A new report from Pew Research's Hispanic Trends Project confirms what many of us have long suspected: Illegal immigration appears to be on the rise again, after a brief decline during the recession. The report estimates that the population of unauthorized immigrants was approximately 11.7 million in 2012, up from 11.5 million in 2011, but down from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007. Read more...

New data from the Census Bureau released this week confirm that while the economy is improving, incomes remain stagnant for all but the wealthiest Americans. Read more...

ICE agents conducted raids on a 16-location car wash franchise called Danny's Family Car Wash in Phoenix last weekend, arresting 14 people and ultimately releasing 179 of the 223 people who were detained for questioning. The New York Times reported that most of the 223 employees who were detained are in the country illegally. An ICE spokesperson, Barbara Gonzalez, told reporters that the arrests were part of a criminal probe targeting the owners of the business for possible identity fraud and other crimes, not an enforcement action directed at the employees. I was struck by the almost apologetic tone of her comments. Read more...

Two foreign service officers (FSO) in opposite corners of the world recently have been implicated in cash-for-visa scandals that have raised new questions about the State Department's lack of oversight in the visa issuance process. In May, Michael Sestak, an FSO who was serving as the non-immigrant visa (NIV) chief at the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, was arrested in California and has been charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and bribery. Read more...

I was listening to WBEZ, my local NPR affiliate on Monday morning and thought that perhaps my ears were deceiving me after hearing the tail end of a story about a local school district in Skokie, Ill., just a few miles from my home, which has cancelled Halloween celebrations this year. For years, we've become accustomed to hearing stories about Christmas-related controversies, but I had no idea that Halloween is also becoming a political football in some parts of the country. Read more...

I'm a devoted National Public Radio listener, but their coverage of the immigration issue generally leans toward textbook advocacy journalism. Their reporters might invite someone that believes in the rule of law to give the appearance of "balance", but those sound bites are usually buried deep in a narrative-driven story about a law-abiding, straight-A student who just happens to be "undocumented" and ran afoul of the cruel immigration system. Read more...

Immigration activist and former Washington Post reporter Jose Antonio Vargas, an illegal immigrant from the Philippines, was arrested on Friday in Minnesota during a traffic stop, but ICE refused to take custody of him. Vargas "came out" as an illegal immigrant in a piece he wrote for the New York Times Magazine last year in which he admitted to committing document fraud to try to conceal his illegal status in the United States. Read more...

According to a front page story in Thursday's New York Times, Mexico's president-elect, Enrique Pena Nieto, "contends that there is a widespread perception that Mexican nationals cannot get a fair trial in Texas." The comment appeared in a story about Rosa Jimenez, an illegal Mexican immigrant who was convicted of murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison for allegedly jamming five paper towels down the throat of a 21-month old child who died in Read more...

The media often portray Latinos as a monolithic group of single-issue voters who care first and foremost about liberalizing our immigration laws. But a new poll from NBC Latino/Zogby reveals that immigration is a relatively minor concern for most Latinos, with only 5 percent citing it as their top issue. Read more...

Here’s yet another, only-in-America news item: Hampshire College announced the creation of a scholarship fund this week specifically for illegal immigrants. The fund will reportedly provide $25,000 toward Hampshire’s $43,000 annual tuition. At least three states — Texas, California, and New Mexico — provide in-state tuition discounts for illegal immigrants, and UCLA and Cal-Berkeley also have scholarship funds for illegal immigrants.

I have no problem with illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents as children and have grown up here attending college in the United States, but the idea of creating scholarship funds solely for families that broke the law is absurd. People who have no legal right to live in the country should not be entitled to a special scholarship that others can’t even apply for. How would you even vet the applications? Read more...

While many Olympic athletes are apparently busy picking up on members of the opposite sex, others are busy finding ways to overstay their visas.

Foreign Policy and various other news outlets report that at least eight Olympic athletes, all from developing countries, have gone AWOL in London. Seven of the missing athletes are from Cameroon, five of them boxers, and the eighth was the 15-year-old torchbearer for Ethiopia who was there as part of the International Olympic Committee's International Inspiration program, which is supposed to enrich the lives of young people through sport or, in this case, provide them with a nicer country to live in. Read more...

Walk along the harbor in Kos, a picturesque Greek island in the eastern Aegean, and you'll be greeted by a host of touts offering menus, brochures for excursions, and "Where you from?" come-ons to get your attention. Greece has an official unemployment rate of 22 percent and a youth unemployment rate of 54 percent, but many of the salespeople aren't Greeks. Read more...

One of the seldom considered aspects of mass immigration is the impact it has on the toll-free customer service lines we use. These days, one can conduct any business imaginable over the phone in Spanish, and sometimes other languages. Most companies now only offer a choice of two languages, but with our population projected to reach 20 percent foreign-born by 2050, we may soon reach a point where services are offered in Chinese, Russian, Arabic, and other languages. Read more...

[Editor's note: The segment with NPR's Michel Martin referenced below was part of a series this week entitled "In Limbo" on the program "Tell Me More". The first four installments were about particular immigrant stories, including one featuring the filmmaker interviewed here by Mr. Seminara, and are available here, here, here, and here. The final installment, broadcast today, was an interview with CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian, available here.] Read more...

