Elections & Voting
The growth in the immigrant population has helped to strengthen and remake America over the last two decades. Today, as thousands of baby boomers retire each day, working-age immigrants are filling gaps in the labor market, paying billions of dollars in taxes that help our entitlement programs survive, and buying homes in communities that would otherwise be in decline. Millions of immigrants have also earned U.S. citizenship and the right to vote while millions more are estimated to be eligible to naturalize.
Beyond Rhetoric: How U.S. Communities Welcome Immigrants
New America Media September 18, 2012 On January 11, 2011, Jhuma Acharya arrived in Providence, RI after a journey that began in 1992, in Bhutan, a country tucked between India and China whose government forced ethnic minorities to leave their homes. At age 15, Acharya fled Bhutan with his… Read More
Immigrant Roots of Mega Millionaires
Millionaire Corner September 13, 2012 First and second generation Americans make up a disproportionate share of the nation’s mega millionaire investors, according to the latest Millionaire Corner research, which tracks a high degree of upward mobility among Americans born in another country, or who have foreign-born parents. Twelve percent… Read More
A Look Backward and Forward at Immigration Platforms
Eight years ago, the similarities between the Republican and Democratic platforms on the issue of immigration reform were striking. The 2012 immigration planks for both parties are equally striking, but for the opposite reason. Where 2004 demonstrated a unified vision of a broken system requiring reform, 2012 represents a virtual breakdown in agreement at least in official party documents, on how to go forward on immigration. Comparing the evolution of the platforms from 2004 to 2008 to 2012 offers some insight into what has gone wrong in the immigration policy debate, and demonstrates why both sides need to come up with new, creative solutions to the continuing immigration policy crisis. Read More
Nativist Group Trivializes the 2012 Latino Vote
The nativist Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has an implicit message for the Republican Party heading into the 2012 elections: stop worrying about Latino voters and just play to your predominantly Anglo base. Such is the kamikaze message contained within a new CIS report, innocuously titled Projecting the 2012 Hispanic Vote. The report dismisses the claims of innumerable analysts that Latino voters could tip the electoral balance one way or the other in the so-called “battleground” states and, by extension, in the nation as a whole. After all, argues CIS, veterans and senior citizens outnumber Latinos in the national electorate, so why not focus on winning them over instead? This may seem comical to some observers, but CIS is saying it with a straight face. Read More
Immigrant Integration: How Foreign-Born Workers Compare To U.S. Citizens (INFOGRAPHIC)
Huffington Post August 28, 2012 With a growing population, integration of immigrants is becoming increasingly important. According to an Immigration Policy Center report, which drew from Census data, one in eight people in the U.S. is an immigrant. If that doesn’t put things in perspective, think about this: in… Read More
The Track-Star Economy
The New Yorker August 27, 2012 If one of the big stories of this year’s Olympics was Team U.S.A.’s return to the top of the medal charts, London also showcased another impressive American feat: we trained many of the best athletes who competed against us. Nearly four hundred Olympians… Read More
An Immigrant Olympics
Daily News August 14, 2012 Mayor Bloomberg will be in Boston and Chicago today pressing for immigration reform to be a top national priority. And what better timing for the mayor’s push to open the doors that at the conclusion of an Olympics in which American success in so… Read More
Using SAVE to Verify Voter Eligibility Comes with Unexplored Risks
The lack of evidence of immigrant voter fraud hasn’t stopped some states from pushing efforts to require photo ID at the polls, purge voter rolls of ineligible voters, and other measures that may result in voter suppression and the disenfranchisement of racial and ethnic minorities or other social groups. Some states have asked the federal government for access to immigration data in order to determine whether non-citizens are on the voter registration rolls. After initial refusals, in July 2012, the Director of USCIS advised the Florida Secretary of State that states, under limited circumstances, may use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program for verification of the citizenship status of registered voters. Since then, other states have expressed an interest in using SAVE for this purpose. However, the status of SAVE is unclear because the Department of Justice is again challenging Florida’s efforts, claiming they violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Read More
Opinion: Why New York Still Welcomes Immigrants
The Wall Street Journal July 27, 2012 Many states across the U.S. have passed restrictive immigration measures in recent years. But New York under Gov. Andrew Cuomo is bucking the trend. “We are a state of immigrants,” he declared in his 2012 State of the State address. “While other… Read More
Voter ID Laws Tackle Non-Existent Problem of Immigrant Vote Fraud
It is election season and voter-fraud hysteria is in the air. A raft of restrictive voter ID legislation from coast to coast is aimed primarily at one imaginary problem: fraudulent voting by immigrants who are not U.S. citizens. Supporters of these laws like to pretend that hordes of non-citizens are stampeding into voting booths and illegally changing the outcome of critical elections. But the reality is that voter ID laws have little to do with the exceedingly rare occurrence of illegal voting by immigrants, or any other kind of voter fraud. These are laws designed to disenfranchise racial and ethnic minorities, the poor, and other social groups that might be inclined to vote for the “wrong” candidates. In other words, voter ID laws are meant to limit democracy, not protect it. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
