Immigration Reform

The following are a list of resources about immigration reform.

2010

Focusing on the Solutions: Key Principles of Comprehensive Immigration Reform

March 24, 2010 - Immigration Policy Center

This paper is a companion piece to IPC's publication focusing on the underlying problems within our immigration system. This paper summarizes the key elements that must be included in a successful legislative package of immigration reform.

The Cost of Mass Deportation

March 19, 2010 - Marshall Fitz and Gebe Martinez, Center for American Progress and Madura Wijewardena, Rob Paral and Associates

This Center for American Progress Analysis that mass deportation of undocumented immgrants would be prohibitively expensive and trigger profound collateral consequences. The total cost of mass deportation and continuing border interdiction and interior enforcement efforts would be $285 billion (in 2008 dollars) over a five-year period.

DHS Progress Report: The Challenge of Reform

March 02, 2010 - Royce Bernstein Murray and Mary Giovagnoli, Immigration Policy Center

This report evaluates progress made by DHS on immigration in several key areas: due process, enforcement, detention, family immigration, naturalization, immigrant integration, and asylum. While DHS has failed to meet some key expectations in these areas, it has also engaged thoughtfully and strategically on others, and has made some fundamental changes in how it conducts its immigration business.

Future Flow: Repairing our Broken Immigration System

February 01, 2010 - Immigration Policy Center

This paper, part of IPC's "Focusing on the Solutions" series, outlines the need for immigration reform that brings our employment-based admissions system into sync with America's labor needs and the global realities of the 21st century. Employment-based immigration must be seen as a strategic resource that can both meet labor market needs and foster economic growth and competition while still protecting U.S. workers and improving wages and working conditions.

Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform

January 07, 2010 - Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda for the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center

This report projects that legalizing undocumented workers through 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. Projections from a mass deportation scenario show the economy losing $2.6 trillion. Slide Show.

2009

Principles for Immigration Reform: Guidelines for Fixing Our Broken Immigration System

December 21, 2009 - Marshall Fitz and Angela Maria Kelley, Center for American Progress

Comprehensive immigration reform’s core architecture must advance five central goals and embody the following recommendations: establish smart enforcement policies and safeguards; resolve the status of those illegally present in the United States; create legal channels that are flexible, serve the U.S. interest, and curtail illegal immigration; protect U.S. workers from globalization’s destabilizing effects; foster an inclusive American identity.

A Visa and Immigration Policy for the Brain-Circulation Era

December 14, 2009 - Victor C. Johnson, NAFSA - Association of International Educators

This report notes a paradigm shift in global mobility that has fundamentally altered patterns of travel and work around the world. America can no longer assume that it is the preferred destination for people who seek to improve their lives outside their home countries. Talented students and skilled workers have many options around the world. For the United States to attract and retain the best talent, immigration law and visa policy must accommodate this reality.

Enforcing Immigration Laws: Repairing our Broken Immigration System

December 09, 2009 - Immigration Policy Center

This paper describes enforcement in the context of comprehensive immigration reform. Border enforcement efforts should be focused on combating genuine security risks along our borders. Enforcement should be conducted in a manner that ensures fair and humane treatment for all. Enforcement must also include employment law enforcement.

Naturalization and Integration: Repairing our Broken Immigration System

December 03, 2009 - Immigration Policy Center

This report examines the benefits of a comprehensive integration strategy as well as key principles for naturalization and integration within the context of comprehensive immigration reform.

Breaking Down the Problems: What’s Wrong With Our Immigration System?

October 21, 2009 - Immigration Policy Center

This paper discusses issues stemming from the lack of federal response and long-delayed immigration reform. It begins with an explanation of how our current immigration system functions, and then defines and discusses the problems under two broad categories: structural failure and inadequate responses.

Loving Thy Neighbor: Immigration Reform and Communities of Faith

September 22, 2009 - Sam Fulwood III, Center for American Progress

This report is a collection of stories of people filled with the conviction of their religious beliefs and pushed to act in defense of needy neighbors in their community. The report also intends to be an antidote to the mistaken belief that ordinary people of faith are not involved in political advocacy or shy from pressing their influence in national debates and policies affecting immigrants.

Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen & Expand the American Middle Class

September 01, 2009 - Amy M. Traub, with assistance from Afton Branche and Amy Taylor, Drum Major Institute

This report makes the argument that the American middle class relies on the economic contributions of immigrants both authorized and undocumented, but also that the exploitation of undocumented immigrant workers threatens to drive labor standards down for current and aspiring middle-class workers. Immigration policy must bolster the critical contribution that immigrants make to our economy, and that it musts strengthen the rights of immigrants in the workplace.

A Conversation about the Economic Effects of Immigration on African Americans

July 14, 2009 - Gerald Jaynes in Perspectives on Immigration, Immigration Policy Center.

Anti-immigrant groups have repeatedly tried to drive a wedge between African Americans and immigrants by capitalizing on the myth that immigrants take American jobs. In this piece for the Immigration Policy Center, Yale Professor Gerald Jaynes dispels the myth that immigrants take “black jobs” and instead suggests we find solutions on how to lift up all low-wage American workers.

