Border Enforcement
Migration at the border is a multifaceted issue, challenging the U.S. to secure our borders while upholding the human rights of individuals seeking safety and better opportunities. Balancing national security with compassion and our legal obligations to asylum seekers presents intricate dilemmas, and we collaborate with policymakers to advance bipartisan, action-oriented solutions.
Beyond A Border Solution
- Asylum
- May 3, 2023
America needs durable solutions. These concrete measures can bring orderliness to our border and modernize our overwhelmed asylum system. Read…
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The Cost of Doing Anti-Immigrant Business: Russell Pearce to Face Recall Election
While the authors and proponents of state level anti-immigrant legislation received some measure of notoriety initially, one could also predict that there would be a corresponding price to pay for pursuing such costly and divisive immigration measures. Aside from the immediate lawsuits filed in nearly every state that passed Arizona copycats, there are now additional political and fiscal costs that states and supporters of these restrictive laws must pay. Read More
ACLU, Civil Rights Groups File Suit Against Alabama’s Immigration Law
More than just stars fell on Alabama last week when civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit against the state’s restrictive immigration law, HB 56, charging that the law unconstitutionally interferes with federal law and will lead to racial profiling. Filed on Friday, the lawsuit makes Alabama the fifth state (joining Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia) to defend itself against a costly legal challenge to Arizona-style immigration laws. Federal courts have blocked key provisions of restrictive immigration enforcement laws in every state that passed them, save South Carolina, which only recently passed a copycat law. Read More
What Does Record Low Migration From Mexico Mean for Immigration Reform?
In what could be an historic event, the number of unauthorized immigrants coming from Mexico to the United States has fallen drastically in recent years—dropping from 525,000 annually in 2000-2004 to fewer than 100,000 in 2010. In fact, unauthorized immigration from Mexico has dropped to a net rate of zero—meaning that the number of new migrants entering the United States each year is roughly equal to the number who leave or die. That is one of the central conclusions to emerge from new research by the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) at Princeton University and the Universidad de Guadalajara. Read More
Oregon Business Community Latest to Join Fight Against National E-Verify Bill
This week, business and agricultural communities across the U.S. continued the fight against mandatory E-verify, an electronic verification system requiring employers to use a federal database to verify the immigration status of employees. Over the weekend, thousands of protestors marched on Georgia’s state capitol to protest HB 87—a bill which contains mandatory E-Verify—adding their voice to the state’s agricultural community's who fear the program will leave them without enough migrant workers to harvest crops. This week, a group of Oregon businesses joined the campaign against an enforcement-only E-Verify bill (H.R. 2164) introduced by immigration hawk Rep. Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) last month. The group called Rep. Smith’s measure a “recipe for disaster.” Read More
Restrictive Immigration Law Continues to Threaten Georgia’s Farming Industry
Just days after part of Georgia’s immigration law, HB 87, went into effect, farmers in the Peach State are panicking over how they will find enough workers to harvest their crops—some of which are already starting to spoil. Although a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction enjoining two key provisions of HB 87 last month, the provision requiring employers to verify the immigration status of new hires (E-Verify) went into effect July 1. In an industry where 80% of workers are said to be undocumented—and few American citizens, legal workers or even convicted criminals are willing to step in to do the work—Georgia farmers are now speaking up about how future labor shortages will impact the state’s $1.1 billion industry. Read More
The Difference between E-Verify in a Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill and E-Verify Alone
Last month, Rep. Lamar Smith introduced the “Legal Workforce Act of 2011” (H.R. 2164), a bill which would make the E-Verify system mandatory for all employers within three years. While the Smith bill version of mandatory E-Verify has been criticized for snagging U.S. citizens and legal workers, burdening employers with additional costs and not actually catching unauthorized workers, Sen. Robert Menendez’s recent bill, “The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2011,” also includes mandatory E-Verify. So why would folks support the Menendez bill when they keep hearing that E-Verify is so bad? Read More
Why Morton’s Memo is the Best Road Map on Prosecutorial Discretion Yet
BY DAVID LEOPOLD, ESQ., AILA IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT The memorandum on prosecutorial discretion recently issued by ICE Director John Morton is hardly a substitute for a full fix to our broken immigration system. That’s Congress’s job. But once implemented, the memo will allow ICE agents and trial attorneys to focus limited law enforcement resources on dangerous criminals and terrorists instead of hardworking immigrants caught in the web of our dysfunctional immigration system. While the memo is far from perfect, advocates should see it as a good faith attempt by Morton to implement smart immigration enforcement. Read More
New Data Shows Government Still Prioritizing Immigration Prosecutions over Dangerous Crime
Two recent reports by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research center out of Syracuse University, confirm that the federal government is prioritizing immigration enforcement over potentially far more dangerous activities, such as gun smuggling. While prosecutions for illegal re-entry are up in criminal courts, prosecutions for weapons-related offenses are down in the last year. Not surprisingly, this prioritization of immigration prosecutions over dangerous crime has largely gone unnoticed by immigration restrictionists who routinely underscore “violence along the border” as a reason to bolster a border-only agenda. Read More
South Carolina Governor Signs $1.3 Million Immigration Enforcement Law
This week, on the same day that a federal judge enjoined key provisions of Georgia’s immigration law, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed an Arizona-style immigration bill into law. To date, federal judges in four states (Arizona, Utah, Indiana and Georgia) have blocked key provisions of their Arizona-inspired immigration laws, arguing that these laws unlawfully interfere with federal authority over immigration matters. So what makes South Carolina any different? Nothing, except for the $1.3 million price tag in addition to the cost of implementation and legal fees incurred from defending the law. Read More
Senate Hearing on DREAM Act Emphasizes Need for Relief
Today, the U.S. Senate held its first ever hearing on the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Witnesses such as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Dr. Clifford Stanley, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, testified to an overflowing Senate hearing room. The hearing renewed hope that despite a failure on the part of the Senate to pass the DREAM Act last year, Congress may yet be willing to help these deserving young adults fulfill their potential and contribute to the U.S. Read More
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