What happened the last time (2019):

In February 2019, Texas Secretary of State David Whitley, using the standard method of matching state databases, assigned 95,000 voters for citizenship checks and set them up for possible criminal investigation.(Go here and here.) That campaign was terminated and resulted in a settlement of three federal lawsuits. Whitley resigned his job due to the fallout.

Texas had at the time about 17 million registered voters. Following the settlement, some counties undertook a more careful protocol to identify non-citizens on voting lists. They found several hundred. One person was a staff member of the El Paso County election staff and had had a naturalization party at the office years before.

On August 21 this month, Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to the office’s press release, “has opened an investigation into reports [sic] that organizations operating in Texas may be unlawfully registering noncitizens to vote in violation of state and federal law.” Paxton said that his investigation involved undercover agents and raids on homes of individuals.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) has asked the Department of Justice to investigate Paxton’s raids (go here.) One of the individuals whose home was raided at 6 AM on August 20 was the 87 year old LULAC member Lydia Martinez, who stood outside her home in her nightgown while a half dozen law enforcement personnel went through her house and seized her electronic devices.

What are the “reports”?  On August 18, Fox News columnist Maria Bartiromo (who was involved in the conspiracy thinking re: Dominion in 2021), posted this on X: “ Friend of mine’s wife had to take her 16 yr old son to the DMV this week for a new license. Couldn’t get an online appointment(all full) so went in person and had to go to 3 DMV’s to get something done. First DMV was in Weatherford. Had a massive line of immigrants getting licenses and had a tent and table outside the front door of the DMV registering them to vote! Second one was in Fort Worth with same lines and same Dems out front. Third one was in North Fort Worth had no lines but had same voter registration drive. (Go here.)

Within 24 hours, Brady Gray, chair of the Republican Party of Parker County (in which Weatherford is located) posted on X the results of his own investigation, which included conversations with pertinent local officials, and completely refuted the allegation, point by point. (Go here.)

A defamatory assault on the integrity of local elections departments, such as Paxton has done, involves attacking one of the nerdiest, most self-disciplined and most exacting cohorts of government employees.

On August 28, Governor Greg Abbott announced that since 2021 the state has found on voter rolls 6,500 non-citizens, of whom 1,930 non-citizens had a voting history.  6.500 is of the current total of 18 million registered voters, three one hundredths of one percent, or one per 2800 registered voters. It is very unlikely that most of these 6,500 are in fact non-citizens, if the state’s earlier misadventure and that of other states are a guide.

 

Florida enacted in 2023 (effective date 7/1/23) SB 924: Purchase or Acquisition of Real Property and Strategic Assets by the People’s Republic of China. The act prohibits ownership of over 50 acres of farm and, and property with 509 miles of “strategic assets in the state.” (The key passage is below).

This Florida law has served as a template of laws proposed in other states. This is perhaps to most visible evidence of a nationwide, largely Republican-driven, campaign to discriminate against foreigners in particular Chinese. South Dakota Governor.

Politico quotes a Republican Congressman: ““From Chinese Communist Party-affiliated purchases of agricultural land to efforts by the party to influence state and local politics, states are on the front lines of our New Cold War with the Chinese Communist Party,” said Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the House Select Committee on China.

The Committee of 100 has been tracking legislation to restrict outright bar citizens of certain countries from owning property (the Committee is described below).

Summary of anti-foreigner property restrictions:

So far, in 2024 (as of April 25):

151 bills restricting property ownership by foreign entities have been considered by 32 states (115 bills) and Congress (36 bills). Of the 151 total bills, 7 passed and were signed into law in Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska (2 bills), South Dakota, and Utah, respectively Of the 7 bills passed so far, 3 prohibit Chinese citizens from purchasing or owning some form of property: Indiana’s HB 1183, Nebraska’s LB 1301, and South Dakota’s HB 1231.

