There should be a Nobel Prize in demography to go along with those for studies in economics and other fields.

Were there one, it might encourage more attention to studies of what happens to the environment during population increases, and, more pertinently, how international immigration impacts population growth in an area of in-migration. Read more...

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1. Mexicans polled on amnesty effects
2. DHS restricts local enforcement
3. Foreigners drive up Census
4. SCOTUS ponders poor advice
5. Activists rally for amnesty Read more...

The Indian news media is notable for its candor in regard to the H-1B visa program. While advocates in America will proudly claim with straight faces (and 13-inch Pinocchio noses) that H-1B cannot be used for cheap labor, the Indian press will tout the benefits of cheap labor that H-1B provides. Read more...

Barbara Ehrenreich gave a fascinating interview on this morning's "Democracy Now" radio program, as she rolls out her new book, "Bright-Sided." In this book Ehrenreich, also author of "Nickel and Dimed," which was a remarkable journey into the land of the working poor, guides readers on a tour of the world of relentlessly positive thinking.

Ehrenreich is not writing about immigration. But she describes a mentality familiar to those of us whose concerns about immigration are met with admonishments to overcome our grim negativity. The thought-police at the Southern Poverty Law Center and their allies at such organizations at the National Council of La Raza even suggest that such concerns are often built on an ugly foundation of hatred. Read more...

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1. DHS asked to sustain USBP
2. DHS tracking foreign terrorists
3. USBP: continued Chinese arrests
4. IL Rep. to outline amnesty
5. CIS expert debates in NJ Read more...

One of the major sources of illegal immigration is the flow of persons into the U.S. with valid temporary visas who later (often quickly) drop out of legal status. Tourists (usually on B-1 visas) and foreign students (on either F-1 or J-1 visas) produce most of this type of illegal immigrants, the visa-abusers, often called visa-overstayers. Read more...

Two days after CIS's panel on religious perspectives on immigration policy, the National Association of Evangelicals became the latest pawn in immigration politics. The NAE has failed its flock, falling far short on the "wise as serpents, innocent as doves" standard. Rather, goaded by open-borders adherents wearing clerical garb, the NAE has become the most recent religious bureaucracy to foist biblically questionable immigration policies on citizen parishioners. Read more...

Today's New York Times, whose editorial writers have never met an illegal alien they didn't like, excoriates Phoenix's elected Sheriff Joe Arpaio for apprehending those who have sneaked across the border unlawfully. They lambaste his "indiscriminate neighborhood raids [that] use infractions like broken taillights as pretexts for mass immigration arrests." Have these paladins of the Fourth Estate forgotten how an urban version of this approach -- "Broken Windows" advanced by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling -- helped reduce crime in the Big Apple? Read more...

Readers of this blog may recall a July 16 post that reported on the abuses suffered by Central Americans at the hands of Mexican officials on their way to the United States as illegal immigrants. The post told the story of Miguel Angel, who left his $300-a-month job as a policeman in Salvador, made a miserable journey to the Rio Grande, crossed in a raft to the United States and joined friends in Maryland. There he worked in construction for about a year before returning home. Read more...

At a time when 83% of Americans view government corruption as a very important problem, isn't it time that we stop fostering a culture of corruption by failing to control illegal immigration? Read more...

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1. U.S. unable to track violators
2. Amnesty initiative on horizon
3. Sen Vitter seeks Census query
4. AZ co.: illegal-alien crime down
5. GA co. enforcement debated Read more...

In visits to the communities around six Swift meat packing communities for a CIS report published earlier this year, I was struck at how often I heard workers and former workers use similar language to express their bitterness about safety conditions. They would say, "This plant doesn’t just kill animals. It kills people, too."

Now comes a report from Nebraska Appleseed, a non-profit legal organization, on the results of its survey of 455 workers in five meat-packing communities across the state. Read more...

*Pyrrhus of Epirus describing his costly victory over the Romans at Asculum, 279 BC

The Hill newspaper, in "Appropriators deal blow to border fence," reports House conferees killed a $42.8 billion appropriation in the Senate's version of the 2010 Homeland Security spending bill, an amendment inserted in July by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) adopted with majority Republican support and the votes of 21 Democrats. Read more...

Mexican government officials complain bitterly about the wall that the U.S. has constructed along sections of the southern border to discourage illegal immigration. Today, writing in the Mexican newspaper El Universal about the brutal social and economic inequalities that propel much illegal immigration, columnist Ricardo Rocha notes the construction of "stately versions of Chinese walls so the poor don't bother the rich" in the city of Monterrey.

