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Office of Inspector General (OIG) Finds 287(g) Program Still Riddled with Flaws
DHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) recently released an updated report on the Performance of 287(g) Agreements which provides the same dreary account of the program as the first one. The April 2010 OIG report found that ICE and its local law enforcement partners have not complied with the terms of their 287(g) Memoranda of […]
Read MoreU.S. Border Czar Calls on Congress to Get Serious about Immigration Reform
While some candidates continue to make political fodder out of immigration and border security on the campaign trail, administration officials are pushing Congress to get real about overhauling our broken immigration system. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner, Alan Bersin, recently commented that Congress needs to ‘get serious about a post-election immigration overhaul if the […]
Read MoreImmigration and the Environment: Why the “Over-Population” Argument Doesn’t Hold Water
A new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) thoroughly debunks the simplistic claims of nativist groups that immigration to the United States fuels the destruction of the U.S. environment by contributing to “over-population” of the country. The report, entitled From a “Green Farce” to a Green Future: Refuting False Claims About Immigrants and […]
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 MorePresident Obama Throws White House Support Behind DREAM Act
Today, President Obama met with Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) members, chairwoman Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) to discuss movement of the DREAM Act. In a lead up to the meeting, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced plans earlier this week to bring the DREAM Act to […]
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 MoreBalancing Family Immigration with Our Economic Needs
In his most recent book, Brain Gain: Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy, author Darrell M. West argues that “U.S. immigration policy went seriously off course after Congress passed legislation in 1965 making family unification the overarching principle in immigration policy… We need to reconceptualize immigration as a brain gain and competitiveness enhancer for the United States.” […]
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.
States Pushing Anti-Immigration Legislation Forced to Run Costly Damage Control
Although anti-immigrant campaign platforms might help win a primary in a state like Arizona, supporters of harsh immigrant enforcement measures must still address the resulting economic fall out. Last week, the Arizona Governor’s Task Force on Tourism and Economic Vitality hired HMA Public Relations, a Phoenix-based marketing communications and public relations firm, to the tune […]
Read MoreStaggering Right on Immigration in Arizona
Today, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) faces former Rep. J.D. Hayworth in what has been a hard-fought primary battle for the Republican nomination for Senate. Perhaps the central issue in the campaign has been immigration, with both candidates staggering as far to the right as possible. So far to the right, in fact, that David Catanese […]
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