Immigration Policy Center

Published on Wed, Aug 04, 2010

On a conference call today, opponents of changing the policy said that while Americans are "justifiably frustrated" with current immigration policy, eliminating birthright citizenship "would punish the innocent children of undocumented immigrants, which flies in the face of American values," according to Michele Waslin, Senior Policy Analyst at the Immigration Policy Center.

Published in the CBS News

Published on Sun, Aug 01, 2010

"Now, the question is whether politicians at the state and federal level will stop playing politics and start solving problems," said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council. "Arizona must start focusing on serious criminals and the federal government must assume its Constitutional duty of fixing the broken immigration system. America needs real solutions that make our communities safer, our border more secure, and finally fix our broken immigration system."

Published in the New York Daily News

Published on Mon, Aug 02, 2010

Supporters of a change say the amendment adopted just after the Civil War was designed simply to make sure that former slaves became citizens, and wasn't intended to apply to illegal immigrants' kids. But the pro-immigration Immigration Policy Center offers a rebuttal, with scholar Elizabeth Wydra citing the "clear intent of the Reconstruction framers to grant U.S. citizenship based on the objective measure of U.S. birth rather than subjective political or public opinion."

Published in the San Francisco Chronicle

Published on Fri, Jul 23, 2010

WATCH the American Immigration Council's Benjamin Johnson speak about birthright citizenship:

Read more...

Published in the CNN

Published on Mon, Aug 09, 2010

WATCH IPC's Senior Policy Analyst, Michele Waslin, debates immigration hawk Tom Tancredo on CNN.

Published in the CNN

Published on Fri, Jul 30, 2010

"Sheriff Joe Arpaio and some other folks there decided they can make a name for themselves in terms of the intensity of the efforts they're using," said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the pro-immigrant American Immigration Council. "There's no way to deny that. There are a lot of people getting caught up in these efforts."

Published in the CBS News

Published on Thu, Jul 29, 2010

Explainer thanks Cheryl David of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, Benjamin Johnson of the American Immigration Council, Audrey Singer of the Brookings Institution, and Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Published in the Slate

Published on Thu, Jul 29, 2010

Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the more liberal American Immigration Council, countered that for some conservatives, "it's never enough." Over the last seven years, Johnson said, the U.S. has quintupled its number of border agents and quadrupled its immigration enforcement budget -- "but the appetite for increasing immigration enforcement-only policy seems to be never-ending. I can only conclude that it's because constantly raising the bar on how much we need to spend and what constitutes secure borders at this point seems like an excuse for not doing anything else."

Published in the Atlantic

Published on Thu, Jul 29, 2010

For more than a year, senior researcher Dr. Walter Ewing and research associate Seth Hoy analyzed and compiled data on every state in the US to track the powerful impact immigrants have on this country. The result: A recent study released by the Immigration Policy Center that highlights both the political and economic power that immigrants—specifically Latinos and Asians—have on the United States. With Arizona's controversial SB 1070 scheduled to go into effect today (although a ruling yesterday by US District Judge Susan Bolton blocks some aspects of the law), politicians, business owners and the like should take note.

Published in the Latina

Published on Thu, Jul 29, 2010

While most illegal immigrants live and work under the radar in Georgia, they have created an indelible economic footprint here, according to a number of experts:

● They account for about $9.4 billion in a state economy of roughly $320 billion.

● They contribute between $215 million and $253 million to state coffers in the form of sales, income and property taxes.

● They account for 6.3 percent of Georgia’s work force, but in some industries they are the lion’s share of workers. Experts estimate that 40 percent to 50 percent of the workers in agriculture — the state’s largest industry — are illegal.

Published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution