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Yet Another State Leaves Immigration Enforcement Bill on Cutting Room Floor
The legislative graveyard got a little bit bigger this week as lawmakers in Mississippi pronounced a series of restrictive immigration measures dead. More than 30 immigration-related bills—including an Arizona-style enforcement bill—failed to meet a legislative deadline due to disagreements over the laws’ impact on the business community. Mississippi joins nine other states (Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, […]
Read MoreHouse Subcommittee Hearing Highlights U.S. Need for Foreign Scientists and Engineers
Today, a House Immigration Subcommittee hearing underscored the U.S. economy’s reliance on scientists and engineers from abroad. The hearing, entitled “H-1B Visas: Designing a Program to Meet the Needs of the U.S. Economy and U.S. Workers,” was characterized by considerable disagreement among witnesses and subcommittee members as to how the H-1B program for highly skilled […]
Read MoreTuition Equity Could Be Coming Soon to a State Near You
BY SUMAN RAGHUNATHAN, PROGRESSIVE STATES NETWORK Those who follow state immigration policy may have taken note of an interesting phenomenon—the recent momentum behind state level tuition equity proposals. Just this week, Oregon’s Senate passed a Republican-sponsored tuition equity bill which proposes to level the playing field for promising and motivated undocumented students by ensuring that […]
Read MoreThe U.S. Economy Still Needs Highly Skilled Foreign Workers
It might seem that persistently high unemployment rates over the past few years have rendered moot the debate over whether or not the United States really “needs” the highly skilled foreign workers who come here on H-1B temporary visas. But the demand for H-1B workers still far outstrips the current cap of only 65,000 new H-1B visas that can be issued each year. In fact, from fiscal year 1997 to 2011, employers exhausted this quota before the fiscal year was over (except from 2001 to 2003, when the ceiling was temporarily increased). As a number of studies make clear, the presence in a company of highly skilled foreign workers whose abilities and talents complement those of native-born workers actually creates new employment opportunities for American workers. Yet the arbitrary numerical limits placed on H-1Bs are incapable of responding to the changing demand for H-1B workers. This is unfortunate, given that the international competitiveness of the U.S. economy will continue to depend heavily on the contributions of H-1B professionals and other high-skilled workers from abroad for many decades to come.
Read MoreNew Census Data Suggest Nativists May Be Headed for Extinction
Newly released data from the 2010 Census reveal the rapid growth of something that is anathema to the nativist agenda: ethnic diversity. The data, analyzed in reports from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Pew Hispanic Center, show that the numbers of Hispanics and Asians in the United States are rising fast. This does not […]
Read MoreStatistical Hot Air: FAIR’s USA Report Lacks Credibility
Many politicians who champion the deport-them-all approach to unauthorized immigrants have been relying upon a bloated and deeply distorted report issued by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in July 2010. That report, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers, is not a credible source of data, yet its numbers have been cited repeatedly in this year’s debates over immigration legislation in the states. The report relies upon flawed and empirically baseless assumptions to inflate its estimate of the costs which unauthorized immigrants impose on federal, state, and local governments. Much of what FAIR counts as the cost of unauthorized immigration is actually the cost of education and healthcare for U.S.-citizen children. In fact, over half of FAIR’s cost estimate consists of educational and healthcare expenditures for the children of unauthorized immigrants, of whom nearly three-quarters are native-born U.S. citizens. These native-born children are counted as a “cost” of illegal immigration if they are under 18, but as U.S. citizens if they are working, taxpaying adults. In its rush to place a price tag on unauthorized immigrants, FAIR is unable to see that investing in children today pays off economically tomorrow. FAIR also neglects to mention the enormous fiscal and economic costs that would be incurred by attempting to remove unauthorized immigrants from the United States. As the negative impact of anti-immigrant legislation on the fiscal bottom-line becomes more apparent, many taxpayers may begin to see that the “costs” cited by FAIR do not tell the whole story.
Read MoreTide Turning Against Authors of Restrictive Immigration Measures
Over the last few weeks, the media has slowly picked up on the tepid response state legislatures have given to copycat immigration enforcement measures, noting the gradual cooling of enthusiasm and support for these highly divisive measures. Lawmakers, under pressure from business groups, have already shot down enforcement measures in Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska, […]
Read MoreAccess to Counsel Before ICE
The American Immigration Council, with co-counsel Dorsey & Whitney LLP, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to compel the release of records relating to noncitizens’ access to counsel.
Read MoreAccess to Counsel Before USCIS
The American Immigration Council, with co-counsel Dorsey & Whitney LLP, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to compel the release of records relating to noncitizens’ access to counsel.
Read MoreState Legislators Continue to Throw Restrictive Immigration Measures Overboard
Throughout the months-long debate over restrictive immigration measures, many state lawmakers have considered the fiscal and political impacts and decided to throw them overboard. This week was no different as opposition to costly enforcement legislation continued. A tough immigration bill was likely killed in Kansas this week after the House refused to move the bill […]
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