Is More Getting Us Less? Real Solutions for Securing our Border

February 15, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the House Committee on Homeland Security's Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security held a hearing entitled "Securing our Borders - Operational Control and the Path Forward." Continued oversight of border security is commendable, but the subcommittee should avoid falling into the same old paradigm presented today and exemplified by Congressman Mike Rodgers of Alabama. The Congressman asked Michael J. Fisher, Chief of the Border Patrol at the Department of Homeland Security, "What do you need to secure the border?" What do you need to provide that rock solid prevention of illegal immigration?" These types of wrong-headed questions have resulted in a decade of misguided solutions. Congress continues to appropriate record amounts of money for personnel and technology at the border, but refuses to enact immigration reforms that would address the root causes of unauthorized immigration and other border problems.

To provide perspective, the Immigration Policy Center releases Is More Getting Us Less? Real Solutions for Securing our Border by Eric Olson and David Shirk. Their research at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego has shown that record levels of spending on border security have, in fact, made our border less secure. That spending, coupled with a lack of legal avenues for entry, have become a boon to the criminal cartels who have capitalized on a growing industry of smuggling migrants into the U.S. Enhanced security has also had the unintended consequence of interrupting historical, cyclical flows of migration, where migrants would come and go seasonally. The authors disentangle the multitude of issues that arise along the border, and make solid recommendations for seriously tackling our border problems.

To read the piece in its entirety see:
Is More Getting Us Less? Real Solutions for Securing our Border

(IPC Perspectives, February 15, 2011)

Deeper into the Shadows: The Unintended Consequences of Immigration Worksite Enforcement

February 9, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases Deeper into the Shadows: The Unintended Consequences of Immigration Worksite Enforcement by Jeffrey Kaye. This paper examines what happens to workers and their employers after an I-9 audit, and argues for worksite enforcement that is more targeted.

Before the onset of the Great Recession, immigrant labor was cited as a boon to the U.S. economy. In towns and cities across the country, immigrant labor - documented or otherwise - filled positions in growing businesses and industries where demand outpaced the supply of native-born workers. Since the onset of the economic downturn in 2008 and the rise in U.S. unemployment, some analysts and politicians - looking for a convenient scapegoat - have turned on that immigrant workforce and their employers, arguing that deporting eight million undocumented immigrant workers will create eight million new jobs for the native-born. This over-simplified equation ignores the complicated and interdependent roles that immigrants play in our economy. Only by overhauling our current immigration system and replacing it with one that meets the needs of the 21st century will we get past the hardships and quandaries Mr. Kaye so ably details in his report.

To view the special report in its entirety see:

Deeper into the Shadows: The Unintended Consequences of Immigration Worksite Enforcement by Jeffrey Kaye. (IPC Special Report, February 9, 2011)

THIS WEEK IN IMMIGRATION

http://www.immigrationimpact.com/

The Rally Against State Immigration Legislation Continues
A Washington Post article this week highlighted what many state business groups, law enforcement officers and concerned legislatures have been cautioning for months - at a time of economic uncertainty, states simply cannot afford the costly legal battles and political backlash caused by Arizona-style immigration legislation. Over the past month, SB1070 copycat bills in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, have been met with considerable hesitation and criticism from constituents worried about the social and economic impact on their state. Some states, like Mississippi and Wyoming, have even rejected initial versions of copycat bills due to high costs. But as other states consider enforcement legislation (California joined the fray this week, as did Georgia's state Senate), those worried about how enforcement legislation will cost their state feel they can no longer afford to be quiet. Read more...

How Reuters, Northeastern University Stifle Immigration Debate by Suppressing Labor Analysis
On January 20, Reuters published a news article with the following headline: "Exclusive: Over a Million Immigrants land U.S. jobs in 2008-10." The article, which reported on data exclusively provided to Reuters by the Center for Labor Market Studies (CLMS) at Northeastern University in Boston, appeared just a few days before the House Immigration Subcommittee held its first hearing of the new Congress criticizing the Obama Administration on worksite enforcement. The article was also quoted in testimony by Mark Kirkorian of the Center for Immigration Studies as proof that the native-born are losing out to immigrants in the work force. The CLMS "study," however, which supports the flawed restrictionist theory that America can deport its way out of unemployment, actually backfired during the hearing. Read more...

