Senate
Statement on U.S. Government Exhausting Supply of H-1B Visas in Less Than A Week
Following the announcement by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that they had run out of their annual allotment of H-1B visas, New American Economy Chairman John Feinblatt issued the following statement: “It took less than a week to hit the existing cap on visas for high-skilled… Read More
New Website Documents Border Patrol Abuses
An alliance of immigration advocacy groups launched HoldCBPAccountable.org, a website that catalogues lawsuits and administrative complaints brought against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The American Immigration Council, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and the ACLU… Read More
President Calls for Review of U.S. Deportation System
As the number of deportations under President Obama near the 2 million mark and Congress stalls on immigration reform legislation, President Obama said Friday that administration officials are reviewing what could be done to make the immigration enforcement system more humane. The announcement follows votes in the… Read More
More Than 600 Businesses Urge Congress to Act on Immigration Reform
Immigrants are helping to grow the economy all across the nation. Take Charlotte, North Carolina for example, where immigrant restaurant owners have opened businesses across the city catering to increasingly eclectic tastes. Tacos El Nevado is one example. Heriberto Mali and Vianey Juarez, immigrants from the state… Read More
An Unnecessary Pre-Emptive Strike Against Young Undocumented Immigrants
This week, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) issued a criticism of the Kids Act, a bill not yet released by House leadership. The thrust of their argument is that any legalization program the bill could propose would be an “amnesty,” no matter what the requirements, and that… Read More
The Washington Post Exposes Sorry State of Immigration Courts
This week, the Washington Post ran a front page article drawing attention to the fact that our nation’s immigration courts are operating in crisis mode. The immigration courts are so overcrowded that judges are forced to make split-second decisions regarding complex legal issues, calling into question whether the court system is fairly administering justice. The article featured a morning in the life of one immigration judge who had 26 cases to hear before lunchtime. That equates to an average of just seven minutes per case. Given the high stakes involved in deportation cases—which can range from permanent separation from family in the United States to being returned to a country where a person fears for his or her life—a system that is overburdened and under-resourced is simply unacceptable. Read More
As Congress Looks to Next Year, Activists Keep Immigration Reform Alive
Congress takes a holiday break at the end of this week and won’t return from recess until January. This pause in the legislative calendar, however, has little meaning for immigration activists who are continuing to push Congress to act on immigration reform. While the timetable may be changing, the… Read More
From the Mouths of Babes: Children Demand Immigration Reform
Families across the U.S. are facing the holidays separated from mothers, fathers, and siblings due to deportations and years-long waits for visas. Children—some of whose parents are undocumented immigrants—have taken to the halls of Congress this week to go to congressional offices, meet with members, and ask them to support immigration reform so that their families won’t be separated. Read More
Hearing Highlights Similarities Between Senate Immigration Bill and House Border Bill
Ostensibly, the July 23rd hearing of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security was about the many differences between the Senate’s immigration-reform bill and the House’s border-enforcement bill. The hearing was even titled “A Study in Contrasts: House and Senate Approaches to Border Security.” However, while highlighting very real differences between the House and Senate approaches to immigration reform, the hearing inadvertently shed light on the many similarities between the two when it comes to border security. Both pieces of legislation embrace possibly unworkable border-enforcement goals that have more to do with unauthorized immigration than with the primary threats to border security: the transnational “cartels” that smuggle people, drugs, guns, and money in both directions across the border. Read More
White House Report Outlines the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform
As Republicans in the House of Representatives search for a way forward on immigration reform, they should keep in mind a critical point: overhauling the U.S. immigration system would help jump start the sluggish U.S. economy. In other words, any Member of Congress who has expressed a desire to cut the federal budget deficit, create new jobs and businesses, boost wages, and increase U.S. economic output should be for immigration reform—not against it. Conversely, those who stand against reform should carefully consider the price that will be paid by the U.S. economy, and U.S. workers, if reform does not occur. Read More
America's story is an immigrant story.
