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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CIS Inadvertently Makes the Case for Legalizing Undocumented Workers
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) today released a report which, quite inadvertently, makes an excellent case for comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes undocumented immigrants already living and working in the United States. The report analyzes the high-profile federal immigration raids that were conducted on December 12, 2006, at six Swift & Co. meatpacking plants in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, and Utah. According to the report, wages and working conditions for Swift & Co. workers improved in the aftermath of the raids as more lawfully present immigrants and U.S. citizens joined the company's labor force. The report rightly concludes from the example of Swift & Co. that wages and working conditions improve "when illegal immigrant labor is removed from the workplace." Read More
Border Patrol Deploying Mexican Folk Music as Enforcement Tactic
While funneling more than $1.4 billion into barricading the U.S.-Mexico border with electric fences, vehicle barriers, and 6,000 National Guard troops under the purview of the Bush administration, the U.S. Border Patrol also began a more artistic approach to intercepting the flow of job-seeking nannies and busboys from Mexico in to the U.S. The agency is now doubling as an international record company, producing corridos [up-tempo Mexican folk songs] about tragic border crossings and distributing them to Mexican radio stations in a weak -- albeit creative -- attempt to dissuade their listeners from crossing the border without documents. Read More
Secure Communities and 287g: A Tale of Two Counties
Due to its growing immigrant population and local responses to demographic changes, Northern Virginia has become a hot spot in the national immigration debate. A growing participation in the Secure Communities Program suggests that Virginia isn't going to cool down until immigration enforcement is back in the federal government's hands. While Prince William County is known nationwide for its attempts to crack down on undocumented immigration -- Fairfax County, on the other hand, has always been associated with a welcoming attitude toward its immigrant population. Read More
A Taste of Real American Justice for Sheriff Arpaio
Even immigration hardliners have to shake their heads at Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose anti-immigrant publicity stunts have angered countless across the nation. The Arizona Sheriff's latest immigrant exploit, which reads like something out of a super villain's Do It Yourself manual, involved rounding up immigrant detainees, shackling them and forcing them to march to a segregated tent city surrounded by an electric fence-something even Lex Luthor might think twice about. Read More
Pelosi Joins the Hispanic Caucus’ Call for Reform, Not Raids
This past weekend, House Speaker Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) took a stand on immigration raids and met hundreds of families Saturday evening at a church in San Francisco's Mission District to demand an end to deportations and the separation of families. Pelosi's stop was part of a larger, 17-city national "Family Unity" tour led by leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in response to immigration raids. An estimated 3.1 million US citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented. Many others have at least one parent who is a permanent legal resident who can be subject to deportation for minor legal infractions or errors while filing for a change of immigration status. Every year thousands of children are either separated from a parent who has been deported, or forced into exile. Read More
CIS’ Dubious Data Deflects Rational Immigration Debate
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), as well as the Heritage Foundation, have recently claimed that up to 300,000 construction jobs created by the economic stimulus bill could be filled by undocumented immigrants. CIS arrives at this scary number by using a job-creation formula designed for highway expenditures in 2007, and then tacking on an estimate of the undocumented construction workforce from 2005—before the mass layoffs that have plagued the construction industry. Read More
Congress Should Leave Community Policing to the Police
Over the last several years, Members of Congress who oppose comprehensive immigration reform have cast themselves as the law-and-order crowd, and mostly gotten away with it. But they went too far when they set their sights on attacking state and local police. By trying to punish local law enforcement agencies that refuse to put the deportation of undocumented workers before the arrest and prosecution of dangerous criminals, they're exposing what really motivates their policy proposals: concern over dishwashers and day laborers, not the safety of American communities. Read More
CIS Stokes Terrorism Fears to Promote Anti-Immigration Agenda
In yet another attempt to use the “t” word to promote its restrictionist agenda, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has recently put out a video blurring the line between violent terrorists and hard-working immigrants who come to this country with hope -- not hostility -- towards the American Dream. The video, narrated by former 9/11 Commission border counsel Janice Kephart, claims that “terrorist travel” is “indistinguishable” from undocumented immigration. Yet it’s Kephart who fails to distinguish between terrorists and busboys entering the country. The 9/11 Report itself contradicts Kephart’s loaded comparison. In Staff Statement No. 1 Entry of the 9/11 Highjackers into the United States, the Commission's staff detailed how the 9/11 terrorists got their visas to come here. Read More
Bush Immigration Enforcement Tactics Haunt the Obama Era
On Tuesday ICE raided the Yamato Engine Specialists plant in Bellingham, Washington. The ICE agents arrested 28 people - 25 men and 3 women - for allegedly using fake Social Security documents to gain employment. It was the first worksite raid since President Obama took office. ICE claims the raid was the result of an ongoing investigation into the worksite, apparently after two "gang members" led agents to begin the investigation. The next day, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appeared at a hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee and stated she had been unaware of the raid before it happened and ordered a review of the action. Last month Napolitano had issued a directive ordering an internal review of multiple immigration enforcement initiatives within DHS. While the report to Napolitano was due on February 20, it has not been made public. Read More
ICE Raids in Bellingham, WA Raise More Than Just Eyebrows
Yesterday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials raided Yamato Engine Specialists Ltd. in Bellingham, WA, where 28 workers, including three women, were detained and placed in deportation proceedings. This is the first workplace raid conducted by ICE we are aware of since President Obama took office. Under the Bush Administration, ICE raided nearly 5,173 immigrants in 2008 alone. Read More
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