Author: The Opportunity Agenda

Americans are known, for better of for worse, for their strong support of “capitalism” and hesitancy towards “socialism.” A recent poll by Pew Research Center confirmed this notion, although perhaps not with the intensity one would expect. When asked what their first reaction to the word “socialism” was, 59% gave a negative response and only 29% responded positively. Their reaction to the word capitalism was exactly the opposite, 52% gave a positive response, and 37% responded negatively.

How does this translate into what Americans want from the government now? Another poll by Pew Research Center asked how much a certain solution, such as cutting taxes or additional government spending, would help to improve the current job situation. Additional spending on roads, bridges, and other public works projects scored the highest with 37% of respondents agreeing that it would “help a lot.” On the flip side, 29% asserted that cutting personal income taxes would “not help at all.” This seems rather contradictory to what capitalism would dictate to do in an economic recovery.
Especially when it comes to fixing the economy, Americans want more government involvement rather than less. According to a recent nationwide poll conducted by Lake Research Partners for the Center for Community Change and the Ms. Foundation for Women, "A majority thinks it is time for the government to take a larger and stronger role in making the economy work for the average American." To be more precise 52% of Americans believed this statement, and this percentage was even higher among groups that were hardest hit by the economy, such as Latinas (68%), African-American women (66%), low-income women (63%) and single moms (63%).

When it comes to everyday life and taking care of your family, stability and security are important. Americans say that both economic security (62%) and economic stability (63%) are more important to them than economic opportunity (35%). And they believe that the government can and should play a significant role in this, 69% believes that the economy can be influenced by government actions. When framed as what would most likely help get the economy back on track, jobs with decent wages and benefits and more affordable education and training opportunities top the list.

I guess the title of the Pew Research poll sums it ups the best, "socialism not so negative, capitalism not so positive."

For more public opinion research from The Opportunity Agenda, visit here.

Talk of immigration-related lawsuits filled the news this week, and it all started with a television interview that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave overseas in Ecuador.

The rather obscure interview footage most likely would have never made it into American news, except for a brief, but politically explosive, remark Clinton made on tape when the discussion turned to Senate Bill 1070. Set to take effect July 28, the bill passed in Arizona will allow police officers to question and detain anyone whom they have “reasonable suspicion” to believe is an undocumented immigrant.

"President Obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks that the federal government should be determining immigration policy," Clinton said in the interview. "And the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act.”

While spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Justice initially asserted that the possibility of a lawsuit was still under review, there have since been reports from sources of the Obama administration that Attorney General Eric Holder will be pursuing legal action against Arizona as early as next week.

Fueling the fire, on Tuesday Mexico filed an amicus brief with the U.S. District Court to express the nation’s discontent with the Arizona legislation, and to show support for Friendly House, et al. v. Michael B. Whiting, et al, the case that is currently challenging the constitutionality of the bill.

According to Dewey & LeBoeuf, the New York-based law firm that filed the brief on Mexico’s behalf, the Mexican government “has taken the position, as amicus curiae, that SB 1070 should be declared unconstitutional and not take effect.”

As the conflict over Arizona’s immigration legislation continues, voters in a different state have passed another ordinance targeting immigrants. Residents of Fremont, Nebraska voted on Monday to ban employers and landlords from hiring or renting to undocumented immigrants. The American Civil Liberties Union has already publicly promised to file a lawsuit challenging the ban.

Interestingly, the passed ordinance still allows for “the intermittent hiring of casual labor for domestic tasks.” In other words, while registered businesses will need to add citizenship verification to their hiring process, while private households can continue to pay whoever they want to do their home’s dirty work.

The federal government’s next moves in addressing these new immigration legislations will be closely watched by those on both sides of the debate. If Hillary Clinton was right, and the U.S. Department of Justice does pursue a lawsuit against Arizona, we will see the topic of immigration reform experience a whole new revival in the media.

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.

Last week, YouTube partnered with WITNESS, an international group that uses video to promote human rights, to begin a series of blog posts that will demonstrate and explore how film has become an integral facet of the worldwide human rights initiative.

