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Statement on Senator Ron Johnson and Representative Ken Buck’s State Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act of 2017
Following the introduction of the State Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act that would allow states to tailor guest worker programs to meet their individual workforce needs, New American Economy President John Feinblatt issued the following statement: “Giving states the right to issue visas to workers their local economies need is a creative approach to strengthening […]
Read MoreMay Day 2017: Why immigrant labor is more important now than ever
On Monday, tens of thousands were expected to walk out of their jobs and take to the streets for a national Day Without Immigrants strike. The strike was predicted by organizers to be the largest single-day labor strike in over a decade. The message of Monday’s protest was simple: Immigrants power the U.S. economy, and […]
Read MoreThe Free Press: The Camden Conference 2017 – Humanity’s Crisis: Refugees and Global Migration
Alan, a 3-year-old Syrian boy in a red t-shirt, washed up dead on a Turkish beach in 2015. He and his family had paid smugglers to get them to Greece, the closest country in the European Union. Alan’s 5-year-old brother and his mother drowned in the attempt, too: Alan’s photo spread across the world, putting […]
Read MoreFox 17 Nashville: “Nashville business leaders warn of deportation consequences”
Nashville business leaders said Tuesday mass deportations could cost jobs and tax dollars in the Volunteer State, The Nashville Chamber of Commerce joined the Tennessee Farm Bureau and local business leaders at to show lawmakers new data from New American Economy, which said contrary to some claims, immigrants do pay taxes. It also said they don’t […]
Read MoreWeekend Reading: Highlights from this week’s immigration news (June 13-17)
What does it take to win? Find out in today’s Weekend Reading post. In the Financial Times, Silicon Valley titan Michael Moritz offers a powerful argument on immigration policy and what it will take to win the White House. He writes, “the women and men of Silicon Valley welcome open borders. They are not nationalists […]
Read MoreThis Japanese Immigrant Helps Immigrant Businesses Contribute $170 Million to the St. Louis Economy Yearly
During her 38 years as president and CEO of the International Institute of St. Louis, Anna Crosslin has seen how immigrants and refugees have made significant contributions to the city with the right support. The Institute serves 7,500 immigrants and refugees from more than 80 countries, providing language and citizenship classes, translation and interpretation services, […]
Read MoreStatement on H-1B Fiscal Year 2017 Cap Season
CONTACT Sarah Doolin, Partnership for a New American Economy, [email protected] As the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) opens for H-1B visa petitions, New American Economy Chairman John Feinblatt states: “Today tens of thousands of businesses will file H-1B visa applications to get the talent they need to grow and compete globally, but […]
Read MoreStruggling U.S. farmers are paying Mexican laborers up to $17 an hour
Farmers are struggling to make ends meet because of labor problems U.S. policymakers didn’t foresee when strengthening anti-immigration laws. Latino laborers, once subjugated to backbreaking work conditions for a fraction of what other American jobs pay, are being welcomed with raised wages, improved medical benefits, and cheaper housing costs by farm owners desperate to solve […]
Read MoreStrawberry fields forever needing more laborers, even at $17 hour
Some people who advocate for tighter controls on immigration say that the measures are necessary in order to protect jobs for American citizens. However, it is not always the case that Americans want those jobs—no matter the wage. But what does that say about our national work ethic? The Wall Street Journal reported last week […]
Read MoreAn Unlikely Couple: The Similar Approaches to Border Enforcement in H.R. 1417 and S. 744
The House of Representatives and the Senate have embarked upon very different paths when it comes to immigration reform. On June 27, the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill—S. 744 (the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act)—that seeks to revamp practically every dysfunctional component of the U.S. immigration system. The House leadership, on the other hand, favors a piecemeal approach in which a series of immigration bills are passed, each addressing a different aspect of the larger immigration system. To date, the most popular of these piecemeal bills has been H.R. 1417 (the Border Security Results Act), which was passed unanimously on May 15 by the House Committee on Homeland Security. H.R. 1417 is, in marked contrast to S. 744, an enforcement-only bill which does not acknowledge the existence of any other component of immigration reform.
Nevertheless, the border-enforcement provisions of S. 744 aren’t all that different from those contained within H.R. 1417. Both bills share the arbitrary and possibly unworkable goals of “operational control” (a 90 percent deterrence rate) and 100 percent “situational awareness” along the entire southwest border. The Senate bill also added insult to injury in the form of the Corker-Hoeven (“border surge”) amendment, which seeks to micromanage border-security operations and would gratuitously appropriate tens of billions of dollars in additional funding, and hire tens of thousands of additional Border Patrol agents, before the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has even determined what resource and staffing levels are needed to do the job.
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