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CIAO Focus, June 2006:
The Immigration Debate

The United States Senate and the House of Representatives have passed incompatible bills on immigration reform. Legislation endorsed by the Senate calls for strengthening border security, establishing a guest-worker program, and would give some illegal immigrants the opportunity to remain in the country and become citizens.

The House bill, in contrast, does not include a guest worker program and would make the illegal presence of foreigners in the U.S. a felony. Last spring, mass protests broke out across the country in response to the House bill. Although President Bush supports the Senate bill, the immigration issue has caused a rift in the Republican Party. On one side of the debate is Big Business, which sees the 11 to 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. as vital to the economy while social conservatives on the other hand consider them a security threat and want all non-documented workers deported.

This month CIAO examines the immigration debate in the United States.

From the CIAO Database:

Immigration in the United States

Immigration and Integration in the Americas

U.S. Immigration Policy: Unilateral and Cooperative Responses to Undocumented Immigration

In Liberty's Shadow: US Detention of Asylum Seekers in the Era of Homeland Security

Latino Power? Political Access for Latinos in the United States (In French)

 

Outside Links*:

US Citizenship and Immigration Services
http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/index.htm

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (Library of Congress)
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN2611:

Costs and Effect of the Immigration Reform Act (The Congressional Budget Office)
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/72xx/doc7208/s2611.pdf

How the Senate voted on the bill (United States Senate)
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=2&vote=00157

Corridors and Barriers (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/pdf/border_052106.pdf

 

 

* Outside links are not maintained. For broken outside links, CIAO recommends the Way Back Machine.