Under a new, more liberal administration, ICE will presumably tone down the raids, and the website for the presidential transition says as much:

Immigration raids are ineffective: Despite a sevenfold increase in recent years, immigration raids only netted 3,600 arrests in 2006 and have placed all the burdens of a broken system onto immigrant families.

The future administration’s platform also calls for a comprehensive reform plan similar to the one backed by President Bush, which failed in Congress because of the controversial “amnesty” plank.

The country will be living with continued economic problems for some time, and it is still unclear whether immigration will fade to the background or become a scapegoat for lost jobs. But the government will probably not tackle comprehensive immigration reform before it deals with the economy, which means that enforcing current laws will still be ICE’s focus.

Given his background, Barack Obama is probably conscious of the value that immigrants bring to the United States. He is also probably aware that the American climate since the September 11 attacks has not been friendly to immigrants, and that this hurts our image in the world. In a Washington Post op-ed, Council on Foreign Relations fellow Edward Alden notes that Canada, Australia and Japan are attracting more international students, even as the U.S. attracts fewer. Alden suggests that “putting out the welcome mat” be one of the Obama administration’s top priorities.

The first sign we have of what ICE would look like under Obama is that Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is said to be his pick for Secretary of Homeland Security.

Arizona’s legislature has passed some of the harshest immigration laws in the country, and the state seems obsessed with protecting its 376-mile border. Napolitano is clearly more moderate than many in her state.

The Los Angeles Times reviewed her record, which showed that while she signed the 2007 employer sanctions bill reluctantly, she vetoed bills that would have required the police to enforce immigration laws and denied in-state tuition to undocumented college students. She opposed the border fence as ineffective, but she also called for the National Guard to be stationed at the border and for employers to be held accountable for hiring illegal workers.

The Napolitano selection suggests that immigration law enforcement will be a priority in the Obama administration. It also shows that the president-elect is looking for someone who knows the issue and will look at it from a middle ground. Given the political peril of dealing with immigration, a cool, moderate head would be a good thing.

In the latest AP-GfK poll released Wednesday, Obama leads Sen. John McCain 50 to 41 percent in Colorado and 52 to 40 percent in Nevada. Looking at the complete data set, the Obama campaign’s push to turn out early voters appears to be working. Of those surveyed who had already voted, 57 percent picked Obama versus 34 percent for McCain in Colorado, and 56 percent of Nevada early voters chose Obama compared with 33 percent picking McCain.

Early voters in Colorado are favoring Barack Obama by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (Reuters)

Hoping to lock in these swing states turned Democratic leaners, Sen. Barack Obama is headed to Colorado and Nevada for the second weekend in a row. Some are speculating Obama’s real reason for heading back west the weekend before the election is to stump in McCain’s home state. The latest polls show McCain’s once commanding lead falling to the low single digits, in some cases evaporating into the margin of error. For comparison, Obama enjoys a 20+ point lead in his home state of Illinois.

Considering McCain won reelection to the U.S. Senate with 77 percent of the vote in 2004 and 69 percent in 1998, to be running neck and neck in a statewide election represents a huge reversal of fortune for the Arizona senator even if he manages to carry the state on November 4.

Purged Voters In Colorado Can Cast (Provisional) Ballots

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office has settled a lawsuit brought by voters’ rights groups and the SEIU over what they claimed were illegal purges from the voter roles. The agreement allows the suspect voters to cast provisional ballots and essentially jump to the front of the line when verifying provisional ballots after the election.

“Voters on the list shall be presumed to be eligible and their ballots will be counted,” the agreement says, according to the Denver Post. “Only upon a showing by clear and convincing evidence that a voter is not eligible shall a provisional ballot be rejected by the county.”

The two parties reached the out of court agreement Wednesday, but it looked like the presiding judge was leaning toward the plaintiffs.

“I think there are places where the state went out of bounds on removal of these names,” Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane Jr. said, according to the Post.

The New York Times first reported on the purges in Colorado and other states earlier this month, and soon after election officials began disputing the claims in the story.

Before the agreement in Colorado was announced, alt-weekly Denver Westword featured an online interview with BBC journalist Greg Palast who co-wrote a Rolling Stone article on Republican voter suppression tactics.

