Immigration Policy Center

Published on Wed, Dec 22, 2010

Private bills are not routinely introduced for undocumented individuals, according to Wendy Sefsaf, spokeswoman for the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center. During the 111th session of Congress, 104 bills were introduced for those who may suffer hardships if they were returned to native countries or became undocumented due to administrative delays.

That's low, Sefsaf said, compared to deportations: A record-breaking 392,000 illegal aliens were removed in 2010, a 70 percent increase from the previous administration, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in October.

Exactly how many private bills pass is unclear. Last week, for the first time in five years, Congress approved private bills for two Japanese citizens fighting to live in the United States — Shigeru Yamada, son of a woman who was killed in a car crash when he was a teenager and was never adopted, andHotaru "Hota" Ferschke, who found out she was pregnant and got married over the phone with a Marine who was killed in Iraq.

But Sefsaf said those cases are exceptions.

"Congress just needs to focus on a broader plan that would provide relief for the millions in this country that deserve to stay and figure out a way to weed out the ones that might not."

Published in the Detroit News

Published on Thu, Dec 16, 2010

In an article written for the Immigration Policy Center, lawyer Elizabeth Wydra contends that the reason for the 14th Amendment was to make sure that future legislators could not strip citizenship rights from vulnerable minorities.

Published in the Stateline

Published on Wed, Dec 22, 2010

“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 the Hartford Guardian

Published on Fri, Dec 17, 2010

As the Immigration Policy Center, organizers of the letter out it, “By failing to offer these young people a place in America, we are cutting them off from the very mechanisms that would allow them to contribute to our economy and society.”

Published in the La Prensa Ohio

Published on Tue, Dec 14, 2010

As part of this push, four prominent scholars of students from immigrant families held a conference call with press yesterday to voice support for the DREAM Act. The call was hosted by the Immigration Policy Center of the Washington-based American Immigration Council. The scholars were Roberto G. Gonzales, of the University of Washington School of Social Work; Douglas S. Massey, of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; Rubén G. Rumbaut, of the University of California Irvine School of Social Sciences; and Carola Suarez-Orozco, from New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Published in the Education Week

Published on Mon, Dec 13, 2010

Finally, I called up Wendy Sefsaf, communications director at Immigration Policy Center, a group that supports DREAM. She hadn't heard of any presidents issuing public statements against the legislation either, but she did have this to say about the lack of academic opposition: "It diminishes any argument that allowing undocumented students to go to college is bad for universities, in terms of economic impact, pushing other students out, or overcrowding. If it wasn't a good idea, universities and their presidents wouldn't be unanimously in support of it."

Published in the Boston Globe

Published on Wed, Nov 24, 2010

The DREAM Act has generated a lot of debate — immigration research centers like the Migration Policy Institute and the Immigration Policy Center have published information on the impact of this proposed legislation.

Published in the Florida Independent

Published on Fri, Nov 19, 2010

The Immigration Policy Center cites Margaret Stock, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, and a former professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, who said, ”In a time when several military services are experiencing difficulties recruiting eligible enlisted soldiers, passage of this bill could well solve the Armed Forces’ enlisted recruiting woes and provide a new source of foreign-language-qualified soldiers.”

Published in the Florida Independent

Published on Wed, Nov 24, 2010

In fact, according to IPC, Dream Act "creates a separate program for students" and does "not compete for visas with other applicants for legal permanent residence." According the Immigration Policy Center (IPC):

DREAM Act students do not compete for visas with other applicants for legal permanent residence. Instead, DREAM Act creates a separate program for students that requires them to earn legal permanent residence by attending college or serving in the military for two years while in a temporary legal status. DREAM will not affect the number of visas available or the time it takes to get a visa for those entering through traditional legal immigration.

Published in the Media Matters

Published on Wed, Nov 24, 2010

Much of the new criticism is misleading, according to the nonpartisan Immigration Policy Center in Washington, which has published a point-by-point rebuttal.

Published in the San Diego Union Tribune