Recently in Immigration Category

Source: National Employment Law Project, July 2010

At a time when 46 states are suffering from budget shortfalls totaling $121 billion, this fact sheet details the costs to states of implementing and litigating anti-immigrant laws. According to a 2008 study by the Perryman Group from Texas, the negative effect of eliminating the undocumented workforce from the US would be a loss of more than $651 billion in annual economic output and $1.8 trillion in annual spending. Arizona stands to lose $90 million due to boycotts, as well as spend millions of dollars litigating the constitutionality of its harsh SB 1070, which has been partially enjoined.
Related:
From Anti-Immigrant to Pro-Worker: What States Can Do About Immigration & Workers' Rights

Source: Heidi Shierholz, Economic Policy Institute, EPI Briefing Paper #256, February 24, 2010

From the summary:
This paper finds that immigrant workers who are U.S. citizens enjoy higher wages and lower levels of poverty than non-citizens, and that this benefit remains even after controlling for other factors.
See also:
Press Release

Source: Progressive States Network, Stateside Dispatch, December 14, 2009

The problem of wage law violations and flat-out theft of wages from employees has become one of the most endemic crime waves suffered by Americans. Workers suffer silently as their already meager wages are reduced. Honest employers suffer as they lose out to competition willing to violate the law. And state budgets lose out as employers fail to pay the taxes they would have owed if they followed the law.

Progressive States Network will be working with state leaders around the country to promote policies to improve enforcement of minimum wage, overtime and related wage laws in the states. This Dispatch will highlight the chronic wage violations in the workplace, model wage law enforcement language for states to promote, messaging to support those campaigns, and specific ways such an approach has the added benefit of undercutting anti-immigrant attacks in the states.

Source: Angela Maria Kelley, Gebe Martinez, Center for American Progress, November 30, 2009

It might seem counterintuitive to enact immigration reforms and legalize up to 8 million workers in the United States who are without documents, including many who pay taxes. But the simple truth is that updating our immigration laws will generate tax revenues by requiring all workers and employers to be in the system and level the playing field for business owners who play by the rules.

Comprehensive immigration reform would require current undocumented immigrants and their employers to pay their full and fair share of taxes once they come out of the shadows and register to earn legal status. The reform bill passed by the Senate in 2006, which included a legalization program, would have generated $66 billion in new income and payroll taxes during 2007-2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Fixing the immigration system would also level the playing field for business owners. Reforms would keep law-abiding businesses from constantly being undercut by outlaw employers who exploit workers by making them work in substandard conditions and at lower wages. Workplace rights, which are sought by labor unions that have united behind comprehensive immigration reform, will put upward pressure on wages, which will benefit native workers, as well.

Source: University of Chicago Legal Forum, Volume 2009
(subscription required)

Articles include:

* Noah D. Zatz - The Minimum Wage as a Civil Rights Protection: An Alternative to Antipoverty Arguments?
* David A. Weisbach - Toward a New Approach to Disability Law
* Maria L. Ontiveros - Labor Union Coalition Challenges to Governmental Action: Defending the Civil Rights of Low-Wage Workers
* Michael Selmi - Unions, Education, and the Future of Low-Wage Workers
* Scott L. Cummings, Steven A. Boutcher - Mobilizing Local Government Law for Low-Wage Workers
* Kathleen Kim - The Trafficked Worker as Private Attorney General: A Model for Enforcing the Civil Rights of Undocumented Workers
* Devah Pager, Bruce Western, David Pedulla - Employment Discrimination and the Changing Landscape of Low-Wage Labor Markets
* Leticia M. Saucedo - Three Theories of Discrimination in the Brown Collar Workplace
* Michael A. Stoll - Ex-Offenders, Criminal Background Checks, and the Racial Consequences in the Labor Market
* Ruben J. Garcia- Toward Fundemental Change for the Protection of Low-Wage Workers: The 'Workers' Rights are Human Rights' Debates in the Obama Era
* Benjamin F. Burry - Testing Economic Reality: FLSA and Title VII Protection for Workfare Participants

Source: Anita Khashu, Police Foundation, April 2009

From the abstract:
While local law enforcement agencies collaborate with federal immigration authorities in a wide range of activities, most of this project's discussions focused on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(g) program of deputizing local and state police to perform immigration enforcement activities. Police executives have felt torn between a desire to be helpful and cooperative with federal immigration authorities and a concern that their participation in immigration enforcement efforts will undo the gains they have achieved through community oriented policing practices, which are directed at gaining the trust and cooperation of all members of the communities they serve.

