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Strawberry industry looks to tech innovation, immigration reform to combat growing Mexican competition Plant City Observer The countdown has begun. Farmers and economists agree, the Florida strawberry industry has 10 years to drastically reduce production costs or the nearly $1 billion-per-year industry could see its last harvest. Faced with a labor shortage and high labor ...

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Posted: Jul 29, 2017 12:01 AM

Close to 70% of our annual immigration visa quota is allocated to family-based immigrants. How did this happen?

The 1952 Immigration Act established a preference system to prioritize immigration applications for the first time in our nation's history. It gave first preference to applicants who had family already residing in the U.S. By the early 1960s, the call for immigration reform had gained wide support from the rebellious social culture as well as the success of the Civil Rights movement. After JFKs assassination, the U.S. Congress took up the call for immigration reform by passing the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which is also known as the HartCeller Actnamed after its two key sponsors, Senator Philip Hart of Michigan and Representative Emanuel Celler of New York. Senator Ted Kennedy also played a very important role. Without his support, this bill wouldnt have passed.

The 1965 Act abolished the National Origins Formula that had been in place since 1921, and which had restricted immigration on the basis of proportion to the existing U.S. population. The Act kept the preference system introduced in the Immigration Act of 1952, which gave preference to family-reunion for relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent residents (a.k.a. green card holders), followed by employment-based immigrants, and refugees.

By the late 1960s, the influx of new immigrants from Europe had slowed down due to the post-war economic boom in Europe. Many Americans with European ancestry had already been in the U.S. for several generations by then, so there wasnt a great need for family-reunion-based immigration. However, that was not the case for many people from Asia and Latin America. Until 1965, immigration from these regions had been restricted for more than a century. By removing the national origin quota system, the new immigration law opened the door for immigrants from these regions for the first time. Many immigrants took advantage of the family-reunion preference and sponsored their families to become legal immigrants in the United States.

Our immigration laws haven't changed much since the Immigration Act of 1965, which has had a profound impact on our nations demographics, culture, and politics. We continues to use the preference system set by the 1965 Act today, with family-based immigration utilizing 70% of the annual visa quota and employment-based immigrants using another 20%. In 1965, the U.S. population was 194 million, with 6% of its population, or a little less than 10 million people, as foreign-born immigrants. The Pew Research Center estimates that if we factor in the second- and third-generation offspring of immigrants, the post-1965 immigration wave has added 72 million people to the U.S. population, which is a little more than the population of France (67 million).

The overly emphasis on family reunion based immigration is problematic on three fronts. First, its unfair. It gives preference to blood relationships and family connections and discriminates against people who dont have family connections, but do have knowledge, skills, and experiences and can contribute to our economy and be a productive citizen. The people our immigration system discriminates against today are the kind of people our nation has attracted since its founding. The current system also overlooks the fact that many people waiting in line for family reunion might qualify to migrate to America based on their merit but are instead stuck in the decade-long wait to be admitted on a family basis.

Second, this approach doesnt serve our nations economic needs because (a) the quota for family reunion is not set based on labor-market demand; and (b) the visa preference hierarchy favors the old (parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents) and the young (children younger than 21 years of age) but discriminates against the most likely productive ones (people 21 years old or older, and siblings of U.S. citizens and permanent residents). The current system gives preference to people who are more likely to become financial dependents rather than economic contributors. Empirical evidence shows that after we started admitting immigrants mainly on a family reunification basis in 1965, we opened up the welfare system to immigrants.

Third, the emphasis on family reunion results in chain immigration, which exacerbates the long wait and backlog. Every legal resident or U.S. citizen can not only sponsor his or her nuclear relatives such as spouses and children, but also non-nuclear relatives such as parents, adult children, and siblings. The more family-based visas we hand out, the higher the demand will be, because everyone has some family members he or she wants to bring over, and those family members have their own family members, and so on. Chain immigration is the main driver behind the immigration population growth since the Immigration Act of 1965. Although it is understandable that immigrants want to reunite with their extended families, they made the choice to leave those families behind when they immigrated to another country. Demanding family reunion from the host country on humanitarian grounds makes the situation worseand waiting for a decade or more for that reunion is far from being humane.

