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Cybertalk: DHS Offers Stakeholders a New Voice
Next week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will begin a “Quadrennial Homeland Security Review” (QHSR) billed as a 21st century version of the town hall meeting: an online, interactive discussion that is promoted as an opportunity to shape the future priorities of DHS. The QHSR is a Congressionally mandated strategic planning analysis that is […]
Read MoreFAIR Targets Immigrants and Children in Pennsylvania
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—an anti-immigrant hate group based in Washington, DC—claims in a new report that “Pennsylvania’s illegal immigrant population costs the state’s taxpayers about $728 million per year for education, medical care and incarceration.” However, the statistical contortions in which FAIR engages to produce this number render it virtually meaningless. FAIR […]
Read MoreKicking Down Doors, Stomping on Rights: New Report Reveals Disturbing Details of ICE Raids
Last week the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York published a disturbing study that documents ICE’s home raid operations. Constitution on ICE: A Report on Immigration Home Raid Operations found that over the last several years, ICE has increasingly conducted home raids, meaning that […]
Read MoreThe High Cost of Inaction on Immigration Reform
This week the National Institute on Money in State Politics released a study on funding spent supporting and opposing immigration-related ballot measures. Immigration Measures: Support on Both Sides of the Fence examined 2008 ballot initiatives in Oregon and Arizona and found that money raised by both sides of the issue totaled more than $17.5 million.
Read MoreComprehensive Immigration Reform: A Primer
America’s immigration laws are some of the most complex and archaic provisions that can be found in the U.S. statutes. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) rivals the tax code in the level of detail, confusion, and absurd consequences produced by years of layering on provisions without systematically reviewing their results. Since the 1960s, Congress has periodically overhauled the INA, but has tended to focus on one hot-button issue at a time, resulting in a patchwork of outdated laws that fail to reflect the realities of 21st century America. The necessity of comprehensive immigration reform stems from years of neglect and failure to respond to incompatible interactions between different parts of the system, resulting in breakdowns that have crippled our ability to regulate immigration adequately, protect our borders, reunite families, and foster economic opportunity.
Read MoreA Mandatory Employment Verification System without Reform is a Recipe for Disaster
Unabashed promoters of E-verify have had a busy week, moving from hearings in the Senate and House to Rep. Heath Shuler’s (D-NC) pep rally for the 2009 version of his fatally flawed SAVE Act—a bill that continues to promote the deportation-only version of immigration reform. Step back from all this activity, however, and two things […]
Read MoreOld Anti-Immigrant Ideas, Even Bad Ones, Die Hard
Without an ounce of originality, tired old anti-immigrant groups are once again joining forces to exploit California’s bad economy and scapegoat the Golden State’s immigrant population. Through a ballot initiative, they seek to cut benefits to U.S. citizen children and throw the 14th amendment of the U.S. constitution, which grants individuals born in America their […]
Read MorePolicy or Politics? DHS Changes and Expands 287(g) Program
Last Friday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced changes to the controversial 287(g) program—a program which allows state and local police agencies to partner with ICE to enforce federal immigration laws. DHS also announced that, rather than waiting for the new policies to be implemented and tested, it has expanded the problematic […]
Read MorePolitics as Usual: Senate Amendments Make Bad Policy, but Great Theater
It’s time to take a deep breath and recognize that you can rarely take Senate votes at face value when it comes to immigration. The amount of posturing and political preening that goes on is directly proportionate to how close we really are to pushing a substantive immigration proposal. So, what have we seen this […]
Read MoreIn Order to Form a More Perfect Union
As America celebrates its 233rd birthday, we are reminded of the many contributions immigrants have made to America throughout our great history. Nowhere will this be more celebrated than in the 50 naturalization ceremonies taking place around the nation this weekend where 6,000 immigrants will become Americans at venues like Disneyworld and George Washington’s Mount […]
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