Federation for American Immigration Reform

“Democrats have announced their intent to bring the DREAM Act up for a vote in the lame-duck session of Congress while they still control both chambers, mobilizing Republican opponents who have labeled the bill as an unwarranted attempt at amnesty for illegal aliens,” Homeland Security Today reports. “FAIR argued that the number could be much higher due to fraudulent applications. The organization further declared that 870,000 illegal aliens would immediately become eligible for legal status under the bill while 2.6 million illegal aliens could receive legal status within six years of enactment. An additional 6.2 million illegal aliens could gain US legal status under the bill within 10 years of its enactment.”

“Governor Patrick is hoping to fully implement 131 immigration reform ideas suggested by an advisory panel in 2009, including offering in-state college tuition rates for illegal immigrant students,” the Bostonist news site reports.

“Prince William County’s controversial immigration policy appears to have had some effect, as the growth of the county’s Hispanic population now lags behind that of other jurisdictions, a report from the University of Virginia states,” the Washington Post reports.  ”The three-year, $385,000 study - released Tuesday by the university’s Center for Survey Research - also found that the county’s noncitizen Hispanic population, legal and illegal, dropped by 7,700 from 2006 to 2008, and that illegal immigrants accounted for 2,000 to 6,000 of that decline.”

“Instead of the dramatic, large-scale raids that snagged hundreds of illegal immigrants, including at a New Bedford factory three years ago, federal officials say they are focusing more on the businesses that hire them. The aim is to eliminate the job opportunities that attract illegal workers,” the Boston Globe reports.

“‘They get off with, at most, a slap on the wrists,’ said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based organization that favors tougher restrictions on immigration. ‘ICE does nothing to apprehend the illegal workers. They go down and get a new set of documents from the street corner and they get a new job. It becomes a game of musical chairs.”’

“President Obama will meet with pro-immigration reform [amnesty] Democrats — Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Reps. Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.) and Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) — this afternoon to discuss immigration plans for the lame-duck session. The meeting will be a follow-up to a September meeting with the three Democrats, where Obama pledged support for comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act. That time, they were hoping for the White House’s support to push senators to vote for the DREAM Act as part the defense authorization bill — an effort that failed when Republicans filibustered the bill,” the Washington Independent says.

FAIR’s Bob Dane was interviewed for this NY Time’s story about a recent Long Island study claiming that immigration was a benefit to the local economy. Dane notes that the study fails to account for the negative impact on the African American community and “the costs of illegal immigration, including unpaid taxes, money sent to other countries and drains on public services and health care.”

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“With much of the campaign rhetoric focused on Washington’s spending on the nation’s sluggish economy, immigration has also become the issue of choice for some candidates, especially in their attack ads,” notes NPR.

The inevitable endpoint of sanctuary cities desire to protect illegal aliens is now in sight - a halt of all fingerprint sharing by localities with state and federal authorities. The Huffington Post has a report from Santa Clara county, California, where supervisors are plotting on how they can prevent ICE from deporting illegal aliens taken into custody. “The county is also looking into ways to put limits on the fingerprints sent to the state’s database, which is monitored by ICE. This has been done in El Paso County, Texas, where the sheriff says he only shares fingerprints from Class B misdemeanors and above.” The end point of these types of policies will mean an end to effective criminal identification once criminals realize they can commit crimes in Santa Clara and other counties without worrying that a check of their records will reveal outstanding warrants or other reasons to hold them. The move to stop fingerprint sharing will not stop with low-level crimes; the inevitable push will be to allow cities to withold any and all fingerprints from being sent to state and federal fingerprint identification centers.

In a fact-paced turn of events over the past week, Republican leaders in both the House and Senate have voiced their support for examining the issue of birthright citizenship.  The debate over birthright citizenship was revived nearly ten days ago when amnesty advocate Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced he may introduce a constitutional amendment to end the practice of automatically granting citizenship to children born in the United States regardless of the parents’ immigration status.  (Politico, July 29, 2010)  Graham’s statements immediately grabbed headlines and sparked furious opposition from amnesty advocates.

But despite such criticism, over the past week key Republican Leaders have echoed Graham’s desire to examine the issue. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stopped short of endorsing an amendment to the Constitution, but said “I think we ought to take a look at it — hold hearings, listen to the experts on it,” (The Hill, Aug. 2, 2010).  McConnell’s statements were similar to Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) who said he suggested to Senator Graham that “we should hold some hearings and hear first from the constitutional experts to at least tell us what the state of the law on that proposition is.” (Id.)

Other prominent Senators have voiced their support for holding hearings on birthright citizenship. Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions (R-AL) said, “It’s very much worthy of discussion,” adding that he thought hearings are a good way to do it. “I’d like to see somebody draft an amendment, and let’s see what it says.” (Politico, Aug. 4, 2010). Meanwhile Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who is in a heated primary battle, was a little more reserved in his support, stating simply that he supports “the concept of holding hearings.” (Id.)

Read the rest at fairus.org.