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Media Contact: Wendy Sefsaf at 202-507-7524 or [email protected]

Press Releases

07/06/10 | FAIR's Distorted Fiscal Snapshot of Unauthorized Immigrants

Washington D.C. -  Today, Fox News is reporting on data provided to them by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) which amounts to a highly misleading fiscal snapshot of the costs allegedly imposed on U.S. taxpayers by unauthorized immigrants.  However, in its rush to portray unauthorized immigrants as nothing more than a drain on the public treasury, FAIR completely discounts the economic contributions of unauthorized workers and consumers.  Moreover, FAIR inflates their cost estimate by indiscriminately lumping together native-born, U.S.-citizen children with their unauthorized parents.


FAIR's report suffers from three fatal flaws:

  • The report notes that the single biggest "expense" it attributes to unauthorized immigrants is the education of their children, yet most of these children are native-born, U.S. citizens who will grow up to be tax-paying adults.  It is disingenuous to count the cost of investing in the education of these children, so that they will earn higher incomes and pay more in taxes when they are adults, as if it were nothing more than a cost incurred by their parents.
  • The report fails to account for the purchasing power of unauthorized consumers, which supports U.S. businesses and U.S. jobs.
  • The report ignores the value added to the U.S. economy by unauthorized workers, particularly in the service sector.

In contrast to FAIR's report, the Perryman Group estimated that if all unauthorized workers and consumers were somehow removed from the U.S. economy, the United States would lose $552 billion in total economic activity ("expenditures"), $245 billion in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 2.8 million jobs. 

FAIR's data is meant only to reinforce their vision of "attrition through enforcement." It is not rooted in an effort to move the immigration debate forward. The public and the President have made it clear that deporting 11-12 million immigrants isn't reasonable or feasible. Therefore, passing comprehensive immigration reform - which would yield a cumulative $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years - is the only sound economic decision the United States can make. 

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06/08/10 | Reality at the U.S. Mexico Border

Washington D.C. - On Monday, the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) hosted a teleconference with border and national-security experts who dissected the myths linking immigration and border violence. These experts shared their analyses of the reality of crime and violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, what the real sources of violence are, and how the U.S. should respond.  They all made the point that nearly twenty years of immigration policy focusing on "securing the border first" has failed to address the underlying issues and criminal cartels that are the real cause of violence along the border.  The experts noted that immigration laws and policies of the past two decades have, ironically, made the border less safe and have actually benefitted the traffickers and smugglers who operate at the border.

Benjamin Johnson of the American Immigration Council stressed the need to disentangle unauthorized immigration and border violence as a means for solving both problems, noting that "we are pursuing a lopsided approach of border-enforcement only and placing the highest priority on prosecuting nonviolent border-crossers rather than dangerous criminals. Everyone wants an easy solution to solving our problems at the border, but the reality is a simple solution does not exist for complex problems."
 
According to David Shirk, Director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego,
"the Border Patrol has doubled to 20,000 agents, there are also more than 3,000 Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents, 300 National Guard troops (with 1,200 more on their way), and a significant surge in the number of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms personnel. However, border security-only advocates say that this is still not enough. Further saturating the border is costly and ineffective. Indeed, the border-centric approach has encouraged drug trafficking organizations to evolve from relatively small-scale, low-level operations in the 1980s into the highly sophisticated, heavily-armed criminal organizations that are today seriously undermining the Mexican state. The flow of drugs and immigrants continues practically unabated, despite these very costly investments in border security."
 
He added, "the argument that can be made is that we have gone as far as reasonable to secure this part of the comprehensive approach. We have entered into a free trade agreement with Mexico that allows the flow of goods and capital, but we have not figured out how to manage labor. Border security is made difficult by the creation of a haystack of people; 200,000 people were apprehended at the border last year and 200 were found to have criminal histories. In my view, we need to figure out how to get the 99% of people who don't pose a threat out of the way through work-visa programs or other means. This would make the Border Patrol's job much easier by shrinking the size of the haystack."
 
Jennifer Bernal Garcia of the Center for New American Security explained, "it's true that the U.S. faces a problem of national security relevance at its border. However, focusing on the problem of crime rather than crime and immigration is needed. When you build a fence, you are pushing immigrants straight into the arms of criminal cartels. There hasn't been enough of a focus placed on prosecution and enforcement measures against criminal cartels. Many think that the border is the 'choke point,' but drug cartels are sprawled out. We must think beyond the border. Going after scapegoats at the border does nothing to change or deter the criminal element."  She explains, "what is needed along the border is a coordinated strategy among federal agencies and foreign governments, not incremental acts and feel-good deployments. Such a broad strategy would focus on reducing criminal groups' ability to violently contest state authority, both by diminishing the sources of their proceeds (drugs) and their social base (through a mix of regional law enforcement and social programs)." 

