American Immigration Council

Published on Fri, Jun 10, 2011

The word "immigrant" often conjures up the negative images of low-skilled and likely illegally residing workers. As Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council tells the Washington Post, "too often the immigration debate is driven by images on television of people jumping over fences." Yet a new report from the Brookings Institution pushes back against this stereotype, showing there are actually more college-educated immigrants of working age in the United States than those without high-school degrees.

To help understand the chart above, it's useful to look at Brookings terminology. Low-skilled immigrants are those that do not possess a high-school diploma, while high-skilled immigrants are those with a college degree, or more. The shift in the past few decades has been significant: "In 1980, just 19 percent of immigrants aged 25 to 64 held a bachelor's degree, and nearly 40 percent had not completed high school," the report states. By 2010 that 40 percent was down to 28 percent, while the percentage of immigrants holding BAs rose to 30. Mid-skilled immigrants--those that have a high school diploma or some college and no degree--are still the largest group, though the percentage has held pretty steady since the early 90's. It's worth adding that Brookings methodology did not distinguish between illegal and legal immigrants; birthplace was the sole determination of immigrant status.

It looks like good news, but not everyone sees the report as encouraging. "New college graduates are faring very poorly on the labor market, and what the report is telling us is that we're bringing in a high number of workers to compete with them," Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, a self-described "pro-immigrant, low-immigration," think-tank in Washington D.C told the Post.

Published in the Atlantic Monthly

Published on Thu, Jun 09, 2011

Highly skilled temporary and permanent immigrants in the United States now outnumber lower-skilled ones, marking a dramatic shift in the foreign-born workforce that could have profound political and economic implications in the national debate over immigration.

This shift in America’s immigration population, based on census data, is summarized in a report released Thursday by the Brookings Institution. It found that 30 percent of the country’s working-age immigrants, regardless of legal status, have at least a bachelor’s degree, while 28 percent lack a high school diploma.

The shift had been in the works for the past three decades, a period that has seen a dramatic increase in the population born outside the United States. But in 2007 the percentage of highly skilled workers overtook that of lower-skilled workers.

The trend reflects a fundamental change in the structure and demands of the U.S. economy, which in the past decades transformed from an economy driven by manufacturing to one driven by information and technology. The report also offers a new perspective on the national immigration discourse, which tends to fixate on low-skilled, and often illegal, workers.

“Too often the immigration debate is driven by images on television of people jumping over fences,” said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy organization. “The debate has been stuck in the idea that it’s all about illegal and low-skilled workers.”

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that advocates for tighter immigration restrictions, said the report raises other concerns.Read more...

Published in the Washington Post

Published on Wed, Jun 08, 2011

The number of pending cases in federal immigration courts is at an all-time high, and those cases are remaining open for longer, according to new data that underscores the backlog facing the nation's immigration system.

There were 275,316 cases awaiting resolution before the immigration courts as of May 4, setting a new record after an increase of 2.8 percent in four months. The information comes from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, which compiles the information regularly from public records. The clearinghouse released its latest report on June 7.

According to the data, the cases have been pending an average of 482 days, up from 467 days four months ago.

The report noted that the increases came despite the hiring of 44 immigration judges during the previous 12 months and the opening of a new immigration court in Pearsall, Texas.

Melissa Crow, director of the American Immigration Council's Legal Action Center, says the backlog is due to two factors: the need for yet more judges and staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, which administers the courts through its Executive Office for Immigration Review, and the decision by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to pursue more cases.

"It means that cases take forever to finish. It means, where clients do have cases where there's relief, it may take a long time for them to get the relief that they deserve," Crow says.

Crow's group and other advocates for immigrants are pushing the Obama administration to be more selective about the people targeted for deportation proceedings, while other critics of the administration, including conservative members of Congress, accuse the administration of being improperly selective in the enforcement of removal orders.Read more...

