Immigration Blog

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House Republicans Extend Immigration Hearings


July 13, 2006

Feeling good about their first round of political theater, House Republican leaders have announced a second flurry of immigration hearings based upon their belief (contrary to national opinion polls) that the hearings are moving public opinion to their enforcement-only position.  Despite their rhetoric to the contary, the hearings--scheduled for the remainder of July and into August--almost certainly mean that no immigration bill will be passed before the November elections and quite possibly even before the end of the year.  Lawmakers are taking the entire month of October off to campaign for the elections on November 7.  There are only ten working days between the elections and Thanksgiving and then about three weeks before the Christmas break.  Republicans in the House are betting that their voters will be more motivated to go to the polls by continuing hearings attacking immigration rather than actually passing an immigration bill that addresses the issue.  It's a shame that such an important and legitimate issue as the future of immigration policy in this country has become nothing more than a political shield for House Republicans (and some Senators, see Santorum, Rick).  Voters should recognize such shenanigans and show our congressmen that politics over policy is a losing bet.
 
Comments?  Send a message to Jennings Immigration lawyers using the Contact a Lawyer form on the right side of this page.


Immigrants in the Military


July 11, 2006

Marine General Peter Pace is chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He is also the son of Italian immigrants.  On Monday, Gen. Pace testified before a Senate hearing in Miami chaired by John Warner (R-VA) on the role of immigrants in the military.  In often emotional testimony, Gen. Pace offered his own experiences serving in Vietnam with immigrants and overseeing a U.S. military in which immigrants have played significant and substantial roles.  Among the facts presented at the hearing were these:
  •  200 awards/medals have been awarded to immigrants serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, including 20% of all medals of honor--the military's highest honor--that have been awarded in these combat areas.
  • Over 100 immigrants have been killed in military action since 9/11.
  • There are more than 45,000 immigrants in active-duty and reserve-duty service, not including over 26,000 immigrant soldiers who have become U.S. citizens since 9/11.
  • More than 10,000 immigrant soldiers brought needed foreign language skills to the military.

U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services Director Emilio Gonazalez, an Army veteran, also gave remarks about the contributions of immigrants in military service that can be read here.

Comments?  Send a message to Jennings Immigration lawyers using the Contact a Lawyer form on the right side of this page.


Moderate Republicans Fight Back on Immigration


July 11, 2006

Moderate Republicans this week have mounted an impressive campaign to counter efforts by immigration restrictionists seeking an enforcement-only immigration bill.  Yesterday, a group of thirty-three influential Republicans, including such names as Jack Kemp, George Schultz, Steve Forbes, Grover Norquist, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Ed Gilliespie, and J.C. Watts, published an open letter supporting a comprehensive approach immigration reform.  The letter was accompanied by an editorial in the Wall Street Journal reminding conservatives that the free-market philosophy supports rather than opposes immigration and that calls to regulate or protect wages sound like a liberal position coming from the Democratically-entrenched AFL-CIO.  Interestingly enough, immigration has exposed serious division and contradiction in the Republican party.  A growing philosophical rift between what I would call the "old" Republican focused on an economic/political philosophy and the "new" Republican focused on a social/cultural philosophy was voiced by the spokesman of the anti-immigrant movement, Tom Tancredo (R-CO), in response to the open letter described above:  "They don't speak for conservatives. The future that these people see for America and the world is completely different than the one I see and hope for."  What I hear Tancredo saying is that conservatives are now to be judged not on whether they support free market economies or limited governments, but whether they support immigration restrictions, gay marriage restrictions, flag-burning restrictions, and abortion restrictions--all measures taken up by the Republican congress during the last few months.  Tancredo's narrow vision for America's future would destroy the American dream, transforming our collective spirit from "I can" to "You can't"--something that "old" conservatives finally seem to be recognizing and speaking out against.
 
Comments?  Send a message to Jennings Immigration lawyers using the Contact a Lawyer form on the right side of this page.


American View of Immigration Most Positive Since 9/11


July 10, 2006

A Gallup News Poll released today found that more Americans currently believe that immigration is "a good thing for this country today" than at any time in the last five years.  Sixty-seven percent of respondents agreed to the statement, up from 52% in the poll taken subsequent to the 9/11 attacks.  Further, the poll found that 42% of Americans were satisfied with current levels of immigration, a percentage that has finally rebounded to pre-9/11 polls.  Lastly, the poll revealed that when asked the question of whether there were "too many" immigrants coming from a certain part of the world, "Latin American countries" (48%) replaced "Arab countries" (39%) as the most common response since the question was last asked in 2002.  Even so, the number of people who responded with "Latin American countries" in this year's poll decreased nearly 20 percentage points since 1992 when the number was at 66%.  These numbers are striking for several reasons:  1) they indicate that immigration is slowly recovering from the negative perceptions caused by 9/11; and 2) they suggest that despite the current abundance of anti-immigrant polemic that most Americans generally view immigration quite positively.
 
Comments?  Send a message to Jennings Immigration lawyers using the Contact a Lawyer form on the right side of this page.


