This fall, Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce is expected to introduce a bill that is already getting a fair amount of national attention. The legislation would deny state-issued birth certificates to the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants – those so-called “anchor babies” that nativists and others on the right have been trying to marginalize for more than a decade. And why is that? It’s because U.S. citizenship acts as a protective cloak over these children and prevents those on the far right from doing to them what they’d really like to do: deport them along with their illegal immigrant parents.

It’s an ugly and punitive crusade that started in Congress more than a decade ago, and luckily never went anywhere – not because Democrats stopped it but because others on the right worked to undermine it for the good of the Republican Party. In the late 1990’s, the member of Congress leading the fight against “birthright citizenship” was Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-CA. The San Diego-area congressman proposed a bill to limit the privilege to the children of U.S. citizens. The legislation didn’t go anywhere. It couldn’t even get a hearing from some of Bilbray’s fellow Republicans, who rightly cringed at the idea of visiting the sins of the parents onto the children.

When Bilbray lost a bid for re-election in 2000, he went to work as a lobbyist for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a restrictionist outfit that puts the lie to the claim by some that the immigration debate is only concerned with cracking down on illegal immigrants because the organization is just as desperate to keep out legal immigrants. When he ran for Congress again in 2006, Bilbray got elected after warning elderly voters that one day their grandchildren wouldn’t choose to take Spanish in high school as much as “have to” take Spanish in high school. Once back in Washington, Bilbray continued to milk the immigration issue for all it was worth. During a recent television interview, while defending Arizona’s racial profiling law, Bilbray insisted that detecting illegal immigrants isn’t that difficult and suggested that police “will look at the kind of dress you wear, there’s different type of attire, there’s different type of – right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes.”

This is what we have come to expect from Bilbray. He’s not a serious person who says serious things. And the good news is that his anti-citizenship bill never enjoyed any serious support, even from members of his own party.

But now comes Arizona, with its unique — and undoubtedly unconstitutional — self-serve approach to immigration reform. First, state lawmakers deputize local police to enforce federal immigration law based on nothing more than a suspicion that someone is in the country illegally. Now, they’re threatening to disenfranchise the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, as if the states had the power to decide on whom we should bestow U.S. citizenship. They don’t.

I guess someone was sleeping in high school civics when the teacher covered the 14th Amendment. Here’s a refresher:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

It’s pretty cut and dried. It’s also the law of the land, which makes it all the more curious that a crowd that claims to cherish the concept of law and order would be, when it suits their purposes, so quick to brush it aside.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, a nationally syndicated columnist and a regular contributor to CNN.COM.

One minute, they’re badmouthing the federal government for being ineffective in securing the border and stopping illegal immigration. The next, they’re defending the state law by insisting that it’s a mirror image of federal law, the same approach that we were just told is ineffective — but apparently still worth emulating.

One minute, they’re insisting that they care about the rule of law and that’s why they oppose illegal immigration. The next, they’re declaring their support for a state law that is blatantly unconstitutional — or, in other words, contrary to the rule of law.

But perhaps the biggest contradiction of all has to do with racial profiling, which is, after all, the whole purpose of SB 1070. One minute, supporters are asserting that there is no way Latinos will be profiled by local and state police under this law. In fact, they say, the law – in several places – specifically prohibits racial profiling. Thus, they assume, what is prohibited cannot happen.

How quaint. It’s worth noting here that racial profiling is already prohibited by federal statute, and yet it still happens. It happened, for several years, on the New Jersey Turnpike where, as state officials formally acknowledged a decade ago, state troopers searched African-American and Latino motorists with much greater frequency than they did white drivers. Moral: Just because something is against the law doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

That’s not even the biggest problem, however. While this idea is still out there – that police won’t racially profile Latinos who they suspect of being in the country illegally – supporters come back with a second punch. But, they say, in the unlikely event that Latinos were profiled, such a thing would be totally justified given that most illegal immigrants come from Mexico and the rest of Latin America. After all, they say, in a state like Arizona, which borders Mexico, who should police be looking for if not Latinos?

