December 16, 2022

Private Bill Clears Congress, Heads to Biden for Signature

A private bill, H.R. 681, For the relief of Rebecca Trimble , passed the House in June 2022 and the Senate on Dec. 15, 2022.  President Biden is expected to sign it. The backstory is here . Hats way off to Margaret Stock , who has been championing this bill from the beginning.

December 16, 2022

Better Digital Tools Could Help Immigrants Access Benefits

Cornell Chronicle, Dec. 15, 2022 "A multitude of digital resources provides information to asylum seekers and other immigrants, but content is often outdated, and potential users worry they may be vulnerable to online tracking. “If I am undocumented, I’m not going to go to a website and click on a search option that says, ‘I’m undocumented,’” a legal professional told Cornell researchers. “I’d be terrified of...

December 15, 2022

Feds Sue Arizona for Trespassing: USA v. Ducey

USA v. Ducey "...Arizona has entered Reclamation and Forest Service lands along the Arizona-Mexico border and installed—and continues to install—hundreds of double-stacked multi-ton shipping containers that damage federal lands, threaten public safety, and impede the ability of federal agencies and officials, including law enforcement personnel, to perform their official duties.  Officials from Reclamation and...

December 14, 2022

Protesters Halt Ariz. Gov. Ducey's Illegal Container Wall

Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept, Dec. 14, 2022 "For seven weeks, the Biden administration has watched Arizona’s governor engage in a pattern of brazen lawbreaking along the border, destroying public lands that the administration is sworn to protect, and done nothing to stop him. Ducey, who’s leaving office in January, has committed at least $95 million to this effort, but the Republican governor’s renegade campaign...

December 13, 2022

CHRC Delivers Report on Family Separation as a Crime Against Humanity

Columbia University’s Center for Mexico and Central America’s (CeMeCa) Expert Paper Series publishes a report by Sarah J. Diaz and Jenny Lee of Loyola’s Center for the Human Rights of Children condemning the Trump Administration’s systematic execution of parent-child border separations under its Zero Tolerance policy as crimes against humanity.   December 6, 2022 Chicago – The report, entitled Zero Tolerance: Atrocity...

December 13, 2022

DHS/DOL Add H-2B Visas for FY23

DHS, Dec. 12, 2022 "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL) are issuing a temporary final rule that makes available 64,716 additional H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker visas for fiscal year (FY) 2023. These supplemental H-2B visas are for U.S. employers seeking to petition for additional workers at certain periods of the fiscal year before Sept. 15, 2023. “The Department...

December 12, 2022

ICE Detention Standards: Immigration Detention Facilities’ Responsibilities and Detained Individuals’ Rights: A Guide for Practitioners

ABA Commission on Immigration, Dec. 9, 2022 " This resource  was envisioned and drafted by COI Special Advisor Dora Schriro, to help inform practitioners who work with individuals in ICE detention centers about ICE detention standards. We are very proud to offer this resource because it does not only summarize the most salient detention standards, but it also provides useful information on how and where to make...

December 09, 2022

Denial of Justice for Trafficking Survivors

BU Law, Dec. 7, 2022 "LAW’s Professor Julie Dahlstrom and CAS’s Professor Heba Gowayed report on data received from the Department of Homeland Security related to T visa applications for survivors of human trafficking."

December 09, 2022

USCIS Updates Policy to Automatically Extend Green Cards for Naturalization Applicants

USCIS, Dec. 9, 2022 "Effective Dec. 12, 2022, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is updating the  USCIS Policy Manual  to allow USCIS to automatically extend the validity of Permanent Resident Cards (commonly called Green Cards) for lawful permanent residents who have applied for naturalization. This  update  (PDF, 307.54 KB)  is expected to help naturalization applicants who experience longer...

December 08, 2022

Michael White and the Future of the Visa Application Process

Liam Schwartz, Dec. 6, 2022 "The December 2022  Foreign Service Journal  includes an article titled “ Michael White: Improving Visa Adjudication, Protecting Workers’ Rights .” The article congratulates Foreign Service Officer (FSO) White for receiving the annual Constructive Dissent Award by an Entry-Level Foreign Service Officer.  In addition to its well-deserved praise of FSO White, the article provides a candid...

December 08, 2022

Expert: Biden Admin. Wants to Keep Title 42 Options Open

Miriam Jordan, New York Times, Dec. 7, 2022 "The Biden administration on Wednesday appealed a court order directing it to repeal a pandemic-era policy that has allowed the rapid expulsion of migrants at the border, but an administration official said the government still planned to end the expulsion policy later this month. Last month, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia deemed the policy, known...

December 07, 2022

Fed Chair Finds Trump-Era Immigration Policies Still Harm Economy

Stuart Anderson, Forbes, Dec. 5, 2022 "Bad government policies are gifts that keep on giving. That is the message Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell delivered in a recent speech . Powell cited Trump-era restrictions on immigration that have led to a continued worker shortfall. Economists say recent events are further evidence that a lower supply of workers—which anti-immigration advocates and organizations...

December 06, 2022

Gov. Ducey’s Illegal Shipping Container Wall is Worse Than You Can Imagine

Melissa del Bosque, The Border Chronicle, Dec. 6, 2022 "In 2008, I wrote about the first border walls built after 9/11 in Texas, and over the last 15 years I’ve continued to document walls, walls, and more border walls under every president since George W. Bush. But Governor Doug Ducey’s double-decker shipping container wall is altogether something next level. And it is being built illegally through...

