Message to the UN: Many immigrants remain invisible

• Arizona Republic reporter invited to speak at UN on World Cities Day
• Many immigrants remain invisible in big cities%2C Daniel Gonzales tells delegates
• A conference goal%3A Make sure cities become socially inclusive as they become increasingly diverse

On a recent flight to New York, I sat in a window seat in the last row. That meant I was the last passenger to get off after we pulled up to the gate.

Stepping off the plane, I noticed a cleaning crew at the door, waiting to board with buckets of supplies. Judging from their faces, they were recent immigrants.

The scene became the opening anecdote for my speech the following day.

You can watch the event in its entirety here.

I was in New York to speak at the United Nations for the inaugural World Cities Day.

In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly designated Oct. 31 as World Cities Day to recognize that more people live in cities than ever before, and, as a result, cities are becoming increasingly diverse.

In 2008, more than half of the world's population lived in cities and towns for the first time in history. More than 5 billion people are projected to live in cities by 2013 and more than 6.3 billion by 2050, according to the UN.

Much of the growth in urbanization is due to global migration — the movement of people from rural areas to urban areas and also across borders, usually from less developed countries to more developed ones.

In a city like New York, as I pointed out in my speech, immigrants often go unnoticed, like the cleaning crew I saw getting off the plane.

They are everywhere.

But in cities across the country, and the globe, large or small, immigrants are a new phenomenon, or the cities have not experienced immigration in many decades.

In many ways Phoenix is one of those cities, which is one of the reasons I was invited to participate in a panel discussion at the UN.

For the last 15 years, writing about immigration for The Arizona Republic, I have had a front-row seat to the biggest migration of people across land borders the world has ever seen.

For more than a decade, Arizona has been considered "ground zero" for the national debate over illegal immigration.

Phoenix is also a major destination for immigrants from Mexico and increasingly other countries in Latin America.

This has not always been the case. Phoenix is a relatively new city. In 1960, less than half a million people lived in Phoenix. Since then, the city's population has exploded to more than 1.5 million, or 4.5 million when you include the suburbs.

Now, Phoenix is the sixth-largest city in America.

But for decades, most of the city's growth came from people migrating from other states, seeking sunshine, opportunity or a warm place to retire.

Now, entire neighborhoods in Phoenix have been transformed, seemingly overnight, by newly arrived immigrants, many of them without legal status. At one time, Phoenix had the highest share of undocumented immigrants of any state. One in 11 residents were immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status.

Like New York, Chicago

I like to imagine that the changes I have seen because of immigration are akin to what cities like New York and Chicago, my hometown, experienced during the great migration from Europe at the beginning and middle of the 20th century.

I have driven to massive housing developments rising from the virgin desert floor where hives of workers hammered wood frames, hauled Sheetrock and installed roof tiles in the blazing sun, nearly every one of them a Mexican or Guatemalan immigrant.

Despite their contributions, the new immigrants were despised by many in Arizona, in part out of ignorance and prejudice fanned by opportunistic political leaders, but also out of legitimate concerns about jobs, wages, education, public safety, health care and integration.

These tensions boiled over in 2010, when Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed Senate Bill 1070, the state's sweeping immigration-enforcement bill.

SB 1070 generated national and international attention, because at its core, the law symbolized the rising negative attitudes taking place around the globe in reaction to immigration.

Which is what World Cities Day is all about.

The discussion, called "People-centered Urbanization, Managing Social Inclusion in Today's Cities," took place in the Economic and Social Council chamber at the UN headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The session featured academics, urban planners, entrepreneurs and journalists.

I was invited to speak as a guest of the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN, which organized the discussion along with the Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China, UN Habitat and the UN Alliance of Civilizations.

My name was suggested as a panelist by Giovanna Dell'Orto, a former Associated Press journalist in Phoenix who is now an associate professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota.

In 2013, I contributed a chapter to her book, "Reporting at the Southern Borders," based on my experience covering immigration in Arizona, and my 2010 special report for The Republic about global migration, co-written with national political reporter Dan Nowicki.

There are more than 41 million immigrants in the U.S. That is 13 percent of the population. Twenty percent of all the immigrants in the world live in the U.S.

But although the U.S. is long known as a nation of immigrants, countries all over the world are also receiving immigrants in high numbers.

For the global migration report, I traveled to Germany, Italy and Spain — countries grappling with three universal themes related to immigration: integration, enforcement and amnesty.

In Berlin, I met Turkish people accused of not doing enough to integrate after being shunned by German society and denied citizenship even when they were born in Germany and their parents and grandparents had rebuilt Germany as guest workers after World War II.

