Within the dual themes of “New Voters” and “Old Fears,” we tracked the increasing power and rising visibility of immigrant voters, along with the backlash against them in places as far-flung as Hazleton, Pa. and Farmers Branch, Tex. In the fall, we also began to see the impact the economic crisis was having on immigrants and immigration. We followed several close campaigns, and we watched Barack Obama’s election as our next president, with the help of immigrant voters in states like New Mexico and Virginia.

While News 21 is moving on the a new set of topics in 2009, immigration will continue to be a major issue in the U.S., just as it always has. While it might not take center stage in the next Congress, the issue will continue to provoke strong opinions. Will comprehensive immigration reform pass under the new administration? Will ICE change its tactics, leading to a decline in raids? Will states and municipalities continue passing anti-immigration legislation? Will the flood of illegal immigrants be controlled?

It is also important to remember that immigration is not only an issue to be debated; the millions of us who are immigrants have changed the fabric of America. New Americans are becoming voters, and in some cases they are swinging elections. We are also seeing immigrants and their children rise to powerful positions– in a way, our next president counts as one of them.

It’s been a big year for immigration. Stay tuned for another round of fascinating and important topics next year.

MSNBC offers a practice test, which many Americans would probably fail. Arguably, knowing who said “Give me liberty or give me death” has little bearing on whether someone is fit to become American, but going to the trouble to study these details likely shows that potential citizens are serious about it.

Give it a try here.

El Salvador will be especially hard-hit by the economic crisis in the United States. (Miami Herald video)

A series of stories in the Miami Herald has been following the effect the economic crisis is having on immigrants. Immigrants, especially those working in construction or service jobs, have been hard hit, and the impact is apparent on their home countries as well. Remittances, or monetary transfers, are down, and immigrants who can’t find work are returning home.

Officials predict that U.S. businesses, especially farms and nurseries, will see a labor shortage that will worsen after the economy regains its footing. The Pew Hispanic Center is already recording a decrease in the number of illegal immigrants arriving each year.

Meanwhile, Latin American towns that had depended for years on monetary transfers from immigrants in the United States are seeing that source of funding begin to dry up. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank say that overall remittances have stayed flat this year. In some countries, remittances have fallen precipitously– in Mexico, the decline was 12 percent. This will effect Latin American economies, especially El Salvador, where remittances make up 18 percent of the GDP.

Even legal immigrants are feeling the effects of the economy. The Washington Post interviewed several local immigrants and found that an economic ripple effect was damaging immigrant-centered micro-economies. Ethiopian cab drivers, for example, are less likely to eat lunch at Ethiopian restaurants.

It all goes to show how connected the global economy is these days. What began with a subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S. is now affecting some of the least fortunate among us.

Like illegal Latin American immigrants in the United States, illegal African immigrants have caused contraversy in Europe. Recently, the European Union’s member states agreed on a pact that would curb illegal immigration, limit unskilled immigrants and refugees, and promote the immigration of skilled workers. The E.U. is trying to get African leaders to sign on to the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum, but so far, the Africans have yet to be persuaded.

African leaders are suspicious of the E.U. pact, noting that it does not work in Africa’s favor: the pact would encourage the exodus of skilled professionals while leaving behind the unskilled and the desperate. From the AFP story:

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade this month used the historic win of Barack Obama, the first African American in the White House, to take a swipe at the EU’s new immigration pact.

“Why did they do that? They did it to close the doors to black people except for officials, managers, engineers, doctors: the people they need. There the racism disappears,” he said.

Africans are concerned about what they refer to as “Fortress Europe,” a continent where a focus on security and new nationalist movements may create a hostile environment for non-natives.

Last week, for example, the U.K. began a controversial program to issue biometric ID cards to foreign residents. The British government is starting with foreign students and spouses of permanent residents, and will gradually expand to include all legal foreigners, then all residents. It has attracted outcry from immigrants and civil libertarians.

While the United States has long seen conflicts over immigration, this is, as the cliche goes, a nation of immigrants, and we have always been multi-ethnic. Europe, however, is struggling with what it means to be French, German or British in a united Europe. Can Turkish-born Germans or Moroccan-born Frenchmen be German or French? Europe has to figure this out.

Meanwhile, African immigrants are suffering and dying to get a shot at opportunity in Europe. On the island of Crete, 15 Africans are on a hunger strike, hoping to gain the legal status in Greece. And in the waters off Senegal hundreds of West Africans pack into wooden fishing boats, hoping to reach the Spanish-owned Canary Islands. They die regularly in the attempt.

Both sides of the immigration debate have called for a reform of our legal immigration process, which can be Byzantine and choked with red tape, and which often seems unfair. Here’s an illustrative example.

CBS News’ 60 Minutes took a look at the plight of immigrant widows, whose marriages to U.S. citizens were not vetted by immigration authorities before their husbands died. According to 60 Minutes, the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services is ordering hundreds of widows and widowers to leave the country because their spouses died before their official immigration interviews.

Writing in Slate today, former Arizona Republic reporter Tom Zoellner suggests the tough part, at least, is accurate, judging by Napolitano’s relationship with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office)

Perhaps the most notorious figure in Arizona politics, Arpaio is known for such stunts as conducting ICE-style raids on local businesses, operating chain gangs, housing prisoners in a “tent city,” and, most recently, raiding Mesa’s city hall in search of illegal immigrants. He is also known for the harsh conditions in his county jail, for which has been repeatedly sued.

