| IPC Policy Briefs |
|
Providing factual information about immigration and immigrants in America. |
Our Most Recent Briefs Out of Sync: New Temporary Worker Proposals Unlikely to Meet U.S. Labor Needs. The temporary worker program now taking shape in Congress is unlikely to provide the U.S. economy with the numbers or kinds of workers that U.S. industries need. Divided Families: New Legislative Proposals Would Needlessly Restrict Family-Based Immigration, by Stewart J. Lawrence. New legislative proposals to drastically restrict family-based immigration practically ignore the social and economic benefits of the family-based admissions system for both immigrants and the native-born. - 05/07 Dollars without Sense: Underestimating the Value of Less-Educated Workers. A recent report from the Heritage Foundation is one in a long line of deeply flawed economic analyses which claim to estimate the contributions and "costs" of workers based solely on the amount of taxes they pay and the value of the public services they utilize. - 05/07 A Humanitarian Crisis at the Border: New Estimates of Deaths Among Unauthorized Immigrants. In the mid-1990s, the U.S. government’s deterrence approach to immigration control militarized the U.S.-Mexico border, closed off major urban points of unauthorized migration in Texas and California, and funneled hundreds of thousands of unauthorized immigrants through southern Arizona’s deserts and mountains. As a result, immigrant deaths along the border have increased dramatically. Experts estimate that the bodies of 2,000 to 3,000 immigrants have been found along the Southwest border since 1995. According to one expert, this border “has been more than 10 times deadlier to migrants from Mexico during the past nine years than the Berlin Wall was to East Germans throughout its 28-year existence.” In this IPC Policy Brief, authors Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, M.Melissa McCormick, Daniel Martinez, and Inez Magdalena Duarte summarize their report for the Binational Migration Institute at the University of Arizona. [IPC Policy Brief] [PDF of BMI report, 416KB]. - 02/07. Undocumented Immigration by Congressional Districts. The size of the undocumented immigrant population in a congressional district can affect the district's local, state and federal politics as well as its economic development. An earlier IPC policy brief found that congressional leaders of restrictionist immigration policies have few undocumented immigrants in their districts. But the effects of immigration extend beyond politics and into economic development: immigrants have a high employment rate and -- like citizens -- they spend their income on food, clothes, housing and entertainment. In this IPC Policy Brief, author Rob Paral uses new census data to update his earlier IPC report (Playing Politics on Immigration: Congress Favors Image over Substance in Passing H.R. 4437) on the number of undocumented immigrants in U.S. congressional districts. - 10/06 The Census Bureau reports that the foreign-born population of the United States increased by 4.9 million between 2000 and 2005 to 35.7 million, or 12.4 percent of the U.S. population. While most new immigrants continue to settle in California, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Texas and Illinois, increasing numbers of new immigrants are settling throughout the U.S. -- they are going where the jobs are. – 08/06 Immigration Scare Tactics: Exaggerated Estimates of New Immigration Under S.2611. The debate over S. 2611, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, has been clouded by grossly exaggerated estimates of the likely scale of future immigration under the bill. -- 05/06 Playing Politics on Immigration: Congress Favors Image over Substance in Passing H.R. 4437 Congressional representatives who supported H.R. 4437—the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005—are most likely to represent districts with relatively few undocumented immigrants.--02/06 A Lifeline to Renewal: The Demographic Impact of Immigration at State and Local Levels Immigrant numbers should be taken in the context of native population growth or decline to better understand the impact of immigration.-- 08/05 From Refugees to Americans: Thirty Years of Vietnamese Immigration to the United States Thirty years after the fall of the Saigon government, Vietnamese Americans celebrate the fact that they have moved far beyond their refugee origins and become successful economic and political players in U.S. society.-- 06/05 Essential Workers: Immigrants are a Needed Supplement to the Native-Born Labor Force An analysis of data from the 2000 census reveals that employment in about one-third of all U.S. job categories would have contracted during the 1990s in the absence of recently arrived, noncitizen immigrant workers. -- 03/05 Diversity and Transformation: African Americans and African Immigration to the United States Successive generations of African immigration have continuously transformed the African American community and the sociopolitical climate of the United States. -- 03/05 Asylum Essentials: Resources, Not Restrictions, are the Key to Security in the Asylum Program The linchpin of security in the asylum program is a fully staffed and adequately funded Asylum Corps that evaluates asylum claims thoroughly and expeditiously. -- 02/05 Closed Borders and Mass Deportations: The Lessons of the Barred Zone Act The Barred Zone Act of February 4, 1917, offers a cautionary lesson against immigration policies based on the exclusion of immigrants from particular countries or regions of the world. -- 01/05 Remembering December 17: Repeal of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act December 17 marks the anniversary of the 1943 repeal by Congress of the Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882. With only a few exceptions, this law barred any Chinese from immigrating to the United States, and was the first time U.S. immigration policy singled out citizens of a particular nation for wholesale discrimination. --12/04. Legal Fiction Denies Due Process to Immigrants Over a thousand noncitizens face indefinite detention in the United States on the basis of a meaningless legal technicality. --10/04. Arbitrary congressional limits on the number of H-1B visas that can be granted annually to highly skilled foreign professionals may undermine the international competitiveness of U.S. science and technology. --10/04. Immigrant Athletes in the Summer 2004 Olympics Immigrants and the children of immigrants are prominent among the athletes representing the United States in the 2004 Olympics. The stories of these immigrant athletes offer a vivid glimpse of the immigrant experience in the United States. --09/04. The Endless Wait: Will Resources Match the Resolve to Reduce the Immigration Case Backlog? Congress and the White House have pledged for a decade to reduce the backlog of immigration cases, but without providing the resources necessary to do the job. --07/04. The