Use the link below to read the whole report. but please don't fail to read the last line on this page.
This is the guy who should know what's what on this issue.
[[[I have said from the git- go that the immigration laws need to be changed and that the government is useing the immigration thing as a red herring.
It's to keep a part of the population thinking about something besides the wars and our kids dieing for oil and to line the coffers of those few policy makers who are ripping off everyone.
From government contracts that are offered without bids and never performed on, government stuff like vests that are less than protective and armor that doesn't exist, to scads of money moved from one company to another all over the globe so fast it's hardly able to be followed. But that's a whole nother thing, isn't it?]]]
http://www.ailf.org/ipc/spotlight/071206_writtentestimony.shtml
Written Testimony of Benjamin JohnsonDirector, Immigration Policy CenterAmerican Immigration Law FoundationBefore the Committee on the JudiciaryUnited States. Senate July 12, 2006
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and to provide testimony on behalf of the Immigration Policy Center (IPC). The IPC is an independent, non-partisan research center dedicated exclusively to research and analysis of immigration and immigration policy in the United States. The IPC is a division of the American Immigration Law Foundation, a non-profit educational foundation which for 20 years has been dedicated to increasing public understanding of immigration law and policy and the role of immigration in American society.
The root of the current crisis of undocumented immigration is a fundamental disconnect between today’s economic and labor market realities and an outdated system of legal immigration. Undocumented immigration is driven in large part by a U.S. labor market that is creating a higher demand for less-skilled workers than is being met by the native-born labor force or by the current legal limits on immigration. Migration from Mexico in particular has increased over the past two decades as the U.S. and Mexican governments have actively promoted the economic integration of the two countries. As the past decade and a half of failed federal border-enforcement efforts make clear, immigration policies that ignore these larger economic forces merely drive migration underground rather than effectively regulate it. In short, there is an unsustainable contradiction between U.S. economic policy and U.S. immigration policy, and economics is winning. The problem is not undocumented immigrants, but a broken immigration system that sends the dual messages “Keep Out” and “Help Wanted” to the Mexican, Central American, and other foreign workers on whom the U.S. economy depends.
The Failure of Enforcement Only Strategies
The federal government has tried for over a decade to stop undocumented immigration through an ever expanding use of enforcement strategies. The experiment has been a failure. From FY 1993 to FY 2005, the Border Patrol budget quadrupled from $362 million to $1.4 billion and the number of agents nearly tripled from 3,965 to 11,300. Most of these resources were devoted to fortifying traditional border-crossing locales in the southwest. Despite these efforts, the pace of undocumented immigration to the United States has increased. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that the number of immigrants entering the country in an undocumented status, or falling into undocumented status by overstaying a visa, rose from about 400,000 per year between 1990 and 1994, to 575,000 per year between 1995 and 1999, to 850,000 per year between 2000 and 20051. As the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded years ago, heightened border-enforcement efforts primarily have shifted undocumented immigration from one place to another2 and have motivated more prospective migrants to hire human smugglers to guide them into the country.3
It makes little sense to continue pouring federal money and personnel into an enforcement-only strategy that does not work. It makes even less sense to force local and state police departments to go along for the ride. Turning police into immigration agents would destroy the community trust that many police departments have spent years building. The breakdown in this important relationship means many people – and not just illegal immigrants – will be less likely to report crimes or to cooperate in criminal investigations if they fear that doing so could lead to deportation of them, a family member, friend, or neighbor. This loss of public trust would not only undermine crime-prevention, but would erode national security as members of immigrant communities become even more afraid than they already are to offer tips to government authorities on potential security threats. There also is the problem of paying for local enforcement of federal immigration law. As Philadelphia Police Commissioner Johnson testified in this Committee’s July 5th field hearing, local police already are doing more with less money. If they also must enforce federal immigration laws but are not given federal funds to do so, “enforcement of local and state laws, as well as our Homeland Security duties, would be compromised.”
In arguing for the continuation of enforcement-only strategies some have attempted to use frightening images of immigrants as terrorists or criminals. This rhetoric, however, bears no relationship to the reality of the immigrant experience in America. To quote a 1997 paper jointly sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Urban Institute, "Few stereotypes of immigrants are as enduring, or have been proven so categorically false over literally decades of research, as the notion that immigrants are disproportionately likely to engage in criminal activity."
