Immigration Policy Center

Published on Mon, Jun 21, 2010

Benjamin E. Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, which advocates comprehensive immigration reform, said many grass-roots groups have been responsible for pushing immigration legislation at the local and state levels. But he questioned some of the groups' tactics, saying that at times they capitalize on communities' fears and anxiety and use immigrants as scapegoats.

Published in the News Journal

Published on Thu, Jun 10, 2010

Much has been said about Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070, allowing state law enforcement officials to stop, question, detain and report individuals based on suspicion of undocumented status. Outrage against this bill is pervasive. Some say it hearkens back to Jim Crow, others say it legalizes racial profiling.

Published in the Hill

Published on Mon, Jun 07, 2010

"Since the Calderon administration has taken office, you have around 20,000 homicides that have occurred, many of those from U.S. weapons," said Dr. David Shirk, Director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of California, San Diego, during a conference call on border security arranged by the Immigration Policy Center. "It's really hard to deal honestly with Mexico and say we want you to help us continue this effort but we're not going to stop arming the people that you're fighting by clapping down a little bit more on our own southbound flow of guns."

Published in the Security Management News

Published on Tue, Jun 15, 2010

But the next target is not kids. It is babies. The next idea is to deny birth certificates to children born here to illegal immigrant parents. It’s not a new idea, but its one that keeps being coughed up by those who haven't found a problem they can't blame on illegal immigrants.

Call them bullies without a clue.

The Immigration Policy Center prepared a fact sheet for those who want to understand this a little better.

Published in the Arizona Republic

Published on Mon, Jun 14, 2010

Delaware Rep. Michael Castle speculated that the economy would eclipse immigration on the national congressional agenda. Citing an extensive and well documented report titled “Raising the Floor for American Workers” published jointly by the Center for American progress and the Immigration Policy Center, I stated that comprehensive immigration reform would raise wages, increase consumption, create jobs and generate additional tax revenue, resulting in $1.5 trillion in cumulative U.S. gross domestic product over the next 10 years. On the other hand, mass deportations would lead to a loss of $2.6 trillion in gross domestic product over the next 10 years. Therefore, comprehensive immigration reform can be a part of the solution to the national economic crisis.

Published in the Delaware Tomorrow

Published on Sat, Jun 12, 2010

During a teleconference hosted by the Immigration Policy Center last week, Aarti Kohli, director of immigration policy at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the Berkeley School of Law, said Operation Streamline is an example of “a misdirected policy.”

Published in the Green Valley News (FL)

Published on Sat, Jun 12, 2010

Benjamin Johnson, a researcher with the American Immigration Institute, said the immigration debate in the United States has become entirely fixed on the issue of “securing the border.” He cited the recently signed Arizona state law that gave police greater power to enforce federal immigration laws. Fear and uncertainty about the border led to the passage of that law, Johnson insisted.

“This appetite for enforcement at the border seems almost insatiable,” he said. “The focus of legislative efforts and debate seem to always come back to this question of border enforcement.”

Published in the Valley Morning Star (TX)

Published on Tue, Jun 15, 2010

Adopting such a practice in the U.S. would be not only unconstitutional but also impractical and expensive, said Michele Waslin, a policy analyst with the pro-immigrant Immigration Policy Center in Washington.

"Every single parent who has a child would have to go through this bureaucratic process of proving their own citizenship and therefore proving their child's citizenship," she said.

Published in the Associated Press

Published on Tue, Jun 08, 2010

Legislators in at least 22 states have introduced or are considering similar legislation to Arizona's, according to the Washington, D.C., based Immigration Policy Center -- a research arm of the American Immigration Council that advocates comprehensive immigration reform.

Not all state legislation related to immigration is punitive -- much of it falls within traditional state jurisdiction, such as attempts to improve high school graduation rates among immigrants, according to the Center.

Published in the Bethany Beach Wave

Published on Sun, Jun 06, 2010

There are plenty of features of the law that critics find objectionable. Among them are the penalties. Under federal law, violations of immigration statutes by someone in the U.S. illegally may in some cases be punished with a jail sentence but are often penalized by deporting the individual instead, if the government proves its case to a judge through a comprehensive set of procedures. Arizona, lacking the authority to deport anyone, will enforce jail sentences laid out in its new law for, say, failing to carry one’s immigration authorization documents or soliciting day work by the side of the road, said Mary Giovagnoli, director of the Immigration Policy Center, a pro-immigrants’ rights group. While the federal system is far from perfect (thousands of people are locked up in federal detention centers indefinitely awaiting deportation decisions), the addition of new immigration crimes at the state level with jail time attached isn’t the answer, she added.

Published in the Tuscon Sentinel