Immigration News

More than 100 CEOs of U.S. companies have urged Congress to pass an amnesty for illegal aliens in the DACA category. In a letter to House and Senate leaders, the CEOs stated that failure to legislate this amnesty would "[create] an impending crisis for workforces across the country." Critics charge that the "crisis" they far is less access to cheap labor.  

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is stepping up inspections of businesses suspected of hiring illegal aliens. The agency recently targeted 100 stores around the country.  Top ICE official Derek Benner said that the inspections will continue and will increase. He added that "It's not going to be limited to big companies or any particular industry. " The Trump Administration's expansion of immigration law enforcement has increased deportation arrests by 40 percent. 

A study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that non-citizens (legal and illegal immigrants) are proportionately more likely to commit federal crimes than native-born Americans. Non-citizen adults are 8.6 percent of the U.S. population, but they are 21 percent of the total of the people convicted for non-immigration crimes. The author of the study, Steve Camarota,  notes that most crimes are committed at the state and local levels, but it is hard to obtain good data at those levels on the participation on non-citizens. In any case, says Camarota, federal law enforcement is "still enormous."

Supporters of genuine immigration reform were disturbed by his recent statement that there might be a two-phased immigration agreement. He seemed to suggest that an amnesty for the DACA illegal aliens could pass first and then reforms such as ending chain migration and building a border wall.  The obvious problem with such an approach is that if the amnesty passes, reformers will lose any leverage to get the reforms they want. The outcome would be a repeat of the 1986 immigration bill. That legislation granted amnesty to three million illegal aliens, but once the amnesty advocates got what they wanted they did not carry out their promises to beef up immigration law enforcement. 

In 2001 the U.S. government allowed 250,000 El Salvadorans to settle in the U.S. following a major earthquake in that country. They were permitted to stay under a policy called Temporary Protected Status (TPS). As its name states, TPS is supposed to be temporary. After conditions in their home countries improve, TPS recipients are supposed to return.  After seventeen years the Salvadorans are still here--long after the impact of the earthquake subsided. For this reason the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced that the Salvadorans must leave by September 2019 if they cannot find another way to maintain their legal status.  

A recent Pulse Opinion Research Poll told asked Americans what they thought the proper level of legal immigration should be. The poll informed them that the current level of immigration is around one million a year.  Twenty-two percent said none at all, 23 percent said 250,000, and 15 percent said 500,000--making a total of 60 percent who believe that the current level should at least be cut in half. Fifteen percent said that we should continue to admit one million a year, and twelve percent more said the total should be more than that. The remaining people people surveyed said they were not sure what the annual level of immigration should be.  

The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Thomas Homan, said that officials in sanctuary cities and states should be charged with crimes. His statement follows California officially becoming a sanctuary state by prohibiting police officers from assisting federal immigration law enforcement.  Homan noted, "The state of California better hang on tight because the smuggling organizations are using the sanctuary cities law. . . . More illegal aliens will be coming to California. More criminal aliens will be coming to California. So California bit off a lot more than they can chew. 

The Hill reports that "Congress is barreling toward a showdown over immigration in January." The Democrats are insisting on amnesty for illegal aliens in the DACA category. President Trump has insisted that "there can be no DACA without the desperately needed wall at the southern border and an end to the horrible chain migration and ridiculous lottery system of immigration etc. We must protect our country at all cost,"  

Using data from the Census Bureau, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that immigration (legal and illegal) rose sharply last year. In the first six months of 2016 1.03 million immigrants settled in the U.S. As the CIS notes, "This represents a 13 percent increase over the same period in 2015, a 21 percent increase over 2014, and a 53 percent increase over 2011, when new immigration reached a low point after the recession. " The CIS estimates that the total of new arrivals through all of last year was 1.8 million.  That number would match 1999, the year with the highest total of immigrants in American history.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi endorsed the Dream Act amnesty which would legalize 3.25 million illegal aliens.  Of these people Pelosi stated, "They embody the best of our nation: patriotism, hard work, perseverance." She didn't explain how breaking the laws of our country makes them patriotic and the best of our nation.