I am start­ing a new job tomor­row. As a last chance at an extended trip for a while, I trav­eled to Ari­zona, and took the oppor­tu­nity to talk to peo­ple about the state’s polit­i­cal cli­mate. Unsur­pris­ingly, many of the view­points I got were from lib­er­als, but even the con­ser­v­a­tives were say­ing sim­i­lar things, albeit from a dif­fer­ent perspective.

Here’s what I learned.

Rep. J. D. Hay­worth (R-​​AZ)

I asked about the Sen­ate seat to be vacated by Sen­a­tor Kyl. The most con­ser­v­a­tive are enthu­si­as­tic about J. D. Hay­worth—whose House dis­trict is ger­ry­man­dered to negate the lib­eral votes of Tempe in favor of the con­ser­v­a­tive votes of Scotts­dale and other extremely con­ser­v­a­tive Phoenix sub­urbs to the north—though they are far from con­fi­dent that he would win a statewide gen­eral elec­tion. The rest don’t find his poten­tial can­di­dacy to be cred­i­ble, but acknowl­edge that nei­ther party has a par­tic­u­larly strong bench. The more lib­eral peo­ple I spoke to think that Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gif­fords would be a more likely win­ner, even in her cur­rent con­di­tion, than pretty much any­one else in the state who would run for the seat. I’m skep­ti­cal of her chances, but I don’t live there. Any­way, the out­come is far from cer­tain at this time, regard­less of who runs.

The recent noise about Baja Ari­zona is noth­ing new. Just as Cal­i­for­nia and Wash­ing­ton have long had occa­sional flare-​​ups of state divi­sion saber-​​rattling, so, too, has Ari­zona. Reflect­ing the coun­ter­parts in Cal­i­for­nia and Wash­ing­ton, few Ari­zo­nans take such a divi­sion seriously.

I was intrigued by the locals’ opin­ions on SB 1070. With the state’s high unem­ploy­ment, ille­gal immi­grants are con­sid­ered by many to be tak­ing more jobs than their spend­ing would cre­ate. There’s valid­ity to that posi­tion; ille­gal immi­grants are far more likely, com­pared to those with deeper roots in the state, to send any sur­plus of earn­ings to fam­ily in Mex­ico and Cen­tral Amer­ica, rather than spend­ing it on the local econ­omy. As a result, if you assume a par­tic­u­lar job could be held by some­one with­out strong ties to poorer nations, it is bet­ter for the local and national econ­omy for that job to be held by such a per­son. Few peo­ple were able to artic­u­late their posi­tion as clearly as that, but the issue is not as jin­go­is­tic as it appears to many lib­er­als out­side of Arizona.

On the other hand, if the issue is truly one of employ­ment, then the posi­tion of those opposed to SB 1070 makes a lot of sense. They note that the employ­ers aren’t being tar­geted by the leg­is­la­tion, even though those are the ones who most ben­e­fit from hir­ing ille­gals. They can (and many do) vio­late labor laws with impunity, rec­og­niz­ing that their employ­ees will not report them. This puts pres­sure on employ­ers who want to fol­low the law, since such employ­ers are unable to com­pete on price.

Ari­zona passed leg­is­la­tion sev­eral years ago to address the employ­ers. So why is there a per­ceived need for SB 1070? There are two answers to this.

Day labor­ers on Ari­zona Ave. in Chan­dler, AZ (Image via the Asso­ci­ated Press)

First, many ille­gal immi­grants are work­ing not as “employ­ees,” in the clas­si­cal sense, but rather as day labor­ers. This was espe­cially preva­lent dur­ing the hous­ing boom, but it con­tin­ues even today. One can get a con­crete patio poured at min­i­mal labor costs by hir­ing day labor­ers. Some unscrupu­lous “employ­ers” will neglect to pay after the work has been done, or will pay less than the nego­ti­ated rate, know­ing that they won’t be reported to the author­i­ties. Many other ille­gals are work­ing as live-​​in nan­nies or maids. This under­ground econ­omy is much harder to enforce than the above-​​board econ­omy addressed by the ear­lier legislation.

The sec­ond answer is fear. The drug wars in Mex­ico have caused increased worry north of the bor­der. Many Ari­zo­nans are con­cerned that the lat­est wave of ille­gal immi­grants are work­ing in the drug trade. It’s extremely dif­fi­cult to deter­mine whether this is actu­ally hap­pen­ing, or is merely a xeno­pho­bic meme. Nobody I talked to had heard of any­thing concrete.

In any case, the gen­eral opin­ion of Ari­zo­nans who sup­port SB 1070 is that there’s noth­ing wrong with requir­ing every­one who looks Mex­i­can to carry doc­u­men­ta­tion with them at all times. The gen­eral opin­ion of those who oppose it is that there’s some­thing very wrong with such a require­ment. And that’s the ulti­mate crux of the divide.

I’ll leave you with a cou­ple of questions:

  1. In times of high unem­ploy­ment, when an ille­gal immigrant’s con­tri­bu­tion to the local and national econ­omy is smaller than that of a legal res­i­dent, what, if any­thing, is wrong with attempt­ing to shift employ­ment more toward legal residents?
  2. If ille­gal immi­grants are being hired under the table, how do you stop this from hap­pen­ing? Can it be done in a man­ner that doesn’t result in de facto racial dis­crim­i­na­tion? How would you imple­ment it?
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