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Immigration Stunts in Face of Faltering Economy
Several reports including the Pew Hispanic Research Center’s new study have come out over the past few months showing that the undocumented population is shrinking. However, while some restrictionists continue to hold on to the notion that the decrease in immigration is primarily due to remarkably harsh stepped-up enforcement measures, Jeffrey Passel of Pew told […]
Read MoreRestrictionists Use Immigrants as Scapegoat for Economic Crisis
As the U.S. rumbles through a recession, some restrictionists are exploiting the current economic crisis to mislead Americans into thinking that immigrants — not the utter lack of financial market government oversight or the irresponsible behavior of brokerage firms — are to blame for the current state of our economy. The Center for American Progress […]
Read MoreMenendez-Kennedy Raids Bill Reintroduces Rule of Law to DHS
Last week, Senators Menendez (D-NJ) and Kennedy (D-MA) introduced a bill that promises to reintroduce the rule of law and the basic principles of fairness and humanity to the enforcement of our country’s immigration laws. The Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act (S.3594) seeks to establish minimum standards of treatment for […]
Read MoreOne in Ten Latinos Asked for Papers for LWL: Living While Latino
The current climate of undeterred public immigrant-bashing along with an immigration policy of “attrition through enforcement” has cultivated unfettered hatred and bigotry against an entire ethnic population. A recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center shows its toll: half of all Latinos, immigrant and non-immigrant, say that their situation in this country is deteriorating and […]
Read MoreVoodoo Science Raises Specter of Immigration-Fueled “Overpopulation”
In a September 2 Washington Post op-ed, “How Many Americans?,” Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies presents a nightmare scenario in which immigrant-fueled population growth in the U.S. degrades the environment and strains infrastructure and the economy over the next half century. The arguments upon which Camarota builds his case are commonplace among […]
Read MoreNew Orleans Immigrants Weather the Storm
The response of New Orleans’ immigrants to Hurricane Gustav is just another gross example of how attrition through enforcement doesn’t work. A growing number of immigration raids, arrests and deportations are driving immigrants deeper into the shadows–even if it means ignoring evacuation orders and braving a deadly tropical storm. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released […]
Read MoreE Pluribus Unum and the GOP English Mandate
As expected, the Republican platform contains lots of tough immigration-enforcement language as well as an outright rejection of “amnesty.” Yet one of the more paradoxical sections is on immigrant integration and the English language. According to the platform: One sign of our unity is our English language. For newcomers, it has always been the fastest […]
Read MoreWhat Happens When Local Cops Become Immigration Agents?
Over the past year and a half, County Sheriff Joe Arpaio of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) has transformed his police department into an immigration-enforcement agency, gaining international notoriety in the process. The East Valley Tribune of metro-Phoenix, Arizona, recently ran a series of articles chronicling its investigation of the immigration-enforcement activities of MCSO. Using MCSO case files, interviews with top-ranking officers, and other sources of data, reporters uncovered startling facts about the enormous price tag—both financial and social—of the Sheriff’s antics.
Read MoreThe Politics of Contradiction: Immigration Enforcement vs. Economic Integration
Since the mid-1980s, the federal government has tried repeatedly, without success, to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants to the United States with immigration-enforcement initiatives: deploying more agents, fences, flood lights, aircraft, cameras, and sensors along the southwest border with Mexico; increasing the number of worksite raids and arrests conducted throughout the country; expanding detention facilities to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants apprehended each year; and creating new bureaucratic procedures to expedite the return of detained immigrants to their home countries. At the same time, the economic integration of North America, the western hemisphere, and the world has accelerated, facilitating the rapid movement of goods, services, capital, information, and people across international borders. Moreover, the U.S. economy demands more workers at both the high-skilled and less-skilled ends of the occupational spectrum than the rapidly aging, native-born population provides. The U.S. government’s enforcement-without-reform approach to undocumented immigration has created an unsustainable contradiction between U.S. immigration policy and the U.S. economy. So far, the economy is winning.
Read MoreThe “Secure America through Verification and Enforcement” (“SAVE Act”) of 2007 (H.R. 4088) Summary and Analysis of Provisions
The “SAVE Act” was introduced in November 2007 by Reps. Heath Shuler (D-NC) and Brian Bilbray (R-CA). A companion bill (S. 2368) has been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Mark Pryor (D-AR) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA). The “SAVE Act” is an immigration enforcement-only package that would dramatically expand the error-ridden Basic Pilot electronic employment verification system and make a number of harsh and unnecessary changes to current law . The Basic Pilot system is currently used by only 30,000 employers, but would expand to cover over 6 million employers in just four years – roughly a 20,000 percent increase. Beyond that, the bill seeks to increase the Border Patrol and spend more resources on the southern border, codify recently withdrawn DHS regulations related to the Social Security Administration “no match” letters, expand local police responsibilities to include immigration enforcement, and a number of other enforcement measures. Absent from the bill are any provisions that would address the more than 12 million people in the US without status.
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