immigration reform

Should Immigration Courts Operate under the Attorney General? History Says this is an Accident that Should be Undone

by Alison Peck

Franklin Roosevelt was pushed fear of a Nazi fifth column and big business's hostility toward foreign-born labor leaders to shift immigration courts from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice, where they act as an extension of law enforcement. Legislation to make them independent is long overdue. 

Obama’s Not the First President to Make Immigration Policy

by Brian Gratton

Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did it. So did Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.

What Would Reagan Do?

by Frank Keating

Immigration reform is the most Republican of causes.

Why the Business Community and the GOP Base are Parting Ways on Immigration

by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer

Executives have made little attempt to bridge the economic and political divides their predecessors created between workers and managers.

Historians discuss immigration reform on Capitol Hill

Yesterday, a short distance from the AHA offices, supporters of immigration reform marched on the National Mall, as a bipartisan group of eight senators continue deliberations that have been alternately described as “stuck,” “close,” “virtually complete,” or “about to get serious.” The senators will likely reveal their plan for comprehensive immigration reform, if there is one, today.In response to the flurry of activity on this previously languishing issue, the National History Center, a project of the American Historical Association, sponsored a congressional briefing in the Rayburn House Office Building last Friday. These briefings offer congressional staff and members a historical perspective on issues of current interest. The historians who present at these briefings avoid making recommendations to Congress, but discuss previous paths taken and their outcomes.

What went wrong with immigration reform in 1986?

"As President Obama and lawmakers from both parties begin to take their first tentative steps toward again rewriting the nation's immigration laws, opponents warn that they are repeating the mistakes of the 1986 act, which failed to solve the problems that it set out to address. Critics contend that the law actually contributed to making the situation worse," the Washington Post reports."An estimated 3 million to 5 million illegal immigrants were living in the United States when the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed. Now there are upwards of 11 million. And the question of who gets to be an American, far from being settled, has been inflamed."

Mae M. Ngai: Reforming Immigration for Good

Mae M. Ngai, a professor of history and Asian-American studies at Columbia, is the author of “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America.”IN Las Vegas yesterday, President Obama made it clear that an overhaul of America’s immigration laws was his top domestic priority. He expressed cautious support for a bipartisan plan by eight senators that would create a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants in exchange for tougher border enforcement, employment checks and temporary work visas for farmworkers and highly skilled engineers and scientists.Many critical details are still missing, but the general framework is notable for its familiarity. Variations on all of these measures have been tried before, with mixed results. Legalization of the undocumented is humane and practical, but the proposals for controlling future immigration are almost certain to fail.