The State | Immigration activist praises South Carolina during forum The State Ali Noorani, the executive director of the Washington-based National Immigration Forum, discussed coalition-building to address immigration reform at a roundtable discussion Thursday at Greenville Technical College. The luncheon brought together ... |
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Immigration activist praises South Carolina during forum - The State
June 20, 2017
Informed discussion and smart immigration policies are needed as policymakers and leaders in senior living and long-term care increasingly see lawful and undocumented immigrants as a solution to workforce needs, according to a new research brief by PHI Vice President of Policy Robert Espinoza.
Approximately 860,000 immigrants are employed as direct-care workers in home- and community-based settings, assisted living facilities, group homes, intermediate care facilities, nursing care facilities and hospitals, according to the brief. Added to the number of nursing assistants, personal care aides and home health aides hired directly by families, the total becomes 1 million, meaning that immigrants make up about 25% of the direct care workforce, Espinoza said, and in California, Florida, Hawaii, New Jersey and New York, more than 40% of direct care workers are immigrants.
Most immigrants who are direct care workers are women, and their median annual income is $19,000, according to the brief. Additionally, this segment of the workforce experiences high poverty rates and relies largely on public benefits to survive, Espinoza wrote.
The study is part of PHI's #60CaregiverIssues educational campaign focused on the growing workforce shortage in direct care.Espinoza said the research on immigrants is meant to be a starting point for understanding this sector and that future research will present ideas for potential policy reforms.
Congressmen weigh in
At least two congressmen appear to be among those open to immigration reform to assist senior living and long-term care providers.
Rep. John K. Delaney (D-MD) and Rep. James B. Renacci (R-OH) discussed the topic at the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care fall meeting in 2015.
If you go through the various cases for comprehensive immigration reform in this country, which I think is very compelling, certainly this industry and the healthcare industry in general is an industry that would benefit enormously from it, Delaney said at the time, answering a question from NIC CEO Robert Kramer.
In general, Delaney said, immigrants are good for the healthcare system because they are paying more into the Medicare program than they are taking out, whereas nonimmigrants are taking more out of Medicare than they are putting in. Immigrants could aid Social Security in a similar way, he said. I think this industry should be big supporters, proponents and cheerleaders for immigration reform, because it makes good financial sense for the system, Delaney said.
Renacci said that immigrants could play an important role in replacing retiring citizens in the workforce and also in caring for those retired workers. How are we going to take care of the aging population going forward, when we know that we don't have growth in that younger workforce? he said. Some of it's going to have to be through immigration.
The rest is here:
Immigration reform would benefit senior living: research brief - McKnight's Senior Living
Twenty-one days after Election Day last November, Dan Stein, the president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that supports reduced immigration, introduced a transition document to provide the newly elected president with guidance on immigration policy.
It was their moment. FAIR had condemned the Obama administrations immigration policy, and pushed for heightened border security and the removal of undocumented immigrants. And Trump, whose campaign had begun with a promise to crack down on illegal immigration, appeared to be the champion they needed.
Within the first few weeks of his administration, Trump expanded the number of undocumented immigrants considered a priority for deportation, threatened jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration agents, and called for more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Customs and Border Protection agents. But he also fell short on other promisesincluding a central plank of his presidential campaign, a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. In the interim, the high expectations of immigration restriction groups like FAIR have turned to frustration and disappointment.
Trump Breaks a Promise to his Voters on Immigration
We can only assume that President Trump has struck a secret deal with Mexico to get them to pay for the border fence he promised, because funding for the project sure isnt in the budget proposal he sent to Congress, Stein said in a statement following the release of Trumps budget proposal in May. The proposal included $2.6 billion for border security, a fraction of which was marked for the construction of a wall. That figure paled in comparison to estimates by the Department of Homeland Security, which found in a report that a wall along the southern border would cost as much as $21.6 billion. It also went back on a campaign pledge that Trump would make Mexico pay for the barrier. But the sarcastic tone of Steins statement was notable.
The key to regaining control of our immigration system is to effectively deter people who are contemplating breaking our laws and effective enforcement against those who do. Unfortunately, President Trumps budget requests do not demonstrate the resolve that is needed to fulfill the promises that he made to the American people, Stein added in his statement.
