Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery

Topics:
  • Enforcement

Beginning with the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), Congress has attempted to deal with historically high levels of illegal immigration that started in the early 1970s and continued until the Great Recession in 2008. Since IRCA, illegal immigration and enforcement have been a dominant public concern that has driven policymaking by successive administrations and Congresses of each party, even as there has been deep ideological and partisan division over broader immigration reform during the past decade. The Migration Policy Institute is releasing a major study that describes and analyzes today's immigration enforcement programs, as they have developed and grown in the 25 years since IRCA launched the current enforcement era. Entitled Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery, the work offers unique insights and lays out, for the first time, the totality of immigration enforcement that is in place, identifying and describing the six pillars that comprise the complex, cross-agency immigration enforcement system that has been built. Join us as the report authors present their important findings and consider their implications for the future. Copies of the report will be available at the event. Speakers include:

  • Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director, MPI US Immigration Policy Program
  • Muzaffar Chishti, Director, MPI Office at NYU School of Law
  • Donald M. Kerwin, Executive Director, Center for Migration Studies
  • Introductory remarks by Demetrios G. Papademetriou, President, Migration Policy Institute

IAN Partners

  • pro bono net
  • american immigration lawyers association
  • national immigration law center
  • unidos us
  • immigration legal resource center
  • immigration legal resource center
  • american immigration council
  • american civil liberties union
  • american immigration council
  • national immigration project
  • the advocates for human rights
  • lutheran immigration and refugee service

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