Mainers for Sensible Immigration Policy

WE SUPPORT

Turning off the jobs magnet, by adopting universal E-Verify workplace verification, and by prosecuting unscrupulous employers.
Reunifying nuclear families, but no more unlimited chain migration of adult relatives.
Making permanent the basic tenets of President Obama’s DACA program (work permits and protection from deportation, without a pathway to citizenship). Parents of DACA recipients will be eligible for non-citizen legal immigrant status.
Periodically adjusting immigration numbers based on labor needs as determined by the Department of Labor.
Explicitly setting immigration policy to serve the interests of the American people at large, rather than special interest lobbies.

Rockefeller Commission Report on Population Growth
and the American Future, 1969

"After two years of concentrated effort, we have concluded that, in the long run, no substantial benefits will result from further growth of the Nation’s population, rather that the gradual stabilization of our population through voluntary means would contribute significantly to the Nation’s ability to solve its problems. We have looked for, and have not found, any convincing economic argument for continued population growth. The health of our country does not depend on it, nor does the vitality of business nor the welfare of the average person."

Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy, 1978, chaired by Father Theodore Hesburg of Notre Dame University (and previous chair of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission)

"The select commission recommends that legalization begin when appropriate enforcement mechanisms have been instituted. The commission believes that a legalization program is a necessary part of enforcement, but it does not believe that the United States should begin the process of legalization until new enforcement measures have been instituted to make it clear that the United States is determined to curtail new flows of undocumented/illegal aliens."

U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, 1990,
chaired by Barbara Jordan

"The credibility of immigration policy
can be measured by a simple yardstick:
people who should get in, do get in;
people who should not are kept out,
and people who are Judged deportable
are required to leave."

President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development, 1993

"As a matter of public debate, immigration is a sensitive and explosive issue, and both legal and illegal immigration must be addressed with great sensitivity and care in order to advance the debate. We acknowledge these impediments to easy and informal dialogue, and we urge that participants take appropriate care so that a reasoned discussion of immigration and the American future can begin.
We believe that reducing current immigration levels is a necessary part of working toward sustainability in the United States."

Paul Krugman, Economist

"[I]t is intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does, that immigrants do 'jobs Americans won't do.' The willingness of Americans to do a job depends on how much that job pays -- and the reason some jobs pay too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid immigrants."

John B. Judis, former senior editor at The New Republic and author of The Emerging Democratic Majority

"Here is the simple truth: As long as corporations are free to roam the globe in search of lower wages and taxes, and as long as the United States opens its borders to millions of unskilled immigrants, liberals will not able to create bountiful, equitable societies, where people are free from basic anxieties about obtaining health care, education and housing."

Barbara Jordan, chair of the bi-partisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, August 3, 1994

“As a nation of immigrants committed to the rule of law, this country must set limits on who can enter and back up these limits with effective enforcement of our immigration law.”

President Bill Clinton
1995 State of the Union address

“ All Americans are...rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering the country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use impose burdens on taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders...cracking down on illegal hiring, and by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens.”

Senator Harry Reid, Los Angeles Times, 1995 (Reid introduced legislation to reduce immigration by 65%)

“The federal government has been grossly irresponsible in its neglect of mounting immigration problems….Taxpayers simply cannot continue to sustain new populations the size of San Diego or the state of Nevada every year.”

Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

"The number of immigrants added to the labor force every year is of a magnitude not seen in this country for over a century. If this huge influx of mostly low-skill workers provides some benefits to the economy as a whole...it also threatens to depress further the wages of blue-collar Americans and put strains on an already overburdened safety net."

Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, 2004

“The only reason any job remains unfilled is because the wage is too low. Require it to be filled with an American and employers have to raise the wage. But if they can get legal guest workers, they won't.”

Dean Baker. Co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2004

“There are no jobs that people inherently don’t want. They just don’t want them at the pay that’s being offered. Its not as though we absolutely need people working at those wages. Restaurants might cost a little more if people weren’t willing to work at very low wages. So what? We’d go out to eat a little less often."

The New York Times editorial, February 22, 2000

“The primary problem with amnesties is that they beget more illegal immigration."

Jan C.Ting, Professor. Temple University Beasley School of Law and former assistant to director of Immigration and Naturalization Service, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 15, 2004

“Just as it (amnesty) rewards illegal aliens who have violated our laws...the amnesty penalizes aliens who have chosen to respect our laws by waiting for permission to immigrate legally (some qualified immigrants have been waiting up to 20 years)."

Gaylord Nelson, former US Senator and founder of Earth Day, 2001

“Its phony to say ‘ I’m for the environment, but not for limiting immigration."

Dave Forman, cofounder of Earth First and the Rewilding Institute

"Those environmentalists who think we can double or triple U.S. population without wiping out wildlife and scalping our last wildernesses, are living in a fool's paradise....Americans have the biggest Affluence Footprint per capita of any people in the world. Any population growth in the United States, then, is growth of these big Affluence Footprints. Population growth in the United States is thus more harmful to the world than population growth anywhere else..."