Legalization

Published on Thu, Jan 24, 2013

The IPC's Senior Researcher, Walter Ewing, had this article published in Yahoo! Finance:

"The U.S. immigration system undermines the U.S. economy in many ways. Two particularly glaring (and interrelated) examples concern foreign students and high-tech workers.

Each year, foreign students graduate from U.S. universities, often with in-demand science and engineering degrees. Yet many are forced to return to their home countries rather than putting their newly acquired knowledge to work here. Likewise, each year many high-tech workers from abroad (some of whom studied in U.S. universities) are forced to return home when their temporary work visas expire, regardless of how valuable their continuing contributions to the U.S. economy might be.

Both of these scenarios are nonsensical. That is why President Obama said in his inaugural address that the nation’s work will not be complete 'until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.'"

Published in the Yahoo! Finance

Published on Tue, Aug 06, 2013

An article in the California newspaper The Hanford Sentinel cited a number of resources from the Immigration Policy Center in an attempt to bust a number of immigration myths.  The article cites the recently posted California state fact sheet, a separate California fact sheet highlighting immigrants and innovation, and the recent report by Jack Strauss on Latino immigrants, African-Americans, and the myth that they are in competition for jobs.

"“Immigrant workers spend their wages in U.S. businesses,” said an Immigration Policy Center summary. “They buy food, clothes, appliances, cars and much more. Businesses respond to the presence of these new workers and consumers by investing in new restaurants, stores and production facilities. Immigrants also are 30 percent more likely than the native-born to start their own businesses. The end result is more jobs and more pay for more workers.”

What about immigrants’ effect on African-Americans? “Cities experiencing the highest rates of immigration tend to have relatively low or average unemployment rates for African-Americans,” Saint Louis University economist Jack Strauss concluded in an analysis of Census findings. “Cities with greater immigration from Latin America experience lower unemployment rates, poverty rates and higher wages among African-Americans.”

This may be counter-intuitive, but it’s probably because Latino newcomers and African-Americans don’t compete for the same jobs.

“Native-born workers take higher-paying jobs that require better English-language skills,” said the Immigration Policy Center report."

Published in the Hanford Sentinel

Published on Tue, Apr 01, 2014

Ben Johnson, the Executive Director of the American Immigration Council, responded to the misleading deportation numbers in a recent Washington Times article titled "68,000 Illegal Aliens with Criminal Records Caught and Released".

"The American Immigration Council, though, said the numbers were 'completely misleading' and that many of those ICE agents encountered were likely kicked out of the country even if they weren’t officially put into deportation proceedings.

The AIC said the more than 720,000 immigrants ICE encountered also likely included many legal immigrants whose 'interaction with law enforcement was so minor that they are not even legally subject to removal.'

'CIS is essentially asserting that a legal-permanent resident or a recently naturalized citizen with a broken tail light should be charged by ICE and removed from the country although there is no basis in law for such action,' said Benjamin Johnson, AIC’s executive director."

Published in the Washington Times