Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano spent the past two days testifying in front of congressional committees addressing concerns over President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2011 DHS budget. Mixed in among the complaints over proposed cuts in cyber security and the Coast Guard were a number of budget decisions with immigration implications. Chief among those decisions were a cut in border patrol agents, the status of the troubled SBInet program, and worksite enforcement efforts—including the oft-maligned E-Verify program.
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Another independent evaluation of the E-Verify program once again confirms what advocates have been saying for years—E-Verify doesn’t work. A new evaluation of the federal employment authorization program—conducted by Westat, a research company, in December 2009—is now available on the E-Verify website. The system only detected unauthorized workers about half of the time. The evaluation found the program couldn’t confirm whether the documents workers were presenting were their own. As a result, “many unauthorized workers obtain employment by committing identity fraud that cannot be detected by E-Verify,” according to Westat. The “inaccuracy rate for unauthorized workers” is about 54%.
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The collateral damage left in the wake of internal immigration enforcement is far too often overlooked in the immigration debate—especially considering that children bear the brunt of such enforcement policies. There are roughly 5.5 million children currently living in the U.S. with at least one unauthorized parent, and at least three-quarters of these children are U.S. born citizens. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimates that over the last 10 years, more than 100,000 immigrant parents of U.S. citizen children have been deported from the United States. As DHS continues to increases its enforcement-heavy budget, it’s important to consider the serous risks raids and other ICE actions that separate parents and children pose to children’s immediate safety, economic security, well-being, and long-term development.
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In a new report, The Criminal Alien Program: Immigration Enforcement in Travis County, Texas, the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and author Andrea Guttin examine the Criminal Alien Program (CAP)—which may be one of the oldest, biggest, and least understood federal immigration enforcement program. While it is ubiquitous in U.S. prisons and jails, very few are aware that it exists or of how it works.
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The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. dropped by roughly 1 million last year, according to a new report released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) yesterday. As of January 2009, the number of unauthorized immigrants currently residing in the U.S. totaled 10.8 million, down from 11.6 million in January 2008, marking the second consecutive year of decline. As numerous reports have noted, not since 2005 has the number of unauthorized immigrants been so low.
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Today, we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man whose dream of equality and human rights changed the course of history. His legacy will be remembered this week by people of all colors and creeds who still believe in the American dream and who continue to fight for equality, civil rights and the basic human dignity they deserve. Over the weekend, thousands of human rights activists took to the street in Phoenix, Arizona, to march for civil rights and for “long-overdue federal action on immigration.”
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By TYLER MORAN*

The E-Verify website claims that the process for verifying whether workers are authorized for employment in the United States is simple. The practices of the Social Security Administration (SSA), the agency that jointly administers E-Verify with the Department of Homeland Security, tell a different story. According to a report released this month by the SSA Inspector General, though required by law, the agency failed to use E-Verify on nearly 20 percent of their new hires. The report documenting SSA’s myriad mishaps is proof of what workers’ rights advocates have long believed: E-Verify is still not ready for widespread use.
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Despite claims of increased transparency, accountability, and oversight, Nina Bernstein of the New York Times has unearthed more cover-ups at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These new findings have attorneys, advocates, and the public wondering if and when ICE will make good on its promise to reform the immigration detention system in demonstrable ways. Two issues that have recently come to light cast doubt on these promises.
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There are plenty of genuine issues worthy of debate in immigration reform—how to really create secure borders and communities, how to predict and manage future immigration flows, how to implement a fair and workable employment verification system, and how to ensure that legal immigration incorporates key values represented by family and work. But what is no longer on the table is whether we should be doing immigration reform, particularly legalization of the undocumented. Yesterday’s release of the IPC/CAP report finally puts to rest the question of whether immigration reform is good for the country. The answer—a resounding “Yes!”
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Everyone pulled out the sports analogies last week when Congressman Luis Gutierrez and his 91 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 4321, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009—and rightly so, as this bill marks the opening bell in the 2010 immigration debate. It is not only the first major piece of comprehensive reform legislation introduced in the 111th Congress, but the first since the last debate on immigration reform, which took place in May and June of 2007 in the Senate.
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