This project revealed local law enforcement concerns about the impact of local police immigration enforcement on the relationship between immigrant communities and police and the probability of reduced cooperation of witnesses and victims of crime, thereby having a negative overall impact on public safety. They were also concerned about increased victimization and exploitation of immigrants, a possible increase in police misconduct, the impact on law enforcement budgets and resources, the high possibility of error given the complexity of immigration law, the possibility of racial profiling and other civil lawsuits, and the effect on immigrant access to other municipal services.

The report includes research on the rights of undocumented immigrants and the legal framework for the enforcement of immigration laws, demographics, immigration and criminality, evaluation of federal efforts to collaborate with local police on immigration enforcement (287(g) program), a national survey of law enforcement executives on immigration issues and local policing, the experience of undocumented youth, and a survey of law enforcement executives attending the foundation conference about their views on local immigration enforcement issues.

Finally, the report outlines local law enforcement views on the costs and benefits of immigration enforcement by local police and includes recommendations and policy positions that developed from project activities.

See also:
- Press Release
- Executive Summary
- Narratives

Source: Lina Newton and Brian E. Adams, Publius, The Journal of Federalism, Volume 39, Number 3, Summer 2009
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
This article considers the recent expansion of state immigration policy, focusing on how states have chosen to enter a field where federal dominance has been the norm. Using state immigration legislation in 2006 and 2007, we find that states exercise their authority in two ways. First, federal immigration laws often delegate tasks to state and local agencies or are structured to grant options for state participation. Second, states frequently create immigration policy by legislating in areas that are not directly about, but are related to immigration, thereby allowing them to develop de facto immigration policies without overstepping their restricted authority in this sphere. Even though states' activity may be spurred by frustration with the failure of Congress to reform immigration laws, cooperation--not conflict--is the norm.

Source: Jeanne Batalova, Migration Information Source, June 2009

More than 1.1 million persons became legal permanent residents (LPRs) in the United States in 2008. Nearly two-thirds of new LPRs are immigrants with family ties in the United States, reports MPI's Jeanne Batalova in this updated look at the latest statistics on legal immigration.

Source: Stephen Lee, Stanford Law Review, Volume 61, Issue 5, 2009

For over twenty years, our immigration laws have required employers to screen their workforces for "unauthorized" immigrants. But rather than punish employers for failing to carry out these duties, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has worked with employers to identify unauthorized workers for removal--even where it is abundantly clear that employers are reporting the very workers they unlawfully hired in the first place, and are doing so to retaliate against workers who assert labor and employment rights. How can a law that was designed to punish employers be used to reward them? This Article attempts to explain this counterintuitive result. Although the DHS-employer relationship appears to be contentious and antagonistic, that relationship can often be highly collaborative and mutually beneficial, where the DHS overlooks employer indiscretions in exchange for help identifying potentially removable immigrants. In this way, employers resemble other immigration screeners, like airport inspectors and state and local law enforcement officers, who assist the DHS by winnowing down to a manageable size the pool of potentially removable immigrants. This Article therefore argues that employers should be regulated as screeners where employers should be punished for using their screening authority beyond the scope of its intended use, which often means employers using reporting and the threat of reporting to avoid liability for labor and employment violations. Thus, while our immigration laws contemplate punishing employers at the front end for who they hire, this Article argues our laws should also punish employers at the back end for who they report. As one set of remedies, this Article proposes subjecting employers to possible audits if they report workers to the DHS, and applying the exclusionary rule against complicit immigration officials.

Source: Economic Policy Institute, May 27, 2009

The work force needs of U.S. employers are always a matter of debate, as are theories about how best to meet those needs. The chronic shortage of nurses, for instance, belies the fact that there are far more people who are trained as nurses than there are working nurses, and explains why seemingly obvious solutions, such as increased training or increased immigration, are not always sufficient to address imbalances.

At a time of rising unemployment and diminishing job security among American workers, the role that immigration plays in the labor market has become the subject of increased attention. On May 20, EPI hosted a daylong event, Labor Shortages and Comprehensive Immigration Reform, co-sponsored by Johns Hopkins University's Institute for Policy Studies and the Migration Policy Institute, which examined the way immigration policy could impact the job market.

Below is the full event agenda with presentations attached.