Economics
Philadelphia: A Reemerging Gateway for Immigrants
Throughout America, freedom fries are meeting samosas. A report released by the Brookings Institution yesterday calls Philadelphia a “remerging gateway” and home to one of the fastest growing immigrant populations in America. The quickly growing immigrant communities of metro Philadelphia, which now make up 75% of their labor market growth, include burgeoning South East Asian, Hispanic, Vietnamese and Ukrainian communities. The reason? The healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. According to the report, immigrants have “moderated population loss in the city” and are “breathing life into declining commercial areas, reopening storefronts, creating local jobs…repopulating neighborhoods on the wane and reviving and sustaining housing markets.” Read More
Rep. Virgil Goode’s Attack on Children of Immigrants
Rep. Virgil Goode repeatedly used the derogatory term “anchor babies” during a Wednesday debate. Last week, the habitually offensive Representative Virgil Goode (R-VA) callously attacked the US-born children of immigrants. Goode repeatedly used the term "anchor baby," a notoriously derogatory term employed by anti-immigrant organizations and restrictionists to describe the children of non-citizens who were born in the US and therefore "facilitate" immigration through family reunification under the longstanding provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. In his attack, Goode claimed: Only those who want to coddle and cater to the illegals say that they are beneficial to the workforce...And I gave you one very specific: the anchor baby. Which means you come over in this country, have a kid, and the kid's an automatic citizen. A huge cost. Yet Goode's analysis is naive, simplistic and plainly misinformed. Aside from using dehumanizing rhetoric to suggest the government should repeal the 14th amendment which provides for natural-born citizenship, Rep. Goode overlooks the national benefits of family-based immigration: Read More
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