ViewsWeek Views from around the world
On Thursday evening (March 13), President Barack Obama (D) told three top members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he would ask the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to review options to achieve a “more humane” deportation policy. After the President met with House Democrats Reps. Xaxier Becerra (CA), Luis Gutierrez (IL), and Ruben Hinojosa (TX), the …
March, 2014
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8 March
NY Dream Act to Open Tuition Programs for the Undocumented
In December 2010, the Dream Act, which passed the House a few months earlier, failed in the U.S. Senate. Attempts to reintroduce the legislation emerged in 2013, but those too fell short. As national efforts to address immigration reform flounder amidst partisan infighting, the states have taken it into their own hands to confront this increasingly pressing issue. Most recently, New York has taken up …
February, 2014
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28 February
Will Immigration Reform Impact the Medicare Trust Fund?
Last year, the Senate passed the historic and bipartisan Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, or S. 744. Since then, the House of Representatives has talked a lot about immigration reform but has failed to move the legislative process forward. That inaction carries a hefty cost by delaying the significant economic and social benefits of enacting immigration reform. …
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17 February
Swiss Voters Give Europe a Big Shock
Democracy can be so inconvenient. Take Switzerland, the closest thing the world has to a perfect democracy. Switzerland’s eight million citizens vote by referendum on all major issues. The Swiss cantons have made key decisions this way for over 800 years. Swiss voters on Feb 9 decided by a razor-thin 50.3% to begin limiting immigration from the European …
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2 February
Why Citizenship is Better for America Than Legal Status
Less than 24 hours after House Republicans released a “principles” document that outlines a piecemeal approach to immigration reform, undocumented immigrants have been cautiously optimistic about the prospects of living in America legally and without the threat of deportation. The document specifically provides an opportunity to apply for legal residence and citizenship for undocumented youths brought to the country as children. It also …
January, 2014
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21 January
Perils of Climate-induced Migration
For Pacific islands like Palau, Tuvalu and Kiribati, the implications of climate change are clear – and devastating. Already, these governments have begun to plan for a future in which entire populations have to relocate as their islands vanish under the rising sea. But climate change also threatens ways of life in subtler ways, leaving families around the world to work …
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18 January
EU’s Election Debate on Immigration
Two themes seem likely to play a central role in the real debate in the 2014 European elections; jobs and immigration, and, of course, they’re linked. The immigration debate has shifted in recent months from economic migrants entering the EU illegally, and the absence of any common immigration policy; to concerns focused on free movement of labor, crystallized this month by …
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14 January
What Drives Anti-immigration Attitudes?
Results released last week from an international survey by UK-based research company, Ipsos MORI, found widely divergent levels of concern about immigration in the 19 countries surveyed. In the UK, 43 percent of people identified immigration control as one of their country’s top three issues of concern, compared to 32 percent in Australia (the next highest), 15 percent in Sweden and …
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10 January
5 Immigration Laws Passed in an Election Year
Over the past few months, we have seen a slew of news stories predicting what will happen with immigration reform in 2014, after the Senate passed a strong bipartisan reform bill last year, but the House failed to act. While these analyses differ in their predictions, most agree that the path from bill to law becomes more difficult in an election year. Yet if history is any …
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4 January
Recent Immigrant-Friendly Laws
“While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s moving ahead. I’m not waiting,” Governor Jerry Brown (D) said last year when he passed a series of state-level immigration laws to integrate his state’s undocumented population into American life. He wasn’t the only legislator who got tired of filling a gap left by Congress. Other legislators took similar incremental steps to reform state and local laws …
