Immigrants as in-migration and city-town revitalization

It's no secret that immigrant in-migration can be a great source of energy for community revitalization.  One example is Somalis in Minneapolis-St. Paul ("Somalis finding their place in Minnesota," CNN, 2017).  

Another, Cape Verdeans in Boston ("Uphams Corner, Boston: revitalization "without" gentrification," 2023).  In fact a recent No Passport Required with Marcus Samuelsson episode on PBS featured the Portuguese disaspora in Boston--people from different countries but connected by language. And great food.

Members of the Denison High School mariachi ensemble pose for a group photo prior to the start of the 2022 Fiesta Mariachi celebration.  Photo: Brian Houlgrave, Des Moines Register.

Denison, Iowa.  Only because it was in my newsfeed I came across a brilliant piece about Denison, Iowa in the Des Moines Register.  Written by Courtney Crowder who is assigned to do feature articles around the entire state.  She's great.

-- "A beloved rural Iowa diner closes. A family of Mexican immigrants reopens it--with a twist"

The article is about how the town attracts Hispanics working in two area meatpacking plants.  How the legacy white community and the new Hispanic community were not connected, but the legacy leadership realized, in the face of rural shrinkage that wouldn't work, and how the two communities are albeit probably too slowly, intertwining.  

Denison is growing in population, when most rural communities are not.

DMR photo.

The article centers around an old restaurant that was the hub of the community but closed during the pandemic, and how it is being revived by a small scale Latino entrepreneur in a fusion style way--meatloaf, American breakfast and unlimited coffee, complemented by new Latino dishes.

She first wrote about the town's fusion work in how the high school music teacher and band leader added a mariachi band to get more students involved in music ("This Iowa meatpacking town didn't always welcome immigrants. Then the high school started a mariachi band," DMR).

WSJ photo.

Topeka. The Wall Street Journal reports that Topeka is looking at immigrants as a valuable resource for economic revitalization in terms of a source of workers, entrepreneurialism, and neighborhood revitalization, "The American City With a Message for Migrants: We Want You."

Financial Times.  Simon Kuper has a column on this phenomenon, "The surprising success of multi-ethnic cities."  From the article:

London, New York and Paris deserve more credit for how well they are holding together. Every day in these multi-ethnic cities, people of Muslim, Christian and Jewish origin share streets, buses and classrooms.

The article doesn't say a lot, mostly contrasting Western cities to places of conflict.  But cities have always been the place for exchange, and the development of "cosmopolitanism" -- an openness to new ideas and innovation (see Jane Jacobs' The Economy of Cities), and the bringing together of people from different places.

Elijah Anderson wrote some time ago The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life, about this phenomenon, focused on daily life in Center City Philadelphia.

Anderson walks us through Center City Philadelphia, revealing and illustrating through his ethnographic fieldwork how city dwellers often interact across racial, ethnic, and social borders. People engage in a distinctive folk ethnography. Canopies operating in close proximity create a synergy that becomes a cosmopolitan zone. In the vibrant atmosphere of these public spaces, civility is the order of the day. However, incidents can arise that threaten and rend the canopy, including scenes of tension involving borders of race, class, sexual preference, and gender. But when they do—assisted by gloss—the resilience of the canopy most often prevails. In this space all kinds of city dwellers—from gentrifiers to the homeless, cabdrivers to doormen—manage to co-exist in the urban environment, gaining local knowledge as they do, which then helps reinforce and spread tolerance through contact and mutual understanding.

-- "Bridging Racial Divides In 'Cosmopolitan Canopies'," NPR interview of Elijah Anderson 

Photo: Migrants gather Monday near the US-Mexico border wall after crossing a razor wire fence as members of the Texas National Guard stand guard, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters ("‘This is not over,’ Texas says after Supreme Court lets Biden administration remove razor wire at US-Mexico border," CNN).

Immigration and the US Southern Border.  I have a blog post, with lots of appended comments, about how the US should deal with the border with Mexico and in the Caribbean, "A solution to the immigration crisis on the Southern border, but it's too politically fraught," based on a chapter of the book End of Policing.  Professor Alex Vitale suggests that rather than criminalizing immigration, the US should adopt polices more like the EU's Schengen Zone.  

Granted the Zone is only for free cross-border movement for citizens of EU countries, but it is a model for how the US could develop an Americas Zone, with registration, allowing people to move back and forth without necessarily having to live in the US permanently nor get a green card to be able to work.  

