The Cost of Doing Nothing:  Dollars, Lives, and Opportunities Lost in the Wait for Immigration Reform

PRESS RELEASE

September 23, 2013
Washington D.C. – Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases The Cost of Doing Nothing: Dollars, Lives, and Opportunities Lost in the Wait for Immigration Reform. This fact sheet highlights the high cost of Congress' failure to act on immigration reform legislation. The “enforcement only” approach to immigration policy has failed to curb unauthorized immigration and has wasted taxpayer dollars while creating a slow-motion humanitarian catastrophe. Additionally, the full economic potential of unauthorized immigrants as workers, taxpayers, consumers, and entrepreneurs has been squandered because they are unable to earn legal status. In other words, as Congress continues to ponder the possibility of enacting immigration reform legislation, the broken machinery of the U.S. immigration system continues to destroy lives and families while draining the federal budget and undermining the economy. These are the costs of inaction.

To view the fact sheet and a related blog post, see:
The Cost of Doing Nothing: Dollars, Lives, and Opportunities Lost in the Wait for Immigration Reform (IPC Fact Check, September 23, 2013)
Dollars and Lives Lost in the Wait for Immigration Reform (Immigration Impact Blog Post, September 23, 2013)
Please share our accompanying infographic on Facebook!
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For more information, contact Amanda Beadle at abeadle@immcouncil.org or 202-507-7527.