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Immigration Policy Fifteen Years After 9/11
Fifteen years ago on September 11, 2001, it appeared that comprehensive immigration reform was imminent. The prior week, President Vicente Fox of Mexico visited the U.S. and spoke to President Bush and Congress about the need for reform, and serious momentum was growing. However, the tragic events on September 11 set the immigration debate back […]
Read MoreCalls for Temporary Protected Status for Central American Countries Continue to Grow
Calls for the U.S. Government to designate El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras for temporary protected status (TPS) have continued to grow louder this week as over 100 law professors and nearly 400 civil, faith, immigrant, labor rights, and legal services organizations urged the President to use TPS to protect Central Americans. TPS would provide nationals […]
Read MoreWhat to Expect Now That Congress Is Back
Congress returned to work this week after a six week recess. While September promises to be a busy month for lawmakers, it is unlikely that immigration reform will be high on their “to do” list. Nonetheless, immigration policy will be affected by any congressional action (or inaction) on spending bills including disagreement over the funding […]
Read MoreWhy Restricting Immigration Won’t Improve Work Opportunities for Natives
Serious economists know that immigrant and native-born workers cannot simply be swapped for one another like batteries. On average, immigrants and the native-born differ in terms of formal education, job experience, and English-language skills. As a result, immigrants and the native-born tend to “complement” each other rather than directly compete. Even among workers with the […]
Read MoreWhy “Family Detention” is a Misnomer
More than two years after the Obama Administration launched its aggressive expansion of family detention in an attempt to “deter” the arrival of asylum-seeking Central American families, numerous problems associated with such practice have been brought to light.One such issue is the separation of family units while in U.S. custody. A report released this week […]
Read MoreThe Fossilization of Donald Trump’s Views on Immigration Complete
Recent rumors that Donald Trump was considering “softening” his immigration policy positions were nothing but a ruse. In fact, what has happened in the past few days has been a hardening, and ultimately a fossilization, of Trump’s previously stated positions on immigration. On Wednesday night in Phoenix, Trump gave a speech where he doubled down […]
Read MoreGovernment Admits Providing False Information to Supreme Court
Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter to the Supreme Court alerting the Justices that it had provided the Court with incorrect information regarding how long certain noncitizens were held in detention. DOJ initially had provided this false information to the Supreme Court in 2002 for the case, Demore v Kim. The […]
Read MoreWill a Questionnaire Catch a Terrorist? Donald Trump’s “Extreme Vetting” Plan
One of Donald Trump’s more recent, outrageous ideas having to do with immigration is to conduct what he calls “extreme vetting” of prospective immigrants to the United States. The basic idea is to weed out those would-be immigrants “who support bigotry and hatred,” and the main target of this turbo-charged vetting is anyone who happens […]
Read MoreWhy the Department of Homeland Security Should Also End Private Prison Contracts
For two years, women and children from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have been fleeing to the United States to escape the extreme violence of gangs which control large swaths of territory within their home countries. And for two years the Obama Administration has responded to this humanitarian crisis by locking up the women and […]
Read MoreImmigration Enforcement Still Missing the Mark on Detainers
In November 2014, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the end of the Secure Communities program and the launch of its replacement: the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP). Under PEP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claims to focus its efforts on apprehending individuals actually convicted of specified crimes. ICE also replaced many detainers with Request […]
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