Driving away immigrants--and our future

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) just released a deeply flawed report on “illegal immigration” that focused only on Hispanics to the exclusion of all other groups. Its rationale is that young Hispanics immigrants can be seen as the “likely illegal immigrant population.”

Imagine if crime statistics were similarly restricted to one race or ethnic extraction—the so-called study would be laughed at by all serious observers. But such dubious reports are treated as contributions to the immigration debate.

CIS suggests that there has been an 11 percent decline in the undocumented immigrant population as a result of stepped-up enforcement efforts, which are helped by an imploding economy.

This may or may not be the case. But what is more interesting is that CIS decided to simply collapse enforcement and a decline in the undocumented population with Hispanics. So the message here is that Hispanic communities are “likely” pools of law breakers that should be targeted with punitive policies.

As the Immigration Policy Institute counters, most immigration is shaped by survival economics, not political enforcement policies. It cites the downturn in the construction sector as a factor in why less skilled—not less valuable— workers may be leaving.

Never mind that this recession will not last forever. And as the Essential Worker Coalition has warned, the aging baby boomer generation means the need for more workers.

Like other short-sighted, one-dimensional, and fear-based analysis, the CIS report does nothing to move us closer to immigration reform that makes sense for this nation.