Watching the on-going legislative scramble over "comprehensive immigration reform" I am reminded of:

IRCA's Gang of Three. Currently there are Gangs of Eight in both the Senate and the House trying to resolve the inevitable immigration policy conflicts by quiet negotiation among these self-selected, bipartisan groupings. Too many commentators regard these (conspiratorial?) gatherings as signs of progress. I beg to differ. Read more...

We still don't have an amnesty bill to examine — maybe today, maybe next week, like a contractor telling you when he'll be done remodeling the bathroom. But based on Katrina Trinko's post over at National Review Online and the New York Times story, a few thoughts: Read more...

On April 8, a federal judge in Dallas heard arguments in Crane v Napolitano, the lawsuit brought by 10 ICE officers challenging the Obama administration's Deferred Action program (DACA) and "prosecutorial discretion" policies. Read more...

The year's supply of H-1B visas for inexpensive high-tech workers was exhausted the first week that the window was opened — to no one's surprise. Every year the visas become available to employers on April 1 — 65,000 in the general category and 20,000 in the advanced-degree-in-the-U.S. category.

Bargain-hunting employers, particularly the Indian body shops (i.e. placement agencies), poured in their applications, hoping to obtain nearly indentured college graduates on the cheap, most of whom will be assigned to routine technological jobs. Read more...

If, as they say, politics makes for strange bedfellows, then immigration politics in today's America makes for absolutely bizarre bedfellows.

Business and agriculture rarely have anything useful to say about unionization and the labor movement. Conversely, labor leaders routinely disparage employers, whether in business or agriculture, for their views on wages, benefits, and employee working conditions. And religious leaders frequently shun involvement in such earthly matters, preferring instead to focus on the moral health of their flock and the nation as a whole. Read more...

Many people think that the only way to buy your way into legal presence in the United States is through the EB-5 (immigrant investor) program. Not so.

There are three different ways that an alien can buy his or her way into legal status; each pathway has a different price, sometimes involving more than just money; and each pathway has its own advantages and disadvantages. Here is a summary, more or less in the style of Consumer Reports, for the three routes to buy legal status: Read more...

The Saturday edition of Mexico City's Reforma newspaper published a bitter description of what its author sees as a long chain of exploitation suffered by Central American migrants on their journey to the United States. Read more...

One of the toughest challenges for the media is to put a personal face on a story. They always want to have a subject to show how an issue affects an individual. This can be very tough for a national issue like H-1B visas. Over the years I have frequently received requests from reporters like "Do you know an American living in Peoria who has been replaced by an H-1B worker within the past three months?" This was tough even when I was working as a programmer. I saw Americans being replaced by H-1B workers first hand, but they were always in New Jersey. Read more...

What I most enjoy about my work here at CIS is the opportunity to do to the sort of research I did in the good old days when I was an investigative reporter and had weeks or months to dig into a story.

This week I got two fascinating views of the ongoing debate over guestworkers. One came from the right, via C-Span's website. The other came from the left, via Audible.com. Read more...

In a horrific story that the national newspapers are thus far ignoring, the Associated Press is trying out its new linguistic gymnastics on illegal alien and murder suspect Jose Zarate. Read more...

The Supreme Court has held that deportation is not punishment, but rather an administrative procedure whereby an illegal alien is returned to his homeland. The alien has not been deprived of life, liberty, or property, so many constitutional protections do not apply.

Most important to the discussion is the fact that most detainees facing deportation are dealing with administrative charges in a civil process, rather than criminal. Consequently they do not have a constitutional right to an attorney; such protections only apply to criminal law. Read more...

The Utah Compact is the creation of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and it was designed to push the Chamber's illegal alien amnesty agenda.

The Utah Compact has been embraced by the pro-illegal immigrant Mormon Church, the New York Times, and the Obama administration.

In addition, the Utah Compact was signed by three former Utah governors, a retired U.S. Senator, the state's former Attorney General, and a who's who of Utah business, civic, and religious leaders. Read more...

There is an interesting article by Jeffrey Toobin in the April 1, 2013, edition of The New Yorker magazine. Entitled "Wedding Bells", it is a legal analysis of the two gay rights cases on which the Supreme Court recently held oral argument, and which it will be deciding this term. Read more...

The Sunlight Foundation reports that $1.5 billion went to immigration lobbying from 2007 through 2012. The money was spent by 678 organizations in 170 sectors on 987 proposed bills.

Analyzing nearly 1,000 bills is no small task, even for those devoted exclusively to the immigration issue. Proposed immigration legislation can get complicated, with attempts to reform the entire system nearing 1,000 pages. Since immigration affects practically every aspect of American life and Congress keeps trying to change the existing law, you can see why the public might want to invest substantial amounts to influence what is being decided. Read more...

In a victory for those who want to further blur the line between legal and illegal, the Associated Press has announced its decision to stop using the term "illegal immigrant" in its articles. Instead, the new "acceptable variations" include "living in or entering a country illegally" or "without legal permission". Journalists make it a rule to be concise and not wordy. But such standards are thrown out the window when it comes to the illegal immigration issue, it seems. Read more...