The Alliance for Progress was a 10-year plan proposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to foster economic cooperation between North and South America, particularly aimed at countering the perceived communist threat from Cuba. The program was signed at an inter-American conference in Uruguay in August 1961.

The reality is that desperate circumstances in Central and South America will always make the US a desired destination.  

Building a wall or saying "we're full" ("America is 'full,' Lindsey Graham says," ) doesn't reflect reality.

Vitale also suggests implementing an EU like INTERREG program.  INTERREG invests in less well off EU countries to provide residents with more reasons to stay rather than to emigrate West.

The US has dissipated a lot of its soft power with South America, providing opportunities for other countries ("China's Growing Influence in Latin America," Council on Foreign Relations).  And it has a fraught relationship anyway.  Lots of past military intervention or support of it never helps.

This would change it up considerably.

-- VARIATIONS OF U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN CENTRAL AMERICA’S NORTHERN TRIANGLE, thesis, US Navy Postgraduate School

One of the ideas I had is an "Americas Expo" which could be like the World Expo and EU Capital of Culture program mixed into one, moving around to the various countries.

San Antonio Texas attributes a lot of its repositioning to having held HemisFair 1968 ("In 1968, San Antonio's World's Fair Changed The City Forever," Texas Standard, "HemisFair '68 transformed the city," San Antonio Express-News, "After the Fair's Over: The “Redemption Story” of HemisFair Park," San Antonio Current).

Building ties rather than rejecting them is the way to go.

New Years Day Post #1: Solutions versus cruelty | Immigration

Border wall of containers ordered by Republican Governor of Arizona Dan Ducey.  Photo: Ivan Pierre Aguirre for the New York Times.

These days I'm pretty depressed about the state of the US, given the virulence of the divide between Republicans and Democrats and a failure to focus on improving the quality of life of US residents versus cruelty and performance.

There is no question that things are far different from the time when states were considered opportunities for innovation--laboratories of democracy.

The quality of life outcomes for states under Republican rule are decidedly negative (2022 Scorecard on State Health System Performance: How did states do during the COVID-19 pandemic?, Commonwealth Fund, "SUMMARY OF 23 QUALITY OF LIFE INDICATORS — ARE RED OR BLUE STATES BETTER?," Applied Sentience, "Blue states rank better than red in livability: What does that mean?," San Jose Mercury News).

Perhaps the easiest indicator to track is life expectancy.

And long tax revenue capture.  Generally red states get a lot more back in government spending than they pay out.  While blue states pay more and get less.  Red states are the "takers" ("Blue high-tax states fund red low-tax states," Associated Press).

Immigration.  I think one of the most important entries I've written in the past couple years is on "the border crisis" -- immigration -- which Republicans call an absolute crisis. 

 It's a policy issue where Republicans get to show their cruelty ("GOP governors with presidential ambitions court Trump's base with cruelty to migrants," NBC News).

But sadly to reduce the power of the opposition, federal government practices even under Democrats can be pretty cruel.  

It amazes me because the states on the southern border with Mexico--Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California--drive a significant part of their economies through trade with Mexico.  California, being a Democrat run state, acts opposite of the other states.  

For example, Texas' biggest trading partner is Mexico and when they do things like tamper with border crossings it has significant negative effect ("Texas Ends Rule That Left Trucks Waiting For Hours To Cross Mexico Border," Forbes Magazine).  It's like Brexit leading to a significant drop in the UK's economic output, something every reputable economist said would happen.

But the Republican position on immigration makes it hard for Democrats, and makes it almost impossible for policy creativity.  Obama wasn't the greatest--he thought that being tough would get Republicans to work with him, but they didn't.  And Biden has some of the same issues.

The fact is that immigrants are an important source of labor, are motivated, increase the country's diversity, and add population in the face of lower birth rates.  Immigrants can be an important source of revitalization in otherwise shrinking cities etc.

End of Policing by Alex Vitale is pretty bracing.  Eight chapters discuss how we've criminalized certain social matters, and how police response to those problems mostly makes the outcomes worse.  

One chapter is on immigration (US Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and in it he suggests that the US consider dealing with immigration comparable to the European Union, which has free movement within the EU's 27 countries.

I think it's brilliant.  

Creating an American Union of the US and Central and South American countries.  What it would require is creating a kind of "American Union" with Central and South American countries.  Where citizens of participating countries could register and could immigrate/work in other participating countries, and it wouldn't require citizenship in the "receiving" country.  I think it would also allow for temporary rather than permanent emigration.  People could come to the US, make some money, go back home.

