Policy Brief Assignment
U.S. Immigration and Border Politics (POL S 430)
Your assignment is to produce a policy brief addressing a current problem with immigration and making recommendations for reform. Imagine that you work as a legislative aide for a member of Congress and that you have been asked to analyze a particular immigration problem and generate recommendations for reform. This brief will need to be written and presented in a way that has visual appeal and makes it possible to scan quickly. Notice that you are not writing rhetoric for advocacy or trying to convince the legislator to take a particular action. Instead, you will do three things: 1) offer an informed analysis about a problem, its causes, and its effects; 2) weigh several policy alternatives, evaluating their advantages and disadvantages; and 3) point out which policies seem to hold the most promise to address the problem. In writing this policy brief, you can select and define the problem you will address; it can be anything immigration related that Congress could feasibly do something about. You should draw heavily on course materials and lecture. You may also draw upon reliable outside sources, as needed. (See the section on sources.) Submission Guidelines Please submit your policy brief in two forms: 1) A hard copy with your name on it, due at the beginning of class on Thurs, November 15 2) An electronic copy without your name on it, submitted on Blackboard under Assignments, also due November 15. This copy will be evaluated by the Turnitin program for plagiarism and will be added to the Turnitin database. After you upload the paper, please make sure to hit “Submit,” or it will not actually get posted.
