There may now be hope for LGBT community immigrants as the Obama administration has announced prioritizing deportations based on security risk. From On Top Magazine:
Factors to be considered include whether the immigrant is married to a U.S. Citizen, the length of lawful stay in the United States, and his or her contributions to the community.
“The prosecutorial discretion memo provides for the use of discretion for people with strong community ties, with community contributions and with family relationships,” an unnamed senior administration official told gay weekly theWashington Blade.
“We consider LGBT families to be families in this context,” the official added.
While arbitrary immigration decisions are not our end goal, hopefully, it will spare many people from deportation and allow them to stay in the US while we continue to fight for the rights of other immigrants.
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Here's an intersting WSJ blog post with a list of who may be able to stay under these new guidelines. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/08/19/who-may-qualify-to-remain-in-u-s-under-new-obama-immigration-policy/
Here's a study on the economic cost of barriers to emigration (which is, of course, the other side of the immigration coin.)
http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.3.83
I don't have time to read that study here at work, but I will check it out later. As with almost everything, a healthy dose of capitalism is usually the answer, and I have no doubt that if we were a capitalist country, immigration would not be an issue. In fact, we may have the reverse problem. Not enough employees moving here fast enough! =)