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Immigration Reform

DHS Progress Report: The Challenge of Reform

The month of March marks the seventh anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its immigration agencies. It also marks the end of a sweeping internal review ordered by Secretary Janet Napolitano, a review which as not been made public. In order to assess the first year of immigration policy under the Obama Administration, the Immigration Policy Center releases the following Special Report which compare DHS's actions with the recommendations (Transition Blueprint) made to the Obama Transition Team’s immigration-policy group. How does DHS stack up? The following IPC report finds a department caught between the competing priorities of old broken policy and new reforms. While DHS has failed to meet key expectations in some areas, it has engaged thoughtfully and strategically in others, and has made some fundamental changes in how it conducts its immigration business.

 

Published On: Tue, Mar 02, 2010 | Download File

Immigration Reform and Job Growth

Legalizing Unauthorized Immigrants Would Boost the U.S. Economy

With the U.S. unemployment rate hovering at 10%, some have questioned whether or not now is really the right time for comprehensive immigration reform that includes the creation of a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants already living in the United States.  Underlying this uncertainty is the fear that native-born Americans will lose out on scarce jobs if currently unauthorized immigrants acquire legal status—despite the obvious fact that unauthorized immigrants are already here and in the labor force.  However, the best available evidence suggests that neither legal nor unauthorized immigration is the cause of high unemployment, and that the higher wages and purchasing power which formerly unauthorized immigrants would enjoy were they to receive legal status would sustain new jobs. 

Immigrants are not the cause of high U.S. unemployment.

Immigration is not associated with high unemployment at the regional, state, or county levels.Read more...

Published On: Wed, Feb 24, 2010 | Download File

Protecting Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Raids

Study Finds Significant Behavioral Changes in Children After Raids

Children of unauthorized immigrant parents are often forgotten in debates over immigration reform.  There are roughly 5.5 million children living in the United States with unauthorized immigrant parents—three-quarters of whom are U.S. born citizens.  These families live in constant fear of separation.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that over the last 10 years, more than 100,000 immigrant parents of U.S. citizen children have been deported from the United States.  

A new report by the Urban Institute, Facing Our Future: Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement, examines the consequences of parental arrest, detention, and deportation on 190 children in 85 families in six locations across the country. The report found that raids and other ICE actions that separate parents and children pose serous risks to children’s immediate safety, economic security, well-being, and long-term development. In most cases, two-parent homes became single-parent families after one parent was detained.  At least 20 families in the study were forced to decide whether children—many of whom are native born U.S. citizens—would leave the country with their deported parent or remain with the other parent or other relatives. The Urban Institute interviewed families affected by ICE actions at the following six sites: Read more...

Published On: Mon, Feb 22, 2010 | Download File

Future Flow: Repairing Our Broken Immigration System

One of the greatest challenges in immigration reform is the need to realistically assess our future employment-based immigration needs.  This includes permanent and temporary visas, high-skilled and low-skilled workers.  Many people agree that our current legal immigration flow is drastically out of sync with America’s labor needs and the global realities of the 21st century. Meanwhile, some employers have been able to misuse the broken system to the detriment of U.S. and foreign workers.  Policymakers must recognize that if we create a legal immigration system that functions well, there will be less pressure on immigrants to come to the U.S. illegally and for employers to hire unauthorized workers.  Given the current weakened economy and high unemployment rates, it is difficult to estimate the U.S.’s future labor needs.  However, the economy will eventually improve, and a reasonable, flexible legal immigration system must be put into place to fill our future labor needs.  If the U.S. is to thrive in the globalized 21st century economy, employment-based immigration must be seen as a strategic resource that can both meet labor market needs and foster economic growth and competition while still protecting U.S. workers and improving wages and working conditions.

Improving the visa system would provide the following benefits to the United States: Read more...

Published On: Mon, Feb 01, 2010 | Download File

What the Bible Really Says about Immigration

by Bruce and Judy Hake

Comprehensive immigration reform is one of the most pressing problems for the United States.  This is expected to be a key issue for Congress in 2010.

Many faith-based organizations are motivated by the Bible in advocating for reform.  To counter this, the restrictionists have tried to preempt, issuing a report that purports to prove that the Bible justifies a harsh stance on immigration.

Building on an article we wrote in 1998, in a new article published on January 1, 2010 in Bender's Immigration Bulletin, we debunk the restrictionist argument and show that the Bible actually does support a generous attitude towards immigrants and immigration. Indeed, it mandates such a view.

There are both religious and non-religious people on both sides of the debate over comprehensive immigration reform.  One does not need to be religious in order to advocate for the rights of immigrants.  But religion is very important for many people involved in the debate.  That being so, it is important to have an accurate view of what the Bible really says about immigration, and we have tried our best to show that.

 

Published On: Tue, Jan 26, 2010 | Download File

Family Immigration: Repairing our Broken Immigration System

Reforming our broken immigration system will require us to transform our family-based immigration system, clear out the backlogs, recapture unclaimed family-based visas, reset numerical caps and allow law-abiding families to reunite with loved ones in a humane and reasonable timeline. This paper lays out the key principles for family immigration within the context of comprehensive immigration reform.

Read more...

Published On: Fri, Jan 15, 2010 | Download File

The Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform

A new report, “Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” by Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, finds that comprehensive immigration reform that includes a legalization program for unauthorized immigrants and enables a future flow of legal workers would result in a large economic benefit—a cumulative $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years. In stark contrast, a deportation-only policy would result in a loss of $2.6 trillion in GDP over 10 years. Read more...

Published On: Mon, Jan 11, 2010 | Download File

Raising the Floor for American Workers

According to a new study by UCLA’s Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, legalizing undocumented workers through comprehensive immigration reform would yield $1.5 trillion to the U.S. GDP over a ten year period, generate billions in additional tax revenue and consumer spending and support hundreds of thousands of jobs. The report, which runs several different economic scenarios, finds that enacting a comprehensive immigration reform plan which creates a legalization process for undocumented workers and sets a flexible visa program dependent on U.S. labor demands not only raises the floor for all American workers, but is an economic necessity. Read more...

Published On: Thu, Jan 07, 2010 | Download File

The Immigration Policy Center's Top 10 Resources of 2009

As the year comes to a close, The Immigration Policy Center brings you its top 10 list of resources from 2009.

Published On: Fri, Dec 18, 2009 | Download File

Enforcing Immigration Laws: Repairing our Broken Immigration System

For years the U.S. government has addressed unauthorized immigration primarily through the lens of deportation and removal, pursuing enforcement-only policies that have not effectively curbed unauthorized immigration.  An increase of personnel and technology along the U.S.-Mexico border has been accompanied by increased worksite enforcement in the interior of the United States.  In addition, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has partnered with state and local police agencies and jails to identify and apprehend immigrants and to remove them from the country.  None of these efforts has resulted in a significant decline in the size of the unauthorized population, but these enforcement policies and priorities have had devastating impacts on U.S. families and communities. Read more...

Published On: Tue, Dec 08, 2009 | Download File