Immigration at the Border
The Social Security Administration No-Match Program: Inefficient, Ineffective, and Costly
This report provides an overview of SSA’s no-match letter program, a summary of DHS’s new supplemental proposed rule regarding no-match letters, and an overview of the unintended consequences of no-match letters that are sent to employers. Read More
Administration Announces New “No-Match” Regulations: DHS Regs Pass Burdens to Social Security Administration, Small Businesses, and Citizens
Provides a summary of the new proposed "no-match" regulations and their harmful impact on workers, employers, and the Social Security Administration. Read More
Division and Dislocation: Regulating Immigration through Local Housing Ordinances
By Jill Esbenshade, Ph.D. In this Special Report, author Jill Esbenshade finds that ordinance initiatives are correlated with a recent and rapid increase in the foreign-born or Latino share of the population, which creates the perception of an immigration “crisis.” But undocumented immigration will not be “solved” by the local ordinances that are unconstitutional, deny due process rights to renters and landlords, and foster anti-immigrant and anti-Latino discrimination. Read More
Beyond Border Enforcement: Enhancing National Security Through Immigration Reform
Since 9/11 the watchword in the debate over immigration reform has been “security.” As a result, most policymakers and pundits now approach the subject of immigration largely from a law-enforcement perspective. However, the current border-enforcement strategy, which tends to lump together terrorists and undocumented jobseekers from abroad as groups to be kept out, ignores the causes of undocumented immigration and fuels the expansion of the people-smuggling networks through which a foreign terrorist might enter the country. Read More
Is More Getting Us Less? Real Solutions for Securing our Border
Ongoing reports about Mexico’s bloody conflict with organized crime have raised again the question of whether the United States should do more to prevent such violence from “spilling over” into the country. While officials have documented few cases of actual “spill over,” fears of exploding violence in Mexico and concerns about illegal migration are driving a policy debate that is centered on “securing the border.” To whit, President Barack Obama announced last May the deployment of 1,200 more National Guard troops to enhance border security, and requested an additional $500 million from Congress to further modernize southwestern border security. In August, the U.S. Congress approved a $600 million “Border Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010” in near record time. The question is whether such policy actions are effective. Read More
A Humanitarian Crisis at the Border: New Estimates of Deaths Among Unauthorized Immigrants
By Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, M. Melissa McCormick, Daniel Martinez & Inez Magdalena Duarte Read More
Sometimes Imperfect Reform is Better than Perfect Deportation
I do a daily radio talk show on Radio Campesina in Phoenix and, clearly, since the November elections callers are once more allowing themselves to dream of the day their hard, hidden existence comes to an end. Their dreams are tentative and cautious, but nonetheless hope has been resurrected. Yet in Arizona hope is interspersed with anger. Four anti-immigrant referendums passed overwhelmingly, one of which, Proposition 300, will impose steep tuition increases for undocumented community-college and university students. Most legal observers believe it is constitutional. The only resolution lies now in the hands of Congress. Delay in passing comprehensive immigration reform, or at the very least the DREAM Act (which would provide a path to lawful permanent residence for hundreds of thousands of undocumented high-school graduates), will have immediate and tragic consequences for thousands of Latino kids in Arizona. Read More
The Rush to Limit Judicial Review
Access to an independent judiciary with the power to hold the government accountable in its dealings with individuals is a founding principle of the United States. In contrast, imagine a system where there is no access to independent judgment; where, instead, the referee works for the opposing team. The House of Representatives took a step away from this founding principle by passing the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R. 4437) on December 16, 2005. A provision of the bill would erode access to independent judgment by severely restricting access to the federal courts for individuals in removal (deportation) proceedings. This provision is part of a long string of efforts by proponents of restrictive immigration policies to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts over immigration cases. Read More
Managing Immigration as a Resource
Benjamin Johnson, Director of the Immigration Policy Center, discusses the futility of an enforcement-only approach to immigration reform and the need for a more comprehensive strategy to deal with the problem of undocumented immigration. In this new "Perspective," he argues that immigration cannot be treated simply as a law-enforcement issue. Rather, the United States must begin managing immigration as a national resource. Read More
Border Insecurity: U.S. Border-Enforcement Policies and National Security
The U.S. government's efforts to stem undocumented immigration by fortifying the U.S.-Mexico border have increased the profitability of the people-smuggling business and fostered greater sophistication in the smuggling networks through which a foreign terrorist might enter the country. U.S. national security would be better served if undocumented labor migration were taken out of the border-security equation by reforming the U.S. immigration system to accommodate U.S. labor demand. Read More
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