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Administration Begins Rolling Back Midnight Regulations Left by Bush Administration
Photo by lombardi. While a bill that would reform our immigration system waits in queue behind other issues, like healthcare and climate change, the new Administration has begun a good faith effort to right some of the most egregious wrongs left by the former White House. For example, last week Secretary Napolitano suspended the Bush […]
Read MoreAnti-immigrant Bills Fail at the State and Local Level
One result of Congress’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform is an increased focus on immigration by state legislatures. The federal government has been unable to legalize the undocumented population, enact smart enforcement, and deal with the future immigration of workers and family members. States and localities, then, are left in the position of trying […]
Read MoreNew Report Links Hate Crime and Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric
The Washington Post highlighted a report by civil rights leaders linking the recent spike in hate crimes against Hispanics and people perceived to be immigrants with inflammatory rhetoric present in the immigration debate. The report, published by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF), looks at FBI hate crime statistics and calls for […]
Read MoreKeeping Migrants Here: Recent Research Shows Unintended Consequences of U.S. Border Enforcement
The Department of Homeland Security released a report this week showing that apprehensions of undocumented immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border are at their lowest level since 1973, leaving many observers contemplating the factors responsible for this decline. Is it the recession-plagued U.S. economy or beefed-up enforcement efforts? New data from a research team led by Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, sheds light on the decline in apprehensions and reveals the surprising, unintended consequences of border enforcement.
Read MoreFAIR Takes Aim at Virginia’s Immigrants and Children
In a new report, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—an anti-immigrant hate group headquartered in Washington, DC—claims that “Virginia’s illegal immigrant population costs the state’s taxpayers nearly $1.7 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration.” However, the statistical gymnastics in which FAIR engages to produce this number render it virtually meaningless. FAIR […]
Read MoreE-Verify All the Time
Have you ever seen the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray finds himself living the same day over and over and over again? Welcome to the world of E-Verify, the federal electronic employment verification system (EEVS) that purports to accurately confirm workers’ authorization for employment. Again and again policymakers have attached mandatory E-Verify proposals to […]
Read MoreCongress Beware: Don’t Touch the Fence
As Congressional appropriations committees meet over the coming months to craft legislation funding immigration-enforcement operations for next fiscal year, they would do well to continue to steer clear of one of the Bush administration’s more costly border boondoggles: the border fence. The Associated Press reported yesterday that construction of the final 40 miles of the […]
Read MoreDepartment of Homeland Security Suspends “Widow Penalty”
Photo by Kratka Photography. This week, the Obama administration took another step toward restoring fairness and humaneness to the immigration system. On Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that she would grant a two-year reprieve to immigrants who were married to U.S. citizens but did not complete the permanent residency process […]
Read MoreSalt Lake City Police Chief Takes a Bite Out of Local Immigration Enforcement
Yesterday, a small group of Utah Minutemen gathered to protest Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker’s and Police Chief Chris Burbank’s decision not to enforce some provisions of SB81—Utah’s immigration legislation that allows the cross-deputization of city officers to enforce federal immigration laws. The legislation is slated to take effect on July 1st. Utah Minuteman […]
Read MoreArizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Adds More Flash to His Pan
Anti-immigrant media glutton, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, doesn’t stay out of the headlines for very long. In March, the menacing Sheriff Arpaio, known for transforming Arizona’s Maricopa County Police Department into an immigration-enforcement agency, made headlines when he became the focus of a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation for “allegations of discriminatory practices based on […]
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