HALT the Insanity

By Marshall Fitz Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and his colleague in the Senate, Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), have outdone themselves this time. The mocking title of their most recent anti-immigrant bill, the “Hinder the Administration’s Legalization Temptation Act,” or HALT Act, is almost too absurd to take seriously. But the legislation would have dire consequences for our immigration system’s integrity if passed by taking away the immigration agenci...

OUTLAW: My Life As an Undocumented Immigrant

by Jose Antonio Vargas for DefineAmerican.com This article was originally published in the New York Times Magazine. One August morning nearly two decades ago, my mother woke me and put me in a cab. She handed me a jacket. "Baka malamig doon" were among the few words she said. ("It might be cold there.") When I arrived at the Philippines' Ninoy Aquino International Airport with her, my aunt and a family friend, I was introduced to a man I'd never seen. They told me he was my uncle. He h...

Colbert Report: Jose Antonio Vargas

Jose Antonio Vargas explains which is more difficult: coming out of the closet as a gay man or as a border gay. The Colbert ReportGet More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

FOR and 200+ groups call on ICE to abandon S-Comm

By Fellowship of Reconciliation Today, in a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and over 200 other civil rights organization, law enforcement officials, and faith leaders from across the country joined together to denounce the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) newly-established task force on Secure Communities. In the wake of mounting criticism against Secure Communities’ implementation, negative impact on communi...

Opposition Grows to Mandatory E-Verify Legislation

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - As Congress considers legislation that would require all employers to verify their employees' social security numbers, critics of mandatory E-Verify say the legislation is a guaranteed failure when it comes to California's agriculture industry. A new report from the immigration reform organization America's Voice finds that the legislation being sponsored by a number of California's Republican Congressional representatives is riddled with problems. The report highli...

Get Informed on E-Verify!

The Basics of E-Verify, the US Employer Verification System By Marc Rosenblum and Lang Hoyt Migration Policy Institute July 13, 2011 Though comprehensive immigration reform appears quite unlikely in the 112th Congress, immigration enforcement measures, and E-Verify in particular, have become hot topics among lawmakers and other stakeholders on both sides of the aisle. Specifically, attention is focused on the question of whether the use of E-Verify — the federal employment eligibilit...