August 08, 2023

In the Twilight Zone: Record Number of U.S. Immigrants Are in Limbo Statuses

Muzaffar Chishti and Kathleen Bush-Joseph, MPI, Aug. 2, 2023 "The Biden administration’s embrace of executive authority to grant immigration protections has resulted in a ballooning number of individuals living in the United States with temporary statuses. A record 1.9 million migrants have entered the United States, received authorization to do so, or are present via a twilight immigration status that does...

August 08, 2023

More ICE FOIA Follies: From Minimalism to Maximalism, A Path Forward

Andrew Free, Aug. 4, 2023 "... As fun as the idea of FOIA lawsuits might be for requestors in the abstract, the reality of suing ICE and DHS FOIA agencies in federal court is often painful, slow, and demeaning. That’s by design. We learned this week in response to an August 2020 request that DHS FOIA professional Bradley E. White apparently instructed DHS FOIA officials in 2019 to delay or slow production...

August 07, 2023

DHS Fact Sheet: New Family Reunification Parole Processes Provide Lawful Pathway for Family Unity

DHS, Aug. 7, 2023 "The United States is making it easier for eligible individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Cuba and Haiti to be reunited with family in the United States, the latest example of the U.S. effort to expand lawful pathways and offer alternatives to dangerous and irregular migration. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created new family reunification parole (FRP) processes...

August 07, 2023

Expert: Immigration an "Emotional Issue Throughout U.S. History"

Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek, Aug. 6, 2023 "Almost half of Florida voters back a sweeping anti-immigration law enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis , according to a poll conducted exclusively for Newsweek. The Republican governor, who is seeking his party's presidential nomination, has made hardening the state's immigration laws a priority and is playing up his tough stance on the campaign trail. He signed the legislation...

August 03, 2023

Form I-9 Errors Trigger $120K Settlement

DOJ, Aug. 2, 2023 "The Justice Department announced today that it has secured a settlement agreement with three corporate entities, Mr. Glass Doors and Windows Inc., Mr. Glass Doors and Windows Manufacturing LLC, and Powder Coating Technologies LLC (collectively Mr. Glass Group). The settlement resolves the department’s determination that Mr. Glass Group violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)...

August 03, 2023

A Landmark Study Debunks Populist Anti-Immigrant Narratives

Michael Clemens, Aug. 3, 2023 "Even before Donald Trump arrived on the scene, the notion that we have to stop or substantially scale back immigration to America—a country of immigrants— because immigrants today simply do not assimilate like those of yore had been gaining considerable traction on the populist right. But Trump took such talk to a whole new level when he berated immigration from “shithole...

August 02, 2023

An Example of Biden's "Open Border"

Katya Schwenk, Phoenix New Times, Aug. 1, 2023 "Dennis Mejic has lived in the U.S. since he was 4. Now 53, the Peoria resident faces deportation for growing 17 pot plants when he legally could have 12."

August 02, 2023

Why Hasn't DHS Cancelled All Trump-Era Border Wall Waivers?

Melissa del Bosque, The Border Chronicle, Aug. 1, 2023 "Chad Wolf’s Illegitimate Border Wall Waivers: A Q&A with Scott Nicol President Biden Could Instantly Make Good on His Campaign Promise to Stop Border Wall Construction by Cancelling Trump-Era Waivers, says Nicol. ... [T]here are 11 waivers that Wolf issued, and 10 more that McAleenan issued. If a court strikes down the one waiver, then by extension...

August 01, 2023

Straining under the Backlog: Fixing a U.S. Immigration Court System in Crisis (Video)

Migration Policy Institute, July 2023 "The U.S. immigration court system is struggling with backlogs that have swelled to a record 1.9 million cases—with more than 700,000 added last year alone. The result is that cases, more than 40 percent of which are claims for asylum, take years to adjudicate—depriving people eligible for relief of decisions, undermining the effectiveness of immigration enforcement...

July 31, 2023

Could You Immigrate to the U.S.? Play The Green Card Game to Find Out

Alex Nowrasteh, July 31, 2023 "Today the Cato Institute released The Green Card Game , a free online interactive game where players attempt to go through the legal immigration system. Click on the link to play. After you click on the link, you select an avatar, enter a name, and choose your biographical information, which includes your occupation, country of birth, and other characteristics. You can even ask the...

July 31, 2023

Cancel the Caps!

Cyrus Mehta, Kaitlyn Box, July 31, 2023 "On July 27, 2023, USCIS announced that it will conduct a second round of selections for the FY 2024 H-1B lottery. An alert posted on the USCIS website stated that “We recently determined that we would need to select additional registrations to reach the FY 2024 numerical allocations. Soon, we will select additional registrations from previously submitted electronic...

July 28, 2023

New Lawsuit Challenges CBP One Turnback Policy

AIC, July 27, 2023 " This lawsuit challenges the federal government’s border-wide policy and practice of turning back asylum seekers without a CBP One appointment at ports of entry (POEs) along the southern border, denying them access to the U.S. asylum process. The suit seeks to end U.S. Customs and Border Protection's newest iteration of unlawful metering, and to ensure that the government is complying...

