DACA/DAPA
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) offer certain immigrants protection from immediate deportation and other benefits. Learn more about these policies, how they affect America, and our work to strengthen them below.
Countdown of the Top Five Immigration Stories of 2012
In the beginning of 2012, the landscape of the immigration world looked much different. Pro-immigrant groups were coming off of a rough few years that saw the failure of the DREAM Act, a spike in deportations under President Obama, and the passage of several state-level restrictionist bills like Arizona’s infamous SB 1070 and Alabama’s HB 56. However, immediately after the 2012 Presidential election, the discussion around immigration reform was reignited and led with legalization for the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the country. What changed? Here’s our take on five of the biggest reasons 2012 has been a catalyst for change: Read More
Federal Judges Remind Government to Consider Prosecutorial Discretion
Prosecutorial discretion is the authority of a law enforcement agency or officer to decide whether and to what degree to enforce the law in particular cases. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative continues to be a successful example of prosecutorial discretion in the immigration context. However the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) often ignores other non-DACA-related cases where prosecutorial discretion would be equally appropriate. Read More
Latest DACA Approval Numbers Released by USCIS
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has released the latest numbers on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. The numbers provided by the agency reflect activity between August 15, 2012 – December 13, 2012. Entering its fifth month, the numbers are encouraging. Of… Read More
Bibles, Badges, Business and Bush + DREAMers Make Immigration Reform Demands Known
While some thought the immigration reform talk immediately after the election was just chatter, a series of convenings and speeches this week demonstrate that the topic of broad immigration reform is on plenty of tables. From DREAMers to President Bush, the call for reform goes on. Read More
Arizona Faces Lawsuit over DACA Driver’s License Policy
Less than six months after it received a stinging rebuke from the Supreme Court, Arizona today was hit with another major lawsuit over its punitive immigration policies—this time challenging its practice of denying driver’s licenses to beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Filed in federal court in Phoenix, the class-action suit challenges an executive order issued by Gov. Jan Brewer making DACA recipients ineligible for all public benefits. Although the suit is limited to Arizona’s policy, the outcome could affect DACA recipients’ ability to obtain driver’s licenses in other states as well. Read More
This Week’s Immigration Proposals: Old News, Old Ideas
If you follow immigration, but are returning from a month-long, news-free vacation, there’s only one conclusion you would draw from the legislation Republicans offered up this week in Congress: Mitt Romney must have won the presidential election. After all, the ACHIEVE Act, introduced yesterday by retiring Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), which offers temporary legal status but no path to citizenship to DREAMers, is surely the bill they were preparing to offer in the event that a Romney Administration was in the wings. And on the House side, a slightly revised version of the STEM Jobs Act—which failed on the suspension calendar before the election—is back on the floor at the end of this week without changing any of the problems that led to its defeat before. Surely, this suggests that the predictions that immigration would play a decisive role in the presidential election didn’t pan out and that self-deportation as an immigration reform strategy worked. Except, none of this is true. Read More
Kris Kobach Continues Digging Immigration Hole
Despite a general consensus that adopting “self-deportation” as immigration policy helped sink Mitt Romney’s White House aspirations, the architect of this philosophy, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, isn’t ready to give in. Kobach doesn’t seem to care that most in his party have awakened to the fact that they are in a “death spiral” with Latino voters because of intolerant rhetoric around immigration. Nor does he seem fazed that dozens of young DREAM activists in his state protested at his office last week, demanding his resignation. Read More
BREAKING: DACA Approvals Surpass 50,000
Earlier this afternoon, the Obama administration released updated statistics indicating that 53,273 undocumented youths have been granted relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. As of November 15, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had received more than 300,000 requests for deferred action, with most… Read More
Including DACA Recipients in Health Care Reform
By Jenny Rejeske, Health Policy Analyst National Immigration Law Center. The Obama administration’s decision to cut access to affordable health care for young people granted relief from deportation hurts everyone. This decision came weeks after the administration initiated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, which lifts the cloud of deportation for immigrant youth who have grown up here. At the same time, the administration quietly issued policy changes excluding DACA recipients from federal health insurance programs, effectively shutting their door to affordable health care. Read More
In Presidential Election, “Self-Deportation” Goes Down to Defeat
It did not become certain until late Tuesday night that President Obama would win re-election. But for Mitt Romney, the campaign may have been lost during the Republican primary, when he cited “self-deportation” as the solution to our nation’s immigration problems. With the post-election dust now settled, it has become increasingly clear that supporting the idea is not only bad as a matter of policy, but also a losing political strategy. Read More
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