Immigrant Justice Advocacy Campaign - March 2010 Interim Progress Report

National Latino Congreso (NLC)

The National Latino Congreso (NLC) Immigration Justice Report Card (IJRC) is a compilation of voting and sponsorship records on immigration-related legislation in the 110th and 111th Congresses. The Hispanic Federation, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the William C. Velasquez Institute together combed through the various legislative proposals in each legislative session and chose those bills and amendments that the group felt were most representative of either progressive or regressive immigration reform legislation. We chose the proposals based on their purported positive or negative impact on the Latino/immigrant community if enacted. Seventeen (17) House measures (including two committee votes) and nineteen (19) Senate measures are scored.

In order to score members' votes, the NLC compiled votes for and against legislative proposals. Members also received a plus for sponsoring or co-sponsoring a progressive immigration bill and a minus for sponsoring or co-sponsoring a regressive immigration reform bill. All sponsorships or co-sponsorships are those of bills or amendments that have not yet been voted upon. Additionally, because not every member was part of both the 110th and 111th Congress, members were only scored on actual positions taken (i.e. vote or sponsorship) and not abstentions. In other words, if a member took a position (vote or sponsorship) on 10 of the total 17 possible measures, the member's score will reflect a percentage of those 10 measures the member voted on or sponsored.