06/07/11 Yesterday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) announced that his state will not participate in the federal government's failed "Secure Communities" deportation program.
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05/31/11 This in from Ruben Navarrette last night: You would think that the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee would have better things to do than respond to every column that mentions him.
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05/09/11 The fact that Florida's state legislature will not advance Arizona-style anti-immigration legislation this year is a welcome development – and one that should puncture several myths that surround the politics of immigration.
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05/09/11 New polling from Pew Research Center shows that by a 3:1 margin, Americans want a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. This confirms that Republicans are blocking the solutions that the American people want.
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04/26/11 There's more news for those naysayers who claim that undocumented immigrants don't pay taxes, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. Last week, the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimated that in 2010, the state and local taxes paid by households that are headed by undocumented immigrants came to approximately $11.2 billion in state and local taxes.
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04/07/11 Polling shows that support for immigration reform is increasing, particularly among younger Americans. Yes, younger Americans strongly support immigration reform and immigrants. The anti-immigrant wedge doesn't work with them.
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04/05/11 A recent hearing on the H-1B work-visa program also made it clear that while Reps. Smith, Gallegly, and King have never met an undocumented dishwasher or field hand they liked, they recognize the vital role of high-skilled immigration to the United States.
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04/01/11 Yesterday, the Obama Administration's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Labor Department finally agreed to work together to make sure the government's zeal to enforce immigration laws doesn't hurt labor enforcement efforts.
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03/28/11 Ahead of the one-year anniversary of SB 1070, the Center for American Progress released a new report entitled "A Rising Tide or a Shrinking Pie: The Economic Impact of Legalization Versus Deportation," analyzing what would happen if SB 1070 were carried out to its full intended effect and every single undocumented immigrant was purged from Arizona, and would happen if the state instead decided to legalize all of its undocumented.
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03/11/11 There's been a lot of discussion about immigration policy in the states. Arizona and Utah have garnered a lot of attention. But, an article this week on Yahoo Noticias pointed us to some very interesting findings on the issue in Idaho.
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01/20/11 In response to a recent Roll Call article calling out the nativist lobby, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith wrote a letter to the editor making a series of claims—many of which he's been making for the last 20 years—which simply don't stack up to the facts. These myths also conveniently obscure the lack of any denial of ties to the nativist lobby. While many of Smith's easy-to-swallow myths may stir the extreme end of a conservative base, they serve as a yet another distraction from having an open and honest immigration debate.
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09/10/10 Yesterday, the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute released a report entitled, "The Demographic Impact of Repealing Birth," finding that the controversial idea birthed by some GOP senators of repealing the 14th amendment would, over the next ten years, actually increase illegal immigration by another 5 million people.
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09/03/10 A new study about the effects of immigration on U.S. employment supports the long-standing arguments of immigration advocates: Rather than displacing American workers, immigrant labor actually makes our economy stronger. Kevin Drum has the details at Mother Jones.
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08/17/10 Nope. That was not a typo. A new poll from Fox News finds that 68 percent of voters, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, say efforts to secure the border should be combined with reform of federal immigration laws by Congress. What do voters mean by reform of federal immigration laws? Sixty-eight percent "favor allowing illegal immigrants who pay taxes and obey the law to stay in the United States."
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04/09/10 An editorial in today's New York Times adds to a week of attacks on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), since last Friday's release of a new report by the agency's Inspector General that slams the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
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04/08/10 This post is a weekly feature by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium Blogger: According to a recent study described by New America Media, passing comprehensive immigration reform and providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants  wouldn’t negatively impact the job market for those who are already citizens. This is one of many myths promoted by [...]
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02/03/10 The President announced his budget Monday, sending many members of Congress into an angry frenzy over $3.83 trillion that Obama had allotted for an array of programs – mostly in an effort to fight against the growing unemployment and to strengthen our weak economy. But some members of Congress -- some of the same who are complaining over the "huge" deficit (note: mostly inherited from the Bush Administration) – are trying to keep this big secret under wraps: There is a $4.1 trillion choice in Washington.
