The push for immigration reform promises to have many ups and downs, and this past week had both as Jeb Bush waffled on a path to citizenship, but the House continued to host positive hearings in their move towards a legislative debate. In this week’s Top Picks, I’d especially like to lift up Elizabeth Kalmbach’s post on the sequestration and detention, and Seth Freed Wessler’s piece on SB 1070.
- In his post for Sojourners, “Immigrants Just Won’t Go Away,” Roger Lovette writes of America’s long history of immigration, both of acceptance and intolerance, asking what future generations will remember of our time.
- In her piece for the National Immigrant Justice Center’s Rethink Immigration series, Elizabeth Kalmbach argues that the release of detained immigrants due to sequestration was a wake-up call to the need to eliminate the immigration detention bed quota.
- Immigration Impact, in its article “Skilled Immigrants Come Through All Immigration Channels,” features Benjamin Johnson’s recent House testimony that the best and the brightest come through many channels, not simply employment-based ones.
- Colorlines’ Seth Freed Wessler, in his piece, “Whatever Happened to SB 1070,” discusses the recent fate of the law, arguing that SB 1070 and other like anti-immigrant legislation is in retreat, though the conflict over immigrant rights is far from over.
- Maribel Hastings, in her analysis for America’s Voice, “Jeb Bush’s No to Citizenship: What Happened,” discusses possible reasons why Jeb Bush is repositioning himself on the issue.
Please email me or leave a comment if you have any reflections on this week’s Top Picks. Thank you for taking the time to visit our blog, and I look forward to bringing you the best online commentary on immigration and refugee issues every Monday here on Redefining Welcome.