Immigration at the Border
Can Deferred Action Beneficiaries Get Driver’s Licenses?
As the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative begins accepting applications this week, many are wondering whether beneficiaries of the program will be eligible to obtain a state driver’s license. At this point the answer is: it depends. Read More
Why Deferred Action is Not Amnesty
Long before President Obama announced his plan on deferred action for childhood arrivals, immigration restrictionists were arguing that any exercise of prosecutorial discretion benefitting undocumented immigrants was equivalent to “amnesty.” Consequently, it’s no surprise that one of the biggest myths supporters of the program have had to address is that deferred action is a type of amnesty. Read More
Courts Weigh Issuance of Law Licenses to Undocumented Attorneys
The highest courts of Florida and California are considering a legal question of great importance to many DREAMers: whether the lack of valid immigration status prevents states from issuing law licenses to applicants who are otherwise qualified to become attorneys. To some, the answer may seem obvious—that immigrants should not be permitted to practice law in a country where their presence violates the law. But as with most issues concerning immigration, the answer is more complex than may initially appear. Read More
States Apply Brakes on Immigration Legislation in 2012
The National Conference on State Legislatures (NCSL) released its annual review of immigration legislation moving in statehouses around the country. NCSL found a significant, 40% decrease in the introduction of immigration legislation and a 20% decrease in states enacting immigration-related laws when compared to 2011. This decline is the first in years, and is reportedly due to two factors: lawmakers being too busy dealing with budget issues and redistricting, and waiting to see how the Supreme Court would rule in Arizona v. United States. Read More
What the Show Me State Shows Us About Immigration
According to data released by the Immigration Policy Center, there are approximately 6,500 young people in Missouri who may benefit from President Obama’s plan to grant deferred action to DREAM eligible youth. This isn’t a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, as Missouri ranks 31st in the country with respect to the number of youth eligible for this new program. And because these numbers roughly parallel distribution of undocumented people around the country, if you are going solely by the numbers, Missouri shouldn’t be a big player in the debate over immigration, especially unauthorized immigration. But the numbers don’t tell the full story when it comes to the importance of the issue to the people of a state, and the importance of a state to the way the immigration debate plays out nationally. Looking at it from other perspectives, Missouri matters a lot. Read More
Nativist Group’s Report on Immigration Enforcement is Pure Fantasy
With its latest report on President Obama’s immigration-enforcement record, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has finally fallen down the rabbit hole and into immigration wonderland. Although FAIR has always played fast and loose with the facts, its new report rises to a new level of distortion. The report claims that President Obama has systematically dismantled the immigration-enforcement apparatus of the United States in his quest to dictate “pro-amnesty” policies to an unsuspecting American public. But FAIR relies mostly upon rhetorical bluster and the strategic omission of key facts to make this unbelievable case. Not surprisingly, the truth of the matter is the exact opposite of what FAIR would have you believe: immigration enforcement has expanded under the Obama Administration, not diminished. Read More
Administration Releases Details on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
The Department of Homeland Security today released details on its plan to grant “deferred action” to immigrant youths who were brought to the country as children. The announcement, which was accompanied by an updated FAQ and other materials on how to apply, comes eight weeks after DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano revealed the initiative, which could immediately benefit more than 900,000 immigrants. The new guidance from DHS addresses many questions about the application process—the answers to which appear below—but leaves others unresolved. Read More
Restrictionists Misrepresent Data on Immigration Enforcement
Some members of Congress are intent on portraying the Obama administration as “weak” on immigration enforcement, and they aren’t going to let facts get in their way. Yesterday, for example, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) released new data on individuals who had been identified through Secure Communities (S-Comm) but against whom ICE had not taken enforcement action. House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith characterized the data as proof that the Obama administration has used prosecutorial discretion “recklessly and to the detriment of the American people.” However, a close look at the data reveals that Smith’s sweeping allegations do not hold water. By misusing terms like “recidivism,” and by failing to distinguish between arrests and convictions, Smith intends to paint immigrants as criminals—a link that has been disproven over and over again. Read More
Where and Who Are The Young People Eligible for the President’s “Deferred Action” Initiative
The Obama Administration’s “deferred action” initiative for unauthorized youth who were brought to this country as children has raised a number of crucial questions. How many people will be eligible? Who are they? And where do they live? A new analysis by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC), together with Rob Paral & Associates, provides some answers. While other analyses have produced national and state-level estimates of how many immigrants could benefit from the deferred action initiative, the IPC report provides a new level of detail, breaking down the eligible population by nationality and age at not only the national and state level, but the congressional district level as well. Read More
ICE Numbers on Prosecutorial Discretion Keep Sliding Downward
Since June 15, the immigration world has largely focused on the impending “deferred action” initiative for individuals who could have qualified for relief under the DREAM Act. Meanwhile, comparatively little attention has been paid to the still ongoing review of more than 300,000 pending removal cases for individuals meriting a favorable exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not released official statistics from the review for nearly two months, figures derived from a recent media account indicate that the agency is now offering to close cases at less than half the rate as when the initiative began. Read More
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