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Plenary Power: Should Judges Control U.S. Immigration Policy?
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Elite vs. Public Opinion: An Examination of Divergent Views on Immigration
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An Examination of Minority Voters’ Views on Immigration
| Download a pdf of this Backgrounder Steven A. Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies. Read more... |
REAL ID Implementation: Less Expensive, Doable, and Helpful in Reducing Fraud
| Download a pdf of this Backgrounder. Updated January 24, 2011 Janice Kephart is the Director of National Security Policy at the Center for Immigration Studies. Read more... |
The Mormon Church and Illegal Immigration
| Download a pdf of this Backgrounder Ronald W. Mortensen, PhD, is a retired career U.S. Foreign Service Officer and member of the LDS Church. Read more... |
More on Fighting Immigration-Related Marriage Fraud
| 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... |
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An Interview with David North
| View More Immigration Policy Interviews Mr. North, a Fellow of the Center for Immigration Studies, is an internationally recognized authority on immigration policy. His concentration is predominantly on the interaction between immigration and domestic systems, such as education and labor markets. He has examined legal, illegal, and temporary migration, as well as immigration law enforcement and refugee resettlement policies, for a variety of governmental and non-governmental agencies, both in the US and overseas. Read more... |
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Biometric Exit Tracking
| Tracking the arrival and departure of foreign visitors to the United States is an essential part of immigration control. The need for arrival controls is obvious, but recording departures is also important; without it, there is no way to know whether travelers have left when they were supposed to. Read more... |
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The Labor Market Impact of Immigration: A Review of Recent Studies
| It is often suggested that immigrants "only take jobs natives don't want," implying that the entry of 900,000 legal and 400,000 illegal immigrants each year has no effect on the wages or job prospects of native workers. In fact, a number of recent studies have come to a contrary conclusion. This research indicates that immigration does reduce the labor market prospects of natives, primarily those with few years of schooling. Read more... |
Becoming American: The Hidden Core of the Immigration Debate
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Immigration-Related Dissertations - 2010
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Giving Cover to Illegal Aliens: IRS Tax ID Numbers Subvert Immigration Law
| Download this Backgrounder as a pdf Through its issuance of Individual Tax Identification Numbers (ITINs), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) appears to be blind or indifferent to the reality that it has: created an official U.S. tax number that illegal aliens are using as identification, thereby making it easier for them to meld unnoticed into our society; Read more... |
Immigration: Trade by Other Means?
| pp. 9-10 in Immigration Review no. 31, Spring 1998 Immigration is often compared with international trade. In fact, the similarities between the two have led some to conclude that they are roughly equivalent. However, while they are alike in many ways, there are also a number of important differences that are often overlooked by immigration enthusiasts. Because these differences are at least as important as the similarities, both should be considered when formulating a sensible immigration policy. Read more... |
Better SAFE Than Sorry
| In addition to shoring up many parts of immigration law to help prevent the entry of criminals and terrorists and to remove them when they are discovered, the bill facilitates cooperation between local law enforcement and federal agencies in enforcement. Our analysis finds that the SAFE Act, in contrast to the more widely hyped Senate bill, would reverse the recent steep decline in interior enforcement and especially the decline in removals of criminal aliens: Read more... |
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An Interview with William Riley
| In a new video, a former Assistant Special Agent in Charge at ICE examines worksite enforcement and the agency’s neglect of illegal employment. William Riley advocates stiffer penalties, increased resources for ICE, and the expansion of E-Verify for employers. Read more... |
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Immigration and the Sierra Club: Did the Fuss Matter?
| pp. 1, 11-13 in Immigration Review no. 33, Fall 1998 Politically, U.S. population growth has been a non-issue. As America encounters social and environmental limits, however, eventually this must change. Traffic gridlock, loss of farmland, and exhaustion of ground water supplies are but a few of many concerns arising, while "growth" and "sprawl" already are major political issues in numerous western states. Unfortunately, these words are euphemisms for too many people. Read more... |
Tiny, Virtually Unknown Agency Dilutes Penalties for I-9 Violations
| If Immigration policy-making in the United States were a huge mosaic — with large colorful splotches being the White House and Congress, with USCIS and the Border Patrol occupying major, but less prominent positions, OCAHO would be a little grey blur near the edge of the big picture. If a falling leaf stuck to it, you would not see it at all. Read more... |
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Declining Enforcement a Likely Contributor to Growing Illegal Population
| Amnesty proponents will bravely spin the new Pew Hispanic Center report showing increasing illegal immigration as evidence that enforcement doesn’t work, as if the Obama administration has actually made an effort to enforce immigration laws. Unfortunately, internal ICE statistics show otherwise. The upward trend in the size of the illegal population is more likely at least partially the result of a significant decline in enforcement, especially in the interior, where we notice it the most. Internal ICE statistics show that the number of aliens expelled from the interior of the country declined by 20 percent from 2010 to 2012. Removals and returns are on track to decline another 20 percent in 2013. Read more... |
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State and Local Authority to Enforce Immigration Law: A Unified Approach for Stopping Terrorists
| Download this Backgrounder as a pdf Enforcing our nation’s immigration laws is one of the most daunting challenges faced by the federal government. With an estimated 8-10 million illegal aliens already present in the United States and fewer than 2,000 interior enforcement agents at its disposal, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE) has a Herculean task on its hands — one that it simply cannot accomplish alone. Read more... |
Just How Does an Anchor Baby Anchor the Illegal Alien Parent?
| A reader asked: "Just what is the mechanism that allows an anchor baby to keep his or her illegal alien parents in the U.S.?" There are four different mechanisms at work here, as my CIS colleague, Jon Feere, and I see it: Read more... |
Birthright Citizenship for the Children of Visitors: A National Security Problem in the Making?
| Download a pdf of this Backgrounder W.D. Reasoner (a pseudonym) is a retired government employee with many years of experience in immigration administration, law enforcement, and national security matters. Amendment 14 Read more... |
Scholarships Just for Illegal Immigrants
| 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... |
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The Employment Situation of Immigrants and Natives in the Second Quarter of 2013
| The number of working-age (16 to 65) native-born Americans who are not working — unemployed or out of the labor market — stood at 57.5 million in the second quarter of 2013, a figure that has barely budged in the last three years. Partly on the grounds that there are not enough workers in the United States, the Gang of Eight Immigration bill (S.744) that recently passed the Senate would double future legal immigration. Yet the more than 57 million working-age natives not working is 17 million larger than in the second quarter of 2000. The large increases in future legal immigration in S.744 seem out touch with the realities of the U.S. labor market. Read more... |
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New Pew Report Confirms Visa Overstays Are Driving Increased Illegal Immigration
| 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... |
IBM Settles Discrimination Claim
| I have written several times about visa abuse at IBM. I wish I could share everything on IBM that comes across my desk, but often the sender requests it only be used for background. When the eventual discrimination lawsuit does hit IBM, I am sure the discovery process will unearth a sewer. Read more... |
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