Palast claims former Secretary of State Donetta Davidson, a Republican, and her Democratic successor Mike Coffman purged 19.4 percent of Colorado’s registered voters since 2004.

“Are you really telling me that one in five voters are fraudulent, illegal voters who are trying to steal the election?” Palast said in Westword. “No, they’re not. Is the state really rife with fraudulent voters? No, it’s not. It’s a complete, absolute con, and they know it. Davidson and Mike Coffman have been running a purge-and-block operation.”

Swearing in at a Denver naturalization ceremony this summer

Though most state polls show those states are leaning toward Obama, the report found that without Latinos, Obama’s advantage would disappear or fall into the margin of error.

Colorado –

without Latino voters: Obama 44.24 percent, McCain 42.41 percent
with Latino voters: Obama 51 percent, McCain 45 percent

Nevada –

without: Obama 42.4 percent, McCain 40.7 percent
with: Obama 50 percent, McCain 43 percent

New Mexico (since 38 percent of eligible voters in the state are Latino, removing them has the most dramatic swing) –
without: Obama 30.6 percent, McCain 34.6 percent
with: Obama 54 percent, McCain 44 percent

The study shows the role Latino voters can and do play in tight elections, and explains why both campaigns have actively targeted Latinos this year.

Yet the full weight of Latino numbers aren’t reflected at the polls today in part because a significant percentage of Latinos are either too young to vote or not citizens. Earlier this year, the Pew Hispanic center produced state by state snapshots that illustrated this point. In Colorado, Hispanics account for 20 percent of the total population but only 12 percent of eligible voters. In Nevada, Hispanics account for 24 percent of the population and 12 percent of eligible voters. For New Mexico, the figures are 45 and 38 percent, respectively.

Efforts have been made to naturalize eligible non-citizens and get them to vote, but not by the political parties. As part of the News21 project, I looked at the issue of citizenship and voting over the summer. There are an estimated 8.25 million legal permanent residents eligible for citizenship nationwide, and most are Latino. But since the application and approval period can take a year or longer, political expediency means political parties don’t take up the cause and non-profits and immigrants’ rights groups have to help people through the process.

“The parties just won’t invest in naturalization because it’s too distant from voting,” Louis DeSipio, chair of the Chicano/Latino Studies department at the University of California, Irvine, told me in an interview earlier this year.

DeSipio studies the impact of naturalization on the Latino electorate, and he believes the growing Latino population — both native born and naturalized citizens — will continue to reshape politics in states with significant numbers of Latinos.

“The naturalized may or may not play a particularly important role in the 2008 election, but they certainly will in 2012 and 2016 and 2020, it’s just then we won’t think of them as naturalized any more, they’ll just be part of the Latino electorate,” DeSipio said.

Since Latinos overwhelmingly favor Democrats, Republicans have cause for concern, but as with most demographic shifts, the growing influence of Latinos is a slow process. Before becoming eligible for citizenship, one must be a legal permanent resident for 5 years, and the millions of people in this country illegally aren’t in the queue.

But what if the next president enacts an amnesty program similar to the one in the 1980’s that many credit with turning California permanently blue? Some Republicans fear a Democrat in the White House could do in one term what it might take the ebbs and flows of demographic shifts decades to accomplish: a permanent Democratic majority in the West.

Pat Buchanan did some crystal ball gazing in his latest column, and pronounced the West dead to future GOP presidential candidates should Obama take the White House. He sees the “triumvirate of Obama-Pelosi-Reid” pushing through swift amnesty for illegal aliens followed by citizenship campaigns and voter registration drives that would churn out eager Democratic voters.

“This will mean that Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona will soon move out of reach for GOP presidential candidates, as has California,” Buchanan writes.

Given the anti-Republican wave sweeping the nation, it’s no wonder that the western swing states are tilting toward Obama this cycle, but Buchanan’s fear runs deeper: that they won’t swing back if current non-citizens are enfranchised by a Democratic president.

