News

Media Confusion Over Birthright Citizenship

Published:

Mon, Feb 7^th 2011 @ 11:46 am EST by Jeremy Beck

Reporters confuse their readers when they state something as a fact in one sentence, then call it an "interpretation" in the next. But such is the failure of media to grasp the birthright citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment issues that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote that legislators "are targeting the 14th Amendment, which automatically grants U.S. citizenship to babies born on U.S. soil even if their parents are here illegally. The lawmakers disagree with that interpretation, and they are attempting to force the issue into the courts for a decision.”

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What was (and Wasn't) in the GAO Report on E-Verify

Published:

Fri, Jan 21^st 2011 @ 12:48 pm EST by Jeremy Beck

The Government Accountability Office's (GAO) report on E-Verify included some happy news (E-Verify is more accurate than ever) and some disappointing news (ICE's misplaced priorities). I was also disappointed in some of the things the report did not include. Here are some highlights from the report and my response. . .

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This Just In: Immigration Does Not Reflect Labor Market Conditions

Published:

Tue, Dec 21^st 2010 @ 12:00 pm EST by Jeremy Beck

Two years into the jobs recession, some reporters are still operating under the false assumption that immigration policy is determined by U.S. labor market conditions. According to The New York Times' coverage of a Brookings Institution report, “The flow of immigration has resumed, after….[having] stopped almost completely during the recession….The rise pointed to an increase in demand for immigrant labor in the economy, said Audrey Singer, a demographer and co-author of the report.”

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2.1 Million: An Estimate, For Starters

Published:

Tue, Nov 30^th 2010 @ 9:00 am EST by Jeremy Beck

The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 2.1 million illegal aliens could be immediately eligible for legalization should the DREAM Act pass into law. As with all estimates, this one is based on a series of assumptions - some worth questioning - but "2.1 million" is a useful number to use when considering the potential numerical impact of the legislation.

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Media Blinders on the DREAM Act Hurt Both Sides of the Debate

Published:

Wed, Nov 17^th 2010 @ 12:00 pm EST by Jeremy Beck

The DREAM Act was first introduced nine years ago and has been in the press almost weekly for at least a year now, yet you would be hard-pressed to find much written about the reasons opponents have been fighting (successfully) for nearly a decade to prevent the bill from becoming law. The media's blind spot has contributed to the frustration both sides feel today with the chance of compromise no more promising than it was a decade ago.