By Ali Noorani, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum. Originally posted on the ImmPolitic blog.

I spent the last week meeting with people from Texas to New York to California who want our nation’s broken immigration system fixed.  Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, people of faith and people of conscience,  immigrant workers and American workers, labor and business – the people are angry.

They are angry at the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

People want solutions, and they want Washington DC to accomplish something.

All these people that I had the opportunity to talk to, coming from all  different perspectives  know that it’s not going to be easy. They know the politicians and the media would love to do nothing by keeping alive this tired story of legal versus illegal because they think it gets them  votes or ratings.  The people know Democrats have become the party of “I Can’t” and Republicans have become the party of “I Won’t.”  We know we are running behind, but we are still very much in the game and at this moment our issue is unique in its ability to say to Democrats and Republicans “You’d better.”

Because something is happening.

Recent events in Detroit, Cincinnati, Phoenix and Raleigh saw unprecedented numbers of people come out,  as faith, labor, business and immigrant leaders are coming together to be counted and heard.

And it was impossible not to notice that the commitment and tenacity of each and every leader I met with over the past week has been growing stronger.  Whether it is fairness in the job market, equality of tax payments or justice for all, everyone’s desire to fight is intensifying with each day.

It’s as if everyone heard Congressman Gutierrez, when he said  in Los Angeles earlier this week, “You don’t go to McDonald’s and order justice at the drive through.”

We know our path to a functioning immigration system that ensures fairness, equity and justice is long, winding, and fraught with peril.  Our nation has had to endure this path for decades and now, people want action.

So, although Washington DC may very well fail our Nation, we cannot fail our communities. Just as the failure to fix the broken system has hamstrung all of us, real immigration reform will help all communities. Native born workers can understand they will benefit from a reformed immigration system that equalizes the labor market, business owners understand they will benefit from a reformed immigration system that punishes unscrupulous employers, and families understand they will benefit from a reform immigration system that stabilizes communities.

The anger is real, the demand for a solution is urgent, and our time to fight is now.

See you on March 21^st!

Today America’s Voice is launching an online ad campaign asking Congressman Patrick Murphy (D-PA) to remove his name from a controversial immigration resolution, H.Res. 1026– the so-called “BRIDGE Resolution.”

The measure has been dubbed the “BRIDGE to Nowhere” by Americans who are sick and tired of costly “get-tough” proposals that do nothing to fix our broken immigration system. The Irish Immigration Center in Philadelphia kicked things off by calling on Murphy to remove his name from BRIDGE.  The call was amplified by Markos Moulitsas, founder of the progressive political blog Daily Kos, who called it a “cheap anti-immigrant shot.”

Murphy has come under fire from religious, progressive, and community leaders for joining with the virulently anti-immigrant Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to co-sponsor the BRIDGE Resolution. It is a proposal that tightens immigration enforcement at any cost; keeps our immigration system broken, and banks on the misguided notion that 12 million undocumented immigrants will simply pick up and leave the country.

Congressman Murphy should be leading the fight to pass real comprehensive immigration reform, not following hard-line Members of Congress like Rep. Steve King (R-IA) down this ‘Bridge to Nowhere.’

Please join us, and tell Patrick Murphy:

Come on, Congressman, you’re better than this. We need real, comprehensive immigration reform, not another BRIDGE to Nowhere.

Call toll-free: (866) 961-4293.

Click here to read more.

]]> http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/blog/congressman-patrick-murphy-should-reject-bridge-to-nowhere-online-ads-say/feed/ 0 http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/blog/the-elephant-in-the-economic-room-immigration-reform/ http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/blog/the-elephant-in-the-economic-room-immigration-reform/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:36:46 +0000 Rachel LaBruyere http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/?p=3055

Originally posted at Standing FIRM.

On Monday, President Obama released his budget, which has a heavy focus on job creation and economic improvement.

While many of Obama’s ever-ready opponents complained about the amount of spending in the budget in the name of lowering the deficit, there is one solution that people truly concerned about economic recovery have yet to address: comprehensive immigration reform.

Mahwish Khan at America’s Voice helps to boil down the options:

There is a $4.1 trillion choice in Washington. We did the math, and put simply:

Comprehensive Immigration Reform = $1.5 trillion increase in GDP over 10 years

Mass Deportation = $2.6 trillion loss in GDP over 10 years

And there are the numbers to back this up. Two separate reports have recently been published that show comprehensive immigration reform would be a boon to our economy, while mass deportation would drive us further into our current economic crisis.