Last week Saturday’s blog post kicked off the start of the series, and featured the full-length version of “For Neda,” a documentary on citizen reporting. The title of the documentary is a reference to Neda Agha Soltan, the young Iranian woman whose death by a sniper during the 2009 Iranian election protests was captured on camera and quickly distributed across the internet.
With WITNESS’ mission of “…using video to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations,” the partnership with YouTube is more than fitting. Steve Grove, YouTube’s head of News & Politics, has been tweeting lately about human rights videos, and authored the series’ first blog post with WITNESS’ Sameer Padania.

As a fourth-year journalism student, I am always intrigued by creative examples of how people – both amateur reporters and those who are professionally trained – use multimedia tools to share a message with the rest of the world. With so many options available – blogs, videos, social networking sites, internet radio – it’s exciting to see how people around the globe are using the tools of today to communicate what matters to them.

One particular group that has been successful in reaching massive audiences through viral internet campaigns is Brave New Films. I was first introduced to Brave New Films by a college friend who is interning at their Los Angeles headquarters this summer. After doing some Googling, it quickly became apparent that I was the one out of the trend, as millions of Americans have been tuning into the politically and socially progressive videos since the group’s launch in 2007.

The videos cover everything from health care reform and the Afghanistan war, to the Starbucks Corporation and Guantanamo Bay. What I think makes Brave New Films’ online campaigns so successful is the brevity and frequency of the videos. Appropriate for modern news consumers, new clips are uploaded often, and most videos are under three minutes – just short enough to hold a viewer’s attention.

Aware of the significant role that the arts can play in raising support for an issue, the Opportunity Agenda is working on an Immigration Arts + Culture initiative. Through discussions, forums, and other efforts, the Opportunity Agenda is collaborating with America’s creative communities to see how the arts can be used to promote the inclusion, integration, and human rights of immigrants in the United States.

Most recently, the Opportunity Agenda held two speaker panels to explore the role that the arts can play in addressing immigration. The first event, Immigration: Arts, Culture & Media 2010, was in New York City, and featured an eight-person panel where speakers ranged from Chung-Wha Hong, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, to filmmaker Mira Nair, who directed “The Namesake” and “Monsoon Wedding.”

In May, the Opportunity Agenda traveled to Los Angeles for Immigrants in America, A Hollywood Perspective, where a separate panel was held to discuss the challenges in telling accurate, compelling immigrant stories in movies and television. To share their experiences on this issue, the panel was packed with professionals from the entertainment industry. Speakers included Bruce Evans, senior vice president of drama programming for NBC, Bee Vang, actor from “Gran Torino,” and screenwriter and director, Leon Ichasa.

To learn more about the Opportunity Agenda’s Immigration Arts + Culture initiative, check out our Initiatives page.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder, many legal U.S. residents who had committed minor  is demeanors were unfairly classified as having committed "aggravated felonies" under immigration law, which subjected them to automatic deportation. The Supreme Court took note of the unfair deprivation of due process and took a strong stance in support of human rights when it corrected the deportation requirement for minor drug offenses.

The controversy over Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo’s case stems from the government’s increasingly broad application of "aggravated felony" charges that lead to mandatory deportation for noncitizens without the opportunity to contest the order. Because there was no official limit to the government’s application of the "aggravated felony" charge, and due to disparities in how courts interpreted its definition, legal residents were often deprived a chance to defend themselves against automatic deportation because their offenses were, often incorrectly, labeled "aggravated felonies."

Jose Angel Carachuri-Rosendo is a permanent United States resident who has lived here since he was five years old. Over the years, he has created a life for himself and his wife and four children, who are all U.S. citizens. Although Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo had committed two misdemeanor drug possession offenses, he
was deported after the government claimed he had committed an "aggravated felony" and denied him the opportunity to contest his removal order. On June 14, 2010, after reviewing his case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo, thereby allowing him and other in his predicament to contest the removal order. The decision is a welcome response for many who felt that mandatory removal of legal residents for misdemeanor drug offenses was overly harsh and unfair.

In 2004, Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo was convicted of possessing less than two ounces of marijuana for which he received twenty days in jail. A year later, he was convicted of a second drug possession offense for having a single anti-anxiety tablet without a valid prescription, for which he received ten days in jail. Following his second conviction, the Federal Government initiated removal proceedings against him. While Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo conceded that his second conviction made him eligible for removal, he applied for discretionary cancellation of removal, persuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Under the INA, the Attorney General has the power to cancel a removal order as long as the noncitizen has not been convicted of an aggravated felony. However, the Immigration Judge held that Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo’s second simple possession conviction, based on the anti-anxiety tablet, was an "aggravated felony," thereby making him ineligible for cancellation of removal –effectively making his deportation inevitable.