Since the beginning of 2023:

241 bills restricting property ownership by foreign entities have been considered by 39 states (205 bills) and Congress (36 bills). Of the 241 total bills, 194 have been under consideration that would prohibit Chinese citizens from purchasing or owning property. 24 passed and were signed into law. Of the 24 bills passed so far, 7 prohibit Chinese citizens from purchasing or owning some form of property: Arkansas’ SB 383, Florida’s S 264, Indian’s HB 1183 and SB 477, Nebraska’s 1301, South Dakota’s HB 1231, and West Virginia’s SB 548.

Key passage in Florida’s law:

(2) Notwithstanding any other law, beginning July 1, 2023,

any company or development owned or controlled by a company that is owned, in whole or in part, by, or is a subsidiary of, a company that is owned by the People’s Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party or whose principal place of business is located within the People’s Republic of China, or any intermediary acting on behalf of such company or development. may not:

(a) Purchase or acquire any real property or strategic assets located within 50 miles of a

(b) Purchase or acquire any real property or strategic assets located within 50 miles of strategic assets in this state; or

(c) Purchase more than 50 acres of agricultural land within the state, including any contiguous agricultural land that equals more than 50 acres in total.

Committee of 100:

On its website the Committee of 100 writes that the “Committee of 100 is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia, science, technology, and the arts. The organization was formed following the aftermath of Tiananmen Square… The name “Committee of 100” derives from a blend of inspirations of ‘We the People’ and an ancient Chinese idiom, 老百姓 (lao bai xing) to reflect both American values and Chinese culture. Translated directly, the characters 老百姓 mean ‘old (老) hundred (百) names (姓)’. Figuratively, 老百姓 represents everyone in the community. By adopting the name Committee of 100 (百人會) , the Committee of 100 Members aimed to embody the American spirit encapsulated in ‘We the People’ and interweave it with the tapestry of Chinese history..

Here in few words how immigration will affect the presidential election: Biden will attempt to recover from a (correct in my view) casual approach to the border crisis, which is actually a number of crises.  Trump, with complete control over Republican messaging, is already calling for revengeful, draconian policies that resonant with many Republicans but leave independents cold.  The independent electorate, if it perceives that Biden is consistently addressing the border crisis as they define it, will settle back to their normal view of immigration as a positive thing for the country that they don’t really want to pay much attention to. Here are five polls which pretty much tell the same story of Biden’s challenge.

Immigration has risen sharply in saliency among voters, from the low – mid tens to the 20s. This is reflected in three separate polls, noted below.

Note, however, that the immigration issue as presented in the political arena focuses only on immigration which is publicly viewed as “illegal.” It was not a slip of the tongue when Biden referred to “illegal” instead of the legalistic term “undocumented” in his State of the Union speech.  I expect that the White House knows full well that the crisis of “illegal” migration embraces pretty much all activity on the Mexican border: individuals and families seeking asylum, those seeking to avoid detection on entry, drug smuggling, sex trafficking.

The bipartisan bill was designed to address all these issues. Below, I report on broad support for the bipartisan bill.

the Center for Immigration Studies summarizes three polls — Gallup, Wall Street  Journal, and Fox News —  all circling around the came core observations that the electorate other than Democrats are very worried about the border crisis, and that Biden is losing on this issue in large numbers.

The Trump team is attempting to leverage this sharply higher salience over the border to a broad assault on all existing unauthorized residents,  Bannon’s statement in late February calls for mass deportations, presumably all 11 million, and also calls for a complete dismantling of the asylum program. Typical with Trump’s instincts, he pushes away more people than he attracts. Americans do not want to see photos of police arresting people at their homes or work, nor do they want photos of large detention centers.

Support for the bipartisan bill  is strong among independents. Self-identifying independent voters rose from about 30% of voters in the 2000s to about 40% today.

A fourth poll Third Way poll shows strong support for the bipartisan bill among independents. The poll breaks the bill down to 12 provisions. In ten of the provisions, independents approved of five between 60 and 69%, and in five more between at or above 70%, for instance “emergency powers to close borders”  and “new federal powers for drug enforcement.” Receiving well less support are two, including “builds more detention centers” (39%).

