Legislation
House Inaction Escalates Community’s Demands for Immigration Reform
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) reassured a few die-hard anti-immigration reform activists when he said he would never agree to a conference to reach agreement on a House immigration bill and the Senate’s bipartisan immigration that passed in June. But his comments fired up those who want to see Congress improve the nation’s broken immigration system. Despite some in the House dragging their feet on considering immigration reform legislation—House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy told advocates last week there weren’t enough days for them to act on it this year—immigration advocates in Washington, D.C., and across the country continued to push for the House to act on immigration reform. Read More
Speaker Boehner Ignores the Costs of Doing Nothing
Washington D.C. – Yesterday, Speaker of the House John Boehner reassured the far-right wing of the Republican Party and anti-immigrant activists that he would never agree to a conference to hammer out an agreement on a House immigration bill and S. 744, the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill that passed in… Read More
Remembering the Contributions of Immigrant Soldiers this Veterans Day
Immigrants fill every imaginable role in U.S. society. They are found in every profession, from farmworker to brain surgeon. They are the owners of small neighborhood bodegas and the C.E.O.s of high-tech transnational corporations. They represent their communities in town councils and in the U.S. Congress. And, not surprisingly, they are also found throughout the ranks of the U.S. military, fighting on the front lines and shaping policy in the Pentagon. The importance of the myriad roles that immigrants play in the armed forces has only increased since 9/11. In recognition of their service, tens of thousands of foreign-born military men and women have been offered, and taken, an expedited path to U.S. citizenship. These two decisions—to join the U.S. military and to become U.S. citizens—are perhaps the most powerful signs of full-fledged integration into the social fabric of the United States. Read More
How Immigrants on a Pathway to Citizenship can Revitalize Rust Belt Cities
Like Rust Belt cities such as Baltimore and Detroit, rural towns across America have experienced population declines in recent decades. Some places, however, are an exception to that trend thanks in part to the arrival of immigrants. For example, while other Iowa towns experienced population decline over the past several decades, West Liberty’s population grew because of immigration. As Steve Hanson, superintendent of West Liberty Community School District, notes, “in the last 20-30 years we would have had a population decline if we hadn’t had immigrants come in [for] jobs in the food manufacturing business. They provide a source of labor that wouldn’t have been there.” And West Liberty’s Mayor, Chad Thomas, said immigration has “kept a lot of storefronts and businesses open that probably otherwise would have closed.” Read More
Latino Voters Poised to Again Play Key Role in Elections
One year after the 2012 elections, in which the Latino vote played a pivotal role in the re-election of President Obama, the Republican Party is still attempting to figure out how to attract Latinos and new immigrant voters to the fold. Tomorrow, voters head to the polls to decide several state elections and the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and it looks like how a politician talks about immigration will continue to be a litmus test for Latino and Asian voters—many of whom see immigration as a personal issue. Consequently, the contrast between the Virginia and New Jersey races couldn’t be more telling. Read More
How Would Immigration Reform Help the U.S. Economy?
A growing consensus has emerged among both liberals and conservatives that immigration reform would serve as a stimulus to the U.S. economy. Reform would not only raise the wages—and therefore the tax payments and consumer purchasing power—of newly legalized immigrants, but would ensure future flows of immigrant workers, taxpayers, and consumers that are sufficient to meet the labor-force needs of our rapidly aging society. Conversely, trying to enforce our way out of a dysfunctional immigration system only wastes taxpayer dollars while exacting a high toll in both human lives and missed economic opportunities. Read More
Rumors of Immigration Reform’s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, Again
The rumors of immigration reforms’ death have been greatly exaggerated over the years. In only the past few months, we’ve seen headlines like “Immigration Reform Heads for a Slow Death,” “Immigration Reform is Probably Dead,” and “RIP: Immigration Reform Bill is Dead.” Everyone wants to be the first to call it, the first to declare it, or the first person to have seen it coming. It’s not a terribly difficult story to write; some legislator or group of legislators say they don’t know how to get it done yet, or that it’s a hard issue to tackle, and presto, the stories come rolling out about the demise of reform. It may make a sexy headline, but for those who follow, understand and care about reform, these headlines become meaningless. In large part, because as soon as another legislator says or does something (like this week’s addition of three Republican members of Congress to the house immigration bill, H.R. 15) the headline quickly changes to “Immigration Reform Isn’t Dead Yet” and “Immigration Reform is Dead. Or Maybe it Isn’t.” Read More
Alabama’s HB 56 Anti-Immigrant Law Takes Final Gasps
Immigration advocates who have been fighting against Alabama’s HB 56, the punitive immigration measure often called the “show me your papers” law, declared victory after the state agreed not to pursue key provisions of the 2011 legislation. The agreement is part of a settlement of long-running lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and a coalition of civil rights groups against HB 56. Alabama. The Supreme Court earlier this year refused to hear the state’s appeal of a previous federal court’s ruling that gutted the law. Read More
California Republican Becomes First to Join Comprehensive House Immigration Bill
Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) announced over the weekend that he will be the first Republican to become a co-sponsor of HR 15, the comprehensive House immigration bill introduced earlier this month. He confirmed the news to Univision anchor Jorge Ramos during an interview that aired on “Al Punto” Sunday, and he said he was going to urge other members of his party to join the bill as co-sponsors as well. “It’s about coming up with a solution that’s bipartisan; Republicans and Democrats coming together.” Read More
Are You Really Too Old for DACA?
It is past time to clear up an oft-repeated misconception about President Obama’s deportation deferral program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): it is simply not true that individuals must be under 31 to be eligible for DACA. Any individual born after June 15, 1981 is within—and shall remain within—DACA’s age requirements. Only individuals who were 31 years old or older on June 15, 2012 are ineligible for DACA. The age requirements apply to initial applications as well as renewals, and one of the only things we know about renewals is that no one will age out. As a result, there currently are individuals in their early thirties who are eligible for DACA, and assuming the program continues on, over time, greater numbers of DACA recipients will be over 31. Yet, some news articles and even flyers for legal clinics mistakenly assert that people under 30 or 31 don’t qualify—this gets the age ceiling wrong and also implies that individuals can age out of eligibility. Read More
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