Aarti Kohli of the Warren Institute at California State University at Berkeley noted that programs like Operation Streamline, which places all illegal border crossers in federal criminal proceedings in certain regions, are examples of a misdirected policy.  "All border crossers regardless of their criminal history are pushed through federal district courts rather than through the civil immigration court. One of the unintended consequences is that resources are taken from prosecuting higher-level offenses. In 2009, federal prosecutors in border districts turned away 1,800 drug prosecutions mostly because they did not have enough investigative and prosecutorial resources. We have created an environment where non-violent border crossers are being prioritized over more dangerous criminals like kidnappers, drug smugglers, and others."  In a recent report she found that "between 2002 and 2008, federal magistrate judges along the U.S.-Mexico border saw their misdemeanor immigration caseloads more than quadruple. Criminal prosecutions of petty immigration-related offenses increased by more than 330% in the border district courts, while smuggling and drug trafficking charges were brought less frequently or remained flat."

The panel made the compelling point that "border security first" as a policy choice long ago reached the point of diminishing returns.  Reducing illegal immigration will not be accomplished solely by securing the border, but by a coordinated and comprehensive strategy. Creating sensible immigration policies, while simultaneously and comprehensively addressing the criminal issues that are at the heart of border violence, is the only way to provide genuine security along the border and throughout the United States.

Listen to the telephonic.
 
To read further information see:

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05/25/10 | When is Enough, Enough?

Washington, D.C. - Following a meeting to discuss comprehensive immigration reform with Senate Republicans, President Obama announced that he would send 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and would request $500 million for additional border personnel and technology as part of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill.

As we have seen time and time again, efforts to overhaul the entire immigration system have taken a back seat to the political expediency of pouring more money into border enforcement.  While it is clear that border violence must be addressed, it is also clear that enforcement alone is not a solution to our country's immigration problems.  

Over the last two decades, the United States has spent billions of dollars on border enforcement.  Since 1992, the annual budget of the U.S. Border Patrol has increased by 714 percent. At the same time, the number of Border Patrol agents stationed along the southwest border has grown by 390 percent.  Interior enforcement has expanded as well, and detentions and deportations are at record levels.  However, during the same time period, the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States has roughly tripled from 3.5 million in 1990 to 11.9 million in 2008. Yet close family members of American families continue to wait in visa backlogs that routinely last 5 to 7 years, and Americas competitiveness in the global market place is challenged by difficulties recruiting and retaining exceptional foreign workers.  

The President stated that the goal of the additional resources is to quell the violence along the border. While many are frustrated by the continued funding of border enforcement activity to the exclusion of other issues, the only bright side is that this approach seems to acknowledge that the real sources of violence and crime along the border  are  not immigrants but drug cartels and gun trafficking.

"Those Members of Congress who have insisted on 'border enforcement first' for years must now acknowledge that we are pouring ample resources into enforcement and must be prepared to move on to step two-comprehensive immigration reform," stated  Ben Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council. "We need to address the root causes of illegal immigration and create a functional legal immigration system for the 21st century. The American people are hungry for real reform.  We can no longer wait for politicians to squeeze every last political point out of this issue; we need real leadership that is focused on solutions, not headlines."

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IPC In The News

05/30/10 | Should local police get involved in immigration enforcement?

Some police departments argue federal immigration enforcement undermine their core missions, said Wendy Feliz Sefsaf of the American Immigration Council.

"It [Arizona's law] goes against all the goals of community policing," she said. "There's definitely law enforcement out there saying this kind of thing doesn't work."

In fact, last week police chiefs from Los Angeles, Tucson, Houston, Philadelphia and other cities, met with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and said laws like Arizona's would lead to increases in crime.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said Arizona's law "will likely hinder" federal efforts to detain and remove "dangerous criminal aliens." Calling for immigration reform on the national level, she said "this issue cannot be solved by a patchwork of inconsistent state laws."

Orlando Sentinel
05/30/10 | Fremont in the spotlight

The flurry of local legislation is adding to the pressure on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform and avoid adding to a hodgepodge of laws regulating immigration.

“There is real frustration because our immigration system is broken,” said Michele Waslin of the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center. “But you also need to look at what this type of legislation says about you as a city.”

Omaha World Herald
05/27/10 | Another "War on Drugs?"

Right now, the Obama Administration has misplaced priorities when it comes to border security. The American Immigration Council believes policy makers must make a distinction in any comprehensive immigration reform package between undocumented immigrants crossing the border and the drug induced violence of the drug cartels. “But cracking down on unauthorized immigrants in the United States is not going to diminish violence in border communities because unauthorized immigrants aren't the perpetrators, criminal cartels are.”

National Hispanic Christian Leadership Council