Immigration Benefits and Relief

The immigration laws and regulations provide some avenues to apply for lawful status from within the U.S. or to seek relief from deportation.  The eligibility requirements for these benefits and relief can be stringent, and the immigration agencies often adopt overly restrictive interpretations of the requirements.  Learn about advocacy and litigation that has been and can be undertaken to ensure that noncitizens have a fair chance to apply for the benefits and relief for which they are eligible.  

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All Immigration Benefits and Relief Content

March 15, 2018

While much of the national immigration conversation has focused on the fate of Dreamers and those with Temporary Protected Status, a little-known protection provided to Liberians is on the brink...

March 5, 2018

When President Trump terminated the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative last fall, he only allowed those whose DACA was due to expire before March 5 an opportunity to renew....

February 27, 2018

The Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s request to hear an emergency appeal of a lower court’s January decision that prevents the government from fully ending the Deferred Action for...

February 23, 2018

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) made abrupt and sweeping changes to how the agency will schedule interviews for affirmative asylum applications. Rather than interviewing those...

February 22, 2018

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is an important humanitarian protection for people who are in the United States when certain natural disasters or civil conflict strike their home countries,...

February 20, 2018

In a rare move, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently referred an immigration case to himself, utilizing a regulation that gives attorney generals the power to reconsider cases previously...

February 16, 2018

The United States Senate had a golden opportunity this week to legislate a permanent solution for Dreamers—however a week that began full of hope ended as a dud, with no bill passing and the...

February 15, 2018

The U.S. Senate failed again to provide a permanent solution for Dreamers on Thursday when it rejected multiple bipartisan bills. The Senate voted on three different proposals that would have...

February 12, 2018

The Millennial Generation constitutes the most racially and ethnically diverse generation America has ever known. Millennials are the largest living generation by population size (79.8 million in...

February 6, 2018

Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Coons (D-DE) introduced the United and Securing America (U.S.A) Act in the Senate this week, which includes a permanent solution for Dreamers as well as border security...

July 28, 2020
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released today a memo on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative that would deny all pending and future initial requests for DACA and reject all pending and future applications for advance parole absent exceptional circumstances. It would also shorten DACA renewals and the accompanying work authorization to one-year, rather than a two-year period.
July 21, 2020

The Trump administration has justified major changes to citizenship processing to “safeguard” the U.S. immigration system from application fraud. Yet the increased vetting has not lowered the...

July 17, 2020

The American Immigration Council joined a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security calling on the release of all families held at all three Immigration and Customs...

July 15, 2020

Update: On August 3, 2020, a federal court in Ohio granted a temporary restraining order requiring USCIS to print a work permit within 7 days for all individuals who had been approved for one. The...

July 7, 2020

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge across the United States, many universities have chosen to temporarily move to online-only classes to protect public health. However, new guidance from...

June 24, 2020

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will finalize a new regulation on June 26 which will strip most asylum seekers of the right to seek work authorization. The rule imposes sweeping new...

June 18, 2020

The Supreme Court issued its long-anticipated decision in DHS v. Regents of the University of California—the case challenging the administration’s attempt to dismantle the Deferred Action for...

June 18, 2020
The U.S. Supreme Court today blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a critical initiative that has offered deportation protection and work authorization to hundreds of thousands of young people who arrived in the United States as children.
June 15, 2020

My name is Sonia Martinez. I am a Certified Nursing Assistant working to help treat patients with COVID-19 at University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, Colorado. I am also one of the 650,000...

May 27, 2020
The American Immigration Council's latest report examines major changes to the U.S. immigration system in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unique challenges the pandemic has created for noncitizens and government agencies.

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