One reader wrote me to say: You suggest that we not use “racial profiling” (a politically bad word) to determine if someone caught near the Mexican border is here unlawfully. Would you suspect a blue-eyed blond to have crossed the border into our country from Mexico? Of course we must suspect Spanish speaking “Latinos” as possible illegal immigrants!

Another wrote: What bothers me is that you are vehemently opposed to the Arizona law recently enacted. You call it racial profiling, presumably against Latinos. Well, sir, who is coming across our borders illegally? It certainly are (sic) not Swedes, Inuit, Estonians, Bosnians, etc. It is Mexicans. So, really, the law has to target them because that is the group coming over.”

Absolutely unbelievable. What rhetorical dexterity. Obviously, supporters can’t have it both ways. They can’t insist that a practice won’t occur. Honest it won’t. Then turn around and insist that it is perfectly logical and thus likely to occur if police do their jobs correctly. One of these things can be true but not both.

Of course, the first claim is meaningless public relations. It is just garnish on the plate. It allows supporters to pretend to oppose racial profiling in the hopes of building their own credibility and the credibility of the shady law they support.

It’s the second claim that matters. That one they believe. They obviously think that racial profiling isn’t just justifiable but also effective and essential to good law enforcement. And they want it used in this case to ferret out illegal immigrants by focusing on the group of people that most resembles them: Latinos.

In battle, the biggest break you get is when an adversary steps from the shadows, shows himself and makes clear his intentions. Don’t look now. But supporters of SB 1070 are standing in full view.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, a nationally syndicated columnist and a regular contributor to CNN.COM.

For the last eighteen months, ten Republican members of the Texas Board of Education have systematically rewritten the curriculum to be used in Texas public schools. They labored to eliminate the so-called “liberal bias” they and their party perceived in the way history and social studies were taught. The Board highlighted the Second Amendment over other equally or more important constitutional provisions such as the right to free expression, to the free exercise of religion, to be free from state established religious beliefs, to the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the civil rights amendments. The Board sought to eliminate discussions regarding the separation of church and state embodied in the First Amendment’s establishment clause and to downplay the role of the Civil Rights Movement in shaping our country. The Board even partially succeeded in eliminating any mention of the contributions of ethnic minorities to the cultural, political, and economic development of America.

From Arizona came two major headlines. First, SB1070 became law and made it a state crime to be in the country illegally, exposed law enforcement officers to lawsuits if they mistakenly stop someone for a supposed immigration violation or if they refuse to enforce this monstrously ambiguous and racist law.  Second, Arizona enacted a law terminating funding for ethnic studies classes since, the theory goes, such classes tend to promote one ethnic group over another despite reputable research demonstrating that such classes tend to promote racial acceptance and tolerance. But, perhaps that is the problem for some.

John Stossel from Fox News agreed with Tea Party darling Rand Paul that portions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and by implication each subsequent civil rights enactment was wrong.  Primarily, Stossel argued that private businesses should be allowed to revert to the segregationist era practice of discriminating against someone on account of race. After all, the argument says, the free enterprise model of business would not tolerate racist practices in the market place. Paul and Stossel ignore the ugly little historical fact that the market model was exactly the one that was in place when the various Civil Rights Acts outlawed segregation and discrimination based upon race, gender, disability, age, ethnicity, and most recently sexual orientation.

The relationship between the three events is as clear as the rallying cry of militant conservatives that they’re “taking their country back.” Their country? Back from what? Our democratic foundations? Our centuries-long multiculturalism? The constitutional mandate that government safeguard the inalienable rights of people and provide for the common good? Perhaps more importantly, the question should be “back to what?” Segregation? No social security? No Medicare? Ethnic minorities relegated to the crappiest schools and the back of the bus? One set of workers making eighty-two cents on the dollar or less? Oops, women still only make eighty-two cents to each dollar men make.

Hunter S. Thompson said it best: “Politics is the art of controlling your environment.” It’s a never-ending, daily struggle. That’s why I wasn’t surprised. The reactionary right’s tactic is clearly meant to demonize, degrade, and thus raise the level of fear of anyone who does not agree with its agenda. They are trying to control the environment so that the rest of us are “put in our place” so much so that we’ll grow too weary or too scared to fight back. At least that’s their hope.