Senator Cornyn, Republicans Continue to Stammer on Immigration Reform
The official Republican response to the State of the Union address may have been delivered by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), but the immigration response came from Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn who fired off an editorial questioning the President's commitment to border security and immigration reform. While the Administration has certainly heard Sen. Cornyn's accusations before, his mixed messaging on border security and reform efforts seem indicative of a larger Republican problem - one in which words don't quite match up with deeds. Read more...

Study Shows 287(g) Program Fails to Prioritize Serious Criminals
This week, the Migration Policy Institute released a new study on ICE's 287(g) program, Delegation and Divergence: A Study of 287(g) State and Local Immigration Enforcement. The study, which assesses the implementation, enforcement outcomes, costs, community impacts of the program generally, and provides an in-depth study in seven jurisdictions: Cobb County, GA; Frederick County, MD; Gwinnett County, GA; Los Angeles County, CA; Prince William County, VA; Las Vegas, NV; and the state of Colorado, found that 287(g) program is not living up to its promise. In fact, the study finds that ICE's allows jurisdictions to "operate the 287(g) program in fundamentally different ways across the country." Read more...

What Does the Vitter-Paul Resolution to Amend the Constitution Solve, Exactly?
In the latest attack on the Constitution and U.S. citizenship, Senators David Vitter (R-LA) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a resolution (S. J. RES. 2) last week proposing an amendment to the constitution to limit citizenship to children born in the U.S. if 1) one parent is a U.S. citizen, 2) one parent is a legal permanent resident residing in the U.S., or 3) one parent is on active duty in the U.S. military. Arizona State Rep. Kavanaugh also introduced two bills last week attempting to deny citizenship to children born in the state to undocumented immigrants and require state officials to issue distinctive looking birth certificates to those children the state does not consider citizens. While these bills might make for splashy headlines, they do nothing to end undocumented immigration. In fact, it would make life more difficult for every person in the U.S., who would then have to prove their citizenship status in order to determine the status of their newborns. Read more...

This Week in Council Publications:

Federal Court Upholds Immigrants' Right To Reopen Cases From Outside the U.S.
(LAC Press Release, February 3, 2010)

Responding to State Immigration Legislation: A Resource Page

House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement: A Preview of What's to Come

January 26, 2011

Washington D.C. - Today, the newly named House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement held its first hearing of the new session entitled, "ICE Worksite Enforcement - Up to the Job?" The name change seems to be a signal that Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith and Subcommittee Chairman Elton Gallegly will focus on enforcement, rather than immigration reform this session. It is hardly surprising, then, that the first hearing of the year was designed to challenge the Obama administration's decision to move from the massive worksite raids of the past to the use of employer worksite audits.

The following statements were made today during a pre-hearing press conference call organized by the Immigration Policy Center:

Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center said:

The Obama Administration's stepped up worksite enforcement efforts include conducting a record numbers of I-9 audits and collecting millions of dollars in fines. While this is an improvement over the arrests and round-ups involved in large-scale raids, which targeted workers, this new strategy is not without controversy. Across the country, I-9 audits, when not carefully conducted within the guidelines ICE has set for itself, can inadvertently lead to hardships for employers and workers alike, leading to the firing of thousands of workers, and leaving employers without the workers they need. If today's hearing is any indication of the committee's long-term vision, then we are in for sound bites rather than substance, and a call for the good old days of immigration enforcement first and forever."

Emily Tulli, Policy Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center said:

"This enforcement-only agenda, with military-style raids as its centerpiece, may make for good PR, but it is ineffective policy. These raids terrorize communities, shutter businesses, and hurt our local economies. This enforcement-only model is not only unsustainable and inhumane, but also doesn't fix our broken immigration system. Instead of looking backwards, we need to focus on practical solutions that help American workplaces thrive. ICE has a unique opportunity to meet their goals while helping to support labor law enforcement. Our economic recovery depends upon allowing good employers to thrive, while ensuring that bad apple employers who exploit workers are appropriately punished. ICE should use its significant enforcement dollars to target and penalize the worst employers, helping to create an incentive for employer compliance with immigration and labor law."

