IPC Blog

View Newer Items | View Older Items

Anti-immigrant Bills Fail at the State and Local Level

One result of Congress’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform is an increased focus on immigration by state legislatures. The federal government has been unable to legalize the undocumented population, enact smart enforcement, and deal with the future immigration of workers and family members. States and localities, then, are left in the position of trying to deal with their new immigrant communities. While some states and localities have pushed measures to integrate newcomers into their communities, others have tried to enact harsh immigration-control measures such as deputizing police to enforce immigration laws, requiring employers to verify employment authorization through the flawed E-Verify program, and denying public benefits to immigrants. Read more at ImmigrationImpact.com. (June 18, 2009)

New Report Links Hate Crime and Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric

Today, the Washington Post highlighted a report by civil rights leaders linking the recent spike in hate crimes against Hispanics and people perceived to be immigrants with inflammatory rhetoric present in the immigration debate. The report, published by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF), looks at FBI hate crime statistics and calls for a more civil discourse that informs progress rather than “dehumanizing, racist stereotypes and bigotry” that so often permeate the debate. Read more at ImmigrationImpact.com. (June 17,2008)

FAIR Takes Aim at Virginia�s Immigrants and Children

In a new report, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)—an anti-immigrant hate group headquartered in Washington, DC—claims that “Virginia’s illegal immigrant population costs the state’s taxpayers nearly $1.7 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration.” However, the statistical gymnastics in which FAIR engages to produce this number render it virtually meaningless. FAIR dramatically exaggerates the fiscal “costs” imposed by undocumented immigrants by including the schooling of their native-born, U.S.-citizen children in its estimate and completely discounts the economic role that undocumented workers play as consumers who help support Virginia businesses. The economic contributions (and political clout) of immigrants and their children are described in greater detail in a new IPC fact sheet. Read more at ImmigrationImpact.com. (June 16, 2009)

Assembly Line Injustice at Immigration Court

A new study by Appleseed, a non-profit organization focused on reforming the American justice system, highlights the extent to which misguided deportation-only strategies have led to a breakdown in our immigration court system. The study, based on interviews with more than one hundred practitioners, academics, and government officials, found that America’s immigration courts are overwhelmed by the number of cases flooding the system.The Appleseed report is a reminder that reform of our immigration system requires a systematic overhaul of both our laws and how we implement them. Many of the proposed solutions in the report go to increasing the resources, training, and practices followed in immigration court. Read more at ImmigrationImpact.com. (June 15, 2006)

E-Verify All the Time

Have you ever seen the movie Goundhog Day where Bill Murray finds himself living the same day over and over and over again? Welcome to the world of E-Verify, the federal electronic employment verification system (EEVS) that purports to accurately confirm workers’ authorization for employment. Again and again policymakers have attached mandatory E-Verify proposals to any moving piece of legislation—whether it is related to the issue or not. Just today two amendments were offered to the DHS appropriations bill to expand the E-Verify system, and both were rejected. Subcommittee chair David Price (D-NC) argued that E-verify must be taken up as a part of comprehensive immigration reform – not as part of the budget. But E-verify amendments are likely to continue into the near future. Read more at ImmigrationImpact.com. (June 12, 2009)

Congress Beware: Don't Touch the Fence

As Congressional appropriations committees meet over the coming months to craft legislation funding immigration-enforcement operations for next fiscal year, they would do well to continue to steer clear of one of the Bush administration’s more costly border boondoggles: the border fence. Read more at ImmigrationImpact.com. (June 11, 2009)

Department of Homeland Security Suspends �Widow Penalty�

This week, the Obama administration took another step toward restoring fairness and humaneness to the immigration system. On Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that she would grant a two-year reprieve to immigrants who were married to U.S. citizens but did not complete the permanent residency process because their American spouses died during the application process. Read more at ImmigrationImpact.com. (June 10, 2009)