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The American Immigration Council Addresses Problems with Draft Immigration Detainer Policy
Washington D.C. – The American Immigration Council has joined a number of organizations in formally commenting on a proposed detainer policy issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Detainers are requests from ICE to local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to hold people – whom they suspect may be in the country illegally or who may […]
Read MoreCounties Say No to ICE’s Secure Communities Program, But is Opting Out Possible?
Earlier this week, the Santa Clara (CA) Board of Supervisors and the Arlington County (VA) Board both voted unanimously to opt-out of the Secure Communities program—an ICE program that shares the fingerprints of individuals booked into jails with immigration databases. However, Today’s Washington Post claims that opting out of Secure Communities “is not a realistic […]
Read MorePolls Show Latinos and Republicans Still Drifting Apart
As Congress’ attention to lawmaking wanes in place of politicking and mid-term elections, a string of new polls are emerging that further depict the strained relationship between Latinos and Republicans. The GOP strategy of alienating the fastest growing demographic through harsh rhetoric and the blockage of immigration reform is starting to reap results. Much like […]
Read MoreHouse Republicans Pledge More of the Same on Immigration
It was a week of broken dreams and empty promises for immigration reform. The failure of the Senate to take up the DREAM Act illustrated once again that good policy isn’t enough to make legislation work. And over on the House side, GOP members unveiled their “Pledge to America,” a pledge that promises, among other […]
Read MoreDREAM Act Delayed in the Senate, But DREAMers Continue
Today, the Senate voted 56 to 43 against proceeding to the Defense Authorization Act (S. 3454). This procedural vote, which basically followed party lines, ends consideration of some critical social issues—offered as amendments—that affect the military. Among the amendments not considered were a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the DREAM Act, an immigration […]
Read MoreColin Powell, Military Personnel Make Case for the DREAM Act
Yesterday, former Secretary of State and retired General, Colin Powell, not only called for Republicans to stop driving the anti-immigrant bandwagon, but made an economic case for immigration as well as the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act is attached to the Department of Defense (DOD) authorization bill; the Senate votes tomorrow on whether to proceed […]
Read MoreWill Immigration Get a Fair Fight on the Senate Floor?
With dizzying speed this week, immigration advocates went from gloomy to galvanized with the announcement that Senator Reid intended to bring the DREAM Act to the floor as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill. To further add to the euphoria, Senator Menendez announced that he would introduce actual comprehensive immigration reform legislation sometime soon. […]
Read MoreSenate Majority Leader Harry Reid to Bring DREAM Act to a Vote
In the absence of an immigration overhaul, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced yesterday that he will attached the DREAM Act as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill next week. The DREAM Act, which enjoys bipartisan support, would provide legal status to students who arrived in the U.S. before the age of 15, […]
Read MoreSecretary Napolitano Urges Latinos to Vote in Midterms if Congress is to Reform Immigration
Yesterday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano visited the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) with one clear message: the Latino community must turn out in force in November in order set the table for passing comprehensive immigration reform next year, telling the group that “your voice is your vote, man.” Secretary Napolitano also confronted […]
Read MoreThe Unwanted: Immigration and Nativism in America
It’s hardly news that the complaints of our latter-day nativists and immigration restrictionists—from Sam Huntington to Rush Limbaugh, from FAIR to V-DARE—resonate with the nativist arguments of some three centuries of American history. Often, as most of us should know, the immigrants who were demeaned by one generation were the parents and grandparents of the successes of the next generation. Perhaps, not paradoxically, many of them, or their children and grandchildren, later joined those who attacked and disparaged the next arrivals, or would-be arrivals, with the same vehemence that had been leveled against them or their forebears.
Similarly, the sweeps and detentions of immigrants during the early decades of the last century were not terribly different from the heavy-handed federal, state, and local raids of recent years to round up, deport, and occasionally imprison illegal immigrants, and sometimes legal residents and U.S. citizens along with them. But it’s also well to remember that nativism, xenophobia, and racism are hardly uniquely American phenomena. What makes them significant in America is that they run counter to the nation’s founding ideals. At least since the enshrinement of Enlightenment ideas of equality and inclusiveness in the founding documents of the new nation, to be a nativist in this country was to be in conflict with its fundamental tenets.
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