State and Local
Department of Justice Attempts to Reassert Federal Authority Over Immigration Policy
Today, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona in federal court. The lawsuit, prompted by passage of SB 1070 in the Arizona legislature, argues that federal law trumps the state statute and enforcing immigration law is a federal responsibility. The DOJ has requested a preliminary injunction to delay enactment of the law, arguing that the law's operation will cause "irreparable harm." Read More
Enough is Enough: State Legislators Fight Arizona Copycat Laws with Progressive Immigration Policies
Tired of restrictionists introducing “get tough” anti-immigration legislation in their states, state legislators are pushing back with progressive immigration policies of their own. On a telebriefing yesterday sponsored by the Progressive States Network and the National Immigration Law Center, state legislators from Arizona, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Utah discussed what they are actively doing to push back on the recent uptick in statewide anti-immigrant legislation. From public education campaigns to health, wage protection and enforcement legislation, these state leaders are fed up with the status quo. Read More
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Falsely Claims “Most Illegal Immigrants” are “Drug Mules”
Even as Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) remains hard at work to find the wrong solution for a mythical problem, she seems to have time to spread information and make statements so ludicrous that calling them falsehoods seems too lenient. At a Republican gubernatorial primary debate last week, Brewer criticized her opponent’s statement that many undocumented immigrants “are just trying to feed their family…they just want to work,” by calling majority of undocumented immigrants “drug mules.” Read More
Secretary Napolitano Announces “Next Steps” for Southwest Border
Yesterday, President Obama sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally asking for $600 million in additional border security spending to fund 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents, 160 additional ICE agents, two unmanned aircraft systems, extra Border Patrol canine teams and improved infrastructure along the Southwest Border. In a tandem move today, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced several new DHS initiatives to bolster security along the Southwest border. Although Secretary Napolitano trumpeted DHS’s new border initiatives as well as past achievements, she also acknowledged that the border can never be hermetically sealed and that stalling immigration reform by highlighting border security issues is not the answer to our immigration problems. Read More
Fremont Residents Pass Restrictive and Costly Immigration Ordinance
With frustrations running high over a lack of federal action on immigration, Fremont, Nebraska joined Arizona in restricting immigration. In a special election held yesterday, voters in Fremont passed an ordinance that will require businesses to verify employees’ immigration status and renters to apply for an occupancy license—which also requires a legal status check—before renting an apartment or home. The town of Fremont has just 25,000 people—93% of whom are white—and is surrounded by large meat packing plants. Although many are certain that legal challenges will keep the ordinance from taking effect, Fremont’s new ordinance could be a bellwether of similar legislation in other states if Congress continues to stall on an immigration overhaul. Read More
SB 1070 “Gets Tough” on Arizona’s Housing Market
With only six weeks until Arizona’s immigration enforcement law goes into effect, area housing analysts are already expecting the worst. According to the Arizona Republic, housing experts anticipate that SB 1070 will not only drive illegal immigrants out of the state, but legal residents and potential new homebuyers with them—“departures from a state where growth is the economic foundation.” The resulting exodus will likely spur more foreclosures and create more vacant homes and apartments, which as real-estate analysts point out, will scare off potential homebuyers who fear lower home values. With a budget deficit of $4.5 billion and an economy struggling to get back on its feet, a declining housing market is the last thing Arizonans need. Read More
CIS Claims California is ‘Least-Educated State’ Because of Immigration
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) yesterday released a report claiming that, due to immigration, “by 2008 California had the least-educated labor force in the nation in terms of the share [of] its workers without a high school education.” The report, entitled A State Transformed: Immigration and the New California, grossly mischaracterizes the educational profile of the California labor force by focusing exclusively on a single educational category: those without a high-school diploma. However, a more thorough analysis of recent Census data by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reveals that California’s labor force is also rich in highly educated workers, many of whom are immigrants. CIS is attempting to propagate the stereotype of immigrants as being uneducated, when – in fact – immigrants have always filled U.S. labor needs at both ends of the educational spectrum. Read More
USCIS Announces Fee Increases
Almost from the beginning of his tenure as Director of USCIS back in 2009, Alejandro Mayorkas has been warning that a fee increase was imminent. Today, the other shoe finally dropped, as USCIS announced a weighted fee increase of approximately ten percent on applications and petitions submitted to the agency. The fee for naturalization applications, however, remains unchanged at $595, and some application fees had modest price reductions, such as filing a fiancée petition. Two other carefully watched applications will see increases: adjustment of status (green card) applications will rise from $930 to $985 and employment authorization documents will see a proposed increase from $340 to $380. These increases will likely have a significant impact on certain individuals who will have more difficulty saving enough for the application fee. Read More
When Does Border-First Become Border-Only?
Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer met with President Obama to discuss immigration and border security. Gov. Brewer described the meeting as “cordial,” but neither the President nor the Governor discussed the Justice Department’s plan to move forward with a lawsuit against Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law—a law which President Obama has publicly criticized as “misguided.” They did, however, discuss specifics of the most recent round of border-first strategies (the President assured Brewer that he would send White House staff to Arizona in two weeks to further discuss beefing up the border). Although the President asked Gov. Brewer for help “in creating a bipartisan solution” to our immigration problems, Gov. Brewer was unwilling to play ball, which makes one wonder how far the President is willing to go on the border-first strategy without any promise of GOP support for comprehensive reform? Read More
Tens of Thousands March in Protest of Arizona’s SB 1070
Tens of thousands of protesters from across the country gathered in Phoenix over the weekend to protest Arizona’s SB 1070. According to some reports, as many as 20,000 protesters carried flags, banners and signs reading “Do I Look Illegal?” and "Where's the change? Mr. President, how can we trust you for re-election?" across a five mile stretch to the state Capitol to demand that the “federal government refuse to cooperate with Arizona authorities trying to enforce the law.” Meanwhile, supporters of the law gathered in a nearby stadium to defend their position and deny claims of profiling and racism. Both sides, ironically enough, acknowledged the need for a federal overhaul of our immigration system—albeit with different messages. Read More
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