Congress has a $4 trillion choice to make: pass comprehensive immigration reform and grow the economy by $1.5 trillion – or enact the anti-immigrant lobby’s impractical mass deportation agenda, at any cost.

One lawmaker who seems to understand the inextricable link between immigration reform and the economy is Representative Luis Gutierrez. Today, in the Hill, he writes:

Comprehensive immigration reform by definition means change that helps workers and business. Unless Congress acts to end the status quo, American workers will continue to be pitted against immigrant workers by unscrupulous employers who drive down wages, avoid taxes and violate labor laws. Taxpayers who pay their full and fair share will continue to be undercut by workers and employers who do not. And employers who pay decent wages, offer good benefits, and follow all the rules will continue to be destabilized by bad-actor employers who game the system.

We cannot put off legislation that ends this kind of unchecked corruption at the expense of our economic security. America’s workers want it for their own protection; American employers need it to operate effectively and ethically; taxpayers deserve it to stop shouldering the cost of a broken system. And Congress owes it to them to do our jobs.

The time is ripe for immigration reform to be considered as not only the right thing to do, but economically sound thing to do. This is a win-win scenario for lawmakers, the American public and the economy. By continuing to ignore this reality, Congress is not solving the hard problems we elected them to address and they are losing the faith of the voters who put them in office.

By Travis Packer. Originally posted at Immigration Impact.

The New York Times reported yesterday on a lawsuit filed against federal contractor Signal Construction, which includes allegations that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) colluded with Signal to illegally deport workers as a scare tactic and for retaliation purposes against 500 Indian guest workers who are currently in a legal battle against Signal.

The new revelations were further discussed in a press conference today, held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC featuring representatives from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice. The testimony from depositions in the case involving Indian workers and Signal could prove that ICE colluded with the Signal to arrange illegal deportations and used ICE enforcement to quell labor strikes.

In 2006, Signal International hired approximately 500 skilled immigrant workers from India to repair offshore oil rigs in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Many workers paid as much as $20,000 to Signal recruiters, who in turn promised that their H-2B temporary work visas would converted into green cards, and thus put the workers on a pathway to citizenship.

The lawsuit contends that when the workers began to organize against their employer they sought advice from ICE who advised Signal on how to retaliate against the striking workers, including directions for illegally deporting the workers. Second, ICE officials told Signal that if they were given the names of protests leaders in the labor camps, ICE would seek to deport them. ICE officials also offered to track and apprehend any Signal workers who ran away in order to “send a message.”

Particularly troubling is the allegation that the ICE agent named in the deposition was also the ICE official appointed to conduct internal investigations when the initial accusations came to light. This means that the same official that colluded with Signal to illegally deport workers was the official in charge of interviewing guest workers and investigating claims about how Signal was treating its workers. ICE officials allegedly tried to stop the investigation both within ICE and other investigating bodies, as well as delay the trafficking visa applications of the workers.

At this point, it is unclear how far-reaching the collusion was within ICE. This morning, Saket Soni, Executive Director of the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, stated his belief that this was only the tip of the iceberg. He pointed to the breadth of the violations—advising the company on how to deport, the collusion on names and apprehensions, and the undermining of other agencies—as potential evidence that the collusion between ICE and Signal may have necessarily involved a number of ICE officials.

If this is the case, a swift and thorough independent investigation is necessary. While the initial transgressions occurred under a different administration, the conveners of the press conference said it is the responsibility of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton to ensure that none of the ICE workers perpetrating this collusion remain employed, and to ensure the safety and well-being of the hundreds of Indian workers who were taken advantage of.

Photo by: CompassRoseK8

By Robert Creamer, political organizer, strategist and author. Originally published at the Huffington Post.

In his State of the Union speech, President Obama committed his Administration to pass comprehensive immigration reform. There are those who claim that this year immigration reform is a diversion from the priority task of fixing the economy — and also politically impossible to achieve.

In fact, comprehensive immigration reform is critical for America’s long term economic success and is one of the few political initiatives that could receive genuine bipartisan support in the current Congress.

The immigration system is broken — and it costs the American economy billions in lost productivity, wasted resources, underdeveloped human capital, depressed wages, and uncollected tax revenue.

The immigration reform issue is also very acutely and personally important to the many recent immigrants to America, their families, friends and communities. The way it is addressed in Congress will have profound long-term political consequences.

