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Enforcement and Employment Verification

How Expanding E-Verify Would Hurt American Workers and Business

Expanding mandatory E-Verify would threaten the jobs of thousands of U.S. citizens and saddle U.S. businesses with additional costs—all at a time when we need to stimulate our economy.  Expanding E-Verify now would be in direct contradiction to the goal of creating jobs and would slow America’s economic recovery.

E-Verify is bad for the economy and tax revenues:

  • The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that a mandatory E-Verify program would decrease federal revenues by $17.3 billion over 10 years due to the number of workers leaving the formal economy and working in the unregulated, untaxed underground economy.
  • The CBO’s predictions have come true in Arizona, where E-Verify is mandatory. Businesses are hiring workers off the books, which means they are not paying income or payroll taxes.
  • CBO also estimated that implementing mandatory E-Verify would cost $3 billion over 5 years and $6.1 billion over 10 years.

E-Verify will cost U.S. citizens and legal workers their jobs—the OPPOSITE of what is needed:
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Published On: Tue, Mar 02, 2010 | Download File

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

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

The Criminal Alien Program: Immigration Enforcement in Travis County, Texas

The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is a program administered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that screens inmates in prisons and jails, identifies deportable non-citizens, and places them into deportation proceedings. In this Special Report, The Criminal Alien Program: Immigration Enforcement in Travis County, Texas, author Andrea Guttin, Esq., provides a brief history and background on the CAP program.  Guttin also includes a case study of CAP implementation in Travis County, Texas, which finds that the program has a negative impact on communities because it increases the community’s fear of reporting crime to police, is costly, and may encourage racial profiling.

Download the Special Report

Download a Summary of the Report

Download a Fact Check on Immigration Detainers

 

Published On: Wed, Feb 17, 2010 | Download File

Immigration Detainers: A Comprehensive Look

What is an immigration detainer and how does it work? Are detainers only placed on unauthorized immigrants? What happens after an immigration detainer has expired?  What are the consequences of immigration detainers?  In order to better understand immigration detainers’ function and impact, the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) provides the following Fact Check to shed much needed light on this often misunderstood immigration enforcement tool.

What is an immigration detainer?

An immigration detainer is a tool used by ICE and other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials to identify potentially deportable individuals who are housed in jails or prisons nationwide. An immigration detainer is an official request from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)  to another law enforcement agency (LEA)—such as a state or local jail —that the LEA notify ICE prior to releasing an individual from local custody so that ICE can arrange to take over custody.Read more...

Published On: Wed, Feb 17, 2010 | Download File

The Criminal Alien Program: Immigration Enforcement in Prisons and Jails

In The Criminal Alien Program: Immigration Enforcement in Travis County, Texas, author Andrea Guttin explores the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), which is one of the programs the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses to identify immigrants who may be deportable.  The paper provides a history and analysis of the CAP program, as well as a case study of CAP implementation in Travis County, Texas.

What is the Criminal Alien Program (CAP)?

CAP is a program administered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that screens inmates in jails, identifies deportable non-citizens, and places them into deportation proceedings.  CAP is one of fourteen federal/local law enforcement programs under the umbrella of ICE ACCESS (Agreements in Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security).  CAP is active in all state and federal prisons, as well as more than 300 local jails throughout the country.

How does CAP work?Read more...

Published On: Wed, Feb 17, 2010 | Download File

New Data on Federal Court Prosecutions Reveal Non-Violent Immigration Prosecutions Up

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) reports that federal immigration prosecutions rose to record levels during fiscal year (FY) 2009. In the past, federal court resources were appropriately allocated to pursue immigration-related prosecutions against individuals with criminal backgrounds. Recently, however, priorities have shifted, and large numbers of federal immigration prosecutions have focused on non-violent border crossers, creating the appearance that immigrants are committing more crimes. However, the fact is -- the federal government’s shift in resources has meant spending billions of dollars prosecuting non-violent immigration violators while more serious criminals involved in drugs, weapons, and organized crime face a lower probability of prosecution.

Published On: Thu, Feb 04, 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

The Secure Communities Program: Unanswered Questions and Continuing Concerns

As the Department of Homeland Security marks the one year anniversary of its Secure Communities Program—the latest partnership between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local jails to identify and deport "criminal aliens"—the Immigration Policy Center releases a Special Report, The Secure Communities Program: Unanswered Questions and Continuing Concerns. The report asks key questions and raises serious concerns about the program and provides recommendations for its improvement.

Download the Report

Download the Executive Summary

Published On: Mon, Nov 23, 2009 | Download File