Legislation
ICE Begins Immigration Detention System Overhaul
Today, the Department of Homeland Security announced some much needed changes to the immigration detention system. The ICE detention system, which has grown dramatically over the last several years, currently has 32,000 detention beds available at any given time, which are spread over 350 facilities across the country. ICE owns and operates their own facilities, and also rents bed space from county and city prisons and jails. These prisons and jails house serious criminals, yet immigration detainees—including asylum seekers, legal immigrants, victims of human trafficking, and immigrants with no criminal records—are mixed in with the local prison population. Read More
Republicans on the Road to Demographic Self-Destruction
A slew of data from the 2008 election, released late last month by the U.S. Census Bureau, underscores—yet again—that Latinos constitute the fastest growing share of the electorate in the United States. Yet many Republican politicians seem to be going out of their way to alienate Latino voters. In an effort to appeal to the “base” of ultra-conservative whites needed to win Republican primaries, many in the GOP are trampling upon the Latinos they very well might need to win general elections. As the political theater surrounding the Sotomayor nomination illustrates well, a growing number of Republicans are trying their hardest to swim against the demographic tide. It is unlikely that they’ll be able to keep their heads above water for very long. Read More
Newest Reality TV Show: Canada’s Got (Our) Talent!
If we needed any proof that our dysfunctional immigration system inhibits our economic growth, our neighbors to the north have provided us that proof. Canada is actively exploiting, to their economic benefit, our backlogged and broken immigration system. Canada is recruiting the best and brightest American-trained foreign nationals through a streamlined immigration process. After receiving a U.S. education, these talented foreign nationals are now contributing to Canada’s economic future instead of ours. If only we could get Congress to pay attention, if not to our future economic growth, at least to Canada’s and how they are getting there thanks to our efforts to train but not retain foreign talent. Read More
Summer Recess, the Best Time to Bug Your Members of Congress
As the House begins its August recess today (the Senate goes home next week), Members of Congress are returning home to kiss babies and meet with constituents on a host of issues. We are betting that some of those visits will be about this country’s broken immigration system. Nothing moves members of Congress more than face-to-face meetings with constituents letting them know what they care about. So in honor of summer recess, the IPC is reminding you of our top resources that can be used when paying a visit to your local legislator. Read More
Senators Menendez, Kennedy, and Gillibrand Fix Immigration Detention
Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) took action today to reform the Department of Homeland Security’s ever-growing immigration detention system. The need for reform could not be any more clear: several recent reports have documented both the poor conditions in detention facilities and violations of detainees’ due process rights. A delegation from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called conditions “unacceptable” after visiting facilities in Florida and Texas. The National Immigration Law Center, the ACLU of Southern California, and Holland & Knight law firm published a system-wide report on the federal government’s compliance with its own minimum standards, finding “fundamental violations of basic human rights and notions of dignity” and calling for a halt to any further expansion of the current detention system. Read More
Cybertalk: DHS Offers Stakeholders a New Voice
Next week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will begin a “Quadrennial Homeland Security Review” (QHSR) billed as a 21st century version of the town hall meeting: an online, interactive discussion that is promoted as an opportunity to shape the future priorities of DHS. The QHSR is a Congressionally mandated strategic planning analysis that is intended to evaluate and shape Department priorities. The topics under discussion this year include: Counter-terrorism and domestic security management Securing our borders Smart and tough enforcement of immigration laws Preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters Homeland Security National Risk Assessment Homeland Security Planning and Capabilities Read More
The High Cost of Inaction on Immigration Reform
This week the National Institute on Money in State Politics released a study on funding spent supporting and opposing immigration-related ballot measures. Immigration Measures: Support on Both Sides of the Fence examined 2008 ballot initiatives in Oregon and Arizona and found that money raised by both sides of the issue totaled more than $17.5 million. Read More
Comprehensive Immigration Reform: A Primer
America’s immigration laws are some of the most complex and archaic provisions that can be found in the U.S. statutes. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) rivals the tax code in the level of detail, confusion, and absurd consequences produced by years of layering on provisions without systematically reviewing their results. Since the 1960s, Congress has periodically overhauled the INA, but has tended to focus on one hot-button issue at a time, resulting in a patchwork of outdated laws that fail to reflect the realities of 21st century America. The necessity of comprehensive immigration reform stems from years of neglect and failure to respond to incompatible interactions between different parts of the system, resulting in breakdowns that have crippled our ability to regulate immigration adequately, protect our borders, reunite families, and foster economic opportunity. Read More
A Mandatory Employment Verification System without Reform is a Recipe for Disaster
Unabashed promoters of E-verify have had a busy week, moving from hearings in the Senate and House to Rep. Heath Shuler's (D-NC) pep rally for the 2009 version of his fatally flawed SAVE Act—a bill that continues to promote the deportation-only version of immigration reform. Step back from all this activity, however, and two things are clear: 1) serious problems continue to plague a wide-scale implementation of an electronic employment verification system (EEVS); and 2) those problems won't be tackled except in the context of comprehensive immigration reform. Read More
New Yorker Profile of Joe Arpaio is Not a Pretty Picture
The July 20th issue of The New Yorker paints a detailed portrait of Maricopa County, Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio—and it is not a pretty picture. The profile of “Sheriff Joe” that emerges from the story by journalist William Finnegan is that of a man obsessed with publicity and self-promotion, who has a deep streak of sadism and little regard for the U.S. Constitution, civil rights, actual crime-fighting, or protecting the safety of the public he ostensibly serves. While Arpaio persists in his personal crusade against unauthorized immigrants, serious crimes go unsolved, emergency-response times climb, and the rights of native-born Americans and immigrants alike are routinely trampled in the process. The most remarkable aspect of this story is that Arpaio is still legally permitted to carry a badge and a gun after more than a decade and a half of egregiously abusing his power. Read More
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