To address these issues, we should shift our immigration's emphasis from family reunion to merit. I'm not proposing to get rid of family reunion altogether. I believe, however, our immigration should be a merit-based system: an immigration system that gives higher preference to people who have skills and experiences to contribute, and to entrepreneurs who want to invest in America and create job opportunities for Americansin other words, a much more flexible merit-based immigration program to meet our nations economic needs. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. Both Canada and Australia have established and successfully operated merit-based immigration systems for years. We can learn from their systems strengths and weaknesses. We're in 2017. We shouldn't continue to live with an immigration system established in 1965.

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Immigration Reform: Let's Focus on Merit, Not Family Reunion - Townhall

Recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, instituted in 2012 under President Obama, have come under fire recently both at the state and national level.

In late June, attorneys general from 10 states except Arizona threatened to sue the Trump administration over a program that grants deportation relief and access to work permits to nearly 800,000 U.S. Dreamers, undocumented immigrants brought to the country at a young age who have passed a comprehensive background check and met multiple criteria.

Steven Zylstra

Removal of Arizonas more than 27,000 DACA recipients would lead to an annual gross domestic product loss of $1.3 billion. Many Dreamers who were brought here in their youth are now students, doctors, teachers, entrepreneurs, agricultural and construction workers. In other words, they are our neighbors.

They are hard-working individuals like 21-year-old Phoenix resident Maria Gonzalez, who spoke earlier this summer at a launch event for the FWD.us Arizona Coalition comprised of Arizona business leaders, community leaders and immigration reform advocates. She was brought to the U.S. as a toddler and knows no other country. Despite both her parents being detained by immigration officials during her senior year of high school her father was actually deported she was able to graduate and go on to attend South Mountain Community College while working to support herself. She hopes to transfer to Arizona State University and earn a bachelors degree in social work.

Like hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients across the country, Gonzalez faces significant insecurity about her legal status today in the face of aggressive immigration policies being pursued at federal and state levels. The FWD.us Arizona Coalition is working to bring attention to immigration reform efforts affecting Gonzalez and others like her. It is part of FWD.us, a bipartisan group working to mobilize the tech community and other national leaders in business and civic engagement who are interested in promoting immigration and economic policies that keep the U.S. competitive in an increasingly globalized world.

The Arizona Technology Council is proud and excited to have been part of the recent Arizona coalition launch. Since we are on the front lines of the immigration debate, we also are well positioned to have a significant and positive impact on the vital issue of immigration reform.

The FWD.us Arizona Coalition will fight for DACA recipients in our state, advocating for the government to find a legislative solution like the Republican-led Recognizing Americas Children (RAC) Act or the recently introduced bipartisan DREAM Act, which Sen. Jeff Flake is co-sponsoring, for these individuals who came to the U.S. as children and desperately want to continue contributing to our economy.

There is simply no morally defensible reason to deport these young people. The vast majority of the 750,000 participants in the DACA program are gainfully employed or students. They are major contributors to the U.S. economy, both as workers and consumers. Forcibly removing hundreds of thousands of these Dreamers would have a significantly negative impact on our national economy, with the potential to push GDP down by as much as $400 billion over the next 10 years.

Our broken immigration system is creating uncertainty for millions of people beyond hardworking DACA recipients. Another group that faces such insecurity is high-skilled immigrants hoping to come to the U.S. via the H-1B visa. The H-1B visa allows a limited number of immigrants with specialized skills in predominantly the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields to emigrate to the U.S. for work, helping to raise wages for native-born workers and ultimately create jobs for Americans. Unfortunately, the annual number of slots allowed is relatively small and makes it difficult for American companies to innovate faster. Limited high-skilled immigration would be terrible for the U.S. economy and disastrous for Arizona technology businesses. We should be expanding this vital program, not considering cutting it.

Ultimately, we believe the best way forward is comprehensive immigration reform that provides permanent legal status and a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the shadows today. At the same time, we must modernize our entire immigration system to better fit the realities of the 21st century and to help make the U.S. as competitive as possible in the global marketplace. This can be done without sacrificing border security or the safety of our nation by requiring those seeking citizenship to undergo a comprehensive background check, demonstrate they can speak English and pay any taxes they owe.

Steven G. Zylstra is president and CEO of the Arizona Technology Council, which is a founding member of the FWD.us Arizona Coalition. For more information about FWD.us, visit http://www.FWD.us.

