Immigration

Tomás Jiménez, Irvine Fellow at New America Foundation, discusses the Bush administration's immigration policies and their consequences for the Obama administration. He also explores what Obama can do to promote citizenship among new immigrants. Link to audio

President George W. Bush's accomplishments on immigration reform fell well short of the comprehensive plan that he and others envisioned. Yet the Bush administration did more than any other in modern history to lay the groundwork for a much-needed immigrant integration policy. The Obama administration must now use that beginning to build a bolder immigrant integration policy - an immigrant policy that stands alongside our immigration policy.

The inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States, along with the deepening of the Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, marks more than a shift in the pendulum swings of partisan politics. In these pages I have suggested that it marks the dawn of a Fourth American Republic, in the way that the New Deal marked the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt's Third Republic of the United States and the Civil War and Reconstruction began Lincoln's Second… more

There are myriad claims to Barack Obama’s attention, and the list will only grow before Jan. 20. But immigration reform and, more immediately, putting an end to the outgoing administration’s unfortunate and inhuman immigration enforcement policy should be high on the president-elect’s list.

Schwartz Fellow

Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Edward Alden spoke about his recent book The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11.

“Within two hours of 9/11 customs had succeeded in finding and naming the nineteen hijackers,” Alden began. From the attacks, he suggested, two primary schools of though emerged.

In California, lower paid illegals have harvested, cooked in restaurants, bussed tables, worked construction and helped remodel homes or landscape. Tomas Jimenez, Ph.D., is an Irvine fellow and a sociology associate professor at Stanford University. He studies immigration trends. "We have less of an ability to afford these services. Because of that they go back and so at some point the number we will need will find its own level," says Jimenez. LINK to video

"The tenor of the Republican party's rhetoric (on immigration) was clearly a turnoff," said Gregory Rodriguez, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. "We know the electorate will become increasingly nonwhite. Presumably Republicans will go back to trying to be 'big tent' Republicans, because if they want to resurrect the party, they can't be the white party." LINK

Latin Americans are hoping for more carrot and less stick from President Obama than under his predecessor, President Bush. Immigration will be top of the agenda for most governments. Legalising the estimated 15 million illegal workers in the US and introducing a temporary worker programme, as well as secure borders are a priority for all Latin American nations, according to former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda. LINK