State and Local
Secretary Napolitano Announces “Next Steps” for Southwest Border
Yesterday, President Obama sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally asking for $600 million in additional border security spending to fund 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents, 160 additional ICE agents, two unmanned aircraft systems, extra Border Patrol canine teams and improved infrastructure along the Southwest Border. In a tandem move today, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced several new DHS initiatives to bolster security along the Southwest border. Although Secretary Napolitano trumpeted DHS’s new border initiatives as well as past achievements, she also acknowledged that the border can never be hermetically sealed and that stalling immigration reform by highlighting border security issues is not the answer to our immigration problems. Read More
Fremont Residents Pass Restrictive and Costly Immigration Ordinance
With frustrations running high over a lack of federal action on immigration, Fremont, Nebraska joined Arizona in restricting immigration. In a special election held yesterday, voters in Fremont passed an ordinance that will require businesses to verify employees’ immigration status and renters to apply for an occupancy license—which also requires a legal status check—before renting an apartment or home. The town of Fremont has just 25,000 people—93% of whom are white—and is surrounded by large meat packing plants. Although many are certain that legal challenges will keep the ordinance from taking effect, Fremont’s new ordinance could be a bellwether of similar legislation in other states if Congress continues to stall on an immigration overhaul. Read More
Defining Roles: Federal vs. State Immigration Authority
Washington D.C. – Today, the small town of Fremont, Nebraska is in the headlines after passing an ordinance that requires among other things that renters apply for an occupancy license – which also requires a legal immigration status check – before renting an apartment or home. Although Fremont, Nebraska, and… Read More
Arizona’s Punishment Doesn’t Fit the Crime: Studies Show Decrease in Arizona Crime Rates
Updated 06/22/10 Supporters of Arizona’s harsh new immigration law claim that it is, in part, a crime-fighting measure. For instance, the bill’s author, Republican State Senator Russell Pearce of Mesa, confidently predicts that the law—which requires police to investigate the immigration status of anyone who appears to be unauthorized—will result in “less crime” and “safer neighborhoods.” However, Sen. Pearce overlooks two salient points: crime rates have already been falling in Arizona for years despite the presence of unauthorized immigrants, and a century’s worth of research has demonstrated that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native-born. While much has been made about kidnappings in Arizona, law-enforcement officials indicate that most of these involve drug smugglers and human smugglers, as well as smuggled immigrants themselves—not the general population of the state. Combating crime related to human smuggling requires more trust between immigrants and the police, not less. Yet the undermining of trust between police and the community is precisely what Arizona’s new law accomplishes. In the final analysis, immigration policy is not an effective means of addressing crime because the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. Read More
Arizona’s Anti-Immigration Law is also Anti-Faith
While visiting Phoenix, AZ in late January with a group of evangelical leaders who were in the border region to learn more about immigration, I met an immigrant family struggling to survive in a difficult economy. The father was employed as a mechanic but recently lost his job and lived in constant fear of being separated from his two young children who are U.S. citizens. This man considered moving his family back to Mexico because life was so hard in Phoenix, but was concerned about his two young children who would go back to a country they never knew. They were generous in feeding a group of American visitors delicious homemade Mexican food, as their children ran around the yard, yelling at each other in a mix of Spanish and English. During the same visit, my colleague met an undocumented immigrant woman named Maria whose son was killed by a drunk driver. She cannot press charges, however, because of her undocumented status. Read More
SB 1070 “Gets Tough” on Arizona’s Housing Market
With only six weeks until Arizona’s immigration enforcement law goes into effect, area housing analysts are already expecting the worst. According to the Arizona Republic, housing experts anticipate that SB 1070 will not only drive illegal immigrants out of the state, but legal residents and potential new homebuyers with them—“departures from a state where growth is the economic foundation.” The resulting exodus will likely spur more foreclosures and create more vacant homes and apartments, which as real-estate analysts point out, will scare off potential homebuyers who fear lower home values. With a budget deficit of $4.5 billion and an economy struggling to get back on its feet, a declining housing market is the last thing Arizonans need. Read More
CIS Claims California is ‘Least-Educated State’ Because of Immigration
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) yesterday released a report claiming that, due to immigration, “by 2008 California had the least-educated labor force in the nation in terms of the share [of] its workers without a high school education.” The report, entitled A State Transformed: Immigration and the New California, grossly mischaracterizes the educational profile of the California labor force by focusing exclusively on a single educational category: those without a high-school diploma. However, a more thorough analysis of recent Census data by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reveals that California’s labor force is also rich in highly educated workers, many of whom are immigrants. CIS is attempting to propagate the stereotype of immigrants as being uneducated, when – in fact – immigrants have always filled U.S. labor needs at both ends of the educational spectrum. Read More
USCIS Announces Fee Increases
Almost from the beginning of his tenure as Director of USCIS back in 2009, Alejandro Mayorkas has been warning that a fee increase was imminent. Today, the other shoe finally dropped, as USCIS announced a weighted fee increase of approximately ten percent on applications and petitions submitted to the agency. The fee for naturalization applications, however, remains unchanged at $595, and some application fees had modest price reductions, such as filing a fiancée petition. Two other carefully watched applications will see increases: adjustment of status (green card) applications will rise from $930 to $985 and employment authorization documents will see a proposed increase from $340 to $380. These increases will likely have a significant impact on certain individuals who will have more difficulty saving enough for the application fee. Read More
When Does Border-First Become Border-Only?
Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer met with President Obama to discuss immigration and border security. Gov. Brewer described the meeting as “cordial,” but neither the President nor the Governor discussed the Justice Department’s plan to move forward with a lawsuit against Arizona’s controversial immigration enforcement law—a law which President Obama has publicly criticized as “misguided.” They did, however, discuss specifics of the most recent round of border-first strategies (the President assured Brewer that he would send White House staff to Arizona in two weeks to further discuss beefing up the border). Although the President asked Gov. Brewer for help “in creating a bipartisan solution” to our immigration problems, Gov. Brewer was unwilling to play ball, which makes one wonder how far the President is willing to go on the border-first strategy without any promise of GOP support for comprehensive reform? Read More
Tens of Thousands March in Protest of Arizona’s SB 1070
Tens of thousands of protesters from across the country gathered in Phoenix over the weekend to protest Arizona’s SB 1070. According to some reports, as many as 20,000 protesters carried flags, banners and signs reading “Do I Look Illegal?” and "Where's the change? Mr. President, how can we trust you for re-election?" across a five mile stretch to the state Capitol to demand that the “federal government refuse to cooperate with Arizona authorities trying to enforce the law.” Meanwhile, supporters of the law gathered in a nearby stadium to defend their position and deny claims of profiling and racism. Both sides, ironically enough, acknowledged the need for a federal overhaul of our immigration system—albeit with different messages. Read More
America's story is an immigrant story.
