Immigration Policy Center

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

Published on Tue, May 25, 2010

Many other lawyers say that's a false reading. "Of course they're under our jurisdiction," says Michele Waslin, senior policy analyst with the American Immigration Council, which works to protect the legal rights of immigrants. "If they commit a crime, they're subject to the jurisdiction of the courts."

Published in the NPR

Published on Thu, May 27, 2010

Right now, the Obama Administration has misplaced priorities when it comes to border security. The American Immigration Council believes policy makers must make a distinction in any comprehensive immigration reform package between undocumented immigrants crossing the border and the drug induced violence of the drug cartels. “But cracking down on unauthorized immigrants in the United States is not going to diminish violence in border communities because unauthorized immigrants aren't the perpetrators, criminal cartels are.”

Published in the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Council

Published on Fri, May 21, 2010

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse on the immigration front, it got worse.

The American Immigration Council, Immigration Policy Center (IPC) has issued a press release that shines a bright spotlight on what the Obama administration is doing to non-violent immigration violators in the United States.

Published in the Ground Report

Published on Thu, May 20, 2010

He cites a report out early this year by the left-leaning Center for American Progress and the American Immigration Council. It concluded that if illegal immigrants were granted legal status, their wages would go up, as would their earning power, meaning increased tax revenues of $4.5 billion to $5.4 billion in the first three years.

Published in the Washington Post

Published on Wed, May 19, 2010

In a statement, Immigration Policy Center spokesperson Wendy Sefsaf explained the flaws in FAIR's findings. "FAIR's latest data fails to account for the property, sales, and income taxes paid by unauthorized immigrants," she said. "Nor does the data account for the consumer purchasing power of unauthorized immigrants – what they spend on goods, services, and housing – which actually creates jobs and generates additional tax revenue."

"They seem to forget that deporting workers also means deporting consumers and taxpayers," she explained.

Published in the Political Affairs