Javier Morillo-Alicea President of Service Employees International Union Local 26 in Minneapolis, Minnesota said:

"We are going to see more and more small business going underground and paying people off the books as a way not to be audited. The assumption that an ICE audit results in unauthorized workers being replaced by authorized workers should be checked. It's time for us to look at the problem and understand that we cannot deport our way out of illegal immigration nor can we audit our way out of illegal immigration."

Dan Siciliano, Senior Lecturer in Law and Associate Dean for Executive Education and Special Programs at Stanford Law School said:

"There is no evidence to support the idea that worksite raids open up jobs for U.S. workers. Most immigrant workers-mid-skill, low skill, documented and undocumented-don't compete with American workers. The 2010 Census is showing us that this trend has accelerated over the last decade. We have a low-skilled worker gap in the country. The overall skill level of US workers is increasing, which means those low skill jobs are becoming harder to fill. It isn't right to look at the economy and workforce as a set of little boxes whereby you pluck someone out of workplace, leaving a perfect empty seat for someone to fill. Labor force dynamics are much more complex than that."

Also see additional IPC resources on this topic:

A Framework for Effective Immigration Worksite Employer Enforcement (IPC, Jaunary 25, 2011) This paper provides background on immigration worksite enforcement efforts and lays out principles that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the administration's immigration worksite enforcement program. The principles include: accountability to stated priorities, accessibility of information, uniformity and consistency of standards, and proportionality of sanctions.

After the Raid is Over: Marshalltown, Iowa and the Consequences of Worksite Enforcement Raids (IPC Special Report, January 25, 2011) This paper examines the effects of a large immigration raid on a single company in America's heartland. It reviews the ICE raid on the Swift & Company pork processing facility in Marshalltown, Iowa in 2006 and the toll it has taken on the community's financial, social, and human capital.
"We are going to see more and more small business going underground and paying people off the books as a way not to be audited. The assumption that an ICE audit results in unauthorized workers being replaced by authorized workers should be checked. It's time for us to look at the problem and understand that we cannot deport our way out of illegal immigration nor can we audit our way out of illegal immigration."

President's Plans for Winning the Future Include Immigration Reform

Discusses Immigration Policy in Plan for Economic Prosperity

January 26, 2011

Washington, D.C. - Last night in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called on Republicans and Democrats to work together to "win the future" by taking on challenges that have been decades in the making - challenges like updating our current immigration laws to meet the needs of the country. The President outlined an ambitious agenda focused on innovation, education, and reform designed to expand economic growth and personal opportunity for all Americans. He specifically called on Congress to work with him to reform our laws so that we are able to attract the best and brightest minds from around the world, retain highly educated foreign students by making it easier for them to live and work in the United States, stop wasting the talent of students brought to this country illegally as children, and to end the problem of illegal immigration once and for all.

The following is a statement from Benjamin Johnson, Executive Director of the American Immigration Council:

"President Obama reminded Americans that they are capable of big things and big ideas. By acknowledging the contributions of immigrants - as entrepreneurs, innovators, students and workers - in his vision of a renewed America, the President reiterated that creating a 21st century immigration system is part of the solution for America's full economic recovery and future growth. But the President went a step further, decrying immigration policies that simply don't make sense, such as turning away the best and brightest minds from around the world, sending foreign students back to their countries to compete against us, or denying an education to students who have the potential to fill the jobs of the future.

By placing his discussion of immigration policy squarely within his plans for economic prosperity, the President continues the important work of reframing the immigration debate that he began during a major immigration speech last summer. By coupling his analysis with calls for civil discourse and more bipartisanship, he set the stage for a fresh start on this often divisive issue. We urge the Members of Congress to follow the President's lead and to come together to reform an immigration system that has, for too long, been out of step with what the country needs - innovators, entrepreneurs, skilled workers of all sorts, and dreamers."