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Immigrant voters: On with the new

Published on Tue, Nov 02, 2010

Recently, the Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C. released a report showing that those Americans - especially Latinos and Asians - are making up a growing share of the U.S. electorate.

It defines New American voters as naturalized U.S. citizens and children born to immigrants since 1965, when the current wave of immigration from Latin America and Asia began.

Published in the Florida Times Union

Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)

Tell the LAC about your DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) cases

AIC’s Legal Action Center is interested in hearing about pending immigration cases that involve the validity of a marriage involving a lesbian or gay foreign national.  Please tell us about any case in which relief from removal hinges upon a qualifying spouse who is a lesbian or gay foreign national or any case in which an application for an immigration benefit (such as an I-130) hinges on recognition of a marriage involving a lesbian or gay foreign national.  Reply if you have a case that currently is pending:

  • in federal court (either district court or the court of appeals);
  • before the BIA or an IJ; or
  • before USCIS

Please tell us the status of the case, what decisions have been made on the case, and whether the adjudicator has agreed to hold the case in abeyance until the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is resolved by the courts or until there is further action by the BIA in Matter of Dorman, 25 I&N Dec. 485 (Attorney General 2011).    

Please send your responses to [email protected].

In cooperation with Immigration Equality, the National Immigration Project and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, we are interested in assessing the status of pending cases and exploring possible remedies. 

Also, if you are interested in developments that relate to lesbian or gay marriages (and many other LGBT issues) please join the GLIG (LGBT interest group) of AILA.   You can sign up by clicking “View and Change Listservs” on your MyAILA page.)

Thank you!

Teacher Vision

Studying immigration brings to light the many interesting and diverse cultures in the world. Browse our lessons, printables, references, and articles below for ideas on how to enhance your curriculum in this area. You'll find statistics on U.S. immigration, lessons on Ellis Island, information on the Pilgrims, and much more for grades K-12. Improve students' reading skills as they learn about the lives of immigrants with our language arts activities.

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14th Amendment outlines just what framers meant

Published on Mon, Jan 17, 2011

Problem is, you did exist. And, thankfully, researchers have gone back to the original records. The D.C.-based Immigration Policy Center, in particular, has done a marvelous job of digging deeper.

Their scholars have reconstructed 1866 debates in which concerns were raised about the nation being overrun by births from people clearly viewed then as less equal: gypsies in Pennsylvania and Chinese immigrants. Senators also discussed birthright citizenship in context of native tribal sovereignty.

Published in the Kansas City Star

Litigation Clearinghouse Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 12

This issue covers a recent FOIA lawsuit seeking information about stipulated removal; a Seventh Circuit case holding that the waiver of a right to a removal hearing under the Visa Waiver Program must be knowing and voluntary; a Ninth Circuit decision finding that DHS may not unilaterally block a motion to reopen to adjust status by opposing the motion; and the Supreme Court's decision to grant certiorari to examine the standard for granting stays of removal at the courts of appeals.

Published On: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 | Download File

Why Arizona is Retreating on its Immigration Law

Published on Sat, Mar 19, 2011

In a stunning turnaround, Arizona Republicans killed 5 of the state's notorious immigration bills. Terry Greene Sterling obtains a report showing deportations pummeling the local economy.

In a surprise St. Patrick’s Day coup, conservative Republican senators in Arizona slapped down five harsh immigration bills that aimed to deny state birth certificates to babies born to unauthorized immigrants, turn school teachers and hospital workers into immigration enforcers, prohibit undocumented immigrants from attending college, and criminalize them for driving.

Article - Sterling Immigration Retreat A protest outside the Arizona capitol building on March 17 as the state senate debated the latest immigration bills. (Credit: AP Photo) The roundly defeated measures signal that Arizona is ticking slightly towards the right-center. And, like many states that have rejected immigration measures this year, is beginning to recognize that immigration-crackdown laws can derail already fragile economic recoveries.

An embargoed report obtained by The Daily Beast details how deporting all of Arizona’s unauthorized immigrants would spell disaster for the already stressed economy. Not only would 17 percent of jobs vanish statewide, the liberal Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center say, but ousting all of Arizona’s undocumented migrants could “shrink the state economy by $48.8 billion.”

Even so, ridding Arizona of its 400,000 or so “illegals” has long been the stated goal of Russell Pearce, the temperamental Tea Partier with a reputation for bullying who ascended to the presidency of the state senate after sponsoring SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law that makes it a crime for unauthorized migrants to set foot in the Grand Canyon State. (Parts of the law have been temporarily stayed by a federal judge.)Read more...

Published in the Daily Beast

Litigation Clearinghouse Newsletter Vol. 1, No. 17

This issue covers "material support" litigation, Supreme Court cases this fall, and a recent Eighth Circuit case holding the government to regulatory standards.

Published On: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 | Download File

Current J-1 Exchange Participants

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Arizona Border Fence: In Effort to Attract Internet Donors, State Senator Russell Pearce Spews False Immigrant Crime Statistics

Published on Sat, Apr 09, 2011

Annnd... Arizona's anti-immigration campaign hurtles still further into red-state ridiculousness.

This morning, Governor Jan Brewer announced her latest, greatest battle plan in the war against illegal border-crossers: collect Internet donations to build a massive fence across the Arizona-Mexico line. (And what'll donors get in return? Why, an "I Helped Build the Arizona Wall" keepsake T-shirt, of course!)

In support, State Senator Russell Pearce squeezed in a few words of pro-fence propaganda on L.A.'s KNX news radio this morning. Here's the pile of steaming misinformation he dumped from his politickin' piehole:

Pearce claimed that illegal immigrants commit 2.5 times more violent crime than any other demographic.

He also used a Sin City analogy as a fear tactic to garner out-of-state support ("Unlike Vegas, what goes into Arizona doesn't stay in Arizona") and called the immigrant influx from Mexico an "invasion," but we'll let all that slide in the interest of clearing up this crime thing once and for all.

In response to Pearce's theory, we can almost see Wendy Sefsaf of the Immigration Policy Center roll her eyes over the phone.

She recommends we speak to the Department of Homeland Security about the fence idea (which, amusingly, cites prisoners as the perfect candidates for erecting the thing), but guesses it's "unprecedented, and probably illegal" for a state to evade federal strategy and take something so controversial into its own hands.

A Homeland Security rep will only say, "My apologies, DHS does not comment on state legislation." Ironically, President Obama is headed to the South tomorrow to push a more progressive (read: fenceless) U.S. immigration policy.

But as for the violent-crime statistic: The Immigration Policy Center released a March 2008 report that showed just the opposite, and Sefsaf says the trend has stayed consistent. An excerpt:Read more...

Published in the LA Weekly