This Week in Immigration Reform — Week Ending February 26

Week Ending February 26

 This week in immigration: Immigration reform could lead to higher wages, tax revenues; and new civic engagement effort encourages Latinos to “Vote for Your America.”

 NCLR kept the community informed with staff quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Univision, Foreign Policy, CBC News, and EFE.

New reports make the case for immigration relief: Two new reports released this week make clear the potential economic benefits comprehensive immigration reform would provide. The Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy’s Report on Undocumented Immigrants’ State & Local Tax Contributions shows that undocumented immigrants currently pay an estimated $11.64 billion each year in state and local taxes, while granting legal status to this population would raise those state and local tax contributions by an estimated $2.1 billion annually. Additionally, President Obama’s executive actions would boost tax contributions by more than $800 million per year. Check out the report (including data for each state) at itep.org/immigration.  

A report by the Migration Policy Institute and Urban Institute examines the livelihoods of those who stand to benefit from the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program. The report finds that DAPA’s work authorization provision could boost the average DAPA family’s income by 10 percent. This wage increase would mean a higher standard of living for DAPA families, 36 percent of whom currently live in poverty. The report describes the families that will potentially be eligible for DAPA which include more than 10 million people living in households with at least one potentially DAPA-eligible adult, including some 4.3 million children under age 18—an estimated 85 percent of whom are U.S. citizens.

NCLR continues building partnerships to register voters: NCLR is again working to register new voters nationwide, many of whom are recently naturalized citizens. Partnering with Univision, Voto Latino, Rock the Vote, and others, “Vote for Your America” seeks to register approximately 3 million new voters, roughly the same number who are newly eligible since the 2012 election. The campaign will entail television and radio ads, editorials, voter registration drives, and a bilingual text messaging tool.  NCLR is working to make voter registration easier than ever through the Latinos Vote app available for free in the Google Play store and iTunes.