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Business and Labor Announce Breakthrough on Immigration Reform
One of the most contentious issues that has stymied past immigration reform proposals is the divide between business and labor over how many and under what conditions the U.S. should admit new immigrants into our labor force. Also known as the “future flow” issue, the conflict lies in the tension between business’ desire to recruit […]
Read MoreReaching the Six-Month Mark on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
The Department of Homeland Security has issued its latest data on the Obama Administration’s initiative that offers deferment from deportation and temporary work permits to young undocumented immigrants under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. In the first six months of the program (August 15–February 14), 423,634 out of the roughly 936,933 immigrants […]
Read MoreBipartisan Signals Show Lawmakers Are Seizing The Opportunity On Immigration Reform
After more than a decade of being overshadowed by other events and political causes, there is a distinct opportunity now for Congress to reform our nation’s immigration laws. Voters signaled in the 2012 federal elections that they were tired of enforcement-only immigration policies, record-setting deportations, and the senseless pain they caused by separating families. Now, […]
Read MoreSenate Likely Will Pass Expanded Violence Against Women Act Today
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) promised that the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) would be the first bill he pushed in the 113th Congress after the House failed to vote on a version of VAWA that the Senate passed last year. The Senate version expanded protections for immigrant, LGBT, and Native American victims, which […]
Read MoreSurvey: Asian Americans Concerned with Legalization, Family Backlogs
In the current debate, immigration is often depicted as a Latino issue. This is partially because just over half of America’s foreign-born population is from Latin America and the Caribbean, and the current political climate around immigration is largely seen as being driven by Latino turnout for Democrats in the 2012 election. But this depiction […]
Read MoreHouse Republicans Show Uncertainty About Where the Party Stands On Immigration
For six hours on Tuesday, the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee tried to come to terms with a new landscape on immigration reform and where House Republicans will fit into the picture. Despite attempts by committee leadership to paint an earned path to citizenship as an extreme option and questions about whether citizenship was even necessary, […]
Read MorePoliticians Invent Doomsday Predictions About Immigration Reform
Nativists are rarely encumbered by facts. By its very nature, nativist rhetoric is based on stereotype and mythology, not empirical evidence. Regrettably, some of our elected leaders in the House of Representatives and the Senate have embraced the mirage of nativism as they embark on a crusade to derail any meaningful reform of the U.S. […]
Read MoreIncentivizing Arrests for Border Patrol Agents
Strengthening border security, including increasing the number of border patrol agents, continues to be a component of the latest immigration reform proposals, as they have in the past. What may be overlooked in these proposals is the administration’s call for enhanced training to protect civil rights. This is critical, given the results of a new […]
Read MoreLegalize Who?: A Portrait of the 11 Million Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States
As the immigration debate heats up in Congress, the central question will be what to do about the 11 million unauthorized immigrants now living and working in the United States. The media often portrays this population as barely literate young men who pour over the southern border and live solitary lives, rather than providing a nuanced understanding of who the 11 million really are: adults and children, mothers and fathers, homeowners and churchgoers who are invested in their communities. This fact sheet attempts to provide a basic understanding of who the unauthorized are as people: where they live, where they’re from, how long they have been here, and what family and community ties to the United States they have.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources provide this very necessary social context to the immigration debate. And what the data reveal are that most of the unauthorized have been here for over a decade. While they are concentrated in California, Texas, Florida, and New York, there are sizeable unauthorized populations in other states across the country. Three-fifths of unauthorized immigrants come from Mexico, but significant numbers also come from Central America and the Philippines. Nearly half of all adult unauthorized immigrants have children under the age of 18, and roughly 4.5 million native-born U.S.-citizen children have at least one unauthorized immigrant parent. More than half of unauthorized immigrant adults have a high-school diploma or more education. Nearly half of longtime unauthorized households are homeowners. And approximately two-fifths of unauthorized immigrant adults attend religious services every week. In other words, most unauthorized immigrants are already integrating into U.S. society not only through their jobs, but through their families and communities as well.
Federal Judge Leaves Anti-DACA Lawsuit Hanging By a Thread
Lost amidst coverage of recent immigration reform proposals was a ruling issued last Friday in Kris Kobach’s legal crusade against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The lawsuit, filed last summer in a federal court in Dallas, alleges the program violates an obscure provision of the immigration laws that supposedly prohibits immigrants who […]
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