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DREAM Advocates Begin a 3,000-mile March from California to Washington
Jose Gonzalez was born in Guadalajara, Mexico in 1987, but he has called California home for almost all of his 25 years. A community college graduate, as well as a youth minister in his church, Jose wants to attend a four-year university, but his family cannot afford tuition, and he cannot work to pay his […]
Read MoreDHS Report Finds Inadequate Information Sharing, Mission Overlap Among Agencies
Nine years after its creation, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is still hampered by mission overlap and inadequate information sharing among the various agencies within the department. So concludes a recent report by the DHS Office of Inspector General, entitled Information Sharing on Foreign Nationals: Border Security. Highlights from the report include a recommendation […]
Read MoreSupreme Court Brief on SB 1070: Arizona Seeking Confrontation, not Cooperation
When Arizona Governor Jan Brewer wagged her finger in President Obama’s face at a Phoenix airport earlier this year, she may have been seeking to score political points with the White House’s ideological opponents. What the governor may not have realized, however, is that she was giving the Obama administration the photographic equivalent of its […]
Read MoreStates Continue to Propose Tuition Equity for Undocumented Immigrants
While some state lawmakers continue to push extreme “get tough” immigration enforcement measures through their state houses, others are contemplating the benefits of having more highly educated students in their state. In Indiana, for example, one Republican lawmaker recently amended an education bill to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students already enrolled in state schools, […]
Read MoreBeing Anti-Immigrant Doesn’t Work in Politics, Even in the South
While anti-immigrant sentiment may win candidates a few headlines, it certainly doesn’t resonate with every day voters. Following Alabama’s GOP primary this week, a CNN exit poll found that “illegal immigration” was not a top-of-mind issue for many Alabamians. According to the survey, only 3% of the respondents cited “illegal immigration” as the most important […]
Read MoreNew Study from the Bookings Institution and the Partnership Details the Different Roles Immigrant and Native-Born Workers Play in the US Economy
The Brookings Institution and the Partnership for a New American Economy today released “Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force,” a study analyzing the differences in both the occupations and education levels of immigrant and native-born workers in the American economy and found that even when working the same sectors, immigrants and native-born gravitate towards different jobs. The […]
Read MoreAlways in Demand: The Economic Contributions of Immigrant Scientists and Engineers
With the U.S. economy in the midst of a prolonged slump, it’s hard to believe that any industry would actually benefit from having more workers. But that is precisely the case when it comes to those industries which depend upon highly skilled scientists and engineers. The United States has long faced a dilemma in this respect: the U.S. economy is capable of absorbing more high-tech professionals than the U.S. educational system produces. That is one reason so many U.S. scientists and engineers are immigrants. In “STEM” occupations (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), the foreign-born account for 26.1 percent of workers with PhDs and 17.7 percent of those with master’s degrees. Even more U.S. scientists and engineers would be immigrants if not for the arbitrary limits imposed by the U.S. immigration system, particularly the inadequate supply of green cards and H-1B visas. Given that STEM professionals tend to create jobs through their innovative work, such limits are economically self-defeating.
Immigrant scientists and engineers create new jobs.
Government Agencies and E-Verify: Erroneous Results and Misuse Cost Workers Their Jobs
Making E-Verify mandatory—even for government agencies and contractors—could threaten the jobs of U.S. citizens because there are errors in the system and because employers misuse it.
E-Verify is inaccurate.
According to an evaluation by Westat commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security, approximately 0.8 percent of work-authorized U.S. citizens and legal immigrants received an erroneous “tentative nonconfirmation” from E-Verify. Approximately 0.3 percent of those workers were able to successfully contest their findings and keep their jobs. The remaining 0.5 percent were not able to correct their records and received an erroneous “final nonconfirmation.”
Read MoreCourts, State Legislators Pull Back on Restrictive Immigration Legislation
Although several states were eager to introduce their own restrictive immigration bills following Arizona and Alabama’s harsh laws, some legislators and federal judges are now pulling back on these costly bills. A federal judge in Utah this week refused to issue a ruling on the state’s immigration law in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling […]
Read MoreKris Kobach, a Romney Immigration Advisor, Puts Number on Self-Deportation Plan
A recent Salon.com article quotes long-time immigration restrictionist Kris Kobach putting a figure on his self-deportation policy for the first time. “If we had a true nationwide policy of self-deportation,” Kobach said, “I believe we would see our illegal alien population cut in half at a minimum very quickly.” Salon.com did the math, finding that “with […]
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