A number of immigrants’ rights advocates questioned the fairness of how Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo’s simple misdemeanor possession convictions could constitute an "aggravated felony." The Supreme Court also took note of the drastic punishment of deportation without the opportunity for review, with Justice Stevens remarking in his opinion that, "We do not usually think of a 10-day sentence for the unauthorized possession of a trivial amount of a prescription drug as an ‘aggravated felony.’" In his opinion, Justice
Stevens clarified what does, and does not, constitute an "aggravated felony" for the purpose of mandatory deportation and, in so doing, limited the government’s broad application of the "aggravated felony" charge against noncitizens.

In defense of due process and fair proceedings, the Court held that second or subsequent simple
possession offenses are not aggravated felonies when the state conviction is not based on the fact of a prior conviction. In other words, because the government failed to charge Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo as a recidivist after his second conviction, the government could not argue that, hypothetically, if they had prosecuted Mr. Charachuri-Rosendo in federal court instead of state court, he could have been prosecuted as a felon based on the fact of his initial simple possession offense. There were simply too many "what ifs" in the government’s argument and the Court decided that, because Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo was never convicted of an aggravated felony, he could not be barred from applying for discretionary cancellation of removal.

The Court’s decision protects the human right to due process of legal residents by clarifying and regulating the government’s application of the term, "aggravated felony," and ensuring that people like Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo are afforded the opportunity to plead their case before an immigration judge without the threat of automatic deportation.

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about the state of affairs in America. His assessment was as follows: America never goes too far one way or too far the other. It’s like a sine wave; sometimes one side is up for a little while and the other side is down, then they switch. Despite this yo-yo phenomenon, overall he felt like things were improving.

As comforting as the sentiment was meant to be, I found myself troubled by the succinctness of my friend’s evaluation. He made it sound as though we, the people, can more or less take our hands off the wheel and America will steer itself in the right direction – or that the politicians will, perhaps. To me, that was akin to saying that even without the Civil Rights and Women’s Suffrage movements, that America would pretty much be where it is today.
This friend has many good qualities, but being engaged is not one of them. He is a compassionate person with a great sense of humor, and he is perhaps the least stressed person I know. But one unfortunate and potentially dangerous side effect of being unengaged is that when someone else offers up a simple explanation to a problem you are only dimly aware of, you accept it more or less without question. It sounds good at first blush, so it’s probably true. Right?

It is awfully tempting to latch on to easy answers. They give us certainty, they allow us to avoid the uncomfortable position of not knowing. They absolve us of the responsibility of facing any contradictions by avoiding them altogether: you don’t have to puzzle through a problem if someone removes it from your sight.

Unfortunately, easy answers also sidestep intelligent thought. If one believes that every citizen in a democracy has a responsibility to participate, easy answers don’t represent mission accomplished but rather an abdication of duty.

Let’s look at the assertion that “overall, things are improving.” What mathematical average can one apply to real life to make this determination? On one hand, there is the fact that the wage gap between women and men is shrinking (although still there). That’s certainly an improvement.

On the other hand, it costs more to attend college now than it ever has in America – and one could easily argue that higher education is more of a necessity in today’s globally competitive job market than it was 50 years ago, when it cost significantly less. That is decidedly not an improvement. It’s a decline that threatens the opportunity to achieve for millions of Americans today. Does the narrowing gender wage gap in corporate America help a 17-year-old girl if she can’t even afford to go to college? Can you really average the two out and call it a wash?

More than anything else, my friend’s view of America is a reflection of his life, not the “average” life. He grew up white and middle class. He never had major obstacles to overcome; he didn’t attend a failing school, his parents weren’t working two jobs apiece, his family never had to decide whether to buy groceries or health insurance. These are not hypothetical situations, they are very real problems faced by a great many Americans. But unfortunately, too many of those who have never faced such problems remain unengaged, and susceptible to the lure of the easy answer.

Easy answers aren’t hard to find. They’re the stock and trade of pundits and, unfortunately, too many politicians. They are sound bites, bumper stickers, slogans. The worst part about them is that many of us readily accept them as surrogates for our own thoughts, opinion, and questions.