This is the guy who should know what's what on this issue.
[[[I have said from the git- go that the immigration laws need to be changed and that the government is useing the immigration thing as a red herring.
It's to keep a part of the population thinking about something besides the wars and our kids dieing for oil and to line the coffers of those few policy makers who are ripping off everyone.
From government contracts that are offered without bids and never performed on, government stuff like vests that are less than protective and armor that doesn't exist, to scads of money moved from one company to another all over the globe so fast it's hardly able to be followed. But that's a whole nother thing, isn't it?]]]
http://www.ailf.org/ipc/spotlight/071206_writtentestimony.shtml
Written Testimony of Benjamin JohnsonDirector, Immigration Policy CenterAmerican Immigration Law FoundationBefore the Committee on the JudiciaryUnited States. Senate July 12, 2006
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and to provide testimony on behalf of the Immigration Policy Center (IPC). The IPC is an independent, non-partisan research center dedicated exclusively to research and analysis of immigration and immigration policy in the United States. The IPC is a division of the American Immigration Law Foundation, a non-profit educational foundation which for 20 years has been dedicated to increasing public understanding of immigration law and policy and the role of immigration in American society.
The root of the current crisis of undocumented immigration is a fundamental disconnect between today’s economic and labor market realities and an outdated system of legal immigration. Undocumented immigration is driven in large part by a U.S. labor market that is creating a higher demand for less-skilled workers than is being met by the native-born labor force or by the current legal limits on immigration. Migration from Mexico in particular has increased over the past two decades as the U.S. and Mexican governments have actively promoted the economic integration of the two countries. As the past decade and a half of failed federal border-enforcement efforts make clear, immigration policies that ignore these larger economic forces merely drive migration underground rather than effectively regulate it. In short, there is an unsustainable contradiction between U.S. economic policy and U.S. immigration policy, and economics is winning. The problem is not undocumented immigrants, but a broken immigration system that sends the dual messages “Keep Out” and “Help Wanted” to the Mexican, Central American, and other foreign workers on whom the U.S. economy depends.
The Failure of Enforcement Only Strategies
The federal government has tried for over a decade to stop undocumented immigration through an ever expanding use of enforcement strategies. The experiment has been a failure. From FY 1993 to FY 2005, the Border Patrol budget quadrupled from $362 million to $1.4 billion and the number of agents nearly tripled from 3,965 to 11,300. Most of these resources were devoted to fortifying traditional border-crossing locales in the southwest. Despite these efforts, the pace of undocumented immigration to the United States has increased. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that the number of immigrants entering the country in an undocumented status, or falling into undocumented status by overstaying a visa, rose from about 400,000 per year between 1990 and 1994, to 575,000 per year between 1995 and 1999, to 850,000 per year between 2000 and 20051. As the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded years ago, heightened border-enforcement efforts primarily have shifted undocumented immigration from one place to another2 and have motivated more prospective migrants to hire human smugglers to guide them into the country.3
It makes little sense to continue pouring federal money and personnel into an enforcement-only strategy that does not work. It makes even less sense to force local and state police departments to go along for the ride. Turning police into immigration agents would destroy the community trust that many police departments have spent years building. The breakdown in this important relationship means many people – and not just illegal immigrants – will be less likely to report crimes or to cooperate in criminal investigations if they fear that doing so could lead to deportation of them, a family member, friend, or neighbor. This loss of public trust would not only undermine crime-prevention, but would erode national security as members of immigrant communities become even more afraid than they already are to offer tips to government authorities on potential security threats. There also is the problem of paying for local enforcement of federal immigration law. As Philadelphia Police Commissioner Johnson testified in this Committee’s July 5th field hearing, local police already are doing more with less money. If they also must enforce federal immigration laws but are not given federal funds to do so, “enforcement of local and state laws, as well as our Homeland Security duties, would be compromised.”
In arguing for the continuation of enforcement-only strategies some have attempted to use frightening images of immigrants as terrorists or criminals. This rhetoric, however, bears no relationship to the reality of the immigrant experience in America. To quote a 1997 paper jointly sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Urban Institute, "Few stereotypes of immigrants are as enduring, or have been proven so categorically false over literally decades of research, as the notion that immigrants are disproportionately likely to engage in criminal activity."
posted by Gem_with_faraway_eyes | 11:52 AM
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