State-based business coalitions battling harsh enforcement measures in their state legislatures need to learn from each other, she and other speakers urged. The national network of coalitions needs to grow – needs to expand from grasstops to grassroots. And this army needs to be ready when immigration comes up again in Congress, perhaps as early as 2009 or 2010.

More than a hundred participants attended the day-long summit, most but not all from the Southeast. (Others came from as far away as Arizona, California and Idaho.) Employers, state trade association executives, immigration lawyers and other activists exchanged ideas and contact information. At the end of the day, attendees from Georgia agreed to come together in weeks ahead to revitalize the pro-immigration business coalition in their state.

Speakers looked back at recent struggles, state and federal, in order to plan for the future. Jacoby and other panelists challenged participants to take their efforts to the next level. “Compare our network to NumbersUSA,” one presenter urged. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do!” And in session and session, attendees were encouraged to consider what they could do to help each other: employer to employer, state to state, the national federation and state affiliates working together to add up to more than the sum of their parts.

The first panel consisted of state-focused activists: veterans of recent state legislative fights and those girding for renewed state battles in months ahead. Members of business coalitions in Virginia and South Carolina reported on what they accomplished in 2008, working with legislators to pass enforcement measures that targeted “bad actor employers” – those deliberately flouting immigration law – while doing minimal damage to the state economy and to employers trying to play by the rules. Another panelist, from Arizona, described doing legislative battle in the most anti-immigrant political climate in the U.S. A fourth speaker, Greg Siskind, one of the nation’s leading experts on immigration law, outlined legal trends he sees developing in the states. And in the Q and A session, members of the audience joined panelists in sharing the tactics that worked in their states in 2008 – potential lessons for other states in 2009.

Speakers on the second panel, also activists from the IW network, described their experience building grasstops and grassroots coalitions. One panelist outlined lessons learned in the past by agricultural employers battling for better immigration law. A second spoke from the point of view of a long-time congressional staffer – someone on the receiving end of constituent pressure. A third detailed his experience mobilizing grassroots support for tort reform – lessons he is now applying to building an immigration coalition. And a fourth, from Minnesota, described the ground-level organizational meetings her coalition is holding in far-flung corners of her state. In this panel too, the focus was on what state-based groups could learn from each other and how the network could prepare together for the immigration fight ahead in Congress.

The meeting’s lunch-time keynote speaker, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Charles Kuck, focused on policy. “We’ve talked about the Who, Where and When. Now let’s talk about the What,” he began and went on to lay out his vision of comprehensive reform.

The summit culminated in an afternoon strategy session with a town-hall format where IW and its partners exchanged ideas about how they can work together more effectively in the future. Jacoby kicked off the conversation by highlighting the legislative challenges ahead, then asked participants to strategize with her about how to meet them. What else do state-based coalitions want and need from the national federation? What else are they prepared to do – in what ways are they prepared to ramp up their efforts? And how can the network, DC- and state-based, come together to go to the next level – to prepare itself for what lies ahead, both in the states and in Congress? Answers were recorded on an oversized tablet – assignments for ImmigrationWorks and for affiliates – and the summit adjourned on a high note, with participants vowing to take the challenge back to fellow employers in their states.

AGENDA

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