The Partnership for a New American Economy, a pro-immigration advocacy group, led by former New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg and News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, is already shifting it focus to 2017, according to a report from Politico. The partnership launched a new campaign this week focused largely on making the economic case for overhauling the U.S. immigration system while coordinating 62 immigration reform events nationwide.
The new campaign, “Reason for Reform” will flood all 50 states with pro-reform events and detailed economic reports tailored to each state. The group is also pushing a new digital crowd sourcing effort to collect stories of how immigration has affected resident in all 435 congressional districts.
“Together, those stories and the data make a compelling case, not only do Americans want immigration reform, our economy needs it,” said John Feinblatt, the group’s chairman. Also involved in the new campaign are companies such as Intel, Pinterest and Google. Other groups that have long advocated for immigration overhaul, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Western Growers Association, the American Farm Bureau, and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, are also involved.
The group is hoping to nudge House Republicans along by invoking the economic benefits of immigration reform. As an example, the group’s report for Ohio say immigrants in the state earned $15.6 billion in 2014, leaving them, after taxes with $11.1 billion in spending power that could be pumped back into the economy. The Florida report shows that in 2014, 51 percent of agriculture workers in the state were foreign-born. The Partnership for a New American Economy is working to have similar detailed economic data for all congressional districts by new year.
The new campaign indicates optimism among advocacy groups, pushing for immigration reform, that a new president and Congress can make headway on the immigration issue. Congress made progress on an overhaul during the 113th Congress, when the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform written by the “Gang of Eight” in 2013, but the House never moved on the immigration issue.
Democratic presidential nominee Hilary Clinton has said she wishes to take on immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship within her first 100 days in office. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is calling for a wall along the southern border and deportation of all immigrants living in the United States illegally.
