IPC In The News

Birthright Citizenship’s Unlikely Road to Supreme Court

“Those children can’t petition for their parents to become U.S. citizens until they are 21 years old and it most cases, the parents would be barred from getting a visa to the United States for 10 years,” said Michelle Waslin, senior policy analyst at the American Immigration Council’s Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C. “So that’s a 31-year plan. It doesn’t seem like it’s a very good plan to legalize your status here in the U.S. It doesn’t protect them from deportation.”

Waslin argues that such a change in the law will affect all citizens, creating a complicated bureaucracy.

“My birth certificate will no longer be proof of my U.S. citizenship, so how would anybody prove their citizenship?” she asked.

Published In: Immigrant Magazine | 01/10/11

Metcalfe would deny automatic citizenship to illegals' kids born in U.S.

"The proposal presented today is clearly unconstitutional and an embarrassing distraction from the need to reform our nation's immigration laws," said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the nonprofit American Immigration Council. "It constitutes a vicious assault on the U.S. Constitution and flies in the face of generations of efforts to expand civil rights.

"It is an attack on innocent children born in the U.S. who would be confined to a new second-class citizenship and vulnerable to abuse and discrimination," Johnson said.

Published In: Pittsburgh Tribune | 01/07/11

Lawmakers target citizenship by birthplace

Verdin’s comments sparked the first of several disruptions of the presentation by opponents of the proposal. Later Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, also criticized the package. “The proposal presented today is clearly unconstitutional and an embarrassing distraction from the need to reform our nation's immigration laws,” he said in a statement. “It constitutes a vicious assault on the U.S. Constitution and flies in the face of generations of efforts to expand civil rights.”

Published In: Stateline | 01/06/11

Sen. Robles' immigration bill could become national model

Robles' bill could also be a blueprint for other states. After Arizona passed a heavy-handed law making it a state crime to be in the country illegally, copycat bills sprang up all over the United States. Now 25 states, including Utah, have made similar proposals. Robles' bill, could have a similar impact, said Wendy Sefsaf, communications director for the American Immigration Council, a Washington D.C. based think tank.

"I think Utah is setting an example for the rest of the country by being solution oriented in a way that other states aren't," she said. "The legislation coupled with the Utah Compact has really made Utah stand out."

Sefsaf said she regularly refers inquiring legislators to Utah. Robles said she's already fielded phone calls from curious legislators in Texas, Ohio, Kansas and Florida — among others.

"If Utah pulls this off, the rest of the country will be watching with interest," Sefsaf said. "There are a lot of states out there looking for an alternative to what Arizona has done."

Published In: Dessert News | 01/06/11

Ritter OKs ICE program

Late last year, representatives of the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Council, harsh critics of Secure Communities, applauded Ritter’s approach to the program and said it could serve as a model to other states that are unwilling to accept ICE’s conditions for participation. But that did not soften criticisms from some factions in Colorado.

Published In: The Pueblo Cheiftan | 01/05/11

U.S. Deports Record Number of Migrants in 2010

In the two years that the measure has been in effect – and according to a report by the Immigration Policy Center it lacks the proper supervision and a complaint procedure and it spurs racial profiling against immigrants – 69,905 foreigners have been identified as being in the country illegally and deported.

Published In: Latin America Herald Tribune | 01/05/11

Oklahoma human rights leaders warn of economic consequences of AZ-style anti-immigrant law

The Immigration Policy Center think tank completed their own research on the contribution of immigrants to our Sooner state. If Arizona-style laws succeed and all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Oklahoma, the state would lose $580.3 million in economic activity, $257.8 million in gross state product, and approximately 4,680 jobs. That's $838.1million dollars lost from our state.

Published In: Oklahoma Citizen | 01/05/11

Many states look to Arizona’s SB 1070 as a model for new immigration legislation

State legislators in 25 states (see list below) planned to introduce SB 1070 clones in upcoming legislative sessions, according to Immigration Impact. Of course, not all — or even most — of these laws will pass. However, Republicans picked up the most seats in the modern era of state legislatures in 2010 — more than Republicans did in 1994 or Democrats in the post-Watergate wave of 1974. Republicans hold both houses and the governorship in fifteen states (sixteen including Nebraska’s unicameral legislature).

Published In: American Independent | 12/28/10

Enforcement and deportation costs skyrocket

On the other side, the Immigration Policy Center, a nonprofit group in Washington, D.C., says legalizing the 11.1 million undocumented immigrants would increase the country's gross domestic product by $1.5trillion over 10 years.

Published In: Columbus Dispatch | 12/28/10

Birthright Citizenship’s Unlikely Road to Supreme Court

“Those children can’t petition for their parents to become U.S. citizens until they are 21 years old and it most cases, the parents would be barred from getting a visa to the United States for 10 years,” said Michelle Waslin, senior policy analyst at the American Immigration Council's Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C. “So that’s a 31-year plan. It doesn’t seem like it’s a very good plan to legalize your status here in the U.S. It doesn’t protect them from deportation.”

Published In: Hartford Guardian | 12/22/10