Immigration Blog

Immigration and the Death of the Republican Party
Reform's road to electoral oblivion

By Stanley Renshon, July 15, 2013
Reform's road to electoral oblivion

The conventional immigration narrative, favored by supporters of comprehensive immigration reform, is that the Republican Party is doomed to electoral oblivion if the House doesn't pass a bill that mirrors S.744, the Senate Gang of Eight's 1,200-page bill. Read more...

Interior Repatriation in Mexico: Baby Steps in the Right Direction

By David North, July 15, 2013

The Obama administration and the new Mexican regime are taking some useful — if tiny — steps in the right direction regarding sending Mexican illegals back to the middle of that nation.

For decades the pattern has been to ship illegal aliens captured by our government back to our southern border, send them to the other side; then, all too often, the illegals try to cross again, frequently successfully. Read more...

Frank Morris Calls Rep. John Conyers "Blind" to the Negative Effects of Immigration on Workers

By Jerry Kammer, July 14, 2013

Frank Morris, a CIS board member who will be one of the featured speakers at Monday's March for Jobs in downtown Washington, has sharply criticized Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers's stance on immigration. Morris charges that Conyers, whose immigration positions are especially significant because he is ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, is willfully "blind" to immigration's negative effects on his constituents. Read more...

Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia, Immigration Edition

By Mark Krikorian, July 11, 2013

A liberal-ish reader comments on my article at National Review Online on the political fallout for the GOP of passing an amnesty/mass immigration bill: Read more...

New Ad Pushes Amnesty via Promises of Enforcement

By Jon Feere, July 10, 2013

Advocates of amnesty and higher levels of immigration have come out with a new advertisement that attempts to sell their agenda by highlighting only the border provisions of the Senate's immigration bill (S.744) — provisions that will never see the light of day if the open-border crowd gets its way. The American Action Network's amnesty ad is designed to appeal to conservatives and refers to the amnesty as "conservative immigration reform". Read more...

Time for an Illegal Alien Amendment to the Farm Bill

By David North, July 10, 2013

The Farm Bill, which also authorizes the food stamp program, is being re-considered by the House of Representatives after that legislation failed to pass recently. Given the power of the farm lobby, the bill is certain to become law later this year.

While the bill is in limbo, the House should add a modest amendment that would see to it that families including illegal aliens (gently termed "undocumented non-citizens" in Department of Agriculture regulations) are not more eligible for food stamps than all-citizen families, which is now the case in most states. Read more...

Immigration Implications of the Demise of DOMA

By W.D. Reasoner, July 9, 2013

On June 26th, the Supreme Court voided key portions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Although most media outlets, such as the Los Angeles Times, focused on the changes to tax, inheritance, health, and Social Security laws and policies the ruling would bring about, it seemed evident to at least some observers that another consequence of the decision would be in the way federal immigration authorities confer benefits to homosexual foreign spouses of American citizens petitioning on their behalf. Previously, such petitions were denied. Read more...

What's Wrong with Immigration Policy Conventional Wisdom

By Stanley Renshon, July 9, 2013

Many members of the GOP's senior leadership pushing for "comprehensive immigration reform" and their supporters in the Democratic Party agree: Because of America's changing demographic profile and the GOP's troubled relationship with the Hispanic community, it must embrace comprehensive immigration reform, or die as a major political party.

That conventional wisdom certainly does translate to a political existential threat, if it's true; but it's far from clear that it is. Read more...

Widening Existing Vulnerabilities
National Security Implications of S.744, Part 1

By Janice Kephart, July 8, 2013
National Security Implications of S.744, Part 1

(Ms. Kephart recently returned from a Special Counsel position with the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she advised and supported Senator Jeff Sessions' (R-AL) work during the committee's consideration of immigration legislation.)

The national security implications of the recently passed Senate immigration bill, S.744 (the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act") are pervasive. The kinds of damage that S.744 would do to national security, if passed, are manifold and are at least as bad as the border security provisions that have received significant attention. Read more...

Senate Immigration Reform Bill: Winners and Losers

By Ronald W. Mortensen, July 8, 2013

As with any piece of comprehensive legislation, the Senate immigration bill S.744 has winners and losers. The winners are those who benefit from illegal immigration and from a big, ongoing supply of foreign workers. The losers are those who don't.

Winners Read more...