Published in the National Law Review

Published on Fri, Jun 03, 2011

The list of Arizona S.B. 1070-style immigration-enforcement laws challenged in court keeps growing. Now it’s Georgia’s turn.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center filed a class action lawsuit challenging Georgia’s H.B. 87, the immigration-enforcement bill signed into law there by Gov. Nathan Deal last month.

The National Immigration Law Center says that H.B. 87 is out of step with fundamental values and the rule of law and gives Georgians a reason to fear that they may be stripped of their constitutional rights simply because of the way they look or sound.

Florida’s failure to pass an immigration bill that would have, among other provisions, required local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration law and mandated E-Verify, was an issue of national interest. A recent decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the Legal Arizona Workers Act heightens the possibility that such an E-Verify bill could return during Florida’s next legislative session.

According to Numbers USA, an organization that supports the concept of “attrition though enforcement” (the idea that unauthorized immigrants will leave if immigration laws are more strictly enforced), under the Georgia bill:

• Local and state police will be empowered to arrest illegal immigrants and take them to state and federal jails.

• People who use fake identification to get a job in Georgia could face up to 15 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.

• A seven-member Immigration Enforcement Review Board would be established to investigate complaints about local and state government officials not enforcing state immigration-related laws.

• Government officials who violate state laws requiring cities, counties and state government agencies to use E-Verify could face fines of up to $10,000 and removal from office.Read more...

Published in the Florida Independent

Published on Mon, Jun 06, 2011

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a California law that allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates, a decision that gave a boost to supporters of a similar law approved this year in Maryland.

California’s 2001 law, which grants in-state college rates to students who attended a California high school for three years and graduate, was challenged by a conservative immigration group that argued the provision conflicted with federal law. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case and did not comment on that decision.

A California court had previously upheld the law.

The law is similar to one signed in May by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. Opponents of Maryland’s law are attempting to gather 56,000 signatures to suspend its provisions and put it on the ballot so that voters can decide its fate next year. Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin have comparable tuition laws.

Opponents said last week they had cleared an early hurdle in the petition drive, securing more than the 18,500 signatures initially needed to keep the effort alive. Del. Patrick L. McDonough, has said he expects opponents will also file a lawsuit to stop the law. McDonough, a Baltimore County Republican, was not immediately available for comment.

Those in favor of the law cheered the court’s decision.

The state law "is absolutely lawful under federal law and the California decision is just one more in a litany of court finding making that declaration," said Kim Propeack with the immigration advocacy group CASA de Maryland.Read more...

Published in the Baltimore Sun

Published on Sun, May 29, 2011

A piecemeal approach to immigration reform is the politically easy option, but there will be unintended negative consequences unless Congress addresses the whole problem.

An effective system to verify a job applicant's eligibility to work in the United States is an essential part of immigration reform. So are tough employer sanctions for those who hire the undocumented.

But if Congress just mandates the use of the employee-screening E-Verify system without dealing with labor demands, the job magnet will remain and the economy will suffer.

The agriculture industry is forthright in saying that up to 70 percent of its workforce is undocumented. There are no Americans to take those jobs.

"Are you raising your child to be a farmworker?" asks Tom Nassif, president of the Western Growers Association, which represents growers in California and Arizona. He says his industry has been trying to educate Congress about the simple fact that making E-Verify mandatory without addressing labor needs "wipes out agriculture."

John McClung, president of the Texas Produce Association, says E-Verify in isolation would be "the death knell" of agriculture in the United States . Without workers, farmers would move their cropland to where the labor is: Mexico and Central America. Nassif says two to three non-farm jobs are created for every farm job, so the result would be widespread job losses in the United States.

The other likely result, as Joe Sigg of the Arizona Farm Bureau points out, would be "under-the-table and off-the-books" employment.

Research bears this out. The nonpartisan Immigration Policy Center study, "Deeper Into the Shadows," found workers who lost their jobs because of enforcement tended to return to work - often at the same job - on a cash-only basis. They were generally paid less and became more vulnerable to exploitation.

