Stay Home, Says White House to Prospective Immigrants
Dark days continue for prospective immigrants to the U.S. as the White House announces for them to stay home.
Ahead of his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border, President Joe Biden announced, Jan. 5, the expansion of Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allows the Department of Homeland Security to expel millions of migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The White House and the Department of Homeland Security announced their proposal to crack down on migrants who attempt to enter the country without required immigration papers. The proposal also allows 30,000 migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti to enter the country each month as part of a humanitarian parole program.
The status of DREAMERs also remains tenuous. While current DACA recipients can apply for renewals, a July 22 court ruling by Texas judge Andrew Hanen declares the program is illegal.
Therefore, DHS is barred from accepting new applications. Thousands of immigrants are stuck in decades-long queues to port their temporary business visas into permanent green cards. The backlog also affects their children.
Will this year finally bring about the end of per-country caps, which limit each country to no more than 7 percent of available green cards each year, experts – Kerri Talbot, Deputy Director for the Immigration Hub; Edward Kissam, Co-trustee at the Werner-Kohnstamm Family Fund; Cyrus Mehta, Founder of Cyrus D. Mehta & Partners PLLC; and Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Policy Analyst, Migration Policy Institute – shared their insights at an Ethnic Media Services briefing, Jan. 13.
Kerri Talbot started with an overview of what to expect this year from Immigration policy and some takeaways from the North American Leadership Summit.
“There was a push late last year to try to enact legislation that would have protected DREAMERs, as well as reforming the border and asylum system. Unfortunately, that legislation did not move forward and so last year we did not see any fundamental changes to our immigration system.
“It will become much more difficult now because of the House Republicans controlling the House of Representatives, that makes it extremely unlikely that any legislation would reach the President’s desk.
“The House Republicans do plan to push forward anti-immigrant legislation in the next couple of weeks in the house, that we do oppose because they’re just inhumane policies related to the border and asylum, we do not anticipate those will be able to pass in the Senate.
“The Senate could possibly move forward with its own immigration legislation but it’s unlikely the House would pass whatever the Senate passes.
“It’s still important to keep trying to push forward as much as we possibly can, to try to get Congress to enact sensible immigration policies.
“We’re especially focused at the immigration hub on protecting DREAMERs people with temporary protected status and farm workers and allowing them at a minimum to be able to adjust status and stay in the United States permanently, and ideally, we would cover the full 11 million individuals here who would like to become citizens in the U.S.
“Given the fact that Congress is unlikely to be able to pass legislation, we at the Immigration Hub will be focused on working with the administration to do as much in the way of positive policy changes as possible for immigrants.
“Some of the issues that we’ll bring up with the administration and continue to push for our expansion of temporary protected status for individuals from countries that require it.
“In addition, we’ll be talking to the administration about what they can do to protect DACA recipients through new administrative policies that allow more people to adjust their status and become green card holders. We’d also like for individuals with long-term ties to the U.S. to be able to access relief as well, and we have ideas about how to better allow people to use non-immigrant visas and cancellation of removal, those are two different paths to relief that we’d like to make more accessible.
“We’ll also focus on rejecting harmful policies. There’s been a lot of discussion between North American leaders on increasing legal pathways to the U.S. They expanded parole policies so that individuals from certain countries can apply for parole into the United States, however, the Biden Administration also expanded the use of Title 42, which blocks asylum-seekers. They also said that they’re rolling out an asylum ban which would ban individuals who transited through third countries, and possibly also people who enter between ports of entry.
“We will work with the agencies to try to improve processes and make sure human rights are protected try to make sure we close detention centers that aren’t meeting basic standards, try to provide more legal counsel to people in proceedings, and try to improve USCIS processes as well reducing backlogs, and also look for ways, either through Congress, or through the administration to enhance access to Green Cards,” said Talbot.
Edward Kissam focused on the policy aspects of the whole Title 42 rambling, calling the Trump-era Title 42, “conceptually corrupt and scientifically inaccurate.”
