GCIR Reports - Equal Treatment and Opportunity

  • Fix, Michael and Wendy Zimmermann
    1999

    Nearly 1 in 10 families with children have mixed citizenship status, where one or more parents may be a noncitizen and one or more children may be a citizen. This study explores the reasons for the creation of a mixed-status family category and the unintended effects that social policies (such as the 1996 welfare restrictions) can have on citizen children.

  • American Bar Association Commission on Immigration and Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund
    2004

    This report shows how sharp restrictions of the 1996 immigration law have combined with post-September 11 law and policy changes to create a two-tiered system of justice that singles out immigrants for unequal treatment. The United States should be able to protect its borders, limit illegal immigration, and preserve national security while protecting civil rights, promoting family reunification, and respecting due process. The study combines a clear description of legal changes with stories of affected individuals, and recommends steps to restore due process and fair treatment.

  • Opportunity Agenda, The, and The SPIN Project

    The toolkit is intended to help leaders and organizations strengthen their communications in ways that build broader and more lasting support for social justice in the United States. It will introduce readers to the "Opportunity Frame"--a communications approach, rooted in shared values that we believe can greatly expand the constituency for positive social change. It includes case studies of campaigns that have successfully used elements of the "Opportunity Frame" and concrete tools to help organizations working for social change apply this approach to their own work. For more information contact heath@spinproject.org.

  • Devin Burghart, David Ostendorf, and Eric Ward
    2005

    Forty years after the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which sought to rectify the nation's history of racism and discrimination in immigration policy, the restorative nature of the act and its civil-rights base are threatened by a growing anti-immigrant movement and the mounting stack of proposed anti-immigrant legislation.

  • Bess Chiu, Lynly Egyes, Peter L. Markowitz, and Jaya Vasandani
    2009

    During the last two years of the Bush Administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) vastly expanded its use of home raid operations as a method to locate and apprehend individuals suspected of civil immigration law violations. ICE has admitted that these are warrantless raids and, therefore, that any entries into homes require the informed consent of residents. However, frequent accounts in the media and in legal filings have told a similar story of constitutional violations occurring during ICE home raids — a story that includes ICE agents breaking into homes and seizing all occupants without legal basis.

    This report is the first public effort to compile and analyze the available evidence regarding the prevalence of constitutional violations occurring during ICE home raids. Through two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the authors of this report obtained significant samples of ICE arrest records from home raid operations in New York and New Jersey. Analysis of these records, together with other publicly available documents, reveals an established pattern of misconduct by ICE agents in the New York and New Jersey Field Offices. Further, the evidence suggests that such pattern may be a widespread national phenomenon reaching beyond these local offices.

    Authored by the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic with funding from the Hagedorn Foundation.

  • Paul M. Sherer
    2003

    After 9/11, 50 restrictive proposals were introduced in several states to deter immigrants from obtaining or keeping their driver's licenses. Proposals included the prohibition of licenses for the undocumented and new conditions on acceptable documents for proving identity. The impacts on immigrants and efforts to combat the new restrictions are explored here.

  • Conversation on Regional Equity (CORE)
    2006

    This document represents the synthesis of perspectives developed during a two-year process aimed at identifying key policy and institutional changes that could help a burgeoning regional equity movement in the country become more effective. Supported by the Ford Foundation and managed by the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community at UC Santa Cruz, the initiative brought together a core group of leading 'thinkers and doers' from a range of sectors and perspectives for a series of meetings aimed at distilling key lessons from local and state-level efforts around the country.

  • This section includes information on restrictionist groups and anti-immigrant activities.  It also contains information about discrimination and hate crimes targeting immigrant communities.

  • De Souza Briggs, Xavier, ed.
    2005

    Shows how ambivalence towards new immigrants and racial minorities has resulted in residential segregation by race and income, and how this segregation undermines education and job prospects as well as health and safety. Outlines an agenda to expand opportunity and assesses viability of movement for regional solutions.

  • Christopher Nugent
    2002

    The author provides insight on the immigrants who have been detained in the post-9/11 era, and the harsh realities they face. A look at where philanthropy has made a difference and where opportunities for funding remain are also detailed.

  • Jacobs, Lawrence and Theda Skocpol, eds.
    2005

    This book examines how the dramatic increase in economic inequality since the 1970s may have stalled or reversed gains toward the U.S. ideal of participatory, responsive democracy. Scholars marshal evidence that economic inequality has diminished the voice of middle and working classes in politics, and reduced support for inclusive public policies, like the G.I. Bill and Social Security, that opened opportunities in the middle of the twentieth century.

  • Paul M. Sherer
    2003

    Microsoft, among other corporations, supports pro-bono legal services for immigrants who are detained and face deportation without access to legal counsel.

  • Foner, Nancy, and Richard Alba
    2006

    The story of yesterday's second generation overall is one of progress and advancement. However, exclusively upbeat portrayals fail to capture the complexities of the paths of second-generation Italians and eastern European Jews. Recognizing the possibility of similarities and continuities between the second generation of southern and eastern Europeans and today’s second generation opens up the possibility for learning lessons from the past that have significance for the present and future.

  • Opportunity Agenda, The
    2006

    Finds that after five decades of progress in building a middle class, creating a safety net, and erecting legal protections against official segregation and overt exclusion of marginalized groups, opportunity in the United States is at risk. Clear charts and data measure progress along six interrelated dimensions: mobility, equality, participation in democracy, redemption/ rehabilitation, community, and security.

  • 1964

    Title VI was enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

  • Quiroz, Julie Teresa
    1995

    This book, which was one of two follow-up reports to the Ford Foundation’s Changing Relations Project from 1987 to 1991, placed multicultural research teams in a variety of U.S. cities. The research revealed that participation across groups in a shared task helps to reduce competition as well as build bonds of trust. The report noted that the challenge is not merely in "harmonizing relations among groups" but in "mobilizing intergroup cooperation into strategies for economic and political advancement." Examples of initiatives included the following areas: affordable housing, economic development, family literacy, and neighborhood and citywide advocacy.

  • National Collaboration for Youth and National Juvenile Justice Network
    2006

    Outlines the risks and obstacles that undocumented immigrant youth face in both the immigration and juvenile justice systems. The brief also recommends policies and actions that immigration advocates, youth advocates, and service providers could adopt to improve the safety and well-being of immigrant youth.

  • John Schmitt
    2010

    This report reviews the characteristics of the immigrant workforce and analyzes the impact of unionization on the pay and benefits of immigrant workers. According to the most recent available data, immigrant workers are now over 15 percent of the workforce and almost 13 percent of unionized workers. Even after controlling for systematic differences between union and non-union workers, union representation substantially improves the pay and benefits received by immigrants.