According to a new report, state- and local-based immigration
enforcement laws are not leading to unauthorized immigrants leaving the
United States. Instead, the report notes, the laws are simply driving
such immigrants from one area to another, rather than from the United
States. The report goes on to report that these regulations additionally
lead to isolate unauthorized immigrants from the communities in which
they live and from local law enforcement, due to fear of retribution or
punishment for their immigrant status.
The report, which was published by the Center for American Progress,
delineates the main reasons that undocumented immigrants remain in the
United States. According to the report authors, most undocumented
immigrants have been in the U.S. for ten years or more and live in
family units with children. They are well settled in the U.S.; this,
they believe, is where they are making their lives. Additionally, the
cost to return home is too expensive and the reasons for initially
immigrating to the U.S. – a lack of economic opportunity in their home
country – further strengthen these undocumented immigrants’ resolve to
remain in the U .S., even in the face of ever-restrictive immigration
regulations.
