Department of Homeland Security
Immigration Action Provides Certain H-4 Spouses Work Authorization
As part of the package of executive actions announced in November 2014, the secretary of Homeland Security directed the immigration agencies to implement new policies and regulations intended to support U.S. high-skilled businesses and workers. Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued the first of these… Read More
New Immigration Enforcement Policy Remains In Effect Despite Texas Lawsuit
The political lawsuit challenging the legality of parts of President Obama’s Executive Action should fail for a variety of reasons. But the lawsuit has already succeeded in two respects. First, it won a dubious preliminary injunction from a lower court judge temporarily halting the program while… Read More
Court Orders DHS to Stop Detaining Mothers and Children to Deter Future Immigration Flow
In June 2014, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began implementing a border security policy of detaining nearly all mothers and children fleeing violence and persecution in Central America. DHS vastly increased its detention capacity for families to “send the message unequivocally that if you come here you… Read More
Texas Judge Places Preliminary Hold on President’s Deferred Action Initiatives, Government Likely to Counter
A Texas Judge has placed a preliminary hold on the two initiatives announced by President Obama last November that would expand the two-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of U.S. Citizens and Legal Permanent Residents (DAPA). These two programs would provide temporary relief from… Read More
The Detention of Children and Their Families is Still Unjust and Still Against the Law
Detaining immigrant children is nothing new. In 1997, the government settled a lawsuit, Flores v. Reno, about the inhumane treatment of immigrant children held in detention. The settlement agreement said officials would follow a set of minimum national standards for the detention, release, and treatment of children subject to immigration… Read More
Setting the Record Straight on Immigrant Work Authorization
The anti-immigrant Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) issued a report last week alleging a “huge parallel immigrant work authorization system outside the bounds of the laws.” Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) seized upon it to demand a “full investigation.” Yet the issuance of work permits is not new, huge,… Read More
Senate Hearing Shows Deferred Action Programs are Beneficial to Social Security
The Senate Homeland Security committee on Wednesday held its first hearing about President Obama’s immigration executive actions. The hearing and the witnesses testifying focused on the “implications and unanswered questions” about the deportation relief offered to some undocumented immigrants included in the president’s actions. First, the… Read More
Senate Shoots Down House’s Bad Homeland Security Funding Bill
The House-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security—and the anti-executive action amendments that were added—failed to advance in the Senate on a procedural vote. Senators voted 48 to 51, with Republican Dean Heller (NV) joining with the Democrats to vote against the measure. Because it… Read More
House to Vote on Bill to Further Militarize the U.S. Border
With the start of the 114th Republican-controlled Congress, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, introduced H.R. 399, the “Secure Our Borders First” Act. McCaul introduced the new bill exclusively with Republican co-sponsors unlike his 2013 bill, the Border Security Results Act, that… Read More
Should English-Speaking America Care about Immigration Reform?
President Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union speech this week, which was followed up by two GOP rebuttals, one in English, the other in Spanish. Comparing all three speeches is a lesson in the parties’ contrasting views on immigration reform and who they believe truly has a… Read More
America's story is an immigrant story.
