05/20/11 We all know Lamar Smith, one-third of the "Three Amigos" on immigration and perhaps most vocal member of the GOP Mass Deportation Caucus, wants to expel 11 million undocumented people that live in this country. However, he has now resorted to insulting our intelligence by supporting inefficient programs in his bid to get rid of undocumented immigrants.
Read More »

05/13/11 Today, the Washington Post's editorial board slammed an effort to block the DREAM Act through the referendum process -- and mocked Delegate Pat McDonough for leading the effort.
Read More »

05/06/11 As the federal government and state legislatures try to expand the role of police in immigration enforcement, state and local police are pushing back. In Texas, Illinois, California, and elsewhere, law enforcement leaders are speaking out against proposals to gut their community policing policies and require them to participate in the Secure Communities program.
Read More »

05/06/11 The President needs to take a detour. Heading into 2012, he can't allow his legacy on immigration to be defined by a record number of deportations and no relief for any of the undocumented immigrants he pledged to legalize. It's great that the President is using his megaphone to put more pressure on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. We need it. But we also need the Administration to take bold action to reform its enforcement policies and bring them more in line with their stated priorities.
Read More »

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.
Read More »

04/26/11 California farmers are confirming what we've been saying for months: the immigration policies proposed by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), the chair of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, pose an economic danger to California and its agricultural industry.
Read More »

04/22/11 Earlier this week, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) threw a hissy fit about the Utah law, writing a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to make a tortured case for why the work permit component of the legislation (the part he dislikes) should be challenged in court by the federal government, ala the Arizona law, while the police enforcement component (the part he does like) should remain in place.
Read More »

04/08/11 The Department of Homeland Security hasn't received a lot of praise recently, and the lack of it has finally gotten to them. That's why they've announced an initiative aimed at fighting the negative views that communities have developed over time.
Read More »

04/06/11 Despite the claims of Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Latino voters did not embrace Republican Latinos in 2010. In Nevada's race for Governor, while figures show that while Republican Brian Sandoval beat Clark County commissioner Rory Reid overall, getting 53.4% of the vote to Reid's 41.6%, Latino voters overwhelmingly preferred Reid: Latino Decisions' election eve poll showed that 84% of voters chose Reid, while only 15% voted for Sandoval.
Read More »

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.
Read More »

04/01/11 GOP Congressman Lamar Smith has once again asserted himself as his party's leading strategist on the Latino vote. He's taking issue with Chris Cillizza's recent analysis of census numbers,"The Republican's Hispanic Problem." Smith, who supports mass deportation, is desperately trying to get his fellow Republicans deny the facts and trends on Latino voters.
Read More »

03/24/11 New data from the U.S. Census Bureau highlights the dramatic increase of the Latino population over the past decade, in both traditional "gateway" states and throughout the nation, with Latinos now comprising more than 1 in 6 Americans. According to Associated Press analysis of the new data, minority population growth makes up 90 percent of the total U.S. population growth since 2000.
Read More »

03/14/11 Last spring, we saw lots of stories about support for an Arizona-type law. Pollsters would ask if voters supported the Arizona law and the results became the story, without highlighting the other side of the equation: that there is strong support for immigration reform. However, with Rasmussen, it's worse -- according to them, there really is no "other side."
Read More »

03/11/11 House Republicans really let their nativist flag fly yesterday with simultaneous hearings on "New Jobs in Recession and Recovery: Who Are Getting Them and Who Are Not" (or rather: "Why Immigrants are Supposedly Recovering from the Recession Faster than Natives and What We Can Do to Make Sure They Don't Get Jobs") and "The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response."
Read More »

03/10/11 As the House Immigration Subcommittee begins its latest controversial hearing on immigration issues, the panel's leadership is facing withering attacks from two Latino leaders in Congress.
Read More »

03/09/11 On Thursday, March 10, 2011, the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration is holding another in its series of blatantly anti-immigration hearings.
Read More »

03/04/11 The leaders of House Mass Deportation Caucus, Reps. Smith, Gallegly, and King, are not only driving the GOP immigration strategy, they are driving their party off of a political cliff.
Read More »

03/04/11 A proposal in the Texas state legislature to crack down on the hiring of undocumented immigrants features a huge exception for household labor -- once again exposing the breathtaking hypocrisy of some Republicans who want to sound tough on the issue, but still benefit from undocumented labor.
Read More »

03/01/11 Today, the leaders of the House Mass Deportation Caucus, Reps. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Steve King (R-IA) and Lamer Smith (R-TX), have organized a hearing that they've disingenuously titled "Making Immigration Work for American Minorities." That's not what it's about.
Read More »

02/25/11 Pew Hispanic Center is out with a new poll. Though they want to focus on letting us know that the "Public Favors Tougher Border Controls and Path to Citizenship" (we already knew that), more relevant to current immigration news is this: Americans don't want to change the 14th Amendment's provision on birthright citizenship.
Read More »

02/23/11 For the past couple years, Republicans on Capitol Hill and across the country have been spitting out talking points about the need for stronger "border security." None of them will actually define what it means to "secure the border," but we just know that in their world, there's never enough border security.
Read More »

02/16/11 Move over, Jan Brewer, and make room for Kansas GOP Representative, Connie O'Brien. Unlike Brewer, who openly admitted she does not know what an undocumented person looks like (and still had the audacity to sign SB 1070 into law), Representative O'Brien thinks she knows.
Read More »

01/27/11 Yesterday, the Immigration Subcommittee (of the House Judiciary Committee), which is led by notoriously anti-immigrant members of Congress -- Lamar Smith (R-TX), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), and Steve King (R-IA) -- held their first immigration hearing since Republicans took control of the House.
Read More »

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.
Read More »