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Managing Immigration as a Resource
Benjamin Johnson, Director of the Immigration Policy Center, discusses the futility of an enforcement-only approach to immigration reform and the need for a more comprehensive strategy to deal with the problem of undocumented immigration. In this new “Perspective,” he argues that immigration cannot be treated simply as a law-enforcement issue. Rather, the United States must begin managing immigration as a national resource.
Read MoreUnequal Access: Immigrants and U.S. Health Care
By Sarita A. Mohanty, M.D., M.P.H.Despite the important role that immigrants play in the U.S. economy, they disproportionately lack health insurance and receive fewer health services than native-born Americans. Some policymakers have called for limits on immigrants’ access to health insurance, particularly Medicaid, which are even more stringent than those already in place. However, policies that restrict immigrants’ access to some health care services lead to the inefficient and costly use of other services (such as emergency room care) and negatively impact public health. The future economic success of the United States depends on a healthy workforce. Therefore, policies must be devised that improve, rather than restrict, immigrants’ access to quality health care.
Read MoreLearning from IRCA: Lessons for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
If the current political stalemate over immigration reform is any indication, many U.S. policymakers have yet to heed the lessons of recent history when it comes to formulating a realistic strategy to control undocumented immigration. In 1986, lawmakers passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in an attempt to reign in undocumented immigration through heightened worksite and border enforcement, combined with legalization of most undocumented immigrants already in the country.
Read MoreGuest Workers Program with a Path to Legalization
As we have seen in the last month, segments of the United States media, policy leaders, and populace continue to be obsessed with the issue of undocumented immigration to the United States. Turn on CNN and you may find Lou Dobbs chastising President Bush for failing “to enforce immigration laws that would slow the invasion of illegal aliens.” Open the Los Angeles Times, and you can read about California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger singing praises for the Minuteman Project, the volunteer group of Arizona vigilantes formed to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. Open a paper in Las Cruces, New Mexico and you can read about Mexican workers in Chihuahua, Mexico waiting for the right time to cross the border illegally to find work as ranch hands in New Mexico or in construction in Chicago. In Boise, Idaho a letter to the editor complains about illegal immigrants and “[contractors] willing to pay cheap wages under the table…in lieu of hiring American citizens.”
Read MoreImmigration Scare-Tactics: Exaggerated Estimates of New Immigration Under S.2611
The debate over S. 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, has been clouded by grossly exaggerated estimates of the likely scale of future immigration under the bill.
Read MoreAchieving ‘Security and Prosperity’: Migration and North American Economic Integration
Most of the border-enforcement and immigration-reform proposals currently being considered in Washington, DC, are not comprehensive or adequate solutions to the issue of undocumented immigration. The process of North American economic integration, and development within Mexico itself, create structural conditions that encourage Mexican migration to the United States.
Read MoreEssential Workers: Immigrants are a Needed Supplement to the Native-Born Labor Force
An analysis of data from the 2000 census reveals that employment in about one-third of all U.S. job categories would have contracted during the 1990s in the absence of recently arrived, noncitizen immigrant workers.
Read MoreRemembering December 17: Repeal of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act
December 17 marks the anniversary of the 1943 repeal by Congress of the Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882. With only a few exceptions, this law barred any Chinese from immigrating to the United States, and was the first time U.S. immigration policy singled out citizens of a particular nation for wholesale discrimination.
Read MoreLegal Fiction Denies Due Process to Immigrants
Over a thousand noncitizens face indefinite detention in the United States on the basis of a meaningless legal technicality.
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