Category: News

In Congress, time will tell if the new Democratic majority in the House of Representatives will improve the prospect of achieving positive immigration reforms, since any bills will need the assent of the Senate, with its increased Republican majority.  But in recent years the Senate has been more willing to advance immigration bills than the House, so perhaps 2019 will usher in new hope for a path to permanent residency for those with DACA, those on the brink of losing TPS, and the long term undocumented population who are integral parts of our communities and our economy.

Meanwhile, in Maine, a new governor coupled with Democratic majorities in both chambers should improve the prospects for enactment of bills to help us attract, retain, and integrate the immigrants the State needs for vibrant communities and a growing economy.

MeBIC expects to be working on bills to increase funding for adult education, so that waiting lists for English as a second language classes can be eliminated, and additional higher level, classes can be added in communities that lacked the funds to do so.  Funding to locate classes at workplaces that combine job training and contextualized English instruction will also be a goal. Additionally, efforts to create alternatives to traditional credentialing and licensing pathways will be explored.  Many highly educated and experienced immigrants may not have access to their education credentials (for example, if their university was destroyed in war, required official transcripts may be impossible to obtain), or experienced tradespeople may lack the high school education needed to apply for licensing to work in their profession or trade.  With Maine’s shrinking labor force, Maine cannot afford the waste of talent that results when experienced immigrants cannot work in their chosen profession and area of expertise.

Contact MeBIC if you have ideas about legislation that you’d be particularly interested in that would help immigrants to participate to their fullest potential in Maine’s workforce.  Expect to hear from us as we also reach out to you about your ideas and where you would like to engage.

A new report looks at the changes in two small Nebraska towns and how immigration has affected them.   Lexington and Madison, Nebraska had a combined total population of under 13,000 in 1990, and only 124 of their residents were immigrants.

By 2016, immigrants made up nearly half of Lexington’s population, and a third of Madison’s, and were responsible for 100% of each town’s growth since 1990.

Despite initial challenges as these towns grappled with their changing demographics, they have emerged with more lively business districts, a stronger housing market, thriving schools, and stable populations.

The report outlines the steps that the towns took to achieve a successful transition to be more diverse communities.   As the report states,

Lexington and Madison offer encouraging examples of how proactivity and practicality—coupled with time—can help communities embrace the nation’s multicultural destiny and emerge stronger for their collective efforts.

Most Maine communities are shrinking as our population ages and deaths outpace births.   Immigrants are a critical part of any path to growth in Maine.  This report offers a road map that could help guide Maine’s journey.

A data analysis by the Cato Institute shows a 37% jump in denials of immigration applications  by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) since FY2016.

The increase in denials crosses all application types, including skills and employment-based nonimmigrant (temporary) visa  and permanent residency applications, immediate family permanent residency petitions, work permit applications, etc.

In a related opinion piece, Cato‘s David Bier ponders why the administration purports to support legal immigration while its actions overall are thwarting it.   Bier highlights additional measures  since  2016 that constrain legal immigration at the same time that our labor supply is shrinking, which is a recipe for hampering economic growth.

You can find further explanation of changes where the administration’s immigration actions disconnect with our economic reality here and here.

 

Although vote counts in some midterm races are still underway, Democrats have definitively taken control of the House of Representatives in the upcoming Congress.  This could be a sea-change for prospects for positive immigration reform.

Since 2010, the House has obstructed immigration bills ranging from so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” efforts in 2013, to efforts to create a permanent path forward for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) holders in 2018.

Will we see a new dawn for immigration law improvements?  This post from the Cato Institute reflects some optimism on that front.  It calls the incoming class the most pro-immigration House of Representatives in over a century, at a time when, loud anti-immigrant rhetoric notwithstanding, polling consistently shows that the majority of the U.S. public thinks that immigration is good for the country and should either remain at current levels or be increased, that DACA youth and other undocumented individuals should be able to stay and gain a path to permanent status, and that the government should not be separated families who arrive at the border seeking safety.

For the sake of the nation’s values and the economy, let’s hope that the combination of new members of Congress and favorable public support leads to positive immigration reforms.

The Wall Street Journal reports on Department of Labor data showing over 7.1 million job openings in September, while unemployment fell to a 49 year low of 3.7%, with only 5.96 million active jobseekers.

Perhaps the newly configured Congress, in the next term, will be able to move sensible immigration reforms forward so that the U.S. can welcome more immigrants, not fewer, as other countries competing for global talent are doing.

However, President Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric in advance of the mid-term elections is unfortunately likely to linger and taint the debate well into the next legislative session.

