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.
Brought to U.S. as a Child, a Jockey’s Daughter Wants to Work Even as Immigration Policy Impedes Her Efforts
In many ways, Maria Rojas, a senior education major at Northern Kentucky University, is like many ambitious young Americans. She’s president of her co-ed fraternity, Alpha Psi Lambda, and plans on becoming an elementary school teacher. “I’ve always loved teaching ever since I was a little girl, when I would… Read More
City Planner Sees Iowa Towns Get an Economic Boost From Immigrants
While studying immigration as an undergraduate at Iowa State University, Madeline Sturms toured a Tyson Foods meatpacking plant in Perry, Iowa. She saw that Tyson Foods employed mostly Latino immigrants who worked long hours at difficult jobs, such as those slaughtering animals on the “kill floor.” She also… Read More
The Fossilization of Donald Trump’s Views on Immigration Complete
Recent rumors that Donald Trump was considering “softening” his immigration policy positions were nothing but a ruse. In fact, what has happened in the past few days has been a hardening, and ultimately a fossilization, of Trump’s previously stated positions on immigration. On Wednesday night in Phoenix, Trump gave… Read More
Nashville Councilman Recounts His Immigrant Past and Shows Just How Much Determination Can Make a Difference
It was a fire in his house that finally convinced Fabian Bedne, now a Nashville councilman and part-owner of an architectural firm that generates up to a quarter of a million dollars in annual business, to become a U.S. citizen. Afterward, he says, “everyone in the community was so… Read More
Why Going Home First to Get Legal Status (“Touchback”) Makes No Sense
No one is quite sure where Donald Trump stands on immigration anymore. More precisely, experts are trying to divine what Trump would do with the 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in the country. When he first launched his campaign, Trump proposed a “deportation force” that would, presumably,… Read More
Will a Questionnaire Catch a Terrorist? Donald Trump’s “Extreme Vetting” Plan
One of Donald Trump’s more recent, outrageous ideas having to do with immigration is to conduct what he calls “extreme vetting” of prospective immigrants to the United States. The basic idea is to weed out those would-be immigrants “who support bigotry and hatred,” and the main target of… Read More
Member of Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Committee Says It’s Time to Legalize Undocumented Immigrants
For nearly all his life, Mario Rodriguez has been a champion of the Hispanic immigrant community: He’s in support of legalizing the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States. He speaks out against deportation, which he says breaks up families and causes… Read More
Indian-Born Pro Baseball GM Gives Back to California Community
Raj Narayanan has a job that most American-born citizens could only dream of – general manager of the minor league baseball team the Lake Elsinore Storm in southern California. Yet Narayanan did not grow up trading baseball cards. He immigrated to the United States from India with his parents and… Read More
Donald Trump’s Shortsighted Immigration Plans Won’t Secure the Homeland
As any serious national security expert will tell you, trying to find a potential terrorist by treating all immigrants or Muslims as security risks is far too vague to be effective. Accurate intelligence and effective information-sharing across agencies is the key to national security—not profiling. Yet in a bombastic August… Read More
Border-Town Mayor: ‘We’re The Safest City in the State of Texas’
McAllen, Texas, a city of 130,000 people on the Mexican border, is one of the safest communities in the state. But Jim Darling, McAllen’s mayor, often struggles to convince others of this fact. The reason, of course, is McAllen’s large immigrant population. “We’re trying to recruit retail and businesses… Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone