Our purpose: Our local study committee has organized to support the current study on immigration being conducted by LWVUS. A national study is rare (the last one was on health care in 1992) and signals a topic of importance. The outcome of this study will be several consensus questions that all chapters will discuss and respond to. The consensus that we reach as a total organization will be the basis for action by the League at the national level.

Timeline for the study: This is a two year study which began in the fall of 2006. LWVUS expects to have a position on immigration in the spring, 2008. Thus all leagues will be reading the Everymember Material and discussing the topic this fall in time to have the results of our consensus question discussions submitted to LWVUS in January, 2008.

Scope of the study: The scope of the study will include but not be limited to the following topics:

• Underlying values and principles that serve as the basis for immigration policies
• Reasons for migration from other countries
• Current federal immigration policy and possible revisions in it
• Impact of immigration: economic effects of authorized
and unauthorized immigration, how to treat unauthorized immigrants currently in the US, and diversity and inclusion in
American society

Fall Program: Our first task was to organize a way for our members to learn about this many layered topic through reading, discussion, and listening to speakers. We recommended and the board approved devoting the fall units in November and December and the Third Thursday in November to immigration.

The November unit and the Third Thursday, which falls during unit week, will focus on our learning about the topic. We’ll discuss and respond to consensus questions at the December unit.

We’ll have one or more speakers at the November Third Thursday and Q and A afterwards. We’re considering extending this Third Thursday gathering by an hour to allow each table group to discuss and respond to the consensus question on the values that we would like to see reflected in US immigration policy. This would give us most of the December unit to discuss and respond to the remaining six questions which require a significant amount of time in themselves. The committee thought that with this agenda we won’t feel so rushed.

We’d like feedback from the membership about this idea. Please contact Dorothy Soper by phone or email atdorothysoper@comcast.net. Thank you in advance for your help.

Immigration online file: We hope that this file will help all of us get started. We're posting information that, in many cases, comes from the LWVUS website which we urge you to explore further through the links in this file or directly. Other information will be facts or references that we've discovered in our research. All items in this file will have already been published and thus are in the public domain.

To find the section on immigration on the LWVUS website go to <www.lwv.org> and click on “Projects” and then on “Immigration”. There is a “members only” portion of the website that addresses immigration. You'll need a password to get to this section. There you'll find a draft of the consensus questions for immigration which reflect the “Scope” printed above. You might find it helpful to have these questions in mind as you read about immigration in general.

League publications: The LWVUS has published eight essays on different immigration topics. The essays are available on line. A limited number of printed copies are available in the office. Summaries of the essays are posted on thissite. The essays will give you a good overview of the general topic. They are 8 to 10 pages long. Each summary is about one page long.

Other publications: The LWVUS website lists several other publications of general interest. One publication stands out since it is the source of many ideas now being pursued by the League. It is a short book published in 2006 by the Migration Policy Institute and entitled Immigration and America's Future: A New Chapter.

The work that this represents was carried out by a task force organized by the Migration Policy Institute in cooperation with the Manhattan Institute and the Division of United States Studies and the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Cochairs of the task force were former Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and former Congressman Lee Hamilton (D-IN).

You can learn more about MPI at its website:
http://www.migrationpolicy.org.

By mid August a copy of this book will be available to borrow for periods of up to a week from the League office.

Useful URLs: Our committee is finding many websites that have good reference material on immigration. You'll find a list of them on this site. We'll keep adding to the list as we find more.

Immigration matters in Lane County: Our committee has begun to learn about the Lane County immigration situation. We'll continue to work on this throughout the program year. If you're interested in what we're doing, you're welcome to join us or just come to one or more of our meetings. Meeting times and dates will be available in the Argus, on the calendar in the office, and at this website.

A joint project: We're hoping to communicate with our membership through this file on the LWVLC website to gain your participation early. I think that we'll all find that there is much new information to learn and new ideas to discuss. If you find publications or websites that you feel would be helpful to either our committee or the general membership, please send the information to me by email or call me.

We expect to have articles on immigration topics in the coming issues of the Argus. If you have comments or thoughts about the information in the articles, or requests about specific information, please let us know. That would be a fruitful part of our general discussion. We look forward to your participation.

Dorothy Soper, Program Cochair
Email:dorothysoper@comcast.net