Immigration Policy Center

Published on Wed, May 26, 2010

The violence has increased since 2007 – on the Mexican side of the border. What gets lost in this debate is that violence on the American side of the border has actually decreased.

A report by the Immigration Policy Center compiled using statistics from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics found that violent and property crime in Arizona has been on a steady decline since 2002. It decreased by 8% in six years. Violent crime impacted 447 people out of 100,000 in 2008 compared to 555 in 2002.

Published in the News Junkie Blog

Published on Sun, May 16, 2010

The foreign-born share of Michigan’s population rose from 3.8 percent in 1990 to 5.3 percent in 2000, to 6.1 percent in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2007, Michigan was home to more than 600,000 immigrants. And roughly 47 percent of them are naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote, notes the Immigration Policy Center in its September 2009 report, “New Immigrants in the Great Lakes State.”

Latinos, Asians and Arab Americans account for a large and growing share of the economy and electorate of Michigan. Census data reveal that 6.4 percent of Michiganders are Latino or Asian. The Latino share of Michigan’s population grew 4 percent in 2007. The Asian share grew 2.4 percent the same year.

Michigan also has the highest proportion of Arab Americans in the nation and is home to some of the world’s largest populations of Albanian, Macedonian, Lebanese, Iraqi and Yemeni immigrants.

Published in the Dome Magazine

Published on Thu, May 27, 2010

Immigrant rights advocates say the fence prompts migrants to cross in remote areas where they face dangerous, often deadly obstacles.

"It's a very big problem," said Walter Ewing, a senior researcher for the pro-immigrant Immigration Policy Center.

Published in the Associated Press

Published on Sun, May 30, 2010

The flurry of local legislation is adding to the pressure on Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform and avoid adding to a hodgepodge of laws regulating immigration.

“There is real frustration because our immigration system is broken,” said Michele Waslin of the Washington-based Immigration Policy Center. “But you also need to look at what this type of legislation says about you as a city.”

Published in the Omaha World Herald

Published on Sun, May 30, 2010

Some police departments argue federal immigration enforcement undermine their core missions, said Wendy Feliz Sefsaf of the American Immigration Council.

"It [Arizona's law] goes against all the goals of community policing," she said. "There's definitely law enforcement out there saying this kind of thing doesn't work."

In fact, last week police chiefs from Los Angeles, Tucson, Houston, Philadelphia and other cities, met with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and said laws like Arizona's would lead to increases in crime.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said Arizona's law "will likely hinder" federal efforts to detain and remove "dangerous criminal aliens." Calling for immigration reform on the national level, she said "this issue cannot be solved by a patchwork of inconsistent state laws."

Published in the Orlando Sentinel

Published on Wed, May 26, 2010

The United States has spent billions to try to stop illegal immigration over two decades, yet the population of unauthorized foreign residents has grown dramatically.

Those who back other ways to deal with the problem raised this point on Wednesday while President Obama and Congress prepare to send additional personnel to the borders and spend millions more for detention, technology and enforcement.

“All of this attention on resources for the border ignores the fact that border enforcement alone is not going to resolve the underlying problems with our broken immigration system,” says the Immigration Policy Center, an advocacy group that favors comprehensive reform.

Published in the Sun Sentinel

Published on Mon, May 24, 2010

That seems to be the mindset of Oswaldo Cabrera, 42, an Ecuadoran immigrant who has been on a hunger strike since earlier this month.

"I am willing to sacrifice my life for the sake of the 5 million American children of undocumented parents who live in fear of them not coming back home at the end of the day," said Cabrera in a tired voice at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fairview, N.J.

Actually, there are 5.5 million children in the country with at least one parent who is undocumented, and 75% of them are U.S. citizens, says the Immigration Policy Center.

Published in the New York Daily News

Published on Wed, May 26, 2010

Fixing the border to solve immigration problems without addressing other issues is a little like solving just one side of a puzzle, an immigration policy expert said yesterday.

“You fix one side of a Rubik’s Cube, but the rest is a mess,” Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center, said.

Giovagnoli spoke at the ninth annual Cambio de Colores conference in Columbia. The three-day event focuses on Hispanics and immigrants in Midwestern communities and is co-sponsored by the University of Missouri System, MU, MU Extension and the Cambio Center.

Published in the Columbian Daily Tribune

Published on Thu, May 06, 2010

Arizona’s law is—to date—the most extreme and has gone the furthest, but many states and localities have been introducing and passing immigration-related bills for several years, says Michele Waslin, a senior policy analyst at the Immigration Policy Center.

“There is a lot of frustration around the country because Congress, the federal government, has not acted on immigration reform. Everyone knows there is a problem, and it isn’t getting any better,” she says.

Published in the Campus Progress

Published on Wed, May 26, 2010

Benjamin Johnson of the American Immigration Council said, "If the only way you're going to be able to enforce the law is to get really close to that line, if not cross over it, then that's a problem."

Published in the NBC News