Humanitarian Protection
What the New Budget Law Could Mean for Immigrant and Refugee Programs
BY ERIC SIGMON, LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE SERVICE* On August 2, after a number of press conferences and late-night negotiation sessions, President Obama signed into law the Budget Control of Act of 2011, legislation that prevented the U.S. government from defaulting on its debt and requires deep cuts into future federal spending. While deficit cutting laws may not sound very interesting to the average reader, this new law will decrease the size and role of the federal government over the next decade. Over the next four months, Congress will have to make decisions that will shape the government’s capacity to provide protection and life-saving assistance to refugees, adjudicate immigration benefits, and enforce U.S. immigration laws along the border and in the interior (apprehensions, detentions, deportations). Read More
House Committee Takes Up Bills That Would Indefinitely Detain Immigrants and Eliminate Diversity Visas
In the absence of a federal immigration overhaul, state lawmakers have attempted—many in vain—to address immigration at the state-level. Equally misguided, however, are recent efforts by immigration restrictionist to move anti-immigrant legislation on the federal level. Today, the House Judiciary Committee marked up and passed through committee a bill (and will take up another tomorrow morning) which promises a safer America yet will likely deliver a more costly and dangerous one. Read More
Controversy Over Deportation of Haitians Continues
BY ROYCE BERNSTEIN MURRAY, ESQ. Last week, CBS refused to display an advertisement on its Jumbotron in Times Square denouncing the deportation of Haitians because it was too controversial. Deportations to a cholera-plagued and earthquake-devastated country should be controversial, especially in light of DHS’s recent announcement that it would extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for another 18 months and would expand the group of Haitians eligible for TPS. Going forward, Haitians who came to the U.S. after the earthquake no later than January 12, 2011 will be eligible to register for TPS. However, while the extension is a terrific humanitarian victory, DHS still intends to deport certain Haitians convicted of crimes, demonstrating some of the inconsistent policies that have plagued DHS’s handling of Haiti almost from the beginning. Read More
By the Numbers: How the FY 2011 Budget Impacts Immigration
After the threat of a government shutdown last week, Congress finally managed to approve a budget that will keep the government running through the 2011 fiscal year. Included in that budget, however, are a host of cuts that will impact immigrants and immigration programming in the fiscal year to come. As policy experts and economists continue to pour over the 175 page document, here are a few program areas impacted by the FY 2011 budget. Read More
Court of Appeals Finds USCIS Acted Outside the Law
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a simple but clear reminder to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that it must act within the bounds of the law. The issue before the court was whether USCIS could properly deny an employment-based, “extraordinary ability” visa because the petitioner had not demonstrated "the research community's reactions to his [scholarly] publications" – an arbitrary requirement with no justification in the law. The court, in Kazarian v. USCIS, found that USCIS unlawfully imposed a requirement on the petitioner that was not found in the regulations. The court said that “neither USCIS nor an AAO may unilaterally impose novel substantive or evidentiary requirements beyond those set forth [in the regulations].” In other words, USCIS cannot bypass the law. Read More
Progress Report: Is DHS Making the Grade?
Yesterday marked the seventh anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its immigration agencies: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). It also corresponds to the due date set by Secretary Janet Napolitano for completion of a sweeping internal review of DHS. While the internal review results have never been made public, an external review reveals that DHS is struggling with the challenges of reform—both administrative and legislative—and finds itself attempting to create more humane ways to enforce broken laws, which is ultimately a losing proposition. Read More
Report Provides Solutions to Broken Asylum Employment Authorization Clock
Asylum applicants and their attorneys have long struggled to better understand how the employment authorization asylum clock (“EAD asylum clock”) functions. The clock, which measures the number of days after an applicant files an asylum application before the applicant is eligible for work authorization, affects potentially more than 50,000 asylum applicants each year. While the law requires asylum applicants to wait 150 days after filing an application to apply for a work permit and in some instances, permits the government to extend this waiting period by "stopping the clock" for certain incidents caused by the applicant, some applicants often wait much longer than the legally permitted timeframe to receive a work permit, which can cause a host of problems. Read More
ICE Will Halt Detention of Asylum Seekers on January 4
According to the Associated Press, the Obama Administration said today that it will no longer detain asylum seekers who, in addition to other criteria, have displayed a credible fear of persecution in their home countries. According to the article: Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton says beginning… Read More
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