Immigration Policy Center

Immigration policy should reflect our best values

Published on Sat, Jan 23, 2010

“Immigrants don’t want to learn English.” “Immigrants don’t pay taxes.” “Immigrants increase the crime rate.” “Immigrants take jobs away from Americans.” “Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy.” “Illegal immigrants are a burden on the U.S. health care system.”

Americans have been using these generalizations for 150 years to stigmatize members of every ethnic group that has traveled to these shores seeking a better life for themselves and their children.

Published in the Kansas City Star

Will Obama Address Immigration Tonight?

Published on Wed, Jan 27, 2010

In his White House press briefing yesterday, Robert Gibbs seemed to suggest that President Obama would address the subject of immigration reform in his speech tonight. Why he would introduce such a polarizing topic into the already toxic atmosphere in Washington is unclear to me, but if, in fact, he does, I think it's safe to assume he won't be dwelling on it very long. The chances of getting an immigration-reform bill passed this year, which were iffy to begin with, faded to near black in the wake of the Massachusetts Special Election That Changed Everything. If the message from the Bay State was that the administration needs to focus on repairing an economy that has shed millions of jobs, it's hard to imagine selling the country on the need to legalize millions more workers. But that's not to say the administration won't try.

Published in the Newsweek

Study finds the economy would benefit from legalizing undocumented immigrants

Published on Thu, Jan 14, 2010

Comprehensive immigration reform would produce at least $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years, according to a new report by a UCLA professor. Based on this report and other studies, Illinois would see significant economic gains from legalizing undocumented immigrants.

Published in the Medill Reports

Why legal aliens don't drag down the wages of the native-born

Published on Wed, Jan 13, 2010

IF CONGRESS has any sense, it will pass immigration reform this year. That's the topic of this week's column.

A new report from the Centre for American Progress, an Obamaphile think-tank, finds that comprehensive immigration reform would add $1.5 trillion to America's GDP over ten years.

Not everything that raises GDP is a good idea. Reihan Salam, a conservative writer, pointed out to me yesterday that annexing Canada would raise GDP by a lot. But it would have serious downsides, such as Americans having to find out where Canada is.

Published in the The Economist

Immigration Reform: An Economic Stimulus?

Published on Mon, Jan 11, 2010

Over the past year Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has emerged as perhaps the most outspoken proponent within the Obama administration of a comprehensive immigration reform, one balancing a strong enforcement oriented approach with a clearer, more coherent, “fair and firm” pathway toward legal citizenship.

“Our system must be strong enough to prevent illegal entry and to get criminal aliens off our streets and out of the country,” Secretary Napolitano said in a policy speech in November, “but it must also be smart enough to reward the hard work and entrepreneurial spirit that immigrants have always brought to America—traits that have built our nation.”

Published in the Homeland Security Today

Immigration reform needs addressing

Published on Sun, Jan 10, 2010

Here's yet another argument supporting the need for comprehensive immigration reform, an issue that the Obama administration has thankfully targeted as a priority in 2010.

A study released last week concluded that legalizing the status of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in our country would create jobs, increase consumption, boost wages, add to tax revenues and, in sum, "yield at least $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years."

Published in the Arizona Star

And, oh yes, immigration reform

Published on Wed, Feb 03, 2010

Comprehensive immigration reform made it into the State of the Union speech last week. The Middle East, a hardy annual, and indeed Northern Ireland, did not.

But President Obama's focus on reform during the lengthy address to both houses of Congress struck many observers as being little more than perfunctory.

Published in the THE IRISH ECHO ONLINE

Immigration Reform with Legalization Does Help U.S. Economy and Newly Legalized

Released on Fri, Apr 09, 2010

Washington D.C. - A new report from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), entitled Immigrant Legalization: Assessing the Labor Market Effects, yields both some enlightening and some potentially misleading results about the likely impact of a legalization program. Because the PPIC report focuses on legal status acquired under current immigration law, it does not reflect the long-term benefits and gains that follow from a comprehensive immigration reform package which includes legalization.

While the PPIC report dovetails with other reports when it concludes that legalization would not have a negative impact on native workers' wages and employment, their findings on the wages and mobility of the newly legalized differ from other academic studies on how immigrants fare after legalization. This difference can be attributed to the fact that PPIC looks at legalization only, and how the newly legalized are doing just 4-13 months after becoming legalized. Almost all other previous studies haven take a longer term view of their success.

PPIC relies upon data from the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), a sample of foreign-born individuals who acquired legal permanent resident (LPR) status between May and November 2003. It is important to keep in mind that the NIS is not representative of the unauthorized-immigrant population as a whole. As opposed to the individuals captured in the NIS, most unauthorized immigrants do not have a means of acquiring legal status. Moreover, individuals in the NIS were interviewed 4-13 months after acquiring LPR status.Read more...

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Enforcement Gone Wild

OIG Report Highlights Continued Failures of ICE Enforcement Program

Released on Fri, Apr 02, 2010

Washington, D.C. - Today, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a long-awaited report that offers a damning critique of the 287(g) program, confirming many of the criticisms levied against the program by community leaders, law enforcement officials, and immigration groups, including the Immigration Policy Center. Despite problems with the 287(g) program, it has recently been expanded to additional jurisdictions.

The report, The Performance of 287(g) Agreements, identifies numerous shortcomings that lead to abuse and mismanagement and raises serious questions about the wisdom of state and local immigration enforcement partnerships with ICE.

According to the report, the 287(g) program:Read more...

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The Folly of Repealing Birthright Citizenship

Released on Tue, Mar 30, 2010

Washington D.C. - This Sunday, the editorial pages of the Washington Post included a piece penned by journalist George Will on the topic of birthright citizenship. Will highlights a scholar who argues against giving those born in the United States birthright citizenship and characterizes the repeal of a 150 year-old constitutional tenet as "a simple reform." Normally, the idea of stripping those born in America of their right to citizenship has been relegated to the domain of immigration restrictionists and select politicians who try to exploit it for electoral gains. In endorsing this argument, Mr. Will has looked past a whole body of research which examines the dramatic and far- reaching consequences this would have on American society.

The arguments about birthright citizenship revolve around the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which affirms that all persons born in the United States (and subject to its jurisdiction) have a birthright to citizenship. A repeal of the 14th amendment is sometimes raised as a "cure" to our current broken immigration system, when in reality it takes us further away from the larger conversation that must be had about how we can fairly and efficiently revamp American immigration. Proposing solutions to the symptoms, rather than the root causes of a broken system, do nothing to solve our overall immigration problems and create divisions and dysfunctions in our society at all levels.

In the spirit of balance, the Immigration Policy Center is re-releasing our four-part series originally released in September, 2009 on birthright citizenship entitled: Made in America, Myths & Facts about Birthright Citizenship.Read more...

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