Tomás Jiménez: All Publications, Events and Press

Automatic Americans

Ron Tang — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:42:00 -0400

Ending birthright citizenship is a placebo, not a solution to illegal immigration.

The debate over immigration is fundamentally about who we are as a nation,who we are not, and who we want to be.

It is thus no surprise that those most afraid of who we are becoming have moved to redraw the rules of inclusion by proposing to do away with birthright citizenship. Such a move is not only legally dubious, it is a threat to American prosperity.

Opponents of birthright citizenship assert that we have it wrong when we interpret the 14th Amendment as granting citizenship to anyone born here. They… more

Engine of Assimilation

adminn — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:25:00 -0500

Americans have little confidence that assimilation is happening today as it once did. According to a 2006 Pew Research Center poll, 44 percent of Americans believe that today's immigrants are not as willing to assimilate as those who came during the early 1900s. Their confidence is not likely to grow with the release of a new Pew Hispanic Center report, which shows that by 2050 nearly 1 in 5 people in the United States will be foreign-born. Nativists, such as columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, who has gone so far as to claim that the refusal of immigrants to assimilate is… more

Tomás Jiménez in Las Vegas Sun | 'English-Only Rule on Bus Relaxed'

Communications — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:13:00 -0500

New America in the News:

English-Only Rule on Bus Relaxed; Compromise seen as model for dealing with immigration (Las Vegas Sun)

...To Tomas Jimenez, an Irvine fellow at the New America Foundation who studies immigration and assimilation, the policies, ordinances and laws seen across the nation are “all partially motivated by people who are disgruntled by a change in culture.” ...

Tomás Jiménez and Mark Krikorian Debate Immigration in LATimes.com Dust-Up

adminn — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:55:00 -0500

New America in the News:

How should Californians concerned about immigration vote on Feb. 5? Is tougher enforcement yielding any positive results? What will the immigration debate look like a year from now? Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, and UC San Deigo professor and New America Foundation fellow Tomás Jiménez debate.

For the full series on LATimes.com, please click here.

Tomás Jiménez on SignOn San Diego | 'Immigration and Assimilation'

Communications — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 14:27:00 -0500

New America in the News:

Immigration and Assimilation (SignOn San Diego Radio/"Op-Ed Talk")

Tomas Jimenez, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California San Diego and a fellow at the New America Foundation discusses immigration and how well immigrants eventually blend into the society of their new country. Jimenez's most recent column, "Immigrants and what's good for society," appeared Dec. 7.

Immigrants and What's Good for Society

adminn — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:10:00 -0500

There's a rule that politicians are reminded of: “do no harm.” In recent months, politicians have implicitly amended the rule to say “do no harm -- unless immigration is involved.” The rancor sparked by a failed New York plan to permit illegal immigrants access to driver's licenses and the fallen federal and state versions of the DREAM Act highlight a dangerous obsession with keeping illegal immigrants from accessing the supposed privileges of citizenship at any cost.

In today's debates, considerations of public goods are too easily cast aside in an effort to draw bright lines around citizenship. A better way of… more

An Incomplete Report Card

Articles — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 10:07:00 -0400

Last Tuesday’s release of what is known as the "Nation’s Report Card" for math and reading is likely to reignite talk of the so-called racial achievement gap. Despite some good news, the report, published by the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, shows that Latinos, like blacks, haven’t made progress in catching up to the test scores of whites.

But the dour assessment of Latino educational achievement has nothing to do with a racial gap. We can’t use the same lens to interpret Latino data as we do to explain the differences between white and black achievement.

When it comes to… more