Angela Kelley is the Director of the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) at the American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF). She is responsible for IPC's research and public affairs work, and has been in the immigration field for nearly 20 years.

Ms. Kelley joined the IPC in September 2007 after 16 years at the pro-immigrant National Immigration Forum, where she served as its Deputy Director. At the Forum, Ms. Kelley managed the Forum’s legislative, policy, and communications activities.

Before joining the Forum Ms. Kelley was a staff attorney at Ayuda, a local legal service agency in Washington, D.C where she represented battered immigrant women and children, refugees, and other immigrants in asylum hearings and other immigration matters.

Ms. Kelley graduated from George Washington University's Law Center in Washington, D.C. and after graduation was a fellow with Georgetown University's Women's Law and Public Policy Program.

Ms. Kelley is the daughter of Bolivian and Colombian immigrant parents and the mother of two girls. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband Michael.

The IPC is dedicated to research and analysis of the impact of immigration and immigrants on the American economy and society. The IPC works with academics, public policy makers, community groups, and the press throughout the country. Its reports frequently are cited in the press and have been relied on by legislators as they consider immigration issues.

The American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF) was established in 1987 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, educational, charitable organization. The Foundation is dedicated to increasing public understanding of immigration law and policy and the value of immigration to American society, and to advancing fundamental fairness and due process under the law for immigrants.

Blog Entries by Angela Kelley

Arpaio the Only One Smiling in Maricopa County

Posted December 11, 2008 | 06:21 PM (EST)


"Smile, You're Under Arrest"--that's the name of a new reality TV show starring none other than Sheriff Joe Arpaio of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO). Yet Maricopa County citizens aren't smiling as Arpaio's tactics have wreaked a lot of havoc, and fought little crime.

Arpaio has transformed his...

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Powerful New American Vote Trumps Nativist Dogma

3 Comments | Posted November 2, 2008 | 11:06 PM (EST)


FBI reports don't get a lot of attention, especially in the final days of a Presidential election season, but this week's release reporting on a 40% increase in anti-Latino hate crimes should at least give us pause. The report's findings are consistent with the swelling nativist movement that...

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NC Candidate for Governor Trashes Immigrant Voting Bloc

2 Comments | Posted October 28, 2008 | 06:24 PM (EST)


Last week, North Carolina's candidate for governor, Pat McCrory, potentially isolated upwards of 83,000 New American voters in his state when his emails viciously attacking immigrants were leaked online.

According to the Daily Kos, McCrory--citing the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)--a fiercely anti-immigrant hate group...

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Presidential Debates Ignore 12 Million Elephants in the Room, Bypass Immigration

3 Comments | Posted October 8, 2008 | 06:01 PM (EST)


What do the economy, health care, and foreign policy have in common?

They are all topics that are related to a critical issue that was not discussed in the election 2008 debates: immigration. Everyone from the Latino community to immigration advocates to probing journalists have been...

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One in Ten Latinos Asked for Papers for LWL: Living While Latino

8 Comments | Posted September 24, 2008 | 05:55 PM (EST)


The current climate of undeterred public immigrant-bashing along with an immigration policy of "attrition through enforcement" has cultivated unfettered hatred and bigotry against an entire ethnic population. A recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center shows its toll: half of all Latinos, immigrant and non-immigrant, say that their...

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Lou Dobbs and Immigrant Hate Groups Put Fear First, Leave Solutions Behind

Posted September 9, 2008 | 11:28 PM (EST)


When did extreme become mainstream?--That's the question immigrant advocates, labor leaders, civil rights groups, and Latino organizations are asking in a full page ad in Capitol Hill newspapers this week as supporters of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) march into the offices of Congress,...

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New Orleans Immigrants Weather the Storm

Posted September 4, 2008 | 10:23 PM (EST)


The response of New Orleans' immigrants to Hurricane Gustav is just another gross example of how attrition through enforcement doesn't work. A growing number of immigration raids, arrests and deportations are driving immigrants deeper into the shadows--even if it means ignoring evacuation orders and braving a deadly tropical...

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Voodoo Science Blames Climate Change on Immigrants

Posted August 18, 2008 | 12:06 PM (EST)


According to the anti-immigrant group, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), immigrants to the US are now to blame for extreme weather, rising sea levels, changing ecosystems, melting glaciers, and dying polar bears.

Forget conservation and sustainability, CIS has released yet another junk science report claiming that the key...

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Message to DHS: It's the Economy Stupid

Posted August 6, 2008 | 02:03 PM (EST)


Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced its latest gimmick -- Operation Scheduled Departure, a pilot program of voluntary deportation with no precedent, no incentives, and essentially no sensible basis. Meanwhile, on Wednesday the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a "think tank" that has been referred to as...

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Symbolic Politics and U.S. Border Enforcement

Posted July 25, 2008 | 08:08 AM (EST)


Last week, Secretary Michael Chertoff testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, hailing his Department's efforts in securing the "homeland" by essentially militarizing and building a 335-mile barricade along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Many of the declared achievements that Chertoff noted are associated with Operation Jump Start,...

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