E-Verify alone will create problems because it does not deal with the need for labor.Read more...

Published in the Arizona Republic

Published on Tue, May 31, 2011

Atlanta (CNN) -- It's as dependable as the turning of the seasons itself. Every spring, migrant workers -- many of them by all accounts illegal immigrants -- work their way north picking fruits and vegetables, first in Florida, then in Georgia, then farther north.

But this year, growers say, many of those workers are bypassing Georgia, concerned about provisions in a new state law that imposes tough penalties for using fake work documents and allows police broader latitude to check immigration status. The bill is modeled on similar, and controversial, legislation in Arizona.

The result, the growers say, is a scramble to get fruits and vegetables off the ground before they rot.

"The reports we're getting back from our growers is that they are getting between 30 and 50 percent of the work crews that they need to get the crops in," said Charles Hall, executive director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, which represents mostly medium- and large-size operations in the state's $1.1 billion fruit and vegetable business.

Growers say that the improving economy and a consequent slight rebound in construction could be siphoning some of the mostly Hispanic workforce they usually depend on. Some workers likely went home as the long recession dragged on, they say.

But the primary reason workers aren't coming to Georgia, growers say, is the legislation.

"I know a lot of crew leaders," said Jason Clark Berry of Blueberry Farms of Georgia. "Everyone I've talked to from Vidalia to Baxley, where my farm is, down through Homerville has said the exact same thing. People are afraid to come."Read more...

Published in the CNN

Published on Sat, May 21, 2011

Detroit has become the poster child for urban decay. The city lost 25 per cent of its population between 2000 and 2010, and more than half its population since 1950. More than 90,000 houses stand empty, and many neighborhoods have been completely abandoned.

The burden of maintaining infrastructure and law enforcement in a city with an eroding tax base and sparse population has led to attempts to "shrink" the city. This means bulldozing several areas of the city and relocating existing residents. Mayor Dave Bing realizes this, and has pledged to knock down a staggering 10,000 structures during his first term.

In the past, such slum clearances led to vigorous opposition from urbanists like Jane Jacobs, who argued that top-down approaches to urban redevelopment would cause a great deal of pain for little to no benefit. Yet despite the fact that Jacobs is widely admired, the plan to shrink the city has met with little opposition in Detroit. Frankly, unless Detroit sees a major population surge, shrinking the city sadly may be necessary.

Last week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, and mused about using immigration policy to repopulate the city. The premise makes perfect sense. Most of Detroit's problems stem from the fact that fewer and fewer people are working and paying taxes in the city. There is more infrastructure than people need or the city can afford.

Ultimately the issue then is getting people to live in Detroit. But the biggest problem, even with a mild resurgence in the auto sector, is that Americans, and even most Michiganders, don't want to live in Detroit, even with jobs.

For many immigrants, however, Detroit would seem like a major upgrade over their current situations. This is not a far-fetched notion. Here's a proposal for Detroit based on an unlikely Canadian immigration success story: Winnipeg.Read more...

Published in the Winnepeg Free Press

Published on Fri, May 20, 2011

Plantation resident Somy Ali, founder of No More Tears, a nonprofit that helps rescue immigrant women from domestic abuse, will receive an American Heritage Award from the American Immigration Council in June in San Diego.

The mission of the American Immigration Council is to recognize the contributions of American’s immigrants, honor immigrant history and shape how Americans think and act towards immigration.

Past honorees include tenor Placido Domingo, musician Carlos Santana, Nobel Prize winning physicist Daniel Tsui, former Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili, baseball player Sammy Sosa and therapist Ruth Westheimer.

Born in Pakistan, Ali, a former Bollywood actress, has helped 85 women since 2006

. Ali and supporters find the women apartments and help them with legal matters and relocation. They secure donations of food, clothing, household goods and funds to help the women make a fresh start.

Ali’s line of socially-conscious clothing, So-Me Designs, also contributes 10 percent of its profits to No More Tears.

Published in the Miami Herald