American Immigration Council

Published on Wed, Jan 19, 2011

(While the federal government doesn’t seem likely to take up a broad discussion of immigration during this Congress, state governments continue to push their own laws. The left-leaning American Immigration Council has a guide on state immigration laws.)

Published in the Center for Investigative Reporting

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

Published on Thu, Jan 20, 2011

If all illegal immigrants were removed, the state would lose $1.7 billion in economic activity, $756.8 million in gross state product and 12,059 jobs, according to the non-profit Immigration Policy Center. In a statement accompanying its report, the center opposed SB6 and an earlier, similar Arizona measure now tied up in the federal appellate courts.

"As Kentucky faces a $780 million budget shortfall in fiscal year 2011, state legislators are currently pursuing a costly and short-sighted 'papers please' law," the center said in its statement. "Senate Bill 6 is a copycat of Arizona's SB1070. ... Kentucky should consider the following evidence before continuing to pursue this kind of immigration legislation."

Published in the Lexington Herald Leader

Published on Tue, Jan 18, 2011

In explaining these somewhat contradictory findings, Wendy Sefsaf, the communications director of the American Immigration Council, said, “We have to dig beneath the surface. Americans want solutions, even if sometimes they are bad ones or not really solutions at all.”

Published in the Homeland Security Newswire

Published on Mon, Jan 10, 2011

“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 the Immigrant Magazine

Published on Tue, Jan 11, 2011

“This is clearly an attack on the Fourteenth Amendment,” said senior policy analyst Michele Waslin at the Immigration Policy Center, adding it “is clearly against the fundamental ideas that America is based on and it’s very mean-spirited.”

Published in the Reuters

Published on Mon, Jan 10, 2011

Michelle Waslin, an Immigration Policy Center senior policy analyst, tells the Independent that “SLLI wants to spark a legal challenge that goes all the way to the Supreme Court. They want to set up a system for citizens and another for people who can be discriminated.”

Waslin also says that amending the 14th Amendment is not a solution for illegal immigration. “Under the current system, you’re born here, you get a birth certificate,” she says. “If we didn’t have that system we would need a bureaucracy to determine citizenship.”

She points out that if automatic citizenship is eliminated, all U.S. citizens would be affected. She compares the outcome to the current situation of a U.S. serviceman in Germany, married to a German woman, who together have a baby. That couple has to hire an immigration lawyer have to clarify if the baby if a U.S. citizen.

Published in the Florida Independent

Published on Fri, Jan 07, 2011

"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 the Pittsburgh Tribune

Published on Thu, Jan 06, 2011

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 the Dessert News

Published on Thu, Jan 06, 2011

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 the Stateline