Trumps victory was seen as an opportunity to pass policies targeting immigration in the United States, which have often faced hurdles in Congress. His team includes many immigration hardliners, like Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, and Steve Bannon, which also seemed promising for those seeking stricter policies. Yet immigration restrictionist groups are growing increasingly frustrated with what they see as the glacial pace at which the administration is executing on its immigration pledges, as well as its reversals on key promises.
Shortly after Trump took office, immigration hawks urged the president to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the Obama-era program shielding undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children from deportation and allowing them to legally work in the country.* Trump had repeatedly said hed terminate the program on the campaign trail, and then began to take a softer approach as president. To me, it's one of the most difficult subjects I have because you have these incredible kids, in many cases, not in all cases, Trump said at a White House news conference. Trump left the matter unaddressed in his January executive actions on immigration, prompting complaints from immigration hardliners, who argue the program hurts native-born workers.
In May, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC dropped its endorsement of Trump for not taking action on DACA. While we may be one of the first groups representing Trumps base on immigration issues to leave the fold, we wont be the last, William Gheen, the president of the group, wrote in an open letter. ALIPACs announcement about Trump will be considered as a warning sign among many American patriots that we have been lied to, misled, and betrayed, and our warning will have far reaching implications for the Trump administration and his band of pro-Amnesty advisors and cabinet members. The PAC did not give money to federal candidates during the 2016 election.
The Trump administrations decision on DACA finally came in June, roughly five months into the presidents term. The Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this month that it was rescinding the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program, which sought to shield the undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and others from deportation. The Obama-era program had never been implemented due to litigation, so the move to revoke it was largely symbolic. DHS also issued guidance noting that DACA would remain in effect for now, days after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released figures revealing that the administration was still granting work permits under the DACA program.
I certainly am very happy that Secretary Kelly ended DAPA that is a good thing and needed to happenbut it does not fulfill Trumps campaign promise. DACA needs to be ended, Rosemary Jenks, the director of government relations at NumbersUSA, another group that supports reduced immigration, told The Los Angeles Times. It is clear the decision on DACA has been made at the White House, she added. That is truly on Trump, and he needs to do it.
I knew he was going to sell us out on some things. I just didnt think DACA was going to be what he sells us out on, Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced immigration, told me. DACA had been seen as a bargaining chip that could be used to negotiate with Democratic lawmakers on immigration reform, Krikorian said. By failing to repeal it therefore, Trump missed out on an opportunity that may have ramifications down the road.
Ann Coulter, a prominent anti-immigrant conservative commentator, railed against the decision on Twitter. This Daily Trump melodrama is worth it ONLY if hes really going to build the wall, cut off Muslim refugees and deport illegals, she said, adding, in a follow-up tweet, that zero miles of Trumps wall had been completed to date.
Immigrant advocates, meanwhile, are still anxious about the future of DACA. I would hesitate to say that weve gotten a promise from the administration and I am a firm believer that, due to the unpredictable nature of President Trump, DACA is still very much in danger, said Jose Magaa-Salgado, the managing policy attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. The administrations aggressive approach to deportations has continued to concern immigration advocates, who have thus far found little relief in its decision to keep DACA in place.
But the flurry of responses nevertheless highlighted growing frustrations among immigration hardliners, who feel let down by the administration. Trump, after all, took the campaign trail by storm with the phrase build the wall, and used forceful rhetoric in speaking about immigration. His messaging in the White House, however, has been ambiguous. He hasnt provided a clear plan on what a wall along the southern border will look like, or how he plans to address legal immigration, which hawks want reduced.
Factions within the White House may be to blame for the mixed messages on immigration. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported on rifts within the administration over how to address so-called Dreamers. There had also been a draft executive order floating around aimed at ending DACA. While it didnt come to fruition, it seemed to indicate a fractured White House, Krikorian said. But the administration has also come up short on other promises.
In addition to DACA, he made some strong promises on H1-Bs, which he has yet to [do]. He is talking about them, but he hasnt taken any concrete action on them, said Chris Chmielenski, the director of content and activism at NumbersUSA. H1-B visas allow employers to temporarily hire skilled foreign workers to fill specialty occupations. Trump pledged to overhaul the system, but has thus far done little to act on it, according to Chmielenski.
Still, Trump has followed through on some of his campaign promises, like increasing the number of removals of undocumented immigrants. Within his first 100 days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Securitys enforcement arm, reported an increase in arrests: they jumped by nearly 40 percent between January and April, according to the agencys latest figures. The administration also launched the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office to assist victims of crimes committed by criminal aliens.
