Reports
How DACA is Impacting the Lives of Those Who are Now DACAmented
As Congress continues to debate immigration reform, August 15th marks the one-year anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. While not granting a path to legalization and citizenship, DACA provides an opportunity for a segment of the undocumented immigrant population to… Read More
The Criminal Alien Program (CAP): Immigration Enforcement in Prisons and Jails
The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is an expansive immigration enforcement program that leads to the initiation of removal proceedings in many cases. While CAP has existed in one form or another for decades, there is still much to be learned about the program, how it is organized, and how it works. What is known is that CAP extends to every area of the country and intersects with most state and local law enforcement agencies. For years, the CAP program has operated with little public attention and many of its elements have only recently come to light following FOIA litigation against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The information obtained through the lawsuit regarding CAP’s current organization and staffing suggests CAP is not a single program, but a loose-knit group of several different programs operating within ICE. Other than a small number of staff responsible for the administration of CAP at ICE headquarters, there is no dedicated CAP staff. Rather, ICE pulls personnel and resources from across the agency to perform CAP-related functions. The ICE declarations and deposition also explain how CAP functions within prisons and jails. There appears to be little consistency in, and little or no policy governing, how CAP cooperates with state and local law enforcement agencies in different regions and in how CAP interacts with detainees in different facilities. Instead, CAP appears to function as an ad hoc set of activities that operate differently across the country and across penal institutions, raising questions about the adequacy of oversight, training, and accountability of the personnel implementing CAP. This information confirms that there is still much about CAP that remains unknown or unclear. Given the breadth of CAP, the centrality of its role in immigration enforcement, and its large impact on the immigrant community, it is critical that ICE clarify how CAP operates. Read More
Tackling the Toughest Questions on Immigration Reform
Despite significant public support for immigration reform among members of the public in both parties, many of the most basic facts about immigrants and immigration remain misunderstood. Read More
An Unlikely Couple: The Similar Approaches to Border Enforcement in H.R. 1417 and S. 744
The House of Representatives and the Senate have embarked upon very different paths when it comes to immigration reform. On June 27, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill—S. 744 (the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act)—that seeks to revamp practically every dysfunctional component of the U.S. immigration system. The House leadership, on the other hand, favors a piecemeal approach in which a series of immigration bills are passed, each addressing a different aspect of the larger immigration system. To date, the most popular of these piecemeal bills has been H.R. 1417 (the Border Security Results Act), which was passed unanimously on May 15 by the House Committee on Homeland Security. H.R. 1417 is, in marked contrast to S. 744, an enforcement-only bill which does not acknowledge the existence of any other component of immigration reform. Nevertheless, the border-enforcement provisions of S. 744 aren’t all that different from those contained within H.R. 1417. Both bills share the arbitrary and possibly unworkable goals of “operational control” (a 90 percent deterrence rate) and 100 percent “situational awareness” along the entire southwest border. The Senate bill also added insult to injury in the form of the Corker-Hoeven (“border surge”) amendment, which seeks to micromanage border-security operations and would gratuitously appropriate tens of billions of dollars in additional funding, and hire tens of thousands of additional Border Patrol agents, before the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has even determined what resource and staffing levels are needed to do the job. Read More
The Impact of Immigration on the Housing Market
Collectively, immigrants have added $3.7 trillion to U.S. housing wealth, helping stabilize communities across the United States. The map below, the result of research by AS/COA and Partnership for a New American Economy, shows the net change in a county’s immigrant population from 2000–2010 and the corresponding effect on median… Read More
The Impact of Immigration on the Housing Market
Collectively, immigrants have added $3.7 trillion to U.S. housing wealth, helping stabilize communities across the United States. The map below, the result of research by AS/COA and Partnership for a New American Economy, shows the net change in a county’s immigrant population from 2000–2010 and the corresponding effect on median… Read More
How 40 Million Immigrants Create Housing Wealth and Stabilize Communities
View the interactive map of the findings. New research by Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) and Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE) finds that the 40 million immigrants in the United States have created $3.7 trillion in housing wealth, helping stabilize less desirable communities where home prices… Read More
How 40 Million Immigrants Create Housing Wealth and Stabilize Communities
View the interactive map of the findings. New research by Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) and Partnership for a New American Economy (PNAE) finds that the 40 million immigrants in the United States have created $3.7 trillion in housing wealth, helping stabilize less desirable communities where home prices… Read More
A Guide to S.744: Understanding the 2013 Senate Immigration Bill
This guide to provide policymakers, the media, and the public with an easy-to-understand guide to the main components of S. 744 and the purpose behind them. Read More
Immigrants Boost U.S. Economic Vitality through the Housing Market
View the interactive map of the findings. New research by Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) and New American Economy (NAE) finds that the 40 million immigrants in the United States have created $3.7 trillion in housing wealth, helping stabilize less desirable communities where… Read More
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