While most of the nation fixated this week on black and brown American heroes in Cleveland, the attention of immigration advocates diverged. They vacillated between delight with the imploding anti-immigration conservative movement and nail-biting over votes on a flood of amendments to the massive, bipartisan Gang of Eight bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Xenophobes Can’t Kill Immigration Reform – But What Should CIR Supporters Do Now?
The usual xenophobic suspects made the usual noises after the tragic events in Boston last week. Perhaps the most premature outcry came from electrified-border-fence proponent, Rep. Steve King, Republican from Iowa, who a day after the marathon explosions linked a report (ultimately untrue) that a Saudi national had planted the bombs with King’s mission
Rethinking Immigration: If America Will Welcome More Entrepreneurs, Why Not More Creatives?
The purpose of the [Immigration and Nationality Act is] to prevent an influx of aliens which the economy of individual localities [cannot] absorb. . . . Entrepreneurs do not compete as skilled laborers. The activities of each entrepreneur are generally unique to his own enterprise, often requiring a special balance of skill, courage, intuition and
Fix Immigration by Improving Its Justice System
“U.S. immigration law is like stratified rock, revealing layer on layer of Congressional accretions laid down over many years, with the superstructure upended in tectonic shifts triggered by the baffling and contradictory interpretations of multiple agencies and courts.”
Nothing of substance has changed since I offered that post last August, save for a groundbreaking election that
Memo to Immigration Reformers: “First catch your [EB-5] hare!”
Winston Churchill, whose mother was American (Jennie Jerome of Brooklyn), could just as well have been speaking about the components of comprehensive immigration reform. Instead he was commenting on the Allies’ post-World War II plans for world governance when, in the summer of 1942 with the war yet unwon, he said:
I hope these speculative studies
The 2012 Nation of Immigrators Awards – The IMMIs
As we count out the final hours of 2012, let’s recall the highs and lows of the past year in America’s dysfunctional immigration ecosphere.
Nation of Immigrators is pleased to confer its third annual IMMI Awards. (Full disclosure: As in past years, these are my personal choices. If you disagree or believe I’ve missed an
Rethinking Immigration: Stop the Alienation of Affection
With the Obama Administration and lawmakers in both parties promising to fix our dysfunctional immigration system, it’s time for a reality-based understanding of global migration and a fresh choice of words.
As Prof. Fariborz Ghadar, Senior Advisor and Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Affairs, observes:
Just as a teenager grows
The Senate Must Modify Its Filibuster Rules to Pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform
“ And there took place . . . [in the U.S. Senate] so many “extended discussions” of measures to keep them from coming to a vote that the device got a name, “filibuster,” from the Dutch word vrijbuiter, which means “freebooter” or “pirate,” and which passed into the Spanish as filibustero, because the sleek
Immigration by Chance — Save the DV Green Card Lottery
Despite all the post-election talk of a chastened GOP promising flexibility on comprehensive immigration reform (CIR), Republicans seem more determined than ever to reduce the number of green cards issued annually. They would do so by eliminating the Diversity Visa lottery. Their latest ante is a miserly family-unity sweetener to the failed STEM bill which
Reforming Immigration “with Liberty and Justice for All”
As Republicans join Democrats in contemplating reform of the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system, the final line of the Pledge of Allegiance (“with liberty and justice for all”) is the best place to start.
Revitalizing our broken and outdated 20th Century immigration laws to respond to the needs of 21st Century America will turn in large