Restrictionists
Quadrennial Homeland Security Review: Is DHS Asking the Right Questions?
If you go to the National Dialogue on the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) website and click through to the Smart and Tough Enforcement of Immigration Laws section, you will find a bit of surprise. Despite a title that panders to the enforcement first crowd, implying that immigration policy is all about being “tough,” there is actually a remarkably thoughtful effort to capture a broader set of immigration policy goals. Take a look at the mission statement: A secure, unified, fair, adaptive, and responsive immigration system that protects the public, enriches our society, and improves our economy. Read More
FAIR Targets Immigrants and Children in Pennsylvania
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—an anti-immigrant hate group based in Washington, DC—claims in a new report that “Pennsylvania’s illegal immigrant population costs the state’s taxpayers about $728 million per year for education, medical care and incarceration.” However, the statistical contortions in which FAIR engages to produce this number render it virtually meaningless. FAIR dramatically exaggerates the fiscal “costs” imposed by unauthorized immigrants by including the schooling of their native-born, U.S.-citizen children in its estimate, and completely discounts the economic role that unauthorized workers play as consumers who help support Pennsylvania businesses. Read More
The High Cost of Inaction on Immigration Reform
This week the National Institute on Money in State Politics released a study on funding spent supporting and opposing immigration-related ballot measures. Immigration Measures: Support on Both Sides of the Fence examined 2008 ballot initiatives in Oregon and Arizona and found that money raised by both sides of the issue totaled more than $17.5 million. Read More
New Yorker Profile of Joe Arpaio is Not a Pretty Picture
The July 20th issue of The New Yorker paints a detailed portrait of Maricopa County, Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio—and it is not a pretty picture. The profile of “Sheriff Joe” that emerges from the story by journalist William Finnegan is that of a man obsessed with publicity and self-promotion, who has a deep streak of sadism and little regard for the U.S. Constitution, civil rights, actual crime-fighting, or protecting the safety of the public he ostensibly serves. While Arpaio persists in his personal crusade against unauthorized immigrants, serious crimes go unsolved, emergency-response times climb, and the rights of native-born Americans and immigrants alike are routinely trampled in the process. The most remarkable aspect of this story is that Arpaio is still legally permitted to carry a badge and a gun after more than a decade and a half of egregiously abusing his power. Read More
Old Anti-Immigrant Ideas, Even Bad Ones, Die Hard
Without an ounce of originality, tired old anti-immigrant groups are once again joining forces to exploit California’s bad economy and scapegoat the Golden State’s immigrant population. Through a ballot initiative, they seek to cut benefits to U.S. citizen children and throw the 14th amendment of the U.S. constitution, which grants individuals born in America their citizenship, out the window. According to the L.A. Times, the organizers of the amendment are seeking to curb what they call “invasion by birth canal" and are using the bad California economy as their latest opportunity to bash immigrants. Read More
Including Immigrants in Health Care Reform Makes Economic Sense
Soon after the health care debate began in Washington, Congress immediately started running into immigration potholes. For the most part, the health care conversation centers around plans to insure as many Americans as possible. Experts, Members of Congress and the Administration generally agree that it is less costly in the long-run to include as many people as possible. However, it gets trickier when they begin considering that approximately 12% of the U.S. population is foreign-born. While most in Washington have completely written off the possibility of including undocumented immigrants in any kind of coverage plan, Congress continues to be perplexed over legal permanent residents—our citizens-in-waiting. Yet loads of good data present a compelling argument for why it makes more sense to be inclusive: Read More
Bridging the Black Brown “Divide” with Facts
Anti-immigrant groups have repeatedly tried to drive a wedge between African Americans and immigrants by capitalizing on the myth that immigrants take American jobs—particularly jobs that would otherwise go to African Americans. That myth, as anti-immigrant groups present it, is simply not true, says Gerald Jaynes, a professor of Economics and African American Studies at Yale University. In a new Perspectives piece for the Immigration Policy Center, A Conversation about the Economic Effects of Immigration on African Americans, Jaynes dispels the myth that immigrants take “black jobs” and instead suggests we find solutions on how to lift up all low-wage American workers. Read More
Large Immigrant Populations Keep Cities Safe, Just Ask El Paso, TX
El Paso, Texas, is a relatively poor, Hispanic, gun-friendly city and home to many undocumented immigrants. Yet although El Paso is adjacent to a violence-riddled Mexican city, it’s actually counted among the safest big cities in the U.S. Why is El Paso so safe? A recent article in Reason Online dispels some of the myths associated with immigrants and crime. Many Americans believe that immigrants—especially illegal immigrants—are associated with high levels of crime. However, according to criminologist Jack Levin, El Paso is safe because of its immigrant population. Read More
FAIR Promotes “Green Xenophobia”
In a new “special report” released on July 1, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) regurgitates an old and deeply flawed argument: that immigration causes pollution. Specifically, the report claims that, because immigration increases the size of the U.S. population, it also increases U.S. energy consumption, which increases U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, which contributes to global warming. If this line of reasoning seems a tad weak, that’s because it is. As Andrea Nill writes for the ThinkProgress Wonk Room, the report relies largely on “anecdotes and inferences” in an “attempt to pander to progressive soft spots” on the environment. Read More
Major City Police Chiefs Just Say No To Immigration Enforcement
Tired of spending scant time and resources on immigration enforcement, major city police chiefs called on Congress, Wednesday, to move on comprehensive immigration reform. Like most law enforcement officers across the country, chasing down undocumented immigrants proves to be too much of a strain when faced with real priorities… Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