Most candidates have an issues tab on their web site. Newt Gingrich has a solutions tab. The very first "solution" on the site features a ten point plan to reform immigration. The first thing I noticed about Newt's 10 point plan is that it actually has 11 points! Most of them are bizarre, misguided, or simply wrong. As someone with experience working in the State Department's visa bureaucracy, I think Newt's plan looks like it was thrown together without any real input from anyone with a detailed understanding of the issue. Some thoughts: Read more...

Another debate, and another disappointing night for the Republicans on the immigration front. We've seen a total of 11 GOP debates to date, and I've yet to hear a candidate demonstrate a deep understanding of our immigration problem. The electorate is crying out for serious reform but all of the GOP hopefuls seem to offer little more than clichés and pandering. Read more...

Have you ever heard a politician admit that they support affirmative action for immigrants, legal or illegal? Even the most zealous open borders advocates like U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez would rather not talk about this thorny issue. But every once in a while we are reminded of the fact that immigrants can and do benefit from affirmative action programs in areas such as employment, college admissions, and government contracting. Read more...

There are anywhere from 11-20 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. When I worked as a consular officer at American embassies overseas I saw so many examples of visa and immigration fraud that it’s hard for me to understand why so many haven’t figured out how to game the system and legalize their status. This is a light-hearted look at some of the most popular scams, in reverse order of their relative popularity. Please do not email me to ask for details on how you can carry out these schemes. Read more...

There are anywhere from 11-20 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. When I worked as a consular officer at American embassies overseas I saw so many examples of visa and immigration fraud that it’s hard for me to understand why so many haven’t figured out how to game the system and legalize their status. This is a light-hearted look at some of the most popular scams, in reverse order of their relative popularity. Please do not email me to ask for details on how you can carry out these schemes. Read more...

In a bizarre turn of events, the DSK Affair has served to highlight the issue of asylum fraud. Last week, The New York Times published a well-researched front page story, and a "Room For Debate" op-ed forum on how to tackle the problem. And Jesse Ellison at the Daily Beast weighed in with a ludicrous piece which asserted that "dishonesty is common when it comes to refugees – not because they're intentionally trying to scam the system, but because the way such claims are processed and determined puts asylum-seekers in a position where they may feel they have no other choice." Read more...

If you entered a country illegally, secured work with fraudulent identity documents, and were subsequently terminated once your employer detected the fraud, what would you do? I would slink out very quietly, thanking my lucky stars that the boss didn't immediately turn me over to the police for prosecution or immigration authorities for deportation. But I'm clearly out of step with the modern day sensibilities of illegal immigrants in America, or at least those employed by Chipotle in Washington. Read more...

Bill Wright, a dairy farmer turned state representative from Utah who is the architect of Utah's half-baked plan to create a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, is my nominee for this year's least-informed immigration policymaker. Read more...

It's so easy to find good help these days. But thanks to the power of the internet, illegal immigrants, and those in the country legally but who have no authorization to work, can compete for household jobs on an equal footing with Americans. My wife and I have used sites like www.craigslist.com and www.sittercity.com to find part-time babysitters and housekeepers and have found that anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the applicants we've come into contact with couldn't prove that they had the legal right to work in the U.S. Read more...

We tuned in for a beauty pageant and a debate about immigration broke out. After reading just a small sampling of the revolting attacks on Rima Fakih, the Lebanese immigrant who was crowned the new Miss USA on Sunday night, I feel compelled to comment on how misguided her critics are. Read more...

A story in Saturday's New York Times on the recent influx of illegal Haitian migrants coming into the United States from Canada offers us a micro-preview of what might unfold if illegal immigrants in the U.S. are granted an amnesty. Ever since the Obama Administration unveiled its mini-amnesty for all Haitians in the U.S. at the time of the January 12 earthquake, Haitians, many of whom have been previously deported, have been coming to the U.S. Read more...

Here in Chicago, we have two $100 million-plus baseball teams that can't hit, and a hockey team on the brink of its first Stanley Cup title in nearly 50 years. But the team that's been in the headlines is one that isn't even allowed to play. Of course, I'm referring to the girl's high school basketball team from north suburban Highland Park which won’t be competing in a tournament in Arizona in December because school officials claim that "students' safety or liberty might be placed at risk because of state immigration law." Read more...

Individuals and groups around the country – including the usual suspects like the city of San Francisco, Al Sharpton, and immigration attorneys – are promising to boycott Arizona in the wake of the passage of the controversial immigration bill S.B. 1070. But will ordinary American tourists and business people boycott the state in any kind of significant way? Read more...

Opponents appear be divided on Arizona's controversial new immigration law, S.B. 1070. Read more...

Illegal immigrants are standing at the ready to solve America's public deficit crisis – or so you might conclude upon reading the Schumer-Graham immigration reform/amnesty proposal. One of the least plausible elements of the bill is the notion that providing legal status to illegal immigrants will be a boon to the U.S. Treasury. Read more...

If soccer is the world's sport, and America is the world's leading beacon for immigrants around the globe, why aren't immigrants making a bigger impact playing soccer for the Stars and Stripes? Consider the paucity of foreign born players on the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team. The team draws from a player pool of fifty eight men, only three (5%) of whom were born outside the U.S. Read more...