It reminded me of the resentment I often hear leveled at Mexicans for speaking Spanish.

In Italy, I met right-wing politicians who wanted to expel all immigrants in response to the waves of unauthorized migrants crossing the sea from Africa and entering illegally from Eastern Europe even though Italy, with its aging population and low birth rate, depends heavily on immigrants to care for the elderly.

It reminded me of some of the fiery political rhetoric I heard in Arizona leading up to the passage of SB 1070.

And in Spain, I met immigrants from Latin America and Africa tacitly welcomed when that country's economy was booming and now living in shanty towns after the economy sank. They reminded me of the jobless Latino immigrants I met in Arizona who turned to the underground economy in response to laws such as SB 1070 and the collapse of the state's once-booming construction industry.

Needed Chinese approval

The United Nations headquarters was just a few blocks from my hotel on First Avenue and 42nd Street next to the East River.

In my dark blue suit, I fit in with all the business men and women rushing to work, except for my black backpack. It was Halloween, and I passed several parents walking children dressed in costumes on their way to school.

It was a cold and cloudy day. The first thing I noticed walking up to the sprawling UN complex were all the flags flapping in the brisk wind representing the member countries of the UN, 193 in all.

After passing through several layers of security, the other panelists and I were escorted to the wood-paneled chambers of the Economic and Social Council on the second-floor of the General Assembly Building.

The council, according to the UN website, is the "central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development."

We took our places at the front as about 200 representatives and guests filled the seats. Some reached for earphones as interpreters in glass booths above the chamber translated the speeches into English, Chinese, Arabic and other languages.

I had prepared a slideshow contrasting scenes of the U.S.-Mexico border and Latino immigrants being arrested in Arizona with scenes of the border in southern Spain and African immigrants being arrested in Italy.

I used photos I took during my trip to Europe and photos taken by award-winning Republic photographer Nick Oza, who has worked with me on many immigration stories, including our most recent project: Revisiting the Immigration Pipeline.

As it turned out, I didn't get to show the photos in my slides because I would have first had to run them by representatives of the Chinese government, one of the sponsors of the event, and there wasn't time.

Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi, permanent representative of Italy to the United Nations, opened the discussion. He made clear that "one of the most significant challenges raised by the future" is making sure cities become more socially inclusive at the same time they become increasingly diverse.

"The city has always been the place of diversity and social change," Cardi said. "Yet globalization has triggered unprecedented mobility, and with more mobility comes more diversity. The challenge of managing diversity increases by the day for local authorities. This is one of the reason why the city today is also a place of mounting tensions and of growing social, cultural and economic exclusion. In such a context, migration is perceived more as a threat than a resource."

Sam Kutesa, president of the United Nations General Assembly, who spoke next, pointed out that in many countries, urbanization is leading to food shortages, increased poverty and inequality.

Poverty, once considered mainly a rural issue, is now a growing problem in cities. Bigger cities also have led to an "exponential growth" in slums, and contributed greatly to climate change. Seventy percent of greenhouse gases are produced by cities, he said.

What's more, mayors and city leaders are left to grapple with these challenges, even though they have little say in their country's immigration policies.

Which is where World Cities Day comes in. By shining a light on the issue and fomenting discussion, the UN wants to send a message that, if managed properly, urbanization can be a positive force.

"Cities can be fertile ground for new ideas, vibrant economic activity, and cultural exchanges with adequate planning and inclusion," Kutesa said. "The challenges of urbanization can then be translated into opportunities for growth."

The goal is to make cities "inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable," Kutesa said.

Foundation offers grants

Some leaders in cities around the world are already working toward that goal, said Thomas Dallessio, director of the Center for Resilient Design at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a program to help cities meet and overcome the challenges of globalization, including managing diversity and promoting social cohesion, he said.

The foundation's "100 Resilient Cities" offers grants to cities to develop strategies to address physical, social and economic challenges.

In Arizona, as I noted in my speech, lawmakers have stopped passing laws that deal with immigration as only an enforcement issue, at least for now. It's unclear whether that is a sign that leaders in Arizona and elsewhere are beginning to realize that immigration is not going away and needs to be addressed in more creative ways.

As soon as the World Cities Day event ended, I had to rush to the airport to catch an afternoon flight back to Phoenix.

I paused outside the gates to take one more look at the magnificent UN complex. The flags of 193 nations waved furiously in the wind. The sight seemed to capture the essence of World Cities Day — harnessing the power of immigration and diversity.

I took out my phone and took a selfie, the flags waving in the background.