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DHS Announces Application Process for Deferred Action, IPC Provides Data on Where Eligible Individuals Reside
Washington D.C. – Today, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released important details about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) process, which will temporarily allow some eligible youth to go to school and work without fear of deportation. A recent Immigration Policy Center (IPC) report,Who and Where the DREAMers Are: A Demographic Profile of […]
Read MoreDon’t Jump to Conclusions About Costs of Deferred Action
The Associated Press (AP) reported yesterday that the deferred action initiative for eligible, young immigrants, which is still under development, could cost more than $585 million. While some critics immediately jumped on this as proof that taxpayers would be made to pay for the new initiative, that’s just not the way things work at USCIS. […]
Read MoreChicken Little in the Voting Booth: The Non-Existent Problem of Non-Citizen Voter Fraud
A wave of restrictive voting laws is sweeping the nation. The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law counts “at least 180 restrictive bills introduced since the beginning of 2011 in 41 states.” Bills requiring voters “to show photo identification in order to vote” were signed into law in Alabama, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Adding insult to injury, Alabama, Kansas, and Tennessee went a step further and required voters to present proof of U.S. citizenship in order to vote. In addition, Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico embarked upon ultimately fruitless “purges” of their voter rolls for the ostensible purpose of sweeping away anyone who might be a non-U.S. citizen.
All of these actions have been undertaken in the name of preventing voter fraud, particularly illegal voting by non-citizens. Proponents of harsh voter laws often assert, without a shred of hard evidence, that hordes of immigrants are swaying election results by wheedling their way into the voting booth. However, repeated investigations over the years have found no indication that systematic vote fraud by non-citizens is anything other than the product of overactive imaginations.
Fighting Phantoms: No Evidence of Widespread or Systematic Vote Fraud by Non-Citizens
Some States Attempt to Move Forward on Immigration Laws Following Supreme Court Decision
Prior to the Supreme Court’s recent decision on Arizona SB 1070, other states that passed immigration laws were also embroiled in complicated legal battles. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Utah all passed restrictive immigration laws, parts of which were challenged in court and subsequently enjoined pending the Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona. Now that the […]
Read MoreClearing the Air on Immigrants, the Military, and Deferred Action
President Obama’s June 15 announcement on deferred action for DREAMers raised a number of questions about what it means and how it will be administered. One of the biggest questions is regarding military service. According to the DHS memo, among those eligible to be granted deferred action are an individual who is an “honorably discharged […]
Read MoreAdministration Takes Step Toward More Entrepreneur-Friendly Immigration Policy
BY TEJAS SHAH*. While the U.S. economy continues to recover at a sluggish pace, the administration continues to emphasize immigration reform’s critical role in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in the U.S. This week, Cecilia Munoz, the Domestic Policy Council Director at the White House, spoke at a forum hosted by The Hamilton Project of the […]
Read MoreImmigrants without Legal Representation Not Benefitting from Prosecutorial Discretion
After ICE Director John Morton issued a memo last June outlining how and when ICE officials should exercise prosecutorial discretion in immigration cases, many were optimistic that the memo’s implementation would relieve backlogs and help the agency focus on higher priority immigration cases. Months later, however, folks are finding that one large group of people […]
Read MoreNebraska Upholds Bill that Provides Prenatal Care to Undocumented Women
In a move that brought together an unusual group of allies, Nebraska’s Republican-controlled legislature recently upheld a bill that allows undocumented pregnant women to access state-funded prenatal care, overriding a veto by Republican Governor Dave Heineman. Nebraska Right to Life, Nebraska Catholic Conference, Planned Parenthood, and Nebraska Appleseed actually came together to support LB599, a […]
Read MoreImmigrant Tax Contributions and the Future of the U.S. Economy
When it comes to the topic of immigration, Tax Day is a reminder of two important and often-overlooked points. First, immigrants pay billions in taxes every year. This is true even of unauthorized immigrants. Second, the federal government spends billions of taxpayer dollars each year on immigration-enforcement measures that wouldn’t be necessary if not for […]
Read MoreUSCIS One Step Closer to Adopting Improvement to Immigration Waiver Process
A provision of the immigration law commonly known as the “3 and 10 year bars” has proven to be one of the most heart-breaking of the many draconian changes made to the immigration law at the time. Since its enactment in 1996, the provision—which imposes re-entry bars of 3 to 10 years on immigrants who […]
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