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Anti-Immigrant Hysteria in Arizona Won’t End With the Primaries
The Republican Party primaries in Arizona may be over, but the anti-immigrant demagoguery upon which the winning candidates built their campaigns is unlikely to fade away anytime soon. Governor Jan Brewer and Senator John McCain both managed to reverse their declining political fortunes in large part by raising the phantom specter of immigrant violence—a cynical […]
Read MoreFlorida Legislators Speak Out Against Proposed Anti-Immigration Legislation in the Sunshine State
Today, both Democratic and Republican Florida state legislators joined leaders from the faith and civil rights communities in speaking out against proposed anti-immigrant legislation in Florida, calling the measure “sad,” “not right for Florida,” and “a violation of civil rights.” The bill, introduced this month by Florida Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate, Bill McCollum, goes […]
Read MoreTruth Held Hostage: Dissecting the Lies about Kidnapping in Arizona
Arizona politicians who support the state’s sweeping anti-immigrant law (SB 1070) are not particularly fond of facts. For instance, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) has made all manner of ludicrous statements about unauthorized immigrants typically carrying drugs, killing cops, and leaving headless bodies in the desert. But the most hypocritical of the anti-immigrant statements made by politicians such as Brewer concern kidnapping. Not only do Brewer and company pretend that kidnappers are lurking behind every corner in Arizona, but they usually neglect to mention that unauthorized immigrants are the primary victims of the kidnappings that do occur. In other words, the kidnapping of unauthorized immigrants is being used as a justification to crack down on unauthorized immigrants. This is a nonsensical policy that attacks the victims rather than the perpetrators of the crime.
Read MoreSB1070-Inspired Activity Continues in the States
Even though a judge ruled that it could not be implemented, Arizona’s immigration law, SB1070, has sparked a great deal of activity across the U.S. Unfortunately, it’s not the type of activity that’s going to result in meaningful solutions.
Read MoreNew Report Highlights Economic Contributions of High-Skilled Immigrants
A new report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Council on International Personnel (ACIP) highlights the enormous contributions that highly skilled immigrants make to the U.S. economy. The report, entitled Regaining America’s Competitive Advantage: Making Our Immigration System Work, rebuts the simplistic claims of immigration restrictionists that foreign-born professionals who come to the […]
Read MorePoll Numbers Reveal that Most Border Residents Feel Safe
Passage of the $600 million border bill through the House of Representatives today is a clear indication that Congress is still more interested in throwing money at our broken immigration system rather than rolling up their sleeves and fixing it. Politicians, including President Obama, continue to respond to reports of border violence by upping the […]
Read MoreImmigrants in the U.S. Labor Force
New CBO Report Underscores Diverse Contributions of Foreign-Born Workers
A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) underscores not only the diversity of the foreign-born labor force in the United States, but also the myriad roles that immigrant workers play in the U.S. economy. The report, which analyzes data from the Current Population Survey, finds that 15.5 percent of the U.S. labor force was foreign-born in 2009, up slightly from 14.5 percent in 2004. Moreover, immigrant workers and their native-born counterparts differ significantly in terms of occupation and education, as well as where in the country they live. As other, more detailed analyses have confirmed, this suggests that immigrants and natives are filling different niches in the U.S. labor market and are therefore not in direct competition with each other for most jobs.
More Right-Handed Pot Stirring: Internal USCIS Draft Memo Exploited for Political Gain
Conspiracy theorists hate it when no one pays attention. Witness last month’s letter to President Obama in which eight Republican Senators accused him of planning to circumvent the will of Congress through a regulatory grant of “amnesty” suggesting that plans were afoot in the Department of Homeland Security to make it happen. Despite their mock […]
Read MoreNew Reports Describe the “Green-Washing” of Nativist Hate
In a new report, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes the rejuvenated efforts of anti-immigrant groups to repackage themselves as environmentalists who are trying to save the United States from the supposed ecological ills of “over-population.” According to the report, entitled Greenwash: Nativists, Environmentalism & the Hypocrisy of Hate, the two-faced nature of these […]
Read MoreRestrictionists Confounded by Increased Deportations and the Administration’s Defense of the Constitution
According to an article in the Washington Post, ICE expects to deport about 400,000 people this fiscal year, which is nearly 10 percent more than the Bush administration’s 2008 total and 25 percent more than were deported in 2007. The Obama administration has also far outpaced the previous administration in terms of audits of employers […]
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