Immigration Policy Center

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:

Decrease total employment by 17.2 percent.
Eliminate 581,000 jobs for immigrant and native-born workers alike.
Shrink state economy by $48.8 billion.
Reduce state tax revenues by 10.1 percent.

Meanwhile, the effects of legalization in Arizona would:Read more...

Published in the Florida Independent

Arizona Would Lose $49 Billion if it Expels Undocumented Immigrants

Published on Fri, Mar 25, 2011

Tucson – Arizona's economy would lose $48.8 billion if the state expels all undocumented immigrants living there, according to a report made public Thursday.

A mass departure of the undocumented foreigners would eliminate 581,000 jobs in Arizona and tax receipts would drop by 10.1 percent, according to the report by the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center.

Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, co-author of the study entitled "The Economic Impact of Legalization Versus Deportation in Arizona," said at a press conference that the state is an example of the "toxic" effect that laws like SB1070 can come to have.

The Arizona law seeking to criminalize undocumented immigrants - the enforcement of which remains on hold pending the conclusion of a battle in the federal courts - is aimed at causing a massive exodus of undocumented immigrants, the UCLA professor said.

Meanwhile, the report also analyzed the economic impact that the legalization of undocumented people living in Arizona would have, based on the results of the federal amnesty of 1986.

In this case, the number of jobs would rise by 7.7 percent, creating 261,000 new employment positions, and $5.6 billion would be injected into the economy in wages and salaries.

In addition, state tax revenues would also rise by $1.07 billion.

More than a dozen U.S. states are currently analyzing the possibility of implementing laws similar to SB1070.

Published in the FoxNews

Utah on immigration: We aren't Arizona

Published on Fri, Mar 25, 2011

Less than a year ago, Utah business leaders worried that their state would follow in Arizona’s controversial footsteps by passing tough new laws to crack down on illegal immigration. Already, there were signs that a divisive debate — the kind that led to mass protests, boycotts and lawsuits in Phoenix — was shaping up in Utah, too.

“Last summer, it was a foregone conclusion that Utah was going to do exactly what Arizona had done,” says Marty Carpenter, a spokesman for the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce. That worried many of the chamber’s members.

They feared Arizona-style legislation would stall the state’s economy before it really got a chance to recover from the recession. In addition, it might undermine the international goodwill Utah built by hosting the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Passing a law targeting unauthorized immigrants, Carpenter says, risked sending the message that Utah “was no longer a friendly and welcoming place.”

In July, a pair of state employees secretly leaked a list of 1,300 unauthorized immigrants to reporters and police. They demanded that the people on the list be deported. The list included names, addresses, birthdates and Social Security numbers. It even included the due date of a pregnant woman.

The same month, three Utah legislators, including the House speaker, toured the U.S.-Mexican border in Arizona as part of their effort to prepare legislation based on Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, empowering local police to question residents about their immigration status. When sponsors introduced the Arizona-style proposal on the steps of the Utah Capitol, dozens of protesters crashed the press conference and sang “We Shall Overcome.”Read more...

Published in the Stateline

Immigration Policy Center reports stable unauthorized immigrant population

Published on Wed, Mar 23, 2011

As Republicans in the Florida legislature move forward with immigration-enforcement bills, new data shows that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has remained stable.

According to a report released on Monday by the Immigration Policy Center:

Recent estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) indicate that the number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has remained unchanged at roughly 11 million since 2009. This comes after a two-year decline of approximately one million that corresponded closely to the most recent recession, which ran from December 2007 to June 2009.

The report also shows that three-fifths of unauthorized immigrants have been in the United States for more than a decade, and that unauthorized immigrants already in the U. S. have approximately 5.5 million children. Around 1 million of those children are unauthorized immigrants, while the remaining 4.5 million are native-born U.S. citizens who have at least one unauthorized parent.

Nationwide, unauthorized immigrants represent about 28 percent of the total foreign-born population. Naturalized U.S. citizens make up about 37 percent and legal permanent residents 31 percent.

The data used by the Immigration Policy Center report indicates that Florida has the third highest unauthorized population in the U.S. (825,000).

Citing Pew Hispanic Center data, the report indicates that the current unauthorized population accounts for roughly 1-in-20 workers: around 5 percent of the U.S. labor force.

“Unauthorized immigrants who are already in the country have become integral to U.S. businesses, communities, and families,” according to the report.

