The 32nd annual Writers’ Workshop — an all day gathering of citizen-activists, scholars, public officials, and policy analysts within the immigration-population reform community — was held in Arlington, Virginia on Sunday, October 5, 2008.
Every year since 1976, workshop participants have attended the Social Contract-sponsored event, which brings together a cross-section of authors, immigration-reform leaders, elected officials, environmentalists, energy-conservationists, demographers, and leading scholars.
Over the years, the seminal event — drawing attendees from across the country — has grown as the ranks of the immigration-population reform community have expanded. Past attendees have included congressional representatives and staffers, former senators and governors, doctors, lawyers, journalists, corporate executives, historians, medical researchers, and public policy analysts.
This year’s participants included: Cornell University Labor Economist Vernon Briggs on why the Jordan Commission recommendations offer a good model for immigration policy reforms; researcher Edwin Rubenstein’s preliminary findings of the impact of immigration on the nation’s infrastructure; former State Department official David Simcox on non-citizen voter fraud; a panel discussion on birthright citizenship and the fourteenth amendment moderated by Diana Hull of Californians for Population Stabilization; Professor Otis Graham on his recent autobiography, Immigration Reform and America’s Unchosen Future, Harvard University professor Lawrence Harrison on multiculturalism, and a panel discussion moderated by Roy Beck of NumbersUSA on efforts to remove the jobs magnet for illegal immigration.