Legalization

Second Annual DHS Progress Report

In its second year under the Obama Administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—which is responsible for the nation’s three immigration agencies (USCIS, CBP, and ICE)—continues to struggle with its competing missions of providing immigration benefits and enforcing immigration laws, all within the context of an outdated and broken immigration system. Over the past year, while waiting for Congress to act, the Administration has increased its emphasis on enforcement and deportation and denied its ability to provide administrative relief. This report finds that, while DHS has made significant progress in some areas, there is much room for improvement. The report recommends that DHS act in line with its own stated priorities and exert its executive authority to bring about much-needed reforms that can be done in the absence of Congressional action.

Published On: Tue, Apr 12, 2011 | Download File

The Diversity Visa System: A Fact Sheet

What is the diversity visa lottery?

The diversity visa lottery was created to encourage legal immigration to the U.S. from countries other than the major immigrant sending countries. The current immigration system favors individuals who have close relationships with family members or employers in the U.S. People who do not have close family or employment in the U.S. have very few opportunities for permanent, legal immigration to the U.S. Read more...

Published On: Mon, Apr 04, 2011 | Download File

The U.S. Economy Still Needs Highly Skilled Foreign Workers

And Arbitrary Caps on H-1B Visas Still Don’t Meet that Need

It might seem that persistently high unemployment rates over the past few years have rendered moot the debate over whether or not the United States really “needs” the highly skilled foreign workers who come here on H-1B temporary visas. But the demand for H-1B workers still far outstrips the current cap of only 65,000 new H-1B visas that can be issued each year. In fact, from fiscal year 1997 to 2011, employers exhausted this quota before the fiscal year was over (except from 2001 to 2003, when the ceiling was temporarily increased). As a number of studies make clear, the presence in a company of highly skilled foreign workers whose abilities and talents complement those of native-born workers actually creates new employment opportunities for American workers. Yet the arbitrary numerical limits placed on H-1Bs are incapable of responding to the changing demand for H-1B workers. This is unfortunate, given that the international competitiveness of the U.S. economy will continue to depend heavily on the contributions of H-1B professionals and other high-skilled workers from abroad for many decades to come. Read more...

Published On: Wed, Mar 30, 2011 | Download File

Employment-Based Immigration to the United States: A Fact Sheet

U.S. law provides employers with several limited ways to bring foreign workers into the U.S. on a temporary or permanent basis. Employment-based immigration visa categories generally have limited and static numerical caps. In addition, before petitioning for a foreign worker, an employer is often required to obtain certification from the Department of Labor (DOL) that there are no U.S. workers available, willing, and qualified to fill the position at a wage that is equal to or greater than the prevailing wage generally paid for that occupation in the geographic area where the position is located. The purpose of this restriction is to demonstrate that the admission and hiring of foreign workers will not adversely affect the job opportunities, wages, and working conditions of U.S. workers. Read more...

Published On: Tue, Mar 29, 2011 | Download File

Statistical Hot Air: FAIR’s USA Report Lacks Credibility

Many politicians who champion the deport-them-all approach to unauthorized immigrants have been relying upon a bloated and deeply distorted report issued by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in July 2010. That report, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers, is not a credible source of data, yet its numbers have been cited repeatedly in this year’s debates over immigration legislation in the states. The report relies upon flawed and empirically baseless assumptions to inflate its estimate of the costs which unauthorized immigrants impose on federal, state, and local governments. Much of what FAIR counts as the cost of unauthorized immigration is actually the cost of education and healthcare for U.S.-citizen children. In fact, over half of FAIR’s cost estimate consists of educational and healthcare expenditures for the children of unauthorized immigrants, of whom nearly three-quarters are native-born U.S. citizens. These native-born children are counted as a “cost” of illegal immigration if they are under 18, but as U.S. citizens if they are working, taxpaying adults. In its rush to place a price tag on unauthorized immigrants, FAIR is unable to see that investing in children today pays off economically tomorrow. FAIR also neglects to mention the enormous fiscal and economic costs that would be incurred by attempting to remove unauthorized immigrants from the United States. As the negative impact of anti-immigrant legislation on the fiscal bottom-line becomes more apparent, many taxpayers may begin to see that the “costs” cited by FAIR do not tell the whole story. Read more...

Published On: Tue, Mar 29, 2011 | Download File

Constitutional Citizenship: A Legislative History

By Garrett Epps

Attacks against the Citizenship Clause of the 14^th Amendment have picked up in recent months, with legislators at both the national and state levels introducing bills that would deny U.S. citizenship or “state citizenship” to the children born to unauthorized immigrants in the U.S.

