Three crises are slamming the world at the same time: the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and a population plateau. But once COVID-19 passes, immigration will surge again as countries seek workers to fill labor shortages and people flee climate-stressed regions in search of stable habitats. Although this may seem improbable amid COVID-19 border restrictions and […]
Archive | News & Opinion
The Coalition highlights selected news and opinion pieces that contribute to the dialogue on immigration issues. We do not necessarily endorse the views of the authors.
(OPINION) Democrats need to abandon their all-or-nothing approach to immigration reform
Democrats suffered a setback last month when the Senate parliamentarian rejected their plans to legalize millions of undocumented immigrants through reconciliation. She appears poised to reject their latest proposal too. Now, the question is whether party lawmakers will jettison legalization and push for what remaining immigration reforms the parliamentarian will allow — or give up […]
(NEWS) Advocates frustrated by shrinking legal migration under Biden
With Democrats’ immigration plans sputtering in Congress, some advocates are increasingly frustrated the Biden administration isn’t taking advantage of existing legal pathways for those seeking to come to the U.S. They described what they say are shrinking immigration opportunities under Biden as the White House lets visas expire — and as the U.S. hit the lowest number of […]
(OPINION) The Biden Administration Let Over 200,000 Green Cards Go to Waste This Year
The Biden administration failed to issue more than 200,000 permanent resident visas (or “green cards”) that were allotted in fiscal year 2021 for immigrants sponsored by U.S. employers or family members. Roughly 150,000 visas for family-based immigrants and as many as 80,000 visas for employment-based immigrants had gone unused by September 30, which was the […]
(OPINION) How Two Bipartisan Immigration Proposals Can Support Our Exhausted Healthcare Workforce
Eighteen months into the global pandemic, coronavirus is still overwhelming the U.S. healthcare system with death tolls topping those we saw over 100 years ago during the Spanish Flu epidemic, despite a widely available vaccine. Of those, more than 3,600 healthcare workers also lost their lives. Therefore, it is little surprise that three in ten healthcare […]
(OPINION) The Immigration Ruling Hurts. But The Door May Still be Open for Major Legal Immigration Changes
In a dispiriting turn, the Senate parliamentarian decided last night that the Democrats’ legalization proposal for undocumented immigrants cannot be included in reconciliation because it does not conform to the Byrd rule. As disappointing as this decision is, lawmakers should remember that there’s more to immigration reform than legalization. Jeremy L. Neufeld, Niskanen Center, September […]
(NEWS) Immigration Processing Now Takes 6 Times Longer Following Trump Policies
Despite its number of applications consistently hovering around the eight to 10 million range for the past five years, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) processing times jumped six-fold between 2015 and 2020. The agency now faces a backlog of millions of petitions from people looking to temporarily stay or live in the country, […]