Arnold Schwarzenegger and Immigration in California
This paper explores immigration issues in California. It particularly emphasizes Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s impact on California’s immigration laws. It also considers how immigration issues were more personal for Schwarzenegger, who is an immigrant himself. As governor, Schwarzenegger was inconsistent about major immigration issues and struggled with making opportunities available to California’s Latino immigrants.
The governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of California from November 17, 2003, to January 3, 2011, is an interesting case study of immigration and politics. An immigrant himself, he became tangled in California’s many immigration issues. During his term he struggled to find a clear position on the immigration issues in California.
Even before Schwarzenegger was elected, the issue of immigration was prevalent in the state. Many in California are immigrants, both legal and illegal (Schrag 70). In 1990, California’s immigrant population peaked at about thirty-three percentand then dropped a little to twenty-eight percent ten years later. (Weintraub154) This large immigrant population in California affects many things, such as the state’s costs (Schrag 243).
In California, according to the 2000 census, twenty-six percent of the state’s residents were born in another country (Weintraub 154).These immigrants costthe stateabout $3 billion for prisons and social services in 2003 (Gittelsohn 1). The immigrant population also raises costs for emergency services and hospitals. In 2003, the Los Angeles County Health Department estimated that it spent approximately $340 million per year on emergency and other healthcare services for undocumented immigrants. (Schrag 242).
The number of immigrants in California also affects the school system.In schools in California, about 25,000 graduate from high school each year without documentation to be able to stay in the United States or the right to federal college student aid (Jaschik 1). Schools in California feel the stress:
The point is made politely by groups like Californians for Population Stabilization … that “California cannot be expected to educate millions of children brought here by untold numbers of illegal aliens and millions of legal immigrants.” Schools have reached the crisis point. (Schrag 241)
Also costing California money are thousands of illegal immigrantsthat have been convicted of serious and violent crimes and are in prison.(Weintraub 154).
However, many Californians believe that undocumented workers contribute more in taxes than they receive back in services (Gittelsohn 1).In fact, “Polls showed that more than half of California adults believed that immigrants were more of a benefit than a burden to society, and seventy percent believed immigrants should be able to remain in the country if they were working” (Weintraub 165). Most of the resident population of California appears to not mind sharing the state with immigrants as long as the newcomers work and act lawfully.
Many immigrants in California are Mexicans that cross the California-Mexico border. Enforcement on the border with Mexico has been a problem for California. Despite the useof infrared scopes, electronic sensors, and communication devices, immigrants still cross the borderillegally (Schrag 70). A group called the Minutemen have been patrolling the border with Mexico and trying to control the flow of illegal crossing. Recently, they have begun to make a private security fence along the border (Zellen 1).
In 2003, California elected a new Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is himself an immigrant. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in the Austrian village of Thal on July 30, 1947. A policeman’s son, he was raised in the poor years after World War II (Andrews 11-15). Schwarzenegger came to America at the end of September 1968 with nothing but a gym bag (Leigh 77-81). He had “a fierce hunger for something more—something big…[which]…brought him, near penniless, from his native Austria” (Starr 627). Schwarzenegger came to America to succeed in pursuing the American dream, and did so by being a famous celebrity, bodybuilder, and movie actor (Leigh 75). He told Andrews: “America is still the only country where you can do things…I love the mentality and open-mindedness. The spirit of America is so free. I love the way this country welcomes new ideas; it’s so different from Europe” (37).
With great success in bodybuilding and acting, Schwarzenegger gained a lot of money and fame in America.Blitz andKrasniewicz quote Schwarzenegger calling himself“‘the living breathing incarnation of the American Dream’” (17). Schwarzenegger’s Republican politics grew from his idea of America as a place free from an Austria-like government control that killed opportunities (Andrews 113).Weintraub discusses Schwarzenegger’s political position:
America, he said, was a place where you were free to live your own life, pursue you own goals, chase your own rainbow, without the government breathing down your neck or standing on your shoes. As he became a citizen and took an interest in partisan politics, Schwarzenegger identified himself very much a Republican. (10)
Schwarzenegger was determined to be on top.Schwarzenegger told himself that he was born to be different, to be powerful, and to be one of those people who were leaders (Leigh 18).
Once Schwarzenegger had fame and money, he next turned to achieving power (Andrews 114). He had often imagined having a political career (Starr 626-628). In 1986, Arnold Schwarzenegger, at the age of thirty-eight, married Maria Shriver making him part of the Kennedy clan by marriage association. This Austrian immigrant whocame to the United States with almost no money was now an adopted member of America’s most formidable political clan (Starr 11). His marriage to Maria Shriver made him even more motivated to be successful and powerful, since he wanted to outperform his wife’s family and the Kennedy legend (Andrews 258).
