As policymakers wrestle with President’s budget, there is a $4.1 trillion choice in Washington that some in Congress want to keep under wraps:
Comprehensive Immigration Reform = $1.5 trillion increase in GDP over 10 years
Mass Deportation = $2.6 trillion loss in GDP over 10 years

While some pundits are preparing to declare comprehensive immigration reform dead for this year, the fact is that plans to move forward on immigration reform are still very much in motion. Though President Obama’s State of the Union address gave only a brief mention of his support for fixing the broken immigration system – [...]

A new report, “Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, finds that comprehensive immigration reform that includes a legalization program for unauthorized immigrants and enables a future flow of legal workers would result in a large economic benefit—a cumulative $1.5 trillion in added U.S. gross [...]

Utah’s top Roman Catholic leader joined a New York colleague Wednesday in launching a nationwide campaign urging Catholics to press for comprehensive immigration reform this year.
“We believe it is the most practical and humane solution,” said the Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of Salt Lake City’s diocese. “We say this has to be done.”

The U.S. government has attempted for more than two decades to put a stop to unauthorized immigration from and through Mexico by implementing “enforcement-only” measures along the U.S.-Mexico border and at work sites across the country. These measures have failed to end unauthorized immigration and placed downward pressure on wages in a broad swath of [...]

There are few states where the growing political and economic clout of immigrants, children of immigrants, and Latinos is as apparent as Florida. Immigrants account for nearly one-in-five Floridians, and close to half of them are U.S. citizens eligible to vote. Latinos comprised roughly one-in-seven of the state’s voters in the 2008 elections, while immigrants [...]