The Current Immigration System is an Economic Albatross

The roughly twelve million undocumented immigrants in the United States create a permanent underclass of workers who exist in the shadows of our society. Their lack of legal status makes them easy prey for economic exploitation by unscrupulous employers that drag down wages and working conditions for everyone.

Read the full post at Huffington Post>>

Immigration Overhaul Still a Priority of Senate Democratic Leaders” – CQ

This week, President Obama called on Congress to transcend the petty politics of division in order to bring about the bold solutions that America’s working families desperately need. It is that same readiness to dig deep and seek transformational, not just transactional change, that made millions of us flock to the polls in 2008. And today it’s that very same si se puede attitude that America needs to get comprehensive immigration reform done and get it done right in 2010.

As we get to work in the critical months ahead, there is no question that creating quality jobs, restoring economic fairness and ensuring every American has access to affordable healthcare must be our top priorities. But as it becomes increasingly clear, none of these goals can be achieved over the long-term unless we get serious about fixing an outdated, unenforceable, and increasingly costly broken immigration system.

Simply put: we can’t build a strong economy on top of a broken immigration system. We cannot restore fairness to U.S. workers or build stability in the labor market until we eliminate today’s underground economy of undocumented workers. We cannot restore America’s greatness until we build an immigration system equipped to deal with the economy of our future.

Because of Washington’s failure to act over decades, the same U.S. economy that has been built on an unsustainable bubble of reckless risk and short-term profit schemes has also been built on the cheap labor of unauthorized workers. The result? These workers–many of whom have lived and worked in the U.S. for decades–are easily exploited, which drives down wages and standards for all of us.

Until we fix this deep-rooted problem, the same bad actors who brought us to the brink of economic collapse will continue to game the system for their own economic gain. Taxpayers who pay their full and fair share will be undercut by workers and employers who do not. Employers who pay decent wages, offer good benefits, and follow all the rules will be weakened by unprincipled employers.

Like fiscal reform, healthcare reform and our expansion into a clean energy economy–shortcuts and band-aid approaches to immigration reform bear no real fruit. Estimated to cost well over $200 billion, the act of deporting 12 million people is a logistical impossibility that the vast majority of Americans do not support. Likewise, border and workplace enforcement without broader reform is a waste of taxpayer money that has failed time and time again.

Instead, every day that Washington fails to deliver a real solution, we will continue to see a rise in hate crimes, heightened fears and growing divisions in our communities. This is not the path to restore America’s greatness.

On the other hand, we do have another choice. Comprehensive immigration reform–getting undocumented immigrants into the system and under the rule of law; passing smart enforcement on the border and in our workplaces; and creating a visa system that protects labor rights and meets the economic needs of our future–would do more than end today’s suffering. It would also fuel economic growth at a time when we most need it. According to a recent Immigration Policy Center and Center for American Progress report, comprehensive immigration reform would add $1.5 trillion to the U.S. GDP over 10 years. It would drive up wages and standards for all workers, and support nearly a million jobs.

Of course, as Obama said last night, sweeping change is never easy.

But it is necessary.

The American public is clear about their priorities. Recent polling data shows once again that two-thirds of voters support comprehensive immigration reform–including 67 percent of Independents and 62 percent of Republicans. This undeniable eagerness for reform is re-enforced by the hundreds of thousands of Americans–immigrant and non-immigrant alike–who have joined rallies, signed petitions, and reached out to lawmakers in mobilizations across the country in recent weeks.

We all saw a glimpse of these activists’ strength last fall when an enormous, coordinated effort helped to oust anti-immigrant and former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs off the airwaves. There is more underneath the tip of that iceberg. In the comings months, diverse labor unions, faith groups, immigrant rights activists, and business leaders will join our President and concerned American workers across the country to push for comprehensive reform.

We will not be deterred by the same cynics who have made Washington synonymous with inaction, partisan pettiness and self-interest. This is our time to, in Obama’s words, “overcome the numbing weight of our politics.”

For the good of our economy, of America’s workers, and of our country, it’s time to overcome. It’s time to get immigration reform done right; to get it done quickly; and to make sure it works for America.

]]> http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/blog/now-is-the-time-to-step-on-the-gas-on-immigration-reform/feed/ 1 http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/blog/ask-president-obama-a-question-about-state-of-the-union/ http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/blog/ask-president-obama-a-question-about-state-of-the-union/#comments Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:50:20 +0000 Rachel LaBruyere http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/?p=3002

The CitizenTube channel on YouTube is asking for people to submit their questions to President Obama, regarding his State of the Union address.

