American Immigration Council

The Case for Discretion and Proportionality in Our Immigration System

Released on Mon, Jul 18, 2011

Washington D.C. - It has long been the case that those responsible for carrying out and enforcing our nation's laws do so with a measure of discretion and proportionality. Every day, law enforcement officials and judges exercise discretion in charging and sentencing decisions, weighing differing priorities and social values, and matching punishments with crimes. Consequently, minors are treated differently in the criminal system, and traffic violators and murderers receive different punishments. The use of judgment and proportionality is so ingrained in our legal system—with the exception of immigration law—that we take it for granted. Today, the need for discretion and proportionality is needed more than ever in our antiquated and over-burdened immigration system to ensure that the government spends its limited resources on high priority cases, and that immigrants who have a strong case for remaining in the U.S. are able to do so if current law provides for an avenue of relief.

To that end, a wide range of organizations, including the American Immigration Council, have been asking the Obama Administration to use its executive authority to exercise discretion in the immigration context. In June, Director John Morton of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a memo outlining new guidance on the use of prosecutorial discretion in a wide range of circumstances. The memo signals a greater commitment to using limited resources to enforce immigration law with an understanding of the need for measured action and fairness in the immigration context. Read more...

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Latest GOP Fear Mongering Issue: ‘Birth Tourism’

Published on Wed, Apr 06, 2011

Republicans like Reps. David Vitter and Mike Lee and Sens. Rand Paul and Jerry Moran all built platforms on their “pro-family” politics. So, what does it take for these men to paint childbirth as “reprehensible?” You guessed it: these GOP lawmakers are again thumping their drums against “birth tourism,” an illusory epidemic in which illegal immigrants are traveling to the United States to give birth, thus guaranteeing their child, derided by these men as “anchor babies,” national citizenship.

“It is a reprehensible practice,” said Vitter, a Louisiana Congressman whose career survived revelations that he hired hookers.

Hoping to put an end to these illegal immigrants’ life-giving ways, these Republican leaders have drafted legislation that would “correct” a misinterpretation of the 14th amendment, which clearly reads, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” and restrict citizenship to children born to at least one citizen, someone in the military or a legal resident.

Opponents of the legislation not only point out that “birth tourism” hardly represents the trend Rand Paul and company claim (only 7,670 of the 4.2 million babies born in the U.S. in 2006 were by mothers who don’t live here) but also insist that the Republican leaders are playing with constitutional fire.

“The Supreme Court has upheld birthright citizenship several times, and the leading constitutional scholars agree you would have to change the Constitution, not just the Immigration and Nationality Act as they’re trying to do here,” said Michele Waslin from the Immigration Policy Center.Read more...

Published in the Death and Taxes Magazine

Crackdown on immigrant workers bad for the economy

Published on Thu, Mar 31, 2011

Other labor rights advocates are drawing attention to the federal government’s ongoing crackdown on immigrant workers. Worksite audits which require employers to check the immigration status of their workers have resulted in thousands of layoffs in recent months. This sweeping trend hurts families as well as local economies, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center.

The report specifically looks at the economic impact of immigrant workers in Arizona, but its findings present much wider implications. Marcos Restrepo at The Colorado Independent sums up the key points:

• The analysis estimates that immigrants on the whole paid $6 billion in taxes in 2008, while undocumented immigrants paid approximately $2.8 billion.

• Increase tax revenues by $1.68 billion.

The report adds that the effects of deportation in Arizona would:

• Decrease total employment by 17.2 percent.

• Eliminate 581,000 jobs for immigrant and native-born workers alike.

• Shrink the state economy by $48.8 billion.

• Reduce state tax revenues by 10.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the effects of legalization in Arizona would:

• Add 261,000 jobs for immigrant and native-born workers alike.

• Increase labor income by $5.6 billion.

Restrepo adds that, in part because of such mounting evidence, immigrants rights advocates are exhorting authorities to recognize immigrants as workers, first and foremost.

Published in the Campus Progress

Arizona demonstrates the lunacy of mass deportations

Published on Wed, Mar 30, 2011

WHEN ARIZONA lawmakers enacted legislation last year inflating the power of police officers to check immigration status when they make even routine stops, they staked out a reputation for the state as a citadel of intolerance. That was by design, for their explicit purpose was to drive away the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who, lured by jobs and a booming economy, had arrived in the state in the preceding 10 or 15 years.

The law, hung up by constitutional challenges, has never taken full effect. But it has had an important unintended consequence — as a wake-up call to the nation’s business community, for which a policy aimed at deporting millions of undocumented workers is economic lunacy.

