A project of the Center for Community Change

Economy

Demanding Accountability from The Heritage Foundation

Posted by Sarah English on May 15, 2013

Last week, The Heritage Foundation released a faulty, anti-immigrant economic “study” that was denounced even within the conservative community. Today, immigrant families will deliver thousands of pink slips to Heritage president and former senator Jim DeMint, demanding that he be held accountable for the bigoted report and resign.

termination notice jim demint

Late Friday afternoon, one of the co-authors of the report, Jason Richwine, quietly resigned from The Heritage Foundation after it surfaced that he had written a highly racist dissertation in 2009 on the low IQ’s of Hispanic immigrants as compared to white Americans.

The Center for Community Change’s Executive Director Deepak Bhargava said this resignation, which took place “in the cover of darkness, without fully owning up to the reprehensible nature of the views,” wasn’t enough.  “This issue isn’t really that he was fired; the issue is that he was hired knowingly by Heritage with these views way out of the mainstream by the pillar institution of modern Conservatism in America,” Bhargava said on MSNBC’s All in with Chris Hayes on Friday.

The Heritage Foundation should take responsibility for embracing a report written by this extremist, and it is Jim DeMint who should be held accountable. Which is why today at 12pm, immigrant families and activists will be delivering thousands of pink slips to The Heritage Foundation building (214 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Washington, 20002) calling for Jim DeMint’s resignation.

It is our obligation to demand accountability.  In the words of Kica Matos, Director of Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice at The Center for Community Change, “We cannot stand by and allow our country’s ugly history of racism and injustice to repeat itself.”

Click here to sign our petition demanding Jim DeMint to resign from Heritage!

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Immigration Reform would bring in $1.5 trillion over 10 years

Posted by Rachel L. on January 7, 2010

Many of the naysayers and immigration reform pessimists point to the current economic crisis as the nail in the coffin for any reform effort. With unemployment at a record high, there is a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of legalizing the millions of workers currently toiling in the shadows of our economy. However, the truth is that the continuation of heavy-handed enforcement-only policies that have served to “look tough” on immigration have helped to depress wages across the board.

This morning the Center for American Progress, in partnership with the Immigration Policy Center, is releasing a groundbreaking study that finds comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to legalization would “raise the wage floor” for American workers across the board – and would bring $1.5 trillion dollars in GDP over 10 years.

…we estimate that comprehensive immigration reform would yield at least $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years. This is a compelling economic reason to move away from the current “vicious cycle” where enforcement-only policies perpetuate unauthorized migration and exert downward pressure on already low wages, and toward a “virtuous cycle” of worker empowerment in which legal status and labor rights exert upward pressure on wages.

The report compares three different scenarios for immigration policy: 1) comprehensive reform with a pathway to legalization, 2) a temporary guest worker program with no chance for legalization and 3) mass deportation. The findings speak for themselves:

Legalizing the nation’s unauthorized workers and putting new legal limits on immigration that rise and fall with U.S. labor demand would help lay the foundation for robust, just, and widespread economic growth.

Creating a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented would keep families together. It would stop the separation of children from parents. It would stop the abuse and exploitation of undocumented workers. It would bring people out of the shadows to leave without fear. And it makes economic sense.

In short, immigration reform is not only the right thing to do, it is the the necessary thing to do – for our families and for our economic future.

Download the full report here OR download the executive summary.

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Do Numbers(USA) Lie?

Posted by Rachel L. on December 10, 2009

Last week, we published yet another thoughtful guest post from Robert Gittelson. In an effort to discount his argument, notorious restrictionist Roy Beck picked up on the article and the various accusations started flying. Then the anti-immigrant fury rose up in the form of blog commentors that I’ve mostly published (some were too profane and I try to keep this site free of hate and foul language).

While I typically try to avoid fights like this (to be honest, a lot of the folks that will comment on my posts with ALL CAPS and shouts of ILLEGAL, tend to not be up for a civil debate), I thought it only fair that Robert get the space to rebut some of the misinformation presented in Beck’s article. Enjoy.

By Robert Gittelson.

If one subscribes to the theory that “all is fair in love, war, and politics,” then I suppose that NumbersUSA Founder and CEO Roy Beck’s article, “THE NO-JOBS SUMMITS: Pro-Amnesty Movement Thinks Americans DESERVE To Be Unemployed,”  in which he attempts to twist the factual economic arguments that I presented in that article into a diatribe of race baiting and fear mongering, could in some circles be considered an acceptable political maneuver in these racially and politically polarized times.

It is quite clearly a tragedy that so many American citizens are either out of work or under-employed in this economy, including, I might add, members of my own family. Perhaps I’m just naive, but I prefer to argue the actual facts, and let the chips fall where they may, because I have long advocated the position that the facts lay squarely on the side of Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Specifically, in my article that appeared on the Standing Firm website, “Political Football and Immigration Reform: Is the GOP Playing Games With Our Economy?”

I present a factual analysis of what would happen to our economy, if we were to be foolhardy enough to fully implement – pre CIR – some sort of E-verify type program designed to replace the 7-8 million employed undocumented immigrants with unemployed legal or citizen workers.

Beck starts his article under the following premise that sets the, if not fully xenophobic, at least racially divisive tone for the body of his propaganda piece:

“An article promoted on its website says that illegal aliens are better workers than Americans. If somebody has to be unemployed, it should be the less-desirable American workers who don’t have jobs, ‘ the article says.

Unbelievable? Read on . . .

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