This July, Governor Susana Martinez, a descendant of unauthorized immigrants, implemented what she called a residency certification program — an effort to review the authenticity of foreign nationals’ drivers licenses. The state currently has about 85,000 licenses issued to foreign nationals.

State district judge Sarah Singleton issued a preliminary injunction against the program back on September 22. Two days ago, the governor’s office acknowledged that the frozen program has thus far cost the state $177,000.

A judge halted the program on the grounds of unconstitutionality after the program had the DMV to send letters to 10,000 randomly selected foreign nationals. The letter ordered the receiver to make an appointment with the MVD and produce documents proving residency, and the program was criticized as a sting operation.

Despite the injunction, Judge Singleton has allowed that the Department of Taxation and Revenue may still follow up on letters returned as undeliverable and take action against drivers found to have obtained licenses under false pretenses.

So far, the state has spent $63,000 on temporary clerks employed to handle appointments, $49,000 on a contract with an Albuquerque-based call center to arrange the appointments, $29,000 for temporary clerks to handle questions over the phone and do data entry, $14,000 for phone and data lines, $11,000 on overtime and travel and another $11,000 on postage, office supplies, furniture and miscellaneous items.

Martinez had hoped the program would prove that the state had become a magnet for illegals. As of the end of September, 3,365 letters had been returned; and roughly 2,600 drivers had actually made appointments—roughly half of these had their licenses certified.

Albuquerque attorney David Urias, one of four lawyers who sued the MVD along with attorneys from MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, termed the program “a broad fishing expedition . . . that was not really warranted.”

Just a day after President Obama’s speech at the U.S./Mexico border on immigration reform, Sen. Jeff Bingaman helped introduce legislation that would provide college students who entered the country before the age of 15 with a path to citizenship.

“I do not believe children should be punished for their parents’ actions,” Bingaman said in a statement. “It doesn’t make sense to deny children who grew up in our country an opportunity to earn a college degree, join the military and to contribute to our economy as productive members of society.”

Bingaman joined Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and 29 other senators in sponsoring the legislation.

To qualify for the DREAM Act, the immigrant must have come to the United States under the age of 15, graduate from high school or earn a GED, complete two years of college or military service and have good moral character to legalize their immigration status.

In a speech on immigration in El Paso Tuesday, Obama called for the DREAM Act to be passed.

“We should stop punishing innocent young people for the actions of their parents,” Obama said. “We should stop denying them the chance to earn an education or serve in the military. And that’s why we need to pass the DREAM Act.”

President Barack Obama called for immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, in a speech in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday. It was Obama’s first trip to the border as president.

Obama said the lack of progress on immigration reform occurred despite work from people on both sides of the aisle.

“We’ve seen leaders of both parties who try to work on this issue, but then their efforts fell prey to the usual Washington games,” Obama said. “And all the while, we’ve seen the mounting consequences of decades of inaction.”

Obama said that Republicans have been looking to “move the goal posts” on securing the border.

“They wanted a fence,” Obama said. “Well the fence is now basically complete.”

“We’re here at the border because we also recognize that being a nation of laws goes hand in hand with being a nation of immigrants,” Obama said in his address at Chamizal National Memorial in El Paso.

Rep. Steve Pearce, the lone Republican in the New Mexico delegation, said before Obama’s speech that the president should have met with constituents in border communities in New Mexico.

“We cannot possibly address immigration without first facing our border security problems,” Pearce said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that the President missed an opportunity to hear from my constituents about the need for serious measures.”

Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat, said that he supported former President George W. Bush’s call for immigration reform and praised Obama for bringing it up again.

“Comprehensive immigration legislation is necessary to fix our broken borders and advance the educational and economic progress of the country,” Udall said in a statement. “I hope that the president’s speech is just the beginning of a bipartisan effort to pass real reform.”

Sen. Jeff Bingaman also called for immigration reform.

“Obviously, we must make security a centerpiece of comprehensive immigration reform,” Bingaman said. “But I do believe Congress needs to finally find a way to create a more thoughtful immigration system that works for our economy.”

After being “encouraged” by Obama’s speech, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico Regional Center for Border Rights called for Obama to change its focus “on a costly, enforcement-only model.”

“Our national security, while critical, should never come at the expense of civil and human rights,” said Vicki Gaubeca, director of the ACLU-NM Regional Center for Border Rights. “At the very least, we need more transparency, accountability and oversight to prevent the border region from becoming a Constitution-free zone.”

Any sort of immigration reform seems unlikely over the next two years. The House of Representatives is controlled by a Republican majority, while the Senate has a Democratic majority. The two chambers have been unable to agree on a number of high-profile issues.

