Immigration Policy Center

Published on Wed, Apr 07, 2010

On March 21, over 200,000 people converged on Washington D.C. to demand comprehensive immigration reform in 2010. Asian Pacific Americans participated, including national Asian Pacific American civil rights organizations and Seattle’s Thao Tran, Many Uch and Cathy Pham.

On April 10, Saturday at noon, in Occidental Park in Seattle’s Pioneer Square, the Washington Immigration Reform Coalition of over 50 organizations, including the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of Washington, will host a comprehensive immigration reform rally in Seattle. This rally will be one of the largest and most multicultural of rallies being held on the National Day of Action. Rally organizers expect at least 5,000 to come from throughout the state, and 1,000 Asian Pacific Americans to attend.

Published in the International Examiner

Published on Sat, Apr 10, 2010

Advocates for information-technology companies have allied with progressive and Hispanic groups to win a broad overhaul of immigration law, but they are also keeping open the option of pursuing a narrow set of tech-friendly legal changes in the next Congress.

"I'm happy to be part of comprehensive reform, and I'm happy to be part of a focused bill," said Brad Feld, a Colorado-based venture capitalist who is pushing to establish a Startup Visa program that would grant green cards to high-tech entrepreneurs. Feld lobbied Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., to add the proposal to an immigration bill drafted by Rep. Luis Gutierrez., D-Ill.

Published in the Information Technology Industry Council

Published on Fri, Apr 02, 2010

In the midst of the gossip and grumblings about the U.S. Congress being unable or unwilling to agree on any bill or plan on the table, one is primed to think that President Obama will accomplish a whole lot of nothing in his four years in office.

The latest Gallup poll showing a 52-week low in an approval rating of 46 percent shows that Americans aren’t happy with the way things are going up on Capitol Hill. In his push to see the health care bill through the senate, it seems that the Obama administration is willing to put everything on the back burner in the mean time. But what about those people, living and working in the U.S., for whom health care isn’t an option in the first place?

Published in the Whitworthian

Published on Wed, Apr 07, 2010

A report out of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) last week doesn't mince many words when it comes to the failure of 287(g), a 1995 law that allowed local and state law enforcement to assume some of the federal prerogative of immigration enforcement.

Published in the Change.org

Published on Sun, Apr 04, 2010

The American Immigration Council's Immigration Policy Center recently published statistics on every state's immigrant population.

In New Hampshire, the foreign-born share of the population grew from 3.7 percent in 1990 to 5.1 percent in 2007.

In 2007, New Hampshire was home to 67,735 immigrants, of whom around 33,000 were naturalized citizens and eligible to vote.

Published in the Concord Monitor

Published on Fri, Apr 02, 2010

You might not realize it when you get a new job, but soon your name may be checked against a government database to answer the question: Are you an illegal immigrant?

Thousands of employers in Florida and tens of thousands nationwide have enrolled in a voluntary government program known as E-Verify, which allows them to find out whether their new hires are entitled to work in the U.S.

Published in the Orlando Sentinel

Published on Tue, Apr 06, 2010

NEW YORK, Apr 5 (IPS) - A controversial government programmeme that enlists local police officers and sheriff's deputies to help enforce U.S. immigration laws is verging on being out of control and unable to assess whether it is meeting its stated goals.

Published in the Australia News

Published on Mon, Apr 05, 2010

The Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C., released on Friday what it called a “damning critique” of the federal 287(g) program.

The report on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement program issued by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General highlights what the IPC calls “numerous shortcomings that lead to abuse and mismanagement and raises serious questions about the wisdom of state and local immigration enforcement partnerships with ICE.”

Published in the Nashville City Paper

Published on Mon, Apr 05, 2010

A federal immigration enforcement program used in Prince William and Loudoun counties needs better oversight, according to a report from the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.

The report includes 33 recommendations to strengthen management and controls of the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement agents to enforce certain federal immigration laws.

Published in the Washington Examiner

Published on Fri, Mar 26, 2010

I'm sure most everybody learned about Brown v. Board of Education at some point during their schooling, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled segregating black and white students was unconstitutional. But what you probably didn't learn was that before there was Brown, there was Mendez v. Westminster.

Published in the Change.org