This tactic is masterfully cynical.  It’s been used before with devastating consequences.  Not too long ago, Hitler, who came to power, plunged the world into war, and committed unspeakable acts of genocide and synthesized the method this way: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

Sound familiar? Too familiar, perhaps too immediate. We as a people have the right to have our individual votes count equally with all others, to demand our place in the fabric of this country. If we don’t exercise this fundamental right, we all lose and we are all to blame. Our liberty and continuing struggle to make America and the world a better place is bought only with eternal vigilance and courage. I for one am not ready to be put in any particular place.

Raised in a migrant farm worker family in the poverty-stricken area of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, Vito de la Cruz was taught to value hard work, education, family, and community by his grandmother and his aunt. Now, he is an instructor at the National Judicial College, National Institute of Trial Advocacy, the National Criminal Defense College, and the ABA-ROLI Latin American trial advocacy programs in Venezuela, Mexico, and Ecuador. De la Cruz is a regular columnist with the Reno Gazette Journal.

Immigration is absolutely critical to the survival of the U.S. economy. The majority of our workplace is comprised of two important groups: immigrants and baby boomers. An article published in the Washington Post states that although immigrants account for 12.5 percent of the population, they make up 15 percent of the workplace. This overrepresentation occurs because immigrants and their children account for 58 percent of the U.S. population growth since 1980. With infertility a concern and the baby boomers reaching retirement age, we stand to have a void in the workplace that we simply cannot fill with native-born Americans. Not only will there be more jobs than people to fill them, but as baby boomers exit the workforce, they will take with them years of experience, knowledge, business relationships and expertise that cannot be easily archived.

This situation poses some very serious questions: How are we to continue progressing at the same level we have experienced over the past sixty years? How do we define progress? How do we pass down the information that cannot be stored outside the minds of our experts? With other countries making tremendous economic gains (I’m looking at India and China), how do we remain a leader, or even a competitor, in an ever increasingly global and competitive marketplace? These questions and several others will require complicated answers, and we need those answers now. How we answer them will help define the course for our future. The United States has historically been a highly desirable place for foreign students to study abroad and we have attracted many of the top intellectuals from all over the planet. Over the past few years we have lost considerable ground to the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Singapore, and China, who have all implemented strategies to make them more attractive to prospective students and professionals. As other destinations become more alluring we stand to lose the rate of innovation that has fueled our development. Madeleine Albright, Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel and Albert Einstein are just a few of the notable immigrants who helped shape the United States.

This country was “founded” on immigration. Today, the immigration of Mexican people is the focal point of the media. Although Mexicans do make up the largest number of illegal immigrants in the United States, they also make up the largest number of legal immigrants. According to the 2009 Annual Flow Report, published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security the total amount of legal permanent resident flow into the United States was 1,130,818. Of this number, Mexican immigrants accounted for only 14.6 percent, or 164,000 people. This number is down from 189,989 or 17.2% in 2008. A large number of immigrants are migrating from China, the Philippines, India, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Vietnam Columbia, and South Korea. The top destinations within the U.S. were California, New York, Florida, Texas and New Jersey respectively. Sure Texas and California share a border with Mexico, but who was the last person you knew who walked from Mexico to New York? Immigration is a big deal that needs an appropriate solution, but illegal immigration from Mexico is only part of what should be a larger debate.

Michael Maine is dedicated to global communication, collaboration, and cooperation. Originally planning on utilizing his problem solving and strategic strengths in the corporate sector, his eyes were opened and life changed after taking his first Sociology class at Southwestern University, where he graduated with a bachelor in Business and minors in both Sociology and Communications.

In that state, whose population is 30% Latino, the government seeks to broaden police powers to identify and apprehend undocumented immigrants, in effect legalizing racial profiling of Latinos, trampling on federal jurisdiction over immigration policy and enforcement, and undermining the ongoing efforts of the US Census to accurately count undocumented immigrants.

