U.S. Department of Justice data.

In the end it is a complex mix of factors that help to explain the two states’ disparate reactions to the same issue despite being next-door neighbors. But politics and history might be more influential than economics, several professors said.

“At the risk of bad-mouthing economics, I think that some of the contrast between NM and AZ is more explicable in political and historical terms,” Coes wrote.