Immigration hardliners also understand that they may not get what they want right away. Despite Trumps forceful rhetoric on immigration on the campaign trail, Chmielenski said, we didnt think it was a done deal. Matt OBrien, the director of research at FAIR, noted that the president needs congressional authorization to execute on some of his promises, like the border wall. While its difficult to predict, we thinkand for a long time have saidits an essential measure, so we hope the president will keep his promise. However, I think thats something thats not entirely in his hands, he said. The administration is also still only a few months old, so its possible that Trumps campaign promises will bear out in the future. But that wont keep hardliners at bay, either.
I think there are some people who are still in the White House and advising the president that Trump trusts that are going to continue to keep this in front of him, Chmielenski said. On the other hand, on our end, we have 8 million activists that will continue to pressure the White House.
* This article originally stated that DACA shielded undocumented immigrants born in the United States from deportation. We regret the error.
Read more from the original source:
Trump's Immigration Allies Are Growing Frustrated With Him - The Atlantic
Irish Network Boston
John Cunningham has an electrical contracting business and is chairman of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Boston.
They came for John Cunningham on a sunny evening last week, showing up at his house in Brighton like early dinner guests.
They were federal immigration agents, and they were there to throw John Cunningham out of the country he has called home for 18 years.
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John Cunningham, 38, has an electrical contracting business. He has paid taxes. He has done much to improve the lives of those around him.
But what he does not have is a green card, and so the federal agents brought him to the jail in South Bay and put him in a cell with the rest of the common criminals. Because in Donald Trumps America, thats what John Cunningham is, a common criminal.
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Now this would come as a great surprise to the young people that Cunningham helped as chairman of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Boston. It would come as a shock to the many immigrants, not just the Irish but those from other countries, that Cunningham has helped over the years. It would come as an insult to a very kind priest named Dan Finn, who runs the Irish Pastoral Center in Dorchester and who knows that John Cunningham is a good man.
Chris Lavery, Cunninghams lawyer, told me there is no underlying criminal charge. Cunningham was grabbed for overstaying the 90-day visa he received 18 years ago.
Lavery was trying to determine whether Cunningham missed a court hearing after a customer filed a complaint that Cunningham took and cashed a deposit check for more than $1,000 for electrical work he didnt perform. That would have produced a warrant for his arrest, but not by immigration agents.
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You would think a guy like him, with no criminal convictions, would not be a priority, Lavery said.
But the days of immigrants who kept their noses clean not having to worry about being deported are gone. Under the Trump administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been very active. And ordinary, hard-working, tax-paying immigrants are being targeted the same as hardcore criminals.
In the midst of all this round-em-up-and-throw-em-out talk, a question has to be asked: What is gained by arresting, detaining, and deporting someone like John Cunningham?
Nothing is gained but ruining a good mans life, said Sean Moynihan, head of a Boston consulting firm called The Moynihan Group. John makes this city, this state, this country better. So how is throwing him out helping anyone?
Cunningham is widely known in Bostons Irish ex-pat community. He was a fixture at the Gaelic Athletic Association fields at the Irish Cultural Centre in Canton. He was especially proud of getting more kids from all backgrounds playing the traditional Irish games of hurling and Gaelic football.
It is because of Cunninghams prominence in that community that his arrest has sent shivers through it.
If theyll go after John Cunningham, theyll go after anybody, said Ronnie Millar, the executive director of the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston. John is so well-known and so well-liked. If John Cunningham is not safe, no one is safe.
That is a new reality that is hitting not just the Irish, but other immigrant communities from East Boston to Lawrence, from Worcester to Springfield, and everywhere in between. Being a good person means nothing. Round em up.
Kieran OSullivan, an immigration counselor at the Irish Pastoral Center, said Cunningham was among several Irish people detained this month. Like Millars organization, his has been inundated with frantic, worried calls, especially as word of Cunninghams arrest spread. He spoke with a couple that is making contingency plans for what to do with their children if theyre arrested.
People are nervous about going to work, OSullivan said. What to do if both parents are picked up. This is driving people further underground. Its a very difficult time. We need to move away from viewing immigrants as a threat to this country.
Fat chance that will happen with a new administration being cheered on by a sizable portion of Americans that does indeed view immigrants as a threat to this country.