Immigration A Complex Issue For Economists Too


July 9, 2006

We've heard many times over the past few months that immigration is a complex issue and it's true.  Immigration is a difficult subject because it is not reducible to a single factor; rather, immigration in America stirs our national history, economic policy, cultural identity, social values, and religious beliefs together in search of an answer of how to treat the newcomer seeking the American dream, an opportunity for a better life.  As difficult as it would seem to obtain a consensus on the immigration debate from a religious perspective or a cultural one, one would think that the economic data on the effects of immigration would be fairly straightforward, something most people could agree on.  Last month more than 500 economists signed onto an open letter to President Bush and the Congress that argued that immigration provides a net economic gain for the country.  A lengthy article in the New York Times Magazine reports, however, on an ongoing debate between two economists on the economic impacts of low-skilled immigration, showing that the immigration debate is a complex issue even for those concerned only with objective economic data.
 
Comments?  Send a message to Jennings Immigration lawyers using the Contact a Lawyer form on the right side of this page.


World Cup Soccer Shows Immigration is Worldwide Phenomenon


July 5, 2006

A fascinating article in the International Herald Tribune examines the impact of immigration on the World Cup soccer tournament currently being held in Germany.  The World Cup, like the Olympics, is a competition among national teams:  this week's semi-final contests were Germany vs. Italy and France vs. Portugal.  The composition of these national teams, however, reflects the reality of increasing immigration in a global society and, indeed, the growing competition for immigrants in the face of rising global competitiveness.  As such, the World Cup soccer tournament is a compelling microcosm of the 21st century's global reality.
 
Comments?  Send a message to Jennings Immigration lawyers using the Contact a Lawyer form on the right side of this page.


Bush Considers Enforcement First Immigration Plan


July 5, 2006

On the day that Congress begins a series of immigration hearings around the country, it is being reported that President Bush has indicated a willingness to enter into a compromise with House Republicans that could be described as "enforcement first."  The President met with Congressman Mike Pence (R-IN) last week to discuss such a plan.  Pence has promoted an immigration bill that begins with enforcement measures that would be followed by some version of a guestworker program after certain enforcement goals or "triggers" had been met, a time period that is being described as up to two years.  Pence's plan would require all undocumented persons in the U.S. to return to their country to apply for the guestworker visa.  While Bush has not agreed to specific details, the move is a clear shift in principle:  Bush has steadfastly argued that enforcement measures should be simultaneously accompanied by guestworker and legalization programs.  Immigration advocates fear that an "enforcement first" approach could too easily be turned into an "enforcement only" approach either through amending the legislation prior to enactment of the legalization provisions or by manipulating the triggers to continually delay their implementation.
 
Comments?  Send a message to Jennings Immigration lawyers using the Contact a Lawyer form on the right side of this page.


Immigration Fight Moves From the Streets to the Voting Booths


July 1, 2006

The race for Utah's 3rd district seat in the House of Representatives revealed that the fight over immigration reform is moving from the streets to the voting booths.  Immigration restrictionists, led by Tom Tancredo (R-CO), are identifying and supporting specific races where they believe they can elect a fellow immigration restrictionist to further establish their position in Congress.  Tancredo's political action committee, TeamAmerica, spent approximately $50,000 in support of John Jacob's unsuccessful primary campaign against fellow Republican Chris Cannon.  Not to be outdone, immigration advocates have also moved their focus from street rallies to voter registration and citizenship drives with the goals of registering one million new Hispanic voters by the fall elections and assisting some 12 million legal immigrants who would be eligible to vote in 2008 to become U.S. citizens.  If these efforts are successful, actions by House Republicans to exploit immigration reform for electoral success in the fall will have long-term political consequences, alienating the largest minority group in the country who, ironically, largely shares the values of faith, family, and entrepreneurship that conservatives espouse.

Senate Resolves Procedural Hurdle to Immigration Bill


June 30, 2006

The Senate has agreed on a plan to overcome a procedural obstacle that House Republicans had been using as a reason to not enter into a conference on their respective immigration bills.  The problem was based on a provision in the Senate bill that required undocumented persons to pay back taxes as part of a legalization program.  House leaders claimed that the provision constituted a revenue program that under the U.S. Constitution can only originate in the House.  To resolve the technicality, Senate Republicans had proposed that the Senate strip a House revenue bill that had previously passed the House and replace its provisions with the immigration bill.  Senate Democrats had objected to the plan because it would allow a Republican-controlled conference to possibly insert additional tax measures without opportunity for debate by the full Congress.  Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (D-UT) finally agreed to the plan on Republican assurances that no additional tax measures would be inserted into the bill during conference.  The agreement resolves the technical obstacle, but not the real one:  House Republicans who have stalled conference negotiations to try to build support for their enforcement-only approach to immigration.

Immigration Restrictionist Candidate Loses Utah Election


June 28, 2006

Incumbent Chris Cannon (R-UT) handily defeated Republican challenger John Jacob in Tuesday's primary election for Utah's 3rd District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The race was widely considered a bellwether on the immigration issue, as the only real difference between the two candidates were their approaches on immigration.  "(The) disagreement is whether the Republican Party is going to be some kind of new, xenophobic, anti-foreigner party, or whether we're going to be the party of a country we're thrilled has grown," Cannon said.  John Jacob, with the backing of some of the most prominent anti-immigrant groups in the country, relied almost exclusively on attacks on Cannon's immigration position of favoring a comprehensive approach to reform.  Despite predictions of a tight race, Cannon won with 56% of the vote.  Anti-immigrant groups had hoped that the defeat of an incumbent solely on the immigration issue would once and for all kill any chances of comprehensive immigration reform.  To the contrary, however, the election results confirm a recent poll by the conservative Manhattan Institute Policy that showed a majority of Republicans favor a comprehensive immigration solution soon.

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