DACA
Guidance Released on How to Renew DACA Granted by ICE
The subset of individuals who received DACA from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may request renewal of their deferred action 120 days prior to the expiration of their original 2-year period of deferred action, according to a notice published yesterday on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services… Read More
Fremont’s Anti-Immigrant Ordinance Out of Step with Other Cities in Nebraska
Last week, the residents of Fremont, Nebraska voted to keep a 2010 anti-immigrant housing ordinance on the books. While the small town, with a seven percent foreign born population, has chosen to continue down its current path of exclusion, other places in Nebraska are pursuing inclusive strategies… Read More
Petition Challenges DHS on Enforcement Priorities
Last week, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) along with six individuals, submitted a formal request to the Department of Homeland Security asking the agency to temporarily suspend the deportation of low-priority undocumented workers and their families and grant them “deferred… Read More
New Mexico Governor Uses Anti-Immigrant Driver’s License Proposal as Fundraising Tool
Joan Friedland is a senior advisor at the National Immigration Law Center. For the fifth time in four years, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez is trying to get the legislature to repeal the 2003 law granting licenses to all eligible drivers, regardless of their immigration status. There’s… Read More
Why 2013 Was the Year of Positive State Immigration Measures
States took the lead on immigration reform in 2013, and compared to previous years, the majority were positive measures to help integrate and improve the day-to-day lives of immigrants in their respective states. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures’ (NCSL) 2013 Immigration Report, 45 states passed 184 immigration-related laws in 2013 and adopted 253 resolutions. The number of immigration measures in 2013 is a 64 percent increase over 2012, a year when many states were waiting to see the Supreme Court’s decision on Arizona’s SB 1070. Also in 2012, the Department of Homeland Security began offering temporary legal status to young undocumented immigrants under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy sending a message to states that the federal government was serious about finding ways to normalize the status of the nation’s undocumented population. Read More
Why Is There a Disparity in DACA Application Rates Among Different Nationalities?
A year and a half in, nationals from nearly every country have applied for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), President Obama’s deportation reprieve program for certain undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children. Despite this diverse participation, nationals of some countries are dramatically underrepresented… Read More
New Legal Analysis Shows State Compliance with ICE Detainers May Violate the Constitution
Chicago, New York, and San Francisco now prevent local jails from honoring immigration detainers—requests from federal immigration officials for state and local jails to hold a person so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can investigate the person’s immigration status—unless an arrestee has been charged with or convicted of certain criminal offenses. And California’s Trust Act, which does virtually the same thing, will go into effect early next year. Yet, while these states have limited who can be subject to an immigration detainer, there are legal questions surrounding this selective enforcement that call into question whether detainers are legal at all. Read More
D.C. Follows 11 Other States Allowing Undocumented Immigrants to Drive Legally
As House leaders delay on passing immigration reform that would help millions of immigrants already in the U.S., Washington, D.C., officials are taking steps to improve the lives of undocumented immigrants who call the city home. Last week the D.C. Council passed a bill, written by Council member Mary Cheh, which allows undocumented residents to apply for Driver’s Licenses. D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray signed the bill yesterday. The new policy, which goes into effect May 1, sets up a system where undocumented immigrants will receive licenses that are the same but for their being marked "not valid for official federal purposes." Driver’s licenses for legal residents and citizens will not change. Read More
Understanding DACA’s Education Requirement
When the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was first announced, it was clear that individuals would have to meet some sort of education requirement in order to obtain the program’s many benefits, including a two-year renewable reprieve from deportation, work authorization, a social security number, and—in nearly every state—the chance to apply for a driver’s license. What was unknown was how the immigration agency would address the question of individuals who were unable to finish high school. Would they be categorically excluded from DACA? Or would the agency provide an incentive for those folks to re-enroll in school? Fortunately, the government chose the latter. In doing so, it gave an estimated 400,000 people who met the DACA guidelines but didn’t finish high school a shot at getting DACA. Many of these individuals are thought to be among the 1.2 million who haven’t yet taken advantage of the program. Read More
Are You Really Too Old for DACA?
It is past time to clear up an oft-repeated misconception about President Obama’s deportation deferral program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): it is simply not true that individuals must be under 31 to be eligible for DACA. Any individual born after June 15, 1981 is within—and shall remain within—DACA’s age requirements. Only individuals who were 31 years old or older on June 15, 2012 are ineligible for DACA. The age requirements apply to initial applications as well as renewals, and one of the only things we know about renewals is that no one will age out. As a result, there currently are individuals in their early thirties who are eligible for DACA, and assuming the program continues on, over time, greater numbers of DACA recipients will be over 31. Yet, some news articles and even flyers for legal clinics mistakenly assert that people under 30 or 31 don’t qualify—this gets the age ceiling wrong and also implies that individuals can age out of eligibility. Read More
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