…for the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University…

It is sometimes said that the hallmark of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  This maxim succinctly describes the U.S. government’s long-standing approach to the problem of undocumented immigration.  Since the mid-1980s, the federal government has tried repeatedly, without success, to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants to the United States with all sorts of immigration-enforcement initiatives: deploying more and more agents, fences, flood lights, aircraft, cameras, and sensors along the southwest border with Mexico — increasing the number of worksite raids and arrests conducted throughout the country — expanding detention facilities to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants apprehended each year — and creating new bureaucratic procedures to expedite the return of detained immigrants to their home countries.  Despite the enormous fiscal, economic, and human costs of these measures, they have yet to make a demonstrable dent in the number of undocumented immigrants entering the country…

Read the rest…

…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”…

Read the rest…

…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…

Read the rest…

…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…

Read the rest…

…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…

Read the rest…

…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…

Read the rest…

…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…

Read the rest…