Quick Read - Immigration

Migration Policy Institute (MPI) released its “Immigration Enforcement in the United States” report last month that reveals an increase in spending for the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) due to the “enforcement first” approach to immigration.   

The report's findings are shocking. The U.S. government now spends more on immigration enforcement than on all other major federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined and immigration enforcement is the federal government's highest criminal law enforcement priority. Surprisingly, at a time when our government must be fiscally conservative and unauthorized immigration has abated, the call to increase spending on border enforcement is as loud as ever.

This increase in spending should guarantee better trained officers and ensure that the basic human rights of all people respected. However, according to various reports families are separated, victims of domestic violence do not receive the protection that they need, pregnant asylum seekers do not receive the prenatal care that they need, and children are held in detention centers with adults. Read here for more. 

The diverse coalition that re-elected President Obama has pushed immigration reform to the top of the 2013 agenda. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

The shift in the political conversation has been so dramatic that even a pathway to citizenship for some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States – long rejected out of hand by most Republicans and some Democrats – could be part of the deal.

Read more here.

Post fiscal-cliff, both President Obama and the Congress are expected to take on comprehensive immigraiton reform. Politico discusses the influential Republicans who will insert themselves into the debate.

Politico reports:

They lack the stature of the Big Three Republicans in the immigration reform debate: Marco Rubio, John McCain and Lindsey Graham.

But just below that senatorial trio, there’s another group of lesser-known GOP lawmakers expected to play an outsize role — both within the party and negotiating with Democrats — as Congress delves into an issue that could consume much of its bandwidth next year.

Politico reports:

Americans overwhelmingly support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, according to a poll released Wednesday.

Fifty-seven percent of Americans favor creating a path to citizenship, with 39 percent opposed, the ABC/Washington Post survey found. Eighty-two percent of Hispanics support a path to citizenship, compared with 51 percent of whites. Seven in 10 Americans between 18 and 29 support a path.

Hispanic voters were a key part of President Barack Obama’s winning reelection coalition.

Read more here.

We all know the conversation on immigration in the United States can oftentimes become contentious, with inaccurate portrayals of immigrants inhibiting progress. The most recent attempt to fuel the debate with fear-driven messaging is by NumbersUSA.  

A new ad by  the organization tries to pit racial groups against each other by suggesting that immigrants admitted to the country on work permits are “stealing” jobs from other racial minorities.

This tactic is hateful, fear-based, and sad. By running this ad NumbersUSA is trying to divide people against each other on racial grounds, sowing hate and division among our neighbors. It misrepresents the truth about immigrant workers and the benefits they provide to our country. It also does nothing to substantively address the issue of unemployment among minorities, a problem we can’t solve by directing hate at one segment of the population.

The spokesperson cited in the article claims that it is impossible to both support immigrants and fight poverty. The claim that immigrants “steal” jobs from other segments of the population has been widely discredited, as highlighted by Eduardo Porter in The New York Times. Immigrants not only perform tasks that the American workforce does not wish to perform, the positions they fill create jobs for other Americans and lift the overall economy.

As Christians, we need to call this ad what it is: wrong. Demonizing groups of people will not solve problems, and doing so with an eye for racial divides is immoral. 

Janelle Tupper is Campaigns Assistant for Sojourners.

Congress is due to recess soon, but members are trying to pass a bill attempting to increase the availability of high-skilled visas for the tech industry before adjourning at the end of this week. While different versions of the legislation exist, the fundamental goal is to allocate more visas to foreign-born graduates of U.S. universities who have obtained a master’s or doctorate degrees in science, math, technology or engineering (STEM) fields.

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has proposed eliminating the diversity visa program, which currently issues 55,000 visas through a lottery system, to increase the availability of STEM visas. Many immigration advocates are concerned Rep. Smith’s legislation would have negative consequences for other sectors and the overall diversity of immigrants entering the United States.

Other proposals, including a bill offered by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) seek to protect the lottery system while also addressing the high-skilled visa issue. Instead, Sen. Schumer’s legislation would create a pilot program expanding the availability of STEM visas to graduates within these programs.

Although these approaches address a real need, legislators should also be mindful of consequences they have for broader immigration policy. The high-skilled visa program is only one of many processes needing reform.  Ideally, Congress should focus on comprehensive solutions that fix the root issue instead of taking a piecemeal approach. Such an effort would help the U.S. economy while also addressing the humanitarian and moral concerns about the current immigration system raised by Christians across the country.

Read the full article in The Hill full HERE.

Photo credit: Sergej Khakimullin/Shutterstock.

As reported by The Associated Press last week:

Locking up illegal immigrants has grown profoundly lucrative for the private prisons industry, a reliable pot of revenue that helped keep some of the biggest companies in business.

And while nearly half of the 400,000 immigrants held annually are housed in private facilities, the federal government — which spends $2 billion a year on keeping those people in custody — says it isn't necessarily cheaper to outsource the work, a central argument used for privatization in the first place.

The Associated Press, seeking to tally the scope of the private facilities, add up their cost and the amounts the companies spend on lobbying and campaign donations, reviewed more than 10 years' worth of federal and state records. It found a complex, mutually beneficial and evidently legal relationship between those who make corrections and immigration policy and a few prison companies. Some of those companies were struggling to survive before toughened immigrant detention laws took effect.

Read more here