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Skilled Immigrants Come Through All Immigration Channels
Note: Today’s blog features the oral testimony of Benjamin Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council before the House of Representatives, Committee of the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security today. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and provide testimony on behalf […]
Read MoreCongressional Hearing Illustrates Nativist Manipulation of “Border Security”
The concept of “border security” is inherently ambiguous. After all, we live in a world where no international border can be completely sealed. The risk that a bad guy will come across the border—by land, sea, or air—can never be reduced to zero, no matter how much money or manpower is funneled into border-security operations. […]
Read MoreHow Budget Cuts From Sequestration Will Affect The Nation’s Immigration System
The U.S.’s immigration system, already burdened by application processing backlogs and insufficient funding for immigration courts, could become even more unwieldy if the government must slash its budget on March 1. Sequestration – a package of across-the-board government spending cuts totaling $85 billion this year and $1.2 trillion over the next decade – likely will […]
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 MoreOverhauling Immigration Law: A Brief History and Basic Principles of Reform
For more than a decade, efforts to systematically overhaul the United States immigration system have been overshadowed by other events—from foreign wars and national security concerns to the financial crisis that threatened to bring down the world economy. In addition to this ever-changing list of national crises, years of partisan political fighting and the resurgence of a volatile restrictionist movement that thrives on angry rhetoric have made opportunities for advancing genuine reform few and far between. As a result, many in both parties opted for a political strategy that emphasized immigration enforcement over immigration reform, holding to the argument that efficiently deporting non-citizens would reduce illegal immigration and pave the way for more sensible outcomes in the future. Instead, the unprecedented spending on immigration enforcement, the extraordinary rise in deportations, the passage of state anti-immigrant laws, and the almost daily anecdotes of separated families and discrimination finally took their toll. Voters signaled in the 2012 federal elections that they were tired of enforcement-only immigration policies and the senseless pain they caused. Now more than ever, the opportunity to craft immigration laws that reflect American values and needs is a distinct possibility. The White House, Members of Congress, and countless organizations have issued new ideas and principles for making the system work. These proposals vary and will likely change even more as proposals translate into legislation, but there are a number of common themes that exist. This paper lays out an overview of the underlying legal system, the most basic principles of reform, the reasons behind them, and how they are likely to be reflected in coming legislation.
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 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 MoreEconomic Progress via Legalization: Lessons from the Last Legalization Program
The data analyzed in this report indicates that unauthorized immigrants who gained legal status in the 1980s through the legalization provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) experienced clear improvement in their socioeconomic situation. Between 1990 and 2006, the educational attainment of IRCA immigrants increased substantially, their poverty rates fell dramatically, and their home ownership rates improved tremendously. Moreover, their real wages rose, many of them moved into managerial positions, and the vast majority did not depend upon public assistance. The findings presented in this report support the notion that legalization of unauthorized immigrants can play a role in promoting economic growth and lessening socioeconomic disparities. Reforming our immigration system is not an obstacle to getting our economy back on track—it is part of the solution.
Originally Published Nov. 5, 2009
Legalize 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.
Getting to a Citizenship Consensus
Immigration reform is enjoying a resurgence of support in both parties, with groups from a variety of backgrounds coming out in favor of a range of changes to our current system. The most striking change may be the melting of opposition to a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. […]
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