At the same time, like the EU, the US should invest in creating "cohesion" programs of investment in Central and South American countries, so that conditions of poverty, political unrest, and negative public safety could be reversed, reducing the demand to emigrate.  

-- "A solution to the immigration crisis on the Southern border, but it's too politically fraught," 2021

And a Caribbean Union.  When I wrote the piece I was focused on the border with Mexico, but the same goes for the Caribbean.  It's unjust that Cuba emigrants have special privileges in coming to the US, and proximity to the US creates the same kinds of tensions for countries like Haiti, Dominican Republic, etc.

Puerto Rico.  And we really should give statehood to Puerto Rico, and create new programs of investment and energy independence for that colony.

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The Salt Lake Tribune, now a nonprofit, has an initiative called the "Innovation Lab," where they focus on longer term issues with an aim of producing articles offering "solutions."

I don't think the issue is the need for solutions so much as a willingness to be focused on solutions and action.

And big time innovation is outside of the mindset of most public officials and community stakeholders.

A solution to the immigration crisis on the Southern border, but it's too politically fraught

After writing about it last spring ("Fire I'll take you to burn"), I finally hunkered down and read The End of Policing by Brooklyn College professor Alex Vitale, and it's super well argued, about how in many areas of "public safety," making police response the "solution" doesn't work very well.

One key point of the discussion is how so many social problems -- drug use, mental illness, homelessness, student behavior in school, etc. -- have been criminalized, making police the predominate if not only response, and how this doesn't work very well in improving outcomes for individuals and communities. Especially because of the rise of "warrior policing" and the approach of "threat reduction" rather than "helping."

WRT the chapter on "Border Policing," in the section on alternatives, he mentions two programs from the European Union that are applicable to "solving" the US's Southern Border problem.

Marshall Plan for Mexico and Central America.  First, he mentions the various structural integration initiatives within the EU, including the INTERREG program, which is a program of "inward investment" designed to make communities better economically and socially, with of aim of helping communities keep existing residents and attract new residents, and reducing the motivation to emigrate to the west from the east.

I've thought about those EU programs a lot in terms of dealing with "the immigration problem" but also immigrant integration programs -- when I was writing about Marseille, I came across some great programs, for which I can't find the citations, although I know I have hard copies of some of the documents in my morass of boxes of files.  

Countries in the Northern Triangle are Guatemala; Honduras; and El Salvador.  Those countries, plus Mexico are the primary source of illegal immigration and asylum requests on the Southern border.

WRT to Central and South America, the political, economic, and social situation there is very complicated, and it's reasonable to ascribe a goodly amount of the problems there to the relationship those countries have with the US:

• such as the high demand for drugs in the US which has destabilized supplier countries like Mexico, Colombia, and Bolivia as well as those countries on the transit routes between suppliers and the US
• US involvement in the politics of those countries for two centuries
• US training of the often repressive military in those countries
• the flows of people in both directions and how this has intensified gangs and violence in countries like El Salvador, etc.

-- "Northern Triangle: terrifying to live in, dangerous to leave," WorldVision
-- "Central America’s Turbulent Northern Triangle," Council on Foreign Relations
-- "A Biden Plan for the Northern Triangle: What would a program to discourage illegal migration look like?," Center for Immigration Studies
-- "Why So Many Central Americans Are Seeking Asylum in the U.S.," KQED/PBS
-- Infographic/comic on the turmoil in Central America," KQED/PBS
-- "Generalized Violence as a Threat to Health and Well-Being: A Qualitative Study of Youth Living in Urban Settings in Central America’s “Northern Triangle”," Maria de Jesus and Carissa Hernandes

Those complications are why a US funded INTERREG type program -- a "Marshall Plan"-- for these countries is justified.

An opportunity for US border states to work with counterpart states in Mexico.  I was angry a few weeks ago when Governors Abbot of Texas and Ducey of Arizona had an op-ed published in the Washington Post ("Arizona and Texas governors: The border crisis in our states was created by the Biden administration") accusing the Biden Administration of failing on border management.  From the article:

To start, the administration needs to immediately reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols, which disincentivize migrants from making the dangerous journey to the border by ending the policy of “catch and release” for those seeking asylum. Law enforcement officials and leaders in border communities are concerned that repeal of these protocols is a major factor behind the surge in illegal border crossings. Reinstating them would go a long way toward alleviating the crisis at the border. 

 Next, administration officials at all levels should state clearly that our country’s borders are not open and that immigrants seeking a better life or more economic opportunity should not be attempting to utilize the asylum process. The State Department should be heavily engaged in this strategy, as the Mexican president’s continued statements blaming this crisis on Biden are concerning.

