Reform
FAIR’s Loosening Grip on Economic Reality
This week, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) came out with more fuel for the anti-immigrant movement’s fire. Their most recent publication discusses the costs of unauthorized immigration to the United States. As usual, FAIR has put out a highly misleading fiscal snapshot of the costs allegedly imposed on U.S. taxpayers by unauthorized immigrants and completely discounts the economic contributions of unauthorized workers and consumers. Moreover, FAIR inflates their costs in a variety of ways and conveniently ignores any contributions that would offset these costs. Read More
Arizona Senators Decry DOJ Lawsuit Yet Refuse to Support Immigration Reform
Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against the state of Arizona, challenging the state’s immigration enforcement law (SB 1070). The DOJ lawsuit—which seeks to stop the law from going into effect on July 29th—argues that Arizona’s law is unconstitutional since it claims state authority over federal immigration policy. While political opposition in Arizona to DOJ’s legal challenge has come from both parties, some of the most laughable comments have come from Arizona’s Republican Senators who have used the lawsuit as yet another opportunity to claim that the Obama administration has failed to do anything on immigration. Only Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) has been willing to engage the Democrats on immigration at all this year and even still, Sen. Graham back peddled after health care reform was passed. To date, ZERO Republicans are willing to step forward and play ball on an actual immigration reform bill—which makes the political finger-pointing from those unwilling to meet the President halfway all the more infuriating. Read More
Immigrant Women: The Silent Victims of a Broken Immigration System
Even though there are approximately 19 million foreign born women in the U.S.—accounting for 12.3% of the female population—we tend to hear very little about them. A closer look at the female immigrant population reveals many important facts—immigrant women are incredibly diverse in terms of country of origin, time in the U.S., citizenship rates, income, poverty, and labor market participation. This week, the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) released a report, Reforming America’s Immigration Laws: A Woman’s Struggle by Kavitha Sreeharsha, a senior staff attorney at Legal Momentum’s Immigrant Women Program and a fact sheet detailing the demographic makeup of immigrant women in the U.S. Read More
President Obama Urges Republicans to Help Bridge Bipartisan Divide on Immigration
Today, President Obama delivered his first major immigration speech at American University urging Republicans to put bipartisan and election politics aside and help Democrats fix our broken immigration system once and for all. With an audience of law enforcement, elected officials, and evangelical, business, labor, and community leaders, the President provided a framework for understanding the depth and complexity of the immigration issue—laying out the fundamental problems with our immigration system while highlighting the critical role immigrants have and continue to play in strengthening America. The President then asked Republican leadership to join his Administration’s efforts to step up, take responsibility and pass an immigration reform bill. Read More
United Farm Workers Boldly Call Restrictionists’ Bluff on Unemployment
In response to the anti-immigrant rhetoric that “undocumented immigrants steal American jobs,” the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) is asking restrictionists and the unemployed to walk the walk…all the way to the farm. Last week, the UFW launched a new campaign, Take Our Jobs, which “aims at hiring U.S. citizens and legal residents to fill jobs that often go to undocumented farm workers.” On the campaign website, the UFW allows applicants to sign up under the “I Want to be a Farm Worker” banner and then sends their information to a state job bank “indicating their interest to work in agriculture.” Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” is expected to plug the campaign on July 8. Read More
President Obama To Deliver Speech on Comprehensive Immigration Reform
According to a White House press release, President Obama is expected to deliver remarks on “the need to fix our broken immigration system through comprehensive immigration reform” at the American University School of International Service on Thursday, July 1. Only time will tell whether it's a call to arms, more lip service or remarks on a yet to be filed DOJ lawsuit against Arizona's SB1070. Read More
Experts Agree that Border is More Secure than Ever: Now What?
A new report on border security issued by Center for American Progress adds yet more evidence to the argument that the U.S. government is already doing plenty about border security. Brick by Brick: A Half-Decade of Immigration Enforcement and the Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, written by Former DHS Assistant Secretary for Border and Transportation Security Policy Stewart Verdery, details the range of programs that have been implemented in the last five years and their impact on the border. The report cautions, however, that securing the border is an elusive goal, and without comprehensive immigration reform, we will never achieve the real objectives needed to end illegal immigration. 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
An Anti-Immigrant Franchise Coming to a State Near You
Americans are frustrated by a lot of things these days and immigration is no exception. What specifically annoys people about immigration is different depending on their vantage point. Those who are caught up in the labyrinth of immigration processing and the complicated inner-workings of the immigration agency are frustrated. Those who can’t even get their foot in the agencies door because they have no way to legalize are stuck in limbo. Then there are those who may have no personal connection to immigration and have never dealt with the difficult process of legalization, but are concerned about the all too common stories about the havoc born from our broken immigration system. So it isn’t at all surprising that many Americans are looking high and low for solutions. Read More
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