During the 2006-2007 immigration reform debates, the Heritage Foundation and its senior research fellow, Robert Rector, famously released a report claiming that the legislation being considered would cost the US economy $2.6 trillion.  The study then helped sink immigration reform, and the Heritage Foundation this month tried to reprise... Continue »
Flip back the count.  It’s been zero days since Congressional Republicans last called a CIS witness to a hearing. All over Washington, Republicans are deciding that getting with the program on immigration reform and shutting up about their nativist tendencies is the best way to go.  The RNC released... Continue »
In anticipation of a Senate hearing today on immigrants and their right to due process, the American Immigration Council has released a report entitled “Two Systems of Justice: How the Immigration System Falls Short of the Ideals of Justice.” The report explores how the justice system is different for... Continue »
At today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on ICE’s recent release of hundreds of immigrants from detention, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R – AL) asked Director Morton a question that immigrant rights advocates have been asking for years: “Is it possible that you are detaining more people than you need to?…... Continue »
The Republican National Committee took a serious step toward reclaiming its big-tent-party status today, when it announced that it will spend millions this year on minority outreach and endorsed comprehensive immigration reform.  It was a move toward reason and rationality, and a tiny hint that Republicans might be willing... Continue »
It’s a shame that Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) showed up to bully the witnesses of today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the needs of women and families in immigration reform, because, as our own mothers always used to say, the worst thing you can do... Continue »
Yesterday was a busy day in immigration, one in which some Republicans made clear that they still don’t really get it when it comes to immigration reform. CPAC, the conservative political action conference, actually held a panel with pro-immigration reform advocates yesterday morning, including pollster Whit Ayres and executive... Continue »
The manufactured kerfuffle of ICE’s release of a number of immigrants from detention facilities last month has officially reached the phase where House Republicans hold hearings to show off how outraged they are by the Obama Administration. Typically, such hearings are full of fact-free fearmongering about criminals running amok... Continue »
Today the House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on “The Separation of Nuclear Families under U.S. Immigration Law.” Here are the list of witnesses: Randall Emery, American Families United Mathi Mugilan Paguth Arivalan, Lawful Permanent Resident Demetrios Papademetriou, Migration Policy Institute Clarissa Martinez de Castro, National Council of... Continue »
This morning, the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on America’s need for high-skilled immigration, the third in a series of narrowly-focused single-issue hearings they’re holding as an effort to “educate” their party on immigration issues. So far, the hearings have indeed been instructive —... Continue »