Just as the Civil War was largely about race and the balance of power between states and the federal government, Arizona’s bold – and reckless – move echoes an inglorious chapter from our nation’s past.

The sweeping immigration bill passed by the Arizona Senate and signed into law by Governor Jan Brewer is an attack on undocumented immigrants, Latinos and all Americans who abhor discrimination.

Isabel Garcia, an Arizona legal defender, told CNN: “We have not seen this kind of legislation since the Jim Crow laws.”

The situation brings to light an issue that all Americans must acknowledge and confront: that the debate over undocumented immigrants conflates perceptions, feelings and attitudes regarding all Latinos, legal and not. My own personal example is that I’d never faced much discrimination for being a Latino until I wrote in support of immigration reform. I was then flooded with hateful emails and comments demanding that I “go back where I came from.” The thing is I’m American. I came from here.  I was born here. Where am I supposed to go? Get my point? Suddenly I was seen not as an American exercising free speech but as a foreigner in my own land.

Anti-immigrant sentiment, fervor and the type of misguided legislation that has passed in Arizona only boils the cauldron of hatred bubbling within certain groups in our country. And when that hatred overflows, undocumented immigrants are not the only ones that will be targeted, pulled over without reason, humiliated or abused, thrown into the back seat of a squad car with cuffs on because they didn’t have their ID handy. It’ll be anyone who “looks like” or “sounds like” a Latino immigrant. And that could be – if left up to the interpretation of someone who is not an expert in anthropology or someone with less than honorable intentions – just about any Latino on any given day. This moral hazard that Latino citizens, our shared society, and even police officers may be asked to bear should be offensive to all Americans who value fair treatment – if not of undocumented immigrants – at least of our own citizens.

Interestingly, the legalization of this racial profiling of Latinos is also an example of “tyranny of the majority.” Because, although nearly a third of Arizona’s population is Latino, none of the largely Republican statewide elected officials – and only one of the Arizona legislators who voted for the bill appear to be so. That’s discrimination without representation.

It ought to serve as a wake-up call to Congress and the White House, as they have typically been the ones to step in to protect Constitutional rights when racist policies are being implemented on the state or local level.

But that’s not the only reason the Feds should intervene. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) is planning legal action to stop the measure, arguing that it violates due process and Supreme Court precedents, infringing on federal government jurisdiction over immigration policy and enforcement.

As if that weren’t enough to heighten the sense of urgency on the national level for immigration reform, Arizona is also flying in the face of the US Census’ unprecedented and ongoing push to fully count all Latinos and all undocumented immigrants in 2010. The Census reportedly invested 20% of its ad budget on this effort. Arizona’s rogue maneuver, one that is sending shockwaves through the Latino and undocumented communities, can only heighten fear and undermine participation by undocumented immigrants, an intent measured by a RedBrownandBlue.com survey as 76% nationally, compared to only 43% participation by undocumented immigrants in the country ten years ago.

If you are an undocumented immigrant, or an outsider looking in, all these mixed signals from diverse government entities might frighten and confuse you. But as an American-born Latino, border native, patriot and longtime student of government, to me they’re a reminder of Palmetto Hill. My only hope is that the final outcome also echoes history.

For back in those fateful days in May 1865, on a stark and unforgiving landscape of sandy brush and shifting sand dunes, where two nations meet and a then-untamed Rio Grande flowed unbridled into the treacherous waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the Confederate rebels may have won the battle but the Union won the war.

Rudy Ruiz has been hailed as a cultural visionary. A published author and multicultural advocate, Ruiz is an acclaimed multicultural communications entrepreneur. He founded Red Brown and Blue as well as Interlex, one of the nation’s leading advocacy marketing agencies ranked by Ad Age as one of the Top US Agencies across all disciplines. Prior to that, Ruiz earned his BA in Government at Harvard College and his Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

It’s a relationship that is center stage now that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed SB 1070, a ghastly piece of legislation intended to get rid of one group by targeting and inconveniencing the other. It is no surprise that, when opponents of the law turned out recently in dozens of U.S. cities to condemn what is a license to racially profile in trolling for illegal immigrants, Mexican-Americans were well represented among the protesters.