Thanks largely to a backlash from business, state legislatures elsewhere have balked at adopting Arizona-style laws, though a few, particularly in the South, have passed bills designed to deny opportunities to illegal immigrants and keep them in the shadows. The business backlash is motivated partly by fears that other states could suffer Arizona’s fate: boycotts and cancellations that have meant tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue for hotels, restaurants and other businesses that rely on visitors. But businesses also fear the potential economic damage from mass deportation. A new report by the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center, groups that are sympathetic to illegal immigrants but intellectually serious, examines those costs in detail and concludes that they would be staggering.Read more...

Published in the Washington Post

Wrestler Henry Cejudo seeks immigration law change, another gold medal

Published on Mon, Apr 04, 2011

Henry Cejudo could have stayed away. He already left his signature on one of America's hottest hot-button issues. The son of illegal immigrants from Mexico, he held an American flag high while celebrating his wrestling gold medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Henry Cejudo celebrates after defeating Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga in the finals of the men's 55 kg freestyle wrestling to win the gold medal in 2008.

Afterward, he spoke openly about his mom naively crossing the border in high heels, his drug-abusing dad dying impoverished in Mexico, his itinerant childhood spent evading rent collectors. He put the details in a book titled American Victory.

He settled back in his home state of Arizona. He didn't stay settled for long.

"We're living in the damn '60s, the '50s in Arizona," he says.

A state law passed last year requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop, detain or arrest that they suspect is in the country illegally. A federal judge's decision to block the law is being appealed. Another proposed law would deny state citizenship to children born in the USA if neither parent has legal status.

"They've done a lot of articles on this whole 'anchor baby' law," Cejudo says, using the pejorative description that refers to U.S.-born children "anchoring" their illegal parents here. "I feel like I'm a figurehead to that."

He could use the speaking circuit as a platform. Instead, he decided to take on the issue in the only place he's ever felt truly at home: the wrestling mat.

In February he returned to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, determined to win another gold at the 2012 Games in London.

"I've done it, and I know I can do it again," says Cejudo, 24, who was born in Los Angeles. "This time I want to have more emphasis on this immigration issue."Read more...

Published in the USA Today

Is immigration policy killing the American Dream?

Published on Fri, Apr 01, 2011

It's a story repeated throughout American culture, in theatre, film and novels: the penniless immigrant arrives on American shores seeking a new life and, through hard work and determination, prospers and thrives.

Such tales are a quintessential part of the "American Dream", the idea that anyone willing to work hard and think big can come to the US and "make it".

But, at a time when immigration is a divisive, hot-button political issue, is that dream still possible?

The dream itself is alive and well, says Ben Johnson, the executive director of the American Immigration Council.

"The spirit of the people who have the drive to uproot themselves and pursue this dream across the world is powerful. It continues to shine through," Mr Johnson told the BBC.

But the spirit is not sufficient if the system won't allow it. And America's immigration system does not make it particularly easy to start a new life on its shores.

Quotas reached

American immigration policy is largely family based, meaning residency is most commonly granted to the immediate family of existing residents or citizens.

For others, visas are granted mostly based on skill levels, with highly skilled immigrants having a much easier time getting work permits than unskilled labourers.

So-called skilled workers - usually people with a university education or professional training - have a range of visa options. The most common visa, the H1B class, currently has a ceiling of 65,000 each year.

That quota is easily filled every year. Before the recession, it was filled in the same month the visas were released.

At the moment, Mr Johnson says, it gets filled in eight or nine months, meaning that for several months of the year, H1B visas simply are not available regardless of the demand for them.

For unskilled labourers, the US grants just 5,000 work visas each year to people employed in fields other than agriculture.Read more...

Published in the BBC News

More Fear and Loathing in the House Judiciary Committee

Committee to Take Up Reps. Smith and Goodlatte's Restrictive Immigration Bills

Released on Wed, Jul 13, 2011

Washington, D.C. – Tomorrow, the House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to take up two immigration bills that supposedly address community safety, but in reality are simply the latest attempts to restrict immigration and limit due process for immigrants. Neither Chairman Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) “Keep Our Communities Safe Act of 2011,” or Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s (R-VA) “Security and Fairness Enhancement for America Act of 2011” (SAFE Act) offer solutions to the immigration crisis. Instead, Chairman Smith’s bill would authorize indefinite detention for a wide range of immigrants, while Rep. Goodlatte’s bill would eliminate the diversity visa—a lottery that offers 50,000 visas per year to immigrants from countries that send few people to the U.S. Once more, the House Judiciary Committee is using fear to restrict our immigration system.