This is the perfect opportunity to submit your question about the brief mention of immigration reform and what the next steps in the fight will be.

From the CitizenTube site:

The President will respond to a collection of your questions in a live YouTube interview at the White House, MONDAY, FEB. 1st. Submit now, and vote often.

If you can, shoot a video of yourself asking the question and attach it to your submission (please keep it under 20 seconds). After your votes are in, we’ll collect a shortlist of the top questions, ensuring we cover a range of issues, minimize duplicate questions, and include both video and text submissions.

This is your opportunity for an exclusive interview with the President, so be sure to submit great questions and vote for the ones you think should be asked.

Submit your questions OR vote for the best questions that  have already been submitted!

Originally posted at Standing FIRM.

Last night, along with many of you, I tuned into President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address. While I was genuinely interested to hear the President speak on the full scope of the issues facing our country right now – and there are many – I was, of course, especially interested to hear what he would say about immigration reform. More pointedly, I wanted to know if he would say anything at all.

Towards the end of the speech, word 6,300 of 7,000 total to be exact, President Obama did mention immigration.

“We should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system to secure our borders, enforce our laws and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.”

While I was glad that the issue was mentioned and that the President noted the current system is broken, I think I speak for many passionate immigrant rights and immigration reform advocates when I say I was more than a little disappointed.

After words of commitment at key times, after the Latino and New American vote helped put him into office, after months of lip service to the idea of just and humane reform, after years(s) of hard work and organizing, after flexing our political muscles on the Hill, in the streets and across the country, we deserve more.

As Maegan at VivirLatino pointed out, last night was a missed opportunity to demonstrate to the American public why immigration reform is inextricably linked to the other major issues facing our country.

He failed, as so many do, in pointing out where health care reform and immigration reform intersect.

And where the economy and immigration reform intersect and where immigration reform and jobs intersect. At one point, the President said:

“In this new decade, it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency.”

And it’s time that government produce an immigration system that matches the country’s decency too. Too many people are suffering right now at the hands of this broken system, for it to just be a passing thought in laying out the domestic agenda.

So, where do we go from here? For those of us who remain committed to seeing this through in 2010, for those of us who refuse to believe that last night was the “death knell” for reform?

First, we organize. We keep knocking on doors, holding town halls, protesting in the streets and marching on Washington. We win hearts and minds and political power the old-fashioned way: through action.

Second, we keep the pressure on Congress. Today alone, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly stated the Senate’s commitment to immigration reform, Senator Chuck Schumer noted that progress is being made on the legislation he is currently drafting and Rep. Luis Gutierrez took it to the blogosphere to remind Congress that the responsibility rests squarely on their shoulders:

Though he clearly supports the notion that our laws must reflect the contributions immigrants have made to literally build this country, it is clear to me that Congress cannot wait for the President to lay out our time-line for comprehensive reform.

Third, we raise the stakes. We start demanding reform, rather than asking. It is clear that Congress is still more swayed by their fear of the political complexity of this issue than they are of the power of the immigration reform movement and the political power of the Latino and immigrant electorate. Its time to change that.

Its time to show Congress that we WILL hold them accountable and its time to force President Obama to take the leadership he promised on this issue.

With this said, it’s worth noting that using one speech as the barometer for the likelihood of a huge issue’s success or lack thereof is probably not the best approach to take. While I will admit that I was disappointed and a bit disheartened last night, it has only stoked the fire of my commitment to see this issue through in a real and tangible way.

But determining the future of immigration reform on a “word count” in the State of the Union address is bad strategy. Instead, immigration advocates should keep Presidential promises in perspective, redouble their efforts and continue to hold Congress’s feet to the fire.

Who’s with me?

Today’s Evangelical Day of Prayer is not just another exercise in hand-holding, kumbaya-ing or a call for disobedience of civil authority—it is the latest commitment in a larger interfaith community push for immigration reform. While restrictionist groups continue to condemn immigrants, co-opt scripture verses and write off religious leaders as “out of touch with their congregations,” faith groups will continue to stand together in faith and good works for more just and human immigration laws—laws that welcome the foreigner as human beings rather than objects in a rhetorical and political battle of partisanship.

Read the whole post here.

Tonight President Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address to the nation. We’ll hear from Obama about the most pressing issues facing our country but we are especially eager to hear what the President has to say about immigration reform.

What would you say to the President about the immigration debate? What stories would you share with him?

Leave them in the comments!