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Coalition fighting for 'dreamers,' immigration reform - Arizona Capitol Times

In late June, President Trump met with a dozen or so family members of Americans killed by undocumented immigrants as part of a push for two new laws targeting illegal immigration. Were calling on all members of Congress to honor grieving American families by passing these lifesaving measures in the House, in the Senate, and then sending them to my desk for a very rapid signature, he said at the White House meeting, a day before the lower chamber approved both bills. I promise youit will be done quickly.

Immigration restrictionist groups arent so sure about that promise, though they share the presidents desire to curb entries into the United States and force undocumented immigrants out. In their view, and in actuality, the legislation faces difficulty in the Senate, where lawmakers have been mired in a debate over health care and have plans to take up tax reform next. These advocates see the legislation, at best, as a path toward a broader, more stringent immigration measure. But at worst, the bills could be just another letdown.

Trumps Immigration Allies Are Growing Frustrated With Him

Ahead of the June meeting, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte had introduced the pair of bills. One was Kates Law, which imposes tougher sentences on offenders who were previously deported and returned to the United States illegally. (It was named for a young woman, Kate Steinle, who was shot and killed by a man whod been deported five times before reentering the country.) The other was the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which hits on Trumps campaign promise to punish jurisdictions that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The bill cuts off some federal grants for these self-described sanctuary cities, like San Francisco where Steinle was shot. The bills crack down on dangerous sanctuary policies that needlessly put innocent lives at risk, Goodlatte said in a statement at the time.

The president touted their passage through the House as a victory. But like-minded organizations dont seem to be keeping their hopes up. Theres some sign of legislative life in the House and thats very encouraging to us, but in the end, the Senate is where bills seem to go to die, said Dan Stein, the president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for more immigration restrictions. Considering the record of legislative achievement in the Senate, getting those passed would provide some assurance that something can get done.

Steins group and others are growing frustrated with Trump, who made cracking down on illegal immigration the cornerstone of his presidential campaign. The president has so far come up short on multiple pledgesamong others, his plan to immediately repeal the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and another to seal off the entire U.S.-Mexico border. Trumps assurances about the bills future seem to fit a larger pattern of overpromising on his agenda. And not just on immigration: When we win on November 8th and elect a Republican Congress, we will be able to immediately repeal and replace Obamacare, he said just before the election. We will do it very, very quickly. Months later, that still hasnt happened, and Trumps influence in Congress has often looked questionable.

So if any Trump supporters are looking to the Senate for a win on the two new bills, theyre unlikely to get it anytime soon. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not said whether hell put Kates Law or the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act on legislators schedule, but the bills already look destined for Democratic pushback. Similar legislation has failed to advance in the Senate before. Another, slightly different bill known as Kates Law went down in a 55-42 vote last year. So did another sanctuary-cities measure. Theres little sign the new bills would have more luck securing Senate Democrats votesespecially when Trumps anti-immigrant rhetoric seems to grow only more graphic.

Just three Democrats in the House supported the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act. While Kates Law received support from 24 of them in the lower chamber, their Senate counterparts dont seem likely to follow suit. Instead of criminalizing and scapegoating immigrants, Congress should be offering workable comprehensive reforms that actually strengthen our economy and national security, said Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey in a statement. Until then, we will continue to be a firm wall of resistanceusing all tools at our disposalto prevent Republicans from blindly trying to sanction this administrations mass deportation agenda.

House Democrats who voted for Kates Law have already come under fire by Latino Victory Project, a group that supports Latino political candidates. I think its shameful that these members, this handful of Democrats, decided to stand with Donald Trump instead of with Latinos and immigrantsinstead of their own constituents, Cristbal Alex, the groups president, said earlier this month.

Still, its not impossible that some Democrats could defect. As The Hill reported earlier this month, a renewed push could force the 10 senators running for reelection in purple and red states won by Trump to take a tough, politically controversial vote. In particular, Senate Republicans, who as a group have largely supported immigration-enforcement bills in the past, may look to Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia for support. Manchin and two other Democrats up in 2018, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, joined Republicans in voting for the 2016 Kates Law in the Senate. But its not clear what position theyll take on the latest iteration.

Jonathan Kott, Manchins communications director, said the senator has been focused on health care and hasnt had a chance to review the bills yet. A spokeswoman for Heitkamp expressed doubt about the legislation even coming to the floor: The bills and amendments on this issue that have been voted on in the past in the Senate have all been different. Additionally, its still to be determined what bill, if any, will get a vote in the Senate. (Donnelly could not be reached for comment.) Republicans would need at least eight Democrats to advance legislation.