They know a bad thing when they see one. The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act is a hypocritical and self-destructive law that is probably – in a legal sense – not long for this world. Hypocritical because Arizona now wants to play the victim of an illegal immigration problem that it helped create by offering illegal immigrants a friendly hiring climate for decades. Self-destructive because Arizona – if it succeeds in ridding the state of illegal immigrants — is sure to suffer from boycotts, diminished productivity, and lost federal revenue tied to Census figures. Not long for this world because it violates the 4th Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure, the 5th Amendment’s right to due process, and the Necessary and Proper Clause which makes plain that enforcing immigration law is the job of the federal government and not of individual states.

SB 1070 violates all those rules by requiring: “For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official, where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made when practicable to determine the immigration status of the person.”

In doing so, the law doesn’t just allow for the possibility of racial and ethnic profiling of anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant (read: Latinos). The statute all but requires it. In fact, it includes a provision by which concerned citizens can sue law enforcement agencies that they believe to be non-compliant.

Mexican-Americans who are in the streets protesting this law must understand they’re in the crosshairs along with legal residents, illegal immigrants and anyone who looks Latino. The only way for law enforcement officers to round up scores of illegal immigrants is to sift through even larger pools of Latinos that will necessarily include Mexican-Americans. So it’s clear which group of U.S. citizens will bear the brunt of this law.

Some Americans assume that these groups are natural allies.

Not necessarily. There is built-in tension tied to a shared culture, and the lengths to which some folks will go to escape it. By assimilating into U.S. culture, Mexican-Americans are susceptible to accusations that they’ve strayed from Mexican culture.

Also, each group challenges the other. Mexican-Americans remind Mexican immigrants of the fact that, in the United States, ethnicity and language need not be impediments to success. Mexican immigrants remind Mexican-Americans of, well, the same thing. In fact, there is a lot that each group can teach the other about the American Dream and how to realize it.

Still, this partnership has the makings of a powerful alliance.  And ironically, SB 1070 might just do more to forge it than all the cross-border initiatives implemented over the years.

This is the thing nativists have always feared. They would almost certainly prefer to pick on those who have no voice without worrying about pushback from those who do. There is even a paranoid strain in the restrictionist movement that propagates the fantasy that Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants are scheming to retake the Southwest and return it to Mexico.

Yet, given that the territory in question includes Arizona, which is full of Arizonans, is there any evidence that, at this point, Mexico even wants it back?

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, a nationally syndicated columnist, and a regular contributor to CNN.COM.

When I got to my car, I tuned into KUNR and listened bemused at the news that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer had signed that state’s new immigration bill into law. It was to be expected after all. Arizona has been the flashpoint for many immigration-related acts of stupidity over the last several years if not decades and Arizona officials seem to repeatedly “decide” to take same unconstitutional, un-American, anti-immigrant positions despite the best efforts of rational, cooler heads, including until recently, Senator McCain. To illustrate Arizona’s latest plunge into idiocy, let me cull out portions of this foolish experiment.

Under the law, state police officers must make a “reasonable effort” to determine the immigration status of people for whom the officers have “a reasonable suspicion” of being in the country illegally. If the status of the individual can’t be verified, officers can arrest. This begs the question of what constitutes a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is in the country illegally. Attempting to address constitutional concerns about the law’s apparent embrace of illegal racial and ethnic profiling, Arizona’s law claims to prohibit police questioning of people solely on the basis of race or ethnicity. Nobody in Arizona’s government, however, could articulate what could form the basis for this so-called reasonable suspicion not based upon race or ethnicity.  Governor Brewer certainly couldn’t.

When asked what facts would support a reasonable suspicion to question someone regarding their immigration status, Governor Brewer stammered, “I don’t know what an illegal immigrant looks like.” Yet, the good governor has ordered police officers to be trained in detecting signs of illegal status, clues that neither she nor any legislator who voted for the bill can even articulate. Moreover, any officer who erroneously questions and/or arrests anyone who turns out to be lawfully in the country can be sued individually. Alternatively, if any citizen believes that an individual officer or police department isn’t enforcing the law, they can sue as well. Some of my colleagues in private practice are anxious to try to fix stupid and get paid handsomely for it.

