For today’s ask an expert feature on cfr.org, I answered the question: “After immigration reform, how would the large and newly legal Hispanic population influence U.S. politics?” You can read my thoughts here or below. Read more »

As the U.S. Congress looks to embark on immigration reform soon, many things have changed since the last try in 2007. One of the most important is the role of business—which is increasingly vocal and organized. The most recent announcement comes from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has just launched FWD.us along with backers Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, and Ruchi Sanghvi of Dropbox, to advocate for immigration reform and, in particular, for more high skilled immigrants. They join AOL founder Steve Case in the public debate, as well as Laurene Powell Jobs, who engineered the website “The Dream is Now,” that lets dreamers (undocumented youth) tell their own poignant stories. Read more »

With the United States quickly approaching its Friday sequester deadline, the federal government is bracing for cuts. Much of the $85 billion in spending cuts will hit domestic programs and services—everything from wildlife reserves to childcare services. But the reverberations will also be felt in Latin America and the rest of the world. Read more »

President Obama outlined his vision yesterday in Las Vegas for a comprehensive immigration reform, officially kicking off what will undoubtedly be a heated countrywide debate. With so many differing (and at times blatantly false) statistics and assertions circling the immigration discussion, here is my take, via Foreign Policy, debunking five of the biggest myths. Do you have others? Let me know! Read more »

As Americans vote today, a record 23 million Latinos can head to the polls. Here is a roundup of the candidates’ stated views on immigration, regional security, and trade with Latin America—issues that are often of direct interest for this growing voter bloc, but also will more generally affect all Americans over the next four years. Read more »

CFR’s Renewing America initiative just released a new report by Alexandra Starr, a fellow at the New America Foundation, titled “Latino Immigrant Entrepreneurs: How to Capitalize on Their Economic Potential.” Through statistics and personal stories, the report explores Latino immigrant entrepreneurs’ growing contributions to the U.S. economy. Read more »

This week it is the Democrats who are putting forth their platform, which can be found in its entirety here. Like its Republican counterpart, the platform is heavily focused on domestic issues (most significantly on the middle class and job creation), leaving little ink for the United States’ relationship with Latin America. When the Democratic platform does address its southern neighbors, the emphasis is two pronged: security and economics. Read more »

The integration (once called assimilation) of foreigners into the United States is a long-standing issue. Some fear that today’s immigrants aren’t integrating into U.S. culture and society as past waves did. Mexicans—the largest single group today with some twelve million immigrants—in particular are seen as guilty of maintaining their distance. The late Harvard professor Samuel Huntington summed up these views, writing that Hispanics “threaten to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages,” and generally “lack initiative, self-reliance, and ambition.” Read more »