Immigration Blog

McCain and Napolitano Clash: The Battle of Border Metrics

By Jerry Kammer, April 22, 2013

A recent Senate hearing featured a confrontation between two Arizonans known for strong wills and large egos.

They were Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who as governor of Arizona in 2005 declared a state of emergency on the state's southern border and now insists that the border is secure; and Sen. John McCain, who as a member of the House of Representatives in 1986 voted for the notorious Immigration Reform and Control Act and now vows that its failure will not be repeated. Read more...

Update: Most Terrorist Incidents in the Past Five Years Committed by Foreign-Born Individuals

By Janice Kephart, April 19, 2013

According to the Terrorist Screening Center, 98 percent of the approximately 550,000 individuals on the terrorist watchlist are foreign-born. Roughly 10,000 to 20,000 on the watchlist reside within the United States. It is therefore not surprising that four of the 13 most notorious terrorism arrests since 2009 involved naturalized U.S. citizens. Five cases involved native-born U.S. Read more...

Boston Bombers May Complicate Matters for the Gang of Eight

By David North, April 19, 2013

While no immigration data on the Brothers Tsarnaev have been confirmed, it may well be that the bombing in Boston will complicate matters for the Senate’s Gang of Eight that is promoting comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). Read more...

Immigration Reform in the National Interest: The Jordan Commission vs. the "Gang of Eight"

By Stanley Renshon, April 19, 2013

In 1990 Congress authorized a bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by then-Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-Texas), hereafter the Jordan Commission. The Commission was mandated "to review and evaluate the implementation and impact of U.S. immigration policy and to transmit to the Congress reports of its findings and recommendations." Read more...

Was Bad News for Gun Control Good for Immigration Bill?

By Jerry Kammer, April 18, 2013

A report from NBC's Kelly O'Donnell suggests that yesterday's defeat of gun control legislation in the Senate might be good for the Gang of Eight's immigration reform bill.

Reporting on yesterday's vote for the "Morning Joe" program on MSNBC, O'Donnell said: "The politics was about more than gun rights. Later today a bipartisan group of senators will roll out immigration reform. Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who fought hard to get enough votes on background checks, found that with two politically hard votes, some senators chose immigration over guns." Read more...

Immigration Reform in the National Interest: An Audacious and Unnecessary "Grand Plan"

By Stanley Renshon, April 18, 2013

The so-called "Gang of Eight" senators have released their plan for "comprehensive immigration reform" — The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. A comprehensive immigration bill, if enacted, would constitute, for better or worse, the most fundamental change to American immigration law since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (the Hart-Celler Act). Read more...

Senate Bill: New Promised Land, or Son of IRCA?

By Jerry Kammer, April 18, 2013

Three of the leading congressional advocates of the comprehensive reform legislation that will be debated in the Senate and House over the next several months made solemn pledges this week about what the bill would offer. If what Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.) promised matches up with what the bill actually provides, it would represent an historic compromise to resolve our long-simmering immigration policy crisis. It will meet a key test. It will be hard-headed, but not hard-hearted. Read more...

The Complete Phoniness of the Gang of 8 Immigration Bill

By Mark Krikorian, April 18, 2013

The key political problem amnesty advocates face is a trust gap. The public, rightly, doesn't believe promises from the political class that they're newly committed to enforcing immigration laws after decades of non-enforcement.

One key provision of the Schumer/Rubio immigration bill tells you all you need to know about its phoniness. It requires the development within 10 years of a check-in/check-out system for foreign visitors. That's important because nearly half the illegal population came here legally but never left. Only if we record who leaves can we know who's still here illegally. Read more...

Some Thoughts about the Waiting Periods for the Amnestied

By David North, April 18, 2013

The Gang of Eight in the U.S. Senate has advocated 10-year wait for a green card for most of those in the proposed amnesty followed by a three-year period before naturalization could begin.

How should we think about that?

My position is that any broad-brush amnesty is a bad idea because it would encourage more illegal immigration in the future. That certainly was the result of the IRCA legalization of the 1980s. Read more...

Question for the Gang of Eight: What Color Is the Sky on Your World?

By W.D. Reasoner, April 16, 2013

When observing the folks who make up our political class, I'm often of the opinion that, somehow, reality is always just slightly distorted around them — as if they are in another, alternate universe altogether and they only seem to share space and time with us, but not in any meaningful way. Read more...