There are two strands of attacks on birthright citizenship. One strand arises out of simple nativist anger at the impact of immigrants, legal or otherwise, on society. The other argues that the current interpretation of the Citizenship Clause as covering the children of “illegal” immigrants is inconsistent with the “original intent” of the Framers of the 14^th Amendment. Originalism is often used as a method to clarify unclear portions of constitutional text or to fill contextual gaps in the document. This is not, however, how originalism is being used in the context to the Citizenship Clause. Here, originalists use clever arguments and partial quotations to eradicate the actual text of the Amendment. In essence, they claim the Framers did not really mean what they said. Read more...

Published On: Mon, Mar 28, 2011 | Download File

A Rising Tide or a Shrinking Pie

By Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, Ph.D.

Our national debate over urgently needed immigration reform is now careening through our state legislatures, city halls, and town councils due to political gridlock at the federal level. And nowhere is that debate more contentious than in Arizona, where in April of last year the state’s legislature sought to rid the state of undocumented immigrants with passage of S.B. 1070. The law is specifically designed to trigger a mass exodus of undocumented immigrants from the state by making “attrition through enforcement the public policy of all state and local government agencies in Arizona.”

The economic analysis in this report shows the S.B. 1070 approach would have devastating economic consequences if its goals were accomplished. When undocumented workers are taken out of the economy, the jobs they support through their labor, consumption, and tax payments disappear as well. Particularly during a time of profound economic uncertainty, the type of economic dislocation envisioned by S.B. 1070-type policies runs directly counter to the interests of our nation as we continue to struggle to distance ourselves from the ravages of the Great Recession.Read more...

Published On: Thu, Mar 24, 2011 | Download File

The Unauthorized Population Today

Number Holds Steady at 11 million, Three-Fifths Have Been Here More Than a Decade

Recent estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) indicate that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has remained unchanged at roughly 11 million since 2009. This comes after a two-year decline of approximately one million that corresponded closely to the most recent recession, which ran from December 2007 to June 2009. Despite that decline, the new data make clear that the current population of unauthorized immigrants is very much part of the social and economic fabric of the country. Three-fifths of unauthorized immigrants have been in the United States for more than a decade. Unauthorized immigrants comprise more than one-quarter of the foreign-born population and roughly 1-in-20 workers. Approximately 4.5 million native-born U.S.-citizen children have at least one unauthorized parent. While the largest numbers of unauthorized immigrants are concentrated in California and Texas, there also are sizable unauthorized populations in Florida, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Georgia, North Carolina, and Maryland. In short, unauthorized immigrants who are already in the country have become integral to U.S. businesses, communities, and families.

The size of the unauthorized population has remained unchanged at roughly 11 million since 2009.Read more...

Published On: Tue, Mar 22, 2011 | Download File

The Racial Blame Game

Immigrants Are Not the Cause of High Unemployment and Low Wages Among Minority Workers

Some observers have suggested that immigrants are to blame for the high unemployment rates and low wages experienced by so many minority workers in the United States. However, the best available evidence suggests that immigration is not the cause of dismal employment prospects for American minorities. For instance, cities experiencing the highest levels of immigration tend to have relatively low or average unemployment rates for African Americans. This should come as no surprise; immigrants go where jobs are more plentiful. The grim job market which confronts many minority workers is the product of numerous economic and social factors: the decline of factory employment, the deindustrialization of inner cities, racial discrimination, etc. Immigration plays a very small role. However, that role is generally positive. Immigrant workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs help to create jobs and give a slight boost to the wages of the vast majority of native-born workers. Some unscrupulous employers do exploit undocumented immigrants to the detriment of wages and working conditions for both native-born workers and legal immigrants. But the most practical solution to this problem is an earned legalization program for undocumented immigrants and stronger worksite enforcement of wage and labor laws.

Immigrants are not the cause of minority unemployment.Read more...

Published On: Tue, Mar 01, 2011 | Download File

Is More Getting Us Less? Real Solutions for Securing our Border

By Eric L. Olson and David Shirk

Ongoing reports about Mexico’s bloody conflict with organized crime have raised again the question of whether the United States should do more to prevent such violence from “spilling over” into the country. While officials have documented few cases of actual “spill over,” fears of exploding violence in Mexico and concerns about illegal migration are driving a policy debate that is centered on “securing the border.” To whit, President Barack Obama announced last May the deployment of 1,200 more National Guard troops to enhance border security, and requested an additional $500 million from Congress to further modernize southwestern border security. In August, the U.S. Congress approved a $600 million “Border Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2010” in near record time. The question is whether such policy actions are effective.