There is a fifth poll– Marist.  This poll amplifies what I noted above. It shows that Biden must demonstrate that he had a credible, bipartisan plan to control the border

Independents are more than twice as likely to choose the Republicans (38%) rather than the Democrats (17%) when it comes to handling the issue of immigration. However, more than three in ten independents (31%) think neither party can adequately address the issue

44% of independents think increasing security at the United States-Mexico border to reduce illegal crossings should be the top immigration priority.

Only 14% of Americans say deporting those who entered the country illegally should be the top priority for immigration. This is the constituency which Trump is focusing on.

55% of independents think America’s openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation.

 

 

 

 

 

A January 22 2024 Harvard Harris poll shows that, compared to January 2022, when asked what is the most important issue facing the country, 38% of Republicans picked immigration in 2022 and 50% in 2024; for Democrats, the vote rose from 10% to 18%; for Independents, the vote went from 19% to 37%.  Overall, immigration was the top concern in 2024 at 37%,up from 23% in 2022.

However, when asked in 2024 what was personally the most important issue, the vote for immigration was lower: Republican 27%, Democrats 9% and Independents 18%.

In 2024, 81% of Republicans said that the problem at the border was getting worse, compated to 45% of Democrats and 68% of Independents.

Concern about immigration within the Republican party is much higher among New Hampshire primary Trump voters, 79%  of whom said it was the most important issue, vs. 20% of Haley voters. (The choices were foreign policy, abortion, immigration and the economy).

Republicans have repeatedly returned to immigration as a wedge issue, to appeal to and bring over a some Democrats.  This has been Trump’s desire from the minute he stepped off the elevator. There is no state that I know in which an anti-immigration movement, and specifically an anti -unauthorized person movement, has had a lasting impact by swinging politics in the direction of Republicans absent other major issues (but I could be wrong).

The reality is the the great majority of Americans don’t care that much about immigration, and extremely few care enough to vote for the other party (as opposed for example to abortion).

My question now is whether House Republicans can effect what Trump so much wanted in 2020, which was to make immigration so big an issue that it will swing voters his way to win in November. Here is some polling figures from December that the Republicans have an uphill fight; that they are in effect doubling down on their appeal to their base rather than moving the electorate at large; that the electorate wants a bipartisan rather than a partisan solution. Yet House Republicans are exultatingly branding their immigration policy as hyper-partisan combat.

California Proposition 187 barred unauthorized persons from certain public services. It passed, 59% to 41%, in 1994, but was gutted by court decisions. A lasting impact was that Latinos were turned off by the Republican Party, immigrant advocacy grew, and the Republican Party ever since has held no more than one third of the seats in the state’s Senate.

In the mid 2000s, many localities across the U.S. tried to pass laws barring landlords from renting to unauthorized persons.  These measures were blocked by law and eventually the movement was dead by 2011.

YouGov polled Americans in early December poll of Americans on a wide range of issues, including immigration. Opinion polls about preferences in immigration, for example whether to increase or decrease the number of persons granted asylum, are, in my opinion, so conjectural and based on so little shared facts as to be close to worthless.

Happily, the pollsters asked people a question the responses to which I believe can be relied on. The question was about a preference for a bipartisan deal involving national security and immigration. How much does the public want a deal a key attribute of which is that it is bipartisan? It appears, a lot. This is the opposite of the House’s expressly partisan strategy.

The question is “Congress is considering a bipartisan deal that would pair aid to  Ukraine and Israel with border security funding and stricter asylum standards for entering the United States. Do you support or oppose this deal.”

On this question 16% of respondents said they don’t know how to decide; 19% of those with less than college education said they do not know. There is pretty strong support for a bipartisan deal. For example, 58% of Republicans strongly support or somewhat support a bipartisan deal. 46% of Democrats strongly support or somewhat support a bipartisan deal. Union households are particularly in favor of a bipartisan deal – 59%.

When you remove the people who say they don’t know you find a surprising result — that over 65% of Republicans want a bipartisan deal while only about 55% of Democrats want one.