“There’s an excellent report from the House Select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis which includes some key information from Dr Martin Cetron, who is director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration Quarantine. Dr Cetron’s testimony was that ‘the proposed order was not drafted by me or by my team but was instead handed to CDC by Stephen Miller,’ well-known anti-immigrant figure for many years.
“Dr Cetron went on, in his testimony to the subcommittee, to say that ‘the facts about coronavirus at the border didn’t jibe with the data and realities on the ground, particularly since there were already hot spots in the U.S., that were much more powerfully overwhelming,” said Kissam.
Ariel G. Ruiz Soto from Migration Policy Institute spoke about DACA.
“MPI estimates today that 1.2 million immigrants would qualify for DACA.
“The program has had significantly high rates of application among Mexican immigrants and significantly lower rates among Asian immigrants,” said Soto.
Cyrus Mehta spoke next about business immigration.
Focusing on legal immigration, Mehta said, “The employment-based, and to some extent, the family-based system, are pathways for foreign nationals to be sponsored for permanent residence through Green Cards and then they can apply for U.S. citizenship.
“In the employment-based system, there are big squatters, annual limits every year for different categories of skilled workers, for investors, for religious workers, and this cap has never been increased since 1990.
“Clearly our legal immigration system through which people can get permanent residence needs an update.
“Within the employment-based system, you have annual limits for different categories. Within those annual limits you have country caps, or per country limits. Each country can only get seven percent of the visas that are allotted.
“The employment-based second preference visa which applies to job offers made to people with advanced degrees, there are 40,000 every year and within that 40,000, each country can only get seven percent, which is just under 3,000.
“For a country like India, which is the highest-sending country, it’s completely oversubscribed and these folks are not waiting outside to come in, they’re already in a legal status, they’re on a non-immigrant visa like an H-1B.
“They have employers who’ve sponsored Green Cards for them, they’ve gone through the labor market test, they’ve got approved petitions, and now they’re waiting in line. But guess how long the line is for an Indian-born beneficiary of an employment-based petition?
“The Cato Institute has determined that it’s going to take about 90 years for a skilled worker born in India in the employment-based second and third preference to get the Green Card.
“Meanwhile, they remain stuck in the H-1B visa. So, even though they can remain here legally, the H-1B visa is tied to a specific employer, so they’re beholden to that employer to get extensions. When they travel outside the United States, they have to get visas to come back into the country, and we know that the U.S. Consulates abroad are backlogged since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Now, this this basically the employment-based system. Indians are the most impacted. Those born in India, but to some extent even those born in China, are impacted. The waits in the China categories are also extensive but not as horrendous as for Indian-born beneficiaries,” said Mehta.
“What has Congress been doing?
“There have been bills in Congress over the last 10 years that have been proposed and have even passed either the house or the Senate, but never really come to fruition as final legislation. Those bills have endeavored to abolished per country cap.
“By abolishing the per country cap, you don’t have the unequal wait times between people born in India and the rest of the world, but if you abolish the caps, then those who are waiting in the rest of the world categories will also have to wait a bit longer, but then everybody waits.
“It’s like everybody’s treated equally, so the legislation basically focused on equality, and it was called The EAGLE Act (The Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment Act) of 2021. This bill was proposed last year in the House and it was about to be put up for a vote but there was no support so it didn’t go through.
“A prime version of this bill was passed by the House and passed by the Senate, but it never became law in 2020 because of differences in the reconciliation process.
“You’re a single person and then you have a family of three or four, you count everybody as one, that will go a long way in reducing the backlogs. A simple fix that Congress can do by not counting family members and that can result in elimination of the backlogs.
“One can also have carved outs for STEM graduates or PhDs.
“There are lots of solutions, but unfortunately, Congress is stuck,” said Mehta.
A comprehensive immigration reform is required to fix the problem according to Mehta.
“The problem lies where each one wants to advance their own agenda, whether you’re a skilled worker, DACA, or whatever, but ultimately the whole system has to be comprehensively reformed and to get there, you need to get everybody involved, and both the Houses of Congress have to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which has been elusive for a very long time,” said Mehta.