Human beings are far and away the smartest animals on the planet. Does that intelligence come with intellectual courage? Do we have the intestinal fortitude to face complexity and do the actual work that makes things better in this country, rather than assume they are going to? Or do we retreat to the easy answer and let someone else take the wheel?

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.

This week’s roundup features mayors’ reactions to Arizona’s immigration law, a Supreme Court ruling on deportation laws, and more…

On Tuesday, the U.S. Conference of Mayors approved a resolution condemning Arizona’s new immigration law. Our own Alan Jenkins has more on that story here. Meanwhile, some Arizona lawyers are concerned that the law, which goes into effect next month, could result in an influx of new cases that might overwhelm the state’s court system. And some Arizona lawmakers have proposed an additional law that would deny citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in the United States.
There’s a lot of incendiary rhetoric swirling around the issue of Arizona’s law. On Monday, Iowa Rep. Steve King (R) contributed a particularly outrageous quote to the conversation when he claimed that police could perhaps identify illegal immigrants by "the type of grooming they might have."

But it’s not all bad news. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that immigrants who are in the U.S. legally shouldn’t be subject to mandatory deportation for minor drug offenses. This is a minor victory—deportation is still possible, just not mandatory—but a victory nonetheless.

And even Texas Governor Rick Perry—so conservative he once suggested that Texas could secede if the rest of the U.S. became too liberal—isn’t advocating for his state to follow Arizona’s path. At the Texas GOP convention last Friday, the party splintered over a debate on immigration, with 11 of its 32 members advocating a more moderate immigration plank.

Of course, the moderates lost out in the end—the party agreed to incorporate a proposal advocating for a law similar to Arizona’s in it’s party platform. They also adopted a proposal to "make American English the official language of Texas and the United States," although the impact of this proposal may have been undercut by the party’s simultaneous release of a Spanish-language promotional video.

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.

In May, 431,000 new jobs were added to the economy.  On the surface, this seems like good news.  However, 411,000 of those jobs were temporary Census workers.  Private employers added 41,000 new jobs to the economy.  These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg in a changed employment landscape.

Although no one would argue the point that those of us who are eagerly pursuing employment should be able eventually to find work, statistics demonstrate that long-term unemployment remains high. In May, 6.8 million people had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more.  That number represents 46%, or nearly half, of all unemployed people, a number that is nearly double the highest point in the last 60 years.  “Of the 15 million unemployed in America, over 7 million have been out of work for more than six months, nearly 5 million for a year and over 1 million for two years — the worst statistics since the government started keeping count in 1948. The proportion of the unemployed out of work for more than six months has doubled in the past year, to more than 46 percent. The jobseekers-to-jobs ratio, which tells how hard positions are to get, remains around 5.6 to 1.” 
Some economists hypothesize that the continuing long-term unemployment numbers reflect a changed employment situation.  For example, the nature of the jobs lost during the downturn differs from the nature of the jobs being “replaced.” The number of middle-class jobs is growing at a slower rate than jobs at the lower end of the pay scale.  Furthermore, due to population increases, a one-to-one jobs replacement rate, which hasn’t been achieved yet, would still not return employment rates to pre-downturn levels.  There are other factors that directly affect the ability of the long-term unemployed to return to work, including: questions about employment gaps, loss of motivation and self-esteem, changes in job requirements, and economic straits that leave them unable to relocate to pursue work. 

The persistence and increase in long-term unemployment rates argues for particular consideration in recovery plans.  As a problem with specific causes and challenges, it will be necessary to consider specific redress to avoid “leaving behind” a substantial number of the unemployed in our recovery.  If, as some have speculated, the nature of the jobs that are available has changed, then we must invest in changing the workforce as well.  Specific retraining programs tailored to the needs of the long-term unemployed, incentives to induce employers to consider hiring those who have been out of work for more than six months, or relocation assistance could aid the long-term unemployed.

Frustrated empathy is not a sufficient response to a situation that for many is becoming desperate.  We must explore creative policy solutions to provide relief for those who are struggling to regain their ability to provide for themselves and their families.  Specifically, job creation proposals must include solutions tailored to unemployed people who have been out of work for six months or more.

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.