OSullivan likes to remind people that 60,000 immigrants are serving in the American military. Members of his family from Kerry have been part of immigration waves going back to the 1950s, serving in every major US war since Korea.
Our country would be more secure if people are allowed to come out of the shadows, OSullivan said.
John Cunningham was just out of his teens when he came to Boston from Donegal. Like a lot of young Irish, he quickly found work, a Gaelic football team, and a supportive ex-pat community in and around Boston. He never went back to Ireland, not just because Boston was his new home but because he knew if the immigration authorities realized he had overstayed his 90-day visa, hed be barred from the United States for at least 10 years.
He would have done anything, paid anything to obtain legal status, but he couldnt. The same government that gladly gave him a tax ID number wouldnt give him a way to get legal. Cunningham worked for years lobbying for immigration reform, trying to create a system that would allow millions of immigrants to legalize their status.
Some worry that Cunninghams willingness to speak publicly about the need to reform the immigration system made him an easy target for that same flawed system.
Chris Lavery, his lawyer, visited him in jail, hard by the Expressway. Cunningham is despondent. He has spent half his life here.
Hes in lockdown most of the time. Its unclear how long he will be held before hes deported. He has no right to a hearing because of the visa waiver program under which he entered the country.
What does this accomplish? Chris Lavery asked.
The short answer is it accomplishes nothing. For those who would ask, What part of illegal dont you understand, Id ask, What part of pointless dont you understand?
John Cunningham hails from a small, beautiful place in southwest Donegal called Glencolmcille. It is an Irish-speaking area, and its named after St. Columba, the Irish missionary who brought Christianity to Scotland.
If St. Columba came to this country today and needed more than 90 days to spread the word of God, he wouldnt be called a saint. Hed be called a criminal.
More here:
'If John Cunningham is not safe, no one is safe' - The Boston Globe
Meanwhile, high-skilled U.S. jobs that foreign-born workers could fill persistently go vacant. According to one economic index, the fields that will be most impacted by ongoing shortages are health, skilled trade labor, and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Just the shortages in STEM alone should keep tech CEOs up at night. Their companies experience firsthand the challenges in finding qualified workers in this field.
For example, take information security analysts: the sensitive nature of their work prevents these jobs from being outsourced to other countries. And forecasts project mathematical and statistical occupations, such as data scientists, to experience faster demand growth over the near term.
There is sensitivity, of course, around whether immigrants take jobs away from American citizens. Research indicates that immigrants can help create more net jobs by filling positions that remain unfilled. A study from the Niskanen Center, for example, indicates that nearly two jobs overall are created in industries associated with computers and engineering with the entrance of every one immigrant with a high-skilled work visa in those industries.
Tech leaders should take advantage of their time at the White House to suggest a few sensible high-skilled immigration policy solutions to the administration. First, annual per-country caps on permanent, employment-based visas should be removed. Employment-based visas should be based on skills, not nationality.
These visas are currently rationed to a fixed number per country of origin, regardless of the number and skill set/occupational mix of that country's applicants. This means we are limiting our ability to bring in STEM (and other) talent we need, simply because it is concentrated in certain parts of the world, such as India. This doesn't make economic or common sense.
Second, educational attainment should no longer be the dominant criterion to determine employment-based visas. Though important, educational attainment represents just one aspect of the equation for employment qualification. As the twin forces of global competition and technological progress only intensify, actual skill sets matter more than degrees.
Finally, state and locally administered employment-based visas should be created under any immigration reform proposal. Governors and mayors have a considerably more relevant perspective on the needs of their labor markets than the federal government, yet they have no input or control under current immigration law.
Empowering states and localities to influence immigration policy has worked well in Canada; it is a decentralized approach with aspects that merit consideration by the U.S.
All eyes will be on the interpersonal dynamics of "tech week." Participating tech leaders would be wise to refrain from indulging the media with stories of conflict and instead fill the days and available airwaves with substantive discussions around issues impacting our economy. Immigration is not an easy topic, but if the right reforms come into place, it will generate immense prosperity and innovation for the national good.
Commentary by Steve Odland, CEO of the Committee for Economic Development (CED) and former CEO of Office Depot and AutoZone. Read CED's new immigration report here.
For more insight from CNBC contributors, follow @CNBCopinion onTwitter.
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How Bezos, Cook can get immigration reform back on Trump's agenda - CNBC