Last year, nearly 700,000 people were issued temporary visas to work in the United States, either for several years or indefinitely. About two-thirds are in categories requiring skills and/or education and one-third were given visas to work in unskilled jobs. Over the weekend, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that the AFL-CIO and Chamber of Commerce had agreed on a proposal to increase the number of unskilled guestworker visas above and beyond the number already being issued, and despite lingering high unemployment rates for U.S. workers affected by these visa programs.

The table below summarizes temporary visa issuances for 2012. Read more...

My immediate reaction in a blog about the EB-5 scandal in Chicago, involving investments of $145 million last month was off the mark.

Being all too accustomed to writing about fraudulent practices by promoters of this program, I was a bit blase about the news and emphasized the fact that the Securities and Exchange Commission had taken the lead in breaking this case, not USCIS. The court filings dealt with getting money under false pretenses, not with the multiple violations of the immigration law and regulations that also had occurred.

What I did not realize at the time was that this really was a very big deal, nationally and internationally. Read more...

With the GOP establishment rushing off to embrace amnesty, which Republican leaders fancy will win them party allegiance from Latino voters, they stand in danger of returning their party to a mere echo of the Democratic Party. The big question becomes whether the GOP will go the whole distance on other issues. Read more...

I've got nothing good to say about Don Young, the Republican congressman from Alaska who last week stumbled into the headlines with his reference to "wetbacks" who picked tomatoes at the Young farm in California many years ago.

Young's comment shows that he is as thoughtless now as he was reckless when he plundered the federal treasury for pork-laden projects known as earmarks. He was responsible for the most infamous earmark of them all: Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere. Read more...

Americans under age 30 experience higher rates of identity theft than those 60 years old and older according to a recently released report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that tracks identity theft in the United States. Read more...

There are two kinds of immigration-related marriage fraud, and one is much more difficult for the authorities to detect than the other.

In one scenario the alien sweet-talks the citizen into a real marriage, keeps the marriage alive for the needed two years after which the green card can be secured, and later breaks off the marriage and seeks a divorce. Let's call these the con cases.

In the other the alien (or his or her agent) simply pays a citizen to go through a sham marriage. These are the cash cases. Read more...

The Heritage Foundation think tank has issued a thoughtful paper that adds much-needed perspective for the cowering Republicans and giddy Democrats rush to enact a massive immigration package.

"Encouraging Lawful Immigration and Discouraging Unlawful Immigration" comes from Heritage's legal shop, so it gives due consideration to the effects of "comprehensive immigration reform" on what was formed to be a sovereign, self-governing, republican nation, a nation of laws and not of men. Read more...

On Sunday's "Meet the Press", NBC's Chuck Todd engaged in the sort of moralistic preening and poorly informed right-mindedness that sometimes makes me want to throw a history book at the television.

With Olympian disdain and pained disbelief, shaking his head sadly and smiling ruefully, Todd declared: "We have the same debate every two generations, with another immigrant group. It was the Chinese in the nineteenth century." Read more...

As I read news reports of congressional efforts to forge agreement on immigration reform, I have the queasy feeling that in their determination to get something done our elected representatives will repeat the mistakes of 1986.

That was the year when Congress passed the poorly named Immigration Reform and Control Act. Now, I fear, they will once again pass a law that will deliver sweeping legalization while failing to deliver credible worksite enforcement. Read more...

The Democrats seem to be testing Senator Marco Rubio to see how desperate he is to pass an illegal-alien amnesty. Over the past few days, the administration or congressional Democrats have openly rejected all of Rubio's preconditions for an immigration bill, effectively daring him to walk away from the Gang of Eight. Read more...

The terminology of the immigration policy debate is all wrong.

Those wanting to expand migration portray themselves in glowing colors as "reformers", out to fix a "broken system", who want to "liberate" the economy and shed inhibiting practices and laws. Even an "open borders" policy sounds more attractive than a "restrictive" one.

And since, by and large, the writers and editors in the mainstream media are in cahoots with the mas-migration people, these misleading terms are widely used in reporting immigration policy.

I propose a new term for those who want to massively increase migration: pushers. Read more...

The media this past weekend have been abuzz with news that the so-called "Gang of Eight" — a bipartisan group of senators seeking a way forward on immigration reform — hit a divisive snag over the mechanisms for a guest worker program.

"Over the Hill Gang" would seem to be a more apropos moniker for these folks, given how out of touch both sides appear to be with the needs of ordinary Americans or employers, if the scenarios for the program they're trying to construct are any gauge at all. Read more...

The great immigration writer John Higham famously wrote long ago that the country-of-origin immigration quota system, adopted during the Harding administration, was the "triumph of bigotry over greed". Corporate greed for low-paid workers was trumped, in his eyes by the forces of nativism.

Things are a little more complex today, but if "comprehensive immigration reform" is enacted in the near future it will be because of the combined forces of: Read more...

"But when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men", Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount. "I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."

Yet, the modern-day Pharisees belonging to the so-called Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT) have planned a public "day of prayer and action" as a political contrivance. In reality, it's merely a day of political activism in religious camouflage. Read more...

Over the weekend, Michael Barone posited that, contra claims by Steve Sailer and Mickey Kaus, he doesn't think massive Mexican immigration will resume once the economy rebounds and if we pass an amnesty. James Pethokoukis from AEI made the same point, without really any elucidation, during the podcast we did (with Kaus and Trevino) at Ricochet a while back. Read more...