U.S. Immigration Policy

July 08, 2009 - Independent Task Force, Council on Foreign Relations

The report of this task force, chaired by Jeb Bush and former White House chief of staff Thomas "Mack" McLarty, contends that America has reaped tremendous benefits from opening its doors to immigrants, as well as to students, skilled employees and others who may only live in the country for shorter periods of time. But it warns that “the continued inability of the United States to develop and enforce a workable system of immigration laws threatens to undermine these achievements.

Harnessing the Advantages of Immigration for a 21st-Century Economy

May 13, 2009 - Migration Policy Institute

This paper proposes creation of a permanent, independent executive-branch agency that would make regular recommendations to the president and Congress for adjusting employment-based immigration levels.

Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South

April 21, 2009 - Southern Poverty Law Center

This report documents the experiences of Latino immigrants who face increasing hostility as they fill low-wage jobs in Southern states that had few Latino residents until recent years.

Immigration for Shared Prosperity — A Framework for Comprehensive Reform (Executive Summary)

April 16, 2009 - Economic Policy Institute

This paper by former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall, lays out a framework for comprehensive immigration reform with five interrelated components, including the creation of an independent commission—the Foreign Worker Adjustment Commission (FWAC)—to measure labor shortages and recommend the numbers and characteristics of employment-based temporary and permanent immigrants to fill those shortages.

Immigration Reform… By the Numbers

April 15, 2009 - America's Voice

Assorted numbers showing the cost of enforcing our broken immigration laws compared with the cost of other initiatives being contemplated (for context) verses the benefits immigration reform will provide us economically.

A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States

April 14, 2009 - Pew Hispanic Center

Unauthorized immigrants are 4% of the nation's population and account for 5.4% of its workforce. Unauthorized immigrants are more geographically dispersed than in the past. A growing share of the children of unauthorized immigrant parents--73%--were born in this country and are U.S. citizens.

The Labor Movement’s Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

April 14, 2009 - AFL-CIO and Change to Win

Immigration reform must fully protect U.S. workers, reduce the exploitation of immigrant workers and reduce employers’ incentive to hire undocumented workers rather than U.S. workers. The most effective way to do that is for all workers—immigrant and native-born—to have full and complete access to the protection of labor, health and safety and other laws.

2008

Republicans: Fenced In By Immigration

November 19, 2008 - America's Voice

In battleground House and Senate races, candidates supporting broader immigration reforms consistently beat out politicians with a hard-line on immigration in the 2008 elections.

Immigration Myths and the Facts Behind the Fallicies

November 14, 2008 - U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The Chamber’s Labor, Immigration & Employee Benefits Division has compiled this document to refute many of the most common immigration myths.

Backgrounder: Comprehensive Reform of our Immigration Laws

September 01, 2008 - National Immigration Forum

Backgrounder on our broken immigration system, and what must be done to fix it.

The Politics of Contradiction: Immigration Enforcement vs. Economic Integration

May 21, 2008 - Immigration Policy Center

The U.S. government’s enforcement-without-reform approach to undocumented immigration has d an unsustainable contradiction between U.S. immigration policy and the U.S. economy.

2007

Resource Guide: Making the Case for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

February 27, 2007 - American Immigration Lawyers Association

A collection of position papers, background information, research, and analysis produced by AILA and others in the fields of immigration, national security, and related issues to help make the case for comprehensive immigration reform.

Immigration Backlogs are Separating American Families

January 12, 2007 - National Immigration Forum

Backgrounder on how our out-of-date family immigration system is preventing families from re-unifying in a timely manner. Suggestions for how immigration laws can be changed to bring families together.

2006

ATTRACTING THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST: The Promise and Pitfalls of a Skill-Based Immigration Policy

December 06, 2006 - Kara Murphy for the Immigration Policy Center

A point-based immigration system might benefit the U.S. economy, but it would not be a panacea for the dysfunction of U.S. immigration policies. Any point system should not replace other systems, but rather serve as a complement to them.

Immigration and America’s Future: A New Chapter (Executive Summary)

September 25, 2006 - Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future

The report and recommendations seek to reconcile the need to meet strong economic and social demands for legal immigration with the imperative to strengthen enforcement and safeguard national security.

Open Letter on Immigration and National Security

July 20, 2006 - Coalition for Immigration Security

This letter, signed by former high-ranking Executive Branch officials charged with responsibilities for enforcing immigration laws and border security, says in part, "stronger enforcement and a more sensible approach to the 10-12 million illegal aliens in the country today are inextricably interrelated. One cannot succeed without the other."

Modes of Entry for the Unauthorized Migrant Population

May 22, 2006 - Pew Hispanic Center

As much as 45% of the unauthorized migrants now living in the United States entered the country legally through a port of entry and then remained in the country after their visas had expired.