"Trump emerges from seclusion to visit border wall," Reuters.  Reuters photo by Carlos Barria.

This completely ignores the reality of the dynamics that push people in these countries to attempt to emigrate to the US.  Desperation drives them to take this great risk.  

A wall isn't enough to stop their desperate circumstances ("A Section of Trump Border Wall in South Texas Cost $27 Million a Mile. It’s Being Foiled by $5 Ladders.," Texas Monthly).

At the same time, while the narrow focus of Abbott and Ducey doesn't surprise me, it's unfortunate because there is tremendous opportunity for the US border states (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California)  to work with their counterparts across the border in Mexico to strengthen those states.

Rather than whine, states like Texas and Arizona should step up ("Why Texas Should Lead the U.S.-Mexico Relationship," International Policy Digest).  From the article:

In large part, the size of Texas’ economy depends on the deep links the state has with its sovereign neighbor. Mexico and Texas share a 1,254-mile border and a centuries-old historic and cultural relationship. Mexico remains Texas’ largest trading partner and both markets are extremely reliant on one another. Texas exports around $109.7 billion in goods to Mexico, nearly half of which are from small and medium-sized Texan businesses. 

More than economic dependence, trade between the two represents the strength of Texan families. A 2018 report found that nearly $4.3 billion in remittances are sent to Mexico from nearly 1 million Texans looking to help their families on the other side of the border. These deep cultural and economic ties drive why Tex-Mex culture has never been stronger. Tex-Mex music and food have been exported around the world and in Mexico, has strengthened the affinity and interconnectedness between the two countries.

Note that the San Diego region has a number of initiatives with Tijuana and Baja California state, aiming to promote stability, economic development, and connections between the two regions. 

-- Partnering with Mexico webpage, City of San Diego

And I've written about how the US and California need to work more closely with Tijuana concerning sewage and stormwater discharges that foul the beaches of San Diego County as well as dealing with pandemic spread ("San Diego County and international border issues: sewage and pandemic").

Map of the Sonoran Desert Region, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

In the early 2000s, there was a recognition in Arizona and Sonora State that it is in part a connected ecosystem that should be addressed jointly, although it seems as if that initiative no longer exists.

Certainly Texas border cities like Laredo and El Paso have long standing interconnections with their counterpart cities and states across the border.

Create an EU-like compact legalizing and simpliflying movement across these borders.  Second, and transformationally, Professor Vitale suggests that the "free movement" across borders for residents within the EU system's Schengen Zone of 26 participating countries could be a model for the US, providing a different way to think about managing and protecting the nation's Southern border with Mexico.

Migrants from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands from Central America trying to reach the United States, climb a border fence to cross illegally from Mexico to the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico, December 21, 2018. Mohammed Salem | Reuters.  

This would solve the illegal immigration problem, by legalizing border crossing in a managed way, allowing people to work and live in the US, without necessarily triggering requests for citizenship.  

Wall breach used by an SUV in an attempt to smuggle 24 people into the US.  Photo: USA Today.

And the frequent tragic deaths that result from people desperate to get in the US ("13 killed in California border crossing crash: How did it happen? Why were there 25 people in an SUV? A visual explanation," USA Today; "A boat packed with 32 people shows how migrant smugglers shifted to the sea," San Diego Union-Tribune) ought to be another reaon to look for different approaches.

Obviously, a number of measures would have to be taken to make this work, but in the long run, it would be a much better approach to building a wall and ignoring the conditions that produce "illegal immigration" as either an intended or unintended consequence and outcome of existing policies, practices, processes.

(Note that it used to function this way along many sections of the US-Canadian border, but as border issues became more politically fraught, steps were taken to hinder and block simplified crossing.  See the New York Times article, "Where U.S.-Canadian Border Is Marked by Petunias, Not a Wall.")

Conclusion.  It wouldn't be easy to do, but creating a kind of EU-like compact between the US, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador would definitely cut the "Gordian knot" in a way that makes border crossing manageable rather than an often illegal act or complicated, chaotic process (asylum).  

A complementary investment and stabilization program for those countries, with participation by US border states, would go a long way towards reducing the desperate desire to emigrate from those countries.  

Ironically, the cost of investing in improving Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador may be less than the cost of funding the Southern Border functions of the US Border Patrol, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, other agency activities such as FEMA, DOJ, HHS, etc., and the cost of building and maintaining a wall that isn't impregnable ("The Cost of Immigration Enforcement and Border Security," American Immigration Council).

