This Week's Immigration OnPoint Highlights
The Consequences of Federal Failure: Raids' Impact on Families
and Hate Groups On the Rise
Immigration OnPoint: Facts at Your Fingertips for Frequently Asked Immigration Questions

Last summer's failure by the federal government to reform the nation's broken immigration system has had strong and lasting repercussions. The Administration's stepped up raids and door-to-door operations while not denting the overall size of the undocumented population is causing tremendous upheaval on the families and communities caught up in raids. At the same time, anti-immigrant extremists, white supremacists, and far-right-wing media pundits have hijacked the immigration debate for their own purposes, stoking extremist attitudes and action in an attempt to move into the mainstream. Latinos, regardless of immigration status, are feeling the impact of the extremist rhetoric and report increased discrimination and anxiety, while experts have documented an increase in hate crimes and extremist behavior. Both of these disturbing trends provide additional evidence of the need for a solution to our ongoing immigration policy problems. The U.S. needs a national immigration policy for the 21st century that ends undocumented immigration as we know it, meets the needs of our economy, and is consistent with our traditional American values.

Immigration Enforcement and Its Unintended Consequences: The Impact on America's Children (Immigration Policy Center - March 2008) - Drawing from a longer, more in-depth study, this document covers immigration raids' effects on children and short-term recommendations on how to minimize their impact.

Extremists Hijack Immigration Debate: Increased Reports of Hate Crimes and Discrimination Aimed at U.S.- and Foreign-Born Latinos (Immigration Policy Center - Updated March 2008) Information and examples on how the immigration debate has spurred discrimination, hate, and violence.