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The items listed below may provide crucial information, new or
provocative perspectives, or simply interesting reading. Their being
listed here is not intended, necessarily, as an endorsement of the views
and positions they present.
¶ Defining "American":
Birthright Citizenship and the Original Understanding of the 14th Amendment, by James C. Ho (The Green Bag: An Entertaining Journal of Law,
Vol. 9, No. 4, Summer 2006). James Ho, former chief counsel of the U.S.
Senate Judiciary Subcommittees on the Constitution and Immigration and
former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, presents
a succinct and highly lucid case for why the only legitimate way to
restrict birthright citizenship — the provision of U.S. law that confers
U.S. citizenship on persons born within the country's borders — would be
to amend the Constitution. Presently,
Ho is an attorney with the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher.
¶
Immigrants and the Cost of Medical Care, the report of a
study by the RAND Corporation (Health Affairs, Vol. 25, No. 6,
2006, pp. 1700–11). From the
RAND Corporation press
release announcing the publication of the report: "Just a small
fraction of America's health care spending is used to provide publicly
supported care to the nation's undocumented immigrants . . . . Overall,
immigrants . . . use relatively few health services, primarily because
they are generally healthier than their American-born counterparts . . .
."
¶
Immigration and
America's Future: A New Chapter: Report of the Independent Task Force on
Immigration and America's Future (Migration Policy
Institute, Sept. 2006). The task force, co-chaired by former U.S. Sen.
Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), sought to
gain an understanding of "the key challenges and opportunities that
immigration represents for the [U.S.]," and this report presents the
task force's "proposals for sensible but fundamental solutions,"
according to the Foreword by Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the
Migration Policy Institute. "The . . . proposals call for a flexible
system that meets U.S. economic interests now and in the future,
promotes longstanding social goals and priorities, respects core U.S.
values, and dramatically improves the government's ability to advance
the rule of law, a standard no longer being met by the status quo,"
Papademetriou says.
¶
Immigration and Child and Family
Policy (Urban Institute, Sept. 2006). According to the
report, "A large and growing share of low-income children [in the U.S.]
lives in immigrant families. . . . This report assesses how the changing
demographics of the low-income child population are affecting child and
family policies in the United States."
¶
Immigration Now, Immigration
Tomorrow, Immigration Forever: Reason's Guide to Reality-Based
Reform (Reason magazine, Aug./Sept. 2006 print
edition). This "guide" consists of a compilation of opinion essays,
several of which had been published previously either in Reason
or elsewhere. Reason's ideological orientation is libertarian:
its motto is "Free minds and free markets." The
essays included in this compilation are the following: "Bush’s
Border Bravado: Non-Militarized Non-Solutions to a Non-Problem," by
Nick Gillespie, Reason editor-in-chief; "Worse Than a Wall:
The Immigration Solution Everyone Likes May End Up Hurting the Most,"
by Kerry Howley, Reason assistant editor; "A Legacy of the
Unforeseen: The Unexpected Consequences of Immigration Reform," by
Carolyn Lochhead, Washington correspondent for the San Francisco
Chronicle; "Open the Borders: Why Should Citizens of NAFTA
Countries Need Visas at All?," by Tim Cavanaugh, Reason web
editor; "Exploitation or Expulsion: Illegal Immigrants in a Double
Bind," by Jesse Walker, Reason managing editor; "Don’t
Bad-Mouth Unskilled Immigrants: You Don’t Have to Be a Computer Whiz to
Be Good for the U.S.A.," by Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at
George Mason University, and Daniel M. Rothschild, associate director of
the Global Prosperity Initiative at George Mason U.'s Mercatus Center; "Who’s
Milking Who?: Illegal Aliens Pay More in Taxes Than They Impose in Costs,"
by Shikha Dalmia, Reason Foundation senior analyst; "Where’s the
Mayhem?: Don’t Believe the Neo–Know Nothing Hype," by Tony Snow,
press secretary to President George W. Bush (this essay was originally
published a month before Snow became press secretary to the president);
"Breathe Free, Huddled Masses: A Personal Take on Illegal Immigration,"
by Cathy Young, Boston Globe columnist; "Immigration and the
Welfare State: The Real Root of the Problem," by Brian Doherty,
Reason senior editor.
¶ Immigration's New
Frontiers: Experiences from the Emerging Gateway States (The
Century Foundation, 2006). According to the
news release
announcing the availability of this 240-page book, it "looks at how, in
the absence of federal immigration policy, . . . 'new destination'
states [specifically North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia, Minnesota, and
Nebraska] have tried to fend for themselves in addressing a range of
challenges posed by both documented and undocumented immigrants, many of
whom have limited English and low incomes. The state studies show how
communities have dealt with the challenges created by the new immigrants
in policy and service areas such as law enforcement, health care,
housing, education, and workers' rights." According to the book's
Introduction, at first each of the states "approached [its] influx
of new immigrants from the standpoint of accommodation." However, "all
of the states became more ambivalent toward their immigrants over time,"
and negative reactions to new immigration often were encouraged "by
outside forces deeply involved in the debate at the national level —
particularly interest groups and activists opposed to reforms that
would provide a path for undocumented workers to become legal
residents." And finally, "none of the states has managed to find
effective solutions to any of the major public policy challenges posed
by undocumented immigration." The book's case studies demonstrate
repeatedly "that states and localities are ill-equipped to resolve
problems posed by undocumented immigration."
¶
The Impact of
the Material Support Bar (Refugee Council USA, Sept.
2006). From the report's Executive Summary: "Today . . . thousands of
refugees in need of protection are being denied access to asylum and
resettlement in the United States due to the overly broad application of
the material support ground of inadmissibility. This statutory bar,
greatly expanded by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and the REAL ID Act of
2005, has been interpreted to deny refugee protection to bona fide
refugees and asylum seekers who have been coerced under extreme duress —
including at gunpoint — to provide material support of as little as
$1.00 to groups of two or more people deemed to have engaged in
'terrorist activity' which is broadly defined. Under this expanded
definition, even former U.S. allies and members of pro-democracy
movements fighting repressive military regimes are also being denied
admission to the United States" (citations omitted). The report
recommends urgent action to remedy the devastating effects of the
material support bar.
¶
New
Immigrant Settlements in Rural America: Problems, Prospects, and
Policies, by Leif Jensen (Carsey Institute, University of
New Hampshire, 2006). This report analyzes evidence that a significant
portion of new immigrants are bypassing large urban centers and settling
in smaller towns and cities; that they are drawn to these more rural
areas by opportunities to work in meat packing and other food processing
businesses, agriculture, some manufacturing (e.g., carpet-making),
tourism, and other service sector jobs; that they are more likely
than their more urban counterparts to be Latino (and particularly
Mexican), married, employed, low-income, and to own their own homes, but
that they are less educated, more likely to be underemployed, and less
likely to receive food stamps when they are poor; and that when
immigrants are drawn to a particular small town or rural area and begin
to concentrate there, they have a significantly greater impact on the
area than a similar influx of immigrants would have on a large urban
center.
¶
On the
Corner: Day Labor in the United States (Center for the Study of
Urban Poverty, UCLA, Jan. 2006). This first-ever national study of day
laborers details how they are subjected to abuse and often suffer
injuries that make them unable to work for months at a time.
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