Understanding Government

Pat Quinn

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed the “DREAM Act” into law Monday, legislation that will create privately-funded scholarships for documented and undocumented immigrants to attend public and private colleges in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune’s Monique Garcia reports that Illinois DREAM Act supporters “will continue to fight for comprehensive immigration reform in Washington, noting the new state law is a small but important step forward.” But Washington can’t deal with the federal version of the DREAM Act, much less comprehensive immigration reform. (more…)

This is pretty interesting: Rick Snyder, Michigan’s newly elected governor and a Republican, gave a speech at Wayne State University yesterday extolling the economic virtues of immigrants. Kim Kozlowoski of the Detroit News reports that Snyder and Michael Bloomberg were the premier speakers at a conference called “Immigration & Michigan’s Economic Future.”

Obviously, Detroit could use international immigrants, Indiana immigrants, really any immigrants to restore its rapidly dwindling population. But it seems politically risky for a national Republican figure to encourage immigration. Perhaps the chances of immigration reform are so dead that Republicans are no longer nervous about the issue.

On May 4, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn wrote a letter to U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement stating that Illinois planned to leave Secure Communities, an immigration deportation program where ICE uses fingerprints collected by county jails to apprehend illegal aliens.

The reason for Illinois leaving Secure Communities was simple. (more…)

Jennifer Johnson of the suburban Chicago Pioneer Local has a nice piece today that walks through the local and national political battles recently waged over immigration policy. What her reporting shows, though, is that immigration advocates have largely overlooked major changes made by the Obama administration. (more…)

Is there a difference between an illegal immigrant and an illegal immigrant who has filed papers for residency status?  Immigration raids across the country have rounded up both categories of undocumented workers, and, as Julia Preston reports in the New York Times, Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division has decided there is a difference.  Prosecuting a smaller number of illegal immigrants may help ease a backlog of court cases besetting another Homeland Security department — Citizen and Immigration Services.  But it’s also inciting an ideological debate and tension in the ranks at ICE. (more…)