Border Enforcement
Migration at the border is a multifaceted issue, challenging the U.S. to secure our borders while upholding the human rights of individuals seeking safety and better opportunities. Balancing national security with compassion and our legal obligations to asylum seekers presents intricate dilemmas, and we collaborate with policymakers to advance bipartisan, action-oriented solutions.
Beyond A Border Solution
- Asylum
- May 3, 2023
America needs durable solutions. These concrete measures can bring orderliness to our border and modernize our overwhelmed asylum system. Read…
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Progressive Immigration Measures Pick Up Steam at the State Level
By SUMAN RAGHUNATHAN, PROGRESSIVE STATES NETWORK As the list of state business leaders, law enforcement, and conservative lawmakers who realize that anti-immigrant efforts are costly, misguided, and destructive to state economies continues to grow, a number of state elected officials are putting their weight behind progressive, solutions-based approaches to immigration policy. A group of progressive state elected officials affiliated with Progressive States Network—State Legislators for Progressive Immigration Policy, with members in 34 states and counting—have been at the forefront of advancing pragmatic and progressive state approaches to immigration which expand opportunities for all residents, both immigrant and native-born, while strengthening communities and state economies. Read More
What’s in Your Wallet? Fiscal Notes Give States Pause Over Enforcement Laws
As states continue to crowd the immigration enforcement debate with rhetoric and white noise, other states are getting down to brass tacks. On Monday, Utah’s Legislative Fiscal Analysts office hung an $11 million price tag around HB 70, Utah’s immigration law requiring local law enforcement to check the citizenship status of those they suspect are in the country illegally. That’s a steep price to pay for a law Arizona has already proven will cost your state jobs, legal fees and tourism revenue. Kentucky also recently crunched the numbers and found their SB1070-style law (SB 6) would cost the Bluegrass state a whopping $40 million per year. As many states face budget deficits in 2011, lawmakers might be asking their constituents the same question as those Capitol One commercials, “What’s in your wallet?” Read More
Mandatory E-Verify is Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Today, the House Immigration Subcommittee held a hearing on the E-Verify system, a tool to help employers electronically verify that their employees have permission to work in the United States. Although E-Verify remains largely voluntary—except for federal contractors, employers in certain states that have made it mandatory, and a few other exceptions—some members of Congress and immigration restrictionists have decided that expanding E-Verify and making it mandatory will flush unauthorized workers out of the workforce, create jobs for unemployed U.S. citizens, and resolve our immigration problems. While everyone agrees that high unemployment levels must be addressed, simplistic measures like mandating E-Verify are not going to open up jobs for millions of unemployed workers. Read More
Some States Applying Brakes to Legislation Denying Citizenship to U.S.-Born Children
Yesterday, a panel in South Dakota’s legislature voted to halt legislation aimed at denying citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. South Dakota’s bill—and others like it—propose measures which challenge the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which states that, with very few exceptions, all persons born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. While conservative lawmakers continue to introduce bills challenging the birthright citizenship clause, other states—like Arizona and Montana—are joining South Dakota's lead in deciding whether to move these bills forward. Read More
The Aftermath of the Ellensburg, WA Immigration Raid and Lessons from Past ICE Enforcement Efforts
BY JUAN PEDROZA, THE URBAN INSTITUTE* On Thursday morning, January 20, ICE agents descended on mobile homes in the Ellensburg area, east of Seattle, WA. Federal agents drove in with 11 search warrants and a helicopter search light, making simultaneous arrests at 22 different locations. The coordinated effort followed an investigation involving eight federal, county, and local law enforcement entities. ICE agents arrested 14 Mexican immigrants for criminal charges (for instance, using false documents or falsely claiming U.S. citizenship) and then 16 others for non-criminal "administrative" violations. But the aftermath of the recent raid in Ellensburg replayed familiar scenes of trauma from past enforcement efforts—enforcement efforts upon which ICE can and should improve upon. Read More
The Rally Against State Immigration Legislation Continues
A Washington Post article this week highlighted what many state business groups, law enforcement officers and concerned legislatures have been cautioning for months—at a time of economic uncertainty, states simply cannot afford the costly legal battles and political backlash caused by Arizona-style immigration legislation. Over the past month, SB1070 copycat bills in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, have been met with considerable hesitation and criticism from constituents worried about the social and economic impact on their state. Some states, like Mississippi and Wyoming, have even rejected initial versions of copycat bills due to high costs. But as other states consider enforcement legislation (California joined the fray this week, as did Georgia’s state Senate), those worried about how enforcement legislation will cost their state feel they can no longer afford to be quiet. Read More
Study Shows 287(g) Program Fails to Prioritize Serious Criminals
This week the Migration Policy Institute released a new study on ICE’s 287(g) program, Delegation and Divergence: A Study of 287(g) State and Local Immigration Enforcement. The study, which assesses the implementation, enforcement outcomes, costs, community impacts of the program generally, and provides an in-depth study in seven jurisdictions: Cobb County, GA; Frederick County, MD; Gwinnett County, GA; Los Angeles County, CA; Prince William County, VA; Las Vegas, NV; and the state of Colorado, found that 287(g) program is not living up to its promise. In fact, the study finds that ICE’s allows jurisdictions to “operate the 287(g) program in fundamentally different ways across the country.” Read More
States Contemplating Enforcement Legislation Continue to Walk the Line
From Arizona to Florida, SB1070-style immigration legislation continues to rear its ugly head—as do a string of other restrictive immigration bills. Also on the rise, however, are the voices of opposition who continue to decry this legislation as bad for local businesses, a threat to community safety and a burden on state economies. This week, legislatures in Georgia, South Dakota and Tennessee introduced or contemplated Arizona-style legislation, while states like Virginia and Mississippi considered a wide range of restrictive immigration bills—not, however, without grave objections from members of the community whose lives and livelihoods stand to be harmed by these restrictive immigration laws. Read More
Will “Stepping on the Gas” of Immigration Enforcement Drive Us Into A Brick Wall?
Today, the newly re-named Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement held its first hearing on worksite enforcement, which, as expected, did not delve into important policy questions surrounding worksite enforcement. The Republican members of the subcommittee called on the usual suspects to minimize the Obama administration’s enforcement efforts, even though Deputy Director of ICE, Kumar Kibble, stated quite clearly that ICE has achieved record numbers of investigations, audits, fines, and deportations. One can't help but wonder if subcommittee hardliners would be satisfied had the Administration's enforcement numbers been doubled or even tripled. For that matter, after listening to the majority members, one wonders whether any amount of enforcement would be sufficient to meet their expectations. Read More
A One-Man Wrecking Crew: New Report Details the Costly Career of Kris Kobach
It is hardly surprising that the newly elected Kansas secretary of state, Kris Kobach, ran an election campaign which featured the baseless claim that “the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive” in the state. As a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes in detail, Kobach has built a long and varied career out of attacking immigrants; first in the Bush Administration, targeting legal immigrants from Muslim and Arab countries, and later as the architect of city ordinances and state laws targeting unauthorized, mostly Latino immigrants. Yet, while Kobach’s anti-immigrant initiatives have served to advance him politically and financially, virtually all of them have ended up being costly failures for which taxpayers ultimately foot the bill. Read More
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