While studies have repeatedly shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, “The Keep Our Communities Safe Act of 2011” attempts to exploit the public’s fear of crime to advance an anti-immigration agenda. The bill would expand the authority of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to subject certain immigrants to indefinite—that is, potentially life-long—detention, even though the Supreme Court has held that such detention raises serious constitutional concerns. The bill relies on the continued detention of immigrants—many of whom have never committed a crime—as a stand-in for fixing the underlying problems of our broken immigration system. Similarly, the deceptively titled SAFE Act simply eliminates 50,000 visas that currently go to immigrants from many countries in Africa and elsewhere that have less of a tradition of immigrating to the U.S.

Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center, noted:Read more...

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Are States Training Law Enforcement to Implement Restrictive Immigration Laws?

Released on Fri, Jun 24, 2011

Washington, D.C. - While many states legislatures rejected Arizona-style immigration laws this year in anticipation of high costs, legal challenges and charges of racial profiling, others states—like Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina—passed laws requiring law enforcement to determine the immigration status of anyone that is stopped or detained for any offense. Civil rights groups have sued in Georgia and Alabama and plan to challenge South Carolina’s law once the bill is signed. Federal courts found similar laws in Arizona and Utah unconstitutional and issued injunctions, baring law enforcement from implementing the laws.

With lawsuits pending, however, local officials are now in a position of having to prepare for possible implementation of immigration laws. Local law enforcement, for example, is struggling to interpret the laws and provide training to officers—a struggle which could be further complicated if courts allow only some parts of the law to go forward. In some cases, training is simply not taking place. Officials in Georgia are waiting for a judge’s ruling before training officers on the law, slated to take effect July 1^st. Which begs the question, how, if at all, are law enforcement officers being trained in other states where similar laws have passed?Read more...

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Once Again, Congress Pursues Costly E-Verify Legislation to the Peril of U.S. Economy

Released on Tue, Jun 14, 2011

Washington D.C. - On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement will hold a hearing on the “Legal Workforce Act,” another enforcement-only bill introduced today by Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX). The bill would make the electronic employment verification system “E-Verify” mandatory for all employers within two years (three for agriculture). Much like the other hearings conducted by the Subcommittee this year, Wednesday’s hearing is likely to promote tougher enforcement and more deportations as the solution to immigration reform, rather than offer a thoughtful analysis of what must be done to create an effective immigration system that stimulates our economy and supports workers and businesses.

E-Verify is a web-based technology that allows employers to check federal databases to determine whether their employees—U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and other foreign-born workers—are authorized to work in the U.S. While USCIS has made significant improvements in E-Verify, many problems still exist. An independent evaluation found that E-Verify is unable to identify unauthorized workers in half of the cases. At a time when the U.S. needs to stimulate its economy and create jobs, mandatory E-Verify will impose additional regulations and costs on businesses, and employers will have to fire U.S. citizens who are erroneously indentified as unauthorized to work. Read more...

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New report indicates Arizona-style immigration laws do not favor local economies

Published on Tue, Mar 29, 2011

A report released this month aims to help state legislators considering Arizona-style immigration-enforcement bills answer this question: If S.B. 1070-type laws accomplish the declared goal of driving out all undocumented immigrants, what effect would it have on state economies?

This report comes when Florida Republican legislators in both chambers are working to change the Sunshine State’s immigration laws through bills that copy Arizona’s law while making controversial federal enforcement programs Secure Communities and 287(g) state law.

Critics of the proposed Florida bills have pointed to the civil rights and legal violations, as well as the economic burden, these bills would have on the state’s residents.

The report issued by the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center concludes that:

• Immigrant workers as a whole added $47.1 billion to Arizona’s gross state product — the total value added by workers of goods and services produced in the state — in 2008. The undocumented workforce by itself accounted for $23.5 billion of this gross state product.

• The pre-tax earnings of immigrant workers in Arizona totaled almost $30 billion for all immigrant workers and nearly $15 billion for undocumented workers.

• The output and spending of all immigrant workers generated 1.2 million jobs in Arizona in 2008, while the output and spending of undocumented workers generated 581,000 jobs.

• The analysis estimates that immigrants on the whole paid $6 billion in taxes in 2008, while undocumented immigrants paid approximately $2.8 billion.

The report adds that the effect of deportation in Arizona would: