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Guidelines for entering the "Celebrate America" Creative Writing Contest

Past winners have used the theme “Why I am Glad America is a Nation of Immigrants” to discuss their personal immigration experiences, learn about and share family histories or write about the broader questions of the challenges facing immigrants in a new land. Fifth grade students enter their work in local contests which are sponsored by chapters of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). Each chapter forwards the local winning entry to the National Competition where entries are reviewed by a distinguished panel including U.S. senators, award-winning authors and noted journalists. Winning entries are to be printed in the Congressional Record. The grand prize winner and two guests (including one parent/guardian) will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the Council’s Annual Benefit Dinner where the winner will be recognized and will recite the winning piece. Local and national judges are looking for student writing that is original, thoughtful and speaks to the Council’s mission to educate the public about the benefits of immigration to our society.

Check for a local contest and local deadlines.  The national deadline for local winners is April 12, 2013.

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GUIDELINES

Theme: "Why I Am Glad America is a Nation of Immigrants"

Entrants: 5th graders

Format:

  • Any written entry (essay, poem, story, interview, etc.) that reflects the theme
  • Entry should be submitted to your contest coordinator (some local contests require electronic submissions, so please check with your coordinator).

Word count: Up to 500 wordsRead more...

Study: Money sent out of U.S. beneficial

Published on Fri, Feb 12, 2010

A new report by a University of Rhode Island professor concludes that remittances sent by foreign workers from the United States to their home countries “yield surprising benefits” to the U.S. economy, rebutting critics who say they are a drain because the money is not spent in the United States.

The report, “Many Happy Returns: Remittances and their Impact,” by political science professor Kristin Johnson, was released Tuesday by the Immigration Policy Center, a nonpartisan research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council in Washington.

Published in the The Providence Journal

Immigration Reform a Break for DREAMers Looking to Work

Published on Mon, Jun 18, 2012

IPC director Mary Giovagnoli was quoted in an Epoch Times story covering President Obama's announcement of deferred action for 'DREAMers:' Read more...

Published in the The Epoch Times

On the Radar: Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Published on Wed, Apr 07, 2010

On March 21, over 200,000 people converged on Washington D.C. to demand comprehensive immigration reform in 2010. Asian Pacific Americans participated, including national Asian Pacific American civil rights organizations and Seattle’s Thao Tran, Many Uch and Cathy Pham.

On April 10, Saturday at noon, in Occidental Park in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, the Washington Immigration Reform Coalition of over 50 organizations, including the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of Washington, will host a comprehensive immigration reform rally in Seattle. This rally will be one of the largest and most multicultural of rallies being held on the National Day of Action. Rally organizers expect at least 5,000 to come from throughout the state, and 1,000 Asian Pacific Americans to attend.

Published in the International Examiner

Jill Esbenshade, Ph.D.

Jill Esbenshade, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Sociology at San Diego State University. She has been working on issues of immigration and labor for over 20 years and is the author of Monitoring Sweatshops: Workers, Consumers and the Global Economy as well as numerous articles on immigration policies and debates and labor policies and practices. Esbenshade published Displacement and Division: Regulating Immigration through Local Housing Ordinances with the Immigration Policy Center in September 2007.

Hungering to help millions of immig kids

Published on Mon, May 24, 2010

That seems to be the mindset of Oswaldo Cabrera, 42, an Ecuadoran immigrant who has been on a hunger strike since earlier this month.

"I am willing to sacrifice my life for the sake of the 5 million American children of undocumented parents who live in fear of them not coming back home at the end of the day," said Cabrera in a tired voice at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fairview, N.J.

Actually, there are 5.5 million children in the country with at least one parent who is undocumented, and 75% of them are U.S. citizens, says the Immigration Policy Center.

Published in the New York Daily News

IPC Staff

Guillermo Cantor, Senior Policy Analyst

Guillermo Cantor is the Senior Policy Analyst at the Immigration Policy Center, where he leads the Center’s research efforts. He also currently teaches courses on immigration and introductory sociology at Georgetown University. He has authored several publications on immigrant incorporation in the United States and Argentina. Prior to joining the American Immigration Council, Mr. Cantor served as an investigator on issues related to immigration at Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research and as a professor at the National University of Rosario and the National University of Entre Ríos. Throughout his career, Mr. Cantor received multiple distinctions including a Fulbright Fellowship, the Urban Institute's Emerging Scholar Award, and the International Development Research Center's Research Award. Mr. Cantor holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Wendy Feliz, Communications Director
202-507-7500 ext.7524
[email protected]

Wendy Feliz Sefsaf is the Communications Director at the American Immigration Council. Previously, she worked as a consultant for New America Media, a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic news service and as a communications officer at the Open Society Institute’s DC policy office, where she helped shape their communications and media strategy. She is currently an adjunct professor at American University and Johns Hopkins University where she teaches a course in advocacy communications. Wendy holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts from the New School University and an M.A. in Public Communication from American University.

Walter Ewing, Senior ResearcherRead more...

E-Verify and the Unintended Consequences of Immigration Reform

Published on Mon, Jun 21, 2010

"Migrants come here for a reason," says Michele Waslin, a senior policy analyst at the Immigration Policy Center. "They will continue to exist even if their life is made more difficult for them in the U.S. They have to weigh their lives here with their lives back home."

Published in the Salon

Deferred action information session to be held

Published on Sun, Sep 23, 2012

AIC's Wendy Sefsaf gives insight and advice to those interested in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative in this Central Florida Future article:  Read more...

Published in the Central Florida Future

Arizona's Immigration Law Isn't The Only One

Published on Fri, Jul 16, 2010

The increase in state laws parallels the changing settlement patterns of illegal immigrants. Between 1990 and 2008, illegal immigration slowed significantly in California but grew in Georgia, North Carolina and other states, according to a 2009 Pew Hispanic Center report.

"These are not your typical immigrant-receiving states, so they are not accustomed to having large immigrant populations," said Michele Waslin, senior analyst at the Immigration Policy Center. "They are struggling with how to deal with new populations."

Published in the Los Angeles Times