Department of Homeland Security
And the Beat Goes On: Immigration Reform and the Road Ahead
As Washington and the rest of the country continue to reflect on the monumental legacy of the late Senator from Massachusetts, many are contemplating the enormous leadership gap left in his passing. A tireless champion of health care, civil rights, foreign policy, education, immigration and many other worthy causes, Senator Kennedy’s first major legislative victory—eliminating the national quotas for immigration— “helped change the face of the country and shaped his own political career.” But the question remains, how do we continue Sen. Kennedy’s drumbeat on immigration reform? Read More
Plugging into the Millennial Generation
Today, the Center for American Progress released a new publication, The Coming End of the Culture Wars, which explains that the conservative white working-class population is waning while the younger “millennial” generation, who is much more liberal on social issues including immigration reform, is expanding. The report states: Millennials—the generation with birth years 1978 to 2000—support gay marriage, take race and gender equality as givens, are tolerant of religious and family diversity, have an open and positive attitude toward immigration, and generally display little interest in fighting over the divisive social issues of the past. Read More
Faith and Leadership Required: A Closer Look at Last Week’s White House Meeting
Last week’s White House meeting on immigration marked another chapter in the years-long effort to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Janet Napolitano’s invitation to more than one hundred representatives from business, labor, faith, law enforcement, and immigration groups was a genuine attempt to listen to concerns and solicit ideas. The format—large group meeting addressed by the Secretary, small group discussion led by various DHS and White House officials, summary and surprise remarks from the President—gave people a chance to say just a little, but the cumulative effect was more important than we may realize. Read More
The President and Secretary Napolitano Reaffirm Commitment to Immigration Reform
Yesterday, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano met with immigrant advocates, faith leaders, labor, business and law enforcement officials at the White House to discuss moving forward with a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year. President Obama appeared at the end of the meeting to reaffirm his commitment to reform and pledge that “we can get this done.” While the President commended Sens. Charles Schumer’s (D-NY) and Harry Reid’s (D-NV) efforts to move a bill forward, he also urged participants to work together in a bipartisan effort to advance a sensible and human immigration system that is consistent with our American values. Read More
South Carolina Senator in Search of Solutions
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Chairman of the Immigration, Refugee and Border Security Subcommittee, has tapped Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to help garner GOP support for a comprehensive immigration bill this year. While not always voting in favor of common sense solutions to our broken immigration system, Senator Graham has shown himself to be at least one Republican leader who understands the importance of our nation’s changing demographic—especially in his home state of South Carolina—on future electoral races. Read More
Health Care Reform and Immigration: The Sideshow Antics of the Anti-Reform Crowd
Today, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released a new fact sheet about immigrants and the health care system. At a public event, CIS made it clear that while immigrants may not be to blame for all the problems with the U.S. health care system, they certainly are part of the problem, and the only solution is to step up immigration enforcement and reduce future immigration. Hmmm, isn’t that their solution to everything? While stating that free health care for “illegals” is a problem (even though the bills in Congress explicitly deny coverage to undocumented immigrants), CIS focused on health care benefits for legal immigrants, implying that legal immigrants should be denied affordable health care and that comprehensive immigration reform would destroy the health care system. This is simply the latest attempt to silence any constructive discussion about important issues and scare the American public by using immigrants as a handy scapegoat. Read More
Quadrennial Homeland Security Review: Is DHS Asking the Right Questions?
If you go to the National Dialogue on the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) website and click through to the Smart and Tough Enforcement of Immigration Laws section, you will find a bit of surprise. Despite a title that panders to the enforcement first crowd, implying that immigration policy is all about being “tough,” there is actually a remarkably thoughtful effort to capture a broader set of immigration policy goals. Take a look at the mission statement: A secure, unified, fair, adaptive, and responsive immigration system that protects the public, enriches our society, and improves our economy. Read More
What’s Law Got To Do With It? Sheriff Arpaio Defies New DHS Enforcement Guidelines
The Department of Homeland Security recently standardized its 287(g) immigration enforcement agreements with local law enforcement, which allows specially trained local enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws. Among the new DHS rules, local law enforcement must now prioritize immigrants with serious criminal records, rather than spend scant time and resources going after undocumented immigrants who are charged with no other crime. These new enforcement provisions, however, leave long-time immigration enforcement abuser, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, with some important decisions to make. Read More
ICE Begins Immigration Detention System Overhaul
Today, the Department of Homeland Security announced some much needed changes to the immigration detention system. The ICE detention system, which has grown dramatically over the last several years, currently has 32,000 detention beds available at any given time, which are spread over 350 facilities across the country. ICE owns and operates their own facilities, and also rents bed space from county and city prisons and jails. These prisons and jails house serious criminals, yet immigration detainees—including asylum seekers, legal immigrants, victims of human trafficking, and immigrants with no criminal records—are mixed in with the local prison population. Read More
Republicans on the Road to Demographic Self-Destruction
A slew of data from the 2008 election, released late last month by the U.S. Census Bureau, underscores—yet again—that Latinos constitute the fastest growing share of the electorate in the United States. Yet many Republican politicians seem to be going out of their way to alienate Latino voters. In an effort to appeal to the “base” of ultra-conservative whites needed to win Republican primaries, many in the GOP are trampling upon the Latinos they very well might need to win general elections. As the political theater surrounding the Sotomayor nomination illustrates well, a growing number of Republicans are trying their hardest to swim against the demographic tide. It is unlikely that they’ll be able to keep their heads above water for very long. Read More
America's story is an immigrant story.
