Immigration Reform
The last time Congress updated our legal immigration system was November 1990, one month before the World Wide Web went online. We are long overdue for comprehensive immigration reform.
Through immigration reform, we can provide noncitizens with a system of justice that provides due process of law and a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Because it can be a contentious and wide-ranging issue, we aim to provide advocates with facts and work to move bipartisan solutions forward. Read more about topics like legalization for undocumented immigrants and border security below.
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Asks President to Untie Hands and Help Immigrant Groups
In his latest effort to drum up bipartisan support for immigration reform in Congress, President Obama met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) yesterday at the White House. Similar to other meetings in recent weeks (with national and state leaders, Latino celebrities and an immigration-themed commencement speech at Miami-Dade College), the President reiterated that his hands are tied on reform without Congressional action. But in yesterday’s meeting, the CHC asked the President to untie his hands and “use the administrative powers he has under existing law to provide relief to certain groups of immigrants facing deportation.” Read More
ACLU Files Lawsuit Against Utah’s Immigration Enforcement Law
Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Immigration Law Center (NILC), and the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olsen filed a class action lawsuit against Utah’s HB 497— an SB1070-inspired immigration-enforcement bill. Last March, Utah passed three distinct immigration bills that collectively were designed to go beyond the enforcement-only approach of Arizona’s SB1070 through the addition of state-based guest worker programs. Those programs, however, do not go into effect until a host of other conditions are met, leaving the enforcement provisions of HB 497 as the only part of the Utah plan with any teeth. Set to go into effect on May 10, HB 497 presents many of the same Constitutional challenges as SB 1070, thus making a court challenge inevitable. Read More
Help Wanted: Latino Leaders and Presidential Leadership Needed on Immigration Reform
President Obama has convened a number of meetings on the issue of immigration lately. However, the one that got the most attention took place this week and included a notable group of Latino actors, journalists and radio personalities for what Politico called “Obama’s Celebrity Roundtable.” Read More
Legal Experts Weigh in on Executive Branch Authority
President Obama’s insistence that his “hands are tied” by Congressional inaction on immigration has raised questions about how much executive power the President has when it comes to immigration. To this end, top immigration law experts, including former counsels to the agencies that manage immigration, have drafted a legal memo outlining the scope of executive branch authority and examples of its use in the immigration context. Read More
Revitalizing the Golden State
California is home to nearly 10 million immigrants, more than one quarter of the state’s population. Of those, 2.7 million are undocumented, and the vast majority of them have been living in the United States for more than 10 years. California’s immigrant contributions to the Golden State cannot be overstated. From Cesar Chavez, the pioneering agricultural labor-rights leader in the 20th century to Sergei Brin, the Russian entrepreneur behind one of the 21st century’s most revolutionary companies, Google Inc., the foreign born and their descendants are woven into the state’s cultural and economic fabric. Still, that reality has not prevented some Californians, frustrated with our broken federal immigration system, to call for an Arizona-style “papers please” approach. The stated goal of this new wave of state-based enforcement legislation is to trigger a mass exodus of undocumented immigrants, by making “attrition through enforcement” the policy of state and local government agencies. The threshold question that proponents of S.B.1070-style legislation have failed to answer is whether that goal serves the economic interests of the state’s constituents. Read More
Are SSA No-Match Letters Putting American Jobs at Risk?
BY TYLER MORAN, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION LAW CENTER The Social Security Administration (SSA) just announced it will resume its practice of notifying employers of discrepancies in employee paperwork through “no-match letters”—a mechanism which threatens countless American jobs. Despite the Administration’s clear assertion that the letter “makes no statement” about a worker’s immigration status, employer confusion over the letters has led to erroneous firings and lost wages in the past, and threatens to be the case now. It is anticipated that over 1 million workers will be the subject of these letters. Read More
Q&A Guide to Arizona’s Immigration Law
One year after the passage of Arizona’s tough new immigration law (SB1070), both opponents and proponents are attempting to assess the impact the new law may have on residents of Arizona—citizens and immigrants alike. A federal district court ruling preliminarily enjoined large parts of the controversial law, meaning that those portions of the new law cannot be implemented, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the preliminary injunction. Other lawsuits have been filed challenging the constitutionality of the law and have yet to be ruled on, opponents have mounted boycotts, and numerous polls show that a majority of the public both supports the Arizona law and comprehensive immigration reform. Furthermore, despite criticism of SB1070 from Republicans, Democrats, police officials, religious leaders, and civil-rights leaders, legislators in many states have introduced or are considering introducing similar legislation. Read More
One Year After SB 1070, States Are Still Grappling with Cost of Immigration Measures
One year ago this month, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer put her star on the political map when she signed SB 1070, a controversial immigration law which required state and local law-enforcement officials to inquire about immigration status during any lawful stop, detention, or arrest. Some states learned from Arizona—the numerous protests, Supreme Court challenge, costly litigation, economic boycotts that are still costing state businesses millions—and rejected similar laws. Other states, however, are still pushing for immigration enforcement measures despite the continued outcry from businesses and local groups about how these bills will hurt their state. Read More
By the Numbers: How the FY 2011 Budget Impacts Immigration
After the threat of a government shutdown last week, Congress finally managed to approve a budget that will keep the government running through the 2011 fiscal year. Included in that budget, however, are a host of cuts that will impact immigrants and immigration programming in the fiscal year to come. As policy experts and economists continue to pour over the 175 page document, here are a few program areas impacted by the FY 2011 budget. Read More
President Obama Leads Meeting on Immigration, But What Happens Next?
Yesterday, President Obama hosted a White House meeting with 70 national leaders—including Mayor Bloomberg, former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Sharpton, evangelical leader Leith Anderson and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, among others—to discuss the challenge of fixing our broken immigration system. While some advocates praised President Obama’s renewed commitment to immigration reform—and the fact that the meeting brought together a different group of national leaders allowing for new alliances—others questioned the timing of the meeting, the invite list, and the President’s sole reliance on Congress to fix our immigration system. Read More
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