In 2004, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200, a measure designed to prevent alleged voter fraud by illegal immigrants. Instead, as News 21 documented, Prop 200 has disenfranchised thousands of legitimate voters. In 2006, voters overwhelmingly approved four initiatives against illegal immigrants, including measures denying them bail and punitive damages in civil count cases. Now, the heated battle over immigration in that state has led to another ballot initiative, this one fervently opposed by anti-immigration activists.

Proposition 202, or the “Arizona Stop Illegal Hiring Act,” sounds like a measure proposed by immigration restrictionists. But in fact the initiative was proposed by a pro-business coalition. The measure would mandate that immigration complaints against businesses be signed and dated, rather than anonymous as they are now. It would also set penalties for businesses found employing illegal workers and expand the definition of identity theft to include anyone who knowingly accepts false identification.

Arizona’s best-known illegal immigration crusader, state Rep. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa), opposes Proposition 202, because it would overrule parts of his 2007 Employer Sanctions Law, which imposed harsh penalties on businesses found employing illegal immigrants and allowed anonymous complaints against such businesses. Governor Janet Napolitano called Pearce’s law a “business death penalty,” and businesses agreed—thus, Prop 202.

Anti-immigration activists around the country are backing up Pearce, with some going so far as to accuse Prop 202’s backers of “treason.” Meanwhile, businesses say the 2007 Employer Sanctions Law is unfair and will have unintended consequences.

A poll shows Prop 202 passing with 63 percent of the vote, but it is unclear whether voters mistakenly believed it was an anti-immigration measure. The name certainly seems designed to take advantage of Arizona’s conservative populist furor against “illegals.”

(Wikipedia photo)

Sen. John McCain is well-known for his progressive position on immigration reform—a position that has put him at odds with many in his home state. Now, a recent Time magazine piece looks at how the “conservative” revolt against the Republican presidential candidate in Arizona (and to a lesser extent nationwide) reveals the state GOP’s deep divisions over illegal immigration.

While most of Arizona’s congressional delegation supported McCain’s comprehensive immigration reform (which included a path to citizenship), a noisier faction personified by state Rep. Russell Pearce (R.-Mesa) is pushing back. Pearce is running for state Senate after a contentious primary battle with an establishment-backed moderate Republican, whom Pearce beat with 70 percent of the vote.

Pearce’s wide margin of victory has no doubt frightened McCain and the established, business-allied Arizona GOP. From Time:

McCain allies characterize this grass-roots wing of the party as slightly unhinged. Former Phoenix mayor Skip Rimsza likes to call the anti-McCain conservatives “CAVE” men (Citizens Against Virtually Everything).

But Pearce’s conservative populists seem to be the wave of the future in Arizona. It seems the birthplace of Prop. 200 will be a major immigration battleground long into the future.

(AP Photo)

In an article for The Indypendent, former News 21 reporter Renee Feltz revisits Arizona, where thousands of potential voters have been unable to register due to new identification requirements. These voters, most of whom are poor, elderly and/or Latino, would have tended to vote Democratic. Thus it is in the GOP’s interest to continue stoking fears about illegal immigrants committing voter fraud.

Hans A. von Spakovsky, formerly a Bush appointee in the Department of Justice who now works at the Heritage foundation, is one Republican who would like to see strict ID requirements in every state.

von Spakovsky argues the “honor system” of signing a legally binding registration card fails to keep non-citizens from the polls, and suggests election officials should be allowed to access U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement databases “regarding voter eligibility based on citizenship.” He also wants all states to require anyone who registers to vote to provide proof of U.S. citizenship.

Citizenship is already a legal requirement to vote in the United States, but GOP scare tactics have led more than a dozen states to consider additional legislation to require documented proof of citizenship, and in many cases a Voter ID card, in order to vote.

Arizona is the only state with both of these requirements. Though there was—and still is—no evidence of voter fraud by illegal immigrants, Arizona voters passed Proposition 200 in 2004, requiring proof of citizenship in the form of a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport in order to register to vote. This summer Feltz and fellow News 21 reporter Stokely Baksh found that the laws proved burdensome to many citizens who wish to register—the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund found 38,000 cases of rejected registrations.

Read the rest of the story here.