05/16/11 Last Friday, despite intense opposition from business, student, immigrant, and faith groups, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal (R) placed his state on a perilous path by signing anti-immigrant legislation modeled after Arizona's "papers, please" law.
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05/06/11 Huge news this week on the DREAM Act front: both Illinois and California in the last few days have taken the lead among states—and the federal government—in advancing common-sense positions on immigration reform.
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05/05/11 Teens in Alabama -- does the dance floor at prom seem a little emptier than usual this year? No, it's not just that awful DJ the principal booked. New immigration legislation would prohibit a whole category of classmates from attending.
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05/04/11 It's a busy day for immigrant rights advocates and DREAMers in Illinois. Today, hundreds of pro-immigrant advocates from across the state have made the trip to Springfield, the state capital, urging state lawmakers to vote "yes" on two important pro-migrant pieces of legislation.
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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.
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04/18/11 Georgia has been arresting student activists, ignoring the state's civil rights history, and snubbing protests from business, immigration, and faith groups in order to pass its own state immigration bill, an SB 1070 copycat. The problem? Georgia will soon gain a new seat in Congress, largely due to growth in the state's Latino population.
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04/07/11 UPDATE on the Georgia 7: Great news! After a night in prison, all seven protestors from the DREAM demonstration in Atlanta Tuesday have been released. They are asking for your continued support as they resume campaigning against the Georgia ban on higher education for undocumented students. You can sign their petition here.
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04/05/11 A group of 270 farmers and businessmen from Georgia's agricultural and landscaping industries delivered a letter to state lawmakers yesterday asking them to reconsider the economic consequences of a proposed immigration bill.
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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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03/24/11 Looks like the hard work and persistence of some New York-based DREAMers (and activists from all around the nation) paid off. New York now joins Maryland, California, Illinois, and Connecticut as states that are trying to push state versions of the DREAM Act.
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03/22/11 Hostility from a key voting demographic, weakened ties between law enforcement and communities, and boycotts that chill the local economy have all been consequences of Arizona's decision to pass the infamously stringent SB 1070 anti-immigration bill last year...Yet apparently the state of Georgia wants in on the action, with both its House and Senate chambers this month passing Arizona-copycat bills.
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03/21/11 Last week, New York State DREAMers went to Albany to lobbying members of the New York State Legislature for a state DREAM Act. Albor Ruiz from the New York Daily News profiled César Vargas and his work on DREAM.
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03/18/11 The news out of Arizona is that its Republican-dominated state Senate rejected the latest series of harsh immigration measures. For once, the Arizona GOP said no to their leader, State Sen. Russell Pearce, who wanted to enact a package that has been called SB 1070 on steroids by us and by others in the beltway.
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03/17/11 In the weeks and months after Arizona's infamous Senate Bill 1070 became law last year, no shortage of commentators predicted that "Arizona fever" would sweep the nation, spawning copycat immigration bills in every corner of the US. In some states, this happened; stringent anti-immigration bills are winding their way through the Georgia, Oklahoma, and Florida statehouses (among others) right now.
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03/09/11 The Maryland State Senate is beginning its deliberations on legislation to grant in-state tuition to the state's undocumented students. Casa de Maryland has more information on this bill, which is called the "Maryland DREAM."
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03/07/11 The debate on immigration at the state level took marked turn over the weekend. Utah passed immigration legislation that is decidely unlike what we saw last year from Arizona.
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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.
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02/23/11 Just when you didn't think it could get much worse for immigrants in these United States, it actually does. This time, it's in Texas.
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02/23/11 Yesterday, we reported that Arizona State Senator Russell Pearse had introduced yet another anti-immigrant bill to the Arizona Senate. If you thought SB 1070 was bad, check out SB 1611.
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02/17/11 As Arizona ramps up to finish off what little funds the state has left on another piece of hateful legislation aimed at revoking the citizenship of children born to undocumented immigrants, a few young voices took to the stand to tell the assembly what they really needs to focus on, and why.
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02/08/11 According to today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, GOP legislators in Virginia's State House have set their sights on immigrant bashing legislation: The highest-profile of the bunch is House Bill 2332, sponsored by Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William, which would require state and local law enforcement officers to make inquiries into a person's citizenship status upon arrest.
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01/27/11 Despite the fact that Arizona's SB 1070 is highly controversial, absurdly expensive, and likely unconstitutional, Virginia's immigration hardliners continue to push for their own Arizona-style legislation. Here we go again.
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01/12/11 The Immigration Policy Center has released a comprehensive new guide to responding to the controversial Arizona-style immigration laws already popping up in states like Florida and Texas.
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01/03/11 The New York Times reported last week that Republicans at the state and local levels plan to introduce a wave of anti-immigrant measures over the next year.
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12/30/10 After commanding the world's attention in 2010 with its cavalier stance on immigration, the Arizona state legislature is threatening—once again—to dominate national immigration discourse and policy. This week, Arizona state Senator and Senate President-Elect Russell Pearce (R) spoke candidly with CNN's Jessica Yellin about his plans to introduce a birthright citizenship bill in Arizona this coming January—a move likely to be echoed in the impending Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
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11/12/10 A reasonable conservative approach to immigration -- that's not something we've heard much about recently, what with all the extreme campaign rhetoric and state laws. But this week, a conservative coalition in Utah gives immigration reform advocates a reason to hope that a rational dialogue on this contentious issue is possible.
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11/09/10 Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R), the sponsor of SB-1070 who was recently elected state Senate president, has pushed and authored a series of other lesser-known immigration laws in his state. One of those was Proposition 300 — a referendum approved by Arizona voters in November 2006 which forces undocumented Arizonans to pay out-of-state tuition and bars them from receiving financial aid.
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