 

 

Maine’s low birthrates, coupled with our aging population, put us on track to have nearly a quarter of the state’s population over age 65 by 2026.   But the entire nation is aging, and with our low birth rates, we are not producing enough replacement workers to keep our communities and our economy vibrant.

Two other countries face similar demographic challenges.   But rather than try to reduce levels of immigration, as the U.S. government is currently doing, Canada and Japan are both taking steps to increase immigration to their countries.

Canada, which previously set a goal of accepting 340,000 immigrants and refugees in 2020, has announced its intention to increase that number to 350,000 in 2021.

Japan has historically had extremely restrictive immigration policies.  However, its low birthrates and growing elderly population have resulted in the Japanese Cabinet considering immigration reforms that for the first time might allow some foreign-born workers to have a path to permanent status.

As the immigration rhetoric from the Trump administration heats up, it is worth considering whether its choice to bet on xenophobia as a winning strategy in the midterms will harm the U.S. and its economy in the long run.

 

 

 

 

A recent report by Fitch Ratings highlights the economic impact of the Census Bureau’s prediction that by 2026, Maine will be a “super aged” state with 24% of the state’s population older than age 65.     This will constrain economic growth in Maine, since the over-65 population is less engaged in the workforce, and as a result tends to pay less income tax and  to spend less and generate lower sales tax revenues.  At the same time, the report notes that their health care and retirement costs increase.

The Portland Press Herald reports that Maine’s “super aged” status could translate into a lower bond rating, resulting in higher borrowing costs for the state.

As Fitch Ratings notes

Immigration could play a pivotal role in slowing the pace of U.S. aging. Immigrants tend to be younger than the native-born population and so provide an immediate boost to the working age population.

Unfortunately, the administration’s decisions (partially blocked currently by court orders) to strip over a million individuals with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of their ability to stay and work legally in the U.S., or the proposed rule change that would dramatically cut immediate family immigration, would result in fewer immigrants in Maine, at a time when there is ample evidence that we need more immigrants to strengthen Maine’s population and our economy.

 

 

President Trump announced today that he plans to end the Constitutional guarantee of citizenship by birth in the U.S. via an executive order.

Apart from the questionable legality of such an action, which will certainly be challenged in the courts, it is not too soon to reflect on the importance of birthright citizenship in the U.S.   Without it, many people born in the U.S would be stateless, and would be legally treated as an “underclass” in our society.    Birthright citizenship gives children of immigrants an automatic stake and true legal “belonging” in this country.   As the Cato Institute‘s Alex Nowrasteh wrote in The Federalist,

the Fourteenth Amendment…..should be defended because of how well it has aided immigrant assimilation in the United States”.

We should also be mindful, as noted in this essay published to mark the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg laws, that

the denial of citizenship has increasingly become a weapon, used to vilify and harass designated targeted groups as “alien” to the nation.

For a detailed review of the history and the legal meaning of the 14th Amendment’s citizenship by birth in the U.S. language, read this 2006 journal article by James C. Ho, now a judge on the Fifth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals.

The President is truly challenging us to ponder who we are as a nation, and who we want to be.  MeBIC will always stand on the side of supporting birthright citizenship.

 

As the Administration sends thousands of troops to the southern border and considers issuing an executive order to close the border to Central Americans, it’s important to understand who is coming the southern border and why.

This article by the Director of the Mexico Security Initiative at University of Texas in Austin provides cogent background about the conditions producing the wave of immigrants arriving at our southern border during the past spring and summer that prompted the administration’s harsh family separations response.  While the article looks at that prior wave of immigrants, the conditions described in it apply equally to the most recent “caravan” and the people who are part of it.

Contrary to the administration’s assertions, the nation is not experiencing a national security “invasion” on our southern border.    Indeed,  apprehensions on the southern border in FY 2018 were only 24% of the high of over 1.6 million apprehensions in FY 2000.  The 396,579 apprehensions in FY 2018 were in line with the number of annual apprehensions each year since FY 2010, which in turn were the lowest numbers since the early 1970s.

In addition, under both U.S. and international law, the U.S. must allow those seeking asylum the opportunity to apply for it, whether they enter at or between border posts.  Our nation can handle large numbers of asylum claims if it funds and staffs the asylum offices and immigration courts adequately.   For example, from 1983 through 1987, when civil wars were raging in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, over a million individuals were apprehended at the Southern border each year.   Our nation was able to  process their claims in the immigration courts without the need to militarize the border or to threaten to close to border to asylum seekers (which will lead to immediate legal challenges).