July 27, 2023

More ICE FOIA Follies: ICE FOIA Switches from Email, eFOIA Xpress to Deloitte SecureRelease(TM)

R. Andrew Free, July 27, 2023 "Deloitte Who? ICE FOIA Office Uses Deloitte SecureRelease Platform to Claim It Has No Records on Deloitte SecureRelease Platform Contract Some of ICE FOIA responses border on performance art. It is only in those terms that we might fully appreciate the surreal postmodern absurdity of the agency’s latest FOIA response. ICE FOIA Switches from Email, eFOIA Xpress to Deloitte...

July 25, 2023

Facing an Impossible Choice: The Asylum Ban and CBP One

NIP Staff Attorney Ann Garcia writes: "The National Immigration Project and Together & Free jointly released a report on the experiences of asylum seekers in Matamoros and Reynosa two months into the Biden administration's Asylum Ban. Our findings and observations are: Asylum seekers who are not able to access a CBP One appointment are unable to access U.S. ports of entry unless they are escorted by...

July 25, 2023

DOJ Sues TX Gov. Abbott for Illegally Placing Floating Buoy Barriers in the Rio Grande

DOJ, July 24, 2023 "The Justice Department today filed a civil complaint against the State of Texas because the state has built a floating barrier, consisting of buoys strung together, in the Rio Grande River without the federal authorization that is legally required under the Rivers and Harbors Act. The complaint seeks to enjoin the building of the barrier and to require the state to remove it. “We allege...

July 21, 2023

The Long Road to Family Reunification: Reuniting Mother and American Son After Decades of Political Separation

Sometimes justice takes decades, and countless hours of work by family members and skilled advocates. Please read this article about one such victory by my friend, colleague and mentor, Jan Pederson .

July 20, 2023

Four New Reports Examine Key Parts of US Immigration System

Austin Kocher, Ph.D., July 20, 2023 "Four substantial new reports came out recently that are worth your time to read and save. I have been preparing to write a post on each of them, but rather than delay in sharing these with you, I’ve decided to share them first, then revisit them in coming posts (although I’ll foreshadow some of my discussion points below). Without further ado, here they are........

July 20, 2023

At the Breaking Point: Rethinking the U.S. Immigration Court System

MPI, July 20, 2023 By Muzaffar Chishti, Doris Meissner, Stephen Yale-Loehr, Kathleen Bush-Joseph and Christopher Levesque "With a backlog of nearly 2 million cases, the U.S. immigration court system is in crisis. Many cases now take years to adjudicate, with asylum seekers, for example, waiting four years on average for their initial hearing and longer for a final decision. Serious concerns have also been raised...

July 19, 2023

Detained Immigrants Seeking Release on Bond Have Widely Different Outcomes – Overall Bond Grant Rates Have Dropped

TRAC, July 19, 2023 "The odds that Immigration Judges granted bond motions for detained immigrants varied this year so far from a low of just three percent at the Northwest Detention Center in the state of Washington to 45 percent at the Krome North Special Processing Center in Florida. This report, based on the latest case-by-case Immigration Court records, summarizes outcomes for over 19,000 bond hearings covering...

July 19, 2023

Free Webinar: Straining under the Backlog: Fixing a U.S. Immigration Court System in Crisis

MPI "When: Thursday, July 20, 2023 11:00 a.m. EDT (New York, DC) / 10:00 a.m. CDT (Chicago) / 9 a.m. MDT (Boise) / 8 a.m. PDT (Seattle) Speakers: Jojo Annobil , Executive Director, Immigrant Justice Corps Muzaffar Chishti , MPI Senior Fellow and Director, MPI office at NYU School of Law David L. Neal , Director, Executive Office for Immigration Review, U.S. Justice Department...

July 18, 2023

Canada Begins New Program for Holders of U.S. H-1B Visas

David Isaacson, July 18, 2023 "In a previous blog post , I described a new Canadian program for holders of H-1B visas, and flagged the issue that the initial announcement of the program and backgrounder issued by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) referred to “H-1B specialty occupation visa holders in the US” in such a way as to suggest that an actual H-1B visa stamp was necessary....

July 17, 2023

Immigration Jails Harm Local Economies: Study

Megan Gleason, Source NM, July 14, 2023 "Lawmakers blocked a bill in the 2023 legislative session that would’ve prohibited local New Mexico governments from hiring federal immigration officers to detain migrants, arguing that detention centers boost local economies. That may not be entirely true, according to a recent report published by Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit that provides support for immigrants...

July 17, 2023

Groups File Lawsuit Against Florida’s Anti-Immigrant Law SB 1718

AIC, July 17, 2023 "Today, legal organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, Americans for Immigrant Justice and American Immigration Council, filed a federal lawsuit challenging Florida’s new anti-immigrant law, Senate Bill 1718. The lawsuit focuses on the provisions outlined in Section 10 of the law, which criminalizes the transportation of...

July 11, 2023

Morgan Lewis Establishes Military Immigration Fellowship

Morgan Lewis, July 10, 2023 "Morgan Lewis is funding a two-year, full-time legal fellowship with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the American Immigration Council (Council) to help guide hundreds of noncitizen soldiers and veterans through the naturalization process. The funding is a further salute to the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) soldiers and veterans on...

July 07, 2023

DHS Announces Family Reunification Parole Processes for Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras

DHS, July 7, 2023 "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today announced the implementation of new family reunification parole (FRP) processes for Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, advancing the Biden-Harris Administration’s successful combination of expanded lawful pathways and strengthened enforcement to reduce irregular migration. The FRP processes promote family unity and are part...