Napolitano has been “was in a position to help curb Arpaio’s excesses,” Zoellner says:

As a U.S. attorney in 1995, she was put in charge of a Justice Department investigation into atrocious conditions in Arpaio’s “tent city.” Napolitano carried out her task with what can best be described as reluctance, going out of her way to protect Arpaio from flak almost before the probe had started. “We’re doing this with the complete cooperation of the sheriff,” she told the Associated Press. “We run a strict jail but a safe jail, and I haven’t heard from anyone who thinks that this is a bad thing.”

Napolitano did little to check Arpaio as governor either, though that is easy to explain: he supported her 2002 bid for the office, even appearing in a campaign ad. Arpaio is one of Arizona’s most popular politicians, and this is a very conservative state, so courting the Republican sheriff was a politically necessity for a Democratic gubernatorial candidate and governor.

Political necessities aside, Napolitano did veto a bill earlier this year that would have required local law enforcement to act as border agents, a role that Arpaio is already acting out. In general, she has been a moderate voice on immigration, if not on law enforcement. But the association with Arpaio will likely come up at Napolitano’s confirmation hearings. Arpaio, a genius of self-promotion, will likely be pleased.

Latino population distribution in 2000. The population has grown since then. (Wikipedia image)

The decline in Latino support for Republican candidates has some in the party worried. With demographic trends showing an increasingly diverse country, any party that fails to appeal to minorities is going to have trouble winning elections.

For the GOP, Florida is the state that most concerns party leaders. As Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart told CBS News, “We have a very, very serious problem.” According to CBS News, Florida exit polls showed McCain sinking 14 points among Florida Latinos, from President Bush’s results in 2004. Bush won Florida Latinos and the state itself; McCain lost both.

Another troubling state is New Mexico, which is almost half Latino. Obama won that state this year too, along with Colorado and Nevada. Republicans lost ground among Latinos in all three states, and the Latino population grew. Writing in the Sacramento Bee, political analyst Tony Quinn notes that Republicans lost New Mexico’s Senate and congressional races as well: “For the first time in four decades, there are no New Mexico Republicans in Congress.”

Quinn points to Latinos’ social conservativism as one way for the GOP to regain their votes. He also says that exorcizing nativism would help, and columnist Ruben Navarrette says that Latinos have “had their fill of ugliness, racism, hypocrisy and falsehoods spread by opportunistic politicians offering nothing more than simplistic solutions and overheated rhetoric.”

In The Politico, Robert E. Lang, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, says the GOP’s problem isn’t just Latino– it is a broad, sweeping trend toward more diversity and increasing urbanism, to which Republicans need to adjust, or they will perish. From Lang’s piece:

Republicans must adjust to the demographic shifts sweeping America or risk being politically marginalized. Most significantly, the party needs to recognize that there are simply not enough rural white voters to balance the growing number of minority voters and cosmopolitan whites living in big metro areas. If Republicans think 2008 went badly, try running the same kind of small-town-flavored campaign in 2020. At that point, the vastly expanded and racially diverse metro areas in Texas and Georgia could tip those once reliably red states to the Democrats.

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.

Since its creation in 2003 as part of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has earned a reputation for controversy. It is perhaps best-known by the news-consuming public for the series of high-profile raids on employers, the most infamous of which was the Postville, Iowa raid last May. Bad publicity continues to haunt the agency.

Shortly after Barack Obama’s election, ICE head Julie Myers stepped down without explanation. Some have speculated that she had had something to do with the revelation that Obama’s aunt was an illegal immigrant, but there is no hard evidence.

Myers, 39, was installed in a recess appointment in 2006 and approved by the Senate in December, 2007. The Senate had balked at her lack of experience, as had employees of the agency. Under Myers’ tenure, ICE’s reach and profile grew, as the agency aggressively enforced immigration laws. Myers, whom immigration hardliners had initially doubted, won accolades from anti-immigration group FAIR on her way out.

Human rights activists would disagree, especially when it comes the harsh conditions under which immigrants are detained and deported. Over the past year, we have had reports that detainees are drugged against their will during deportation, that they are denied medical care, and that some have died.

ICE has been one of the Bush administration’s most controversial agencies, and though few would argue that its mission is illegitimate, its stance has may have been overly aggressive. Now, as President-elect Obama prepares to take over, how will America’s approach to border security change?

Long Island-based Newsday has been following the Marcelo Lucero murder in great detail, even sending a reporter to Ecuador to interview his friends and family. But some see coverage of this case, which involves a group of American youths who allegedly attacked and killed an immigrant, as too positive about immigration.

One Newsday reporter was thrown out of a parents’ meeting at the school the teenagers attended, after some parents screamed at her to leave. Six school board members were also present, but none did anything to prevent the reporter’s expulsion.

More recently, Newsday reports, a dozen protesters, including several who identified themselves as Minutemen, picketed the newspaper’s headquarters, holding signs that said “What about Americans killed by illegal aliens?” and “Newsday Anti-American.” The protested said that Newsday had devoted too much coverage to the murder and that it was sympathetic to illegal immigrants.

The protesters were quick to say they felt sorry for Lucero’s family, but they objected to Newsday’s following the story, especially the coverage of Lucero’s funeral in Ecuador.

A few days after the killing, Newsday reported, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said it would have been a “one-day story” anywhere else. But Newsday says its coverage will continue. Meanwhile, a far larger crowd gathered for a vigil in Patchogue to protest the hate crime and call for peace.