Let’s not exaggerate either the size or the impact of the current caravan and other waves of Central Americans fleeing the Northern Triangle countries.  Our nation can vet them and give them due process while keeping our  values intact, as has been done many times before.

UPDATE:   On October 25, 2018, in the the lawsuit challenging the administration’s family separations policy, the government filed an update indicating that 264 children remain separated from their parents, including 14 newly identified children.  The court filing underscores the chaos that the report below found, in terms of how the government handled tracking children that it forcibly took from their parents.

The Trump administration is also reportedly considering piloting a new “binary choice” proposal for families with children who arrive seeking asylum. Since under the Flores settlement agreement the government cannot legally detain children beyond 20 days, the program would force parents to choose between staying with their children in detention centers, or being separated from their children so their children are not detained.   But as noted in a September 2018 Congressional Research Service report to Congress, the legality of a “binary choice” proposal is doubtful.

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The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has published a report about DHS’s implementation of the “Zero Tolerance” policy.   Begun in May 2018 per order of the Attorney General, that policy resulted in over 2600 children being taken away from their parents at the southern border, some of whom are still waiting to be reunited with their parents.

The report concludes that DHS was not adequately prepared to carry out the Zero Tolerance policy.

Problems included:

– Encouraging people to apply for entry at border posts, but then making people wait for days or turning them away, likely prompting unauthorized border crossings;

– Separating children who were too young (pre-verbal) to provide information about their parents and not photographing them or identifying them with ID bracelets or other identifiers so that they could be later matched with their parent(s).

– Having inadequate database integration to accurately track the number of separated children in custody, to catalogue and match parents and children, or to know where children were sent after being taken from their parents, so that parents would be able to find their children and government officials would be able to reunite them.  OIG could find no evidence of the “central database” that the government claimed existed.

– Holding children in short term facilities inadequate for children, for longer than the 72-hour maximum allowed.

– Providing parents with inaccurate or inconsistent information so that parents often did not understand that their children were being taken from them, or where their children were and how to contact them or get them back.

Following public outcry, in June 2018, President Trump issued an executive order forcing DHS to stop separating families, leading DHS to resume releasing them.  Typically they would be required to wear electronic ankle bracelets, pay a bond, or comply with other detention alternatives.  (Under the terms of the 1997 Flores settlement, minors cannot by detained by DHS for than 20 days, and when held should be in non-secure, state-licensed settings for minors.)

Unfortunately, the administration is now planning to eviscerate the Flores settlement in a proposed rule that would allow indefinite detention of minors, together with their parents.   The public comment period on the proposed rule closes on November 6, 2018.

 

 

 

A new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research examines the impact of per country visa limits on the U.S.’s ability to attract and retain PhD STEM graduates from China and India.

U.S. law limits the number of people who can immigrate from a single country to the U.S. each year.   If the number of visa applications exceeds the limit, a wait list develops.   The two most populous countries of the world have exceeded the numerical limit for years, resulting in a continually growing wait list for highly educated and skilled workers in STEM professions from China and India.    To illustrate, Chinese citizens with advanced degrees who will reach the top of the waiting list and be eligible to finally immigrate in November, 2018 began their immigration process before June 15, 2015.  Similarly situated Indian citizens began their immigration process before May 22, 2009, over nine years ago.

The NBER working paper, The Impact of Permanent Residency Delays for STEM PhDs: Who Leaves and Why, examines the drop in the number of Chinese and Indian PhD graduates from U.S. graduate schools who stay in the U.S. to work upon completion of their studies, and finds that the longer the delay in getting residency, the more the U.S. retention rate for these graduates declines.    As the abstract of the working paper notes

We conclude that per-country limits play a significant role in constraining the supply of highly skilled STEM workers in the US economy.

This has economic repercussions since native U.S. citizens are underrepresented in graduate level STEM studies, but STEM fields play a critical role in U.S. economic growth.   In addition, a Cato Institute analysis notes that Chinese and Indian STEM advanced degree professionals are high wage earners, and our economy loses their individual tax and spending contributions as well.

Another impending casualty of the wait list are the spouses of these individuals.  As we have highlighted previously, under an Obama-era rule, many of these individuals’ spouses now have work authorization.   The Trump Administration has signaled its intent to revoke that rule, and with it, their ability to be productive and contribute while they wait for years with their STEM graduate spouses for available immigrant visas.   This is another factor pushing talent we need out of the U.S. to other countries with more rational immigration systems.

The current per country quotas were created in 1990.  It is high time for Congress to revisit and reform or eliminate them.