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01/30/10 Yesterday Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator from South Carolina, stood up for a comprehensive fix to our badly damaged immigration system. Graham has been crafting bipartisan legislation with Senator Schumer for some time now, and details of the bill are expected soon.
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01/27/10 Earlier this month, President Obama and a bipartisan group of members of Congress did the right thing by granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to the approximately 30,000 Haitian immigrants already in the United States. Granting TPS was a welcome and timely move that reinforced American values at a time of great international turmoil. It was a move that we, and many other organizations, applauded with the advertisement to the right, which appeared in Roll Call last Thursday, January 21st.
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01/19/10 The Center for American Progress has a great snapshot of public opinion on immigration today. The piece begins: "There's no doubt the politics of immigration reform are very complicated and that getting a bill through Congress will not be easy. But it's important to be clear that the public is quite supportive of immigration reform, especially reform that is comprehensive and does not simply focus on punitive measures. This has been true of the public for some time and a new Benenson Strategy Group poll for America's Voice demonstrates that it is still true today."
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01/15/10 Pundits and unnamed politicos have long been arguing that Congress won't deal with reform in 2010. But, according to an article in today's Politico, not only is immigration reform in the mix, it's got a pretty fierce champion in the Senate: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is heading for a collision with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) over whose pet issue will get top billing in the Senate later this year. Schumer is taking a lead role in immigration — and is pushing Democrats to prioritize a potentially toxic issue leading up to the November elections. Kerry is a lead negotiator on climate change and is demanding that a climate bill get pushed to the front of the line.
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01/13/10 A new analysis by the Drum Major Institute (DMI) found that the Comprehensive Immigration Reform ASAP bill introduced by Congressmen Solomon Ortiz and Luis Gutierrez late last year would "make the grade" for strengthening and expanding America's middle class. DMI states the case succinctly: The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act sets the standard for an immigration policy, which will boost our nation's economy and strengthen and expand its middle class. The Institute administered a two-part "middle class test," which the bill passed with flying colors.
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01/12/10 Today's "Progress Report" is all about the economics of immigration reform, stating: "President Obama's current focus is, understandably, "jobs, jobs, jobs." However, Hinojosa's findings show that the issues of immigration and the economy are far from mutually exclusive. While anti-immigrant groups use anecdotal evidence to erroneously claim that legalization would be disastrous for the American worker, passing comprehensive immigration reform would not only strengthen the labor market, it would promote needed economic growth. Polling released yesterday additionally shows that 66 percent of voters support a program that requires undocumented immigrants to register, meet certain requirements, and become legal taxpayers on their way to becoming full U.S. citizens."
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01/12/10 Under the EB-5 visa program, which was established in 1990, immigrants who have created at least 10 US jobs with their investment of $500,000 - $1 million can be granted legal permanent residency. An appropriate thank you, don't you think, for those who are creating jobs in a country desperately in need of them? According to the Washington Post , the number of immigrants taking advantage of the program tripled from 1,443 in 2008 to 4,218 in 2009, partly because the recession motivated the government to streamline often slow-moving procedures -- and the benefits of doing so have been tremendous.
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01/07/10 This morning I was live-tweeting from an event at the Center for American Progress, co-sponsored by the Immigration Policy Center, where economic experts from a wide range of institutions had come together to document the astounding economic benefits to the United States that would come from passing a comprehensive immigration reform package. The event centered around a new study entitled, "Raising the Floor for American Workers," which was written by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, a professor at UCLA.
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01/05/10 In December, the anti-immigration organization CIS hired the polling firm Zogby International to conduct a survey that claims to have found broad opposition among people of faith for comprehensive immigration reform. While it's unsurprising that CIS would try to push back against recent public proclamations in support of immigration reform from Catholic, evangelical, and Jewish faith leaders, by steering poll results toward the organization's desired conclusions, the poll runs smack into some fairly troubling breaches of methodology.
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12/21/09 The Center For American Progress just released new guidelines today, which would present a strong foundation for a real immigration overhaul. Before laying out their core principles for Immigration Reform (view pdf), however, authors Marshall Fitz and Angela Kelley outline why this kind of reform is so urgent: Our broken immigration system undermines core national [...]
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