Immigration Policy Center

Published on Wed, Nov 10, 2010

Immigration advocates say that King simply intends to create more rabble-rousing political theater and inflame the masses—particularly as nearly all of his proposals stand little chance of passing the House, let alone the Senate or the president's desk. "A lot of it is theatrics, really using the bully pulpit of committee majority position to push these things out there and stir things up. It wouldn't necessarily result in legislative [victories]," says Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center. She adds that the oversight hearings are meant to hammer home the message that "Obama has failed to enforce the law" on immigration—even though the current administration is deporting even more immigrants than under Bush, according to figures from the Department of Homeland Security.

Published in the Mother Jones

Published on Thu, Nov 04, 2010

“The new leaders of the House have made it clear that they’re going to continue to push an enforcement-only strategy,” said Mary Giovagnoli, director of pro-reform Immigration Policy Center. “It’s going to be a hard couple of years.”

Published in the New Mexico Independent

Published on Mon, Nov 01, 2010

Counters Michele Waslin of the Immigration Policy Center: "Legalized immigrants will earn more, pay more taxes, consume more, buy houses, start businesses, and contribute more to the economy."

Published in the The Christian Science Monitor

Published on Tue, Nov 02, 2010

Recently, the Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C. released a report showing that those Americans - especially Latinos and Asians - are making up a growing share of the U.S. electorate.

It defines New American voters as naturalized U.S. citizens and children born to immigrants since 1965, when the current wave of immigration from Latin America and Asia began.

Published in the Florida Times Union

Published on Thu, Oct 28, 2010

After Arizona passed its crackdown law on illegal immigration, SB 1070, politicians across the country said they planned to introduce similar legislation in their states — even after the Justice Department sued Arizona for overstepping its authority to police immigration. Via Immigration Impact, pro-immigration business coalition Immigration Works USA released a report on which states are most likely to go through with their plans. Based on past enforcement policies and Republican support, four states were deemed likely to pass copycat laws: Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Published in the The Washington Independent

Published on Tue, Oct 19, 2010

Wendy Sefsaf, communications director for the American Immigration Council, said there is no proof illegal immigrants come here to have children, only anecdotal stories in articles and newspapers.

“There’s no absolute proof someone would come here and have a baby,” said Ms. Sefsaf. “That baby couldn’t do anything for you until it’s 21 years old, and then sponsor you for permanent residence which could take 10 to 20 years. It’s an imagined problem.”

Ms. Sefsaf also questioned Mr. Metcalfe’s claim the 14th Amendment is being “misapplied” because the original debates around the amendment talked about both rights for African-Americans and for Chinese immigrants.

“It was very purposely passed and set up to take into account both African-Americans and immigrants,” she said. “It’s being applied exactly as it was intended.”

She said illegal immigrants primarily come to the United States for economic reasons, not to have children here.

“It’s almost invariably for economic reasons. We do have a broken immigration system, and we do need to address it comprehensively and fix it, but these patchwork solutions don’t get us anywhere near where we need to be to fix the system,” said Ms. Sefsaf.

Published in the Pennsylvania Independent