…for the Immigration Policy Center…

If you believe Bill Chase, a member of the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors from Stevensburg, Virginia, the Latino immigrants who have moved to the county in recent years aren’t as willing to learn English as his own immigrant forefathers.  “I think we all came from foreign countries and turned into English-speaking Americans,” Chase told The Washington Post on August 9.  Then, apparently without appreciating the irony, he added, “But I don’t feel a willingness of this particular group to do that.  I don’t see the willingness to blend into society”…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center…

Since 9/11, concern has mounted among policymakers and law-enforcement authorities that foreign terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda might use Mexico as a transit point to enter the United States, relying on the same people-smuggling networks as undocumented immigrants and becoming lost in the large undocumented flow.  Some lawmakers have voiced fears that terrorists might be among the growing number of undocumented non-Mexicans crossing the southern border, although these Other Than Mexicans (OTMs) come principally from Central and South America.  There is no evidence this has happened, despite suggestions by several lawmakers that the extremely small number of Arab and Muslim OTMs apprehended at the border constitutes a threat to national security…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center, with Benjamin Johnson…

Opponents of immigration like to portray immigrants, especially less-educated immigrants who work in less-skilled jobs, as a drain on the U.S. economy. According to this line of thinking, if the taxes paid by immigrants do not cover the cost of the public services and benefits they receive, then immigrants are draining the public treasury and, ostensibly, the economy as a whole. However, this kind of simplistic fiscal arithmetic does not accurately gauge the impact that workers of any skill level have on the economy. It also is a dehumanizing portrayal of all workers, foreign-born and native-born alike, who labor for low wages in physically demanding jobs that are essential to the economic health of the nation…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center, with Rubén G. Rumbaut…

Because many immigrants to the United States, especially Mexicans and Central Americans, are young men who arrive with very low levels of formal education, popular stereotypes tend to associate them with higher rates of crime and incarceration.  The fact that many of these immigrants enter the country through unauthorized channels or overstay their visas often is framed as an assault against the “rule of law,” thereby reinforcing the impression that immigration and criminality are linked.  This association has flourished in a post-9/11 climate of fear and ignorance where terrorism and undocumented immigration often are mentioned in the same breath.  But anecdotal impression cannot substitute for scientific evidence.  In fact, data from the census and other sources show that for every ethnic group without exception, incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated.  This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented population…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center, with Jimmy Gomez…

If the current political stalemate over immigration reform is any indication, many U.S. policymakers have yet to heed the lessons of recent history when it comes to formulating a realistic strategy to control undocumented immigration.  In 1986, lawmakers passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in an attempt to reign in undocumented immigration through heightened worksite and border enforcement, combined with legalization of most
undocumented immigrants already in the country.  Unfortunately, IRCA failed to offer a long-term solution to the
problem of undocumented immigration…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center…

The immigration debate once again is dominated by narrow thinking and the search for simplistic solutions to complex problems.  Most lawmakers and the press have come to equate “immigration reform” with the question of whether or not enhanced immigration enforcement should be coupled with a new guest worker program that is more responsive than current immigration policies to the labor needs of the U.S. economy.  All but lost in this debate have been the calls by prominent immigration reform advocates to improve and expand pathways for permanent immigration as well.  But immigration reform will not be truly comprehensive, or effective, unless it recognizes the vital contributions of temporary workers and permanent immigrants alike, and the inadequacy of the current immigration system in providing legal channels for either to enter the country…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center…

Although little noticed by the press, the 2005 Economic Report of the President – which was submitted to Congress on February 17, 2005 – prominently highlights the critical importance of immigration to the U.S. economy.  The fact that the report devotes an entire chapter to the topic of immigration underscores both the extent to which immigration has become a driving force in the economy and the degree to which immigration policy affects the nation’s economic prospects.  The data compiled in the report, as well as a wide array of data from other sources, illustrate that immigration has become the key to growth of the U.S. labor force and that immigrants provide a net fiscal benefit to the U.S. economy…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center…

The latest attempt by immigration restrictionists to take control of the Sierra Club is again casting a public spotlight on the question of whether immigration to the United States plays a significant role in the destruction of the environment.  Anti-immigration activists failed in a 1998 referendum to persuade most Sierra Club members to make immigration restriction an official policy of the environmental organization, which was founded in 1892 by Scottish immigrant John Muir.  This time, the restrictionists are attempting to win a majority on the Club’s board of directors…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center…

As President Bush acknowledged in his January 7 speech on immigration reform, current U.S. policies toward undocumented immigration are unsustainable.  In outlining his administration’s proposal for a temporary worker program that would include undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, the president observed that immigration reform “must begin by confronting a basic fact of life and economics: some of the jobs being generated in America’s growing economy are jobs American citizens are not filling.”  He described a broken system in which many employers are “turning to the illegal labor market,” while “we see millions of hard-working men and women condemned to fear and insecurity in a massive, undocumented economy.”  Crucial aspects of the president’s proposal remain unclear, such as the fate of millions of undocumented workers who have lived in the United States for many years or even decades, developing deep roots in their communities and raising U.S.-born children…

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…for the Immigration Policy Center…

Nearly all immigrants must overcome the linguistic and cultural challenges of being newcomers in a new land.  But the majority of contemporary immigrants to the United States face an added challenge: they become members of U.S. “minority” groups and therefore confront the same educational and employment hurdles as “native” minorities.  This is a crucial consideration when comparing immigrants and natives in light of the fact that over three-quarters of the native born are non-Hispanic “whites,” while over three-quarters of the foreign born are ethnic minorities.  Comparisons of the “foreign born” and “native born” as ethnically undifferentiated wholes fail to account for the socioeconomic impact of belonging to a minority group…

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