Legislation
President Obama Calls on Congress for a “Fair, Practical and Promising Way Forward” on Immigration Reform
This morning, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his dedication to comprehensive immigration reform at the Esperanza USA National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. “This promise means upholding America’s tradition as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants,” he said. The President also gave a general outline… Read More
Obama Administration Begins Rolling Back Midnight Regulations Left by Bush Administration
While a bill that would reform our immigration system waits in queue behind other issues, like healthcare and climate change, the new Administration has begun a good faith effort to right some of the most egregious wrongs left by the former White House. For example, last week Secretary Napolitano suspended the Bush administration’s policy of deporting widows of fallen U.S. soldiers. The Wall Street Journal reported: Only a few hundred people were at risk of deportation under the policy, but critics viewed it as one of the most painful consequences of President George W. Bush's immigration crackdown. Under the current interpretation of federal law, some immigrants whose American spouses had died faced possible deportation because their legal status was in limbo. The clause, known as the "widow penalty," had resulted in a spate of lawsuits. Read More
Administration Begins Rolling Back Midnight Regulations Left by Bush Administration
Photo by lombardi. While a bill that would reform our immigration system waits in queue behind other issues, like healthcare and climate change, the new Administration has begun a good faith effort to right some of the most egregious wrongs left by the former White House. For example, last week Secretary Napolitano suspended the Bush administration’s policy of deporting widows of fallen U.S. soldiers. The Wall Street Journal reported: Only a few hundred people were at risk of deportation under the policy, but critics viewed it as one of the most painful consequences of President George W. Bush's immigration crackdown. Under the current interpretation of federal law, some immigrants whose American spouses had died faced possible deportation because their legal status was in limbo. The clause, known as the "widow penalty," had resulted in a spate of lawsuits. Read More
Anti-immigrant Bills Fail at the State and Local Level
One result of Congress’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform is an increased focus on immigration by state legislatures. The federal government has been unable to legalize the undocumented population, enact smart enforcement, and deal with the future immigration of workers and family members. States and localities, then, are left in the position of trying to deal with their new immigrant communities. While some states and localities have pushed measures to integrate newcomers into their communities, others have tried to enact harsh immigration-control measures such as deputizing police to enforce immigration laws, requiring employers to verify employment authorization through the flawed E-Verify program, and denying public benefits to immigrants. Read More
Assembly Line Injustice at Immigration Court
A new study by Appleseed, a non-profit organization focused on reforming the American justice system, highlights the extent to which misguided deportation-only strategies have led to a breakdown in our immigration court system. The study, based on interviews with more than one hundred practitioners, academics, and government officials, found that America’s immigration courts are overwhelmed by the number of cases flooding the system. Significantly, the vast majority of those facing deportation are neither criminals nor security threats: From 2004 to 2006, only 126 cases in Immigration Court (or 0.0155 percent of all cases) involved terrorism or national security concerns, and the percentage of cases involving allegations of any type of crime amounted to only 13 percent. The vast majority of immigrants in Immigration Court present no danger to the security of the United States. Read More
E-Verify All the Time
Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray finds himself living the same day over and over and over again? Welcome to the world of E-Verify, the federal electronic employment verification system (EEVS) that purports to accurately confirm workers’ authorization for employment. Again and again policymakers have attached mandatory E-Verify proposals to any moving piece of legislation—whether it is related to the issue or not. Just today two amendments were offered to the DHS appropriations bill to expand the E-Verify system, and both were rejected. Subcommittee chair David Price (D-NC) argued that E-verify must be taken up as a part of comprehensive immigration reform – not as part of the budget. But E-verify amendments are likely to continue into the near future. Read More
Congress Beware: Don’t Touch the Fence
As Congressional appropriations committees meet over the coming months to craft legislation funding immigration-enforcement operations for next fiscal year, they would do well to continue to steer clear of one of the Bush administration’s more costly border boondoggles: the border fence. The Associated Press reported yesterday that construction of the final 40 miles of the 670-mile “vehicle and pedestrian barrier,” which the former administration called for along the U.S.-Mexico border, has been held up for months by costly legal battles between the federal government and owners of the private property through which the fence must pass in Texas. However, the costs of this misguided attempt to wall off the United States from Mexico are far greater than the legal costs associated with acquiring the land upon which to place a fence. Read More
Salt Lake City Police Chief Takes a Bite Out of Local Immigration Enforcement
Yesterday, a small group of Utah Minutemen gathered to protest Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker’s and Police Chief Chris Burbank’s decision not to enforce some provisions of SB81—Utah’s immigration legislation that allows the cross-deputization of city officers to enforce federal immigration laws. The legislation is slated to take effect on July 1st. Utah Minuteman President, Eli Cawley, however, claims that the city’s refusal to enforce SB81 is actually protecting lawbreakers at the American people's expense. In their arrogance and wrong-headed insistence on pandering to illegal aliens at the expense of the rule of law and the safety of our people, Becker and Burbank have chosen, by their refusal to enforce SB81, to protect lawbreakers instead of citizens. Right. This coming from the man who when asked about his “biggest concern” with the “Obama presidency” responded, “Amnesty for illegal aliens because he is one.” Although Cawley claims the group is not racially motivated, several protesters were heard shouting at nearby Latino construction workers with such gems as “Go home!” and “Give us back our jobs!” without knowing anything about their immigration status. Clearly, "race" is not a part of this debate. Wait, how does an immigrant look undocumented again? Read More
Immigration Reform Movement Steams Ahead at National Campaign Summit
After the launch of the national immigration campaign, Reform Immigration FOR America, earlier this week, immigrants, labor unions, business, religious groups, and civil rights organizations continued full steam ahead today at the national immigration Campaign Summit in Washington, D.C., to push Congress for comprehensive immigration reform. According to Summit organizers, the newly re-energized groups managed to send more than 100,000 faxes calling for comprehensive reform to Congress in the last 48 hours—in addition to a full day of lobby visits on Capitol Hill. The campaign, said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, is an effort to help support President Obama and ensure that his promises of comprehensive immigration reform becomes legislative reality. The reality is that the President wants immigration reform, the American people want immigration reform, and we are launching the Reform Immigration for America campaign to make it happen. Read More
Pollsters Believe a Majority of Voters Support an Immigration Overhaul
Despite anti-immigrant groups repeated attempts to sway public opinion by scapegoating immigrants for the recession, new polling data suggests that the majority of likely voters actually support an overhaul of our broken immigration system—an overhaul that includes a path to citizenship for the roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants living in America. A recent survey by Benson Strategy Group—a group who conducts polling for President Obama and Fortune 100 Companies—found that 71% of likely voters think undocumented immigrants should take steps to become legal taxpayers. Similarly, Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners said recent polling data suggests that voters want undocumented immigrants out of the shadows and on the books: If anything, the economic climate has actually improved the environment for immigration reform, at least as far as the public is concerned. A salient issue is that reform would make immigrants all taxpayers. [Voters] want a level playing field and they don't have one today. There's a huge pool of workers that are playing by a different set of rules than they are. Read More
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