Executive Branch
Advocates Call on Obama Administration to Protect Immigrant Families, Not Deport Them
Nearly a year ago, ICE Director John Morton issued a memo on prosecutorial discretion which led to the review of 300,000 immigration cases currently in removal proceedings. Advocates initially applauded this announcement, hoping that the administration would move quickly to close low-level, non-criminal immigration cases. But today, disappointed by the program’s low closure rate, advocates and community leaders called on the Obama administration to make good on its promise of using of prosecutorial discretion to protect DREAMers and immigrant families from deportation. Read More
Lawmakers Attempt to Gut Census by Defunding American Community Survey
How can you make good policy in the absence of good information? That seems to be a question that some Republicans in the House and Senate have not asked themselves. In recent months, these lawmakers have proposed that funding for the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey (ACS) be cut entirely from the federal budget, or that the ACS be scaled back to a “voluntary” program. Given that the data generated by the ACS is used to guide the distribution of more than $400 billion in federal funding each year, this would be an ill-advised move. Read More
Updated Figures Highlight Shortfalls of Prosecutorial Discretion Program
As reported in today’s New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security has reviewed nearly 300,000 pending deportation cases over the past seven months in search of low-priority immigrants deserving prosecutorial discretion. While immigrant advocates cheered the policy when it was announced, figures released yesterday suggest that the program is not only falling short of initial expectations, but that the numbers are heading in the wrong direction. Read More
Filling Quotas or Setting Priorities? ICE Announcement to Increase Deportations Raises Concerns
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently announced that it would pull 150 agents from desk jobs and add them to Fugitive Operations Teams—teams created to locate and detain “fugitive immigrants” who pose a threat to the nation or the community or who have a violent criminal history—in order to find and deport additional “criminal aliens.” According to the LA Times, ICE reported it was "experiencing a shortfall in criminal removals for the fiscal year" and need to increase the numbers. While it’s a good idea for ICE to use limited resources pursuing serious criminals, the reality is that ICE’s definition of “criminal alien” is very broad and the Fugitive Ops Team end up deporting unauthorized immigrants who pose no threat to the community. Read More
DC Passes Act Limiting District’s Response to ICE’s Immigration Detainers
Today, ICE activated the Secure Communities program in Washington, DC, sparking fear in immigrant communities that the program will result in racial profiling and the deportation of non-priority immigrants as it has in other jurisdictions. With Secure Communities active, the fingerprints of all persons booked into DC jails will be sent to the FBI and will then be forwarded to DHS to be checked against federal immigration databases. If ICE decides to take action against an immigrant identified through the program, they place a detainer on the individual—a request asking DC police to hold the person for up to 48 hours so ICE can take custody. However, in a move praised by immigration advocates, the DC Council passed an emergency act today limiting the District’s response to detainer requests. Read More
U.S. Losing High-Skilled Workers to Australia, Canada, and China, Report Says
By Shelby Pasell. “As our competitors press ahead with strategic policies suited to a global century, how much longer can America afford to drift with an immigration regime built in 1965?” This is the question addressed in recent report by the Partnership for a New American Economy and The Partnership for New York City. According to the report, as other countries simplify and expand their immigration programs to attract entrepreneurs and high-skilled workers, the U.S. maintains an old system that makes it difficult for much needed workers to secure a visa. By 2018, the U.S. will face a projected shortfall of 223,800 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) workers, but even for graduates of these programs, visas are limited and there is no secure path towards permanent residency. Read More
Law Professors Push White House to Grant Administrative Relief to DREAMers
In the absence of Congressional action on the DREAM Act, advocates and DREAMers have increasingly turned to the White House to help them secure temporary protection from removal. This week, DREAMERS got a huge boost from 96 law professors who sent a letter to President Obama outlining the extensive authority under law that his administration holds to halt deportations of DREAMers. Read More
Standardizing Guidelines Would Improve USCIS’s Proposed Family Unity Waiver Rule
Earlier this year, USCIS proposed a new waiver rule that would allow some unauthorized immigrants (mostly direct family members of U.S. citizens) who are applying for a green card to apply for a waiver to the 3 and 10 year bar from within the United States, minimizing the amount of time they would have to be away from their families. While many welcome this proposed rule change, there are ways in which USCIS could streamline this process. In addition to previously suggested improvements, USCIS could provide training and guidelines on the extreme hardship standard to ensure that the standard is applied consistently. The “comment period,” which is open to the public and can be used to suggest improvements to the rule, end this Friday, June 1. Read More
In California, Lawmakers Mount New Challenge to Secure Communities
Last year, lawmakers in California were poised to pass a bill—known as the TRUST Act—to let local jurisdictions opt out of Secure Communities, the federal program that routes fingerprints taken at local jails to federal immigration authorities. Before final passage, however, federal officials rendered the bill moot by declaring that participation in the program was mandatory. Now, lawmakers are considering a revised version of the bill that would minimize the impact of Secure Communities by limiting the ability of local governments to detain immigrants on the federal government’s behalf. Read More
Administration Takes Step to Keep Talented Foreign Students in the U.S.
BY HEATHER M. STEWART, COUNSEL AND DIRECTOR OF IMMIGRATION POLICY AT NAFSA: ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATORS. Current U.S. immigration law provides few options for foreign graduates of U.S. universities with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM” degrees) who want to stay here to contribute their skills and knowledge. Not enough American students are interested in these fields, even as employers regularly cannot find enough people with the high-tech and scientific knowledge and skills they need to fill available positions. Luckily for the United States, international students seek out these majors and excel in them. But increasingly, we lose these talented graduates to other competitor countries where immigration laws are friendlier. This is, of course, an enormous loss to the U.S. economy, as international students with STEM degrees often create successful businesses and jobs in the United States. Last week, DHS took a strong step forward by expanding the list of STEM fields for foreign graduates applying to training programs after graduation. Read More
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