Restrictionists
A Much-Needed Spotlight on Families Ripped Apart by Deportations
On December 12, dozens of children delivered thousands of letters to Capitol Hill, calling upon lawmakers to stop the senseless division of families that is caused by the deportation of mothers and fathers who are not a threat to anyone. The event was part of “A Wish for the Holidays,” a campaign with a simple but powerful message: “Every day, families across the country are separated by deportations and immigrant detentions. 5.5 million children live with the fear that a parent could be deported, and these policies threaten the fabric of all of our communities. It just isn’t right.” Read More
Immigrant Friends and Foes Debate the Definition of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”
Nearly everyone agrees that an immigration reform bill of some sort will be introduced in Congress in the near future given the pivotal role that Latinos and immigrants played in getting President Obama reelected. But no one knows yet just how “comprehensive” that bill will be, meaning which groups of immigrants will be included and which will be excluded. For immigrant-rights advocates, a truly comprehensive bill would create a pathway to legal status for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants now living in the country. For anti-immigrant activists, the definition of “comprehensive” is, not surprisingly, a bit less comprehensive. In fact, their redefinition of the concept is often so tortured as to be meaningless. Read More
Bibles, Badges, Business and Bush + DREAMers Make Immigration Reform Demands Known
While some thought the immigration reform talk immediately after the election was just chatter, a series of convenings and speeches this week demonstrate that the topic of broad immigration reform is on plenty of tables. From DREAMers to President Bush, the call for reform goes on. Read More
Will the Third Time Be the Charm for the TRUST Act in California?
For the third time in three years, lawmakers in California will seek passage of the TRUST Act, a so-called “anti-Arizona” bill that would limit the ability of local authorities to honor requests from immigration authorities to continue detaining individuals on behalf of the federal government. Although Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a similar version of the bill in September, supporters hope the third time for the bill will be the charm. Read More
Arizona Faces Lawsuit over DACA Driver’s License Policy
Less than six months after it received a stinging rebuke from the Supreme Court, Arizona today was hit with another major lawsuit over its punitive immigration policies—this time challenging its practice of denying driver’s licenses to beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Filed in federal court in Phoenix, the class-action suit challenges an executive order issued by Gov. Jan Brewer making DACA recipients ineligible for all public benefits. Although the suit is limited to Arizona’s policy, the outcome could affect DACA recipients’ ability to obtain driver’s licenses in other states as well. Read More
This Week’s Immigration Proposals: Old News, Old Ideas
If you follow immigration, but are returning from a month-long, news-free vacation, there’s only one conclusion you would draw from the legislation Republicans offered up this week in Congress: Mitt Romney must have won the presidential election. After all, the ACHIEVE Act, introduced yesterday by retiring Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), which offers temporary legal status but no path to citizenship to DREAMers, is surely the bill they were preparing to offer in the event that a Romney Administration was in the wings. And on the House side, a slightly revised version of the STEM Jobs Act—which failed on the suspension calendar before the election—is back on the floor at the end of this week without changing any of the problems that led to its defeat before. Surely, this suggests that the predictions that immigration would play a decisive role in the presidential election didn’t pan out and that self-deportation as an immigration reform strategy worked. Except, none of this is true. Read More
Kris Kobach Continues Digging Immigration Hole
Despite a general consensus that adopting “self-deportation” as immigration policy helped sink Mitt Romney’s White House aspirations, the architect of this philosophy, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, isn’t ready to give in. Kobach doesn’t seem to care that most in his party have awakened to the fact that they are in a “death spiral” with Latino voters because of intolerant rhetoric around immigration. Nor does he seem fazed that dozens of young DREAM activists in his state protested at his office last week, demanding his resignation. Read More
Understanding the Important Symbolism of the Maryland DREAM Act Victory
While much of last week’s energy was focused on Latino voter turnout in the Presidential race— and the subsequent recognition that immigration reform was all but inevitable—there was another major victory for immigration policy that came out of Maryland. Voters in the state supported through referendum their legislature’s decision to provide in-state tuition to undocumented students. This was the first vote of its kind in the nation and one where African-American voters were an important voting bloc in support of the measure. Read More
In Presidential Election, “Self-Deportation” Goes Down to Defeat
It did not become certain until late Tuesday night that President Obama would win re-election. But for Mitt Romney, the campaign may have been lost during the Republican primary, when he cited “self-deportation” as the solution to our nation’s immigration problems. With the post-election dust now settled, it has become increasingly clear that supporting the idea is not only bad as a matter of policy, but also a losing political strategy. Read More
Nativist Group Releases Hopelessly Flawed Report on Immigrants and Job Creation
By Patrick Oakford, Research Assistant for the Economic Policy Team at the Center for American Progress. Last week the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a shocking report claiming that most new jobs created under President Obama have gone to immigrants. Aside from the sheer incorrectness of the claim, being founded on flawed methodologies, CIS perpetuates a hateful “us versus them” discourse at a time when we should be focused on creating more and longer-lasting jobs. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
