According to the ACLU, Rep. Lamar Smith's deceptively named "Keep Our Communities Safe Act" bill "would in fact lead to the detention of thousands more immigrants for years without first having a hearing before a judge." Continue »

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) are pushing legislation that would force all employers to use the federal government’s flawed E-Verify program before hiring any workers. This may sound simple, but making E-Verify mandatory... Continue »

Last night on the Colbert Report, my personal hero, Jose Antonio Vargas, the Pulitzer Prize winner who recently came out -- as Colbert put it -- a "border gay," told America that he's an undocumented immigrant, not an illegal one. Continue »
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is at it again, introducing new legislation that reveals his own political agenda and hypocrisy while promising to make the already broken immigration system even worse. The Hinder the Administration's Legalization Temptation Act, or HALT Act, would strip the Obama Administration's ability to set... Continue »
David Cox was at his desk in September 2009, when his receptionist announced an unexpected visitor, a special agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. Mr. Cox is chief executive of L. E. Cooke Company, a fourth-generation, family-owned nursery in Visalia, Calif., that grows deciduous trees... Continue »
When I was in college, my roommate from New York City - aware that I had grown up in the farmlands of Central California - asked me a simple question: "What time of year do workers pick the raisins?" After I stopped laughing, I had to explain to... Continue »
As Congress considers legislation that would require all employers to verify their employees' social security numbers, critics of mandatory E-Verify say the legislation is a guaranteed failure when it comes to California's agriculture industry. Continue »
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is pushing back on a Republican lawmaker's rhetoric that he would do anything to stop illegal immigrants "short of shooting them." Rep. Charles Gonzalez, D-Texas, said "words have consequences" as he denounced the comment made recently by Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala. Continue »
Victor Toro rarely passes unnoticed as he ambles down the busy streets of the south Bronx, wearing a red bandana over his white beard and ponytail. People who have seen him in the newspaper and on TV call out to him by name. After three decades as an... Continue »
A federal immigration judge on Wednesday gave a gay couple two more years to build a case for why Venezuelan pet groomer Alex Benshimol should be allowed to remain in the U.S. with his partner. It's not the final result the couple is seeking, but they said they'll take... Continue »