Now, my final observation.  All three Republican candidates for Nevada’s governorship, Mssrs. Sandoval, Montandon, and Gibbons, applauded Arizona’s efforts. (See, RGJ, Sunday, 4/25/10) In Texas, Republican State Representative Debbie Riddle plans to introduce a similar version of the Arizona experiment. (See, NBC/DFW 4/28/10) I’m sure there will be other elected officials to jump on the anti-immigrant bandwagon. Come November, however, voters get to prevent stupid. If we don’t, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Raised in a migrant farm worker family in the poverty-stricken area of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, Vito de la Cruz was taught to value hard work, education, family, and community by his grandmother and his aunt. Now, he is an instructor at the National Judicial College, National Institute of Trial Advocacy, the National Criminal Defense College, and the ABA-ROLI Latin American trial advocacy programs in Venezuela, Mexico and Ecuador. De la Cruz is a regular columnist with the Reno Gazette Journal.

According to the New York Times, “Passage of the law, which would, among other things, allow the authorities to demand proof of legal entry into the United States from anyone suspected of being in the country illegally, testified to the relative lack of political power of Arizona Latinos, and to the hardened views toward illegal immigration among Republican politicians both here and nationally.”

Isabel Garcia, an Arizona legal defender, told CNN: “We have not seen this kind of legislation since the Jim Crow laws. And targeting our communities, it is the single…largest attack…”

The situation brings to light an issue that all fair-minded Americans must acknowledge and confront: that the debate over undocumented immigrants conflates perceptions, feelings and attitudes regarding all Latinos, both those who are legally residing in this nation and those who are not. My own personal example is that I’d never faced much discrimination for being a Latino until I wrote in support of immigration reform. I was then flooded with hateful emails and comments demanding that I “go back where I came from.” The thing is I’m American. I came from here.  I was born here. Where am I supposed to go? Get my point? Suddenly I was seen not as an American exercising free speech but as a foreigner in my own land.

Anti-immigrant sentiment, fervor and the type of misguided legislation that has passed in Arizona only boils the cauldron of hatred bubbling within certain groups in our country. And when that hatred overflows, undocumented immigrants are not the only ones that will be targeted, pulled over without reason, humiliated or abused, thrown into the back seat of a squad car with cuffs on because they didn’t have their ID handy. It’ll be anyone who “looks like” or “sounds like” a Latino immigrant. And that could be – if left up to the interpretation of someone who is not an expert in anthropology or someone with less than honorable intentions – just about any Latino on any given day. This moral hazard that Latino citizens, our shared society, and even police officers may be asked to bear should be offensive to all Americans who value fair treatment – if not of undocumented immigrants – at least of our own citizens.

People should not be singled out for negative treatment due to how they look, the color of their skin, their accent or their religious beliefs. It is a commonly touted – if not universally enforced – principle of American democracy that we should not discriminate on the basis of race, color or creed. But that’s exactly what racial profiling does. And that’s exactly what this law will do.

Interestingly, the Arizona measure is also an example of “tyranny of the majority.” Because, although nearly a third of Arizona’s population is Latino, none of the largely Republican statewide elected officials – and only one of the legislators who voted for the bill – appear to be Hispanic.

If Latinos can find no power or justice on the state level, this turn of events should raise the ante. Congress and the White House must act with a greater sense of urgency on immigration reform before states and regions saddled with a history of racism increasingly take matters into their own hands, particularly on an issue that most experts agree is outside of their Constitutional jurisdiction.

If Arizona’s immigration bill is implemented, I have a haunting feeling there’ll be many more horror stories about discriminatory run-ins with the police circulating around tables wherever Latinos sit down to talk, from college campuses to coffee counters, construction sites to libraries. And that would be not a step forward, but a step backwards in time.