McCarran-Walter Act: A Contradictory Legacy on Race, Quotas, and Ideology The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 ended the blanket exclusion of immigrants based on race and created the foundation for current immigration law, but imposed a racialized immigration quota system and new ideological grounds for exclusion. --06/04. Ending Slavery in the 21st Century: Federal Anti-Trafficking Programs Have Far to Go Although the federal government has made significant progress over the past three years in fighting human trafficking, more is needed to end this 21st century slave trade. --06/04. "Eating Bitterness": The Impact of Asian-Pacific Migration on U.S. Immigration Policy Asian-Pacific migration to the United States has had a positive impact on immigration and refugee law by contributing to the demise of exclusion acts against non-whites and of the nationality-based quota system. --05/04. Relinquishing Excellence: Closing the Door to Foreign Professionals Undermines the U.S. Economy According to a recent National Science Board report, restrictive U.S. visa policies are beginning to close the door to highly skilled foreign professionals who have long helped maintain U.S. preeminence in science and technology. --05/04. Beyond the High-Tech Bubble: The Changing Demand for H-1B Professionals Contrary to popular myth, H-1B professionals represent only a tiny fraction of the total U.S. labor force and do not crowd out native-born workers in industries that are losing jobs. Rather, H-1B workers fill growing labor needs in a variety of fields that continue to add jobs, such as education and healthcare. --04/04. Labor Market Numerology: Arbitrary Congressional Limits on Temporary Worker Visas The current numerical limits on visas for both high-skilled and seasonal workers prevent U.S. businesses from hiring the workers they need, while doing nothing to protect the jobs or wages of native workers. Labor rights are most effectively guaranteed by enforcing labor protections, not by imposing arbitrary numerical caps. --04/04. In the latest battle for control of the Sierra Club, immigration restrictionists are again using an “over-population” argument that is based on flawed environmental assumptions and offers no useful guide for fixing the broken U.S. immigration system. --03/04. An Unlikely Fit: Will the Undocumented Apply for a Temporary Status? A guest worker program that lacks a clearly defined path to a permanent status is an unlikely fit for many of the 9.3 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States, most of whom have deep roots in U.S. families, communities and businesses. --02/04. Crossing Borders Alone: The Treatment of Unaccompanied Children in the United States Children who travel unaccompanied to the United States experience not only the trauma of family separation and the frequently predatory behavior of the traffickers who bring them, but also harsh treatment by an immigration bureaucracy that often incarcerates them with little access to legal counsel or professional support. --01/04. The Cost of Doing Nothing: The Need for Comprehensive Immigration Reform President Bush’s proposal to address the problem of undocumented immigration by creating more opportunities for legal immigration and providing a legal status to those already here is a useful starting point in reforming a broken immigration system that costs hundreds of lives and billions of dollars every year. --01/04. Minority Newcomers: Fair Comparisons of Immigrants and the Native Born Comparisons of the mostly “minority” foreign-born and mostly “white” native-born populations that fail to account for the socioeconomic impact of ethnicity incorrectly suggest that place of birth, rather than minority status, is the primary factor explaining disparities between immigrants and natives. However, a more accurate – and fair – comparison of immigrants and natives within the same ethnic group suggests otherwise. --11/03. Immigrant Success or Stagnation?: Confronting the Claim of Latino Non-Advancement Latinos experience substantial socioeconomic progress across generations compared to both their immigrant forefathers and native Anglos. But this fact is lost in statistical portraits of the Latino population which don’t distinguish between the large number of newcomers and those who have been in the United States for generations. Advocates of restrictive immigration policies often use such aggregate statistics to make the dubious claim that Latinos are unable or unwilling to advance like the European immigrants of a century ago. --10/03. Mexifornia: A State of Confusion, Septemer 30, 2003. Lives in Limbo: Mismanagement of a Bad Policy Leaves Asylees in No Man’s Land Victims of persecution who make it to the United States and are granted asylum from their persecutors must wait 12 years to become lawful permanent residents and 16 years to become U.S. citizens because of arbitrary numerical caps and federal mismanagement. This state of affairs not only is inhumane, but undermines the original intent of Congress to help those who have escaped persecution to integrate quickly into U.S. society. --8/03. A Study in Distortion: FAIR Targets Immigrant Children, August 22, 2003. Who Reports to Whom?: Immigration in the New Department of Homeland Security The new Department of Homeland Security divides into three separate agencies immigration functions that previously were combined. This reorganization raises questions about who is in charge of immigration policy as a whole and how immigration services will fare in a department heavily tilted towards enforcement. --8/03. Migrating to Recovery: The Role of Immigration in Urban Renewal Policymakers in states from Iowa to Utah and in cities from Albuquerque to Boston have realized that immigration is a key source of long-term economic vitality, particularly in urban areas experiencing population loss, shrinking labor pools and growing numbers of retirees. Immigration, if properly cultivated, can be a key ingredient in urban economic development and recovery. --7/03. Cuban Migration: Averting a Crisis Increased repression by the Castro regime and limitations on the admission of Cubans into the United States create the risk that desperate refugees will look for more dangerous, unauthorized means of escaping persecution. The Bush administration must reform immigration policies towards Cubans to forestall such a crisis. --6/03. Restrictions on legal immigrants' access to public benefits have increased food insecurity and reduced health insurance coverage for both immigrants and their U.S.-citizen children, while failing to significantly reduce government healthcare expenditures due to the high costs of caring for the uninsured. --6/03. A
Moratorium on Common Sense: Immigration Accord On Hold While Failed
Border Enforcement Policies Continue Foreign
Policy Fallout: Assessing the Risks of Post-Sept. 11 Immigration Policies Immigrants
Proud to Represent U.S. in Winter Olympics Buchanan Misses the Mark, February 2002. |
