Fact Sheet
Reagan-Bush Family Fairness: A Chronological History
From 1987 to 1990, Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Sr. used their executive authority to protect from deportation a group that Congress left out of its 1986 immigration reform legislation—the spouses and children of individuals who were in the process of legalizing. These “Family Fairness” actions were taken to avoid separating families in which one spouse or parent was eligible for legalization, but the other spouse or children living in the United States were not—and thus could be deported, even though they would one day be eligible for legal status when the spouse or parent legalized. Publicly available estimates at the time were that “Family Fairness” could cover as many as 1.5 million family members, which was approximately 40 percent of the then-unauthorized population. After Reagan and Bush acted, Congress later protected the family members. This fact sheet provides a chronological history of the executive actions and legislative debate surrounding Family Fairness. Read More
Executive Grants of Temporary Immigration Relief, 1956-Present
Much has been made of President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, through which he deferred deportation for young adults brought to the U.S. as children. But as immigration legal scholar Hiroshi Motomura has noted, the president has broad executive authority to shape the enforcement and implementation of immigration laws, including exercising prosecutorial discretion to defer deportations and streamline certain adjudications. In fact, history books reveal that President Obama’s action follows a long line of presidents who relied on their executive branch authority to address immigration challenges. Read More
A Snapshot of Immigrant Women in the United States
There are more than 23 million female immigrants in the United States, and they are a formidable presence in U.S. society and the economy. Read More
Asylum in the United States
Asylum seekers must navigate a difficult and complex process that can involve multiple government agencies. This fact sheet provides an overview of the asylum system in the United States, including how asylum is defined, eligibility requirements, and the application process. Read More
Unauthorized Immigrants Today
Unauthorized immigrants include adults and children, mothers and fathers, homeowners and people of faith, most of whom are invested in their communities. Read More
Taking Attendance: New Data Finds Majority of Children Appear in Immigration Court
As the number of unaccompanied children arriving at the United States border has increased, some lawmakers have argued that children frequently fail to appear for proceedings and thus proposed mandatory detention as a solution. Some say as many as 90 percent fail to attend their immigration court hearings. Yet government data recently published by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) indicates the opposite. Not only do a majority of children attend their immigration proceedings, according to TRAC, but 90 percent or more attend when represented by lawyers. Read More
Removal Without Recourse: The Growth of Summary Deportations from the United States
The deportation process has been transformed drastically over the last two decades. Today, two-thirds of individuals deported are subject to what are known as “summary removal procedures,” which deprive them of both the right to appear before a judge and the right to apply for status in the United States. In 1996, as part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), Congress established streamlined deportation procedures that allow the government to deport (or “remove”) certain noncitizens from the United States without a hearing before an immigration judge. Two of these procedures, “expedited removal” and “reinstatement of removal,” allow immigration officers to serve as both prosecutor and judge—often investigating, charging, and making a decision all within the course of one day. These rapid deportation decisions often fail to take into account many critical factors, including whether the individual is eligible to apply for lawful status in the United States, whether he or she has long-standing ties here, or whether he or she has U.S.-citizen family members. In recent years, summary procedures have eclipsed traditional immigration court proceedings, accounting for the dramatic increase in removals overall. As the chart below demonstrates, since 1996, the number of deportations executed under summary removal procedures—including expedited removal, reinstatement of removal, and stipulated removal (all described below)—has dramatically increased. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, more than 70 percent of all people Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported were subject to summary removal procedures. Expedited Removal (INA § 235(b)) Read More
A Guide to H.R. 15: The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act
On October 2, 2013, Democrats in the House of Representatives proposed an immigration reform bill addressing border security, legalization of the undocumented, interior enforcement of immigration laws, and fixes for our dysfunctional legal immigration programs. The bill is based on S.744, the bipartisan bill passed by the Senate by a vote of 68-32 on June 27, 2013. However, the bill removes the Corker-Hoeven border security amendment and replaces it with the bipartisan House border security bill, H.R. 1417, which was passed unanimously by the Homeland Security Committee in May 2013. Read More
Understanding H.R. 3431: The American Families United Act
On October 30, 2013, Representatives Steve Pearce (R-NM) and Beto O’Rourke (D-TX) announced the introduction of H.R. 3431, the American Families United Act (AFUA). Co-sponsors as of January 2014 included Jim Costa (D-CA) and James McGovern (D-MA). This bipartisan immigration bill approaches immigration reform from a unique angle, focusing on amendments to the system that address the separation of immigrants from their U.S. family members. The bill expands the discretionary authority of government officials to waive minor violations of law, but does not create new mechanisms for legalizing undocumented individuals. Thus, in contrast to S. 744, the comprehensive immigration bill passed by the Senate in 2013, the AFUA focuses on a narrower group of individuals who might be eligible for lawful permanent residence under current standards if not for certain legal obstacles. Read More
How the United States Immigration System Works
U.S. immigration law is very complex, and there is much confusion as to how it works. This fact sheet provides basic information about how the U.S. legal immigration system is designed. Read More
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