Immigration Policy Center

Delaware Lawmakers Studying Immigration Reform

Published on Fri, Jun 04, 2010

Delaware lawmakers are researching legislation in other states that could be the basis of an immigration bill here, including Arizona's controversial new law and Oklahoma's 2007 measure, which once was considered the most restrictive in the country.

Published in the News Journal

Justice Dept. Challenges Arizona Over Other Immigration Law Targeting Employers

Published on Thu, Jun 03, 2010

"The argument that the Justice Department is making here, is you know, the fundamental question, which is where does state authority begin and end when it comes to federal immigration law?" said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council.

Published in the Fox News

Border Boletín: Debunking Myths About SB 1070

Published on Wed, Jun 02, 2010

The Immigration Policy Center has issued a 14-page guide to Arizona's new immigration enforcement law: What you need to know about the new law and how it can impact your state.

The Washington D.C.-based Center is a research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council that advocates for comprehensive immigration reform.

Published in the Arizona Daily Star

FAIR's Distorted Fiscal Snapshot of Unauthorized Immigrants

New Report Ignores Economic Contributions of Unauthorized Workers and Consumers; Views the Education of Their U.S.-Citizen Children as Nothing More Than a "Cost"

Released on Tue, Jul 06, 2010

Washington D.C. - Today, Fox News is reporting on data provided to them by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) which amounts to a highly misleading fiscal snapshot of the costs allegedly imposed on U.S. taxpayers by unauthorized immigrants. However, in its rush to portray unauthorized immigrants as nothing more than a drain on the public treasury, FAIR completely discounts the economic contributions of unauthorized workers and consumers. Moreover, FAIR inflates their cost estimate by indiscriminately lumping together native-born, U.S.-citizen children with their unauthorized parents.

FAIR's report suffers from three fatal flaws:Read more...

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Reality at the U.S. Mexico Border

Experts Describe the Real Sources of Violence and How We Can Best Respond

Released on Tue, Jun 08, 2010

Washington D.C. - On Monday, the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) hosted a teleconference with border and national-security experts who dissected the myths linking immigration and border violence. These experts shared their analyses of the reality of crime and violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, what the real sources of violence are, and how the U.S. should respond. They all made the point that nearly twenty years of immigration policy focusing on "securing the border first" has failed to address the underlying issues and criminal cartels that are the real cause of violence along the border. The experts noted that immigration laws and policies of the past two decades have, ironically, made the border less safe and have actually benefitted the traffickers and smugglers who operate at the border.Read more...

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Violence On The Mexican Border Misconstrued

Published on Wed, May 26, 2010

The violence has increased since 2007 – on the Mexican side of the border. What gets lost in this debate is that violence on the American side of the border has actually decreased.

A report by the Immigration Policy Center compiled using statistics from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics found that violent and property crime in Arizona has been on a steady decline since 2002. It decreased by 8% in six years. Violent crime impacted 447 people out of 100,000 in 2008 compared to 555 in 2002.

Published in the News Junkie Blog

Brain Gain: Immigration key to future prosperity

Published on Sun, May 16, 2010

The foreign-born share of Michigan’s population rose from 3.8 percent in 1990 to 5.3 percent in 2000, to 6.1 percent in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2007, Michigan was home to more than 600,000 immigrants. And roughly 47 percent of them are naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote, notes the Immigration Policy Center in its September 2009 report, “New Immigrants in the Great Lakes State.”

Latinos, Asians and Arab Americans account for a large and growing share of the economy and electorate of Michigan. Census data reveal that 6.4 percent of Michiganders are Latino or Asian. The Latino share of Michigan’s population grew 4 percent in 2007. The Asian share grew 2.4 percent the same year.

Michigan also has the highest proportion of Arab Americans in the nation and is home to some of the world’s largest populations of Albanian, Macedonian, Lebanese, Iraqi and Yemeni immigrants.

Published in the Dome Magazine

Fence isn't a cure-all for America's porous border

Published on Thu, May 27, 2010

Immigrant rights advocates say the fence prompts migrants to cross in remote areas where they face dangerous, often deadly obstacles.

"It's a very big problem," said Walter Ewing, a senior researcher for the pro-immigrant Immigration Policy Center.

Published in the Associated Press

Fremont in the spotlight

Published on Sun, May 30, 2010

The flurry of local legislation is adding to the pressure on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform and avoid adding to a hodgepodge of laws regulating immigration.

“There is real frustration because our immigration system is broken,” said Michele Waslin of the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center. “But you also need to look at what this type of legislation says about you as a city.”

Published in the Omaha World Herald

Should local police get involved in immigration enforcement?

Published on Sun, May 30, 2010

Some police departments argue federal immigration enforcement undermine their core missions, said Wendy Feliz Sefsaf of the American Immigration Council.

"It [Arizona's law] goes against all the goals of community policing," she said. "There's definitely law enforcement out there saying this kind of thing doesn't work."

In fact, last week police chiefs from Los Angeles, Tucson, Houston, Philadelphia and other cities, met with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and said laws like Arizona's would lead to increases in crime.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said Arizona's law "will likely hinder" federal efforts to detain and remove "dangerous criminal aliens." Calling for immigration reform on the national level, she said "this issue cannot be solved by a patchwork of inconsistent state laws."

Published in the Orlando Sentinel