Immigration Reform
The last time Congress updated our legal immigration system was November 1990, one month before the World Wide Web went online. We are long overdue for comprehensive immigration reform.
Through immigration reform, we can provide noncitizens with a system of justice that provides due process of law and a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Because it can be a contentious and wide-ranging issue, we aim to provide advocates with facts and work to move bipartisan solutions forward. Read more about topics like legalization for undocumented immigrants and border security below.
An Immigration Stimulus: The Economic Benefits of a Legalization Program
As the legislative debate over immigration reform heats up, a central point of contention will be whether or not to create a pathway to legal status for all or most of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants now living in the United States. In evaluating the pros and cons of a legalization program, it is important to keep in mind that legalization is not only a humanitarian act; it is also a form of economic stimulus. The example of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) demonstrates that workers with legal status earn more than workers who are unauthorized. And these extra earnings generate more tax revenue for federal, state, and local governments, as well as more consumer spending which sustains more jobs in U.S. businesses. Recent studies suggest that the economic value of a new legalization program would be substantial, amounting to tens of billions of dollars in added income, billions of dollars in additional tax revenue, and hundreds of thousands of new jobs for native-born and immigrant workers alike. In short, a new legalization program for unauthorized immigrants would benefit everyone by growing the economy and expanding the labor market. Read More
Despite Governor’s Best Efforts, New Mexico Keeps Driver’s Licenses for the Undocumented
By Joan Friedland, Senior Advisor to the National Immigration Law Center. New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez has failed in her fourth attempt to persuade the New Mexico legislature to repeal the state’s driver’s license law. The law, in effect since 2003, provides access to driver’s licenses for eligible applicants, regardless of their immigration status. This year’s legislative session ended in New Mexico on March 16, after the House and Senate committees considered and rejected driver’s license restrictions. Read More
Labor and Business Strike Immigration Deal on Worker Program
Over the weekend, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO reached an agreement on a new type of immigrant worker program that has the potential to reshape the way temporary and permanent immigration visas contribute to American immigration policy. Although this is commonly referred to as future immigration flow, it should not be confused with other debates over increasing visas for high skilled workers or increasing employment based green cards. Instead, the agreement represents an attempt to reshape how business and labor will deal with the incredibly complex issues that are part of filling the demand for less-skilled labor in the United States. In the short term, it sets up a series of concepts that both sides would be willing to support in comprehensive immigration reform—but the Gang of Eight still has to convert those concepts into workable legislation. Read More
Facebook Founder “Likes” Comprehensive Immigration Reform
While immigration reform has long been important to Silicon Valley, for the most part the advocacy has focused on high tech issues such as expanded immigration for workers in science and technology fields and increased access to H-1B temporary visas. The breadth of support for more comprehensive reform, however, has been growing, as it becomes increasingly clear that issues like family-based immigration, enforcement, training the next generation of Americans for the next generation of jobs, and a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants are actually deeply connected. Read More
Immigration Watchdogs: Keep Calm and Press On
We’ve hit a point in the life cycle of the long awaited Senate immigration reform bill that a lot of parents will remember well. It’s those last few days before the baby is born, when anxiety and excitement are present in equal measure. Rather than speculating about the baby’s eye color or who the baby will resemble, however, speculation on the Senate immigration bill revolves around the bill’s substance. Will it carry through on the promise of a reasonable path to citizenship for the undocumented? How will it balance the interests of business and labor in a temporary worker program? Will there be additional STEM visas? Are there really going to be cuts to the family system in favor of some new mechanism for admitting employment and family based immigrants? There have been a host of media reports this past week fueling speculation on these questions and others, but the bottom line is that we simply won’t know until we see the text of the bill. Read More
Hearing and Report Highlight Lack of Due Process in Immigration System
This week, Senator Christopher Coons of Delaware presided over a public hearing to discuss what so many of us know: the immigration courts are failing to provide a fair, efficient, and effective system of justice. Many of the concerns raised by Senator Coons, as well as some of the witnesses, during Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “Building an Immigration System Worthy of American Values,” are discussed in more detail in a report issued by the American Immigration Council this week, Two Systems of Justice: How the Immigration System Falls Short of the Ideals of Justice. Read More
Supporting STEM Education Where It’s Most Needed
Geography is a topic often lost in national-level immigration policy and the ensuing conversations around comprehensive reform. We frequently hear statistics cited at the national level. However, all too often, data at the metropolitan and local level – where the challenges and opportunities of immigration policy play out – are overlooked in policy debates. Read More
The Sooner Immigrants Become Citizens, the Better it is for the Economy
As lawmakers negotiate the contours of an immigration reform bill, they should keep in mind that the granting of legal status to undocumented immigrants would be a boon for the U.S. economy—and allowing undocumented immigrants to eventually become U.S. citizens would be an even bigger boon. Such is the finding of a report from the Center for American Progress (CAP), entitled The Economic Effects of Granting Legal Status and Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants. The report was authored by Robert Lynch, a Visiting Senior Fellow at CAP and the Everett E. Nuttle professor and chair of the Department of Economics at Washington College, and Patrick Oakford, a Research Assistant at CAP. The authors explain succinctly why legalized immigrants and newly minted U.S. citizens are so economically valuable: Read More
Why Regional Economies Need Immigration Reform
Comprehensive immigration reform and its array of issues is a hot topic of discussion these days at the national level. Yet while those in Washington continue crafting proposals, states are most impacted by the country’s current outdated immigration system and are making the economic and moral case for reform, as a recent Chicago Council on Global Affairs report highlights. Read More
Republican Party Officially Backs Immigration Reform
Today, the Republican National Committee formally endorsed comprehensive immigration reform, bringing its position back in line with the Republican Party platform of 2004. Championing immigration reform was among the suggestions offered in a report released today about how the RNC can reinvent itself as part of a $10 million plan to reach out to minority groups. "We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform," says one recommendation in the 100-page report, according to the Associated Press. "If we do not, our party's appeal will continue to shrink." Read More
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