Undocumented Immigration
Secretary Napolitano Announces Temporary Protective Status for Unauthorized Haitians
Today, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano announced the designation of Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for eligible nationals of Haiti, whose homeland was devastated by an earthquake earlier this week. According to Secretary Napolitano, as of January 12, 2010, the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 unauthorized Haitians currently in… Read More
Granting Temporary Protective Status (TPS) to Unauthorized Haitians Now an Urgent Matter
Tuesday’s devastating earthquake in Haiti is the latest and deadliest tragedy to befall one of the world’s poorest countries. As the death toll mounts and the full measure of the destruction is taken in, the call for urgent humanitarian relief is already being answered by the United States. Presumably, those relief efforts will be supplemented by additional long-term foreign aid packages, much like the relief that followed a series of hurricanes and tropical storms in 2008. Whenever a disaster of this magnitude occurs, however, the immigration arm of the government also must respond. DHS has already announced that it is temporarily suspending the removal of Haitians scheduled to be returned to their country. Thousands more—some here as temporary visitors, others seeking asylum or currently in immigration proceedings, and many more here as undocumented immigrants—face an uncertain future. Read More
New Report Estimates Economic Benefit of Legalizing Unauthorized Immigrants in California
A new report from researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) provides further evidence that immigration reform which includes the creation of a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants already in the United States would yield tangible economic benefits. The report, The Economic Benefits of Immigrant Authorization in California, by Dr. Manuel Pastor and co-authors at USC’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII), estimates that “unauthorized Latino immigrants in California…missed out on approximately $2.2 billion in wages and salary income last year alone due solely to their legal status, and the state lost out on the multiplied impacts of that potential income and spending, suggesting a total potential gain of $3.25 billion annually from authorization.” Read More
Heritage Foundation Takes Aim at IPC/CAP Report, Issues a Series of Misfires
Today, the Heritage Foundation responded to a recent report from the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP), Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, in a failed attempt to rebut the report’s finding—that comprehensive immigration reform which includes a legalization program for unauthorized immigrants and flexible limits on future immigration would result in a large economic benefit: $1.5 trillion in additional U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over 10 years. Read More
Immigrant Investments in American Business on the Rise
Fresh on the heels of an economic study by UCLA’s Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda—a study which demonstrates how comprehensive immigration reform would yield $1.5 trillion to the U.S. GDP over a ten year period, generate billions in additional tax revenue and consumer spending and support hundreds of thousands of jobs—a recent report by the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute (MPI) further highlights the economic benefit of immigration through foreign investments in U.S. businesses. As noted yesterday in a Washington Post article, “the number of foreigners willing to invest $500,000 to $1 million in a U.S. business in exchange for a visa roughly tripled in the past fiscal year”—from 1,443 in fiscal year 2008 to 4,218 in fiscal year 2009. Read More
Immigration Reform Now a Matter of “How”
There are plenty of genuine issues worthy of debate in immigration reform—how to really create secure borders and communities, how to predict and manage future immigration flows, how to implement a fair and workable employment verification system, and how to ensure that legal immigration incorporates key values represented by family and work. But what is no longer on the table is whether we should be doing immigration reform, particularly legalization of the undocumented. Yesterday’s release of the IPC/CAP report finally puts to rest the question of whether immigration reform is good for the country. The answer—a resounding “Yes!” Read More
New Report Quantifies Benefits of Immigration Reform to U.S. Economy
Those policymakers and commentators who argue that we simply cannot afford to enact comprehensive immigration reform in the middle of an economic recession have their facts woefully wrong. According to a new report released jointly by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and the Center for American Progress (CAP), the economic benefits which would flow from comprehensive immigration reform would be dramatic. The report, Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, uses a “computable general equilibrium model” to estimate that comprehensive reform which includes a pathway to legal status for currently unauthorized immigrants, as well as the creation of flexible limits on future immigration, would “yield at least $1.5 trillion in added U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over 10 years.” Moreover, comprehensive reform would “boost wages for native-born and newly legalized immigrant workers alike.” Read More
Connecting the Dots Between Immigration and Health Care Reform
As Congress continues to broker the specifics of health care legislation, some reports cite key Democrats as allegedly holding out their support of the bill contingent on a solid White House promise that a comprehensive immigration reform bill will be addressed this year—a reform bill that would provide health care coverage options to all immigrants, including undocumented immigrants on an earned path to citizenship. Read More
And They’re Off! Immigration Reform for a New Decade
Thousands of organizations, activists, and citizens are already out of the gate and will spend 2010 racing towards the finish line of fixing our broken immigration system. Some dedicated students have even embarked on a 1,500 mile walk from Miami to Washington D.C. in hopes of bringing attention to the human needs and costs behind our outdated system. Read More
A Closer Look at Immigration Reform Legislation in the New Year
Everyone pulled out the sports analogies last week when Congressman Luis Gutierrez and his 91 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 4321, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009—and rightly so, as this bill marks the opening bell in the 2010 immigration debate. It is not only the first major piece of comprehensive reform legislation introduced in the 111th Congress, but the first since the last debate on immigration reform, which took place in May and June of 2007 in the Senate. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
