California, District 27
Fresh Plaza: Michigan apple growers may lose millions of dollars without migrant workers
Apples are big business in Michigan. As the state’s most valuable fruit crop, apples brought in $293 million in 2016, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, Great Lakes Region. And as the season winds down, getting the crop off the trees is not easy for the migrant workers who… Read More
Hi-Tech Innovator Wants to Expand Into U.S. — Immigration Policy Makes That Difficult
After suffering long-term shoulder pain, serial entrepreneur Mark Yu started a company — U-Gym Technology — to solve the problem of chronic pain. The Taiwanese-American founder, who was born in Honolulu but raised in Taiwan, developed an app-controlled device that make the muscles contract and release using transcutaneous electrical nerve… Read More
Quoting George W. Bush, Political Economist Says America Must ‘Match Willing Workers with Willing Employers’
Jim Hollifield is an international scholar and policy analyst who has spent 35 years studying the impact of migration on communities around the globe. “Immigration is hardwired into our political and economic DNA,” says Hollifield, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University and director of SMU’s John Goodwin Tower… Read More
The Contributions of New Americans in Maryland
With its close proximity to our nation’s capital, it is of little surprise that Maryland has emerged in recent years as a popular destination for the country’s immigrants. In 1990, immigrants made up 6.6 percent of the state’s total population. By 2010, that number had more than doubled, reaching 13.9… Read More
Deep Faith Motivates Nancy Long’s Support for Immigration Reform
In 2015, Nancy Long treated a young bipolar man who came to the crisis center where she worked as a licensed clinical professional counselor. The young man wasn’t medicated properly, and his family feared for their safety and his own. “They were kind of afraid of him when he was… Read More
Anti-Immigrant Group Repeatedly Blames Immigrants for Unemployment
According to anti-immigrant groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), every immigrant worker who enters the U.S. labor force is stealing a job from a native-born worker. In this view of the world, employment is a zero-sum game in which immigrants and the native-born compete for a… Read More
Nativist Group Falsely Blames Immigrants for Unemployment in Tennessee
From the narrow, nativist perspective of groups such as the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), every immigrant worker who enters the U.S. economy is stealing a job from a native-born worker. In this view of the world, employment is a zero-sum game in which immigrants and the native-born… Read More
Anti-Immigrant Groups Exploiting Humanitarian Situation at the Border
The scenes are chilling. In Murrieta, California, protesters scream and wave signs saying “Return to Sender” at busloads of mothers and children from Central America. In Oracle, Arizona, enraged demonstrators, awaiting the arrival of a busload of Central American children that never comes, initially mistake a YMCA bus… Read More
Removal Without Recourse: The Growth of Summary Deportations from the United States
The deportation process has been transformed drastically over the last two decades. Today, two-thirds of individuals deported are subject to what are known as “summary removal procedures,” which deprive them of both the right to appear before a judge and the right to apply for status in the United States. In 1996, as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), Congress established streamlined deportation procedures that allow the government to deport (or “remove”) certain noncitizens from the United States without a hearing before an immigration judge. Two of these procedures, “expedited removal” and “reinstatement of removal,” allow immigration officers to serve as both prosecutor and judge—often investigating, charging, and making a decision all within the course of one day. These rapid deportation decisions often fail to take into account many critical factors, including whether the individual is eligible to apply for lawful status in the United States, whether he or she has long-standing ties here, or whether he or she has U.S.-citizen family members. In recent years, summary procedures have eclipsed traditional immigration court proceedings, accounting for the dramatic increase in removals overall. As the chart below demonstrates, since 1996, the number of deportations executed under summary removal procedures—including expedited removal, reinstatement of removal, and stipulated removal (all described below)—has dramatically increased. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, more than 70 percent of all people Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported were subject to summary removal procedures. Expedited Removal (INA § 235(b)) Read More
New Report Finds that Immigration Creates U.S. Jobs
Immigration creates jobs for native-born Americans. That is the fundamental finding of a new study from the American Enterprise Institute and the Partnership For A New American Economy, entitled Immigration and American Jobs. The study—authored by Madeline Zavodny, a professor of economics at Agnes Scott College—reinforces the findings of numerous other studies which have demonstrated that there is no correlation between immigration and unemployment. Specifically, Zavodny analyzes Census data with the aim of answering one pivotal question: “In states with more immigrants, are US natives more or less likely to have a job?” Zavodny focuses on two groups in particular: immigrants with advanced degrees, and immigrants of any skill level who are in the country on temporary visas. Read More
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