Published in the American Independent

The economic ignorance of immigration restrictionists

Published on Fri, Mar 25, 2011

By Walter Ewing

Prominent immigration restrictionists such as Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) like to pretend that federal and state governments could simply deport their way out of massive budget deficits and high unemployment. By this flawed line of economic reasoning, removing unauthorized immigrants from country would magically free up both jobs and budgets. In reality, removing millions of workers, consumers, and taxpayers would cause national and state economies to contract, resulting in fewer total jobs and less tax revenue. In addition, it would cost hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to locate, round up, detain, and deport the 11 million unauthorized men, women, and children now living in the United States.

This is not a recipe for economic recovery; it is a recipe for economic disaster.

Restrictionists who champion the deport-them-all approach to unauthorized immigrants have been relying of late on a deeply flawed 2010 report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which makes implausible claims about the costs of unauthorized immigrants. The FAIR report and the restrictionists who rely upon it overlook the fact that unauthorized immigrants are not only workers, but consumers as well. Unauthorized workers spend their wages in U.S. businesses — buying food, clothes, appliances, cars, etc. — which sustains the jobs of the workers employed by those businesses. Businesses respond to the presence of new workers and consumers by investing in new restaurants, stores, and production facilities. The end result is more jobs for more workers. For instance, a new report from the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) Rising Tide or a Shrinking Pie: The Economic Impact of Legalization Versus Deportation in Arizona estimates that the economic output and consumer spending of unauthorized workers in Arizona sustains 581,000 jobs.Read more...

Published in the The Hill

Southern Lawmakers Focus on Illegal Immigrants

Published on Fri, Mar 25, 2011

Some of the toughest bills in the nation aimed at illegal immigrants are making their way through legislatures in the South.

Proposed legislation in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, where Republicans control the legislatures and the governors’ mansions, have moved further than similar proposals in many other states, where concerns about the legality and financial impact of aggressive immigration legislation have stopped lawmakers.

Dozens of immigration-related bills showed up early in legislative sessions across the South. Some were aimed at keeping illegal immigrants from college or from marrying American citizens. Most died quickly, but three proposals designed to give police broader powers to identify and report illegal immigrants are moving forward.

The conservative political landscape, and a relatively recent and large addition of Latinos, both new immigrants and legal residents from other states, have contributed to the batch of legislation, say supporters and opponents of the proposed laws.

“The South has become a new gateway for immigrants,” said Wendy Sefsaf of the Immigration Policy Center, a research organization. “People see the culture shift, and they are a little bit freaked out.”

The Hispanic population in Alabama, for example, has increased by 144 percent since 2000, according to new census figures. In Mississippi, the numbers jumped by 106 percent, and in North Carolina by 111 percent. Over all, however, numbers remain small. Only about 4 percent of the population in Alabama is Hispanic. In South Carolina, the figure is 5 percent.

But Georgia has the seventh-largest population of illegal immigrants in the country, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center. There, a version of a law pioneered in Arizona would allow local police officers to inquire about the immigration status of people they suspect of committing crimes, including traffic violations.Read more...

Published in the New York Times

Utah’s immigration bills – a blast from the past

Published on Fri, Mar 18, 2011

The new face of immigration "reform"? Republican Utah Governor Gary Herbert. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Labor supply programs for employers, with deportations and diminished rights for immigrants, have marked U.S. immigration policy for more than 100 years.

Last week the Utah legislature passed three new laws that have been hailed in the media as a new, more reasonable, approach to immigration policy. Reasonable, that is, compared to Arizona’s S.B. 1070, which would allow police to stop anyone, demand immigration papers and hold her or him for deportation. Utah’s law was signed by Republican Governor Gary Herbert on Tuesday, March 15. Arizona’s S.B. 1070 is currently being challenged in court.

Utah’s bills were called “the anti-Arizona” by Frank Sharry, head of America’s Voice, a Washington D.C. immigration lobbying firm. According to Lee Hockstader, on the Washington Post’s editorial staff, the laws are “the nation’s most liberal—and most reality-based—policy on illegal immigration.”

The Utah laws, however, are not new. And they’re certainly not liberal, at least towards immigrants and workers. Labor supply programs for employers, with deportations and diminished rights for immigrants, have marked U.S. immigration policy for more than 100 years.Read more...

Published in the In These Times