Late last week, at least 80 illegal immigrants were abducted from a train by armed gunmen in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. According to accounts, the train operators “didn’t stop where they usually do.… Instead, they continued on to a remote area where the trains that come from Coatzacoalcos pass by.” There the gunmen were waiting and “went straight—like they already knew—to (the cars in which the) women and children were riding.” Sadly, this violence is nothing new. According to Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, more than 400 kidnappings …
Critics of state and local government action on immigration fail to keep in mind one simple but critical point: The states have these rights. It is preposterous to take the position that, short of federal action or the commission of a crime, governors and mayors are constitutionally powerless to deal with illegal immigrants within their states and cities. The argument that state and local governments must incur enormous fiscal and societal costs, asserting that all aspects of immigration (legal or illegal) are entirely the purview of the federal government, is …
It appears that Georgia Governor Nathan Deal will sign legislation passed by the Georgia House and Senate that adopts the Arizona SB 1070 framework for controlling illegal immigration. With the influx of 425,000 illegal immigrants into Georgia over the last two decades, this two-pronged legislation will help curb that flow. The two elements of the Georgia legislation involve permitting law enforcement to check the legal status of individuals they stop and requiring the use of the E-Verify system for businesses with more than 10 employees. Unlike Arizona’s SB 1070 “reasonable …
It should come as no surprise to anyone that a panel of judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order today refusing to lift the stay issued by a federal district court against Arizona’s immigration law. After all, the Ninth Circuit is the most often overturned appeals court in the nation, full of judges who routinely issue results-driven opinions that flout the law and precedents issued by the Supreme Court. We all knew the litigation over Arizona’s law, which requires police officers to check on the immigration status …
There is no shortage of criticism of our immigration laws from detractors who contend that they are unjust and immoral. And though criticism of U.S. immigration laws can be fierce – particularly in the case of Arizona’s SB 1070, the Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Acts – Mexico’s much harsher immigration laws rarely get noticed. Upon Arizona’s passage of SB 1070, critics attacked the law with claims of racial profiling. Among the opponents were the open border lobby, including the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF), other liberal interest groups, President …
As I wrote in April 2009 and in July 2010, “The Obama Administration’s worksite audit policy is resulting in illegal immigrants simply moving to different jobs elsewhere in America.” In today’s Wall Street Journal, that outcome is confirmed in spades. The story details what happened to the roughly 1,200 illegal immigrants terminated in Minnesota after a worksite audit occurred at two companies, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Harvard Maintenance. A representative of the union that covered most of the workers noted that “most workers stayed in the area and began hustling …
Senator Orrin Hatch came to The Heritage Foundation on Friday to present his forthcoming immigration bill—“The Strengthening our Commitment to Legal Immigration and America’s Security Act.” His remarks, and the content of his bill, are a step in the right direction on immigration and border security—given that President Obama used his State of the Union address to make another case for amnesty. The bill was written in collaboration with members of Congress from states along the southwestern border. As Hatch said, it’s important to work with those who, “of all …
Quiz: How many times has the left argued that “amnesty will make the economy better”? Answer: Zero. Zilch. Nada. The left, however, is always telling the American public how enacting comprehensive immigration reform can help the economy. Newsflash: “Comprehensive immigration reform” is Washington’s new (and not so new) code phrase for amnesty. Why all the word games? Because Americans by and large don’t support amnesty. That’s why Americans supported the attempt by Arizona to actually enforce the law.
Recently, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that it was creating a new center to substantially increase the number of I-9 form audits it conducts of businesses. Though the increase in paper audits come at the expense of worksite raids, the audits are having an impact on the hiring of illegal immigrants. According to ICE, in the last fiscal year, it conducted audits of more than 2,700 companies. When illegal immigrants are discovered during the audits, the companies terminate them. Just …
If you want prime examples of what is wrong with our federal courts and our immigration policies, two recent cases show how much harm liberal activists who masquerade as “impartial” judges can do—and how illegal immigrants not only game our enforcement system but actually make money off of it. The first case involves an illegal immigrant, Cecil Harvey, who was deported back to Barbados in 2007, although that did not stop him from filing a lawsuit courtesy of the Cardozo School of Law. Harvey has just been paid $145,000 by …