At age fifty-six he decided that it was time to move from movie star to a serious political candidate. Schwarzenegger ran for governor of California against Gray Davis in 2003. Schwarzenegger won the election, and a naturalized Austrian immigrant was now governor of California, one of the largest states with critical immigration issues (Starr 629). There are at least three major issues involving immigration in California. One of them is the border with Mexico. Second, there is the right of illegal immigrants to work, which includes havingdriver’s licenses. And finally, there is the right to education benefits for the children of illegal immigrants. Schwarzenegger held many mixed positions on immigration. In his analysis of Schwarzenegger’s politics, Weintraub writes:
On immigration, one of the most divisive issues of our time, Schwarzenegger has refused to choose sides. Instead, he has a foot in at least two camps. He is for securing the borders, unhappy with illegal immigration, and openly impatient with immigrants who do not embrace the United States, or the English language, as eagerly as he did. But he also is a big supporter of legal immigration and of providing some services to illegal immigrants, and he opposes proposals to send illegal immigrants home. (18)
Although Schwarzenegger may not identify with Mexican immigrants, California’s relationship with Mexico is deep. Mexican-Americans represent a quarter of the state’s population and a bigger percentage of youth. Mexico is also a big source of California’s work force (Gittelsohn1). Schwarzenegger’s stance toward Mexican immigrants wasto check their backgrounds for criminal activities, then get them working so they could contribute to the state (Weintraub 165). He had difficulty deciding if illegal immigration was tolerable. “Schwarzenegger has faced persistent criticism for supporting Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot measure that sought to keep illegal immigrants from receiving some state social services. In defending his vote, Schwarzenegger has said that “immigrants must follow the rules like he did” (Nissenbaum 1). Schwarzenegger disagreed with making illegal immigration a felony, but he also refused to pardon illegal immigrants (Weintraub 162).
Schwarzenegger became more hardline on the border issue during his governorship.
His eventual stance“reflected, he said, his long-standing belief that the country needed both to secure its borders and to provide a way for more people to immigrate legally, and for more businesses to find foreign workers when they needed them” (Weintraub 162).Schwarzenegger said that he supported civilians like the Minutemen who want to help and do a job that law enforcement cannot do (Loyd and Burridge 13). Schwarzenegger suggested in a campaign speech that the government should close the borders, but later he apologized and said that he had misspoken and had meant to say only that the border should be better secured (Mathews 357). Later Schwarzenegger said how he thought the issue should be solved: “The answer … is, first, to secure the border, to stop the problem from getting worse. Second, we must create a temporary-worker program so people can come here legally to work…. And we must create a path to legal status for those living in the shadows illegally”(Weintraub 163).Schwarzenegger saidhe thought that a border fence would be economically a disadvantage to the state (Zellen 7). But finally Schwarzenegger said “close the borders in California, all across Mexico and the United States,” (Weintraub 159).
Part of getting illegal immigrants to work involved allowing them to have driver’s licenses, since they would need to be able to drive legally to go to work. Californians disagreed on this issue. Some said that illegal immigration hurts the legal immigrants the most, because money and jobs get taken away from them by competition from illegals (Weintraub 155).Schwarzenegger disagreed with giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants (Mathews 266). However, he proposed that when the immigrants became legal, then they were free to have driver’s licenses (Weintraub 165).
Schwarzenegger was also involved with issues of education benefits for children of illegal immigrants. Schwarzenegger vetoed a law that would have allowed some undocumented students to apply for financial aid. He said that they might be taking away the financial aid from legal resident of California (Jaschik 1). Yet Schwarzenegger said“he would never agree to deny education to children, no matter what their immigration status” (Weintraub 155).
Schwarzenegger’s record on immigration shows the influence of his own immigrant experience. But it also reveals differences between his situation and many of California’s immigrants. There was perhaps also an element of racism. Schwarzenegger is a white European, while California’s immigrants are largely Latinos or Asians. Andrewsreports:
Arnold’s rightward bias seems undisputed, and according to one friend there is a ‘whiteward’ bias too. Rick Wayne remembers forceful opinions expressed in debates about the race question. ‘He told me a hundred times that the apartheid system was correct. He was deadly serious. We would have wars about this.’ (115)
So there were limits to how much he identified with California’s immigrants.
Schwarzenegger came to the United States to pursue the American Dream of success. Speaking at the 2004 Republican National Convention, Schwarzenegger said “To think that a once-scrawny boy from Austria could grow up to become governor of the state of California and then stand here in Madison Square Garden and speak on behalf of the president of the United States –that is an immigrant’s dream. It is the American Dream” (Elahi and Cos 460).
There has been a lot of controversy about the legality of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s own immigration to America. He entered on a B-1 visa, which does not allow the holder to earn wages, yet it appears that he did receive a salary for his bodybuilding activities. Schwarzenegger himself said that he got a salary: “In his autobiography, Schwarzenegger said that he was paid a weekly salary when he came to California-an arrangement a half-dozen immigration attorneys said his visa would have barred” (Nissenbaum 1).
As governor, immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger was inconsistent about key immigration issues. He waivered about illegal immigration and the Mexican border.Schwarzenegger also shifted his positions regarding driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and education benefits fortheir children. Schwarzenegger is the epitome of the poor and oppressed foreigner who achieveswealth, fame, and success through America’s opportunities. However, he struggled with how to make similar opportunities available to California’s Latino immigrants.
Works Cited
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