Immigration Blog

Meissner Gives Thumbs-Up to E-Verify

By Janice Kephart, February 11, 2009

Today former INS Commissioner Doris Meissner emphatically endorsed E-Verify in a report from the Migration Policy Institute, Taking Stock and Correcting Course, coming as Sen. Sessions (R-AL) failed to get an E-Verify reauthorization amendment into the Senate "stimulus" package yesterday. Read more...

Obama’s Immigration Agenda

By Jon Feere, January 22, 2009

President Obama has released a five-step plan for tackling immigration. On some points, he’ll find plenty of support from the public; Americans overwhelmingly support secured borders and the reduction of incentives to enter illegally (of which there are many). On other agenda items (e.g. mass amnesty), he’ll waste political capital and have nothing to show for it at the end of his term. If Obama starts with the politically-practical items, the new president will find much success. He seems to already know this: during the primary debates, Obama promised that border security and ending illegal employment would be a prerequisite for amnesty.

Here is the official plan from whitehouse.gov: Read more...

SC County’s Innovative Business Auditing Program Curbs Illegal Employment

By Jessica Vaughan, January 10, 2009

Beaufort County has made great strides in creating a lawful employment environment in the South Carolina Low Country by implementing a creative and pioneering auditing program to help local businesses achieve compliance with immigration laws while exposing problems with fraudulent documents that enable illegal workers to get jobs. The effectiveness of this effort is further enhanced by strong state laws on illegal hiring and the county’s participation in the 287(g) program. These enable local law enforcement agencies to prosecute violators and have illegal workers removed. Local officials report signs that the illegal alien population in Beaufort County has been noticeably reduced. Read more...

What Illegal Immigration Has Got to Do with Driver Licenses: Maryland’s Lament (Updated 1/23/09)

By Janice Kephart, December 17, 2008

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In 1993, Tina Turner lamented about love in What’s Love Got to Do with It?

Fifteen years later, in 2008, Maryland is publicly lamenting about the effect of permitting illegal immigrants to get driver licenses. A bit tongue in cheek—please—Maryland’s lyric might go something like this: Oh what’s illegal immigration got to do, got to do with driver licenses? Read more...

New Jersey LEA alien screening initiative boosts criminal alien removals

By Jessica Vaughan, December 8, 2008

Since an August 2007 order from New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram, which requires NJ local law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status of everyone arrested and report illegal aliens to ICE, the number of criminal aliens in the state who have been identified for removal has dramatically increased. Read more...

Judge agrees to emergency need for E-Verify

By Jessica Vaughan, December 3, 2008

Yesterday Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Mark Pfeiffer agreed with Gov. Don Carcieri’s rationale for immediate implementation of his executive order requiring all state contractors, vendors and grantees to use E-Verify to avoid hiring illegal workers. Read more...

Immigrant Gangster Charged in DC Double Murder

By Jessica Vaughan, December 1, 2008

The Salvadoran man charged in the double-murder of Michael and Virginia Spevak, a kindly and beloved retired Washington, DC couple is reported to be a member of Street Thug Criminals, a violent street gang already well-known to local police and ICE. Since 2005, ICE has arrested at least 10 other members and leaders of this gang, all but one citizens of El Salvador (see below). Read more...