Last week, the Obama administration announced a major policy shift that will focus more resources on its primary mission: removing dangerous criminals from the country. At the same time, the administration promised to stop pursuing low-priority removal (formerly, deportation) cases that are siphoning scarce enforcement...
Back in 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which required all U.S. employers to verify their employees' eligibility to work legally in the United States, using Form I-9 and several forms of identification. For years, enforcement of these I-9 requirements usually...
As the European debt crisis deepens and U.S. markets continue their roller-coaster ride following the debt-ceiling debacle and the debt-rating downgrade, Washington policymakers are on the lookout for ways to stimulate a slumping economy. It's about time. Throughout the debt-ceiling standoff, many Americans wondered aloud...
Many observers have long since written off the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform, despite the President's hopeful pronouncements and sporadic attempts to revive the issue in Congress. That is not to say that immigration reform is a dead letter - just the comprehensive version. On...
In what must have been a welcome break from the ongoing battle over the debt ceiling, President Obama took time on Monday, July 25, to address a meeting of the National Council of La Raza, a leading Latino advocacy organization. The President spoke at length...
As Congress and the President square off over the debt ceiling, a plague of question marks seems to be raining down on the U.S. economy, and people are getting nervous - not just on Wall Street, but on Main Street, as well. To some, it...
In our last blog post, we discussed a recent Forbes.com article by Glenn Llopis, arguing that Americans need to recommit themselves to the immigrant values that made our country great. (See Forbes.com: Embrace Immigrant Values to Succeed! MurthyBlog, 21.Jul.2011.) Making his case for immigrant values,...
One might like to imagine that things were different in an earlier, gentler, and wiser era, but the history books tell us otherwise: there never was a golden age when immigrants and immigration were universally popular in the United States. In the 1840's and 50's,...
As we have noted in recent postings, a large proportion of the STEM graduates from American universities - those who majored in science, technology, engineering, or math-related fields - are from overseas, especially India and China. To the consternation of American high-tech companies that want...
In recent months, immigration demographers have noticed that many foreign-born graduates of American universities, especially in the so-called STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and math, are going back home to seek their fortunes. This is in part because we make it hard to stay...