Chris Chmielenski, the director of content and activism at NumbersUSA, is more optimistic than others about the bills potential. For one, he predicts theres a decent chance McConnell will bring the sanctuary-cities bill to the floor. Its prospects really depend on how much pressure [the] administration puts on those Democrats that are up for reelection in 2018, said Chmielenski, whose organization supports reduced immigration. He has even greater confidence in Kates Law because of the publicity it received during the campaign and with Trump frequently invoking Steinles name and story.

We dont think [Kates Law is] necessarily an impactful piece of legislation, but because you did have 24 Democrats cross over party lines and vote with the Republicans on itand because it does have some branding, it has some national name recognitionI think theres a good chance that its going to come to the Senate floor, he said. If it does, he thinks it has a chance at passing through the Senate.

Others have their doubts about Kates Law. If only Kates Law passes, it changes almost nothing, said Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for limiting immigration. Just passing Kates Law is a tiny drop in the bucket of what needs to change. If they dont pass the sanctuary bill, were going to continue to have a huge public-safety problem with sanctuary policies.

For that same reason, Stein is concerned Democrats will vote for Kates Law, but not the sanctuary-cities bill, to stave off criticism from constituents. Were concerned that Kates Law might be viewed as political cover by some of the Senate Democrats who feel that the violent crimes committed by aliens who shouldve been deported or removed creates enough political liability that they need to take that vote, Stein said.

Perhaps even more dire for the groups agenda is Congress losing its appetite for immigration legislation. Of course our biggest concern is that ... they do pass the sanctuary cities bill, they do pass Kates Law through the Senate, and Trump signs them into law and then thats it, no further action is taken, Chmielenski said.

Immigrant advocates and civil-rights groups, meanwhile, have raised alarm over both bills. The immigration enforcement approach championed by the Trump administration and embodied by Bob Goodlattes bills would harm, rather than help, public safety, said Lynn Tramonte, the deputy director of Americas Voice Education Fund in a statement. Despite the costs and consequences already on display throughout the country, House Republicans are poised to put the Trump administrations existing cruel approach into overdrive.

I think generally were concerned that this represents the congressional implementation of Trumps executive orders on immigration, said Jose Magaa-Salgado, the managing policy attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

For now, Trumps immigration allies are waiting on McConnell. If they miss this opportunity, [its] not a good sign for future legislationthen it looks like were condemned to bicker over issues endlessly without really changing anything, Vaughan said.

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Could Trump's Immigration Agenda Ever Get Through Congress? - The Atlantic

While the Trump administration this year has demanded stricter enforcement of immigration laws by local law enforcement, some county sheriffs across the U.S. had already been establishing closer relationships with anti-immigration groups in recent years. Some of the national groups have been offering sheriffs advice, inviting them to border schools to hear anti-immigration speakers, producing television advertisements featuring sheriffs and sending at least one sheriff a model ordinance intended to spur local law enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Depending on your politics, that could be seen as disturbing collusion between heavy-handed law enforcers and nativist organizations intent on maintaining a white majority, or an informal flow of information between two groups with a mutual interest in strict enforcement of federal immigration laws. Either way, a new report released Tuesday on the deepening relationship between sheriffs and anti-immigration groups comes at a time of increased focus on immigration issues.

Nativist groups have recruited county sheriffs to help implement dangerous anti-immigrant policies that split up families, intimidate survivors of violence, and deport people to their deaths, reads a report writtenby the pro-immigrationCenter for New Community (CNC). These are exactly the results that the contemporary anti-immigrant movement has long been seeking, [including] a drastic increase in deportations and attrition through enforcement.

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Cultivating relationships with law enforcement officials like county sheriffs has been a goal of anti-immigration groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) for more than a decade.A December 2005 FAIR newsletter stated, Creating coalitions with police and sheriff s [sic] departments all across the country to confront the issues posed by mass immigration has been a key FAIR goal for many years, according to the CNC report. After identifying sheriffs who were concerned about illegal immigration, FAIR staff met with them, sent them a steady stream of information, set up regular conference calls and invited them to D.C. to meet with FAIRs senior staff, according to the organizations 2011 annual report.

In following years there was increased cooperation between sheriffs and FAIR, with the creation of an umbrella group called the National Sheriffs Immigration Council and the organization of border schools, where sheriffs, sometimes traveling at the taxpayers expense, hear presentations by extremist anti-government speakers, according to the report, Crossing the Line: U.S. Sheriffs Colluding With the Anti-Immigrant Movement. The sheriffs evenvisited the headquarters of a border vigilante group in Texas.