Rudy Ruiz has been hailed as a cultural visionary. A published author and multicultural advocate, Ruiz is an acclaimed multicultural communications entrepreneur. He founded Red Brown and Blue as well as Interlex, one of the nation’s leading advocacy marketing agencies ranked by Ad Age as one of the Top US Agencies across all disciplines. Prior to that, Ruiz earned his BA in Government at Harvard College and his Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

SAN ANTONIO, TX – RedBrownandBlue.com (RBB), a news and commentary website aiming to increase multicultural perspectives in mainstream media – in conjunction with Interlex Communications, a Top 25 Hispanic-owned advertising agency – has released important data pointing to a potentially unprecedented turnout in 2010 Census participation by undocumented Latino immigrants.

With 1100 undocumented immigrants interviewed in six cities – New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Phoenix, Miami and Washington, DC – 76 percent of all respondents said they would participate in the 2010 Census. Furthermore, of respondents who have lived in the U.S. 10 years or more, 43 percent said they participated in the 2000 Census and 85 percent said they would participate in the 2010 Census.

“The increased participation could be the result of a perfect storm,” says Rudy Ruiz, founding editor of RedBrownandBlue.com. “Never in the history of the Census has so much been invested in ensuring that Latinos, especially the undocumented, participate in this milestone. The Census Bureau has gone to great lengths to reach out and dispel myths and misconceptions about the Census among the undocumented, helping dissipate fears of deportation by participation.”

The US Census reportedly spent 20 percent of its total advertising budget on paid ads aimed at the Hispanic community, mainly Spanish speakers, to increase Hispanic Census participation.

“But there’s more to it than that,” continues Ruiz. “This is a sign, along with the marches and the growing calls for immigration reform, that undocumented immigrants are yearning to come out of the shadows, be counted, and be given a legitimate shot at contributing to – and partaking in – the American Dream.”

National Results*

• 76 percent of undocumented immigrants said they would participate in the U.S. Census
• 16 percent of undocumented immigrants said they would not participate in the U.S. Census
• 8 percent of undocumented immigrants said they don’t know whether they will participate
• 24 percent of undocumented immigrants said they have participated in a U.S. Census before
• 72 percent of undocumented immigrants said they have not participated in a U.S. Census before.
• 4 percent of undocumented immigrants said they don’t know if they have participated in a U.S. Census before.

*National results encompass all undocumented Latino immigrants surveyed, including those who have been in the country less than 10 years.

City-to-City Comparisons

• Undocumented immigrants in Washington, DC ranked first in declared participation of the 2010 Census at 86 percent; Los Angeles at 81 percent; Miami at 80 percent; Houston at 72 percent; Phoenix at 71 percent; and New York at 63 percent

• Of those undocumented immigrants who declared they would not participate, New York ranked first at 35 percent; Phoenix at 26 percent; Houston at 15 percent; Los Angeles at 8 percent; Miami at 7 percent; and Washington DC at 6 percent

• Of those respondents who said they don’t know whether they will participate; Houston and Miami ranked first at 13 percent, Los Angeles at 11 percent; Washington, DC at 8 percent; and New York and Phoenix at 3 percent

• Of those respondents who have been in the United States for 10 or more years, in Phoenix more than half – 61 percent – said they have participated in a U.S. Census before; New York at 60 percent; Washington, DC at 44 percent; Houston at 43 percent; Los Angeles at 31 percent; and Miami at 25 percent

• Of those respondents who said they have been in the United States for 10 or more years and have not participated in a U.S. Census; Miami ranked first at 73 percent; Los Angeles at 63 percent; Washington, DC at 56 percent; Houston at 48 percent; New York at 40 percent; and Phoenix at 38 percent

“When you compare the numbers of undocumented immigrants who did not participate in the Census ten years ago to those who will participate in the 2010 Census, one can predict that the projections of Latinos living in the United States will be impacted profoundly, from accelerating growth projections to reshaping immigration reform dialogue,” says Brittani Pena, research director for RedBrownandBlue.com, who oversaw the execution of the survey. “Immigration is a polarizing subject matter, but once we grasp the true number of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, it may give immigration reform a new urgency that those on both sides of the political aisle will share.”