Graphic: Statista.

Sadly, the innovative and transformational approach this would require is outside of the political will currently expressed in the US.

Free movement, nativism and its contribution to Brexit.  One thing to consider about this idea is how free movement, especially the immigration of workers from Eastern Europe to Britain, in the face of ongoing industrial and economic decline in many parts of England and Wales contributed to the desires of many Britons to vote in favor of dis-engaging from the European Union ("Migration arguments supporting Brexit appear to be backed by animus," LSE).

While studies do not show a loss of jobs or income on the part of Britons as a result from immigration (Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK, Centre for Economic Performance) sentiment against immigration rose after the 2008 recession ("How the Brexit campaign used refugees to scare voters," The World/PRI), and was used by the Conservative Party to divert people's attention from focusing on their austerity program rather than a Keynesian approach in response to the crash ("The UK is showing us why austerity is dangerous, but are we paying attention?," Economic Policy Institute).

Anti-refugee campaign poster for Brexit.

Nigel Farage with the poster. Photograph: Mark Thomas/Rex/Shutterstock

"Nigel Farage's anti-migrant poster reported to police," Guardian

The Conservative Party blamed austerity on the EU, although the EU had nothing to do with it, and that likely led to the majority vote for Brexit ("Remember: it’s austerity, not Europe, that broke Britain," "Blame the scroungers. Blame the migrants. How Britain fell for austerity," Guardian).

Creating a Schengen Zone between the US, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras will increase animus amongst those already negatively disposed towards immigrants, especially people of color, even though like in the UK, research finds that immigrants often work in jobs that US citizens don't want (meatpacking, agriculture, etc.), generate taxes, and consume less in the way of social services per capita.

Like with Brexiters demonizing the Poles and other Eastern Europeans, demonizing the "other" has a long standing history in the US. 

Even on Independence Day, it's hard to feel "patriotic" in 2019 Trump America

Staging featuring tanks for the President Trump "Salute to America" speech at the Lincoln Memorial for July 4th, 2019. Photo: Erik S. Lesser/European Press Agency.

The city is agog to some extent because of how President Trump has changed the traditional Fourth of July celebration in DC -- a parade and fireworks in the evening -- to include a speech at the Lincoln Memorial, with a VIP section, and the display of tanks and other military vehicles.

That's bad, sure.

But far worse is the demonization of just about anyone other than his hardcore base of supporters and the foreign dictators he likes to kow-tow to as "the other."

The treatment by the US of people crossing the border with Mexico seeking asylum is unconscionable ("Crammed into cells and forced to drink from the toilet – this is how the US treats migrants," Guardian).

It makes me feel sick. So challenging to my beliefs about what the United States stands for. Oppposite of the language on the plaque at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

Asylum seekers aren't breaking a law and shouldn't be imprisoned.

It's a sad say when Uganda does a better job dealing with refugees than the United States ("We care for refugee children in Uganda. It's really not that hard to do it," Washington Post).

The photo of the father and daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande River, trying to cross in the U.S. is tragic.

People wouldn't be driven to such lengths if the US would just have a reasonable process for dealing with people seeking to leave Central and South America--areas and countries riven in part because of a negative history of US actions in those countries, along with the impacts of climate changes, the impact of US demand for drugs on governance and stability in those countries, etc.

The bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter, Valeria, lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, Monday after they drowned trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. Martinez' wife, Tania, told Mexican authorities she watched her husband and child disappear in the strong current. | AP

Rather than focus on building a big wall, how about investing in those countries, both in social and political institutions as well as the economy, so that people are motivated to stay rather than to leave for either political or economic reasons.

The Guardian has an article, "Tree planting has 'mind-blowing' potential to tackle climate crisis," about how tree planting can be a significant and successful response to climate change.

One initiative could be a massive tree planting and broader environment program in Central and South America.

Etc.

From the standpoint of public diplomacy and "Brand America" Trump may complain about the trade deficit, but the "brand withdrawals" and destruction of brand value by the Trump Administration is immense and it will take a long time to be able to recover.

And the US will not be able to fully revive its reputation, as other countries, especially China, step into the breach as the US increasingly becomes hermetic and transactional in its approach to the world.

-- "Rebranding America," Boston Globe, 2005

From today's parade in Takoma Park, Maryland. (Sorry that my phone camera isn't that great--it takes in too much light.)

This grouping followed Marc Elrich, the County Executive, who walked in the Parade--he wasn't driven--and he wasn't surrounded with a security detail.