Watch the speech:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is expected to push for heavy immigration enforcement as chairman of the House immigration subcommittee next session. (Tina Fultz/ZUMApress.com)

During his campaign for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama made the now-broken promise to Latino supporters that he would pass comprehensive immigration reform in his first year as president. But in remarks to the press on Wednesday, after Republicans took control of the House and won back several seats in the Senate, talk of immigration reform was noticeably absent.

Democrats will still hold a majority in both chambers during the lame-duck session, when leaders hope to pass the DREAM Act to give some undocumented young people and military service members legal status. But after January, immigration reform efforts that include paths to legal status for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States seem next to impossible, meaning the next few years will see little progress for immigration reform advocates.

“The new leaders of the House have made it clear that they’re going to continue to push an enforcement-only strategy,” said Mary Giovagnoli, director of pro-reform Immigration Policy Center. “It’s going to be a hard couple of years.”

The Republicans ushered into power in the midterms favor tight border security, strict enforcement and policies that would allow states, along with the federal government, to police immigration. Many campaigned on hard-line immigration positions that cost them support among Latinos, but won backing from the broad segments of the population that approve of illegal immigration crackdowns like Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law.

In short, Republicans who won on Tuesday hold radically different views on tackling illegal immigration from the president and Senate Democrats. Prospects are bleak for anyone who hopes to see meaningful change on immigration policy: A Democratic Senate will have trouble getting immigrant-friendly measures past the House, while the House will have trouble getting enforcement-only measures past the Senate — or the president’s desk. The result will likely be more of the same on immigration policy.

There are a few areas where Republicans have brought forth proposals to reform the immigration system. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is expected to take over as chairman of the House’s immigration subcommittee, plansuse his leadership position to call in Obama administration officials and question them on immigration enforcement, claiming “they’re not enforcing the laws.”

It’s a common argument from Republicans, who have repeatedly accused the Obama administration of taking a lax approach. After reports that immigration courts were throwing out deportation cases for illegal immigrants who were deemed non-dangerous or had pending citizenship applications, the seven current Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committeesent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano demanding to know how much it would cost to find and deport every illegal immigrant in the country.

“[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has cited a lack of resources as one of the reasons for its prioritization of cases and for its selective enforcement,” the Oct. 21 letter reads. “But to date, we have not seen any efforts by ICE, your Department, or the Administration to request an increase in ICE funding. … As a result, it appears that your Department is doing the very thing that we have raised concerns about in several letters – allowing illegal aliens to evade the law.”

If Republicans attempt to force increased immigration enforcement, it would require a huge increase in funding for ICE. The agency currently receives$2.6 billion from Congress each year to detain and remove illegal immigrants. ICE Chief John Morton says this budget allows the agency to deport about 400,000 people per year — a number it approaching this year. Deporting the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, then, could cost as much as $70 billion.

Of course, most Republicans don’t advocate a deportation-only method to decreasing illegal immigration numbers in the country. GOP members also say they hope to pass legislation to eliminate possible incentives for foreigners to stay in the country by cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, eliminating the few social services illegal immigrants can receive and in some cases even eliminating citizenship for children born in the country to undocumented parents.

A GOP-led initiative to end birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants under the 14th Amendment received support from 95 House members in 2009, although the bill never made it out of committee. Instead of attempting to amend the Constitution, the bill would create a statute limiting citizenship to children with at least one parent in the country legally.

King plans to push for the bill again in the next session of Congress, where support for the measure will be even stronger. King insists the bill is both legal and necessary to stop the “anchor baby” phenomenon — the idea that illegal immigrants come to America and have children in order to gain legal status — which most immigration experts agree does not exist because citizens cannot petition for legal status for their families until they are adults.

Expanding E-Verify, a controversial program that allows employers to check the immigration status of potential employees, is another likely priority for the Republican-led House. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who is expected to head the Judiciary Committee, co-sponsored a bill to make use of E-Verify mandatory for all employers. (Federal agencies and contractorsare already required to use the program.)

Of course, House Republicans cannot enact any laws without the support of Obama or the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is unlikely to risk angering Latino voters by passing enforcement-only immigration measures. But even if it means gridlock, House leaders seem committed to blocking comprehensive immigration reform.

“The best solution to the problem of illegal immigration is to enforce current laws,” Smith told the Chicago Tribune last week. “Attrition through enforcement can reduce the number of illegal immigrants already in the U.S.”

That news just serves to reinforce the point that New Mexico’s next-door neighbor is confronting near catastrophic economic distress. Some have highlighted Arizona’s financial struggles relative to New Mexico as one of many factors in that state’s tough stance toward immigration.