“The increased turnout should also have a major positive impact on Census-based funding for communities with large undocumented populations,” adds Ruiz.

The Census participation section of RBB’s research project was a small part of the 70-question survey. RBB will announce more compelling data throughout 2010, dealing with a variety of hot-button issues concerning undocumented immigrants.

According to Ruiz, “The results will challenge public perception of this group, as well as impact public policy discussions on the kinds of immigration reform being proposed by Congress.”

Methodology

RBB’s Survey of Undocumented Latino Immigrants is comprised of 1,100 Spanish-language surveys conducted between December 2009 and January 2010 in six U.S. cities including Houston, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Miami, New York, and the Washington DC metropolitan area. The markets were selected based on their Hispanic composition and population concentration. According to the Department of Homeland Security, California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Arizona are among the top ten states with the highest concentration of undocumented immigrants.

Surveys were conducted at Laundromats, areas where the segment congregates to find day labor, immigration centers, and flea markets. Participants were required to be at least 18 years of age, be of Hispanic origin, and living and working in the United States without legal permission.  The survey included questions on immigration reform, adaption to the American lifestyle, the 2010 Census, experiences in the U.S., racism and discrimination, and demographics.

Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-SC, seems to be backing away from a partnership with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, to write a comprehensive immigration reform bill. Graham says the White House hasn’t done enough to push the issue.

Still, this is the perfect time for Congress to restart the immigration debate because of…

(1) Honesty – Americans need to clear the air once and for all about illegal immigration. This is not an invasion. It’s a self-inflicted wound. Americans drive the phenomenon by hiring illegal immigrants, or turning a blind eye to those who do, or patronizing businesses that use illegal immigrant labor.

(2) Liberation – Congress has long been afraid of an issue that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has called the “new third rail” of politics. If you touch it, you die. Democrats don’t have to be afraid anymore. Because of health care reform, the opposition is already coming after them. Why not try to get more done?

(3) The Economy – Opponents of reform claim that illegal immigrants are taking jobs from U.S. workers and that the reason this is happening is because the undocumented are easily exploited and so they enjoy an unfair advantage. Solution: remove the advantage by making these workers legal so they can’t be exploited.

(4) Security – In the post-9/11 era, we simply can’t people streaming across a 2,000-mile-long border between Mexico and the United States. Nor can we afford to continue to have millions of people living amongst us whose identities are unknown and intentions are unclear.

(5) Justice – A civilized society can’t keep 10 million people in a state of permanent indentured servitude just because its leaders don’t have the guts to bring them out of the shadows. If these people are willing to admit wrongdoing, make amends, and work toward obtaining legal rights, they deserve to have them.

(6) Principles – While many Americans who oppose reforms do so in good faith, there are those guided by base instincts such as racism or xenophobia. Those people can’t be allowed to derail reform, because those emotions have never been allowed to stand in the way of social progress in this country.

(7) Efficiency – Even the opponents of reform acknowledge the current system is broken and inefficient. They just have different ideas about how to fix it. The border is porous. And at the same time, it’s nearly impossible to migrate to the United States legally from a country such as Mexico.

(8) Prosperity – We’ve raised one, perhaps two generations of Americans who eschew hard work because they think they’re entitled to something better. In order for our economy to survive in the age of globalization, we need to draw workers from around the world and the current system doesn’t allow for that.

(9) Courage – The real crisis is in Congress, and it’s a shortage of moral courage and an unwillingness to take on tough subjects that make enemies. Everyone wants to be popular, and so no one wants to lead. As with health care reform, this is an opportunity for members to show the country that they are worthy of their title.

(10) Tradition – A country of immigrants has a special burden to welcome and offer a second chance to those who have to feel as if they flee their own country for the promise of a brighter tomorrow. It’s part of the American fabric, and it’s a tradition that has served the United States very well for more than 200 years.

And that’s for starters. There are plenty of good reasons for Congress to take on immigration reform next – and no good reason to take a pass.

Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a member of the San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board, a nationally syndicated columnist, and a regular contributor to CNN.COM.