The Labor Force Status of Short-Term Unauthorized Workers

April 13, 2006 - Pew Hispanic Center

Estimates of the number of long-term (arrival prior to 2000) and short-term (arrival after 2000) unauthorized migrants employed in various industries and occupations and of their weekly earnings.

Replacing the Undocumented Work Force

April 04, 2006 - David A. Jaeger, Center for American Progress

If the undocumented were removed from the labor force, there would be a shortfall of nearly 2.5 million low-skill workers, a major shock to the economy.

The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.: Estimates Based on the March 2005 Current Population Survey

March 07, 2006 - Jeffrey S. Passel, Pew Hispanic Center

This report offers a portrait of the undocumented population including family composition, origin, and length of time in the U.S. It also offers extensive data on the employment of unauthorized migrants, mapping their presence in many sectors of the US labor force.

Playing Politics on Immigration: Congress Favors Image over Substance in Passing H.R. 4437

February 27, 2006 - Rob Paral, Immigration Policy Center

Members of Congress with the fewest undocumented immigrants in their districts were the most likely to support H.R. 4437. Lawmakers whose constituents experience relatively little impact from undocumented immigration have the luxury of playing politics on the issue rather than confronting it directly.

Is “Work and Return” a Solution or a Sound Bite?

February 16, 2006 - National Immigration Forum

Backgrounder explaining why immigration reform proposals to give undocumented immigrants temporary work permits and then require them to return to their home countries would not work.

ACHIEVING ‘SECURITY AND PROSPERITY’: Migration and North American Economic Integration

February 06, 2006 - Immigration Policy Center

The process of North American economic integration, and development within Mexico itself, structural conditions that encourage Mexican migration to the United States. Without a labor accord, additional security measures along the U.S.-Mexico border will not be successful in reducing undocumented migration.

MORE THAN A “TEMPORARY” FIX: The Role of Permanent Immigration in Comprehensive Reform

January 12, 2006 - Immigration Policy Center

Immigration reform will not be truly comprehensive, or effective, unless it recognizes the vital contributions of temporary workers and permanent immigrants alike, and the inadequacy of the current immigration system in providing legal channels for either to enter the country. Both temporary workers and permanent immigrants fill critical gaps in the U.S. labor force.

2005

Rise, Peak and Decline: Trends in U.S. Immigration 1992 – 2004

September 27, 2005 - Jeffrey S. Passel and Roberto Suro, Pew Hispanic Center

The United States experienced a sharp spike in immigration flows over the past decade that had a distinct beginning, middle and end. The pattern corresponds with a similar pattern in the activity of the U.S. economy.

The Regularization Option in Managing Illegal Migration More Effectively: A Comparative Perspective

September 15, 2005 - Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Migration Policy Institute

This policy brief argues that regularization can not only prevent the population of illegally resident immigrants from building to unacceptable levels, but can also make the management of migration more effective when used in concert with other policy initiatives.

Lessons From The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

August 01, 2005 - Betsy Cooper, Kevin O’Neil, Migration Policy Institute

Looks at the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, and examines some of the weaknesses of its design and implementation that caused it to fall short of stated goals. Lessons that could be learned from IRCA are put in today's political, social, and economic context.

Twilight Statuses: A Closer Examination of the Unauthorized Population

June 30, 2005 - David Martin, Migration Policy Institute

This brief describes the twilight statuses that some among the unauthorized population hold (such as TPS) and analyzes how changes would reduce the inducements for illegal migration.

Backfire at the Border: Why Enforcement without Legalization Cannot Stop Illegal Immigration

June 13, 2005 - Douglas S. Massey for The Cato Institute

Despite increased enforcement at the U.S.-Mexican border beginning in the 1980s, the number of foreign-born workers entering the United States illegally each year has not diminished and will not without immigration reform.

Ties that Bind: Immigration Reform Should be Tailored to Families, Not Just Individuals

May 25, 2005 - Rob Paral, Immigration Policy Center

Given the extent to which undocumented immigrants already living in the United States are part of U.S.-based families, comprehensive immigration reform must include more than just a new temporary worker program.

2004

IRCA: Lessons of the Last US Legalization Program

July 01, 2004 - Mary G. Powers and William Seltzer, Fordham University; Ellen Percy Kraly, Colgate University for the Migration Policy Institute

As a group, most, but not all, of the unauthorized immigrants who legalized through IRCA arrived with relatively low skill levels and found low-skill, low-wage jobs. Yet by 1992, the research shows, five years after legalization, most had jobs that were better than the first jobs they reported and, for many, much better than the jobs held in their homeland.

2003

The Impact of Agricultural Guest Worker Programs on Illegal Immigration

November 30, 2003 - Stuart Anderson, National Foundation for American Policy

Discusses the possibility that a temporary worker program that takes into account the needs of both workers and employers, and performs the task of reducing illegal immigration, can be developed and implemented succesfully.

Making the Transition from Illegal to Legal Migration

November 30, 2003 - Stuart Anderson, National Foundation for American Policy

Provides evidence that the absence of avenues to work legally in the U.S. is the primary reason for the current levels of illegal immigration, while also providing a corrective solution for this problem.