Policy

Today, on Capitol Hill, Congressmen Steve King and Lamar Smith will host a forum on the impact of “illegal immigration on American jobs.” Panelists will likely attempt to draw a direct correlation between U.S. immigration policy and unemployment, just as they do with all other domestic issues including the environment, security and health care. As in the past, their solution is deportation, their tactic is division, their position is the status quo, and their plans neither help American workers or solve our immigration crisis. The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) has developed the following fact check to further debunk claims that U.S. unemployment is caused by immigration.

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Published On: Thu, Nov 19, 2009 | Download File

While some characterize our immigration crisis as solely an issue of the 11 to 12 million unauthorized immigrants living in this country, our problems extend beyond the number of undocumented people to a broader range of issues.

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Published On: Wed, Oct 21, 2009 | Download File

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released data on the Latino population of the United States that underscores the extent to which the immigrant experience is embedded in the social (and political) fabric of the United States. The political significance of these statistics is apparent in the most recent IPC Fact Check. Latinos comprise the fastest-growing group of voters in the United States. The number of naturalized U.S. citizens is increasing rapidly and the electoral clout of New American voters who share a direct, personal connection to the immigrant experience—that is, naturalized citizens and the U.S.-born children of immigrants—is on the rise.

Published On: Mon, Oct 19, 2009 | Download File

(Updated January 2012) The United States and the colonial society that preceded it were created by successive waves of immigration from all corners of the globe.  But public and political attitudes towards immigrants have always been ambivalent and contradictory, and sometimes hostile.  The early immigrants to colonial America—from England, France, Germany, and other countries in northwestern Europe—came in search of economic opportunity and political freedom, yet they often relied upon the labor of African slaves working land taken from Native Americans.  The descendants of these first European immigrants sometimes viewed as “racially” and religiously suspect the European immigrants who came to the United States in the late 1800s from Italy, Poland, Russia, and elsewhere in southeastern Europe.  The descendants of these immigrants, in turn, have often taken a dim view of the growing numbers of Latin American, Asian, and African immigrants who began to arrive in the second half of the 20^th century.

Published On: Fri, Jan 13, 2012 | Download File

There is much confusion about the term “sanctuary city.”  The term is often used derisively by immigration opponents to blast what are best described as community policing policies.  Critics claim that these cities and states provide “sanctuary” to undocumented immigrants, but research shows that the opposite is true.  In fact, community policing policies are about providing public safety services, not sanctuary, to both immigrant residents and the entire community.  Crime experts, including hundreds of local police officers, have found that cities with community policing policies continue to work closely with DHS and have built bridges to immigrant communities that have improved their ability to fight crime and protect the entire community.

Historically, the federal government has enforced civil immigration law, and state and local police have focused on enforcing criminal law.  However, propelled by increased frustration with the nation’s broken immigration system and by growing anti-immigrant sentiment, politicians’ demands for state and local police to take on an increased role in immigration enforcement have grown exponentially.  This culminated in the passage of Arizona’s notorious SB1070 law in 2010, which would turn Arizona state and local police officers into deportation agents. Read more...

Published On: Tue, Apr 26, 2011 | Download File

Election experts tend to agree that modern-day voter fraud is a very rare occurrence in the United States, primarily because it is so irrational.  The potential payoff (a vote) is not worth the risk of jail time, thousands of dollars in fines, and—in the case of non-citizens—possibly deportation.  The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law succinctly summarizes this point in a 2006 fact sheet: “Each act of voter fraud risks five years in prison and a $10,000 fine—but yields at most one incremental vote.  The single vote is simply not worth the price.  Because voter fraud is essentially irrational, it is not surprising that no credible evidence suggests a voter fraud epidemic.”  As an October 18, 2010, story in the National Journal points out, “a five-year investigation by the Bush Justice Department…turned up virtually no evidence of widespread voter fraud.”  Nevertheless, anti-immigrant activists are fond of pretending that fraudulent voting by non-citizens is a national epidemic. Read more...

Published On: Tue, Oct 19, 2010 | Download File

The Political and Economic Power of Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians in the United States (Updated January 2012)

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Download the Fact Sheet (2010 Census Data)

Download the Previous Fact Sheet (2008 Census Data)

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Published On: Wed, Jan 11, 2012 | Download File