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Legislation and Policy

Missing the Target: Anti-Immigrant Ordinances Backfire

If you believe Bill Chase, a member of the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors from Stevensburg, Virginia, the Latino immigrants who have moved to the county in recent years aren’t as willing to learn English as his own immigrant forefathers. “I think we all came from foreign countries and turned into English-speaking Americans,” Chase told The Washington Post on August 9. Then, apparently without appreciating the irony, he added, “But I don’t feel a willingness of this particular group to do that. I don’t see the willingness to blend into society.”

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Published On: Wed, Aug 01, 2007 | Download File

Immigration Law Enforcement by State and Local Police

Across the country, states and localities are grappling with the problem of illegal immigration, and scores of communities are considering the role their police department might play in helping the federal government enforce immigration laws.

Published On: Wed, Aug 01, 2007 | Download File

Out of Sync: New Temporary Worker Proposals Unlikely to Meet U.S. Labor Needs

The temporary worker program now taking shape in Congress is unlikely to provide the U.S. economy with the numbers or kinds of workers that U.S. industries need.

Published On: Thu, Jun 07, 2007 | Download File

Temporary Visas and Wage Pressure

The debate over how many immigrants should be permitted to enter the country each year under a new temporary worker program is clouded by a common misconception: that the greater the number of temporary workers admitted, the greater the downward pressure on the wages of native-born workers. However, this assumption is not supported by the facts.

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Published On: Tue, Jun 05, 2007 | Download File

Dollars without Sense: Underestimating the Value of Less-Educated Workers

A recent report from the Heritage Foundation is one in a long line of deeply flawed economic analyses which claim to estimate the contributions and "costs" of workers based solely on the amount of taxes they pay and the value of the public services they utilize.

Published On: Wed, May 02, 2007 | Download File

Divided Families: New Legislative Proposals Would Needlessly Restrict Family-Based Immigration

New legislative proposals to drastically restrict family-based immigration practically ignore the social and economic benefits of the family-based admissions system for both immigrants and the native-born. Read more...

Published On: Tue, May 01, 2007 | Download File

From Newcomers to Americans: An Integration Policy for a Nation of Immigrants

The nation needs an immigrant-integration policy that effectively addresses the challenges and harnesses the opportunities created by today's large immigrant population. It is not in the best interests of the United States to make integration a more difficult, uncertain, or lengthy process than it need be. Facilitating the successful and rapid integration of immigrants into U.S. society minimizes conflicts and tensions between newcomers and the native-born, and enables immigrants to more quickly secure better jobs, earn higher incomes, and thus more fully contribute to the U.S. economy.

Published On: Thu, Mar 01, 2007 | Download File

A Humanitarian Crisis at the Border: New Estimates of Deaths Among Unauthorized Immigrants

In the mid-1990s, the U.S. government's deterrence approach to immigration control militarized the U.S.-Mexico border, closed off major urban points of unauthorized migration in Texas and California, and funneled hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants through southern Arizona’s deserts and mountains. As a result, immigrant deaths along the border have increased dramatically.

Published On: Thu, Feb 01, 2007 | Download File

U.S. Immigration Policy in Global Perspective: International Migration in OECD Countries

Despite the U.S.’s huge and flexible labor market and its abundance of leading-edge multinational corporations and world-class universities, it faces growing competition for skilled labor from other countries. This situation underscores the need to revamp U.S. immigration policies to make them more responsive to the demands of an increasingly competitive global economy. One possibility is to replace the H1-B visa program for highly skilled foreign professionals with a quality-selective regime like the point-based systems in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Published On: Wed, Jan 03, 2007 | Download File

The Sins of the Fathers: The Children of Undocumented Immigrants Pay the Price

For the undocumented in America there is little doubt that the iniquities of the father are visited upon the child. On November 7th, for instance, an astounding 71 percent of voters in Arizona passed a referendum (Proposition 300) which states that only U.S. citizens and legal residents are eligible for in-state college tuition rates, tuition and fee waivers, and financial assistance. These are kids brought by their parents to this country as young children, in many instances infants in their mothers’ arms, and in every instance as children for whom the decision to come here was made without their participation. And yet, they shall pay the price, perhaps with their futures. The same referendum would deny childcare to the U.S.-citizen children of undocumented parents. Yes, the child is a citizen of the United States, but voters in Arizona have concluded that to provide the child with care is to reward the parents for the sin of seeking a better life in America.

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Published On: Mon, Jan 01, 2007 | Download File