Interior Enforcement
A Stimulus for Fear: Anti-Immigration Groups Raise Specter of Undocumented Construction Workers and Call for Ensnaring All U.S. Workers in
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), as well as the Heritage Foundation, have recently claimed that up to 300,000 construction jobs created by the economic stimulus bill could be filled by undocumented immigrants. CIS arrives at this scary number by using a job-creation formula designed for highway expenditures in 2007, and then tacking on an estimate of the undocumented construction workforce from 2005—before the mass layoffs that have plagued the construction industry. Beyond the use of fuzzy math, CIS also suggests that the federal government’s “E-Verify” employment-verification pilot program could prevent undocumented immigrants from securing these new jobs. Yet numerous reports—from the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security Administration’s Inspector General, and a Department of Homeland Security contractor, among others—indicate that rushing to implement E-Verify on a national scale would be a costly mistake that would ensnare U.S. citizens in database errors and wouldn’t actually stop undocumented immigrants from getting jobs. “Enforcement-only” attempts to stop undocumented immigration have failed repeatedly for more than 20 years. Only a comprehensive approach to immigration reform that allows exploited undocumented immigrants to become legal workers will fix our broken immigration system in a way that benefits all workers. Read More
Congress Should Leave Community Policing to the Police
Over the last several years, Members of Congress who oppose comprehensive immigration reform have cast themselves as the law-and-order crowd, and mostly gotten away with it. But they went too far when they set their sights on attacking state and local police. By trying to punish local law enforcement agencies that refuse to put the deportation of undocumented workers before the arrest and prosecution of dangerous criminals, they're exposing what really motivates their policy proposals: concern over dishwashers and day laborers, not the safety of American communities. Read More
Bush Immigration Enforcement Tactics Haunt the Obama Era
On Tuesday ICE raided the Yamato Engine Specialists plant in Bellingham, Washington. The ICE agents arrested 28 people - 25 men and 3 women - for allegedly using fake Social Security documents to gain employment. It was the first worksite raid since President Obama took office. ICE claims the raid was the result of an ongoing investigation into the worksite, apparently after two "gang members" led agents to begin the investigation. The next day, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano appeared at a hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee and stated she had been unaware of the raid before it happened and ordered a review of the action. Last month Napolitano had issued a directive ordering an internal review of multiple immigration enforcement initiatives within DHS. While the report to Napolitano was due on February 20, it has not been made public. Read More
UNC Report Confirms Police Immigration Enforcement Misses Target
A new report from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the North Carolina ACLU examines the 287(g) partnership between DHS and local police in North Carolina. The 287(g) program--in which DHS and local police enter into Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) allowing local police to act as immigration officers in the course of their daily activities -- has grown by leaps and bounds over the last several years, and North Carolina is home to eight of the 60 current MOUs with the federal government. At least 20 additional NC law enforcement agencies have requested MOUs. Read More
McCain Discusses Immigration and Arpaio on CNN
This past Sunday, John McCain appeared on CNN's State of the Union and had an extensive conversation with news anchor John King in which he once again expounded the need for comprehensive immigration reform: Read More
House Judiciary Committee Calls For Federal Investigation of Sheriff Arpaio’s Abuses
The House Judiciary Committee released a letter today calling on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to conduct a federal investigation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s enforcement tactics in Maricopa County (AZ). Arpaio has transformed his police department into an immigration-enforcement agency, gaining international notoriety in the process. Armed with a… Read More
Communities Across the Nation Rethink Hard-Line Immigration Laws
Amidst a deep economic recession and a growing climate of fear and alienation within immigrant communities, many states, cities and counties that "plunged into the immigration debate are having second thoughts," reports USA Today. In states like Texas, Alabama and elsewhere, hard-line immigration legislation has been repealed or modified by lawmakers that have come to terms with the fact that the time and expense associated with implementing such policies has made their anti-immigrant position less popular among their constituents. In Iowa and Utah, legislators are proposing similar reversals. Accusations of racism and a surge in anti-immigrant hate crimes are also cited by USA Today as reasons for the about face. Read More
Prince William County Crusader Hangs Up Anti-Immigration Hat
Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman, Corey Stewart, has been at the forefront of an anti-immigrant crusade, setting the gold standard for local law enforcement "crackdowns" on the immigrant community in the last few years. Recent shifts in the political wind, however, have conveniently blown this Virginia Republican away from his undocumented immigration crusade toward more hot ticket topics, like the economy. Following the example of many GOP leaders who have recently softened their anti-immigration tone, Stewart, who built his ticket by cracking down on illegal immigrants as a social imperative, is now whistling another tune. According to the Washington Post, Stewart is changing his image in response to ‘plummeting home values, statewide Republican electoral defeats and widespread economic instability.' Read More
Separating Fact From Fiction About Immigrants and Crime
The perennially hot, and inflammatory, question of whether or not immigration is related to crime has yielded front-page stories in both the Washington Post and New York Times over the past two days. In different ways, each of these stories highlights the extent to which the myth of a supposed link between crime and immigration has long been based on emotion rather than fact. Although study upon study over the past century has demonstrated that immigration is not associated with more crime, the "myth of immigrant criminality" persists. Read More
Arpaio Only One Smiling in Maricopa County
Video by America's Voice. NOTE: This story first appeared in the Huffington Post. Smile, You're Under Arrest"--that's the name of a new reality TV show starring none other than Sheriff Joe Arpaio of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO). Yet Maricopa County citizens aren't smiling as Arpaio's tactics have wreaked a lot of havoc, and fought little crime. Arpaio has transformed his police department into an immigration-enforcement agency, gaining international notoriety in the process. Armed with a 287(g) agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and a mandate to enforce immigration law, Arpaio has taken the pursuit of undocumented immigrants to "unconstitutional extremes." Read More
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