Here are some of Rocha's other metrics of inequality in his country: Read more...

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1. Feds unveil detention plans
2. VA co. joins Sec. Communities
3. AZ co. board accepts ICE deal
4. Vegas PD nabs 2k illegals
5. Chicago activists to lobby Read more...

The California state Senate recently passed a resolution in support of non-enforcement of immigration law. It was authored by State Senator Gilbert Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), a man who has made a name for himself by constantly pushing for driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. The resolution’s purpose is to “urge Congress and the President of the United States to declare an immediate moratorium” on the enforcement of certain immigration laws until an amnesty is passed on the federal level. While the resolution does not have the force of law, it does illustrate how radical some lawmakers are in their support for open borders. It passed the Senate by a margin of 23-14. Read more...

The use of deliberately fuzzy terms -– "undocumented worker" is my favorite -– continues to cloud the immigration policy debate, always to the detriment of the restrictionists' position.

A good example popped up in yesterday's New York Times; the headline was "Ideas for Immigrant Detention Include Converting Hotels and Building Models". In the article the term "noncitizens" was used to define the inmates. Read more...

As someone who lived in Arizona in the 1990s, when a large influx of illegal immigrants were met with a backlash that continues today, I agree with the warning from recently retired GOP Sen. Mel Martinez in today's Washington Post. It comes in a column from Michael Gerson, who writes of the electoral risks to Republicans if they are associated with virulent criticism of illegal immigrants. Read more...

I appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight for a segment on the Obama administration's changes to 287(g), a highly-successful program that allows state and local law enforcement officers to assist ICE in carrying out immigration enforcement. Many activist groups opposed to enforcement of our immigration laws are seeking to end the program. Read more...

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1. Feds to review detentions
2. IN foreign pop. shrinking
3. AZ sheriff loses tools
4. Mayor prefers Sec. Comm.
5. Zazi bomb plots disclosed Read more...

The Obama Administration is ignoring hard and unpleasant lessons learned from decades of prior failed immigration policies. "Alternatives to Detention" (ATD) is just another way to say "Catch and Release," which was the thorn in the side of the prior administration until they stopped it and put rule of law in place. Although managing detention facilities and their population well is a good goal, simply doing it by reducing the illegal population and dispersing them back into American communities does not help enforce immigration law or make our communities more secure. Read more...

Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution mandates that a census be conducted every ten years in such manner as Congress shall direct. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution further states that "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." Read more...

The principal U.S. migration management agency has done a lot of institutional migrating over the decades. During the late 19th Century, as the Bureau of Immigration, it was first in the Department of the Interior, and then in the Treasury Department. It moved to the no-longer-existing Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, and then became one of the main parts of the Department of Labor when it was created in 1913. Read more...

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1. Admin mulls commandeering hotels
2. Experts press on Census count
3. CA health care program tightens
4. SF proposal moves ahead
5. Advocates fret care plans Read more...

When Senate Finance Committee Democrats defeated an amendment last week that would have required photo identification for health benefits on a straight party-line vote, they joined their House colleagues in defending a culture of corruption that results in millions of American children having their identities being used by illegal aliens to obtain benefits that they are not entitled to. Read more...

Editor's Note: Janice Kephart presented the information below at Heritage Homeland Security University on October 1, 2009. Accompanying the presentation is a table containing status updates of various national security programs.

The following is an overview of Border ID Programs and a comparison of where these program were under the Bush Administration and where they stand today under the Obama Administration. Read more...

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1. USCIS prepares for amnesty
2. MA bucks nat'l trends
3. Change to SF policy scrutinized
4. VA co. exceeds 2008 detentions
5. $25m tab at PA hospitals Read more...

The debate among advocates of illegal immigrants about participation in next year's census received pointed commentary on the Sunday morning Univision program, "Al Punto." The Spanish-language program also included an interview with the star of a new feature film about illegal immigrants that presents the same trajectory of triumph as Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky." Read more...

The two units within the State Department that deal with migration management are the Bureau of Consular Affairs and its considerably smaller cousin, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. Both are headed by Assistant Secretaries. Read more...

In June, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the formation of the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) Southwest Border Task Force. Secretary Napolitano explained:

"I have asked this group to present me with concrete recommendations to address the complex challenges we face in this region, and their collective expertise will be a critical asset as we work to secure the border while facilitating legal travel and trade."