By and large, mayors are pragmatists.  They’ve got snow to remove and potholes to fill, schools to run and crime to fight.  Literally and figuratively, they must keep the trains running on time, or hear loudly and decisively from voters and constituents.

That pragmatic spirit was evident on Monday, when the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution condemning Arizona’s anti-immigrant law and calling on the Federal government to quickly pass commonsense immigration reform.  The resolution criticises the Arizona law as "unconstitutional and un-American," calls for its repeal, and opposes any copycat legislation in other parts of the country.

The mayors’ criticism of the Arizona law is warranted, because the law encourages targeting of people, including citizens and lawful residents, based on the color of their skin and their appearance.  It violates the basic human right to fair and equal treatment in law enforcement and our justice system.  And in more practical terms, it will discourage people from reporting crimes or suspicious circumstances and divert law enforcement resources away from addressing serious crime.

The mayors’ call for national immigration reform is equally important, and it reflects their pragmatic approach.  The non-partisan Conference has for some time sought reform that includes: "Increased border security and enforcement; the protection of human and civil rights of both citizens and non-citizens being detained; more support for city and state governments which are disproportionately shouldering the costs of the current broken immigration system; the use of new technologies to match up foreign workers with jobs in this country that are going unfilled (guest worker program); [and] the elimination of current obstacles to citizenship that have resulted in 10-12 million undocumented residents living in the shadows."

The mayor’s resolution is an act of pragmatic, non-partisan, and moral leadership that our country desperately needs right now.  It’s a call for workable solutions on immigration that uphold our nation’s values and move us forward to gether.  Let’s hope that our leaders in Washington respond to that call.

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.

Since the passage of S.B. 1070, Arizona’s new immigration law, polling has consistently shown that a majority of Americans—not just Arizona residents—support the law. An April 28 Gallup poll found 51% of Americans in support of the law, versus 39% opposed, and a May 9 Pew Research Center poll had support among registered Democrats only at 45% (Sources: Gallup, Pew). On the surface, this seems like bad news for supporters of comprehensive immigration reform, who consider the law unworkable, divisive, and a violation of American values. But in fact, more in-depth polling reveals a somewhat more encouraging picture: an overall thirst for solutions and frustration with current inaction among the American public.
For example, a May 19 poll sponspored by pro-reform group America’s Voice found 57% of respondents in support of an immigration reform plan that includes a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants—and that number rose to 78% after the respondents were exposed to a brief description of the plan (Source: America’s Voice). Even accounting for margins of error and differences in polling methodology between groups, that’s a huge number, and it seems to contradict the earlier Gallup and Pew polls: after all, how could an informed voter support both comprehensive reform and a law as divisive and impractical as Arizona’s?

The answer may lie in a follow-up question from the same poll, which asked why respondents supported S.B. 1070. This question found that only 28% supported the law because they thought it would reduce illegal immigration, and even fewer, 12%, supported the law because they thought it would reduce crime. Instead, a majority of those polled—52%—said that their support of Arizona’s law was because “the federal government has failed to solve the problem” (Source: America’s Voice). In other words, many Americans may want to commend Arizona for any attempt to fix our broken immigration system, even if they don’t agree with the specific solution the law proposes.

Granted, although polls can provide valuable insight, they’re not always a completely accurate reading of public opinion. And people’s views are likely to change once the law actually takes affect on July 28. But these numbers are promising: Americans are desperate for comprehensive reform, and some of the support for S.B. 1070 may come more from frustration than from support of the law’s provisions.

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.

A major part of the reasoning for Arizona’s alarming new law, S.B. 1070, is a presumed uptick in crime from undocumented immigrants.

Politicians, including a flip-flopping John McCain, have called for border security. McCain himself articulated, “complete the danged fence.”

Turns out though, government data shows that the U.S.-Mexico border is quite safe.

As the Associated Press reports: “The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report.”

San Diego, where one in every four residents is an immigrant, enjoys the lowest crime rate of America’s 25 largest cities.

Everyone can agree that our current immigration system is broken but blaming the undocumented for increased crime is simply false and distracting us from real problems.

The issues facing our communities are the result of a failed immigration system that only Congress can fix. Its inability to move forward on this issue will continue to result in wrong-headed, unworkable policies like this law, which is a dangerous distraction from the real work we need to do to pass comprehensive immigration reform that works for everyone.

Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.