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Deploying National Guard to Border Hurt Texas Economy
The thousands of Central American children and families fleeing violence and arriving at the southern U.S. border became national front-page news over the summer. Congress responded by saying a lot but doing nothing, while many states and cities welcomed them into their communities and provided humanitarian support. Texas Gov. Rick Perry took a different approach […]
Read MoreNew Study Shows Deportations Don’t Reduce Crime
In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) introduced “Secure Communities,” which for the first time allowed DHS to check the fingerprints of any individual arrested by a local jurisdiction. Secure Communities piggybacked on prior DHS initiatives to use local police as “force multipliers” including the Criminal Alien Program, which establishes voluntary screening partnerships with […]
Read More136 Law Professors Say President Has Legal Authority to Act on Immigration
After immigration reform stalled in the House, President Obama announced that he plans to “fix as much of our immigration system as I can on my own, without Congress.” A chorus of legal experts and columnists agreed that he’d be on solid ground if he did. The President has discussed deferring deportations for up to 5 million […]
Read MoreHope for the unfinished business of immigration reform
Conventional wisdom has it that immigration reform is dead. I couldn’t disagree more. Though action on reform this year is unlikely, the political calculus is shifting, creating a window of opportunity in 2015. Even so, stubborn myths persist about immigration reform, namely, that Republicans don’t support it, that it’s bad public policy and that political […]
Read MoreMunicipalities Help Advance Access to Counsel for Immigrants
Historically, “immigrants facing deportation are not provided an attorney if they cannot afford one.” But across the country, municipalities are taking steps to improve access to counsel for those who otherwise would be forced to proceed in immigration court alone. Cities are establishing programs to provide free legal assistance for immigrant detainees. In June, New […]
Read MoreStates and Cities Welcome Unaccompanied Children
Many of the Central American children who crossed the U.S. border after fleeing their home countries are being placed with family members and sponsors across the country as they await hearings to adjudicate their claims to stay in the U.S., and some states and cities are welcoming them. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R), who released […]
Read MoreTexas Governor Invokes Nonsensical Statistics on Immigrant Crime in His State
After more than a century’s worth of studies and reports, you’d think that politicians would have gotten the message: not only are the vast majority of immigrants not criminals, but immigrants are less likely to be criminals than native-born Americans. This is true for both unauthorized immigrants and those who are legally present in the […]
Read MoreHouse Uses Unaccompanied Kids as Excuse for More Enforcement, Less Due Process
Congress adjourned last week without passing a supplemental spending bill to cover the costs of managing the influx of unaccompanied minors and families in the Rio Grande Valley. If the issue had simply been one of how much of President Obama’s $3.7 billion request actually would be appropriated, there might have been a compromise. The […]
Read MoreHouse Fails to Address Problems While Stripping Deportation Relief for Immigrants
The House of Representatives approved two bills Friday night, one that allocated only a fraction of the funds needed to address the humanitarian situation surrounding unaccompanied children and another that strips deportation relief for more than half a million young immigrants. Both passed on largely partisan lines. The funding bill only provides $694 million out […]
Read MoreTaking Their Message to Policy Makers in Transit
WASHINGTON — The epiphany hit Jeremy Robbins, appropriately enough, while he was riding in a taxi in the nation’s capital. Mr. Robbins, the executive director of the Partnership for a New American Economy, a group devoted to an immigration overhaul, was finishing up a day of lobbying on Capitol Hill when he began thinking about […]
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