WASHINGTON — A stringent anti-illegal immigration law that passed the Arizona legislature this week has stirred controversy nationwide. But if Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signs the bill into law, will it send an influx of immigrants west to California’s Imperial Valley?
The answer, according to experts, is – maybe.
The bill, which passed Arizona’s Senate Monday after passing the House last week, would require immigrants to carry their alien registration cards with them at all times and police to check the immigration status of anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” is in the country illegally.
An increasingly hostile environment in Arizona could drive illegal immigrants to neighboring states, according to Marc Rosenblum, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
“We’ve certainly seen in the past that focused enforcement at one point of the border has resulted in shifts to other parts of the border,” he said.
Heightened enforcement on the border in the San Diego and El Paso areas in the mid-1990s drove border crossers from those areas to Arizona and the El Centro region over the next several years, according to reports from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Arizona, who was in Washington to testify in favor of ramped-up border security this week, said he experienced that effect first-hand. He acknowledged that a crack-down in Arizona could have the effect of driving illegal immigrants to bordering states.
“It’s true that when you squeeze a balloon in one place it’ll kind of bulge out in another, but ultimately you have to eliminate those places, and it has to be contained completely contained,” he said.
On the other hand, Rosenblum said that many of the illegal immigrants already living in Arizona may choose to stay, especially if they have work and family ties to the community.
And David Shirk, a professor at University of San Diego and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, said that, faced by a poor economy and increased enforcement throughout the United States, immigrants who leave Arizona will more likely go back to Mexico than to California. According to a recent Department of Homeland Security report, the number of illegal immigrants living in the United States declined from 2008 to 2009 for a second consecutive year. California’s illegal immigrant population dropped by 250,000.
“The crackdown could lead to an exodus, but I’m not sure it would lead to an exodus to California,” Shirk said.
For immigrants crossing into the United States, the level of enforcement on the Arizona border is likely a bigger factor than street-level conditions inside the state, Shirk said.
Border Patrol representatives in the El Centro station were not authorized to speak about the potential impacts of the Arizona bill on their area. El Centro sector Border Patrol agents apprehended about 33,500 illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2009, 6 percent of all Border Patrol apprehensions for the year.
Matt Chandler, a spokesman with the Department of Homeland Security, also had no comment on the potential impacts of the Arizona measure on California. He said, however, that DHS is focusing its enforcement efforts on illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals and on employers that hire illegal immigrants.
U.S. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Chula Vista, said he did not believe the Arizona bill would significantly increase the flow of illegal immigrants to his district. But Filner said that he opposes the Arizona measure and has heard opposition to the concept from local law enforcement agencies.
“The police chiefs, the sheriffs in San Diego and Imperial Counties are unalterably opposed to this. They don’t want that power – they believe immigration law is for the immigration authorities,” he said. “… I don’t think we’ll see that in California, and the police and sheriffs think they can do their jobs better without it.”
The Imperial County Sheriff’s Office did not return a call for comment.