December 06, 2022

DHS Extends, Redesignates TPS for Haiti

DHS, Dec. 5, 2022 "Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas today announced the extension of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haiti for an additional 18 months, from February 4, 2023, through August 3, 2024, due to extraordinary and temporary conditions in Haiti. He also redesignated Haiti for TPS, allowing Haitian nationals residing in the United States as of November 6, 2022, to apply for TPS...

December 05, 2022

Meet the Attorneys Fighting a Racist Immigration Law

Adolfo Flores, BuzzFeed News, Dec. 4, 2022 "... The 9th Circuit is set to rule on the appeal of two cases, one of which is [attorney Kara] Hartzler’s challenge of the constitutionality of illegal reentry. A favorable ruling would prevent the government from being able to prosecute immigrants on these charges and put them in jail for months or longer in areas covered by the 9th Circuit. In recent years, illegal...

December 03, 2022

DOJ Tried to Hide Border Wall Report

Jeremy Schwartz, Perla Trevizo, Texas Tribune, ProPublica, Dec. 2, 2022 "A private border wall built along the Rio Grande in South Texas could collapse during extreme flooding, according to a federally commissioned inspection report that the government sought to keep secret for more than a year. The 404-page report, produced by the global engineering firm Arcadis, confirms previous reporting from ProPublica and...

December 03, 2022

ACLU to DHS: Stop Colluding with Abbott, Operation Lone Star

Dec. 2, 2022 letter from ACLU Texas to Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security Troy Miller, Acting Commissioner, Customs and Border Protection Peter Mina, Acting Officer, DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Matthew Klein, Assistant Commissioner, CBP Office of Professional Responsibility: "Border Patrol agents in south Texas have been colluding with Texas Department of Public...

December 02, 2022

PWS on USCIS Asylum Office Over-Referrals to Immigration Court

In today's blog post , former BIA Chair Paul W. Schmidt pulls no punches: " [O]ver three quarters of the cases “referred” by the Asylum Office are GRANTED by the Immigration Courts.  This shows a gross “over-referral” of cases to the Immigration Courts that could and should be expeditiously granted at the Asylum Office. The Administration’s regulation change to give Asylum Officers more authority to grant asylum...

December 02, 2022

Expert: Texas Lawsuits Stymie Biden's Immigration Agenda

Allie Morris, Dallas Morning News, Dec. 2, 2022 "Fresh off securing a third term, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton plans to keep up his relentless legal assault on President Joe Biden’s agenda that’s already hindered the Democrat’s approach to immigration and health care. In Texas, judges have ruled in Paxton’s favor to block federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates at Head Start Programs, pause LGBT anti-discrimination...

December 02, 2022

Prosecutorial Discretion Expert on U.S. v. Texas Oral Argument

Prof. Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Dec. 1, 2022 "On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard  oral arguments  in  United States v. Texas , which involves a challenge to a  memorandum  titled “Guidelines for the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Law” issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security on September 30, 2021, and commonly known as the “Mayorkas Memo.” As background, the  Mayorkas Memo  provides guidelines on prosecutorial...

December 01, 2022

After a Slump, Legal Immigration to the United States Is Returning to Pre-Pandemic Levels

Muzaffar Chishti and Julia Gelatt, MPI, Nov. 30, 2022 "Legal immigration to the United States appears to have bounced back from steep declines sparked by COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions to human mobility and government operations as well as the restrictive policies of the Trump administration. Although final data have not yet been published for all of fiscal year (FY) 2022, the country looks to have accepted...

December 01, 2022

Accidental ICE Data Dump Could Endanger Protection Applicants

Hamed Aleaziz, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 30, 2022 "Immigration and Customs Enforcement accidentally posted the names, birthdates, nationalities and detention locations of more than 6,000 immigrants who claimed to be fleeing torture and persecution to its website on Monday. The unprecedented data dump could expose the immigrants — all of whom are currently in ICE custody — to retaliation from the very individuals...

December 01, 2022

Asylum Granted at Lower Rates in Fast-Tracked Cases: Research

Sandra Sanchez, Border Report, Dec. 1, 2022 "Fast-tracked immigration cases appear to be hurting migrants’ chances of being granted asylum, researchers are finding. “The big takeaway message is that the Biden administration really is trying to speed up cases but data shows when you speed up cases they lose,” Syracuse University professor and researcher Austin Kocher told Border Report as he toured the South Texas...

November 30, 2022

Expert: U.S. "Needs STEM Workers To Help Innovate"

Susan D’Agostino, Inside Higher Ed, November 29, 2022 "Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security expanded opportunities for international students who have earned U.S. degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics to extend their stays in the United States. The government maintains a list of qualifying fields to try to expand the number and diversity of individuals in the United...

November 30, 2022

Expert: "Stakes Are Quite High" in U.S. v. Texas

Jess Bravin and Michelle Hackman, Wall Street Journal, Nov. 29, 2022 "The Supreme Court on Tuesday [considered] the executive branch’s power to set priorities in enforcing immigration law, in a case that also tests the legal standing of states to bring their policy differences with Washington to court. … “The stakes are quite high,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr , a professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School...