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As the Senate prepares to debate “comprehensive” immigration reform, policymakers are mainly focused on possible expansions to lawful permanent resident admissions, a new temporary worker program, and a range of contrasting policies targeting the unauthorized population within the United States. Yet proposed reforms likely would fail to address the mismatch between visa supply and demand, the system’s over-reliance on temporary nonimmigrant visas, inefficient immigrant labor regulations, and the challenges of responding to the roughly 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States. The Policy Brief evaluates the ability of current proposals to resolve these flaws and provide criteria for considering competing approaches.
In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform at the national level, state governments continue to introduce and pass legislation and resolutions addressing immigration and refugee issues. The National Conference of State Legislatures captures the number of bills and resolutions introduced and passed as well as the issues they address on a quarterly basis. This report, focused on the first quarter of 2010, finds a comparable amount of activity to 2009 in state legislatures on the topic of immigration. Of the enacted laws, the majority focused on education, employment, identification/driver’s licenses, law enforcement and resolutions.
In this article, the authors explore the successes and failures of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and contend that a legalization program is needed in the near future. They examine the reasons for such a program and also make specific recommendations so that it is successfully implemented.
Democracy Now looks at the issue of immigration detention, focusing on the treatment of immigrant detainees, the trend towards privatization of detention centers and the policies behind it all. Undocumented immigrants are one of the largest growing populations being detained by the U.S government.
The policy debate regarding immigration has turned from the national scene to an issue being taken up by local and state governments given the lack of national immigration policy reforms. This report analyzes the impact of enforcement and deportation only policies such as Arizon'as S.B. 1070 finding that if the law were to have its full intended effect, there would be serious negative economic consequences for local economies. The authors find that legalizing immigrants, for example in Arizona, would have a net positive economic impact.
A teleconference regarding this report is also available online.
The Immigration Policy Center makes the case that the process of North American economic integration, and development within Mexico itself, create structural conditions that encourage Mexican migration to the United States. However, multilateral agreements such as the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the 2005 Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) do not adequately deal with the issue of labor migration. Real security and prosperity for all three NAFTA partners requires incorporating an agreement on labor migration into the project of North American economic integration.
The report documents the ineffectiveness of the government's efforts to improve security after September 11 and the effect of these domestic security actions on civil liberties and national unity. It proposes an alternative framework to enhance immigration enforcement and domestic security based on mobilizing intelligence and information capabilities, protecting borders, supporting law enforcement, and engaging Arab and Muslim American communities.
This report shows how sharp restrictions of the 1996 immigration law have combined with post-September 11 law and policy changes to create a two-tiered system of justice that singles out immigrants for unequal treatment. The United States should be able to protect its borders, limit illegal immigration, and preserve national security while protecting civil rights, promoting family reunification, and respecting due process. The study combines a clear description of legal changes with stories of affected individuals, and recommends steps to restore due process and fair treatment.
People leave their home countries for a variety of reasons and a number of different names are applied to migrants based on their movement, including asylum seeker, refugee, economic migrant, temporary worker, and more. In a globalized world, immigrants often become the focus of polarizing economic, social, and political debates.
This book describes the distinctive way in which Catholic social teaching looks at migrants. The book identifies gaps and opportunities to improve government and non-governmental responses to migration on a local, national, and international level. And You Welcomed Me aims to reframe perspectives on migration by focusing on the human beings at the heart of this phenomenon. It analyzes trade, immigration, labor, national security, and integration policies in light of the core Catholic commitment to the common good, human dignity, authentic development, and solidarity.
This study examines the impact of post-September 11 policies on open government, personal privacy, and human rights, with a special chapter describing the impact on the rights of immigrants, refugees, and minorities.
One question that has received heightened attention from lawmakers is whether or not immigrants should be admitted to the United States less on the basis of family ties and more on the basis of the skills they can contribute to the U.S. economy. Although some of the practices associated with a point-based immigration system might benefit the U.S. economy, policymakers should be careful not to assume that such a system would be a panacea for the widespread dysfunction of U.S. immigration policies.
Between 1990 and 2005, the number of pending applications for immigration benefits swelled by more than 1,000 percent, growing from 540,688 in 1990 to a high of 6.08 million in 2003. The increasing number of pending immigration applications impacted immigrants, their families, employers who sponsor them, and policymakers. This situation prompted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to establish a Backlog Reducation Plan.
Analyzes how Mexico-U.S. migration functioned historically and how U.S. militarization of the border and restrictive policies of immigrant disenfranchisement adopted after 1986 have led to negative, unintended consequences for the United States and Mexico as well as the migrants themselves. Contends that U.S. policy of promoting greater integration of North American markets for goods, capital, and information but attempting to deny the reality of labor integration is destined to fail, and proposes policies to bring labor migration aboveboard and accepted as part of the emerging transnational economy.
Shows how punitive immigration and border enforcement policies have backfired, resulting in higher numbers of undocumented spread across larger areas of United States. Recommends 1) regulating border on binational basis by increasing annual quotas, establishing a flexible temporary labor program, and regularizing status of migrants in U.S.; 2) reducing incentives to hire undocumented workers through enforcing tax, labor, and worker-safety laws; and 3) developing strategies to help migrants better use earnings for savings and investment in Mexican communities.
Many newcomers are settling in cities that have not received foreign-born residents recently. As a result, state and local governments are passing legislation that ranges from anti-immigrant and antagonistic to welcoming and supportive of immigrants. This report seeks to help communities encourage and create progressive policies toward immigrants.
During the last two years of the Bush Administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) vastly expanded its use of home raid operations as a method to locate and apprehend individuals suspected of civil immigration law violations. ICE has admitted that these are warrantless raids and, therefore, that any entries into homes require the informed consent of residents. However, frequent accounts in the media and in legal filings have told a similar story of constitutional violations occurring during ICE home raids — a story that includes ICE agents breaking into homes and seizing all occupants without legal basis.
This report is the first public effort to compile and analyze the available evidence regarding the prevalence of constitutional violations occurring during ICE home raids. Through two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the authors of this report obtained significant samples of ICE arrest records from home raid operations in New York and New Jersey. Analysis of these records, together with other publicly available documents, reveals an established pattern of misconduct by ICE agents in the New York and New Jersey Field Offices. Further, the evidence suggests that such pattern may be a widespread national phenomenon reaching beyond these local offices.
Authored by the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic with funding from the Hagedorn Foundation.
This book discusses the major immigration policy areas - undocumented workers, the immigration selection system, deportation of aggravated felons, national security and immigration policy, and the integration of new Americans - and the author suggests his own proposals on how to address the policy challenges. The author also reviews some of the policies that have been put forth and ignored and suggests new policies that would be good for the country economically and socially.
This article unveils the harsh realities surrounding the detention and deportation of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers each year. The issues explored include local law enforcement agencies' cooperation with ICE, post-9/11 regulations expanding the grounds for deportation, the impacts on families and society, and the opportunities for philanthropic leadership and grassroots advocacy.
Immigrants often maintain ties with their country of origin and contribute financially to these communities. This phenomenon - diaspora philanthropy - is not a new phenomenon but may be evolving. This report by the Migration Policy Institute and USAID explores the myriad actors and motivations contributing to diaspora philanthropy and its interaction with public policy.
The study describes the history of African migration to the United States and how significant increases in contemporary migration from Africa are helping to bring diversity to black communities and bridge the gap between native and foreign-born populations.
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