USCIS
How Should Obama Administration Proceed with Deferred Action Program?
In a June 15th memo announcing deferred action for immigrant youth, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano gave USCIS 60 days to come up with a process that will allow these young people to affirmatively apply for the chance to work, study, and live in the U.S. without fear of deportation. To be sure, USCIS staff and their counterparts at ICE, CBP, and DHS, have been entrusted with a difficult job—one that requires balancing legal and practical implementation issues against high expectations and years of built up frustration over the lack of immigration reform. But the real challenge is acknowledging that every single decision they make about the program has the chance to make it harder or easier for young people to realize their dreams. Read More
DHS Creates Obstacles for Small Businesses Seeking High-Skilled Immigrants
Politicians love small businesses. They also love high-skilled workers. One might assume, then, that entrepreneurs and start-up companies would have a relatively easy time hiring immigrant professionals through the H-1B program. Not so. In fact, a recently released memo confirms that far from receiving preferential treatment, small businesses are singled out for heightened fraud investigations by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Read More
With Illegal Immigration Slowing, Asians Migrants to US Now Surpass Newly Arrived Hispanics
Washington Post June 19, 2012 For the first time, the influx of Asians moving to the U.S. has surpassed that of Hispanics, reflecting a slowdown in illegal immigration while American employers increase their demand for high-skilled workers. An expansive study by the Pew Research Center details what it describes… Read More
A Breakdown of DHS’s Deferred Action for DREAMers
While today’s headlines assess the significance of President Obama’s deferred action announcement on Friday, many are still sorting through the news to get answers to basic questions about who is covered under the new program. Prior to President Obama’s statement that DHS would halt the deportation of immigrant youth who met criteria similar to the DREAM Act, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano released a memo and a set of questions and answers that outline eligibility and a basic timeline for implementing the new directive . 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
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
Expansion of Proposed Waiver Rule Could Help More Families Stay Together
As previously noted, the administration recently proposed a new rule that would help keep American families —the “Proposed Rule on Provisional Unlawful Presence Waivers of Inadmissibility for Certain Immediate Relatives.” This proposed rule would streamline the application process for many relatives of U.S. citizens currently eligible for a green card by minimizing the amount of time that applicants would have to be away from their families before being admitted into the United States. While the proposed rule is certainly a welcome change and would be an improvement over current procedures, there are ways in which the rule could be improved to help even more immigrants. Read More
America’s Demographic Challenge
The US faces an aging population, fewer workers and a slower economy. Immigrants can reverse that. The United States needs immigrant workers as its workforce ages. In 2012, the median age of the American worker will be the highest in its history at 41.6 years old. As birth rates fall… Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
