South Carolina, District 7
State Level Immigration Legislation and the Essential Economy
We often take for granted the important role “behind the scenes” workers – farm labor, restaurant work, and home health care – play in driving our economy. That’s one of the many conclusions of a new report from the Essential Economy Council, which studied the economic and social value of industries that make up what they have coined the “essential economy.” The report identifies six industrial sectors important to our daily way of life, including: agriculture and poultry; hospitality and restaurants; light construction and landscaping; personal care and assisted living; building maintenance and facilities service; and distribution and logistics. For the state of Georgia, the essential economy is a significant component of the state’s overall economy. In particular, the essential economy contributed 12 percent ($49 billion) to Georgia’s GDP in 2010; contributed over $114 million in sales tax in 2011; employed just under one million out of 3.7 million workers in Georgia in 2011; and is present in every country in the state. Read More
How Budget Cuts From Sequestration Will Affect The Nation’s Immigration System
The U.S.’s immigration system, already burdened by application processing backlogs and insufficient funding for immigration courts, could become even more unwieldy if the government must slash its budget on March 1. Sequestration – a package of across-the-board government spending cuts totaling $85 billion this year and $1.2 trillion over the next decade – likely will go into effect on Friday unless Congress and President Obama manage to reach a deal. Currently, there are no reports of ongoing negotiations to avert the automatic cuts, so when the cuts kick in, all aspects of the immigration system – from visas to deportations – would be impacted. Read More
Business and Labor Announce Breakthrough on Immigration Reform
One of the most contentious issues that has stymied past immigration reform proposals is the divide between business and labor over how many and under what conditions the U.S. should admit new immigrants into our labor force. Also known as the “future flow” issue, the conflict lies in the tension between business’ desire to recruit foreign workers and labor’s desire to ensure workforce protections for those working in the U.S. Read More
Reaching the Six-Month Mark on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
The Department of Homeland Security has issued its latest data on the Obama Administration’s initiative that offers deferment from deportation and temporary work permits to young undocumented immigrants under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. In the first six months of the program (August 15–February 14), 423,634 out of the roughly 936,933 immigrants between the ages of 15 and 30 who might immediately meet the requirements, have had their applications accepted for processing. In other words, approximately 45% of those potentially eligible for the program have applied in the first six months. In addition, since February, 199,460 individuals have been approved for DACA and will receive two-year temporary work permits. Read More
Putting the White House Immigration Reform Proposal into Perspective
Over the weekend, the press reported on a leaked draft of portions of the White House’s immigration proposal, and the coverage since then has been largely a frenzied discussion of whether the leak will kill Senate negotiations. There shouldn’t be much chance of that, given the immense pressure on the Senate to not only come up with a proposal, but actually draft legislation that can be debated and voted on this year. Now that at least some of the Administration’s ideas are out in the public eye, it’s useful to treat them as what they are: basic discussion points on what might be in an eventual bill. In the long run, the draft proposal may help to encourage the constructive conversation that the Administration has sought to have on reform. Read More
Shoddy Court Process Behind the Record Number of Deportations
The Obama Administration is on record for pursuing the toughest immigration enforcement policies in U.S. history, mostly evidenced by its record numbers of deportations. These numbers speak volumes: last year, nearly 400,000 people were deported from the United States. While these numbers are shockingly high and there has been much discussion about how these actions tear families and communities apart, there has also been an under-reporting of the unfair and often expedited process that leads to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of people each year. In fact, two-thirds of the individuals removed are done so without ever seeing the inside of an immigration courtroom and are not accorded many other basic due process protections. Read More
Senate Likely Will Pass Expanded Violence Against Women Act Today
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) promised that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would be the first bill he pushed in the 113th Congress after the House failed to vote on a version of VAWA that the Senate passed last year. The Senate version expanded protections for immigrant, LGBT, and Native American victims, which House Republicans opposed. Instead, the House passed a bill that failed to expand important protections and even rolled back protections for immigrants that have existed for decades. Ultimately, Congress failed to reauthorize the law, making it the first time since VAWA went into effect in 1994 that the measure to protect domestic violence victims had been allowed to expire. Read More
Incentivizing Arrests for Border Patrol Agents
Strengthening border security, including increasing the number of border patrol agents, continues to be a component of the latest immigration reform proposals, as they have in the past. What may be overlooked in these proposals is the administration’s call for enhanced training to protect civil rights. This is critical, given the results of a new report by Families for Freedom and New York University School of Law’s Immigrant Rights Clinic titled, Uncovering USBP: Bonus Programs for United States Border Patrol Agents and the Arrest of Lawfully Present Individuals. The report describes a series of operational flaws within USBP, including a previously undisclosed employee rewards program to encourage arrests. Read More
Federal Judge Leaves Anti-DACA Lawsuit Hanging By a Thread
Lost amidst coverage of recent immigration reform proposals was a ruling issued last Friday in Kris Kobach’s legal crusade against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The lawsuit, filed last summer in a federal court in Dallas, alleges the program violates an obscure provision of the immigration laws that supposedly prohibits immigrants who entered the country unlawfully from receiving deferred action. Although the ruling in question allowed the case to move forward, the presiding judge rejected the vast majority of Kobach’s arguments and left the suit hanging by a thin legal thread. Read More
Business and Religious Leaders Come Together to Champion Immigration Reform
Immigration reform is an undertaking of such importance that it should transcend partisanship. That was the fundamental message of the business and religious leaders who gathered together yesterday at a press conference organized by the National Immigration Forum. The press conference was part of a campaign called Forging a New Consensus on Immigrants and America, which describes itself as “a growing and diverse constituency of conservative, moderate and progressive leaders that is determined to go beyond the rhetoric and find common ground for practical solutions.” The event comes on the heels of an announcement late last week by Thomas Donohue, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that a broad coalition of business, labor, religious, law enforcement, and ethnic organizations has coalesced around the cause of immigration reform. Read More
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