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Reframing the Immigration Debate: The Actors and the Issues

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We at the IRC strongly believe that this is a critical moment for immigration reform in the United States. For several years, we have watched with consternation as restrictionist forces have gained ground in communities, public policy, and political discourse. While there have always been brave voices to protest the violation of immigrant rights, we have seen a relative weakness in mounting a unified and coherent defense of immigrants and building a compelling call for reform.

In the current political context where security concerns are defined as paramount, those efforts have been further complicated. We feel it is time to look at the immigration issue in new ways, which take into account the concerns of all involved: community members, immigrants, workers, and human rights advocates.

We have put together a series of articles on immigration to engender dialogue and provide food for thought on the issues.

Analysis

Why has immigration become such a hot social and political issue in the past few years? What is the intersection between immigration policy, domestic economic policy, and foreign policy in these times of rapid economic globalization and the global war on terrorism? And what are the outlines of a comprehensive immigration reform that would resolve the immigration policy crisis, protect immigrant and worker rights, and address legitimate citizen concerns, while at the same time deflating the agenda of the hard-line restrictionists who are setting the terms of the national policy debate?

By Laura Carlsen:

NAFTA Inequality and Immigration
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4705

The Slow Slide to Barbarity
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4237

Migrants: Globalization's Junk Mail?
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4022

Doublespeak in Congress and Soldiers on the Border
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3319

Labor's May Day Call from Both Sides of the Border
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3263

Protests Turn the Tide on Immigration Debate
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3207

Bad Blood on the Border
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3096

By Tom Barry:

Losing the War of Ideas, Again
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4823

Planning the War on Immigrants
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4816

Pushing the Anti-Immigration Agenda Further Right
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/4077

The Right's "War for the Free World": U.S. Immigration Debate Splits Conservatives
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3405

Tom Tancredo: Christian Crusader, Cultural Nationalist, and Iran Freedom Fighter
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/3281

Tom Tancredo: Leader of the Anti-Immigrant Populist Revolt
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/3005

Immigration Advocates Face Challenges
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/387

Politics of Class and Corporations
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/224

Immigration Debate: Politics, Ideologies of Anti-Immigration Forces
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/652

The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On?
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/784

Pushing Our Borders Out
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/804

Restrictionism Resurgent in Post-9/11 Politics: Protect America Now
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/710

"Common Sense" Immigration Reform—What's FAIR got to do with it?
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/3053

Which Side Are the Republicans On?
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3145

Which Way Immigration Reform? Toward A Comprehensive Immigration Policy
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3161

By others:

Apaches Rise to Defend Homelands from Homeland Security, Brenda Norrell
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4884

Senate Bill a Step Backwards for Immigrant Rights, Oscar A. Chacón
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4293

In the Crossfire: Mesoamerican Migrants Journey North, by Miguel Pickard
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/741

Migration and Coffee in Mexico and Central America, by Luis Hernández Navarro
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/959

How U.S. Corporations Won the Debate Over Immigration, by David Bacon
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/996

The ABCs of Immigration Reform, by Sean Garcia
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/1792

U.S. Immigration Policy on the Table at the WTO, by Sarah Anderson
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/2962

The Benefits of Dual Citizenship, by Michele Wucker
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3119

 

Profiles

Center for Immigration Studies
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1452

Council of Conservative Citizens
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1461

Federation for American Immigration Reform
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1467

Immigration Reform Caucus
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1484

NumbersUSA
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1528

ProjectUSA
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1538

Social Contract Press
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1539

Tom Tancredo
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/3006

John Tanton
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1360

 

Language Restrictionism

Center for Equal Opportunity
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/926

ProEnglish
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1533

U.S. English
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1557

 

Resources

Immigration Resource List
http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/ImmigResList.pdf

IRC Americas Program Immigration Index
http://americas.irc-online.org/amindex/immig/

 

Wall lining US-Mexico border
Image Source: http://www.la.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/133690.php

 


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Published by the Americas Program. Copyright © 2008. All rights reserved.

Recommended citation:
"Reframing the Immigration Debate: The Actors and the Issues," Americas Program (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, November 28, 2005).

Web location:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/2959

Production Information:
Author(s): International Relations Center
Editor(s): Tom Barry, IRC
Production: Chellee Chase-Saiz

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