Interior Enforcement
Lamar Smith’s E-Verify Arguments Defy Logic and Lack Evidence
Facing opposition from the left and the right, Rep. Lamar Smith appears to be willing to do and say just about anything to pass his “Legal Workforce Act,” (H.R. 2885), which would make E-Verify mandatory for all U.S. businesses. Smith continues to tout E-Verify as a magic bullet that will create jobs for millions of American workers despite all evidence to the contrary. Read More
Illinois County “Just Says No” to Costly Immigration Detainers
As public debate over Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) controversial enforcement policies continues, a county in Illinois recently voted against using one tool in ICE’s enforcement arsenal—immigration detainers. Detainers are requests (not commands) from ICE to local law enforcement agencies that ask local agencies to notify ICE prior to releasing an individual from custody. ICE issues detainers—which allow local agencies to retain individuals for 48 hours after scheduled release—so that they can determine whether individuals are subject to deportation and take them into federal custody. Last week, however, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted 10-5 against honoring the voluntary immigration detainers, citing the prohibitive cost of detaining individuals. Read More
Lamar Smith Introduces New Agricultural Twist to His Anti-Immigrant Agenda
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has added a novel new twist to his anti-immigrant agenda: letting more immigrant workers into the country. In defiance of logic, the man who believes that immigrants merely steal jobs from U.S. citizens now wants to import migrant agricultural workers. At a hearing today of the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, Rep. Smith rolled out his latest legislative proposal, called the “American Specialty Agriculture Act” (H.R. 2847). The bill would create a new “H-2C” visa for temporary agricultural workers to replace the existing H-2A program, and would allow growers to bring in up to 500,000 of these workers each year. Read More
Local Law Enforcement Not Trained to Enforce Alabama’s Immigration Law
As Alabamans continue to brace themselves for what the New York Times recently described as the “nation’s cruelest immigration law,” state law enforcement agencies said they have not yet been trained to enforce provisions of the controversial law. Signed in June by Gov. Robert Bentley, HB 56 requires local law enforcement to verify the immigration status of those stopped for traffic violations, public schools to determine the immigration status of students, and make it a crime to knowingly rent to, transport or harbor undocumented immigrants. Several parties—including civil rights and religious groups and the U.S. Department of Justice—filed suit against the law, hoping to enjoin key provisions. Today, U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn temporarily blocked the law until September 29, 2011 or until the court issues a ruling, whichever happens first. Read More
DHS Terminates Secure Communities Agreements with States, Continues to Implement Program
Late Friday afternoon, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provoked outrage from immigration groups when it announced the termination of Secure Communities Memorandum of Agreements (MOAs) with state and local governments. DHS initially entered into MOAs with state officials as a way to encourage voluntary participation in Secure Communities, an enforcement program which runs the fingerprints of individuals booked in local jails through federal databases. Last October, however, following attempts by local jurisdictions to terminate their MOAs, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that Secure Communities was not a voluntary program after all. DHS’s latest about-face this week has only further angered immigration activists, many of whom are calling on DHS to end the program. Read More
Washington Farmers Fear Economic Impact of National E-Verify Bill
Much like farmers in Georgia who are experiencing labor shortages due to HB 87—the state’s new immigration law which mandates use of E-Verify—growers in Washington state fear that a similar, national E-Verify bill will have a devastating economic impact on the state’s agricultural workforce. This week, the Washington Growers League said that a national E-Verify law would prohibit many of the state’s current farm workers from harvesting crops, which would in turn devastate the industry, slashing production and forcing consumers to buy produce out of state. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) introduced the mandatory E-Verify bill (the Legal Workforce Act or H.R. 2164) back in June. Read More
Report Reveals Basic Misunderstanding of Deportation Process
As readers of this blog know, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) often issues studies that make us cringe. Earlier this week, however, the DC-based restrictionist organization issued a report that made us laugh. Pseudonymously written by a retired government employee, the report purports to explain the “basics” of the deportation process. At more than 10,000 words, the report contains too many false analogies, misleading statistics, and non sequiturs to individually refute. But a few of the more outlandish arguments are too good not to pass up. Read More
Boston Mayor Threatens to Withdraw from ICE’s Secure Communities Program
The saga surrounding ICE’s Secure Communities program continues this month as Boston Mayor Thomas Menino threatened to withdrawal Boston from the federal program unless the agency agreed to target serious criminals only. Not surprisingly, Boston is just the latest in a series of cities and states—including New York, Illinois, Colorado, DC, and parts of California—that have threatened to drop the program. Even ICE Director John Morton, who recently made a trip to Boston to smooth things over, couldn’t guarantee local police that Secure Communities would focus solely on “serious offenders.” Read More
Oregon Business Community Latest to Join Fight Against National E-Verify Bill
This week, business and agricultural communities across the U.S. continued the fight against mandatory E-verify, an electronic verification system requiring employers to use a federal database to verify the immigration status of employees. Over the weekend, thousands of protestors marched on Georgia’s state capitol to protest HB 87—a bill which contains mandatory E-Verify—adding their voice to the state’s agricultural community's who fear the program will leave them without enough migrant workers to harvest crops. This week, a group of Oregon businesses joined the campaign against an enforcement-only E-Verify bill (H.R. 2164) introduced by immigration hawk Rep. Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) last month. The group called Rep. Smith’s measure a “recipe for disaster.” Read More
Restrictive Immigration Law Continues to Threaten Georgia’s Farming Industry
Just days after part of Georgia’s immigration law, HB 87, went into effect, farmers in the Peach State are panicking over how they will find enough workers to harvest their crops—some of which are already starting to spoil. Although a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction enjoining two key provisions of HB 87 last month, the provision requiring employers to verify the immigration status of new hires (E-Verify) went into effect July 1. In an industry where 80% of workers are said to be undocumented—and few American citizens, legal workers or even convicted criminals are willing to step in to do the work—Georgia farmers are now speaking up about how future labor shortages will impact the state’s $1.1 billion industry. Read More
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