Demographics
Immigrants are a vital, dynamic part of the U.S. population—especially when it comes to the workforce. 77.1% of immigrants are of working age (16–64), compared to just 62.0% of U.S.-born residents, making them key contributors to the economy as both taxpayers and consumers.
- 22.9 million immigrants are active in the U.S. workforce
- 74% of foreign-born residents are proficient in English
- 89.4% of all undocumented immigrants are of working age
- 5.2 million U.S. citizen children living with at least one undocumented family member
- Only 4.9% of immigrants are under 15, compared to 20.3% of U.S.-born residents
- 18% of immigrants are 65+, nearly identical to the 17.7% of U.S.-born seniors
All Signs Point Toward Immigration Reform
The stars continue to align for comprehensive immigration reform. The President continues to call for movement this year, Congress is beginning the legislative process, and DHS is realigning their priorities to focus on the root causes of undocumented immigration. FIRST, at yesterday's press conference marking the end of his first 100 days, President Obama stated: "we want to move this process. We can't continue with a broken immigration system. It's not good for anybody. It's not good for American workers. It's dangerous for Mexican would-be workers who are trying to cross a dangerous border." Read More
College Board Unanimously Supports DREAM Act for Undocumented Students
Just as the Obama administration has signaled that they hope to tackle immigration reform in the coming months, the College Board's trustees unanimously voted to support legislation which would provide undocumented youths a path to citizenship through college or the military. More specifically, the College Board expressed its support of the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation sponsored by Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) that would give some young immigrants who have stayed out of trouble, graduated from high school, and either finished two years of college or two years of military service the opportunity to become permanent residents. Ultimately, it aims at giving hard-working undocumented children who have always considered America "home" the opportunity to fix their status and contribute to our economy and their communities. Read More
Low-Income Latinos and Immigrants Reported “Under Siege” in the South
Today the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a new report entitled "Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South." SLPC report adds to the mounting evidence pointing to the harmful impact that the absence of a functioning immigration system is having on Latinos and immigrant communities. SPLC investigators interviewed and surveyed 500 low-income Latinos -- including U.S. citizens, legal residents, and undocumented immigrants -- in the South and found a population "under siege and living in fear -- fear of the police, fear of the government and fear of criminals who prey on immigrants because of their vulnerability." Read More
Arizona’s Sheriff Arpaio Puts Publicity Before Border Violence Hearing
You'd think America's self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff," Joe Arpaio, would've been in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona to attend yesterday's U.S. Senate hearing on border violence. Instead, while a panel of U.S. Senators lead by John McCain traveled to Arizona, Sheriff Arpaio was well on his way to appear on Stephen Colbert's comedy show, The Colbert Report, taped in New York City. Arpaio is known for transforming Arizona's Maricopa County Police Department into an immigration-enforcement agency, taking the pursuit of undocumented immigrants to "unconstitutional extremes" and gaining international notoriety and a Department of Justice investigation in the process. Yet, if all his extreme tactics are in the name of protecting his community, why did Arpaio miss a hearing on one of the biggest threats to Maricopa County's public safety hosted in his own town hall? The truth is Arpaio's appetite for publicity is so insatiable that it overrides any sense of duty, rationality, or morality. Read More
California Ballot Initiative Seeks to Denigrate Immigrants’ Infants at Birth
This week Pew released a report revealing that approximately 4 million U.S. citizen children have least one parent who entered the country without authorization and nearly three quarters of all children born to undocumented parents are now U.S. citizens. Anti-immigrant activists and former GOP state Senator Bill Morrow in California have already decided that, rather than treat these children as they would their own and invest in making them well-educated and acclimated adults, they'd rather launch a ballot initiative designed to make them second-class citizens. The North County Times reports: Read More
Pew Report Backs the Case for Legalizing Undocumented Immigrants
Yesterday, the Pew Hispanic Center released new data on undocumented immigrants in the United States that highlights not only the absurdity of the "deport them all" approach adopted by many anti-immigrant activists, but also the social and economic benefits that would flow from a legalization program for the undocumented. According to Pew, there were 11.9 million undocumented immigrants in the country in 2008, including 1.5 million undocumented children. Moreover, there were another four million native-born, U.S.-citizen children with undocumented parents. Some of these U.S.-born children have already faced the nightmarish dilemma that all of them would face under a "deportation only" scenario: leave behind the country of their birth to stay with their parents, or try to find some way to stay in the United States without their parents. Read More
Pay Attention to that Man behind the Curtain
As right-wing political pundits questioned the Obama administrations’ renewed commitment to comprehensive immigration reform yesterday, the Wall Street Journal pulled back the curtain to reveal White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, as a new committed ally in the fight for immigration reform. Billed as a brilliant political strategist by Janet Murguia of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), Rahm Emanuel has taken a new direction in setting the political stage for comprehensive immigration reform to pass. Most recently, Emanuel had a heavy hand in ushering the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) bill through Congress. SCHIP is a program which extends health care benefits to legal immigrant children and pregnant women. Read More
Obama to Make Good on Promise of Immigration Reform This Year
Today, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration has reiterated its intention to tackle comprehensive immigration reform this year. Immigration restrictionists have been working under the assumption that President Obama's promise to reform the dysfunctional U.S. immigration system during his first year in office would be sidelined by the current recession. But the White House made clear yesterday that the President intends to make good on his promise. "He intends to start the debate this year," affirmed Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House. Read More
The Times They Are A-Changin’
Who would have believed a year ago that a conservative New York legislator named Kirsten Gillibrand, who formerly opposed immigration reform, would become the junior New York Senator and co-sponsor the Dream Act, giving the children of the undocumented a shot at higher education, in her first few months… Read More
Mexicans Choosing to Weather Economic Storm in Home Country
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has ordered reviews of many operational aspects of the immigration and border security system and has even delayed a series of proposed immigration raids and other enforcement actions at U.S. workplaces. Yet while many of the Bush administration's "attrition through enforcement" tactics are being re-evaluated and scaled-back, potential migrants in Mexico and elsewhere are expressing less interest in coming to the U.S. This past weekend, a Houston Chronicle article pointed out that as "jobs in the U.S. dry up" many Mexicans "reverse course for survival" and may "never leave Mexico at all." The article echoes research showing that undocumented immigration is driven by economics and that the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars spent on immigration enforcement over the past two decades have done virtually nothing to dissuade undocumented immigrants from coming here when there are jobs to fill. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
