Immigration Policy Center

Published on Tue, Apr 09, 2013

The IPC's Director, Mary Giovagnoli, was featured in a ABC News-Univision article titled "Should There be a One-Year Time Limit on Asylum Claims?"

"The one-year deadline was put into place as part of a broad, enforcement-centered immigration law passed in 1996, but should be rolled back now, according to Mary Giovagnoli, the director of the American Immigration Council's Immigration Policy Center.

"'The idea was that it would be a deterrent to people who really didn't have asylum claims, because if you didn't apply within the first year of coming to the United States, the presumption was you didn't really have a fear of returning to your country,' Giovagnoli said. 'Although there were some exceptions built into that law, the exceptions were not very generous.'"

Published in the ABC News-Univision

Published on Thu, Apr 04, 2013

The AIC's Executive Director, Ben Johnson, was quoted in the New York Times on Thursday.  The article, focusing on the pathway to citizenship expected to be included in the upcoming immigration bill, called on Johnson's expertise on how the process is expected to work:

“There is broad recognition that these folks will have to go through a process of atonement,” said Benjamin E. Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, a group in Washington that works to build support for immigration. “But ultimately at the end of the process they would become full-fledged members of our society through American citizenship.”

Published in the New York Times

Published on Thu, Mar 21, 2013

The IPC and LAC's Special Report, "Two Systems of Justice:  How the Immigration System Falls Short of American Ideals of Justice," was highlighted in a piece by Voxxi, which was then reposted by the Huffington Post:

"The United States’ justice system is supposed to operate equally for all defendants, but a new report reveals that the immigration system operates under a different set of rules for immigrants facing deportation.

The American Immigration Council issued on Tuesday a report that reveals the immigration system fails to provide “a fair process” to immigrants in removal proceedings and “lacks nearly all of the procedural safeguards we rely on and value in the U.S. justice system.” The report, titled “Two Systems of Justice: How the Immigration System Falls Short of the Ideals of Justice”, also explores the major operational differences between the criminal justice system and the immigration removal system."

You can read the full report here.

Published in the Voxxi

Published on Wed, Mar 20, 2013

Mary Giovagnoli, the IPC's Director, was quoted in this article from the Washington Post:

“The immigration issue in a lot of ways I think is maturing in a way that simply takes time,” says Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center, who was a staffer for Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) during the 2006-07 debate. “There seems to be a much greater level of trust and cordiality. [The last time] the two sides were dragged kicking and screaming together.” A similar dynamic was at play with health-care reform—another major effort that had suffered from a spectacular defeat in Congress before finally passing. “Any major, major piece of social change is a long process,” Giovagnoli concludes.

Published in the Washington Post

Published on Tue, Mar 19, 2013

A 2012 report by the IPC was recently cited in a White House fact sheet pointing out the economic need for comprehensive immigration reform: 

"According to the 2010 American Community Survey, immigrants earned a total of $1.1 trillion, and the Immigration Policy Center estimates that the purchasing power of Latinos and Asians, many of whom are immigrants, alone will reach $1.5 trillion and $775 billion, respectively, by 2015."

Published in the White House

Published on Thu, Jan 24, 2013

The IPC's Senior Researcher, Walter Ewing, had this article published in Yahoo! Finance:

"The U.S. immigration system undermines the U.S. economy in many ways. Two particularly glaring (and interrelated) examples concern foreign students and high-tech workers.

Each year, foreign students graduate from U.S. universities, often with in-demand science and engineering degrees. Yet many are forced to return to their home countries rather than putting their newly acquired knowledge to work here. Likewise, each year many high-tech workers from abroad (some of whom studied in U.S. universities) are forced to return home when their temporary work visas expire, regardless of how valuable their continuing contributions to the U.S. economy might be.

Both of these scenarios are nonsensical. That is why President Obama said in his inaugural address that the nation’s work will not be complete 'until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.'"

Published in the Yahoo! Finance

Published on Tue, Jan 15, 2013

The Director of the Immigration Policy Center, Mary Giovagnoli, was quoted in this recent Mother Jones article on Marco Rubio's immigration plan:

"Rising conservative star and tea party favorite Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) is "riding to the immigration rescue," according to the Wall Street Journal editorial page. While a bipartisan group of senators is at work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal, Rubio is touting ideas of his own, which Journal editorial writer Matthew Kaminski says will seek to "triangulate, if you will—the liberal fringe that seeks broad amnesty for illegal immigrants and the hard right's obsession with closing the door.""

Published in the Mother Jones

Published on Thu, Jan 03, 2013

Wendy Feliz-Sefsaf, Communications Director at the AIC, was quoted in this article on Politico:

"When the 113th Congress digs into immigration reform with renewed vigor in the new year, no lawmaker will find himself in quite so tight a spot as Rep. Mike Honda.

It’s a position, however, very much relished by Honda, a seven-term Democrat from the San Jose area. His district, California’s redrawn 15th, is among the nation’s most complicated on this hot-button issue — dominated by major high-tech firms focused on importing high-skilled labor as well as huge minority populations seeking paths to citizenship."

Read more here.

Published in the Politico

Published on Tue, Nov 27, 2012

IPC Director Mary Giovagnoli was quoted in USA Today's article on Senators Kyl and Hutchison's ACHIEVE Act legislation.  Here's an excerpt:

WASHINGTON -- Arizona Sen.Jon Kyl and Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison introduced legislation Tuesday to give legal status to young immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.

The bill by the two Southwest Republicans -- and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. -- would offer special student and work visas and ultimately permanent legal status to those who earn a college degree or serve four years in the military.

"We need to have a discussion that is sensible, that is calm," said Kyl, who, like Hutchison, is retiring in January. "This particular piece of immigration reform seemed a logical place to begin."

Unlike several previous "Dream Act"-style bills, it does not offer a special pathway to citizenship, a conscious omission that is likely to be opposed by immigrant rights' groups and many Democrats.

"I think this is a doubled-edged sword," said Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center, which advocates for immigrants' rights. "On one hand, I think it's great that people are putting ideas out there about how to go forward on immigration. At the same time, I think it's really unfortunate that the choice is being made to put solutions out there that don't include the opportunity for people to become citizens."

Published in the USA Today