Times are tough in New Mexico. But Arizona’s problems are of a different order of magnitude when compared to our state’s struggles.

Arizona voters approved the sales tax increase by a wide margin Tuesday after the Legislature already had trimmed $1 billion in state spending, including decisions to “slash state funding for kindergarten, reduce safety-net social programs, close some state parks and highway rest areas and freeze signups for a children’s health program. Also, thousands of state employees have been laid off and thousands more have been subjected to unpaid furloughs,” the AP story tells us.

In fact, the difference between Arizona’s ongoing spending and ongoing revenues is $2.2 billion even with the money expected to come in from the sales tax increase, which takes effect June 1. That’s because since the recession started Arizona has lost a third of its revenue, according to the AP story.

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.

The vote was along party lines, with the council’s four Democrats hoping to halt the policy and its five Republicans voting to uphold the policy. The verdict on the policy followed a vigorous debate between opponents and supporters, writer Dan McKay tells us.

Monday’s vote came amid a burgeoning national debate over immigration sparked by Arizona’s new law that empowers that that state’s law enforcement to stop anyone on the reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally. Two New Mexicans on Monday joined a lawsuit challenging that law in federal court.

The vote also comes amid election season in New Mexico, with the state’s primary election day only two weeks away and with immigration emerging as an issue.

The city’s policy differs from Arizona’s law in that only people who are arrested will have their immigration status checked, city officials have said. It does not give Albuquerque police the power to stop anyone on the reasonable suspicion that they are in the country illegally, as Arizona’s law does.

The city’s new policy isn’t necessarily a surprise to those who followed last year’s Albuquerque mayoral election, when Berry criticized how Albuquerque handled immigration status questioning. The city at the time permitted officers to inquire about an individual’s immigration status only when it was pertinent to a criminal investigation. Berry repeatedly derided Albuquerque as as a ‘sanctuary city.’

Berry said during last year’s mayoral campaign  that APD should instead operate under rules more like those of Bernalillo County, which allowed officers to report a suspected undocumented immigrant once an arrest is made, regardless of what the arrest was for.

“You’re really talking about diluting your law enforcement resources into an area that should be handled by the federal government and I think that’s why it’s important we move on comprehensive immigration reform,” Udall said.

Udall also mentioned challenges of the law by the courts that will happen.

“I also believe that this raises a very serious question of racial profiling. And we need to make sure that the courts take a hard look at this law, which I know they will,” Udall said.

U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich

A regulatory overhaul of the financial industry is probably the next thing Congress will tackle, Congressman Martin Heinrich said Wednesday in an interview in Albuquerque.

President Obama outlined a major financial reform plan last summer (The Wall Street Journal has highlights), and public sentiment would seem fertile for a move to reign in big banks.

Heinrich said Tuesday he’s “optimistic that we will have a Wall Street reform bill in the next couple of months.”

But as Time’s Michael Grunwald noted today, reform is “Far From a Done Deal in Congress.”

Heinrich noted that the House passed a financial reform bill last year, but said there was “no coverage of the most fundamental financial reforms in 80 years” from the media — because the media was covering the health care debate going on in the Senate.

The Senate has been working on the financial reform bill for months and some speculate that the bill may be bogged down by the same Republican opposition that delayed health care reform for months. Although the Senate Finance Committee passed a version of health care reform legislation in October of 2009, it was not until Christmas Eve that the Senate voted on the bill. And the final piece of the legislation was not passed until March of this year.

If and when a financial reform bill passes the Senate, that version would have to be reconciled with the House version.

A similar timeline confronts immigration reform, which Heinrich said he thought probably wouldn’t come up anytime soon.

“I think the timeline is very challenging for [immigration reform] to happen before November,” Heinrich said. Since 2010 is an election year, there will be less time for Congress to work; every House seat and more than one-third of Senate seats are up for election this year.

Heinrich, however, said “the sooner we do it, the better” because he believes immigration reform is “long overdue.”

Asked about security along the U.S.-Mexico border, Heinrich said he was concerned about the rising level of violence. “I’m not worried about the border. I’m worried about the whole country. …”There is a level of violence there now that we haven’t seen in North America in the past,” Heinrich said.

As the New Mexican reports:

Under the proposal, undocumented immigrants could become legal by paying a fine and learning English – if they don’t speak the language already – as well as passing background checks and meeting other requirements. They would then be eligible for a six-year visa and, eventually, a green card.

The immigration reform bill, the lengthily named “Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009″, is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. Lujan, a freshman Democrat, is one of 87 cosponsors on the immigration reform bill.