Bob Dane, the executive director of FAIR, dismissed the report as sour grapes from a far-left group that is frustrated the Trump administration is enforcing immigration laws. [Sheriffs] have sought the expertise of FAIR,and we have sought their perspective, Dane tells Newsweek, characterizing the relationship as symbiotic and transparent. The common denominator is the rule of law. Local and federal law enforcement officials cooperate when investigating drug-relatedor violent crimes, and that cooperation should also exist when enforcing federal immigration laws, Dane said.Theres a new sheriff in town, and hes in the White House. On its website, FAIR says its goal is to reduce legal immigration to about 300,000 annually from current levels of over one million people.

The Center for Immigration Studiesdirector of policy studies Jessica Vaughan said she wouldnt waste her time reading the report, as she believes a main goal of the Center for New Community is smearing her organization. Obviously they are upset that many law enforcement leaders come to us for information and advice, Vaughan says in an email to Newsweek. They come to us because of our expertise and years of experience on the public safety issues connected to immigration policy.

FAIR is a good resource for local law enforcement leaders who have questions about immigration laws, says the sheriff of a rural Texas county, who said he doesnt know about any actual partnerships between sheriffs in his region and the organization. Ive talked to [FAIR] over the years, Jackson County Sheriff A.J. Andy Louderback tells Newsweek. Theyre simply, as I see it, theyre just advocates for the rule of law. (Earlier this year, Louderback won approval to have his jail officers cross-designated as federal immigration officers, and he said so far hes pleased with the increased information and power that comes with the designation.)

Texass Jackson County Sheriffs Office Deputy Stephen Lang and Sergeant B.J. Novak stand near a department vehicle. The relationship between sheriffs and anti-immigration groups has deepened in recent years, a time of increased focus on immigration issues. Photo courtesy Jackson County Sheriff's Office

Less than a week after he won the 2016 presidential election, President Trump vowed to immediately deport 2 million to 3 million undocumented immigrants who had committed crimes, and after he took office he quickly inked executive orders that expanded immigration powers for local law enforcement and authorized the construction of a wall along the border between U.S. and Mexico. And while arrests of undocumented immigrants by federal agents are higher under Trump than they were under President Obama, a backlog in the court system has meant fewer actual deportations.

FAIR has also teamed with sheriffs on media and legislative efforts. The organization produced a TV ad campaign featuring local sheriffs and warning of the dangers posed by uncontrolled immigration, and it paid about $130,000 for it to be aired in Wisconsin and North Carolina in 2016. The organization produced another ad shortly after Trump was inaugurated, featuring a Louisiana sheriffwho is also the president of the National Sheriffs Associationwho thanks Trump for agreeing to stop illegal immigration and restore the rule of law, according to the report.

The anti-immigration groups have also helped sheriffs increase their role shaping national immigration policy, with FAIR placing sheriffs on Capitol Hill witness panels and hearings at least eight times since 2011, the CNC report says. In their testimony, FAIR-affiliated sheriffs frequently express support for draconian immigration enforcement measures, advancing the dangerous notion that local police should enforce federal immigration laws, the report states.

Hiroshi Motomura, a UCLA law professorwho studies immigration, saidpartnerships between sheriffs and anti-immigration groups and increased enforcement of federal immigration laws by local law enforcement could lead to racial profiling. Weve had cases of jurisdictions where the arrest patterns are skewed by race and ethnicity, Motomura tells Newsweek, citing asan example Maricopa County in Arizona. My concern is its going to happen some of the time, enough to be concerning, and its going to be hard to figure out when its happening.

Sheriffs who hold negative views of immigrants are more likely to head departments where their deputies frequently check the immigration status of the people they encounter, said Mirya Holman, a professor of political science at Tulane Universitywho has studied sheriffs, including a nationwide survey of 500 sheriffs in 2012. Theres no legal reason to check someones legal immigration status when they are reporting a crime, but sheriffs who have negative attitudes toward immigrants were more likely to check the status of victims of crime, Holman tells Newsweek. Given the more aggressive actions by [Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump], were going to see sheriffs playing a very important and growing role in immigration enforcement.

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How Local Law Enforcement Leaders and Anti-Immigration Groups Have Joined Forces to Deport More ... - Newsweek